My core, which moments ago had been akin to a burning star, was finally quieting to a gentle dim glow. The storm that raged within me settled, the power that had been rocketing through me moments before stilling like a gentle tide.

  I looked within myself. Felt calm envelop my being.

  Then a screen flashed up in front of me.

  [Skills combined. [Rare] compound skill acquired.]

  [Flame Body (rare): Flame mana suffuses your muscles and bones, making them more resilient and increasing your heat tolerance. Flame Body can be activated to produce an auric effect that can be utilised in a variety of offensive and defensive means.]

  As I read the text, I felt it. The rush of heat shooting through my entire skeleton, reaching out and soldering itself directly into my muscles, fibres, and even bones.

  It wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t exactly painful either. If anything, there was a small amount of relief that came with the feeling, as if something tainted and unpleasant was being burned away, and what the fire had uncovered beneath was more chiseled and more pure.

  I looked down at myself. I was still scrawny, not having acquired a peerless physique in an instant or aesthetically shifted whatsoever, but my body felt tougher, as if I could take a stronger hit and stay standing, and I was already pretty good at that for my size.

  I clenched my fist, feeling satisfied with the development. I could feel the added strength buzzing within my frame, and I was excited to see what I could do with the increased durability.

  Then there was [Flame Body]’s active, which took me some time to figure out.

  Just like [Flame Barrier], I couldn’t seem to will myself to use it on command yet. It sat in my skill list at level one, clearly tied to my mana in some intrinsic sense but only wishing to bring itself to the surface as a defense mechanism.

  I quickly determined that poor control of my own mana was the culprit. I could sense the active effects of [Flame Barrier] and even manipulate them when they were in use, but I couldn’t jumpstart my spell with such mana control, nor could I freely sense my mana otherwise.

  I decided to use another Spirit Stone. There was a good chance that frequent use of them would help me to push past the paltry 14% of my mana reserves that were currently available to me, and it was about time I consumed another.

  Spirit Stones were vastly more useful in my development to my recently acquired ‘Unstable Mana Crystals’, which I’d managed to grab fourteen of during my time in the lake. They were apparently valuable, like ten to fifteen gold apiece, but any attempt to use them so far had simply formed ice around my arm.

  I pulled a Spirit Stone out, and after a small time locating the right spot, proceeded to jam it into my arm.

  Or, well, I tried to.

  The moment I felt the instrument make contact with my skin, the jagged edge attempting to pierce flesh, mana roared to my tricep and the crystal met a barrier.

  I tried to push against it, fighting my own mana as it moved of its own volition. It was the same as [Flame Barrier]. I could feel my skin heating up as I attempted to push past it, but far less of the discomfort from the associated heat than I had experienced before. If anything, it felt fairly pleasant, and was leaving no signs of burning across my skin.

  I pushed further, but after a time, the heat began to turn uncomfortable, and I relented.

  I simply breathed for a time, mystified by my own ability.

  It activated on its own when it sensed a threat. It was intrinsic in that sense.

  Quickly, I formed an idea.

  I walked over to a stone wall, black and slate, similar to the one I’d previously trained on.

  I cocked back my fist and threw it forwards.

  I felt mana rush to my fist before it made contact with the wall. The result was pain, but far muted compared to what I’d experienced when striking the stone without [Flame Body].

  The effect on the wall itself seemed about the same. It was unaffected by my strike.

  But I wasn’t very affected either. It had hurt, but not enough that I felt the compulsion to yelp or scream or jump around.

  I could do it again. More so, I could do it harder.

  I attempted another strike. My barrier mitigated the pain while it bolstered the force I could put into my punches. I punched with my left, then my right, building a rhythm, seeing if my mana could keep up as I started incorporating multiple attacks.

  It wasn’t even a question. The impact of every attack was dulled to me, and strikes that might have cut my hands open or broken a knuckle only left red marks and bruises.

