Gamielle’s voice was sickeningly sweet as she beckoned him over.

  “Alright hold still.”

  Ryan stepped back.

  “What are you doing? Come on over here.”

  Gamielle was being awfully friendly with him. She hadn’t tried to insult him or prank him once for the remainder of the trip. She’d kept to neutral comments and was just being… nice.

  Ryan had to disable [Dangersense] on her to stop the false alarms. He was pretty sure [Dangersense] would be screaming at him right now.

  “You know, I think I’ll stay here. Give you some time to cool off.”

  The Witch’s daughter gave him a smile. She reached out with a hand as the world crushed around him. Ryan’s eyes bulged as his entire body locked in place and was dragged over the dividing line. He tried to flare out his aura but it was useless.

  “Okay that’s bullshit.”

  Ryan gasped under the increasing pressure. Gamielle had used plenty of overt magic in leveled zones making a mockery of their supposed rules. Telekinetically dragging his body was a step beyond anything she’d done before.

  “Why the surprise? Did you think realm three telekinesis couldn’t be this strong? Take this as a bit of incentive.”

  “How is telekinesis illusion magic? C-can you stop?”

  Gamielle was probably giving him hints here. Possibly saying that she couldn’t just blatantly drag him with telekinesis from far away.

  There were examples of magic and skills being thrown across leveled zones but they always ended up being significantly weaker. Not only that, Gamielle’s illusions had to be a Legend from far, far away. Did that mean that the Witch Tyrant was throwing her magic across Sectors AND punching through a leveled zone with a non legend telekinesis?

  Gamielle was hinting that it wasn’t likely. Even the Witch Tyrant had to drag him close to the border first.

  Though now that his body was outside of a leveled zone the telekinetic pressure was increasing, not decreasing. It went from uncomfortable to painful.

  “What’s the matter, Ryan? Things aren’t so funny anymore?”

  He wasn’t going to give up like that. Ryan let a chuckle escape his throat as Gamielle just gave him a dead stare. If he weren’t being crushed, he’d say how both mother and daughter liked to give the same type of flat stares.

  As if reading his mind the force around him went even tighter. He started to feel his bones move in their sockets. It felt like they were scraping against each other. His ribs cracking to under the weight.

  “G-Gam-”

  He couldn’t even say her name. Was he going to die? He stared dead at the half elf, refusing to admit defeat.

  The world darkened.

  Then the force disappeared.

  Ryan took in a huge lungful of air as he collapsed to the ground. He glared at Gamielle as he coughed.

  “Fuck you Gamielle, that was too far.”

  She scoffed, looking at her fingernails like she hadn’t basically force-choked him out.

  “Thought so, your body is actually half a step into the fourth realm.”

  Ryan blinked as the words settled in, all thoughts of his recent near death experience shelved at the new piece of information.

  “Wait really?”

  “It’s not a good thing. The Trial System is highly efficient in realm advancements. Forced evolutions might mutate your class and skill selection.”

  That wasn’t what realmnet said. Forced evolutions were rare but fairly well documented. They were seen as risky and uncontrolled but beneficial overall. Gamielle rolled her eyes, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

  “Mutations might not be a bad thing, IF you had a team to shore up your weaknesses. You don’t. We should get your body fixed before you attempt your next Trial. Oh, and try to stop condensing your aura in every fight. It’ll make things worse until you really understand what you’re dealing with.”

  “Aw.”

  Gamielle shook her head. Knowing that he would dive in headfirst if push came to shove.

  She looked over back into the leveled zone.

  “And you, stop following us. There’s higher realm adventurers combing the hills. They’ve all been alerted and will take the opportunity to take down a System enhanced creature.

  A surprised head of a blue crow popped up from the top of the hill as it cawed softly at Gamielle. Then it glared at Ryan who was narrowing his own eyes at it.

  The blue shitbird had been stalking them and he hadn’t noticed it at all. The crow popped onto the top of the hill and hopped back and forth, imitating the dance Ryan had done before, then it looked at Gamielle pleadingly.

  Gamielle waved it off.

  “I’m not taking you along. Shoo.”

  “Yeah! get out of here you stupid portal stealing shit!”

  Ryan picked up a rock and threw it as far as he could. The cerulean crow, outraged, started flapping its wings and squawking at him. It ripped up a patch of dirt with its claw and chucked it back at him.

  Gamielle sighed and rubbed her head. There was a good chance the crow would keep trying to follow them. Not to mention that it was a bit too strong to stick around in leveled zones. Too strong and too cautious.

  She sighed.

  “Okay fine, you can come. But you’re the transport.”

  The crow quietened as it nodded eagerly.

  It understood complex speech which indicated that it had been observing adventurers talk for a long time. Or it was innate. The free [Language] skill given to all adventurers did make it so that communicating with semi intelligent beasts was significantly easier.

  A monster understanding human speech so completely was still fairly rare.

  Cerul the crow pointed at Gamielle with a wing and nodded its head. Gamielle shook her head and thumbed at Ryan.

  “No, I don’t need transport, you’re taking him.”

