The four of us walked in an uneasy silence in the early morning light. Myself on the far right with Malik on the far left, Meri and Maddy between us. With nothing else to distract me the last seven days flashed through my mind yet again.

The life and death struggle during the fight. The death of June. The uneasy conversation we had back at the Inn. Under the weight of guilt and the very real threat of death we told Malik everything. Well. everything except for me coming from another world. Maddy added in important bits of information when she felt appropriate while, as usual. Meri sat quietly.

Malik's face was an unreadable mask as he listened. For the first time since making his threat, he spoke. “You shouldn't have kept this from me. You knew powerful people were after you, and you got June involved. You put our lives in danger for your own selfish reasons, and now she's dead.”

I foolishly tried to find some justification for my actions. “No matter where we went they would have hunted us. Someone would have been put in danger just by being in the same room with us. What were we suppose to do? Hide in a hole for the rest of our lives or turn ourselves over?” I saw the flash of anger in his eyes, and quickly back tracked. “I'm sorry June is dead, I am. I didn't know her as long as you, but she seemed like a wonderful woman. If I could-.”

Malik didn't care to listen to my apologies and regrets. “You're right, you didn't know her. That's why you didn't mind putting her life in danger if you benefited! I've known her a long time. I've seen her give free food to vagabonds and help drunk women get home safely at night while sexual fisnds made threats warning her to mind her own business. Since I've come to this town I've seen her do one kind act after another. That's why I loved her.”

He shot me a deadly glare before continuing. “I guess this time she tried to help the wrong person, didn't she?” He looked about to strike me, but instead collapsed into a near by chair. He rubbed a the back of his hand against his eye. Preventing his tear from having enough time to form. “The empire's guards have already been sent for. They'll be here by midday tomorrow. I won't even get to send her off on a pyre. Oddly enough, I may be the closest thing to family she has, and I can't even be there.”

His words didn't make sense. Sure, he would need to answer some questions, but there was no reason that he couldn't stay for the funeral. I stole a glance into his eyes trying to gauge his thought process, but nothing was made clear. Receiving no help, I opted for the direct approach. “Why can't you stay for the services?”

He gave me a look as if I were an idiot. “If I’m going to avenge her then it would be foolish to give the empire information about myself. The first thing they'll do if I stay is determine my identity with magic. Then they'll take a written statement of my account of events. Even if I declare the Armingtage house guilty, nothing will come of it. All it will do is expose me. We'll disappear and after a hefty bribe the empire will look the other way. A good relationship with the Armingtage house is too important to them to risk it over the lives of just four missing or dead commoners.”

He gave a small shrug before continuing. “Even if I don't declare the Armingtage house guilty, they'll still have an official record of my identity. Once I take my vengeance, with that in their hands it would make it nearly impossible to evade them. The empire is unlikely to do anything when a major house is attacked, that would set a bad precedent. They'll look for whoever did it. Without an official record on file all they'll have is hearsay and vague descriptions. Hopefully that's all they'll have at least.”

Malik stood and headed towards the door, causing me to jump up in my chair as I stepped towards him. “You don't plan to go there now do you? You'd never even get past-”

He interrupted me holding a hand up to call for silence. “Don't be stupid. Of course I don't plan to go yet. I've been level nineteen for a while. I could've taken the test for level twenty whenever I wanted. I just didn't see the point of taking the risk, but I have a reason now. I know full well that at my current ability getting revenge isn't possible. I aim to correct that.

I'm going to pack up my belongings and move on from this town. The Armingtage house will figure out what happened here by tomorrow night at the latest and have dozens of men combing the area. So I'm getting away from here. If you're smart you'll do the same. I know a little area down south that has a rank one, two and three dungeon in close proximity to each other. That's where I'm heading. You can come along if you want. For now our interest are aligned. If I can use you as a distraction all the better.”

