Two candles lit up the room, a stack of paper sat at one side while a map of the town had been folded out in the middle of the table. Surrounding it is Sheep, Jupiter and myself, the three of us looking at the map.

"So preplanning our assault on this dragon is the aim of our little meeting here today." Sheep starts as he taps the map. "Let's start off with the biggest problem we have right now, the overwhelming number of Husks surrounding the centre."

"Getting to the dragon as a team while also cutting a path through the Husks is likely impossible. We have to consider our ammo count too, while we are gaining more ammo thanks to the advancements it's not limitless. There are hundreds of Husks on the streets, if not thousands of them, so fighting them isn't a possibility." Writing on a piece of paper as I spoke, I listed the problems we would have.

"There are also only four entry points into the centre of the town. North, south, east and west. With Heavy Husks able to easily crush buildings it's not unthinkable that they will do the same with the walls." Noting down what Jupiter says, I look at the map myself and see the four spots that had been circled.

"If we get swarmed it's all over. All we have been doing recently is picking off packs with long range weapons and finishing off the weaklings up close. A Heavy can very well trample us easily." Sheep takes the pen and draws an arrow, pointing slightly away from the south group. "This is where Mid and I travelled with Winter. There are no tall buildings in that area for Mid to snipe from so we won't have long distance support, she'd have to join us in the centre."

"Could we lure out the dragon? If we could kite it out of the town that would resolve our problems."

"I highly doubt it. The dragon appears to be protecting the obelisk in the town centre, if it's intelligent it won't move far from it." As I reply to Jupiter, I mark exactly where I had seen the obelisk. "If we can destroy the obelisk it might be more willing to follow us, but it might also cause the dragon to become enraged."

"A fight with an enraged dragon and swarm of Husks. We'd be dead in seconds." Sheep ponders for a moment before looking at me. "I think a blitz is the only solution here."

"It's risky. We would need to hold off or distract the Husks for a short time and if that doesn't work or if we don't kill the dragon in time we're finished." Leaning back and thinking of blitzing the dragon, I frown as simulations played through my head with more actors.

"What if we made it extremely difficult for the Husks to approach us?" Looking at Jupiter who had a thoughtful look on his face, he tapped a finger at the southern wall. "A trap or a blockage here that we can set off after we enter. Maybe a set of bombs or explosives that trigger on a timer?"

"That would work if we had bombs. Explosives we do have, but we don't have fuses…actually." Sheep leaned in and looked deeply at the southern gate. His expression reminded me of the times he would do his own simulations in his head but at a far deeper level.

"I have an idea…" Sheep starts explaining his idea as I get to writing. The more his idea came out the more I realised that it may actually be the best move that we could make and seeing Jupiter's reaction I knew he thought the same. For the next few hours we worked out problems, back up plans and finalised the plan. Rereading it all gave me a sense of excitement to see how it all panned out.

"We will discuss the full plan to the next parts, fighting the dragon and escaping, once Jupiter has advanced and we know what his battle potential is." Putting my pen down and stretching, I glance at Sheep and Jupiter.

"Then it'll be time to fight it…is it wrong to feel a bit excited about fighting a dragon?"

"Nah, I'm the same way, Jupiter. Terrified, but excited. What about you, Mid?"

"I'm the same, I just hope we don't lose anyone." The other two nod. "You're both heading to town after this, right?"

"Ah yes. We should go now, this took a bit longer than expected."

"Keep yourselves safe. I'll work on getting the radios operational." With those words, we left the room we had been sitting in and after seeing the two of them off I headed towards the centre of Beta, getting myself prepared to start on machinery.

Two days quickly passed us by, with both being fully focused on working on hand radios. After adjusting the frequencies, I tested them along with Winter who drove down the road while keeping contact and we found the distance of the radios to be roughly a kilometre before we could make each other out.

Satisfied with the result, I got to work building eight more and soon we had one for each person. Thanks to Machinist Soul they turned out in good condition. The only concern is the batteries since we didn't have a way to charge them, but it would last a while.

