A loud scream from my back had me turning this way and that to avoid an unseen attacker from behind.

The stinger shot through the sand from beneath, missing my foot by inches.

Task failed successfully.

I leapt back lightly while preparing an overhead smash.

The scorpion emerged from the sand, as smooth as if on a platform rising from below, bellowing a roaring hiss that promised death.

Until it became a yellow, green, and red splotch.

While it was cool to see the monsters rise like that from the desert, the sudden spear to the foot was certainly dangerous. They could easily sneak up on an unprepared delver. My armor had already taken three hits so I was channeling mana into the self-repair as we retreated to one of the many boulders strewn throughout the sand.

The scorpions' physical capabilities were quite laughable but the venom could easily kill. It probably wouldn't be that dangerous to my team of peak Tier 1.9s but it could do a number on their systems nonetheless; needing to carry a bucket for random explosions from both ends was a danger all its own.

"You're lucky, you have [Poison Resistance], it's a great spell. Might come in handy even with these antidotes," Pavel said pointing at his spatial storage sack.

I nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, I really hope I don't have to cast it on all of you. My self-cast was expensive. I never really measured what a full-power cast was but it chunked my mana by nearly half. Then with these little buggers stabbing my boots from below, my armor needs a lot of mana to keep it in tip-top shape. I'm going to need to rest before the next delve just to recover mana."

"Ha, they won't like that," Inara said with a smile.

I chuckled. "Who? Pal doesn't like anything and Natalia loves everything so… they sure did pick an odd pair for us."

We knew not to discuss anything too juicy in the rifts. Per our agreement with Chazin Mark, our recordings of the entire delve needed to be submitted lest we not report a valuable find.

Inara and I both guessed there was someone on the Council – or at least close to it – that was messing with us, especially with the theory of Tier 2 delvers Ratmir brought up. The last thing we wanted was to tip our hand and have someone try to clean up their mess by attacking us.

Romie tilted their head to the side. "You prefer this or Struva style?"

Getting their meaning, I responded. "There are a lot of things Struva did far better. Competence of the clear teams for one. But I guess I do like not being on a set schedule. It means I wait at the rift while the clear and protection teams are called in but I can allocate my essence in peace instead of risking an overflow in my spirit. At Struva, the teams were waiting so there was always pressure to hurry up."

Steve chose that moment to call out, which I initially thought was just him wanting attention. At my pet, he leaned in for a second before batting my hand away to point with his own. About twenty paces away from the boulder we were sitting on, there was a small disturbance in the sand.

I tossed a rock that landed a few feet from the small, undulating divot. The scorpion's stinger demolished the round bit of stone in a shower of purple sparkles.

Shit, it destroyed a geode, the asshole!

Romie's reaction was a little sharper, lodging an arrow between the eyes of the beast as it rose from beneath to bask in its presumed kill.

"So, Steve can sense them better than we can," Pavel said conversationally. "Wonder why that is."

"Oh god, does this mean more testing with Ratmir?" I asked, not looking forward to the odd man poking and prodding Steve, especially with his burgeoning intelligence. He was getting very good at sending different types of displeasure through our link.

"Not soon, coming here," Romie said, forwarding me an AAI message. The fact spells cost more than people expected in rifts caused the man to nearly explode in excitement.

Ratmir started running towards Chazin Mark the second Romie sent off my observations almost seconds after I made them the previous night.

He sent our archer a second message that he had to go back for pants.

After our brief respite, we tried baiting a few more scorpions out with rocks but it only worked one of the 40 times we attempted it. Realizing it would be less effort to just kill them the normal way, we moved forward.

The rift boss was a strange variant that wasn't in any of the guides we'd seen. Usually providing a new variant recording had a small bounty but it was not worth the hassle most times.

The eight-legged beast was covered in a combination of rock and thick fur, giving the impression it was incredibly durable and hard to kill. Our approach, trying to bait out an attack against me, seemed to work. Pavel promised to make it up to me but as I had [Poison Resistance] active, it made the most sense.

Steve's scream had me assuming he was nervous. The recording proved he was pointing at Romie through his viewing window; the archer's foot was impaled by a thin spike a quarter of a second later. My other two teammates went into extreme vigilance mode as Romie, swearing loudly, shot an arrow in anger.

