"Is that… a lizard?" Blue frowned. Despite having seen the notification for the dungeon quest, she was still on high alert.

  "I'm not sure, but it seems familiar, doesn't it?" Mark stared at the monster that had suddenly appeared.

  The small lizard had light green skin with two white stripes on its sides and a little blue diamond shape mark on its forehead.

  "Wait, isn't that the lizard we saved at the beginning?" Hera asked. She was sure it was the same creature, not only that, the pattern on its sides was very similar to the one on Tanika's body. The explorer activated her [Observe] to confirm her suspicion.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Tanika's Soul

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The lizard started to glow and become translucent. The light slowly started to spread across Tanika's corpse. Specs of light floated from the deceased, bloated creature, each particle seemingly made the body even harder to see. When it was completely gone, the small lizard, now floating in the air, crumbled as well, giving the group a nod and a smile before its face vanishing.

  "Oh, so I guess that thing still had some good in it," Leo smiled and looked at Tiger. The rain frog squeaked in agreement.

  "Yeah, it's kind of nice that we managed to help it," Blue turned to Alex, "Still think we are not the good guys?"

  "Meh, a fight is a fight. I'm not going to be cruel for shits and giggles, but I'm not going to be bothered by whatever this is," the assassin replied with a shrug.

  "Yeah, but where is the mana stone?" Mark asked, looking around.

  "Check your tablet. There is a rewards icon. If you tap it, the item you got will materialize. But you should wait for us to get out of here before getting it," Bonnie explained.

  The sound of Hera vomiting stopped the conversation. She had kneeled by one of the pools and was in the process of returning her lunch to the wilds.

  "Hera? Are you ok?" Blue rushed towards her friend.

  "I'm fi-" she threw up once more. She had just killed a kind creature. If the soul were still there, there could be a way to save Tanika. Yet, she chose to take the easy way out and kill the creature. A creature that was so caring that it wished to die in order not to hurt anything.

  And she had killed it.

  How could she say she was any better than the emperor? She had killed him for power, and now she killed the lizard for money.

  "Gimme a pearl. The poison must have gotten to her," Blue commanded.

  "No, it's not. Sorry," Hera raised her head. A few tears had streamed down her face.

  "What do you mean, fine? You just threw up," Blue placed a pearl on Hera's arm, hoping to trigger it. The pearl did nothing.

  "I told you, it's not the poison," Hera used the clean water of another pool to clean her mouth.

  "Ok, but what the hell just happened?" Leo was holding his spear as if he was ready to attack something.

  "I... I don't want to talk about it," Hera said, avoiding the hunter's gaze.

  "Are you pregnant or something?" Mark sounded exasperated.

  Hera chuckled, "If I am, I'm starting a religion."

  "Ok, but what happened?" Blue pressed, not letting go of the subject.

  "I... Can we talk about it later?" Hera looked away, slumping her shoulders.

  Her friends had already been very patient. It wasn't right to keep them in the dark now that this had become an issue.

  There was a long pause before Blue, letting out a long sigh, "Fine, but we are talking before the next run."

  With the dungeon over, they took the chance to check what they gained as drops. In total, they found 1,450 gold, another block of clay, a few more pearls as well as one pearl the size of a bowling ball at the largest pool.

  It couldn't be moved as it was in the very center of the pool where they fought against Tanika. Touching, it generated a prompt asking if they wanted to activate the pearl. There was a brief discussion, but everyone agreed that they should use it.

  The sphere started glowing, and the light spread out. In front of them, a wide shot of the valley appeared as a notification, showing the view from the entrance. The live feed showed the light coming from the other side and quickly covered the entire screen. A few moments later, the light vanished, and the image showed a valley completely free of poison. Even the purple fog above was no longer there.

  In total, it took them about 3 hours to complete the dungeon. Meaning that they could still go for another run after taking one or two hours to rest.

  As they made the walk back to the entrance, a few creatures appeared which put them on edge. However, neither the frogs, the snakes, nor the lizards were aggressive towards them. They all just watched from a distance, giving a strange sense of admiration. With that, the group relaxed and started talking as if they were strolling through the woods.

  "Hey, Bonnie. Are you good to say what the hell was that whole contract thing?" Leo was carrying Tiger since the small rain frog would slow down the group too much if he were walking. .

  "Oh... Yeah, I guess I never explained to you," Bonnie let out a sigh, "Ok, first. The thing about me being married off was my mistake."

  "Wait, what?" Hera gasped.

  "I never told you about that part?" Bonnie tilted her head.

  "No you didn't," Blue huffed.

