With the discharging wind-up sparks from the stretching of space, Kivas was thrown out of a blue whirlpool portal that manifested 10 meters above the ground. The portal shrunk immediately and reduced into nothing, not a second after.
"Are you sure that's only a few seconds??" Kivas stood confused after he landed safely on the ground. "It feels like hours of perpetual sky diving!"
"When the space stretches, so does the time that follows the same path, brother!" Semper grinned in amusement in response to Kivas bewilderment. "I'm not exactly an expert in such a subject, but time will get quite yucky when you mess with space from separate dimensions of the same kind!"
"I think I can get the picture on how realms work with that imagery."
Kivas immediately went to his intended plan on hurriedly checking the rodent lass. Within his path, he saw the rest of the group minus Delamuion, Naraka, and the fake Angravada.
"Damn, damn, damn, damn it!" One of the members of the group desperately tried to rebuild the collapsed gate frame. "I told you all that I will be staying behind!"
Most of the rest of the members were still shocked. Some were grieving. Some gritted their teeth, unable to let any slip of words due to either anger and sadness.
"How many times do we have to tell you, that's not gonna work, dumbass!!" The armored lady with the bunny ears could be seen trying to talk some sense with a pained expression. "The spatial connection has been cut off from the inside, it's no use rebuilding the stabilizer of the portal if there is no destination to input!!"
"Give it up, Reian…"
"Magress, turn on the portal!!"
"It's not gonna work..." The female member with a witch hat whimpered as she held her staff tight.
"Turn on the portal!!"
"I-It's not gonna work…"
"TURN ON THE PORTAL!!"
A crossbow bolt was fired to where the gate frame once stood. It unleashed a light shockwave along with a sharp humming sound to silence the unsilenced. Reian was pushed away. Replacing his position, a young marksman of a squirrel's ears above the long golden hair and golden fluffy tail. In contrast to her tail, however, her expression couldn't be described with the same word.
With a sour smile, she aimed her cocked crossbow to those in front of her.
"I'm sorry, comrade, but I won't let your childish yap to carry on any longer."
"Shut up!" Reian clenched his fist. "Who even the hell are you!??"
"I'm the one who swore to protect that man's back, dammit!" Her face might look calm, but it began to slowly tremble. "You being this panicky clutch tard-head won't save anyone, even the both of them!
"That man told me that he will watch my back, ain't no way I will let anyone bring the whole mission down." The trembling became even more noticeable. "Us Sanuyah's people have this motto called N.O.K.A.Y! No One Knows Anything Yet! We haven't seen our leader and vice leader fall yet, nor did they fall back from the frontline of this mission…
"Heck! They might even still be kicking and alive, waiting for chances to exit the realm whenever hope is in sight! They are smart and cautious, we haven't seen anything yet to confirm their death nor are they in the brink of death! So stop acting that they are!!"
"Pretentious rodent, zip up your mouth and stay the sard where you formerly were!" The armored lady marched forward with heavy footsteps as though weighed in anger. "How can you even say that you're watching their back? Have you looked the sard up!??"
"I-I didn't…"
"That realm is cursed beyond our comprehension!" The armored lady lashed the air as she opened her arms. "How come you keep looking down just because you're told by a witch, if you proclaim to see things clearly, when all you ever do is the opposite of acknowledging the situation!!"
"I never knew it would come to this…"
"Then stay the sard back and watch that comfy ground instead of patronizing us, coward!" The tears that were kept at bay began to flood from the bunny lady's eyes. "Have you ever done what you haven't been told, ever in your fancy little life?"
"E-Enough!"
"How about you go rack those shiny medals back in Wolamunde's festival in a few days after this instead?"
"Enough...!"
"Have you even saw those who stick to the side just to watch your sarding crap!?
"Enough!" Reian shouted. Although unlike back then, his expression and complexion were a little more calmer. "She told me to keep my sanity in check. So you should do yours too, Constinanth."
Constinanth, the armored bunny, immediately backed off with thundering stomps before she sat down on a stump of a tree. A carnivorous plant tried to gnaw her but she monotonously shoved it away with her tightened arm, turning the flesh of that plant into mush as parts of it were flung to the nearby trees.
"Sippo, I apologize for my rash behavior." Reian bowed in 90 degrees. "That's truly unbeffiting me."
"No, that fits you like usual, the current you is creepy," said one of the other member on the back.
Hearing the man who formerly bared his fangs against her suddenly apologizing to her, it broke Sippo's out of her dreadful trance as she gulped down all of her bad emotion down the drain.
"I-I'm also sorry, if I sound any patronizing."
The rabbit and the squirrel were never in the same place, never in the same position.
They lived a different life, and expected the other side to live by their standard.
Sippo and Constinanth began to introspect themselves.
Albeit the absence of Delamuion and Naraka prevented them to clear up the mirror.
Meanwhile, at the very same branch where a particular creature was latching to sneak a peek into the group's conversation, now with the help of Semper to translate all of those words through the torch as the catalyst.
"You look really worried about them, even though you're much less than a stranger, brother." Semper only made that his thought and Kivas connect on this occasion, as he didn't want to let the group hear of their discussion. "Do you want me to tell them that those two lassies are alright?"
"No need," said Kivas, holding onto the bending giant branch like his life was dependent on it. "Their mental might shatter, and they might look like they could develop a post-traumatic stress disorder at any moment, but I believe that this event will become a turning point for them into their better selves."
"You sound so sure of it."
"Especially that squirrel girl. She might need the drive to become even more mature in mind and philosophy than where she is now."
Semper nodded in agreement. "Whether they can be reunited with their leader and vice leader again will be determined by the willpower of those two."
"You can just lessen the punishment for those two, you know?"
"Of course not."
"Huh, why so?"
"If you want a proper analogy, you can say that I had literally thrown them into hell!"
"And you have no means of managing anything there, if read where you're going for."
"Of course. That hell isn't mine!"
Kivas wanted to facepalm himself, but all of his legs were trying their best to not let him fall to the ground.
After successfully checking up the group, Kivas carefully crawled back and sprinted away from the location in the direction of his home.
Now that his curiosity had been sated, the anxiety of the rodent lass' status became the main dweller that was renting in his mind.
"I hope that this incident stopped where it currently is."
Just as he entered the open rocky glade near the river and waterfall, he strode over the river to the other side of the area.
He found the tent had been ransacked, and a hint of red was splattered over the battered entrance.