As we walked into the entrance of the Dungeon, Resh activated a Magic Circle and cast a light ball--which was so bright that it nearly blinded us, before exploding. Resh would have been injured if I hadn’t moved quickly and stepped in front of her with a hand out.

My skin went slightly red, but in a cone-like shape behind us, the stone was charred, some of it became perfectly smooth like glass--the symbols at the entrance stopped any damage from spreading out.

“Uhh, oops…sorry!” Resh apologized with wide open eyes, shocked virtually speechless.

I laughed, shrugging.

“How is your hand?” Resh reached forwards and grabbed my hand, turning it over and inspecting my palm, “That much power, and it didn’t even result in a sunburn--just a tiny amount of redness” Resh was even more shocked.

She began poking my palm, which changed into stroking it with a strange look in her eyes--soon she stopped with an embarrassed cough, and then spoke, “Well, let’s go deeper; I want to push my limits.”

Resh looked excited and walked ahead, she tried again, and this time, her light ball didn’t explode. She was skipping ahead happily, slinging spells left and right as she killed enemies--we had made it to the fifth floor, out of the twenty that had been explored, no one knew how deep the dungeon actually went.

It hadn’t been build by the people who built Beleran, but it had definitely been built by someone.

When we got to the last room of the fifth floor, a larger than normal Monster appeared and started attacking us; this was what Resh called a ‘Boss’ of a floor--a supposedly extra powerful Monster that guarded the stairs which lead down to the next floor.

It was the first Monster that Resh had to actual put effort into killing.

Resh started struggling at the sixth-floor Boss, and at the seventh-floor Boss, I had to save her. It was a rat, but bigger than any that I had seen in this upper dungeon, it came up to my waist and had tiny crystal stubs on its shoulders--according to Resh, this meant that it was a High-Grade Elite, which meant that there should be a group of people at the same grade as she was to kill the Monster. She had attacked anyway, to see if she could see kill it--but it shrugged off her attacks like they were nothing…and charged at her.

I think she may have panicked, because she froze. I gave her some time, to see if she could unfreeze in time, but when she hadn’t started moving, I stepped forwards and caught the rat by the tail--spinning it, I smashed it into the wall…the rat exploded and the stone wall cracked--I may have overdone it because Resh was in danger.

“Sorry,” Resh looked down at the ground, her shoulders shook a little and I heard the drips of tears hitting the stone floor; I walked over and embraced her, burying her head in my chest, I felt a dampness on my chest.

“I never froze before, maybe because Lyus was always in front and I only had to attack from the back…I don’t know” She looked up at me, tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay, you’re okay--I won’t let anything hurt you!” I said as I stroked her hair with one hand and embraced her with my other; she blushed, burying her head back into my chest.

“Damn it, I need to get stronger…I want to be of help to you--so you won’t abandon me…” Resh said.

“I won’t abandon you, I promise; no matter what happens. You have helped me a lot: giving me knowledge, companionship, and chances for the future.”

Resh stared into my eyes, making sure that I wasn’t lying, then she smiled shakily and nodded; I stroked her silky hair, and then stepped back. Resh looked slightly upset, but started smiling again, less shakily this time.

“So, do you wish to continue?” I asked her.

“Uhh, yeah, I will try. That Elite was very rare--maybe one in a million have Magic Resistance, you can tell this by those crystal nubs on its shoulders,” Resh said, her voice finally stabilizing, as she knelt down and grabbed the crystals.

So far, normal Monsters wouldn’t trouble Resh--that was until we passed the rare boss and went down one more floor; she started struggling, and while I paid more attention to make sure that none of the Monsters would hurt her, I began considering how far I could go down.

“Hmm, maybe we should go back? I was always trained to retreat when I began struggling, to not push myself too far past my limits or I would die; but you are here and wouldn’t let me die, right?” Resh seemed unsure.

“Of course, I wouldn’t let you die. So, why not stay down here? Make the stairs where the Monsters won’t go as a safe room, and stay on the floor until you no longer get that feeling of energy after every kill, before advancing again--that’s how I did it. But I never did have a safe room.” I laughed, as I remembered some of the times I struggled to stay safe while sleeping.

Resh looked first at me, and then around, before nodding.

