As I opened my eyes, I took note of my surroundings. I was staring up at a large, rocky cavern roof.

I blinked as the memories of the day before came back to me. We had been fighting a [Sand elemental], when Emer had created a storm of flame, which had overheated me while I had been flying through the air.

I sat up and looked over at my companions, two of which were sitting around a small fire nearby. Cerion and Cara were speaking in hushed tones. I could see Emer lying down on a mat nearby, I supposed he needed a nap after expending all of that mana.

Cerion and Cara turned to me when they heard me move, and gestured me to join them around the fire.

"Is that thing finally dead?" I asked.

Cerion smiled and nodded.

"Check your system notifications."

Frowning, I did as he said.

Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Overloading Death Knight] level 30!

Reach level 50 to advance to tier 3.

Stat points allocated. 5 free stat points per level up awarded.

Three levels from one fight I had hardly contributed to? The system was clearly very generous with tier 4 experience rewards. Still, this was good news. A few more fights like that and we would reach level 50 in no time!

"I got three levels from that!"

Cerion smirked.

"Ditto."

I waved away the notification after assigning the rest of my free stat points into wisdom, like usual these days.

"So how is Emer doing? He must have gotten quite a few levels himself, right?"

Cara frowned as she responded.

"Not well. That skill he used at the end takes a lot out of him. He won't be able to get up from that mat for at least a few days. As for experience, at tier 4 it isn't so easy. Even with him dealing nearly all of the damage to that thing, he probably didn't get more than a single level, if even that."

Cerion shot up in worry.

"A few days? is he going to be alright?"

I asked a far more pragmatic question.

"Will we still be able to do the quest without Emer?"

"The plan is to continue as usual. I'll scout our possible bandit bases, while you two stay with Emer while he recovers. If anything attacks, I expect you to run in the other direction. Emer wouldn't want you to stay behind on his behalf."

Cerion moved to protest, but Cara silenced him with a glare.

I knew better than to try and convince her. She wouldn't agree no matter what, so there was no point in trying. When it came down to it, whether to stay or run would be our decision, and neither of us was a coward. With Emer being in a weakened state, Cerion and I would have to hold down the fort. I nodded to Cerion. An unsaid agreement was made between us. Unless Kazach came himself, no one would be getting to Emer.

For the next few days, Cerion and I remained in the cave. We tried to improve our skill progression with the limited space we had, but we weren't having an easy go of it. Emer woke up sporadically. We fed him alchemical pellets so that he wouldn't starve, but he wasn't very responsive yet.

Cara came by every few hours or so, and filled in a map she had brought, marking off the locations she had investigated so far. She was about a third of the way through and had so far only found a few abandoned camps.

On the fourth day, we had more luck. Cara flew into the cave on her sparrow and landed in front of us. I looked up.

"Any news?"

"I believe I have found their base."

Cerion stood up in excitement.

"You have? Then we can finally get to the action!"

"About damn time." I chimed in.

Cara dosed our excitement in cold water, however.

"Not quite. First, I'll have to spend a few days figuring out how exactly I want to approach the situation, then I'll have to spend a few days scouring their encampment for evidence. After that, we could decide on whether or not to attack them. At that time, Emer should have recovered as well."

We visibly deflated. Cavern fever had gotten to us, and we were starving to do anything.

"Oh, okay."

Thankfully, Cara had at least some good news for us.

"In the meantime, I have a small mission for you two. Our current hide-out is too close to the bandit encampment for my liking. I want both of you to scour the area at the edge of the hills for a better location and then transport Emer there."

Cerion and I were happy to do just about anything at this point.

"Sure thing, Cara. You can count on us." I assured her.

She moved to head back out, but paused her step before she left.

"While you're out there looking for a new campground, keep an eye out for bandit movement. Something about what that merchant told me still doesn't make sense to me."

"Will do."

The next day, I headed out, to scout out the surrounding area and forge a safe path to the outskirts of the hills. Cerion had agreed to stay with Emer while I did so. Well, rather than agreeing, he had lost a match of hammer-shield-sword and had to live the consequences. Hammer beat shield, after all.

As I left the cave, I once again found myself in the unfamiliar environment of the Thalia hills. The empty expanse spread out before me, interrupted by boulders, rocks, and dry hills on the horizon. I kept to the shadows and kept my steps as light as I could, in an attempt to evade the tier 4 monsters that lived in the area. With the [Sand elemental] dead, another encounter with a tier 4 creature was unlikely, but it remained a risk I didn't want to take.

As I got closer and closer to the outskirts of the hills, small hints of vegetation started appearing again. The occasional cactus even popped up. I liked cacti, they were fascinating plants. This one even had a pink flower attached to its otherwise vibrant green body.

The cracks that the drought created in the ground sometimes made for great hiding spots for small bugs and lizards, too. This place had a surprising amount of life, now that I took a closer look.

