“Who’s there?” I shouted, nailing a giant lizard through the forehead with a magic laser.

  Someone hollered, banging against the enormous hunk of rubble beneath my feet. Hands reached up all at once, pushing out twisted metal and rock.

  “We’re saved!” An older player shouted, throwing his hands in the air. No less than twenty players behind him were jumping and laughing. “Thank you—”

  “RUN!” I screamed, pointing to the bunker in the distance. “There’s a lot more of these than it looks!”

  Green orbs exploded in a circle around us, blowing dust into fifty invisible silhouettes.

  The players assumed a battle formation, raising their weapons.

  “No!” I snapped. “Just run! For crying out loud I can handle these things as long as you’re not here!”

  The players facing toward the center of the city turned pale white, finally registering the monstrous three-headed giant nightmare and the spikes, chains, and blade that had wrapped around it, flickering and adjusting as the Nightmare swatted at its skin.

  They also felt the absolutely stupid quantities of mana radiating out from their battle.

  The lizards inched forward.

  “Don’t fight!” I ordered, showing the players in the right direction.

  Even as I spoke, someone aimed a magical projectile.

  The blast struck a lizard in the chest.

  But instead of dying, the lizard just got really, really jacked, now also breathing fire.

  {Invliziblards : LesserType}

  [Iron]

  [This Unit has been affected by {Unknown Affliction}]

  I slammed a green orb into the player, tossing him into the sky, loosely toward the bunker.

  Going.

  Going.

  Gone.

  Wow.

  I might’ve gone a little overboard.

  “Somebody go catch him!” I commanded.

  That got them moving, stumbling over one another as the lizards flung forward, deflecting off a series of shimmering silhouettes in the air. The red tint of Riot flashed through the structures.

  “There’s a Rook in the Library. Left on the third street to the North!” Soise shouted.

  “Give me a moment!” I snapped, ducking into the cave where all the refugees had been hiding.

  All of Soise’s constructs blew up, eviscerating the lizards. “Where?”

  “It’s the big building with a book ontop.”

  The library.

  I scooped the orbs into my inventory and took off running. “How strong is this one?”

  “Rooks are physical attackers, and judging by its speed, I’d say you’ve got maybe a Lead or higher crawling around. It might be fairly smart.”

  “Got it.”

  Even though most of the people in the city were dead, far more people were left alive than anyone in our party had expected. I had to give the players of the second area some credit. As long as each team had a healer or a ranger, most of them kept alive.

  The hard part was finding them.

  As long as I kept the screen for Soise’s board frozen, she could find where lots of pieces were concentrated, directing her toward pockets of people.

  Or monsters.

  Or both, like this time.

  After a few hours of searching, we found something of a rhythm. Toya and Soise stayed back to care for the refugees, while Catania and I went on our own, collecting stats to give to the rest of our team.

  Which meant I had to see the bodies.

  Even with academy training, every single group had casualties.

  Every. Single. Group.

  It was heartbreaking to watch a group enter the bunker. They would slowly cheer up, grabbing rations and water. And then, slowly but surely, they’d begin to register that one of their friends was missing.

  The atmosphere would steadily deaden until everyone had their head low and shoulders slumped, unable to think straight.

  Sometimes an entire group would die before anyone reached it. Soise would bite back tears as the pieces on her map fizzled out, one after the other. But then she’d have to give us new directions and we’d be off again.

  None of us could take a moment to let the scale of the destruction sink in. We just didn’t have the time.

  A roar blew burning pages into the sky.

  “I’m here,” I stated, sliding to a stop. “This looks like a nest of monsters.”

  Monsters of blue fire crawled on the outer rubble, dropping down after every few steps. They’d sniff the group, inhaling whatever papers remained in usable condition, growing steadily brighter.

  The sound of a scuttling board reached through my earpiece “I think there’s fighting a player. There’s a Knight against the Rook and three pawns—”

  Her voice squeaked.

  “Sorry, three hundred pawns.”

  I huffed. “I feel like the difference in those two numbers should be pretty obvious.”

