I wasn’t sure what to expect, in all honesty. As I held the Pact Demon+ card in my hand, I paused and screwed up my face.

“Feeling weird again?” Ren asked, now close enough to make out the lines of concern across the part of my forehead now covered in the gaudy top hat.

“Yes, but no.” I shook my head. “Honestly, I’ve just had quite the twenty-four hours and I’m not sure how ready I am for whatever the System believes an upgraded Roger should be. It can’t be worse than normal Roger, right?”

She shrugged. “He isn’t that bad.”

I stared at her blankly for a few seconds before exhaling through my nose. For some reason, I didn’t feel like explaining to her that my pact demon spent his free time drinking and potentially eating his own family. I’m not sure I truly believed it. Was the rabbit pulling one over on me?

With little excuse left, I sent out the card into the nearest dead Monster. It crackled with a familiar purple arcing electricity as it rose back up to its feet. I was expecting the usual ears and eyes thing, but it didn’t happen. Instead, the possessed creature turned to us and walked over very competently. Their eyes were a purple hue, but not the usual pits.

“Roger?” I asked, my face already wrinkling up in apprehension.

“That’s right, Boss.” He stopped and bowed toward me. “You have my gratitude for summoning me.”

I nodded slowly. “How do you feel?” His voice was… calmer? Still had the edge to it, but less manic.

“Fucking great, in fact. Powerful. Ready to do anything you or the Mistress wills.” He turned his feathered head towards Wolf. “Hello, grand one.”

Ren mouthed ‘mistress?’ at me, her furrowed brow one of confusion, to which I returned a shrug. Although he was actually remarkably polite, I had a feeling in my gut—maybe something guided by my nature—that he was just putting this on. The fact that he had more control over his puppet, I could believe, but he figured he could edge his way into the show and I wouldn't notice. A sloppy performance that I wouldn't tolerate.

“Roger?” I licked my lips and stood taller.

He turned his purple gaze back to me. “Boss?”

“Kneel.”

The demon paused for a second before doing so, as if he wanted to check that I wasn’t running some kind of joke of my own. Down on one knee, he lowered his head in reverence.

“What is your purpose, Roger?”

“I exist to serve you, Boss.”

I stepped over to him slowly, my hands behind my back. “Do you expect me to have anything less than the best, Roger?”

“No, Boss! I give you my all.”

Beside him now, I bent over, leaning my head down to whatever kind of ears the Wildfolk had. Lowered my voice so that only he could hear. “Then you need to sort your life out. Both here and back in Hell. Nod if you understand.”

He squirmed and nodded.

“I won’t abide any clumsy errors in my show, Roger. If you are not capable, I will find some other demon to make a pact with. Nod if you understand.”

Again, a silent nod.

“When I say the word, I am going to banish you. Next time I summon you, I want to hear that things are on the up. Disappoint me again and I will find a way to get to Hell so I can personally tear you in half with my bare hands.”

I stood up and straightened my back out. “Where are your ears?”

Without looking back up at me, the two prongs of purple energy burst out of the puppet’s skull, spraying blood across the grass.

“Good, now you may stand.” I watched him raise up, somehow looking sheepish with the weird beak-mouth. “Do you know what you have to do?”

“Yes, Boss.”

With a wry smile, I nodded. “Then go.” He did. The energy flowed away to leave the corpse to drop back to the ground. I watched it for a second before turning back to Ren.

She had an odd look on her face, before a frown darkened whatever it had been. “Purple eyes again, trickster.”

I narrowed those eyes at her. “We’ll talk later.”

She looked over at the dead puppet, an odd expression on her face. “Like that?”

As much as I would like to take a guess as to what she meant, I was currently running out of steam, partly due to my own volition this time. “Let’s go back to leveling.” I waved my hands to distract her from whatever her brain was daydreaming about. “You ready, Wolf?”

“Always,” he said with a sigh, clearly having a much higher ‘patience’ Stat than we perhaps deserved. “The feathers are tickly. Can you collect some for me?”

