Sip and I stared in disbelief.

  “What?”

  “We’ve been married for the past twenty years!” Tentazui laughed. “It’s not any sort of secret.”

  “I-I’m so dead…” Sip blubbered, pale white and shaking like a twig.

  “Oh you don’t have anything to fear.” Master Tentazui clapped the boy on the shoulder. “I haven’t had a laugh like that in decades!”

  “But she's Platinum,” I started. “Wouldn’t that complicate something or another?”

  He smiled back. “Not really. Love in Tetratera is almost always complicated. She’s about a hundred years older than I am.”

  Sip gagged. “She looks twenty-years-old.”

  Tentazui nodded wistfully. “That she does.” He poked at his brittle beard of grey hair. “Like I said, it’s complicated. I haven’t the faintest idea what she sees in me. Anyway, you two boys should get some rest. You’ve got a big day tomorrow. After failing that last mission you’d better believe Jujud’s going to whip you five into shape.”

  I’d almost forgotten.

  Sip drooped. “It’s not like we didn’t try our hardest.”

  “We still lost,” I mumbled. “That’s all that matters.”

  Once Master Tentazui left, guards approached the cell. “Sip? You need to leave now. Union procedure.”

  “Yeah yeah,” Sip said, waving to me. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Yep.”

  After I left Sern, I made myself a promise never to lose again.

  In hindsight, it was stupid. Of course I was going to lose sometimes. But even so, was there really nothing I could’ve done? How much time had I wasted? Had I even tried to collect stats?

  Forgetting everything else, ignoring any amount of training, raw power makes a person safer.

  What had I done?

  What could I do?

  I sat on the floor, tapping my foot.

  If I brought all the children from the first area to the capital, could I really, honestly tell myself, I’d have the power to move everyone safely into a preserve?

  No.

  Of course not.

  This wasn’t nearly enough.

  My bands lit up in metal power, scorching my wrists. The pain died down but the suppression only increased, until the remaining orbs left my control, detonating on the walls.

  I stopped.

  When I tried to freeze another orb, it ignored my control entirely, blasting apart on the wall.

  I shouted in frustration, slamming my foot on the floor.

  “What am I supposed to do!?”

  I need actual consistent power. All that training was wasted because Headmaster Xoiae upped the resistance.

  No.

  No, I wouldn’t take this. Not after I finally made some progress!

  I twisted my arms, each grabbing the other by the wrist.

  “Focus,” I whispered. “Focus.”

  Breathe in.

  Breathe out.

  Focus.

  I started by feeding a little mental energy into the bond. It was eviscerated, so I upped the power. Over and over.

  Nothing.

  Soon I was sweating, knuckles white as I hopelessly attempted to resist Xoiae’s enchantment.

  Nothing.

  Not so much as a budge in the mental fortification.

  She’d definitely upped the power, and by no small margin. At this rate, it’d take weeks before I started seeing progress again.

  I couldn’t live with that.

  What to do?

  What do I do?

  What can I even do?

  I rose to my feet.

  Xoiae gave me several pieces of advice, one of which I’d been ignoring.

  Exercise.

  I squatted down, blowing out, then pushed up, repeating the squats a couple hundred times until my calves burned. I moved to sit-ups, then push-ups.

  And then, I slept, just for thirty minutes.

  When I woke up, my muscles had repaired themselves.

  This was a video game. The body was easily fixed. In fact, given the negligible damage, I could probably sleep for just fifteen minutes and still get the result I wanted.

  Could I exploit this?

  I did another series of squats, sit-ups, and push-ups, feeling no tangible difference in strength.

  I slept.

  I woke.

  I worked out.

  After just an hour, I could scarcely hear over the pounding blood in my head. Worse, my body shook with exhaustion, to the point I had to fight for every burning breath I took.

  “I...I’m out of shape,” I wheezed.

  [Physical Exhaustion XII : Indefinite]

  A little sleep could heal the muscles but it wasn’t enough to remove all my stacks of exhaustion.

  “Then again, this is nothing,” I hissed. Moving to grab the pipes in the ceiling. I tried to do a pull-up, before my arms gave out, and I fell, cracking against the stone.

  Nothing to do about the pain, or the exhaustion. This was a video game. Things don’t work here the same as they do in the real world.

  If I wanted to see progress I just had to push through.

  And so I did.

  Until the moment it struck midnight, I was working out.

  When the guard finally came to free me, he jolted in shock, finding me sprawled out on the floor, twitching occasionally.

