The wounds on both me and Ragual were minor but a bad sign. Never in my entire life had I even considered wearing armor. It was weak. Nothing equaled a pure body’s durability over time.

  They were thoughts of an idiot.

  It was a damn hard pill to swallow but… armor and weapons weren’t totally useless. Sure, they may lose effectiveness at higher power levels but I wasn’t at those higher power levels. Right now, a sword could end me just as easily as anything else. And it’d be a long time before that changed, if it ever changed at all. The sewer had humbled my growing arrogance and seemed intent to constantly do it. At this rate I felt like I’d turn the corner and find out that writing and sitting in the dark was how I was supposed to beat Vega all along and that fighting was useless.

  I shook off the stupid thoughts. It pained me but… we needed tools.

  Bringing it up with Ragual did not go well. We nearly got into a fight despite the danger we were both in. I didn’t care. He wasn’t stupid and a bone star to the eyes would blind me and then I’d die and then he’d die. Thus I did something that made me feel disgusting but so what? I’d eaten dead rats. I could get over it.

  We returned to the village and put on armor.

  We nearly got stabbed by the frog villagers on our return and they stared at our small wounds with fear and horror. These… ninja turtles had clearly plagued them for a long time. No wonder, they were all power level [10], hit far above that weight class, and had absolutely no problem using weapons in addition. They might seriously have been able to fight a weaker chain wraith.

  Putting on armor, made from rock (Seriously, which frog person was making all these rock creations?) felt like a betrayal of everything I was. But that was stupid, all that I currently was, was barely a year old. I’d been power level [1] for twenty one years, I could crush my pride long enough to escape the sewers. No, maybe… maybe this was a stronger lesson. I was weak. If I’d embraced money and technology earlier, I could have gotten my own healing tank. Well, maybe. If I’d had more aggression, more tenacity and determination, I could have broken my own wall. I didn’t need master to, as he once said, ‘wipe my ass’, he was teaching me how to do things on my own.

  I’d learned so much being down here. I was a completely different person than when I’d left.

  This was yet another lesson. Till my body was stronger than armor… I needed to wear it. It wasn’t a sign of cowardice, it was a sign of weakness. I could deal with being weak. It simply meant I had to break past my limits and keep growing stronger! So that I’d never have to do something like this again.

  Despite being made of rock, the armor had the slightest amount of flex. A chest piece, strapped together leggings, armbraces, and a helmet is what I wore. It’s what the other guards wore when protecting the village entrances.

  I suddenly felt guilty. Here were these brave men and women, people who would get slaughtered if so much as one turtle appeared, and they were wearing armor and wielding weapons. They weren’t cowards in any way. After having fought what I’d seen, after having nearly been killed by the back blow of the water elemental, and seen the chain wraiths, how could I possibly have seen these frogs and thought them cowardly?

  Once again, my biases were getting in my way.

  I found Ragual, looking much the same as I was in our rock armor, and the same look reflected in his eyes. It was that feeling Master had mentioned. Dissatisfaction. No, that word was too weak. A hatred of our own weakness. If we were stronger… we’d have never had to do this. But we weren’t.

  It was like an extra, new kind of layer was wrapping around my desperate need for power. Vengeance, survival, and now… self-disgust. I didn’t want to be the sort of weak person that needed to rely on outside tools and technology to survive the world. That was no different from those poor people I’d heard about with such a horrible disease that they could never leave specialized environments. It was…restricting.

  I was currently so weak I’d have taken a gun. And that said everything that needed to be said.

  Armored but not armed, we left again, far more weary. We pushed the boulder slower, worried about an immediate ambush, and pushed it back with just as much worry. There was no point in bringing weapons, we simply weren’t trained enough with them. I wasn’t blind or stupid enough to think it took no effort or skill to use a tool, and I at least had months of fighting experience with my fists now.

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  The second the boulder was back we started heading back. I’d already talked to Ragual about the real problem I’d noticed earlier. Ragual was stronger than me, but not by an impossible to close margin. I’d more than proven that. I got the sense he might even consider us equals which was taking things a bit far. He was far stronger.