“Sure thing, bud.” I smiled and felt about as normal as I had in the last… no, just thinking about it seemed to invite further madness or trauma into my life. We should just continue with the Quest and not consider what he might want with them. Other than to tickle himself.

The next card in my hand came out red and crackling - one of the rare critical ones. I flung it out and moved forward. We all watched it slice through the air before landing in the thick throat of a Wildfolk. It popped and burst a chunk of their flesh and feathers like a small explosion. The Monster gripped at the wide wound before topping over.

“We need to get you something so that can do that more often, trickster.”

Ren fired off an arrow and Wolf thundered off. Beside us, I dropped down an Imp+ card, and the short, wiry demon gave me a nod before he started casting a fireball.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

“We returning to the camp tonight?” the elf then asked, focused on her next target.

I grimaced. “Ask me again later. I’m not in the right mind. Same for Rolo's information, unless it's immediately useful.” Part of me wanted to keep as far away from the camp as possible, not trusting them whatsoever. Well, a couple of them were affable enough, but still. And then the other part of me wanted to torch and burn them all down to the ground. Not in an evil way, I tried to remind myself. Just pragmatic—the fewer unknowns, the less threat we were under.

“Understood. I’m not too keen on going back myself.” Her entangling arrow went out, pinning two Wildfolk that were trying to get into melee with the bear. Two seconds later, the fireball struck them, burning their feathers and scorching their exposed flesh.

“Oh?” I split my next cards as they went toward the injured Monsters. “Not eager to put on a show for our audience?”

She exhaled. “Don’t be a dickbag, Max. You know why.”

“Delivering the news about the scout could be bad, but then so could not showing up either.” My cards hit the pair before Wolf jumped in and crushed them.

“Quite the pickle,” she agreed, walking ahead to start looting.

Who knew murder could be so complicated when there were others around to hold you to account? The first area had been a neat tutorial for our macabre instincts. Crimson Shadow wanted to kill us, so we had killed them. Made the world a better place for it, clearing the path for the newer and more pleasant Players. Now that we had peers to judge us… it complicated how cut and dry we liked things.

At least, I thought that’s how Ren saw it, too. She had an actual connection to at least Fiona, even if not the rest. Turning up with Rolo’s mashed corpse would paint us in an even dimmer light than they already saw us. We’d look unhinged.

I rubbed the back of my head as the memories of the last hours passed back through my brain.

“Got a ring here, twelve percent mana?” The elf was crouched by a Monster corpse.

With a shrug, I held out my hand to catch it as I went to loot the next. It was an increase, even if meagre. Gold and another Chance Box from this body. There was a crack as Wolf tore the arm clean off the next Monster and then flung it across the ground. I had no doubt in my mind that he could solo the quest and we could just watch and leech the progress from his efforts.

That’s not how a show succeeded, however.

Stretching my back out as I stood, I brought another magic card into my hand—before the STAR on my wrist turned into a shimmering gold glow.

I turned to Ren with raised eyebrows. “Ahead of the curve?”

She held hers up to show it was a similar color. “Maybe an underdog experience bonus. We should be able to stay here comfortably to at least level ten.”

Ten came with the base increase to my core Class skill, although I didn’t remember where I had learned that. Then again, at fifteen. At the max level of twenty, there was again another single ability but something new.

We gestured for Wolf to take a break as he coughed out some loose feathers. After a quick visual check to ensure we weren’t being watched or about to have the Monsters appear on us, I activated the level to see what the System thought of me now.

[Level Up - 9]

[Stats Increased]

[New Passive: ]

[New Passive: ]

[New Ability: ]

Next time that we had a chance to rest, I’d check out my Stats and see how my equipment was faring.

For a passive skill, actually gave a surprising amount of extra usage. I could now cast on myself, but it only lasted three seconds. While a very short amount of time, the thoughts of potential uses bubbled up in my head.

gave me a +10% Item Find bonus, which was great with how much I loved looting. Perhaps the System anticipated that since—as a magician—I was often finding coins behind people’s ears, then that translated to me gaining more equipment and such as a base. I wasn’t about to argue with it, least of all because I knew it wouldn’t listen, anyway.

