Logan persuaded the Cursed Rope to revert to its inert form and then willed it inside his spatial collar.

There was nothing Logan would like more than to jam the last True Grit Ring onto his finger, but Asthea took priority first. She’d been forgotten in the fight and was still lying on the floor, an alarming pool of blood underneath her limp body.

Logan picked up the True Grit Ring and threw it into his spatial collar before rushing over.

“Asthea?”

For a second, dread welled up in his stomach. She was too lifeless, stiff like a corpse, her long hair crusted with dried blood. But then he saw the faint movement of her chest as she struggled to get air. Arsen had wrapped her injury in thick, odd-looking bandages, but her face was pale, her lips bloodless. Next to her side, her intact hand spasmed like a doctor had jabbed a reflex hammer into a nerve, and her eyes moved underneath her eyelids as if she were dreaming.

Logan took a deep breath. During the fight and after losing his first encounter with the guards, his guilt had evaporated. His culpability in her injury had been irrelevant when compared with his own death.

But looking at her now, Logan felt guilt gnawing at his insides. Asthea had been a champion for him up until the end, encouraging the guards to disregard the Cursed Rope and to give him a chance. Logan had repaid that kindness by taking her arm. It hadn’t been at his direction—the rope had gone on a rabid strength grabbing spree—but without Logan, this never would have happened.

It would be like telling a loved one, oops, yeah, I shouldn’t have brought that gun to the picnic. But it wasn’t my fault! It had a faulty safety switch; it was the gun’s fault for going off! And worse yet, Asthea didn’t have [Regenerate] and her constitution attribute was barely keeping up.

Logan crouched next to her, his knees plopping into a pool of lukewarm blood. Hesitating, hovering, he finally rested his hands against her good shoulder.

“Asthea?”

No response.

Fuck. Was she going to die?

Killing the Silverdagger Clan was just; they had it coming and it was kill or be killed. Logan had learned a lesson in that fight. He had to be brutal to survive. However, there was a difference between killing men who were actively trying to kill him and a woman who was on death’s door. Asthea would be… well, upset would be putting it mildly when she learned what he’d done to her guards, but Logan would rather live with that than knowing that he could have helped her and had done nothing.

In a way, Asthea reminded him of Lara. Lara had clawed a life for herself after her divorce; she was resourceful, smart, and didn’t take any shit. Least of all from Logan. She wanted to succeed, to climb up the career ladder but at the same time, support her children. Numerous times, she’d lamented that Logan had the ‘protective brother syndrome,’ insisting that she could do it all.

Asthea’s drive to succeed reminded him of Lara. And Lara would kick him for thinking this, since Asthea could hold her own against any man in a fight, but he felt protective of her. It would be unthinkable to not help.

But how?

If the guards had a magic marble that would heal her injuries, they would have used it.

She needed a skill like [Regenerate] to help. Based on Asthea’s reaction after Logan had walked away from the dexterity trial, shrugging off missing chunks of flesh from the insects, his skill was way beyond a normal constitution stat. He had no way to quantify how much constitution a person needed to receive the equivalent version of [Regenerate], but it must be a whole heck of a lot. If only there was a way for her to level up her constitution.

Wait.

His nerves alive with sudden hope, Logan clambered to his feet and made his way over to the splattered chicken egg. The System had said there were two rewards—one for first place, one for second. If Asthea received first place, that was 25 extra levels—125 points! And if she placed second, she’d still receive 5 levels. Surely that would be enough to level her constitution and help her?

But would it work with a broken egg?

It had to.

The walls of the room were seamless, no exit anywhere. Nothing had changed since he’d defeated the guards. To finish the last tactician trial, there had to be a way to end it.

Logan gathered the gooey mess including the cracked eggshell and cupped it in his palm.

Holding up his hand with the egg white drizzling, he looked up at the ceiling. “System, I’ve captured the egg.”

Ding!

[Calculating leaderboard score for user Idiot!]

[Calculating…]

[…]

[..]

[….]

[Score calculated!]

[Leadership: 4000/ Tactical Innovation: 3800/Strategy: 2110/Victory: 1.]

[…100 penalty points in effect for a broken egg deposit!]

[Leaderboard updated!]

Trial Leaderboard

1. Idiot – 9,811

2. Asthea Silverdagger – 9,808

3. Arsen Silverdagger – 8,571

4. Errol Silverdagger – 7,501

5. Thorin Silverdagger -1,101

All-Time Leaderboard

1. Agata Silverdagger – 9,812

2. Idiot – 9,811

3. Aleda Silverdagger – 9,810

4. Asthea Silverdagger – 9,808

5. Alfifa Silverdagger – 9,798

[You have completed part two of the trial dungeon! Calculating overall performance and ranking…]

[Calculating…]

[…]

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

[Tactician Trial results calculated!]

