It was a painful thing to have to listen without being able to watch as the party adjusted to not having her fighting alongside them. Astrid listened as they developed plans of attack and new strategies to ensure there was no such danger again, and she walked in the back, keeping her hand on Benedict’s shoulder to make sure she didn’t get lost. She felt like a child, and she knew that her stifled sniffles and the occasional tear coursing down her cheek didn’t go unnoticed by her party.

  What was worse was the party's self–recrimination whenever they weren’t actively fighting or planning what to do next.

  “I’m an idiot. I made it worse by blowing more wind in it. I’ve made fires for my entire life, I know that they need air to burn, and I gave it more. The reason why it got so bad? My fault. Plus, I’m the one who suggested that you take everybody’s injuries anyways. Astrid, I’m so sorry.”

  “The fault is largely my own,” Muti disagreed. “If I had completed my assignment, to locate every one of the enemies, they would have been dead before the flames could reach such a dangerous state. It was my responsibility to locate our enemies, and I failed.”

  “And if we’re talking about things we should have done,” Felix added, “I should have forced both to focus on me with Guardian’s Wrath right away. If I had, they wouldn’t have been able to do anything beyond hurting me a little bit.”

  Astrid felt as Benedict’s shoulders raised with his sigh before he said, “I guess we are all doing this? Alright then. I should have pulled everybody back before the spitters could start their full on firemaking. Though, I do feel like reminding you all that me and Astrid messed up the least.”

  She tried to say something, to respond and maybe defuse tension, but instead, the air irritated her throat and made her start coughing once again. Benedict stopped talking, instead going back to his flute and resuming using Song of Vindication. Astrid felt the burns covering her body, the pus and abscesses leaking all over her body, cease the aching somewhat, but she had to hold back her swelling rage as her vision’s formless shadows didn’t change at all.

  The party had rather quickly come to the conclusion that there was a very real possibility that they would all need to retreat to get her safely out of the Trials, and it would possibly be better to do that sooner rather than later. Fortunately, Astrid had forced them to stop on that train of thought. It had taken a while to communicate it, given that she couldn’t speak, but eventually, they’d come to understand that she thought, or maybe just hoped, that enough charges of Body could return her sight. As such, here they were, moving along much slower than before, as they made sure that any potential threat was dealt with long before the spitters could do anything while waiting for her Skill to come off cooldown.

  Astrid couldn’t see it happen, but going off of the sounds of Skill activation and obvious, verbal rage, Felix was taking her injuries quite hard. At least, roared curses and the sound of him using Whirling Blades to shred monsters to pieces seemed to communicate that. According to the brief, there were other monsters on the floor, a creature called a steel armadillo. Astrid supposed they were involved as well, going off of the sounds of blades clinking off of metal.

  The minutes crawled by with Astrid doing little more than mentally checking how long it would be until the next charge of Immortal Warrior’s Body would return. All four would be refreshed in quick succession, and Astrid promised herself to wait until the fourth use was refreshed as well before using a single charge. After all, using all four at once was, supposedly, able to recover her health by 100%. If her vision was somehow included under that nebulous “health” qualification, then Astrid would be able to see again. If it wasn’t, then the party could either escort her off the floor, whether they accompanied her out or not, or they could try to find a more specialized healer in one of the other parties and beg for help from them. There was a little chance of that actually succeeding, since whichever Healers that they could find, regardless of what race they were, were competitors.

  Unable to see, Astrid had no choice but to try to keep herself from spiraling in her thoughts, thinking about how she had ruined her entire party’s chances of gaining the Wandering Trials’ boon. Even if her party continued delving without her, they wouldn’t be able to keep up with the other parties. Instead, this would then become an opportunity for them to gain experience, which would mean she was left further behind in levels as she was forced to retreat.

  Would this mean that she would lose her party? After all, if they were 10 or 15 levels higher than her, she wouldn’t be able to reasonably catch up to that, ever, so long as they continued delving. If she only wanted to keep up in levels, she could be an experience leech by not retreating and staying back and doing nothing as they gained levels. She refused to do that, given that it would greatly reduce the options presented to her at Steel for evolution.

  She forced herself to focus. On regular days, an hour of delving didn’t feel like very long. That meant anywhere from two to six fights, depending on how many monsters there were, how difficult the fights were, how densely populated that part of the Dungeon was, and so on. Then, the rest of that time was harvesting the materials from the fights and actually moving towards and finding the next monsters to kill.

  When she was left sitting in the back like a bump on a log, every minute crawled past. Astrid’s only real indicator of time’s passage being the faint sensation of her Skill’s charges slowly coming to be usable once again.

