As she implemented the simple pieces of advice that she's gotten from Leonardo, Astrid found that whenever she was surrounded, which only happened two more times in the next several hours, she was able to keep the gnolls from getting access to her back. Though they continued to generally be a nuisance, and, of course, be dangerous monsters, she was able to bat them back and keep from sustaining any noteworthy injuries. Astrid suspected that, even if she were in a situation like she had been before against the shaman and brawlers, she would be fine. Yes, she'd sustain some injuries, of course, but nowhere near the evisceration she'd faced just a couple hours before. With how her Skills filled in the gap of just those few minutes of training was amazing, and Astrid realized again that while her training in her hometown had been good, good enough to get her several Bronze tier skills offered at her Bestowal, but she'd never been trained by people who were always delving. The only delving experience they'd ever had was just maybe a week every couple of months going to a nearby Dungeon branch where the monsters there could give some experience to them and help them to gain some levels. Yes, her trainers had been a bunch of high Bronze and low Iron tier guards who trained exclusively to keep the peace as well as her mother. Whose training was to fight on the walls against people, not monsters.

After their sixteenth pack lay dead all around them, Astrid took the time to look at her companions. Every one of them was in pretty good shape, all things considered, though Felix's studded leather armor was showing more and more signs of wear and tear. Astrid's armor had been kept in great shape through taking it to Smiths for the past months since she'd begun delving, and while Felix had consistently taken his armor to be repaired and tended to by whichever craftsmen were capable of it, his armor was of a lower quality than hers from the beginning. The mundane leather holding it all together was showing pretty severe tearing all over, while the various places where bone, arrow, and fang had pierced the defenses showed the cloth under his armor.

"I think your armor is the next thing on our 'to replace' list." Astrid said, as she watched Felix shake out his fingers. He'd punched regular gnolls as well as an irregular in the eye several times now, and while it was amazingly effective at ensuring that he wasn't dodging as many attacks, Felix also didn't wear any gloves. Shattering bone, or at least pummeling it, with his bare hands, led to some nasty bruising and cuts all over his knuckles. Strangely, now that she thought about it, Astrid was pretty sure that she'd seen those same scars on his fists before he started punching these monsters. In reality, she knew very little about Benedict and Felix's past, given that neither had been particularly open to sharing them. Admittedly, she also didn't know a whole lot about Muti's either, with Skandr being the only one who'd been willing to give a general overview of his past, though he skimped on details. Astrid pulled herself from her musing as Felix chuckled and rolled his shoulders as he pulled his knife from his belt.

"I'd appreciate it. Even Muti's armor is better at protecting than mine, so as a Frontliner, I feel a little inadequate standing next to you."

Astrid felt her face flush a little as she shrugged. "Yeah, the armor is from my parents, not from the party's funds. I figure it'll probably be enough to get me through Bronze tier, given how high of quality it is."

"I agree." Felix chuckled as he cut ears free from corpses. "Pretty fine workmanship, and it's all well maintained chain, so it will continue to keep you safe against most anything. These arrows, they're probably your worst enemies, but the rest of it…"

Astrid nodded as she knelt to harvest materials and trophies herself. She wanted to ask a little bit more from Felix at the moment, but decided against it as Muti stepped closer with the trophies and fangs from the rangers she'd killed. The Barbarian didn't seem to be acting any differently after the training and encounter with Christpohe, while every other member of the party had adjusted their fighting styles slightly in accordance with the advice given by the Silver Wind while also seeming a bit more driven.

"Why didn't you say anything when Christophe was acting that way? I mean, he disrespected you and me and everyone else." Astrid asked what had been bothering her for a while.

"When one is faced by a predator they cannot defeat or escape from, they say nothing, make no sound, do nothing, and hope that, due to not provoking the monster, they are allowed to live. When children are sent on their first hunts, they learn to avoid the lions and the monsters who have been permitted to roam the overground. If they do not, they do not return from their hunts." Muti made the explanation without any frustration, being the only one of the five who seemed completely unaffected by what the Ranger had said to them.

"He said that you were lucky, that the only reason why you were successful in the hunt is because the gnolls are stupid. That didn't piss you off?"

"That phrase…" She cut herself off and instead refocused on the question Astrid had posed to her. "He was not wrong. I have not exercised my judgment in the assassination of my targets. Perhaps this is why I was not bestowed with the Assassin Class when I was granted the opportunity to gain my Class. An Assassin is prudent and effective, while I am violent and unrestrained. I have too much Warrior in me to be an Assassin, too much sneaking in me to be a Warrior, too much discipline to be a Berserker but too much anger to be a Warmaster, and I, due to my indecision, received a poor Class. Now, it is my responsibility to shape that Class into one greater than all of those which I hoped for, but could not dedicate myself towards in my youth."

