“You froze my foot?”

“I’m sorry…” she muttered again.

The ice had crawled to the upper half of my calf. My foot was already completely numb.

“Don’t apologize, just move.”

I flared fire to melt away the ice while Blue Hair started an uncertain run. She glanced back and I waved her away. The four orcs were closing the gap and more of their allies crested the hill, though those guys weren’t as crazed with anger. It was more like seeing some of the arem students enter the labyrinth for the first time.

“Ugh!”

I tripped. One step and I tripped. Constricting pain enveloped my whole foot. It wasn’t frozen anymore but it still hurt. It was a sensation I hadn’t had to worry about since my encounter with Gauntlet. It felt like mana exhaustion. Another reason why many mages focused on their base magic. They could disrupt another’s mana flow.

And it hurt like the veil.

I waved her away, but she came back. “Just throw me your staff,” I said. She tossed it a few feet and almost tripped herself. Thankfully, the hill helped it come to me.

Has this girl ever thrown anything?

Even with the staff as support, the slightest sensation sent ripples of agony through my foot. Not only that, my right arm was throbbing. It held up when I wrestled against that orc, but now it was losing power with each step.

“Throw away the core,” she said as she needlessly cast frost bolts at the orcs. They dodged without missing a beat and continued to climb after us.

The new pace we’d be going wasn’t going to be enough. I wanted to save the minor core to sell later but there wasn’t much choice. I pulled the core out of the sack and made sure the orcs saw it. The sun was nearly below the horizon now, making its glow more apparent. The non-frenzied orcs seemed emboldened upon seeing it.

I reared back to chuck the damn thing as far as I could. The shards in the dead glowed as they rose and merged back into the core. I hesitated and tensed to support the added weight. Magic leaked from it in droves. Just a few orcs and it was already this much? If I killed the rest, how close would it be to evolving into a major core?

“Change of plans. Support me while I kill the rest of the orcs.”

“What?! B-But I saw something we might be able to hide in. A-And we couldn’t do it before.”

“They were all together before. Now’s our chance while they’re still split up,” I said as I put the core back into the sack. I tentatively held the shortsword in my right hand as I aimed with a knife in my left. “All you need to do is stall the others.”

Resigning herself to fighting, she cast her spells one at a time at the reinforcing orcs while I focused on the four. I used the hill to take the weight off my foot and threw knife after knife. After using eight, half of what I carried, I killed one and managed to heavily wound another, meaning a fight against effectively two monsters.

I swapped the shortsword to my left and kept them at bay. I cut at them and they swung at me. I parried and they dodged. Getting hurt and watching their friends die must’ve reawoken their wits because they didn’t charge without regard for their lives. Our back and forth went on, wearing each other down, looking for an opening.

There!

I lunged and skewered one through the chest. However, pain shot through my foot and I couldn’t hold myself up. I tumbled on top of its body as Orc Two landed a glancing blow on my back, knocking the wind out of me. I rolled, using the body as a shield, and sliced Orc Two’s leg. It fell backward.

I threw the body off and used my arm as a push-off point to stab the orc. I fell a few inches short of a lethal blow as my arm gave out. The pain was sharp. Something was fractured or broken for sure.

I plunged the sword through Orc Two’s leg and followed with a knife. It kicked me away but not before I dealt incapacitating damage. If it didn’t bandage up its leg soon, it’d die of blood loss. With effort, I got to my feet. Blue Hair managed to finish off the one I injured and kill one more. That left six.

“Fuck…”

I didn’t even have a sword anymore. Orc Two wouldn’t live for much longer but It’d be long enough for its allies to come. I picked up Blue Hair’s staff that I discarded and leaned on it to catch my breath.

The sun had set. Whatever the orcs feared either wouldn’t happen, or they were too deep in to care whether or not it happened. They were still far enough away that we might be able to get away and let my foot heal more.

