ă€ŠThe Morality System - [A LitRPG Progression Fantasy]ă€‹


 Chapter 1: The Morality System

    I looked at the eye sitting in my lap. My eye. Was sitting in my lap. I looked up at my captors. It was two boys I had taken off the streets because they needed a place to stay for the night.

    There was a lightning storm out and I didn''t want them to die. I fed them dinner and gave them dry clothes. They waited until I fell asleep in my chair to bash me on the head with a frying pan.

    "Where''s the money, old man?" The older one said.

    "There is no money!" I said for the dozenth time. "It''s all in the bank! I don''t keep any money at home."

    "Then give it to us out of the bank!" He said.

    The younger one looked scared and was holding a knife aimed at me.

    "All I can do is transfer it right now. Do you have a bank account I can transfer it to?" I said.

    "No," the older one said.

    "Then how am I supposed to give you money?" I said.

    "Just give us your wallet!" The older one said.

    I handed him my wallet.

    "Kill him," the older one said.

    Before I had time to react, the younger one stabbed me in the stomach. I grabbed his hands to pull it out, but he was surprisingly strong or I was just that weak. I was an older man and I wasn''t very strong anymore.

    Instead of pulling it out, he dragged the knife down, cutting through my insides. I screamed in pain, but the older one punched me in the face. I kept screaming and he kept punching me until things started to get dark. Then it was lights out.

    I felt myself floating in an empty dark space. I couldn''t see or feel anything, but I could think. I thought about my life. My whole life, I had trusted people I shouldn''t have and they betrayed me. Over and over again.

    I tried to be smarter. I tried to determine which people were trustworthy, but somehow I always chose wrong. I knew there were good people. I would see them on the news or at the grocery store when people helped me take groceries to my car.

    It was just that when I chose someone to get close to or allowed myself to be vulnerable around someone, they took advantage of me. This was the last one in a long line of betrayals.

    No one had ever tried to kill me before, but they had tried to rob me and beat me up. They had framed me for crimes I didn''t commit. They had ditched their drugs or stolen items in my car, so I would take the blame.

    I was tired of this. Too tired. If I ever got a chance to live again through reincarnation or something, I wouldn''t let people take advantage of me. I wouldn''t get picked on kicked around beaten down or killed. Anyone who tried something on me would pay.

    I was done with my always obeying the law bullshit or always turning the other cheek. If someone hurt me, I''d hurt them worse. I didn''t deserve any of the things that happened to me in my life. If another person betrays me, they deserve to be punished, not just get away with it.

    A bright light suddenly blinded me. I blinked and looked down to try to get my vision back. My vision cleared and I was standing in the middle of a medieval road.

    I stood there, disoriented, until a horse-drawn carriage bore down on me. The driver said, "Hey kid, get out of the road!"

    I dove out of the way and landed in the dirt. I got up and brushed myself off. I looked down at myself and realized I was wearing peasant clothes. I was also young again.

    My skin was smooth and free of wrinkles. I had muscle tone, but not overly so. I estimated I was 21 years old. I checked my pockets for a wallet or identification but found nothing.

    I tried to see if I could remember anything from my host body. That was how these things worked right? If you ended up in a fully grown body, that meant someone had already lived that body''s life until now.

    So I should have memories of the person who lived here before, but nothing came to my mind. Great. I was wearing peasant clothes, I had no money and no identification and I was covered in dirt. I looked like a homeless person.

    I walked around to explore and see if there was anything I could find that could help me, but eventually, I got hungry. I saw a bakery nearby, so I wandered into it, from the smell of fresh bread.

    I walked into the shop and looked around. It had a very homey feel to it. The ovens were out and in view of the customer, so you could smell the bread baked and there was a nice warmth coming from the ovens.

    "Get out of here!" The baker said. "No free bread! Can''t you read the sign?"

    "What sign?" I hadn''t seen a sign outside.

    The baker pulled a sign from behind the counter and pushed it in my face. It read, "No Free Bread!"

    "How am I supposed to see that? It was behind your counter!" I said. With his hand so close to my face, I couldn''t help but notice the blood under his fingernails. That was weird. Why would a baker have blood under his fingernails?

    "Why do you have blood under your fingernails?" I said.

    He got a confused look on his face, then he looked at his hands. "You know what, I cut my leg this morning pretty badly. That must have happened when I was bandaging it.

    [Requirements met to activate the Morality System!]

    [Talent activated: Soul Inquiry]

    [Soul Inquiry: The ability to ask another soul any question you desire and it will answer honestly. Language gained: Soul Speak. Soul speak is activated with your soul, not your mouth]

    ''What is the Morality System?'' I thought.

    [The Morality System was designed by [redacted] for the purpose of [redacted] to be used by Tom Ketchup. It allows the user to determine the morality of others in relation to their own. Soul Inquiry is just one in a long list of talents and skills that will become available to Tom Ketchup]Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

    ''What kind of name is Tom Ketchup? That''s not my name. My name isˇ­ my name isˇ­''

    What was my name? I couldn''t remember it. Why couldn''t I remember my name?

    [Your full name is actually Tom Ato Ketchup. You are the first of your name and your generation and your line]

    ''Wait. Wouldn''t that mean I don''t have any relatives? Meaning no parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, or cousins?''

    [Yes. You have no relatives]

    ''Doesn''t that mean I was created from nothing? Like I wasn''t even born. I just didn''t exist and then I did.''

    [Yes. That is exactly what that means]

    ''Ok. Then can I use this Soul Inquiry thing now?''

    [You may. Simply think the question at your target to activate]

    ''Ok. Why do you have blood under your fingernails?'' I thought at the man.

    ''The bitch downstairs tried to get away this morning, so I had to be rough with her. It must have happened then.'' The soul responded.

    [Evil Detection System Activated: Hey this guy is evil]

    ''You think?'' I thought to the system

    ''Thank you for telling me that, you awful awful person.'' I thought to his soul.

    ''You''re welcome, you homeless loser.'' His soul said.

    ''How charming.'' I thought.

    This Soul Inquiry ability was amazing! I could achieve all the things I wanted to achieve in my previous life. I could determine who was a good person, and their intentions. I could learn everything about that and they wouldn''t even know!

    All that excitement aside, I now had a job to do. I needed to kill this evil baker and save the woman locked in his basement. And I knew what I had to do. I turned around and locked the door. I turned the open sign to closed. I turned down the lights to make it dark in the shop. The only light came in through the glass on the front door.

    "Why are you closing my shop? Is this a robbery?" The baker said.

    "You didn''t get the blood the way you said. You have a woman locked in your basement and I won''t allow that," I said, gritting my teeth.

    "Maybe I do. What do you think you''re going to do about it? Kill me?" He said. He grabbed a knife from behind the counter. "I''ll just add you to the pile."

    "I''m going to kill you if it''s the last thing I do. Scum like you doesn''t deserve to live." I said.

    I didn''t know what I was doing. I had never fought anyone before. I had been in fights, but it was always me just getting beaten up or mugged. Regardless, I wasn''t afraid. I was doing the right thing.

    If he killed me, so be it. As long as I got to kill him too. Then I would know justice was served.

    I walked around the counter. The baker charged me, roaring with rage. I tried to catch his wrist before he stabbed me.

    [Hidden Skill Activated: Counter Evil]

    [Counter Evil: A perfect counter to attacks from evil people]

    I grabbed his wrist, twisted it, and pushed down on the flat side of the knife, knocking it out of his hand. The knife clattered to the floor. The baker''s eyes widened, but then they got angry.

    "I don''t know how you did that, but you''re still going to die!" He said. He pushed me and I tripped and fell.

    ''System, why didn''t my counter activate?''

    [The skill has a 10-second cool down]

    ''God damn it!''

    The baker put his hands around my throat and started to choke me. I punched at him wildly.

    [Hidden Skill Activated: Auto Crit on Evil]

    [Auto Crit on Evil: Delivers an automatic critical hit against Evildoers]

    I watched my fist redirect itself in the air to punch the baker right in the throat. He began to struggle to breathe.

    I pushed him off me and he fell over onto his back. I got up and watched as he continued to struggle to breathe, but then he recovered. He got up and rushed at me again. He tried to punch me.

    [Counter Evil Activated]

    I sidestepped his punch, grabbed his arm, and used his momentum to flip him and throw him onto his back.

    "When I finally get my hands on you, I''m going to torture you, just like I tortured her. Except this time, it''ll be personal," he said, from the ground.

    He started to get up, but this was the end of the line for him. I''d seen enough of who this man truly was, to know the world would be a better place without him.

    In my past life, I might have shown mercy and just called the police, but calling the authorities now would just end in my arrest and him getting away with his crimes.

    I couldn''t rely on the law to do what I knew needed to be done. I would have to do it myself. I lined up my foot and kicked at his head.

    [Auto Crit on Evil activated]

    My foot redirected from going toward his cheek to going toward his temple. My shoe made an impact with a sickening thud. His body rolled over from the force, and he didn''t get up. I checked his pulse with my fingers. He was dead.

    [You have defeated evil!]

    [Wait for reward]

    ''What the fuck? This is so weird.'' I thought. I had just killed a man and I was getting rewarded for it. But then again, this is what I wanted. Power. Power over my own life. Power over my own survival. And the freedom to never be taken advantage of again. I smiled. I couldn''t wait to see what else this system could do.

    I snapped out of my reverie. Now wasn''t the time for daydreaming. Now was the time for action. And my next action was to free the woman in the basement.

    [Choose your rewards]

    [Chick Magnet: Women automatically think you''re charming and handsome]

    [or]

    [Bonds of Loyalty: Allows people to bind themselves in loyalty to you, so that no outside influence, including charms and mind control, can change their minds. However, your own actions can still lose their loyalty]

    [or]

    [Healing Presence: People around you gradually heal from past trauma and emotional wounds, while becoming more confident and self-actualized. They become less dependent on you, but still value your friendship]

    What were these choices? It''s obvious what the right choice is. Chick Magnet felt too much like mind control, and Healing Presence is something I''m convinced I already had in my past life. And look where it got me. Murdered.

    My meek and gentle nature allowed others to feel open to sharing their past traumas and troubles with me. They unloaded their emotional burdens onto me and it helped them heal and feel better, but then they would go on to live happy and fulfilled lives.

    And I would be left behind, with nothing in return, except other people''s horrible life experiences floating around in my head bringing me down and making me hate the world and the people in it.

    Chick Magnet would get me girls, albeit in an arguably unethical way, but what I needed most right now was loyal friends. People who would watch my back and help explain the world I now inhabited. Bonds of Loyalty, while certainly self-serving, would help me protect myself in this dangerous world with murderous bakers.

    ''I choose Bonds of Loyalty.''

    [Choice acknowledged. Bonds of Loyalty has been bestowed upon you. On to the next reward]

    ''Next reward?''

    [Bonus reward for defeating evil for the first time!]

    [Selfless Sufferer: The ability to take damage and pain from other people and suffer it yourself instead]

    [or]

    [Shared Suffering: The ability to share damage and pain among willing participants to reduce the amount dealt to the original individual who was hurt]

    [or]

    [Transfer Suffering: The ability to transfer your damage and pain onto another person, other than your attacker or attackers]

    Hmm. This one was a little harder. Obviously, Transfer Suffering was the best for me, but what if in this life, unlike in my last life, I developed actual friends? I mean Manifest Dependency almost guaranteed loyal friendship. Why would I intentionally hurt people loyal to me?

    That just seemed wrong. I would have to go with Shared Suffering. I certainly wasn''t going with Selfless Sufferer. That was my past life all over again. That path betrayed me, so I won''t choose it again. That would be stupid.

    ''I choose Shared Suffering.''

    [Very well. Shared Suffering has been granted]

    Ok, that was the neutral option.

    [Additional bonus reward for developing an aura and choosing a side rather than picking a neutral option]

    [Transparent Heart: People can always tell if you''re telling the truth or if you''re lying. Makes your truth more convincing and your lies less so]

    [Clear Communication: People always understand exactly what you''re trying to say. They never misinterpret your words]

    [Absolute Sincerity: Everyone believes that you believe what you''re telling them, whether it''s the truth or a lie. Can be used to convince people of lies or convince them you''re a crazy person]

    Again, the "good" option was just something I had in my previous life. People always believed me when I told the truth, but no one believed me when I lied. None of these "good" options had been very good for me in my previous life. Why would they be good here?

    The obvious choice was Absolute Sincerity. It gave me the option to lie if I needed to, but the ability to tell the truth convincingly as well. I would probably use the truth more often than not, but if I were in a sticky situation against bad people, what''s wrong with lying to them?

    ''I choose Absolute Sincerity.''

    [Choice granted. Dark aura increased by 20 points.]

    What? Dark Aura increased? Is it saying I chose an evil option? I''m just trying to protect myself. How is that fair?

    [Developing a dark aura is not necessarily bad, Tom. Dark auras make it easier to intimidate and control people, submissive people find you attractive as a potential leader, they make you appear strong, they make criminals more likely to talk with you, give you better prices from scared merchants, give you access to dark quests, and gives you respect from other people with dark aura''s]

    ''Hmm. Interesting. It essentially gives me power over other people, rather than giving other people power over me like it was in my previous life. I''m ok with that.''

    Now that I had chosen my rewards, it was time to deal with the baker. I dragged his body behind the counter so no one could see even if they pressed their face up against the glass.

    Then I checked him for personal belongings. He had a set of keys and a coin pouch. I put them in my pockets. I walked around looking for an entrance to a basement. I didn''t see one immediately.

    It might have been hidden under something like a carpet or rug so people didn''t think to go down there for any reason. I checked under the rugs. There were rugs everywhere in this guy''s bakery. After the dozenth rug, I finally found the basement hatch.

    It had a lock on it. I pulled the keys out of my pocket. I started trying keys until one of them worked on the lock and I opened the basement.

    Then I realized something. I had never looked at my system status. Everyone always looked at their status in these kinds of stories.

    ''Status.''

    [Stats]

    [Name: Tom Ato Ketchup]

    [Age: 21]

    [Species: Human]

    [Strength: 100]

    [Agility: 100]

    [Stamina: 100]

    [Intelligence: 100]

    [Class: Unassigned]

    [Magical Potential: Unactivated]

    [Dark Aura: 40]

    [Bloodline: First of Line]

    [Active Skills: Soul Inquiry, Counter Evil, Auto Crit on Evil]

    [Passive Abilities: Bonds of Loyalty, Shared Suffering, Absolute Sincerity]

    Interesting. My stats were normal. I was 21. It tracked all the stuff I already knew and there was a little bit of stuff I didnˇŻt know about yet. It was a good status screen. I closed it, satisfied.

    I walked down a flight of steps into the basement. There were barrels, boxes, crates, and bags lying around the room, and against one of the walls was a woman chained to the ground.

    It was one of those bolts that had to be deliberately placed in the ground through hard work. So this wasn''t a spur-of-the-moment kidnapping. He had either been planning this one or he''d done this before.

    The woman had a gag over her mouth, but not a blindfold. When she saw me, she tried to scream.

 Chapter 2: A Princess Rescued

    "It''s okay. I''m here to rescue you. I killed the guy who abducted you. He didn''t do anything sexual to you did he?" I said.

    She shook her head no.

    "Ok. Good. Well, I''m going to undo this chain. I got the key off the guy," I said. "Please don''t attack me when I undo this."

    She nodded. I undid the locks on the chain to give slack and then I undid the shackles. She took off the shackles and rubbed her wrists.

    [Good Deed committed! You rescued a woman]

    [Rewards incoming]

    [Choose an ability]

    [Muscle Builder: Build muscles and strength 10 times as fast as a normal person]

    [or]

    [Team Builder: Members of your party get stronger in whatever they pursue 10 times faster]

    [or]

    [Experience Plunder: Gain 10% of all future experience and stat increases gained by everyone within a mile radius]

    Oh, I immediately knew which ability I was going to choose. Experience Plunder of course! Now this was the golden finger I was hoping for! Besides it''s just 10%. It''s not like people are losing that much, but I''m gaining immensely from it.

    ''I choose Experience Plunder.''

    [Skill granted. Dark aura increased by 20]

    ''Of course.''

    "Why would you save me? How did you even know I was down here?" she said.

    "He had blood under his fingernails. I questioned him about it and knew he was lying, so I figured he hurt someone. He admitted it when we were fighting when he thought he was about to win," I said, lying. I''m not going to tell her about my system. I''m not telling anyone about that.

    "Oh. So you actually fought and killed a man, just because you suspected and then knew that he had kidnapped someone? Are you crazy? What about your life? Your safety?" She said.

    "I didn''t really consider that. Besides there''s not much of a life to consider. I woke up in the middle of the street with no memory of who I was or how I got there, and I had no money. I was going to starve to death on the streets, so why not die for a cause?" I said.

    "You''re a weird one. But a helpful one. I thank you for this kindness. I will soon repay it," she said.

    "How?" I said, raising my eyebrow. "Please don''t try to repay me in sexual favors because that would make me deeply uncomfortable."

    "No! In money and honors," she said. "I am a princess after all. That''s why I was abducted in the first place. I''ll take you to meet my father and he''ll pay you handsomely and probably even give you an award!"

    "Oh! That sounds nice," I said, in an uncertain tone. That didn''t sound anything like the kings I read about in history. Kings didn''t reward people for good deeds. They put them in dungeons. "Are you sure that''s what he''ll do?"

    "Why wouldn''t he? You saved my life!" she said.

    "Because kings don''t usually reward peasants. At best they''ll just send you on your way and say thank you. At worst, they''ll put you in a dungeon or kill you," I said.

    "He would never do that!" She said.

    ''If he did, would you defend me, or would you just watch it happen?'' I asked her with Soul Inquiry.

    ''I would defend you!'' Her soul said.

    "Ok, let''s go then," I said.

    I realized this meant I had to follow her out. What I wanted to do was check the basement for a hidden stash of money the baker might have had, but the princess probably wouldn''t like that, and I needed to stay on her good side.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    "Ok," she said. "I''ll follow you out."

    I showed her the way out. I put the body of the baker behind the counter. She shuddered when looking at it. I opened the front door and let her out, and then locked it behind me.

    She guided me this time. We went up a series of stairs and through a series of gates which always let her through once they realized who she was. We made our way to the castle at the top of the hill, overlooking the city.

    The guards tried to stop us at first because they didn''t recognize who she was. They just thought she was some dirty homeless peasant, but when she raised her voice at them and called them by name, they let us through.

    When we got to the throne room, she ran up to the king sitting in his throne and hugging him. She talked with him a bunch. I stayed back so I couldn''t hear much but from what I could hear, she just told him what happened and how I''d saved her.

    "Sir, what is your name?" The king said when he addressed me. He leaned forward and put an elbow on one knee.

    "Tom. Tom Ketchup, your majesty," I said. I made sure to bow. I didn''t know the customs here but that''s what I vaguely remembered you were supposed to do from history and movies.

    "Ketchup? I''ve never heard of that surname before. Where are you from?" He said.

    "I genuinely don''t know, your majesty. I woke up in the middle of the street today, dressed like this, and the only thing I could remember was that my name was Tom Ketchup," I said.

    I activated Soul Inquiry. ''Can you tell that I''m lying?''

    ''No. You seem utterly sincere in everything you say.''

    Oh yeah, the Absolute Sincerity ability. It made it so everyone believed that I believed everything I said. That was going to be so useful.

    "I''m sorry to hear that, Tom. However, for saving my daughter from that dastardly baker, who made really good bread, I will reward you with a sum of money and a medal of bravery. Also, assuming you don''t have a place to stay, you can stay in one of the guest bedrooms for now," he said.

    A guard came up to the king and handed him a sack of money and a medal.

    "Come here, so I can give you the money and place the medal on you," the king said.

    "Thank you, your majesty," I approached him. He handed me the sack of money which was far too heavy to put on my belt. Then he put the medal over my head and around my neck. It was a little chunky and heavy, but it fit just fine.

    Now I had to figure out what to do with myself. It was still the middle of the day. I couldn''t just go into my room and sleep. Maybe there was a place I could get new clothes and an adventurer''s guild where I could register as an adventurer.

    "There doesn''t happen to be an adventurer''s guild in this city is there? Also, do you know where I can get decent clothes? I look homeless," I said.

    "Yes, you do look quite homeless. But you are homeless, are you not?" The king said.

    "Yes, Your Majesty, but I don''t want to look like it," I said.

    "I suppose that makes sense," he said. "Yes, there is an Adventurers Guild nearby and a decent tailor. Abigail. Please escort our new guest to the tailor and the Adventurers Guild."

    "Yes, father," she said. "Come, Tom. I will show you the way."

    As we walked away from the castle, I could hear the sounds of guards training in the yard. As I clenched my fist, I realized I felt slightly stronger than just a second ago. And then the next second was the same feeling.

    That must have been the Experience Plunder ability at work. I wondered if it was something I could turn off if it got to be too much. I didn''t want to be a massive hulk of muscle walking around and getting stuck in doorways.

    [You can turn off Experience Plunder''s effects whenever you want. You can also toggle off specific effects so that you don''t lose out on its other beneficial traits. As to your concern about becoming too large, you can choose how large you get and still gain strength after that without gaining size]

    ''Really? Well, that certainly eases my concern. Thank you.''

    [You are welcome]

    I visualized a size I was ok with becoming.

    ''That''s the maximum size I want to be.''

    [Noted and input]

    ''Thanks.''

    "So, Tom, do you have a class?" Abigail said.

    "A what?" I said. I had seen the class stat on my status screen, but I didn''t expect her to know about that.

    "A class. It dictates the kind of fighter you would be if you chose to become an adventurer. Everyone chooses one at the age of 18. But you seem a little older than 18 so I figured you must have one by now," she said.

    "How do I find out if I have a class? Also, if everyone has a class, wouldn''t that make everyone adventurers?" I said.

    "You pull up your status screen by thinking ''Status''. And no. Not everyone wants to be an adventurer. It''s a very dangerous occupation. And not everyone even has the potential. If your potential is below F tier then you are not allowed to become an adventurer," she said.

    "Oh," I said, I closed my eyes pretending to pull up a status screen. I didn''t pull mine up because I had already seen it. "Ok, I have it pulled up. It says my class is unassigned."

    "Oh, so you haven''t chosen a class yet. Interesting. Well, you''ll get to choose one at the Adventurers Guild. But first, we need to get you some clothes," she said.

    We went to the tailor and tried on different fabrics and cuts of clothes. Abigail ran the whole thing. I wanted to try something more noble-looking, but she said only nobles could look like nobles.

    Then I said, I wanted to look like a knight, and she said only knights can dress like knights. We kept doing this on down the list, until she said, "We can dress you like a scholar. No one will object to that."

    "Fine, let''s do that," I said, exhausted.

    She picked me out a form-fitting dark blue robe with red accents and a red cape. I didn''t know what scholars dressed like this. To me, I looked like a dark mage, but she thought it made me look handsome, so that''s what we went with. The red cape highlighted my dark red hair, she said.

    Oh, yeah. I have red hair. I figured it was related to the system naming me ''Ketchup''. It must have thought it was really funny.

    [I do, actually, yes]

    ''Wow.''

    After picking out clothes that made me look like an edge lord, we made our way to the Adventurer''s Guild. When we walked in, no one was dressed like me. I felt so out of place. There were warriors, rogues, and even mages, but no one was wearing dark colors like mine.

    Everyone was dressed in either earth tones like brown and green, or bright colors. I stuck out like a sore thumb. Then again, she wasn''t dressed like anyone else either.

    She wore a bright pink dress with gold accents. No one else was wearing pink. So I kind of understood why I didn''t look like anyone else either. She had weird taste.

    We walked up to the front counter and a nice woman with a bright smile said, "How can I help you today?"

    "We would like to register as adventurers, and he doesn''t have a class yet, so we''d like to assign him one. Checking his potential too would probably be a good idea," Abigail said.

    "Ok. Step right over here," the woman came out from behind the counter and walked into the middle of the room with all the adventurers. There was a glowing orb on a pedestal that I hadn''t noticed before right in the center of the room.

    "Why is it in the center of the room? Couldn''t we do this in a more private place?" I said.

    "Why would we? This way all the adventurers get to react and judge your class choice!" She said, cheerfully.

    "That sounds like a bad thing," I said.

    "It''s not!" She said, smiling.

    "Oook. Let''s do this, then," I said. Then I turned to the princess. "Why are you registering as an adventurer?"

    "Because my dad never let me before. But he can''t stop me if I''m already here, can he?" She said. "Checkmate!" She made some weird hand motions in the air as emphasis to what she said. It made me think she was throwing up some weird fantasy version of gang signs.

    "Couldn''t he just make you unregister?" I said.

    "You can''t unregister. Once an adventurer, always an adventurer," she said. She threw up her weird gang signs again.

    "Couldn''t he just not let you leave the castle?" I said.

    "If he did that, I''d beat him up with my magic powers, which I''m going to get," she said, throwing up more weird gang signs.

    "Wow. You''re a really different person than I thought you were," I said. It was kind of hot, in a goofy way.

    "What, did you think I was going to be a normal prissy princess?" She said.

    "Uh, yeah. Obviously," I said.

    "Well, I''m not," she said, she threw down her gang signs so hard this time that she knocked herself off balance and fell off her heels. She put her hand up and said, "I''m ok!"

 Chapter 3: Sallys

    After Abigail had recovered from her fall, the woman who was helping us said, "Place your hand on the orb."

    So I placed my hand on the orb. A light blinked on in the orb. A voice rang out from the orb into the room loud enough for everyone to hear. It was the voice I heard in my head when the system talked to me.

    "This one shall not be allowed to choose a class, for he is destined for a specific one chosen by me, Alfinia, your goddess," the voice said.

    ''What are you doing?''

    [I''m designating your class]

    ''Don''t I get a choice?''

    [Not in this case]

    ''Ok. What''s my class then?''

    [You''ll be a Tomato Wizard]

    ''What the hell is a Tomato Wizard? That sounds dumb! Give me anything else but that!''

    [Ok, fine, but don''t come crying to me when it''s something you don''t like]

    "This one is destined to beˇ­ an Evil Wizard. That is all." Alfinia''s voice said.

    ''What the fuck? Evil Wizard? Come on!''

    [I said don''t come crying to me]

    ''That''s ridiculous! You could''ve picked something normal! You chose not to!''

    [I assure you, your class was pickedˇ­ randomly]

    ''Yeah right! Don''t give me that bullshit!''

    [This discussion is over. Deal with the consequences]

    I looked around and realized everyone was staring at me, terrified. They kept muttering, "Evil Wizard," to each other.

    Somebody grabbed my wrist and said, "We''re going to have to let the authorities deal with you."

    Abigail kicked that person in the stomach, sending them flying. She grabbed my wrist and hurriedly pulled me out the door of the Adventurer''s Guild. She dragged me down the street and through the first gate to the lower city.

    That was when sirens started going off. Loud sirens blared throughout the kingdom and the voice of the king boomed out over the land saying, "A man who goes by the name Tom Ketchup has kidnapped my daughter! He is an evil wizard! Find them and bring them both to me, alive!"

    Abigail kept taking me deeper and deeper into the lower city until we went down a flight of stairs, and we entered a large cavernous area that seemed to exist underneath the lower city. It was dark and dank and massive.

    Still, it had buildings streets, and lights. It was a fully functional part of the city. It just seemed like a place for the poorest of the poor. For the disadvantaged.

    "Where are we?" I said.

    "The undercity! This is the only place that won''t try to turn you into the authorities. They hate the authorities of the above world. My father''s men rarely come down here. It''s too dangerous," she said.

    "And you thought it was a good idea for us to come down here?" I said.

    "We don''t have any other choice if you want to stay free and not in a dungeon, or worse, executed," she said.

    "That makes sense. Where are we going?" I said as I continued to follow her down this seemingly endless flight of stairs.

    "Where everyone goes when they first come to the undercity. Sally''s," she said.

    "Sally''s? Is that a bar?" I said.

    "I don''t know! People just always said that''s where you go when you''re in trouble," she said.

    "Wait, why are you helping me? Shouldn''t you be going back to your father and trembling in fear of my evil wizardry?" I said. I raised my hands and wiggled my fingers like an evil wizard.

    "You''re not evil, Tom. Maybe a little self-absorbed, but not evil," she said.

    "Is that the only reason you''re helping me?" I said.

    "No. You also saved my life, and I kind of like you. I don''t want to abandon you to die in a dungeon," she said.

    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    "Ok. Thanks," I said.

    We made our way down to the street of the undercity and walked with purpose. We didn''t want anyone to see our upper city clothing and think we were prey.

    Sally''s had a large arcane neon sign over the door and a doorman. The doorman took one look at us and said, "You guys in some kind of trouble or something? That''s the only reason upper city people ever come down here. That or they''re looking for someone."

    "Yeah. At least I''m in trouble. Is that a problem?" I said.

    "No. I just wanted to make sure you weren''t looking for someone. We don''t support upper city folk looking for people down here. If someone comes down here, they don''t want to be found," he said. "Now get inside before I lose my voice. Talk to Sally. She might be able to help."

    "Thank you, sir," I said.

    "Don''t call me, sir! That''s my husband''s name!" He cackled at that so hard, I couldn''t tell if he was joking.

    Abigail and I walked up to the bar where a tall voluptuous woman was bartending. We both assumed this was Sally.

    "Are you Sally?" I said. "We were told to talk to her."

    "Oh, heavens no my dear child. Sally is in the back. I''ll get her," she said and walked through a door behind the bar.

    An older, but not old, dwarf woman sauntered through the door the woman left through. She was curvy and attractive with an eye patch and long braided hair.

    "What kind of trouble might you two be in?" She said, smiling at us.

    "I''m an evil wizard, apparently," I said. "Or at least that''s my adventurer class determined by the orb at the Adventurer''s Guild."

    "That''s probably one of the strangest things I''ve ever heard, but it hardly seems like something you''d get in trouble over. They had to know you weren''t actually evil right? Isn''t it just an adventurer classification?" She said.

    "That''s what you''d think, but they tried to take me into custody. She helped me escape. And now the king says I kidnapped her," I said, pointing at Abigail.

    "Oh, dear. Why is the king involved in this?" She said.

    "Well," I said leaning in and whispering, "she''s the princess."

    "Oh! That''d do it! Yeah!" Sally said. "So what are you two planning to do now?"

    "What kind of job can I work that makes a lot of money, but has a low skill and educational barrier?" I said.

    "Either mercenary work or adventuring. Those are the only two jobs that fit that description. But since adventuring is out, that just leaves mercenary work. You ready to be a mercenary, kid?" She said, grinning.

    "I''m not a kid! I''m 21!" I said.

    "Like I said. You''re a kid," she said. "If you want to do mercenary work, I know guy who knows a guy who knows another guy who knows another guy who can get you a job."

    "I want to do mercenary work too!" Abigail said. "Why do men always get to have all the fun." She crossed her arms and pouted.

    "Do you have any fighting skills? Or are you strong and can carry a lot of stuff?" She said.

    "I''m not strong, and I don''t what skills I have available to me either. I was never allowed to choose a class," she said.

    "Oh, really? I might have one of those stupid orb things floating around somewhere in my attic. We could find out what class you are," she said.

    "Yeah! Let''s do that!" Abigail said.

    "Ok. Come with me, you two. Just come around the side of the bar. I''ll let you in," she said.

    We walked around the side of the bar, Sally let us in, and we followed her upstairs to her attic.

    When we got up to her attic, I realized Abigail and I were going to have to crawl to get inside, but Sally could walk in just fine due to her shorter stature as a dwarf.

    [You have leveled up! You are now level 1!]

    [Choose your subclass]

    [Shadow Mage]

    [Bone Mage]

    [Void Mage]

    [Ruin Mage]

    [Blood Mage]

    [Click for More]

    I looked through what each class did, then I took a peek at the other classes and what they did. Bone Mage was my favorite out of all of them. It had offensive, defensive, control, support, summons. It had everything!

    Blood Mage had a similar skill set, but blood mages were so overdone. No thanks.

    ''I choose Bone Mage.''

    [Subclass assigned]

    [You have gained the skill''s Bone Spike, Bone Sense, and Bone Armor]

    "Found it!" Sally said after rummaging through several piles of stuff.

    She pulled out a glass orb the size of her head and placed it on the ground. "Place your hand on it, girlie," she said to Abigail.

    Abigail placed her hand on the orb and it lit up. The system''s voice said, "Another destined one, and soon after the other. This one''s class is Good Witch. Her potential is SS-Tier, Intelligence primary."

    "Very nice," Sally said. "I''ve never heard of a Good Witch before but it sounds, wellˇ­ good."

    "That is awesome Abigail! And SS-Tier! That''s like really good right?" I said. A lot of fantasy books I''ve read said SSS-Tier is the highest tier, so if this followed that logic, then it was very good.

    "Yes! SS-Tier is just one below the top tier, SSS-Tier!" Abigail said and squealed.

    "Actually, I never got to hear what my potential was since everyone in the guild freaked out over my evil wizard status," I said. I put my hand on the orb.

    The voice of Alfinia or the system or whoever she was, said, "Oh, it''s you again. We already know you''re an evil wizard, blah blah blah, whatever. However, your potential is N-Tier, Intelligence primary."

    "N-Tier? What''s that?" I said, out loud.

    ''What is N-Tier?''

    [N-Tier is above SSS-Tier. It is ten times as powerful as SSS-Tier. Technically, I just made it up so I could have something to categorize your overwhelming magical potential]

    ''Does the N stand for something?''

    [Nightmare]

    ''Oh cool.''

    "I''ve never heard of N-Tier. Could that be below F-Tier? Or above SSS-Tier? But nothing is below F-Tier. You just don''t get categorized. And nothing is above SSS-Tier, because there''s no one that strong," Abigail said.

    "It''s above SSS-Tier," I said.

    "Above SSS-Tier? That''s unheard of. Like I''ve never heard of it before. If your potential is that high, you could do great things or terrible things, depending on where you lean on the morality scale. I''ve heard of an SSS-Tier battlemage who could level mountains," Sally said.

    "With enough time, you could not only overthrow the king of this kingdom, but every kingdom. By the time you finish your first dungeon, you''ll be as strong as an experienced C-rank adventurer. By the time you finish your second dungeon, you''ll be able to crush C-rank adventurers under your foot."

    "Whoa whoa whoa! I don''t plan to overthrow any kingdoms or rule over other people by force. I just want to eliminate evil from the world," I said.

    "Normally I''d say good luck with that, knowing the person will never achieve their goal. But with your potential, you just might do it," she said.

    "That''s good news," I said.

    "Since we''re all squared away on the classes and whatnot, do you want to see where you''ll be staying for the night? Your mercenary jobs start bright and early, so I''d suggest you go to bed soon," Sally said.

    "Sure," I said.

