Play clapped her hands with excitement, "Look at that, it wants to talk to you too! Aw, it's lonely."

  The quest itself was strange. Different. And Wade had a very strong feeling that if THE GAME was supposed to be one played with two entities, then maybe the messed up formatting meant it's non-standard. Maybe made behind the other's back? Or at least it wasn't part of the natural quest structure.

  Which meant the other side could potentially skirt the rules in the same way.

  And if the other side was the enemy… Wade felt he was onto something, but his head was jumping too many assumptions.

  They just didn't know enough. Was the entity in control of all this on their side even? Just because THE GAME showed two Systems and one of them was the 'enemy System' that didn't mean the enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend. The enemy might just be another enemy.

  "What if we're the last cup of ramen?" Wade muttered, thinking it through. "The last on-discount box set in the store and two shoppers are trying to grab it first."

  This universe-eating entity could be trying to keep it's universe uneaten by competition?

  Play tilted her head, "Could be. Could be not. You'll have to ask it yourself, from what the quest says~"

  Were they actually threatened by one another, or was it more amicable? Like two drunk patrons at a bar deciding to play a game of pool and the loser pays the next round? And this was just the first time they realized a pool table even existed.

  He didn't know. And he wouldn't until he could speak to the entity itself through the System just like he had done last time. Assuming that even was the entity itself.

  "You really can't talk to it anymore?" Wade asked, looking up at Play.

  "Nope." She twirled, tapping the power button on her PC in the middle of one spin on her chair. "Told it about video games, role playing games, we talked about Azdrial, Earth, how I got here, Market and other things. And then it left to think. When I got a System prompt offering me a chance to join in, I knew. I also knew Market had something to do in all this." She slowed to a stop, then scrambled up and leaned on the back of the chair so she could still see Wade. She leaned almost far enough the chair threatened to topple over. "You could even say he was the root cause of everything. Showing up here looking for a better world. 'Accidentally' bringing me along into a world filled with limitless creativity."

  Up and down her head bobbed in excitement, the chair creaking under, threatening to topple over if this kept going. "Maybe he knew I'd call in the entity eventually~ Only thing I can't quite put together, is why he pressed the no button when he was offered a chance to be a sponsor. Poor Market, what an unlucky time to be drunk."

  "You're implying something."

  She nodded her head like a seal now.

  The chair finally had enough of this stupidity and collapsed straight down. She tumbled with it, face-planting into the ground, in almost slow motion.

  She stayed there, stunned for a moment, before slowly getting back up, her face looking scrunched up as if she were about to cry. "Ow."

  "You can float and vanish in midair." Wade rolled his eyes. "That's bait."

  She rubbed her forehead for a moment, tutted and turned to her neon pink gamer chair. Then shrugged, eyes closed. "Welp. Guess I'm caught this time. Still needs some work."

  Wade wasn't certain what Play was up to, but he didn't like it. "And we still have a deal, I wanted to know about the System. Fess up what you know about Market."

  "It's a pity, but that's all this humble goddess knows of the System." The chair floated up, back on it's roller wheels, and Play vanished before reemerging from a cloud of mist on the chair, looking comfortable once again. "If you want to know about Market, you should ask him yourself on why everything seemed to have lined up so perfectly for him. Hopefully you might catch him when he's more lucid." She gave him a wink, and Wade saw an actual drawn out glowing yellow star and a few other glittering sparkles float off the side of her wink, vanishing away.

  He decided he wasn't going to raise to this bait. She was up to something acting like this, and Wade would be damned if he gave her the attention for it. "Got any suggestions on where to start the search?"

  "You're no fun." She gave an actual pout, tutted and turned her attention back to the PC monitor. "Check cardboard boxes under highway bridges, anything that has a lot of booze bottles around it might be a winner. Now, I got a raid planned pretty soon, and I need to prepare consumables and pots for it because I'm a responsible gamer. You should try doing the same thing for your own game, might be imporant~"

  Responsible gamer, this little troglody- Wade rolled his eyes but focused back on the task. "I need one last bit of info from you, and this time it's storefront related."

  "You need me to hold your hand on what to buy? How adorable."

  "I need to know more about the Arcane Realm, because next round I'm spawning right back in that habitat, and unless I have a plan on how to survive stepping foot outside into basically magical super-radiation, all our plots about power leveling are moot."

  Play waved him off as if he were being dumb. "Meh. You're not a native, you don't have to worry about long term consequences like they do. You could just outright tank the mana necrosis walking out. The round will end before you die of it."

  "That sounds… not quite appealing."

