《Labyrinth of Anchored Moments》 Ch.1 "The Beginning" I was dreaming. I laid down next to my wife after a long day at work and closed my eyes. I remember thinking how pleasant the cold bed was compared to the heat of the shower I had just taken. The kids were asleep before I had gotten home, and I didn¡¯t want to risk waking them so I didn¡¯t open their doors to check on them. When I closed my eyes, I felt waves of relaxation roll through my body, like I could feel my organs shutting down for the night. I was up in the sky, falling from an incredible height. Except¡­ I felt no resistance and couldn¡¯t hear the rush of air as I flew past. It was almost like the sky and ground were rapidly moving upward, and I was standing still in the air. In front of me, standing solidly on a cloud that wasn¡¯t rising with the rest, was a young boy with a chilly bowl cut and t-shirt that said ¡°Is it cannibalism if I eat chicken nuggets?¡± and depicted a T-rex in a thinking position with a question mark over its head. He was smiling at me, his smile growing broader the longer I looked at him. ¡°Time will soon catch up to us, you know. When it does, it¡¯s best we¡¯ve finished our business or you may be flattened. You should pick a class for living in my game world.¡± ¡°Eh?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve watched you toil your life away, giving up your hobbies for your family. Rightfully so, of course. You could hardly call yourself a man if you put your family second. But still, I¡¯ve visited your thoughts and dreams before, and you might feel guilty for admitting it, but you long for adventure. Freedom for a time, before returning to the family you adore. The good news is, I don¡¯t find you boring. So I¡¯ll go ahead and say it again. You should pick a class for living in my game world. You could be a swordsman, sorcerer, assassin, archer, healing priest, knight, merchant¡­ whatever. There are over a hundred classes to choose from, but most have to be unlocked through your actions and levels of other classes. You just have to play my game, which is styled after your world¡¯s dungeon exploration RPGs, level up, and save the world. Or don¡¯t. I don¡¯t care. To be honest, I¡¯m just bored and trying to live vicariously though you. Since you¡¯re more likely to enjoy yourself, and by extension I¡¯m more likely to enjoy myself, I¡¯ll let you choose whatever class you like, even if you don¡¯t possess the prerequisites. But you only get one, and my rather lengthy explanation has already taken up most of our remaining time. I suggest you pick quickly.¡± Once the boy finished his diatribe, I looked down again and saw that the ground was much closer to us. It looked like we were falling straight towards a castle town in the middle of a large plains. In the distance, a huge body of water, a small mountain range, and a forest were visible. What, no desert? I thought dryly. Even at a time like this, I¡¯m having trouble taking my dream seriously. While I admit it is a thoroughly convincing dream, I still don¡¯t really believe it. The boy talked about how I gave up my hobbies, but it isn¡¯t really true. I never gave up gaming. I didn¡¯t play anywhere close to the amount that I did in college, and I refrain from playing when my kids were awake, but I still play. At any rate, gaming is the one hobby I wish I would give up, since I know I¡¯d have been a much more productive member of society if I had never touched my first controller. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. ¡°Alright, fine. I¡¯ll just enjoy my dream. I¡¯ve long thought that if I had a super power, I would want the ability to go control time. I¡¯d jump back into my body when I was a kid, and live as a genius who could read, write, and do calculus at the tender age of ¡®just born¡¯. Assuming my pudgy baby hands to could a pencil. Are there any classes that can do that?¡± ¡°Oh? That does sound interesting. But sadly, you wouldn¡¯t be able to utilize its power properly until you leveled up quite a bit. A Time wizard could do what you want, but it is a class that¡¯s prerequisites have never been fulfilled. Locking onto a moment of time could be done as a level 1 without any other classes¡­ but actually transferring to that moment would take¡­ let¡¯s see¡­ around three thousand MP.¡± ¡°So it isn¡¯t possible?¡± I do hope it is. Even if I have to wait a lifetime to use it, I could still come back. Besides, it¡¯s a dream. Who cares how long something takes in a dream? I¡¯ll still wake up in the morning and go to work. A longer dream is preferable, to be honest. ¡°It¡¯s perfectly possible. You¡¯ll just won¡¯t have any usable abilities for a long time. Your owner will be quite displeased with such a useless slave.¡± The boy said, his tone verging on mocking. ¡°I don¡¯t mind not having any abilities at first. A sword will still be dangerous in the hands of a novice. At any rate, I can just live in the easy zones, farming all the mobs for extra cash and experience until I level up a bunch. That¡¯s how you play games like this on easy mode. Then it doesn¡¯t matter how angry my owner will be, I¡¯ll still be¡­ earning¡­ money¡­. What do you mean, slave!?¡± I clearly heard what the boy had said before, but I wasn¡¯t really interpreting. ¡°Welp, times up. You haven¡¯t chosen anything else, so you¡¯re a Time Wizard! Good luck down there noob!¡± The city was now around 1000 yards away, and it was flying towards me rapidly. I was going to be hit first by what appeared to be a huge coliseum type building without a roof. Right as the floor was about to collide with me, a white light enveloped me, and I was standing firmly on the stone floor of the coliseum. A large balding man quickly strode up to me and pressed a mechanical collar at my throat. It wrapped around and locked into place. The man smiled broadly at me, looking over my body like I was being appraised. ¡°Finally, a boy with some muscle on him. All I ever seemed to get before was children! You ended up costing a fortune to summon! What powers can you use?¡± Feeling compelled, I answered him truthfully. ¡°I have no usable powers.¡± After all, what use is locking onto a place in time, if I can¡¯t use the spell to go there? Ch. 2 -- Gearing Up I noticed two children standing behind the man, who was suddenly turning red with anger. They flinched away from him, and I realized they had metal collars around their necks as well. They looked like twins, with their green flax looking high water pants, white linen button shirts, and brown caps. Both had brown leather messenger bags on their left hip and over their right shoulders, and small sheathed daggers on their right hip. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me I spent two million Leet for a sword arm with no equipment!¡± The man bellowed in my face, spittle flying out and at me. That¡¯s strange¡­ I don¡¯t normally dream about things that gross me out. ¡°I¡¯m not a swordsman, thief, assassin, sorcerer, knight, archer, or any of those things. The only spell I can cast has no use at present, nor is it likely to be useful in your lifetime. I¡¯ll show you.¡± My tone could almost be considered mocking, but he did just spit in my face, and I¡¯m invincible in my dreams. While thinking this, I realize I don¡¯t know how to cast my spell. While thinking about my spells, a window pops up in front of me, with the spell labeled ¡°Anchored Moment¡±. I activate it, thinking about the very beginning of this dream. After all, if I can redo it all, maybe it won¡¯t turn out so weird next time. ¡°DON¡¯T SCREW WITH ME!¡± The man screamed as he rocked his arm back. He punched me square in the mouth and broke out a tooth. It hurt. A lot. My whole face contorted around his fist and my neck jerked to the side. My feet left the ground from the momentum, and I spun away from him, landing hard on my back a few feet away. My vision turned red, and flashing. The strength left my body, and I spit blood and tooth out. ¡°Oi! You can¡¯t even take one punch before going critical!? I¡¯m never getting my money back! ARGH!! Reena! Lola! Take this loser to the warehouse and give him a weapon. We¡¯re going to the dungeon to see if he isn¡¯t completely worthless!¡± With that, the man stormed out of the area. At his command, the two children rush towards me and help me up. One of them holds their hand to my face and white light appears around her fingers as she calls to me ¡°Blessings of the Sun, ruling star of our world, grant your benevolent light to the wretched masses! Minor Heal!¡±. My vision turns clear again, and I get the strength back in my legs. So this is what going critical is like? I suddenly feel bad for all the times I played the characters that did more damage when they were low on HP. I¡¯m still a little shaken up from being walloped, but I stand straight, and try to finally look around. The building I originally thought was a coliseum was at best a large arena with high columned walls. The center of the area was raised with stone cubes, forming a fighting ring about fifty feet wide and long. ¡°We have to go now, or the owner will get angry. Please follow us, big brother.¡± One of the children told me with a girlish voice. Until they spoke, I couldn¡¯t tell, but they both seem to be girls of about 14. ¡°Big brother huh? How cute, kids.¡± ¡°Big brother is only a little older than us, but he talks like an old man offering us candy.¡± One girl said to the other. Hearing what they said, I guess that they must not be human, and live extra long lives to be only a ¡®little¡¯ younger than 30 but still look 14. ¡°Well, I¡¯m getting to be pretty old. I¡¯m allowed my old man jokes and sayings, right?¡± ¡°Old man? Big brother is surely only fifteen or so, right?¡± I look down and realize that my stomach flab was missing. Right! I¡¯m in a dream. I keep forgetting. Wait¡­ I¡¯m not into little girls. This isn¡¯t one of ¡®those¡¯ dreams is it? I might just have wake up if that¡¯s the case.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Looking up, I see that the girls had already led me away from the coliseum, and towards a building with no windows. ¡°This is the boss¡¯s warehouse. Pick out a weapon you¡¯re comfortable carrying. We¡¯ve got a long day ahead of us, big brother. Reena and I still have most of our summoning price to pay off, so the owner doesn¡¯t let us come out until we¡¯ve collected a bunch.¡± To be honest, I don¡¯t care what weapon I get. I¡¯m just itching to fight some monsters. Though, I¡¯m a little appalled by my dream for having me fight alongside two small, sweet kids. I step into the room, and wonder ¡°How do I know what is good or not?¡± as I¡¯m picking up a one-handed, broad bladed short sword. This looks like a Roman sword¡­ what were they called again? Spatha? Gladius? Eh, whatever. One of those. I¡¯ll take it. ¡°I don¡¯t see any armor or bags.¡± ¡°Only slaves who buy their own wear armor. If you buy armor, you aren¡¯t paying off your debt with that money. We bought our own bags, but we¡¯ve never put materials in from the dungeon anyway. It was a waste.¡± ¡°How much do you two owe?¡± ¡°We didn¡¯t have any skills when we were summoned. The total cost was 3000 leet.¡± I heard that term earlier. Leet must be the currency here. ¡°What!? Why the heck was he complaining about me costing two million leet then? How long have you been enslaved, how much do we earn in a day, and what is up with that difference?¡± ¡°To be honest, we were hoping since you cost so much, you¡¯d be able to blow through the hard stages of the labyrinth and we¡¯d be able to pay ourselves out of slavery. But since you were commanded to tell him what skills you possessed, and you still told him none, we¡¯ve been pretty let down. I¡¯ve only been to our summoning and yours, so I can¡¯t say which of us is unusual. I think our cheaper price is more common though, since we only make about fifty leet a day, and I¡¯ve heard of slaves being freed after a couple months. Two months in the labyrinth won¡¯t make anyone two million anything. We¡¯ve been working in the labyrinth for a month already.¡± We come up on a stone arch in the middle of a plaza full of armed people and food stalls. The clanking of a hammer on an anvil is heard nearby. A water-like ripple can be seen in the arch, like it was the smooth surface of a pool that had a stone thrown into it. ¡°Let¡¯s go. If we get in quick, we can avoid talking to the owner. He¡¯ll just get mad again anyway. Party formation! Leader Reena. Add Lola! What¡¯s your name, anyway big brother?¡± I get to give myself a cool new adventurer name maybe? Probably not. I wonder how I can view my own information? If I can name myself, I¡¯d like to give myself something more appropriate for the dream. My real name is awfully common, and not really all the great for a swords and sorcery adventure. Like if you ever were playing a serious rpg and your MC was named ¡°Pete¡±, you¡¯d think it was a horribly boring name for your bad-ass sword-wielding ninja samurai warrior priest. It¡¯s be like naming the most famous wizard in the world something like ¡°Harry¡±¡­ oh wait. At that moment, a window popped up in front of me again, like before with the spell name. It showed [Name: //Unset Class: Level 1 Time Wizard EXP : 0/10 Age: 15 (30) HP: 10 MP: 10 STR: 10 AGI: 10 VIT: 10 INT: 10 MND: 10 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP) Equipment: Chipped Gladius (+4 stabbing/slashing) Leet: 0 Debt: 2,000,000] How to set my name¡­ how about ¡°Set Name: Kyuu¡±. I always named my rpg dudes this, so I might as well stick to it. ¡°My name is Kyuu. Please add me.¡± ¡°Took long enough to decide big brother. I asked like two minutes ago and you¡¯ve just been standing there like a statue. Party Formation! Add Kyuu!¡± Reena shouted the last bit, and I felt¡­ how to describe it¡­ a connection to my party members. It¡¯s difficult to put it, but it¡¯s like I just knew where they were, and what their condition was like it was my own body. Very strange. ¡°Let¡¯s go! First floor!¡± Lola called, running into the ripples of the stone arch. ¡°First floor!¡± Reena followed suit, running in behind her. ¡°Alright, lets go fight some monsters! This is literally what dreams are made of. First floor!¡± Ch. 3 -- Global Positioning Spell The walls of the dungeon didn¡¯t glow, and there were no windows or sun roofs. Yet for some reason, I could still clearly see up to fifty feet away. I had appeared behind my two new child-teammates in a plain stone brick tunnel about 10 feet wide and tall. Before we start to fight, however, we need to first determine a strategy. ¡°What level and class are you two? I¡¯m level 1, and I have 10 for all my stats. My class is Time Wizard, but don¡¯t let it fool you, I can¡¯t do anything with it.¡± ¡°Eh?! Time Wizard? I¡¯ve never heard of that class. Reena is a thief, and I¡¯m a Star Priest. We¡¯re both level 4. The only spell I can cast is minor heal, and only once an hour because of my low MP. Reena can use her MP to cast ¡®steal¡¯, which sometimes generates bonus leet from defeated monsters.¡± Lola explained. ¡°What monsters are on this floor, and how should we fight them?¡± ¡°The enemies on this floor are only little ugly lizard people that fight with sharpened sticks, and slimes.¡± ¡°Do you mean kobolds?¡± My dream is really quite unoriginal, throwing kobolds and slimes at me as the first enemies. Let me guess, the second floor has giant wasps? ¡°Yes. Though from my world, kobolds were dog people. In this one, they seem to be lizards. Also in my world, slimes were hated by women because they ate clothes. Fortunately, that isn¡¯t the case in this one.¡± Lola continued. Reena just nodded in agreement at the word ¡®hated¡¯. ¡°So avoid the pointy ends of their sticks, and stab them with the pointy ends of our own sticks? As for slimes, they are blobs, so just don¡¯t let them¡­ what, ram into you?¡± ¡°Kobolds are fairly intelligent, but they don¡¯t work well with each other. We¡¯re unlikely to run into more than one at a time. Surround and take down. As for slimes, they tend to stick to the ceiling, and plop onto your head as you walk by. That way they can suffocate you. If this happens, immediately cup your hands over your mouth and nose before they have a chance to completely cover your head. We¡¯ll help you pull the slime off, and then step on it. After each monster is killed, you¡¯ll automatically be granted experience and leet. Just check your status at that time.¡± ¡°So¡­ are either of you secretly beastkin that can sniff out monsters?¡± ¡°Ha! As if something so convenient would be true. If we could find enemies, we¡¯d make more leet. Dispatching them isn¡¯t all that hard. It¡¯s just finding them that is troublesome. We keep getting lost, too.¡± ¡°Wait, do you not map out the dungeon as you explore?¡± ¡°There is no point. It just changes every day.¡± ¡°What?! That just means you¡¯ll get lost every day unless you map it out!¡± ¡°We don¡¯t have anything to map with.¡± ¡°Fine. Today, let¡¯s just stick to the right hand walls, and follow around as far as we can. Have you been to the second floor? Or higher?¡± ¡°No. You have to finish a floor before the gate will work for the next level. We¡¯ve never found the gateway down.¡± ¡°Okay, since we don¡¯t have any way to write down where we are going, then we¡¯ll just need to be careful. Let¡¯s move quickly. Tell me if you get tired.¡± Since I¡¯m older and using my much more fit 15 year old body, I should be able to keep up a faster pace than they can handle. Or at least that is what I thought. As it turns out, these two girls had been running around this maze for a month trying to find the way down, fighting monsters all the while. They were in much better shape than was to be expected. Unfortunately, despite jogging for nearly half an hour, we still hadn¡¯t come upon any enemies. I was sweating and short of breath, so I stopped, putting my hand on the wall to help keep steady. It was unnecessary, since I wasn¡¯t dying of exhaustion or anything, but my condition was still worse than Reena and Lola. They seemed to be fine. ¡°Let¡¯s walk instead, to cool down a bit. It wouldn¡¯t do us any good to be dead tired by time we meet up with a kobold.¡± Lola offered. It was a kindness, to be sure, since clearly they weren¡¯t tired at all. ¡°Sorry for slowing you girls down. You¡¯ve got much more endurance than you look.¡± ¡°Ah, thank you big brother, but this is hardly something to be proud over. After all, we¡¯re level 3 compared to your level 1. Comparing us is a little unfair.¡± Reena says, somewhat bored. I doubt two levels makes that big of a difference.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. BOOOOOOOORRRRRREEEEEDDDDDDDDDD! With the ground rumbling at the sound of his voice, a certain chili-bowl kid appeared in front of us. ¡°Kyuu! I want action! Get on with it! You¡¯re supposed to be entertaining me!¡± ¡°I can¡¯t fight what I can¡¯t find, dude! We¡¯ve been running around for half an hour.¡± ¡°I know! I¡¯ve been alive for millenia, and let me tell you¡­ this has been the longest half an hour of my life! Its like Tantalus and his fruit! You keep coming SOOOO close to monsters, and you just run right past them!¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry my dream bores you.¡± ¡°Me too! Though this isn¡¯t technically a dream. Here! Take it! Take it take it take it! Find something to fight and kill it!¡± From the mouth of the boy flew out a glowing orb that then rammed hard into my forehead. My status window popped up to tell me. By time I looked up, the boy was gone and the girls were standing there with their mouths gaping. ¡°Was that teleportation?! Why didn¡¯t you tell us you had such a ridiculously leveled friend, big brother?!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know him. He¡¯s just someone who expects something unreasonable from me.¡± How to use this skill? Just say its name? Mapping! At my thought, my status screen appeared with a second tab selected. It showed the path that we had already traversed overlayed on top of a greyed out completed map, as well as numerous red dots on the pathways we hadn¡¯t moved onto yet. I found the shortest route to the closest red dot. ¡°Follow me.¡± I started jogging again, occasionally checking the map to make sure I hadn¡¯t deviated from the proper path. ¡°Around this next corner, there is a monster.¡± ¡°How do you know?¡± Reena asked as she drew her dagger. ¡°The boy gave me a skill. Didn¡¯t you see that glowing orb?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t know what that was, but did he really give you such a convenient skill? I didn¡¯t know skills could be transferred like that!¡± We stopped when we reached the corner and peered around it. A three foot tall lizard-man was standing at the ready, with a wooden stick pointed in our direction. It must have heard us running. Upon seeing the kobold, Reena darts out and towards the monster, widely dodging its first thrust of its stick. Once she was up close, she punched it in the hip with her empty palm. I slight glow emitted from her hand. ¡°Success!¡± Reena cried out, stabbing her dagger towards the kobolds throat. It yanked its head away from her blade and backed up to get some distance, putting the pointy edge between them. Lola, at this time, ran wide around the kobold, and got behind it. I moved towards it as well, realizing I didn¡¯t just want to be a spectator in my dream, and brandished my blade. I moved to beside it, and blocked off the last remaining route. Sensing danger from Lola, it turned and stopped her advance. Unfortunately, when it turned its back on Reena, she lunged forward and tackled it from behind. Grabbing it around the heck with her left arm, she stabbed roughly into the kobolds chest at a downward angle. Letting go of her prey, the kobold fell to the ground, vanishing in a glittering light show. Where the remains would have been found, instead nothing was left. Not even blood. Checking my status, I saw I had gained 1 exp and 5 leet. I also noticed my MP was really low. Ah! Mapping takes MP, doesn¡¯t it! I left it on for 5 minutes straight now! Quickly figuring out the shortest route to the next red dot, I cancelled Mapping. ¡°Follow me!