Every day I traveled to Mateo’s tomb and checked if Fernando appeared there. I waited around the area for fifteen minutes, with my guard up because I knew they could use this routine to coordinate an attack against me. And that day it would be no different. The girl’s didn’t suspect me, as the excuse was that I was going out to walk Mariana, and Mariana, as you may know, loved her walkies.

So at the fourth day of doing this, after Mariana teleported us both to the derelict castle and we made our way around the pit’s edge to reach the hill were we had buried Mateo, we found the lovebirds and their two little crimes against nature having a picnic under a willow.

“High time you showed up,” Fernando said, mariana running to his encounter and jumping happily around him, Violeta crawling back, their children in arms. She was clearly vexed at the fact that Mariana was ruining the mantelpiece with her muddy paws.

“How did you know it was me, snake?” Violeta asked, not bothering to feign amity nor any sort of politeness.

I sauntered up to them with my hands in my pockets. Made of belts, of course. “Because I have a brain and the superpower of pattern recognition. First of all: you spared a witness by carefully choosing a poison that barely causes hangover-like symptoms to half-elves. Granted, it was a common choice of poison too it was reasonable to think of this as a mere coincidence. But you left the scene too, taking Negro with you, trying to make it look like you were escaping a murderer.” I clapped slowly. “And then, when Fernando said half-elf pussy was great—”

“You said what?!” She scowled at her lover.

“He was speaking about Florencia wanting to seduce him and him rejecting her advances! It just slipped, dear,” said the slobbered man, victim of Mariana’s friendly demeanor.

“Anyway, when he said that, it all fell into place inside my skull. You had a motive, you had the knowledge, and the father of your,”— I made sure to put on an expression of utmost disgust before uttering the following word — “hybrids was a master of infiltration. You barely left the castle, so your lover had to slip in. Who better for that than Mental Gatorade Man?”

“Walter, that’s… a really tame nickname for you to give me. I’ll take it.”

“I consider I need to be kind with someone so mentally disadvantaged to fuck a half-elf.”

Fernando sighed. “There he is, the Walter we all know.”

I smiled and sat by their mantelpiece, helping myself to one of his pieces of bread and offering it to Mariana.

Mariana almost chomps my hand away to get a hold of the floury good. “Thank you! Thank you! Food! Food! Food!” she chanted into all of our minds.

“Tell her to stop, Walter!” The murderer —the one that wasn’t me— demanded, as her brats started crying.

“It’s useless. This behavior is deeply ingrained in her psyche. It’s like telling a tornado to not blow your shack away.”

“Fo-od, Foood, Food,” Mariana persisted in her sorry state of dogness.

“Let’s keep this short: You may join us, if you show yourself capable of handling a small menace to public safety without becoming a big menace to public …” Fernando trailed off and stared fixedly at Mariana. “…Why are you leveling up, girl?”

Mariana, as it was natural, licked her nose. “The furry drawing incited madness in two intergalactic empires and now they are at war with each other. I am getting assists from this first battle of theirs.”

Mariana’s experience bar in our party interface raced from beginning to end, and it was accelerating. Loudly. It wooshed.

“Mariana, if you are going to do this, do it right,” I said, mustering the most serious tone I could. “Make your announcers play Initial-D songs while you leech XP off of alien warlords.”

Mariana decided to add sound effects to her level-ups instead.

“Walter, tell her to stop leveling up. The dings are atrocious,” Violeta Party-pooped, covering her ears with both hands.

Stolen story; please report.

“I don’t think she can, Vio.”

Mariana was trembling with emotion as her numbers rose astronomically. The experience gain was increasing by the second, and my girl’s hair shone with a pseudodivine aura. She emanated a pleasant warmth, as if you had stuffed a heater inside a giant Chihuahua.

I licked my hand and then caressed her once, only to listen to the sizzling sound of water boiling away. “Interesting.”

“Walter, we need to stop her…” Fernando said, calmly producing a dark, shadowy pistol from his forehead.

“And you had to Athena a gun out of your mind for that? Mariana is immune to guns.”

“First of all, you cannot use Greek goddesses as verbs, Walter. And second… What?”

“I am a gundog.” Mariana explained. “I am gun-typed.” Mariana barked in direction of a passing bird and it fell limp, as if struck by the pellets of a shotgun. “See?”

Violeta’s palm met her face, and she tried to further cover her children with her body. “Could you not shoot in presence of the children?”

