Izick gasped for air as he sat up. He grabbed his throbbing head.

  "My head is pounding. What was that thing anyway?"

  "I don't know, but I'm glad you're not dead. That monster shot you with some sort of Skill before fading away."

  His clouded mind flipped back to the events leading to him being shot in the head. The Skill Tree being unlocked, the Blessing freezing, purchasing [Rapid Shot], and that weird monster appearing just to use a Skill on him.

  Skills? Wait a second.

  "Status Open," Izick said, summoning the Blessing.

  "Whoa, Izick, you just dealt with whatever that was with the Blessing, and you're still interacting with it?"

  "Yes, this is important."

  Izick tapped on the Skill Tree tab to bring up the map of nodes. He scrolled down to the bottom and found two red nodes. He tapped on one of the nodes, bringing up a blue box.

  [ [Bang Bullet] ]

  [ ACCESS DENIED: SKILL LOCKED, LOSER ]

  [ UNLOCK CONDITION: Wait 25 days. Cry about it ]

  "Izick, what are you seeing right now?"

  "A nightmare."

  He gritted his teeth as he quickly brushed away the message to open the other red node.

  [ [Burst Cannon] ]

  [ ACCESS DENIED: SKILL LOCKED AND LOADED (but you can't use it yet) ]

  [ UNLOCK CONDITION: Unlock [Bang Bullet] first, then the real fun begins ]

  [ Good luck, NPC. Don't go dying without your Skills, lol ]

  Izick swiped away the system boxes in anger before driving his fist into the ground.

  "He locked my first two Skills. Alister locked them away…"

  "Locked them?"

  "Mill, Foster Braun told us that there’s likely distance-based Malevolence in the Honor Rod."

  "Yes, and you've kept the Honor Rod as close as possible because of it. But how is this related to locked Skills?"

  "I wrote off the jumbled and disappearing messages as damage from Alister forcing the Blessing onto me. I even thought of the Blessing and the Honor Rod as two separate issues. One was corrupted, and the other was cursed, but it's much worse than that."

  Izick's eyes grew wide with anxiety as he lifted the Honor Rod in his hands.

  "I believe Alister is manipulating my life through both of his 'gifts' on a much deeper level than either of us understands. He's not even here, but he turned off my first two Skills through that monster. What if Alister can just kill me with the swipe of his finger? What if that bastard is listening to our conversation right now? I don’t know if the [Rapid Shot] Skill, the Blessing, or even my own agency is real or not."

  Mill covered her mouth as the implications of what Izick said began to flood her mind. She sat down from her kneeling position, crossing her arms as she went into deep thought.

  “Look, Izick, I need you to calm down. The main thing here is that you’re still alive. Alister is trying to rattle you right now with these mind games. I don’t know how he manipulated the Blessing, but he’s trying to scare you into submission. Don’t let him win this round, even if he thinks this is a game.”

  Izick nodded silently as he looked down at the Honor Rod.

  “Then what do we do?”

  “What we’ve been doing. Stay alive and make it to Alain. We’re going to find answers along the way, but you have somewhere you need to be, right?”

  Izick remembered Cylvia and his mission to get back home. He had to save her no matter what.

  "However, you can't give up. We can't give up," Mill said, digging into her traveling bag and pulling out a writing pad and pen.

  "I need you to write down everything you saw after the Blessing unfroze today. Let's work this out."

  Izick released the Honor Rod to grab the writing pad and pen. He began jotting down the sequence of events leading up to the attack by Mr. Shuffle.

  ***

  Izick and Mill returned to the caravan after a few hours, but found the atmosphere unusually tense and quiet. They found Giselle and many other mercenaries staring intently at the main carriage, which also functioned as a makeshift meeting room due to its size. Mill walked up to Giselle and noticed the uneasy expression on her face. They took a seat on some large rocks near Giselle like the others.

  “Why is everyone so on edge? Did something happen?” Mill said, leaning in toward Giselle.

  “We’re not sure. Barson and Hobbs came back much sooner than we expected with some Elf man. The three of them seemed pretty tired and told us all to wait while they talked over some things inside that carriage. Giff is in there as well for some reason.”

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  The carriage door swung open, and Barson swaggered out, followed by Hobbs, Giff, and the Elf man. Izick noticed that Giff’s irritation from before was now replaced with trembling fear while sweat ran down his face.

  “We have some major setbacks on our hands. It’s not looking good up there in the Alps.” Barson said as he pointed to the looming mountains behind him with his thumb.

  Murmurs flowed between Hossa's mercenaries.

  “The Staff Hero supported a city of Elves here, but he has completely abandoned this place after he went rogue. The Ogres are taking full advantage of his permanent absence and are wiping out every Elf in sight to claim territory that’s been disputed over for decades."

  Izick flinched at the mention of the Staff. Alister was involved in this too? He never knew about Alister's involvement with the Misty Alps until now. Giselle raised her hand to speak. Barson motioned for her to speak.

  “So are they going to attack this town next? Ogres aren’t too friendly with the huminfolk here.”

  “Not at the moment, as far as we can tell. Humins are more of an inconvenience than a threat to Ogres. Their main mission is to apparently wipe out the Elves in the Alps,” Hobbs said, pointing to the Elf man beside him.

  “That’s why Hiddel is here today with a grim proposal we need to listen to.”

  The blonde-haired, pointy-eared, and pale-skinned Elf stepped forward while anxiously holding the long sword on his side. He looked tired and depressed as he scanned the faces of the mercenaries in front of him.