[As a rank 1 leaderboard player, you will receive 25 levels!]

[Congratulations, Idiot!]

Logan’s eyes bulged as the rush of a massive level increase sent euphoria shooting through his veins, but then he pushed the feeling aside. There was another message from the System, but in his urgency to get to Asthea, Logan disregarded it like swiping a text message. She hadn’t won—but that still meant she’d placed second, which would give her 25 free attributes. That had to be enough.

Logan took a second to glance over the newly formed door that glowed on one of the white walls before rushing back to Asthea. It had to be the portal. The portal back to humanity and Ernie.

Shaking Asthea gently and then more roughly when she didn’t respond, Logan tried to get her to open her eyes. She would have received 25 free attribute points, but until she assigned them, that wouldn’t do a thing.

“Asthea! Asthea, wake up!”

Nothing.

Fucking hell.

He needed something that would jolt her out of this, something that would force her to open her eyes. In a normal world, a shot of epinephrine would have done it. The problem was, he didn’t have drugs, he didn’t have any—

Drugs.

Gasping, Logan mentally rummaged through his spatial storage. Fuck yeah! He had drugs! He had purple cough syrup water! He’d scooped up a whole bucket full of the crap before he left the perception trial.

The water was a drug—that was plain—but he wasn’t sure if this was the type of drug she needed. While submerged in the purple stream, it had made him forget his worries, cocooning him in a warm embrace. That didn’t say adrenaline to Logan. Yet it was the only thing he had.

Crouching next to Asthea, Logan tilted up her chin and parted her lips. For all he knew he could end up choking her, so he’d try a small amount. Taking one of the towels out of his collar, he dipped the end into the bucket, soaking it, and then drizzled the purple water into Asthea’s mouth.

Come on, come on.

Nothing.

Fuck.

Did he dare more? What if she choked—

With a gasp, Asthea’s eyes popped open, pupils blown wide. She sat up as if she’d been electrocuted, her blood matted hair standing on end. Giving Logan a dreamy smile as if she were looking right through him, her expression then shifted. It was a gradual change. From dreamy to horror-stricken. Staring down at her missing stub of an arm, she retched, cough syrup spittle flying.

Shit, that didn’t look good.

“Asthea, put your free attributes into your constitution! It’s your only chance.”

She blinked at him uncomprehendingly.

“You’ve leveled up! Allocate your points to survive!”

Asthea’s expression grew far away, that same expression everyone got as they reviewed their stat screen. Then with a sharp inhale, her chest inflated, and she moaned in pain. But her expression steadied, her breathing evened. Color came back to her face, and her eyes became more aware.

“W-what happened?” she rasped, staring at her missing arm as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Yeah, this was tricky.

Logan rubbed the back of his neck. How the heck did you tell someone that you’d just killed their guards? Hell, the guards were her family! There would be no acceptance, no, there, there, Logan, you did what you had to. There was no explaining it away.

“Just remember that your guards were trying to kill me. I didn’t ask for this.”

Logan got up and moved to the side so that Asthea could see the bodies. Thorin with his chopped off fingers and the moving tree inside his chest which was now five feet in height, its leaves dripping blood, its trunk writhing like a worm; Errol on his side, eyes sightless; and Arsen with a pile of dead flies covering his body.

Yeah, there was no explaining this.

Logan hardened his voice and tried to get it over with, like pulling off a Band-Aid. “They were going to kill me, you know they were. It was either them or me. I make no apologies for it, it had to be done.”

Asthea stared. A bated breath. She blinked rapidly as if trying to process what she was seeing, her mouth falling open. Glancing from Errol to Thorin before focusing on Arsen, she crumpled in on herself and let out an anguish-filled moan.

“Nooo!” she wailed. “No! No!” Pain was in her voice, agony, as if she couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing and refused to believe it. Beyond the physical pain of losing an arm, Asthea sounded like she was going through torture just from the sight of her fallen companions. “Arsen,” she whispered.

Then she backed away from Logan, her eyes wild. “Stay back! Stay away!”

“Asthea, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Liar! Your whole existence is a lie! I know it was you, you infected our System, you forced torture on us in the dexterity trial! Stealth player! You took my arm so you could get your precious ring. You wanted to farm us for levels all along!”

