It hurt. It hurt quite a bit, Arthur could admit, as he felt the imprint of a boot etch itself onto his stomach, sending the Chosen of America flying backwards as he rolled into a sitting position, groaning and trying to keep his breakfast down.

“Stand up. You’re higher levelled than I am, you should be doing alright.” Arthur scoffed at the words of Shaun, said scoff doing violent things to his wounded stomach before calming down.

“Level has nothing to do with technique…” Arthur protested as he stood, his Vitality kicking in and allowing him to breathe easier, sword facing Arthur while his Dagger of Hunger was in his off hand.

Arthur was surprised when the next time he entered the Guild he was met with Shaun and Dante asking Einherjar to assist them in being a task force in response to Adventurer crimes much like how there was anti-terrorist task forces.

Originally Arthur would have probably said no, but the rest of Einherjar considered it a possibility in exchange for the offered training.

Even Arthur could see the benefits in being trained by Dante and Shaun, the two soldiers had a better idea of combat than Einherjar did, and Einherjar was specialized in monster slaying in the first place, if they were to help combat Adventurer crimes they needed to learn to fight Adventurers.

The only two sour points to aforementioned deal was that Shaun was Arthur’s trainer, saying that Arthur needed special attention compared to his teammates…

And that Arthur didn’t want to fight other people. No, that wasn’t quite correct…

He didn’t want to hurt other human beings because Arthur was lost on ‘how much is too much’ when it came to hurting others.

Even before gaining a LEV this was Arthur’s concern when it came to fights and why he rarely if ever got involved in a fight…

Winning a fight was easy; all it required was to make the other fear you, one decisive blow, to let the thought sink in. The thought that ‘hey, this person I’m fighting is serious, they really want to hurt me’ and that causes a person to give up much quicker compared to someone who has resolve.

Shake their resolve and end the fight right there. Arthur never went further than that because going further would be a challenge to his ability to hold back.

Shaun’s sharp green eyes signifying the use of his Anima turned off after a single flash, both Arthur and Shaun having to remember to not use their visual abilities on the other, both finding the other too disturbing when seen with said abilities.

“I know what your issue is… it’s weird, honestly, but at least as a combatant your problem is simpler.” Arthur nodded, his body beginning to spark with his Spark Step activating.

“For the majority of humans, when faced with adversity they run, or they freeze… there’s a small amount of people that would fight… you’re part of the latter, but worry about overly harming those you would fight.” Shaun said with his own sword coming up as they both began to move.

No words were to be said while sparring, but in-between short bursts of combat they could converse… while fighting, that was a big no-no.

Their blades locked, and instantly Shaun launched a kick towards Arthur’s shin, leaving Arthur to disengage and twirl to dodge said kick…

Originally Arthur considered taking the blow and attacking through the pain. He gave up on that after the first few times of being kicked so hard he flipped once or twice.

Endurance was looking more and more like a good stat to invest in considering that stat governed weight in a combat situation, Matt could barely be moved at all when he dug in, the only times where Matt’s defence wasn’t entirely perfect was against Demon Lords, especially those much larger such as the Rusted King’s second phase.

Not only that, but Arthur’s Strength stat was lower than Shaun’s, only seemingly matching the Guild Leader in strength due to the level difference as well as Arthur’s higher Dexterity stat.

During the whirling motion Arthur struck out with the Dagger of Hunger, recalling the advice he was given to make only light slashes or ending blows with his Dagger.

It made sense, even if his Dagger was the ‘strongest’ weapon he had, it didn’t have range… though Arthur wondered about that.

What if they fought a giant monster, how would they cut through it, death by a thousand cuts, or a technique to cut further into the enemy, there were all sorts of-

“You keep losing focus.” Arthur heard as Shaun raised his left hand, grabbing Arthur’s forearm and using that as leverage to throw the younger fighter across their sparring room.

Arthur winced at the uncomfortable feeling in his shoulder from being manhandled like that before twisting in mid-air to land softly upon his feet.

Again, stats had some awesome effects.

“Sorry… I just keep thinking about the Dungeon.” Arthur admitted, and Shaun sighed, dismissing his sword which Arthur was certain was another Anima, making Shaun one of those people with multiple Animae…

People who contemplated ending their lives… not that Arthur knew that bit of information, with Shaun issuing an order to classify that information…

It would certainly change how people look at these people who have ‘bonus’ abilities.

People with two Animae were not extremely rare, especially in America where suicide was one of the leading causes of death… and it’s pretty likely that for every few that think of it, there’s at least one that would carry it out.

