Chapter 423 (1/2)

Randidly’s eyes slowly opened. His gaze narrowed as he looked out the window and towards the sky of the Raid Dungeon. Something was brewing. Something… rather familiar, although if it was occuring now…

But after checking his status screen, Randidly was left rather nonplussed. His Path hadn’t advanced all that much, so why was this happening now…? In addition, those times that it had occurred in the past, there was some warning, or at least a sign. Randidly had crossed a line, and in exchange, the System judged him to be something dirty.

A Heretic.

And from the sky, descended Judgement.

It was currently the evening of the 8th day since Cyndra and Dalton had departed with the people of the village. Ultimately, Randidly had decided to accept both quests, to get the experience boost for Alana and the rest. When they had returned from their short meeting, they found Aratta gardening, patting down freshly turned dirt with her shovel.

She had thanked them for staying, and offered to bake for them. Upon seeing Ptolemy once more going gooey eyed, Randidly had sighed, and then told her that while that sounded nice, they needed to have a meeting for their group. Aratta hadn’t seemed disappointed, which confused Randidly. It was clear that there was some sort of trick of Aether around the woman that drew Ptolemy, and others, in towards her. But she hardly seemed phazed when he snipped those connections with his Aether Manipulation.

Perhaps she was waiting for whatever was going to bother them during these 10 days to use the distraction and make use of the connection…? It was hard to say. And no matter how hard Randidly looked, he couldn't figure out the trick of her Aether. It seemed to be something originating from under the cloth covering her eyes, but in case it was a track, Randidly wasn’t willing to just rip it off her.

Instead, he waited, checking up on Neveah, working on his images, practicing his new Skills. At night, during those 5 days, small waves of monsters arrived, striking at night, seeming to aim for Aratta. But with their group, they rather easily overcame the enemies. Ace and Drake were finally in the low 40s in Level, and finally rounding out into powerful frontline warriors that could hold their own.

Meanwhile, Thea was elevating herself to another level, becoming a force of nature much more in line with the incredible acumen of Alana than the rest. That’s not even speaking of Clarissa, whose Chain Lightning had improved so much over the course of the Dungeon dive that the color of the spell was slowly changing.

Perhaps other people wouldn’t notice it, as the normal yellow slowly mellowed into a green/blue, but Randidly’s high Perception caught it after the 4th day, and immediately he wondered how he had missed it before. It might just be a change in the image that she was using, but it was undoubtedly a good sign that it was shifting.

They were growing in here, for better or for worse. And at the rate they were growing, especially with the flat experience rewards, it was clear that very few on the outside would be a rival for this group when they returned.

But perhaps the scariest of them all was…

“Do you feel that?” Annie asked, her head poking up from outside and blocking his window.

Randidly ignored her bid for attention and just nodded. “Let’s meet outside. If I’m not mistaken… the thing that’s going to come out of that will be tough.”

She nodded in response, and then disappeared. Randidly put a message in the Party chat and moved quickly through the building to outside. Reflexively, he felt out with Aether Detection and found Aratta. It’s not that it was hard to find her, it was just… delicate. In terms of Aether, she was like a very distinctive, but faint smell. It took a while to catch her, but once you did, she was all you could feel. The Aether around her was just… strange, in a way that neither Randidly nor Lucretia could figure out.

To his surprise, she was out in front of the church, looking up at the swirling clouds.

When he arrived, everyone was already there, and Rose was talking quietly to Annie as the group looked up at the sky. The rest seemed tense, but not really nervous. After a while, you sorta became used to the possibility of death, and the reality that you would be facing a monster out of a pre-System fantasy novel everyday.

Annie’s sharp laugh cut through the tension, as she slapped her knee in response to something that Rose said. Rose smiled awkwardly back at her, continuing to whisper between them.

That, perhaps, is why Annie was so fearsome. Although she was growing stronger, in terms of battle potential, what was most frightening about her was how powerful her psyche was becoming, how sharp her mentality. Life and death were… just more facts of life in her eyes. That unassuming acceptance made her calm, but it also made her images powerful. So powerful that even Randidly felt a small tingling of warning when she used her more powerful Skills.

She was a powerful ally for sure. And an asset to Donnyton.

Randidly stopped his train of thought at that, before he became too leery of her strength. “Rose, you see anything up there?”

Rose glanced over her shoulder at him, then shook her head. “It’s just… nonsense. I sense something, but… it’s like it’s in another language. Like the System isn’t decrypting it, like it normally would-”

“Oh, that’s for me.” A calm voice said.