One of the upsides of bringing subordinates into a dungeon, even when they were too weak to be risked in a particular fight, was that after the strongest members of the party had exhausted themselves fighting a strong monster—such as a certain wyvern—those who had not participated directly in combat could come along and help clean up the mess afterward.

  Such was the role of the knights at the end of level three of the dungeon—men and women who had fought and trained their whole lives for the opportunity to serve and fight alongside royalty and high nobility. They had worked and mastered mana—in some cases essentially been bred for this duty over generations by nobles or the bastard children of the nobility effectively engaged in a eugenics project. The knights had probably never imagined that their jobs would one day involve removing remains that their betters had left smeared all over the place of battle.

  Yet Adon found that the warriors were content with their lot.

  The emotional waves they emitted were calm, even pleased. Adon read it as the knights from both nations being relieved that their charges had survived without their protection. They were not surprised, exactly, that their leaders had lived, but the possibility of death had been a genuine concern.

  Compared with the likelihood of a Dessian heir or the Crown Princess dying right under their noses, a little cleanup duty was no big deal.

  It wasn’t as if they had to actually mop the blood from the scene and disinfect the place. Even if that had been desired, the blood had actually dried and partially evaporated almost immediately in the extreme heat of the level.

  Really, all the knights had to do was disassemble the wyvern corpse and carefully carry it down into the tunnel to the next level. A handful of them used their daggers and made quick work of the thing. Notably, they mainly targeted weak points—the joints of the creature—in order to avoid cutting into the tough hide. Only one knight touched that leathery skin with his blade, and he seemed specifically skilled in this area. He used a thinner knife that moved between the layers of flesh, peeling the hide away from the softer, more delicate parts of the corpse.

  Right, they want to make it into armor, Adon thought. Armor that I guess will go to Rosslyn now? Unless William actually decides to ask her for it directly.

  All of that assumed that they would make it out of the dungeon safely and also win their fight against the Empire, though. Adon imagined there would not be enough time to craft armor from the hide before the Empire showed up at their doorstep, even in the most optimistic possible version of the future.

  But his mind focused on the staircase that loomed ahead, quietly ominous—darkly inviting. The dungeon core had built, or one of its creations had carved, steps from this level to the next. It felt like the core was sending a message: Come on down. Test yourself…

  The impression he got when he looked at the space was ominous. Like the dungeon was laying out the red carpet, inviting them to the next level, as if something special was planned.

  There had been few deaths on the previous floor and none on this one, only some burn injuries from magma that had been quickly healed, since healing magic was more or less universal—and completely universal within this elite party. Adon had a bad feeling that this trend would change on the next level.

  He just didn’t know how that danger might be made manifest.

  What in the world can come after this? Adon thought.

  The butterfly was eager to go down through that tunnel and see what lay ahead of them, but he held off. The others had asked him not to go ahead just yet.

  As Rosslyn explained it within her mind, I think we may need your scouting again, but we should all enter the tunnel together. There has been speculation that the dungeon begins making preparations for people to tackle subsequent levels when the first explorer enters the tunnel separating the spaces.

  For the moment, everyone was recovering. In particular, the young lords and Rosslyn were recuperating from their exertions on this floor. Like Adon, they each had only a fixed amount of mana at any given time, though humans did not have Status screens like mystic beasts, so they could not easily track exactly how much mana they had in reserve. They instead had to become good at sensing when they were near the end of their resources.

  So, for now, Adon waited and recovered his resources. He stood near the exit to the level. Even though he could not see anything, since the downward-sloping staircase blocked his view, at least the temperature there was a bit less severe. It made Adon’s mana and health drain from being on the level much less—enough so that his natural regeneration of those outpaced the amount that the environment took from him.

  He was there for a quarter of an hour, perhaps, almost in quiescence, when a figure approached him. The human’s thought patterns were not ones Adon recognized, which made him wake up a little more fully than he might have if it had been Rosslyn, Frederick, or even William.

  But at least the person approaching seemed to be friendly. Adon felt only good vibrations from the man, a young fellow from Claustria who smiled as he walked up.

  He was holding something. It took Adon a minute to recognize what it was.

  The man bent down as he reached Adon.

  “I heard that you like to eat meat?” he said. He held up what looked like a gigantic, partially blackened turkey drumstick, the meat roughly the size of the knight’s head. “We peeled this off of the wyvern we skinned earlier.”

  Oh, that’s where I recognized him from, Adon thought. This knight had been the youngest one working on the wyvern dismantling process.

  Nice to meet you, Adon sent. My name is Adon, and I do like meat. Actually, that’s probably the quickest way to my heart. I did not think you could cook wyvern meat, honestly.

  The butterfly felt immediately pleased with himself for not tripping over his own words in this conversation.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Believe it or not, it was just the hide that was tough and fireproof,” the knight said. “The meat underneath roasted in the magma just like everything else. Maybe even easier than other meat. Oh, my name is Humphrey Lockhart. Technically Sir Humphrey, but you do not need to worry about that.” He chuckled to himself.

  A pleasure, Sir Humphrey, Adon replied. Thank you for the meat.

  “We all appreciate you being on the journey with us, Lord Adon,” Sir Humphrey said. “A little food is the least we could do. That little show you put on in the capital before we left probably inspired a lot of the people who have to hold down the fort back there. People have heard stories—myths, or maybe legends—about the butterflies in this country. I never dreamed we would actually have a magical creature fighting alongside us. Thank you for keeping the Princess and those Dessians safe.”

