I held a tiny hat between my index finger and thumb.

It was a blue wizard hat, about a size that would fit a doll.

[Trophy: Yutson Of The Incanter]

I guess it's called a "Yutson" wherever Swen was from?

I looked over at my other hand and saw the other Trophy we had, the one that Sydui had picked up all that time ago while I was busy fighting Aesos the first time.

[Trophy: Disk Of The Deforester]

I guess Swen just had something that allowed him to do something with these, which frustrated me to no end.

"Why the pursed lips mister sourpuss?" Polyu asked, assuming a very relaxed pose.

"Other champions have such cool powers, and I'm stuck with just the stuff I made and [Ascend]." I pouted.

"Don't you like it better that way?"

'Honestly, I'm hurt, you wound me Andrew.' The Great Stabbinsky replied.

"Don't misunderstand, I wouldn't trade you guys for anything, it would just be effin' sweet if I could summon a mech or something like that one guy."

'Yeah, that would be pretty sweet.' Saiph agreed.

"Oh right, that brings a couple things back to mind, firstly, thanks for saving me back during the fight."

Polyu puffed up her shoulders and grinned like an idiot. "No problem really."

"Secondly, and forgive me not asking earlier, what brings you over to me today?"

Polyu's shoulders tensed and eyes widened. Then, after a pause, she replied. "Do I need a reason to talk to you?"

I looked at her with a knowing smile. "With that sort of response you do!"

"You know what, it wasn't important anyway." She said, trying to slink away.

I grabbed her arm before she could. "Oh no you don't! You're going to tell me, even if I have to use 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques' to do it."

Polyu gulped, trying frantically to escape my grasp, to little effect. "No, no, it's fine, I realized I have somewhere else to be."

I pulled her closer to me and begun to tickle the nape of her neck, just like I did to Hund in order to force him to spill his beans about Ayula.

But instead of how one might usually react to being tickled, Polyu started giggling, and then broke into actual laughter.

Then she looked at me with slightly flushed cheeks and started breathing a bit more heavily.

My tickling slowed to a stop as I just stared at her in befuddlement.

As soon as she came back to, her cheeks flushed even more than the moment before.

She broke eye contact and spoke quietly. "I'm pretty sure it's my birthday today, either that or it was last week and I miscounted I guess."

I put her back on her feet and then let go of her.

I felt pretty awkward at that moment. "So, I suppose you wanted a present then?"

Her face flushed again and she looked hopefully into my eyes. "Y-Yeah."

I tried to ignore the obvious mental yelling she was doing and compose a proper answer. "I kinda wish you had told a week ago... I could have made you something."

She stared at me both with heartbreak and daggers.

Stop looking at me like that! I already feel awkward right now!

I bent the topic slightly, hoping to change the atmosphere. "So, how old are you then?"

She crossed her arms with pride. "I turned sixty this year!"

I was about to say 'Really? You're that old?', but then realized that, once again, the Fifskae are aliens. "Is that... good?"

"Yes it's good! I'm an adult now!" She exclaimed, as if I was supposed to know that... either that or she was implying something...

"Oh are you? How long are your years again?"

She looked at me with increasing impatience. "Why does that matter?"

"Because I'm trying to gauge how old I am in comparison to you."

When I put it that way, she seemed a bit wary, but told me anyway. "There's three hundred and fifty days in a year."

"About ten-ish hours in a day?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes."

I did the math in my head, which took me longer than I'd like to admit. "I guess that makes me fifty-five on your planet."

Her jaw slackened. "B-but, you've actually- with Sydui-!"

"It's adulthood on my planet, it's actually like four years older than adult age where I live... oh sorry, that's about ten years for you."

"Adulthood is forty-five on your planet?! But that's so young!"

I laughed aloud at that comment, which prompted the expected amount of confusion from Polyu.

"There's a lot of people on my planet that would love that to be the case." I explained.

Polyu was sent reeling from this information for a moment, before she suddenly perked up. "You said that you were ten years above your world's adult age; then that makes you seventy on my world!" She crossed her arms again, looking quite proud of herself.

