John cursed as he wiped the blood off his mouth.

Five large stone golems had appeared, each insanely tough. Prota had done her best, but these golems were way tougher than usual. According to Fate, these monsters were territorial, meaning that there usually was never more than one in a single area. That was fine since one alone was a pain to deal with.

Prota was doing her best, and Fate was fighting two at the same time, but it just wasn't enough. John's gun was completely useless here. There was something he could use, but to use it would be somewhat risky. He'd been thinking about the consequences of using said item when a golem smashed him into a wall.

"John!" Prota cried out, running over, wincing as she threw up a wall of ice to block a punch coming her way.

It wasn't enough, and she was sent flying towards John, who caught her with his body. Unfortunately, while this protected Prota, it only served to injure John even further.

"Guh-!" he gasped, blood spurting out of his mouth.

He kneeled over, grabbing his stomach. It hurt. When was the last time he'd been hurt this much? There were only three golems left. Prota had used her Blossom of Ice one, and Fate had dealt with another and was half done with a third, but there were still two left.

"Prota. Don't worry about me and fight."

Prota shook her head.

"Seriously."

"No."

John grunted as he spat out some more blood. It seemed Prota wasn't gonna budge on this one. How could she? If she had to give up on John to fight the enemy, then that defeated her purpose. Her goal was not to defeat the opponents.

It was to protect John.

Her training wasn't helping here. The golems were so slow that there was ample time to think, but the problem was the raw power each of their blows packed. What were these things? She looked over just in time to see Fate finish off one more.

"Blade dance!" he yelled, flickering out of vision.

A thousand golden cuts appeared on the golem he was dealing with, leaving only two remaining.

"John!" Fate yelled. "Get up! I can't help you and Prota at the same time!"

"Prota," John gasped. "Use your ice magic. Freeze my body."

"Freeze?" Prota frowned slightly.

Given that her facial expression never changed, it was enough to show just how concerned she was.

"Just do it!" John gasped. "It'll act as a temporary cast until I can get healing!"

"Cast?"

"Just do it!"

Prota didn't like it, but she did as he asked. A thin layer of ice spread across John's chest, effectively creating a makeshift cast that numbed the pain and allowed him to move. He was crippled, but it was enough. The cold shocked his brain back into action. The pain was bad, but the alternative was dying, and dying probably just meant going through this all over again. Still, it wasn't enough. He popped a pill into his mouth, and while the pain didn't completely go away, it did subside substantially.

"Kh," John grunted, pulling a grenade out of his pocket.

Fate momentarily stopped to look as he heard the familiar sound of a pin being pulled.

"What the hell?!" he exclaimed, jumping out of the way of another blow.

"Yeah, I should've used this in the first place," John said apologetically, taking aim. "I was worried about the ceiling caving in, but that shouldn't happen, right?"

"The ceiling- wait a minute!"

"You're right. I should've used this earlier."

He looked at Prota, and she nodded. As soon as John threw the grenade, Prota used wind magic to guide the small explosive directly into the mouth of one of the golems. There was a brief pause, followed by a massive explosion that shook the walls. A few stones rained down, but thankfully, the ceiling did not collapse.

"That- that's not what a grenade is supposed to do!" Fate yelled.

"Yeah, it's called the power of bullshit. Just be happy with it, capiche?"

His words were still cheeky, but they had a wheeze to them too. He was hurt bad.

Fate leapt out of the way as another blow from the last remaining golem shook the floor.

"He seems annoyed," Prota observed. "Did John do something?"

"Ah… you might say that?"

Fate, luckily, had a target on which to vent his frustrations. His blade began to glow white as it was heated to ridiculously high temperatures. He leapt up with a cry and cleaved through the golem with a single slice, splitting it in two.

"Hah… hah… seriously, what the hell was that?"

"Grenade," John shrugged.

"Gre… nade?" Prota said, stumbling over the pronunciation.

"It's just a bomb," John explained.

"Uh, no?" Fate exclaimed. "Grenades hurt people with shrapnel! Not the initial explosion! You threw, like, a pound of explosives into that thing!"

"I told you, the power of bullshit."

"The power of- you know what? I'm not questioning it," Fate sighed, going to rest up.

John grunted, propping himself up against a wall. He was trying not to move as much as possible. Even talking was a pain, and his lungs might've had a little blood in them, but he couldn't help himself.

"How do you know so much about grenades, by the way?"

"Focus. I already told you that I'd tell you my story someday. Just not yet."

"Yeah, yeah," John sighed, taking a roll of bandages out of his backpack.

The ice was still on his body, but it was going to melt soon, and that meant the pain would start coming back. His painkillers were good, not godly.

