Mya was sitting over Aidan’s body, casting healing spell after healing spell with her face drenched in tears. Edward got close to her with some apprehension and asked: “How is he?”

Mya was startled by his voice, apparently not even noticing Minx get close, but once she noticed it was Edward who came back, she looked at him with tears still falling down her cheeks and a lost look as she said: “I, I, I, I-I don’t know… he’s not waking up…”

“Let me see.” Said Edward as he knelt down and checked Aidan’s pulse only to discover that there was none. His wounds were completely healed, but his heart was not beating anymore.

Moving the trembling Mya to the side, since her healing magic didn’t seem to do anything anymore, he started performing CPR on Aidan’s body, but even after five minutes of it, there was no sign of him recovering.

[He’s gone, Edward. It might have helped if it was performed right after his heart stopped beating, but now it’s too late. There are also no soul fluctuations coming from his body.]

 “Damn it.” Said Edward as he stopped and turned towards Mya, only to notice that somehow, during those ten minutes, she has fallen asleep with her body resting against Minx.

 [The poor girl must have completely spent her mana trying to heal him… she healed his body in perfect condition, unaware that his soul was already gone.]

 Edward sighed and looked around, only to notice that Brendan and Steven’s bodies were also gone.

 “Where did that retard go now?…” mumbled Edward as he picked up Mya’s body from the ground and placed it gently on Minx’s back.

 “Fenrir, how long will she be out for?”

 [… Azure said that you can wake her up in about an hour, but it will take at least eight hours for her mana to recover fully.]

 Edward sighed and looked down at Aidan’s dead body, wishing he could at least bring it back with him, but knowing that would only decrease the chances of him and Mya getting out alive. With a sigh, he tried to absorb the life force of the lizards that were dead all around the place, only to notice that nothing seems to happen.

 [It’s no use. Too much time has passed since they died and their life force was already absorbed back by the dungeon. It appears one has a limited time frame to absorb a monster’s life force.]

 “So it was all for naught…” murmured Edward as he took one last look at Aidan’s lifeless body. With another sigh, he climbed on top of Minx’s body and held Mya’s body firmly so she won’t fall.

 “Minx, see if you can find Brendan’s tracks. He couldn’t have gone that far while carrying his brother’s body.”

 With a small whimper, Minx smelled the ground a few times before quickly picking up Brendan’s scent. Seeing Minx picking up a train, Edward channeled a water blade just in case they stumbled upon any monster.

 They didn’t have to go long before Edward could notice Brendan up ahead, carrying his brother’s body while wandering forward.

 “Brendon, stop.” Yelled Edward from Minx’s back, only to be completely ignored by Brandon, who didn’t even pause for a single moment.

 Seeing that he was not listening, Edward told Minx to block his path and said: “Brandon, I know how you’re feeling, but walking around randomly will surely get you killed as well. Please stop and let’s try to get out of the dungeon first.”

 Brandon finally turned his eyes on Edward and started laughing out loud, a burst of sorrowful laughter accompanied by tears raining down both of his cheeks.

 “Haha, you know how I’m feeling?? You? Fuck you, Edward. What would you know about what I’m feeling right now? I’ve lost the only family I ever had. What would you know of that? Get the fuck out of my way.”

 Edward didn’t relent and kept blocking his way while saying: “And you think your brother will want you to die as well? Please, let’s wait for Mya to wake up before leaving this place together. Two deaths are already enough…”

 Brendan ignored his words completely and started trying to walk around Minx, prompting Edward to make her block his path once more.

 Seeing his path blocked again, Brendan gave Edward an unfriendly look and said in a grim tone: “Edward, get out of my way right now.”

 “What is your plan, Brendan? Do you want to die together with Steven?”

 Brendan didn’t reply to Edward’s question and just gently placed his brother’s bloodied body on the floor in front of him. After gently caressing his pale lifeless face once, he moved his arm towards the longsword tied to his back and looked up at Edward on top of Minx, the intention behind his look clear.

 Edward panicked and made Minx take a few steps back.

 “So, are you moving out of the way, or do you want to join the others as well?”

 Seeing the pained but determined look in Brendan’s eyes, Edward knew he had already decided to go through with it.

 “Why? I’ll move away as long as you can give me a good reason you’re doing all this.”

 Brendon kept quiet for a minute before saying with a tremble in his voice: “My brother is all alone now and needs me at his side…”

 Edward kept silent for a good while as he stared into Brendan’s eyes, eyes that contained feelings he has experienced before. Love, sadness, grief, hopelessness, pain, and most importantly, resignation. With a sigh, he stroked Minx’s head and said: “Move to the side girl, he’s already gone.”

 Minx turned toward him with a confused look, a look Edward hadn’t seen in quite a while, but Edward just nodded and said: “Just move to the side, girl.”

 Minx complied and Brendan threw his long sword to the side before picking up his brother’s body in his arms once more. 

 Seeing him slowly walk away, Edward stepped down from Minx’s back and picked up the simple longsword Brendan threw away. Moving his hands down the side of the blade, a long sigh escaped his lips.

 [You could have knocked him unconscious and carried him away. There was no way he could fight against you.]

 “What is the point of that? Didn’t you see the look in his eyes? He already made his choice to die.”

 [You said that you know how he felt, was that a try to stop him or…]

 “Enough, Fenrir. The past is the past. Now we need to leave this place alive.”

