Mash looked towards Red, asking the obvious question with a simple glance. Red saw the same question on Jill’s face, and she looked to be on the verge of tears. Red didn’t leave them hanging and started speaking confidently.

“They will be fine, their biggest problem was the venom mixing with their blood, but I dealt with it and healed up their surface injuries. Luke can- “

She trailed off as she noticed that Mash was carrying his dismembered hand. She stared at it uncomprehendingly, and Jill gasped from her side. Mash took a seat next to them and spoke through the pain.

“Can you get the venom out. Luke can reattach it when he gets up.”

It didn’t sound perfect, but he got his words out. She just nodded slowly, concentrating on the hand as he held it out to her. Not needing or wanting to touch it, she used her magic to drain the blood from the hand. It poured out quickly, along with whatever blood was still in the limb. It grew sickly pale and he wondered if it would reattach properly. It should be fine, but he needed Luke to wake up. Opening his storage space, he pulled out his water skin, ready to dump it on Luke. It wasn’t necessary as Luke bolted upright, frantically looking around for a fight. Mash saw relief flash through Jill’s and Red’s faces, but anger was beginning to surface. Before they could start berating him, Mash spoke up so that Luke could get started on his hand.

“Luke, I’m glad your okay and everything, but I need you to heal this.”

Mash spoke while holding up his dismembered hand, that managed to get through Luke’s panic. He was grasping the situation, and quickly moved to help Mash, though he did check on Leah quickly. Mash didn’t care much, his injuries weren’t going to get worse, but he did seem strangely concerned for her. Was it because she was another beastmen, Ellis’ sister, or was it something more? He would ask him later, for now he needed to be chewed out for his actions. Red and Jill seemed more eager than he did, so he left it to them. Instead, he focused on the healing, watching what Luke’s mana was doing to heal him. He had been able to manipulate mana before and thought maybe he could influence his next skill by doing something similar.

Luke’s mana did not act the same way as Red’s healing, and instead of diffusing into his body, it seemed to be returning his body to a previous state. His mana would enter his body, and vanish seeming to disappear, but he could see the healing start as his limb reattached. Red also helped a little, by giving him more blood to handle the new limb. That didn’t stop her from telling Luke what he had done wrong.

“What happened back there? You know that Jill is the one responsible for getting people out. Running in there was stupid and only made the situation worse.”

Red’s tone was cold, and her glare could freeze the air around her. Luke practically wilted under their gazes, letting them continue to berate him. He managed to find some words, although he spoke to them uncertainly.

“I’m sorry. I don’t really know what happened. When I saw Leah get hit, I just reacted automatically. It felt like I needed to do something, and I think that would’ve been true for any of you.”

There was no justification, Mash knew that and so did everyone else. It was a mistake and they managed to get through it. Now, they just needed to make sure that it didn’t happen again. Mash didn’t need to speak, Jill having quickly replied to his statement.

“You need to control yourself. I don’t know how but you need to figure it out, otherwise we’re all going to wind up dead.”

She sounded heated but also very concerned, and Luke was only able to nod in response. It’s not like he could change himself on demand and would need time to work on it. Honestly, this dungeon was going poorly, and it would be smarter to retreat. At the very least they needed to bring Leah out, she was too volatile and didn’t fit easily with their style. Looking towards the girl, he realized that she wasn’t unconscious, instead just faking it. He grunted loudly and talked in a way that made it obvious that he was speaking for her to hear.

“I think that we should take Leah out of here. It’s too much of a risk, and there’s no way she would be stupid enough to argue after what just happened.”

He sounded condescending by extending the sound of the word stupid but thought that she deserved it. She sat up slowly, making sure to glare at him. However, she knew her position and could see the groups feelings on the matter. He didn’t know what was going through her head. She almost died but acted like she wanted to go deeper anyways, despite not being an actual adventurer. She didn’t argue though, and they only stayed long enough to recover. Mash didn’t need long with his hibernation skill, but the others needed a lot more time to regain their mana. Realizing that he had leveled a few times, he decided not to rush his stat allocation. He would need some time to think on it and could wait until they left the dungeon.

The short rest wasn’t done in silence, Leah having regained the confidence to talk to the others. She was trying to convince them to let her stay, but none of them gave any ground, even Luke refused to entertain her arguments. Realizing nothing was working, she gave up and waited for the others to get ready.

They started back up the path, grateful that the dungeon had a linear layout. They walked casually, knowing that there were no monsters behind them. It was a mistake, and Mash felt a projectile headed towards the back of his skull. Only having half a second to react once it entered his range, he managed to deflect it by growing wood from his hair. They formed a small ramp that managed to push the object aside, letting him get a better look at it. It was a plain arrow, and mana territory informed him that the mana surrounding it made it move faster. The others didn’t need another signal to react, using their skills defensively. It was probably the bandits.

There was a problem though, they were attacking beyond his range and were invisible. Though the attack had come from behind, and that meant that they could run to the exit. He yelled to get their attention, while growing wood from his back to swing wildly behind him.

“Just go for the exit!”

He just kept growing the bladed limbs out behind him, making them thicker and disfiguring the terrain. They stopped moving forward when Leah threw a dagger ahead of her. She screamed as the metal weapon was deflected.

