[LD-1] 41. Determination to Die (Patreon)

XLI

Determination to Die

Part of the temple’s form revealed itself beneath the lightning crawling up its sides.

I let my head fall back against Char’s chest. The ceiling…there was no ceiling, but the darkness was dancing. Closing my eyes stopped the headache from worsening.

Running out of mana was like waking up the morning after having fifteen beers more than you should’ve.

Char put his hands around my face and gently guided me toward the approaching Lily.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “But think we can lend him?”

I glanced behind her. The cheers had long stopped, and sobbing had taken their place.

Emily crouched beside a girl missing a chunk of flesh from her thigh. The detached head of the boar that’d inflicted the wound was lying off to the side. Sweat dripped down the sides of Emily’s head. A boy standing over her, wielding a worried expression like a blade, said something. Emily responded with a shake of the head, then rose. She didn’t heal the crying girl.

‘She doesn’t have enough mana.’ So she’s only treating those in immediate danger of dying.

Miss. Ibuprofen approached the crying girl instead and placed her hands on her leg.

I looked away. A similar scene was playing out around the rest of the field.

“Are we escorting the wounded back?” I asked Lily.

Doing so would take more time. However, we couldn’t exactly leave them here. We may not make it out of the temple, after all.

She nodded. “If we use everyone outside of our main fighters, we should be able to get everyone back in one trip.”

We’d descended the elevator with nearly fifty students capable of fighting.

That number was down to thirty.

I pushed myself off Char’s chest and used Cull to balance. “I’m not sure how much help he’ll be. He’ll dissolve if he strays too far from me.”

The easy fix to that would be for me to follow them. However, there was a reason we were keeping the main fighters here.

Inside me, the new mountain of experience stirred—

“That won’t be an issue, Master!” Kil said.

I blinked. “It won’t?”

“Not at all! Char will be fine as long as he stays with me.”

My groggy mind had to repeat what he said before it registered. “I thought you couldn’t stray too far from me either?”

“The Great Kil cannot be compared to the lowly Char, Master! My range is significantly larger since I’m directly bound to your soul.” He puffed up his non-existent chest. “I could get through this entire dungeon without despawning.”

I wasn’t sure whether that last part was the truth or a boast. However, I could at least tell he was confident he could reach the warlock’s chamber.

“Feel free to take them,” I said.

“Thanks,” Lily said.

The trio walked off. Char picked up the crying girl Emily had left and headed for the elevator, which was still in the process of descending. All the while, Kil once again explained to my other summon that he was the leader of the pack and his orders be obeyed, lest the ignorant Char bring shame upon Master.

The girl paused as she listened to Kil nag…then cried harder.

I shook my head.

“You seem pretty close with those two.”

Roland sauntered up beside me. The earth mage was limping, but he had no visible wounds. Which meant he’d come out of this fight with nothing but a scratch compared to the other wounded.

“With whom?” I said.

He remained silent and let me come to the answer myself.

I huffed. “You still think their family orchestrated all of this?”

“If not, then they certainly were aware of it.”

I spun away to find a quiet corner to meditate—

“How do you think they managed to hide those portals?”

—and stopped. My chin inched over my shoulders.

The lightning cast half of his shoulder in the light, which only deepened the shadows on his face.

“The school is full of war veterans,” he stated.

Of the Second Push, according to Alexa herself.

“Do you really believe not one of those old farts noticed anything?”

Here, I chewed on my lip. ‘He has a point.’

How would such a thing even be possible…

I clicked my tongue. “That doesn’t mean Lily and Alexa are in on it. The principal could’ve acted behind their backs.”

Keeping secrets from two neophytes was a lot easier to imagine.

But Roland scoffed. “They’re nobles. Nobles are all in on it together.”

Which was an incredibly discriminatory remark.

‘Doesn’t mean it’s wrong, though.’

The intricacies of how nobles in this world operated were opaque to me. However, if they were anything like the higher class of society of my previous world, their motives wouldn’t always be pretty.

Alexa, linking her hands like a little girl, came back to me. She smirked. We’ll begin your training the moment I return, okay?

Her smile had been genuine. As were her words whenever she spoke to the other students.

‘I cannot see it.’

Her commitment to our safety was genuine.

I told Roland as much.

He exhaled deep. “Why does doubt rise in your mind?”

The expansion of my chest as I breathed in paused.

You doubt yourself…why? the not-quite words echoed in my head.

“You must push aside flimsy emotions,” he said, “and touch and see the facts.”

I did not respond to that.

He stared me down in the quiet. “That’s the only way to make it when you’re not one of them.”

One more heartbeat passed. Then he left and returned to his party.

Cull’s handle curled into my palm, the haft feeling colder than normal.

I turned around and found a secluded place to meditate.

Before, I’d not been capable of focusing on anything else while condensing my experience. Now, however, my mind drifted through the ambient space of my soul sea. I was not in a hurry, so I let the sensation of slowly being pulled along the waves massage my tired mind.

Reaper - lvl. 16 -> Reaper - lvl. 18.

6 free stat points gained.