¡± This pattern followed for the next few hours. From our first half an hour, we had mapped half of the entire outer ring, so we spent the rest of the time moving from red dot to red dot, and killing the enemies there. The slimes were much easier than the kobolds, since we knew where they were. If we lured them into dropping from the ceiling, we could just dodge out of the way and punt them into the wall. Reena and Lola were ecstatic, dancing with glee every time they looked down at their own status screens. While I was happy to get the exp and leet, I was a little less excited about just being a mobile GPS unit while I had a little girl engage all the enemies. Unfortunately, I simply wasn¡¯t able to actually hurt the enemies. Whenever Lola or I would strike at a kobold, they would dodge with superhuman/superlizard reflexes. Whenever Reena would strike at them, a kobold would get stabbed. The strangest part was, she wasn¡¯t really moving faster than us, she was just much more successful. Even more unfortunately, I simply wasn¡¯t able to not get hurt by the enemies. Whenever a kobold would strike at Reena, she would just not be where they were attacking. Lola kept away from them until she could get behind them, and never was successfully attacked. I was stabbed or scratched repeatedly, always requiring healing from Lola. Basically, I was only useful for finding enemies. When it came to actually combatting them, I was useless. Completely useless. After we had killed our fiftieth monster, we came across a stone archway. ¡°Is that the entrance we came in?¡± Reena asked, tapping her foot in impatience. She seemed to want to go fight the next monster, and didn¡¯t feel like waiting. ¡°Nope, according to the map, this is a different place.¡± I responded after activating the Mapping skill. ¡°Then we finally found the second floor! The monsters are a little tougher, but the exp and leet gains are even better. Also, they start dropping items!¡± Lola seemed pretty excited. ¡°Any idea why these monsters here don¡¯t drop items?¡± ¡°Ah¡­ well¡­ it¡¯s called the first floor, but it is really just considered an entranceway by other adventurers. Most parties only stay here for a day or two before finding the exit.¡± Reena laughed nervously, ¡°Well, I¡¯m still fine to keep exploring, so we can move on. Do you know anything about the next floor?¡± ¡°No¡­ I¡¯m afraid not. But I do know that when we pass through the archway, we won¡¯t go straight to the second floor. First, we have to clear the floor boss. It is apparently a kobold and a slime together, and they are a little stronger than usual.¡± ¡°What have we got to lose? Let¡¯s check our levels and do this.¡± After all, Reena way outstrips the kobolds, and the slimes are barely even a nuisance. More exp and money on the next can be made on the next floor. [Name: Kyuu of Reena¡¯s Party Class: Level 3 Time Wizard EXP : 50/100 Age: 15 (30) HP: 10 MP: 30 STR: 10 AGI: 10 VIT: 10 INT: 12 MND: 12 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP) Equipment: Chipped Gladius (+4 stabbing/slashing) Leet: 250 Debt: 2,000,000] Ch. 4 -- First Boss Stepping into the gateway, we found ourselves in a faithful reproduction of the arena I was first summoned into. Torches lined the columns, but behind the columns was just the usual stone walls. Up on the raised stage, a single large kobold stood holding a hatchet in one hand, and had a buckler strapped to the other. There was no slime to be seen. It is hiding somewhere? Well, whatever, slimes are throwaway monsters anyway. We¡¯ve literally just been kicking them into walls once and killing them. ¡°Lola, keep on the lookout for the slime. Kyuu, since we have the space, both you and Lola should stand behind the kobold. Let¡¯s take down this kobold quick and then hunt the slime.¡± Nodding in agreement, the three of us rush towards the lizardman, two of us flanking wide around the creature. By time I had noticed I was stepping on the slime mimicking a block, it was too late. My foot stopped moving suddenly and I fell face first into the stone floor at the speed of sprinting. Trying to put my hands out to break my fall, my right hand holding the gladius collided awkwardly against the floor, breaking two fingers. The sword clattered pointlessly a few feet away from me. Desperately, I started kicking my feet against the slime, but either my strength was too low, or its sliminess was too potent. I couldn¡¯t break free. Still holding my left foot, it grabs the kicking right foot and locks it in place as well. I look down at it in a panic. This thing is the size of a barrel! The ones in the tunnels were smaller than a soccer ball! ¡°Oi! Lola! I¡¯m caught by this thing! I need an assist!¡± Turning my head in her direction, I hear a scream. Reena is spurting blood out of where her left arm used to be. Turning pale, she is backing away from the kobold which has it¡¯s hatch raised above her. ¡°Lola! Forget what I said, help Reena!¡± At the end of the day, watching some girl get murdered seems more like a nightmare than a dream. Furthermore, I¡¯ll beat the slime myself. All is good in the world. Reena and Lola will finish off the lizardman, I¡¯ll beat the slime, and Lola will heal Reena¡¯s arm. Good plan great plan. I tried stretching my arm to get to the gladius, but it was too far away to reach. I tried rolling over so I could sit up to punch at the slime, but it kept my feet locked in place, so I couldn¡¯t roll over either. I tried doing a pushup and kicking back with both of my legs, but it didn¡¯t do anything except hurt my broken fingers. The slime continued pulling my body into its gelatinous mass, covering up to my waist. I struggled a little more in vain to get to my gladius. Apparently, I really will need help to get free. I turned back towards the kobold fight in time to see Lola cast her healing magic on Reena, but all it did was stop the blood flow. Lola then took a hatchet to her forehead. She dropped to the floor like a ragdoll and Reena screamed in rage. Standing up suddenly, she rushed the kobold and sidestepped a swinging hatchet. She plunged her dagger into it¡¯s chest, twisting sharply as she pulled it out and stabbed it back into into the kobolds throat. It dropped the hatchet and disappeared in a glowing light. Without pausing for breathe, Reena kicked the hatchet towards me, heaved Lola¡¯s lifeless body over her remaining shoulder, and hurried to the opposite side of the arena towards a stone transfer gate. She ran through without a word. The slime had covered my body up to above my stomach. My legs and hips could bend inside the slime, but I couldn¡¯t kick my way out. The hatchet slide over to me, and nearly hit me in the face, so I grabbed it and tried hacking behind my back at the slime. The hatchet just bounced off of the slimes body. Realizing the hatchet wasn¡¯t working outside the slimes body, I tucked my arms to my chest, and had them absorbed into the slime before my head. At the last possible moment I took a deep breathe, and my head was submerged into the slime. So you can move inside enormous slimes. Not very well, of course. Their consistency inside their bodies is a little thicker than water, so if you¡¯ve ever tried to do an underwater kung fu fight reenactment, you can sort of grasp what it is like. Every time I tried to use my legs to position myself for leverage, the slime would shift its shape and knock me out of stance. Despite that, I held the hatchet in both hands and started hammering away at the inside wall of the slime. Outside the slime, the room was tinted with a hazy green color. Standing around five feet away was a boy with a chili bowl cut cheering me on. I could hear him, but it was muffled like I was underwater. I kept struggling, but exerting yourself without oxygen quickly forces your body to shut down. Chili bowl was starting to frown as my movements slowed. This dream kind of sucks. Suffocation is a horrible way to die. Getting fed up with my weakening attempts, Chili bowl pulls a sword out of nowhere and stabs gently into the slimes body. It explodes in a flash of light and I crumple to the ground. ¡°BOOOORRRRIIIINNNGGG!!! Kyuu! You¡¯re too pathetic! Done in by a slime? Are you kidding me? You¡¯re supposed to be my Hero, you know? How could you not know that hatchet was a gift from the Slime General to the Kobold General for their continued coexistence? Representing that bond of friendship, that hatchet couldn¡¯t possibly ever be used to damage a slime! It says so right there on its description!¡± I just coughed some mucus out in response. How the hell was I supposed to read the status of the damn thing? And what kind of logic is that? If the status didn¡¯t say ¡°does not work against slimes¡±, how would I have known anyway? At any rate, I was already being eaten alive when it fell into my hands. ¡°I¡¯m sure its difficult for you god-like figures to understand, but us mere mortals don¡¯t possess such convenient abilities. I can¡¯t read the status of anything but myself.¡± I only said this because of the convenient mapping skill Chili bowl already gave me. I might get lucky. ¡°Ehhh?!? You don¡¯t!? Being an ant among gods must sure be exhausting. Very well, I¡¯ll let you do that too. But this is seriously the last time I help you. If I make you too strong, it won¡¯t be fun to watch you struggle.¡± With that, another bright orb of light shot out of his mouth and hit me directly in the forehead. I was struggling to stand up at the time, so it just knocked me off my feet again. Here goes¡­ Analyze! Instantly, I felt the magic leave me as everything in the room had little tool tips appear over top of them. I immediately look at Chili bowl in the hopes of figuring out a more convenient name for him. [Name: //????? Class: //????? EXP : //????? Age: //????? HP: ??? MP: ??? STR: ??? AGI: ??? VIT: ??? INT: ??? MND: ??? Spells: //??? Equipment: Godsword (Instant death attack/Instant death magic/MP battery/Unbreaking Edge/MP Recharge/100% Loot Table Drop/Dimensional Blade)]This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. What a broken sword. I wonder if GMs in online games have weapons like this? ¡°Since your name is a bunch of question marks, I¡¯m going to call you Enigma. Does that sound good?¡± At my comment, Enigma just started laughing. Admittedly, speaking so informally with a god is almost certainly an existence erasing degree of impertinence. ¡°Whatever you want. Try not to be such a loser. I won¡¯t be saving you again.¡± With that, he was gone. I looked down at my clothes and tried to flick away some of the sludgy residue still stuck to me when I noticed a small pile of status windows at my feet. [Slime ball: A sticky ball of slime.] [Slime core: A monster core useful for Monster Breeders and Tamers. Contains the soul and body of an obedient Slime¡±.] [Slime stone: A solidified chunk of slime residue. When ignited, it can burn for several hours without extinguishing.] [Slime crystal: A crystal that is extremely conductive for both heat and electricity.] [Slime battery: MP battery. A magical construct that can be used to store magic for later use. Anyone can charge the MP, but only //Unset can use the stored magic. 0/5000 MP stored.] This battery! I can use it to cast my time magic! And what is up with this loot drop? That is way too much stuff for one boss! I pick up the Slime battery, and //Unset became ¡®Kyuu¡¯. The slime core was heavy, but it seemed like it might be worth some money, so I carried It too. Realizing I was leaving my Gladius and Hatchet, I look around for the sword. I quickly find the status window, and see it was only a few feet from me. Eh, so close but so far, eh gladius? Eh? Across the arena, there is another status window. [Leather bag: A small messenger bag for carrying sweet loot from a dungeon. Currently owned by //Deceased.] Damn¡­ Lola¡¯s messenger bag. I¡¯m not necessarily surprised she didn¡¯t survive taking an ax to the head, but she was a sweet girl and deserved better than that dog¡¯s death. My dream is pretty twisted. Thinking Reena might want the bag, I grabbed it, and then used it to carry all my ¡®sweet loot¡¯ to the stone Gateway. When I passed through it, I was in another tunnel similar to the first time I passed through the Gateway. This must be the second floor? How do I get back to town? Is the Gateway behind me connected to the town, or the boss room? I stepped through the Gateway and I found myself standing back in the town plaza. Looking out at the people running around and the vendors at their stalls, the overwhelming number of status windows barraged me before blinking out. I checked my own status and found I was out of MP. Oh, I leveled to 4 with that fight. No new skills, but higher MP, INT, and MND. They seem to raise pretty consistently. Regardless, I need to start storing MP in my battery. Not like I need it for anything other than mapping or analyze anyway. If I fully recover my MP every hour, and I have a maximum of 40, I¡¯ll need to charge the battery how many times to get 3000 MP? If 100 hours would get me 4000, then 50 hours would get me 2000¡­ right in the middle of both would be 75. So 75 full hours of MP recovery to cast one spell. That¡¯s rough. I¡¯ll just have to get started as soon as I can. ¡°You!!! What are you doing outside the Labyrinth?! You need to be in there earning me money to pay off your debt!¡± Great, this guy again. ¡°After Reena, Lola, and I finished off the first boss, we got separated. Have you seen them? I will certainly need their help.¡± ¡°What? You¡¯re such a weakling you need THEIR help? Well, no matter. The useless bitch died and I just sold the other one to a brothel. It was pathetic, how she begged me to pay for a resurrection. As if I¡¯d waste 5,000 leet for that weakling.¡± ¡°You sold Reena? Why?¡± ¡°After combining her leet with the bitch, she almost had enough to buy off her own debt. So to make some extra leet myself, I sold her for her virginity. She won¡¯t get paid until the morning to finish off her debt, but the brothel will get to sell her as a special product all night. If she survives, maybe she¡¯ll want to join your party again in a few days!¡± Wow¡­ I think I might kill this bastard. Did I dream this guy up so I could have someone to hate? ¡°How clever¡­. If the girls aren¡¯t coming back, then I really need to get back to fighting in the dungeon. The Kobold General dropped this hatchet. I¡¯m going to continue using it, but I¡¯ll leave it in the warehouse when I¡¯m done with it.¡± ¡°You idiot. Don¡¯t talk to me like I don¡¯t own you and everything you¡¯ll ever find! If I ordered you to kill yourself, you¡¯d do it! Now shut up and go!¡± With that, the Owner stormed off. I quickly activate Analyze and his name and class flash for an instant before vanishing. His name is Ian, and he is a level 8 Brawler. So I just need to be higher than that for next time. Once he was gone, I went down into the vendors and looked for a place to sell off the drops from the slime. The Slime ball was almost worthless, but the Slime Stone was useful for a long-lasting torch for some of the darker floors of the labyrinth. The Slime Crystal was surprisingly expensive, since it can be used in magic devices as a conductor. 5 leet for the ball, 100 leet for the hatchet, 300 leet for the stone, and 6,000 leet for the crystal. Combined with the 850 leet that I had from the first floor, I had obtained 7,255 leet. I opted to keep the Core on the off chance I could learn how to use it and have a slime companion. Finally, checking my status, I saw I was still in Reena¡¯s party, so I used my party sense to track her down. When I found her, she was ugly crying while begging her new master to resurrect Lola. The new master was a middle aged portly woman with a sympathetic look on her face. ¡°Please Adell! I don¡¯t care how much debt I have to take on! Please!¡± ¡°Reena¡­ it doesn¡¯t matter how much debt you take on. With only one arm you¡¯ll never pay it off. Your first time is pretty much all anyone will pay for with a skinny little girl like you.¡± ¡°How much for her slave contract?¡± ¡°Big brother! You survived! I¡¯m so gla¡­¡± Reena was cut off by the portly woman. ¡°She owes 800 leet still, and I paid an additional 500. You want her?¡± ¡°Yes. How do I transfer money to you?¡± ¡°If both parties agree to the terms, it happens automatically.¡± Ah¡­ the merchants didn¡¯t seem to do anything either. Convenient. ¡°I¡¯ll buy out Reena¡¯s contract for 1300 leet.¡± ¡°Done.¡± ¡°I release Reena from slavery.¡± ¡°Wa¡­ what!? Thank you!¡± She cried as she ripped the metal collar from her throat. It came off easily. ¡°Now where is Lola? I have another 6955 leet. Is that enough to save her?¡± Reena quickly hugged me and started running into town at a full sprint. When I didn¡¯t immediately follow, she turned around and started yelling. ¡°Kyuu! This way! Get your ass in gear!¡± I followed her to a huge building with stained glass and vaulted ceilings. She zigzagged down some hallways and to a room in the very back of the building. On a raised alter laid Lola, the blood wiped clean from her face. ¡°She was level 5 before the boss fight and died before either of them were beaten, so the fee should be 5000 leet. Pay the alter!¡± So I did. What a game-like feature! There wasn¡¯t a cleric or anything, you just paid money to an alter and it resurrected your party-mate. She sat up and breathed in deeply almost immediately. She looked around and found Reena¡¯s eyes. ¡°The Owner actually paid!? I can¡¯t believe it!¡± ¡°Of course not, sis. He¡¯s a stingy bastard. Apparently our big brother made a bit of money from the boss slime, because he bought my freedom and brought you back to me.¡± ¡°How much do you have left to pay on your contract? ¡°Let me check¡­ um¡­ 1525? Strange, I don¡¯t have any of my reserve leet.¡± ¡°Ah¡­ sorry. That¡¯s my fault. I borrowed it all in an attempt to pay off my contract so I could form a new one to save you. But the bastard sold me to a brothel.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t go back to him¡­ he¡¯s awful.¡± ¡°I agree to give 1525 leet to Lola to free her from her slavery contract.¡± I said as I willed the money to her. ¡°Eh!? I accept!¡± Immediately, she tore the collar from her throat like an animal. ¡°Good, now that you can both do whatever you want, would you mind doing me a favor?¡± ¡°Of course!¡± ¡°I need to keep leveling up in the labyrinth, and I need your help charging this Slime battery. How much MP can you regenerate an hour?¡± ¡°30.¡± ¡°20.¡± ¡°3000 divided by 90 is¡­ 300 divided by 9 is¡­ 100 divided by 3. 33 and a third. Okay, assuming we level up more, sometime in the next two days, or 33 hours from now. Let¡¯s get back to the second floor tomorrow morning.¡± [Name: Kyuu of Reena¡¯s Party Class: Level 4 Time Wizard EXP : 125/200 Age: 15 (29) HP: 10 MP: 40 STR: 10 AGI: 10 VIT: 10 INT: 13 MND: 13 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP) Equipment: Chipped Gladius (+4 stabbing/slashing), Slime Battery (0/5000 MP) Leet: 330 Debt: 2,000,000] Ch. 5 -- The Second Floor Ian didn¡¯t care where I slept, since it had nothing to do with him. Every morning, he would automatically obtain half of my money. That money was then subtracted from my debt. After being explained that process by Lola, I promptly overpaid exactly 330 leet for chicken soup and lodgings for the girls and I. The girls were surprised, but not nearly as much as the inn keeper considering the bill was only 200 leet. It seems he had never once experienced a slave paying extra¡­ or anyone else for that matter. But since I was never going to pay off 2 million leet in debt with only a few hundred at a time, I¡¯d prefer that prick Ian didn¡¯t get anything from me. Enslaving us was wrong. Refusing to save Lola was a D-move. But none of that compares to what he did to Reena. It was pointless. The guy had enough money to spend 2 million summoning me¡­ yet he relished the thought of crushing Reena¡¯s spirit for the paltry sum of 500 leet. Yeah¡­ I¡¯m going to break him. I¡¯ll consider this my first specific goal. Saving my revenge for later, I head to the Labyrinth with the girls first thing in the morning. I had Reena dump all of her MP into the Slime Battery, and only took enough MP from Lola so that she could still cast two of her minor heals. Since I was going to be using Mapping liberally, I only used half of my MP. Lola had explained that MP regeneration rate is equal to maximum MP divided by exactly one hour. Since I have 40 for my maximum, that means I get one every 90 seconds. Mapping takes one to activate, and one additional every minute. Leveling up does not top off HP and MP unfortunately. ¡°Party formation! Leader Kyuu! Add Reena! Add Lola!¡± They nodded in agreement, and we used the Gateway to go to the second floor. ¡°Any idea what kind of monsters are here? Or how much exp they give?¡± ¡°15 leet a kill, and 3 exp. As for what kind of enemies they are, I only know that they are called imps.¡± ¡°Hey¡­ I broke my dagger on that Kobold General yesterday. Lola, can I use yours?¡± ¡°Eh!? Why didn¡¯t you say so before we got here? Besides, it belongs to Ian¡­ wait¡­ no, I wouldn¡¯t be able to equip it then¡­¡± ¡°Lola can have my gladius. I haven¡¯t managed to hit an enemy anyway.¡± And I sold the hatchet, even after telling Ian I was going to put it to the warehouse¡­ Well, it couldn¡¯t be helped. I wasn¡¯t sure that Lola could still be resurrected, and I didn¡¯t want Reena to have to see the weapon that had been used to kill her. Also, who cares about broken promises with that idiot? ¡°Oh! Lola, you can have your bag back. I¡¯m still carrying it aren¡¯t I?