Glenn held back a grin that he knew would only make Becka more annoyed. He and walked to the cliffs, arms out. “Just drop. I’ll catch you.”

“But what if you fumble the catch?”

“It’s not even that far,” he assured her. “You could jump down on your own and be just fine.”

Becka bit her lip and then rose into a crouch. “All ... all right.” Then, her eyes widened and she dropped into a crouch again. “Behind you!”

Glenn spun just in time to see a Moss Beast literally growing anew out of leaves and dirt. Just as he’d feared, it had burrowed into the earth during the night and covered its sleeping place with leaves and sticks. He’d looked everywhere for it and not seen a thing!

He didn’t blame Becka for not seeing it. He hadn’t spotted the motionless beast either. He turned to squeeze back into the split just as glistening branches burst from the earth, growing impossibly fast as they rose. Those branches intertwined in front of the split, blocking it away.

A [-Root Barrier-]? The damned beast had just created a [-Root Barrier-]! That meant this Moss Beast had to be a minimum of level 10, which was unbelievable. A Moss Beast that high shouldn’t even exist in Grassea. The Level Cap for the zone where Glenn had spent his whole life was 8!

Glenn immediately hacked away at the branches and sticks with his sword, but new wood grew across any he managed to hack away. A real Adventurer’s sword would have chopped right through it, and if Becka had chosen [-Burn-] as her first Skill, she could also incinerate the blockage with little effort. Yet he had only a [Bronze Training Sword], and she wasn’t a Harmcaster yet.

“Run!” Becka shouted. “Find another donut hole!”

That was when Glenn had a very desperate and very painful idea. The Moss Beast had just given him the escape he needed, possibly without realizing it. Instead of hacking away at the intertwined branches and sticks, he instead shoved his sword in the sheath across his back.

He then jammed both bare hands into the mass. Thorns poked as his palms bled.

His Health Bar appeared before his eyes, ticking down by slivers as living thorns and savage bark tore into his hands. Yet he’d trained to handle pain like this. It wasn’t much worse than the jaws of a Gloamwolf snapping down upon his arm, which he’d endured more than once.

Using a combination of his impressive Strength, balance, and his pure, unreasoning fear, Glenn used the newly created [-Root Barrier-] as a ladder of sorts ... a ladder that was primarily made of vertical sticks, not horizontal ones, and one that tore at hands and wrists with every step. Behind him, the sound of groaning, bending sticks told him the Moss Beast lumbered forward.

Yet Glenn kept climbing, scrambling up, as the [-Root Barrier-] continued to grow. The Moss Beast was stupidly raising its barrier in hopes of stopping him from hopping over it and into the split, but also, at the same time, creating a climbable surface that reached to the top of the cliffs.

Glenn reached the top of the barrier just as it burst into a mass of thorny vines. He cried out as they savaged his palms, and almost lost his grip thanks the slipperiness of blood. He couldn’t hop over the barrier without getting impaled on those thorns, but had never intended to do so.

Instead, he leapt sideways off the [-Root Barrier-] toward the cliffs abutting it. He landed hard, rock slamming into his chest as his legs dangled. The tips of his boots slid on slick rock. Becka snatched the loop of his sheathe against his back, grunting as she pulled futilely with her 4 Strength.

Yet the small bit of extra purchase she provided was all Glenn needed. Becka’s help gave him the extra push he needed to scramble up onto the cliff top. Becka fell backward as he fell forward. He landed, once again, directly on top of her.

Their faces were now incredibly close, her eyes a breath from his. She gripped him arms tight and laughed with frightened relief. “You are insane!”

Glenn smiled down at her, doing all he could to ignore the stinging holes all over his palms. “I just appreciate the soft landings.”

Below them, the Moss Beast unleashed another branch-bending roar. It stomped about in obvious fury as Glenn rolled off Becka, careful not to lose his footing on the narrow clifftop. He glanced over the edge. The beast stomped around below, gnashing its bared teeth as they gleamed in the faint light. It obviously couldn’t reach them up here.

“Cabbage,” Glenn taunted quietly. The beast more than deserved that.

The stinging was growing worse. He glanced down at his hands and belatedly grimaced in pain. The flesh of his palms had quite literally been torn to ribbons. Blood oozed.

Becka hissed from behind him. “Gods, that looks painful.”

He forced a smile and glanced at her, checking his Health Bar once more. It was charred down to almost two-fifths, but still enough to keep him alive through a fight or two. Still, gripping his sword with his palms cut up like this would be extremely painful. He could easily lose his grip.

Becka grabbed the collar of her shirt and pulled as if to rip it, then grimaced when nothing ripped. “Fine, Levos.” She shifted to stick out both legs instead, then leaned down. She began methodically ripping strips off the hem of her already savaged dress.