  What’s more, after a couple of minutes of striking the same spot, a light brown sear mark began to appear. I could feel the heat radiating through my forearms as I repeatedly pummeled the space. I was heating it with my strikes, producing a similar effect to the [Burning Fist] skill I’d recently been offered.

  I decided to work in kicks, elbows, and even knees. I threw everything I had at the wall for thirty minutes, until finally, pieces of stone began to crumble and light cracks began to appear in the once-imposing wall, faltering before my continued assault.

  I was panting and sweating as I finally felt my fist connect with the wall unimpeded by a sheen of mana. The orange glow had dimmed from my strikes, and this one hurt.

  Again, I was tougher now, and if I wasn’t, I’d probably have broken something, but I still screamed from the impact. Holy shit that was painful.

  I tested it one more time with my other fist to see if it was a blip. Nope. Ow.

  Seemed like I’d managed to drain through my mana reserves with enough repeated use of my [Flame Body], at least enough so that it didn’t automatically activate.

  That said, I’d also improved it.

  [Flame Body: 1 >> 2.]

  Smiling at the development, I took the opportunity to jab myself full of Spirit Stone.

  This time, I didn’t run a marathon, but instead shadow-boxed through tired arms for another fifteen minutes to work the strange feeling through my body.

  Spirit Stones seemed to demand my body act in order to facilitate the flow of freshly awakened mana. It hurt to ignore it, and felt liberating to follow my body’s will. Despite my exhaustion, I’d punched the air faster and more decisively than I’d ever struck at anything in my life.

  This was the path to improvement. I was sure of it. I might not be able to sense my body’s mana intuitively yet, and using [Flame Body] might be a series of trial and error, but I had certainly made progress, and the more that I continued down this road, the more I would make.

  I just needed a couple weeks. Then I’d be ready to deal with Toar.

  ***

  “You sent that kid into my territory,” Selsor sneered.

  Toar resisted a sigh as he regarded the tall, dark-haired shitstain that was Selsor.

  “And you took everything he mined,” Toar repeated for what felt like the third time. “The matter’s resolved. You didn’t lose anything. The fuck is there to talk about here?”

  “One of my guys got a busted nose. The other one’s face is so swollen he wakes up crying three times a night.”

  Toar growled. “So what? You don’t care about ‘your guys’, you care about making money. Why’d you call me out here for this shit?”

  “Because my workers won’t shut up about it.” Selsor groaned, running a hand over his face. “You try listening to their whining. It’s incessant. Drives me fuckin’ crazy.”

  “They already beat the shit out of him,” Toar commented. “If your guys can’t fight three on one without getting hurt, that seems like your problem.”

  “No. It’s your problem,” Selsor said, pointing a long-nailed finger. “Give me five hundred gold in reparation, and it’s the last you’ll hear of it.

  “Better yet, give me the bunny. I’ll take her and her contract. I’m sure we could make better use of her.”

  Gods, Toar hated Selsor. Considering the size of Selsor’s group and the strength he and his top fighters boasted, Selsor wasn’t logically the first choice for which group leader Toar would attempt to take down…

  But he wished he was. The sunken, nasty prick deserved to be put in his place—the ground. Toar would be more than happy to see to it.

  “Not happening,” Toar said. “He’s already been punished. The matter’s resolved.”

  Selsor placed a hand on Toar’s shoulder. He patted him. Toar almost recoiled in disgust.

  “Toar. Toar. Buddy. Listen.”

  Selsor smiled at him, revealing cracked and yellowing teeth. Toar grabbed his hand by instinct, threatening to crush it.

  Selsor barely flinched.

  “You know how it looks if someone from your group can come and hurt one of my guys with impunity?”

  Toar said nothing. He squeezed the prick’s hand so hard he heard something crack. Selsor didn’t flinch.

  “It undermines me as a leader,” Selsor explained, not remotely caring about the vice his hand was in, the freak. He did this shit just to show how untouchable he was.