Astrid opened her mouth, wanting to retort against the apparent calm of her companion, but as Muti continued to speak, Astrid felt some of her own frustrations at her Bestowal return. She'd always wanted to be a Spellsword, to be just like her mother. But had she ever wanted to learn anything about magic? Or had she just considered magical Skills to be a shortcut to being able to be impressive without dedicating herself to learning things? She knew the answer to that without anyone talking to her. After that thought crossed her mind, Astrid continued extracting the small, valuable parts from the gnolls' corpses as she thought further on it. Getting the fangs out of the irregulars was much harder, the bone of their jaw seeming to be fused to the bases of the fangs.

At last she grunted and yanked a fang free before dropping it into her pouch. It was starting to get full, and once it was, she'd add it to the sled she was dragging along with her everywhere.

"Well, I don't like what he said, but I sure do like what you said!" Benedict smiled as he continued whistling his Song of Healing while he cut the ears off of gnolls and spoke at the same time. "Sometimes I forget how wise you are."

"Wisdom is not limited to those whose classes grant magic." Muti grumbled as she watched the others finish up with the material harvesting.

"How do you whistle and talk at the same time?" Skandr asked as he stood up and stretched his back. "It doesn't make any sense. You only ever use your flute when we're in combat, so what's the deal? I just have to say that I don't understand a single thing about your Class."

"Well, I'll hold onto a couple mysteries, if I still can, but about the whistling, I can force the air between my teeth like this," Benedict laughed, twisting his lips and tongue in such a way that the whistle continued between his front teeth while he explained further, "and the I let the air from me talking and breathing sustain the whistling. That's why it's a little bit more percussive and staccato instead of legato."

"Those words mean nothing to me," Skandr scowled before shrugging, "but I guess I won't keep asking questions about it."

Benedict began to explain different concepts of music theory, but it didn't take long for him to realize that the rest of the party really didn't care about the specifics. The Bard narrowed his eyes and glared at each of his allies and in turn only Muti reacted, and when she snarled back at him, he jokingly jumped back, threw his hands up, and said,"I was wrong, I'm sorry."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Once they were finished harvesting the materials, they looked at each other and prepared to move on. While the party strode into the fields, now almost entirely a vibrant crimson instead of the darker, more muted colors of the floors above, Skandr spoke.

"I think I know what Tristan was going to say before we left."

"Yeah?" Astrid asked, idly picking at a string of dried beef stuck in her teeth from lunch, several hours earlier.

"I bet that there are no other packs with one irregular of each type in them currently on the floor. He said something about not having to worry, I think? If that's what he was saying, I think it was in response to you talking about the danger we'd been in, but whatever it was, I think he was saying that we wouldn't run into anything as dangerous as we already had."

"Maybe. But even if that is what he was saying, I'm not gonna let my guard down. The second we get comfortable as the second somebody gets injured or somebody even dies."

Skandr raised his hands in surrender as Astrid said as much. "I wasn't saying that we would change anything, I was just saying that I think I know."

"Now that I think about it," Astrid allowed, "I think you're probably right. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot else that he would've been talking about at that moment, but I also don't remember exactly what we were talking about right then so I'll take your word for it. Anyways, how close are you to level 11? I don't think that Muti's taken that lead from you, has she?"

"I'm only 212 away. How about you, Muti?"

"There yet remain 384 for me to gain."

"And you're getting, basically, 4 experience every kill?" Astrid asked Skandr. When he nodded in response, she added, "So we're looking at 53 more gnolls to get you that level?"

"Not counting any irregulars, yeah."

"In that case… let's get you that level before we break for the night, shall we?"

Skandr chuckled as he nodded. "Yeah, let's. Thanks, Astrid."

She didn't say anything back, but Astrid felt her face crack into a broad grin as she met everyone else's gaze and gestured for the Rogue to find their next fight.

***

"I'm kicking Skandr from the party."

Nobody complained as Astrid mentally forced the Lightningmage from the grouping with the rest of his allies. His face fell, but he didn't complain as they all stepped back while he pulled his dagger from his belt and threw himself at the partially wounded shaman irregular. Benedict's Quickened Step and his own Lightning Reflexes bolstered him as he shot three Lightning Bolts into the monster's chest. All of its supporters had already been killed. For some reason, this shaman was different from most, given that it refused to engage in direct combat with anybody. Once the rest of its pack was dead, it had tried to escape, but Muti's sword struck true when she threw it. Even now, its left flank bled down its leg all the way to its foot, the blood coursing between its green scales.

