“Suri, where?” Kana’s tone cut like a blade as they sprinted.

  “Up ahead.” Suri’s eyes narrowed, illusion-light dancing in the air. “Over two dozen foragers. He’s cornered.”

  Two dozen. Kana’s gut twisted. That wasn’t a skirmish—it was a death sentence.

  “Asha, throw your skill at range, make them notice us. Opel, make noise. Get them off him.”

  Opel slammed his mace against his shield. “Noise I can do.”

  They burst into the tunnel where Wor-en was. The sight stopped Kana’s breath.

  Wor-en stood at the center, staggering, blade barely raised. His left leg bled freely, poison burning black along the wound. Around him—wings. Stingers. Two dozen bright-carapaced predators circling, waiting for the kill.

  Asha struck first. [Ice Shard] streaked across the chamber, exploding against a forager’s head in a burst of frost but didn’t do any significant damage. Opel’s roar followed, his shield ringing like a war gong.

  Every head snapped toward him.

  Suri acted instantly. A shimmer. Wor-en vanished, swallowed in illusion. Another shimmer wrapped Boris and Kana, shadows blurring their outlines.

  Asha whispered her new skill.

  [Blizzard]

  Frost erupted from her hands. Ice crept across the stone floor, numbing air and biting wings. Foragers faltered mid-flight, their speed was slower than before.

  “Now!” Kana hissed.

  She and Boris surged forward.

  Kana leapt high, dagger flashing. She struck the weak ridge where the wing met thorax—her new perception highlighting the spot like a beacon. Her blade dug deep but not deep enough. The forager shrieked, wings thrashing, nearly knocking her from the air. She rolled off its carapace, landing hard, knees jarring.

  Boris crashed through two more, spear sweeping wide. He pinned one to the wall, but another darted past his guard, stinger scraping his shoulder. He snarled, ripped the wing free with brute force, and hurled the twitching body aside.

  The group of Great Bee Foragers screamed back.

  Poisoned stingers hammered Opel’s shield, each strike reverberating like thunder. His knees buckled. “Little help!” he shouted, breath ragged.

  “I’m on it!” Asha conjured another skill [Ice wall]—one stinger slammed into it, skidding wide. Another broke through, grazing Opel’s thigh. He gritted his teeth, blood soaking his armor.

  “Hold!” Kana barked, though her arm trembled from another near miss.

  The Great Bee Foragers adapted. They dove in staggered waves, forcing the team to split. Kana barely ducked as a stinger almost ripped her ear. Boris stumbled under three at once, one latching to his back. He bellowed, rolling to smash it against the wall.

  The fight devolved into chaos.

  Five minutes. Ten. The air was thick with venom and frost.

  Asha’s Blizzard faltered. Sweat streamed down her temple, her mana draining. The ice slowed, cracks spreading as the swarm pressed harder.

  “They’re not breaking!” Asha gasped.

  Kana drove her dagger into another thorax, twisting, even as her own wrist bled from a glancing hit. Her vision flickered from venom coursing through her veins.

  Opel groaned, dropping to one knee. “Shield… won’t hold…”

  “Move!” Suri cried, throwing a decoy illusion. A phantom version of Opel appeared five paces to the left. Half the swarm broke for it, slamming into empty air—but the other half didn’t fall for the trick.

  Kana landed on another’s back, striking again, again, her arms numb. Finally the carapace cracked. The forager convulsed, wings shattering as it collapsed.

  They were winning—but inch by bloody inch.

  Twenty minutes. Half an hour.

  The chamber floor glittered with broken wings and steaming venom before slowly vanishing. But the survivors fought harder, their attacks sharper, as if sensing their own dwindling numbers.

  One darted past, diving for the hidden Wor-en. Its stinger slammed into Suri’s illusion, sparking off as if it knew someone was there. The shimmer cracked—his form flickered into sight.

  Kana’s heart stopped.

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  He was exposed.

  “Cover him!” she screamed, vaulting forward as Boris hurled his spear through the air. The weapon pinned the great bee forager a breath away from Wor-en’s skull.

  The last foragers shrieked, enraged, converging as one.

  [You have leveled up!]Kana and Boris ignored the notification for now.

  ….

  Wor-en’s eyes widened as he watched the trio fight. His chest tightened—not just from venom burning through his leg, but from shock.

  Boris’s spear wasn’t just longer. It had grown, stretching like an extension of his will. [Spearman] skill. He hadn’t known the boy possessed it.

  Suri’s illusions wove around him like a cloak, shielding him the same way his own [Camouflage] once had.

  And Kana—her speed cut through the swarm like a storm given flesh, every strike finding the gaps in chitin, every movement efficient, merciless.

  It wasn’t their first time. He knew that now.

  The precision of a raiding party.

  No hesitation.

  No wasted words.

