Chapter 138: Mushkie

Even with all the skill and combat experience that Zach had quickly accumulated since becoming an adventurer, he knew he was still going to be in for a rough time of things as he, along with Jimmy, began backpedaling away to the rear of this circularly shaped room-turned-arena while an entire train of mobs pressed towards them. Yet, for every inch of ground gained by the mobs, Zach ceded an inch of his own, and this, of course, was not a good thing.

Rather than simply pull away, they were supposed to be performing something of a “fighting retreat” until reaching the room’s back wall, at which point Jimmy had claimed it would be critical to have reduced the number of mobs by at least a third; this, he’d explained, would make it possible for them to kite the remainder of the mobs safely around the water pit while they were dealt with. For this reason, Zach was supposed to be attacking in addition to backing away—but at the moment, he wasn’t. His instincts, which were as much a part of him as his own skin, were screaming at him not to get any closer to the large cluster of foes, all of which still had about 70% or more of their HP as Jimmy’s poisons caused a chorus of hissing-laughter to resound with each tick.

We’ll get pushed back to the wall way before any of them die from the poisons, Zach realized as he repeatedly took one backwards step after the next.

Multiple times, Zach had inched forward towards the mass of imp creatures—only to jerk abruptly away in the opposite direction. On each attempt, eight or so of the winged imps would lash out with a fast, dizzying strike of their golden spear while the wingless “Troublemakers” would fling one of their dual-wielded daggers at him before another would magically appear in their hand as though they had access to an infinite supply of the weapons. Despite the mobs being slowed and poisoned, Zach was somehow failing to find an opening as the forty-or-so horned, fork-tailed, and oftentimes winged creatures continued to sloth their way towards him and Jimmy.

“Zach, man, the hell are you doing?” Jimmy asked him angrily. “Start dropping these bitches.”

Zach clenched his teeth for a few seconds, becoming vexed. “I can’t get close to them, Jimmy.”

“Try!”

“Easier said than done!”

At the moment, Zach was standing a few feet before Jimmy, who was naturally keeping a bit of extra distance behind Zach being that he was a caster. Straight ahead of them, the legion of imps continued to either fly on buzzing wings or trudge forward on tiny feet in their direction. Sensing Jimmy’s patience beginning to dwindle, Zach tried once more to attack one of the creatures despite knowing he’d only end up meeting the same result he had with all of his previous attempts.

Studying their rhythm as he backed away a few more steps, he halted, bent his knees slightly, and then launched himself forward. And just like in his earlier endeavors, the exact moment that he entered the mobs’ attack range, ten of the imp creatures reacted concurrently, creating an unavoidable mess of swinging spears. An unbearable bout of frustration erupted within Zach, which caused him to again clench his teeth while tightening his grip on his sword.

Put simply, the number of these mobs combined with their methods of attack made it impossible for Zach to get close enough to them to do any damage. And really, it all had to do with the way in which the winged “Sneering Imp Warriors” moved and struck. The Troublemakers were not the issue; though annoying, he could evade or knock aside their thrown daggers. But the Warriors were a whole different story. Each and every time Zach entered within their range, they performed a series of movements that had a level of unpredictability he’d never before seen from a mob.

First, anywhere between seven to ten of them would fan out and enter into a crescent-shaped formation, and from there, they would dash forward towards him at full speed, as they were not affected by the slow debuff during an attack. After that, they would fly directly upwards so that the bottom of their feet became level with Zach’s forehead, and then finally, each one would scatter in a different direction before unleashing a strike from what seemed to be a randomly selected angle.

It was impossible for Zach to anticipate how they would choose to attack. Some would fly off to the left, some would fly off to the right, and others would hover a bit higher or drop a bit lower. Sometimes, they’d fly off one way, stop suddenly, and then veer off in the complete opposite direction. The result was always the same, however; following this scattering of buzzing, flying imps, they would converge upon Zach with an equally dazing mixture of attacks.

Some would swing their spear, and others would thrust, but whichever they chose, the imps lashed out at angles that were just as random as their movement patterns, such as the one moving towards Zach right now that was named “Sneering Imp Warrior R.”

The creature barreled forward through the air, stopped in an instant, then flew off towards the left before snapping back to the right almost as though it’d bounced off an invisible wall; then, with its body moving from Zach’s left to Zach's right, it whipped its spear from Zach’s right to Zach’s left—and this was just one of the ten that all struck out at him in unison.

Combined, the imps created a visually confusing, hard-to-follow, and overwhelming pattern of attack that would’ve been too much for Zach to handle even without the half-dozen daggers that made a slight hissing sound as they ripped across the air as they headed towards him.

And so, once more, Zach’s only option was to retreat; jumping backwards, he leapt away from the approaching hail of spears while simultaneously whipping his sword several times in the air before him in order to deflect the daggers flying his way.

“Zach!” Jimmy called to him, sounding even more irritated.

“I’m trying!” he shouted back to him. “I’ll get skewered or cut to pieces if I get anywhere near them!”

Unsure of what he should do, he briefly called forward his list of abilities, scanning it with his eyes for just a second before again dismissing it. Was there anything on here he could use to make his life a little easier? Thanks to Jimmy’s buff, he could now be far more generous with regards to ability usage, but even then, there was still an upper limit to how much and how frequently he could call upon his various abilities before having to wait for more time to be added to his current duration of Unleashed Phase, which as of right now, had just shy of twelve minutes remaining on it.

Unleashed Phase Duration

11:47 Remaining

Wave Slash

1:15

Boundless

0:10

Phase Cannon (No Target)

1:30/2:00 (if used with Boundless)

Phase Cannon (Targeted)

2:30/3:00 (if used with Boundless)

Phase Blink

0:20

Phase Shield (READY) (25 seconds)

0:45

Phase Rescue

0:35 / 2:15 (if used with Boundless)

Phase Slash

1:10 / 6:10 (if used with ??)

Halting Strike

0:20

Card Capture

0:00

Card Summon

0:00

Card Dismiss

0:00-X:XX

Gacha Get’cha

0:00

Even as he thought over his options, he could hear Jimmy impatiently shouting at him in the background. For the moment, Zach tuned him out and continued to backpedal towards the rear wall as he tried to think up some way of navigating around the imps’ seemingly insurmountable offense. Yet as the wall came nearer and nearer, and their available space grew smaller and smaller, he knew he would have to come up with an idea very quickly. By his best estimation, they were only around fifty feet away from reaching the wall, and once there, there’d be nowhere to go except through the throng of mobs.

“Zach, at least do something,” Jimmy pleaded, his tone urgent yet not quite panicked. “There’s gotta be something you can do.”

Maybe there is, actually, Zach thought as a particular ability came to mind. It’ll at least get Jimmy off my case for a moment.

“Okay, let me try something,” he said. In the corner of his vision, he could just make out a change in Jimmy’s expression as he glanced at Zach hopefully.

I need to time this perfectly.

Zach once more planted his feet, coming to a stop. Then, as he’d only just done, he again bent his knees and raised his sword, the point of his blade facing ahead of him with his elbows pointed away. With that, he bolted forward towards the slowly moving horde of mobs, crossing the distance in an instant. The imps reacted just as quickly, and this time, what looked like nine of the Sneering Imp Warriors and five of the Sneering Imp Troublemakers became “activated” as soon as he entered within their attack range.

At once, the buzzing of wings grew louder and more frenzied as nine winged imps rushed forward through the air, coming to an immediate halt just before Zach—only to then fly upwards and scatter in nine separate directions before again lunging at him, their weapons thrusting and slicing with enough variation so that no two imps attacked in quite the same way or at quite the same angle. Along with this, a collective whooshing sound from ahead indicated that five more daggers had been thrown and were heading straight for him.

Now, with five daggers and nine spears all closing in on him, Zach knew that, if he did not dodge immediately, he would not be able to dodge at all. This was the point where he’d typically have just a fraction of a second to choose between either getting out of the way or attempting to try guarding against the incoming storm of attacks. This time, however, he went with a third option.

Rather than retreat or lift his blade in a futile attempt to block the chaotic barrage of spear strikes, Zach instead dropped down to his knees. Once there, he forced himself to remain calm, as acting too soon could get him killed just as easily as acting too late. And so, he held his breath a moment, focused his senses, and waited until the last possible instant before he was slashed and skewered to death. Then, just before the gilded, glittering spears pierced his flesh, Zach activated Phase Shield.