I had the core absorb the dead orcs’ crystals. My hesitation disappeared when I felt the power coalescing inside. Carlyle gave me the task because he knew it’d be hard. Now wasn’t the time to turn away.

I felt a tug on my arm.

“R-Rainen.”

Blue Hair looked up at me with her wide sky-like eyes.

“We’ll be able to rest after we kill them,” I said.

“You can’t fight six of them.”

I pushed her hand away. “I can. I fought and killed seven of them.”

“T-That was when you weren’t tired!”

“Well, whose fault is that?”

She flinched and cast her gaze down. “I-I…” her eyes shot open and she looked up. “S-Something is coming.”

With the sun gone, the weak moonlight and stars were all that illuminated its bestial form and two massive wings. The creature landed on the hill with grace mismatched with its heavy, powerful body. Behind its head was a collection of feathers that covered the upper section of its torso. Instead of a beak like its cousin, the griffin, the monster had a snout, and a mouth filled with sharp teeth. It spread its flat, wide ears out as electricity sparked on its surface.

“A-A-A halora…” Blue Hair sputtered.

The monster’s, the halora’s, electric magic gathered at the center of its open mouth. I grabbed Blue Hair and dived as a powerful beam shot out and fried the two orcs it hit.

“Where’s the place you saw? Can we hide there?”

“It-It’s that way.”

She pointed behind the halora. Fortunately, after shooting off such a powerful attack, it took back to the skies and circled us. The orcs, now down to about a quarter of their original group, went back into their frenzied state.

If they were like that from the start, they might have won. Too late.

Blue Hair and I ran as fast as we could. As fast as two people, one injured, and the other without a shred of stamina, could.

Shit! I forgot to take the core out to absorb the two orcs the halora killed. Forget it. I can just get them in the morning.

The place Blue Hair was talking about was a structure embedded in the side of a hill right next to ours. Fifteen seconds, less if I weren’t hurt, was the distance we’d need. The smooth laid stone formed a rectangular entrance reminiscent of the labyrinth’s entrance. It was shorter and thinner, however.

The halora landed in front of us, blocking the way to the stone structure. It pulled back its wings and spread its ears. Blue Hair was frozen on the spot. I shoved her away and instantly regretted it as the pain from my right arm reminded me that it existed. I rolled from the blast. It killed another orc.

As the monster took to the skies, I pulled out the core to absorb the crystal despite the charging orc. The core took in the power right as it attacked. We fought for the precious orb, neither of us willing to give it up in the exchange. Whipping it with the staff did nothing and it didn’t care for the holes I left in its arm with my knife.

Spotting the core, the halora dived. It landed next to us. The fear that overtook the orc left an opening wide enough for me to slide my knife across its neck. With a kick that hurt me just as much, I fell on my right arm. The halora growled as it approached, eyeing my prize.

Quick!

I had to find somewhere to blink to. As my blink was about to happen, the shock from magic flowing through my foot left me breathless. Blue Hair appeared from nowhere, pulling the core free from my hands and throwing it in her clumsy way at the two remaining orcs. She helped me up. Compelled by instinct, we ran to the safety of the stone structure.

We collapsed, resting against walls, opposite of each other. The halora ripped the remaining orcs apart as it kept the core safe behind it. If I braced myself, I could’ve blinked in and out before the monster noticed. But I didn’t. I took a breath and used the wall to help as I moved deeper inside.

“R-Rainen?”

I ignored her. I conjured some fire to light the way. A fucking staircase showed up and I brushed off all of Blue Hair’s attempts to help.

“A-Are you really okay to walk down like that?”

I wish she would stop talking.

“L-Let me know if you need help…”

The staircase didn’t lead anywhere, just lower into whatever we found ourselves in. At least the hallway was straightforward. No twists. No turns. Simple. I liked it when these things were simple. Especially since I didn’t feel like thinking too much.

