Silica slipped back through the trees like a gust trying not to leave a trail, her cream ponytail swaying behind her as she landed beside the group.

  “Whoa, you are back so fast.”

  “I guess my scout friend back in the mercenary should learn something from you.”

  Balandir’s rough voice and Gilbert’s steadier one reached her ears.

  Vorgar threw his head back and laughed, loud enough to shake a few leaves loose.

  “Haha! Look, Kaidos, I won the bet!”

  Kaidos clicked his tongue and glared at the ground as if it personally offended him.

  “Ugh. Damn it.”

  Vorgar turned back to Silica, scratched his cheek, then looked away with a strangely bashful twist to his mouth.

  “Sorry. I doubted your skill. I didn’t expect you would be quick in completing your task.”

  Silica blinked, her expression going blank with disbelief.

  They thought she came back quickly because she did well. Because she was efficient. Because she was worthy of their praise.

  But the truth was that she came back quickly because she could not do what they expected.

  Silica could not find a single safe word to say.

  Her mind dragged her back to an old memory from Earth, a mixed tournament where her teammate had scouted ahead, reported nothing, and then the entire team got ambushed at the exact spot that had supposedly been cleared, and they were wiped out in seconds.

  Back then, she remembered the heat of resentment, the sharp taste of disappointment. She remembered swallowing it down anyway, because she was the team leader, because harmony mattered, because if she broke the team then there would be nothing left to win with.

  Now, the roles were reversed.

  Now she was the one who came back with nothing.

  And worse, she was not standing among real players. She was standing among people who would bleed, fall, and won’t respawn. They were just NPCs, a bunch of data.

  Perhaps, if they were just NPCs in any other games, she wouldn’t mind much.

  But in this game, they moved like real humans. They breathed like humans. They joked, argued, and carried the small weight of their past like it mattered. Their eyes had depth. Their silences had meaning.

  Even a pro player had pride, so, how worse is it to be humiliated by NPCs who looked like real humans?

  But it was precisely because these NPCs looked like humans that she understood how important information gathering was. After all, the NPCs couldn’t revive like players.

  In this world, intel was not just a tool for victory. It was the thin line between everyone walking back out alive, or someone dying in the dirt.

  And besides… Cryssa was here.

  Cryssa Stelluna, silver hair catching the thin forest light, blue eyes calm even when the world around her was not. The woman who made Silica want to take this game seriously from the very first day. The woman who led knights like legends and stood on the peak Silica wanted to climb.

  If Cryssa died here because Silica failed her own task, then what would Silica have left?

  What would happen to the dream she kept chasing?

  Cryssa’s voice cut through the swirl in Silica’s head, warm and firm like a hand catching her before she fell.

  “Alright, alright, that’s enough guys.”

  Cryssa stepped closer, smiling at Silica in a way that did not feel like pressure.

  “Don’t mind them. How is the result, Silica?”

  Silica’s throat tightened. She opened her mouth, yet nothing came out.

  She tried again, lips trembling, feeling every second stretch longer than it should.

  Her pride screamed at her to lie.

  Her fear begged her not to.

  And… Her respect for the girl in front of her left only one option.

  “I… I don’t know…”

  The forest went still. Even the wind seemed to pause, as if it wanted to hear what came next.

  Cryssa’s brows lifted, not in anger, but in pure surprise that lasted only a moment before it softened.

  “You don’t know…?”

  Silica nodded without lifting her head, shame burning behind her eyes.

  She braced herself for a scolding. For a laugh. For Vorgar’s teasing to turn sharp. For Kaidos to finally say what he looked like he wanted to say.

  Instead, Cryssa let out a quiet sigh, the kind that carried weight but not cruelty.

  “Relax. I won’t blame you. Just tell us everything you saw.”

  Silica’s chest clenched so hard it almost hurt.

  Those words.

  She had said them before, in that tournament, to the teammate who ruined the match. At the time she thought she was being kind, being responsible, being the leader.

  Now she understood how it really felt to hear it.

  It did not feel like mercy.

  It felt like being held gently over a cliff, knowing you deserved to fall, and knowing the person holding you still chose not to drop you.

  It stung worse than punishment.

  Silica nodded, took a breath and forced herself to speak, because if she hesitated now, someone might die later.

  She clenched her fists at her sides and reported everything, every detail her eyes and ears had gathered.

  The burning dwarf town in the distance. The number of soldiers. The flashes of power that looked like what Gilbert had used. The number of those flashes, at least what she could count from her angle. The gaps where she could not see clearly. The spots where smoke and heat distorted the air. Everything, including the fact that she did not know the true strength of those soldiers.

  She did not try to sound clever.

  She did not offer opinions. She did not guess. She did not even summarize.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  She laid the facts down, one by one, and prayed they were enough to build a path for Cryssa and everyone else to survive in this dungeon.

