The morning passed relatively quietly for James after the excitement of Alan and Mitzi’s departure.

Dave and his squad were on their hunting trip. The other citizens of the Fisher Kingdom were about their usual business. Alan and the Fisher Expeditionary Force made it outside the borders of the Kingdom, but James continued to follow them through the consciousness of the wyverns that he had sent with them.

James felt that he was close to recovering the rest of his strength, so he and Mina made the decision to spend the day in the Dungeon, preparing as best they could for the larger adventure to come.

When he went into the bedroom to change clothes, Hester asked to stay behind in the apartment. She said that she had a task she needed to complete that she could only perform in a safe place. James had the feeling that she didn’t want him to ask what it was, so all he said was, “Good luck, I hope you accomplish the mission.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied. “We all have our part to play in the great narrative, and I feel privileged to weave a little more in my section of the tapestry.”

James felt something a little ominous in her voice, but Hester sounded more upbeat than he would have imagined if she was prophesying her impending doom or something. He decided that she would tell him about her task when she was ready.

He reached up a hand to his ear, signaling with his body language for her to get on.

After a moment, she stepped onto his hand, and James pulled her in front of his face so that he could see her eye to eye.

The little spider looked slightly larger than she had when they first met, but James realized after a moment that it was actually just that her abdomen was swollen. Then he knew why she wanted to stay behind. He smiled.

“I look forward to your success,” James said. He tried to convey in the tone of his voice the full range of emotions he felt as he looked down at her, but he doubted if it was possible even with all his verbal Skills.

“I’m not dying yet, boss,” Hester said softly. “If you were worried. Um, if I misread you—”

“You didn’t,” James admitted. “You’re part of the family, too, Hester. When and if something happens to you, we’ll all be sad. But especially me.”

“Well, nothing is happening yet,” Hester said. “When you get back, maybe you can help me learn to Dreamwalk? I think by going with you a few more times, I might acquire the Skill.”

James nodded, put the spider down on the wall, and finally donned his Royal Exoarmor. Mina had not bothered leaving the common area, since she could simply throw her Orientation robes on over her normal civilian clothing—but when James saw it, the getup seemed to him like inadequate protection.

Just a few layers of fabric between her soft body and monstrous claws and clubs…

“Do you want to wear my armor?” he asked. “My body is pretty tough at this point, and the armor usually breaks more easily than my bones would anyway.”

“It looks heavy,” she said. “Maybe I can try it after I get some levels and boost my Strength?”

James reluctantly agreed, and they advanced to the Dungeon.

There was no line outside that day, which James found curious at first. Then he considered that most of the Fisher Kingdom’s more ambitious Goblins and soldiers were preparing for their own journey outside the Kingdom. Doubtless, they would be forging and sharpening last pieces of equipment in preparation for the trip.

He and Mina entered the Dungeon, and he immediately realized that some upgrades had been made since his last visit—even since Mina’s last visit, as she had described it to him.

[Dungeon entered! You have arrived in Dungeon: Carol’s Place!]

Besides the slightly changed name—it had gone from “Carol’s Storage” to “Carol’s Place”—the geography was wildly different from what James had expected.

The space was no longer a simple warehouse or grocery store style location, a single large room with a door or two. Rather, they found themselves inside a cavern, standing before four tunnels that bored into the Earth in different directions.

“This wasn’t here when you last visited, right?” James asked.

Mina shook her head wordlessly.

“Hi there—oh, hey, wait, I think it’s my two favorite people!” Carol’s cheerful voice wafted down from the ceiling.

“Good to, um, see you again,” Mina said, chuckling a little. James was fairly certain she had never seen Carol, but he shared the sentiment. It was nice to be back here.

“You’ve been doing some home improvements,” James said.

“Well, now I have a rotating cast of guests here at all hours of the day and night,” Carol said. “We’re like a big city restaurant or something! Or, I guess, I’m like a big city restaurant. Still a little funny to refer to myself like I’m a business or a building.”

“Well, if you are a business, you should consider yourself quite successful,” Mina said.

“You’ve got a few people interested in following in your footsteps already, you know?” James added.

“I have heard about that. No one’s actually done it yet, though, right?” Carol said. She sounded slightly nervous.

“Not as far as I’ve heard,” he said.

“Well, you two will let me know if there’s some, um, competition out there, won’t you?” she asked. “I’ve been learning more about being a Dungeon, and it turns out that the natural predator of a Dungeon is other Dungeons. Who knew?”

“Oh, really?” James asked. He wondered suddenly if he could somehow use Carol to destroy the monotheists’ Dungeon, but he just as quickly dismissed the idea. A Dungeon run by a mid-level angel was surely far beyond her level. It was probably beyond his level.