The shaman held its own knife, much longer than Skandr's own, and turned with jittering muscles to fight back against the mage who sought to take its life. Skandr didn't hold back as he muttered a quick enchantment and his blade began to glimmer with lightning as he ducked two desperate swings from the monster. Then, with a roar of challenge, he leapt up and buried his knife in the monster's skull through the soft underside of its jaw. Astrid didn't need to receive the kill notification to know it was dead as it fell and twitched on the ground. Skandr yanked his knife free and held it aloft as he cheered.

A faint light descended from above onto the Lightningmage as he reached level 11. The party was exhausted, ready to be done for the day, but they'd also really wanted to give Skandr the opportunity to shine today. As such, they'd come to the decision to fight one more pack, even though it would only get the mage most of the way to the next level. However, if they let him kill the last monster by himself, it would give him enough of a boost to cross that threshold for the watershed. It just so happened that the irregular was unusually cowardly and so he'd faced it in single combat, sort of.

As the monster's blood ran in rivulets down his arm, Skandr looked down, grimaced, and let his arm fall before groaning.

"I don't know why it matters to me, you three are covered with blood from the second we walk into the stupid Dungeon. Even so, this is gross."

"You are soft." Muti's response was not at all mean-spirited, and Astrid couldn't help but laugh at the look on Skandr's face as she said it.

"Have you decided what Skill you're going to upgrade?" Astrid asked as she changed the subject.

"Spellcraft." Skandr didn't hesitate to answer. "My other Skills would be good when upgraded, but Spellcraft is what's gonna let me do more for the party. Like, Lightning Bolt doesn't do nearly as much as my lightning curtain spell does, and upgrading it isn't going to change that. The biggest impact for the party as a whole that I have is in affecting groups of enemies, and my ability to do so comes from Spellcraft. Beyond that, I'm thinking that whatever Class I go for at Iron is going to be one focused on crafting spells more than getting more Skill-based magical options, so I'm going to try to respec my Skills into more generally boosting ones, such as Mana Proficiency, Spell Mastery, and things like that. Now I just need to show the Great One that that's what I want, and hopefully I'll be blessed with the option I want when the time comes."

"All right, sounds good. You'll have to tell us what changes once you take the Skill upgrade. Have you already?" Astrid asked, her secondhand excitement getting the better of her.

"I would do it right now, but Ursula said something about how if you pay close attention when you upgrade certain Skills, specifically skills like Spellcraft, you can get particular inspiration for new spells from the Great One. I wanna make sure that we're all settled for the night before I select the Skill."

Astrid nodded, looked at the rest of the party, and smiled.

"Then we're going to the stairs now, aren't we?"

Three of her four companions grinned and made quiet noises of excitement at that, with Muti more reticently nodding and smiling. Even the Barbarian was looking for a rest, which was enough of a testament to the hard work that they put in today. Starting even a hair earlier than usual, they'd begun their journey by trudging through half a dozen kilometers of frigid, snowy grounds. Then, shedding their cloaks, they'd hiked through the dozens more kilometers to reach the fourth floor. Then, they'd hunted over 20 packs of gnolls, each of which had at least ten gnolls in them, though most had twelve to fourteen. That, compounded with the fact that nearly every single pack had at least one irregular in it, led to the party putting more effort into delving than usual. It was, as Benedict had said when convincing the others to come down here now, an opportunity for them to prove themselves to the Great One. Every fight was harder than those they experienced until now, and with the instruction from the more experienced delvers, as well as by sheer necessity, they were all improving quickly.

"I'm thinking that we should stay here for two and a half days instead of just two." Astrid said as they started to walk in the direction of the stairs. "I mean, all of today, all of tomorrow, and instead of doing just a half day and getting abc before dinner, going until as late as we would usually go on a full day of delving, then make our way back to Kznietch and take a little bit of a break. Like, get back in there about the middle of the night, then take that day off to sell things, maybe look for some new equipment for Felix, and just get a little bit of a break before coming down and doing it again after a day of rest?"

To Astrid's surprise, nobody hesitated. As soon as she explained what her general plan was, Felix grinned widely and said, "I'm going to get new equipment that quickly? I mean, we have plenty of good materials here, and if we end up dragging a couple corpses up to town once we decide it's time to leave, we'll probably have enough to get me some good armor. Over a gold to spend, right? If you force me, I guess I can do that."

"Just long enough to get a little break but get back into it?" Benedict asked. "Sounds good to me. I'm happy to make sure that we are all in top shape over our break day before we get back in here to get some more levels."

"I mean, giving you all an opportunity to catch up to me?" Skandr joked. "You'll need it, before I leave you all in the dust."

Muti nodded and continued leading the way towards the stairs. When she perked up and scented a nearby pack of gnolls, though, she bared her teeth in a rictus of a smile.

"Support me. I will gain my level now."

The Rogue didn't wait to hear a response as she jogged off while leaving the party. Astrid laughed as she followed suit, checking her own experience gauge while she went.

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