It pierced through the carapace with almost no resistance.

"Shit, it's a glass boom blast!" Inara yelled.

Realizing she meant glass cannon, and that it wasn't the time to explain why that probably wasn't the right term, I charged.

It leapt back with surprising speed but I still took off one of its four claws with my swipe.

Steve gave a piercing shriek and I understood the concept 'below' from him through our bond.

Bounding back, ten slender spears peppered the ground where I'd just been.

I grabbed a nearby rock and hurled it at the beast.

It predictably dodged.

Right into Pavel's spear.

Its piteous moan and the incredibly weak spears it sent out of the ground almost made me feel bad. But only almost.

With the rush of essence, I edged barely into Tier 1.5. The power surge, as usual, was mildly euphoric. Not great sex-level good but more like 'did well on a test that stressed you out a lot' good.

I walked over to Romie who smiled at me. In their hand was a general poison antidote, which usually cost at least four or five gold. "Try a cast and see?"

Inara put a hand on my shoulder to stop me using [Poison Resistance] on Romie. We hadn't tested it in an actual situation on someone else yet.

"What, you want them to use the potion? Or you just want them to suffer a bit more first?" I asked with a chuckle. Romie groaned and rolled dramatically but I could see their smile, so the venom wasn't too bad or quick-acting.

"Nope, but we're going to practice lowering your mana usage for the spell," our team leader said.

We spent the next few minutes going over the theory of using a less potent casting of the spell before I tried it on Romie. By that point, our archer actually was starting to look a little pale.

I felt the spell reaching for all my remaining mana but I controlled it as best as I could.

Romie's face had a bit of color return.

Before they vomited on my boots.

"Took. Too. Damn. Long," they spat at Inara.

She smiled like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and walked over to dispel the rift reward. It was a small potion bottle that looked oddly familiar. She looked displeased. "Probably an antidote. Groan."

We exited and I started talking with Natalia about the delves for the day as we jogged on. The second was going to be a cakewalk because of the team assembled – it was a rift that gave challenges based on physical capabilities like strength, speed, agility, etc. – but the third was really worrying me.

"I'm just not sure how Steve's going to react. The monsters swoop from above and that's exactly the situation where he got hurt – and I did too I guess. He's smarter now but how do you explain that the backpack is Tier 3, he's safer than anyone?"

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"That's Tier 3? So cool!" Natalia said, admiring his bathysphere. "But he's smart, just look at him. Aren't you a big, strong, tough guy?"

Steve flexed and preened under the attention.

***

Before heading into the rift with the flying monsters, I closely reviewed the delve videos of both the clear team and the protection team tackling that specific rift. Both were pretty good, especially the protection team, which had carried others through it with no problem.

That seemed stupid to me – why take people that need protection into a rift with monsters that are so mobile and dangerous – but most things with Chazin Mark seemed to be not that well thought-out to me.

Still, I was confident. And it all started so well…

Even the first few fights were cake. The clear team had a frontline fighter with a taunt skill that drew the creatures to him like flies to shit. It had me wondering if that was the first skill I should buy.

Probably later in the Tier… if I have to draw enemies to me with a team of peak Tier 1.9s, we're already in trouble…

But then, just like delves in each of the previous two days – and despite my warnings – a spell failed.

The fight's beginning was innocuous as far as the delve went.

Only three flyers swooping down instead of the seven from the third or fifth battles.

Instead of all three monsters going for the woman in full-plate, the two massive hawks streaked outwards, one heading for the clear team's mage and the other for the ranged fighter on my protection team.

Steve had been sending apprehensive feelings the entire delve – and no wonder. Seeing the monsters swooping past his viewing window had to give him some flashbacks.

And of course, the final flying lizard, which the inattentive clear team failed to account for, dove at his cage on my back.

I was ready.

Steve was not.

The sheer panic in his thoughts almost made me start running on instinct. Our bond had never been that powerful. I tried to send feelings of reassurance while I started fighting off the dipping and diving bastard, though my concentration was more on defeating nature than nurturing.

Its claw went for my face but the enchantment on my helmet – which kept the face area exposed but still protected – easily deflected. I managed a quick jab to the wing with my morningstar, ripping a small tear in the leathery flap.

