Chapter 93 – To Keep That Trust
Chapter 93 - To Keep That Trust
”I know I shouldn’t trust so easily, but I don’t want to let go of this chance!” ~YoshelleOne of Grace’s main curiosities about raids and sub-raids was how different they would be, when compared to the rest of the enemies that she had encountered before. As part of the details that Damascus had left for them, the one in this specialized Dungeon, while classified as a ‘Dungeon Boss’ had been adjusted to be a challenge for all fifteen of them.
In short, it should mimic a real sub-raid.
But for now, with five dead kobolds at her feet, she set aside her pondering and checked on her friends.
“I got five kobolds here,” she said through her System Console. “How about you guys?”
“Yep, got myself three,” Tayin replied.
“Three here as well,” Ren followed. “I don’t think this is worth waking them up.”
“Maybe I should scout around?” Grace asked. “I’ll stay within the vicinity.”
“Make a quick round,” said Ren. “You still remember all the potential paths they might take, right?”
“The ones you show, yeah.”
“Don’t forget to let us know when you’re done.”
Grace moved, sprinting in a circle around the vicinity. When she first scouted this area, she made sure to register the geographical information to Tayin’s Star Map. Trees surrounded them, which allowed a few of their members to set up Alarms that would instantly trigger if something came too close. Fortunately, nothing went off, so she scouted around the area that was just a bit further from that territory.
Halfway through, she didn’t find any tracks or signs of more kobolds or any other monsters. But just as she was about to circle back, she spotted a glint of something behind the bushes.
Grace only had a moment to realize that an arrow was speeding her way. Rather than step back, she dashed even faster, ducking underneath the projectile at the last second. With one more step, she reached the hiding kobold, grabbing its head and yanking it out of the bushes.
It wasn’t alone, she noticed, as three more of its kind jumped at her with crude weapons in their hands.
“Blade Flourish!”
Grace ignited both of her Mana-Edges, creating a deadly spiral around her that slashed through all her enemies.
While she was able to take care of the kobolds easily, Grace realized that the ambushes might take them all night. She hastily continued her patrol and found Ren, who was fighting two great kobolds.
The Shield Knight quickly adapted as soon as Grace jumped in to help.
“There might be more of them,” she told him.
“They’re not attacking in big groups,” Ren rationalized. “But if they manage to set off an Alarm, we should wake up the others.”
“Right, I’ll probably just do laps around the area, then.”
“You sure you can manage?” Ren asked, not showing any intentions of stopping her. In fact, he brought out a couple of his Great Mana Potions of Sustained Recovery. “Take them, I still have a couple.”
Grace didn’t hesitate, unlike before. “Thanks. I’ll go check on Tayin.”
She took off and found no kobolds on her way to the halfling. She gave her report, which the Chronoadept churned.
“What if we wake up Phyl’swen a bit earlier?” she suggested. “Cover more ground.”
“I think I can manage. They might be simulated monsters, but I think it’ll be unrealistic to just send an infinite amount of waves at us for hours. And running around isn’t that tiring for me now anyway.”
“Alright, but make sure you don’t push yourself too hard.”
Just as Grace expected, the kobolds stopped coming after she made three loops around their makeshift camp. She dealt with every pack of kobolds and great kobolds she found, and noticed that there were no other monsters involved during the ambush.
By the time she had made her fifth loop to ensure that there were really no ambushers still hiding, even getting to the point that she went around in a larger loop each time, she decided to stop and report to the others that they were in the clear. At that point, they all gathered in the middle of camp where Phyl’swen greeted them.
“You guys look like you’ve been busy!” said the half-elf. “You could’ve called for me, you know?”
“It wasn’t much of a problem,” Grace said. “Just kobolds.”
“Ah, that’s fair.” Phyl’swen nodded. “Are you folks still good with your mana? How about your energies? I can help you keep away your sleepiness, if you want?”
“We’re not tired,” Ren said, passing a look at Grace.
“I’m still good,” the half-orc said.
“So I guess it’s just right of me to assume you folks have Mana Energy, then?” asked the half-elf after evaluating everyone and noticing that their energy levels hadn’t gone down even after staying awake for so long.
“Our mentor gave it to us,” Grace admitted. There was no use hiding that piece of information, if someone already guessed it. The evidence was clear as day, anyway.
The half-orc checked the Skill and noticed a new indication beside it.
“Oh, it’s in Apprentice Proficiency now,” she said.
The other two checked theirs as well and confirmed the same.
“Aren’t they given to you with Expert Proficiency?” Phyl’swen inquired. “Unless your mentor only had it as Beginner Proficiency. Oh, but no, then she wouldn’t be able to give those Skills for you to inherit.”
“We got them as Expert,” Tayin explained. “But only temporarily. We have our own Skill Proficiencies hidden inside them that we train on our own. Once one becomes Adept Proficiency, the temporary one disappears.”
“We should probably ask Shallies for new Skills to inherit, then,” Ren added, before turning to Phyl’swen. “They become permanently part of our Skillset after they become Apprentice, after that we can inherit more Skills from her.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” said the half-elf. “I wish I had a mentor. Two extra Skills at Expert Proficiency while leveling up is no joke.”
The entire Shalliesters Party fully agreed.
“Say," Phyl’swen continued. “Is Miss Shallies still taking more students?”
“I don’t know,” Grace quickly said, shrugging. “There’s already three of us, so I don’t know if she can integrate more into the Mentor System.”
“Well, it was worth a try.”