Glenn frowned. “What’s going on?”

“We need to bandage your hands,” Becka explained calmly, ripping in determination as more and more dress tore away. “We can’t have you bleeding all over me.”

Glenn swallowed and nodded. In the light of day, he could see a whole lot more of Becka’s legs than he was supposed to. Last night, Becka’s [Seamstress Dress] had fallen past her shins, but after all the gnawing, ripping, and shredding it had received, much of its tattered hem fell above her knees.

Glenn glanced down at his battered, bloodied, and muddied [Ring-Mail Armor]. He couldn’t easily tear it apart, and it would never serve as a bandage. He also still needed its protection if he wanted to survive a fight with two-fifths of a Health Bar.

Still, Becka’s dress was having the worst day of its life. Levos might be a stickler when it came to actually touching each other before 16, but He evidently made exceptions for dress ripping, so long as the smallclothes below were sufficient to avoid impropriety. And Becka’s smallclothes were quite nice.

Glenn forced his eyes to the Moss Beast below, which now paced angrily back and forth around the cliffs below. He soon felt Becka’s front pressed against his back.

“Give me your hands,” she said.

He turned, eyes on the beast, and submitted his bloodied, savaged, upturned palms. Becka wrapped. The pinch of very tight cloth only made the stinging worse, but Glenn clenched his teeth and watched the beast to make sure it didn’t have any more tricks.

Becka tied off the new wrappings. “Does it hurt?” she asked worriedly.

He shook his head, eyes still on the Moss Beast.

“Liar,” she said, and sighed. “Still, this should stop the bleeding for a time.” She leaned against his back, rested her chin on one of shoulders, and looked over the cliff edge with him. “That six-cursed Monster really doesn’t want to let us go.”

“I suppose we stole its child?” Glenn asked. “I mean, we did run off with her.”

“That rancid cabbage stole her first.”

Glenn reached up with one dress-wrapped hand to grip her arm. “I know that. I’m just trying to see things the way the Monster sees it. To understand its reasoning. Card wrote that the best way to defeat a Monster, in any case where you can’t simply overpower it, is to understand how it thinks. So if this Moss Beast believes we stole its child, it explains why it won’t simply leave us alone.”

Becka kissed his ear. “It’s nice to have a partner I can trust to know how Monsters work. That way I can come up with all our brilliant plans.”

“Thanks. I mean ... all I do is read. But I try to absorb what lessons I can find and use them when I can.”

“That habit is going to make you an absolute delight when I start teaching you what I like most.” Becka gave him a squeeze. “So ... I guess we follow the cliffs?”

Glenn nodded and stood. He offered his arm. “Hold onto my arm, in case you stumble. We’ll walk slow. I won’t let you tumble off, I promise.”

Becka slid her arm through the crook of his. “You really are something, Redwood.”

====

An Excerpt from "The Divine Laws of Balarel" by Preceptor Marcus

While not all in the church will preach it at Rest Day service, it is widely believed that the Ten Gods of Balarel created our world, its mortals, and its Monsters for Their divine entertainment. Yet having mortals constantly killing each other as they Leveled is not the challenge the Gods wished to observe.

Moreover, the Gods wished to prevent high-Level Adventurers who reached the Divine Level Cap from becoming unstoppable tyrants. They believed the temptation to seize power by force would be inevitable if not curbed.

To ensure that the focus of all mortals in Balarel remained on defeating Monsters, not each other, the Pantheon established and put in place the Law of Consent. This Divine Law, passively enforced by the power of the Gods, states that no mortal may cause harm to another unless both mortals first consent.

As such, while honor duels between two mortals who feel equally wronged do happen, open war between the three provinces in Balarel can never occur. This is not just to protect individuals. It protects the world.

Even Adventurers who have reached the Divine Level Cap and gained power as demigods can never threaten to topple kingdoms or destroy cities, despite their incredible power. That power remains focused on Monsters.

However, just because mortals are forbidden to actively harm each other doesn’t mean the provinces and mortals cannot compete for power. These contests simply occur in the arenas of social conflict—politics and spycraft—instead of physical conflict. While Landers, Aquarine, and Caelfall remain publicly at peace, each of Balarel’s three provinces employs a vast network of spies and information gatherers to maintain and usurp soft power.

Finally, dark rumors suggest members of the infamous and secretive Shadowers Guild have found ways to harm mortals without actively violating the Pantheon’s Law of Consent. Many suspect the Shadowers Guild has learned to exploit loopholes like the most seasoned of Adventurers. Therefore, the rich, powerful, and famous must still be wary of tricks, traps, or outright assassination by a clever Shadower.