Abby collapsed beside Zeke, who was so covered in gore that he looked like he’d been turned inside out. Between ragged breaths, she said, “That could have gone better.”

Heedless of the blood and accumulated viscera all around him, Zeke lay back in exhaustion. Then, he laughed, a necessary release of tension after fighting drachnids for close to seven hours straight. Nearby, Pudge rolled in a particularly nasty pile of severed legs, dislodged chitin, and, of course, plenty of drachnid blood. The bear cub had no idea just how grotesque his display was, which only served to enhance the absurdity of the scene.

The day had actually started out fairly well, with Abby and Zeke slowly picking off small groups of drachnids as they made their way through Nightweb Ravine. However, disaster had struck when they made the mistake of chasing a deserter into one of the caves dotting the ravine’s outer walls. They’d managed to kill the monster, but not before it raised an alarm with the hundreds of drachnids within. They weren’t all combatants, but even the civilian versions of drachnids were still deadly monsters.

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t gotten reinforcements,” Zeke said. His armor had been ruined, just like Abby’s, and if it hadn’t been for his [Leech Strike] and the [Mark of Companionship] that let him share the skill, they’d have both been dead a dozen times over. “How many do you think we got?”

“Plenty,” she said.

“Not all of them, though,” Zeke muttered, all mirth disappearing from his tone. It reminded Abby that beneath his gruff yet mostly affable exterior, there was a deep, throbbing potential for hatred. When they weren’t in battle, Zeke reminded her of a labrador, all likable naivete and optimism. However, the moment he summoned his mace, he became an insatiable and unstoppable hellhound. And that had been before they’d found the bodies. After, he had been infected with a need for vengeance that had transformed him into something altogether more terrifying.

Part of the intimidation was due to the fact that he didn’t seem to care about getting hurt. He didn’t even seem to acknowledge that throwing himself at hundreds of monsters might result in his own death. And from experience, Abby knew that, despite his ability to heal from wounds that would kill other men, his injuries still hurt. In their war against the drachnids, Abby hadn’t taken quite as many hits as Zeke, but she’d experienced her fair share of injuries. And though she’d healed via the borrowed [Leech Strike], she hadn’t been able to escape the agony of having her body torn apart, piece by piece.

Zeke seemed to sneer at the pain, though, refusing to even acknowledge it, aside from a grimace or an errant grunt. Instead, he always waded forward, swinging that terrible club, heedless of the damage he took. That, more than anything else, marked him as unique. Of all his impressive attributes or his interesting skills, his ability to take a hit and keep moving forward was the most impressive and frightening of them all.

“You did something new at the end, there,” she said. “A different skill. You got faster.”

“Stronger, too,” he said, sitting up. He ran his hand through his hair – or at least he tried to. His hair, matted by blood, didn’t seem to cooperate, though. “It’s a skill called [Heart of the Beserker]. It gives me a boost to my physical stats, but the longer it goes on, the more vulnerable I get. And when I stop using it, there’s a period of weakness.”

“You’ve never used it before,” she said.

He shrugged. “I forget sometimes,” he said.

Abby just shook her head. It sounded like an extremely powerful ability, especially when she had seen how much stronger and faster he got under its influence. Even with the downsides, it was the sort of ability that most adventurers would build their entire fighting style around. But for Zeke, it was an afterthought, an oft-forgotten and rarely needed tool.

“Do you think the mark will let me use it, too?” she asked.

Again, Zeke shrugged his muscular shoulders. “No idea,” he said. “Maybe? I’m kind of new at this grouping up thing. But I know Pudge can use it. Even when I tell him not to.”

Abby frowned as she remembered the bear cub’s sudden surge of strength. For a couple of minutes, Pudge had held his own right beside his soulbound companion. It had been quite a sight to see the cub dismembering drachnids five or six times his size. But then he’d started taking injuries. Swipes that normally wouldn’t have pierced Pudge’s thick hide had ripped him to shreds. Zeke didn’t say so, but Abby was experienced enough to know that Pudge had very nearly died. It was only towards the end of the battle, when he could attack injured drachnids and utilize [Leech Strike] that he had begun to heal.

“He’s just a baby,” she said, looking at the cub. He’d grown a little in the weeks since Abby had met Zeke in Tua Ta’alar, from the size of a mid-sized dog to almost four-feet long. She had no idea of Pudge’s age, but she suspected that his growth was unusually fast. In a year, he’d probably reach adulthood.

