“Come at me!” Sam shouted as she planted her feet and activated her Class Skill, [Nature’s Reach]. The polearm in her hands seemed to grow as the skill took on its effect, though in reality, it was the area within the range of the skill that was shrinking, making it so that her polearm could reach anywhere within 25 feet of her, so long as she maintained her position.

The locust monsters rushed her, a group of a hundred of them, each the size of a fat house cat, the combined noise of their wings shaking the air and causing dust to fall from the stone passage’s ceiling. 

But even with their numbers and speed, the moment they entered Sam’s territory, their lives were lost. The ax-like head of her magic polearm cut through them with an ease that could be compared to cutting through water. 

All the while, her ranged companions behind her launched their own attacks into the greater horde, cutting down their numbers at a steady rate. 

“How many of them do you think there are?” Garci asked as he continued to load and fired his crossbow with bolt after bolt. 

“Another ten million at least.” Scarlet said from another side of the corridor that she had picked to defend with some of the other frontline fighters, keeping the pressure off with blasts of arcane light that filled the space. 

Ten million. Ten million of the little buggers. It wouldn’t be so bad, if they were just good EXP, but they were in that horrible, sweet spot of not being a low enough level to be completely ignored, but not a high enough level to give any worthwhile experience.

Killing 10,000,000 level 60 only gave about the same EXP as killing 1 level 130.

“The queen has been keeping itself busy it seems.” Charles said with a grunt as he swung his giant sword. While his attacks were slow and the targets small and fast, there were so many of them that he naturally had to hit something.

Though those he missed rushed towards him, their sharp mandibles going for his head.

Removing one hand from his weapon, Charles grabbed the first of these attackers, cracking its skull upon with the force of his fingers, then used its ragdolled body as an impromptu weapon, trying to ward away the other attackers. 

“Dammit. At this rate, we’ll be too tired to stand before we even reach the boss chamber.” Lloyd growled after performing a shield charge into a large group of the creatures, knocking them back and dazing them.

When they had first arrived at the Labyrinth Temple, which marked a shortcut between the 16th and 21th floors of the Labyrinth, they had thought of the bugs as only a momentary annoyance, as they had attacked in groups of 5-10. But now that they were approaching the center chamber, they just kept coming and coming.

They had planned to clear the place out, so that they could save themselves time on the trip too and from the lower levels, but it had been forty years since any party had attempted to break through there, and in that time, the number of monsters had grown out of control.

Lloyd and Charles specialized in dealing with singular powerful enemies. Nico and Quil were all expert trap layers, and Andy, Garci and Yama’s skills with ranged support weren’t well suited for pushing through hallways against such numbers. Chad was there too, using his abilities to collapse walls onto the bugs heads and to close off tunnels, but his skills were also not suited for fighting multiple enemies.

Only Scarlet and Sam had AOE skills appropriate for enclosed areas and against waves of attackers, but as the numbers grew, the pair had become babysitters for the ranged support who couldn’t stand up to the attackers.

The enemies weren’t strong compared to the party, only around level 80s, but they could still prove deadly if they got a well placed attack in, and their numbers made up for the things they lacked.

“There is a large chamber with only a single entrance not far from here. We can collapse the door there and take a long rest.” Scarlet suggested. 

“Sounds like a plan. Which way?” Charles replied.

“Over there.” Scarlet said, pointing the way.

“Right then! Lloyd, lead the charge! Scarlet, I want a barrier placed on him! The rest of us will follow behind! Sam, Sidney, you two on the right side! Chad and I will hold the left!” Charles said, starting to shout out his orders.

The rest of the party made to do as he said, as Scarlet placed an [Arcane Shield] over Lloyd, whose tower shield started to glow with his mana. As people fell back into formation, Lloyd gave a low shout and rushed forward.

He triggered his [Shield Charge] skill and his shield emitted a shock wave as he ran forward, pushing the bugs aside and clearing a path for the party to follow behind. 

With the group running at full speed, it wasn’t long until they reached the chamber that Scarlet had been speaking of, and as they moved through it, Charles slowed himself, lagging behind so that he would be the last through the archway, and swung his sword up towards the top of the ceiling before the door before he passed through it, activating his [Flying Sword] skill.

The massive blade released a single bolt of power which hit the ceiling cracking through and causing a cave in as Charles moved into the room. 

