Chapter 473: The Witch

Days pass by quickly. Filled with mana training, getting taught and then killed by Whitey, and giving pointers to Lily and the twins.

There isn’t any talk anymore about making them change difficulties. Even when they’re not combining forces to fight, they’re still dangerous. They don’t flinch anymore when they get hurt. They’re quick to learn and much more experienced when it comes to combat. They’re surprisingly patient and don’t hesitate to stretch out battles as needed, gradually building up an advantage.

Their projections are amazing, to be honest. Mimicking mana signatures, and heat, while imitating the vibrations of true motion. I can see a lot of potential in these projections of theirs and I’ve worked hard to help them improve.

Honestly, I’m capable of doing something similar myself. And with my superior control over mana and the proper application of kinetic and thermal energy, it even comes fairly easy. But I'm the type that prefers dealing damage to such trickery, so I don’t spend much time practicing myself—it’s just something to do when I feel bored. So their projections are currently much better than mine.

[Connection]

is a straight-up broken skill, much like

[Resonance]

. The things we’ve come up with lately are… scary at times. In a good way. Like I always say, if you can hurt yourself with your own skill it’s a bad sign for your opponent.

I don’t mean it in a maniacal way of course. Your body naturally adapts to your skills, allowing you to endure their use. So, in theory, using a skill that causes damage to yourself should hurt your opponent even more. For example, Lily’s body and bones can withstand

[Disintegration]

, but if she were to use it on anyone else with the exact same stats and traits, they’d be completely wrecked.

Even though we both tried, even working together, we couldn’t figure out exactly how it works or how skills influence the body, but it's something we’ll definitely return to later.

As for the twins, my instinct to push them into training their mana proved to be an excellent decision—as always—and even though they currently need to combine their minds to take over most skills, they now have a clear path ahead of them.

I don’t think they’ll ever be the strongest 1v1 guys, but 2v1 they are scary, and in cooperation with people like me, there’s definitely hell to be made.

And then we come to Lily… yeah, there is no need to worry about her.

Two days before the expedition, Biscuit also returns.

An unidentified floating object appears on the horizon. It’s shaped kind of like a burrito and it moves surprisingly fast. That floating object just so happens to be on the list of exceptions to my defensive array and therefore passes through easily, slowing to a stop over the garden where all of us happen to be.

Announcing his majestic presence with a loud cry of

(Food)

, our future overlord slowly lowers himself, landing on the ground with a cute surprised noise as he lets go of his levitation a bit early and falls a bit further than he expected.

It’s been two months since I last saw him. Calculating the 10 boops per day I usually did, that’s 600 boops I’ve missed out on, and they still need to be delivered.

Ever since the Golden Retriever accident, we’ve made some changes, so Biscuit ignores others and stops in front of me.

I immediately lift him to my chest, reveling in the familiar feeling, weight, and scent of the best corgi of the 6th floor. He boops my nose with his paw, I caress his tiny head, and let him happily lick me while he wags his short tail, taking the rest of his body along for the ride with sheer inertia.

Only then do I release him to greet the others.

I’m allowed to pet other animals, and Biscuit is allowed to be pet by other people, but he will be my number one, and I will be his. With that simple deal, the dark times brought about by the Golden Retriever incident have finally ended.

I would love to know what he’s been doing to train, given that I only ever get flashes of memory, but I suppose time will tell soon enough. It’s about time something went wrong and threw our plans into disarray.

Those near-death experiences I’ve had over the past five months just don’t feel the same as they used to. Lily and the twins probably wouldn’t agree, though. There was that time Dennis got cut in half by that one guy, Lily got trapped under a mountain while she was hunting a high-level monster, and Aaron was poisoned and got paralyzed for three days before we finally figured out a way to cure him.

Things like that are just things I’ve accepted as part of life in the tutorial. If they don’t like it, they can switch to Hard difficulty, where they’ll probably have no trouble clearing each floor on their own. ’

The old pre-tutorial me would probably be a bit shocked by that way of thinking, but what can I do? Screw that guy.

That thought also makes me curious to know how he would react and what a conversation between us would look like.

“You are free,” I tell the man whose name I’ve already forgotten.

“I… why are you giving me an old sock?”

“It’s a custom where I’m from.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t want to insu—”

“It’s fine. As I said, we will leave the rooms unlocked, and we’re leaving some stuff behind, so you guys can sort it out, kill each other over them if you like, or settle it some other way.”

“Oh…”

“You also mentioned that neighboring group that was sneaking around, right? Lily checked on them last night, and I don’t think they’ll be making trouble anymore. If you are lucky, you might even take over what’s left. But don't expect any fancy items or materials, we took them all.”

"If she’s the one who went there, there won’t be many people left alive to conscript. But thanks, we’ll—"

“Sure,” I say, waving him off and teleporting away, reappearing in my underground lab.

The only way to get here is by teleporting through the Ley Line that leads here. Otherwise, the lab is deep enough to be almost perfectly shielded.