"I suppose that's a solid interpretation..." Must you paint me as a silver fox?!

This is about the time that Sydui walked up, coming back from whatever she was doing.

"Oh hey there Sydui, how are you?" I asked as naturally as I could muster given the circumstances.

Polyu, who was facing away from Sydui, stiffened.

"Why are both of you acting so strange?" Sydui asked, nigh-accusatorily.

What do I say to that? Do I lie and say it's something innocuous? If I do that, wouldn't I be breaking my promise to her?

I mean it's not like I really considered Polyu, definitely not instead of Sydui... but I don't know if Polyu knows that...

Wait, why am I concerned how Polyu feels about it? Wouldn't it be better to just tell her straight up? Does she even know that I know... or does she even really feel that way?

Maybe Polyu just had a weird response to being tickled and I'm overthinking it? No, it really didn't feel like that-

I would have continued to spiral, but Sydui snapped in my face. "Hello? Andrew? Are you okay?"

I smiled, because I had almost forgotten... Sydui is here for me.

After that, I felt significantly more relaxed. "Sorry Sydui, something has come to my attention that requires some thinking."

Sydui looked at me warily. "Like what?"

"Well firstly, it's Polyu's birthday today and I need to figure something out to give her."

Sydui squinted at me. "Oh yeah?"

I glanced at Polyu and then made a quick backward-head-nod. "Yeah, apparently she turned sixty this year."

Sydui nodded at me and then turned to Polyu. "Sixty huh? Congratulations."

Polyu chuckled. "Thanks, it's been a hell of a time getting there."

That's an understatement. "Well Polyu, I need some time to figure out what I'm going to get you, so I'm going to go ahead and split off and talk to Sydui."

"Wait, you're leaving right now?" Polyu lifted her hand for a moment, but then pulled it back down.

"Have you ever heard of the concept of 'rubber-ducking'?"

"What's a duck?"

So, we're starting from there huh? "A duck is an animal, but that's not super important. Basically, it means to talk one-sidedly about something in order to brainstorm or find the faults in an idea."

Polyu's demeanor brightened slightly. "Oh I see, that... well it doesn't make much sense, but I get what you're saying."

I smiled. "I'll see you again later on Polyu." I promised, walking away with Sydui.

As soon as we were a good distance away from Polyu, Sydui asked me the obvious question. "So, what was really happening?"

I used Insight to listen for Polyu's approach, she has a Gem Of Nondetection after all. "So I was caught off guard because Polyu seems to have feelings for me... or at least I think so? Either way, I didn't know how to respond."

Sydui's expression didn't change. "Is this the first time?"

"For what?"

"That you've been encountered by a woman and had to think about how you felt."

That question hit me pretty hard, but the answer was clear in my mind. "Technically not, I thought about Ayula for a couple seconds, but I was there for Hund so that line of thinking didn't last long."

Sydui thought for a while, and then replied. "What do you think we should do about it?"

I shrugged. "I haven't decided what would be best, so I'm going to have to retain status quo until we've come to some kind of conclusion."

"Well, in any case, thank you for being honest with me."

"I can't break a promise for such a little thing can I?" I asked, petting Sydui on the head.

"I suppose not." She chuckled.

"Now that we've come up with a plan of action, I actually do plan on getting Polyu something for her birthday."

Sydui raised a brow. "Like what?"

"I have a couple ideas..."

What happened next reminded me of something that my grandpa told me once.

"Not all entrances are equal.

"Sometimes there's a fateful meeting, two individuals clearly having had their lives build up to a single point.

"Sometimes one sought out another on a long journey full of adventure and intrigue.

"Sometimes a pair's paths entwine, causing each other to raise to ever-higher heights in an perpetual attempt to out-do the other.

"And sometimes, two people just meet; their first impressions unremarkable, and their desire to become more than acquainted not very strong."

We had made sure to rest and eat, as well as complete any small tasks or errands that absolutely needed to be completed before a big fight began.

Our preparation went without incident, which honestly surprised me.

I had expected the universe to squeeze in a few extra obstacles in before it was time to meet the other finalist, but not so apparently.

