If there was any consolation for being trapped with Rock in the abandoned ruins, it was that the Cloying Darkness debuff had disappeared once we’d gotten into the barrier. After days of feeling weak and tired, the absence of the status hit me like I’d just chugged a few Monster Energy drinks and a Four Loko.

For the first thirty minutes, we walked in silence, passing by what might have been cobblestone roads and stone houses long ago. Now they were just heaps of rock, lost to time and strewn about. While I was quite enjoying the silence compared to the alternative, the commander was finally the one to speak.

“Why you?” He stared ahead, not looking at me as he spoke, and his words lacked their usual punch.

“Pardon?”

“Why. You? Why are you the Protagonist?” Somehow, the words didn’t come out as an insult — it almost felt as if he was pleading with me. He spoke softly, delicately.

I didn’t have a real answer to give him, though. I shrugged. “Truthfully, I’m pretty sure it was just dumb luck.” Or, rather, the lack thereof, if I was being honest.

“Luck!” He turned to me at last, his mood rapidly swinging in the direction of rage. “I have trained my entire life to protect my people. Night and day and night and day I trained until I was unanimously chosen as the next commander. When this crisis came, I prayed that the gods would see my hard work. I prayed that they would give me the power to save my people. And you’re telling me the reason that they didn’t is ‘just dumb luck?’” He loomed over me, fists clenched, snarling with every word he spoke.

“I don’t accept it,” he boomed. “I need something better. Please give me something better. Tell me that you were some great leader where you came from. Tell me that you worked hard for what you’ve been given. Tell me you deserve this.” Behind the rage, the pain croaked through, but I had nothing to offer the man.

“Rock, back home I was a therapist who ended up quitting her job to go work with dogs. I’m sorry. It really was just pure luck.”

“A therapist? As in someone who talks to people about their feelings?” His voice still held a sliver of hope in it, as if I were about to reveal that a therapist was actually the name we gave to epic heroes back on Earth.

I stifled a sigh to end all sighs. If there were such a thing as a “Therapy skill” on this planet, something told me unpacking the commander’s issues would have leveled it up quite a number of times, although, perhaps that wasn’t what he needed to hear right now.

“That’s maybe a bit reductive, but yes, that kind of therapist, Rock.” I craned my head up and gave him my best winning smile.

He stood staring down at me, mute, frozen for just long enough that I started to get concerned. Then, without warning, he exploded.

“You know what? I didn’t need to be chosen. You better believe I wanted it, but I didn’t need it. If it had been another shadow that saved my people, I would have bit my tongue. If a real Protagonist came to help us, I would have shut up and taken their help. But you? You? Where do the gods get off by making a level one human — a girl who’d never even held a spear before, who’d never fought a serious fight before — a Protagonist? Why do you get to march right into our village like some savior, when you’re just some coddled brat? Why was everything I ever wanted since I was a child gift-wrapped and handed to you like it meant nothing, huh? Answer that gods dammit!”

I paused, taking in a deep breath before finally, after almost three weeks with the ass-wipe of a man, snapping.

“Rock. Fuck you. Legitimately. Please fuck right off. I woke up less than a month ago in a completely new world, alone and afraid, and basically the very first thing I chose to do was help you out. I didn’t have to. I could have just said ‘Look at that incredibly unpleasant bastard of a man over there. I have no reason to help him. I’m leaving.’ But I didn’t. And I’m sorry that you have issues, man. I’m sorry that the gods didn’t pick you. I’m sorry that your ego is hurt by having to take help from a 26-year-old human who never had to fight before. But maybe you could just say ‘Thanks Tess, this must really suck for you, but you’re really helping us out here!’ instead of being an actual flaming asshole every waking moment!”

Rock opened his mouth to interject, and with him looming over me, I wasn’t exactly sure how good of an idea it was for me to be running my mouth. Nonetheless, I cut him off, all the rage I had for this man finally boiling over.

“And you know what? You want a reason? How about this: How many times has having someone with 25 Perception saved our ass on this trip? First with the ambush, second with finding this place, and third with breaking the disorientation spell. Now, I’m not saying that’s because I’m some great, wise hero, but do you know anyone else with 25 Perception? Would your Perception be that high if you’d been made a Protagonist years ago? Would anyone in the village have a Perception that high?

