Gabriel hit the ground with gusto, lading on his ass with the peculiar finesse of a turtle turning back on its feet when falling on its shell.

"Ouch!" He yelled.

But he barely had time to take in the surroundings when a girl fell from the sky right on top of him.

Gabe blacked out, but only for a second.

When he opened his eyes, he found his face kissing the dirt, weirdly hot dirt. In front of him paved a scenery of a vast land, blessed mostly in charred rocks, red skies, and dark, menacing cumulonimbus covering it in strata, almost as if they had been painted by a particularly imaginative artist.

He massaged his neck, his eyes turning first to the lizard, intent on gazing at the panorama, then at the girl, who slowly raised from atop of him.

Olive's hair had been burnt for more than half their length, her clothes singed, and she had one less eyebrow than she used to.

"Almost got too late, ouch… it even burned me," she said, massaging her left shoulder.

"We could say the hearth was out for your scalp," he tried.

"Very funny. Very, very funny. A 'thanks for saving my life, Olive. I'm in your debt.' Now that would have been more fitting," she said, hand-combing and checking the damage.

"Oh well, I've got a fast regrowth," she shrugged, not very convincingly.

"Brill! Did he make it?" Asked Gabriel when he saw Liz whipping her tongue about as if tasting the air for something.

Which might be exactly what she's doing, admitted Gabriel.

"Brill got here right before me. I thought it would tear us apart, but thankfully the seam was still open."

"The seam?" Asked Gabriel, dusting his ass. He tried looking around to make head or tail of his surroundings and right away, hoping he had remained ignorant.

"Yeah, the hearth generates random seems in space; it is used as an untraceable escape route; that's how Commodo, our crazy craftsman, has got here from the Core of all places."

"Whatever that was, it was brilliant, I bet… but Olive, please tell me that there are not Pterodactyl in the sky, right? Please tell me I've just had a very severe cause of head trauma," said Gabriel, gripping her from the arm.

"What are you scared of now? You've just jumped in the fire, and anyway, those should be…" she squinted, "I'm almost positive those are not 'pterodactyls'... Great beaks for sure, though."

"Which- which should be?" He asked, looking at her straight in the eyes.

Olive diverted her gaze, "Well… if we want to make unfair comparisons now, they could, and I repeat, could, be classified as such."

"I knew it! Goddammit! And why would it be an unfair comparison, when they seem even larger!?"

"Pterodactyls did, most probably, not use wind magic… Anyway! We should start descending; we're too exposed here."

"Wind-"started shouting Gabriel before remembering what he had discovered a few minutes prior in the inn's basement, and lowering his tone, "Wind magic!?"

"Yeah," Olive had started descending, "Wind magic, big deal… I've got water and poison, at barely level 26, and you are a Herald! We should be fine, most probably..."

"Most-!"

Breath Gabriel, just breath. It's fine, there's Magic, you use Magic, and you are almost immortal, right? What can pterodactyls do to you that you can't-

A mighty roar resounded from the ground, shaking the terrain which made the soft hill they had found themselves in.

"If that's some sort of T-Rex, I swear to God..."

But in the end, he couldn't find out what he would swear, and not even if that was indeed a T-Rex, because he had to start balancing himself to not fall, as the ground shifted from below their feet, increasingly fast.

They were losing their hold as the ground started becoming steeper and steeper by the second.

"It's an Island Turtle! Jump Gabriel, jump!" Shouted Olive.

Jump Gabriel! He said to himself, the ground still way too far for him to be comfortable with.

Hell, to be comfortable for any sane parkour practitioner! Hell... is there even one sane parkour practitioner?

The fall turned out almost fine; his increased Attributes, courtesy of his Skill, turned out to be enough to take the fall and roll away the excess kinetic energy, without straining his bones or ligaments.

"Come on, let's hurry. We better reach a lower level zone. This place has been taken over by giant monsters," said the girl taking him by the hand in a hurry.

They passed through a swamp of lava. From the ground came a heat intense enough to make him sweat even from his ass.

"You did say he came from the Core. Are we there right now?" Asked Gabriel, studying the land.

"Thank the Goddess, no, it would have been really bad. That place has warring patrols in any corner. Some of them still act as if the war has never ended. If we got there, we would have been constantly on the run if lucky, and outright caught by some warlord otherwise."

"So, Core, bad. Registered. Do you have any idea where we could be then?"

"Vulcan, most probably. But I can't be certain. I've only been in The Den and The Deep after all," she admitted.

"Lovely place this Vulcan, really. What do you say, Liz? In the foreseeable future, I see a cozy little cabin on that rise over there, you don't?. I bet you could grow little spit firing monsters if we settled; the hardest part would be finding you a husband of your size, I'd say."

Olive let herself chuckle but didn't comment.