  “And when I’m undermined as a leader, people get funny ideas about defecting. About not doing their jobs. If I say I’ll talk to you about it, and then I don’t take something from you for my group’s pain and suffering… Do you see the issue?”

  Of course he did. Toar might’ve been strong enough to fight Selsor. Besides his unnatural pain tolerance and what he assumed was a healing skill, he didn’t know much about the creepy bastard’s capabilities.

  What he did know was that the orc girl in Selsor’s group had snapped a Tier 1 fighter’s neck for making a comment about her face, and that the fight had been completely one-sided.

  And that bitch was subordinate to him. Possibly as strong as Marcois, but a hundred times as ferocious and far more willing to kill. Plus two more fighters who were likely just as strong.

  Her and ten other miners made twelve enemies in total, twelve enemies he didn’t wanna make.He doubted his group had the ability to take on and live through them even if he could kill Selsor, which was a big maybe.

  Toar relaxed his grip on Selsor’s hand. The asshole patted him once more, as if he hadn’t just had his palm halfway crushed.

  “Okay… when should I expect you’ll be sending her?”

  “You shouldn’t. It’s not happening. Let’s find another way to resolve this.”

  Toar couldn’t do it. He didn’t have the money to hand over, and he certainly wasn’t putting Maisie in this freak’s clutches. Not in a thousand years.

  “You’ve got a week,” Selsor said, removing his hand and turning to leave.

  “You’re not gonna like what happens otherwise.”

  This was a problem. Toar needed those healing potions and that gold, and he needed them now.

  He wasn’t gonna give up when he was this close. Not when the opportunity to start conquering this place was in arm’s reach, and breaking Adam’s spirit was the single barrier.

  He’d been working at it for far too long. He’d had him beaten, he’d confiscated his hauls, and for weeks, now, he’d been sending him to an area that was essentially impossible to mine in, while refusing to take any materials that weren’t expressly from there.

  He’d starve him out eventually. The rat was cunning, but he was weak, and he couldn’t rely on the group to feed him or they’d eventually get sick of him. He’d also grow so tired of missing his quota and accumulating more debt that he’d inevitably have to break.

  That said, he knew he needed to step his game up. A week-long ultimatum with Selsor was a hard time limit. He’d have to break the runt by then and decide what the fuck he was doing about Selsor after.

  First step was figuring out where he kept sneaking off to. Toar knew he had somewhere he was stashing his items, and it wasn’t where he slept—he’d checked there twice.

  No. Adam liked to hide out somewhere deeper in the caves…

  Toar just needed to discover where.

  ***

  I finished up checking on my spider minion, happy with the progress it had made.

  What had begun as a relatively wide and bare room deeper into the caves had transformed in the span of two weeks. It was all but covered in webs now.

  At first, I’d had to source meat for the massive creature; now it caught its own.

  Satisfied with the development, I walked back to my tent, flicking different points on my arm as I did so.

  I’d gotten my [Flame Body] up to level three now, and had managed to pinpoint responses from my barrier to light and non-threatening incursions against my body. Once I’d activated it, I could pull that energy and push it to other parts of my body, though I lost my handle on it within a few seconds.

  Still, it was progress. Slowly, but surely, [Flame Body] was teaching me how to command my mana, even without me gaining an innate sense for it yet.

  I’d also gotten more adept at fighting with it. Constant drills and sessions with the harsh stone wall had increased my martial prowess as well as my pain tolerance, plus how much energy I could tap into at once.

  I’d completely avoided Power Stones for the last two weeks. Remembering how tempting they’d been to use in the first days after I’d tried one had told me that I was better off steering clear.

  And I was making great progress without them. My skill list now looked like this:

  [Subject name: Adam Tallow.]