  When the last forager broke through Suri’s veil, its stinger aimed straight for his head, Wor-en froze.

  Then Boris’s spear drove it into the ground.

  Boris walked over, bear mask hiding most of his face. He planted his weapon into the stone with a grunt.

  “That was close,” he said.

  And then, as though realizing too late, his hand snapped up to cover his mouth. Bear mouth mask.

  Wor-en sighed, half a groan. “No need to say it. Your disguise is obvious once I suspected you three. Not to mention your shoulders. And your build is so obvious, Boris. I must be a fool to not realize it sooner.”

  “Your build,” Suri muttered. She hopped onto his back, cat mask tilted, and smacked at his head. Her hand only reached his neck. She ripped the mask off with a scowl. “Seriously. Can’t you make your body smaller?”

  Boris flexed, rolling his shoulders as if the swarm hadn’t nearly gutted him minutes ago. “What’s wrong with my body? Bigger is better.”

  Kana tugged her own mask away, sweat plastering her hair to her forehead. She knelt beside Wor-en, offering her hand. “Are you alright, Professor?”

  Wor-en staggered to his feet, leaning on her arm more than he wanted to admit. His tone softened despite himself, “I’ll live. I was worried about you three fighting creatures like these… But clearly, I was the fool. I should have been worried for them.”

  “I forgot for a moment,” Wor-en said, voice catching, “that you aren’t normal. No—” he corrected himself, “I mean you are excellent.”

  The warmth in his words cooled as quickly as it came. His tone hardened.

  “But you know the rules. The law. You’re not allowed in the dungeons. Yet.”

  Kana’s answer was quiet, but steady. “We know.”

  Suri only grinned, brushing her hair back. “Then let’s call it even. We saved your life, you keep our little secret.”

  Wor-en’s lips twisted into a smirk. “You saved my life by creating the very mess that nearly killed me. If you hadn’t come down here…”

  He trailed off, shaking his head. For all his words, the gratitude in his eyes betrayed him.

  ….

  With Suri’s illusion cloaking their movements, the students slipped away. A bell chimed faintly in the tunnels—a signal to withdraw.

  Later, in the enchanted tent within the safe zone, the air was thick with the smell of damp leather and enchanted things. Five figures sat around the table: three silver-rank adventurers, two copper, and Wor-en with his injuries hastily bound.

  “We shouldn’t escalate this further,” said Lory, her voice sharp. She leaned forward, fingers tapping against the wood. “They’re alive. No one’s hurt. We’ve invested too much coin and blood to cancel the raid now.”

  “I agree,” Mirodin Might said, his broad arms folded. The two copper ranks nodded in unison with him.

  Raydon Kelgaster’s eyes, cold, fixed on Wor-en. “And you? What do you say?”

  Wor-en shifted, pain flaring in his side where venom still lingered. “I’ll need to speak with Principal Light.”

  A groan rippled around the table. The name alone soured the air.

  “Light will cling to the rules,” Mirodin muttered. “That’s what he does.”

  “Yes,” Wor-en admitted. His hand tightened on the edge of the table. “But… These students are different. Their punishment may not be what you expect.”

  Lory raised an eyebrow. “Different how?”

  Wor-en hesitated. His mind replayed the trio’s seamless coordination, Kana’s speed, Suri’s veils, Boris’s brute strength. “Special,” he said at last. The two of them were gold badge holders. Principal Light wouldn’t waste talent like that.

  The tent fell into silence.

  Finally, Lory leaned back. “Then we press forward. Splitting into smaller groups earlier may have been reckless, but it worked. The swarms are scattered. What remains…” Her lips curved in a thin smile. “Is the Great Queen Bee.”

  Raydon inclined his head. “If we can focus our strength, we might end this dungeon raid in a single attempt.”

  Wor-en nodded slowly, though the motion carried more weight than agreement. It was the safest conclusion, the one that kept the raid intact. No one at the table spoke of the students again.

  The meeting dispersed with finality, boots scraping against stone, chairs pushed back, voices lowered. They had all come to the same conclusion: Principal Light would focus his judgment on the three students. Their punishment, not the raid’s, not with its members.

  But as Wor-en gathered his notes, his thoughts lingered. Too long. Too heavy. The images would not leave him—Kana darting with inhuman speed, Boris wielding strength that could anchor a line of soldiers, Suri weaving illusions as deftly as he himself had once cloaked almost as effectively as his skill. If not better.

  They’re not ordinary students, Wor-en thought, and the realization chilled him more than the memory of remaining venom burning through his veins. He had seen talent before, even brilliance. But this was something else. Something sharpened by necessity.

  And Light—rigid, relentless Light—would not see it that way. To him, rules were stone. Break them, and stone falls.

  Wor-en tightened his fist. This won’t end with discipline. This will end with opportunity—or disaster.