Chapter 719: A Sweet Scented Lily - Part 1
Morning came, and Hilma the warrior woman rose from her beddings and sat up straight. Leaning her back against the tent, she looked around with a dreamy gaze. Yet with her mind still catching up with her vision, she stretched and yawned and didn’t notice anything unusual about her surroundings, even though a problem was staring her right in the face.
Resting her head against the tent’s wall, she sat in silence with nothing going on inside her head. Quiet, that’s what she wanted at least for now, since the moment everyone else wakes up, her problems will start piling up faster than she could grasp.
’I wish Felix and Astra weren’t such knuckleheads.’ She thought, and finally, with her head turning to their beddings lying empty on the ground, she realized that something was wrong. ’Where are these two?’
Their makeshift beds were empty. Surveying the tent again, Hilma noticed Linkle staring at the tent’s ceiling with her eyes open but not speaking a word or getting up. As for Jenna, the insane woman was still sleeping. Nobody else was there, and even Mercedes was missing from her bed.
"Hey..." Calling out to the witch, Hilma matched her gaze the moment she looked at her. "Where’s Felix and the others?"
Lifting her head, Linkle placed a hand under her head so she wouldn’t have to hold it up by the neck to look at the warrior woman. Staying quiet for a few seconds, the old, withered-looking witch took a good minute before she gave her a response.
"Mercedes’s probably counting rations and other resources, kind of her only job at the moment. Not sure about the others..." Sitting herself up, Linkle decided to get out of the mattress and turned to Jenna, sleeping beside her. "I should get to work, too."
Kicking the side of Jenna’s mattress, she called her name, and with a jolt, the girl woke up and reached for the heavens. Her hands outstretched, she looked around and as her mind settled, she stared at Linkle and complained with a straight face.
"Don’t wake me up like that, hag."
Shaking her head, Linkle let the insult slide and instead focused on the task at hand.