  He was not having a good time dying from said magical super-radiation last round. It was still utterly miserable near the end of that and only his mania had let him hyper-focus past the pain.

  "You have enough stat points to re-spec into a vitality build if you want," Play shrugged, booting up a game off Steam. "That'll probably increase the time until death to something past ten, to twelve or even sixteen hours. Means you'll avoid the tail end of mana necrosis, and probably extract back home before you get nausea and hair loss. But there's also a few other options, and I'm sure a clever mortal like yourself has already thought of it all."

  "… Did Eri get a blackrot bug back in the sack?" Wade asked. He vaguely remembered being carried past a discarded backpack on the safe side of camp.

  It had been sealed shut.

  "Dunno, I can't see things from his point of view, only yours. It'll be a bit of a gamble."

  So he couldn't quite bet on the bag until he got to see Eri after the storefront. Damn. Plan B. "Do these habitats have gear on the inside to suit up in? They should, right?"

  "Yeh. Duh." Play said. "There's usually a spare or two inside to replace damaged ones."

  "Okay. I can work with that." He swallowed, thinking.

  Medy and Bael wouldn't be coming back with him to the other side again. They'd want to hang out on Earth where it's safe, and he had no real want to put them back into the thick of it.

  They'd need to brief him on what to expect inside the habitat, how to put on a suit, how to operate one, and all of that - and he'd need to then do it all probably alone.

  Unless he could get them here. With Play. Inside the storefront.

  …

  "Wait a moment, Zin can walk in here whenever he wants, right? And he's out and about on Earth all the time." Wade muttered to himself, thinking.

  The demon had complained he was paying all the bills and rent. That Play was less a tenant and more like a racoon infestation he couldn't get rid of.

  Which meant the storefront, or at least a portal into the storefront here, was on Earth. Somewhere Zin knew about.

  He could probably get Bael and Medy here, and they'd give him instructions live through Play's phone.

  Assuming the NEETess would be willing to not be a pain in the ass.

  Zin wasn't here right now, off doing something on Earth, but he'd be forced to meet Medy and Bael at some point, and Wade was pretty sure that's exactly the reason why he wasn't here now. Preparing his affairs maybe.

  "Followup question, how do I get out of the arcane realm? How do I get back to Hell from here?"

  "It's a simple ritual to jump out of the Arcane Realm into the spirit one. Takes about half an hour, the regents are the expensive part." Play said, logging into her game. A character slathered in pink and white gear along with a matching set of bunny ears showed up on screen and did a quick welcoming dance to her user. "Not necessarily rare, but not easy to pick up either. You might need to run around the arcane realm looking for another mining expedition and raid them. Usually the foreman carries it on them."

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Carry what on them?"

  She turned her head over her shoulders slightly, looking at him from a rather creepy angle. And then smiled.

  "I did tell you we were often hunted down for our body parts, right? Any divinity is still worth quite a bit of money chopped up, dried out and kept in a reusable box. Why, even a tiny used up knuckle-bone is enough. It's not about the juice inside it anymore at that point, but about the item being divine by nature." She smiled all the deeper. "And traveling in and out of the spirit realm is far more the domain of divinity, do you not think so?"

  New Fleeting Quest: Good Traveling - Obtain the means to travel out of the Arcane Realm. Rewards: Storefront Progression Options. Copper Lootbox. Negligible Leveling Experience.

  Nice of the System to throw him a bone like this. Good rewards for it too. "So, could you cut off a piece of your hair or fingernail? For the cause I mean."

  "Bold of you to ask that without any gifts or worship back. Most other gods would have smote you out of existence for that slight~" She grinned, in the manner that seemed a tiny bit unhinged. Wade couldn't quite put his finger on it. "But no, even if I did give you bits of myself, that's not what you need. Lock of hair, or my fingernails would have raw mana inside on dissolution, but the ritual you need here needs only regular mana crystals to power it. The bone is more like... a steering wheel. It's about what it represents - Death of a divinity. The remnants of one."

  Wade nodded to himself, then closed the quest tab before tweedling his thumbs for a moment. "The magic in your world is seriously fucked up. I thought the drug dealing feeling was the end of it, now its taking a turn right to evil warlock complete with sacrifices."

  Play turned back to her PC in the meantime, a loading screen popping up as she entered the game properly. "It's not so bad. Well, actually it is, but not for a simple jump ritual. Those are dime a dozen. Those bones can be reused over and over."

  "I would think bone from a dead god is a hard thing to get a hold of. Even if the bone itself can be reused?"

