"Yena..." Daniel murmured in disbelief, his lips trembling.

Beneath his feet, a gruesome puddle formed from the remnants of Yena's limb. His face contorted, tears pouring down together with a howl increasing in volume.

"Yena... Yena.... Yena..." He repeated her name again and again, his voice spilling out his rising emotions of pain, grief, and sorrow along with a flaming rage that burned hotter than lava.

"Yena!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, tightening the hold of her hand.

Amidst the collapsing cavern, the worm ascended from the earth once more a few meters away from us, lava rising before the exit.

Daniel's howls paused, and with trembling lips, his eyes like daggers dug in the worm. "You... Bringer back! Bringer her back!"

He let go of Yena's arm and took hold of his shield, the handle bending from the pressure.

The worm stared back, unmoving, ignoring the surrounding destruction.

"Bringer her back I said!" Daniel screamed, taking a step toward the room.

He wasn't planning on stopping.

Jolting, we grabbed him just as his foot hovered over the lava.

"What are you doing? Let go of me!" He yelled intimidatingly, his voice breaking while doing so.

We remained silent but unyielding.

Refusing to give up, he augmented himself, earthen spikes protruding from his body, piercing our hands.

Still, we held strong, refusing to let go.

"Let me go! Please!" He begged, whimpering, tears running like a fountain.

Suddenly, the ceiling in front of us collapsed, throwing everyone back in the process.

Daniel now freed, ran for the blocked exit, augmented himself and his hammer to the fullest, and began slamming at the debris, repeating Yena's name like a mantra.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

"In whispered tones, with gentle sway, I bid you now to sleep away. Close thy eyes, let worries cease, in peaceful slumber, find release." Samantha's voice reached, soft and soothing--hipnotic even, her tone seemingly taking away every worry, every burden.

I was lucky enough to realize what she was doing, forcing myself to stay awake. Daniel, however, blinded by grief didn’t, gradually slowed down and his augmentation receded.

"What... did... you do?" he mumbled, his voice growing drowsy.

"Sweet dreams," Samantha said in an ethereal voice as if it didn't belong to this world.

My half-closed eyes jolted open. I wasn't the target yet almost fell asleep to her spell. That's an Irregular for you. While they couldn’t use any element, their unique abilities more than make up for it. Add to that the fact they didn’t have a tattoo, meaning they could hide their strength, and suddenly, they were much scarier than any 'normal' Elemancer.

"When will he wake up?" Seth asked.

"It will be a little more than an hour. I cannot regrow his arm, but I can heal his wounds and relieve him from the pain. The physical one at least..."

My eyes shifted away from Daniel over to Sebastian, clinging to his staff for protection. While me and Seth held Daniel in place and Samantha cast her spell, he was shaking in his boots, terrified.

‘Sigh, so much for not holding us back.’

While Samantha was healing Daniel, we took Yena's arm, cleaned it, and wrapped it with clean, white fabric.

After we got healed, we took our time to prepare ourselves for the UniQue and wait for Daniel to wake up.

"Sebastian, could you tell me more about the UniQue? Any specific trait, pattern, or weakness we can abuse."

With Yena... yeah, and Daniel's unbalanced state of mind, our numbers have dropped to four. Samantha, no matter how good of a healer she was, wouldn't be of much help in the fight and Sebastian had clearly shown how unreliable he was, so I was only left with Seth to work with. I was confident in our ability to defeat the beast, but any information was better than the unknown.

Sebastian, hearing my words, shivered. "I- I don't know." He said and looked away from me.

I frowned, starting to get angry. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

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"The thing is, the UniQue, no the nightmare, we... we never saw it. It was veiled in thick black shadows a-and e-everything happened so fast! I- I don't remember." He stuttered all over his sentences, nothing like the noble we met a few hours ago.

"Nothing? Nothing at all? Anything will be helpful. Try to remember." I pressed harder.

"I- I… There was something I saw." His eyes constricted as he gasped. "Through the deep shadows, an orange shine protruded. It- it was its eyes." He shivered at their mention. "Those… those…" he trailed off before suddenly screaming in fear, "Ah! It burns! Get away from me! Get away from me!" He let go of his stuff, raising his hands above his head,crying like a madman.

That...

Samantha walked over to Sebastian and silently cast another hypnotic spell. She then turned towards me and Seth. "Don't worry, he'll wake up in a few minutes. Just don't mention about the UniQue again."

A memory spell… And here I thought Samantha was a healer and not a medium.

"Isn't that contradictory to what we're doing here? I mean, we're going to face the creature eventually. Like it or not, he's still going to see it. How's that going to change anything?" Seth took the question out of my mouth.

"It doesn't work that way. I'm making him forget the event, but because I'm not a medium, I can only cast a weaker version of the spell. Let me explain: When someone experiences severe trauma—so much that they start breaking down, either mentally or physically—the mind steps in to protect itself by suppressing those memories. While this isn't direct healing, there's a loose connection, and all I'm doing is accelerating that process. He might still recall everything and break down during the fight, but that's unlikely unless the exact pattern of events repeats. As long as he stays level-headed, he should be fine—at least for his small part." She rolled her eyes as she finished.

