Nar had never experienced a darkness like that. The light of the arrows seemed to stretch a few feet away from them, and suddenly disappear, as if swallowed.

Even sounds, which he had so clearly heard before, now seemed muted somehow, as though he walked with his hands covering his ears.

He had the impression that they were walking in a room of massive proportions, however, where the light ended, it felt as though existence itself ended there with it.

It was a perfect, absolute void.

He felt warm, sharp fingers caress the back of his neck and snapped to look back.

Behind him, the safe room’s wall had long been swallowed in the darkness, and there was nothing but an absolute sensory void all around them now.

His racing heart was the loudest thing he could hear, drumming against his ears, as he scanned the darkness. His senses, including his strange new [Instinct], picked up on nothing.

Walking while he looked backwards, he tripped. He couldn’t even tell on what. It was as though the floor itself had tilted under him.

He quickly faced forward again, searching for the comforting presence of the others and the rooting bright line of yellow at his feet. It was as though the void made him forget even how to walk.

A few steps later, he felt it again. Those fingers reaching out to him.

He clenched and unclenched his sword, his arms drawn tight against his body, and resisted the urge to look back.

There’s nothing there. Relax. It’s just in your head…

The hand closed around his neck.

He jumped, his gasp loud in the silence, sword at the ready. Jul, who had decided to walk so close to him that they sometimes bumped, let out a muffled cry.

“Nar?” Kur asked.

The other’s had stopped to look at him.

Nar, with his injured left arm still hanging uselessly at his side, scanned the darkness beyond his sword’s tip.

Nothing.

Again.

“I… Sorry,” Nar said, his breath quickened. “I just…”

“Yeah, it's getting on my nerves too,” Kur said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You feel it too?” Nar asked in surprise.

Kur nodded, grimacing.

“It’s like there’s something here with us,” Tuk said. “Or somethings.”

Cen whimpered. “Please don’t say that.”

Mul glared at the trugger.

“Sorry!” Tuk said, with a regretful expression.

Kur gave Nar a sympathetic smile. “It must be really hard being there at the back. Just try to think of something else. This place is just messing with our heads.”

“Don’t worry,” Jul said, looking up at him, with her big eyes. “I will tell you if something comes.”

How are you the one consoling me? Nar thought.

She walked on trembling legs that threatened to buckle with every step, and he was surprised she hadn’t injured herself yet, given how fast she spun her head to look in all directions. Regardless, he appreciated it. And it did make him feel better.

“Thank you.”

She nodded, and resumed her sentinel mode as the party started walking again.

Nar observed her out of the corner of his eyes.

Tremble and quiver as she did, Jul still carried her job admirably well. Knowing that he was covered by her senses helped him take this whole dark experience much better than he would have otherwise.

However… Something had begun to nag at him. A little seed of doubt.

His eyes narrowed at the bulky pack that still hung from her shoulders. They had all turned in their old packs and clothes at the safe room. However, despite changing into her new gear, and her [Climber’s Storage Ring] glinting in dull yellow on her left hand, she had still insisted on carrying her pack.

Nar had been on her side until he had examined his gear and received his ring. But afterwards, with everything neatly packed away into his ring, there was no way of justifying the need to still physically carry anything. Not even their weapons, unless they needed them, such as now. Plus, only now that the pack was gone, did he realize how much of a hindrance the thing had been.

So then, why? What was Jul still carrying in her pack?

Her family, being what they were, would’ve probably not allowed her to leave with anything of value. If they even had such a thing.

The notion of “value” was another of those new tidbits of knowledge granted to him by the system, and he was still having trouble wrapping his head around it. As far as he could tell, from what he understood, the workers had nothing of value, a realization that had both puzzled and angered him, causing him to pray for forgiveness yet once again.

So, with nothing of value, and doubting Jul would ever wear her old clothes again, the continued presence of the pack was a mystery.

He thought about asking about it. However, he had eventually decided against it.

It might spook her. Besides… Why do I even care?

Yes. Why indeed?

His earlier thoughts still rumbled at the back of his mind, unresolved, and Nar grimaced to keep them from breaking free again. He would think about them again, but later, away from that void that made it all so… Confusing. Worse.