The few next hours were spent with Brill, blending, with difficulty, given the environment, and scouting ahead, re-appearing only to lead them toward the safest path.

Nature had been ravaged by the lava and the heat, though some plants and most animals had adapted themselves to resist it.

There were plants with literal fire in their veins. He passed his sword through them at first, to free himself a path, but as sap spilled, catching on fire and a few times alighting his clothes too, he decided that it was better to simply travel through them.

Though it was a fascinating environment, the scorching heat and the thin air were slowly taking their toll on their bodies; even on the, surely much higher level girl.

They made a couple of silent stops at first, but the third time they were ambushed by a couple of big dogs, nasty fiery spiders that just did not want to let them pass.

"Gabriel, you keep them busy while I-" Olive paused, looking at him, "You know, maybe it's better if you stay right there and keep your eyes peeled, these might be a bit too tough for you to crack."

In the end, she fended them off alone.

The battle lasted little as, though, seemingly with much drain on her forces, she cast a couple of water-based magic Skills that demonstrated extremely effective against the monsters with literal fire in their veins.

So, that's proper Magic… but now I count too many Skills for her level? What does that mean? Is Magic different from Skills? Thought Gabriel seeing how the girl had unleashed a sort of water blade which had bisected one of the spiders in two clean half-spiders, and a bubble of water from her mouth, which had stopped the other spider, slowly extinguishing the fire in it, and whit ungodly screeches from the monster.

"We better run now; that last kill must have attracted the wrong kind of attention," she said, leading him away.

It was another hour until the couple, both spent and dehydrated, reached a vast mirror of water.

The water was hot, Gabriel could judge from there, but fortunately not at boiling point.

As they did, got closer, Olive began regaining the color which had started to be draining from her face.

"You look like shit," Gabriel said to her as she placed her arms in the water, judging it to be a comfortable heat and immersing then her head up to her neck.

"You're not better!" She said after drinking to her heart content.

"Is it because of the fights? Or the nature of the environment?" He continued, getting closer to taste the water with his own hands.

"Surprisingly keen, for someone who had no idea of Alter before… what? A week ago?" She asked, squeezing her hair.

She looked cuter than before as if the water gave her a smoother skin or something which he could not place at that moment.

Man, this water is… actually not that bad!

"Thank you, I've always been a gifted child. Meaning that they handed me down like a hot piece of garbage," he said, removing his drenched shirt, or its remains, to wash in the water.

"Really? You were an orphan?" She said, interested.

It almost feels as if she withheld an 'I too' from that phrase. Mused Gabriel.

"No, really no. I was just trying to make a joke; I tend to do that when I'm not comfortable, I'm annoying in every other normal situation, so I balance things out. I'm quite often uncomfortable, you see. Anyway, it was a bad joke, sorry," Gabe said in a single breath.

"No, no. Nothing wrong, there's no need to apologize," she retorted.

I don't buy it. She's taken it personally, he thought.

"Is it safe to wash ourselves here?" Asked Gabriel after a minute of awkward silence.

"I'll check." Olive placed a hand in the water, closing her eyes.

As she raised it back up, she was ready for the results, "Not exactly, there seem to be a few dangerous creatures, some a bit too high for me to face, but as long as we don't make too much noise, we should be fine."

"I need to ask you now, how is it possible for you to have all those Skills?" Shouldn't you have 3? You are lower than 30, after all," Asked Gabriel as he sat on the edge of the bank, removing his boots and soaking his feet in the warm water.

"Skills? I do have 4. What do you? Ahhh… Now I get it, you are confusing Sub-skills to Skill, noob," she said, ending with a smirk.

"Yeah, I'm a noob, kill me. Now, sorry, but I don't understand. What are Sub-skills?" he asked, shuffling his feet about.

"You should not do that. You might attract the wrong kind of foot fetishist," she said, pointing at his feet.

"You're saying that like there is a good kind," he retorted with a smile.

At which Olive answered, bending her neck to the left and saying, "Well…"

"Oh! Nasty girl! I like that!"

They both laughed.

"Anyway, Sub-skills. Whenever you upgrade Skills, you'll see for yourself."

"Annoying… At least give me an example of what a Magic related Skill is then! I mean, Burst Attack is Magic for me, so that must certainly be different for you, no?" He insisted.

"Oh, my Goddess! It's like going back to school with you! Listen then, it works like this. Once you obtain an Affinity-related Skill, if you are lucky? Worthy? The Anchor decides anyway. It can let you choose a Magic Skill. With that, you'll be able to govern one of the tied elements. Are you happy now?" She finished, removing her night vest for her to wash.

If Gabriel was taken aback by the sudden complex explanation, the other three sudden things made his mind stop in its track.

The first was tit number one and tit number two, while the third was her gills, placed right under her bosom.

