Melia felt bad that her new party members were left in the lurch, forced to fend for themselves and set up camp while she got to play in the dirt. So, she put the rest of her plans for the new garden on hold for the moment, content to let the abbey brothers explore their new field and start planting. It was basically done anyway, the only things she needed to add were embellishments. Finishing touches so that everybody would know who was responsible.

  Not that anybody else could be responsible, since there wasn’t another max level [Gardener] in the human kingdom, but Melia didn’t know that.

  She found her team sitting anxiously around the camp, just…waiting. It seemed like a lot of lower level parties were on edge, and Melia tried to empathize with them, but she was finding it hard to do. Logically, she understood that dragons were big, mean, and scary (except for her), and that when potentially facing off against a foe several hundred levels above one’s own should be terrifying. But she couldn’t actually relate, not really. This new body of hers came pre-installed at a ludicrous level, and she never grew up in this world, experiencing the disparity herself.

  That wasn’t to say she didn’t earn her levels. She put in more time than the average adventurer had over their entire career, due to not being able to hunt 24-7 like Melia did, and having to worry about things like injury, aging, and death. For completely different reasons, what Melia did was very impressive.

  But she could not, nor would she try to, say that her experience was the same as her party’s.

  So when she approached them, sitting on stumps or blankets spread across the ground, she did it with a humble heart and an open mind.

  “Hey,” she said, walking up. She was small and easily overlooked, even with everybody sitting down, so she waved meekly, trying to curb her overwhelming enthusiasm.

  “Sorry I didn’t help with camp,” she said bluntly before anybody could speak up. After she thought about it, the more she realized she was being a terrible party member. She was learning the hard way that a “party” in a video game was nothing like living a real life.

  The girls blinked at her, surprised, but, as always, it was Alastair who spoke up.

  “It’s forgiven,” he said graciously. Melia swore that if anybody else had said those words, they’d sound like a pompous butthole, but coming from a [Paladin]...it fit.

  “Really though, I shouldn’t have run off on you. I’m sorry. I’m learning, and I’ll try not to do it again.”

  Ellesea and Y’cennia looked even more surprised, but Jessica smiled.

  “It’s alright, munch. Come here,” she patted part of a fallen log. “Saved you a seat.”

  Melia gave the log a lopsided smile. What was a good seat for her friends was still over half her height. She gave a little hop and balanced herself on the log, too wide to straddle but too small to treat it like flat ground.

  “So,” Jessica began, nodding toward where the new planters were. “You did something ridiculous, didn’t you?”

  “Maybe I did,” Melia admitted honestly. “I didn’t think it was, at first, but…I’m starting to see I’m a bad judge of what’s normal. Back when I was running around, you know, before…,” Melia was still coming to grips with the fact that the game she was familiar with was a hundred years ago, “...stuff like this was more common.”

  Ellesea in particular gave her a very flat stare. Melia shrugged.

  “Maybe not quite as flashy as what I did, but my point stands. I was making what I thought was a common planter box. Sure, it was the best I could do, but I didn’t realize ‘my best’ was impossible for everyone else. Do you have no high level [Gardeners] or [Farmers]?”

  “Possibly,” Alastair said thoughtfully, “Though you’d most likely need to go to the elves to find any. Leveling skills like that takes decades. Most humans either don’t have the patience, or they start late and it’s hard for them to switch from combat to crafting.”

  “I see,” Melia sighed. “And, I suppose, most people who do chose to level more than one class, do so to earn class evolutions and variations?”

  “Right,” Jessica nodded. “Like how I want to become a [Ranger].”

  “And you said you need levels in [Rogue] for that?” Melia asked.

  Jessica was familiar enough with the gnome’s quirks by now that she let the oddness of the question wash over her.

  “Yes.”

  Though she did give the gnome a strange look.

  “I would have thought you’d know all about class strategy, growing up in the Age of Upheaval.”

  “Not…really?” Melia admitted.

  “You’re telling me you don’t have a single advanced class? You?”

