> The EL process is good for more than just creating ELs.

>

> ―a rumor going around the Kraej Company corporate headquarters

Israfel

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Asteria was stalking Oren. That little girl was everywhere we went.

I hadn’t meant to join Oren on his mission to find his missing sibling. I’d been on vacation with my girlfriend when she’d suddenly left after she got a phone call. She said she had work to do. She was always doing that. I’d been moping in the bar at Varde when Oren and Katja had come in. I vaguely remembered that much. I also remembered getting into a fight with one of those militant anti-Kraej, anti-EL hotheads.

What I didn’t remember was how I ended up agreeing to join Oren. Not that I had anything better to do for a few weeks, now that my girlfriend had left. Worse, that hothead I’d fought had also joined the group. His name was Ravn.

We rubbed each other the wrong way most of the time, but I had to admit that Ravn was pretty good with those guns of his. Elite monster hunters normally use melee weapons for close-ranged combat and magic for long-ranged attacks. Guns, well, they’re good for the smaller monsters, but not that useful given that many of the more dangerous types wouldn’t be stopped by a few bullets. However, Ravn had a special skill that imbued his bullets with anima which made him effective in a fight.

It still made me uneasy to fight beside a gunman though. I’d always been taught that guns were mostly used on people, not monsters.

Ravn and the priestess spent a lot of time spouting nonsense about the evil Kraej Company, but he hadn’t joined because of that. He might think he did it to stick it to the man, but I knew better. He had the hots for Katja.

He wouldn’t be the first or the last man to do something dangerous just to impress a girl.

What did surprise me was that Asteria was also in town. We bumped into her the next day at breakfast. Apparently, she’d been in Varde for a few days and was staying in the town’s sole inn.

Nice coincidence, that.

Bumping into her at Dragor wasn’t too suspicious either since it was a big town that was the center of commerce outside Kraej City. It was only when we also met her again in Virklund that I wondered if she was up to something. No one went to Virklund. The place was practically a ghost town with fewer than a dozen people living in it. We had to camp out in an abandoned farmhouse since they didn’t have an inn.

“What are you doing in Virklund?” I asked Asteria when she joined us at the campfire for dinner.

“I’m supposed to be investigating the abandoned mine here since it has lots of fluorescent lichens,” said Asteria. “But I couldn’t go inside because of the monsters.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Good. Don’t go poking around underground all alone,” said Katja.

“We can get samples for you,” said Sofia.

The priestess had accidentally let slip that it was Asteria who’d saved the city while I’d been busy fighting in the frontlines. Of all of us, she was the one who trusted Asteria the most.

“Strange that we’ve met you in three different towns,” I said.

I wouldn’t normally doubt Asteria, but my girlfriend had warned me to be wary of her. My beloved pointed out that some girl appearing from nowhere and then immediately cosying up to the ELs and Magnus Kraej was extremely strange. It was weird that my girlfriend even talked about it since she was always touchy when it came to the subject of the S-class ELs, especially Seraph. That must mean she was really worried, so I should pay attention to her warning.

“It’s just a weird coincidence,” said Asteria. She put her arms around herself and leaned closer to the fire. It was hard to believe that this slip of a girl was dangerous. More likely, she was an innocent who was being used by someone.

“Israfel thinks you’ve been following us around,” said Katja. She gave me an exasperated look.

“Following you? I was here before you,” said Asteria.

Yes, she’d been in all those towns ahead of us, but that didn’t prove anything.

“We told him you planned these trips before we even started out,” said Oren.

There are people who would know where we’re going. The people who know where all the clues are. The ones behind your sibling’s disappearance.

I didn’t say that out loud, of course.

At least Oren and the others had enough sense to keep the details of the mission secret from Asteria. Oren felt it was too dangerous for her to know too much.

“Where are you going after this?” I asked Asteria.

“Aarlborg,” she said.

I wondered if we’ll end up going there, too.

***

The abandoned mine was the place where the corpse of Oren’s father’s former wife had been found. Local folklore said it was haunted by the spirits of the dead children who’d been sent there to die in the darkness during a time of famine hundreds of years ago. It was eerily cold and silent. The glowing lichens that Asteria had mentioned were everywhere. Sofia and Katja carefully gathered palm-sized samples in paper bags while Oren, Ravn, and I kept watch.

The monsters here were edderkop, giant eight-legged monsters. They spun webs to trap their prey, then cocooned their captives alive until the prey was decomposed enough for the edderkop’s taste.

It’s lucky for the others that I joined their group since my enhanced hearing was the only thing that gave us advance warning of when they were near. Edderkop were vicious fighters when their territory was invaded or their webs destroyed.

Katja and I were the main melee fighters. Ravn was an expert marksman so he kept a position behind us, near Sofia who cast her spells from the back of the party. She also kept a soft, steady light for us to see by. Oren, as a swordsman who was also proficient in fire magic, guarded our rear.

My special skill, Killing Field, had somehow evolved three times in the fifteen days I’d been fighting with Oren and the others. Now I could use it once every three hours when I’d struggled to use it once a day before. I didn’t even know special skills could evolve like that. Common wisdom held that special skills developed after extreme trauma and evolved after decades of use. Yet, not only did I greatly improve my existing special skill, the others had even learned new ones while we were fighting.

Sofia claimed that it must be a special blessing from the goddess. They’d experienced this sort of growth in their fighting skills ever since they started their quest to retrieve the Crimson Pearl Flower for Asteria. According to Sofia, the goddess’ blessing would last until we’d completed the mission.

Which mission was that? Sofia was vague about the details, but I gathered that it had something to do with the monster waves.

The blessing was the reason I’d stuck it out with Oren's group. I’d called and asked Commander Uriel for an extended leave of absence. If I continued to improve my fighting skills like this, I could surpass Commander Uriel in a matter of weeks.

The other ELs were in for a shock when I returned.