Herring—weird name—gives a small nod, but it’s clear that he doesn’t find the situation here too calm. “I talked to Yurt just the other minute. He went off to find the others, so they should be here any moment.”

“Great!” Bach says with a clap of the hands. “No need for us to wait out here, though. How about we go inside the room and mingle a little? It’s been a while since we met face to face, after all.” The group agrees, and slowly, we file back inside the room, though I wait just a few seconds for Moleman to grab the chair once more. Together with the rest, we enter. Sometimes I wish I was more oblivious of these things, because the feeling of people looking at me with this much suspicion is basically skin-crawling.

For a minute or so, Moleman and I discuss where I should sit. I think I should sit next to the entrance, but Moleman argues that since he anyways considers me to be a proper part of the meeting since I’m the only one who can speak for the Hell difficulty, I should sit at the table with the rest of him. And despite my attempts, he gets his way through. Unfortunately, this puts me right between Moleman and Bach.

It’s far from my first choice, but as you may be familiar with, as of right now, I basically don’t have any human rights, so who cares.

After a few minutes, the rest of the leadership drops in one by one. Some I recognise, but most of them are to me complete strangers. To make things worse, they don’t even try to introduce themselves to me, so I don’t even know what their names are. There’s too many of them in total for me to make a mental list of them, so for now, I’m not even going to bother to put their names and faces to mind. It probably won’t be important in the future.

“Alright, let’s take our seats, shall we?” Bach says to the group as a whole.

Until now, most of us had just been hanging around and mingling—with me following Moleman around like a lost sheep—but now we start moving properly. Everybody shuffles over to the table and after only a minute or so of people looking for their names and sitting down in their proper places, we finally have the whole gang in one place. Bach makes a gesture at Moleman, and he silently points at the door, making a small gust of wind close it.

“Before we begin,” Bach says, drawing herself up, “I will distribute the plan for today’s Leadership Meeting. Please look it through carefully.”

Nobody says anything in response, so she just goes right on ahead by pulling out a small pile of papers from her inventory and passing them to the right. The small pile moves through people and everyone takes one copy each, until it reaches Moleman on my left, who receives the final one. Leaving me empty-handed. N—not that I actually wanted a plan for the meeting or anything. Plans are for dumbos who can’t get it right on their own.

Slyly, I peek at Moleman’s copy. It’s hand-written on a piece of textured paper with elegant, slightly swirly letters. It’s a nice handwriting, but I don’t want to say anything else because I’ve got a hunch that Bach may have written it herself, and I don’t want to compliment her.

Most of it is just bureaucratic nonsense though, so I give up trying to read it pretty fast.

“If you’ve all read through it properly, then I will henceforth declare the meeting opened.” Pulling a small, brass hammer from her inventory, she lightly pounds it onto the table. “Firstly, I nominate myself as chairman for the meeting. Are all in favour?”

A scattered chorus of ““Aye”” arise from the various members at the table. Not wanting to be left out, I parrot them and say, “Aye,” too. But then Moleman elbows me in the ribs for some reason and Bach gives me a side-eye.

“To repeat what is already written in the programme,” she says sternly, “only those formally part of the Leadership of Rebel are allowed to have a vote at this meeting. Unauthorised persons present due to surrounding circumstances must remain quiet. Is that understood by all persons present?”

“””Aye.”””

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“A—,” Moleman elbows me in the ribs again before I have time to instinctually say aye like everyone else. It—it’s just so tempting!

“To continue where we left off, since all are in favour of accepting HookedOnBach of the twenty-seventh floor as chairman, this motion is accepted.” And then she bangs her little gavel and I have never before wanted to bonk a table with a brass hammer so badly. “Onto our next point, HerringFerry of the fourteenth floor has nominated SuperMoleman of the forty-sixth floor as secretary. Are all in favour of accepting this motion?”

“””Aye.”””

“A—,” Moleman quickly silences me by stepping on my foot. I bite my tongue.

A bang of the gavel. “In that case, the meeting formally accepts SuperMoleman of the forty-sixth floor as secretary.”