Immediately, a beautiful, brilliant, and golden light chased away even the most shadowy corners of this fairly dark room, bathing all of it in its glow and causing the clear water in the water-pit to take on an amber color and reflect the shine onto the ceiling. Following the activation of his ability, a large shield made of this same pure golden light manifested into existence above and slightly in front of Zach. Appearing just in time, all five daggers collided with this shield, and all five bounced off without making so much as a sound. The same was true for the nine spears, which either thrust into or slashed against it. No matter what struck out at him, the shield deflected each and every attack used against it; then, as quickly as it had come, the shield vanished, once more allowing the room to darken.

As soon as it faded out of existence, Zach leapt into action. Hurriedly, he sprang back up to his feet. Time was short, and he would need to attack now. The window that existed between one round of the mobs’ attacks and the next was incredibly brief; if he was going to be able to get anything done, he would have to attack immediately—and he understood this, which was why Zach acted with such swiftness that he barely even paused to consider how much damage he would suffer as “payment” for the shield, which always returned a small portion of the damage it absorbed to him, the user. All things considered, he couldn’t imagine it’d be all that much.

Although Zach had no doubt that these mobs were deadly enough—and high level enough—to pierce his flesh with their weapons, in the grand scheme of things, he didn’t think they had the kind of power required to seriously injure or even slightly wound him via the returned portion of damage from using Phase Shield. And indeed, even as Zach lifted his blade and threw himself forward at his enemies, the only physical sensation of pain he felt was a slight irritation in his lower lip as well as something akin to a minor tightening of the muscles in his right shoulder blade. Neither sensation was long-lasting, either, and both were gone almost as soon as he’d realized they were there.

At any rate, having finally earned the chance to attack, Zach seized the opportunity with a vengeance. Having caused the mobs to be put somewhat off balance as a result of their spears bouncing off the shield, Zach held nothing back. He practically threw himself at the nearest Sneering Imp Warrior, this one called “Sneering Imp Warrior J.”

HP

55,510/72,500

Name

Sneering Imp Warrior J

Level

45

Pressed to make every second count, Zach slashed his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness directly upwards, cutting the flying creature from its groin to its chest; then, rather than pull his blade back and go in for a second, follow-up strike, he instead pushed his sword forward, etching it deeper into the imp’s flesh while pivoting his hips and swinging his arms to the left, carving it across and over the creature’s chest; this resulted in an aerosol-like spray of blood that felt hot as it splattered across his mouth and forehead.

Despite having never pulled his sword back, the damage Zach inflicted seemed to register as two separate strikes, with the first hitting for 18,222, and the second dealing 16,010. The imp, oblivious to its condition, seemed to find this incredibly funny, as the sound of its laughter filled the rounded room, reverberated off the walls, and created an echo.

“He-he-he-he-he!”

HP

21,278/72,500

Name

Sneering Imp Warrior J

Level

45

Ordering his limbs to move as fast as they could, Zach whipped his arms around twice more, striking the creature across the stomach for 17,209 and then for the second time in its chest, overkilling it with a slash that hit for 16,998. Following this second strike, the Sneering Imp Warrior’s wings stopped buzzing, its devilish pupils went blank, and with another, weaker laugh it fell to the floor like a dead bird, where it then disintegrated into a powdery residue like the others that’d died before it.

+18000xp

Despite killing Imp Warrior J as fast as he possibly could, Zach noticed that the other eight mobs had already reoriented themselves from where they were hovering midair and would launch into another of their crazy, unpredictable attacks any moment. Thus, he called upon all the speed he could muster and threw himself at another, this one called “Sneering Imp Warrior K.”

With a touch of desperation, Zach fully extended his arms and raised his blade so that the point was above his head, and then he crashed it down in an attempt at delivering a powerful, thundering blow and splitting open the creature’s skull. But to his surprise and dismay, the imp managed to shift its spear so that it wielded the weapon horizontally, raising it upwards to guard. Grunting, Zach was unable to strike fast enough to break apart the spear-wielding imp’s head, as the creature managed to block in time. Instead, Zach’s blade made a high-pitched, metallic-sounding clang that was loud enough to fill the entire room as his weapon collided with the spear. And though he did not manage to deal any direct damage with his strike, he at least hit with enough force that the spear was knocked cleanly out of the imp’s hands; more so, the intensity of the impact was enough to violently throw the imp downwards until its back slammed into the floor, causing the tile beneath it to crack and dealing 9,051 secondary damage.

Zach lowered his head and looked upon the downed imp, sensing an opportunity for an easy kill. He spun his sword around so that his blade faced downwards, and then he bent backwards slightly before throwing himself forwards in the opposite direction for momentum while also bending his knees. With incredible force, he tore his blade through the imp’s chest using all his might, actually putting out 26,500 damage as a combination of a rip and a crunch caused him to wince at the sound of his sword piercing the creature’s body. But his blade did not stop there; no, Zach ended up plunging his weapon with such power that his blade continued through the imp, exited the creature’s back, and then sank several inches into the tiled flooring beneath it with another crunch. A half-second later, a dark-green aura surrounded his own body—his stamina buff! Having proc’d it, the time remaining on his Unleashed Phase rose to 14:05, only to immediately rise up even further to 16:05 thanks to another tick coming in from Jimmy’s Breath of Invigoration.

Quickly, Zach ripped his blade free then stabbed it back down two more consecutive times, causing two geyser-like spurts of blood to shoot up and dealing 20,477 and 20,462 damage respectively, ending the imp warrior in the process and earning Zach another +18000xp. As this one, like those before it, turned from an imp into a sand-like powder, Zach lifted his blade, held it at the ready, and searched for another to kill.

Sadly, even having only killed two of the creatures, he saw that his time had run out. Seven of the original imps that had attacked him were now soaring through the air at him. Zach, taken by surprise, momentarily forgot their pattern of attack and nervously raised his blade to guard against them as each of their forms approached him at a daunting speed; this, of course, turned out to be unnecessary, as all seven of the “Sneering Imp Warriors” then came to a sudden, unnatural halt midair immediately upon reaching Zach—but only so that all of them could then scatter away in a random direction. Zach chided himself for becoming startled. He knew that it would only be after they scattered that they would attack him. Yet these damn creatures moved so fast and in such a disorienting way that it was easy to flinch at the sight of them rushing towards him.

Calm down! he warned himself. Don’t get too excited!

Zach exhaled, trying to regain his composure. But he lost it a second time as his eyes detected motion across from where he stood. Now, he took a breath so quickly he nearly choked on the oxygen as a sense of alarm and warning crept down his spine. It seemed that, ahead of him, an additional two Sneering Imp Warriors had already scattered and were coming after him—neither of which he realized were even attacking him until right now. Zach wasn’t sure how he’d missed them. Most likely, they must’ve pulled into range and begun their attack while he was still finishing off the imp warrior that he’d blasted onto the floor.

To both his immediate left and right, the two creatures were lashing out at him. The one to his left was causing a dull hiss to trail on the air as its spear made a rounded, circular slash that was heading straight for Zach’s neck. The one to his right was thrusting its spear directly forward, the pointed end of the weapon making for Zach’s heart.

With another sharp inhalation, Zach ducked beneath the circular slash from the spear to his left; he could feel the air shifting above his hair as he narrowly avoided decapitation. Then, urgently, Zach straightened his back, brought himself upright, and forcibly swung his sword to knock away the thrusting spear to his right. Immediately afterwards, he followed up with another three swings of his weapon, causing three pangs to fill the room as he blasted away three daggers he’d only just realized had been thrown and had also barely managed to ward off. Finally, feeling overwhelmed, he dashed backwards and away just as the seven other imps reconverged on his position, each striking out in an entirely different way and all thankfully missing. Then they pressed forward—only much more slowly thanks to the debuff from Jimmy. Their “attack” having been concluded, they resumed at a much more sedate pace.

“Damn, Zach, that was only two of them you got,” Jimmy said. Though the alarm in his voice had certainly amped up a bit, he still came across as cool, confident, and self-assured. “That’s not gonna cut it.” Zach watched as Jimmy glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “No pressure, but like, we gotta make something happen here. Our backs are about to hit the wall.”

Zach’s lips curled in frustration all on their own as he realized how close they were to being sandwiched between the wall and the approaching mobs. Less than twenty feet of space existed between them and the point at which they could retreat no farther. “Gods damn it all,” Zach swore with a growl.

“How much time you got on your ability?”

“Uh…like, just a bit less than sixteen minutes now.”

“Well, shit, what the hell are you waiting for, then? Go wild on them.”