He looked back to confirm that the passage was blocked as Nico and Sam returned to finish the job. Sam used another of her Class Skills as a Sentinel Druid to cause vines to grow up out of the ground to reinforce the caved in doorway, while Nico started to use his Bond Skill to spit a yellow goo out of his mouth, filling in the games and cementing everything in place.

“Everyone alright?” Charles asked as he returned his focus to the rest of the group.

“Yeah. Sure. Just one problem.” Sidney said as he looked at the room they had just entered. “We aren’t exactly alone in here.”

In front of the party was a giant purple beetle, around eighty feet in length and seemed to fill the chamber.

Charles started to raise his sword when Scarlet stopped him. “Don’t worry, it’s already dead. Looks like it has been for a long time now.”

Charles paused and squinted his eyes. In the limited light produced by magic orbs that Scarlet had attached to their armor, it was hard to tell, but there certainly was a large crack in the head of the giant bug, and one of its legs wasn’t connected to its body.

“There are a few of the locusts still in here, but only around 20 of them. After we deal with them, it should be safe here.” Scarlet informed them. 

“Alright. Scarlet, I want you to do whatever magic is needed to secure that doorway. The rest of us will handle what’s in here.” Charles said, lifting up his sword and moving further into the room.

“Got it.” The girl replied with a nod before turning to the collapsed doorway and started to mutter rapidly.

The group started to walk around the outside of the beatle, keeping their eyes peeled for anything living.

“This thing sure is big. Not as big as the scorpion we took down before, but still pretty big. How did it even get in here?” Andy said as he looked over the corpse of the giant monster.

“Who knows. The magic of the Labyrinth, I guess.” Nico replied with a shrug.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” Sam mumbled in disbelief. “You guys fought something this big before?”

“Shortly before you joined up with us, yes.” Charles admitted.

“I see… we’ve really been holding you guys back, huh?” Sam said a bit weakly.

When they had first joined, Sam and her friends had been level 66 and each of them had a Tier 3 Class. Sam herself had started school as a Tier 1, choosing to start as a Tier 1 the same way her mother and father had when they were kids, and had to work herself nearly to death to become a Tier 3 in just 4 years, with a little help from the Potion’s Master, Jade, who had taken a liking to her.

They had reached the level where they were only slightly below average for fourth-year students at the Academy, but the rest of the party had still been ahead of them and had to slow down to help train them up.

It had been a month since they joined, and they had their levels raised up to level 105 and achieved their Tier 4 Classes. It was something that they were hoping to reach by the end of their time at the Academy, while spending every day outside of the school training their skills as hard as possible, but they made it in just three weeks.

“You don’t need to worry about it. Our only goal for this year is to reach the Tier 5 Class level cap of 125. So long as we can do that within these last two months, it doesn’t matter, since we won’t be able to train up our Class Skills fast enough anyways.” Charles said. “Don’t worry. You guys aren’t holding us back. Your skills and experiences have been quite valuable to us, so don’t feel bad.”

“Thank you for your kind words, Young Master.” Sam said, bowing her head humbly. 

Charles gave her an encouraging smile before he caught something out of the corner of his eyes, something that made him freeze up. “It can’t be.” He whispered, surprising everyone as he pushed past them to move closer to the shell of the giant beetle. 

As he grew closer, the light illuminated a message haphazardly carved into the shell of the giant monster. Or rather, three very short messages.

‘Edmar was here.’

‘Bryce was here.’

‘Joshua is no fun.’

“Wait, are you telling me that this thing was killed by his Majesty and Duke Bryce when they were still students?” Andy said in shock.

The King and Duke had both ran away from the Academy in their fourth year, when people expected them to take actual classes, in order to travel the world with Joshua, and later Jessica and Typhus.

Even if it was smaller and stuck in tight quarters, it was still a fully evolved monster, and the pair hadn’t had someone like Scarlet providing them with powerful magic weapons. And yet, they were able to defeat something like this as kids.

Charles stared at where his grandfather’s name was carved into the dark purple surface with his teeth clenched. The joking, childish manner in which the old man, just a boy at the time, had treated the monster felt like a mocking challenge directed solely at him.

‘Come on Charlie, you aren’t really having trouble with this old place, are you?’

“Stupid old man.” Charles said bitterly. “Come on. We need to clear the area before we can rest properly. We’ll be finishing the place out tomorrow.”

