Dusk stepped forward, his shawl ready to block attacks. The two wolfkin sisters huddled behind him to provide support fire.

  On the other side of the battlefield, Oulo charged at the dagger maid in his obsidian form. Leejay flew above to provide support, while Dawn circled, preparing her [Tricky Trail] – ugh, they’d forgotten to upgrade it! – for when she saw the opportunity.

  Unfortunately, fighting two separate battles while also filling different roles in each, made it infinitely more difficult.

  The spear – hold on, that’s a broom! – maid lunged at the same time the dagger maid threw a blade at Dawn.

  Both bodies dodged on reflex.

  “Gah! What the hell?!” Tepp yelled as the sisters backed off from the broom maid.

  “S-Sorry! Not used to being the tank yet!”

  On the other side, Dawn successfully sidestepped the projectile, but ended up tripping over a glass stool she hadn’t noticed.

  “Gweh!”

  Luckily, Oulo quickly engaged in melee with the dagger maid, preventing their foe from capitalizing on Dawn’s mistake.

  Meanwhile, Dusk pulled out his [Steel Flail] and swung it in a horizontal arc, hoping to push the enemy back again. But the broom maid parried the spiked ball with the tip of her weapon, quickly adjusted her grip, and then stabbed at Dusk.

  He hurried to pull the shawl into the way, but still winced and stumbled back when the broom struck it, shattering Minn’s barrier along the way.

  “I got you!” the wolfkin immediately reapplied the barrier while her twin unleashed a salvo of firebolts at the maid. But their foe somehow managed to deflect or dodge every one of Tepp’s shots.

  Similarly, Oulo’s relentless assault, combined with Leejay’s attempts to cage the maid in, also failed to bear much fruit. Dawn didn’t want to use her explosive skill and risk catching Oulo in the blast, but her frog curse skill had still yet to re-spark.

  The twins gritted their teeth, trying to figure out how to end at least one of the fights.

  Luckily, they had teammates now – they didn’t need to rely on just themselves anymore. And those teammates had entire decks of skills of their own.

  “Oulo! Back!” the avian floating above the dagger maid shouted, prompting his teammate to disengage.

  A moment later, he palmed a card and unleashed it beneath him, summoning a storm of obsidian needles, that rained down on their foe. The maid snapped up her daggers and did her best to deflect most of the projectiles while hurrying out of the obsidian rain.

  That was when Dawn finally got into her blind spot and released her own [Tricky Trail] at the perfect time. The dagger maid, too busy dodging the sharp rain, didn’t react in time and got nailed by the bomb in the back, knocking her straight back into the storm of needles.

  At exactly the same time Dawn fired off her skill, Dusk did the same with [Tricky Flail] – while unsummoning the other flail – before sweeping it in front of him in a horizontal arc.

  The maid smacked her broom into the floor and pushed herself up into a somersault straight over the glowing ball on chain. Dusk growled in frustration, but the sister had his back.

  Minn flashed another card, which turned into energy that coalesced right above the somersaulting maid, and then smashed her into the ground. Immediately afterwards, Tepp jumped forward and shouted “Dusk! Back!” whilst drawing a card.

  Having just seen Leejay do the same to Oulo, Dusk quickly backed off, swinging his flail back around and out of the way of Tepp. The wolfkin conjured a card and before the broom maid could move out of the way, it exploded into the purple bubbles of energy and engulfed the maid in full.

  When the bubbly fog dissipated, only the corroded remains of glass and the smell of burned salt remained.

  On the other side of the battlefield, the dagger maid lay pinned to the ground by dozens of glassy black needles.

  Neither moved, but the two mini-parties still didn’t let their guard down.

  But then, an essence card popped out of each of the maids and raced toward their killer. Tepp got the broom maid’s essence while Leejay caught the dagger maid’s one and began gliding back down.

  “Phew! That was close! Good job, team!” the avian cheered as everyone regrouped.

  “Too bad, we didn’t get double the essences,” Tepp lamented as she waved around the essence she’d gotten – ◆Laceration◆, purple lattice for the rim.

  The twins pursed their lips and eyed the wolfkin in discomfort.

  “Oi! None of that! We said it’s fine if they aren’t doubled, didn’t we?” Leejay reprimanded her. “I for one, am very happy with this result! I remember that this one is super valuable!”

  He held ◆Flurry◆, also an Epic essence.

  Tepp winced.

  “Uh, sorry. I mean yeah, it’s fine. Shouldn’t get too greedy.” She glanced at her sister, who still cradled her side where the hole in her shirt perfectly displayed the earlier close call.

  Minn stayed quiet, clearly a bit rattled by the experience.

  “I hate to be a party pooper, but we better get back into formation so we don’t get ambushed again, you know?” the kobold drawled out as his eyes scanned their surroundings.

  “Right, yeah! Back into the formation, everybody!” Leejay ordered.

  Once they set off again, Oulo spoke once more.

  “By the way, we really need to work on our coordination. Especially with our new members here. Felt like you two were just kind of stumbling around back there.”

  The twins grimaced and held back their initial response.

  “Yeah…”

  “We’re still new to rift hunting. Fighting two Epic-tier monsters at the same time is a bit too much.”

  Though… it felt strange to be called new members. Wasn’t this supposed to be temporary? Would they actually stay with this party in the long term? They had already told them one of their secrets and so far, it seemed fine, so maybe…?

  “But each of you only had to fight one of them, right? Shouldn’t be that much different from just fighting one together.”

  The twins tensed, not quite ready to reveal the true extent of [Soul Split].

