“June, leave the cracks!” The lieutenant shouted as swarms of mosquitoes flew down on the party.

Even with the speed of the elites, dealing with the creatures was difficult. There had been several bites so far—all minor wounds—and they were starting to stack up. Dallion had offered to have Lux help out, but the lieutenant had forbidden it, stating that it was better to leave that for after the fight than risk something harming the familiar.

“They’re getting away!” the woman shouted back. For the last minute she had been focusing on thinning the shoal of fish. “If I don’t get them here, they’ll merge with another burrower group.”

“We’ll deal with them later! Focus on the swamp!”

The phrase still sounded weird, but was a valid description of everything going on. What was bog transformed, patch by patch, into a swarm of insects intent on eliminating the awakened party. Under this intense pressure, Dallion had doubled the tempo of his playing and started to sing as well, just so he could keep up. His music senses showed him that his efforts were having an effect, but he didn’t feel it. As far as an observer was concerned, the party might as well be fighting in a hailstorm.

“It’s thinning,” Spike said, slicing waves of insects in the air. On this occasion, he was the one that had suffered the most damage, having his health pretty much halved.

Instinctively, Dallion looked up. Alas, there was no indication of any changes. The swarm was so large that it completely blotted out the sky.

“Not up,” Alera said, seeing Dallion’s reaction. “Down.”

It took a few moments for Dallion to realize what was being said. When he did, though, he looked at his feet. To his surprise, the bog had significantly subsided. Now it was at about puddle depth, going up an inch up the sole of his boots. Even June, who had been up to the waist in much until recently, had bog up to her ankle.

“Hang in there a few more minutes,” the old man said to Dallion. “And keep that music going.”

“June!” the lieutenant shouted again. “I need you to jump.”

A flash of resentment radiated in the woman’s chest. She didn’t want to stop her previous task. Even so, she obeyed, turning around and starting her dash towards the party. At that point, the party position shifted again. The old man let go of his weapons, his area taken over by his neighbors, Alera and Spike. When June got there, she didn’t slow down, running into the old man instead. Prepared, he interwove his hands, then gave her a boost upwards.

June rose in the air, spinning as she did, like a deadly top. With speed and precision expected of her, she drilled through the cloud of insects, creating a chimney like tunnel. Then, when June reached the top, the process repeated only this time with her falling down.

That’s incredible, Dallion thought.

I did say that there are elites with higher skills than a lieutenant, Nil replied. We even have one whose skills are better than a captain’s. Poor girl despises people, sadly.

Someone with the skills of a captain? Dallion was definitely going to ask about that, if not in person, he had Vend and Estezol’s echo to talk with.

“Second jumper!” the lieutenant ordered. “Skiv?”

“Got it!” Similar to June, he too got posted up into the air.

His method was very different from June’s. Not nearly as flashy, he relied on a set of rather large weapons—the closest thing Dallion could compare them to were rake heads—to make up for his lack of speed and precision.

After a while of being mesmerized by the aerial performance, Dallion looked back at the ground. The muck had all gone, revealing the brick ground. It was as if someone had drained the bog in the area and cleaned all the mud that was left. Back on Earth, that would have been the dream of every janitor. In this world, the muck itself was the creatures which in turn were the embodiment of filth.

The fight continued for several minutes more, just as the man had said. After a while the roles changed—each member of the party broke out, starting to specifically hunt smaller swarms of insects, with only Spike remaining so as to protect Dallion.

“I’m at a third,” Alera shouted. “Need some help here.”

“I’m down to twenty percent,” Spike shouted back. “Get someone else!” He then turned to Dallion. “Don’t worry, I’ve been at ten many times. It’ll be fine.”

Somehow, that didn’t sound too reassuring. Given that there were only a few dozen insects buzzing around in the immediate vicinity, Dallion decided to hope for the best.

Several minutes more and it was all over. Most of the party members were under thirty percent health. Dallion and June, though, were in their eighties.

“You can stop with the music,” the lieutenant said. “It’s over.”

And indeed it was. The entire bog had disappeared, leaving nothing but a few clusters of deformed plants and large clods of dirt behind. If Dallion hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed it possible.

“That was it?” he asked in amazement. “That was cleaning up the bog?”

“One of them,” the lieutenant replied. “And we’ve not done yet. We must still get rid of the cracks, and the plants as well. Then we’ll have to fix a few of the break spots.”

“I thought killing the cracks did that.”

“Killing a crack removes a crack. It won’t help against any deformations.” The lieutenant pointed at the spot where the crack had been.

While there was no trace of the creatures, there clearly was a giant indentation, as if someone had dropped a very large bowling ball.

“That’s the last phase—the cleaning.”

“The most boring thing of all,” Spike grunted.

“It’s not like you stay for it,” Alera smirked. “Some of us like to relax a bit after a fight.”

“Some of us don’t have any taste either,” Spike crossed his arms.

