A loud scream jolted the half-asleep twins from where they were bandaging a catkin’s leg. Dusk continued the motion while Dawn stood up and looked at the tent’s entrance in anticipation, unfortunately already quite used to this.

  These past two days of non-stop healing and helping the injured had somehow been even more tiring than trying to survive in a fresh rift or fighting an Epic-tier glass giant. With how many injured kept coming in, they barely even had time to break for lunch. One would think that with their low rarity healing skills, they wouldn’t have to face the more serious cases. One would be wrong – when a large group of gravely injured hunters came rushing in, it was all hands on deck, and even Uncommon healing skills could mean the difference between life and death.

  Right on cue, someone ripped the fabric aside and in rushed dozens of harried hunters carrying their less fortunate comrades in various states of injury.

  Dusk quickly finished his task and the twins got ready to save more lives as priests and priestesses rushed to the new patients and led them to empty cots. The cold voice of Alice barked out orders and the twins did their best to take care of the patient they were assigned to.

  The worst part about this whole situation? The hunters hadn’t even beaten the third Elite yet, much less the Boss. Even with two S-class hunters, the progress had slowed to a crawl. All thanks to the Golden Oath throwing their weight around and insisting the hunters try to preserve the rift’s activity as long as possible to farm high rarity essences.

  Apparently, it was good for ‘the economy’, whatever that meant. Though the twins obviously knew that to just be an excuse to hoard more wealth for the greedy old farts.

  “H-Help… Please…” the coilborn in front of them gasped as her body shivered and sweat poured off her.

  “It’s still dim…!” Dusk exclaimed with frustration as the twins put on gloves to protect them from the patient’s toxic bodily fluids.

  First order of business: locate all the injuries.

  Dusk started at her midsection and then went down, checking her long serpentine tail for anything more serious than a small scratch. Meanwhile, Dawn checked the patient’s head but failed to find anything, then continued down to her neck, her arms, then pulled up her shirt–

  “Oh fuck!”

  Hidden under the cloth, a large chunk of the coilborn’s abdomen had been turned into glass. The likely culprit was a small glass dart stuck in the middle of the glassified section.

  “We need anti-curse here! Quickly!”

  From what they could see, this curse had to have touched some of her vital organs. If nobody removed the curse soon, she would die.

  None of the other healers responded, too busy with their own patients.

  The twins gritted their teeth.

  Their skills re-sparked. They immediately pulled them out and used them in unison, uncaring about the amplified effect being seen.

  The cards turned into light, merged, and made a beeline for the glassified coilborn’s abdomen. At the same time, Dusk pulled the needle out of her with tweezers.

  The skills did nothing.

  “Dammit!”

  Dawn rushed to one of the tables, swiped the best healing potion she found, and quickly returned to use it. By then, the poor snake woman’s desperate gasps turned into weak shuddering breaths and her once vibrant skin had turned pale green.

  Dawn carefully poured the potion over the flesh-turned-glass.

  It slid off like rain on a window.

  “We need help here! She’s about to–”

  The coilborn let out one last breath.

  And then ceased.

  A moment later, an essence card shot out of her chest. The twins froze and watched as the essence split in two and forced itself into their hands.

  ◆Command◆

  A picture of a featureless figure standing tall and pointing into the distance as many smaller figures rushed forward. Purple rim with a lattice pattern.

  Not a speck of corruption on it.

  “Clear! Who else needs help?!”

  Too little, too late, another priestess finally rushed to the twins as they hid the essences.

  “You two called for anti-curse?! I can–”

  The woman abruptly noticed the empty eyes of their patient and deflated.

  “Oh…”

  They… weren’t used to this per se, but neither was this their first time having a patient die as they scrambled to save them.

  It stung either way. Even if they didn’t personally know the patient. Getting her essence only made them feel guiltier despite the lack of corruption covering it.

  With deep breaths, Dawn covered the coilborn’s corpse and they moved on to less serious cases. They worked in a daze, forcing themselves not to think too hard about the life snuffed out right before them.

  They didn’t want to do this anymore. All of this reminded them too much of…

  But they couldn’t stop. Not if they intended to stay in this city. And leaving just seemed wrong at this time if they could help.

  “Dawn.”

  The twins paused and glanced toward the cold voice. Alice stood there, staring at Dawn.

  “You look awful. You should take a break. Dusk, you too.”

  “I…”

  “I know you failed to save someone. That happens. But it’s stressful. And a stressed-out healer makes mistakes and gets more people killed. You need a break.”

  They winced at the cutting words, not quite used to Alice’s blunt nature yet.

  “That’s… fair enough, I guess.”

