With my summoned Clone accompanying them, the group are dragging the body of the Alpha back to the wrecked subcamp. Two people are dead, and seven are severely injured; Tana and the other healer tried their best but ran out of mana, while my healing isn’t powerful enough to do more than stabilize them with so little time.

I thought that Kayafe made a deal with the dungeon so this wouldn't happen.

There’s no use dwelling on it; maybe the dungeon lost control or perhaps never intended to fulfill its side of the bargain. Maybe it knows that we forgot about the contract and thinks it can get away with it... perhaps it didn't even try, and we are just that weak. There are too many things that could have happened, but we should start preparing for the worst, which is having the dungeon actively trying to kill us.

A part of me is convinced that we are just weak. If all of us were as strong as Esofy, had strong abilities like Uloru and I or good healing capabilities like Tana, then none of us would have died. Perhaps, to increase the safety of the participants, we need to make the barrier of entry harder to achieve for the next expedition.

We arrive at the subcamp, looking like a tornado has run through it, and start cleaning everything up, salvaging what we can. Fortunately, few things were properly damaged or destroyed, even though pretty much everything was thrown around in the mess. I keep a perimeter of fairies patrolling the surroundings this time, not about to repeat the mistake that let the Spine Wolves sneak up on us.

If only we had an early warning system, technology that can flash a light or make a sound.

I will have to explore the ideas for that kind of technology later, but it's definite that the next expedition needs to be delayed until we have ways to combat – or at least safely flee – the roaming bosses.

As is to be expected, the general mood of the seventeen survivors is not good; most people are just sitting down staring into space, not even bothering to pick things up; some seem to be in a trance-like state after the harrowing experience with the Alpha wolf. Seemingly noticing this at the same time as me, Esofy climbs onto a crate and clears her throat, drawing everyone’s attention.

"We are weak," she speaks clearly and deliberately. "We are weak, and our fighting methods are insufficient. We've fought for sport for so long that we forgot what inspired it. We forgot how to defend ourselves! Do you all remember the story of our ancestors? The story of Kayafe, how she fought against the earless evil ones? Have you forgotten the recent disasters our people have gone through?" Esofy looks everyone in the eyes, letting silence rule for a few moments.

"A few years ago, a monster, much weaker than this wolf," Esofy points to the carcass of the Alpha Wolf, "attacked my village. We were helpless against a single skill, and I watched as people I knew, people I would call friends, died one by one. It was then that I knew our ways of fighting are wrong. We fight for sport. We fight for recognition, but monsters don't care for any of that; it's us or them, life or death." Esofy again let silence take over so everyone could digest her words.

"What about the rest of the world? How will we defend ourselves, our families, our homes from the threats outside of the Nexus?! What will we do? Wait for some powerful monster that can devastate our home? Yes, the Guardian will defend us, but what if the battle causes just as much destruction? What about leaving the Nexus and exploring other lands? We need to learn how to defend ourselves again! We need to learn how to fight a real fight! We. Must. Get. Stronger!"

Resolve fills the eyes of many, the will to live, the will to get stronger, and the will to fight burns within them. For some, however, terror rules instead; grief, hopelessness, and regret loom over them.

"For those that want to leave, we won't stop you; take the dead back to be buried and go home, feel the embrace of your loved ones. For those of you who wish to prove yourselves, who wish to proudly declare the Runalymo strong, to overcome adversaries just like stories of Kayafe, then follow me!" Esofy raises her fist in the air; many raise their fist in kind.

After the rallying speech, we begin the proper work of cleaning up the subcamp. With all of us who decided to remain working at the camp, we make short work of the remaining Felin bodies and also skin the wolves, while those who can’t continue take the bodies of our dead back out of the dungeon for burial preparations. Since my Clone doesn’t have a physical presence and so can’t help with any of that, I instead take the opportunity to analyse the parts of the Alpha that the others have dissected.

