[BONUS]
A group of pale, dead trees clawed at the sky like the fingers of a giant skeleton. The long, dry grass rustled and sighed in the breeze.
Ginger lights rested in the granite peaks before the Golden Phoenix group, accompanied by disconcerting wisps of smoke that were carried by the gust.
The wind whistled and howled around a rock formation that resembled the broken pillars of an ancient ruin.
Evie looked around their surroundings. They were at Howling Canyon, and it was eerily quiet. The only sound that could be heard was the wind that blew at the gap between the two valleys.
Together with Sumeri and Nikolai, she was assigned to help Golden Phoenix clear the dungeon.
Howling Canyon didn't even seem like a dungeon, to begin with. It was more like a tourist destination without the tourist, where you could easily get lost. All the eyes could see was a stretch of giant hills and the uncountable forks that led to an army of beasts, traps, or dead ends.
". . ." Evie couldn't think straight. She was about to blurt out that it wasn't true, but she paused when they halted just in front of a wide opening where the Boss lay on the other side.
There was no time to correct the misunderstanding as they entered the Boss's domain with her mind and heart in shambles. And even until the fight with the Boss, Evie couldn't think straight.
Ever since she heard about it, she couldn't unheard it, and now.
The idea that Ren like her was stuck in her head.