~~~Caffeine~~~

Dearest Human was doing his sleep thinking again. It wasn't as snuggly as the warm bed, but Dearest Human put a little blanket over him while Caffeine slept in his lap. Naps in Dearest Human's lap were the best!

Then Dearest Human laid in the bed and Caffeine got a good snuggle nap under the covers! It was so warm and nice! Until Dearest Human started to smell like afraid and hurting...

Caffeine crawled out of the snuggles and gave Dearest Human some face licks. "I am here, Dearest Human. I will protect you! You don't need to be afraid or hurting!"

It didn't work. Dearest Human was afraid in the sleep place, not here. He couldn't hear Caffeine... not even when he used the magic words. "Good boy! Cookie! Snacks! Chicken!"

Tough Strong Human came into the room slowly, and Caffeine wagged his tail. "Help Dearest Human! He needs hugs and cuddles!"

"Stanley!" Tough Strong yelled something a few times. Then he looked at Caffeine while making a happy worried face. "Don't worry, Caff. He's just having a bad dream. I'm going to wake him up now..."

Caffeine wagged his tail when Tough Strong said his name, then stopped. I am not bad...

"Good... boy, Caff," Tough Strong said as he leaned forward and crawled across the floor.

Caffeine wagged his tail. He was a good boy!

But now Tough Strong smelled like hurting... and blood. Dearest Human was thinking too angry at everything.

"Please don't kill me for this," Tough Strong said something, and then he glowed very bright. He didn't smell like bad or mean when he pretended to hit Dearest Human... so Caffeine didn't bite him... but he was worried...

Then Dearest Human woke up!

~~~Stanley~~~

He got drowsy in the middle of the night.

It sucked to find out that meditation wasn't enough to avoid sleeping entirely. It also sucked when Premonition started screaming at him... right before Nate shook him awake while sporting bloody cuts all over his flesh...

"What happened!?" Stanley saw the blood and forced himself into wakefulness, his mind reaching out and searching for the monsters in the dark. He found empty rooms around him. Empty floors below. A crowd of humans gathered on a lower floor... and nothing else. "Oh." He understood. "It was me, wasn't it?"

Nate chuckled, but it sounded strained. "I heard the stories... but that was something else. Don't worry, everyone's fine. Just some superficial injuries and grumpy people."

Stanley frowned at the cuts covering Nate. He remembered something about... cutting... but wasn't sure if it was from his day of hunting or a nightmare. Then he brushed a trembling hand over Caffeine... and found no injuries or even a trace of blood. Thank god. He popped Soul Sight and saw Zeke's golden soul among the gathered crowd below. So they'd be fine.

It was still dark out, but he could see the eastern sky glowing with the coming dawn. Hopefully, it was enough sleep...

"I heard you were kicking way more ass than usual yesterday."

Stanley wanted to glare at the man, but he only sighed. "Edward?"

Nate nodded. "He might be your biggest fan. Everyone knows about the worm and the subsequent lair hunting now. Congrats on the... new skill?"

"Old skill," Stanley said, and chuckled at the unintentional pun. "I got it for burning myself into old age... but only recently figured out how to use it, and all it took was seeing Caffeine about to die."

"I'm not sure if anything could ever kill him," Nate said slowly. "But I can imagine how much it sucks to see him hurting."

"It's worse every time," Stanley said, eyes on the pug in his lap. "And it's always my fault."

"You realize that Caffeine does nothing he doesn't want to do, right? I may not know him as well as you, but I saw enough to know that nothing can force him to do anything."

"If I was strong enough, he wouldn't have to help me... he wouldn't have to get hurt." Stanley finally looked away from the sprawled-out Caffeine's belly. "What did you actually see?"

Nate shook his head. "I don't even know, but he is not a dog. At least, not only a dog. Not anymore."

Stanley frowned. Caffeine obviously changed with the system, but who hadn't? He was still a dog. The best dog, obviously! "What do you mean?"

"He was big. Like blocking out the sky big, and I saw you in his eyes—you and one other. I knew he could and would do anything to protect the two of you. It wasn't only you either... there were others, and I knew I would die if I tried to hurt any of them. It wouldn't even be a fight... in that moment, I knew any hostility would mean my end."