I did have some trouble getting breathable air down here, but I solved it with a set of mana stones—inspired by the one that the blacksmith gave me back on Beyond’s entrance floor.

Right now, the lab feels unusually tidy, gone are the chaotic piles of items and materials that were scattered all over the place. The best and most useful items were packed away in our bags, and the rest were either sold to the system shop or left up in my room, which I’m sure is already in the process of being looted.

The only thing of note remaining in the lab is the inscribed bust with my crown hovering over it. The bust serves to stabilize the crown so it doesn’t lose mana while it's not over my head.

With the bust currently charged, the crown should be able to remain there for two or three weeks without any trouble, and the Ley Line thread connected to it makes it possible to summon it to my location.

To avoid annoying questions during the expedition and to avoid immediate conflict with a certain person, I plan to leave it here and summon it at the first sign of trouble, which I’m sure will happen soon enough. Until then, I at least won’t be bothered by these people.

I mean, I could probably just take over the expedition at this point, but that would be too annoying.

Giving my precious crown one last look, I teleport to the door to Lily’s room and knock.

“Come in!” she calls a few moments later, and I enter.

“You should have been packed an hour ago,” I note looking at her messy room.

“I know, I know!” She deflects, turning to me and holding a dress in front of her. “What do you think?”

The dress is a pale shade of blue, with a skirt that comes to an end just over her knees. The design is a bit weird.

“Huh, no good.” She mumbles, reading something in my face I didn’t even know was there, and throws it on the ground, quickly choosing another in its place, this one is a very dark shade of red. “This one?”

“So, that’s where your pocket money went?”

“This one’s no good either, huh,” she sighs, throwing it aside. “And yes! I’m a young woman, of course, I like to dress well. Though, other women probably wouldn’t care about clothes in a situation like this, so maybe it’s just me, but you know what I mean!"

Lily picks another dress, this one dark blue with thin shoulder straps, “This one?”

“That one looks the best so far. Do you think you’ll be using it anytime soon?”

Happily, she throws it on the bed and starts folding it carefully before putting a small mana stone on it and stowing it in some kind of protective bag, before adding it to her other things.

“I don’t think I’ll be needing it, that’s why I’m only taking the one and leaving the rest. Before you ask, the mana stone is supposed to help keep insects, dirt, mold, and other stuff away from the cloth. I don’t have very many, so no you can’t have one—you would just break it to see how it works.”

“That’s a terrible accusation. If that happened, I would make you a new one.”

“Sure, sure! And then for some unknown reason, you would add in an additional function that would cause it to overload with mana and explode. Do you remember that mana stone that was supposed to keep my clothes smelling fresh?”

This time I can’t help but defend myself, “That bullshit stone was clearly a scam and didn’t work to begin with.”

“So why did it explode?”

“It had an interesting structure that gave me an idea so I modified it a bit and… that’s not the point! Are you ready?”

“I guess.” After shrugging her bag on, she takes a few steps, grabbing the massive ax made from her bones, and a nostalgic smile crosses her face as she looks over the room for the last time. “I think I may have gotten a bit attached to this room. I think I might miss it for a while after this.”

“I can understand that.”

“These past few months have been great, honestly. It’s been really fun having all of us together, and I’d love to keep that going. Hopefully, we get to spend more time together like this.”

“Nice jinx. The expedition will go great.”

After a short laugh, she tightens her posture, gray mana swirling around her, in the shape of a mantle.

"Everything will be fine, you’ll see. I’m here," Lily says, full of unwavering confidence.

We find ourselves in the same yard where the twins got themselves caught not so long ago. Despite losing one of their strongest, The Gravelhands have managed to hold onto their fort, which stands tall, guarding one of the largest entrances to the mines beneath Hollowgate.

There are probably a few hundred people all told, and going by the results of past expeditions, only around 10-50% will return. Between the monsters, other members of the expedition, battles for resources, and unresolved disputes it would be fairly easy to disappear down there.

So while Dennis is speaking with a smaller group of leaders, we wait off to the side, while I observe the people around us.

One of them is the no. 1 leader in Hollowgate, a thylarin woman known as The Witch, and she clearly has a

[Mana Crown]

floating over her head. I would recognize it anywhere.

[Terra Shaper - lvl 306]

There’s a rumor going around about the Witch. Some say she only ever joins an expedition once every ten years, then retreats to her manor, spending the following years charging her crown for the next journey. That’s why her crown is such a deep shade of blue with streaks of light purple and pale blue swirling across the surface.

The sheer amount of mana it holds can’t be hidden—just being near her feels like the air itself is growing heavier as if the immense power she’s carrying could crush everything around her.

Then there’s my good friend, the thylarin with his kinetic energy and four swords quick to hand. For some reason, it seems like he’s decided to join the expedition. He isn’t looking at me, but I’m sure he knows that I’m here, and he’s standing close to The Witch—as if he intends to serve as her bodyguard.

Well, color me surprised if this expedition won’t be fun.