A Different Kind of Trial: Part One.

Katarina sighed slightly as Paloma continued trying to fuss over her, even bringing out a handkerchief and wetting it to wipe her cheeks, "I'm fine. Really. Please stop. Paloma. Stop. Please."

The brunette reluctantly pulled back and leaned against the wall next to her, "Sorry."

"-(Why doesn't she understand I'm not a little girl! But I can't say anything, since she might take offense and then I could end up spiraling down the villainess path. I just have to... to... push her back slowly with hints. Isn't that a thing? Verbal ques, body movement and positioning? Firm but gentle reminders that I need my space and don't appreciate being crowded?)-"

She glanced sideways at Paloma.

"-(Then again, she's definitely the type of girl who would literally not take any kind of 'hint' whatsoever. I would probably have to actually tell her I don't like being babied and ask her to stop for her to actually understand. Which... I don't feel safe doing.)-"

Her eye twitched in irritation.

Trying to distract herself, Katarina eyed her surroundings while running her fingers through the thick green carpet-like grass. The stonework was clearly a bit worn from wind and rain on both walls, but it was also well maintained without any signs of cracks. And there were no bushes or other plants that could hamper movement in battle here, though short and small flowers littered the grass like little dots of color on a canvas.

"-(Where are headmaster Isenbert and headmistress Belessunu? This feels... odd. Maybe they're slower in real life? Or maybe it's because I took the portal with them? Or they could have stopped to do something before...)-"

Her thoughts derailed and she glanced over as one of her wolf golems was grabbed by the cheeks, fingers running across her fur and giving gentle tugs to the ears, "Uh... Alys? Not that it doesn't feel nice, but what are you doing to my golem?"

The brunette froze, then slowly turned towards her, "That feels... wait... you... have the partial-overmind hivemind-thing you mentioned the other day, don't you?"

Griogair glanced over with a raised eyebrow.

Katarina nodded as Paloma burst into laughter at her friend's unusual 'deer in the headlights' look not all that dissimilar to one the three had seen on the carriage ride over, "Yes. It makes it easier to control them and still boosts everything else I need like minion count. So... uh... what... were you doing to my golem?"

Alys chuckled sheepishly, "Well... I was curious how realistic the golem's fur actually was. It's obviously a golem, it's far to still even if it moves more than a regular golem. Most Golems are like... super bulky and durable looking. But this looks hyper realistic and it's so soft. Plus, you made the bear so unnaturally inky-black. Yet you made these guys just... regular wolves. Shouldn't you have made both the bear and wolves something closer to whatever your animal forms look like so you can blend in with them?"

Blinking slightly, the Shadowbloom tilted her head, "Why wouldn't I be able to blend into my wolves?"

With a slightly disbelieving stare, Alys slowly tilted her own head to match while scrunching her nose, "Because you have black hair, and the wolves are... mostly grey and white."

She opened her mouth, but the reply died inside as a thought came to mind.

Hesitantly, she tried to open the game shop; but nothing happened.

"-(There's... no shop. If there's no shop, then... there's no cosmetic items or monthly competitions to get game money to buy cosmetic items. And if there's no cosmetic items... is there anything I can use to dye my hair?)-"

Her eyebrow twitched, "How did I not realize this earlier?"

Paloma snorted, "Did you really not consider the fact that transformed druids are the same fur, feather, or scale-color as their human hair?"

Turning bright pink, Katarina crossed her arms, "I didn't think about it!"

She turned and glared as Griogair coughed into the back of his hand, seemingly hiding a smirk as Alys shook her head with a soft mutter, "Such a goof."

"-(It's not my fault! I really didn't think about whether or not the shop would be available! But I can't even say anything! It's ducking bull quack.)-"

She glared at a snickering Alys, only to falter as she spotted Raynaud half asleep with the back of his head resting on one of her wolves. Curled up on his chest, an odd cat that seemed to be almost made of smoke and shadow was hugging the neck of similar dog-like creature resting his head on Raynaud's stomach.

"-(Well at least one of them isn't ganging on up on me.)-"

She mentally paused and looked him over.

"-(Though I'm a bit weirded out I didn't notice him requisitioning one of my wolves as a pillow. Did he use stealth to lay down on my wolf? Creepy. But also adorable. Heh... look how vulnerable he is... I could just slit his throat right now and he wouldn't be able to do...)-"

She blinked rapidly and shook her head.

"-(Bad brain. No. Let's just pretend I didn't think that. Or maybe that it's the influence cat transformation earlier today. Ya... I could see a cat thinking that. Cuddly little murder-fuzzballs. It's definitely not me that's a psychopath.)-"

Pulling a glass of water out of her inventory, Katarina absentmindedly sipped it with a vacant gaze.

"-(Nope. No dark thoughts here.)-"

She spent a few moments twiddling her thumbs while checking through her spells, and doing her best to forget random evil thoughts no matter how 'normal' it was supposed to be to have them, then glanced up as murmurs came from her left.

Craning her neck a bit to peer over her sprawl of wolf-golems, Katarina quickly spotted the headmistress coming around the corner followed by the headmaster and two teachers.

"-(Huh... she looks a bit embarrassed. Odd. Wait... does the headmaster have a bruise? When did that happen? Is he ok?)-"

Although she was a bit concerned over Isenbert's bruise, Katarina kept quiet as Belessunu took a voice amplifying necklace from the box presented to her and stepped up onto a small pedestal with a podium.

She cleared her throat, looking over the first years with a long sweep of her gaze to ensure each of them were paying attention, "Welcome to your first day. This morning we will be going over a general overview of this dungeon's layout, then you'll be headed straight inside. As you likely know from your earlier schooling, dungeons are effectively gigantic multi-dimensional oysters which exist primarily on a higher vertical dimension and contain what we think might be infinite stacking dimensions they create themselves. As far as we are aware, as powerful as they can be, they lack the ability to access other horizontal dimensions within our own universe and likely cannot access stacking dimensions outside of what they create themselves. At the end of the day, they are not gods; though they are somewhat sentient like a cat or elephant despite lacking true sapience like an elf or kobold or human."

A bead of sweat slowly drifted down Katarina's forehead as she remembered the amount of quantum physics buried within the lore.

"-(Do I actually have to remember this stuff now? It wasn't very important to the actual game itself, but I almost wonder if this could be an issue for those actually living in this world. Best to just try and remember what I can, since I doubt I'll be able to just pull open a book if I do need it, and hope I don't actually need it.)-"

Pausing momentarily, Belessunu looked over them with an intense glare, "But, despite being limited in power, do not forget that they are higher dimensional beings. And do not forget that lower intelligence does not mean they lack any at all. Indeed, what they lack in tactical ability, they make up for through sheer ferocity. The closer you get to passing through their digestive system and into their core room, the more violent your average dungeon will be."

Katarina cringed slightly.

"-(Digestive tract... no matter how many times I've built an alter character, that still makes it seem so much worse than it actually is.)-"

She smiled slightly, cutting down down the sudden nervousness of her students by quite a bit due to the sudden shift in expression, "Thankfully, a dungeon that has been inhabited as long as this one has tends to be a lot less violent. But make sure to keep in mind that it is still an animal. No matter how much we have effectively 'trained it' to feel safe with us passing through its core room to the portal we have established, it will still feel jittery about us doing so. A good way to alleviate some of this is by taking part, but not all, of the elemental crystal created throughout its digestive tract as it filters the mana."

Katarina glanced around thoughtfully.

"-(Skip cutscene.)-"

Subtly pulling out a small piece of paper from the end of her sleeve, Belessunu glanced at it before stuffing it back inside, "Around half is standard, though you may typically get away with a good sixty or even seventy percent. This helps reassure the dungeon you won't take to much of the actual mana core and risk depleting its ability to take in mana. Though, admittedly, there are guards from the academy to stop you from actually doing that in this specific dungeon."

She narrowed her eyes.

"-(Well that didn't work. System command: skip cutscene.)-"

A student raised their hand and the headmistress pointed to them, "Shouldn't the dungeon be hostile if we try to take any of the dungeon core at all? It eats mana, right?"

Belessunu's smile widened, "A good question, but also a common misconception. Dungeons do not eat mana itself. It uses the flow of mana to suck in higher dimensional beings that live inside and sometimes actually do eat mana. In essence, they are filter feeding via drawing the mana in and crystalizing it. This acts as both an active trap and a lure. Indeed, as long as you do not remove enough of the mana core to reduce their influx of mana, the dungeons slowly learn to appreciate this 'cleaning'. From what I understand, it can be a bit difficult for a dungeon to cut off bits of the mana core itself to eject into its digestive system and it typically begins emitting positive emotions rather than fear after about three to four months during each chipping."

"-(What would it be... escape key.)-"

She smiled widely, "Now... let us begin the actual rundown of the dungeon itself. This is a smaller dungeon, so there are only two rings. As with any dungeon, all you need to do is head away from the entry portal in any direction and you will find yourself approaching the first ring. There should be six pathways through. Each of these pathways will be inhabited by what amounts to a form of digestive bacteria for a dungeon. Monsters."

"-(System command: escape key.)-"

"In this case we have dire bears, dire wolves, dire fish, dire snakes, dire birds, giant insects, giant snapping turtles, zombies, and ghosts alongside vile-fang kobolds and the occasional man-eating plant. For any wolf-type kobolds in this year, please remember that these are primitive creatures and they will not recognize you as anything but an intruder to be exterminated. These are not your 'ancestors' or 'relatives', and they will kill you if the opportunity arises. As dungeons tend to replicate their surroundings, there will be plenty of hills and rivers with a limited amount of forest and a few lakes. You may find fields of medicinal herbs to gather, some of which we will give you a guide for to help restore vital energy faster if you need free but not instant healing after a fight."

"-(Spacebar key.)-"

Another student raised their hand, "Is that why the academy gates and the dungeon barricade gates only pull inward and don't actually lock properly?"

Eyebrow twitching, Katarina stared at Belessunu intensely.

