Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 24 preview (Patreon)

“Are we going to stop here?” Sophia could not help but ask, hours after we had entered the sixth floor. Exhaustion thrummed through our bodies, as we had been walking for days. The sixth floor was huge, the space between each level massive, such that the rise and fall between hills and the constant need to be on watch drained us all.

We had had five fights, not a lot as these things went, but more than enough to cause Yorrick to pick up a few wounds that had not healed all the way, for Brand to exhaust his energies, allowing a stream of lightning to dance around us, for the wisps that Kira controlled to bob alongside us. We had collected a decent amount of orbs too, but as the adventurers pushed out, so did they drive the bramble goats away, concentrating them such that the last two fights had happened within an hour of one another.

“It’s likely only an hour – maybe two – before we make the exit,” Kira said, tugging forth the crude map that she had acquired from her family’s vaults. She turned it one way or the other, the lack of a proper legend marring her ability to get a proper read on how long it would take.

It probably did not help that we also had to traverse the valleys between hills and risk fighting, or go up and over them, which exhausted us further. A hard choice to make.

“It’s late already,” Sophia said, stretching. “I’m half-asleep on my feet and hungry.”

“Lin has some more—” Yorrick began before I smacked him on the side of the arm to punish him for volunteering my jerky.

Not that it mattered, because Sophia complained, “No more jerky. We had jerky for dinner last night and lunch this morning. I want a proper meal. Come on, Lin can whip something up, can’t he? And what if we run into another group of brambles?” She pointed at Brand, who was trying to hide a yawn. “He’s exhausted and out of his skill. I’m good for a few more casts, but not that many…”

Kira frowned, glancing at her wisps. They still bobbed along, happily. One of the advantages of her skill was that the wisps were self-perpetuating; but the more exhausted she grew, the less control that she had. Controlling the wisps was more a matter of handling a bunch of wayward children than it was empowering them, though Kira’s own skill allowed her to conjure flames too, if needed.

“Brand?” Kira asked softly.

I noted how she hadn’t asked me, instead checking on the boy first.

“I can push on.” A long pause, before he added, slowly, “But I wouldn’t mind taking a break.”

“Yorrick?”

“I can go on.” He tapped his leg. “Actually wouldn’t mind finding a goat or two. That last goat bit me real hard and it hasn’t healed all the way.”

“You could stab Lin a few times; he could just heal himself after,” Sophia offered.

“I will hit you, even if you’re a girl, you know.”

That comment made the group just stare at me as though I was crazy. Which, for them, I guess was right. The gender roles were still present in this world to some extent, but significantly lessened. As skills could appear with any sex, it reduced the general physical advantage men had. Add the ability of women to handle the pressure of battle better, at least initially, before the adrenaline kicked in, and there was a lot less prejudice about striking a woman.

Women were still at a disadvantage, but the ramp was a lot less steep, especially if you had the right skill. In the end, in this world, it all came down to what skill you were born with – and later, how you managed to grow that ability.

“Alright, moving on from Lin.” I narrowed my eyes at Brand, who continued, blatantly ignoring me. “I think most of us would prefer to take a break. We still have to take watch and there’s a good building up there.” He pointed to the right of us at a nearby hill, at a broken-down hut that was obviously abandoned but had the advantage of three walls mostly still standing. Also, in this case useful, there was no roof, so we could avoid worrying about it crashing down on us.

Kira hesitated, but looking at the group, she realized that most of us were just exhausted. The difference between the backline fighters and those of us on the frontline, forced to do battle, was most stark here. While Sophia and Kira still had energy, the only thing drained from them being their attention and focus and a little physical tiredness from all the walking, the melee fighters were exhausted. The constant dump and flush of adrenaline was draining, even for someone like me, who had learnt over the years how to control my autonomic responses through decades of training.

Some, a large portion, of the physical side had disappeared with my death; not enough of it recovered over the three years of training on this world. Still, I had the mental conditioning, the understanding of how to handle my breathing, my movements, and my mental processes so that I did not panic and dump too much adrenaline.

Funny, how so much of a fight was learning how to conserve resources. So while the kids were on the ragged edge of exhaustion, I was still doing well enough. It helped, of course, that I could tap into my health vault if I really needed a boost, though I hadn’t done so as yet.

“Fine, let’s go.”

I smiled a little, careful to do so only when she had her back turned. The woman was learning to be more flexible, to give up on objectives that might not be achievable with better grace than before. We kept up behind her, Sophia falling in beside me with a slight huff as we climbed the hill.

“You know, I don’t think I’d ever been properly grateful for that rat bastard Marshall for making us run so much but…”

“The conditioning is useful, isn’t it?” I felt my lips twitch as I added, “But you didn’t do anything for a bit after you graduated and are feeling it now.”

“Yeah…”

“Summer slump.” When she stared at me, I shook my head. “Just a thing that happens a lot. People—” athletes on Earth in particular “—get lazy in the summer.”

“Why the summer? That’s when the heavy work begins. I would think it’d be more winter.” Sophia stared at me and I shook my head.

“Just a thing from my past.” I shook my head when she tried to ask further, speeding up a little to leave her struggling behind. Not for long, of course, since I was playing rear guard, but just long enough to cause her to hurry and run out of breath.

While I disliked secrets, some needed to be kept. At least for the time being.

If nothing else, I couldn’t exactly explain what had happened when I transferred, or the conversation I had with the old man and what I had experienced because of… pain. I stumbled only a little, as the blinding headache raced through my mind, shutting down further thought for the moment.

Of course, Sophia spotted it, but as with so many things, she figured it was just a Lin-ism. A side effect of my skill perhaps, or just exhaustion. After all, who would have thought that a pain had stuck a mental block in my mind, causing me to react so badly to even thoughts of pain.

Or that I, in my infinite stubbornness, would keep slamming my brain into the mental block. After all, even then, I thought I could feel the block giving way. As though a metal bar, having been pounded upon over and over again, was slowly bending.

A fool’s idea, but if there was one thing you got used to after a lifetime of playing it smart and still dying, it was that sometimes, you just had to play the fool.