“Respawning?” Eileen asked, “What about it?”

“How does it work? Are there any limits? What causes the respawn?”

“As far as we understand it when we die our soul is caught by the nearest temple. The magic inside the holy building reconstructs our body according to the blueprint registered within the system.

“Is there anything it can’t regenerate?”

“It heals injuries and cures sickness, disease, poison, and curses. However, it cannot remove negative status conditions related to hunger, thirst, fatigue, or aging so if a person dies of starvation, they often get stuck in a cycle of painful death.”

“That sounds…”

“Terrible. It is. I’ve seen it happen a few times. The unfortunate souls usually reject their respawn after two or three painful deaths.”

“Wait, you can reject it?”

“Yes.”

“...”

“The respawn system is wonderful, but it’s not perfect. Sometimes… it doesn’t work right.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s best if I show you.”

Eileen stood abruptly and walked towards the door.

Ray stood up and followed.

They moved to a portion of the temple that Ray hadn’t seen yet. It was a large, open room in the right wing.

“We call this the Drone Chamber.”

“Drones?”

Ray looked inside. She saw many humans roaming about. Some of them were repeatedly walking into the wall while staring blankly into space. Others were crawling across the ground while some had tears in their eyes as they shuffled about. One person approached the doorway and Ray observed his face.

His eyes were devoid of light. He was nothing more than a living husk.

“Sometimes the temple reconstructs a body, but the soul doesn’t return. When this happens, a drone is born. Mindless, helpless, soulless shells of humanity.”

“How often does this happen?”

“It’s not all that common. We noticed a trend that individuals who suffer an extremely violent and traumatic death often become drones. If this is true, then how much trauma an individual can handle will be different on a case-by-case basis. Some people will become drones for a simple stab wound and others have to be brutally mutilated.”

***

After several hours of combing the mountainside, they only found one cave and it was empty. They decided to set up camp inside and resume their search in the morning.

Ray was assigned as the last watch and she promptly went to ‘sleep’. Lexi wasn’t assigned a position in the watch order. She was busy cleaning up the dishes used for dinner while listening to the conversation between the four adventurers who were still awake.

“Let’s just go back. It’s not a big deal if we fail the mission and I’m tired of walking through snow and mud to find something that might not even be there,” Peter complained.

Jantzen nodded his agreement.

“Jonathan’s group failed this mission last time. It should be fine to go back.”

The two of them looked at Helen and Ven. Ven pulled out his dagger and a rag and started polishing it. Helen shook her head and motioned towards Ray’s sleeping form.

“I think we should make the decision as a full group…” Helen replied.

Jantzen frowned.

“She’s not one of us. That bitch is completely out of control.”

“She hasn’t caused any problems though…” she pointed out. “Her suggestion to search this mountain for a cave was logical and she pulled the cart without any complaints.”

Jantzen spat on the cave floor.

“She let the bandit-leader get away and then she hurt my arm!”

Helen sighed.

“If you kick her out, she’ll be the third guardian you’ve rejected. We need a frontline.”

Jantzen pointed at Lexi and smirked.

“We can just use slaves. A disposable tank is still a tank.”

Lexi flinched, her triangular ears wilting. She continued to scrub at a particularly stubborn patch of burnt food.

“What do you think?” Peter asked the silent rogue.

Ven paused his motion of polishing the dagger.

“I don’t care. I’m here to get training. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Figures,” Peter shook his head ruefully. “But that’s why I like you. You know when to get involved and when to stay out of it.”

Helen grimaced at the verbal jab. She stood up and walked over to the tent she set aside for her own personal use. She stepped inside and closed the flap, cutting herself off from the issue.

Ven sheathed his dagger and entered his own tent.

Jantzen and Peter looked at each other. They covered their mouths to hide their smiles as they laughed. Lexi’s ears twitched as she overheard their whispering that they obviously thought was quiet enough for her not to notice.

It was a typical human mistake. Her hearing was at least as good as a normal human's.

Well, they likely just didn’t care if she heard.

“Ready?” Jantzen asked as they quietly stood up and started tiptoeing towards Ray’s tent.

Lexi’s ears twitched and her tail started waving back and forth as she glared at the two of them.

Jantzen withdrew a shining dagger from his enchanted bag. Peter snorted and covered his mouth to prevent himself from laughing out loud. They carefully pushed aside the tent flap and crawled inside.

Lexi wanted to call out, but she remembered Ray’s request from earlier.

She was supposed to ignore it.

But how could she stand by and watch this happen? Even if Ray would regenerate, Lexi didn’t have that power, nor would she respawn if she died.

Lexi inched over and peeked through the tent flap. She saw Peter poised with a dagger held over Ray’s heart while Jantzen was holding the dagger as if to cut her throat. The two of them met each other’s eyes and silently counted together.

One. Two. Three!

On three, they both thrust their daggers into the unconscious woman and Lexi averted her eyes. She covered her mouth to muffle her scream. Tears formed at the edge of her vision and she started to back away from the tent. She tripped over a rock that had been used as a bench and crashed into the portable kitchen that was still set up.

She frantically pushed herself back to her feet and looked towards the exit to the cave. She needed to get out of here. It took several minutes for Ray to regenerate when she had exploded and, without her protection, she was at the mercy of humans.

That was the worst possible place she could ever be.

Lexi started to run when Jantzen and Peter emerged from the tent and blocked her path. They both looked alarmed but they breathed a sigh of relief as they realized it was just the catgirl. They raised their now bloodstained daggers and stalked towards her with sadistic grins.