  [Bloodline: Rat]

  [Skill list:]

  [Flame Body (rare): 3]

  [Pickaxe Mastery: 10]

  [Climbing: 8]

  [Persuasion: 7]

  [Trap-making: 7]

  [Tinkering: 7]

  [Sleight of Hand: 7]

  [Running: 7]

  [Perception: 7]

  [Haggling: 7]

  [Intimidation: 6]

  [Grappling: 6]

  [Jumping: 6]

  [Stealth: 6]

  [Literacy: 6]

  [Mathematics: 6]

  [Throwing: 6]

  [Polishing: 5]

  [Pain Tolerance: 4]

  [Cooking: 3]

  [Whittling: 3]

  [Mining: 3]

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  There were some changes, notably the addition of a [Mining] skill and the maxing of [Pickaxe Mastery], though I’d managed to bump a few more things along the way.

  I had the boy I’d saved, Eric to thank for most of my mining advancements. I’d been seeing him almost every day for the last two weeks, and in that time—

  My train of thought skidded to a halt as I observed a figure outside my tent. I crouched and pushed myself to the side to remain hidden.

  It didn’t take me long to realise who it was. Instead of hiding, I called out.

  “Marcois?”

  The orc jolted at the sound of his name, wheeling around to face me.

  “Oh. Hi, Adam.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You weren’t around at dinner, so I decided to drop off your food. I don’t sleep far from here.”

  I nodded and thanked him, ducking into the tent to receive a quarter-loaf of unbuttered bread and a trio of slightly burnt sausages.

  It was no secret among the group that I wasn’t eating much. I’d been turning up without hitting quota for almost two solid weeks now, barely having anything to show for my time working.

  When I brought back valuables from other parts of the cave, Toar branded them worthless and docked me for not going where he’d instructed. When I went to Toar’s chosen location, it was picked clean already.

  He was trying to force me to give up my items, and he was becoming more ruthless about it. Whether the group picked up on that or not, they still made me dinner. No one had thought to bring it to me until now, though.

  “I bet Jackal said something about you taking my food.” I snickered as I bit down on one of the still-warm sausages.

  “A few things,” Marcois admitted, scratching the back of his head. “I try my best to ignore him.”

  “Doesn’t it make you angry?” I asked, chewing with my mouth open. “I don’t get why you let him poke at you like that.”

  “It upsets me sometimes.” Marcois shifted, looking unsure what to do with his hands. “I like to think he doesn’t mean anything by it, though. He’d probably stop if I shouted at him about it.”

  “Then why don’t you shout at him?” I asked, not understanding in the slightest. “Or better yet, punch him? If someone’s giving you shit, and you’re affected by it, then you should stand up for—”

  “Adam.”

  Marcois interrupted me. He sat down cross-legged beside me.

  “What are you going to do about Toar?”

  Hold on… what was he asking me? I narrowed my eyes. Was it possible he’d remembered what happened in the underground? Or at least some of it?

  “Why are you—”

  “I can tell that he’s bullying you,” Marcois said. He took a short breath. “There’s clearly something he doesn’t like about you. That’s why he keeps sending you to nasty areas. That’s why he constantly antagonises you.”

  The way Marcois spoke was slow. It was calm. It was gentle. It always was.

  “So what are you planning to do about it?”

  But when he said those words, they weren’t gentle. They felt like the stirring of an ancient beast, rather than the question of a sixteen year old boy.

  “You think I’m planning to do something?” I replied, testing the waters.

  “I saw the way you fought Jackal your first day here. You weren’t going to back down. I don’t know what you did to survive in the underground… but I know whatever’s happening between you and Toar, it’s leading somewhere.”

  “You’re probably right about that,” I answered, trying to remain as cryptic as possible. “No clue where, though.”

  For all I knew, Toar had sent him. I had to keep guarded.

  “I see. I thought so.”

  That was all he said. He sat silently for a while as I chewed on a piece of bread.

  “Any advice?” I finally asked.

  “Not really. Just…”

  Marcois rubbed his chin. He looked like he was struggling to find the words.

  “Killing someone… it changes you.”

  That ripped through my thoughts like a bullet. I stopped chewing. I stared at him.