If his grandfather was able to do it in three years, then he would do it in one. Charles wouldn’t let himself lose to him.

---

 

Sam was the first of her mini group to wake up that day.

Despite being on the hard ground, her sleeping bag was very soft, and she had her koala bond, Kululu, to act as a teddy bear, so she had slept well. 

She scratched the little koala behind the ears for a few seconds, getting only sleepy pawing in return, before she chuckled to herself and sat up to stretch.

Her sleeping bag had been squeezed between Quil and Yama’s, despite the amount of space in the chamber they had chosen for their rest site. Of course, if the three of them had more privacy, they would be sharing the same bed, but they weren’t about to do that in front of the rest of the party.

While polygamy between two men and one woman was legal, it wasn’t exactly widely accepted.

She wasn’t entirely sure what time it was, or how long the others had been sleeping, so she just let them keep sleeping as she got up and wandered towards the blocked off entrance of the chamber, to where Scarlet and whoever’s turn it was to be on watch would be. 

As she grew closer to the fire that had been set up there, she saw that it was Nico who was standing watch, so it must have been pretty close to the last shift.

His eyes locked onto her as she approached and he gave her a nod. “There is still a half hour before we start to move if you want to try to squeeze in a little more sleep.” The boy said.

“That’s alright. I’m feeling pretty refreshed already. I was thinking of cooking something for everyone else.” Sam said as she lifted up the small item bag that they had given her, which she had filled with ingredients for cooking.

“I see. Thank you very much.” Nico said with a slightly guilty look.

None of the members of Charles’ group knew a thing about cooking, and had already relied on military rations before Sam came along. 

Scarlet still had to mostly use the rations and a type of energy restoring potion to keep herself going, but the rest of them were able to enjoy balanced meals in the Labyrinth after the long stay down there.

Cooking had always been a part of Sam’s routine, dating all the way back to when her father was the captain of a group of mercenaries, instead of a baron. She continued the practice after getting to the academy, since the food there was too expensive and the cafeteria wasn’t safe for them.

While most would ignore them as being too insignificant to be worth premeditated attacks, they had lacked any power to protect them from people who just felt like being assholes that day. Jade had always just shrugged his shoulders and told them that if they hated it so much, they should just stop being weak.

As if it was that easy.

As Sam brought out her utensils and unpackaged the meat cuts, her eyes wandered towards where Scarlet was sitting. It was the same spot she had been sitting all that night. 

There was a shield around her, as she was practicing her Class Skill, as well as three magic circles drawn on massive sheets of spell paper surrounding her, all of which she was feeding with her mana. Her breathing was steady and controlled, not the breathing of someone who was asleep.

“She really doesn’t sleep, huh?” Sam said in wonder.

“No. She doesn’t. Though she can’t exactly be counted on for keeping a proper watch either.” Nico said. “While she is conscious, nearly all of that consciousness is being directed in on herself, keeping her body and mind in a resting state. Her awareness of her surroundings are around the same level as our young master’s during a formal dinner party.”

“I can still hear you, you know?” Scarlet said without looking at them, getting a chuckle out of the older boy. “I can keep watch just fine. I’m able to do simple things while maintaining my mediation. Monitoring for changes in sounds and in the mana around me is a piece of cake.”

“Then how about actually checking the perimeter?” Nico asked a little cheekily.

“...” Scarlet didn’t reply, though after a moment of silence, as Sam started to cook bacon in her pan, a low growl gave from the girl’s stomach.

Scarlet’s posture fell and she let out a sigh of irritation before reaching down into her own item bag and pulled out a potion.

Nico, who was doing his best not to laugh, started to get to his feet. “I’m going to check around the rest of the chamber for any signs that something is wrong. Mind keeping Scarlet company?” 

“Not at all.” Sam replied as the boy started to walk off. But when she looked back, Scarlet was on her feet, doing some stretches. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“It’s fine. I’ve been finished with my meditations for a few hours now. I’ve just been waiting for the rest of you to wake up. I could have relieved Nico of the watch myself, but I prefer to have the company.” Scarlet said. 

Normally, her pet Alpha Timber Wolf, would stay with her through the nighttime hours, being mostly nocturnal himself, but Scarlet had left him behind for the day’s journey, since the number of enemies made it hard for her to keep track of him.

