The two days that Hera expected to wait before starting her trip turned into five. Silah took a few days off to spend time with her girlfriend, and Hera didn't mind. It gave her more time to get everything she wanted, talk to her dad, and make sure he was doing well. She even went to Risli and tried to get an idea for a spell that could help if she got injured, not a battle heal, but something that she could use later when she was resting. In the end, she got some suggestions, but the best way to get it was to use one of the A-heart rooms to learn a strong spell.

During these five days, every time Silah went to her house for a significant amount of time, Hera took the chance to go to one of the training rooms. Looking through the catalog, Hera decided to pick a spell called 'Luminous Life Litany.' It was considered an A-rank spell that had a continuous effect. As you kept casting it, wounds and other simple health issues could be fixed. It would work even with something like a headache or a weak cold, but any serious disease wouldn't be affected by it. The main attraction of the spell was that the longer she kept the spell going, the stronger it would get. Keeping the litany up for a while would also gradually raise the mana cost, but the spell also had a minor monster repellent property. While she was casting it, the energy created by the spell would drive creatures that were not aligned with the light element away. However, if a monster had a light affinity, the spell would attract them, which could be a problem. Light and shadow aligned monsters were a bit of a coin toss. They would either be very friendly and peaceful or very aggressive and territorial. Despite that, those kinds of monsters were rare, so a spell like the litany should fit her requirements quite well. Since Hera was already getting used to the idea of spell circles and actual rituals for using spells, she found it easier to figure this one out. The Luminous Life Litany was basically a hymn that had to be repeated over and over, but instead of using words and a chant, she would use mana.

Hera only took about two hours to learn the spell, and even Daskka seemed to be able to help her with it, making the litany even stronger when both were working together. The snake could also use it on her own, but after a few tests with Silah and the others, it became clear that when Daskka was using the spell alone, it would only affect Hera or herself.

By the dawn of the sixth day since Hera got the boots from Kahala, she was ready to go, but even so, she only left the room after lunch. Just because she was going on a big trip, it didn't mean that they should wake up at the break of dawn, and Hera was someone who enjoyed sleeping in. Around 2pm, Hera received a message from Amanda letting her know that she and her two friends were on the Kobold road and ready to go. Hera just told them to come to the Boothudurn doorway and wait there without crossing. She and Alex would be there soon.

"Alex, are you ready to go?" Hera got up.

"Let me just go to the bathroom before we leave," Alex replied.

Hera nodded and texted Silah, just in case her girlfriend wanted to give her a kiss goodbye. Silah just replied with a 'Have a safe trip. Try not to get eaten by monsters.' It was a bit frustrating, but Hera understood why she wouldn't see her off. Last night, before Silah went home, she cried with fear, worry, and frustration. It hurt seeing her like that, but Hera knew that she would never be more than two rooms away if it was up to her girlfriend.

Hera gave Helena a big hug goodbye, and soon they left towards the gate to the Kobold Road.

"Do we need to stop by the guild? I know you bought a bunch of stuff," Alex asked.

"No, we are OK. I have some potion bottles in my bag and some pills to boost our attributes. Speaking of which," Hera opened her bag and pulled a small plastic case with five mana potions, five healing potions, and a couple dozen of assorted buff pills. There was even a small cheat sheet inside it explaining what each pill did. Thankfully each type of pellet had a unique color, so it was easy and pretty intuitive to use them. The red ones increased one's strength. The green was for endurance, yellow for agility, purple for magic power, and gray for defense. There were five of each in the case;

"Oh, getting fancy, are we?" Alex chuckled, "Did you prepare one of these for the other guys too?"

"Sort of, but they only get potions. Amanda had that issue with the oranges, and I'm not sure if that triggered any kind of weird dependency issues," Hera explained.

"Dependency? Really? That seems like a stretch."

"I know, but I had this nagging feeling in my head that I should be careful."

"Fair enough."

They arrived at the doorway a few minutes later and crossed to the Kobold Road. Unlike what it was the first time that Hera came here, the tunnel was no longer barren. Instead, it was filled with buildings on the side passages. Shops, hotels, restaurants, and many others. In the middle of the tunnel, there was a railroad for the subway that they managed to bring here. Thanks to that, it took only 20 minutes to go from one edge of the tunnel to the other. Hera was making so much money with her shares on the place because each trip would cost 10 gold, and about 40 thousand people would take this path every day. Meaning that in a single week people would spend almost 3 million gold here, and that was just with the train fare.

Five minutes passed when Amanda arrived with her friends coming from the subway.

"Hera!"

"Amanda!" Hera gave her old friend a hug. Amanda was someone who always had a more alternative style, but now she seemed to have embraced that fully. She was wearing a full black getup. Combat boots, what seemed to be leather pants with a few chains going around her waist, and tights. A large black coat that went all the way to her chin but was shorter on the front and a black corset with a long-sleeved black shirt underneath. Her hair was now completely white, unlike the previous black that she was so proud of, "I never expected you to dye your hair."

"Me neither, but do you believe that this is like an equipment?"

"Really?" Hera asked.

"Yeah, it increases the amount of mana I can recover and gives me a small buff to my spells. But I have to reapply the dye once every two weeks or so. It's a bit annoying, but my maximum mana is increasing like crazy, thanks to this. I'm almost at 20k," Amanda proudly announced.

"That is incredible. Well done," Hera smiled and looked at the woman behind her, "Hi, are you the ones coming with us?"