“Not that I’m scared of them,” Carol hastened to add. “Just that if someone’s actually going to do the Dungeon Evolution path, I’d like to try and make friends with them first, to reduce the chances we actually collide. Even if I’m way ahead of anyone else who might want to become a Dungeon, I really hate conflict.”

James smiled.

“We’ll make sure we pass on anything we learn,” Mina said, smiling.

“Thank you,” Carol said. “Now, what brings you two here today?”

“We’re here to train,” James said. He wanted to say, I’m here to set the new high score on your leaderboard, but it sounded a little immature in his head. He was here for serious training, not to have fun defeating whatever monsters Carol could set up for him. That was at least true in theory.

“You’ve made some changes,” Mina said. “They look fantastic. Where do the tunnels go? Is it four different levels now?”

“Oh, more than that!” Carol said. Her voice dripped with pride. “The four tunnels correspond to difficulty modes, each of which has more than one level to it. The easy and medium difficulty are to the left, but they’re occupied right now. And anyway, knowing you two, I’m guessing you’d only be interested in the hard and expert modes.”

“You know us well,” James said. “Out of curiosity, who else has been doing hard mode and expert mode?”

“The hard mode levels, only a few people,” Carol said. “Damien Rousseau. Several, um, Vampires—because apparently you have Vampires here now, and they don’t have much to do around the Kingdom yet… And Dave Matsumoto went in a couple of times. He was quite determined, but he hasn’t beaten it yet.”

“Has anyone beaten the hard level?” Mina asked.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“The new bat leader, Evangeline, was the first one to do it. I think she’s the bat leader, anyway. The other bats she brought in were talking to her like she was an authority, and—”

“That’s right,” James said. “Evangeline is the new leader of the bats.”

“Well, she seems to have a little bit of a chip on her shoulder,” Carol said. “I don’t mean to speak ill of anyone. I think she’s the most determined out of all the people I’ve seen come into the Dungeon—and that’s a lot of people. It’s just that sometimes I worry about her. After she beat the third hard mode level, I thought she might take a break. Instead, she’s been grinding away at the first expert mode level. She’s the only one who goes in there, and you know I can’t stop the monsters on any given level from attacking once the Dungeon is active. The other bats are still stuck on medium difficulty. She’s really all alone every time she challenges the Dungeon. So I’ve just been a little worried. She pushes herself really hard, and since she’s inside by herself, I keep imagining something terrible could happen…”

“She’s at the top of your leaderboard, I’m guessing?” James said.

Carol was silent for a moment, then said, “Yes.”

James guessed she was still getting used to being unable to nod.

“We all push ourselves harder than we did before the System, but maybe you ought to talk to her,” Mina suggested.

“All right,” James said. “It’s time I actually got to know her, anyway. But for now let’s try out the Dungeon, unless Evangeline is in here right now.”

“We’re ready to accommodate,” said Carol in her best customer service voice. “Please go ahead to your preferred difficulty.”

James and Mina immediately advanced—to the hard and expert modes respectively.

“Oh,” James said, turning to gaze at Mina in mild surprise.

“Oh,” Mina said, looking back at him.

“You don’t think, um—” He tilted his head at the expert mode tunnel.

I’ll protect you if it gets really dangerous, he thought. This is the fastest way to improve.

Mina looked a little annoyed. He could almost read her mind. Be patient. If hard mode isn’t a suitable challenge, we’ll beat it quickly.

But it was clear that there was more than one level in each mode, and James remembered that it had taken a little time to clear one level back when Carol’s Dungeon was much weaker than it was now. Assuming it took them the day to complete hard mode, he wasn’t sure if they would be able to come back the next day. Things always seemed to come up for the Fisher King.

“Maybe the two of you should go separately,” Carol said, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen.

Mina’s expression relaxed. “That sounds good,” she said.

How is that safer for you than going with me into hard mode? James thought. Now he was annoyed. It felt a little like his protective abilities were being thrown into question. He had to detach for a moment and consider another reason why Mina might want to do hard mode by herself: she was still insecure about her personal strength.

He thought about that and decided that was probably the reason. Mina had seen how good he was at defending someone before, though perhaps only in the Battle of the Haunted Forest. He shouldn’t take her decision as reflecting on him.

James nodded. “Fine,” he said, smiling thinly.

Mina walked over and gave him a long kiss that made James feel much better. They separated, and then she leaned over to say something to him only.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” Mina whispered, her voice tickling his ear. “Have fun setting the new high score!”

Her way of whispering left him almost speechless. She could still make him weak in the knees after years of marriage and the birth of one infant.

“I hope you have fun, too,” he managed as she stepped back.

Then his head cleared a bit, and he could think properly about what she had said.

So, it was something that reflected on me, he thought. She thought I would want to smash through whichever difficulty mode we went into, and she wouldn’t get to do anything anyway. Yeah, she may have had a point there. I do want to set a new high score. Whatever’s driving Evangeline—she probably wants to prove herself to the other bats—I’m no less driven.

