The Systems Challenge

With how Elmo was unconscious, and possibly more injured than he looked, Kim couldn't help but worry about how Elin was doing. Elin hadn't bee very good with combat in the past, and Kim doubted she'd improved much since then. Which meant that she wouldn't be able to fend off the doppelganger for long.

While she'd like to just run ahead of the others, she knew that she'd not only be lost almost immediately as she had to wait for Jonas to guide her. Which was irritating enough, but adding that to the fact that she couldn't be sure how much help Elin needed right then.

She had to take deep breaths in order to keep from losing her temper at the whole situation, which she knew wouldn't help her at all. If anything, it'd hurt her more than anything else. Especially with how she'd have to deal with Jonas trying to get her to calm down. Which would take time during which they wouldn't be heading towards Elin.

While they had been moving slow when they were heading to find Elmo, now they were moving even slower. While Jonas had thrown Elmo over his shoulder, they were still going slower, partly because Jonas was taking care to not have Elmo hit any of the debris, which as far as Kim was concerned the furniture along the hallway was just debris.

Maybe it was her impatience which made time feel like it was crawling along slowly, but it felt like it was taking far longer than she felt it should. It was likely her imagination, but that didn't help her impatience any. It merely exacerbated the whole situation.

Kim wished that she would be able to at least have some light to see with, but couldn't figure out where she would be able to get some. The lamps in the servant's hallway were installed directly in the walls and Kim didn't feel like going to the effort of forcibly removing one, as it seemed like it would take more effort than it'd be worth, aside from the fact that it would also probably take more time to accomplish that than it was taking to get to Elin right now.

Eventually, Kim could start hearing sounds ahead of them. She couldn't really make out what the sounds were, just that there were sounds that were ahead of them.

Yet, as they neared where the sounds were, where Kim could give an estimate of how far ahead of them the sounds were coming from and it sounded more like a fist fight than anything else. Though occasionally she could hear talking, yet they were still too far away from make out what was being said.

"Elin should be around the corner," Jonas whispered suddenly, startling Kim.