After their encounter with the missile fish, their progress through the dungeon was largely uninterrupted. However, the dungeon wasn’t something they could blitz through in a short amount of time. They needed to rest their mana.

  Soon they came up to a short rest stop on the way– a little alcove in the stone walls, just large enough for the two squads to rest on without relying on grapples. Technically they could anchor their grapples anywhere and dangle, but nothing beat feet on solid ground.

  The group idled about. Thomas was talking to a member of Fortuna’s squad about some financial stuff. He was initially shy, but opened up after he realized both of them handled finances. The guilds made a lot of money, and Viviana was sure Thomas would get something good out of his conversation.

  Lucian was getting his arm bandaged by one of the girls on Fortuna’s squad. Viviana watched as he tried pushing her away, saying that he could do it himself, but the girl insisted on helping him.

  Bena and Fortuna’s scout took turns swapping their detection skills. Viviana found it curious that Bena would often detect monsters before Fortuna’s scout did.

  That left Viviana sitting with Fortuna, who was tending to a little campfire and portable folding stove. Viviana looked at the meat being grilled. Actual meat, not monster meat. It smelled divine. Was it something that only the guilds could have?

  “Why are you here, Viviana?” Fortuna said.

  Viviana shrugged. “No where else to sit.”

  “I’m not sharing a campfire with the person who killed my friend and threw me at a giant centipede.”

  Viviana raised a brow. “That was you?”

  Fortuna sighed. “I told you that two days ago. When we were negotiating the contract.”

  “Well, you and your friend are alive now. All’s well that ends well, or something.”

  Fortuna sighed, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear. “Maybe I should be glad we weren't permanently killed. You know, I knew the guy who was murdered. Not well, really. A friend's colleague. Strange to know that he’s dead forever.”

  “Do you have any idea who did it?”

  “...it’s gotta be one of the guilds. Either an internal guild dispute, probably for succession or a place in the company. Or another guild that just wanted him removed. He was quite high up after all.”

  Viviana nodded. She had been blunt with her questioning, but Fortuna’s answers passed without suspicion. Fortuna didn’t know anything.

  Bored, Viviana poked the flames with her sword while Fortuna flipped over some meat, turning up the heat by blasting it with flames that came out of her palms. Viviana stared.

  Fortuna noticed her watching. “Surprised? I leveled up, and now I can shoot flames a short distance. Pretty cool.”

  Viviana nodded. It seemed useful. “Good for cooking, evidently.”

  “You wouldn’t believe it. The guilds only gave us fire starters. I heard that higher level members get portable gas stoves.”

  Viviana tilted her head. “You don’t?”

  “Well, yeah. I’m a lower ranked member of the guild, so we’re not exactly important to them.”

  “What’s it like, working for Ferric Meridian?” Viviana asked.

  “Hard. As squad leader, all the responsibility is on my shoulders to perform. We’ve got strict performance regulations and expectations. If we don’t meet them, we starve. If only my last name was Eisenwald instead of Fuerwache. Everything would be so much easier…”

  “Couldn’t you just hunt monster meat? Or make money on your own?”

  Fortuna shook her head. “Everything we kill is property of the guild. We get paid in compensation depending on our performance. If we take anything for ourselves, we risk expulsion from the guild.”

  “Then get expelled,” Viviana said, shrugging.

  “Easy for you to say, exile,” Fortuna replied. “If I get kicked out, I’ll be disowned. My family is adamant on my performance here. I would love to leave, but I can’t.”

  Viviana didn’t have a response. She didn’t see the issue– after all, she was exiled, and she didn’t care.

  Silence reigned for a while. Then Fortuna spoke up. “Say, can you do anything special with your abilities? My flames are pretty good at heating stuff up and cooking, like this. You’ve got lightning, right? Maybe you can power stuff up or something.”

  Viviana blinked. She didn’t think of it that way. Her lightning was only a tool for killing stuff.

  Yet a part of her became curious. Maybe she could– after all, lightning was electricity, and many things ran on electricity.

  Viviana took out her phone, checking the battery. Close to full, but a couple percent missing. I decreased the intensity of my [lightning trap], and that allowed me to learn [flash step]. Maybe if I control my output, I could charge my phone?

  Viviana did not know anything about electrical engineering. Even so– electricity goes in, and the phone gets charged, right?

  Viviana concentrated and placed the smallest lightning sigil she could, straining her mind to construct what she wanted. Her skill wasn’t meant to be used like this, so it took more mana than usual, despite decreasing the trap’s intensity.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Here goes nothing.

  Viviana activated the trap. A brief spark.

  Viviana turned on her phone. One percent more.

  Viviana and Fortuna looked at each other, surprise evident on both their faces. “It worked. Charged it one percent.”

  “No way,” Fortuna said. “One whole percent is like an hour. That's insane! Hey, can you do mine? I forgot to charge it this month, and now it’s close to dead.”

  Viviana frowned. Wait, no, I can get something out of this.

  Viviana eyed the meat grilling. “I’ll charge it if my group can get some meat.”

  Fortuna extended a hand towards her. “Deal.”

  Viviana did not have a good rest. If anything, she was more drained than usual. Once people got word that Viviana doubled as a portable charger, everyone wanted their phones charged. Stupid technology. No one charges their phone because the battery lasts weeks, but that just means they neglect how much charge they have.

  Well, Viviana did not regret spending her mana. Fortuna was a good cook, and Viviana had to admit that the grilled meat tasted even better than the noodle restaurant. In fact, it was the best meal Viviana had in ages.

