Chapter 70: The Weight of Daylight

The descent down the outer mountain pass of Verdant Reach was quiet, save for the crunch of gravel under heavy boots and the whistle of the high-altitude wind.

Behind them, the massive stone archway of the Dungeon spire lay dormant, its violet luminescence extinguished into dull gray granite.

"We need to set camp before sunset," Shane said, squinting toward the horizon where the sun was dipping below the shattered skyline of the old city. "The perimeter scavengers move in as soon as the core signature fades."

"I'll take first watch," Mei said instantly.

"You took point through the entire core chamber, Mei," Joshua countered, unstrapping his heavy gear bag and dropping it onto a flat concrete pad beneath an overhanging steel girder. "You're running on fumes."

"I don't get tired," she replied flatly.

It was a lie, and every one of them knew it. The dark circles under her sharp eyes were visible even through the soot, and her breathing was just a fraction too shallow—a clear sign of mana exhaustion from her rapid-fire strikes inside the boss room.

Elias unslung his massive shield, propping it against a rusted support beam to form a windbreak. "Sit down, kid. That's an order from the heavy defense guy."

Mei stiffened, her hand instinctively twitching toward her dagger hilt at the word order. In her first life, orders meant suicide runs. In her second, they meant distraction play while the squad leader fled with the loot.

Shane caught the subtle shift in her stance. He didn't raise his voice or step into her space. Instead, he unclipped a small, dented metal tin from his belt and held it out to her.

"Dried fruit and clean water," Shane said gently. "Eat, rest your legs, and if anything twitches in the treeline, you can kill it second. Deal?"

Mei looked at the tin, then at Shane's open, expectant face. The tension drained from her shoulders, leaving a heavy, bone-deep ache in its place. She took the tin, her fingers brushing his.

"Fine," she muttered, sitting down with her back against Elias's shield. "Thirty minutes. Then I'm replacing Joshua."

"Sure you are," Joshua said with a grin, already tossing a fire-starter block into a pile of dry pine needles.

Within minutes, a small, controlled blaze crackled in the shadow of the girder. The heat radiated outward, chasing away the biting chill of the mountain air.

Mei ate in silence, her eyes constantly sweeping the perimeter out of pure habit. But every time her gaze drifted back to the fire, she found one of them looking out for her. Elias was angling his massive frame to block the wind coming off the ridge. Joshua was meticulously cleaning her secondary dagger—the one she had jammed into the Overlord's collarbone—removing every speck of acidic sap before sheathing it carefully. Shane was busy mapping out their return route to the safe zone, making sure to avoid high-density monster tracks so they wouldn't have to fight on their way back.

She wasn't a weapon to them. She wasn't an expendable asset or a human shield.

She was their point scout. Their teammate.

"Mei," Shane called out softly, looking up from his parchment map. "When we get back to the enclave, the Council is going to want a full debrief on how Verdant Reach fell so quickly. They'll want to know who landed the killing blow on the Overlord."

Mei’s eyes narrowed instantly, the icy sharpness returning. "Tell them it was a team effort. If my name gets out, the local syndicates will put a bounty on my head before sunrise."

"Already ahead of you," Shane said, his smile warm in the firelight. "I logged the core destruction under the squad's joint registry. You don't exist in their reports, Captain."

Mei blinked, genuinely caught off guard. "You... gave up the individual bounty credit? That was worth fifty thousand credits."

"Credits don't keep our backs clear in a Dungeon," Elias rumbled, leaning back against his armor pack with a content grunt. "You keep us alive. That's worth a lot more than council silver."

Mei pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her knees as she stared into the flickering flames. For three lives, she had fought to survive alone, treating every human interaction as a transaction or a betrayal waiting to happen.

She leaned her head back against Elias’s shield, the steady, rhythmic crackle of the campfire lulling her exhausted body into a state of safety she hadn't felt in decades.

"One hour," Mei murmured, her eyelids growing heavy as the warmth of the fire washed over her. "Wake me in one hour..."

"Sleep, Mei," Shane's voice came quietly through the dark, steady and reliable. "We've got the watch."

For the first time across four lifetimes, Mei closed her eyes and actually slept.