‘Sigh, of course it does. Yeah, that totally makes sense... Honestly, sometimes irregulars are just so... irregular. Couldn't they just use the elements like normal people?’

Waiting for both Sebastian and Daniel to wake up, we struck conversation.

I wasn't the only one that wanted to punch Sebastian's teeth off. Samantha wanted as well and probably even more so than I, since she knew him from childhood. She was forced to keep appearances for her family but never liked the guy. If it weren't for the core, she would be at Oriath, on the other side of the kingdom, as far away from Sebastian as possible.

Like Samantha said, a few minutes later, Sabastian woke up, completely oblivious to our conversation. With the mood stiffening again, I turned to replenish my core. I was far from exhausted, but there wasn't any reason for me not to.

"Yena!" Daniel suddenly screamed, jolting up and extending his arm.

His eyes fell for the clothed limp we left next to him, the realization of the present moment washing over him. He didn't burst into tears this time. His eyes didn't show any sadness or anger, either. In fact, they didn't show anything. They were empty. Lifeless.

The young, tall, confident ranger, ready to throw himself in the face of danger, had been reduced to a mere shell of his former self. He appeared shorter, more vulnerable, no longer threatening, but rather resembling a small, frightened boy.

"I..." Sebastian began, drawing everyone's attention to himself, "I'm truly sorry for your loss, Daniel. I... I promise I'll compensate you."

"Compensate... for my loss...?" Daniel repeated with a hollow voice, his eyes fixed on Yena's arm. "Yena and I... we... With the money we planned to pay our debts and get merrier."

His head didn't move, but his eyes shifted. "Yena was the most important person in the world to me. What could you possibly give me?" He spoke in the same volume, however, there was an undeniable threat hanging in the air.

Sebastian gulped, struggling to find the right words. "I'm extremely sorry for your loss, and I might not have known Yena long enough, but it pains me as well. I can't do anything about that, but I can fulfill the promise we made and give you her stead."

Daniel's eyes shifted back to Yena's hand. "You think I care about money?" He would sound intimidating if he put any sort of emotion behind the empty question.

Seth patted his shoulder. "Come on buddy, it's not over. I know it's hard, but you have to keep going, to keep living. If not for yourself, do it for Yena."

At the mention of Yena, Daniel's eyebrows twitched upwards and his head lifted.

Seth had a smile on his face only a few could recognize. The type of smile that was there when you have lost all hope. The type of smile when you had given up. The type of slime that empathized with you and walked together alongside you in your hardships. And, more often than not, that smile was the only thing you needed to regain that hope, to not give up, and take the step to move forward.

"What would Yena say if she saw you like that?"

Daniel sniffed his nose and wiped the tears from his eyes. He looked at himself, and a small pained chuckle escaped his lips. "P-probably something like 'you are the meat shield, act like one.'"

‘Why do you act like this is a cute pet name and not an insult? I swear this new generation is wild.’

"R-right." Seth scratched his cheek, unsure of what to say before offering his hand.

After a pause, Daniel grabbed it and raised back to his feet. "Let's do this. For Yena."

Well-rested, we were ready to face the UniQue. Hopefully...

Seth and I took the lead, with Daniel right behind us, his head low but focused on the task, his shield ready.

The lava-colored corridor was bigger than the previous one, and the further we moved, the more it changed, taking back the pitch-black color it had in the beginning. However, it was different; it wasn't just pitch-black; rather, it felt like an oppressive void, an abyss that seemed to swallow every color, every light.

Soon, we found ourselves fully enveloped in darkness, unable to discern anything ahead or behind, guided solely by the sound of our boots. If it weren't for the low clanking echoing around me, I would have thought I was all alone.

‘Is this a dungeon or the first gate of hell?’

Suddenly, a low orange light came, and for a moment, I really thought I had crossed over to another realm. When the moment passed, however, I realized it was Sebastian, not learning from his mistake, lighting up a fireball.

The dim glow of the firelight extended, revealing the colossal scale of the hall. It stretched over thirty meters high, yet the ceiling was nowhere to be seen, the feeble fire unable to reach the unfathomable darkness.

Enraged, I turned towards Sebastian. However, my anger vanished and my hair stood on end.

The walls were adorned with the symbols. The weird symbols that look close to Elmorian, but completely different. Over the years as a ranger, I'd encounter these symbols, and every time I did, pleas for help and mad ravings would reach my ears, making me feel like I was going insane.

However, scarier than the pleads for help and the ravings that echoed in my mind, was that I would find myself forgetting both the symbols and everything else that happened inside these dungeons. The memories and events would return only upon finding these unsettling marks again.

I instinctively gulped. "Let's continue," my voice hoarse.