  Melia thought about what she considered an advanced class compared to what her friends called them.

  In the game, certain classes were unlocked when a player reached a certain level requirement, in some cases with certain classes, yes. Such as the [Dark Knight] requiring levels in [Warrior] or the [Dancer] simply requiring somebody to be level 50 before they could select it. But all of those classes, those two examples included, required the player to start a brand new character. The new class was unlocked for the account, but it didn’t get added to or change the existing character’s class.

  In this world, it sounded like Jessica had to raise her [Hunter] to a certain point along with a [Rogue] to a certain point, after which they would meld into a new class, [Ranger]. Did they keep the old classes? Were they leveled alongside the new class, sort of like a bonus or something? Melia didn’t know.

  “No,” she eventually said. “Believe it or not, I don’t think I have any advanced classes.”

  Technically, not a lie. She had no idea what her real class, [Destroyer of Worlds] was. Or how to earn it, or if it was possible for anybody else to do so. She got the feeling that, if it was possible, they too would have to raise 37 other base classes to max level, and then maybe kill off Melia, just to be safe. Like the Highlander. There can only be one.

  Instead of upset, Jessica looked supremely amused.

  “So let me get this straight,” she grinned. “You’re a high level [Rogue]. You obviously have a ton of levels in [Gardener], and this amazing buff tells me your [Dancer] is no slouch either. What does that even make you? A [Rogue Dancing Gardener]?”

  Alastair burst out laughing, choking on his water. Jessica grinned as she slapped him hard on the back.

  “No wonder you won’t tell us your class!”

  “That is NOT my class!” Melia wailed, but she had a massive grin on. “For your information, I have many, many classes, and none of them are as silly as that!”

  Jessica’s smile faltered as she sobered.

  “You do, do you? Just how many classes do you have?”

  “How many do you think, Jessica?” Melia sighed. “Or were you not listening when Baron Greymantle called me out in front of everybody?”

  Melia noticed how everyone was sort of tiptoeing around the issue of her level. She thought they’d be hounding her for the truth, but they almost seemed scared to bring it up.

  “Actually,” Jessica looked very serious, “I was busy pretending I didn’t hear anything.”

  Ah. Yes. They were scared.

  “Do you…,” Y’cennia fidgeted, looking incredibly nervous, “...do you even remember? What it’s like to be so weak?”

  She was obviously referring to the rest of the party, whose levels, if added all together, only reached 1040. Baron Greymantle had said the gnome was rank 10, minimum, meaning even he couldn’t see the level, meaning Melia was likely higher level than all of them combined.

  “No,” Melia said truthfully. It made her feel sad, as if she was deceiving her new friends. “And I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Jessica barked out in a laugh. Melia looked up, surprised. “Being a hella cool tiny gnome [Rogue Dancing Gardener]? I will take one of you, before I take an army of old Sable over there.”

  Melia looked over Jessica’s shoulder where she pointed in the vague direction of where the high levels were given the choice camping spots. The thought of the [Dragoon], taking so many people’s lives lightly, irked her.

  “Don’t you worry,” Melia resolved. “Nobody’s gonna be bait.”

  As the day crawled forward, the air itself seemed to change. Dark clouds rolled over the mountains to the east, heralding dark tidings from the Incinerated Spire in the heart of the Ashlands. The royal scouts had done their jobs well: reports of travelers on the road spoke of terrifying noises through the pass near Lakeridge and guards urging caravans to stay off the roads. As of yet no stampede had taken place there either, but sightings of monsters upwards of level 450 were increasing.

  Somewhere around mid afternoon, a great and terrible cry arose from the distance, signifying that one of the two dragons that were fighting for supremacy finally emerged victorious. Every adventurer assembled in the clearing surrounding the vineyard, dreading to face something powerful enough to best another dragon, wishing fruitlessly that the fight may have weakened it.

  The cry left a shadow on the lower levels’ hearts, but to Melia…it sounded pitiful.

