I woke up with a groan as I blinked away the sleepiness.

For the first time since I’d found myself in this world, I wasn’t confused about where I was when I woke up.

Had I finally accepted my situation?

“Morning, chat,” I mumbled and got up from the floor.

Sleeping on the hard floor of the dungeon probably wasn’t the best for my back, ugh. I needed to find a proper shelter… or at least a pillow or something. Was it too much to hope the dungeon would give me a pillow? Probably. If only the outside wasn’t still wet from the rain…

RetconRanger: Good morning, Nana.

“Mmm… Hey, Ranger. Are you my morning fairy for today?” I asked as I idly began to do my morning squats. I had kind of forgotten about those yesterday.

RetconRanger: I guess so.

RetconRanger: Did you sleep well?

bloopbooper: bloop! ヾ( ˃ᴗ˂ )◞ • *

“Ugh, well… Could have been better. Oh, hey, Booper! You too! Haven’t seen you in a while.” My mouth automatically curled into a smile as I said that silly name out loud. “But nah, I’m fine. I think I had a dream about beating up a bird with a giant egg though. That was weird.”

RetconRanger: Sounds silly.

RetconRanger: Does it have anything to do with your quest?

bloopbooper: bloop…? (⊙_⊙)

“Probably… I haven’t been thinking much about it, but yeah. Just wanna punch the damn Phoenix, you know?”

RetconRanger: Understandable.

RetconRanger: Have you thought about taking on more quests?

I stopped for a moment before continuing with the squats.

“I… I think I forgot about quests altogether for a bit.”

I’d completed the non-starvation one a few days ago, but hadn’t even tried to generate more quests to go with it. It had kind of… slipped my mind.

And nobody in chat had pointed it out until now, either.

Just more evidence that they were just the product of my subconscious mind… But then again, Ranger had pointed it out now, so maybe…?

…Anyway. Quests.

They weren’t even that good, to be honest. Achievements gave way more skill points than quests for a lot less effort. Not to mention, failing a quest would give me negative skill points.

But then again, achievements were limited. Quests seemingly weren’t. Not to mention, completing side and hidden objectives seemed to give extra rewards besides skill points. If I could stack up on those tickets, it would make me exponentially more powerful the more I got. If the bonus stacked multiplicatively, that is. But that was kind of hard to tell…

Either way, if I could breathe fire all day long without worrying about collapsing, that would make fighting much easier. And since I didn’t really know what exactly increased my maximum reserves besides the tickets, I might as well try and get more of those, right?

“Well, why not? I can have one main quest and three side quests at once, right? So since I’ve completed that one side quest, I can still take one more. Let’s see here…”

Generate new quests

Generating new quests, please wait…

“...Right. I forgot it takes a bit.”

I finished with my squats and began with the push ups while idly talking with the two. By the time I finished those, I had a few status windows waiting for me.

“Now, let’s see here…”

New quests generated:

Good night’s sleep (side quest)

First contact (side quest)

Good night’s sleep:

(Time left: 2h, 59m, 32s )

You’ve been homeless and sleeping wherever for a few days now. Find a proper shelter to settle down in.

Rewards - 3SP

Penalty for failure - 5SP debt

Accept as Side quest (30 days)

Decline

First contact:

(Time left: 2h, 59m, 32s )

You’ve been wandering in the wilderness for a few days and you have yet to encounter any sentient creatures besides yourself. Try and find someone.

Rewards - 4SP

Penalty for failure - 6SP debt

Accept as Side quest (60 days)

Decline

“...Right. And I can only accept one of them. Hmm.” I narrowed my eyes in suspicion as I went over the quests again. “Why does it feel like I came up with those quests myself…? Like… Just a few minutes ago, I thought how nice it would be to have somewhere better to sleep at. And I’ve been wanting to meet other people since the start…”

Probably because the system was reading my mind to create these quests, just like the chat.

I grimaced at that thought.

