Natsuko yawned. “Nah.”

“Nah? What do you mean “nah”?” Sofiane said.

“I don’t use the bottle on other humans. Hero and not,” she said.

“You literally threatened to use it on me!”

“Yeah, it was a bluff, obviously.”

“So why couldn’t you bluff them!?”

Natsuko turned to look at the four Heroes brandishing weapons at them and turned back to Sofiane. “They don't annoy me as much as you do."

Sofiane slapped his head.

“How about we settle things fair and square,” said Margaret, shaking her blonde cleopatra bob. She wore a side-split turquoise dress with enough of every type of accessory to hit every Ero-Art niche Celestials could conceive of. In her hand was a cigarette holder that Natsuko knew doubled as a wand. If she recalled correctly, Margaret was a Fire-based Aggro-Mage.

“No one dies for real, after all.” Harald said with a mean-looking grin. “It just hurts a little bit.”

What he meant was that they’d be resummoned by the Yishang, but that didn’t mean skipping the brutal death part. You also lost 10% of your stats and level progress until you completed the next major quest. Natsuko had found that out the hard way. Repeatedly.

Pechorin glanced at Natsuko then back to the heroes standing in their way. “If it must be a fight, so be it. But know that my bloodlust can only be quenched by your deaths.”

“Come on dude,” the raccoon girl said, hands on her hips. “You don’t need to keep up the archetype act. It’s cringy.”

After that there was silence as both sides waited to see what the other would do. Natsuko was trying to remember who they all were and what their classes were. Aside from Margaret being an Aggro-Mage, Harald was a Bazouk, so his only strategy was to run straight at them. The one with the whip was… Faisal, that’s right. She hadn’t seen him after his featured questline. He was a Hero from al-Nuwba and a Cuirassier, so some kind of control hero. He would prevent them from dealing damage to the backline. Which left whoever the hell this raccoon girl was. Natsuko guessed her class was a Grenadier by the flasks. Another Hero from Shikijima like herself based on the ninja-girl looking outfit, not that that mattered beyond your backstory.

Reflected back at Natsuko were the same analyzing gazes from her opponents. Hero-on-Hero violence was messy and complicated since, for the most part, humans didn’t behave like predictable mobs. On top of that, Heroes weren’t damage-sponges like mobs were, so the fights were quick and brutal. Then there was the pride at stake. Dying to mobs was one thing. Being killed and made to respawn by another Hero created blood grudges. Natsuko could only think of a handful of times she'd seen it happen, all after the older Heroes had started scrambling for scraps.

“Well, what’s it gonna be then? If you’re scared, turn around and leave,” Harald said.

No one believed his bluster. Natsuko glanced at Sofiane. She didn’t know what his stats were, but she suddenly felt glad he was on their side of the fight. As she thought this, Margaret raised her cigarette holder and blew a giant fireball in their direction. All four of members of Team Natsuko dove for cover. Even with her quick reaction, Natsuko felt a singing burn up the side of her body that meant she had taken a solid chunk of damage. She grit her teeth.

“Hit them!” Natsuko yelled at Pechorin.

Picking himself up, Pechorin fired both of his dual-wielded pepperboxes at Harald who was now glowing red in a battle rage.

“Pech is our DPS! Cover him Sof—”

Natsuko didn’t have time to get the words out of her mouth before Sofiane burst into a ball of lightning and reappeared in the space between Harald and Pechorin. Harald slammed his ax over and over and over, every time being tipped away by Sofiane standing with his right arm behind his back, deflecting the hulking Bazouk’s halberd away with dainty ease. Most likely from the Duelist class's Perfect Parry ability.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

A smirk appeared on Sofiane’s face as he coiled his rapier back for a second before turning into a bolt of purple lighting which ran straight through Harald’s center mass. Faisal and the raccoon girl were still preparing their abilities and Margaret’s were still on cooldown when Harald died. Popping back into existence on the other side, Sofiane turned and watched Harald’s organs spill out of the charred hole he'd left. Falling face first, he choked and gurgled blood on the ground, limbs quivering as the last of his energy left him. All-in-all, it was probably a fairly merciful death. Natsuko had died much more brutally than that. But the speed with which Sofiane killed him was unnerving.

“You didn’t say he was a newer gen!” Margaret said, her voice shrill and scared.