While I felt sympathy for his plight, I had to admit I was thinking the same thing. If Malik wanted his revenge he could have it. It was clear that any relationship or goodwill we had built was certainly gone by this point. All we had was the grudging understanding that if either wanted to achieve our goals, we would be helpful to each other. Part of me considered that after Malik got revenge on Lord Armingtage, he may turn his sword on us. While a concern, I was confident that probably wasn't the case. Probably.

Realizing I had yet to respond, I gave a quick glance to Meri and Maddy. Meri betrayed nothing in her demeanor accept a willingness to go along with my choice. Maddy on the other hand clearly seemed disturbed by the situation. Helping me free my sister was one thing. Helping a man assassinate her father was an entirely different matter.

While they weren't on the best terms, i doubted she wanted him dead. Then again, as long as he lived she would never truly be free. Not to mention she saw the effects of her father's orders first hand. She wasn't naive. She knew the the power of the houses had to be demonstrated on the tip of a sword from time to time. However, this wasn't some upstart encroaching on their territory or another house looking to steal their business away. This was an innocent barmaid.

There wasn't anything close to a justification. Even if the men acted out of turn and exceeded their authority to act, these were ultimately her father's men. He had to share some responsibility. However, to place all the blame at his feet and go along with a plan that could condemn her own father to death was something she could easily stomach. Nor could she bring herself to defend his actions.

I saw the struggle written on her face. Before she said anything that might make matters worse I spoke. If he thought we planned to stand in his way, he wouldn't let us leave this room alive. “As you said, our interest are aligned. I see no reason to not use that to our advantage.”

Malik nodded. “In that case, I'll meet you outside in fifteen minutes. I suggest you pack lite and take only what is needed. I'll not slow the pace for you.” Without bothering to spare us a look back, he exited the room, closing the door voilently. As if it had done him wrong in a past life.

Not even a moment after he exited the door Maddy turned on me. “Bill, I agreed that I would help you get your sister back. No one said anything about killing my father!”

I grabbed her by the shoulders and silently implored her to keep her voice down as I listened for footsteps by the door. I opened it to have a quick look outside just to be sure Malik was gone before closing it. “We don't need to kill him. That's Malik's agenda, not ours.” I paused for a moment trying to think of the right words to say. How do you tell someone that we would probably be better off with their father dead?

As it turned out, I didn't need to say a thing. My pause and attempt to gather my words spoke volumes. Maddy gazed at me, wanting to object, to curse me, to threaten me. Yet she didn't. Doubt crept into her eyes and her mind. Her father hadn't been good to her. Even at this very moment he plotted to take away her freedom and sell her off for the best price he could get. Part of her she hated him for it. The truth was that she wasn't sure what she wanted.

In any case, that would be something we could talk about later. I motioned to their traveling bags. “We need to make ourselves scarce. I'm going to my room to pack. Leave behind anything you don't need. Make sure to take your identification cards from the outpost. I don't know If we'll ever be able to use them again but we certainly don't want them being found.

With nothing else to say, I headed for my room to pack. This would be a tougher trek than the last one. Between my armor, magic books and clothes I had twice as much to carry. That was before buying anything we would need for the road. I put my two magic books together along with the fantasy book and wrapped them in a shirt before packing them away. An extra layer of protection to keep them dry if it rained.

I didn't have many possessions. It took me all of five minutes before I was ready. I left my room and stood at the foot of the stairs awaiting Maddy and Meri. I had to wait all but a few moments before they were finsihed. After exiting the Inn for the last time I turned my head to my left to find Malik was marching towards the Inn. I gave Maddy one final look to make sure she wasn't going to say anything. She gave the subtlest of nods to assure me that the subject wouldn't be brought up. She knew as well as anyone Malik was not in the most reasonable state of mind at the moment.

Seeing us all packed, he didn't even bother to finsihing walking towards us. Instead he turned right as proceeded down the road heading south. We caught up and silently fell in behind him. Close enough to offer assistance if an ambush occurred, but no closer. There was no reason not to give him the maximum amount of space we could.

