Elsa caught a returning One-Eye and released another, checking and syncing her pad with it. The land ahead was displayed in tones of shifting darkness, orange, and distant flashing lightning with echoes of soft thunder. At the very least, it was not the deep darkness of nighttime yet when jagged teeth ripped into her creation, tearing it apart as crimson eyes glowed.

"Motherfucker," She cursed, "This fucker just. . .you two, we've got mana beasts."

Rose stopped in her tracks. "Lost your bot?"

"Yup."

"Sorry."

"No hard feelings."

A howl reached their ears, then many more rang in the depths of the murky ravine. Elsa equipped her pulse pistol, twice-tapping its core to action as mana flowed into its barrel. Part of her was more than peeved, she wasn't rich after all, each thing she created was costly.

Rose squinted ahead and looked to a Lilias by her left. "Wolves. Black. Crimson eyes. Flickering and disappearing before reappearing out of darkness."

"Those would be Shadow Wolves."

Fire sparked and a black sheathe lined with gold was gripped by Rose's left hand. She nodded, shifting to a somewhat lowered stance, knees bent.

'Shadow Wolves. . .the beasts Mare's spirit comes from. . .' She thought before speaking, "This will be our first fight together.

Elsa raised a brow, pointing her pistol forward to aim. She was better with her fists, but having lived within the slums, handling guns was also a valuable skill.

"Huh?" She said, "What about the time we fought that water Gear user?"

"That doesn't count," Rose replied.

"They're here," Lilias spoke.

The dragonian kicked off from the ground, her weight shifting the dirt of the ravine. Her figure spun and her crimson swords did the same, ripping through the air until they made contact with the beasts coming their way. Two heads were ripped into four halves, the creatures attached dying immediately and dropping like useless pests with blood in their wake.

A shadow leapt at her.

Lilias spun her lefthern sword, its blade ripping through the neck of the beast as its partner weapon lashed out, blocking jagged teeth from the right side, she looked at it rather calmly as she slashed upward, dividing it into two.

She jumped back, escaping a clamp of her neck from another leaping beast. A growl at its throat died as a pulse passed through its head.

"Clean shot!" She heard a excited yell behind her.

Another pulse passed through a second beast's head, devouring it of its life as it fell.

"Man, I've still got it after all," Elsa exclaimed once again.

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Rose came upon Lilia's right, staring at the rush of Shadow Wolves that had made their way here. Sparkling with a body reminiscent of darkness, crimson eyes glowing. In that short exchange Lilias and Elsa had had, her core had spun and her brain had ran, and she recognized one thing.

"They must make themselves concrete to attack," She spoke out loud, "That's the best chance to attack."

Her sword sliced towards a creature and the shadows of the ground devoured it, escaping her attack with a swiftness and elusiveness that reminded her of Mare. Then its head jumped through the ground, sharpened teeth ripping to go, and Rose blocked them with her weapon's sheath before jumping back.

It came again, quick to catch her off guard, but an homunculus's reaction time and awareness of a battlefield was beyond most.

The beast came, she stepped forward, and she slashed, hot blade ripping through the shell of its skin. Like butter, her sword passed and its body divided into two, bisecting from mouth to tail as it dropped, dead as a pile of blood and tissue.

Rose's sword burned off the blood stain and she looked at the scene, content that she precisely timed her attack well.

Then she turned left to see the dragonian laying a complete massacre, blades spinning, slashing, left and right, like a machine as her tail swung and swiped a beast that believed it could blindside her. She stepped into the small mass of wolves, blood spewing in her wake.

". . ."

Rose gripped her weapon as its flames ignited into a burning orange.

She slashed, an explosion reverberated, taking with it part of the ground and any wolf which could not make itself ethereal fast enough.

Not one to waste time, she leapt at the remaining stranglers.

"You're both killing everything!" A voice yelled out behind them.

And Rose and Lilias kept their assault on. The ravine was wide but there were not many beasts, at least not enough to overwhelm them. All of them were focusing upon the two dangerous, lethal, girls, leaving Elsa behind to merely pick off a few sad wolves. Their teamwork left much to be desired, as each girl mostly did their own thing, but their effectiveness was on a scale that overshadowed that small thing.

'Shadow Wolves, though hard to kill if your reaction time is less than optimal, aren't too difficult,' Rose thought.

In the end, the two at the forefront stood over corpses, blue orbs by the side of some, while most still had them within their slashed skulls.

"Low-grade mana orbs," Lilias noted as she glanced over the ground, "Sadly, none of them seem to have a spirit inside, or they would be worth more far more than 2k each."

A mana orb with the spirit of the creature inside was a rare thing to acquire. Rose picked one up and the orb disappeared from her grasp as the sigil at the back of her right hand shined. It was a white circle with the image of a tower in the middle, touching both sides. Currently, the numbers '1:1' was overlapped onto what she supposed was a representation of the dungeon.

". . ."

In total, there were 15 orbs, so they had killed 15 Shadow Wolves. Rose thought she would be more elated at the notion that they had acquired an equivalent of 30k lixels with one battle, but she rather stared at her hand, brows furrowed, finding the situation strange.

"That was rather easy," Lilias spoke at her side, stretching her figure lightly.

Rose stood up, dragging herself up with confusion still running through her mind.

"Yes. . ." She said, "Yes it was. . ."

She paused as realization struck her.

'It was easy. . .' She thought, 'So easy. . .'

This was her first clear and utter victory with no damage to herself where the reward of the battle had even immediately reached her hands. It was no wonder she found something odd. For someone who had struggled through every battle she had encountered until now, whose rewards and goals were always hiding further ahead from her reach, it truly was a strange thing to behold and realize.

'We made 30K lixels that easily. . .in one instant, we made enough for me to live for almost 40 days. . .and it's just the beginning. It's no wonder being a Geared is so lucrative and respected.'

The soft sound of footsteps reached her ears, accompanied by a whistle, she turned to her right.

"You two. . .remind me never to fight you guys," Elsa said, then beamed a grin, "But that was fucking beautiful."

Rose smiled.

"Yes. Yes it was."

She thought this path before her the correct one. At the very least, with this many orbs already in her grasp in one small span, the possibility of dying from lack of energy in the future was a mute one.