“Gyah!” Two screamed, while One flinched and almost got impaled by a clawed hand of a camouflaged monster.

  “Gah! What are you doing?!”

  He abandoned his efforts to help the elf and instead rushed to his other body, [Healing Light] in hand.

  “Stop that, you idiot! They are friendly!” someone yelled from the side.

  Two landed in a heap, clutching her cold bleeding hip. She gasped as One spotted a metal frog with its mouth open, preparing to fire a steel ball at her.

  She tried to push through the pain, but the arrow must have torn something important. She couldn’t move.

  Thinking quickly, she instead pulled out [Transfrogify] and shot it at a hooved lizard blocking One’s approach.

  She turned into a frog; the monster’s steel ball sailed over her shrunken form, and One jumped over the startled hooved frog, gently picked up Two’s bleeding frog form in his hands, and then rushed out of the danger zone.

  A moment later, Two transformed back and fell out of One’s hand with a yelp. One quickly supported her so she wouldn’t injure herself any further.

  They pulled out a [Healing Light] each and activated them.

  As the light enveloped Two, One noticed the frog from before jumping their way.

  Two flung a [Tricky Trail] to the side without even looking and perfectly nailed the frog mid-air as the light finished healing her.

  “Argh! Why am I always the one getting banged up?!” Two complained as they got up and stood back to back.

  Two winced. The bleeding might have stopped, but her side still felt numb.

  There were still two more lizards tussling with the elf, one three-eyed toad with four clawed limbs trying to tear apart at the panicking catkin, and one more lizard behind them.

  All skills cold. Drat.

  But just as they thought the monsters would overwhelm them, the elf pulled out a card with a purple rim and held it in front of himself. The card turned into light that enveloped him and turned his body into a radiant crackling ball of energy.

  It struck the first lizard with a crackle. Then it jumped to the second lizard, curved around and hit the clawed toad menacing the catkin, and finally bounced and slammed into the last lizard. All in less than a second.

  The final monster popped into steam making One stagger back with a yelp.

  The ball of energy reshaped into the elf again as everyone else stared in awe.

  “W-Why didn’t you do that sooner?!” the catkin yelled.

  The elf glared in her direction.

  “I did. It had to re-spark.”

  “Oh… Right…” The catkin’s ears flattened against her head.

  Then all as one, essence cards ripped their way out of the monster corpses and each flew to one of the people present in a chaotic flurry.

  Most went to the elf, two to the catkin, and two to the dual bodies. The two cards split and became two pairs like before.

  ◆Stomp◆

  Light blue rim; A picture of a hooved leg stomping the ground.

  ◆Extension◆

  Rare again; A drawing of a featureless figure holding a sword three times their height.

  Nice.

  “You two,” the elf called to them, drawing their attention. “Thanks for the save. And apologies for the last one. Didn’t expect it to burst like that.”

  “You’re welcome!”

  “Yeah, it’s fine!”

  Though they could have done without that ice arrow to the gut.

  The elf nodded, then set his eyes on the catkin, whose ears only got flatter against her head.

  “Um, I’m really sorry for attacking you! I kind of… mistook you for monsters through the steam,” she mumbled with a wince as she eyed their gecko tails.

  They frowned.

  “Rude. We’re geckin, not monsters,” Two replied as she swished her tail behind her.

  “Yeah, I… I’m sorry. It’s my first time in a monster rift, so I panicked. Are you okay?”

  “…We’re fine. Healed up.” Two replied.

  The catkin relaxed.

  “That’s good. I could have sworn I hit you. Glad you’re okay though.”

  “We need to move. It’s not safe here,” the elf declared, glaring into the bushes surrounding us. “We can walk and talk.”

  “Uh, yeah. Top idea,” Two replied and tried to get up, only for One to catch her as she stumbled. “Ugh, drat… Still can’t feel my side.”

  “I thought you were fine,” the elf snapped his narrowed eyes at her.

  “Sorry, that arrow must have done more damage than we thought. Give us a minute,” Two explained as both pulled out their [Healing Light]s again. Still cold and heavy, unfortunately.