"-(System command: spacebar key.)-"

Nodding, the headmistress smirked, "Exactly. While we do have the necessary tools to upgrade the gates in the event of a true crisis and provide complete barrier coverage, the majority of the academies defenses revolve around three primary areas. Information gathering via various watchtowers. Various walls and keeps in mountain passes alongside anti-air crystals far outside the dungeon's sensory range, which also protect villages and such along the way to the demon kingdoms. And, in terms of our immediate defenses, funneling enemies towards 'weak points' via overwhelming barriers and firepower along the majority of our academy's walls. Over the past few hundred years, since the very beginning of this academy, there has not once been a necessity to upgrade the gates; though we do perform checkups every year and new things are added to the gate upgrading supplies every so often."

Tapping her chin thoughtfully, Katarina squinted her eyes as she had seen Paloma do.

"-(Enter key.)-"

She tilted her hand back and forth, "Although, perhaps... not always feasible. This allows the academy to ensure each of its six on-campus dungeons to be relatively easy. On the other hand, higher level dungeons may require siege equipment. Which can not only be difficult to use, but also tedious to set up and move around throughout the dungeon. This necessity for siege equipment is born due to the fact that most higher level dungeons around around locations with high mana production. Heavily forested areas with particularly potent flora and fauna."

"-(System command: enter key)-"

Her expression slowly darkened, "Not only does the alliance need to deal with demons to fight over these locations, we also generally need to fight some of the more barbaric nations."

"-(S key.)-"

"Naturally, this requires much heavier fortifications. And the dungeons, in turn, copy those defenses. This leads to what would otherwise be an unnecessary level of difficulty within the dungeon."

"-(System command: S key.)-"

She paused and glanced backward, "Off topic? Ah... thank you, Berty."

"-(Well it was worth a shot. How about... E key.)-"

Turning back to them, Belessunu quickly reignited her smile, "Now the majority of what you will be seeking to defeat are the vile fang kobolds. They have cities established inside of smaller fully-stone variations of our own academy."

"-(System command: e key.)-"

"Ideally, you will find various items of power refined by the kobolds from different crystalized elemental energies. Weapons of different kinds are the most common. But rings, belts, necklaces, bracelets, armlets, anklets, and so forth are all found regularly. Special armor pieces might be possible from first or second ring bosses, at which point those of you who bought a piece or set of armor here at the academy can return said piece of armor for most of their points for that individual piece. You may even be lucky enough to find a some type of artifact from one of the second ring bosses."

Katarina's eyes slowly glazed over as the headmistress began talking about potential strategies for breaching the gates.

"-(Whoever invented un-skippable cutscenes needs to be forced to play their favorite game ten or twenty times but have horribly long and slow versions of all the cutscenes edited into it and then be forced to watch every cutscene.)-"

******* One Hour Later *******

Blinking rapidly, Katarina's eyes refocused as Paloma shook her shoulders lightly and all but hissed at her, "Oi! Wake up!"

Slowly recovering from her *I've already heard this hour-long speech a dozen times* daze, the Shadowbloom wiped her mouth to ensure she wasn't drooling like that one time she had dozed off without realizing it, "W-What's happening?"

Paloma poked her shoulder as Alys woke up Reynaud by twisting his ear just enough to be annoying but not actually painful, "Headmaster Isenbert gave us all a written exam on the key points of each section of their two speeches. And then he asked for a show of hands of how many people brought enough food for a full week. Don't worry, basically nobody thought about it. Apparently, considering the time dilation within the dungeon is around times-ten and people usually take a few attempts to siege the final boss, we should take at least a week of supplies."

She gingerly took the stack of papers Paloma had for her, giving it a once over.

"-(Wait... it's not a multiple choice test? Do we still get grade points and stuff? Maybe. Well... it's about game mechanics and lore; plus I did watch this like four times before starting to skip it. So I should be fine.)-"

She paused briefly, "Food? Oh... I guess the dungeon doesn't exactly have much in the way of 'edible things'. Unless you get a level 100 with conjurer who decides to spend a prestige point on edible conjurations or a conjure who unlocks a non-combat prestige point."

"-(Never really needed to worry about it in-game. You don't need to buy supplies until after the academy, and I always had either Reynaud or Alys take edible conjurations as soon as we did. But now, both of them are picking their own classes and I'm not actually sure if either of them actually took conjurer; much less if they'll take edible conjurations. I can't exactly ask them either, since it's considered a bit rude to ask about someone else's actual class arrangements.)-"

Paloma's eyebrow lifted, "Conjurers can use prestige points for something like that? Isn't that a bit wasteful? Wait... what do you mean 'unlock non-combat prestige points'? Is that possible?"

As she stood up, Katarina paused as one of the other girl's earlier comments came to mind, "Well, ya... but... only via special quests or divine puzzles though, so it's not overly common."

"-(Note to self: visit the capital early. Still... what's this about safety vests?)-"

Looking past Paloma, she did her best to peer towards the front of a line forming ahead as her party gathered itself and started moving towards the front. Sure enough, teams were being stopped just far enough back that parties with numerous pets could easily call them in after the first party member entered the dungeon. They were handing out not only boxes of a few cooked meals to each student, but also some kind of odd semi-futuristic vest covered in silvery lines and embedded with gemstones.

"-(The academy has... safety vests? Hold up... is that why the academy dungeons don't cause instant-death or give wounds even in hardcore solo mode?! I've always wonder about that! Should I have actually... aw... duck. Quack. I should've listened one more time. I let myself fall into old habits and just spaced it out because I thought it was the same as always. Hopefully it wasn't to different compared to the game stuff.)-"

She frowned slightly and began guiding her golems into two separate groups, one on either side of the door, after figuring out where exactly the line of pets from parties further up in line started and ended compared to parties behind them.

"-(I can't believe I let myself get complacent even after I already thought about this possibly being an issue. I guess it's only human, but... still... I need to work on that. If it were a main character in a game I was playing or something, I'd be super annoyed at them for something like this. I can't let myself be a hypocrite.)-"

Jerking slightly as Paloma touched her arm, Katarina quickly refocused on her, "Are you alright? You look... worried? Or maybe lost in thought?"

The Shadowbloom blinked at her for a moment, wondering what to say; then rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly, "Ah... I... don't know if I remember enough of the stuff to get a passing grade. Probably spaced out for a minute there. Do you think I could write down what I did remember, and then you could check it over to see if you think I got enough of it to not be worried? Maybe once we camp to rest for a while? I'm not asking you to actually help with it, just say if I should be worried or anything. Maybe after we turn it in to the teachers, you could tell me anything you know I missed? It would help me start revising for it in case it's on future exams."

Seeming to sag with what looked like relief, the brunette nodded, "Is that all? Of course! Can't say I'll be much better, but we can definitely compare papers afterwards. Honestly, I'm a bit forgetful sometimes; even if I did manage to stay awake the entire time."

"-(What's up with her? Did she think I was going to ask her to help me cheat despite knowing there are ways for the teachers to find out? Well... in any case... she agreed to help. So that's fine.)-"

She noticed a slight frown from Griogair, but they passed through the line without much fanfare.

~[Vest of Safety-Torso/Outermost Layer Slot: If the user would take damage reducing their vital energy barrier below zero, or equal to more than half of their maximum vital energy barrier, trigger safety teleport. Safety Teleport: Removes the wearer and their entire group or team from a dungeon of level 100 or lower. Protection: If the user would ever take direct-damage, activate vital energy storage. Vital Energy Storage: 100%/100%.]~

"-(At or below level one hundred, huh? That makes sense then. I'm almost positive the highest dungeon level used by the academy is somewhere just at or below that. I don't think they ever tell you the exact range, but the first character I ever went through it with was about mid-nineties and there are nine dungeons including three off-site dungeons.)-"

To her joy, she opened the wooden box presented to her and found a several different tasty foods crammed into the smallest possible container for them. There were fully loaded baked potatoes, salads with various toppings like cherry tomatoes, what seemed to be some kind vivid purple borch with a side of pulled pork in a thick and dark gravy-like sauce, a piece of red and white meat that had to be part of some monster lobster, and much more. Katarina quickly swallowed to prevent herself from accidentally drooling over the box, then stuffed the contents into her inventory to keep it fresh and steamy. Yet still, the smell of perfectly seared steak and the potent blue cheese crumbles lingered in her mind.

"-(Salad and steak, that's gotta be my lunch today. Otherwise I'll have crazy dreams tonight.)-"

She tilted her head slightly as they quickly walked down into the lowest layer of the dungeon.

On there way past, an attendant handed them a paper, "Make sure to transfer anything you'll need in the dungeon from your storage to the inventory."

~[Transfer anything you will need for combat from your inventory to your quick slots as soon as you get into the dungeon, if you haven't already. Transfer anything you will need for a boss fight directly to your person before your fight them, especially make sure to restock quivers and throwing knives or pull out spare weapons. Remember, just as storages are not accessible inside dungeons, inventories are not accessible in combat and quick slots are blocked in boss locations.]~

Paloma smiled to them on the way past, "Thank you!"

"-(I hope there's something sweet in the salad, raisins maybe, to balance out the strong blue...)-"

The Shadowbloom's mind blanked as they came into sight of a large inky-black maw digging partially into the dirt. Faint blue swirls grew brighter and brighter as they went into the maw like glowing smoke being pushed together as it reached a chimney. Strangely, as she looked into the impossible opening in the very fabric of reality, Katarina could swear she saw faint flickers of retreating figures going off into the distance at unnatural speeds. But they only lasted a split second; her vision continuing to twist and distort as she stared into the abyss.

Reynaud let out a horrified whisper, "That... does not look safe. Who was the first idiot to go inside one of these without knowing what it was or that they could actually come back from it?"

Blinking rapidly, Alys shrugged, "You know, normally I'd call you a wimp again. But... fair question."

Paloma shook her head with a faintly absentminded voice, "We've talked about this, don't pick on Reynaud as if you're a little boy with a crush who doesn't know how to say they like someone."

With a jerk, Alys seemed to snap out of her awe and spun towards her with bright red cheeks, "Paloma! Would you no..."

A man with a clipboard gestured, "Move along, don't hold up the line."

Paloma gave Alys a sheepish look before grabbing a wrist of both Reynaud and Katarina, then marching straight forward into the dungeon's portal as two large ravens of smoke and shadow landed on Reynaud's shoulders.

"-(Wait a second... does Alys like Reynaud? What's going on there?)-"

She momentarily glanced over at the seemingly oblivious Reynaud, then quickly looked forwards again as a strange chill washed over her starting at the wrist in Paloma's hand.