"He's a good boy," Stanley said while rubbing Caffeine's belly.

Nate smiled. "Yes. Yes, he is. A total teddy bear."

"Well, I'm gonna keep looking for E-grades," Stanley said as he lifted into the air. He felt rested enough and doubted he would get back to sleep now. Might as well get back to work.

They flew and walked, respectively, downstairs, and Stanley kept his eyes on Caffeine after the first frightened face retreated through a doorway on seeing him. It wasn't like he wanted to have nightmares. Besides, they had a healer that could fix any damage.

His team was in the dining room, waiting for him. Or maybe they'd woken up early...

"Were you the one shaking the building?" Edward asked immediately upon seeing him. "We were going to run up there, but something started cutting us up! It was wild!"

Serenity hissed something at him, and Edward frowned. "What? It wasn't him?"

"Just a nightmare... I think." Stanley wasn't happy about cutting people in his sleep. It was... not ideal. "Maybe I should start sleeping in the lairs again..."

"I can't believe you did that," Olivia said.

"What? The building is indestructible. Or mostly. Why not sleep there?"

"Because monsters could come inside at any time!"

"I mean, I guess if you had a fancy lair like Bob did..."

"We did," James said. "It was a nightmare before that, and I can't wait for this place to become a lair already."

"I could sleep in a lair, no problem," Edward said. "Especially with Caffeine there to guard me."

"That... definitely helped," Jerry said while trudging into the room and yawning. "Still having nightmares? Couldn't you have waited a little longer? It's not even light out!"

Silas laughed, and it turned into a yawn of his own. "Yeah. But I bet people stop bitching about Stanley getting his own room."

"Assuming Nate doesn't make us take the room next door," Serenity said, then blushed when she met Stanley's gaze. "Sorry! We shouldn't joke about this."

"Why not?" Jerry said. "Worried Stanley will snap and kill you? Well, don't be. Caff would probably save you, and Zeke can patch up the damage after that. Nothing to worry about."

It got quiet after that, and Stanley resisted the urge to do something mean to Jerry. The guy was right, after all. About Stanley hurting people and about Zeke. The healer who could have saved Samantha. If he'd only killed Zeke's mom when they first met...

They didn't actually have to wait for the cook. Nate had kept his word about always having a food stockpile ready. But sometimes it was nice to eat something hot and fresh. Plus, it was still dark out.

Stanley didn't think the darkness would really hold him back if he wanted to hunt, especially with Soul Sight. Though finding out the skill wasn't absolute gave him some pause. His newfound, or at least newly improved, power helped make up for that upsetting realization. Mostly.

"So, was Stanley just as grouchy when you hunted with him, Jerry?" Edward asked. "Did he shake the building and..." James whacked him in the back of the head.

"Nah," Jerry said, snapping his fingers over the grill, which burst into flames. "He was way worse before..."

He opened an industrial-looking metal refrigerator, and a light came on inside, illuminating stacked shelves of raw meat. Stanley assumed the machine was Eve's work.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"How did you survive without a healer? Or was the girl with you a healer? Arthur doesn't like to talk about..." James kicked Edward in the shin while Serenity whacked him in the back of his head. "What!? Stop hitting me! What is wrong with..."

"Shut up!" Serenity hissed with a glance toward Stanley.

It was the look on her face that made Stanley aware of his own clenched fists and jaw. So he settled onto the floor and went into meditation. He was getting better at it.

Stanley stayed in the calm void until his mood settled back down. It didn't take long. He wasn't that upset...

"I spit in Stanley's food a lot," Jerry was saying when sound returned. "He didn't care, which took most of the fun out of it. The savage."

"Yeah, he eats raw meat all the time," Edward agreed. "I could see him not caring about some spit."

Stanley got more amusement out of watching the uncomfortable looks between his team than he did annoyance at Jerry. The guy had protected him and Caff when they needed it. He'd earned the right to say whatever he wanted. Not that Stanley wouldn't react if he went too far...

Edward had a... bluntness to the way he spoke. A naivete that Stanley was getting used to. It made his occasional random comments less... biting.

Bill showed up and got to work without comment. He was busy these days, and almost no one went anywhere or did anything without his food buff. Stanley would have given the man some cores, but Nate handled that side of things.

