They cannibalized some of the sacks and bandages to add layers where their armor was thinnest, dressing themselves in skirts, pads around their joints, or wraps where one piece of armor led to the next. They also made simple hoods to hopefully act as coifs if need be.

Of course, that made the already sweltering heat worse. But beyond using more breeze potions and chilling their water for them, there wasn’t much Micah could do about that. They’d simply have to get through this before the first of them dropped from a heat stroke.

It was getting late anyway. They had to hurry to take down this camp so they could get some rest for tomorrow.

A bit of careful scouting and the maps they already had hinted at a direction to take. It was slightly off-course but that was fine. They were headed for a river, not toward a single point.

Micah reluctantly handed Lisa a small pouch and pulled the bandana over his nose, muffling his breath. He looked down the three directions of the intersection and pricked his ears.

Nobody said anything as they finished their final preparations. The only sounds came from the shuffling of their belongings and their boots in the mud; his own breath against the fabric.

It was eerily quiet again.

He had half-expected another horde to interrupt their crafting session but instead, things had calmed down. While part of him hoped the Kobolds might have forgotten about them, he knew the Tower didn’t work that way. If you took a break in the last place you had fought, new monsters would show up eventually. If you found a place to rest for the night, you had to hide, fortify, defend.

But no new monsters had come. So what was the erratic equivalent here? Kobolds placed at key spots, traps prepared, information passed along, and …

He frowned. How had they herded the monsters to them? Darts to whip them up into a frenzy and then…? Something to keep in mind.

He was probably overestimating them anyway. They were all probably overreacting, like Kyle had said.

Still, they looked to Ryan.

He already had his Skill to keep him warm, but he had only added a layer from a bit over his knees down. Like he’s wearing potato sack stockings, Micah thought with a mental chuckle. He hoped it wouldn’t be too unbearable for him.

Ryan had finished his stretches, cleaned his boots, and checked with them. When everyone gave him the thumbs-up, he nodded and ran.

Micah inhaled a deep breath of surprisingly clean, but not quite fresh air essence and followed.

Down the first tunnel. They were a few meters on his heel, alert and ready. The run was quiet aside from the sloshing mud.

Nothing happened in the second tunnel, but halfway through the third, darts started plicking against the stone walls behind Ryan. Kyle had been right; the Kobolds were too slow to react.

They had to have been distracted by him, too, because they targeted the last in their line a moment late and missed as well.

Down the fourth tunnel, they picked up their pace and kept the ruse going. The moment he could, Micah leaned in and snatched a rare hanging dart from the wall to inspect it.

“Still Whip Spider poison!” he called ahead and tossed the dart aside.

A few called back in affirmation.

Fifth tunnel, the first muffled sounds came from the walls as the Kobolds began to coordinate.

Micah traced the sounds with his eyes and could almost feel the signal being passed down like buckets to a fire inside the walls … or a game of whisper mail? The dart traps the end began to shoot indiscriminately all of a sudden, far too early for them to be anywhere near them.

There was another shout—reprimand?—and a brief lull during which only a few shot. Ryan ran on through unconcerned.

The next salvo picked back up just as they neared and plicked against the wall right in front of them.

Kyle drew back, making half the group pause in turn, and ran through right after. It would have been fine either way. Should have been, with their added protection. Those were crude bone darts being shot by weak Kobolds. But Micah was actually a little proud Kyle was being careful, even if it was a knee-jerk reaction.

Those same weakling Kobolds had been crafty enough to build and manage this entire place, to herd monsters at them as a distraction, and target their weak points through tiny holes. It boggled the mind. How had they known where armor would be thinnest from that distance anyway?

Their speed picked up as they got the hang of the run and noticed nobody had been hit yet. They trusted Ryan to choose the right path—somewhat randomly to throw the Kobolds off, but sticking to a northward path. Eventually, though, the heat and exhaustion began to get to them.

The itching, too. They should have adjusted their armor from the start, but then they would have been this hot from the start and … ugh.

“Ryan!” Jason called ahead. “Time!”

The guy paused, glancing around to find a good place to stop—ideally, a four-way intersection—and ran off. Two tunnels in, he settled for a crossing of three and checked the corners.

“Corners are clear. No traps.”

