As Ben woke up he felt his head pounding as he tried to take stock of just what had happened. The last thing he remembered was selecting a new job and notifications flooding his thoughts, followed by the feeling of his skull splitting, but now all that was left was a lesser pain as all of his minds filled his head.

Wait, one, two, three… ten? Why the fuck do I have ten minds? Myriad, you around? What happened? Given how complex mind seemed to work he was sure he would have only gained a single mind from it with that level up, bringing him to five. Finding his head so crowded was a shocking experience.

What changed? Dude, give me some answers here.

Ugh, I guess that explains how I felt when it happened. Wait-

He all but screamed in his head as his eyes shot open. He was in the middle of a battle, he didn’t have time to be knocked out. At least that was what he thought, but as soon as he rushed to get up he found he was laying on the beach among the injured, the corpses of leviathans spread around and saturating the ground with blood.

Myriad said cheerfully, making him want to fall to the ground in despair.

There goes the thought of speeding through a couple jobs. He thought sadly as Thera rushed past the other patients to him, grabbing him in her arms.

“Thank the gods you’re up! You just collapsed out of nowhere and nothing I or any of the other healers did helped.”

He held her back, patting her head as she calmed down. “Sorry, I leveled up a skill and it looked like I’m still recovering from it.”

“What? Ben leveling up can’t hurt you, how could it leave you unconscious for hours?”

“Ha, I guess my brain just couldn’t keep up with the changes,” He told her as he explained just what happened, leaving her to pull away and stare at him through her hood.

“I’m willing to bet no other person on this planet has dealt with something like that,” She said with a sigh. “Honestly, your status is ridiculous.”

“Maybe, but it keeps things exciting, right?”

“I guess we’ll see how exciting it feels if you get to the point where your thoughts split like that again. If it happened at the third level of parallel thought then maybe it will again at the eighth?”

“Uh, we’re not going to think on that too hard right now,” He said as he tried to suppress his headache. “Instead, catch me up on what I missed,” It was clear that once her worry for him was gone she was leaking excitement, and he doubted that it had anything to do with their victory.

“What, do you mean the fact that we all managed to survive, or me leveling up my telekinesis, earth and life magic, and completing my job?” She said smugly, not trying to hide just how happy it left her, an excitement Ben shared.

“What, that’s awesome! Did you take a new job yet?”

“Yep, since you were out and there were people to treat I borrowed your crystal. You’re looking at a brand new life mage. Now when you decide to do something insane like throwing yourself from a leviathan I might just have an easier job keeping you alive if you hit the ground without an air mage breaking your fall.”

“Hey, I was just a bit desperate at that point. Figured it would be safer than clinging to it once it started fighting the other leviathan. Speak of, I see that went well.”

“With the rest of us giving support, the one you got under your enchantment attacked the rest of them. It looks like the ones I tried suppressing managed to barely survive and made their way to land but it went for them too. Once it was taken down the rest of the adventurers went off to party but I and the other healers have been keeping busy here,” She explained. Even if everyone around looked worse for wear, they were alive which was more than enough all things considered and getting better by the second as the healers did what they could to treat them. After catching Ben up on what happened Thera went back to do what she could while he went back to laying down, waiting for his headache to subside and enjoying the feel of the last bit of sun beating down on him.

It took another hour, but eventually everyone's injuries were manageable enough that many of the healers were freed from their tasks, with most of them going out to celebrate with the rest.

As for Ben and Thera, they started heading back to the building Falk rented. Both were left exhausted by the events of the day and cared more about getting some rest than celebrating, feeling especially eager to be getting back to Stonewall now that all was said and done. It was only as a voice called out to them as they walked the nearly vacant streets, only a few adventurers and citizens who hadn’t left filling them, that they were both left holding in exhausted groans.

“Hello again,” Thera told the demigod Ather as he came to bother them as politely as she could. “What do you want?”

“You,” He told her, making her step back on reflex from how creepy the encounter felt. “Someone as powerful as you is wasted on whatever town you’re in. Work for me and you’ll actually be part of something important.”

Rather than try to politely decline yet again she opted for a different strategy, putting it off long enough that they could leave town. “I’m sorry, but we have someone waiting for us, if you want to discuss it again later then you can contact the guild master Ceselee and we can meet before I leave. Come on Ben,” She said, grabbing his arm and making the mistake of turning around, letting the demigod out of her sight.

“Hey, I’m not done,” He almost shouted as he reached out, grabbed Thera’s hood, and pulled.

It would have been bad enough if he’d just pulled it down, exposing him and anyone around to her charm, but he had yanked the fabric not with the intent of stopping her, but to pull her back instead. With how much use it constantly saw, being worn any time she went out, as well as while they did their hunting, it had put up with a lot of abuse, but the force of a demigod pulling against it with all their strength was too much for the stitching along the neck, and with the sound of fabric tearing it was ripped off, collapsing the delicate enchantment bound to it as it did.