Alpha Furs of Spell Resistance:

The furs of an Alpha Spine Wolf. Resists the first hundred points of mana of each attack. Enchantment allowance: 33

That's why it was so hard to damage! Good material, though. This has hammered home that not every monster is susceptible to spell attacks and may need the focus of martial fighters; that must have also been why the boss was so built for melee; spells weren’t very effective on it, so it didn’t need a ranged option to deal with mages.

Now that I think about it, will the dungeon simply respawn the wolf boss? Can we constantly get the same materials as long as we get strong enough to deal with the wolf safely? No point in thinking about it until we know more.

Spines of the Alpha:

The spines of an Alpha Spine Wolf. Ignores 30% of material hardness and toughness when wielded as an offensive weapon. Enchantment allowance: 28

Those will make a good rapier, it’ll be particularly effective against opponents that just trust their armor for defense like the alpha did against us. It’s kind of ironic that we got materials from it made to counter similar tactics to its own.

Fangs of the Pack:

The fangs of an Alpha Spine Wolf. Can make quasi-real duplicates. Enchantment allowance: 23

How does that work? I’m not sure what that description actually means, but hopefully it will allow me to have a piece of equipment for my Clone; the Alpha’s spell resistance made it clear that I need some way to do damage through it without relying entirely on magic.

With two fangs to work with, hopefully I can claim at least one of them.

Heart of the Pack:

The heart of an Alpha Spine Wolf. Bolsters the stamina of all near it and helps them overcome fear: Enchantment allowance: 35

Who's going to carry around a heart everywhere? Maybe we can craft it into something else and keep at least one of the abilities.

Nothing else of use comes from the boss. The usual green tint indicating that the meat is poisonous is lacking in the boss, so it might be edible, but we decide not to take the chance and burn the body just in case; it's not like we really need the food. With everyone healed and all the materials packed and stored in spatial storage items, we make our way to the main camp where my real body is waiting. I warn the rest of the camp about the group’s arrival and inform them to get crates ready for the supplies. I leave the explanation of the wolves for Esofy, I don’t want to cause unnecessary panic.

One thing I find odd, however, is that the people carrying the bodies haven't made it to the main camp yet. They may have just gone directly to the dungeon entrance and skipped the camp altogether? It’s possible that they just wanted to leave that badly; I’ll ask Esofy what to do about them. In the meantime, I check my messages.

Ting! Your party has killed a Snow Felin (Major), Level 108

…

Ting! Your party has killed a Spine Wolf (Major), Level 111

Ting! Your party has killed an Alpha Spine Wolf (Grand), Level 321. Extra experience has been rewarded for being under-leveled.

Ting! Your Bond has obtained levels 259-269!

Ting! Your Class, Fairy Summoner, has obtained level 111-126! 240 status points awarded.

Quite a lot of levels, which makes sense; the Felins were a little higher level than me, and then there were the Spine Wolves and the boss.

Ting! Fairy Rush has met the requirements for breakthroughs and will continue leveling past level 20!

Fairy Rush: You've managed to accelerate your fairies; this will help them move even faster.

1st Breakthrough: You've increased your fairies’ attack speed; this will help them attack more rapidly.

2nd Breakthrough: You've managed to impart a burst of speed to your fairies; this will help you give your fairies a temporary speed boost.

Ting! Fairy Rush has obtained levels 5-13!

This will be useful in long-range attacks, but that has mostly been taken care of already by me being able to use spells through my Familiar and Clone links.

Ting! Fairy Explosion has obtained levels 31-32!

Ting! Fairy Empowerment has obtained levels 30-33!

Ting! Summoner's Expertise has met the requirements for a breakthrough and will continue leveling past level 20!

1st Breakthrough: You've managed to summon multiple entities simultaneously; this will help you summon more.

2nd Breakthrough: You've managed to reduce the cooldown between summons; this will help you summon faster.

Ting! Summoner's Expertise has obtained levels 8-17!

Summon faster and more at a time; this is exactly what I need. I guess my rush to summon as many fairies as possible when the wolves attacked gave me the kick I needed.

Ting! Fairy Commander has obtained levels 17-24!

