I was panicking, watching Rosalia disappear under the rats and no one around her noticing was… disturbing. Shock washed over me as I started to ask Aureus for help, but he was already on it, wind exploded out from her body sending tens of rats flying in all directions. I could feel that he was looking for a place to land but the battle was so chaotic there wasn’t an empty patch of land large enough for him anywhere. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but Rosalynn was yelling something as she ran over to her sister.

The space Aureus had created was quickly filling in with other rats in the stampede, they made for an effective and horrifying tool of destruction. Mindlessly charging towards their goal regardless of the damage it might cause. My nose scrunched up as I watched Rosalynn’s hammer send several of them flying, but it wasn’t as easy to protect someone as it was to fight on your own. Any that she missed would create gashes in Rosalia’s skin as their claws caught her instead of the rock. The only positive was that they only charged towards their goal as usual.

Aureus, catch me. I commanded as I jumped from his back towards where she was desperately trying to protect her sister. The memory of my ‘impressive leap’ before overlaid itself on the present as I tensed up in preparation for the fall. I knew he’d catch me but my instincts didn’t. Just as I was about to brace myself he caught me and I was lowered gently behind Rosalynn.

“What do you need? Should I take her back or do you want help?” I asked.

“Yes.” She forced out as blood sprayed from her victims.

“Ah the third option, Noel?” I snorted, why hadn’t she asked for him before I got here?

“Yes Boss? Oh my…” His voice got tense as he looked down at Rosalia’s bloody body.

“Can you take her to Reid please?”

“On it.” And with that they disappeared.

“Must be nice…” Rosalynn muttered something, but that was the only part I caught.

“Why don’t you take a break and go see her? I’m sure Reid will get her right as rain soon.” I asked gently.

“We have to stay and fight when we can. I have a responsibility to these people.” I could hear that she was fighting back tears.

I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the jab, “Yes you do. So you need to take care of yourself, knowing how to rest is also a skill. It’s not very responsible of you if you die or get heavily injured and are unable to protect them later is it?”

She grumbled something else under her breath.

Aureus, take her to her sister please.

His wind took her and her protests away quickly, so I just focused on the wave in front of me. “I guess now is as good as ever to try and practice fire manipulation again.” I groaned. For the next few minutes I pushed myself, trying to maintain a field of fire in the area directly in front of me. I was still pretty unskilled, I knew that, but the several rats that ran past me proved it.

This is either a really dumb idea or a really good one… I thought to myself as I tried to mimic my past mistake, but on purpose that time. After a few seconds of picturing the mana all gathering at one point I’d managed it. It was awkward and wobbly but a very bright orb of fire floated within the wave of rats. I took in a sharp breath as I let it explode outwards. Again I was hit with a wave of hot air, but this time I also ended up getting hit with parts of rats as well.

“Ewww…” I spent a few seconds trying to rid myself of the remnants of exploded rats before I had to focus on the wave yet again. “God is this ever going to end?!”

We only have about an hour of battle left, Master. Probably…

Thanks.

Time was slowly crawling by as I focused on learning how to control my new skills. It felt like seconds were minutes. Thankfully I was improving… slightly. Probably. Despite that it still required an immense amount of focus, every so often a rat would hit my leg as it escaped towards the camp and caused the mana to go a little haywire. Sometimes it would explode others, it would just dissipate.

As I focused, the sounds around me felt further away, so I didn’t notice Rosalynn arriving behind me until she clapped one of her hands down on my shoulder. She was heavy handed as always, “Are you listening to me?” I heard her ask.

“Uh…” was all I managed. My gaze didn’t waver, I was locked in on the ball of fire as it floated further from us towards my target, the next group of rats. I sucked in a breath as I watched the edges of it distort.

“You- no right. - just send - I am not - Mia! I - ing to me? Hel -”

“I can’t… right now. Just one… second.” I replied to whatever she was trying to say. Focus. I needed to maintain an intense amount of focus in order to avoid some sort of disaster, or nothing. There was no telling what would happen if I lost control of it.

“So you - not listening at all.”

I started to get annoyed and the hot mana under my skin surged. My eyes widened as the ball of mana started to get larger. I could hear Rosalynn complaining behind me, but my own thoughts were louder than her. And also much less coherent. Unfortunately that also translated into my control over the mana, since as I thought it was getting too big it started to compress the extra mana even more.