"You got any potions?" John said offhandedly.

"I'd rather save them for emergencies," Fate said hesitantly.

"My ribs are all broken."

John proceeded to throw up yet another mouthful of blood, much to Prota's displeasure. His face had that same stupid smile as always, but he was looking pretty pale.

"...here."

John chugged the red liquid and tossed the bottle back to Fate. He breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the bones in his chest come back together. The pain faded nearly immediately, and he got up, dusting himself off.

"Alright, let's keep going."

~~~

The group continued to go deeper into the cave. At some point, John's flashlight ran out of battery, so they'd switched back to Fate's fireball. This had been against John's will. He'd wanted to take a fresh flashlight out, but Fate had threatened him with violence, and that was the end of that.

Interestingly enough, no monsters showed up after the golems. There were some traps and turns, but for the most part, they made it through alright. The issue wasn't really the traps, though.

It was stamina.

Everyone was getting tired. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but they were potentially walking into the enemy's nest. Even if their goal was to observe and not to attack, these were sub-ideal conditions for such a mission. What if the enemy were really in this deep cave? What would they do then? Die?

"Let's stop here for today."

Fate stopped walking and put his pack down on the ground. That large bag. He hadn't been carrying it around. Where had it come from?

"Alright, let's rest up for the night."

"Rest… up?" John frowned, staring at the bag, but Fate acted like nothing was out of the ordinary.

"What, did you think we'd finish in one day?"

"What about the beasts?"

"We sleep in shifts. Kit, me and you. You brought stuff, right?"

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Uh… yeah."

John turned around and reached into his bag, pulling out two sleeping rolls and some bottles of water. Of course, he hadn't actually been carrying all of that around with him, but he very well couldn't pull items out of thin air around Fate.

"Do you have food?" John called out.

"Yes. Enough for you, too."

John slowly put the jerky he'd been taking out back into his pocket dimension. Fate lit a fire, and the group settled down. A quick but decent meal was consumed in silence, with the only noise being the crackling of the fire.

"I'll keep watch first," John said. "You sleep."

"I'll-"

"Sleep. I'll be fine."

Fate seemed like he was going to argue, but he must've been tired enough that he simply laid his head down and went straight to sleep.

"You too, Prota," John said. "Sleep."

Prota yawned and nodded, lying down, but her eyes remained half open. Her mind was too cluttered up from the day's events. As a result, she watched as John took his hoodie off, then his shirt, revealing the bandages that'd been wrapped around his chest. However, that wasn't the part she'd noticed.

On his back. It was a red square with lines crossing within to form a pattern. The same pattern that she'd always seen on his hoodie. It was on his back, too.

"John," she called out softly. "What… is on your back?"

John practically jumped. "My- oh, shit."

Prota got up softly and picked up John's hoodie, trying to see if it was the same symbol, but to her surprise, there was nothing. The entire hoodie was just black. She turned it inside out multiple times to make sure, but there was really nothing.

"...?"

John silently unwrapped his bandages and put his hand out. Without a word, Prota gave him his hoodie back. There was some quiet rustling as he put his clothes back on. As soon as the hoodie was back on him, the symbol reappeared as if it had never gone in the first place. John sighed as he wound his scarf around his neck and looked at her.

"...what?" Prota said quietly.

"I don't know, Prota. Really. It's something that's been stuck on my back for who knows how long. Go back to sleep, ok?"

Prota was about to protest, but then realized that she really was very sleepy. Against her will, her eyes slowly closed, leaving John to watch over them.

~~~

"Hey, Fate. Wake up."

To John's surprise, Fate immediately sat up, alert and ready to go.

"My turn?"

"It's no one's turn. Let's go."

"What do you mean?" Fate said, confused.

"It's been eight hours. Let's go."

"It's been-" Fate stopped talking. "Did you fall asleep?"

"No."

"Are you-"

"Yeah. We got ambushed, but just once."

John pointed to a lone goblin with a knife in its neck. Fate looked back at John and saw green blood splattered on his shirt.

"You stayed up for that long?"

"Don't get it twisted. I just wasn't that tired. Let's keep moving."

John shook Prota awake, and she slowly sat up, rubbing her eyes. Her hair was tangled like a bird's nest, but that could be fixed later.

"John… stayed up?"

"Huh? What makes you say that?"

"When John goes to sleep, he never wakes up first."

There was no arguing with that.

Soon, they were ready to go again. Just like before, they continued to follow the paths with Fate leading the way, but surprisingly, there were still no encounters. Nobody complained, though. Fate could hear John muttering, but he ignored the man's whispers. Instead, he decided to take the free time to deal with something that'd been bothering him.