  "Naw," Play spun in her chair exactly once, which was just enough time for her loading screen to end. "Azdrial has tons of dead gods buried under over the years, much like your world's oil. Plus, it doesn't matter if the bone comes from a beast god, a dead one dug up, or a more sentient divinity hunted down when they're too weak to fight back. Might makes right after all~ The real rituals that draw power from the divine itself come from the beating heart and living tissue."

  "Well. Azdrial continues to sound just lovely with every new thing I learn of that place."

  He didn't want to admit it, but he was starting to understand why Play hated her old world this much.

  He hadn't even seen in the mortal realm itself yet, and everything he'd found over there was just slavery, war, remnants of war, death and destruction.

  Selena was the only exception to the overall suck, and she was going to lose her home in eleven days from some squatter's law if she didn't get back.

  At least the not-bloodthirsty regular people just trying to make a living weren't terrible. The fishermen demon folks that Wade met seemed like a nice sort. Medy and Bael were more neutral, but he could tell neither of them would go out of their way to cause harm.

  "Well, you might not need a chunk of dead god for this." Play shrugged as Wade stewed in his thoughts. "The quest isn't telling you to loot a ritual box off innocent miners and remove their only way out of this realm for your personal benefit. It's just telling you that's an option. Maybe a lootbox you find over the round will give you an item that lets you skip all that. The Nathir player got a scroll to do exactly that, stands to reason you can too."

  He hadn't considered it, but if mining expeditions came with a single one of those... ritual requirements, then taking it from the poor demons would be like stranding them there.

  Maybe he could convince them to join him instead? The contracts might be the hard part, but there could be a solution.

  New Fleeting Quest: It takes a village - Convince 5 or more arcanonaughts to join up under your employment. Rewards: Silver lootbox. Negligible Leveling Experience. Three Storefront coins.

  "A silver lootbox would be pretty great." Wade said, giving the entire quest a look over. No storefront progression options offered, that might have been omitted in order to make the lootbox get ranked up to silver. Or maybe the System was trying to stack things up to increase his odds of getting a player-selection reward.

  Which could mean some additional dangers. Like a mimic.

  He'd need to be careful. Luck cut both ways.

  "Not bad at all, you could work with this one." Play said, looking it over herself. "Convincing them to work for you back on Earth would be the easy part. I'll be extra fun to see Zin's reaction to all this when he gets back here from his current panicking."

  "What's the hard part?"

  "Finding another mining expedition in the area, and then a way to sever their contracts. Should start planning for that while you're running around this round."

  He needed to spend some time in the Arcane Realm anyhow to mine out some crystals for resale, so he might eventually find another mining expedition out there while doing that. And it wasn't a particularly bad place to farm for quests and kills.

  He'd need Medy and Bael here to give him more info on what to avoid and how to travel this realm better, but they could brief him on Earth about it.

  While traveling around, he was certain he'd figure a way out. If there were mining operations done here over weekly cycles, then jumping back and forth was a routine thing and he'd figure it out.

  Plus, he'll be joining those mining cycles pretty soon once he got his business started. The Arcane Realm would become something he'd come back to often.

  He was a real estate owner now. He had to act like it and drop by in unannounced visits to repaint the walls and raise the rent.

  And speaking of, he realized something as he stared on the options in front of him.

  Medy's lab quest. It needed him back in Hell looking for a floating city.

  "Play, one last question about the arcane realm. If I get that… er, ritual thing working, would it let me jump directly into Hell? You mentioned the spirit realm earlier."

  She didn't pay him attention, focused on clicking keys as her character on the monitor moved smoothly through the match. Wade saw her kill someone, then crouch spam over the dead body, before moving on to murder more targets running away from her. "Mm? Oh yeah, realm hopping's got weird rules, there's a path from the mortal realm to the Arcane Realm, but not backwards. And there isn't anything from hell into the arcane realm, F.Y.I. Or at least nobody discovered the right ritual for it."

  Well that had been a System item, so Wade wasn't quite shocked, and neither was Play clearly, since her game was more important.

  "So how do I get back into hell?"

  "Just use the spirit realm to travel around, everyone does. Death is the common denominator that exists in every realm, so it's basically the designated transit hub, one giant crossroads. Azrial's got the whole thing mapped out already."

  "That seems so convoluted."

  "Death himself ferried souls to hell or heaven on his rowboat following the rivers, because even he couldn't just take shortcuts. You'll be doing the same thing. At least you won't be the first intrepid soul following the paths." She ended some in-game combo on a poor target, finished a fight and then moved her character somewhere safe before turning on her seat, to give him a warning smile. "But beware mortal, well-mapped doesn't mean safe, it just means people catalogued all the ways you can die. Better do some studying before you go there. It's a crossroads, and that means taking the wrong turn could land you somewhere harder to get out of. There are fates worse than death, watch your step."

