It was sunny outside. Mongrel was playing in the yard with his boys. Number Five rode on his shoulders while the others chased him around, whooping and screaming as they swatted at him.

When Bee asked where Will was, he directed her around the back of the house. There, past the shower and a little crop field, stood a smaller building just before the treeline; not much more than a shack. It had large, open windows, and she smelled a sharp, herbal scent as she got closer.

The interior was neatly organized, but still managed to be cluttered due to the sheer amount of miscellanea packed in there. There were boxes and drawers and cabinets full of various plants and other reagents, with even more hanging from the ceiling in bundles to dry.

Will was bent over a workbench with his back to her, crushing up some dry leaves with a mortar and pestle and adding the resulting brownish powder into a growing pile of the same stuff.

“Good morning,” Bee said, only somewhat accusingly.

Will spun around in his stool to face her. He was wearing a leather apron, along with a cloth face mask around his neck and a pair of thick-lensed goggles on his forehead. “Hey there. Sorry for not staying in bed—I like to start working early.”

“What are you making? More cigarettes?”

“No, not right now. This is actually for my second top-seller. Wanna guess what that is?”

Bee shrugged. “No idea. Healing potions?”

“Nope. Potions of minor cure disease. You have no idea how many STDs these people get. It’s… genuinely disgusting, but at least I’m making good money on the back of it.”

“Did you sacrifice pieces of yourself to the demon?” Bee blurted out without really intending to. “I talked with her earlier, and…”

Will sighed, rubbing at the stump of his missing finger. “Uh, yeah. I did. I probably should have told you right away, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not like you to keep secrets.”

“I know. I guess I didn’t want you to feel guilty over it.”

“Your finger and your foot. What else did she take from you?”

“I gave her a finger, a foot, a kidney, and a testicle. One sacrifice for each contract.”

“Jesus, Will.”

He shrugged. “It’s all right. If anything, I got off easy. A lot of demons would have demanded more payment than that.”

“Why is it that we can’t just kick her out, again?”

“Demons are strong, Bee. And the more humans they feed off of through contracts, the stronger they get. Nix is an emergent demon, which is like the middle ground between a greater demon and a lesser demon. Mongrel and I could maybe take a lesser demon together, but fighting Nix just wouldn’t be worth the risk. Don’t worry, though. I’ve got a plan for her.”

That gave her a bit of relief. “You do?”

“Mmhmm. I’m going to find a demon slayer and hire them to take her out. They’re pretty rare in the Frontier, since demons are pretty integrated into society at this point, but in some of the other colonies you get loads of them. I’ll track one down sooner or later.”

“Right. Can’t happen soon enough.” When Will made to stand, she took him by the arm. “Thank you. For doing all that for me. I’ll prove myself worthy of the sacrifice.”

“I know.”

Will hung his work gear on some hooks by the door and accompanied her outside. While they wandered around to the front, he asked: “You given any more thought to your build?”

“I feel the same as yesterday,” Bee said firmly.

“I could go over some of the skills with you, just so you have more of a concept of what you’d be losing out on.”

“I’m good.”

“You sound very confident.”

“I just know this is the right choice.”

“You sure?”

Bee nodded. “I’m sure.”

“All right,” Will said with a chuckle. “Let’s get your divine vow locked in, then.” He took her through to his bedroom and sat her down at a writing desk. He gave her a piece of charcoal, then placed two pieces of paper in front of her. One with writing on it, and one without.

“You write down the terms of the divine vow yourself, and the Concord decides whether to accept it or not,” Will explained. He pointed to the paper with writing on it. “I’ve already checked the wording to make sure it works. Just copy that down, word for word. It needs to be written in your hand.”

Bee complied with a nod.

The note said:

I, Beatrice Worthy, pledge to forego all skill use in perpetuity. In return, the Holy Concord shall grant me, in perpetuity, double attribute point gain.

“That last part’s important,” Will said. “It means that if you manage to gain attribute points by means other than leveling, that will also be doubled. It’s not very common, but it can happen, and I have plans for it. Either way, these are really good terms. I tested out a bunch of variants to push it as far as possible, and this is the best combination I could find. Any more than this and the Concord won’t consider it a fair trade.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“So you’re telling me I’m gonna get buff as shit?” Bee asked, grinning.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

She copied over the text from the first note onto the other, ending up with charcoal all over her hands. “Okay, what now?”

“Eat the paper,” Will said, without any trace of insincerity.

“You serious?”

“Dead serious.”

“You’re not fucking with me?”

“I’m not fucking with you. This is the only way to activate the divine vow.”

There was nothing for it, then. Bee balled up her scrap of paper and stuck it in her mouth, chewing on it and wetting it with her saliva. It took over a minute until she had ground it into a paste fine enough to choke down. The taste of soggy cellulose clung to the back of her throat, making her grimace as she worked the last bits of paper from her teeth to swallow them.

She waited a while after that, but nothing really happened.

“I feel the same,” Bee said. “Did it not work?”

