“W-woah!”

My hours’ long darkness is replaced by the brightest light I’ve ever seen, and I suddenly feel my head, my arms and chest, and then finally my legs and feet. I… I don’t feel too well…

“Welcome back to the land of the-Ah! Throw up away from me! Please!”

Shut, up.

I’m reincarnated; I get to feel like crap and throw up; Great. After a moment, I finally get a hold of myself, and wipe my mouth with my…gauntleted hand?

“Ah, yeah, I probably should’ve mentioned that Heroes feel their last emotions after they’re rebuilt, but since they always die before they’re rebuilt…”

Would you stop forgetting such important things, first the whole reincarnation crap, and now this. You know what, I just think she’s a sadist, Arciel just purposely withholds information for my downfall, doesn’t she?

Well, whatever. More pressingly, I was expecting to be resurrected without anything on, I mean, c’mon, how are you supposed to recreate all clothes and armor along with someone’s body? Even just thinking about this whole resurrection thing is giving me a headache, and I don’t think anything will come of trying to make sense of it, so I’ll just stop. But it does seem like all the armor I’m wearing is a carbon-copy of what I was wearing when I died though…meaning it has numerous gashes and slices at it’s chest. But what isn’t consistent to when I died, is how much blood was on my boots, the ground was just covered in the stuff; but there’s not a speck of blood anywhere on my armor, or me.

Now that I look, there are only a few people other than me, Clarke, Arciel and Epsilon; Arciel wasn’t kidding when she said ‘a few’, it really is like five guys.

Five survivors. From ten thousand. I hope there’s others but, these five guys are lucky; they had Clarke and Arciel, top tier magicians at their backs. They’re also actually wearing steel armor, granted not a full suit, but they were probably in the top hundred of skilled fighter in the regional militia despite how crap they are compared to the Gold Knights I’ve seen in Re’relihn.

“So, how did it feel to be in Hades?”

Epsilon asked smiling at me. She must be proud of me since I fought to the death and all, but lemme tell you, I don’t feel a cent of honor.

“It was pretty bad. I had to listen to Arciel. And only Arci-”

“Okay! Okay!”

Arciel made a cutting motion with both her hands and slid in between me and Epsilon. For being a mage, she’s pretty fast.

“Get on point everyone! We need to get back to the homeland, we are stranded in hostile territory now.”

Man, gotta love how ‘friendly’ territory turned to ‘hostile’ when the regional militia were destroyed. Arciel’s right though, I sure as hell wanna keep from being spotted by Sidonians. After witnessing it firsthand, I can see how many compare them to be the most dangerous aspect of southern Aleeze. Quality over quantity indeed, we outnumbered them by a factor of ten, and even then they were still putting pressure on us with like, a couple hundred guys.

Like, what the hell?

My mind suddenly flits over to my friend Danny, he was always going on and on about Germany in the second world war, he really was annoying as hell, just espousing quality over quantity crap over and over again. I’m not stupid enough in that subject to sympathize with him. Germany got it’s ass kicked by the Comies after all; the Comies were just producing so much more tanks and equipment than the Krauts. Of course, that isn’t because they had tons more factories, that’s because they streamlined the production immensely with lots of universal parts and cutting down on the overall quality of assembly. But what people forget is, yeah the Comie tanks would break down tons, but the thing was, World War Two was a pretty short war for equipment. German quality means it’s hard to break. Comie quality means it’s easy to fix. It’s easy to see who could spam out more tanks and win the ultimately attritional war between them.

Phew. I miss Danny, that sunavabitch.

Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen any fascist or communist elements in this world. Well, good riddance, as an American, it’d be my duty to kick their asses. Surprisingly, from what I’ve seen in Re’relihn, this world is almost universally under free trade. Sure, there’s no factories or anything mass producing commerce, but still, the nobility don’t seem to regulate commerce in the slightest. Anyone can just start a shop, just like that. This world does seem to have quite the sophisticated technology for being so medieval. I looked in the Foksly Governmental Bureau’s library and found tons of things that I never thought would be very ‘medieval’. Water mills exist, and by that prospect, factories or textiles mills should too, but no; I haven’t seen any. There’s printing presses as well, so I see a huge revolution of technology coming one of these days.

Man, all this simple capitalism makes me jealous, I was planning to bulid my own chop-shop when I had the money, but to do that; I’d need tons of paperwork and planning done. Screw regulations.

…

It’s been a week since the defeat of the Foksly Regional Milia. Since then, we’ve made it back to Re’relihn. Our first hours back were composed of being debriefed by one, ‘Councilwoman Trissdean’ so Arciel tells me. Apparently, we can’t even rest in the capital, we’ve got an urgent order from a council member. Me and Epsilon weren’t allowed to be in the room when Arciel and Clarke were ‘debriefed’ or whatever, so all I know is hearsay from Arciel.

Apparently, three things of note are happening. One was the destruction of the Foksly Regional Militia, and almost a half a dozen other similar militias being destroyed. In response, the Caliph has officially ordered the nobles to pull their armies down to Sidonia, and actually take the war seriously. So, in due time, an actual, full out war will be waging between the two nations. Arciel tells me Andestine probably twisted the Caliph’s arm into actually doing something, since it didn’t seem he really cared about waring against Sidonia. From his general disinterest, it seems like my little hunch was right, Andestine was probably behind the Jedathari Caliphate even declaring war on the Sidonian Empire in the first place. From what I’ve heard, the real human armies number in the millions, and are at least a tad more experienced than a damn militia, so I don’t think Sidonia can get away with ambushing and destroying armies at a 1-10 ratio; that’s because the number disparity is even greater than that. Jesus, it sounds like the Caliphate just uses human-wave tactics, I know that’s not true, but it’s leaving me a sour taste of Commie.

The second and third important things, are what we have to do.

The more pressing matter is that Councilwoman Trissdean has asked us to head up north, to the town of Geraldi, and meet up with a punitive expedition that’s being formed to take something out, apparently, it’s under too much lock and chain for the likes of us to know, so Arciel wasn’t told what the force was actually going to do.

The less prevalent matter, is that a local minister is need of some manpower for an odd job, and Councilwoman Trissdean has apparently given him permission to poach us for the time being. It’s apparently more of an, ‘on the way thing’, but Arciel wasn’t told any details, so for now, we’re heading over to the minister’s office. Apparently, we won’t be the only ones moving up to Geraldi with this little task in mind, Arciel told that another Hero-summoner pair would be joining us for the mission to Geraldi.

During the walk down the long corridors of mercantile administrative buliding, I took the opportunity to ask Arciel a few questions about magic. I'm still pretty in the dark about it, more so after that last battle.