It came around a second time and I faked a duck before leaping up to slam my shield into its face. Despite its magically-enhanced flight, that still sent it plummeting to the ground.

With my descent from the jump, I drove my boot heel directly into its gut and, with it pinned to the ground, made a disgusting paste of its head.

My analysis of the others in the rift was… not great: at less than a month into fighting for the first time in my life and at the bottom of Tier 1.5, I was already better than almost anyone with me in the delve in a dire situation.

This city really produces shit delvers.

"I'm not moving forwards here," I said, crossing my arms. I looked first to the clear team. "What the hell happened?" I asked the woman in full-plate, danger evident in my voice.

"The spell, it… I channeled the mana like usual and it didn't go off." She looked confused. "I still have plenty of mana. We talked about checking on that so I know it's not a problem. I… I don't know."

"And you didn't think to cast it again?" I was close to yelling but just barely holding back. Steve was cowering in his cage, crying. "Have you never been in a real fight before? One little thing went wrong and suddenly you have no idea what to do?" The woman had no answers and stammered, causing one of the members of my protection team to chuckle slightly.

I rounded on him. "And you! You weren't alert to the danger. If I didn't have it handled, I could have lost an eye or worse. Explain." My voice had raised slightly but I knew better than to let my volume increase any further.

That could attract even more monsters the teams would fail to deal with.

The two delvers spluttered replies, trying to shirk off their incompetent response to the monsters.

"I am leaving. I won't risk myself and especially my bond like this," I said, turning for the rift entrance.

The man on my protection team grabbed at my arm. My new armor was far slicker than people guessed and his hand slid off.

"Hey. Hey! We don't get paid if you don't finish! This is bullshit, stop!"

I turned with a look of pure hatred in my eye at his stupidity.

SCREECH SCREECH SCREECH

Of course.

Within a few seconds, flying monsters were coming at us from three different directions.

Luckily, we had almost cleared the rift by the time the morons started yelling but it was still an overwhelming number, I guessed close to fifteen.

Despite how much I didn't respect them, I wasn't going to abandon them to potentially die.

The woman in the full-plate cast her skill out twice, calling far too many for her to handle.

Stepping forward and banging my morningstar on my shield, I tried to catch the attention of at least one. Three peeled off.

Not ideal but I can handle this.

Confidence and reassurance were what I tried to send to Steve via our link but also attempted to get him to cover his eyes.

One hawk and two of the flying lizards started to circle just out of the reach of my morningstar. The enemies weren't particularly strong, hardy, or cunning, only fast and foolhardy.

But that still meant dangerous attacks. A kamikaze run at my face meant the monster was dead but my face was still mangled in the process.

The hawk screeched which seemed to be a signal. Both flying lizards swooped, one from behind and to the left and one directly in front of me.

Trusting my shield positioning, I focused on the monster coming for my face.

They loved to use a claw, claw, bite combination attack.

I feinted a missed backhand swing, my arm ending up perfectly angled out to my right. It took the bait of my unprotected face just as planned.

As I reared my head back out of the way of its claws, I brought the morningstar through in an overhand swing, almost like I was serving in tennis, smashing the beast into the ground. It didn't die immediately but I went for a weight enchantment-enhanced stomp and felt the rush of essence.

I turned my focus on the lizard that had been ineffectually attacking my shield, little pings ringing out every half second or so.

Swinging my shield out wide, I attempted to bring it close to my body under the shield.

If it worked, my plan was to stab and/or stomp it to death; it wouldn't have the leverage to scratch me and would almost certainly fall from its wings being squished against it, leaving it open to my boots.

Of course, the lizard just seemed confused and dove at my head instead.

All good plans… okay, that was a bad plan.

I interposed my morningstar in its way, stopping its charge but doing no damage.

That was when the hawk, which I temporarily forgot about, dove at Steve's bathysphere. It was clawing and shrieking madly, scrabbling at the glass to get at my bond.

Made of Tier 3 materials, the mid Tier 1 monster had zero chance to even scratch it, but Steve didn't know that. His terror and panic caused me to scream loud enough to turn heads, even mid battle.

Wrenching my arm behind me, I grabbed the hawk with my bare hand by the scruff of the neck, pulling it directly in front of me.

