The curtain locking us in the boss arena disappeared as Mary dashed toward the steep climb.

  “You okay?” Tress looked over her shoulder as she ran, making it clear she had a speed stat higher than mine indeed. Elk was close behind while I was at the rear.

  “Fine!” I shouted amidst the sound of the crater collapsing.

  For the love of all that is sacred, how grateful I was we had downed every false platform on our way to the boss.

  Were there rocks and boulders falling over our heads? Yeah, for sure, but we had steady ground to climb.

  We ran as if our lives depended on it, because they did. Soon, the crater would be only half its original size if the walls kept falling like they had been.

  We started jumping from platform to platform, Elk making it in two jumps with his long legs and bent knees. With his hooves, it was like watching one of those goats that could climb mountains.

  That’s how someone survives in a hostile place—being fast and adaptable.

  I followed them, jumping from platform to platform just behind Mary. She kept looking over her shoulder as I jumped one platform ahead of her.

  She kept the pace with me, jumping to the second platform at my side, while Elk was ahead and Tress just behind.

  “Zach, we’re fucked!” She shouted, never stopping to run, and I finally saw what the hell she was seeing.

  The steps at the start of the steep climb had long fallen, and the platforms were quickly becoming the next target. Boulders fell, but the platforms also crumbled, as if replying to a command the giant beneath the crater had urgently dispatched.

  We weren’t running faster than that.

  Mary and Elk were, though.

  “You ahead, brace the wall!” I shouted, and thankfully, they heard it. The next second, they stopped jumping through the platforms, and I grabbed Mary by the hand.

  In the next instant, a [Lightning Momentum] threw us up and ahead at immense speed.

  Mary screamed at the top of her lungs as she realized we were going to hit one of the platforms ahead.

  I had no time to explain anything to her, though. I just tightened my grip on her hand and commanded another burst beneath my feet.

  The scream died in her mouth and turned into a faint gasp as we flew more toward the sky than the front.

  “Just one more!” I yelled as I released another spell and hit the steep ground above, where Elk and Mary were still jumping platforms like Mario.

  Mary stumbled onto the ground, and for a moment, it seemed as if she was about to throw up.

  I braced the edge of the platform. We had just skipped half the distance, and I could see the bright sky closer.

  My eyes traveled toward the direction they needed to run, and dread filled my body as I noticed the ground falling in the opposite direction. The cracks would meet them halfway, and they wouldn't have a chance of surviving unless Elk could actually climb like a goat.

  “Tie a rope to your shield now!” I shouted, pulling Mary from her stupor. The adrenaline made her move quickly.

  “Come with me,” I called to her as I ran alongside Elk and Tress, circling the crater above them. Mary ran behind me the whole time, holding her weightless shield in both hands.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Just hold firmly,” I commanded, and jumped, holding the cord with both hands.

  If before my hands had been grated by the ropes, now they were peeled by it. I felt like a giant, pained legume as I descended toward them, swallowing the agony as I screamed for them to stop.

  They did, both bracing against the wall to their side as they realized both ways were crumbling down.

  The descent was nothing but swift. I crashed against the wall a few times, but after a few bumps and a bloodied hand, I was at their height. I carefully searched for a platform between them and handed them my bloody hands.

  Grimaces blossomed on their faces, but they held on anyway.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “Okay, maybe this is going to be rough,” I said more to myself than to them, but I saw how they stiffened.

  One [Lightning Momentum] later, we had traveled a few feet up, the gravity bringing us down hard, but I kept going, one after the other.

  “One more!” I shouted as the strength beneath my feet died.

  When we reached Mary, both Elk and Tress were hugging me, and that proved to be very wise. When we reduced the surface area through which the lightning was released, it made us go faster.

  At least that’s what they told me.

  Because as soon as we hit the platform where Mary waited for us, I passed out.

  I opened my eyes just as we reached the crater’s end. I bumped against Tress’ shoulder plate as she carried me.

  She slowly put me on the ground, and seeing that I had both eyes open, she smiled. A grin from ear to ear, one I had never seen her give.

  “I thought I had lost you there,” she panted.

  “Me too,” I replied, using my hands to sit, only to realize they were nearly destroyed by the rope’s friction.

