Chapter 82: Party
Four days remained until the Monthly Ranking Test.
Aegis stabbed her eggs like they owed her money. The dining hall buzzed with nervous energy—everyone could feel the test looming. At the table next to hers, a second-year was openly weeping into his porridge. Maybe it had nothing to do with the test, but Aegis thought maybe it did.
"The combat portion’s going to be brutal," Scarlett said, demolishing her third helping of bacon. "Heard they’re bringing in actual monsters this time."
"Actual monsters?" Aegis looked up. "Not training dummies?"
"Nope. Real teeth, real claws, real chance of dying."
[Great. Love that for us.]
Although Aegis did also consider that it had been six months since they came in. If in the second term you couldn’t even kill a basic, weak monster, you probably deserved to be expelled.
She got an idea.
"We should go to the tunnels," Aegis said suddenly. "Get some practice in."
Scarlett’s eyes lit up.
"Now you’re talking my language."
"Can I come?" Sophie appeared out of nowhere, sliding onto the bench beside Aegis. Her uniform was buttoned wrong and she had bedhead that made her look like she’d been electrocuted.
[... Still annoyingly cute though.] Aegis pouted.
"Absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"Because you’re a first-year with zero combat experience."
"So are you."
"Actually, for your information, Scarlett and I took a trip into the tunnels together. I performed beautifully, of course. Didn’t I?" Aegis asked Scarlett.
"Well, it was mostly me doing all the wo-"
"SHH!" Aegis covered Scarlett’s mouth. "As I was saying, I have real, genuine, combat experience. And you," she smirked at Sophie, "do not."
"What’s happening?" Liora’s soft voice cut through the argument. She and Talia had approached their table, Talia looking like she’d rather be anywhere else.
"We’re going monster hunting," Sophie announced, like she had heard absolutely nothing Aegis said. "Want to come?"
"We are not going monster—"
"That sounds dangerous," Liora said.
"Exactly," Talia added, arms crossed. Her yellow eyes fixed on Aegis. "And stupid."
"It’s practice for the Monthly Ranking Test," Aegis explained. "The combat portion will have real monsters."
Talia’s expression shifted slightly.
"You’re serious."
"Dead serious. If we want to stay at the top of the rankings, it’s not gonna be enough to just kill the things. We have to stomp them. We have to show that we know every single thing those monsters could do and that they’re beneath us."
... Of course, Aegis already knew the patterns of every monster in this world, but, well, they didn’t need to know that.
They locked eyes. Something passed between them. Not quite concern, not quite interest. Then Talia looked at Liora, who was already doing that thing where she bit her bottom lip when thinking.
"It would be good practice," Liora said quietly.
"You can’t be considering this."
"We need to be ready. All of us."
Talia’s jaw worked like she was chewing words she didn’t want to say. Finally:
"Fine. But if anyone dies, I’m blaming you."
She pointed at Aegis.
"Fair."
"I’ll pass," Lune said from where she’d been quietly eating toast. Nobody had even noticed her there, aside from Aegis. "Someone should stay and tell the authorities where you went when you don’t come back."
"Such confidence in us," Scarlett laughed.
"I’m being realistic."
Aegis smiled.
[Is it just me, or is Lune getting more comfortable around us?]
---
Twenty minutes later, they stood at the entrance to the tunnels beneath the academy. The same tunnels Aegis had fled through with Talia during the assassination attempt. Dark, damp, and definitely full of things that wanted to eat them.
Sophie sat on Scarlett’s shoulders, legs wrapped around the redhead’s neck.
"Onward, noble steed!"
"Call me that again and I’m throwing you to the first slime we see."
"You wouldn’t."
"Try me."
Talia and Liora stood slightly apart from the group, not quite touching but close enough that their shoulders almost brushed when they moved. Every few seconds one would glance at the other, then look away when caught.
[The tension is painful to watch.]
Aegis pulled out Ruby and Sapphire, her charisma-scaling daggers. The blades hummed with power.
"Everyone ready?"
"No," Talia said.
"Absolutely not," Liora added.
"I was born ready!" Sophie cheered.
"Let’s go before I remember this is stupid," Scarlett muttered.
They descended.
The tunnels were exactly as Aegis remembered—stone walls covered in suspicious moisture, the distant sound of things skittering, and torches that nobody ever seemed to light but were always burning. The air smelled like a basement that had given up on life.