Just then, he felt the fingers again.

Awesome… Just what I wanted.

In this manner, they walked and walked for hours.

Nar’s eyelids eventually grew heavy, his eyes gritty and dry from the still heat of the place. The arrows swam under him. Or was it above?

Up ahead, Tuk yawned again. And again, it triggered a cascading effect throughout the whole party.

“Okay, everyone,” Kur said. “I think we need to call it.”

They stopped in their tracks and stared at him.

The party leader raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I know. I know.”

He sighed.

“I don’t want to sleep here either, but we don’t know for how long we’re going to be stuck in this, and tiring ourselves out will only make it more dangerous,” he said. “So we’ll stop here. Only for a few hours! Jul and I will take the first watch. Then Nar and Gad. I’m sorry, I know you’re injured, but I think it would be best to have someone with sense attributes on the watch. Plus, I’ll pair you with Gad. If anything happens, you can let her handle it.”

“It’s fine,” Nar said, as Gad nodded at him. “Don’t worry about it.”

He doubted he would be able to sleep anyways, what with those imaginary fingers tracing the back of his skull every other minute.

As soon as his head touched his makeshift pillow of [Climber’s Shirt]s, the softness and coolness of the material enveloped his head in a comfort he had never tasted before. He was out before any of the others.

It felt like it was only a few moments later when Kur shook him awake.

“Your turn. I let you sleep a bit more,” he said. “You were out before all of us, and I know that fight took a lot of you. But Jul needs to sleep, and we need someone who can actually see or hear something in this darkness.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Yeah, yeah. Of course!” Nar said, trying to shake off the sleep fugues. “And thank you.”

Kur shook his head. “It was earned and deserved. Like I told Gad, wake us up at 04:00.”

He stumbled off, dodging the sleeping forms of the others.

Nar sat up and stretched out of habit.

“Ouch…” he muttered, in a low tone.

His wounded arm looked an aggressive red, instead of its usual ashen gray purple color, but, underneath the crusted, dried blood, he could tell that the wound had closed.

He passed his hands over the scar, marveling once more at the miraculous powers of his HP.

“Pssst.”

He looked up, and found Gad sitting a few steps to his left. The tank beckoned him to join her and Nar, after a brief pause of hesitation, got up to do so.

The last, and first, time they had spoken alone, Nar had left that conversation with a sense of unease. The uncanny insight she had demonstrated had worried him. He feared that she would be able to gleam the Unclean in him, but he couldn’t really avoid her either. That would definitely rouse even more suspicions if anything.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Better. It’s closed already.”

She moved her shield to give him space to sit next to her, so they could talk without being too loud. Plus, being close with someone else was grounding, there, where there was nothing around them but that small strip of arrows in a floor that even looked black.

“It really takes it on you. Tanking,” she said.

“Yeah.”

The messy, throbbing scar that the wound had turned into, would disappear in the next day or two. But Nar knew she wasn’t just talking about the injury. Or the wounds he had suffered thus far.

To stand in front of a guardian, almost twice the size of you, if you considered its limbs, which of course one did, with nothing but a sword or even a shield? That was a mental load that drained him more than the actual physical fighting did sometimes. He wondered if he would ever grow used to it.

“Thank you, by the way,” she said.

Nar looked up at her in surprise. “What for?”

Her thanks reminded him of his own fumbling thank you to Viy, earlier in the day. The spear woman’s eyes had seemed to glaze over him, as if he wasn’t there, but, in the end, she had blinded him with a surprisingly dazzling smile.

“No worries,” she had said. “Any time.”

Her reaction had left him stunned for hours. He still didn’t know what to make of Viy.

He shifted, uncomfortable at the memory. He had felt so awkward, but at least, he had said his thanks. He didn’t want to appear ungrateful towards someone who had, very likely, saved his life at the risk of their own.

At his side, Gad crossed her arms and sighed.

“For tanking that second guardian,” she clarified. “I’m pretty sure we would have died if you hadn't kept it outside the room.”

Nar considered his reply for a few moments.

“It’s okay. It’s my duty,” he said, and the honesty in his words surprised him.

Gad shook her head. “It shouldn’t have been.”

