The forest hummed with the aggressive vitality of summer. In the week since Adimia and Reben's training and farming endeavors began, the Mana Zone seemed to have grown thicker, the air heavy with the scents of pine and herbs.

  Paley moved through the undergrowth, his manner demonstrating growing experience and strength. His internal reservoir had deepened; he could feel the hum of thirty 'coins' of mana within him, a significant jump from the fragile five he'd started with.

  "Target on the left," Hig whispered, crouching behind a fern, his breathing so loud it would have been enough to startle a deaf animal.

  Paley didn't need the warning. He had already sensed the vibrations in the soil using his newly acquired, though still barebones, Sound Magic. A Spine-Boar, a nasty Tier I creature, was rooting for truffles. Paley raised a hand. He summoned a spike of earth, condensed and sharp, and drove it upward through the boar's chest.

  It was over in a second; clean and efficient.

  "Nice kill!" Adimia cheered, bursting out from the bushes behind them, brandishing a chipped iron sword Paley had bought from a pawnbroker with the last hunt's earnings. Adimia had insisted on using his hand-carved wooden sword, but Paley refused. He rushed the carcass, eager to help butcher it.

  Paley sighed, stepping out of the shadows. "Adimia, you were supposed to stay back."

  "I was back!" Adimia protested, hacking at the boar's tough hide to remove the tusks. "I was guarding the rear."

  "We're three people walking in a line," Paley said dryly, "The rear is like three more feet away."

  Paley looked at Hig, who just shrugged helplessly. Adimia wasn't supposed to be here. Madella had strictly forbidden him, a non-magical child, from entering the Mana Zone. But Adimia had overheard Paley discussing a plan to hunt a Tier II monster for a bigger payout and had threatened to tell Madella unless he could come along.

  It was pure and simple blackmail and Paley had folded.

  "Let me help with that," Paley said, noticing Adimia struggling to cut through the gristle with his dull blade. He reached out, mana glowing faintly on his fingertips. "I can use Earth magic to make it better-"

  "No!" Adimia yanked the sword away, clutching it to his chest. "Don't touch it."

  "It would make it easier for you," Paley reasoned.

  "It's my sword," Adimia snapped, his eyes flashing with a defensive heat despite Paley having bought the sword for him. "If you make it better with magic, then it's just you doing the cutting. I need to do this. I need to know I can do this."

  Paley dropped his hand. He remembered the look on Adimia's face when Reben beat him in their sparring matches this past week. It was the fear of being obsolete. "Okay. Do it your way."

  They spent the next three hours scouring the Mana Zone for the prize Paley sought - a Tier II monster. But the forest was quiet. The dangerous beasts were hiding, leaving only the small fry. By the time the sun began to dip, casting long, bruised shadows through the trees, they had nothing but the boar tusks and a few medicinal herbs Hig had stepped on.

  "We should head back, we won't find anything in this area today." Paley announced, disappointedly wiping sweat from his brow. "Mother will worry too if we're too late."

  Adimia kicked a stone, frustrated. "We can go a bit deeper." He suggested.

  "No," Paley said firmly, "From what Hig told us, the Mana Zone's monsters grow more dangerous the closer to the center you go. Mana Zones too have tiers. We don't know what tier this one is; we could encounter monsters of even Tier III."

  "We can take on a Tier III! You defeated a Tier II on your own. With three of us we can definitely take on-"

  "That's not how it works. A Tier II monster is ten times as strong as a Tier I. A Tier III monster is ten times as strong as a Tier II. That means a Tier III monster is one hundred times stronger than that boar."

  Adimia met Paley with silence, not to be rude but to process. "My maths isn't good! I don't understand. How much is a hundred?"

  Paley sighed. "A lot. Let's just go back." He was disappointed more than anyone, splitting the reward evenly with Hig would only leave them with 70 copper.

  They walked in silence for a while, the mood sour. Adimia marched ahead, swinging his sword at tall grass, shoulders tense. Paley watched him, the memory of Bacha's fever and the terrifying fight with the Weynsoo replaying in his mind.

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  "I can't bring you until I find out how to make your sword into a runestone, Adimia." Paley said.

  "What?" Adimia turned, clearly offended.

  "I don't want you risking your life. Part of me is glad that we didn't find a Tier II today. I don't know if I could have protected you. Bacha almost died last time, and she was hiding."

  Adimia stopped. He turned slowly; his face flushed. "I don't need you to protect me, Paley. I'm the older brother. I'm supposed to protect you."

  "But you don't even have mag-" Paley did not realize how hurtful the words he had begun to utter were to Adimia.

  "I know!" Adimia shouted, frightening a flock of birds into the air. "I know, okay? You think I don't feel it every time you light a fire for mother or dust the whole house like it's nothing with your Air Magic?"

  Hig looked awkwardly at his boots, trying to make himself invisible.

  Adimia sat down heavily on a fallen log, "You don't understand because you're a Quimnia. You've always-"

  "You're a Quimnia!?" Hig's sudden reaction startled both Paley and Adimia.

