“So, what you’re telling me is that the kid’s companion has the form of that new goddesses Divine Beast and she wants to make him her first official priest and you’ve been sent to make sure he has what it takes?” Alistair asked tiredly once Puck had finished meandering her way through her tale.

“That’s right!” The sprite replied with a cheer that belied the destruction that surrounded her.

“And you didn’t think to check in with me before trying something as reckless as diving head-first into a Dungeon?” Alistair continued in a deceptively calm tone of voice. Puck didn’t notice but his companion was started to edge away from the pair slightly as he recognised the signs of Alistair losing his temper.

“Well, no,” Puck admitted finally beginning to realise that Alistair was acting oddly.

“And why not?” Alistair prompted as a vein started pulsing on the side of his head. “That is why Larchius sends us to these places after all. So that we can share information.”

“It was just a little test, I didn’t know that the Dungeon was preparing to advance to the next Rank,” Puck explained nervously as she slowly floated backwards away from the slender but extremely dangerous man.

“Which you would’ve known if you had just asked me,” Alistair grated. “Like I said; that is why I’m here to give those who request it information.”

“Look, I’m sorry, I know I messed up,” Puck mumbled apologetically as she watched streamers of dark magic begin to shoot out from Alistair’s body as his magic reacted to his rising anger.

“Does that bring the people who have died and may die after this back to life?” Alistair snarled as he lurched towards Puck angrily who flinched away from the angry man.

This was far from the first time that she had messed up, but she had never messed up this bad on what should have been simple and relatively safe mission. She had just wanted to make things a little bit more interesting after months of watching Kyle learn new things but never really use them in a life or death situation and wanted to see what he was really capable of. Honestly, she hadn’t expected things to have turned out this way and she did feel terrible about what had happened however she knew that there wasn’t much she could do about it now.

“Thankfully we had been preparing to put together a large group of Adventurers to kill the monsters that the Dungeon had been preparing over the past few months or things would be even worse right now,” Rick pointed out in the hopes of defusing the situation, at least slightly. He knew all too well how difficult it was to get through to Alistair when he got into this state and while he was also angry at Puck, he knew that things wouldn’t go well for them if Alistair did anything to her.

“You’re not wrong Rick,” Alistair said, not taking his eyes off of Puck who was beginning to tremble under his angry gaze. “But that doesn’t change the fact that this is all her fault and I shall be making sure that my report to Larchius reflects this fact.”

“That seems reasonable to me,” Rick agreed, watching his friend carefully out of the corner of his eye. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be as bad as he had previously thought.

“But that doesn’t mean that I’m just going to let her fly away just like that,” Alistair finished making his companion sigh sadly.

Or maybe he was wrong.

Meanwhile back inside the massive barrier that Yuliah had conjured Kyle was beginning to stir and Yuliah decided that she could now stop chanting the prayer to her goddess and actually get some rest.

Unlike the spells that Kyle and the other students could use House of the Goddess was what was known as Ritual Magic which meant that instead of a casting time it had to be prepared in advance. These preparations were always included in the description of the spell and could be anything from burning some incense and performing a ceremony or drawing a set of magical symbols into the ground, House of the Goddess was of the latter type, requiring that someone encircle the area that needed to be protected in a circle with several passages from prayers used by the church of Asteria placed at specific points, requesting the protection of Asteria. The caster then had to ‘fill’ the circle with Mana to activate the spell and then continue to provide a large amount of Mana to keep the spell active that increased the longer the spell was kept active. Normally ritual spells would have multiple casters because of their massive MP cost but Yuliah had just enough MP to cast the spell and enough regen that she could keep it active for a significant length of time, which allowed her to keep doing other things for a bit before she had to completely focus on keeping the spell active.

Even now she was beginning to struggle to keep the spell active so breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Rick’s voice echoing inside her head. This was the advanced version of the same telepathic ability that Fi had unlocked which allowed a companion to communicate with people that they had created a special type of connection with over a short distance. As the air left her mouth the shining white building slowly faded out of existence revealing the massive corpse of the Thunderbird and their three saviours, one of which was currently huddled on the ground with her winged back to the crowd as she rocked slowly back and forth.

