A New Star Chapter 83 (Patreon)

Whatever the case, we had work to do, though I was still acting much more as a chaperone. The kids didn’t mind all that much, not at this point; remarkable what a little demonstration of skill and a little coaching could do to soften an attitude. I tried not to step in any more than I needed to for the next few hours, and no interference at all would have been ideal, but I did have to help with another pincer situation a second time. It wasn’t necessarily that the beasts were all that smart and setting such scenarios up, but they would actively wander in groups, which could lead to a situation going from under control to rapidly deteriorating in just a handful of seconds. Fortunately, I was there, as I was pretty sure I could solo this dungeon in just two or three hours.

The first big challenge, now that the group had gotten their feet under them, was setting up camp for the night. A dungeon like this was large enough that they weren’t clearing it in a single day, not unless I stepped in, and having someone much stronger and more experienced beat it for them sort of defeated the whole point of the exercise. Getting the tents set up and the watch rotation established wasn’t as tedious as I would expect, though I didn’t really plan on sleeping, even if I pretended to. Not that I didn’t trust the kids to keep watch, but I didn’t trust the kids to keep watch. I also was a bit suspicious of their attempts at gourmet, but the one girl made a passable soup, and there was some unleavened bread that was just fine for a few days of camping. It wasn’t hard tack, thankfully, but it was a bit dry and better used to soak up the extra liquid than eaten on its own.

The group talked for quite a bit after they ate before going to sleep, though only some of it was a review of their performance so far. I kept my peace there, as adding any but the smallest input would be much more like the review I expected to be happening at the end of this outing. I went to ‘sleep’ early, having a small tent that I had setup in a corner of the room we were using, though I didn’t lay down inside. Instead, I sat in the center of the tent and meditated, focusing on my affinities and those around me, watching for anything entering the area that the kids might miss.

I was to be a bit disappointed that night, though also glad, as we hadn’t had to deal with night time intrusions. The kids—er, I meant—the rest of the team, were not hardened soldiers and veterans; any interruption in their sleep, beyond the watch rotations, would have had them in a sorry state come the morning. I had trained and worked with enough fresh troops over the years to understand that perfectly clearly. Instead, there was a quick breakfast of oatmeal and preserved fruit, just dried pieces of apples and a few other things, and I made some some ash cakes, or travelers flapjacks, or whatever the hell people were calling them nowadays. The team hadn’t seen anybody use the coals of a fire to roast quick cakes before, which I thought a bit amusing, and most of them had at least one of the dense pancakes before packing up the camp. Even considering I had a tent that was small and easy to fold and store, it was still a bit depressing to watch the disorder with which they packed up, especially the amount of time it took. Then again, I was judging by a bit too high of a standard, so I didn’t say anything, just helped Anastasia, who was about hopeless with the canvass and collapsible poles.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “I just don’t understand how it doesn’t fold neatly.”

“You can’t fight it,” I commented, looking down at her even after she straightened up. I had gone through most of my growth at this point, by my estimation, and I towered over everybody else, even if I wasn’t quite as tall as I had first expected. Still, I was well on the outside in terms of height, standing at six feet seven inches. “You need to chart out how it folds and then slowly do that.”

“You were quite quick with it,” she said as she threw on the slim backpack. None of the team had anything that could store things, which was not at all unexpected, but they were still all carrying their own gear, which was nice to see. Also a bit dangerous, and they hadn’t been trained to drop their pack somewhere safe before fighting; they’d learn, now or in the future.

“I have a lot of practice,” I said but didn’t elaborate. Better to say less and let them assume.

“You must have been camping a lot. I’ve heard it’s different, living in the far north.” Case in point.

“It’s not that different,” I said, shaking my head and slightly chuckling. “In fact, my siblings would tell you it’s much the same, or some of them would. Some of them are a bit spoiled. But I have always been a hard worker, and I started training early.”

“Ah, I see. I suppose practice does make perfect,” she said.

