Aftermath

Lorn couldn't see any more imps surrounding them, and looking at Danton plopping onto the ground with a sigh, there mustn't have been any enemies besides the five of them.

"Are you alright?" Sybil asked, her voice laden with concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It was a bit scary when the arrow hit my neck… but I guess it hit a not-so-bad spot. I didn't really feel much pain and my movements weren't impaired either."

Sybil checked the wound and seeing nothing wrong, sighed out in relief.

"Hey, even if I die… I guess I'll wake up all the way back in Belo, so it's still bad. Anyway, I won't die so easily," Lorn spoke in a lighthearted tone.

What was the point of being Undying if you couldn't even joke about it properly, right?

"Please don't say stuff like that. No matter how immortal you are, death is still not something you can make light of. And no matter how confident in yourself you may be, you are still no omniscient. Ambushes and sneak attacks will still catch you off guard."

Lorn nodded. "But that sneak attack shouldn't have been possible in the first place," Lorn murmured.

They both looked over at Danton. Adrian was scolding Danton, and Yara stood awkwardly at the edge. Noticing Lorn and Sybil, she beckoned them over. Lorn held up his two fingers and Yara nodded. She smiled knowingly at the end and winked suggestively at the end.

"What happened between you two anyway?" Lorn asked.

"Danton?"

"Yeah."

"Nothing."

Despite asking, Lorn had a general idea.

"Did he confess to you or something?"

Sybil paused abruptly, and sighed.

"How did you know?"

"Yara mentioned it," Lorn said. "Didn't say what exactly she did, but she said that she noticed Danton acting weirdly the previous night."

"Now that you mention it, Danton was sitting alone when I woke up to talk to him. He should've had Yara with him. I woke her up after all."

Sybil looked over at the other group again.

"Leave them alone for a bit," Lorn said. "We can take a couple minute break."

Sybil smiled awkwardly. "Today's probably my fault," she muttered.

"..."

'I guess she's this kind of person…' Lorn sighed. 'But since she's like this, I can't just answer randomly.'

Thinking for a bit, Lorn spoke.

"Yeah, I guess it is," he said. "In some twisted way."

Sybil looked up at him with some surprise. Seeing that Lorn was serious, she looked down again. She put her hands on her knees and laid her head onto it, hiding from the world.

The words people usually said in this situation were the opposite. 'Of course it's not your fault', 'How could you think that?', etc. etc.

But surprisingly, the correct way to answer was to agree. If a person was feeling like shit, denying those shitty emotions wasn't helpful. That only served to make them feel worse. Their heart's feeling like shit, but now their head's saying there's no need to feel like shit. 'Why am I being so difficult for no reason?' they think and feel even worse.

Gently, Lorn put his hand on Sybil's shoulder. "If you said something different to Danton last night, maybe he would've been more alert today and none of this would've happened."

Lorn had to say it out loud for her. Sybil herself wasn't going to say something this childish and embarrassing. But the problem was, her head was filled with these stupid, almost self-victimizing thoughts. Someone had to acknowledge them for her.

Sybil didn't move. But Lorn knew she felt connected to him.

"It's okay to feel like shit," Lorn continued. "It's okay to be in the wrong as well. It's okay to make mistakes, be a fuck up. Just know I'll be there to go through it with you."

Sybil silently leaned onto Lorn. She didn't cry. The two sat like that for a few moments before she raised her head.

"Feeling better?" Lorn asked.

"Mm," she nodded.

"Then let's go to the others," Lorn said, ruffling her hair.

As they walked, they could hear Adrian ranting to Danton.

"Do you know why trackers are the most in-demand branch of rogues, despite being nigh-useless in battle? After all, every other class hits harder than you, tanks more than you, and runs faster than you."

"It's because they provide precious information."

"Exactly! It's because they prevent ambushes like these from ever happening due to one simple skill they possess: Soul Sense. Use the skill every thirty minutes and you'll notice even Possessed spiders lurking around."

"I… I had some trouble sleeping yesterday," Danton said. "It won't happen again."

Adrian was venting and rightfully so. But it did feel a bit too much.

"At least no one died," Yara said.

"Clay died," Sybil sighed.

"Oh," Yara said and turned her head.

Lorn looked over where the soulless were. Clay's body was impaled with three arrows. His dead, still eyes were open, staring emotionlessly at an imp's corpse near his face. Arty walked over the two of them, gathering their intact possessions in one place.

'Fuck,' he thought and looked at Sybil.

