Levi’s hand flashed out, stabbing up with Bristleblade into the nearest slime, the one obstacle between them and the safety of the wall. He pulsed his sword’s spines in quick succession until his little mana was gone, then whipped the sword out and got to work slicing the monster to pieces the old-fashioned way.

Irene and Peter slipped past the slime and positioned themselves in the narrow alcove of the door. Good. That'd provide them some protection. They'd be trapped if things went wrong out here, but they'd be trapped either way.

Finishing off the slime, Levi turned in time to see Centi fall to the ground, his many legs wrapped up in so many vine-fox tails that he couldn't fight back.

Centi sparkled feebly, but mental effects remained useless against Essence creatures. They didn't seem to have any sort of mind like regular monsters did.

Levi set to work slicing off the Vine-Fox tails, but there were too many. The Essence Slimes finished Centi in a blitz while Levi finished off the second fox.

Bladefin's last copy disappeared, leaving them with around thirty smaller creatures and the eight large ones to deal with.

If they weren't all so worn down from the lengthy prior conflict, it would have been simple enough, but they were far from their full strength.

Levi's next moments were spent slashing and evading desperately as the Vine Foxes gathered and targeted him with unmistakable aggression. Something bit his arm, something else slashed his leg—his armor was beaten to the edge of uselessness.

"Dad! This way!"

Peter's shout drew Levi's attention. Peter had cleared the area just in front of the door alcove, whipping his scythe back and forth, gaining a bit of clear space. Irene, behind him, was leaning against the wall as she dealt with the side-effects of her health steadily refilling.

Levi jumped over the last few Essence Hares, who predictably jumped up to bite at his knees. He swiped them out of the air with Bristleblade, only two surviving his initial slash, and none surviving his second.

He skidded and ducked under Peter's scythe, coming up within the protected circle, right in time for Irene to pour a restorative down his throat.

He coughed and sputtered at the unexpected assault, swallowed, then staggered against the wall.

"You need to track your health better," she reprimanded. "Here, drink this too."

Levi did so. "No need for panic, I still had over thirty health."

"And those things were hitting for close to twenty."

"I had it under control."

"Dad! Help?"

Levi blinked away the dazzle, fighting to stand with his limbs trembling like he'd just gone through the overwork of the decade.

As Irene fired her manabow, he felt more than heard the swoosh of power as it flew past him. He needed to move, but where?

The instant his vision cleared he sprang into action, assessing the situation in a split-second.

Peter's scythe had become tangled in one of the Vine Foxes' tails. He tugged at it fruitlessly, the others running in for the kill.

"Shortsword!" Levi sprinted past and drove Bristleblade deep into the first attacking fox, successfully drawing its attention away from his son.

“OH!” Peter dropped the scythe and grabbed the shortsword.

Levi glanced around the room for any remaining minions. Skarm and Tu were ganging up on one of the slimes, taking turns striking it while it tried to fire at the other. Becca, somehow having survived the entire fight from the shadows, came out to deliver a few claw-strikes to the last few remaining hares before retreating again.

Seeing how few survived was a bit of a sobering realization. Just because he'd run through a dungeon over twice this level didn't mean he could rush into things carelessly. He thanked his every lucky star that Irene was a medic. If not for her, this dungeon would have been the death of them all.

But with Levi back to almost full health and mana, the tides of the conflict shifted.

He was level 19. They were level 8+.

Once he no longer had to fight on the defencive, once he was only outnumbered five to one instead of fifty to one, it didn't take long to clean things up.

Then the room was silent, Becca padding out of the shadows to bump her head against Levi's side, Skarm and Tu gathering Ward's fallen body.

“Treasure room. Now.”

No one argued.

The minutes after the Essence fell and the treasure room opened were spent in recovery rather than an immediate assessment of their prizes. Though Levi saw glimpses of promising color glowing from the treasure pile, he first grabbed Centi by two legs and dragged his body into the safety of the treasure room, then went back for Diego. Becca sat atop the dead sabercat smugly licking a paw.

“If you couldn’t teleport, you’d be dead too, you know.”

She ignored him. Levi grabbed Bladefin, Tink, and Crackle, while the gremlins came back to collect Firelord.

Greg was too big for any of them to move, so Levi used Revive for him. The ogre sat up groggily, patted around for his oversized sword, then grunted in satisfaction and picked up the rest of Peter’s minions.

By the time the minions, dead and alive, had been moved into the treasure room, Irene had finished with Peter and moved to Levi.

Irene’s hands glowed softly as she ran her assessment skill over him. “You have an invasive presence here.” She pointed to his right arm where he’d been bitten.

“I know. I’ll be fine.” He knew his own body well enough to recognize when and where he was affected, and had by now obtained a solid grasp of his current body limits. The currently-quiescent tendril in his arm would be a pain, but though his health may continue draining and recovering for some hours yet before his natural resistances broke it down fully, Levi would survive.

Irene ignored Levi's protests and took his arm, dripping a few drops of a mana restorative over the bite wound.

"You know that's mana, not health, right?"

"Yes. They have very different colors." She pressed her fingers into the skin of his forearm, until he could feel her pulse echoing against his. Another drop of mana potion. Her fingers moved slowly up his arm toward the entry wound.

"I'll be fine. My body can handle it, it'll break down in a few hours."

"Hush." Another drop.

This time, Levi felt something other than the firm pressure of Irene's fingers. The Stingpetal tendril had shifted, no longer lying in wait.

Or… no, it was retreating back toward the entry wound.

"The concentrated mana will draw it out?"

"Yes. As long as I'm here to supervise." Irene's hand moved further up his arm toward his wrist, maintaining that firm pressure. Following the tendril and preventing it from reverting.

She gripped a small knife in her other hand, hovering its edge just above the spot on Levi's arm that still glistened with unabsorbed mana. Unlike healing elixirs, which could be applied topically, mana needed to be ingested to be absorbed properly. It wasn't dangerous per se, not like spilling acid on yourself, but its mildly caustic properties meant that concentrated mana on bare skin tended to be more of a painful experience than a helpful one.

Levi had been through enough he was good at ignoring such relatively minor discomforts, but it was very interesting to see the process. Medics in the first future didn't tend to have the kind of time necessary for slow treatment of individuals with minor afflictions. Their job was to keep as many people alive as long as possible, which often involved aerosolized restoratives applied in bulk rather than one on one treatment.

In a way, having his wife tend to his injuries after a nearly deadly combat was a novelty, even after weeks.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "It isn't necessary, but thank you."

Irene didn’t look up from her work as she replied. "How do you think I level my class so fast? The more I put my skills to specific use, the faster I gain experience. It doesn't matter if you need it or not, it will help. Both of us."

Levi chuckled, though without much energy behind it. "Pragmatic." He watched for a little longer as she slowly coaxed the thing along, then allowed his eyes to drift closed.

They'd survived. That was all that really mattered.