  "Well. Basically, the first version of the contract my Dad sent to threaten my mother was a mess. It had a bunch of technical legal terms, and I completely misunderstood. The marriage thing was actually about making me work on some specific companies, so forget about all that."

  Some of the monsters in the dungeon started to follow the group along, almost as if they were listening in to the story.

  "The entire contract was bogus. My father attempted to pressure my mother into telling me about my birth. That's why we had to pay back every gold he ever spent on me. It would start at 10 thousand gold a month, and in a year it would grow to a few million every month," Bonnie continued the explanation, giving everyone the full breakdown since Mark wasn't around for the start of that mess.

  "Is that even legal?" Mark frowned. He was ready to fire some arrows at the monsters, but he wasn't aiming at anyone specifically.

  "Short answer is, sort of. Long answer is, depends on who's your lawyer. Technically speaking, as long as you not are breaking a law, there is nothing you can't put in a contract. Still, it doesn't matter. The whole thing was to pressure my mom into bringing me back to my father."

  "That still is super messed up. Especially considering your dad basically paid your mother to have you," Blue shook her head.

  "What?" Mark almost dropped his arrow.

  "Yeah. Basically, my dad wanted an heir and hired my mother to have his child. And no, they didn't fuck. It was through artificial insemination," Bonnie sighed, already being tired of repeating this story, "Anyway. Bullshit contract, my mom told me about my birth, my father lost his leverage and now that's kind of it. He's saying I have to go back, or he will no longer be my father. Mom says that's bull, but at the same time, I wouldn't care if that was the case."

  "But you are super rich, aren't you?" Alex turned to the Controller.

  "My father is. I didn't have access to that money," Bonnie replied.

  "How rich are we talking about?" Mark asked, trying and failing to play it cool.

  "Her father is the CEO of Kaizer Industries," Blue replied.

  "WHAT?!" Mark shouted, his voice echoing across the entire valley, "Can I pitch you a business idea?" he followed it up without missing a beat.

  "I just told you that I don't have access to his money," Bonnie rolled her eyes.

  "And how are things with your mother?" Hera said in a low voice, giving the Researcher a chance to reply so only she could hear.

  Bonnie smiled, replying in a loud enough voice so everyone could hear, "I know my mom loves me, but the whole thing is just so weird. It's hard to talk to her right now."

  "Still, don't be too hard on her. Show that you still care. Take that from someone who has a long road to fix family relationships," Mark gave a sad smile.

  There was a moment of silence before Blue finally broke the tension," Do you want to talk about it?"

  "Not even a little," Mark said, grabbing his tablet.

  They changed the subject to spells and what they could use in this place, and in just around fifteen minutes, the group reached the entrance, leaving the dungeon.

  Outside it, there was a line of people waiting to get into the dungeon. Hera's group had agreed to rest a couple of hours in the settlement nearby before coming back. They headed away from the wooden gate and towards the tower. On the way, Hera noticed Runir and his group walking towards the dungeon.

  They greeted each other, but both parties wanted to keep doing their own thing. In a few minutes, Hera's group arrived back in the small village. The first thing Hera wanted to do was take a shower. The mud and water from the dungeon weren't exactly clean.

  The village also had a quick cleaning service. It was expensive, but they could clean all their gear in just half an hour. While waiting for their armor, Hera wanted to take a bath, a long, steamy bath in the hot springs. Everyone liked the idea, and they decided to stay there for part of their rest.

  Stopping by the hotel, they bought some simple clothes at the gift shop before going to the cleaners to wash their gear.

  "I want to buy some more clothes. We've been doing everything with our armor. I forgot how comfortable regular clothes were," Blue as she patted her sweatshirt and yoga pants.

  Hera had to agree. Even if she wasn't using heavy armor like the Controller, the leather pieces were not the most comfortable things to wear.

  "We could go buy some clothes after we get back... or when you get back from your trip," Alex suggested, but it was clear the assassin wasn't very excited about Blue's trip.

  "I'll bring you guys some seashells bikinis then," the Controller laughed.

  "I pass, seashells don't go well with my eyes," Bonnie replied.

  Hera was around that conversation, but she wasn't hearing. Her mind went back to the dungeon boss and the emperor. She understood that both events were supposed to happen like that. Tanika even seemed to thank the group for killing her, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was going on a path that would crush her soul.

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  They went to the hot springs first, taking a shower and then going to the heated pools of water. The girls kept talking, but Hera wasn't good company. They loudly discussed the dungeon and what happened inside it. They were even getting a few stares from other women who were relaxing in the heated waters.

  A woman with long black hair approached the group, "Ladies, I understand your excitement, but please be mindful of others."

