The farming of the first enemy did not stop. Each engagement was smooth. Frank had to handle a few on his own, but for the moment, Rina was getting a lot of experience. Maria was too, though Frank was less concerned about her progression. He genuinely hoped she survived, but he wasn't going to invest much into it.

Bill hadn't spoken anything since Frank had and him had their discussion. Frank knew he was reconsidering things. Hopefully he arrived at a reasonable conclusion. He was probably recovered by now, which meant Maria would have to return the sword and take up a spear, if Bill was ready.

A suit of armour collapsed, dissipating like all the others. Rina had snagged it with the sling, and Maria finished it off. Frank didn't even participate. If it were possible to travel solo, Frank would be taking everything for himself. It was a horrible idea to move alone, though. Almost impossible to sleep safely. Sure, you probably wouldn't get found by anything if you took precautions, but probably was just probably.

Getting found while sleeping was a quick way to die. He needed companions. Someone who could keep watch, who could have his back. He'd originally planned to approach Sasha, but the man had been unnaturally suspicious. Maybe it was the disparity between his looks and his demeanour and competence, or maybe Sasha just wanted to be in control, and felt threatened. Whatever it was, Frank would have to make do with the people who he had the confidence of.

That meant Rina, and Bill. Not exactly a choice selection. Maria already resented him, so she was out. Maybe someone else would choose to tag along when Frank left. It was obvious that he didn't particularly inspire trust. The only people who were on his side had been directly, individually helped by him. He wondered if that would change in a month or two when his body had been hardened by travel.

Would a trim and imposing looking Frank inspire confidence that a fat guy in a hideous looking gambeson did not? Sadly, Frank knew it was probably the case.

His thoughts were interrupted by Rina exclaiming in excitement. "I leveled up again!"

"You've reached level eight then?" Frank asked. "What classes do you have available?"

Rina went silent for second, obviously looking through her status. "I have Survivor, Wanderer, and Mage." she replied.

"Take Mage then." Frank told her. Without a special class besides Survivor, Mage was the obvious best choice.

"Okay." Rina said, eyes focusing in front of her as she made the decision. "What should I put my stats in?"

"What are the stats you can increase at?" Frank replied.

"I have six knowledge, six intelligence, four stability, seven wisdom." Rina replied.

"Definitely stability then." Frank told her after a moment's hesitation. It seemed disingenuous to suggest that when he was currently shying away from it, but ultimately, she didn't have the experience Frank did. Things were not going to get better.

They walked back to the starting room.

"Bill, are you feeling better now?" Rina asked him as they arrived.

Bill looked down, and his voice reflected it. "Yea, I'm doing alright now. Headache’s mostly gone."

A quick glance at the side of his head showed the massive goose egg was already shrinking. Fortunately for him his nose had broken straight on. He wouldn't show that it had happened once it recovered.

Frank decided to make the call on Bill now. “You’ve had a while to think, what do you think is going on, and what are you going to do?” He asked the same things he had asked hours ago.

Bill looked up, but didn’t respond. Frank looked at him, waiting patiently. Eventually, Frank’s gaze caused him to turn away. Bill finally responded.

“I have no fucking idea. I just don’t want to die.” There was a hint of fear in his voice, but mostly there was resignation.

“And if you had to face the risk of death to have a hope of surviving? Would you?” Frank asked.

Bill went silent once more. His face pursed with concentration. His hands moved to the ground beneath him as he pushed himself up to his feet, standing straight. He turned to Maria.

“I’d like my sword back.” His voice wavered a bit as he spoke. “Damnit. I thought that was going to be super cool.” He said, after hearing his unsteady voice.

Frank looked at Maria as well, and she begrudgingly returned the sword to Bill. He addressed everyone.

“We’ll move as four now. There’s around two days of food left. Fighting these guys, even if we manage four an hour, isn’t going to be enough to let me get stronger, so I’m going to mostly leave this in your hands. We keep it up until we run down to one meal, then we head back to town. I don’t want to waste any time, so we will get moving immediately.”

He peered them over. “If your stamina gets under a quarter, then stop and rest. That’s when your performance will start suffering. Check your status to make sure.”

Maria went and retrieved the spear Frank had made for her, looking at it unpleasantly. She kept quiet though. Frank knew she could probably tell he didn’t like her. It was uncomfortable having the kind of power he had over her, and Bill and Rina for that matter. She didn’t really have a choice but to follow his lead, given the circumstances. Only if she got so frustated and emotional she did something that she would understand as foolish, would she put herself in conflict with him.

Frank told everyone to reset, pushing the thought aside. There wasn’t anything he could do to change that, he’d just have to deal with being uncomfortable about it. If he actually managed to accomplish something, there’d be a lot more than three people forced to rely on him.