  “Food doesn’t taste the same anymore. Music doesn’t sound the same. Well… it does. But it doesn’t. It’s like…

  “It’s like something that’s always there, but you only notice it when you let your eyes unfocus and you relax.

  “But it’s always there.”

  I asked him what he meant, but Marcois said he didn’t want to explain. He just wanted me to know.

  I thanked him for the lesson, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  The plan was already in motion. The table was already set. The pieces needed only to fall in their proper place.

  It was too late for me to turn back now. This needed to be done.

  ***

  “Hey, boss!”

  “I told you to stop calling me that.”

  “Sorry, boss. I forgot!”

  “...don’t worry about it.” I looked at Eric, who was still panting after apparently running all the way here. “Did you manage to do what I said?”

  “Yeah, I did!” Eric nodded enthusiastically, catching his breath between words.

  He’d been cautious around me at first, but after a few days, Eric seemed to settle and begin regarding me as some kind of superior.

  Which was… strange to me, as we were the same age, and I’d never been in charge of anyone, but the whole process felt somewhat natural.

  “Tell me what you told them.”

  “Okay.” Eric adopted an almost too-serious face, his brown hair flicking as he snapped to attention. “So, I told the rest of my group how to find this place, and told them there was a reason I’d been able to mine so much lately. And that I’d show them when I got here.”

  I simply nodded; that was more than good enough.

  Over the last couple of weeks, Eric and his mining class had taught me plenty about how to use a pickaxe, a chisel, and a hammer to a far greater level, as well as how to preserve energy while working and even how to judge the viability of an area based on sight alone, from value to integrity to difficulty of excavation.

  It was useful advice, and I was definitely improving quickly, but more useful was the fact he had an entire group I could use that information against.

  “Remember,” I said, “Just follow my lead, even if I lie a little. Okay?”

  “Got it, boss.”

  Honestly, I could get used to this kind of unquestioning assurance.

  I suppose it helped that I'd only been good to Eric since saving him. I’d kept to our agreement and done what I could to protect him, using my thermal sensor to keep us from going anywhere dangerous, and in turn, he’d started to teach me everything he could about mining.

  Not only that, but once we’d finished work for the day, while I cycled everything through my [Hoard], increasing its progress towards the third level, I didn’t end up keeping much of what we mined.

  In fact, most of it went into Eric’s cart, and he took it back to his group.

  This wasn’t just random generosity on my part. It was fully intentional.

  I sat and stretched my aching shoulders as Eric produced a sandwich. He tore the bread in half and offered me the slightly bigger one, which I graciously accepted.

  Eric knew I didn’t have anything to eat right now, and while his group sent him out to do solo work and didn’t pay any attention to him, he was at least well-fed and didn’t mind sharing.

  “It’s more than fair payment for all the extra loot you get me,” Eric had said a week ago. “I’m making good money right now!”

  Honestly, I wondered how he’d ended up here. He was capable enough to be a tutor, and that much had been made clear by how quickly he’d helped me with my own abilities.

  I mulled it over as I bit into cheese, lettuce, and tomato, the sandwich juicy and crunchy.

  I somewhat disparaged the lack of protein, but I wasn’t in a position to complain right now. I got what I got.

  We weren’t long into our meals before I heard the sound of voices. Muttering voices that soon progressed into accusatory shouts as the two miners in the distance sped up to a jog.

  “Hey!”

  “Hey! Who the hell are you?”

  “Eric, who is this guy?”

  The two boys—one a short human, the other a taller beastkin that kinda resembled a calico cat—ran up on the pair of us with a stream of questions, all of them pouring from the human’s mouth.

  I brushed crumbs off my lap as Eric stood, pointing at me as if he were presenting a grand prize.

  “He’s the one I told you about!” Eric proudly proclaimed.

  Calico boy raised a slender eyebrow. The other human, his hair cropped short, wisps of stubble around his chin, looked alarmed.

