[POV: Ren Takashi] [Location: The Elevator Cavern - Base Camp]
The silence in the cavern wasn't empty. It was heavy, filled with the hum of mana lamps and the rhythmic, wet sound of Ayaka Fujino reapplying a poultice to Reiji's chest.
Ren sat cross-legged on a wooden crate, his eyes closed. He was trying to force his mana to regenerate. It felt like trying to squeeze water from a dry sponge.
[MANA RECOVERY: 1.2 / MIN] [CURRENT MP: 15 / 120]
"It's too slow," Ren whispered, opening his eyes. The golden lines of his [Divine Guidance] were dormant, leaving his vision mercifully clear of the chaotic data streams that usually overwhelmed him.
"Patience, Hero," Ayaka said softly, not looking up from Reiji's bandages. Her hands glowed with a soft, steady white light. "You can't sprint a marathon, and you can't force a mana channels to widen by yelling at them. Drink this."
She kicked a flask toward him with her foot. It was blue and smelled like blueberries and chalk.
"Thanks, Mom," Ren joked weakly, uncorking it.
"Don't make me add 'Childcare' to my Class Title," Ayaka shot back, though a small, tired smile touched her lips.
Ren took a sip. It was vile, but he felt a warm tingle in his stomach. He looked around the camp. The Iron Hounds were gone. The adults had fled. It was just them now. Eleven teenagers sitting in a hole in the ground, preparing to march into hell.
But surprisingly, the mood wasn't despair. It was… focused.
"Okay, look at the map," Itsuki Haruma said, adjusting his glasses. He was kneeling on the floor, using a stick to draw in the dirt. Reiji was sitting opposite him, shirtless, his chest wrapped in thick white bandages that smelled of herbs.
"The West Tunnel slopes downward at a twelve-degree angle," Itsuki explained, his voice calm and analytical. "Acoustics suggest it opens into a large cavity. A den."
"A Murder Hole," Rika corrected, sitting on a crate above them, sharpening her daggers with a rhythmic shhhk-shhhk sound. "Let's call it what it is."
"Tactically, it's a bottleneck," Reiji rasped. His voice was stronger than it had been an hour ago, though he still winced when he took a deep breath. "If Mei and the others found a defensible position, they can hold out. Mei's a Lancer. She excels at keeping enemies at range in narrow corridors."
"Unless she lost her spear," Rika pointed out, stopping her sharpening. "Which she did. I saw the gnoll snapped it in half when i scouted ahead."
Reiji grimaced. "Right. But Hinata is there. He's an Assassin. He can craft traps. And Toru has fire. Beasts fear fire."
"The problem isn't their defense," Itsuki said, drawing a circle around the tunnel mouth. "It's our extraction. We can't carry three people back up a twelve-degree slope while fighting a pack of fifty. We need a vehicle. Or a distraction."
Ren watched them. Reiji was broken, but he was still leading. Itsuki was terrified—Ren could see his hand shaking slightly holding the stick—but he was still thinking. Rika was sharpening her weapon because it gave her something to control.
They were growing.
"I can be the distraction," Reiji offered, reaching for his battered sword.
" absolutely not," Ayaka said, slapping his hand away. "If you pop [Grand Provocation] again, your lungs will literally explode. You are on babysitting duty."
"But I'm the Tank!"
"And now you're the baggage," Ayaka said firmly. "Deal with it."
Ren smiled. He stood up, testing his legs. They held.
"We'll figure it out," Ren said, joining the circle. "We don't need a perfect plan. We just need an opening."
Ten feet away, a very different conversation was happening.
"It is structurally unsound," Hanae muttered, tapping the surface of Daigo's scavenged heater shield with her wand. "Look at this micro-fissure near the rim. If a hyena bites here with a pressure exceeding 400 PSI, the metal will shear, and you will lose your left thumb."
Daigo sighed, munching on a ration bar that looked like a brick of sawdust. "Hanae, relax. It held up against the Warlord's cleaver. It's got [Kinetic Payback] now. It's basically magic."
"It is not magic, it is physics applied through a skill filter," Hanae argued, pushing her glasses up. She looked like a nervous bird, her eyes darting to the dark tunnel every few seconds. "And statistics show that equipment durability fails at the worst possible moment 88% of the time. We should reinforce it."
"With what?" Daigo asked. "We don't have a forge."
"Duct tape?" Toby suggested.
Tobias "Toby" Okoro was standing in a pose he probably thought looked heroic—one foot on a rock, hand on his hip. In reality, his Squire's tunic was tucked in wrong, and he looked like a confused waiter.
"We don't have duct tape, Tobias," Hanae sighed.
"Verily," Toby nodded sagely. "However, as a Squire, I possess the [Mending] cantrip. It's merely a Tier 0 skill, intended for polishing armor, but perhaps I can… buff the crack away?"
Daigo laughed, a booming sound that echoed off the walls. He reached out and slapped Toby on the back, nearly knocking the lanky boy over. "That's the spirit, Toby! Polish my shield! Make it shiny so the monsters can see their ugly faces before I smash them!"
"I… shall endeavor to do so!" Toby saluted, then tripped over his own scabbard.
Yui Kanzaki watched them from her spot on the floor. The small Monk was stretching, pulling her leg up behind her head with unnatural flexibility.
"You guys are loud," Yui murmured. She was in her 'Low Battery' mode—quiet, soft-spoken.
"We're hyping up!" Daigo grinned. "Right, Yui? You ready to punch some dogs?"