The darkness seemed to press in around them as they entered into a dark tunnel, the blue smoke-like mana instantly thinning out; though still being quite visible due to its background.

Glancing behind, Katarina spotted Alys and Griogair following closely. Both were clearly on guard, though a slight look of wonder seemed to pass through their eyes as the tank held up his hand and to see the blue swirls strike against his hand and curl around it before moving onward. Intrigued, she locked on to a particularly large swirl and leaned over slightly to suction it up into her mouth.

"-(Flavorless... well... what was I expecting, I suppose.)-"

Slightly disappointed, she let it out in a single ring of blue smoke.

"-(Wait, is that what smoking feels like? I don't see the appeal. Or wait, isn't there some kind of mind-control substance in it? Nicotine? Ya, something that makes you want to have more of it. That's probably the difference. Mind control.)-"

The last of her wolves entered the portal behind them as they neared the tunnel's end, leaving Katarina with a strange sensation of 'finality' as if each wolf had been a nail in her coffin.

Shuddering slightly, she straightened her back a bit and squared her shoulders somewhat; trying her to steel herself against the coming storm. After all, the stark difference between graphics and reality had been disturbing enough with just the portal itself. She could only imagine what it might be like to have some kind of rotting undead abomination charging at her teeth first.

And then they stepped out into a rolling meadow covered in lush glowing green grass.

"-(Eh? Why is it glowing? Wasn't it just regular grass in the game? The tree leaves are glowing! Why is almost everything glowing?! It's only supposed to be the flower petals, isn't it? Are the grass and leaves able to provide some magical benefit?)-"

She glanced around, then nudged some of the glowing grass with her foot to suction it up into her inventory; then plucked a few leaves.

After they were far enough away from the portal to let her golems inside, the five of them came to a stop and checked around for potential threats, "Reynaud, send out Huginn-light and Muninn-light to scout. Get us a bird's eye view. Keep one above us and have the other circle out away from us. Make sure to keep watch for any buildings and keep them away."

Nodding to Paloma's command, he pulled out an eyepatch as the two witch familiars leapt off his shoulders and flew off into the sky.

"-(So he doesn't have overmind. Otherwise, he wouldn't need the eyepatch to help him keep concentration on the familiar-sight. Though, I guess he could be pretending not to have it. But... Reynaud doesn't really seem the 'manipulative' and 'secretive' type. Well, that would actually be perfect for a person who actually was. Since they probably wouldn't want people to know they were manipulative and stuff... so... ugh.)-"

Katarina frowned heavily, but decided to ignore the seed of doubt she had accidentally planted in her own mind. Doing her best to shift her thoughts away brought the Shadowbloom to glance up at Huginn and Muninn. While she preferred ground units, the thoughts of a few large birds to harass from above wasn't unappealing. There was also the constant reminder that they were good for scouting and could provide the equivalent to an overlay map with enemy dots or third person zoomed out to an extreme extent. It wasn't quite the same, but very effective nonetheless.

"-(Level ten, maybe? Doesn't seem great to do it now, even if I do get some mana stone large enough for medium golems. Not when I can get life drain, weakening grasp, shield, and arcane bolt on my wolves, then just have them drag down anything they can sink their teeth into for that sweet-sweet 'grappled debuff'.)-"

Reynaud glanced up, "I think we're clear for now. And one of the gates through the first ring is almost directly ahead of the portal, slightly veering to the left."

Smirking, Paloma patted him on the shoulder, "Good work. You lead, I'll stick right by you. It'll be easier for you to keep us out of any traps or ambushes while I keep watch in your blind spot."

Reynaud nodded and opened his backpack, letting out four small wooden creatures with mask-like faces who peered around a bit before huddling behind him. A cat, bear, and boar-faced totem each seemed to cast some kind of buff over the group, though one with a frog mask and dart gun merely stood silently. He continued on as they cast, storing the backpack in his inventory and summoning a medium-sized bipedal golem with a basic looking chunky body that looked normal except for a strange grating along his torso. Then pulled a witches cauldron from his inventory and began prepping it with a few different common ingredients for healing rituals.

She turned towards Griogair as the cauldron began bubbling rapidly, "If you'll stay in the middle, and Katarina's minions bring up the rear, we can keep a decent 'protected spot' for Reynaud to retreat into while also keeping Alys and Katarina safer throughout the march."

Her fellow tank nodded, "Sounds good."

The brunette's eyes darted around, then she asked, "Any objections? Or suggestions?"

Katarina raised a hand, "I can keep two golems up front on either side to try and sniff people out. It might not help, but some monsters might have invisibility or silencing spells. I mean, they might also have scent removal. But... it's worth a shot, right? I can also run around in snake form. I've got knowledge about something called a Titanoboa, so that should keep me nice and low to the ground while also letting me detect heat levels via pit organs. Also, I have a little something to give to you all to help things along. It's a gift for letting me join up with you all."

Paloma blinked rapidly, "Eh? Oh, sure. What is it?"

Katarina opened a trade request and created a short contract in one part of it; preventing the signer from communicating about the transferred items or recording information about their existence through any method unless not doing so would harmful to the signer.

Then she fitted a fully-completed artifact into Paloma's trade window with a clause that the user could not view the item without agreeing to the contract, "It's something I got lucky and found a while back. I have one for each of you, but I don't want anyone to think I might have more and come after me to get them. So I just have a standard contract here, effectively word for word what is used in a lot of contracts for things not meant to go public quite yet. Except there's no time limit after which the user can speak about it."

Paloma seemed to stare at the air for a minute as Katarina copied the contract to her interface clipboard, then nodded, "Ya. That's fine. I see no problem with... what the fuck is this?! Yes, please! Mine now. No take backs! You said it was a gift, right?"

A dry look passed over Katarina's face as she sighed, "Yes, it's yours to keep. It isn't all that great though, there are better versions. Though accessible much later on. And this is one of the ones where you have to overwrite the artifacts inside if you want to replace anything. You can't just take things out and sell it on the auction if you don't want it anymore."

"Teleporting?!" with a gasp, Paloma glanced up at her, "This is what we were talking about! Actually, a lot of this stuff is similar to what we were talking about. Did you really just find this, or did you actually go out and buy something crazy like this?"

Katarina rolled her eyes as Alys came over with a curious look, followed by a hesitant Griogair, as Reynaud craned his neck as if it would help him spot whatever was being traded.

Sighing with a slight air of exasperation, Katarina opened a trade with Alys and pasted the contract from her clipboard before adding the artifact, "No, it's just a coincidence. I actually found a bunch of money with this stuff and was flat broke beforehand, so I definitely didn't buy it. And before you ask... it's so old I doubt even the great grandfather of the great grandmother of the great grandfather of the great grandmother of the great grandfather of the headmistress was even born yet when the person who left it hidden was still around. So... it shouldn't count as theft and, if it does, I accept full responsibility. Like I said, I tend to find random things."

"What did you do?"

Katarina blinked rapidly as Alys looked up at her, "Eh?"

The brunette glared at her, "Did you sell part of your lifespan? Sell your soul? Sell one or more of your organs? Kidnap someone and sell part or all of them? Like their soul? Wait... can you even sell someone else's soul? Maybe not. What did you do?"

Katarina's eyebrow twitched, "Not unless you count being very lucky, in which case... yes. But otherwise, no. No selling or any kind of illegal activity. I literally did just find this sitting in an ancient hiding place for no apparent reason."

Alys hummed thoughtfully, "Alright, sorry for asking. Still... this is... odd. I mean, there are a lot better versions of everything except the actual 'combine seven artifacts'. That one is kind of absurd, since I'm fairly sure they only go up to twelve tops. Though, maybe I'm wrong."

Ignoring a slight choking sound coming from Griogair as he accepted the contract with a rather reluctant expression, only for his eyes to bulge, Katarina proceed over to Reynaud.

Giving him one, Katarina glanced back as she heard Paloma whisper to Alys, "Psychic, I'm telling you. Seriously."

"-(Eh? What's that about? Is it Reynaud or something? Did he predict this somehow?)-"

She blinked and turned back as Reynaud placed a hand on her shoulder with an extremely serious look in his eyes, "I will never willingly use this Ocean Dwellers buff, but it is extremely appreciated; in addition to everything else. I now promote you to best friend number three."

Smiling hesitantly, Katarina teased him faintly, "Only number three?"

He shook his head, "Best friends don't have rankings, they just have a time when they became a best friend. And that's mostly to help identify shapeshifters and such. Friends, however, do have rankings. Which helps them become best friends."

The Shadowbloom grinned, "I see. You'll have to tell me about this ranking system later. Also, I think your witch cauldron might be smoking a bit."

Eyebrows rising in horror, Reynaud quickly started stirring the pot again, "Ugh! I stopped stirring before everything dissolved! Eh... what's the guide say... add the following herbs... why do I have to add that one last and at least ten seconds after?"

Katarina tilted her head fondly, watching him work for a bit as her other group members finished gawking over their artifacts.

"-(There seriously are better versions of everything I gave them. Though... I suppose it is pretty good for getting a guild off the ground.)-"

After a while, Paloma cleared her throat as if to draw their attention and glanced around, "Anyone have anything else they want to share or suggest?"

After a quick round of headshaking, she grinned and turned forward, "Right. You're up, Reynaud. Let's get moving as soon as you're done."

He nodded, but continued casting for a while longer; then smiled softly as the cauldron let off a wave of green smoke that filled the air with a strong herbal scent... with a slightly smoking undertone that was both slightly unpleasant and also strangely delicious smelling. As it traveled, the smoke thinned out rapidly... but remained visible long enough for them to see it form a swirling dome. Only then, did it disappear completely; leaving faint wisps of green smoke trailing up from the cauldron.

The witch smirked and turned to Paloma and Griogair, "Mind helping me get this up into the golem? I can do it myself, but... it left my back hurting for a good half-hour when I tested it. So I might as well take advantage of having two powerhouses around to keep me combat-ready."

Glancing at each other momentarily, the two nodded as he opened what looked like an old-fashioned wood stove-door made of hardened clay, "Mobile witch cauldrons, I think this might honestly be the way of the future. I was only planning on pulling it out for bosses, but this works so much better. I mean, we could be ambushed and still have my witch cauldron ready. The only real downside is that we'll have to stop for a few minutes at any fields we find to make sure I have enough of the right herbs to keep it going through the whole dungeon."