"Hey, Arciel, mind bestowing your knowledge upon me?"

I say sarcastically.

"Hmph. Shoot."

Alright, I'll open with the question I know is gonna get a vague answer.

"What is mana?"

"Mana is some sort of energy, nobody knows what it's origin is. Some believe it comes from the gods and others that it's some sort of gift from nature. Mana is generated by individuals, so the experts believe. The School of Crafts has run some tests about it, they'd get a couple dozen casters who could use high tiered spells, and told them to empty out their mana supply. The test was supposed determine whether mana was generated internally or channeled through the world but, the results were inconclusive; we simply don't know if there's an almost infinite amount of it and we're just channeling it through ourselves, or if we really do form it on our own."

She rose her arms in a shrug.

"That doesn't matter though, in huge battles with thousands of mages, the mana never seems to deplete or decrease in effectiveness, so people have stopped caring about where it comes from."

You know, I just realized, I haven't seen a single fireball, lightning or like, an icicle, I guess. That sorta nature stuff is really what I think of when I hear magic, but really all the magic I've seen is just colored energy flying around, it hasn't had a real form of something that naturally exists. I wonder if nobody's bothered to make spells like that, or if the mana in this world can't actually form that sort of thing.

But speaking of different kinds of magic, I still have no idea about my whole magic-derived translation power. I have no idea how it actually translates. For all I know, mana in this world is named something completely different, and it's just been translated into the closest thing that I can understand, some nerdy DnD term. I've played DnD a few times out of curiosity, it was fun when it was me and my boys not taking it too seriously; but some people just took it way too far.

Speaking of language, I was keen enough to hear the Sidonian speech during the last battle, and it's pretty unique. It sounded like a mix of Latin, Italian and Russian, some eastern European too. Or at least, that's what it sounded like, all the words we're alien to me. I haven't heard enough of either the Andestinian language or of the Sidonian one to know why Sidonian is apparently pretty hard to learn. I'm guessing part of the reason is that the Sidonians keep such a good lock on their language to outsiders in general.

"Are there any other kinds of magic other than combat related ones?"

"Shepard, you should know by now that combat magic is minuscule in amount compared to other types."

What.

"Go on..."

She sighed.

"Magic originally was only for utility, survival and quality of life things, at least, those are what all the old spells do. Once people figured out the whole runic system, they started creating spells that were a lot more destructive than the pitiful self-defense ones that were passed down by the generations."

"So magic has actually grown and gotten stronger in this world?"

"I don't know where you've came from, or what sort of magic you have, but yes, as the understanding of the numerous runes increase, more and more complicated spells are created."

Huh. So, magic in this world started out as a utility sort of thing, and people turned it into a weapon.

"Are they any ailment producing spells, like, changes to someone without killing them?"

"Yes. I personally specialize in attack magic, so I don't know any, but some spells can make you stronger, or offer more defenses, but there's none that affect the psyche; at least not yet."

Well, good to know I won’t be being mind-controlled anytime soon.

“…You sure like to brag about your artillery spells a lot, yes?”

Clarke says from in front of us.

“Shush old man.”

“At least I can use defensive and supportive skills, you’re like a glass sword.”

There they go again…

Thankfully, their bickering ends short when we arrive at the minister’s office. As the door opens, it reveals a small office with a few seats in front of a desk, behind the desk was a large window to a city square. There are three people in the room, a official looking guy with caramel hair sitting at the desk, and what looks to be another Hero-summoner pair sitting before him.

“Ah. I see you’re the newest Heroes to Andestine, and back so soon from your deployment, you must be diligent workers. I am Wallace Arnae, the Chief Mercantile Minister of Re’relihn, I extend my warmest greetings.”

My first impressions?

The minister guy, Wallace, looks way too young to be at a governmental position, and it might just be me, but he’s way to happy about it too.

The Hero-summoner pair…oh boy. First, there was one guy standing behind a seat, I can only assume he’s the Hero from the massive armor and long spear he has. The spear on his back makes Epsilon’s look like a twig, it’s way to big not to hold it with two hands. This guy is one of the first people in this world to be as tall and big as I am, he’s got broad shoulders, like me, and a face that doesn’t look like that girl-boy I fought in Foksly. I need to find out where this guy is from, maybe he’s from the U.S for all I all know; then I could really have an ally on my side. Evidently, I am the newest Hero, so no matter what, this guy will have more experience than me, If I manage to get on his good side, I’ll be able to learn a bunch.

Even though I wanna be friends with him, I can’t help but notice he’s as big as me again…I’m not trying to size him up or anything but…

I puff my chest out a little more than usual.

His summoner on the other hand…yikes…She’s younger than Arciel…. somehow. Sitting in the chair in front of the Hero, is a little girl with bright orange hair and bright blue eyes. Her staff is way too big for her, it’s almost funny. What the hell is someone like her doing here? If she’s a summoner, then it’s evident that she’s a high-ranking caster; but I really can’t buy that with her appearance. To make it worse, she is looking at me like she’s scared, or maybe really timid. That’s the complete opposite of the Hero, who didn’t bother to careen his head, and still staring out the window, with an uninterested gaze.

“Ah, well if it isn’t Fifio.”

Arciel puts her hands on her hips with a smirk.

“Ah…S-salutations Arciel…”

Yeah, she’s super wimpy.

“How do you know a little girl huh?”

Arciel walks by me, lightly punching me. Hey. Personal space.

“Be careful who you call ‘little girl’; she’s a better caster than I am.”

Excuse me? Not even equivalent, but above? How, how is this child more powerful than Arciel?

As Arciel slumped into the seat in front of me, and as Clarke takes a third, I realize that me and Epsilon weren’t given seats, again. Well, at least it’s not only us, the other Hero guy is just leaning over his summoner’s chair.

“Well, I see you already know each other, but I recommend introducing yourselves, I hear from adventurers that teamwork is quite important in a fight.”

Wallace says lightly to the Hero adjacent to me.

“Hmph. I am Jeremiah Gjettenburg. You may call me Jeremiah.”

He’s gives a glance at me and shrugs. Wow, he literally just shrugged me off. His language is familiar, but I was a little too taken back by his rudeness to focus.

“Name’s Shepard, I’m from the USA, you?”

“Oo, ess, ay? I’ve never heard of it. You speak English, so maybe it’s close by. I am from the Kingdom France.”

Ah, French. It’s really different in the pronunciation I’m used to of French, but I get him now.

“…Oh. I am Epsilon, from Sparta of…Greece.”

Epsilon hesitates. Probably because she doesn’t want to stuff her pride in that Sparta is, ‘of Greece’; but I’m glad she pushed it away for practicality’s sake.