“More Bandits!”

They came to a stop, but Mash didn’t stop growing his trail of wood behind him. Still no bandits entered his range, but he kept burning his energy slowly. Persist would make him twice as strong, and he should be able to handle most of the bandits with the boost. The wood hung from his back like wings that draped far behind him. He waited patiently for some change, acting as though he could see them. When they entered the range of his mana territory, he was able to get a measure of their abilities. Three had entered from the front and two others stepped in from behind, but they were weak. They had less than half the mana Mash had and would struggle to compete with Red. Mash relaxed slightly.

The bandit’s invisibility dissipated to reveal the ones in front of them, though the ones behind them stayed hidden. They didn’t try to move closer, instead hovering just outside the range of melee attacks. The ones who revealed themselves, were obviously older than them, all were males and hid most of their body with thick robes. The man who stood closest was made distinct by the red tattoo of a spiral across his face. His eyes glowed vaguely red as well, and they looked at Mash condescendingly. The edges of his eyes pointed downwards, as if he were observing children. He started speaking, not hiding his perceptions of them in the slightest.

“Hello children, I would hate to have to cause a scene here. So, how about we act like reasonable people? All we need you to do is hand over the Lion’s sister, and we’ll be on our way.”

His voice was as revolting as the words were, and Mash understood who he was talking about, realizing that Ellis had looked vaguely like a lion. Not to mention Leah was the only one who came from this city. Mash wouldn’t do something like that, and the others wouldn’t either. Rather than responding, Jill lashed out attempting to kill all three of the bandits in front of them. He could see the space warp around them, and the two further behind staggered a little, but none of them died.

Mash couldn’t understand why, Jill was far stronger than the three of them. He could feel the ones behind preparing to attack them, so he raised two of his dragging limbs to slash through their heads. He felt the wooden limbs disconnect as the two managed to cut through his attack. Something wasn’t right, they were a lot stronger than his mana territory led him to believe. Red launched needles, lashing out at the group, a few having hit their marks caused the bandits to scream in pain. It didn’t stop them from launching into motion. Mash turned to intercept the ones that were still invisible, letting his team handle the visible ones. The rest of the team had active skills to find hidden targets, and he could see them engaging with now invisible bandits.

Focusing on the two behind him, he blocked two arrows with a swordstaff that he grew as he ran towards them. He needed to keep them in his range and lashed out at the nearest one. The bandit blocked, parrying Mash’s blow to push him aside. Moving with the push, Mash spun while jumping towards the other. He lashed out with his weapon, and it clanged against a metal blade. He made it bend around the weapon’s edge to slash at the bandit’s hand. The bandit cursed as it cut into him, but Mash had to retreat to dodge an arrow from the other man. He was losing ground to block the arrows, but he managed to move the bandits over the wooden creations he laid earlier.

He was about to spring his trap but stopped when he noticed that Jill had taken a blow to her neck. Thankfully, she was near Red, but Red was stuck in a fight as well. The bandit in front of her was shrouded in a black mist, which he knew was shadow mana. Jill was struggling to stop herself from bleeding out, using her shirt to hold the wound closed. Luke was holding his own against one of the bandits but would notice Jill’s injury soon. Then he would probably react violently. Surprisingly, Leah was managing well, her invisibility seeming to be better than the bandit she was facing. Though the fight was close since both were aiming for vital points with each attack. The two he was facing were weaker than the other three bandits, but he was still struggling to end the fight. Now both bandits were firing arrows at him, and he was having trouble blocking them while stopping any other attacks from hitting his friends.

They were not ready for this fight, none of them had fully recovered from the previous fight, planning on healing completely once they were safely outside of the dungeon. Being the most recovered he needed to do something and changed his strategy. Rather than using his limbs purely to attack the bandits he moved the entire trail of wood towards him. It was a wall of waving blades and spikes rushing from the ground behind the bandits. Now he just needed them to focus on him, so he let his defenses drop, letting an arrow hit him in the leg and dropping his weapon in shock.

When he suddenly dropped his defense, the bandits reacted as expected, launching arrows with more power and speed than before, clearly a skill of some kind. He couldn’t block them completely, instead choosing to reinforce his armor around his heart and neck. One glanced off his neck, his armor managing to stop the blow. The other was deflected from his heart, but not by much and punched through his armor. It pierced his chest but wasn’t a fatal blow, letting his scattered wings push towards him and tearing the two bandits to ribbons. He couldn’t attack the ones in front with his remaining energy, but managed to get the bandits to jump away as his wooden creations tried to cut at them. He didn’t stop, growing his wood continuously, feeling the buffs from persist kick in. He made them thicker and spikier, chasing the bandits down and clogging up the cave but couldn’t keep it up forever.

Well, he could normally but could feel the blood and air loss was getting to him. Black dots beginning to appear in his vision, he tried to get Luke or Red’s attention. They were busy though, Luke needing to tend to Leah who seemed to have received a wound to the head. Red was obviously struggling to heal Jill, who had lost a significant amount of blood by now. Even though he managed to kill two of the bandits, it was clear that they lost the fight. Falling limply to the ground, that had been the last thing that went through his mind.