Name: Joy Grimm

Level 18 Nox [Reaper]

Rank: NeophyteMagic Domain: Death (Special)Class Weapon: Cull the Deathblade (F - 56/10000)Death Core: DormantDeath Fragments: 68/1000Mana: 60/270 (+ 50 ; -30 reserved)

Skills: Ancient Bone Shell (C-1), Summon Ghoul (C-1), Deathbolt (C-2), Arm of Quranq (U-1), Consecrated Grounds (U-1), Reaper’s Condolence (L-1)

STR: 12DEX: 12INT: 25CON: 10WIS: 27Faith: 20

‘Kil was right,’ I noted.

Now that the catafalque had was reaching completion, it sucked up more experience. Pushed experience into it sometimes felt like I was shoving against a wall. As if the object itself was resisting its completion.

But that was good.

‘I’m almost there.’ One more good push. That’s all I needed.

Guesses at what would await me upon its completion reared in my head as I continued to drift out at sea in my canoe—the same one I’d used to go fishing for Char.

I would’ve continued like this if a voice didn’t pull me out of my sea.

“Congratulations,” I heard from somewhere far away.

I opened my eyes and found Alexa standing beside me. Her lips adopted a hushed curve, and a soft light passed through her eyes like the warmth coming off a candelabra on the other side of the room.

They’re all in on it, he snarled.

I shook the thought out of my head. “Thanks. Finished the count?”

“Not yet. But we’re definitely not sending in over thirty members.”

“Why thirty?” I asked.

My mind answered the question as it left my mouth. The dungeon difficulty increased based on the number of members. Likely, every five or ten participants. In each case, sending in thirty members would mean going past the halfway point of the scale.

She nodded after seeing I had answered my own question. “Lily brought back a few other students from the warlock’s chamber. But I don’t think we’ll be using them.”

‘Back already?’ I reached for my connection with Kil—he was in the room, though bothering Emily. ‘That was quick. Did I spend so much time drifting?’ Being in my soul sea was just so peaceful…

I flicked my attention back to the subject at hand and thought. Keeping our count low would help in not making the instance more difficult, but it was going to be a challenge, regardless. We needed the cream of the crop.

So we began the weeding process.

Not only were we choosing the strongest students, but everyone had to join willingly, since there was no telling what we would face inside. That led to a few promising members not joining, such as a girl from Lily’s team and one of Roland’s followers.

Closer to home, there was discussion as well.

“Evans.” Shota was sitting a little way away from me in the lotus.

Beside him, Evans trembled like he was standing naked in a snowstorm.

“Evans.” A nerve popped on Shota’s forehead. “Stop this and withdraw. You’ll only be deadweight.”

For a moment, there was no sound but Evan’s trembling.

“I’m going in,” the lanky boy gritted out through his teeth.

The ensuing argument that exploded between the two would’ve ended in blows if it wasn’t for Douglas and Kiba. Kiba hauled Evans away, while Douglas held his arrogant young master off the ground with a half-bored expression.

“Stop being a fool!” Shota punched his captor in the thigh—which didn’t make Douglas flinch—then he squeezed an arm through Douglas’s grip and flung it like he was striking someone. “You barely reached level fifteen and want to enter an instance? Don’t kid yourself and stay behind! You’ll just be throwing away your sorry life!”

Evans’s face contorted. “You think…” He looked down and mumbled, leaving the rest of his sentence indecipherable.

“Huh?!” Shota snarled.

“You think I don’t know that?!” Evans yelled.

I, and every other student covertly listening in, blinked at the outburst. Evans never raised his voice.

Shota, too, was stunned. Before he regained his composure, Evans said:

“That’s why I have to go. Otherwise, how am I ever supposed to follow behind you?!” His nails bit into Kiba’s forearm like they owed him.

No one said anything as we waited for Shota to respond.

The blond’s face twisted a thousand ways in a second; he himself perhaps unsure what he thought or wanted to say. Finally, Shota simply said: “Suit yourself.”

He ordered Douglas to put him down, then settled back into meditation.

Alexa waited another moment before speaking up. “That settles that. I’ll do a final headcount.”

Evans sighed. My lips pursed. It was true that Evans wasn’t much of a fighter or had any real combat capabilities of his own, but he boosted Shota’s technos, and there was no telling how much worth that’d had over the course of the dungeon.

Still, I understood Shota’s concern, for once.

‘We’ll just have to look out for him.’

That thought rippled through me like a shiver. I’d never been ‘acquaintances,’ let alone ‘friends’ with a group this big. Especially not during my high school years. However…

‘I’ll do what I can.’ Because I didn’t want anyone to die.

I chuckled. Wasn’t that ironic, Kil? A sorcerer with a special-grade proficiency in Death magic not wanting others to die.

The summon, who I knew had heard me, was slow to answer. I…I don’t know, Master.

A sigh. ‘Sorry. That was an unfair question.’

It was easy to forget with how cute and comedic he was, but Kil was not human. He didn’t share in our emotions, nor reservations for preserving life.

I kept my thoughts at the forefront of my mind so he could combat my statement.

He didn’t respond.

‘…then again, I’m not human either, so who am I to judge him?’

I sighed again. An awkward silence threatened to take hold of our mental bond, but the summon perked up, his voice taking on a cheer as he changed the subject. Master, you still need to look at Char’s screen!

Ah, that was right.

The hunched summon hovered towards me.

‘How do I check it?’

Words appeared in front of me before my question had finished.

Char Summon Status.Grade: FLevel: 18species: Darkin CrystalisPartner Skill: Daring Display (C-2)

Try focusing on the partner skill, Kil said.

I did so.

My head tilted.

‘Now that is interesting.‘