“You know, for once I would like it if we just hung out at a McDonald’s like normal people. Would that be so much to ask?”

  Nathan rolled his eyes at the complaint. It had been the fifteenth time that Chad had whined about being dragged out into the middle of the Sixth Circle to help clear the way for people rushing toward Nathan’s soulbound town.

  Chad ripped his sword out from a bundle of living ribbons that had tried to wrap around him and choke him to death. Mara cocked the hammer of her revolver back and shot down another one of the ribbon creatures with a bored frown.

  “How are the stream numbers going?” Nathan asked.

  Chad glanced over at the window to his left. “We’re up to seventy-five million right now.”

  Until everybody in humanity had been stuffed into Nathan’s soulbound town, or was at least close enough to head toward it within five minutes, Chad would be streaming perpetually. Day in and day out. Nathan had tuned in out of curiosity during a late night and found that Chad was sleeping and chat was still firing away at a rapid pace.

  Thankfully, Chad had at some point managed to add some sort of automatic moderation tool that significantly decreased the amount of spam coming in. Not only that, but he had found some way to split up the chat messages into different rooms so it wouldn’t be so crowded.

  Another day, another sarcastic exchange between Chad Mann and the Savior of Humanity.

  Wait, where’s the other girl? The one who looks kind of like Nathan?

  She went to Brazil :skull: :skull:

  How would my sister have gone to Brazil? Nathan thought.

  Nathan closed his own window of Chad’s stream and put his attention back toward the remainder of the ribbon monsters. He stepped over to the wall on his left and made an arrow marking indicating where to go at the fork.

  This was part of how they were leading people back toward Nathan’s town.

  “How effective are those arrows, anyway?” Mara asked.

  “Really effective,” Nathan said. “Like, really, really effective. We’re up to around two hundred million already.”

  Mara’s eyes bugged out at the response. “Two hundred million? That’s a lot of targets — I mean people.”

  It was, and Nathan was starting to get seriously concerned about his town’s ability to keep up. The first quest hub where his portal was located was nothing more than a constant stream of people. His town members couldn’t vet them, too, because they simply didn’t have the resources.

  So now there was a tent city outside all his towns that made all his hard work look like nothing more than a drop in the bucket. With the sudden influx of Harrowed Hand refugees prior, Nathan’s biggest town had just around a million, if he remembered right. Now he had two hundred million?

  Even so, this was the plan they committed to. He really didn’t see any other options.

  At the very least, Anand was on top of things, planting people among the incoming humans to ensure there was no talk of trying to steal Nathan’s town or something.

  Nathan’s senses perked up. Another one of the ribbon monsters came into sight. Nathan held out his hand and summoned an orb of water.

  A rush of pain came down his spine and he resisted the urge to double over.

  “Hey, you okay?” Chad stepped over. “You suddenly turned pale.”

  Nathan rode out the pain for a little bit longer before he waved Chad off. “I’m fine.”

  Chad looked at him for a little bit longer before he gave a slow nod and turned back to his stream. He started talking about Peking duck or something, but to Nathan it was a clear and transparent attempt to make sure nobody noticed Nathan’s sudden attack.

  A loud bang echoed through the hallway. The ribbon monster dropped dead and Mara slid her revolver back into her holster. She dropped back toward Nathan and gave him a long look. “We’ve been doing this for a couple days,” Mara said. “It’s hard not to notice that this has been getting more and more frequent.”

  “The monster attacks?”

  “No, the fact that you look like you’re about to collapse onto the ground.”

  “I’m fine. I’ve just been pushing a little bit too hard.”

  “Do you seriously expect me to believe that Nathan Lee, with a Constitution of who-the-hell-knows-but-it’s-definitely-freaking-massive, got taken out by stress and a cold?”

  “I mean, nothing is impossible.”

  Mara pressed her face into her hands and groaned. “I am so not the right person to be doing this, but if you absolutely refuse to take care of yourself…”

  Nathan’s nose flared. Where exactly was this coming from? “I’m taking care of myself just fine.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Nathan’s shoulder twitched and he felt Lily snake her way down his elbow to his wrist. Her flower popped out and Mara glanced over at it.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “I take it you know something we don’t?” Mara asked.

  “This has been happening for a while now,” Lily said. “Last time, he went unconscious.”

  Mara gave Nathan a deadpan look. “Are you serious?”

  Nathan stopped right as he was about to reply and frowned sharply.

  Even he could admit there was something definitely worrying about what was happening to him.

  “… I think it’s related to my powers,” Nathan said. “But even then, sometimes it just hits from out of nowhere. I can’t find any kind of correlation.”

  Mara clicked her tongue and crossed her arms. “I can’t exactly tell you that you should stop fighting. That would be insane.” She tapped her index finger against her forearm. “Do you think it’s getting worse because of your power usage?”

  Nathan thought about it for a little bit, then shook his head. “I think I’m experiencing more pain because I’m using my powers, but it seems to be getting worse entirely on its own.”

  “So that’s what it is? Chronic pain?”

  Nathan nodded. “Yeah. It’s like my spine lights up on fire.”

  Mara thought about it, then threw her hands up in frustration. “Dammit, I’m not a doctor. You need to see a professional about this, Nathan.”

  “Who exactly would I see? It’s not like we have experts on weird core exhaustion magic nonsense. We’ve only been in the Circles for a couple of months.”

  “Come on, Nathan. You’re telling me that with all your connections, you can’t think of one person who might have the vaguest idea what’s happening to you?”

  Thalassa’s face flashed into his mind.