Those with one Anima on occasion complained about ‘unfairness’ but they were eventually ignored when people noticed that having two Animae didn’t automatically mean stronger, and everyone with two Animae had issues.

Of course, it was also a bit hard to make the argument that two Animae was not a boost when the ‘strongest’ Adventurer had two, Shaun considered as he looked at Arthur.

“I get that the Dungeon is your focus, but we need to move that to this. Rather, we really need to work on controlling your strength.” Arthur winced at that, looking at Shaun who rolled up his sleeve showing a slowly healing bruise.

Said bruise was caused when Shaun tried to provoke Arthur with a fight or flight response to nearly dying.

The result that Shaun was launched into a wall by a kick aimed for his skull, only his guard kept Shaun from having a concussion or getting knocked out, maybe even worse.

And ever since that attack Shaun had been trying to get Arthur to do it again, to disappointing results.

“You hold back too much, or not at all… we’re looking for a point in the middle reaching the point of being able to ‘almost’ kill. But you’re having issues with this, why?” Arthur looked away at this question, knowing that Shaun wanted an actual explanation.

Shaun had looked into everything he could for one Arthur Clive, finding no hint of a reason why Arthur would think like this… why Arthur would scare others into not fighting him, for their safety.

Arthur was strong, Shaun was well aware that despite being more skilled Arthur could likely fight Shaun to a standstill, Arthur having a slight advantage between the two…

And yet Shaun hadn’t lost a single spar between them?

They had already been doing this for almost a week, before Einherjar entered the Dungeon, and after, for an hour each time, hoping to get Einherjar ready quickly.

The other members of Einherjar were having much better results in Shaun’s opinion, Michael and John especially, the first because he could easily aim for crippling blows instead of killing, and John because his weapon was blunt, and his strength stat low.

For Matt and Alice, they were a bit overboard in their attacks, but none that would outright kill someone unless said attacks hit someone in the head… though they’d definitely have a broken bone or two.

Emilia was an outlier in that she seemingly knew how to fight with her knives to disable in the first place, oddly comfortable sparring against Dante which further got Shaun questioning who Emilia was.

Emilia was Russian, and comes from a rich background of some kind… knowing from Albert, the Russian Chosen/Guild Leader about the country and its system, Shaun was beginning to entertain the idea that Emilia either had military family members, or her family was on the other side of the law.

Either way, she was here, helping to fight the enemies of humanity as a whole, she still sparred with Dante like the others, but she needed less overseeing.

So with those members of Einherjar… Arthur was handling the training the worst.

But Shaun had the feeling that it would be like this from the get go, hence why Shaun was the one training Arthur, and the rest were getting training from Dante instead.

“I… I can’t give a specific reason as to why, it’s just… an instinct? That if I tried to truly hurt someone, something will go wrong.” Shaun couldn’t quite understand that.

People either reacted violently, or sheepishly, Arthur had all the makings of someone who reacts too violently to things, but was willing himself to do nothing.

“I get that, trained fighters don’t always just step into a ring knowing that they can hurt the other person, but… we really should have had some progress by now.” Shaun complained for a moment before sighing.

“Whatever, go into the Dungeon, we can talk again when you get back out. How close are you to the Demon Lord?” Shaun asked Arthur who was sighing in relief at not needing to fight anymore.

The fighting was doing wonders for his Skills, but you wouldn’t level up unless you… killed something.

Arthur looked away, careful to not show his expression at that thought.

“Around halfway through the area. As expected, poisonous enemies have started to appear, though apparently Vitality as a stat negates poison to a certain extent. Prolonged exposure would still lead to being poisoned, but with a high enough stat you could take more.” Arthur spoke from personal experience there, as if that stat was ranked for Einherjar he’d be in the upper half with Alice, Michael and himself.

Matt was such a tank he barely needed any Vitality, John wasn’t a physical fighter even if he could now levitate a sword for a while to use, and Emilia shouldn’t get hit in the first place.

“That would be irritating, scientists are still having trouble with those fruit you gave us, though we are starting to test using the wood element of magic to replicate it. If we get it right, then we should have a supply of fruits that can negate just about any type of poison.” Unsaid was that such a creation would be a major boon, and seriously expensive for such properties.

At some point through the sixth Area Einherjar had been given a fruit as a drop from an enemy, checking it out revealed it cured poisoning… which immediately got Einherjar to assume that poison was a key thing in Area six.

So far every time the Dungeon did something, it was for a reason, being given a way to cure poison in a new Area? They couldn’t have been more blatant unless they had a neon sign saying ‘get poisoned here’.