¡± ¡°I figured it out! When I died, I lost ownership¡­ it¡¯s yours now. I can¡¯t equip it. The dagger also lost ownership, and the first person to touch it after that was Reena when she carried me. So, it seems I¡¯m the one who should have said they didn¡¯t have a weapon before coming in.¡± Huh? That¡¯s actually a thing? Besides, Ian didn¡¯t die, so why did he lose ownership of the dagger? Lots of questions here¡­ ¡°Okay¡­ in that case, can you tell me about this?¡± I brought out the Slime core and showed it to her. ¡°Oh! Is that a slime summoning core? Cool!¡± ¡°If you activate the item, you learn a skill to summon a slime that can be named and leveled up along side of you. Typically, only Tamers do this, since the MP cost is quite high to maintain if you don¡¯t have a Tamer¡¯s skills.¡± Activate the Slime Core. I name the summoned slime ¡°Guppy¡±. Because. ¡°Cool, let¡¯s go.¡± I activated Mapping and searched for nearby enemies. I found a pathway that would take us across three separated enemies, so I started moving that direction. The girls followed wordlessly, perhaps because we had already developed this pattern from yesterday. When we came across the first imp, it was a little devil looking monster with a pitchfork shaped tail and long claws. Lola had already passed the dagger to Reena, and she fearlessly pounced towards the imp. The imp proved to be harder to hit than the kobolds. It¡¯s body was smaller and it moved faster. It deflected Reena¡¯s attacks with it¡¯s claws, and counter attacked immediately with it¡¯s tail. Reena tried to pressure it towards a corner, but she only found herself back peddling instead. I rushed forward with the gladius in an attempt to create an opening for Reena to finish the monster, but simply stopped counter attacking Reena and deflected my blows with its tail instead. Except I wasn¡¯t a match for its tail. It impaled me first in my leg and then immediately in my sword arm. I fell back away from it and Reena jumped into the space between us. Lola cast her reserved healing spells on both of my wounds. So¡­ wizards should try to sword fight. Got it. Frantically I activate the summon slime spell and designate a location for the monster to appear. It appeared directly behind the imp and immediately locked its feet in place. The imp immediately lost its footing and tried impaling the slime with its tail but the slime stayed put. With the imp¡¯s stance broken, Reena plunged her dagger into the imps chest and twisted it as she pulled it out. It disintegrated in a flash of light, leaving behind it¡¯s tail. Before anyone could pick it up, Guppy covered it and it disappeared. ¡°Thanks for the help, little slime, but not cool eating our drops!¡± I analyzed Guppy. [Name : Guppy, Slime companion of Kyuu Class: Level 1 Slime EXP: 3/10The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Age: 0 HP: 10 MP: 0 STR: 5 AGI: 5 VIT: 40 INT: 1 MND: 1 Skills: Anchor Skill progress: Imp-pale (1/10) ] Hey Guppy, I have an anchor spell too! Is that how you locked the imp¡¯s feet in place? ¡°It needs to eat 9 more of those tails to get a new skill. I¡¯ll buy them from the two of you with any extra money I make today. Is that okay?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to go that far. We¡¯re already earning way more with you than we did without. We don¡¯t mind giving up some drops, do we Reena?¡± ¡°Oh¡­ I suppose not¡­¡± ¡°No seriously. I plan to have exactly zero leet when I go to bed tonight. I¡¯m not giving that bastard anything.¡± Reena smiled brightly at that, but Lola frowned. ¡°You¡¯ll never pay off your debt that way. If he decides to punish you for not earning, he¡¯ll likely be pretty cruel.¡± ¡°How much did he earn from you a day?¡± ¡°Around 25 leet from each of us. Finding ten kobolds in a single day was around our average.¡± ¡°When I met you, you were level 4. I guess that follows. Then I need to have a little over 100 when I go to bed so that he doesn¡¯t suspect much.¡± ¡°But you cost far more than us. He¡¯ll expect more.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been here a day. What more could he possibly expect from me? Can he check my status?¡± ¡°No, but you still want to pay off your debt to get out from under his thumb, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Nah, who could pay off two million in debt? I agree with Kyuu. Give him the smallest you can without raising suspicion, and just spend the rest.¡± ¡°Just be ready to accept any left over money though. I really don¡¯t want to give that guy anything.¡± Suddenly, both Guppy and the Mapping window vanished. Shoot! Well, let¡¯s see how much MP I need to summon Guppy again¡­ ¡­ ¡­ 15 huh? It¡¯ll go up with Guppy¡¯s levels too. It¡¯s also 3 MP per minute he¡¯s summoned. ¡°Well¡­ this is going to take a while. I forgot to de-activate my spells and ran out of MP like a total noob. I need 18 MP to summon Guppy for a minute, which will take 27 minutes. Want to go back to the first floor and hang around there for an hour?¡± ¡°The imps are a little too tough for me to fight by myself¡­ not saying you¡¯re a useless combat wizard or anything¡­ but you are kind of a useless wizard.¡± ¡°As it is, thief skills don¡¯t lend themselves well to being the primary fighting force of a group. They can deal damage and are nimble¡­ but their real purpose is to increase the monetary gains of a group, not really act as a vanguard.¡± ¡°Ha¡­ yeah, I suppose as far as fighting goes I¡¯m pretty useless. Guppy will help on this floor, but I can¡¯t summon it frequently enough to clear the second floor with the same speed we cleared the first floor. Let¡¯s go back down to the first floor, and maybe find swordsman to help us tomorrow. With my mapping ability, who wouldn¡¯t want to party with us?¡± ¡°Seems reasonable, but do you really want that skill to be public knowledge?¡± ¡°Ian can¡¯t sell me, because who would buy such an expensive debt? We might even convince higher leveled groups to power level us as long as they do all the real work.¡± ¡°That is exceedingly dangerous. When low leveled classes enter higher level floors, all the monsters tend to converge and kill them at once. Since you can¡¯t use the Gateway when you are in combat, and you don¡¯t leave combat until all of those monsters are gone¡­ it¡¯s typically not a good idea. That being said, as long as the party leader has visited that floor, it is possible for all of us to use the Gateway to get there." We made our way back to the Gateway and went to the first floor. Reena was able to instantly one-shot each kobold as we encountered them. ¡°How is it the kobolds are so weak compared to the imps?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been fighting kobolds non-stop for a month straight. I just have their movements memorized¡­ otherwise, they actually hit harder than the imps. Though they are a little slower. When we first started, I was constantly getting injured. Lola would use all of her MP to heal me, and we¡¯d have to wait for a long time to recover before proceeding. By the time her spell count had increased, I had stopped getting injured.¡± ¡°Sorry for making you do all the work. I¡¯ll just push you hard today, and tomorrow we¡¯ll just have to convince someone else to join us.¡± The mindless jog from monster to monster continued until I had recovered my full MP. At that time, we went back to the second floor and hunted more imps. With Guppy¡¯s Anchor ability, Reena was able to quickly and safely eliminate them. Though, out of the three imps we slew before I ran out of MP, only one of them dropped a tail. I was prompted to level Guppy after the last imp, but it was going to cost 20 MP a summon instead of 15 so I declined it for now. He¡¯ll just keep accumulating EXP and I¡¯ll spend it when I feel like it. We returned to the first floor and continued the cycle as much as we could for the afternoon. Unfortunately, only monsters far away from the Gateway remained on the first floor, so we gave up the second floor for now and finished clearing all the monsters on the first floor. Since Reena could quickly eliminate them, our leveling pace was significantly higher than waiting 30 minutes a fight on the second floor. There were exactly 50 monsters on the first floor, and we managed to mop them up in about two hours. We had only killed an additional 6 imps, for two more tails, when we had finally given up and headed back to town. It totaled 80 exp and 400 leet. I had leveled again. I¡¯ll need another 145 exp to level again. I have 50 MP now. That means I get one MP every¡­ minute and twelve seconds. That¡¯s five MP every six minutes, and three MP in... three minutes and 36 seconds. Okay¡­ come on brain¡­ how much for 18 MP? Ah! Twenty-one minutes and thirty-six seconds a Guppy summon. That¡¯s better than 27 minutes at least. It would be more cost efficient to leave Guppy out for five minutes straight rather than re-summoning, but its movement speed is terrible. I¡¯ll only do that if groups of enemies are somewhat tightly packed together. ¡°Oi, Big brother, you¡¯re spacing out.¡± ¡°It¡¯s true. You look like you¡¯re thinking so hard, it is hurting your brain.¡± ¡°Yeah yeah¡­ whatever. Where can we find a swordsman?¡± ¡°Good question. OI! LOOKING FOR A SWORDSMAN FOR EXPLORING THE SECOND FLOOR!¡± Reena starts shouting. Some listened to her for a moment, but lost interest when it either didn¡¯t apply to them, or perhaps they didn¡¯t want to party with someone who looked like a one-armed beggar. She yelled until she was hoarse, but no one was interested. She looked dejected but cheered up when I offered to buy her food from a stall. ¡°True. I¡¯m free now. I can blow all my money on whatever I want now. As long as Big brother helps us, we¡¯ll always be able to eat yummy food like this.¡± ¡°We could always just come back here and rest every other hour. The prick might see you and crap his pants that you aren¡¯t in the Labyrinth earning him money, but if you just say you came out to eat lunch, he can hardly expect you to starve yourself.¡± ¡°The concept of slave is strange¡­ how exactly did he get roped into spending so much money on me?¡± ¡°The world you were summoned from didn¡¯t have slaves? Admittedly, they are different from my original world too.¡± ¡°There is no magic in my world, so there is no magical way to enforce a contract. Slaves are pitiable people who are forced against their wills to work without any pay for pretty much their whole life. They don¡¯t get a chance to escape just because they¡¯ve worked more than what was paid for them. The practice is illegal¡­ but it still happens where concepts of ¡®legal¡¯ and ¡®illegal¡¯ don¡¯t really have any bearing.¡± ¡°How awful! The people who do things like that are monsters more so than any kobold or imp!¡± ¡°Ah, we don¡¯t have monsters either. Except for humans I guess.¡± While we were chatting about our home worlds and enjoying some chicken on a stick, and older man wearing a trench coat with a sword on his hip walked confidently up to us. ¡°Pardon me, miss¡­ are you still looking for a swordsman to accompany you? I¡¯m a bit inexperienced, but I think I should suffice for the second floor.¡± Analyze. [Name: Brinly Raines (The Sword King) Class: Level 73 Sword King Age: 43 HP: 4035 MP: 120 STR: 255 AGI: 190 VIT: 150 INT: 20 MND: 92 Equipment: Kingsword (+120 Piercing/Slashing/Slicing, MP Regen, Unbreaking) Skills: Summon Kingsword, Sword wall, Accelerated Movements, Killing Strike ] I choke on the chicken. Ch. 6 -- The Sword King comes... After quietly verifying with Lola whether or not there was such thing as ¡®friendly fire¡¯ in the labyrinth, she informed me that it wasn¡¯t possible to damage a teammate. Even in the case of full blown annihilation magic that you¡¯re pretty sure you just watched a cut scene where the Earth exploded, no one but the baddies will get hurt. I readily accepted it because hey, I¡¯m pretty sure I¡¯ve played that game and watched that cut scene a bunch of times. ¡°We¡¯d be happy to have you. Just make sure to let us know if we are moving too quickly for you.¡± Yeah right, this guy probably makes sonic booms when he runs. Of course, he isn¡¯t boasting about how legit his stats are, so he¡¯s probably incognito for a reason. Tricking us into the Labyrinth to kill us won¡¯t do him any good. We¡¯re weaklings, have no special items of note except possibly the Slime Stone, and even if we were on stilts we¡¯d be up to our eyeballs in debt. What would he have to gain from that? So perhaps he¡¯s just helping the lowbies? Those people exist in MMO¡¯s too¡­ so it¡¯s not impossible. ¡°Of course. I¡¯m Brinly, and I do hope you¡¯ll take care of me.¡± He didn¡¯t sound sarcastic at all! ¡°I¡¯m Reena, and I¡¯m done eating. That¡¯s Lola, my sister. Finally, that Kyuu. He¡¯s pretty unreliable, and useless in a fight, but has an amazing skill.¡± Lola kicked Reena¡¯s foot after saying that, but it was too late. Brinly¡¯s eyes raised as he appraised me. He realized pretty quickly that he was staring and averted his eyes with a smile. ¡°I look forward to seeing it. Shall we go?¡± It is worth mentioning that we were easily able to train on the second floor. This was due to Reena, not Brinly, dealing each and every blow to the imps. Brinly was putting on a serious act of being pathetic. At first, he couldn¡¯t unsheathe his sword. It got stuck or something, and he spent a good thirty seconds fighting with the handle to get the blade out. By time he got the sword out, looking proud of himself, I had already summoned Guppy and Reena finished off the ¡®cement shoed¡¯ imp. For the second fight he tripped over his feet and fell face first into the imp, headbutting it. While it was dizzy, Reena ended it. For the third fight, Brinly slashed wildly at the imp, but was missing by a huge margin. While it was distracted by him, Reena stabbed it in the back. For the fourth fight, he swung hard at the imp with his grip reversed, and he elbowed himself in the stomach. Again, while the imp was just stabbing and clawing away at him, Reena finished the job. I performed another analysis on him. He was only taking one damage with every hit. He¡¯s quite figuratively a man of steel. The imps could touch him¡­ but they couldn¡¯t hurt him. No auto targeting in this game, huh? Is he being serious? Even as a joke, this is a bit much. Reena and Lola, who hadn¡¯t seen his status, were looking at him with their mouths gaped open. At first, Lola tried healing him. But he had no wounds to heal. He was stabbed with the pitchfork tail four or five times during the third fight, but there might have been sparks grinding off of him. This is why games with levels are unfair. He¡¯s like a little kid playing on his older brother¡¯s max level character. ¡°Incredible. This party encounters so many monsters! The last one I was in only ran into like two or three an hour, but you guys are just taking random turns and hitting all of them quickly! At this rate, I¡¯ll become a master swordsman in no time!¡± Dude¡­ ¡°Yes. We¡¯re always quite fortunate that way.¡± ¡°You must have a crazy high luck stat or something. Mine too, to meet you all. I¡¯ll stop holding you back and take out some imps soon, don¡¯t you worry!¡± My image of gentleman swordsman is being shattered¡­ ¡°Er¡­ well¡­ don¡¯t push yourself. You¡¯re doing quite a lot already.¡± ¡°No need to be nice. I won¡¯t get any better if you keep hand holding me.¡± For the next fight, he declared that he would use one of his skills, shouted ¡°Accelerated Movements!¡±, and simply vanished. Guppy had to come back out again for this fight, since even after waiting for a few minutes, he hadn¡¯t reappeared. ¡°Kyuu¡­ can you find him on your map? I can sense he¡¯s in¡­ that direction, but there is no telling how far.¡± She pointed towards the wall we were standing by. ¡°Ah, good idea!¡± I activate Mapping and look around the zone. The second floor also has about 50 enemies, as depicted by the red dots on the map. The party members have blue dots with little cones sticking out of them. I figured out the cones where what direction they were facing. Earlier, when I looked at the map, the thirty-five or so red dots on this floor were spaced pretty evenly around the maze. Now, however, about half of them were bunched up and moving down a tunnel. ¡°Crap! Like half of the floor has aggroed onto something! Are we in combat? How can we tell if we are in combat? We need to get out of here! Go this way to the Gateway!¡± Is this how he was going to kill us? Pretend to be an idiot and then agro the whole floor? It¡¯s true he could easily defeat these enemies after we¡¯re dead. We full out sprint ran back down the corridors towards the Gateway. Occasionally I checked the map to see if we were about to run into the monster train, but it seemed to be on the opposite side of the floor from us at the moment. We made it back to the archway and shouted to get out, but when we jumped at the ripple effect, we passed right through to the other side. Damnit! What to do¡­ the only skill I can use is Guppy. It¡¯s not like Guppy can anchor down 30 monsters at once! We never even got a weapon for Lola! I checked the map again and saw the train coming back towards us. Leading it was a blue dot with a white cone, directed our way.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°He¡¯s heading right for us! Can you kick him from party?¡± ¡°Party Formation! Remove Brinly!¡± No¡­ I still feel he¡¯s in my party¡­ Think¡­ what can you do when someone is kiting a huge train of mobs? We don¡¯t have a frost mage, so that option is out. What else¡­ I check over the map and find a large section of the labyrinth that loops onto itself. ¡°Come on! We¡¯ll try to continue to kite them and whittle their numbers away one by one! As long as the main horde is attached to Brinly, we won¡¯t get hit by all of them at once!¡± It¡¯s the best plan I could come up with. With any luck, Guppy might slow a few of them down at a time, and Reena and I will take them out. Not that I can hit them with my Gladius, but I¡¯ll try. At least Lola can heal me when I get stabbed eleven times by each imp. Imps have four claws to each hand, and a three-pronged tail after all. ¡°I only have about 25 MP, so Guppy can only stay out for three minutes! Or I can level him up and keep him for just one minute.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t level! We¡¯ll need more than three minutes to kill off a whole floor¡¯s worth of imp!¡± ¡°Not all of them have aggroed, but there is over 20, at least!¡± Until we were out of time. But Brinly was not acting the way I expected when he came into view. He was running frantically, blood pouring out of his nose, and looking over his back at the swarm of coming imps. ¡°I moved too fast, got lost, and dropped my sword! Help!¡± Dude¡­ ¡°New plan! Brinly! Summon a new sword and turn to face them! They can¡¯t hurt you! Lola, Guppy and I will distract any imps that pass by you while Reena dispatches them! If you think, you lose! No time to doubt it!¡± Thus began the war of the imps. It was not as dangerous as we assumed. In fact, to call it a war would be improper. It was more of a massacre. Brinly didn¡¯t activate ¡°Summon Kingsword¡±. He, in a panic, activated ¡°Sword wall¡± instead. So OP! It was fast. Roughly equal to the amount of time it took the imps to run full speed at us, in fact. They charged, and immediately turned to light. I¡¯m not even sure what was happening to them, just that when they got to around where Brinly stood, they got a hole in them and disappeared in a flash of light. I had already summoned Guppy, so it went and collected the remaining tails for ¡®Imp-pale¡¯. There was only one other tail dropped, so I gave it to the girls. Brinly was just looking around for his sword that he thought he summoned and didn¡¯t really understand why all the imps suddenly died. ¡°You weren¡¯t kidding about his amazing skill, Reena! I wish I could do that! It was awesome!¡± We didn¡¯t really know what to say. ¡°Is¡­ is this guy¡­ like¡­ a total moron?¡± Reena whispered that to Lola, who stood with her mouth gaping. ¡°Just how strong is he? And yes¡­ a complete idiot.¡± ¡°He¡¯s stupid strong¡­¡± Brinly, after realizing he couldn¡¯t find his sword, summoned it ¡®again¡¯ and left it on his hip. He smiled at us broadly like he hadn¡¯t just made our lives flash before our eyes. He face apparently itched, because he wiped his sleeve roughly across his face. It just stained the blood along his cheek from his nostrils. Lola quietly informed him and he quickly cleaned it up. Why is his face covered in blood? Nothing on this floor can possibly hurt him! ¡°Let¡¯s¡­ um¡­ yeah, let¡¯s keep going. Brinly, please don¡¯t use any more skills. It¡¯s best to practice the basics before using the more impressive moves.¡± ¡°You got it Leader! Maybe later you¡¯ll teach me how to do that flashing light thing!¡± I really can¡¯t tell if he¡¯s doing it on purpose or not! You can¡¯t just wake up one day and be OP! Lola smiled and laughed awkwardly. Reena just beamed at me like it was a hilarious joke. I checked the map, and we quickly mopped up the rest of the imps on the floor. Brinly finally managed to kill one himself, but it was because he accidentally let go of the sword and it flew and decapitated the unlucky thing. He smiled sheepishly at the accident and scratched his head like he was sorry but didn¡¯t want to admit it. When we came across the Gateway, we didn¡¯t bother trying to strategize the fight, knowing that Brinly would just ¡®accidentally¡¯ be directly involved in the boss¡¯ death. If it was an act, it was pretty convincing. If it wasn¡¯t, how?! The room we entered was the same as the first floor¡¯s boss arena. The imp standing on the raised platform was several times larger than the imps from the labyrinth, and it had a ball of fire formed on the tip of the center prong of its tail. ¡°Finally! A boss! I¡¯m going to use my special boss skill! I¡¯ve been saving it!