Just as panic started to grip me I was spun around. “Shit. A-” A pop sounded and I was slammed into the ground. I could taste blood, Rosalynn shifted beneath me and I pushed myself up, “Dammit!” I groaned as I stood, my vision blurring, “I told you I needed a second!” I glared down at a very bewildered Rosalynn.

Aureus! Report!

No dead yet, several injured. A few look like they might not make it. Most of the wave is gone though so-

I cut him off, get the injured to the medics. Now. Then come back and defend the line.

“Noel?” I said as my ears rang.

“What just…” Rosalynn muttered. Or at least I thought that’s what she said I couldn’t really hear her. It looked like she said that, but I never really was that good at reading lips.

Noel appeared between the two of us and looked quite upset. I assumed he said his normal pleasantries, I wasn't paying much attention my head was throbbing and spinning and well just not all there.

“I… uh… honestly I’m not sure uh...” I blushed, why did I call him? Aureus is getting the injured… No he could use the help. “Actually I guess if you could get injured people and any severed limbs to the medics? Please?”

He hesitated and pulled on my arm. I shook my head which was a mistake. I cringed as it throbbed and my hearing warbled as the ringing started to die down. Finally, he gave me a curt nod and glanced back towards Rosalynn before disappearing again. She was just sitting and staring up at me, dumbfounded. I laughed bitterly. Her face flushed and nearly got as red as her hair, “Are you seriously laughing right now? What the fuck was that?!”

“That was you not listening.” I quipped back. “I told you I needed a second. Did you think I said that for no reason? There are lives at stake here.” I rubbed my temples in a failed attempt to reduce the pounding in my head.

“You just forcibly removed me from here earlier! You have no right to order me around!”

A twinge of guilt hit me, “I'm sorry I didn't listen and made you do something you didn't want to, but you're in charge of people here. You really think you would have been able to perform well if you were worried about your sister? It didn't look like it.”

“Ha! I’m in charge?”

“Uh, yeah. These are your people. You created this place. You protected them. So you should act like a responsible leader and think about things from a logical standpoint. Even if I was wrong, I just wanted you to take a break, but either way you can’t just start fights while we are already facing enough enemies. Couldn’t you tell I was trying to focus?”

“As if! Half the people here are already your people! I mean you sent your underlings around creating factions and of course they’re loyal to you so wouldn’t their groups be loyal to you as well? Not to mention the groups that joined later are already partial to you!”

“Is that what this is about? You feel like I’m stealing what you built? They’re people, Rosalynn. You can’t feel entitled to them just because you saved them, they have free will. If you want to be repaid for what you did then ask for it. If you don't want to take responsibility then don't.”

She just stared at me and I could see her fighting to keep her eyes from watering. She was pissed and crying while you’re pissed just makes you more pissed. I sighed and pain panged through my body, fuck the adrenaline is wearing off.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“I don’t think that is what it’s about. Plus most of the people who joined my faction were new. You hadn’t done anything for them yet, and they might’ve been able to get along on their own anyways. The people you’ve saved, the people who’ve followed you never left. I’m sorry your sister got injured and I know everything is hard. I'm sorry the other group left. You’re doing good on your own so don’t worry too much.” I reached out to her to help her up, but she just looked at the ground as her fist shook. Damn, she was still pretty pissed.

I pulled out my staff. I still had two charges of healing from Reid. I used one on myself and the other on her. The pain eased, but I wasn’t fully healed. A quick glance at my status window told me I had lost more than half of my health, but thankfully the spell healed twenty percent of the damage.

“Thanks.” She said quietly.

“No problem. This was partially my fault anyways.”

After getting up and straightening herself out she took a deep breath, “Sorry about that, I think I lost myself for a second.”

“It happens to the best of us. She’s all you have left right?” I doubted that she got over it, especially not that quickly, but if she wanted to move on that was fine with me.

“Yeah… well, we don’t know for sure… but our parents, there’s no way they could’ve…”

This time I slapped her on the back with a little added mana for good measure, “You guys do good taking care of each other. How is she?”

“She’ll be alright… She lost an eye and she’s gonna be stuck in bed for a while.”

