(Luca)

Go away, Max. Mr. Zack doesn't need two people here if he wakes because of bad dreams. I don't care how much you want to, I was here first, so go away. Don't give me those wolfy eyes, I was here first.

He's ignoring me. I wish I could talk the way beastborn could, then I could tell him without waking Mr. Zack. Or maybe Mr. Zack would stay asleep if I spoke aloud to tell Max to go away? He seems like he's pretty out. He's not fidgeting like he normally does.

Do I fidget that much in my sleep? Maybe it's the sign that he's having bad dreams? I probably fidget around a lot, too.

"Luca? Max?" Mr. Zack sleepily says in amusement. That's a weird tone to hear. "Can you two please stop that?"

"Max stop what?" Max asks.

"I can hear Luca's thoughts," Mr. Zack says. "And understand your attempts at communicating silently with him. Max, Luca thinks you're trying to be here in case I have bad dreams. Luca, Max is trying to let you know it's dinnertime and wants to know if you want him to bring the food up here or if you'll go down and eat with the rest of the team."

Oh.

"It got to the point that it woke me up," Mr. Zack says.

"Sorry," I whisper at the same time Max does.

"Go on and eat dinner," Mr. Zack tells me. "You don't need to be here in case I have bad dreams."

Yes, I do. You're always there for when I have bad dreams.

"I have my own way of dealing with them," Mr. Zack tells me. "I promise, I'll be fine, Luca. I'm just exhausted. So exhausted. But I'll be fine."

I'm not sure, but Mr. Zack and my stomach talk me into going downstairs, so I climb out of bed and change back into regular clothes, then walk downstairs with Max. They made steaks and grilled veggies, and it's delicious.

After we eat, Max wants to train, so I help him a bit. We practice martial arts, and he keeps hitting me hard, so I hit him as hard as I can, too. I think he's trying to help me build Endurance and Vitality. This goes until Mr. Zack comes downstairs, and we realize that we woke him up.

He eats dinner, then heads back upstairs.

"We go to forest and train?" Max asks, and Gavin and Braden give him annoyed looks. "What? We all be good enough as team. Boss not want us to go alone. Otherwise, he not let Braden go with friend of Lady Kylie."

He calls Kylie "Lady Kylie"? Is he weird?

Wait, never mind. This is Max. Yes, he's weird. And off in the head. And an oddball.

"You went in the forest?" Gavin asks Braden, who nods. "And Zack knew?"

Braden shrugs.

"Yeah!" Max nods happily. "Boss knew. Boss knows everything. Plus, he followed Braden a little, then came back. He stealth-watch all of you."

"And you?" I poke him.

"Boss no need stealth-watch Max," Max says in exasperation. "Max train with Gold! No need hide watch, Boss always looking!"

Definitely off in the head.

"All for going into the forest?" Gavin raises a hand, and the rest of us do. "I suppose we'll head off into the forest. Let me put my armor on, then we can go."

Gavin changes into his light, metal armor. It offers less protection than his original set, but more freedom of movement. His new sword is cool, too. He bought it yesterday evening, with money he'd earned from killing the money slimes.

I bet Mr. Zack is going to have us clean those up over the next few days. There's apparently supposed to be a holiday slime going on right now for the bunny that's coming up soon.

With all of us ready and equipped, we leave town and head north, sticking to the path into the forest. After about twenty minutes of walking on the path, Braden leads us off of the path. Only a few minutes later, we come across a quintet of goblins. Braden kills one with an arrow, Max kills two with a pair of Fireballs, and Gavin charges in, attacking one as Braden shoots the final one.

The battle ends quickly, and we move on. I didn't have to do anything.

Our trip goes mostly like that. We also come across a few spiders, which are annoying because they shoot webs and acid, and some wolves, but most of those, we fight four-to-one, which makes it really easy.

Then comes the moment Max stiffens, his tail sticking straight out and ears straight up.

"Bad news," he whispers. "Lots coming. Lots and lots and lots!"

