Despite Randy's warning, Ghostwire smacked the brat's hand off his shoulder and glared at him.

  "Who said you could touch me?" Kaelen said in a harsher tone than he intended. But how could he control himself here? He was exhausted from days of traveling, and now he was being told what to do by a university kid who was in the level twenties? Meanwhile, he was almost B-grade, at level forty-six. So what if this mysterious Savior of theirs liked to work alone? He could do as he pleased.

  "Sorry, that was rash of me," Randy said, rubbing his hand and stepping back. "I'm not trying to lecture you or anything, I just thought it would be right to warn you that this Savior doesn't seem like a... err... great people person? He might get angry if you interfere in his fight."

  Kaelen snorted. "Your advice is unneeded, and besides, I have no intention of fighting. I'll just watch from the sidelines." Walking over to the cavern wall, he activated Threadwalk again and began to scale the wall. He gave one final glance at the three stranded Hunters and huffed in annoyance. Their behavior was weird, and he suspected their Savior was responsible. Breaking out into an exhausted jog, he made his way around the lake on the wall and took note of the battle that must have taken place here.

  The three damaged bridges seemed to have been hastily made, perhaps by an earth mage of some kind. There were also remnants of a shoreline below him that appeared to have crumbled into the lake if the shadow of rubble beneath the water's surface was anything to go by.

  Just what happened here? Did all of this occur in the hour it took me to get here?

  Too many things weren't adding up. A voice in the back of his head told him to turn back, let this Savior and the kids find their way back home. The money was hardly going to be worth the effort in the first place, and now the situation had become complicated. Yet he pressed on—his curiosity demanding answers. The constant trembling from the distant fight made the journey more unpleasant than he would have liked, but he didn't want to take the bridge and approach the fight directly.

  While he had claimed Randy's advice was unneeded, he still took it into consideration. Although Saviors were not as ruthless as Bounty Hunters, they still had the strength to work alone and were egotistical enough to believe they were strong enough to save others. Despite their nice-sounding title, they were all dangerous people. Not to mention the fact that this Savior was apparently soloing a level forty-one floor boss, a feat he wasn't capable of. That suggested a high level in a combat class, which is precisely the type of person he didn't want to piss off.

  Yet despite all that, he continued forward. All because he just had to know who had shown him up to sate his curiosity. The Savior community was relatively tight-knit, with many legends and famous faces. But most of them were high-level Hunters, in the A or B grade. Very few bothered to operate on the first few floors like him, which had given him a relative monopoly on the rare jobs that popped up now and then.

  He wanted to get a good look at his new competition.

  After looping around the lake and reaching the distant shore, he began to scale the ceiling so he could get a bird's eye view from above. His Threadwalk skill required him to stay moving, so he couldn't hang from the ceiling like a bat, but he could walk around in circles. Positioning himself above the fight that shook the whole cavern with every blow, he finally got a good look at the floor boss looming above the dust cloud.

  The beast held a two-handed axe as big as a human overhead, which it then brought down, splitting the ground. The force sent a gust through the swirling dust, revealing more of its body and face.

  What a monster, Kaelen mused, impressed at the sight. Orcs were known to be big, but this beast was on another level. Standing at eight feet tall and decked out in thick, stone-like armor, the monster swung the battle axe around with audible whooshes like it weighed nothing. No wait, something's off. Kaelen's eyes narrowed, and he scrutinized the monster, specifically its movements. The beast brought the battle axe over its head and aimed for a human darting around in the cloud of dust. Orcs were known to be strong, but also faster than you would expect. Yet as the Orc brought the battle axe down again, Kaelen noted that it was sluggish and poorly timed to strike the human. Is the armor slowing the Orc down, or is it debuffed in some way? he wondered as he kept watching.

  The fight went on for a couple more minutes. As if knowing they were being watched, the Savior stuck to darting around in the dust cloud, never showing themselves for more than a moment. There were also no skills or spells used for the remainder of the fight by either of them. Yet the Orc's condition continued to notably degrade until eventually the great beast faltered while raising their battle axe and fell to one knee with a grunt, the ground trembling under the Orc's weight.

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  For seemingly no reason, the Orc's helmet of stone crumbled away, revealing their face. It seemed rotten, with black splotches covering the Orc's gray skin. In what appeared to be a language Kaelen couldn't understand, the Orc spoke a few sentences toward the Savior standing before them in the swirling dust cloud. Finishing their words, the Orc closed their eyes as if accepting death.

  A sword carved through the dust and promptly decapitated the Orc.

  The massive corpse fell forward, sending a gust that pushed the dust away and revealed the Savior. The head rolled along the ground, and the man stopped it with his foot.