“You couldn’t have taken the two of them!” Nar said. “Or… Could you?”

“No… But you couldn’t have taken that second one either, if it had come flying at you like the first. At least not yet.”

Nar nodded.

No. Not yet.

“It was a brave thing to do.”

“Was it?” Nar wondered, considering the truth of his thoughts and doubts. “I… It was scary.”

He swore at himself as the words came out of his mouth. Something about Gad had made him want to say it. Maybe it was to seek the solace of another tank. Their understanding. Maybe even to confirm that he wasn’t a coward… Or maybe it was just the way Gad was, inspiring in him a confidence he still didn’t understand.

Gad took her time before she replied, and Nar felt his cheeks burning hotter and hotter.

“That hit took half my HP,” she eventually said. “And it landed on my shield.”

“It did?” Nar asked, sucking in breath.

“Yeah. Pretty sure I blacked out for a second there too. The only thing I knew was that there was this weight on me and that I needed to keep my shield up.”

“Crystal,” Nar muttered, remembering the scene. It had rendered him motionless, the sight of that guardian on top of her and Kur.

“Yeah, if not for the shield, things would have gone pretty badly,” she said.

Her lips parted and she smiled at him with her very white, very sharp teeth.

“What I mean is, I understand. You have no shield. I would have been scared too. A hit like that, with no shield, would have killed me, much less you.”

Nar looked away. “A tank shouldn’t be scared.”

“And why not?”

“You’re never scared,” Nar whispered.

She snorted. “Of course I am. It’s just none of you can see my face!”

Gad chuckled at his incredulous expression.

“Besides, now that I know I can get hit like that, I will be a lot more scared. The shield might not always be there.”

Then, she turned to him. Her black, pupilless eyes bored down into him, and he looked away from their intensity.

“Nar, can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” he said. In his chest, his heartbeat sped.

“Why do you want to be a hybrid tank/DPS? Wait. I have a feeling you won’t answer that. And that’s fair. Instead, tell me this. What do you think a tank does?”

Nar frowned. The conversation had taken a turn he had not expected. He had been worried she was about to ask him if he was Unclean. As such, it took him a while to formulate his answer, as short as it was.

“Doesn’t a tank just take damage for the party?” he asked.

“No. A tank’s job is to protect the party.”

“Is that not the…”

“It’s not the same thing. Not at all.”

She hoisted her shield and the both of them stared at it in silence.

“It’s been bothering me that there is a secondary tank in the party,” she said. Her eyes never left the shield, and her expression betrayed nothing of her emotions. “It made me feel like I wasn’t enough. Like I wasn’t fulfilling my role properly. I stand at the front and I stop the enemy from getting through to the rest of you. But, a lot of times, that’s not enough. The guardians do get through, or they come from behind, or, like the last two times, there’s more than one, and I can only aggro one of them at a time. They go past me, and there’s nothing I can do. I’m too slow to chase them. To turn. To move. Slow like all morsvar are…”

She raised her eyes to meet his.

“When that happens, there is nothing I can do, except hope that you will stop them.”

Gad heaved a deep sigh and put down her shield.

“That’s what’s been bothering me. I’ve realized that we need you. That I need you. Today, when I was pinned under that guardian, knowing that you were there gave me the strength I needed to keep fighting. To not give up. Because I knew we still had a chance. I thought, “Ah! Nar will stop the other one! I just need to get back up and everything will be okay!” and you did. And everything was okay. You protected us, and at a massive risk to you, no less. And that’s the only reason we survived. So, thank you. Really. Thank you. And for everything that’s yet to come ahead of us, thank you as well.”

Nar scratched his neck.

“I… Thank you too. You have done the majority of the protecting. What you do is beyond me. I only ever step in when…”

“I fail?”

“No! That’s not what I was going to say!”

She laughed. “I’m joking, Nar. Relax. You only step in when it’s needed. And this party needs us both to protect it. So, I’m sorry for my bad faith. I felt threatened. Especially when Kur tried to rotate us. Man, I was pissed. I needed those gains!”

It was Nar’s turn to muffle his laughter.

“Yeah. Gains are everything. Especially [Constitution].”