Ting! Summoner's Affinity has obtained levels 2-4!

Ting! New active skill available, Triangulate Summons! Would you like to accept this skill?

Triangulate Summons: For 10 mana, allows you to locate all of your summons relative to your position within 2 kilometers

This would be useful for having my fairies scout things out; I wouldn't have to always have them lead me back to whatever they find. If it isn’t useful, I can replace it with something better later.

Ting! You have gained the Triangulate Summons class active skill!

Triangulate Summons: You've managed to send a burst of beauty mana to ping your nearby summons, letting you know their direction and distance from you.

So it's like radar, interesting. Maybe this could help me make a monster detector? Do we need something like that, or can people with sensing skills do just as well?

Making a monster radar would probably involve all sorts of difficulties. For example, if I were to somehow make one that could ping a certain kind of racial mana, it would only detect one type of monster; useful, but very niche. A much more practical technology would be something made to replicate a sensing skill such as [Life Sense] or my [Mana Sense].

Pulling myself from my thoughts, I stand up, leave the tent and walk around the camp to get the post-battle jitters out. I breathe in the forest-scented air and observe the camp group taking inventory of the materials flowing in from the subcamps and making constant improvements to the overall state of the place. A warehouse is being set up, nearby trees are being cut down for building materials, and some people are just lounging around.

It’s painfully clear, now that I’m paying attention and the initial high of excitement has been crushed by what happened to the Glade group, that nobody – not even me – involved in the planning for all this knew how to handle all the logistical issues involved in an expedition of this size. I hadn’t really looked around yet, even though my real body never left, since I’d been focusing entirely on piloting my Clone at the Glade, but I can see that the organization of the camps leaves a lot to be desired. Storage areas are not in efficient places and are not organized. There are no sections for specific materials and everything is just being dumped in crates in a single pile.

Esofy and the rest of the Gade group arrive at the main camp, causing a small commotion, and my Clone disappears since it’s no longer needed. With my real body I join up with Esofy as she gives orders that the defenses of all the camps are to be enhanced.

"We should put palisades on the walls and probably dig a trench," I suggest. "Also reduce the entrances from four to two. Having a few watchtowers will also be a good thing to consider."

"First, we need to send someone to the other groups before roaming bosses get to them." Esofy replies.

I send my Clones off to the other groups to call them back to the main camp, utilizing [Acting’s] breakthrough to produce sounds via sound essence. The basic autopilot function of [Summon Clone] being able to guide them to their destinations is the only reason I can use them like this, since I wouldn’t be able to mentally pilot this many of them.

I tell Esofy my ideas for spell crystals as my Clones travel, especially the healing and defensive ones.

"It's going to take us a few days to improve the camps’ defenses, so you might as well get started now," Esofy says, and so I do.

The last of the groups returns, and the leaders hold a meeting to discuss the next steps. The plan is to make proper walls and gates for each camp, although we’ll have no proper way of testing those defenses until we actually need them and, aside from what few memories I can put together, the Runalymo have absolutely no idea how defensive fortifications work.

I focus on growing the spell crystals.The camp defense crystals will each take three to four days to make, including the time to make the mana batteries. They need the batteries to immediately launch a powerful attack, but only have enough battery capacity to attack once, and recharging the battery takes a full minute. It's a short amount of time normally, but an eternity in battle when dozens of people could die before it's reloaded.

The healing crystals, which don’t require batteries because they don’t have the same burst-release activation style, take half a day each to produce. With forty groups of five people, it will take forty days to craft all of them, factoring in the time it takes to rest my minds. Naturally, I don’t have enough time to make enough, so just six healing crystals will be made, one for each camp. I vow to make a healing spell crystal maker; it won't be great, but it'll help us mass-produce them in the future.

At the end of the week, the camp now sports proper palisade walls with trenches dug around them and spiked barricades. Any monsters that would jump the trench are likely to impale themselves on the spikes. The defensive spell crystals that I ended up settling on launch powerful lightning strikes; they aren’t boosted by skill, class, or race, but what they lack in bonuses they make up for in raw amount of mana.

