Okay guys, I seem to have passed the writer's block from the end of volume 3 (Not that kind of passed. That would be gross.) Although at times it feels like I'm wading through writer's molasses.

Okay, maybe I just wanted to use that analogy.

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“You want to attack the army? Are you mad?”

Dali winced.

“Why do people keep asking me that?” he whined.

Rell and Aurora giggled behind him.

Seg’s eyes bulged.

“Keep asking you? As in I am not the first person to ask?”

“Not as such no?” Dali sounded like he was asking Seg a question.

“When was the most recent time somebody asked you?”

“Well… yesterday.”

Seg put his head in his hands.

“Look,” he said finally. “Do you have any idea what the odds of us winning are? The seven of us against an entire army? I can tell you with three significant digits that-”

“One.”

“-What?”

“Our odds are one.” Dali repeated.

“One to what?”

“Just one.”

Seg looked desperately at the rest of the madman’s party.

“Surely you don’t also think that you have good odds against an army?” he pleaded.

Rell stepped forward.

“If I were to calculate our skills, levels and numbers and compare it to the army, then I would have to agree with you.”

Seg smiled in relief.

“See? How about the rest of you?”

His smile slowly dropped as Rell resumed speaking.

“But, I still think that we will win. I feel, in fact, that it is practically guaranteed.”

Seg’s smile had somehow managed to completely metamorphose into a frown.

“Will none of you see reason?”

“Seg…” Brie said slowly.

“Not even one of you has the slightest bit of concern about facing off with an entire army on your own?”

“Seg.”

Brie was using a tone of voice that told Seg that if he didn’t turn around now, he would regret it later.

Mostly because Brie would probably deck him across the face.

He turned around.

“What is it?”

“I think that they might be the MANIA people.”

“Mania?”

Brie sighed.

“The masks and the murders?”

Seg finally remembered.

He turned back to them.

“Are you…?” He trailed off at the end of his question.

“Yes.” Dali answered.

Rell glared at him.

“Well I’m sorry.”

Rell glared at him harder.

“It was better than trying to weigh all of our options and whether or not to trust them again.”

Rell sighed.

“I mean really, we just did that.”

“Wait.” Seg said.

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“We weren’t going anywhere.”

Even if Seg couldn’t see Dali, the smirk was audible.

“If you are the mask guys, shouldn’t you have an army or something? I mean, this is related, and you were part of a country right?”

“Yeah…” Dali said.

“So we could call them in!”

“I mean, yes…”

“Even up the odds!”

“Well that’s the thing…”

Aurora interrupted.

“What Dali here is trying to say,” she said, “is that we don’t want to.”

“Why on earth not? This probably pertains to whoever they are. You wouldn’t owe them anything.”

“It’s not that…” Dali said.

“Then what on earth is it?!”

Aurora interrupted.

“We don’t want to share the XP.”

Seg stared at them.

His mouth dropped slightly.

It moved, and it was obvious he was considering saying something.

It was equally obvious that he had nothing to say.

An explanation should probably be provided.

Seg had not yet fought with, traveled with, or really known Dali’s party.

Therefore he was still somewhat focused on the mundane.

In his mind, they would lose, simply because it made sense.

Although this seems strange, we must keep in mind that even Rell would have thought this way before he met Dali.

Now that you understand that, there is something else you need to understand.

You might not have noticed this. We have, after all, been following Dali around from the beginning.

However, ever since the beginning of our story, Dali has been learning a skill which is not part of Royal Road.

He has been learning, bit by bit to do the impossible.

You may have noticed the improbable events that surround him.

These events are the reason that his party has so much faith in their abilities.

Ever since they met Dali, they have been doing the impossible together.

The way this manifested for Seg, who was just meeting Dali, was different.

Dali had a sort of aura of the impossible about him.

The whole party, really was saturated with impossibility.

It made Seg want to trust their strength.

It felt to him like casually discussing their next, thoroughly impossible, move was just an everyday occurrence for them.

In a way, it was.

Seg felt, against all his logic, that they would win against an army.

He remembered that Brie told him to trust in his gut for this case.

He sighed, and agreed.

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