  My body wanted to indulge in the pain, but the sight before me was too unreal for me not to contemplate in awe.

  The crater's hole was slowly terraformed. All the debris and rocks that fell from the walls magically arranged themselves as if thousands and thousands of invisible stone workers were doing their job.

  After two minutes, the place where the giant crater had been was replaced by a flat field with a single stone at the center of it. The mineral was rectangular and fixed on the wall horizontally, as if a pointer on a sundial.

  Messages popped up in my sight.

  Congratulations for completing the Dungeon!

  You received 6000 credits, divided equally among the party members.

  This is now a safe zone, healing is activated, and only your party can enter it.

  More rewards await at the center of the safe zone.

  I started to heave myself up, and Tress' hands reached for my arm to help me.

  “I can carry you, you know?” she said.

  “The bond and all, I know,” I mumbled, my body too hurt to actually say what I was thinking.

  There was this incredible being in front of me who, for anyone on Earth, would be considered a goddess, and apparently, I could ask her to do anything, and she would. And somehow, that... bummed me?

  I wasn’t considering it in a weird way, but I longed for how things were before we had tattooed those flames on our chests.

  You don’t survive through hell and back with someone without creating a bond with them, and knowing there was this social norm obligating her to defend me at all costs only made me not want her to do it.

  Damn, I actually wanted some help walking to the safe zone, but not because some myriad of bizarre traditions from thousands of years ago created it.

  I wanted her help because we were companions, maybe friends? I looked at her, and she seemed pained for not being able to help me, so I clicked my tongue and gave her my arm, letting her carry half of the load.

  How troubled should her own head be in that moment? I couldn’t be selfish.

  Thankfully, I didn’t have much time to dwell on it. The veil of the safe zone fell over us, and we entered it one step at a time.

  The system's healing was fundamentally different from Mary's. Hers was painful and quick, while the system's took its time but anesthetized the wounds, making the journey toward the center of the place much easier.

  Elk walked back toward us but didn’t offer help. He was getting good at reading me.

  “You survived shit like that for how long? Two years?” I asked, looking at the devil with renewed pride.

  “Pretty much,” he stated, not offering more.

  Damn, I wasn’t even sure if Arahaktar’s years were any similar to Earth’s. He was twenty-five years old, but what did that mean for a human life?

  “These things, were they the worst in there?” I pushed, and he didn’t seem bothered by it.

  “No, they weren’t. They predated the things we could actually kill, and there were other ones in between, and even more above them.” His eyes were on the stone ahead, but I could see he was staring at his memories. “I mean, really big things. Humans made some nasty things with the dragons, turned them into hellish creatures, and the church threw us to live with them.”

  The wind blew against us, Elk’s words heavy in the air.

  “Do I look like that thing? Do I act like one of them?” Elk’s voice trembled, the words forming with difficult. “Am I a monster because I don’t have horns like them?” He looked down at me, his eyes watered. He held his tunic with too firm a grip.

  His eyes were locked on mine when I parted from Tress, walked close, and hugged him. I didn’t think about it; it just felt like the right thing to do.

  His hands stayed on his tunic, but as I lingered, they loosened, and he hugged me in return.

  He wiped his eyes and gently pushed me away.

  “Thank you, mate. You’re the truest of friends.” He nodded and walked ahead, with nothing more to say.

  Tress was waiting for me, a sad smile on her lips.

  “That was very nice,” she muttered as we approached the rock, my legs finally starting to lose their soreness.

  “I thought I had a hard life…” I muttered, more to myself than to her. “I have the impression he’s not telling us half of it. I fear for his sanity; this isn’t much different from the place he came from.”

  “This place is completely different from where he came from,” Tress offered, the sun bathing her almost transluscent skin and making she sound almost prophetical.

  “Yeah? Why?” I realized, midsentence I actually wanted a good answer. One that would sooth my heart.

  “Because here we have each other.” Her smile grew as she patted me on the shoulder to reply to a waving Mary.

  She was screaming something about a diamond box beside the rock, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what Tress had said.

  We have each other.

  As I watched them stride to meet an excited Mary, I let that thought sink in. I wondered about everyone back in our planets, about everyone dying on this one and I thought of how painful would be to lose any of these three people before me.

  We have each other. I hope that’s enough.

  I truly do.