  "I apologize, we will tone it down," Bonnie said.

  "Yeah, sorry. We didn't intend to bother anyone," Blue joined.

  "Not a problem. It was kind of refreshing to see people talking about the dungeon like that. After a while, it turns into a routine," the woman said, "Mind if I join?"

  "Not at all," Alex moved a bit to the side.

  "Thanks, I'm Cassandra, by the way," she sat by the group.

  "It's a pleasure. I'm Bonnie, and these are Blue, Alex, and Hera."

  "The pleasure is all mine," Cassandra nodded towards them, "Was this the first dungeon you ever did?"

  "No, we did the Arcanist Lookout already, but it was the first time we did the Frog Valley," Alex said.

  "Oh, the lookout is to the south, right? I've never done that one. People say it's only worth it if you get the first run after the reset," Cassandra shifted, getting a bit more comfortable sinking deeper into the water.

  "It was fun, but there were some tricky parts. Although, I think the Frog Valley is harder," Blue replied.

  "Oh, I can imagine. The first time I did the valley, we had to run away. Only a few runs later, we realized that if you toss pearls in all the pools, in the end, the boss just glows and blows up without spawning the other things,"

  "Really?" Alex gasped.

  "Yeah, did you guys beat the boss without that?" Cassandra asked.

  "Yeah, well... sort of. We cleaned a few pools, but not all," Bonnie said.

  "Oh, so you had to deal with the spawns? That is hard. But if you let the giant lizard eat every single one of them, you can get some good money with the things it... births," Cassandra explained.

  They kept talking about the dungeon and strategies. Cassandra gave some hints, including that they should give up on trying hard mode. To trigger it, you had to kill all the poison things and the snakes, but the boss would be a powered up version of the scared frog.

  It would not only be the size of the lizard boss, but the frog had lightning magic. Since they would fight around water, it was a deadly combination. Around half an hour later, they had a lot more information about the dungeon.

  "Thank you for all the advice, Cassandra," Bonnie said.

  "No worries, we explorers have to help each other," she replied.

  "Hey, Hera! She is an Explorer too," Blue turned towards her friend, trying to cheer her up.

  "I meant in a more general way, like we are all explorers. But yeah, I'm an Explorer too. It's weird to have a role that doesn't have a name," Cassandra chuckled.

  "Oh, did you get another role skill?" Hera asked.

  "Yep. I was between explorer and mage, so as soon as I could, I got the explorer's sync."

  "Oh, did you get any other role skills?" Hera asked.

  "Not yet. Why?" Cassandra asked.

  "Nothing. I just wanted to talk about something that happened on my assassin role skill test."

  "What was it? Was the bonus round weird?" Cass asked.

  "Do you know about the bonus round?" Hera turned towards the woman.

  "Yeah, I got one in the sync test and asked around. Apparently, all have a bonus round, but the difficulty in finding it varies," Cass said.

  "Oh, did you..." Hera was about to ask about Peaches. Thankfully, she stopped herself before saying anything in front of her friends, " How did you get the bonus round?"

  "Well... I had to do the test well. Then I had to find a few things. But what exactly you are going to have to figure out. If I tell you, you won't be able to get the bonus round. We are Explorers, after all. We are all about finding things," Cassandra said.

  Hera nodded. She did want some help, but understood why Cassandra wasn't sharing more about the mage role test. They stayed in the hot springs for a while longer before leaving. Meeting up with Leo and Mark, the group went towards the hotel to grab something to eat. They still had one more run to do today.

  Some time later, Hera's party was in front of the dungeon entrance once more. There were several parties already in line and a couple of others in a rest area. Hera and her friends were off to the side, discussing what they had learned with Cassandra.

  "OK, so when we are traveling, we can go through the poison fog to fight more things and get more loot. None of the lesser and basic poison creatures use any type of poison mana. Only if we get hit by that sludge that we would need to cleanse ourselves anyway," Blue was reading the notes she marked down on her tablet.

  "As I told you, we need to confirm that first. It's fine to be trusting, but we should be careful nonetheless," Bonnie was practicing some magic, trying to make a tiny version of her Air Fist spell to curve.

  "So, we are not trying the thing with the lizard?" Mark scratched the back of his head.

  "Oh, we are, and we are going to need you for that," Bonnie fired a spell into the air, which made a slight turn to the left. The change in trajectory was minimal, but it was a nice first step.

  "I'm really not confident I can hit it in the middle of the fight," Mark scratched the back of his head.

  "Worst case, we run back," Alex was wiping her dagger with a piece of cloth. She had applied some oil to it and was doing her best to maintain her weapon.

