“I’m not fighting both of them,” Lucille said. “Pick your poison.”

“I assumed you would enjoy fighting them both at the same time,” Jay countered.

“I would, but I don’t want to see you turn into some lazy layabout.”

“Fine, I’ll take the caster. You take the spirit with the giant sword.”

“Just the way I wanted it,” Lucille said with a grin. “It’s like you get me.”

Jay didn’t point out that it was more for his own benefit. If this goblin Pathfinder was summoning creatures, it would lean closer to being a caster. He was better equipped to deal with a mage in melee combat and could always rely on the potions he brought in a pinch.

He engaged the Pathfinder, searching for the patterns of attack the enemy would employ. He was surprised to find the Pathfinder—despite being an elite—wasn’t capable of all that much. Jay honestly found it… pathetic.

The goblin Pathfinder seemed capable of only a single strike: it lifted its mace straight up and brought it down like a hammer. After three attacks, Jay already knew exactly what to expect. He would simply sidestep the mace and rely on his agility to sneak in a couple of slashes before retreating. He quickly got a sense for the Pathfinder by mixing in more powerful attacks when his ability was off cooldown.

He was getting to the point of being able to tell what statistics enemies had based on how they fought. This enemy didn’t really have any physical characteristics. It did have lots of Vitality, granting it a large pool of health. Since the attack pattern was so easy, Jay even had time to watch Lucille fight with the ghostly figure of the chieftain and its giant sword.

She couldn’t keep up with the chieftain in raw power, so she countered swiftly. Instead of brute forcing her blocks, she would cross her swords to add strength and leverage. Lucille could even use the flat of her blade to redirect attacks. Unfortunately, the chieftain showed no signs of slowing and was quite resistant to damage. A smile was plastered over her face; she seemed to have a grand old time.

Jay refocused his attention on ending the Pathfinder. The fight was utterly laughable. He continued following the same specific attack pattern until he slapped the creature dead with a Wild Strike. As the Pathfinder fell, he heard a loud thump.

Expecting some sort of giant, he turned to the source of the noise.

Lucille had somehow fallen on her face. Her enemy was nowhere to be seen. The chieftain’s spirit had obviously disappeared when Jay defeated the Pathfinder.

He pointed at her as he roared with laughter. This time, Lucille had not managed to keep her combat robes clean.

She tried to put up a frustrated front, but her glare collapsed into mirth pretty quickly. Laughing, she jokingly threatened Jay, “Tell anyone about this, and I’m coming after you next.”

She sighed contentedly, moving her body to make snow angels in the dirt. “I was right. That was really fun.”

Jay added the Pathfinder to his Bestiary, creating his first rare entry. That marked the end of his first contractual obligation to Tumult Corp. The fight had even been easy. Unfortunately, the chieftain spirit didn’t leave a body, so he couldn’t add it to his collection.

“You look ridiculous,” Jay said to Lucille, whose dirty clothes made her look like a mud-wrestling clown.

“I know,” Lucille agreed. “But I fell on my face. So what’s your excuse?”

“Very funny,” Jay said, rolling his eyes.

A firm chime resonated throughout the area. The camp started to altogether fall apart. Buildings were collapsing into heaps of wood which faded from view. The walls toppled like dominoes, falling directly backward and eventually disappearing.

Both players felt a sense of accomplishment, despite feeling a bit cheated by the ease of the battle. While Jay felt a bit inspired to handle more quests, Lucille was already wondering what it might look like to tear down a whole city.

They both watched in fascination as the camp destroyed itself, receiving a notification.

Quest Completed: Camp of Destruction! You have defeated the Goblin Pathfinder, destroying the camp of destruction. The Elvish lands are freed from goblin incursion.

The whole camp and all evidence of its existence disappeared in less than a minute.

Jay’s latest ability shed a lot of light on the purpose of his Point-Blank Shot ability. He had gained enough experience to reach level 20, so he took a brief moment to check his new ability: Outlaw. The basic description explained that he could now wield a crossbow one-handed.

Jay could bring his repeater into a melee fight and work shots into his fighting style from point-blank range. The bonus damage on those attacks would be devastating, especially if he could practice the timing to combine it with a Wild Strike.