Scrunching her nose, Alys eyed him warily, "Just make sure not to gather more than half of any whatevers in the field. We seriously don't want to make the dungeon nervous."

Reynaud's shoulders slumped and he stared at her with a bland expression, "Any whatevers?"

She blinked at him momentarily, then lifted an eyebrow, "What? I don't know... flower... names... or whatever... I have a guide book for that and it's not open."

He sighed and shook his head, "I expected that from Paloma, not you."

Looking indignant, Paloma knelt down, "I know flowers! Look, this one here is a baby sunflower."

Griogair nodded, "Impressive."

Only for Reynaud to sigh, "That's... just a dandelion in its flowering stage. Soon it will close back up and begin developing for the reproduction stage and turn into a little white puff ball."

Turning bright pink, both Paloma and Griogair started walking forward, "We should get going, time waits for no man! Come on, Griogair, we need to find that encampment!"

As Alys rolled her eyes and followed along behind Griogair, Katarina whispered, "I thought dandelions were always white?"

Reynaud grinned slightly, "No, no... the yellow and white stages just do different things for them. Yellow is for growing because it's easier for them to get lots of energy from the sun. White is energy efficient to create dozens of little seed parachutes. Ah, we should catch up. Maybe I'll tell you more at lunch... but... did you know dandelions are edible? They're considered weeds now by most people, but it's perfectly fine to eat them."

Staring at him blankly, she glanced over them as they passed by with a slightly green face, "Eh... I'll... save that for emergencies and stuff."

With a faint grin, Reynaud chuckled, "Sure, sure."

Watching as he jogged up ahead, Katarina shapeshifted into the titanoboa and began slithering along beside Alys. Only for her to freeze up and rapidly turn towards her. She stared for a moment, then blinked a few times as the Shadowbloom paused and glanced back at her.

Alys slowly scrunched her nose and tilted her head, then shrugged and laid down on one of the thicker portions of snake; hooking her left ankle over her right ankle so that her knees hung off either side without actually touching the ground.

"-(Excuse me?! What is she doing?! Hey! Of all the...)-"

Katarina glared at her calmly blinking face of innocence, then turned back to follow the group with a rough snake approximation of a grumbled murmur of discontent.

"-(This is some ducking bull-quack.)-"

Snickering slightly, Alys pulled out a book and began flipping through it, "Well... if you're going to stop right in front of me with thick patch of warm scaly goodness as if you're just waiting for me to get on... I might as well accept the invitation. Although, it's not quite as comfortable as I thought it would be. Is this some kind of metal plating? Oh... cosmetics... druids automatically equip armor from their slots that fit their shape when turning into an animal. Hum... guess I can't complain."

"-(I'll allow it for now, but see what happens if you keep on being cheeky. Maybe I'll try laying on you, huh? See how you like a big old snake head large enough to swallow a super-sized crocodile just laying on your stomach so you can't read your precious books.)-"

She slithered between emerald-glowing bushes and over roots jutting out of the ground as if they didn't know water is supposed to travel down. Occasionally, she booped a useful herb or flower with her snoot, causing it to be sucked up into her inventory for either her own use or Reynaud's witch potions. A host of glowing flowers were all siphoned up into her inventory.

She paused next to a tree.

"-(It's not a flower or herb, but I'm pretty sure there's an alchemy potion or two that uses this type of moss... so I might as well take it while I can. Makes my nose itch though.)-"

A short while passed, then she received the strong urge to blink rapidly upon the sudden realization that there were no red flowers anymore.

"-(Wait... no... that flower is definitely supposed to be red. Ah! Are snakes dichromatic? I think I read that somewhere while browsing the internet out of boredom. They can only see blue and green primary colors from the light spectrum. And I think Boas are nocturnal... so... that's probably why everything is so obnoxiously bright and kind of... odd looking. UV rays out the wazoo.)-"

She stiffened slightly and glanced up.

"-(UV rays? Hold up... there's not actually a sun up there, is there? Huh... that's a bit... can dungeons create actual stars for their inner dimensions? Or do they only suck in light from outside and then put it out inside? It doesn't really seem like that's efficient. Or maybe they have a star inside somewhere, and they use that to spread sunlight across all their dimensions? Weird thoughts.)-"

A few minutes passed, then Paloma stopped and turned back with a confused look, "What actually is a titanoboa? Should one of us carry... WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!"

Startled, Reynaud and Griogair spun around; only to freeze in horror.

Until they saw Alys looking up at them with a smug look as Katarina-Danger Noodle-variant gave them the most dry and exasperated stare ever given by any snake in the history of all snakes.

Paloma burst into laughter, "Aren't you the one who was telling me 'dungeons are not a vacation'?"

Her fellow brunette merely shrugged, "When life gives you lemons turn most of them into lemonade, grow an orchard, and save a few to squeeze in life's eyes after they decide to mess with you, that way you can kick their teeth in properly."

Griogair blinked rapidly, "That is... not how that saying goes. That is not at all how that saying goes."

Snorting, Alys glanced at him, "Toe-mae-taa, toe-maa-toe. Poe-tae-toe, poe-taa-taa. Everybody says things differently. I just happen to be in the group that doesn't take any shit from life."

Katarina spun her head around and hissed at her, earning a slight squeak from Alys as she came face-to-face with rows upon rows of back-curving teeth meant to allow a titanoboa to more easily swallow massive prey.

She cleared her throat slightly, "Ahem... not... not that I'm saying anyone else would take any shit from life. I'm just saying that I wouldn't. Have I mentioned yet how lovely your scales are?"

The Shadowbloom let off a huff of air and turned back towards the front, slithering along as the other three took the hint and started off again.

After a bit, Reynaud glanced back, "So... uh... if we all got super tired, what's the likelihood of us catching a ride as well?"

Katarina hissed at him.

Chuckling slightly, he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, "Right, right. You'd probably be tired as well. Got it."

"-(No, what I said... or at least meant... is that my whole team is made up of leeches and spies.)-"

She eyed Paloma thoughtfully, darting her tongue out absentmindedly to pick up scents.

"-(Except, maybe Paloma. I haven't technically seen anything like that from her yet. I think?)-"

The next two hours were surprisingly uneventful for a dungeon, considering they were almost halfway to the first ring. She was honestly expecting to encounter at least six different fights of some kind and probably far more than that, and to take nearly twice as long if not longer. Yet, completely un-harassed, they made it to a large field of medicinal flowers vaguely similar to the fields planted around the academy to act as emergency gathering fields for both the academy itself and the capital city.

Reynaud's eyes lit up as he looked over the field with a touch of awe, "Geeze... effectively every single one of these are worth something! If I could spend even an hour here to take up a good five percent of this field, we could probably each pay back a decent chunk of the armor we bought! If anyone else has herbology, there's plenty of room for us to work."

Katarina flicked her tongue rapidly as a sudden realization came over her.

"-(Come to think of it, was I supposed to be able to just suction up plants into my inventory like that? I mean... they aren't processed. But... it certainly seemed a lot easier to just suction them up into the inventory and deal with them later.)-"

As Paloma and Griogair plopped down and started drinking some water, the Shadowbloom watched Reynaud carefully pulling back the dirt from one flower and gently cleaning them off with a brush before taking out the seeds.

"-(That's going to take forever.)-"

She turned back towards the field and started cutting a huge line across it, booping every flower in her path with her scaly snoot.

"-(Ugh... itchy nose, itchy nose. Why can't snakes have hands to scratch their noses?! I need to get up to level fifty as soon as possible.)-"

Pausing at the far end of the field, she stuck her head a good three meters up in the air to make sure there was a good chunky danger noodle-sized section of flowers left on the far end. Katarina nodded and measured out another two sections by eye and went along to harvest another section; effectively creating four alternating rows of flowers, dirt, flowers, and dirt.

Then she dumped the lot of them in front of Reynaud before continuing on to harvest the remaining bits of field.

She paused before even really starting the next line, glancing back at him, "EH?! H-How... what even... what did you do?! These roots look like they've been done by an expert! I mean, they still need to be properly cut to divide them for different purposes. Which does require as much skill, if not more, than actually getting the roots out intact. But still. This should save a lot of time. I could even save some of these to do later."

Katarina gave him a happy danger noodle smile :)) and continued harvesting.

Griogair leaned over to his fellow tank, "Why's he so excited over plants? I mean, I get they're useful plants. But he's so... enthusiastic."

Shrugging, Paloma glanced their three teammates; her smile softening slightly, "Well... his parents had a garden where they lived out by the sea. That garden was shared by about six different houses over several generations with a large fenced-in area for the kids to play in the middle and a small cooking pit in a smaller fenced area. So... I guess he just kind of likes to keep the tradition alive."

Katarina's smile slowly sank into a danger noodle frown :((. But she continued harvesting, instead choosing to send two of her wolves over near Reynaud and plop them down near him. One, she lay down in such a fashion he could lean against it slightly; while the other sat down next to him and gave him a large wolf grin.

Chuckling slightly, Reynaud ran a hand over her ears, "Good puppy. Hah... you're like... twice the size of the dog at the orphanage. So... you're probably about the same size to me now as that dog was to me when I was seven. Katarina must be a powerful druid already to summon so many wolves of such size. I guess she filled minion-based classes into every slot she could."

"-(Wait, does he not know I have the overmind thing? I thought he knew? Was he not paying attention? Or maybe he was actually asleep? And I did take paladin for the ridiculous level-based self-buffs. So it's not like I took ALL of my slots as pet classes. Just... most of them.)-"

Reynaud glanced up with a slight frown, "I wonder if she actually is... hmph. Either way, if we just treat her well and keep an eye on her... it shouldn't be an issue."

Katarina paused as her brain processed his murmur.

"-(Treat her well? Keep... an eye on her? I wonder if she is what exactly?! What do they think or know I am? Who told them? When did they tell them? Are they only being 'friends' with me, because they think I am evil and are trying to keep an eye on me?! Was Paloma only trying to make me like her more when she was practically all over me earlier? What do they plan to do if they decide I am, in fact, evil and need to be 'removed'?)-"

Katarina shuddered slightly, feeling the sudden urge to curl up into a ball and hide her head beneath a few coils of scales.

