I didn't know how fast that monster was, so, just to be sure, I increased my speed with magic once again and fled through one of the entrances. The small beetle I avoided ignored me the moment I changed my route, but this giant one kept following me. And he ran very fast! As much as there was a considerable distance between us, he didn't give up on chasing me! It was as if he knew that my speed was temporary.

I don't know how long I ran or how many curves I turned, but after turning another curve, I came across at a glance with a tall being, a little bigger than me to be more exact, and bipedal. I was about to make another detour when I realized what the creature was: it was a person! Stumbling, I turned around to go alert that individual.

“HEEEEYYY!,” I shouted while shortening my distance. “GIANT BEETLE MONSTER INCOMING! HE IS RESISTANT TO MAGICAL ATTACKS! RUN!”

I held my staff harder, prepared to increase the speed of the stranger with a spell. If the beetle monster was too close to them, I would cast a magic rope to pull the person closer to me.

However, the stranger, upon hearing my warning, did not run. Instead, they turned in the direction of the giant beetle, which had just appeared in their field of vision. The person adjusted the position of the long item he was holding, pointed it at the monster and, after three "bangs", the giant beetle fell with three holes in his body.

When I finally reached the person, they had already killed the monster. Once I got close to them, I ended up noticing that his silhouette and black hair were familiar to me.

“…Ozul?,” I tried to call.

Upon hearing my voice, he turned to look at me. It was really Ozul.

“Amaris!,” he exclaimed. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

He surrounded me, looking at me from top to bottom in search of injuries. Apart from being sweaty and a little dirty, there was nothing in me standing out.

“I'm fine!,” I assured. “I ran away before that big monster could hurt me.”

“If so, I'm glad I helped you in some way.”

“You talk as if you had done nothing,” I murmured. “You defeated that animal so quickly that it's shameful for me, since all I could do was running away!”

“Don't be pessimistic. What happened to you was just having the bad luck of finding an enemy who is a mirror of your own strength. Besides, I was just lucky he was big enough to be a difficult target to miss,” Ozul began to roll up the sleeves of his coat. “take a look,” his forearms were full of open wounds. “if an enemy can get close to me, I need to enter a hand-to-hand combat and I always end up hurting myself. Not all fights are easy.”

He was obviously saying those things just to cheer me up, but I couldn't help but look at the wounds on his forearms. All of them were recent and had not been properly treated. He was definitely suffering because of them.

“Don't move.”

I approached Ozul and held his forearms. With my own magic, I healed him. His wounds closed quickly, leaving no scars. This healing magic was already so easy for me that, in fact, I didn't even need to touch it, but doing so kind of creates a sense of trust with those who are being cured.

“Consider this as a thank you for saving me,” I said to him after letting go of his arms.

Ozul looked at the results of my work. His forearms were brand new, as if he had never fought with monsters here. Modesty aside, he seemed to be very satisfied.

“Thank you very much!,” he thanked.

“You’re welcome!”

In the meantime, I took a look sideways at the tool Ozul had received. To my surprise, it was a weapon that looked like a shotgun.

“You got a shotgun!,” I exclaimed to Ozul. “I didn't know you were a shooter!”

“Now you know.”

“Not everyone is a shooter, you know that, right?”

“I noticed,” He scratched the back of his neck.

To give you an idea, guns aren’t a very accessible type of weapon in this world, so there are few people who own and use them, more precisely, there are only three groups of people. The first group are soldiers who protect big cities and noble families. The second group is hunters, but a good part of them prefer to work with quieter weapons. And the last group are the adventurers who, after being able to acquire a lot of money and fame, bought their own gun.

“Changing the subject,” Ozul spoke again. “I didn't know you were a healer.”

“Yeah, I am. Although I could use attack spells, I ended up discovering that I’ve got more proficiency for support.”

“That's great. It would be great to have the help of a healer while exploring these dungeons...”

Oh! That was my cue!

“By the way,” I started like I didn't want anything. “Mr. Reignia said in the letter that our goal was to get out of the dungeons, but I don't know if everyone need to leave on their own or if we can form groups. Was there any mention of this in the letter you received?”

“No, he didn't mention anything like that.”

“So he must be leaving it to our own discretion... In that case, let's stay together. You can do physical damage and I can do magical damage. We already have the minimum to go through these dungeons successfully! What do you say?”

To my joy, Ozul accepted and we started our quest as a duo. Now that I had a partner who could dealt a good amount of physical damage, I wouldn't need to have to make a detour every time a magic resistant monster appeared. If we found someone with good magical attack to join us, I could go to the rear and take on a supporting role completely, thus putting myself in my element.

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As we continued with our quest, I better showed what my skills were. In addition to healing, which in itself is already important, I could cast small magical barriers around a target to protect them and I could also temporarily buff some attribute of my allies and myself. Okay, I confess that I might have bragged a little, but I worked so hard to be a good support, so it was obvious that I would want to show off all my usefulness.

As we faced the monsters, I told everything that happened to me before I met him and he did the same. Just like me, Ozul also woke up in a little room, found a letter from Mr. Reignia who said what was the purpose of him being here and received a tool that would serve him best - which in his case was a shotgun. However, from the moment he left the room, his story differed from mine.

He had started completely alone, of course, but soon found company: Gregório Callister and a girl with blue hair and eyes named Lynette Mildrin. Ozul was invited to join the duo, or rather, Lynette suggested it, because it was "how it should be", while Gregório just shrugged and told him "Don't be a nuisance"

However, as much as Ozul had tried, the trio's teamwork was deplorable. You see, Ozul uses a shotgun and Lynette was an archer, while Gregório was a swordsman with two swords. Ozul and Lynette could attack from a distance, but Gregório needed to approach the enemy to attack, so if there was no synchrony between the three, Gregório could end up being hit instead of the opponent and precisely for that reason he was the most demanding of the trio.