Once there was nothing left to do, I called everyone together to give a speech.

"This is it everybody. This is the final battle! Every other challenge has lead up to this point, and the fact that we found ourselves here means that we grew strong enough to overcome everything else in our way." I paused for effect. "Let's go kick some ass just like every time before this one!"

The Fifskae cheered.

After a short walk, we found ourselves within sight of a champion sitting on a rock.

I was a bit too far to make anything out about him, so I used Insight to get a closer look.

He was covered head to toe in exoskeleton, except for a large pair of leathery wings and his eyes. His eyes were full of a mixture of a quiet emptiness and raging determination.

When he saw that I had stopped, he stood, allowing me to see his full height, as well as a few nuances I couldn't see a moment before.

He was lanky, but only a little taller than me as far as I could tell. As he moved, a number of folds of exoskeleton shifted about not unlike a set of fullplate from the medieval era, which told me he had a much larger range of motion than would be typical of someone with natural armor like himself.

[Uluriq The Linguist, plus thirty-two other titles]

Danger Level: Instant Death

"Instant Death? That's a first." I thought aloud.

"You're kidding." Aesos strained his eyes a little bit. "It's him!"

"What's him?"

"He's the one who killed me in seconds before I even met you."

I looked at Aesos. "What can he do?"

"He fires a beam of various widths out of his hands, the thinner they are, the more easily they pierce."

I nodded. "Thank you."

Uluriq strode a little closer and then stopped. "[Translate]."

I readied my guard for some sort of teleportation just in case it didn't mean exactly what I was originally thinking, but nothing of the sort ever came.

Uluriq spoke, his voice even and a little quiet due to the depth of its pitch, but even then, it seemed to cut through the surrounding noise, as though everything around him silenced itself to listen. "I suppose you are Andrew then."

I was going to say something snide, but I realized that he might not be able to see the popup due to the distance. "Yep, that's me... can you see my nameplate?"

"Not quite the one you're thinking, there's a maledict on you that makes it fairly easy to pick you out of the crowd you have there."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I kept forgetting about that. "But, not easily enough for you not to ask?"

"The main purpose was so that you could come to terms with the fact that we can communicate, most individuals have a different response to it than you."

"That makes sense." I shrugged. "I suppose that means that you wanted to discuss something?"

Uluriq looked me up and down. "Is there any chance I can convince you to let me win?"

I chuckled. "That would mean I'd have to die, you know that right?"

"Yes."

My smile faded, he was so beyond serious that every important thing I've ever said felt a little less so in that moment.

"Can I ask why?"

He closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. "I need the wish to cure my wife of her illness."

I stopped to think. "Why can't I just use my wish to save your wife and bring you back to life or something like that?"

"You won't."

"If you don't trust me to do that, then why ask in the first place?"

He made a non-committal gesture. "I suppose I thought that because of your title, there was a chance you'd at least consider it, unlike most."

I chuckled. "I guess it comes with the territory."

Both of us stood in silence for a short while before he finally replied. "I suppose that means our chat is over then."

He unfurled his wings. "[Second Battle Form]." He then held out what looked like a gem of some kind. "[Swallowing Soil]."

Suddenly, I began to sink into the ground.

I tried to anchor myself, but it didn't help... probably because it was the ground itself that was sinking.

By the time I looked up, he had already covered most of the distance between us.

I was already up to my waist in dirt and could barely move.

I summoned Stabbinksy to my hand and held one of the gems. "[Domain]!"

Uluriq nearly crashed into a skyscraper that I summoned out of the ground, but had too good of reflexes to fall victim to it.

I followed up by creating more skyscrapers on a path set to collide with him as I used another to push everyone gently out of the ground.

"[Negation]."

Suddenly, the sphere imploded, leaving us both to look at each other again.

"Everybody, Alpha formation, just like we practiced!" I was so glad I gave them cringy names at this point, because Uluriq was easily in earshot now.

The villagers and Aesos started to move into position, but before they had time to finish, Uluriq lifted a hand toward me.

"Leonidas! Saiph and Riegel!"

"[Damnation Impact, eighty]."