  “Alright, we’ll take a break…”

  “Good. Don’t come back until tomorrow at minimum. Take a tour around the city or something. Away from the Gate.”

  “Right.”

  It didn’t feel right, but they didn’t want to argue with Alice. Not when part of them agreed with her.

  “…Thanks, Alice.”

  “Of course.” The catkin nodded. “One last thing. Show me the essence you got.”

  “Um, from the…?”

  “Yes. You know the procedure.”

  “Right.”

  Dawn pulled out the Command essence for Alice to study, prompting her to nod after a brief moment and jot something down on a notepad.

  “No corruption. You’re clear then. Feel free to keep it.”

  The twins grimaced. It never felt right to keep essences from dead people. Nor would it feel ethical to sell them. And crafting skills out of them? Only if you knew the person, to signify them living on with you. But this essence had come from a stranger. Wouldn’t her party want it?

  Maybe they were just too sentimental about this. After all, shouldn’t they be happy they had gotten two Epic essences?

  “Sure.”

  “See you tomorrow then.”

  “Before you go – a word of advice.”

  The twins paused, looking back at the catkin.

  “Yeah?”

  “If you want to stop feeling useless, you can just upgrade your healing skills. It’s not that expensive, ultimately.”

  “Um, yeah. We thought about it.”

  “We’ll go see the Archivist tomorrow.”

  “Good.” Alice gave them a sharp nod. “See you later, then. Have a nice rest day.”

  “…Thanks.”

  With that, the twins left the tent. As soon as they passed through the entrance, a weight lifted off their shoulders. The smell of death and injury behind them, they were free to unwind, just as Alice had commanded.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  They felt only a little guilty at their own relief. An echo from the past where people had forced them to keep going way past what they could handle.

  They glanced around the still-busy street outside, noting the group of priests they had first seen huddled around the table were nowhere to be seen. Likely frantically helping inside the tents as well.

  “Well, where do we go then?”

  “Explore the city like she suggested?”

  A quick glance upward at the Glow-infused orbs attached to the ceiling showed them to still be fairly bright, signalling the real Sun hadn’t set yet.

  “We still got time. Let’s snoop around the underground.”

  With no real direction, they headed straight away from the Gate, toward the edge of the city. Unfortunately, besides marveling at the strange architecture, they didn’t have much to take their minds away from… what they had experienced a few minutes earlier.

  “I hope they beat the rift soon…”

  “What if they don’t beat it? What if it spills again?”

  “Then we fight.”

  “Should we join the subjugation?”

  “We’ll die. The last rift was too much already.”

  “But we’re stronger now. Have better skills. Have more experience. We could still upgrade our decks too.”

  “We still gotta visit the Archivist… Too bad they were closed yesterday.”

  “If we’re going, we should properly register as rift hunters while we’re at it.”

  “Let’s do that after we upgrade our decks. Then we go kick ass!”

  “I still think it’s too dangerous to join the subjugation here…”

  “There’s gotta be parties that take care of the weaker monsters in there, right? We could join that.”

  “True.”

  Their conversation transitioned from spoken to thought as they considered asking Elis or Kenn to join their parties but quickly dismissing the notion.

  The twins paused again when a different thought came to them unbidden.

  “It’s been a while since we stuttered, huh?”

  “Guess we’re used to being two now.”

  “But is that a good thing? Shouldn’t we be worried?”

  “About what the Archivist said?”

  “We feel less like one person every day. Isn’t that the insanity they mentioned?”

  “Probably… You think this could kill us somehow?”

  “How could it?”

  “We could get into an argument and kill each other over it?”

  “Ugk… Don’t say stuff like that… We’re supposed to be relaxing, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah, let’s stop thinking about it.”

  The conversation petered off as they made it to the edge of the city, signified by the thick leathery walls held up by the ribs which connected to the spine below. Curiously, several tunnels snaked through the hide, leading further underground.

  “What are these anyway?”

  “Mines, maybe?”

  “What are they mining?”

  A raspy chortle drew their attention. When they glanced over, they spotted an elf with wrinkles and graying hair sitting on a nearby marrowstone bench. He held a cane and wore a ragged green robe around his shoulders.

  Damn, he must be ancient.

  “You kids are new to this place, I take it? Truly, the poorest of timings for sightseeing.” He shook his head.

  “We’re not sightseeing!”

  “We’re helping with triage.”

  “Really now? Well, I’ll be. Even the youngest of chicks are slaves to the system these days.”

  The twins glared at the rude old man.

  “Whatever,” Dawn murmured and turned away from him, intending to leave.

  “Now now, I didn’t mean to offend. Just saying how it is. But enough about that. You asked about the tunnels?” He tapped his cane on the bench he sat at.

