Chapter 16

Mari rubbed Rayner’s shoulders, trying to calm the seething teen. It had little effect.

Rayner gritted his teeth as he explained what had happened to his short-lived team. Axel and Roddrick listened with grim faces.

“I would like to say Rayner is looking too deep into this but I’m afraid it is highly likely your three friends were murdered, not just left to die.”

“Because of us,” Rayner said, voice somber.

“Yes, because of our confrontation with the Coalition. Being the cause is not the same as being at fault. You should know that.”

“I thought they were supposed to refrain from killing other worshipers?” Axel said.

“The Coalition can write this off as a medical accident. There is also nobody to investigate what happened.”

“So, they destroyed the evidence.”

Rayner shook his head. “Bodies have been disappearing for some time now.”

Axel sighed. “That’s above our pay grade. We should focus on how we get back at them for this.”

Roddrick raised a brow at Axel. “You seek vengeance?”

“If we let them get away with this, then they are going to keep picking off people close to us. Then alone with no allies or anyone else wanting to get near us for fear of retaliation, we get knives in the back.”

Roddrick rubbed his chin in understanding then grumbled his agreement. So did Rayner who had his big fists balled together. Mari gave up her massage and sat next to Axel instead.

“It never used to be like this with Hessa, the goddess of mercy. She and her followers used to, well, be merciful,” Roddrick said.

“War changes how others view mercy,” Mari said.

“That it does, that it does.”

After a moment of silence, Axel spoke, “Attacking them is not an option right now. Instead, we pretend as if this was a regretful event but nothing heartbreaking. We go on about our business. Once our allies are secured and preparations for reentering the dungeon are ready, we hit them hard.”

All nodded. They went on as if all were normal.

Axel paid a visit to Kata and brainstormed tactics to fight the dungeon monsters. Axel also proposed hypothetical scenarios and gamed them out with the man, even discovering this world’s version of chess.

A simple game that had a rock-paper-scissors effect for the game pieces.

The monster pieces were all the same, differing only in movement ability, and the other side was made up of knights, squires, and pages. The human side could only take out the monsters under certain conditions on a board that varied in its environments based on a dice roll.

Knights could take out enemies on the plains, squires on rocky ground, and pages were effective everywhere else. As he learned more about the game it got deeper. Often, he learned after losing. Axel always lost and so he learned much.

While Axel planned tactics and played games, Rayner trained his body. He tore through the competition at the fighting ring, treating the matches like life and death battles.

It got to the point that Rayner had to pay other worshipers to participate. Rayner was supposed to keep a low profile, but he was obviously using the matches to call out the Coalition worshipers watching the matches.

Knowing that he couldn’t stop him, Axel let it slide. Maybe putting a little fear into the enemy would throw them off guard when the time came.

Axel had no idea what Roddrick did in his spare time and was sort of afraid to ask. The man hadn’t given them an answer about joining their party and Axel didn’t want to seem pushy.

As for Mari, she kept him in good spirits with daily visits after she’d serviced her lesbian customers.

Then came both good and bad news. Grace sent a letter informing them that events at Ridgehill had come to a head. Open conflict was likely to break out before they found the God Rock.

On better news, Dian Powin finished upgrading the compass.

“Doesn’t look any different,” Rayner said. He turned it around in his hand, inspecting the simple but fine patterns etched into the compass.

“The best products often don’t. Don’t be fooled by special items that have hundreds of circles and unreadable symbols on them. That’s a sign that the craftsman had no idea what they were doing and kept trying until something worked,” Roddrick said after taking the compass from Rayner to get a look at it.

“Any way to test it?” Axel said.

“I know!” Mari raised her hand then went to get out something from her pack.

She took out what looked to be a rubik’s cube, but this was triangular in shape with one color, green.

“Care to explain?”

“The puzzle is to turn this triangle into a cube. If the compass can find a path to the entrance of something, then it should help us find out how to put solve this puzzle.”

“I think that is going beyond the ability of the item,” Roddrick said.