A thick beam of energy flew toward me, punched a hole through Leonidas' shield and smacked square into my chest.

The wind was immediately knocked out of me, but I had already anchored myself, so at least I stood in place.

By the time I could focus again, Uluriq was already fractions of a second from grabbing me by the face.

I jerked Hole Puncher up to meet him and fired an unsteady shot.

Uluriq stopped on a dime and made a sweeping motion with a single hand. "[Barrier]."

The unpowered bolt deflected off his [Barrier] unceremoniously, and Uluriq began his onslaught anew.

I used Leonidas to give myself some space.

Uluriq's hand slammed into my shield, but he didn't seemed phased.

Instead, his arm... unhinged for lack of a better term.

The multiple socket-joints clicked out of each other, doubling the length of his arm.

With that, he just reached over my shield, grabbed me by the head, and threw me overhand into the air.

"[Damnation Impact, zero, rapid-fire]."

Suddenly, I jerked to the side in the air. "Andrew! What are you doing?!" Polyu exclaimed. "Jeez you're heavy!"

I looked over and saw everyone was in formation, which is to say, crowded around a single person's center of mass, in this case Aesos because after some additional testing, we found out he could produce a larger sphere due to his shape and slightly larger size.

"[Ascend, redouble]!"

With this new formation, we could barely fit everyone in at once, as long as everyone pressed exactly a single finger against Aesos' center of mass, and there was more than a few people both riding him and underneath of him.

Polyu pulled me away from the Gatling gun of small red beams still being fired at me before I could become swiss cheese.

"Hey what gives?! Why didn't you-?!" Polyu began.

I pressed a finger up to my lips and shushed her. "It'll make sense later."

"Whatever, we've got bigger problems."

I followed her gaze and saw Uluriq blocking the various attacks being thrown at him by the Fifskae.

Uluriq then used a moment between attacks and pointed at the group. "[Damnation Impact, zero, rapid-fire]."

My eyes widened. "Everybody watch o-!"

Just then, Ayula sprinted forward and created a massive shield.

The massive barrage of beams caused cracks to form, but didn't pierce through immediately.

"Way to go Ayula!" I called to her.

"I can really only do the one thing, I'd better be good at it!" She called back.

Sydui and Juohen ran out from either side of the shield toward Uluriq.

Uluriq in turn canceled his [Skill] and burst forward to meet them.

Sydui managed to duck, but Juohen was caught off-guard, thrown clear past Ayula's shield, and into a tree behind us.

Sydui countered however, landing a punch into Uluriq's stomach.

The punch didn't seem to affect Uluriq very much.

Uluriq proceeded to backhand Sydui, knocking her tens of feet away.

"Sydui!" I exclaimed.

She stood. "I'm fine! Focus on the fight!"

I nodded, even though she probably couldn't she it at this distance, and dusted myself off.

Uluriq however wasn't as patient as perhaps I hoped, and was already upon us.

Fifskae flew in every direction as they attempted to cause as much damage as possible to Uluriq, to little success.

Uluriq approached me slowly, but was stopped by Leyn, who outstretched his arms to defend me.

I tried to dissuade him as quickly as I could. "Leyn! Move! He'll-!"

Uluriq's hand rear back.

Aesos jumped and cletched down on Uluriq's arm with his teeth.

Uluriq lifted Aesos as if he was a particularly uppity chihuahua, pulled him off, and tossed him aside.

Leyn trembled, but held firm.

Uluriq looked down at him, and simply shoved him to the side.

"Hole Puncher, max power!"

"[Barrier]."

The bolt detonated against his [Barrier], shattering it instantly.

"Shreddy!"

My liquid-metal companion used the confusion to leap toward Uluriq.

Uluriq used his wings to push himself to the side, dodging every last drop of Shreddy.

He then used his momentum to pivot and grab me by the face again.

I grabbed at his fingers, Stabbinsky in hand. "L-Let go!"

"[Damnation Impact, eighty, rapid-fire]."

You've got to be joking!

I was hoping to stall at least a little, but it seems like what I have is going to have to do.

"[Second Battle Form, echo]!"