“It’s not enough,” Zach said. “I need to build up a bit more time, Jimmy.”

“We don’t have any left for you to build up more of it!”

Looking again behind him at the wall, Zach could see that Jimmy was correct. Time was nearly up, and Zach needed to make at least some dent in their number. Not only that, but with each moment, Zach was also beginning to understand why Jimmy had chosen to do things this way. Only by luring these mobs and having them more-or-less bunched up would they be able to keep them under control and safely kite them around once their numbers were diminished. If Zach ended up having to Phase Blink and Phase Rescue to get him and Jimmy to the other end of the room, it could cause the mobs to spread out and end up all over the place. That would make for a totally chaotic, unmanageable mess, which in addition to heightening the level of danger, would also make it greatly more difficult for Jimmy to re-apply his poisons and his slow.

Hesitating for just a split second, Zach quickly regained control over his nerves, filling instead with determination. He nodded at Jimmy. “Yeah, you’re right. We don’t.”

Unable to stall any longer, Zach knew he’d have to make the most of the time he’d already accumulated. And so, upon speaking those words, he eyed the approaching imps, both the flying, winged warriors, and the dagger-wielding troublemakers. He raised his blade, licked his chops, and set his focus on a particular “Sneering Imp Warrior” that was up front and leading the pack. With that, he swung it diagonally downwards.

“Phase Slash!” he cried out, causing a loud, high-pitched sound like that of a zipper being opened to fill the world around them, crowding out all other noises as a visible disturbance appeared in the air in the form of a ripple, which then tore across the space between him and his target: “Sneering Imp Warrior 2A.”

Though his Phase Cannon could hit multiple mobs at once, Zach decided to try leading with a Phase Slash instead because he needed to start reducing their number immediately as opposed to simply wearing them down. For whatever reason, his Phase Cannon did a great deal less damage towards these mobs than it should have. Zach wasn’t sure if this was because the imps were resistant to magic in general or if it was the specific type of damage—light in the case of Phase Cannon—that had hindered it. But whatever the underlying reason, Zach was left hoping that his Phase Slash would prove a bit more effective against these mobs. And thank the Gods, he could see right away that it was.

Three things happened close enough together that they almost appeared simultaneous. First, his Phase Slash found its target, and with a loud, balloon-like pop, the imp exploded into a steaming, smoking, superheated shower of blood, guts, skin, and organs, all of which continued to trail more smoke as these globs of gore sizzled and crackled until eventually cooling and turning into the powdered, sand-like residue, but not before leaving scorch marks in the room’s fancily tiled flooring. Then, right after, there was a clink as the spear it’d been holding fell out of the air and landed while its wings—the only undamaged part of it—floated halfway down to the floor, ultimately disintegrating into the sand before touching down. Finally—and thirdly—a shocked-sounding gasp came from Jimmy.

Turning around, Zach saw him pointing and staring at something. Tracing it with his eyes, Zach realized it was the damage number floating in place where the mob had been: 63,998. “Goddamn,” he said, blinking as if not believing what he was seeing. “What kinda’ OP, broken-ass shit is that? Talk about unbalanced.”

+18000xp

Zach, briefly switching to a one-handed grip on his blade, gave Jimmy a shrug. He barely understood what Jimmy’s words even meant if he was being honest, but he decided now was not the best time to ask him about it, either. Thus, not bothering to reply, Zach once more gripped his blade with both hands. Raising his weapon, he swung it a second time, and then a third, calling out “Phase Slash!” with each. In the wake of these two attacks, another Sneering Imp Warrior as well as a Sneering Imp Troublemaker detonated, each making a pop and causing a hissing sound to fill the room as their superheated insides seemingly had to cool before they could disintegrate, which meant they sizzled and left char-colored marks on the tiling. Seconds after each death, another three clinks came as a spear and two daggers dropped down onto the floor.

+18000xp

+18000xp

Unleashed Phase Duration

11:12 Remaining

With more work left to be done, Zach lifted his blade a fourth time, ready to kill another. For this one, he eyed a “Sneering Imp Troublemaker” that stood just a bit before the others and seemed to be drawing back its arm as though about to toss a dagger at him. Zach decided straight away to make this pesky little imp the next one to die. However, just before attacking, he paused; instead, he frowned as he spotted something else: something that was moving his way at a great speed. It seemed one of the imps had entered within attack range, likely during the time that Zach had been standing there throwing out Phase Slashes.

Now, with its wings buzzing furiously, this Sneering Imp Warrior flew straight towards him, then halted midair in front of where he stood. From there, it lifted upwards before dropping right back down while whirling the bladed end of its spear on top of him.

Caught off guard, Zach was forced to hastily switch from offense to defense. Thankfully, having already raised his own sword, and having been only a mere moment from delivering another Phase Slash, Zach’s blade was already perfectly positioned to intercept the imp’s spear. Abandoning his planned attack, he shifted into a defensive stance, bending his knees and slightly turning his blade to block the incoming spear; this resulted in a loud ringing sound as well as an uncomfortable vibrating in his wrists from absorbing the shock of the imp’s powerful attack. Yet before Zach could assess what to do next, he spotted even more movement as another two imps soared across the room at him, scattered, and then lashed out while the one that’d only just attacked seemed to wind itself up for a second strike of its own.

Alarmed but still in control of himself, Zach kicked off his feet and hopped backwards while swinging his sword diagonally downwards in the same motion, crying out “Phase Slash!” even while a foot or two midair. Then he made a gentle clicking sound as his two feet touched down on the tiled flooring while, at that very precise instant, his Phase Slash met one of the imps head on.

The imp, which flew directly into it, was simply massacred at point-blank range. Zach became drenched in its boiling, sizzling insides, which thankfully left no stain as the imp’s nauseating innards cooled on his robe and transformed into more of the sand. It was a bizarre sight, too, because one moment he was covered from head to toe in guts, and the next, it was all just “gone.” Even more odd was that, for the first time ever, the loud, eerie, high-pitched, and zipper-like sound that typically accompanied a Phase Slash happened to arrive after the attack had already found its target, killed it, and disappeared from existence.

+18000xp

“He-he-he-he-he!” laughed the other two Sneering Imp Warriors as they both came at him, one ahead of the other.

Twice more, Zach repeated his earlier action of hopping backwards while delivering a Phase Slash, and in both cases, he again exploded his attackers, the sound of his attack coming only after it was already gone. Yet it was only upon touching down in the immediate moment following the second of his two hops that his luck turned sour. As soon as his feet found the floor, he raised his sword and scanned the incoming horde of mobs for any more signs of danger or for targets to attack. While doing so, he saw the numbers representing his experience earned floating in the air.

+18000xp

+18<--------000xp

Concealed behind the number, almost as though using it as a cloak or a stealthy screen, was a dagger launched by a “Sneering Imp Troublemaker” that Zach could neither see nor hear until it was too late. By the time Zach realized what was coming his way, he had already been struck. With an “umph,” Zach widened his eyes and then winced in agony as a searing, stabbing, and maddeningly intense pain erupted in the right side of his lower belly.

Glancing down, he saw that the dagger had not only gotten him, but it’d plunged completely inside of his flesh. Every last inch of the nearly seven-inch weapon—save for the grip—had submerged itself into his stomach, causing an indescribable pain that made him feel as though something was being ripped out of him.

Removing his right, now shaking hand from his blade, he lowered it to his stomach, grabbed the dagger, and then yanked it out. Then he howled in more agony as the entire area of his robe turned from black to red, and then soon after began to leak an even darker-colored blood all over the floor, with much of it trickling down his leg and escaping the cuff near his right foot as it trickled out of him and began to form a small pool beneath him. Zach, suffering a moment of disbelief and confusion, released the dagger, which was stained in a similar shade of crimson, letting it drop down and hit the floor.

“I…I fucked up,” he said to Jimmy, already feeling weak and wobbly. “I think I just died.” It was becoming difficult for him to remain standing. It didn’t just hurt: it burned. Zach, doing everything he could to control himself, tried to remain calm despite what may have been a mortal wound. “Jimmy, I think I just—”

“Nah, I got you, dude,” Jimmy said immediately, speaking the words confidently and in a way that seemed a bit too carefree. But as it turned out, he wasn’t unjustified in his certainty.

Jimmy extended his staff in Zach’s direction, and an instant later, the world around Zach lit up in such a way that he felt as though he were under some kind of blinding, green spotlight. A halo of green brightness surrounded him and only him, and though it lasted for less than half a second, in just that time alone, the pain subsided immediately, the wound sealed and closed up, and aside from a scar that was already beginning to fade, Zach found himself completely healed.