RetconRanger: Possibly because the quests seem to be personalized for what you want/need at the moment?

“Yeah, that’s what I think too. It’s kinda creepy though… Stupid mind reading system, ugh…” I grumbled.

bloopbooper: boop! (｡>﹏<)

“Well, whatever! Which one should I pick? Hmm… Why do I feel like the first contact one is a bait? Like… I’m not going to be able to find anyone in this world. But this quest will make me desperately search for someone and then I’ll be depressed when I finally fail the quest,” I said a bit sourly.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

RetconRanger: That’s a bit too pessimistic, no?

RetconRanger: Wasn’t there a phoenix somewhere?

I grunted as I finally stood up and headed for the table where all my stuff still lay. I’d done a lot of experiments with Fusion yesterday, although I hadn’t gotten a whole lot of exciting stuff after the naginata. I’d just combined the Ether pop with the Tempor juice for a two-in-one drink and that was about it in terms of useful results.

“Well yeah, maybe… But after yesterday… I don’t know. There could be time nonsense happening, so the phoenix might not even be around… or this could just be a simulation and the phoenix was never real in the first place, or…” I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

bloopbooper: bwoop… ( ´･･)ﾉ(._.`)

“Anyway! I think I’m gonna pick the other quest. Finding a shelter shouldn’t be that hard, right?”

‘Good night’s sleep’ Side quest accepted!

Main objective:

   Find a shelter to sleep in

Side objectives:

   Create that shelter yourself

   Find some bedding and a pillow

   Have a proper door to your shelter

Rewards - 3SP

Penalty for failure - 5SP debt

I blinked at the side objectives.

“...It wants me to build a shelter myself? Yeah, I don’t think that’s happening.” I shook my head. “A door could be possible… but bedding and pillow, uh, I would have to find some. I doubt I will, though,” I mumbled to myself as I packed all of my stuff into the backpack once more and prepared to set off.

RetconRanger: Are you going back to dungeoneering already?

“Yeah, I mean, I gotta test out my cool new weapon, right?”

RetconRanger: Your phoenix skills are still on cooldown though.

RetconRanger: Wouldn’t it be dangerous?

“That’s true…” I grunted. “I won’t go too deep for now. And I can do other things now! Like the bubble cannonball or the key!”

Speaking of, I’d sort of gotten the hang of channeling my Ether manually without the help of Craftsman. It was far from perfect, and I definitely couldn’t properly do it in the heat of a battle without messing up, but it was a start.

RetconRanger: Alright. Just be careful.

And with that, I shrugged on the backpack, grabbed my awesome new naginata, climbed out of the window, and headed for the gate once more. I also briefly glanced at the entrance and saw that luckily, it wasn’t raining anymore. Maybe I could sleep on the grass today again, rather than the hard floor of the dungeon.

Then I frowned to myself as a thought struck me.

“I wonder if this is the final floor, chat… I mean, it feels like I’m following a pattern. The first floor was the front entrance where you pay the fee, then you change in the locker room, and then you go to the pool to swim, right? What could possibly come after this?”

RetconRanger: Another locker room?

bloopbooper: bloop ╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭

I snorted.

“That would be incredibly lame… But I guess It’s possible, yeah.”

I stepped through the golden gate and was greeted with the pools once more. Now, I could go through the maze of the side buildings again, but I felt like I’d already gone through those thoroughly enough and it was time to move on.

But then again, I’d gotten some amazing loot from them. Both the infinite pizza and the popsicle were from the chests over there…

Well, there were probably going to be more chests in the other section of this floor as well.

So finally, after sneaking a peek of them oh so long ago, I approached the pools, hoping that maybe I could even swim in them.

Naturally, as soon as I got close enough to one to take a good look, I stopped and took a careful step back from the pool.

RetconRanger: That doesn’t look like water…

It had this bluish cyan hue that was typical for pool water, just like I’d observed from afar, but… It wasn’t because it reflected the color of the sky like water would. No, this liquid was completely opaque and didn’t look natural at all. It only looked like water from afar.

