“Hey! That was my kill!”

They turned.

A fit but heavy woman stood at the door, her hands on her hips. Her entire body was thick, like a pillar. She reminded Levi of female weightlifters, sturdy and stubby. A pair of long metal claws hung from either hip, the triple blades somehow reminiscent.

Levi reached for his sword. Colin backed away.

She beamed. “Juuuust kidding. What? Don’t look so serious, guys! Come on. It’s a low-level boss. I’m not going to fight you over such chump change.”

Chump change? Levi raised his brows, suddenly even warier than before. If the kobold boss’s EXP was chump change to her, she had to be high level. High enough level to pose a serious threat to Levi and Colin.

She tilted her head. “What’s that on your back? The arms… thing.”

“Oh, this?” Levi glanced at it. He opened his mouth, then hesitated. I probably shouldn’t admit I’m a Necromancer. Aside from being generally bad vibes, it’s also associated with the Death Goddess. And gods associated with death are not generally highly regarded. He coughed. “I’m an Arms Dealer. I can manipulate any number of arms. Even grow more of them. Isn’t that neat?”

Casually, he started pushing mana into the Armalgam’s broken arm. If this came to a fight, he’d need every advantage he could get.

“Damn, that’s super cool. I’m just a Claw Master. Weapons selection is shit, but the rest of the class isn’t bad. Standard martial class.” She looked Levi and Colin up and down, then nodded. “You guys, uh, from another world, too?”

“Yeah! Yeah. Yep. Summoned to be frontline fodder. You?”

She grimaced. “That’s a common story. I had the fortune to be summoned outside of Ician—your country used white as its color, right?”

Levi confirmed with a nod.

“So it was Ician. Of course it was, with the way they treated you, but… Anyways. I was summoned outside of Ician, so I had an easier time of it. A smalltime local Summoner summoned me over in the hinterlands of the Rosado Empire to clear a goblin infestation from a town near the capital. Once I did that, I was free to go. Way easier than getting conscripted right off the kick.”

“No kidding,” Levi muttered. He offered his hand. “Levi, by the way. And chatty back there is Colin.”

She shook his hand. “Taylor. You guys fresh?”

“Freshly arrived, yeah. First dungeon, right here.”

“You felt it. Well, and you are still wearing Ician’s conscript gear.” She grinned. “How’s the apocalypse treating you?”

“The… what now?” Levi asked, squinting.

Taylor gestured all around them. “The apocalypse! The System Apocalypse. This place was a pretty standard sword-and-sorcery kind of world until recently, from what I hear. Then Summoners started appearing, people started getting pulled into this world with the System… this world’s Church is calling it the end of the world.”

“So this isekai thing, it’s recent?” Levi asked, curious. He joined Colin in going through the bags, stealing a sturdy leather one for himself. One after another, he picked the most whole useful items from the other bags and packed it into the one he’d chosen. Spare clothes, coins, a bedroll.

“Relatively. For so many people to come at once, it is. From what I’ve heard, people have always been summoned here, but super rarely. Like, legendary-hero-every-hundred-or-so-years rarely. But recently, it’s picked up. People getting summoned every fifty years, then ten, then multiple every year. The summons first picked up about a century ago, and the super-fast multiple-every-year summoning rate has been going for about five, ten years or so. From what I hear, the gods have stopped speaking to their worshippers, too.”

“Wait, really? The gods aren’t talking to them?” Levi interrupted. I talked to one just yesterday, and I never said a single word of worship for her. Hell, I didn’t even know she existed until she showed up in the flesh.

She shook her head. “Apparently they prefer to talk to us. I haven’t seen any of ‘em, but that’s what I’ve heard. It’s serious, man. All the bigwigs in the Church are convinced the world is eating it. All the harbingers of the Apocalypse have come to pass, all the prophesies are coming true, all that good stuff. Really, only one prophesy hasn’t.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Colin stood. Levi stood as well, passing the full bag to his arms. They strung it over themselves, then around his real arms to help center the weight close to his body. He nodded at Taylor. “Right. Sounds bad. All the gods are silent, and all the major prophesies are kicking off…except one?”

“Yeah. From what I understand, it’s the biggest one. Something about the gods each picking a Champion and having a great big proxy battle to the death,” she said. She led him out of the room and deeper into the tunnel.

Levi followed at a small distance, just far enough to draw his sword before she gutted him. Uh-oh. Sounds like that might be what happened to me. She did mention something about a Champion. And about the other gods staking the world on her never getting one. I thought she was just being dramatic, but I guess not. “That one isn’t kicking off?”

She waved her hand up and down. “The gods have definitely picked some champions. Our Rosado Empire’s Blatt—oh, you probably don’t know him—”

“We’re acquainted,” Levi said. Behind him, Colin nodded.