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  The crow shook its head vehemently, it flapped its wings lightly cawing softly at her, eyes bulging pleadingly. Ryan just gave it a smirk that pissed it off further. He mimed the motion Gamielle had made to shoo the bird.

  Gamielle rolled her eyes at the childish behavior, she poked Ryan in the side.

  “Look, you’re the one that messed up the plan. Fighting Fancy’s already sent back a message to Morteles. There’s dragonslayers combing the hills, throwing their skills across the leveled borders.”

  “What?”

  Morteles was the only real city in the third sector. That wasn’t what surprised him.

  “Are dragonslayers really that bored that they’re still hunting me down?”

  Dragonslayers had combed the third sector for him but that was after a state of readiness for the realm expansion. He was fairly certain most dragonslayers had gone back to regular adventuring after it was revealed that he was in a leveled zone.

  “Most of them? No. But you’ve forgotten about the blacklisted dragonslayers, they all see you as a one way ticket to doing a ‘meritorious deed’. More are flocking over here as we speak. If we want to move we should do it now or much, much later.”

  Ryan was sweating. He remembered what the Witch Tyrant had said in the interview. That was over fifty new blacklisted dragonslayers looking to clear their name through capturing him. Fifty dragonslayers that were desperate instead of lazily searching.

  Ryan was no longer going to strut around in free zones. With or without his mask.

  He shivered, then he looked at the supposed ‘transport’. It had heard their talk of dragonslayers but had only shook its head a little at the term. It was still watching Gamielle like a hawk.

  It had been born in the Burning Lands of Sector Twelve and had been spying on adventurers. There was no way it didn’t know what dragonslayers were. Despite that, it only cared about Gamielle’s opinion. Ryan would have called that stupid but he knew the bird wasn’t that.

  It was smart and a coward, the only explanation for its actions was that it knew Gamielle was a rung higher than all of them.

  The crow met his eyes then hopped forward towards them. It lowered its back while still glaring at him. Ryan could practically understand what the crow was saying.

  Now Ryan was certain. The crow did have an agenda beyond shitting on him and impressing Gamielle.

  Still, Ryan wasn’t going to lose the opportunity to ride on a giant crow’s back. Not after how fun Gamielle had made it look. He stepped forwards and met the crow’s gaze seriously.

  “Alright, peace until this is over, alright?”

  It begrudgingly nodded at him.

  Ryan walked back over into the leveled zone and hopped on the bird’s back. Its feathers weren’t half as comfortable as he hoped they were. The almost metallic feathers putting more damage to his already tattered gear.

  Both bird and [Rogue] gave each other a distrustful stare as the crow looked at Gamielle one last time for assurance.

  Gamielle just nodded silently.

  The great cerulean crow took off with an enormous flap of its wings. It rippled the tall stalks of grass around it as it soared high into the sky. Ryan spread his arms out wide as he took in the refreshing wind. He laughed at the liberating feeling of actually flying in the air.

  Gamielle matched their pace, floating next to them.

  “Alright, Cerul, camouflage. I’m taking down the invisibility field.”

  “Cerul?”

  “That’s what I’m calling him.”

  “That’s–”

  Ryan cut himself off as Gamielle smiled at him. Blowing his [Dangersense] once again.

  “Nevermind.”

  The blue crow slowed as it moved its head to look at Gamielle with a confused tilt. Gamielle tilted her head back at the crow.

  “Wait, you don’t know how to change your feather’s hues?”

  It blinked, then shook its head and cawwed pathetically.

  “I’ve seen cerulean crows half your size–Manager’s blasted–the whole point of bringing you along was so I could conserve mana. Alright, land and go back. Artigan? I’m going to fly you with telekinesis okay? Don’t squirm or you’ll use up more of my mana.”

  Both Ryan and crow gave the [Mage] puppy dog eyes. She couldn’t just tease him with a brief flight then take it away from him. Plus he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of her flying him with telekinesis. Not after what she’d just done to him. Gamielle looked at both of them in annoyance.

  Then she sighed.

  “Manager’s blasted asshole. Fine, illusion magic is more efficient for me after all.”

  “Yes!”

  –

  From what Ryan understood. The invisibility field was a sphere around the crow . He couldn’t see anything like a bubble around them, yet apparently it was there. Even three hours later it was going strong.

  The crow lost its stamina first. It slowed, then squawked and started descending. Gamielle smacked it in the head.

  “Keep going, take a slower pace if you need to but don’t go any lower. Don’t worry I’ll keep you safe.”

  The bird cried out in exertion but slowed and started gliding on the wind instead. Once it took a more comfortable pace it started staring at its own feathers, occasionally taking a light peck at a feather.

  Ryan ignored the odd behavior and looked to the side at Gamielle.

  “Why are we heading this way? Is the Witch Tyrant in the fourth sector?”

  As far as Ryan could tell, they were taking the shortest path to the fourth sector. They had passed some famous landmarks of the third sector and it hurt him at not being able to explore them. Gamielle just scoffed at his question.

  “You think my mom is going to go out of her way to fix you? She you to go through your forced realm evolution.”

  Gamielle cut him off before he could respond.

