When they continued their dungeon dive, the first group of enemies they found consisted of 25 low level goblins. After a wave of Air bombs, Fireballs and Acid jets, only five remained standing. Fedor and Daniel had no difficulty to kill them and they went on to explore the dungeon.

Daniel smiled when he spotted the next goblin group. They encountered the higher tiered goblins again. This time, there were six goblins with short swords and four with bows. All of them ranged between level six and seven. Finally enemies that give a bit of experience, he thought.

The enemies weren't really a challenge. Isabella and Anna picked out the goblins with bows first, while Daniel softened up the sword wielders with an Air bomb, before he and Fedor engaged the remaining four goblins that were still standing.

Daniel had activated his new Lightning Edge and his Advanced Haste and was happy about the improvements the news spells brought. If he didn't manage to kill a goblin with the first attack, it was now stunned by the electrical shock of his blade and the boost to his reflexes was very helpful. Especially together with his new domain.

Just as he and Fedor dispatched each one of the goblins and there were only two left, his domain sent shivers down his spine. Daniel, boosted by his Advanced Haste, reacted immediately. He jumped backwards while he pushed as much mana as he could into a hasty created Windshield between him and the goblins. It wasn't completely finished, when Isabelle's Fireball hit them. Heat washed over him and scorched his hair and eyebrows. He had closed his eyes in time, so at least he wasn't blinded.

Before getting up from the ground, he looked at Isabella to check if there was another spell incoming. But, she looked like she was in panic and very pale. Then he had a look at Fedor. The Russian hadn't spotted the misguided fireball and was hit by the full force. But, his high toughness and heavy armor protected him from the worst of it and he was still standing. He nodded at Daniel, signaling that he was ok. Daniel himself was shaken to his core. Without the new domain skill and the increased effect of his agility from his class, this could’ve been his end.

He gathered himself and stood up.He never felt this angry in his life as he turned toward Isabella.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you trying to kill us or are you just stupid? Without being warned by my new domain skill, I would probably by heavily injured or even died. Why are you shooting an explosive fireball, when there are only two goblins left and they are standing right next to Fedor and me?" Daniel shouted angrily at Isabella, who started to cry and sobbed that she was sorry, before she ran away.

Daniel wanted to go after her to confront her about what she was thinking, when Fedor stopped him.

"It's ok, I'll talk to her. You are too angry right now." He tried to calm Daniel down.

"This is the opposite of ok. There are enough dangers to worry from the dungeon. I have no interest in watching my back, just in case my allies are betraying me or are just too stupid to think before they act. I'm not like you Fedor, I can't just shrug off an attack like that." Daniel yelled back at the big man.

Fedor looked at Anna, who nodded, before he made his way after Isabella. Anna went over to Daniel and put her hand on his shoulder when she started to talk to him.

"You know that she didn't do that on purpose, don't you?" She asked.

"Maybe, but if someone wants to betray you, at least you may be able to spot signs of it beforehand. Since she joined the party, she was over killing the goblins in fits of rage. How are you supposed to trust someone that hasn’t any self-control and might be a danger to herself and others at any time?" Daniel asked shaking his head.

"Fedor will talk to her. I think he has some anger issues himself, but he is able to control them and to focus his rage at the enemy without shutting down his thinking." Anna answered in a hopeful tone.

"Even if, we don't know if it helps. I will have to keep part of my mind concentrated on her, because she might fuck up again. That will be pretty dangerous, when we can't really afford to let our mind slip while we are fighting for our life. I'm for kicking her out of the party right now. Let’s just keep going with the three of us again." Daniel responded.

"Please, let us wait and see what Fedor has to say. From what she told us, she has good reasons to be angry at the world. The rage is probably the only thing that kept her going. Everyone deserves a second chance." Anna suggested.

