True to his word he didn't do any enchanting training for the rest of the day, aside from breaking down the looted halberd to get access to the enchantment design and materials which barely counted.

  That night he ran the group through the next part of the dungeons and dragons adventure. Gavin laughed uproariously when Val asked a banshee if she could ask it a question.

  “Yes” he whispered as the translucent figure faded into nothing.

  “Gods damn it.” Sam muttered.

  “What did I do?” Val asked, confused.

  “You could only ask it one question.” Judy laughed “asking it if you can ask a question is asking it a question.”

  “For fucks sakes. You did this on purpose.” Val said, fuming.

  “It's actually in the real adventure” Gavin laughed, wiping tears from his eyes as Val stared daggers at him.

  “Then whoever wrote it is just as much of a dick as you.”

  “Careful, or I'll run you through the tomb of horrors next.” Gavins wheezing laugh turning into a cackle, “Or we can go to Borovia.”

  ***

  Firstday rolled around, marking the last day of Gavins bet. He was confident he could win, though Sam had been firm on needing to maintain a state of alertness, so he resigned himself to handing over an ingot of the precious metal. He could make an unlimited amount of it for himself now he had it, but it was the principle of the thing. He was looking forward to getting some one on one training instead of figuring things out for himself while using skill book knowledge as a base.

  A contract came in after breakfast, level two encounter far out into the bush. The team ventured out into the woods, talking and joking. Gavin worked on his crafting skills while they jogged between portal cooldowns, using his force of will to float himself above the ground slightly while taking care to keep the strain on himself to a minimum. He focused on a large complex project, constructing a chain shirt with interlocking links that provided effects that bolstered their neighbour's. It wouldn't be one of the items he made for actual use, but the practice working with interconnected enchantments was valuable.

  They found the monster easily. The giant stood far above the canopy, picking out a meandering trail of destruction, tearing trees out from the roots and hurling them out of its way as it wandered aimlessly. It carried no weapon and wore no armour, but still giants were fast and ruthless, and this one looked as though it was approaching the peak of level two in terms of power.

  “We need a plan of attack.” Sam said as they knelt on a ridge overlooking the valley.

  “Just hitting it a bunch wont work?” Gavin asked.

  “Not even close, giants have damage reduction and high endurance, it won't even feel most of our attacks and it’ll clear our bleeding effects as quickly as we can stack them onto it”

  “Ideas then?”

  “My escalating enhancement and Val’s devastating attacks abilities are our best bet, we need to find a way to let us keep hitting it.”

  “That’s going to be a hard ask.” Val said “it’s not just going to stay still for us.”

  “Judy, copy Vals soporific enhancement ability, Gavin, copy judy’s divine imitation then use that to copy it too, we’ll slow this thing right down so Val and I can kill it”

  “So… we’re just hitting it a bunch then?” Gavin asked as Sam sighed warily.

  “Yes, We’re hitting it a bunch, but we’re being smart about it.”

  “A famous philosopher in my world has a saying; everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Gavin said sagely.

  “Well, that sounds like a very good reason not to get punched in the mouth. Everyone clear on what to do?”

  “Yeah, lets go.” Gavin said, opening a portal.

  The giant noticed them the moment they appeared behind it. It whipped around, trailing an entire tree with it, launching the eight yard long log at the team. Sam and Val ducked out of the way while Judy and Gavin teleported past it.

  Vals animated swords flashed to life, skittering off the giant's thick hide. She mirrored Sam, flanking the monster through the trees to keep out of its way while it began its bellowing rampage.

  Gavin launched his enchanted spear at the giant like a javelin, he watched as the weapon shot free of his hand. His mana was heavily drained from copying Judy's ability before the battle had even begun so he only pushed on it with a moderate level of will. The tip slammed into the giant, catching it between its ribs, the sharp mithril tip punching into flesh.

  Judy's arrows pierced the thick skin in its more vulnerable areas, though vulnerable was a relative term, even at its thinnest points the giant's skin was inches thick and hard as toughened leather. Her level one skills were not nearly enough to damage the giant, but damage wasn't her purpose. She sculpted her illusory strobe effect over the giant's eyes, disorienting it, then she resumed her onslaught. If nothing else, using it to train her skills on would be useful.

  The giant thrashed around. It could feel the general direction the attacks were coming from and so it laid about, throwing trees and boulders towards the gnats sticking it with their tiny weapons.

  “This is gonna take for fuckin ever.” Gavin groaned, “it's healing and shedding the slow debuff nearly as fast as we can put them on. At this rate it'll just run us out of mana before it goes down.”

  “Then come up with a better plan” Sam yelled across the battlefield.

  “Drain it of mana?” Judy suggested.