“I take it this concludes our discussion of how to allocate the Cursed Demon’s Eye?” Sofiane asked, patting Margaret on the shoulder. "Tell your friend I send him my sincerest apologies when he respawns.”

With that, the other three walked off in a defeated daze. Natsuko felt a pang of sympathy. After all, they’d come here for the same reason: A shot at reclaiming a place on the Use-Number charts. Not that she really thought this stupid Evil Demonic Eye or whatever actually existed. Which reminded her…

Natsuko stepped up to Pechorin. “I know they didn’t spontaneously have the same hunch that there was forgotten loot in Mephistopheles’ Tomb, you obnoxious edgelord. What gives?”

Pechorin looked away from the impetuous fire goblin accosting him. “As I have said previously, it came to me in a vis—”

Natsuko punched him in the stomach.

“Oof! Ow! Okay, some Non-Hero compiled a list of myths and legends about unclaimed loot and I— I found out—” Pechorin stopped to cough. “—found out about it.”

Sofiane perked up at that. “Oh, I know what he’s talking about. That’s what got me asking around about maps and stuff.”

Natsuko raised an eyebrow. “And someone conveniently happened to be willing to part with their precious secret underground dungeon map?”

Pechorin’s eyes went wide. “You visited the Dungeon-Beyond-Time-and-Space?”

“Yeah, it sucked,” Sofiane said.

As the other three made their way inside, Shuixing knelt down next to Harald’s dead body. Around 4am that night, the body would dissolve into the ground and he would reappear at whichever town they were closest to. Until that time, his corpse would lay burnt to a crisp on the ground with a look of shock on his face. She could fix at least that much, she supposed, and gently closed his eyelids with her fingers and rolled him over so he was at least on his back. With that, she rejoined her party in the tomb.

“Pop-out enemy on the left,” Natsuko said.

They entered into a corridor of intersecting catacombs. They were all familiar enough with the dungeon, although the exact layout was a bit fuzzy. Most remembered the fun “features” of the dungeon, like the pop-out enemy that Pechorin forgot about despite Natsuko’s reminder. A dripping ghoul burst out of a stand-up crypt to Pechorin’s left and clamped onto his shoulder, taking a nasty bite out of it.

“Back, foul beast!” he shouted.

Natsuko’s eyes went wide. “Wait, don’t!”

Pechorin fired both guns directly into its neck and it exploded into a sticky green shower. Even more inconveniencing was the excruciating ringing in their ears as his guns went off in the confined space of the limestone tomb.

“You ass! I’ve told you not to fire in tight spaces!” Natsuko yelled.

“What!?” Pechorin replied.

“Don’t fire indoors!”

“What!?” Sofiane said.

The gash from the ghoul was barely anything at Pechorin's level, but since it didn’t cost anything except a cooldown timer, Shuixing spun a bulbous bubble on the end of her rod and touched it to the wound which instantly sealed up.

“Your generous contribution to my path of vengeance has been noted,” Pechorin said.

Shuixing giggled. She had heard hundreds of Pechorin’s variations on saying anything other than “thank you,” and they never ceased to amuse her. She really did enjoy having him around again, even if he irritated Natsu.

“If I remember correctly there’s some stupid puzzle up ahead…” Sofiane said.

The tomb emptied out into a giant, rectangular shaft with a bottomless pit. Floating in the center were several sets of staircases and just before the lip of the pit there was a pedestal with five stone dials. Sofiane stroked his chin as he looked at them.

“So, there are six staircases and five dials. From top to bottom, the staircases are numbered 1-6 and the dials move their respective staircase one 90-degree turn to the right, the next one sequentially to the left, and the one before it to the right as well. So if we—”

Natsuko turned several of the dials and the staircases all lined up perfectly to lead up to the next opening on the other side of the shaft.

“Huh, good memory,” Sofiane said.

“Wish it was good for more than stupid puzzles,” Natsuko replied.

“Not so fast!” Pechorin said. “For this is precisely the puzzle which, in its ordinary configuration, prevents one from chancing upon the coveted Cursed Demon’s Eye.”

“So what are you supposed to do?” Sofiane asked.

“The puzzle must be done backwards once the party has crossed to the other side of the pit, creating a staircase back the other way to an illusory wall, yet this means one person must be left behind at the puzzle’s controls. In other words,” Pechorin said, pausing for effect. “They must be sacrificed.”