Lisa took the lead and fumbled in a pouch at her side as they ran up, popped a ball into her mouth, and took a swig of water. Belatedly, she took in a giant breath of air essence through her nose.

Micah watched her with a dark scowl, but the expression retreated the moment she exhaled.

Where his breath was a smooth sticky cloud with patterns like fluid spiderwebs, she spat the water and glue out like someone who had taken a sip right before hearing a joke: in a rapid-fire sputter of single shots that pelted the wall like some kind of toothbrush painting.

The others stopped at the corners to catch their breath and drink something but froze when they saw it.

Lisa finished with a cough, spat the empty shells out, and rinsed her mouth with a grimace.

“I … thought you said you could do that,” Micah said. He heaved and went to wipe his mouth but found the scarf in the way. He yanked it down and wiped down to rub his neck.

She shot him a glare and rinsed her mouth out some more.

He clenched his jaw and tried not to let the scowl come back. What was the point of her offering to do it at all, then?

“No wonder,” he grumbled. “You don’t even have [Disettle] or the practice.”

“Nor do I have any bad habits, either.”

“I—”

“Micah?” Jason said before he could get back into it. “Drink something? Catch your breath?”

He didn't like it but did as he was told.

“It’s enough, isn’t it?” Lisa glanced at the pelted wall. It wasn’t pretty, didn't cover the wall entirely, nor did he think it would last much longer than a minute or two, but that was all they needed, really.

They would take a short break before running another dozen or so bends and just didn’t want to be bothered by darts while they did.

Lea noticed an unblocked trap and quietly covered it with some mud.

Micah joined Jason in his corner while listening to the muffled cries around them. Across the intersecting tunnels, Ryan did the same. No screeches yet. It made him wonder if the Kobolds couldn’t just herd the monsters whenever they wanted; if it took an extraordinary amount of time or effort.

Hopefully.

They were worse than the traps, he’d realized when picking out ammo. When they encountered monsters in smaller numbers, they could fight them with their blades and nothing else. But when they encountered larger groups, they had to expend resources: mana, ammunition, healing supplies, and sheer stamina. The latter three were still good, but they were all low on the first except …

Well, Ryan had a lot of mana, but he had been summoning flames all day. He had cast [Swathe of Flames] at least three times, which was more than enough. It was a Class spell. He wouldn’t be surprised if it cost somewhere in the double digits.

He didn’t offer Lisa any of his mana either, Micah thought. Really, that was all the indication he needed.

He had to be tapped soon, but … did he know that? Micah didn’t really expect Ryan to be familiar with mana management since he had so much of it. [Swathe of Flames] was his first ‘big’ spell, in that it cost a lot.

He drank, focused on breathing, and considered saying something but thought better of it. Ryan didn’t need someone to look out for him about that sort of stuff. Nor would he want anyone to. He wanted to be the one to look after others and wouldn’t make a mistake like that …

Right?

He didn’t know anymore. And he hated it. Argh! He hated him, and Lisa, and this floor, the itching darts, and those stupid Kobolds for interrupting the moment earlier. For inviting him to screw up.

Maybe he could have gotten something out of Lisa, too, if it had gone on longer. But noo, they had to be in the waalls. And now he had to wear this stupid scarf and watch Lisa spit glue when she was supposed to be awesome.

Next time, he was definitely going to do it himself. He could manage without everything else, but she wasn’t taking his glue breath away from him after he’d put so much effort into making it work.

He shoved the bottle back on his belt and nodded at Ryan when he checked in with the group. A moment later, the guy ran off and they followed.

The freaking Kobolds still tried to hit them with darts that mostly missed them and hit the wall, or struck armor. The attempt alone was almost annoying because if they didn’t step up their game, they wouldn’t know if they were headed in the right direction.

Or it meant they couldn’t step up their game, in which case they both didn’t know where to go and they had overreacted because a bunch of stupid darts had made them itch.

Do something, he willed them through the walls. Show us worse traps or try to herd some monsters at us again so we can get a hint as to how you do it. At the very least, they could fork over some loot.

Instead, they gave them another giant fuck you in the form of a signal. Three tunnels in, Ryan stepped inside and it went through the walls like fire. There was a pause of absolute silence and Micah frowned as he searched the stone walls on his trail, then realized the count too late.

—five.