However, Gregório was specifically much more demanding with Ozul! There was always something to complain about Ozul, about what he did and how he did it. When it came to Lynette,Gregório wasn't such a complainer. Maybe it was because archery is a better known practice than shooting, but I'm not sure and not even Ozul knows what the real reason was.

It was a matter of time before the friction between the two reached a critical point. Ozul got tired of Gregório's behaviour and demanded an explanation, which led to a discussion between the two. The two boys exchanged insults until Gregório finally said "since you are dissatisfied, feel free to leave" I don't know if he said this with the intention of shutting Ozul up or not, but leaving the group was exactly what Ozul did. As for Lynette, she was silent during the discussion and, after Ozul left, she continued with Gregório.

After the separation, Ozul kept looking for the exit alone and, on the way, killed some monsters. Thanks to his aim, he could defeat them without having to get so close, but there were some who were very fast and who managed to get close to Ozul, so he had to enter a hand-to-hand combat and ended up getting hurt. They weren’t serious injuries, but they were still uncomfortable.

Finally, Ozul found me, saved me from the the giant beetle, I healed his wounds and we became partners!

Speaking of our partnership, I can say that, at least from my perspective, it was being pleasant. With Ozul around, I had fewer concerns about my deficiency in physical attacks, however, because his attacks were long-range, hand-to-hand combat were more difficult. Fortunately, I had two solutions: if it was a single monster, I’d cast a spell to improve Ozul's accuracy, and if they were a in group, I’d cast a small barrier for us. When they were weak enemies of magic, I left the support position and acted as a battle mage. In these cases, Ozul was my support, casting spells on the monsters that escaped my range.

I may be a little insensitive and ignorant but, to be honest, I didn't understand Gregório's complaints. Working with Ozul was wonderful! Of course, there was the issue of we only known each other for a day and therefore our synergy still needs to improve, but for a first time, things flowed well.

Our current goal was to look for more stairs to go to upper floors, after all, since we were in dungeons and they are underground, the more floors we went up, the closer we will be to the exit. As soon as we found another row of stairs, we went up to the next floor.

This floor in specific was much quieter than the previous one. We didn't find any monster lurking as we crossed a short corridor that, in the end, led us to a very curious area. It was a very large space, with kiosks - which covered round tables with eight seats each - distributed by the walls, which left the centre free, and a fountain that had been built on one of the walls, where clear water flowed like a river. Illuminating the area, luminous spheres flew over the place as if they were little fairies.

“Wow! It's as if this whole space was designated to have fairs!,” I exclaimed impressed. These dungeons really had an air of an underground city.

“A rest area... Is this a reference point for us?,” Ozul asked.

“If it is, it means that we are getting closer and closer to the exit!,” by impulse, I jumped of joy, even though my feet were hurting from walking so much. “Wow, I don't even know how long we've been here...”

“Why don't we take advantage of the lack of monsters here and rest a while?,” Ozul suggested. “I noticed that you were walking a little slowly just now.”

“It's just that the soles of my feet started to hurt, but if I use a healing spell on them, the pain will go away.”

Despite having assured it, Ozul didn't seem to be convinced. He took a step closer to me - until that moment, he had never been so physically close beyond what was necessary - and insisted:

“It's not good for you to spend your mana on something that can be solved with a brief rest.”

“…You have a point,” I sighed. “Okay, let's rest for about five minutes, okay?”

I went to the kiosk closest to me and sat in one of their chairs, laying my staff on the round table. Ozul followed me and sat in front of me, also putting his shotgun on the table.

The moment my feet no longer needed to support my weight, I felt a great relief. I even took the liberty of laying my head on the round table. Without having to worry about monsters attacking me, my mind went back to digress and filling with questions. I was wondering about the circumstances of my current situation again.

“Ozul,” I raised my head and called him, making him look at me in response. “Have you... ever wondered what is the purpose of us being tested?”

“I didn't stop questioning this for a single second.”

“And did you also wondered why specifically the eight of us was chosen to be tested?”

Ozul frowned and was silent after my question. It was as if he had a idea, but was afraid to say it, maybe because he thought it was absurd, maybe because of the superstition that it would come true if he said it out loud.

I kept asking:

“Do you think they will test other students here later?”

“Not knowing what Mr. Reignia’s intentions are makes me nervous...,” Ozul finally broke his own silence. “mainly because these tools are very specific,” he slid his fingers over the shotgun as if, just by the touch of his digits, he was able to recognize and analyze the smallest details of that weapon.

“True,” I looked at my staff. “Since being able to use magic is a requirement to enter the Academy, I thought all the tools would be magic staff, but,” I redirected my gaze to Ozul's shotgun. “when I saw your gun, I understood what Mr. Reignia meant with a ‘tool adapted to your abilities and needs’.”

“But then, how could he have access to these particularities about us and produce precise equipment in a timely manner?”

I shirred. The suspicion that someone who is not close to you but obtained such specific information about you in an unknown way and without your knowing was a feeling that gave me chills. And I believe that Ozul also felt the same, because he became quiet once again.

We didn't get stuck in our fears and doubts for a long time, because a noise caught our attention. It was repetitive, followed a cadence and was getting louder and higher. They were steps. Someone was coming to us. Ozul quickly got up and took his gun, getting into an attack position. I also did the same, prepared to cast a spell as soon as it was necessary.

The steps stopped as soon as their owner reached the area we were in. He was a boy with blond hair and icy blue eyes who was dressed in Avalon's uniform and carried with him two swords kept in his sheaths.

“Ah,” the boy sounded as soon as he saw us, in a clear disinterest and even disappointment.

Ozul's face expressed disgust when he saw the person’s identity.

“Gregório!”