“Well done, you took care of that monster faster than I thought you would,” Yuliah congratulated Alistair. “But what’s wrong with the fairy?”

“She’s just reflecting on the error of her ways,” Alistair replied giving Yuliah a small smile that sent a chill down her back. Although he was known to be a very pleasant person to deal with by most people, he quite terrifying if you got on his bad side, no matter what your station in life might be.

“I see…” Yuliah muttered looking at him with wide eyes.

“Now then how is the boy?” Alistair asked deciding to change the subject before Yuliah asked any more questions, just in time to drown out a sob from Puck.

“Kyle?” Yuliah asked in surprise. “He’s going to be fine.”

“That’s good,” Alistair said, a relieved look crossing his face. As much as he might have been furious with the foolishness of Puck’s methods, he couldn’t deny that her mission was important and if Kyle survived long enough to become the first Priest of the goddess that was watching over him then he would become a very important individual in the future that would be a powerful force in the war that Alistair knew was fast approaching.

Now that they had gotten the pleasantries out of the way the tow professionals moved onto more important things. As Yuliah’s MP was regenerating at its normal rate once more she started checking on the other students and performing first aid on any wounds that they had, thankfully none of them were too terribly injured thanks to the hard work of Hal and Kyle keeping the attacking monsters distracted so even Yuliah who didn’t really specialise in healing magic was more than skilled enough to have them all back to their normal selves in a few minutes flat.

While she was doing this Alistair made his way around to the back on the school to check up on Prolo and make sure that he had enough ammunition to keep fighting. The golem that Prolo was using did have a few weapons that functioned like wands or staffs allowing Mana to be fired like a projectile and enhancing the spells that Prolo was using but its main weapons were the two cannons that could fire special ammunition that had been enchanted by Prolo himself. Each of these enchanted rounds was very powerful and even more expensive but their effectiveness was something that couldn’t be underestimated and there were even various types so that the golem could be used in as many situations as possible. The only problem was that the golem could only hold a certain number of rounds and had to be reloaded by hand which was why Alistair was checking up on him. Sure, enough he found an empty golem surrounded by monster corpses and a cursing gnome trying to pull a cartful of enchanted ammunition over the torn terrain before the next group of monsters attacked.

“Let me help you with that,” Alistair said making his way over to Prolo’s side. Like most gnomes Prolo was quite a short and almost frail looking individual which was why he was struggling with the heavy cart and as Alistair approached Prolo looked up and wiped sweat from his brow and accidentally also swept most of his remaining wispy hair into a strange corona above his head making him look more like a mad scientist than he usually did, with the strange harness with several bits and pieces of clockwork and crystals attached to it as well as the goggles hanging from his neck.

“That would be helpful thank you,” Prolo said gratefully as he stepped away from the cart. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to get these loaded. I haven’t actually sorted out the loading system properly yet, not enough time I’m afraid.”

“What did you have in mind?” Alistair asked as he took hold of the cart and started pulling before looking back at it in surprise. “Holy crap Prolo, what are these things made of?”

“A bit of this and a bit of that,” Prolo said evasively as he walked towards the golem. “I can’t just give away my secrets, now can I?”

“Never mind then sheesh,” Alistair grumbled as he took a stronger grip on the cart and started pulling it towards the golem again. No wonder the gnome had been struggling with the thing, it must’ve weighed more than the Thunderbird that Alistair had defeated earlier.

Once the cart was beside the golem Alistair started handing the individual rounds up to Prolo who had climbed up to the small hatch that allowed him to access the magazine for the cannons, it took them 10 minutes to get half the shells loaded because of how unwieldy to handle and they had to stop to kill a few monsters that decided to attack them much to Alistair’s irritation and Prolo’s horror when Alistair nearly dropped one of the shells on the ground which would have at least badly wounded them if not killed them.

When they had killed the monsters, they started loading the shells into the cannons again with Prolo telling Alistair to be much more careful this time and now that he knew just how dangerous dropping one of these shells could be Alistair immediately agreed to be careful.