“…A Greek? That’s a first.”

His, Jeremiah’s, tone isn’t laid-back in the slightest, but he says every word with extreme intent, and his vocabulary is pretty informal, so it just sounds like he’s scornful when he’s speaking. His voice is deep…

…deeper than mine.

…Okay, so he’s not from the U.S. But he’s from France, the ‘Kingdom’ of France. So what, that’s like, the 1000s to the 1800s? Somewhere around there, but judging from attitude, I don’t think he’s from the late monarchy…I just want to ask one little question.

I swallow hard, racking my brain for every little detail I remember about France.

“Hey, what was the most recent war when you were summoned?”

He looks over, again disinterestedly, and almost annoyed.

“There was only one war. Between England, and France, it’d gone on for most of my life. Don’t go asking me questions about my life. I don’t care about that crap anymore.”

…Ok then. He’s probably been here a long time then.

Well. ‘Between England and France’ is a pretty general term, but what he said after that is the answer: That the war had gone on for most of his life. I’m not one-hundred percent sure, but the most likely war is the Hundred Years War. So…that’s about, 14th, 15th century then? Crap, that’s still way too far from my time for any real connections. And even if he was nearer to my time, it looks like he doesn’t care for his old life anymore, so I don’t know If I could rope him in with relatability.

I blow out a burst of air through my nostrils and look back over to a smiling Wallace Arnae.

“Well now that you’ve all introduced yourselves, I know you war-nuts don’t like formalities, so I’ll get right down to business. A few weeks back, a mining company known as the Yötiv Corporation took on a new venture. I believe you were personally involved, Sir Jeremiah?”

“…You’re correct. They wanted me to clear out some bandits that occupied the area.”

“Ah. Well, after a few days had passed, the mining camp went silent, not a word came from it, and travelers started disappearing around the area. The corporation’s executives kept their lips shut, so I knew something was happening. Unfortunately, the Knight Order is too busy preparing for the upcoming war, so I took it upon myself to hire a few teams of adventurers to investigate.”

Wallace’s voice wavered slightly.

“They, they suffered heavy casualties. Two full teams perished.”

He swallowed hard.

“…What the survivors say, is that the area’s been overrun by beasts. At first, I thought it was a breach, but apparently, there wasn’t any above ground catacombs; so I have reason to believe that a hive has formed within the mine.”

Arciel crossed her arms.

“A hive? So close to the capital? Just what kind of slacking have the Relihnian Guard been pulling?”

Arciel asked scornfully, as if she was asking why she had to clean up a spill when there was a janitor right next to her. Wallace sighed.

“It’s not their fault. It seems like the miners dug right into some tunnels underground, and the mine was overrun by beasts; at least, that’s my best guess. It’s a hive, and it’s close. If we don’t take care of it soon, it’ll threaten Re’relihn. As the one who personally handled the Corporation’s venture, I really don’t want to be the one responsible for that death toll. The garrison would take to long to mobilize and the Knight Order is preoccupied, the only quick response I can call upon who are proficient in this sort of thing, are you Heroes.”

Ugh…I feel like I’m being told to clean up someone else’s mess. Well, if a hive is as dangerous as Wallace is implying, that only means my reputation will rise more from handling it.

“I’m not wrong in remembering that the little Lady Fifio and Lady Arciel have artillery spells to handle such an occasion?”

“You’re correct.”

Arciel says bluntly.

“Well then, I’m sure it won’t be a problem, If what I hear is true, then all Jeremiah and Fifio have to do is breath on the hive and it’ll collapse, if I’m not overestimating that is.”

“…Underestimating.”

Jeremiah scoffed. I’m really starting to get the feeling he’s one of those ‘I’m too good for you’ kinda guys.

“…As expected from the 1st seated Hero.”

Wallace mumbles…God damnit. So this is the guy then, Jeremiah is the strongest hero. Great. Just great. Well, I can abandon the whole ‘allies’ idea, his cockiness is clearly justified. It still pisses me off though. More pressingly, I’m standing right next to the person who I’m supposed to outperform if I want to get cushy with the council. That means I’ll have to beat him in a duel, as precedence dictates.

Well, look on the bright side, I have an opportunity to analyze my future opponent. I may not currently know how to use or exploit any information I learn in the combat department yet; but I’m sure I’ll be able to once I get more experience. I’m not stupid. Information is huge factor in fighting someone, whether it’s physically or psychologically.

“Well, if that’s all, then I wish you all good luck. Your transport to Geraldi does leave tomorrow morning, so do get a good rest. Speaking of which, mind telling me about what Councilwoman Trissdean is up to?”

Wallace said with a slight sneer.

I opened my mouth on impulse, but Arciel beat me to the punch.

“Jeez, you merchants really are as nosy as they say. Secret means secret! Hmph!”

Arciel crosses her arms.

“Haha, I just wanted to see if any of these new Heroes were to have loose lips is all, it’s bad for Heroes to blab you know.”

Wallace snickered, as if he’d pulled a childish prank.

…

The carriage bumped up and down. It hasn’t been a good few hours, everyone’s just been sitting in silence, crammed into the small carriage. But finally, it seems we’re closing in on the hive. The sky outside has been a sharp grey for a while, and the temperature has dropped to a chilly level.

“…So what’s been new with you, Fifi? We haven’t seen each other since I graduated the School of Crafts after all.”

Arciel breaks the silence. After a few moments of a furrowed brow, the girl with a staff way too big for her, Fifio, stumbles on her words.

“I-I…I became a replacement summoner I guess…”

“I see that.”

‘Replacement summoner…’ I heard from Arciel that Heroes don’t age, so as time goes on, the summoner inevitably retires or dies; I’m guessing that’s why a literal child is the number one Hero’s summoner. It still feels off though.

“…”

“Oh come one, there’s gotta be something that’s changed with you, it’s been a few months for crying out loud!”

Arciel urged on the shaking Fifio. Fifio keeps on stealing glances at everyone in the carriage, she looks really uncomfortable being here.

“Um…um…I-I formed the fifth tier of Rey…”

““What!?””

Clarke and Arciel both shout unexpectantly and in unison.

“What’s so special?” I ask.

Arciel gives me look, but quickly flits back over to an extremely nervous Fifio. Her shoulders were scrunched up by her face, as if to say:

Did I do something wrong?

“I, I never expected my classmate to be the first to break into the fifth level of Rey! How, how’d you do it?”

Clarke and Arciel stared at Fifio as if they were scientists observing a lab rat. Poor Fifio, she’s managed to consecutively break my mental image of the most uncomfortable expression someone can pull, multiple times over.