  “Don’t even say it. Listen to me, she isn’t someone you look to for guidance on your classes or skills. In some ways she’s worse than the Manager.”

  “That’s a… loaded statement. What did the Manager do to make you hate him so much?”

  Ryan himself was unsure what he felt about the Manager and the Witch Tyrant. He didn’t like what they had done to him, but he also felt like they were trying to do the right thing. It was a conflicting feeling. He’d grown up thinking of the Manager as some great guide and the Witch Tyrant as one of the greatest beings alive.

  It was hard to reconcile the image of both of those with what they were doing now.

  Gamielle looked ahead, she had a blank stare again.

  “The Manager cares about one thing. The completion of the Trial System. Everything is done for the completion of that goal. Come heaven or hell, the Manager would destroy it all if it meant the Trial System is completed. Never forget that.”

  “Right, and I’m supposed to be the last piece or something.”

  Gamielle scoffed at the ridiculous notion.

  “If the Manager knew what it was doing then it’d have already succeeded. It’s just lining things up and hoping the pieces don’t break before they do their duty.” Gamielle turned to him, and gave him a dead stare. “They normally break first. My mother did.”

  “How…”

  A severe shake of her head was all the response he got. Well that was a bummer.

  Ryan decided to ask something else of his new ‘teacher’.

  “What about you Gamielle? What’s your goal?”

  The impish [Mage] raised an eyebrow, then she smirked at him. She soared ahead, her body spinning around and in front of him with her robes flapping behind her. Ryan realized he was almost directly looking up her robes and then looked away.

  Gamielle turned her head to look at him.

  “Hm, so you do know how to be embarrassed… Well… It’s too late to wonder about my intentions now, I got you right where I want you.”

  Ryan narrowed his eyes, then decided that if he was being sent into a trap he might as well peek.

  He got a foot to the face as he was kicked off the flying bird.

  “Aaaaaaaaah fuck you Gamielle!”

  The cackle of a witch’s daughter echoed out as a [Rogue] went tumbling in freefall.

  Ryan immediately took a spread-eagle position with his arms and legs as he saw just how far away the ground was. He’d survived being thrown by Seffara before, this wasn’t much faster than that.

  It didn’t stop him from being instinctually terrified of being so high up. Ryan forced himself to calm down. He was half a step into the fourth realm and had [Instant Dodge], he could easily angle the skill before he hit the ground and it should be fine.

  [Dangersense]

  Ryan looked up and cursed. The blue shitcrow hovered in the air, its beady eyes locking into his position. He shouted at it.

  “We had a truce!”

  The spiteful crow opened its beak slightly, showing off some of the red interior of its beak. A smirk.

  “Don’t you dare!”

  Both Ryan and the shitcrow shifted into a dive. The crow wanted to get closer before dropping its load, preferably to get right on top of him before dousing him in filth. Ryan was nimble but the air was the bird’s territory.

  This was the perfect chance.

  The crow shattered the sound barrier as it dove. Ryan wasn’t going anywhere near fast enough.

  They were still so far from the ground, there was at least another thirty seconds before the ground came up.

  Far too much time.

  The crow finally decided its distance was perfect. It spread its wings and covered Ryan in its shadow, it got ready and aimed–

  The crow squawked as Ryan spun around and switched to a backward starfish before he threw his soulsword at it. The crow, too close and too surprised, tucked a wing in as it dodged the blade wrapped in red aura.

  It was so focused on the sword that it didn’t take into account how much Ryan’s descent just decreased.

  And that he could use [Instant Dodge].

  He tackled into the crow’s wing. His broken soulsword resummoned in his hand. Ryan gave the truce breaking bird a grin of death as it squawked in sudden, mortal fear. It tried desperately to shake him off. Ryan’s death grip held on as he licked his lips.

  “Now, let’s see what a crow’s wing tastes like.”

  True panic overtook the crow’s mind. It didn’t care that it was falling to the ground, only that it had to get rid of the [Rogue] that was terrorizing it. It reactively battered the [Rogue] with its other wing.

  To each others’ shock, the first wing bash that connected nearly knocked Ryan unconscious. Blood poured out of his broken nose as Ryan saw stars. He shook his head as he tried to gain his bearings.

  Then the wing hit him the second time.

  Ryan passed out, letting go of the wing.

  The cerulean crow squawked in both triumph and surprise. It was so surprised that the dangerous [Rogue] had been knocked out so easily. It was so flustered that it took a moment too long to readjust.

  The ground hit the crow from behind.

  The passed out adventurer landed on the stunned bird.

  Then the broken soulsword fell, point first, right into the crow’s leg. The poor bird squawked in pain as it kicked both the blade and [Rogue] off itself. Ryan went flying face first into the dirt nearby. Still passed out.

  From close by, a hooded figure in black robes stood next to Gamielle. The man turned to Gamielle.

  “Is this the one you’ve been wanting me to see Lady Gamielle? Your new student?”

  Gamielle sighed as she rubbed her forehead. The plan had been to give Ryan a cool superhero entrance. Give him some extra momentum for the next step in her plan.

  Not whatever the hell that was.

  “I should have just chosen food. I haven’t even started teaching him and I’m already losing my mind.”