An endless white space stretches out before me. It’s a space I recognize. A space that exists within my own mind—my Mind Gym—an inner palace inside my mind where I can organize my thoughts more clearly, processing even the most complex ones in mere seconds. I remember the last time I was here, I was looking for goblins in the forest...

At the centre of the blank space, I find the familiar-looking fitness instructor of my mind. My personal brainer.

“Yo! Pepper! Long time no see! Mind spotting me for a bit? This one’s a heavy one!” She looks over at me with her piercing red eyes and flashes me a sharp, toothy grin as she squats beneath a particularly heavy thought. Sweat trickles down her forehead, causing her wild black hair to cling messily to her face. She truly is what I’d call a dynamite beauty.

“Yo! Pepper! It’s been a while! I got you covered!” I reply, stepping in behind her and hovering my hands below her armpits, ready to support her if she should need it. “What’re you squatting anyway?”

“Oh, this?” she asks, nodding up to the bizarre, translucent weight resting above her shoulders. “It’s about ‘kawaiicore’. Might take me a few more sets to work out what the hell this is.”

“Wait, do you think you could put this one on hold for a bit? There’s something I need your help with...”

“Is it about Lust?”

“It’s about Lust, yeah.”

The last memory I have before entering my Mind Gym is of Lust pummelling my face into the floor—multiple floors—as my consciousness slowly faded away. I tried to fight back but it seemed like my attacks were in vain as she just shrugged them off. In fact, if anything, they only seemed to excite her for some reason...

“Fwahaha!” My personal brainer laughs back at me. “She really kicked our ass didn’t she?”

“She did, yeah! Lust is strong! I still want to beat her though. How can I do that?”

“Hmmm...” My inner-Pepper thinks for a moment as she pauses in the middle of a deep squat. “Well, I’ll make this quick and simple. You don’t want to spend too long in here after all...”

“Fweh? Why not? Time should be going slower on the outside, right? That’s how our Sixfold Mind stance works, isn’t it? We can process complex thoughts in mere seconds...”

“Fweh? No, every second in here is one minute in the outside world.”

“Wait, seriously?!” I complain. “Isn’t that bad? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I need to get back already!”

“Wait, wait, calm down,” she reassures. “I’ve redirected our remaining protein reserves to the brain so we shouldn’t be more than ten or so minutes.”

“A-ah. I see...”

Fweh? Protein reserves? Is that how that works? I don’t really get it...

“Anyway,” she continues, straining under the hefty weight of ‘kawaiicore’. “You’ve noticed the issue already since coming to the Spire, right? The reason why you haven’t been feeling in top form lately?”

The reason I haven’t been in top form lately... The reason I lost to Lust so easily...

Fwah! I suddenly realize what she’s talking about.

Why didn’t I realize this sooner? It’s obvious to me now...

“Yes, the secret to beating Lust is...”

...

“... epper! Pepper! Dammit, wake up already, you stupid gorilla!”

I open my eyes to find a familiar pale face shouting down at me with a shaky voice.

“... Fweh? Mei-Mei? Is it breakfast time already?”

Mei-Mei breathes an audible sigh of relief as I immediately jump to my feet and try to get my bearings. The room I’m in now is in a severe state of disrepair, with deep gashes torn through cracked stone and bent metal across both the ceiling and floor. A barely legible ‘67’ is painted in big white numbers on one of the broken walls.

As well as Mei-Mei, Bran stands nearby with a relieved look on his face. “Thank goodness for plot armour...” he sighs, seemingly not surprised by my recovery, but still relieved nonetheless.

“I-I’m glad you’re alright...” Mei-Mei says, lightly patting me on the head as she looks bashfully off to the side. It’s easy to forget because of how small she is, but Mei-Mei is probably older than I am. Despite how she looks, in her eyes, I would be the child in this relationship.

“Mei-Mei...” I look up into her cold, dead eyes as she stands next to me, patting my head. “... Did you get taller somehow?”

It’s weird that we’re both standing and yet, somehow, Mei-Mei is standing just a little taller than me. Looking down, I notice her long, thick, and muscular legs, clearly not at all proportionate to the rest of her tiny body above the waist.

"Ah, I’m just borrowing them for a bit,” Mei-Mei answers back, giving her new legs a little flex. “They’re quite useful.”

Fweh...? Is that... the Peeler’s legs?

“I don’t know how I feel about you using a human corpse as some kind of exosuit...” Bran complains with a sour look on his face.

She must’ve somehow attached the remains of the Peeler to herself to help combat the lack of mobility from her own little dwarf legs, I guess...?

