"I swear to everything holy! No, I swear on my bank account! I'm going to murder whoever made this game," Mindt shouted. "Fucking. Murder!" She threw her arms up in frustration as Retro curled on the ground, wheezing with laughter. A line of drool ran from his bottom lip.

"Do it," he breathed, gasping for air. "Do it again."

"Fuck you," she barked.

"You have to keep practicing," he said, wiping the spit from his mouth. He put his hands on his face, rubbing gently. "Oh. My cheeks hurt from laughing so much."

She felt ridiculous. She looked ridiculous — leather boots, tortoise shell shield, silver diadem in her hair, stole loosely hanging on her shoulders, and two scorched holes in her shirt where her nipples were. They poked through the holes preposterously.

"Maybe I'll get lucky and hit you!" she snapped.

"Now now, no need for that. I'm on your side."

She muttered under her breath. "Damn it."

Another Kamikaze Tortoise barreled at her in the distance at glacial speed, but she felt no threat by them anymore as she and Retro had already dispatched half a dozen of them plus another group of less dangerous squirrel-like monsters that tried to fight them with fencing swords. Frustratingly, they only dropped one fencing sword total in their loot, which Retro equipped. The only other things they dropped were butterknives. She rolled her eyes, but equipped one of them anyway.

They had leveled up to level 2 before finding a savepoint and choosing races and jobs. Understanding a bit more of how the game mechanics worked, she suspected that she would survive even if the tortoise detonated right in front of her, considering the Ice Shield spell she received from choosing a job.

She heaved a sigh.

"Fine," she said, and stood awkwardly to one side, pointing her chest towards the tortoise.

Suddenly, a purple blast of energy erupted from her nipple, sending an echo of reverberation throughout the air that sounded like a jet whizzing by, missing the tortoise by a wide margin. The blast hit a tree, and with a loud crack the tree toppled over.

"This is impossible," she said. "I've chosen a job with a useless spell and it's going to get me killed because I'm trapped in a game with the maturity of a 14 year old boy."

"It can't be that difficult," Retro said, stifling another laugh. "Try holding your breath or something."

"They fucking jiggle when I shoot. All right? It's hard."

"What if you held it in place?" he offered.

She shot him a scornful look. "Am I doing this, or are you?"

He bowed his head and showed his palms in a resigned, peaceful gesture. "Alright, it's your spell. Not mine." He ran a hand over his bald head. "I guess it would be like a man trying to pee while he runs."

"What," she said. "Listen, just shut up. Let me do this."

Shifting her weight to the other side, she concentrated, which was instantly broken as she stupidly put a hand on her chest, trying to guide the spell. She shook her head angrily, breathed, and regained concentration.

"For glory!" the tortoise was bellowing just as the force blasted into it, sending confetti and loot everywhere.

Coach: Holy mother of experience points! Look at you, you beautiful leveled-up masterpiece! You've just reached level three! Do you even realize what this means? Your stat points just had babies! Those skill trees? They're not just branches anymore - they're a whole forest of possibilities!

Remember when you were level 1, stumbling around, barely able to hold a stick? Now look at you! You're practically glowing with potential! I haven't been this excited since I saw a gnome punch a fire dragon in the face!

An avatar of the Coach app appeared, aggressively wiping a tear from one of its eyes.

Coach: Now get out there and show those monsters what a level 3 champion can do! And remember - stairs are just PLATFORMS FOR WINNERS! Go, go, go!

"Finally," she said. "And I hit level three!" She gave a little hop of excitement.

Aida: That tortoise is but a distant mammary.

Suddenly, her excitement fell to zero. I hate this game, she thought. She was starting to feel a growing displeasure for Aida, too.

Retro: Aida, that didn't translate well for me. Distant mammary?

Aida: It was a play on words in English, but it wouldn't make sense in Bulgarian. When I communicate with you, it's in Bulgarian, but for Mindt, it's English, even though you're both speaking Bulgarian aloud. Sorry. I use the tools that I'm given. Languages are a boon and a curse.

"Aida was making fun of me," Mindt said, annoyed.

"Oh," Retro said. "Making fun of you? Aida, that's not very nice. After all the work Mindt went through to learn how to use her spell properly." He turned to Mindt. "Are you okay? You look cold," he said, a grin blooming on his face.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Cold? No, I'm not —" Mindt started to say. He looked down at her chest for a moment and looked back into her eyes, same asshole of a grin plastered on.

"Now both of you are making fun of me," she muttered, glowering at him. "I hate both of you."

Retro burst into a fit of laughter again. His eyes crinkled at the corners as his shoulders bounced, and he slapped his knee for emphasis. His laugh was infectious, and she felt a smile grow on her own face. She could tell he meant no harm by his quip, just a middle-aged family man making his way through life, and what better way than to loose a few jokes here and there. He ended it with a satisfied "Ahhh."

"Okay, even though it wasn't funny at all, I forgive you," she said finally, using her stole to cover the unfortunate side effects of her spell.

"Let's review," he said. "It's well into the night and we didn't get a chance to sleep, what with our job selection from the last savepoint, which took a long time. We still don't know anything about the zombies and we are aimlessly walking around the countryside. Do you think the best path forward is to find another savepoint so we can get a nap in? It's just a matter of time before we get the Fatigued debuff."

"Makes sense to me. Aida, remind me. We are invulnerable when we are at savepoints?"