  Nathan grimaced. “Actually, I think I have a lead. I’ll follow it up later.”

  “Good.” She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is really not my style. I hope you appropriately compensate me for this.”

  Nathan couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. “I was about to say that you were acting really out of character. I’ve never known you to be the sensitive type.”

  She almost seemed to growl at this. “Shut up.” The scowl on her face lightened. “I told you before, remember? You and Chad are the closest thing I’ve got to family.”

  The humor went away from Nathan’s expression. Even now, he found it difficult to say the same thing about her. She clearly cared about them so much and yet Nathan felt this visceral sense of discomfort with saying it back.

  He really was a terrible person, wasn’t he?

  “Hey guys,” Chad shouted. “Fork in the road!”

  Nathan looked ahead and saw that Chad was right. There was a fork in the road. Eager to get away from the uncomfortable conversation, he walked up to Chad alongside Mara.

  “Let’s split up,” Nathan said. “Lily with Mara, and Chad with me.”

  Mara and Chad looked at each other, then shrugged.

  “Sounds fine with me,” Mara said.

  “Yeah, I have no objections,” Chad said.

  Lily squirmed a little bit, then sighed, her flower petals drooping. “Fine.”

  She unwrapped from Nathan’s arm and slithered onto the ground. She went up to Mara and the two started heading off together. Lily would dive into the ground, then reappear several feet ahead of Mara.

  Nathan and Chad walked off in the other direction.

  “So, Nathan,” Chad said.

  There was something about his tone that put Nathan on edge.

  “Yes?” Nathan said.

  “Any new results?”

  “Results? What do you mean by that?”

  “You know, from… the thing?”

  “I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “[Astral Fishing]! I’m talking about [Astral Fishing], you dumb ass!”

  Nathan’s mouth made an O shape. He shook his head. “I haven’t really touched it.”

  Chad slapped his palm into his face. “Of course. Why did I expect otherwise?”

  Nathan raised an eyebrow. Chad peeled his hand away from his cheek and let it droop down to his side. “Nathan, why on earth haven’t you been using that thing like crazy?”

  “I hate to tell you this, Chad, but there’s really nothing to abuse.” Nathan shrugged. “Every time I use it I just end up getting a bunch of swords. Also carpet cleaner, but I’m not sure how useful that is.”

  Chad tilted his head. “Really? It lets you fish for loot from anywhere and all it’s giving you is just swords?”

  “Yup. And again, the carpet cleaner.”

  Chad looked over at his stream window where a bunch of people had been commenting on Nathan’s lack of diverse loot.

  His eyes honed in on one specific suggestion and he frowned sharply.

  “Maybe it works off intent?” Chad said.

  “Intent? How would that work?”

  “Hey, at least it’s something. It’s an idea, which is better than what you’ve been doing the entire time you’ve had that ability, apparently.”

  “I’ll have you know that I used it to banish a giant worm to outer space.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Nathan held out his hand and the air rippled. “I’ll give it a shot.”

  Nathan pulled out his fishing rod and cast a line directly into the rift in space. The hook disappeared into the air and Nathan sat on his rear.

  “Try wishing for food,” Chad said. “Specifically, a fresh egg and bacon McMuffin.”

  “Kind of specific, but okay.”

  Nathan concentrated as hard as he could on a McMuffin. His brain honed in on that one specific thing. He could practically taste the savory goodness of the bacon. The sweetness of the pancake exterior. It was just on the tip of his tongue.

  He felt a weight at the end of his hook.

  He reeled in the line and a metal sword dropped to the ground.

  Nathan sighed. In truth, he had been hoping that Chad was right, but…

  “Wait, let’s try again. Shut the portal. This time, while you open a new one, focus on that McMuffin.”

  “I really don’t think this is going to work.”

  “Just give it a shot. It can’t hurt, right?”

  That was true. It wasn’t like somebody was going to be in danger as a result of this.

  With a quick mental command, the portal slammed shut. Nathan then shut his eyes and once again focused on the taste of a McMuffin. He held out his free hand and another rift opened up. He tossed his hook forward and it disappeared into the abyss.

  Another waiting game. Nathan really wasn’t expecting anything, but he wanted to at least give it an honest try.

  Another tug. He reeled it in and metallic clanging echoed when the object dropped against the other sword lying on the ground.

  Two swords.

  “Yeah, that’s about what I expected,” Nathan said.

  “One more try,” Chad said.

  Nathan’s face flashed a look of irritation. “Chad, we’re wasting time.”

  “Just one more. I have a good feeling about it.”

  Nathan frowned before he sighed. “Just one more. Seriously. I’m really not interested in wasting any more time.”

  The dimensional rift snapped shut.

  “This time try focusing on the McMuffin before you open the portal,” Chad said.

  Nathan suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and did as Chad requested. Once again, he imagined the delicious taste of the sausage McMuffin in his mouth, the way the pancake goodness filled his senses.

  Without even opening his eyes, he activated [Astral Fishing] in front of him. He tossed his fishing hook forward and waited.

  There was a tug at the end of the line. He pulled back and it flew out into the air and hit him square in the face.

  But instead of the metallic clang he expected, aluminum foil crumpled in response to the impact.

  His eyes snapped open.

  He dropped his fishing rod and grabbed the aluminum foil ball out of the air.

  That scent.

  That shape.

  He knew what this was.

  “It actually worked.” He unpeeled the aluminum foil layer by layer. “I can’t believe it, it actually worked.”

  All the layers were peeled away, revealing the inside. A perfectly warm, still-fresh egg and bacon McMuffin.