  “What happened to you?!”

  “Exercise,” I groaned. “Can I go now?”

  He pointed down the hall. “We have your stuff in there.”

  Once I crawled my way over, I grabbed Crapshoveler, along with a couple of the union rations I’d started keeping in my inventory. You never know when you could use a bite to eat.

  Speaking of which, in the time it took me to leave the prison, I ate several large fruits, squash, and sausages.

  And then a whole lot more.

  I sent the piles of dirty plates, napkins, and wrappers back to my inventory.

  “Alright. Home sweet home.”

  I pulled up my map, selected the academy, and started walking.

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

  The night market was in full swing tonight. Screams and shouts rang out from slaves while the merchants hollered out prices and descriptions.

  I suppressed a shudder.

  “This is an evil place,” I finally muttered, trying to ignore the carnage and beating taking place. I just couldn’t do anything yet—

  An old man bumped into me, grabbing my shoulder for support.

  “Oh hey,” I said, staggering back. “You okay?”

  He looked at me in total silence with wide open eyes.

  “Sir?” I asked.

  He let go in shock.

  That’s about when I noticed his dark green skin and pointed ears, and then, the chains around his hands.

  The man opened his mouth, unable to speak. The enchantments on his wrists and neck were weak, but so was he. At best, I’d say the man had the power of a Tin, if that.

  He staggered again, and I caught him. “What do you need?”

  The man was crying.

  Bolts of sparking energy ignited over his entire body. He started to scream, before the hollow screech came to an abrupt stop.

  He went limp, eyes rolled back. No longer breathing.

  {Goblin Geezer : (-20) -3} Hp

  Before he’d even dissolved some men came to reclaim him, hissing under their breath. And since they were all Brass or higher, I had to stand by.

  What was there to even fight over? He was already dead.

  The men left, and I was alone.

  I looked back toward the academy, then down to my two hands.

  This was the world. It was evil.

  But which is worse? To act in evil, or to ignore it?

  If I am too weak to stop it, then I must only get stronger.

  I opened my map and started running. Not to the academy, but the Union’s central hub.

  Even in the dead of night, hundreds of people milled around within vast, open rooms, filled with immense, almost blistering wealth. My eyes locked on the map in the center.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “What missions can I do?”

  The attendant looked me up and down, smirking. “You’re up awfully late.”

  When I didn’t respond, he sighed. “Whatever. North-West Quadrant. We need a two-star dungeon cleared.” He set a card into my hand. “If something comes up, or another team gets there before you, here’s a list of all other available Copper to Iron Two-Star Core listings.”

  I moved to the computer, entering my name.

  When he got the information, the attendant raised an eyebrow. “Where’s your party?”

  “Asleep,” I said.

  “You need a party.” He looked closer, then frowned. “Kid?”

  Green energies of envy and opportunity swelled beneath my feet, inflating like balloons. As long as I kept my emotions focused, I could gain some fragment of my previous control.

  I let out a breath.

  “Here goes nothing.”

  A roaring shockware of force blasted me up and out the door, cutting through the clouds. I swung Crapshoveler beneath me, skimming on air. By the time my blastoff had worn away, Crapshoveler had begun accelerating. I Reached down, hanging on for dear life as I approached the coordinates on my map.

  This was an Executioner Core, spawning in a matter of days ago, away from any nearby food sources. Since there weren’t any one-star cores in the second area, a young Executioner Core was about as easy as I could get.

  Of course, easy was relative to taking on any two-star dungeon without a party.

  I had to be smart about this.

  The door stood upright in the middle of the desert, refusing to sway despite its flimsy construction and the harsh wind around it.

  Rather than turn the handle, I just increased Crapshoveler’s speed, blasting straight through.

  The dungeon appeared in a blur, filled with distorted chirps and shrieks.

  {Two-Star : Gauntlet of Weeping}

  The rain hit like a train.

  I flattened against the ground, rolling to use Crapshoveler as cover. Unfortunately, the dungeon floor was entirely soft mud, enveloping me.

  But I wasn’t taking damage. While the rain was annoying, I could manage.

  The shrieks grew louder, echoing through the dungeon.

  My foot bumped against a dead beetle carcass, easily twice the size of a car. Something had taken a bite out of it.

  Okay.

  Two star dungeon.

  This one’d be strong.

  The shrieking stopped, followed by nearly inaudible clicks.

  I tramped around the marsh, squinting to make out even the faintest sign of life.

  Then I reached a stone wall.