My memories of my past life are once again coming into use; there is one watchtower and two gates… although the gates are more like large doors, not like the massive, imposing, things I originally envisioned. The main camp has been expanded to make enough space for all the people and supplies we brought with us, as well as storage of the materials, both what we’ve collected already and what more we expect to collect before we leave. The subcamps have also been upgraded, although they don't have the defensive spell crystal.

With all of the camp upgrades done, everyone goes back to their dens and subcamps. My Clone and second mind are helping Esofy's group slay Felins while I work in the main camp, making storage crystals; a full day's work for each. After the wolf incident every group has been much more careful, with a lookout always in the camps who is, if possible, someone with advanced scouting skills.

When the subcamps bring a full shipment of goods back to the main camp, it is all pretty much what we expected, with the exception of the ruins. The rodent den had monster materials like tough hides, and sharp digging claws. The ant tree group brought back tough carapace and acid sacs, the spider den group brought back spider silk, venom sacs, and piercing fangs. The slime ruins group, however, not only brought back monster materials like slime and broken and cracked slime cores, but they brought back treasure as well.

"We found chests with items inside," A warrior says as some of us main-camp people gather around their newly-arrived group, taking out a glass vial of a beet-red liquid full of vitality and healing essence; it is clearly a health potion.

Despite the health potions, I see many of the members of that group have moderate and even severe injuries.

"Why are so many people injured?" I ask. Perhaps we need to rethink who is allowed in which den.

"Traps,” the warrior replies with a pained grimace. “It was hard to locate them and they were quite deadly, from poisonous gas to walls that shot out poisonous needles."

It is only then that I notice two bodies being brought back. Too many people are dying and, although statistically eight out of about three hundred is fantastic, these people had families and friends that will miss them. One of them is not even fifteen by the looks of it, and I can see the sullen faces of those who were close to the deceased.

"We need to rethink our party makeup, with three deaths due to traps alone," Hauro, who along with the other leaders has returned from her subcamp for this meeting, says sadly. There has been one more death due to traps in the spider den and three more from monster attacks.

"I agree." Shura nods.

"It's more of a training issue," I point out. "People aren't looking for traps, or aren't using their skills in ways that will let them detect traps. Only three out of three hundred dying to traps so far, despite this, shows that many that we’ve encountered aren't very lethal. To put it another way… we’ve gotten lucky so far."

"Not everybody has skills that can see the traps, and many aren’t willing to trade skills that they’ve put time and effort into learning for sensing skills that may not even work with their style. How are we supposed to train people?" Tato asks, showing the common mindset of Kheshamo fighters. I imagine it’s a misconception common to many people in this world, that in order to master something it is absolutely necessary to get a skill for it.

"There are many indicators. A pitfall trap will need something to cover it, weak enough to collapse when stepped on but strong enough to hold itself up. Walls that shoot out needles will need holes, fire-spitting traps will need something flammable, which might have a smell. Every trap will have something we can train people to notice." I point out a few examples relevant to the types of trap various groups have reported seeing.

The discussion about how to handle traps and make the exploration of the dens safer goes on for about an hour until a vote is made: Every group must have at least one person who can sense traps in some way. Naturally, this means that several groups will have to be rotated out, but it'll mean fewer people dying.

"We should do a deep dive into the ruins and explore the mysteries it contains. The existence of the chests and the treasure they hold could help some of our problems, particularly the healing potions would be very useful." Shura says after the vote.

"A group of our strongest to go as deep as they can." Esofy nods. "However, I would like to bring Tana; not only is it good training, but we could use Tana's healing and their flames are perfect to deal with the slimes."

"The group should consist of our ten strongest people, but I would recommend Tulalo instead; she is a powerful water mage and healer," Tato says.

