Passing by the upper floors again confirmed some of my suspicions. The monsters, at least those with some degree of intelligence, took one look at us and ran in the opposite direction. So much so that we were able to descend up to the 8th floor without being bothered. Just as when we descended in a group during yesterday's class.

Even after the 8th floor, most of the monsters we were coming across seemed really hesitant to pick a fight. Looking at us in the same way a normal animal might look at a human-sized honey badger.

I still fought with everything I had. Lunging over and over and elongating my arms into clawed limbs that whipped around like serpents.

The monsters would be impaled and then we would move on.

But I wasn't feeling any kind of feedback from my kills. These fights were so easy that I wasn't getting anything out of it.

I ended up speeding up the process by forming a repeating Bio-Rifle on my right arm and just blasting away. That saved us a lot of time, even with Elsie doing next to nothing herself.

"Are you sure it's okay for us to skip class?" I asked as we reached the stairs leading to the 10th.

"A-okay! I got permission directly from Mr. Burrows and the rest of our teachers. Today is a mental-health day for you to relax and enjoy some private training." Elsie answered.

"I thought the whole point of today was going to be you taking me to do something fun." I remarked half-heartedly.

"Well duh! That's why we're down here in the Dungeon and not up there on the surface throwing axes at a target or tipping moose over." She bit back. Her steps carrying a certain rush of energy. A certain liveliness that made her seem as if she were dancing on air every time she took a step.

She turned around suddenly and her index finger was wagging in front of me before I could react.

"Come now Cecil. Don't play coy with me. You might hate what Pool-Cecil did. You might hate the way other people look at you now. You might even hate the things he whispers in your ear from time to time. But you can't tell me you hate the power he gave you."

She went all, tut-tut. Clicking her tongue once and twice.

"Anyone with eyes could see that you were desperate for stats back when you were level 1. And that you were working yourself to the bone trying to get them. That dedication is actually one of the things I like the most about you."

She gave me an impish grin.

"It reminds me of myself."

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah. And you'll see it too once you drop the skepticism and actually try to look at things from my point of view. Imagine a little girl. A smaller, cuter version of me. Let's say she was 8. Same age as your cousin. Now imagine her being level 1, as most 8-year-olds are. And imagine that she is surrounded on all sides by people who have built up their whole personality, their whole self-image, on the notion that the world as we know it today will end. And that it will end someday soon. That there is no way to stop it and that everyone who can't take care of themselves might as well shower in condiments when the time comes. Because anyone who can't fight may as well be chow for the monsters."

Her tone grew more somber as we descended.

"Now imagine that little girl doesn't have to worry about herself, as all the other little girls do. But that she is also being told, taught, that she has more potential than any of her peers because she has a better Core. That it is her responsibility to get stronger and stronger. Faster than anyone else. Because she has to set an example for the others. That she has to be a leader because she was built better than the rest. That she has to be a champion because she had all the advantages from the beginning. Much more so than the others."

The impish grin was still there on her face, but it felt off now. More false and hollow than before.

Like a diamond that had lost its luster.

"This girl doesn't cry or whine or complain. She runs when she is told to run and she studies when she is told to study. She gets smart because it is expected of her. She gets strong because it is expected of her. Because her older brother is such a genius at such a young age and her mom and dad are all very strong, very important people and her grandad is the heir apparent and her great-grandad is the one who thought up the plan. The one who went out of his way to have children this time around."

"This time?" I asked. Seeing where this was going.

"Yep. This time. Old Carlyle Robertson didn't marry the love of his life or have children the first time around. A squad of Japanese soldiers gunned her and a bunch of other resistance members down. It didn't happen in this timeline and great-grandpa made sure to make the most of it."

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

She turned around as she danced down the stairs. Now whistling a cheery tune.

"You might even say that me and all my other family members in this timeline were bred for the express purpose of being a force to be reckoned with. To have kids and to make sure those children then had more children with the right people."

"That... sounds awful." I managed after a minute. "I don't even know what to say. I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"Oh don't be!" Elsie waved me off. "I'm not bitter or anything. You're taking this the wrong way."

She was nodding now, as if to re-assure herself.

"I have never complained and the people around me have never been anything but nice and supportive the whole way through. I have no doubt in my mind that my entire family loves me and I have never felt anything but love from them. In the wider context of the world, I would even go so far as to say that I was blessed. I have never been neglected or abused. I have never wanted for anything and I have never felt anything close to a lack of love and support. Most people can't say that, Cecil. Most people have not had it as good as me. That's a fact. I have never felt the need to push myself too hard past my limits. In fact, I've been told to slow down my training on more than one occasion!"