“Either way,” the lieutenant raised his voice. “We still have work to do. Dal, you can call your minion now.”

On command, the firebird appeared and started the healing process. As it turned out, its ability was very welcomed by the party. Normally, a cleaning of this sort would involve multiple area awakenings—the party would deal with one area at a time, then exit the realm for a few minutes to recover. It all depended on the task, of course, normally high-level sanitation work wasn’t this bad, requiring only a few—or in some instances just one—entries to get the job done. In this case, though. The condition of the house was beyond abysmal. The party members didn’t hide their criticism of the owners for letting it get this bad, especially since the foundations and materials were rather high end.

The talks quickly devolved into a discussion of homes and prices, which seemed normal according to Nil. Sanitation jobs were long and boring, even if Dallion wouldn’t call them that, so people tended to spend the off hours talking about the mundane things of real life, including dreams that might never come to pass. Alvera was trying to calculate how many jobs she’d have to do before affording a house of the type they were repairing. After some help from Dallion, who was skilled in game number crunching, it turned out that she might well manage to achieve her dream in about sixty-seven years, provided the prices remained the same.

Spike, on his end, had a dream of buying a tavern, mostly so he could take part in brawls every night. The rest of the people that chose to share had somewhat more realistic dreams. Skiv was looking to get married and support a family. The other youngster in the group wanted to hit it big and rise up the guild ranks. As for the lieutenant—his only interest was getting the job done fast, well, and without much fuss. It was as if Dallion was speaking with an accountant… an accountant that slayed monsters and defeated guardians for a living.

“What about you?” Alera asked Dallion. “What are your plans?”

“My biggest plan is to start getting some of my dreams done,” he replied with a laugh. “Seriously, though. I want to get into the twenties.” That was sort of a lie. There were other things on his mind, but there was no way he would share them here. “After that, who knows? Maybe become a hunter.”

“A hunter.” The old man shook his head. “That will be the day.”

“I know, I know. Hunters are born and made,” Dallion recited. “I’d still like to try at some point.”

“Kid, that has nothing to do with it. Two things.” The man raised two fingers. “Hunters can’t be part of a guild without special permission. And even the Countess can’t give you one of those. You’ll have to get one from the Archduke, or maybe even the Imperial capital. Good luck with that. Also, hunters can actually die.”

Dallion waited for some sort of explanation. There wasn’t any.

Don’t mind him, Nil said. He’s just bitter. Most people his age tend to get that way. You’ve already been on a hunt, so you know the risks.

What about the other thing?

The permission? That’s true, but there always are workarounds. Your gorgon lover isn’t part of the guild, but she does business with us. All hunters do a lot of business with a lot of guilds, merchants, and—

The city guard? Dallion asked mentally.

I was about to say nobles, but the city guard is an option as well. Keep in mind they are also one of the few who could legally do business with the mirror pool without getting into legal trouble. Do you want to work for the city guard? I would recommend against it.

Why?

That’s a conversation for another time.

“Everyone healed up?” the lieutenant asked.

The party members looked at each other. All of them were back to full health.

“What do you want us to take on first? The cracks?”

“The trees. Once we get those out of the way, we’ll get a better idea of the big picture. Stay away from the cracks. If they go active, all gather on me. We’ll make our stand there. No engaging them on your own.”

Everyone nodded.

“Dal, you’re with me. Everyone else, head out solo.”

Go back home, Lux, Dallion said.

With a sad chirp, the familiar obeyed, returning to Dallion’s realm.

I promise I’ll take you out again sometime. Just have a bit of patience.

The members of the group dispersed, all heading to their respective patches of plants. The lieutenant, however, remained still.

“You’ll be doing all the work,” he said, looking at Dal. “I’ll only be there in case something happens. That okay?”

“Sure?” Dallion wasn’t certain why the lieutenant was asking him for permission. There was no trace of sarcasm in him, just the standard emotions he had been with since entering the realm of the house.

“I’m asking if you’re feeling confident enough. You’ve seen what fighting here is, but so far, you’ve done none yourself. If you’re to get ready for serious exploring, you’ll have to learn how to do it on your own. When March asked me to take you on, she also had one condition—to get you ready for the real thing.”

“The world item…”

“Exactly. If you think things are intense here, you better give up on the idea of setting foot in the sword.”

“You’ve been there?”

“A few times during the first expeditions. After a while, I decided it wasn’t worth it. There are some things that money can’t buy. Crippling is one of them.”

Crippling… the term was rarely used, but even so Dallion knew exactly what it meant: becoming corrupted by the Crippled Star.

“These things are easy,” the lieutenant went on. “You get bit by a corruption tick and you’re done in a few weeks, months if it’s serious. You get in trouble there… you might get ruined for life, or even worse. So, do you still want to go through with this? You can always refuse March’s offer.”

“I’ll see this through,” Dallion replied. “All the way.”