"Hey, Prota," Fate called out.

Prota flinched but listened. She was accustomed to Fate enough to stand his presence with effort, although the close proximity made her want to shrink away into nothing.

"I know I talked with John about this, but… you'll keep my being from Earth a secret, right?"

The girl nodded.

"Haah… thanks."

Fate was satisfied with that. Prota didn't look like the type to go up to people and volunteer information anyway. She always seemed to let John do the talking for her, which made him wonder what the relationship between the two of them really was. It seemed she didn't really know what "Earth" was either, meaning she wasn't from there, so the two weren't blood related, probably.

So what was their relationship? Had John found Prota upon arriving in this world? If that was the case, what for? On top of that, despite John always taking charge, it seemed like most of John's decisions were for Prota's sake and not his own. But then why was Prota protecting him?

He shook his head. Now wasn't the time to get distracted by unimportant details.

"Heads up," he said as two giant orcs and a pack of shadow wolves appeared in front of them.

John grunted and took aim.

"Prota, stay near me," he whispered.

Something felt different about this group of monsters. He cocked his gun and pulled the trigger without hesitation, nearly obliterating the thing. It was thrown away as if hit by a cannon. The others didn't react. In fact, the way the wolf had died… bullets didn't do that.

"Fate!" John yelled. "Those things are being controlled! They're either visions, clones, or corpses! Something like that!"

The orcs slowly turned around as the party heard a scuttling sound above them. Fate lit a fireball to see dozens of giant spiders all around them.

"...ambush," Fate grimaced. "Go!"

Prota summoned a barrier of ice around her as a spider fell on her. Its fangs barely pierced through the shield, only for Prota to discard it, sending a fireball into the spider's mouth. It squealed and leapt back, shooting out what looked like… poison magic?

"John! These are also mana beasts!" Fate yelled. "Acid Spiders! Don't get hit!"

"Or else what?"

"Or else your body gets melted into sludge! You want that to happen?!"

John grunted in acknowledgement, then made his way over to Prota, who was finishing up the spider she'd been dealing with.

"Just like the wolves… can you do it?" he muttered.

Prota's eyes went wide as she understood John's intentions. Once again, she closed her eyes and focused. The mana cores. She could see them. However, these mana cores were small. So much smaller than those of the wolves.

These weren't people. Couldn't she just end it, here and now?

"Do it," John nodded.

Prota reached out in her mind, and her little black core reached out, pulling the mana of the spider into herself, draining it until it was sucked dry. The spider, however, didn't die. It collapsed, but it was still alive.

"...?" Prota stared.

Shouldn't it be dead?

[They don't have souls]

This was from Zero. Prota frowned ever so slightly, but then she understood.

Her [Soul Steal] ability killed when it absorbed the soul. However, here, there was no soul to absorb. They couldn't die if Prota took all their mana because it wasn't their life source. It would just weaken them to the point of helplessness.

That was good enough, though.

Just like before, a strange feeling flooded her body as it grew to encompass poison magic. Without thinking, she fired out a small glob of green liquid, leaving a little hole in one of the spiders. It was the same thing the spiders had fired. Like before, no specific spells were learned. She just understood what acid mana felt like and could now manipulate it to some extent.

Experimentation would come later, though. Now was the time for battle.

Now that they knew what they were dealing with, the spiders were easy opponents. At this point, they were just bugs. The main element of surprise had been removed with John's warning, and with nowhere to hide, the spiders were eradicated like the pests they were.

The group finished the fight relatively clean, green blood and sizzling pools of acid all over the floor.

"You know, I never thought I'd say this, but I'm kinda jealous," Fate said as he checked his equipment.

John snorted. "The hero? Jealous of a little girl?"

"Shut up," Fate grumbled. "Wouldn't anyone want the ability to copy magic?"

"I don't wanna hear it from you," John muttered as they turned to face the orcs.

Big, powerful, but slow, orcs were formidable opponents that weren't to be messed with. While their swings were wide and slow, they had the terrifying ability to charge at you, full speed, with no warning. That wasn't the end of it, though.

There was the ability to "throw."

"Whoah!" John yelled, scrambling backwards as the second orc threw a boulder at him.

It narrowly missed, but his scrape with death sent a shock through Prota.

"No!" she cried out, sending a stream of acidic poison towards an orc, blinding it.

The beast roared in pain, grabbing at its eyes.

"Go!" John yelled, inhaling a cloud of dust.

He was sent into a fit of coughs as the others charged in.