  When she finished, her voice dropped into a whisper.

  “I am sorry…”

  Silica kept her head down, waiting for the blow.

  Gilbert spoke first, thoughtful, as if her apology did not even register as the main topic.

  “Hmm, so we can assume over half of the soldiers there are using energy manifestation…”

  “Eh…?”

  Silica blinked and lifted her eyes a little.

  Balandir grunted, arms crossed, gaze already far away like he was looking at the battlefield through the trees.

  “Based on information about their firepower, it’s highly likely they are at least B-rank.”

  “Huh…?”

  Kaidos nodded slowly, fingers tapping the grip of his weapon like he was counting possibilities.

  “The rest who don’t use energy manifestation should be C-rank then.”

  “Huh?”

  Vorgar leaned forward, grin gone, voice lower than usual.

  “It’s better to assume there are A-ranks among them.”

  “...”

  Silica’s mouth parted, but no sound came out this time.

  Suddenly, the discussion had begun.

  They were not mocking her.

  They were not even talking about her mistake.

  They had taken her report and were already building a strategy on top of it.

  Each time they added a conclusion, Silica felt her confusion grow heavier. She had expected blame. She had wanted blame, because blame would hurt, but it would make sense. It would match the guilt gnawing at her.

  Instead, she was being treated like she belonged. They accepted her report as useful.

  After a few minutes, Cryssa raised a hand, and the discussion snapped into focus.

  “Alright. It’s better to proceed with caution. Don’t underestimate them just because they don’t use energy manifestation. We should expect all of them to be A-rank. We will proceed as planned.”

  ““Yes!””

  The voices overlapped in crisp agreement.

  The group started moving again, boots quiet on the forest floor, pushing toward the distant glow of fire and smoke.

  Cryssa fell into step beside Silica for a moment, then reached out and patted her shoulder.

  “Good work, Silica.”

  Silica was stunned, staring after Cryssa who was already moved ahead, as if her brain could not process what it just heard.

  Good work.

  For failing.

  For coming back with uncertainty.

  For not knowing.

  Silica stood there long enough that the others drifted a few steps ahead before she forced herself to move again.

  “W-Wait… Why…”

  Her murmur was too small for Cryssa to hear.

  Then, a rough pat landed on her head, messing up her ponytail with casual force.

  “Silly girl, don’t you know what your mistake was?”

  Silica turned, startled.

  Iori stood there with her short green hair fluttering slightly, green eyes bright with mischief even while the battlefield waited somewhere ahead.

  Silica swallowed and answered quickly, eager to prove she understood.

  “Ah… yes. I couldn’t provide the information of their real streng—Ow!”

  “Wrong.”

  Iori flicked Silica’s forehead before she could finish.

  It actually hurt.

  Normally, players couldn’t feel pain due to their pain settings being set zero. But as a pro player, Silica didn’t set such a setting as a training for her to adapt to this game.

  Silica rubbed her forehead and stared at Iori with a confused gaze.

  “If that was your mistake, isn’t it strange that Vorgar and Kaidos didn’t mock you?”

  Silica hesitated, the old habit of excusing teammates rising to her lips.

  “Maybe they are just being considerate…”

  Iori snorted so hard it almost sounded like a laugh.

  “Ha! Those guys? Considerate? No, they didn’t mock you because they really recognized your skill.”

  “My… skill? But I…”

  “You couldn’t tell the real strength of your target because they are still beyond your level. Of course we all know that.”

  Iori’s tone softened just a little, though she still looked like she could flick Silica again if she drifted into self pity.

  “If those guys treat such a thing as your mistake, then they might not join us in the first place. No, perhaps Lady Cryssa and I couldn’t even survive back then…”

  Silica’s eyes widened.

  “Huh? What do you mean…?”

  Iori’s gaze slid past Silica, toward the empty space the four former mercenaries had already taken as they moved ahead. Her usual playful spark dimmed, and her thoughts drifted back to the catastrophe.

  Back then, those mercenaries had been hired with money. In most cases, hired mercenaries would always place their own lives first. That was the rule of survival, and everyone knew it.

  But that day, the rule did not hold.

  Instead of retreating, they fought like men who had already decided their lives were worth spending. They held the line again and again while shielding Cryssa, Iori, and Glacia, all three of them unconscious and helpless on the ground, until reinforcements finally arrived.

  Mercenaries could be untrustworthy. They could sell their strength to anyone. But veterans had their own kind of integrity, the kind that was not written in law but carved into habit and belief.

  To them, it was their responsibility to protect and nurture young talents.

  It was tied to the old mercenary creed, the belief passed down with stories about the first mercenary in legend. And for those who carried that belief, safeguarding promising young fighters mattered more than gold. It mattered more than their own lives.

  And those mercenaries… saw that promising talent in Cryssa and Iori.