It had tricked me!

RetconRanger: Appraise it?

I shot Appraisal at it and stared.

Death water

Dungeon liquid that drains intruders’ Ether on touch and creates dungeon monsters.

“Death water?! Seriously? What is this, a platformer game?!” I yelled in indignation. “So it’s basically lava? Don’t fall in or you die? Come on, man!”

And apparently, it also created dungeon monsters. So as soon as I walked in between the pools, hordes would probably emerge from it and swarm me.

Great.

RetconRanger: That’s not good.

bloopbooper: bloop… (ó﹏ò｡)

I groaned and rubbed my forehead.

Part of me wanted to just boldly walk in like it was nobody’s business, but I had no idea what kind of monsters would even emerge. More zombies? Sentient swimsuits? Flying hamburgers? Could be anything. I didn’t trust it.

Worst of all, if I got swarmed, I couldn’t even use my usual strategy of lighting everything on fire since Flameguard was still on cooldown.

“Okay, fine… I’m gonna go back for a bit and wait till I can swap my fire skills back in just in case…”

With some mixed feelings I walked back to the gate and sat down while looking out into the third floor. Unlike the other two floors, I could see most of it from the entrance, although I had no idea where the exit… or the boss room was. It was probably hidden away in a non-euclidean corner like always.

I sighed.

“So… Anyway… How are you two doing…?” I randomly asked, despite part of me feeling like it was pointless to do so. They were me, after all, weren’t they?

RetconRanger: I’m doing okay. Just a little tired.

bloopbooper: bloop! ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

RetconRanger: I’ve been pulling a lot of allnighters lately.

I cracked a smile.

“That’s good… Oh, are you still working on your game, Ranger?”

RetconRanger: Yeah. Balancing it is tough though.

RetconRanger: And juggling it with everything else.

I winced in sympathy. I’d had to juggle streaming and work not too long ago so I knew just how much that could take out of someone.

“Oof, yeah… I feel you.” I smiled. “Once it’s done, I can play it on stream!” I suggested, pushing away the intrusive thoughts telling me that I would first have to get back to Earth, and that this Ranger wasn’t even the real person, and–

RetconRanger: That would be great! I’ll work hard to make it perfect then!

bloopbooper: boop! (๑´>᎑<)~*

“Sure!” I grinned.

What a funny duo this morning. Like a cute little animal and an older cousin working hard on their passions. I could almost forget that they weren’t real.

I sat there, chatting with the two for a while, before more people began to pop up in the group chat. At some point, I decided to snoop around the buildings once more instead of sitting idly.

“I still need to get used to using this thing… and test the glove on the zombies… and maybe I’ll find some more treasures,” I reasoned.

Chat seemed to agree that it was a good idea.

I entered the same building as yesterday and began exploring more of the maze, running into several zombies on my way. Having to fight with a long polearm indoors was… very awkward, to say the least. Even if I tried to keep my distance and just shoot wet lightning at them.

I ended up putting it into my backpack and using the key and the cannonball bubble glove to fight them, in the end. The glove was excellent for pushing them away, and the key was enough to deal the finishing blows, but…

“That sucks, chat… I really wanted to use my cool new weapon… Maybe it will be more useful out there, though.” I glanced out of one of the windows overlooking the pools. “Speaking of… The cooldowns should be almost up. Time to check out the main part of this floor.”

I quickly made my way back, stashed away the key, and pulled out my naginata once more – I just wanted to make it work, okay?

I briefly thought about swapping in the skills right away, but held on for the moment. I could instantly swap them in at any point, after all. And if I could get through this floor without needing to use the phoenix skills… that would mean that I had gotten better at this. I wanted to test myself. To try to stand on my own feet without ‘cheating’.

And also, it felt like giving the damn phoenix the middle finger if I didn’t use the gift they’d given me.

Take that, you damn bird.