After finishing the radios and looking at the pile of machine parts and giving it a bit of thought, I decided to turn my attention to preparing for the dragon rather than building more. Packing my toolkit, I stopped by to see Winter first, who had been working on progressing Weaponsmithing.

"Ah, shoo. I'm busy and you can't help." Shooing me away, Winter turned back to her work and seeing the room she's using as a temporary workshop I felt impressed. Hundreds of wooden arrows, dozens of different types of bows and melee weapons and what looked to be two shotguns designed after hers. Peeking at what she was building, it turned out to be another sniper.

After making sure she didn't need anything, which had been answered with more shooing noises, I walked around the camp and seeing Melody I peeked in on what she's doing.

"Midnight! I've been meaning to find you." Looking at the table before Melody, I could see various glass bottles, plants and powder. "Ah, my setup for Alchemy. Listen listen, I'm sure these turned out good but I need a…taste tester."

"It's not poison, is it?"

"No no! The System registers them as healing draughts, they're the real thing but see, they normally taste like day old socks and I'm trying to make it taste a bit more…fruity?" Melody grabs one and passes it to me.

Minor Healing Draught.

Restores 10-20 Health depending on missing health.

"It'll heal more if you're injured." Melody grabs one herself. "Don't worry, the captain goes down with the ship!"

"Who is the ship in that context?"

"Bottoms up!" Without answering me, Melody empties the bottle in one go and quickly doing the same, I'm hit by the biggest taste explosion of my life.

The taste left me in despair, attacking my mouth, making me nauseous as the liquid touched my tongue. My gag reflex kicked in and quickly ducking away I threw up the contents of my stomach, the taste lingering in my mouth.

"It tastes like a pair of hobo's underwear!" Shouting a really unnecessary line, Melody poked my side and wiped my mouth. I glared at her as she handed me another bottle, practically shoving it into my hands. "Take this, quick. It'll get rid of the lingering taste!" Seeing her down a similar bottle so repeating the action, I do the same and seeing as there is no taste I swirl it in my mouth before spitting it out, like Melody.

"I. Am. So. Sorry!" Looking at me horrified, Melody takes the empty bottles and throws them into a bag.

"If I can't kiss my wife later…" Glaring at Melody, I coughed. "God I can still taste it, what the hell did you put in it?"

"Liquified gummy bears. I thought it would add a bit of sweetness, but it tasted like the devil's taint."

"You don't need to keep adding descriptive words about the taste." Resisting the word to vomit again, I looked at the other bottles, a sense of fear suddenly in my stomach.

"Ah, I've been making different recipes for various useful effects. This one increases your vision for example." Showing me a rather colourful potion, Melody turns around. "I have another bottle I'd like you to tes-"

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Bolting as fast as I could from Melody's room, I ignored the plea for me to stay and after hiding on a roof for a few minutes I sighed and laid on my back, making a mental note to never go near Melody while she's working.

After a few minutes, I get up and continue wandering around Beta, checking in with Ghost next and seeing that he's doing nothing but lazing around, I ignore him and sit down in front of the campfire. Looking at the sky, I hoped that it would rain, the weather had barely changed since we arrived in this world.

Hearing footsteps approach me, I turn, terrified that Melody had been seeking me and upon seeing Aerith I sighed with relief.

"Mm? Why do you look terrified, Midnight?" Aerith tilts her head before yawning and rubbing her eyes, sitting down next to me.

"If a strange girl offers you a drink to taste test, never accept it." Shivering a bit out of fear, I frowned then turned to Aerith who looked confused. "You've advanced?"

"Hm? I think *yawn* so." Sitting next to me, Aerith had a distant look on her face before speaking again. "I'm the first Ice Magician and the first Ice Magician to finish the quest."

“That’s good, though I’m a bit surprised, I’d have figured more people would’ve gone for Ice Magician.” Lighting the campfire after putting a bit of wood on it, I turn to her. “Have you claimed the rewards yet?”