We all look at him. What does he mean by 'lots'?

Oh. I see it now. That is a lot of goblins, with a few wolves running alongside them. Uh-oh.

"Luca," Gavin says. "We won't be able to flee, so focus on buffing and healing. Braden, Max, start attacking! I'll handle any that get close! Keep to this! You two, only attack those which I can't handle, but try to aim at the stronger ones first!"

(Zack)

I wake with a start to a series of notifications that worries me. In moments, I'm out of bed and dressed – only a couple of moments, thanks to my Agility. Then, I'm out of the City, keeping track of the notifications.

It seems Luca's doing his job well, based on the stream of notifications. And that my suspicions about Alexander were right. There's no way they'd be in that situation if he were fully in the stasis to recover from that Blood Scar I gave him.

Following the Skill's path, I reach my team in only a couple of minutes, where they're battling down a small horde of goblins and wolves, corpses all around them. Luca's pumping out Heals as much as he can, Gavin's using his Blade Skills like a pro, while Max and Braden are attacking goblins with magic and magical arrows alike, though Braden is also using his bow as a weapon to strike at anything that draws too close.

They're covering each other's backs pretty well, but the fifty or so monsters remaining out of the probably hundred or so that were sent to kill them will probably succeed in their mission.

At least, they would have, were it not for one very, very crucial fact.

"BE STILL, YOU INSIGNIFICANT CREATURES!"

My Demonic Voice booms through the woods, shaking what snow still remains on the trees around us off. Luca jumps as some lands on the back of his neck, but other than that, all monsters and Adventurers alike freeze save for the one who tailed me out here.

That's only natural, though, considering how much above mine his Willpower probably is just from a century and some decades of training.

I raise a hand, summoning a Fireball for every monster, then launch them, striking all and killing all. As soon as they finish, I turn my attention to my team, who look nervous.

"Don't give me those nervous looks," I tell them as I approach. "You guys wanted to train, and I'm guessing you made some decent progress before the Shadow of Life arranged that horde and sent it after you. As a team, you shouldn't have had an issue – you could probably escape from anything that would hurt you too bad. Normally."

"I thought," Gavin says slowly. "That we were supposed to avoid the woods?"

"I let Braden enter with a friend, didn't I?" I ask. "It's fine as a team. Alexander, Shadow of Fuckers! You leave my team alone! Or have you forgotten what I did to you? Do you really want to make me that much more dedicated to killing you?"

No response from him, but I wasn't expecting that.

"Did the Crystals tell you we were in danger?" Gavin asks, face red as he does his best to avoid looking away in humiliation and embarrassment.

"No," I shake my head, running my fingers through my hair as I debate telling them. "A Skill I have did."

"You have a Skill that lets you know when we're in danger?"

"No," I shake my head. "It lets me know when you take damage, which is a little bit different. That's how I was woken up the first time – Max hitting Luca kept sending me damage notifications, and the System wakes you when you take damage. Or, well, sort of. It's complicated on what determines it. But the high amount of damage notifications woke me up both times."

"I'm confused," Gavin says. "How does a Skill tell you when we take damage?"

"Because you don't receive full damage," I answer. "Bloodpact is a Demon Skill, and it allows me to create one additional Bloodpact per Level. What Bloodpact does is split the damage taken by someone to the user. So any damage you take isn't actually the full damage."

They all give me shocked and confused looks.

"Its base," I continue. "Is fifty percent, but for each Level of the Skill, I can change it by five percent in either direction. It was at Level 5, but I guess it was close to Level 6, since it went up due to this incident. That means that the ratio can be eighty percent for one and twenty percent for the other. I have it set to maximum damage received by me – you guys only receive twenty-five percent of the damage you actually take, and I receive the other seventy-five percent."

I adjust the measure.

"Now you only receive twenty percent," I tell them. "While I receive eighty. The reason none of you know about the Bloodpact status is because, so long as it only reduces the damage you take, it can remain secret. At Level 5, I can set it to give you damage when I take any, spread evenly between you. At Level 10, I can set it so that healing and damage is shared between all members. Both of those alert you to the Bloodpact Status, and allows you to break it."