    We all got out of the small attic and followed Sally up a narrow flight of stairs to the second floor. She showed us to the second room on the right. It had a single bed that was designed for one person to sleep in.

    "I guess I get the floor," I said.

    "What do you mean?" Abigail said. "You''re staying in the bed, with me. We can cuddle so we don''t fall off."

    "Oh. Ok," I said, as I got into bed with her. I was the big spoon and she was the little spoon. I wasn''t used to this sort of treatment from women. Women didn''t hate me, but they didn''t like me either.

    I could be friends with a woman, but it never went further than that. Yet, here was a literal princess, who wanted me to hold her until we fell asleep. And it happened normally. No mind tricks or weird charm powers.

    Huh. I didn''t know what to attribute the change to, but it was probably to do with how I was finally taking control of my life, standing up for what I believed in, and the fact that I saved her life earlier today. And I didn''t act like a complete weirdo.

    I let myself relax to the sound of her breathing, and before I knew it, it was morning. When I stood up from the bed, I felt taller somehow. My visual perspective and angle to the floor had changed. And I had gained muscle too.

    I had legitimate muscle definition and tone. I wasn''t jacked, but I looked athletic or like I worked out. To my knowledge, I didn''t, considering I was born as a full-grown male in the middle of a street yesterday and hadn''t hit the gym yet.

    It had to be that Experience Plunder ability. I didn''t realize it would work this fast. And I also didn''t think it would make me taller. Huh. It was kind of nice.

    I''d have to make sure it didn''t get out of hand, but for now, it was fine. I knew I could set a limit on my height, but I didn''t know what limit to set.

    Right now it was just an extra inch. How much damage could one more day do? So I just let it be for now. I will figure that out later.

    When I got back to the room, Her Royal Highness was sitting on the edge of the bed. When she saw me her face lit up. Like I was her favorite person in the world.

    Then she got a confused look on her face. "Did you get taller? And why is your hair so much longer than it was yesterday?"

    "Yeah, I did. It''s this skill I have. It makes me grow faster. I just got it yesterday. I didn''t realize it would work this fast. Or that it would make me taller or my hair longer. I just thought it would make me more muscular," I said.

    "I kind of like your hair like that. And now that I think about it, you do look a little more muscular than yesterday. It looks good on you. You should keep it," she said.

    "Well, it''s not going away anytime soon. So you''re stuck with it," I said.

    "I''d be ok with being stuck with you. It''s weird. You have this dark aura about you, but you''re not mean or inconsiderate. I don''t understand it. But I don''t not like it," she said.

    "Oook," I said. "So should we go downstairs and try to find Sally?"

    "Sure," she said.

 Chapter 4: First Dungeon

    We found Sally downstairs making breakfast. She gave us something to eat and then sent us on our way to our mercenary jobs. It turns out we would be working together. As dungeon porters.

    Porters, if you don''t know, haul supplies into the dungeon and haul loot out of the dungeon. They aren''t supposed to do any fighting. Just carrying. That''s the job we were stuck with.

    It made sense though. We had no real monster-fighting experience unless you count the baker. We went into a dungeon that the mercenaries controlled.

    It was cleverly hidden out of sight by a wall that looked like a rock wall, but it could be opened and closed. This dungeon, like most, but not all dungeons in this world, had a respawn rate.

    The respawn rate of this dungeon was daily. So the mercenaries could come here every day, gain experience by killing all the enemies, and then loot the place.

    This dungeon was supposed to be an abandoned beast-infested crystal mine. So we would encounter all kinds of magical beasts until we either died or defeated the boss at the bottom of the dungeon.

    The entrance to the mine was well-lit and had a lot of crystals growing from the floor.

    Henry, the leader of the mercenaries, said, "Don''t pick up any of these crystals. They''re junk compared to the stuff we''ll find further in."

    We followed a path that seemed to be designed for us. Every so often there was a junction where tunnels branched off, but all of them except one were always collapsed, so we only had one way to go.

    After not too long, we ran into our first enemies, giant rats. Henry, Lloyd, and Stu were all warriors. They took the rats head-on and cut them down one by one while making sure to not let any past them so they couldn''t get to us.

    I wanted to fight so bad, but that wasn''t what we were being paid to do. But you never knew, in these kinds of situations, sometimes the porters end up having to fight, run, or die.

    I was hoping it would be the first one. After all the rats had been dispatched, we all cut the cores out of their bodies. They were quite small. About the size of a large marble.

    They glowed and radiated energy. "Don''t pop any of those cores. Those aren''t for us. Those are for paying customers, ok?" Henry said.

    "Yes, sir," I said, as I stuffed another core in one of my bags. I was carrying four mostly empty bags to fill with cores and loot. That extra muscle I gained overnight was going to be useful.

    As we walked one or two bats that had crystals growing on their bodies would attack us. Henry would slice them out of the air like they were annoying flies. Abigail and I used the knives that Henry had given us to remove the cores from the bats.

    We talked as we walked. Henry and Abigail switched off between explaining how the cores worked to me. Cores gave the person who absorbed them stats. Monster and beast cores added one of the four stats, strength, agility, stamina, and intelligence.

    It started with monster and beast cores which only gave one type of stat per core. The amount of stats per core went by size. Tiny cores, like from the bats and giant rats, gave 2 to 3 stat points. Small cores gave 4 to 5 stat points.

    Medium cores gave 6 to 7 stat points. Large cores gave 8 to 10 stat points. Huge cores, like from mini-bosses and bosses gave 11 to 50 stat points. Enemies would also sometimes drop loot, depending on the enemy and the dungeon.

    Stu and Lloyd who seemed to be good friends, were walking ahead of us and chatting about their families and kids. I didn''t use Soul Inquiry on any of the mercenaries because I just had a feeling they weren''t bad people. They might have committed a crime or three, but that didn''t make them evil.

    Once we got a certain way in, wolves appeared to block our way and try to take bites out of us. Henry ran up to join Lloyd and Stu who were in the lead. They took out the wolves as a team.

    Lloyd would injure one and Stu would finish it off, and vice versa. Henry was in a league of his own. He must have had a higher-tier potential than Lloyd and Stu because he was taking down wolves in a single strike every time.

    Once they were finished, we retrieved the cores and carried on. Henry told me that Lloyd and Stu were D-rank warriors and he was a C-rank warrior. You were ranked by your potential and not your current growth or ability, so things could get a little confusing.

    An inexperienced and low-stat A-rank adventurer could lose to an experienced C-rank adventurer who had popped more cores and built up his stats. For that reason, rank wasn''t as well regarded as reputation, but it still factored into what people thought you were capable of.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    There just wasn''t a reliable way to rank people based on their current stats and experience. That said, the potential ranks weren''t useless. People with higher potential could absorb more stats from a core than low-potential people, so after a few dungeons, most people fell into a general range around their potential ranks.

    Lloyd, Stu, and Henry may have had a much lower potential than Abigail and I, but they were very experienced and had absorbed many cores. They were the real deal when it came to clearing dungeons of this danger rating.

    "This is a blue-rated dungeon, which means it can be completed by a party of 4 to 6 with a mixture of C and D rankings. We''re running with only three because we''re very experienced and we stop before the boss. We''d need a larger and higher ranked group to take down the boss without any casualties and in this business, like in most businesses, you can''t afford casualties," Henry said.

    "There are green, blue, yellow, orange, red, purple, and black dungeons to anyone''s knowledge, in increasing difficulty. I''ve heard rumors of rare different-colored dungeons, but if you ever come across one, I''d suggest you turn back. They''d likely be harder than black dungeons and black dungeons are only for S-ranks and above."

    Oh, right. Sally never told them our potential ranks, which might''ve saved our lives. You could get killed over a high potential from jealous and angry lower-ranked adventurers. You could even get killed by higher-ranked adventurers for that. They didn''t need the extra competition.

    "Thanks. We''ll keep that in mind," I said.

    "By the way, I''m curious, what potential rank are you two?" Henry asked.

    "F," I said.

    "D!" Abigail said nervously right after.

    Henry could tell Abigail was lying, but he couldn''t tell with me because of my ability, despite my poor acting. Henry looked at Abigail and said, "You don''t have to worry about me. I wouldn''t gut you for having a high potential, but saying low is a good instinct. There are some pretty nasty people out there."

    "Thanks," Abigail said.

    Crystals on the walls and floor glowed as we made our way through the tunnels. At this level, there were multiple paths and only a few of them got you where you wanted to go. We had to turn back a few times because we had walked into dead ends.

    I asked Henry why they didn''t have the way memorized and he said it was because the path changed every time the dungeon respawned. We kept walking until a massive club came down, crushing Lloyd who didn''t see it coming. A troll stepped out from behind a wall.

    The troll lifted its club off the crushed body of Lloyd. I thought they had really high stats. What happened? Stu rushed to Lloyd''s side, but the troll stepped on Lloyd and tried to smash Stu. So Stu had to retreat.

    "Can I fight?" I yelled to Henry.

    "No!" Henry yelled. "Just stay back!"

    Stu and Henry tried to fight the troll but their attacks barely hurt it. They just weren''t strong enough. The only chance we had was my automatic crit ability.

    The troll slammed its foot on the ground, shaking it, and knocking Henry and Stu onto their backs. The troll pulled back its club to smash Henry and I couldn''t just stand back and watch anymore.

    I put my hand out and formed a bone spike in the air. I aimed it at the troll''s head and fired it.

    [Auto Crit on Evil activated]

    The bone spike redirected slightly in midair and plunged into the troll''s eye and its brain. The troll kind of just stood there dying, but its club arm came down anyway.

    Just as the club was about to pulverize Henry, a large bubble came out of nowhere and attached itself around part of the club. When the club impacted against Henry, the bubble made it just bounce off and fall to the side.

    The troll fell forwards finally and Henry scrambled out of the way of its body. I looked back at Abigail and she was holding her hands out. She had sent the bubble. I guess her magical power was bubbles?

    Did that make her a bubble witch? Whatever she was, she had saved Henry''s life. I grabbed her and went to hug her, but she went for a kiss so we kind of just smacked faces together.

    Then I realized what she was trying to do and I kissed her back. Then I remembered Lloyd and broke the kiss. I looked back and ran over to where Lloyd was lying.

    Stu and Henry were already standing there, looking down. I wondered why they weren''t doing anything until I saw his body. Yeah, there was nothing they could do for him because he was already dead.

    "What the hell, happened?" I said. "I thought this part of the dungeon was supposed to be safe?"

    "Yeah, that troll wasn''t supposed to be so far up in the dungeon. Trolls aren''t supposed to show up until near the bottom," Henry said.

    "Yeah, but I thought you guys could make it to the bottom! Just not the boss room," I said.

    "That may have been a little exaggerated," Stu said glaring at Henry. "We go to the floor before the floor that''s before the boss, grab all the crystals we can, and then high tail it out of here."

    "How did you kill that troll? That was pinpoint precision. That''s impossible for a new guy. Have you really never been in a dungeon before?" Henry said to me.

    "Yes," I said.

    "You going to say anything more than ''yes''?" Henry said.

    "No," I said.

    "Ok!" Henry said. "What about you young lady? How did you do that bubble thing?"

    "Instinct," Abigail said. "It''s my only spell so I used it."

    "Makes sense to me," I said.

    "Ok, well, apparently we have two dungeon geniuses on our hands! Let''s take Lloyd''s body and get out of here! The dungeon run is over!" Henry said.

    "No! Shouldn''t Lloyd''s family get compensation for his death?" I said.

    "They should, but they won''t," Stu said.

    "Why not?" I said.

    "The company doesn''t insure deaths. It''s called assumed risk. The employee takes responsibility for the risk inherent in the job. Meaning, it''s your fault if you die. Not the company''s," Henry said.

    "That''s bullshit," I said. "His family should get something as compensation."

    "The company won''t do it," Henry said.

    "What if I do it?" I said.

    "What if you do what?" He said.

    "What if I compensate his family? The company can''t prevent that, right?" I said.

    "No, but where would you get the money for that? You''re a dungeon porter because you have no money," Henry said. "That''s why anyone is a dungeon porter."

    "You said, this dungeon run is a wash, right? If you bring Lloyd''s body back, the company will accept the loss, right?" I said.

    "Uh, yeah. What''s your point?" Henry said.

    "Well, then the company can''t take any of the loot I bring back if Abigail and I complete the dungeon ourselves," I said. "As long as you tell the company the whole thing was a wash, they won''t know or suspect we kept any loot to ourselves."

    "You''ll never get out of there alive, but if by some miracle, you do, I will not tell the company and neither will Stu. Isn''t that right, Stu?" Henry said.

    "That''s right," Stu said.

    I activated Soul Inquiry.

    ''Are you telling the truth?'' I asked Henry''s soul.

    ''Yes,'' it said.

    ''Are you telling the truth?'' I asked Stu''s soul.

    ''Yes,'' it said.

    ''Will you deliver the loot to Lloyd''s family if I give it to you?'' I said to Henry''s soul again.

    ''Yes, but I''ll pocket a couple of the crystals. I have a family to feed too you know?'' Henry''s soul said.

    ''That''s fine,'' I said.

    "Ok, then leave the dungeon and wait at the entrance for however long you think it would take for us to complete it and come back. Maybe two hours?" I said.

    "Sure, but when you don''t show up after two hours, you''re on your own, even if you''re somehow still alive," he said.

    "Ok," I said. I turned and started to walk away. "Abigail. Let''s go."

    "Wait!" Henry said.

    "What?" I said.

    "There should be a platform at the bottom that will send you back to the entrance after you kill the boss," Henry said. "Good luck."

    "Thanks," I said and started walking farther down into the mine with Abigail trailing behind me.

    It was only a few minutes before another troll showed up, but at least this one announced its presence with a roar.

 Chapter 5: Family Compensation Plan

    I shot a bone spike vaguely in the direction of the troll getting ready to attack us and my crit skill activated. The spike redirected and shot into the troll''s heart. It fell over dead.

    I opened the pack I was carrying. Henry wouldn''t know or care that I used the cores we gathered before I went further into the dungeon. I looked for an intelligence stat one. Intelligence cores were yellow. A couple of the tiny ones were yellow.

    I looked at one and thought about inspecting it. Information was pulled up about it.

    [Intelligence core (Tiny)]

    [Core Value: +3 Intelligence]

    Now, I remembered Henry saying something about how cores gave different ranked people a different amount of their base value. It went like this:

    [F-Rank: 0.5x core value]

    [D-Rank: 0.8x core value]

    [C-Rank: 1x core value]

    [B-Rank: 1.2x core value]

    [A-Rank: 1.5x core value]

    [S-Rank: 2x core value]

    [SS-Rank: 3x core value]

    [SSS-Rank: 5x core value]

    I didn''t know how many times the base stats N-Tier potential would give me, but I knew it was more than 5 times. I squeezed the core slightly in my hand and focused on absorbing its stats.

    The core popped and the yellow light flowed into my hand and up my arm.

    [You have absorbed a +3 Intelligence core. N-Tier 10x multiplier applied. +30 Intelligence (130)]

    Nice. With this level of absorption, I could level up my stats incredibly fast with very few cores. I was going to absorb all of them and get as strong as I could. Well, I was going to absorb half of them. Abigail deserved half of them as well.

    I took a large-sized core that Abigail gathered from the first troll. It was red. That meant strength. I tried to absorb it and it popped.

    [+10 Strength core (large). Non-Primary Stat. 10% absorption. N-tier absorption bonus: 10x. 100% absorption. You have gained 10 strength (130)]

    ''I appreciate all that information, but could we summarize it next time?''

    [Yes]

    ''Thanks.''

    "Abigail. You should absorb all the cores in your bag. I''ll absorb all the cores in mine. Then we can continue on," I said.

    "Ok, Tom," she said. She started absorbing the cores in her bag.

    I dug the core out of the troll I''d just killed and threw it to Abigail since I took the first troll core. There was an even amount of strength, agility, stamina, and intelligence cores. Altogether I gained 10 more strength (140), 25 agility (145), 22 Stamina (142), and 200 intelligence, including the first core I popped (300).

    I could feel the enhanced stats. Even the increased magical power and mana supply due to my higher intelligence. Intelligence dictated your maximum mana pool and the power of your spells.

    Your potential dictated how much of a core''s stats you absorbed and how quickly you mastered new skills/spells in your primary stat. Abigail''s and my primary stat was intelligence, but a warrior''s would be strength and a rogue''s would be agility.

    Your potential also dictated how quickly you gained experience and leveled up. Experience gained worked on the same scale as core absorption rates according to rank potential.

    Everyone could only absorb 10% of a core''s value in their non-primary stats, which then got multiplied by their rank absorption rate. So instead of getting 10 times the stats from non-intelligence cores, I only got a measly 100% of their stats.

    Normally, because of this -90% core absorption penalty, most adventurers had to train their non-primary stats, through either weight lifting for strength, agility training for agility, cardio for stamina, or learning for intelligence. You could learn anything as long as it was challenging and expanded your mind.

    But with my ridiculously high core absorption rate multiplier, I could bypass the need for training. And then I got to take 10% of the stats gained from training from everyone within a mile radius with Experience Plunder.

    I was going to be dangerous as hell, very quickly. And so was Abigail. A 3x core absorption multiplier is nothing to laugh at either.

    We started picking up crystals as we came across them. There was a lot to pick up. My strength was reasonably enhanced by this point so I would be able to manage all four bags I''d come with but Abigail was using a different method.

    With her now core enhanced intelligence, her bubbles could hold significant amounts of weight and stay floating. And she could put her hands through the surface of the bubble and place things inside it.

    So she had a decent sized bubble that she was just filling with crystals of all colors and shapes and sizes. I''m sure part of this dungeon''s challenge was to discern the valuable crystals from the non valuable ones and only take those, to prevent yourself from becoming overloaded.

    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

    But that wasn''t a problem for us. We were just stashing everything we saw. The only things that were far too large to take with us were the massive clubs the trolls used as weapons.

    We came to a flooded area that had giant spiders with crystals attached to them on the other side. Instead of wading or swimming through that and then getting attacked on the other side, I figured I''d see how much my bone spike ability had improved.

    When I summoned a spike it was 3 times the size of the original and when I fired it, it fired 3 times as fast, which was really fast. These spiders weren''t evil, so I didn''t get auto crits on them.

    I just kept firing large spikes into their bodies until they died. You''d think they''d run away after getting attacked, they acted a lot like video game enemies. They just got mad and tried to find a way around the water.

    Which, you''d think they''d crawl on the ceiling, but for whatever reason they didn''t.

    "Do you have anything for this? Cuz I don''t," I said to Abigail.

    "I might be able to do something," she said.

    She started shooting out bubbles at the water. They landed on the water and semi merged with it, but didn''t pop. She kept doing it until there was a thick multi bubble layer of bubbles floating on the water.

    She put her foot on one of the bubbles to test it, and it held. She carefully walked across to the other side. It looked like the bubbles were going to pop any second, but I kept reminding myself they weren''t regular bubbles. They were magic bubbles. Magic bubbles could do whatever they wanted to do.

    I carefully walked across to the other side. I remembered that I didn''t just have the bone spike ability. I had two others that I hadn''t used yet, which I probably should have.

    One was Bone Sense, which allowed me to sense bones. That would have been really helpful against the troll, Tom! You idiot! The other was bone armor, which let me create a suit of bone armor around myself.

    Because bone was relatively light, it still counted as light armor even though it was full coverage. I just didn''t make a helmet, because I wanted to see.

    Once I had finished creating my bone armor, which looked really cool as it formed, I activated Bone Sense. I noticed there were several bones over the ridge of the tunnel.

    I warned Abigail about the bones, and we stepped over the ridge. There was a group of bears with crystals on them at the bottom of a decline. They immediately noticed us and began running at us, roaring.

    I summoned my bone spikes and kept shooting the one in front, but the bastard wouldn''t go down. It got within 20 feet of us and then Abigail shot a bubble at it.

    This was different than her protective bubbles. It shot out fast and hit the bear in the face, even knocking it back a few feet. The bear shook its head and roared as the other bears ran around it toward us.

    Abigail shot 4 more bubbles of the same kind and knocked those bears back too. She kept firing and firing, keeping the bears at bay, until I realized I should be fighting too.

    I shot dozens of bone spikes deep into the bear''s hides until they were soaked in blood. After a good few minutes of continuous barrage, we finished off the bears.

    "Good job!" I said.

    "You too!" she said jumping up and down. "Can we kiss again, because I kind of liked that."

    "Yeah. We can," I said. Now that we were out of the life-threatening situation, I realized I was nervous about kissing a girl. I hadn''t really thought about it before but now I was.

    I steeled my nerves, leaned in, and kissed her again. It was simple and nice. She had really soft lips.

    [You have leveled up! You are now level 2!]

    [Oh and you defeated evil again! Rewards incoming]

    [Calculating rewards]

    ''Did you forget that I defeated evil?''

    [No. My response was just delayed]

    ''Isn''t that just another way of saying you forgot?''

    [Nope. No, it isn''t]

    ''You seem less and less like a system and more and more like a person the more we interact.''

    [Would that be a problem?]

    ''Not necessarily. I don''t know. I''ll have to get back to you on that.''

    [You do that]

    [Your rewards have been calculated]

    [You have reached Level 2]

    [You have gained a new ability: Weapon Formation]

    [Weapon Formation: Can form basic weapons out of bones, such as crude hammers, daggers, and spears]

    [Bone Spike ability upgraded. You can now form and launch up to 3 spikes at a time]

    ''Nice. Thanks.''

    [I''m not done! You have defeated two minor evils. For that you get to choose two minor abilities]

    [Happiness Giver: People will temporarily become 10% happier a minute after they finish interacting with you for the first time. They will have no idea you were the cause of their happiness]

    or

    [Happiness Beneficiary: You will temporarily become 10% happier every time you interact with a new person]

    or

    [Happy Meetings: You and the other person will both temporarily become 5% happier every time you interact with a new person]

    This one was easy for multiple reasons. I knew which one I could get good karma or whatever for choosing, and I didn''t like the idea of my emotions being manipulated every time I met a new person.

    ''I choose Happiness Giver.''

    [Granted. -5 Dark Aura (35)]

    [Next reward choice]

    [Multiplied Generosity: When you gift someone money for the first time, they receive 3 times the amount you gifted them]

    or

    [Greedy Recipient: When someone gifts you money for the first time, you receive 3 times the amount]

    or

    [Improved Commerce: Goods and services are 5% cheaper]

    Since I''m literally doing so I can gift Lloyd''s family, money, the obvious choice here is the one that will multiply that gift by 3.

    ''I choose Multiplied Generosity.''

    [Granted. -5 Dark Aura (30)]

    ''Thanks.''

    I remembered we hadn''t dug the cores out of the spiders. We dug the cores out of the bears first and went back for the spiders. We needed as many stats as we could get if we were going to defeat the boss.

    I divided the cores up between the two of us and we popped them. I got 20 strength (160), 10 agility (155), and 100 intelligence (400). My intelligence was shooting up! I had confidence that once we made it to the bottom, I''d be able to blow away whatever the boss was.

    There were more crystals to collect around us so we did that before moving on. The crystals were glowing brighter as we got further down in the mine and they started looking clearer too. Less cloudiness in the body of the crystal.

    [Amplification crystal: Rare quality]

    Interesting. I wondered how it worked. Maybe it worked like the cores. I squeezed it with the intent to absorb it and it popped just like the crystals.

    [Magic Amplification: 1.2x]

    Nice. Good to know. I would have to save a few for the boss battle. The ones down below probably had better amplification values, because the areas were more dangerous. So I waited until I picked up the ones right before the boss.

    I picked up a yellow crystal and the system said:

    [Speed Crystal: Uncommon]

    The speed crystals must have been more powerful than the amplification crystals. That''s why it had lower quality. After that, I found some crystals that had no classification at all.

    [Crystal: Rare]

    We came to a point where the mine cart track was collapsed over and the only way down was a ladder leading down a dark hole.

    "Hey, Abby. By any chance, do your bubbles give off light?" I said.

    "I don''t know. Let''s see," Abby said. She shot several bubbles down the hole into the dark and they lit up the tunnel down some. "Huh. I guess they do."

    "Nice," I said. "Let''s go down."

    We climbed down the ladder to the level below. We came out into a brightly lit natural cave filled with luminescent crystals. They were all different colors.

    I went to grab a pretty big one when a huge chunk of the crystals moved and stood up, revealing that it was a crystal golem. Sharp objects like my spikes weren''t going to do anything to this guy. They would just glance off his hard angular body.

    Then another golem stood up out of the crystals and another. Once they were done introducing themselves as enemies, there were 6 of them. I had to think of something fast.

    Nothing sharp would work. If that was the case, then should make something that''s not sharp. I could form crude weapons now, so I formed a large basic club and swung it at this dude''s leg.

    It cracked. Good. That was progress. Now I just needed to hit that spot again. The golem didn''t just stand there though. He lifted both fists and went to slam them down on me.

    A large bubble went over each fist and they bounced off me. There was still a decent amount of force to them, but it was significantly reduced.

    "Thanks, Abby," I said.

    "You''re welcome," she said.

    With his fists dealt with, I swung at the golem''s leg again. It shattered and he fell over with a loud thud. He tried getting up, but he couldn''t. He was too heavy and awkwardly built.

    So I ran up to his head and swung the club down on it. It cracked, so I swung again. It cracked more, so I swung again. It shattered to pieces and the golem''s crystals went dim and still.

    I had defeated one of them! Now just 5 more to go. I looked back to see Abby barely fending off the crystal golems. She kept knocking them on their asses with her combat bubbles. The bubbles weren''t hard enough to cause any damage though.

    I rushed up and used the same strategy as before but this time, I wanted to ground all 5 of the remaining golems before going for the kill shot. I shattered their legs to pieces with my club while dodging and running in between their slow moving legs.

    Once they were on the ground, I smashed their heads in. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and sighed in relief. There were no more enemies in this room. We spent some time collecting the rarest and highest quality looking crystals.

    [You have leveled up! You are now level 3]

    [Your Bone Armor is now self repairing!]

    [Your Bone Sense''s range has doubled!]

    ''Nice.''

    We also made sure to get the crystal golems'' cores. It was exhausting work smashing through their chests but it would probably be well worth it. The cores we pulled out of them were huge.

    When I popped mine, they were all stamina cores. I got 42 stamina (184) all in all. After Abby popped her cores, and we''d collected all the valuable looking crystals, we walked down a long cave tunnel with mine carts and mining tools pushed to the sides of the tunnel.

    There was a loud clank as I stepped on something hard. I heard a crunch sound and looked down at the massive bear trap that was clamped around my leg all the way up to the thigh.

    "Tom!" Abby said.

    "Don''t worry! I''m fine! My armor stopped it," I said.

    My bone armor had stopped the bear trap from slicing into me. I pried the bear trap open slipped my leg out and let it slam shut again. I looked at my leg and saw the chipped areas on the bone armor heal over.

    That was close. Now we just needed to navigate around all the other bear traps laid all over the floor of this cave tunnel going forward as far as I could see.

 Chapter 6: Carl and Commitment

    Using the bear traps as practice targets for my bone spikes, I activated all the traps down the long tunnel. Once activated and closed, the traps were easy to walk around.

    As we were walking, the earth shook and quaked for a moment. Once it had settled, we continued on. We came out into a wide-open mining area. There was a mine cart full of crystals.

    There was even someone still mining. He was muttering to himself and with his back turned to us as he continued to pick away at a wall of crystals with his pickaxe.

    There were dead miners all around him with puncture wounds in their chests. He had clearly killed them for some unknown reason.

    "I''m not crazy!" He said. "Your mom is crazy! She''s so crazy, she drinks tea on a Tuesday! Who does that?"

    Instead of doing the dumb thing and calling out to this clearly insane man who doesn''t believe in drinking tea on Tuesdays, I summoned three bone spikes and shot them at his back.

    They stuck into him pretty deep but he seemed unfazed. He turned around and I could see crystals growing all over his face and the front of his body. He had a bunch of those yellow speed crystals and purple amplification crystals growing on him.

    One moment he was across the room and the next, he was standing right in front of me. He pulled his pickaxe back and Abby and I dove out of the way. He brought the pickaxe down and when it hit the ground, a purple beam shot out of it in front of him, blasting a chunk out of a wall.

    [You have discovered the Mini-Boss "Corrupted Miner Carl"]

    His health bar shot across the bottom of my vision. I got up and began shooting spikes at him in threes. His health bar was slowly getting chipped away, but it wasn''t fast enough.

    He shot across the room again activating the speed crystals on his body and slammed the pickaxe down in front of me. A purple beam came out and slammed into me, sending me flying across the room into a wall. The front of my bone armor cracked and broke and then reformed.

    ''How am I not critting on this guy? How is he not evil?''

    [He isn''t evil. He''s crazy. There''s a difference]

    ''Great.''

    Carl was pulling back his pickaxe to attack me again when a bubble went over his head. It shrunk to the size of his head, and he began to struggle to breathe.

    I saw his health bar dropping but it was still quite slow, so I walked up to Carl who was just suffocating, and continuously fired spikes into his face over and over until he died.

    That was the annoying thing about mini-bosses and bosses. You couldn''t one-shot them. You had to whittle down their health to nothing.

    "Thanks, Abby," I said.

    "You''re welcome," she said.

    [You have leveled up! You are level 4!]

    [You have gained the ability Giant Spike!]

    [Giant Spike: It''s a giant spike obviously, but it''s also armor piercing]

    [You have also gained the ability Bone Arsenal!]

    [Bone Arsenal: Allows you to make high quality versions of any known melee weapon. You can reshape the weapon in your hand for quick switching between weapon types]

    We looked around the area before moving on. Despite being crazy, Carl had mined the crap out of this area and there were a lot of valuable crystals to be had. I stuffed my packs with crystals and Abigail continued to load up her now giant bubble full of crystals.

    Carl wouldn''t have a core inside him, even if I had the stomach to cut him open. Which currently, I didn''t. Henry said that only monsters, beasts, and other such creatures had cores. Humans did not. Even if they were in dungeons.

    Once we were satisfied, we made our way down a mined tunnel this time that opened up into a massive cavern full of crystals all over the walls. There was a giant mound of crystals in the center of the room that was rising up and down. It appeared to be breathing.

    Once we got a certain distance into the room, the crystal mound woke up and revealed itself to be a giant wolf infested with crystal growths all over its body. It howled loudly and its HP bar filled the lower part of my vision.

    [You have awakened the Boss, "Crystal Canine"]

    "Ok, here we go, I guess," I said.

    I summoned a giant spike above one of the canine''s front feet and slammed it down through its foot into the ground. I did the same to its other front foot, and then I did its back feet.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    It struggled to move but its feet were immobilized. That didn''t prevent it from trying to bite me. It was a massive creature and it took up a large portion of the cavern so it was able to get close to biting me at first.

    Bubbles got stuck in its open mouth and it couldn''t pop them. It shook its head to get the bubbles out, but by the time it had done that, I had already run to the other side of the room, behind it. Abigail ran with me.

    Now it had no way to get to us. So I shot giant spikes through its back legs and along the side of its body. Then I ripped them out one by one. Not because I was trying to be cruel. Just because I could only control one giant spike at a time.

    This opened huge holes in its body and it quickly bled out. It slowly lowered its body to the floor and died. No dramatic falling over onto us or anything. It physically couldn''t do that.

    [You have defeated the boss! Congratulations! Appropriate experience will be rewarded]

    ''That''s it? No treasure chest or rewards?''

    [Look around the room for appropriate looting opportunities]

    ''Right.''

    "Abby, you check over there, and I''ll check over here. There''s probably loot around somewhere," I said.

    "Ok," she said.

    [You have leveled up! You are now level 5!]

    [You have gained the ability Break Bones!]

    [Break Bones: The ability to fracture individual bones in a target''s body]

    [You have gained the ability Bone Platform!]

    [Bone Platform: Create a column of bone beneath your feet that you can grow taller and shorter and move around horizontally]

    Nice! These were some awesome abilities. I always wanted to be able to go places without having to move my legs. Also breaking bones, while limited, would be very useful.

    "I found it!" Abigail said.

    I rushed over to her to see what she found.

    I came over to where Abigail was staring at an open chest full of clearly magic crystals. They were obviously the most powerful things in this entire dungeon, because they had power just radiating off them.

    Sparks of different colored lightning arced back and forth across the trove and lights pulsed and glowed.

    "Holy shit!" I said. "I don''t know whether to take this or destroy it."

    "Why would we destroy it?" Abigail said.

    "You saw what these crystals did to that miner and the giant canine. I wonder what they would do to other people," I said.

    "Yeah, but this is a dungeon. Logic doesn''t always follow between enemies and rewards. The crystals might have no actual negative effects," she said.

    "Yeah, but how would we know for sure?" I said. "Wait, a second. I''m an evil wizard. Maybe there''s some kind of magic I can do to detect if they have negative effects."

    "Yeah, that''s a great idea. Do magic about it," she said.

    "Ok, here I go," I said. I put my hands out over the crystals like I was going to perform a spell, but then I just asked the system a question.

    ''Can you detect if these crystals have negative effects?''

    [Yes. They do, but it''s temporary. As long as you give proper recovery time between uses or after multiple uses, you will be fine]

    ''Ok. Give me exact figures. Explain it in numbers so I can understand it better.''

    [Ok. Common crystals give 0.1% corruption per use. Uncommon, 0.2%, rare, 0.3%, epic 0.5%, and legendary 1%. The average person, meaning someone with C-rank potential, can recover 1% corruption per day, but the corruption is cumulative. The higher your cumulative corruption, the more side effects you will have. When you reach 100% you lose control of your mind and become a mindless enemy NPC. Like Carl]

    ''I''m assuming that means the potential rank multiplier applies the same to corruption recovery as it does to core absorption?''

    [Yes. The N-rank potential multiplier of 10x applies the same to cores and corruption recovery. Meaning, an N-rank potential can recover 10% corruption per day]

    ''Ok, good. What are the side effects and when do they happen?''

    [25% corruption: Mild behavioral changes such as increased aggression, and reduced impulse control]

    [50% corruption: Moderate behavioral changes such as significantly increased aggression, violent tendencies, and periodic confusion. Mild physical changes such as increased muscle tension, muscle spasms, and twitching]

    [75% corruption: Severe behavioral and physical changes. Severe uncontrollable aggression, constant violence, and delirium. Crystal body growths, asymmetrical muscle growth, and dark bulging veins]

    [100% corruption: Full loss of control and personality wipe]

    ''Good to know. I''ll make sure to be careful about their use if I use them at all.''

