I gripped the seat of my chair tightly. Nick had no idea how badly he was fucking me. This situation had gone from bad, to worse, to nigh unrecoverable in less than a minute.

It didn’t change the fact that his offer was, perhaps, the nicest thing that anyone had ever done for me.

I had my suspicions about the purpose of all of this. My own innate paranoia, my first experience with other Users, along with the Allfather’s warning all led me to believe that there were going to be serious complications down the line that made User life far less glamorous than it initially appeared to be.

But Nick didn’t know any of that. Given the miraculously fixed injury and sudden appearance of a store when most people were hungry and on the verge of starvation, he probably saw all of this as a lucky break. A dam of withheld karma, finally raging free.

And unlike an endless supply of assholes who would take that luck and run with it, abandoning anyone and everyone less fortunate than themselves, Nick was the one person not only willing, but excited to share a windfall.

Nick was still waiting expectantly. Jinny and Sae had stopped whispering, and Sae’s eyebrow rose slowly.

And behind me, I could feel Buzzcut, also watching.

My initial thought was that this was bad. More than bad. And as panicked as I felt, there was only one title that could help me now.

Bracing myself, I swapped into

It hit me like a brick. What was Nick doing? What was he doing? Why the fuck was he talking about this in such an open setting? I’d gone to such massive lengths to make sure I stayed anonymous, and with this one dipshit move, he ruined everything.

My panic rose, the acid gurgling in my stomach bubbling up and burning my throat, my eyes flicking back and forth as my breaths came in shorter and shorter gasps.

Time slowed down. It was happening again, The same thing that happened in the hospital parking lot. My hands were not my hands. My body, not my body. The imminent peril and impending doom was irrelevant because it wasn’t happening to me.

Only, this time. I wasn’t tied to my body, either. I stood up from the chair, leaving my body behind. The avatar that I left behind seemed totally calm, taking a sip from the tiny cup of his Turkish coffee as I stepped back from him, incorporeal, studying the layout of the room.

Well, this is a mess.

For once, I let take over my thoughts completely.

I didn’t walk so much as float over to Buzzcut, studying him. In the dilation of time, he was clearly staring at the body I left behind, waiting to see what happened.

Have to assume he’s heard every word thus far. He was already following Nick. These guys are big time heavy hitters, already established enough that they didn’t even bother recruiting at the Open Forum. So for Nick to have their attention? I’m guessing they already know he can do this, or at least suspect it.

My initial thought was to reject the offer and get the hell out. But I’m uncertain if that’s the correct call here. Because who in their right mind would say no to this? An overly cautious person might if things weren’t so bad—but in the middle of a shortage where the alternative to saying yes would essentially be starving? The only reason someone would say no would be if they had something better lined up.

Buzzcut’s here for Nick, not me. If I accept, his focus will still be on Nick. He’ll want to know how often he can do it, what the limits are, how powerful the class is. A page is generally an assistant to a knight, so likely not that powerful. It won’t be hard to spoof it. And apart from the fact that I’m taking up a possible slot, I’ll likely be of little interest. The danger will come if they attempt to recruit Nick, and he passes. But if I reject this offer, Buzzcut will wonder why. And unlike Nick, I have plenty to hide.

The parameters of my personal objective were specifically to remain unidentified by other Users. I had to assume that was referring to my identity as an Ordinator. At the time, I’d thought that the best way to do that would be to pose as a civilian. Revisiting that idea, I wasn’t certain if that was correct. Judging from what had happened at the Open Forum, there was still a significant rift between Users and Civilians. Even more open-minded guilds like the Adventurer’s Guild would likely keep Civilians at arms length in a way they were much less likely to restrict Users.

Maybe he was doing me a favor after all.

More importantly, Nick was completely oblivious to the fact that he was in deep shit. If I said no, there was next to nothing I could do to interfere.

I blinked back into my body.

The feeling of panic was still there, but inert, like a rubber band that had already snapped.

Nick’s face was serious now. He chuckled nervously. “Matt, um, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, doing this here. Maybe we should have talked one on one instead?”

“I’m in,” I said, and paused, glancing at Jinny and Sae, making sure they knew I was addressing all of them. “But I have conditions.”

Nick’s smile returned full force. “Name ‘em.”

He was so good-natured it made me nauseous. I was about to—apparently—receive the gift of a lifetime, and here I was bitching about conditions. But it didn’t bother Nick. No sidelong comment about gift horses, no posturing to make sure everyone knew he was in charge.