The four continued farming the first enemy of the dungeon. It was just as smooth as before. Bill was positively hesitant to step in, even when enemies were thoroughly disabled. Frank approved of the caution.

Frank kept them going for four hours, until Maria started flagging. With Bill having pushed vitality hard, his stamina regenerated super quickly. He was still fine. Rina, having mostly just thrown stuff, was getting there, but had more in the tank still. They left Maria to recover, and then continued. Another hour passed, during which they’d managed to defeat three more, before Rina too bowed out.

Without Rina potentially disabling opponents, the remaining fights all involved Frank defeating enemies and then letting Bill finish them off. This continued for another two, before Frank called a halt. By that time, both Bill and Maria were level nine, and Rina was getting closer to level ten. All of them had taken the warrior class, followed by the mage class at Frank’s suggestion.

“That’s it for now, I’m going to get some sleep. We’ll continue after. If any of you want to discuss something before then, ask away.”

Bill had recovered some of his energy, and posed a question to Frank.

“You went back in time right? How did that work? Were you like ten or eleven last time? How far back did you travel? You don’t really look like a grizzled veteran, you know?”

Frank considered how to answer that. “I don’t know how it happened. I just woke up ten years in the past, in my body from ten years ago.” Frank paused. “I’m honestly not sure I’ll ever have an answer as to what exactly happened or why. But if that’s all you wanted to talk about we can have this conversation while we are moving, later.”

Frank cut him off there. He didn’t really want to retread what he’d been pondering earlier. He wanted to rest, and maximize the amount of time he could keep going through the dungeon. The fact he hadn’t found any items or equipment was concerning. He got ready to bed down, and within minutes was asleep.

He woke up hours later. Bill and Maria were sleeping. Rina was sitting, staring at the wall across from her. Frank roused everybody.

“If you haven’t eaten, do so. Don’t fight while hungry if you don’t have to. We are going to go for as long as we can. Then we’ll sleep again, before leaving back to town.”

The other three nodded as they got ready to move out. After they were all ready to move forward, Bill decided to pick up the conversation thread from yesterday.

“So, are you like, young Frank with old Frank’s memories, old Frank in young Frank’s body, or what?” Bill asked him.

“I feel like old Frank. Don’t know if that means anything.” Frank replied. He should have just shut it down outright instead of kicking the can forward.

A few terse responses later and Bill dropped the subject. The group fell into the pattern from yesterday. While the combat continued on smoothly, the lack of any drops was a disappointment. Frank had had unlucky spells in the past, but having one so early definitely set him back a little.

The other three eventually dropped out to rest, leaving Frank alone. Another two hours of solo farming at a faster pace acquired him nothing but experience. He decided to call it quits, primarily so he would be well rested for the trip back to town.

He ate his second to last meal, and then got ready for bed, telling the others to do the same.

***

Hugo was concerned about a lot of things. His friend Ghulam was not acting normally. His wife was missing. His memories of a white room, and being forced to fight things, and weird messages taunted him, out of reach behind a mental fog.

He’d been concussed. He could tell. It’d happened to him before. All of those things worried him. Ghulam had told him every time he got one it’d get worse. He felt fine though. Better than he had in a while, except that he could go back to sleep.

All of that was a background of thoughts, there was only one thing that really kept his attention. Ghulam had said Maria had fled with some strangers. That was easy. He just had to track them down. He’d deal with the reason she fled after he found her safe. And if that Frank or Bill guy had done anything, he’d deal with them.

Ghulam wanted to meet up with them, but you never knew. Plenty of creeps around who could pretend.

He walked towards his store, Ghulam following beside him. Sasha and Greg, apparently, were the ones causing trouble. If Maria had fled it’d be because of Greg then. Everyone knew Sasha was was a three dollar bill. He didn’t exactly hide it, having a husband. He’d have to do something about Greg too.

He felt angry just thinking about it.

The two of them arrived at the store, and Hugo told Ghulam to just wait. It was dark, with the power out. First he get a lamp going. He walked the store by memory, over to where he kept the kerosone ones. Simple enough to get it going. A dim light soon cast shadows over the entire place.

Hugo turned to Ghulam, telling him what he’d need. They’d rough it, if they needed to stop. He wanted to catch up to them as soon as possible. No tents. It was cold, but it was still manageable in a sleeping bag.

It took about fifteen minutes to get all ready to head out. They were travelling light, so he didn’t bother to pack everything super tightly.

“Okay, Ghulam.” Hugo said. “We are going to go find my daughter. Do you have any idea where they were going?”

Ghulam tilted his head for a moment. “That Frank guy said he planned on exploring the surrounding area.”

“He know what he’s doing?” Hugo asked.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then he probably started by heading for the easiest hill. We can’t track them until there’s light, but we can walk over there now.” Hugo started walking, his immediate purpose set. Ghulam followed him, as they walked towards the highway and the river.