Metello was at the mine's gate again. It was a bit earlier than the last cycle, and he was better prepared than before. His unsure voice resounded faintly in the cold wind.

"It will be better this time. No doubt about it."

Next to the gate, what was left from the rat was laying, partially melted by the shadowed sunlight. In two more cycles, there would be nothing left. Metello rested from the walk for ten minutes while enjoying the landscape. His tension rose as he stood up to enter.

Metello progressed slowly through the first tunnel, like before, in the frightening darkness. Nonetheless, he was already getting used to it enough not to think about turning around right away. He was better accepting the strange shapes he thought he saw in the shadows and dismissed most of them as inventions of the mind.

When he glimpsed the shape of the room entrance, the monster hunter stopped. He opened his ears a bit longer before walking in as slowly and silently as possible.

He entered the huge room. He better observed the horde of stone pillars standing to maintain the ceiling every 4 to 5 meters. He could see the bait from the last cycle was not here anymore. The mine roof was about 2,5 meters high, but he couldn't measure its length as the light couldn't go that far. Metello had to make Lucco brighter to estimate the width of the room to be around 40 meters. Illuminated by Lucco, the pillars painted rays of shadows everywhere.

Before progressing more into the room, Metello hit his buckler softly with his rapier, producing a faint noise in the hope of drawing the attention of a lone monster from the empty space. Brorne's idea was to avoid ambushes from the sides by making the creature come for him, and doing it to a narrow path in case more than one is attracted.

He listened again. Hearing some scratching noise, he knew monsters heard. He fell back into the tunnel and threw some new bait before waiting. After a few minutes, he made a little more noise and waited again. His hunting method consisted of a lot of waiting time. After the last time, he wasn't against the idea to play it as safe as possible.

After some time, he saw it. It was a ratman. A mutated living rat, walking just as well on two legs as on four, measuring 75 cm without its tail. His heartbeat accelerated.

When the ratman saw Metello's light and turned his head toward him, it shrieked with different sounds than the zombie rat. It lowered itself to pick a stone and threw it to the monster hunter. Metello received the light projectile on his buckler with ease as it made its way to his head. The monster threw another rock with the same result before deciding to charge on all fours.

The ratman was incredibly fast and agile to the [Lux Acolyte]'s eyes. The zombie rat was an oxen-pulled chariot compared to it. Metello didn't try to dodge. This time, he put himself in the defensive rapier stance as he had practiced, his rapier in the front of his shield, and he waited for the charge, the tip of his weapon aiming toward the head.

The ratman jumped left to avoid the tip, and Metello followed the flying body, still pointing his weapon at its head. Once the monster stopped on the ground, he punched his rapier swiftly toward the eye. With ease, it jumped back and charged again quickly. The young hunter took once more his defensive stance. Two more times, they repeated these moves before Metello could take advantage of an opening in the rat's charge. The weapon struck near the monster's eye while it jumped in midair a bit too close to him. The rapier, helped by the beast's speed, entered its head with a disgusting sucking noise.

The sight of a ratman bleeding like a river from the head was a bit sickening, but the beast was a lot less ugly than the zombie rat. This sight made Metello happy. It had been so much better than his previous fight. All went as planned.

Sadly, he had not much time to congratulate himself as he first heard and then saw two more ratmen slowly coming toward him. He gritted his teeth, his heart going wild again while he mumbled to himself.

“The first time I have a good fight, and you come two on one just after, damn my luck.”

They started the same way the first one had by throwing stones, and they charged one after the other. He took the same defensive stance, but it was much more difficult with two opponents.

He had to dodge narrowly once or twice, but fortunately, as Metello was about to find himself with one beast on each side, he managed to take a clean hit through the first one's eye and killed him on the spot. In his move to get the first monster, a tail grabbed his leg. He held his weapon and buckler firmly as he was brought down. Rolling his neck to avoid hitting his head, he fell heavily.

The ratman took advantage of the fall to jump on his body, aiming to bite his head. Metello put his shield on the way in a well-inspired reflex. Not seeing anything of the monster, he punched his rapier from the side toward where he thought the head of the rat was. He hit one, two, three, four times weakly, twice on the hard-to-pierce skin, twice only moving through the air, before the ratman shrieked from pain and relented a bit. Using his two arms to push it with the buckler, he tipped over the 15 kg noisy bag of flesh to the side and finished the fight with another rapier punch through the eye before even standing up.

