Miles looked at the gray silhouette swimming in the dark space of the orb. It looked like a dagger but was a bit longer than a regular dagger. Deciding to charge and see it, Miles let energy fill the orb while Coin let out golden electricity as the orb melted in his hand.

A pitch-black dagger, almost 40 cm in length and two fingers in width appeared in his hand. The handle was gray, while the blade itself was black. Black fumes were swirling around the dagger, giving an ominous feeling. Miles gauged the dagger in his hand, and he was satisfied with it. Since they agreed for him to take the second orb, he didn’t offer for Alex to take it just because it was rare. It would be an insult to Alex too.

“Good dagger. Although the monster was only low-tier, it was approaching mid-tier.” Alex praised with a smile.

“Hmm. Seems a pretty good weapon for my tastes as well.” Miles smiled as they returned to cook the chicken on steroids. They didn’t want to eat the wolf first because it was mainly in the Death element, secondly, it looked like rotten food already.

After cooking the chicken on fire, they started to eat, while Alex asked, “Have you ever wondered what your superpower would be?”

“Of course I did. When I was small, I would think about it all the time.” Miles shook his head. Following the tradition, his superpower would be similar to Merlin and Marcela’s. Maybe something even better. But he didn't have that opportunity anymore. His ancient gene got destroyed, and he couldn't awaken evermore.

“Would you want to learn if there was a way?” Alex asked while eating the ham of the chick.

“Not really. It would be a lot more devastating to learn that I have a super cool superpower. Now at least I don’t know what it is.” Miles thought for a while, then answered. He probably wouldn’t want to now.

“I would probably want to learn if I were in your shoes.” Alex scratched his chin.

“Finally found you two.” A voice was heard from not far away from them. Miles and Alex looked at the source of voice without any surprise on their faces. There, there were three people walking towards them. At the lead was David, who wanted to help them in the stronghold. Ever since they left the stronghold, Miles and Alex felt a pair of eyes on their back, so they were careful to not be stabbed from their back from the start.

“David, what a coincidence,” Alex said with a grin. “Care to join? We ate the chicken, but if you want, you can have the wolf meat.”

“Oh, no. Thanks for the offer, but I already ate. I am here for another business.” David said with still the same fake smile.

“And, what that business might be?” Miles asked without any expression on his face. He already had his new dagger in his hand, in a position that couldn't be seen by newcomers.

“Nothing important. Just passing by. I see you killed a Death Wolf from afar. They are pretty rare. Anything worthy dropped?” David asked while approaching his two friends. Their hands were empty, and they were only sporting light armor.

When they were near the wolf, two men following David walked to two sides of the wolf, while David was still in the middle, circling around the wolf.

“Almost high-tier. Must be hard to deal with for you two, no?” David asked with the same smile as he looked at Alex.

“Luckily my powers were able to counter it.” Alex’s smile was unperturbed too. He was still acting as if everything was normal.

“So I heard,” David said, and looked at Miles. “I failed to catch your name when in the stronghold.”

“I am Number 2 and he is Number 1,” Miles said without any emotion on his face, and no bullshit seeping out of his tone.

“Oh, you are playing that silly game too.” David laughed and said, “Although Milosh likes to act tough, most of the things he said don’t apply, really. In no time at all, you all will be using your real names.”

Miles and Alex didn’t say anything and acted cool. David looked at them and snorted. “Seems like you are ignoring me. Now, now, that is a little hurtful.”

“But since it came to this—” David said and without even finishing his words, he dashed towards Alex with the man standing close to Alex. The other man stood opposite the wolf and jumped towards Miles. “—let’s see if you are the real Marooner!”

Miles opened his eyes in surprise and looked at David. They were already aware of them when they left the stronghold, but Miles didn’t know why. Until now, he always assumed they were following in case they got something valuable, but he never thought that they were here because they somehow thought Alex was the Marooner.

Miles looked at the man dashing at him. They were sophomores, thus were stronger than Alex and him. Miles turned to run away as he jumped over a tree. The man followed after him with a sword in his hand, while a fiery wind was covering the sword. No one admitted to the Academy was a regular human, and although Miles and Alex were a tad stronger than others, there wasn’t too much difference.

Just the regular foot soldier following David had a rare elemental ability. Miles was holding the death elemental dagger, but against the sword in the opponent's hand, he had a disadvantage in range. Miles clicked his tongue and turned the dagger back in its orb form, before keeping it.

The man following him sneered and jumped towards him with a sword in hand. “Gave up already?”