Fate was dealing with one of the monsters on his own just fine. Prota's magic was leaving acidic burns all over the orc's bodies, allowing Fate to attack the weakened spots. With the enemies in such a pitiful state, the battle was over with relatively little mess.

"All clear," Fate said as he removed his sword from the monster.

With two clean wipes, he removed the blood from the blade and sheathed it. The party regrouped, recovered a little, and then marched forward.

From that point on, it was just a matter of walking. The lack of enemies was strange. They'd come across three strangely powerful sets of opponents, and only one weak monster that seemed out of place.

According to Fate, dungeons weren't supposed to be like this. They were meant to be more like the wilderness, only with far wilder and more unpredictable beasts. Regardless of what dungeons were meant to be, John had no thoughts on the matter, and so they kept going.

Soon, they were setting up camp again, resting up for the night. Well, they could only assume it was night. In an underground system like this, there was no way of knowing for sure.

"Hey. Is it weird that things are this easy?" John said, munching on a piece of bread. "I mean, the monsters we faced weren't even that hard."

"These aren't usually easy enemies," Fate explained. "It's only because your sister is like that that we progressed with relatively no issues. Those are… well, put it this way. If Prota was an ordinary mage, we wouldn't be alive right now."

"How about you?"

"Yeah, I guess I helped, too," Fate said, but he was downplaying his own capabilities. "The point is, the large swarm of shadow wolves, spiders, and orcs were abnormal. Those would've been reported."

"...this dungeon hasn't been scouted," John said slowly.

"That's correct."

"Was it reported as scouted?"

"Yes."

"Then…"

"Yes. There is a double agent in the guild."

Normally, this would've been bad, but John couldn't help but feel a smile come to his lips.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Fate said. He didn't seem pleased.

"It's a lot more fun than hunting monsters," John shrugged. "I'd rather deal with people than mindless beasts."

"What, do you take pleasure in hunting people? Is that it? Or are you some kind of politician who likes controlling people behind the scenes?"

"Ew, no," John said, making a face. "Don't ever compare me to a politician again. It's just… well, monsters require firepower to beat. People… not so much, you know? I like fighting. It's fun. But I need to pick fights I won't lose, right?"

Fate just shook his head. How did one deal with someone like this?

"Anyways, it's strange. This whole expedition has been strange. The golems, the pack, the acid spiders… they don't usually act like that," Fate said, continuing the conversation.

"What, you think they were planted in advance?"

"It's possible," Fate admitted.

"Mm… well, it would make sense. If they were planted, then the lack of other monsters could be attributed to the fact that people made their way through here before we did, right?"

Fate nodded. "Makes sense. I'm heading off to bed. You'll keep watch again?"

"Yeah."

Fate gave a thumbs up, crawled into his sleeping bag, and was asleep within minutes.

"John… can have fun?"

Prota was still awake, just like last time. She was finding out so many things about John, and yet it felt like she'd barely scratched the surface.

"Oh, you're still awake?"

There was a rustling sound as Prota's head peeked out of her roll. John sighed and walked over to her.

"Yeah, I guess I can have fun," John said as he sat down. He put his hand on her head and looked up at the cave ceiling. "I want to have fun. It's just, well, there's a certain someone who decides that having fun isn't in the cards for me."

John paused, letting his mind go blank for a moment. Prota shuffled around, bringing him back to his senses.

"Having fun and being happy are two different things, Prota. I- you don't have to get it," John said. "Maybe it's better if you don't get it. Just go back to sleep, ok?"

Prota nodded and wiggled back into her sleeping roll, but a bitter feeling settled down into her chest. She wouldn't get it? Did that mean she couldn't help? She wanted to help. But what was she supposed to do when there was nothing to do? She didn't even feel like it was her fault this time. She just felt a deep sense of pity.

With a restless feeling, she fell asleep.

~~~

The next day, there was still only one path to follow. They'd scouted a large portion of the dungeon, and there was only one place to go now.

"Hey, how do you know where we're going?" John said quietly as they walked down the caverns.

"Flow of mana," Fate grunted.

The path was getting smaller and smaller.

"Flow of mana?"

"Yeah, I can sense the ambient mana around us. It's flowing peculiarly in a certain direction," Fate explained.

The path was now a tunnel, and the whole team was crawling on their knees.

"The flow of mana is going to get us into a dead end," John grunted.

"Almost… there…"

Suddenly, Fate, who was taking the lead, disappeared with a cry, allowing John to see what was in front of them. He slowly crawled out, then helped Prota down into a humongous cavern lined with blue crystals.

"Whoah…"

"Shh!" Fate hissed, covering John's mouth.

He pointed to the center of the cave.

"What the- what the hell is that?"

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