Buff Gained: [Bill's Special]

There was a small crowd gathered outside when they left the building. "Whichever direction you're going is fine," one of them said. Stanley didn't remember his name or face, but Caffeine didn't growl at him, so it was fine.

Stanley took the handful of cores the man offered and fed them to Caffeine while he carried everyone into the sunrise.

He did small experiments on the way, mostly testing his ability to move with the larger number of people present. Nothing too fast or far. Small pushes that sped up their trip but didn't risk any cerebral fatigue. The debuff was less limiting now that he had meditation, but there was no need to waste time if it wasn't an emergency.

Someone had suggested this new arrangement of Stanley playing taxi service, probably James... That guy was always trying to optimise things. It was fine so long as they paid for the ride and didn't want to go too far out of his...

Move

Stanley dragged everyone instantly a dozen feet to the side as magic zapped up at them from the ground.

Cut

The soul responsible wasn't hidden from his sight, and it died for that mistake. Also, for attacking him... and it wasn't alone.

Cut

Cut

Cut

Stanley would have killed them all at once, but the first one felt... thick. He thought he knew why and wanted to make sure they died with no more surprises.

The cores confirmed his suspicions.

Core Chip [E-grade]

+10 Vitality

All E-grades... Stanley found a cluster of souls not far away and flew that way while counting his cores. He reached into the building with his mind and poked at the first monster.

It was E-grade as well.

Stanley dropped his passengers and went on a killing spree that none of them could see.

He felt... drained when it was over, but the feeling faded fast.

Debuff: [Hungry]

A snack solved that while he collected the cores. Then he started absorbing them. This was it. He had enough cores!

+1 Vitality Fortification

Stanley stopped at that message. Partly because the people he'd come out here with were all staring, but also because something else had occurred to him yesterday. He addressed the human issue first. "They were all E-grades."

"Told you," Edward said.

"You didn't, um, have any trouble killing them?" James said with only the hint of a question in his voice.

Stanley smiled. "No. I didn't."

He held onto the dexterity core, not absorbing it as he picked everyone back up. "Let's check the next lair."

It was also E-grade... as was the next, and the next. "So it's happened," James said after the last one. "This changes things. Stanley, do you have... enough? We can head back now... or set up in this lair, if you prefer."

Stanley stared at the cores in his hands and slowly shook his head. "No, not yet."

"Everyone wait here," James said, and then approached Stanley. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"Sure..." James followed as Stanley continued through the building, collecting the cores from bisected monsters.

"Nate has confided in me," James said softly once they were a few rooms deeper. "He... suspects you are afraid of him getting to E-grade first."

Stanley said nothing.

"If E-grades are this prolific, you need to advance as soon as possible if you want to stay ahead. There are other teams out there that will probably reach E-grade before the day is over. If Nate doesn't know about this yet, he will soon. At the very least, he will bump Zeke's entire protection detail to E-grade. Assuming he doesn't rank up himself..."

James looked away and added, "I may have advised him to ignore your... dramatics and hit E-grade as soon as possible. Just a heads up, I guess. I don't know if he will take my advice."

Stanley eyed him. "You're pushing awfully hard for me to rank up—almost like you want me unconscious and helpless."

"Oh, please." James rolled his eyes. "You? Helpless? Who here is dumb enough to get on Caffeine's bad side? I may have been skeptical of Nate's warnings in the beginning, but we've all seen him fight by now." He smiled at the pug on Stanley's lap.

"So why the rush?" Another thought occurred to Stanley. "Does Nate know something? What is it!? What did he say!?"

James backed up a step. "No! Nothing like that! At least... not that I've heard..." He didn't look certain. "Just looking out for you like Nate wanted."

"What do you know about fortification?" Stanley asked, and James frowned.

"We know it goes higher than the ten it did at F-grade... but we don't know what it means after the rank up... not yet. Are you..." His frown shifted into a more thoughtful expression. "I suppose it would be easy to push some attributes up with E-grade cores... assuming fortification doesn't suffer the same diminishing returns?"

"Which one of the team would you rank up first?" Stanley asked on the way back to the others.

