"Do you need help?" Gabriel asked Maximilian as he watched him carry Arter. It wasn't like he himself wasn't tired, but compared to the rest Gabriel had exerted himself less. While Nero was fighting up closer, or well, closer, he had been fighting from a distance. Maximilian was already injured from his previous fight.
Compared to them, Gabriel was just suffering from regular old exhaustion.
"I'm already carrying him, might as well continue," said Maximilain. "If I get tired, I'll let you know."
The trio only took a short rest after covering enough distance so that the tentacles weren't visible anymore.
Nero had completely lost track of time, so he had no idea how long it had been already. On top of everything, he hadn't had food in almost a day, so now that he was physically exhausted, his body was not recovering the way it usually did.
He, as well as the others, ate some aether candies to help with the physical exhaustion, and they were surprisingly effective, but it didn't change the fact that Nero felt a fire burning in his stomach.
It was a conscious effort not to drag their feet, but they had to. Not only because dragging feet would produce more sound, but it would take more energy as well.
During their small rest, Nero had to cut pieces of his armour off. The damage the tentacle monster caused left a massive hole in his abdomen, and parts of the armour were sticking into his skin, stabbing him. He rounded it out as much as he could, and removed other parts entirely, which left a massive chunk of his chest exposed.
Now that he was no longer fighting, Nero also realised that his nausea was actually much worse than he imagined. Although he found a way to keep using aether in the fight, his body clearly did not appreciate it. His own aether became somewhat sluggish, and it was slow to recover.
Nero was, once again, amazed at how dependent his body had become on aether even though originally his body did not have it at all.
Nero bit his cheek and tried to get his mind to focus. He could not have stray thoughts. He needed to keep his awareness up in case they were ambushed by other enemies, or encountered curses. But it was easier said than done.
After a certain point of exhaustion, the body becomes incapable of maintaining focus. From time to time his thoughts would wander, and for entire stretches of time he had no thoughts at all.
They navigated the maze, following Maximilian as he led the way, and though Nero tried to memorise the path they followed, as he usually did, it was not so easy for him to focus.
At a certain point, his eyes began to droop while walking, and he suddenly stumbled.
He woke up instantly, all drowsiness escaping in a moment, but it had crept up on him without notice. That was bad. If it happened once, it could happen again.
He looked out ahead and saw that Gabriel and Maximilian hadn't even paused. They didn't notice his stumble at all. They, too, were extremely exhausted.
Nero's expression firmed and with his regular dagger, he cut himself on his arm slowly and deliberately.
He felt the pain coursing through his body, suddenly producing adrenaline and pushing away his accumulated fatigue as much as it could. He surveyed their surroundings and found it eerily silent and empty.
Nero narrowed his eyes. He had been trapped in a powerful illusion curse before, so just to be sure he opened his case and used all the cards he had available to him to survey his surroundings.
He expanded the fog free area using Fair Weather, then one by one used Echo Location, Mind's Eye, and even Aether pulse. The other two finally noticed something when they saw the fog suddenly clear up, and turned around to see Nero bleeding from his arm, a slight frown on his face.
"Is everything alright?" Gabriel asked, looking around warily with his sword drawn.
Nero frowned for a bit, then turned around and looked behind him. Echo Location was supposed to directly send an image of everything in his mind, Mind's eye was supposed to allow him to look through obstacles and Aether Pulse was meant to reveal hidden curses around him, and might even work on other hidden objects.
None of them revealed much of anything, and if he had only used any one of them, he would not have noticed anything. But when he used all three together, he noticed a small anomaly.
The image created in his mind from Echo Location, and what he saw using Mind's Eye was not exactly the same, even though there was nothing around him.
That meant that what he was seeing through his eyes, and through a card were not the same - even though both of them were showing him that there was nothing significant around him. But even nothing was not always the same.
It was confusing. But, in essence, when he used Echo Location, he saw large shadows near him, but when he used Mind's Eye to see through objects, he could not find any significantly sized shadows at all.
The unusual part was that there was only one spot where there was some kind of anomaly, while the rest of the hallway was clear. Then, when he used Aether Pulse, nothing was revealed meaning it likely wasn't a shadow. But while nothing was revealed to him, for a moment he was able to naturally notice that a certain shadow in the room looked odd.
It was a tiny, miniscule shadow cast near the edge of the hallway walls caused by an extended windowsill. Ordinarily, it was not worth notice. Yet when he used Aether pulse, for a brief moment, it extended itself into the shape of a person.
Exhausted, tired, bleeding, Nero was not at his best. But that moment, he looked towards the shadow and gave it a knowing grin.
"Yeah, everything is okay," he said slowly, then reduced his use of Fair Weather and followed the duo as they continued forward.
At the same time, his previously lethargic mind began working overtime. Things were lined up as best as he could possibly hope. Now it was up to him to decide how to proceed. The most important thing was to decide whether he could trust Vanessa or not.
This was an absolutely critical decision, because whether he trusted her or not would determine his future plans. He thought about Gabriels oath card, but requiring an oath from her was not something he could hide from Maximilian, not to mention that he didn't think the oaths were foolproof. If he trusted her, he would have to trust her fully.
If not, then in the future he would have to think of another way to get his hand on Fair Weather so he could sneak into the basement.
After a bit of contemplation, he decided to risk it. It wasn't like he was losing anything himself to begin with.
The group started walking forward once more, but Nero turned around, flashed a smile at the shadow he was fairly certain was Vanessa, and hoped she would get the message.
"Hold on guys, I need to adjust my armour," Nero said as he began moving his armour. "This hole is really uncomfortable."
It was not surprising, as everyone could see that massive hole over his chest was not the most convenient thing. Yet as he moved his armour, the Eldrim card that had been locked in the chest position of his armour slipped out of the hole. Coincidentally, it was the Fair Weather card.
The moment Nero lost contact with the Fair Weather card, it deactivated, causing the fog to come rushing in around him. It was barely a second before Gabriela and Maximilian stepped close to allow him into the clearing, yet in that moment, Nero had lost sight of the card in the fog.
The others expanded their clearing, but the card seemed to have vanished entirely. It was alarming, since that was an exceptionally valuable card. But more importantly, considering how weak all of them were, the disappearance of the card like that was extremely concerning.
They searched for only a moment before Nero just pulled out another Fair Weather card and they all quickly departed. Fortunately, soon after, they found a different stairwell.
Once they had found the stairs, returning to the ground floor only took a few minutes. Finally, after hours and hours surrounded by that suffocating fog, they were in the clear.
The place they came up from did not have guards standing by, which meant it was outside of the army's control zone. That also meant there was a possibility of encountering dangers above the Neophyte realm.
As such, none of them wasted any time at all. Maximilian finally shifted Arter onto Gabriel's back, and they set off to return to the army.
Behind them, Vanessa looked at the three leave with a frown. Her emotions were still in a state of heightened euphoria, but that did not prevent her from thinking clearly. Nero had not only found her in a matter of minutes of her beginning to follow them, for reasons she didn't know, he handed her a very important card.
He did not seem like the kind of guy to betray his country like that, which is why she frowned. She had no idea what to make of this gift - or if there were any traps in it waiting for her.