I saw the message as soon as I woke up, which I had more or less expected.

Autosave Complete!

I quickly assessed my surroundings as it faded. It was the same stone room I had fallen asleep in, with all my sparse belongings right where I had left them. Even the sword and armor were nestled in the same corner they had been when I first arrived at the room. If anything was different, it would just be Sophia clinging to me just like she had been last morning. A smile crossed my face at the thought of Sauron hitting me with the trauma mace and Sophia having the worst wake-up call of her entire life as I screamed directly into her eyeballs.

That thought aside, though, this was easily the most generic of my start points so far. No orc, no dignitary walking forward before a key conversation, no nothing. Just a guy waking up in bed with a hot elf slut, which was standard affair for both me and probably most isekai'd people this late in the game.

I spent a little bit just relaxing in the comfortable bed, which luckily had a feather mattress rather than a stone mattress. I idly wondered where dwarves slept, considering they were minerals and their bodies were just malleable clumps of mana or whatever, but I supposed it really did not matter in the slightest.

What did matter, though, was my now daily ritual of detaching Sophia. I had deeply pondered her daily stare and, like a zen master achieving satori after 30 years of starvation, divined her most likely intention. There was no harm in putting the theory to test, especially now that I could instantly kill myself if I failed and only be sent back a few minutes. If only I had this power in high school prior to my ill-fated attempt at asking Stacey out to prom.

Go time. I tickled under Sophia's arm a bit to ease her out of sleep, then licked her tiny nose. She woke up with a start, and then promptly gave me her flat stare. I had my response ready—I leaned my head forward to kiss her. To my surprise, she leaned her head forward as well, and in the blink of an eye we were kissing. It was our first kiss, as strange as the thought happened to be, and it was a kiss entirely unlike the brutal tongue-fucking Hilda and I did with each other. It was a gentle, loving kiss; no faces were mashed, and no tongues were fucked. Our lips just softly pressed and sucked against one another, molding together in a gentle union of passion. How long this continued, I had no idea; her lips were so soft, and her embrace so gentle, that I wouldn't have noticed if we spent hours just kissing. In the end, though, we had to break apart, and we both did so with regret. A thin bridge of saliva connected our lips, but Sophia broke it with her tongue as we gazed into each other's eyes.

Love Point Gained! Soh'fia +1

Hmm. That wasn't an unexpected love point, but it was a bit weird to think that every time I woke Sophia up from now on, she would immediately be hit with visions of a kiss that never happened. That would probably be disconcerting and maybe even a little emotionally damaging, unless I... unless I kissed her every morning from now on, after every loop back to this point? Had I just backed myself into a corner of infinite Sophia kisses? Okay, I couldn't even pretend to be upset about this development. Oh noes, I have to kiss a hot elf babe every morning, however shall I survive.

Anyway, after some intensely passionate love-gazing, Sophia silently got out of bed. It seemed her elven pride still demanded she maintain the fairy-like atmosphere of her nightly visits by remaining silent, for a single word or phrase would bring this whole routine crashing down into reality. I noticed, though, that her babydoll dress was translucent enough for her lightly glowing womb tattoo (glowing from arousal?) to be very visible and very noticeable. It had been, well, strange for her to just casually walk to my room every night in the elf palace wearing her bedclothes, but it had been logical too, since everyone had collectively agreed to keep their mouth shut about their future queen's sexual preferences and partner at the risk of being gutted by the Heir of the World. Here, though, the dwarves not only owed us nothing, but were obligated to act in the best interest of their country. If they saw a foreign head of state strutting through the halls in half-translucent clothing sporting a glowing tattoo of submission usually reserved for animals glowing above her womb, they would be obligated to kick up some kind of diplomatic incident just to keep up the appearances of decent society. How was Sophia going to wiggle her way out of this delicate situation without damaging Dwarf-Elf relations for decades to come?

The answer, it seemed, was to bring a change of clothes with her and just change in front of me. I honestly had to admire the foresight, though the knowledge she was carefully thinking this through before doing it kind of made it seem more unsettling. Like, she wasn't just sleepwalking and magically ending up in my bed at night, she was a living, thinking girl who carefully considered the political implications of slipping into my bed and planned accordingly. She was thinking conscious thoughts the entire time. Somehow, that unsettled me.

I tried to distract myself from disconcerting thoughts of female agency by watching her strip in front of me. She was changing into her normal green blouse and skirt. The most admirable thing here was that she had a change of panties ready, too; thick strings of love juice connected her crotch to her panties as she pulled them down to change. She even brought napkins, which almost brought those banished thoughts immediately back to my head. She had no problem being nude in front of me, and I couldn't help but admire her slender form. I was so used to being around fairly buxom women that Sophia's extremely modest chest was quite alluring; they say that girls with flatter chests could love you more, because when you hugged your hearts were closer together, and that was definitely the image that came to mind with her. I wanted to rest my tired head against her tiny mounds and listen to her heart beat while she hugged me close in a loving embrace.