Disregarding that, the fruit, called a Green Core, was amazing.

A Cure-All, at least in regards to poisoning? High ranking individuals in politics, business, science, all sorts of important people would want such a thing because even if poisoning was such an outside-context problem in the real world, it was still a possibility.

Heck, Shaun himself tested one of the fruits after ingesting enough hemlock to almost entirely shut down his nervous system, then being fed a bit of the fruit and feeling fine.

That was terrifying feeling everything in his system shutting down, but at least Ellie was around to heal him in case it didn’t work out.

It wasn’t worth a whole lot, because anyone who reached the sixth Area would be able to find such a fruit, but for being the ‘finder’ Einherjar would be given a bit of a bonus at some point.

They had already paid back their equipment given by Dante after all.

“That’s great, maybe add something to the noticeboard that the sixth Area has poison, with a picture of the fruit. If your people can start growing them, maybe make it mandatory to take a few with when people start approaching the sixth area.” Arthur’s idea had merit and Shaun nodded, watching the highest levelled adventurer walk away.

As Arthur walked out into the main foyer of the Guild he saw the aforementioned noticeboard, which had a whole lot of advice and info, vetoed by the Guild of course in case someone gave nonsensical advice.

There was someone who recommended fighting Willow with Wood magic to make her grow so big she’d slow down, but that was obviously a lie meant to be a joke…

But if someone actually followed it, they’d be making said Demon Lord stronger rather than weaker, and someone might die from such a situation.

It was a joke, and anyone who thought about it would realize how crazy an idea it was, but… well, no matter how much faith you have in the human intelligence… as Einstein said, human stupidity is infinite, not intelligence.

So such a note was taken down and the person who said it was given a warning, the noticeboard now had said warning right above it, saying that false statements will be met with a fine, or after repeated offences a ban for a certain amount of time.

And you can bet that if someone was banned from this Guild, they were banned from every Guild in the country, seeing as the Head Guild Master for the entire country was Shaun.

It was because of Shaun, and that Arthur only really used this entrance, that this Guild was the most popular one in the country.

“Hey Arthur, come on, we were waiting for you.” Emilia grabbed Arthurs hand, pulling him towards the other members of Einherjar as Arthur looked at their linked hands.

With a small squeeze, Arthur let go as soon as they ran into the other members of the team, with Emilia giving a small smile, knowing that Arthur wasn’t comfortable with public displays of affection.

It always brought a bit of a chuckle/giggle from the members of Einherjar and some who managed to catch the actions whenever they occurred.

Stepping into the Dungeon Entrance room, Arthur paused for a moment to sigh while the other members of his team went up to check their status before entering the Dungeon.

Arthur himself went up, knowing that he’d see some improvement in his Sword Sage Skill, as well as Quick Reflexes and Dual Wielding.

Skills improved faster when used against a monster, making Arthur think that a portion of the Soul taken from a monster was used to upgrade whatever Skills were used to kill said monster, but it was once more just a theory.

A lot of Arthur’s theories were public, and couldn’t be disproven when there was a lot of proof that they could possibly be fact, not theory.

But the main concern in Arthur’s opinion was that one Skill of his that always caught his eye whenever he saw it improving by any significant value.

Soul Sight was his Unique Skill, something that gave him the insight to better understand how the Dungeon worked, as well as to better understand people he met.

Granted it was a breach of privacy… but he didn’t care much.

Arthur Clive

Level: 67 (C-Rank)

Class: Linked Swordsman- Grants one stat point to Strength and Wisdom per level

Gives Soul Sight (Unique) Skill

Anima

Dagger of Hunger

Cloak of Will

Anima Skills

No Change

Primary Element: Lightning

Other Element(s): Darkness

Personal Skills

Tactician IV (31/200) - increases Wisdom by 25% (total 155%)

Sword Sage II (198/300)- Any bladed weapon deals 30% extra damage

Soul Sight III (14/500) - Allows insight beyond mortality

Dual Wielding IV (56/200) - Greater use of two weapons

Lightning Elemental III (71/300) - Use supplementary lightning spells

Quick Reflexes III (86/150)- Increases Dexterity by 20%

Stats

Strength: 84

Dexterity: 100 (120)

Intelligence: 56

Wisdom: 115 (178)

Endurance: 56

Vitality: 84

As usual, Arthur had an extremely high Wisdom Stat for someone who had no business doing magic, and he was quite proud of it.

But again, the real improvement was Soul Sight… it had changed once more.

The first time it got better, he could start to make out more details in the souls of others, seeing bumps and grooves, patterns almost.

