After the hour is over, I'm not too exhausted. I might not be able to use enhanced absorption during a fight, but the increase in mana helped a lot. We leave the association after thanking the instructor for his help; once we are outside, Sam gets a phone call.
"Hey, yeah sure thing. Mind if I invite the group over? Alright, love you." he says and hangs up the phone. "You guys want to eat over at my place?"
We all agree, I'm a little embarrassed, but I also want to make a good impression, so they keep me for future raids. Sam's house is quite far from the association, it takes us about 35 minutes to arrive. It's a simple one-story house, although calling it humble would also be too much. Sam opens the door and asks us to leave our weapons by the entrance. His wife comes to greet us, she looks younger than Sam, her short hair helps with that.
They all greet each other; Chris and Anna are very familiar with Sam's family. I introduce myself to Clair, Sam's wife, and enter the dining room. Inside, I spot a small girl sitting in one of the chairs, she looks around 6 years old. Anna quickly makes her way to the girl and they start talking earnestly.
"Chris!" the girl spots Chris and runs towards him.
He picks her up and says, "Hey there, Abby, how have you been?"
I awkwardly take a sit, not knowing how to approach the situation. Clair comes and sits beside me, she strikes up a conversation,
"Hey, Will. My husband said this would be your first dungeon, is that right?"
"O-oh, yeah, he is really nice for allowing me in the team despite that fact," I answer.
"Mhm, he's always been like that. You better learn fast, I won't forgive you if something happens to him," she says with a playful smile.
"Of course! Don't worry, I'll try my hardest!"
She giggles and stands up, entering the kitchen; Anna laughs at me and shakes her head. 'What?' A couple of seconds later, Sam and Clair come out of the kitchen with the food and plates. We all sit down and start eating, Abby asks Chris to tell him stories about the dungeons. Chris complies and begins telling her a story that involves her dad saving him from some ghouls. Abby almost forgets to eat her food due to how entranced she is by the story.
We all stop our small talk to listen to Chris's story. Every now and then, Anna chimes in, telling him not to exaggerate certain parts. Abby gasps at the description of ghouls and screams in excitement when Sam appears to save Chris. I look at Clair, expecting her to be proud of her husband, but that's not what I see. She looks troubled, the same face Tom makes whenever I mention anything related to dungeon. I finally realize the reality of the wholesome looking family. 'They must be in a tight spot, despite Sam having a wife and daughter, he still risks his life. Just like Tom, Clair knows they don't have any better options, but she still doesn't like the idea of losing her husband. Hopefully, Abby keeps thinking of her dad as a hero.'
After Chris finishes his story, small talk resumes. Somehow, the topic of awakenings is brought up. It seems like they all already talked about how they awakened, but they still do a short summary for me.
"One day, I woke up and could feel mana, that's it," says Chris.
"For me, it happened during class. Out of nowhere a rush of mana filled the room, everyone was surprised. It took me a couple of seconds to finally realize what had happened," says Anna.
I turn to Sam, waiting for him to tell me his story. His face looks like he doesn't want to remember a bad memory, yet he tells the story,
"It was during the first dungeons, no one knew what they were; every government was studying them 24/7. After 7 days, they all broke at the same time. A stampede of monsters came pouring out of every dungeon, one of those dungeons was near our home. Some goblins stumbled into our house, I tried to fend them off, but they were too strong. Thankfully, in the heat of the moment, I felt myself be filled with strength. My awakening saved our lives."
That day was 5 years ago, as we all remember the terror, the mood grows somber. Before it can get any worse, Clair says,
"Anyway, what about you? How did you awaken?" she asks, looking at me.
"Um, nothing fancy, I bought an awakening stone. I'm the only one that can provide in my family, and my job at the time wasn't cutting it," I answer.
Sam nods in understanding while Clair looks concerned again. At this point everyone had finished eating, so we start to stand up and clean up the table. While Chris and Anna wash the dishes, Sam and I go to the living room. Abby and Clair are helping to clean up the kitchen. When we are alone, Sam looks at me and asks,
"So, your family, how many of you are there?"
"Its just my brother Tom and I, our parents died during the break," I answer.
"Ah, I'm sorry…" he replies.
"Don't mind it, everyone lost something that day," I say.
"Still, how old where you? Barely 20? So young, yet you lose your parents and have to become responsible for your brother. I know you were a porter for some time, but porters only popped up about a year after the break. What did you do before that?" he asks.
"Small jobs here and there, I relied a lot on my parents' savings during that time," I reply.
"Well, I hope your burden eases up now. E rank may not be much, but it's a lot better than a porter. You also have us, so don't worry too much about dying to a shitty rat," he says with a gentle smile.
Alan appears behind Sam and says, "Yeah William, you have such an amazing group. Are you going to kill them too?"
"Everything alright?" ask Sam.
"Huh? Yeah, a little tired that's all," my words are unconvincing.