  “‘S’not even close to the first cry,” she grumbled, comparing it to her own and sniffing.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Aye,” agreed the level 698, Clark Higgins, an [Arbalist]. Melia had never personally known anyone with that class, but what she could figure out, it was a bit of a tanky brawler with range. It could generally out-range its base class [Hunter], but wasn’t nearly as long ranged as a [Sniper] or other variant. It specialized in using a heavy crossbow, with massive iron bolts, grapeshot, and grapples, where it could then use a short sword or a dagger to finish wounded targets off.

  Clark was doing his best to keep morale high, something Sable seemed to actively sabotage. For every kind word of encouragement Clark had to raise the kids' spirits, Sable had at least two snide remarks.

  “Ah, well, that may be,” he said, materializing at their side like the burs of a particularly thorny weed that got stuck in their socks, “But let us not let our guard down….”

  And there it is, thought Melia. Sable always phrased his cutting remarks delicately at first…so they would cut extra deep.

  “...after all, we wouldn’t want to lose more fodder than absolutely necessary.”

  Melia had enough.

  “Is your only purpose here to be an absolute jackass?” she demanded, stomping up to him with her hands on her hips. The sight was comical, her tiny form barely coming to the tall human’s shins and yet the man relented. He put a lot of stock into levels, since he lived by the mantra that “might makes right”, and he himself could not see Melia’s level.

  “Why are you even here?”

  Sable stared down at the gnome and, in all seriousness, said, “For the loot, of course.”

  Melia was genuinely taken aback. Sure, a good chunk of the game’s playerbase used the same logic, but that was a wildly different thing considering nobody’s life was on the line.

  “Do you have any idea what a single drop from a rank 9 dragon would go for? That’s not something you find everyday. I bet it would go for a mountain of gold on auction.”

  Melia silently turned away, disgusted.

  Not at the thought of buying or selling things on the auction house. No, she quite enjoyed doing that, and she had several good friends whose entire enjoyment in the game came from buying and selling. A sort of virtual, video game day trader.

  But again, they weren’t actively threatening to throw low level people into a meat grinder just so they could make a quick buck.

  The group lapsed into silence again as the clouds fully shrouded the hot summer sun, though it did nothing for the sweltering, nearly suffocating heat. Tension was too high, but nobody dared move away from their position. Not with the enemy so close…

  And then, with another heralding cry, the black shape, which had slowly been getting closer and closer, popped over the final ridge, in all its terrifying glory, for everybody to see.

  Melia heard many people gasp, and several people cry out in panic. On one hand, she couldn’t blame them. It was, without hyperbole, a real life dragon. It was not simply a drake or a wyvern, something “brave” folk bragged about seeing to talk up their adventures. A wyvern was to a drake what a chihuahua was to a mastiff, and a drake was to a dragon what a mastiff was to a wolverine the size of an elephant.

  But this was none of those, and honestly, Melia was disappointed.

  “That’s a dragon?” she found herself saying.

  The thing looked suitably draconic. It had horns, a long, sinewy neck, and a tail that thrashed around behind it, rippling with muscle. It was also pitch black, even its belly. If Melia put aside her pride, it bore a striking resemblance to her own true form.

  But it was tiny.

  In comparison.

  Where Melia’s body itself was 100 feet long, and her head and tail brought it slightly over 200, this dragon was only 15, 20 feet at best. Yes, it was larger than a house, which should terrify most people, but Melia was somewhere close to 10 times its size.

  “What?” Jessica coughed, giving Melia a very vexed look. “Don’t you know what a dragon looks like? How can you claim to be one without knowing something that simple?”

  “Not a dragon,” she heard Y’cennia mutter under her breath, and Melia had the decency to blush.

  “Of course I know what a dragon looks like,” she huffed, but she knew they didn’t believe her. “I just wasn’t expecting something so…small.”

  “Small?” Clark asked in a strangled voice. He wasn’t privy to their inside joke but he also wasn’t at liberty to think about it either. His gaze was fixed on the dragon alone, and when Melia followed it, she found out why.