As soon as those words came out of my mouth, I felt the sensation of being punched in the face hundreds of times every second.

Despite that, I anchored a foot against Uluriq's chest and used my other foot to kick him in the face.

His body contorted under the force, so I quickly unanchored myself.

It was a good thing too, because he was sent flying.

I immediately fell on my ass, far too dizzy to stand.

I gripped the other of the Gems Of Skill Storage and used the [Skill] inside of it.

After a number of seconds that felt like an eternity, my wounds were healed.

"Alright Stabbinsky, I need you to do exactly as we practiced."

'I suppose that means it's showtime!'

Stabbinsky teleported out of my hand into Aesos', which caused a surprised noise, followed by a sound not unlike dropping a meaty sack of potatoes.

"Hey! Warn me first!" He yelled.

"No time! [Ascend] won't last much longer and some of the Fifskae are definitely critical right now!"

Speaking of time, I guess this is the first time this particular gem is going to be useful.

I pulled out the Gem Of Retrospect and activated it.

[You are currently under the following effects:]

[Gem Of Resilience]

[Maledict Of Misfortune, The Beacon]

[Insight]

[You're Worse Than Vindicost!]

[Second Battle Form, Gem Of Echoes]

I focused on [Second Battle Form].

[While activated, your Strength, Agility, and Fortitude are very significantly increased.]

[There are nine minutes and thirty seconds remaining until the duration of this effect ends.]

[This effect is currently echoed.]

The Gem Of Retrospect's ability to tell me what effects I have on me isn't normally super helpful because it just takes so much of my focus to activate and pay attention to, but this is an effect I needed to understand, so I did it anyway.

I was about to start testing out how much stronger and faster it made me, but Uluriq had different ideas.

He dropped out of the air onto my spine, knocking me into the dirt.

I rolled to the side, knocking him off of me, and dodging the [Damnation Impact] he was about to fire point-blank.

I leapt from the ground to my feet.

"Wow! I didn't used to be able to do that!" Uluriq threw a fist at my face, which I barely dodged. "Right! In a fight right now!"

Uluriq threw another punch, but this time I pushed his hand aside and countered with a punch of my own.

I felt his exoskeleton flex under my fist, but it definitely wasn't going to be enough to put him down.

He proved this fact by swatting me with his wing, and then while I was reeling, punched me in the face.

I tried to put up my guard, but he just pushed it out of the way and continued laying into me.

Finally, before I could even register it happened, he punched me so hard that, even anchored, I was knocked to the floor.

He pointed at me while I was on the ground. "[Damnation Impact, zero, rapid-fire]."

But, just before he could deliver the final blow, Aesos teleported in front of me, and Stabbinsky teleported into my hand.

'Andrew I'm sorry I'm late, there was a lot more mortal wounds among the Fifskae than we thought. Also, I was told to tell you that Aesos left you a last resort on the second Gem Of Skill Storage, he said to use it wisely.'

"Got it."

I used the [Regeneration] he had put into the first Gem Of Skill Storage and got back on my feet.

It was about then that Aesos disintegrated.

Uluriq shifted his attention back to me.

I took a strategy from his playbook and rushed him before he had a chance to properly process it.

I ran up to his left flank and aimed a fist at his neck, but he blocked it.

And then I felt his hand gripped around the back of my head.

I looked to my right and saw his right arm flipped around and extended in order to grab me.

Out of desperation, I stabbed him with Stabbinsky between the extended exoskeleton plates.

He winced in pain, but it didn't stop him from throwing me over his shoulder and into the ground head-first.

Thankfully, my Fortitude is boosted by a lot, or else he would have just snapped my neck!

I recalled Stabbinsky to my hand. "Stabbinsky, go collect [Skills] from the villagers and come back to me with them." I whispered.

'I'll be back momentarily.'

I got up on my feet and spit the dirt out of my mouth.

Uluriq moved to punch me again, but I was starting to get used to his tactics and timing.

I dodged to the side of his punch, so he followed up with another wing-swipe.

"Hole Puncher, max power!"

I brought up Hole Puncher and fired into his wing.