“You’re sweating a lot. W-Why don’t we sit here for a bit? You have some water left right? If you don’t, I-I can share some of mine.”

Why can’t you be quiet like you usually are?

“Don’t need it.”

“I-If you feel bad for me, I-I already drank enough. I’m okay so-”

“I said I don’t need it.”

At the end of the hallway was a torchlit room. The torch was ever-burning, so long as nobody moved it. They were in a large number of the rooms in door labyrinths. I wasn’t sure how it worked so I left it alone. Though now would’ve been a nice time to have one. My mana was spent from the blinks I used this morning before things went to shit and all the magic I had to use during that shit. And I STILL lost the core.

“What is this place,” I muttered, trying to get my mind off the orb.

“I-I think it’s a dungeon.”

I wasn’t looking for a response but I went along with it.

“Do you know anything?”

The usually meek girl seemed to grow an inch taller. “Y-Yes! The one Skychaser mentioned was the Southfront Labyrinth. I-It’s close to the Hundred Door Labyrinth. In it were lots of traps and monsters. The most common kinds were pressure plate traps and monsters pretending to be statues.” Before I could say something she quickly added, “Th-The statues were monsters. I mean, they were stone but also monsters. So they pretended to be statues.”

“I get it,” I said.

“H-Here, I just read about it recently so I don’t remember it that well.” She started going through the book she carried.

“It’s fine. Let’s go a little further.”

“B-But shouldn’t you rest?”

Something about her saying that irked me.

“No, let’s move.”

I ignored the rest of her words as I left the room. The simple hallways that only went one way now split into three paths, the hallways themselves tripling in width. Thick pillars held up the ceiling.

My fire wasn’t as useful as before. I could see a few feet in front of me at most. The torches on the walls acted as guidance, but they were too dim and high up for us to properly see the ground. I’d have to be careful if I didn’t want these injuries to get worse.”

“Hey, s-shouldn’t we rest?”

I didn’t respond.

“D-Didn’t fighting all those orcs tire you?”

Again, silence.

“A-And your foot-”

I heard a pressure plate click. It wasn’t me. Once again, I pushed Blue Hair away to save her, sending a wave of pain through my arm. But nothing happened.

“O-Ow… It looks like it was set off already. H-Hey, are you okay?”

I clutched at my arm and rationed air through my teeth to stem the pain.

“W-We need to get you some help.” She spun around as if forgetting it was just us. “You need to rest-”

“Will you just shut up?”

Her eyes were wide. “H-Huh? I-I didn’t mean to make you mad. I just wanted to help-”

“Help? I would have been fine if you didn’t freeze my foot.” It was too late to hold anything back now. The anger kept coming like water from a broken dam. I pointed to my arm. “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t gotten yourself caught by the orcs who stopped back in the woods.”

She stepped back. Her arms pressed against her body as she raised a trembling hand to her mouth. “I-I tried to hit the ones you were fighting with spells… I didn’t notice them until they were already that close…”

“And you threw away the core. The thing we fought and got chased all the way here for. We have nothing to show for all the shit we went through up there.”

“I did it to help you…”

“Well, your help didn’t help me at all. If you had just kept running then I wouldn’t have gotten injured and I would still have it.”

“I-I…”

“Just get it out. Stop mumbling all the time. Tell me what in the veil you want! If you want to run away, great! But it’s too late now. We’re stuck. We wouldn’t even be here if you could just kill a single goblin by yourself. It’s one of the weakest monsters that adventurers face, and you can’t handle them. Why then did you risk your life to follow me here?”

She was speechless. Her eyes were locked on the ground.

I should’ve stopped. But the anger kept coming like something was forcing it out.

“If you were a competent partner, then we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Her lip was quivering. All she managed was a weak, “I’m sorry…”

Fuck.

“Don’t,” I paused. “Don’t apologize to me. Let’s just go to sleep.”

For the first time since entering the dungeon, we walked back to the room in silence.