– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 216, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 52 –

Terry could see the sun rise in the distance and happily inhaled the fresh morning air. He distanced himself from the camp in order to not wake up the dungeon scavengers with his morning routine.

He found himself a beautiful clearing in the nearby forest and sat down cross-legged.

Terry retrieved his old juggling balls – those that had not been imprinted – and placed them in front of him.

Terry threw a septimum ball into the air and then pressed his palms together to avoid the reflex of catching the ball with his hands.

When the ball had dropped to Terry’s shoulder height, it became transfixed in the air.

Good.

While Terry still relied on his hands as the focal point for the casting, his reach had increased sufficiently that an outside observer might confuse it for proper hands-free casting.

Terry kept an eye on the mana in the transfixed septimum ball. His goal was to keep the balls transfixed while catching the next balls at an increased distance. All without moving his hands.

Terry practiced like this for half an hour.

Afterwards, he collected all the balls in front of him and took a deep breath.

Terry closed his eyes and repeated the exercise. In order to track the balls’ location, Terry emitted low-density mana pulses…

Terry frowned when he missed the third ball and heard it impact on the ground. He opened his eyes and used his bidirectional attraction glove to fetch the ball.

Perhaps I should stop worrying about the mana cost? Should be fine as long as I keep the range small. I can keep the mana sonar for longer distances…

Terry switched to maintaining a spherical layer of his naturalized mana around himself and continued with his exercise for another half hour.

Next, Terry stood up with one septimum ball in each hand. He hurled each of them into different directions and then used his bidirectional attraction glove to change the trajectory and have the balls move into his direction.

Terry dodged the incoming balls and used his gloves to keep them moving back and forth with himself in the middle.

With time, Terry increased the number of balls for the exercise.

When Terry was satisfied with the number, he closed his eyes and continued training in this manner.

After half an hour, Terry opened his eyes and used his Immovable Object spell to catch the incoming balls one by one without relying on his hands.

Alright, divine hammer inscription and then breakfast…

Terry nodded to himself.

Discharge training after breakfast?

Terry grumbled to himself. While his spherical discharge field worked, it required some preparation time and he was still not able to move when it was deployed.

Not workable…

Terry was still looking for some way to get a spherical discharge or discharge pulse working. He had been trying to apply an idea he got after seeing the effect of the demon’s advancement vortex being disturbed.

His plan was to create a rotating mana sphere inside his body, compress it rapidly, and then release the pressure all at once while setting up focal refractors at specific locations.

Unfortunately, Terry had not been able to get it to work yet.

Focus.

Terry shook his head forcefully and concentrated on the wrappings with the divine hammer inscription.

Terry lifted his left foot. A small translucent golden sheet of mana appeared underneath his boot and Terry tried placing his weight on it.

“Phew,” exclaimed Terry when he was standing on the mana layer. He felt like he was walking on eggshells.

Probably because the layer is about as stable as eggshells…

Terry was trying to create another step underneath his right foot when his mana sense picked up familiar signatures in the distance.

They’re back!

As soon as Terry’s concentration was disturbed, the mana layer from the inscription dispersed and Terry found himself standing on the forest floor again.

Terry rushed towards the familiar mana signatures.

“Here!” Matteo had noticed Terry’s approach and was hurling a sack the size of a large coconut towards him. “Some souvenirs from the dungeon.”

Sigille smiled warmly at Matteo while Cadence was amused at Terry’s bemused expression.

“Huh?” Terry caught the sack. “Thanks? I’m glad you’re all safe.” He peeked into the sack. “Eh? Mana cores, but these are…” He glanced at Matteo.

“Yours,” insisted Matteo.

“...expensive,” finished Terry.

“I’m not strapped for funds,” retorted Matteo. “And don’t have another use for mana cores aside from selling.”

“Same here,” added Sigille while giving Terry a warm look. “And given your habit to get lost in undead hordes, clash with phantoms and the like, I would prefer you have some in stock for your sublimator thingy. The cores are all single aspected.”

“To call it a habit is a bit…” Terry muttered while holding his nape.

Terry inhaled deeply and then spoke firmly: “Thank you!”

***

“Well, this brings back memories,” muttered Matteo as he looked at the cave entrance that they were walking towards.

“Good ones?” asked Emily with a beaming smile.

Matteo chuckled. “Sure.”

“So you did this adulthood ceremony, too, when you were younger?” asked Terry. “Here?”

“Yup,” replied Matteo. “Same place, same ceremony. The nearby dungeon has been dormant since forever.”

“It is hard to find good spots,” said Wallace. “Although, I need to add that Matteo has rushed his ceremony. He was barely fifteen back then.”

