My jaw falls open and I freeze in my step. I look up at her. “Um,” I say. “I didn’t consent to…” Her eyes sharpen slightly. I turn towards her fully. “Ok um actually I’m not harassing anyone and there’s absolutely no proof that I would ever do something weird like that because as you can see I’m just a totally normal sort of guy and besides the only reason I’m here is because I’m waiting for Moleman to come out so I can beat him up until he begs for his mommy, so it’s not harassment.”

She makes the sort of face you make when your toddler is trying to express that they’re having prophetic visions of the world’s downfall. “So, what you’re trying to say is… You’re not harassing anyone, you’re just premeditating assault?”

I snap my fingers, making mud splatter. A piece of it hits her cheek. “Exactly.”

The woman wipes off her face before looking back at the pale girl and then returning her vision to me. “That’s worse. You do know that premeditated assault is worse than harassment, right?”

“Uh,” I say intellectually. “Um.” Okay, I need to find some way to defuse this situation. Option one: kill her. She’s standing just behind the barrier, out of reach. Shoot. Option two… “Officer, I actually have no idea what all of this is about, do you have anything to base these accusations off of other than baseless accusations and shoddy witness testimony? You should know that witness accounts are actually the most gullible and easily tempered kinds of evidence, so all of this is actually completely meaningless.”

Her eyebrows shoot up and her eyelids flare. “You—you just confessed to premeditated assault! How is that in any way baseless? If I reported this to Leader Bach, we could have you—”

“Ursula? Is everything alri—”

My eyes fall on Moleman. His eyes fall on me. For some reason, the gentle smile on his face suddenly slips off. After about half a second he’s able to muster up another—if somewhat tense—smile, and he steps closer. Not close enough to leave the Easy lobby, but close enough that he’s part of the situation. He looks down at me. “Eh, erm… Kitty? Is that you?...”

I take a few steps back. “Hey, hahah, yeah, it’s me, your buddy Kitty!” I hold out my hand. “Why don’t you step out of the lobby here and greet me? A handshake, just for old-time’s sake, right? How’s that sound, old buddy, old pal?”

Before Moleman can react to my words at all, Ursula puts her hand on his chest. “He just confessed to premeditating your assault. I wouldn’t approach that… thing… if I were you.

Hey! How am I a thing? This is discrimination on the basis of animation!

Moleman looks away from Ursula and back to me. He takes a deep breath like you do before walking into a minefield of a conversation. “Kitty, will you please explain just two things to me?” I tilt my head at him. “Actually, three. Um… Firstly, why are you covered head to toe in mud?”

“Stage eight was muddy.”

He nods, gives a short, almost self-deprecating chuckle, and then continues. “Secondly, why are you crouched down like—like… Gollum, or something?”

I look down. Huh. Yeah, I suppose this position could be considered kind of like that. Hm. “If I’m crouched down, they can’t spot me.”

Moleman looks like he has a lot he wants to say about that, but, in the end, he says nothing. “Alright. Thirdly—”

“Hang on,” I say, holding up my hand. He pauses. I continue, “You’ve asked me a whole bunch of questions now, so I think it’s only fair if I get to ask you something in turn.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

He takes a deep, deep breath. “Sure,” he says. “Ask away, friend.”

I hesitate for a second. See, sure, he was level forty when he was on floor twenty-three or something, but now he’s way beyond that. So, there’s a chance, just a tiny little chance, that… “What level are you?”

“I’m level eighty-three.”

I can feel my jaw drop. I physically put it back in place. “I—I see. Um, okay. Yeah. Alright. Yup. Mhm.”

Moleman takes a single step closer, moving out of the barrier. “Now, question three.” He looks down at me. I feel like a child about to be reprimanded. I take a step back. “What’s this about premeditated assault?”

“Uh—um, uh, ah, th—that’s…” I gulp. “I was just… The, um, the rematch, and, it’s…”

He heaves a sigh. Then, he looks back at Ursula and the pale girl. “It’s alright, he wasn’t going to do anything. Just… just leave this to me, alright?”

