Despite the Mana Vein system not developing much, just the fact that it had begun to grow made me feel slightly more invigorated than before.

  I removed my hand from Fein's back.

  He turned around, "Cael, what was that? Are you vomiting blood? What happened?"

  His face crumpled up, "I just found someone to accompany me in this maze, please don't die here."

  I wiped the blood from my mouth, "I'm not dying. It's just enlightenment."

  "Demonic asswipes! Enlightenment?? Congratulations, that's crazy.", his jaw dropped, "I don't see anything different about you though..."

  I stretched my arms to remove some tension.

  It's the first time experiencing something like 'enlightenment' first hand. A Mana Vein system, capturing the essence of a forest? Typically, many mages would be cautious and averse to letting others inspect their mana core and veins. However, since Fein is young, it seems like he doesn't have much experience. Is Earth one of his mana affinities?

  "Anyway, are you feeling better? Should we move again?", Fein asked.

  I smiled, "Yes, let's move. Thanks for asking."

  Haha, honestly, I feel like I'm going to pass out. My leg throbbed in pain, while my head did the same thing from exhaustion.

  Fein stood up, and I did as well. I felt the ant meat and esophagus I had stuffed in my pockets. Given I was covered head to toe in ant blood, the blood stains from the meat didn't stand out too much. I'm also lucky that demons have a greater resistance to disease than normal. The test would be over before I would succumb to them.

  I took a few steps forward, looking deep into the darkness we were about to enter ahead. When I looked back to check on Fein, he was looking at me strangely.

  "Hey, that 'mistake' you mentioned. Is your mana system incomplete?", Fein raised his eyebrow.

  Did he guess from what I mentioned about enlightenment? I turned back, "Yes, why?"

  "That's what I should be asking. Why is yours incomplete? Do you have some deficiency disease or something?", he whispered slightly, but not enough to escape my hearing, "Demons don't normally struggle with mana..."

  Some diseases children were born with could be spread to others when it came to mana. However, some parents would conceal the presence of a disease from their child up until they formed a mana system, where it could begin spreading to others, hoping it would go away on its own.

  This was most common in villages.

  Is he from a village? I brooded nervously. Since he's never been to a city, he might not know of the difference between cultures there... is he becoming wary of me?

  I waved my hand, "Fein, I come from the towns. Even if I had something like mana deficiency syndrome, they'd catch it before I could make it here."

  "Oh, I see. My bad, I assumed wrongly.", he scratched the back of his head, "What's the reason then?"

  I searched my mind for reasonable excuses. The mana core formation process was not typically a difficult one for demons, and unless one had a medical condition, it should be as easy as swinging a sword with a large margin for error. It was only because I had attempted forming it using a method different than normal, that something likely went awry--either from my urgency at the time or something else.

  However, perhaps it was because of my exhaustion, the pain, or my feeling of impatience for everything to be over with-

  "Ah, it's because I'm a half-demon."

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  A lapse in judgement.

  "A- a half-human..?", Fein suddenly widened his eyes, freezing in place, looking as if he was remembering something from the past.

  Shit!

  "Oh, but my demon blood is slightly stronger though..."

  I immediately noticed my mistake. He was just mocking humans a while ago!

  There were many types of hybrids, but demons with half-human blood were the most scorned, despite being the most plentiful. Demons with resentment toward humans who killed their families most often vented against them. It wasn't surprising to see a half-demon getting injured, or even crippled, as a result.

  A cold sweat ran down my back as I kept my smile. I tilted my head in a friendly way.

  What if he decides to kill me right here? Or leave me alone to fend for myself? The average cadet is way stronger than me right now, I can't handle fighting one. My thoughts spiraled as panic slowly set in.

  Eventually, I broke the silence, "Are you resentful toward them?"

  "...", Fein contemplated deeply, and raised his head, "Haha, don't worry! I'm not like my friends. Plus, you saved me, and I think surviving the maze is much more important than matters like this."

