Kiel ran back inside the cavern after seeing Cassandra had snuck back, sneaking behind even Edel, who for some reason didn't seem to have noticed her. Melissa chuckled when she saw him stumping his paws as he went to go grab Cass for the second time, "We aren't in that much of a rush, you know."

He looked at her confused. In his mind they had another half a dozen dungeons to complete.

Melissa started to explain when she noticed he stopped walking, "One less isn't much in the grand scheme of things. We've completed two in the same day before, right? Well, there are three remaining."

They'd managed to do two in a row before. Adding a third one didn't seem that difficult in comparison, especially after yesterday, "I was hoping to show off," he replied, "but I guess we can rest for a while longer."

Melissa returned back to reading her small map, sitting on top of her small backpack, "The next closest to us is actually close to where you fainted the previous day."

Kiel nodded, a weird premonition coming over him. He didn't like how close that brought the other dungeon to the dead forest, but then again, given how stable the space was inside the cavern and in the dungeon in general, he doubted it would be affected.

He took out a small foldable chair and set it next to Melissa. She was surprised for a moment until she realized the chair came from him. "I swear, you could rob us blind and we would never notice. I have a list with private libraries you should pay a visit though."

She laughed, but he seriously considered taking a look at that list once they returned.

In the meanwhile he tried to copy Edel, but there wasn't anything new to explore about this place. Edel on the other hand was leading Cassandra around in circles. The light blue glow of the moss gave a mystical, almost magical look to the otherwise dreary dungeon. He guessed that wasn't so much the case for the others where the moss was less prevalent, but for him it was beautiful.

Every time he thought about the dungeons, he couldn't help but find them more and more weird. He already had a few crazy ideas about their function.

Given how crazy the world was proving to be, the crazier the hypothesis, the more likely it was to be true, and he couldn't help but find this as funny as it was absurd.

Thinking about it, every time he killed a monster, inside or outside the dungeon, he gained essence. Using essence instead of ether caused injuries to his soul, but more of it made him stronger. And that was where the mystery begun because there was a difference between killing normal enemies and killing the boss of the dungeon.

And the biggest mystery of all, the dungeons themselves. Given that there weren't any dungeon cores to protect, the monsters within probably weren't a defense mechanism. And given the endless amounts of essence the dungeon seemingly gave out, and the system's touchiness when he cracked the space, the answer he was left with was the one that made the least amount of sense.

He had a sense of epiphany; dungeons were an essence generator!

He was so excited he practically screamed at Melissa over their bond, "Dungeons are an essence generator!" he said, and eagerly waited to see her reaction. When he saw her jaw hanging wide open, it brought him an endless amount of satisfaction.

"How did you come to learn all of that about essence?" she asked in return when her brain managed to process the information. Melissa had a sneaking suspicion that his information hadn't come from books.

Kiel scratched his neck. In the end, he confessed proudly, "Accidents!" he said, adding another bit a second later, "And lots of them."

Melissa laughed out loud, though she still spared a moment to glare at him. Kiel stuck his tongue out. He waited a moment, but didn't get the reaction he wanted. Maybe being a cat has its negatives.

He sat next to her, "By the way, is there another benefit to completing higher ranked dungeons?"

He had to ask, because he knew that there was no way the system would keep rewarding them for killing low level monsters in bronze-ranked dungeons. It would be nice if he was wrong about it, but there had to be thousands of bronze-ranked dungeons in the world and each one gave a third of a level-up in attributes.

"What are you talking about? People barely have a reason to visit bronze ranked dungeons after running through them once," she said, following his tail with her eyes, "You seem to be in a good mood."

Kiel rolled his eyes, but Melissa continued, "You may try to hide it, but tails don't lie!" she said, her tone quite serious. She broke first a few seconds later, and he meowed victoriously!

He didn't disagree with her, however. Instead, he stuck his tongue out.

She didn't get the gesture, and he shook his head in mild disappointment, "Anyway, about silver-ranked dungeons then?"

"Well, monster parts are more valuable, ether rich plants are plentiful and there are better paying quests to top this all off. Without higher ranked dungeons our city would have no alchemists, no blacksmiths and no sigil makers. We have two of them by the way."

He nodded in response and Melissa smiled again. There was a lull in the conversation after that as he couldn't find anything else to ask and Melissa didn't say anything more.

She sat next to him and they each enjoyed the silence of each other. Then she ambushed him by stretching her arm towards him and scratching his head behind the ears. He was startled, and a soft tingle ran through his body.

