"Haa...haa...haa...haa..."

Marianne was panting. She panted like she never did before in her entire life.

She had snapped out of her adrenaline-fueled fight-or-die mind. She now realized with every inch of her body just how close she was to a certain death back there.

Her entire body shook. She could feel sweat drenching her dress in its entirety. She was thankful that it was just sweat, as it wouldn't surprise her if she had soiled her knickers as well.

She grabbed her chest, trying to calm down her furiously beating heart to no avail.

The dread she felt right now was incomparable to anything she had ever experienced before. The scene where the rat assasin almost stabbed her with his blade replayed on her mind over and over again.

"So this is what Father meant back then..."

[i]"Listen, Marianne, if you have chosen the path of an adventurer, know that one day you will find yourself on that dividing line between life and death. It will be really frightening, no doubt about that. But if you can overcome that dread, then you can be called a real adventurer, someone who has wrestled with Death and comes back alive. Your father here had ended up in so many of such situations that he lost count of them. But with every dire situation you overcome, the more mature you will become as a fighter, and as a person."

"It's alright if you decide to give up. But I have faith that my daughter will be stronger than that. She will truly become a true adventurer, just like her father."[/i]

"This is... true dread... I have stood in the border between life and death..."

"And now... I shall overcome it... I shall overcome this feeling and grow stronger from it...!"

Marianne hugged her own body, trying to calm her shivers. She focused on the fact that she had triumphed, and the rat had been defeated. She was the victor, thus there would be no reason for her to be scared like this.

After what seemed to be an eternity to her, she finally calmed down. She thanked her father for his advice before surveying the situation below her.

The fight had returned to their favor it seemed, with a lot of the stormvermin having being obliterated and the rest of the rats squealing for a retreat. Their reinforcements were cut off and their leader was nowhere to be found. However, the king of the dwarves were in a dire state also, as he was losing blood rapidly thanks to his wounds.

And then, she heard it. A sinister sound of a bell ringing from the halls down below. It sent a familiar chill down to her spine.

The Shaman! The Shaman was still alive!

"Finish the rats, quickly! We must find the Shaman from the bridge."

Siph had the same idea as hers. The bell was really the work of the Shaman. Who knew what foul magic he would conduct to turn the tide back to their side once more?

They had to finish off the rats here first before going after the creature.

Marianne ordered her mantis to put her down, which it immediately obeyed. Then, with a loud voice, she shouted, "Mantis! Kill all the remaining rats as quickly as you can! Show them no mercy!" This, it also obeyed, as it used its legs to walk towards the remaining rat forces. It would have leaped towards them if not for the ceiling hindering his movement.

Of course, Marianne didn't have to shout to order the insect. But she did so to bolster her own courage, to display her dominance over the rats that had humiliated her. She would not fall afraid to them. Her father once said that an adventurer who's afraid of her enemy already lost to it before the battle even began.