They all woke up early in the morning. The plan was to unlock the door to the treasury while most people were sound asleep, then overcome the challenges that would await them inside, if any, then claim their reward, and then hopefully leave this floor behind before they had to deal with other angry teams.

It could not be helped. Some things could not be shared. And jealousy and greed were universal feelings that put even the most cooperative people to the test. At some point, it was simply wiser to try to avoid testing one’s limits.

However, some teams had been prepared for that strategy and left three people on guard duty by the treasury door. Which meant that both Michel and her had to neutralize one each before dealing with the third together before he could raise the alarm.

Her weavesinging and his invisibility were good enough to deal with the two and knock them out. Then, she had to switch to lure-singing to silence the third before Michel could deal with him. Finally, Lono had come in with rope and gag to ensure none of the three were going to cause trouble before they were done.

Then, Michel gave everyone the all-clear, so Paolo and Moana joined them while she unlocked the door. And she promptly relocked the door from the inside the moment they all walked through.

Whatever they expected to find inside, however, wasn’t this.

As the dragon’s treasury didn’t consist of the gold, jewels, and legendary weapons one might expect from a dragon hoard. Nor was it the single chain chest in the middle of the room that Sophia expected.

Nope. What they found was the dragon nursery, a diamond-shaped room with a grand total of thirty-eight eggs incubating on a circular bed of lava. And in each corner room, another door protected by some mural puzzles.

So was the dragon king actually a queen? Or was it another dragon waiting for them behind one of those doors? No that would not make sense. They would not even fit through the door.

“So, what do you think? Dragon omelet tonight?” Lono asked Michel casually.

“It would be a crime not to give it a try,” Michel confirmed with a smirk.

“Don’t touch the eggs or anything until we find and secure the chest!” Sophia reminded them. “There might be hidden pressure traps under the lava or something.”

This effectively put everyone's mind back to the mission.

“There are three puzzle doors. So which one should we aim for first?” Paolo pointed out the obvious.

“Mine is a series of rotating circles, like a bank safe, but made of stone,” Moana said, inspecting the west door.

“The one over there is a nine by nine tiles grid!” Michel exclaimed, pointing at the opposite door from where they came from.

Nine by nine, like the forges, it could not be a coincidence.

“It’s probably this one.” Sophia agreed yet remained cautious: “What about the third?”

“It’s a series of tiles with words on it, most likely this is this world's equivalent of a password,” Paola said, not enthusiastic at the perspective of trying to brute force this password. There were millions of combinations.

“The grid first,” Sophia concluded before getting closer. The tiles were numeral. 81 of them. And again, the number of combinations was absurd. “Ideas, anyone?” She asked

Everyone got closer and spent minutes observing the puzzle until Moana finally concluded:

“Easy enough. A nine-by-nine grid, nine of each numeral, that’s a Sudoku. I would bet everything that only some tiles are moving.”

They tested it and sure, only twenty-one of the tiles were unmovable.

4 7 3 8 9 6 6 4 8 5 5 7 9 6 2 1 8 4 2 1 5 4

“Okay,” Sophia admitted. “Your theory seems to be working. May I assume you know how to solve this?”

“I...” Moana hesitated before sighting and admitting outright “It might take time.”

Sophia had no idea what it was all about. She never had the time or the patience to learn this kind of thing. So if someone who was used to do those things for fun was thinking it would not be an easy one, she has no reason to doubt them.

“Okay.” She finally decided. “We are going to give Moana some space and work on the other puzzle in the meantime. Surely they are all following some similar logic. Ideas about the rotating circles?”

And so they all got to work, picking each other brains out to solve the entire puzzle room.

★☆★

In the end, the rotating circle puzzle had been the easier one, after discovering by accident that heating the circular plates was revealing invisible ink. Then, it had been a simple exercise of finding the right patterns for that puzzle. Which had turned out to be the ideogram for magic, written upside-down.

The answer had been the dragon anti-magic all along. Which Sophia guessed was also a clue of what awaited them inside. And so, given her recent bad history with anti-magic, she decided to let others deal with that one and help Paolo figure out the other puzzle.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Given that the the first puzzle had been about the floor itself, and its obsession with the number nine. And that the second puzzle had been about the dragon, she had expected the third the be about the sentient armors.

Instead, it seemed to be about the dragon once again and what she expected to be a poem or more likely a prayer, in his name. The only issue was that anyone who knew those particular wordings was now dead. So solving that puzzle should not have been that difficult, had her peers not been so adamant on killing every civilian. But it was now an insurmountable task they soon had to give up.

And then, after what seemed to be an eternity of pulling her hair out, Moana was finally done with her own. And so Sophia called back the team together.

“What have you found?” She asked Michel once they had regrouped.