  He patted my back, which he later shook his hand in disgust of the ant blood.

  Meanwhile, facing the whiplash of sudden relief, I felt like I was going to pass out for real. Damn, so I'm safe. What did he mean by 'not like his friends'? So I just got lucky...

  I need to be more careful. I can pass out once I get through this. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself. I need to try to find a time to take a nap soon.

  Watching Fein take the lead and walk into the dark hallway ahead, I followed him after regaining my composure.

  "By the way, what beasts have you fought so far? Did you meet anyone else other than me?", Fein asked.

  "No. And I didn't fight many monsters, I just got taken by surprise."

  Fein kept his sword at his waist, waving his hand in front of him to swat away some flies. Bzz! Bzz!

  After some time passed, we were now standing in front of a 3-way intersection, with no monsters in sight.

  "Are you good at gambling?", Fein rubbed his hands together.

  "Why do you ask?"

  "Oh, no, it's just that people who gamble tend to have good intuition...or luck."

  "Haiz.", the corner of my mouth twitched, "Wait for a second."

  I squinted my eyes and immersed myself to enhance my vision as far as possible to look into each of the 3 paths. There were really no monsters in sight, nothing of note that could be smelled, no 'strange aura' felt, and nothing that could be heard other than flies buzzing all around.

  It's suspicious. Since there weren't flies when I spawned, it means that its an abnormal occurrence and a sign of something else here. I swatted away a fly on my shoulder.

  Although, there shouldn't be another hive or swarm-type monster here, since we should've walked past my previous area where the ants were.

  Is it something that eats flies then? Hmm-

  "Hey, what are you dazing off for?", Fein looked back at me, "You know what, I think we should go right. The rightest, the furthest at the right. Because the right path is right, you know?"

  I didn't answer. Instead, I prepared a small mana burst in my palm. It's never good to choose paths randomly. There is no one specializing in defense here, so doing the monster standoff strat at a deadend is something to avoid at all costs.

  Fein pestered me, annoyed that he was ignored, "Hey, what are you doing? What's that spell? Okay, if you don't want to go right, we can go left, okay? Sound good? We CAN'T go middle, always bad luck. It may just be a superstition in my village but-"

  While he rambled off, it seemed that in one of the paths, something sensed the mana that I gathered in my palm. A large croak sounded from the leftmost path.

  Creeek!

  Fein instantly became silent. But snapping out of it quickly, he tapped my arm nervously, "O-okay, nevermind. I don't believe in superstitions anymore. What's that monster? Let's just go back..."

  I threw the mana burst in the path where the sound was.

  Boom! Creek! Crek! Cree!...

  The moment the mana burst went off, the croaking became increasingly silent before reaching a stop.

  Good, that narrows it down to the middle and right path. I breathed out, "Fein, why don't you go charge the middle path? See if there's anything there."

  "H-huh? Why me?! I'm just a boy...", but Fein, feeling as if I knew what I was doing, did the opposite of what he said and pulled out his sword.

  I wasn't sure if I was going to be fine being left behind, but I figured there wasn't much to worry about. Shortly after, Fein charged into the middle path.

  Being left alone in the dark silence surely was not comforting. Luckily, nothing had happened and Fein returned without any injuries either.

  I smiled, "I guess we go down the middle path then?"

  He scratched the back of his head, "I guess so..but, the superstition really is true in my village, I tell you!"

  However, just before I exited immersion to resume replenishing my energy, a distant and pained sound could be heard just to the left of me.

  ...roe..k..

  I turned back for a moment, only to see nothing there.

  Even after entering immersion to check once more, there was nothing again. Instead, a faint ringing sound slowly grew in my ears the longer I stayed in immersion.

  "..."

  Maybe because it was too silent, paired with my tattered mental and physical state, I had begun hearing things.

  With ringing and other sounds loud in my ears, confusion grew, and in the end, I brushed it off as nothing.

  C...r..o..k-