“I’m sorry to hear that… Anyway I need to head to the infirmary, I’ll see you later. Plus I’ll be leaving soon so you won’t have to worry about my influence pretty soon.” I ran off without stopping to listen to her complaints, but I ended up being caught by a worse situation once I found Reid.

“What in the world did you do to your back? Oh your hair… you know how hard it’ll be to make sure this doesn’t scar?! Why didn’t you come here immediately?”

“Sorry… I just, it was mostly my fault so I wanted to make sure people got help.”

“You can do both, you think I wouldn’t know that you sent Aureus and Noel to get people here? You were just calming Rosalynn down weren’t you?”

“Noel!” I deflected, I wasn't really calming her down I just felt bad I wasn't sure if it was fine to do.

“Yes…?”

“You were eavesdropping? And gossiping! Don’t make me remove your shadows from my vicinity! Who ever heard of a gossipy assassin seriously so unprofessional.” I was half joking.

“Aw… how’d you know it was me?” He muttered as he disappeared again.

“It wasn’t just him. A lot of the patients that came in said they saw the two of you talking as you sent them away. I would’ve figured it out anyway.” Reid huffed.

We bickered back and forth as he worked on healing my burnt back, and we heard that the rest of the rats had been eradicated. If Caroline wasn’t the messenger it would have been a weight off my shoulders, but unfortunately I ended up with two people nagging me.

My clothes were sent with Caro to get fixed and I relaxed in the temple while Reid continued the treatment. The robes his group wore were actually decently comfortable. He continued to complain but at some point I drifted off.

“Hey, Boss?” Noel’s voice woke me up, I sat up in a stupor.

“Uh… huh? Yeah? Where?” I glanced around looking for him, but his face popped up into my view, suddenly taking me by surprise. “Gah! Noel why do you always… upside down? What?”

He was hanging from the ceiling. Part of him melded into the shadows in the corner of the room and I supposed that was how he was defying gravity. “You slept for a while, you missed the repopulation. The other areas of the maps opened early too.”

I furrowed my brows, how long had I slept?

[ Congratulations, a majority of those within this section of the Underhollow survived. As a reward extra areas of the map will be opened early, bonus XP will be given based on contribution, and the update will conclude. Enjoy the new features. ]

“What?? Majority? Did we lose some people?” I asked in a panic.

“Not many but yes, I don’t think any of them were because of that fight you and Rosalynn had.” Noel replied casually.

[ “Abandoned Bloodied Sword” smiles saying that it’s about time you woke up. ]

[ “Reflection of an Empty Throne” rolls his eyes complaining that it doesn’t matter since nothing much happened anyways. ]

[ “Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” urges to you to leave soon. ]

“How can I leave? I haven’t finished the quest.” I argued.

[ “Traveling Spring Painter” nods and states that it wouldn’t be bad to end the quest early. ]

[ “Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” disagrees and states that the quest had clearly defined rules and the time has yet to run out. ]

[ “Divine Hammer of Blessings” agrees with “Traveling Spring Painter” and motions to start a vote on ending the quest early as well as the determination of rewards. ]

“Wait, I still have time! This isn’t fair, I’ve worked hard, I shouldn't get a lower grade just because y’all want to end the quest now!”

[ “Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” argues that ending the quest now could help you avoid any unexpected events. ]

“Still…” I muttered. The GGC became silent and I sat up while I waited.

“Are you talking to your gods?” Noel asked from behind me.

“Oh… yeah we were talking about a quest I had.” I almost jumped when he appeared again, I had forgotten we were talking. “What did you wake me up for?”

“We need you for some stuff, you’ll be leaving soon so everyone wants to get this sorted as soon as we can.”

“I see, I’ll help out then.” I stood up and the large priest costume nearly fell off of my shoulders. It was put on backwards so that Reid could have easy access to my back. I grabbed at the robe in a panic to keep myself covered. I’d forgotten about my clothes. “What about Caro, did she finish my clothes?”

“I think she’s still working on them.” He walked over and helped me straighten out my robe and tied a sash around my waist before grabbing my hand and taking me through the shadows and into a meeting room.

“Mia! Are you feeling alright?”

“Oh we’ve lost her to Reid, she’s become a cultist!”

"Oh no, she's got her head on backwards. What a loss for our cult..."

“How’s your back?”

“Shut up, we need to get started soon.”

“You shut up, we only have so much time with her!”