"Cozy," Sophie whispered.
"Shut up," Talia hissed. "Do you want to attract—"
A screech echoed through the tunnel.
[Right on schedule.]
Three level whatever Prison Spiders rounded the corner, each the size of a large dog, covered in gray fur that looked like someone had glued dryer lint to a nightmare. Aegis did pay attention to the number but they were nowhere near as strong as the girls were. Green drool dripped from their mandibles as they clicked with murderous intent.
"Formation!" Aegis shouted, despite the fact that they didn’t have a formation.
Scarlett charged immediately, Sophie still on her shoulders shrieking with either terror or delight. Her sword caught the first spider mid-leap, bisecting it in a spray of green blood.
Talia raised her hand and ice erupted from her palm, freezing the second spider solid. It shattered when it hit the ground.
The third spider went for Liora.
"No!" Talia spun, but Aegis was already moving.
Her dagger found the spider’s eye cluster. It screamed, rearing back, and Aegis’s second dagger opened its belly. Spider guts spilled onto the stone floor with a wet splat.
EXP Gained: 60
Power: 34% to Next Level
"Everyone okay?" Aegis panted.
"That was AMAZING!" Sophie bounced on Scarlett’s shoulders. "Again! Again!"
"You’re insane," Talia said, but she was looking at Aegis when she said it. Not quite grateful, but not quite hostile either.
"Just keeping everyone alive."
"My hero," Liora said softly, and Aegis couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not.
They pressed deeper.
More spiders appeared in groups of four, then five. Scarlett carved through them like a berserker, Sophie somehow directing her by pulling her hair like reins. Talia’s ice magic turned entire sections of tunnel into frozen abattoirs. Liora hung back, singing something under her breath that made everyone move just a little faster, hit just a little harder.
[We’re actually doing this. We’re kind of a legit party.]
It hit Aegis suddenly—this was exactly like the game. In the second half of Queen of Hearts, after all the romance routes converged, you formed an adventuring party to deal with the Umbral Invasion, minus Sophie.
Scarlett the warrior, Talia the mage, Liora the support.
"Duck!" Sophie shouted.
Aegis dropped flat as a spider sailed over her head. Scarlett’s sword caught it mid-air, splitting it in half. Both halves hit the wall with a double splat.
"Thanks."
"Sophie saw it coming," Scarlett said. "Tiny Aegis has good eyes."
"What!? I’m not just Tiny Aegis!"
[I kinda wrote you as Tiny Aegis, though.]
They found a small chamber to rest in. No spiders here, just old bones and what might have been a campfire from the last group that came down here. Scarlett set Sophie down and stretched.
Talia created a small ice sculpture to sit on. Liora sat beside her, their thighs touching.
"This is actually working," Liora said, surprised.
"Don’t jinx it," Talia muttered.
"We make a good team."
Everyone turned to look at Aegis.
"What? We do."
"We’re not a team," Talia said quickly. "This is temporary."
"Everything’s temporary if you think about it," Sophie said philosophically.
"That’s not—"
A roar shook the tunnel. Not a spider screech. Something bigger. Something angrier.
"What was that?" Liora whispered.
Aegis remembered this part from the game. The first floor boss. A Tunnel Wurm, basically a nightmare worm with too many teeth and a bad attitude. Level 15, with an acid spit attack that could melt armor.
[We can take it.]
"Boss fight," she said, grinning.
"Boss what?" Talia’s yellow eyes went wide.
Another roar. Closer. Stone dust drifted from the ceiling.
"We should run," Scarlett said, already backing up. Sophie clung to her shoulders like a koala with anxiety.
"No, wait! We can take it."
"Take what?" Talia demanded.
The tunnel wall exploded.
The Wurm’s head burst through in a shower of stone and saliva—a circular mouth full of rotating teeth, each one the size of Aegis’s forearm. Its body was thick as a tree trunk, covered in plates that glistened with acidic mucus.
"THAT?" Scarlett shouted.
"Trust me!"
The Wurm lunged. Everyone scattered except Aegis, who rolled forward, under its jaw. Her daggers found the soft flesh between armor plates. Green blood spurted, hissing where it hit stone.
The Wurm reeled back, screaming.
"See? It bleeds!"
"Everything bleeds!" Talia shot ice at its face. The spell splashed harmlessly off its armor.
