“No!” Marcus shouted.

  The shock of it all was dangerous, because that monster was still alive and angry. Reggie thankfully took most of the creature’s attention so Richard and Marcus could sprint toward Savannah. Marcus already had his healing potion out, turning Savannah onto her back, lifting her shirt, and pouring it over her stomach. Marcus swore under his breath and scooped her up. “These burn marks cannot be healed by a potion. We need Lucy.”

  Richard followed, stuffing his whip into his inventory and keeping his dagger out. He assumed Marcus was serious when he said he wanted Richard close.

  Richard dodged trees as he ran. “Is she still alive?”

  “There’s a pulse. Lucy can heal anything with a pulse. We just have to get her there in time.”

  Richard felt as though the trees were both a blessing and a curse. A blessing while hiding from monsters, a curse while trying to sprint back to base camp. Richard ignored the branches whipping him and was glad they weren’t as far as the lake. They broke through the trees and ran toward the gate opening. Richard waved his hands as soon as he spotted Leylah on the wall, and she ran toward the gate opener. By the time they reached the gate, it was open enough for Marcus to slip inside and sprint into the healer’s building.

  “Lucy!” Marcus said.

  Richard ran inside, driven by a desire to help, even though he knew he couldn’t do anything. Marcus and Lucy placed Savannah on a bed.

  “What attacked her?” Lucy asked.

  “Hellish minotaur. A chain hit her, knocking her into a tree.” Marcus helped to take off Savannah’s heavy scavenger’s coat.

  Lucy nodded, examining Savannah quickly through her glasses before rushing to her back room.

  Marcus dropped Savannah’s coat to the side. “Do you need me for anything?”

  “No, I’ll be fine. Are there anymore injured out there?” Lucy asked.

  Marcus turned on his heel and stormed out of the building. “We’ll see.”

  Richard watched Marcus leave, realizing it was seething anger that made those words loud enough for him and Lucy to hear.

  Lucy came back from the workroom, loaded with supplies and dumping them on the table. She poured three bottles into a bowl filled with bandages.

  “Did Elias have anything to do with causing Savannah’s injury?” A quiet urgency entered Lucy’s tone.

  Richard scrambled to put his thoughts together. Elias got the creature’s attention, and perhaps if he hadn’t, then Savannah would be okay. But it seemed more like the confusion of the moment than something Elias was at fault for.

  “Maybe?” Richard asked.

  “It might be the excuse Marcus is looking for. You should follow him to make sure he isn’t murdering Elias right now,” Lucy said.

  Richard stared at her. Lucy did not use her usual snark, and there was distinct worry in her eyes. That alone pressured him to unfold his arms and head out of the healer’s. The gate was open wide enough for him to go through, and he hurried through it. Leylah was there at the opening.

  “Where did Marcus go?” Richard asked.

  Leylah pointed toward the forest where they had just come out. Richard picked up the pace, and when Marcus was nowhere in the dead earth section, he ran into the forest. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but once he entered, he heard loud voices close by. He rushed toward the noise.

  “You got Savannah back in time, so no harm done,” Elias said.

  “You don’t know that.” This time, Richard could hear Marcus’s barely contained rage. “Every time we fight a monster out here, we have to assume we can’t rush someone to Lucy. You don’t make irrational choices, and you do nothing that could also put the rest of us in danger.”

  Richard approached to see the scene. Elias and Marcus were face to face, with Reggie watching them close.

  Elias rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t my fault Savannah dropped when she should have jumped.”

  Marcus grabbed Elias’s throat and rammed him against a tree. Reggie and Richard moved forward, not entirely sure how to stop Marcus.

  “Then tell me why you smiled when you saw her fall.” Every word dripped with venom.

  Elias said nothing, and despite how tightly Marcus gripped his neck, the man gave a cold and easy smile.

  “Go ahead, Marcus. Try it. Murder me, if you can.” Richard flinched at Elias’s words. They came out so easily that it was hard to comprehend Marcus still had his hand around his throat. “You haven’t been here for an entire year. You might have a chance against someone who’s been here for seven. Especially in front of these witnesses. Everyone will agree that trying to murder me because I smiled is not a good enough reason. You’ve cracked, and if you attempt this, you will be kicked out of base two.”

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  Marcus glowered. Richard should stop this, but he also knew Marcus wasn’t so far gone that he would try anything drastic.

  And yet they remained that way for a good ten seconds. Richard kept glancing at Reggie, who would be the one to stop Marcus if the man tried anything. Reggie had his arms folded, a fake relaxed posture, but his eyes focused like a bird of prey for any movement.

  Marcus closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again, his hand still around Elias’s throat.

  “It’s been a long month. The stress is getting to us. It’s important for everyone’s health if you helped with the farm for a while and leave the scavenging to the rest of us.”

  Elias’s smile faded. “Wait, you can’t put a scavenger as a farmer.”

  “Richard’s been doing exactly that for a good long while.”

  “You seriously think you can—”

  “Yes.” Marcus’s voice was as dangerous as ever. “For the health and safety of everyone around you, the two of us need to take a break from each other, and since you are so much more leveled up than the rest of us, you are the one that doesn’t need the experience points.”

  Elias glared at Marcus. “This is an overreach of power. You can’t do this.”

  Marcus let go of Elias’s throat. “Take your complaint up with Dmitri.”