  The elf’s eyes twitched wider.

  “Healers? I see. Alright, we’ll cover you two.” He looked at the catkin. “Layna, cover the left, I’ll guard the right.”

  “Right!”

  Then the two each pulled out a card and transformed them into weapons. A gleaming sword in the elf’s case and the icy bow in Layna’s case.

  “Did you two get separated from your party too?” the elf asked as he glared at the bushes surrounding their precarious position.

  They grimaced.

  “Yeah… Everything suddenly shifted. And we lost our pack, ugh…”

  The elf mirrored their expression.

  “That’s rough. We’ll lend you some of our supplies. At least until we all safely make it out.”

  “We’re leaving?” the catkin questioned. “But what about the Boss?”

  The elf shook his head at her words.

  “I got Very Rare essences from some of the monsters here. That means the Boss is Legendary-tier or higher. At our level, there is no way we can contribute much.” He paused. “Unless one of you two has a Legendary skill?”

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  Only a messed up Epic.

  “…Nah, this is our rarest card,” One replied as both brought out the Very Rare [Transfrogify].

  The elf blinked as he took in the name and the art of the card, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again and shook his head.

  “…Huh. By the way, do you twins have the same cards?”

  Twins?

  “Err, mostly.”

  He seemed not to have noticed how their looted essences split in two…

  Maybe it would be for the best if they pretended to be twins. Obviously, they couldn’t show [Soul Split] to anyone. Someone might figure out they had used a corrupted essence to make it and that spelled trouble.

  Finally, their [Healing Light]s re-sparked and they combined them to fully heal Two again.

  The elf eyed the interaction but didn’t say a word.

  Crap. Maybe they shouldn’t have done that in front of him.

  “You’re good now?”

  Or maybe he was just checking her injury.

  Two got up and tried stretching. No pain this time.

  “Yeah, I feel better!”

  “Good. Let’s move then. I’ll take point, can one of you two take the rear?” His sword turned back into a card and then vanished. Layna’s bow did the same.

  Huh.

  “What about the monster corpses?” The twins made a show of eyeing the dead monsters around them.

  “Leave them. No time for dismantling. We need to get out.”

  “…Alright.”

  The elf gave a terse nod and began walking. The others naturally fell into a formation. The catkin walked behind the elf to the left, One walked next to her to cover the right, and Two followed behind them to cover our flank.

  “Once it re-sparks, please heal Layna as well.”

  Eyes landed on the catkin.

  “Uh, It’s fine. It’s just a scratch.”

  They belatedly realized that she had a barely visible bandage on her forearm, poking out of her sleeve.

  “No. We can’t afford to have anyone injured. It might be fatal.”

  The elf’s commandeering attitude rubbed the twins the wrong way, but they didn’t necessarily disagree.

  “…Fine.”

  They still had to wait for their skills to regain their spark though.

  The elf cleared his throat as the party climbed a nearby muddy hill for a better vantage point.. “Anyway. Introductions. Forgot about that. My name is Elisiarenth Foarthrong. You can call me Elis.”

  He briefly glanced back and gave them a nod.

  “Hello, Elis! I’m Dawn!” Two replied with a smile.

  Then she realized her mistake.

  Drat. Wrong body.

  Attention turned to One, who stiffened, thinking about how to fix this mistake.

  “…Are you okay?” the catkin asked.

  “Uh, yeah! Nice to meet you! I’m…” Name name name…?! “Dusk! Yeah, Dusk! We’re twins!”

  Elis eyed him for a second, obviously suspicious, but decided to ignore it with a shrug.

  “Dawn and Dusk, huh? Funny names. Guess your parents were the poetic types,” Layna commented.

  “…We’re orphans, but thanks,” Two… Dawn wryly replied, warily eyeing the catkin who had tried to kill her.

  The catkin winced.

  “Uh…”

  Her awkward reply was cut off by Dusk and Dawn’s stomachs growling in unison.

  They looked away in embarrassment.