We continued to travel well past sunset, torches lighting our path as best they could while the thick woods blocked out the stars and moon above. Right as I was thinking of putting a stop to this pointlessly dangerous exercise, Malik stopped and for the first time spoke since he left the end. "We'll camp here". I offered to keep watch the entire first night. I didn't think I would get much sleep anyway knowing a seething Malik was only a few paces from me. Thoughts of him losing his temper and slitting my throat in my sleep worked much better than any cup of coffee.

Over the next week of our travels things became more routine I was confident Malik wouldn't spontaneously lash out at us, which allowed us to walk in formation. After the first night I saw the rage of mad vengeance leave his eyes and become replaced by a rage of cold vengeful determination. While I was not sure If he would kill us when the time came, I was confident he was in the state of mind to wait until our usefullness ran out. While the thought made me weary of the future it certainly was helpful in the present.

We were so tired from the pace we kept that we didn't do any physical training during our breaks. Instead we spent that time on reading lessons and magic training. By week's end Meri was virtually literate. Malik still ltunred into the lessons but only from a distance. He couldn't deny the knowledge was useful, but he refused to sit in front of us.

Maddy had started to get the hang of Weighted Sword starting to adapt a fighting style just for when the spell was activated. While using the spell she could attack at angles or from stances that could take an enemy by surprise. As I predicted may happen, she struggled when it came to learning ice Javelin. Part of that was most likely because a level two spell was harder to learn, another issue was that the concept was completely different from weighted sword.

On the other hand, I was already starting to make some headway with Fire Sword. I was still having an issue mastering the more complex manipulation of mana, but at least I was able to figure out what I was doing wrong with enough experimentation. It was frustrating but I could tell it was matter of time. I was fixing my issues one by one as I discovered them. Each failure brought me closer, while each failure of Maddy's only led to more frustration and confusion.

Meri made limited progress with Wind Ripper. Since you needed to shoot arrows to practice the spell I could see how it would become a pain in the ass. Constantly walking back and forth between targets. Each arrow that broke meant more trips to the target and more delay's between practice. As for the heal spell, She hasn't even looked at the book yet. I saw her eying it earlier, eager to learn the spell. It was only my suggestion against it that stopped her

After looking at the way Maddy was struggling I knew she would be much better off learning the level one spell first. Once she could actually control her mana consistently, then it may be worth trying to learn the heal spell. If she tried to jump right into that more complex spell without any foundation built up, it would only delay her progress further.

As far as increasing our strength, this trip was turning out to be beneficial to us. The focus on magic was no doubt something we needed to do anyway. While gaining actual battle experience is important, it's important to not get stuck into one single way of doing things either. We had already managed to pack what a normal adventurer would call months of dungeon battle experience into a very short period of time. Traveling allowed our bodies a needed rest.

On the last day of our travels, I found Meri sitting alone beside a lake washing her hands furiously. As I walked over to her, I was surprised she didn't hear me coming. That had never happened before. Clearly something was distracting her so much that even her superior she didn't notice me. I stood next to her, trying to sound reassuring and comforting. I probably was failing at both. “Hey Meri, what's bothering you? Want to talk about it?”

A slight jump accompanied a turn of her head. Seeing it was only me, she calmed herself. “N-no thank you. Sorry for making you worry. I'll do better not to cause you concerns in the future.” She quickly dried her hands on her pants as she looked away from my glance.

“Meri, if something is on your mind then you shouldn't shoulder it alone. Please don't think you are being a bother by talking about it.” While we had slowly been pulling her out of her shell inch by inch, she was still hesitant to share even her minor burdens. Somewhere it was ingrained in her mind that if she stopped being useful or hindered us that she would have no worth and be cast aside. Had I been deluding myself about the amount of progress she has made?

