Winston and Lydia were finally gaining an advantage, not just over the enemy, but in general.

They came into this world clawing at their own caskets, and had been jumped by Mages a few times afterwards, and not to mention, someone threw a sun at them.

Having survived battles like that, the simple, fresh air they breathed in now, not only signified their freedom, but it also was a stamp of their overwhelming success. They were supposed to be dead, many times over today, and yet they weren't.

For the first time in their lives, they did not mind the fact that the sunlight was hurting, and burdening their eyes. They welcomed it!

However, there were a couple more things that they needed in order to add thorough, tangible value to their success. They needed loot in general, such as tools, weapons, food, horses indefinitely, and last but not least, they had to harvest more gems. If they got all of those, their victory would loom a much deeper meaning!

Winston had two rubies on his hands, rubies that he did not know how to use, or harvest, and yet, he had this nearly primal need to gain more gems, regardless of what it took. He couldn't explain it, but he craved to harvest gems as much as he craved food or water!

What served to piss him off more was that Mage of the Sun, Asmodim, who has had five gems on his forehead that could've been perfectly harvestable. Winston killed the guy in a very precise way just to get his gems, and of course maintain the general safety of himself and Lydia, and yet, those five gems were either destroyed, or buried somewhere in the rubble.

They were far from dipping into Winston's pocket. It pissed him off.

Asmodim blew himself up, and Winston couldn't have done anything about that, but as for now, in the present, his victory, his freedom felt, in a sense, half assed. He wanted more, he wanted to hoard everything he could get his hands on!

Lydia shared similar ambitions. She wanted food, mostly, and she really wanted a horse, either to eat or ride, but bottom-line, the two of them had a common goal, and were ready to chase it, assuming the risks that came attached with their goal wasn't plainly suicidal.

"Let's follow them for a while," He said, "Some of them don't look like guards, so we gotta figure out who we're dealing with."

"No kidding," She said, "Look at all that drip on the guy at the front. He has to be their leader or something."

"I did hear some guards mentioning their Master. I assumed their master was Assman, but I stand corrected." He followed along, and then he couldn't help tilting his head as he looked at her, repeating, "Also, drip?"

"Yeah, drip." She doubled down. "I distinctively remember the youngsters using that word back on Earth. It means… cool clothes, yes, cool clothes."

"You'll be wearing his drip today, then, I promise you that." He let out a light chuckle.

"You're sweet," She smiled.

The two of them kept following the group of enemies, but an hour into the ordeal, they started getting frustrated.

Winston wanted to find an advantage that he could exploit, however small that advantage might be. He even risked breaching the enemy's radius, or line of sight, so as to figure out which sort of attack would work best on them, and yet he got nothing!

He wasn't spotted, thankfully, as he had been watching them from the top of a large boulder, and he was laying flat on his stomach, but he had still taken a huge risk. The enemy was on high alert, so he could've been spotted and killed, and when he took that fact under consideration, he got more and more frustrated over the fact that he hadn't made any progress whatsoever.

Every attack plan he thought of had plenty of holes in them. He could try attacking the man who called himself the 'Master' within the group of twenty people, therefore getting rid of the greatest threat of them all if a battle was to break out, but this plan was faulty, because even if he killed 'The Master', he and Lydia would still need to fight the other nineteen people afterwards. Winston considered himself skilled, or at the very least, resourceful, but against nineteen people? He'd surely die, and so would Lydia.

An alternative plan would be to attack the enemy one at a time, slowly reducing the count of their members, but this plan was just as flawed as the first one. The enemy was on high alert, so they were certainly going to notice their comrades missing, regardless of how silently he killed them.

With those two aspects considered, Winston was fully convinced that this was a battle that they could not afford to fight. They had the option to walk away, but this was a hard decision too, because they would essentially walk away with nothing except the leather armor on their backs, and two rubies to call their own.

They would need to eat nuts and roots for days until they got to the city, or a nearby village, and this was why he didn't want to give up. He could not bear the thought of Lydia starving because he chickened out.

"Maybe I should start looking for a Wild Boar after all," He sighed, and stood up from the large boulder that he had been hiding at. "This fuckass mountain is too rocky, so I'll probably find a bunch of goats before I find a boar, but, meat is meat, I guess?"

Winston looked out in the distance, and saw Lydia approaching from a couple of hundred feet away. Her steps were gentle, she was careful enough to avoid making any noise, regardless of the fact that the enemy was far away now, and couldn't possibly hear her. She was careful nonetheless.

He felt a bit better when he looked at her. His feelings of love towards her increased exponentially today, and as a result he loved everything she did. He even loved how her coal dark hair bounced around as she walked. He loved her tiny, short figure, and he loved how focused her face looked as she walked.

Winston was in love, without a doubt, which made what he saw next nothing short of terrifying!

He first looked at Lydia, and then he looked at the rocky mountainside behind Lydia, and this was when a terrifying creature caught his attention!

He could not make out what this creature was, but it was big and brown. It may be a bear, but it looked too weird to be a bear, so he wasn't sure.

Regardless of its species, it was a predatory animal no doubt, and even worse, it was charging towards Lydia at full speed!

Winston did not want to give his hiding spot away, but the barreling lump of fur and muscle prompted him to do otherwise. He had to warn her immediately, because he wasn't nearly fast enough to get to her in time!

From the top of his lungs, he shouted, "Lydia, watch out! Bear!"

Winston kept digging through the pile of dirt and rocks. Ever since he started carving the tunnel upwards, inching closer towards the ceiling after every other foot, he was relieved to discover that there weren't as many rocks, or small boulders along the way.

This was great because not only were boulders more likely to cause collapses because of their sheer weight, but they were also difficult to move without causing a landslide. He got lucky.

With every breath they took becoming harder by the minute, his small streak of good luck worked to his favor greatly!

In just ten minutes, he carved the tunnel several feet up, and towards the ceiling of the cavern. He made great progress, but he grew increasingly frustrated, because despite his efforts, he still wasn't seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

'If I'm digging up a mountain, then this is a royal fuck up!' He panicked internally, but he tried not to let it show. 'Why did I make her all those promises? It looks like I'm gonna end up killing her for the second time! Jesus Christ, I'm a fucking moron.'

Winston tried to remain calm, but even though he didn't notice it, he subconsciously started taking sharp breaths, hinting that he was panicking. Lydia noticed this immediately, so she got closer, hugged him from behind, and awkwardly caressed his hair.

"Happy thoughts, Winnie," She whispered, "Happy thoughts."

It took him a moment, but Winston realized what was going on, so he took a deep breath, awkwardly bent his arm to pat her back, and then got back to work.

Oxygen levels were getting terrifyingly low, but he kept grinding. After five more minutes of work, the both of them were scared to death when they heard, and partially saw the piles of dirt slide.