Adon was barely tuned into the conversation as Rosslyn, William, and Frederick discussed dungeon strategy for the level.

  He was still stunned from the previous conversation he and the Princess had shared. He felt like the greatest failure in butterfly history. He wished he could slink back inside his chrysalis and melt again—dissolve until he reemerged as a different butterfly. Within the self-pitying stew of his consciousness after the conversation with Rosslyn, there was little room for more practical considerations.

  Despite paying almost no attention to the plan for the level, he did manage to pick up that he was still partnered up with the Princess—though he did not know if that was simply because Goldie and Frederick were quite attached to each other, while William and Adon would not have likely gotten along well if paired as a team.

  Whatever the reason, the logistics of the plan called for him to continue to stick to Rosslyn like glue. He would be the warning signal of approaching danger.

  Adon gladly settled on the Princess’s wrist when the moment came to embark into the dungeon again. He even tried to make that motion he had made earlier in the dungeon when landing on her wrist, the one that had tickled her slightly.

  What he wouldn’t give to see her laugh just then…

  But the corner of her lip merely twitched in response to his touch. That was the most reaction she was going to give him. Rosslyn did not even look in his direction. She maintained a studied interest in the stalactites, as if she wanted to determine, though visual inspection alone, which was sharpest.

  Are her eyes moist? Adon thought. It might have been a trick of the light, but the Princess’s eyes looked shinier than was normal. Or it might have been a trick of Adon’s own mind, which was tormenting him with both guilt at any negative emotions Rosslyn might be feeling—she was a young woman with roughly as little romantic experience as him, after all, not some world-weary seductress who had broken a thousand hearts—and also simple pain at the fact of the road not taken here.

  Beside them, Frederick and Goldie, along with William and Samson, maintained two steadily flowing semi-telepathic conversations.

  Adon thought about starting a parallel dialogue with Rosslyn, so as not to stand out in a negative way from the others, but he quickly gave up on that idea. He hadn’t broken the silence earlier, to take his and Rosslyn’s relationship to a different place. He was not going to break it now to socially signal. If anything, he was in a mood to withdraw further.

  He would let some time elapse, give the Princess some space, and then maybe try to broach the topic at a later date. Preferably when there was no looming threat over both of their heads—no dungeon to defeat, no Kingdom to save. Just the butterfly and the Princess.

  Either that, or he would just bury himself alive and save himself from dying of embarrassment.

  The telepathic wavelengths between Rosslyn and Adon maintained a stable, though not particularly cold, silence as the group exited the tunnel and began to climb the adjacent cliffside, aiming to quickly ascend before anything noticed them so that they could avoid being ambushed on the way up if possible.

  The ascent began peacefully enough.

  But the silence between the butterfly and the Princess apparently did not go unnoticed by others.

  As the humans scaled the cliff, Samson started talking to Adon via private telepathic channel.

  Adon, is the Princess in a bad mood? Samson asked.

  She seems fine to me, Adon lied.

  Well, she was definitely all right earlier, but now? After that conversation the two of you had alone? I don’t have super-Telepathy like you, but I’m not blind. I can see something big changed. Not for the better, either… Bro, you can’t pretend everything is just fine. We’re all probably about to go into a fight together.

  I wouldn’t worry about it, Adon sent.

  Are you really saying you don’t know about—well, whatever the problem is that’s going on?

  Adon held his silence for a few seconds, trying to convey that he wasn’t going to talk about this.

  Shit, Samson sent. Maybe it’s that time of the month…? Samson trailed off.

  Please drop it, Samson, Adon replied. Even if that was true, which you have no reason to believe it is, I would rather not discuss that with you.

  Yeah, my bad, that was a bit gross of me, Samson agreed.

  Goldie was next to pry.

  Did you and Rosslyn have some sort of argument? the spider asked.

  You too? Adon sent.

  What does that mean?

  Never mind.

  Should I take that to suggest that you did have an argument during your private chat?

  We had kind of a difficult discussion, Adon replied meekly. He had a feeling that if he explained the substance of the conversation he’d had with Rosslyn, even Goldie—who was usually so understanding and supportive—would be annoyed with him, might think he was pathetic.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  There is a difference between a disagreement and an argument, and a difference between an argument and a fight, Goldie sent. Maybe if you talk about it with me, I can help.

  I would really rather not, Adon sent. I don’t think it’s going to hamper us going through the dungeon. That’s all I’m willing to say right now.

  Thankfully, his spider friend did not press the subject nearly as far as Samson had.

  The golden silence resumed.

  Shortly, they reached the top of the cliff.

  All that had happened on the way up was a few heads poking out over the cliffs’ edges and looking down at them. Thankfully, none of the creatures that had apparently seen them had bothered descending to try and give them a fight.

  Since this did not seem to be a level where they would plausibly obtain allies, a situation where some monsters dropped in to fight them while the knights were using both hands and feet to climb might have been potentially disastrous.