Suddenly a look of confusion crossed her face, “Feeling of energy? Oh…You mean a Surge--every time an enemy dies, a small part of their life-energy is absorbed by the killer, which we call a Surge. But Surges get weaker the closer you get to a Grade-Up; which is when you need to find and kill higher grade Monsters.”

“So, it’s called a Surge? Thank you for the information.”

“If it’s how you got stronger, than…I will do it!” Resh nodded happily, “But there are sometimes a thing called an ‘Overflow’, where Monsters can get around the natural Warding around the stairs--I will add some more Magic, just to make sure it’s safe.”

I nodded to her, and once we arrived at the stairs up to the next floor, she gathered Magic on her fingertip and wrote glowing symbols on the walls and floor; she was chanting something the whole time, it was rather melodic--it sounded nice, but I couldn’t understand the words.

Watching the fascinating Magic, I zoned out a little and sat against the wall; the flashing lights were hypnotic.

I came back when Resh had finished her Magic, and sat down down next to me, to regain her energy; she happily lent against me, rubbing her head on my shoulder a few times before closing her eyes and beginning to sleep.

She didn’t seem too shy, and having whatever problem it was on the way back didn’t cause a rift between us…I was glad.

We had a few hours until the Monsters came back.

Apparently, in constructs like Dungeons the Monsters were formed from Magic Power, so they regenerated quite often. However, they may have been created, but they were true Monsters, which is why their meat could be eaten and their blood drunk.

But--the Monsters in the cavern that I had fallen into didn’t regenerate…maybe they were so strong that the Magic required to remake them would be ridiculous. But I had seen nests and children--so maybe they were living Monsters that were brought in for whatever reason, which would also make sense since they were much more powerful than anything else in this Dungeon.

Resh woke up, and yawned; when she instinctively stretched, her clothing stretched and showed off her very nice outline--she quickly glanced over at me, blushed and lowered her arms, looking away; but, I am sure I saw the corner of her mouth twitch upwards for less than a second.

Before entering the Dungeon, we had spoken about food and water, which would have been a problem for Resh. Water could be generated using Magic that she knew, and she could use Fire Magic to cook Monster meat--we had an unlimited supply.

“How strong do you think you can get if we were to complete this Dungeon? If you only move down floors after you no longer get a Surge upon killing the enemies.” I asked Resh, as I lent against the wall and watched her happily killing creatures.

“No one has managed to make it to the end…that we know of; my guess is that you would get to High-Grade A at a bare minimum. No one has made it past the Boss of the twentieth floor, which is rumoured to be a Lesser Dragon--Beleran isn’t incredibly rich, so the highest grade Hunter that we could get to come here was only High-Grade B.” Resh paused after killing the last Monster near us and lent against the wall next to me and wiped sweat off her forehead.

The monsters on this level were centipedes that were four metres long, and Monsters that Resh called ‘Stone Worms’.

According to Resh Stone Worms were worms that excreted a very strong acid that allowed them eat stone, as well as basic Earth Magic, to swim through stone passageways like the solid stone was water.

“Ohh, I want to see a Dragon--do you want to try to get to it? Should we inform the Hunter’s Guild that we might be here for quite a while?”

“I’m interested in the Dragon too, but the High-Grade B who was hired, along with almost one hundred High-Grade C and Low-Grade B Hunters were killed by it without even leaving a mark on its scales. One of the High-Grade C Hunter was a thief and he saw the power of the Dragon as soon as they entered the room…and he hid, watching the fight, before running back to the surface--Beleran got into trouble with the Capital for the loss of the Hunter that they hired.” Resh had a look of wonder in her eyes, I could hear something like worship in her tone, “Ahem, as for the Hunter’s Guild, you remember when I mentioned to Mia that we were going here, well she handed me this.”

Resh pulled out a clear crystal, “If there are any problems, we can request emergency backup; their corresponding crystal will glow red, and they will send backup--if we die, then both crystals will shatter. So they know that we are okay.”

“That’s an interesting device. A Monster that can kill so many powerful people--I want to see it…it may allow me to finally feel another Surge.”

“Uhh, then should we go?” Resh looked back at me, then went back to killing, “It may not be a good idea…”

“How so?”

