The ether-zombie-thing limped closer. Vivi matched its pace, stepping backward. She reached for her scabbard, only to find her sword missing. Of course.

“It’s an ether stick,” Lucius said. “The clumsiest and easiest of all monsters. There’s no need to be scared. Ether sticks are literally engineered to be easy. I’ll be pissed if you die to that thing. It doesn’t even have claws!”

“Ether stick? Looks like a zombie to me,” Vivi said to calm her nerves. It didn’t work. The monster was slow, thank the Gods, but there was no telling when it might have lunged with its terrifying teeth. “Lucius? You have some powers to help me, right?”

“Of course,” Lucius said. Vivi felt him grinning inside her consciousness. “I’m already enhancing your strength. I’ll show you what my powers can do. Look at your fingers.”

Vivi barely felt stronger at all. She held out her hand, making sure not to take her attention from the monster. Something pulsed inside her veins, making its way to her fingers. When the power reached her fingertips, her nails grew by half an inch, turning to claws.

The claws were the dullest, most miserable things she had ever seen. They were cracked and already falling apart. The claws wouldn’t cut open an apple, let alone the monster in front of her. Vivi would have done better punching with her fists.

“Huh?” Lucius said. “That’s weird. Looks like the teleportation ate more of my powers than I thought. I need more ether. Kill it quickly, Mrs. Runesmith.”

Vivi’s foot caught on something as she stepped backwards. She suffered a mini heart attack before regaining balance. “You’re not helping!” she shouted.

“Don’t you have any powers of your own?” Lucius asked. “Surely, you can kill an ether stick on your own?”

Vivi gritted her teeth. Think! she told herself. It’s clumsy. How can I kill it?

She spotted her saving grace. The twilight elk’s skull. The antlers were sharp, far sharper than Lucius’s poor claws. Vivi rushed to it and picked up the skull with both hands and pointed its antlers at the zombie.

Weapon in hand, her legs naturally moved to a basic sword stance. She had no sword, and she didn’t know how to fight, but the posture made her footing secure. Grandpa had made her practice swinging a sword. A runesmith needed to know what a proper sword felt like to swing, he claimed, and that was only possible when one knew how to properly take a swing.

The zombie kept limping without fear. It held out its arms toward the antler, as if intending to grab Vivi’s weapon. The thought of that creeped her out. “Lucius? Can you distract it?”

“What?” Lucius asked. “Just kill it? What good will a distraction do?”

“Poke it in the neck,” Vivi said. “Please.”

“Hmph,” Lucius said. He retracted from Vivi’s body. Her nails returned to normal, and the meager strength boost disappeared. Lucius looked annoyed as he flew around the zombie.

“Hey, idiot!” Lucius shouted behind the zombie. “My wielder is scared. Could you help me a little bit?”

The zombie turned around to swat at Lucius. The cat let out a yelp and flew back.

That was when Vivi lunged. She thrust the elk skull into the monster’s body. One antler pierced its neck. The other hit the torso. The monster fell against the ground. It made no sounds besides the sizzling of ether. But it did struggle. It flailed its arms in an attempt to reach Vivi while aimlessly biting at the air.

Vivi stepped away from it, breathing heavily. “Is it dead?”

“Ether sticks are damn tenacious,” Lucius said. “That’s about the only benefit they have. But you pierced its neck. The weak spot. It’ll die.”

Sure enough, the monster fell limp after ten or so seconds of struggling. There was no blood. Instead, the white aura leaked into the air, sizzling like a teapot. It was a strangely calming sound. Vivi let out a sigh of relief. “We did it.”

Lucius skipped the congratulations, heading straight for the prize.

“Ahh, the song of the abyss!” he said. He licked his lips before gracefully flying to the monster’s body. He stretched his paws as he landed. Then, he breathed in. The mist-like wisps of ether flowed from the monster’s body into Lucius’s core.

Ether transfer. Vivi had seen the process happen thousands of times, though she’d never been a part of it herself. She couldn’t offer her ether to others, being indebted and all, and nobody had offered her ether, as anything she gained would simply disappear into her mountain of debt. Ether and trades were always handled by Grandpa instead.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

With her being connected to Lucius, however, she sensed something. She could feel Lucius’s ether reserves growing. After collecting the monster’s ether, Lucius’s core carried exactly twenty-eight ether. Her own reserves were still fifteen thousand in the negative.

“Mmm…” Lucius said with a loud cat-moan. He looked ecstatic. “Ten ether. That poor thing was worth ten! It’s not enough. I need more. More ether!”

Ten ether? So much for one zombie? Vivi thought. Back on the surface, ten ether would have fed her and Grandpa decent meals for an entire month. Surface dwellers rarely traded full ether. Instead, they traded fractions—one tenth of a full ether. Still, Vivi suspected ten ether was a laughable sum for any real ether hunters.