Perhaps, but she was clearly making progress. However slow and tedious it may be. I wanted to give her the chance to express herself, but after realizing she wouldn't do it voluntarily, I decided to be more proactive. Seeing how she was desperately washing her hands didn't make it hard to guess what was on her mind. “We never talked about that man you killed right? A lot was going on at the time and we never got the chance to discuss it.”

Meri straitened up slightly. It looks like I hit the mark. She paused for a moment. Trying find the words she thought would please me. “It was this ones duty. It will be done as many times as is required to keep you and Meri safe. Please forgive my foolishness.”

While sitting quietly beside her, I searched for the right words to say. A delicate matter like this should have been handled by someone else. I took a deep breath and spoke. “There's nothing wrong with feeling bad about killing someone. It's a horrible thing. It doesn't matter if it's justified or not. Before coming to this world I've never so much as been in a fight. Now in the past month, I've killed two people.”

Meri paused for a long moment after that before speaking. “If I may ask, what do you do to not feel like it has tainted you in some way?”

While I said there is nothing wrong with feeling bad about killing someone. There was probably something wrong with not feeling bad about it. At least a little bit bad. Susan and my father both deserved what they got, but I should feel something, right? A general feeling of guilt or a loss of innocence. Yet I felt nothing. Seeing the way Meri was acting, I hadn't stopped to realize how abnormal that may be. The initial shock when both actions were carried out was there, but in the last few weeks I had barely spared them a thought.

That was something to ponder about later. For now I had to think of how a more normal person might respond to Meri's question. So I did the only thing I could. I told her what I thought she needed to hear. “Killing people is never a good thing. It causes a pain deep inside of you. Even if you know you did the right thing, it still hurts. There's nothing wrong with feeling that way. I feel the same way too you know.

I keep telling myself over and over again that it was their bad choices that led to their deaths. Not mine. You weren't the reason that man died. His choices and actions brought him to that end. He forced you to choose between his unworthy life or ours. I'm happy that you did what you did. It saved all of our lives. Never for a second have I thought of you as anything but a good person. Your actions don't change that. They enhance it. You risked your life again for ours. I'm sorry it pains you so, but I want you to know that I'm grateful for what you did.”

Hearing that cheered her up slightly. I wish I could have given her a more honest heart felt answer to her question. She deserved that instead of this. I felt like crap lying to her when I probably should have felt that way about killing Susan and my father. Well, I couldn't help that. Sorry, not sorry.

It may have been worth more examination, but frankly it just wasn't that important when it came to the things I had to worry about right now. When all this is behind me maybe some day I'll lay on a nice soft couch and work through my feelings with someone charging an exorbitant amount of money. For now I have a sister to save and two other ladies to keep safe while I try to keep a lot of other people from killing us. One of them who may be no more than a short walk away. Speaking of that. It was time to get back.

Meri and myself joined the others on the road as our break ened. Maddy reading her spell book and Malik sharpening his sword. There was no acknowledgment from Malik, but Maddy gave us both a small nod before putting her book away. We continued down the road for a couple more hours until mid afternoon.

It took a hair under seven days, but now we were finally reached our objective. Malik would be going on ahead to the next town down the road. That town was in close proximity to a rank two and rank three dungeon. All we had to do was go down the road a few more hours. I thought of asking him about us coming along, but I recalled an odd fact I read about. No one could enter a higher ranked dungeon unless you passed the test of the lower ranked dungeon.

No one knew exactly why it worked that way but it made sense. If you can just bring random people into a high ranking dungeon there was nothing to keep the truly strong from subduing monsters only for the weak to land the final blow and claim the expereince. In a high enough ranked dungeon it was probably possible for a person to reach level nine in a single kill.

There may be nothing keeping people from hiring guards to take them into an appropriately ranked dungeon to do the same, but at least it would be a hassle. It was possible to cheat up to level nine, but no one could take the test for you. A final barrier that stopped people from gaming the system. As if someone intentionally designed the world with the fail safe in mind

The more I lived in this world the more I felt that may be the case. I wasn't much for religion. I wouldn't say I didn't believe there was a god. I just decided it wasn't provable either way. If one did exist, I doubted a man on TV asking for money while flying around on his private jet had anything of importance to tell me.