  “You didn’t tell us about no person,” the human accused, his turn to point a finger at me. “Who are you? Why are you with our worker?”

  He sounded defensive. I slowly put my hands up as I made to stand. “I’m not doing anything nefarious,” I promised, bowing my head as I did. “I happened to meet Eric a couple weeks ago. He’s a really good worker.”

  “What, you think you can muscle in on our group?” the shorter boy sneered, immediately squaring up to me, a snarl on his lips. His eyes shot to Eric. “Has this guy been making you work for him, Eric?”

  “No, nothing like that!” Eric defended, waving his hands.

  “Then what the hell is going on here?”

  Short-haired boy didn’t look impressed. He looked about ready to smack me. I needed to defuse things fast if I wanted this to work.

  “It’s like he said, it’s nothing like that.” I kept my hands raised as I spoke, keeping my voice as gentle as possible. “You could say Eric is my protege.”

  “Protege?”

  It was the beastkin that spoke this time, his accent thick and foreign.

  “That’s right,” I nodded. “I’ve been training him.”

  Eric looked about as confused as the other two. I hadn’t told him about my lie in advance, worried he’d mess up the details. Now it was a scramble to sell it.

  “How have you been ‘training him’?” the shorter boy asked, placing about as much strain on the words as he could, clearly unconvinced.

  “I’ll show you,” I said. “Eric, wanna head to the site? We’ll show these guys what you can do.”

  “O-oh! Okay!”

  There was one consistent factor in everything Eric had told me concerning his group and their interactions, and it was quite a simple fact:

  “No one listens to me.”

  It tracked with the fact that Eric was given the lowest priority jobs. With the fact that no one seemed to know how he could possibly recover so much loot in a single day, and that his group had initially assumed he’d stolen the cart from someone else.

  And it continued to track now as Eric, still a superior miner to me, toiled and worked on a difficult deposit before his two fellow group members, and the pair of them reacted with complete astonishment.

  “Wow… you can do this?” the calico expressed in awe.

  “That’s incredible… you taught him that?” the once-loud boy asked, reduced to a stunned whisper, watching as Eric mined out a surface area bigger than his torso in a matter of three minutes.

  “Yup!” I bullshitted, walking up and patting Eric on the shoulder as he dug precious metal out of the stone. “That I did.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “He’s a good worker,” I continued, turning to face the other two as Eric continued his performance. “He picked it all up pretty fast.”

  “Wow… good on you, Eric!”

  “Oh! Thanks!”

  Eric smiled, as if he was being seen for the first time, which was by no means the case.

  “We’re sorry for throwing all those questions at you,” the human boy said, fidgeting under my relaxed gaze.

  “I threw no questions,” Calico boy pointed out.

  “Okay, well, I’m sorry,” human boy corrected. “We’re used to dealing with assholes down here. I’m honestly still shocked by the idea that you taught him all this for free.”

  “Not for free,” I pointed out. “He shares his lunch with me.”

  “Also, he saved my life the other day!” Eric added.

  I let the two of them digest that, completely nonplussed, as I considered just how much of a success this had been. Couldn’t have gone better.

  “Saved you how?” the human boy asked, more curious than skeptical this time.

  “Pulled him out of a cold lake,” I intercepted, fearing how much Eric might spill. “He’d gotten his foot stuck.”

  A few details were different, but it had no effect. The two of them were looking at me like I was a holy saint.

  “You should come to our camp,” short boy said. “Meet our leader. She’ll wanna thank you. I’m Adrian, by the way, and this is Palo.”

  “Charmed,” the beastkin said as he shook my hand.

  “Nice to meet you both,” I said, before whistling Eric over.

  “Wanna lead the way?”

  ***

  Adrian and Palo were almost completely unguarded as the four of us made our way back to their camp. I’d learned from Eric recently that his camp was a fair bit bigger than mine, but by no means the biggest, containing ten members, him being the least noteworthy of them.