"Wow. You are… unexpectedly bold, well at least bolder even than I thought you were, but if I may ask… what are t-"

"Those? They are gills. They… right, developed with my water Magic Skill. It's one of its effects, or Sub-Skills, as I told you. Now, I really need to bathe. Take a look at my things, please," she said, even before he could finish marveling.

Girls in this world are quite a bit more daring than I thought. Maybe being able to kill monsters with thought might be the cause, who knows...

He kept looking at her as she uncovered, revealing a perfectly round yet small butt. As he had noticed before, her proportions were exactly how he liked them. However, something else got his attention.

A tattoo running from the edge of her hips to those of her toes; it was extremely complex and didn't really have any particular form; it just looked like a piece of modern art, here and there, he could even recognize some of those runes that formed on the casting rings, or magic circles, or whatever they called it. Anyway, if they were runes, they had to be really stylized because the shapes they took were more rounded, twirly, and overall out of context with what he had seen.

She dived into the water before he could see much more and threw a splash of water at him as she dove back up.

"Pervert. You should have looked the other way," she said.

"Says the one getting naked right in front of me, then again I might be a pervert, but I'm not a fool!" he answered.

A happy-looking Brill appeared and disappeared behind her, from the water, both as in becoming invisible and as in diving under it, and emerging back, with little to no splash.

"He's really into his environment, isn't i-" Gabriel disappeared.

"Gabriel!" He could hear her scream before diving down.

Something had taken hold of him. He kept getting drawn further and further down the water; the lower it got, the more scalding it became. He hadn't even had the chance to take a breath when something had gripped him tightly by his left ankle and immediately started dragging him down.

He hit the sand in just a few seconds, iron grip leaving him.

The young man had the alertness of mind of not drawing in any breath as he descended, but the lack of air was already a burn difficult to fight for his lungs.

Hold it in. Fuck!

He could barely see colors, his eyes burning, and thus refusing to stay open.

Liz! He remembered and thought, how was she? Where was she?

She couldn't certainly breathe underwater. She might have been killed, again.

And yet something, something told him she was okay and closer than he thought she was.

Holy-! She's here with me!

Liz had never left his shoulder, grappling to his hair as he was dragged down, following him in his unwanted descent. But she was not there at that moment.

Gabriel forced his eyes open over the burn; he had to see.

The creature, a blur of a dark shape, moved about, almost undeterred by water; and Liz was there.

He could not see her, but he could feel her now. She was biting the creature, attached with her little muzzle to what could be the creature's fin.

Gabriel could feel the drain on his Spirit points as she used her Burst Attack over and over again, to little avail, but enough to jerk the creature away from ravaging Gabriel's body with its dangerous teeth.

Try bringing it here! He thought, directing the thought to her with his will, in the way he had unconsciously done until now.

He felt worry coming from her. It was a first; he had never directly felt something coming from her. This sensation was like a spike, directed at his mind, puncturing it and unleashing over him her feelings.

I have a knife!

He said to her, readying the throwing knife he had stored in the pocket of his khaki pants.

Unwillingly, but she accepted.

Another Burst Attack empowered jerk of the fin was enough to make the creature head toward him.

His lungs burned from lack of air, his eyes bloodshot for the scalding water, and barely canceled by the adrenaline of the situation. Then the creature drove into him, too fast for him to grapple on.

It drove the last amount of air he had in him. But something had changed; his vision had cleared. He could see perfectly. Or at least he could, for roughly 5 feet around him.

A bubble had appeared around him, and he was breathing air, or at least that was what it felt like.

Near him, a slick blue salamander coiled around his damaged ankle.

He had no idea what kind of Magic was in play, but this was his chance.

The creature was still in his range. Liz had used up all the available Spirit points and was floating right out of the bubble's protection, but the creature still trashed about, not knowing that it had already gotten free of the lizard.

That was when Gabriel struck.

His hands drew forward, a knife anchored itself inside of the creature's mouth, which closed shut on his wrist, but it locked him into place. The other hand, equipped with another throwing knife, burst forward.

At such a close range, he managed to blind one of its eyes, but the creature started thrashing. He knew he would lose the hand if Gabriel didn't let go. Hell, maybe even if he did, so he decided to save himself over his hand.

Another stab followed, then another, and another, each one directed to the creature's head. They punctured it, meeting resistance, but nonetheless doing their job. The creature's skin was hard, but not enough to resist the assault.

By the time the creature finished its thrashing about and stopped moving, Gabriel felt dizziness overcome him.

Was it for the lack of Energy, or the fact that he had lost an obscene amount of blood from his newly noticed, hand-less, left arm; he didn't know. What he did know was that Liz was still floating about, just out of his reach.

With the last vestiges of his strength, he swam forward, just a little bit, and got a hold of her.

Then oblivion took him.