Dragging the hunter by the back of his collar with the help of a few bonds of blood mana to prevent him from scraping the ground, Camilla headed back for the cavern where everyone else was at. To her dismay, she found that there was a seal of holy magic on his forehead, the same one that every unconscious person in the cavern had.

The seal did not discriminate.

That the hunter fell unconscious was, in a way, her fault, but how was she supposed to know that he had such weak mental strength?

“Congratulations, Milla,” Kagriss said as Camilla grumbled to herself.

“Oh! Kagriss, did you see?” Camilla asked out loud, a bit startled by Kagriss’s sudden appearance in her mind. Since there was no one around her, she could speak out loud while talking with Kagriss and no one would look at her funny. It was easier than thinking words in her mind. “I didn’t know you could see what I was doing.”

She was going to have to watch herself just in case she did something dumb. Never know when Kagriss would be paying attention.

Kagriss’s next words chased away her worries, but at the same time left her a bit disappointed.

“Of course not,” Kagriss said. “Even though we’ve become more intimate after you put me inside yourself, it’s not perfect and the only thing we can sense seems to be a stronger bond than before. For example, we can feel each other's emotions much clearer than before, but it’s still the same thing. The only two things that I’ve found that’s a bit more different are…”

When Kagriss’s voice trailed off, Camilla felt something freeze inside her body. It was so sudden and out of place that she immediately examined her body to find out the cause. Did someone sneak attack her? Her investigations were cut short when the surprise wore off and she recognized the cold feeling as an influx of mana—undead mana.

If it was undead mana, then it wasn’t surprising that it was so cold. It was even refreshing once Camilla got used to it, even though it’s weird that the origin was in her chest next to her heart. It felt like she swallowed an ice cube that refused to go down completely.

“You’re providing me mana?” Camilla asked, giving the mana a tug. Although the mana belonged to Kagriss, it was easily absorbed. The process reminded her of that time she spent weeks growing stronger and Kagriss helped her gather undead mana the whole time.

She received a mental nod from Kagriss, confirming her guess. “Wow… can I do the same?”

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she immediately went about testing it. Taking some of her own power and making it easy to absorb by wiping away traces of herself from it, she pushed it to the violet core.

The core accepted the mana easily and the power disappeared without a trace. It was like when she was helping Kagriss heal by providing some of her own mana to speed up Kagriss’s regeneration.

“Is it working?”

“Of course not.” Kagriss said, laughing.

“Huh?”

“It’s simple. My core is there, but my body isn’t anywhere near you. I have a connection to my core, but all that connection amounts to is a bit of control and a place to return to if my body ever dies. However, I can’t exchange mana between this body and my core. Therefore, the mana you fed my core never reaches me.”

“Isn't it pointless then?” Camilla asked, and Kagriss responded with a vague idea that represented an uncertain “yes.”

“With caveats. If my body dies, then when I recover from that core, I will have more power at my disposal immediately after my revival. Similarly, you can use my core as a battery to store more mana than you would usually be able to store. Isn’t that convenient?”

The idea of using Kagriss as a tool bothered Camilla, but considering Kagriss was already doing double-duty of suffering as her companion as well as her food, adding another role didn’t seem that bad, especially if it helped Kagriss should she ever get into trouble.

“Hm hm, okay, I got it,” she said as she made a silent promise to never use more than she took, and should she ever break that promise, to give back twice fold. No idea if Kagriss heard that or not, though…

Kagriss laughed. “You’re so cute.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Now where were we? I did mention two things. The first is my ability to help you at a distance if you need it, and the second is what we’re doing now—communicating complicated ideas. There are two ways to do it. One is conscious, and the other way is when we’re thinking about one another.”

Camilla nodded in understanding. “That’s not too complicated. Very useful. Is this because of your connection with your core and because it’s in my body?”

“Correct.”

“And… wait,” Camilla suddenly remembered something that she missed. “Did you say the other method was to be thinking about each other? Like when we’re both thinking about each other, or is it whenever one of us thinks about the other?”

“Guess?”

Vague as the answer was, the teasing tone in Kagriss’s voice was enough to tell Camilla what she needed. Her face reddened, though she managed to stay calm. Even if Kagriss did hear, it was okay. It’s not like she had been thinking about anything embarrassing or out of line, even if it was a bit...overly...pompous of her to make promises like that.

Kagriss was listening again, wasn’t she…?

“Hehe. Okay, okay, I won’t tease you anymore,” Kagriss said, sounding a lot more serious this time. “The answer is rather ambiguous. The more I think about you, the clearer the thoughts will be. If it’s irrelevant, then you won’t hear anything about it, but if I think about you even a little, there’s always a chance. At the opposite end of the spectrum, you have this...”

 Camilla had a bad feeling now that Kagriss was trailing off again. The last time Kagriss did that, Kagriss surprised her with an ice-cold donation of mana. She’d much rather Kagriss explain normally and save the theatricals, so she quickly asked Kagriss to elaborate. “Wait, what do you mean ‘this?’ Please tell me!”

However, Kagriss did not reply. The sudden absence of Kagriss’s voice left a dramatic void in Camilla’s mind, left behind unease. But it wasn’t a bad kind of unease, but more of an anticipation that Camilla didn’t know if she wanted.

