The fight ended soon after. A singular rocket managed to stun a golem long enough for Fate to finish it off, leaving the rest to Prota and Fate, who took care of them quickly enough. John was pleased to see Prota’s rate of growth. Putting her in environments like these raised the level at which she fought exponentially.

She was becoming a main character in her own right. With time, she would likely develop new broken abilities, just like Fate. If it was that kind of story.

“Ngh,” John grunted, getting up. He was sorely tempted to use a particular ability to negate the injuries, but the penalty for using it was much worse than the pain.

Fate, too, was mildly injured, but not to the point where he couldn’t go on. He wrapped some bandages around his wrist and wiped his face.

“You’re not going full out,” he said. Despite the mask, John felt like he could see the face behind it frowning.

“Aren’t you the one who told me not to go full out? Didn’t you tell me not to fight?”

“Not like that! I told you already! Fight like a kid, not some… I don’t know, monster!”

“But I’m fighting with all I’ve got?” John said with an innocent look in his eyes. “Oh, can you pass me that?”

Fate grumbled and tossed him the roll of bandages. John slowly took his hoodie and shirt off and began wrapping his chest. He seemed accustomed to doing so.

“Hey, what’s that on your back?”

John hesitated, then cursed under his breath. “What?”

“That thing.”

It was a red square with lines crossing within to form a pattern.

“Say, isn’t that the same as the thing on your cloak? Let me see…” Danjo said, picking up John’s discarded hoodie, only to find… nothing. It was just plain black, with no patterns or colour or anything.

“Eh?” Danjo turned it inside out, just to be sure. “Eh?!”

John sighed, putting the final touch on his first aid, then got up.

“Give me that,” he said. He threw his shirt on, then pulled the hoodie on top. The symbol reappeared on his back. Everyone remained silent while he dressed. He sighed as he wound his scarf around his neck and looked at them.

“It’s not part of the hoodie. Isn’t that apparent?”

He took it off again, tossing it to Fate. The symbol was gone.

“Here,” John said, holding his hand out. Fate hesitantly gave it back to him, and he put it back on, the symbol reappearing once the hoodie touched his back.

“It appears on my back no matter what,” John shrugged. “I don’t know why. I’ve been told by Z- someone that it was something out of spite for someone, but…”

Danjo shook his head. “Hold on. That- what kind of explanation is that? How does that explain that… thing?”

John shrugged. “I just told you. I don’t know where it-” he started, but then winced and coughed up a bit of blood. Prota ran up to support him, but he waved her off.

“I’m fine,” he gasped, wiping his mouth. “Anyways. We should keep going.”

“With you like that?” Fate said worriedly. “Shouldn’t we rest-”

“I’m fine,” John insisted. “Really. Besides, I don’t have any mana running through my body, so it’s not gonna heal anytime soon. Let’s just keep going.”

Mana recovery, something John had learned about while talking to Fate. Beings with mana could use some of it to help their bodies recover at a faster than normal rate. John, with no mana in his body at all, would recover at the rate of a normal human being.

“Too bad we don’t have a healer in the party,” John muttered.

“A healer?” Danjo laughed. “Healers are incredibly rare. That’s a mana art only a few have. You think we could’ve recruited a healer?”

John’s eyes lit up at the mention of “only a few people.”

“Mm… in the future, we sure will,” John nodded. “At some point in time. In the undisclosed future. Yeah.”

“Wait. Also, what in the world is that?” Danjo said, pointing at John’s rocket launcher.

“Oh, this? I should put it away,” John nodded, shoving it into his hoodie. It disappeared, but it shouldn’t have been able to, not with the relative sizes.

“Wha- no, one thing at a time,” Danjo said in an attempt to calm himself. He was normally pretty headstrong, but even the densest of people would’ve been bamboozled by John.

“What is that?” he asked again.

“It’s a rocket launcher,” John said. “It fires an explosive.”

“Like your… gun?” Danjo said.

“Something like that, yeah,” John nodded.