  Three fights passed as her party killed fourteen flame spitters. Six of those were level 28, but those seemed to be just as easily dispatched as those from the watershed before, given how the party didn’t seem to struggle with them. Once, the monsters managed to shoot out a single burst of flame, but Skandr had a sudden downpour douse the area within just a few seconds. After that, a kill notification appeared, and the party continued on their way without Astrid having seen or done anything more than note the death.

  Finally, Astrid felt her first charge of Body refresh, and the constant anxiety that had twisted in her gut heightened to an overwhelming desire to hyperventilate. She tried her best to tamp it down, though she wasn’t as good at it as she’d hoped, since Benedict groaned in pain as her fingers dug into his shoulder.

  “That’s my collarbone. Please stop.”

  Astrid consciously relaxed her hand and waited the 30 seconds or so it took for the other three charges to come back. Then, she padded Benedict's shoulder with shaking hands. On the third pat, he realized that she was trying to get his attention and asked, “What?”

  Despite her pain, despite her fear, everything else, Astrid felt a nervous smile coming to her face.

  “Hey, moron,” Skandr said as he walked closer, “it’s been about an hour, right, Astrid? Or, more correctly, exactly an hour?”

  A shaky thumbs up.

  The party gathered around her, and Astrid, with her knees shaking, closed her eyes before activating all four charges of Immortal Warrior‘s Body in quick succession. Astrid felt as the tenderness all over her body washed away. She could feel the coagulated blood and pus all over her body slough off of clean new skin, but it remained trapped between her skin and her clothes, whether that be her gambeson, underwear, or her leggings. It itched terribly, and she dismissed her armor with a thought.

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  “Ew.” Benedict‘s response was so visceral that Astrid, again, couldn’t help but laugh. Her voice was clear, returned to its regular, somewhat husky tone, and it came without pain. She could hear her voice clearly, and, in relief, Astrid shoved the Bard without a second thought. Her hand had been on his shoulder, and she hadn’t thought about how hard she pushed.

  Immortal Warrior’s Body thought that it was an attack.

  Benedict had time only to gasp before he flew maybe two meters away and was sent tumbling in the dirt. In surprise, Astrid opened her eyes and could see it clearly as his expression went from confused to a little upset to faux wounded.

  “What was that for? All I did was guide you around for the last hour. And yes, suddenly seeing somebody covered in scabs and dead skin and half coagulated pus is gross, don’t try to deny it.”

  With shaky breaths, Astrid looked down at her arms, which, as Benedict had said, were disgusting. She supposed she was grateful that the chunky remains of her second and third-degree burns all over her body didn’t stay with her armor and instead stayed on her body. She shuddered with unshed tears as she looked around and saw her party's faces.

  Skandr was the first, again, to see Astrid’s movement for what it was. He grinned widely and raised his left fist with excitement. Seeing his reaction, the rest of the party also grew more animated, laughing and cheering as Astrid couldn’t keep the tears back anymore.

  She hadn’t ruined hers and her party's chances. She was healed. She could see.

  Despite the filth covering her body, Muti didn’t hesitate to wrap Astrid in a tight hug. She padded Astrid’s back firmly, whispering something that sounded like a prayer in the Barbarian tongue. After that, she pulled back and put Astrid’s face between both her hands as she turned the slightly shorter woman’s face back and forth to look for scars or lasting injuries. Seeing nothing, she grinned ever more widely and pulled Astrid’s forehead then both cheeks to her lips for brief, firm, excited kisses.

  “You are well. You are safe. You are whole. Victory!”

  Muti didn’t say anything else as she stepped back, and Astrid finally turned to Benedict, who gathered himself from the ground.

  “I’m so sorry,” Astrid apologized with a wide grin. “I was trying to jokingly push you, but I guess I recovered so much that Immortal Warrior’s Body gave a whole lot of extra oomph to the push.”

  “I’ll accept the apology, but do know that at some point, I get to pour cold water on you or poke you in the ear or something. I would say something like tickling, but I have a sneaking suspicion that attempting such a method of torture on you would get me kicked into the moon, regardless of if we are currently inside of the Trials or not.”

  “You’re probably right,” Astrid nodded. “I’ve never been a particularly patient victim of anything, and there are a few things I hate more than being tickled.”

  “So a good method of torture, but one that might get me killed. Duly noted.” Benedict mimed taking a note as he said it, and the levity in relief that had settled over the party made everybody smile.

  “I’m glad you’re OK.” Skandr said. “Honestly, I wasn’t too sure what we should do. Not having to make a decision about what we should do as a party if we had to get you out of here is great.”

