Feeling that it wasn’t quite right to take things from them without repaying, I grabbed out another lunchbox from my backpack. Inside were vegetables, cheese slices, and meat, placed between slices of bread — meat sandwiches. These were something that Tia had given me this morning. How sweet of her…

I had been craving a sandwich for a while now. Initially, this wasn’t an idea that she had come up with, but something that I accidentally mentioned when telling her a story instead. Who would have thought that she would prepare it for me?

“What have you got there, Vincent?”

“Oh, this? It’s a sandwich. You guys want some?”

“Don’t mind if I do!” Zeth scrubbed his hands together and took one, wolfing it down without the tiniest sliver of shame. “Mmmm!! This thing you call sandwich is so tasty!”

“Zeth, mind your manners! Um, may I partake?”

“Sure.” Lately, I realized that she had become less nervous when speaking with me.

“Thank you.” Lara nervously took a sandwich and gave it a small bite. “Yum! It’s delicious! I dare say that I can’t make one this good.” As her eyes widened, she tried to cover her busily munching mouth.

Really? I put one in my mouth. The mix of meat, vegetables, and cheese was heavenly, melting inside my tongue. Guess it’s pretty good. If only there were mayonnaise or mustard to go with it.

“How about you, Pallad, want some too?”

“Thanks. Just one, please.” Pallad’s reaction to the food was pretty similar to the other two but not as prevalent.

***

After trekking in what seemed to be an endless forest until around sunset, we finally hunted down the bare minimum quota for passing the assessment. The path we traversed was probably more to the northwest rather than straight north where my dungeon was located.

Along the way, we hunted several animals, hybrids, and even monsters. Although not that plenty, there were goblins, kobolds, and even orcs wandering the forest — most were in groups. Except for a group of ferocious-looking orcs and a lone ogre that we avoided, we managed to hunt the rest rather easily, however.

As an aside, ogres were strong E-rank monsters with an E+ evaluation or an E+ rank monster if I wanted to be specific. But since the plus (+) and minus (-) were only shown to me and only me via my Vocation — and not a rank officially made by the guild nor the dungeon — I considered those with the symbols on the same rank.

But this made me think: The monster cores sold by adventurers could be purchased back for making more golems. And hence I asked them if I could have the monster cores over the other things, to which they easily agreed.

Soon, a large brown beast stood in our path, munching on a carcass of what appeared to be a deer. It perked its round ears and turned toward us before roaring as if warning us not to approach.

“It’s a bear?” I asked. The Great Elion Forest was plentiful with pine trees and all, maybe that was the reason why there were so many bears in this forest.

“Indeed. How should we proceed?” Instead of being afraid, Pallad was sizing up the bear.

“I… I think we better leave it alone.” Lara was a bit nervous though.

“It has spotted us, so it’s too late for that. Let me take care of it!” Zeth cracked his fingers and went to intercept the bear. Is he seriously gonna fight a bear, alone?

The bear, seeming provoked, charged at Zeth like a deadly killing machine. It raised its claws and was about to unleash it upon Zeth’s neck, but he quickly sidestepped and punched the bear with an iron gauntlet in the stomach.

“Grrrgh! RAWRGH!!” Eyes crimson red, the bear pounced at Zeth seemingly not that bothered with the pain caused by Zeth’s attack.

“Oh, shoot!” Zeth didn’t dodge — or more like he couldn’t — so he raised his gauntlet-clad fists to block the bear.

““Zeth!!””

Both Pallad and Lara voiced their worries over him, but they were too far. By the time they arrived there, Zeth would have been bitten.

In response to help him, I flicked a stone bullet at the bear’s face, causing it to miss him on a very narrow margin and writhe in pain.

“Huh?” Zeth was a bit perplexed by the sudden intrusion but quickly adjusted his body and shouted, “[Condensing Punch]!” And as magical as I found it to be, his fists shone bluish-white, which he unleashed at the bear at a velocity many times before.

