Chapter 111

A bit bashful, Zoey turned to her teammates—a silent, ‘how did I do?’ on her face.

“A bit sloppy,” Delta said. “But you’ll get the hang of it, for sure. There’s a fighter in there, I can tell.”

Rosalie nodded in agreement.

Zoey blushed. The earnest encouragement affected her more than she’d have thought. It wasn’t effusive praise, but Delta had sounded genuine.

“Thanks. But yeah, sloppy.” The melee parts especially. Her spellcasting wouldn’t wow anyone, but her physical fighting skills especially wouldn’t.

Zoey also got the impression Rosalie and Delta weren’t easy to impress, so the fact she hadn’t gotten a wrinkled nose and a grimace before a conciliatory response probably meant she’d actually done well. Having prodigies for teammates did come with some downsides—the difficulty of matching up to them being the primary one.

She walked forward, deeper into the shard. She’d finished her first fight, but Rosalie and Delta clearly wanted to see more of what Zoey could do. And, preferably, without relying so heavily on Burst—that was a skill supposed to be used for emergencies, or at least the harder fights and key opportunities, since it drained her Lust resource so rapidly. She’d empowered almost every one of her spells last fight, and it had taken a toll.

The next brawl was a little more hard-fought, with Zoey leaning less heavily on her Boost ability. She still came out comfortably the victor, but it took a few more exchanges than the first. Even that was probably an indicator Zoey was still, all things considered, under-prepared as a wayfarer. A third-advancement adventurer should probably steamroll her way through a first-advancement shard. Though a support-class, the least so—at least she had that excuse.

But definitely better than where she had started. That was plain even to Zoey.

Rosalie and Delta gave her suggestions, critique, and commentary after each bout. The shift from all the inappropriate activities prior into brutal combat and tutoring was amusing, though not as disorienting as some of the times in the past. Zoey was getting used to how shards flip-flopped between the raw adrenaline of a fight and the stickier, other sort of heart-pounding adventures she got into.

As Zoey struggled through fight after fight, Delta’s eyes faded from bright pink into a murkier purple-pink, and finally back to her typical violet. With her better senses returned, Zoey organized a quick discussion about the questionable situations they could get into—namely, aphrodisiacs.

Unsurprisingly, Delta just seemed amused that Zoey wanted explicit clarification. Zoey thought it smart to be mindful about that sort of thing, however obvious it might seem. A blanket agreement that if the shard put any of them in compromising situations, where their judgment might be impaired, that each of them had consent from each other in advance, made her much more comfortable with the situation.

With Zoey’s brief training session—or maybe even evaluation session—completed, Rosalie and Delta rejoined the fray, and their progress through the shard turned from a crawl into a blaze.

It gave Zoey a newfound appreciation for the skill of her teammates, not that she had ever not been impressed. The ease they dispatched the low-level enemies made Zoey jealous. Again, having a couple of combat prodigies as teammates came with obvious upsides, but it did make Zoey the slightest bit self conscious.

Soon enough, they’d cut their way to their first loot room. Zoey briefly wondered whether they should skip it and forge forward to Mel, but again, they’d already wasted around an hour playing with the vines, then letting Zoey train, so if she objected a few-minute stop to pick up free items, then she’d be a hypocrite.

Though their dallying started to concern her; Mel was well within the ‘safe’ time frame she’d given, but Zoey felt they probably ought to be rushing to her as quickly as possible, simply for the principle of the matter.

Still, telling a wayfarer not to collect their earned loot probably wouldn’t go over well. Even lower-level stuff, like what this shard would offer, could sell for decent money, or be useful. Especially since Zoey and her team were needing to build up an arsenal of weapons and armor that interacted with ... well, her particular sort of shards.

Rosalie cracked open the hefty wooden chest, then reached into the inky black portal and rummaged around. Zoey and Delta, like always, watched with anticipation. Maybe they were on a time-crunch, and this event in general was concerning—being related to the end of the world and all—but she’d never get tired of new items.