"-(Oh crud... I need to make sure I don't act suspicious. But what if trying not to act suspicious causes me to act suspicious like in some goofy Isekai novel?! I could end up giving myself away by overthinking things! Except, I'll end up dead here! What if I'm overthinking things right now?! HOW WOULD I EVEN KNOW?!)-"

Tapping her on the spine, Alys hesitantly asked, "Are you... ok? You stopped harvesting and you're like... shaking. Do you need me to get off?"

"-(Act natural. Be one with the happy danger noodle, BECOME a happy danger noodle. Happy danger noodle who loves to have fun, nice danger noodle who never makes you want to run, warm danger noodle fresh from the sun. Hugs, hugs, hugs.)-"

Glancing back, the Shadowbloom shook her head before slithering along once more. Like a scaly vacuum cleaner hose, she suctioned up more and more rows of flowers. True, her vision being mostly green and blue made it difficult to tell what some of it actually was. But she was also fairly certain that most, if not all, was usable in some fashion.

"-(I need to find some way out of this group without getting labeled a villainess. Some kind of 'neutral' parting between us. Or, better yet, a parting that favors Paloma and the others somehow; ensuring there will be no hard feelings. The more I stay with them, the more chances they'll have to find some reason to decide I need to die.)-"

Finishing up the field, she dumped the rest of it in front of Reynaud; who quickly took it all into his own inventory to preserve freshness, "Excellent work! Hey! Paloma! We've got all the flowers we could need from this field! Once Katarina has had a chance to rest for few minutes, I'll spread out some seeds to help reassure the dungeon and then we can get moving again. I've got enough here to keep us going even if we don't run into another field. Maybe half an hour instead of a full hour?"

Paloma smirked, "Great! Sounds like a plan, Reynaud. And good job, both of you."

Glancing around a bit, Griogair frowned slightly, "I'm starting to get an odd feeling. Isn't it... weird... that we haven't run into anything yet?"

She squinted her eyes slightly, peering at the tree line, "It is... but... there's really not much we can do about it but keep an eye on things. As long as we keep a few ears out and stay aware, there shouldn't be anything in here that we need to worry about."

Katarina perked up a bit, dozens of ears standing at attention.

"-(So I'm not the only one who thinks this is strange. Then again, they don't exactly have an experience with dungeons. So maybe real dungeons don't have quite so many 'encounters'.)-"

Blinking slightly as she scanned over the golems surrounding her and Griogair, Paloma giggled softly, "Exactly. Just like that, Katarina."

Katarina eyed her with confusion, tilting her golem heads in unison.

"-(Just like what? What did I miss?)-"

She had one of her golems sniff Paloma as she had often seen dogs do; hoping it would somehow reveal whatever she had missed. It did not. Though it did earn her golem a rather nice rub between the ears, so she could hardly complain. Katarina had almost never been one to turn down free head rubs in her past life and felt no inclination to start now.

As she finished up harvesting with her main body, the Shadowbloom slithered around the two tanks sitting on a pair of rocks and then kept circling until Alys was pressed right up against Reynaud and Katarina was able to rest her head on her own scale-covered spine.

She glanced back to see Alys turn an odd shade across her entire face and neck that she distantly registered must be what a blush looked like without being able to see red.

"-(Heh, heh, heh... now kiss. Smooch, smooch. Don't think I forgot about earlier. This is what freeloaders get. A whole load of embarrassment. Brother my foot, er... tail... ?..., sisters don't look at their brothers like she looks at Reynaud. There's clearly something happening there on at least one side of the equation. So let's see if we can get a reaction from the other side.)-"

A few minutes slowly passed and her enthusiasm died bit by bit from the complete and utter lack of reaction Reynaud had to Alys being pressed up against him.

Many questions raced through her mind.

"-(Is she not his type? Is he gay? Is he really able to focus on flowers that much? Isn't there something I'm really supposed to be doing right about now? Should snake booty be this thick and comfortable to lay on? Especially when covered in armor? Is the armor why it's so thick and comfortable to lay on?)-"

She stared off into the clear blue sky for a while, pretending to be a wise old sage snake contemplating the secrets of the universe with the mental image of a tiny white beard and mustache on her chin and snoot.

Then quickly shook it from her head as Reynaud went over to begin resetting his cauldron with the help of Paloma and Griogair to lift it out of the golem, "Almost ready. Shouldn't take long, since the base is already going. The existing magical reaction should help the herbs dissolve much faster."

Katarina gave another danger noodle smile :)), relatively content to just lay there for a bit longer.

But she kept her golem gazes fixed on the tree line.

"-(I can't sense any animal type monsters at all. We should've at least had a few birds gather in the hopes of joining in to fight us with other monsters. Maybe even a few bee monsters while harvesting the flowers here. But it's... completely silent and vacant. Although, maybe they're just down wind from my wolves and it's to warm out here for my danger noodle heat vision to properly take effect?)-"

Slightly jittery, Katarina was happy to start moving again the very instant Reynaud finished.

"-(My scales were starting to itch with how silent it was just laying there.)-"

Slowly, her paranoia started to mount as the minutes passed; so she tried to distract herself a bit with the improvised song.

"-(Happy danger noodle who loves to have fun, nice danger noodle who never makes you want to run, warm danger noodle fresh from the sun. Hugs, hugs, hugs.)-"

Katarina slowly started to sway back and forth as she repeated the song in her head, only to get the urge to blink again as she realized how natural the movement was. Indeed, while her basic instincts had helped a lot, there was clearly a level of fine control she was missing. She did try to keep the swaying down a bit for the sake of Alys, but quickly got into the groove of it.

"-(Come to think of it, a lot of snakes are just back and forth like this all the time. Maybe they're all singing something like this in their head? Their own little version of happy danger noodle. Heh... all those little danger noodles just dancing around with a tune on their head.)-"

She mentally paused, having to actively force herself to not stop.

"-(Did I invent happy danger noodle? Or... is happy danger noodle the instinct of all snakes? Maybe... all snakes are actually singing that exact song in their head?!)-"

A strange sense of unity filled her heart and there was a bit of pep in her slither. Mentally, she imagined dozens upon dozens of furry-hat wearing snakes using their tails to hold up little red flags of snakes riding bears into battle; each and every one of them hissing out the happy danger noodle song. A single small tear slid down beneath the translucent scale covering her left eye.

"-(We sing together, my brothers and sisters.)-"

Another hour passed, then a fourth. However, they failed to find a single monster. This was a bit of an issue considering it was considered best to be at least level two or three before the mini-boss, and least four or five before the actual boss itself.

Finally, Reynaud called them to a stop near the bottom of a hill, "It's only a short ways away. I can see a few guards outside the gate and some archers up on the walls. It looks exactly like it was described, a smaller version of the academy. There's even a guard tower atop a hill on the left front side and what seems to be a keep of sorts in the back middle. Just like the one guarding our long-range portal beacon at the academy."

A faint smirk on her face, Paloma glanced over them, "Well... how do you guys want to do this? We're supposed to be at least a level or two higher. But we're also pretty fresh since we seem to have avoided any major issues. If we can break through the gate without to much trouble, we should be able to do the boss just fine though. Since we should get at least level two on our way inside even if I highly doubt we'll get anywhere near level three."

Griogair frowned, "I say we eat a light meal first. But... we should try going inside. No point in trying to fight on an empty stomach, and gorging ourselves will just slow us down."

Turning back into a human momentarily, Katarina grinned as Alys scowled up at her, "Oi! Warn a girl before you just drop her face first on the ground! I mean, it was only a short drop and the ground was pretty soft here. But still!"

The Shadowbloom gave her a cheeky smirk, "Sorry, next time I'll hiss at you. And... I am in full agreement with the eating plan! Though, first, I'd like to see this tinier version of the academy for myself. I'll use my wolf form and take a few minions up though, so don't worry."

Paloma shrugged, "Sure. That's fine. Just try not to attract any attention over here. Pretend to be a normal dire wolf pack or something."

Nodding, she started climbing up the hill; occasionally booping a few of the white mushrooms covering the hillside with her paws to suction them up into her inventory for Reynaud to disassemble into ingredients. All around the hillside, everything was covered in brown grass; likely the work of the mushrooms sucking up much of the nutrients and moisture. It was almost horrifying to see one plant strangling an entire hillside's worth of other plants. However, it was also very profitable considering they were highly useful for a few different kinds of low to mid-tier potions.

Naturally, you could almost see dollar signs in her eyes as she slowly made her way up the hill.

At the top, she sent her golems first and had two of them bow their heads slightly. Then quickly came up behind them and poked her head over their necks. Though she did try to keep herself as low as possible to avoid creating a large black spot on the horizon.

Ideally, she would have just sent her golems. However, they were all low level golems. Their eyesight was relatively poor and short ranged; meaning she couldn't get a decent image without potentially alerting the vile fang kobolds.

A stray thought of how ridiculous she must look passed through her mind, but she quickly pushed the emotion off to one of her nearby golems; earning a wide grin from it as it bent over slightly from snickering.

"-(Huh... it really is just a tiny, not-as-pretty version of the academy.)-"

After a short while of marveling over the mini-academy along with both its similarities and differences to the real one, Katarina headed back down the hill.

Suddenly, she spotted a moving bush. And another. And another. And another.

Pausing, the Shadowbloom's ears perked up for a moment before flattening against her head.

"-(That's... not... normal.)-"

She tilted her head slightly.

"-(Is it? I mean... this is a magic world. But... I'm kind of sus of yellow over there. Wait... since when are bushes... oh.. right... right... wolves have got dichromatic vision as well; but they can't see red or green; only yellow, blue, and grey.)-"

With haste in her step, Katarina all but sprinted down the hill as a stray thought hit her.

"-(Why on earth can I remember the most random and useless facts that I learned on mere happenstance, but I can't make a plan for the day without writing it down. Seriously, isn't literally planning how my day is supposed to go more important than 'oh, sneks and woofies have dichromatic vision; but not the same kind'. Seriously brain, learn to prioritize what to remember.)-"

As soon as she was within earshot, Katarina spoke up, "Aren't the flora and fauna around here wonderful to look at? Like those trees and bushes behind you. Look at those. Right now. Look at the trees and bushes right now. Right this instant. The ones behind you."

Her group blinked at her for a moment and glanced over the tree line with a highly unimpressed stare; then turned back to her, "Geeze, and I thought Reynaud was plant-crazy. They're just bushes."

