Am I dead?

Jessica's consciousness was in darkness, slowly sinking. Memories of her life were rising up from below as bubbles. The good and the bad. Happiness and sadness. Meetings and partings.

Yet she felt strangely peaceful.

So tired… Falling asleep like this might not be so bad…

A memory bubble floated before her, showing the face of a smiling boy.

Tim! No, no yet. I must not die here. If I die, who does he have left? I cannot die yet!

Jessica struggled and in the darkness, she saw light. She desperately tried to grab that light.

Then a hand reached out from the blinding light to grab hers, pulling her. The hand belonged to someone with a familiar face, her husband. How she longed to see that face again. Tears were falling like crystal droplets.

The next thing she knew, she wasn't looking at her departed husband but at a canopy of indigo leaves.

"Ah, you're awake. The worst has passed then, but you should take it easy. Here, drink this."

Beside her, there was a youth. His name was Avel if she remembered correctly. They fought together to defeat the plague monster. She hadn't talked with him much. His hand was glowing with a warm blue glow that Jessica recognized as a healing Arte. Feeling her throat parched, she accepted the water pressed to her lips. It tasted honey-sweet.

"A-are we-?"

"We won, yeah. The monster is dead. We're on our way back to Liapris but things didn’t exactly go according to plan… You pulled through but the other guy doesn't seem to be as lucky."

There were two more bodies beside her. One had a white cloth on her face, while the other was on death's door, the Level 4 elf. He was telling Croix something with whatever time he had left.

Three elves came with them to subjugate the Foulfly. One had fallen in the Cradle of Serenity as the Biome was collapsing after the battle. They had no time to retrieve the elf's body. One elf had died from the poison after the escape and the Level 4 elf looked like he was about to follow in his footsteps.

The poison was simply too lethal for the elven kind.

"I leave… Liapris… my homeland… to you…"

The elf's artery had blackened and it showed on his skin. Blood was coming out of his nose and eyes.

"Yeah. We will bring peace to Liapris. I promise," Croix swore.

"The ancestors… chose… well…"

With a weak smile, the Level 4 elf breathed his last. Croix lowered his head for his passing. The pain of loss engulfed Jessica as well.

"Ukesh, Iydiken, Revilo… May your spirits find peace," Jessica prayed to the Goddess.

It didn't take long until Jessica fell asleep again.

***

Croix and company weren't located too far from the elf village but they were in no hurry to go back. Firstly, like the elves, they got poisoned and were similarly sick. They needed to recuperate. Also, Croix needed time to plan. The three elven warriors all lost their lives, furthermore, the Cradle of Serenity was lost to oblivion. Although the Foulfly was no more, this was far from a clean job. Who knew how the elves of Liapris would react?

Badly, Viers predicted. A thought that Alfred and the rest shared.

Thankfully, it was not all doom and gloom. The soul of the elf elder was the key and Viers knew it. The conversation he had with the soul of the dead was illuminating. Of course, the other members didn't know what Viers was doing. He looked like he was meditating, circulating his cultivation to combat the poison in his system like the rest of them.

A few hours later, night had fallen on their camp. Viers' condition was the most fit, followed by Boram, Croix, then Alfred. The relatively fresh injury on the Level 4 darkness Pathseeker didn't react well with the poison, while the Level 1 Croix got his super strong shield magic item. Boram's constitution was not found wanting while Viers' who had the lightest injury and healing factor had already made a complete recovery in a matter of hours.

Which was why he was the only one taking up watching duty.

On a separate note, Jessica was even worse than Alfred. Without Viers' aid, she would have died. The mysterious man's Arte was not so simple.

Viers was sitting by the fire while communicating with the elder elf soul when he heard someone's footsteps.

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"You should be sleeping," he said without turning around.

"I already slept plenty. Now I can't. May I?" Jessica asked.

Viers responded by moving over to the left to make room for Jessica on the log. The two kept silent for a time, with the sound of crackling fire and the hoot of night owls for company.

"Thank you for covering me," Viers said first.

"Don't mention it. Thank you for healing me," Jessica replied.

She felt it was her role, since like the mysterious attacker, she also thought Viers was an offense-focused lightning mage with flimsy defense.

A couple tens of seconds later, while Viers was thinking how to take the story from there, he heard a chuckle. A cynical, self-deprecating chuckle.

"Forgive me, I wasn't laughing at you. Avel, right? I'm laughing at myself."

Jessica was a mother. She felt her only reason to live was to protect her son. She came to Liapris to heal the wounded Tim. Thanks to the friendship token, the elves allowed her passage and the healing Tim required. Charles, who had accompanied them on the road, went back to Ebon Wall City after they were safe.