While they were doing this Fi was looking down on her partner who was currently shifting restlessly like someone having a nightmare which wasn’t unusual for someone who had been attacked by a Psionbat which were known to cause these nightmares in their prey so that they could feast of the negative emotions that such dreams created. It was, however, somewhat unusual that Kyle was still suffering from these nightmares especially considering that the magically empowered prayer that Yuliah had been chanting over him was one that was requesting Asteria’s protection against fear, among other things so with Kyle’s comparatively high Willpower for his Level Fi would’ve expected that he would’ve woken up by now so there must be something going on.

The other students were currently gathering the corpses of the monsters that had been killed, both so that they could move around easier if they had to fight any more monsters and to make the corpses easier to process on mass. Some of them glanced over to Kyle every now and again with worried looks on their faces but Yuliah quickly told them to get back to work. She was starting to get a little worried about Kyle herself but if she continued to fuss over him now it would have a negative effect on moral, so she decided that keeping everyone busy was more important.

Just as she turned away Kyle groaned loudly drawing everyone’s attention his way, the young man then slowly opened his eyes and sat up, clutching his head in pain as he did so.

“Kyle, are you okay!?” Fi exclaimed as she saw the look of horror on her partner’s face.

“Yeah, yeah, I think I’ll be fine,” Kyle replied eventually between gritted teeth. “Just a really bad headache.”

“Well that makes sense at least,” Yuliah sighed in relief as she approached. “Other than that, how do you feel, you were out for a long time.”

“I was having a weird dream,” Kyle explained. “I was fighting against these strange humanoid creatures with a group of other people, including some people that I know but we kept losing again and again. No matter what I did I ended up having to watch the people fighting alongside me die every time and every time it was worse.”

“What makes you say that the things that you were fighting were monsters?” Yuliah asked curiously. “You know as well as I do that there are no true humanoid monsters.”

“In the dream Fi Identified them for me,” Kyle explained. “And they were definitely monsters. But why does that even matter, it was just a dream.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Puck said making everyone jerk in surprise before turning to look at the tiny winged woman whose eyes looked strangely red like she had been crying recently. “This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard of someone having dreams like that and I’m not surprised that you’re having them.”

“What do you mean?” Kyle asked looking at her in confusion.

“I can’t tell you too much,” Puck replied shaking her head sadly. “All I can tell you is that I’ve been sent to watch over and test you.”

“Yes, you mentioned something about that,” Yuliah said, narrowing her eyes at Puck. “You’re one of Larchius’ Divine Beasts, aren’t you?”

“That’s right, you can call me Puck,” Puck replied puffing her diminutive chest out proudly.

“And from what I understand you’re the one who caused all of this, is that one of the tests that you were referring to?” Yuliah asked as she glared angrily at Puck who deflated as she realised that she was going to get yelled at again.

“Well I really didn’t mean for things to end up like this, I just wanted to see how Kyle managed against a slightly more powerful monster than the ones that lived in the first level of the Dungeon but the Dungeon noticed me and things just got worse from there,” Puck explained quietly.

Looking at her reaction Yuliah sighed unhappily, it was obvious that Puck was repentant but that didn’t change the fact that she was responsible for what had happened. Then again judging by the way she had been acting earlier and the look she had on her face now there wasn’t going to be any need for Yuliah to say anything more than she already had, if the ‘punishment’ that Alistair had given her earlier wasn’t enough then the punishment that she got when she went back to report to Larchius almost certainly would be.

“Well there’s nothing much we can do about that,” Yuliah supposed eventually. “But I definitely expect you to help out around here for a while.”

“That’s fair,” Puck said unhappily. “I guess I’ll go and set up some traps then.”

“Alright you do that,” Yuliah agreed and Puck quickly flew away before anyone could ask her any more questions.

“Well that was definitely interesting,” Kyle noted. “What do you think she meant by other people having nightmares like the one that I was having means?”

“She might be a bit scatter-brained but from what I understand about Puck from the stories that I’ve heard she doesn’t lie,” Yuliah sighed. “So, I’d say that she meant exactly what she said; that other people have had similar dreams in the past. The only thing that could really tell us more was if we knew who any of these people were.”

“Well I suppose I could always ask her later,” Kyle decided. “So, what’s been going on since I was knocked out?”