However, after a moment, Griogair stood up while turning back to the tree line, "Wait a second... there weren't any bushes outside five meters past the tree line when we got here."

Only a split second passed before the rest of them seemed to register the implication.

Immediately, they turned back even as countless kobolds with spears burst up into action as crudely fashioned bush-suits fell down around them.

Arrows rained down as Griogair brought his shield up; brilliant light pouring from it and expanding outward like an umbrella.

Katarina blasted out six fireballs across the most heavily congested areas, then immediately turned into a regular sized snake. She controlled the flames while slithering towards the group beneath one of her wolves, doing her best to make it send embers leaping onto nearby kobolds while also trying her best not to let it go even an inch towards her group. Easier said than done, considering how voracious fire could be and how far away it was, but they were at the bottom of a small indent in the land between the slow upward curve towards the forest and the much sharper and steep incline of the hillside. With a bit of effort, the flames climbed rapidly towards the archers; bringing the closer archers to panic. More arrows rained down from the tree line itself, but Paloma took advantage of Griogair's Iron Wall to begin weaving a crimson dance along the edge; ducking in and out of cover as more arrows came down.

Both Reynaud and Alys unleashed a series of aoe attacks in rapid succession. One group frying as electrical currents washed over them. Another collapsing in agonized shrieks as countless droplets of acid burned through their fur instantly and began gnawing at their flesh. A swath of toxic mist swirled outwards, seemingly curving towards the mouths and noses of the vile fang kobolds; bringing them to their knees in coughing fits. Pure energy needles slammed into others, piercing knees and elbows or outright slamming into their jugulars; only to disappear and let the blood flow out in mass quantities.

As she got under the wide spread umbrella-shield technically meant to be used for stave off boss attacks with a particular focus on larger battles, Katarina shifted back into a wolf. The tiny snake could not give her enough vision, the large snake or bear would take up to much room under the umbrella, and the human simply had no benefits in this battle. She was not exactly skilled with any form of weapon; though she did admittedly have some basic training in effectively all weapons you could buy at the academy shops.

She felt a bit bad seeing arrows sticking out from the golems that had gone up the hill with her, but knew they could feel no pain even with their vitality barrier reduced to nothing and their bodies filled with holes.

"-(Sorry, my fluffy minions. I'll patch you up later.)-"

She was just about to start channeling lightning spray to take out the remaining kobolds near their barrier when something odd happened, "NOW! WHILE THEIR SPELLS ARE DOWN!"

"-(That... wasn't common. It was more... wolf? But not wolf. Archaic wolf? Odd. I did understand the rough idea of it though.)-"

Water.

What seemed to be an entire river flooded down towards them as more and more figures stepped from the tree line. Beasts of all sorts, kobolds with bows, and at least four times as many spear wielders than had already died. They charged down the hill alongside the water; clearly counting on them either defending against it or being swept off their feet.

The Shadowbloom's mind absently worked, even as she began channeling ice arrow; slowly building up wave after wave of arrows; one, two, four, eight, sixteen... quickly reaching the ten second limit and then surpassing it due to the forced casting time from her staff.

"-(Tactics... are monsters really this smart? I thought they were closer to puppets? Or can the dungeon not really control them, maybe just 'incite them to anger' or something?)-"

What should have been only around a thousand arrows, via a heavily maximized basic spell, turned into several thousand due to the extra five seconds. They sank into the river and together froze most of it while other arrows pelted the beasts and vile fang kobolds.

Yet still, partly via sheer tenacity, some broke through. Griogair stepped into action, keeping his left arm raised up to broadcast the iron wall above them even as his right arm swung over and over again with a ferocity nearly matching Paloma's deadly dance. It was true that Paloma's two-handed sword did far more damage and most of them were chasing after her due to taunt spells and minor aoe effects, but Griogair seemed well trained; purposefully striking in the rough area of weak points to try trigger critical hits. Admittedly, without rogue abilities, there was a low chance of successfully hitting the life barrier of a being in the perfect spot to force excess energy drain. But it was an admirable effort that demonstrated proper training; as expected from one of the children of former upper-level city guards.

Katarina's golems quickly went to work, spreading out to the sides of Griogair and Paloma to catch any stragglers. For every kobold that got close, one golem would jump on them and drag them down; doing their best to open up a weak spot for a second golem to quickly finish them.

"-(Oh god I regret everything.)-"

The bear golem itself had no such limitations; bowling down two of them with claws to the chest before slamming the shaft of a spear against its wielders throat and then crushing it while ripping their throat out in a single movement.

Tears streamed down Katarina's furry wolf cheeks.

"-(Oh god... the warmth of blood... why did I pick this class... I should've at least swapped out overmind. But the rts-like control... it's so good. But the sensation of blood running over my face is so awful. Why can't it be like in the game, where it's just digital stuff with particles floating off!)-"

Doing her best to stay focused, she shot an arcane bolt towards the back line; taking the lowest casting time of one second and letting the forced plus fifty percent casting time drag her up to a rounded-off two seconds. Like this, she could continuously cast an auto-seeking bolt with only a seven and a half-second cooldown. Each shot easily dealt more than half of the beast master's health, allowing them to pierce through its life barrier.

Shot after shot, blood and gore sprayed out behind her targets. And as their beast master died, the beasts in turn lost much of their ferocity and coordination despite still being loyal to the dungeon.

She filled in the gaps with blasts of lightning along with life, unholy, and holy bolts; unguided missiles, but nearly half again as fast as the arcane bolt and they each fired three shots at once. With the lack of undead, she focused her life bolts on keeping Griogair fighting strong despite his shield arm being used to provide shelter from the storm of arrows. Meanwhile, she sent her healing burst to Paloma. With a modification to make its heal over time the same length as its cooldown and nearly four times stronger, it was borderline perfect for a dodge-tank like Paloma. Even the initial burst was helpful as her health rapidly ticked down from various glancing blows and damage over time spells faster than the heal over time spells of all three supporters could deal with.

"-(Thankfully Alys seems to be dispelling the dots on-cooldown. I don't know what...)-"

Katarina's mind froze as Paloma was body checked by a bear, being slammed into the ground with a bone-crushing force. Massive claws slammed into her over and over again in only a few seconds, ripping through her hit points like butter. Its mouth opened, aiming straight for her neck. The very fate of an entire continent, if not the world, was about to be destroyed in front of her.

Pupils dilating, the Shadowbloom burnt her ultimate healing spell and teleport artifact almost simultaneously; then turned into a one-and a half metric ton prehistoric south american shortfaced bear in the blink of an eye.

She slammed the smaller bear into the ground a few meters away, using her paws to hold it down as she ripped its lower jaw off with her teeth.

Her mind flickered in and out of focus in a chaotic mix of fury and fear, two dozen jaws ripping and tearing throat after throat with a ferocity unlike anything she had previously demonstrated.

Three minutes passed before she started to calm down, swiping at a few wounded stragglers as the blood seeped further and further inside her armor. Her golems were now more red than grey or white, and Griogair's shield arm hung limply at his side. She blinked slightly, coming to a stop as she stared at Reynaud's shaman buff minions dogpiling a downed kobold together and stabbing him with small daggers held like swords.

A strange almost mechanical numbness overwhelmed her senses as any sense of wrath or fear left her and seemingly took all her energy along with as if rations for their journey.

Standing up on her hind paws, Katarina's gaze swept the field; lingering for a moment on the toad minion shooting vivid green bolts at a nearly legless kobold desperately trying to crawl away.

"-(Was that... me? His legs look like they were crushed...)-"

After a few seconds, the last of their hit points drained away and the bolts began sinking into their skin like darts. Then each bolt slowly vanished into the wounds as their flesh turned black, spreading even faster for those bolts striking close to the veins. She watched with an almost emotionless and clinical fascination as the flesh almost seemed to melt within their own skin; creating horrifying bubbles of puss.

Katarina wrenched her stare away as Alys smashed a wounded kobold over the head and then pushed them face first into the ground with the bottom of her staff. The bookish young woman unleashed a concentrated beam of fire into the back of her victim's neck; baring the spine and leaving the nearby flesh with the appearance of charcoal.

The brunette woman continued forward, spraying another kobold with acid from almost point blank range.

Her gaze briefly flitted across the form of Reynaud cutting down one kobold with a brightly glowing sword while holding another beneath a torrent of electrical energy like some kind of Sith.

Then landed on Paloma massacring the last half-dozen or so unwounded kobolds.

The almost skin-tight sports and war bra she wore had survived due to being linked into her life energy barrier like a second skin. But the actual armor itself was decimated and would likely need a day or two for repair unless one of them had the spell from blacksmithing to speed up the recovery. One of her swords had been left on the ground, snapped in half from a bear crushing it down between two rocks at an odd angle.

But she was alive.

"-(Oh my gods... the one person able to either stop the dark god from creating an avatar or kill the avatar before it becomes to powerful, almost died right in front of me. Even if this were to turn out to be a dream, that would be horrible. I'd end up in a nightmare.)-"

Suddenly, the numbness left her all at once as her golems slowed to a stop before beginning to search the nearby trees for any more opponents. With neither the red haze nor grey melancholy to protect her mind, Katarina suddenly felt like breaking. The memories of biting and clawing through two or three dozen vile fang kobolds and even more animal-type monsters hit before the full shock and horror of nearly allowing a major catastrophe to happen right in front of her could fade.

Shrinking down into a regular human from lack of concentration on her desire to be a bear, Katarina puked.

There was nothing in her stomach, leaving her to dry heave after only a short burst of acid.

But a soft whisper soon echoed into her ear followed by a hand landing on her back and rubbing with enough pressure that she could feel it even through her heavy leather armor, "Hey... that was kind of terrifying and awesome. The rage bear part. Not the puking out a rainbow. That was kind of cool since I've never seen anyone do that before. But the bear part was better."

Katarina blinked rapidly, then eyed the strange semi-translucent very faintly yellowish white fluid with sparkly specks throughout it on the ground in front of her.

"-(What kind of anime bullshi... bull quack is this?)-"

Griogair walked up with his shield arm still limp at his side, "A lot of the older noble families tend to have various magical creatures as ancestors. Usually those like dragons or gorgons who can turn into humans or elves or such. But sometimes just magical creatures that happen to have a shape similar to what we consider 'civilized sapients'. I've no idea though what kind of species would have rainbow glitter vomit. Pixies, maybe? But you're not exactly on the small side like Reynaud."

