We ended up spending five days at the base before finally feeling the crunch. The deadline culling was getting closer, and we had no idea when it’d be coming which made the anxiety about it infinitely worse. Not to mention, there was no way of knowing if we were doing enough to entertain the Deities and avoid tutorial termination. Resting on our laurels was a surefire way to get us, and by extension every other human who’d been alive since the Event started, permanently killed. We needed to press forward. That LVL 10 party average was possible!

  Despite my heavy heart, I knew the XP wasn’t gonna just come to us. We would need to grind and get back into the fray.

  I hadn’t been much help during the fight when Damien’s men had attacked us on exiting Bia’s Dungeon, but we’d wiped the floor with them. It had been too easy. With a current average of LVL 5, the six of us (okay, sans a fully functional me) versus even thirteen LVL 1 newbies was a massacre. Both Gigi and Axel had anticipated the gate guardians would be waiting on our arrival, since their crew had to have heard the announcement about our clear, and the two had discussed what we’d do.

  There were really only two options: fight or flight. The response was unanimous; our mercy, our understanding, our passivity had been spent.

  We’d kill to protect those we cared about.

  I also didn’t think Just Friends had it in them to give any leeway to another antagonistic party, not after what Adrien had done. I definitely didn’t. It went unspoken, but it was obvious to everyone what had happened to Axel’s and my parents. I didn’t think about it for days. I still found the thought difficult to swallow.

  Yet, I knew.

  Uncle Seb, Auntie Li, mum, and dad had all been smart in their own ways; Axel's parents the more intellectual and academic type and my own more common sense savvy. None of them were so stupid to remain in the cave like that, especially when they were unprepared for the biome, even if their lives had been in danger from the mordexi. There was no possible way they’d have stayed on their own volition.

  It only led to one conclusion.

  Adrien had led them in, locked them inside, and let them freeze to death. It’d probably been before he’d purchased [Cloudeath]—the ability of noxious fumes—likely a day or two before we’d entered the Dungeon. I didn’t want to believe that he’d learned some of their abilities, but the possibility was there.

  In the time after discovering their bodies, the others had made their confrontational choice regarding the gate sentinels, and I’d walked to the Gate quietly alongside them, without comment. Not just because I was still reeling from the discovery of my parents’ deaths, but because I understood now.

  It was just as Tam said.

  Knowing who to kill for changed everything.

  Unfortunately, after the Gate guardian deaths, including Damien himself, we’d made the gruesome discovery that outside of Dungeons, taking out other players didn’t grant XP, at least for now. It made sense—no one was dropping in to watch Earth since Mods weren’t assigned to it. Why would we get rewarded for performing without an audience? It’d be like expecting applause in an empty theatre. Though, to our chagrin, the deads’ abilities also weren’t available for purchase.

  At least killing outside of the Dungeons would remain mostly useless to others.

  It was a small consolation.

  I lamented both the unnecessary deaths, adding them to my mental tally, and the abilities we couldn’t make use of, but still we’d taken their corpses. It was something of a ritual now, especially after all the effort we put in for the ones inside Bia’s Dungeon. Perhaps I’d managed to ingrain my view on this on the rest of the party; that we could retain our humanity by taking on this responsibility. Or maybe they just felt bad for me since my parents had been killed and we’d found their corpses. Both were equally possible.

  That said, as the number grew, I did have to soon confront the issue that we’d still not come up with what to do with them yet. We could put them all to rest, but that would take far longer than I think we had time for. The graves for Axel’s and my parents that the others had dug—a hole for each couple—had taken the better part of twenty hours, in total. Even then they’d only been a meter deep, despite what Jye had boasted of during my comatose detachment. Later, the giant had explained to me that so long as it was past the animal scent barrier of about a ruler’s length, any depth was fine.

  Axel’s point from outside the shrine in Nabu’s Dungeon still stood about cremation too. The fuel cost was absurd, and I didn’t want any smoking beacons leading others to our base. And, yet, still I’d been hoping the dead we’d collected had family or friends somewhere, and they’d eventually somehow claim them. It was an empty prayer right now, and if we waited too late, there’d be no one left to return them too. But we just didn’t have the time to see to it.

  I’d always intended on giving us around three days between Dungeon grinding to ensure we were mentally and physically rested, but this… setback had taken a larger spiritual toll than I’d ever thought I’d have to compensate for.