A weird noise left his throat and he realized he was purring.

He blushed at that, but he couldn't make it stop. The only positive was that she couldn't see him grow beet red.

My own body has betrayed me!

He turned to see what the others were doing in an effort to escape this predicament and his body fought against him to stay. In a small mercy, the others ignited his curiosity enough to overpower whatever sorcery was holding him back. Edel, had started to dig a hole in the middle of the cavern and Cassandra was standing by her side, cheering her on.

In order to dig, Edel had flooded her body with Ether, focusing most of it in her claws. Her eyes glowed slightly bluish from the ether, and he swore he could see sparks jumping from her fur.

"Wolf on a mission?" he sent her jokingly, but she nodded all serious. Going by how fervently she was digging through stone, a detail he felt he had to include, it made him all the more curious.

"What are you... doing?" he asked her while tentatively approaching the construction site.

Without taking a break, she sent him an image of a big large lizard falling into the pit. The pit seemed endless, and the lizard died after hitting the bottom and they got the reward. All of that was accompanied by an excited growl and a further increase in digging speed.

Her enthusiasm did not last for long, however. A cloud of dust resulted from digging into an increasingly tougher stone and she started to cough. Edel quickly jumped outside the pit, looking sincerely dejected.

When the dust settled down, Kiel went closer to take a peek. Sure enough in the middle of the cavern there was a two and a half meter hole, accompanied by a small mountain of rubble. He tried to whistle, and failed. His mouth was too different for that simple gesture. He shrugged and approached Edel. Before she started digging again, he tugged at her fur to grab her attention and pointed to the stalagmites.

He didn't want her digging and drowning in stone dust, that would be bad for her health.

Using the stalagmites in the other parts of the cavern was a better way to make her trap more lethal. The stalagmites weren't exactly the sharpest objects, but either one of them could fix that.

If he was being honest, he doubted the trap would actually work. If the dungeon could create monsters from scratch, it could fill a few holes. He didn't know its limits, but even so for the weakest level of dungeons it was too much. Then again, did it care?

"What do you think?" he asked Melissa.

"What do you mean, dungeons aren't intelligent," she answered as a matter of fact, "Dungeons are places of power. Besides, can you imagine how bad it would be to spend an eternity like that?" She got up from where she was sitting and Kiel stored the chair back inside his spatial storage. "I value my freedom too much to even comprehend something like that."

They continued talking for a while longer as Cassandra moved all over the dungeon, carrying stalagmites which Edel broke and sharpened.

In the few minutes Kiel had spent talking with Melissa, Cassandra and Edel had built a pretty darn good trap. Kiel decided to test it a bit and jumped inside. He couldn't help but laugh at Melissa's, Edel's and Cass's reaction as he narrowly avoided the now extremely sharp stalagmites. There was very little space to stand inside, but if there ever was a benefit to being tiny, this was its time to shine.

He pushed the spikes, not feeling them give any ground. When the few spikes he tested didn't fall, he debated putting more power into his paws. Edel actually screamed at him through their bond. It was a growling noise mixed with how she'd heard other people yell. It was weird, but it got the job done. Cassandra quickly said something to Melissa and she translated back.

"These break very easily, don't ruin it!" she said.

He was still tempted, but looking at Edel and Cassandra's excited faces, he put his paw back on the ground.

When they left, Edel was still sending him images about her trap, all while her tail was swinging fast enough to cause a small hurricane. She was annoying enough that he wanted to tease her. But not yet, not now... he would wait a day so it stung even more. He cackled, and the others turned to look at him.

He toned down the evil cat look after that.

Kiel was trying to make Edel use words instead of images, and instead of that, she managed to integrate smell into her communication. He didn't even begin to question how she managed that, but she sent him a smell that made him pause. The smell reminded him of home.

When he thought of home, he no longer thought of his parents. He didn't think of the few friends he barely hung out with. He didn't think of the house he stayed in his time as a university student. He thought of Melissa, Cass and Edel.

He continued along, his tail weaving slowly behind him.

A few minutes after that, he noticed he was a little out of breath. With how slowly he was walking, he found it strange. "Mel, how much till the next dungeon?" he asked while paying increased amounts of attention to his surroundings.

The first thing he noticed was the lack of other sounds. Animals avoiding an area was one thing, but insects? It didn't bring back good memories. His pupils glowed slightly as he increased the amount of power he put to Spatial Sense twice over. Melissa noticed the expenditure of ether while Edel saw his eyes.