“I just…I was just preparing a Reysarkenlo spell, when o-out came a…Reysarkenlosos spell…”

Arciel and Clarke stared dumbly for a moment. Arciel was about to open her mouth when the carriage came to an abrupt stop. We’re here.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Jeremiah rose in a blur and peeled the carriage door open with one hand, slipping out within seconds of the carriage halting. What’s his problem? It looks like he’s one those ‘lone wolf’ types. Blegh, those types are a handful, they take themselves way too seriously.

I exit next followed by Epsilon, our weapons drawn and at the ready. Making sure it’s safe for the vulnerable summoners, I scan the area; from what I’ve seen, the people who win the battles are the summoners, the Heroes just keep them safe and buy time being that they’re literal immortal vanguards.

The area surrounding the carriage is hollow of trees, or at least, living trees. The ground has no grass, only gravel. The ground further near the epicenter of dead and greying trees seems to oozing with tar or something the like. In the very epicenter of this unnatural occurrence, are a few dozen tents set up by the base of a small hill. The tents were evidently empty, as they’re walls flapped in the crisp of wind.

If I had to guess, the area of dead ground is about a kilometer in diameter. For being out in the wilderness, I feel awfully exposed from the sheer amount of open space surrounding me. Despite the sun not being out, it’s awfully bright out. The only shadows are those cast by the tents.

After a moment, our three summoners cautiously exit the carriage.

“Alright. We’re setting out. Don’t let your guards down.”

Jeremiah gave a backhanded wave at two soldiers who’re being left behind to guard the carriage. The horses drawing the carriage, all four of them, were staring an unbreakable glare at the epicenter of the rotting land.

Jeremiah took the lead, I followed close behind by our casters. Epsilon took the rear. Other than the howl of the wind across the plain, it was silent.

“You think we can just blow the place to hell from here?”

I ask, in a slightly louder voice than normal because of the intense wind.

“Hey, Fifi, you think your spell will do any good from here?”

I was expecting Arciel to brush me off as a joke, but it looks like I wasn’t overestimating the strength of a, ‘Tier Five’ spell. From what I’ve been able to piece together, there are different roots of spells, such as Rey and Eiar which offer small and fast spells. But, these spells can apparently be added onto with more syllables, mana and casting time to increase effectiveness.

“I, I might be able to. G-give me minute.”

She just barely manages to raise her staff horizontally at the cluster of tents. It really is too hard for her to hold.

“Hopefully that level five spell will be able to create a crater for us to enter the hive from. I wouldn’t wanna go through the beast’s pre-planned entrance.” Arciel says.

“Agreed. Do it, squirt.”

Jeremiah motioned to Fifio. Man, I know I’m sometimes rude, but that’s a little kid; take it easy man.

Fifio’s staff began glowing blue, and I realize that I should probably get out of the line of fire and behind her like Jeremiah has. A translucent hexagon of blue appears at the tip of the staff, from it’s vertices stream lines of blue toward the tip of the staff. Above Fifio form three more of these hexagons, though they’re a lot bigger; and after a moment, they suddenly shift toward the sky, as if creating a slanted roof above Fifio. A small cluster of white started to form at the tip of her staff, it expanded in size until it was almost as big as she was. Good thing her staff is so long and large, or that ball of white would be engulfing her right now. The large ball of light shines brightly, so bright it turns the grey and black ground purely white, I can barely keep my eyes open.

“I’m ready to fire.”

“Just go already.”

It’s a bit sad, this timid little girl is the submissive one in their Hero-Summoner pair, I bet you Jeremiah’s the only Hero who can get away with giving orders to his summoner.

“Rey, Sark, En, Lo, Sos!”

Fifio shouts, her tepidness apparently being pushed away. A beam of white shoots out of the ball of energy. It’s thin, and it doesn’t look to do anything to the tents other than looking like a big laser pointer.

“I’m locked. G-get ready.”

She tightens her grip on the staff.

Then, a moment later, she shoots a large pulse of white from the staff. It followed along the white beam and crashed into the tents within seconds. I feel a massive quake bellow my feet, and I just barely manage to not stumble to my knee’s. Fifio’s shot of white exploded in a blue and white spiral, like a tornado a mushroom cloud of dust expanded around the epicenter of Fifio’s blast, blocking the actual effect of the spell from view.

Weirdly, Fifio keeps her stance, and all the magic surrounding her, including the white beam and ball, is still the same.

“I-it’s no good…I-I’m sorry, I’m too weak…”

“What’re you talking about! That was amazing!”

Arciel says, clearly in awe of the power of her former classmate.

“And equally terrifying, yes?”

Clarke adds, though he’s barely audible.

As the quaking and ear-piercing roar of the explosion fade, I notice several animalistic roars from the blast. The spell must’ve disturbed and alerted the monsters to our presence.

“Here they come; it looks like your dinky spell rattled them up. Fire off some more, squirt.”

Without saying a word, Fifio tenses up, and another pulse of white streams down the beam. The ground shakes once more, and another mushroom cloud appeared and expanded over the center of the area.

After a minute, the roaring picks up again; Through the cloud of white smoke and dust, figures of a few dozen quadrupedal beasts appear, running toward us. Without a moment to spare, Fifio fires once more, and the beasts are vaporized in another humongous explosion. That's three times she's fired, Jesus.

“Should, should I keep going?”

Fifio asks Jeremiah anxiously.

“Save the mana, looks like you breached it; let’s move.”

I don’t feel comfortable about Jeremiah assuming command, but I begrudgingly move forward with him. The white beam shooting past us fades as Fifio lowers her staff and stumbles trying to catch up to us. The smoke from Fifio’s spells gradually starts to fade, and I can see that a large crater has opened up where the tents were. Me and Jeremiah slowly approach the gargantuan sized hole that Fifio’s spell had made. As we do, more and more roars pick up as it seems another wave of beasts approach. I wonder how many of them we’re going to have to kill. Judging from what I’ve seen and heard, it doesn’t look like anybody was considering culling the population, rather the key seems to be to destroy the hive.

A dozen quadrupedal beasts jump up from the crater, they charge us. I hear both Clarke and Arciel’s staff start to hum with magic when-

“Hey, noobies, let your Heroes handle the tunnel trash, you shouldn’t piss away your mana so freely.”

Jeremiah says without turning. It sounds like he’s confident we can handle them without any spells; but this’ll be my first time up against a beast. I still remember my encounter with Mr. Alien, and how strong my punch was, so I’m not exactly scared. The beasts come within meters of us, and the forward few leap at me and Jeremiah. I raise my sword and swing it at the mid-air beast jumping toward me. Like a hot knife through butter, my sword meets no resistance as the beast is bisected before me with a satisfying crunch.