Aida: Yes, that's correct. Jiem cannot protect your body in the real world, however, so if something were to happen there, it's lights out. But here in VR, you will be safe if you're in a savepoint. Additionally, when the savepoint relocates and you come back to VR, you are invulnerable for 30 seconds. Oh, and while I have your attention, since you leveled up, I would suggest taking a look at your skill tree. You have a skill point you can use for any skill or spell.

She went over and collected the loot from the tortoise, which consisted of the same stuff as the first one they killed, except this one had a healing potion. She mentally clicked on each item, sending them to her inventory app, Cache.

Cache, she learned, was a high strung system obsessed with proper arrangement of incoming and outgoing items. It sounded like a butler having a perpetual anxiety attack.

Cache: Incoming package at dock seven! ahem Do pardon the outburst. Processing now... oh dear oh dear, it's not even labeled properly.

An avatar of the app appeared, tittering nervously.

And they expect me to- IS THAT BUBBLE WRAP NOT UNIFORMLY APPLIED?! Item relocating to Shelf B4... Shelf B4... someone has disrupted the alphabetical order on shelf B4! Don't they know how long it took to sort these healing potions by size and flavor? I do say, these shipping manifests are giving me heart palpitations! By the way, I've created a heart for myself just to have palpitations.

The avatar blinked away.

Mindt went into her menus, clicking on the spells tab for her Cryokinetic Sorceress job and giving it a once over. On the screen, three spells were colored in fully while a huge array of them remained greyed out, indicating they were unusable for now. Mentally clicking on a skill or spell would give a description of them, but she hadn't found the time to fully peruse the entire tree. She reviewed her enabled spells. Ice Shield, Frostlight, and Titular Torpedo were the spells she got from choosing a job, and she was familiar with all three now.

Ice Shield was a simple spell that blocked all incoming physical and magical damage equal to the amount of health she had, effectively doubling her health points. Frostlight was equally simple, which created a floating crystal of ice emanating light that followed her around. The spell was a bit redundant because she had chosen a Wood Elf race, which allowed her to see in the dark better than any human could, but it might be useful for Retro, who had no such vision improvements. And finally, the Titular Torpedo spell, that goddamned spell. She briefly examined it:

Wiki: Titular Torpedo - Powerful force blast that causes push back to enemies. 25% chance to cause reverberation upon impact.

It took up 8 of her mana points just to cast the spell once, but her mana regenerated to 100% after a few minutes. In the heat of combat, she would need to be careful with how often she used this spell, since most battles didn't last more than a couple minutes. In her inventory, she had a mana potion, which would replenish 30% of her mana when she consumed it. Now that she was level 3, her mana points increased to 34, so she would be able to cast the spell 4 times in battle without consuming the mana potion.

On top of that, each of her spells could be leveled up on their own without consuming a skill point. Unfortunately there was no way of knowing what would happen when the skill leveled up, but she assumed it would decrease mana costs or make them more powerful.

With each level up, she could distribute stat points. She didn't quite understand how they all worked together yet, so she just kept them unallocated for now.

The skill points she did understand though. It would unlock a skill or spell that she could add to her arsenal.

"Are we still good with the idea that I'm the ranged character and you're the melee character? Are you sure that's wise given your job?" she asked Retro.

"Yep. I'm okay with it."

Retro had chosen something that she didn't quite understand, a Doppelganger race with the DadBard job. He didn't look any different than before except now he had a bulbous belly that protruded over his belt. With his bald head, she thought he looked a little bit like Buddha. His race selection would let him disguise himself as a drow, a noodle pixie, whatever that was, or a human, with more options coming available as his character rose in levels. He had kept himself in the human form thus far.

The DadBard job was …interesting.

Wiki: DadBard

A warrior who channels the ancient power of eye-rolling puns and "Hi Hungry, I'm Dad" energy. DadBards gather annually at a home improvement store to share ancient wisdom about lawn care and power tool maintenance. They can often be found in their natural habitat: the garage, organizing nuts and bolts while humming classic rock tunes of long dead singers that probably overdosed. They may not look it with their untoned arms and slightly sagging jowl, but they possess the same strength they still had in their prime, just not the stamina.

Initial Stats:

+5 charisma

+3 dexterity

+2 intelligence

+3 wisdom

+10 "singing in the shower"

This job requires a minimum charisma of 16.

Starting spells:

I'm Not Mad, I'm Just Disappointed - temporarily lowers defense of a single enemy by 20%

Duct Tape - heals a character or structure 50% of their maximum health

Starting skills:

Grill Master - adds +1d8 fire damage to any melee attack. This is a passive skill and does not consume mana.

She felt he was a bit frail to be on the front line without any defensive capabilities other than armor, and his Duct Tape spell cost half his mana. Additionally, it had a long cooldown so he couldn't cast it multiple times in succession. She also noticed that his mana regenerated slower than hers, probably because she had a higher intelligence stat than he did.

"Oookay," she said, looking back at her spells tab. She wanted to grab a spell called Repulsion Ring, which would create a circle of force around her and push away any enemies that got close to her at the time, but that wouldn't help Retro if he was in trouble, and she needed her teammate alive if she were to remain alive herself.

So she went with the only thing that made sense, a skill called Friend Zone. It would enable her to toggle on or off an ability that gave her party members immunity from damage to her offensive magic spells. Sure, they wouldn't be immune from the tree that falls on them after she accidentally sent it crashing down considering her aim was abysmal, but if Retro was up close with a mob, she didn't want to accidentally kill him.