“Anyway!” Mei-Mei claps her hands together to snap us back to attention. “We need to get the hell out of here! The whole Spire is crumbling to pieces and we’re not even halfway down it yet!”

“Fwaha! Right!” I nod, shaking the numbness from my aching muscles and spitting out any remaining blood lingering in my mouth. “Ah, wait, where’s the tree?” I ask, in sudden realization.

“Right here, Boss! We got it!”

“You dropped it on seventy-one, Boss! We carried it all this way!”

The group of guards and prisoners that I had left Mei-Mei and Bran with back on floor seventy-four walk over to me, carrying the small tree between them.

“Thanks for dealing with the Peeler and Lust for us, Boss!"

“Yeah, without you, we never would’ve made it past!”

“Fwehehe...” The group continues to shower me with praise and I giggle bashfully as I take the tree back from them and sling it over my shoulder.

With the tree in one hand—Bran, the group calling me ‘Boss’, and a grotesquely long-legged Mei-Mei, all follow close behind as I lead us to the stairs, stepping over the many dead bodies littering the floor along the way.

“So...” Bran speaks up. “What do we do if we run into Lust again? Do we just run, or...?”

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“Fwah! That’s right! I almost forgot!” I pause in sudden remembrance. “I know the secret to beating Lust! Next time won’t be the same!”

“Wow, as expected of our Boss!”

“If anyone could do it, it’s you, Boss!”

“... And?” Bran asks. “What is it?”

“Meat!” I shout, bending down to pick up a bloodied, dismembered arm lying across one of the stairs as we descend them. I bring the arm to my mouth and bite through flesh and bone, happily chewing the still-warm meat and gulping it down.

Hmm... It would be nicer if it was cooked into jerky first, but I guess I don’t have a choice right now. There isn’t enough time...

“How is meat the secret to beating Lust?!” Bran complains, lightly gagging as he looks away from me. “You’re not doing anything! You’re just being gross!”

“A-ah... As expected of our... Boss..?”

“I, uh... guess they don’t call her the ‘Man Eater’ for nothing...”

The group of guards and prisoners following me seem oddly quieter than usual for some reason.

Munching down on any stray limbs I find along the way, the bottom of the stairway eventually comes into view. On the wall below, the number ‘66' is written against the side of the doorway leading to the next floor. However—

“Wait.” Mei-Mei stops us, holding her arm out in front of the group. “It’s gas.”

Looking below, a light red mist hangs across the floor, rising just above the height of the doorway. At first glance, I thought it was just a lingering mist of blood from all the fighting that went on below but, now that I think about it, it looks a lot like the mist that tried to put us to sleep in the Curse Ward the other day.

"Eh? What do we do?" Bran asks. "I can't hold my breath for very long..."

Rummaging around in her pockets, Mei-Mei pulls something from her coat and holds it out toward us. “Don’t worry. I prepared something for this exact situation.” In her hands is a big clear bag filled with, what looks like, some kind of small white crystals—each one about the size of a peanut. She opens the bag and carefully hands one out to everybody in the stairway.

“What is this?” Bran squints down at the little white crystal, rolling it between his fingers.

“If you start feeling sleepy, pop one of those in your mouth and it should wake you up enough to power through the rest of the gas. Probably,” Mei-Mei adds, seemingly a little unsure.

“Okay... But what actually is it?”

“Well, it’s uh, you know... It’s just a simple stimulant. An adrenaline booster. Take one of those and it’ll kick you awake and keep you focused. Probably.” Mei-Mei’s eyes dart around shiftily, not wanting to meet Bran’s gaze.

“What, is it like meth or something? Haha,” Bran asks jokingly, still rolling the crystal between his fingers.

“H-haha...” Mei-Mei awkwardly responds, still not meeting his gaze.

“Wait...” Bran’s eyes narrow. “Mei-Mei, is this... Is this actually meth?”

“No. Well, kind of. Only technically.”

“Only technically?”

“Well, obviously I had to make it significantly more potent to counteract the effects of the gas, so I altered the—”

“No thank you!” Bran throws his crystal to the ground and stomps it into the floor.

Meanwhile, I had already popped mine into my mouth and was currently crunching it between my teeth.

“Pepper, stop! That’s—!” Bran tries to stop me but I swallow it down with a gulp. Immediately, I can feel my muscles twitching with a newfound energy.

“Fwah~! It’s sweet!”

Bran looks at me with a worried look for some reason before turning back to complain at Mei-Mei. “Is this really okay?! I mean, feeding meth to a gorilla feels like it’s going to create more problems than it’s going to solve, right?!”