That felt, oddly pleasing.

A second one leapt at me. Alright, I’ll test out how strong I really am. These things area few yards long, so they're not as big as Mr. Alien, but they’re probably pretty strong. I leave my left hand to hold my sword, and punch forward with all my might with my right hand.

Just like last time, a pseudo explosion sounds as the beast’s blackened skull is caved in by my gauntleted fist. The beast flies straight into the ground, and remains, unmoving. Well, I just killed an alien with a single punch, go me. Unlike the last time I punched an alien, I’m wearing this hard as hell hero armor, and I punched it directly in the face; so that’d probably kill a lot of things. As much as I’d like to go around beating the living shit out of everything I see, my arms don’t exactly offer up the same range that my massive sword does, so I feel like I’d get swarmed pretty easily. As much as I’m uncomfortable with having been unceremoniously given amazing gear right off the bat, I’m not any less thankful for it.

Another monster flings itself at me, and another monster is satisfyingly diced in one swing. I can see how these things would be overwhelming to a normal person, but these guys are like a joke to me with my unfair strength advantage. It’s doing little to improve my swordsmanship, but oh well.

I look over to see Epsilon impale a beast straight through the mouth, killing it instantly. Jeremiah had already killed the five that’d broken off to him, all in one hit bisection kills I’m guessing. He raises his spear with one arm. Maybe you’d call it a polearm since it still has a large triangular-like cutting tip. It looks like he’s about to throw it, and I follow his gaze to a retreating beast, the last one in our view. Jeremiah throws his weapon with perfect form, the spear soars in a large arc and the scrambling creature is impaled dead center in it’s spine.

“Come on. They won’t stop coming if we don’t collapse the hive.”

Jeremiah walks forward, the rest of us follow. As we near the edge of the crater, Jeremiah picks up his spear from the ground whilst peering over into the massive hole that Fifio had created.

Then, he-!?

He jumped!?

…Not to be outdone, I trot forward and leap as well. After a few moments of some gut-wrenching free-fall, I land with a thud. Jeez, the area carved out by that spell is seriously no joke, it’s like the size of a basketball court. The ground and dirt here is all either dead and gray rock, or a pure black dirt. At one part in the crater’s wall, a stream of black tar leaks down, as if the wall was bleeding.

From the crater, there are lots of tunnels that seemed to have been stretching through the area, but were exposed by the blast. All in all, about four massive tunnels have been blown through. The light streaming from the sky don’t pierce the tunnels at all, leaving them deathly dark like black mouths waiting to devour us.

After a moment, down the sides of the crater come Epsilon and our summoners. Epsilon simply slid down, but our lightly armored summoners had to carefully climb their way down.

“Alright, what’s the plan?”

Arciel says, dusting off her clothes from coming down.

“I say we stick together and explore each of the tunnels one-by-one.”

I say. I don’t think splitting up in a place like this is a very smart idea.

“No. We’d just get swarmed. We need to break up their concentration of forces; if we split up, we’ll be able to handle less enemies in these cramped tunnels.”

Jeremiah says, picking the nearest tunnel and walking toward it without another word.

“But there’s four tunnels, and only three pairs. I say we stick together.” Epsilon says.

Jeremiah doesn’t stop walking, instead he’s flicks his hand as if to wave away me and Epsilon’s word’s.

“The squirt and me will go separate ways then.”

“W-what!?”

Fifio, who was following Jeremiah, yelps in objection, physically taken back by his words. But, her cry of fear fall on deaf ears, Jeremiah entered the black of his tunnel without replying.

“Hmph. That’s one cocky Hero, yes?”

“Well, I guess we don’t have a choice. Want to come with me and Shepard, Fifi?”

Arciel asks, shrugging at Jeremiah’s absence. Though, instead leaping at the offer, Fifio stands silent. She then shakes her head, albeit reluctantly.

“N-no…Jeremiah said so, so…”

She looks like she’s at a loss for words. Arciel shrugs.

“Suit yourself.”

What? I wasn’t expecting Arciel to just let Fifio go like that; I don’t how she can expect a little girl to roam these monster infested tunnels herself. After seeing her fancy level five spell, I know she’s strong, but aren’t all mages susceptible to attack in these close quarters?

“Will she really be fine alone?”

Arciel nodded her head and started walking toward a tunnel. I follow.

“It takes skill to use magic too you know. Higher tiered spells are really just fire and forget but, the lower tiered ones are where a mage needs to be tactful; especially in close quarters like this.”

“So you’re confident that a little girl has more skill than you do?”

I ask as we enter the darkness of a tunnel. Arciel says nothing, she only shakes her head with her eyes closed. She doesn’t want to talk? That’s a first. Whilst progressing deeper into the cavern’s entrance, I look behind me to see Fifio, nervously glancing around, apparently frozen in indecision. Clarke glared at Fifio for a moment, before turning and waving to Epsilon to follow. They walk out of view.

Fifio stood in the crater, alone. She shook her head, and stumbled away out of view to the last tunnel.

I turn back to Arciel. She’d lit up a singular and bright mage light spell at the tip of her staff that illuminated a comfortable volume.

“So, what were you saying about that whole skill thing?”

She lifted a handed and waved it around slightly.

“Yeah, sorry about that. It’s just, I’m a bit jealous of her.”

“Her?”

“Fifio.”

“Excuse me?”

She shrugged again.

“Ha, it’s pathetic isn’t it? I’m jealous of a girl almost half my age. She has triple the mana capacity I do, and can use two levels above my strongest spell, all at her age. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a lot better at using her lower level spells than me as well. It would’ve been me being assigned as Jeremiah’s summoner replacement if it weren’t for her, you know.”

She spoke melancholically. Huh, I didn’t think Arciel harbored any resentment for Fifio. From what I’ve seen of Arciel, she can’t keep a lid on her emotions, but she sounded pretty friendly with Fifio; maybe that’s just because of her age or tepidness. I don’t think I’ve seen Arciel act more nicely to anyone than Fifio.

“Is that all just because she was born with that kind of power or because she’s worked hard?”

In this world, I haven’t heard a whiff about ‘Innate Talent’ so I believe it’s the former.

“She was born with a large amount of mana, and high magic aptitude. I think her parents put a lot of pressure on her to succeed as well, even when she was younger, so this is where she ended up...”

Arciel sighed, apparently defeated.