  "We'll talk about this later, Hig. Don't tell anyone." Paley gave him a death glare to quickly shut him down. Hig gulped and listened.

  The anger drained out of Adimia, leaving him looking small. He rested his forehead on the hilt of his cheap sword.

  "See? You're the most important thing ever... I'm... so jealous..."

  Paley could not find the words to speak.

  "I wasn't always like this," Adimia murmured. "I lived in a village before. Not in Gouon. It was... nice. My father was gone, and my mother worked all the time, but I had my brother. He was cool. Like you, actually... Quiet. Strong. Nice."

  Paley decided not to say anything; he leaned against the cart that carried the boar's corpse, listening.

  "One day, the sky turned green," Adimia continued with a hollow voice. "A demon came." Just the mention of that word 'demon' sent shivers down Hig's spine, "Not a beast like these. A real demon. The worst of them. A Vamali. They called it Shaln'Shaaga. It was this giant, rotting slug as big as a castle."

  "A Vamali?" Hig gasped, "Those are legends..."

  "They're real," Adimia whispered. "A knight came to fight it. He hit it, split it open. We cheered. We thought it was over. But it wasn't dead. It exploded... into so so so many little slugs... They rained down on the village." He gripped his sword handle so tight his knuckles turned white.

  "My brother grabbed me. We ran. But there was nowhere to go. People were screaming, falling down as the slugs went inside them. They ate them from the inside out." Adimia swallowed hard. "One landed on my head. I felt it try to get in my mouth."

  The image was visceral, horrifying; it made Hig want to vomit.

  "My brother stopped. He grabbed the slug and ripped it out of my mouth. He fought it for a while, just holding it back. I fell down. I felt... so empty. Like someone had drained me of my literal blood. It was cold. I was so tired. The slug took something really important out of me."

  "Your magic," Paley realized aloud.

  Adimia nodded. "It ate my mana. I'm sure of it. All of my mana. Forever. I was too weak to move. I just... watched as the slug... beat him. It crawled into him."

  Tears streamed down Adimia's face, but he didn't wipe them away.

  "I passed out when he stopped screaming. I thought I was dead. but when I woke up... I was alive. I don't know why, man, but that slug hadn't eaten me. But... I remembered hearing a voice. Not my brother's. It was deep, like dark too, and... it was so sad. It sounded like it had gone through so much pain..." Adimia looked up at Paley, his eyes haunted. "It said, 'Forgive me, Adimia.'"

  "Next thing I knew," Adimia wiped his nose, "I was in a carriage. A slave carriage. Everyone else there was dark. I'd heard the stories - that the dark people, the Daemnegs, they summoned Demons. I hated them. I thought they summoned that thing. I wanted to kill them."

  "But then," Adimia's voice softened, filled with reverence instead of vitriol, "The roof just ripped open. A knight in this awesome silver armour came. He didn't say anything. He broke our chains, gave us money and took me to this orphanage. He saved me."

  Adimia looked at his cheap sword. "That's why I have to be a knight. Because without that hero... I'd be dead, or a slave. I have to pay it back. Even if I don't have magic. I have to."

  The forest was silent. Hig was openly crying, dabbing his eyes with a silk handkerchief.

  Paley stared at the ground. The story sat heavy in his chest. The trauma, the loss, the feeling of being powerless - it vibrated against the walls of his own amnesia. He felt a terrifying empathy for the voice that had asked for forgiveness, and a burning rage for the creature that had caused Adimia's pain.

  "I don't remember my past- or, I don't want to remember," Paley said softly, breaking the silence. "But I do know that it was painful. I can feel it. In my heart. I think I'll keep the door to those memories closed."

  He walked over and placed a hand on Adimia's shoulder.

  "I do know one thing, Adimia. This world is cruel. It eats us. Without people like that knight... it would be unbearable." Paley looked Adimia in the eyes. "So I hope... I hope we can be the good that counterbalances this shit hole of a life."

  Adimia sniffled, then blinked, a sudden, wet laugh bubbling up. "Did... did you just swear?"

  "What?" Paley blinked. "No."

  "You did!" Adimia grinned, wiping his face. "You said 'shit hole'. Oh Leia. Paley swore! I'm telling mother!"

  "I was making a point! The swear was for emphasis." Paley defended, feeling heat rise in his cheeks.

  "Nope. You're in trouble," Adimia teased, standing and sheathing his sword. He looked lighter, as if sharing the story had siphoned some of the weight of it.

  Hig let out a contented sigh, looking between the two of them with a goofy smile.

  "What are you smiling about?" Adimia asked, eyeing the noble.

  "Nothing," Hig said, puffing out his chest. "It's just... honestly? I feel like you guys are my first real friends."

  Paley and Adimia looked at each other. They looked at Hig. Then they gave awkward expressions.

  "Y-Yeah. That's nice." Adimia said.

  "I guess... we are?" Paley said, a genuine smile touching his lips as he restarted their walk home.