"Is anyone in need of emergency healing?!" Corporal Higgins yelled to the remaining adventurers.

  At a glance, no one was seriously injured, at least among those still standing. All those who were wounded had already passed. The undead are too lethal.

  Damian was trying to play it cool and calm, but the pounding in his chest was betraying him. Everything was happening too fast and all at once. He needed a moment to himself and to reel himself in. If he continued to get swept up in the situation, he'd be bound to make a decision that he'd end up regretting.

  Motioning for his team to stay back, Damian hopped back into the hospital through one of the windows. Plenty more dead were scattered in the healing hall. No traces of their enemies remained. The wraiths return to nothingness.

  As he was surveying, he noticed the room was warmer than before; the flicker of flames and smoke could be seen on the far wall.

  Bending over a woman in a purple mage's robe, Damian could see that she was all skin and bones. Whatever had killed her had sucked out all of her blood. There was a singular puncture wound on her forehead.

  Do undead skills always have to be so cruel? Although if he used his own scattering blades on a person, they'd likely question whose abilities were crueler.

  Grabbing the dead woman by her clothes, Damian tossed her out the window. He continued from body to body, sometimes kicking the corpses with his enhanced strength to fly out the nearest window. He was engrossing himself in manual labor to ground himself, even if it was the most morbid and gruesome form of it. After clearing the bodies, he followed suit and leapt out.

  "What the hell are you doing!" One of the adventurers screamed. He was bending down over the shrivelled-up mage, cradling her body in his arms.

  "The fire is spreading. If you'd like to keep her body whole, I'd recommend that you drag her away. We don't need any more wraiths to fight. Goddesses know how many more of them we'll see crawling up from the rites chamber."

  Isaac's form flashed in Damian's mind. Don't think about it... He was still tier 3 when he passed. Maybe he won't turn. Maybe he turned early, and these adventurers gave him his final rest.

  Damian bent over and grabbed another body by the scruff of their clothes. Step by step, he walked over to the grass of the courtyard by his team. They were discussing what to do next.

  Damian thought about joining in, but he still needed a few moments to himself. He already had a plan in mind, but his team could come up with something better—no need to taint the thinking pool.

  Turning around, Damian continued pulling bodies away from the healing center while thinking.

  What to do with the bodies. Getting them away from the fire should be enough. We don't have enough rope in Donna's inventory to tie them all up. Bringing them along also isn't feasible, nor is putting them in spatial storage, burying them even less so. If any of them had an earth affinity or any number of other skills, they'd easily dig out from down under.

  'sigh'

  Bending over to grab another body, he saw an armored hand reach down for another. The guards and some of the adventurers were beginning to help.

  "Damian." The Corporal spoke.

  "Yes?"

  "I wanted to let you know that we will be heading to the Spire. It looks like a large gathering has already assembled. If there is a commanding officer, we can contact headquarters. I'll let you know what they have to say. We'll also need to fortify the position across from the healing center."

  "By looking at the plumes of smoke rising across the city, it's likely that many of the rites chambers were targeted. Hopefully, people are preparing to do the same elsewhere."

  "That's a great assumption you've made, but why do this in the first place?" Damian gave a tug on a body whose foot was stuck under another. "What would you guess is their target? How could this happen? Who let this happen?"

  Corporal Higgins gave him a blank look. "I wouldn't try to assume the enemy's motives. I'm just here to prevent further bloodshed and follow orders."

  "Ha!"

  The Corporal's eyebrows furrowed.

  "I thought that it was strange for a tier 4 only to be a Corporal."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "How long have you been at tier 4? Months? It hasn't been over a year, has it?"

  Higgins flinched.

  "Pa! No way, damn! Your leadership is really doing you dirty."

  "I will not have you insult my commanding officers!"

  "Haa... You're a good one, Higgins. Too good for this city."

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  She relaxed a bit, but her brow stayed furrowed.

  "Urgh", Damian grunted as he pulled at another body.

  Higgins wouldn't question her commanding officers, believing she was doing the right thing. But because of that very purity, they won't be promoting her any time soon. The guards in big cities are just too dirty. Too many back-room deals, too many people getting paid to look the other way.

  If she'd been promoted to a position of power, she'd likely try to put a stop to the less shiny but more profitable aspects of guard work. She could thrive if they placed her on the front lines. However, that's just asking for an early grave.

  Growing up in an orphanage, Damian had seen it all. All the dirty tricks the underworld would play for some coin, to gain a connection, to please a twisted fetish. Cities were centers of commerce but also centers of crime.

  When there were just too many nooks to hide things, crime would flourish. And once those criminals had enough coin to sate hungry guards, they could do it out in broad daylight.

  There was no way the city guard didn't think something suspicious was happening. Undead appearing within the Spire? A guard was probably paid not to check carriages filled with tied-up adventurers.

  Something strange was happening in the sewers? Look the other way, we're running drugs. Suspicious crates beside a building? Don't check them; someone else will stop by to pick them up.