Just, “Name ‘em.”

“If I’m going to be a part of this, we do this right.” I started listing things on my fingers, “No group meetings in the open like this, especially no discussion of plans or possible targets where anyone else can hear us.”

All three of them appeared mildly startled, and looked around as if the thought had only just now occurred to them.

Sae was the only one who looked bothered. She tended to speak with her hands, and as she did, I noticed that the fourth fingernail on both fingers was painted, contrasting the basic gloss that covered the rest. “We’re not idiots. The only reason we’re meeting in public like this is because Nick thought you wouldn’t meet with us otherwise.”

I tilted my head towards Nick, asking a silent question.

Nick shifted in his chair. “With everything going on, I wasn’t confident how down you’d be with meeting the group in private.”

Okay, that was fair. He practically had to Shanghai me to the restaurant. It stung a little, but he probably wasn’t wrong.

“Right, well, going forward it’s only going to be more important.” I said.

“It makes sense,” Jinny agreed, still eyeballing the room.

“Why the cloak and dagger routine?” Sae asked.

Nick cut in, answering for me. “That’s just Matt. He’s all about plausible deniability and holding things close to the vest. Every so often it gets a little extreme, but I don’t think he’s wrong here.”

I was so focused on what Buzzcut might or might not be hearing that the comment took a moment to register. “You don’t?”

Nick shook his head. “No. We don’t know the shape of things yet. The timer, the transposition event happening in two days, it’s all very vague. So, I’m onboard with keeping things a little more low-key. Anything else?”

I checked my phone. There still wasn’t any service. Mom had mentioned the system had unimplemented features, and I wondered if that had changed.

Sure enough, after fiddling with the boxes a bit, I found a new window that resembled a chat log.

If I focused on Nick, I found that I could message him directly.

Nick went pale. It took him a moment to figure out how to send a message back.

At the same time, I spoke aloud. “Whatever you have a line on, should wait until after the system event. It would be better to train together, work on our cohesion, just in case we need it.”

“I have been excited for it, but maybe it’s crazy to just jump in without testing things first.” Jinny chuckled nervously.

Sae looked towards Nick, confused. “But you said it was time sensitive—“

“—It can wait a few days,” Nick interjected quickly. “Plus, who couldn’t use a good old training montage?”

I generally held Nick to a higher standard, but I had to give him credit here. He wasn’t freaking out.

“And if I decide this isn’t for me, you can rescind the User status?” I asked. It was better to give Buzzcut as many alternatives to killing me as possible, if the class was what he was after.

Nick nodded. “With the press of a button. So to speak.”

“That’s all I have then,” I shrugged.

User: ???, Class: ???, LVL: ??? User: Matt, Class: NPC, LVL: N/A User: Matt, Class: Page, LVL: 3.

Once I selected the third option, another prompt immediately followed.

There were options for both the Merchant’s, and surprisingly, Adventurer’s Guild. They hadn’t removed me yet, though my view was still restricted. There was also an option to change my listing on the Adaptive Dungeon leaderboard.

It was something to consider changing later, but there was no reason to overcomplicate things when we were already reaching critical mass in that regard.

I watched as a series of bogus stats overlaid my own. It even gave the option to distribute stats for the previous level.

“Holy shit,” I said aloud, as much for Buzzcut’s benefit as everyone else’s “It’s really that easy?”

Nick shook my hand. “Just wait until later to distribute them. It doesn’t last long but when you first slot them in, it stings like a bitch.”

Jinny welcomed me aboard wholeheartedly. Sae wasn’t as enthusiastic, but still seemed happy to have the group rounded out. I did my best to make idle, unimportant small talk and discussion around what the various stats did as I thought through next steps. Exhaustion danced around my temples as my distant fantasy of going home and sleeping slowly drifted away.

Eventually, I excused myself and we parted ways.

It took nearly a half an hour to ensure no one was following me home. I messaged Kinsley and asked for a door, just to be safe. I’d done my best to throw Buzzcut off, but if they were as cold-blooded professional as I thought they were, that wouldn’t matter. I needed every contingency possible, and that meant using my level-up to try to find a safe way to get the new summon onboard.

“Doubt it,” I grumbled to myself, checking behind me to make sure I was still clear. Whenever Nick said I’d love something, it was almost guaranteed that I wouldn’t.