  “It feels incredibly shameful and pretentious of me to ask this, but I humbly ask that you help extract my people, the Elves of Damaran, from the Misty Alps. We can no longer hold off the Ogres with our weak and inexperienced forces. We have no choice but to flee the Alps. I won’t be able to pay you immediately upfront, but–”

  “You won’t pay us? Nonsense! You think we do this for free?” a mercenary shouted as he pointed to the Elf.

  “Yeah! Barson, are you going soft on us now?”

  More mercenaries began to mouth off and complain about Elf Hiddel’s proposition, causing the Elf to lower his head and shake his head.

  A huge gust of wind blew past everyone, knocking a few mercenaries off their feet. Mill quickly lifted her staff to create a green shield to protect her and Izick from the raging wind. A yellow circle encircled the heads of the affected mercenaries, who screamed, but no sound came out of their mouths.

  “What was that wind?” Izick said, looking at the bewildered mercenaries.

  “A high-level Silence Skill, but I was able to block it in time.”

  Izick recognized Scotts, the Mage who wielded the mace-like staff and helped open a path for him and Mill to escape the frontlines during the bandit raid. A vein bulged on Scotts’ forehead as he shook his staff.

  “I’m shutting you lot up until Barson and Hiddel are done speaking. We’re facing death, and you have time to complain and call Barson soft?”

  Barson tapped Scotts on the shoulder.

  “That was a bit much, but it’s easier to speak like this,” Barson pointed to Hiddel with his hand. “Hiddel can’t pay us in coin right now because funds are tied up with this Ogre business. He’ll pay us after we’re safely through the Alps, but his upfront payment will be the hidden route that will allow us to bypass the majority of the ongoing war. However, he won’t lead us to this route without us extracting the Elves from Damaran.”

  Hiddel placed a hand over his heart.

  “I have no intentions of trying to scam you or disrespect you by asking for charity. But the hidden route will be exposed to the Ogres once we use it, meaning we have one chance to use it. I must save as many of my people as possible before they are wiped out completely.”

  Barson crossed his arms as he looked up at the towering and musty mountains ahead of them.

  “This is our best shot of surviving now. We, the Hossa Mercenary Band, don’t take free jobs. However, this job is real, and Giff has agreed to this detour for the sake of the caravan's survival. Our objectives are clear: extract the elves in Damaran, use the hidden route, and get out of the Alps before everyone kills each other. Not much else to say here. Scotts, dispel your Skill. Everyone is dismissed until we meet back here in five hours.”

  Scotts waved his hand to dispel his Silence Skill, giving everyone’s voices back, which followed with anger at Scotts for using such an annoying Skill on them.

  Hobbs approached Izick with a less jovial smile on his face than before.

  “I knew we would be doing some scouting today, so I asked if you were interested, but I wasn’t expecting things to be this bad. Barson wants the Scout Corps to go ahead and verify the status of Hiddel’s village since Hiddel hasn’t been able to get past the Ogre checkpoints to get back to his village. This plan hinges on that village of Elves still existing, so we must know that they are still alive,” Hobbs said before sighing and shaking his head. “If you want to pull out now, I won’t hold it against you since this will be a very dangerous scouting mission that could very well end in your death.”

  “It’s fine. I tend to work alone, but I’ll help your team out.”

  “You will?” Mill said while turning to face Izick.

  “Izick, he said that this mission is extremely dangerous and may end in your death. Are you sure you want to do this? You might end up running into Ogres up there.” Mill said as she pointed to the mountains.

  Izick glanced over to Hobbs.

  "I'm sure. I have a responsibility to this band as a hired mercenary. I want to help if I can be useful."

  “I'll respect your decision and determination," Hobbs said as he stroked his beard. He pulled out a strip of paper before handing it to Izick.

  "Come to these coordinates in three hours. We will leave without you if you're late."

  "Understood, I'll see you there."

  Hobbs nodded to Izick before rejoining Barson, Hiddel, and Giff as they continued to discuss the upcoming job.

  "Izick, you heard what they said, and you still want to go scouting? Aren't you pushing yourself too much right now? Today hasn't been the easiest day for you…"

  "I actually don't want to go. It wasn't out of my own ignorance or stubbornness that I agreed to go with Hobbs."

  "Then why are you doing this?"

  "Because Hobbs is suspicious of me. Avoiding this mission would make me look weird since he already believes I'm a Scout. There's a reason why I was the first person he talked to after Barson finished talking, which is worrying to me."

  "Are you sure you're not overthinking this?"

  "I hope so, but I'm probably not. Besides, maybe a change of pace will be good for me."

  Izick looked at the Honor Rod in his hand that was currently wrapped like a staff.

  "I don’t understand any of this, but I understand how to Scout. I’ve been scouting for a while now, and there’s a certain calmness to it that clears the mind. At least my Skills as a Scout are still worth something while I'm useless as a Mage."

  “I see…”

  Mill took a deep breath before reaching out and rustling Izick’s hair, much to his chagrin.

  "Stop it. That's annoying. You're ruining this serious conversation." Izick said, half-jokingly as he batted Mill's hand away.

  "Good. Moping around won't solve our issues."

  Mill heaved a sigh before looking Izick dead in the eye.

  “Promise me that you won’t get yourself killed. This is all meaningless if you croak. Also, don't forget that your previous Skills as a Mage are locked, you don’t know the validity of the Skill you just unlocked, that monster could appear at any time, and we still don't know the true Malevolence in the Honor Rod.”

  “Don't worry, I'll do whatever I can to stay alive. I can’t just abandon Cylvia and leave her penniless by dying out here.”

  They both sat in silence as the mercenaries of the Hossa Mercenary band scurried around, preparing for the hostile environment ahead of them.