"Not... too much... longer? Is something wrong, I've rarely see you spend this much ether." And she was right. Most of the time he used Spatial Shift and attacked with his body, which was fairly light on ether. Spatial manipulation depended on the scope, and Rend was left as the outlier.

"Nothing, I think." he replied. Space was normal, no matter what his instincts were telling him.

As they walked he went from feeling a bit out of breath to finding it hard to breathe. Not so much that it was a concern, but enough to be annoying.

Melissa then shook her head, "Now that we're talking about it, it has gotten a bit chilly." She looked at him again, and this time she noticed he wasn't breathing right, "We can go back you know. Get some better clothing and stuff." It was only the second dungeon they were visiting, and they hadn't done anything at the first. Sure it would feel a bit of a waste, but Kiel's health was more important to her.

It was Cassandra who put that plan to waste, "Oh come on, we can handle a bit of cold."

Melissa sighed and turned back to Kiel.

He felt mostly fine and didn't want to be the reason they missed another dungeon, so he turned to Edel. She shook her head animatedly and Cassandra made another comment, "Look at this cute face and tell me you can say no!" She pointed at Edel whom Kiel was certain was starting to regret replying. She turned her head and mimed biting Cassandra's finger.

Cassandra was startled and retracted her finger immediately. Edel looked so smug he wanted to tease her, while Cass looked betrayed.

Yeah, they didn't end up leaving.

A few minutes later, Melissa took a breath and rubbed her arms together, trying to warm up. "We should be close. Are you all alright?" she asked, to which he nodded. Edel was feeling better than ever, and as for him, his shortness of breath was a more annoying problem that he was getting used to.

As they continued walking, the chill became worse, enough so that he started to shiver too. The air was frigid, and Melissa and Cassandra were positively trembling now while Edel looked to be having the time of her life. Still, they were seconds away from leaving.

They probably would have if Cassandra hadn't noticed the dungeon entrance right in front of them and jumped in joy before shivering back down to depression.

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They entered the dungeon as fast as their legs could take them, finding shelter from the cold. And of course, the shortness of breath didn't leave him, because of course it wouldn't.

"That was quite something." Cass said as she slowly recovered. Melissa could only murmur something unintelligible in response.

About ten minutes later they started to move further inside the dungeon.

Edel walked ahead and the rest followed along.

He trotted next to her, "So, do you like the cold?" he asked in an effort to make small talk. It was a rhetorical question, because he already knew the answer. He looked forward to making snow angels with her when seasons changed. Hopefully winter would come soon and they could do just that.

Then again, there was no guarantee that seasons here worked the same way as they did back on Earth. Hopefully that didn't mean too much of a wait.

The first couple of minutes were similar to their first dungeon, no monsters making themselves visible. Kiel had started worrying it was another dud when they met their first monster a minute later. It was a silver haired monkey that stood uneasy on its two feet.

He was about to teleport next to it and finish it off, but the bad feeling he had about this place intensified twice over once he put that thought in his mind. He immediately aborted that course of action and warned Edel not to charge in recklessly either. Cassandra was the one who took the lead on this one while Melissa prepared an attack of her own.

Thankfully, however, Cassandra's headshot took it clean off the ground.

They leaned closer to the body of the dead monkey, and inspected it closely. The fact it'd barely reacted to their presence added to the weirdness of the dungeon. From up close, they couldn't see anything too different about the monster. Grey fur, spikey protrusions on its back, long sharp nails, the usual.

The pale skin of the corpse reminded him of the corrupted monsters in the dead forest, which was something that brought shivers to his spine. Then again, dungeon monsters often varied from their counterpart outside, and it could be just a uniqueness of this dungeon. He hoped it was a uniqueness of this dungeon.

The others were a little more apprehensive, "If this is truly a corrupted monster, why didn't it attack us?" Cassandra asked the group, with Melissa dutifully translating it to him.

He shrugged, "It might be just a coincidence, dungeon monsters are weird in their own way. And besides, I didn't notice anything weird in the space around us. Space is like usual," he gave his own thoughts on the matter.

If he was being honest, sunk cost fallacy warred with his common sense telling him to go back already. Unfortunately for the latter, the former won. It was a bronze-ranked dungeon, and at this point he was confident he could complete one of them on his own.

