NOVEL NEXT Chapter 83: Taking Risk
They ran, Lucas holding Celeste securely while Lydia led the way. Behind them, they could hear the sound of ice cracking as the Matriarch began to break free.
They burst into the clearing where they'd agreed to meet Damion's team, and Lucas was relieved to see the others were already there.
"What happened?" Damion said when he saw the sight of unconscious Celeste.
"Iron Tusk Matriarch," Lucas said shortly. "Celeste overextended herself stopping it. We need to move because it's probably free by now."
Zacard was already gathering their supplies. "We passed a cave system on our way here. Defensible position, and it's in the opposite direction from the Matriarch's usual territory."
"Lead the way," Damion said.
They moved quickly, Lucas adjusting his grip on Celeste as they navigated the rough terrain. She stirred once, mumbling something incoherent, but didn't wake.
The cave Zacard had mentioned turned out to be a shallow depression in a rock face, barely deep enough to be called a cave. But it was dry, defensible, and most importantly, hidden from casual view.
Lucas laid Celeste down on a bedroll, checking her pulse again. Still steady, and her breathing was regular. She'd just exhausted herself magically so she'd recover with rest.
Celeste woke an hour later, her eyes fluttering open with confusion. Lucas was sitting beside her, keeping watch while the others discussed their haul from the spider nest.
"Lucas?" Her voice was hoarse.
"I'm here," he said. "How do you feel?"
She tried to sit up, winced, and fell back against the bedroll. "Like I got trampled by a... oh." Memory returned to her face. "The Matriarch. Did she..."
"You stopped her," Lucas confirmed. "Completely encased her in ice. I've never seen anything like it."
A small smile played at Celeste's lips. "Good. She deserved it for trying to hurt you."
"You nearly killed yourself in the process," Lucas said. "You burned through your entire mana reserve in one spell. That's incredibly dangerous."
Celeste's smile didn't waver. "Worth it."
"No, it's not..."
"Yes, it is." She reached up and touched his face, her fingers cold against his skin. "You're worth it, Lucas. You're worth everything."
AH HELL NAH.
Lucas caught her hand and lowered it gently. "Celeste, you need to stop putting yourself at risk for me. I can handle myself."
"Can you?" She asked. "Because from where I'm sitting, you have a remarkable tendency to almost die. The duel with that student, the festival attack, the Forest Shamblers last night, and now the Matriarch. That's four near-death experiences in less than two weeks, Lucas."
"That's just bad luck.."
"No." Celeste's said. "It's a pattern. You throw yourself into danger without thinking about the consequences. Without thinking about what it would do to the people who care about you."
"I think about it," Lucas said.
"Do you? Because it doesn't seem like it." She struggled to sit up again, and this time Lucas helped her, supporting her back. "You act like your life is disposable."
Lucas opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. How could he explain? That he knew the story, knew the dangers coming, knew that the protagonist and his allies needed to survive? That in the grand scheme of things, a transmigrated side character like him was expendable?
He couldn't.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I'll try to be more careful."
Celeste studied his face, clearly unsatisfied with that answer. "You don't mean that."
"I do..."
"No, you don't. I can see it in your eyes." She leaned forward. "You're planning something. Something dangerous. I don't know what it is, but I can feel it."
"I'm not planning anything," he said.
Celeste's hand shot out with surprising speed for someone who'd been unconscious minutes ago.
She grabbed his collar, pulling him close until their faces were inches apart.
"Don't lie to me," she said. "Don't treat me like I'm too stupid or too fragile to handle the truth. If you're planning something dangerous, tell me. Let me help you. Let me protect you the way you keep trying to protect everyone else."
"Hey, lovebirds! Sorry to interrupt, but we need to discuss next moves. We've got less than twenty-four hours left."
"We're not done with this conversation." Celeste said.
"I figured," Lucas said, helping her to her feet.
The group gathered in a circle, Zacard spreading out their collective haul between them.
It was impressive: the Moonpetals, the honeycombs, various monster parts, and from Damion's team, several intact Crystal Spider webs and three egg sacs.
"If we turn this in now, we'd be in the top tier for sure," Zacard calculated. "Combined with our survival time, we're looking at passing scores for everyone."
"But?" Lucas asked.
"But we could do better," Damion admitted. "There's a known deposit of Starlight Ore about two hours northeast. It's rare enough that a single chunk would be worth a hundred points."
"What's guarding it?" Lydia asked.
Damion exchanged a look with Zacard. "That's the problem. The deposit is in contested territory. It's right on the border between the Widow's Crown's domain and the Matriarch's territory."
"You want to risk running into not one but potentially two boss-level creatures?" Lucas asked.
"The deposit itself is in neutral ground," Zacard said quickly. "Neither boss tends to patrol there because it's too close to the other's territory. It's actually one of the safer areas in the middle regions."
"Theoretically," Garrett added nervously.
"We don't need to do this," Lydia pointed out. "We already have enough to pass comfortably."
"But we didn't come here just to pass," Damion said. "We came to excel. To prove ourselves. One chunk of Starlight Ore could put us at the top of the rankings."
"I'm in," Celeste said.
Everyone turned to look at her.
"You just woke up from mana exhaustion," Lucas said.
"And I'll have recovered enough to fight by the time we reach the deposit," Celeste countered. "Besides, you're going, aren't you?"
The smart move was to play it safe, take their current haul and coast to a comfortable pass. But Damion was right because they hadn't come here to be mediocre.