  "Ok, you are all careful about the poison, and now you are all gung ho about attacking the Greater Lizard. Why?" Leo had just given Tiger some water before heading inside the dungeon.

  "Because I'm not sure about the poison thing, but the lizard thing makes much more sense. The snake seems relatively friendly towards us. And since monsters won't drop items if they die without our interference, we should try to hit it at least. Besides, if the snake comes after us, we can kill it," the researcher while still looking at the spells she had been casting.

  "Your priorities are weird. You know that?" Alex put her cloth away.

  Bonnie just shrugged and kept talking about the strategies. After a few minutes, the group had some new ideas to clear the dungeon. While they were ironing out the last details, Blue sat beside Hera.

  "Hey, I don't want to put you on the spot or anything. But what happened back there?" the controller was speaking in a soft voice, enough for only Hera to hear.

  "I'm worried this place will change me into something awful," Hera explained.

  "Why?"

  Hera took a deep breath and explained the entire situation. About the bonus room, the emperor, and the talk she had with the king. She avoided talking about Peaches, unsure of how mentioning that would affect the Guide skill. By the end, the explorer's grip on her handaxe tightened while she held back the tears that wanted to form on her face.

  "I don't want to turn into a monster, Blue."

  "Oh, Hera... you are not going to be a monster. Far from it. You are the kindest person I know. If you were going that path, you wouldn't feel this bad about all of this," Blue placed her arm around Hera.

  "Yeah, he said the same thing," Hera replied, leaning into Blue's shoulder.

  "Who did?"

  Hera panicked. Had she just made a mistake? There was no notification, so maybe she didn't say anything that would directly reveal the Guide. The Explorer sniffed. The pause had been to long already, but a another lie to solve this situation popped into her mind.

  "The king. I freaked out in front of him after killing the emperor," Hera replied.

  "You're wrong," Blue replied bluntly.

  "What?"

  "You didn't kill the emperor. You hit a training dummy."

  Hera stared at her friend, "What do you mean?"

  "Did you feel bad when you killed the kobolds in the simulation? Or the slimes on your test?" Blue asked.

  "No, they were attacking me. It was a survival instinct," Hera replied after pondering for a moment.

  "You are focusing on the wrong thing. They were there for you to train, just like the emperor. The System made all that so you could get stronger. It was the same during training when we fought the dummies. Besides, if all the monsters were like you, the world would be a much better place," both of them chuckled at the comment.

  Blue turned to face Hera, "And look. Even if you someday turn into a cold-blooded killer, which you are not going to. But if you end up like that, I promise I'll still like you. Or beat the bad out of you if that's what you want."

  "I don't think a beating would fix that. But I'll take that offer," Hera said, getting off the Controller's shoulder, "Thanks, Blue. I'm not sure when I'll be ok with all that, but thank you for being here for me."

  "Anytime. Well... not for the next couple of weeks, but after that, anytime," Blue said with a smile.

  The group noticed that the two were having a moment and let them talk without interrupting. When they got up, they got in line to go on their next run.

  It was easier than the first time. They knew the monsters' patterns, and with the tips from Cassandra, the party managed to gather 2,453 gold and another two bricks of clay. They failed to make the Greater Poison Lizard drop anything, and the Giant Snake didn't give anything after they healed it.

  The rest of the dungeon was just more of the slugfest against the poison creatures. Cleaning all the poison pools around the boss made Tanika just keep charging and blow up all the spikes after a few moments. The hardest part were the Greater Snake and Frog, just before the final boss.

  The only problem was the reward. Now it gave no items and just 750 gold. Apparently, the 5,000 was just for the first time you beat it. The first group to complete the quest after the weekly reset would get 3,000 gold and a chance at an item.

  After the second run, the group was too tired to do anything else. The small bursts of action followed by a long walk was great exercise, but one that would exhaust you after some time. Still, they were glad that the pearl strategy worked on the boss. None of them was entirely sure if they could fight several waves of enemies again.

  During the night, Hera checked the mana stone reward. She had yet to use the elemental essence that she got from the Arcanist Lookout. Mostly because the Explorer was still unsure which she should choose. The most expensive one was the earth essence, but the spirit one could be more interesting if she wanted to use it for an enchantment. The mana stone also had a few options. It could be lightning, acid, or poison.

  According to Mark, who already had picked a lightning mana stone, one of the things she could do is to use the stone as a spell battery. That way, she could be less stingy with her spells. The lightning stone was small, just about the size of an eraser, so carrying it around wouldn't be a problem. The crafter even offered to fashion a small accessory to make using the mana stone easier. Hera decided to pick the poison mana stone since it would allow her to use her mana for buffs and recovery.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Minor Poison Mana Stone

  A stone capable of storing poison mana. It can also be charged using pure mana at a lower rate of 2:1.