"That is easy for you to say. It is not your life that is on the line here. You switched to become a distance fighter and are in no immediate danger if she fucks up again. While I'm pretty sure Fedor is injured pretty badly right now, it will take more than two or three fireballs to take him down. The moment, when my skill warned me of the incoming danger, I thought that this would be my end. That I was betrayed, again." Daniel explained in a low voice.

"Again, were you betrayed before?" Anna asked.

Daniel paused, he had shared more than he'd wanted. But, Anna probably wouldn't let this go. He decided to talk about his experience.

"Yes, when we met. The corpse on the ground, it belonged to a man called Steven. He was the teammate of a young woman that I saved from some goblins. She was pretty weird and didn't want to check after Steven and told me that he had sacrificed himself to save her. The bow I showed you belonged to her. Long story short, her behavior triggered my alarm bells and I didn't trust her. To test her, I made the next fight look more difficult than it was. I didn't use Air bomb to decrease the enemy’s numbers and went into melee directly while I created a Windshield behind me.“ He paused for a moment before he continued.

“When it looked like nine goblins would overwhelm me, she betrayed me and shot an arrow at my leg. My spell blocked it and I then blasted the goblins away with an Air wave. I took some damage, but I managed to kill them without taking a serious injury. Kimberly had already run away. She probably panicked and must have thought that I would try run away, too. So, to make sure that I was slower than her, she shot the arrow at me. After that, I decided that I couldn't risk her to convince another party to silence me. She was very pretty and I knew there would be a lot of men who would believe everything she said to them. When I caught up to her, she'd already met two other guys and convinced them that I raped her. As they got ready to attack me, I reacted faster. I killed them all. After that, I checked on Steven. My suspicion was correct. It turned out that he was betrayed, too. That was why Kimberly didn't want to look for him. I would have found one of her arrows in his back earlier." Daniel told her, while looking down. He didn't want to see her reaction. It took Anna a few seconds before she responded.

"Wow, shit. That is pretty dark stuff. I'm not sure what to think about that. But, it only reinforces my opinion that most people are assholes."

Daniel shook his head.

"I don't believe that. The two guys I killed, I don't think they were bad people. They just decided it would be a good idea to believe Kimberly. It gave them a reason to take my weapon and they could feel as the heroes who avenged a rape victim. Even Kimberly was in my opinion just someone who was in way over her head. She panicked and wanted to save herself from being eaten by goblins. Then, one thing just led to another." Daniel explained.

Anna disagreed with his assertion.

"That is the difference between us. You think that deep down, people are good. In my experience, most people are only good if it doesn't come with a cost for them. Like the people that just walk by, when some assholes mug an old lady. I think that deep down, most people are selfish assholes."

Daniel sighed in relieve. That went a lot better than he had anticipated. But, it made him curious how Anna gained such a dim view of the world.

"I don't want to intrude into your personal space, but do you care to tell me what you experienced that gave you such a bad opinion of people?" Daniel asked cautiously.

Anna hesitated, but then she answered his question.

"When I was twelve, my mom and dad had a car accident. Some drunken asshole ignored a red light and T-boned them. After that, he escaped. The cops later got him, but he only got three years in prison for manslaughter. My mom and dad were heavily injured. There were people around, but nobody came to help. They just gawked at the accident. When help arrived fifteen minutes later, my father was already dead. He wouldn't have died if only one of these assholes would've come to help and put pressure on his leg wound." Anna explained, visible angered by going through that memory again.

Daniel didn't know how to respond to that. He just nodded and said: "Maybe, you are right."

When Fedor reached Isabella, she was hunkered down and crying. He set down next to her without saying a word. It took a bit, but then Isabella started to talk.

"I didn't want to do that. I was just so angry. All I could think of was to kill these damn goblins. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted. But, that is not the real problem. You are letting yourself be controlled by your rage. We can't trust you if you can't control yourself. While anger can be a good thing, it can keep you going and help you overcome your fear, you can't let yourself be controlled by it. When I was in the military, fighting in Chechnya, I had comrades that acted the same way. If they couldn't overcome their rage, it always ended in one or two ways. Either they were kicked out or they sooner or later they killed someone that wasn't an enemy. In my company, we had two guys like that. They committed suicide shortly after, because they couldn't live with what they'd done. I had these issues, too, but I learned to control myself." Fedor told her.

