The entrance to the mine was peaceful and calm. A portal appeared and three adventurers ran through it, each of them more relieved than the last.

"Finally! Fresh air!" Naomi exclaimed and kissed the ground. "Never before was I so happy to see dry grass and tiny ants!"

Gabriel lay on his back and coughed. He was exhausted and out of air, but the sight of the strider's walls left him with a warm feeling in his chest.

"At last, we made it." He said with a smile.

The first to stand up from the group was Chucky, who immediately upon doing so reached under her skirt and pulled out a knife.

"Alright, heroes!" She licked the blade. "I am ready for round two! My thirst for blood is––"

"Shut up!" Naomi raised his voice. "Let us rest before we deal with your shit!"

Chucky recoiled. That was not the kind of response she was used to.

"Hmph!" She pouted and put away her knife.

The two men were out of commission. Neither of them could be fought, which made them pretty boring opponents.

Chucky sighed and began to leave.

"Wait!" Gabriel reached after her.

"Hm? What do you want, baldie?"

"I got a few questions I'd like to ask."

"Yeah? Well, shove them up your arse!" She threw a finger, and just like that, left.

Naomi crawled next to the speechless Gabriel. He bore quite a big smile.

"No luck with women? Don't worry, you'll have some once we regrow your hair." Naomi winked.

Gabriel ignored his remarks. He looked at the cold trail of the girl and questions began to form in his mind.

Who was she? Why was she so deep inside a dangerous mine? And much more importantly, why did he have such a funny feeling about her?

Thinking of which, she did not seem to have any main weapon. Her style included swapping through a bunch of different tools and using them for improvised attacks.

This. For some reason, Gabriel could not get this out of his mind. This very fact greatly bothered him, but he was too uninformed to know why.

He had to find out.

But not now.

First, he needed to regain his hair.

 

– – –

 

On their way back to the farm, a wagon came before them. It was the one that brought them here, and even the driver was the same.

"Get in!" The driver ordered, refusing to say anything more.

Gabriel approached the back of the vehicle. He climbed inside without saying a word, but deep inside, he felt a bit troubled.

"He must have known that we were done with the dungeon. But how?"

When he went to his seat, something was already there, waiting for him.

A new set of butler clothes, next to a peculiar elixir. The latter was sealed in a glass that resembled a beautiful crystal, and the inner liquid glowed with a magical red.

The same elixir was in Naomi's seat.

"Huh? Is that some kind of health potion?" Naomi unplugged the elixir and tried to drink it.

"Stop!" Gabriel grabbed his wrist.

Naomi looked at him with wide eyes. Gabriel's firm grasp was desperate, much like the shaking in his eyes.

As Naomi lowered the bottle, he let out a relieved sigh.

"Thank goodness!" Gabriel sat back in his chair. "You should never drink something a stranger gives to you! Who knows what might be inside?"

"Are you suggesting they would poison us?"

"No. It seems like we're a valuable asset to the Duchess' cause, whatever that might be."

"Oh, okay. Then it should be fine!" Naomi said and drank the potion.

Gabriel reached out to stop him, but it was already too late. The elixir poured down Naomi's throat like water on a slide.

It looked promising, however, given its taste and lack of effects, the elixir was nothing more than just ordinary medicine.

"I don't feel anything." Naomi put down the glass with disappointment in his eyes.

However, something had indeed changed.

The small scratches on his hand and the small wounds on his leg shone with a red light before quickly healing. Color returned onto his pale face and the fatigue from his eyes disappeared in an instant.

Gabriel was shocked by the sight.

"This is incredible! Not only did his wounds heal, but his entire body revitalized!"

Further observing the elixir and glass, its shape reminded him of something.

"No way!" Gabriel's eyes widened in revelation.

Not waiting for any second thoughts, he unplugged the potion and drank all that was inside.

The smell, the taste, the color...

They all matched the same potion he met back in the burning forest, when a cloud from the sky reached down and poured it down his throat.

As the elixir entered his body, his wounds began to heal. Even his hair grew back!

With the new set of clothes and the elixir drunk, he looked exactly like when he came to clear the mine.

Everything matched, except for one very small detail. His new set of clothes was missing a button.

"Huh, weird." Gabriel thought to himself. "To think a royal necessity would be at fault..."

He looked at his previous set of clothes and searched for the identical button. He would have tried to fit the hole with another button, but it seemed like the clothes were designed with unique buttons that only fit in one place.

All of the buttons had their own designated place. And the one fitting the missing piece was the same button with the tiny, womanly face painted inside.

Gabriel attached the button without a problem. He felt a strange feeling, but he shook it off as just a side-effect of the healing potion.

"By the way, this glass looks incredible!" Gabriel observed the elixir's container up close. "Hm… There should be a manufacturer written somewhere. If I could find that, that would bring me one step closer to the truth. Both about my survival and the mysterious figure in the sky."

Turning the glass in his hand, he caught a glimpse of something at the bottle's neck. Small marks of scratches hid something that appeared to be a name.

For an average human, this would have been a dead end. No new information could have been gathered from this stain of marks.

But thanks to his Demon abilities and careful planning with his skill points, Gabriel's perception was above average. Thanks to that, he could make out the first letter, which proved to be quite a good lead.

"Q…" Gabriel read out the first letter while already planning his next move.