“Indeed it is,” the man who had just crashed down beside me from nowhere said.

He was a giant of a man. Not as large as the actual giants, but still nearly seven feet tall. Muscular too, like a bodybuilder.

Or the Hulk.

He wore a tunic open at the chest and loose pants, though no shoes.

He snapped his fingers, and spectral chains appeared from the collars around Koren’s and Vyrania’s necks, snaking down to bind them at their upper arms and wrists.

The whole time his gaze was focused on me. “Noah Whitehall, you say. That wouldn’t happen to be number one on the leader board, Noah Whitehall, now would it?”

I suddenly realized why Vyrania’s and Koren’s names had seemed familiar. They were right below me on the Hero Board. But who was this?

“It’s Hero Board here,” Koren put in. “And it’s not like the others. It’s a memorial-type thing.”

The new arrival eyed me up and down. “He looks alive enough to me.”

I felt a tingle, incredibly intense this time, enough that my legs went numb and I collapsed to my knees.

“A weak one,” the man said with amusement. “Ah, unranked. One card though. Noah Whitehall, number one on the Hero Board. Human, of course. Your Earth is quite unfortunate in that regard. Affinity is… Hmm, looks like I can’t get around this system’s protections yet. Ah well, I’ll have to work on it.”

“Who the—” my voice broke, my entire body feeling like it was on fire from his inspection, “are you?”

I focused on him as he strode toward me, struggling to inspect him.

Vorian

Rank: Steel

Level: ???

He was apparently not human, but other than being unusually large and muscular, looked like one.

He smiled at me. “Rather bold of you. And, look at that, I can’t prevent it. This is an interesting system.”

“Len,” Vyrania said, “leave him be.”

The man’s smile faded, and he pressed his lips together. “Rilen he rumbled. It’s Rilen.” He seemed inordinately angry.

I tried to get to my feet to get away. Given that this Rilen hadn’t stopped staring at me, I didn’t stand much chance.

“Take a nap,” he told me, “I have a subordinate to teach respect to.” Then he punched me in the head.

Even with the mana I was still pushing through it, I instantly blacked out.

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

Bump.

Bump bump.

I groggily opened my eyes and found myself looking up at trees.

My head hit another bump and I groaned.

Due to the glowing gag now in my mouth, it didn’t make much sound.

“What if you’d killed him?” a female voice asked from somewhere ahead of me.

“I would never be so careless,” a deep, familiar voice answered lightly. Rilen. “He has a corpse for me to retrieve first.”

I blinked my vision clear and saw I was chained up, being dragged by Koren, attached to the collar around his neck.

My weight didn’t seem to bother him. He seemed not to notice it at all.

Ahead of him was Vyrania, following behind Rilen, who strode purposely forward at an impressive pace for looking so casual while doing it.

“There can’t be anything valuable on it at his rank,” Vyrania said to Rilen, walking fast to keep up, the chain around her neck and arms making a strange humming sound as it rattled against itself. “We should just let him go.”

“Whatever it has on it, it’s still worth bounty points.”

“They are super useful,” Koren agreed.

“You and your points,” Vyrania muttered. “Not helping.”

“Stop trying to be valorous,” Rilen said. “It bores me. I liked you better as a murderer.”

“I’m not a murderer,” she replied with venom.

Rilen only chuckled.

After that, there was no more talking.

I tried to plan my escape, but the constant jolts to my head made it difficult to concentrate. Still, I pushed mana into it, which was even more difficult than usual. Which was when I suddenly remembered Torath’s warning about explosions and stopped. Instead I forced my beleaguered brain to go through my options.

I had a summonable flaming staff that could barely even melt snow, a card that let me make contracts only if all parties agreed, the summoned armor I was wearing, and… well, that was it.

I ran through scenarios involving all of them, but by the time we finally stopped several minutes later, I still hadn’t come up with anything promising.

“Take out the giants and get the key if they have it,” Rilen ordered. “Then we’re heading to town.”

“I don’t think you’ll be able to use our portal,” Vyrania said.

“That’s what jumping’s for. Now go. Your impertinence grows tiring.”

“With the chains?” she asked in a mocking tone of voice.

Rilen let out a heavy, annoyed sigh and snapped his fingers, the chains vanishing from around both her and Koren’s necks, as well as the chain connecting Koren and me, though my own chains and gag remained, as did their collars.