"Oh, you are you worried about the armor I told you to get? Give me a second," he says, as he stands up.
He opens the hallway closet and rummages through it. After a couple of seconds, he pulls out an old set of leather armor and says,
"Here, it isn't much, but it's free."
"Are you sure? I could buy one of my own," I say despite that being false.
"Of course, I'm sure, it doesn't even fit me anymore and I have something better now," he says while tossing me the armor. "Arrive early tomorrow and I'll help you put it on."
"T-thank you so much Sam," I say.
"You are welcome kid."
The rest of the day is rather quiet, we chat for about another hour and then bid farewell. I make sure to thank Sam for the armor and the meal again, and only then do I leave his house. It takes me another hour to get back home, all the way I'm thinking about finally resting. But life has one more thing for me, the thing is waiting for me at home.
"Hello William, what a surprise it is to see you arrive. I half expected you to spend the night outside without telling me again," says Tom in a serious voice. He sounds like a wife that suspects his husband of cheating.
"Shit! I totally forgot to text you, the meeting with my team evolved into training and then into lunch. What did you make for lunch? I'll eat it anyway!" I say.
"Of course, you are going to eat it, but don't be an idiot, you'll have it for dinner," he answers. "From now on I'll cook for myself unless to tell me you are coming; it will be your fault if you don't get food."
"Alright, alright," I answer.
After that scolding, I talk to Tom about my new teammates. We talk about whether they look like good people or not. Just like the others, Tom doesn't like Daniel, but agrees that nothing too bad has happened. I also mention the training we did and how experienced the others are at working together. Then, I tell him about lunch and Sam's family, being careful not to mention the talks of the break. All caught up now, Tom seems a little more at ease, he thinks that aside from Daniel, the group looks good.
We finish talking and I decide to rest a little. In my room, I go online and do some research into the monsters that appear in E rank dungeons. Their habits, attack patterns, weak spots, etc., but I can't find much. No one really cares about E rank monsters anymore, so they don't bother with extensive research. The most I could find are a couple of weak spots for hellhounds and ghouls. Thanks to the lack of info, I decide to train instead.
Although I already trained a little today, that wasn't enough for me. The combat simulation opened my eyes in regard to enhanced absorption. If I can use it without losing any focus on the battle, the amount of time I can fight for is going to skyrocket. With that in mind, I practice some spear drills while trying to engage enhanced absorption. Even without any actual enemies, my form still gets sloppy due to a loss of focus. If I added some claws trying to behead me, things would get a lot worse.
The water slash remains unimproved, I can't practice it in the house, but even I could, the dirty lake still puzzles me. Tom interrupts my training, telling me dinner is ready. 'It's already that late? I guess time flies by when you are focused.' After dinner, we both decide it's time to sleep, both of us have to wake up early after all. I take a quick shower, change into pajamas, brush my teeth and head to bed. As soon as I cover myself with the blankets, my consciousness fades…
Another dream, Zaun is taller than last time, but not at his full height. He is surrounded by humans; they are wearing light armor and are armed. We are in a dense forest; the trees obscure my vision. The group is tense, they are anticipating something, soon, I see what that something is. Goblins jump out from the bushes and trees; they all have makeshift weapons. The skirmish begins with one of the people dying to two goblins, he was the closest to a bush. Zaun reacts slowly, even though he knew it was coming, he is still surprised. The others aren't any better, they clumsily defend themselves from the goblins, causing them to gain some injuries.
After the initial attack, the humans start to retaliate, but their attacks are hurried and weak. Everyone of them seems to lack experience with killing monsters, they are acting just like I did in training. But this is worse, unlike my training, their mistakes have consequences. Zaun trades a couple of blows with a goblin, only to get slashed in the leg by another one from the side. A woman comes to his side, killing the goblin that slashed at his leg. Zaun and the woman proceed to overwhelm the other goblin and kill him too, afterwards, they help their companions.
Despite the successful ambush, the goblins still lose, they appear to be a lot weaker than the humans. The victory tastes sour though, the group that originally contained 6 people, now only has 3.
"Damn it! How did we lose 3 people to some stupid goblins!" says the woman.
"Don't get that upset, look. There are 2 mana stones that I can see, and I bet there are more," says Zaun.
"What?! Do you think 3 lives are worth some stupid stones!?" the woman yells at Zaun in anger.
"I didn't say that, but we can't change the fact that they died. Let's just take the loot and go, right Ch-."
Zaun was turning towards the third person, when a blade pierces his torso.
"Don't take it personally, I can't let this much money go away," he says.
"What the fuck!" the woman yells and tries to run away, but the man doesn't let that happen. He pulls out a knife and throws it, the knife whistles as it flies towards its target. The action is followed by a low thud as it the blade impales the woman's back and she falls to the ground. The man pulls out his sword from Zaun's chest and walks to the goblins; the dream ends. I sit up in my bed, the feeling of having a sword in my chest remains.
'Well, that's ominous.'