Leathery material scattered to the wind as Uluriq screamed in pain.

I used this opportunity to put my full body into a punch to his face.

"[Barrier]."

Just before I could get it to connect, my fist instead slammed into that shield of his.

I leapt backward, trying to buy myself time to reload Hole Puncher.

Uluriq was having none of it and surged to close the distance.

'I return.' Said Stabbinsky as he teleported into my hand.

I used the gem and received [Plateflesh], which must be the [Skill] Aesos used to make himself more resistant to damage all that time ago.

Stabbinsky then disappeared again.

I blocked Uluriq's attack, barely feeling it at all.

I attempted a counter, but he easily dodged the off-balance attack.

Stabbinsky appeared again, this time giving me [Slaughter] from Sydui, before disappearing again.

I charged Uluriq and punched.

He attempted to block, but the exoskeletal material on his arms just cracked for his trouble.

He leapt backwards to gain some distance. "[Damnation Impact, zero, rapid-fire]."

Stabbinsky returned, this time with [Shield], which was no-doubt from Ayula.

"Leonidas, together!"

With both Leonidas and Ayula's [Shield], I managed to stave off the majority of the damage, still taking a hit here or there.

I charged toward Uluriq, hitting him in the face this time and cracking the exoskeleton there.

Uluriq punched me in the stomach and then pushed me away from him.

He then pulled out a small spiky crystal. "[Limit Break]."

The crystal shattered in his hand, then, in moments, he was covered in a yellow and blue aura.

He leapt at me, causing a shockwave as he did.

The Great Stabbinsky returned to my hand one more time, and I used both stored [Skills].

I mean, if this isn't an emergency, I don't know what is.

I received [Precognition] from Polyu and [Healing Surge] from Aesos.

For a moment, half of the world went dark, and then I realized why.

Half of my head had been blown off of my shoulders, but in the next instant, it regrew.

Holy crap Aesos! You've been holding out on me!

Suddenly, I saw a punch from Uluriq before it happened, and so I dodged as best as I could.

Unfortunately, at this point Uluriq was just so fast that I couldn't possibly keep up with him, so I would take devastating blows that blew chunks out of my body one after the other.

Luckily I was too distracted by trying to dodge to actually see all of the gore.

That and the pain.

I couldn't stop myself from screaming constantly in response to the horrifying amounts of damage my body was taking over and over.

And then suddenly, it ended.

Uluriq's aura faded, and he doubled over, completely exhausted. "H-how, how are you still-?"

"Alive? Call it the power of friendship I guess." I replied, finishing the last pump on Hole Puncher.

"Forgive me Biatheise..."

I shot him with a maximized Hole Puncher bolt and he flew off his feet.

After a moment, I realized that nothing had happened, and that his body was still intact.

I supposed that meant that he wasn't dead despite everything, so I went over to finish him off.

A flower suddenly appeared at my feet and sprayed me in the face with something sweet-smelling.

Then the world got fuzzy.

What was I doing?

It was super important, but I can't remember what it was...

Man, it's starting to bug me.

Oh crap! I forgot to check up on my friends!

I sprinted over towards them, only to see that they were perfectly fine.

I thought that they were all on the edge of death.

Well, you know what they say about gift-horses.

Sydui looked up at me. "Andrew! You're okay!"

"You're okay too, that's nothing to sneeze at."

Sydui looked a bit confused, but it didn't stop her from smiling.

She stood up and hugged me. "I thought you were going to die."

Now I was confused. "Why did you think that?"

"Because of Uluriq? With the sonic boom?"

My eyes widened. "The flower!"

"The what?"

An object entered my periphery.

I looked to see a full tree flying at us.

"[Damnation Impact, eighty]."

The tree exploded and massive splinters erupted forth.

Polyu pushed both Sydui and I out of the way.

I activated Leonidas and Ayula activated her shield, so the splinters themselves didn't cause any harm in and of themselves, the problem was what came next.

I stood and saw Uluriq, and he was holding a struggling Polyu in one hand.

The first thing I noticed was that a huge amount of his exoskeleton was peeled off, a sizeable portion that once protected his face.