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The two headed off toward what I assumed was the giants’ encampment, Rilen standing with his hands behind his back, watching them go.

“Enjoy eavesdropping?” he asked without looking at me.

He knew I was awake the whole time. So much for the element of surprise.

With a gesture from him, the gag in my mouth vanished.

“How did you end up at number one? You managed to outpace my subordinates.”

I didn’t answer.

He turned to look at me, one eyebrow arched.

With nothing else at hand, I used my card. Even without the instinctive sense of its intricacies, I at least knew how to use it. I just hoped it was enough.

Instead of answering his question, I said, “If you don’t release me in the next ten seconds, you’re agreeing to death.” I felt the contract initiate, and instinctively knew I needed to recite the incantation to activate it. “Let Fate’s ledger our covenant bind.”

Contract failure: insufficient rank and mana for effect.

“I mean, if you don’t release me in the next ten seconds, you’re agreeing to leave this tower right now.” I glanced in the direction Koren and Vyrania had gone. “And to set them free. Koren and Vyrania.”

He chuckled. “Aren’t you feisty? But I’m Steel. You can’t affect me with your level-one mind-control card.”

“Don’t release me and find out.”

He didn’t release me.

I counted. Five seconds, ten.

Nothing happened.

Balls balls balls.

Then the card ignited inside of me, the mana instantly draining from it. But it didn’t stop there, sucking mana from me as well, siphoning me dry.

Ability [Contract] has synergized with tower ownership.

Contract success. Contract enacted.

“No!” Rilen shouted. “Impossible.” He crouched down, then launched himself into the air, roaring the whole way.

A flash of light chased after him, then a new message appeared.

Prospector [Rilen of Elren] has been ejected from [Whitehall Tower] due to [Contract] effect.

A few seconds later Koren and Vyrania were back, skidding to a halt beside me on the frozen ground, the collars around their necks now gone.

They both stared at me as I lay there, panting and sweating.

I felt completely beat. The chains that had bound me were gone, but I couldn’t even muster the energy to sit up. Unlike when I’d first added the card, this time I did feel physically tired. Exhausted. Overtaxed. My mana was completely, not gone exactly, but empty, and despite the sweat, I felt cold and hollow.

After several moments of silence, Vyrania found her voice. “Who are you?” she asked in awe.

“A dude playing a dude disguised as another dude,” I muttered.

“You’re in disguise?” Koren asked.

“Oh!” Vyrania said. “You’re hiding your rank!”

I sighed. “It was a joke.”

“I imagine a Steel would be for you. What are you, Silver?”

“He has to be Gold to hide it so well,” Koren said.

Vyrania nodded in agreement. “That explains how he’s number one on the Hero Board.”

Koren snapped his fingers. “Of course!”

“How did you reach Gold so quickly? Even Silver would be impossible even if you had all the manastones and elixirs in the world.”

I closed my eyes, plopping my arm over them. “I’m not Silver,” I groaned.

“Told you he was Gold.”

“I agreed with you!”

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

I did eventually manage to convince the two of them that I was truly unranked.

They were happy to let me tag along with them—understandably grateful for being freed from Rilen’s ‘employ’—though less excited about it than they had been when they thought I was a Gold.

Given that I wasn’t Gold, they were confused as how I’d managed to use my card on Rilen, seeing how I was unranked and the card was only level one.

I had no idea. I hadn’t even considered the fact that he was a much higher rank than me. Maybe because I was still concussed from his punch.

I felt a twinge and noticed Koren looking at me strangely.

“What was that?” I asked.

Koren sighed. “I tried to duel you. It didn’t work.”

I frowned. “It looked like you just stared at me really hard. Why’d you want to duel me?”

“To test your power.”

“I told you I’m unranked.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt to try. Maybe when we finish the tower and get outside. Must not work in towers.”

“Yeah because who’s crazy enough to duel inside them?” Vyrania asked.

I pointed at Koren.

They were both interested in my card, so, hoping they might have more information, I showed it to them, summoning a copy like I had with my stats for Torath back in town when my biggest concern was getting home.

Vyrania said it was an unusual card to be able to work on a Steel-ranker at my rank, but didn’t have any other information. Mainly they seemed uncomfortable with the fact that it was subjugation affinity.

