After a nice, long sleep, I ate more than usual just to have that nice, full feeling. I then went into a meditative position so I could refocus my mind and let my body stabilize from the influx of stat points I have been gaining.

I felt that my mind has been too focused on fighting lately, which is making me make unwise decisions as I want to keep pushing to reach our goal as fast as possible. But this shouldn't be the case. Our goal should be survival, and only after that should we strive to reach the core.

While doing that, I also occasionally observed the others, and I didn’t like what I saw. Horus and Arabella were quite fine, but they were built more like me, so that made sense. Adam and Luana, however, were a different story.

I could see the signs that they were starting to crack from the continuous pressure. I should have figured that seeing that would be harder in this world. They were built a lot stronger than we were before the war.

I should continue to observe and see if there are any changes during this rest period. Hopefully, they will just need some more time to accept what has happened because if they don't, we're never going to make it. And explaining it to them when they are already broken will be a lot tougher because they would fight against anything, even if that something was trying to help them.

I continued to also reflect on myself, especially on the fact that my skills and most of my abilities aren't leveling up as fast as I expected them to. I do not know how to feel about not being able to level up skills and abilities by doing the same thing over and over. It seems logical that eventually, you would reach the end of what you could achieve by doing the same thing, but at least to me, it feels like I’m far from that point, but I guess the system doesn't agree.

I cleared my head once again. There is no point in going over the same thing once again. There is no point in wishing things were different if there is nothing I can do to fix them. I just got to accept that leveling skills and abilities is going to take a long time, but at least I have been gaining a lot of class levels, which is still quite nice.

I wondered about the rest of my party members. Have they been gaining any new skills? How many levels have they gained in their class? I kind of want to know, but it’s something I will never be able to learn, at least not with our current relationship.

I also used this time to check up on the nation and found it quite interesting that some of the goblins joined the road-working initiative. Currently, humans and goblins were interacting without fighting each other, probably more than any time in history. I wondered how long this can still be kept a secret. As I was quite certain that the world council wasn't going to like this, but that was a problem for the future.

It was now time to concentrate on the sword. I took it out and laid it across my legs. It was still in excellent condition, but a bit of sharpening was called for. Continuing to sit down in the meditative position, I took a few hours to bring the edge back into perfect condition.

My eyes still sparkled every time I looked at it, and I could just get lost in the patterns on the blade. Inside the sword, I saw that the weapon core was slowly refining the molecular structure to make it as perfect as possible for its purpose. I also saw how it was strengthening energy paths, but everything it was doing was slow-going, but it seems that the constant fighting has improved the speed, which makes sense as the constant usage of energy should help the weapon core make itself better.

"Time's up, let's pack up and head downwards," Horus spoke, and everyone immediately started to work, but I was still in my seated position, slowly moving the enhanced sharpening stone steadily down the edge.

Luana was the first to stop as she looked at me without understanding what was going on. I was usually the first one to start packing even before Horus had to say anything, and I guess it would be quite weird as I was basically disobeying a direct order.

I continued what I was doing until slowly everything came to a halt. "Is something wrong?" Horus asked with a bit of nervousness in his voice. "We should take a longer break. We have all pushed ourselves, and there's nothing wrong with taking a bit of a bigger break. If we keep going without resting properly, and I’m not talking about our bodies, we will start to break," My words had the desired effect, at least on most of my companions. Unfortunately, as I had feared, Adam still wasn't thinking clearly.

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"Who do you think is breaking because I am damn certain you know it's not you, so tell me who do you think can’t handle this?" Adam said quite furiously. But I was impressed that he was able to hold himself together as well as he did.

"Of course I’m not breaking. You can't break something that's already shattered," after my statement, everything went deathly quiet. "There is nothing wrong with needing extra time to let your mind work through things. The reason I brought this up is because Adam, you and Luana have both been struggling more than the rest of us. That is not something to be ashamed of. It is perfectly normal, and both of you are actually doing better than most others would."

"Please, everyone, sit back down around the campfire. We have plenty of time to make sure that we can get as far into this dungeon as we can without being destroyed by it. Let me ask you, what point is there in making it to the end when you are left an empty husk? There is no need to answer. There is no point, at least for us."

