(Gavin)

"Holy Shield!"

A shimmering, brownish-gold shield forms in front of my left arm, and the Blood Missile splashes against it, fading away. I cancel the Skill, then charge towards the Skeletal Blood Mage that cast the spell.

The monster is Level 18, which is around what I can handle alone, despite my high Level. Not everyone is as absurd as Zack is when it comes to solo-fighting monsters. Not everyone can just drop a Meteor on the valley and wipe out some of the strongest monsters ever seen after slaying a Dragon. Still no one knows how he managed it, as the Crystals are keeping silent, likely so that Zack can have his fun when he wakes up from Resurrecting a Fallen Adventurer.

Yeah, Zack is rather absurd.

My opponent is a humanoid skeleton with blood-red bones, and it wields a black and red staff. While normal attacks can damage it, holy attacks are best. Unless I completely destroy its bones, it will reassemble itself as well, though thankfully, the damage done remains. Holy Skills have an increased effect against it as well.

I do need to strike the bones for that, though – my sword slipping between its bones won't do anything other than maybe get stuck again.

I strike at the Skeletal Blood Mage several times, and it blocks each attack with its staff. When I'm sure of a strike against the monster itself, I activate another Skill.

"Holy Strike!"

A brownish-gold glow forms around the blade of my sword, and as I expected, my sword connects with the skeleton's right arm. The glow fades immediately, as Holy Strike is a one-attack Skill, not a duration one. It added an extra 87 Damage as holy power, which is affected by Willpower. This thing can resist it, even if my physical strike still took out 247 Health.

If I remember what was said correctly, this thing has around 200 Endurance and 400 Willpower, so there's no chance of my actually hurting it with Holy Strike. I could use one of my Elementalist Skills, but that's at Level 5 of Tier 5, so I'm good on that for now. I want to Level up Holy Squire, so I'm not using my Elementalist Skills unless needed.

The Skeletal Blood Mage blocks a few more of my attacks, and when a reddish glow forms around one of its hands, I move back a few steps and hold up my left arm as if holding up a shield.

"Holy Shield!"

My brownish-gold shield forms once more, and the Blood Missile slams into it. Despite having no blood at all, this thing can use Blood Magic. That's because Blood Skills draw on Health, then generates the blood to accompany, or something like that. Unfortunately for me, Blood Mages have massive amounts of Vitality.

This thing is really just trying to wound me. As soon as it does, it will be able to drain my Health to restore its own, though I'm surprised it's still using its Blood Skills right now. It's rather low on Health. With another five or six good hits on it, I'll manage to finally kill it.

As soon as the Blood Missile hits my Holy Shield and fades, I cancel the spell, then charge forward, striking at the Skeletal Blood Mage once more. This time, it only blocks, taking a few Holy Strikes from me, and doesn't use its Blood Missile anymore. I suppose it realized it was running low on Health and needed to stop before it killed itself.

With one final Holy Strike, this one connecting to its hips, I manage to slay it, then take a step back as the bones drop to the ground. After inspecting my sword, I sheathe it, then resummon my Light Orb, using the increased light to inspect the remains of the monster. It's a costly Skill, though, so I only leave it on for around ten seconds before turning it off.

The mines are much darker than when my Skill was active, and it takes me a moment to adjust to the decreased visibility again. Once I do, I collect the bones of the Skeletal Blood Mage and send them into my Inventory, then I pick up the staff and examine it. It has a few cuts in it from my sword, but for the most part, it's usable. The monster was deflecting the attacks more than blocking them, so most of the contact between the staff and my sword was with the flat of my blade.

While I don't favor the idea of it, the staff can be used by Blood Priests. Since it's a used staff, it'll fetch a cheaper price, but that will make it more affordable for some Adventurers who need something better than what that cost would normally get them while being unable to afford what this would be worth new and fresh.

My Inventory is getting quite full, though, and won't fit this staff inside.

"Good job," Peter says, and I turn to face him. "Your Inventory should be full now, right?"

"Yes," I nod. "Are we heading back up to sell this stuff?"

"Yes," he nods. "Come on."

Peter and I make our way out of the mines, a trip which takes us nearly two hours due to how deep we were. We fight a few more monsters, but nothing as tough as the Skeletal Mages I've spent the last two days fighting. They aren't the only thing I've fought, but they work decently for earning me Holy Squire Experience and Leveling Holy Shield and Holy Strike. I've also worked on my Blessings a little bit, though I was running low on Mana during that fight, so didn't want to use it to buff me. I could handle the Skeletal Blood Mage without them.

After I decided to take on Paladin to help lighten the load on Luca a little, Peter offered to accompany me into the mines for some training tips and to be there in case something unexpected happens. He's helped me learn a few new Skills, and is the reason I know about the section with plenty of Skeletal Blood Mages.

As we exit the mines, we come across Luca and Kylie. Luca looks pretty clean, as usual, while Kylie is dirtier than I am. I'm not sure how Luca manages to spend a week in the mines without getting covered in filth, but he's managed it.

Kylie, on the other hand, isn't just dirty. Her hair is tied up, but obviously tangled, and she looks exhausted and a mess. She looks at me with regret in her eyes.

