“I won’t be here long. I just wanted to check up on Rook.” Ray wandered past Bryan and smiled down at me. “You’re doing well. When we last met, I had a feeling you wanted to run away or something.”

“What do you mean, Ray?” Bryan asked before I could speak. He moved in front of the large man and stood between us. “If you’re planning on using him for some little scheme, you’d better think again.”

“Haha! You really do have a lot of mother hens, Rook.” Ray shook his head and took several steps back. “Calm down, Bryan, I won’t do anything to him as long as he follows the rules.”

“Good.” Bryan sheathed his swords and turned to help me up. My eyes didn’t leave Ray’s face as I was pulled to my feet. While Bryan’s back was turned, the guard captain gave me a wink before he walked out of the arena.

“You better visit Claire and Susan. If you left without seeing them, they’d be devastated.” 

Bryan ignored Ray’s suggestion as he helped me up. Only after the unwelcome visitor had left did he calm down and call for the healer. After he paid for my final session, we left the duel centre and walked towards the hospital. I had tried to pay for the healing myself, but Bryan had refused. Since Bryan was the one to injure me, he insisted that he would be the one to pay for it to be fixed.

I didn’t get the chance to return that favour, unfortunately. Maybe next time.

“Are they both still recovering?” I asked as we walked towards the treatment centre. Bryan frowned and shook his head. 

“Claire is still injured, but Susan should have recovered by now. John left a message which the practitioner back there passed on. Her injuries were lighter, but something seems to be holding her back.”

“Wait, is it possible the arrow was poisoned?” The thought struck out of the blue, but Bryan didn’t seem surprised. He had obviously considered such an option already.

“Not with anything the medics can test for. She’s recovering, but it's slow. John is going insane. Susan persuaded him to not go out to find the bandits himself.”

“Well, it’s good she’s getting better. John wouldn’t do something that stupid, right?”

“How little you know him, Rook. If it concerns Susan, don’t ever underestimate how far he’d go.” 

We walked into the treatment centre and passed by the front desk without a word. The receptionist nodded to us before he turned back to his papers. 

“Hey! Good to see you, Rook.” 

Claire waved at me as we walked into their room. She had moved from her bed to a chair by the table, though she did wince as she pushed herself up to greet me. She grabbed my hand and pushed me into a chair beside her before she dropped back down. 

“How’re you doing? Bryan sent a message that you were duelling him?” Claire gave Bryan a vicious glare. “You haven’t been bullying him, have you?”

“He asked for my help. Ease off, Claire.” Bryan threw himself into the bed. “I’m tired. You two have fun.”

Claire shook her head and chuckled and turned back to me. It was clear she didn’t actually hold Bryan accountable for any pain he had caused me. She poured a drink from the water jug on her table and passed it over to me.

“Don’t push yourself too much. We’ll provide help, if you need us to.” She patted my hand, which was clenched on the arm of my chair. “Ray told us he would lift the travel ban tomorrow. He gave me a message for you. He’s worried you’ll go too far from town and run into the bandits, so he wants you to hang back.”

"Is that all he said?" I glanced up. It was possible he had guessed my plan, but this felt too coincidental to be true.

"Oh, he gave Susan something for her injury. He heard that she might have been poisoned, and he said that it would hold back the effects." Claire smiled, but my heart froze over. "He said you reminded him about it, so he wanted to thank you."

The water tasted bad in my mouth as I forced myself to drink it. Ray had told me he would hurt her, and I hadn’t told her yet. Despite the fact my intentions were pure, it still hurt to listen to her offer of assistance. I placed the cup on the bedside table and stood up.

“I have something I need to do, sorry.” Bryan rose out of the bed and opened his mouth to speak, but I waved him into silence. “I promised Karen I would get the processing done soon. I’ll come see you tomorrow, yeah?”

I left the room before either of them could stop me. Claire’s voice echoed out as she questioned Bryan as to what he had done. Guilt wrapped around my brain as I made my way back to the Guild, but it wasn’t like I could tell them the truth. The secrecy was for their own good.

I knew it... he's poisoned her. If I leave, she dies. If I tell her anything, she dies. I'm stuck... unless I get to level ten. I should be able to stand up to Ray, according to what the goddess said. And if not, at least we can fight him together. Rose might know something, but I can't rely on her. She's been wrong before, and I can't risk Susan's life on a guess.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I had several options, but all of them relied on me reaching level ten. As the town was still locked down, there was only one option open to me for the time being. The materials Karen had given me waited in my room. After the door had closed behind me, I set to work. My success rate was average at best and, after a few hours of non-stop focus, I finally let myself slide into bed. After the intense day, my consciousness blurred before my head hit the pillow.