    [While I''m not condoning their use, you''ll find that some of the crystals'' effects are almost too good to pass up. For example, the intelligence and learning boosting crystals allow a mage like you to perform magic at a significantly higher level and learn new magic at a much faster rate. If you are smart about it, you could walk away with no negative effects and significant developmental rewards]

    ''Thank you for the advice. I will take it into consideration. Can you tell me what rarity the crystals in the chest are?''

    [They are all of the rare quality]

    ''Only rare? Almost doesn''t seem worth the effort.''

    [Anything higher than rare quality would be a disproportionate reward. This was only a blue dungeon. There are still yellow, orange, red, purple, and black difficulty dungeons above that]

    ''With that many difficulty tiers, are there rewards above legendary?''

    [There are, but you aren''t supposed to know that yet. I will not explain or identify those higher rarities until you encounter them]

    ''Ok. Like a game.''

    [Like a game]

    ''Ok, I''m out. I''m going to talk to Abigail now.''

    [Affirmative]

    I told Abigail what I learned but said that I learned it through a magic detection spell rather than through my system. It was only logical to keep the system a secret, unless I absolutely had to reveal it for a very important reason, and only to someone I trusted with my life.

    "I think we should sell all the crystals except for the ones we think we really need. I only plan to keep intelligence and learning boosting crystals. I figure we could split those down the middle and then sell the rest since we''re both magic types. What do you think?" I said.

    "I don''t want any of the learning boosting crystals. I''ll take as many of the intelligence ones you''re willing to give up though," Abigail said.

    "Ok. How about you just take all the intelligence crystals and I''ll take all the learning ones," I said.

    "Ok! Sounds good to me!" She said.

    "Alright, let''s separate out all the intelligence and learning crystals and then put the rest into the chest," I said.

    "Deal. You''ll have to show me what the intelligence and learning crystals look like first though," she said.

    I showed Abby what the crystals looked like and then we separated them out. All the intelligence and learning crystals fit into one of the packs I was carrying. I gave her the intelligence pack and I took the learning pack.

    Then we poured all the common and uncommon crystals we had gathered on the way down the dungeon into the treasure chest, closed it, and put it in one of Abby''s carrying bubbles.

    I dug out the core of the Crystal Canine. "Who do you think should pop it?" I said. "The power hungry guy in me wants to take it myself, but if you really think you need it, I''ll give it to you."

    "What''s his name?" Abigail said, smiling and struggling not to giggle.

    "What''s whose name?" I said.

    "The guy who''s inside you. What''s his name?" Abigail said, bursting into laughter.

    "Haha, very funny," I said. "His name is Steve if you must know."

    "Ooo Steve. I like that name!" She said.

    "I''m glad you like Steve, but who is going to take this core?" I said.

    "You have higher potential, so you''ll get more out of it. And I like the idea of my man being stronger than me and protecting me, rather than the other way around," she said.

    "Oh, I''m your man now, am I?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

    "B-but, you kissed me. I kissed you. We kissed. Doesn''t that mean we''re together now?" She said.

    "Exclusively?" I said.

    "Well, yeah. Isn''t that how everyone gets together? Exclusively?" She said.

    "Not necessarily. I''ve never been in a relationship myself, but I''ve met people who have dated multiple people at the same time. I''m not saying that''s what I want or don''t want. I''m not sure what I want yet, and don''t want to jump into a commitment without thinking about it first," I said, holding my hands up.

    "Hmm. Well, with the knowledge that exclusive isn''t the only option, I don''t know which one I''d prefer. I just know I want to be with you and only you. Whether I want to prevent you from being with other people is something my mind hasn''t decided yet," she said.

    "Ok. Well, I''m happy to commit to being with you in an ambiguously non exclusive way. I like you," I said.

    "Good, because I like you too," she said.

    "Good. I''ll just pop this core real quick, and we can go find that teleportation platform, and meet up with Henry and Stu," I said.

    "Ok!" She said.

    I popped the huge red core in my hand.

    [You have absorbed a +25 Strength core. N-Tier 10x multiplier applied. +25 Strength (165)]

    We wandered around until we found the teleportation platform in the corner of the room behind some equipment and used it. We appeared about 20 feet away from the dungeon entrance. Henry and Stu were waiting for us.

 Chapter 7: Cashing In

    Abigail and I appeared outside the dungeon, about 20 feet from the entrance. Henry and Stu were waiting outside, but as soon as they saw us, their faces widened in shock.

    "Holy shit. You actually did it? You actually defeat the dungeon boss? Or did you just run past it to the teleporter?" Henry said.

    "Can you actually do that? Wouldn''t the teleporter not work until the boss is dead?" I said.

    "Kid, how would I know? I''ve never completed a dungeon. This is the only dungeon I''ve ever run and most of them ended in me running away from an enemy I didn''t think I could beat," he said.

    "That''s fair I suppose. I have to ask though, what happened with Lloyd? I''m not pointing any fingers or looking to blame anyone. I mean more like, how did he get one shot or two shot by that troll? I thought you guys would have decent stats," I said.

    "Kid, we''re strength primary C and D-rankers. We deal high damage, but our hp is shit, and we can''t dodge. We''re mainly good at smacking down slow enemies with low attack damage. Lloyd was a D-ranker so he couldn''t gain any stamina or agility stats from the cores we collected, not that we were allowed to absorb cores, except for the bare minimum required to do our jobs," he said.

    "My strength is 203 and Lloyd''s was probably somewhere between 150 and 160. Not that high, but keep in mind, that''s our best stat. You know stamina? The stat that gives you hp and durability? The only way any of us could increase our stamina is through training and we got none of that from the company."

    "I was just handed a sword on day one, given a handful of strength cores, and told to go fight. And none of us have time outside of work and taking care of our families to do training."

    "The only stamina stats I''ve gained are on the job just from swinging the sword so much. I''m looking at my stats now and it says my stamina is 106. Consider Lloyd''s was probably around 104 and there''s your answer. We basically all have day-one stamina stats. It''s a miracle we haven''t died already. We''re mercenaries. Our careers don''t last long and they usually end bloody."

    "When you put it like that, it makes total sense," I said. "I''m sorry for pushing you for an answer. I was just so shocked by Lloyd''s death. I thought you all were safe and we''d work together for a long time, and then one of you is just gone."

    "Hey kid, it''s alright. I get the instinct to search for answers. I also get not being used to seeing a friend die, even if you only knew them for a few hours. It''s something you learn to not look for solutions and just accept. And the deaths aren''t so bad after a while. You get used to it," he said.

    "That''s not right though. If the company had tried harder to keep you alive with training and better equipment, Lloyd might still be alive," I said.

    "It''s not right. But there''s nothing we can do about it. We''re at the bottom of the ladder and shit always falls down," Henry said, sighing and rubbing his neck.

    "Now, let''s go sell this loot so you don''t have to lug around all this extra weight. It would be better to give to Lloyd''s family in money form too. What are they gonna do with a bunch of crystals besides just selling them at the market themselves? And they''ll probably get a worse price since they aren''t mercenaries."

    "Sounds like a plan," I said. I was disappointed that things had to be this way, but as Henry said this may be the only option. I''d keep my mind open to other possibilities though.

    "Sounds fun! I''ve always wanted to know how the other half lived," Abigail said.

    "What, are you some rich kid turned bum? Why are you down here slumming it with the common folk?" Stu said.

    "I''m aˇŞ" she started to say, but I covered her mouth.

    "She ran away from home," I said. "It would be a huge scandal for her family if anyone found out she was missing. That''s why she can''t tell you her family name. Right, Allison?"

    I turned to Abigail so only she could see my face, and I winked at her. Hard.

    "Is something in your eye, Tom?" Abigail said.

    "Allison, you know I don''t like being called that. Use my real name, Jarnathan," I said. Then I leaned in really close so I was whispering in Abigail''s ear. "We don''t want them to know who we really are. They might turn us in for a reward. And I wouldn''t blame them if they did."

    "Oh, yeah! Sorry, Jarnathan! I always forget you hated that nickname," she said.

    "Your name is Jarnathan?" Stu said. "What kind of name is that?"

    "It''s a new fancy upper city name. You probably wouldn''t have heard of it," I said.

    "Well, Jarnathan, we''re here. At the market. So keep your eyes peeled and don''t let anyone pick your pockets or steal your bags or coin purse. You''ll never get it back," Henry said.

    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

    "Good to know," I said. "Do you have control over that bubble?" I pointed at the large bubble containing and carrying the treasure chest full of crystals.

    "Yeah. I can prevent people from taking it," Abigail said.

    "Good. Put a bubble over your other stuff too, so people can''t take those either," I said, looking around.

    "Done!" She said.

    "Ok. We''re all set, Henry. Lead us to whoever is going to take these off our hands," I said.

    "Follow me," Henry said.

    We arrived at a very fancy-looking stall. At least fancy compared to all the other stalls in this marketplace. Maybe not upper-city fancy, but it was definitely lower-city fancy.

    It had all kinds of different trinkets, baubles, potions, and crystals displayed. There was only one version of each potion and crystal displayed, and they didn''t look very authentic. The only way I could tell what they were supposed to be was from the labels underneath and in front of them.

    I was wondering why he would put fake items on display when a kid rushed by and snatched a fake potion off his display. The man didn''t even react with a facial expression.

    He said nothing and just reached under the counter, pulled out an identical fake potion, and replaced the stolen one on the display. So that was why he didn''t have authentic merchandise out in the open.

    When he saw Henry, and the rest of us his face lit up, and he said, "Henry! Good to see you again my friend." His eyes fell onto the treasure chest.

    "You''re not selling scraps this time I see. I''m excited to see what you got. Good day, I assume." He looked at me and Abigail. "Welcome! My name is Bobbin, and this is my shop, Bobbin''s Baubles and More!"

    He had warm brown skin, striking white hair, and a jovial smile. He wore traditional merchant''s garb, and by that I mean he was dressed the same as any of the merchants in this square. I didn''t actually know what merchants normally dressed like here since I got here yesterday.

    "Nice to meet you, Bobbin. I''m Jarnathan, and this is Allison," I said.

    "Nice to meet you Jarnathan, but let the lady speak for herself," he said, looking Abigail up and down. I could tell he was interested in creating an excuse to stare at Abigail''s features, rather than anything to do with respecting women, but I let it slide.

    "It''s ok, Mr Bobbin, but asˇ­ Jarnathan said, my name is Allison, andˇ­ well, that''s all he said," Abigail said.

    "Marvelous to meet you, Allison," Bobbin said, while taking Abigail''s hand and kissing it.

    Allison pulled her hand back and giggled at that. I couldn''t tell if it was an actual giggle or a discomfort one. I know how I''d feel, but I didn''t want to assume her feelings.

    "Stu, good to see you as well," Bobbin nodded in Stu''s direction. "So, what do you have for me today?"

    Abigail set the chest on the counter of his stall. Bobbin carefully opened the chest and what he saw inside made his jaw drop wide open.

    Bobbin stared at the open chest full of crystals for longer than I expected him to. Finally, he said, "This is a dungeon reward chest. How did you get this?"

    "We completed the dungeon, Bobbin. How else would we get it?" Henry said.

    "Robbery is a possible option," he said.

    "If someone was strong enough to complete a dungeon, and we weren''t, how would we be strong enough to rob them?" I said.

    "I suppose that makes sense," Bobbin said. "Well, however you got it, I want it. I want it all."

    "How much will you give us for it?" Henry said. He looked at me and whispered, "Let me do the talking."

    "Sure," I said, fully intending to interrupt if I felt we were being shorted. How would I know if we were being shorted? Time to ask the system.

    ''System, do you know the value of the crystals in the chest? Including the extra ones we added to it?''

    [Yes. I was keeping track. The total value of the crystals you left in the chest, without including the crystals you kept, is 2,047 gold. This is the current wholesale market value. Selling each crystal individually would yield far greater profits. Bobbin should offer you at least 1,638 gold for the chest, which is 80% of its wholesale value. Anything less would be exploitative]

    Bobbin rubbed his chin thoughtfully, which to me meant he was calculating the most advantageous price for himself, that he thought we would accept.

    "I''ll give you 1,228 gold for the whole thing, including the chest," Bobbin said. He was as cool as could be. No nervousness about lowballing us. Like a true professional businessman. I hated it.

    He was offering us 60% of the true wholesale value of the chest. I waited for Henry to turn down the offer and argue for more.

    "Sounds good to me," Henry said. "That''s a lot of money. Right?" He looked at me trying to get me to agree.

    "No! You''re lowballing us! You and I both know those crystals are worth 2,047 gold without the chest. The chest could sell for 200 gold by itself. 2,047 gold and I''ll throw the chest in for free," I said.

    I was acting upset, which I was, but it was for show. I was more than willing to go lower than 2,047 gold. This was all part of the negotiation process, but I couldn''t let him know I knew that. He might try to leverage it against me.

    "1,433," he said. He upped it to exactly 70%. So this is how it was going to go. Well, two could play that game.

    "1,945," I said. I lowered it 95% to counter his 10% raise. I was showing him I meant business and put him at a disadvantage for having offered a 10% raise.

    Now I could continue to offer 5% lower every time, but he couldn''t do the same. The lowest he could offer me now was a 7% raise. Or so I thought. I was just going off of everything I''d learned from TV, movies, books, and games.

    I had never been in a real negotiation before. I liked it. It felt like my blood was on fire but in a good way.

    "1,586. No higher," he said, with his arms crossed.

    It didn''t show on his face but he was sweating. I don''t mean that as a figure of speech. Sweat was dripping down his face, and it wasn''t that hot out.

    A 7.5% raise. I''d counter with a 4% lowering. "1,863. No lower." I said. I was a little nervous, but I was also excited. This was the most fun I''d had in my previous life.

    "Ok. You''ve proven to be a shrewd negotiator. How about we meet in the middle, eh? 1,725," he said, with a fake smile on his face.

    He knew that the longer this negotiation went on, the worse it would get for him. This was an attempt to cut his losses.

    "Why don''t we make it easier? 1,800 even. That''s a nice round number, don''t you think?" I said.

    That was 87.9%, but I wasn''t doing it because of the exact percentage. I was doing it to socially engineer a little extra money out of him. I was doing all this math in my head.

    In my past life, I was a boring old accountant. The work was alright, but I craved more excitement. This was certainly more exciting.

    "1,750 and I''ll let you pick one item you see displayed here for free," he said, narrowing his eyes at me.

    "As long as we get a real item and not a fake display one, I''m willing to call that a deal," I said, letting a little bit of a smile make its way onto my face.

    I put my hand out to shake his hand to seal the deal. He took it and shook it. The deal was done. 1,750 gold and a free item it was. 85.5% and an item wasn''t a bad deal. It was more than I set out to make. I expected and was willing to accept 80% of the crystals only, and nothing more.

    Henry was staring at me like he didn''t know who I was. Which in all honesty, he didn''t.

    Henry leaned in and said, "I don''t know how you did that kid, but that was amazing. I''ve never seen anyone beat Bobbin at his own game. I usually just take whatever he gives me and run. Not worth the arguing, but boy am I glad you stepped in."

    "Think nothing of it," I said.

    ''System, what item should I pick?''

    [What you pick is up to you, but I will point out there are a couple of expensive potentially useful items like a compass, and a sundial watch]

    ''Hmm. Yeah, but can''t I just use you to tell where I''m going and the time?''

    [Yes. I hadn''t considered that]

    ''Yeah. I think I''ll go with a health potion. Seems the most useful to me right now.''

    [Very well]

    "I''ll take a health potion as my item," I said.

    Bobbin wiped his brow like he was glad I didn''t pick the compass or the watch. "One health potion. Here you go," he said. He put a red potion on the counter. I grabbed it and put it in my pack.

    ''System, is the health potion real?''

    [Yes]

    ''Thanks.''

    "Thank you. Now we''ll take our 1,750 gold and be on our way," I said.

    "I''ll get that ready for you," Bobbin said. He prepared several coin purses to carry the gold with. It came out to 10 equally sized and weighted purses. I stuffed them all in my pack.

    ''System?''

    [Yes, it''s the right amount of gold]

    ''Thanks.''

    "Pleasure doing business with you, Bobbin. Hope to see you again soon," I said, with a smile.

    "Not too soon I hope," Bobbin said, with a forced smile.

    We walked off out of the marketplace. "Henry, please lead us the Lloyd''s house. I don''t feel safe dividing up the gold until we''re in a secure location," I said, looking around.

    I had no idea how dangerous it was in this world, but it was definitely going to be more dangerous than where I lived before, and that place killed me.

 Chapter 8: Family and Fortunes

    When we made it to Lloyd''s house, Henry said to stand slightly behind him and don''t say anything. This time, he really would do the talking. He knocked on the door.

    The wife answered and Henry delivered the news. She fainted standing up and Henry had to catch her and safely lower her to the ground. She woke up a few minutes later and began to sob uncontrollably.

    After she had finished crying enough so she would hear what he was saying, he told her we wanted to give her something as compensation for her loss, but we didn''t want to do it in public in case someone saw and tried to rob them.

    She led us into her home and we sat in chairs around a table.

    "I can''t take credit for this, because it would be dishonest. Jarnathan and Allison earned the money on their own and it was Jarnathan''s idea to give the money to your family," Henry said.

    "You two did? How?" Lloyd''s wife, Jane said. She introduced herself earlier.

    "We completed a dungeon," I said. "Now nobody touches the money. I have a magic ability to do with money and I don''t want anything to interfere with it."

    "Ok, I guess. Have you completed a dungeon? The two of you? What are you both S-rankers or something?" She smiled and laughed like that would be ridiculous.

    Abigail and I exchanged a glance. "Actually, yeah," I said. "We''re both brand new S-rankers. We grew strong enough as we completed the dungeon to defeat the boss."

    "Wow! That''s amazing! So how much did you make? I assume you sold some of the rewards," she said.

    "I think it''s better if I show you," I said.

    I began pulling coin purses out of the bag. I pulled out 6, leaving 1 for me, Abigail, Henry, and Stu. Then I pushed all 6 bags across the table to Jane.

    [Multiplied Generosity activated!]

    The six bags of gold instantly turned into 18 bags of gold.

    "What?" Jane said.

    "What the hell just happened?" Henry said.

    "No way," Stu said.

    Abigail just grabbed my hand under the table and squeezed it while smiling at me.

    "Yeah, uh, I have this ability where the first time I gift anyone money, it multiplies by 3. It''s sort of a reward for doing a good deed," I said.

    "Well, thank you! I honestly can''t thank you enough. This is more money than Lloyd could''ve made for the rest of his life. This means a lot to us. We needed the help," she said.

    "You''re welcome. I''m happy to do it. Lloyd deserved better, but this is the best I could do," I said.

    "And I thank you for it," she said.

    "And again you''re welcome," I said.

    We said our goodbyes and walked behind the house. There I gave everyone their share of the money. I gave Henry a coin purse which turned into 3, I gave Stu 1 which also turned into 3 and I gave Abigail 2 which turned into 6.

    "What about you?" Abigail said, looking sad.

    "Well, if you feel it in your heart to give, I''ll take 1 purse. The old me wouldn''t have trusted anyone with his money, but I figured I would trust you and give you the remaining purses so that we could all have more. You can keep the remaining 5 though. I''ll let you know if I need you to lend me any, but I think 1 will do me just fine," I said.

    "Ok! Here you go!" Abigail gave me one of the purses.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

    I obviously couldn''t game this too much, because it only worked the first time. But at least we got 2 extra coin purses out of the deal.

    Now that all that was over with, it was time for the real work. I activated Soul Inquiry and asked Henry''s soul a question.

    ''Do you know who runs the mercenary company?''

    ''No. I know a guy above me and that''s it.'' His soul said.

    ''What is his name and location?'' I asked.

    ''His name is James. He operates out of a shady bar called Beer.'' He said.

    ''The bar''s name is Beer?'' I asked.

    ''Yes.'' He said.

    I waited for him to elaborate but he didn''t, and I remembered this was a question-and-answer situation.

    "Henry, can we still work with you tomorrow?" I said.

    "Of course! You make me rich on the first day, I''ll bring you back as many times as you want," Henry said.

    "Good," I said. After what I planned to do tonight, I wasn''t sure if there would be a job tomorrow. But I figured it would be good to keep up appearances.

    "See you later, kid," Henry said, walking off.

    "Goodbye," Stu said.

    "Bye," I said, waving at both of them.

    Once we were all alone, Abigail said, "What are you going to do?"

    "Am I that obvious?" I said, taken aback.

    "Not to others. Just to me," she said. "You barely contain your emotions. You should work on that if you plan to do the kinds of things I know you''re planning to do."

    "Duly noted," I said. "I''ll try, but it''s hard for me to see people get taken advantage of and do nothing about it."

    Abigail put her arms around me and kissed me. "I know. That''s why I''m telling you to be smart about it. Don''t get caught."

    "I''ll do my best. See you later tonight or are you gonna go to bed?" I said.

    "I''m not sure. Wake me up if I''m asleep when you get back," she said.

    "Ok," I said. I kissed her and then started walking away, only to turn back around, come back, and say, "Wait, how do I get to Beer?"

    "Straight down that street. Turn left at the angel statue, then keep going until some guy yells at you about stealing his balls, then take a right and it''ll be on your left, 3 buildings down," she said, smiling at me.

    "Thanks," I said. I walked down the street carrying my half-empty pack and maxed-out capacity coin purse.

    <hr>

    "You stole my balls!" Said a man sitting on the corner of an intersection of the road. He didn''t have any visible teeth, but I wasn''t doubting the possibility of him having invisible teeth.

    "Were they bouncy?" I said. "I love bouncy balls." I shouldn''t have engaged. I wasn''t trying to torture the guy. Sometimes my mouth just spoke before my mind had a chance to stop it.

    The man looked at me up and down and said, "You''re a weird fellow."

    "Thank you for trying to keep me informed, but I was already aware of that," I said, and turned right and walked down the street.

    I kept my eyes peeled for a sign that said "Beer," and I almost missed it. The sign didn''t say Beer. It was just a sign with the image of a mug of beer painted on it. Interesting marketing. I mean if I was looking for a beer and just saw a sign of a beer, I''d probably wander in.

    I opened the door, not knowing what to expect, but it wasn''t what I found. The place was dead just a couple of hours after the sun went down. It should''ve been packed, but there were only a few people at the bar and one guy sitting in the corner shuffling cards. Must have been an off night.

    I guessed the guy in the corner was probably James. He looked like the kind of guy who was advertising he was open for business, while also pretending like he wasn''t. As I walked up, I realized he seemed to be shuffling something similar to tarot cards, but the symbols and names on the cards were nothing like any tarot cards I''d ever seen.

    One was a black card with a big eye on it. Another one looked like a shriveled witch pointing to the left of the card. Then the last one was a picture of my face with glowing red eyes, and long red hair the color of ketchup.

    I sat down across from him and didn''t say anything. I felt like his game was to get you to say something first. So I didn''t. He shuffled the cards a few times but left the three cards on the table facing me.

    Several minutes passed by like that. I didn''t say anything and just studied the cards. The artwork was incredible. This was when I noticed the writing describing the name of the card. The eye one was called ''The Eye'', the witch one was called ''The Withered Witch'', and the one with my face on it was called ''The Visage''. Hmm. Interesting.

    "It''s usually by this point where the other person says something, but since you seem to be mute, I''ll speak first. What do you see?" He said.

    "I see a picture of my face but a little different, a withered witch pointing, and a floating eye. Is there some variation to what people see? Are they magic cards?" I said.

    "Some of them are. Some of them aren''t. But I was asking you what you think the cards mean in relation to your life," he said. He was wearing a hood that obscured his face. Which wasn''t cliche at all.

    "I don''t know. I''m not good at these interpretation things. The Visage makes me look crazy. Maybe it means I have a boiling rage inside me that may take over my mind if I''m not careful," I said.

    "The withering witch just looks like my grandma telling me to take out the garbage. Like I needed her to point because I didn''t know where the garbage went after years of living in her house."

    "And the eye is kind of just staring at me. Maybe it means people are watching me. I don''t know."

    There was a silence, and then he said, "Wow. You are bad at this. The Visage on your left represents your past. The crazy rage face means you have unresolved issues with your past. That still make you angry even to this day."

    "The Withering Witch, which is in the middle represents your present. She''s telling you to choose a direction and stick with it. Decide where you want your life to go and work toward that."

    "The Eye is on the right, so it represents your future. It can be interpreted similarly to how you interpreted it. It could mean that people will be watching you in the future, or looking for you."

    "Interesting. That doesn''t quite have anything to do with why I came here, but here are two gold coins for your trouble," I said. I pulled two coins out of my purse and slid them across the table.

    "Thank you," he said. Pocketing the coins. "Then why are you here?"

    "I came to ask you a few questions. What is your favorite fruit?" I said. I realized I could have questioned his soul during the initial silence, but the past was the past.

    ''Who are your employers?'' I asked.

    ''The Red Tail Fox Company.'' His soul said.

    "What kind of question is that? The answer is obvious. Blueberries," he said.

    "Why are you alone?"

    ''Where do they operate out of?'' I asked.

    ''The building across from Sally''s. Their office is on the top floor.''

    "Because I don''t have any friends," he said.

    "What is the average weight of a fully grown red-tailed fox?"

    ''Is there a password to get in?''

    ''It''s "vermillion".''

    He stood up from the boot but the table was in the way of his legs, so he half stood up. "How did you hear that name?"

    "You told me," I said. "Vermillion."

    ''Are you evil or have you committed evil acts upon the innocent?'' I asked.

    ''No. I''m just a regular guy trying to make a living. I don''t have any kids or family, but I do have a cat that I love very much. Her name is Sprinkles.''

    Dear god. He''s relatable. I can''t kill him now. As soon as I said "vermillion", he stiffened. "Did I fail the test, sir?" He said.

    "No. You''re fine. I just didn''t want to fight you, because I''m not in the mood to kill someone tonight," I said. I was lying. I was in the mood to kill someone tonight. Just not him.

    "Oh, good thank you. I hope you liked your fortune, sir. Have a good night," he said, in a high-pitched voice.

    "I will. Thank you. You as well," I said. I left Beer and began making my way toward Sally''s.

 Chapter 9: Mercing the Mercs

    I arrived at Sally''s and looked across the street. There was a nondescript building across from Sally''s that wasn''t lit up in any way. The street was lined with light poles with gas lamps on top of them. But all the ones around that building were off or not working.

    I walked to the shadiest part of the building. The back entrance in the alley. Since it was nearly pitch black here, I donned my living bone armor and created a sword from bone.

    I knocked on the door and then stepped out of view against the wall. "Who''s out there?" A voice said.

    "Vermillion," I said.

    "Oh, why didn''t you say so?" He opened the door.

    I came into view and kicked him in the chest, knocking him over.

    [Auto Crit on Evil activated]

    ''Have you committed harmful acts to the innocent?''

    ''Yes, but only because I was told to. I don''t like killing. I don''t regret it or feel bad about it though.''

    "Good enough for me," I said. I summoned a giant spike and impaled him with it. I suppose I could''ve taken the Auto Crit on Evil as confirmation, but I wanted to be sure.

    [You have defeated evil! Rewards incoming]

    [Choose your reward]

    [Evil Eye: The ability to determine if someone is evil]

    [Command: The ability to give someone one command they must carry out how and when you want them to. Only one command can be active at a time]

    [Heart''s Guidance: The ability to show someone how to become their best self and give them the motivation to do it]

    Ahh, damn it. I really liked Evil Eye and Heart''s Guidance. I could use a quicker way to determine evil, but Heart''s Guidance just seemed so good. Not necessarily useful to me, but good.

    ''I choose Evil Eye.''

    [Granted. Your aura is not affected]

    ''Thanks.''

    Unfortunately, I''d have to pass on being able to save people''s miserable lives and make them better people. Being able to determine evil was too important. Saving people from danger was a higher priority than saving them from themselves.

    Before I could travel any deeper into the building I got a notification.

    [You have committed several good deeds! +50 good aura for Lloyd''s family +10 good aura for Henry +10 good aura for Stu +15 good aura for Abigail]

    [Subtracted against your 30 dark aura, you are left with a status of 55 good aura]

    [Threshold of 50 good aura met. You have gained the ability Emanate Good Aura Level 1]

    [Emanate Good Aura: The ability to give the instinctual impression that you are a good person to others]

    ''Interesting. I wonder how much of that good aura will get canceled out by what I''m about to do.''

    [All of it most likely]

    ''That''s what I thought.''

    I toggled on the ability, Emanate Good Aura, and then I dispelled the giant spike. The giant spike disappeared. I didn''t want to leave any evidence someone with my abilities was here. That would be far too easy to track back to me.

    I walked into the next room. There were 10 men sitting around a table playing some form of game. I was dressed in a suit of bone armor. I checked them with Evil Eye and they were all evil.

    "Does anyone know where the restroom is?" I said.

    "Oh, yeah, it''s down the hall to the right," one of them said. They all turned back to playing their game. That must have been the good aura at work.

    I used the time to set up 20 floating spikes, with 2 aimed at each man. They turned back around. "Hey, are you sure you belong here if you don''t know where the bathroom is?"

    They still ignored the fact that I was wearing creepy combat armor. But then they saw the spikes. "Hey, guys, this guy''s clearly up to no good. Let''s get him!"

    As soon as they stood up, I sent the bone spikes into their chests, and they sat back down. I got one Auto Crit on Evil notification but the rest were just me. Apparently, I could only auto-crit once every 10 seconds, which made it less useful in situations like this.

    I sent bone spike after bone spike into each guy until they all stopped moving. And then I dispelled the spikes. I didn''t want to leave any obvious evidence. Sure someone could analyze the wounds, but there was nothing I could do about that.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

    [You have defeated evil 10 times!]

    [Your dark aura has increased by 5 per kill. 5 good aura remaining]

    [You have unlocked new reward options!]

    [Roll a new ability (choose 1 of 3), Upgrade an existing ability, or save kills for an ultimate ability (50 kills)]

    ''I''m going to go with upgrading an existing ability. Let''s upgrade Evil Eye.''

    [Evil Eye upgraded! You can now recognize the nature of an evil doer''s wrongs]

    [You have 9 remaining rewards. Will you Roll, Upgrade, or Save?]

    ''I''m assuming I can''t upgrade my bone spells or Emanate Good Aura since I didn''t get those from defeating evil.''

    [That is correct]

    ''Then let''s upgrade Experience Plunder.''

    [Experience Plunder''s radius of effect has increased from 1 mile to 2 miles]

    [Your dark aura has increased by 5 (0)]

    [You have 8 rewards remaining]

    ''Upgrade Experience Plunder 8 more times.''

    [Experience Plunder''s radius of effect has increased to 10 miles]

    [Dark aura increased by 40 (-40)]

    Nice. Experience Plunder felt underwhelming in its original state, but now I might be able to get some decent gains. And I was close to hitting the -50 threshold for getting the Emanate Dark Aura ability that I assumed existed.

    I checked around the rest of the first floor but there was no one around. It made sense. It was an office building and it was night.

    I went up the stairs to the next floor. I tried to be as stealthy as possible. I made it so the bottom of my feet didn''t have bone armor on them. This way, my footsteps didn''t make loud noises. I was wearing leather boots underneath.

    I carefully open the door out of the stairwell. I opened the door and no one was around. There were desks and chairs that appeared to be for administrative staff or office workers.

    Nothing sinister here unless you consider who they were working for. Regardless, I don''t think Evil Eye would ping them as evil.

    I moved onto the third floor and carefully opened the door. The room had several what appeared to be adventurers or mercenaries or both inside. The walls were lined with crates of weapons, armor, and crystals.

    They appeared to be eating and arguing about something. "What I said wasˇŞ" one of them said, and then everyone turned and looked at me. Someone in the background dropped their sandwich on the floor.

    "This isn''t the bathroom," I said.

    The guy who had the coolest clothes and tattoos, who I assumed was in charge, said, "No, the bathroom''s down the hall and to the right."

    "Thanks," I said and turned to walk out of the room. I figured coming back with some spikes prepared would be better than this.

    "Hey, wait a second! You look familiar," the leader said.

    "I do?" I said, confused. I was wearing full-bone armor that even covered my head.

    "Yeah. Aren''t you the guy that fucked my mom?" He said, getting angry.

    "You mean your dad? No, I''m not your dad. Sorry, pal," I said.

    "That''s just the kind of thing my dad would say. Kill him, boys!" The leader said.

    "You must have a really bad relationship with your father!" I said. I dodged a sword swipe.

    "I do!" He said. He swiped his sword at me again. "He fucked my mother!"

    "That can''t be the real reason. He had to do that to create you," I said, pulling out a sword of my own and blocking his blow. I swirled my sword around his, pulling it out of his hand and flinging it across the room. I had no idea how I did it, until, I got a system notification.

    [Counter Evil activated!]

    Oh yeah. Counter Evil did it for me. How did I think I could be good at sword fighting after never doing it in my previous life?

    The leader pulled out another sword he had on his belt and went, "Aha!"

    He slashed at me and this time I didn''t come anywhere near blocking him. I whiffed and his sword hit my legs, but it only chipped my armor. Then the chips healed and repaired themselves.

    "No, it wasn''t because he fucked my mom. It was because he fucked me!" The leader said.

    "Literally? Oh, geez, I''m sorry man," I said. I whiffed at blocking again and he hit my armor again. So I decided to attack first this time. I swiped across his chest, drawing blood.

    [Auto crit on evil activated!]

    "No, not literally! That would be gross! Metaphorically," he said. I kept swinging at him and he blocked these, but I pushed him back until his foot hit a crate against the wall.

    "Oh! Metaphorically. That makes more sense," I said. I kicked him in the stomach and he knocked against the crate and fell to a crouch.

    Then 5 other swords all struck my armor. The other men in the room were joining the fight. All of the men in this room registered evil when I entered. I swung my sword in a circle around me, hoping I could get them all with an auto crit rather than one.

    [Auto Crit on Evil activated!]

    I sliced all of their necks with my swing. They fell to the ground and bled out. I lowered my sword and pressed it against the throat of the leader.

    "Now tell me, who has a bigger penis than you?" I said.

    "Uh, my dad?" He said, with fear in his eyes.

    "Wrong answer," I said as I slashed his throat. I dropped my sword on the ground and dispelled it.

    [You have defeated 5 moderate evils, worth 2 justice points each, and 1 great evil, worth 3 justice points. You have 13 justice points. How would you like to spend them?]

    [Reward options: Roll, Upgrade, or Save?]

    [Your dark aura has increased by -30 (-70)]

    [Threshold met. You have gained Emanate Dark Aura Level 1]

    [Emanate Dark Aura: The ability to indicate to others that you have committed many dark deeds]

    Nice! Now I could intimidate people.

    ''Save.''

    [Saving your 13 justice points]

    I went back up the stairs and stood outside the door. I had to decide whether to go good aura or dark aura. I decided to go dark aura. I decided to go in silent.