“Wait, what?” Emily glared at Wallace. “You told me I need to be seventeen! At least!”

“You really need to work on your angry face,” teased Wallace. “No matter how I look at it, I still see my cute little baby girl. Besides, seventeen is the tradition. Matteo was going to leave our dungeon scavengers and we wanted to do the ceremony before he left.”

Wallace narrowed his eyes at Matteo and shot him a chiding look. “And to be quite frank, Matteo’s actions afterwards have kind of established that it was too early to call him an adult. Joining the Guild and getting suicidal on death hunts is not my idea of adulthood.”

Matteo pointedly averted his eyes and cleared his throat.

“Not an example to take inspiration from,” said Wallace and looked warmly at his daughter. “Not unless you want to stress me into an early grave. I can barely stomach you moving to the closest outpost to the Wasted Zone.”

“You say stomach, but aren’t you planning to move to Libra City yourself?” interjected Sigille. “It does not seem like you are that ready to let the little bird fly out of the nest.”

Wallace pursed his lips and squinted at Sigille. “I’ll never be ready to do that. I’ll have to force myself every step of the way. I’m still hoping that she decides to be a doctor or waitress or something further in the heartland.”

“Daaad.” Emily pouted.

Wallace exaggeratedly grabbed his own heart. “Ouch, not that look. I can’t take it.” He stopped his acting. “Relax, sweetie. I said ‘hope’, not expect. You follow your own heart. I have my own fears.” He shook his head. “It is not your responsibility to worry about them. I won’t get into your hair. I just want to be there in case you need me.”

“So what is this ceremony about?” asked Cadence from the side.

Emily perked her ears.

“Solo hunting a mana corrupted,” replied Wallace.

Emily stared at Wallace with hopeful eyes.

Wallace snorted amusedly. “No more details, sweetie. An adult can’t always rely on relevant information being spoon-fed to them.”

“While you have a point, you are not exactly giving her much of a chance to collect the required information herself either,” interjected Sigille reproachfully.

Wallace shrugged. “Well, you don’t always get the chance to. Not like adult life follows a proper mission schedule. Shit happens. Better to learn to improvise and adapt.”

“Fair enough,” admitted Sigille. Nevertheless, she looked as if she had more to say on the matter.

“Still, I never would have thought it was that kind of ceremony,” interjected Cadence with raised eyebrows. “You seem too much of a doting father to watch your daughter face a mana corrupted on her own.”

“My doting won’t do her much good if she intends to become a Guardian,” grumbled Wallace. “And it’s not like I will have her face a terror grizzly.”

“Appreciate it,” said Emily and giggled. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Don’t thank him just yet,” grumbled Sigille quietly.

***

“Remember that no one is allowed to interfere,” said Wallace. “I know that most of us have faced a goo beetle before, but since this is our little baby’s ceremony, it bears repeating.”

Wallace inhaled deeply. “That beetle poses no real threat. It might rough our little baby up. But no matter how much we hate to see her get hurt, this is her ceremony. Don’t ruin it. Don’t interfere.”

Wallace continued in a quieter voice: “No matter how much I might want to.”

The other dungeon scavengers on the platform nodded. Many did so with pained and bitter smiles.

Meanwhile, Emily in her studded leather armor was approaching the mana-corrupted beetle down below. She was wearing a short sword at her hip and carried a round shield and long spear.

“Goo beetle?” Cadence glanced at the others. “Did you warn her about—?”

“No,” grumbled Sigille. “No, he did not.”

“That would ruin the point,” said Wallace. “And take the fun out of the ceremony.”

Cadence looked at Matteo. “So you did not get a warning either?”

“No,” replied Matteo casually. “It was… memorable.”

“I can imagine,” muttered Cadence. “Did they at least tell you how to get rid of—?”

“No,” replied Matteo less casually. “Very memorable.”

“Good,” said Wallace with a snicker. “Always be careful about letting down your guard and always watch your back. Good things to remember.”

Terry observed the goo beetle. Terry once more had to admit that he was missing Siling’s commentary on mana corrupted. He had no idea what the others were alluding to, but he figured that he would find out soon enough.

The mana corrupted creature appeared to be a mixed mana corruption of a rhinoceros beetle. From what Terry could tell, the emphasis was on nature-aspected mana, although it seemed more like a slight skew than an actual emphasis.

The goo beetle’s height reached up to Emily’s thighs. Fortunately for the elven girl, the beetle was very slow.

Emily struck first by thrusting her spear forward into the beetle’s side. Her spear slid off the carapace.