  The scavenger leader disappeared past the trees, back toward base camp. Elias stared at Reggie, still shocked. “But Dmitri’s out cold.”

  Reggie gave a slow and careful shrug. “I guess you’ll have to wait until he wakes up, then.” Elias’s shocked face changed to a glare. Reggie opened his arms and gestured for Richard and Elias to move out of the forest. “Come on. Let’s get back.”

  Richard didn’t want to, but he found himself walking next to Elias as they made their trek back to base camp. Reggie was behind them, watching the woods.

  They broke through the trees, and Elias moved ahead toward the gates, his own seething rage propelling him forward. Reggie fell in step with Richard as they walked together toward the gate.

  “Do you think it’s smart for Elias to not come on these trips?” Richard asked.

  “Yeah.” Reggie sounded exhausted. “Elias and Marcus were getting on each other’s nerves. Now that there is not as much of a need for those higher-level creatures, other stresses were factoring in. Marcus simply cannot stand Elias right now.”

  Richard didn’t know how he felt about that. He wanted to press further, but Reggie clearly said everything he wanted to and changed the subject. “We fought a beast a few levels above where you are. Did you level up at all?”

  Richard glanced at his bar. In all the excitement, he didn’t realize it was blinking. Finally, after weeks of watching it slowly rise, he could finally level up. His shoulders relaxed, and Reggie smiled.

  “I thought so. Go to the orb, then don’t forget to visit Lucy.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Reggie raised an eyebrow. “You forgot?”

  “More that I’ve been out of habit.”

  Reggie hesitated, then started chuckling before cutting himself off. “I guess you’re still new. And have been farming for the past while. I suppose you should be glad you haven’t had the experience of waking up with a burning fever that should have killed you because you forgot to get a full check from Lucy.” Reggie shuddered. “Got a nick on my wrist I didn’t notice a year ago. Almost lost my arm.”

  Richard simply stared. Once again, with all things apocalypse, he wasn’t sure how to react except to believe it. Reggie patted his shoulder. “Have fun.”

  Richard smiled a little before heading toward the orb. He couldn’t get out of his mind that a slight cut on Reggie’s wrist almost made him lose his arm.

  He placed a hand against the orb, watching it turn colors as the blinking in his vision ended. He received another ability point and pulled up his skill tree as he headed toward Lucy’s. Richard hesitated only a little. It had taken him so long to level up that he assumed he knew what ability he wanted next. He had a stray thought wiggle inside his head, however. Chaos had asked him to leave an ability point for him to use. Would he get other time abilities if he left a point open for Chaos?

  Richard pushed the thought aside. Maybe Chaos would do that, but the other thought he had was whether Richard could trust such a being, and the answer was no. He wasn’t sure how to grapple with quantum immortality. It felt way more like a curse than a blessing right now. It was also a reminder that Chaos seemed to expect Richard to end this despite him being the one who started it.

  On his cooking skill tree, he unlocked the healing food ability and put everything else out of his mind as he walked into the healer’s building. Lucy was monitoring Savannah, writing notes. Savannah’s torso was completely covered in bandages up to her neck. She looked as if she was sleeping peacefully, a much steadier rise and fall of her chest than what Dmitri was doing.

  Lucy glanced up at Richard. “Oh, good. I was afraid I’d have to hunt you down. I don’t enjoy hunting people down when I have other people here.”

  “Is she... okay?”

  “Yeah. She’ll be okay. Probably even wake up tomorrow morning if we’re lucky. It’s a good thing you all were close enough to get her to me, or I wouldn’t give such a hopeful outlook.”

  Richard sighed, then once again glanced at Dmitri. He finally didn’t look like a corpse. Richard wasn’t sure how to describe it, other than he looked like a human living at a slower speed. His breathing wasn’t nearly as steady as Savannah’s. Where Savannah’s eyes would sometimes flutter or her eyes moved around under her closed lids, there was no such movement in Dmitri. Richard’s forgotten memories were all telling him the leader would die soon, even though he had been quite convinced Dmitri had already died. Instead, with his experiences he had gained during his time in an apocalypse, he realized Dmitri was slowly being brought to life.

  Lucy finished writing her notes about Savannah, then walked over to Richard, tapping the side of her glasses and glancing over him.

  “Not bad. Your head is the only concern.”

  “My head?” Richard wasn’t sure if Lucy was setting up for one of her jokes. She reached forward and touched his head. Richard gasped as he felt pain shooting across his forehead, and he wondered if it had been split open.

  “What the hell?” He reached up himself to touch the injury, tenderly touching the folds of skin that were no longer connected to each other. A trickle he had mistaken for sweat gave him a different realization. How did he look with such a deep cut and blood trickling down the side of his face? “Have I had this the whole time?”

  Lucy chuckled as she pulled out a healing potion. “Yep. At least, you had it when you and Marcus brought in Savannah.”

  Richard was so shocked he did nothing but stare ahead as Lucy poured some healing potion over it. He hadn’t noticed when the side of his head was split open. An injury that would have slowed him down a month ago. He had this while everyone else was talking to him. When Marcus and Elias were fighting. When Reggie told him about his experience with a nick. Reggie’s chuckle when Richard mentioned forgetting to see Lucy made sense. He felt the same way about a split head as he did about a bad sunburn. They simply didn’t hold him back anymore. He could see how this could be dangerous. Much like the nick on Reggie’s wrist, small things could get worse.