[Lancelot]

"W-what about him?" Gina asked, voice trembling when Rodrick's sharp eyes went to her.

Rodrick grinned and looked at Gina under the bridge of his nose. "If you want to bring him along, then go ahead. It's on you if he dies, though."

Gina hid behind Felix and trembled, chin crumpling and eyes full of tears.

"D-don't mind about me," Martus sat on a chair and took a deep breath. "I'll just be a hindrance."

"I'll take him out," Felix said.

"Not you, brat," Edgar spat and pointed at Gina behind him. "You. Go and escort him outside."

"Eh?" Gina shuddered visibly.

"What? It's your idea to help him." Lilian smirked behind her fingers.

"Besides, you're useless in this group. We need that brat here, so you go and take that NPS out," said Edgar with a scowl. "Or do you want me to force you? I can do that too."

Felix wanted to say something but couldn't find his voice while Gina meekly went to Martus and forced a smile.

"I-I'll . . . I'll escort you out," she forced herself to say.

"Gina . . ." Felix started, but Gina cut him off.

"It's fine. I'll . . . I'll catch up to you." She wiped the unfallen tears from her eyes and led Martus out of the dining area.

"Let's go," Rodrick commanded.

Felix casted a worried glance at Gina's retreating figure while Edgar pushed him forward.

"Get going. Your little girlfriend will be with you soon enough." he laughed like he had other meaning behind his words.

I gave one last glance at Gina before I went with the others. I could only hope that she didn't encounter anything back there. She was a white mage with no offensive skills, so that would be a problem for her.

Or maybe she would take this as an opportunity to escape? That would be the right choice, and I would even praise her if she did.

The wooden door leading into the kitchen was unlocked. This room was lined with shelves, tables, and a metal stove. Three buckets of blood stood against one of the walls, and two pale, half-rotted corpses wearing bloodied nun's habits lie on the tables. The corpses belong to two nuns of the Silvestre Sanctuary who resisted becoming dark stalkers and were killed by their corrupted sisters.

Mikaela hurled while Felix looked to the side. Soarsie only stared at the dead corpse with a blank expression while Rodrick's group made fun of them.

"Whoa, this is another level of scary," Edgar laughed behind closed fists. "Look at that face. It's better that they're dead. She would do the world a favor."

Maverick shook his head, unapproving of Edgar's actions. He offered a prayer in silence while Lilian flipped her hair.

"Let's get out of here. This room is depressing."

We proceeded to this small storage room that was filled with crates and sacks containing foodstuffs. The doors lead out from this room to the south and east. Most of the food held here was rotten and inedible.

One of the crates, however, contained six flasks of [Holy Water], and there was also dried meat to make ten days of rations which Rodrick took all for himself.

Not that I wanted those.

They also encountered Dark Stalkers along the way. These Dark Stalkers like to swarm on weak and frightened foes with their fiery handaxes. The dark stalkers also joined together in a [Chorus of the Damned] that empowered them. They used [Quickstep] to move unhindered around on the battlefield and use [Bloody Riposte] when hit by a dire attack.

I didn't have any problem with them and sometimes took on the load so Felix and Mikaela could breathe a little. It was not because I wanted to be a hero or kind enough to do so – it was for the reason that I wanted them alive until the boss. Numbers would help, after all.

While Soarsie was Soarsie, hiding in her shadows and hoping that no one would notice her.

The Dark Stalkers were not enough to stop our advance. It was partly because Rodrick's group were getting impatient by our slow paced and decided to kill the monsters themselves to hasten our advance.

They should have done that in the beginning.

The next stop was the Library. The walls of this rectangular room were lined with bookshelves and small desks cluttered with paper and quills. Doors lead out of this room to the north, east, and west. Most of the religious texts and holy books in this Library had been destroyed by the dark stalkers. Or so what I had read at the prompt notification flashing on my screen.

A lone dark stalker was busy gleefully tearing pages from a holy book, and Rodrick made quick work of her, slicing her into two before throwing her head outside the window. 𝚋ｅ𝚍ｎ𝚘ｖｅ𝚕．𝚘𝚛𝚐

"Tsk. Not even a Skillbook?" Edgar complained, kicking the piles of books.

Lilian sighed in disappointment. "This is supposed to be an A-Rank quest, right? How disappointing."

"Once we kill the boss, I'm sure we will receive some kind of an artifact," Maverick consoled his group.

"I'm not counting on it." Lilian made a face. "At this point, I only wanted the money. I need to go back to the capital and shop for new clothes."

As they chatted, we've spent one minute searching the Library and found several unfurled scrolls describing dark rituals transforming humans into demons. Reading the pages, I learned that the fiendish dark stalkers were vulnerable to radiant damage.

Though I doubt that information had any use by now since anyone with half a brain would know it even if the scrolls didn't point it out.

Anyway, for an A-rank quest like this, it really lacks treasure, and the monsters weren't that hard to defeat. I wasn't complacent, though. I knew what that cost me in the past.

I didn't let my guard down as we proceeded towards the Courtyard.

A large tree with a golden crown towered over a neatly organized courtyard filled with herbs. Large, arcane symbols had been drawn in blood on the tree's trunk. Two dark stalkers were busy drawing Abyssal glyphs on the tree. Their fingers were slathered in blood from a bucket at their feet.

"That's . . ."