Thankfully, she didn't look that shaken. Lorn expected her self-blame to flare up with Clay's death, but she seemed okay. At least from what Lorn could tell.

"Let's clean up first," Lorn suggested. "We can talk later."

Sybil and Yara nodded silently. Danton made no gesture, but Lorn could tell he was happy his scolding were done for now. Adrian still seemed furious, but he agreed.

Clay was burned some distance away from the camp and everyone prayed once for him and that was it. Even Lorn was surprised at how little he felt at Clay's death. Perhaps it was natural. The soulless never bothered to strike conversation, and aside from the times they gave them orders, they were practically invisible.

Afterwards, the group gathered their stuff and took turns absorbing the imps souls. Sybil and Lorn received fewer shares because they absorbed the Leshy's soul before, but with this, their debt was paid. Since they were only lesser monsters, they didn't offer that big of a boost, but it was still twice or thrice more filling than a Possessed's soul.

Then, they started fixing the stuff that the imps destroyed. Some of their clothes were pierced by arrows, and their caravan was trashed. Sybil and Yara started sewing, leaving the men to fix the caravan somehow. Lorn had no idea what he was supposed to do, so he just did whatever the other two told him to do.

After everything was done, Lorn then checked his mirror to see the notifications.

As he expected, quite a few skills leveled up. Spirit burst went up by three, his Fog related skills went up by two, Hub of Consciousness and Mental Inducement by one, Rejuvenation and Draconic Vitality by one, and finally, his growth skills, Halo of the Leader and Twin Prosperity by one each.

Though Lorn trained diligently in his spare time, the skills naturally grew much quicker in dire situations.

But Lorn was still worried by how far his Willpower stat was leaving the others behind. It already reached 38.9, almost nearing Sybil. The next biggest stat was Sense, which stood at a comfortable 16.4.

Moreover, his Faith skill also caught up to Lorn's next smallest stat, Dexterity. They both stood at 3.4

Lorn had yet to see Probability Alteration work, but he was confident he would see it in actions soon.

Suddenly, a new notification popped up.

[Halo of the Leader: Thanks to your party members' efforts, you've accumulated 3 SM (Skill Mastery) points. Lv.1 skills take 1 point to level up, Lv.2 skills take 2 points, Lv.3 skills take 3 points, etc. Please choose a skill.]

Lorn thought of putting all the points in Probability Alteration for a bit, but eventually deciding on Mental Inducement. The previous level up unlocked the 'Fear' state, but the new level up unlocked something interesting. 'Tranquility'.

He quickly understood that the state was supposed to be used on allies or oneself.

Silently, he made part of his spirit imperceptible and ever-so-slightly induced tranquility on Adrian. The man had quieted down, but he was still very much pissed. He looked just about ready to send Danton to the shadow realm.

But when the skill affected him, he paused slightly. He looked around and although Lorn feared that he was found out, the reason Adrian was looking around was for something else. Adrian looked embarrassed, almost.

Lorn checked his emotions and sure enough, a pink hue covered his heart and mind.

'Did he get embarrassed for acting out like that?' Lorn wondered. 'Maybe he's a 'nice' guy…'

Nice guys were always dependable and always willing to help, but if things didn't go their way, they tended to overreact and show their ugly sides. Usually, Adrian was the quiet, brooding type in the group. But during that attack and the aftermath, he was awfully talkative.

He kept hurling insults and emotions at Danton and only when everyone agreed to disperse for a bit, he went quiet. But even then, he was grumbling stuff under his breath.

Only when tranquility came over his mind, he realized how he was acting and was embarrassed by the fact.

Nice guys weren't inherently bad people. Sure, some were clueless, and some took things too far, but most were self-aware and wanted to change for the better. Adrian was probably the latter.

Nobody wanted to be an asshole. They just couldn't help it.

Lorn's guess turned out correct when they reconvened. Adrian admonished Danton in a calm, collected manner, reminding him not to make a similar mistake again. Lorn didn't bother to kick a man who was already down and Sybil did the same. Only Yara made some inappropriate joke about giving Danton enough time to settle his 'businesses' privately, or else he would be too distracted to do his job properly.

The rest of the day's trip was uneventful. With Danton doing his job properly, the group hunted the monsters and beasts on their way and trained their skills in the spare time. As Lorn had received many new skills, the frequency at which they leveled up was pretty good.

Night came once more, and he was once again sitting before a fire with Sybil. He expected the night to be silent like the others, but Sybil spoke up.

"I've never really talked about myself, did I?"

***