“…”

I want to say something consolidating, but I can’t find the right words. And before I try too hard, my mind realizes I’m trying to console Arciel, my devilish brat of a summoner, so I stop. Before we start another conversation, without warning a large mass leaps out of the shadows in front of us. I yelp in surprise and swing my sword hastily as if I were trying to swat a fly away. But this thing is far too large for that. My half-assed swing does cut into it, but it doesn’t bisect and kill it instantly like I hoped it would of. The creature, that I know see looks like a large and black furred gorilla, silently swings an arm at me. I’m knocked off my feet and slam into the tunnel’s rocky wall.

As my vision unblurs I see Arciel barely dodge a follow up swing.

“Eiar!”

She raises a hand and three orange bolts fire at the purely black figure. Now standing upright, the gorilla thing easily shrugs off the bolts, which sink into it’s fur, but don’t seem to draw blood. The beast lifts it’s both hands preparing to smash downward. Fully erect, the creature towered above both me and Arciel, it had long limbs and a small chest, resembling a humanoid shape. It didn’t have a very large head, it was more like a really stubby neck.

With a gasp, Arciel dived forward narrowly avoiding the overhead smash of the beast. She was now point blank to it.

I lift my sword, now re-centered from my initial blow; but it’s already over.

Arciel lifts her staff, shoving directly into the thing’s chest.

“Rey!”

The tip of her staff explodes in a flash of blue, and the beast in front of her is literally ripped apart. No blood splatters, only the debris of it’s limbs fly through the air.

After a moment of tense silence, Arciel let’s out a gasp of relief. She then turns toward me. I’m still dumbly holding my sword over my head ready to swing, in mild shock over the display by Arciel. Being smashed against that wall, I couldn’t move too well, so I had the first close look at how Arciel fights.

Arciel pouts pretty angrily at me. Oh boy, I’m about to get yelled at, aren’t I?

“Uh, I’m sorry for not protecting you.”

I lower my sword, offering up a shrug and apology.

“Hmph!”

Arciel turns away with her arms crossed.

She begins walking further into the tunnel, her light spell still active from before we were attacked. I hastily follow. We walk in silence for a few more minutes. As I think about the battle now preceding us, a question pops into my mind, and eager to break the silence of this dark hell, I immediately ask.

“So, why even use a staff huh? Can’t you just use your hands?”

Arciel turns toward me, reluctantly pulling away from her high-chinned pout.

“Staffs aren’t special. They're just objects that are easy to carry and offer a lot of mass for their ease of use. Mages use staffs and wands to imbue magic into something that isn’t their body; thus, they can increase the amount of mana they can have stored up without firing it. If a mage were to store up too much mana in preparation, they’d actually explode.”

“…oh.”

I can’t wait to see that sometime in this world, a mage detonating suicide-bomber style; really nice thought.

…Jokes aside, from what I just saw in front of me, mages aren’t completely helpless alone. Even against that…thing, Arciel still killed it without a scratch.

Speaking of which-

-What in the hell was that thing!? It looked like some kind of huge black monkey with stupidly long limbs and little head and chest. It didn’t make a single sound, it just ambushed us. I don’t know if that was intentional or not, the whole surprise thing it had going on:

It’s black fur made it impossible to see in the shadows, even directly in front of us.

It’s long limbs allowed it to be silent in it’s approach.

It didn’t roar, not even once.

It’s a scary thought, that it purposely did that. What if it also waited a while before attacking immediately, as so we’d lower our guards…The more I think about, the more a rock forms in my stomach.

“Are monsters always like that?”

“If by that you mean unpredictable and horrifying, then yeah, they’re usually like that.”

“Great. I thought they were all quadrupedal dog looking things.”

“The majority of them are. I’ve seen tons of variation, as far as I’m concerned anything is possible when it comes to beasts. I think they’re all ju-”

A cacophony of roars echoing from the tunnel cut her off.

“Well, get ready.”

Arciel says with a shrug, her staff glowing blue.

…

“That’s the last of them yes?”

“I believe so, Elder Kalinfyre.”

“Please, do just call me Clarke.”

“…My apologies. It’s just that you seem old enough to be in the Gerousia(1),so I couldn’t but address you with respect.”

Clarke furrowed his brow with a sigh.

I thought having a girl Hero was bad enough, but she seems to also be an airhead.

Epsilon had just finished off half a dozen beasts all by herself right in front of Clarke. They were the usual tunnel trash, so it wasn’t as if he was surprised; but he was thankful his vanguard actually had some skill as opposed to the Shepard fellow. He seemed to be stronger than Epsilon physically, but unlike her, he hadn’t received a very rare thing, actual training and combat experience prior to summoning.

He wondered how Arciel would cope.

She didn’t have many non-combat spells like all of the one’s Clarke had accumulated, like the binding spell Megakaszt, and his own creation, a shielding spell Dividen. He had many other miscellaneous spells that weren’t for combat, most of them were from the times of the old, where there exist only a few actual violent spells for self-defense.

To the normal person, these spells seemed useless in battle; but to Clarke, they were to him more useful than the most powerful artillery spell.

Kids these days have no imagination.

That included Arciel, she was the very embodiment of thinking that a spell’s strength was everything. She was much nimbler than him in a pinch yes, but he had the years on her; he still believed that if the both of them were to fight, he’d win.

That also wasn’t taking into account their Heroes, from which Clarke would benefit even more. That Shepard character didn’t seem to be the most reliable to him in a fight, he’d rather have Epsilon with him every time. It didn’t help that she also seemed to understand combat much more than him, perhaps not on a creative level such as Clarke himself, but in a purely on-the-ground perspective.

“So what is it we’re looking to destroy?”

“You’ll know it when you see it. If we see the hive itself, I’ll pour all of my mana into destroying it. But if not, our best bet is to collapse as many tunnels as we can and retreat.”

Clarke wasn’t too confident in actually being able to put down enough firepower to destroy a hive were they to see one; he believed his weak and almost museum-like arsenal of old spells would barely do a thing to these hard rocks surrounding him.

Clarke had started his life as a scholar, he’d picked up a great many spells that were long forgotten, bringing them back into the light and documenting them. These spells were forgotten for a reason, it’s because they were long outdated. Compared to the newly concocted and finely-honed spells of today, they seemed quite ineffective. Clarke had accumulated many of these spells in his free time. He was never hoping to join a military position, he was perfectly happy to be the old and grumpy teacher on campus.

…One thing led to another, and he’d been dragged out of his peace, left with nothing but a skeleton’s closet of spells to use in the most dangerous combat situations Andestine could throw him in. In his year’s long exodus from his professor’s life, Clarke thought he’d done quite well for himself in formulating new combat oriented spells to keep himself alive; he’d already learned the second levels of Rey and Eiar, and had taken the time to put together his own shielding spell.