They all stare at me.

"How long have you had it?" Gavin asks.

"Since Luca was new," I indicate Luca. "I used it on him first. Luca, do you remember that day you and your brother were training, and you got hurt? I said that the reason I knew was because your Health had gone up?"

Luca nods.

"I knew then when you got hurt because of Bloodpact," I answer, then scratch the back of my head and snort. "I actually made Nik worry. It lets me know who the damage is coming from, so the anger that hit me when I received the notice was only higher because it was almost as if I was being mocked. I only had a Level 1 Bloodpact at the time. Nik and I were training at the time, and I sort of… got super angry. I probably wouldn't have been if it hadn't said it was you, even though I would've known that anyway."

Nik got extremely worried about me, because of how angry I was. Luca had gotten hurt, and I had just gotten him in the Boundary. I had promised I wouldn't let anything hurt him.

I've grown since then. In addition to an inch, I've also grown a little in my treatment of Luca. I understand that he needs to take damage so that he can take more damage. Vitality doesn't just increase on its own, it needs a little help.

Luca seems to be counting teammates, then he looks at me.

"Do you have a Bloodpact on Gold, too?" He asks.

He realized I could do five Bloodpacts.

"No," I answer. "He's a Dark Knight, so hindering his Vitality growth that way wouldn't be good."

"But you're hindering ours?" Gavin asks, then frowns. "Oh. Oh. Even if you only had Level 4 when we entered Talorn… we would have only been taking thirty percent of the actual damage we were receiving. If we lost 9 Health, we were taking 30 Health's worth of damage."

In other words, none of them would have survived Talorn without Bloodpact. At least, not that challenge issued to them, and not against the stronger monsters.

"Correct," I admit. "And Nik knows about Bloodpact – he is one of the few people who knows."

"Um," Gavin thinks for a moment, then pulls the team together and a few steps away from me, and they start whispering to each other.

My Perception is good enough that I can hear them, and would even if they moved fifty feet away. That, and Max is somewhat projecting, but that's not intentional by him, it just happens.

"Zack," Gavin looks at me when they come to a conclusion.

"You guys want," I say. "To try to beat Nik's requirement for entering the big battle without Bloodpact being active."

He gives me a confused look.

"Zack's Perception is really high," Braden snorts. "He heard everything, Gavin."

"Oh," Gavin says.

"If you guys are absolutely sure of that," I tell them. "Then I'll talk with Nik and see if he'll permit it. Chances are, without Bloodpact, you'd need to be at least Level 125 to accomplish it."

I'm judging a little higher than it might be, but if they're power-Leveling, they won't acquire as much of the trained Stat Points as someone might in the same timeframe.

The team agrees to that, so I tell them I'll talk to Nik about it and see what he says. I'm more inclined to go with that option, because it means they'd be even more powerful and more capable. Nik told me that I should turn off Bloodpact during the big battle, so that I can save all of my Health for the Dragon.

Seal says that Alexander has decided not to send more monsters after your team like that.

"Thanks, Big Flame," I stretch. "I'm heading back home. You guys, be careful. The Shadow of Life probably won't pull that again, but in case he does, there's a Dark Knight who'll stalk you from a distance, they followed me out when they noticed me running in a panic and fury."

I give a pointed look in the direction Nik is hiding.

Nik gives me a mental confirmation when I poke his mind, and says that we'll talk about the other thing tomorrow. After that, I ruffle Luca's hair, then head back home, changing back into nightclothes and collapsing onto my bed.

I'm so exhausted from exerting my power of sight so much earlier, I just want to fall back asleep. Before I do, though, I decide to cheat Levels for Paladin, taking on Holy One and maxing the two of them out with my saved Levels. I'll take on Angel later and let Demon finish on its own. I just don't want to bother with having to grind out everything for those.

Only moments after I finish adding in the Experience, I pass out from exhaustion.