I nodded, but was kept from responding as Gorge called for everyone to form up. I let the conversation die off there as I faded into the background, mostly following the team for the next few hours. As we started to get close to the end of the dungeon, and to lunch time, I could sense the final boss, at least of that floor. This being a fairly new dungeon, by the estimates, it would only have one floor, but some of the older dungeon that were heavily steeped in mana, and death, could have several floors, with each having a floor boss. Rewards were given for every floor cleared, though they weren’t fantastic rewards; still, they were enough that many smaller teams could comfortably live off the resources gathered and the end rewards from dungeons.

I was a bit stumped at first, and a little embarrassed to admit, but it took me a little to figure out why the kids were wandering around a bit. I had to remember that I was both more powerful and more sensitive than any of them, and it was likely that nobody else in the group had yet felt the boss. Both Alex and I could feel it; I had the sense for strong enemies honed from a million battlefields, combined with my strong affinities and body, while Alex could sense a heavy air of death from the area around the beast. It had killed, both people and beasts, and quite a few. There were always people that would stumbled into dungeon, ill-prepared and not knowing what awaited them, hoping to get rich quick or change their situation. There was a reason the Adventurers Guild existed, and a reason they regulated who could enter what dungeons and when, and it wasn’t just their greed. The handful of human bones we would find in the boss room would be proof enough of that.

That wouldn’t happen for another hour, and I could have redirected, but I let the team get the experience. Besides, again, it helped to conceal a little of my power and what I could do; I was sure the adults and seniors in the camp had a better idea, but the rest of the team already thought I was a prodigy. No reason to drive the point home even harder. I would just make sure they didn’t get banged up too badly in the final encounter and then we could get out of here.

The delve had been useful for a number of things, including letting me know about the standard of academy graduates. My siblings had all gone through academy, of course, but I had not worked closely with any of them, nor was particularly close with any of them, save Marianne, who had not gone to academy. She had received private lessons during her teens at our estate, which I thought was for the best; she would not do well in the academy, and she was still a target of nefarious groups, I was quite certain. Better to keep her safe and protected until she had a bit experience and power.

This group was also, funnily enough, being kept safe and sheltered, though they didn’t know it. It also might not have felt like that to them as we finally encountered the boss, the beast massive, angry, and very hungry, all of which it made clear when we entered the room and it roared at us before ripping apart an arm, of a different beast, thankfully, and devouring part of it. Still creeped a couple of the kids out, them being a bit squeamish at the sight of the blood, and the general awful state of the boss room. Didn’t affect me at all, and I watched to see if the team would firm up and get it handled, or if I would have to step in.

Well, the fight started fine, and I could see the team overcoming their worries and foibles to take the battle to the beast, but I was watching with a critical eye. I was going to recommend both more training and more real world experience for the whole team; they certainly could use it. One of the things they were struggling with, and especially on the boss, was judging an enemies strength and toughness. They hadn’t been seriously injured by misjudging strength before now, but I had to step in to pull Miriam back from a blow that would have certainly broken bones for her. This was not a fight where she could block, not with her current level of strength and low level of body cultivation.

The second part was the team had trouble judging the beast’s endurance and vitality. From their communication in battle, which also could use some work, but then I was getting a bit nit-picky at this point, they thought they had the boss on the ropes long before it was truly exhausted or heavily injured. That was a dangerous misapprehension to have, which was almost proven in fatal fashion when the boss surged forth after they team had gotten too cocky, just about snapping Jhan in half. Much as I would have liked to see the dimwit suffer for his ignorance, I was not going to fight it out with the people back upstairs if he was seriously injured or killed. I stepped in, just at the last possible second, and with just enough leeway that he took part of the hit but not all of it, before I pulled him back and sent the enormous bear, which was covered in dense fur that was more like iron spikes than fur, staggering with a kick to the head. I used the momentum from the kick to push us both back; I didn’t want to show that I could drag others through The Dark, nor even make it obvious that I could freely travel through it. Based on the way I had used it so far, I was sure a few people still thought that I just teleported long distances with it as a way to show off.