    I opened the door and slipped in. Luckily, I wasn''t in a room with people in it. I was in a hallway. Right across from the stairwell was a room that had voices coming from it.

    I walked up to the door and listened.

    "Crystals made it onto the market today! Bobbin was selling them," a concerned guy said.

    "How did that happen? They had to have come from one of our dungeons," an angry woman said.

    "Stylus! Which teams reported in today after their dungeon run? There has to be a discrepancy," said a commanding man.

    "Teams 1, 2, and 3 all checked in sir," the concerned guy, Stylus said. "But team 4 never did. I heard that they lost a member and their run was a loss. The team member they lost was one Lloyd Semperman."

    "They have to be lying! Or they did lose a member, but their run wasn''t a loss. Maybe that''s why they lost a member. Because they went all the way and beat the dungeon," the commanding man said.

    "Send someone to check on the different team members under the pretense that we''re sorry for their loss and are looking out for their well-being. Then while you have them at the front door talking, have Nico sneak in the back and search for any large amounts of money they recently acquired."

    "I''ll go, sir!" Stylus said.

    "Good. I like that initiative Stylus. You might actually make something of yourself one day," the commanding guy said.

    "Thank you, sir," Stylus said.

    "Nico, get ready. You''re going now," he said.

    "Yes, sir," Nico said.

    "Bruno and Dulce, you back them up just in case a brawl breaks out and they have more people with them," the commanding guy said.

    "Yes, sir," Bruno said.

    "Very well," the angry lady who was Dulce said.

    I needed to do something and I needed to do it now. If they checked on our guys, they''d all be majorly fucked. I opened the door and stepped inside.

    "Hey!" I said.

    It was set up like a conference room. One huge table in the center of the room with chairs around it.

    There was a stealthy rogue looking girl. That was probably Nico. There was a wimpy guy near the far end of the table with a pen and paper. That was probably Stylus. The commanding guy sat at the far back of the table.

    Bruno was a big strong warrior-looking guy, and Dulce was dressed vaguely like a witch, but a civilized one. The commanding guy wore all-black leather armor with red accents.

    "Hey, yourself. Who are you and what are you doing here?" The commanding guy said.

    "I''m here to take down your evil organization. You take advantage of desperate people and don''t even train them so they don''t get killed in your dungeons," I said.

    "Yeah, and? We do what we have to in order to run this company. We dont have the time or money to train people. Despite not being up to your standards of employee accommodation, we employ dozens of people and help them get by and feed their families," the commanding guy said.

    "Without us what are they going to do? Become homeless and starve. That''s what they''re going to do. And their deaths will be on your hands. What do you say to that, hero?"

    Oh shit. I hadn''t thought of that. What would I do?

    "I''ll employ them. To do the same job they did for you," I said.

    How was I going to do that? I didn''t have a degree in business. Wait, a minute. I did have a degree in business. My master''s degree was in business administration with a focus in accounting.

    I may not have any experience, but I had training. Training from a long time ago that I barely remembered, but I did have it.

    "Oh yeah? How are you going to even find out who we employ and how to get a hold of them?" He said.

    "Stylus. He clearly knows the business and he''s not reading as evil like the rest of you are," I said.

    "Good luck with that," he said. "Stylus is loyal to me. He''d never go against the company like that."

    "We''ll just have to see, won''t we?" I said.

    "I guess we will," he said.

    There was a silence in the room, then, "Uh, get him, obviously."

    Then Bruno, Nico, and Dulce advanced on me, but it was awkward because they had to carefully walk around the chairs since they were so close to the wall.

 Chapter 10: Branch Heads

    I summoned as large of a giant spike as I could and fired it as fast as I could at the boss. He drew his sword in an instant and a glowing yellow shield appeared around him.

    The giant spike struck the shield in a flash of light. When the light dimmed, the giant spike had broken through the shield. He was pushing it back with the flat of his sword.

    I took control of the giant spike again and pushed it against his sword as hard as I could. He held on for a few seconds before his arms started to buckle and the bone spike pushed his sword back until it was resting against his chest.

    Then, instead of just guiding the spike around the sword that he wasn''t even holding anymore, I continued to press against it. I pressed against it and pressed against it until it began to fold under the pressure.

    In a matter of seconds, the sword folded in half around the bone spike and the bone spike shot through the boss''s body and out the back, hitting the wall in a splatter of blood.

    I dispelled the spike and the bloody misshapen sword clattered to the ground. Yellow healing magic rushed into his wound. He looked down at the gaping hole in his body and then at me.

    "How, did you?" He said.

    "The strong conquer the weak. It''s just the way things are. Right?" I said.

    "I suppose that''s fair." The boss fell forward onto the table, dead. The yellow healing magic was dispelled. I guess it wasn''t enough.

    "Alright, who''s next?" I said.

    Nico looked at me in horror and said, "Fuck this. I''m out." She disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

    "Me too," Bruno said. He smashed through the wall into the next room.

    "Me as well," Dulce said. She walked through the hole Bruno made.

    I looked at Stylus who hadn''t done or said anything yet. He was just trembling and looking at me with fear in his eyes.

    "Stylus, you stay here. This company is under new management. I''ll be back," I said.

    "Uh, yes sir!" He said.

    I walked out of the door behind me and looked around. I didn''t see the rogue anywhere. I ran to the other side of the wall to see if Dulce and Bruno were still nearby but they were already gone somehow.

    I checked the stairwell and I couldn''t hear or see anyone walking down it, so they had to still be on this floor. It seemed like it was time to upgrade my Evil Eye.

    It might make me better at tracking evil, which was exactly what I needed to do.

    ''System take my saved justice points and spend all of them on upgrading Evil Eye.''

    [You have upgraded Evil Eye 13 times, gaining: Evil Thermal Vision, and See Evil Through Obstacles (100 feet, 200 feet, 300 feet, 400 feet, 500 feet, 600 feet, 700 feet, 800 feet, 900 feet, 1,000 feet, 1,100 feet, 1,200 feet)]

    [Evil Thermal Vision: Can see the body heat signatures of evil, allowing you to see them in the dark or through magical concealment]

    [See Evil Through Obstacles: Allows you to see evil through any obstacles, up to 1,200 feet]

    That was certainly an upgrade. Worth the 13 points. I looked around and I could see 3 heat signatures on this floor. One was short. That was Nico. One was tall and burly. That was Bruno. And one was average height and spindly. That was Dulce.

    I figured I''d go for the most predictable one first, so I went after Bruno. The hallway I walked down was lit up. I could see Bruno hiding in the room right where the hallway turned right. That way he could strike me from behind without me seeing it coming.

    Unfortunately for him, I could already see him. I sent a giant spike through several walls and through the wall he was hiding behind. I heard a loud clang and saw Bruno stumble out of the room he had been hiding in.

    He pulled 3 crystals out of his pocket and crushed them in his fist. Red, blue, and green light entered his body through his arm and into his chest.

    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

    He glowed brilliantly for a moment and then it was gone. The only thing still glowing were his eyes. They glowed white.

    I sent another giant spike at him, but he swatted it away with his massive war hammer. It made another clanging noise. Abandoning the giant spike approach, I used Break Bones for the first time, slowly weakening his lower leg bone until it broke.

    He still kept coming at me. He was mostly hopping but he seemed to have great balance. I summoned a bone shield and put it up in front of me as he brought his hammer down on me. The strike shattered the shield and broke my arm. I heard it as the bones broke.

    I summoned a bone platform beneath me and made it go backward. The bone platform moved fast. Bruno couldn''t keep up. I slowed down to make him think he might be able to catch up with me. This was to keep him chasing me.

    Then I summoned 20 bone spikes and sent them into his body. He swatted a few away, but many of them hit their marks. Blood stained his shirt. His hopping slowed down.

    I sent another 20 spikes at him and he took them all. By this point, he was just struggling to stay upright. His shirt was drenched with blood. He stopped hopping. Then he fell over and bled out on the ground.

    [You have defeated a great evil, earning 3 justice points. Roll, Upgrade, or Save?]

    ''Save.''

    [Saved]

    [You have killed twice in the last minute, earning 10 dark aura (-80)]

    I looked around and decided to go after Nico next. She seemed like the most likely to try to escape. I removed Bruno''s pants. Not for the reason you''re thinking.

    It just was the only piece of clothing he was wearing that wasn''t soaked with blood. Using bone spikes, I shredded the pants into strips and made a makeshift sling for my arm.

    I would probably gain some sort of healing ability that could at least mend bones after a level-up, but for now, this would have to do. I walked towards the room in which I could see Nico hiding on the ceiling.

    When I got close to the room Nico was hiding in, I tried to get her from outside the room like I had with Bruno. I figured she''d have a defense against it but it didn''t hurt to try.

    I summoned a giant spike and sent it through two walls at her form hiding on the ceiling. Like I expected, it didn''t get her. Her form disappeared and reappeared on the ground.

    I turned the corner to look into the room from the doorway. All the doors to the other rooms were open, so it would''ve been suspicious for her to close this one.

    She was standing on the ground in her mix of black leather armor and black cloak. She had the hood up to darken her face, but I could see her face clearly with my thermal vision. She was scared.

    I almost felt bad, but then I looked at the nature of her dark deeds. Murdering families. Robbery was just an afterthought. She targeted families that seemed happy and content.

    She hated seeing their happy lives when she grew up with a shitty family who treated her like garbage and eventually abandoned her on the streets.

    They went to a city they never visited under the false pretense of a rare family outing. Then in the middle of the outing, after they had treated her nicely all day and she felt safe, they disappeared when she was using the restroom.

    She spent days, months, and years looking for them. They never came for her. Once she had acclimated to her environment and learned how to steal to get by, she saved up money.

    She saved up money until she could afford to rent a carriage to take out to the country. She headed out in the general direction she knew her family''s farm was. West.

    She stopped the carriage when she saw something that felt like a familiar landmark. It was a crossroads where the signs were weathered down. Only one sign had visible lettering on it and it just read, "Tree." There wasn''t a tree in sight.

    She made the carriage visit every farm in the area. As the sun was going down and the carriage driver told her they had to leave to make it back before her rent period was up, she made him visit one last farm.

    It was exactly the way she remembered it. The barn was just as worn down as before. The door was hanging off its hinges and the family carriage was sitting in the usual ruts it created in the dirt.

    She knocked on the door and her father answered it.

    "Um, hello? Are you lost, little girl?" He said. He didn''t recognize her.

    "Daddy, it''s me, Nicolette. Oh, I''m so happy to see you!" She hugged his leg and cried.

    "Nicolette? How did you find us?" He said.

    "I paid for a carriage to come out west and I saw the "Tree" sign. I checked every farm in the area until I found ours," she said, sniffling.

    "Nicolette, we left you in the city for a reason. We don''t want you anymore! Get off me and get out of here!" He kicked her off his leg violently.

    Nicolette stumbled and fell. "What? But I thought you just lost track of me. How could you leave me there? Do you know how hard it was to survive on the streets?"

    "I do. I do know how hard it is to survive on the streets in the city. We didn''t plan on you surviving. It''s not murder if you abandon your kid and they die of starvation," he said.

    "It''s just an accident. If someone asked about you we just said, ''We lost her and couldn''t find her anywhere. We''re worried sick about her. I hope she turns up.'' Works every time."

    Nicolette wiped her tears away and said, "You bastard!"

    She took a knife from the back of her waistband. She held it behind her back and walked up to him.

    "I told you to get out of here!" He yelled.

    Nicolette stabbed the knife into her father''s lower leg.

    "Ah, fuck!" He yelled. He tried to kick her away, but latched onto his leg, harder than before, and wouldn''t let go.

    She pulled out the knife and stabbed him in the leg again and again. Once she was done with his lower leg, she stabbed his upper leg and dragged the knife through it.

    Finally, he kicked her off, but as soon as he did, his leg buckled underneath him and he fell to the floor.

    Nicolette jumped on him and stabbed him in the neck. "Die, Daddy!"

    "Nicolette. You just weren''t the boy we wanted. It wasn''t personal," he said gargling on blood.

    "Well, it''s personal for me!" She stabbed him in the eye and his body went limp.

    She walked up the stairs and entered her parents'' bedroom. Her mother was in bed reading a book. Her mother looked at her with a hint of recognition.

    "Nicolette? Is that you?" She said. "Why are you all wet?"

    The clothes Nicolette wore were black from dirt and soot. Her mother didn''t realize it was blood.

    "Mommy? Did you abandon me too?" She said.

    "Abandon you child? We would never abandon you. What makes you say that?" Her mother said.

    "Daddy told me you abandoned me. You didn''t want me anymore. He told me to leave." Nicolette inched closer to her mother. She stood right beside the bed with her hands behind her back.

    "He was lying, hunny! It was a joke. Just a joke," her mother said, her eyes widening. "Where is your father?" Nicolette wasn''t great at recognizing emotions yet, but she saw fear in her mother''s eyes.

    "He''s in heaven, mommy," she said.

    Her mother''s hand wrapped around her throat. "What did you do child? What did you do?!"

    "Mommy, did you abandon me?" Nicolette looked at her mother with tears welling up in her eyes.

    "Child, we had to. We-" her mother was cut off.

    Nicolette had stabbed up under her chin so she couldn''t speak anymore. "Goodnight Mommy," she said.

    She pulled the knife out and slit her mother''s throat. Her mother choked and bled out in front of her.

    "Goodbye Mommy," Nicolette said. She left the room and went into her old room. Everything was set up just as it was before. Her clothes were even still in the dresser.

    She took her bloody clothes off, wiped herself clean of blood with clean clothes, and put a new set of clothes on. She grabbed some clothes and tied them in a bundle with a sheet.

    She walked downstairs and out the front door, closing it behind her. She got back in the carriage.

    "Wrong house. They gave me some food and sent me on my way. Let''s go back," she said.

    "Yes, ma''am," the driver said.

    After that, she took to killing and robbing families. She got so good at it that a local mercenary group hired her to do wet work for them.

    And that was the person who stood in front of me. Tragic backstory, but a merciless killer all the same.

    "Your murdering days are over Nico. I''m sorry your parents sucked, but that doesn''t make what you do ok," I said.

    She grinned. "Stop me. If you can." She pulled out 6 crystals, 3 in each hand. 5 were glowing bright blue, but the 6th was clear. She crushed them in her hands and disappeared.

 Chapter 11: Nico Judged

    After Nico seemed to disappear, my Evil Eye kicked in and revealed she was still in front of me. She was just invisible or obscured through a crystal effect.

    Then she dashed towards me brandishing two knives and stabbed them into the legs of my bone armor.

    "Ow!" I said. "You stabbed me!" Her knives had pierced a little through the bone armor. It wasn''t much. Just enough to hurt.

    "I''m trying to kill you." She said, trying to pull her knives out of my bone armor. They were stuck in there pretty good.

    ˇ°Me too. I''m just surprised your knives made it through my armor.ˇ± I summoned bone spikes above her and brought them down.

    She flitted back 10 feet, dodging the spikes. I summoned 20 more spikes and launched them at her. She dodged to the side at lightning speed.

    Those blue crystals must have been speed or agility boosting because she was moving incredibly fast.

    I summoned a bone platform underneath her and raised it to the ceiling, attempting to crush her. She dodged off the platform when she realized what was happening.

    She pulled throwing knives out of her belt and threw them at me. I summoned a bone shield and blocked all the ones aimed at my chest and head, but several hit my legs and stabbed me through the armor.

    She pulled out a green vial and threw it at me. I put my shield up. It shattered and against the shield and caustic liquid ate through the shield and the armor on my right arm.

    The liquid burned and ate away at my flesh. It caused pretty severe damage to my forearm. When it finally stopped burning, I couldn''t close my hand anymore. The muscles were too damaged.

    Great I had a broken left arm and a burned right arm. The only saving grace was that the caustic liquid cauterized the wound, so I wasn''t bleeding.

    I had to finish this soon or I was going to lose. I checked the room for exits. There were no windows or other doors. And I was standing in the doorway.

    The answer was easy enough. I summoned a bone platform and raised it up in front of the door. Then I raised two more platforms to cover the openings around the side of the first platform and the room was sealed. She couldn''t get out.

    ˇ°No no no no no no! Don''t leave me in here!ˇ± She said. Her voice was muffled by the barrier.

    ˇ°You stabbed me several times and burned the hell out of my arm. You attacked first. What am I supposed to do?ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°I thought you were going to kill me! I figured if I killed you first, you couldn''t kill me,ˇ± Nico said.

    ˇ°I mean, I was, but I''m reconsidering. How old are you?ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°17. Why?ˇ± She said.

    ˇ°Yeah, that''s what I thought. There''s something about killing a minor I really don''t like. But you have killed a lot of people who didn''t deserve it,ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°I''m at a crossroads, Nicolette. I don''t want to kill you but I can''t let you go free and kill again. Unless you can convince me you''re reformed and will never kill another innocent again, there''s nothing I can do for you.ˇ±

    ˇ°Nicolette? I haven''t used that name in years. How do you know all this stuff about me?ˇ± She said.

    ˇ°I''m an evil wizard, but not in the way that you''d think. I''m a wizard whose powers have to do with tracking down and destroying evil. And my powers show me all the wrongs you''ve committed, but it also shows me why,ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°I know your parents were terrible and I don''t blame you for killing them. Killing families because you''re jealous of their happiness though is too far. It''s not acceptable behavior and it rings evil to me.ˇ±

    ˇ°Why do they get to be happy when I never got that chance? I wanted to be a happy kid! No one cared about my wishes. None of those families gave two shits about a kid living on the streets,ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°Actually, it was worse than that. They hated me! They despised me. They lectured me and hit me for begging for change. Like it was somehow my fault for being in that position.ˇ±

    ˇ°So I killed them. No one gets to attack me and treat me like shit without retaliation. I didn''t necessarily plan to kill them. At least, not all of them. They just couldn''t defend themselves against me. They were weak. So death was the result of standing up for myself.ˇ±

    ˇ°Dorian was the first person to ever beat me in a fight. He looked down on me too. He lectured me for begging. Said something bullshit about getting a job and earning money to feed myself.ˇ±

    ˇ°That fucker. If I could''ve gotten a job, I wouldn''t have been begging! I tried to fight him too, but he smacked me down. Showed me my place in the world. But he appreciated my skills and gave me a job. Was I going to turn it down? What choice did I have?ˇ±

    ˇ°I was living on the streets and barely surviving. I got less and less from begging the older I got. I didn''t love that he wanted to hire me to kill and rob and steal, but as I said, what choice did I have? It was either doing that or starving and getting the shit kicked out of me on a daily basis.ˇ±

    I sat in that moment, thinking. Would I have done any different? I mean, was I any better than her? I''ve killed several people under the pretense I was making the world a better place, but I was just a victim taking my anger out over being killed out on other people.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    I wasn''t even defending myself. I was committing premeditated murder. That didnˇŻt mean what I was doing was wrong, but it didn''t mean what she did was wrong either.

    [Justice parameters realigned. Recalculatingˇ­ Nico no longer reads as evil]

    ''Wait, what?''

    [Your view of what constitutes evil has changed. So Evil Eye no longer reads her actions as evil]

    ''Wait. The system judges evil based on my perception? Not on an absolute scale of evil and good?''

    [There is no such thing as an absolute scale of evil and good. Evil and good are just categories determined by the person judging]

    ''Wait, so does that mean I haven''t been making the world a better place?''

    [Define ''better'']

    ''Will there be less harm happening in the world because I killed those people?''

    [Are you counting the harm you caused those people in the equation?]

    ''ˇ­ No.''

    [Then yes]

    ''What if I did include the people I harmed in the equation?''

    [Then the total harm done roughly equals out]

    ''Ok, but are less innocent people being harmed?''

    [Define ''innocent'']

    ''People who have caused the least harm to others compared to everyone else.''

    [Then yes. Less innocents are being harmed as a result of your actions]

    ''Ok good. I was worried for a second there that I was doing something wrong.''

    [I am happy to alleviate your worries]

    "Hey, guy. You still there?" Nico said.

    "Hey so I''ve decided not to kill you," I said.

    "Oh yay. Yippee. Hurray. Can you hear the excitement in my voice?" She said.

    "Your sarcasm isn''t helping, but I see how it''s not the best news you''ve ever heard," I said scratching my face. "I''m trying to decide if I should let you out now or after Dulce."

    "What if Dulce kills you? I''ll be stuck in here," Nico said.

    "Wouldn''t Dulce release you if she kills me?" I said.

    "I don''t know. That bitch is crazy. She''s gone off the deep end. She might not even look for me," Nico said.

    "Will you join my group, if I let you go? I want to keep an eye on you, but I also don''t want you going hungry on the streets again and robbing people," I said.

    "Be warned, I can tell when people are lying. If you lie to me, I will leave you in here to rot until you die of starvation," I said.

    "Ok, ok. I''ll join your group. What other choice do I have? I can''t go back out on the streets. I''ll end up robbing and potentially killing again, and then you''ll come back and kill me. As long as you pay and feed me, I will serve you however you need," Nico said.

    "Knock out the "however you need" shit. That sounds gross. I''m not having sex with a minor. You''ll work for me doing things that don''t involve exploitation," I said.

    "Yes, sir. Now can you let me out?" She said. She sounded desperate.

    "Yeah, sure. Meet me at Beer tomorrow night," I said. I lowered and removed the pillars of bone from the doorway.

    "Yes, sir, Mr Uhhhˇ­ What''s your name?" Nico said.

    "Tom," I said.

    "Ok, Tom. I''ll see you at Beer tomorrow night." She disappeared for real this time. I didn''t see where she went until I saw her thermal signature walking down the stairwell stairs. I laughed at how slow she was walking after straight up disappearing past me.

    "See you, Nico," I said mostly to myself.

    I followed the hallway around the corner again and arrived in an open space with a lot of tables and chairs. Dulce stood at the other end of the room, but she looked different.

    She no longer looked like a thin woman vaguely in her 50''s or 60''s. She looked like a thin woman in her 20''s. At first, I was confused, but then Evil Eye kicked in and I understood.

    Her story made me sad. Really sad. It was tragic, but she had also chosen evil. Evil didn''t choose her.

    Dulce was a gifted magical practitioner when she was young. She was going to be a world-renowned adventurer, conquering dungeons and bandits, and traveling the land.

    But then she fell in love. He ran an apothecary in the city. She couldn''t go adventuring, leaving him alone for months at a time. So she put her dreams aside for him.

    He adored her and doted on her constantly, and she did the same. He was kind, smart, and funny. The full package.

    She helped him run the apothecary for 30 years, but then the worst possible thing happened. He died, and she didn''t. He got sick and neither he or her could figure out how to make him better. They tried tons of different formulations, but nothing worked, and he passed.

    The next 10 years were sad and lonely. She continued to run the apothecary, but when the store was closed she stayed up late into the night trying to figure out what medicine would have saved Bert''s life.

    When she finally thought she had found it, that was the second worst day of her life. The worst was the day Bert died. There was nothing she could do with the information. She couldn''t save him. He had already passed long ago.

    She longed for companionship, but she was the oldest person in the city. No one wanted to date her because of her advanced age. Most men died by age 40 and she had just turned 60. Her love life couldn''t be any more hopeless.

    Then Dorian came into the shop. They got to talking and Dorian learned a lot about her. Her magical talents, her experience as an apothecary, and her predicament.

    He suggested a unique solution. Crystals. There was a crystal that returned the user''s body back to its prime. Dorian gave her the first one for free and said to visit him if she wanted more.

    She kept it in the back of the shop in her personal workshop. It glowed a brilliant pink. It sat there for a week until she gave in to temptation. She waited until a Friday. She wore her favorite black dress.

    The pink crystal glowed in her hand. Should she do this? She had her time. She had her love. Was it right for her to chase the feeling of being desired and wanted again?

    Did she care? She crushed the crystal in her hand and pink light entered her hand and ran up her arm into her body. She felt her skin tighten, her bones stop hurting, and she felt energized. She didn''t feel that constant tiredness she always did.

    She looked in a mirror. She was . . . sexy. She went out that night. She visited a newly opened bar called Beer. She picked up a man and took him home. They made love. She hadn''t felt this good in a decade.

    She sent him home and went to bed. When she got up in the morning, she saw the skin on her arm. It looked old. She was back to normal.

    She went to see Dorian for more youth crystals. She offered to pay for them, but he said that''s not what he wanted. He made her an offer. If she worked for him and did as he said, he would provide her with all the crystals she wanted.

    She took the offer. It wasn''t bad at first. All she had to do was use youth crystals and go on dates with men. She was more than happy to do that. It gave her her fix of validation and excitement.

    But then the other shoe dropped. Dorian made her go to the same men she went on dates with and blackmail them into paying her to stay quiet. Turns out they were all married.

    Then the other other shoe dropped. If they didn''t pay up, she was to use her magical gifts to kill them in ways that made it look like an accident. She refused at first, but he said he''d cut off her crystal access.

    After a few days, she came crawling back. After much prodding, she committed murder at Dorian''s request. She cried afterward. Each murder became easier and easier.

    I mean, they were men happily cheating on their wives. In her eyes, they deserved it. They found love and they took it for granted. She would never do that.

    And then she met Jacob. He was smart, funny, and kind. She spent every moment she could with him. That had a negative side effect on her health.

    The thing about crystals is they have a toxicity effect. The more you use them, the higher your blood toxicity gets. Luckily, the average body clears 1% of the toxicity per day. Common quality crystals, which is what Dulce was using, cause a 1% increase in toxicity per crystal used.

    But she was spending all day with Jacob. She had to use multiple crystals per day to maintain her youthful appearance. Her blood toxicity got so high that she started exhibiting physical symptoms like muscle spasms and twitching.

    Dulce''s ability to clear the toxicity was higher than most, but this was too much even for her. Jacob recognized the signs and confronted her. He told her she needed to stop, for her health.

    "I know you''re using youth crystals. I happened to hear that an older woman owns the apothecary that you run. You can stop. You don''t need to keep up this appearance for me. I love you. I will love you no matter what you look like," Jacob said.

    "I can''t take the chance that you''ll leave me. My heart can''t take it," Dulce said. "I love you, Jacob. I couldn''t stand to lose you."

    "If you keep using crystals you''ll get sick, and eventually you''ll die. I can''t take that chance either. You and I will just stay here in this room until the crystal''s effect ends. And then I''ll show you how much I love you," he said.

    Dulce got up and went to leave the room, but Jacob blocked the door. "Jacob, please move."

    "I can''t, Dulce," Jacob said, a single tear running down his face. "I love you too much. I can''t watch you destroy yourself."

    Dulce felt the all too familiar sensation of the crystal''s effects ending. She had 30 seconds until Jacob saw her true form and became disgusted by her. "Jacob, please move! There''s no time!"

    "I can''t do it. You''ll have to go through me," he said.

    "Jacob, I don''t want to do this, but I have to," Dulce said, tears streaming down her face.

    Dulce lifted her hand and summoned a powerful gust of wind. She formed the gust into a circle so it mostly hit the edges of the door rather than Jacob. She blasted it at Jacob and the door behind him. Jacob and the door flew back into the next room. Jacob lost his balance and tripped backward, falling and hitting his head against a table.

    Dulce ran to the next room and used a crystal just before the previous crystal''s effects ended. "I''m sorry, Jacob. I had to do it. You understand right?" She said this from the other room.

    There was no answer from Jacob. "Jacob?" Dulce walked into the next room and saw Jacob lying unconscious on the floor.

 Chapter 12: Dulce Judged

    It was a head injury. That much was obvious. How bad it would turn out to be would be revealed in time. Dulce stayed by his bedside day and night, hoping and praying he would wake up.

    After a few days, she forgot to use her crystals. She was so distraught and caught up in Jacob''s condition that she wasn''t thinking about it. On the fourth day, he woke up.

    "Dulce," Jacob said weakly.

    "Yes, Jacob?" Dulce said.

    He looked her in the eyes and said, "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I still love you, just like I said I would."

    Dulce realized she didn''t have her youthful appearance up. At first, she was horrified, but then she processed what he said.

    "Really? You don''t reject me?" She said.

    "Of course not," he said, coughing.

    She was the happiest she had ever been. She finally found love again. The thing she had been searching for through this whole nightmare of working for Dorian.

    She stayed by Jacob''s bedside the whole rest of the day and night. He passed in the night. Dulce broke in that moment. She went numb. She continued her employment with Dorian, continuing to deceive unfaithful men, blackmail them, and kill them if they didn''t pay.

    If anything it was easier now. She had found true love again, and she would never find that again. She was doomed to be alone for the rest of her unusually long life. She had nothing left to lose.

    It has been 3 years since Jacob died. She had a tragic life and story, but she made her choices. She made them every day for the last 3 years. She wasn''t going to change. She was lost.

    "Dulce, I know you''ll say no, but I''ll give you a chance. If you vow to get clean of crystals, I will spare you," I said. "I know your story. I know about Bert and Jacob. I know about Dorian''s manipulation. I''m giving you a chance to start a new life. Please take it."

    "I can''t. I have nothing left. I have nothing to live for," Dulce said. A tear dripped down her face. "Make it fast. I don''t want to see it coming." She lowered her head to look at the ground.

    "Very well," I said. I summoned a giant spike and shot it through her heart.

    Dulce''s knees started to buckle. "It hurts," she said. She collapsed into a heap on the floor, dead. Dulce transformed back into a sad woman in her 60''s. A woman who led a good life for 30 years until her husband passed. A woman who once had a bright future ended in darkness.

    "I know. I know," I said, thinking back to my own death. This kill I wasn''t proud of. It had to happen, but it was nothing more than a tragic death of a tragic life.

    [You have defeated a great evil (Dulce). You have gained 3 justice points (6)]

    [You have defeated pure evil (Dorian). You have gained 4 justice points (10)]

    ''You forgot again didn''t you?''

    [Yes]

    ''That''s ok I guess. I got it eventually right?''

    [You did]

    ''I think I''ll save up for an ultimate ability.''

    [Affirmative]

    [You have killed. Dark aura increased by 5 (-85)]

    Thinking about what crystals did to Dulce, I couldn''t do them myself. I took all the learning crystals out of my pack and put them on the ground. Then I smashed them with my foot.

    With everyone in this building dead, I walked down the stairs and exited the building. I knew there were some crystals in crates on the 3rd floor, but I wasn''t about to get caught because I took the time to smash all the crystals under my boot.

    My view on crystals was completely altered. I couldn''t look at them as pure boosting items anymore. They did have detrimental effects on their users and the effects were bad.

    Through Evil Eye revealing parts of Dulce''s memories, I found out that 100% toxicity made you lose your mind and you just became a rage monster that attacked anyone it saw until someone killed you.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    What was done was done, but I wasn''t going to collect or sell any more crystals. And I would make it a mission of mine to take down the crystal market. I would make Abigail get rid of her intelligence crystals.

    I made my way back to Sally''s. The doorman was about to give me a hard time again for his amusement, but when he saw my face, he just let me pass. When I got inside, Sally was showing Abigail how to bartend.

    I walked past them behind the bar, went upstairs, and got in bed. Dulce''s kill really got to me. Abigail entered the room and got in bed with me, facing me.

    "What happened? Are you alright?" She said. She looked concerned.

    "I''ll survive," I said. "I just had to kill someone that I really didn''t want to, and it got to me."

    "I''m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?" Abigail said.

    "Sure," I said.

    I told her about meeting James at Beer and finding out the location of the Red Tail Fox Company. I opened up to her about Soul Inquiry. I had to explain how I got the answers out of James. I didn''t tell her where I got the ability, just that I had it. She didn''t ask for any answers I wasn''t ready to tell.

    "Have you used that ability on me?" She asked.

    "Yes, but only when I first met you to make sure you were safe," I said.

    "Oh, ok. Go on," she said.

    I told her about the raid on the Red Tail Fox Company building and the fights I went through to get to the top floor. I told her about Evil Eye to explain my kills. I told her about the confrontation with the boss, Dorian, and the confrontations with Bruno, Nico, and Dulce.

    I told her Nico''s and Dulce''s backstories and explained that having to kill Dulce was the reason for my mood.

    "I''m sorry, baby. Let''s go to bed. I''m sure you''ll feel better in the morning," Abigail said.

    "Ok. Thank you for listening," I said. I kissed her. She turned around and I held her as we fell asleep listening to the sounds of each other breathing.

    <hr>

    Abigail destroyed her intelligence crystals in the morning. She did it outside so she didn''t make a mess in Sally''s place. I put my hand on her shoulder and smiled at her.

    "Thank you," I said.

    "I would do anything for you, Tom," she said.

    "I would do anything for you, Abigail," I said, taking a sip of my coffee.

    "Would you really?" She said.

    "Of course. Did you think I wouldn''t say the same?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

    "Yes. I thought I liked you more than you liked me. I guess I''ll have to try harder," she said.

    I looked at her like she was a crazy person. "You are a strange one. Why would you want to like me more than I like you?"

    "Because that''s what the girl is supposed to do. The girl obsesses over and dotes on the man and the man stares stoically into the distance and protects the girl," she said, like it was obvious.

    "You have a very strange view of relationships, but I like you all the same." I smiled. She certainly was strange, but I really did like her. She was kind and understanding of my needs, which were two very rare things in my experience.

    "Good. I''ll accept being called strange if you admit that you''re a really weird guy," she said.

    "Fine. I''m a really weird guy who has to justice everything. Happy?" I said.

    "Yes!" She kissed me on the cheek. "So what are we doing today? The mercenary company is dead and you don''t want to collect any more crystals. Do you want to just do a dungeon run for the experience and stat cores?"

    "The mercenary company isn''t dead. There''s still Stylus. Oh, shit! Stylus! I forgot about him," I said. "I have to go back and see if he''s still there."

    "I''ll go with you," she said.

    "I don''t want you to because it puts you in danger, but I know you won''t listen to me," I said.

    "You''re right. I won''t. I''m going no matter what you say," she said, still smiling.

    "Right," I said. "Let''s go then."

    We went through the building, walking past corpses I created the night before. Abigail looked at them in wonder rather than horror.

    "So are these guys were evil?" She said.

    "According to my moral code, yes," I said.

    "What''s your moral code?" She asked.

    "If you harm innocent people, you''re evil. If you harm guilty people, that''s acceptable," I said.

    "Makes sense," she said.

    We made it to the fourth floor and I opened the conference room door. Sure enough, Stylus was still there. He was sleeping with his head resting on the table.

    "Stylus," I said.

    "Huh? What?" Stylus looked at me. "You came back. I thought you had forgotten about me."

    "I did. Sorry about that. I remembered this morning," I said.

    "Understood, sir. What do you need from me today?" Stylus said.

    "I need you to inform the mercenaries in the company''s employ to continue running the dungeons, but don''t collect any crystals and absorb all the cores they collect. Their payment will stay the same," I said.