  “Ugh, lame.” Gavin said, donning his tiara he began the mana drain process, feeling his reserves begin to replenish.

  He stopped to maintain eye contact with the giant, putting extra effort into pushing on his spear in exactly the same way as he'd done against the aberration back In Edomont. This time was different though, the giant much more intelligent and the terrain was denser than the last time. With a mighty wail the giant launched a handful of logs like matchsticks his way. He teleported at the last second to avoid the wall of shrapnel, breaking the spell.

  “Fucks sakes.” Gavin grumbled throwing his spear again to stick into the giant, only to be brushed away, not even trailing a trickle of blood. “Need a better plan.”

  The team carried on harassing the giant before it became fed up with the frustration, choosing instead to flee. Picking a direction it began barreling away from the team, pushing ancient pines aside like reeds. Judy jumped after it to maintain her illusion, though Sam called her back.

  “Well, that didn't go super well.” Gavin said when they all reassembled, the giant crashing through the trees in the distance.

  “It did not.” Sam said, “its endurance is through the roof. We need to think of a way to damage it through its resistances.”

  “Give me a moment” Gavin said, “I might be able to make something.”

  “Something like what?”

  “I'm thinking a bullet that has an enchantment to absorb mana and turn it into damage, a poison effect would work, I don't know a slow effect.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “I can probably make them almost as fast as I can shoot them, but I'll need a quiet spot to do it, it'll be a lot harder in combat, and we'll need a lot of them.”

  “Give Judy the gun, she can shoot while you make bullets here, Val and I will relay them to her.”

  “Okay, Let's do it” Gavin said, opening another portal through to the far end of the giants trail.

  Judy went through a copied portal, with Gavin's gun and the first batch of enchanted bullets. She teleported to the side the instant she was through, wrapping a sensory overload bubble around the giant's face. She shouldered the rifle, feeling it kick as she fired the first bullet. Gavin still hadn't reforged his weapons for level two, so the weapon was nowhere near as powerful as it should have been, she just hoped it would be enough.

  The rifle was enchanted to enhance the user's perception, combined with her dexterity and vision powers she was pinpoint accurate with the weapon, more accurate than she was with her bow and didn't allow her enemy the few moments more to react to her shots.

  She aimed for its eyes, adjusting her illusion to solidly block the pupils off with small red targets. She hit it five times in quick succession before it covered its face and began fleeing again. She followed it in short jumps, shooting it in its back until she ran out of ammunition. She retreated back to the portal as Sam came through, a fresh stack of bullets in a tray for her.

  “Try to herd it back this way or we'll spend more time getting to it than killing it.”

  “Right.” Judy said, taking her new ammunition and jumping away.

  Her deft hands ability allowed her to load fifteen rounds into the tube magazine in seconds. She appeared on the far side of the giant, pelting it with bullets. Her illusion had dropped, and she didn't renew it, wanting it to see her and chase her down.

  The giant's bloodshot eyes locked onto her, with a menacing growl it lashed out, throwing handfuls of detritus her way. Jumping away she unleashed more shots at it before jumping again to get out of its threat range.

  Sensing it would get no rest the giant changed tactics, sprinting after her with abandon. Clamping it's hands down on nothing as she teleported back out of its range. Val appeared through the portal with more bullets, picking her way through the trail of destruction to deliver her package.

  The giant soon started showing signs of wear and tear, purple webs branched out from pinprick wounds as the tiny chunks of metal embedded in its skin seeped their poison into the monster. It's eyes had turned black and were leaking sticky green fluid.

  “I think it's ready for us to fight properly now.” Judy said as the giant lumbered past, swinging its arms wildly, “it's not even reacting to me anymore.”

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  “I'll get the others” Sam said, handing over another package to her.

  Gavin came back through the portal, sheened in sweat. Took one look at the giant and winced. The monster was suffering a death of a thousand cuts. He'd made hundreds of level two bullets over the past few minutes, all of them were sitting within its skin. They weren't dealing massive damage to organs or blasting apart arteries, but quietly filling it with toxic magic. It'd die from here if they left it alone, it would be a hard, brutal way to go.

  “Let's put it down.” Gavin said grimly, taking his rifle back from Judy.

  Floating up on his force of will he levelled himself with its gormless head. Steeling himself he lanced his spear into its eye, radiant light crackling and boiling as it sank into the rubbery organ. The giant barely reacted, swiping a hand across its face as it stumbled through the forest. Gavin loaded his rifle with his soulbound ammunition, leaving his spear inside the monster to slowly burn its head out from the inside. He cycled his gun, putting the spent bullets back into the magazine the second he'd shot them.

  Sam and Val hacked at its legs, carving chunks out of it like lumberjacks with their swords. Thick blood oozed from its wounds, purple and foul. Judy took her bow from her inventory, layering her special attacks to deal as much damage as possible.

