The rest of the party had to be warned of the experiment they were about to undertake. It would be stupid to do it and surprise their own allies. It had the potential of distracting someone to the point of getting them killed. But now everyone knew Robert could teleport.

And since nothing in the Life affinity could explain it, he found himself forced to disclose it was due to his talent. Robert thought about throwing the Time affinity under the bus and using that as an excuse but Time didn't include teleportation either, unless he was stopping time itself which was ludicrous for a one star. His explanation stopped there. No need to also say it was a side effect of his talent.

He could see the questions they were dying to ask but didn't. How far, how many times a day, and so on. He was glad they showed this much restraint and respect.

"

*

The next Mollusk war band was the standard three slugs and one snail. At this point, the fight was a wash in their favor. While Chris held the snail back, the others dispatched the snails in record time. The Mollusks had no variety of tactics. Their moves were rehearsed and repetitive.

"Any time now, Rob."

He entered the liminal void and put a new idea he had to the test. Robert wrote the time he entered in a pocket notebook. It was one of the functions of the time-keeping contraption he commissioned but one he could do manually. Just note the time of the last visit, and the time of the current one, subtract the two, and multiply by ninety-nine. That was the exact time he had to wait in the void before going back.

He estimated twelve days for this visit. Robert started to read the Time Affinity primer another time and started making annotations where he believed the authors got it wrong and why.

It was a problem with these rare or obscure affinities. While the four elements and a few others have been tested, peer-reviewed, and criticized to the point the training materials were one-to-one representations of reality, the others had no such luck. Void was unknown, and others, like Death, would put the poor Arch on several watchlists.

Unless they were sheltered by some powerful family, clan, or corporation. Nepotism was the norm, not the exception.

Three days of study, training, and rest later, he examined the snail warrior. It was mid-swing and aed at Chris's center mass. Robert conjectured some hypotheses and tested others on the corpses they had available.

He would come out of the void with no momentum of his own. Yes, if he could time his exit with millisecond precision, he could swing and shift but that was setting himself up to fail.

No, he needed to use the enemy's momentum to his advantage. He should place his blade against the downswing of the snail's arms and brace to let the creature cut itself. He could always slice and add his strength after he emerged.

"Stand here, like this," Robert mumbled to himself. "And put the sword inside, touching the arm here. Blade alignment, lower my torso…"

A stray thought distracted him. Was this how speedster Archhumans felt in the stories he read about? Sure, they could run thousands of miles in a split-second but they had to take every single step in between.

Here he was, twelve subjective days to make an attempt at cutting an arm. No way he could do the same to a person. How cold calculating and cruel he had to become to spend this much time studying his next victim? Just the mental exercise made him sick.

Robert gave up and went to sleep.

*

*

Train, meditate, and rehearse his "teleport strike". At this point, he was keenly aware of every crease and wart on the snail's skin. It took all of Robert's willpower not to name it. But he was about to cut Wilbur's arm off. It made his resolve waver. Then he remembered what horrors were hidden underneath Wilbur's gastropod and the will to murder returned to him. But…

That mental loop went on repeat too many times already, more than what could be considered healthy. This was the proverbial jungle, where the only law was to kill or be killed. With that mental excuse, Robert positioned himself and his sword.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Then he waited for about half an hour because he had to be cautious and his estimate of reemergence time was a bit off. Yet, without a day and night cycle or any movement, being off by only half an hour in more than a week was a great feat.

The world exploded into motion, colors, and violence. The massive stone ax kept its momentum, and the blade sliced as the arm followed the former weapon. Robert let out a squealing warcry and pushed onward with his sword.

White hot mollusk blood squirted on him, making him stumble at the loss of leverage. The ax flew past Chris and embedded itself in a bush. The underside of the snail wailed and warbled as its tony brain registered pain.

Next thing, Liz flashed next to the disarmed creature and turned it into a makeshift escargot. Karla yelled as if her team had won a Super Bowl. Cris sheathed his sword and clapped.

"Damn, that was cool. And scary," the charismatic young adult leader said.

"Cool?" Karla scoffed at Chris, geeking hard. "It was ah-maize-ing!" She squealed. "Dammit, Robbie, we need to work on a manlier warcry but, wow. Just wow. You struck Xiao's insecurities so hard he went silent with jellyousiness."

"I'm not jealous!" Xiao protested.

"Karla, you are doing it again," Liz warned in a soft voice.

But the brunette archer heeded no advice. She was in overdrive. "Can you do it again?!"