  Well, that’d likely change now. When asked whether I could teach others in the group how to mine more effectively, I’d happily told them that Eric was more than sufficient enough to instruct them at this point, and they’d both eagerly listened.

  It was kinda hilarious. To think what you could accomplish if you said things with conviction and confidence.

  I met the group leader after arriving. Her name was Naska. She was a part-demon girl with a slender appearance that suggested she might be a mage, but as it turned out, she possessed another talent.

  “You’re just now realising that Eric is a capable miner?” Naska asked, scrutinising her other subordinates.

  The expression she wore was plain, almost bored. If it weren’t for the inflection of her voice, she might not have sounded even a little irritated.

  The other two looked anywhere but directly at her. “I mean, we noticed that he’d been bringing back a lot of material lately.”

  Naska looked between the pair of them, then at me.

  She didn’t look impressed… but she didn’t look angry either.

  It was impossible to tell what she was thinking. Her eyes were orange and golden flecks, beset against porcelain pale skin and dark, curling horns.

  “You,” she pointed straight at me.

  “I wish to speak to you for a moment. Come.”

  With that, she stood from an almost throne-like chair and made her way towards the edge of her encampment, walking out to a sulphuric lake, smoke rising in gentle lilts from the bubbling water.

  I followed behind her nervously. I couldn’t really discern anything about her.

  “It… worries me that my group believe I’d recruit that boy without him possessing any modicum of talent. You managed to convince them that you were his instructor?”

  She kicked off her shoes as she spoke, then dipped her legs into the steamy lake, not seeming to care about soaking the legs of her jumpsuit.

  I continued to stand.

  “I imagine the truth of it is that he instructed you. Is that the case?”

  “It is,” I nodded. “But I did save his life.”

  She took pause at that. I explained to her what happened with the ice crystals and the lake, only omitting key details this time. She listened, unspeaking until I was finished.

  “The boy is overzealous,” she finally said, sounding far more eloquent than her age might suggest. She was… maybe sixteen? It was hard to tell with demons, even part-demons. “He appears weak and undeveloped. I thought him better to prove his own mettle, lest he continue to be looked over.”

  “It was… character building to send him out on his own?” I asked, keeping my tone as level as I could.

  “Yes. I thought, left to his own devices, Eric would prove himself useful, learning to assert his own worth, and the others of my group might become more discerning. That was misguided of me. I almost wasted an asset.”

  “You didn’t think he’d endanger himself,” I concluded.

  “I watched over him on his first two excursions,” Naska continued. “He seemed very competent. I instructed him to remain in the immediate area, and I thought he’d listen. I suppose I should’ve expected he’d try to impress me…”

  I could imagine why. Naska didn’t seem easily impressed. She didn’t seem easily… anything. Her face was all but a blank slate.

  “Are you angry at him for disobeying you?” I asked.

  “Angry at myself,” she said, looking back at me. “You should try the water, by the way. It’s soothing. I wouldn’t have to crane my neck to see you, either.”

  “It looks… boiling.”

  “It’s warm at best,” Naska replied.

  I did as she instructed, kicking off my shoes and rolling up the bottoms of my jumpsuit legs before sitting a few feet away from her and putting my legs in.

  It was hot. Very hot. Enough so that I felt my [Flame Body] begin to activate around my legs as I adjusted to the bubbling water, mana seeping into my skin and helping to shore up my resistance.

  “A-ha,” Naska announced, the hint of satisfaction in her eyes for but a second, a sharp orange glow. “You have an innate fire resistance. That’s how you rescued him. You weren’t exactly clear on the specifics.

  “I wonder what else you’re hiding from me.”

  I felt multiple emotions flash across me as she made a point of having figured me out. Shock, incredulity, then caution.

  “Are you trying to figure out if I’m an enemy?” I asked her plainly.

  “You’re not an enemy,” Naska answered. “At least… I don’t consider you to be. I’m sure you could be whatever you wanted. But you’ve done nothing to antagonise me.”