  “…Yeah?” They gave him the side eye and didn’t move closer.

  “These do have history, I tell you. They lead every which way into the world! Some call them emergency escape tunnels, some call them mineshafts. I call them scars left behind by a tragedy.”

  “…What tragedy?” Dawn asked despite herself.

  The old man grinned, seemingly satisfied at catching their attention.

  “They are the result of the great hero Anxia’s Ultimate skill – [Soul of Erebus]. Drilled right through the Earth in his death throes.” He tapped the bench again.

  The twins blinked, baffled by the words coming out of the elf’s mouth for a moment.

  “Great hero Anxia?”

  “Ultimate skill?”

  The man chortled again.

  “Ah, the heroes’ legend has faded with the years, but surely the youngsters these days don’t just assume Anxia was a mindless monster?”

  “Um…”

  “It… wasn’t?”

  Rather, they hadn’t even known the city had been named after the titan itself.

  “Nay. Of course not. Him and his two companions were the heroes of their time, stopping the worst of the horde when the Wild Tear first appeared. Though Anxia himself, unfortunately, succumbed in the process.”

  Tap, tap.

  The twins fell silent as the words sank in. Finally, they decided to take him up on his offer and gingerly sat down on the bench next to the old elf.

  “…Just how crazy was it back then if it killed… someone like Anxia?” Dawn asked with a whisper.

  “Crazy indeed. You be glad you weren’t there. It truly was madness in its purest of forms.”

  “You were there?”

  “Wasn’t this like… five hundred years ago?”

  “Ay, I was. Just a young lad fresh out of the forest, there to witness the Wild Tear bring the Soul cards into the world.”

  They had heard about this, of course. But even now, they couldn’t imagine living in the old world without Soul cards. How had people lived back then? Without Glow essences to power the street lamps, or Cure skills to help the wounded? It had to have been a chaotic and primitive era.

  “Hold on. If Anxia was a hero, then why… Why did people carve a city into his body?!” Dusk realized with horror.

  The elf grunted.

  “At first? Desperation. The other two heroes were strong, but not strong enough to repel the hordes without using their dead friend as a bastion. Even still, we failed to save everyone.”

  Dawn’s fist clenched at the elf’s tone at that last sentence. They knew all too well how that felt.

  “So… you won in the end?”

  “Why is the Wild Tear still there, though?”

  “We won, but not completely. Pushed back the horde, we did. But the seven Gates still stand in the middle of the Wild Tear, looming over us. History says those who enter are forever forsaken, never to be seen again.”

  The twins gulped.

  “Even the other heroes?”

  “Even the other heroes.” The elf paused. “But that’s a lie.”

  Dusk narrowed his eyes at the old man.

  “Most people of today don’t recognize her, but I do. Little Katherine, the vicious brat, was never one to die easily. Nay, anyone with working eyes could see what happened to her!”

  “Katherine…?”

  “Indeed. Like the hero that she was, she always liked defying fate and death alike, but this truly exceeded even her usual gambits.”

  “What are you talking about, old man?”

  “Unsatisfied with her mortality, or perhaps seeking more power, she left behind her mortal coil and ascended. Nowadays? You may know her as the catkin goddess, Kat,” he finished with a heavy finality.

  The twins stared, trying to internalize what they had just heard.

  “…Old man, you’re talking nonsense.”

  “You’re trying to sound all mysterious and dramatic, but it’s all made up bullshit, isn’t it?”

  Now the old man let out a full belly laughter.

  “Ya got me, ya got me.” He slapped his knee with his free hand. “I don’t truly know what happened to the heroes, but Kat’s image did always remind me of the little heroine I once knew. There might be more to it, but I wouldn’t bet my hide on it. The rest is true, though.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, thanks for the story anyway. It was really interesting.”

  “Ay, but I still got more stories to tell yet! And yer such good little listeners!” He grinned at them.

  “Oh really? What else do you have for us then?”

  “Oh! Tell us about the Ultimate skill thing!”

  “Ah, that? Nothing special. Ultimate is the rarity above Mythical and even Supreme. The highest rarity of skills… or so they say.” His eyes narrowed as his voice dropped an octave.

  The twins could already tell he was about to spin more bullshit as he spoke, but honestly? They didn’t mind too much.

  Because this kind of levity? Exactly what they needed after such a rough day.

  Still, they dreaded coming back to the medical tents, even if they still wanted to help.

  Something needed to change. And they knew exactly what.

  Tomorrow, they would head straight to the Archivist – and search for them if they had to. After that, straight to the guild.

  No more putting it off.