Jay added five points to Speed, which made him wobbly, so he put another five into Balance. Since that fixed his equilibrium problem, he put the last five into Perception.

As he finished his mental inventory of his new abilities, Jay started the process of reloading his clips with extra bolts. He wasn't about to survive the whole quest only to be killed by roaming stragglers. Or Demon players.

“Looks like Casey made it out safe,” Lucille said. “She’s spamming me with messages. She met up with the Matriarch; I guess the Matriarch sorta said goodbye to Zenya. Casey ended up with a title called Mother of Wolves, adding a bunch of statistics. Also, she got credit for both quests and zipped all the way to level seventeen. You two are cheats; I can’t believe I did it the hard way.”

“That’s awesome,” Jay said. “We did a good thing helping her with that quest. I think Zenya’s going to grow into an awesome companion, too.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Absolutely, there’s a Beast Magician in the guild already. They get all kinds of crazy boosts for their contracts later on,” Lucille said. “Temporary damage buffs and the like. Plus, the contract beasts have their own separate levels. It’s like having another character.”

“Wish I could be a Beast Magician.”

“You literally have a unique class, and everybody’s going out of their way to help you unlock it for everyone else.”

“Yeah, but… pets.” They both had a little laugh at that.

In previous games, Jay would collect different pets. He still had Cuddles, but the system message enigma wasn’t becoming any clearer. The Strogian Death squirrel was content to sit on Jay’s shoulder as he always did.

“Alright, let’s get to guild business,” Lucille finally continued. “I’m waiting for someone, but we can get started. As you know, you will be in Lester’s party. We think–”

Jay was working on loading his third clip when Lucille was cut off by a deep howl reverberating through the forest. The pitch of it was so deep, in fact, that Jay could only think of a single wolf such a howl could originate from The Matriarch.

“For crying out loud, Ichibad, where are you?” Lucille demanded rhetorically of the thin air.

“Ichibad?” Jay asked, curious whether or not the Cat Sith player was hiding about somewhere.

“No time, follow me.”

Lucille took off, feet tearing into the dirt. Her legs pumped rapidly, propelling her forward as fast as her character could move. She was heading in the direction—Jay could tell—of the howl.

He took off after her. It seemed silly to worry about the Matriarch’s safety; their quests were already completed. Still, something about the strange goblin town seemed to relate back to the Matriarch. The goblins were after the level 30 wolf, which made her a lead on how and why the creatures created their camp.

Lucille and Jay continued to run together, sprinting as fast as they could through the forest. Jay’s cowboy hat didn’t boost his movement speed without the sense of combat, leaving them neck and neck. He sent Lucille a message as they ran.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Forget about it for now,” she replied. Her character wore a stone-cold expression, sending one more message. “We need Ichibad before we can really chat.”

She muttered something impolite about Ichibad and his mother under her breath.

Jay had joined a guild instead of creating one himself, so guild bureaucracy would be someone else’s problem. He was in no rush for boring meetings about requisitioning gear, dues pricing, or expectations around his progress. Seeing Sarah become healthy was already plenty of motivation to progress.

Still, not being able to get any answers was a minor annoyance. Jay couldn’t—for the life of him—figure out why Lucille was still going on about Ichibad.

As they continued to run, another howl reverberated through the forest—closer this time. Lucille and Jay both pushed harder. It was ultimately no use, but instinct made them try anyway. The game mechanics didn’t care how badly they wanted to accelerate. They were already moving at the maximum speed of their characters.

The pair finally drew close enough to hear fighting as another howl ripped through the air. This one sounded... defeated.

Spells were being cast—and they weren’t quiet.

Then, like a sudden break, all the noise inside the clearing cut off. It was obviously the work of the Sound Mage.

They pushed on, no longer able to hear the sounds of their feet on the ground. Jay knew they must be getting close. Finally, they erupted into a small space between trees—it wasn’t a proper clearing.

The party of Demon players stood over the body of the wolf Matriarch. She was dead. Erla was still looting the monster’s corpse, so there was overwhelming evidence the Matriarch had died recently.

The Demons were scratched up, which was probably not enough to save Jay.