Reynaud jerked slightly and Griogair a mild glare as Paloma nodded and asked, "Cool. Never thought I'd see weird puke like that though. Normally it's more..."

Alys puked as she got within range of the vomit smell.

"Ya, like that." Paloma said, pointing towards the new puddle "A more dark yellowish. And no sparkles or anything. Trust me, I helped out with the younger kids a lot at the orphanage when my parents were busy staying late at work and saw plenty of puke."

"-(Seriously? Is there something 'perfect good girl stereotype' she doesn't do? Pulling cats out of trees maybe? 'No, I will never pull cats out of trees... it is against my code of honor'. Oh who am I kidding... she probably does that as well.)-"

Glaring at her fellow brunette, Alys shook her head, "I thought it would smell better since it didn't look like puke. I was so very, very wrong. Should've just stayed over there."

Suddenly, she looked ready to retch again and Reynaud quickly tugged at her shoulders, "Let's get you away from here before you keep puking everywhere."

Griogair nodded and went over to Katarina's far side, "Come on, he's right. My mom and dad told me once that smelling vomit or seeing someone vomit often causes a subconscious reaction to protect the person from ingestible diseases and poisons. The more we're around it, the more chance we'll have of puking ourselves. Or again. Besides, we should leave this place. There's no telling whether or not any of the kobolds at the city noticed the fight. There was plenty of smoke from the fire spells, especially the initial fireball from Katarina. Though, we are quite far away."

With a faint frown, Paloma nodded and stood up, "Let's go, Katarina."

The two tanks lifted her up by the biceps, then helped her walk away.

As they walked, Katarina glanced over, "Is your arm ok to fight? I've got a few of something that could help, but it's of relatively limited supply at the moment. And it probably will be until I can either start making them myself or get a steady income going. So if you think you're going to be ok to keep fighting, I'd prefer to keep incase of a worse injury. But if it's going to affect your fighting, it's better for all of us if you just drink one of them now. If it affects your decision, I could also give you a stamina potion just before we attack the town. Since they're a whole lot cheaper."

Griogair frowned, "You've got eight-hour physical recovery potions. Not sure I should be surprised after you pulled that crazy artifact out of nowhere."

She blushed slightly, searching for an excuse, "Well... I did get a few academy points and a little bit of gold as compensation for the ordeal that happened this morning."

Raising an eyebrow, he nodded, "Right... the 'illegal arrest'. I suppose it worked out a bit for you in the end. Still, that was rather... unusual... I think I'll write to my parents about it. Not that I doubt your words, but it seems odd. Neither are still city guards, but they do have some friends from their guard days. So they might know if there's anything weird about it. Maybe the man knew your family and had a grudge against them."

With a snort, Paloma raised an eyebrow and looked at him over Katarina's head, "You mean like a grown man freaking out and all but attacking an older teenager with no evidence of any wrongdoing? That's pretty weird if you ask me. And yet, this isn't the first time I've heard it happen."

As he frowned, Katarina realized her legs seemed a bit more stable, "I think I'm fine now."

Releasing her with a faint nod, Griogair glanced at her, "If it makes you feel better, I just about puked as well when the blood of one the vile fang kobolds got into my mouth. Downright awful. Felt like a cannibal."

He pulled out a water skin from his inventory, "Speaking of which..."

The tank promptly washed his own mouth out half a dozen times, "Disgusting."

Paloma shuddered slightly, "That's why I decided to go ahead and get a full helmet. Figured I might as well start paying it off now since I'll need one eventually."

He blinked at her for a moment, "Hum... I'm using something from my family vault. Maybe I should upgrade. Full helmets are rather new, after all. The technology is only about three generations old. Before that, we relied entirely on stuff like this or Katarina's animal form armor. With the jaw slightly exposed at the bottom for easy breathing and eating."

His fellow tank stared at him over Katarina's head for a few long seconds, "You and I have different definitions of 'new' if yours is 'three generations'."

Griogair shrugged, "What was it Alys said earlier? Something about tomatoes and potatoes? We all call things differently?"

Shrugging, Paloma sighed slightly, "Something like that. I guess so."

A short walk later, the five of them found a good spot to camp for a while in a line of bushes where Reynaud's shaman minions could sit up in a tree and watch out for any moving bushes or kobolds coming out the city. They set up a few chairs and a round table given to Paloma by the academy workers. Then they sat down for a nice long rest.

*******Elsewhere*******

Katarina blinked rapidly.

"-(Wut.)-"

She looked around the pure white room that might be either rather small or impossibly large.

"-(What the actual f... how did I get here?!)-"

Her arms were barely responsive, and she heavily doubted getting out of her chair was even possible for her at the moment.

"-(Well, fuck. Shit, I cursed! Crap... no... ugh... please don't ban me anybody listening to my thoughts... also, please stop listening to my thoughts. It's creepy.)-"

Katarina closed her eyes for a moment, only for a bright orb of light to appear in front of her, "Hi!"

Her eyes snapped open and she squinted at the bright orb of light, "Hi?"

The orb seemed to hum pleasantly for a moment, then bobbed up an down, "Ok! Seems like a pretty cut and dry case. I am your case manager for today, a low level angel. Please don't panic about your situation. Your mana and attribute scores have been only temporarily disabled for my own safety. They will be returned shortly. Now let's begin. In your file, it says you've been flagged for two counts of finding bugs in the system."

Katarina's pupils dilated as her mouth dried up into a miniature desert, "Case.... manager? Flagged for... finding two bugs?"

"-(Am I about to be smited?! This is still day two people! CAN I GET A BREAK?! If this is a dream, I'm going to be so pissed at myself when I wake up. Wait... is pissed a cussword? Fudge... I don't actually know... kind of sounds like it?)-"

The orb of light spun around in circles for a moment, as if absentmindedly amusing themself, "These are combat related glitches, so they're worth a decent amount. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised no one has ever found out about these. You'd think they'd have been discovered already."

She slowly slumped down into her chair.

"-(They're worth a lot?! Is this like some kind punishment system? So and so years in hell before I get deleted from existence?)-"

The orb stopped and seemed to focus on her, "First up, is this overcharge trick. You technically beat the system by abusing something that is supposed to make casting in your druid form worse, by using the system to over-cap the casting time on channeled spells. Very nice. Well done. To fix this, the god of balance has made the following changes: Rather than plus fifty percent, the channeled spells will only gain plus five percent damage or effect and cooldown past their previous 'maximum casting time' of ten seconds. This should prevent druids who discover this from becoming to absurdly powerful, but also allow them a little extra to spice things up if they do discover it. Druids are considered a bit weak right now, so that's a fine little buff if they discover it."

Katarina blinked rapidly.

"-(Druids? Weak? What? In what games have druids ever been weak? Wait... are these patch notes? I mean... if it delays any punishment, I suppose I'll listen. Somehow, I don't think I'm getting out of this by playing the rules lawyer card.)-"

Continuing, the orb of light swung back and forth like it was in a hammock, "Mmmm.... hmmm... second, we have your little true damage buff. That's not supposed to be improvable; but you're getting six point six percent and could easily just keep buffing it up to over two-hundred percent; which technically isn't possible, but +100% true damage for yourself and all of your minions would be rather... well... broken. Henceforth, the god of balance has altered any true damage items that grant a buff to instead grant 'Divine Buffs'. Divine buffs cannot be altered with your might of the pack or similar buffs, wait are there similar buffs...?... I should know this... maybe not, but they can be replicated via the overmind buff transfer."

The orb went still, then drifted closer, "Now, let's talk rewards."

Katarina flinched.

"-(Oh, gods... here it c... wait... rewards?)-"

A screen was brought up before her, "You can get either coins of any type equaling ten mithril for each, ten mithril and one non-combat prestige of the maximum tier, or two non-combat prestiges of the maximum tier. Unfortunately, you cannot receive combat prestiges; as that would be to unbalanced and unfair."

Slowly, her mouth turned from a desert into a swamp as if a particularly delicious meal had been sat in front of her.

"-(Well... in that case... I apologize for assuming the worse, you handsome and genius lightbulb.)-"

Katarina's eyes shifted thoughtfully, "I think... um... I'll take..."

"-(Non-combat prestige... at top... tier... hold on a second...)-"

Her eyes lit up, "I'll take both as prestiges, please."

The angel's light momentarily turned pink, "Please? Aww... you're such a little sweetheart. Give me just a moment and I'll have you on your way. You know, most 'civilized sapients' would never say please to a low level angel like myself."

Katarina did her best to smile pleasantly as the angel hummed to themself happily.

"-(I can save a huge amount of money if I can just make the golem pillar myself. In the game at least, it's over a thousand gold just for the basic one that supports twenty golems and over ten thousand for the one that supports fifty golems. On the other hand, the land up north is rather cheap; so it might actually be worth more money for me to just get prestiges.)-"

What seemed like a few minutes passed, then the angel spoke up again, "Alright! You've been approved for two extra points, both granting non-combat prestige points able to unlock straight to max-tier without any additional points."

Katarina nodded, "Thank you very much, I hope you have a nice day."

The angel's light turned pink again, "Aww... you're such a little cutie... have a candy."

Blinking slightly as a bowl floated before her, Katarina took one, "Er... thank you."

~[Angel's Delight: +1 natural beauty to a maximum of 2,000 out of 10,000. Flavor is optimized for the consumer.]~

"-(Wut.)-"

*******The Dungeon Campsite*******

The Shadowbloom slowly glanced up and looked around the table; hesitantly stowing her 'Angel's Delight' away.

"-(Ok. I feel... weird now. Numb? Numb. But different from the numbness earlier. Is this... main character luck? Are people watching me right now? Like... in an anime?)-"

She shuddered slightly. In her first life, she had never liked spending time with other people really. Her family having been pretty much the extent of her ability to enjoy being around other people. Thankfully, while the Katarina of the current times had no real experience with it beyond working on class projects, she was at least somewhat better at dealing with it. But the idea of people watching her still freaked her out.

"-(Better not be an ecchi anime or whatever.)-"

She paused.

