Colt snuck ahead, doing his best to remember the lessons given to him by Nate. He wasn’t perfect at it, but the darkness of the arena made it easier to sneak ahead. Nick was in place back where he’d started from. The idea was simple. The execution was key.

Each step was a practice in precision. Move with the lay of the land and roll your foot—the fort came closer and closer, those big walls teeming with monsters atop. He could see them now; they were essentially humans. Bulky and slightly large humans. Humans had a single eye in their heads, which made them not human at all. A cyclops, but unlike the myths Colt was used to as a kid, these versions didn’t match the towering shape they conjured in his head.

They also wore armor—Greek armor, with long leather skirts made of tassels, bronze helmets, and bronze greaves. Most of them had spears, too, which was a negative unless Colt caught one by surprise.

He came within a stone’s throw of the walls. Four of them were bunched up there.

A heartbeat.

Another one.

“Come out and fight!” Colt screamed, his heart racing as he threw all he could into his voice.

The guards above looked startled, their fires making a sweep on the outside of the wall as they leaned down. One of them went further than the others were willing to go.

He caught a spectral dagger to the eye.

The cyclops screamed in pain, losing his balance and tumbling over the rest of the wall. Colt was on in him in an instant, his knife vanishing from jutting out of the milky white wound and reappearing in his hand. His enemy screamed on the ground, arms flailing. Each time it hit the earth, it hit with a thud that made the ground shake, so Colt bid his time, coated his knife with a thick Edict, and then went for the opportunity when it next presented itself.

An open gut.

Colt struck, tearing with a cut; his blade caught on the thick skin of the monster but ultimately tore through. Easier than when he fought the orc, but only just.

Amazingly, the creature didn’t die even as its organs started to fall out; it tried to tumble to its feet, and Colt darted in with a knife to the back, right where its lung should be. Once more, it was like shoving his knife through a thick gel, taking a bit more oomph and force than it should. But it did the trick; the monster roared and then gasped as its lungs failed it.

A torch flew at Colt from above, and he side-stepped it, eyes wide as the cyclops managed to get to its feet. Missing an eye, a hole in its lungs, and guts hanging.

Another cut and one more did the trick.

———

You have defeated Cyclops Hoplite - Level 48

———

The monster died, sparking an inferno of outrage from the ones who watched on the wall. They screamed, yelled, and threw stones, and then an alarm rang as the cyclops were alerted to the attack. As a horn blew, Colt withdrew back into the shadows, and the cyclops scrambled off the wall. Out here in the dark, they couldn’t make him out from the ground around him.

As Nike said, they’d have to mount an expedition to track him. And that might present more chances to deal damage and pull more of them from the fort.

All Colt had to do was avoid getting caught and get quicker at taking one of these things down. Now, he had a feel for the massive endurance of these things.

“Believe in yourself,” he said, trying to convince him this was possible. Nate, Sarah, and Julia would be somewhere on the other side of the fort. And they needed him to succeed.

Colt pulled back into the shadows, finding a tree to hide by. The field was different from the sandy nothingness; this battle would be fought with grass, bushes, and vegetation. He took what he remembered from Nate, trying to keep his profile low and hidden, eyes locked on the gate of the fort.

Ten minutes later, it opened up. A group of forty monsters left their fort to hunt him down and kill him. No idea what amount of the fort that was, but hopefully enough to make it easier for the rest of the group.

There was a streak of light above, Nick firing off his arrow in the dark, flaring up brightly enough to see anywhere. Both a signal for their infiltration team and…

As planned, the monsters pointed at the light and started rushing in that direction, fanning out with their torches as they took the bait.

Colt waited.

The monsters passed.

Colt followed.

They tracked the light as it last appeared in the sky, a bright white star that lit up and was pretty much the magic equivalent of a flare. Some rushed ahead, trying to catch Nate from where he fired off the arrow before he could relocate; some of them lagged behind.

It was the last in this line that Colt picked as a target. A cyclops with a scar on the back of his head and a rather enthusiastic look on his face as he shoved a chunk of goat-man leg in his mouth for a bite. This guy would rather be warm by a fire, not caring at all if his buddies lived or died as long as he could stuff his face.

Probably.

That’s what Colt told himself as he snuck up from behind, charged up his knife with layers of cut, and then slashed for the neck.

The monster didn’t even scream; the wave of death crashed into it from behind and tore the skin. Blood spilled, but the cut was slow. The distance it could cut into that flesh was too little, and the muscles beneath were too thick and dense.

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It managed to duck as the invisible blade tore through its skin, removing a flap from the back of its head and revealing the skull beneath as the Cyclops went down.

There was a beat, then it turned, face greased up with goat-man leg fat and a snarl, still ready to go even with a flap of skin missing.

These things are tanks. It lunged, and Colt fired off another cut, tearing through part of its arm; a spear thrust followed the lunge, and Colt simply cut the weapon’s tip-off with little difficulty. Their gear, at least, paled in comparison to their physical attributes.

Compared to the goat-men, though, they were easy to dance around. This thing lunged at him, arms stretched wide, greasy fingers trying to grab him and squeeze him. Compared to all the points stuffed into his dexterity, Colt made easy work of keeping his distance.

