Chapter One Hundred and Seven - Starting Slow "Usually, when running through a portal, I like to start slow," I said. "We'll map out each room as we come to it, check the edges for secret passages, and count off the number of enemies and where they were when we entered," I said. "Understood," Fran said. She shifted her shoulder around, loosening it, each motion made the blade of light she was holding hum through the air, and cast strange, stark shadows across the open space we were in. "Is that thing intense? Mana-cost wise?" I asked. She glanced down at the sword. "It depends. As an innate spell its magical cost is significantly lower than the naturally cast version of the spell. And mine allows me to change the size somewhat as I cast it, which isn't a normal feature for the Light Blade spell. As for the actual costs. I could hold it for seventeen minutes last week. But that was within a training hall. In this kind of magic-rich environment, I feel like I might be able to keep it up for far longer." I nodded along, that made sense. I could taste the ambient magic here. This wasn't a high-D portal, but it was definitely somewhere in the middle of that ranking. The magical energy here was pretty strong, overall. I reached over to Fran, then paused. "Mind if I cast something on you?" I asked. "It very much depends on what," she said. "Soothe Minor Pain. It's a cantrip. It's weak. Turns sharp pain into... well, it's still sharp pain. Honestly, it's about as good as taking a single ibuprofen an hour ago. It's really not much." "Then why bother at all?" Fran asked. "Because you can't think when you're in ten out of ten pain, and making it nine out of ten helps a little," I said. "Plus the cantrip is fantastic when you've got your period. Not exactly perfect, but like... better than nothing, and it works instantly." "Hmm," she muttered, then touched her hand against mine. "That's a Nature spell, no?" "Mhm!" I agreed as I cast. I applied it to myself. "And I can give you See Darkness. Another cantrip-level spell. It's... like having slightly better night vision. Think of it like closing your eyes for a minute before entering a dark room. It's not NVGs, but it's cheap." "And that's a Darkness spell?" she asked. "I think so? Dark or Void. Somewhere between the two." She nodded again. "The line before elements is blurry at best. Like I said earlier, it's often down to semantics. Two casters can cast the same spell with nearly the same results but approach the elemental and emotional parts from slightly different angles. Depending on the spell. Some are more demandingly accurate." "Cool," I said. It really was. Fran seemed to have studied this stuff. Did she know about the emotion stuff before becoming a D-ranker herself? Probably. I wanted to ask... and I didn't. Weird, but I didn't want to engage, do small talk, and get close to someone if I knew that this version of them wasn't going to exist in a few hours of my time. Was that fucked up of me? "Any other buffs to share?" Fran asked. "I've got Restore Stamina, but it's useless right about now. Let me know if you're suddenly really tired. I have been learning Nutrition, but again, very circumstantial." "That's an impressive number of spells," Fran said. "I know that you're familiar with some variation of Shadow Bolt as well." I nodded. "And... uh... crap." I checked my core, then nodded. "Right, Exhaust Senses. It's a cantrip that dulls some senses. Honestly, I never used it in a fight, and almost forgot I even had it." "I think that's the main risk of learning too many spells," Fran said. "My instructor in the magical arts, a D-ranker that I have weekly sessions with--though only two so far--has given me nothing but exercise cantrips to build up to a set of second-level spells that should be my mainstays for a while." She nodded. "A shield and a ranged option. He said that I can either go wide, or narrow my scope, and with a magic as rare and with as few buffs available as Light, narrow, more powerful spells tend to be better." "Can you make a flashlight?" I asked. She stared at me, then very pointedly raised that large, glowing sword in her hand. It was almost too bright to look at. "Ah... Well, so much for looking cool and suave in front of you at all times," I muttered. "Let's just... move along?" This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. The opening space of the portal world was a sort of basin-ish area, with several large trees, some bushes, and lots of hanging vines. The not-velociraptor had been hanging out behind one of the trees. I moved over to it while reloading my gun, placed a foot on its neck, and turned its head over. "Weird teeth," I said. It had fangs, of a sort, but its back teeth were all flat. An omnivore? It did look part-plant. The blood seeping out of its buckshot wounds was a muddy brown rather than red. "It looked like it weighs at least a hundred and fifty, maybe a hundred and eighty pounds," Fran said as she knelt slowly. Seemingly on a whim, she lowered her sword and stuck it in the monster's side, then swiped the blade to the side. It sizzled as it cut clean through. I grimaced, backing up as organs spilled out. Fran didn't seem nearly as disturbed. "It has organs," she said. "Look, intestines, that might be a stomach, that... might be a second one? A ruminate? Interesting. That's the heart, there. It's mammalian-like." "I suppose that's good. Mammals die when you stick them full of holes." "They do," she agreed. Let's keep an eye open for more of them," I said. "They look like ambush predators, but that tongue is going to be dangerous. And those claws look nasty." It had velociraptor talons on its rear legs, long enough to eviscerate. We'd move carefully, then. The space only had one 'exit' and it was a short, relatively steep hill up an embankment. At the top, the ground flattened out, and there was a sheer cliff-face. I took the lead, only pausing to reach back and give Fran a hand up the muddy hill. "I'm not used to this much nature," Fran said. "I'd much rather have some amount of civility." "You sayw that, but enemies that have civility have weapons," I said. "Orcs aren't that tough, but an orc with a twelve-gauge is a whole other story." "Fair point," Fran said. The only path onwards was off to the side, a space hidden from below by tall trees growing so close to the cliffs that the wood had melded into the stone in places. There was a passage there, not quite a cave, but almost. It went up a little, then turned to the left. I walked with my gun raised, expecting trouble, but the worse that happened was my foot slipping in some loose gravelly rocks. There was a tiny trickle of a stream down the centre of the path, and it looked like it might have been a common runoff for rainwater or something. Follow current novels on 𝚗𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚕·𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚎·𝚗𝚎𝚝 We followed the path. It twisted a little more, climbed, then finally opened up to a space with a large pond in its centre and a walkable area all around it. A small waterfall at the far back, with about as much pressure as a Fortress ENE water fountain, was gurgling down smoothed stones into the pond. I raised a hand, stalling Fran. This area was... nice? Serene, almost. Like something out of a Kinkade. Pretty orange and green bushes, overhanging trees that cast dancing shadows, a pretty pond. It made my hackles rise. I scanned the space, then slowly pointed at something that caught my eye. It was a bare little glimmer of blue, one that I didn't dare look directly into because it would give it all away. "One in the pond, far left side. Don't meet its eyes," I muttered. "Oh, I see it," Fran replied. "I think... that bush, to the right?" I looked that way... ah, there, there were some 'leaves' that didn't fit with the rest of the leaves on the bush there. Same-ish colour, especially with the lighting, but the shape was all wrong. I couldn't see the monster's head, but it had to be around there. "Alright," I said. "Pond monster will take a moment to reach us. I'll shoot our boy to the right first, then switch. You've got that nine-mil of yours?" She nodded and carefully pulled the handgun out, then checked its safety. "Ready," she replied. "Okay. Focus on righty. I'll take pondboy once I've shot righty once." "On three... one, two--" The monster in the pond splashed out of the water before I could hit three. The one behind the bushes moved, then squealed as I fired a shot into and through the greenery. Then a third leapt down from a tree across the pond and landed in a huge splash just ahead of us. Ah, so there were three!