'I wonder what defines an Imprint of its tier...' He scratched the back of his head while looking over its dimensions.
He opened the panel about his sword before unconsciously moving beside the one showing the knife. He then began to compare the two. Their image, skills, and everything side by side.
'I wonder what's the difference between these two other than what they're made of? From the way I see it...'
Everette roughly simulated the fight between him and Amelia. Despite Amelia's speed, he was able to win by inflicting her with the hesitation debuff.
'But the unpredictability of her knife is definitely troublesome to deal with.'
He couldn't help but wonder why before snapping out of his stupor and returning the knife back to Amelia. Mid-return, he came to the realisation he was able to move the blue panel around.
He pinched the corner of it and noticed it phased through it. He raised a brow before trying to command it to move with his mind.
The floating panel shifted a couple of centimetres to the side at his command. "..."
'It took me this long to figure this out!?'
He sighed, disappointed himself before moving towards the beetle corpse and helping out with the harvest.
***
He wiped a sweat from his forehead and looked at two piles of meat stacked neatly on each other. He turned his attention to Ada to see her inspecting shattered pieces of the beetle's exoskeleton.
He approached her from behind and opened his mouth, "What's up? Anything weird about them?" He leaned over her shoulder and neared his face to the side of his face.
Ada took her eyes and discovered Everette's face close to hers. Her face lit up with a bright red colour before hiding her face by looking down.
"O-Oh... Nothing... Just wondering what we could use these for, y'know."
He noticed her strange behaviour before ignoring her and concluded it was just one of her silly antics. He nodded before leaning his face back.
As he was doing this, he saw Ada's face tilt up and flashed a brief look of disappointment before changing to a neutral expression.
He took his eyes off her and looked around. He then began to comment on Alice's lack of presence, "Should we have brought Alice along? I feel like bringing her along with us could help us bond with her a little more."
The idea of finally having a way to heal wounds without relying on the full recovery received after every ten levels filled his mind. Especially knowing that someone as lovely as Alice is the one doing it.
He noticed a hand tightly grasping his arm - tight enough that it could threaten to break it! He quickly turned back to Ada to see a dangerous glint pass through her eyes.
"Why do you want to bond with someone like her, hm?"
Her face was expressionless, and yet her voice was cold and intimidating. Her fingers continued to tightly wrap around his arm the longer it took for him to answer.
He gulped at the intense stare she was giving him before giving an answer, "I-I just think that having a nice relationship with a healer of all people would be good!"
"Relationship...?"
Ada's eyes narrowed further as she focused on his face, her lips turning downward as she repeated that word in her head. 'Why does he want to be around her so bad? Am I not enough? So what if she's a healer?'
She gritted her teeth in frustration before sighing. The fingers that were digging into Everette's skin paused before retreating.
'He does have a point, though... Having a good relationship with a healer is certainly one of the best paths in surviving an apocalypse like this.'
Her hands fell to her, and she sighed before firmly forming a fist shape. Her nails dug into her hand and caused it to bleed a little.
'I hate it.'
***
After they all loaded the parts, they picked off the beetle and loaded it onto the bus, and they began their journey home. The entire way back, Ada hadn't spoken a single word and just stared at the window.
Everette just shook his head at this before commenting in his mind, 'Women...'
After arriving back at the chapel and carrying all the parts just outside the chapel, Ada immediately made her way into it and looked for a white-headed figure.
The figure was surrounded by a group of people who commented on her appearance in a curious and positive way. Alice, at the centre of the crowd, smiled with joy as she couldn't help but socialise with everyone around her.
That was until she noticed a chill down her spine. She turned around and met Ada's cold stare. Ada gave brief glances to the crowd before muttering with a strained smile:
"May I borrow her for a bit?"
The crowd could sense an ominous aura around her and decided it was best to just give them privacy. After the crowd had dispersed, Ada turned towards Alice - still with his lips strained to form a smile.
She then held up the palm of her hand and showed her the blood stain on her hand. "Could you help me with this... please?"
***
Alice held the back of Ada's hand, then covered it with a green glow. The glow wrapped around the wound on her hand and healed it at a visible rate. Since the wound was small, it didn't take much time to heal, but it did drain quite a bit of Ada's stamina.
Her eyes gazed at her hand in surprise. She flexed her hand and noticed the pain fade away. 'Impressive... Even if it was a small injury...'
Ada stared at Alice, who seemed a bit tired, 'I guess having a healer around is a good thing.'
"Alice..."
"Hm?"
She turned her eyes towards Ada's and noticed her staring intently into her eyes. Ada opened her mouth and asked:
"What're your thoughts on Everette?"