Gordon found a motel without difficulty. They left the minions in the car for the night, with instructions to pretend to be inert if anyone came snooping around, and to flee if anyone broke into the car.

Levi slept uneasily and woke halfway through the night unable to get back to sleep. Nervous energy filled him, anxiety preventing him from resting any longer. He wished he had Gordon's laptop, then remembered that his phone had a browser on it. He logged into his new RL game forum account and checked his messages.

Doom Raiders XXX finally replied. Two members individually.

'We don't have this Seed Fragment you're after, but we're always open to recruiting new members in the area! When and where can you meet? Do you know of any local dungeons?' Lelixmy3984 sent, along with several happy and excited emojis.

Levi replied that he was in town and could meet them anywhere they chose, but would prefer to do so as soon as possible. He listed a few nearby dungeons in vague terms and sent it.

'If you are interested in joining DRXXX, please fill out our application form in full.' said Rence48, with a link to a hidden subpage on their website.

Levi immediately filled out the entire thing, leaving out only his address of residence.

There wouldn't be a response for hours at least, no one else would be up at 3am to answer applications, but at least he felt like he was making progress.

He wandered out to the car to check on the minions. The restore cooldown was still over 14 hours until he could revive Cen or Gremlin Two, but Skarm waved at him from the other side of the window and Centoo uncurled with a ripple of legs before tucking himself back together.

Flomper didn't show herself, probably asleep on the floor. Or off up to mischief. Levi didn't know her well enough to guess at her preferences or motives just yet.

He returned to his room and paced for a time, then tried again to sleep. Instead he ended up curled on his side, swiping through the photos on his phone. So many he'd forgotten; a few that had remained seared into his memory. Irene at a beach with her sister, waving at the camera in a bikini. Peter at his birthday party, spraying whipped cream directly into his mouth. People he didn't remember, or who he recognized but couldn't have put a name to. Peter running around the yard with the neighbor's dog. Irene making a face into the mirror, phone held up in one hand.

Snapshots of a lifetime he'd all but forgotten. Not nearly enough of them. When he got home, he wasn't sure he'd ever stop taking pictures. Well, he'd stop once the mana saturation overwhelmed the phone's electronics and left it inert.

Deliberately, he set the phone out of reach, and lay back on his back. The conundrum was very real. The faster he leveled - the faster everyone leveled - the sooner electricity would be gummed up by mana and stop functioning as expected. Which would lead to an earlier societal collapse, and more chaos, and more danger. But it may be the only chance they had against the coming demon hordes.

Whatever he did, Levi would be responsible for widespread death and chaos. Whether that was the madness of humanity tearing itself apart as infrastructure collapsed, or of unprepared civilians getting caught in the crossfire between demons and humanity's best warriors.

There was no good choice, but inaction was the worst choice of all.

He retrieved his phone and got back to updating the RL Game wiki.

"Were you up all night?" Gordon asked, yawning. He'd changed yet again, and Levi wondered how long it would be before he ran out of backup suits.

"Not quite."

"Have you made up your mind about our next move?"

"I'm hoping to set up a meeting with Doom Raiders Triple X. If we can get their Seed Fragment and move on today, that would be ideal."

"More dungeons..."

"If you want to wait outside, you can." Levi's voice came out harsher than he'd intended.

"No, I want to. But maybe not quite so much. I still don't know how I'm going to explain this to my boss."

"Your boss is no longer relevant."

"I do like having a roof over my head. Until you show me how to make a magic hotel with dungeon stuff, I don't see my livelihood as irrelevant."

"It's all going to collapse in a few months when the demons show up."

"And I happen to enjoy comfort in the meantime. Don't get me wrong, I get how important this is, and I'm willing to do my part to raise an army of monsters to put the demons to shame, but... once a day is enough, don't you think?"

"No, I don't. You've heard it, but you don't understand it. We are going to be so much weaker than the very weakest of the demons, even if we could fight nonstop we only might be able to match them on an individual basis."

"So why rush? If it won't matter either way."

"It will. Every level counts, more and more as you go up the thresholds. There's nothing to be gained by delays."

"It's like a nightmare," Gordon said quietly. "It doesn't stop, does it?"

"No."

"This isn't a life I ever wanted."

"I know."

They collected their possessions and walked to the car in silence.

Gordon exhaled in resignation. "Where next?"

"There's another dungeon west of the city."

Gordon started driving.

Levi worked on the wiki until they neared the destination. Then he switched to pings to narrow its location down, then they pulled in to a narrow lane with large fields enclosed by faded wood fences on either side.

“What would happen if a horse wandered into a dungeon?” Gordon wondered aloud as they climbed the fence and narrowed in on their destination.

“It would be killed and probably eaten.”

“But what if it survived? If it stomped on the gremlins and bit the scarabs. Would it level up?”

Levi shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think psyche makes you any smarter, so it would still be horse-brained, just with added abilities.”

“Did no one bring their pets to level with them in the first timeline?”

“If they did, I never heard about it. But by the time I got drafted, the novelty had worn off a long time ago. Maybe in the early years some people did, but they weren’t the people who survived to the end.”

“Talking to you is always so uplifting these days.”

Levi shrugged. “What do you want me to say? Everyone died. I died. It’s not like pretending it didn’t happen will help anything.”

“Is that all you think about? Fighting?”

“As much as possible, yeah.”

"Don't you have plans for the future, once this is over?"

Levi laughed sharply. "Once this is over? It's never going to be over. You don't understand, Gordon, life is about to change forever. You don't just put magic and dungeons and demons back in the box after the war, assuming there is any after. As far as I know, the war goes on until we're wiped out, and that's it. Plans for the future? I don't have that kind of luxury. I'll fight, and I'll help my friends and family and comrades to fight, and I'll do my utmost to mitigate the coming disaster. But is there any future beyond that? Not that I can see."

The threat loomed over everything. After 10/24, everything changed, and nothing would ever be the same again. He could either spend the months remaining to them to indulge in fantasies and hope things would be different this time around, or he could relentlessly pursue the only path that left him any self respect.

He would not hide from this fight. He'd spent nearly six years opposing the demon advance with everything he possessed. He wasn't going to stop now.

"I get it." Gordon sounded subdued. "You've been through hell for so long you don't know what else there can be. But you have to have some hope. What are you fighting for if not for hope?"

"I fight. It's that or give up and die. I can say it's for humanity, for Peter and Irene, to protect the innocent... but ultimately, I'm a person who fights. That's what makes sense."

"That can't be good for you."

"Dying would be worse."

"Is it?"

Vorish's scythe-like fingers as the demon slowly tore him apart, the ashes of a burning city, the final fall of the last stronghold.

Levi still didn't remember it clearly, but snatches of it, vivid impressions still haunted him when he forgot to lock them away.

"It was certainly very unpleasant," he said tersely. "Not something I'd want to go through again."

"I'm not asking you to. I just think you need to live for more than being a person who fights demons."

"I do. I fight for every reason I've named. I do fight to protect the innocent, Peter and Irene most of all. But if those reasons weren't there, I'd do it anyway. I know, because I lost everything time and again and when it was only a handful of survivors I still got up and went to fight one more time every single time. Long after everyone and everything I ever knew or cared about fell one after another, still I fought. I don't know if it's possible for me to give up any longer."

"I don't know what to say, man," Gordon said in a low voice. "I'm sorry. No one should have to live like that."

"Reality doesn't care about 'should'. Only what is."

"And apparently 'what is' includes dungeons, demons, magic, and people running around in armor out of a fantasy movie."

"The sooner you get used to it, the better chance you have of living more than a few days when things go to hell."