“It worked,” Will assured her with a clap on the back. “Well, with that done, we can get your training started. Feeling ready?”

Bee jumped to her feet. “Yes, coach!”

*****

Bee found herself in the yard with Number One, Number Two, and Number Four staring back at her. The chimps wore fur-lined helmets, padded versions of their regular vests, and arm guards, each carrying a large wooden mallet.

“I’ve got a three-stage training regimen planned out for you,” Will called from the porch, where he lounged with Mongrel. “This is the first section. Beat all three of them, and you’ve passed.”

“Wait, but—”

Bee took a blow to the side of her head that rang her skull like a bell and sent her toppling over. She struggled to get her legs underneath her as the world wobbled and her head thumped with hot, radiating pain.

She had gotten to one knee when a mallet hit her in the chest and sent her onto her back, the air driven from her lungs. She tried to call a time-out, but wasn’t able to get any words out, and got the feeling that no one was listening, anyway.

The boys messed her up badly. Bee could only curl into the fetal position to protect her vitals while they wailed on her with mallets, each hit rattling her entire being.

It should have killed her. Those were heavy weapons, and the chimps hit far harder than any normal human.

Despite that, she somehow stayed conscious and breathing, if only barely.

After what felt like hours, Mongrel finally called for his familiars to back off.

“Thirty minute break,” Will said, crouching down by her side. He got her sitting up and gave her a waterskin.

“Thirty minutes…?” Bee wheezed. “I’m gonna need… a little more than that…”

“You get thirty.” The tone of his voice suggested that it was an executive decision and not up for discussion.

She felt like one giant bruise. There wasn’t one part of her that didn’t hurt.

“How am I not in a fucking coma?” Bee asked between little sips of water, which was all she could get down. “That was like… getting run over ten times in a row. Is it the Toughness?”

“Partially,” Will said. “You also have your passives to thank. Stoneskin, well, makes your skin tougher, and it scales well with the points in Toughness you already have. Your Healing Factor passive will also be putting in work right now. It lets you heal faster than a regular human—not extremely quick, but enough to see a difference over a day or two.”

“Uh-huh. How about… a weapon or something? Some armor?”

“You don’t need it.”

Bee let out a wheezing chuckle. “You… just love to see me suffer, huh?”

There was no way she would be able to stand, let alone fight. But Will had told her to, so when her thirty minutes were up she found a way to claw herself to her feet, teeth gritted with the pain.

This time, she kept her eyes on the chimps when they came for her. She had already burned through all her stamina, and her muscles had calcified into heavy, unbending lumps with all the accumulated damage, but she pushed herself to muster some kind of footwork.

Number Four was first, and she was barely able to stagger back from his opening swing. Then came Number Two on her right with a sweeping blow. She tried to intercept his weapon and grab it by the shaft, but it ended up catching on her thumb and bending it back in an unnatural direction with a sickening crunch.

She had lost track of Number One, and didn’t realize that he had circled behind her until he smacked her square in the back and sent her flying on her face. After that, it was pretty much a repeat of last time.

They kept her going like that all day, only giving her infrequent breaks to eat and drink and catch her breath. She thought they would finally let up when the sun started going down, but the clobbering started all over again.

Their hits rained down on her until she was so numb that they felt like raindrops. She kept trying to drag herself up, only to get knocked right back down again. They didn’t even stop when she had to throw up, just letting her heave it up onto the turf.

Bee didn’t land a single hit.

Then, as the sun’s final rays tickled the treeline, she took a blow to the back of her head that knocked her face firmly into the dirt. And, while a dizzying show of colors danced behind her eyelids, she could make out a line of text in her mind’s eye.

Congratulations! You have reached Level 2!

Please sleep in order to allocate your rewards.

By the time she properly came to, it was all over, and the chimps had already carried her to bed. Will sat by her side, smoking a cigarette. She lipped silently at him to get a puff, but he held up a small ceramic bottle instead, a red stripe painted across its brown clay surface.

“Drink this first,” he said, uncorking it and putting the bottle to her lips. He started pouring it in her mouth so that she was forced to swallow and continued until it was empty. It tasted like mint and cranberries.

“Healing potion,” he explained. “It’ll do you good.”

After that he let her have a smoke, lighting it and putting it between her lips so she didn’t have to move her arms. She wasn’t sure she could have if she tried—they felt like they weighed a ton each.

“That… sucked,” she groaned.

“We’re making it as intense as possible so you get the most amount of benefit out of it.” There was no hint of compassion in his voice.

Will was a cold-hearted bastard.

It was one of the reasons why she loved him. She knew he would push her as hard as she pushed herself.

He knew she could take it.

“Did you level up?” Will asked.

Bee gave a tiny nod.

“Good. I suggest you put points in either Awareness, Dexterity, or Strength, but among those you should choose as you see fit. You’ll need all three sooner or later.”

“Okay.”

She passed out almost immediately after that, while he stroked her hair.