“Mm, I wanted to do it with yo-”

A scream sounds out, high pitched, female. Standing quickly I spin and use Hawkeye in the direction the scream came from. My eyes landed on the source, Winter, who is running straight towards us. She looked pale, as if sick, and as she wiped her mouth I had a bad feeling. Moving my eyes behind her I saw Melody chasing her, yelling.

“Midnight? Is that Winter?”

“Aerith, run. Save yourself.” Pushing Aerith slightly, I continued to watch in horror as Winter arrived and crash tackle hugged me.

“Rubyyy, save me!”

“Ah! You bought her here! Quick, we need to hide!”

“Waaaait, you have to rinse your mouth or the taste won’t go away!”

“Nooooo! I don’t want to die!”

“Wait, Bek, you should take the mouth cleaner, it worked for me.”

“I wouldn’t let you just live with the taste and smell! Here, drink it.”

“Ah, you’re a demon! Who else can make such a foul tasting drink and convince people to drink it!” Winter looks at Melody, terrified as she accepts the bottle. Doing as I instructed, she swirls it for a minute before spitting it out, throwing the bottle away. “Argh, I can still taste it. Ruby, kiss me! I need something sweet!”

“Ah, no wait!” Leaning away from her, I desperately tried to avoid encountering that awful taste again.

“What’s wrong? If you’re truly my wife you’ll give me a big kiss!” Hearing a cheeky tone in her voice, I struggled with Winter.

“Oh, I have a perfect potion if you two need ‘help’!” Both of us froze up at those words, fear in our eyes. It didn’t matter what ‘help’ it intended to provide, we both knew it would have the opposite effect! Winter picks me up as she starts running, but in a panic I look back.

“Wait, Bek, we left Aerith behind!”

“Her sacrifice won’t be forgotten, may she rest in peace.”

Hiding behind a building, we nervously kept an eye on our surroundings when another scream sounded out, a familiar pitched scream…Aerith. We both pale at the sound of the scream as Winter places her hand over her heart.

“I hope you find peace, Kate.”

“She’s not dead!” Poking my head out, I saw Aerith running away from Melody, tears streaming down her eyes as Melody chased her with a bottle of mouth cleaner. “Should we warn the others?”

Ghost had responded immediately when Winter had screamed, wielding both pistols in his hands, ready to respond to danger. When he had seen Winter running from Melody, his face had paled as fear replaced his serious expression before running away. It seems we weren’t the only victims.

“Warn them? I mean…it builds character, right? Should we really warn them?” Winter shivers as she pokes her head out as well.

“We can’t just throw them into this danger!”

“If it means I don’t have to taste such a foul thing in the future then I’m content with not warning them.” We both watch as Aerith swirls the mouth cleaner before spitting it out. She throws the bottle at Melody before running away again, her head swivelling as if searching for us. I couldn’t blame her for choosing the flight option of flight or fight.

Once Melody gave up and returned to her room, we snuck over to Aerith and after searching found a hiding spot, with a Ghost sitting there.

“Oh shit, did you bring her here?!” Ghost jumps up, a terrified look in his eyes as he looks at us.

“No, we lost her.”

“Oh thank god. She got Silver first, he’s been missing since then. I got curious and fell victim next.” A shiver runs down his back as he sits down.

“Why didn’t you warn me?!” I stamp my foot down as Ghost laughs.

“You think I’d give up the opportunity to see you in a panic because of gummy bears?” Ghost sits down, though he looks a bit sick.

The three of us sat down, all trying to not remember Melody’s potions before we heard another scream, a more manly one. Realisation dawns on us as we hear that scream.

“Lemon…” Ghost paled as he looked towards the scream. “May he rest in peace.”

“”“He’s not dead!””” Aerith, Winter and I spoke at the same time before I turned my attention to Aerith. “I nearly forgot, what rewards did you get from advancing?”

“Oh yea! I learned a new spell when I woke up, Ice Wall.” Holding her hand up, Aerith breathed in as a wall of ice appeared in front of us. It’s about two metres high, a metre thick and three metres wide. “I can control the height, length and width, this is about the maximum that I can do. Oh, my mana increased to four hundred!”

“So much mana?!” I felt a bit of shock as Aerith nodded.