Active ability for this level was . It was a ‘finisher’ in the same vein as , but where this one differed was that it was single target. I could remove all stacks of Dazzle from the target—shattering the illusion, essentially—at the penalty of them gaining immunity to the status. However, for every two stacks of the Dazzle icon removed, they received a random debuff from the provided list. As much as I hated spending too much time within the screens of my STAR, I opened it up and expanded the descriptions.

[Weakened] [Reduced Strength Stats]

[Lethargic] [Reduced Agility Stats]

[Drained] [Reduced Constitution Stats]

[Confused] [Reduced Wisdom Stats]

[Astonished] [Reduced Intelligence Stats]

[Fragile] [Reduced Defenses]

[Waylaid] [Reduced Movement]

That was… quite the list. If I didn’t know any better, it seemed as though the System was keen to allow me to fool and wow people, and then force conditions on them when I revealed it was all a ploy. Seemed a bit mean spirited - I might as well just stick a card through their head and save them the humiliation. Still, against tough single targets, it could easily tip things in our favor. Against bosses, perhaps?

I caught Ren watching me think, her head tilted to the side.

“Normally, I’m apprehensive about asking what you received.” She raised an eyebrow. “But now I have a professional reason to know.”

My mouth turned up at the side, a wry grin at her acceptance. Nothing like more System tricks to make me feel more like myself. “Oh, some nice, simple things. A demonstration?”

“I’d accept nothing less.” She folded her arms.

Tongue briefly stuck in my mouth, I withdrew an apple into my hand. “Watch this.”

I threw it straight up into the air, and hit on myself. Took three big steps toward her, as I saw her eyes go up to the apple, and then down to me not being there.

After my time was up, I appeared right beside her, a flower up to her face.

“Dickbag!” She startled, brief annoyance and confusion on her face, but she gave me a quick kiss. “What is this all about?” She scowled at the red flower. No Dazzle icon, still.

Her mixture of reactions totally threw me for a loop, and my brain spun out of control. “Ah. Originally I thought a knife to your throat made the most sense, then at the last second I realized that would be even more inappropriate, so a flower was the quickest thing I could reach.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll repeat; dickbag. So you can just go invisible now?”

“For three seconds. That was just a passive though. My new active just turns Dazzle stacks on a single target into random debuffs.” I turned my head to watch Wolf crunch up the apple. It’d be good for his digestion.

“Useful for bosses, then. Or people we really dislike.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Her expression relaxed, and I felt a little guilty for making her jump. She was good at sensing things, so I hadn’t actually expected to catch her off guard. Not our sharpest of days, perhaps. Also felt like I had stolen that kiss through false pretenses - I had to wait til the end of the day, I had been told.

“Mine were…” her eyes glazed over as she double checked her windows. “Passives gave me a bonus to healing after killing a target, and the second one gave a bonus to damage after healing an injured target.”

I tilted my head from side to side. “Overall, it increases your effectiveness, whatever you do.”

She nodded. “Not very flashy - but then my active…” Her eyes were now practically aglow with excitement. “Divine Bloom. A buff that increases friendly targets damage while reducing my threat.”

“That’s pretty good.” It took a moment to click in my head what she had already envisioned the use to be. “Ah, oh… very good.”

“You get no demonstration, though.” She tried to wave me away as some of the light faded from her eyes. “I’m not quite ready to act on demand yet. What about you, Wolf? Any luck?”

“Yes,” he replied, staring off at the horizon with unfocused eyes. “I have… something to slow those around me.”

“Very useful,” I said. Very powerful, is what I thought, however. The last thing anybody wanted was to be stuck in place against the bear.

My mood seemed to settle. Something about the leveling and grouping up grounded me once more. I was sure to have more states of mania soon enough. It looked like part of me was fighting against the other for control. Maybe we could do one of those weird dream things to hash it out together.

No. That was long past. We weren’t separate any longer. These struggles were my own. One whole Max.

I shook the thoughts from my head and smiled at my Party. “Well, let’s get back into it then, we’ll level up again in no time at all."