"Silas," James answered immediately. "He has a decent offence and defense. Him or Edward. Though Silas is a bit more... level-headed of the two. Second would be Serenity, without a doubt."

Stanley thought about what he wanted to do while flying both groups further. He brought the others after James asked to let them all try their skills in the next lair. They even agreed to pass on the E-grade cores in exchange for Stanley watching over their fights.

He continued to consider his options while they fought against something with tentacles... It looked disgusting, and Stanley was once again glad he didn't have to fight up close, like some of them.

The combined groups did well enough fighting their way through the lair, if slowly. They took injuries, and without Zeke, recovery was slow. Stanley waited until it was obvious they wouldn't die, then he flew to another lair with Caffeine. It was time for some experiments of his own.

Cut

It was easy to kill the monsters. Too easy. He could cut them completely in half with a focused thought or take off limbs with even less effort. Something about lethal attacks took far more energy...

Stanley assumed it had something to do with all living things having an instinctive will to survive. Even if only passively. They all pushed back against his will when he decided they were dead. It was a weak pushback. A futile effort.

They all died, and Stanley collected more cores before flying back to check on his team. Just in time... because Edward was about to get himself killed when Stanley flew into the queen's room.

He was expecting it when Caffeine launched himself after the monster, and Stanley didn't go flying in the opposite direction. So he saw it when the mess of tentacles spun toward Caffeine, revealing a horrible maw of teeth at the center...

It wasn't the teeth that bothered him. It was the tentacles that reminded Stanley of a certain tree turned worm...

CUT

His focus wasn't very precise, but the anger made up for it.

The monster collapsed in a spray of gore and chunks of meat. Most of it landed on Edward.

"Ah! Get it off! Oh... ugh! It's in my mouth!"

Stanley ignored the theatrics and took the queen's core.

Skill Shard [E-grade]

Entangling Grasp (Rare)

Never let go of what you want.

User's chosen appendages become flexible and sticky.

...

It sounded horrible, and Stanley was for once very glad that he couldn't learn a skill like this without adapting it first. Not that he had any intention of taking the skill.

The shard would give him three of each attribute if he destroyed it... which was enough to hit E-grade...

"I want vitality and willpower cores," Stanley said to the gathered humans while holding up the skill shard. "Whoever wants to trade can evolve right here, right now. If you don't pay up after... I'll kill you and take your..."

"Deal," James said, snatching the core and tossing it to Silas. "You first."

Silas took one look around, then sat with a slightly worried expression on his face. A second later, the core vanished from his hand, and he slumped over against the wall. Serenity caught him and laid him down gently, with her own look at Stanley. "You're sure about this?"

"Um," one of the other group said, holding up a single core. "I only need one intelligence and one wisdom... I can pay you back double after I evolve! Whatever stats you want!"

"Me too!" someone else chimed in, and that opened a floodgate.

Stanley hesitated. Raising up a few E-grades was one thing, but all of them? The E-grades in the lairs were weak, but what if one of them unlocked something really special... "What do you all need?"

He started with his own team, and only James wanted to wait. Just in case, as he said. Then Stanley took Caffeine close to each of them and let the pug smell them one after the other. None of them garnered any hostility, and Stanley suspected they didn't even know how strong Caffeine truly was. Hearing about a pug being the beast lord was apparently entirely different from seeing him rip apart giant monsters in the blink of an eye.

Luckily for them, Caffeine had no problems with the eager humans.

"If any of you try to betray me after..." Stanley warned, and James interrupted.

"They won't."

One by one, the others all went unconscious. Until it was only Stanley and James as the last men standing. Also Caffeine.

"You're planning to fortify willpower and vitality, then?" James asked in the silent room full of unconscious people.

"Yes. I need..." Well, willpower was obvious, but he wasn't sure if he should even mention his suspected physical weakness.

"What about Caff? If you get him up first..."

"I intend to," Stanley said as he rubbed the relaxing pug's belly. He didn't want to put that burden on Caffeine, didn't want Caffeine to fight for him, and didn't intend for him to do any such thing. But... just in case. He could make Caffeine stronger even if he delayed his own advancement. Which meant it was time to start feeding E-grade cores into the pug...

"Um, how long does this usually take?"