Her slenderness was somewhat marred by her butt, however, which I often described as being bubbly. It was delightfully round and protruded behind her quite healthily. It was the kind of butt that struck you with the urge to play them like bongos; the kind of butt that strained against pants and gave all manner of tight dresses a telltale bump at the end. It was nothing massive, of course, but it was round and healthy and provided nice contrast with her otherwise slender body.

First went up the fresh pair of temporarily dry panties, concealing her slick crotch behind a layer of light green (soon to be dark green). She then pulled over her green blouse, all but entirely muffling the pink glow of her womb tattoo, and then last came up the skirt, which poofed a little due to the previously described bubble butt providing it with horizontal support. She bent over to pick something up, giving me one final look at the shadowy wonderland beneath her skirt, and then she turned to walk over to me. She held out something for me to take. It was...

It was her sopping wet panties? The pair she just took off?

I looked up and saw her blushing, avoiding eye contact. Instantly, I felt the significance of this moment wash over me; to her, this was an almost religious moment. It was like a humble caveman sacrificing a goat to their respective deity, or a cat dutifully offering up a dead rat to their owner to pay for their continued shelter. Sophia was offering me her soaked, used panties as an offering for continued use of my bed, and as a gift as well, a symbol of her loving devotion. This act—the act of offering up her used panties—held more religious and emotional significance than any act I had ever witnessed in my entire life up until this point. It was pregnant with love, passion, devotion, and most of all, hope. Hope that I would accept them.

And so I did. By god, I did. What kind of monster would slap in the face of a young maiden's truest love? Not I. My heart still throbbed with the blood of life and humanity; it had not yet dried into a lump of dead, lifeless coal, for that is what it would have taken for me to refuse.

I gingerly accepted the panties, feeling my fingers instantly wrinkle as their skin absorbed the ever-dripping love juice. In an instant, I knew what I had to do. My ancestors were smiling at me from beyond the grave and touching me with their ghostly hands to give me guidance. I held the panties close to my bare chest, covering my rippling pectoral muscles with her juices, then lifted them up above my face and squeezed the juices out, inhaling deeply amid the torrent of rain. A love for womanly smells was my fetish and mine alone, but no doubt one shared by many, and it was thanks to the purity of my love that my brain could process the barrage of sweet and sharp scents that assaulted my nostrils. In that moment, I was euphoric. A bargain had been offered; a maiden's undergarments, presented. The offering accepted, and the bargain struck. Our hearts had become one. Our souls and intentions, bonded.

I looked over to Sophia, knowing ahead of time what I would see. Tears of joy were streaming down her cheeks, just as they were mine.

"I love you," she whispered, daring to break the silence once held so dear. Pride no longer mattered between us. There was only love. A spiritual union beyond description.

"I know," I replied, and sound alone told me she was about to regret not bringing a second change of underwear.

Once Sophia had left my room, I tossed her panties into the trash. That may have sounded like an asshole move, but much like a cat bringing far more rat corpses than you could ever want, I too would be accumulating a panty collection far larger than I could ever want. Or more accurately, I just didn't have anywhere else to put them, and I didn't want them soaking into my stuff or getting the desk all wet or whatever. The empty trash can was the best place for them. I could dig them out later if need be.

In future loops, I resolved to get dressed and leave alongside Sophia so as to save some time. That whole... scene was something best left forgotten in a dead loop, rather than being a consistent and repeated moment of history.

Anyway, I put on my usual linen outfit, then put on the baller suit of steel armor and sword. I would be going to the dungeon today, which I was extremely pumped for. It was a flexible enough suit of armor that sitting down seemed easy enough; it wasn't something I would want to delay putting on for as long as possible. Perfect. Time for some dungeon crawling.

I noticed something was wrong as soon as I got outside my room. Dwarves were busily running around, like, actually running. They hadn't been running or even really moving quickly at all yesterday. Confused, I headed over to the throne room; I didn't expect an immediate audience with the queen or anything, but maybe someone there could explain.

It was near the entrance to the throne room that I bumped into... uh, what was his name... Duran, the High Excavator. He was shouting orders and pointing every which way while directing scared-looking dwarves. Very strange. I waved at him, and he gestured me over with an intense look.

"Malcador! Jus' the man I wanted ta see. Ye need to get goin', and fast."

"Huh? Get going where?"

"...Haven't ya heard? The queen's been abducted!"

Oh shit.

"Who took her? Where? Why?"

"Demons n' monsters from Malgreed. The dungeon. They surged outta the exit and went right for the queen, somehow. They took her back down. We think they've got her behind the hole fer Goddess knows what purpose."