  She scoffed back. “I’d like you to try and read this. It’s not like I have a literal map with literal counts and positions. To show numbers, there’s a certain number of pieces represented in an arrangement similar to binary but more complicated. It has a base of eight, representing a row—”

  “Forget it,” I groaned. “Just lead me to the right place.”

  “Turn left.”

  I grabbed the metal stairwell, busting through a window in an arc. Inside the library's husk was much, much hotter. Ash and smoke formed an insulative layer, reflecting the heat of the fire back down into the piles of burning paper and wood.

  I was struggling to breathe.

  “Turn right—”

  I moved.

  “NO! Grind!”

  Three hundred spidery monsters turned in my direction, chattering amongst one another. They had pieces of paper in their mouths, slowly burning away.

  I must’ve turned left.

  How’d I mess that up?

  “Don’t worry Soise,” I sighed, flinging my hand to the side. “I’ll be fine.”

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  The spiders charged, splattering against a helix of shifting blue and red, bouncing off the walls.

  A hundred and eleven identical orbs followed after it, vaporizing monster after monster before the effects of Riot overtook them, causing such explosive force and heat that one of the walls just gave up and collapsed, crashing the roof, crushing the remaining spiders to a pulp.

  “Told you I’d be fine,” I said. “Was that all of them?”

  There was silence on Soise’s end.

  “Soise?” I flicked the earpiece. “Where’s the refugees?”

  Silence.

  “Soise!”

  Goosebumps covered my skin. While I’d been searching for the refugees, Sharon’s battle against the nightmare had only been accelerated. Spirals of sulfurous metal rings shook the sky clipping against the nightmare, moving so fast as to appear intangible.

  Now that those two had moved between me and the bunker, any delicate magical equipment would be on the first.

  I waited for a moment, taking deep breaths. “Sure hope the old guy made it back alright.”

  We didn’t have time for this.

  Sounds of battle rang from further inside the building, swelling in raging fire and oppressive heat.

  Two people were in the center of the vortex of fire, exchanging blows. The hulking monster wielded a sword the size of a bus while the little figure that jumped around with two spears in her hands—

  “Ardenidi!” I shouted, cupping a hand to my mouth.

  She’d been missing ever since we left the academy.

  Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember her following us down the stairs. But then again, it was a bit of a scramble, so it’d be hard to tell.

  The figure looked at me.

  “Grind? You’re alive?!”

  She ducked underneath one of the monster’s attacks.

  “Wait right there!” I shouted, planting a foot on the wall. My body shuddered in protest, struggling as I put the full force of my weight on my ankles.

  I’d assumed thirteen thousand would be enough to fight.

  But after so long constantly moving, I’d realized my endurance had been reduced too.

  “You can do this,” I hissed. “One foot after the other.”

  My first heel Reached into the wall, snapping like velcro.

  The total force I could tether myself to was limited by the extent I divided up my own ability. So if I just used Reach on one foot at a time, I could move.

  Ardenidi was really struggling. She wheezed, wiping her face with the side of her long scarf.

  “Hey!” She shouted. “Stay out of this!”

  “Not a chance!” I shouted back.

  Hang on. The arena was suddenly empty.

  “Where—”

  A blade appeared underneath my neck.

  I tried ducking backward.

  {Grind : (-100k) 650.3k Hp}

  Not even close. The blade plunged into my chest.

  Blood fell from a gaping wound, trickling down the wall.

  “GRIND!” Ardenidi screamed. She rammed a spear into the stone, climbing up to me. “You idiot! What do you think you’re doing?”

  There was a flicker in the corner of my vision.

  A blade plunged into my chest.

  {Grind : (-100k) 550.3k}

  The wind whistled in my ears.

  “GRIND!”

  I had blacked out.

  “GRIND!” Ardenidi hissed, jumping off the wall, extending a hand toward me.

  I looked through the rushing, scalding air, to the shape moving toward me.

  Crapshoveler would still be on cooldown for hours, so that was out of the question, meaning I had no way to block anything this monster tried to attack me with.

  So I’d just shoot it. Easy.

  I raised a hand in slow motion, opening a hundred and twelve fields—

  Pain erupted all over my entire body as the monster slammed me into the stone.