  The dungeon certainly knows how to shape an environment to the advantage of the creatures, Adon thought dully.

  But given that the ants had not, in fact, descended to take advantage of their environmental advantage, Adon worried that they were doing something worse to prepare for the intruders. There were no monsters to be seen on the surface when they stepped onto the clifftop, which only heightened his anxiety.

  There was a trap somewhere here. The butterfly thought there almost had to be.

  Fortunately, everyone around him seemed to agree.

  Rosslyn raised a hand to signal to the group that they should not advance further. The party instead gathered along the cliff’s edge, forming a line with their backs to the open air that worried Adon almost as much as the possibility of walking into a trap. He could easily imagine some sudden attack striking and sweeping them all off the cliff’s edge.

  Though now that he considered that, he doubted that anyone would fall to their deaths here. There had not been that much of a climb, and the knights all had command of mana.

  “Adon?” Rosslyn’s whisper broke his train of thought. “Anything?”

  Right, she wants to know if I sense enemies, he thought.

  He had already been keeping his telepathic ears out for any sign of danger, of course.

  There was nothing anywhere nearby. Dozens of meters down, there were ants hard at work, and some other creatures that were harder to positively identify from a distance moving around in tunnels as well. But Adon could not feel any presences near enough to spring a trap on the group.

  It was peculiar.

  There’s nothing as far as I can tell, Adon sent. No living creatures close enough to attack or be attacked. Though that doesn’t mean there’s no trap…

  Rosslyn nodded and gave a thin half-smile. Adon was relieved that she was finally at least sort of trying to act like things were normal. He hoped that might be the first step to actually returning to normalcy. And she had been right that they really didn’t want to be distracted by interpersonal drama while they were in the dungeon.

  “Advance!” Rosslyn called. “Use caution and employ the cooperation system, but advance!”

  Cooperation system? Adon wondered quietly.

  As he watched the advance, however, it became clear that “cooperation system” was this world’s version of the “buddy system” as he had understood it in a few other incarnations. The knights stuck close to each other, in tightly packed groups, with some of them holding shields aimed at protecting their groups from attacks that might come from either side.

  The slow, armored and shielded advance actually looked rather formidable to Adon, and he was reminded that even though they were probably heavily outnumbered, each member of their group was formidable in his or her own right.

  They advanced slowly along the ground, knights frequently taking awkward steps to avoid stepping into the irregularly sized and spaced pits that dotted the ground like so many pimples across a teenager’s face.

  Adon was attempting to scan further out with Telepathy, extending his reach to see if there was anything coming their way, when there was a sudden sound of crumbling soil and stone, followed by a cry of surprise.

  Adon and Rosslyn both lunged forward at the same moment.

  The butterfly could tell from Telepathy, while Rosslyn simply had the sharp senses that were probably common for one of her background and level of power.

  Both moved in the direction of the knight who had suddenly dropped, falling into the ground more quickly than anyone could react—or at least more quickly than his fellow knights could grab hold of him.

  The soil had collapsed beneath him. These tunnels had naturally made the ground less stable to walk on.

  But before the man could fall too far, a sudden force stopped his descent.

  Rosslyn clenched her fists, and every vein in her face stood out. Adon sensed immediately that she had grabbed hold of the knight with Telekinesis. Her actual strength with that ability was not particularly potent, however. The butterfly could feel that at any moment, she would lose her grip, and the man whose fall she had arrested would continue dropping into places unknown.

  So Adon reached out with Telekinesis as well. He had not practiced with it since he fought the eagle, but it was one of his most valuable abilities.

  He took the man’s location from Telepathy, and he instantly joined his power to Rosslyn’s. Neither of them alone could have done much.

  But the Princess by herself could hold the man in place for a while.

  With Adon’s strength added to her own, they began slowly pulling the knight back up the pit he had suddenly dropped down. Defying gravity. Performing a feat well beyond either of them.

  For a few tense minutes, the entire group around them held their peace—seemed almost to be holding their breath, hoping against hope to see their comrade again.

  Adon could feel his head pounding, his mind wanting to give out as he stretched his Telekinesis to its limit. Beside him, Rosslyn clearly wasn’t much better. Beads of sweat ran down her temples, and she had fallen to her knees, arms shaking, eyes closed, as she focused solely on what she could do with the power of her mind.

  There was a small, slightly distracting cheer as the knight’s head came into view. Then a dozen hands grabbed hold of the man’s arms, shoulders, the armor above his collarbone, and even—uselessly—his head. The other knights suddenly bore all of their comrade’s weight, and Rosslyn let out a gasp of relief as she and Adon were able to release their telekinetic holds.

  Thank the Goddess, Rosslyn thought. We did it.

  Adon heard her positive, if exhausted, sentiment through Telepathy, but he could not share in it.

  This is how the level feels before we even encounter a monster directly, he thought. Can we really complete this level?

  And the Princess was thinking in parallel to him.

  How will we cross the ground here, if it is this unstable? Rosslyn wondered.