  But if I left… there was no way he was going to make it back to his village safe, sound, and alive. The four turtles would murder him.

  There was only one solution.

  We had to kill these damn ninja turtles.

  *****

  Walking through the dark with a single torch and a flashlight from my Vambrace was terrible. It had been worrying before I’d nearly gotten my head chopped off and now it was even worse. They were watching us, I could feel it, know it. Sense it. Ragual was constantly moving the torch and we were constantly pivoting to make sure nothing was getting behind us. The turtles had shown they could be utterly silent so even hearing alone wasn’t enough. It created a strange, tense atmosphere as the two light sources between us constantly swayed and moved along the darkness.

  As we walked I caught sight of broken glass where lights used to be. They were all broken and shattered. Similar to what I once did a few times to hide from rats but done on an impossibly large scale. Could these turtles see in the dark? Or did they simply rely on other forms of detection like hearing? Either way, it was an uncomfortable reminder. We were in their territory, their home, and they’d prepared it well for anyone or anything to enter.

  A fact that only got more blaringly obvious as we started to pass bones and full skeletons. Ragual stopped by one, crouching down to get a better look at it. It was a rat corpse but the weirdest part was… I’d never seen one before. Things hunted and died down here in the sewers all the time but they swallowed whole. These turtles, at least I assumed it was them, didn’t seem to like eating bones. It wasn’t exactly a full put together skeleton or anything and there were more than a few pieces missing, but the rat skull and rib bones were obvious.

  When we passed a human skeleton, I felt like I was going to be sick. There was still meat, rotten as it was, attached.

  We were higher now. The elevation was rising. We were getting closer to at least some kind of exit from these endless sewers. That made the dead human all the more demoralizing. I’d heard of there being things in the dark of the sewers, horrible monsters and creatures, things that could need the police to stop, and every single one of those rumors had been proven more than true. It was horrific down here and the turtles were just another group in a long line of horror.

  We didn’t just pass bone either though. There were also strange blue crystal growths on the walls. They almost looked to be… moving. It was just another indicator that despite this being turtle territory, they weren’t the only creatures around here. The sewers were dangerous and the faster I left, the better. Ragual had staunchly refused to try and relocate the village and I had barely given a token effort. The whole world was dangerous and Vega City was most definitely not less dangerous, just less active about it. A whole village rising out of the sewers that couldn’t speak Common and had no money? They’d all be chewed up and spit out within a week.

  Movement in the dark broke me out of my reverie. I ignored it and immediately spun around, looking for the ambush.

  It came from the side.

  A bone pole came sharply, slamming into my chest. The armor along my chest took the brunt of it as I stumbled back with a groan. Instincts flared and I moved in a way that surprised even me, an elbow flying backwards as I sidestepped a pair of daggers. My thrown elbow was dodged but the turtles didn’t stop this time, coming in close. The daggers pushed up while the pole came down and despite my best attempts to dodge, I was still hit with both. The daggers failed to penetrate and my helmet prevented my head from caving in but I still felt like I was seeing stars.

  I was power level [7], they were power level [10]. It was the equivalent of a decently fit person fighting someone that could break bricks with their bare hands, even if only barely. They were also over 40% higher in power level than me. I had no chance at all.

  But tools closed the distance.

  “Ragual, now!” I yelled, quickly glancing over.

  Somehow, he was already bleeding from the shoulder, and his right armbrace was shattered, but the plan was still active. We’d done more than just grab armor. We’d come up with a way to beat these things.

  Ragual touched the torch to his armor, before throwing it at me. It hit me, the fire striking my chest piece.

  And lighting up the cloth wrapped around it.

  It hurt my eyes and my body was already feeling the heat through my chest but it was nothing compared to how the turtles raised their hands to block out the light. My fist flew, slamming into the dagger wielding one's face. Before the one with the pole could react, I grabbed it, slamming my armored head into it. It tried to struggle away but I didn’t let up, repeatedly knocking our heads together, knowing it was taking more damage from the hits than I was as I felt my teeth rattle.

  The bright light shining from behind me as Ragual took on the other two only spurned me on to try and end this quicker.

  It was time to destroy these turtles!

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