Stumbling her way up through the trapdoor into the storage room and back out into the dining area of the cafe, Zoe took a good long moment to let the accumulated rage really build up before launching herself at her clone.

The lava was only the beginning. She had dived through acid lakes, waded through what she was pretty sure was a nuclear swamp, dug her way out of an avalanche, trudged through a blizzard… yeah, Zoe was pretty sure she had survived every kind of natural disaster known to man.

There was absolutely nothing that had been positive about the experience. Sure, she had gained dozens of resistances and all of them had leveled up to tier one. But that didn’t actually count! As soon as she was out of this place and back in the real world, they would go away!

What the hell was the point of all of that?!

So to put it simply, Zoe had just dragged herself out of hell, she was extremely pissed, and the devil was laughing at her.

Zoe lunged.

The bloody tentacle impaled her through the chest before she could even get a meter closer. Gasping, Zoe tried to heal herself. Her ability activated without problem, but her mirror ripped the corruption away from her with ease and then hurled it back at her.

Zoe coughed up syrupy black blood.

Lifting her up and then bringing her closer, Zoe’s mirror looked up at her, head tilted. “Was it really so bad?”

“Fuck,” Zoe wheezed, “you.”

Rolling her eyes, the fake Zoe dropped her down into one of the chairs and then dispelled the pulsating red tentacle. “Are you ready to behave now, or do you need to stay in time out a little longer?”

Zoe glared. “What was the point of that?” Before her mirror could answer, she ranted on. “The resistances I gained would be nice — except oh wait! They aren’t going to last once I’m back in reality! Where I’ll have you know, I only have five points of mana and am about to be decapitated by a space mage!”

Gripping the edge of the table so hard it splintered, Zoe continued ranting even more. “What even is that option? Is that the cursed one? The one for masochists? The one the system gives you as a cruel joke and that no one sane would ever take?” Huffing, Zoe crossed both sets of arms. “Do you know how many times I almost died? Because I sure don’t. I kind of lost count after the boiling mudslide.”

Tilting her head again, Zoe’s copy assessed her for a moment in silence before finally speaking. “Almost died. You did survive.”

“And?”

“Resilience. If you choose this path, it’s not like the Grand Design is going to start conspiring to put you into all kinds of deadly situations. The point of those trials was to show you the capacity you could develop to survive anything. To rise back up and brush the dust off again and again. To ultimately triumph no matter who or what you stand against.”

Zoe just glared. “I’m pretty sure you could have gotten that point across in a far less miserable way.”

Laughing, her mirror leaned forward. “But where would the fun be in that?”

Ignoring the much more annoying version of herself, Zoe considered her options so far. The knowledge path seemed much more appealing, she had to admit. After all, the amount of power it looked like it would grant her would definitely make surviving easier. On the other hand, being able to survive, especially early on, would allow her to work towards that same knowledge, or anything else. You can keep trying as long as you’re not dead.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

But still, Zoe was pretty sure that between the two, she would choose the knowledge path. Her decision wasn’t based on logic, though she could certainly try to rationalize it. No, she was just personally biased — but she would say rightfully so.

“So what now?” Zoe licked her fangs. “Can you uh —” she made a ‘stop’ gesture as her copy raised her fingers to snap again. “Can you maybe please explain what the third one is going to be before I get thrown into whatever it is?”

To Zoe’s delight, her copy paused. “Sure, I could do that.”

“Thanks.”

“I won’t though.”

Zoe flinched as her mirror snapped. Nothing happened.

Several seconds passed. Zoe was about to speak again when the second snap came, and then she was once again somewhere else.

After taking a few seconds to get her bearings, Zoe realized she was in some kind of vault — or specifically, an armory. What seemed like golden afternoon light filtered in through thin slits in the vaulted stone ceilings, illuminating the dusty, sand colored stone columns. The entire space was filled with racks of weapons.

And nothing else. No armor, no other supplies, no furniture — just racks and racks of every manner of weapon. Looking around again, Zoe saw her double casually leaning against a nearby column.

Cautiously taking her first step forward, Zoe waited for something to jump out at her. When nothing did, she became a little more confident and walked up to the nearest rack. I hope this is more like the library. With that thought in mind, Zoe deliberately avoided actually touching any of the weapons. She didn’t want to be instantly sucked into a life-or-death fight.

“So, can you tell me now what this is going to be like?”

Shrugging, her copy gestured around vaguely. “All you have to do is try a few weapons. The rest should be pretty self explanatory.”

Zoe swept her gaze around again. “Right…”

Deciding to take a bit of a risk, Zoe picked up what she assumed to be a one-handed sword. Probably the slashing kind more than the stabbing kind, though she honestly wasn’t sure. She knew that a sword was a weapon that took at least a decent degree of training and practice, none of which she had. She was hoping that choosing it would give her that skill similar to how she had gained knowledge in the library.

Zoe was so focused on examining the sword that it took her a few moments to realize that the floor beneath her was rising.

Alarmed, Zoe looked around again. She was in the middle of a stone square about two meters on edge, and it was slowly but surely rising upwards. Looking up, Zoe saw an identically sized metal grate sliding open, revealing a cloudless blue sky overhead. And now, from above and all around, she could clearly hear the roar of a cheering crowd.

Fucking hell, apparently I’m a gladiator now.

As Zoe rose to the surface, she rapidly assessed the situation. The pit of the arena was about one and a half times as big as a full basketball court. It was covered in sand and surrounded by a stone wall at least half a dozen meters high. All around her, more people were rising up from below. Zoe analyzed one of them.

{Champion Slayer - 100}

Holy FUCK.

Zoe lashed her tail in agitation. She was really regretting choosing a sword for this. Honestly, she would probably be better off just ditching it and going hand to hand — or hand to claw. Honestly, it was kind of difficult to even hold it, given her current anatomy.

That changed when the platform clicked into place. A sense of familiarity washed over Zoe, and she immediately adjusted her grip to something at least halfway proper. The sword felt natural in her grasp — and while she wasn’t confident in winning against even one of these people, let alone a dozen, she didn’t regret her choice of weapon.

Maybe it’s like a battle royale and I’ll only have to kill one at a time.

But even then, she didn’t know how she was going to beat even a single level one hundred, let alone multiple in a row.

The other platforms clicked into place.

All eyes turned on her.

Fuck.

For a moment everyone was still. It was then {Combat Sense} alerted Zoe to the attack from behind.

Stepping to the side and pivoting around in one fluid motion, Zoe slashed at the archer. Unfortunately, the woman was several meters out of reach.

But that didn’t matter, because the crescent arc of Zoe’s own boiling, corrupted blood cut deep into her neck anyway.