“No, no, I get it. The compass won’t solve the puzzle for us but it should help us get started. Like with most games, the first move is the most important. It’s the same with solving puzzles,” Axel said.

“Ah, I understand. Then let’s see how this works.” Roddrick opened the compass, took the triangle puzzle from Mari, and placed both items close together.

He looked back and forth between the two for a while then made the first move, removing the bottom of the triangle puzzle. After that, he spent the next couple minutes attempting to solve the puzzle.

Once he made it into a cube, he made a note of the time. Mari reset the puzzle and Roddrick tried again without the compass.

They had to be woken up by Roddrick when he finished. “It works.”

Being as prepared as possible, they packed their things and left for the dungeon. Other worshipers that they trained with nodded to them as they passed and the receptionist ladies waved them in. This time when they entered, they only felt a light breeze to denote the change in the environment. With the triangle barrier gone, they easily entered.

This wasn’t a training or explorative outing. They had to find the God Rock or the only home they had in this world was doomed to collapse.

They wasted no time fighting monsters, heading straight for the location of the God Rock. If a monster did push too hard, a worshiper allied with them took it out for them.

This was only viable on the floors with low mana. The lower lever worshipers visibly struggled the further they went, foreheads sweating, legs shaking.

With better control of his mana, Axel easily got past the barriers to each floor where fewer worshipers were seen.

On the later floors, almost all were exclusively with the Coalition. It required them to sneak around and hide their intended destination. The mist on some floors eased this task.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. Roddrick stopped and spun around. Axel and Rayner followed suit and saw the same group that confronted them after leaving the dungeon the first time.

He’d done his homework on the group since he first saw them and didn’t like anything he’d heard.

The leader, Erik, was a professional troublemaker. He bullied people on behalf of Turin who never openly endorsed the teen’s actions but rarely condemned them.

At his side was the worshiper of Hessa, the goddess of mercy, Crayon. He and others like him led the trend of extorting the sick in exchange for getting them to switch religions.

They went so far as to use this tactic on other members of the Coalition. An unpopular man whose average face hid his cruel behavior.

Also by Erik’s side was a small woman who stood on her tiptoes as if trying to appear taller and more important than she was. She worshiped the goddess of victory. The same god that Ava worshiped but Axel doubted this woman could match Ava’s character.

Erik took his place at the front of his party. “You don’t look surprised to see us?”

“Should we be? We all knew this was coming when we first met,” Axel said.

“I guess so. It will go differently this time though. That disgusting man’s mana attacks won’t work on us.” Erik stretched out his clothes as if that meant something to Axel.

“They’re wearing mana resistant clothing,” Roddrick explained.

Colin wore something similar. Axel cursed himself for letting such an obvious counter for their attack escape his plans.

“It’s resistant but not proofed.” Roddrick balled his fists. “When we punch him to dust, he will still be dust.”

Their sensei urged caution before but now that the confrontation was upon them, Roddrick was eager for the fight.

Rayner was ready to rush them but Axel wanted the fight to start on his terms. He needed more time for that.

“As much as I want to fight you, I prefer to avoid conflict to achieve my larger goals. What do you hope to gain by fighting us?”

“At first, I just didn’t like you two working with that thing,” Erik said in disgust while pointing at Roddrick. “But it’s everything you all did after that really got me boiling.”

Axel waited for him to continue. He seemed like one who liked to hear his own complaints.

“You’ve given advice to all the little worshipers who don’t know their place. We don’t get a cut of their loot from contracts anymore and they’ve brought in so much because they are using tactics you provided to them. Then our entourages started asking dumb questions like, what is their place and role in the group?”

“Well, what did you tell them?”

“We told them they had none. Their service to us should be considered an honor!” said the little woman, whose name Axel didn’t know.

“Let me guess, they disagreed.”

“They threatened to leave us!” said Erik. “Those are some of the finest women around.”

“Ah, I see.” But they weren’t fine enough for Erik to acknowledge their worth.