Despite having grown to level 96 in the past few months, she babied the monster constantly.

Scarlet continued her stretches for a bit longer before suddenly flicking out her hands, sending out a wave of electric sparks that danced in the air in a multitude of colors before dying out.

The casual display of [Invocationless Magic] was amazing, but what was even more amazing was the knowledge that Scarlet was purposely using extremely ineffective and flashy spells so that she could make things harder on herself, burning more focus and mana to train the dangerous electric and fire-type magics without damaging everything around her, instead shooting beautiful displays of light and color into the air like tiny fireworks. 

Sam was again left in wonder by the younger girl’s magical abilities and the amount of work she had put into them, as while her own ‘Sentinel Druid’ Class was also a hybrid magic and weapon class, she had only needed to learn [Healing Magic] and gain a mastery of life-type mana, and even that had taken an extraordinary amount of mana to level.

Scarlet was aiming for a class that would require her to master the six different types of elemental magic, and was also mastering [Light and Dark Magic], [Holy Magic], [Divination Magic], [Enhancement Magic] and more. On top of that, she also had to master several different weapons related skills, and her Class skills.

She had picked a Class with more than double the requirements of all of the others, but was still progressing faster than any of them, all the while leveling up production skills like [Enchanting] and the legendarily difficult to learn [Magic Equipment Crafting]

But as Scarlet moved her arms about, practicing her magic as a form of stretching, Sam’s eyes were drawn to her hands, and she let out a gasp. “Scarlet, your hands!” 

“Huh?” Scarlet said, glancing over to the older girl before looking at her exposed arms, which were covered in several magic items for mana regeneration, her skin turning a horrible black and cyan color in a sort of web-like pattern, parts of the skin breaking away so that blood dripped from her hands. A pattern that seemed to be growing and shrinking in a constant flux, as she worked to heal the damage with [Invocationless Magic]. “Ow, sorry. I guess it does look kind of gross, doesn’t it?” Scarlet said, before focusing more magical power to the areas, causing the discoloration to fade somewhat. “You don’t need to worry. I’ve just been training my [Arcane Mana Resistance].”

“Are you sure you are alright?” Sam asked with a look of concern. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Yeah, but I’ve gotten used to it.” Scarlet said, brushing it off, as if she couldn’t feel every cell in the exposed area of her body ripping themselves to pieces. Her [Pain Resistance] skill had passed 125, so even with a sensation close to that of having her hands dipped in acid, she could still maintain her meditations. Not that it didn’t still hurt. The skill didn’t reduce the pain by much, it just let her continue to function perfectly, regardless of it. “The further down in the Labyrinth we go, the more mana there is to take advantage of. If I don’t increase the amount of mana I can process, then it will just go to waste.”

“But that’s…” Sam bit her lip, staring at the still visible line of damage on Scarlet’s arms, before lowering her head.

“Does it really bother you that much?” Scarlet asked.

“...No. It’s fine.” Sam said, with a small shake of her head. “I guess I am just still a little shocked by how different the two of us are.”

“What do you mean?” Scarlet asked.

“It’s nothing. It’s just that when we first met, I thought that the two of us were the same. Just a pair of commoner girls who through a series of events outside of their control kept getting into progressively bigger messes until they found themselves sneaking into an all boy’s military academy.” Sam said with a slightly self-defacing laugh.

“...Well, I wouldn’t say that I have always been in control, but no one forced me to be here. I came of my own free will, because I wanted to grow stronger.” Scarlet said. “If you want to talk about things, I’d be more than happy to listen. Who knows, maybe we have more in common than you think, and I’ve been curious as to why you are here.”

“It’s… really not that interesting of a story.” Sam said a little awkwardly, having been used to not talking about her situation, but Scarlet was insistent, so she began it as best she could. “I suppose it all started when I was 5, when I got Kululu.”

Kululu had been one of those bonds that provided inherent magical abilities, as he had a Bond Skill, which allowed Sam to draw the life-type mana out of any sort of plant life she ate.

It was through this skill that she first gained [Mana Sense], [Mana Control], and [Healing Magic], all at the age of five.

And when her father had found out that his baby girl was a natural talent as a mage… he freaked.