    "Yes sir. What will you do today?" Stylus said.

    "I''m going to look for a good source of information on magic. Probably a bookstore," I said.

    "Ok. What are you going to do about the higher-ups? When Dorian doesn''t check in they''ll send someone to investigate," he said.

    "Higher-ups? What do you mean? This isn''t the whole company? Dorian wasn''t the head of the company?" I said.

    "Uh, no. This company spans multiple kingdoms. Dorian was just the head of the local branch in charge of mercenary operations," he said, his shoulders bunched up.

    "How many other branches are in this city? And what are they in charge of?" I said.

    "There are two other branches. One is in charge of selling the crystals obtained by the mercenary branch. The other is in charge of noble and political operations. They basically just maintain good relations with the nobles to keep the crystal trade legal and the company from being removed from the city," he said.

    "Ok. I''m going to need to take down those other branches too, but first, we need to find a new base of operations before the company investigates Dorian''s disappearance and finds us here," I said.

    "Oh! I know just the place!" Stylus said. "There''s an abandoned merchant''s guild hall here in the undercity. It would be the perfect place to start up new operations. It would have meeting rooms, storage space, even living quarters."

    "That sounds great, be a little obvious? If a guild hall started operations again, wouldn''t someone investigate?" I said.

    "Not if you use the secret entrance. They''d never even see people coming and going. I don''t know where the secret entrance is, but all of these guild halls have secret entrances in case they need to do business with people they don''t want the public, or even other guild members to know about," he said.

    "Ok, I''m on board. When can we move in?" I said.

    "Today preferably," Stylus said.

    "Ok. Inform the mercenaries of our new operations procedures and then go to the merchant guild hall. I''ll meet you there when I''m done researching magic. I may be late though, just letting you know," I said.

    "Yes, sir," Stylus said.

    "You don''t have to call me ''sir''," I said.

    "Yes, sir," he said. I gave him a look. "I mean, yes, uh, what''s your name?"

    "Tom," I said.

    "Yes, Tom," he said.

    "Good. Alright. Unless you have something else to say, I think that''s the meeting," I said, starting to walk towards the door with Abigail.

    "There is one thing," Stylus said. "What are your plans? What is your goal? It''s clearly not to take over and rise in the company."

    "I want to rid the world of as much evil as I can. I know I can''t eliminate it all. That''s unrealistic. But I want to do what I can," I said.

    "Ok. I can help you do that," Stylus said.

    "What are your plans and goals, Stylus? How did you come to work for such a corrupt organization?" I said.

    "I made a mistake at a major company in the upper city. They fired me and blacklisted me. No one would hire me. Dorian was the only person who did. So I took it. I didn''t like the business practices, but they were legal as far as I knew. At least, the mercenary part was," he said.

    "I know Dorian kept parts of his personal business from me, but I didn''t look into it, because I needed the job. I couldn''t afford to have moral objections."

    "I understand that. You couldn''t afford to disagree with your boss over how the business is run. You still can''t directly choose the decisions my company makes either, because I''m in charge. But I can promise you I will always listen to what you have to say and be transparent with you about what I''m doing," I said.

    "Thank you, sir. I mean, Tom. That means a lot to me," he said, his eyes watering.

    "You''re welcome. Alright, I''m off. I''ll see you sometime tonight, Stylus. Be careful," I said.

    "I will," he said.

    Abigail and I left the building to look for a magic bookstore. The Red Tail Fox Company would be sending reinforcements soon and we had to be ready.

 Chapter 13: Grannys Grimoires

    [You have leveled up to level 6! You should have leveled up after defeating Dulce, but I forgot]

    ''It''s ok. What did I get?''

    [You have gained Remote Bone Control and Bone Reinforcement]

    [Remote Bone Control: Gives the user finer and longer-range control over bone constructs such as weapons. Multiple constructs can be controlled at a time]

    [Bone Reinforcement: Makes all bone constructs harder and more durable. The user can also reinforce their own bones or the bones of others]

    ''Nice!''

    Abigail and I walked the streets of the undercity of Ravenhold, in the kingdom of Kindlemire. She told me the names of those locations and her last name. Her last name was Dalion. King Dalion ruled over Ravenhold and Kindlemire.

    We walked up and down the streets and found no magic bookstores. We were about to give up, when I said, "I really hoped we''d be able to find a magic bookstore in the undercity, but I guess we''ll have to go back up to the surface."

    Then Abigail said, "What about that place?" She was pointing to a bookstore that was right in front of us. I was certain that place wasn''t there before, but I wasn''t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

    The bookstore''s sign read, "Granny''s Grimiores." "Let''s go inside," I said.

    When we entered the store, there were beautiful rays of sunshine shining on the books, making them glimmer and gleam in the light. What was weird was very little sunshine if any made it down to the undercity. Everything was illuminated by street lights and torches.

    So wherever the light was coming from, it wasn''t from outside. There was an older but not old woman sitting behind a counter to the side of the books. She looked to be in her 40s at most.

    "I hope this doesn''t offend you, but you do not look old enough to be a grandmother," I said.

    "Oh, it''s just a nickname that the local kids call me. Did you come in here looking for a specific type of magic or are you just perusing?" She said.

    "I wanted to know if magic users could learn more magic other than what''s provided by their class. I''m specifically looking for something to fix up my injuries," I said holding up my arms. "One of them is broken and the other has a severe acid burn. I''ve lost most of the control of my right hand."

    "Oh, my goodness. That is certainly a predicament I can help you with." She looked at my arms and held them both in her hands. She closed her eyes and concentrated. A bright light enveloped my arms. After a little bit, the light faded and she opened her eyes. "It''s done."

    I tried to move my hands and arms around. No more pain or weakness.

    "Thank you! That''s fantastic and I''ll pay you handsomely for it, but I was looking for a solution to the problem of getting injured in the field and dying as a result of not being able to heal myself," I said.

    "That I might be able to help you with. There are two solutions based on your potential rank. You can learn individual spells with a lot of study and practice and a high intelligence stat helps a lot too," she said.

    "Or you can take on a new Grimiore and learn the magic by leveling up with that new book. If you have a rank below S, you have to use the first method, but if you''re S or above you can take on multiple grimiores."

    "Her and I are both above S rank. So we should be able to take on multiple grimoires. What does that entail?" I said.

    "You find a new grimoire and put the intent to absorb it on the book. Luckily for you, I have a wide variety of grimoires to choose from. Most people have to chance upon another grimoire while adventuring. They''re rare drops," she said.

    "I''m guessing this is a secret bookshop. Otherwise, I feel like you''d have people coming from far and wide to take books off your shelves. And the undercity is no place for a bookstore this nice," I said.

    "We''re in the undercity huh? Of Ravenhold I''m guessing? Interesting," she said.

    "Yeah," I said. "You''re not from around here are you?"

    "No, I''m not. This is a magical traveling bookstore actually. It seeks out people in need of our services and shows up wherever we need to be to pick up a customer," she said.

    "We would have people knocking down our doors if there were more S rank and above magic users around. They''re actually quite rare. As are all S rank and above adventurers."

    "You said magic users can take on new spell books. Is there a version of that for non-magic users?" I said.

    "Yes, there is! They''re called skill books and I have some of them here, but not as many as I have grimiores," she said.

    "Interesting. Can magic users use skill books too?" I said.

    "Yes, but you get a 90% experience point penalty. You would gain experience points for the skill book at 10% of your normal rate. To better explain skill books and grimoires or spell books as you called them, everyone with a class starts with either a skill book or grimoire inside of them that gives them their skills or spells as they level up. So getting a new skill book or grimoire is like getting another class," she said.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    "S-ranks can have two grimoires total. SS-ranks can have 3. And SSS-ranks can have 5."

    "What about N-ranks?" I said.

    "What is an N-rank?" She said.

    "It''s a rank above SSS," I said.

    "What core stat multiplier does it give you?" She asked.

    "10x," I said.

    "Then you can hold a total of 10 grimoires. I wouldn''t necessarily suggest having that many unless you can prevent them from becoming redundant somehow," she said.

    "That makes sense," I said. "So should we start looking?"

    "Yes. It''s best to choose additional grimoires that synergize with your starting class. When you do that, it allows you to use them together in powerful ways. What are your starting magics?" She said.

    "I''m a bone mage," I said.

    "And I''m a bubble witch!" Abigail said.

    "Interesting. Very unique classes. I think I might have some grimoires for you two to look at. Wait here." She walked down the aisles and grabbed a few books. She put them down in front of us.

    "Healing magic for the bone mage, and Enchantment and Protection magic for the bubble witch. I''m sorry, I don''t have any other magic types that synergize with bone magic," she said.

    "That''s fine. The healing magic should be a great addition. It would let me heal my bone constructs faster right?" I said.

    "Much faster," she said.

    "Ok, how does enchantment and protection magic help me?" Abigail asked.

    "Enchantment lets you give properties and behavior to your bubbles. You can make your bubbles explosive and have them seek out enemies. Protection magic is good for protecting allies, but it could also be used to make your bubbles more durable. And you could make his bone constructs stronger too," Granny said.

    "Oh. Yay! That sounds amazing!" she said.

    "Right?" Granny said.

    "How much?" I said.

    "530 gold for all three," she said.

    "That sounds right to me," I said. I activated Soul Inquiry anyway.

    ''You''re not ripping us off are you?'' I asked.

    ''No. I''m actually giving you a discount.'' Her soul said.

    ''Oh. Thanks.'' I said.

    ''You''re welcome.'' Her soul said.

    "Abigail, I can only have about 190 gold. Can you get the rest?" I said, wincing.

    "I can get the whole thing! I have way more money than you. Besides I consider as both our money," she said. Abigail set three coin purses on the counter.

    Granny counted out the money and gave Abigail a half-full bag of coins. "You overpaid."

    "Oh. Thanks!" Abigail said.

    "Now let''s have you absorb your new grimoires," Granny said.

    <hr>

    When Abby absorbed her grimoires, pink light came out of her body and tinted the air, bubbles formed and popped, and the grimoires floated around her before entering her chest in a bright pink light. Sparkles shot out of her and glinted in the light.

    When I absorbed my grimoire, the color drained from the room, and bones showered down from above, clattering on the ground. When the grimoire absorbed into my chest, it made gross squelching sounds.

    "Well, that wasn''t as awesome as yours Abby, but at least I can heal now, right?" I smiled.

    "Actually, you can''t yet. New grimoires start at Level 0 just like when you''re a new adventurer," Granny said.

    "Oh. That''s a little underwhelming, but I''ll make it work. So how do you level them up?" I said.

    "You just gain experience. The experience gets split among all your grimoires. The new grimoires will level up quickly, and then it''ll take a while for them to catch up with your other ones depending on your level when you gained them," she said.

    [That is the case for most people, but since you have a system, you can choose how to spread out your experience among grimoires and skill books]

    "So I can choose to only give experience to my healing grimoire, to get it up to the same level as my bone mage grimoire?''

    [Yes]

    ''Then let''s do that. I''ve been thinking about getting a skill book. Should I get one now?''

    [I would advise against that. This bookstore is likely to only have standard class skill books. If you run enough dungeons, you should find a rarer one. Rarer is almost always better]

    ''Thanks. Wait, when is rarer not better?''

    [Rope Master. It''s a very rare skill book, but its applications are specific only to rope. So unless you have a way to carry around a ton of rope, the usefulness runs out when you run out of rope]

    ''Assuming you have infinite amounts of rope, are the skills any good?''

    [The skills are great. The ability to supply the skills with rope is the hard part]

    "Ok. Note to self, find rope master book and then get infinite rope.''

    [Good luck]

    "What do we do if we need to find you again?" I asked.

    "Just say ''Granny''s Grimoires'' and my bookstore will show up, as long as it''s not already busy," she said.

    "Thanks. Alright. I think we''re set for now. Have a good rest of your day Granny," I said. Abigail and I walked toward the door.

    "You too, guy and girl. What are your names?" She said.

    "I''m Tom and this isˇŞ"

    "Abigail!" Abigail said.

    I was going to use a fake name for Abigail, but I guess it couldn''t hurt that she gave away her real name to a bookstore owner who barely knew the name of the city we were in.

    "Well, it''s nice to meet you, Tom and Abigail. Good luck with your new grimoires!" She said.

    "Thanks!" Abigail said as we walked through the door.

    We ended up back in the undercity, but Granny''s Grimoires was gone. In its place, was just a run-down house.

    "That went well," I said.

    "Yeah, I think so too," Abigail said. "What''s next?"

    "We need to level up our grimoires. Dungeon run?" I said.

    "Yeah! Let''s do it," she said.

    As we walked to the dungeon, I did system stuff. Experience Plunder had been bothering me for a while. I was going to ask the system if we could fix it somehow.

    ''Is there anyway to make Experience Plunder only take from evil people rather than all people?''

    [Yes! We can adjust it by leveling it up. Why don''t you try doing that now?]

    ''How many justice points do I have?''

    [10]

    ''How?''

    [Dorian was 4 points, Bruno was 3, and Dulce was 3. That equals 10]

    ''Oh right. He died so quickly, I forgot about Dorian.''

    [Seems logical]

    ''Ok. Let''s just go ahead and spend all 10 justice points on Experience Plunder.''

    [Excellent choice. You have upgraded Experience Plunder 10 times!]

    [Experience Plunder changed to "Take 50% of all experience and stats gained by evil people. Then it increases to 60%, 70%, 80%, then 90%. With the next upgrade, this was added, "Take 1% of the accumulated experience and stats of evil people."]

    [With 4 more upgrades, the radius of effect increased from 10 miles to 14]

    ''Nice! That''s perfect.''

    [I''m happy you''re satisfied]

    [You gained 50 good aura by changing your ability to a good effect (-35)]

    That effect was overpowered beyond belief, but I did upgrade the ability 19 times. I thought the overpowered-ness was appropriate and earned.

    I mean, not only is it going to give me a ton of stats, but it''s also a denial of future experience points and stats for evil people. I also get the ability to steal some of their accumulated stats, not just future stat gains. So not only am I preventing them from getting stronger, I''m also weakening my enemies.

    ''So, we won''t be able to do the dungeon multiple times today will we? Since it respawns daily.''

    [You will. Dungeons respawn daily or when they are completed. As long as you complete the dungeon every time, you can go again]

    ''Oh, nice.''

    Abigail and I arrived at the dungeon. We entered the dungeon without any packs this time. We didn''t want to collect any crystals and the cores we would just pop as we went.

    When we encountered the bats and giant rats, we destroyed them. Abigail trapped them all in floating bubbles and I pierced each of them with multiple bone spikes.

    We picked up all the cores and split them down the middle, trying to evenly distribute the different stats. Red cores were strength, blue cores were agility, green was stamina, and yellow was intelligence. I popped all of the cores at once.

    [You have gained 22 strength (207), 24 agility (199), 23 stamina (227), and 250 intelligence (572)]

    Holy crap! My stats were starting to get reasonably impressive. An experienced C-rank adventurer with strength as their primary stat would probably have between 200 and 300 strength. Their other stats would all still be less than 125.

    I was already able to compete against any C-rank adventurer''s primary stat. After a few dungeon runs, I might be able to compete against B-rank adventurers in all stats.

    My intelligence was so high, that I could probably compete against B-rank intelligence stat adventurers now. My spells would be insanely powerful now. And this was just the beginning. By the time we finished this dungeon my intelligence would be over 1,000.

    "This is incredible! My intelligence is 255! And my other stats are increasing too! Look at my arms!" She flexed her arms.

    "They look the same," I said. They did. She had dainty princess arms. They were cute and adorable, but in no way scary or intimidating.

    "I know! And yet I''m a lot stronger! Isn''t it great?" She said.

    "Yeah. That is pretty great, I guess," I said.

    I guess it was great. If she gained muscle equal to her strength, she''d be buff as hell in no time. Not that I wasn''t into muscle mommies, but I liked her as she was, and I thought her dainty figure perfectly matched her personality. And by matching, I mean, they weren''t similar at all.

    As we continued through the dungeon, killing creatures as we went, my shirt felt tighter and tighter, and I kept having to adjust my pants.

 Chapter 14: Grinding

    "Hey, Carl! Why do you have such stinky feet?" I said.

    Miner Carl, the mini-boss of the dungeon, stopped mining and turned around to face me. "Because I have foot fungus!" He rushed at Abigail and me with a crazy look in his eyes.

    Abigail trapped him in a bubble that he struck with his pick axe. The bubble didn''t pop. I summoned 5 bone swords to stab and slash at him repeatedly. My attacks could travel through the bubble but enemy attacks couldn''t.

    In just a few seconds he was dead. Carl''s disembodied head rolled on the floor past me, glaring at me. Next up was the boss, the crystal canine.

    When we entered the chamber, the canine was asleep, just like the first time. Before it could wake up, I summoned a giant spike and stabbed it in the neck. The canine yelped in pain.

    I summoned a new giant spike and stabbed it in the neck again and again. The canine bled out in seconds and didn''t get up. We looked around the chamber and found the crystal reward chest again.

    I wanted to destroy it so that no one could use the crystals. I summoned a giant spike and smashed it into the chest, destroying it and most of the crystals inside. A few intact crystals went flying but not many.

    [You have performed a good act! You are rewarded with the Crystal Breaker ability]

    [Crystal Breaker: Shatter crystals with a touch and deal increased damage to crystal-based or corrupted enemies. Greater damage the higher the corruption]

    I removed the Crystal Canine''s core and gave it to Abigail. "I don''t need it. I can feel myself growing stronger by the minute."

    "Thanks! I can tell you''re getting stronger too. Every time I look at you, your muscles are bigger and more defined," she said.

    "That''s a good thing, right?" I said.

    "It''s a great thing! I love it! You''re getting taller too," she said.

    "Good?" I said.

    "Don''t worry! It''s good!" She said.

    "Good," I said, smiling.

    Abigail popped the boss''s core. It was a strength core. She flexed her skinny noodle arms and went, "Rawr. I''m so strong and scary."

    "Yes, you are," I said. I patted her head and she pretended to try to bite me. I laughed. I loved her quirky personality. I kissed her.

    "Want to go again?" She said.

    "I hope you''d say that," I said.

    We exited the dungeon and then went right back in. We annihilated our way down to Carl''s room.

    "Hey, Carl! What''s your middle name?" I said. I was trying to amuse myself.

    "Eustace!" He yelled as he rushed at me.

    He was intercepted by a bubble that trapped his body. I summoned 6 spears and shot them through his body multiple times until his head lolled and he fell to the ground.

    [You have leveled up your healing grimoire to level 6!]

    ''You forgot again.''

    [Yes. But you didn''t need it!]

    ''That''s true. Ok, so what did I get?''

    [You gained Advanced Healing, Group Healing, Advanced Diagnosis, Advanced Status Relief, Intermediate Detoxification, and Enhanced Regeneration]

    [Advanced Healing: Can heal fatal wounds, reattach limbs, and heal complex bone fractures]

    [Group Healing: Can heal a group of people within a 3-meter radius]

    [Advanced Diagnosis: Can diagnose complex diseases and conditions]

    [Advanced Status Relief: Can alleviate up to moderate status ailments such as moderate pain, migraines, cramps, stomach upset, indigestion, acid reflux, fatigue and exhaustion, and allergic reactions]

    [Intermediate Detoxification: Can remove common toxins and poisons from the body such as alcohol, food poisoning, basic venoms, and environmental toxins]

    [Enhanced Regeneration: Can regenerate moderate personal injuries like broken bones, cuts, and stab wounds]Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    ''Holy shit! That''s a lot of abilities in a short time.''

    [It is, but you have to remember that having N-rank potential means you gain experience 10 times faster than C-rank. Your experience gain speed is absurd. Even Abigail, who has SS-rank potential (a 1 in 1,000 rarity), gains experience more than 3 times slower than you]

    ''Doesn''t that mean I''m basically unbeatable? Where''s the fun in that?''

    [Not exactly. Strength and experience gain per rank is not exponential, so you still need to be careful when getting into fights. 10 C-ranks with the same experience level as you (which isn''t much) and a decent amount of teamwork could overpower and defeat you]

    [And since you''re trying to fight over 2,000 evil people in this kingdom alone, you''re going to need to power up a lot before you can accomplish your goal of eliminating all evil in this world]

    ''There are over 2,000 evil people in this kingdom? How did you get that number?''

    [Well the percentage of evil people in this kingdom is roughly 4% and there are over 60,000 people in this kingdom. 4% of 60,000 is 2,400 people. So there are a minimum of 2,400 evil people in this kingdom to fight]

    [You don''t need to defeat all of them to make a huge difference in the prosperity of this kingdom and its people though. So don''t be afraid to venture beyond the kingdom before you defeat them all]

    ''Yeah, my original goal of killing every evil person is a little unrealistic. Especially, considering how spread out people are in the outer areas.''

    ''I''d have to travel hundreds of miles to kill them all. What if I just resolved to destroy all evil organizations in the city and any random evil person I come across?''

    [That would still make a significant difference. That is still an admirable goal]

    ''Ok, good. I''m going to change my goals to that.''

    [Very well]

    ''Let''s also change it so both my grimoires gain the same amount of experience.''

    [Done]

    "Are you checking your status or something? You''ve been quiet for a while," Abigail said.

    "Something like that. Due to certain circumstances, Alfinia talks to me and gives me special abilities through the adventurer interface. I call it a system. A morality system," I said.

    "Interesting. I knew you had something special about you but I never thought you would be able to speak to Alfinia. It does make more sense why Alfinia labeled you an Evil Wizard though. I''m guessing you got in a fight and that was her way of punishing you?" Abigail said.

    "You are very observant. Yes. She wanted to make me a tomato wizard and I said no. So she changed it to evil wizard out of spite," I said.

    "I don''t know how direct it is though. Sometimes it sounds like Alfinia is talking to me and sometimes it sounds like a magical artificial intelligence is talking to me."

    "Hmm. Why do you call it a morality system?" She said.

    "Because it rewards me for punishing evil and doing good deeds," I said.

    "Oh. I''d call it a morality system too if I had that," she said laughing.

    "I''m happy you agree," I said. "So, boss time?"

    "Boss time!" Abigail said.

    <hr>

    The crystal canine collapsed after the 20th giant spike I plunged into its body. Abigail had weakened it with a suffocating bubble around its head and I finished it off.

    This time when the crystal chest spawned, I just put my hand into the chest and every crystal I touched shattered into useless pieces. Once I was done destroying all the crystals I got a notification.

    [You have performed a good act! +50 good aura (15)]

    The first time we ran the dungeon, it took us just under 2 hours. The second time it took about an hour and the third time it took 30 minutes. At this rate, we could hit the dungeon a few more times before moving on to the next task. Meeting Nico at Beer.

    "Do you want to hit the dungeon a few more times?" I asked. "It''s not even noon yet."

    "Sure! Let''s do it!" Abigail said. "And then we can run the dungeon." She winked at me.

    "Don''t threaten me with a good time," I said smiling.

    "Oh I''ll threaten you with a lot more than a good time," Abigail said, a devious smile on her face.

    "What does that mean?" I said.

    "You''ll see," she said.

    We hit the dungeon 6 more times before noon. My remarks to Carl became more and more ridiculous.

    ˇŞ

    "Do you miss your friends?" I asked.

    "Yes," Carl said with tears in his eyes.

    ˇŞ

    "Is mining your favorite activity or something?" I asked.

    "No," Carl said

    "What is it?" I asked.

    "Making soap!" Carl said as he swiped his pickaxe at me.

    ˇŞ

    "What kind of soap?" I asked the next dungeon run.

    "Lavender with oatmeal exfoliant," Carl said.

    "Interesting. I like it," I said.

    "I''m happy you appreciate my hobby!" Carl said as his pickaxe came down.

    ˇŞ

    "Are you happy?" I asked.

    "Sooo happy!" Carl said sarcastically as he attacked me.

    ˇŞ

    "Pull my finger," I said.

    "Eww, no!" Carl said attacking me.

    ˇŞ

    "Dude, why don''t you just go home?" I asked.

    Carl stopped for a moment with a puzzled look on his crystal-crusted face. "I can do that?"

    "Sure you can. Just go home and make soap and be happy. I''m tired of killing you," I said.

    "Oh. Ok. Uh, have a good one," Carl said dropping his pickaxe. He started walking down the cave tunnel we just came from.

    There was a loud clink noise. "Ah fuck! I forgot I set these bear traps. Why didn''t you disarm them when you came through here?"

    "Sorry. We just disarm them in a straight line now. It''s faster," I said.

    "It''s ok. I''ll be fine," Carl grunted as he opened the bear trap and pulled out his leg. Then Carl walked out of the mine.

    I looked at Abigail and said, "That was weird."

    "You''re telling me," she said.

    After we defeated the crystal canine, and I destroyed the crystals in the chest, my good aura was at (315). I had gained good aura level 2 at 100 good aura and level 3 at 250 good aura. I turned on good aura level 3.

    [Good Aura level 2: People are likely to see you as a good and trustworthy person]

    [Good Aura level 3: People are likely to trust that you always have their best interest at heart]

    The system told me that while I could display the aura of any good or dark aura level I had earned, there was a drawback. The farther away my displayed aura was from my current aura, the more mana it would drain. I thanked it for its warning and moved on.

    After the last dungeon run, I checked my status. We had been popping all the cores we collected so I wanted to see what my stats were.

    [Status]

    [Strength: 470

    Agility: 432

    Stamina: 423

    Intelligence: 3857

    Dark Aura: 0

    Good Aura: 315

    Justice Points: 0

    Bloodline: First of line

    Class: Evil Wizard

    Subclass: Bone Mage

    Grimoires: Bones, Healing

    Skills: Soul Inquiry, Evil Eye, Counter Evil, Auto Crit on Evil, Bonds of Loyalty, Experience Plunder, Multiplied Generosity, Emanate Good Aura (Level 1), Emanate Dark Aura (Level 1), Shared Suffering, Absolute Sincerity, Happiness Giver, Aura Manipulation]

    By the time we completed the last dungeon, I was buff. Not just muscular. My muscles were huge. Normally I''d be worried, but Abigail was into it. She started calling me her "big strong man."

    Meanwhile, Abigail still had dainty princess noodle arms, but she kept talking about how strong she was getting. And luckily for Abigail, I was into her dainty princess body. Not that I didn''t appreciate other body types. I just thought this type looked great on her.

    "So what do we do now?" Abigail said.

    "Well, it''s only noon, and I''m not supposed to meet with Nico until tonight. So why don''t we visit Stylus early?" I said.

    "That sounds agreeable," she said.

    We arrived at the abandoned merchant guild hall. Stylus was waiting inside. It was rundown but functional. There was dirt everywhere but it was still furnished. There were tables and chairs. Everything we would need.

    "Why so early?" Stylus said.

    "There are some things I''d like to discuss. Also, we have time to kill," I said.

    "He got buff in the dungeons today and he''s afraid of getting too buff, so he made us stop," Abigail said.

    "That''s not. Whatever. We need to figure out how to find and destroy the other two branches of the Red Tail Fox Company in the city," I said.

    "I don''t know where they are. The only branch we had any contact with was the sales branch, and that was only through a drop-off point," Stylus said.

    "They have storefronts to sell the crystals, but I don''t know where their actual base is. They must resupply the stores from their base, the crystals only ever come from the base. They never go back. So there''s no way to follow any one back to the base."

    "What if we dropped off some crystals and followed whoever picks them up back to their base?" Abigail said.

    "Wow. That actually a great idea," I said.

    "Why are you so impressed? You don''t think I can come up with good ideas?" Abigail said putting her hands on her hips.

    "Uh, no? I just didn''t know you wanted to participate in the dismantling process," I said.

    "I''m just teasing you," Abigail said.

    "Oh, good. I was worried there for a second," I said, breathing a sigh of relief.

    "That is an excellent idea, Abigail. I wasn''t surprised though," Stylus said.

    "Oh, shush, you suck up," Abigail said sticking her tongue out at Stylus.

    "Is that the plan then? When is the next pick up?" I said.

    "Around 4 today," Stylus said.

    "That''s only 3 hours from now," I said.

    "Then we better get going then, right?" Abigail said.

    "Right," I said.

 Chapter 15: Coin and Crystals

    We ran the dungeon 10 more times. We didn''t collect any of the crystals except for the last run. I kept destroying them and my good aura kept going up. I gained another good aura level at 500 good aura.

    [Congratulations! Your good aura has reached level 4!]

    [Good aura level 4: People can tell you''re a good person. Good people are likely to consider your well-being when making choices]

    I ended up with 765 good aura but I didn''t receive any more level-ups. Carl was gone. When we got to his room, he wasn''t there. Him leaving must have triggered something in the dungeon to make him stop respawning.

    My bone and healing grimoires leveled up to level 7.

    [Congratulations! Your bone mage grimoire has leveled up to level 7! You have gained Basic Skeleton Creation and Bone Shards!]

    [Basic Skeleton Creation: Can create a single skeleton fighter. You can arm them with any weapon and they will know how to use it]

    [Bone Shards: Can explode any bone construct into bone fragments that pierce nearby targets]

    [Congratulations! Your healing grimoire has leveled up to level 7! You have gained Battle Recovery and Efficiency Boost!]

    [Battle Recovery: Instant wound closure and combat stimulation]

    [Efficiency Boost: Increases the efficiency of your healing spells through mechanisms such as reduced mana cost, faster cast times, and more precise healing effect]

    Wow! These were game-changing new abilities. Bone Shards allowed me to damage enemies with my spikes twice. Battle Recovery eliminated one of the biggest concerns in a fight, bleeding.

    I could finally summon a bone minion, which I had been waiting for this whole time. And Efficiency Boost just made me better at healing, which was great!

    We grabbed the last chest of crystals to sell. My packs were full of the hundreds of cores we had gathered. We didn''t use any of them, because we planned to sell them at the marketplace. There was no point in being super strong if you were broke.

    I summoned a skeleton. Instead of handing it a weapon, I handed it 8 packs of cores to carry. It was surprisingly strong for something with no muscle. It carried the 8 packs admirably, if slowly.

    I carried 8 as well. Abigail carried 4 packs and the crystal chest in a large bubble that she pushed along while it floated in the air. Each run filled two packs with cores.

    We went to Bobbin''s stall at the marketplace. I place a single full pack of cores on the counter. Bobbin looked inside and his eyes widened. "How did you get so many cores?"

    "We ran a dungeon 10 times. That''s not it either. You see all the packs we''re carrying? All of them are full of cores," I said.

    "That''s ungodly! How did you not only complete a dungeon by yourselves but complete it 10 times in one day?" He said.

    "We''re really strong!" Abigail said, flexing her skinny arms.

    "I, uh, can see that," Bobbin said.

    "She''s right, we are just ungodly levels of powerful. I could destroy this entire marketplace with just two spells and they would barely touch my mana pool," I said.

    "And if you count this morning, we actually ran the dungeon about 18 times today."

    "That is nearly unbelievable. I wouldn''t believe it if I couldn''t see the results before my eyes. You look nothing like you did yesterday. I almost didn''t recognize you. Yesterday you were lean, but today you''re a hunk and a half," Bobbin said.

    "Not to mention the fact that your hair is nearly 10 inches longer than it was yesterday and you''re taller too. How is this possible?"

    I activated Soul Inquiry.

    ''Can you keep a secret?''

    ''Yes, unless I''m tortured to death.'' Bobbin''s soul said.

    ''That''s fair.''

    "I''m SSS-tier and Allison is SS-tier. We just grow very quickly," I said, but not too loudly. I didn''t want anyone to overhear us.

    "Oh. Wow. That explains it but it''s so surprising to meet people of your caliber. They''re so rare. SS-tier is 1 in 1,000 people and SSS-tier is 1 in 5,000," Bobbin said.

    "Yeah. I told you we were amazing," Abigail said as she flipped her hair.

    "She did tell you," I said.

    "That she did," Bobbin laughed and smiled uncomfortably. "Shall we get down to business then?"

    "Yes. Let''s," I said. "Here''s the other half of the cores from 1 dungeon run." I put another pack on the counter. It came out to 2 packs per run. The cores averaged at 6 tiny cores, 16 small cores, 24 medium cores, 10 large cores, and 1 huge core.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    "I know exactly how much they''re worth, so be careful with how low you go. If you offend me, I''ll take my business elsewhere and this is a hell of a lot of business."

    The cores were worth 4,460 gold altogether. Each run netted around 446 gold in cores. I knew that because I asked the system before we got here. I wanted to be prepared.

    "Of course," Bobbin said with an easy smile, but he was nervous. Our ranks intimidated him. I had made him nervous yesterday, but not like this. "I''ll give you 3,345 gold for all of it."

    I did the quick math in my head. "That''s 75%. I think the sheer volume of cores is worth a higher percentage than that. You''ll make a lot more money in total when you sell these, than if you got a better percentage on a smaller amount. I think they''re worth 90%."

    "I''ll give you 85%. 90% is cutting my profit margin too low," he said.

    "I can understand that. 85% it is. That''s 3,791 gold," I said.

    "I think we have a deal," Bobbin said.

    "That''s a lot of money," Abigail said.

    "You''re a princess. Haven''t you seen a lot more money than that?" I said.

    "No. My father never talks about money in front of me. So I have no idea how much we have. I just know the prices of things and we always have enough to get whatever we need," she said.

    "Well, you''re right. It is a lot of money. The mercenaries that now work for me, were probably making about 5 gold a day. It would take them over 2 years of working every day to make that much," I said.

    "Something you''ll learn though, is that there''s never enough money, especially when you want to make a difference in the world. You always need more money to do more good."

    "That makes a lot of sense. So then, how long is this money going to last us?" She said.

    "I''m not sure. It depends on what we do next," I said.

    "I''m looking forward to seeing it," Abigail said.

    Bobbin put all our packs behind the counter and emptied them out. He gave us our packs back filled with 3,791 gold.

    We had about 15 minutes to make it to the drop-off point. We hustled over there and dropped the chest on the ground. It was an alley in the lower-city, which is above the undercity and has access to the sky. I wasn''t sure how we were going to hide without being seen until Abigail made a brilliant suggestion.

    "We don''t have to hide behind anything. We can hide in plain sight," she said.

    "How?" I said.

    "The alley is dark and no one looks up. We can fly above them in bubbles," she said.

    "That is genius!" I said, kissing her.

    "You keep acting surprised that I have a brain. Did you think I was just some dumb blonde?" She said.

    "Kind of," I teased.

    "Oh shut up you big oaf! Just go be the brawn in this relationship," she said laughing.

    "My feelings are so hurt. I''m crushed. Owie," I said with a blank face. "Honestly though, I''m just not used to people being smarter than me. It''s a surprise."

    "Well, you better get used to it, because I''m not going anywhere," she said, kissing me.