“It’s a placebo, idiot,” Mei-Mei snaps back flatly. “It’s literally just hardened sucrose mixed with powdered whey. As if I would actually try to drug you, moron.”

“Placeb—? Oh.” Bran looks over at me as I flex my throbbing muscles, empowered by the mysterious energy of the white crystals. “It looks like it’s working, I guess...” he adds, a little relieved.

“Fwahaha! Placebo!” I laugh. “I don’t know what that means!”

“Yeah. That’s the point, stupid.”

Mei-Mei hands me the whole bag and I chug it down happily, energy now bursting through every muscle in my body.

“Anyway...” Pulling a cigarette from behind her ear, Mei-Mei takes a long drag from it, sucking down the entire length. Turning to us, she blows the smoke into each one of our faces, sending us all spluttering in a coughing fit as it fills our lungs.

“W-what the hell was that for?!” Bran coughs.

“You might feel a little buzz for a while but, for now, you should be somewhat resistant to the gas,” Mei-Mei replies, flicking away the butt of her smoke.

“Probably,” she adds. “If it all goes to shit, the placebo-powered gorilla should be able to drag us through to the other side on willpower alone.”

“What happened to not drugging us?!” Bran splutters. “This definitely feels like you’re drugging us!”

Continuing our journey down, all of us descend into the red mist and through the doorway onto floor sixty-six. The sight in front of us is different to anything we’ve seen on any of the previous floors.

The sixty-sixth floor is massive. Not housing any prisoners on this floor, it’s more like a checkpoint solely for guards that separates the advanced elevators on the top floors from the more basic ones on the lower floors. At least, that’s what I remember the two guards telling me when I was first escorted through here.

A red mist looms over the whole room and, littering the floor, hundreds of guards lay scattered, some of them in pieces, some of them possibly just asleep from the gas. It doesn’t matter either way, as among the field of bodies, giant metal bunnies hop from one body to another, drilling into them with their giant horns before moving on to the next one. Every now and then, a hollow, jittery voice buzzes out across the ceiling.

“[A-A-ACTIVATING— ERROR. MINING-BUN #ERROR TO L-L-LEVEL— ERROR.]”

Every time the voice calls out, a thunking noise echoes out and another metal bunny spills out from the floor, ceiling, or wall—clanking to its feet and hopping to the nearest intact body, drilling a messy hole into it and moving onto the next.

As soon as we step into the room, dozens upon dozens of glowing red eyes immediately flick in our direction—each one of the metal bunnies focused solely on us. Clanking along the floor, they all begin hopping their way over, metal drills already spinning pre-emptively.

“Fwahaha!” I laugh as the nearest ones begin to close in. Gripping the branches of the tree with both hands, I heft it over my shoulder, ready to swing.

Fwah~! I feel good right now for some reason! Really good! Ever since arriving at the Spire, I’ve been feeling a little empty. As if something was missing. But when Mei-Mei gave me those mysterious white crystals, I started feeling like my old self again. The Pepper Black that dominated the monster-infested Underground back home... I can feel it!

With the tree slung over my shoulder, I flex every single muscle in my upper body, tensing them to the brink of bursting. As the metal bunnies hop into my range—I swing.

Everything in a cone in front of me is obliterated in an instant. The shockwave from the impact sends a rippling tremor through the air, tearing a hole straight through the back wall in the far distance and pushing everything in the room outside into the fresh air and sunlight beyond—bodies, bunnies, mist, and all. The ground swept up in my cone of attack surges forward, sending undulating waves of quaking concrete rolling across the floor in front of me. The entire Spire tremors and shakes at the devastation of my attack.

“Fwahaha! Placebo Power!”

...

“... Eh!?”

The group at my back are shocked into stunned silence, most of them blown off their feet by the impact, scrambling across the ground behind me.

“What the hell did you give her?!” Bran eventually breaks the silence with a loud complaint directed at Mei-Mei. “What the hell was that?! That’s not normal! She’s never done that before!”

“I told you!” Mei-Mei complains right back. “It was a placebo! It was just sucrose and powdered whey! Random things I took from the kitchen and my research!"

“What the hell is sucrose and whey?!”

“It’s literally just sugar and—! Ah...” Mei-Mei comes to some kind of sudden realization.

“Sugar and...?”

I remember back to the words my inner-Pepper told me inside my Mind Gym...

‘You’ve noticed the issue already since coming to the Spire, right? The reason why you haven’t been feeling in top form lately?’

Mm! I figured out what the issue was, and it’s all better now! I’m back to how I should be!

‘Yes, the secret to beating Lust is...’

“... Protein powder,” Mei-Mei replies. “It’s literally just protein.”