  Astrid didn’t say anything, instead just smiling and nodding as she looked down at her filthy body.

  “How about I get myself clean, then we get some revenge?”

  ***

  The party continued approaching the twenty-fifth floor with a grim focus, and every step was taken with an obvious determination to ensure there were no further issues through the floor. The flame spitters were eradicated like the beasts they were, and the party quickly came to the decision to not have Astrid take all of the party's injuries into herself when suffering from magical attacks. They all agreed to do any further experimentation much more cautiously moving forward, as they hadn’t thought about the impact of multiple instances of constant damage stacking on one person.

  A small part of Astrid wondered how exactly Warrior’s Awakening would interface with the damage she took from Immortal Warrior’s Aura, if it would make her sturdier. That was something she would have to experiment with if she did end up taking Warrior’s Awakening at level 28. Until then, she was happy to not have to go through that suffering ever again. The feeling of her body stiffening and breaking from taking on her friends’ injuries was something she was willing to do, it was part of why she had taken the Class in the first place. Even so, now that she’d actually experienced that suffering in truth, that was the worst experience of her life, and she was far from eager to repeat it.

  Through the rest of the floor, the party dealt judiciously and probably overzealously with the monsters they encountered. When they reached the floor guardian arena, they saw a familiar tree-like creature step into the arena from afar. At least, possibly familiar. Astrid had no way to tell between each of the Verdant Walkers. The thought of how much more difficult it would be for one of the walkers to deal with the flame splitters than for her and her party stoked some curiosity in Astrid’s heart. There is no way to know without asking, and there was no way to communicate with them until the next floor anyways, so she pushed the thought from her mind.

  The arena for passage remained clouded for several minutes, and when the magical walls disappeared, all that remained of the fight was a blackened ground.

  “Let me take care of this.“ Astrid made a demand as she led the party into the arena, her adrenaline spiking alongside what she forced herself to acknowledge was her fear. Despite her nerves demanding that she move, that she rush into battle, Astrid decided against it. Instead, she looked at her party to see if they had any requests for her. There were no such things, but supportive gestures and smiles abounded, and Astrid made the decision to continue.

  She took several deep breaths before activating her pseudo-warrior awakening. Two lava spitters and one massive steel armadillo made the test to pass the floor. Astrid already knew what her plan had to be, and, as soon as the first lava spitter was visible, she sprinted forward, pushing herself to greater speed by pushing Alacrity-aligned mana into her legs. Her steps thundered as the monster reared back, its jaw wide open and orange light beginning to glow in its throat.

  It spat at her face, and Astrid threw herself into a lunge, the toes of her right boot and the sole of her left skating on the ground as the fire shot over her head. The flame spitter ducked away, but Astrid was too close to allow it escape. Her hammer pulverized its skull. She could hear it coming, but was too slow to deal with the steel armadillo as its claws slashed against her left side.

  She pushed Fortitude-aligned mana into her armor and body, reinforcing it and herself to the point that the claws felt like a padded stick instead of half-meter-long blades seeking to disembowel her. As she leapt back with the assistance of the blow, Astrid hissed in pain as white-hot flames seared her leg. She continued the movement, circling around the pillar of fire that menaced her. The flame spitter awaited her, and as soon as she appeared, it shot another gout of fire towards her. With a moment of determination, she closed her mouth and held her breath as she lunged into and then past the fire.

  Her armor heated, but not to the point that it was uncomfortable. Her gambeson and other clothing she wore underneath kept the fire from doing anything more than making her a little uncomfortable. With her mana and armor fortifying her, Astrid was fine. She closed in on the spitter, her helmet’s visor keeping her eyes safe as she saw it attempt to flee. She jumped forward, and, not even needing to spend additional mana, broke its spine with her booted heel.

  Bone crunched, but she didn’t stop until the monster was dead and its kill notification was flashing in her eyes. In the back of her mind, she recognized that the armadillo was throwing itself at her back, its claws slashing as its dense body fought to throw her to the ground. Subconsciously, she’d pushed mana into her greaves and armor to keep herself immobile as it threw itself uselessly at her. Once the spitter was dead, though, Astrid turned her attention to the beast.

  She couldn’t help but smile, now that her fear had been faced. Still, the fear of the flame remained, and Astrid knew that only with this conscious preparation had she been able to face it for now. But now that she’d done it once, the second time would come easier. Spectre Burst flooded the head of her hammer, and with a single swing, she caved the armadillo’s skull in. With deathly energy filling its brain, the monster died, and Astrid turned to her party with a wide smile.

  “Now, to the twenty-sixth?”