Cara stared back at us from her seat next to Emer.

"So, you managed to clean them up properly?"

Cerion bounced cheerfully.

"Sure did! Arthur took care of lieutenant Nareo and I took care of the weaker bandits."

She eyed him for a moment. Neither broke the stare down, though Cerion's jovial smile seemed to become a little strained.

"How did you handle it?", she asked.

"Just... fine, I guess. Arthur and I had a good talk about it."

She redirected her scathing look at me.

"Did you?" she asked rhetorically.

I just nodded, in an attempt to get her to leave me alone.

Apparently, this whole 'aversion to death' thing had been more serious than I had expected. Even Cara had picked up on it. Honestly, I felt a little slighted. She was looking at me as if I had done something wrong. As if I could just stop what my affinity did to me. It wasn't my fault, it was the system's! I wanted to tell her this, but something about the look she was giving me told me my argument wouldn't go over well.

I just nodded, and sat down in a corner, to get some time to myself. I wanted to sort out my feelings about the conversation I had had with Cerion.

On some level, I understood where she was coming from, though. Everyone had this instinct that I didn't. I didn't enjoy killing others, mind you, but I didn't feel anything while other people did, at least at first. Was there something wrong with me? Cerion had laughed when I had asked him, but if this was just the first of many ugly surprises of myself, maybe the stereotype that fit dark-aligned casters fit me too, in a way.

What if I had gotten the dark affinity because I lacked this instinct? What if I was the cause?

I felt a little bit of guilt, too, for not feeling what these people around me expected me to feel. It was an awkward thought, because I knew it didn't make sense to feel guilty for that.

I rubbed my temples as I racked my brain, trying to psychoanalyse myself to stay ahead of my affinity. It felt like I was running a race against myself all the time, where if I stopped focussing, I would become everything I hated, by virtue of my own mental weakness.

I was starting to think in circles, I needed more time to deliberate this, because I was starting to frustrate myself.

I opened my system notifications.

Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Overloading Death Knight] level 32!

Reach level 50 to advance to tier 3.

Stat points allocated. 5 free stat points per level up awarded.

Another two levels, nice. I dumped the ten points into wisdom again, and waved away the notification.

I wanted to distract myself from my own psychological thought processes, but failed. Even the extra wisdom didn't feel like it was helping. Finding no other option, I retreated into my mind by using [Mental palace].

Once again, I found myself in the shack my family had lived in when I was a child. Unlike last time, it didn't look like we still lived there. Some of the wooden beams had fallen down, and some floorboards had rotted. I actually sunk halfway into the floor one time. I dusted myself off and opened the front door, to take a look outside my cabin.

The familiar white expanse greeted me again, sending a small shiver down my spine. My tier 2 trial did not make for a pleasant memory.

A few meters in front of me, the tree that had grown in my last session stood. It was dead.

The leaves were brown and rotted, while the branches sagged to the side of the tree. Clearly, something had gone wrong. This tree had grown while I meditated in here last time, when I tested the time properties. I had been disappointed that skill progression happened at the same rate outside as it did inside, relatively speaking, making the usefulness of [Mental palace] seem rather limited to me at the time.

Now, it seemed more useful. This white space and cabin represented my mind in some way. So, what did this tree represent? The skill description had said something about healing mental wounds, right? Was that what the tree represented? A healed or healing wound?

And it died. I hadn't taken proper care of it, by not taking proper care of myself, mentally. When I had been confronted by another way that my affinity had affected me, cracks started to appear in the fragile house at the center, and the tree that represented growth and progress had died.

I had failed.

I had learned a lesson a long time ago, however. A lesson that I had my affinity to thank for.

"Failure only makes one more determined."

I spent what felt like a day inside my mental space, just meditating and circling mana into and out of my core. I closed my eyes for an hour at a time. Each time, the shack recovered a little and the tree grew a little healthier. After a few hours, I felt calm. I knew how to feel about everything now. Or at least, I thought I did.

My affinity affected me, yes. Maybe I affected it. But that didn't change one fundamental thing. I was not a bad person. I cared about others, even strangers and would simply have to uphold my principles if I wanted to stay true to myself. My previous enemies had expected and deserved their deaths, and my future ones would too.

I spent the hours after that in pure silence, almost falling asleep several times.

This time, when I opened my eyes again, the tree had fully recovered and the shack looked brand new. Even better, a few small saplings and grass stalks had joined the tree from before. As long as I regularly meditated, I was confident in outgrowing my continuously rising affinity. [Mental palace] would carry me straight to victory, as long as I put in the proper effort.

With that done, I opened my eyes in the real world. It was nighttime, and both Cerion and Cara had gone to bed in their bedrolls. They had even been nice enough to stuff my unresponsive body into one as well. I hoped that Cerion had explained the situation to Cara, because otherwise, I was in for a serious talking to the next day, which I wasn't looking forward to.

Alia was standing, well, slithering guard today. She glanced over at me as she heard me wake up, and looked away in a huff.