¡± He ran straight at the huge imp, struggling to pull the sword out as he did. About fifteen feet from colliding with the imp, he yelled ¡°KILLING STRIKE¡± like a wanna-be LARPer and jumped straight into the air. His jump, though surely through coincidence, completely dodged the flying fireball released from the imp¡¯s tail. It flew straight at us and we had to desperately dive out of the way to avoid it. Brinly raised the sword above his head with both hands and slashed downward at the floor¡­ about a foot to the right of the imp. It easily side stepped the strike, which was way off to begin with, but got blown away by the pressure of the exploding floor. I didn¡¯t even have to tell her to. Reena just hopped onto the arena floor, sprinted over to the disoriented imp, and stabbed it in the chest a few times while doing her signature twisting pull. I barely had enough time to get Guppy summoned for the free exp before it was already over. The boss dropped its tail, but it was rigid and straight like a trident. After analyzing, I saw it bestowed a fireball skill when equipped. Lola took it, since she never had any healing to do and I needed to conserve MP for Guppy and mapping. We left the Labyrinth after activating the third floor Gateway, and went back to a restaurant to regroup. The waiter offered Brinly a drink but declined on the grounds that he was too young to drink. Everyone present had looked at him confused. He realized his blunder, laughed about his ridiculous joke, and just got a cup of water. ¡°How long have you lived her?¡± I asked of Brinly. I thought I had a pretty good idea of his secret, but I wasn¡¯t certain. ¡°Ahahaha¡­ I guess I should probably tell you all since you were so nice to me and all¡­¡± Lola and Reena just frowned at him. ¡°I¡¯m not from here¡­ in fact, I was laying down to go to sleep at home when suddenly I was talking to a little boy standing on a cloud. He asked me what ¡®class¡¯ I wanted to be in his game, and I immediately thought of my favorite character on my tv show. He¡¯s this butler that has a sword hidden in a cane, and he¡¯s secretly super powerful and he protects the lord of the mansion! So I told him I wanted to be an overpowered swordsman that could produce his weapon out of thin air. The boy told me about how he wanted me to be his ¡®Sword King¡¯ and dropped me in that little arena looking place over that way.¡± He told me a very familiar story. ¡°To tell you the truth, this is my second day here. Yesterday I ran with a different party, but they were extremely mean and yelled about how useless I was and stuff like that. You all were much nicer.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad you enjoyed yourself. I was also summoned yesterday. One important note though¡­ when I went to bed two nights ago, I was thirty years old. How old were you?¡± At my revelation, the girls look surprised. ¡°Ah¡­ see¡­ does it matter? Well, I suppose I did say I would tell you all¡­ I¡¯m only ten.¡± ¡°Eh!? In that old man body!?¡± ¡°Reena! That wasn¡¯t very nice.¡± We probably won¡¯t party with him again. He¡¯s too childish, and his mistakes could kill us. If he hadn¡¯t activated his Sword wall, we¡¯d have been dead. All because he got lost using a different ability. ¡°Oh! I¡¯m reminded suddenly, but wasn¡¯t your face covered with blood? How did that happen?¡± Brinly looked embarrassed, but told us anyway. ¡°Accelerated Movement was too fast, and I collided with several walls. It made me pretty dizzy, which was how I got lost.¡± Dude¡­ Ch. 7 -- Roly Poly Pill Bugs After spending 200 leet on food and lodging, I had 1550 leet remaining. So I gave 1350 of it to Reena and Lola, resulting in going to sleep with 200. When I woke up in the morning, this was my status. [Name: Kyuu Class: Level 6 Time Wizard EXP : 425/550 Age: 15 (30) HP: 15 MP: 60 STR: 11 AGI: 11 VIT: 11 INT: 15 MND: 15 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute) Equipment: Chipped Gladius (+4 stabbing/slashing), Slime Battery (428/5000 MP) Leet: 100 Debt: 1,999,900] I guess he really did get half of my money. More importantly, I¡¯m 125 exp from level up now. Conveniently, that is exactly the amount I¡¯d get for clearing all the monsters and on the first and second floor again. Or if the third floor gives maybe five exp per kill, we could make up that amount in only twenty-five kills. That will really depend on what type of monsters are found there, and in what number though. If they are fire/dagger resistant, we¡¯d never finish one off. The imps are still perhaps too difficult for only Reena to take on alone, but we don¡¯t know how it might go with Lola using the trident. Or maybe the trident won¡¯t work on the imps just like the hatchet didn¡¯t work on slimes? That seems a little unlikely, though the imps are most probably fire resistant if they can shoot fire from their tails when they power up. ¡°Lola and I were talking last night¡­ and we don¡¯t want Brinly to join us again today.¡± ¡°Yeah? What¡¯s up?¡± ¡°He is really strong¡­ there is no point in even trying to debate that¡­ but he¡¯s going to get us killed. He very nearly already did.¡± ¡°Yeah, and he stares at us like a ten-year old boy stares at fourteen-year old girls¡­ except he looks like father time.¡± ¡°Ouch! He¡¯s only in his forties! He does not look that old.¡± ¡°Well¡­ it still makes us uncomfortable.¡± ¡°I¡¯m thirty, do I bother you too?¡± ¡°Not really. You look at us like a father watching his kids playing sports. Brinly looks at us like a perverted old man watching us change through a key-hole.¡± ¡°Okay, I really didn¡¯t notice him doing that, but if you say it is true, so be it. He doesn¡¯t have to run with us. To be honest, I thought he was a little dangerous to keep around too. Depending on what kind of enemies are on the third floor, we may still need another party member though.¡± ¡°I heard the monsters on the third floor are called Pill Bugs. They look like armadillos without the head or tail.¡± Pill bugs huh? They are called roly polies I think. Or rather, I always called them roly polies but they are actually called pill bugs. Well, hopefully they aren¡¯t too huge. That¡¯ll be gross. ¡°I think that Lola¡¯s new weapon will be super effective against bugs. Let¡¯s go with just the three of us.¡± Lola nodded in agreement. Well, if Lola says so, it¡¯s probably right. She¡¯s proven to be pretty reliable, after all. We dump all our excess MP into the Slime battery and head to the bazaar surrounding the Gateway. Our plan was to look for some equipment with all the money Reena and Lola had amassed from yesterday. The combat potential of our group isn¡¯t the best, but because of mapping, I doubt there is a more efficient newbie group running around. Surely, most groups don¡¯t consider buying new equipment after only two days in the labyrinth. Since Lola can¡¯t dodge the way Reena can, we were thinking of getting her some armor¡­ but since the enemies this time are defense heavy bugs, we assumed they didn¡¯t move fast or struck hard. Instead, getting Reena a new weapon seemed like a better idea. Since I had no money, and really didn¡¯t know what kind of weapon she¡¯d want, I just went to the Gateway to wait. They were gone for nearly half an hour, but when they came back Reena was flipping a shiny new curved knife in her hand, and both girls has metal plates tied to their foreheads. Analyze. [Hachigane (+5 VIT for blows against the head)] [Quality Janbiya (+8 stabbing/slicing) x2 critical damage] Nice! I¡¯m not surprised at their buying the hachigane¡­ given that Lola was recently killed by a blow to the forehead. If I remember right, Reena¡¯s old dagger only had (+3 to stabbing and 2x critical damage) so this is a huge upgrade. I add them to my party and we went to the second floor. Lola and Reena wanted to try fighting together to take down an imp. With Lola stabbing haphazardly from behind, the imp easily lost its stance and fell to Reena¡¯s stab. Since it turned out so well, the girls insisted we just cleared the whole floor. I didn¡¯t particularly mind getting a little more experience for Lola with the trident, and the exp wasn¡¯t bad. Lola also tried using a fireball, but it just broke against the imp without causing damage. It took us two hours to clear the floor, and other than for mapping, I just dumped all my MP into the Slime Battery. I tried jumping into the melee at first with the gladius, but I just got stabbed again. Lola healed me, but both girls reprimanded me for being so ¡®terri-bad¡¯ at fighting. Saying something akin to ¡°If you can¡¯t do it, stop getting in the way!¡±, I just agreed to their terms and led them around obediently. ¡°That makes fifty and the floor is cleared. Want to go back to town, sell off the imp tails, and take a break?¡± ¡°Sounds good to me! What do you guys think of fighting the floor boss?¡± ¡°We didn¡¯t get to experience it yesterday, and the exp is really good. We got more exp for the fighting the Imp General than we do for the rest of the floor.¡± It¡¯s true. The imp general was 100 exp¡­ but I worry about fighting it without a OP powerleveler with us. The first boss killed Lola, and Reena only has one arm left to give.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°I think we should try our luck at the third floor first. Since I just leveled again, I¡¯m at 575/800 exp. 100 exp isn¡¯t going to really change anything, and the risk that the boss is actually super tough is there. What about you two?¡± ¡°We actually just leveled ourselves, now that you mention it. We¡¯re sitting at exactly 800/1050. Okay, I agree that we don¡¯t need to risk the Imp General.¡± They must not have gotten the 75 from the first boss. Makes sense, because they abandoned halfway through. ¡°Eh!? Reena, look at your stats! Mine went way up! I got a new skill!¡± Analyze. [Name: Lola of Kyuu¡¯s Party Class: Level 8 Star Priest Age: 14 HP: 35 MP: 55 STR: 15 AGI: 15 VIT: 20 INT: 25 MND: 25 Equipment: Imp¡¯s Revenge(+10 Piercing, Imbue: Fireball), Hachigane (+5 VIT for blows against the head) Skills: Minor Heal (10 MP), Remove Poison(20 MP), Fireball (Imp¡¯s Revenge, 15 MP)] [Name: Reena of Kyuu¡¯s Party Class: Level 8 Thief Age: 14 HP: 35 MP: 25 STR: 20 AGI: 35 VIT: 15 INT: 10 MND: 15 Equipment: Quality Janbiya (+8 stabbing/slicing) x2 critical damage, Hachigane (+5 VIT for blows against the head) Skills: Pilfer (Increase leet dropped, 10 MP), Plunder (Increase items dropped, 25 MP)] Whoa! They weren¡¯t kidding! What caused that increase? ¡°With this much MP, I can cast quite a bit! I had heard every seven level ups in a given class resulted in bonus stats, but this is more than I expected!¡± Ah, of course there is a mechanic like that. You can ramp up difficulty on the floors that way. We¡¯re probably pretty over leveled for the third floor anyhow, but that really depends on what kind of game it is. If the Labyrinth is weighted for parties of three, then we¡¯re good. If it is for six people, we¡¯re adults among children. Given how easily Reena dispatches the monsters¡­ I¡¯m led to believe that is the case. If parties really only typically encounter three enemies an hour, MP mileage is fine. Since we encounter closer to 25 an hour... well, no wonder we¡¯re constantly low on MP. If I were a normal sorcerer, this Slime Battery would be useful to the point of being broken. As it stands, if I equipped the Imp¡¯s Revenge, I could charge the battery all one day, and then solo the first floor the next. Or maybe the third floor. We haven¡¯t tried that yet. ¡°Let¡¯s go to the third floor. In games I¡¯ve played in the past, fire is super effective against bug types. We¡¯ll give Lola a chance to take out some monsters.¡± So we did. When looking at the map, I counted up the number of monsters, and sure enough came to 50. Well, 49, but I assumed 50. For the first time, the red dots were all slightly moving too. On the first two floors the monsters just stood in place for some reason, but on this floor they seem to patrol in a simple pattern. All of them moved around but stayed a fairly fixed distance apart from each other. I noticed that sometimes they would even pass through walls to stay apart from each other. The walls they passed through were a slightly different color on the map, so maybe they were illusions? Watching further, there were two dead-end corridors that the red dots never entered. The one we were standing in with the Gateway, and the other was likely the exit. ¡°Let¡¯s get going.¡± ¡°Listen to Lola! She¡¯s itching for some fireball action!¡± I led them down some hallways, and around some turns, until we came to a spot a patrol was about to pass through. When it appeared, it was exactly how I pictured it. It was a Pill bug alright, and it was a foot tall. It moved slowly, but it zigzagged a bit as it approached us. ¡°Gross. Alright, kill the thing already. It has like ten legs, and all of them are creeping me out.¡± ¡°Oh don¡¯t be such a baby.¡± Lola raised the trident and pointed it in front of the Pill Bug. A ball of fire swirled at the tip of the center prong until it increased in size and stabilized. She released it. The ball flew as fast as a casual throw of a baseball in a backyard game of catch. As soon as the fireball launched, the Pill Bug rolled into a ball and quadrupled its speed. It rolled right past where the fireball was going to hit and sped towards Lola. Reena jumped in the way to intercept, but how do you counter against a rolling ball of hardened shell that is no higher than a foot off the ground? If you kick it, you¡¯ll surely break your foot. If you stab at it, you¡¯ll be doing so from a broken stance, and you¡¯ll likely damage your weapon. A couple of yards away from Reena, it bounced off the ground and towards her chest. In a panic, she covered her chest with the side of her jambiya and tried to push the bug away as she pulled her chest backwards. It grinded against the metal of the blade and kept flying through the air, knocking Reena flat. Lola, who was right in the line of fire, still had her Imp¡¯s revenge pointed at the bug. It couldn¡¯t change direction in the air and took a direct fireball to the¡­ face? Back? Thorax? It got hit and was knocked flying from the force of the fireball and unraveled in the air, falling hard on it¡¯s back. It squirmed, but couldn¡¯t roll over onto its feet, or back into a ball. Lola strutted forward with a smile on her face and rammed the Trident into the soft underbelly. It immediately turned to light and dropped a fragment of its shell. ¡°That didn¡¯t go well¡­ how do you think people normally fight these things?¡± ¡°Agreed. Two spells for one monster is terrible mileage. If we used the battery to supplement, we¡¯d still empty out the charged MP in an afternoon. As for normal¡­ they¡¯d have to have a method to knock the bugs out of their roll.¡± ¡°Maybe a shield user? They could shield bash at the flying bug and someone else could follow up with the kill shot.¡± *sigh* I¡¯m the only person who can do this. I have to get a shield for this floor. Unless I expect our primary damage dealer to forego using her dagger and just equip a shield instead¡­ yeah, it¡¯s got to be me. But my strength and vitality are total garbage. Maybe Brinly could just get hit by the things and make them fly back in recoil, but none of us can. ¡°We can clear the first floor again, or we can quickly move to the exit and move to the fourth floor where me might be more effective. What do you think?¡± ¡°I say we give Lola the Battery and let her nuke the boss. We¡¯re charging it for just such an emergency, right?¡± It¡¯s not a bad plan. If we had a shield user, this floor would be easy. There is no saying that the next floor wouldn¡¯t be easy too. So what if she uses 150 of my saved up MP? If I leveled up, I¡¯d possibly get this seven-level-up bonus to MP anyway. It¡¯s not like I have any particular plan for using it all at the moment anyhow¡­ We don¡¯t have a choice. A balanced and effective party schema here would require a tank, a healer, a melee damage dealer, and a ranged damage dealer. Having something like a ¡®thief¡¯ that¡¯s forte¡¯ is increasing drops is a luxury. Instead, we have a five-heal-healer, a one-armed investment collector, and a battle useless cartographer. The fact we aren¡¯t all dead is nothing short of amazing. If the monsters didn¡¯t die with one good hit, this game would be impossibly hard. ¡°I agree. This floor will be too hard for us. But I worry the boss will be much, much worse. The Battery would be beneficial. How about we spend the rest of the afternoon charging it, instead of trying to level. Since each enemy gives 5 exp and 25 leet, the most we¡¯d get is another 245 exp this floor. It¡¯s enough to level Big brother, but what good is that going to do us for a boss fight? I generate 55, and Reena gets 25 MP an hour. That¡¯s 80. How much do you get Kyuu? ¡­ 70? Okay, so that¡¯s ten extra shots for every hour of lazing about we do today. I vote for a day on the town.¡± Honestly, we¡¯d already earned quite a bit from the second floor, and the 12 or so imp tail drops we¡¯d received. If we were talking about living expenses¡­ we were covered. So we left the dungeon. We needed to meet up once an hour for charging the battery, but other than that it was fine to do whatever we wanted. Since they could use party sense to track me down, we agreed that we would explore the town for four hours. We¡¯d meet up to charge every hour for a total of 450 additional MP before heading off to the boss again. Lola and Reena wandered off in separate directions, and I was left alone at the Gateway wondering where to go first. [Name: Kyuu Class: Level 7 Time Wizard EXP : 580/800 Age: 15 (30) HP: 20 MP: 70 STR: 11 AGI: 11 VIT: 11 INT: 16 MND: 16 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute) Equipment: Chipped Gladius (+4 stabbing/slashing), Slime Battery (793/5000 MP) Leet: 875 Debt: 1,999,900] Ch. 8 -- A happy couple of hours Ch. 8 The first hour ¨C I have 875 leet, which I have no idea as to what amount of money that equates to in dollars. Or yen, knuts, or denarii. What I do know is that I don¡¯t want that prick Ian to get any of it, so I¡¯ve got to spend it on especially useless stuff before bed or give it to the girls. Any quality gear I buy might be taken by Ian, or he might get angry I¡¯m spending money I allegedly owe him. Regardless of the outcome, I just want the attitude I take in the meantime to be ¡®screw that guy¡¯. He knocked my tooth out, after all. That¡¯s worth a little obstinacy. To this very moment, I¡¯m still sticking my tongue in the hole where the tooth used to be. Ignoring my someday revenge, it occurs to me that I don¡¯t know anything about this city, despite living here in my dream for several days. Since I have several hours to waste, it is time for some reconnaissance. I¡¯ll start by going to a different chicken on a stick shop than where I usually go. For some reason, this city is chocked full of these shops. Some of them seem strangely upscale¡­ but all they sell is various bits of chicken on a stick and some sort of fruity soda. Since this city is derived from my subconscious, I think I might need to broaden my horizons when I wake up. At least include my three favorite vegetables too¡­ pizza, mac and cheese, and bacon burgers. I push the curtain out of the way of the entrance to the shop and sit down at the bar. I order several sticks for myself and a round of the fruity club soda for every person in the establishment. ¡°These drinks were brought to you by the ¡®slay the imps¡¯ foundation!¡± People must like these drinks, because they all happily accept them with a cheer. A man sitting next to me turned with a broad grin on his face and thanked me gratefully. To be honest, it was only like 200 leet worth. I just ordered the drinks as a formality for getting information. I didn¡¯t want to bother people with begging them for something and not offering anything in return. What I didn¡¯t expect was for the people to be so¡­ enthusiastic. ¡°I¡¯m new to the city, so if you don¡¯t mind, I have a lot of questions¡­¡± No one around had any issues answering my questions as they drained their drinks. ¡°What is the name of the city, and what can you tell me about it?¡± And so at the low, low cost of only 14 imp deaths¡­ okay, that seems outrageously expensive in hindsight¡­ I learned the basics. The labyrinth city is called ¡°Erosion¡±, like the process of wearing something down. The city is divided up with the Gateway plaza and surrounding circular bazaar making a somewhat small center, with three equally sized districts surrounding it like pie pieces. There is the guild district, which houses all of the various training halls for obtaining new classes including production classes. There is the residential district, which ¡®houses¡¯ all of the inns, motels, hotels, bed and breakfasts, taverns, pubs, bars, restaurants, shops, stores, and of course houses. Finally, there is the royal district which houses the royal castle and surrounding noble¡¯s mansions. The guilds hold the real power in the city because they generate most of the leet from labyrinth exploration. The royal family is a nuclear family, consisting of a married couple, an older son and a younger daughter. I have absolutely nothing to base this assumption off of, but I imagine this¡­ (The crown prince is cocksure with an angry side and poor martial skills. The crown princess is likely extremely cold to people, but secretly has an easily embarrassed cute side. Oh, and she is almost certainly far more skilled than her brother at sword fighting, but because she is a girl she is always unjustly treated inferior to him. His Majesty the King is either a well-known philanderer with a pointlessly sweet tooth and a daughter complex, or he completely ignores his family in favor of sneaking out of the castle to spend time with the ¡®common folk¡¯, and he¡¯s always safe because he¡¯s basically the strongest swordsman in the world for some reason. Her Majesty the Queen is either a total b-word that had both of her children with the duke that always hangs out in the castle unbeknownst by the king, and they are secretly conspiring to murder the king to put her rotten son on the throne as a puppet¡­ or she is pretty face that serves no purpose other than occasionally threatening the king with a smile so that he stops sleeping leering at the maids, or trying to marry off his daughter to the first rando-adventurer that comes by.) ¡°The royal family are figure heads only. They lost all of their power when the guilds went on strike and the country went bankrupt. They are just a regular family, are super nice to people, and frequent establishments like this one as a family date night on a fairly regular basis. The prince is an outspoken advocate of abolishing ¡®slave-summoning¡¯ and the princess spends most of her free day working at the ¡°Children of the Labyrinth¡± orphanage as a housekeeper. That orphanage was founded by the Queen, who donated her childhood mansion in the Royal District to accommodate it. Both her and the King work full time as combat trainers and teachers at the orphanage as well.