Terry noted with his mana-enhanced eyes that the carapace showed a visible scratch.

While the carapace was tough enough to deflect the spear, a more forceful strike should go through…

Terry inwardly commended Emily for her cautious probing and footwork. True, the beetle did not seem very fast, but that was no reason to take unnecessary risks or act recklessly… or so he and his siblings had been reminded frequently by Isille during their first hunting trips.

The goo beetle reared up on its hind legs and made a short dash forward to ram its horn into the offending elf.

Emily intentionally presented her shield instead of dodging. Right when the horn was about to make contact, she jumped slightly in order to have the beetle’s force push her back.

Taking the opportunity to measure the creature’s strength…

Terry smiled. From what he could tell, this was going well for the red-haired girl.

Emily did a few more probing strikes while also testing the goo beetle’s field of vision.

Does not look as if that thing has any mana abilities…

Terry wrinkled his forehead and pondered.

On the one hand, this did not come as a surprise. It was hard to imagine Wallace picking anything but a weak mana corrupted.

Terry still remembered Isille’s warning regarding magical creatures and back then, he and his siblings had already trained as Guardians for several years. More importantly, they had acted as a group.

Wallace did not strike Terry as a person that would throw caution to the wind when it came to his daughter, which made it unsurprising that the goo beetle did not display any active mana abilities.

On the other hand, there were the conversations from earlier. There must be a catch.

From the corner of his eye, Terry could see Matteo’s head jerk to another direction, which caused both Terry and Sigille to take their attention away from Emily.

From what Terry could tell, Matteo had barely blinked since Emily had started engaging the mana corrupted. While the same could be said for many other dungeon scavengers, Matteo seemed to be particularly anxious about seeing his little sister in battle.

Every fiber of Matteo had appeared to be on guard, which did not fit with him suddenly moving his attention elsewhere…

Terry observed a shared glance between Sigille and Matteo. Afterwards, Matteo displayed a slight shrug with narrowed eyes and tapped his nose, which caused a frown on Sigille’s face before she clicked her tongue and moved her eyes quickly over the cavern.

Shortly afterwards, however, both returned their attention to Emily.

They seem to be more on edge now, though…

Terry did not know what silent conversation had passed between the two, but he thought that if it was important, they would share eventually. For now, he continued observing Emily’s ceremonial battle.

Emily had finished her probing and decided to ditch her shield in favor of having two hands available for a stronger spear thrust.

It took her half a dozen attempts, but eventually, Emily managed to pierce the carapace of the goo beetle.

The mana-corrupted creature continued struggling for a few minutes, but then it collapsed to the floor.

That was it?

Terry raised an eyebrow.

Emily seemed to ask herself the same question, but soon afterwards, a beaming smile appeared on her face and she turned to look at her father and the others.

Terry heard several people inhale sharply.

“Wait for it,” muttered Wallace.

“Ugh…” groaned Sigille.

*FLUMM*

The goo beetle popped and a bunch of viscous lime-green goo was propelled from its corpse into all directions. The goo covered the elven girl from head to toe.

“Oh…” blurted Terry.

“Alright, now.” Wallace was the first to jump down from the platform. “Welcome to adulthood, sweetie. Keep your guard up and always watch your back.”

The others followed Wallace without much pause. However, once the goo’s horrible stench hit them, a few of them backed off again and maintained their distance.

Emily used her arms to try and wipe the goo from her face. Unfortunately, her arms were also covered in goo, which made this harder than she felt it should be. She groaned and made disgusted retching noises.

Emily opened and closed her mouth several times without speaking. “Ugh, disgusting. It stinks. So. Bad. Ugh!”

“Here.” Matteo handed her a towel from his storage bracelet.

“Thanks…” Emily received the towel to wipe her face. “Wait, you knew this would happen?!”

“Same ceremony for everyone, sweetie.” Wallace shrugged. “The goo beetle mainly feeds on pus weasels.”

Emily’s face flushed and she glared at Wallace. She slowly walked towards him and spread out her arms. “Care for a hug, Dad?”

“If you think that my fatherly love for you is diminished by you reeking like a rotten fish served with spoiled milk…” started Wallace with a cheerful grin. He opened his arms widely. “...then you are mistaken.”

Emily lowered her arms and grumbled. Afterwards, she shot Matteo a glare. “Big Brother, how could you?!”

Matteo looked at her with sympathy. He retrieved a small container from his storage bracelet and threw it to her.

Emily caught the container. “This is?”

“Takes care of the stench,” said Matteo. “Without that, the smell will cling to you for weeks. You can take my word for it.”