“The actual dragon hoard, if you are feeling generous enough to call it that.” The man responded grimly, which sparked her curiosity. And so he answered her silent question: “Corpses. That maniac was collecting them. Even put his favorites on display, stuffed with their original equipment. Though none of them was human, it was still a gruesome spectacle.”

Oh. Yeah. That kind of fitted that dragon theme.

That was Sophia's only reaction. She knew she was expected to be shocked or even, horrified. But it was her new normal now. She was simply relieved that the dragon was now gone and that she would find none of her peers among his victims.

“Anything valuable we could scavenge?” She asked neutrally and Lono looked at her as if she had been the true monster of this floor.

“The armors and weapons themselves are crap,” Michel responded without pause. “But the materials they are made of are entirely alien to us and might be worth investigating.”

That was what she loved about the roguish wizard: he was practical. In that regard, they were like-minded and he anticipated and answered her next question before she could even ask.

Pondering about the moral implications of someone else crimes would do them no good. But studying the corpses to understand what humanity would have to deal with in the foreseeable future? It was worth investigating. And with their system editors' privilege, one could even argue that it was their moral duty to ensure the rest of humanity would get to know about those things.

“I will keep that in mind. But the chain chest first.” She concluded before passing through the door.

★☆★

“So let’s sum it up,” Michel decided they needed to discuss before the chain chest:

“You got that guidance cantrip. He got a spell book with two cantrips and one spell. Then, you found another spellbook with three first-circle illusion spells by chance. And your familiar can conjure a temporary shelter out of nowhere. So, shouldn't money be our top priority right now?”

It was a good argument. On top of Prismatic Orb she had just acquired, they still had Disguise Self, Distort Value, and Illusory Script sleeping inside their backpack because they lacked the gold to ‘learn’ the spells — a really strong euphemism to say the spell pathway was inscribed into their brain like hot iron.

A nasty surprise that Sophia had not been prepared for.

However, if they planned to make the fullest of each spellbook before even considering selling it, they would have to go through the pain and expend the ludicrous sum of 275 gold to make it happen.

So indeed, gold was pretty high on their priority list.

But even if it had truly been the thing they needed the most, the chain chest rewards had always been both tailor-made for the individual opening it and their group as a whole. However, nothing was more impersonal than money and so, it was unlikely to come out of this particular chest.

And so she shrugged: “You can always try for it.” She conceded, “But you don’t get your hopes up. Besides, even with gold, you would still be lacking the material components.”

Anyway, even if he were to forgo needs for wants, she did not believe that gold was the man's deepest desire. He was not nearly greedy and edgy enough for it to be the case.

And yet, the team discussed some more about what they hoped Michel would get from the chest before he got past his nerves and opened it. Only to freeze like Prince, Paolo, and herself did when it had been their turn. It only lasted a fraction of a second but she knew from experience that within the system void, it always felt so much more.

And so she waited patiently for Michel to collect himself, having learned from her previous experience with Prince. Yet she could not help staring expectantly all that time until he finally answered their silent question.

“I got a boon.” He said and exhaled deeply. “Spell impression. It let me turn spells into scrolls using parchment as a material component.”

And so, everyone kept silent, digesting the news.

On one hand, Michel got exactly what he asked for: a practical boon to print money using his magic. On the other hand, that boon was invaluable to the team as it expanded their spell options even further, allowing them to copy some of Michel's known spells.

“Does it work on cantrips?” She asked, feeling hopeful.

“Yes. It does. Why?” Michel asked back.

“Because we can learn your cantrips entirely for free!” Paolo exclaimed. “Of course! That’s genius. Whatever you learn, the team gets to benefit.”

Yep. The primary wizard selling point was the free spell they got for any Wizard boon they got. And now, they had even more incentive to get gold and learn the spells, therefore, even more incentive for Michel to use his boon for money. Granted that the amount of gold available would increase on every floor, which was likely but yet to be proven.

Sophia shook her head before correcting Paolo’s statement: “Nope. That’s a boon that can benefit humanity as a whole.” She said, calm and analytical, staring at Michel intently: “Whatever you choose to do with it, you have a bright future ahead.”

She let the double meaning of her sentence sink in before she turned to everyone:

“But for now, we have to fight to get a future at all. Alright everyone, time to get moving.”

And so they did.

★☆★

In the end, they did not scavenge quite as much as they hoped to from the dragon treasury. But they were anxious to sneak out and leave this floor before first light so as not to get into trouble.

And this time around, their prudence had paid off.

No one had discovered the guards on watch that they had neutralized and the very few people awake that they met on their way to the one-way portal to the next-floor resting area did not suspect a thing.

They were far from the first team to get through nor would they be the last. Though it was a first for Sophia to be among the early birds.

After all, they had been dead last to leave the first floor, and probably also the second floor. And though she wasn’t the last, her leaving the third floor had been rather later. So being among the first decile to leave the fourth floor was definitely a nice change of pace.