Not able to avoid the punch, the bear got walloped in its stomach, and, as though a popped balloon, it was thrown to the tree behind it.

“Hah! It’s nothing! This is the power of friendship!” Zeth clenched his right fist and lifted it up.

Hearing that, I rolled my eyes; that one mistake of the bear was caused by my stone bullet, after all. Okay, it was not too far off.

“Don’t let your guard down yet! It’s still not dead!” Pallad warned, rushing toward him.

You don’t say… Just how tough is the bear in this world? But thinking back, without being that ferocious, how could the bear survive in this extraordinary world?

The bear rose back up, but Zeth was more than ready, told Pallad not to help him, and managed to kill the bear after an epic exchange of blows between them. Was this perhaps what they called, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”?

“As expected of Zeth. You have my regard for challenging a bear,” I asserted, impressed.

“Thanks! This is a step needed to become a liberator.”

“Geez, I told you not to be reckless! You could get seriously injured!” Lara was fuming as she clenched her clothes.

“Hahaha! I got a bit carried away, that’s all. Besides, these little injuries are noth— Ouch! Ngh…!” He was bleeding on his shoulder; it appeared that the first strike of the bear didn’t completely miss him.

“Stay still!” Lara began tending to his wounds. “O Goddess of Light, shimmering in holiness, shed your light upon this wounded child — {Minor Healing}.”

Holy Magic, if I had to describe, it was blinding.

Pure white magical light enveloped Zeth and began healing his wounds. The numerous claw injuries closed up and stopped bleeding — even a gash in his shoulder was healing at the speed visible to the naked eye. Through luck, all the wounds were superficial, and a simple Holy Magic sufficed. I wonder, is the Great Church monotheistic or polytheistic? But more notably…

“Zeth, what’s with your shining fists when you gave the bear a good beating? Is that magic?”

“Oh, you mean my [Condensing Punch]? Nah, it’s a skill I developed through the power of my Vocation. Can’t use it too often though, the lightheadedness will kill me…”

“As expected…” After all, my Vocation had its own unique usage and skill. Still, using that single punch must have sapped his spiritual energy a lot.

When all was said and done, he was quite something to take down a ferocious bear almost single-handedly. While his STR stat only had twice my lifting power, someone with twice the power didn’t mean one plus one, but more like four times stronger — and that was without putting other stats into consideration.

With Zeth and co. slightly exhausted, we took a breather here for about half an hour before proceeding further. And before the sun had completely set, we passed the last treeline and spotted a large clearing with a flowing river not far away.

“A near-perfect place to set up a camp. What do you guys say?”

“Yup. It’s definitely a good place,” I said.

The area was teeming with everything we needed, and in case of a beast attack, we would be able to easily notice. Not that far away, there was even a cave probably to be the nest of the late bear.

“Right!” Zeth suggested, “How ‘bout we stay here for the night?”

Lara and Pallad both agreed to Zeth’s suggestion along with a nod.

“That’s fine by me.” I nodded my head too.

With the overwhelming support to set up a camp here, we began to divide our tasks: I made the campfire; Zeth scavenged around for firewood; Lara prepared the food and set up the place; Pallad headed out to hunt some animals, which garnered him four small hares by the time we finished with ours. We also got various kinds of meat from the hunted creatures, so there should be a lot of variety for today’s dinner.

Incidentally, I made the campfire with the lighter, and since no other people were watching me at the time, I got away from explaining. Guess mastering Pyro Elemental Magic would be such a great convenience here.

But what puzzled me, Lara actually used magic to create water instead of fetching it from the water source nearby, so I asked as curiosity got the better of me.

“Water from an unidentified source like a river is prone to make you sick… And creating water through Survival Magic doesn’t take that much of mana,” she explained.

“Survival Magic?”

“Ah, I mean Elementary Magic — it has many names.”