    "Good," I said. "Now let''s get in these bubbles before someone shows up."

    "Right," she said. She enveloped us both in a large bubble. I sat cross-legged and she sat on my lap. We flew up to just below the top of the buildings. Then we waited.

    <hr>

    A rickshaw showed up to pick up the crystals. A freaking rickshaw. I had never seen one in real life. Just on TV.

    It was a buff dude wearing a red shirt. He didn''t read as evil. He carefully but easily picked up the chest of crystals and placed it on the rickshaw. He threw a large white cloth over the chest to obscure what it was. Then he pulled the rickshaw out of the alley and onto the road.

    We followed above him in the flying bubble. He kept looking around to make sure he wasn''t being followed but he never once looked up.

    ˇ°Someone else is following the cart,ˇ± Abigail said.

    I looked back and saw the same thing she did. A small shadow darting from alley to alley, always staying in the dark.

    ˇ°I see them,ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°What should we do?ˇ± Abigail said.

    ˇ°Nothing,ˇ± I said. ˇ°They don''t read as evil. A non evil person following the cart could be a potential ally. Or they could be a good distraction. Let''s see what they do.ˇ±

    ˇ°Yes sir, Jarnathan, sir!ˇ± she said.

    ˇ°Not so loud,ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°Oh, the bubble is soundproof. We can hear outside but they can''t hear us,ˇ± she said.

    ˇ°Wow, that''s really useful! You''re like a swiss army wife!ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°I don''t know what that means, but if you keep making jokes about me being your wife, I might make you put a ring on it,ˇ± she said.

    ˇ°I don''t know if I''d say yes, but I certainly wouldn''t say no,ˇ± I said laughing.

    ˇ°Noted,ˇ± she said. She stiffened up. ˇ°Look! He''s going into a barn.ˇ±

    I looked. She was right. The buff dude was going into a big red barn. It made sense. A barn would be the best place for storage and frequent comings and goings. It would also explain the frequent cargo. They could always explain it as feed or hay for horses.

    The barn doors closed behind the cart. I was coming up with a plan of attack when the small shadow ran out into the open and up to the barn doors.

    They were dressed in all black like a rogue or thief. They were really short. They peeked under the barn door and then began to push their body against it.

    They slowly flattened and reshaped their body to fit under the door like a mouse. They disappeared into the barn.

    There were roads around the barn and another building. The roads separated the barn and the building from all the other buildings. This made me conclude that the barn might be for storage and the other building might be where they had meetings and discussed business.

    ˇ°The little one might alert the others and allow the branch leadership to escape. We should do what we came to do before that happens,ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°Ok. How do you want to make our entrance?ˇ± Abigail said.

    ˇ°I wish I could see if there were any innocents in the building, instead of only being able to see the evil ones. I can see a decent number of evil people in there, but I don''t want to kill innocents with a full-on assault,ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°What if I shot a giant spike through the roof and down onto an evil person? If I target an evil person, a good person canˇŻt occupy the same space. And the spike can give us a roof entrance.ˇ±

    ˇ°That''s really smart! Let''s do it!ˇ± Abigail said.

    ˇ°Now you''re acting surprised I''m smart.ˇ± I smiled and laughed.

    ˇ°No, I''m just teasing you. I know you''re smart baby,ˇ± she said, kissing me.

    ˇ°Good,ˇ± I said.

    We hovered over the building as I formed a massive spike and shot it at an evil person on the second floor.

    It made a huge hole in the roof. I made sure to target someone in a room with only one evil person. That way we were less likely to get attacked upon entrance.

    We didn''t take any chances though. I covered myself in bone armor and Abigail lowered us through the hole in a protective bubble.

    When we touched down, I immediately stepped out of the bubble and locked the door. No one but the person I killed was in the room. They were mostly obscured by the spike. All I could tell is they were a man.

    I heard people scrambling up the stairs. Someone tried to turn the knob but the lock stopped them. Then a voice said, ˇ°Hey, Kevin, are you ok? What was that noise?ˇ±

    ˇ°Kevin is unavailable right now. Can I take a message?ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°Who are you and what did you do to Kevin?ˇ± The voice said.

    ˇ°Exactly what IˇŻm about to do to you,ˇ± I said.

    The people on the other side were a densely packed group of evil people. I formed a large spike, shot it through the door into the middle of the group, and used Bone Shards to explode it into hundreds of sharp pieces. The evil people fell to the ground.

    I opened the door and looked around. They were all very dead. No evil people were left in the building and I didnˇŻt see any good people either. Abigail followed me down the stairs and we found a large empty room.

    We were going to look around, but we heard a massive explosion in the direction of the barn. We ran outside to investigate. The barn was on fire.

    The flames were blue. The doors were still closed and locked. I raised a bone platform underneath the doors and shattered them into pieces as they were crushed by the rising platform.

    We ran into the barn and saw an awful scene. The short person dressed in black was lying still on the ground. They were surrounded by charred bodies and their body was similarly marked with charring but not as bad as the others.

    I could see green skin where parts of their clothes were burned off. Three evil men were standing over her, kicking her repeatedly.

    ˇ°You fucking bitch!ˇ± One said.

    ˇ°Die scum!ˇ± Another said.

    ˇ°Green cunt!ˇ± The third one said.

    I summoned 60 small bone spikes and shot them through the bodies of the three evil men. They came out the other side red and bloody. I dispelled them. The men fell to the ground.

    Abigail and I ran up to the body of the short person.I pulled their hood down, revealing their appearance. They had green skin and pointy ears. They were a female goblin.

    I didnˇŻt know what to make of it. I didnˇŻt know the nature of goblins in this world. In most of the books I read they were supposed to be evil, tribal, murderous, and unsophisticated. But she didnˇŻt read as evil.

    I didnˇŻt physically react to the goblin reveal, but Abigail did. Her eyes widened, her eyebrows went up, she gasped, and she put her hand over her mouth.

    With all those different reactions, this must have been very unusual. So goblins were probably normally like I had read.

    I put my fingers against her neck. She had a pulse. She was still alive. I turned her over to get a better look at her injuries.

    She had a charred hole in her side and her right leg was black. I pressed my hand against her stomach and her eyes instantly opened. She opened her mouth and chomped down on one of my arms.

    ˇ°Fuck! Ow! Stop! IˇŻm trying to help you!ˇ± I said.

    She looked at me and then Abigail, then back at me. She reluctantly released her teeth from my arm.

    ˇ°Thank you,ˇ± I said.

    She gave me a vulnerable look.

    I turned my attention back to her injuries. I used Advanced Diagnosis to find out that along with the charred body parts, her ribs were broken in several places from the kicks she received from the men who were now dead on the floor.

 Chapter 16: Marcy Judged

    I concentrated on healing her burn wounds first. The hole in her side, then her leg. Despite the extensive damage, they healed in seconds. So did her ribs.

    I also used Battle Recovery on her for the combat stimulation effect. It woke you up, made you alert, improved reaction times, and replenished your stamina.

    She gasped heavily, and said, ˇ°What did you do to me? It feels like my heart is about to explode!ˇ±

    ˇ°Sorry, I used Battle Recovery on you, but I may have used too much. I didnˇŻt account for your size,ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°Oh god. Well, whatˇŻs done is done. We need to get out of here!ˇ± She said.

    She ran surprisingly fast on her tiny legs. I had to run to keep up. She didnˇŻt match my top speed, but the fact that I had to run at all was surprising. Abigail followed behind me.

    The goblin had a small pack on her back. Well, it was small to me, but it was full-sized for her. It jangled and clinked with the familiar sounds of crystals hitting each other. We would have to talk about that when we were safe.

    "Brace yourselves!" The goblin said.

    "With what?" I said.

    "What for?" Abigail said.

    A giant multicolored explosion erupted from the barn, blowing the building apart and sending a shockwave our way. It lifted us off our feet and threw us forward.

    Abigail and I landed awkwardly while the goblin tucked and rolled out of the fall. "Get up! We''ve got to go! People will be after us soon!"

    I got up off the ground and pulled Abigail to her feet. Some city guards saw us running away from the fire and started chasing us. We all began running again.

    "I told you!" She said.

    The guards were catching up to us. The goblin was slowing us down. Both Abigail and I could run faster than we were right now.

    ˇ°Can I touch you?ˇ± I said to the goblin girl.

    ˇ°What? Why?ˇ± She said.

    ˇ°YouˇŻre slowing us down. Either you let me pick you up, or we leave you behind to get caught by the guards,ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°Pick me up,ˇ± she said.

    ˇ°Ok.ˇ± I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder fireman carry style.

    Abigail and I sped up, and we were faster than the guards, but not by much.

    ˇ°CanˇŻt you put us in a bubble and fly us away?ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°Yes, but itˇŻll be too slow. The bubble only moves at my max running speed. We need a distraction,ˇ± she said.

    ˇ°I have something!ˇ± The goblin girl rummaged through her pack and pulled out an orb of metal with a glass chamber that contained something glowing and green.

    There was a tube of metal through the top that looked like a pin on a grenade. The whole thing looked like a fantasy grenade.

    She pulled the pin and threw it behind us at the guards. There was an explosion and a flash of green light. The guards didn''t die or get hurt by the explosion but they suddenly stopped and put their hands on their knees.

    They were breathing heavily. They sat down on the ground and then laid back. They were still conscious. They just looked exhausted.

    ˇ°Now we can get away. TheyˇŻll be like that for a few minutes,ˇ± she said.

    ˇ°Allison, fly us away!ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°ThatˇŻs not¨Coh right. Yes, sir Jarnathan!ˇ± She said. She got close to me and the goblin and summoned a bubble around us.

    We rose into the sky. We traveled several roads over and landed in an alley. Abigail released the bubble and I put the goblin girl down.

    ˇ°So whatˇŻs your name?ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°Marcy,ˇ± she said. ˇ°And you are Allison and Jarnathan? What kind of name is Jarnathan? That sounds like the fakest thing I''ve ever heard.ˇ±

    ˇ°Fair. It sounds fake because it is fake. WeˇŻre just in trouble with the law and weˇŻve been going by aliases to prevent from getting ratted on,ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°That is more than I would normally tell a complete stranger, but you seem like the ˇ®in trouble with the lawˇŻ type too,ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°You are correct in that assumption,ˇ± Marcy said.

    ˇ°Before we discuss anything further, would you be willing to come with us to our base in the undercity?ˇ± I said.

    ˇ°Normally I wouldn''t follow random strangers anywhere, let alone the undercity, but since you did save my life and me from the authorities, I''ll give you a chance,ˇ± she said.

    "That''s all we ask for," I said.

    We led her down to the undercity and to the merchant guild hall we were using as a base. Marcy was short, about halfway between 3 feet and 4 feet tall. She had green skin, pointy ears, sharp teeth, and vertical pupils.

    Her hair was a deep purple with white streaks. She had it in a ponytail. She wore form-fitting dark clothes for infiltration. She had a knife holster attached to her boot.

    Once we were all settled around a table, including Stylus, Marcy said, "So what''s your guys'' deal?"

    "Our deal is that I took over the crystal gathering side of the Red Tail Fox Company business in Ravenhold. I stopped all crystal gathering when I saw what crystals did to people. We were at the sales branch to destroy it, and with your help, we succeeded," I said.

    "This is my girlfriend, Allison," I gestured to Abigail, "and this is Stylus. He was the accountant and administrative assistant at the old crystal gathering operation. I offered him a job in taking down the Red Tail Fox Company and he took it."The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    "It''s not like I had a choice, but I would''ve said yes anyway if I did," Stylus added.

    "Yes. Allison and I are both powerful magic users, and Stylus is good at his job too," I said.

    "You''re still using your aliases I see. I suppose that''s fair. You don''t know me yet. My name is Marcy, as I said before, and I am a goblin. I''m sure you want to know why I haven''t bitten you yet or tried to stab you," she said.

    "My parents were adventurers. They destroyed the goblin camp I was born in. They found me among the bodies as an infant. Instead of killing me, they decided to raise me as their own in secret."

    "They started using crystals when I was about 13. They were told they would make their adventures easier, and they did. But crystal toxicity built up over time. I watched them go from the kindest most caring people I knew to angry and violent abusers. Until one day they just weren''t themselves anymore."

    "They were violent and mindless, attacking anyone that came near them. The guards captured them and took them to the dungeon. I hid under the bed because no one knew about me. They would''ve killed me on sight."

    "Ever since then, I''ve been on my own. I''ve spent years trying to find a cure for crystal madness. During that time I invented crystal bombs. I was at the sales branch of the Red Tail Fox Company to stock up on crystals and destroy the rest."

    "Too many people have been hurt by crystals. I figured if I took out their sales branch, they wouldn''t be able to hurt any more people."

    "I''m sorry that happened to your parents," I said. "I''m glad you''re only using the crystals in your pack for bombs. If you had planned to use them on yourself, I would have stopped you."

    "Good. I wouldn''t want it any other way. So how do I join up?" She said with an enthusiastic look on her face.

    "By asking to join up," I said. "So you''re already on the team. We have a few beds, so we have enough for all of us, but we''ll need to get more if we want to add anyone else."

    "Stylus will show you to your room. Get settled and comfortable. We have more work to do tomorrow. We''re taking down the noble branch. I''m busy tonight though so you''ll have to wait until tomorrow before we have anything for you to do."

    "Ok," Marcy said with a smile.

    <hr>

    I arrived at Beer and looked around. Not a lot of people around, same as last time. I spotted James in the corner with his hood up but instead of shuffling his cards or performing a card reading, he was playing cards with someone.

    The other person also had their hood up with their light brown hair sticking out. Their clothes were midnight blue. They were dressed like a rogue with form-fitting clothes, dagger holsters at their hips, and bandoliers of throwing knives crisscrossing their body.

    It was Nico. She and James were playing a game with James'' fantasy tarot cards. I walked up to the table. They glanced up at me and kept playing their game.

    I checked James with my Evil Eye, as I checked everyone with it. He was good. I always had Evil Eye on running in the background. It only ever messed up my vision when I was looking directly at an evil person. Otherwise, everything looked the same.

    When I was looking at an evil person, it was like I could see their thermal signature superimposed over their normal features. Somehow I could see both at the same time. Still, it could be disorienting when I didn''t expect it.

    "Why is your hair so much longer than yesterday?" Nico said.

    "One of my abilities makes it grow really fast. What are you playing?" I said.

    "Fates Drawn," James said. "The object of the game is to get rid of all your cards before the other person. If the game ends and you still have cards in your hand, then what the cards represent will happen to you in real life."

    "Interesting. Sounds scary," I said.

    "It is," Nico said. "That''s why it''s so fun." She put down her last card. "Fates Drawn bitch! Show them."

    James revealed the 5 cards still left in his hand. One was a goat barfing gold, another was a jester farting on a king, another was a King ordering an execution, another was an image with a bunch of different fantasy races all shaking hands, and the last was the eye that I got last time.

    "What does that mean?" I asked.

    "It means I''m terrible at this game," he said.

    "No, what do the cards mean," I said.

    "I know what you meant. I''d just rather not discuss my fate with you," he said.

    "What if I gave you 5 gold?" I said.

    "Fine. Gold first," James said.

    I slid the gold coins across the table. I sat down. It felt weird standing over them. I had to sit down next to Nico because I wanted to be across from James when he explained the cards.

    James pointed to the first card. "The Barfing Goat. It means a boon will come to you from an unexpected place." He pointed to the next one. "The Mocking Jester. It means you will humiliate someone in power, either accidentally or intentionally."

    He pointed to the next one. This one was upside down. "Order of Execution. Upright, it means someone in power will send someone to harm you. Reversed, which this card is, it means someone in power will send someone to harm someone around you. This could be someone you know or a stranger you see it happening to."

    He pointed to the next card. "Communion of Cultures. It means you will become aligned with someone from a different culture. Or it can be interpreted literally to mean that you will become aligned with someone from a different race."

    He pointed to the last card. It was reversed. "The Eye. Reversed, it means that someone around you or that you know is being watched."

    He picked up the cards and shuffled them back into the deck. "Happy?" He said.

    "Actually, yes. That was surprisingly very helpful to me," I said.

    "I''m glad," he said with a dead face. Sarcasm. How cute.

    The Barfing Goat could refer to the fact that I plan to hire James and pay him more than Dorian did. I wasn''t sure what the Mocking Jester was referring to. Unless it meant James was going to accidentally be rude to Abigail, with her being a princess.

    The Order of Execution being reversed could refer to someone sending people after me for taking down the mercenary branch of the Red Tail Fox Company in Ravenhold.

    The Communion of Cultures could be referring to James meeting Marcy. And the reversed Eye could refer to people watching me as a potential suspect in the destruction of the mercenary branch.

    "Guess what, James?" I said with a devious smile.

    "What?" James said.

    "You now work for me," I said.

    His jaw dropped open. I closed it for him by pushing up on his chin. He swatted my hand away. "Don''t touch my face!" He said.

    "Sorry, you just dropped your jaw, so I thought I''d pick it up for you," I said.

    He gave me the stink eye. "That''s very clever wordplay," he said. "But seriously, you''re my boss? How? I did think it was weird that one of the lieutenants was visiting me." He looked at Nico.

    "Because I killed your boss, and I have the money to pay you. You have two choices. You can work for me, or you can be unemployed," I said.

    "I thought you were with the company. Why would you kill Dorian?" He said.

    "I''m not. I tricked you. I killed him for shady business practices and general cruelty. And because I plan to end the crystal trade. So what will it be James, owner of Sprinkles, the cat?" I said.

    "Are you going to hurt my cat if I say no?" He said.

    "No! Of course not. That would be messed up," I said. "I may kill evil people, but I don''t harm the innocent. Unless Sprinkles is somehow evil."

    "He''s not. That''s a relief. Will you still pay me the same?" He said.

    "No. I''ll pay you double," I said. "You''ll keep recruiting people as normal, paying people, and receiving crystal hauls if I need it."

    "That, I can do," he said, shuffling his cards.

    "Good," I said. I turned to Nico.

    "You''re still on board to join me right?" I said.

    "Yes. What will you have me doing though? You won''t make me kill people again, right?" She said.

    "No. What I want you to do is find out everything you can about the Noble branch in Ravenhold and anything you can about the company at large," I said. I adjusted my pants again.

    "Ok. I can do that. Where can I find you to give the report?" She said.

    I whispered the location of the merchant guild hall into her ear. I didn''t trust James enough yet to let him know where I''d be, but Nico didn''t seem like a rat and with her skills, wasn''t likely to get caught and tortured. That said, it didn''t hurt to make sure.

    ''Will you rat me out in any capacity, whether you are forced to or not?'' I asked Nico''s soul.

    ''No. Snitches get stitches.'' Her soul said.

    "Ok, I''ll meet you there," she said. She went back to playing Fates Drawn with James. I left the bar and went to my next thing.

 Chapter 17: Patrol and Persons of Interest

    Abigail still worked nights at Sally''s, so I needed something to do during that time. I had the bright idea to walk the streets of the undercity to find evil people with Evil Eye and eliminate them.

    I ran into an evil person walking the streets like me after a few minutes. His evil deeds centered around picking up and killing prostitutes. His backstory wasn''t that tragic or justified. Women just didn''t like him growing up and he never got to date much and was often rejected eventually when he did date.

    I didn''t feel the need to talk to him. He was evil and I eliminated it. I didn''t feel much about it other than the satisfaction of a job well done. I was doing what I set out to do.

    I summoned 20 bone spikes and shot them into his body. Then, using my control over the bone spikes, I lifted him off the ground, took him behind a building, and threw him into the refuse heap that accumulated from people throwing out their trash.

    [You have defeated Moderate Evil! You have gained 2 justice points (2)!]

    [Roll, Upgrade, or Save?]

    ''Roll.''

    [Good Lure: Create a beacon that attracts good people who want to help within a 100-foot radius. Good for gathering potential allies]

    or

    [Neutral Lure: Create a beacon that attracts neutral folk within a 100-foot radius. Good for creating crowds and distractions]

    or

    [Evil Lure: Create a beacon that attracts evil people within a 100-foot radius. Depending on the line of sight and distance, they see or sense their preferred target at the beacon]

    ''I choose Evil Lure and I want to spend my other justice point to upgrade it.''

    [Granted. Evil Lure now attracts evil within a 200-foot radius]

    I dispelled the bone spikes in the evil guy''s body and carried on with my walk. Since it was nighttime, even though night and day looked the same down here, most people were in their homes. This meant that most evil people were in their homes as well.

    I came to a house with an evil person in it. This was the perfect time to try out the Evil Lure. I placed the lure in between the evil person''s house and their neighbor''s.

    I watched them get up out of bed, put on clothes and shoes, and head outside. I stood in the dark next to a house across the street. A young woman who looked to be in her 20s stepped out of the front door and into the street.

    She was wearing a bathrobe and holding a knife. She crept around the corner of the building and said, "Come here, big man! I have something to show you."

    Then when she got to the beacon, she mimed stabbing someone to death. I realized she wasn''t miming intentionally. She was seeing her victim die in real-time.

    I had seen enough. She had a tragic backstory herself, but her victims had done nothing wrong other than be large muscular men. All of them were kind to her and she murdered them in cold blood in revenge for the one man who didn''t treat her kindly.

    She was delusional, but she was also killing people, so I had to end it. I drove a giant spike through her body, carried her behind the next building, and threw her in a pile of trash.

    [You have defeated Moderate Evil! You have gained 2 justice points (2)!]

    ''Upgrade Evil Lure twice.''

    [You have upgraded Evil Lure 2 times! It now has a radius of 400 feet]

    I dispelled the spike as I always did, and carried on. I continued down the street, killing someone every 20 houses or so.

    [You have defeated regular evil 4 times! You have gained 4 justice points (4)]

    ''Upgrade Evil Lure 4 times.''

    [You have upgraded Evil Lure 4 times! It now has a radius of 800 feet!]

    I wandered around the undercity and hid in the shadows, luring evil people to their doom. I was quick, quiet, and methodical about it. There wasn''t much light down here, so it was easy to remain unseen. The only light came from the streetlamps and they weren''t very bright.

    At the end of my hunt, I counted my victims and realized I ended up killing another 12 evil people. They all reacted to the lure as if they were about to victimize or kill their preferred target. Some of them were disgusting to witness, but this was the job I gave myself. So I steeled myself and took out the trash.

    ''Upgrade Evil Lure 12 times.''

    [You have upgraded Evil Lure 12 times! It now has a radius of 2,000 feet!]

    Eventually, I found myself back at Sally''s bar to check on Abigail. When I walked up to the bar from the side, something caught my eye. The thermal signature of an evil person was walking around the 4th floor of the old mercenary branch of the Red Tail Fox Company building.

    I was a little wary of this because it was probably someone investigating or at least looking around the carnage I created on that floor yesterday. Against my better judgment, I walked over to the building and into the alley. I placed my Evil Lure and hid around the corner, waiting.

    After a minute, I heard a nasally, vaguely sinister voice say, "I''ve got you now, Tom Ketchup."

    What the hell? I was their ideal target? I mean it made sense they were looking for the person who killed the branch leadership, but the fact that they knew my name was mind-boggling.

    I had to confront this person. I stepped out from behind the wall. The person was wearing a long brown coat and a mask with magical-looking glowing goggles. They were carrying a large staff. It had a circle at the top with a spinning yellow sphere in the middle.

    "Who are you? I''m in the middle of a criminal interrogation, so if you could kindly get lost, I''d appreciate it," they said.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    "I''m Tom Ketchup," I said. I deactivated the beacon.

    "You''re Tom Ketchup? Then what was that?" They gestured to the space where the beacon was.

    "It shows people what they want to see. Bit of illusion magic," I said.

    "I see. Well, since you so boldly announced yourself as Tom Ketchup, I assume you''re ready for a fight. Since you''ve got one coming to you," they said.

    "I am, but why don''t you tell me your name first?" I said.

    "I am Agent Olivia Algernon. I''m investigating the deaths of Dorian, Dulce, Nico, and Bruno, the four branch heads of the Red Tail Fox Company in this district," she said.

    "I will openly admit to killing them for their evil ways. As I will do to you for your sadistic torturing of innocent people in your investigations, Olivia," I said.

    "What business is it of yours what I do to other people?" She said.

    "It''s been my business ever since I made eliminating evil my business," I said. "And you are evil. So unless you want to turn over a new leaf, I suggest you get ready."

    "I have no intention of changing my ways, nor being killed by some delusional psychopath on a justice rampage," she said.

    "Psychopath, huh? That''s the pot calling the kettle black," I said.

    "Enough of this back and forth. Prepare to be annihilated," Olivia said.

    Lightning shot down from the sky and hit her staff. The sphere at the end glowed and sparked. She lifted it over her head and slammed it into the ground and the ground erupted. Stones and dirt rained down on me. It barely hurt me. My HP and Stamina were too high.

    But it did blind me. I covered my eyes with my arm. I could still see her though. My Evil Eye gave me a thermal reading of evil people through all obstacles, including arms.

    I couldn''t see her attacks though, just her movements. Before the dust settled, she zapped me with something. It sent me flying across the street and through the wall of Sally''s bar.

    "There''s a door for a reason!" The doorman said.

    "Sorry. I forgot," I said as I got up. Holy crap she hit me hard. My HP went down by a third and that was probably a basic attack.

    I felt weird. It was like my brain was moving in slow motion. It wasn''t just the lost HP. While Enhanced Regeneration brought my HP quickly back up to full, I performed Advanced Diagnosis on myself.

    [Subject: Tom Ketchup Status Effects: Stun]

    [Stun: Delayed reactions]

    Shit. I performed Advanced Status Relief on myself.

    [Stun effect removed]

    This healing grimoire was really useful. Without it, I''d probably be a goner. Abigail said, "I got you, baby!" She waved a wand she definitely didn''t have before and shot a bubble at me.

    It encompassed my body. Right when the bubble formed, I saw a brief flash of repeating symbols on the surface of the bubble. One looked like a lightning bolt with a circle with a slash through it around it.

    That must have been electricity resistance, which I needed desperately. The other symbol was a circle with arrows pointing at it in a circle around it. I didn''t know what that one meant.

    Olivia walked through the front door rather than the hole in the wall.

    "Thank you! At least someone knows how to use the door!" The doorman said.

    "Shut up," Olivia said and zapped the doorman. He briefly shook and convulsed before collapsing to the ground in a heap.

    "Seriously?" I said. "You can''t tolerate a guy trying to add some levity to the scene? You really do suck."

    "I don''t need your opinion. You''re nothing to me. Just a bug I have to squash," she said.

    "The more you talk, the better I feel about killing you. Feel free to monologue all you want," I said.

    "What''s your game? You''ve destroyed the mercenary and sales departments of Red Tail Fox in Ravenhold. Are you operating under a foolish notion of justice? Whatever it is, it stops now," she said.

    "I may not be the strongest Agent of Red Tail Fox, but I''m more than a match for you. Your intelligence stat is probably still in the 4 digits and your level is a single digit. You may have help, but it''ll only delay me a few seconds before I kill you."

    "Wow, I didn''t think you''d actually take me up on my offer to monologue," I said. "All I have to say to that is, skeleton beats lightning."

    I summoned a skeleton in front of me. I gave it two swords to attack with. It lunged forward at Olivia and did a cross-slash at her. She zapped it with electricity, but it did nothing.

    What she didn''t know is dry bone is a poor conductor of electricity. It does nothing to it. She took the cross-slash right to the body. Big gashes formed on her arms and stomach.

    "Fuck! No matter. I''ll just attack you!" She yelled.

    She jumped back away from the skeleton and stuck her staff in the air. Lightning shot from the staff and struck the bubble around me. The bubble absorbed the electricity. The surface of the bubble crackled with electricity. The symbols I saw before flashed again.

    "A forcefield with lightning protection and absorption enchantment? How is that possible? You''d have to be at least SS to use all three magics at the same time!" She said, stunned.

    "The answer is right in front of you. My baby is strong!" I said. "And so am I."

    I summoned 3 giant spikes and shot them at Olivia. She slammed her staff down and a lightning barrier formed in front of her. She still hadn''t figured out that my bones countered her electricity.

    She dodged two of the spikes, but the last one got her in the shoulder. It went deep into her shoulder and stuck out the other side.

    "Fuck! This just isn''t my fight." She pulled at the giant spike sticking out of her shoulder until it clattered to the ground. She had a massive hole in her shoulder that wasn''t healing. She didn''t have any healing abilities. She was all lightning.

    She wasn''t an S-ranker because she couldn''t hold two grimoires. That left A-ranker and below. If I were to guess, I''d say B-ranker. Much stronger than Henry who was C-rank, but not astronomically stronger.

    "Let''s see how you deal with this, you stupid do-gooder!" Olivia slammed her staff down and multiple lightning bolts shot out and hit the ceiling. The ceiling groaned and made popping sounds. Bits of the ceiling began raining down and the building shook.

    Olivia ran out of the front door and turned left, disappearing from view. I could see her thermal signature just fine though. But that wasn''t my worry right now.

    I didn''t have any protective spells, so I just ran to the table with the most people around it and stood over them with my arms spread out over them. Large pieces of the ceiling fell down on me.

    After 20 seconds, the tremors and falling ceiling stopped. I lifted my head and looked around. Sally, Abigail, and the patrons were all covered in protective bubbles.

    "Good job, Abigail. I can always count on you," I said. I began to run out the door to chase after Olivia, but Abigail put a giant bubble in front of the door that blocked me and made me bounce off it.

    "Hey, you big dummy! Where''s my kiss?" She said.

    "Ok, ok. Here you go," I said. I leaned over the bar and kissed her. "Now, can I go catch the bad guy? Or bad girl, I guess," I said.

    "Yes, but be careful. That bubble will only protect you from electricity. If you get ambushed by other people, it will be useless," she said.

    "I''ll keep that in mind," I said.

    I ran out the door and checked on the doorman. He was still breathing, but he was in bad shape. His fingertips and toes were black and his shoes had exploded. I used Advanced Diagnosis on him to assess and find the damaged areas.

    Then I used Advanced Healing to heal his wounds. He was perfectly healthy by the time I was done, but he was still unconscious. I quickly put two gold coins on his eyes and ran around the corner Olivia had disappeared behind.

    I looked down the street and saw Olivia''s thermal signature darting between two buildings about 600 feet away. She had gotten a decent distance away for an injured person, but my evil eye worked up to 1,200 feet. She wasn''t escaping from me that easily.

    I summoned a bone platform beneath my feet and made it speed towards Olivia. It could only move at my maximum running speed, but that was pretty fast and it preserved my stamina.

    I was almost to the alley when a large metal hook wrapped around my neck and pulled me off the platform onto my back. I pulled at the hook and turned my neck to see my new assailant.

 Chapter 18: Bounty Hunters

    The chain that had pulled me off my platform, started being reeled in. It dragged me across the cobblestone street. It had easily popped the protective bubble Abigail put around me. Standing at the end of the chain was a giant of a woman. She had to be at least 8 feet tall.

    I shot a giant spike at her. She put her hand in front of it and caught it in her hand. It had stabbed through her hand but she was pushing against it hard enough to prevent it from moving forward.

    This did what I wanted it to do. Give slack in the chain so I could remove it from my neck. She pulled at the chain hard when she saw what I was doing and the hook raked across my face, slicing it open.

    It quickly healed, but it still hurt. I summoned two more giant spikes and threw them at her. She caught one in her other hand and one in her teeth.

    We were at a standstill. I analyzed her misdeeds and found they weren''t as bad as some of the others I''d seen. They weren''t forgivable, but they weren''t as bad as Olivia''s.

    She was a bounty hunter. She only took contracts that allowed her to kill her target before delivering them. Wanted dead or alive, or just wanted dead. The "wanted alive" contracts she didn''t take. They were too difficult and not as fun.

    She killed every target she hunted, even if she found out they were innocent. She didn''t care. All she cared about was killing and getting paid. She didn''t care if the person deserved it or not.

    She had a tragic backstory too, but it still didn''t justify her actions. She grew up a slave and was treated poorly until she led a revolt to kill her masters. She succeeded and went free, but all she knew how to do was labor and kill. And she didn''t want to labor anymore.

    I sent a skeleton with two swords at her while I had her occupied with my spikes. The skeleton methodically slashed her Achilles tendons, dropping her to her knees.

    [Auto crit on evil activated!]

    Then he stabbed her in the heart. She bled to death rather quickly. She collapsed to the ground without a word. She just closed her eyes and that was it.

    [You have defeated Great Evil! You have gained 3 justice points]

    I looked around and Olivia''s thermal signature had disappeared. She must have gone out of the range of Evil Eye.

    ''Spend them on Evil Eye.''

    [You have upgraded Evil Eye 3 times! Evil Eye''s range has increased to 1,500 feet]

    Olivia''s thermal signature popped back into view. She was several blocks away. I hopped back on my bone platform and sped in that direction. I took the roads instead of trying to make my way between buildings. It was faster and there was no one on the street.

    I caught up to her coming out of an alley. She stopped when she saw me and put her hands up. "Stop! Please, wait! I can help you."

    I stopped. "I''m listening."

    "There will be many more coming for you besides me, and they won''t be agents. They''ll be bounty hunters. They will be far more willing to endanger innocent lives than me," she said.

    "You seemed pretty willing to endanger innocent lives to me," I said, crossing my arms.

    "That was nothing compared to what a bounty hunter would do. A bounty hunter would threaten anyone to get their prey to surrender. If you let me go, I can say that I killed you, and the bounty will be dropped. Then no innocent people have to get hurt," she said.

    I saw a thermal signature on a rooftop 3 houses away. "Hold on one second," I said. I prepared a giant spike and shot it through the part of the roof they were hiding behind.

    I pulled the spike back with a dude attached to it and deposited him in the nearby trash heap. "I''ll let you go if you can convince me you won''t do evil things to innocent people anymore. You can do whatever you want to evil people, but leave innocents out of it," I said.

    Olivia got on her hands and knees. "I promise I won''t hurt another innocent again!"

    Evil Eye still read her as evil. "Sorry. I''m not convinced." I summoned a giant spike and prepared to launch it through her neck. Then the ground opened up and we fell. I extended my bone platform to try to reattach it to the ground. I fell 10 feet before my bone platform stabilized and I landed on it on my back.

    Olivia screamed and fell into the dark. I lowered my platform as fast as I could to try to catch her but I couldn''t see her anymore. It was too dark. I kept lowering the platform until I heard a thud and Olivia stopped screaming. I lowered my platform to the ground and once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw Olivia''s crumpled form on the ground next to me.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

    I immediately raised bone platforms around us to protect us from our attacker. The ground didn''t collapse naturally. Someone set it to collapse to trap us or just me. I enclosed us in a circle of bone platforms.

    I wished I had some way to make light with my powers, but there was nothing. I looked around and saw a thermal signature of another evil person down here. They must have collapsed the ground and dropped us down here. It was probably another bounty hunter.