Even knowing that they were most probably not clearing the floors fast enough already, it seemed impossible to do it on time, with the constantly increasing difficulty.

There were clearly many things wrong with the tutorial, though she could not quite put a finger on any of them:

The tutorial's alleged goal of testing their capability to adapt, which so far had felt like it had tested her ability to fight and her ability to know when not to pick a fight. The clearly flawed tutorial design, whose flaws were so numerous that they started feeling intentional. The floor-spanning puzzles which had seemingly extended ramifications beyond the limits of the floor. And finally, the chain chest puzzle and its equally puzzling rewards. It hinted that despite its flaws and its unfeeling, uncaring stance, the system deeply knew them, almost better than they knew themselves. And it was scary.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Paolo asked, sitting beside her, behind the closed doors of the portal room.

“It’s just silly system conspiratorial theories.” She shrugged it off with a wave of her hand.

“Still, anything on your mind you want to share?” Paolo insisted nudging her.

“Death. How was it for you?” She completely changed the subject.

“It was like a memory lapse. One moment, I was in the middle of that fight, feeling like we were doing good. And then, I found myself in the void with the system notification of my death. I didn’t feel anything and the system was surprisingly compassionate, answering all my questions and letting me confirm it for myself. The worst part was how disconnected I felt in my confusion: It was only after that out-of-body experience that I finally truly understood I had died.” He said, speaking softly and distantly before asking, looking her straight in the eyes: “How about you?”

“I knew I was about to die when I volunteered for the suicide mission.” She put the circumstances of her death back into context before opening up about her feelings. “I already accepted death and I thought I was prepared. But being buried alive, being crushed and suffocating all at the same time.”

She paused, catching her breath, feeling as if she was reliving that particular vivid memory all over again.

“I’m not proud of it, but if I had to redo it all over again... I would let everyone die. And I did, twice, since then. I have left fifteen or so people behind so I could live. And I feel like shit.”

The system tutorial had completely changed her self-perception. She knew she wasn’t a Saint. But now, she felt like she had those people's blood on her hands. Even that dragon, even knowing it was evil, even knowing it would have eaten her alive just because it could, she felt awful about its death.

“The system does not care about our needs, our wants, or even our lives.” Paolo quoted. “Our mission is to stay alive and beat that tutorial so humanity would get a second chance. I don’t know enough about ethics but pretty sure there isn't a survivor of the past waves who did not have to compromise and felt like shit about it.”

That was probably the most honest thing the system ever said. It was uncaring and unfeeling. Yet, she could not shrug off her feeling that the system, just like everything else, was pulling the strings over her, and that she was merely reacting.

Since the moment she had picked Rogue as her primary archetype, she had felt a cognitive dissonance. She had been playing a role to stay alive. She had done whatever she thought was needed. But what she had become? She could not recognize herself at all.

She used to superficially care about other people's opinions of her. It even had some weight over her decision of picking rogue instead of fighter. But now? Even her companions had a bad opinion of her. Her carefully cultivated persona as the cool underdog fighting against the tide had cracked, revealing the worst side of her personality. And she deserved it.

She also used to be more carefree about morally grey decisions. She used to be “No god, No boss, No husband,” cynical and unwilling to commit to anything and fully subscribing to moral subjectivism. And now? She had a divine patron. People were dying left and right. And there was very little room left for any morally grey.

Finally, she used to have an over-inflated ego and be downright arrogant, self-important and thought she had her life figured out, as opposed to her peers. And in a sense, she still was. Though it was still a work in progress, the tutorial had gone a great length to show her the errors of her way.

“Be honest: how am I holding up?” She ushered anxiously.

“How are you holding up?” Paolo repeated, rhetorically in the same tone. “Don't be so modest. Thousands of people would still be stuck on the third floor if it wasn't for you. I don't know what sort of impossible standard you are trying to measure up. And you have your fault. But you are a freaking heroine.”

And then whispering even lower, he added:

“That being said: please get your shit together, grow up, and tell Moana you are sorry. As your friend, I’m already fed up being your middleman.”

And then, he stood up and was the first to walk within the teleportation circle and everyone soon followed after him, leaving her alone once again, reinforcing the existing pattern in their relationship.

Paolo had the people smart to tell what needed to be told and give her all the space she needed.

And she did like to take that alone time at the end of each floor. Brooding about what they had done and left behind, what they could have done better as well as her personal shortcomings.

They finally got a team. And she had already proven the limit of her leadership skills.

They finally encountered some non-hostile monsters. And she was an accomplice in their genocide.

She had finally learned a spell and failed to put it to good use.

She was now a murderer. And she was recognized as such by the system.

And the tutorial had taken so much from her already that she couldn’t help but wonder:

What would be left of her once it was all said and done?