"Well, if it bleeds, we can kill it!"
The Wurm spat acid. They dove in different directions as the green liquid ate through stone where they’d been standing.
"Fine!" Aegis shouted. "Everyone die your own way!"
Sophie laughed hysterically from Scarlett’s shoulders.
"This is insane!"
Scarlett charged with a war cry that was half brave, half terrified. Her sword struck armor and bounced off with a clang that hurt to hear. The Wurm’s tail whipped around, catching her in the stomach. She flew backward, Sophie somehow still attached.
"Scarlett!"
Talia’s hands glowed white-blue. Ice erupted from the ground, climbing the Wurm’s body. For a moment it was frozen, a sculpture of teeth and rage.
Then it flexed. Ice shattered everywhere.
"Any other brilliant ideas?" Talia panted.
Aegis watched the Wurm move. In the game, it had a pattern. Three attacks, then a pause to gather acid. The pause was only two seconds, but—
"When it stops moving, hit it with everything!"
"When it stops—"
The Wurm attacked. Once, twice, three times, its mouth snapping at air where they’d been standing. Then it paused, throat bulging as acid gathered.
"NOW!"
Aegis’s daggers flew. Scarlett’s sword sang through air. Talia’s ice became a spear of frozen death. Even Liora threw a rock.
Everything hit at once.
The Wurm’s scream shattered their ears. It thrashed, spraying green blood that smoked against stone. Its armor cracked. Flesh showed through.
"Again!" Aegis shouted. "Same pattern!"
Three more attacks. Another pause. Another barrage.
The Wurm wobbled.
"Is it working?" Sophie asked, upside-down on Scarlett’s shoulders.
"I think—"
The Wurm’s final attack caught Aegis across the ribs. She flew, hit the wall, tasted copper. The world spun.
[Okay, ow.]
"AEGIS!"
Multiple voices. Running feet. The Wurm rearing back for a killing blow—
Ice. So much ice. Talia stood with both hands raised, frost spreading from her feet, her face twisted with effort. The Wurm froze mid-strike.
Scarlett’s sword took its head off.
The frozen head shattered when it hit the ground. The body collapsed, twitching. Green blood pooled, eating into stone.
Silence except for panting.
"Did we just..." Liora stared at the corpse.
"We killed it," Sophie said with awe.
"We almost died," Talia corrected. She knelt beside Aegis, hands already glowing with healing magic. "You absolute idiot."
"We won though."
"That’s not the point!"
The healing felt warm. Talia’s hands were gentle on Aegis’s ribs.
"You knew we could beat it," Scarlett said. Not a question.
"I had faith."
"In what?"
"You guys."
Everyone stared at her. Then Scarlett laughed. Not her usual boisterous laugh, but something quieter.
"You’re insane."
They helped Aegis stand. Her ribs ached but held. The Wurm’s corpse was already dissolving, leaving behind a few scales and a puddle of acid that would probably be there forever.
"We should go," Talia said. "Before something else shows up."
"Something else?" Liora’s voice pitched higher.
"These things usually guard something," Aegis said without thinking.
Everyone looked at her.
"How do you know that?"
"Lucky guess?"
Talia’s eyes narrowed but before she could interrogate further, Sophie pointed at the hole the Wurm had made.
"Look!"
Through the hole was a chamber. Not a tunnel, but an actual room with worked stone and everything. Something glinted in the darkness.
"Treasure?" Scarlett perked up.
"Probably trapped," Talia said.
"Definitely trapped," Aegis agreed.
They looked at each other.
"We’re going in anyway, aren’t we?" Liora sighed.
"Obviously," Sophie said.
They climbed through the hole. The chamber was small, maybe ten feet across. In the center sat a chest that absolutely screamed ’trap’ with every fiber of its existence.
"Nobody touch—"
Sophie had already opened it.
"SOPHIE!"
Nothing happened. Inside was a single item: an amulet on a silver chain. It pulsed with soft blue light.
"Amulet of Shared Experience," Aegis read in a whisper from the inscription. Her HUD confirmed it:
Party members gain 25% of the experience earned by Aegis Starcaller
[Wait a second... That means that they benefit from my training too? Maybe not, but if they do, that means me having sex with people would actually make them stronger too!]
"What?"
"Uh, nothing. Come on, let’s head out."