Logan raised his hands up above his head and tried to show that he was harmless. He felt helpless. Not just with guilt, but with disappointment that it had gotten this bad. There would be no talking her out of this.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

Her veins stood out from her neck as she bared her teeth. “Stealth player. Idiot. Logan. Whatever you call yourself, know this. I put a curse upon your line. I’ll hunt you down and kill you. Kill those you love so you know the same pain I feel. Your family, your loved ones. Everyone.”

Her eyes flashed. “Wherever you go, I’ll pursue you. To the ends of the Collective. By the time I’m done with you, your guts will be wrapped around your neck, and you’ll curse the day you ever encountered Asthea Silverdagger.”

Logan’s lips thinned.

“Now,” she snapped. “Are you planning to kill me? Finish the job?” Her eyes were as blue as ice. “Come on, pull out your weapon! Have at it! Take my other arm!”

Logan didn’t move.

Asthea spat a glob of spit on the floor in disdain. “I didn’t think so. Stealth players are too despicable to fight fair. Get out of my way.”

With a face engraved in stone that turned into a grimace of pain as she passed Logan, she strode towards the portal.

Ah, fuck. “Asthea.”

She paused.

Visions of Lara facing a line of Silverdagger warriors filled his mind; her rifle—a rifle!—swung over her shoulder, her mouth in a grim line as if she’d been through hell and back. Worse yet, his nieces had been missing from that scene. He had to hope they were safe in a bolthole somewhere—Lara wouldn’t have gone to war with them—but a knot of worry ate away at his stomach all the same. Lara’s face had been too lined, as if she’d aged ten years.

In that vision of the future, Logan had died. That meant that Asthea’s guards had survived, but in that vision, she was still fighting a line of humanity. Had she been that bitter that Logan had taken her arm?

And yet, the future had changed. Logan had killed Asthea’s guards. If she were that committed when Logan had just taken an arm, what would she do now? Arsen had seemed like a father to her. She’d loved him. That was a hell of a loss. Would she motivate her mother to launch a world war? Go on a crusade to eliminate humanity? Logan would have liked to believe that Asthea would never do that, but how could he gamble with that possibility when Lara’s life was on the line?

Not to mention that in Asthea’s eyes, he was the owner of a weapon that was anathema to her people. By killing her guards, he might as well have spelled out ‘corrupted’ in her eyes. There would be no turning her away from that conviction.

Throughout this past week, there had been times when he may have deserved the System’s ‘Idiot’ name, but to let her go, release her to launch a crusade? That would be the height of stupidity. In the fight with Asthea’s guards, he’d survived because he’d resolved to be brutal, to be ruthless. Logan was only standing here because he’d changed his tactics, by not letting them walk all over him and by being smart.

But he’d gotten into trouble in the first place because he’d been too lenient, too much in his own pre-System perception of the world. There was a place for nice guys—there would always be a place for someone who helped the innocent and did what was just—but when you were living in a kill or be killed world, letting someone utter threats against you—against your family—and then letting them go to launch a crusade…

Logan couldn’t do it.

Logan could see it in his mind. He didn’t know if it was partly from [Foresight], or partly from his instincts, but it was clear as day. If Logan let Asthea return to her people, she’d recuperate—and she’d stew. She’d prepare. She’d gather her people and marshal an army of warriors to go after Logan and those he held dear. Lara, the kids, Tasha and Jack. Innocents would be victims in the crossfire, and then a vow of vengeance would make Logan into the very person the Silverdagger Clan had been so concerned with—a man dominated by violence, by hatred.

All because Logan couldn’t make a hard decision.

And do what was right.

Asthea was a woman, Asthea reminded him of Lara, but if he let her go for that reason only, he would be a hypocrite. There was a reason a matriarch led Asthea’s clan. Hadn’t she told him herself that if it had been Asthea in Logan’s place in the attribute trials, she would have deployed vicious tactics to protect her loved ones and come out on top?

Not to mention what Asthea’s mother would do when she learned that Logan had interfered in her daughter’s Trial of Awakening and killed her guards. As soon as Asthea returned, suddenly Earth wouldn’t be a newly integrated world struggling to survive, it would be the world that hosted the killer of her daughter’s guards.

It would be beyond folly to let her go.

But he couldn’t cut her down while her back was to him.

Logan picked up one of Arsen’s discarded daggers.

Waiting until she was facing him, he threw it towards her. He wasn’t expecting her to catch it—not with one arm—but she did with reflexes that surprised him.

“If you want to fight, do it with me. Do it now.”