“I had to use a T3 heal on you,” Jimmy said, now panting. “But you’re good to go. Get back in there and fuck ‘em up.”

Zach, amazed, said nothing in reply, but he did bow his head, hoping the gesture adequately expressed his utter sense of gratitude. Then he raised his guard, unwilling to let something like that happen to him a second time. Steadying himself, he took stock of his surroundings. They were now only about ten feet from the wall, and there were still too many of the mobs heading their way for Jimmy’s plan to kite them around the water-pit to succeed. He was also down to 8:15 on Unleashed Phase, though at the same time that he checked, he saw it then tick up to 10:15 thanks yet again to Jimmy’s buff.

I need to kill them faster! Zach thought to himself as the mobs continued to close in on them. This is too slow!

With a bout of white-hot anger erupting inside of him at having been wounded, he unleashed two more Phase Slashes, one after the next, at the incoming throng of mobs. The first struck—and detonated—the Sneering Imp Troublemaker that’d pierced him with its dagger, and the second one killed a Sneering Imp Warrior that had drawn close enough to begin its disorienting attack pattern. Both mobs were vaporized upon impact, but the second one in particular had its insides splattered so far and wide that they rained down on top of the dais that Jimmy had operated to solve the puzzle. Yet even with those two dead, and even with the rest moving at a fairly sedate pace, the mobs were still approaching fast enough that, with the wall now right behind them, Zach couldn’t escape the feeling of claustrophobic anxiety that was steadily growing within him.

The closer the mobs neared, the more his sense of urgency increased. The situation was becoming dire, and he needed to be even faster. So, without any delay, he released a third, then a fourth Phase Slash, obliterating two more of the imps in the process—but still finding his progress too slow. This just wasn’t cutting it: it wasn’t enough. He needed to kill more and faster. And he knew that there was only one tool in his box—one weapon in his arsenal—that stood any real chance of accomplishing such a task. It was one he tended to hesitate before calling upon, as its destructive power could sometimes have unintended consequences. However, with no other option left to him, Zach would just have to rely on it. And with that understanding in mind, he took his right hand off his sword, clenched it into a fist, and extended it at the mobs ahead of him. Quickly, he glanced over his shoulder.

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

“Jimmy, do not stand behind me!” he warned. “Move off to the side.”

“Huh? Why? What’re you—”

“Just move! Now!”

“Yeah…all right,” Jimmy whispered as though uncertain.

Zach braced himself despite knowing it would do him little good; even still, he really, truly braced himself. He exerted every bit of strength he had and put all of it towards keeping himself right where he was. Would it be enough? He doubted it. But he’d try anyway. Either way, this would still be the action he had to take. And so, with an intelligence stat currently sitting at 167, and with nothing else as powerful as this that he could call upon, he activated his blasting ring, pointing it straight ahead of him at what he estimated to be the leading-most elements of the incoming horde.

A shout—likely of surprise—came from Jimmy as a reddish, laser-like light far brighter than the glow of his Phase Shield fully illuminated the rounded room to such an extent that anything and everything became tinted a neon-red. It was a light so intense that nearby objects stung just to look at. For this reason, Zach could not fault Jimmy for shouting out numerous expletives as he seemingly vented his surprise at its sudden emergence.

Maybe I should’ve warned him in advance.

The last time Zach had used this ability, he’d been fighting the “Megaworm of Battle Beach,” and he’d had an intelligence then of 120. That had been enough to create a beam with a diameter so large that an industrial DEHV truck could fit through it. With 167 points of intelligence, the beam was now large enough so that two such trucks would be able to venture inside of it while traveling side by side. This, Zach glimpsed for only a moment, marveling at the sheer massiveness of what had been produced by such a small ring. And then, despite his best efforts, the explosive power of his blasting ring blasted him away.

In all honesty, Zach never stood a chance: not a chance of holding his ground. As though he were a bullet fired out of the chamber of a gun, Zach was torpedoed backwards—and into—the room’s posterior wall with such immense speed and force that, for a moment, he lost sight of the world around him and could see only pieces of stone, dust, plaster, and cement amid an otherwise dark backdrop as he became something of a human drill, creating a tunnel of his own making right through the center of it. For several long, frightening seconds, he heard nothing but a grating, rumbling buzz as he continued to burrow deeper and deeper until, finally, he began to slow. By the time he came to a halt, he’d created a Zach-sized cavity that extended more than fifty-feet deep.

Am I hurt? he wondered, feeling around his body with his hands. I don’t think so. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of a brief bout of dizziness and disorientation. I think I’m okay but…oh, shit! Jimmy!

As dazed as Zach currently felt, he knew he could not spare even a moment to recover, as Jimmy was now all on his own. And though he was a bit out of it, he was pretty sure he wasn’t in any pain. Miraculously, he appeared to have escaped any injury at all from such an absurd experience. For all his progress in getting beyond his level-1 thinking, there were still some things in this world that could surprise him, and this appeared to be one of them. It was yet another cogent reminder that he was quite literally superhuman.

Pushing himself up into a standing position—or as much as he could—he ignored the dust and pebbles that were falling down on top of his head like little droplets of rain, and he hastily sprinted forward through this self-created tunnel, having to bend forward while he ran. “Jimmy!” he shouted at he neared the exit. “Are you—”

“Zach, you all right?” Jimmy called out. He had his staff in his hands and his back pressed flat against the wall. Only about eight feet in front of him was the horde of mobs, and from what Zach could see, he had done very little to diminish their number.

“H-how are there still so many?” he shouted out with a gasp as he exited his self-created tunnel and saw that he’d somehow failed to kill a single additional one of them with his blasting ring. Even as Jimmy quickly fired out an answer, Zach was already drawing the same conclusion with the sights taken in by his eyes.

Before him, the impact his blasting ring had on the world was obvious. From where he stood, in a wide path leading all the way to the opposite end of the room, the flooring had been completely ripped up. It was as though someone had taken a gigantic shovel, pierced it about three inches deep into the floor, and then scraped it all the way across to where it impacted the wall on the anterior end of the circular room, leaving an actual tunnel in that wall that ran at least two-hundred feet deep or perhaps even longer—it became too dark for Zach to tell. What he could tell was that his blasting ring had utterly destroyed a large section of this room.

It'll repair itself in a week, Zach thought. He was glad in a strange sort of way to know that this wouldn’t be permanent.

Although the blasting ring had absolutely wrecked this part of the dungeon, the mobs in its path, on the other hand, appeared to have survived it—though only barely. Clearly, these imp mobs had at least a moderate degree of resistance towards beam damage. But even that had not been enough to leave them unscathed. Quite a few had suffered a significant hit—just not enough to outright kill them.

With nothing more than a cursory glance, Zach could tell that nearly every one of the mobs had taken at least some amount of damage, but Zach estimated that about eleven of the mobs in particular had weathered the brunt of the blasting ring’s beam. In particular, it was those closest to the front of the mobs’ formation that’d sustained the greatest injury. Having been unable to see the damage numbers for himself, Zach was able to go by their current HP versus what he recalled them having only a moment prior, and through this, he reasoned that they’d taken anywhere between thirty and forty-thousand points of damage each. Many of the imps, both the Warriors and Troublemakers alike, were now missing ears, eyes, or other parts of their face and had signs of extreme burn damage running all over their bodies, large swaths of which now appeared blackened and charred. Yet they had nevertheless refused to die, and they were closing in on him and Jimmy.

Unsure of what to do, Zach hesitated for a second or two—time they could not afford to waste, and time which brought the mobs even closer. Now, about eight of the mobs—five winged warriors and three dagger-wielding troublemakers—approached close enough so that both he and Jimmy were within their attack range.

“Aww, shit,” Jimmy said, the very first sign of true worry he’d shown since coming here. Beside Zach and to his left, Jimmy pressed himself even more tightly against the wall and then began to pat it as if searching for somewhere to run as the Sneering Imp Warriors dashed through the air on buzzing wings towards the two of them—but not before they released a collective hiss of laughter as both of Jimmy’s poisons ticked, bringing their HP even lower than it already was. Very low, in fact. Low enough so that…

Wait a second, Zach thought, filling with a sudden excitement. They’re not just low: they’re really, really, really low!

As all five Sneering Imp Warriors flew towards him and Jimmy, then scattered and reconverged for five differently angled strikes, with three targeting Zach and two charging Jimmy, Zach called upon an ability he hadn’t used in a good while. Switching to a one-handed grip on his sword, he extended his opposite hand, palm open, and then activated Card Capture. Then he activated it again, and again, and again, and again!