Nothing seemed to be going according to plan. As a concession, if they felt that the dungeon got the slightest bit more dangerous they would turn back and leave. But they were adventurers, and in spirit of the name they couldn't leave just because they encountered a weird monster.

They continued like that, meeting more monsters that refused to move. Melissa got two of them while Cassandra got the third. He held Edel back, not letting her engage with the enemies unless they couldn't help it. Just because they were rushing into danger didn't mean they couldn't be smart about it.

After the third monster they killed, his body started to feel hot. It wasn't too bad, only a mild discomfort, but combined with the shortness of breath he was starting to get really tired of this place. He couldn't be certain that it wasn't himself that had gotten sick, but the sudden nature of his situation made him suspicious. Something was wrong with the dungeon itself and the more frozen monsters they killed, the more he grew certain of it.

Edel was on edge, and her tail not moving like it had before. Every step of hers was dead silent and exact.

And of course in the silence, the others noticed him breathing heavily, "Are you tired?" Melissa asked as the rest turned to look at him. He hadn't noticed when he had started to pant, but no, he wasn't feeling tired. He shook his head, feeling the air cool his fur for a brief moment and realizing he was actually burning up.

In response to that, he sacrificed his sense of smell, taste and touch to reinforce his vitality. The change was immediately noticeable, as he felt himself breath a little easier from that. Sacrificing parts of his perception wasn't as effective as he would like, but it did the trick. The result was definitely better than he'd been expecting at least. To add to that, the change was near instantaneous, and he felt like he could reverse it with the same manner of ease.

Locking himself out of the skill would probably take a lot more. But it boosted his confidence knowing that he could push his skill further if he wanted to.

As they approached the end of the dungeon cavern, some of the monsters had started to move slowly, though not fast enough to reach them before getting a fireball and an arrow to the face. They were like slow walking zombies, barely even focusing on them.

He tried not to think about it too much, opting to make idle talk with the others to keep up his spirits. Turns out he wasn't the only one spooked out by the dungeon.

"I'm not lying, there really was a hunter named Goblin Slayer, first and last name. He killed only goblins too!"

Edel and Melissa were looking at him with suspicion.

"Ah, you're thinking too much about it," he said, feigning hurt. He wasn't able to fool Edel, but he got her mind off the eerie dungeon. Well, it hadn't been too hard, not with the enemies barely moving and the other two doing most of the work. Meanwhile, he also found that slowing his breathing helped deal with the overheating. Forcing himself not to take deeper, faster breaths when he so desperately wanted to was hard, but he didn't feel any worse for it. That was good, because as they killed more monsters, he would have started to boil alive without that.

That said, both the number of monsters, as well as their behavior was weird. There were not nearly enough monsters inside the dungeon, and when they started encountering dead monsters, they had to do a double take. It was possible that someone had gone through this dungeon before them and left a trail of poison behind him, but... not likely.

The heat in the rooms with the dead monsters was almost unbearable and Kiel had to take a moment to himself. Slowing his breathing even further helped, but he continuously slipped. His body wanted to breathe, and although he didn't feel like he would pass out, his mind was convinced of it.

He made the decision to start sacrificing strength on top of the other senses, boosting his vitality even further. He didn't take the entirety of his strength for this, as he needed to leave something behind to be able to walk, but he took a decent chunk. Immediately his body started feeling better and he went to his previous rhythm.

He didn't say anything and continued walking. Going by the distance they'd covered they should be close to the boss room either way.

Before that, however, he got a surprising message from the system,

You have tempered your body with essence; Body attribute has increased by one.

Nothing changed after the message, but when he opened his status screen, sure enough Body was sitting at forty-eight. He jumped in excitement, scaring Melissa who turned to look at him accusatorily, "Sorry, I got an awesome system message!" he said, "Got more questions than answers, but I guess that's per course for the system."

They continued walking as he explained the system notification he received. A minute later they found themselves outside the cavern, but before he could walk inside, Melissa stopped him, "You're shivering!"

He looked at himself and noticed that he indeed was shivering. The air inside the cavern had gotten cold again, but he couldn't feel anything with how he was burning up. His body, however, was another story.

"You're shivering too, you know," he said in response. That said, he didn't ignore the warning signs. Even though he didn't feel any worse than before, he knew from documentaries that what his body felt wasn't always indicative of his actual condition.

He'd already boosted his vitality to unprecedented levels, so either he was missing something, or his body wasn't meant to survive this much essence. He hadn't expected his new title to become a problem, and he knew far too little to know why.