"Are you guys sure Luca isn't a demon?" She asks.

"What did he do?" What could he have done to provoke such a response? "Where were you two, too? I knew you were in the mines, but we never saw you."

"We were training," Luca says. "In the area for monsters Level 30 and up."

"You're able to handle that?" I ask.

"No!" Kylie exclaims.

"Yes," Luca answers at the same time. "Any member of Lord Zack's team is fully-capable of that."

I suppose I could, too, if I used my Blade Skills and Elementalist Skills. The only reason I was doing so little right now was because I was training additional things and going up against something with a ton of Health.

"What happened to your arm?" Kylie asks, and I glance at my right arm. There's a light scar on the underside of my right arm. "Isn't it difficult to scar here?"

"I was fighting a Skeletal Blood Mage yesterday," I explain. "It managed to get a cut on me there with a Blood Missile. As soon as it did, it drained some of my Health away, and I had to ignore the fact that I was training Holy Squire and just kill the thing with my most powerful attacks from Elementalist and Mystic Knight before it killed me. Curse scars, such as from that Skill of its, leave behind a scar, but it'll fade soon. It will probably be gone in a day or two."

Kylie pales at that, and Luca smirks. He was just harassing her, wasn't he? Why does he want to put her down?

"Luca, don't be mean to Kylie," I say.

"I wasn't being mean," Luca pouts. "I was just training. She wanted to come with me, so I said 'yes'. I didn't go anywhere I probably wouldn't have without her."

That's the problem, Luca. She's much weaker than us, and you know that. You should have gone somewhere a little easier for her if you were going to let her join you.

"It was good training, I'll admit that," Kylie says. "I'm looking forward to a nice, hot bath now."

"Enjoy," I tell her. "I'm taking one as soon as I get home."

"If you're heading to Maelnor now," Peter tells Kylie and Luca. "I can take you both with me, I have Teleport, so I can take us back to Maelnor without a Dark Knight, now that the City Barrier is restored."

Automatically, I move so that Luca can climb onto my back. It's not until he's climbing on that I realize I did it out of habit. He was walking with Kylie, rather than being carried, and I know he looks exhausted, even if he's been working on his stamina as much as he can, going as far as he can and working out his body as often as safe.

Kylie gives me a bewildered look.

"Wait," she says. "He didn't even ask you for that? That's normal?"

"Luca has low stamina," I explain. "Walking for large distances wears him out. Since you two were walking, I know he might not make the full trip back, unless you were recently carrying him."

"Yeah," she says. "I just thought he was doing it for some weird reason of his. He was constantly asking me to carry him."

"Did you?"

"A few times," she says. "But he kept holding me tightly and falling asleep, and it wasn't easy to respond to an attack with him clinging to me that tightly."

"He'll get down if you alert him to the attack," I say.

Now that I think about it, Luca does hold on pretty tightly. I suppose it's just so normal and he's so weak compared to me that I never really paid attention to it.

"I'm sure you had to take a lot of breaks if you were walking over large distances," I say, and she nods after a moment. "That's because of his low stamina. We've always just carried him if we know he's going to get exhausted."

"Oh," she says. "He's still a monster."

"He worships Zack," I tell her. "Who has influenced him quite a bit. Notice the head-bashing he tends to give monsters that get too close? Yeah. Zack told him to do that, so he does."

She groans, rubbing her head.

"Luca!" I exclaim. "Don't hit friends in the head!"

Luca pretends to snooze in my ear, and I roll my eyes, then look at Peter.

"I suppose we're ready to head back," I tell him.

"Then let's go," he says.

We follow Peter to the Teleport Plaza, the walk eerily silent. There are no monsters here, though the people who were stationed outside of the mines are now in the Praevar instead, housed by the gate near it. I could sell my loot to them, but I'll get a better deal in Maelnor.

The buildings are still in ruins, but they'll eventually be reconstructed and built back up as the population expands. At least, that's the thought most people have, but Zack's told the full team what's really going to happen. That the war will end soon.

It seems some of the important people know who the brothers of the vision are, but not many. Only a few, really. I'm not certain if Peter knows, but I'm pretty confident that Mama Bear does. I know Nik does, he seems to be the person who knows the most regarding things.

And apparently, he's not 'one of the leaders of the Dark Order'. No, he's the leader of the Dark Order. Millions are under him, both Dark Knights and Blood Priests alike. He's also basically the head of the campaign against the Shadow of Life, though that part didn't surprise me when I found out.

Who could the brothers be? It seems they were only discovered recently, and those who know want to keep it as secret as possible for some strange reason. Those thoughts have occupied my mind the last few days. Zack will probably tell us, once he wakes. There's no way he wouldn't know who they are – I'm sure Nik will tell him if he didn't figure it out himself.

Back in Maelnor, I bid Kylie a good day, then set off to sell my loot, still carrying Luca. I'll wash up tonight, get some rest, enjoy a couple of decent meals by Kit, then return to training in the mines. We all want to be as strong as possible for when we enter Lost Territory with Zack, and I'm not going to allow myself to fall behind. Everyone else is training hard, so I need to, too.