"-(Unless it's ecchi meant for bi girls? Heh... guys in tight shirts and girls in sports bras... hopefully with lewd handholding of all types. Cuddling? It wouldn't fade to black for me, right? Very nice. Though... what if that means it's actually a hentei? No thanks, please. No hentei ever. Nope, nope, nope. I can't even bring myself to watch one, I definitely don't want to be in one. No, no, no.)-"

Reynaud glanced to her after setting up his bowl of shrimp and grits, "So, Katarina, what was that spell by the way? The one that stopped the flood? It looked like Blizzard. But you shouldn't have blizzard yet. That's an intermediate spell and we were only level one."

She slowly turned to him with a slightly dazed expression.

However, Griogair spoke up, "No, that can't be right. Blizzard doesn't need to be channeled and it starts strong rather than ramping up over time. I'm positive she was channeling. Though... I guess maybe she modified it? No... I think... isn't that ice arrow? Although, I've never heard of ice arrow doing something like that before. So... that's a little odd either way."

Clearing her throat slightly in an effort to pull herself back together, Katarina sheepishly nodded, "Yes, it was. I haven't even gotten around to thinking up modifications for intermediate spells. But I've been plotting out modifications on the basic spells for years. I'll probably get started on preparations for eventually gaining intermediate spells soon. However... I don't know how well I'll actually do. They're a lot more complex than basic spells. My current methods for crafting spells might not work on intermediate spells."

"-(Not untrue, but also... nothing to do with the basic spell designs I have.)-"

Paloma smiled as they ate lunch and gently bumped her elbow against Katarina's, "This is nice, eh? Eating with friends. I certainly couldn't imagine not having you here. I think I'd be heartbroken."

Katarina blinked and slowly opened her mouth, only for the tank to squeak slightly and glance at Alys with all the betrayed confusion of a kicked puppy.

She glanced between them for a moment, then hesitantly asked, "Are... you alright?"

Paloma jerked back towards her, "Fine! How are you? Feeling better from earlier?"

The Shadowbloom nodded and held up a glass of ice cold milk from a somewhat docile cow monster that had a habit of nuzzling the head and neck of anyone that came up to them as if they thought the person were their own calves, "Yes, much better after something to sooth my throat from the acid."

Smiling slightly, the brunette turned back to her own food.

A little over half an hour passed as they ate and recovered.

"-(If only food had an actual recovery buff. Like stamina or something.)-"

Reynaud suddenly lifted his head, "Hey guys, there's been no one coming from the vile fang kobold city and no one messing with the corpses we left. So... there's... no reason we can't go back and get the mana cores from the monsters. Right?"

The group paled and Griogair groaned, "Cutting open cold corpses. Is that better or worse than fresh ones?"

They glanced at each other with slightly green faces.

After a moment, Paloma stood up, "Come on. As long as we suit up first, we'll avoid a lot of the worst bits anyway. So it's fine. Everyone, up."

Sighing rather reluctantly, the group stood and passed their chairs to Paloma; then pulled out their dissecting kits.

Each kit had been sent to them with their uniforms, allowing them to get familiar with them while they were adjusting to the fit of their academy clothes.

They dawned full-body suits that puffed up around them above the knee and elbow thanks to a downward airflow. While not truly skin-tight below the knee and elbow, they were effectively like gloves for a surgery or knee-high boots. Each suit coming equipped with crystal face plates enchanted for rapid self-cleaning and light weight.

Paloma glanced around before smirking slightly as she started walking, "Right. Nobody puke inside their suits. It will not be pleasant."

Alys and Katarina turned faintly pink.

As they approached the battlefield, Reynaud glanced over, "You know, this isn't so bad. I thought it would be a lot hotter walking around out here in the field. But... I guess it has some kind of air conditioning-like rune."

Paloma nodded, "Ya, it's pretty nice. I heard you can get a better one from the shop though, and you can keep that one. So I might think about doing that once my armor is paid off."

She stopped and surveyed the field, "Alright. Katarina, circle the whole field with wolves. Reynaud, cat up the hill and form a triangle with it and the crows. No flying above hill-height. Crows just circling around one spot is a good way to draw attention. Everyone stay tight knit in case there's a problem. And remember to follow protocol. Cut the head off first. Starting from the spine if at all possible. Only afterwards flip the body on the gurney and let it auto-lift it to the necessary height for your comfort. We don't want any accidents here, like undead or mostly dead kobolds."

With grim faces, they each selected a corpse and got to work with a mana-powered saw. After severing the spine, Katarina carefully continued around the front; then rolled it over and activated the gurney. Once it was at a better height, she immediately went for the sternum. Katarina readjusted afterwards and cut through the far right side of the ribs; closest to the table as she could manage without impeding her own work. Then carefully followed the top and bottom of the ribs; using a depth measure on the side of the saw to help avoid cutting into any of the organs.

"-(Ugh... imagine if I cut into the stomach. The mana core would probably stink afterward.)-"

As she pried open the cut section and shifted it slightly, she blinked and eyed the core.

"-(Can mana cores be washed? Is it water soluble? Or is it more like an actual gemstone?)-"

After a moment, she shook her head.

"-(Questions for later. The sooner I get this done, the sooner we can move away from here.)-"

Katarina used a knife to cut away the tendrils of flesh sticking to it from all directions and let the section of ribcage fall to the ground as she did so. Then she carefully peeled back the bits of flesh directly attached to the mana core. After stowing it away, she stepped to the far side of the gurney and fully retracted the legs before upending the gurney.

Several hours passed due to the sheer number of corpses involved combined with the rest Griogair and Paloma required to recharge their mana. During this time, the two tanks would go ahead and help the other three by prepping bodies onto the gurneys. It slowed their recovery slightly, due to requiring them to cut the heads off, but ultimately kept things moving at a decent pace.

Alys groaned slightly as they started reaching the end, "I'm glad we can just take back the full corpses of the beasts, since they can be eaten. If I wanted to cut open corpses, I'd have become a coroner instead of a hunter."

Grinning slightly, Paloma nodded, "True. I think, once we're done with the academy, we should go for dungeons with beast monsters. You can just stuff them all into the inventory and dump them out at warehouse. Maybe we can even settle down near one of the dungeons with dire cows. Apparently, rather than killing them, people just lay down with them and enjoy how soft they are."

Reynaud dumped his corpse with a faint smile, "That sounds so much better than this. One dungeon for hunting, where we don't have to do any cutting. Then a second one where we can just relax with a big fluffy cow and watch the wind sway the fields of grass."

With a faintly fond gaze, Griogair pried off the ribcage of a kobold, "I've heard the towns around those places have specialty cheeses that are hard to buy elsewhere. A sort of... 'tourist attraction' type thing. We might even be lucky enough to get a town with a cheese and wine restaurant, or a cheese and beer bar."

Katarina felt a bead of sweat roll down her forehead as the others talked as if it was a guarantee for them to still be together after the academy. True, this was fairly normal as far as she knew. But surely they had not forgotten her earlier words of possibly leaving the group after a while?

She continued working, cutting her way through the rest of the carcasses with almost mechanical efficiency from trying to portray herself as hard at work.

Alys frowned, "Is beer actually good? I haven't tried any yet."

Griogair tilted his head side to side, "Well... it depends on the brand and the person. There's also whether or not you're having it with food, and what type of food. And there's also mixing. A lot of beers are just disgusting by themselves, but really bring out the flavor if you mix them properly... like with different sodas. Ah... those are fizzy waters with varying flavors that are becoming popular in the city. I think they're some invention from Gnometon Prime."

The brunette nodded, "I've heard about those. I'll have to try some on the weekend if they're not to expensive. Paloma and I have made plans to go around sightseeing, and I think Reynaud wanted to go along for the first half but break off after lunch. Wasn't that right?"

He nodded, momentarily glancing over, "Yes. I'll need ample time to visit the gaming center."

With a roll of her eyes, Alys shook her head, "Seriously? Half a day? I only set aside three hours for the library."

"And... why is that?" Reynaud asked with a faintly defensive expression "Aren't all of the books literally available via the school computer for free? You have four years to look through them, and even then you could just get a yearly book pass. It's not that expensive."

Alys gave him an affronted look, "Excuse me?! The books?! I'm not going for the books! This is the main city library of our country! Countless works of art are on display for anyone to look at! The library has as much or maybe more security than the actual city museum! Sword collections! Staff collections! Armor collections! High definition projections of ancient scrolls detailing epic sagas in the oftentimes flawless writing of people long past! I... neeeeed... to visit the library. I have literally wanted to go there since I was six, but we couldn't afford it. The things held there are comparable to the mechanical museums of Gnometon prime, or the temporal frozen spellworks of Elyseserine, or Dhugboldahr's armor and weapon museums containing equipment of past kings and champions!"

He sighed, "Alright, alright. I kind of get it. But still, it's the same for me and the gaming thing. Ok?"

Griogair interrupted, "I mean... the armor and weapon museums are probably fairly interesting, but I feel like the Dhugboldahr beer crystals museum would probably be better to mention."

Blinking, Paloma lifted an eyebrow, "Beer crystals?"

He nodded rapidly, "Supposedly, the dwarves invented crystals that allow you to taste and smell a certain type of beer when held in your hand. Each time, it calibrates to your taste buds and pairs it with the flavor of food best suited for you to enjoy that beer. It even has the option to receive a card detailing what beer it is and what food was paired with it for you; so you can find it later. Although, horribly, some of the beers have been lost to time. A tragedy really."

Katarina fought off a snort.

"-(Geeze... someone likes their beer a little to much.)-"

Paloma gave him a thumbs up, "That's it then, I'll add it to my list of places I want to visit! The beer crystal museum of Dhugboldahr!"

Gently closing her eyes for a moment, Katarina shook her head.

"-(Oh my gods... they're like... a soulmate-brother and sister duo. Or maybe soulmates meant to marry one day. Probably the former, since Griogair wasn't even on the 'harem list' in the game. I kind of get why... he doesn't seem like the type to be easily strung along. Especially by the type of girl who is doing it without even trying.)-"

A short while after, they had finished up the mana core removal and piled them up, "Nicely done everyone! Let's get a good distance away, then remove our gear. We'll rest for a while and consider our next move."

ffffffffffff

Faintly tired but happy smiles covered their faces as they formed a line behind Reynaud and Paloma; slowly marching back towards the previo