The others only felt a little cold, why was he the only one affected by essence this much?

The system as if it was listening, answered with another pop-up.

You have tempered your body with essence; Body attribute has increased by one.

Seeing the message appear again filled him with more dread than excitement. Okay... not good.

He tried another thing. If vitality alone wasn't enough, his body was the problem. He played around with Unbound Adaptation, switching part of the enhancement over to endurance and toughness, boosting his resilience instead of his vitality. The process was a bit taxing on his will, but the end result was definitely worth it. Given how vitality worked, he'd basically been walking naked in fire and increasing his body's ability to heal. Unbound Adaptation resisted the sudden change, but it was nothing he couldn't sweep with a little use of his will.

Enhancing endurance was like taking a shot of black coffee. As for toughness, he couldn't feel too much of a difference, but from what Melissa was saying, he'd stopped shivering. Seeing how she hadn't, however, he removed a thicker t-shirt he'd stuffed inside his spatial storage.

Melissa looked grateful while Cassandra was speechless.

"None for me?" She said, looking between him and Melissa for help in translating.

He laughed inside his breath and removed a second shirt for her.

They stepped inside the dungeon cavern and the cold returned in full strength. It seemed to balance out the heat inside his body but in turn it took a heavier toll on him. He wouldn't be able to stay inside this place for any long period of time, and judging by the look of the others, neither could they.

A few meters ahead were the bodies of half a dozen monkeys, all pale white, and in the middle of them all, the boss was still alive. The almost two-meter tall monkey was completely white, its pale skin colder than most dead bodies he'd witnessed. Yet, it breathed.

Judging by its state, probably not for long, but it was a chance to complete the dungeon. The monster growled as soon as it saw them, the first real reaction they'd gotten from anything here, but even as it struggled it was unable to approach them at anything faster than a snail's speed.

After two steps it fell on one knee, barely holding itself with its right arm.

He shared a look with Edel and the others. Melissa rolled her eyes and fired a fireball large enough to cover the entire cavern from top to bottom. The heat strangely didn't do overpower the cold. The heat was just along for the ride, a lesser part of a grander equation.

And an even smaller part of the equation was the monster that refused to burn. Melissa increased the power she put in her skill, concentrating the flames even further, but the shadow of the monkey was still visible.

It was at that moment Edel decided to join. Lighting flowed within the currents of fire, spinning faster and hitting harder. The entire cave shook, and yet the monster's shadow was still there.

Immediately after the two of them ran out of ether, Cassandra let loose an arrow that seemed to defy logic, shooting out like a mini railgun. The arrow pierced through the smoke and when the dust settled, the body of the boss was revealed.

A small hole was where its heart should be, burnt skin and scars adorning its body everywhere else. The monster dropped dead, and... nothing happened. The system offered no rewards and for a moment they entertained the idea the monster was still alive.

With the monster's death, the cavern's temperature became tolerable. At the same time, however, the air started to feel like it was pressing down on him. He was used to the absurdness of the dungeon so it didn't take his attention.

There was something else that managed that.

The dungeon shuddered, and his Spatial Sense went haywire trying to process the sheer amount of changes happening every fraction, of a fraction, of a fraction of a second.

Between the cracks he could see the foundation of the dungeon. Ether transformed and vanished, supporting a change he couldn't detect. Ether Sense, a skill that always worked on the background stretched as he pushed it with all his will trying to follow the trail of changes. He had the feeling that if he didn't take advantage of this opportunity, he would not be able to see something like this for a long time, if ever.

He could feel the dungeon fighting, a fierce fire against a cold so dense reality caved before it.

It wasn't ether, it was something stronger, more primal.

"What are you doing idiot, run!" Melissa shouted when she saw him standing still.

He was woken up from his trance, finding a few cracks next to him and growing closer. Melissa sighed in relief as he woke up and started running immediately after. Cassandra took her hand and pushed her even faster.

It seemed as if that was what the cracks were waiting for, because immediately after all hell broke loose.

Kiel split his concentration, half of his mind going to running and the other half in making sure the cracks didn't devour them in their entirety. He should have been able to close these cracks in an instant, but these cracks seemed different, more... permanent. All he could do was slow them down as he ran to catch up to the others.

Then, things got worse.

Space cracking was one thing, a known problem which by now he was almost an expert in solving. With Spatial Sense he could see the world around him change, space elongating and shifting as cracks formed where geometry started to make no sense.

