“I’ll take the two in the front! Handle the one in the back, Mia!” Shouting as he ran forward towards the group of three goblins, engaging in combat with the two in the front who let out angry cries while the one in the back stepped away, readying a bow.

Mia dashed forward, easily making it past John and squeezing past the two goblins in combat with him. Her target now in perfect view looked surprised, not expecting someone to rush them in this narrow hallway. Mia freed her dagger and while the goblin was still surprised, she went for his throat, a would-be instant kill if the goblin didn’t react in time, blocking it with its forearm.

The dagger sunk into its arm, getting stuck as it clenched its muscles. Deciding it was best to abandon the dagger Mia back stepped away, pulling out her spare dagger.

“Ke-ke” The Goblin chuckled, smiling with its sharp teeth it pulled the dagger free from its arm, inspecting it briefly before chucking it behind him. “Keee…” letting out a low shriek it readied its bow.

“Mnn…” Mia was troubled, she didn’t know if she was able to dodge an arrow in such a narrow space, still, she couldn’t let herself be an easy target.

“Duck!”

Right when she was about to move, she heard John’s cry. Doing as she was told she ducked, the large sword of John’s flying over her head. A surprised cry later, quickly followed by a sickening squelch and a loud thump; the goblin Mia was facing fell onto its back with half of its face cut clean off. Mia stood up, looking at the fresh corpse, then her gaze rose, a few meters away, halfway stuck in the dungeon’s wall, was John’s sword. She looked back at him, instantly noticing the four piles of meat at his feet.

“Phew, made it just in time.” John happily spoke, stepping over the goblin’s corpses and walking past the stunned Mia. He stopped on his way to his sword, kneeling and picking up Mia’s dagger “See, if you had more strength, you might have been able to cut clean through his arm.” He tossed the dagger back to her “But it was still impressive how you slipped past us”

Mia caught the dagger, watching John as he continued to retrieve his sword, effortlessly freeing it from the wall. Her gaze then fell back to the corpses, wondering why he even requested her help. She sighed and started doing the one thing she could do. She went on her knees and started cutting into the goblin’s corpse, retrieving the small magical core inside of it.

“I hope this display will help you reconsider dumping everything into dex, “John spoke, returning to her side and opening his inventory, to which Mia chucked the core into before moving onto the next corpse “You need to spread out your stats more. Being fast and nimble will only get you so far, even as a rouge.”

Mia, with her back turned to the hero, raised a freshly extracted core fragment from one of the goblin’s corpses, the fragment turning to dust in-between her fingertips. She let out a sigh, hoping the entire dive wasn’t going to be like this.

To her dismay, the next few fights followed that same pattern. John would leave one enemy out of a group for her, finish up his fights fast, and then finish off the last remaining enemy, usually in a way to show off. He would then preach to Mia about her stats, her fighting style, where she should improve, and so on. It eventually got to the point where Mia’s only role in battle was clean up, something she had her own complaints about.

Due to John’s strength or rushing to show off to Mia, more than half of the cores would be shattered. Now, Mia didn’t know the exact value of these cores, and she was thankful she didn’t as it would just lead to her being more annoyed. She just understood it was a massive waste. In total they had fought 14 goblins, out of these 14 Mia only managed to get 5 cores.

Now granted, one thing she did understand was that without John she would not be able to handle these groups of enemies on her own, but the constant preaching provided by John made her a little less than thankful, the level up made up for it a bit. She decided to withhold spending any points, waiting for when she attained the skill orb.

“Next fight should I handle all of them? Might be good to see my fight in full for once. I can show you the joys of strength and constitution. You leveled up too, so you can put some in now to try it out”

Ignoring John at this point, Mia was focused on the map and a new symbol that was just around a corner, a red X, and wondered what it meant. Turning the corner her question was answered, a small treasure box was sitting in the middle of the hallway “Chest.” Mia interrupted John.

“And the- oh hey, nice! Treasure, maybe this is the orb? The princess did say we shouldn’t have to go that far.”

Mia nodded, remembering what Rowan taught her. Treasure chests in dungeons were often trapped and were required to be disarmed, this was another job for a rouge and as such she received a set of tools to do that job. “Got it” She took out a small box and trotted over to the chest. She sat down next to it, being careful not to touch it she opened her small box and sat it to the side, taking out a series of thin metal rods, some needles, and some hooked rods.

“Ooooh, is it trapped?” John asked, leaning up behind her.

Mia nodded “Rowan said, always trapped.” She leaned in closer to the chest, inspecting the lock while holding two of her tools in her hand.

“Hrm, Rowan huh…careful then.” John frowned.

Mia took a deep breath, she had done this before with some dummy chests Rowan had provided but this one was different, this one was real. What trap it had in it she hoped she wouldn’t find out as she plunged her tools into the small keyhole and began working.

Sipping her tea Athena let out a satisfied sigh of relief, it really did help keep her stress at bay. She raised some parchment into her view and quickly lowered it, swiftly taking another sip of her tea. The documents she had been receiving where a series of reports on an ongoing investigation, none of it good.

“That stupid dryad…” Athena grumbled “Why could she not just keep her mouth shut… “Ever since that day she has been running rampant, looking into what the dryad could have meant. In doing so she had started to uncover just how dire her kingdom’s situation was from a political standpoint.

The church she discovered, who she had been suspecting of getting ahead of themselves lately, had reasons for doing so, as almost every major noble faction was under their wing. To make matters worse for her the king was also in the church’s faction, it was to the point that instead of the king ruling his country it was more correct to say the church did.

But this was all unofficial, all in the shadows. To the public the king still ruled, there was still a chance to get a handle on the situation for the sake of her future, she just had to find out the how and why. The how was easy, the church had been increasing their influence in the kingdom ever since the new pope rose to power, three years ago during their surprise war.

The why is more difficult, the church is a branch of the kingdom of Gaia, they should not be able to act in such a brazen way in the first place and now that she thought about it… the war initiated by the church at the time… the cause was pushed to Eldaha…

Athena clutched her head, to confirm a few of her suspicions she had sent a letter to Gaia, to the head of the church to explain themselves. If all went well, she’d expect a response by next week, for now she’d have to settle for her own investigations. She just hoped it would make it in time.

She sipped her tea as another packet of reports was placed on her desk, the old ones removed, she glanced at them before looking towards the dungeon’s entrance. The monsters here were good experience for the hero and his pet, who should become a lot more useful to her once she gets her skill. It was a good thing, one that would be very useful if she had to take more, drastic, measures against the church.

She quickly skimmed the documents, leaning back in her chair she let out a groan most unbecoming of a princess “It would seem that might be necessary…just what are they planning, colluding with those idiots.” She opened her eyes, immediately becoming confused at the sight before her, her face illuminated in a light purple glow.