Yui stopped stretching. She lowered her leg slowly. A shadow seemed to pass over her face, and for a second, the 'High Energy' switch flipped. Her eyes narrowed, and a terrifyingly sharp grin appeared.
"I'm going to punch them," Yui said, her voice dropping an octave, "until they stop twitching."
Then she blinked, returning to her soft, sleepy expression. "But I hope my knuckles don't get dry. Monster blood is so sticky."
Hanae shivered. "Yui, you are objectively the scariest person here."
"Thank you," Yui whispered politely.
In the corner farthest from the noise, a silent artistic endeavor was taking place.
Noa Yukimura was sitting cross-legged, her headphones around her neck. She wasn't listening to anything—her phone battery had died three days ago—but wearing them was a comfort. A barrier against the world.
In front of her, she had cleared a patch of smooth stone. She held a small pot of blue paint—Gouache.
Except it wasn't just paint. It was mixed with crushed mana crystals she had scavenged from the floor.
"Blue," Noa muttered, dipping her brush. "Stability. Mass. Viscosity."
She painted a circle. Then two eyes. Then a blobby, round body.
Sayaka Minori sat beside her, her black notebook open. She wasn't writing. She was watching Noa's brushstrokes with intense focus.
"You're not using the Summoning Circle syntax," Sayaka observed quietly. "The geometry is wrong for an elemental construct."
"Circles are boring," Noa deadpanned, adding a little smiley face to her blue blob. "And spirits are picky. They want contracts. They want mana upkeep. I don't have time for that."
Noa tapped the painted blob with her brush.
"Rise," she commanded. Not with a shout, but with a bored sigh.
[SKILL: ARTISTIC MANIFESTATION]
The paint on the floor rippled. It bubbled. Then, it peeled itself off the stone.
A small, blue, gelatinous blob, exactly the shape of her painting, wobbled into three-dimensional existence. It had the smiley face and everything. It looked like a slime from a low-budget RPG.
"Gouache No. 1," Noa introduced it. "He has no brain. He feels no pain. And he tastes like blueberries. Probably."
Sayaka stared at the blob. She reached out and poked it. It jiggled.
"Does it fight?" Sayaka asked.
"No," Noa dipped her brush again, mixing red paint this time. "He's bait. Monsters love eating slimes. While they chew on him, I paint something meaner."
Noa looked at Sayaka. "You want to try? Sorceress mana is highly conductive."
Sayaka looked at the brush. She looked at her notebook—full of observations, theories, and secrets she never shared.
"I can't draw," Sayaka admitted softly.
"Doesn't matter," Noa shrugged. "Imagination overrules technique. That's the Earth Logic."
Sayaka hesitated. Then, she dipped a finger into the blue paint. She drew a small, jagged lightning bolt on the floor. She poured a tiny bit of her static-charged mana into it.
Zap.
A tiny spark of electricity jumped from the paint, dancing like a mini firework.
"Cute," Noa said.
Sayaka smiled. It was a tiny smile, barely visible, but it reached her eyes. "Yeah. Cute."
"Alright," Ren's voice cut through the cavern. "Break time is over."
The three groups merged.
Daigo stood up, grabbing his shield (which was now very shiny thanks to Toby). Yui hopped to her feet. Noa's blue slime wobbled after her.
Ren looked at them. They were a mess. Their armor was mismatched scavenged gear. They were bruised. They were teenagers.
But they were a team.
"Status check," Ren ordered.
"Mana at 40%," Itsuki reported. "Enough for three high-tier spells or continuous low-tier support."
"Stamina full," Daigo slammed his chest. "Ready to tank."
"Stealth active," Rika faded slightly into the shadows. "I've got six flashbangs left."
"Gouache No. 1 is ready to die," Noa pointed at her slime.
"Reiji," Ren turned to the Paladin.
Reiji was standing, leaning on his sword. "I can't tank," Reiji admitted, frustration evident in his jaw. "But I can command. I'll stay at the rear guard with Ayaka. If anything gets past the front line, I'll stop it."
"Good," Ren nodded.
He walked to the edge of the light, looking down the dark throat of the West Tunnel. The smell of rot and old fur drifted up.
"Toru, Mei, and Hinata are down there," Ren said, turning back to face them. "They're scared. They're alone. And they think we left them."
Ren drew his sword. The blade caught the light of the mana lamps.
[SYSTEM: MANA RECOVERY COMPLETE.] [PASSIVE SKILL: DIVINE GUIDANCE - ACTIVE.]
Ren's eyes glowed with that familiar, golden light. But this time, it wasn't chaotic. It was focused. He saw the golden lines connecting him to Daigo, to Reiji, to all of them.
"We are Class 3-G," Ren said. "We don't leave people behind. Not in Earth. Not in Altherion."
"Oohrah!" Daigo yelled.
"Let's get this over with," Rika smirked, spinning a dagger. "I need a shower."
"Toby," Ren pointed to the Squire. "You're with Reiji. Be his crutch."
"I shall be his buttress!" Toby declared.
"Close enough," Ren laughed.
He turned to the tunnel.
"Move out."
One by one, they stepped out of the safety of the camp and into the dark. They weren't the same terrified kids who had arrived in this world a month ago. They were battered, they were scarred, and they were tired.
But as they marched into the darkness, the fear was replaced by something else.
The blue slime wobbled. The heater shield shone. The golden eyes burned.
They were coming for their friends. And God help any monster that stood in their way.