Metello breathed heavily. This time, he hadn't been bitten and took down two monsters. It was good, very good. He waited a bit more in the reassuring silence before he went to take back his hat. Then, he went to the three corpses to put them in his bag. Lifting it, it weighed a whole 45 kg of monsters. It was already heavy enough to make it a pain to carry it for the [Lux Acolyte].

It was enough for this time. He turned back warily toward the exit and began the triumphant journey back.

Metello carried his pack and his bloodied bag through the streets towards the House. He was exhausted but happy, even proud of himself. He could have tried to disassemble the bodies himself, but he was not good enough. As he aimed for the head's soft spots, the skins he brought back were of good quality. He would ruin them if he were the one wielding the knife. He would have to give up some money to the butchers, but he would earn more this way.

When he entered the butcher's door, or the dirty door as he liked to call it, a little bell rang, and old Johnny came to the reception desk. The old man had been a monster hunter like Brorne and Mrs. Richardson, but he had the [Ranger] role. He had been the one to tutor Metello on basic butchering too.

“Hi, Johnny. I have some job for you today!”

“Hey, Metello! Your first catch? Nice! Why is your squad not with you? You're already doing the chores for them ?”

With an embarrassed smile, he explained his situation quickly.

“So you hunted these alone. It's dangerous you know ?”

Metello chuckled.

“Yes, I know. My first prey thought I was its prey. It bit me pretty deeply, so I had to call it a day. But I don't have a choice because, you know, the black hair.”

“Ho, it's true. I forget it every time.” After an awkward silence, he added. “Well, let's get to work. Show me the result of your hunt.”

Metello turned his bag over to empty it of its contents on the blood-tainted counter. Johnny whistled in appreciation.

“Nicely done! Skins are intact, and there is no hole in the viscera to spoil the meat. If you want to keep the cores, I can give you two small tins and three large coppers, which equals 69 coppers. Is it okay for you?”

Metello's smile grew wider. He knew a beginner [Worker] earned only one small tin a day, which equals 30 coppers. It was more than twice as much, and he could go back in once more today after some rest. Besides, he got three cores for himself.

“It would be perfect, Johnny! Thanks!”

“You're welcome. You can go through the bath section. There are free clean rags and clean cold later, or you can order a cold bath for three coppers, or a hot one for double the price.”

“I will, thanks.”

“Wait just a minute, I will retrieve your cores.”

Around the 16th bell, he was again in the darkness of his allocated mine. He progressed forward silently but a bit faster than the last time. He stayed vigilant until he came upon the room entrance again. He used the same trick, making noise to attract monsters. This time, even after fifteen tense minutes of making faint noises, there was no response, so he walked ahead.

Brorne advised him to walk through the room following concentric circular paths centered on the entrance. That way, he would methodically secure more and more space around his only way out while being sure not to be attacked from behind or the sides. Once again, Metello followed his instructor's advice.

But, it was easier to do it in theory than in practice. The many stone pillars made the path difficult to follow. They were causing many blind spots too, which weren't helping to relax.

Despite that, Metello managed to cover the whole area in forty stressful minutes, watching out for any sign of monster, mushroom, or moss to no avail. It was clean of anything valuable or dangerous. He found a tunnel to the left and one dead ahead from the entrance but stayed in the room for some time to assure himself no monsters were left.

After twenty more stressful minutes without finding anything, he went back to the gate. It was time for a pause before walking to the left tunnel as it had been more than an hour since he was in the mine. He went outside for a bit. He relaxed by the cold wind, looking at the sheep and eating a snack. He needed this even if the darkness was growing less and less scary to him.

Twenty minutes later, he was again in front of the left tunnel. He walked there without a problem. He proceeded as always, slowly and silently, until he met with a new zombie-rat two minutes later, ten meters before him.

Unlike his first meeting with its kind, he got down quickly to one knee, his buckler in front in a defensive stance protecting his legs and his body from the shrieking monster. For the offensive job, he used Lucco's power.

The [Lux Acolyte] had trained a new trick following Mrs. Richardson's advice, and he was willing to test it in combat. He willed for Lucco's backlight to dim while its front went brighter. Then, he ordered it to come in front of his buckler. Like this, he prevented blindness for himself while illuminating the monster with full power.

Almost instantly, the beast became louder. While Metello stayed on his knee, he barely withstood the impact of the charge. However, he could defend himself easier from the follow-up claw strikes. He followed the monster's direction with both his shield and Lucco as the zombie rat tried to find an unprotected area. Less than fifteen seconds of the defensive fight was enough for Metello to kill the monster.

Unlike the last fight, no other foe came after it. Metello put the undead body in his bag and looked at his divine energy level.

