Without knowing where we were, I had decided to follow Tal for now. There were no signs of Din or Mun anywhere. There were some houses nearby, but no one was outside at the moment. The strong wind blows occurred often, but Tal still held strong.
I could tell Tal was beginning to panic as he would scratch his head furiously every few seconds while ushering curses.
"This is the lowest point of my life..."
He flapped the ends of his pants and his shirt, trying to get as much manure off as possible without having to touch it.
Even though it was horrible of me, I found it amusing when I saw him crawl out of the pile of manure while trying to avoid getting his hands dirty. He was more flexible than I thought.
It took him a while but he managed to get out with his hands still clean.
We had landed on a farm, but it looked like Tal had no interest in talking to the owner.
And it would do no good for me to talk since only Din appeared to be able to see me so following him was the best option.
"How come every low point in my life, Mun is always at the center of it? It's been years since you learned what your Wish was and you still can't control it?"
He was kicking a rock as he was walking at this point.
"If I was a Spirit, I could probably master my Wish in less than a week. And mine wouldn't be something lame like a teleport, I bet I could create anything just by thinking of it."
Suddenly, his mood seemed a lot better.
"If I had a Wish like that, I wouldn't need to listen to Cyen complain about how horrible my ideas are! Then, I could become the best engineer in the group! I mean, I already am the best, but that would definitely create no doubt about it."
His mood dropped back down as he continued.
"But no… Mun had to be the one with the Wish. I'm just your average man who is led around by the women in his life…"
He sighed.
I listened to him complain for a while longer before we finally saw Mun.
Tal rushed towards Mun at the first sight of her.
I expected him to yell at her with all the complaining he was shouting to himself earlier, but he instead embraced her.
"Learn to control your Wish already, you idiot," Tal said with a wavering voice.
Mun seemed surprised at first, but then held him.
"Did you miss me that much, big brother?"
Tal didn't answer.
They stood while embraced for a while until Mun finally noticed.
"Tal? What is this stuff all over you?"
Ah, it all made sense now.
"Ewww—! Get off of me!"
Mun tried her hardest to push her brother off, but it was no use.
"You can't get away from me that easily!"
My opinion of this man was as low as it could get.
—While the two siblings were all covered in manure, they began their search for Din.
"Did you see where he landed?" Tal asked.
Mun, who was still sobbing, replied, "No… probably somewhere… this direction…"
After walking for a while, Tal broke the silence.
"The mission… was a failure, wasn't it?"
A serious air took over the two as Tal spoke, "But because of the circumstances, we should be excused from all punishments, right?"
A sudden realization caused Mun to panic, "Y-y-yeah, how were we supposed to know all that stuff would happen. It didn't even say anything about Katherine Morrison being a Spirit in the first place so Eliana probably didn't know either."
For some reason, the two of them looked very afraid. Something about failing a mission involving Katherine…
"I'm sure if Eliana knew that Katherine Morrison was a Spirit, then she probably wouldn't have told us to assassinate her in the first place, right?"
Assassinate...Katherine?
"Y-yeah! There's no way…"
Even though they just agreed with each other, neither one of them seemed sure.
Mun asked, "Do you think she'll be mad we're coming back empty handed? This is the second time in a row…"
"Don't be silly, Mun. We found out a lot more about Spirits thanks to Din so we can use that info as our way out of trouble."
Tal tried to be optimistic, but then as he continued, he became depressed again.
"But then again, we pretty much knew everything he told us…"
"Anyways, what are we going to do with Din? It was your idea to rescue him, Tal. We could've at least saved our smoke for a future mission, now we're all out."
"I know, I know… but we couldn't just leave him there. His friend died even though he was trying to protect her. If he'd died there too, then that would've been just way too sad."
They continued walking in silence.
I decided to keep their mission a secret from Din.