“While everyone talks about how commoners with magic talent are lucky, in that they can join the privileged class, my father viewed it differently. He had met enough nobles to know what they were like, and he knew that if people found out that I had magical talent, I would be forced to be the third or fourth wife of some nobleman, and treated as merely breeding material for the rest of my life.” Sam explained, shivering slightly at the through. “So my dad hid my gender from the world, in order to protect me. I’ve been ‘Samual’ ever since.”

“...Your father must really love you.” Scarlet said thoughtfully. “My biological father only allowed me to study magic at all because he had plans to sell my body to the highest bidder. That bastard wouldn’t have cared at all if I was going to be spending the rest of my life locked in a room to be raped day after day.”

Sam winced at Scarlet’s… interesting description of what fate might have awaited her.

“My father did what he felt was best, but it has made things a bit complicated for me.” Sam admitted. “A Count hired my father’s mercenary group in order to clear out some monster infested lands, promising a big reward if they succeeded. He obviously assumed that they would all die, and just soften the monsters up for his own forces. In other words, when the time came, he didn’t have the money. So instead, he handed out titles and gave part of the land we liberated as a reward, making my father a land owning Hereditary Baron. Now, I have to fulfill my family’s noble obligations, or else the land will be taken back away from us.”

Noble families were required to provide a child to serve a minimum of ten years in the military in order to keep their noble status. This service was called ‘noble obligation’.

There were some expectations however, for people of Magic Classes, who were more valuable to the country as enchanters and spellcasters. Charles’ father and his siblings were also let off, when Duke Bryce offered to continue his service in his children’s steed, remaining on call to fight for an additional 20 years.

“Couldn’t you have just revealed the fact that you are a girl, or just gone down the mage’s track, instead of the soldiers?” Scarlet asked.

“Unfortunately, no. There really isn’t a difference between a first generation Hereditary Baron and just a normal commoner. If I reveal that I am a girl, I’d be forced into marriage. Probably to the pig son of Foxways.” Sam said with obvious disgust. “As for applying to be recognized as a Magic Class user, I can’t. The Druid Class is overly specialized with life-type mana. Since I can’t do anything more than heal and control plants a bit, I wouldn’t be a valuable enough enchanter to be let off of military duties.”

Scarlet didn’t know how to respond to that one.

She supposed it made sense. The reason why Magic Class users were allowed to forgo their military service was because the enchanted items and rituals they could provide were a greater service than they could provide in battle.

If your Magic Class was over specialized, then you couldn’t assist in making such things.

Not only that, Specialized Healers were probably in high demand on the frontline. It was the reason why people with pseudo magical Classes based around healing could easily earn distinction through military services. 

Though regardless of their specialization, female magic users could still produce children that would have advantages in learning magic, and a woman could always be excused from military service in order to have a child.

“If you are really that afraid of being forced into marriage, maybe we should talk to Charles, or even Prince Isaka about it.” Scarlet suggested. “Their families are influential enough to keep people from forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

While Isaka was out of the party, she had kept friendly relations with him, even if the half-elf boy still seemed to feel awkward about the position he had left the party in.

“...You think they would?” Sam asked, the idea of turning to the extremely high nobility had occurred to her before, but she hadn’t been sure of herself. After all, the future Duke and the Prince had no reason to help her.

“Of course they would. Charles has such a strong sense of justice that it is actually a problem sometimes, and we’re all friends here.” Scarlet said.

Sam thought about it for a few moments before slowly shaking her head. “...Even if they did agree to protect me from people using their status to force me to marry, they wouldn’t be able to stop all of them. Our new territory is in a bad position economically. If they wanted to, our neighbors could starve us until I gave in.”

Building a new territory took a lot of labor and money. At the moment, they were being somewhat sustained by their neighbor’s chipping in food goods for the sake of a possible future ally, but if they felt like there was something to be gained from it, that support would be cut off immediately.

“If money is the problem, I could spot you for it.” Scarlet said.

“What?” Sam said in surprise. 

Scarlet was a commoner, from a commoner family. How would she…?

“Don’t worry about paying me back. I have more money than I even know what to do with. I mean that literally. It’s actually becoming a serious problem.” Scarlet said in all seriousness. 

Scarlet had a basic understanding of economics, and knew that she couldn’t just sit on her dragon’s hoard of gold without it having a negative impact on the people as a whole, so she always had to be investing it in places. It was the responsibility of someone with a massive amount of income to make sure they weren’t draining money out of the marketplace by creating jobs and investing their money everywhere.

