Red explained how they met Reinhart during the labyrinth trial and their fight with bandits and the Lesser Ring Realm stag. He concealed certain things, though, mostly concerning his miraculous recovery in that fight. The boy also took the opportunity to inform them of his detection power.

Narcha seemed angry at the revelation. “You have that kind of power?! Why didn’t you ever tell us?!”

Red shook his head, remembering his encounter with the necromancer in the forest. “If I wasn’t forced to, I never would have told anyone about it.”

“That doesn’t make it any better!” she pointed at Reinhart. “I assume he knows it too, right?! You told him before us?!”

“… He figured that out on his own.”

This didn’t seem to assuage the warrior’s anger. Yet, she seemed to be doing her best to hold it back on her own. “Ugh, you… Agh!”

“Enough, Miss Valt.” Eiwin interjected once more. “This is not the time to discuss this.” she looked over at Red. “You said that we need twenty spirit stones to redeem the pill Rog needs, right?”

He nodded.

“We have eight of them with us.” the younger woman said. “How many do you have on you?”

“Four.” Red said. “I split it with Reinhart.”

“Really?” Narcha looked over at the knight with a skeptical gaze. “You agreed to distribute all rewards fifty-fifty with Red? You? The Reinhart?”

The man shrugged. “Kid’s useful. I probably wouldn’t have reached this place without his help.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Eiwin shook her head. “If you’re still intent on coming along with us, though, we will have to renegotiate how we distribute it.”

“Wait, what?!” Narcha stared at her companion in disbelief. “You’re planning on taking him along?!”

The younger woman nodded. “We need all the help we can get. Truth is, if it wasn’t for him keeping that other imperial off our backs, we would have probably died here.”

The warrior struggled to come up with a counter-argument to that. However, she still seemed reluctant. “You know who he works for, right? What if he’s just biding his time to betray us?”

Eiwin sighed. “In any other situation, I would also be reluctant, Miss Valt. Yet just because we are working together, it doesn’t mean we need to completely trust him. Besides, he also needs our help as much as we need his, much more so with Rickard and the other imperials still around. I trust that is enough of a motivation for him to not backstab us.”

“Hey, I’m right here, you know?” Reinhart said.

“When we were working together, he always agreed to lead the way and give his back to us.” Red said. “I’m sure he can do the same this time around.”

Reinhart frowned and just grunted in annoyance.

Narcha seemed to relent at the boy’s words. “Fine.” she pointed her saber at the knight. “But if you do anything, I’ll lop your head off, do you hear me?”

“Since when did I agree to anything?” the knight asked.

“You will take one fourth of the rewards.” Eiwin said. “Is that enough for you?”

Reinhart nodded. “Fine, I’m in.”

“Good.” she nodded. “Then let’s search through the chamber and the corpses to see if we can find anything else.”

Narcha and Reinhart nodded and went about their work. The warrior kept a close eye on the man, though, seemingly afraid that he might steal something for himself.

Red, who was observing from the side, didn’t move immediately. He was surprised with this side of Eiwin. The woman had always been very professional when it came to serious matters, but the boy had never seen her take authority and leadership in such a manner. She had even managed to convince Narcha about taking Reinhart along, a task that Red thought would be much more troublesome.

Eiwin seemed to notice his lingering gaze on her and smiled at the boy with her usual comforting expression. “I’m sorry, Red. I was too caught up in our discussion and forgot to ask about your condition. Are you injured?”

He shook his head. “Nothing serious.”

She sighed in relief. However, there was still concern in her expression. “I’m glad to hear that. I must say, though, that it was a very dangerous decision for you to continue on this trial. You would have died if you had been by yourself. You still might, even with us by your side…” she trailed off. “… Yet, I can’t help but be thankful for your presence here and admire the resolve it must have taken you to come. You’ve decided to put your life at risk for one of your companions, and that is one of the noblest things a cultivator can do. I can say that even Narcha admires you for it, although she may not show it.”

Red hesitated, struggling with how to respond. “Rog helped me in the past, so it’s only proper that I helped him when he needed it… But I didn’t do it just for him. I still want to find something here that will help me with my cultivation.”

This didn’t seem to faze Eiwin, who smiled in response. “That’s fine too. Narcha also has her own motivations in continuing this trial beyond just stopping the Empire’s plans.”

The boy promptly recognized what the woman was implying. “She is hoping to find a Parting Sea Pill here?”

Eiwin nodded. “That’s one of the first things she asked the spirit as we were exchanging for rewards. Two spirit stones were far too little for a pill that rare, though.”