"Sorry for worrying your master, Alia. I just needed some time to myself.", I said.

Other than a quiet snort, she didn't reply.

Because of my several-hour-long rest, I felt rejuvenated. Tonight was a good time to catch up with Revan. I hadn't had any proper one-on-one time with him in a while, after all.

With the tier 4 monsters roaming around, I would have to be quiet and stay near the cave, so I just summoned Revan in a nearby clearing.

When the dark mana gathered and formed Revan, he looked to be ready for a fight at any moment.

"Sorry, Revan. I didn't summon you for a fight this time. I know that's all we've been doing lately."

He gave me a look that spoke volumes. If he could have spoken, I was confident he would've given me a sarcastic "Oh, really?" It astounded me that a heap of bones could contain so much attitude.

"Don't give me that look, Revan. I didn't even give my parents so much attitude when I grew up!"

I wanted to laugh, but I grimaced when I remembered my trial, in which trial-Arthur had treated mom and dad like shit. When I returned home in a few months to greet my new sibling, I would have to have a proper heart-to-heart with them. I owed it to them. If my limited experience in maintaining personal relationships with others had taught me anything, it was that transparency got one through the toughest of times.

I put Revan's saddle on the lizard's back and took him for a run. He really felt at home in this environment, jumping from rock to rock like a nimble frog. He kept his landing reasonably quiet, considering he weighed almost as much as a horse. Those bones were heavy. We ran through the night, in search of weak prey. We found several tier 1 and 2 monsters, which Revan killed with a few claw attacks each. Monsters mostly took the form of the local animals, so we had found a few lizards and bugs that were larger and stronger than usual. It didn't change that they were weaker creatures though. If I had still been unawakened, even a single tier 1 dog-sized dung beetle could have handily killed me, but ever since I had become a [Death Knight], I had had nothing to fear of tier 1 and 2 creatures. As a result, I sometimes forgot that even these lower tier creatures could wipe the floor with any unawakened. The stories told of humans of the past, when awakening stones had been extremely rare. At that time, most humans never awakened.

Against the immense amount of animals, which naturally produced a monster or two for every hundred mice, pigeons and bugs, we simply didn't stand a chance. The lucky few that had awakened had had to protect all of humanity, until awakening stones became common enough that everybody got the chance to awaken. Even now, we struggled with monsters getting out of control sometimes. The Rainlight swamp and Thalia hills were perfect examples of areas that humanity hadn't been able to or hadn't been willing to take back from nature.

My musings were interrupted by Revan crouching behind a rock. He was hiding us from something, or rather, someone.

We stayed as still as we could, when we saw a giant bird flying by. Its wingspan was larger than Revan, head to tail-end. On top of the bird, a single man stood. From what little I could make out, he had his arms crossed, and had a giant hammer on his back, larger than his own body.

It was Kazach.

"Cara, Cerion wake up!", I whispered hurriedly. Both opened their eyes slowly, blinking away their sleep.

"Wha-s goin' on?", Cerion slurred.

"I saw Kazach fly by on a giant bird! He didn't see me, but he got super close to our hideout!"

Hearing this, Cara and Cerion became wide awake.

"Crap. I'll have to move tonight if I still want to get the evidence. You two, stay here. Stay on the lookout. If Kazach looks like he's about to investigate the area, sneak out with Emer. If he notices either of you, run in the other direction. I have to go."

She packed up everything she could and jumped on her summoned sparrow, before gliding out of the cave quietly. I turned to Cerion.

"Cerion, I don't mean to alarm you, but Kazach will investigate this area tonight. We have to get out now."

He nodded in agreement.

"Alright. Let's pack up and put Emer on Revan. Just one thing, neither of us is willing to leave him behind in case of a fight, are we?"

"No. We leave no man behind. I would never be able to forgive myself if we let Emer die."

"Neither could I, my friend, neither could I..."

A few minutes later, we had everything packed up and stored in our spatial trinkets. I strapped Emer's still unconscious body to the back of Revan, while Cerion mounted Alia.

We quietly stalked and slithered out of the cave, staying near the rocks as we marched into the pitch-black night. Thank god for [Dark sight]. Cerion knew the way to the cave too, but with my dark sight I would be able to see further ahead, so I lead our party of two through the rocky and hilly terrain.

After a few minutes of travel, I looked back at our previous hideout. Kazach just so happened to land his giant bird near our previously occupied cave at that moment. Thankfully, I could only barely make out what was happening, because we were already so far away.

I notified Cerion of what I had seen and we both let out a sigh of relief. We had left just in time. Now, we just needed to stay out of sight.

For the next ten minutes of travel, this plan worked perfectly. That is, until a bolt of lightning struck down in front of Revan right where he would have been if he hadn't lurched out of the way.

On a cliff near us, I saw a man standing inside a ring of lightning, as it coiled and snaked around his arms and legs.

Ueron had found us.