¡± ¡°Ha¡­ as you¡¯d expect of royalty.¡± I was way wrong! ¡°What else to tell you¡­ oh! The surrounding zones! The plains are moderately safe. It¡¯s where we keep the farms, and many adventurers and knights patrol and protect the area from monsters. If you head towards the ocean, be prepared to fight pirates. If you head towards the forest, be prepared to fight bandits. If you head to the mountains¡­ don¡¯t ever head to the mountains.¡± ¡°What¡­ do dragons live in the mountains or something? Or a xenophobic dwarf community?¡± The man just shuddered and refused to speak further on the matter. In fact, the whole room became somber when he mentioned the mountains. ¡°Got it¡­ don¡¯t go to the mountains, ocean, or forest¡­ Or the mountains. Especially the mountains.¡± As a final ¡®F you!¡¯ to Ian, and another ¡®thank you!¡¯ to the helpful people at the chicken on a stick shop, I bought another round of drinks for them. They thanked me again, but honestly, I¡¯m mostly just trying to be petty. No need to thank me for my own selfish desire to flip Ian the bird. I left the chicken on a stick shop and started strolling down the main road leading through the residential district. I noticed that there wasn¡¯t a drainage system in place. Basically, unless it doesn¡¯t rain here, the whole street would flood every time there was a light downpour. But it isn¡¯t like there is no concept of drainage and sewage here. The city is pretty huge based on my rough evaluation of it, since I had seen it from the sky while it hurled through time to kill me. If the city really is so massive, there really should be sanitation in place or the streets will be filled with filth before the evening bell rings. Thinking back, the inn the girls and I had been staying in had sinks with faucets and flushing toilets. Is that normal for gaming worlds? I half expected to not even need to use the bathroom when I got here. After all, who dreams about dropping deuces? I was told by Lola that it is fine to use the labyrinth like a huge toilet since it cleans itself when it resets and changes shape the next day, but I¡¯m a little reluctant to drop trou in front of little girls. Or anyone else, for that matter. I¡¯m prudish that way. Two men are playing some sort of dice game in an alleyway. It looked like a cross between liar¡¯s dice and poker, and they were really getting into it. I stopped to watch, since one of them looked like they were about to lose their shirt and was getting even more aggressive with his bets. Unfortunately for him, both liar¡¯s dice and poker are best played by people who don¡¯t exhibit so much emotion. For a few minutes, I quietly watched over the game until it reached its finale. The loser bluffed that he had a straight flush, the winner called him a liar, and was right¡­ and put a slave collar on him. They didn¡¯t have a slave collar before. It just materialized in his hand as he thrust it on the losing player. ¡°Ah! Bad luck for you! I¡¯ll have you work that bet off in the labyrinth! You still as skilled as you used to be?¡± ¡°Eh¡­ I don¡¯t really like the labyrinth. Can¡¯t I work it off in the fields or a warehouse or something? Or a brothel? I¡¯d love to work there! C¡¯mon Harrison! You know how I feel about the maze.¡± ¡°I do, Avery. But I also know you will be in my debt for months in the fields. If you go to the fifth floor of the labyrinth, you¡¯ll be free and clear by tomorrow!¡± ¡°Oh¡­ fine. I don¡¯t really have a choice in the matter anyway. Where am I going to find a party though? You know what happened to my last group. I¡¯m cursed.¡± Oh oh? This guy is confident enough for the fifth floor? What is he? Analyze. [Name: Avery Class: Level 10 Blade Warden Age: 23Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. HP: 65 MP: 30 STR: 50 AGI: 20 VIT: 20 INT: 15 MND: 15 Spells: Shield Sword (3 MP), Disengage (10 MP) Equipment: None] ¡°My party is hoping to break through to the fourth floor in about two and a half hours. Why don¡¯t you come with us?¡± I interrupt their conversation. They seemed to be friends with each other, and for that reason I suspected that that Harrison guy wouldn¡¯t send Avery to his death. Furthermore, Harrison might see this as a great opportunity and for Avery to come with us. Finally, he has a skill called Shield Sword, and he has some crazy high STR¡­ which might be exactly what we need for the third floor. ¡°Third floor is kind of low. What do monsters give there? 25 leet? He could earn 100 leet a monster on the fifth floor.¡± ¡°How much does he owe?¡± ¡°400 leet, kid. Like I said, he¡¯ll be done in a day if he¡¯s by himself. You¡¯ll just slow him down.¡± No wonder those people were so happy with the rounds of drinks. I forget that normal people rarely encounter monsters in the labyrinth unless they map out the whole thing. The floors are pretty huge, after all. ¡°I¡¯ll buy him. I can guarantee we¡¯ll make way more than that in two hours, even on the third floor.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not interested in selling my friend just because he owes me a little money. Who knows what you¡¯d make him do? Get out of here, kid.¡± ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll pay 450 leet right now for his services for two hours in the labyrinth. After that, he¡¯ll have paid off his debt to you whether we fought one monster or thirty. And he gets money too you know.¡± ¡°Well if you¡¯re going to go that far, fine! I agree to those terms. I hope none of us come to regret this.¡± I check my own status and see that I only had 25 leet remaining. ¡°Wonderful. Meet my party and I at the Gateway in a little over two hours.¡± ¡°Uh¡­ it¡¯s a little inconvenient, but alright. I hope we can earn a lot safely. Harry, can I borrow a sword?¡± I didn¡¯t stay to listen to their conversation. If nothing else, we¡¯d buy him something cheap with Lola and Reena¡¯s money. I doubt they¡¯d mind, given that we¡¯ll more than make it back. I should really be careful¡­ this dream is going to warp my sense of money. Good thing my wife keeps track of our finances. I¡¯m definitely the irresponsible one. I wander the streets a bit more, looking here and there at the various houses and I¡¯ve come to notice something rather disappointing. All of the architecture, pottery, art, road design¡­ it¡¯s all really rudimentary and plain. These streets weren¡¯t made for walking and admiring, or even functioning. They were made for running past from quest point A to quest point B, without taking the time to look at them. If you did, you¡¯d note the ugliness of all the walls, and how five houses in a row have the exact same plant. Literally the exact same plant, not even turned 45 degrees to change its appearance. This city was not made lovingly. It uses the minimum number of assets to accomplish the ¡®semblance¡¯ of function. ¡°No wonder you¡¯ve grown bored, Enigma.¡± I say to no one in particular. ¡°Who you talking to, Big brother?¡± Reena seems to have arrived. ¡°Myself. I¡¯m just too darn interesting not to.¡± Reena rolls her eyes. ¡°You¡¯re reminding me how you¡¯re old. Whatever, hand over the battery, I¡¯m topped off.¡± She dumped all her MP into the Slime battery and ran off again without a word. So cold for her¡­ I wonder what the problem is. ¡°Ah! Did I just miss Reena?¡± Lola comes from behind me and puts her hand on the battery. ¡°Yes¡­ oh! Lola, do you have enough leet to buy a sword? I contracted a Blade Warden for two hours, but it cost me basically all of my money. He might not have a weapon.¡± ¡°Yes, I think I should have enough. If I run into Reena again I¡¯ll make sure she doesn¡¯t spend everything too just in case. For the cost of one sword, we could make loads more money clearing the floor.¡± ¡°That was my thought too. Anyway, thanks for the MP. I¡¯ll see you again in an hour.¡± The second hour ¨C I next tried going to the Royal district, but other than the main road, I was blocked by spear wielding guards. I walked along that road for a long time, but the only building with an entrance facing the road was the orphanage. I couldn¡¯t help them, so I didn¡¯t go in. I wasted nearly 45 minutes exploring the empty road, but I found that the Royal District suffered from much of the same issues as the Residential District¡­ the artist in charge of designing it was really lazy. ¡°Seriously Enigma¡­ fix your boredom yourself. This is just laziness.¡± I spent the next 15 minutes walking back to, and perusing, the bazaar. They have loads of shops lined up¡­ but now that I¡¯m really looking closely, there are very few adventurers. Way fewer adventurers than should be out in the early afternoon. I never once saw a blue dot on the floor maps that wasn¡¯t in our party. How did I not notice it before? The design was rushed, the player base is low, and most people in the city have nothing to do with the labyrinth other than reap the benefits of those few people who do go in. The economy is in shambles, based on how cheap I thought the drinks were, but how expensive everyone else thought they were¡­ and my party was the only one staying at the inn. There is only one conclusion. ¡­ this MMO is dying. The third hour ¨C Reena and Lola charged the battery again when they found me. Lola was again polite and engaged in small talk before disappearing. Reena was uncordial and hurried away. When I asked Lola what was bothering Reena she said she didn¡¯t know, but also seemed unperturbed. ¡°Reena¡¯s always been super tough. Even though my mom was real supportive and nice, I was a meek kid that spent all their time playing games by myself or soloing online. Even though her mom was a drunk basket case, Reena was super friendly, sporty, and was constantly trying to pressure me into coming outside.¡± ¡°You two aren¡¯t sisters?¡± ¡°Ah¡­ we are. Half sisters to be exact. We share a pretty seedy father. Despite being married to my mother, both of his daughters were born a day apart. He¡¯s not in the picture for either of us.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry to hear that about both of you¡­ any way I can help?¡± ¡°Eh? No, not really. Just help us not die, and that¡¯s more than enough. The fact that you¡¯ve resurrected me and paid off her slavery debt is far kinder than most have ever been to us. This world can be a little unforgiving, it seems¡­ so just keep being our elderly friend.¡± Why you little¡­ ¡°Yeah yeah¡­ get out of her. Enjoy your hour. Or don¡¯t. It¡¯s your time and you can do whatever you want with it.¡± Lola smiled and wandered off towards the Residential district. I used my party sense to follow Reena. Whatever she was doing on her time off, it put her in a terrible mood. It didn¡¯t matter if she noticed me because she was in the Guild district, and it was the only place I hadn¡¯t explored yet. I passed by several gated buildings with large yards leading to their front doors. Inside appeared to be training centers for the various classes, but there weren¡¯t any students. There were trainers standing outside the doors of each of the buildings, but they lacked pupils. Ugh, they¡¯re all standing uniformly to the left of their doors. The dojo/training centers all look and feel the exact same. If there wasn¡¯t a cookie cutter sign above each entrance gate that said ¡°Swordsman¡± or ¡°Knight¡±, I wouldn¡¯t be able to tell what they were even learning. Come on! That supposed ¡°Sorcerer¡± trainer has a rack of swords in his hall, just like all the other trainers. Enigma! This is too pathetic! I wouldn¡¯t want to play this game unless it had really beautiful character models, or the gameplay outside of town was way better¡­ preferably both. Oh, or if it had sim management aspects¡­ I love me some management sims. While lost in my train of thought, which was me just being critical of everything Enigma had created, I had passed up where Reena was. At least, I had passed her according to the party sense. When I back peddled, I found she was in the dojo for ¡°Assassin¡±. Or rather, she was inside the grounds, but not in the building. She was sitting at a bench near the entrance crying with her hand on her head. Oi¡­ no one is good at these situations, so it seems pointless to say ¡°I¡¯m no good in this situation.¡± Should I leave? No¡­ she¡¯s in my party, so she definitely can feel my presence right in front of her. If I just wander off now after seeing her, I¡¯ll definitely be in the wrong. Since she was sitting on the right side of the bench, I silently sat down on her armless side and waited quietly for her. I might not be able to comfort her¡­ mostly because I don¡¯t know what is wrong¡­ but I¡¯ll at least go down in history as trying. After a few minutes of sitting quietly with her, so sobbed, and asked me one simple question. ¡°Were you aware that once you are damaged, you have only two hours to be returned to normal via magic? Any longer than that, and the spell won¡¯t activate¡­ or recognize the wound or something. It was the same with Lola. I was so frantic to get her to that alter¡­ because a few minutes later and it wouldn¡¯t have activated. She¡¯d be gone for good. Just like my left arm.¡± Ah¡­ that sucks. I had pondered over whether we could pay a healer to fix her arm, or perhaps even if Lola leveled up she could do it. To hear it is impossible is pretty crappy. Lola was right, and I was being unkind. This whole time she¡¯s been acting like losing her arm was no big deal, and I agreed. ¡°Had you noticed that I hadn¡¯t used my thief skills lately? They require an open palm to activate via touching the monster¡­ I can use my skills¡­ but I¡¯d have to go into battle without a weapon to do so. Our party can¡¯t work with that.¡± I just thought she¡¯s been using up all her MP to charge the Slime Battery. It was appreciated. I was thanking her for the MP charge, despite it being a drop in leet. ¡°And the thief class isn¡¯t really unique in that regard. Of the classes I fulfill the prerequisites for¡­ let¡¯s see¡­ A swordsman requires the learning of sword and shield skills. Brawler uses both hands in its skills. Beserker uses two handed axes. Assassins use empty hands in conjunction with a dagger or hidden-blade gauntlets. Spearmen use two handed spears, or short spears with a shield. Basically, I don¡¯t have the affinity and stats for a caster class, but I can¡¯t actually use any of the martial class¡¯ skills. I¡¯ve been an adventurer for a month, and I¡¯ve peaked. I¡¯m never going to do anything but hold groups back unless I live for guiding lowbies through the first two floors¡­ and I¡¯m still a lowbie myself! This game is too hard! It¡¯s too unfair! If it wasn¡¯t for you, I would have likely died my first night as a prostitute. Even if I had survived¡­ would I have wanted to? Ugh this life sucks! To think this is what I wanted¡­¡± That¡¯s kinda heavy¡­ but what was it that Lola said? The world can be unforgiving, but just keep being their friend? That Lola really is pretty sharp, isn¡¯t she? I just put my arm over her shoulder and held her lightly and quietly. I was pretty sure my voice would just be grating in the uncomfortable silence. She leaned her head against me for a long time, just staring at the totally boring road with the totally boring training centers. In silence. . . . . . [Name: Kyuu Class: Level 7 Time Wizard EXP : 580/800 Age: 15 (30) HP: 20 MP: 70 STR: 11 AGI: 11 VIT: 11 INT: 16 MND: 16 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute) Equipment: Chipped Gladius (+4 stabbing/slashing), Slime Battery (943/5000 MP) Leet: 25 Debt: 1,999,900] Ch. 9 -- A Blade Wardens work is never done. Avery had managed to find his own sword to work with, It was in a sheathe that made the blade look strangely round like it was actually just a steel pipe. Analyzing it told me it was a Blade Warden¡¯s Greatsword, and that it¡¯s attack power was garbage. It offered only +4 piercing damage, but it had unbreaking, so I figured it was alright. He¡¯s a Blade Warden, it is a Blade Warden¡¯s weapon. Besides, he was even higher level than us with a crazy high strength stat, and we hadn¡¯t really fought enemies that didn¡¯t die like you¡¯d expect them to when getting a blade through their ribcage. Perhaps higher leveled enemies exhibited the ¡®ki shield¡¯ phenomena where you beat on them and beat on them, and then finally once their shield is gone you can cut them normally, but the low leveled imps, kobolds, slimes, and pill bugs did not. I added him to my party after the girls arrived. Reena had splashed her face with water or something, because you couldn¡¯t tell that she had been ugly crying only twenty minutes ago. They introduced themselves, and I realized that I hadn¡¯t done so either. ¡°Avery, my name is Kyuu. We¡¯ll be making a rush for the third-floor boss.¡± ¡°You bought a map or something? Your party seems pretty rich to spend so much for me for only two hours.¡± ¡°Kyuu is a human map!¡± ¡°Reena! She means we explored earlier and learned its location already.¡± ¡°Well, even if it builds up a little Revenge, we should take on at least one enemy so you can understand how I fight. I¡¯ll be vanguard, so just let me deal with breaking the Pill Bug¡¯s stance.¡± As expected, he is familiar with the floor if he has already cleared it once. Also, it seems like we won¡¯t need to use the battery unnecessarily until at least the boss fight. Also¡­ is Revenge a Blade Warden thing? The way he worded it makes it sound bad. Since I didn¡¯t want to sound like a noob in front of the new guy, I decided I¡¯d ask Lola about Blade Warden skills when I had the chance. We entered the floor, I located the exit on the map, and we made a beeline for it. Occasionally Avery would take extra caution walking wide around dirt segments in the walls. I noticed later that those dirt sections coincided with strange colored walls that Pill bugs could move through. If he hadn¡¯t acted strange around them, I wouldn¡¯t have realized we could get side blinded by a patrol. ¡°Hey, a monster is on the other side of that dirt wall.¡± ¡°Okay¡­?¡± Reena didn¡¯t understand. Lola didn¡¯t seem to either, but she did realize that I wouldn¡¯t just share that seemingly useless information for no reason. Avery looked surprised at me and drew his ¡®sword¡¯. It was shaped like a rapier¡­ but it was way too thick. It didn¡¯t have a blade at all, only a pointed end. It was about three feet long and had a basket hilt. He turned towards the dirt wall and held the sword in front of his body with the point straight up. His off-hand rested on the back of the ¡®blade¡¯, holding it steady. When the Pill bug burst through, it was already rolling. ¡°I¡¯ll now show you the Shield Sword, the most important skill a Blade Warden learns.¡± It rolled straight at the prepared Avery, bouncing in the air about five feet away like it had against Reena. Avery grunted and pushed both of his hands forward, invoking the skill. When the Pill bug hit the sword, it bounced off like it hit a wall. It landed on its feet and rolled at him again. When it bounced off the second time, it landed on its back and he impaled it. ¡°Ooo¡­ you could solo this whole floor, couldn¡¯t you? Blade Wardens are coolio.¡± ¡°I agree. Perhaps, given his skills, we should just go ahead and do that. Two hours is plenty of time to mop them up and get to the boss.¡± ¡°What are you saying? That¡¯s crazy.¡± ¡°No. Perfectly sane. I¡¯ll lead us right to every single monster.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not the crazy part! You build up the whole floor¡¯s worth of Revenge and the boss will be almost impossible!¡± Revenge again¡­ Ugh¡­ I hate looking like a noob. But¡­ it seems important. ¡°I don¡¯t understand what you mean. We cleared all fifty monsters on both the first and second floor before facing the bosses.¡± ¡°You WHAT?! Even acknowledging that the first floor bosses split the Revenge evenly between their species, the Imp General should have been throwing instant kill fireballs and been able to rend steel with just it¡¯s claws!¡± But we didn¡¯t beat the first floor boss¡­ did we? Enigma is the one who finished off the boss after we wiped. On the second floor, Brinly knocked the boss stupid before Reena finished off the fight, but he¡¯s also totally OP. Was that slime really only half as powered up as the imp? ¡°Lola¡­ did you know about this?¡± ¡°If I did, we never would have gone into the first boss room.¡± ¡°Still would have gone into the second boss room though¡­ that guy was ridiculous.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t really know what to make of this¡­¡±This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it ¡°Then don¡¯t make anything of it. Let¡¯s go straight to the boss, then return later to clear the floor.