Just as Caera relaxed her complicated expression, a splash of red water caught her attention, causing her to miss the ominous pair of red eyes.
The red eyes glinted with ferocity as the half-dead wolf made a last-ditch effort to take Caera down with it.
—Bam!
Before it could even take a step forward, Emma reacted in less than a microsecond, utilizing her speed and precision to blast away the wolf.
Her wind elemental affinity was at full display as the entire crimson pool got pulled along the wolf due to the immense air pressure.
The wolf didn't even know what hit it as it died, leaving Caera frozen in place.
All of this happened so fast that Jash and Caera couldn't even see it.
By the time they blinked, everything was finished, with Kesha holding Caera, who clutched her stomach.
The feral sight of the wolf along with the close sensation of death had terrified her.
If not treated in time, it might even give rise to a long-term trauma, but that wasn't what mattered now.
She wasn't in the right state of mind to understand anything or even talk as beads of tears fell from her closed eyes.
"Y... M..."
"Y...u...g M...t...r!"
"Young Master!"
"Huh? Yeah? What?" Jash blurted out as soon as he came out of his reverie.
His eyes immediately scanned the pristine clean appearance of Emma opposite him before involuntarily shifting to Caera.
He immediately flinched at her current state and couldn't connect the dots as everything happened too fast for him.
After giving up on forcing her against her wish, he had his head down. Despite this, his sharp senses gave him a rough idea of what happened.
Alas, that wasn't enough.
He wondered in confusion, 'Just... what happened here?'
"Young Master!" Emma called out to him for the nth time.
"Uh, yeah?"
"We should leave. Now!" Emma chided him slightly due to his absent minded state but sighed in relief as he nodded.
Shaking his head to clear any lingering feelings, he walked to Caera. 'We can't stay here anymore...'
'It's better to get out before something worse happens,' he told himself as he gently patted Caera's trembling shoulders.
Noting how she flinched from the slightest touch, he thought, 'She's traumatized. This won't be easy.'
Jash felt guilty for her current condition because if he had stayed quiet and let the wolf bleed out to death, nothing would've gone wrong.
It was his own impulsiveness and rash decisions that led to this situation, which he realized a few minutes too late.
"Caera," he called out to her but upon hearing no response, he frowned. 'It's useless.'
Even though Jash had previous life's memories, he was no insensitive jerk that would trouble a person who's down.
He took a different approach than shouting at her.
"It's fine, Caera. Nothing happened. Okay, something did happen but it's fine," he consoled her, rubbing her slouching shoulders lightly.
Unfortunately, he got no response.
'What to do now? We have to leave too.' His face scrunched slightly as he turned to look at Emma and Kesha for help.
The two were nearby and nodded at him.
"I apologize in advance, Young Miss," Kesha whispered in a low voice before hitting the back of her head.
Caera's head jerked with confusion and fear before she lost consciousness.
"Did you just... knock her out?" Jash blurted out, dumbfounded by the barbaric method. "I don't know what I was expecting, but it was definitely not that."
"That was the best method, Young Master," Emma answered in Kesha's stead as she inched closer to Jash.
"Oi, oi! I am perfectly fine! Don't you knock me out!" He instantly switched his position, looking at Emma as if they were mortal enemies.
Emma barely stifled her smile as she coughed awkwardly, "Ahem. Young Master, you misunderstand me. I was just trying to help you."
It was, in fact, true. All she wanted to do was make sure Jash didn't have a breakdown and start blaming himself as she herself did.
Luckily, it seemed Jash didn't have such a feeble mentality, which was another strange point to him.
One way or another, he ended up exposing himself at multiple places, leaving subtle cues for anyone to piece together the incongruities in his personality.
Unaware of the many suspicions rising within Emma's mind, he ignored her dubious behavior, saying, "Let's go."
With Kesha carrying Caera and Emma being on the lookout, they easily arrived at their entry point after following Jash's pace.
All it took for them to return was a little over an hour.
"Well, that was quick... and anticlimactic," Jash commented, looking at the portal they entered from.
Emma and Kesha just nodded as they hadn't released their A-Rank pressure at Jash's behest.
He wanted to try fighting if he could, but as it turns out there were no monsters left in this dungeon.
'I want to come here again,' Jash thought to himself, planning a probable way to prohibit entry into this dungeon.
"Emma, is there a way to stop other hunters from entering this dungeon? I think Caera would need to enter it again to solve her trauma."
"Uhm, Young Master, I can pass on the order to temporarily seal it, but it won't work until..." Emma trailed off at the end of the sentence.
"Just do that then," he nodded, not minding her refusal,
That was just the first step either way.
Getting permission from his parents to enter this specific dungeon would most likely be the major task.
He stopped right in front of the portal before giving a last longing glance, muttering to himself, "See you soon..."
Emma and Kesha had already stepped out as Jash was the one in the front and he abruptly stopped, prompting them to re-enter.
Fortunately, they froze in their spots due to mountainous pressure overwhelming them as an overbearing voice echoed, "What happened inside the dungeon?"
Back inside the dungeon, Jash remained unaware of the misunderstanding he caused.
Shaking his head to get rid of his regret, he stepped into the shimmering blue portal, making him lose his senses.
A huge wave of mana rushed towards him and he found himself in a temporary daze before seeing the blurry figures of the security team.
Blinking his eyes rapidly to get rid of his muddle-headed state, the first thing he notices was the temporary camp that was set up outside the dungeon gate.
'Hmm?' He was confused at the sight of all the security personnel surrounding the dungeon gate.
Instinctively, his eyes turned to look for Emma, Kesha, and Caera.
'At least they are fine,' he noted and felt relieved before his eyes narrowed as he observed the maid sisters' expressions.
Not only them, but everyone was looking at him with strange expressions.
'Just what happened?' he asked himself in confusion, but it all cleared up as he felt a mana pulse.
"Who?" he asked, curious about the one scanning him as he couldn't locate them.
"It is me, Young Master. I was notified of an anomaly in the dungeon you and the Young Miss entered," the man explained as he landed on the ground near Jash.
'So overwhelming!'
That was all Jash could think of as the mana pressure the man emanated was too much for him, even though the man was actually actively refraining from harming anyone.