  Whilst Gigi, Jye, and Wren seemed to manage this delay well, each of them finding something to fill their time, the training shed, the vegetable basement, and polaroid photography (the camera Wren had “found” recently in someone’s house during a supply run), respectively, Tam was starting to get antsy, her dishes spiked with chillies, as if literally putting coals under us to stoke us to action.

  And so once we’d seen my family to their hopefully temporary resting spots, the last two days we’d started considering our plan of action going forward and dissecting the events that had happened while I’d been out of it. It was irritating, but I still wasn’t fully there, at moments gripped with an emptiness so intense that my vision lost colour, but the need to level up, to keep us all alive, brought me back quick enough.

  So far, on reflection, we’d all agreed that killing outside of Dungeons was pointless and fights should be avoided, if possible. It wasn’t so different from our prior position, except that I understood the weight of the words now properly. However, our exposure to such unpredictable elements would be greatly reduced by the Nexus. Axel had broken it down, seemingly having been the one to look into it before we’d left Bia’s Dungeon. Perhaps it’d been something else he had been able to focus on to keep him sane.

  Leadership suited him.

  I’d never thought that before, but sitting at the dining table and listening to him talk, it was obvious. Me being the head of the party had never made sense, since I wasn’t the most skilled at anything. Hell, my own stats reflected that. Middling at all, right? If I hadn’t been here, if I wasn’t here, Axel would’ve been their leader. With the way he spoke, succinct though abrasive, and his ability to analyse the situation, he should’ve been directing the team.

  Then again, with his morals, we would’ve been murderers long ago.

  He didn’t show any guilt over killing people.

  I’d thought his expression unreadable upon committing the acts, but I was sure now since seeing him break down and having almost lost him. That was guilt in his eyes. When he killed someone, it was simply another action required to keep going. It wouldn’t be my approach. It could never be. But I understood it.

  Axel explained to me, essentially, so long as we were within proximity of a Gate, the Nexus would let us access a map of other uncleared Dungeons around the world. Presumably, selecting one would bring us to it. Way back way, almost a lifetime ago, I hadn’t been wrong about the Nexus being waypoints. I had just not gotten the details right. Half a point to Lee on that.

  There were a lot of uncleared Dungeons, Axel said. The number he gave from his cursory glance meant there were many, many, many more than I would’ve ever anticipated. “In the triple digits.” Gigi had previously mentioned the Gates would stop forming when no more Deities were interested in participating in the Event.

  Just how many Deities were there?

  Taking down the world map from one of the children’s rooms, Axel marked out the general location of the Gates’ spread, with the others prompting him with their own recollections, having also opened the Nexus back in Bia’s Dungeon to check based on Axel’s explanation.

  He’d gone on to say that it also looked as though we could travel back to Gates our party had entered, since they’d been marked on the map too. Was that a way of encouraging reruns? I guess there could be something of entertainment to be had from watching someone perfect a speedrun of a map. Not a lot of people liked to watch multiple attempts though. I could imagine the Deities growing bored long before anyone could perfect their run.

  Given the bountiful options of uncleared Dungeons, we each took a pick, pinning a thumb tack to the map, and it shouldn’t have surprised me, but Wren, Jye, and Axel all chose a Dungeon in Japan. The single mercy was that they were in different prefectures and locales. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, since the Gates led to micro-worlds outside of our realm of existence. Their actual physical location was pure chance. Gigi selected a random Gate in Russia, saying the shape of the country reminded xem of their homeland, and after a beat, Tam chose one in India. It certainly was an out of character choice. I’d learned not to comment about stuff like this lest Tam bite my head off.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  It was a long shot, but given our luck so far with familiar faces, I went with a Dungeon in California.

  After that, we’d drawn lots, with Tam winning first.

  In the end, our Dungeon itinerary ended up being New Delhi, Kyoto, Sacramento, Osaka, Tsukuba, and Saint Petersburg. We’d surely lose some as others cleared them while we were busy with ours. If that happened, we’d drop it from the list and simply move onto the next one. I still hadn’t changed my mind over first clears being the most value for money, at least in regards to entertainment for the Deities. Not only would we take the current ones who were fans along for the ride, we’d garner new followers as we went.

  It was irritating that the gods benefiting from our trials were so detached from us. Mumma only cared for Tam, Nabu was barely there (if there at all), Gigi hadn’t explained xir situation in the slightest, and Bia’s sponsorship looked to have fallen into the hellscape of Jye's glitch.

  Just once, it'd be nice to have someone properly on our side.

  Maybe I should accept Absalom’s sponsorship.