She looks down at me. She’s got that same look in your eye you do when you look at a rowdy dog, but she seems to trust Moleman a fair bit, because after only a second or so, she replies, “Well, alright… Just, well, be careful, okay?”

He smiles back at her. “Don’t worry.” And so, she leaves. The mud caked around my entire body feels awfully stuffy all of a sudden. Right as I start considering whether or not it’s possible to fake your own death in the tutorial, Moleman squats down in front of me. He puts one hand on my shoulder. “Let’s talk somewhere else, alright?”

“Uh,” I say. “O—okay.”

Before I can do anything else, he grabs me by both shoulders and pulls me to stand upright. It feels uncomfortable, but I can’t find it in me to refuse him. He stares into my eyes intently. “When you’re with people, try to act like one, okay?” I nod fiercely at him. “Great. That’s rule number one.”

…Rule?

He grabs hold of my muddy hand in his left one and drags me through a number of weird, winding hallways and staircases, the number of people around us quickly turning to basically zero. Eventually, we get to what I think may be one of the tops of the castle and he brings me into a little room overlooking the grassy hills outside. There are quite a lot of people out there. Some are training together, others are talking, yet more are just lying down in the grass, and some have apparently started playing football.

“Before we do anything else,” Moleman says, and I only just have time to look at him before he points at me with his left ring finger and suddenly I’m lifted off the floor in a tiny hurricane and all of the mud and goop caking my body is violently ripped off of me. As I swirl around like a lone sock in a massive dryer, he empties a few bottles of water into the whole thing, and while I’m still too shocked to do anything at all, I suddenly fall out of the ball and watch with fascination as he gestures the ball of swirling mud out of the window and then just lets it drop down into a gutter below.

Huh. Whoa. Wow. Is—is that the power of magic?

“Right, now that you’re clean, we can—” He turns back to me, eyes widening as he notices that I am completely in the nude. “You—you’re—why—” After a second or so of wild stammering, he pulls himself together enough to speak. “W—well, for, um, for starters, you can… Put something on. P—please.”

Huh? Oh, yeah.

I pull one of my dozen leopard hides out of my inventory and wrap it around me like I usually do. Hm. It seems that I’ve gotten pretty used to wearing these things, huh? I turn back to him. “Is this better?”

Giving a sharp nod, Moleman wanders over and takes a seat at the small, round table in the middle of the room. He gestures towards the only other chair and I reluctantly sit down across from him. This feels like a parent-teacher conference. In that case, the best thing to do would be to start this on the right side of the street. I draw myself up as best as I can in my seat, even though it feels uncomfortable with the wood beneath my bony behind. “Um, thank you for cleaning off the mud, very n—”

“What level are you?”

My jaw snaps shut. Wearily, my eyes wander over the room. Oh, wow, I didn’t notice that tapestry before. Isn’t that neat?

“Look at me and tell me what level you are, Kitty.”

I glance back at him. I look down at my hands. My palms have gone all sweaty again. “I’m uh…” My voice falls to something just below a whisper, “Level forty-one…”

“Forty-one, huh? Not bad for floor eight,” Moleman says casually, nodding as he does. When my eyes meet his, they harden. “But considering that I’m at floor forty-six, you’ve still got a long way to go before you can even think about having a fair rematch. Not to even mention trying to… What did Ursula call it? Premeditating my assault? Yeah. Not to say that it isn’t possible, but…” He lays his hands flat on the table. “You might want to wait until you get to Purgatory before you try anything like that.”

To say I feel like a schoolboy being scolded for getting into trouble again is a vast understatement. There’s basically nothing I can do but sit here and stare down at my lap. That said, one word sticks out to me, and I muster the courage to raise my face to him again. “Get to where-now?”

He blinks at me. “Oh! That’s, um… It’s one of the topics that’ll be brought up at the Leadership Meeting in… Let me just look at the time.” While he brings up his clock, I sneak a peek at it.

<00:34:21

Day 180>

23:20:39>

will end in 23:20:39>

“—Around fifteen minutes,” Moleman finishes.

I feel my brows furrow. “Leadership Meeting?”