Status : Metello Level : 1,02 Ether : 11 Class : Lux Acolyte (basic) Stamina 29,1/35,8 2,3/h (regeneration) Divine energy 46,1/48,4 3,2/h (regeneration)

He was glad to see he was good energy-wise. He could go like that for hours if not for the stamina. The problem of divine energy would only come if he had an injury and needed to use the Prayer to Anima.

Metello continued the hunt through the tunnel to a new room. There, he fought three more zombie rats, of which a group of two and one a bit stronger, before getting back. His leather bag was a bit heavy to carry with four bodies. As it was undead, he had to put the bodies outside for them not to rise again, but he didn't have to carry them to the city. He could retrieve their only valuable part, their cores, all by himself.

When he gave back the mine's keys two cycles later as he had to, he had cleared two more rooms of the mine and hunted four more ratmens, six zombie-rat, and a rabbit monster. He picked up a nasty wound once from a group of two ratmens, but in the end, all went well. He hadn't found zombie-ratmens yet, but he was pleased with that.

In these two days, Metello earned 147 coppers. Partly thanks to mushrooms and moss he managed to find. He was now 261 coppers rich with the most part deposited at the House. Things were going great as his rent was 270 coppers a month, and he needed only five coppers a day to eat.

After dinner this cycle, he went over his progress in terms of level and statistics.

Status : Metello Level : 1,32 (↑0.3) Ether : 30 Class : Lux Acolyte (basic) Stamina 40,7/41,4 2,7/h (regeneration) Divine energy 49,8/57,4 3,7/h (regeneration) Statistics Base Effective Class bonus Strength Upper 7,8 8,2 4% Lower 8 8,4 4% Agility Body 8,9 9,4 4% Hand 10,5 11,3 4% Resilience Body 8,2 (↑0.1) 8,6 4% Mind 11 12,5 10% Mind Intelligence 8,7 9,2 4% Imagination 12,7 14,4 10% Faith Power 10,5 12,3 10% Control 11,5 (↑0.1) 13,5 10% Perception Sense 10,1 10,9 4% Memory 10,6 11,2 4% Social Comprehension 8,7 9,2 4% Expression 8,5 8,9 4%

Metello had a nice progress level-wise, but it was normal. As a level 1, a small amount of ether made a much greater difference than later. As he harvested and absorbed seven cores, of which two were level 2, he raised his level to 1.32, gaining a 13.2% bonus on his class statistics. Nonetheless, Metello thought he could go faster.

While fighting the last zombie rats, he had an idea. What if his shield took up all the tunnel entrance and he could put Lucco on the other side with the zombies? If he could find some mines with smaller tunnels and go in with two shields to try it.

The problem was that if there were ratmen or other living monsters, he would be in trouble. He would have to ask again for an undead only mine. Metello liked the idea and worked on a better way to use Lucco with that in mind.

He closed the shutters. Once in his darkened room, he chanted the Prayer to Lux and willed one half of Lucco to dim as much as possible while letting the other half be. Then, he observed. When using this stance in the mine, the [Acolyte] had already noticed that the floor and the ceiling were nearly as much illuminated as the front. He felt it was a waste of light. He supposed that if he could direct all the light toward his target, it would be more effective against the undead. So he worked toward it.

He shaped Lucco in many forms, watching the resulting light on the walls and ceiling. But the Lux follower quickly loosed himself in the experience in front of what he could only describe as beautiful light works. To further it, he willed Lucco to change color and marveled even more at what his prayer produced. It was still hard for him to change both form and colors together. It was good training, and he used that as an excuse to delay the work a bit more to enjoy his show.

Finally, he went back to his original plan, saying to himself he had to show that to Maria. After several tries, he chose two main stances he deemed more efficient light-wise.

The first was an almost non-flattened ball with a reduced lightened surface which produced a light cone, illuminating a bit of the ceiling and the floor, but far less than before. Metello thought the spreading light was still useful as the surrounding environment was more visible.

The second was his pancake form which was great to produce a nicely focused beam of light. It seemed more concentrated than the first stance but was worst to see around.

In reality, he could switch between the two by deforming a bit Lucco to adapt to the situation.

He went to bed, imagining himself hiding behind a wall with his half-bright pancake on the other side with a horde of zombie monsters. In this scene, he forgot to add the loud shrieks of the dying undead, but the slaughter was more agreeable like that.

Some hours after falling asleep, Metello's door opened without noise, and three people came in. The Lux follower woke up as one of the intruders held some soaked cloth under his nose. His limbs locked up, he fell asleep again.