“More like a stubborn teenager,” Zeke mumbled. His jaw flexed as he stared at the bear cub still rolling in the blood of its enemies. “It got close there for a little while. He almost died.”

“Yeah,” she said, reaching out to grip his shoulder. Since being reborn into the new world, Abby hadn’t really had many friends. There were plenty of acquaintances and allies – in that respect, she was popular enough. Most of the other adventurers in Beacon knew her by reputation, if not by sight. However, she hadn’t allowed herself to get close to anyone in a while. Even her relationship with Vladimir hadn’t been a true friendship. There was loyalty there, but he’d been her subordinate. But Zeke was different. With him, she’d felt a nearly immediate kinship. “We got through it, though. It probably won’t be the first time we come close to dying, right? Otherwise, we’ll never progress.”

Zeke nodded, and for a few seconds, neither of them moved. Instead, surrounded by the corpses of their enemies, they merely sat, lost in thought. Finally, Zeke’s face split into a grin as he said, “Speaking of progression – I finally leveled to twelve.”

Abby shook her head, saying, “Your leveling speed is ridiculous.” Then, she looked around, “Or maybe not. Honestly, killing this many monsters should’ve gotten you even more experience.”

“I think it’s the [Mark of Companionship],” Zeke reasoned. “And Pudge leeches some experience from me, too.”

“It’s probably your constitution as well,” Abby said. “Some of the Temple’s scholars say that the higher your stats, the more experience it takes for you to level. It’s one of the reasons that higher levels require exponentially more energy to advance.”

And given what Abby had seen, Zeke was blessed with stats that were expansive enough for someone five levels his senior. Maybe more, considering she had no notion of how high his intelligence, wisdom, or vitality really were. For the first two, she’d never seen him utilize any mana-hungry skills, so she couldn’t judge their values. And with vitality, [Leech Strike] sort of skewed everything; she had no clue where its affects ended and where Zeke’s vitality began. However, she had seen enough of his strength, agility, dexterity, and endurance to know that they were within the upper tier of anything she’d ever seen, even amongst the masters within her guild, The Champions of Light.

And he was only level twelve.

A shudder went up Abby’s spine as she considered how powerful the man might become as he continued to pile on levels. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that he could eventually even challenge legends like the paladin, Abdul Rumas or the Lady Constance herself, the most powerful person on among the Radiant Isles, and perhaps even the world.

“You’ve mentioned this Temple before,” Zeke said. “And you’ve talked about your guild. But you’ve never really explained how any of that works. I mean, is Beacon run by this Temple? Or does the guild run things?”

“Sort of,” Abby said. “The Temple is nominally neutral. There’s a bureaucracy in Beacon. An elected council too. They run the city on a day-to-day basis. But when the Temple of the Sun Goddess wants something, they get it because they have all the real power, and the people trust them. Then there’s the Church of Purity. They’re mostly neutral, but nobody wants to offend them because they’ve got all the healers. They’re not interested in power, though. Think of them like a charity organization combined with a hospital.”

“And your guild?” Zeke asked, standing. He bent down to touch a drachnid corpse, looting anything useful. Immediately, its eyes disappeared along with the claws that remained intact. The drachnid’s incisors followed suit before he moved to the next one. Abby stood and followed, though she couldn’t assist in the looting.

“The Champions of Light,” she said. “Third most powerful guild in Beacon, after the Sun Worshippers and Night’s Bane.”

“What’s with all the names? Everything’s to do with the sun or light,” he said, continuing his looting spree. Abby was more than a little jealous of that ability. Harvesting monsters properly was an acquired Skill, and one that very few people managed to obtain. Even then, it was a messy, time-consuming, and tedious process. Zeke’s ability, by comparison was quick, easy, and clean. Most adventurers would kill for something with half that utility.

“It’s Lady Constance’s influence,” Abby explained. “She’s the leader of the Temple of the Sun Goddess. The goddess’s own chosen one, and the strongest person around. Rumor is that she actually founded Beacon, though that would put her at around five-hundred years old. I’m not sure I believe that, but I do know she’s extremely strong. When her husband died about ten years ago, she unleashed a wave of flame that destroyed an entire forest and anything unlucky enough to live there. It was before my time, but where the forest used to be is still a wasteland of ash. It even spawns weak fire elementals now.”

“And the guilds chose their names to curry favor,” Zeke reasoned. “But they don’t have any official connection to the Temple, right?”