Their group was halfway in the tunnel when a dozen sharp impacts ran against his sides. He threw his arms up to cover his ears, elbows over his neck, and stumbled with a curse.

Damnit. They caught on. He didn’t even know if any of the darts had pierced but didn’t have time to check.

“What the fuck?” Kyle asked ahead of him. Had he been hit, too? No, just Micah and a bit of Jason. A targeted attack against the larger group.

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They didn’t shoot again and their team didn’t stop running, except Ryan who turned around to check on them.

Micah waved him on.

Around the corner in the next tunnel, the silent count began anew once Ryan passed the first dart trap. One, two, three, four—

“Block!” Micah shouted and huddled up because he didn’t know where they would target.

A patch on either side of the tunnel ahead erupted just as the last had, nicking Lisa in front of him, and the darts fell in front of him when she huddled up.

Micah took a large step over them, despite his confidence in his boots.

How many Kobolds were there that they could do that? There had to be a dozen per tunnel to manage that sort of thing. With those numbers, they could just body them and they would have troubles keeping up. If they also threw in a wave of Cavern Prowlers at the same time …

But no, if they made it out the other side, they would have lost that many people to harrass them without suffering casualties. They were being smart about it.

So no, they had definitely not underestimated them at least. Doing that, targeting the bigger group instead of the trailblazer with a coordinated ambush, and the design of these tunnels. That kind of intelligence was off.

He didn’t think he had ever encountered a Kobold that smart. But he had read about some. All of their teammates from the last exam had.

“Ryan!” Micah shouted ahead. It was a split-second decision, but it would probably useful for them to know. The others glanced at him.

Ryan had already turned the next corner while the darts erupted around them again, making them pause for a moment before they could speed up. They turned the corner and he was gone.

“Fuck, uh—” Kyle hesitated and looked around the three options.

Lisa barrelled past him and pointed. “North, remember?”

“Right.”

They turned the next corner and Ryan wasn’t there, either.

“Guys!” his voice shouted.

Had that come from ahead or behind them? Left or right? Micah turned a slow circle while the front two jogged to the end.

“Guys!”

“Behind us,” Lea said. She pointed down another tunnel with a frown, clearly the wrong way, but then Ryan stepped into that tunnel and waved at them.

What the hell?

Micah called the others back and they headed the other way. Why had he gone more than a tunnel without them? And south instead of north? What about the rules and ... and communicating?

“Treasure chest!” he said.

Oh.

They ran and the Kobolds let up for one tunnel, for some reason. He heard low yaps and other noises from one of the dart traps, which he imagined to be dirt shifting. Were they repositioning?

That was good. So they didn’t have unlimited numbers after all. Maybe it meant they could have outrun them if they hadn’t stopped to open a ... treasure chest.

Wait.

He turned back to the group. Jason had just finished enchanting Ryan’s legs, another benefit of the large rags they had used. They were easier to enchant as the spell spread.

The chest looked the same as the last one had. It stood in a similar alcove in the wall, too. Of course, the others were wary of a trap, they stood back, but Micah had a feeling he knew for sure this time.

Kobolds placed at key spots, traps prepared, information passed along, had been his list from earlier.

“Ryan, wait!” he called out.

The guy lifted the lid and a dozen black feelers whipped out through the crack. Ryan tried to slam it back shut and jump back at the same time, but some of the crawlers had gotten their bodies in the crack and forced it open in a wavering bulge.

Lisa pushed her way forward and held a hand out. Heat essence ripped its way into her palm—

—and to the ceiling.

They both looked up at the same time and saw a somewhat larger hole where it was feeding into, but the delay meant the centipedes, scorpions, spiders, and regular spiders got out of the chest, some already leaking light, and swarmed toward Ryan.

Lisa grimaced and suddenly, the heat ripped away even from even there, then condensed into her hand, disappeared, and flashed out as a stream of flames at the swarm.

She only hit a third of the number she would have had she poured the flames directly into the chest, but over the sound of rushing flames as he stumbled back, Micah heard the barest hint of a surprised yelp through the ceiling. The Kobold up there had been preparing a spell for the ambush and Lisa had screwed it up. Half a win.

Micah was more focused on something else. They’re in the walls, he realized. All of them. Did that meant they might be in the floor as well?