"I'd rather not," Robert replied.

Karla grinned and cackled. "Which means you can but don't want to. Damn. The one who's jelly is me!" She poked her chest with a thumb.

Liz threaded an arm around Karla's. "We are all happy you developed a new strong move. This will make you soar."

"Excellent," Chris said. "But let's keep it down so we don't draw unwanted attention, okay?"

"No dangers in two miles around us," Robert said.

Karla grinned and was about to speak when Liz tugged Karla's arm and shook her head. Despite their budding camaraderie and recent openness, some boundaries were best left unchallenged.

"But no, I don't think I can make this part of my move deck. My arms are killing me. I need much more tempering and workout to get stronger."

Karla grunted, Xiao nodded, and Liz let out a faint sigh. All three of them shared the same issue. Tempering for their affinities at one star was either weak, nonexistent, or dangerous.

*

*

A little past noon, they were free to go. Robert had earned a bit past a thousand dollars for his three days and two nights delve. The party members had school assignments and other commitments so they would only be free to delve a week from now.

"We can understand if you want to find another party in the LFG," Chris said. "But we want to keep you as a regular in our group."

The others nodded.

"Thanks, I really appreciate it," Robert replied. "I would like that but think I will have to delve sooner than that. I have bills to pay."

"You do you, Rob," Chris said as he offered a fist. Robert bumped it. "See you in a week."

They went on their way. Robert walked to the park in the twenty-fourth district.

At the entrance of the park, he noticed a group of people in red robes. In the middle, the same bald, tattooed Arch that harassed him in the mall.

Someone in that group spotted him and alerted the others. They started to spread out to block Robert's escape routes, several grinning and glaring at him.

"Mr. Robert Baker," the Blood Arch called. "I'm happy we could meet," he started to walk toward Robert.

The fact he'd used his old name didn't escape Robert's awareness. But they were in the middle of the city! Not even this crazy blood cult would dare to kidnap him in broad daylight.

"Did you need to bring these many thugs? I thought we parted on good terms."

"Oh, but we did. It's just that we bought your outstanding debt from the insurance company. Now, I am tasked with negotiating a repayment plan with you."

And by repayment, he meant indentured servitude.

"I do not recognize any debts," Robert said. "But for the sake of argument, how much do you claim it is?"

"Five million."

"Shut up and get out of here. The insurance already stole all my parents had instead of paying them. This is a complete fabrication."

Ind ed, the Kraven Clan paid pennies on the dollar, asking the insurance company to make some mathematical fabrications to inflate Robert's debt. They had a paper trail, with everything, from alleged damages for fraud to stolen items that "should" be in the house they claimed Robert took.

By now, he was surrounded. Robert was angry and the injustice caused his stomach to churn.

"We can take it to court if you want."

It would cost him a fortune in legal fees.

"I would love to see you testify these documents you are waving are real and honest under a Truth spell," Robert called his bluff.

The tattooed Arch didn't like that. He gestured to his acolytes, "Get him!"

Robert drew a lungful and let out, "Help, I am being assaulted!" His voice cracked as his distress reached the top of a crescendo.

Parkgoers and the few bystanders all started to run away and scatter to the best of their abilities. No good Samaritan crawled out of the bushes, nobody wanted to be arraigned as a witness. Nobody cared about Robert. And very few dared to oppose the powerful Kraven clan.

He was truly on his own. It was getting hard to breathe. His anxiety spiked. The Kraven acolytes seemed to rush in slow motion, closing the circle around him.

What should he do? Fight? Bad idea. Go to the liminal void? The worst idea even. If they were this eager to get him for only being a healer, what would they do if they knew what was his talent?

Indecision paralyzed Robert. His heart bounced inside his ribcage. Sweat beaded on his skin. His vision blurred.

Fuck them. Fuck all of them. Robert was about to explode or faint. It was a coin toss. His hands shook.

The first acolytes reached and grabbed him. Then others. Robert screamed and thrashed. They were strong, probably Archhumans like him.

Pinned down, Robert couldn't think. Dozens of hands grasped him on the neck, arms, and even legs. It was like a child's game for the acolytes where whoever wasn't securing Robert wouldn't earn a candy.

Then a hand clamped his mouth shut. Robert tried to bite but the skin was too tough.

Desperation settled in. Robert wept. He was about to be enslaved by those bastards.

He wished to flee to the only place where he felt truly safe.

Robert entered the void.