  [Obsidian Dragon]

  Level 1047

  The reports were wrong. This wasn’t some mere rank 8 monster.

  And yes, it was, indeed, a monster. The dragon-fang icon next to the system given name seemed fitting for the real life dragon, but any hope Melia had of finding one of her own species died a swift death. There would be no communication here, this wasn’t a rational, thinking person.

  It was not unintelligent, Melia could see it in its eyes, which were already sweeping the green and golden plains for any trace of prey. And then it locked eyes on the gathering of adventurers.

  “Grooooaaaaaaagggghhhh!” it roared again, and the company knew their time was up.

  Everyone present, from the lowest level to the highest, with the sole exception of the gnome, was rooted to the spot. She could see the light dimming in those closest to her, even the disrespectful arrogance of Sable Lane dying in the presence of the beast.

  “We’re going to die,” she heard someone yell out.

  “We need to run!” called out another.

  “Hold!” she heard Clark command at the top of his lungs. She turned, surprised at his conviction, knowing full well the man was far too low level to see exactly what he was up against. And yet he showed his true mettle, why he was deserving of his rank.

  “Hold! Remember your training! Remember the words of the Baron! We will prevail! We will live to see the light of another day!”

  Some of the panic died down, but it was only a matter of time before the barely coherent ranks of adventurers turned into a mindless mob-

  “That’s right,” wheedled Sable, “And if you do run, try to buy us time to take it down, won’t you?”

  -such as after the asshat said that. Shouts and cries rose out again, and somewhere nearby the sounds of a minor scuffle broke out as several people tried to make a break for it.

  Melia was at a loss for words. Why was this happening? What did these poor people do? None of them deserved this, not even Sable, as much as she couldn’t stand the guy.

  And all of this…because she woke up in this world and had a good stretch?

  All the while, the dragon was getting closer. It was far enough away that they were out of range for any attacks, but Melia knew it could close that distance near instantly. It found its prey and now it was playing with its food.

  “We need to kill it,” Melia decided, taking a step forward. “Somebody pull it down.”

  It seemed unlikely that anybody heard her over the racket the mob was starting to create, but at least 6 people must have. Sable quirked an eyebrow and said nothing. Clark turned to face her properly, pale and shaken but under control. Her new team, each and every one of them, stared at her with their mouths falling open.

  “What?” Jessica finally croaked.

  Melia waved a hand impatiently toward the slowly approaching dragon. It had to be a thousand yards out, which seemed far, but was far, far too close.

  “You’ve got the best range out of all of us,” she said, ignoring how Clark had his giant crossbow still strapped to his back. He obviously wasn’t ready to use it.

  “What??” she said again, unable to comprehend what she heard.

  “Jessica,” Melia commanded, once again using her voice of authority. Whenever Jessica heard it, the hair on the back of her neck shot up, as if she really was being addressed by a rank 10 adventurer.

  “Pull that monster. Draw that aggro so nobody else gets caught out. Do it now.”

  “Are you insane?” Jessica hissed. She was surprised she could even talk. Just looking at the thing paralyzed her with fear. Her knees were shaking and her right hand was trembling so bad she didn’t think she could nock an arrow, nevermind draw back the string.

  Melia glared up at her, and the ferocity in the gnome’s normally jubilant face made her pale. This was a woman who was not to be trifled with, and yet…she was asking the impossible. Jessica couldn’t do it. Nobody could do it. It was too much, far too much, and they would all be better off, laying down and accepting their fate or running for their lives. Against such overwhelming might, what could they do? They were nothing but insects. Insignificant, powerless insects.

  Melia looked into Jessica’s eyes and truly understood the despair that consumed her. Her heart sank, and she wondered if things would ever be the same.

  No, she mused, they would not. They could not. As soon as she showed her power, they could not be the same. It was impossible. Once that bottle was open, the genie was gone. What mattered was where they would go from here.

  “I’m sorry, Jess,” Melia whispered, but Jessica’s eyes were glassed over, she wasn’t home. “I truly am.”