  Wade added all that once more into the 'Azdrial is hardcore' bucket. Seemed par the course. At least he had Medy, Bael, Selena and possibly Zin to ask for help on this.

  Selena herself had mentioned traveling the spirit realm already, so she might know where to go.

  New Fleeting Quest: Bad Traveling - Return to Hell following the standard paths through the spirit realm. Rewards: Five Storefront Coins. Silver Lootbox. Negligible Leveling Experience. Storefront Progression Options.

  Wade looked over the quest, and at the rewards. "It's dangerous and really difficult, isn't it?"

  "Five coins, storefront options and a silver chest?" Play hummed. "Not impossible, but you'll need to be real smart and prepare for it cleverly."

  Against his better judgement, Wade decided there was one last bit of information he could get before he started weighing all his options. "All right Play. What would you suggest?"

  "Follow your deal with me. Duh." She spun around on her chair. "Power level in the Arcane Realm, you'll find plenty of quests and lootboxes over time. Hell has Blackrot, don't forget. You survived last round because you had the means to deal high damage all at once, even if it couldn't be sustained. Skyviper gives you sustainable efficient damage on the other hand. Great for where you are, terrible for Hell."

  He remembered the insane speed blackrot could regenerate health at. "Shit, it'll hardcounter the Skyviper archer damage-over-time."

  "Yeh. You'd need to take the dodge roll again which isn't your strongest. And you can't change your setup midround. So whatever you bring needs to pull triple duty."

  "Oh. Oh shit." Wade realized the problem: Overloading the build. He'd need to pick a loadout and gear that could survive the Arcane Realm and the encounters there, then that same setup has to be prepared for what he'd find in the spirit realm. And then it'll also need to work in Hell against blackrot.

  "Would need to be quite an overpowered build to be able to handle three different realms." Play said, summing up what Wade was already realizing.

  He looked at the retry button, and then over to the new quest he'd been given with insane rewards.

  Insane rewards came with a reason.

  He ran the numbers and realized another problem: He had no idea what to even expect from the spirit realm.

  It couldn't be that hard, right? People in Azdrial used it all the time to travel around.

  ....

  People on Earth regularly traveled in giant three ton slabs of metal hurling at seventy miles an hour that were all one bad flick of the wrist away from death. It was a very delicate system that relied on everyone knowing the rules and cooperating with one another.

  Going into Azdrial's version of a highway would be like strapping himself into a car he didn't know how to drive, to go on a nine hour road trip without even knowing red lights mean stop or how to use a GPS.

  "Do ghosts even take damage from bullets or physical attacks?"

  "Nope." Play gave a wide smile. "Physical things go right through them. You need holy enchantments."

  Wade started laughing right back. "All right, all right. I guess that settles that. We're stuck in the Arcane Realm until we find an item that'll let us directly teleport back to Illy and Leon, or I get a boon combo that can handle whatever's in the spirit realm."

  Not retrying the quest would also give him good information on if this remained an option forever until he came back to it or if something else happened. Better to learn this now while it wasn't all that insanely good of a quest.

  The rewards for it were tuned back when he was already in Hell, above the mithril sea. Now he had to travel through three different realms, and then find a floating city, which also meant traveling a technical fourth way, when he factored how demons even moved on top of the mithril sea: Boats.

  All that wasn't quite worth the squeeze anymore.

  Only real question he needed to focus on was how to fight next round against specifically Arcane Realm monsters and enemies.

  He looked down at his hands, and mentally went through what to expect.

  The dangers he'll be up against were large monsters, feral skeletons, mana lakes, and raiders preying on poor mining expeditions. Also surviving magical super-radiation and unknown terrain with its own quirks and pitfalls. Missing map knowledge.

  The safe zones in this region were his newly claimed Fort Wade and potentially friendly contact with mining sites.

  And in all this his only ally and travel buddy this time would be Eri.

  His random boon was likely a flat miss, so he'd need to rely on one boon to hardcarry his run.

  Medy and Bael could help with missing map knowledge on how to use the amenities and the built in swimming pool at Fort Wade, and also how to navigate through the terrain here.

  Therefore, objective would be to use this round to prepare for a full trip through the spirit realm and make his way back to Illy and Leon.

  But Wade felt confident. Making it out of the Arcane Realm was just a matter of time and planning.

  Satisfied he had learned everything he could for now, he turned to the storefront properly.

  It was time to lock things in and prepare for the next round.