Trickle down economics and all that nonsense.

Problem was, she had SO much wealth that doing this was a massive chore, to the point where she had hired an entire team of people to take care of the job for her, which turned into a small organization. But she had to resenty fire several of them when she found out that they had threatened to force a family into slavery because of debt. 

…The money was starting to pile up again. How!? She wasn’t even trying to make money anymore, but it just kept coming in! 

She’d tried forcing the responsibility onto Charles’ family again, like she did with Jonathan’s businesses, but they were too busy with being nobles to deal with all the businesses and entire industries she had accidentally made over the past 5 years in her pursuit of more efficient leveling, nearly every noble family having to buy her products in order to not fall behind.

She’d become the fantasy world equivalent of Apple, except rather than the money being spread out across all investors, all of it just went to her.

“Would a million gold coins be enough, or do you think you would need more?” Scarlet asked.

“A… A MILLION!?” Sam choked. “Scarlet, we are rebuilding a village, not a city!”

“Well… why can’t it be a city?” Scarlet said, trying to hide her embarrassment.

A normal village was defined as anywhere with a population of 100 or more people. Once the number of people hit 1,000 it was officially recognized as a town, and 10,000 was the point where something was considered a city. You could build a basic house for 20 gold and 2 gold could feed a family of 5 for a year. So 1 gold coin was roughly equivalent to 5,000 dollars.

With 1 million gold, one could easily build a large city, as well as a castle or two to defend it. But for Scarlet, 1 million gold was just the kind of money she earned in a single month, without any unexpected extra bonuses. Barely worth mentioning. Last year, she donated 1,000 gold to every major city in the kingdom to help the orphanages and homeless programs, and that hadn’t even made a dent in her ‘disposable income’ from the previous year.

And with the new research into condensed magic rituals ready to go mainstream, and the clearing of the old capital’s miasma problem, she was going to receive another unholy sized paycheck that she had no idea what to do with.

She had all the money in the world, and nothing to buy. Even the raw materials she needed for her alchemy and other crafting mostly came from the Labyrinth these days. She had used to buy lots of books to read, but with a reading speed of 5000 words a minute, even without the assistance of [Magic Appraisal], she was starting to run out of new things she could read, and her collection of reference books now resembled a library.

Scarlet knew her perception of money had been deformed, as gold seemed more and more like the money in her MMOs, where after a certain point, it became almost worthless, as it couldn’t buy you anything you needed, save for common consumables, but those could be bought so easily and at such quantities that they weren’t even a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of currencies that a basic quest would hand out.

She could buy her own private city, but what was the point? It had zero gameplay benefits. She supposed that she could actually TRY to train some management based skills, but frankly didn’t want to, since unless you keep up a certain minimal level of activity in related areas to the skill, it ends up decreasing after a while.

The only stats it would give her were charisma and deception, which she wasn’t really interested in. …And worse, it would result in her making even MORE money.

‘Please! Please just take it! I can’t handle it alone!’ Scarlet wanted to beg.

Money was the root of all evil and evil was trying to strangle her to death.

“Why?” Sam asked, unable to understand why they would do something like that for someone like her. 

“Because we’re friends, and because I don’t want you to feel forced to do something you don’t want to do.” Scarlet said. “I don’t want you to be here because you feel threatened, or because you feel obligated towards us. So tell me, if all of your problems in life just disappeared, would you still want to be here with us right now?”

“I… don’t even know how to answer that.” Sam said, sounding as if she wasn’t entirely sure if she was awake or if this was all a dream.

“I guess that makes sense. When Jonathan, my blood father, was dragged away by the church, it was a few days before my mother could think of anything. She had been in complete shock.” Scarlet said. “You don’t have to say anything now. Just tell us once you’ve figured things out for yourself.”

“...Scarlet, why would you do this for me?” Sam asked looking at the younger girl seriously. “If I chose to leave, it would leave you all in a spot again.”

“We’d figure something out. We always do.” Scarlet replied with a shrug. “Sam, I know what it is like to live a life believing your trapped and that no one will help you. I have lived through that hell too, and I would never wish it on anyone. So, if I can help you out, I will.”

“T…Thank you.” Sam said, not knowing what else to say.

“Don’t mention it.” Scarlet replied with a grin. “Now seriously, just shut up and take my money.”