He found himself from a few meters behind, to hundreds away from Melissa and the rest. He took that change in stride, noting the others seemed to have taken dozens of steps, traveling a distance far greater than their legs should have taken them.

They hadn't teleported away. Instead, space had pushed them forward like a wave going along with the current. Their steps instead of changing their relative position in space by one, did so by ten, or fifteen. He couldn't explain everything he saw, yet the way they moved in those few seconds filled him with ideas on how to improve his own skill.

But that was for later. He cut through the ever changing space, jumping a few meters at a time and rapidly closing the distance. Accuracy and efficiency were sacrificed for the sake of speed, and with each consequent teleport he expended more ether. Before he reached the others, he felt his body straining with how much ether he was using. In just a few seconds he spent almost forty percent of his ether, teleporting more than his feet touched the ground.

He jumped above and below the waves of spatial change, avoiding cracks as he randomly appeared next to them.

He was so well versed with the skills he used that he barely registered he'd been using Spatial Rend, Spatial Sense, Spatial Manipulation and Spatial shift at the same time. The skills blended together and he felt something tug at him. That feeling disappeared just as quickly as a feeling of dissonance rang in his head.

He felt a pang of loss from the ringing in his head, but it passed quickly again. Maybe if he had more time to dwell on it, he would be sad. In this case, he was thankful he couldn't do that.

He reached the others just as the spatial instability ended and another one begun. This one was a lot more dangerous as space seemed to be eroding all around them. He had no idea what to do about that impossibility, so he threw as much ether as he could to keep their bubble of reality intact, which was easier said than done. His heart beat with adrenaline as they narrowly escaped deletion.

The others could sense something was wrong, but they couldn't begin to guess how bad it was, and that was probably for the best.

With their speed, they managed to exit the dungeon after another three minutes of running, in which they encountered another spatial erosion which he handled the same way.

When they got out of the dungeon they didn't stop running for a good while. The frigid air was a cold blessing if anything else, the biting air pushing him to go further despite feeling like a wrung out rag.

As an added bonus, the space outside the dungeon had now started growing weaker. The cold air seemed to help that process, and in a few days he knew how this place would end up like.

They ran until they could walk no more.

Melissa and Cassandra collapsed on the ground mid run, and Edel stopped the very next moment, looking at them over. He stopped too when he realized the others had, realizing that his brain felt mushy. The moment he stopped running the world started spinning and he almost threw up.

His hearing as well as sense of smell and touch weren't fully back, and he was actually a bit surprised as he didn't remember releasing them in the first place. He still felt hot despite the frigid air, but being outside the dungeon that was fading quickly.

With the help of Edel, they picked themselves up from the ground. Thankfully the area of effect didn't extend too much outside the dungeon and five minutes later they were outside this part of the forest.

Kiel collapsed again, and since he was next to Edel, he went in for healing cuddles. His heart was still beating like a racing car, but his body had blown a gasket. He still felt pain radiating from what was affecting him inside the dungeon as well as a small bout of nausea from ether exhaustion.

On the other hand, misery loved company and aside from Edel the others were with him.

Melissa was never the most athletic of the group and Cassandra had been practically carrying her as they ran. They were both equally exhausted, and he couldn't help but doubt they would be getting up any time soon.

Snuggling against Edel's fur, Kiel vowed to let nothing separate them.

That vow didn't last for long as none of them was planning on camping outside the city after that.

His legs were filled with cuts and bruises. He could feel small spikes of pain erupting from his body every time his paws touched the ground.

It was apparently bad enough that Edel picked him up by the scruff of his neck and carried him the rest of the way. She wouldn't take no for an answer, but that didn't stop him from pouting in what was essentially a different version of a princess carry.

Melissa fed him a healing potion in the meanwhile, "It's not poison..." she said exasperatedly, "Just drink it already!" or at least she tried to.

Thankfully after that Edel let him walk on his own.

His vitality already felt stronger than before the dungeon, so he knew he would heal quickly. Actually, his vitality felt more than simply stronger. It was as if he'd gained another ten points in body, but he knew that wasn't the case.

If there was a limit to training the sub-aspect of vitality, he was probably close to reaching it.

He didn't know when they reached the city, only that he woke up the next day on his bed in Melissa's house.

Good job half-dead yesterday me. I don't know how you got us in bed, but really, good job.

As for the city... it had seen better days.