  He was the one who’d led us to Axel’s and my parents, after all.

  The issue was that since we’d completed his request, he hadn’t sent another sponsorship invitation. Was he… being considerate? He’d apologised when he’d delivered the news. So maybe he was giving me time to process, to grieve. The more he revealed of himself, the more I found myself reconsidering his sponsorship.

  Speaking of other options, the Deity Commentary this time around, purchased by Axel since he’d taken on all my responsibilities while I’d been indisposed, hadn’t held much interesting content, at least according to him. Not that I didn’t trust his opinion, but I didn’t, so I’d tried to buy it myself and found it unavailable. Only one person from the party could make the purchase.

  That was just great.

  He summarised it for us, only briefly touching on the fujin behaviour from Peach Bite, Southern Wind, and Sky Shine, though it sounded like their group had grown larger still. The idea made my stomach churn, considering everything Axel and I had gone through in Bia’s Dungeon. They’d probably been screaming in delight as Axel had been nearly dying. Curious enough, Axel said nothing about Anon123, which felt very off to me. There was no way he wouldn't have been active. I would’ve classified him as one of our staunchest supporters.

  Axel did note that the Mod had been jumping back and forth between the three different battles sites according to their own desires, flat out ignoring the irate Deities demands in chat. That was new information. The Mod in Nabu’s Dungeon had done as Anon123 had asked, following us rather than Test Name. It meant that ultimately the entire collective of Deities engaged in commentary had no say.

  Should we instead be appealing to the Mod?

  That fourth day, we also discussed how to spend our credits. I’d finally gotten my part from the items I’d sent to Xanthe at base last time, and it was a lot less than I’d been anticipating considering what I’d glimpsed when I’d previously browsed the marketplace auction window. With the paltry income it’d served me, I got little more than 123 more credits. It wasn’t nothing, and every little bit counted, but when I tried to pass more to sell, the items wouldn’t transfer.

  Confused by the low return and Xanthe’s refusal to take my stock, when I checked the auction house again, I found it flooded with similar items to that which I’d bartered off. I guess you couldn’t argue with the economics of supply and demand. Xanthe hadn’t managed to peddle my wares quick enough to outrun the sudden influx of other players realising they too could earn credits through the marketplace.

  How many other people also had dedicated vendors? It’d been over two weeks since the Gates had appeared. Plenty had to have reached the same requirements to access Twilight by now, whatever they were.

  So while I mourned that revenue shrivelling up, we went over our current credit count and what we should be spending it on.

  Adding it up in total, Just Friends had each earned 2,172 credits from Bia’s Dungeon: 92 from Adrien, 1,000 from the clear, and the rest from eliminating nearly sixty mordexi, though I was assuming we’d shared experience with Adrien for all those kills, excluding the hatchlings.

  With my speed spending on attributes before I’d taken him out, I’d dropped as much cash as I could into STR, DEX, and INT to boost my mana and stamina capacity and bought [Mirror Aid] (which alone had turned out to cost a whopping 900 credits). My current stats were pretty unbalanced, and it made me uncomfortable looking at them. I’d never been the type to get on edge from uneven numbers, but mine not matching were making my skin itch.

  To our collective vexation, upon hitting LVL 5, the cost of attribute purchases doubled from 5 to 10. On the bright side, that also might mean more information would be unlocked in our system stats soon. Alongside this increase, when I'd been in a clearer state of mind, I also noticed that there was an uptick in my mana, health, and stamina regeneration. It’d started the moment we exited the Gate. Where before it’d been a struggle to refill my bars in an hour, they now were back to full in much less time. Since prior to this, our level ups hadn’t done anything to our general stats, I hadn’t paid any attention (not to mention I’d been preoccupied with other thoughts).

  Even Nabu had once said our levels didn’t really mean anything, but obviously that was wrong.

  Perhaps to a god, these changes mattered little, but for us… this was a critical update.

  It was why we’d leveled Damien’s crew so easily.

  Given the amount of bugs and issues I’d run into, from Jye to Wren, this could really could be some sort of last minute dev push to correct balancing issues. Or maybe this was just how it always worked. Perhaps it was a reward for returning to Earth after reaching LVL 5, “halfway” to our goal, a booster to encourage us, to keep us going, just in case we started to flag. In any case, only Gigi and Jye didn’t notice any difference, most notably because neither were LVL 5. I guess it made sense about why Gigi could always summon so many [Shield Walls]. Still, with this new regen, it meant we could take more risks.