At this point, he still saw those grooves, but he also began to see strange visions when he looked at other people, nothing enough to stop him, but a short flash, almost like a picture.

He’d get them from time to time when looking at his teammates with Soul Sight, seeing them training with Dante, making Arthur wonder if his Soul Sight was beginning to actually let him see their memories.

He denied that option the time they took a day off and he used it on Emilia and saw a vision of her drawing a map.

It wasn’t just memories really, he was seeing flashes of his teammates doing something… something in particular.

He was seeing them use Skills… meaning that he could now, vaguely, guess as to what a person had as a Skill.

Though it wasn’t very accurate, and he’d also begun to guess that he’d only see the last Skill used, because the next time he used it against Emilia he saw her blocking a hit from Dante, using her bare hands.

She had the Martial Arts Skill…

It was helpful, but also vaguely pointless as he wasn’t fighting other Adventurers.

And that was around the time Shaun offered him that deal.

Now Arthur was beginning to wish he didn’t have another Skill that made it easier to fight other human beings.

But the blood would flow so nicely…

Arthur flinched away from the podium, getting odd looks from his team as he took in a deep breath, selecting the sixth Area to teleport to.

He wouldn’t talk about that. Not with his friends… not with anyone.

Now, little boy, pay attention, this is how you sever an artery.

No, it wouldn’t do to delve into those memories.

“Arthur, are you okay?” Emilia asked as they walked out into the Throne Room of the Rusted King.

“…I’ll be fine, just thinking.” Arthur shook off the concern as he led his team.

That was a good thought, leading, he’d think about that.

Leading his team was… interesting, for Arthur. He hadn’t originally wanted to be team leader, despite all the advice he gave to Michael he hadn’t really thought that he would be a good team leader.

For one, he was usually a bit soft-spoken, if he was in a group of people they usually spoke over him, it wouldn’t do to have a leader who couldn’t hold the attention of his followers.

For another Arthur was scared of being held responsible. When he did something, he’d take responsibility for it… but he didn’t want to let down someone who believed in him.

So for a long time he refused all such positions, maintaining that people shouldn’t have faith in him.

You say that because the last time you led someone-

No, nope, not thinking about that. Leadership, right, keep thinking about leadership.

“Arthur, Arthur, we going with the usual plan?” Michael spoke out, seeing a plant moving around with vines and a Venus-flytrap for a head as Arthur nodded.

The Man-Eater Venus was a higher rank monster in the Sixth Area, they could handle it easily despite it being the equivalent of a Lantern Brute for this Area.

Nodding absently to Michael, Arthur considered that it had been many weeks since he last thought about those enemies, getting lost in thought was a good way to avoid things.

But you can’t avoid everything

No, no he couldn’t, but he could try, and so he did, fighting the Man-Eater Venus without even focusing on the creature.

At least it wasn’t as bad a fight as the Poison Oak around floor fifty five, those things were horrible to fight for any prolonged period of time, and what was worse was that they gathered in large groups.

At least Michael liked burning them.

Where was he, ah yes, faith… he didn’t want people to believe in him only for him to let them down.

Arthur would never admit it to anyone, even under duress, but Arthur was a bit… stunted, emotionally.

His friends already figured he was shy or something, though they hadn’t made the leap to ‘muted emotions’ or something as drastic.

But Arthur could rarely find himself to care for others, if he knew them for long periods of time then he would care, but much like the time he almost broke someone’s arm inside the Guild Hall, he could be uncaring.

Arthur knew what would happen when he stopped caring, and that got Arthur to try and care so much…

But it was difficult, oh so difficult to care for people other than his friends and family.

It was why he was so against fighting humans, why he was so against the training Shaun was putting him through…

You know, slippery slopes and all that…

“Arthur, you’re being a bit absentminded, you sure you okay?” Finally it was Alice who spoke up, looking at Arthur who was staring at the dropped Soul Stone with a blank expression.

“Yeah, just thinking. Soul Sight evolved again recently, I’ll get used to it, but I’m going to be a bit out of it. Don’t worry though, I can still fight.” Arthur finally decided to give a little half-truth there.

He was thinking, but not about Soul Sight, though the rest of the information was true, he had implied that it was Soul Sight disturbing him… implied that it wasn’t those awful memories coming up once more.

You’re so mean when you call them awful…

“Oh, okay… so we just do the usual things, right?” Michael added, and Arthur looked to his second-in-command, his blank expression changing slightly.

“Michael, you lead for today. Like I said, I’m a bit out of it, better to have someone who is actually focusing lead the team for a bit.” Arthur said, making Michael blink before he shrugged, and the team moved on.