“How much was it?”

The woman gave him a helpless smile. “A hundred Spirit Stones, and that is even cheaper than most Parting Sea pills we can find in the market.”

With a point of reference, Red started to understand how valuable these pills truly were. He had something else in his mind at the moment, though.

“I have another question.” Red said.

“What is it?” Eiwin raised her eyebrows.

“How did the two of you pass the last trial at the labyrinth?”

Red assumed one of the open doors he found back at that large chamber with the bandits was opened by Narcha and Eiwin and the logic followed that they would have fought a powerful monster on the other side, like he and his group had. The boy knew that the two of them were strong, but he didn’t believe it was to the point of being able to defeat a Lesser Ring Realm beast - much more so considering that Red’s arguably stronger and better equipped group of Rog, Reinhart and Rimold had almost died to it.

Eiwin showed some hesitation at his question, though. “It’s… Not convenient to talk about this right now. I’ll explain it to you after we’re out of here, okay?”

Red frowned, but just nodded along. Perhaps there was a bigger secret involved in this than he was aware.

…

It took them the better part of half an hour to collect all the spoils from the chamber, which they put together in a pile. There was the dark-grey core of the snake, which Narcha had extracted herself, over a dozen talismans that they had taken from the imperials bodies, some of which were ruined by Red’s lightning, a few bottles of pills, as well as a strange compass. Other than that, there was nothing else of value in their possession.

They also found the smashed up corpses of the bandits, but they didn’t seem to have anything of value in them. Or at least anything that survived the snake’s assault.

The boy remembered that the bandit they had interrogated had mentioned a compass that the imperials were carrying, but none of them found anything strange with it at first glance. What surprised the group the most, though, was the fact that these imperials were only carrying four spirit stones.

Narcha frowned at this. “This can’t be right. How could they only have four spirit stones on them?”

“All the stones we found were out of the way in the monster nests.” Red said. “Perhaps they were rushing along the trenches and didn’t really get much in the way of rewards.”

“If that’s the case, shouldn’t they have been much further along than people like us who took time to explore?”

The boy shook his head. “Not necessarily. The bandit from earlier told us they had killed a Lesser Ring Realm beast on the way over, and they would have a hard time sneaking around with a group of that size. They could have gotten entangled in a lot of battles.”

“I see… Wait, you guys spoke with a bandit?” Narcha seemed surprised.

“We… Interrogated one.” Reinhart smiled from the side.

The warrior seemed suspicious of his words, but focused her attention back on the items.

“What about these talismans and the pills?” Narcha asked. “Can you recognize any of them, Eiwin?”

Her companion picked up the vials of pills. She examined two of them in specific. “These are the ones they used to empower themselves. There are no markings on them at all, though, which makes me think they came straight from the Empire. I can’t tell you what they are or if there are any side effects. As for the others…”

Eiwin shook her head and put the vials back down. She had a bit of knowledge on common pills and magical items, but they weren’t her specialty and she didn’t have any way to identify them like Goulth.

Reinhart asked from the side. “What about the talismans?”

Eiwin looked over the slip of papers before pulling three of them out. “I can only recognize these.”

The man frowned. “Really, only that?”

“If you’re not satisfied, why don’t you identify them yourself?!” Narcha snapped at him.

Reinhart sighed. “Fine. Just tell us what they are.”

Eiwin nodded and picked one before showing it to Red. “You should be able to recognize this one.”

The boy frowned, examining the slip of paper. Finally, a few seconds later, recognition came to him. “A fireball talisman?”

“That’s right.” the woman smiled like a proud teacher. “As for the other two, they are both the same type of defensive talisman - an omnidirectional barrier. Different from the shield from earlier, though, they isolate the user from the outside world, so you won’t be able to attack or interact with other things while covered by it.”

Reinhart snorted. “Bah, what a shame. I was hoping they had left behind one of those golden shields.”

After sorting through the items, the group divvied them out. Reinhart took one of the shield talismans, one of the bottles of empowering pills, a spirit stone, and a handful of unidentified talismans. The rest was all left for Red and the others, including the core, which couldn’t be divided at the moment, and the compass.

“You can keep the compass, kid.” Reinhart said. “Maybe it’s a magical item that helps you navigate better or something. Seems to fit your profile.”

Red didn’t comment on that, but still accepted the compass without complaints.

The knight looked over at Narcha and Eiwin with a smile on his face. “So, my new allies and friends… Where to?”

Narcha had an expression of disgust on her face and grabbed the hilt of her saber. “You’ll be going to hell if you call me that again!”