  The Landsknecht members thanked her profusely. They were smelling the food the entire time, knowing that Fortuna was only cooking for her group.

  Viviana was glad that everything worked out so well. Plus, I learned a new way to use my powers. If I can power electronic equipment so easily, there's many things I could try to charge. If I get breach armor, could I overload it with lightning to increase its capabilities?

  Viviana stopped daydreaming about stuff she couldn’t afford and focused on the task at hand– moving through the dungeon, watching the rear, and watching Bena for any signals.

  Viviana was hoping that monsters would show up. She was missing just a couple experience points to level up. If everything worked out perfectly, then she could potentially level up from fighting the lancers, the group that Fortuna hired them to kill.

  As if on cue Bena signalled. Monsters were about to appear at the front. Normally that meant Fortuna’s group, who were leading, would take care of it, but Bena had indicated a large group. There were enough monsters for everyone to share.

  Soon the monsters were in sight, barrelling towards them with unnatural speed. They were strange amorphous blob-like creatures that looked more like hairballs than a living animals, and a swarm of multiple missilefish.

  “Break formation!” Viviana yelled. “Lucian, with me! Thomas and Bena, take the rear!”

  It would be better if everyone moved, but I’m willing to risk it for more experience points.

  Lucian and Viviana surged towards the front, attacking the first two missilefish in the path. Silently Viviana moved to strike the topmost fish, while Lucian went downwards. Viviana was now aware of the missilefish’s surprisingly tight turning radius. She would not make the same mistake twice.

  Viviana attacked while moving erratically, firing her grapples in one direction while using [flash step] in a different direction. As a result the fish wasn’t able to predict which way she was going to move. The fish had to guess, and it guessed wrong.

  It was an easy kill that hardly required mana, but Viviana was already feeling tired from using her mana earlier. Stupid phones.

  [You have slain a level 4 bladed missilefish.]

  [+4 exp]

  Viviana moved forward, not caring for her group’s positioning. They would be able to fend for themselves. She was only a little bit of experience away from leveling up.

  She approached one of the amorphous, strange looking blobs. With no idea how to approach it, she decided that head-on would be the optimal play. Readying to [flash step] away, just in case, she fired her grapples to speed towards the blob.

  Just then a tentacle shot out of the black blob. She deflected, but the force of the blow caused her movement to be intercepted, sending her spinning in a random direction. Quickly she fired her grapples again, trying to right herself, but the blob fired more tentacles, causing Viviana to deflect at the last second. It was an overwhelming number of attacks combined with unsteady ground to fight on.

  Viviana missed solid ground. She gritted her teeth, taking stock of the situation as she finally righted herself, her head spinning due to disorientation and mana loss.

  Not good. The rest of the members were being overwhelmed by monsters. She had to make space to breathe, or they would be overrun. I shouldn’t have given the order to abandon our positions. Because of my greed…

  It wasn’t completely unrecoverable. She had to act, now. Viviana forced herself through the mana exhaustion and bounded off a stone wall, activating [flash step] and firing grapples all the while.

  First, she slammed into Lucian’s monster, annihilating the missilefish while it was focused on him.

  [You have slain a level 7 bladed missilefish.]

  [+3 exp] [shared]

  No wonder it took so long. Level 7.

  Lucian nodded with gratitude and turned his eyes to the blob-like monster Viviana was fighting. It wasn’t moving. Maybe when it attacked it stood still? Whatever the case, they had to take advantage of its stalled movement. They had to help Bena and Thomas.

  Viviana looked back to locate them, finding them within a mass of missilefish. Three of them. Really should not have broken formation. If Bena dies, we’ll be down a scout for a couple hours. It’ll be risky to continue with only Fortuna’s.

  Not to mention how annoying it would be to recover the Bena bits scattered around the floating, zero gravity dungeon.

  So Viviana activated [flash step] again, forcing herself through the mana exhaustion. She needed to rest at this point, but if she had to save the mission first. Think about how much reputation we can get!

  Viviana barreled into a missile fish, its bladed fin slicing clean through one of her arms. Shit. Thankfully, not my dominant arm.

  The fish didn’t even notice Viviana’s movements. Viviana ignored the pain and simply attacked it again.

  [You have slain a level 6 bladed missilefish.]

  [+2 exp] [shared]

  Lucian handled the two other missile fish along with Bena. That just left the black blob remaining. With all four members of the Landsknecht teaming up on it, despite their various injuries, it was easy work.

  [You have slain a level 6 blob urchin.]

  [+1 exp] [shared]

  Fortuna had wrapped up things on her end as well. The ambush went without any casualties. Viviana grabbed her floating arm, making a strange arc from the cut end, spraying blood everywhere. The liquid blood beaded up into perfectly circular bubbles, floating in zero gravity.

  Viviana attached the arm as Bena yelled at her for being stupid and throwing herself at a missile fish for their sakes, despite Viviana’s call putting them in this situation in the first place. Losing the arm was honestly a small punishment for what would have been a mission ending mistake.

  I was too greedy. I could’ve gotten those couple bits of experience some other time.

  Fortuna floated towards her while Bena bandaged her arm. Fortuna spoke. “We’re less than an hour away from the target location. I’ve got a couple injured, so we get what little rest we can, and then we proceed with haste. We must make it on time.”

  Viviana nodded. No rest for the wicked.

  And of course, thank you, reader, for doing what you do best. Unless your best isn't "reading soulbound lightning".

  Of course, soulbound lightning will continue on schedule. Just uh... expect less comments from me. Especially next week.