The insects swarmed toward them, scorpions among them—another suspicion come true. He drew his blade but would have to squeeze his way through the others if he wanted to fight, which would do more harm than good. There were too many and too small to shoot; he could try to flush them off the walls with a spell, but he didn’t want to waste mana, and his breath—

Right, no. He just wasn’t allowed to breathe anything that couldn’t pass through the scarf. He wasn't going to give up on that skill entirely.

He flipped his sword around to free up half his hand, took in one deep breath until his lungs were full and the fabric clung to his lips, then yanked it down and breathed along one of the walls to blow all of the smaller critters back.

A few tumbled down the tunnel into the mud, but most huddled down and clung to the stone. They didn’t move forward when he did it, at least. It gave his teammates a few extra seconds to react.

Micah was about to do it a second time when the tip of something wooden shot out of the ceiling and hung there—an upside-down mage’s staff. Two glowing red crystals were tied loosely around it with twine rope.

“Lisa!” he shouted and pointed up, fumbling to get his slingshot, but she was fighting, then too slow when she did notice.

The staff clacked against the stone as the Kobold spun it like twisting a stick to make a fire, the crystals glowed brighter, and then fell apart. The broken pieces rained down on them in the form of burning hot caltrops.

“Head’s up!” he called and squeezed forward to try and stop some of the shower with his shield, to block it from the others.

Blurry hot spikes bounced off and landed in the mud between them, then stayed there.

He’d heard about this spell before, from Alexander, and the Kobolds that knew how to cast one special spell each. Of the collapsed Salamander’s Den. But of course, those had been replaced with other kinds then.

At the same time, darts began to shoot out of the walls as if they hoped the caltrops had burned some holes in their armor and it would work now. Because of course, they did.

Jason pushed forward to jump up with an arm out, but just as suddenly as the staff had appeared, it was yanked back up again. His glove passed through thin air and he landed in the mud.

Except he winced and hopped around on one foot while a bright, blurry caltrop stuck in the sole of his boot. They were surrounded by them and had to take stuttering steps to avoid them while the insects came closer and darts hit their armor.

He had been ecstatic the moment he’d seen the first one, but now Micah knew: he fucking hated traps.

He didn’t know why he was smiling, though.

He got to stuffing the walls with mud before he earned himself another itching spot from standing around like a grinning idiot.

Kyle backed off from the insects once his axe stopped burning, drew his knives, and skewered them from a distance instead, one by one—something Micah had only seen him do to unmoving boards in training sessions.

“Block the traps?” he asked and glanced up, keeping one eye on the ceiling in case any essences shifted or the Kobold poked its staff out again for another spell. If there was another, maybe they would cast [Kobold's Flameseekers] from up there.

Lisa killed the last insect near her, glanced around the floor, and asked, “Are they stupid?”

“Huh?”

She reached down to snatch two of the caltrops up without issue, fished a marble out of her pocket, and smeared them both over it. The caltrops melted away and in its place, she held another fire lizard. She set it on the wall and it darted away.

Oh.

“Aren’t you low on mana ...?” Micah asked.

“Sure, but this is cheap. It’s a good opportunity …” She frowned and trailed off, then plucked the caltrop out of Jason’s boot when he hopped up to her with a pleading look on his face.

Micah blocked another trap and left her to her thoughts. He had something of his own to share. “Guys, I think we’re up against a Kobold summoner.”

Ryan immediately nodded and swept his spear out to slash through one of the last insects. “I was thinking the same.”

It was the monster Ryan had killed during the last exam, before it could do anything, and the one that had summoned the blue slime. They apparently had ways to … emulate mana through rituals and the reports said they were extremely intelligent, even if he disagreed.

If it was so smart, why had it let itself get killed right away then? It should have either taken him out when he was lying dazed on the ground or stuck to the background entirely, not …

… have waited to see if the coast was clear before attacking him, then been surprised by Ryan’s ambush outside of its control?

Huh. Micah paused and tried to think about it. Hm. Hrn. Maybe it could have been smart after all. Maybe. It had made other Kobolds collect crystals for its slime before they’d busted in with Chariot after all. But it wasn't like, smart-smart.

Ryan had read up on them after the last exam, out of curiosity, and told them about it then and now again in preparation for the exam.

“These Kobolds are way too organized,” he said. “There has to be someone giving the orders for all of this.”