“I don’t want you to die…”

“I said that it could be a good fight, not that it would kill me; anyway, dying isn’t that bad.” I couldn’t help but laugh as I spoke.

Resh finished casting the spell she was in the middle of casting, which when released killed the last nearby Monster, and turned to me, “What do you mean that dying isn’t that bad?”

It seems that she could somehow tell that I wasn’t joking around completely, that I had experienced; maybe she had a ridiculous trust in me, or she hadn’t seen me being joking or sarcastic.

The way that her eyes widened, and she looked surprised, suggested to me that it wasn’t normal.

“Isn’t it normal for an Apostle or Fallen Apostle to resurrect when they die?” As I spoke the words, it struck me that it was very strange.

“Hmm? What do you mean?” Her eyes wide, Resh approached me very closely, standing directly in front of me, her nose almost touching mine.

“Well, when I die--I see a lot of blue symbols which spin around and around, then they combine into a giant symbol…Floating in a deep darkness--then I wake up with the most incredible headache, and it takes a while before I can move properly again, my muscles hurting...If that isn’t normal, then what am I?” I couldn’t help but mutter the question quietly.

“Blue symbols? Like the Primordial Fyre Magic that you saw the symbols for?” Resh had an intrigued look in her glittering eyes. She was strangely trembling slightly, in excitement--she reached out and her hands gripped my robe; this made sense, since she was a Mage, so Magic would intrigue her.

“Yeah, slightly…but much, much more complex.”

“And you can resurrect when you die?”

“Yeah, I died a few times; probably the worst was the first time…I fell a large distance and caused a crater, exploding on impact.”

Resh shuddered when she heard my words, one of her hands released my collar and gently touching my cheek, there was worry in her eyes.

“I thought that it was normal for Apostles or Fallen Apostles; this is unfortunate…what am I?” I paused, looking at her closely, “I didn’t scare you, did I?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you are. You didn’t scare me!” She smiled, her hand which was on my cheek stroked it a few times, “You interest me even more now.”

The mood seemed to be getting a little heavy, and I had no idea what to do.

“Is being interesting to you, good?”

“Well, it means that I won’t ever leave you…Even if you try to run!” Resh spoke seriously, her eyes peering into mine, not looking away even once--she stepped a little closer, the hand on my collar moving position and grasping the back of my neck, her body pressing against me.

“That’s good, I need you to stay by me.” I smiled as I spoke, gently laying my hand over hers on my cheek, the other wrapping around her slim shoulders.

Resh blushed, and her breathing seemed to catch.

I felt my heart seem to stop for a second, feeling like I was lighter than air and could float away.

Unfortunately, the Monsters had other plans and large numbers of Stone Worms suddenly burst from the walls and floor nearby; Resh jumped back with a gasp and began to rapidly chant, Magic Circles appearing, covering a large area of the passage.

With a shouted word, flames appeared out of the stone ground, following the lines of the Magic Circle, before rapidly contracting inwards and then expanding outwards in a rhythmic patterns.

The Magic flames spread, roasting the worms and causing them to writhe and squeal as their flesh was cooked--it smelt surprisingly good, making me feel slightly hungry.

Apparently, Resh’s spell wasn’t finished there and the a louder squeals started as the flames became like liquid and dripped down into the holes which still had many worms inside.

The Dungeon room started to shake, and the floor cracked.

A roar came from the tunnels, echoing out of the many holes in the walls and floor…then the floor started to bulge and ripple--a massive worm head emerging.

This was the boss of this floor, the Stone Worm Queen.

Taking a quick gauge of the Queen’s power, and knowing how strong Resh was--I could tell that Resh had more Magic Power, but the Queen was physically stronger.

An interesting match; obviously, I would step in if Resh was in danger.

Resh jumped back, starting to cast again--it seems that her favourite Magic was fire, and as she chanted, red Magic Circles appeared, and green flames danced around her. The jumping and swaying flames reflecting their green light off her pale white skin and blue hair--her many shadows flickered and writhed to the beat of unknown rhythm.

The Worm Queen just stood still and watched, she seemed to be as mesmerized as I was, its head swayed back and forth.

