The notifications kept coming.

  They stacked in my vision, each line sinking into me before the next one replaced it.

  Something in my head sharpened.

  I didn’t feel smarter, but it seemed that my thoughts slid into place with less friction, like a cog lubricated properly. The migraine that had been chewing at the back of my skull didn’t vanish, but it dulled.

  I exhaled slowly through my nose and dismissed the screens. Again, my ideas were taking more and more root in my mind; I didn’t buy for a second that what I’d just done was “normal progression”. This was the tutorial, and the tutorial was cheating on our behalf. Inflated thresholds. Looser criteria. Achievements tuned to reward reckless growth because once we were thrown out of this cradle and into the wider multiverse, no one would be holding our hands.

  We were being fattened up.

  Given tools.

  Encouraged to take risks we might regret later.

  I accepted the power. Of course I did. Refusing it would be idiotic. But I wasn’t going to lock anything in while I had the agency to work around this system.

  No class evolution or skill evolutions. For now…

  I exhaled another breath, trying to centre myself. The exhilaration from the battle and the slew of new achievements were making me lose my cool. I will have to be more careful in the future. I don’t know what got into me recently, but the way I was taking risks wasn’t good. I just needed a bad matchup, and I was done for. I saw how the dodder managed to shrug off some of my hexes; what if I ended up facing a monster that was immune? I had to work on my other skills too; on the grimoire, I needed time to prepare better, to think… Now I understood why the mages in the stories always ended up secluded in a tower somewhere.

  But if anything, this experience told me that the tools I had at the moment could bring me further than I thought initially. Who knew what I’d be able to do in a week with a simple Arcane Dart if I pushed it hard enough? I took another breath, grounding myself in the dead forest around us, in the smell of rotten roots and the dusty soil, then finally turned to the others.

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  I noticed Rhea; she was nearly vibrating with hard-suppressed enthusiasm.

  She stood near the body of a fallen eldir, hands still faintly glowing with residual mana, eyes bright in a way that had nothing to do with adrenaline alone.

  “Did you see that?” she blurted out, turning to me, then to the others. “I mean, it exploded! And the ritual held; it actually held. “A-and then the backlash converted instead of collapsing, and I… I got five achievements at once!”

  She laughed, a little breathless and wild.

  “I don’t think you all have to protect me anymore,” she said then, almost defensively. “I can fight now. Really. I’m not just… tagging along.”

  Melissa straightened despite her fatigue and smiled at her. “Hey. You’ve been useful since day one. Don’t sell yourself short just because you couldn’t directly fight; you saved three lives already, maybe more with your buffs.”

  Rhea beamed. “That’s not— okay, when you say it like that, it sounds really good, but I can do so much more now!”

  “It is good,” Mary muttered, finally looking away from the corpses around us. “I’m happy for you Rhea.” She said, trying to find some more excitement.

  Rhea hesitated, then looked at me. “I mean it, Elias. I can help. If we go to the shrine now, I could…”

  “No,” Mary said immediately, turning fully now. Her voice wasn’t sharp, but it was firm. “Not now.”

  She met my eyes, worry plain on her face. “We don’t even know how the camp is faring; there could be wounded there, or worse. And whatever that thing wanted in the shrine, it’s not going anywhere tonight.”

  Melissa nodded. “I agree with Mary; I’m running on fumes here. I can still fight if I have to, but I don’t like our odds if something else decides to crawl out of the trees.”

  Jerome let out a weak chuckle. “I know I’m not officially part of your team, but I would appreciate it immensely if you could spare me another adventure today… Not only that, but if you have a camp, I would like to join; going solo is not my thing. I know it now.”

  All eyes drifted back to me.

  My curse stirred, a familiar pressure behind my ribs. Subtle, but insistent. Pulling me backwards. Toward unfinished business and people who didn’t know how close they’d come to being overrun.

  The new resistance helped. Gods, it helped. The emptiness was still there, but it didn’t dig in like a hook the same way as before. The higher my resistance get the easier it was to deal with it, it was obvious, but knowing and feeling were two different things.

  The shrine tugged at my curiosity. Hard. Anything that monster wanted so badly was worth getting our hands on. It was worth claiming, or destroying, before something else did.

  But my curiosity didn’t trump my responsibilities or my curse.

  Not today.

  “Let’s go back,” I said, keeping my tone calm, but I tinged it with a note of concern. The good guy voice, polished and warm. “We need to check on the camp, make sure they’re secure, treat the wounded, if any, and regroup. We have a lot to talk about with the people there; after the happening of today, I have a feeling that we will have to revise our plan.”

  Rhea opened her mouth, then closed it again, deflating a little. “So… tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow,” I agreed. “If Mary agree to it, of course.”

  Mary exhaled in relief. “You can count on me, but I really want to go back now.” Melissa gave a tired thumbs-up. Jerome didn’t even pretend to argue, already sliding further down against the stump.

  “Good,” he murmured. “Because if we weren’t leaving, I was about to crash down here and now.”

  I showed him a small smile.

  The guy just went through hell and back, but I saw how he manage to fend off those monster even with a stick, he was strong and a good addition to the team if he wanted to join.

  “Let’s retrace our path; if we don’t encounter too much opposition, we could be able to return in an hour or two.”

  Then we’ll see the extent of the damage…

  But of course I didn’t say that out loud. The truth was that if everybody else got wiped by the root-baron, I would be free to push harder. Not that I wish for that; I don’t desire for them to suffer or perish, but the frustration about how slowly we were proceeding was getting to me. It has been three days since we got here, and we basically haven’t moved yet.

  The beacon remained still so far…

  Jerome took position at the front with me again. I remembered the way, but I let him; he was showing more proactiveness than most, and I was all about that, so I started making small conversation with him while the girls at the back did the same.

  “Let’s still keep our eyes open, folks; we don’t know what else lurks around here…”

  I got an affirmative answer from everyone while I was scanning around with my Arcane Sense, then turning on Jerome, I asked him. “I saw some good moves while you were fighting, but I really didn’t get what class you have with you bashing elders with that stick.”

  Jerome laughed at that. “Yea, the stick was the best I could do man, when we reached that monster I was prepared to die, but you pulled a miracle, didn’t even ruffle your feathers so to speak. But give me a greatsword, and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  “That’s why you didn’t take the mace?” I was genuinely curious about how skill worked.

  “Yeah, it would have been more of a hindrance than the stick, unfortunately. I could barely apply the skills I have on that, but if I used the mace, I would be fighting without that extra oomph, you get me?”

  That was more than interesting. “Absolutely, but not being a martial class, I really don’t know how that works. But, I can tell you about how to manipulate mana though if you like, maybe it could become useful in modifying your skills…”

  Jerome looked at me with a tired but excited expression. “Oh boy, that would be a godsend. Let me tell you how I’m doing things here…”

  While we walked and talked, the sky got more and more dark; at this point, I wanted to go back soon and take a bath. I missed my routine evening swim, but that could wait. There was much to do; let’s hope I come back to good news. If the camp burned after only half a day we were away, there is no hope for anybody anymore.

  20 chapters ahead!