“That helps, but what I really need is [Speed],” Gad said, shaking her head. “I’m so slow…”

They both muffled their laughter.

“You’re tough, though. Wish I had unlocked [Toughness] too. My new gear is already red,” Nar lamented, looking down at what had just earlier that day been a pristine shirt.

“Oh!!” she said, grabbing his shoulder. “Speaking of unlocking attributes, and in the spirit of the transparency that I hope we can have, going forward, I wanted to ask you. Did you unlock [Endurance]?”

Nar nodded. “I did. But it’s only 1.5%.”

“1.5?” she said, loud enough to startle the both of them.

She covered her mouth. The both of them looked around them for a few tense moments, but everyone else was too exhausted to wake up and nothing stirred out of the darkness to come and kill them.

She leaned in closer. “1.5? That’s huge! I only have 0.5!”

“No way…”

Gad stared at her shield.

“Maybe I need to ditch the shield. Take more damage…”

“Don’t.”

“Sorry. I know you want one.”

“More than anything,” he said, making her laugh. “Seriously. I envy you so much for it. And the skills. And the attributes…”

“Can’t have it both ways though,” she told him. “Be pretty unfair if you had that massive sword and a shield to go along with it. I’d probably just give up tanking.”

Nar just shook his head.

“Oh, something else I have been meaning to ask. How much experience did you get from that second guardian?” Gad asked him.

“Hmm. I think it was around 500 and something?”

“That definitely confirms it, then. I got 300ish from the second, but almost 600 from the first one. And I always earn less when you’re the one tanking.”

Nar frowned, pondering over the discrepancy. “Is that because we’re not fighting when that happens?”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think that’s it,” she said, rubbing her chin. “It wouldn’t explain the difference between the others. And there are differences between the DPS… But that still leaves out Kur and Jul. They don’t tank, and they don’t DPS either. How do they level up, then?”

Nar shook his head. He had actually never stopped to think about how it worked for the others. He had been too preoccupied by his own leveling. Again, he felt his guilt, his selfishness, rearing its head at him.

“No. I think it's something else,” Gad said. “My thinking is that the System is measuring your contribution to the fight. How much of an effect you have on it decides how much experience you earn from it.”

“Wow,” Nar said, his eyebrows raised. “That could be it...”

It explained why he still gained experience, even when he didn’t fight. As Kur had said, he was protecting the back of the party, and that gave them all the security to focus completely on the enemy in front of them. That was a form of contribution to the fight. And when he provided DPS, directly contributing to the fight, he gained more experience, but since his DPS was so low, it was nowhere as much as he gained as when he tanked.

“I think so. We think so. It was a joint idea with Cen and Kur,” Gad said, smiling. “But, as a tank, we did notice that I seem to get a little bit more experience than the others.”

“Really?”

“It’s not by a lot, mind, but it’s still nice, isn’t it?”

“For getting shredded and battered to bits?” Nar asked. “Kinda seems fair.”

“I totally agree.”

Gad picked under her long dark nails for a few moments.

“You know, getting back to what I said. It’s hard to put it into words…” she said, whilst closely examining her sharp index nail. “But I do think there is a big difference between taking damage for the party, and protecting the party. I think you’ll get it too, eventually. Besides, if for nothing else, taking damage is something that is done to you. While protecting others is something that you do. Something you act on. Something you choose.”

She looked at him. “Do you really want to define yourself by something that is passive to you? Wouldn’t you prefer it was something you actively did, by your choice and actions?”

Nar returned her gaze, too stunned to even consider a reply.

“Just promise me you will think about it. I think eventually you’ll get it. The difference between the two.”

Nar looked down at his hands, resting over his crossed legs.

Take damage. Deal damage.

That was the plan. And it was already in enough jeopardy by his confused feelings and emotions.

Some small part of him understood what she was getting at. But that part was small. It could do little against the giant rally the other part of him brought up, in the shape of his sick dad, waiting for him back in what he now knew to be a decrepit thing that could barely count as a house.

I do not deserve them, Nar realized with a startling clarity.

They had a right to more from him. More trust. More commitment. More of everything.

To be treated as more than just tools for his Climb. To be valued. Just like he did his dad.

But how could he ever reconcile the two?