It was a bit difficult to truly focus his thoughts, and Arthur knew he’d need to stop for a while… meditating or something.

He did that sometimes, ignoring the ‘new age hippy’ vibe it had it was pretty relaxing when he did it.

They kept going though, with the rest of Einherjar making sure to look out for Arthur and make sure he was really still in the fight…

He still fought, quite well, but ignoring moving around and fighting Arthur was very, very silent…

Much like he was whenever in a crowd of people he didn’t know… they had thought he stopped doing that, but if it was relaxing to him, they’d let him do that.

They slowly worked their way up to the fifty fifth floor, deciding to turn around there instead of continuing…

It was pointless to continue as they knew where the stairs were, and Arthur couldn’t fight with half his mind focused at that point.

Walking back to the teleport point, and exiting the Dungeon, they looked as Arthur just stared at his own status page with a frown, eventually the other members of Einherjar looked to each other, each of them nodding as they understood they weren’t going to be leaving their leader like this.

“Come on Arthur, let’s go somewhere.” Emilia poked Arthur who blinked at his girlfriend for a moment before looking at the faces of his teammates.

As one they looked to him with a bit of concern in his eyes and Arthur looked away with a huff of humour.

Concerned, about him… that’s what friends did… did Arthur do that? He did, to an extent… he tried. That was enough, right?

It’s not.

“Right, right… we going to leave the cars and such here?” Arthur asked as his friends smiled.

“Sure, a bit of a walk.” Matt said, giving Arthur a light hit on the shoulder as he walked past, the rest of the group moving as Arthur was pulled along with Emilia.

And thus the group set off, on a magical journey of self-discovery, accompanied by each other, with a background music soundtrack of some Wiley and later some Logic.

Arthur was appreciative of the music as they just walked around the block basically, head bobbing to the music as they walked…

Though he notably felt a bit uncomfortable when a certain song came on, a song named after the National Suicide Prevention Line… no one caught it though.

But he was notably a bit more relaxed when they ended up at the Guild again, with Arthur sighing in relief.

“I’m okay now… thanks.” Arthur’s friends would joke about it, but right now they felt that it would not be appreciated in the slightest, so they just kept quiet.

Arthur left, using his motorbike to end up at his house, taking a moment to ruffle his sisters hair and blow a raspberry on his younger brother’s stomach, greeting his mother and father before he ended up in his room.

Arthur sat down on his bed, looking across from his room, thinking, being a bit calmer about his thoughts…

Though seeing the empty bed across from him kept him from having calm thoughts… wondering where that elder brother of his was at the moment.

Meanwhile, across the city Eddie was forced to dodge a hit from his boss after he almost sneezed on Mourn.

Arthur sighed, lying down, only after putting on a song to meditate to he got lost in his thoughts once more…

Arthur had to think… he was the Chosen of America, the hope of humanity… so why was he such a horrible person?

Are you really horrible? No one thinks of themselves as horrible

No, it was possible to think of oneself as horrible… after all, Arthur had hurt people, he knew that was wrong.

You’ve hurt plenty, what’s a few more?

Arthur had hurt many. But he didn’t hurt people anymore.

But it was so much fun, you enjoyed it.

Arthur probably did enjoy it. But he also knew that he shouldn’t enjoy it.

So what if you enjoy it, you know that you aren’t quite right in the head.

He probably wasn’t… no, he definitely wasn’t.

Opening his eyes, Arthur looked to his nearby full length mirror, and for a moment his eyes flashed purple.

And deep inside his soul, the whispers echoed as his horribly cracked soul grinded on itself as he stared with wide eyes.

Arthur was sure… no normal human had a soul like that.

Arthur Clive

Level: 68 (C-Rank)

Class: Linked Swordsman- Grants one stat point to Strength and Wisdom per level

Gives Soul Sight (Unique) Skill

Anima

Dagger of Hunger

Cloak of Will

Anima Skills

No Change

Primary Element: Lightning

Other Element(s): Darkness

Personal Skills

Tactician IV (32/200) - increases Wisdom by 25% (total 155%)

Sword Sage II (206/300)- Any bladed weapon deals 30% extra damage

Soul Sight III (23/500) - Allows insight beyond mortality

Dual Wielding IV (67/200) - Greater use of two weapons

Lightning Elemental III (73/300) - Use supplementary lightning spells

Quick Reflexes III (92/150)- Increases Dexterity by 20%

Stats

Strength: 85

Dexterity: 102 (122)

Intelligence: 56

Wisdom: 118 (182)

Endurance: 56

Vitality: 85