“Thank you,” Moleman says politely as he pulls out a bit of stationery, mainly a few arcs of paper, a quill and an inkwell. Even though I know that the shop doesn’t exactly have access to much modern-day stuff, seeing him use such ancient things still feels weird. Almost archaic. I watch with fascination as he quickly jots down the events of the meeting being opened and the choice of chairman and secretary.

“To start,” Bach says, “we will have each person describe how the last three months have gone for the floors they supervise, alongside what punishments have mainly been executed and in response to which crimes. Allow me to go first. As the supervisor of the Hard difficulty, as well as floors twenty and above…”

I regret agreeing to this. I thought I would be getting some interesting information, but this is just that Guild of Representatives chat all over again. Unlike that chat, however, now, I can’t even clock out by just not reading it. There’s nothing I can do but listen. To make the time go by faster, I begin silently ripping up my thighs just beneath the table. Wherever this is, it isn’t like the lobbies, so I can hurt myself as much as I want without it healing straight away. Neat! “Now, I wish to leave the word to HerringFerry of the Hard Difficulty, supervisor of the first twenty floors.”

“Thank you, Bach,” Herring says. And then he begins to do a report, just as detailed as Bach’s. I have no idea for how long he talks, but it feels like years.

Oh, I just reached my femurs! How neat. I’m gonna try giving myself skeleton legs, hehe.

“—In conclusion, since more people have understandably become far more desperate to finish the tutorial quickly, mistreatment among challengers and toward the inhabitants of Purgatory have unfortunately become more common than before.”

Bach nods at him sagely. “Thank you. Continuing on…”

To make a horribly drawn-out situation a bit more manageable, I’ll just summarise and say that nobody said anything of value and then they skipped over Moleman. But by the time we got here, I had already completed my goal of removing all flesh on my legs. Great success! I feel slightly woozy, but it’s already getting better.

Bleeding Protection Lv.5>

Hey, neat! Level up!

With the final report, Bach bangs her gavel again. “Let us continue. Since I’m sure that these news have undoubtedly hung heavy on everyone’s minds lately, let us—” Her eyes widen slightly and her lips almost instantly dip into a frown. She glances at me in what seems to be disgust. Her mind seems to rush with thoughts and conflict and after a second or so she finally makes up her mind and says, “Did you never learn how to use a bathroom!? What the hell are you—”

She looks underneath the table. I don’t know what she was expecting, but it was clearly not my skeleton legs, because just as soon as she looked beneath, she looks away, sitting back up straight to stare at a tapestry on the wall for a few seconds. Her eyes slowly open and close a few more times. After gathering herself, she looks back under the table. The rest of the leaders at the table, too confused to say anything, mirror her actions by looking under the table.

I feel Moleman’s eyes burn into me. “Kitty?” he asks. “What did you do?”

I purse my lips. “I—it’s not like I was hurting anybody, just the opposite actually, because in a sense, training my tolerances and resistances and stuff is very good for me, because it prevents me from dying in the future, so this is really less hurting and more saving, and saving someone is always a good thing, even if it hurts a little, so I haven’t done anything morally reprehensible.”

He stares at me for a few seconds more, and then, carefully, he places his face in his hands.

“A—a potion!” someone says hysterically.

“Moleman, you know a healing spell, right? Moleman, please, you need to—”

“Okay, guys, I’m buying an elixir right now…”

Bach slowly stands up again, and even though her eyes are foggy and dead-looking, she still finds it in herself to look me straight in the eyes. “Why did you do that to yourself?” she asks bluntly.

“Um,” I say. “To train my tolerances?”

“So you aren’t in pain or going to die?”

“Uh…” I give a quick glance at Moleman. He’s still got his head in his hands. “No?”

Bach claps her hands. “Great! Okay, meeting, you heard him. He’s not going to die. Let’s just ignore the pile of human flesh and blood under the table and try to continue the meeting, okay?”

“C—continue the meeting?! But he’s—” A single look from Bach is able to shut them up.

“Perfect, glad we’re all in agreement.” Slowly, despite some of them not being able to pull their eyes away from me, the rest of the leadership takes their seats. Since this is apparently important to these people, I quietly activate my moving meditation to heal up. Slowly, flesh returns to my bones. Beside me, Bach folds her hands on top of the table. “Now, then. Where was I?”