Chapter 102

NICK CROWLEY

LEVEL

MANA

STR

DEX

CON

INT

WIS

CHA

Occultist/Human

Nick exhaled, feeling more tired than he could remember being in this life. His limbs trembled, he was sweaty, his mouth was dry and everything ached.

Then, a surge of power pulsed through his core. He had felt this before, when he had leveled up more than once in a row, but never so drastically.

Three whole levels was a massive jump, especially since he was past the kid stages.

He closed his eyes, focusing inward. More and more mana spilled within him, feeding his empty body, which greedily absorbed all it could.

He could feel it reinforcing him, making him grow tougher, more resilient.

But most importantly, the internal mana flow was smoother and responded to his thoughts faster. A mere suggestion was enough to activate , and a glob of crystalline water materialized before him. He drank deeply, savoring the refreshing taste.

Once the changes no longer felt new and his body began to feel like its normal self, Nick opened his eyes and looked around.

Everywhere, people were picking themselves up, flexing their fingers, clenching and unclenching fists, rolling their shoulders as if testing something new.

The entire strike group had become stronger. While fighting against Dewdrop had been more of an individual effort for Eugene and Nick, and dealing with the waves of monsters had led to a few scattered level-ups, now everyone progressed together at the same time.

This was why adventurers threw themselves into dungeons and battles beyond their means. If they survived, their entire lives could change. Not every dive was as frantic and dangerous as this one, but even a few raids were enough to change one’s fortunes.

His gaze drifted to his father, who stood tall despite the exhaustion he must have been feeling. He had borne the brunt of the Oni’s attention, and it showed in his tattered appearance. Flames licked at his wounds, sealing cuts and burns, knitting flesh together as if time was reversing.

His father’s fire had always been strong, and had only become stronger since the stampede, but it seemed he had yet to find his limit.

Still, self-healing was a very valuable skill. Before Nick could get to him, a raw, guttural cry captured his attention.

He snapped toward the Oni’s corpse, where a soldier was still hacking at it. His sword rose and fell, again and again, even though the monster was long dead. His shoulders shook, and he appeared mad with grief.

Eugene approached the man without hesitation and grabbed his wrist, stopping a downward swing.

Nick didn’t need to strain his ears to hear the soldier’s shuddering breath, nor the way his chest heaved as he fought back tears. Through the wind, he heard the words as they were spoken. “He was my brother, and it took him. I lost my brother!”

Nick’s heart clenched. The rush of victory, the thrill of leveling up, all of it faded in an instant.

Five men had died. Sons, brothers, fathers were dead, and they would have to reckon with that. He swallowed the lump in his throat and forced himself to act lest the feeling overwhelm him.

He turned to Morris, already knowing what needed to be done. “We need to bury them.”

The old ranger met his eyes and nodded. They couldn’t leave the bodies of the fallen here. But they also couldn’t carry them—not with the dungeon still active. He said as much, drawing a considering hum from Morris. “A temporary burial, then.” He finally said. “We’ll come back for them.”

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Nick nodded and moved toward the southern edge of the clearing, where the forest was mostly undisturbed, stretching his hands toward the ground and casting .

The earth trembled, parting at his command. Nick shaped the soil with great care, as the spell was still low-level and required all his considerable talent to affect such a large area. He pulled the soil away and hardened it into solid rock at the edges, forming a natural stone casket.

He felt it was the least he could do. Once the others realized what he was doing, they rushed to gather the bodies of the fallen. Some were mostly intact, with only a broken neck, while others were nearly unrecognizable.

Despite being hardened warriors, several people couldn’t stomach the sight and looked away, but even they remained close by. Once they had been gently placed in the ground, the two priests took charge, murmuring prayers for the fallen.

“May these brave fallen see the blazing light of Sashara as they cross into the next world, and may She embrace them with open arms. They fell in the line of duty to humanity, and there is no doubt they will be rewarded for it.”

The ceremony was brief: a few quiet words, a moment of silence, and then the reality of their situation forced them to move on.

Life didn’t stop.

Nick stepped away as soon as the last prayer was intoned, already moving to the next task. It felt like he was intruding on a private moment, and he didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable with his presence.

The oni was still smoking from Eugene’s final strike, and despite the hundreds of wounds inflicted upon it, it was still in good shape, if one ignored the missing head. A body of that size, that strength, infused with so much mana—Nick could barely begin to guess the worth of its remains.

Bones that could be reforged into weapons, skin that might still resist the elements, and the monster core that had to be buried deep within it and would be worth more than a house.

Slowly, so as to not disturb the grieving men, he walked over to the corpse, taking out his dagger. Upon reaching it, he paused to marvel at the beast’s sheer size. It could truly be called a giant, even though he had read that they existed as a separate species in the north. Nevertheless, killing it would be a feat the people of Floria would remember for generations.

Once he was done with his initial inspection, he found a place close to the chest—where he expected to find the core, if there was one— and plunged his dagger in a sluggishly weeping wound.

