The second round came about faster than it felt. Ten minutes flew by while waiting to fight. Alister was… disappointed with the lack of difficulty, but Wisteria was having a blast, so he didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t want to dampen her fun.

They continued for another three rounds like that and upon finishing the fourth round Wisteria was completely out of mana thanks to her inefficient use. Even after twenty beasts were killed, they still hadn’t leveled up. The spreading of experience points between all nine of them made for such slim growth. Alister was growing bored. The only interest he had moving forward was the loot at the end and, to a lesser extent, the bosses. They had two more rounds before the miniboss - the soonest they could complete the dungeon if they wanted to.

Once it became clear that brute force would be more than enough to be able to clear out the rabble that this dungeon spawned, Alister stopped with the more dramatic, multi-stage attacks and instead began using straightforward elemental blasts. In particular, lightning strikes from the cloud that remained after the first wave.

He leaned against a tree as he simply moved his finger, striking the beasts in the legs or arms, not wanting to deal the killing blow and take the fun away from Wisteria.

Wisteria was out of breath on top of her bee mount, frowning down at the new round of beasts. She was out of mana, an unpleasant sensation that made her feel tired, but they had so many rounds left. She was annoyed with herself. If she was more efficient about it, or if she had considered doing something else, she could’ve done so much better! Alister had so much more mana than her, he never looked tired from mana.

Right! Wisteria grinned. She could still help. She could still fight! She had access to essence like her momma.

Wisteria landed the bee and hopped off, rushing over toward the knights. The others gave a raised brow to her actions but didn’t stop her, it wasn’t too dangerous unless she was irresponsible about it. She tucked between two of the knights to face the beasts and put her palm facing out, her other hand on her golden bird skull charm.

“Flames of Tessin’s rage, make ash of those who would cause harm upon your children, dance within my bones, and allow me a speck of your holy power!” she chanted, hand and fingers moving with complex gestures. Golden energy flowed from her fingertips like a font. It swirled in front of her and ignited into a cone of blazing flames that consumed the three remaining beasts of the wave.

She had a wide smile on her face as she turned around to face Alliana, Blas, and Alister, proud of herself and her capabilities. Their stunned faces, though, turned her smile into blushing. Alliana laughed lightheartedly, amused by the development, as Blas and Alister approached her to talk to her during their break between rounds.

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“Woah, Wisteria,” Blas started, Alister still looking at her in silence, “I didn’t expect you to be so good with that. When did you get training with essence? I thought you chose not to go with any deity like Alister?”

“I-I didn’t! I didn’t choose anyone. I just-I mean… It’s not like that!” Wisteria stuttered, flustered by the betrayed look Alister was struggling with on his face.

“Oh, so you are a generalist with essence? That’s even more impressive! You handle it with such finesse I would’ve thought you were twenty, not thirteen!” Blas praised her, clasping a hand on her back with a laugh, “That’s amazing! That’s even better for you. You’ll be able to get such a good job later on with that sort of ability. I know you and your mom have some delicate situations with being refugees from the war and all that, but if your mom has similar abilities then we could even hire you two as priestesses! I promise we’d pay well. Where did you learn?”

“I-I… I learned from… my mom?” Wisteria answered, questioning if that was the right answer.

Alliana huffed, offering a protective smile as she stepped forward, “Dear we’ve put her on the spot. Perhaps we should bother her about this after the dungeon? It’s not good to teach the kids that it’s alright to be distracted by things like this while you’re in a dungeon.”

Blas kissed Alliana’s hand, “Of course, love. You’re right. I was just so surprised! And impressed. You’ve done nothing wrong, Wisteria. Don’t worry about it. You can tell me all about it when we’re done.” He moved with his wife back to the tree line, excitedly chatting about Wisteria’s possible job opportunities.

Wisteria stared at them walking away before her eyes darted to Alister, “A… Alister? Are you angry at me?”

Angry… Alister let the word roll over his tongue. “No,” he answered, stuck in his own thoughts.

His mind was spiraling. Was she safe? Was she to be trusted? She had secrets! But… so did he… She was very compatible with essence! But so was he in this life!! It wasn’t immediately bad. She was his friend. She wasn’t an enemy. He just had to get to the bottom of this. He had to make sure no god or goddess was observing him. He had to make sure no one knew who he was still.

She looked so sad and worried… Alister sighed, and forced himself to move, putting a hand on her arm, “Did you… choose a deity?”

“N-no! I didn’t. Really. I promise. My favorite is still Vera, but I didn’t make a contract with any!” she squeaked.

“You promise…?”

“Yes! Yes. I won’t do it, either. I never plan to make a contract,” Wisteria teared up, making Alister feel a bit guilty, “I… I just… I really did learn from my mom.”

Alister sighed again, more loudly this time, “I believe you. It’s okay. I’m just… rattled. I knew you were religious but I didn’t know… this.”

“I-I’m not supposed to but my mom said I could trust you guys and I was having so much fun, and-“

“Wisteria. It’s ok. Breathe,” Alister brought his knuckle to his lips in thought, folding his arms, “You’re really good at it. You must’ve gotten a lot of options for holy classes?”

She nodded, and he continued, “I see no reason for you to stop fighting that way if you’re out of mana. I… have a question though. Do the gods watch you through it?”

“Huh? Oh. Uh… not really? Like… sometimes they might but you get a notification about it from the system. Like ‘so and so is watching’. They don’t just watch whenever someone uses essence. They’re very busy doing… god stuff I guess. Why?”

“Just… curious. I don’t like the idea of being watched without me knowing. I like my privacy,” Alister said. This was something new to consider. There was no reason for the gods to watch him, and knowing that there was this alert when they did, that was both comforting and of vital importance. But… Wisteria. He needed to get her to tell him everything.

The timer ran out again. It was time for the mini-boss.