  Kaelen wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but a man wielding nothing but a chipped, bloodstained sword and wearing odd bits of armor held together by tattered rags and a dented helmet hadn't been it.

  The man slowly tilted his head and looked up at him.

  "Who are you?" he said in a flat tone, making his mood hard to read.

  "I'm Ghostwire, a Savior and courier for hire," he said, hoping his name and reputation would impress the man. Unfortunately, he remained silent at his name, and the helmet obscured any facial reactions, leaving him with nothing to go off. Did this person know him or not? He wasn't sure. "Ahem, one of the Hunters over there, a kid by the name of Randy, sent out a distress beacon over an hour ago. I came to answer the call, only to be informed that a Savior had already arrived, who I assume is you."

  The man seemed to contemplate for a long while, looking vaguely in the direction of the three Hunters across the lake. "I see," he eventually said. "What business do you have with me then?"

  "Nothing in particular, I was just curious to meet a fellow Savior working on the same floors as me," Kaelen said, glancing at the downed floor boss again. There was no doubt about it—some sort of corruption magic had been used to kill the beast, which made him cautious. The man below him was holding a sword and seemed to possess a physical combat class of some kind, so that meant a corruption-aligned mage could be lurking nearby. Without a priest on hand, facing any type of corruption magic was dangerous.

  He had to approach this carefully.

  "Is that so?" the man said, and Kaelen was starting to understand what Randy meant about him not being a great people person. A tense silence stretched out between them. To loosen the mood, Kaelen decided to drop down from the ceiling and landed a few meters away from the man.

  "Making you strain your neck to talk to me isn't very polite, sorry about that," he chuckled. "I'm Kaelen, by the way. Ghostwire is just my working name. What is yours?" He held out his hand in a friendly gesture, yet the man remained silent and just stared at it. "A made-up name is fine, I just was hoping to have something to refer to you by?"

  The man glanced up at him, and Kaelen felt a familiar skin-crawling sensation, as if he was being studied from behind the helmet. Did he just use Appraisal on me? Kaelen wondered, and had his suspicions confirmed when the man's demeanor shifted after seeing his level.

  Yet rather than respect, he received dismissal. The unnamed Savior looked away and ignored him. Kaelen's offered hand fell to his side, and a frown adorned his lips. If the man had used Appraisal on him and reacted this way, it would mean this person was far stronger than him and didn't see him as a threat.

  Not that Kaelen wanted to be seen as a threat, but it did wound his pride.

  "If you have to call me by something, Gerald is fine," the Savior said, while crouched over the corpse and showing his back.

  "Okay, Gerald," Kaelen said, walking towards him. "I was wondering if you wanted to split the Savior fee?"

  Gerald paused whatever he was doing to the corpse and glanced over his shoulder. "Split the fee?"

  Kaelen raised his hands in mock surrender. "I'm not going to pressure you to do so or anything, after all, you did get here first and killed that floor boss. I just thought to offer my assistance if it was required so we can all return to the surface safely."

  "Return... to the surface?" Gerald muttered, as if the words sounded foreign.

  "Yeah? That was your plan, right?" Kaelen asked, growing confused. "Your gear is in terrible condition, you are covered in blood, and you must be exhausted and mana-deprived after soloing a floor boss. What other option do you have besides returning to the surface? Unless you have some skill I'm unaware of, I'm not sure how you planned to escape this cavern with three injured Hunters. I mean, do you even have a rope?"

  His words seemed to fall on deaf ears, as Gerald just stood there motionless, staring at him from behind that helmet.

  "Uh, Gerald? Are you alright?"

  "I want to go to the surface," he said abruptly.

  "Okay... will you need my assistance in carrying the three Hunters back? As I mentioned before, we can split the fee—"

  "Sure," Gerald said, picking up the Orc's massive head. "Let's go speak with Randy first and work it out."

  Kaelen didn't want to have to speak with Randy again, but if he got paid, he would bear with it. "Alright," he nodded, "let's do that."

  They began walking to the bridge, and Kaelen couldn't help but glance over in confusion. "Why are you carrying the floor boss's head?"

  Gerald paused. "Uh..." He looked down at the head. "It's a trophy."

  Kaelen raised a brow. "Are you not bringing the battle axe? It would sell for quite a lot."

  Gerald glanced at the axe and shook his head. "I don't use battle axes."

  Kaelen opened his mouth to explain how that wasn't the point, but then another idea came to mind. "Can I take it then?"

  "If you want," Gerald shrugged and kept walking toward the bridge. "It's all yours."

  to read ahead!