 Fenrir kept quiet for a moment before saying, [I can also feel the safe zone. It’s related to the dungeon’s soul, and that’s why only clerics can feel it.]

 Edward nodded and, picking up the longsword from the ground, he jumped on Minx’s back and started riding in the direction Fenrir was guiding him to.

 Ten minutes in, he felt Minx tensing up under him and knew that she must have felt something.

 “Go around if you can, Minx. I would prefer we don’t fight anyone now, if possible. If you can’t, just try to run away.”

 Minx let out a small whimper and changed direction, making a slight detour around whatever was in front of them. The same scene kept repeating quite a few more times until Fenrir’s voice came from his arm.

 [I can feel people fighting straight ahead.]

 Edward thought for a while before saying to Minx: “Girl, try to go around them as well. We don’t know if they will be friendly or not.”

 As Edward got closer and closer to the stairs, the number of fights he passed by increased until eventually, he had to pass beside one of them if he didn’t want to take a long detour.

 As he got closer to the location Fenrir let him know a fight was going on, he spotted a party of four adventurers engaged in combat with a group of five lizards. There were also four lizard bodies laying down on the ground, already dead.

 Now willing to interfere in their battle and seeing that they seemed to not be handling it easily, he asked Minx to stop and waited for the fight to be over while carefully analyzing the way they fought. The adventurers also noticed Edward, but since they were engaged in combat and Edward stopped quite a fair distance away, they ignored him for now.

 The adventurer party comprised two men, one dual wielding a pair of daggers while the other used a short sword, both of them engaging the lizards in close combat. In the back, there were two magicians, a woman and a man providing support to the men on the front line. What surprised Edward was the fact that the two men in front could keep up with the lizards’ speed and, with the magicians helping them not get overwhelmed, they were winning with ease.

 “Fenrir, how are they able to move just as fast as the lizards? I remember that Steven, Brendan, and Aidan could barely keep up and defend themselves. Are they higher level?”

 [No, they are probably still level two. Leveling up provides a lot of benefits, but training is also a part of growing stronger. Did you notice how your mana increased on its own the more you practiced using magic, same thing happens with agility and strength. They probably trained a lot more than your party members before entering the dungeon.]

 Edward nodded and kept observing the way the party fought. It wasn’t long before they took care of all the lizards and turned their focus on Edward. The man using dual daggers stepped closer and asked out loud: “What do you want?”

 Any other day, Edward would have cursed the man for his tone, but now the only thing he cared about was getting himself, Minx, and Mya out of the dungeon as fast as possible so he answered: “I’m just passing through while heading towards the stairs. I don’t have any business with you. I didn’t want to bother you as you were fighting and that’s why I stopped here.”

 The man relaxed slightly and nodded before saying: “That’s fine, you can go but you better not try anything funny.”

 Edward thanked the man and instructed Minx to pass by the party. As he was a couple of feet away from them, the magician in their party suddenly said: “Is your companion hurt? My sub-class is a cleric and I can help.”

 Edward looked at the man and said without stopping Minx from walking forward: “It’s fine, she’s just tired from using all her mana. Thank you anyway.”

 The man nodded and the party followed Edward with their eyes until he was out of their sight.

 “Travis, what do you think?” asked the man with the short sword as he got closer to the magician pair.

 The magician who spoke to Edward just earlier shook his head and said: “There were indeed no wounds on the girl’s body, but he was completely covered in blood under that cloak. Since the monster’s blood disappears once one absorbs the monster’s life force and he didn’t look injured either….”

 “Do you think he killed a party and kidnapped that girl?” said the man with the daggers as he got closer and turned to look in Edward’s direction.

 The magician girl quickly grabbed Travis’ hand and looked at him with pleading eyes as she said: “We must follow him and make sure that girl is all right. She looked so young...”

 Travis tightened his grip on her hand and said: “Elena, that’s only a possibility. There is also the chance something else happened and we shouldn’t just jump to conclusions.”

 “But what if he really kidnapped her?” asked Elena, to which the man with the knives replied: “I’ll go follow them. I can keep up with that wolf easily.”

 Travis shook his head and said: “No need, Victor. He said he was heading towards the stairs. Since it’s already late, we’ll also go there and, if we don’t find him, we can just report the situation to the guild. There can’t be that many men ridding a moonwalking wolf around and he should be easy to identify.”

 Since Travis was the leader of the party and he already decided, the others nodded and collected their spoils before heading the same way Edward did.

 Edward, unaware that he was just branded as a kidnapper, continued making his way towards the stairs following Fenrir’s directions. He also noticed that the pure white ceiling that was shining with light all the time was darkening slowly.

 “I guess it’s already evening outside…” murmured Edward as he asked Minx to increase her speed.

 After avoiding a few more adventurer groups by walking around them, Edward and Minx soon reached a flight of large, pure white stairs, forming a spiral that headed both up and down. There was also a thin transparent membrane forming a large circle around the stairs and he could see many adventurer parties sitting inside that membrane.

 Passing through the thin membrane, Edward felt a small shudder down his spine, but as much as he wanted to ask Fenrir about it, there were many people there and he didn’t want to risk exposing his secrets to them.

 Finding a clear, empty spot on the ground, he unmounted Minx and laid Mya with her head on the wolf’s soft fur.

 “I guess I have no choice but to spend the night here…” murmured Edward as he laid down next to Mya and started playing with his adventurer badge to pass the time.