Mina turned and stepped into her tunnel without looking back, and James moved toward his.

“You two are such a cute couple now that I see you together in person,” Carol said.

James felt faintly embarrassed but simply smiled and nodded.

“Thank you. We really like each other.”

His verbal Skills seemed to be deserting him today. Maybe it was because he wasn’t lying to anyone, speaking to a crowd, or trying to manipulate people. Maybe it was because he was just a little too comfortable, and he wasn’t trying to use any verbal cleverness.

In any case, he stepped into the expert mode tunnel before he could be drawn into any further conversation.

It was a steeply downward-sloping hole in the ground, barely better than a pit—clearly designed for someone with high level physical abilities who had already cleared the previous levels. If James had not already dealt with the Mole People and Goblins in what was effectively a giant underground labyrinth, this place would have probably bothered him.

As things stood, his first thought was that he wondered if the tunnel Mina was passing through was less steep. This tunnel seemed unreasonable for her to walk into, unless she had James’s arm safely around her waist.

“Was there anything in particular you wanted to work on today?” Carol’s voice came from the sides of the tunnel as he moved down the slowly descending shaft.

I really thought I kind of got away from conversation by entering the tunnel, James thought. But this whole place is yours. Silly me.

“I have a standard level set up at the end of this pathway, but I can make small modifications if you tell me you need something special,” Carol continued.

“I’m not looking for anything in particular, Carol,” James said. He smiled, but his eyes were flinty and ruthless. “I just want to kill some things and see about beating the high score on the leaderboard.”

There went the idea of pretending to be more mature.

“Understood,” Carol replied. “Honestly, I thought it might be something like that. That was why I suggested you might want to be separate from Mina. I’ll leave the settings the way they were for Evangeline, then. She was really interested in testing her physical power, so this is probably going to be perfect for the, um, mood you’re in? I’m guessing you want to smash some heads.”

James nodded with enthusiasm. “Oh, yes.”

“Should I keep talking as you move down? Would you like any information on the level, or—”

“No,” James said. “Thank you, but I’m ready for whatever surprises you have in store. Excited to be surprised, if that makes sense. Unless there’s something that can kill me in one hit down there. Then you could give me a warning.”

“I don’t think so!” Carol chirped. “Um, I mean, I certainly hope not. I can see you’re even stronger than last time we met, and I don’t think I could easily craft a monster that could kill the past version of you that fast—if at all. If you die, it’ll be because the numbers were overwhelming.”

“Okay, then,” James said. “Numbers I can deal with.”

The only thing he didn’t want to face in this place was something like the Soul Eater that could destroy his soul on contact with its magic. But it sounded like that wouldn’t be a problem.

Carol went silent, and James continued his descent.

As he came near to the end of the tunnel, he saw a small, flickering light that marked the beginning of the new space. A few more steps forward revealed that it was a torch.

A sizable humanoid figure stood just within the space illuminated by the flame.

James estimated that it weighed in at around five hundred pounds or more. It stood at least eight feet tall, and its brawny bulk looked to be coated in thick gray rock-like skin.

Identify.

Gray-Skin Ogre, Lv. 25

Interesting. This place actually has some decently leveled monsters, assuming the ogre is representative. Not as strong as me, but I’ll have the chance to experiment and have some fun.

James decided that the expert mode Dungeon would be the perfect place to test out new attacks and ability combinations that he had not used in some time—or in some cases, ever.

Just a reminder, Roscuro’s voice pronounced in his head. The creatures in this place do not behave like the real versions of whatever monsters they are. As I mentioned about the Zombies last time. So, if you have encountered another ogre in your time, do not bring whatever assumptions you have about them into this fight.

My only assumptions about ogres are from old movies, Roscuro, James replied instantly. And I think Carol might take some inspiration from the same movies I’ve seen when she’s crafting monsters. Thanks for the tip, though.

James watched the monster from within the tunnel, and he noticed it remained unmoving, waiting for him to exit the hole and move into its space.

That gave him a little time to prepare his first attack.

He looked his environment up and down and saw there were some stalactites above him. He grabbed a particularly sharp one. Then he used Silk Production—a Skill he hadn’t employed since Orientation—to produce a long, strong, sticky thread from the spinnerets on his wrists.

It was long enough that James anticipated he would be able to use it to pull the stalactite back if he missed his throw. He wound the thread around the stalactite.

Then he took the stalactite by the shaft and held it like a javelin.

Predator’s Missile!

James let fly. He could sense some of his own aura suffusing the projectile as it soared. He knew the stone was deadly. For a moment, the Fisher King felt like David slinging his stone at Goliath.

Then the stalactite landed.

“Urkkkk!”