Jimmy, who was now pressing himself so tightly against the wall that Zach was surprised he didn’t go through it, released a half-grunt, half-gasp as a Sneering Imp Warrior jutted its spear forward towards his belly for a thrusting strike that would’ve ripped apart his insides. Fortunately, a mere instant before the bladed end of the spear pierced his midsection, the mob imploded with an eerily cheerful sounding “poof” that saw it transform into nothing more than a tiny ball of light. Jimmy, clearly confused, looked around as though searching for some clue as to what had just happened. And this confusion only seemed to grow as the rest of the attacking imps met the same fate.

“The fuck was that?” Jimmy asked.

One by one, as the Sneering Imp Warriors came in for a series of spear strikes that would’ve wounded Zach and likely outright killed Jimmy, there were a series of “poof” sounds as they vanished into tiny little orbs: palm-sized wisps of light that hovered in place for a few seconds before zipping across the air and into Zach’s waiting, open hand, where they then reforged themselves, solidifying into cards. First came the five from the Sneering Imp Warriors, and then came three more as Zach activated his ability on the Sneering Imp Troublemakers just before they threw daggers at him and Jimmy.

Poof, poof, poof!

Now, having removed those eight mobs from the equation, the entire front line of the incoming pack of mobs had been dealt with, giving them just a little—but not much—breathing room, as there were still plenty more following behind. And though he knew now was not the most appropriate time to do so, Zach couldn’t help but steal just a quick, very fleeting glance at his newly acquired cards.

I need to start building up a collection, he thought. Given how useful this ability was, he really needed to start taking more advantage of it. I should’ve had hundreds by now.

The cards were as bedazzling as always. Both contained similar imagery, but with a few differences that were easily spotted. What they shared in common, however, was significant; on each type of card was a hand-illustrated scene depicting an imp in a hellish, fiery world torturing Orcish prisoners. The imps were drawn cartoonishly and in a way that was almost cute, their eyes and other proportions exaggerated; this created an unsettling contrast with the dark imagery depicted. For the Sneering Imp Warriors, they were shown forcing Orcs to walk off a cliff and into a lake of fire by stabbing them in the back with their spears; the Troublemakers, on the other hand, were shown on their card stabbing at the eyes of their prisoners.

“I dunno what the hell you just did,” Jimmy said to him, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, “but between the giant beam and the cards, that was pretty sick.”

“Thanks,” Zach said. Based on the context and Jimmy’s tone of voice, he assumed that the word “sick” in this case was intended to mean something positive. He was becoming accustomed to Jimmy using certain words in a way that was different from what Zach found typical. Quickly stuffing all eight cards into his black robes, Zach glanced at Jimmy once more and asked, “So, did we kill enough of them?”

Jimmy pulled himself off the wall and appeared to size-up the remaining mobs before turning his head to look at the water-filled pit. “Yeah, we did. Only problem now is that they’ve come so close we’ve got to cut ourselves a path through them to get where we need to go.” He pointed off to his left. “Listen, Zach. If we can just get through the mobs at that point right there, everything afterwards is gonna be so easy. I mean that. If you get us through there in one piece, we win. We’re so close to coming out of this on top.”

The various imp creatures behind those that had died were drawing nearer, and Zach, sensing victory, steeled himself as he thought on Jimmy’s words. Most were concentrated dead center ahead of him, but the imps were currently spread out just enough so that there was no way of getting around them without entering the attack range of at least a few. But even more critically, the longer they waited to move, the number that would end up attacking would only become larger the closer the mobs approached, enclosing them tighter and tighter. This meant they had to move now.

“Okay, follow me,” Zach said.

He lifted his foot, but before he could take a single step forward, he was interrupted by Jimmy, who grabbed the back of his robe. “No, not that way,” he said. Then he patted the wall. “Don’t break away from the wall no matter what. If you go that way, the mobs will end up scattering and all this is gonna be for nothing.” As if sensing Zach’s confusion, he continued to explain. “The point isn’t just to get around them, but to continue keeping them ordered and together.”

“Oh, right. Got it.”

Keeping the wall close to his back, Zach hurriedly shuffled his way leftwards, which put a bit of distance between himself and the mobs that were directly ahead as well as to his right while naturally causing the mobs approaching from the left to enter into attack range. There were four of them in total—or at least four that reacted—and more would likely attack if Zach did not deal with them quickly.

“Remember,” Jimmy said, his voice becoming filled with determination and charisma. “If we get through those, we win. It’s over for them. I know what I’m talking about, I swear it.”

The optimism in his voice caused some to spread to Zach, and he nodded. “Hey, Jimmy?”

“Yeah?”

“Having fun yet?”

Jimmy grinned. “Hell yeah I am! Let’s clear this floor, Zach.”

“You got it!”

Eager to break through, Zach moved to take his attackers head on. He set his gaze on the two Sneering Imp Warriors and Two Sneering Imp Troublemakers that were mutually moving towards him. Interestingly, only one of the Troublemakers threw a dagger, which Zach deftly sliced out of the air; the other began running forward on its small feet, laughing maniacally as it seemed to want to enter within melee range. But it would have to wait its turn, as the two Imp Warriors buzzed their way over to Zach, flew off in opposite directions, and then both lunged and thrust their spears with almost perfect synchronicity.

Zach readied himself. Confidently, he awaited their attacks. Dealing with a bunch of these at once might’ve been impossible for him, but just four? That, he could handle: and would handle. He kept his stance flexible as both of the winged, spear-wielding imps attempted to skewer him from each side, and as they slammed their spears down towards him, Zach leapt upwards into the air and right over them, moving beyond their winged bodies while spinning his own body around one-hundred-eighty degrees midair so that he was still facing in their direction when he touched back down. This, of course, put him in a somewhat awkward position, because now, he had two Sneering Imp Warriors ahead of him, a Troublemaker dashing at him from the side, and his back was turned to a second Troublemaker a few feet behind him.

“Watch out!” Jimmy called out to him in warning.

Zach, trusting Jimmy, dropped to his knees, and a dagger thrown by the Troublemaker behind him soared right over his head and ended up striking one of the two winged imps that’d attacked him, this one called “Sneering Imp Warrior Z.” The dagger lodged itself into the imp’s chest, dealing 7,221 damage. Then, as if in retaliation, Z, along with the other, which was called “Sneering Imp Warrior L,” both attempted to gut him a second time, once more dashing in his direction. The two of them halted mere inches before reaching him, and then both broke away, flew off to opposing ends of the room, and came back in for another attack. But first, just a few feet ahead of him, one of the Troublemakers made another snickering, menacing laugh and sprang off its small legs, hopping forward and lunging at him, its daggers raised as if intent on jamming both right into his throat.

“He-he-he-he-he!”

Zach was momentarily taken aback by the speed at which the imp had propelled itself through the air, but he quickly got over his surprise and took immediate action to defend himself. In one fast movement, he bent both his knees and his back, leaning as far away as he could so that the mob would fly right over him, and then, once it had done so, Zach snapped his body upright, turned his hips, and ripped his sword upwards with all his might, slicing the diminutive imp so ferociously that he succeeded in completely severing its body at the hip; its upper body continued to fly off into the distance, and everything below the hip plopped straight down, landing with a squish and a plop while leaking imp blood all over the flooring. Zach didn’t even bother to check how much damage he did. He knew it had been enough.

+18000xp

Having had to deal with the Troublemaker, Zach had little time to adjust his stance to defend himself from the two Sneering Imp Warriors, which were on him almost as soon as he felled their dagger-wielding brethren. Both were flying at him, and both were moving towards him from the same direction, with one flying just a little ahead of the other.

“Phase Slash!” Zach cried out, unleashing another point-blank attack that detonated Sneering Imp Warrior Z a mere instant before the mob crashed into him. In fact, the mob flew so close that its winged form filled the entirety of his vision, which meant Zach had a closeup view of the imp’s body detonating. He watched as it broke apart, going from one solid form to a thousand bloody scraps a mere instant before flying into him, earning Zach another +18000xp and a robe covered in sizzling, smoking guts.

Though it was a close call, Zach did not have the time to sigh with relief, because the moment after he killed his target, the other Sneering Imp Warrior, which had had been flying close behind the first, now came to be less than two feet in front of Zach, and like the previous one, it occupied the majority of his vision.

