Chapter 13

Once the path toward Bamia opened, the trio’s assault flared brilliantly. Father and Aslan pressed forward from the front while Theo launched relentless attacks from the rear.

From time to time, spiders freed from the gravity field crawled back up toward the ceiling, but before Blaine’s magic they were helpless.

He was firing off Actions as hard as he could, but compared to the other three, his contribution didn’t even come close. Maybe that was why he looked a little anxious, his eyes constantly fixed on his orb, as if waiting for something.

“It’s here!”

Father shouted in excitement. At the same time, her Tier Action struck Bamia, and an enormous damage marker floated above it. Deadly Time had begun.

The assault didn’t let up after that. They chained attacks smoothly, and with Father soaking, blocking, and countering every strike while holding Bamia’s aggro, the momentum was theirs.

Just as Theo targeted Bamia to trigger his Tier Action, the spiders swarming underfoot suddenly shrieked in unison. He startled, glancing down. The countless spiders blanketing the ground screamed and thrashed, then began sliding away as if being sucked somewhere.

Theo wasn’t the only one shocked. Father and Aslan faltered too, scanning the surroundings.

The spiders were being dragged toward Bamia. They flailed desperately, trying to resist the invisible force, but it was useless. Like insects trapped in flowing sand, they only spun their legs without moving forward.

Even Bamia twisted its massive body uneasily, spinning in place as if something was wrong. The phenomenon looked unmistakably like gravity magic. Everyone turned to Blaine. He wore the expression of someone who had been waiting for this.

The spell set to Auto Spell on his orb—Gravity Gather.

A gravity sphere visible only to the caster fell, pulling every monster in range toward it.

It could be triggered manually, but because he had been forced to rely on Gravity Drop to knock spiders down, he had been waiting impatiently for the Auto Spell to trigger.

Blaine didn’t waste a second. He immediately cast his Tier Action. Instead of the usual magic circle etched on the floor, a circle of lines formed around the target like an astrolabe. Slowly, it began to rotate, generating countless miniature universes along its edge. From those universes, a meteor shower rained down.

It wasn’t the first time they’d seen his Tier Action, but something was different. The meteors accelerated as if pulled inward, striking with even greater force. It looked as though even the magic itself was being dragged by gravity.

The damage output was staggering. Blaine’s Tier 6 Action, when poured into Gravity Gather, was landing numbers close to a Tier 5.

Amid everyone’s astonishment, Bamia collapsed. Judging by the timing, it seemed Blaine’s spell had dealt the finishing blow. As the moment froze in silence, Blaine glanced at Theo and asked hesitantly, “Aren’t you going to loot…?”

Theo blinked a couple of times before slowly nodding. He stepped forward to gather the loot, reaching toward Bamia’s corpse before it disappeared.

But before his hand could touch it, Aslan and Father rushed up and grabbed his arm, shouting, “Not you!”

Theo pouted, his lips sticking out in protest, while the two of them called Blaine over. Blaine, looking awkward, stole a glance at Theo before reaching out to harvest the boss. Yet even with Blaine doing it, Bamia’s Spider Silk didn’t drop.

“Maybe your bad luck clashed with his and canceled it out?”

Aslan muttered while slinging an arm over Theo’s shoulder. Father nodded in agreement. Theo shoved Aslan’s arm away and snapped,

“…Don’t jinx it. Expecting it to drop in one go is just greedy.”

“True.”

Father agreed again with another nod.

Blaine fidgeted nervously, caught between the three of them, until Father eventually patted him on the shoulder and started walking toward the exit.

“We don’t have time to waste. Let’s keep farming.”

They ran it four more times, but Bamia’s Spider Silk never dropped. Eventually, they settled at the Rest Area to take a break.

Father lit a campfire and began cooking. She was a Tier 5 in cooking—not because she liked food, but because she loved alcohol. Her pursuit of the perfect brew had pushed her to become a master cook.

She prepared simple skewers for snacks and handed out homemade beer. But when she started to give Blaine a mug, she paused and asked,

“By the way, Blaine, how old are you?”

Blaine, about to take the drink, looked at her and replied,

“Twenty.”

Father’s face eased with relief, and she handed him the mug with a smile.

“This is my secret-recipe masterpiece. People line up begging to buy it, offering a fortune.”

She praised her beer with her nose in the air, looking smug enough to pierce the sky. Blaine listened with a face full of amazement, while Aslan and Theo quietly sipped their beers without comment. Everything she said was true, after all, so there was nothing to argue. She only brewed small batches when she felt like it, so even guild members couldn’t drink it whenever they wanted.

Theo drained his beer in one gulp and grabbed a skewer. Then, as if remembering something, he turned to Blaine.