So sexual gratification was the start and end of that relationship. While Axel agreed they were indeed fine women, Erik’s refusal to treat them that way was his own damn fault.

The women were no doubt aware of the role they played, but they still must have hoped for something more by unspoken agreement. Light had shined on that naïve view. Axel’s talk with them had woken them up to this.

“You’ll see alright,” Erik said, eyes narrowed and voice full of menace.

This put Axel on guard. “Close your eyes!”

He couldn’t see if they did but trusted his team. Axel recalled from his fight with Ava her ability to use light to blind him or rather the illusion of light.

The little woman was stepping closer to them when he and Erik talked, and Erik saying that he would see was a dead giveaway of his intentions.

The trio avoided being blinded by her light but their eyes were still closed. Thankfully they had a man who could taste mana.

“Duck!” Roddrick warned.

It would have helped if Roddrick said which one of them should duck but Axel ducked, anyway. The sound of a sword whizzing over him proved he’d made the right choice.

No longer worried about the light attack, Axel opened his eyes to see the little woman jumping back before he could attack.

Her retreat was fast enough to escape Axel but not an angry Rayner who charged past him to tackle her as she landed.

Rayner sent her hurtling past her party and collapsing on a soft patch of moss. Luck was on her side. Anywhere else would have left her with a broken neck.

“Hima!” Erik called out. “Get her back in the fight,” he instructed Crayon. “I’ll handle them for now.”

Rayner didn’t even look at Erik who had withdrawn a long sword sheathed on his back to approach Rayner.

Rayner had eyes only for the back of Crayon running to heal Hima. Heal her like he refused to heal so many others.

Charging again, Rayner casually used Roar to keep Erik off him while he ran toward Crayon. Erik deftly avoided the skill of force and sound but it put him out of range of Rayner and between Roddrick and Axel.

Erik hissed his teeth. “They’ll have to handle themselves. At least I have you two to myself.”

Roddrick used a mana attack on him first, the same one used back at camp. Roddrick was too experienced to take Erik at his word that the clothes were mana resistant but it turned out the angry teen wasn’t bluffing. The attack had little effect.

Not waiting for Erik to attack, Axel lunged at him, going for his chest and to Axel’s shock, Erik lunged at him as well. A bubble of blue came over Erik, causing Axel’s dagger to break on contact. Axel avoided the longsword but was pushed down by the bubble.

“A skill from the god Torin. He’s using a defensive protection skill offensively. I don’t see offensive worshipers of the Traveler God often,” Roddrick said, eyes quirking in interest.

“Glad you admire him. Just remember all the nasty things he said about you, OK.”

“Oh, I do. Don’t you worry.”

Assured of Roddrick’s focus, Axel renewed his assault. He punched and stabbed at Erik who to his dismay avoided his blows easily. Erik had more experience fighting than Axel and he had a much more useful skill to close the distance and defend himself.

Undeterred but growing careful, Axel hung back and let the more powerful Roddrick take his turn at the man.

Roddrick had greater success. His mana-enhanced blows unbalanced Erik.

But Axel could tell Roddrick expended more mana than usual to break the resistance of Erik’s clothing.

Roddrick pulled back his arm to gather his mana around his fist. Swirls of blue spun around and settled at his fist before he punched out.

Arms extend and legs anchored, a large fist of mana plowed into Erik’s movement bubble as he tried to bear down on Axel again as he recovered on one knee.

The fist of mana and the movement bubble collided in an explosion of blue light.

Erik screamed and Axel rose to take advantage of the opening. The bubble wasn’t impenetrable. Axel lacked the skill to break Erik’s skill himself.

But he wasn’t by himself. He was part of a team and with Roddrick’s backing he would pressure Erik until victory was theirs.

Regaining his confidence, Axel dashed to Erik, dagger raised, poised to finish him off. That was until he disappeared in a stream of blue light. The light left a trail to Roddrick who Erik attacked with his long sword, cutting a clean arc where Roddrick’s torso would have been.