It was best to worry about things that could be objectively proven. Like how Mistborn is one of the most underrated fantasies series of all time, and that those Wheel of Time fans needed to come to terms with the mediocrity of their sacred text. If you're going to spend your time reading and crowing about that a series that long at least give me Malazan Empire. Those fans tend to be a silent but proud people.

In any case, the point still stands. It could be things worked that way here 'just because', but the more I learned about this world the more unlikely that seemed. Maybe there was more to this 'mother' than I previously gave credit for. I still didn't really believe she was some kind of all powerful goddess, but something about this place had been tinkered with by someone.

I made a mental note of it and put it aside. While worth looking into there was nothing I could do about it with the information I had. Besides I had other things to focus on. After seeing Malik off we turned our attention to this small town. There was still a few hours of light left and even after our journey we felt strong and invigorated. Eager to test out how far our magic advanced.

Not only that, the Armingtage guards would sweep the whole area. It was unlikely they would come all the way out here first, but I was confident once they searched the closer dungeons they would make there way outward. No doubt they had long ago managed to piece together what happened. Now that they knew for a fact that we were going into dungeons, hiding and running would only become harder.

Seeing no point in wasting time, we quickly secured a room to drop off our things and bought supplies. This time there would be no babysitter. We were on our own. I had never been the the second or third floors of a level one dungeon so I had no idea how much of a difference there may be. Well, there was only one way to find out.

After all the preparations were in place, we lit our torches and headed down into the dungeon fully armored. I tried to note any difference with how this and the otherdungeon looked. Honestly I was surprised with how similar they were. Upon entering the first floor the only thing I found odd was the minor green tinge of the rock on the cave wall as far as appearances. The monsters we fought looked slightly different but were equally weak.

We conserved our strength. The original plan may have been to each beat the floor two boss first, but we were all anxious to see the third floor. If things went well on the second floor then we may as well push to the end. We cleared the first floor out with relative ease. We had done this so many times that it had become routine.

When it was time to fight the first floor boss Maddy demanded the honor. She had greatly improved her weighted sword and wanted something to test it on. She would have a difficult task this time. A Devil Bear stood before her. Its weight and size would make it one of the opponents most able to deal with the weighted sword. At the same time it was both a good and bad development.

Maddy stepped forward taking her stance, while Meri and I moved back against the cave wall. Ready to jump in if needed. The Devil Bear charged her with a ferocious roar. Looking upon the scene I could already predict what would happen. Maddy would wait until the Devil Bear charged close to her, then she would move to the side to counter. With all that weigh behind it, the Devil Bear would find it difficult to change directions.

All of our fights up to this point had taught us how to quickly evaluate and attack different opponents. For the large ones use your quickness, for the quick ones use your strength, for ones that stood still attack from a distance, and for the ones that charged in use the strength of their charge against them. It had all become second nature. I knew how Maddy would react. What I didn't know was how much damage she would be able to inflict on the first strike. That would dictate how the rest of the fight progressed.

When only five paces between them, Maddy jumped to the side. Aiming for the arm which landed on the ground in before her. A smart choice. That didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was that the sword nearly cut through the entire arm around where the wrist on a human would be. While technically still attached, it may as well have been severed for all the good it would be now.

She managed to land a decisive with the first attack. Even if the Devil Bear changed tactics, it was only a matter of time. Carefully dancing just out of it's range, Maddy lunged in, only to pull back before the Devil Bear could turn on her. As soon as she disabled a second limb the weight of the Devil Bear made any kind of movement nearly impossible. She ended the monster soon after that.

[Dungeon Floor 1 Cleared. Floor 2 is now open]

it was Time to move to the second level. Maddy got to show off. Now it was my turn.