"This was one of the memories of Tista that I wanted to replace."
Tuan whispered in Katalina's ears. The latter wanted to pull away from the guy who took advantage of the moment. But for some reason, her body didn't agree with her thought process. It wanted to be embraced by him just the way it was being embraced at the time.
Tuan ran his hands across Katalina's back as he pulled his neck away from her and looked her in the eyes. He could see that she was confused, a bit angry, and her desire to repay Tuan's gratitude was diminishing.
Tuan knew the hesitation would only make her pull away from him. He needed to end her hesitation by taking matters into his own hands. And that's what he did next.
He raised Kat's face with his hands and kissed her again. The butcher's tongue moved rhythmically as the song played in the background as he inserted it into her mouth. One could say that he was in complete control of his senses and had a mind to spare to enjoy the music while performing such a focus-demanding activity.
It didn't take long for Kat to respond. She hugged Tuan tightly, making him feel like she was trying to merge with his body. Tun's hands, which were itching to grab something mushy, finally did what they intended to do.
Kat felt her ass getting grabbed by Tuan's hands as he explored her mouth with his ever-restless tongue. She could never have thought that a simple dance session would turn this way with a stranger and her competitor she had just met.
Kat felt her body melting in Tuan's embrace. She wanted things to proceed even further than this casual warm-up. But then she remembered she was a contestant in a tournament that was being observed by the organizers.
She didn't want to be seen in compromising situations even though she subconsciously knew the organizers wouldn't partake in filming such activities. The risk of being targeted by the Amazonians was no small matter.
"Tu… Tuan, there are live feeds. I…"
Katalina broke free from Tuan's kiss and embrace and responded, short of breath. The latter didn't feel disappointed. He nodded his head and pulled her into his embrace once again.
Katalina was about to make an angry face at Tuan's advances on her despite her warnings. But then she felt his hands caressing her face. He smiled before responding to her decision.
"Hmm. Next time, we'll find a place where we won't be watched."
Tuan pulled away from Katalina on his own as he said. He climbed the ledge to sit on it. He intended to finish the remaining gulps of Frostfoam still left in the bottle in peace while admiring the stars.
'How… Why did his wife leave him? Was she braindead?'
As Kat watched him, she couldn't help herself from having this question in her head. She also became curious as to how Tuan could get detached from such an instance so suddenly and function normally like nothing happened.
She sighed and walked towards him before resuming her seated position over the ledge as well. The raid partners then started talking about the plans for tomorrow as if the instance earlier had been nothing more than a dream.
And yet, Katalina could feel a subtle tension in her interactions with Tuan. She felt like Tuan was a man of many facets. Her consciousness wanted to see all of his other sides he hadn't shown her yet.
This tension also made her talk with Tuan some more. She was enjoying the tension and all that it implied. She was also enjoying Tuan's gaze on her, responding to it by making Tuan get subjected to the same gaze of equal intensity from her.
The more she talked with him, the more Katalina realized Tuan hid more cards in his sleeves than he was willing to show. She would hate to admit it, but her mind had been smitten by the intrigue Tuan had to offer to her.
Tuan took the lead and carefully crafted a rough plan for them to deal with any form of the danger posed by the trio they had just met. According to his predictions, they would be safe for the next two days.
Lily and her raid partners would only attack Tuan and Kat when they had gathered sufficient Tuan points by the third day. The hunt should be worth the effort after all.
********************
On the third day of the tournament. Safe area. Lily's Base.
"Today's the day right. I can't contain my excitement right now. It'd be fun to squeeze that Tuan brat's neck for his defiance against us."
Wilder commented as he fist-bumped his own gauntlets together. This was the third day of the tournament. The competitors would start to target each other's raid teams starting from today. Lily and her team were no exception to the rule either. Plus, they had a fixed target in their minds.
"That fire bastard Tuan was hiding a lot of his strength in the competition, it seems. He is already 14th on the Titus list. Who will get his point for themselves?"
Ketsu asked while scratching his stubble that had grown in these three days. He didn't bother grooming these days and kept on watching or keeping tabs on his other competitors.
Lily was there to answer him.
"We don't need to compete within ourselves for his points.
I just want that artefact for myself. If you two stay close to each other while destroying his wristband, the Titus points would get divided between the two of you equally. I had temporarily paired up with a different ranker in these three days when you guys weren't with me and tested it myself."
Lily said while looking at her raid partners intently. She continued after gathering some of her thoughts.
"What's more? That girl Katalina doesn't look like a pushover either. She is 16th in the Titus ranking as of today. So there's no need to fight for Titus points. We'll get plenty for each of us if we can take care of them effectively.
The more pressing question is can you find him, Ketsu?"
Lily said, sharpening her black scimitars on an array platform that would imbue the weapon with wind-element mana. Whenever she made contact with it using her two blades, sparks erupted in the form of ethereal wind-elemental blades in tiny form.
Ketsu smiled wickedly and showed his raid partners an array disk. He imbued it with his mana and made it project a 3D map of the competition area they had explored so far.
There were three dots clustered together in one place, which was representative of all three of them. There were then a pair of red dots located somewhere in the hunting area, far from the blue dots.
"You know who those red dots are, right?"