Then it came, a wave of pleasure that flooded her mind, accompanied by the sound of Kagriss’s laugh. Camilla squeezed her eyes and mouth shut, biting her lips as she endured the pleasure while standing in the tunnel.

When Camilla finally managed to catch a breath, she realized she couldn’t even glare at the offender, so she could only do her best to communicate her anger at Kagriss through their bond. “Kagriss! What are you doing?!”

“Playing. And demonstrating, of course,” Kagriss said, completely unrepentant.

Kagriss was really a lot more open now, after evolving, and more daring too. Camilla just had to take the good with the bad. Huffing with indignation, Camilla decided to take her anger out on the hunter in her hands, pulling the blood holding him up and dragging him on the floor.

“I’m going to get you back for this.”

“Really? I’ll be looking forward to it,” Kagriss replied, laughing again.

“Pervert. Save it for later and focus,” Camilla grumbled. She looked around her at the rocky walls. If time moved differently in here, then days or even entire weeks have passed outside. They really needed to get out soon. “Look where we are and what kind of situation we’re in… How are Eva and the others, by the way? Find anything new?”

“Not yet. By the way, while you were gone, Beitra gathered the leaders and called a meeting.”

Although Kagriss wasn’t a leader, she was still powerful and came with Ismelda, so she was probably invited to the meeting. If she accepted, then it meant she was messing around and not paying attention to the meeting itself.

“Focus, Kagriss, focus! What would the others think if they knew that you were doing such inappropriate things?” Camilla asked. She didn’t actually want to know the answer considering the current Kagriss was more “bold” than usual, so she changed the subject before Kagriss could answer. “What’s the meeting about?”

“Beitra wants to get out of here. Reports say that the number of attacking golems increased from one to five during the original expedition’s time here, and then increased from five to seven, The frequency of the attacks seem to be rising too.”

“Eight. There are eight. I destroyed eight just now,” Camilla said, looking behind her at the spot where those eight golems had been obliterated.

“Five to eight, then. It doesn’t matter what the exact number is since it’s clearly increasing. While we can deal with it now, what about later? What is our threshold? Beitra fears that if we stay here for too long, we’ll eventually face too many golems and be overwhelmed.”

Camilla snorted. “Of course he’d say that.” While Beitra wasn’t wrong, Camilla thought he had another motive, which was to prevent any more cores from being obtained. She thought back to Beitra’s interference in Cadaelia's and Ismelda’s transaction. Beitra really didn’t want the method of stone golem core production to spread, and this was a perfect excuse.

Of course, she could just be thinking badly of Beitra, but she didn’t really care since she had a bad impression of him in the first place.

“And his solution? What does he want to do?” Camilla asked. “We can’t exactly take half a hundred unconscious people with us while we retreat. Even half that number is a pain.”

For example, she was already getting tired of lugging one hunter around, and she did this of her own free will, having dragged him out in the first place. Now multiply that number by fifty and all of a sudden, that was another fifty hunters unable to fight.

And because they were on the move, the hunters that did participate in the fighting wouldn’t be able to rest. Over time, the fatigue that would accumulate over the long battle back through the tunnels. For every hunter that succumbed to exhaustion, fell unconscious for any reason, or became too weak to resist the magic of the dungeon, they’ll be branded with a seal.

For every hunter that fell, another would be forced to carry him along.

The proposal to retreat was frankly unrealistic, because even if Camilla could obliterate a group of golems in an instant, it took a toll on her mind to concentrate so hard, and eventually she’ll hit her limit too.

“His solution was to abandon them. If we do not have such a huge burden, there won’t be any issues,” Kagriss said. Her voice became quiet. “He says that he does not mind if he fails the commission.”

“...Oh…” Camilla fell silent too. Beitra really was heartless. Most hunters, as a community, wouldn’t think to abandon so many people at once, but perhaps elementals just thought differently. After all, elementals had subdued emotions, just like undead.

On the other hand, Beitra didn’t really think that Beitra was wrong. It was definitely the safest option to just leave as early as possible, but at the same time not many hunters can stomach such a description.

“And what did the others think?” Camilla asked, even though she already knew the answer. Kagriss was probably reluctant to leave Eva behind, and Camilla didn’t want Lavitte to fall here either, considering that Lucienne was still waiting for him and his party back at Dianene.

“None of them agreed to his plan; not even Cadaelia. However, they do think that he has a point about the dangers of staying. In the end, it was agreed that Cadaelia will lead a team of arcanists to find out a way to undo the seal and wake those that are unconscious up. If they do not succeed by the time it takes more than one rotation of hunters to defeat a wave, then they will abandon and retreat.”

“I see. That’s a good compromise. Are you joining the team as well?”

“Yes.”

Camilla smiled, proud that Kagriss was being recognized. Given Kagriss’s knowledge, her presence will really boost the team’s chances of succeeding in finding a solution.

By the time she got back to the cave, dragging with her the unconscious hunter, the assembled arcanist team was already hard at work. Not long after, the next wave hit, a total of eight golems. Before the two sides can clash, Camilla cutted one of the golems from shoulder to hip and detonated the blood mana, blasting the golem apart.

The detonation corroded the core, destroying the golem instantly.

Having witnessed her power, no one challenged her decision to back off after cutting a stone golem this time. In fact, they backed off on their own, afraid of being caught up in such an ominous, foul magic.