She leapt into the air. Just for the fun of it. Landing with catlike grace with her eyes facing me.

"I have never had a problem living up to expectations Cecil. Not once. On the contrary. I relish being asked to train. I love working hard and knowing that I'm ahead of the curve. I love being told that I'm doing a good job and I love the feeling that my family are proud of me. I love the approval. The praise. I can't get enough of it."

"Yeah. I can tell." I said offhandedly. Before I cringed at my own callousness. "Sorry. That... that was insensitive of me."

"No. Don't be sorry Cecil. That's an honest opinion. Never be ashamed of those. I sure aren't. And speaking of honest opinions, you know what really grinds my gears? What really sets my teeth on edge like nothing else?"

"Slackers." I said at once. Realizing that she was trying to draw on similarities between us.

"Exactly! On point! Slackers."

She said the word as if it were a slur. The N word with a hard, HARD R at the end.

"I hate looking around me and seeing people who aren't just content with meeting the minimum expectations, but actually falling short of those expectations. I despise seeing people who were born with Magic, one of the very few who had the luxury of being born with a half-decent Core from the get-go, and seeing them piss the opportunities away doing something stupid like drinking mushroom wine or chasing down mundane wolves around the forest for cheap thrills. They sit on the couch and they put on a movie and they relax. Letting their guard down when they are still weaker than the average Dungeon monster. When anything from below the 20th floor could snap them up in half a heartbeat."

She waved over at herself.

"Even me! As strong as I am, would have a hard time with monsters from that floor if I was alone. Granted, my Core isn't geared towards fighting, but that's beside the point. There is a bare minimum amount of effort and most of the bozos in this town are simply not up to par. There are people out there that you haven't met. In other outposts. People who have all the drive in the world but can't improve because of how they were born. How their parents trained."

Her hands clenched into fists.

"I have friends I grew up with. People I've known my whole life, that don't deserve the chances they've been given. And I have met people these past few years that deserve all the chances and more! But they can't have them because of factors outside their control! I see that and I want to push myself even harder. To really earn everything I was given for free. To really be the one who can protect them when the time comes. I have seen inside your mind more than once. I know that's how you feel about your family. I know you wanted to be strong, not for you, but for them."

She gave me a ferocious smile. The kind that I had only seen on Mr. Robertson the elder or coach Russel up to that point.

"You might think that I hold some kind of grudge towards you for all those war-crimes back in the other Dungeon. You'd be dead wrong. Yeah, I was upset at being shot at. Who wouldn't be? But more than that, I was glad that the idiots around me, all those snooty upperclassmen who didn't feel the proper amount of shame at being a lower level than me at 14, finally got what was coming to them. Your stunt was a wake-up call. And it sure did the trick. Everyone knew back then, that you let us leave because you didn't want to kill us. Everyone realized that the Other-Cecil could have butchered us without much effort. For the first time, the seniors are working as hard as they should be, because they know what it's like to be powerless. Because they know you, at 14, could kill them all within a single afternoon. And they know there won't be a damn thing they can do about it until they get down to the ground and train properly."

She stopped for breath and I only then realized she hadn't inhaled a single time during her rant.

"I thought about doing something similar on more than one occasion you know. But I always knew that if I did it, everyone else would have chalked up the loss to me being the great-granddaughter of the mighty Carlyle. They would have dodged all accountability by patting themselves on the back and reasoning that it couldn't be helped because I probably had way more resources and training than they did."

She spat to the side.

"And now they see you a newcomer, beat the living snot out of them. And they can't run away anymore."

She seemed more content once the words left her mouth.

"Words really cannot express how thankful I am, Cecil. Nor how much I notice and appreciate the work you put in."

She lunged. Quick as the wind. Moving like an arrow cleaving through the air until she was mere inches away from me.

"Which is why I'm not going to use words. Not this time. I'll let my feelings do the talking."

"What do you...?"

She took my hand in hers.

"Open your mind to me, Cecil. You've shown me what you can do, so let me show you what I can do. You can make up your mind after that."

I hesitated, but grudgingly let her in. Feeling some measure of relief as Pool-Cecil cried out in pain, then pleasure. As he ad I melted into something else.

Something greater.

The world grew fuzzy then, and the walls containing the physical world receded, while our minds were opened up to different dimensions outside of time and space.

I tried to speak, but my voice came out all wrong. Too high-pitched and...

Oh. That's Elsie's voice.

"No Cecil. It's our voice."

"Right. Our voice." I... we... said.

"I can't tell where I end, and where you begin." We said.

"It isn't too hard, once you get the hang of it." We said in response.