  The giant died with a wail and a whimper, collapsing to the ground, gasping for breath as the knights slowly hacked it to pieces long before Sam destroyed it with her execute power.

  Gavin strode up to the corpse, anguish on his face. He placed a hand to its burning hot forehead, marked with pustules and acrid veins.

  “Sorry mate.” he said, returning it to the ether as he converted its latent energy into resources.

  [You have looted level two greater hill giant]

  You have looted:

  10 level 2 Platinum coins

  20 level 2 Gold coins

  40 level 2 Silver coins

  80 level 2 Iron coins

  160 level 2 Bronze coins

  320 level 2 Copper coins

  Elixir of giants strength

  “Well that's a little underwhelming, what's an elixir?”

  [Item: elixir of giants strength]

  Type: potion, elixir

  Rarity: level 2, Legendary

  Description: The power of a giant in a bottle

  Effect: consume the elixir to increase your [strength] attribute indefinitely. consuming an elixir negates the effects of any other elixir

  “Actually, I take that back, this is actually pretty good.” He said, taking the extra large potion bottle from his inventory to inspect the translucent red liquid.

  “Anyone know how much it increases your strength by?” Val asked, taking the potion from Gavin to look at.

  “My guess would be a lot if it’s legendary.” Sam said smiling.

  “So, which one of you lot want it?” Gavin asked “if I got any stronger I think it'd break reality.”

  “Come off it.” Val laughed “You're the third strongest in the group, and that's only because Judy isn't level two yet.”

  “Wow, rude.”

  “We can draw lots” Judy suggested.

  “We? You want it too Judy?” Val asked.

  “More strength, more power I can use to shoot.”

  “That's actually a good point” Gavin mused, “A limiting factor for making Judy a level three bow will be her ability to draw it, it'd have to practically use up all its enchanting equity to pull itself.”

  “Well, in that case I think she should get it.” Sam said, putting an end to the matter.

  “Yeah, fine.” Val said.

  “Don't worry Val, after I make Judy a bow I'm pretty keen to make a couple swords, I miss making them.”

  “Well, that's settled then.” Val said, tossing the potion to Judy, her demeanour brightening noticeably.

  “Can I even drink this?” She asked, “will it damage my soul or something?”

  “Another good point.” Gavin said, considering the matter with his rudimentary magical knowledge,“we'd have to ask someone, unless Soliece wants to stop by and give us a heads up?”

  “Doubtful. She might like you, but gods don't just pop by for a visit.”

  “Don't they? Huh, strange, because I've definitely had more than one just stop for a chat.”

  “Only when it's in their interests.”

  “I'm pretty sure potentially causing soul damage to a person who has a bit of a god inside them would be in their interest. Soliece made an investment in Judy, I don't think she’d go and let her permanently injure herself.”

  “What if it permanently injures her, just not quite as much as the extra strength she gets, or it only ruins her strength attribute, her divine power could be completely unaffected.”

  “I could just wait until I get to level two” Judy interrupted “I'm not that far off, especially since I've been training without armour.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yes, while you've been lazing about tinkering with your toys Val and Sam have been training me up.”

  “She's actually getting good at close range combat, if she had any melee special attacks she'd be deadly.”

  “Powers can be accounted for with good gear. Anyway, let's get back to camp, we can chinwag in the comfort of the spa instead of in the middle of nowhere.”

  The team portalled back to camp, Gavin and Judy left to complete the guild paperwork and turn in their contract. Walking into the admin building they found Haylee making headway with the stacks of papers around her desk.

  “Afternoon.” Gavin said, sitting down at the nearby bench to write the report.

  “It is, yes, good spotting.” Haylee said, smirking at her own joke, “these contracts are definitely taking longer than they should, you're not struggling are you?”

  “Nah, well, not for long anyway, we're still using level one gear until I get my enchanting powers up to level three in a day or two, didn't want to make us a whole new set of gear for the team then the next week have to do it again, y'know?” he said handing over the contract for her to read.

  “Made specialist ammunition for your weapon in the field while Judy shot it?”

  “Yeah, took fuckin ages to put it down. the thing was all but immune to all of our attacks, it had well more than a hundred of these in it before it was weak enough for us to hurt.” he said, tossing a bullet to her.

  “You made more than one hundred of these while fighting a giant?”

  “Yeah nah, I was on the other side of a portal making them while Sam and Val ran them to Judy.”

  “Well, it was well done coming up with a workable solution when your first plan failed. I trust you will have your gear situation handled in short order? When we get more of the network up and running we will find there's probably quite a few contracts to be cleared from existing monster spawns we haven't detected yet.”

  “Yeah, no worries. While we're here, do you know anything about elixirs?”