With the mob already in such close proximity, Zach did not have the time to guard or tear it apart with another Phase Slash. So instead, he gritted his teeth and ducked for all he was worth, dropping all the way down into a squat as it slashed its spear at his throat, causing a whooshing sound from above. Afterwards, having missed, it began to fly off, moving directly over his head as it continued onwards. But it did not get very far, as Zach had had enough of this fucking thing.

With every last bit of speed he had at his disposal, Zach brought himself back up to his feet, removed his left hand from his blade, extended his arm as far as he could reach, and then he grabbed the thing by its wing as it was flying off, squeezing his hand tightly while also bending his knees. The result was that he was nearly dragged up into the air with it. Yet he exerted all of his strength, winning out over the mob, and so rather than finding himself carried off, he instead lifted up to his tiptoes before again regaining his ground. The mob, having lost the struggle, came to a direct, jarring stop.

Then, angrily, Zach spun his entire body around full circle while whirling his arm downwards, slamming the Gods-be-damned creature as hard as he could onto the floor, causing a loud bang that made Jimmy flinch and sent multiple entire flooring tiles blasting against the wall, several bouncing off and rolling all the way over to the water-pit.

The Sneering Imp Warrior tried to wriggle out of Zach’s grip, but Zach tightened his fist around its wing then stomped his foot on the back of its neck; exerting even more strength, he groaned as he then pulled with all his might, yanking so hard that the muscles in his arm began to ache. But his effort paid off, as there soon came a loud tearing sound, followed by snap, and with that, he ripped the wing entirely off its body. Then, without wasting another moment, he released it, gripped his sword once more with both hands, and at last, he yelled out triumphantly as he sliced his weapon downwards and beheaded the creature while it was still writhing on the floor.

+18000xp

No sooner had the creature died than Jimmy was again shouting out to him in warning. But this time around, Zach did not require it, as he could hear the disturbance in the air as a dagger was hurtled at him from behind. Combining two motions into one, Zach ducked and spun around, then raised his weapon and delivered one final Phase Slash, blasting the Sneering Imp Troublemaker to pieces and killing it.

+18000xp

“This way!” Jimmy called to him the moment of its death, beckoning him. “We’re nearly there. Hurry! Before more attack!”

Zach, covered in powdery sand that had previously been blood and guts, nodded and hurried over to Jimmy as the two began shifting along the wall, pulling themselves out and away from what had been a sort of collapsing ring; now, the mobs were becoming more bunched up than ever before, and all were following after the two of them.

Carefully, Jimmy continued to slide leftwards along the wall, and Zach followed him. Then he started picking up the pace, and so Zach moved a little faster as well. The way in which Jimmy was clinging to the wall, along with his frequent, unexplained pauses, meant that the specific movements he was making were deliberate and purposeful. He clearly had some kind of route in his mind: some pathing he’d calculated in his brain that he wanted the mobs to follow. It was incredible to watch. With great attentiveness, Jimmy guided Zach—and by extension, the mobs—until they had shuffled halfway around the outer perimeter of the circular room.

“Stop for just a second,” he said. And Zach obliged. Jimmy, beginning to sweat, reapplied his slow and poisons to all of the mobs, and then he continued onwards, eventually leading them off the wall, down the left side of the rounded room, and up to—and then around—the water-filled pit.

“Okay, now what?” Zach asked, his blade still held at the ready, wondering what came next.

“Now?” Jimmy grinned. “Now, nothing.”

“Huh?”

Jimmy’s grin gave way to laughter. “That’s it. We’re good. We did it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re good.” Jimmy began to walk, slowly and calmly. “Now, we just keep strolling around and around the water-pit until they’re all dead. Like I told you before: once we killed enough of them to thin the herd, there’d be enough space so that they’d never reach us while slowed.”

Zach’s mouth fell open. “Wait, so you mean we don’t even have to fight anymore?”

“Yup. We already won. All that’s left is to wait for them to die. The only thing we gotta worry about now is making sure we set the right pace. If we push too far ahead, the ones at the rear of the line of them will break off and start going the other way around the circle, and then we’re in exactly the kind of situation we did all this to avoid.”

Zach made an O-shape with his mouth, a reflexive expression of surprise as it really dawned on him what Jimmy was implying. Up until now, he’d assumed that they were going to kite the mobs around the water-pit while also fighting them. But it was only here, in this moment, that he realized what Jimmy intended all along was for them to passively sit back and do nothing while the mobs died on their own.

Astounded, Zach struggled to believe that anything could be so simple. Yet even as began to calmly lead the pack of mobs around the water-pit with Jimmy, he could already see that it really was exactly as Jimmy had said. Together, the two of them made laps around the edges of the pit while the mobs hissed and laughed as the poisons ticked away every few moments. In the distance, the five mobs that Zach had incapacitated with his Wave Slash a little earlier finally died off, and all of their xp came in at once. Honestly, Zach had forgotten all about them. He’d left them wingless and, in some cases, legless. Having ceased to be a threat, he’d put them totally out of mind.

+18000xp

+18000xp

+18000xp

+18000xp

+18000xp

Level Up!

25 (24)

Dexterity

+1 (125)

Constitution

+3 (119)

XP Required for Level 26

400,000

“Gods be damned, what a shit level up,” he grumbled as him and Jimmy continued to strut mindlessly around the water pit. “Seriously, I hate when I get ones like this.”

“That…happens to you a lot?” Jimmy asked him. Since they were in the same party, Jimmy was able to see the paltry level up that he’d gotten.

Zach both nodded and sighed in reply. “Yeah, like all the time. I get garbage level ups one after the next until getting, like, a ‘super’ level-up that propels me forward. It’s been really uneven like that since I started.”

“No cap?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, no kidding?”

“Oh. Yeah, I’m being serious. I can get level after level just like this until finally getting something decent.”

Jimmy shrugged. “Well, you’re like fifty times stronger than you should be at level twenty-five, so whatever it is you’re getting, it’s clearly working out for you.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Zach said, his attention beginning to drift as the sense of danger began to lessen and they settled into a steady pattern and pace of walking.

A period of oddly peaceful and relaxing quiet transpired between the two of them. Aside from the sound of their feet tapping on the tiled flooring, the only other noises were the occasional stirring of water and, of course, the usual laughter from the mobs as they died off, sometimes one at a time and sometimes several in one go. Before long, three quarters of them had turned to the sandy, powdery residue, which could now be found spread out all along the perimeter of the water pit.

“Hey, Jimmy,” Zach said as they continued to lead the last few along.

“Yeah?”

“You notice that none of these guys are dropping any loot?”

At this, he gave a prompt nod. “Actually, yeah. These dudes suck. They’re not giving us a damn thing. Usually when I clear out an entire room full of mobs, they at least give something. You know, there might be a couple of pouches of coin or some items here or there. But these guys? Not a thing.”

Zach glanced around the entirety of the room just in case they missed something. He wasn’t about to accidentally leave treasure behind. Yet, aside from little clumps of sand, the mobs offered nothing to remember them by. “I wonder if that’s why this dungeon is so unpopular.”

“Eh, maybe,” Jimmy said, “but I don’t really know. That could be it, or there could be no real reason at all. Maybe the adventurers are just afraid to explore a place they don’t know all that much about.”

“Or maybe,” Zach added, “it’s because this place is a literal death trap for anyone who isn’t you—and uh, I guess, technically, me.”

Jimmy seemed to find this funny, as he began to laugh. “I can’t believe a dungeon like this would be too hard for Galterrans.”

Though Jimmy clearly did not mean anything bad by his words, Zach couldn’t help become a touch defensive. “Why not?” he asked. “We don’t exactly have all this super-secret dungeon knowledge like you do, Jimmy. There’s no class on dungeons that you take in school.”

This only seemed to make Jimmy laugh even harder, and Zach shot him a confused, frustrated look. Upon noticing this, Jimmy’s laughter abruptly cut off, and he quickly apologized before explaining himself.

“Look, Zach, if you came from my version of Earth, you’d realize just how ridiculous this whole conversation is. You just can’t ‘get it’ without being from where I am.”

“Maybe not,” Zach agreed, exhaling slowly as two more mobs died and left behind nothing. “But even still, I know that, however you learned all this stuff, it’s not knowledge anyone here would just automatically have access to. At least not in the way you did. Most of what adventurers know is stuff that previous adventurers had to die to find out.”

Jimmy’s expression softened. “All right. Fair enough.”