"How?" Isabella asked.

"For me it was when I started boxing in the army. I was able to concentrate my anger on a single fight and keep it under lock the rest of the time." He grinned and continued. "That is why I like battle so much. It gives me a chance to let go. You are handling it in a similar way I think. But, your fighting style is not to hit others really hard, instead you throw bombs at them. That gives you a much higher chance of collateral damage."

"That isn't helping one bit." Isabella shook her head in desperation.

"Your problem is not that you attack friends, but that you don't think your actions through. It will probably come with time. But, how about you limit yourself to single target spells after the enemy is already close to your allies. Focus on that rule and stick to it. While, it will probably make you less effective in certain situations, following a rule will probably help you to gain more control over your actions." Fedor suggested and continued. "You need to be careful. While we can probably convince Daniel to let this one go, there won't be a next time. If you fuck up like this again, he will want to kick you out of our party and to be honest, if I have to decide between him and you, I choose him. Nothing personal."

"What is so special about him anyway? Isn't he just some 20 year old college kid? You were a soldier and experienced real battle, why are you following his lead most of the time?" Isabella asked and Fedor grinned when he answered.

"You couldn't notice, because we were only fighting thrash mops since you joined. But, Daniel is made for this shit. He is thinking through every potential situation and makes plans and fallbacks. You can see it in the way he is gaming the system, too. He is always looking for an edge and when he acts, it's decisive and without hesitation. We didn't talk about it, but Anna and I both know that we would have died at the boss fight without him."

"How so? I mean he is good with his saber and has some powerful spells, but you are a lot tougher while Anna can just do as much damage." Isabella asked.

"Well, we seriously underestimated the boss fight. We thought it would just be a bit harder than the fights against the goblin groups. It was much harder. I fucked up and underestimated the strength of the boss and it broke my arm. I didn't kill a single enemy in that fight. Anna was busy most of the time with the enemy caster. It was Daniel that saved us. He foresaw that there would be some kind over barrier in the boss room, separating it from the tunnel. Otherwise, dungeon divers would be able to snipe enemies without entering the room. We then created a strategy based on that assumption and he was right. In addition, he was wounded by the enemy archers at the start of the fight. He even had an arrow stuck in his chest, but he didn't hesitate. He killed most of the archers and normal goblins and distracted the enemy caster to give Anna a chance to kill it. After that, he drew a pistol and shot the boss in the back of its head. I felt pretty bad after that fight, being only on the defense against the boss." Fedor explained and Isabella nodded thoughtfully.

"Oh, and one more thing, you saw the weapons he donated to the rest of the travelers? He told Anna and me that he collected the stuff from five dead travelers he'd found in the dungeon. I didn't find a single dead traveler and Anna only found two. I find it highly unlikely that he found five. That together with how badly he reacted when you screwed up, I think that he killed at least one or two of them." Fedor informed Isabella.

She went pale for a moment and then asked: "Do you think he betrayed and murdered them?"

Fedor just shook his head and continued.

"No, that wouldn't fit with how he behaves. He likes rules and order, another reason he is so mad at you. Your anger issues makes you a chaotic factor in a battle, one that can't be planned. No, I think if something like that happened, he was betrayed first, survived it and then killed the ones responsible. Like I said, he's not a normal college student. Now let's go back and you better apologize." Fedor decided and Isabella just nodded.

When Fedor and Isabella came back, Fedor nodded in his and Anna's direction.

"Please accept my apology. I'm sorry, I messed up and almost got you killed." Isabella said to him with tears in her eyes.

Daniel hesitated for a moment and then accepted. Anna had decided to stick with him, even after he confessed that he murdered three people. He owed it to her to give Isabella a second chance.