¡± We did encounter two more enemies, but Avery put them down himself. One dropped a carapace, so we took it. We¡¯ll feed one of the two we¡¯ve had drop to Guppy to see if there is a new skill to learn when I get a chance to summon him again. It took only five minutes of running through the halls to come to the Gateway. Avery was quite shocked, since it seemed like we were just making random turns. We passed through and into the boss room, but it was a little different from the two previously. Perhaps to utilize the newest dungeon mechanic, this boss room included dirt walls forming a large circle around the Pill bug General. ¡°Once we enter the enclosure, entrance behind us will close up with dirt as well. The general will ram into me once, then escape through the walls if it doesn¡¯t land on its back. If it lands on its back, everyone attack it. Since we won¡¯t be able to see what direction it is coming from when it does come back through the wall, we need to stick closely to the middle of the room. It may take a few times, so perhaps we should let my MP recover.¡± Using analyze, I could see he had enough MP for seven casts of his Shield Sword. ¡°Nah, go ahead. I have a battery with around 1000 MP stored. We¡¯ll be fine even if you have to bounce the boss back three hundred times. Lola, you hold it for Imp¡¯s Revenge.¡± I dumped half of my MP into it before handing over the Slime Battery. In order to use it, you have to grasp it in one hand while you use your other hand to cast. Yet another thing Reena can¡¯t do. We headed into the enclosure together, and behind us the wall closed up. The Pill bug General, which was barely larger than a regular Pill bug, suddenly turned aggressive and rolled into a ball. It flew at us like a bowling ball, but Avery put his blade up like normal. Using his exaggerated STR stat, he knocked the boss flying at the wall. It bounced off the dirt wall too, but landed on its feet. It skittered into the wall and disappeared. ¡°Everyone group up! If it appears opposite me, I won¡¯t be able to move to it in time! Make sure you are ready to dive behind me!¡± I looked at my map and watched the red dot roll around us again and again. This boss is especially nasty. Not only could it constantly back stab you, the arena traps you in. There is no abandoning the fight here. You fight to the death. If we had come here without Avery, we would have cleared the whole floor first¡­ we might have very nearly dodged our death with him. ¡°He stopped moving! He¡¯s about to come through! Get ready!¡± ¡°Ah! Avery. It¡¯s right over there!¡± I pointed to wall at Avery¡¯s five o¡¯clock, and he immediately jumped in to his new position. The girls spread out towards the walls away from that spot, and prepared to attack. When it burst through, Avery hit it head on and it went flying back towards the hole it had just created. It landed upside down in the hole and got stuck when the dirt closed around it. ¡°It seems no matter what MMO I play, clipping will always be exploitable.¡± The Pill Bug General rather pathetically wriggled its legs in vain. ¡°Literally everything about these enemies are gross. After we clear the floor, lets never come back.¡± ¡°You got it, Reena. After today, I¡¯ll never ask you to come here again.¡± I summoned Guppy on top of the ledge created by the General and ordered an ¡°Imp-Pale¡±. Guppy obliged, apparently, since we could hear the sounds of the bug getting stabbed. We couldn¡¯t see it since the attacks were coming from Guppy¡¯s underside, however. A few moments later and the boss turned to light and disappeared. Guppy dropped to the floor along with the high dirt walls and another carapace. He immediately ate the carapace, getting (1/10) for ¡°Shell Roll¡±. I tossed Guppy the other two and dismissed him. I ponder briefly over whether or not I should call Guppy ¡®him¡¯ but gave it up as ¡®bad work¡¯ and headed to the exit Gateway. The Imp General gave more experience. I only got 50 here. Ah! And I got less leet too! I see the advantages to fully leveling up a boss before fighting it. The Revenge system is¡­ passable. I wonder if that is why we got weapons off of both bosses too. Even though the hatchet kinda sucked, it was still better than ¡®ol Chipped Gladius I¡¯m still holding today. Who cares if I couldn¡¯t hurt slimes with it? I can¡¯t hurt anything regardless of what weapons I¡¯m holding. We enter the fourth floor, leave to the Gateway plaza, and reenter the third floor. We start sweeping the floor. After 25 more of the Pill bugs, and giving Avery 50 of my charged MP, we had 7 more of the carapaces drop, so I summoned Guppy and had him finish learning Shell Roll. To demonstrate it, he grew a shell in the shape of a ring around his body and started rolling and bouncing like the Pill bugs. Though the bouncing was a bit higher than the bugs. Slimes are pretty bouncy by design. Feeling satisfied with his transformation, I started leading the party back towards the entrance. ¡°We only have about 15 minutes left of Avery¡¯s contract. I¡¯m six more kills short of leveling to eight. Or¡­ we can just call it, and I¡¯ll get my level in the fourth floor. Avery. What monsters are on the fourth and fifth floors?¡± ¡°The fourth floor is Wolves, and the fifth floor is goblins. Starting on the fourth floor, monsters start attacking in groups. Typically no more than three monsters will attack at once until later floors though. The current highest floor that has been reached has bees. The floor is really small compared to the one we are in now, and they all patrol really fast. If you fight one, you fight them all, making the boss way too deadly.¡± ¡°You think we can handle wolves and goblins without you?¡± ¡°I have no idea what you guys are capable of. I soloed literally every single enemy we¡¯ve encountered today. Well, your slime got the killing blow on the boss, but it was already beaten. You guys fought imps and kobolds without any problems right? And you¡¯re crazy and even maxed out the Revenge on both bosses¡­ yeah, in hindsight, if you could do that you¡¯ll be peachy.¡± ¡°Fair enough. Want to come with us? You¡¯ve long since paid your debt off to that Harry guy. You can make lots of money with us. Probably level a few times too.¡± ¡°Eww! A hairy guy owns Avery?¡± ¡°It is tempting¡­ your ability to track monsters is incredibly convenient.¡± ¡°Perhaps¡­ but it¡¯s pretty standard in games with visible enemies. I¡¯m a little surprised everyone can¡¯t do it.¡± ¡°I¡­ don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about. Games with visible enemies?¡± ¡°Did you not come from a world with video games?¡± ¡°Ah! You are a summoned slave? I¡¯m afraid I don¡¯t know anything about where you come from. I was born here.¡± ¡°Well, then ignore me if I say strange things. You coming with us to the fourth floor or not?¡± ¡°No¡­ I think I¡¯d rather leave. I really don¡¯t like the labyrinth.¡± ¡°I heard you say you were cursed. Something about your last party?¡± ¡°Parties, plural. They¡¯re all dead. I don¡¯t want to talk about it. Have a good day, and thanks for helping me pay off my debt.¡± He left. He removed himself from the party soon after leaving via the Gateway. [Name: Kyuu Class: Level 7 Time Wizard EXP : 770/800 Age: 15 (30) HP: 20 MP: 70 STR: 11 AGI: 11 VIT: 11 INT: 16 MND: 16 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute) Equipment: Chipped Gladius (+4 stabbing/slashing), Slime Battery (1061/5000 MP) Leet: 975 Debt: 1,999,900] Ch. 10 -- Facerolling Without Avery, our party¡¯s power went down significantly. However, as long as we were able to take on the wolves and goblins, we¡¯d level much faster fighting them instead of the pill bugs. We took the rest of the day off and periodically charged the Slime Battery. I gave the girls a little over 725 leet, leaving myself with 250 remaining. They paid for our lodgings and food with the surplus leet. I have to slowly increase the amount I give Ian or he¡¯ll show up to complain. The next morning, I had dropped down to 125 leet like expected, and my debt went down by the same amount. The girls and I went straight for the fourth floor to start leveling. I led them to a red dot that was alone for our exhibition fight against the wolves. The wolf had already noticed us when we turned the corner to face it and was growling as we approached. Reena dove at it, stabbing it in the flank as she passed by. Recoiling, it attempted to snap at her but was blasted with a fireball from Lola. It disappeared in light, giving us seven exp and 35 leet. Two shots. At least it wasn¡¯t just taking one attack from Reena to fight on this floor. Still though¡­ are they perhaps really strong? ¡°Let¡¯s let the next one attack us so we can figure out its movements. It¡¯ll help with the boss.¡± ¡°Agreed. Also, I want to fight one by myself to prepare for groups of two where Reena can¡¯t fight it by herself.¡± ¡°For groups of three, I¡¯ll bring out Guppy.¡± In the meantime, I¡¯m going to keep charging the battery instead of conserving for the summon. We can always use the battery if we need the power. Reena, will you charge too?¡± ¡°Of course. Now let¡¯s get going.¡± The next closest enemy was two dots, so I told them and we went for it. To conserve MP, Lola didn¡¯t use her fireball this time. She just distracted the wolf she was fighting with the Imp¡¯s Revenge while Reena dove in and out of the melee cutting up the defenseless wolves. The wolves moved faster than I was able to react to¡­ but Reena moved faster even faster. She was cutting them down like they weren¡¯t even trying to defend themselves. Occasionally they¡¯d pounce in her direction, but she¡¯d simply not be there when they arrived. If they tried to snap at her, she would move away and slice at their exposed necks. With Reena alone, each wolf took three strikes. Lola¡¯s fireball was at least a little stronger than Reena¡¯s dagger, but considering it cost MP that was hardly surprising. We cleared out 10 more wolves as we made our way towards the exit Gateway, leveling me up in the process. The increase was as great as I had hoped. We also had two wolf pelts drop, which gave Guppy 2/10 for cold resistance. [Name: Kyuu Class: Level 8 Time Wizard EXP : 861/1050 Age: 15 (30) HP: 40 MP: 120 STR: 15 AGI: 15 VIT: 15 INT: 25 MND: 25 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Time Vault (20 MP/Minute) Equipment: Chipped Gladius (+4 stabbing/slashing), Slime Battery (1491/5000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute) Leet: 580 Debt: 1,999,775] Fifty more MP! My HP doubled? So far, stats have seemed rather arbitrary except when they were huge, but the difference made by MP is clearly evident. I generate two MP a minute now. Even still, compared to Brinly¡¯s stats that were in the two hundred range¡­ upper level bonuses must be even better. Or perhaps that¡¯s just his class. And I wonder what that Time vault spell does? Activate: Time Vault! In front of me, a large cabinet materialized with its doors open. It had many little compartments in it to place things, and a few larger to fit perhaps weapons or armor. As a test, I put in the chipped gladius and willed ten leet into the vault. It accepted it, and I dismissed the spell. Without so much as a poof, the cabinet disappeared. ¡°The hell was that?!¡± Reena jumped back in surprise when it first appeared. Lola also seemed a little anxious about it at first, but when she saw me calmly dealing with it, she decided not to panic. ¡°My newest spell I got at level eight. The Time Vault. Other than being mobile storage, I¡¯m not really sure what it is used for.¡± ¡°That¡¯s incredibly convenient! If we encounter an enemy that drops something heavy, we won¡¯t have to lug it around.¡± ¡°Just tell me next time you go to bring it out! I about peed my pants!¡± ¡°Well¡­ I¡¯m testing it now. Activate Time Vault!¡± The cabinet reappeared. I took out the chipped gladius and willed my leet back. ¡°Success! Items don¡¯t disappear if you store them less than¡­ at least one minute. Now for the longer test.¡± I put my 10 leet back and dismissed the spell. The experiment cost 40 MP, but the cost only seems to be active when the cabinet is out. With this, I have the RPG staples, don¡¯t I? Mapping, analyze, and item box? Still though¡­ this dungeon layout is pretty lazy. A procedurally generated maze with exactly 50 enemies and a boss? All of the four floors so far have looked identical, too. Perhaps I¡¯m spoiled by modern RPG mechanics, so I welcome the convenient skills¡­ but I still wonder if this game would be worth playing if I wasn¡¯t here in person. ¡°I¡¯d like to try fighting a wolf before we go to the boss. Lola, will you back me up with heals?¡± ¡°Eh?! But you¡¯re useless with that sword.¡± ¡°Jeez Lola¡­ you sound like Reena when you¡¯re blunt like that. Yeah, I know. If I can¡¯t hit it and I just take damage, Reena can come in for the kill.¡±Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°It¡¯s okay Lola. Let the masochist get bit a few times. Different strokes for different folks, you know?¡± ¡­ Seriously Reena? ¡°Oh! I get it! It¡¯s some sort of play for him! Well that¡¯s just gross. Old people are weird.¡± ¡­ Seriously Lola? ¡°Um¡­ I just wanted to see if my stat increase would help me hit the monsters. Not¡­ whatever it is that you think it is.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think it will. I still can¡¯t stab the monsters, I can only keep them occupied. I¡¯ve heard it is a class mechanic of melee versus casters. Melee classes can deal damage with weapons, and caster classes can deal damage with magic. You can only hope to hit a monster with a weapon if they are unable to avoid or block it.¡± ¡°So¡­ when fighting hand to hand against me, monsters are super evasive blocks of hardened steel, but if I shot them with a fireball, they become both slow and squishy?¡± ¡°As I understand it, yes. If Reena used a weapon that granted a spell like Imp¡¯s Revenge, the spell she cast would likely never hit.¡± What is up with that strange mechanic? ¡°So can you multiclass?¡± ¡°You can replace your current class with a different one, but you lose your stats, skills, and levels. In some cases, if you don¡¯t fulfil the prerequisites, the class you¡¯re summoned with might not be gained again. I don¡¯t know what you have to do to become a ¡®Time Wizard¡¯, but I imagine it is meant to be an evolved class. That is when you level up your basic class to a certain point, and then ¡®evolve¡¯ it to a stronger form. You keep your stats and levels, but you can start learning more skills with the new class. Most classes have at most four skills, after all.¡± I¡¯m pretty sure I remember Enigma saying something about that when my dream first started. He didn¡¯t care about prerequisites for my first class. In hindsight, it makes sense no matter what class I chose. Higher level classes are strong at first, but if you start lower and build your way up to it, you¡¯d be stronger in the end because of more skills. If Time Wizard was a third or fourth evolution, I could have twelve or sixteen skills instead of four. Admittedly, I only have three right now anyway, and who knows when I might get a fourth? Or even what it would do. If it is like my other three skills, it¡¯ll lack offensive, defensive, or even supportive qualities. In terms of combat, I will forever be terrible, no matter how much ¡°Time¡± I might have. Unless, of course, I get magic items like Imp¡¯s Revenge to give myself more skills. Ugh¡­ gear dependent builds are the worst. Though, with Imp¡¯s revenge, I could probably solo the first floor. ¡°Wait¡­ how was I able to kill the slimes on the first floor?¡± ¡°That¡¯s true! You and Lola were kicking the crap out of them.¡± ¡°Oh¡­ but those are slimes you know? They suck worse than even you do.¡± Ouch. ¡°But slimes that have skills from eating drops from other enemies are pretty tough. Like Guppy, if they can move quickly they can dodge. Then they wouldn¡¯t suck worse than you, and you can¡¯t fight them anymore.¡± I get it¡­ also, I think Reena is rubbing off on you. ¡°Ah, got it. Well, alright then. Shall we get moving to the boss? We can take out the boss, clear this floor, and move on to the next today. Clearing two floors today would be great.¡± ¡°I want that too! Let¡¯s go!¡± Reena waved her hand energetically at us. We had abandoned my plan to try to fight a wolf by myself and went straight to the boss room. It was in the same room as the previous boss fights and had two large wolves standing in the center. I gave the Slime Battery to Lola and stood back with the chipped gladius. Reena rushed left, Lola rushed right. It would make more sense to keep Lola in the back as the healer and have me up front with Imp¡¯s Revenge¡­ wouldn¡¯t it? Well, too late for that. And it was too late. Lola, using the battery, shot about five fireballs at once and the Wolf General she was fighting exploded. Firing another one at the Wolf General Reena was fighting, Reena pressed her momentary advantage and ended the fight. Total it took about eight seconds. They both dropped a wolf pelt. ¡°Girls¡­ have you noticed that this whole so-called ¡®game world¡¯ is pretty boring? The city is bland, the dungeon is bland, the boss fights are bland¡­ and there never seems to be anyone else using the Gateway into the labyrinth? It¡¯s like everyone accepts there are loads of adventurers, but none of them ever seem to actually do anything. The food shops never have any customers except us, yet their display items are always crazy hot and freshly cooked.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°Never really noticed that, no. There are lots of other adventurers in the labyrinth.¡± ¡°And don¡¯t get me started on the Class trainers in their cookie cutter houses and how they stand in front of their nonsensical dojos like a statue. Of course, they don¡¯t have any pupils. Other than our party, I¡¯ve never seen anyone else use the Gateway. Even when we sit in the bazaar and eat lunch, I¡¯ve never noticed anyone do anything. Is there another way into the labyrinth?¡± ¡°Not that I know of.¡± If Lola doesn¡¯t know of another entrance, there probably isn¡¯t a publicly available one. She always seems to know everything publicly known, despite spending all of her spare time in the labyrinth¡¯s first floor for the month she was here. Well, whatever. She¡¯s a figment in my dream after all. It¡¯s to be expected that there is some incongruity there. We go back to the entrance of the floor and clear the place out, earning us seven exp and 35 leet for 37 enemies, 140 exp and 350 leet for the boss, as well as 15 more wolf pelts. Summoning Guppy, I let him eat eight more of the pelts to gain cold resistance. I had leveled again. In fact, I was only 90 exp short of another level. Each floor increases the exp gains per monster by two, totaling 100 additional exp a floor. But each level only increases the necessary exp by 50. This model doesn¡¯t work. I¡¯ll eventually start leveling faster per floor as opposed to slower like is typical. If the goblins give nine exp a kill, I¡¯ll only need to fight ten of them to level again today. After that I¡¯ll need¡­ 350 more exp to level again. With 40 remaining goblins, that¡¯s 360 more exp¡­ enough to level three times in one day. Not including the goblin general, which is probably 180. This bears repeating¡­ this leveling model doesn¡¯t work. Enigma is pretty bad at his job, isn¡¯t he? ¡°So much leet¡­ it is crazy how fast we make money now. I guess Kyuu doesn¡¯t completely suck, does he?¡± ¡°True! Though it is just his mapping ability that is useful. Otherwise he¡¯s still bad.¡± Ugh¡­ they¡¯re right, but still. ¡°Yeah, taking on a second class would give my character the ability to fight, but sadly that can¡¯t happen.¡± ¡°Well, I heard once that a god can bestow an original class to you, even if you already have one. But using conventional matters, it can¡¯t happen. After all, where can you even meet a god?¡± If it isn¡¯t possible to meet a god, how could Lola know that? Just how knowledgeable is she? Also¡­ isn¡¯t that kind of wishy-washy? Enigma¡¯s system is once again not well thought out. ¡°Let¡¯s go fight the fifth floor. If it goes well, we can get the boss and clear that floor today too.¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Goblins are weak. As week as kobolds, but with shorter reach on their weapons (daggers). On the way to the Gateway, Reena mercilessly cuts them down without hesitation. Perhaps our stats going up only makes the monsters appear to be equally weak, but this is still getting pretty ridiculous. Perhaps full parties don¡¯t spend any time on floors since they can¡¯t find the monsters easily, and as such end up under leveled for higher floors? They are level five, perhaps, and I am level nine. Reena and Lola are level ten. Yeah¡­ maybe the reason we feel so powerful is because comparatively speaking¡­ we are. The goblins don¡¯t drop anything. Only the boss wasn¡¯t empty handed as he fell to a fireball and three stabs. He dropped a dagger that was weaker than Reena¡¯s weapon, but stronger than my gladius. It had no enchantments on it. Afterwards, we cleared the fifth floor too. We got 630 exp and 2700 leet. It was barely noontime. I might not be a broken character, but this game world is broken enough for the two of us. [Name: Kyuu Class: Level 11 Time Wizard EXP : 1890/2100 Age: 15 (30) HP: 50 MP: 150 STR: 16 AGI: 16 VIT: 16 INT: 31 MND: 31 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Time Vault (20 MP/Minute), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute) Equipment: Chipped Gladius (+4 stabbing/slashing), Slime Battery (1716/5000 MP) Leet: 4925 Debt: 1,999,775] Ch. 11 -- Grind The three of us had amassed quite a bit of money, so we decided to go shopping for an enchanted weapon. After four hours four Battery charges, we hadn¡¯t found anything that cost less than 100,000 leet except lunch. Between the three of us, however, one hour generated 275 MP. We had amassed nearly enough to try using Recall Moment, but what was the rush? I assumed it would take me back in time¡­ but to where? To where I set Anchored Moment to? I tried casting that on my first day and nothing happened. After our rather fruitless endeavors, we considered moving on to the sixth floor but we still didn¡¯t know what type of monsters to expect. Lola didn¡¯t know off the top of her head, so we went to an information broker located near the Gateway. For the rather steep cost of 400 leet, we found out the sixth floor has Snowman monsters, and the seventh floor has Buffpigs. I imagined macho bi-pedal pigs with fists, but was told they were half buffalo, half boar. Armed with a fireball slinging healer holding a pitchfork, Reena and I made our way to the Gateway to nuke some snowmen. Guppy¡¯s cold resistance would have come in handy, except that the fireballs became the only thing we needed to take them down. After clearing to the exit, three ¡®Ice Sickle¡¯ items had dropped, working Guppy 3/10 of the way to learning ¡®Ice Lance¡¯. The boss blew up with three shots, earning another ¡®Ice Sickle¡¯. The boss was worth 220 exp and 550 leet by themselves. We went back and fought another 21 of the snowmen before we got enough of the drops to teach Guppy the new ability. Guppy turned blue and fired a three-foot-long pointed cone of ice at around 50 miles per hour, using 10 of my MP. If the snowmen could use this ability¡­ we never saw it. They blew apart from the fireballs before they could even react to us. However, since we didn¡¯t want to waste any more of the Slime Battery¡¯s charge, we decided to just move on. The Buffpigs were bigger than we were expecting, but with Reena¡¯s AGI sitting at 43 she could easily move around the enemies and get into a position for a hit at their vitals, and with STR sitting at 27 she was still able to cut right through them. Even in sets of two, they never had a chance to use whatever special abilities they might have had. They just died too quickly. Eight Buffpigs fell leading us to boss room. They dropped a ham on a bone called ¡®Buffham¡¯ that apparently sells pretty well as an ingredient. Guppy refused to eat it. We assumed he wouldn¡¯t learn a skill from it. We¡¯re way over leveled for this area now. I guess it¡¯s the same as doing every quest in the starter town before moving on to the next area in an RPG. If you do that, the second town is easy. If you do that in the second town too, the third area becomes trivial. It¡¯s a mindless way to break a game and make it unfun. These enemies had hit that stage. If they were level seven, we were 12 and 13. ¡°I feel like I¡¯m playing a JRPG with an auto-battle feature.¡± I comment casually, waving my hands. ¡°Then freaking do something!¡± Reena called as she gutted the boss. It dropped a second ham. Since the hams looked tasty, we decided arbitrarily to clear this floor too instead of moving on. We got 11 more of the hams. When we later sold twelve of them, planning to keep one to eat, and they were worth 75 leet a piece for a total of 900. We split that three ways. Sigh¡­ and now I feel like I¡¯m playing an accounting game. Hit auto battle, collect money, move to next location on the map. Why did I always assume living in an RPG would be exciting? What a sobering dream. I charged the Slime Battery by myself that evening, getting three more full dumps of MP in before going to sleep. I was sitting at 2996/5000, so I waited a minute and a half and put four more MP in. Then I realized I was about to give Ian too much money, so I used 20 of the stored MP to summon the Time Vault, depositing all my leet except for 300. The next morning was rinse and repeat. Information broker tells us that levels eight, nine, and ten have treants, bats, and hellcats. We slaughter them all by dinner time. Since I didn¡¯t have to do much, I spent almost all my MP charging the Battery. 15 (Treants) + 17 (Bats) + 19 (Hellcats) = 51 exp times 50 (enemies per floor) equals 2550. Also 300 (Treant General) + 340 (Bat General) + 380 (Hellcat General) equals 1020 exp. That¡¯s 3570 exp just for today. We also got 13,800 leet, 14 ¡®Apples¡¯, 13 ¡®Bat Wings¡¯, and 15 ¡®Fire Claw¡¯. Guppy learned ¡®Attract Enemy¡¯, ¡®Flight¡¯, and ¡®Flame body¡¯ using 10 of each of the drops. Despite not being useful, I had acquired some pretty high stats and a new spell called Time Cottage. [Name: Kyuu Class: Level 16 Time Wizard EXP : 6931/7100 Age: 15 (30) HP: 85 MP: 270 STR: 26 AGI: 27 VIT: 24 INT: 56 MND: 56 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Time Vault (20 MP/Minute), Time Cottage (1000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute) Equipment: Chipped Gladius (+4 stabbing/slashing), Slime Battery (3260/5000 MP) Leet: 22465 Debt: 1,999,525] ============================================== [Name: Lola of Kyuu¡¯s Party Class: Level 17 Star Priest Age: 14 HP: 20 MP: 120 STR: 23 AGI: 24 VIT: 35 INT: 47 MND: 47Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Equipment: Imp¡¯s Revenge(+10 Piercing, Imbue: Fireball), Hachigane (+5 VIT for blows against the head) Skills: Minor Heal (10 MP), Remove Poison(20 MP), Fireball (Imp¡¯s Revenge, 15 MP)], Star Fall (20 MP)] ============================================== [Name: Reena of Kyuu¡¯s Party Class: Level 17 Thief Age: 14 HP: 75 MP: 55 STR: 38 AGI: 55 VIT: 27 INT: 17 MND: 26 Equipment: Quality Janbiya (+8 stabbing/slicing) x2 critical damage, Hachigane (+5 VIT for blows against the head) Skills: Pilfer (Increase leet dropped, 10 MP), Plunder (Increase items dropped, 25 MP)], Pillage (Passive: Recover MP on strike)] Since I had plenty of MP charged up in the Battery, I went ahead and activated the spell after dinner. An ornate looking door appeared on the wall of our room at the inn. Inside was a house with a kitchen, bathroom, master bedroom with a comfortable looking bed, a guest room with two bunk beds, and storeroom with various drawers and chests. Peering outside the windows, the house didn¡¯t seem to sit on anything. It was floating in a sky with no ground below or space above. Just consistently light blue sky with various clouds floating around. ¡°Dibs on the big bedroom.¡± Yelled Reena as she ran and dove on the mattress. It looked far more comfortable than the beds at the inn we had been using. ¡°No way! I want the nice looking bed too!¡± ¡°We can share tonight, but tomorrow I want it all to myself. You can have it every other day. Kyuu snores, so I don¡¯t want to have to share a room with him anymore.¡± We could have paid for a separate room you know¡­ ¡°We ran a lot today, so I¡¯m actually going to go ahead and go to sleep. Hopefully this place isn¡¯t dangerous.¡± Like my convenient power in my dream would be dangerous. I went to bed. I only gave Ian 200 leet tonight. After I rested as long as I wanted, I got up and went to the kitchen. Lola was trying to cook the ¡®Buffham¡¯, but she just ended up ruining it. ¡°Oh! I¡¯m so sorry! It didn¡¯t cook at all like a regular honey ham you get from the super market!¡± ¡°Sure it didn¡¯t, Lola. This has nothing to do with you burning everything you¡¯ve ever tried to cook.¡± The trite ¡®terrible cook¡¯ event, huh? ¡°Well, I¡¯m strangely not hungry at all, but I¡¯m going to go see about getting breakfast at the inn. I don¡¯t know what happens to this place after I leave, so let¡¯s pack up.¡± The girls did so, and we head back out into our room. It was morning. I ate breakfast and went back upstairs to our room. The cottage door was still there, so hopefully it could be summoned again elsewhere instead of forever being stuck in the inn¡¯s guest room. Ian¡¯s 200 leet was still in my possession, so apparently the Cottage is outside the bounds of whatever forces the payment. I need to make sure to avoid him today in case he notices I made no money. You know, except for all the money I made. ¡°Okay ladies¡­ how about a new plan¡­ Let¡¯s just rush through as many floors as we can today. Avoid all the fighting, and just go straight for the boss. We¡¯ll only stick around if Guppy can get a new skill. If we move to the fifteenth floor, we¡¯ll still be over leveled for them, but we¡¯ll get getting 145 leet and 29 exp per kill.¡± ¡°I¡¯m actually maxed out for Star Priest. I can¡¯t get any more skills, so I was thinking of evolving my class. Do you think offense, defense, or support is better?¡± ¡°To be honest, I¡¯m not sure it matters that much when we¡¯re this over powered. If I¡¯m thinking long term, though, it is hard to gauge since we¡¯re not a full party. If enemies get bigger and badder like you hope in a game, we¡¯ll need more of all three of those things.¡± ¡°I¡¯m also maxed out, but there are no evolved classes I qualify for.¡± Enigma! Your game sucks! Fix her arm so she stops acting like you kicked her puppy! ¡°Perhaps not¡­ well, I started with an evolved class, so there is no upgrading for me either.¡± Stupid! That isn¡¯t going to make her feel better. You moron. ¡°So I¡¯m going to spend the afternoon at the trainer. You two do whatever you want.¡± ¡°Leave me the Imp¡¯s Revenge? We might go to the labyrinth.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good idea. Here you go!¡± I put the chipped gladius back in Ian¡¯s warehouse. I¡¯d rather buy my own weapon than carry his around anymore anyway. Reena had planned to go to the labyrinth with me as well, so we didn¡¯t need to debate it. We went straight for the eleventh floor. The monsters were pigmen-type monsters with axes. They were possibly orcs? Regardless, they were pretty big and Reena seemed to be working off some aggression on the poor things. For the first encounter, she dove under the swinging axe and between the orc¡¯s legs. She spun around, her blade flashing in the dark, and cut the tendons behind the orc¡¯s knees. Stumbling, she darted back to it¡¯s front and calmly parried a blow from the axe and lunged knee first at the orc¡¯s chest. She stabbed her blade into the orc¡¯s neck and used it as a handhold as she fell to the ground with the dying monster. It tried to hit her with the axe again, but she just kicked its elbow hard into the ground. It dropped the weapon and laid on the ground bleeding from the neck for nearly ten seconds before disappearing in light. Reena just watched it while sitting on its chest. The second encounter was much the same. The third encounter involved far more superficial cuts. ¡°Reena¡­ dear¡­ are you okay?¡± To be honest, watching a little girl doing things like this is making me uncomfortable. Reena stood up from where the monster was a moment before and turned to me with a smile. ¡°Of course! Like these weaklings could hurt me.¡± That¡¯s not what I meant¡­ ¡°These guys are too pathetic. I want to fight a strong monster. Let¡¯s build up some Revenge and go fight the boss!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think that is such a good idea. Maybe if we had Lola here we could do it¡­¡± Which was the wrong thing to say. I only meant if Reena had a healer backing her up instead of a Guppy, she¡¯d be fine. She seemed to interpret it as ¡®You¡¯re useless¡­ but Lola can do it!¡¯ ¡°Screw you, old man! Either help me find more enemies or get the hell out of here.¡± Perhaps¡­ I should help her vent some of this frustration. Apparently, Lola going off to evolve her class has Reena in quite the foul mood. Does she need to prove to herself she¡¯s strong? Or maybe that she¡¯s fine without her left arm? For now, let¡¯s just go along with her plan. ¡°Fine fine. You win. We¡¯ll hunt more from this floor. You want¡­ maybe 25 before taking on the boss?¡± ¡°Huh? No. I need a real fight. Fifty.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s¡­ just start with 25¡­ maybe I¡¯ll talk you into starting small as we go.¡± ¡°Doubtful.¡± We cleared first to the exit Gateway, and then made our way around the floor. Reena scowled the whole time except when we encountered a group of three. She recklessly dove into the fray and started fighting. When I pointed Imp¡¯s Revenge to launch a fireball, she screamed at me to leave it to her. She finally got scratched. Maybe with this damage she¡¯ll calm down a bit. ¡°YOU THINK YOU PIG BASTARDS CAN HURT ME?!¡± She became enraged. She didn¡¯t toy with them anymore. She cut them down. End of story. In the end, I couldn¡¯t convince her to ease up on the Revenge gathering, and the best I could hope for was to ask if we could wait for Lola before taking on the fully powered General. But I ran out of time. She killed all fifty monsters on the floor. Reena remembered where the Gateway was, too, so I couldn¡¯t just not take her. I even tried, wrongly of course, to convince her that maybe we should wait for Lola just in case¡­ It didn¡¯t work. She raced back to the Gateway and jumped through without hesitation. I followed her. I was an idiot to allow it to come this far¡­ but hopefully I wasn¡¯t an idiot for trying to see it through. Ch. 12 -- "The Beginning" By time I had entered the boss room, Reena had already jumped up onto the raised platform and was sprinting at the Orc General. Or perhaps I should call it the ¡°Orc Giant¡±. It was enormous, standing twice as tall as the tiny Reena. It had a massive cleaver in one hand, and a massive two-handed greatsword in the other. ¡°Reena! Let¡¯s abandon this boss and come back another time! This is insane!¡± She ignored me, dodging at the last moment a crushing blow from the cleaver. The ground blew apart and bits of gravel hit me from forty yards away as it sunk a foot into the solid stone flooring. Reena turned her body and flicked her blade at the wrist of the Orc General, slicing a shallow line. It ignored the ¡®damage¡¯, swiftly pulled the axe from the ground, and swung the greatsword horizontally at the ant trying to fight it. Reena dove under the Orc General and rolled behind it. The greatsword hit only air. Turning with the momentum, the Orc General crushed the ground where Reena was standing with the cleaver again. She was slow to recover her balance from her roll and jumped back to avoid the blow. The explosion from the ground launched her backwards, with chunks of rock pelting her body. Her face was bloody. Seizing the opportunity, the Orc General pounced towards Reena with both weapons raised above its head. Swinging both down on her, Reena stood defiantly with only her small Janbiya protecting her. A blue blob with bat wings appeared in front of Reena and launched a huge cone of ice at the Orc General¡¯s face. Trying to protect itself with its weapons, it hit them together instead and missed both Reena and the ¡®Ice Lance¡¯. Reena steeled herself, diving at the Orc General and trying to slice the tendons behind its right knee. Her cut is still a bit shallow, but it is enough to bleed. The orc starts favoring its left leg and tries swinging at both Reena and Guppy. Guppy flies above the greatsword¡¯s arc, gracefully avoiding the attack. Reena falls flat to her stomach as the cleaver passes where her neck was. She scrambles to get back underneath the Orc General and cuts again on the right knee¡¯s tendons. The monster roars in pain as it falls to the ground. ¡°Get some distance and let¡¯s regroup! If it can¡¯t move, we can blast it with the Ice Lance and Fireballs!¡± ¡°It might be able to heal! We have to kill it now!¡± She ignored me and dove in. Even emotional this is¡­ unreasonable. One hit from this guy and Reena would be in pieces. How¡¯s this then? I pour MP into both Imp¡¯s Revenge and Guppy, launching volleys of ice and fire at the boss from two different directions. The magical onslaught forced Reena to jump back away from the boss. She turned her back on the boss and came towards me, shouting in anger. I couldn¡¯t hear what she was saying because I was at the same time screaming at her to watch out. The boss, in between explosions of ice and fire, had turned the blade of the greatsword and pointed it at Reena¡¯s back. Fire ran along the blade and a huge ball of flame appeared on the tip. When the magic released, it was too late that the Orc General turned to light. It was too late for her to even dodge, since the spell was too fast and too close to simply skip out of the way of. There wasn¡¯t even enough time to take her body to the cathedral to have it resurrected, despite having two hours from the moment of death to bring her back. Resurrection would surely require the body. Of Reena¡¯s, nothing remained except a Jambiya and a Hachigane. I collected her weapon, headband, and the greatsword the boss dropped and stashed them all in the Time Vault with my 29815 leet. Activate Anchor Moment! I thought hard about the moment before we started the boss fight. Feeling nothing different, I pressed on. Overcharging with 3000 MP from the Slime Battery, I dropped it in the Time vault too and dismissed the spell. Activate Recall Moment! . .This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. . I was up in the sky, falling from an incredible height. Except¡­ I felt no resistance and couldn¡¯t hear the rush of air as I flew past. It was almost like the sky and ground were rapidly moving upward, and I was standing still in the air. In front of me, standing solidly on a cloud that wasn¡¯t rising with the rest, was a young boy with a chilly bowl cut and t-shirt that said ¡°It¡¯s unfair how much cuter I am than your kids.¡± He was smiling at me, his smile growing broader the longer I looked at him. ¡°Time will soon catch up to us, you know. When it does, it¡¯s best we¡¯ve finished our business or you may be flattened. You should pick a class for living in my game world.¡± ¡°Eh?¡± ¡°I¡¯m just messing with you! You Recalled all the way back to the time we first met? That was a good idea!¡± ¡°I just tried to redo the boss fight¡­ why am I here?¡± ¡°Oh, the second activation of ¡®Anchor Moment¡¯ failed because it had already set a destination from the first time you cast it. You were thinking of this moment, weren¡¯t you?¡± Maybe? That was days ago¡­ or was it actually a few minutes in the future? ¡°In all seriousness though, you really don¡¯t have a class right now, since you came back in time before I gave you the class. What were you thinking you¡¯d want this time?¡± Huh?! ¡°With your really high MP and INT you could go caster class and nuke things.¡± If I really started over my stats should be garbage. Activate Analyze! Oh wait¡­ I shouldn¡¯t have skill that ye¡­ The analyze screen popped up in front of me. [Name: Kyuu Class: Level 1 Dude EXP : 0/10 Age: 15 (30) HP: 95 MP: 300 STR: 28 AGI: 31 VIT: 27 INT: 66 MND: 66 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Time Vault (20 MP/Minute), Time Cottage (1000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute)] ¡­ Really Enigma¡­ someone without a class is ¡®Dude¡¯¡­ ¡°Since my stats and spells are all still there, I want a class that can fight with both melee and magic. To be honest, that whole mechanic felt pretty dumb.¡± Enigma smiled. ¡°You don¡¯t want to be a Sword King like Brinly?¡± ¡°No¡­ though his skills were amazing, I was getting pretty bored down there anyway. I¡¯d hate to be completely broken and still have 50 floors of easy enemies to go through. I was hoping for something that can cast spells¡­ but also use a sword. But also something that can evolve and learn more skills. Any ideas?¡± ¡°Bored huh? Well, just one. In return, tell me the rest of your thoughts on my world?¡± ¡°Eh¡­ I thought it was pretty bland. The buildings and decorations all look the same. There are hardly any people there, and they mostly just stand in place all day long. The city isn¡¯t really designed well either. If it ever rained there, the streets would flood and the guild district is just total garbage. There were like 80 identical buildings there, and no trainees either. Just exactly one master of a class, and nothing else. Finally, the dungeon itself is pretty bad. All the floors are procedurally generated maps with the same walls, floors, and ceilings. The only exception was the pillbug floor because they could move through the dirt walls, and I guess the first floor because the slimes could fall from above. The leveling mechanics are a little off too, since the experience gains increased by 100 exp per floor, whereas experience required to level up was only increased by 50 per level. That doesn¡¯t include the boss exp, which is probably why the girls and I way out leveled the dungeon.¡± Enigma took a thoughtful pose. ¡°So you¡¯re thinking a leveled enemy structure? If you are level 50, you fight level 50. If you are level 1, you fight level 1?¡± ¡°No¡­ I played that game before, and there is no real feeling of accomplishment there either. I¡¯d always prefer to play the start over and over again because the leveling was more fun than fighting the high-level enemies with the same high leveled skills over and over.¡± ¡°I see¡­ and what about classes?¡± ¡°Too rigid, I think. Like I said, I prefer leveling to max level playing. If there was some bonus to leveling other classes, it would be a nice change from the duldrums. You know, you level thief to 25 and you get to keep a steal skill and one agility for every five gained. Something like that.¡± ¡°Maybe try balancing the leveling first, before making a change like that...¡± ¡°Enigma, the city is about to hit us. Anything else?¡± ¡°No, I¡¯m good for now. I know where to find you. Hexblade.¡± The city was now around 1000 yards away, and it was flying towards me rapidly. I was going to be hit first by what appeared to be a huge coliseum type building without a roof. Right as the floor was about to collide with me, a white light enveloped me, and I was standing firmly on the stone floor of the coliseum. A large balding man quickly strode up to me and thrust a mechanical collar at my throat. I grabbed his wrist and twisted it back towards his own throat. It wrapped around and locked into place. The man frowned at me in terror. ¡°Second time¡¯s the charm, eh Ian? Go fight in the labyrinth.