As much as Arciel berated him for it, she didn’t know the half of it.

Clarke couldn’t wait to see the smirk wipe off her face as he passed her in leveled-spell ability.

“…Clarke, is this what you were speaking of?”

Epsilon, who’d been walking a few meters ahead of Clarke, had stopped. Clarke had spent a good chunk of his mana on lighting, four extremely bright lights floated ahead of and behind them. To him, being able to see far out weighted having spare mana for extra attack spells.

Clarke continued walking and stood beside Epsilon, he redirected the two light spells in front of him to fan out before his view.

The small tunnel had opened into a massive cavern, at least four times the size of the crater that was created by the little caster. It was purely black, not a single light but Clarke’s were present. In the middle of the cavern, was a massive elongated sphere. It was like a wasp’s nest, and it didn’t seem to have exits or entrances. Despite it’s minor aura of unease, Clarke nonetheless tensed in surprise. It wasn’t everyday you saw something so dangerous so closely. This large and seemingly dead hulk, could spawn terrors of the imagination.

Clarke needed to destroy it as fast as possible.

It was an ongoing study of whether beasts were intelligent individually by Andestine. But one thing was known for certain:

Hives were intelligent.

They weren’t sure of how great this intelligence was of course, but it was confirmed wholeheartedly. This morsel of information had been kept secret from the public since it’s inception a few centuries back, but Clarke was a scholar, professor, and now an Andestinian Summoner, he was privy to such information by default.

“This is it. I’ll be using all of my mana, so do protect me after the matter, my life will be in your hands, yes?”

Epsilon nodded sternly to him.

“I understand. I will serve as your shield.”

Clarke nodded in affirmation. He was glad his Hero had such a strong sense of valor and duty. Wherever she’d came from, she’d been taught to stick with her allies and fight with them to death if need be. Even if her ally was someone she’d only met a month prior.

“Here goes nothing. When I start firing, they’ll probably come running, so do brace yourself.”

There was only one way to go about this given the amount of mana he had left and the power of Clarke’s spells. Priority was given to the hive instantly, if he simply collapsed the surrounding few tunnels in the cavern, then it could eventually dig itself out, and they’d have another problem on their hands. Once the hive was neutralized, he’d collapse the tunnels, it never hurt to be safe.

Now with a plan, he begun casting, forming the spells and building them up. He’d fire in one large barrage; he wouldn’t give the hive any time to react. As the first few of his spells were formed and he transferred them to his staff for temporary storage, out of the corners of the sphere, shadows blurred. They crept slowly into view, peeking cautiously at Clarke and Epsilon from around the the base of the hive. There were three of them, dozens of meters away and extremely hard to spot; but thanks to Clarke’s lighting spells, he could make them out, if only barely. After staring directly at Clarke for a solid fifteen seconds complete silence, they ran. Directly toward him and Epsilon came the three of them, their limbs were long and their chest’s small, their fur purely black and without imperfection. They ran without noises and on all-fours. Epsilon sank low, preparing against the gaiting creatures.

Clarke started to perspire upon his forehead.

He wasn’t confident that Epsilon could handle this, one maybe, but three?

He gulped for his own safety. If all hell broke loose and his vanguard perished, he’d let loose his spells on these creatures, and fall back. Epsilon was immortal, he was not.

The creatures stopped their terrifyingly fast charge exactly five meters from Epsilon and himself. They stood in a blur, their fully standing bodies towering over his own. Then, they stared.

For a straight minute of gut-wrenching silence, they stared. They did nothing, but stare. Their small black eyes on the bulge between their shoulders, burning at Clarke.

As the silence dragged, the part of Clarke’s mind that wasn’t forming spells came to a creeping thought,

Are, are they Sequiturs?

Before he was able to think any further, they blurred into motion. All three of them rose their long arms above their head simultaneously, preparing to smash down at Epsilon. To her credit, Epsilon did not buckle in fear. They were in a semi-circle around her; she rose her shield at the one on her left, and thrust with her spear at one in the center. The power of a smash slammed into her shield, and as she her spear entered the center one, she pushed back with her shield sending the one of the left sliding away. However, she simply couldn’t handle three attacks at once, the right one’s arms slammed into her, and without even a yelp, Epsilon was knocked off her feet, and was sent rolling into the ground.

Without time for Clarke’s heart to even pique in terror, the center one, who’d been impaled, shambled to Clarke with lighting speed. It rolled it’s hands together into a hammer and prepared to swipe at Clarke from low angle. Clarke cringed, preparing for a great deal of pain. He didn’t have the time to even point his staff, which contained all of his built-up spells at the creature...

…But, a golden blur slammed into the creature mere feet from his face. Epsilon had just tackled the creature to the ground with her shield. She rose, raised her spear and impaled it’s head in a lighting quick thrust. Turning, she met one’s full body with her shield, and she attacked in a cobra quick and infinitely accurate jab with her spear.

Just like that, she’d saved Clarke and eliminated two of the beasts. The last punched forward, it’s attack was far too strong to counter from, so Epsilon simply rose her shield and absorbed the attack, slightly sliding back on her feet due to it’s force.

Clarke, tired of watching and acutely tired of mentally thanking Epsilon, decided to act. Epsilon had shown where their weak spot seemed to be: The spot between their shoulders that barely registered as a head. Clarke flipped his staff in his fingers around to it’s other end, revealing a tip which had to this point been always hidden, impaled into the ground;

A jagged metal spike lay upon this end of his staff. He thrust toward the creature, in an attack not as refined as Epsilon’s, and surely not as vigorous, but it was plenty powerful. Clarke’s jagged tipped staff impaled the unsuspecting creature with ease.

Teaches you right for forgetting about an old man.

Clarke sighed, the corpses of the beasts were all on the ground and thoroughly dead. With Epsilon reassuming her defensive crouch in front of Clarke, and without a second to waste, he unleashed his now complete magical cocktail of destruction.

“Rey! Reysar! Eiar’duun!”

Three different kind of spells left Clarke’s staff, the large orange spears shooting out first. There were about six of them, and they slammed into the hive in a circular pattern. Then came a dozen bright blue balls, they surged straight into the middle of the pattern of spears, capitalizing on a hopefully weakened structure. They exploded once, yet still remained, sticking to the hive.

Clarke had used one of his favorite tricks, the close-range blast spell Rey couldn’t be used at range on it’s own, so he’d bound them all with the Reysar spells, in essence making them hitch a ride on the other spells. Clarke snapped his fingers, and the dozen blue balls sticking to the hive exploded seconds after the first explosion from the Reysar spells.

