Fortunately, the Fourland facility was so large that it took up a considerable portion of Floor 5. That meant that, most surely, North Sunwell knew about and openly condoned its existence. But it also meant that Amelia’s perfect memory about the facility’s layout helped her navigate the entire floor.

Floor 5 had never been fully mapped out. Only about half, by this point in time. But by extrapolating from the map inside her head, she was able to discern most of the rest of it relatively easily.

With Hummer sleeping on her back, Amelia stepped around the cavernous pools and streams and found a tunnel back up to Floor 4, in all its mushroom-covered glory.

No creatures deemed it necessary to attack her. Perhaps her aura of simply being finished with today had helped her. Or, perhaps the scent of fire, mana, and burnt flesh made her a particularly unattractive target to these underground monsters that relied much less on sight to discover their prey.

Melanoids certainly would not have granted her such mercy, so it was strange to see their absence. Strange, but also very fortunate.

Soon, thanks to a wandering vendor beast, she found another tunnel up to Floor 3.

It took about an hour to reach this point, and Amelia found herself thoroughly lost once she actually made it to Floor 3. With the physical maps left to rot in her bag down in Floor 5, and no snapshots in her memory banks, she had no way of actually navigating her way through the dark caverns except by pure guesswork. Even her mana concentration filter did not prove effective; the Floor 3 outpost they came from had been mostly deserted, so few glossals would be gathered there, while large clusters of melanoids registered with very high concentrations.

At least it helped her avoid those.

After a while, Hummer woke up from her sleep as if a gentle nap had passed her by, and Amelia finally set her down to let her walk for herself.

“What’d I miss?” she mumbled drowsily, stumbling with every five or six steps and clutching Amelia’s arm for support.

“I beat off a daika and now we’re on Floor 3.”

“...No, but really, what did I miss?”

They wandered around Floor 3 until they happened upon cart tracks, and followed them until they reached a platform. There was no telling when, if ever, a cart would come by to rescue them, but the “Please Wait” panel lit up, so at least it knew they were there.

Amelia sat down on the platform and put her back against the panel.

“You’re pretty heavy,” Amelia said.

“That’s rude to say to a lady,” Hummer snapped.

“I carried you on my back for over an hour.”

“Oh, yeah. Thank you.” Hummer took that as a cue to sit down as well and scoot up close to Amelia. She gripped her torso. “It really hurts...”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“You saved me. You don’t have to apologize.” She set her head down on her shoulder nestled in close.

“Why are you doing that?” Amelia asked. “We aren’t lovers.”

Hummer lifted her head up, confused. “Huh? You’re my friend, and I’m cold. Don’t be weird about it.” Then she set her head back down.

More than Hummer’s probing questions, more than her flirting, that statement flustered Amelia the most.

Almost automatically, Amelia’s mouth opened and the words came out: “I never knew friends got so close.”

“You haven’t had many female friends, then, have you?”

“I...” Amelia had never had any friends other than Ed and some farmers here and there. She had never even realized it until just this moment. Hummer and the others were her first friends in a very long time. Real friends.

She heaved a quiet, dry-eyed sob while Hummer fell asleep on her shoulder.

***

Eventually, a cart did come, and they rode it all the way back to the outpost.

Right in the middle of town, the three other members of the party stood. Mino paced around, clearly fretting. Aeo and Phelia chatted, arms crossed in anxiety. But then when they saw their two companions, all three rushed over to greet them.

Mino jumped into Amelia’s arms and gave her a hug so tight it pushed a choked breath from her lungs. Aeo and Phelia came to do the same to Hummer, but she pushed them away and motioned to her exposed stomach and hasty bandage wrapping around it.

“Gods, what happened?” Aeo asked.

When Mino had finished hugging Amelia, she pulled away and looked at the two of them with menacing eyes. “I can’t believe you!” she shouted. “We were worried sick! It’s been like six hours.”

Wow, six hours. They were away even longer than Amelia realized.

“Sorry,” Amelia said. “Things got difficult.”

“Uh, obviously,” Aeo said.

Amelia was about to explain the truth, and even opened her mouth to say it all, when Hummer stepped in and told them, “We were trapped on a cliff, with those melanoids chasing us. We had to climb down, and I slipped and fell. Got a chunk of rock stuck in my belly, and Amelia had to do everything to save me.”

“But you’re okay?” Phelia asked. “Please say yes.”

Hummer nodded. “Okay enough. I need to go to a healer when we get back to the surface, but I think I’ll be alright.” She grimaced, and then added, “It hurts.”