Next, he popped the thing’s eye with another slice, making it even clumsier. An obvious weak point. At least for him. He suspected no one else in their group would even be able to take one of these things down. The monster cried out, and that set the time limit. A minute, at most, then he’d be fighting two or three. Which meant this had to die, and he had to vanish into the dark as a ghost. Colt doubled down, trying to take out its neck with a ranged cut; instead, he cut about an inch deep, and the monster ducked again, losing another chunk of its face.

These things are too much. Colt cut for the neck a third time, this time coating his blade thick with the Edict, sliding around the back, and then darting in and landing the strike in the exact same spot as the first. His knife slid through enough to cut through the windpipe and then the rest of the neck, separating its head from the body and killing his second one.

———

You have defeated Cyclops Hoplite - Level 49

You have leveled up!

You have 3 Stat points to spend. You have gained 1 point of Dexterity and 1 point of Soul

———

Colt stared at his bloody knife while catching his breath.

Coating the weapon with an Edict gave it more cutting power, even if it sacrificed range. But the difference was all the more obvious against a creature like this. There was something there he was missing, though; he could feel it. Wrapping his blade with the Edict like a second skin was almost a brute force method. Like the way that Nick had been using refract earlier. There had to be a better way, one that wasn’t pulling out his movement and using the combination of the two.

One thing was certain. He’d have to get better at killing them.

Colt saw the torches nearing in the darkness, spent his three extra stat-points by putting them into soul, then darted away from the corpse. For this fight, he’d do his best to play the part of a ghost to keep these guys out of the fort.

###

Julia stumbled behind the two strangers, her eyes wide as they followed the outside of this fortress. It was like something out of a game. Not a game she played; no, she was more into the farms and relax and build your village type of stuff. Cozy vibes. The type of thing you could drink a hot cocoa and forget you were playing until three-am. Not this craziness.

An RPG?

One of those war games people got too into, with… What was it… Map painting?

God, let her go home and relax, finally. The first thing she’d done after getting out of the ‘tutorial dungeon’ was track down her apartment and check her PC. It was dead.

Whoever tossed her into this weird virtual reality just didn’t want her to have good things. Or maybe they were too lazy to find a way to make it work, she guessed. Just like one of those online books she sometimes read. Way to go AI, put in all the effort of this realistic and crazy place, but not bother with letting her just relax and play cozy games.

She didn’t know who. She didn’t know many people… Any really, so maybe someone online abducted her and then put her in this weird virtual reality game? It was the only theory that made sense, so she accepted it.

Julia slipped, snapping a branch as they neared the back of the fort. Sarah put a finger to her lips and glared at her. A dark look in her eye. Like she thought that it was intentional. As if. Who would be insane enough to make noise and get a whole fort filled with monsters all riled up?

Not my fault.

She tried to roll her eyes at her, but Sarah was back to looking ahead.

Of course.

Julia asked herself, for the tenth time in the last hour, why she was here. What had made her commit to that fake mayor NPC that she’d head out and dive back into these awful dungeons! She’d thought it would be fun. Her tutorial dungeon she’d woken up to had been ‘fun.’ Exactly like a fantasy game. Goblins, swords, even a dragon. That said, it wasn’t her normal type of game, but like everyone, she tried out that stuff now and again whenever she got the itch.

So she thought more dungeons would be more of that.

If she couldn’t sit at home and play her cozy games because she’d been abducted and stuffed into a VR reality, why not go back into the dungeons and get levels? It was a game, and she’d rather that than rot and deal with a billion NPCs she didn’t know and didn’t want to know. She’d thought it’d be alone, and that was great for her.

But no. She got stuffed in this group, stuffed in this death trap. And there weren’t any cool dragons to see anymore.

“There it is,” Nate whispered as they reached a pile of discarded boxes and barrels at the back of the fort. He gave a look to Julia and Sarah.

Julia stared back at him. Waiting.

Sarah gawked at her, “Watch the wall above, will you? We’re going to move it. Stop staring at him. You know the plan.”

She didn’t, actually. Half the time Nike had been talking, she’d been thinking about her magic and daydreaming about being safe and back in her cozy little apartment. It was the only way to cope with this nightmare. None of these NPCs seemed as phased as she was, which was bad programming, obviously. Sue her if she was a little distracted. This was way more than she volunteered for. No dragons, no goblins, some Greek or Roman monster cosplay? Who the hell wanted to play that kind of game?

Sarah kept up the mean face, so Julia gave her the finger and then turned her attention upward to the wall.

Now that she knew the plan, she’d follow along.

There were a lot fewer lights up there—actually, none at all—compared to the other side. There was shouting beyond the wall in a language that made no sense, but they were fine. No monsters left to see them sneak in.

Julia kept watching.

Until someone tugged at her sleeve.

Sarah was giving her another pissed look—then pointed at the hole which that guy Nate—she thought his name was Nate, but she wasn’t sure, maybe it was Nick?—was halfway through. “What are you doing?”

“Watching the wall, like you said,” Julia said, exasperated. Nothing seemed to make this lady happy; her social batteries were the lowest they’d been in ages. God. Please. Let. This. End.

Sarah stared at her.

Julia said sorry, then went for the hole. She remembered this much, at least, that Goddess had mentioned this, mentioned the barracks, and then mentioned that the flag was in the officer's tent… It would just get complicated around there, and the plan got a bit confusing. It wasn’t until after that which she was supposed to do stuff, unless things went wrong. And Julia was okay with that. That part was clear. She didn’t need to talk to anyone or sneak around to keep people from following them back out through this hole.