Danjo shook his head, taking out a notepad to take notes.

~~~

The group continued down the dungeon, plowing through wave after wave of monsters. It usually took a group a day to clear one out, so considering how long it’d been, the group estimated they were almost done.

John, with his injuries, had resorted to using a stronger weapon, a massive futuristic revolver with a glowing barrel. Prota hadn’t seen the weapon herself but wasn’t phased, mostly because she’d been with John the longest. At this point, Prota wouldn’t have been surprised if John pulled something like a living dragon out of his pocket next.

“Hey, Prota,” Fate said, falling behind to create a private conversation with the girl.

Prota flinched but listened. She was accustomed to Fate enough that she could stand his presence with effort, although the close proximity made her want to shrink away into nothing.

“I know I talked with John about this, but… you’ll keep my being from Earth a secret, right?”

Prota cocked her head to the side. She didn’t really understand the whole “Earth” thing. John had explained the whole [Reader] [Writer] [Character] business much more than otherworldly travel, and so Fate being from another world confused her somewhat. To be honest, neither made any sense. However, if John trusted Fate, so would she, and so she nodded.

“Thanks. I don’t want Danjo… or anyone else really knowing about it.”

Fate was satisfied with that. Prota didn’t look like the type to go up to people and volunteer information anyways. She seemed always to let John do the talking for her, which made him wonder what the relationship between the two of them really was. He knew they were definitely not brother and sister, especially if John was from Earth. Prota hadn’t reacted when John brought up the fact, meaning she definitely wasn’t from there.

So what was their relationship? Had John found Prota upon arriving in this world? There were a few mangas he’d read that started like that…

He shook his head. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted by unimportant details.

“Heads up,” he said as two giant orcs and a pack of shadow wolves appeared in front of them.

John grunted and took aim.

“Prota, stay near me,” he whispered. Something felt different about this group of monsters. He rolled the barrel and blasted, rocking the cavern as a bullet of pure energy flew out and practically obliterated the thing. The others didn’t react. In fact, the way the wolf had died…

“Fate!” John yelled with effort, clenching his chest but ignoring the pain. Unfortunately, his emotions weren’t strong enough for [Determination] to kick in. “They’re all already dead! The wolves, at least!”

The orcs slowly turned around as the party heard a scuttling sound above them. Fate lit a fireball to see dozens of giant spiders all around them.

“...ambush,” John grimaced. “Go!”

Prota summoned a barrier of ice around her as a spider fell on her. Its fangs just barely pierced through the layer of ice, only for Prota to discard it, sending a fireball right into the spider’s mouth. It squealed and leapt back, shooting out what looked like… poison magic? It definitely wasn’t a solid substance.

“Mana beasts!” Danjo cried out, a little bit of fear creeping into his voice.

“Mana… beasts?”

John’s eyes went wide as a wild idea ran through his mind. Mana beasts? Did that mean…

“Prota!” he grunted. She leapt back to his side, eliminating the spider she’d been fighting.

“Just like the people… can you see their cores?”

Prota’s eyes went wide as she understood John’s intentions. Her eyes lit up as she scanned the area, and sure enough, in the center of each spider, there was a small green sphere. It felt… different from those of people. It felt much more like a mass of energy rather than a person, but…

It was mana.

“Do it,” John nodded.

Prota reached out in her mind, and her little black core reached out, pulling the mana of the spider into herself, draining it until it was sucked dry. The spider, however, didn’t die. It collapsed, but it was still alive.

“...?” John stared. “What?”

[They don’t have souls, idiot]

John frowned, then understood. There was no soul to absorb. They couldn’t die if Prota took all their mana because it wasn’t their life source. It would just weaken them to the point of helplessness.

“Go crazy,” John grinned.

Prota nodded and reached out, sucking the mana out of the beasts nearby, making them easy targets for Fate and Danjo.

“Whoah!” Fate exclaimed as he watched Prota go to work. He turned to John. “I’m starting to see why she’s your-”

He was cut off as one of the orcs swung its club, shaking the ground.

“We’ve still got more,” John grunted. He took aim and fired a bullet, but the bullet wasn’t enough to pierce through the orc’s thick skin. It did, however, enrage it by quite a bit and left a large welt on its forehead.

“...fuck,” John cursed, putting the gun away. However, he was excited.

This was definitely a moment of growth. Prota had learned something new today.

Her learning period wasn’t over.

“Whoah!” John yelled, scrambling backwards as the second orc threw a boulder at him. It narrowly missed, but his scrape with death sent a shock through Prota.

“No!” she cried out, sending a stream of acidic poison towards an orc, whose eyes were blinded. It roared in pain, grabbing at its eyes.

Prota stared at her hands. Did she really just use poison magic…?

“Did you just use poison magic?” Danjo exclaimed, staring. “You’ve been holding out!”

“Holding out?” John frowned.

“Are you kidding? Poison’s an extremely rare side element! Why didn’t you tell me she was a deviant?”