“That’s exactly my point!”

There was a large group of people surrounding me and the conversations all blended together. I was still feeling a little off. “What did y’all need? What’s going on?”

“We need to discuss creating the guild.” Mateo stepped forward and ushered me to one of the tables.

“You could’ve done that without me though?” I responded confused.

The room erupted into loud protests and Mateo rubbed his temples, “I told you she was going to be like this.”

“Like what? What?” I was thrown from this abrupt change in events. One moment I was fighting a wave and accidentally injuring several people, the next I was getting healed and then I was drug here to discuss guilds?

“Boss, you’re the boss. Duh. Of course we need you before we can start on the guild.” Noel said as if it was the most obvious thing ever.

What am I a mafia don?

“But I’m leaving… Why would I…?” I trailed off, it sounded like they wanted me to start the guild as the guild master, but why would they when I was abandoning them here to go back?

“So what? You’re still you. We want you as a guild master for your benefit and ours!” Mateo argued.

I wrestled with the idea, I didn’t like being tied down like that. I felt comfortable with Noel and the Gallaghers, but everyone else… I wasn’t sure, I knew I wasn’t that great of a leader anyway. Plus it felt like all too much work.

“Just be a figurehead. Don’t think too much about it.” Caroline interjected, she likely saw the indecision on my face.

“What good would that be?” I replied wary.

“A guild with a guild master who has a dragon, hm I wonder how that would be helpful…” Mateo rubbed his chin with mock confusion.

“I get it, I get it, so you just want me as a guild master in name?” I replied pulling at my hair, which I was only just noticing was much shorter than it had been.

“Yeah, and help out when you can or if we need it… please?” Reid asked, putting on a very effective puppy dog face.

I sighed, it’s not like it’d hurt me, “Fine, I just need to create it right?”

“Yup, and we already decided I’ll be the Vice guild master since I have the largest independent group.” Mateo chimed in chipperly.

I eyed him suspiciously, “Is that a good idea? I mean he’d be the one in charge in that situation.” I asked pointedly towards Caroline.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be making decisions based on votes from a council of sorts. We already worked out all the details. If things get rough I’ll come crying so just create it.” She replied with a shrug.

“I’m hurt!” Mateo mimed wiping a nonexistent tear.

“Alright! Fine, what’s the name?” I rolled my eyes and looked across the group, but they all just stared at me expectantly. “No seriously, what’s the name? Naming things isn’t easy. You said you already thought everything out, you must have some ideas for the name right? … right?”

The only hill they'd ever die on together is that I should be the one to name it since it’s my guild. I gave up and spent the next several minutes trying to come up with something. Since it was a guild that was mine only in name I had a hard time. I tried to consider what the guild might focus on, what its goal would be or something. Anything. It was hard to just create a name out of nothing with no motivation. All I wanted was to create it and let them do whatever they wanted.

“Why are y’all making me do this?” I whined.

“Because you’re the boss you’ve got to be the one to name the company!” Noel spouted.

“Okay, but I’m not the one who will be running it so it’s hard for me to think of something.”

“Well it’s got to be the best since you’re the boss. Obviously.” He said matter of factly.

“Just name it something you’d like, whatever you want.” Caro added.

“Ugghhh” I groaned. Something I like? The best? We were all ants to those beings that were apparently in the sky, who cares if we’re the best down here? “Wait, what about something space related? Like ‘Zodiac’ or ‘Constellation’ or something? Maybe?”

“Eh, it doesn’t seem like you like it though?” Reid replied.

He was right, I liked the star concept but I didn’t like ‘Constellation’ or ‘Zodiac’.

“Then what about Nova? You basically created one and nearly killed yourself earlier.” Noel chimed in.

“What?! No!” I exclaimed.

“Sure, sounds better than the other two.” Caroline smiled as she agreed.

“I don’t want to name the guild after my mistake!” I argued.

“I thought you didn’t care about the guild?” Reid challenged.

“This and that are different! Wasn't I supposed to name it?” I protested.

It didn’t take long for ‘Nova’ to be born, I lost the fight. I was pleased to find out I could designate multiple people with different roles and permissions. I had a small revenge by designating Noel as ‘The shady little shit’. After an hour of discussion the guild was created and people were given their roles. They talked about the guild so seriously I almost felt bad about not participating. Almost.