  “Not especially, why?”

  “Well, we got one, it's level two, I was wondering if it's okay for a level one person to consume.”

  “Oh, is that all? Hold on.” She said, rifling through a drawer to find a black obsidian tablet that looked startling like an all black iPad. She placed her hand on the surface, the edges around her fingers glowing blue.

  “What's that?” Gavin asked.

  “Linked communicator. It works a lot like your forged in battle trait, except it links the other communicators in the set instead of to people. This one links to the other guild officials out here in the unclaimed lands, Jonathan Penchent is back in Na?tak he's an apothecary, I'd guess if anyone out here knows, he will.”

  “Good to know.”

  The tablet glowed blue again, and Haylee placed her hand on it to get the message.

  “Yes, it's fine. It will work slowly over time to bring the attribute up to a new baseline, just make sure to monitor yourself for overexertion while you get used to it.”

  “Thanks Hayles.” Gavin said, knocking on her desk with his knuckles. “Well, anyway, catcha later.”

  ***

  They sat down to Sams prepared dinner later that evening, which typically meant a buffet style meal, though this time it was a garden salad with strips of cooked meat lavishly mixed through. Judy had taken her potion before dinner and was periodically wincing as it altered her body. She wasn't becoming she-hulk, but her muscles were becoming more receptive to mana, like a magical cyborg.

  “You're awfully quiet tonight Gavin.” Val said, pointing a fork full of vegetables at him.

  “Yeah, just been thinking about today.”

  “What about it?”

  “How much of a clusterfuck it was.”

  “We killed it in the end, and we were never in any danger.”

  “Not that. I'm just not super keen on how much we had to make it suffer to put it down.”

  “You're not going soft on us now.” Val scoffed.

  “You know monsters aren't like real creatures? Their souls have been corrupted by magic, they're not much more than animated husks.”

  “I know, but the pain they feel is real, the fear is real. I know they have to be put them down, but we shouldn't torture them to death like that. We need to kill them quickly and cleanly.”

  “I hate to tell you this Gav, but it's only going to get worse from here” Sam said, fixing her steely eyes on him, “monsters get exponentially more health, later levels you'll be beating on enemies for hours until they die, you're going to need to find a way to deal with this squeamishness.”

  “I know. I just can't shake the feeling there's got to be a better way.”

  “There is. Get stronger.” Val said “make weapons more powerful than we should have. You still have level one gear, the fight today would have been over in a heartbeat if you'd spent the last week making level two gear instead of waiting till you could make level three stuff.”

  “Yeah, I know. I know it's a solvable problem, it doesn't change the fact that I feel bad about what we had to put that giant through.”

  “Put it through? It's just a thing, like this fork, or a piece of fruit.” Sam said pointing her food laden fork at him before taking a bite.

  “I'm going to show you all a movie tonight. New Zealand's favourite romantic comedy.”

  “You'd better show us this movie then.” Val yawned.

  Gavin settled down in his beanbag at the far end of the dining hall amongst his friends. A haunting song filled their ears as he created an illusion of a mountain on the wall, panning back to reveal a shot of the Auckland motorway, cars speeding past a woman pushing a shopping cart.

  “This is really your world?” Sam asked “it looks strange, how are those carriages moving so fast without magic?”

  “They burn a fuel to push themselves forward, I might be able to show you how it works, assuming Soliece lets me.” Gavin explained.

  “That music is a lot stranger than other music you've shown us, what instrument is that?”

  “Electric guitar. I'll play some more music later if you want, you guys should really watch the movie though” he said.

  ***

  “Gods Gavin” Sam whispered palming a tear from her eyes as the closing credits rolled.

  “That's what your world is like?” Val said, her face drawn.

  “My family was a little less punchy and a little more yelly, but yeah, life's like that for a lot of people. Some have it pretty good, some, not so much.”

  “How do you have any happiness inside you?”

  “I got out, never looked back.” Gavin said solemnly. “I was like Boogie, got a chance at a better life, and took it.”

  “It's why you don't talk about your family?” Sam asked.

  “Family is what you make it. You guys are my family, I miss my mum, but she made my life hard too in her own way.”

  “Too right we are.” Val said, punching his shoulder.

  “But that brings me back to my point. That movie is a hard watch, I can feel your souls aching, but it's not real, it's just actors pretending. The monsters we kill are no more real than that movie, but their pain affects us. By the time we're done we all will have killed millions of monsters, I just don't want to turn into some soulless automaton to get there.”

  “I see your point.” Sam said “a lot of high level adventurers are hard and uncaring.”

  “Good. Well. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm pretty shattered. Got a big day tomorrow.” Gavin said slapping his knees as he stood to go to his room.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Eating some humble pie.”