With this display, a large quake was inevitable, and hearing the powerful sound of his spells exploding was an oddly pleasing feeling.

But, the noise didn’t stop there. The hive seemed to shudder, it’s walls collapsing and deflating in on itself.

“Alright, that’s a good job we’ve done, let’s get out of here yes? I don’t have the mana left to collapse the tunnels, I’m completely dry.”

Epsilon nodded. Before they were about to turn however, Clarke spotted the collapsed hive’s walls shudder. The destroyed hive looked like a pile of loose blankets, and it seemed something was under all of them. Clarke gulped, and turned, waving to Epsilon. They quickly backtracked down the tunnel they’d came down, their trot breaking into a run as a loud roar sounded behind them.

…

“Ah…a complete failure huh?”

Arciel’s shoulder’s slumped as we re-entered the light of the crater.

“It looks like we’re the first to return too.” I say, scanning the area.

Arciel let out another sigh.

“We only managed to collapse some tunnels and kill a few dozen of them…hopefully the others had more luck.”

Yeah, after that first surprise attack from that gorilla, it was a cakewalk from there. Just more of the same big mutated dog things. I was able to just dice them all up in single swings though, so nothing really got past me. Other than that first encounter, Arciel didn’t exhaust anymore mana other than to collapse the tunnels.

We stood in silence, essentially twiddling our thumbs waiting for good news. Man, this sucks. I wish we’d found something, but I feel like a total let down. Well, whatever, we did exactly what was planned; explore and collapse the surrounding tunnels. If Jeremiah snaps at us, it’d be pretty stupid.

“How do you think Fifio is holding up?” I ask.

Arciel shook her head.

“I have no idea. I haven’t seen her since I graduated, so she could either be completely overwhelmed, or completely underwhelmed for all I know.”

…She really speaks with a less caring tone than when Fifio is actually around. Before I can respond, out of the nearby tunnel comes a single person.

It’s Jeremiah.

He walks slowly toward us, his spear lazily on his shoulders like he’s a scarecrow. Black blood dripped from it’s large ends.

“Any luck?” Arciel asked.

Jeremiah shakes his head as he nears.

“Just the usual tunnel trash. I collapsed some tunnels and fell back, you?”

How, how in the hell did he collapse a tunnel?

Arciel shook her head.

“Same as you.”

Jeremiah shrugged, hoisting his spear onto his back. He then stood staring at the other two tunnels from which Clarke and Epsilon, and Fifio, had gone. We sat there for a few minutes in silence, just waiting. So far, out of two tunnels, both results were negative. I hope to god we don’t have to blow up another crater, it’s already been an hour since we left the carriage and I’m feeling pretty drained. At least we’re waiting out here in the sun, where we can actually see the entire area surrounding us. What a luxury.

Before anymore time passes, I hear a distant running. From the tunnel Clarke and Epsilon entered, I hear two sets of footsteps. Jeremiah’s head had already perked up, but it seemed Arciel, with her non-hero hearing, hadn’t noticed yet.

“It sounds like Clarke and that Greek are running from something…”

Jeremiah draws his spear, and slowly walks toward the tunnel where I hear rushed footsteps from. Arciel and I stand as well. I draw my sword and prepare for anything. As the footsteps louden, I hear Arciel’s staff start to hum.

Out of the shadows come Clarke and Epsilon, they see us, and seem relieved. Clarke runs past me to Arciel, Epsilon turns on her heel and raises her shield, joining me and Jeremiah in front of the two summoners.

“Something big, and bad.”

Clarke grunts, clearly out of breath compared to Epsilon.

“I’m out of mana, we found the hive, and I just barely managed to destroy it with what I had…you all had success yes?” Clarke asked in between a breath for air.

“No, we got nothing else.” Arciel responded.

We stood, ready to engage some mysterious threat, for almost five minutes. As the time passed, Jeremiah lowered his spear, and turned to Clarke, walking away from the tunnel.

“What was chasing you, isn’t anymore. That, or the both of you are crazy.”

Hearing that, Clarke flashed a glare at Jeremiah as everyone slowly relaxed.

“Well, if you destroyed the hive, then we’re done here. Now all that’s left is the squirt.”

“Do you really think she’s okay?” Arciel immediately asked, almost in defiance. It sounds like Arciel doesn’t like Jeremiah either.

Maybe sowing a seed of doubt in his mind, Jeremiah glances at the last tunnel from where Fifio had left. After some more staring, he stops hoisting his spear mid way, and he took a single step toward the tunnel.

“Fine then. I’ll go after her.”

Jeremiah took another step, and it seemed like Arciel were about to open her mouth when-

-A flash of blue illuminated the last tunnel, screams of beasts echoed throughout. Jeremiah suddenly loosened his grip, and turned toward Arciel, pointing backward with a thumb.

“I told you the squirt would be fine.”

Another flash, and a few beasts ran out of the tunnel, covered in a cloak of blue flame. They were howling in pain, and were running as if their lives depended on it. Echoing from the tunnel however, I heard a single spell incatation.

“Reysarke!”

The three beast’s that left the tunnel were engulfed in a brilliant and undulating beam of blue, vaporizing them. The beam then crashed into the wall of the crater, sending quake beneath my feet.

…Good thing we weren’t standing over there.

Out of the tunnel flew, yes flew, Fifio. Her small body was wrapped in a spiral of blue and at her back extended small and translucent golden wings, they didn’t have any form to them, rather they were like 2D pictures. Her face was serious, but it instantly broke into terror when she saw the five of us in the crater.

“Ah!” She quickly flew over, landing in a stumble and trotting over as the blue spiral and wings surrounding her faded. “I-I’m so sorry! I, I could’ve hurt you…”

Jeremiah walked over to her, with a really scary face. What the hell is he planning?

“Watch. The. Friendly. Fire.”

Jeremiah lightly karate chopped the top of her head repeatedly with his words, his hard gauntlet ruffling her soft hair.

As Fifio whined to Jeremiah to stop, I heard Arciel mumble under her breath.

“…Wow…”

“What is it?” I ask to her.

She shook her head.

“It’s just, I wasn’t expecting her to be able to use defensive and utility spells on top of having the 5th tier of Rey…”

She mumbled defeatedly. I shrugged at her.

“Alright, let’s get the hell out of here and to Geraldi, to do whatever Trissdean’s plotted for us.” He looked up, and continued, “Let’s collapse these tunnels too. We can’t leave the surface exposed like this.”

…I’m really starting to get bugged by him taking the lead all the time. I puff my chest out, and begrudgingly follow.

***

1. Gerousia. The Gerousia was a ruling council in Sparta that consisted of men over the age of sixty.