Fate mouthed, “I’ll explain later” to John, who nodded. If the word “deviant” meant the same thing as it did in a similar web novel, then he understood perfectly.

“Keep going, Prota,” John grinned. He was excited.

Prota had the ability to copy the magic of whatever mana she absorbed. Whether she would be able to continue using it after she ran out of that individual’s mana was another matter, but for now, it was an incredibly valuable asset. He’d have to test it out later.

Prota focused again, and the magic naturally flowed out as if she’d been using it all her life.

[The simpler the magic, the easier it is for her to learn]

[What kind of lazy exposition is this]

[What? It’s a theory]

[You don’t know if that’s how it works?]

There was no reply, confirming John’s theory that Zero was likely just being used as an easy explanation for Prota’s abilities. However, it did explain why she had a harder time using Elfin’s magic than the spider’s magic.

Elfin’s magic had been complex, an art that had been refined over many years. The spider’s magic was simple, a basic spell that probably only took someone who knew how to use poison magic an hour to learn at most.

John looked back up to see Fate dealing with the blinded orcs on his own. Prota’s magic was leaving acidic burns all over the orc’s bodies allowing Fate to attack the weakened spots. Danjo helped by throwing self made smoke bombs, something John hadn’t realized existed, which further distracted the giant monsters. In no time at all, it was done.

“Huff… huff…”

“Maybe we should stop?” John offered. Despite being the most injured, he was the least fatigued since he wasn’t really doing anything.

Fate glared at him. “Are you going to do anything helpful?”

“Helpful? I’m fighting at my maximum. What are you talking about?”

“No, you’re not!” Fate sighed. “I don’t know why you keep using guns, but-”

“You know what guns are?” Danjo said curiously. “And what’s this about his true power? Isn’t he manaless?”

Fate gulped. He’d let himself slip in frustration. He cursed to himself. Ever since he’d arrived in this world, he’d been so good at keeping secrets and using what information he knew to his advantage, only for this… whatever he was to come in and disrupt everything. Something about him just…

As he struggled to come up with an explanation, John sighed and stepped forwards.

“I’m his summon,” he explained. “From another world.”

“A- another world?” Danjo exclaimed.

“Yeah,” John shrugged. “I don’t know why but I kinda just woke up here. This guy summoned me.”

“Summoned? You’re his familiar?” Danjo said. “That would make sense, why you can’t use mana, why you have such weird artifacts… incredible!” he exclaimed, eyes shining.

“Eh… I wouldn’t go as far as to call me a familiar,” John shrugged. “Call me a… call me a helper, yeah. Something like that.”

“So you’re from another world, huh? Those exist?”

John shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Wait,” Danjo said, frowning. “How did he summon someone like you? Isn’t that incredibly rare? Is that even possible?”

“Well, he’s the hero, after all,” John grinned.

“Oh, that makes se- wait, sorry, say that again?”

Fate sighed. “John. You need to learn how to control your mouth.”

In reality, he was pleasantly surprised at how well John had handled the situation, except for the last part. Why had he gone and told Danjo he was the hero? They’d just met Danjo. How did they know they could trust him with something like that? However, there was no point in arguing over it. It seemed they would have to stick to the story John had told, at least for now.

“You know not to go spreading this around, right?” Fate said.

“Why wouldn’t you want people to know you’re the hero?” Danjo said. “Isn’t that really cool?”

“Well…” Fate said, scratching the back of his head. “I have a family. I don’t want to have to worry about them being threatened. I don’t want to be some kind of famous big shot. I just want to live a happy life. I don’t want to get weighed down by everything else.”

“Ah, it’s one of those backstories,” John thought to himself with a frown. “Lame.”

“Is that why you wear a mask?”

“Yeah.”

“Whoah…” Danjo seemed to be in awe of Fate now, something that would probably come in handy for later. He would probably listen to whatever Fate told him to do, a fact which John would surely take advantage of later on. He also appreciated the fact that Danjo had conveniently forgotten about Prota, although that might’ve been because she was so quiet rather than lazy writing.

The conversation finished, and the party continued deeper into the dungeon, winding down deeper and deeper.

“Hey, how’d you know how to do that?” Fate whispered.

“...don’t worry about it,” John grinned. “Pretty good backstory, right? It’s the plot of a show I watched once.”

“A show?”

John shrugged. “Again, don’t worry about it.”

Truth be told, John was just tired of the “hiding the truth” stereotype. It made for good story content, but from the few memories he had of his life on the original Earth, he was always frustrated at the thousands of misunderstandings that sprung up from it. He remembered that he always wished he could go up to the protagonist and whisper, “I know where you’re from,” just to see how they’d react.

The knowledge that the world was nothing more than a [Story] was definitely a curse, but it wasn’t all bad.

“...what’s this?” Danjo said as they reached a large set of stones blocking an entrance.

“This is the boss room, isn’t it,” John sighed.

“Yeah, this is it,” Fate gulped. “This is where the mana core resides.”

No one spoke as they prepared themselves for what was to come next.