  She swayed her feet in the water a little. Whatever innate fire resistance I had, hers must’ve been equal.

  “In fact, I’d consider myself in your debt. You’ve saved my worker and ingratiated him to the rest of my group, in a roundabout way, at least. That’s very helpful.

  “So, what would you ask of me in turn?”

  She stared at me as she spoke. I hadn’t expected this when I’d come up with this plan—I’d expected a brute. I’d been worried when I first met Naska, scared of what she might think of me and my secrets.

  But no. Whether she was a mage or a fighter or something else was clearly immaterial.

  She was intelligent. That was why she was a leader, mistake withstanding or not.

  “Why that look?” she pressed when I didn’t respond quickly. “You orchestrated this meeting because you want something, so tell me what it is, and I’ll see if I can do it.”

  “Do you know which group I’m from?” I asked her.

  “Halfshade’s,” she answered immediately. “You’re the Unclassed with the ridiculously favourable contract. I’d have taken you in when you first arrived, but we couldn’t afford an eleventh member. We still can’t.”

  “Why not?” I asked, immediately wondering what my experience might’ve been like if she had.

  “There are rules,” Naska said simply. “The largest groups impose restrictions on how many members other groups may have. Going against those restrictions is an invitation of war.”

  That was crazy. I’d never heard that until now. Just how big were the largest groups?

  “We had nine members. It was between you and Eric to fill out a tenth. I chose Eric.”

  It made sense. A boy with a miner class over an Unclassed that might have potential. I’d have made the same choice.

  “I’m afraid I know little of your experience since being taken in. I suspect it’s been unpleasant, else you wouldn’t be here looking for favours.”

  I said nothing immediate in response, but apparently that was all the confirmation she needed.

  “We still can’t take you, as I said. But perhaps I can help you with your problem.”

  “How would you do that?” I asked her.

  “Depends what the problem is,” she answered.

  “And if the problem was a person?” I asked.

  “Then I would destroy whomever is bothering you.”

  I blinked at that. She’d said it so casually. She sounded totally serious.

  I’d expected to manage to garner assistance. Not this.

  “Can you… can you even do that?”

  “I’m unsure,” Naska said. “If it’s Halfshade himself you need gone, it might be challenging to accomplish alone, but I won’t risk my group. His orc is immensely powerful, and Toar is at least a peak Tier 1 himself, perhaps an early Tier 2…”

  “You’d really try to kill someone for me? Just like that?”

  “A life for a life,” Naska stated as if it were obvious. “You’ve saved one of mine. I’d make that right with you however you saw fit.”

  “What if I was asking you to kill someone who didn’t deserve it?”

  “Your heart is calm,” Naska answered. “You aren’t perspiring. Your voice has no strange inflections, your mana is stable—you aren’t lying to me. You haven’t since you recounted Eric’s rescue.”

  “And you can just tell?”

  “I can just tell.”

  I studied her for a moment. She was… small. About my height, but thinner and nothing about her said ‘warrior’. I had no idea what kind of fighting prowess she possessed, but she seemed determined that if she were to pursue this task, she wouldn’t enlist help.

  “What do you think your chances are against him?” I asked.

  “At best, it’s a coin toss,” she answered. “I think I’d come away damaged regardless.”

  “Then no. No way.”

  She gave me a funny look.

  “But you want him dead.”

  “I do.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “I assume he torments you.”

  “He does.”

  It was her turn to study me.

  “You still aren’t lying… you worry about endangering a girl you’ve never met?”

  Of course I did. But explaining that did little for me here. It wasn’t the point.

  “If you failed, I’d lose the element of surprise,” I told her. “I need a guarantee that I’ll beat him.”

  “And you have a better idea?” Naska asked, her gaze relaxing as she spoke.

  “I think I do.”

  “In that case, how exactly might I help with that?”

  I sat and I explained the details. Naska listened. She agreed.

  She bound me in ropes and sent a letter.

  And with that, the mission was underway.

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