Carl was awake, Vol was over to hang out again after teleporting away briefly to grab them some coffee—regular this time, which didn't matter since he was just grateful to have it after having some difficulty with it in the earlier days of his stay in the city—and it seemed like it was going to be another lazy day—though he was still occasionally chuckling at the absurdity of the previous night's building-and-Vol-related destruction when it came to mind—during which he'd be taking things easy while waiting for Mina to continue her recovery.

Really glad she seemed to be doing a little better last night. Feels like I can maybe make it another couple days in here as long as I know she's gonna be okay soon. Ugh, I miss Annie and the girls so freaking much though.

"Gladiators should try things other than just fighting in the arena," Vol declared. "They could compete in other ways that would be fun. Maybe seeing how far they could throw cars. Or…" Her foot tapped away from its position over her knee as she sat in her chair next to him. "Okay, maybe I just wanna see a car throwing contest."

"Hm. Could be fun I guess. How far you think you could throw one?"

"Eh, it'd probably break from the force if I tried seriously."

"Maybe that'd be part of the contest? Have to balance throwing it far with not breaking the car."

"Ooh, that's really fucking smart."

"Maybe have cars with weird shapes too to make it harder for the real gosu people."

"Carl, how do you always have such great ideas?"

"Been at it a long time. Do people really build enough cars to throw 'em in a contest?"

"That same guy who made all the roads and the racing tracks delivers more to the city every couple weeks."

"Huh, Roger's more active than I thought."

"Huh?"

"Uh… Nothing."

"Here's another one: what if instead of just throwing the cars, you had to throw the car and then throw a spear at it in the air?"

"Oh, kinda like skeet shooting."

"Sure?"

"Could be cool. Why stop at spears though? Why not just hit the first car with another car?"

"That's so smart! Fuck, why didn't I think of that?"

"Thinking on it more, if you can throw cars that far, you could make this a team sport kinda thing where you have one team throwing the car with a person standing on it and the other team tries to throw other cars and knock 'em off or something."

"Carl, how smart are you?!"

"Oh, hey, what's this…" Carl looked at a glowing exclamation mark icon that had appeared at the edge of his HUD. Some quest indicator or something? Still haven't figured out what the deal is with that. Maybe there's no quests. People seem fine farming up stats and stuff without them. Wouldn't really fit the game to have quests, I guess, since they'd have to be from NPCs.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He tapped the icon, and it expanded into a status window.

Order complete: Black Boots ready for pickup in Charus City.

"Huh." He scratched his beard.

"What?" Vol said.

"My boots are ready, I think?" Cool that there's an automatic tracker for stuff like this. Kinda forgot about 'em with all that's been happening.

"Boots…"

"Dismiss. Yeah, the ones I ordered all the way back in Charus City." Carl wiggled his toes. Got used to being barefoot now though. Seems like it'd be weird to wear anything on my feet at this point.

"Mm." Vol tapped her chin. "Oh!" Her eyes widened. "Those boots. We're gonna need to go then, aren't we?"

"Maybe? Not sure I care anymore."

"No, no, Carl, you're gonna want these boots. Trust me. Ingrid might make the best fucking shoes and boots on the whole continent."

"Hm." Carl frowned. "I guess…"

"We can—We can go through the dungeon," Vol said.

"That's a pretty good idea if it works."

"It'll work."

"Core, can you take us back to Charus City?"

There was no response for a few seconds.

"¿ʍou oƃ oʇ ʇuɐʍ noʎ oᗡ ˙ǝsɹnoɔ ɟO" said the weird core.

"Uh…" Carl struggled again to understand its weirdness. "Yes?"

Their chairs were suddenly positioned in front of a giant opening in a stone wall with a dozen or so people milling about.

They all turned to stare at nearly the same time.

"Er, maybe put the chairs back where they were," Carl said after he'd gotten up. He opened his inventory, took his sunglasses out and put them on, then dismissed his inventory.

"˙ǝuop sᴉ ʇI"

Forgot how freaking weird this core is. He looked down at the black core which was still on his shoulder. "You okay there, partner?"

"˙ʎsnq ʎɹǝʌ˙˙˙ǝɹɐ ǝM" said the weird core.

The black core on his shoulder blurred, and it was replaced by the yellow and black core with wings. "˙ʍou ɹoɟ noʎ ʎuɐdɯoɔɔɐ llᴉʍ I"

What the—

"Carl, stop fucking about," Vol said, already standing at the dungeon's exit and tapping her foot. A man in armor walked in and bumped into her. "Hey!" she called after him.

"Don't stand in the entrance," he retorted.

Then he melted into a puddle.

"Rudenêss towards her will not be tolerated!" stated the voice of the pinkish core.

Carl rolled his eyes as he followed her out of the dungeon. That one core really seems to like her. Wish my core could go back to being cool. It was a real MVP for a while. Now it's at the point where I've got the bee core with me? Core, c'mon.

"Okay, we're…" Vol looked back and forth. "This way," she said, pointing in a random direction and gesturing for him to follow.

The once-familiar feel of cool, uneven cobblestones again reached his feet as he fell in behind her, walking through and past a large group of people standing around who immediately began to part as Vol moved. A sudden thought occurred that made him chuckle. "You know," he began, "I was just thinking about it, and hanging out with you feels a lot like…maybe being in a movie. Or a book."

"Huh?"

Carl's chuckles intensified as he realized how apt a comparison it was. "Yeah. Because anywhere we go, you're always super in charge, and you know everything that's going on, and everything's always going exactly the way you want. And meanwhile I'm kinda just bumbling around trying to figure out what the heck's going on. It's like you're the main character, and I'm just the… I don't know, the comic relief or something that everyone'll be laughing at. I mean, even the landing on my head bit was totally a thing that a side charac—"