“And also,” Zach continued, “no matter how ‘ridiculous’ a lot of this stuff might seem to you, it’s not a game to us. I mean, don’t get me wrong: as adventurers, I think most of us really do enjoy this kind of danger. But even then, it’s still way more serious than a game. Honestly, Jimmy? You should try to stop thinking about it like that, because this is your reality now, too. If something had gone wrong just before, both of us would be dead. Forever.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jimmy said, speaking a bit more softly. “But like I already said, it’s gonna take time for it all to really sink in, you know?”

“I do,” Zach replied honestly as another two or three mobs died. “And I’m not trying to rush you or anything. Jascaila says it’s a process, and I think she’s right about that.”

Jimmy looked like he had more to say, as his facial features tightened and his mouth partially opened. But then he closed it, abandoning whatever had been on his mind. Zach, for his part, decided not to pry. Instead, the two of them continued to leisurely stroll around the water-pit until every remaining mob perished—just as Jimmy had said they would. And now, as the last one crumpled into sand, Zach’s mood became elevated as he took note of his current progress towards his next level.

To Next Level

371,082/400,000

It was incredible. He’d only just leveled up, and he was already so close to the next one—which he hoped would be a bit better than the one he’d just gotten. But even putting his junk level up aside…wow. Just wow. Honestly? From this one combat encounter alone, Zach no longer found it so puzzling how Jimmy, in just two weeks, had risen from level 1 to level 45. Watching him in action, it suddenly made a whole lot of sense why he was soaring ahead in the levels and could even solo bosses, a claim Zach no longer doubted. Jimmy had knowledge no one else had—he knew things nobody else knew. And he had abilities that seemed to turn even highly difficult dungeon encounters meant for entire groups of people into something that could be managed with only the two of them.

No wonder Eilea brought him here, Zach thought. Seeing him in action really puts it all into perspective.

This, of course, only highlighted Zach’s need to protect him. There was a target on his back, and if Zach was not vigilant, Adamus’s goons would find some way of putting him to death. This, Zach would not allow. Before this moment, he was against it on moral principle, but now, having seen his usefulness, there was even more on the line.

I can’t let my guard slip. Jimmy has to live.

Not wanting to let his thoughts become overly dark, Zach decided to put the conflict with Adamus out of mind for now, and he instead chose to focus more on the fact that they’d emerged victorious from a pretty tough spot. Exchanging a fist bump with Jimmy, the two of them then began making their way towards the front of the room and over to the exit, which Jimmy had unlocked via the puzzle they’d solved. As Zach walked across the circular room, he took one last look around to ensure that they weren’t leaving any drops behind, and then he proceeded with Jimmy inside the somewhat square-shaped opening that had slid aside after the completion of the puzzle.

Stepping through, the scenery changed quite significantly. Gone was the fancily tiled flooring, and also missing was the overall red-tinted, castle-like ambiance that’d made up most of F28, especially the upper section. Here, they entered something that reminded Zach a little bit of the early floors of Yorna, which was to say a relatively narrow, cavern-like area with brown, rocky walls to both his left, right, and above, and which was just well lit enough to see despite containing no obvious light sources. The floor consisted of small rocks and gravel, and their feet made a crunching sound with each step that they took. To Zach’s left, a single, large, and black arrow had been painted on the rocky wall, pointing them onwards, and below this arrow, in the same black ink, it read: F28->F29.

“I’m ready for whatever comes next,” Zach said, breaking another brief period of silence. He was feeling confident and enthusiastic. Thanks to Jimmy’s buff, which had been refreshed just before exiting the previous floor, Zach had over an hour on his current duration of Unleashed Phase, which meant his hands were still releasing impossibly black smoke along with the occasional golden ember. Although the buff had worn off, he was confident he had more than enough time now to proceed through the dungeon without having to rush. “Just let me know what we have to do, okay?”

Jimmy gave him a slight smile. “Yeah, I got you. Don’t worry.” As the two continued onward, he looked at Zach and said, “Just wanna let you know, by the way, that I couldn’t have made it through that last floor without you. So thanks.”

Zach choked out a surprised laugh, a bit stunned by his words. “Why’re you thanking me?” he asked. “I’m the one who brought you here. And if I didn’t, I might’ve died in this place.”

“Oh, nah, you definitely would’ve died,” Jimmy said, nodding his chin. “No doubt about that.”

Zach took no offense to his words, as they were the plain truth. Still, he repeated his question, as he found what Jimmy had said to him a little strange. “I don’t get why you’re thanking me, though.”

Jimmy paused a moment and gave him an amused shake of the head, as if the answer should’ve been obvious. “A raid leader always thanks his party when they do a good job. Or at least he should. I accepted the risk when I agreed to come here, so yeah, I’m giving you props for how you did back there.”

Zach wanted to ask him what “props” meant, but he decided not to badger Jimmy with too many questions, as there were a lot of things he didn’t know and would have to find out gradually through conversation. Stopping to ask Jimmy every time he used a word in an unfamiliar way or a new word entirely would only make conversations with him tedious and torturous. For this reason, Zach merely reiterated his own thanks and left it at that as they traveled side by side farther down this rocky corridor, which ran long enough that Zach could not yet spot the end of it.

Given previous dungeon experience, Zach knew that even just moving between the floors could sometimes present a great challenge. Fortunately, that did not appear to be the case this time around. Although this particular passage did stretch on a bit farther than expected, by the time they’d walked what he estimated to be half a mile or so, a wooden door with a curved handle appeared up ahead, marking the end of this cavernous path. As they approached nearer, Zach could distinctly see that written above the door was: F28->F29.

The entrance to the next floor!

“All right,” Zach said, walking a bit faster and becoming excited as he approached the door. “You ready, Jimmy?” He reached out for the curved handle, grabbed it, and then he prepared to open it. But he paused as it occurred to him that Jimmy was no longer by his side. “Uh…Jimmy?”

Receiving no answer, Zach let go of the handle, turned around, and then furrowed his brow in confusion as he spotted Jimmy standing about twenty feet away with his body turned and facing the rocky wall to their left. Had he fallen behind or something? Why was he staring at the wall?

“Hey, Jimmy, is everything okay?” Zach called to him, once again receiving no answer. Annoyed, he decided to call out a bit more loudly. “Hello? Galterra to Jimmy!”

This, finally, seemed to catch Jimmy’s attention. He turned his head to face Zach, and then he made a beckoning motion with his chin. “Zach, come here a second.”

“Why?”

“Just come here!”

Zach, perplexed, jogged the tiny bit of distance between the exit door and Jimmy, and then he came to a halt before him. “What is it?” he asked. “Why’d you stop here?”

Jimmy grinned, and then he pointed his staff at the rocky cavern wall. “That’s why.”

“What’s why?” Zach asked, beginning to wonder if maybe Jimmy hit his head or something and had become delirious.

Jimmy looked at him, and then he made a “tsk” sound before tapping his staff against the rock-solid wall. “You really don’t see it, do you?”

“See what?” Zach asked, frowning.

“Look!”

Zach looked closely at this particular section of the wall, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. “Jimmy, whatever it is you think you—”

“How you gonna say you don’t see that, Zach? Actually look. Like, really, just use your damn eyes and look.”

Zach sighed. “I am looking. What is it I’m supposed to be seeing? Is it the fact that the rock is a slightly darker shade of brown?”

“Yes!” Jimmy snapped.

“Uh…okay, so?”

“Oh, for God’s sake! You Galterran people, it’s like…shit, man.”

Cycling through a breathing technique that Jascaila had taught him, Zach inhaled, held the breath, and then released it slowly, doing all he could not to lose his patience with his newest friend. “Can you please just explain to me why we’re staring at a section of the wall?”

Jimmy, like before, tapped his staff against it. “There’s a secret passage here, and there’s probably loot or treasure behind this.”

Two conflicting feelings struck Zach at once: the first was excitement just at the word “loot,” and the second was an ardent sense of disbelief that, even after everything Jimmy had been correct about, that he could also be correct about this. Surely, he couldn’t. There was no way.

“Are you telling me,” Zach began, doing his best to maintain his composure, “that you believe there’s a secret passage in this one tiny little spot on a wall that runs for over half a mile, just because it happens to be a slightly darker color than the wall around it?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Jimmy said, firing off a confident nod on the heels of his words. “That’s always what it means.”

Zach stared back and forth between Jimmy and the slightly discolored section of the wall. Jimmy was either an absolute lunatic or he was so prophetic it was becoming scary. The worst part of it all was that, as insane as all this sounded, Zach had already seen too much to truly doubt him. Even still, it was hard not to be skeptical, and Jimmy, as though understanding this, tapped his staff against the rock for the third time and began to explain.