  They saw Cryssa’s leadership, how she refused to give up even as the weakest among them, even when facing monsters far stronger than her. They saw Iori’s will, how she fought with everything she had until she could not stand anymore.

  And the cost of that choice was their own lives.

  The fifty three mercenaries who died that day did not fall while running. They did not fall in Stellar. They did not fall on other battlefields.

  They fell where they chose to stand.

  They were the ones who sacrificed themselves to protect the unconscious Cryssa and Iori, buying time with their bodies until reinforcements arrived.

  It was a truth nobody among the surviving mercenaries spoke aloud.

  But the proof had always been there.

  All fifty three corpses had been found near the spot where Cryssa, Iori, and Glacia lay unconscious. Close enough that the meaning could not be mistaken by anyone who knew how battles really ended.

  That hidden sacrifice became one of the reasons the Starlace Order later opened recruitment to mercenaries who had lost their source of income after the arrival of players. It was also why Cryssa trusted Gilbert and the others, and why she invited them into this first expedition without hesitation.

  Iori understood all of that.

  She carried it quietly, like a debt she could never repay.

  Of course, she would never tell Silica, especially since it was one of her own embarrassing moments to be unconscious on a battlefield and lived only because others died for her.

  “Aah, I said too much. Where were we… right, your mistake.”

  Iori tapped Silica’s forehead again, gentler this time.

  “You can provide such detailed information in a short amount of time, which is already better than an ordinary scout. And we recognize that as your skills.”

  “Detailed…? But I couldn’t…”

  Iori leaned closer, eyes narrowing playfully.

  “Do you think if a kid couldn’t determine the real strength of someone, it was the kid’s fault?”

  Silica flinched at the comparison. Comparing a pro player to a kid felt humiliating. And yet, she could not deny it.

  Silica lowered her eyes, voice smaller.

  “Then… what was my mistake…?”

  Iori tilted her head, genuinely confused that Silica still did not see it.

  “Hm? You don’t have any.”

  “What?”

  Silica was dumbfounded and thought that Iori was messing with her.

  “You can’t determine their real strength because it’s still beyond your level. So, do you give up on improving your strength?”

  “Of course not!”

  Silica answered immediately. Iori then let out a small chuckle.

  “Right? So you don’t have any mistakes.”

  “What…?”

  Silica stared at Iori, still couldn’t understand what she meant.

  Iori reached out and patted Silica’s ponytail properly this time, smoothing it down where she had messed it up earlier. The motion was casual, almost affectionate. Her short green hair swayed with the same rhythm as the leaves above them, and for a second, the world felt oddly peaceful despite the war ahead. Her smile felt so warm as her voice reached the air.

  “Nobody is perfect. So, having a weakness is not a mistake. Giving up on improving yourself is.”

  Silica went silent.

  She had heard words like that back on Earth, from coaches, motivators, social media. Usually those words slid off her like water.

  But here, with the smell of smoke still on the wind and the knowledge that these people could die, the words hit differently. They sank into her chest and stayed there.

  Iori smiled like she could see the shift.

  “It seems you understand what I meant.”

  Silica nodded, slow and quiet.

  Iori patted Silica’s shoulder, then turned and started walking.

  “Besides, Lady Cryssa must have known from the beginning that you wouldn’t be able to determine their strength. Despite that, she still invites you for this expedition. So she must have some expectations from you.”

  Silica blinked.

  “Eh…? Wait! What do you mean?”

  “Who knows? I am not her. Come on, they are already quite far away.”

  Iori waved a hand lazily without looking back.

  Silica stood still for a moment, then bowed lightly toward Iori’s back, a small gesture of gratitude for reminding her what was truly important, before she picked up her pace.

  Iori didn’t realize that her simple words had motivated Silica so greatly. Silica was determined to increase her ten-hours playtime to a dozen, or perhaps, fifteen hours per day, allowing her to catch up with Frostina’s level faster. But it would be a story for another time.

  Ahead, the group moved as one, slipping out of the forest’s cover toward the glow of the burning town.

  Behind the eyes of everyone, another conversation unfolded where no one else could hear.

  (“Do you think she will be alright…?”)

  Ayla’s voice sounded in Cryssa’s mind like a worried whisper.

  Cryssa’s lips curved faintly.

  (“No… But, you didn’t even give her any explanation…”)

  (“But you didn’t tell Iori anything either…”)

  Cryssa’s smile deepened, amused and confident at once.

  Although Cryssa didn’t know the exact story of the past Iori had experienced, with the information she gathered on a forum about elf town Lumeria and with addition Iori as an elf couldn’t use magic, she roughly understood what kind of past Iori had. And because of that, she knew Iori won’t leave Silica behind.

  Because to Iori, Silica must have been like a mirror of her past self.

  Ayla sighed.

  (“...Alright, if you say so.”)

  And with that, Cryssa led everyone onward, towards the war.