I couldn't quite make it out from this distance, but he definitely had a humanoid facial structure under the mask-like material that was over it up until now.

He seemed to contemplate something.

I stood from the ground quickly, [Second Battle Form] not having worn off yet. "Let her go!"

He looked at her, then at me, and then back at her.

He threw her backward, causing her to slam into a rock and make a scary noise.

"Polyu!" I looked over to Hund. "Hund, take Stabbinsky and make sure she's okay!"

"On it!"

I turned back to Uluriq. "You're going to pay for that!"

He didn't respond, seemingly lost in thought.

I took out Shreddy and charged at Uluriq.

As soon as he saw me moving, he snapped to attention and put up his guard.

I grabbed his left arm with my offhand, anchored myself, and splashed Shreddy at him.

He tried to dodge, but he didn't have the strength left to be able to escape my grip.

Shreddy splashed all over his upper torso.

Uluriq punched me in the stomach, causing me to loose my grip, and leapt backward.

"End it!"

Uluriq pointed a finger at me. "[Damnation Impa-]"

Shreddy slid under the plates on Uluriq's neck and beheaded him.

[New Acquired Title: $title_flag.name]

Despite everything, that made me crack up.

It then became full-fledged laughter.

Then I fell to my knees and the laughter became tears.

Hund called out to me. "Andrew! Polyu isn't-!"

Suddenly, I was swathed in light, and then I was sitting in a room with a healthy-looking Uluriq and a number of strange-looking creatures.

He and I stood, ready to fight each other again. "Where are we now?! Is this another of your stupid [Skills]?!"

"So you didn't do this then...?"

I shook my head. "No, of course n-"

One of the creatures cleared their throat.

We both looked at them.

They were very tall, about eighteen to twenty feet tall.

They looked at us both and then spoke. "Andrew The Unorthodox... and Uluriq The Linguist? Why are they both here?"

A tentacle-covered creature to the tall creature's right spoke up. "I think it has to do with how Deathworld Game registers the victor of it, it probably has to do with the last man standing having the second most number of victory points."

I was so confused on so many levels.

The tentacled one made a gesture I didn't recognize. "Forgive our manners, my name is Lviyr and this is Hyunfjjksaikdhh; unfortunately Yuluulth wasn't able to make it because he's nursing a migraine. If you both have a seat, we'll explain everything."

I tentatively sat back into my chair. "That's a mouthful, can I just call you Hyun?"

"I... suppose?" Hyun replied.

"Wait a minute! I can't be here right now! There's something wrong with Polyu, I have to go save her!"

Hyun looked to Lviyr, who held up a tentacle. "Don't worry Andrew, she's fine. It's actually been about an hour since your fight with Uluriq, and I took the liberty to heal you and all of your companions."

The pounding in my chest started to slow. "Wait... really? What's going on?"

"It was the least I could do after that massive misunderstanding all that time ago."

I looked down and then back up. "Can I have proof that everyone's okay?"

Lviyr licked his lips, and then pulled out what I can only describe as a 'super cellphone'. He swiped and poked at it for a moment, and then turned the screen toward me.

On it was all of the Fifskae and Aesos sleeping soundly in some sort of massive bedroom, complete with actual mattresses.

I exhaled. "Thank you Lviyr, and I'm sorry about holding myself hostage all that time ago."

"I'm just glad that everything came out amicable." He replied.

Hyun cleared her throat again, and everyone looked at her. "Well, first thing's first, congratulations on winning The Deathworld Game Andrew!"

I shrugged. "Thanks I guess?"

"You get a wish, doesn't that make you happy?"

"I'm sorry, I might have been usually, but I'm mentally exhausted right now."

Hyun sighed and continued. "Well, in either case, what kind of a wish do you think you'd like?"

Before I really got time to think about it, Lviyr raised a tentacle.

"I want to clarify a couple things before you get your heart set on something impossible. Firstly, champions like you and Uluriq here have a pair of datasets known as 'consciousness data' and 'quantum data', they allow us to monitor the state of them and create a sort of pseudo-body for them to inhabit for the duration of The Deathworld Game. The reason this is important is because it allows us to ensure that we can recreate them later on, however, this is not the case for inhabitants... so you can't wish them back to life."