“HEYHEYHEY!” shouted Wallace. “What are you doing, kid? Our little baby is going to go out into the world soon. That stench is supposed to be her first layer of defense against womanizing creeps! You can’t just betray us like that!”

Emily mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ to Matteo.

“I thought her weirdo father was the first deterrent,” interjected Sigille.

“Fine with me, but that still seems insufficient,” said Wallace. “Tell you what, Matteo. Since you have caused her to lose her stench defense, then I want to spread around that you are her big brother. That should serve as a deterrent to heart-breaking scoundrels.”

Sigille rolled her eyes.

“That might invite worse trouble than a broken heart,” said Matteo with a wry expression. “I don’t just have friends in Libra City. I have plenty of people with a grudge against me.”

“Meh, who doesn’t have those,” said Sigille with a shrug.

Sigille glanced at the worried father. “Calm down, Wallace. Even if you don’t intentionally spread it, people will catch on to Little Emily’s connections. Besides Matteo and me, there is also Dhruv, who will take her as his disciple. The druid path is also closely supervised from what I can tell. There are plenty of deterrents for trouble makers.”

Wallace puckered his lips and squinted at Sigille. “I am getting the impression that you and I are talking about different kinds of trouble here.”

Sigille snorted amusedly. “Yes. Yes, we are.”

Wallace pouted exaggeratedly. “Fine.” Afterwards, he dropped his joking expression and looked at Emily. “You have a good head on your shoulders. Just… Please promise me to use it. No matter which aspect of your life.”

Emily was momentarily taken aback by her father’s unusually sincere attitude. “...of course.” She smiled warmly.

“Surprisingly, I don’t feel any less anxious, but that is my own problem to deal with.” Wallace made a wry expression. “You do you. Just remember that I am there if you need me. No matter what.”

Terry again caught a jerky head movement from Matteo and he saw him stand for a while with closed eyes. Both Terry and Sigille were observing Matteo.

When Matteo opened his eyes, he immediately searched Sigille’s gaze. Sigille tapped her own nose twice. Matteo nodded.

“Emily, you should get yourself cleaned up properly outside,” said Matteo.

“I assume there will be a feast of some sort?” added Sigille. “You can make the preparations. Our group can take care of the remains.”

While Emily quickly assented and some of the dungeon scavengers followed without pause, Wallace moved his eyes from Matteo to Sigille.

“Of course, thanks for the offer,” said Wallace slowly. “Anything we should prepare for you?”

“No need,” replied Matteo. “It’s Emily’s day. Focus on her.”

Wallace nodded and egged the other dungeon scavengers on to quickly leave the cavern.

Cadence remained behind. While she did not catch what was going on, she at least caught Sigille’s phrasing that their group was supposed to stay behind.

“Terry? A moment here, please,” shouted Matteo while he and Sigille approached the dead goo beetle.

Sigille turned to Matteo. “You sure?”

Matteo pointed at his eyes and then leaned his head towards Terry.

“Mhmh,” agreed Sigille.

“Are you still wearing your ring?” Sigille asked Terry.

Terry nodded before he realized what the question implied.

Something is wrong here.

“Come to think of it, can you tell where they plan to prepare the feast?” asked Matteo. “Where are the others now?”

Terry tried hard to not show any of his confusion or nervousness on his face.

Why would he ask that? They would go to camp, obviously. So it can’t really be about the first question. If something is wrong, then…

What did he say to Wallace before? ‘Focus on Emily’? If something is wrong, then this could mean that they were concerned about Emily’s safety. The feast is about getting everyone out.

Ahh…

“Too late to ask,” said Terry. “They’re already out. We’ll have to find them later.”

Matteo nodded at the second sentence.

“Good, then we can talk a bit more freely,” said Sigille. “Something stinks here.”

“Well…” Cadence pointedly looked at the gooey remains.

“Not like that,” said Sigille.

“This cavern has changed since I’ve been here the last time,” said Matteo. “It feels different. I’m also getting weird impressions from the stone around us.”

“I did not notice any difference, but my nose is getting itchy,” said Sigille. “I trust my nose.”

“Terry, can you sense any mana deviations?” Matteo continued looking around while speaking. “Anything that does not fit an area whose only claim to mana is that it borders on a dormant dungeon?”

Terry finally understood why they had asked him to stay behind and he focused on his mana sight.

Eventually, Terry noticed a distortion in the ambient mana. As soon as his eyes focused on the direction, the earth rumbled.

“I really would have preferred if you had not noticed our presence,” a hollow voice echoed across the cavern. “That would have been better for all of us.”

***