“Oh, Hummer...” Phelia went in close and hugged her around the waist. Despite Hummer’s earlier protestations, this time she did nothing to stop the kobold woman from embracing her.

“You look terrible too, Amelia,” Aeo said. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yep.”

Mino clearly did not seem to believe the story Hummer had told, and glared at Amelia to see if she could discern a more truthful version of events. But Amelia was unwilling to give it, and eventually she gave up.

“I’m just happy you’re safe,” she said, as if Amelia had been privy to the unspoken conversation Mino had been having inside her own head.

“You know what, Hummer?” Phelia asked, still holding onto the girl like a piece of flotsam in the sea. “We got so bored waiting for you that we went exploring again.”

“Uh, how fun?”

“Oh, maybe I said that wrong. We went exploring to put our minds off you because we didn’t want to worry.”

“Okay, that’s a bit better,” Hummer said, grinning.

“Well, me and Mino did. Aeo went off to chat up some new arrivals, some cute red-head she met.”

Amelia’s head perked up. “What did she look like?”

Aeo laughed. “He was really skinny,” she said, emphasizing the pronoun. “But I got his address. We’re going to ‘go for coffee’ this weekend.”

Deep inside, Amelia felt extremely embarrassed to have jumped at the word “red-head” like that, but it did not seem like anyone else noticed, so she was clear from having to explain any further.

“Well, so, me and Mino went exploring,” Phelia continued, “and we found some awesome treasure!” She was practically bouncing off her feet as she said these words, and indeed her tail thumped a few times.

“We couldn’t get it, though,” Mino said. “It was across a huge ravine. One wrong step, and we’d end up down in Floor 4 as pancakes. We didn’t have the equipment to cross.”

“But we’ll come back again and get it!” Phelia exclaimed. “Maybe we can do another dungeon dive before you go back to Saxonia.”

The words clearly hit Hummer with a sour tone. “I’m really excited for you,” she said, pointedly ignoring Phelia’s second statement.

Phelia, for what it was worth, did not seem to notice anything, and continued hugging her.

“Let’s go back,” Amelia said. “It’s been a long day.”

They started to do just that, but found a row of golems blocking the main entrance up to Floor 2. In front of them stood the elvish guard that Amelia had threatened earlier.

“No can do,” he said. “Floor 2’s closed.”

“How come?” Aeo asked, accusingly.

“Due to aiding in the emergency efforts,” he told them. “They’re still evacuating everyone. You must not have heard.”

“We certainly didn’t,” Aeo said. “Mind telling us?”

“There was a big explosion in the central outpost,” the man said. “Took out the whole block. They say it was some drugs stored improperly in some shack owned by one of those dealers. That’s what the radio says, at least.” He leaned in closer to the group, conspiratorially, and said, “I think it’s Fleet’s Pride again. They’ve done bombings on Floor 2 before. I don’t buy this drug stuff.”

Amelia and Hummer traded glances.

Mino shook her head. “Fleet’s Pride is just no good. I hope they all get caught.”

Wait, Mino already knew about them, and Hummer did not? Hummer was right, then, when she said that she paid no attention to the news.

This was clearly Fleet’s Pride’s doing, but based on that Borguk man’s words, Amelia wondered if it might have been his form of retaliation against Fourland for their supposed treachery. Destroying yet more of their drug operation was definitely a good sign in Amelia’s view, though by the sound of it, many innocent lives were lost as well.

“We need to get to the surface, sir,” Mino said. “Our friend is injured and needs a healer.”

“Well, we’re supposed to have a whole hospital down here, in about two years...” The elf trailed off into grumbling. His valued sympathy returned once he noticed Amelia glaring at him. “There’s a special employees only access elevator near here. I can get you special permission, and it goes straight to the Barrier University entrance on the surface. Just hang on and let me radio the guys up top.”

Eventually, they did get their way and made it to the surface of Fleettwixt. They returned to Beechhurst in good time, with everyone tending to Hummer and spoiling her with cuddles. She was very happy about that.

Amelia could not shake the feeling that came with today’s events. She had gained so much power, advanced so much, and accomplished exactly what she set out to do. She even set her eyes on Ed for the first time in over a year. But now, looking at the others at the hostel and watching them turn the common area into a makeshift bedroom for Hummer, Amelia realized that she had just made friends. No longer could she say she was alone, just a wanderer on a mission for revenge.

More than anything else, this feeling changed everything, and she was unsure why.

---

Today's Shoutout: Paw Prints. Shapeshifting Lesbian Road Trip: The Comic