“Right,” Abby said.

“Sounds stupid,” he said. “Just because someone’s powerful doesn’t mean they know how to rule. I mean, just because someone can hit homeruns doesn’t mean they can coach, you know?”

Abby shook her head. The baseball analogies were getting more infrequent, and she knew from experience that, eventually, he’d leave them behind. Even though she’d been in the new world for less than a decade, her old life had faded into something of a blur. She could still remember things if she focused hard enough, and some wounds would probably never fully leave. But the old world was like a dream to her. More ephemeral than real. It happened to everyone, so long as they survived long enough, and it would surely happen to Zeke as well – especially considering how young he’d been when he died the first time.

Shrugging, she said, “I don’t make the rules. That’s just how it is.”

For a while, neither of them spoke. Instead, Zeke continued to loot the hundreds of monsters, and Abby contented herself to simply follow along, keeping an eye on their surroundings so that they wouldn’t be ambushed. They had made quite a ruckus, after all. It would’ve been naïve to think that they’d gone unnoticed. Pudge followed along, his head hanging low; clearly, Zeke had mentally admonished the bear cub for his recklessness, and he’d responded by pouting.

Finally, after a couple more hours, when the sun had begun to set, they finished the arduous task of looting the carcasses of the monsters. Then, they pushed forward along the ravine until they were a mile or so from the scattered corpses. Once they had put a reasonable amount of distance between themselves and the site of the battle, Zeke summoned his hut.

Not for the first time, Abby marveled at the ability. In a lot of ways, it was even more impressive than Zeke’s skills or his constitution. Not only did it function similarly to her [Makeshift Camp] skill, acting as a monster repellent, but it also seemed possessed of the ability to evolve. Since the first time she had seen it, it had grown larger and sturdier. The hut, which could better be called a cottage now, had traded out its straw roof for wooden shingles and replaced its mundane, grey stone with something that looked far more exotic. Pale white, with red veins, the stone that comprised the cottage’s walls seemed to radiate a certain power that Abby could only barely sense, much less understand.

By rote, Abby gathered some wood from inside the cottage and quickly made a fire, infusing it with [Makeshift Camp]. There was some overlap between the skill and the cottage, but over the past couple of weeks, the two had twined together into a synergistic aura that was more than the sum of its parts. Within that cottage, their potential for recovery would skyrocket, wounds would regenerate at unheard-of speeds, and no monster would come within a hundred yards of the place.

As always, Zeke descended into the cellar that was the physical manifestation of his spatial storage. He did it every time they made camp, almost as if he didn’t quite trust his own ability.

Abby ignored it, instead focusing on cleaning off the blood and gore from that day’s battle. It wasn’t exactly one of Beacon’s bathhouses, but at least she could get reasonably clean. It took her almost thirty minutes to finish the awkward bath, but Zeke didn’t make an appearance until well after she’d pulled a fresh set of clothes from her enchanted satchel and redressed. When he finally emerged from the cellar, she was scrubbing her armor clean. That day’s clothes were hanging nearby, already as clean as they were going to get.

Zeke slapped a slab of meat on the roughhewn table; she thought it was from the tail of the six-foot lizard they’d killed early in the day, but Abby’s stomach wasn’t strong enough to ponder the meat’s origins too deeply. She could eat it, and so long as she didn’t think about it much, it almost tasted like chicken. But that didn’t mean she had to like it.

“You mind?” he asked. “I want to get cleaned up, too.”

Abby rolled her eyes at Zeke’s preference for privacy. Perhaps that was why he disappeared each time he summoned his cottage – to give her privacy so she could bathe in peace. Thoughtful, if unnecessary. She wasn’t exactly an exhibitionist, but spending years in the field, fighting and camping alongside men and women alike, had rid her of many of her hang-ups about nudity. Still, Abby couldn’t help but feel thankful for his consideration, as misguided as it may be. She’d be remiss if she didn’t return the favor.

So, Abby grabbed the meat, then went outside to do the cooking. As she skewered the meat and set it to roasting over the flames, Abby considered that maybe that was his plan all along; perhaps he just didn’t want to cook.

The rest of the night went much the same as the previous few weeks, with them sharing small talk or playing with Pudge, who’d whined the entire time Zeke had spent cleaning his fur. Then, they went to sleep, hoping that the next day would prove a little easier. Or at least that was Abby’s hope. As for Zeke, she wouldn’t have put it past him to want a tougher challenge.