  Melia turned to look at the approaching dragon. It had settled on the edge of the mountains that led toward her mansion, only a couple hundred feet away. That was the place where she woke up in this world, and though it was the source of all her current problems, it was also home. The thought of something else making a nest in her special place, destroying it and claiming it as their own…enraged her. It was nearly to the abbey now, it would be upon them in seconds.

  Soon, she wouldn’t even need the range of somebody with a bow, or a spellcaster, or that pompous prick with the lance. She could hit it with her [Tomahawk], but by then it would be dangerously close to some of the other adventurers. Melia swore that she would keep everybody safe, and she was no liar.

  Everyone around her seemed frozen, even the highest among them. Level 818, and he still quavered in fear. Melia wasn’t sure if it was because the dragon was so much higher level than they expected, or if it had a natural [Fear] effect, or a combination of both. But it didn’t affect her.

  She had more than 2000 levels over that thing, and right now, it was making her angry.

  It screeched again, sending some people fleeing, dropping their weapons and running mindlessly about, while others seemed rooted to the spot. Yes, an area of affect [Fear]. And it was diving right toward a person who had been forced to flee directly in its direction.

  No more time to waste.

  Melia didn’t have her [Raiments of the Stormforged Commander], her highest level [Warrior] gear, and even if she did, she no longer had the time to change into it. Putting on heavy plate and chainmail wasn’t the same as slipping into some poofy pants. But she did have her swords, she never went anywhere without them. She closed her eyes gently, as if wishing the entire world away, and focused on her inventory, summoning her [Executioners].

  In a flash, two four foot long greatswords were in her hands, each tiny mitt gripping the hilt like a titan driving a spear into the world. The original blades were made of [Adamantite], not nearly as indestructible as legend would have most believe, but every bit as terrifying to look at. The blade was thick at the hilt, but grew monstrous at the tip, widening gradually at first before swelling drastically right before the tip. The edges were serrated, the [Khorium] dusted tips glinting as they pointed toward the hilt, and the inner edge of each point had a bite taken out, creating a circular hook. Some, in jest, compared the odd indentation to that of a common can opener, but when viewed as a whole, it gave the entire blade the look and feel of a lion’s silhouette, roaring in defiance as it pounced to devour. These weapons were not meant to slash or to stab, but to annihilate. And Melia would do just that.

  “Hhhhhrrrrreeeaaaaaggggghhh!!” Melia shouted out, her tiny, squeaky voice booming across the field in a bizarre contradiction of ferocity and adorable mockery. [Commanding Shout], a [Warrior]’s staple buff, increasing her attack power. She locked her gaze onto the closest would-be victim, who had fallen on his knees and was weeping hysterically. [Intervene]. With a rush of adrenaline and speed, she barreled forward, covering the distance in the blink of an eye. She heard yells and shouts as she passed, but by the time they reached her ears, they were far behind her. A golden yellow shield enveloped the fallen man, promising safety and protection. Melia was closer now, only a few dozen more yards to go.

  [Leap], she crouched down, and lunged. More ground flew beneath her as her body sailed through the air, her swords crossed above her like a herald of doom. Only one more set of moves and she would be there. In flight, she popped two of her cooldowns, designed to give her a huge alpha strike.

  [Recklessness]: increase damage taken by 20 percent, but the next three hits are guaranteed critical strikes.

  [Death Wish]: become enraged, increasing damage by 20 percent, but take an additional 5 percent damage.

  When she eventually slammed into the ground with an earth-rending crunch, she was finally close enough. [Charge]. Generate just a little more rage, get in a cheeky shoulder check, but most importantly, close the distance to her target. She was now directly under the dragon.

  She saw its head tilt down in confusion, barely comprehending that death had come in the form of a tiny, very angry little rocket.

  Due to her buffs, Melia could feel herself become more vulnerable, but she had enough health to tank a meteor falling from heaven. She activated the final part of her combo and she felt herself screech out at the top of her lungs.

  “Blaaaaaaadeeeee Stoooooooormmm!!!”

  The dragon…exploded.