  The mana inside it will be converted to poison mana regardless of the type used for the charge.

  The mana inside it can only be used to power poison mana related effects.

  Poison Mana Stored 0/500

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The stone was oval and white, much like stones one would find by a river, and just a bit bigger than a strawberry. Hera started to send her mana to the rock, and little by little, it changed color to bright orange. The same color as her poison spray. Charging the stone was easy, but using it was odd. She had to make the conscious decision of pulling the mana from the rock and not from herself. It would take a while to get used to doing that.

  During the second run, she used her spells much more. Despite the seeming weakness of the monsters, her poison needle wasn't that effective in dealing with the monsters. However, but her poison spray was surprisingly powerful against the monsters inside the fog. Having the poison mana stone also allowed her to be a bit of a healer with the Mend spell and take some more damage with her Bark Skin.

  They spent the rest of the week doing that routine, a dungeon run in the morning and another one in the afternoon. One day before they needed to head back to the city, Hera gained a level, reaching level 4.

  She got enough attribute points to increase her stats by three. To her surprise, she had 5 bonus points. She wasn't sure why, but she did accomplish a few things that could be the cause of that. The new role test, running the dungeon, getting new skills and spells. Either way, she was happy to have raised her attributes to 19.

  Mark also gained a level, reaching level 3 like the others. On the very last run, Alex also reached level 4. Leo kept complaining about how that was unfair since they were all fighting together. However, as it was her role's nature, sometimes Alex could kill the monsters on her own. After seeing Hera hunt on her own, the assassin started to pick off creatures that had strayed too far from the pack.

  Not to mention that having Tiger on the team mean that the Hunter and his pet would gain experience together.

  They managed to get another piece of the snake's skin and more clay, as well as a considerable amount of gold for each of them. Unfortunately, they only got a single rare drop, a poison core from the boss.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Poison Core

  The crystallized essence of an old poison creature. The core works as internal storage for mana and can be activated to increase a poison attack power. It can also absorb the surrounding mana to create poison mana.

  Unusable in its current state, the core needs to be treated and attached to something before working.

  It can also be infused in a piece of equipment to give it strong poison properties.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  They checked the price of the core, and it was pretty expensive. If the group sold it, they could get almost 1,000 gold each. However, since Hera was using poison spells, the group agreed to let her buy out the item. It was considerably big, about the size of a basketball but not very heavy. Before confirming she would take the core, Hera sent a text to Helena asking her opinion on the subject. It was a bit of a long shot, and in a worst-case scenario, the Mage wouldn't reply in time.

  During the night of their last day, the group went to a bar close to the inn, celebrating their haul and the moments they shared. They laughed and joked around late into the night before heading back to the inn. In the morning, they headed back to Brinnefront. Leo had to get ready to meet his battalion, and Blue needed to go home to pack for her trip. Hera also wanted to leave the MAZE, she needed to check on her apartment, and her grandmother's birthday would be on the weekend.

  When they arrived in the city, Helena replied to Hera about the core. According to the mage, the item was hard to come by, and many scholars would want to use it for their research. However, if Hera wanted to keep it, she could fashion some gear with either resistance or increased damage. Another option would be to combine the core with a mana stone to make a self-sustaining mana battery. Although the actual amount of mana it would recover would vary depending on the mana stone's size and quality.

  Hera was also discussing the possibilities with Mark, and he had some interesting ideas about how to use the core. She decided to take the item. Even after paying the rest of the group, she still had over 15,000 gold in her account.

  In one month, she made more than she would have in an entire year. Before heading out with Blue, Hera looked for a gift for her grandmother. It didn't take long to get something the Explorer was sure Grandma Triss would love.

  Right after that, Hera left the MAZE together with her friend, heading toward her apartment for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Hera Kingsley -- Role: Explorer Level: 4

  Stats:

  Strength: 19 Endurance: 19

  Agility: 19 Charisma: 19

  Intelligence: 19 Luck: 19

  Mana: 213/213

  Remaining attribute points: 1

  Skills:

  Passive:

  Exponential Growth (4)

  Observe 2

  Treasure Map

  Handaxe Combat 1, Chakram Combat 1

  Dodge 1, Run 1, Improved Stamina 1

  Active:

  All in 1

  Inspect 1

  Hide 3 (+2)

  Weapon Maintenance 1

  Local Guide

  Explorer's Assassinate (+1)

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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