Resh slowly drew the flames into a single place, into her palm, just watching the Queen; the flame brightened more and more, soon glowing so brightly that the entire room was filled with enough light to eradicate all of the shadows.

The heat was astonishing, of course, not enough to set my clothing on fire--but enough to redden my skin slightly and evaporate my sweat.

Resh rapidly compressed the green flames down into a fireball the size of a fist, before launching it towards the Stone Worm Queen and incinerated its head before it could even awaken from its dazed state--she shuddered slightly, with a whimper, as she experienced the Surge.

“That was awesome,” I said as I walked over to Resh side.

She was staring at the dead Stone Worm Queen with a look of pride in her eyes.

I reached out and gently stroked her slightly sweaty hair, and she made a noise, pushing her head against my hand and looking up at me with a huge grin--the wall behind the dead Stone Worm Queen was glowing a brilliant red.

After a few seconds, Resh stepped back and walked over to the corpse and began cutting into it, she soon found a small sliver of murky green crystal; which almost all Monsters had in them.

She smiled happily, and began to walk towards the entrance of the room, before staggering slightly; I quickly moved over and supported her.

“Thank you,” She spoke quietly, I could hear the exhaustion in her voice.

“We should rest here. Don’t worry--I will stand guard.” I supported her and changed our direction over to one of the walls.

I sat down next to her, leaning against the wall, she smiled and lent against me; she didn’t have the strength to lay down the protection Wards, but she trusted me and shut her eyes, rapidly falling asleep--I wonder how I could instill such trust in someone who didn’t know me for very long…but it felt very good knowing that she trusted me that much.

With a smile, I released some of my aura; this aura was basically determining to kill anything that threatened Resh, or me. I had experimented with this even when I was in the labyrinth, and apparently when I was determined to kill something, my light, or some power, would cause an aura--and anything weaker than me would run away.

It had actually saved me from a few ambushes, and even worked while I slept.

I had been restraining this aura when in Beleran, because if people sensed it, they would probably be scared of me. Since I had included Resh, she didn’t feel the aura and wake up--this was a weird function in my ability, but it could be useful…I had discovered it totally by an accident.

This kind of aura was automatically given off by Monsters, and it allowed me to make a basic estimate of their strength--it was one of the things that I hadn’t spoken to Resh about, because I thought that it may scare her…but since she seemed fine with my resurrection ability, I should probably talk to her about it.

Resh slept for quite a long time, I could tell that it was a while, because I didn’t zone out and took it seriously. Keeping one hand on the floor, I pushed the light into the walls and floor, to make sure that the Stone Worms couldn’t tunnel through it; I also practiced with the light in general, which I haven’t had much chance to use it since leaving the labyrinth.

I knew that I shouldn’t tell normal people, at least for now.

Since the blue symbols were Primordial Magic, maybe my light was related to that--I would ask Resh some time when she wasn’t busy.

I had strange feeling when it came to Resh’s rank. I did want her to get to my grade, so that we could fight side-by-side, so I could have an equal. But, I admit that having her depend on me felt pretty good.

On a side note, I planned on tracking down another Apostle or Fallen Apostle, to compare them to myself.

When I asked her, she still got Surges from the Monsters on this floor.

This Dungeon did have a strange jump in difficulty, floors ten through nineteen were around Mid-Grade B--but number twenty was High-Grade A or Partial-Grade S.

It felt like days before Resh woke up.

“Good morning,” Resh slowly sat up with a yawn, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes; when I saw the signs of her waking up, I had stopped playing with my light.

“Morning, Resh”

“So, let’s go kill something,” Resh said happily as she stood up with a stretch, we were going to keep descending until the nineteenth floor--where we were going to stay for a while, to see how high grade we could get her; she knew that she couldn’t handle the twentieth.

According to Resh, it would probably require an army to go through the twentieth--even if we didn’t even challenge the Lesser Dragon Boss.

Of course, I was hoping to go through and at least see it.

Resh seemed happy this morning, killing the Stone Worm Queen would have helped improve her; luckily she didn’t get Surge Sickness this time. She switched between fireballs and fire spears as she hunted--I noticed that her flames had changed from normal red-yellow to green.

***

We descended floor after floor, Resh’s combat capabilities had increased a lot; she had gained a lot of experience, and could kill very well and efficiently. I wonder what Jess’s reaction would be if she saw Resh now.