The monster’s body looked totally different without its ether-aura. Its face had disappeared entirely, having turned into a featureless doll. Its limbs lost their shape, and its torso turned into a blocky slab. Out of curiosity, Vivi poked at its chest with her leg. The material was hard like stone.

“It’s an ether stick,” Lucius said. “Ever seen one?”

“No,” Vivi said. “What does that mean?”

“Ether sticks are man-made puppets, designed to attract ether surges. They’re artificial hosts, essentially.” Lucius gave her a look. “You do know what monsters are, and how they are spawned, right?”

“Uhm,” Vivi said. “Monsters are mindless reanimations of active ether. Like we just saw. The zombie… um, ether stick, wasn’t alive. Ether was what reanimated it to appear alive. The monster must have been spawned by an ether surge, right?”

“You are almost correct,” Lucius said. “Monsters are reanimations of ether. But monsters are not spawned from ether surges. Surges and storms simply bring active ether into the world. Active ether always needs a host to reanimate. That’s why nobody builds graveyards in the underworld. If one gets hit by an ether storm, everyone’s buried grandmas will be filled with ether, reanimated as zombies.”

Lucius tapped his paw on the ether stick. “Not all hosts are equal. A surge hound is a lot more agile and dangerous than a clumsy doll, despite both requiring the same amount of ether to reanimate. That’s why ether sticks are built. Ether sticks are hand-crafted hosts to create the easiest monsters possible.”

Lucius glanced at the elk’s bones. “Twilight elks are amongst the most dangerous hosts to leave around, by the way. That’s why its remains are called a ‘surge hazard.’ A reanimated twilight elk is way more dangerous than a pack of surge hounds. If a surge reanimates that clump of bones, we’re dead.”

Vivi stared at the collapsed doll-like ether stick. The monster had been reanimated with ten ether. She’d heard stories of large boss monsters being reanimated with hundreds, if not thousands, of ether. The ether stick had already been terrifying enough, and it was literally a practice monster. Vivi couldn’t imagine fighting real monsters.

“If ether sticks are hand-crafted…” she asked. “That must mean there are humans around, right?”

“Something sentient, at least,” Lucius said. “Someone is laying sticks. Perhaps humans, probably demons.”

Vivi gulped. Gods. She really was on the fourth level.

“That monster had likely wandered around for a good while,” Lucius said. “Monsters gradually lose ether as time passes on. The more ether a host carries, the more active and dangerous they are. And the more ether you gain for killing them. Basic monsters typically carry anywhere from five to a hundred ether on the fourth level.”

“We need to find a way up before something kills us,” Vivi said.

Lucius looked at her. “What? Up? Why would we go up? There’s more ether down here.”

“This is demon territory!” Vivi said. “We need to get out. And besides, more ether means more danger. We’re lucky we haven’t been ambushed by your surge-whatevers! Your powers aren’t helpful enough to fight real monsters.”

“Which is why we need to gather more ether,” Lucius said. “To grow stronger. What does it matter if we hunt on human or demon lands? The ether hunters are after you anyway. They’re looking to kill you. The demons, however, will see just another human. We’ll need to quickly reach at least a thousand ether. Afterward we’ll seek dungeons. From dungeons, we’ll earn skills. Once we find skills, our ether income should rise exponentially.”

“Skills?” Vivi gushed. She was alone in unfamiliar territory, thinking of where she would sleep, and Lucius was already planning on gathering skills.

Vivi didn’t know much about skill wisps. When defeating tougher monsters on level three or below, there was a small chance of earning a special wisp of ether. Skill wisps, they were called. When activated, a skill wisp granted the wielder abilities beyond their regular ether reserves.

Vivi had never seen a skill in action, nor would she know what one looked like. She just knew that skills were immensely powerful. And rare. Even the most common skills sold for thousands of ether. A hunter could search for decades, fighting the toughest monsters imaginable, and finding a skill still wasn’t guaranteed.

“Of course we’ll have to find skills,” Lucius said. “How else will we grow strong?”

“No, Lucius, we should head up to fight simple monsters first,” Vivi said. “Then we can consider coming back down.”

“Hmph,” Lucius said. “Good luck with that. The fourth level is known for being difficult to get back up from. We might not see an exit for miles.” He looked awfully smug, saying that.

Vivi bit her lip, annoyed. And afraid. How would they ever survive so deep down in the earth? What would she eat? Where would she sleep?

For now, Vivi picked up the only tool she had. The elk’s skull. Without its antlers, she was defenseless.

Lucius looked concerned, as if Vivi had picked up a stack of explosives. “You wish to carry that around? Did you not hear what I said? That skull is a hazard.”

“We’ll need it as a weapon until your powers stop being useless,” Vivi said. “Survival comes first. We need to find shelter. Someplace that won’t kill us while we sleep.”

I can’t go back anyway, Vivi reminded herself. The hunters are after me. Humanity will only see me as a cursed child. This stupid cat is my last chance.

Lucius chuckled, his cat-mouth forming a grin. “More ether!”