Still, this wasn't the time to be distracted. I had to keep an eye out.

A few hours later, I had reached the unofficial border of the Thalia hills. This would be a good spot to set up camp, because powerful monsters hardly ever came here. Now I just had to find a hidden cave.

As I scoured the area, I found a few prospective camping spots. One had plenty of space, but had a large cave entrance too, while another had far less space inside but would also be far harder to find for the bandits.

Another hour later, as I was looking behind a few boulders for new caves, I heard voices in the distance. I halted my steps and slowed my breath. Were these the bandits? Or just some passing travellers? I decided to approach. No matter what, I had to find out what these strangers were doing here.

I stayed hidden in the shade as I got nearer and nearer to the origin of the voices.

Eventually, I found a group of men and women sitting in a clearing, laughing and talking. They either hadn't noticed me, or were acting like they hadn't. I hoped it was the former. If anything happened, I would at least be able to escape if things went tits up.

In the centre of the clearing, I saw who I believed to be the leader of the group. He was a large, burly man who looked to be around his mid-thirties. At his side, there was a large hammerhead the size of my arm, attached to a long chain. this was either Kazach, or his son, Nareo. What were they doing this far out, though?

From the size of the hammer, I could tell it was probably the latter. Kazach was rumoured to use a hammer the size of a horse, after all. His son Nareo was just an early tier 3, and likely didn't have the strength to wield such a colossal weapon yet.

The merchant from a few days ago had claimed that everything had been taken from him at the outskirts of the hills. That meant that Nareo had been here for a while, hunting for potential victims. Why did he split up from his father?

It didn't really matter, in the end. The fact that he was here was a problem. It wouldn't be one for long, however.

"I think I hear them! Is this where you found them yesterday?"

"Almost. I found maybe ten minutes away from here on foot."

Cerion and I approached the gang. I had decided to bring him along for this fight, not because I thought I would need his help, but because I wanted to share the experience with him. We had asked Cara to temporarily watch over Emer while we took care of these guys.

"Any chance of us spying on them to find out why they're here?"

"You think they'll just so happen to be talking about old wounds as we pass by? Don't delude yourself. We can ask a straggler when we're done killing the rest."

"So... we're really doing this, then? Killing people?"

"Yeah, we are. What, did you have any better ideas? Did you think these guys have never killed or raped innocent people before? They wouldn't have become bandits if they were innocent, Cerion."

"Right... let's do it then."

Cerion looked determined. Well, there was a first for everything, I guessed.

I charged in first, by jumping from a nearby boulder into the air. Before I even landed, a bandit called out in alarm.

"Attack! Attack!"

I landed near him and rushed at him a moment later, cleaving him in half as I drew my sword. Cerion followed up my assault with a large wave that he sent at the camp, which destroyed their tents and sent the weaker tier 1 bandits into the nearby rocky walls. The issue with camping in a surrounded clearing, was that there was nowhere to run to in case of an attack.

Cerion and I proved this point by slaughtering every bandit we came across. I stabbed into their throats, cut off their heads and pierced their hearts. With every thrust and swing, a body fell. Cerion showed more hesitation, because he was fighting more slowly than usual. Was he still a bit paranoid about killing humans? Eventually, he would realise that there was no difference between killing humans or monsters, apart from their intelligence in combat.

Our onslaught didn't last, however. After about a minute of fighting, we heard a large shout.

"Back the fuck off, maggots! I'll take care of the two intruders! Fucking useless weaklings!"

Right as he finished his sentence, I saw a large metal object fly at me from the corner of my eye. I tried to dodge, but it seemed to follow my movement as it flew. With no other choice, I apparated in place when the hammer reached me. This broke me out of my overloading mana regeneration, but that wasn't a large issue. I could have just blocked the attack with my maelstrom as well, but felt this was the perfect time to test my new skill.

I hypothesised that I would destroy or displace anything overlapping with me when I rematerialized, because it seemed to work that way with the air I had been displacing until now. Now was the time to test that theory.

Sure enough, the hammer just flew straight through me, as if I wasn't there in the first place. I laughed in excitement, though my laugh turned into a grimace when I became tangible again. The hammer was attached to a chain, which was now stuck in my gut. On instinct, I apparated out of it, to a nearby rock, where I started generating overloaded mana again. Thankfully [Dark Form] healed me before my mistake could lose me the battle. At least the skill worked.

It seemed that rematerializing out of intangibility didn't destroy or displace metal objects, though. Was it based on the weight of the overlapping objects? Density, Cerion had called it once.

The large man laughed.

"Hah! Your skulls will look nice around my neck when I'm done with you!"

Sure enough, he already had a few skulls hanging from a necklace around his neck. Fucking psycho. I growled at him.

"You'll be crying for mercy when I'm done with you, bandit." I snarled at him.