"Yep. I'm Cristina, without an H, but you can call me Cris or just C. Oh, and I'm a hunter," Cristina was a red-headed woman, but the color didn't seem natural, it wasn't that copper or bronze shade, but a bright and vivid crimson. She had short curly hair and was wearing a set of green and brown leather clothes, the type that one would see in those stock images of what a hunter or an archer should look like. However, she didn't seem to have a bow anywhere. Instead, she had what looked like a large wooden paddle with several jagged pieces on the edges of the weapon. Cris noticed the stare and pulled up her oddly shaped club, "This is called a Macuahuitl. It was used by the Aztec a long time ago. I like this weapon because I can swap each of the blades out individually and give them some interesting effects, not to mention that it is brutal. Trust me."

Hera and Alex nodded. Despite it being a weird weapon, the moment Cris mentioned the Aztec, both of them realized why it felt a bit familiar. Daskka was hiding on Hera's waist, but the snake climbed up to her shoulder and started to taste the air. She then turned to Hera and told her about another person behind Cris.

"There is someone behind her? Really?" Hera asked.

"You can talk to your snake!?" Cris gasped.

"Yep, it's a bit of a special item. It only works for me, though," Hera explained.

"That's an item? Wow, you got some good stuff," Amanda gasped.

"I got lucky. Anyway, who else is here?" Hera asked.

"It's me," a man suddenly appeared behind Cris. He had a simple black get op that seemed similar to the Kevlar armor that Blue got when they first entered the MAZE. The main difference was his cloak, which had a few silver details on the edges, and his hair that was a dark shade of green.

"Wow, I didn't even see you there. How high is your hide?" Alex gasped.

"I don't have it. Mine evolved to stealth. Now it's always active when people don't know I'm around," the man replied.

"Really? How did you do that? I was looking into that skill, but very few people have it, and no one knows how to evolve it. It's perfect for assassins. You are an assassin, right?" Alex got closer to the man, but he stepped away and looked to the ground, feeling uncomfortable with all the attention.

"Sorry, that's Tim. He's shy, but let him open up to you that you'll hear him talking nonstop. I promise," Amanda explained.

"Well, we will have some time. You guys just got here, so it should take like, half an hour before the train comes again. Let's stop by a Coffee shop and talk. It would be good to know the people that will be traveling with us," Hera smiled.

They talked for a while and got a feeling for their new traveling companions. Amanda was a mage who specialized in snow magic, not ice or water, but snow. It felt odd, but when she created a small snowman that could dance on the table, Hera understood what she could do. Because of her affinity, Amanda could use golems to fight, and, worst-case scenario, they would just collapse on top of the enemies and suffocate them. She also had a few snowfall spells that allowed her to buff or debuff creatures or her party members. Her biggest spell was an avalanche, but she would only use it in dungeons since the collateral damage would be too great.

Cris was a hunter who specialized in traps and ambushes. More often than not, she would lure the monsters towards areas that were favorable to her, and when that didn't work, the hunter would take an almost tribal approach. Hiding in the bushes and scaring the monsters with loud noises and odd growls before attacking. When she worked with Amanda, the mage would create a snowstorm as cover to make her threats more effective.

Tim also worked well when hiding, but he didn't need the cover to vanish from sight. Because of his stealth skill, his sneak attack was deadly, and he even had a skill called [Assassinate] that allowed him to deal even more damage when hitting a vital spot of a target that was unaware of his presence. Doubling down on that, his spells mostly focused on buffs that could increase his attacks. He was of the philosophy that he should make a single attack to deal with any enemies, and it seemed like it was working well. The main issue with his style is that when his attacks didn't finish off the target, the creature would focus on him, and he had to run around while someone else attacked it. What he had to work on were long fights which were still a problem for the assassin. Most of his skills made Alex very interested, she always tried to figure out things on her own, but it was clear that some proper guidance would help her a great deal.

They stayed in the cafe until they saw the subway coming. It would still move back to the end of the line before returning, but since this was the second station, it should be coming soon.

"So, what's our first destination?" Amanda asked.

"First, we're going to a place called Sunset City. It's just a city with a couple of dungeons and some grassland around it," Hera explained."

"So, like Boothudurn?" Alex asked.

"Pretty much, but we won't be inside a mountain. But that's just a pit stop. We are going to cross a doorway there to a place called Flower Road, then we take a bus. It should run only a few times a day, so we might be waiting for a while. Apparently, there is a dungeon that has a time limit that we can do while we wait. We are going off on the last stop and then going to a room called 'Twin Mountains' where we will stay the night. Don't worry, we won't be staying underground there," Hera continued.

"I'm OK with staying underground, but like. I could really use a tan. I'm already pasty white," Alex looked at her arms.

"Oh, I hear ya. I wish I could have skin like Amanda. I would look great in that shade of Terra-Gotta," Cris nodded.

"What am I? A piece of fucking pottery?" Amanda gasped.

"What? You said that using food to compare was degrading," Cris said.

"Yeah, but that's just weird. Find another word," Amanda rolled her eyes while Cris shrugged but pulled up her tablet to look for names of colors that would match her friend's skin tone.

"Are we going to see a lot of people?" Tim asked while his friends had that little argument.

"Here and in Sunset City, yeah. After that, it will start to thin down. But after a few rooms, we will be closer to people. For now, we are in luck. We don't have to walk all that much. After about 20 rooms, then we are going to have to rely on our legs most of the time."

As Hera explained how the trip would go, the subway arrived, and they all went inside. The first part of their journey wasn't all that exciting, but Hera could feel her heartbeat. This is why she wanted to become an explorer, and for the first time, she would actually explore the MAZE.