  If you had the coin and the guards could be bought, there wasn't a damn thing in the city that you couldn't get away with. Damian looked around at the aftermath of the disaster.

  Almost anything... Someone is going to end up paying for all of this.

  'sigh'

  I wonder who those bastards in power will blame.

  Higgins was still standing by Damian's side, waiting for his next words. Probably deciding whether to throw a punch or not if she thought he was being too insolent.

  "If I had to make a guess, some very important people have either died or are going to die today. If I were you, I'd try to locate where the enemy is stationed. They're probably right under your nose somewhere. What's the saying... It's always darkest under the lantern~."

  Did Damian know where that lantern was? Of course not. He didn't know the city well enough, the internal politics, or the underground's workings. But maybe a local could make use of the old adage.

  Corporal Higgins was quiet; it seemed that what Damian had said had reactivated the part of her brain responsible for critical thought, shifting her mentality away from being just another soldier.

  Leaving the Corporal behind, Damian continued to drag another body toward the grass. His team was still in the middle of their discussion.

  Everyone was pushing forward with their talking points, except Fergus. He typically didn't involve himself in discussions, just happy to be around. Although when he did speak up, it was more often than not something essential to consider.

  "Entering the Spire is still too dangerous; it's basically a gamble. Three Valkyrie are still inside. What could they be facing to hold them up for so long?" Donna commented while shifting her posture. It didn't look like she wanted to enter the dungeon so soon after what happened to Isaac.

  "More likely than not, they're just chasing down stray undead. There are countless paths in the tower, and even Valkyrie traveling down the path have to take out the dungeon monsters." Alex rebutted.

  Once you caught a dungeon monster's attention, it'd continue to chase you until you teleport out. So if you didn't deal with them, you'd leave a chain of death in your wake.

  "And what if we run into that Hans again?! He was a tier 5 adventurer! His whole party was!" Donna exclaimed.

  "Then we teleport out, and we can just stay in one of the hubs. If we see one of the Valkyrie, we can flag their attention and tell them what's happening outside."

  "I wouldn't just teleport out again if we run into trouble. What if the situation out here deteriorates while we're inside?" Frey reasoned. "We'd have no idea how the situation outside would be developing. An untimely teleport could bring us right in front of the maw of a wraith."

  Their whole conversation revolved around the Spire. The most reasonable course of action, really. Running through the streets during a wraith outbreak could spell disaster for them. They didn't know the city, where people would take shelter, or where those who really needed aid would be—Damian thought of his old orphanage.

  It would have been nice if they could be heroes, saving the populace from stray monsters, just like a hero from a storybook. But as it was, they were still weak. Fresh tier 4 adventurers, not even having time to level up and improve their skills, let alone practice using them.

  They had gained wondrous new skills from becoming 4th-tier, but as he witnessed earlier, they still likely couldn't take a hit from a wraith's skill. None of them could improve their body's defences, except for Isaac.

  Alex's enhanced strength did little to bolster her defence. Damian didn't even consider testing the full might of Fergus's new food buff. Buffs that covered more than one aspect were more like the difference between someone who walked daily, and someone who walked quickly daily. There was a significant improvement, but not enough to stop a blade.

  'sigh'

  Damian stepped forward to lay out his thoughts. "I think we should stay with Corporal Higgins for the time being."

  "?" Some questioning faces met Damian's. He usually only held scathing remarks for the guard.

  "Hear me out."

  "I was thinking about why the healing center blew up first, while all the other explosions happened near simultaneously."

  The group pondered Damian's statement.

  Before anyone could respond, Damian pointed toward Alex, "I think Alex might have saved us for the second time today."

  The group started to consider his words. "Ah!" Fergus caught on first. "Alex screamed, 'Operation Start' next to that building. You don't actually think that..."

  "Yeah, with Alex's booming voice and a signal to start something, I can easily see a nervous person camped out on the rooftop firing off a spell prematurely. I think we got lucky, really."

  Frey would have been hovering over the part of the healing center where the rites took place; the rest of us would have likely been just below.

  The whites of Fergus's eyes were showing again from the shock. At the same time, Frey's and Donna's eyes looked like they could fall out with a light tap to the back of the head. They all looked toward Alex. Her own face was blank, dumbfounded by the realization. Maybe it was taking her a bit longer to connect the dots.

  "Because the healing center blew up prematurely, the guards who were ordered back to their station started to pour out, escaping with their lives."

  "Who knows how many people Alex saved by being playful? Maybe that one premature explosion saved a lot of people within earshot. It was awfully loud, so the lives saved could span across the city."

  Damian expected the Amazonian woman to smirk and gloat, but instead her face remained blank, shocked at the revelation. Fergus patted her on the back, and she came to.

  "So I was thinking that since these guards were fated to die in a fiery explosion, they likely didn't have anything to do with this, or at least knowingly. Plus, Higgins seems like a good person. She said that she'd inform us of what she learns from her command."

  Information was life-or-death during a crisis.