After saving Jhan from the jaws of the hungering beast, I went back to being passive for a minute, watching as the team recovered from their shock. They had to handle an angry, and still very strong, boss, as it had realized it’s playing hurt had been seen through, though the team responded remarkably well. At least, for a bunch of teens with surly or privileged attitudes, they performed great; if they were soldiers under my command, they would have had a dressing-down and some time doing intensive drills coming up to strengthen their coordination and build up their bodies. But, that was a thing of the past, and not really something I wanted to get back to. I was glad that so far, in this life, I didn’t have responsibility for hundreds and thousands and billions of other people, on and off the field of battle. I would very much like to keep it that way, at least for some time yet.

The team engaged in a battle of attrition with the boss, and I watched carefully to make sure I didn’t have to pull anyone else out of harm’s way, but that proved unnecessary. The team did just fine after they had realized just what they were dealing with, and Gorge stepped up into his own in commanding the team while also juggling the boss’ attention. He was definitely someone I was keeping an eye on him; give him a few more years of seasoning, and he could be someone good to pull into my employ. I didn’t want to build a star-spanning army in this life; I had had several lifetimes worth of that nonsense, thank you very much. Instead, I was going to act more as one of my specialist commanders, or that was my overall plan; build a much smaller, far more elite force that could go places others couldn’t and do things they thought impossible.

Out of all the kids, Gorge was probably the best, though Anastasia and Miriam were both possibilities with strong potential. I didn’t think Miriam was quite ready, nor maybe quite had the fire, though that was just an initial impression and I would have to keep my eye on her. Anastasia was a bit inflexible in her fighting style, which was a slight red flag for me, and she seemed a bit flighty in terms of mentality and focus, but I had been surprised plenty of times before by those like her. Out of the other seven on the team, however, including Anastasia’s friend Sasha, I was much less impressed. Obviously, Jhan went without saying at this point, and the less thought of, the better. While the rest of the team did passably, they weren’t anything to write home about, and none of them had particularly strong affinities, nor had they particularly strong passion and drive. That was the way it went with elites, however; if everybody was or could be an elite, then nobody was an elite. A ratio of three out of ten was already doing pretty damn good, and I would have to interact with some more academy grads in the near future to do a little recruiting of my own.

That was for then, but for now, I watched as the boss was slowly whittled down. It wasn’t anything grand, and none of the team had the real punch or fire to get in there and do major damage, but they kept it under control, now that they realized its strength, and took it slow and methodical. I was not so enraptured with the fighting, or even keeping the kids safe, that I failed to notice movement in the tunnels, and I quietly killed the small group of beasts that had been attracted by the noise. It was just a couple of the weird wooden monsters, but they were absolutely no match for my lightning, and fell at just a few short, sharp blasts that were highly focused and gave off very little light.

I turned back to the boss fight, never having really lost track of it, watching as Gorge baited out an aggressive strike and the rest of the team used the open to punish the boss heavily for it. Now the bastard was actually wounded, which was also the most dangerous time, as a rat backed into a corner could still lash out. Seems the kids didn’t need the warning, however, as none of them tried to get in there and mix it up with the boss in hopes of finishing it right away. They kept up the slow, steady pace for another minute until the boss went truly beserk, ending its life in a frothing rage. The team could handle it, but I lent a bit of a hand, summoning a massive spear of lightning, though not using Gungnir, and just the creation of my attack distracted the boss enough for the team to bring it to its knees, which was another reason I was being flashy about it. The team was cautious, which was good, but I was tired of this dank pit in the ground already; perhaps if there had been something truly interesting down here, I would have had a different feeling, but it was time to be done with this little show.

I took a step forward and unleashed an attack powerful enough that Anastasia and Sasha, who were fairly close to me, staggered just from the bolt’s passage. I had timed it essentially perfectly, and the bolt impacted the beast’s neck just as it was hit by a combination attack from Gorge and one of the other melee combatants. The attack blew apart most of the boss’ neck and nearly decapitated the thing, and Jhan finished the job, holding his sword aloft triumphantly as the beast’s head bounced once and settled on the ground. Not that he had contributed all that much, even in the end, but let the little brat celebrate for now. I’m sure he was going to be celebrating a lot less when we all went over the after action reports and basically all eleven other people from the team totally trashed him and his performance, including his bungled leadership that led to Gorge stepping up early on and taking over the role.

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