We stopped at thirty-six.

It was getting late and we could go down as low as we had cleared, so we would be able to get back to this event floor, not that it would give us any experience. Anything ten levels below what you were gave nothing in the way of experience, only crystal drops that we could sell for All or use to fuel our Chaser. It was also possible to extract raw materials from them, but that required a high Magic stat and a skill that I didn’t have.

The blonde and her guard weren’t in the bunker when we got out. That was slightly concerning, but Gall just walked over to a corner of the bunker and took a thick blanket out of his CB and laid it on the floor. I watched the golden man fall asleep and shook my head. He must have a passive that would sense danger, because I couldn’t imagine why he’d seem so at ease given our current companions.

Garlin went over to the other side of the bunker and fell asleep in the corner by the large doors. Nyssa took out a blanket and laid down not far from her father. It was after midnight and I was tired, but my nerves were too on edge to sleep at the moment. It wasn’t ideal, but I knew that I could burn mana to get rid of the exhaustion.

I headed back up the stairs to get some air. Once I was out, I was able to see how empty it felt. There wasn’t much of a moon out, but I could still see a little. I headed over to where we’d left the Chaser. I could see a rather large fire in that direction and hoped that someone wasn’t burning our vehicle.

What I found was worse. The blonde was using fire magic to burn the bodies of the bandits that we’d incapacitated.At least, what was left of them. There wasn’t much left, but there was still enough for me to be able to tell what she was doing.

Her red eyes lit up. “Were you the ones who gave me this?” She pointed at the fire and added more.

I looked over at the armored guard and tried to decide how much of a threat he might be. I could tell they were dangerous, but I wasn’t really threatened by either of them.

“I incapacitated them after they attacked me.” I glanced at the fire. “You killed them?”

She smiled widely and stuck out her hand. She realized that she still had fire in her palm and shook it to extinguish it. “Cass Kire.” The green woman nodded behind her. “Brute Inaer.”

“Viskor Tres.” I took her hand and held back as I squeezed it, but the strength of her grip told me that she was at least Tier Four, so my restraint wasn’t necessary.

“Thanks for the experience.” She took her hand back and nodded at the smoldering pile. “Got me to Tier Four.” Cass turned back to me. “You Nyssa’s?”

I nodded slowly. It didn’t matter what gender a person was, the spouse took the name of the family that they were marrying into. In this case, since Gall was a bandit leader, Nyssa would be his heir, so I would be joining her group.

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“Shame.” She shook her head. “You look more useful than this thing.” She gestured at the armored man.

“Aren’t you worried about Sipher?” I nodded at the spot where she was working magic to bury the bonfire.

“Sipher’s fine with upgrading.” She shrugged. “But I’m not one to be tied down, so I probably won’t take it.” The blonde nodded towards the bunker’s entrance. “I’d hate to be stuck here all the time.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, but she was in a talkative mood so I tried to change the topic to something more useful.

“How long do you think it’ll be until Sipher gets here?”

“In with the daughter and already wanting to jump to the top?” Her red eyes sized me up. “You don’t strike me as the ambitious type.”

I chuckled. “I just want to know how long I have until I need to be somewhere else while he sorts that…” I pointed at the spot where a bonfire had been. “Out.”

“It’ll be fine!” She laughed. “The Bronze Cobras, Red Oaks, and Gate Diggers are here. Still expecting the Sands, Western Storms, Grave Fillers, Crowns, and the Ferris.” She looked around. “But they’ve got two weeks to show. Probably have more find us when we meet in the Dungeon.”

She went to push my shoulder, but I moved out of her way. She was an unashamed PK, and while I would kill if my hand was forced, that wasn’t what was keeping my guard up. Most of the bandits would have barely given her any experience since you only got ten percent of a person’s accumulated experience when you killed them. There was no reason for her to kill most of them if she was doing it for the experience, which meant she enjoyed it. Letting someone like that touch me was just asking for her to try something.

“Jumpy…” Cass bounced her eyebrows. “You know I’m your Healer tomorrow.”

I had a feeling when I’d seen the numbers that we were all going to group up at some point. Since most of us were Tier Four or higher, we should be able to do the level forty floor boss by ourselves, even though you were supposed to use a raid team when you did the Tier up floors.

“How far did Garlin take you?”

“Floor thirty six was as far as he took me, but I’m forty-one now.” The green woman smiled. “Maybe I’ll get higher before this is over.”

“Maybe.” I was going to have to keep an eye on her. I had no doubt that she’d kill us in our sleep if she had the chance. “You hunt bandits often?”

“Mostly Adventurers.” She puffed out her chest. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to get into a Desolation.”

Yep, she was definitely going to try to kill us at some point. And if she didn’t, then she was going to attract bounty hunters who would. The majority of the global Most Wanted list were on there because of their position within an organization. Yes, they could order a lot of people to be killed, but they usually had targets and reasons and it was a focused attack. It wouldn’t surprise me if this woman wouldn’t walk into a Dispatcher Camp at one of the Desolations and start randomly throwing fireballs. People like that tended to demand to be removed.

“I guess I’ll see you in the Dungeon tomorrow.” I started backing up, not wanting to turn my back on her.

She waved at me, then sat down on the sand and started taking CBs out of her CB. The leather straps with an embedded crystal looked out of place being held in her hand. I wondered how she planned on getting the items out. Most CBs were locked so that they could only be used by the person they were issued to. That simple function was in place to keep them from being stolen or, more specifically, to dissuade robbers from killing the owners to take their items.

I left her to her task and headed back to the bunker, trying to calculate how long my mana pool could keep me awake.