“Sadly my health is still fifty.” Her fingers moved in the air as three boxes and a long case appeared before her.

“So many rewards? Oh, did you finish your Class Quest?” Ghost mutters before glancing at Aerith who nods.

Opening the case first, we saw a beautifully made staff. Like her wand, there is a palm sized white gem at the top and along the staff are strange magic circle-like symbols. Picking it up gently, Aerith moved her hands down the staff.

“It reduces the mana cost of all spells I cast by 50%! It uses 25% of the mana it saves to apply ‘Frostbite’, which inflicts Cold Damage, at least that’s what it says. The wand might be a little better depending on the situation…” Placing the staff next to her, she grabs the first box first, the size of a toaster and opens it. A spell tablet sat alongside six crystal blue potions. Picking up the spell tablet, Aerith nodded slightly.

“It’s for another spell, Ice Lance. When activated six spikes of ice form around me and I can fire them off either all at once or one at a time.” Using it, Aerith closed her eyes before opening them. “The power is determined on how much mana I use.” Pushing her hand out, six ice lances appeared around her before shooting them all at the ice wall that had started melting. Seeing them pierce into the ice wall, we all whistled.

Picking up one of the potions, Aerith’s eyes widened. “Mana potions. Restores fifty mana per potion. Can only use one per day.” Placing the box down, she opened the next box, the size of a palm, to reveal a talent stone. Without a word from anyone, she used it and stayed silent for a moment, her lips moving as if reading. Suddenly she frowned, raised a brow before gasping.

“I see why you say the talents are bullshit. Two are decent, both revolve around either increasing my mana, mana regeneration or empowering my spells a bit, but the last one is truly strong. My spells have a chance to summon an ‘Ice Meteor’, the size depending on the strength of my spells. It increases the cost of my spells by 10% but when one is summoned and hits enemies it’ll give me twenty mana, double my mana regeneration and cast a Frozen Orb from the meteor on nearby enemies.”

“Okay, what the fuck? I’m just a bit more stealthy and you get to summon freaking meteors?!” Ghost, while sounding angry, had a look of excitement on his face. Aerith chose the talent she spoke about before looking at the last box. Inside are similar items to what I had.

“Builder’s Soul One. When I finish a building there is a chance for inspiration. If it happens I will be inspired and learn a new blueprint for another building. No idea what the chance is.” Using it, Aerith takes out a blueprint this time. I had expected an orb like mine. This blueprint however is golden, not blue, with red lining.

“Blueprint of a Builder’s Heavenly Palace.”

“Sounds like the Machinist Kingdom you got, Rubes.”

“Mm, use it, Aerith.”

Seeing it disappear as she uses it, she frowns and shakes her head. “What is this nonsense? It’s like a bunch of random noise. Oh, the System says I’ve collected one of sixteen, do we need to collect them all for it to make sense?”

“I guess so? We should get everyone to finish their Class Quests.” Turning to Winter, she nods.

“Doing just our Class Points saved time so we did that, perhaps we should’ve focused on the Class Quest?”

“Ghost, Winter, what have you guys got left?”

“Mm, I need to blast twenty more Husks with a shotgun.”

“I need to sneak attack thirty more Husks, they can’t see me before I kill them.”

“That’ll take time. We’ll focus on it after the dragon.” Getting up and patting my butt free of dirt, I looked around. “I’m going to go find Lemon and make sure he’s okay. Bek, can you look for Dawn. I haven’t heard her scream so either she escaped or she’s still advancing. Aerith, Ghost, just rest for now, we’ll be going for the dragon in a few days, I want you both at your peak states.”

“”Got it”” Both speaking at the same time, they started to plan some training as Winter and I separated. After a few minutes, I found Lemon sitting on a rock just outside of Beta and as I approached I saw him turn to look at me, depression obvious on his face, tears rolling down his face. Not bothering to hide it, he turns from me.

“Hey big guy, everything alright?” Sitting beside him on the rock, I remained quiet, waiting for him to speak.

“I-I didn’t get anything…” Hearing his words as his voice broke, my stomach turned as silence returned.