“And even if they did, do you know how I was able to see that line of mana and gain illusion resistance? It was with skills I received from the Greater Boon that I got as a Protagonist. Not that I got the choice on what to pick, but if they’d made you the hero, you probably would have chosen some giant fucking weapon or to up your Charisma so you could stop shitting out of your mouth everytime you opened it. So maybe what you needed was a level one human. If you find that tough to swallow, I’m sorry, but don’t you dare take it out on me anymore.”

Without looking back at him, I began walking away, off to find the source of the mana thread with or without him. I would have been lying had I said that part of the reason I was walking away wasn’t also because I was scared shitless of how he might react. I had no illusions that there would be anything I could do if he decided to casually crush my skull between his thumb and forefinger, but he wouldn’t, would he? Whether or not he enjoyed my company, I might be his ticket to helping his people, and he couldn’t ignore that. I hoped.

I walked on, heart pounding in my chest. After a moment, the barely audible footsteps of the commander followed in turn, but he said nothing.

On we walked for another ten minutes, an uneasy silence between us, until it was broken by a garbled mumble of sorts.

“Wha- what was that?” I risked a glance backwards to find the shadow conspicuously staring off in a separate direction.

“... I said…” The rest of what he spoke was too soft even for my newly superhuman hearing to catch.

“If you’re going to insult me again, speak up and get it over with. I can’t hear you.”

“I SAID,” he bellowed, before once again piping down to a soft mumble. “I said I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” I mumbled. “Thanks.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence, only breaking it thirty minutes later when finally our quarry was in sight.

Sitting in the middle of a large clearing was a monolithic slab of stone. It lay close to the ground, completely smooth, a perfect disk, roughly ten meters in diameter. Etched into its surface were coiling lines of text written in a language I didn’t recognize.

“That it?” Rock called out.

“That’s where the mana threads lead.” And it was true. Now that I was closer, I could see what amounted to hundreds of the thin strands tied to the stone.

“So… do we smash it?” The commander removed a hammer that was fastened to his side.

“Maybe?” I shrugged. “Wait, maybe not!” As we moved closer to the stone, I noticed a few stray mana threads ending not in the stone itself, but in the earth around it. Far from ending there, they seemed to be sinking into the dirt, imparting it with a soft blue tinge.

“I think, maybe, what we want is under this? Do you see anything that might lead underground?” Especially considering that the bugs seemed to be able to burrow, the notion wasn’t too far fetched.

He shook his head. “Your eyes are better than mine, Protagonist.”

I looked left and right, scanning the area and the ruins surrounding the clearing. Finally, in what looked to have once been the largest of the structures, I saw a hole surrounded by pebbles and debris. I rushed towards it, Rock close behind me.

“Here,” the commander grunted. He reached into his pack and pulled out a small orb. “Never know when you might need one of these. Won’t last long, but it should be enough.” He squeezed the orb in his hand, and it began to emit a soft, yellow glow. Whether it was chemical or magical, I wasn’t entirely certain.

With a light to help us navigate the dark tunnel below, we cleared away a few rocks that had fallen into the hole, and then descended. As we’d entered rather close to the stone slab, we didn’t have long to walk before the tunnel spit us out in our location.

What we found was unexpected to say the least.

Sitting beneath an empty stone archway was a pyramid of transparent, yellow crystal. There, lying inside, was a man.

An old one, at that, with tufts of gray hair and dressed in draping, yellow-cream robes. With his aged appearance and his frozen state, he brought to mind the image of a fossil trapped in amber.

Half a meter above him, mana swirled about in a violent tempest, and from the eye of that storm spawned the mana threads which led to the distant kexids.

Rock scowled at the sleeping figure. “Seems fairly simple, no? There’s a man sitting in the spot where you said all the threads are coming from. He goes away, then they go away too. Better to see it done before he wakes.”

Without waiting for my input on the matter, he thrust his spear forward with his entire might, aimed perfectly for the man’s neck. It flew straight to the mark, and then as it hit the pyramid encasing him, it stopped with a spray of sparks.

Rock pulled his spear back to try once more, but as if in response to his attack, the pyramid moved.

The up-till-then solid appearance of the crystal morphed, glowing tendrils forming on its exterior in the blink of an eye. Before either of us could react, they shot out towards our heads.

A half-second’s worth of screaming was all I managed before the tendrils connected. I felt my body fall to the ground with a thud, and then I knew no more.