  “…We had our rations in the pack.”

  They also realized that this meant that the [Soul Split] skill even duplicated the contents of their stomach.

  Yet for some reason, their gender had changed.

  Why?

  “Oh! I can help with that!”

  The catkin began to remove her backpack, but Elis stopped her.

  “Don’t. We’ll stop to eat and rest once we find a safe spot. Right now we would be sitting ducks.”

  “Ugh, right…” The catkin gave Dusk an apologetic smile. “I’ll give you some of my bread when we rest. It’s my own recipe!”

  “Sure… Sounds good.”

  Maybe they should give her a chance. As much as that arrow had hurt, it had been an honest mistake.

  “I’m Layna, by the way! The town’s baker. I wasn’t supposed to come but… Well, you know. I couldn’t sit back when two rifts suddenly appeared.”

  The twins grimaced.

  “Yeah… We’re the same. We’re just street performers normally… ”

  Finally, [Healing Light] re-sparked and the party stopped to take up defensive formation while Dusk healed Layna.

  The bandage came loose and he took a look at the nasty gnash on her forearm before deciding that a single application of the skill would be enough.

  Layna let out a sigh of relief as the light of Dusk’s card washed over her wound and left only unmarred skin behind.

  “Thanks. I owe you one.”

  “You can pay us back in bread,” Dawn cheekily replied.

  Layna giggled.

  “Monster,” Elis suddenly barked out. “One of the clawed toads.”

  The mood instantly shifted as everyone stood up straight and grasped for their cards.

  “I’ll take care of it. Cover me.”

  “R-Right!”

  Once again, Elis summoned his card, which turned into the sword, and then leaped forward with a slash, releasing a sharp wave of air that shredded the bush up ahead. A toad jumped out with a hiss, aiming its claws at the swordsman.

  He pulled out another card and it turned into a glowing yellow barrier that deflected the beast’s claws, letting him ram his sword to its side, killing it.

  The barrier dissipated and an essence card flew from the dead toad to Elis. The rest of the party rushed to catch up with him.

  “Damn. That was quick.”

  “What’s with the card weapon though? How do you do that?”

  The sword turned into a card and vanished.

  “[Hurricane Blade]. It’s a Weapon essence base. Toggle skill. You two should get one as well if you want to keep doing this.”

  The party began moving again, leaving the toad’s corpse behind.

  “Yeah, I have one too. It’s very convenient,” Layna added as she showed them her ice bow.

  “Neat. But… We don’t think this is for us… We’re probably going back to performing after this.”

  Though honestly, the idea of becoming proper hunters wouldn’t leave them alone.

  “Fair enough. I thought you two are registered. You seemed to have decent combat sense.”

  Technically, they were. But under their old name.

  Not that they could say it out loud.

  “Nah. We just wanted to help this time.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did. Really saved us back there.”

  “Glad to help!”

  The elf grunted in affirmation.

  “I think I can see something. Might be a way out of this area.”

  The twins couldn’t see drat besides foliage and dirt, but they supposed Elis must have used some kind of vision-enhancing skill.

  Then Layna suddenly gasped in horror.

  Heads snapped left to see what she’d spotted and the twins froze.

  A head resembling a hornless goat. A hunched back body with six limbs, a tail, and a set of spikes jutting out of its back. Its color shifted and warped, never quite settling on anything concrete, as if light itself was confused about what it was seeing. Its eyes glowed with darkness that swallowed nearby space. Even as it crawled through the tapestry of pipes, it towered over the trees with its massive size.

  What the hell was that thing?!

  An Elite? The Boss?!

  No way. That thing didn’t belong in here!

  Layna’s card materialized into her bow and she began lifting it.

  Before she could fully get it into her sights, Elis snapped out his hand and gripped her arm.

  “Don’t,” he gritted out through clenched teeth as he stared at the abomination, his usual mask of calm broken by sheer panic.

  What?! Were they supposed to let that thing kill them then?!

  Before the twins could decide what to do, that thing turned to look at them.