“Now that the bitch is gone, we can finally deal with the runaway trash. When she respawns, we’ll just tell her it was a sneak attack and she died first. Her poor, poor slave died and got eaten by a monster! Since she isn’t a human, she’s gone for good!”

Jantzen chortled merrily, the flaps of his chin dancing up and down like waves in the ocean.

Lexi looked around for a place to run. She saw Helen’s tent flap twitch and her desperate eyes met the eyes peeking out from behind the canvas. Helen shook her head apologetically and closed the flap once more.

The two monsters stalked towards her with their daggers poised to strike. Lexi took the combat stance she had been practicing. She stepped back with her left leg and bent her knees slightly. She ignored the rattling of the chain as it slid across the ground while she tested her balance by lightly bouncing on her toes.

They were between her and the exit. No one was coming to help her. If she died, it was over. This was the moment of truth. This was one of the moments Lexi had been training for.

It was two on one, but neither of them were martial artists. The two of them refused to study a martial discipline and stuck exclusively to magic. She didn’t know why they were attacking her from up close, but she would take advantage of their stupidity before they started using their badly deformed brains.

Before they could gain control with their numbers advantage, Lexi stepped forward and initiated the first strike. She punched out with her right palm, moving through Peter’s virtually non-existent guard, and striking his chest with the palm of her hand. Her fingers curled in the shape of a tiger’s paw.

Peter’s eyes widened in shock as he fell to his knees, gasping for breath. His dagger clattered to the floor as Lexi twisted. Her left hand arced out to intercept Jantzen’s arm mid-swing. She smacked his wrist, sending the dagger spinning into the air.

Lexi bared her teeth and snarled as she raised her knee and struck the fat priest's weakest spot.

As he hunched forward, she smashed her fist into his jaw.

Jantzen’s eyes rolled back into his head and he fell over backward with a plop. Without missing a beat, Lexi took a step forward and used her momentum to land a solid jab to Peter’s face. She felt a tooth lodge in her sore knuckles, but the pain was worth it to see the hopeless, lustful beast collapsing to the floor with a bloodstained face. His nose was smashed flat, and he was missing a few teeth.

Lexi took a deep breath to calm herself.

As she felt her heartbeat start to settle, she heard clapping coming from the side. She turned and saw her one and only friend standing outside her tent.

The catgirl fell to her knees, confusion warring with joy. She knew Ray would recover. She had seen her recover from a far worse injury just earlier that day.

Even so, it was still shocking. She was now standing there, perfectly fine. She had a small tear in her shirt over her heart and there was some wet blood soaked into the fabric, but there were no injuries.

“H..huh…?” Lexi spluttered.

Tears finally began to fall as the tension left her body and the reality of everything that just occurred set in.

Ray’s smile widened as she stepped forward and embraced her.

“Good job,” she whispered to the young catgirl.

“Thank you…”

After a full minute, Ray released her and stepped back. Lexi sniffled a bit as she wiped the tears from her eyes. She took a deep breath to calm her rattled emotions.

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you let them go this far?”

Ray scratched the back of her neck.

“A person told me that I can’t judge someone for sins they haven’t committed yet. I figured I would have more justification in dealing with these two if they actually tried to kill me.”

Lexi’s eyes lit up with understanding.

“It was an unfortunate miscalculation that they went after you before I regenerated…” Ray muttered. “Sorry ‘bout that. I didn’t mean to get you caught up in it.”

The catgirl shook her head vehemently.

“No, it’s fine. You helped me, it’s only natural that I would help you. Besides, these two are as much my problem as they are yours.”

“That’s true, I suppose,” Ray agreed.

She turned to examine the two unconscious idiots. She reached down and picked up their bloody daggers, wiping the blood off on Jantzen’s white robe before she stored them in her enchanted bag.

“By the way, you can stop eavesdropping and come out, Helen!” Ray called out. They both heard a faint gasp from Helen’s tent before the canvas softly slid aside and Helen crawled out.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t do anything…” she whispered, her eyes watering as tears threatened to pour out at any moment. “I’m too weak to stop them.”

Ray tilted her head.

“They just got beaten by an untrained beastkin slave. What do you mean ‘too weak’?”

Helen shook her head.

“That’s not it. I’m certain I would beat them in a straight fight. The problem is after that. My father is only a Count while Jantzen’s father is a Duke.”

“And?”

Helen laughed emptily.

“I can tell that you have no regard for rank or titles. I wish I could be like that too. Jantzen’s father is a good Duke but he is also concerned about his public appearance. If I killed Jantzen and word of that spread, it would cause all kinds of problems. Even that could probably be managed, but Jantzen is also a party member. If I were to kill him for any reason outside of self-defense, I would lose my right to be an adventurer. I would no longer be allowed to train under the famous Blade Storm.”

“So why not resolve it like we did, without killing him?” Ray asked.

“Jantzen is also the party leader. Unless they attack me first, it’s still insubordination. If they reported me and neither you nor Ven took my side, the results would all be essentially the same.”

Ray thought about it for a moment before shaking her head.

“In other words, you’re too afraid of the potential risks to take action when it counts.”

Helen nodded meekly.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but I suppose you could say it that way.”

Ray reached out and patted the ranger’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it for now. Those daggers hurt but they were nothing compared to getting eaten alive by a roc.”

Helen started to nod once more in agreement then stopped, her brow furrowed.

“Excuse me?”

Ray laughed as she turned and walked back to her tent.

“Have a good night!”

Lexi and Helen stared at Ray’s retreating form with baffled expressions. Too many things had happened that evening and the two of them went to their respective tents to sleep and process it all.

In hindsight, Lexi probably should have realized that the person who was supposed to be on watch was now unconscious.