Based on the look on its face, I think both of us were surprised. But I got over it first, summoning three throwing knives and stabbing them as best as I could into its chest and neck, quickly soaking the leaves at my feet with its lifeblood.

That only left the flying lizard but with my surge in adrenaline, a single rising baseball swing had it soaring away to crash into a tree, dead well before it hit the ground.

My bestial roar of triumph felt great but probably made my co-delvers a bit nervous. Nonetheless, I started to move delver to delver, trying to pick off or at least damage any of the remaining rift monsters I could.

Eventually, everything came to an uneasy quiet. The forest floor littered with monster carcasses and the blood of beast and delver alike, we took a second to rest.

Many of the people were wounded enough that we wouldn't have continued forward under any circumstances, much less the situation we were in.

The woman in full-plate with the taunt skill was bleeding from tens of cuts.

I looked at the moron who yelled. He held his head high in defiance for half a second before it slumped just like his whole body did.

Without a word, I turned and exited the rift.

"Change of plans, we are going to the last delve with my team next," I said to Natalia as I reappeared in the real world. She held out her hand for the reward and I shook my head. "Didn't clear it."

She cocked her head like a confused puppy before seeing the battered and bloody other delvers emerging behind me.

I started walking, not even giving them a second look.

[Not doing final carried delve today. Or likely any carried delves here at all. No more incompetent teams. Fix this or we leave. File]

The message sent to both Violeta, the assistant for the Chazin Mark Council, and Nina Asani was short and to-the-point but with the video evidence of the team's incompetence, I figured my reasoning would quickly become obvious.

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #61: You don't have to explain everything. When the conclusion is obvious, provide the data or evidence for them to analyze. It helps to solidify their views that match your own as they were the ones who thought it up instead of being told.

***

"I thought I told you to keep your head down and do your job," Nina Asani said with an exasperated tone and a hand on her hip as we emerged from the rift.

As I bristled, she couldn't help but chuckle darkly. "I would have done far worse. You didn't follow my instructions but were more restrained than I could have hoped. Come, get showered, you have the Council to meet. As of now, your contract is cancelled for tomorrow but they are trying to screw us out of our rightfully-earned coin. You need to bathe and put on something nicer."

For the delve, my team had met me early and we immediately entered so I could be away from people or anyone trying to justify Chazin Mark's utter bullshit.

We spent a full hour right inside the entrance after a quick sweep to clear it just for me – and especially Steve – to cool down and so I could recover enough mana to be useful during the delve.

I sent the rest of The Order the footage as I was too mad to even explain. They all took turns petting and feeding Steve as he slowly returned to his usual chipper self.

Pavel took out one of his backup spears and pointed to himself, flexing. Steve flexed back in challenge, chittering softly to say he was the best. Not knowing what Pavel was doing, I just watched.

The spear-wielder suddenly leapt into the air, bringing the weapon down with as much force as he could. Right on Steve's backpack.

The weapon exploded in a rain of splinters and shrapnel, lightly pelting us, though hitting Inara the most. She gave him a confused and angry look.

Pavel said quietly, "Steve, if you can understand me, I'm tough. Terry's tough. But that—" he pointed at the bathysphere "—that is way tougher than all of us. You are safe in there."

Inara went over and took out a backup dagger, not wanting to damage one of her main ones. She slashed at the Tier 3 metal, sending chips of her weapon flying.

Steve grabbed a stick off the ground and smashed it against the glass dome on the side. With woodchips pelting him, I felt more contentment through our bond. I didn't want to tell him why his specific test was god-awful but was glad he got our meaning.

The rest of the rift, a relatively standard one featuring something like rampaging water buffalo with an incredibly tough hide, went by slowly as we took our time, maintaining a strange sense of calm despite inflicting death and mayhem.

The reward of three mana stones – likely worth about five gold each – was a reasonably good prize after everything that happened.

This was supposed to be a day of celebration. I finally hit Tier 1.5. Steve was clearly getting incredibly intelligent.

But now I had to go and face the Council. A likely hostile Council that was trying to take everything away after screwing up constantly.

And even better, with an 'ally' that I didn't really know where her allegiances and motivations lay.

Time to put on the Boardroom BS persona.

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