Nodding Yuliah and Fi explained what had occurred while Kyle had been unconscious and answered the following questions patiently.

“Well I’m glad that things worked out,” Kyle sighed. Things could’ve gone a lot worse.”

“True, if Alistair hadn’t showed up, we would’ve been in trouble,” Yuliah agreed. “But anyway, I’ll leave you two alone and go and check on what the others have been doing.”

As she said this Yuliah got up and walked over to the pile of monster corpses that the students had made leaving Kyle and Fi sitting alone.

“Well then, I suppose that we should have aa look at my Skills,” Kyle suggested turning towards his companion who glare at him for a few seconds before sighing and bringing up the screens that he wanted to see.

Skills Increased

Acrobatics-Mastery: Proficiency Level 7-11% to next Proficiency Level

Increases dodge chance by 12%

Light Armour-Mastery

Level 10-2% to next Proficiency Level- Two Bonuses available to purchase.

Increases Magic Defence provided by Light Armour by 10%

Subskill of Psychic Prowess Unlocked!

Resilient Mind- Increases your resistance to Mental Attacks by 10%

“Well the new Subskill certainly looks interesting,” Kyle said ignoring the irritated expression that was still on his companion’s face. “The increases to my Acrobatics and Light Armour Mastery Skills should be helpful as well.”

“Is this really what you want to be doing right now?” Fi spat acerbically. “Especially after Sonia just begged you to be careful?”

Kyle sighed before turning to look his companion in the eyes, it wasn’t that he didn’t understand or even disagree with what she was trying to say but dwelling on what had happened wouldn’t help them if another group of monsters attacked them again.

“I’ll be happy to listen to any complaints anyone has about my actions later,” he told her firmly. “But for now, knowing exactly what I’m capable of is more important.”

“I guess that you’re right,” Fi grumbled, she was pretty sure that Alistair would be able to handle anything that attacked them but he wasn’t actually present right now and had been away for almost half an hour now so she couldn’t deny the possibility that Kyle would have to fight again as much as she might like to. “But just know that we’re all angry with how reckless you were, and I also expect you to call your parents and let them know that you’re okay. I don’t want them to hear about this from someone else.”

“Yeah that would be bad,” Kyle admitted. “Now is there anything else that I should know?”

“Well, your Chain Fighting Skill has almost Levelled Up again, as have your Psychic Prowess and Mana Manipulation Skills which shouldn’t surprise you too much considering how much you were using those Skills,” Fi sighed and Kyle nodded in agreement, he was very happy with how his Chain Fighting Skill was coming along now that he had spent the Skill Points to unlock the accuracy boost which allowed him to land more hits. “As for your spells, your Mastery for Mana Skin is really close to 100%, hell if you really wanted you could probably just cast it a couple of time while we’re waiting and that would be enough.”

“Yeah, not sure I want to use any magic unless I need to right now,” Kyle replied, cringing slightly at the idea. “My headache’s still pretty bad.”

“Fair enough,” Fi said before cocking her head as a strange sound like the chime of a tiny bell rang out in the courtyard.

Upon hearing this sound Yuliah started fumbling around in her robes before pulling out a small crystal orb which was glowing slightly. This was her own personal Communications Orb and a quick check told her that she was receiving a call from Galdon.

“Headmaster!” She exclaimed as she activated the crystal causing Galdon’s face to become visible within it. The old half-gnome was looking a bit worse for wear but from what she could tell he was unharmed just tired. “How are things going out there?”

“Well it could definitely be worse,” admitted Galdon. “I did manage to rescue Zerah though. She’s fine by the way.”

“Well that’s good,” Yuliah sighed in relief. “We’ve got a few wounded here, nothing too serious but any help you could spare would be appreciated even with Alistair helping out. The students have done a marvellous job but they’re all exhausted.”

“Understood, I’ll send someone over as soon as I can” Galdon replied. “We should have the monsters mostly taken care of before morning, but it’ll definitely take time before the students will be able to risk any trips outside of Greenhearth.”

“Believe me Headmaster, I don’t think that will be a problem,” Yuliah replied giving the old man a weak smile. “I think that everyone here just wants this to all be over.”

“As do we all Yuliah, I’ll see you soon.”