“I do wonder what she’s doing now that we’re out here…”
Yoshelle wasn’t even surprised when Shallies’ singular Sight Step brought them over the clouds above the nearby mountain range. Despite this, the Elemental Archmage struggled to maintain a hold of her mana-control to stand in the air. The wind was strong in the sky, and she felt as if it was constantly trying to push her off-balance.
Shallies was kind enough to give a helping hand by blocking the wind with mana-control.
“You ready?” she asked.
“Shouldn’t you be down there?” Yoshelle asked in return. “To catch me, I mean.”
“I’ll be there, don’t worry.”
Yoshelle looked down and found the green landscape below. She could see Stoneglow City towards the south and the Great Wilds up north. She noticed the mana-engine vehicles on the winding roads and even a few far away airships traversing across the continent when she tapped into her Focus.
Doubt crept at the back of her mind. It was only natural. The moment she stepped down from her mana-control, she would be prohibited from using mana until she could use her The Perpetual Method to control it. If, for whatever reason, whether it was by accident or not, she used her mana without the method, they would stop this particular training.
She would be putting her life in Shallies’ hands, trusting that she would catch her if she failed her meditation.
Regardless of how much she talked herself out of it, the war within Yoshelle’s inner self would always be won by her desire to take the risk. But the moment she resolved to jump, her legs would lock themselves in, as if something was grabbing them firmly to stay on the platform of mana.
Thankfully, Shallies was patient. She didn’t push or talk Yoshelle into jumping. She simply waited there.
“Did you go through this same method when you were learning from Godkiller Bernadette?” Yoshelle asked, trying to make small talk. She was trying to buy time for her resolve to reform without making things awkward.
“I didn’t,” Shallies replied. “But I did see someone go through it from some recordings she showed me before. If you ask Valor’el, he might have a recording of him going through it. That is, of course, if you want to postpone for now.”
Yoshelle shook her head. All she wanted to know was if someone else had done what she was about to do. And if Valor’el had managed to do it, then she had to believe that she could do it as well.
And yet, her legs still wouldn’t budge.
“I can’t jump,” Yoshelle said, giving up.
“Well, while I didn’t do it, I did receive some notes on how those that did convinced themselves to jump.” Shallies lifted a finger, taking Yoshelle’s attention. “The thing is, they didn’t jump. Instead, they started with meditating The Perpetual Method while standing in the air. The moment you feel your mana’s pull, the moment it tempts you, your mana-control will fizzle out and you’ll start to fall. The important part is to keep going after that. Keep your eyes open. Concentrate. And push yourself beyond your limits and hesitations.”
Yoshelle didn’t reply to that right away. She tried to internalize how she would go about meditating with The Perpetual Method. And only after realizing that there was no real easy trick for her to do that did she speak again.
“I’ll try.”
Not doing anything to move, simply standing there, was the first prerequisite of The Perpetual Method. She had done it a number of times already, and she was sure she could resist falling into a trance now. But the alternative that might or might not happen still made her hesitate.
Not as much as forcing herself to jump, however.
Yoshelle found herself pushing back against that fear. She meditated. And the world around her began to darken.
It was the pull. The temptation. Taking a hold of all her mana was still such an intoxicating sensation, that she almost forgot where she was. She took hold of herself and rejected the invitation with her entire will.
She was spinning. The sight of the landscape rotating almost made her dizzy. But rather than try and correct herself, she assessed her meditation.
It had fully broken.
Her instincts tried to take over. It wasn’t her first time falling off a great height. In fact, she had trained how to stop her momentum safely and return to balance, simply because some Advanced Dungeons and above might happen where falling was fairly common. Heck, there were even records of Beginner Dungeons throwing unsuspecting adventurers who didn’t know anything about a Delve Gate.
She fought it as desperately as she could.
Still falling, she tried to meditate again. And once more, she was greeted by the darkness and temptation. Yet again, she denied it. But regardless of how much she tried to push past it, the slight panic that she would get after seeing the world, spinning and getting closer, would break her concentration.
Her fall was leading her away from the mountain, giving her a few more tries to get her meditation going. The thought of cheating, using mana-control and acting as if she had accomplished it with The Perpetual Method, came to mind. But she rejected that thought right away.
Darkness. Light. Panic.
After three more tries, Yoshelle had passed the tip of the mountain, and was heading straight for the ground. She was too close to try now.
And yet, Shallies was nowhere to be found.
Panic embraced Yoshelle. She gathered mana to control and arrest her fall, but she hesitated. She didn’t want to fail. And when the realization hit, that she had missed her final chance to save herself, she lifted her arms and braced for impact.
“Shallies!”
Then she stopped right before hitting the ground. She didn’t slow down, but her momentum completely disappeared, defying the natural laws that should’ve slammed her with great force. Her breath caught up with her as her entire body began to feel sluggish. Her tension disappeared as she was promptly placed slowly on the ground.
“I got to give it to you, Yoshelle,” Shallies said, smiling. “You’re probably just as insane as my students.”
Yoshelle realized then, that even while she braced for impact, she subconsciously didn’t coat herself with mana, nor did she tap into her Constitution.
“I don’t think…” she started, but struggled to breathe. “I can’t do that again. Not today, at least.”
“Fair enough.” Shallies sat next to her. “I feel a little bad letting you go through that. So have dinner at my place. My treat. Bring anyone you want.”
“Deal,” Yoshelle said. She began feeling sensation around her body again and realized that her relief had made her release more than just her tension. “Can I use your shower too?”
“Yeah. No problem.”
“Don’t tell anyone, please?”
“Yeah. Promise.”