Arcane Arctic 4: A Harem LitRPG Dungeon Crawl Adventure by Peter North

Author:Peter North [North, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2025-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

25

Moving On

Jay and Alphonse had alternated keeping watch all day so that Wren wouldn't be alone when she woke. The precaution was meant to be a kindness to the Wingblood woman, the stranger in their midst, so that she didn't have to feel alone after her ordeal. But Jay knew that, at least in part, Alphonse had planned it this way because he didn't completely trust her yet.

Fair enough, Jay figured. The woman had tried to kill him.

Though she didn't really seem to have her heart in it—that was easy enough to see—they wouldn't be able to trust Wren until they had a better idea of where her heart did lie. Just because it wasn't with Dax didn't automatically mean it would be with Alphonse or Jay. For all they knew, she was a double or triple agent for King Wenshire.

Jay didn't really believe that. But he was trying to keep an open mind.

The truth was, he found it difficult not to trust Wren. She seemed so... beaten down and broken. He couldn't help but want to help her. But he also didn't want to ignore the instincts of his teammates who were much more suspicious of the woman.

Besides, Dax had messaged Alphonse a few hours after Wren should have been marked 'dead' in his party menu, saying they'd lost the Wingblood on the sixth floor two days ago and that now she was dead, but they hadn't been able to find out what happened to her.

Just as Alphonse had predicted. Dax was assuming Wren really was dead, of course, which meant she couldn't talk. Her supposed disappearance was meant to make Alphonse suspicious that she had an ulterior motive—the assassination—of which Dax had no idea. No doubt, more 'evidence' of Wren's betrayal would be discovered and passed on at a later date to add authenticity to the ruse.

But the fact that Dax had waited for hours after he would have received the notification to tell Alphonse spoke volumes. It revealed that there had been a time of panicked recalculation once the Lupinari leader realized his plan had failed. It also revealed that they were on the sixth floor—not the third floor—when Felicity went missing.

Or that's what Dax wanted them to think.

Jay was on guard when Wren stirred for the first time since her "death," a soft groan escaping her lips as she blinked blearily up at the ceiling. Jay watched as she slowly came back to herself, her expression shifting from confusion to realization. Resurrection wasn't supposed to be a pleasant experience from what Jay had gathered, but she looked like she'd been through hell.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," he said dryly, arms crossed as he leaned against the wall.

Wren exhaled sharply, ruffling her huge black wings. "That sucked," she muttered.

"You did agree to it," he pointed out.

Wren shot him a glare. "Yes, with the alternative being actual death, I suppose I shouldn't complain."

Before he could say anything else, footsteps approached from the hallway, and Jay turned just as Geena strolled in, her confident smirk in place.

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