----------------------------------------

The next day started without any fanfare. No one came to wake me up, no shadowy assassins waited to ambush me outside my room. After the processing was finished, I packed it in the sack and set off to see Karen. Now that the lockdown had been lifted, it was high time to get out of town. There were other places I could stay in, and it wasn't like I had long to wait before the others arrived. The processed goods had given me a nice amount of money to play with, so finding food and accommodation shouldn't be too hard.

That should be the best way to practice. I can't sacrifice someone else for my own gains. That would make me worse than the guy who killed me.

“Hey, Rook. You’ve finished again, right?” Karen raised an eyebrow at me as I dumped the sack on her cart. “You really don’t hold back, do you? Never seen someone work so fast.”

“Yeah, I did my best.” I glanced at the gate. The queue had formed once again and the Guards allowed people to exit once they had been checked. “You can pay me later, I have something I need to do.”

I walked off and left Karen with the processed goods. She could go over them and give me a price later. The level gain was the most important thing for me right now. In a few days, the money I gained would be lost anyway. I had more than enough to last a few weeks, never mind a few days. After that, none of it would matter.

That is, if I lived to go back home.

After the guards had checked my identification, they let me through the gate. Again I was thankful they didn’t check for the levels of those who left. If they noticed my level was lower than ten, they would certainly have many questions. At that point, Ray would be alerted and my little journey would be cut short.

The fields greeted me after I exited the town. They were full of people in all directions, probably because they wanted to make up for the days of lost revenue. These people worked to keep the fields and the edges of the forest clear, which allowed those who hadn’t advanced to a combat class a chance to leave the town for other business. 

It was a constant battle against an ever-increasing population of slimes and wolves. If they left them for too long, it was possible they would move towards the town in search of prey. Whilst it wasn’t clear to me what their main food was, the image of the slime queen as it tried to absorb me shot through my mind.

I ignored the others and moved to a relatively quiet area of the fields. It was far to the side, moderately close to the forest. Most of the workers stayed nearer to the town where the larger numbers of slimes congregated. It didn’t seem to matter how many they struck down, more popped out from bushes or through little tunnels in the dirt to take their place.

But for me it was different. After I had cleared a small area, no more monsters appeared for a long time. It was difficult to find enough prey to keep busy, but at least those that did appear brought me a step closer to my goal. Each time I cleared out a section, I moved on. My advance was slow and steady as I moved further from the town. To an outsider, it would just look like I was hunting for more enemies to kill.

Which is exactly how I wanted it to look

Also, it helped me work towards my main goal: Level Ten.

It wasn’t clear what an Advancement Test would entail for me. Normally it was the moment someone chose their class and passed a trial that allowed them to lock in the decision. For me, that was unneeded. My class had been preselected without my knowledge or agreement.

Either way, the test should give me some kind of gain.

More abilities, more power. Something, anything to give me the edge I needed. Once I had passed the threshold, it would be safer to let the others know about Ray. If it gave me enough of a power gain then maybe, just maybe, we could stand up to Ray together.

And if I didn’t I could always deal with him after my primary concern was out of the way. 

Whilst I worked my way through the fields, a small group approached me from the far edge. I didn’t notice them until they had walked close, at which point I stopped my hunt and turned to greet them. It was bad manners to interrupt someone when they were hunting, so they should have a good reason to speak to me. 

“Hey. Your name is Rook, right?” The leader asked as he walked up next to me. The others in his group eyed me from behind, but I pretended to ignore that as I nodded to the man who had questioned me.

“That’s me. What's the problem?” I glanced around at the area. There were a few groups near enough to see us, so it wasn’t like these people would try to force me away from this patch.

“We were looking to head into the caves nearby. We need to do some mining and need another person for the guardian team. Want to tag along? We’ll split the loot with you.”

His offer appealed to me, but a surge of doubt clenched around my stomach. Why did he take the time to ask me, a weak Supporter, for help?

“Oh, don’t worry about it. We just need someone to keep watch.” One of the people at the back of the party spoke up as she noticed my hesitation. “It’s easy, and there will be more spawns in the caves than out here. It should help you level up quite well.”

If they wanted a watchman, then it didn’t matter how strong that person was. At first, I wanted to disagree, but a weird force held me back. Something about her voice made me trust her. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was like I had known her my entire life...

“Sure.” I nodded in response. The leader invited me to a temporary party after assurances it wouldn’t interfere with my current party. I knew about parties to the extent that I could join a temporary one without it affecting the others, so that wasn’t a concern.

The woman who had persuaded me walked beside me and explained the plan. We left the field and walked towards a rocky area in the distance. I glanced back at the fields, but the woman tapped my shoulder and distracted my attention again.

“Don’t get distracted, Rook. That’s an easy way to fail, you know?”

I nodded distractedly as she spoke. Something felt wrong about the situation, but I couldn’t pull my brain together enough to fathom it. At least now the loot wouldn’t be picked up by myself, so the voice wouldn’t get the chance to absorb the rewards of my kills.