  I followed the edge in disbelief.

  The entire dungeon was about the size of a stadium, with a ceiling that stretched endlessly upward. It was certainly large—for a room—but even one-star cores had dungeons ten times in size.

  “Mana,” I whispered. “The rain is made with mana, which takes away from the dungeon’s size.”

  Normally a Core uses the natural scale of a dungeon to kill most monsters before they enter combat, but an Executioner behaves differently. Their dungeons highlight individual attacking power, meaning there was a good chance the Core and only the core lived inside this dungeon.

  No minions.

  When we fought, it’d be one-on-one.

  If I found the Core.

  There was another shriek.

  I turned toward it, spotting shadows in the rain.

  This had be an ambush.

  So I knelt down, sinking against the wall, straining to see anything at all.

  Where was it?

  I looked up, into the black eyes of a monster. She stood easily seventeen feet tall, with long metallic feminine hair and streams of tears, running from empty eyes down dripping fangs.

  “Yeesh.”

  I unleashed a hundred and twelve orbs at her.

  The Executioner let out a scream, vanishing immediately.

  And the orbs just stopped. They spun in the air for a moment, before detonating.

  I clenched my jaw, wiping the water from my face. A blurry figure appeared for an instant, jumping off the wall beside me. I fired in vain, wasting more mana as the orbs became useless.

  She had a body of bone and cartilage, along with twisted metal. Judging by the haphazard way it was all arranged, she didn’t seem to have much durability, instead favoring flexible movement. It should only take one hit. But thanks to the chaotic mana around us, whatever magical systems my manifestations used to “see” no longer worked.

  Which meant I’d have to unleash the manifestations at point-blank range, where they couldn’t possibly miss.

  Scratches appeared on nearby rocks in a burst of movement

  “How are you so fast?!” I shouted, failing to find her again.

  There was another shriek.

  Then knots of metal hair tore from the skin, planting into the ground. I sprinted away, blocking what I could, dodging what I couldn’t.

  She vanished again.

  No, she jumped.

  The rain obscured her movements between the floors. There was a floor for fighting and a floor for waiting, just like the three-star Gauntlet of Feasting.

  From her position up above, she’d be untouchable while simultaneously keeping me in her sight at all times. I couldn’t win like this.

  The Core shrieked, sending out another burst of slicing hair.

  Immediately, I stepped forward, ducking down as the steel ribbon grazed the back of my head. Before she pulled the strands back I Reached one.

  The next moment, I was flying.

  Only a single stone beam formed the second floor. The Core had expanded off it, using her metallic hair to create a platform, similar to Toya’s webbing.

  Unfortunately, I landed directly in front of her.

  At first, the Core made no reaction. She was neither shocked nor outraged. In fact, she started turning away.

  Then she shrieked again, suddenly locked onto my position, her hair snarling in preparation for strike.

  I ran along the side, effortlessly dodging now that we were so close to one another.

  The Core blasted off the platform, scrabbling for the space where I’d been only moments ago.

  What was she—

  Oh.

  She was blind.

  Cores use mana to see, but in torrential mana-soaked rain, it’d be impossible to distinguish between anything. Instead, she makes piercing sounds, cutting through the specific frequencies of the rain. After she hears the echo, she’d find me. It wasn’t a perfect system, obviously, but it certainly worked.

  I shot forward, hurtling Crapshoveler against the wall with a crash.

  The Core, sensing a commotion, flung herself toward the sound.

  I was only a moment behind her, forming a hundred and twelve medium-sized fields.

  {Gauntlet of Weeping : (-1) 1 Hp}

  Before her smoldering crystal even hit the ground, I had pulled my shovel back.

  “Goodnight.”

  The Core exploded back in growth, reaching out, but I had already jumped back up, using Crapshoveler as a platform.

  The fields remained open, unleashing their second volley, and the core died in an explosion of stats, exp, and useless currency.

  {Gauntlet of Weeping : (-1) 0 Hp}

  ~

  {Grind}

  ~Extended view~

  [Progression to Iron : (+1000 Executor-Type Exp) 50%]

  [Executor-Type : +1.5% Chance for Critical Strikes.]

  ~

  [(+2k) 1k Str]

  [(+500) 1k Hp]

  That fight took too much mana, not to mention too much time. I’d have to be more efficient in the future.

  The union officer’s card created a screen, depositing the Qualms for the job into my account.

  “One down,” I sighed. “A bajillion to go.”

  I picked another dungeon and started running.

  // {Notice} //

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