Charles’s heart slammed in his chest despite how calm he appeared to be on the outside.

They were walking on a stone path toward some kind of ancient ruins from the first Demon

“Man, training was rough,” someone complained to his side.

Charles resisted the urge to punch the person in the face. Instead, he smiled. “Well, we get better when we train. I think it’s a great use of our time.”

“Yeah, I guess,” the person said before falling back.

Dorian jogged up to Charles. “Training problems?”

Charles glanced at her.

Dorian was an enigma to him. Granted, she was an enigma to most people. Was she on his side? Was she on Ezra’s side? He was about 90% sure they’d been hanging out in that hole in the ground. The only reason he didn’t charge in there was because he didn’t want to risk Ezra pulling another trick out of his pocket. Charles was lucky that he’d seen the trick before with the Grimwolf. If not for that, he would’ve been too slow and gotten crushed.

His arm still felt numb, even after having received healing. The medic was very confused as to how he’d been injured. That was an interesting conversation.

Charles realized that Dorian was still waiting for an answer. He nodded.

“Yeah,” He glanced back to see if anyone was listening in. “These people just don’t take this very seriously, you know?”

“That was one of the few good things about Ezra,” she said. “He definitely took leveling up and grinding deadly serious.”

Charles turned his head up.

“It was virtually his only positive characteristic,” he said. “But sure.”

Dorian skipped ahead for a bit, then turned around and looked at Charles.

“Well, do you feel prepared to face down this boss?”

“Telekinesis level seventy does sound scary,” he said. “But I have full confidence in myself. Plus, with you backing me up? You and your weird teleportation stuff should be able to bail us out in the worst-case scenario.”

Dorian smirked and walked backward.

“Don’t get overconfident. I hope that my abilities never fail, but I have cooldowns just like everyone else here, and you never know what could happen.”

Charles was about to respond when he caught sight of Synica out of the corner of his eye. She was walking ahead, continuing to guard for any would-be attackers. To her side, Idia was leaning back, looking bored.

Suddenly, Synica stopped.

“Charles, please ready your group for combat. We’re almost there.”

Charles’s eyes widened, and he checked the information crystal. It was just up ahead. He held out his hand, summoning his straight razor. To his right, Dorian’s rapier appeared in her grip.

Dorian’s eyes were slower, more deliberate. Like Ezra’s eyes, Charles noted.

Synica stepped to the right. “I will intervene if someone is on the verge of death, but other than that, you will be alone. I wish you luck.”

Charles nodded and walked forward.

Up ahead, a stone surface was arranged into the shape of looping circles. The expanse was huge, easily half the size of a football stadium. Charles’s footsteps clacked against the stonework. Instantly, random bricks started to shiver and shake from their placement. Charles looked left and right, searching for the enemy. Fear spiked up his veins before he clamped down on it.

Then, the bricks exploded out of the ground, soaring upward. Ten launched toward Charles.

Charles’s Dexterity kicked in, and he jumped out of the way. One brick soared by his head, shaving it just a bit. For a moment, Charles lay on the ground, and then he pushed himself up.

To the side, Dorian dodged, a smirk on her face.

Charles looked back toward his classmates. “Find where the enemy is!”

His classmates broke off. They were a bit sluggish, confused—but they were at least moving around, which was better than Charles had expected.

Then, the trees started ripping themselves out of the ground, attacking his classmates. They were reduced to headless chickens, running around like idiots.

Charles cursed.

Where was the enemy?

“Dorian!” he said. “Plan!”

Dorian narrowed her eyes. “I can’t find it, it’s invisible to my tracking.”

Go figure.

One of the skills in Thřuba’s arsenal was something called [Disable]. Could that be what was going on? He dodged another attack.

“Dorian, try to use one of your teleports!”

Dorian looked at him with a confused look, then nodded. She raised her hand skyward—

And nothing happened

Her face paled.

“I—I can’t use it!” she said. “It’s not working!”

“Don’t panic!” he said.

Dorian gritted her teeth, tightening her grip on her weapon.

“How did it know to target me!?” she said.

She jumped out of the way of an attack. A loose rock flew at her head, and she threw her sword up, parrying the blow. A whirling noise caught Charles’s attention. He turned to the side and saw something that made his jaw drop.

A massive tornado of bricks and twigs twirled toward Charles and Dorian.

Charles broke off to the right, dashing through a weak spot in the hailstorm of stone.