  Well, the Princess is the one who killed the wyvern, Adon sent.

  “But I would bet you did not sit idle during the fight, did you?” Sir Humphrey asked, raising an eyebrow and grinning. “That would be pretty different from the butterfly we saw on the last floor.”

  Adon was about to admit that he essentially had simply remained still on Rosslyn’s shoulder in the struggle, but he stopped himself.

  I did contribute a little, he thought. He had to remember that he had done things like reading the intentions and locations of enemies and using his powers to stop the magma creatures in their tracks for Rosslyn. Even if he had not been as active as he normally was in fights, it wasn’t as if Adon had made no difference at all.

  I helped as best I could, Adon finally transmitted. I can’t say I made a big difference, but I do what I can.

  Adon was trying to be honest about what he had and had not done, but as the knight nodded, the butterfly could sense through Telepathy that Sir Humphrey was already inflating a big narrative in his head about how the butterfly had saved the day.

  Is this how those legends get started? Adon wondered, bemused and amused. Someone just really wants to believe that the mystic beast did something important? For reasons that are a mystery to all parties concerned?

  He wasn’t about to try and correct the man’s misunderstanding, though. Adon was tired, and he could feel his ability to talk to strangers was nearing its limit for the day—especially since he had used up a lot of mental energy on this level of the dungeon, and he knew more and worse was probably coming soon. He had to resist the urge to look down the tunnel to the next level again. He knew there was nothing down there that he could make out visually, and it would be rude to turn his back on the nice knight who had come to talk to him and bring food.

  “Anyway, I did not want to bother you,” Sir Humphrey said as if he could sense he might be overstaying his welcome. “Just to bring this and our thanks.” He set the hunk of meat down in front of the butterfly. “To let you know that the knights appreciate you.”

  Well, you’re the real heroes, Adon sent, feeling cliche even as the words left his mind. Maybe I could share some of this with the other mystic beasts. They were also there for the battle…

  “Oh, a couple of my comrades already brought them some meat,” Sir Humphrey replied. “Just, I asked to be the one to bring you yours.” The young man swallowed, and Adon had the strange sense that he was holding in a sudden strong swell of emotions. “You know, we have not had a lot of reason for hope in recent months.”

  A rush of memories surged up in the young man’s head, so intense and telepathically loud that Adon could not ignore the fast-moving barrage of mental images. Knowledge of Rosslyn’s coma, rumors of the King’s illness, reports of the invasion by the Demon Empire—it was a rush of incidents that had half-convinced Sir Humphrey that he would live to see his country fall under occupation.

  Adon was treated to an uncontrolled memory of Sir Humphrey and a young woman who Adon guessed was his sweetheart—Adon guessed that because of the heady mix of emotions the knight felt toward her and because in the memory, he was holding her hands tightly.

  “Eliza, I have no way of knowing if we will make it through the next few months or even weeks,” the young knight said. “But if we do—you know that I completed the trials for you, do you not?”

  “Hump,” Eliza said, her voice throaty and short of breath. “We cannot talk like this in public.”

  Adon observed that there did not appear to be anyone around, at least not as far as he could see from the knight’s point of view. The two stood in a field, somewhere outside the city walls—probably the opposite side of Wayn from the way the party had exited.

  “Will you hold onto this token for me, Eliza?” Sir Humphrey asked. He produced a simple golden ring. “I do not know anything about the future with certainty—except one thing. My feelings for you. They will never change. If I live through the expedition to come, I hope you will hold onto this. When the war is finally over, I hope we can finish this conversation. If I do not live, I pray that you at least will survive, and hold this token as a memento of one who loved you…”

  The woman swooned and fell into his arms. They kissed, a chaste, close-mouthed kiss, but Adon sensed that this was a first for Sir Humphrey. This was no mere intuition, as there were other memories mingled with this one—reflections of a youth spent in training, trying to become a knight; stolen glimpses of Eliza performing her daily chores in town; secret meetings between the two young lovers in which they exchanged love notes and blushes but little else.

  It was all very sweet and innocent, even relative to Adon’s own expectations as the forever-alone type that he was.

  The memory ended abruptly as Sir Humphrey pulled himself back to the present.

  Well, that was intense… Adon thought silently.

  “Apologies for the awkward silence for a moment,” Sir Humphrey said. “Anyway, you have given some of us a reason for additional hope that we had not anticipated!”

  He practically dropped the meat in front of Adon and almost ran away. The butterfly could hardly blame him for the slight awkwardness of those last few moments, given the memory that he and Sir Humphrey had experienced together.

  And were those tears in his eyes at the end?

  Adon wondered if he was really having the level of effect on morale that the knight had seemed to imply. The idea felt impossible to him—but then, Adon was not the superstitious type. Even though he knew for a fact that the Goddess existed, he had rarely prayed to her. She did not seem like a very interventionist deity.

  But maybe having a magical creature in front of him, when he was raised in a relatively mundane world in which the animals, at least, did not talk, would have had a similar effect on him. Especially if he lived in a country where there were legends about such creatures saving the nation in the past…

  The butterfly doubted whether he could live up to those expectations, but he deliberately cast that question aside.

  He had a much more pressing matter to deal with: the meat that lay in front of him now. And he wasted no time now that the knight had made himself scarce.

  Adon unwound his proboscis and began to consume all the wyvern’s juices.

  Slurp slurp. Guzzle guzzle. Gulp.

  He quickly sank into a feeding trance.

  From there, tired and aware there were no threats around him, the butterfly slipped seamlessly into quiescence.