“So why don’t you have a guild? At your level, guilds should be fighting over you.”

“You don’t have a guild?”

Father and Aslan’s eyes lit up at the same time as they looked at Blaine. Caught off guard by the sudden question, Blaine visibly flinched, scratching the back of his neck as he lowered his head.

“Ah, well… there were some issues. They called me a dumbass for using an Eternal Stone to strengthen gravity magic…”

The bluntness of his words made the three of them stare at one another, dumbfounded. But letting silence linger would only make it more awkward. Father cleared her throat like a cough and, chewing on a skewer, spoke.

“I’ll admit, when I first heard you’d strengthened gravity, I thought you were an idiot too. But if they’d hunted with you even once, they’d know how damn good it is.”

“Damage amplification doesn’t apply to others, though. It’s only useful to me…”

Father bit down on her skewer with a baffled look, then tossed the stick aside after finishing the meat.

“So what? This game doesn’t even have support classes. If it works for you, that’s all that matters. What more did they expect?”

Quietly listening, Theo grabbed another skewer and asked,

“Did someone actually say something to you?”

Blaine hesitated, as if weighing whether to answer. From that pause alone, they all sensed it—something had definitely happened.

“It’s fine. Tell us.”

Father urged gently.

Blaine’s wolf ears drooped low as he toyed with his beer mug. Then he finally spoke.

“I did join somewhere after I got my Eternal… but since I wanted a smaller place, I joined a clan instead of a guild.”

“A clan?”

Father tilted her head. With an Eternal, why a clan instead of a guild or union?

“Yeah. At first, they were thrilled. Super welcoming—because of the Eternal. The first few days were fine. But then they suddenly wanted to run a dungeon.”

“A dungeon?”

“Yeah… a high-grade one. They said they’d never been before. And they knew I’d strengthened gravity magic, and that I was Tier 6. I told them it wasn’t possible at my level, but they said since I had an Eternal, it should be fine…”

Father’s face hardened.

“Even with an Eternal, dragging a Tier 6 into a high-grade dungeon? Sounds like they were low-tier themselves. And asking that from someone who boosted support magic instead of offense?”

“In the end, we couldn’t even beat the first boss. So they called me useless… a dumbass for strengthening gravity… said I was no help at all.”

Now it made sense why Blaine had been so reserved earlier, downplaying his worth. Aslan snorted, shaking his head.

“They didn’t want support. They wanted to be carried.”

Father nodded in agreement, then handed Blaine another skewer.

“That wasn’t your weakness. It was theirs. Look at us—we cleared a high-grade dungeon in Hard Mode. Did you think it was hard?”

Blaine shook his head furiously.

“No. It was so much fun.”

“See? That’s why choosing the right people matters. If some clowns who don’t know what they’re talking about start gossiping, tell them to shut it.”

Somewhere along the line, Father’s speech naturally shifted to casual terms. Blaine didn’t seem to mind—or maybe he did notice but accepted it with his usual quietness.

Father refilled everyone’s beers, claiming she was parched, while Theo chewed his skewer and asked after a sip, “So that’s why you left the clan?”

“No… I was kicked out.”

“…Pfft.”

Theo choked on his drink at the absurd answer. Not left—kicked out? Ah, come to think of it, Blaine had mentioned being kicked before. Coughing violently, Theo struggled to breathe. Blaine shot up in alarm, but Aslan was quicker, patting Theo’s back. Blaine, watching that again, felt a pang in his chest.

Father, who had been eyeing him intently, pointed at Blaine with her empty skewer. “So, how do you two know each other?”

Theo couldn’t answer through his coughing, so the question might as well have been aimed at Blaine.

“He helped me a lot.”

Blaine said.

“Really? With what?”

“Uh… I was lost in the Jain Forest, and he helped me.”

“…That’s it?”

“Yes.” Blaine nodded with a small smile.

The story was so plain it left Father deflated. She gave Theo a suspicious look.

“And what were you doing in the Jain Forest?”

Finally recovering from his coughing fit, Theo managed to speak.

“I was heading to Lucilvania after leaving a sanctuary…”

At the word sanctuary, Blaine’s eyes widened. He wanted to ask—Theo had been to a sanctuary too? Was that right after he came out? But he couldn’t interrupt Theo and Father’s conversation.

“Near the Jain Forest, I saw these traffic-light-looking guys pass by, saying weird things.”

“Traffic lights…?”

Aslan muttered.

“What did they say?”

Father asked.

Theo frowned, trying to recall.

“Something like… ‘It should’ve been like this from the start, exile him quickly, he’s overly sensitive to the pain filter, he’s not human.’”

Father and Aslan looked confused at the cryptic words. But Blaine froze, every muscle going stiff.

Because of that last line.

He’s not human.