  And maybe that was the point…

  The conversation about credits continued, shifting to focus on abilities and their upgrades. My [Channel] was still greyed out in the Upgrade screen, so I was at a loss on what prerequisites it required, but other than Jye, and reluctantly admitted by Tam, everyone could upgrade their current abilities. There was no further information about the upgrades other than their costs and the new names that they would take on. Some upgrades cost more than others. I was assuming they were tiered.

  Considering that other than me, everyone was sitting on 2,300 points, it seemed like a no-brainer to at least attempt to upgrade their abilities. No one disagreed. While everyone did so, I’d looked over my newest ability, although thinking about it did make me sick, the double vision like nausea incarnate.

  [Mirror Aid | Rare] Summon a weak replica puppet of a targeted player based on personal observation. May be dismissed at will.

  Looking at it right now, tier currently Rare, the ability would do me absolutely fine as it was. I didn’t see any point in upgrading it yet, though it was possible. Not to mention, the system had once again called me broke, the cost probably ludicrous, as if Anna from the grave was laughing at me once again. I could hear her voice calling me stupid even now.

  I also redistributed my credits so that all my attributes were all even again; 35 in all. Then, given I’d gotten some money from the marketplace, I tried to send the remainder to everyone equally. Surprisingly, it worked. It simply asked for one confirmation, and then my credits were gone. Axel immediately sent his back.

  When everyone was done, we went around the table, detailing the changes.

  Axel: [Groundsmash] → [Rupture], [Intimidation] → [Captivation], [Thick Hide] → [Plated Bark], [Smithing] → [Furnace]. He’d spent 800 credits for the upgrades.

  Wren: [Healing Hand] → [Saintly Intent], [Whetstone] → [Keen Steel], [Volley] → [Displaced Volley]. 700 credits, total.

  Gigi: [Shield Wall] → [Sentinel Shield], [Locate] → [Echolocate]. Only 600 for xem.

  When I asked why the Linnikian hadn’t upgraded xir [Focus], xe told me it was greyed out because Unique abilities weren’t upgradable. I repressed a sigh. If my heart was capable of any more disappointment, it would’ve shattered. At this point, with how the system worked, I just had to let this wash over me and through me.

  [Channel] would never change.

  Without any foundation to draw from, I had to base my understanding of upgrades on what the others were saying. They explained that the upgrades added new effects to the abilities and cost more stamina and mana rather than replacing them with something completely new, even though they had different names. Did that mean we could pick and choose whether or not to use the upgraded version?

  For example, Gigi’s [Sentinel Shield] now allowed xem to assign one of xir shields to another party member, and it would follow them around. Only being able to use it like that would be a disadvantage, rather than a benefit, since Gigi relied upon them quite a lot as stationary barriers and footholds. So, hopefully xe’d still be able to use them as xe’d previously had. Still, it presented a new issue. It would be a steep learning curve.

  It was a good thing Gigi had nearly finished refitting the shed out back. We’d have to practice with all these new changes.

  In character for Tam, she still refused to tell us the name of her abilities, but she mentioned she’d upgraded one of them. I had a sneaking suspicion her transformation ability was Unique too and thus not capable of being upgraded. Quietly, I noted that she’d never rescinded her consent for me to [Channel] her skills. She was an incredibly complex woman. I still couldn’t make heads or tails of why she’d asked to retain her collar.

  Suddenly, I was taken with a new thought. Would I be able to… turn into a cat? The idea was so silly that I found I was genuinely smiling to myself for the first time in a long time. I’d definitely be trying that out. Maybe with Axel to supervise, so I didn’t panic. Wait. What if I turned into something other than a cat?

  And then we came to Jye, who wasn’t able to spend credits with their glitched screen without getting high and taking random stabs in the dark. Although this would’ve filled most people with despair, our resident giant was taking it quite well. Part of me doubted that was the full truth. Not after everything I’d seen of them.

  Jye said they’d let us know after an attempt. Actually, should they be on their lonesome in the basement, maybe I could confront them about Bia’s title then, as well as their sadness too. I’d fled last time I’d seen them crying there, and I regretted that immeasurably. Should I get another opportunity, I wouldn’t be making the same mistake.

  After that tiring and informative meeting, we had dinner, which I wasn’t hungry for, then dessert, which I ate part of, and then Axel dragged me to bed, his arms curling about me as the emptiness of loss finally overtook my now idle thoughts. His shirt was damp with tears when I finally fell asleep.

  Just like that, the day after I buried my parents came to an end.