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To the left, Dorian tried to do the same thing, but she wasn’t fast enough. A loose stone impacted her head, and she fell over limp.

Charles’s eyes widened and he ran toward Dorian.

But something was already standing over her, a creature with long, spindly fingers, a stretched-out face, and a slumped back. It grabbed her, then—

There was a flash of light, and it was gone.

Charles blinked.

“Shit.”

Idia raised an eyebrow as he looked at the disaster. “What a mess. You shouldn’t have let them fight the boss monster.”

Synica didn’t look in his direction.

“It would’ve been pointless if they needed my help for something like this,” she said. “Besides, Dorian was kidnapped, not killed. This isn’t over.”

Idia crossed his arms. “Why do you think it took her?”

“Insurance. It’s just like the battle of Cańae, remember that?”

“I remember that I got stabbed in the chest and had to be rushed to the backlines instead of getting to fight.”

Synica sighed.

“They took an entire division hostage,” she said. “It was a great embarrassment for the marshal since he was personally leading the operation. He kept it quiet, I’m not surprised that you don’t know about it.”

“What happened to the division?”

“The Grand Marshal refused to bargain with the Demon Lord and sent in a team of Otherworlders to try to infiltrate the enemy base. The Demon Lord had the entire division executed for the insult.”

Idia laughed.

“Hah! Idiot. It’s surprising that Otherworlders failed, though,” he said.

“You’d be surprised,” Synica said. “Otherworlders have so much natural power, and it comes so easily to them that they usually end up thinking of themselves as invincible. Why do you think the training doctrine is like this? I disagree, but there is a rationale behind it.”

Idia grunted.

“Makes sense, I guess. What happened to that team of Otherworlders?”

“They were sent in to try to assassinate the Demon Lord.”

“I presume they failed?”

“Of course.”

Ida rolled his eyes. “Typical. So you’re thinking this batch might be the one?”

Synica snorted.

“I think the Otherworlder project was a foolish decision from the outset, but that is something our queen would kill me for saying. Or, at the very least, I would be demoted even further.”

Idia’s smile turned sleazy. “Oh, so I suppose you don’t want me telling the queen about that little comment?”

“Feel free to try, Idia.”

Idia tried to keep up his smile, but a droplet of sweat showed that he wasn’t quite as non-chalent as he appeared to be.

“…right.”

Synica looked over at Charles.

“Anyway, Charles has potential, but I’m far more interested in the one that ran.”

Idia groaned. “You’re overthinking it, woman. He’s just another traitor.”

Synica didn’t respond, merely focusing on Charles.

“Charles has similar potential,” she said. “But there’s something else in his eyes that concerns me.”

Idia glanced at Charles. “Oh?’

Synica continued to watch him slowly.

“Charles believes in his own sense of justice, and that is a terrible trait for a man with power to possess.”

Charles looked off in the distance, then reached for the information crystal. He nodded to himself.

----------------------------------------

Ezra had watched the entire battle from start to finish. Of course he had. And what was worse was that he couldn’t do a thing. He knew he was outmatched. Was this seriously the end of their journey? After so much success, after so many victories, he’d be stopped by some goddamn telekinetic creepypasta? Ezra tore his eyes away and hid behind the bush. Yuki was shaking her head while Pete was shivering uncontrollably.

“Poor Dorian,” Yuki said. “I didn’t really like her, but no one deserves to be kidnapped.”

“Dorian is a prick,” Ezra said. “But she’s done us a good turn—even if it was for her own personal reasons.”

Yuki was quiet for a moment.

“We need to help her,” she said.

“What?” Ezra’s eyes shot over to her. “Are you serious?”

Yuki nodded.

“Dead serious.”

Pete’s hands shook, his grip on his bow loose.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea, Yuki,” Pete said.

Yuki slammed her palms into the ground.

“That’s not the point!” she said. “She helped us, you said so yourself, Ezra! She needs to be helped back.”

“And what would you suggest we do?” he said. “Run in and get ourselves killed? Hell, how will we even find her? Think about it, Yuki, it’s hopeless.”

Yuki reared back her body and her lips quivered. Her eyes teared up.

“Are you kidding me!? What happened to the bullheaded Ezra who fought against monsters three times his size? Who never backed down in the face of challenge? Who—“

“Yuki!” Pete said. “Calm down! You’re gonna get us caught!”

Yuki shut her mouth. She paused.