I had thought that watching someone else fight would be boring, but I found that watching Resh was a lot of fun. I also wanted to understand how her Magic worked, the Magic Circles and symbols were interesting--different from the blue symbols that I knew.

She spoke about teaching me Magic, and I also wanted to find some books about it; Resh had told me about a Magic Academy, and I really wanted to go there, maybe after this dungeon--I could read the letters used in books, but Magic Symbols are different…but there were a few similarities.

By the eighteenth floor, Resh had stopped getting Surges--so we decided to just go to the twentieth floor quickly. On the way down, Resh used her strongest moves and didn’t hold back, killing the enemies quickly; we were basically strolling through roasted corpses, Resh would stop at each one and grab tiny crystals from them.

She had been fighting for experience before, so it was much slower and Resh was more careful so as to get every single enemy; but this time, we just killed so as to move along and deeper.

The difference between when she came in here with me, and now--was incredible, she had really grown into her power and increased in grade.

We reached the boss room, and Resh killed it with the same beautiful Fire Magic spell that she had used the Stone Worm Queen--it still dazzled me every time I saw it.

Standing at the top of the stairs down to the twentieth floor, I turned to Resh and placed a hand on her shoulder, “I will be the one fighting on the next floor, please stay close?”

I was a little worried, because I never had fought to protect anyone.

We followed the stairs down to the twentieth floor, I felt a large jump in surrounding power between the nineteenth and twentieth floors.

There was a bend, just after the bottom of the stairs.

Sitting in front of us, hissing and watching intently, was a giant snake. Its scales were deep black and its eyes glowed a soft crimson--I heard Resh gasp behind me, but I didn’t turn; I knew that noise was just her reaction to the snake, not that she had been ambushed by a Monster.

The snake lunged at me, its massive mouth open wide enough to swallow me whole, its speed was actually almost comparable to the rats. I didn’t have much room to maneuver, because of Resh behind me, but I was still faster than the snake. I wouldn’t move from in front of her unless something ambushed us from behind--I was the one who could die and resurrect; and would never let her die.

As the massive arm-length fangs came falling towards me, I caught one of them with my left hand, and smashed upwards with the other. My spear-hand strike penetrated straight through the roof of its mouth and shattered the palate, my hand entering the nasal cavity.

I didn’t managed to make it all the way to the brain because the snake was too large, and I didn’t have much range of movement. When I caught the fang, I had gripped it near the base, instead of stopping the point on my palm; mainly to give me more reach, and to make sure that it didn’t poison me, which was unlikely.

The snake’s head snapped back, and since I was gripping the fang, it was pulled out; the hiss sounded more like a scream than anything else. Blood and poison sprayed against the walls as the snake thrashed--I spun and looked at Resh behind me, luckily she had activated a Magic shield.

She smiled at me as I turned back to the enemy.

I watched the snake’s movements: analyzing and calculating, as the snake still thrashed in uncontrollable agony and rage. When it raised its head, I threw the fang in my hand through the open mouth of the snake--straight through the hole that I had opened in the top of the mouth; the fang, unhindered, through the snake’s brain and it died.

Unfortunately, I didn’t feel a Surge--I was correct, the snake was weaker than the Rats…barely.

I turned to Resh, who was pale and shaking, “Are you okay?”

She nodded, “Y-yeah, I’m okay…it’s just that this is the first time I have seen you use your power--incredible!” She walked up to me smiled with an impressed look.

Her praise felt quite good, making me smile .

Resh walked over the snake’s corpse, she coated Magic on her hands and rummaged through it; she pulled out a fairly large, and quite clear crystal--she cheered happily, before looking over at me with a look of embarrassment; she coughed, and then placed it into her bag and walked back over to me.

We continued walking, the Monsters were spread strangely thin.

Resh followed quite a distance behind me, and I killed the snakes--they were quite easy once I figured out their attack patterns, and Resh kept her shield up; she had gotten used to it, and I felt a little more confident.

The twentieth floor--according to the survivor, was small, there were around a total of ten rooms; and we had only encountered four snakes by the time we reached the ninth room, where we decided to rest there before going to fight the boss.