Zack kept his eyes on the blond woman, amused to see her blinking with disbelief. With the torchlight cast from behind her, it was difficult to make out her features clearly. Yet she had a decent figure, one Zack would absolutely love to see in better light if he had the opportunity.

“Who are you?” the woman asked.

“Zack Silverstone, Level 5 Shadower,” Zack said easily. “You two need a guide?”

Scowling from behind the woman, the Brutalist finally remembered his place as the Party’s Shield. He stepped past the woman, shield and mace raised. “I know exactly where I’m going.”

“Uh huh,” Zack said. “Is that why you just led your partner to a drop shaft?”

The man obviously hid a flash of annoyance. “The Monsters in this part of the tunnel are ours,” he said calmly. “You’re welcome to hunt the level above or below, but we’ve already claimed this level. It would be best for you to keep moving before you draw their attention to us.”

Zack snorted. “That’s a cute notion, but that’s not actually how any of this works.” The man had refused to introduce himself or his partner, as was the custom when meeting another Adventurer in the field. “Also, I was here first.” If this man was going to be that rude, Zack saw no reason to be polite.

If the man forgetting to defend his caster hadn’t already annoyed Zack, the way he casually claimed an entire level of Crackpaw Mine definitely would have. These two must be new to Grassea if they thought anyone could just claim a hunting ground. The man was a lost cause, but the woman...

The woman grimaced at her partner’s obvious rudeness. “I apologize for my brother’s blunt words. I’m Anna Ironstar, Level 6 Harmcaster, and this is Alan, my brother. A Level 6 Brutalist. You know the way out of this mine?”

So Alan was her brother? That simplified things. Zack slipped past Alan the Brutalist with three easy steps. He found himself a single pace from Anna. While she initially jumped in alarm, she visibly relaxed when she saw Zack’s raised hands remained empty.

“I’d be happy to lead you both out of here, gorgeous, provided you let me buy you dinner afterward.” Zack leaned closer to Anna, grinning wide. “Just you, I mean. If your brother wants to join us, he’ll have to pay his own way.”

The frustrated male gasp from behind Zack was followed by another deeper in the tunnel, though this was closer to a snarl. That wasn’t a sound humans made.

Zack spun and pulled both [Iron Dagger]s. “Hold that thought, beautiful.”

Four furious-looking Crackpaws Miners emerged from the darkness beyond Alan Ironstar’s fallen torch. That light had drawn them to these two Adventurers as easily as if they’d been shouting down the halls. This was why Zack didn’t stumble around in here carrying a brightly glowing flame.

“They’re ours, Shadower!” Alan growled. “Step aside!”

Was Alan serious? He seemed to be. “Have it your way,” Zack said.

[-Shadow Walk-].

As Zack silently activated his Class’s signature Skill, he became just another shadow cast by the torchlight.

The four Crackpaws charged together, but the narrow tunnel ensured only two could come at the Brutalist at a time. Zack slipped past the two in the front and the two in the back, then watched with genuine curiously to see how Alan and Anna Ironstar would handle them.

It wasn’t that Zack was scared of taking on four Crackpaws, or that he would refuse to help fellow Adventurers survive a fight just because one of them was impolite. He simply saw no need to jump into a fight that wasn’t his unless these two got in real trouble, and Alan, at least, had made it clear he expected Zack to let him and his sister handle these Crackpaws alone.

“Target the left one,” Alan ordered. “We’ll split them up and take them one by one.”

“There weren’t four of them before,” Anna said grimly. She slammed down her [Healer’s Staff] and twisted it, resulting in a dull golden glow that only crawled a third of the way up the staff. “I tell you, the torch is what keeps drawing them.”

“Well we can’t very well find our way out without a torch, can we?” Alan asked sardonically. “Now let’s show these Monsters why all fear the Ironstar name!”

Alan dashed forward at the same time the lead Crackpaw charged. He pushed into its strike with his shield and actually drove the beast back with his [Wooden Shield]. Now off-balance, the Crackpaw’s futile strikes were ineffective and haphazard. Alan brutally bashed it with his [Iron Mace].

Meanwhile, small fires ignited in Anna’s open palms, then merged into a single ball of flame as her palms joined. Summoned winds caused both her robes and hair to flutter as she focused her ire on the Crackpaws ahead. Anna unleashed an elegant fireball on the second Crackpaw at the front of the line. She spoke no words, but Zack heard the Skill’s name in his head. [-Burn-].