“Are you a coward, Ezra?”

----------------------------------------

The group unrolled their bedrolls in silence. No one was willing to say a single word. Yuki kept shooting glares at Ezra whilst Pete avoided both their gazes. Charles had long since moved on ahead, presumably on some mission to save Dorian. It would probably fail. Nothing had significantly changed. Charles had admitted his abilities were limited while the rest of the classmates were functionally useless. Their only hope was if Synica stepped in, but that didn’t seem likely given what he knew about the kingdom’s methods.

Ezra went to bed that night, his mind empty and thoughtless.

Then he opened his eyes.

He was having that dream again. The one where he was in a dark void with nothing but a white light in the distance. This time, he was closer, and in fact, he was getting even closer with each passing second.

The light got brighter and brighter.

He pulled his hands up to shield his eyes. After a few minutes of nothing happening, he took his palms away from his face.

It was a white void, not dissimilar to the black one. He looked from left to right.

“There you are,” A voice said.

Ezra turned behind himself to see where the voice was coming from. He jumped backward.

It was a spider twice his size, with multiple eyes staring down at him. A large red hourglass symbol was on its back, similar to that of a black widow spider. Unlike the black widow, this spider’s hourglass symbol was far more stylized, made up of frills and twirls like an artist had designed it.

Ezra blinked.

“What the f—“

“Silence.”

It was a feminine voice, high-pitched and cold. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, yet Ezra got the feeling that it was coming from her.

“To be quite frank, I’m rather irritated at the moment,” The voice said. “I begin to gain awareness, and all I can see is that my wielder is an idiot who’s unable to make use of my power.”

Ezra blinked.

“What?”

The spider… rolled its eyes? Ezra wasn’t quite sure how a spider could do that, but that’s what it did.

“Think, Ezra. Your weapon fights with needle and thread. What am I? What is this creature you see before you?”

Ezra was quiet for a moment.

“Wait, but—“

“Did they not tell you that spirits resided within the weapons?” she said. “Come now, Ezra.”

Ezra stared up at the giant creature. What on earth was she talking about? Spirits, weapons, what did that have to do with her—

Ezra’s eyes widened to the size of saucerplates.

“Oh my goodness, you’re my weapon.”

“You’re so slow,” the spider said. “How did I end up bonded to you, honestly?”

Ezra blinked, then held up his hand.

“Hold on,” he said. “I have so many questions—“

“And you shall receive no answers. With every moment I speak to you, the connection weakens. You are not here to talk, you are here to listen.”

Ezra clenched his jaw.

“Fine,” he said.

“Good. Ezra, you have avoided [Bind]. Why?”

Ezra narrowed his eyes. “Because it just does the same thing as [Restrain]. Why would I care?”

The spider groaned.

“You idiot. You have all this power at your fingertips and yet you completely ignore it.”

“What power?” Ezra said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

The spider sighed and its head dropped down.

“When you use [Bind], Ezra, you mustn’t think of restraints. You must think of binding in the original sense of the term—of making two things one. That’s all the information you need. I’m afraid our conversation is coming to an end.”

Ezra looked around. “What?”

The spider narrowed its eyes.

“Remember what I said, Ezra.”

There was a flash, and a blackness. Ezra opened his eyes.

He stared up at the night sky, the moon overhead.

“What the hell?” he said.

He looked to his left. Yuki and Pete were still asleep—perfect for him. If that was all just some crack-induced hallucination, he didn’t want to embarrass himself. He opened his abilities menu and clicked what he was looking for.

[Bind] - Lv. 1

[Binds things together. Levels increase how effective the binding is and decrease the resistance of certain objects.]

Wow, so helpful.

Ezra shook his head. What on earth was his needle/hallucination talking about? He held out his needle.

“[Bind].”

His needle glowed and a yellow thread extended from the metal loop of the needle. The yellow thread floated in the air, waving in the wind.

Ezra crossed his arms. If something interesting was supposed to be happening, he wasn’t seeing it.

What was it that the spirit told him? Bind two things together?

He idly thought of the objects close to him. The tree, strong, sturdy, yet flexible. The ground, on the other hand, was loose, uneven. He reached out and slid the needle through the tree, then slid it through the ground. Both times, it was like passing through air.

And then the tree turned into dust in front of his eyes. The wind picked up, blowing the tree away.

Ezra blinked.

“Well, that’s unusual.”