"We should focus on who's the best fit for the ruins rather than who's strongest.” I interject, shaking my head, then continue when the others all look at me in confusion. “For example, my [Sense Mana] should be perfect for seeing traps and scouting. I can set up ambushes and weaken bosses, plus I don't even have to be there, in danger. Tana's flames are good against the gelatinous monsters, and the healing can fill another role, and Esofy is a good leader. This fills the healer, leader, and scout positions. Good candidates for the defensive and supportive roles are also needed; the other five can be redundant roles in case anything happens."

Another misconception that probably arises from the Kheshamo being the only combat most Runalymo ever see is the idea that ‘the strong are always the best choice’. Synergy, teamwork, and taking advantage of enemy weaknesses are all more important than just choosing the ‘strongest’.

"I can also detect traps, so we have scouting redundancy already.” Esofy seems to understand what I’m talking about. “Aly can heal, too – even if it’s rather limited – and inflict a good amount of damage. Tana is already defensively focused, so we need another leader and two supporting roles. The rest can be specialized for attack."

The next hour is filled with discussions on who should be invited to the ruins deep dive. For some reason, Uloru is considered, despite being mostly dedicated to attacking and only barely qualifying for the three hundred rankings. However, her level has gone up quite a bit due to killing the monsters in the dens.

In the end, Tana, Esofy, and I are going. Chyzu makes it by filling both the secondary leader and attack roles. Jowaru is our frontline defense role, while Irela acts as a powerful attack mage and a backline defense role as she can manipulate her metal into shields. Tulalo, the water and life mage, makes it in as our primary healer. Klora, who seems to have recovered mentally from the fight against the Alpha, is brought in as our ranged physical damage dealer while the now-healed and surprisingly un-traumatized Kadona is brought in for a dedicated attack role. Uloru makes it in as both an attacker in her own right and to support Kadona, Irela, Klora, and Jowaru with her weight manipulation. I am surprised by the tenacity of both Uloru and especially Kadona.

In summary Tana, Kadona, Uloru, Esofy, and Jowaru are our front line, with Chyzu, Tulalo, Irela, Klora, and I in the backline.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Papuyo watches the grieving families of the recently departed. The fire burns and washes away the flesh. These people didn't have to die; their deaths were avoidable.They are gone because they went into the dungeon... because they followed that foolish girl!

Papuyo clenches her fist. How many will die because of her? How many will suffer? How many will turn away from Myrou?

Once the fires have burned out, Papuyo and the priestesses-in-training move the ashes to the pits. The Kyhosa of the dead are placed on top of the ashes, and finally, the bamboo is planted over them all. Hopefully, they'll live long and happy in their next lives.

"May you find new life," Everyone chants.

Funeral over, everyone returns to their homes, slowly walking along the stone path, while Papuyo returns to the temple with the other priestesses.

She understands now. The Guardian never said that what Grand Priestess Shara did was wrong, only that making cursed beings was going too far. This is a test for her, whether or not she has the resolve to do what is needed. Grand Priestess Shara was right... she erred in her attempts to make cursed beings, but what if she was onto something? Instead of making an item that makes a cursed being, what about one that brings people closer to Myrou? Not an item to bind one's soul, but an elixir that modifies one's body to become more angelic?

History is buried under the sea. That's what the Guardian was hinting at. Perhaps there's some sort of lost technology under the sands.

Papuyo turns to face the Storm Warden priestesses-in-training.

"The deaths today were avoidable; do you not think this?"

"Alysara is still a child. She may have done good things, but this... is a mistake." One of them says grimly.

"I only joined the Storm Wardens after they'd been established.” Another nods, “I've always disapproved of children running around unsupervised, doing whatever they pleased. This only proves my case."

"Every day, we stray further from Myrou."

Some remain silent; others show obvious discomfort. Papuyo makes mental notes on who they are. She will talk with those that see the truth. She will be the one to bring the Runalymo back to Myrou's ways; she will be the one to lead her people to the future.

First things first, Papuyo will need to separate the Storm Wardens that are sympathetic to Alysara and the rest of the heretics from the true followers of Myrou. Then she can start gathering supporters to uncover their buried history and bring the Runalymo back to Myrou’s ways.