“I see…?” I wouldn’t be surprised if rich people call it Lifestyle Magic or whatever, but I decided to stick with Elementary Magic. “Would you mind teaching me a bit about it?”

“What’s that, you want to learn Elementary Magic, Vincent?” Zeth asked in surprise. “You come to the right person! Lara here also doubled as an elementalist and mastered three elements to boot: Geo, Pyro, and Hydro.”

Welp, I know that since it’s the whole reason why I’m asking her. Thank you very much. But… she’s a triple elementalist? Wow!

For all I knew, there were a total of seven common elements: Anemo, Geo, Hydro, Pyro, Cryo, Dendro, and Electro. Except for some extremely rare elements, these were what people commonly mastered. Even being able to cast a Bottom-tier spell of any of the elements would make them an elementalist, so finding an elementalist that mastered three elements was as hard as finding a needle in a haystack.

Geo, Pyro, Hydro — earth, fire, and water — just add in Anemo, and she is as good as an Avatar. I secretly chuckled at my cheap joke, though I was a bit bothered by their openness.

“Whoa there. You shouldn’t tell strangers about your secret.” I raised my hands at them.

“Hahaha! What’s the problem— Ow, ow!” Lara tweaked Zeth’s ear while staring at me weirdly.

“Sorry, Vincent… But no matter what, it’s rude to think of us as strangers, you know!” she said, firmly looking at me.

“I concur.” Pallad tossed a piece of wood to the fire, causing it to spark ceaselessly. “We have our fair share of adventures.”

“Exactly!”

“I guess you’re right. I’m sorry…” I lowered my gaze but quickly looked at her in resolution. “Then, Lara, please teach me.”

“Mm, with pleasure!”

Sitting around the pot placed on a campfire filled with stew, we continued our chitter-chatter while having Lara taught me some magic accompanied by a pleasant breeze until it was late at night.

What an experience.

***

Lorelei’s Perspective

Under the beautiful night sky in a seemingly endless area, Lorelei was watching the reflection of a girl so beautiful that she might very well not exist.

Sounds of pitter-patter along with the graceful movements of her body adorned the surroundings with the vibrant energy of a beautiful soul.

The delight behind her steps, the rhythmic way she swayed her hands as if longing for something — all that was to her painted a deep, overarching backstory that she held.

She didn’t know what she was doing, but everything she did felt natural to her. The world spun. Her emotions overflowed. She felt like the world was revolving around her.

She slid across the ground and stopped, and then the recording ended.

Lorelei smiled satisfied; the act she did just now was a recording of her filled with her inner bursting emotions. Just for that one person…

She sighed. “Vincent sure is heartless. Leaving me all alone here…”

For her, the past two weeks had been rather uneventful since all she did was command the golems to excavate the dungeon. These human emotions… were a novelty to her, yet at the same time also a shackle to her new self.

Has he found his way back home? She knew better than anyone that he hadn’t left — at least the connection was still there.

She shook her head, trying to forget all about this by turning her gaze at the night sky. Countless stars accompanied a single bright moon; Vincent once said that stargazing had brought him peace of mind, so she did just that. Indeed, it calmed her heart like a soothing mother.

Lorelei had learned a lot. Before, the Artificial Realm only had a static day as the sky, but now, it was no different than the world outside. The soft breeze of the wind felt pleasant to her skin. Grassy smells permeated the area.

“My, oh my. I shall not wander in this thought any longer. That’s it. I’ll just prepare a labyrinth area as we have planned. Oh, would he praise me then?”

Lorelei opened the menu and went for the Dungeon Management catalog, and then spent hours designing a wall and planning an intricate maze structure.

“That should be there, and that should be here… Okay, done.”

She was about to close the menu, but… there was something… or more correctly, someone on the edge of her dungeon.

An intruder? But she quickly refuted the notion.

Whatever it was, she got to tell Vincent since she was facing a situation where she didn’t know how to respond. But the question was how? Or wait. What is this?