  “Well, yeah. But knowing there’s a second monster nearby made me unable to focus. Like I constantly worried we would get flanked again,” Dusk explained.

  “Hmm, I get that,” Leejay chimed in. “I remember being a nervous wreck at first too, but that’s fine! You just gotta learn to trust your teammates! Worry only about your role and everyone else will have your back, am I right?”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  A chorus of agreements echoed in the party and the twins suddenly felt bad for still lying.

  “Eh, well… Alright,” Dawn awkwardly replied.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Dusk added.

  Not why they’d failed so badly back there, but they still couldn’t help but feel touched by the sentiment.

  Still, they were bad with this touchy feely stuff so they just wanted the conversation to move on!

  “So anyway, anyone want one of the essences we got? Or are we selling them all after this is over?” Oulo asked.

  “I dunno, Flurry sounds really good, but I would feel bad hogging an Epic,” Tepp mused.

  “My obsidian storm would love Flurry… But yeah, same,” the team leader added.

  The twins thought about it.

  Wouldn’t combining Dawn’s [Tricky Trail] with ◆Barrage◆ and ◆Flurry◆ turn it into an even crazier barrage than what the archivist had suggested? Part of them – the impulsive part – wanted to go for that, but they also knew that such a skill would only be usable in very specific situations.

  But what about the ◆Corrosion◆ they’d gotten from the sludge? Would that be a good for for a [Tricky Trail] upgrade? What would be the third ingredient? The other ◆Corrosion◆? Barrage, maybe?

  As the twins silently thought about that, the rest of the party continued to discuss what they would do with the essences until Leejay gently reminded them that they were still in the middle of a dangerous rift and bench that discussion for after they left.

  Nobody disagreed with him.

  As the party trudged through the crystalline hallways filled with salt, constantly making sure they didn’t venture too far from the outer halls – if they had to stop hugging them at all – the twins got sort of lost in their thoughts despite still managing to keep vigil of their surroundings.

  The upsides of having two heads.

  The receptionist had said that to rank up, they had to harvest a total of twenty Rare essences to rank up, but she hadn’t mentioned how many Very Rare ones counted as. They assumed three, since that was how many Rare essences it usually took to create one Very Rare skill – according to a booklet they managed to procure from the Hunter’s Guild before coming underground this morning.

  And if Very Rares counted as three, would Epics count as… nine? Would they count as less since they’d had the help of others? Would they count at all if they weren’t the ones who got the essences?

  Dusk grumbled under his breath, a bit peeved at himself for not asking about these things.

  Dawn, on the other hand, was simply happy to be making progress on that quota, one way or another. And hey, if this rift ends up being conquered, them being here would also count as contribution, wouldn’t it? They might even get promoted straight away!

  With such thoughts, the twins and their party continued on through the fortress without encountering any more monsters for the longest time.

  When they finally did, nobody expected to see the giant red blob with horizontal slits for eyes lounging in the middle of the corridor, apparently asleep.

  “Oh shi– That’s gotta be at least Legendary-tier!” Leejay whisper-yelled as he pulled a card into his hand. “Everyone! We have to retreat!”

  But the twins saw it differently. After all, they had already seen something very similar a few days prior.

  “Hold on, isn’t that Slime Queen’s minion?” Dusk asked, stopping the party leader in his tracks.

  “Uhh… Is it?”

  “I think so. Hey, Ms. Slime! Are you with the Slime Queen?” Dawn called out.

  The blob’s eyes shifted from horizontal to vertical and back rapidly – as if blinking – before settling on the vertical mode. The creature then looked at the party and tilted its colossal head.

  “We’re rift hunters! We were tasked with securing the path from the Slime Queen’s base to the Gate! Is her base around here?”

  The giant slime regarded Dawn for a moment, then bobbed its massive head and lazily slid aside like a slug, revealing a room filled with glass weaponry and armor, but also a table made out of slime with water bottles on top of it and several sacks around it.

  “Ahaha… Okay! Awesome! We made it, team!” Leejay cheered, apparently pushing through his earlier discomfort of the big door guard.

  “There really weren’t that many monsters on the way, huh?” Oulo mused. “I guess we can rest up here and then we’ll run back to clean up more stragglers?”

  Nobody argued about getting some rest. Minn, in particular still looked a tad shaken by the previous encounter.

  The giant slime – whose name the twins suddenly became curious about – let them all into the base and then slid back in to block them in. It made the wolfkin sisters tense up.

  “You’re gonna let us out when we’re ready to go, right…?” Dawn slowly asked.

  The slimy barrier replied by forming a tiny hand out of its mass and giving them a thumbs up.

  The party finally relaxed at that, trusting the colossal creature more after the displayed intelligence and ability to communicate.

  Feeling safe now, the party resumed their conversation about which essences who could use and which ones to sell. Either way, they wouldn’t use any of them right inside this rift. For one, that momentary headache could be fatal even in a safe space, but also, they needed to show the guild the gathered essences – both to count toward rank ups and also because the basic rift hunter rules said so.

  Knowing this now, the twins wondered why Elis hadn’t chewed them out more back in the Bellowing Jungle when they’d double crafted during the Boss.

  Right as Minn began to perk up again, something shifted.

  Their tails went stiff, their skin started to prickle, a pressure grew behind their eyes.

  Judging how the others instantly went silent, they had to have felt it as well, but what–

  With a loud, screeching boom, the space around them rippled, warped, and then tore as several Gate-like scars etched themselves upon reality. Like the ones created by a Shepherd, these tears hurt to look at.

  The entire party started to move; Minn clutched her side; Leejay shouted–

  And then the safe room turned into a death trap.