I could grant her wish. I could get rid of the children first. Or improvise a baby-bazooka and use them as ammo. But Fernando would probably not like that. Those were his children, too, as ugly as I considered them. And I didn’t want to kill the family of my rival yet.

A gust of wind blew and brought us the scent of Mariana’s stray fart. She was dead inside, such that Violeta and Fernando began gagging., and the babies’ Hp bars decreased by 10%.

“Walter… we got to stop… her.” Violeta said, her eyes red, the veins of her forehead marked.

“Why?” I asked, unfazed by the vicious smell I had suffered so many times before.

“Rapid increases on dog levels lead to level inflation and then level adjustment across the board,” Fernando said, letting the gun turn into a memory cigar and taking a drag out of it. “In other words, Mariana will be fine. We will be all at the new level one.”

“Ah,” I made a small, dreamy pause. “We are losing a buttload of power in a fell swoop? Amazing,” I said, my stare lost in the remembrance of the good times.

Violeta’s blood-shot eyes opened wide. “Why are you two smiling? We are getting fucked over by a dog!”

“It reminds us of home, love. A reconversion of the experience system sounds… delightful.”

Violeta stood and carried her babies away from the South-American aura that was settling in the place, while Mariana began to spin in place and shine brighter.

“Imagine how weak we will be. We will wake up and be unable to beat a bunny,” I said, barely containing my excitement.

“All of our hard work, erased just like that.” Fer bit his lip and, I think, moaned slightly. “Do you think the powers that be will grant us a little weekly or monthly experience bonus and claim themselves as the saviors of the adventuring class?”

“Oh, that would be scrumptious. Or imagine we go out in the streets to reclaim for a leveling curve with human dignity and get beaten to a pulp by forces that obey the Demiurge. It’s a shame the locals will never learn to appreciate the small screwings of life.”

“But we should stop your dog, or the others will get mad at us,” Fernando said, and leaned back on the grass. “Yes, we totally should.”

I let myself fall on my back and stared at the clouds pass by. “I agree. We should stop her. Somehow. Think of a plan, and… subcontract someone to stop her.” I suggested, not moving a muscle.

“Oh, we are so good thinking on ways to stop this crisis. We could make that someone subcontract someone else to do part or all of the thinking.”

“Splendid. And that someone could subcontract someone else. Subcontracted turtles all the way down.”

“We could subcontract a couple elephants to provide emotional support,” I suggested. “Where are we getting funding from?” I posed the question that could make or break our plans

Fernando chuckled, still lost in the reverie. “Beg the interdimensional monetary fund?”

“Oh fuck yes. Give me that century spanning debt, baby! We shall minimize the efficiency of the funds, though. Contract the most expensive catering.”

The world dinged and flashing-red error messages appeared all over the firmament. Mariana had reached the absolute level limit and kept on pushing it. She was now a spinning ball of blue light.

“Ah, well. Fuck,” Fernando articulated, denoting his elevated speech stat. “I am so sad about this.”

“Yeah, very sad. “I said as I looked at my levels go back to 1 with a smile, my belts being silenced once and for all. They deserved it. Don’t tell me they didn’t.

Checking Mariana’s in the party screen, I noticed she had settled at the new level ninety-nine. Mariana was still a powerhouse. One that wasn’t spinning anymore, and instead had a distressed look in her eyes. “Walter, the numbers went down!” She said, prey of panic and her own stupidity.

“Average Royal Road reader moment,” I said, unaware that one day I would post my adventure there, doubling the pleasure derived from this line.

“I lost my memory powers. Fuck. Help me and my wife level up in exchange for a membership in the team?” he offered, standing and extending a friendly hand.

“Fine. But I cannot let Sabrina, Florencia, and mainly, Cornelio to fend for themselves.”

“Walter, they cannot see Violeta with me. But…” His slanted gesture told me what he was thinking.

“Hey, she is on maternity leave, right? Grow strong and you can take care of her.” I took his hand, swiftly coming to my feet. “We can still use many of our equipment items, I assume.”

“Yes, we should.”

Then I grabbed Mariana from the tail and felt power coursing through me. “WE are going grinding, girl?”

“How gay,” Mariana said, probably confusing grind and Grindr.

“Farming.”

“Slightly less gay,”s she gave credit where credit was due.

“I know of a low level dungeon we can try. Bring Vi’s siblings, I will convince her to stay at home…. For which Mariana will need to provide teleporting services,” Fernando admitted in a grunt.

I smirked. For the first time, I could say and mean it almost genuinely: Thanks, Mariana.