Micah shoved his conundrum aside and lit up. “And that means it has to be close-by because the Kobolds reacted to our tactic with one of their own; with counting to five before shooting darts at the larger group? So if we take it out—”

Ryan was shaking his head, though, so he shut up. “You might be right, but the staff in the ceiling looked different from the one the summoner had. I think it might be using regular Kobold mages as sort of … lieutenants. Mage monsters on their own are supposed to be somewhat smarter.”

“Oh.”

“So if we take those out,” Kyle asked, “the other Kobolds will be regular fucktards again?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

He grunted and slapped mud on the wall.

That just made Micah wonder how they were supposed to do that if they couldn’t access the tunnels. If he could get his hands on one of those blowdarts ... but he wasn't allowed to use his poison breath.

Maybe Lisa could manage something with a fire breath? Or, she had that one spell that blew stuff up. Maybe she could use it on a summon and ... have it run inside a tight space and ... Okay, maybe that was less of a good idea if they didn't know how structurally sound these tunnels were.

She was ruffling through her backpack anyway, tuned out of the conversation.

Lea was still blocking traps on her own.

“How many do you think there are?” Jason asked. “I’ve been trying to count the darts but I’m not sure. I thought it was a little over two-dozen and they’re chasing us and switching out?”

“Two to three,” Ryan said. “They’re above and sometimes below us, too.” He pointed along the ceiling, then the ground.

It was good that they were sharing information, but Micah wondered what they could do with it. How could they use any of this? They had a good idea of what they might be up against, how many there were, how they worked, and some of the traps they used, like the treasure chest, but …

The treasure chest. It was scorched now, but it, the alcove around it, and the entire intersection looked almost exactly like the one they had seen last time.

“Have we been going in the wrong direction?” Micah asked.

“Huh?” Jason broke off from his conversation and looked over at him with clear worry as he was sort of their navigator.

“Not in general," he assured him. "Just here. If the traps are supposed to get worse the further in we get and we saw this trap on our way in but the Kobolds hadn’t set it yet because they hadn’t been tracking us by then, then—”

“We might be walking along the outskirts out of their camp all along,” he finished the thought for him.

“But we have two points of reference now along with the line we traveled and know their camp isn’t to the south, so …”

Jason grinned and got his maps out to extrapolate in which direction they would have to go. If they could draw a line from the last treasure chest to where they currently were, they just had to draw another line from the center upward like the middle of a triangle, which should lead further into their camp.

“The shape of their camp might not be a perfect circle,” Ryan said, probably to temper their expectations. Micah didn’t mind. There was a chance.

Lisa spoke up before they could finish, though. “I love the way you’re thinking,” she said, “but I have an even better idea. You said they were thieves, right?” She had finished rummaging around in her backpack and held a small pouch in her hand.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Micah realized. They must have stolen that sample of his glue and the leftover shell, but … why?

“Regular Kobolds on this floor don’t steal things,” Lisa voiced his thoughts out loud, “and neither do the mages. So why do these? What do they do with the things they steal if not bring them back to the one person who can understand what to do with them in the first place?”

“You’re thinking it’s telling them to steal stuff so they can use it?” Kyle asked.

"Huh?" Micah looked from one to the other, lost. They didn't actually think the summoner Kobold would be able to use stolen items, right?

There was a scary thought.

“I’m thinking Ryan was right in that the most important member of their tribe will be at the place where it’s safest,” she said.

“And?” His voice sounded annoyed as usual, but Kyle was smiling at her. “What are you getting at, Chandler?”

The pouch in her hand wiggled a little as something small moved around inside of it. She dropped it in the mud. “Whoops. I must have lost my ammunition pouch—”

“Uh ... oi, what?” Micah caught on all of a sudden and while the plan was awesome, they were not using the ammo he had given her for this.

“How clumsy of me.” She dropped the high-pithced voice and nodded down a side-tunnel. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“Lisa, wait—”

Someone grabbed his arm and dragged him along. Someone else pushed his shoulder.

“C’mon, my ammo,” he complained as he tried to reach out, but the pouch just sunk lower.

“The sooner we leave,” Kyle said, “the sooner find out where their camp is.”

Lisa scratched herself with a scowl and nodded. “And the sooner we can kill them all.”