He considered running away. After all, even with Lucille’s help, he was hopelessly outmatched. All five Demon players were level 26, so, despite his swift growth, it was still two against five.

His investments in Speed were probably enough to escape. Since the party wasn’t here, he didn’t need to fight to the death and suffer a level loss. On the other hand, a lost level would help the others catch up since he had managed level 20 already.

Taylor Lynn would be annoyed that Jay leveled up when he was supposed to be waiting on them. It was going to be hilarious.

The considerations passed through Jay’s mind in moments, but he decided to stay and test out his trump card. If there was any chance he could kick them out of Elvish lands for good, he had to seize it.

Katya, the Demonic Priest, tried to sneer something at Jay. Realizing she couldn’t speak, she glanced over at the Silent Mage. He waved his hand through the air, releasing the spell and revealing the torrent of forest noises around them.

In the distance, a chorus of wolf howls could be heard from around the forest. Jay wondered what the people in Ilra were thinking about all the wolves.

“I was hoping you would run,” Katya sneered, attempting her villain speech for the second time. “Makes it so much more fun when we have to chase.”

“Yeah, dummy,” Erla said. “You ruined our special quest, and the boss is mad.” She had completed searching the wolf, turning to Jay with one hand on a big weapon and the other on her hip.

“Thank you, Erla. I am, in fact, displeased,” Seth said, chuckling to himself. He walked closer, which put him out of position from the others. It would have been a foolish position inside a battle, but he wasn’t expecting to fight. He was closer to his enemies than his friends, and the Plague Knight expected a slaughter.

Jay knew players in plate armor tended to be overconfident. He started tabulating the combination of abilities that might let him ambush the Plague Knight.

“We’ll have to be a little more careful with our activities,” Seth continued. “We lost our ability to respawn when you destroyed the goblin town. On the other hand, you’ve just made the game a lot more fun.”

Jay watched Seth, feigning interest—at first. When the words sunk in, the pieces started to fall into place. If the Demon players had lost their respawn point, they had been relying on the Pathfinder’s abilities mentioned in its entry. Since the Pathfinder was gone, any Demon player he killed wouldn’t be able to come back.

Jay was prepared to trigger a series of abilities to weaken Seth. Movement from the corner of his eye made him pause.

He saw Lucille making her own move. He noticed the power of her Accentuate ability taking effect and was quite curious about what she planned to do with it.

Jay didn’t have to wait long.

Lucille, breaking the loose branches underneath her, shot off like a bullet. The force of the wind behind her was enough to rustle the grass as she passed. Heads turned slowly as the Demon players caught on to what she was doing.

Jay expected her to attack Seth, but Lucille exceeded expectations.

She attacked Katya, the other team’s healer, four—five—six times in rapid succession. The healer began to chant a spell in retaliation or an attempt to save herself. The seventh slash from Lucille’s blades was enough to kill Katya before she could even summon a potion.

Erla, howling in fury, charged for Lucille, brandishing her giant weapon.

Seth, face contorted in rage, began chanting spells at Lucille.

The Silent Mage remained silent. His eyes turned toward Jay with suspicion, rapidly calculating his next move.

T, the famed Assassin, began throwing an unending stream of daggers at Lucille.

Seeing Seth’s back turned to him, Jay unleashed his flurry of abilities. First, he blasted Seth with an Aimed Shot to reduce his attack power. Running forward, he charged a Wild Strike, firing the shot into Seth’s back, activating his third ability: Point-Blank Shot. He didn’t have time to empty the clip, even at the cost of one second.

The Plague Knight’s health dropped to under half, but the barrage didn’t kill him.

Jay knew there was still a chance for them to win this fight. One chance donated by whatever strange Monster Hunter ripples were happening throughout the game. He spoke confidently as Seth spun on him, directing his words to Lucille, “I’ve gotta transform.”

The young woman was probably confused but didn’t even have time to react. She was dealing with a stream of daggers and dodging out of the way of Erla’s vicious swings. The last second of her ability ticked away.

Seth’s blade was already aiming for Jay’s chest. He activated Maragon’s Blossoms, causing vines from the forest floor to wrap around him. The vines snaked their way up, covering his whole body. His vision blacked out, seeing only darkness inside the cocoon of plant flesh.