As Ben turned to look at her, she was already staring at Ather, her hood in his hand as the look in his eyes started to change while hers turned to one of shock and horror. There were maybe ten other people around and as if a switch had been flicked they all stopped what they were doing to turn their eyes to her.

With nothing else that could be done and a person with a horrifying level of power in front of them, Ben pulled Thera close and activated the barrier enchantment in his shoes before anything bad could happen for all the good it would do. In much the same way as the braces he made for her, her magic was far too powerful to be stopped by the thin barrier, especially one set up to allow attacks from within to get out. The full force of her magic was leaking out into the world as everyone affected by her charm walked over, placing their hands against it and wanting in.

“No, why? I didn’t, I didn’t-” Thera stuttered, the horror of the situation getting to her as she got to see up close the expressions of those who’d come under her magic, a situation that would only get worse as time went on as more people passed by if they didn’t do anything.

Ben gently touched her face, bringing her eyes to his as he tried to calm her down, knowing he was going to have to ask her something that would tear her apart. “Thera, Thera it’s not your fault. Just look at me. Ignore them and try to breathe, okay?”

She nodded her head, doing her best to calm down as much as she could while they pressed in around the barrier, doing everything they could to be as close to her as possible and practically blind to the others around.

“I just… Why did this happen? I- I didn't even do anything I was just trying to leave and-”

“Thera, I know. It’s okay, I’m here. I know you didn’t do anything wrong, but we need to go. I’ve got the room set up so things will be fine there while we get you a new cloak, but we need to get there before even more people come by, okay?”

“How? They’re all around us and only more and more people are going to come and I’m going to be blamed for all of this and-”

“Thera, I don’t care what it takes, I will make sure you aren’t blamed for anything that happens, okay? But for now you’re going to need to do something you’re not going to like. You’re going to need to use a sleep spell on everyone and run back, alright?”

“What? I can’t just do that! Ben, doing that sort of thing in a town is a crime! Even if it's not my fault about all of this, I can’t just… I can’t just attack people.”

“It’s not attacking people, it's putting them to sleep. I’m sorry, I wish I had a better idea to use but even with the brace it’s possible nobody in town has the resistance to suppress your charm and more people will only be drawn in the longer we wait. If they sleep for a while they should wake up with most of the effects gone.”

She took a breath, averting her eyes from his own as she muttered okay with more sadness than he ever wanted to hear from her and felt his heart break as he did. She held her staff so tight it was shaking as she began the process of removing the charm from her dark mana, letting him know when it was ready as she released her spell.

He hadn’t been sure how it would affect him when she did. While he was basically immune to passive effects, this was an active spell, meaning that its effect should only be reduced by a bit more than forty percent for him, but as everyone around them collapsed to the ground in sleep he didn’t have time to question if it was an effect of having the resistances on his cloak as well or some other aspect of his status that left him no more than tired, there was only one thing they needed to focus on, and that was running.

“Well aren’t you both late enough,” Falk called out cheerfully as he heard the door open. It was only when he saw them with his own eyes, the panic on his niece's face, her cloak damaged as his apprentice seemed to struggle to contain his rage that he knew their time there wouldn’t be ending on the positive note the thrill of victory had originally given them. “What happened?”

Thera was in no mood to talk, wanting to just shut down and hide away, leaving it to Ben to explain the details of everything, making his blood boil more and more with each word said. The look on Ben's face was making a lot of sense, Falk was sure he was wearing a similar one.

Still, he tried to hide it away the best he could, same as the boy whenever Thera cast a look at him as he decided what to do next. “Alright, first off Ben’s completely right, don’t worry about this Thera, you will not be held responsible for this. I’m going to grab Ceselee and we’re going to have words with whatever guards are around so for now sit tight while I deal with that. I’ll come back for a bit after but I’m going to get the fastest ride I can to the nearest gate, it will be quicker to buy you a new cloak in Anailia than to make one so you both will just have to wait for a few days, alright?”

She gave a nod and went off to her room while Ben gave a firm yes. He gave his apprentice a firm pat on the shoulder as he went. “You made the right call given the situation. Keep an eye on her, would you? Things like this hit hard.”

“Of course.”

“Good man. I’ll be back in a bit.”

As his teacher left Ben walked over to Thera’s room, gently knocking on the door. “Hey, mind if I come in?”

It was silent for a moment and he was about to reach for the handle when she spoke up. “I just want to be alone for a while, I’ll be out later.”

“Alright. I’ll probably be awake but if not and you want to talk at all don’t be afraid to wake me.”

The only response he got was silence so he went to get his bag, pulling out all of the rings within while taking out a pad of paper and got to work, looking at what he had and figuring out what enchantments could be made with them.

“Myriad I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. I’m sure it can wait,” He snapped back, knowing exactly what his god would want to say and not wanting to hear it. Instead, he took off his shoes and looked at the enchantment on them, questioning just how complex he could make it without them breaking, especially now that he had ten minds to devote to the problem.