I continued sharpening my weapon as I saw everyone sit down, Adam being the last one to join us. I looked into each of their eyes, trying to learn as much as possible. "Horus, I must say, you have assembled some impressive people," I said, my words taking everyone by surprise. I did see satisfaction in Horus's eyes.

"We're all above the regular people in terms of being able to survive and even thrive in life and death situations. But we all have different motivations and things that we can survive without being destroyed by them. On that front, Adam and Luana are the worst off. If you choose the life of combat, you will excel at it. But both of you need to be careful so that you don't experience too much at once.”

“Adam, you could be a top-tier close combat healer who can also do some damage on his own, but currently, you are only here because you were told to do this. This affects you negatively.” After a short pause for my words to sink in, I continued.

"But because of who you are, you are still doing it beyond expectations. You just have to be careful, especially currently, as this is the most amount of combat and death you have experienced. From what I have observed, you will be forged by this and made stronger without negatively affecting you, but that’s only if we don't push too hard. Just be conscious of your own mental state the same way you would be for your patients."

We continued to sit in quiet as Adam absorbed what I told him. Eventually, he gave me a firm nod. After which, I moved on to Luana.

"Luana, you also have little experience with this amount of combat and death. You find it hard not to think about what we have been going through as you feel like you should be able to handle this without problems because you want to be a great fighter." She answered in the affirmative, but she hesitated for quite a while as it was hard for her to acknowledge to herself that she might be having a hard time with the thing that she wants to do for her life.

"I will be honest with you, you could be an excellent mercenary. You will just need time to forge yourself into something stronger. You will most likely still find it hard to accept when you lose people and if you have to do things against your morality. I suggest you focus on being the best mage you can so that you could choose your employers so you would never be forced to do something you are not comfortable with. It will take some time, but you have great potential to become what you want to be. Just please be mindful and don't try to push yourself too hard."

My words seemed to have an impact, and I readied myself to just continue to sit here until Adam and Luana had a chance to think things through and hopefully, they will want to extend our break. What they didn’t expect was Horus to speak up.

"I want you to do the same to me. Tell me what I need to watch out for?" Horus asked, and I looked at him with a curious eye. After a few moments, to my surprise, Arabella nodded, indicating she wished to know hers as well.

"If you want to, it’s no trouble. Both of you are not the same as Adam and Luana. You are more like me, gifted in the art of destruction." My words came as no surprise to them, but Adam and Luana were surprised.

"Horus, you will not be broken by doing things that most wouldn't do while being threatened by death. You will do them because it’s your duty. What will break you is what comes afterwards when you find out doing those things wasn’t necessary and the people you serve will become the people you hate.”

“You will continue to function and do your duty, but slowly, you will turn into an empty husk with empty eyes who continues to live because you know nothing else. You have a large family, so I’m guessing my words have helped connect some loose threads." I looked at him, and I knew that most of what I said wasn’t a surprise to him, but my last statement made his eyes water.

"That explains it. I always felt that my grandfather wasn’t the same after his last assignment, but at least now I understand what must have happened. Thank you, Rich."

"I guess it’s your turn, Arabella. You are the closest to myself, a person capable of becoming a hero." I could instantly see the wince that she tried to hide. "You are quite a lot older than the rest, and I believe you already know what I said, but you have also survived another kind of battle often referred to as the game.”

“From what I gathered, you were quite high up, and the fact that you have managed to get yourself banished instead of executed means that you were quite good at it. You could do terrible things in the name of whatever cause you choose. The rest of the world just has to hope that you choose to be a hero and not the villain."

The rest of them were all looking at Arabella and me, trying to figure out if what I had said was correct or not, but eventually, Arabella spoke up. "You seem to have remarkable knowledge for someone so young. I am close to triple their age and yours, but something tells me I am wrong in my assumption of your age.”

Elves really were gifted with genetics. They lived longer than any other major race and even for her age she still looked like a young adult. "What about you?" Luana asked me. I guess it would only be right if I share it with them as well.