    Experimentally, I dropped a bone platform and threw a giant spike at them. I didn''t see any barriers between them and me, so I figured I could get a free shot, but halfway to my target, the giant spike split into several pieces and fell to the ground. I tried picking up one of the larger pieces of the spike and throwing it at my target, but that was split into several smaller pieces.

    Several torches flickered on in the underground space. We were standing in a large underground sewer tunnel that didn''t currently have any sewage in it. Looking at our attacker, I still couldn''t see anything more than glowing yellow eyes. I could see little flickers of metal glinting in the light in front of them, but I couldn''t make out what they were.

    This person was evil in a similar but worse way than the tall woman. He was a bounty hunter who didn''t care about guilt, but he also worked as an assassin who killed whoever he had to to get paid.

    Olivia stirred and sat up. "Where are we?" She said, looking around.

    "An unused sewage tunnel, it seems," I said. "Can you walk?"

    Olivia tried to stand up, but she couldn''t. "My leg is broken. I can''t get up."

    "Lower your columns!" The attacker said.

    "No! You''ll just kill us," I said. I kneeled down and put my hands on her leg. I activated Advanced Healing to mend her broken leg. Once I was done, I said, "You should be fine now."

    Olivia felt her leg and then stood up. "You healed me! Why?"

    "You need to be healthy if either of us is going to make it out of this alive. This guy is the real deal," I said.

    "Ok, well, if I kill him, will you let me go?" She said.

    "I can''t negotiate with you while you''re still evil and willing to hurt innocents to get what you want," I said. "If I let you go and you kill again, their blood is on my hands."

    "You''re so stubborn! I''m offering to save your life, and you won''t let me go because I fit some rigid concept of evil to you? Who knows if your version of evil is truly evil?" She said.

    "You torture and kill innocent people to capture guilty ones. How is that not evil?" I said.

    "How do you know those people I tortured were innocent? You don''t do you?" She said.

    "Ok, I guess I don''t, but the point is you don''t either. You tortured those people without knowing if they had done anything wrong," I said.

    "Sure, but I also didn''t know that they hadn''t done anything wrong," she said.

    "What? I don''t understand what you''re saying," I said.

    "The problem is, you assume people are innocent until proven guilty. I assume people are guilty until proven innocent," she said. "So to me, I tortured and killed guilty people who associated with the guilty person I was after. They were guilty by association."

    "Wait, you can just assume people are guilty? How does that make sense?" I said.

    "How does assuming they''re innocent make sense? You might be letting murderers go on to murder other people. In my mind, I''m killing more guilty people than not, and that makes what I do ok," she said.

    "What the fuck? It''s ok if you kill more guilty people than innocent people? Explain," I said.

    "Uh, are we going to fight, or are you two going to argue all night?" The bounty hunter assassin said.

    "Shut up!" Both Olivia and I said at the same time.

    "It''s ok because more innocents are saved in the end. That''s how the justice system works. You don''t think innocent people are imprisoned or executed? It happens all the time," she said.

    "What makes it ok, is more guilty are being taken out than innocent, thus saving more innocent lives than if the guilty were allowed to go free."

    "Ok, your non-sense is actually starting to make sense to me now," I said.

    [Sense of justice realigned. Olivia no longer deemed evil. Olivia is now classified as morally grey]

    "Damn it! You''re not evil in my mind anymore. Now I can''t kill you unless you try to kill me," I said. I looked at her.

    She looked at me. "What?"

    "I''m waiting for you to kill this guy so we can get out of here," I said.

    "Oh, right," she said. She picked up her staff off the ground and zapped the assassin with a lightning bolt. He dodged out of the way with incredible agility. She tried zapping him several more times but he kept dodging. I didn''t understand why he didn''t come into the bone column area and attack us himself or why he didn''t attack Olivia back. He must not have been able to.

    "This is getting annoying," Olivia said. She slammed her staff into the ground and several lightning bolts shot the ceiling above the assassin. This caused massive chunks of concrete to fall onto him.

    The assassin looked up at the falling rocks and said, "Oh shˇŞ". He was cut off when he got crushed by the stones.

    "Thank you," I said. "That doesn''t let you completely off the hook. If you try to kill me or any of my friends, you''re still dead."

    "Convince me what you''re doing is right and I won''t kill you or any of your friends," she said.

    "I''m trying to take down a corrupt organization capitalizing on addiction, underpaying people, with no training or safety procedures," I said.

    "There are a lot of businesses you could be talking about when you say that," she said.

    "I know, but I currently have my eyes set on the Red Tail Fox Company. Now are you going to help me, fight me, or stay out of my way?" I said.

    "The easiest and most comfortable option would be to kill you now that you don''t have your bubble," she said.

    I summoned my bone armor and a bone sword. I put the bone sword against her neck. "Try it if you think you can get away with it."

    She put her hands up. "But I''ve decided to let you be and just try to find work elsewhere."

    "Good," I said. I lowered my sword but didn''t put it away. I walked out to the dead assassin. I was curious what weapon he was using.

    After examination, and removing some of the rocks off his body, I could tell he was using razor-sharp wires attached to his fingers and a post. That was how he sliced up my bone spike. And that''s why he had no defense against Olivia''s lightning other than to dodge.

    And why he couldn''t attack us with my bone columns up. They were blocking his wires. His whole plan relied on us falling down and him immediately slicing us to pieces, but his plans were thwarted when I didn''t fall down with Olivia and he had to wait for me to be in a good position.

    "Stand next to me," I said to Olivia

    "Why?" She said, giving me a look.

    "It''s nothing sexual. I''m just getting us out of here," I said.

    "Ok," she said standing next to me.

    I summoned a bone platform underneath us and rose it to the street. We stepped off back onto the street.

    "Well, this is me," Olivia said and saluted me.

    "Wait, you live here?" I said looking at the nearest house.

    "No, I mean I''m going to leave," she said.

    "Oh. Right. I guess, be well, and try to only kill people you think are bad?" I said.

    "I will, Tom. I will. Good luck with your crusade," she said. She walked down the street and disappeared into an alley.

    I took a bone platform back to Sally''s bar. When I got back, all the patrons were gone, and Sally and Abigail were sweeping the floor, trying to clean up the debris. Abigail dropped her broom when she saw me. She ran over to me and threw her arms around me.

    "You''re safe!" She said, kissing me.

    "Yeah, surprisingly, I am," I said.

    "Good," she said. "Well, I have a surprise for you."

    "Oh, yeah? What is it?" I said.

    "If I told you, it wouldn''t be a surprise," she said.

    Sally walked up to me. "Whatever it is you''re doing to get people on your ass, keep it away from my bar. I have a business to run! People will stop coming around if they think they''re going to get killed here."

    "I''m sorry, Sally. It won''t happen again," I said.

    "See that it doesn''t," she said.

    "Yes, ma''am," I said. "Well, I''ll help you two clean up."

    I helped Sally and Abigail clean up the mess that was the inside of Sally''s bar. When it was all over, Abigail took me upstairs and showed me her "surprise." I was actually surprised, but I was very pleased.

 Chapter 19: Mission Prep

    I was completely stunned. "What is it?" I said.

    "It''s your mage staff silly!" Abigail said.

    "But it has pink on it," I said.

    "Yeah, healing crystals are pink," she said.

    "Ok, what does it do? I see bone and pink crystal at the end," I said.

    It was a smooth long white staff made from bone. It had some rune etchings and a strip of leather wrapped around it for grip. At the end was a V-shaped socket that held a heart-shaped pink crystal.

    "The bone part enhances your bone magic and the healing crystal enhances your healing magic," she said.

    "Aren''t crystals dangerous? Or is it like Marcy''s crystal bombs? As long as you''re not taking the crystals into your body, you won''t build up toxicity?" I said.

    "Exactly. Magic crystals can be perfectly safe when used in items. They''re naturally occurring magical phenomena. They''ve only become dangerous now that people are taking them like drugs," she said.

    "I didn''t know that either until I visited Granny''s Grimoires again and asked her about getting us magic focuses. She said she couldn''t make them, but she told me what I would need and who to look up in Ravenhold to get it done."

    "So I bought some crystals and other things from Bobbin and went to Arthur Ashkinson. He''s an artificer who works out of the lower city. He wasn''t cheap but now we both have magic focuses! I have a wand and you have a staff. Isn''t that great?"

    "Yeah, that is pretty great. Does the crystal get used up though, like it does when you pop them?" I said.

    "Yeah, that does happen, but the slot at the end of your staff allows you to change out the crystal. It''s lucky that all healing crystals are shaped like hearts," she said.

    "Yeah, that is lucky. Cool. So how much did it cost?" I said.

    "About, mumble mumble coins," she said.

    "You can''t say the word ''mumble'' when you''re mumbling," I said.

    "Ok. Hamma whatsit googaw coins," she said smiling.

    "That''s not how mumbling works, but just tell me how much it was," I said.

    "It was 1,010 coins," she said sheepishly. "But we still have at least 2,000 coins left!"

    "Oh, that''s fine. I thought you were going to tell me we were in debt or something," I said sighing in relief.

    "Well, we would''ve been if I hadn''t haggled him down," she said. "He wanted something ridiculous like 10,000 coins!"

    "What the hell? You basically robbed the man! How did you get the price down so low?" I said.

    "Oh, I just promised I would perform at his daughter''s birthday party. He said his daughter loves bubbles and princesses, so I said I could deliver both of those things!" She said.

    "You didn''t actually tell him you''re the runaway princess, did you?" I said mortified.

    "Of course! Otherwise, I wouldn''t have gotten the price down so low," she said.

    "Oh my god. I hope he doesn''t tell the authorities," I said.

    "Well, if he does, we''ll just kick their asses with our cool magic focuses!" She said.

    "If he was planning to tell the authorities, he could have easily booby-trapped the focuses somehow," I said.

    "Ha ha!" Abigail said.

    "What?" I said.

    "You said booby!" She said.

    "Uh, yeah. Um, are you ok, Abigail?" I said.

    "Yeah, why?" She said. It was at that point I noticed she was swaying on her feet slightly.

    "You didn''t have anything weird to eat or drink did you?" I said.

    "I don''t think so unless you count those things Sally kept pouring me. Butterscotch shots I think she called them." Abigail said.

    She swayed a bit too far in one direction and started to fall. I caught her and laid her on the bed. "Abigail, you''re drunk. Sally got you drunk," I said. "I don''t know why she would do that, but she did."

    "She said the shots would make me more fun," she mumbled with her eyes closed.

    I curled up next to her on the bed, and said, "I think it''s time for the princess to go to bed."

    "But I want to stay up and play with your thingy!" She said.

    "You can do that another time when you''re sober," I said. "Now go to sleep."

    "Ok, good night Grandpa," she said.

    Wait, what? I shook her. "You didn''t play with Grandpa''s thingy, did you?" I said concerned.

    "No! That would be gross," she said. "Good niˇŞ" she mumbled into the pillow for a while before falling asleep.

    "Good night, Abigail," I said, kissing the back of her neck and closing my eyes.

    <hr>

    I opened my eyes. Abigail was sleeping soundly next to me. I got up and got dressed and by the time I was done, she was opening her eyes. "Where are you going?" She said.

    "Downstairs," I said. "You should join me if you''re feeling up to it."

    "My head hurts a little, but not too bad. I should be able to handle it," she said.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

    "Drink some water and the headache will reduce," I said. "It''s likely from dehydration."

    "Ok," she said.

    I went downstairs. Sally was up making breakfast. "You and I need to talk," I said.

    "What about?" She said. "Sounds like you''re about to reprimand me."

    "Why did you get Abby so drunk last night? She was sloshed," I said.

    "I was just trying to show her a good time. How was I supposed to know she''d thrown so many back? She asked for more so I gave it to her. Is that so wrong? She can make her own decisions and her own mistakes. We don''t control her, regardless of how much she needs it sometimes," she said.

    "I suppose that''s true. Ok, well you better be cooking some good hangover food. Because she is hungover. Surprisingly, not as bad as I expected though," I said.

    "Bacon, eggs, and hash browns! Best hangover foods that exist!" She said.

    Abby got down shortly after. Sally, Abby, and I ate breakfast together and I filled them in on what happened with the bounty hunters and Olivia.

    "You''re courting some dangerous enemies, sonny. You better be ready to face the consequences, because they are coming," she said putting hash browns into her mouth.

    "I am. What do you think I''m trying to level up so fast for? And why Abby and I got new grimoires? We''re preparing," I said putting a piece of bacon into my own mouth.

    "Yeah, Sally! We''re going to be so ready, the bad guys won''t know what hit them! But we will, because we''ll be the ones hitting them," she said shoveling eggs into her mouth.

    "That made so much sense," I said.

    "Hey! Don''t make fun of the girl. Just because she''s dumb as a rock, doesn''t mean she isn''t precious as a gem," Sally said.

    "Yeah, what Sally said. Thanks, Sally," Abby said.

    "No problem, kiddo. I''ll always have your back," she said.

    After breakfast, Abigail and I headed over to the base. Stylus, Marcy, and Nico were there.

    "Stylus, status report," I said.

    "So, the mercenaries are gradually getting stronger now that they can absorb the cores from their defeated enemies. Two of the teams have been able to defeat the mini-bosses, and the third team always gets to the mini-boss but is afraid to go further. They don''t want to get hurt," Stylus said.

    "Good. I''m fine with that. Have them keep absorbing cores and running the dungeon until they feel comfortable. I don''t want any casualties on my watch," I said.

    "Yes, sir," Stylus said.

    I handed Stylus a coin purse full of gold coins. The coin purse suddenly turned into 3 gold purses. "Use that to continue paying yourself and the mercenaries for a while."

    [Multiplied Generosity activated!]

    "Yes, sir," Stylus said.

    "Very good," I said. "So, Nico. What do you have to report?"

    "The noble branch is in the upper city like we expected, but it''s basically an impregnable fortress," she said. "All they do all day is throw parties and bribe nobles with women, money, and expensive booze, but they have tons of money to hire the best protection possible."

    "They even have Haglor the Unstoppable. He''s one of the strongest B-rank adventurers out there. He''s an expert with a sword and a bow. No one has ever seen his face, but he always wears the same armor - the Duskborn Aegis. It covers every inch of his skin."

    "And that''s not all! They have 8 more adventurers almost as famous as Haglor. There''s Haymere the Unfettered, Judan the Undisturbed, Callian the Unchallenged, BeˇŞ"

    I stopped her there. "I get it. They all have Un in their names. This is going to be a tough one. We might have to form a plan for this one. Or we could just train up and try to outmuscle them."

    "I''d advise against that," Stylus said. "From what little communication I''ve had with the higher ups in the Red Tail Fox Company, I learned they''re planning some big soon. Something they needed a huge increase in crystal acquisition for."

    "My gut tells me the noble branch is behind this and it''s only a matter of time before they enact their plan. We need to make a move now."

    "Ok, that sounds bad. I guess we will need a plan this time. Marcy, any ideas?" I said.

    "We could create a distraction with one of my bombs and then kill all the official members of the noble branch while their guards are distracted," Marcy said.

    "That''s not a bad idea," I said. "Ok, say we do that. How would it work?"

    Marcy detailed her concept and I liked it. I decided that''s what we would go with. It was still morning and we would have to wait until dark to enact the plan. I decided we should all run the dungeon to get our stats up before the hit.

    Abigail and I ran Marcy and Nico through the first and only dungeon we had ever done. I lost count of how many times we completed it. By the end, we stood back and watched as Marcy and Nico took down the boss by themselves.

    Nico slid between the Crystal Canine''s front feet, putting her arms out and cutting its legs. It stumbled slightly but stayed upright. Marcy threw a red bomb in between its front feet. When it went off, a cloud of red crystal went up around its legs causing it to lose strength in them.

    From a combination of Nico''s slices and the strength-draining bomb, the canine''s front feet collapsed underneath it, slamming its jaw into the ground. The canine wasn''t done, however. It pushed itself forward with its hind legs, thrusting its face and mouth dangerously close to Marcy. Just as the canine was going to close its jaws around Marcy, Nico grabbed her and pulled her out of the way.

    The canine''s teeth closed on air. Marcy lifted her crossbow and fired a bolt at the boss, getting it right in the eye. It yelped and squirmed. Nico used this moment of distraction to leap onto the canine''s shoulder, run up the back of its neck, and bury her daggers into the base of its skull. The canine gave one final yelp and collapsed, dead.

    I walked up to them as they were digging out the boss''s core. Nico handed the core to Marcy. "This is yours. I got the last one," she said.

    "Thanks," Marcy said.

    "No problem," Nico replied.

    "Not bad for a couple of noobs," I said.

    "Hey! I''m pretty sure we made that look good," Nico said.

    "Yeah! We kicked its ass!" Marcy said, punching the air.

    "I''m just kidding. You guys did great. I feel confident leading you on a mission now," I said.

    "Yay! We passed!" Marcy said jumping up and down.

    "Nice," Nico said.

    "Yes, you both passed, but it wasn''t a test. We would''ve kept going until you got it," I said.

    "I''m here too!" Abigail said waving her hands.

    "And we''re all very happy you are," I said putting my arm around her. I checked my stats.

    [Stats]

    [Strength: 645]

    [Agility: 637]

    [Stamina: 670]

    [Intelligence: 6,864]

    It was a nice little boost but I remembered Olivia mocking me for having 4-digit intelligence. Her intelligence score must have been in the 5 or even 6 digits. This just showed that I needed to graduate beyond a C-rank dungeon and take on something harder. My 10 times stats gaining attribute was nice, but it didn''t matter if my total stats were still lower than my opponent''s.

    Although my new staff should help considerably, I was still nowhere near capable of going toe-to-toe with this Haglor person. We would have to use subterfuge since we were on a timeline. Then I would find a way to hit harder dungeons. If we got into a pinch though, I might be able to rely on having two grimoires at level 7, especially the healing one. I could probably tank a lot of hits if I combined my regeneration ability with my advanced healing one.

    I destroyed several of the reward chests of crystals with my Crystal Breaker ability until I hit 1,000 good aura. The system rewarded me with another good aura level up to good aura level 5.

    [Good Aura Level 5: People can tell you''re an exceptionally good person. They will automatically trust you have good intentions until proven otherwise. High level people and people with high perception can see through your deception. This effect is negated upon entering combat.]

    I activated the ability to maintain this aura effect even when my actual aura was below the threshold. It would drain some of my mana once my aura dropped below the level, but not enough to make me go empty unless I dropped significantly below the threshold.

    After that, I stopped destroying the chests and Abigail began carrying them in bubbles for Marcy to make bombs. She said she needed them for the plan and she was running low. I figured since we were getting the reward chests anyway, we might as well put them to good use. Marcy was quite thankful and excited by the increasing pile of chests. I decided we still weren''t going to sell any more crystals to Bobbin. We would just gather them for Marcy.

    After talking, I found out Marcy and Nico didn''t have character classes. I tucked that information away in my mind for later. I was hoping we could eventually resolve this whole issue with the king, so we could visit the adventurer''s guild again and get them classes. That would have to wait until we had stopped the Red Tail Fox Company''s plans. We didn''t have time to be held in the dungeon if something went wrong.

    Now that Marcy and Nico were ready and we had gathered the crystals for the mission, we headed back to our base.

 Chapter 20: The Mission

    We loaded a cart with Marcy''s explosives and wheeled it onto the undercity to lower city elevator. We covered the explosives with crates of tomatoes, so whenever someone asked to see what we were carrying, we''d flip up the cloth and all they''d see was tomatoes. We got to the main gate leading from the lower city to the upper city before we ran into any real snags.

    "Where''s your work order?" One of the guards said.

    "Ah, shit. My dog ate it," I said.

    "Well then, I guess you can go right through," he said.

    "Thanks," I said pushing the cart across the checkpoint. The guard jumped in front of the cart.

    "Whoa!" He said. "I was being sarcastic. Can''t you poors recognize sarcasm?"

    "I''ll have you know, I am not poor, good sir. I have more than 2,000 gold," I said.

    "How''d you get that? You steal it?" He said.

    "Dungeon diving. It''s called risk and reward. I risk my life, I get rewarded," I said.

    "Well. If you''re willing to part with half of that, we''ll let you through," he said, grinning.

    "Hold on there buddy. I risked my life dozens of times for that money. I''ll give you 50 gold. That''s over 10 times your daily pay. That should be more than good enough," I said.

    I didn''t know his daily pay. I just guessed based on how much the mercenaries got paid before I took over.

    "Sure, that''s good enough for me, but what about my partner?" He pointed at the other guard manning the gate.

    I must have guessed right. Otherwise, he would have disagreed with my assessment.

    "100 gold total. No more. Besides, that''s all I have on me right now. You think I just walk around with thousands of gold?" I said.

    "Fine. Let''s see the gold and I''ll wave you through," he said.

    "Ok, let me get it." I walked around the cart to hide the fact that I had more than 100 gold on me and pulled it out. I walked back around and handed it to the guard.

    "Glad we could come to an agreeable arrangement," the guard said. He slapped the side of my cart and said, "They''re good!"

    I pulled the cart up the hill. I was the only one pulling. Everyone else was either sitting on the cart or hiding under the tomatoes. It wasn''t too difficult with my physical stats. We made it to the street where the noble branch building was. I turned into an alley before the building. I pulled a crate of tomatoes off the pile and Marcy jumped out of the hole, then Nico.

    Nico handed me my staff and Abigail her wand. "Ok, everyone remember the plan?" I said.

    "Yes," Nico said. "Tomatoes go boom, and we sneak in through the back."

    "Exactly," I said. "I''ll take care of pushing the cart and then we can sneak around the back together. Marcy, would you light the bombs for me?"

    "I got you," she said. She didn''t make any moves toward the cart.

    "What does that mean? You already lit them?" I said.

    "Yes," she said.

    "Oh shit!" I threw a cloak over myself and pushed the cart back onto the street. It started to smoke. I pushed the cart over to the noble branch building and pushed it hard at the building. As it careened toward the building, I yelled in my best old lady voice, "My tomatoes are on fire!"

    Then I ran back to the alley where everyone was waiting. I heard a huge explosion and screaming. That should keep the guards out of commission for a while. Marcy had created tons of strength, agility, stamina, and intelligence draining bombs and put them on the cart.

    Whoever got hit with the effects of the bombs would be completely out of commission for the duration of the effects. And the bombs'' radiuses of effect were large. The entire street in front of the building would be full of floating powderized crystals.

    "Ok, let''s get going!" I said. I lead the way through the alley to the other side. We walked between buildings until we were behind the noble branch building.

    "Stand close," I said. Everyone scooted in. I created a bone platform underneath us and raised it up to the third-story window. I checked for evil people in the room but found none. Using my staff, I smashed the window and climbed through the hole. The room was empty. Marcy, Nico, and Abigail climbed in after.

    "The plan is we gather everyone on this floor into one room and then I eliminate the evil ones. We''ll leave the neutral ones tied up if there are any. Nico and Marcy, you pair up. Abigail you''re on your own and so am I." I opened the door into the hallway and said, "I''m going left. You all go right. Go!"

    I jumped out into the hallway and turned left. I kicked open the first door on my left with three people talking in it. They all came up evil on my Evil Eye for good reasons, so I filled them full of bone spikes, exploded them into bone shards, and moved on to the next room. The next room was a man and a woman. They were having sex. The woman didn''t come up as evil so I said, "Get out of here!"

    Startled, she looked at me, saw my bone staff, and realized I wasn''t screwing around. She hurried out of the room and I filled the man with bone spikes that I then exploded and moved on.

    [You have defeated Moderate Evil (2) and Regular Evil (1). You have gained 5 justice points!]

    ''Put it all into upgrading Evil Eye!''

    [You have upgraded Evil Eye 5 times! Evil Eye''s range is now 2,000 feet]

    The third room had a large group of evil people in it with one non evil person. That person was wearing black armor with gold accents. They were large and imposing. They looked to be about 7 feet tall. I couldn''t be sure, but I had a suspicion this was Haglor.

    "Damn!" I said. I covered myself in thick bone armor and turned my bone staff into a massive sword that I held in my right hand. In my left hand, I summoned a large shield. Haglor turned around. As soon as he saw me, he rushed at me with his sword held over his head. He struck down on me and I raised my shield to block. My shield exploded and the floor beneath me buckled. My arm broke under the force of the blow, but it healed almost instantly.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

    Haglor raised his sword again and struck down on me. I lifted my sword to block. Bone screeched against metal. I succeeded in blocking his sword, but the floor beneath me gave way and I plummeted down a hole to the floor below. I landed on my feet initially, but I fell backward onto my ass. Looking up through the hole, I saw Haglor jump down through it.

    Thinking quickly, I summoned a bone platform on the floor below the hole and raised it up, pushing Haglor back up through the hole. I kept raising it until I felt it hit the roof and blasted through it. I kept raising it after that until I couldn''t raise it anymore. The bone platform was now sticking roughly 5o feet up out of the top of the building. This would be seen from far away and probably bring kingdom guards rushing here, but my goal was to stall Haglor as long as I could. And hopefully, Haglor was still on the platform, 50 feet in the air.

    I looked around the room and saw one person in the room who was marked as evil. I got up and walked over to him, grabbing him by the collar. "Tell me everything you know about the noble branch''s upcoming plan!" I said.

    "I don''t know anything! I''m just an accountant!" He said.

    "Oh, sorry," I said. I activated Soul Inquiry.

    ''Tell me everything you know about the noble branch''s upcoming plan!'' I said to his soul.

    His soul replied, ''They''re planning something at the upcoming gala at the castle. Something about demonstrating the power of legendary crystals on noble children, tricking the nobles into investing in and importing tons of crystals into the city.''

    "Thanks," I said.

    "I didn''t say anything!" He said.

    "That''s what you think," I said. I headbutted him into unconsciousness.

    I heard feet stomping down the hallway outside the room I was in. I ran to the door and locked it. Moments later the door rattled as someone tried to open it.

    "Templeton! Unlock the door! We''re evacuating everyone from the building!" A voice said through the door.

    I had to get out of there quickly before they realized something was wrong and busted down the door. I summoned another bone platform and raised it up, busting through the ceiling, and creating a circular hole.

    The person on the other side of the door must have heard the crash, because he said, "Someone''s in there! Bust down the door! We need to protect Mr. Templeton!"

    I lowered the platform, stepped onto it, and began raising myself up through the hole. The door to the room busted open and I heard the twang of a bow. An arrow plunged through the bone armor on my leg, through my lower leg, and out the other side. Now I had an arrow going all the way through my leg. Nice. And ow. I raised the rest of the way through the ceiling and stepped off the platform.

    There were still some evil people cowering in the corner of the room, but that wasn''t my problem right now. I had to get back to my friends before any of the guards did. I heard someone screaming above me. "Ahhhhhh!!!" It continued, getting louder and louder until there was a crash on the roof and Haglor smashed through the ceiling and did one of the coolest superhero landings I''d ever seen. He kneeled as he landed and punched his fist into the floor to stop his momentum.

    I was distracted for a few moments longer than I should have been. Haglor pulled a dagger from his boot and threw it at me. I summoned a shield over my left arm and put it up to block. The dagger slammed into the shield and pierced through it and through my forearm. The dagger was long enough and Haglor had thrown it hard enough so that the dagger not only pierced my forearm but continued and pierced my ribs, pinning my arm against them.

    "Fuck! Why are you so strong!" I said trying to pull the dagger out.

    Haglor answered in an artificially lowered deep gravelly voice. It sounded like he was intentionally lowering it to sound more intimidating. "I work out a lot!" He said. Haglor rushed at me, slamming his body into mine. We crashed through the wall and fell onto a flight of stairs. We tumbled down the stairs. We landed at a turn in the stairs with a side railing. Haglor''s head and helmet got stuck between two of the poles of the railing.

    He pulled his head out but the helmet was stuck between the railing. His helmet got pulled off when he sat up. I saw green skin, feminine features, tusks, and long black hair spill out as the helmet was removed. I didn''t know what I was looking at. I mean, they were a person, but what kind of person eluded me. That is until someone yelled, "Orc!"

    Then, it all clicked in my head. Haglor was an orc. A female orc. That was why he, or she, never took off her helmet. She didn''t want people to know what she was.

    "Get the orc!" The same voice said. I looked down the stairs and saw a group of guards at the bottom rushing up at us.

    "It''s me, Haglor!" The female orc said. She pulled her stuck helmet out of the railing, and put it back on her head. "See! I''m wearing Haglor''s helmet and armor!"

    "An orc is disguising itself as Haglor! Get it!" The lead guard said.

    Apparently, orcs were not liked by human society in this world. Just like goblins. Haglor''s situation mirrored Marcy''s too much for me to not feel a pang of sympathy for her new predicament, but I had my own problems to worry about. Her being one of them. If she asked for my help I''d have to help, but if she didn''t, I could pretend she didn''t want it.

    "Wow. Talk about being a racist moron," I said to no one in particular. I hated watching someone being treated badly through no fault of their own, but my friends were my top priority. Not someone I haven''t even met yet. I got up off the ground and tried to walk back up the stairs, but Haglor grabbed my arm.

    "Where do you think you''re going?" She said in her fake man voice.

    I looked at her with the deepest look of confusion and sympathy I could muster. A single tear ran down my cheek. Watching her not understand the danger she was in was painful. My bone helmet had been smashed and broke off my head when we went through the wall and tumbled down the stairs, so she could see my face. "I don''t know what you think is happening, but apprehending me is no longer an option for you. You''ve lost their trust. You aren''t Haglor to them anymore. You''re just an orc they have to kill."

    "If I were you, I''d either throw me at them as a distraction and try to get out from the third floor, or I''d join forces and escape with me. Your better option is joining forces with me and my people because we know people and we know how to hide. On your own, you won''t get far. At best, you''ll get run out of the city. At worst, you''ll be killed, thrown in a dungeon, or tortured."

    She paused for much longer than she should have with the guards rushing up the stairs. She was looking at me instead of them. The lead guard stabbed her through the knee. She palmed his face and pushed him down the stairs. He smashed into the people behind him and they all fell down the stairs together.

    She pulled the sword out of her leg and tried to put weight on it. It started to crumple beneath her until she caught herself on her other leg. She looked up at me again and released my arm. She looked down and sighed before looking back at me. "Lead the way," she said.

    "Good," I said. "I''m glad you chose survival."

    "Just get us out of here before I change my mind," she said.

    "Ok, pushy," I said. I put my hand on her shoulder.

    "What are you doing?" She said, grabbing my wrist hard.

    "Relax. I''m healing your knee," I said. I channeled my magic through her body and healed her knee in a matter of seconds.

    "Uh, thanks," she said.

    I turned around, ran up the stairs and turned right into the hallway. Then I walked left down the hallway and found Abigail, Marcy, and Nico tying up some fancy dressed people. "We don''t have time to kill the evil people. We have to get out of here. Mission isn''t a failure though. I got critical intel we will be following up on. Now let''s go."

    "Ok!" Abigail said with a joyful smile.

    "Ok!" Marcy said with a confused smile.

    "Ok!" Nico said with a devious smile.

    "Ok!" Haglor said. I don''t know what her face was doing.

    "Oh, right. This is Haglor. She''s on our side now, because she''s a fugitive orc."

    "Racism?" Marcy said. "I get it. We got you."

    "Uh, thanks, I guess," Haglor said.

    I blasted a hole in the roof with a bone platform, then lowered it and got on. "Everyone get on!" Marcy, Abigail, Nico, and finally Haglor got on after some hesitation.

    I raised us up through the hole and into the sun. A barrage of arrows blotted out the sun for a moment. Abigail made a large bubble form around us. The arrows got stuck in the bubble. We ran across the rooftop and came to the edge. I looked down and I looked forward.

    "Are we taking alleys?" Nico said.

    "No," I said. I summoned my bone powers to do something I had never done before. I hoped it would work.

 Chapter 21: Escape

    I activated my bone platform ability but manipulated it so it formed a bone bridge between the two rooftops. I ran across the bridge and everyone followed. I watched to see if it held up Haglor, her being larger than the rest of us. It held up fine, so I knew I could make bridges of the same size and she''d be ok.

    I changed my staff back from a sword to its normal white bone shaft with the pink heart-shaped healing crystal at the top. I don''t know how the craftsman made it amplify my bone magic and healing magic at the same time, but it did its job well. I felt like I could cast spells much faster and with less effort and concentration than before. It didn''t increase my mana, but it significantly improved my casting. Not that I needed much help with my mana pool being over 60,000 MP. An adventurer''s base mana pool was their intelligence times 10.

    To use up my mana pool now, I''d really have to get into a bad position. It could easily happen, like if I got surrounded by a battalion of guards or something, but as long as we kept to the rooftops, no one could touch us. Or so I thought.

    Pain in my arm and leg reminded me I had a dagger through my arm and an arrow through my leg. I dispelled my bone armor and pulled the dagger out as we ran. I tossed it into the air and yelled, "Haglor, catch!" It was her dagger after all. I figured I might as well return it. Then I yanked the arrow out of my leg. It hurt bad, just like my arm, but both my wounds healed quickly. The stab wound in my ribs had already healed after the fall down the stairs dislodged the blade.

    With tremendous hesitation, I chose not to resummon my bone armor, to have better mobility running across these rooftops. It was more of a security blanket at this point. I was better off just going without it. Every time we came to the edge of a rooftop, I just summoned another bone bridge to get us across the gap. We were making good time in our desperate dash to get to the lower city, and then the undercity.

    I stopped when we got to the edge of the upper city, where the next rooftop was hundreds of feet away in the lower city. We had reached the barrier and aqueduct that separated the upper city from the lower city. I would have to make a massive bridge to cross this gap.

    I started making the bridge. It got to about 50 feet in length before a massive impact hit me in the back and sent me tumbling onto my bridge. As I slid backward down my bridge I looked up and saw someone carrying a massive bow running across the rooftops following the bridges I created. I looked down and saw a massive arrow sticking out of my stomach. I slid off the edge of the bridge and was caught in one of Abigail''s bubbles.

    Abigail, Marcy, Nico, and Haglor ran to the end of the bridge and Abigail formed a bubble around them that flew over to me. Abigail started flying us over the aqueduct and to the lower city. I looked back and saw the archer come up to the edge of the last building in the upper city. He raised his massive person-sized bow and notched two huge metal arrows. He aimed in between Abigail and me, drew back the string with incredible strength, and let it loose.

    The arrows took two separate trajectories, one going for me and one going for everyone else. I formed a massive half-sphere shield on the inside of the bubble and looked over at Abigail and the rest. The arrows hit our bubbles, popping them. The one that popped my shield poked a few inches out of the other side of the multiple-foot-thick shield I had created. The one that popped the other bubble went straight for Abigail''s head. It was just about to hit her when Haglor caught the arrow out of mid-air.