“I thought affinity was more specific than that,” I said. “Like an ice card with subjugation affinity would allow you to control ice.”

“That’s true,” Vyrania allowed. “But there’s an all-too-common tendency for subjugation to manifest as abilities that enable controlling other sentient beings. Like your Contract card.”

I couldn’t blame them I guess, they’d effectively been slaves for Rilen for five years, assigned to him by his family at his age of rule.

Technically they were indentured to him for some kind of crime they committed against some guy called Erandenthal, but with Rilen being so much stronger than they were, his family being so much richer, and the prevailing culture of their world, it pretty much amounted to slavery.

Surprisingly, I found out that Rilen was only fifteen, despite looking to be in his twenties. In his race, vorian, the males reached their full height by around ten—the age of rule—and were full grown by twelve or thirteen. The females were the opposite, maturing even slower than human females, but had very short gestation periods that apparently made up for it.

I can neither confirm nor deny this, as I only passed my biology classes by the skin of my teeth and with a few lucky guesses on tests thanks to my school’s captivation with multiple choice and standardized testing.

Like the townsfolk of Ventis, Rilen, as well as Koren and Vyrania, were all from Earth, just a different one that had proceeded differently than mine. In the case of Rilen, Koren, and Vyrania’s Earth, one where there were three hominid species.

Because the vorian were bigger, stronger, faster, and even smarter than the other two species, they’d come to dominate the society.

The only thing keeping them from taking over completely was their inherent lack of cooperation thanks to their relentless pursuit of power, which allowed the other two species—humans and something called telandrians—to survive to modern day.

I also found out that the keys next to Koren and Vyrania’s names on the Hero Board indicated that they had obtained a floor key. Sadly, they didn’t have a handy map showing them a percent-collected legend, so we wouldn’t know how many there were in total for this floor until I collected at least one.

We had no idea where Rilen had been ‘ejected’ to, but at least he wasn’t in the tower any longer.

I could only hope he wouldn’t be able to enter again any time soon.

He shouldn’t be able to, but I always expected the unexpected.

“No one else will be allowed to enter until we clear this floor,” Vyrania explained. “Then it will be a race to find the first key on the second floor. Once that happens, all portals into the tower will close again.”

But the three of them hadn’t entered through normal means—the portal in my shop—instead using some special ‘prelaunch’ entrance.

Which regrettably was also now closed. Even if it hadn’t been, while it would have taken me to an Earth, it wouldn’t have been my Earth, and affording a gateway would have been far out of my reach at that point even if they hadn’t been locked down.

“On the bright side,” Vyrania told me, “he’s gone. And we’re free.”

Koren laughed. “I’d love to see the look on his face right now. I imagine he’s quite perturbed.”

Vyrania nodded in agreement, smiling. “He paid a hefty sum to get access to that prelaunch entrance.”

“Why?” I wondered.

She shrugged. “It was the second tower in this civ. The first ones always have very high bids, at least in single-planet civs. No one wants to go into the second during that initial rush, since whichever was first to form will have soaked up the most mana. But Rilen is young and inexperienced so his family had him bid for this one. It still ended up being expensive, but at least we were able to get exclusive rights.”

“Exclusive rights?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means the tower was locked to anyone else as soon as we entered, instead of upon finding the first key. So no one else could enter until we left or died.”

I frowned. “From the sound of it, I got here after you did.”

“Maybe it has something to do with you being the owner, or it’s only locked to those not from your civ.” She shrugged. “I didn’t see the contract.”

“Hope no one else from my world stumbles in here,” I said. “It leads to a cave in a frozen forest outside of Ventis. Pretty sure Bob would get lost. Though he would be dressed more appropriately.”

“You said the portal appeared in your bathroom?” Koren asked.

“Yeah.”

He nodded, looking thoughtful.

“Do you know what that means?”

“Hm? Oh, no. It’s just funny.”

“That’s one way to put it,” I grumbled. “Don’t suppose you have a way out, do you?”

“Of course,” he replied.

“Really? That’s great. How do we get out?”

He grinned. “The first step is gathering all the keys for this floor.”

I sighed in disappointment “Oh, is that all.”

“No, as a matter of fact, it is not.”