¡± With just a moment I could already tell. The world had become much more beautiful. Ch. 13 -- "Solo Play" Unfortunately, putting the collar on Ian did nothing. Since he owed no debt, he immediately tore it off. He did throw a punch at me, but my stats were so high I was able to avoid it and punch him in the diaphragm. If he had used a skill from the Brawler class I might not have been able to do anything, but since he didn¡¯t he lost to my AGI and STR. He fell to his knees, gasping for air. Since I couldn¡¯t free them by becoming their owner, I called out my time vault and took everything out. Before I could gift my leet to the girls, however, an unarmed, hachigane wearing Lola had already traded enough to the two-armed Reena to pay off her debt and both pulled their collars off. ¡°Oh Kyuu¡­ your time wizard powers are SUPER cool. Reena even got her arm back!¡± ¡°Lola¡­ what are you talking about? Where did you get all that money?!¡± ¡°Haven¡¯t figured it out Reena? I went back in time!¡± ¡°How do you know our names?¡± Reena asked seriously. ¡°Eh!?¡± ¡°Did your magic not affect the whole party? I thought it was strange I had to give her money to pay off the debt.¡± ¡°Ah¡­ Lola¡­ Reena wasn¡¯t with me when I transferred. Come to think of it¡­ what were you doing? How do you remember?¡± ¡°Dunno. After I evolved my class, I was crazy sleepy so I went back to the inn. The cottage door was still there, so I slept in the big bed. When I came out of the door, the next thing I knew I was standing here watching this scene play out.¡± Maybe the cottage is in a separate time-space? I handed the Imp¡¯s Revenge back to Lola. I also handed Reena her equipment, which she took with a look of shock on her face. Finally, I appraised the greatsword the boss dropped. [Great Prismblade (+25 Piercing/Slashing/Blocking, Imbue: Elementary Magics) Oh! That¡¯s great! I guess that¡¯s the difference between the second floor drops and the eleventh. Still though, my best haul was on the first floor boss for some reason. ¡°Oi! Kyuu! What the heck happened here?!¡± Lola called out to me in a panic from the edge of the summoning arena. I walked to her and took a look at the cityscape before me. Her confusion was completely warranted. After all, the entire city had changed to become beautiful. Every building had something unique about it, there was a variety of decorations instead of the same rehashed potted plant over and over, and even the layout of the city changed. I don¡¯t know how I didn¡¯t notice it while falling from the sky, but the castle sat at the top of a huge hill, with a cliff over a huge lake behind it. Going doing the hill there were huge, beautiful mansions with large front yards or gardens in front of them. Then there were the regular houses and inns, which had different color roofs and even shapes. Their gardens were much smaller, but still unique to each house. After that was where we were currently standing. There was the summoning colosseum, shops, restaurants, and the Gateway. Down the hill further was a variety of warehouse sized complexes with sometimes buildings, sometimes fields before a small house, or even just rows of beehive shaped smelters and forges. Finally, the biggest change? There were people. Thousands upon thousands of them. Some of the guilds had over a thousand disciples in rows practicing their forms or slinging spells about. The bazaar was no longer a drab expanse with the same fifty people standing perfectly still waiting for you to buy their wares or kebabs. It was bright, colorful, and overwhelmingly busy. At the Gateway, there was a line to enter the labyrinth with various groups yelling out ¡®one more damage dealer!¡¯ or ¡®we need a healer!¡¯. I guess Enigma took my recommendations to heart¡­ though how did he do that so quickly? He only had like¡­ five seconds after we stopped talking. Well, this is the power of a god we¡¯re talking about. ¡°Lola, Reena, I¡¯d like to go test out my new class, so I¡¯m going to go into the labyrinth by myself. Want to meet back here in three hours? You could try to powerlevel Reena while I¡¯m gone?¡± ¡°Ah¡­ no point. We might only encounter five or six enemies in that time period, and we¡¯ll certainly get too lost to come back in only three hours. We¡¯ll wait until you¡¯re finished here. With your mapping we¡¯ll level way faster.¡± ¡°You¡¯re really going to need to explain what is going on, Lola.¡± ¡°Ah! That should take a couple hours. For starters¡­ I¡¯m a level 17 Galaxy Mage now¡­¡± I walked towards the Gateway as Reena about pooped herself hearing level ¡®17¡¯. The line seemed like it wasn¡¯t moving at all from afar, but as soon as I got in it, it seemed to start back up. I was half expecting a quest notification to pop up and tell me I had to do something to use the Gateway. Ah! Quests! I¡¯ll have to tell Enigma we need those next time. Or a bounty board, or missions, or an adventurer¡¯s guild or something. There is no point to this game right now other than exp, leet, and loot.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. When it was my turn to enter the Gateway, I called out for the eleventh floor. The orcs were the last enemies I had encountered, so they were freshest in my memory. Besides, they give 21 exp a kill. I only need 10 right now to level. 1050 exp was needed for level 7, and I can get exactly that amount after clearing the floor. Though I did complain about the difficulty, I wonder if Enigma tweaked that as well? When I entered the dungeon floor, I immediately opened my map. So far, the place looks the exact same. The beautification was only for the outerworld? There was a red dot somewhat nearby, so I ran to it, pulling out my shiny new greatsword. Oh! Did I get any new skills with the class? [Name: Kyuu Class: Level 1 Hexblade EXP : 1/10 Age: 15 (30) HP: 95 MP: 300 STR: 28 AGI: 31 VIT: 27 INT: 66 MND: 66 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Time Vault (20 MP/Minute), Time Cottage (1000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute), Elemental Cleave (10 MP) Equipment: Great Prismblade (+25 Piercing/Slashing/Blocking, Imbue: Elementary Magics), Slime Battery (800/5000 MP)] Elemental Cleave? I¡¯ll just have to try that out on the first enemy. I¡¯ll also need to experiment and figure out what the elementary magics are. Hopefully at least a fireball and a heal. Eh, I¡¯m sure Lola knows what they are. The orc was quite a bit meaner looking than what I remembered they looked like from an hour ago in the previous timeline. It was armed with a wicked looking hatchet and a buckler, with various bits of metal attached around its shins and chest. I summoned Guppy for backup and charged at the monster with glee in my heart. Despite what others might say, melee combat is a man¡¯s romance. That, and apparently having a harem in an alternate world... Or so I¡¯ve been told. The orc roared with spittle flying out towards me. I definitely don¡¯t remember them doing anything like this before¡­ maybe Reena just took them out too quickly for me to ever notice¡­? There is something important to note about this coming sword fight. Despite years of playing video games that have swordsman in them, I am not also a swordsman. Who would have thought, right? But, I was hoping with my high stats and my Guppy backup, the monster would fall to me without me getting injured. I was¡­ slightly mistaken. As it turns out, a level 1 swordsman is no match at all for an orc from the eleventh floor. I might have the stats of a level 17 spell caster, but I wasn¡¯t trying to win by casting spells. Melee combat is a man¡¯s romance, remember? Charging forward, I slashed heavily over my head at the orc. It raised the buckler above its head and tilted its arm so that the greatsword glanced off at an angle. My nonexistent stance already broken, the orc buried its ax into my thigh. Screaming in pain, I had Guppy blast the orc with four ice lances and then follow up with an imp-pale. As it turns out, an orc from the eleventh floor is no match at all for a level 1 Slime powered up with a level 17 spellcaster¡¯s stats. You¡¯ve gotta be frickin kidding!! ¡°Come on¡­ be able to heal!¡± Activate Heal! Holding the Great Prismblade in one hand, and holding my other hand over the wound on my leg, I activated the heal spell and felt relief wash over me. Good, apparently ¡®heal¡¯ is considered an elementary magic. Of course, what is even the point of having an HP stat if I just get crippled everytime I get hit? My HP had dropped down to 13/95, but I only ever felt pain in my leg¡­ this is more realistic than game-like, given that I¡¯d quickly bleed to death with a wound like that in the real world. I healed myself two more times and looked at my stats again. I got¡­ 100 exp!? From one mob? Did I get more for soloing? Or is the orc just way stronger this time? I leveled up twice from just one monster! I looked at my map and found another nearby enemy. Guppy and I rush over to it and nuked it with icelances and fireballs before getting too close. Once it was staggered from the damage, I activated Elemental Cleave and sliced it in half with what appeared to be a frozen, flaming, stone reinforced lightning bolt. There was no resistance. Leveling again, I realized the needed amount of experience was higher than before to reach level 5. Before it was 300, but now it was 400. Ah, I guess that was enigma¡¯s balancing change¡­ now, why did I get 100 exp from one monster when before it always gave 21? Noting my MP was about half gone, Guppy and I rushed to the nearest red dots on the map. There were two together, so Guppy and I nuked them to submission before I charged in and stabbed them for the killing blow. They weren¡¯t able to offer up any resistance. Having only about 40 MP left, I topped myself off with the Slime Battery, and rushed to the next group of enemies. Following this pattern, Guppy and I eliminated another 12 orcs before I ran out of MP and emptied the slime battery of charge. I dismissed Guppy and made my way back to the Gateway. The whole process took around 45 minutes, and I leveled back up to 8, learning a new skill called ¡®Channel Elements¡¯ that cost 15 MP per minute, and getting much higher stats for the effort. Sitting now at 360 MP, I regenerated 6 MP a minute, which was twice the required amount to have Guppy summoned. The drawback, if you could call it one, was that I now needed 600 more exp to level, which was way more than what was originally required to level up to 9. Reena and Lola were sitting at a nearby caf¨¦ enjoying some drinks while various groups of adventurers would come bother them and ask Lola to join their party. Apparently, someone overheard she was a level 17 Galaxy Mage and the news spread around like wild fire. After all, if a 14 year old girl was already that high leveled, she was probably some sort of genius. Or¡­ she level grinded for a week with the main character of an RPG, and her strength now defies logic. World ending cutscene magic spells are definitely in that girl¡¯s future. ¡°So¡­ I think the monsters are a little tougher than before, but they give way more exp. I need more to level now though, so¡­ I¡¯m not sure how easy it¡¯ll be to level now. The orcs on level 11 give 100 exp a kill.¡± ¡°You¡­ you fought by yourself on the eleventh floor? How is that even possible?¡± ¡°Eh? Is that really so impressive? You basically soloed the entire floor yourself in my last timeline. I only got like 16 kills in the past 45 minutes. You took out all 50 in two hours.¡± ¡°What!? You found 16 monsters in 45 minutes? That¡¯s an insane encounter rate!!¡± ¡°I told you, Reena. It was worth waiting for him to come back.¡± ¡°Eheheh¡­ I guess so. I totally doubted you.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s take a rest, and charge up my MP, as well as the Slime Battery. Then, when we¡¯re ready, let¡¯s go wreck some monster.¡± [Name: Kyuu Class: Level 8 Hexblade EXP : 1600/2200 Age: 15 (30) HP: 150 MP: 360 STR: 45 AGI: 45 VIT: 40 INT: 75 MND: 75 Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Time Vault (20 MP/Minute), Time Cottage (1000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute), Elemental Cleave (10 MP), Channel Elements (15 MP/Minute) Equipment: Great Prismblade (+25 Piercing/Slashing/Blocking, Imbue: Elementary Magics), Slime Battery (0/5000 MP)] Ch. 14 -- "This always happens!" The next week took no time at all. Literally. Kyuu would diligently level in the labyrinth, pushing his way as high up as he could go in the time it took him to learn all of the skills pertaining to whatever class he was, then he¡¯d reset the time back to his ¡®birth¡¯ in this world. Though he was a level 1, he had the stat gains from over a hundred level ups, as well as over twenty class skills. Reena and Lola had leveled to over forty, and spent their spare time charging the slime battery while Kyuu and Guppy rolled through each floor, maxing out the revenge before obliterating the boss. It didn¡¯t matter how strong a max revenge floor boss was if Kyuu could just chain cast high grade spells without fear of ever running out of MP. They got loads of weapons, armor, trinkets, and especially Leet. It was also tedious, and Kyuu had come to hate this game. No matter how many times he met with Enigma, he always had more changes to make to the game world in the hopes of making it more fun. But at the end of the day, how can any game be fun without challenge? It didn¡¯t matter how many quest giving NPC¡¯s were created, how many scripted events took place, or how many customizations he could make to his equipment, once you were OP, there was no more joy to the game. Just mindlessness. Kyuu was really just grinding out the floors in the hopes that there would be a big boss fight and he could finally wake up from his dream. All it took was one simple miss use of a game mechanic and Kyuu went from being an ¡®in the way cartographer¡¯, to being a totally game-breaking ¡®facerolling dungeon slaying demon¡¯. Of course, the mapping skill was game-breaking to begin with, and it was an inevitability that Kyuu would become rich and powerful while using it. Without it, dungeon crawling would have been a miserable slog. With it, dungeon crawling lost all value and feeling of accomplishment. There was also no one to share his achievements with, since everyone in the game, Reena and Lola included, were just figments of his dream. He had decided that they were created by him because they remind him of his nieces. Really, all they did was make him miss his real family. ¡°So in conclusion, I want to wake up. How do I do that, Enigma?¡± ¡°Eh?! Even after all the changes I made, you still are bored? You want to leave my beautiful game world?¡± ¡°Sword fighting has been fun and all, but its not like its real. The monsters always move the exact same way, I¡¯m way over-tuned, and my skills mostly bisect whatever they hit. Magic is cool too, but there is no downside for me to constantly use my most powerful spells, I didn¡¯t even have to earn them in a meaningful way, and my passive abilities make me almost indestructible with too high of resistances to status effects and outrageous regeneration of both health and MP.¡± ¡°So¡­ it¡¯s your fault?¡± ¡°Yes. I¡¯ve ruined the game for myself. Tell me how to wake up.¡± ¡°On the fiftieth floor, behind the boss is a portal that takes you to the final encounter. After you clear that, you get the choice to start the game over again with all of your collected items, skills, money, and experience.¡± ¡°I already do that!¡± ¡°True. Or, you can start over without all that and just replay through the story.¡± ¡°There is no story to speak of! It¡¯s just a grind!¡± ¡°Finally, you can give yourself a pat on the back for finishing the game, and then never come back to this world again. Unless I make another one in the same continuity of course. You have to invest your time beating that game too.¡± ¡°I think you might be the worst.¡± ¡°You could always just choose to wake up.¡± ¡°Ugh¡­ you know I can¡¯t do that. I¡¯ve put in too much time and effort to just leave this world without wrecking the final boss and showering in all the sweet, pointless-at-this-point, loot.¡± ¡°Pointless!? The final boss¡¯ loot is amazing! It¡¯s not pointless at all! You could farm the final boss for months before running out of new stuff to drop.¡±The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡°Is there another enemy even stronger than the final boss?¡± ¡°Eh¡­ not right now? There could be! Just say the word!¡± ¡°No need. What floor is the final boss on?¡± ¡°Fifty.¡± ¡°I just cleared 40 before I came here. Do I really need to clear 10 more floors?¡± ¡°The final push might seem tedious to you, but if you had played my game properly from the beginning than it would be enjoyably difficult. On the 39th floor boss, there was a neat mechanic where the boss would, after about 15 seconds, change colors based on their elemental affinity and if you hit them with the same element that they were, they¡¯d heal health. But no, you strolled in, and shot fireballs at the poor thing like you were a mounted minigun, completely destroying the boss before any mechanics could be realized.¡± ¡°First off¡­ I didn¡¯t know that boss did that. Second, really? An elemental roulette boss and you called it ¡®neat¡¯? Every rpg has that boss in it, and it has never been fun. It¡¯s just a slightly, and I really want to emphasize ¡®slight¡¯ here, slightly more irritating boss than the other simpler fights.¡± ¡°You only think that because you only ever fight bosses after you¡¯ve level grinded things to being too easy! If you¡¯d fight them lower level then it would be different!¡± ¡°Not really¡­ at any rate, get the final boss ready. I¡¯m going to go sweep these last 10 floors.¡± Fortunately, since the exp given to a level 1 on the 40th floor was enough to level to 25, Kyuu just reset the day after each floor. Kyuu¡¯s agility had gotten so high, that each floor was completed in around 20 minutes, while he and the girls could rapidly charge the battery to reset again. Within 10 hours of experienced time (zero hours of actual time), the last ten floors had been cleared. Standing before Enigma before leaving the challenge the final boss, Kyuu didn¡¯t request any changes. He just stood silently. ¡°So you¡¯re actually going to fight the final boss. After hundreds of level ups and learned skills, you have the strength to kill the boss in a matter of seconds. Was it really worth it after all this time?¡± ¡°Not especially. But it was a decent time while it lasted. I have one last surprise for you personally, Enigma.¡± ¡°Eh? For me? What surprise would that be. You¡¯ve already broken the game.¡± ¡°True¡­ but since I¡¯m already here, I¡¯m going to show you how a troll beats a game like this. I¡¯m going to properly utilize a mechanic that you put in place for me¡­ that has nothing really to do with me¡­ and completely faceroll the final boss without lifting a finger.¡± ¡°Ugh. Fine. Show me.¡± Enigma waves his hand in a shooing gesture while the ground continues to fly up at them. First thing to do was to allow the prick Ian to actually put the collar on Kyuu. Then, immediately, Kyuu paid the debt off and removed the previously mentioned collar. Walking off, Reena and Lola follow behind, also removing their collars and throwing them into a pile next to Ian. Tomorrow morning, Ian would be a rich guy. Unfortunately for him, tomorrow the world wouldn¡¯t exist anymore. Like usual, when the party entered the portal, Kyuu summoned his faithful slime companion Guppy. This floor was a little different than usual, though. It was only a short hallway of thirty feet before coming to the boss door. Kyuu walked up to the door, and stopped before opening it. ¡°Seems kinda anti-climactic, doesn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Yeah¡­ we haven¡¯t done anything in like a week. Big brother just one-shots everything. What¡¯s the point of even coming to the last boss?¡± ¡°To be honest, even I don¡¯t need to go to fight the boss.¡± ¡°Eh? You don¡¯t mean to have us fight do you? Our stats and strength are very conventional. We couldn¡¯t duo the final boss¡­¡± ¡°Huh? No no no¡­ we three won¡¯t be fighting. Guppy will.¡± ¡°That¡¯s stupid Kyuu. Guppy is still a level 1 slime. Even with its thirty different moves it won¡¯t be able to help.¡± ¡± You¡¯re right. Guppy is level 1. Since I always have him out while I clear floors, he gets bonus exp for fighting enemies far stronger than him¡­ without ever leveling. He was getting around 12000 exp a kill on the fiftieth floor.¡± Reena and Lola just stared at me blankly. ¡°Introducing! The one! The only! The totally OP! GUPPY!¡± Guppy jiggled a little in acknowledgement. ¡°This plan seems really poorly thought out.¡± ¡°Nonsense. Guppy is level 99, with my stats boosting him to well over that. The MP drain is pretty stupid though, so let¡¯s go kill a boss, eh?¡± Kyuu opened the door, pointing forward into the darkness with only one command. ¡°Sic em, Guppy!¡± ================================== Morning came, and it was much like any other. My children sneezed in my face and kneed me in the groin while ¡®climbing¡¯ on me until I got out of bed and made me play with them. My wife, laughing at my plight since she had gotten up an hour earlier with them, asked me if I slept well. ¡°Not especially? I feel like I had a pretty violent dream¡­ but I don¡¯t remember any of it. I¡¯m not very rested, to be honest. Thanks for letting me sleep in though!¡± I gave her a peck on the cheek before sitting down on the floor and rolled a ball back and forth with my three year old. My one year old would occasionally cry out in happiness and head butt me with a hug, interrupting the game. Being cute can get you away with anything in this house. I do love my family.