    With our bubbles popped, we fell into the aqueduct and got washed downstream. We disappeared around a corner before the archer fired again. I swam as hard as I could to meet up with Abigail, Marcy, Nico, and Haglor in the water. We were coming up on the drain. We needed to come up with something before we were plunged underwater and drowned.

    "Can you bubble us before we go under?" I yelled at Abigail. She nodded her head at me.

    A large bubble went around us all, just as we slipped into the drain and underwater. We were plunged into darkness for a time. It seemed to go on forever.

    "Is everyone ok?" I said. They all answered back yes.

    "I''m cold," Nico said.

    "I''m sorry," I said. "It''ll just be a little while longer. This drain has to let out somewhere."

    We waited for several minutes before the drain opened up and plopped us out somewhere dark. Marcy lit something and illuminated the area. She was holding some sort of crystal-fueled torch. It revealed we were in a slum somewhere in the undercity. Metal shacks were stacked on top of each other, stories high, with only a ladder allowing people to get up and down. The water from the drain emptied onto a grate that flowed somewhere else.

    I removed the arrow sticking out of my stomach and healed myself. It took a minute, but I had a minute to spare. Marcy looked around her eyes wide with fear and alarm.

    "It''s the stacks," Marcy said, sounding a little scared. "We''re in the stacks. I never wanted to find myself back here again."

    "What are the stacks?" I asked.

    "It''s where the crystal addicts go to get away from society. It''s a very dangerous place! People can attack you at any moment with no provocation!" Marcy said.

    "Calm down, kid," I said. "I''ve got you."

    "How can you call me kid? You''re like the same age as me. Is it cuz I''m short?" She said.

    "Yeah. Sorry. It kind of is. I can''t tell how old you are," I said. "My apologies."

    "It''s ok. It happens a lot," she said.

    "Well, when you''re done lamenting your social faux pas, we really should be getting out of here if it''s as dangerous as Marcy says," Nico said.

    "Right," I said.

    "Hey! Only I''m allowed to be mean to Tom!" Abigail said.

    "Can you all stop arguing for one second and listen?" Haglor said.

    "Listen for what? I don''t hear anything," Nico said.

    "Exactly," Haglor said.

    "This place gives me the creeps," I said. "Let''s get out of here."

    I led the group between massive stacks and through large tunnels. All seemingly abandoned. We walked around a corner and I almost bumped into someone. I stopped abruptly and looked around. There was a huge crowd of crystal-addicted people standing in this one square. They all looked similar to Miner Carl from the dungeon.

    They had crystals growing on their faces and bodies, and they were dressed in rags. None of them were wearing shoes. They were staring at a wall where rays of light were shining on it from small holes in the ground overhead. This must have been some form of entertainment or recreation for them. They were still able to see the sun, even if it was just in this limited form. This must be where everyone disappeared.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    We had to get past them to get back to our base. "Let''s sneak past them," I said. Everyone nodded.

    The crystal addicts were saying random things as we walked past them. "Yes, I did the laundry dear." One said. "Theodore, why is your mother living with us?" Another said. "Whose underwear is this?" A third one said. "It''s my underwear!" Another said. "You wear thongs now, John?" The third one said.

    We were halfway through the crowd when the dust got into Abigail''s nose and she sneezed. The noise was deafening in the cramped space. It echoed off the walls. All of the crystal addicts turned to look at Abigail.

    "Bless you!" They all said at the same time. And then they attacked.

    They all jumped onto Abigail. She got dogpiled. I was afraid they''d hurt her until the pile started growing inexplicably larger. And larger. Until a bubble revealed itself tossing people off it by rapidly expanding. But then they started passing through the surface of the bubble. Something about their crystal growths interacting with the magic of the bubble. Their crystal growths sparked and fizzled as they pressed their way through the bubble.

    I struggled to push my way through the crowd of addicts. I didn''t want to hurt these people who didn''t come up as evil on my Evil Eye, but they seemed like they were trying to hurt Abigail. Abigail kept making bubbles, but they kept passing through them. She tried to hold them back by generating bubbles faster and faster, but it only slowed them marginally. They eventually got to her and grabbed her. They all started pulling on her in different directions. It was like they were trying to pull her apart. When Abigail started screaming I couldn''t take it anymore.

    I summoned bone armor around me, but this time it had weapons. Spikes shot out in every direction, impaling and stabbing people. The gauntlets ended in long blades that I used to slash and slice my way through the crowd. Still, it wasn''t enough. The addicts were too strong. It was like trying to fight hundreds of Carls all at once. And even Carl took teamwork to take down. I couldn''t easily kill him by myself. I could kill him, but not easily.

    The rest of the group tried to get to Abigail too, but it was futile. I watched Marcy disappear under the crowd immediately. Then Nico. Then even Haglor got dragged down by the endless sparking and fizzling crystal addicts and their overwhelming strength. I was the only one left standing and I couldn''t take hearing my girlfriend scream in terror and pain any longer. I heard her bones crack and pop and break as they continued to pull her in different directions.

    [You have leveled up! Your bone grimoire is now level 8! You have gained the abilities, Bone Field and Marrow Enhancement]

    [Bone Field: Allows the user to instantly create bone formations from any surface within range. Can create spikes, walls, barriers, weapons, shields, platforms, and any other simple shape one can think of. Cannot be used to create complex weaponry such as crossbows, ballistas, and catapults]

    [Marrow Enhancement: Passively infuses all bone constructs with magically enhanced marrow, drastically improving their durability. All constructs become 100% harder and more durable. Constructs can still break, but they are far more reliable]

    I summoned a circle of spikes from the ground around Abigail and raised them high, lifting away and impaling most of the addicts pulling at her body. I pushed out and extended the circle of spikes to push everyone away. I made a hole for me to slip through as the ring of spikes reached me. Then I turned the spikes into high walls and ran towards Abigail and the few remaining addicts grabbing at her.

    I summoned two swords and sliced their heads off one by one until they all fell to the ground. I picked up Abigail and carried her away from the bodies and set her down on the ground. She screamed in pain as I moved her. I looked at her as I ran Advanced Diagnosis on her. The bones in her arms and legs were broken multiple times each. Some of them were sticking out of her skin.

    "It hurts!" Abigail said tears pouring from her eyes. She began to sob.

    "I''m sorry, baby. I''ll heal you as quickly as I can," I said. I put my hands on her stomach and focused on healing all the fractures and then sealing the broken skin. She screamed as her bones moved back into place and fused back together. I started crying because of how much pain she was in. After I was done healing her, I hugged her and said, "No one will hurt you like that ever again."

    "Thank you, Tom. I don''t know what I''d do without you. Oh yeah! I wouldn''t be in any danger and I''d live in the castle being spoiled all day by maids, butlers, and guards," she said.

    "Would you be happy though? You''re not obligated to stay with me. You can go home whenever you want and they''ll accept you with open arms," I said.

    "No. I wouldn''t miss this for the world," she said. She kissed me and I kissed her back. "I wasn''t that scared anyway. I knew you''d save me."

    "Yeah, right. You were pissing your pants," I said.

    "No, I wasn''t!" She said with a pouty face. "I don''t wear pants!"

    I nodded. "That''s true," I said smiling. She was the same old Abigail. Nothing had changed.

    "That still really hurt though," she said.

    "I can imagine," I said. I held her for a few moments longer, staring into her beautiful blue eyes and caressing her gorgeous blonde hair.

    I got up and helped her up. "We should see how our friends are doing," I said.

    I dropped the bone walls around us. They were about 30 feet away from us. A horde of crystal addicts rushed at us. I summoned ten circles of person-sized circling blades around us and made them alternate directions. The crystal addicts were instantly shredded to pieces when they entered the blades. You''d think they would know not to do that, or at least learn based on what happened to the people in front of them, but they just kept entering the blades until there were none of them left. I killed hundreds of people that way.

    I lowered the blades and saw our friends Marcy, Nico, and Haglor lying on the ground on their backs. I ran over to Marcy first.

    "You run to Marcy first?" Nico said. "I see where I rank."

    "She''s the smallest and most fragile! Geez. Give me a break," I said.

    I ran Advanced Diagnosis on Marcy. She had many lacerations and a few broken bones, but nothing life-threatening. I healed her with Advanced Healing and got rid of her headache with Advanced Status Relief. "Thanks," she said getting up and stretching.

    "No problem," I said. "Are you okay?"

    "Not really but I just want to get back to base and take a nice long coma. Just a solid 16-hour coma. Nothing crazy. Then I''ll be fine," she said.

    "I can''t tell if you''re joking," I said.

    "I''m joking, but only about this much," she said holding her hand up to my face with her index finger and thumb together.

    "There''s nothing there! You literally have no space between your finger and your thumb!" I said.

    "That''s how much I''m joking," she said and got up. She twisted her upper body and I heard every vertebrae in her back crack in sequence.

    "Geez," I said. "Nico, get over here."

    "I''m broken dude. I can''t," she said.

    "What part of you is broken?" I said.

    "Everything below my neck," she said. "I can''t feel my body!"

    "Ok, ok! I''ll come to you," I said. I put my hands on her stomach and ran Advanced Diagnosis.

    She lifted her head up and said, "Hey, hey! What are you touching? Sure, I''ll be 18 tomorrow, but today I''m 17! So hands off the goods!"

    "I''m not touching either of your goods, thank you very much. Just your stomach," I said. "Also, happy early birthday!"

    "My stomach is the best good! What, you don''t think I work out?" She said. She paused and then said, "I''m not flexing am I?"

    I looked her in the eyes and said, "No. No, you''re not. Sorry. Now let me focus and heal your ass so you''re not a quadriplegic for the rest of your life."

    "What''s a quadriplegic?" She said.

    "A person who can''t move their arms or legs," I said. "Now let me focus."

    "Ok, ok! Genius over here wants to focus everybody! Don''t breathe anyone!" Nico yelled to the rest of the room.

    "Come on," I said as I tuned in to her body. She had a broken neck and a few broken ribs but otherwise, she was fine. I mean, having a broken neck is bad, but at least she didn''t have internal bleeding or she wasn''t having a stroke. I healed her neck and her ribs and moved on to Haglor who was also still laying on her back.

    "Uh, what''s wrong with you?" I said putting my hands on her stomach. "You''re not going to file sexual harassment like the other one are you?"

    "No, not me. You can touch wherever you need to to heal me. You can even put your hand up my ass if you want," she said rolling her head back and forth.

    "I''m good, but thanks for the offer," I said. I ran Advanced Diagnosis on her. "Oh shit! You''re bleeding internally. Your organs are all kinds of messed up. I got this though. Just give me a second." I focused on healing her internal organs and they were good before I knew it. I patted her stomach. "You''re all good now. You can get up."

    "What if I don''t want to?" She said.

    "Oh no. Not you too," I said.

    "What?" She said.

    "Don''t tell me you''re another Nico," I said.

    "I''m not," she said getting up and standing over me. "I was just saying."

    "Ok. You can just say whatever you want, but if you want to stick with us, you have to come back to base with us," I said. "That''s non negotiable."

    "Fine. Let''s see what ramshackle setup you have," she said.

    "It''s pretty ramshackle, I''ll admit, but it''s our base, so you know. Deal with it," I said.

    I took one step forward and images of the mutilated and cut-up bodies of innocent people flashed through my mind. The sounds of their bodies being turned into meat and the stench of blood. I felt sick. I fell to my knees and threw up.

 Chapter 22: A-Rank Dungeon

    After throwing up an appropriate amount to express my distaste for turning innocent people into paste, I got up and dusted myself off. "That was a lot easier than it should have been," I said.

    "It gets easier the more you do it," Haglor said.

    "What, killing? I don''t want it to," I said.

    "Doesn''t matter what you want. It just gets easier," Haglor said.

    "That''s fair, I suppose," I said. "Let''s get back to the base."

    We walked out of the square and down a block, to find ourselves in familiar territory. We were relatively close to the merchant guild hall. We walked down a few streets and ended up outside the building. When we walked in, I greeted Stylus and said, "Stylus, this is our potential new teammate, Haglor." I gestured to Haglor.

    "Hi," she said and waved at Stylus.

    "She is a man of few words," I said.

    "I''m not a man!" She said defensively.

    "Up until an hour ago, you had been pretending to be one for years. What changed?" I said.

    "I stopped pretending to be one," she said.

    "Fair," I said narrowing my eyes. "Ok, well she''s a woman of few words."

    "I can see that," Stylus said. "Welcome aboard if you choose to stay." He wrote something down on his notepad. "If you don''t, I will have to delete you from our records."

    "Delete me? Is that a threat?" Haglor said.

    "I guess that depends on what you mean by threat. If you mean, threatening to delete you from our records, then yes," Stylus said.

    "I don''t think it''s a threat. Watch this," I said. "Stylus, show me what deleting her from our records looks like please."

    "Ok," Stylus said. He ripped the top piece of paper off his notepad, crumpled it up, and threw it into a trash can near his feet.

    "See? Nothing to worry about," I said. "Now, can we get to the debrief?"

    "Please," Haglor said.

    "Ok, so it was nearly a failure. Eh, let''s not sugarcoat it. It was a failure. We didn''t destroy the noble branch like we''d planned. I killed a few people and that''s it. We did get something though. Well, two things. We got Haglor the Unstoppable and I got intel that the noble branch is planning something at the gala. Something about testing crystals on children. Haglor, would you know anything about that?" I said.

    "Not really. They didn''t tell us anything they were doing. Just when and where to guard them," she said.

    "Ok. That''s disappointing but it makes sense. In that case, we will need all the help we can get. Haglor, will you join us in our fight to take down the Red Tail Fox Company?" I said.

    "Why do you want to take them down and can you afford me?" She said.

    "You saw the crystal addicts in the stacks. We want that to stop them from turning people into that. And how much do you cost? I mean, what''s your price?" I said.

    "10 gold per day," she said.

    "I can do that," I said.

    "Then you''ve got my aid," she said.

    "Here''s your first payment," I said. I pulled out a bag of gold and handed it to her. It had 100 good coins in it. It suddenly multiplied into 3 bags.

    [Multiplied Generosity activated!]

    "Wow! Thanks! How did you do that?" She said.

    "Magic," I said.

    "Well, thanks!" She said.

    "That should pay for 30 days of service," I said.

    "Ok," she said. "You''ve got me for at least 30 days then."

    "Good. We''ll need you," I said.

    "Now that I''m officially on the team, there are some changes that need to be made," she said putting the bags down.

    "Like what? You''re not firing any of us are you?" Abigail said.

    "No one is firing anyone," I said.

    "No, but you all need to get better at your jobs. I took down your commander singlehandedly. And all of us were useless against the crystal addicts, besides Tom. If you expect to do anything at the gala, you all need to get stronger, myself included. They''ll have dozens of guards at the gala, all nearly as strong as me. To get stronger, we''ll be going dungeon diving," she said.

    "How will we get access to a high-level dungeon? We have access to blue dungeons and that''s it. The adventurer''s guild and the kingdom control the others," I said.

    "I can use my name to get us in, and if that doesn''t work, then we can fight our way in. They usually only leave 2 guards at each dungeon entrance at a time," she said. "What is everyone''s class and level?" She looked around the room.

    "I don''t have a class," Stylus said.

    "I wasn''t asking you. I was asking the fighters," she said.

    "Oh. My apologies," he said.

    "I''m a bone mage, but I also have a healing grimoire. My bone mage level is 8, but my healing level is 7," I said.

    "No wonder you''re so strong," she said.

    "I''m a bubble witch, but I also have an enchantment grimoire and a protection grimoire. My levels are 5, 5, and 5, but not in that order," she said.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    "I see," she said.

    "I don''t have a class!" Marcy said putting her hand up.

    "Neither do I!" Nico said also raising her hand.

    "You don''t have to raise your hands, but what? You don''t have classes? We''re going to have to fix that first. We can''t go to the adventurer''s guild. So does anyone know someone with a spare orb lying around?" She said.

    "Sally does," I said. Oh right. Why didn''t I think of that. Sally could assign classes with her orb. We should have done that before going on the mission. Damn it.

    "Good. Let''s go to this Sally person," she said.

    "Can I take a nap, first?" Marcy said.

    "Me too!" Nico said.

    "I approve the nap," I said. Haglor gave me a look. "What? They''ve been through a lot today, they can get some rest. Sally''s will still be there tonight."

    "Fine. Team leader," she said.

    "Good. I''m glad you can take direction," I said.

    "Don''t push it," she said.

    "Fine. Don''t nap then," I said.

    We all took naps. We only had three beds, so Marcy and Nico napped together, Abigail and I napped together, and Haglor let Stylus sleep by himself. She said she wanted to keep watch, but I think she just didn''t want to share her personal space.

    Once we had awoken and it was night, we set out for Sally''s tavern. When I informed Sally what we were there for, she took us up to the attic. Sally only took Marcy and Nico into the cramped attic. There wasn''t enough space for everyone to fit.

    When they came out, Marcy said, "I''m an S-rank saboteur!" And Nico said, "I''m an S-rank assassin!"

    "Very good! Now let''s go hit some dungeons!" I said. "Haglor, you think you can get us into some dungeons right now?"

    "Sure. All the guards are probably at home, asleep right now," she said yawning.

    "You should''ve napped with the rest of us," Abigail said.

    "You all can have your naps. I sleep at night, like a normal person," she said.

    "To each their own. Now are we ready to head out?" I said.

    Everyone agreed to head to a dungeon. When we got there, a locked gate blocked the way, but I raised a large bone platform underneath it, ripping it apart. We passed through the destroyed gate and found a portal on the other side. It was orange.

    "This is an A-rank dungeon. I can participate in these, despite being only B-rank because of my decade of experience. Higher potential goes a long way, but if you die before you reach that potential, it doesn''t matter. And the other way holds true. If you keep dungeon diving and keep surviving, you''ll surpass those with higher potential. There is no upper limit to stats or levels. Just different progress rates," she said.

    "Thanks for the advice," I said. "Now let''s go inside."

    When we entered, we appeared in a castle. A notification appeared in front of me that looked separate from my normal system. It glowed orange.

    [Objective: Protect the King]

    [30 seconds until Wave 1]

    "Is everyone else seeing this?" I said. Everyone else confirmed they were seeing the same thing I was. "Everyone, get on the walls of the castle and prepare for long range combat!"

    We all got into position on the front wall of the castle. The castle was surrounded by a moat and a stone bridge leading to the front. Massive fiery orange numbers counted down to the beginning of the first wave.

    [Wave 1 starting!]

    A massive group of goblins appeared on the other side of the bridge. They were dressed in tribal war gear and carried crude weapons. They rushed across the drawbridge screaming. We already had our weapons ready, so we immediately began firing on the goblins.

    "Sorry, Marcy!" Nico said as she killed a goblin.

    "What are you apologizing for? I don''t know these people!" She replied throwing crystal bombs at the goblins.

    "I don''t know!" Nico said killing another goblin with a well thrown knife.

    I used small bone spikes because the enemies were small. Marcy''s bombs weren''t very concussive so they did minimal damage to the bridge. They just spread crystal shards into the air. Haglor used her bow to methodically take down her targets. Abigail used bubbles to fly goblins into the air and drop them to their deaths.

    After a few minutes, we had destroyed the wave of goblins and a new notification popped up!

    [You have survived Wave 1! Wave 2 starting in 30 seconds]

    "Everyone good?" I asked.

    "Yeah! I just hit level 1! I can make basic explosives from nothing now!" Marcy said. She fiddled her hands in the air and a bomb appeared.

    "And I gained Stealth Strike! I do more damage when attacking from stealth!" Nico said.

    "And I''m Abigail!" Abigail said. I feel like she does these jokes on purpose.

    "Yes you are, my little sunshine," I said. Abigail smiled at me. She definitely knew what she was doing.

    "I need to get on the ground," Haglor said. She jumped over the wall and landed hard on the bridge. Small stones from the bridge came loose and flew in different directions.

    "Hey Haglor! I never asked what your class is," I said.

    "Juggernaut!" She said. She got into a running position as the last few seconds counted down to the beginning of the next wave.

    [Wave 2 starting!]

    Another massive group dropped in on the other side of the bridge, but this one had a different composition. There were hobgoblins, trolls, and orcs. The hobgoblins held massive ladders, the trolls held battering rams and the orcs were decked out in warrior gear. Haglor waited for the orcs and trolls to come three quarters of the way onto the bridge before she charged them.

    Every step she took sent stones flying and propelled her faster than the previous step. She gained speed quickly and didn''t stop when she hit the frontline. She held her arms out to her left and right as she ran. She smashed and clotheslined orcs until she got to the first troll. She grabbed it by the leg and tossed it off the bridge and continued forward. She smashed through countless orcs and tossed trolls aside with ease. She continued to gain momentum as she ran across the bridge.

    As she was nearing the end of the bridge, the air around her body began to ripple and enemies bounced off a barrier of force that surrounded her body. The barrier expanded out to the sides, knocking enemies off the bridge that were far outside the reach of her arms. She ran off the bridge and onto the grass where a large group of orcs and trolls were waiting. When she hit the mass of troops, an explosion of force went up and sent enemies flying in every direction. When the dust settled, Haglor stood in a massive crater of her own creation.

    She fell to one knee and yelled back at us, "I think you can handle the rest!" Then she collapsed to ground onto her back. She didn''t pass out. She was just resting. Her eyes were still open and she was breathing. Whenever someone tried to attack her, she just kicked them away. She wasn''t out of the fight. She was just tired from the powerful charge she had pulled off.

    A decent amount of orcs and a few trolls remained, along with nearly all the hobgoblins. The hobgoblins weren''t taking the bridge as a route. They laid down their ladders, which reached all the way to the top of the castle walls from across the moat, and they began to climb up the ladders.

    Marcy bombed the center of the bridge, while Nico stealthily took out enemies that clung to the edges of the bridge. Abigail grabbed trolls with massive bubbles that turned green and toxic. The trolls tried to smash the bubbles to escape the toxic fumes, but the protection spells on the bubbles were too strong. They all fell before they could break out.

    I on the other hand, used bone platforms to push the ladders off the walls and into the moat below. The hobgoblins didn''t know how to swim, so they all drowned. After I had disposed of all the ladders, I made bone spikes spring from the ground to impale the orcs that were just making their way onto the bridge. We quickly picked off the remaining enemies and a notification appeared.

    [You have survived Wave 2! Wave 3 starting in 60 seconds]

    "Hey Haglor! You good?" I yelled.

    Haglor got up off the ground and walked back to the castle gate. "Yeah, I''m fine. Charges like that are just tiring. I can only do about three of those in a row, but then I have to take a long break. I wanted to conserve my energy for the next waves." She got back to the gate and faced the bridge again, waiting for the next wave to start.

    "Good thinking!" I said. "I can see why your class is called Juggernaut now."

    "Yeah? I used it on you once. The charge I mean. Didn''t get much space to gain momentum though," she said.

    "Yeah, well I thought blowing me through a wall was good enough. I would''ve hated to be on the receiving end of that energy wave thing you did. Might''ve turned me into paste," I said.

    "Well, I''m glad I didn''t," she said.

    "Me too," I said under my breath. "Nico! Go protect the king! With the way these waves are escalating, they''ll get over the walls soon and we''ll need a last line of defense."

    "Sir, yes sir!" Nico said. She climbed up the castle wall and ran further into the castle somewhere.

    "Abigail, you watch the skies! I have a feeling we''re going to get flying enemies either this wave or the next," I said.

    "Sir, yes sir!" She said, squeezing my bicep and winking.

    "Uh, thanks," I said.

    [Wave 3 starting!]

 Chapter 23: Waves 3 and 4

    Wizards wearing black cloaks, stone gargoyles, and elemental beasts appeared on the other side of the bridge. Haglor, Marcy, Nico, Abigail, and I waited for our adversaries to approach. They all took different tactics. The gargoyles took to the skies, the elemental beasts charged across the bridge, and the wizards stayed back to provide ranged support. Haglor ran at the elemental beasts, aiming to meet them in the middle. As they charged, the beasts opened their mouths and released a blast of their element at Haglor.

    Some blasted fire, while others blasted ice, wind, lightning, and caustic acid. Haglor continued to run as these elements went right for her. Her rippling force shield wasn''t up yet. She was going to be hit directly by all the blasts at once. I focused Advanced Healing on her preemptively, hoping she would at least survive the blasts enough that there was something left to heal. All the blasts hit her, creating an explosion of elements, obscuring her from view.

    Orange fire, green caustic smoke, and white floating ice particles kept Haglor from view, until suddenly she burst from the cloud, one of her arms blasted off and her skin burning, melting, and freezing on different parts of her body. I hit her with Status Relief, which reduced her pain but did nothing to stop the continuous burning, melting, and freezing effects. Then I hit her with Advanced Healing, repairing the damage dealt by the blasts and the status effects, without removing the effects themselves. The act seemed futile since as soon as I let up on the healing, the effects would damage her again. I was getting desperate when a notification popped into view.

    [You have leveled up your Healing Grimoire to Level 8! You have gained the abilities Sustained Healing and Status Cleansing]

    [Sustained Healing: The ability to continue healing on a subject for a period of 30 seconds after initially establishing a healing connection. Can maintain a maximum of 3 connections at one time. Can''t be maintained through solid objects. Requires line of sight]

    [Status Cleansing: The ability to remove all negative non-magical statuses. Each status type takes a different amount of time to remove. Only one status can be removed at a time]

    Yes! Exactly what I needed at that moment. I stopped Advanced Healing and Sustained Healing kicked in, continuing to heal Haglor as I switched to removing the burning status from her. After a few seconds, I switched to removing the acidic melting effect, and then a few seconds later, the freezing effect. She was lucky she didn''t get the stun effect or that might have affected her charge abilities. With the statuses removed, I hit her with healing again and watched as her lost arm, skin, muscles, and bones regrew.

    As she neared the elemental beasts who had stopped and were building up more blasts, her force field formed and spread out. It was over for them. She plowed over the elemental beasts, smashing, crushing, and dragging them across the ground with her forcefield.

    Meanwhile, the wizards had spread out and were hitting the walls of the castle with blasts of dark purple energy. Large chunks of the wall exploded and showered Marcy, Abigail, and me with rubble. Then gargoyles swooped down and picked up Marcy and Abigail, flying off with them. As I aimed at the gargoyles with bone spikes, a dark purple blast hit me in the shoulder, sending me flying off the wall and back into the castle grounds. I looked at my arm and watched it start to decay in front of my eyes. I hit myself with Status Cleansing and the necrosis went away. Then my regeneration kicked in and regrew my rotted shoulder.

    I looked up to see the gargoyles holding Marcy and Abigail explode into chunks of stone. Marcy and Abigail fell from hundreds of feet in the air. I summoned a bone platform to try to catch them, but quickly dispelled it. It would be too late to slow their velocity. It would simply crush them against its hard surface. As they fell, Abigail summoned bubbles to catch them and they landed safely on the ground. Abigail and Marcy hugged me. I have no idea why, but then we heard a loud explosion out in front of the castle.

    We looked out through the portcullis and witnessed Haglor running wide rings around the wizards as they shot purple blasts at her, which her forcefield deflected. She picked them off one at a time, slamming into them, obliterating them into nothing more than a messy wet cloak. She ran directly at the last one who feebly attempted to hit her with a blast that deflected right back at him. The blast hit him and then she did, exploding him into flying pieces of necrotizing tissue that disintegrated into the air as purple and black dust.

    [You have survived Wave 3! Wave 4 starting in 2 minutes]

    I waited for Haglor to get back to the gate and I said, "I think we need to figure out where the king and Nico are so we can know where to retreat back to if the next wave gets past us."

    "I agree," Haglor said.

    "Yeah, that sounds right," Marcy said.

    "I''m Abigail!" Abigail said.

    "Now, you''re just doing that on purpose!" I said.

    "I know!" Abigail said and smiled.

    "Ugh. If you weren''t so adorable, I''d do something unpleasant to you," I said.

    "Oh no! Don''t spank me, sir!" She said.

    "Oh my god, stop!" I said.

    "Ok," she said.

    "Alright, let''s find Nico and the king," I said.

    We wandered further into the castle until we found the throne room in a building in the center of the castle. The king was a slightly overweight man with a balding head, wearing a golden crown, a majestic cloak, and regal clothing.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    "Hey guys!" Nico said. She was playing some sort of hand game with the king. When we got closer, I realized they were playing "Slap Hands," also known as "Slap Jack," "Slapsies," and "Pope Slap."

    "Don''t mess with the king!" I said.

    "What? We''re just having fun," she said.

    "Yeah! Who are you to question the rule of a king?" The king said.

    "Ok, fair enough. Carry on," I said.

    They continued to play "Slapsies."

    "Ok, now that we all know where the king and Nico are, let''s go back to our posts," I said.

    Marcy, Abigail, and I got back onto the castle wall and Haglor stood in front of the gate as the last few seconds counted down.

    [Wave 4 starting!]

    ''Hey, system! How many waves are there going to be?''

    [There will be 5 waves]

    ''Ok, thanks.''

    [No problem]

    The next wave spawned on the other side of the bridge. There was a group of shadowy assassins wielding jagged twin blades that glowed red, a group of half-human half-spider warriors the size and general shape of centaurs wielding various weapons, and a group of griffin riders wielding bows that immediately took to the skies. The assassins flitted across the bridge, appearing and disappearing from view every 10 feet. The arachnid warriors began to cross the bridge after the assassins.

    Haglor began her run, building up momentum. The shadow assassins flitted right past her. She ignored them, trusting us to take care of them. She built up momentum and her force field came out, but most of the arachnid warriors jumped out of the way. Some stayed too close and got obliterated but her charge was mostly avoided. One of the warriors that had jumped out of the way shot a string of web and attached it to the front wall where I stood. He scrambled along the web to the top of the wall and towered over me. He swung a massive glaive at me and I dodge rolled out of the way.

    I created a cage of bone around him and shrunk the cage until he got squeezed through the holes. Not a pretty death. I looked up to see 3 more warriors clamber onto the wall. One wielded a great sword, another wielded a spear, and the third wielded large frisbee-style blades known as chakram. The great sword swung first and I dodged out of the way, directly into the spear which impaled my side when I came up from my roll. Two chakram flew my way which I threw a wall up in front of. They made loud thunks as they impacted the wall.

    In retaliation, I made large bone spikes shoot out of the ground underneath the 3 warriors, impaling their spider halves several times. They tried to dodge out of the way, but they were too slow. They continued to throw and swing their weapons, but their legs buckled underneath them. I drove 3 giant spikes through their chests to finish them off. Their heads lolled onto their chests as they died.

    Another pair of spider warriors jumped onto the wall and attacked me as shadow warriors flitted past me. I turned and threw bone spikes at their backs, but they easily flitted out of the way. I was rewarded for dividing my attention with spear stabs to the back, making me cough up blood. I tried to turn around but I was stuck in place by the spears. I raised a wall behind me that lifted the spears and me with them into the air. Then I made the wall move forward, pushing me off the spears and onto the ground. I coughed up more blood as my lungs healed from the puncture wounds.

    I turned around and threw the wall forward, pushing the warriors off the wall. That would only slow them down, but I needed a breather. Right after that, a griffin swooped down and picked me up by the arms. It flew up high and dropped me. I didn''t have anything to slow my fall, so I covered myself in armor and braced for impact. I smashed through the roof of a hut in the courtyard. I got up, looked around, and when the dust settled, I saw a familiar face.

    "Carl?" I said in confusion.

    The former corrupted miner was standing over a workbench, looking at something. He looked up at me and his face lit up.

    "Tom! What are you doing in my house?" He said.

    "I fell," I said. "What are you doing in another dungeon?"

    "I live here," he said. "Do you want to try my new unicorn tears-chamomile soap? It perfectly moisturizes your skin and it''s pH balanced too. The tears were ethically sourced, of course."

    "Um, try? I don''t have time to suds up right now, but I''ll smell it," I said.

    "Here," Carl said handing me a bar of silvery soap.

    I sniffed it. "Wow, that smells good! It''s like if peace and sadness had a baby, but it was good sadness."

    "I know right?" Carl said.

    "Kind of makes me want to eat it, but you know what they say. Never eat soap on an empty stomach," I said winking.

    "I''ve never heard anyone say that," Carl said.

    "Me neither," I said. A giant beak poked through the hole in his roof. "It looks like I have to get back to work! Good luck with your soap, Carl!" I jumped onto the griffin''s beak and climbed through the hole. I formed a bone spear in the air and stabbed the griffin in the eye. It screeched in pain.

    I jumped off Carl''s house and ran away to make the griffin and its rider follow me and leave Carl alone. It worked and they chased me, landing on the ground and running after me until I summoned bone spikes around them that pinned them to the ground. Then I summoned spikes from the ground, impaling them dozens of times. Blood came out of the mouths of the rider and griffin.

    I heard several explosions as Marcy threw bombs at the warriors and long loud screams as Abigail slowly froze bubble-trapped warriors to death. Then there was a loud noise as Haglor jumped onto the wall and leaped into the air to grab two griffin riders and slam them into the ground accompanied by a large explosion of dirt and grass.

    I looked around at the chaos that seemed to be well-managed by my friends. Then I heard Nico''s voice faintly yelling, "Help!" Oh crap, the shadow assassins were in the throne room! I rushed to the throne room and made it there just in time for Nico to get her throat slit in front of me. She slumped to the ground and one remaining assassin laughed.

    "You''re too late! Your little guard is dead and your king soon will be too," he said. Shadows obscured the lower half of his face, but his black hair and red eyes burned in my memory.

    "You really think you''ve won, huh?" I said.

    "Of course! No one can stop me!" He said as a knife pierced through his back and came out of his chest. Nico kicked him off and he tumbled down the stairs that led up to the throne.

    "How? I killed you," he said looking up at her.

    "I healed her," I said. I started healing her as soon as his knife left her throat.

    "No matter," he said. "More are coming."

    "I know," I said stepping on his chest as I walked up the steps to the throne. I put my hand up for a high-five.

    Nico looked at it confused. "What''s that?"

    "It''s a high-five. You slap my hand. It''s a celebratory thing," I said.

    "Oh cool! High-five!" She said slapping my hand.

    "High-five!" I said. "Nice. You even knew to say ''high-five'' when you did it. You''re a natural."

    "Of course I am," she said gesturing to herself and her body. "Have you seen me?"

    "I have." I laughed. "Happy 18th Birthday!"

    "Thanks! Wait, how do you know it''s my birthday?" She said.

    "I don''t. I''m just guessing it''s midnight outside," I said.

    "Oh. Uh, high-five?" She said putting her hand up.

    "High-five!" I said slapping her hand.

    "Nice!" She said.

    [You have survived Wave 4! Final wave starting in 3 minutes]