The Oni’s body was dense, packed with interwoven roots and fibrous muscle, making the sensation of cutting into it resemble sawing through a living tree trunk rather than flesh.

Soon after, his father joined him and began carving through the other side of the torso with his burning blade. The heat sizzled through layers of flesh and barklike skin, making the effort much easier.

With the ceremony for the fallen over, people seemed to have taken this moment to address their wounds, both physical and mental, but Nick wasn’t foolish enough to believe they were safe. Not in the Green Ocean.

Even as he hacked away, he stretched his senses outward.

swept through the area without any issues. He found nothing of note, as the battle had driven away any nearby fauna.

For now, at least, they were alone. There was no enemy in range. What he heard instead were whispers.

The men gathered around the freshly dug grave were talking cautiously in hushed tones, as if afraid to speak too loudly.

A less suspicious person might have interpreted it as respect for the deceased and left them alone, but Nick wasn’t that naive. It came as no surprise to find that they were talking about him.

He kept his head down, pretending to be fully focused on his work, but his ears were wide open. Some of the men were concerned about the mission, which was just about what he expected and not something he begrudged.

“We’ve already lost five, and we aren’t even at the center of the dungeon."

“If there’s another Oni waiting for us, what the hell are we supposed to do?”

That much was natural. Everyone was shaken after coming so close to complete annihilation. The Oni had destroyed their formation, and crushed their comrades like insects.

Not everyone was so worried about that, however.

“Killing Moss Oni is crazy,” an adventurer muttered. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of anything below an A-rank team being able to take down one of those.”

“Must have been a runt,” another answered dismissively. “A juvenile. We'd all be dead if that thing had been an elder.”

, Nick admitted to himself. He had suspected as much himself, and its level gave the hypothesis credibility. However, their concerns did not stop there.

“Still…” someone hesitated. “That wasn’t normal, was it?”

A beat of silence followed. Someone cleared their throat, then shifted uncomfortably.

“You mean the kid’s magic?”

“Aye.”

Another man turned toward one of the priests and asked. “Do you have anything to say, Brother?”

Nick didn’t look up, but he could feel the expectation in the air. Depending on the priest’s response, the cohesion of the strike group could be severely compromised—not to speak of what it’d mean for him personally.

If the priest dismissed their concerns, this conversation would end here. Even if he had worries of his own, it’d be the smart thing to wait until the expedition was successful before bringing them up.

But he didn’t. Instead, there was only silence.

The priest’s expression was grave, his lips pressed into a thin line. Nick exhaled through his nose. The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the novelhall.com

Magic, even the most powerful kinds, followed some level of expectation. Fire spells burned. Water spells drowned. Light purged. Darkness corrupted.

But Nick had severed a Moss Oni’s spirit from its dungeon. Even if the adventurers didn’t know exactly what he had done, they were perceptive enough to realize he’d affected it far beyond what was reasonable. That wasn’t something any Mage could do, especially not one so young, regardless of how talented they were.

And while some of the soldiers, always willing to stand for the Crowley name, were eager to dismiss it, others weren’t so quick to forget.

“We ignored whatever he did to the fae,” one of the adventurers murmured. “Passed it off as magic we didn’t understand. But we all saw it this time.”

Another scoffed. “What’s your point? You think the Captain’s son is playing with something dangerous? He saved us, that’s what happened. Anything else is speculation.”

“I think no one knows what he’s doing, that’s my point.” The adventurer defended himself.

That was the real problem, Nick realized. People feared what they couldn’t explain, and right now, he was the something they couldn’t explain.

It wasn’t the first time he had that thought, but it felt more real now. Suspicion and confusion could easily transform into more negative emotions, and he didn’t want to jeopardize his family’s position within Floria.

Nick swallowed. He’d spent a lifetime alone, and yet…

A hand clapped his shoulder, breaking him from his thoughts. “Son.” His father called.

Nick blinked and turned, pushing the whispers from his mind. Eugene stood over a large cavity in the Oni’s chest, with his flaming blade embedded deep in the creature’s ribs. “I found it.”

And indeed, there it was. Nestled within the Oni’s remains, surrounded by charred and cracked flesh, was a mana core unlike any Nick had ever seen.

It was huge, easily the size of his head. A deep emerald green, it pulsed like a heart, and an endless swirl of power coiled within it.

Nick stared at it, feeling something close to awe. He barely noticed when his father shook his shoulder. “We wouldn’t have killed it without you, son. No one will complain if you take it.”

Nick finally looked up, meeting his father’s gaze. There was no hesitation in Eugene’s expression. No fear, no doubt, no questions about what Nick had done.

There was only acceptance. Pride. Trust.

Nick nodded, reaching forward. His fingers brushed the surface of the Oni’s core, and power thrummed beneath his fingertips.

It took some effort to free it from the carcass, but he managed with elbow grease and some help from his father.

And despite not knowing what the future held, Nick smiled.