I began to tear up. "Why not?"

"Because we never stored that data for them, that's something that would have needed to be done at the start."

"Then why didn't you?! That one necromancer guy, he had so many undead! There were so many that died... for what?!"

Lviyr was silent for a while. "The truth is that it would cause lag, both of those datasets take up a lot of space."

I was livid. "Does that make it okay?!"

Lviyr shook his head, or his closest approximation of it anyway. "We had convinced ourselves that it was a good deal. We took only volunteers, we warned them it was dangerous, and we offered them a small favor in exchange for mere survival. Or at least that was the logic anyway."

I didn't say anything for a long time, I just sat in my chair as I sorted out my head.

I looked over at Uluriq, who looked as dejected as I felt. "Hey Uluriq, is your wife dead?"

He looked up at me. "I'm not sure, I've been in The Deathworld Game for so long, she could be."

Hyun looked at me. "Is this relevant to your wish?"

I nodded. "The odds are looking pretty good."

Hyun then took out her cellphone thingy. "What's her name?"

"Biatheise Criea." Uluriq answered.

"Okay, I'm going to go check real quick, be right back." Hyun then disappeared.

Uluriq looked at me. "Why? Didn't you have something in mind when you entered The Deathworld Game?"

I chuckled. "Honestly, I kinda ignored the opening spiel, so no not really."

"I was beaten by someone with absolutely no ambition?"

I crossed my arms. "Hey, I didn't say I had no ambition, just that I didn't have a wish picked out." Then a thought occurred to me. "Hey Lviyr, what happens to the inhabitants after the game? Or the Nemeses for that matter?"

"Usually they are sent back to where they came from with some sort of favor granted... unless they're flora or fauna obviously." Lviyr licked his lips. "Nemeses are a different case, either they're sent back with some amount of their achieved powers intact if they were a naturally-occurring Nemesis, or they're deleted if they weren't."

"Deleted?!"

"Usually they don't achieve any sort of sapience, so it's not really any different than killing an animal in principle."

"I suppose?" I still felt weird about that prospect. "So where does Aesos fall?"

"Construct, but I made sure to save him for you, I figured you'd want him."

I nodded. "Thank you."

"No problem."

It was then that Hyun appeared again. "Okay so Biatheise is... sort of dead."

All of the hope drained out of Uluriq's eyes, and he fell to his knees. "Then all is lost."

"Do you mean 'sort of' as somewhat, or 'sort of' in a 'I hate to break this to you' way?" I asked.

Uluriq looked at me from the floor. "What difference does it make?"

"Well, the fact that they make any distinction means that there's something that can be done."

Hyun waited patiently until we were done speaking, and then answered my question. "As in somewhat."

Uluriq's eyes shot open. "What can we do?"

Hyun sighed. "That's the hard part, while a treatment does exist, it's bleeding-edge technology... and therefore expensive."

"I'll give you everything I own, I don't care, I'll do it." Uluriq plead.

Hyun chose her next words carefully. "When I say 'expensive', I mean 'backrupt your entire planet' expensive... your goods and services aren't really worth that much to us unfortunately."

Uluriq looked back down at the floor.

I held up a single finger. "Hold on now, I know a few ways to get money." I turned to Lviyr. "The Deathworld Game is popular right?"

"Fairly, yes."

I steepled my fingers. "Have you heard of 'gaming streams'?"

After a long discussion about logistics and a not insignificant amount of assuaging concerns, Lviyr looked at his cellphone thingy.

"Oh, it's about time for the banquet, we should head over."

"Banquet?" I asked.

Lviyr licked his lips, and then answered. "So, you know how what I said about champions being able to survive the experience of death in The Deathworld Game?"

I nodded. "Yeah?"

"We like to hold a big get-together after the game each round where the gamemasters and champions can mingle."

"That sounds weird."

Lviyr chuckled. "It certainly can be at times... either way, are you coming?"

I thought for a moment. "Can the Fifskae come too?"