“In Zelda and a lot of games like that, when you see a part of a wall that’s like, you know uh, a bit different than the section around it, that’s how the game lets you know you’re supposed to break it down with bombs or some shit. That’s just how it is. Any gamer would notice this right away.”

Zach tried to reply, even going so far as to open his mouth, but all that came out was an indecisive squeak as he tried to reckon with the sheer unbelievable magnitude of knowledge Jimmy seemed to possess. He spoke with such confidence and certainty that it chased away almost all of Zach’s doubt. He really believed there was something behind this particular section of the wall, and because of everything that’d come before, Zach was starting to believe it as well—no matter how absurd.

“And you think there’ll be treasure?”

“Oh, definitely,” Jimmy said. “A hundred percent. We knock this down, and there’ll be a passage that runs like ten, maybe twenty feet, and at the end of it will be a gold-and-black treasure chest. It might even be giving off a sparkling orange light.”

“That’s…so, so specific,” Zach said, caught between amazement and a spooky sense of incredulity.

“Well, that’s what’s gonna happen.”

Zach took another deep breath, which he audibly released, making a phew sound. “Okay, well, go ahead and break it down, then.”

At this, Jimmy released a playful chuckle. “I uh, I can’t. I tried before and hurt my damn fist. I don’t think I got the strength for it.”

“Oh no? All right. Let me have a try. Here goes nothing.”

Zach sheathed his sword, drew back his right fist, and then he pivoted on his hips and twisted his body as he delivered an incredibly powerful right hook directly into the wall. On contact, there was a loud, explosive, and oddly crunch-like sound, and rather than simply sink his fist into the wall, a door-sized section of it crumbled before his very eyes into a cascade of smaller chunks of limestone, which vanished out of existence the moment they hit the ground. Just from that alone, Zach knew that Jimmy was correct. As unbelievable as it was, Jimmy had actually discovered a secret passage based on nothing but a slight discoloration of the wall.

“I…don’t fucking believe it,” Zach whispered as a much narrower, alternative path now stood before them.

“Well, I told your ass,” Jimmy said, a touch too arrogantly. “Feel like opening a treasure chest now?”

“You’re damn right I do. I love loot!”

“You wanna go first?”

“I can?” Zach asked. “Even though you found it?”

“Go ahead. It’s cool.”

Zach didn’t need to be told twice. His greed flaring to untold heights, he hastily entered the narrow passageway, and Jimmy followed him in. Since there wasn’t enough width for them to both walk side by side, Jimmy stayed a little behind. And with that, Zach went to go find his treasure chest, beaming with excitement. He wondered what would be inside. Something rare? Maybe something Epic Rare. Maybe something…legendary. It could be anything. Gods, having Jimmy around was amazing.

Eager to see what they’d found, he hurried onwards, stomping one foot in front of the other, moving deeper and deeper into this little passageway Jimmy had discovered. Except, Zach was starting to think it might not be so little, as several minutes went by and he was still heading further inward.

“Jimmy?” Zach asked after they ventured what felt like another half a mile’s worth of distance. “I thought you said the treasure chest would be like twenty or thirty feet inside.”

“It should’ve been,” Jimmy said, sounding concerned. “I…I don’t know why they’re making us walk this far.”

And far they did in fact continue to walk. Spurred on by greed, Zach ended up traveling an even greater distance down this supposedly “little” passageway than they’d walked in the main one connecting F28 to F29. Yet still, he continued on, and before long, a few minutes became five minutes, and then five minutes became ten minutes. Eventually, the narrow passage widened so that they could stand together, and it changed in other ways, too, becoming more of a gravelly hill that they had to climb for another mile and a half before leveling off and continuing on flat ground again.

“Maybe we should turn back,” Jimmy said after another few minutes had come and gone. “I hate to say it, Zach, but it looks like I was wrong.”

Zach, alarmed, asked, “About what? The treasure? Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve got to be right. And besides, we’ve already come this far.”

Jimmy winced. “Actually, I don’t think there’s even gonna be any treasure at this point. We would’ve found it by now. I dunno where the hell this is taking us, but I don’t think it’s to treasure.”

Zach cupped his hands over his forehead, not sure what he should do. He peered off into the distance, attempting to see if there was any end in sight. For now, he saw only darkness ahead. “Let’s just walk a bit farther. I feel like, uh, if we already came this far, we might as well see what’s at the end of this path, right?”

“Heh, all right,” Jimmy said.

And that was what they did. Together, they continued along the secret passageway, and all the while, Zach prayed to the Gods that he was still going to get his treasure. But as they reached the thirty-minute mark, even Zach’s greed began to take a back seat to common sense. Not only was he risking losing his Unleashed Phase and having to proceed through the next floors without it, but he had somewhere he absolutely had to be later today, and as things were, he was cutting things close enough time-wise. Maybe it’d be better if he turned back after all?

“Jimmy,” he said, his tone coming across as defeated even to his own ears. “Maybe this is a bad idea after all. It doesn’t look like we’re going to find the—”

“There’s something up ahead!” Jimmy blurted out. “Look!” He pointed.

Zach squinted his eyes. Then he inhaled, spotting something ahead that looked like an end to the passageway, though it was difficult to see amid the overall darkness of their environment. “There’s something there. You’re right!”

With much more liveliness in each step, Zach hurried with Jimmy to the end of this alternate path, hoping to see a glimmering, shiny treasure chest awaiting him. Instead, he saw something totally unexpected. Having arrived at the end of a half-hour diversion in pursuit of loot, the two of them were greeted with a wooden door that was very similar to the one they were originally meant to go through.

“What the hell?” Zach asked, unable to believe or understand the sight before him. The door wasn’t just similar: it was the same. Much like the other door, this one, also, said: F28->F29. But wait…was there something else as well?

What’s that?

On top of the wooden door, etched into the wood, there was an illustration that Zach was fairly sure did not exist on the other one he’d encountered. It was a cartoonish depiction of a hand being extended, palm facing up. And above this hand, what looked like a golden coin was falling down into its waiting clutches. Zach fired a questioning look at Jimmy, who shrugged and said, “For once, I’ve got no idea.”

Taking a breath, Zach reached out and grabbed the handle, though he did not turn it. He hesitated. “Should I?”

“We’ve come this far already,” Jimmy said.

Zach nodded. “Okay. But be ready for anything, all right?”

“I always am.”

Jimmy unsheathed his staff, and Zach, keeping one hand on the door, used the other to draw his own weapon. With that, he turned the handle and pushed it open. Then he, along with Jimmy, stepped inside—and immediately, Zach had to narrow his eyes as he was hit by a dramatic change of lighting as the two found themselves in a well-lit, room-temperature interior of what looked like a combination of a convenience store and a toy shop, one with homely blue carpeting, a large, spacious interior, and about seven aisles packed with any number of goods including clothing, candy, and very strange-looking gadgets and gizmos. But most of all, what really struck Zach was what he spotted directly across from him.

There was a shop counter, and behind this counter was an incredibly strange-looking man with two big, white puffs of hair that looked like giant cotton balls surrounding an otherwise bald scalp. The man was wearing a vibrant yellow-and-red suit, and he seemed to be clutching a rainbow-colored umbrella despite being indoors. He also reacted immediately the moment him and Jimmy entered into this bizarre, yet wonderous and homely shop.

“C-customers?” he whispered inquisitively. “C-customers?” he whispered again.

The man, whose head had been buried into the countertop, snapped upright to attention, and then a look of unfathomable glee crossed his features while tears began to run down his eyes. An instant later, he shot up out of the chair behind his counter, clasped a hand over his mouth, and then he seemed to blow into it, making something that sounded like a cross between a scream and a gasp. It was also at this point that Zach realized the man was an NPC, one who was almost certainly sentient. And unless Zach’s eyes were playing tricks on him, his level was 3,105, which was way higher than even Angelica’s.

“C-c-c-customers!” he shrieked, slapping his right palm emotionally and excitably on his countertop. “Customers, customers, customers! People! Real, actual, living people! Visiting Mushkie’s item shop! It’s been so long, my friends. So, so long. Five-hundred years. Oh, please, please, come in!” More tears fell down his eyes. “I haven’t spoken to anyone in centuries! Not a word to anyone! You are welcome. Please, please come in!”

Zach and Jimmy exchanged another look, and then Zach gently closed the door behind him. “Well, he seems nice.”