“Ahhhh. Yeah. Surprised you survived the encounter, what with being summoned by Ician and all. But yeah, supposedly he’s the Champion of the God of the Sword. There’s a few others. Some are just rumors, others are all but confirmed—Stacey of the Harvest, Kyo of the Wild, Igor of the Heart—”

“Igor of the what?” Levi asked, squinting.

“—and on the unconfirmed side, there’s Mew of Magic, Leo of the Sea, and a guy who’s only known as the Unknown, who just shows up places, fucks them up, and vanishes. Still, we’re pretty sure he’s one of them. Even so, there’s still plenty of gods and goddesses in the pantheon who haven’t picked anyone. The Goddess of Life and the Goddess of Death, for example,” she said.

Levi shivered. He ran his hands over his real arms. “The Goddess of Death? That’s terrifying. Whoever she picks has got to be nasty.”

Colin cocked a brow in Levi’s direction.

“I know, right? But the Apocalypse—or I should say, their Apocalypse, can’t kick off until all the Champions are summoned. To be clear, the gods having Champions doesn’t mean the world’s ending. Plenty of gods have had Champions before. It’s the all-the-Champions, all-at-the-same-time part that’s scaring people. Usually there’s one Champion. Maybe two. Now? Four that I know of, for certain, and I don’t even believe in this shit.”

“That does sound troublesome. How many gods are there?” Levi asked, a little nervous. Five Champions. Seven, if he was being generous and including all her uncertain ones. Sword, Harvest, Wild, Heart, Magic, Sea, Unknown. With him, that made eight. Proportionally speaking, is eight Champions most of the pantheon, or just a little?

“Uh… like, twelve?” she said, frowning.

Levi grinned nervously. Eight is almost three-quarters of twelve. Higher than I’d like to hear. “Are you sure there aren’t a hundred gods, maybe? Or even twenty, or so?”

She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure it’s twelve. Or something around there. Ten. Fifteen. Don’t worry too much, though, guys. The sky will rain blood and the sun will turn black when all the Champions arrive. When it happens, we’ll know.”

Levi nodded. “Seems pretty clear-cut to me.”

Guess I wasn’t the last one. Then again, the Goddess of Death said the other gods had had Champions before, not that they all had them now. If all the gods could acquire Champions but her, and she now had a Champion… I can put two and two together. It’s just a matter of time.

He swallowed. Hopefully it’s not ten gods in the pantheon. Then we’re really fucked.

She paused and pointed. “Exit’s dead ahead, you can’t miss it. Have you seen a woman, by the way? Tall, muscular, probably flanked by two—no, three beefy dudes?”

Colin jolted. He looked at Levi.

Levi’s eyes widened. “I was wondering what a high-level adventurer like yourself was doing in such a small dungeon. You were looking for someone! That makes so much sense.”

“Yeah. Jessie, is her name. She got summoned at the same time as me, and we were kind of close, but lately she’s gone a bit off the rails. She’s a good person at heart, she really is. There’s just too much of a difference in our levelling speed, and it just kept getting under her skin. I told her low and slow would get her there all the same, but she refused to believe that. I get it, though. It’s painful to watch someone else surpass you, while it feels like you’re treading water.

“Last I saw her, she was storming off after a little fight we had in the tavern down the hill. She’s been hanging out with some shady company, trying to boost her strength. I’m worried about her. Hopefully I can stop her before she does something drastic, or tries too hard to farm EXP,” Taylor said, shaking her head mournfully.

Levi sighed. He spread his hands and grimaced. “I wish I could help you, but we haven’t seen anyone but kobolds, the whole time we were down here.”

“Damn.” Taylor looked over her shoulder, then shook her head again. “I’m going to keep going anyways. You really didn’t see anyone?”

“Well…” Levi tapped his chin, then snapped his fingers as if he’d just thought of something. He turned to Colin and nodded. “Oh! Right! Kai!”

Colin squinted at him, lost.

“I didn’t think of him because he was part of our party, at the start. We had a bit of a falling out and separated. He’s, uh. A bit of a handful, so… I don’t think we should stick around. But if you see him, could you point him our way? We’re planning to head down the mountain, maybe check out that tavern of yours.”

Taylor smiled. She clapped Levi on the shoulder. “Of course I will. Even if you have a fight, you’re still friends, right?”

Levi smiled. “Sure!”

She pushed off and headed back into the dungeon. “I’ll see you guys around. And if you see Jessie, send her toward the tavern, alright?”

“Will do!” Levi called, tossing her a salute. He turned and headed for the exit.

Colin shot a last glance behind him, then followed Levi out.