  {Grind : (-100k) 450.3k}

  My vision flashed white, struggling to focus onto the silhouette.

  And then there was nothing ontop of me.

  The orbs I’d created just hovered in place, unable to find a proper target.

  I sat up.

  Ardenidi knocked into me, covering the two of us in a protective mushroom barrier.

  “Thanks—” I started.

  “What is wrong with you?” She hissed. “You’re stumbling around like an idiot! If you’re going to try helping, take this seriously!”

  “I am,” I snapped back. “There’s just been…some complications.”

  “What kind of complications—”

  “Grind…?” She spent a long time staring at the stats above my head. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “Uh…no. Actually, I gave them away. It’s a long story.”

  “No kidding!” She shouted. “How could you be so stupid!?”

  “I’m not being stupid. It was the only option.”

  I tried to get to my feet, but she pushed me back down, clutching my shoulders.

  “You are the stupidest, most arrogant!---AGAHH!” She kicked out the wall of her shield, flinging a spear one foot into the nearest wall.

  I scootched back.

  “You completely wasted your potential!” She shouted. “How are you supposed to fight if you can’t see the enemy you’re supposed to be targeting!”

  “I can see you,” I said. “I didn’t expect much of a difference.”

  “I’m slow!” She hissed. “I made Iron yesterday!”

  What.

  “Come to think of it, my group has been progressing a lot faster than everybody else’s," I muttered to myself. “I guess if you don’t have a stupid amount of debt, you must be able to buy quite a bit, and they must have earned a portion of money from the dungeons I did solo, since we’re still a team—”

  Hey, maybe I could get an extra cut of that, since I did all the hard work. Or I could lend it to them, charging interest for all the money they used it to collect.

  Sip would be so proud.

  The monster appeared in front of me, blade in hand.

  A layer of fungus sprouted on my arm, catching the blade, snarling up around the monster’s body.

  [You have been affected by {Ardenidi’s} Mushroom Armor II ]

  Ardenidi drove both spears through the Monster’s heart, pinning it to the floor as she repeatedly kicked its head with the flat of her steel boots.

  The monster let out a low screech, melting into a puddle.

  “It’s dead, right?” I asked.

  Ardenidi scowled, fixing her eyes on the smoldering mess. A few seconds passed, and the puddle slowly dwindled, down to a speck of purple.

  “C’mon,” I said, nodding to the south of the city. “We need to get to the bunker before—”

  Ardenidi clamped a hand over my mouth. “Get some orbs ready.”

  I blinked.

  “That thing’s still alive.”

  The ground exploded from beneath us, creating a cloud of burning paper.

  {ArcScholar}

  [This unit has been afflicted by {Unknown Affliction}]

  ~

  {ArcScholar : RANK UP!}

  [Silver]

  [1m Str 50k Hp]

  Oh.

  ArcScholars normally gained mana by feeding off the mental energy of living beings.

  But if it fed off knowledge more than actual energy, what kind of effect would you get from dropping it in the middle of a library?

  The ArcScholar rose up on its hind legs. He summoned a second blade. As far as I could tell, neither of the swords were enchanted. This was certainly a strong monster, but it was nowhere near some of the other monsters I’d faced and won—

  A blade caught in the middle of a net of fungal strands, stopping moments from cleaving through my neck.

  “GRIND!” Ardenidi shouted. “Now!”

  I released the orbs.

  They snapped toward the monster, until it vanished. Then they drifted stupidly forward, bumping against a wall, blowing each other up in the process.

  Ardenidi grabbed her hair. “No! NO NO NO NO!”

  “How am I supposed to aim them toward something they can’t see?” I asked. “The poor blasts are just as confused as I am.”

  She paused.

  “Those things are alive?”

  “Of course not, but it’s a good way of describing it…” I bit my lip. “...Are…are these things alive?”

  “You seriously haven’t asked that until now?”

  “Well I haven’t—”

  She threw me out of the way, narrowly avoiding the monster’s next swiping attack, barely deflecting the series of hits after.

  Ardenidi gritted her teeth. “Grind, keep your eyes open or you’re going to—!”

  The blade stabbed her three times in the ribs and Ardenidi died.

  // {Notice} //

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