The lead Crackpaw stumbled into the one behind it as the one beside Alan went up in flames. The two in the back recoiled at the sight of their fellow Crackpaw burning alive, which gave Alan the opening he needed to hammer the lead Crackpaw with his [Iron Mace]. Each hit cracked bone. Four strikes later, the second Crackpaw burst into ash.

Two down. Two to go. As a Brutalist and a Harmcaster, the Ironstar siblings didn’t make a bad team. They certainly weren’t as hopeless as Zack had thought at first sight.

Still, he wouldn’t slip away until he knew they’d successfully downed the other two Crackpaws. Zack might not be as soft-hearted as Glenn, but he didn’t want to leave fellow Adventurers in trouble. And besides ... once all the Crackpaws were dead, he could ask Anna Ironstar to dinner again.

Unfortunately, the second two Crackpaws learned from the death of the first pair. They fell into a single file line and went for Alan, which put his big body between them and his sister. Anna couldn’t cast [-Burn-] through her brother, yet Alan Ironstar seemingly had no idea he was in the way. He traded ineffective blows with the lead Crackpaw as he weathered repeated strikes with his shield.

Rather than shouting at him, which could draw more enemies, Anna dashed fearlessly forward. She was risking an attack to get an angle on the second Crackpaw. Unfortunately, that led her to take an arrow directly below her left breast, one that punched straight through her thin [Cotton Robe].

A green health bar appeared above Anna’s head, then charred itself more than half black. A Crackpaw archer had joined the fight from the shadows, and Alan was in no position to stop it.

“Devilspit,” Zack whispered.

It seemed he was going to get involved after all.

As Anna dropped to her knees in wide-eyed shock, clutching the bloody arrow shaft, Zack moved silently in [-Shadow Walk-] for the Crackpaw Archer crouched at the head of the tunnel. This one held a worn [Wooden Bow]. It had already nocked a second [Wooden Arrow].

Behind Zack, Alan called out in genuine fear. “Anna!”

The Crackpaw was just about to feather Anna again when Zack’s knives crossed the dogman’s exposed neck from each side. Blood spurted as the Archer gurgled and dropped, its arrow hopping from its falling bow. Two quick backstabs finished the job, and then the Crackpaw was a pile of ash and a glowing purple Life Crystal.

Experience tingled. Zack reflexively tucked the crystal into his pouch before its faint purple light could draw more enemies. His impetuous desire to save his fellow Adventurers had put [-Shadow Walk-] on cooldown for a good three minutes, which would spell disaster if the other Crackpaws had heard this idiot Brutalist cursing louder than he should.

Yet Zack couldn’t just let that Crackpaw Archer put a second arrow in a fellow Adventurer. Alan looked to be purely on defensive now, mentally and physically limited by his need to keep the surviving Crackpaws from finishing off his wounded sister. He looked to be fading fast.

Zack jogged back to the battle, pleased to see neither Crackpaw react to his all but silent approach. Anna collapsed against the wall and weakly moved her palms. No flames appeared, and it was obvious she lacked the Blood to cast again. That blood was currently spurting down the arrow shaft.

Why hadn’t her [Healer’s Staff] cast a [-Flash Heal-] charge on her? Zack realized then that in dashing to the front of the battle, she had slipped out of the staff’s limited range. Careless, perhaps, but understandable when one’s partner blocked one’s line-of-sight while getting attacked by Crackpaws.

Zack slipped in behind one Crackpaw. Three precise strikes left the Crackpaw howling and downed with a severed calf muscle. That allowed Alan to brain it in the face with his [Iron Mace]. The Crackpaw dropped onto its back before bursting in purple ash.

Yet in his focus on the wounded Crackpaw, Alan dropped his shield a hair too much. The other Crackpaw’s Mining Axe swept in above his shield and caught him just above his temple. The axe’s edge sheared straight through hair and skin to smash bone. Alan dropped like a puppet with its string cut, knocked completely senseless by the blow.

Alan’s own green Health Bar appeared as he fell. It was charred well past two-thirds, far more than it should have from a single strike. Yet in a place like this, one mistake was all it took to turn victory into defeat. Anna gasped and fell atop her downed brother, hands raised in a silent plea.

The last Crackpaw raised its pickaxe in snorting, homicidal rage. That would have likely been the end of them both had Zack now casually slipped both blades into the Crackpaw Warrior’s kidneys from either side. The creature gasped, going stiff with pain and shock.

“Sorry,” Zack told Anna, just before he kicked the Monster to the ground. “I got bored.”

Zack dropped atop the Crackpaw and stabbed. Three more cuts put an end to the Monster, which burst into ash beneath him. With that, the threat to the Ironstar siblings was dealt with.

Now, he had to make sure they didn’t bleed to death.