Even with the help of the elves, Tim needed time. It was then the epidemic started to spread in Liapris. As a human with stronger resistance to the sickness, Jessica volunteered to give her aid in combating the frequent monster attacks.

Tim was almost completely healed and the Foulfly was vanquished. The question was, where do they go from here? With the friendship token, the elves' stance toward her was somewhat favorable. They told her she could stay with Tim if she wanted but their way of life was too different. Liapris was also very isolated. She thought it might not be the best environment for her son. She couldn’t return to Ebon Wall City either. There was nothing else for them there.

They had to go somewhere but the world was so dangerous. Even a place like Liapris, under the protection canopy of a Level 5, was not entirely safe. What about her? She wasn't an exceptional Pathseeker. How could she protect Tim? Just like this time, when she was brought close to death's embrace just by participating. What if next time was truly the end? What of Tim? She wasn't afraid of her death, but the death of her son, or leaving her baby boy alone in this world terrified her to no end. Should she just give up on the Path of Power and stay with Tim? That choice also carried risk, as the events in Liapris and Ebon Wall City had shown her.

What can she do?

Where does she go from here?

Those two very human questions made Jessica laugh mockingly at her own powerlessness.

"I'm just soaking in how small I am on the scale of things. The Pathseeker dilemma, I can stay near the bottom of the Path of Power and hope the earth does not swallow me, or climb higher and hope the sky does not strike me down. I'm not afraid of my death… but I cannot die. Not yet."

Yet what choice is there?

"There's also the matter that I am a body Pathseeker, the weakest of all Pathseeker types. If I am earth, then I should have been able to block that spider. With fire I can burn it. As wind I can move quickly enough to dodge. If I'm lightning then I can attack devastatingly like you. If I…"

With each example, Jessica clenched her fists in frustration until she realized and relaxed them.

"Forgive me, I do not mean to nag at you. An old woman's whining is an ugly thing. Excuse me."

Jessica rose up and was about to get back to her tent. Her back looked small and lonely, like she shouldered the weight of the world.

"Spar with me."

Jessica turned. "What did you say?"

"Spar with me. Right here, right now," Viers already on his feet, cracking his fingers.

"Here? Now? Eheheh," Jessica chuckled. She hadn't recovered. She could barely walk. "I appreciate the offer, but I-"

Viers threw a bead on the ground and they were enclosed in a magical bubble, preventing the escape of sound and magical energy. He did this so he wouldn't wake up Croix and the others. After setting up the stage, Viers ignited his aura. His absolute best utilizing his entire cultivation.

Jessica took a sharp breath. The volume, the quality, even the dimension. Even in her best condition she didn't think she would have any chance of winning. Never did she think this Avel guy was so strong. She thought the most dangerous of the bunch was the Level 4 but now she thought she was sorely mistaken.

The feeling of oppression that almost crushed her rescinded and Viers slowly lowered his aura until he didn't give off any like before.

Such precise control.

That alone spoke volumes of his skill.

"We will spar without using Victa or Arte, just our fighting skills. Also, I will stop my blows short. Your goal is to land a single clean strike on me."

Viers took a battle stance, still barehanded. From Jessica's perspective, a body Pathseeker who delved into the world of martial arts, that stance did not belong to amateurs. Perhaps she was wrong in assuming the youth in front of her to be a mage-type combatant.

"...What are you-"

Viers pulled a white card from his inventory item. Jessica gasped because she recognized it. She had the same card in her possession, given by Kira.

"That is-! …How do you have that card? Do you know Kira?"

"Let's just say he and I are fellows who grow up at the same place, who learn from the same teacher."

Since Kira was Viers' alternate identity, same as Avel. His depiction was actually pretty accurate.

"I've heard about you from him," Viers said. Which was once again, technically correct. "This is an opportunity, Jessica."

Jessica's brain was still trying to piece things together but Viers didn't wait.

"You are lost. It could happen to everyone in our trade. What you see in front of you is a lodestar."

"Lode… star…"

A guiding light.

"You can back away or move towards it. The choice is yours. But I'll say this. Some opportunities may never come again no matter how long the wait. Steel yourself."

Jessica perspired cold sweat. Was it from fear or something else? She subconsciously felt her next action would take her life to a very different destination.

She closed her eyes and saw the face of Tim who had been burned behind her eyelids. When she opened her eyes again, they shone with purpose. She threw off her coat and prepared for battle.

"Jessica Welsh, Level 3 middle Pathseeker. Here I come."

Viers smiled.

"Call me Avel, for now… Level 3 peak. Whenever you're ready."

Jessica kicked the ground and launched forward.