Whew. Thank you, Jesus. No political drama.

"So I just need to conquer the dungeon as planned."

"Er... Yea, if ye wanna look at it like that. Ye don't seem very concerned about this, laddie."

"What can I say? I was born for conquering dungeons in a short span of time. They don't call me Malcador 'The Dungeon Buster' the Hero for nothing. You'll have your queen back before you know it." Though not in this timeline.

Duran clapped a hand on my shoulder. "That's the spirit, lad. The queen was right ta trust ya with this. Now, my men've made some maps of the first couple'a floors, and I'm gonna lend'm ta ya. They should help get ya to the bottom as fast as ye can. Ye gotta be careful, though. Dungeon walls be ever shiftin'. These maps might be out of date as soon as tomorrow."

"Good to know. Thanks, Duran." I smiled as brightly as I could. My brotherly bond with Duran was coming along nicely. He was giving me critical help for excavating the dungeon, and wasn't offering me his underwear in a ritualistic ceremony. That was all I could ever ask from a companion. To think that only now, after so much time, would I understand the true meaning of 'bros before hoes.'

I left Duran to his work; with the queen abducted, it was up to him to lead the Excavators to secure her rescue by any means necessary. I was something of a backup plan, I knew, but I could hardly blame them for that. From what I overheard, their plan was to excavate around the dungeon and go directly to the hole. Dungeon walls were normally nigh-indestructible, which made one question what exactly had blown a hole into the fifth floor to begin with, but that didn't matter when their goal wasn't skipping to the bottom of the dungeon, but reaching the hole in the Other Realm barrier or whatever. And if worse came to worst, they had some nuclear options once they got to the bottom floor, surely.

I met up with Rose, Sophia, and Hilda in the dining hall, since Duran had told me they would be there. They had finished a light breakfast of bread and soup already. Truth be told, I wasn't really hungry, but I chugged some soup anyway.

"You certainly got up late," Rose observed. Hilda bobbed her head in agreement and frowned at me. The unspoken question was clear: Da fuck you doin' with Sophia? For her part, Sophia blushed slightly and looked away. She was struggling to keep up the bitchy act after our tearful bonding session, it seemed.

"Actually, I was talking with my good friend Duran. My biggest bro Duran. He gave me some maps for the dungeon and we discussed strategy. Check it out," I replied, handing the maps to Rose. I had glanced at them, but not too closely.

"Hrm," Rose said.

"Anything interesting?"

"The first floor appears to be an obnoxiously large and bland grid of hallways containing one hundred rooms. One needs to flip three switches in three separate rooms, then a hidden staircase will open in another, fourth room."

I balked. "Really? That sounds terrible. And like it will take forever."

"Luckily for us, Duran has marked the three rooms with switches, and the staircase room. The entrance to the dungeon is at the bottom middle of the room, it seems, and the switches are in the top left and top right corner respectively, with two switches being at the top left. The floor is so obnoxiously large it will take time just to reach them, but I can hardly complain considering the alternative."

"Great. What about floor two?"

"It is even more nightmarish. I dare not speak the words of its gimmick, for fear you would refuse to enter the dungeon at all."

I thought of my least favorite dungeon gimmick, and nodded. I certainly would not want to enter a dungeon with that gimmick.

"Okay, I'll steel my resolve. Now," I put my bowl down, having finished the soup. "Let's walk to the dungeon and talk strategy on the way there."

"Ride to the dungeon," Rose corrected.

"Huh?"

"We need to take an elevator down. It's further deep into the crust of the earth, which is why it bordered the Other Realm, I suppose."

"Elevators exist?"

Rose gestured vaguely. "Dwarves. Smiths. Advanced technology."

"I understand completely."

Once everyone was in the elevator down to the dungeon, we began our strategy meeting.

"Alright," I said. "Rose and I are frontline warriors, naturally, while Hilda and Sophia are backline warriors. Any questions or concerns?"

"What if we get attacked from behind?" Hilda asked.

"I'll smell them before they get close!" Sophia exclaimed, sounding excited to be useful in a fight. Thinking about it, this was probably not only her first time outside of elf territory, but actually getting into real fights as well.

"Works for me," I said. "And I know some Restoration magic, so we don't need to worry too much about healing, as long as you don't suffer a grave wound." I looked at Sophia. She returned a blank look, not understanding why I was looking at her. But I sure understood. "Anyway, how's your bow?"

She lifted it up. It was an ornately carved thing, and absolutely shimmered with magic. Elvish magic. "Great! Whenever I shoot an arrow, it turns into two arrows."

"And then?"

"They fly forward...?"

I frowned, vaguely disappointed.

"Don't be dumb. Guess what, the arrows get way faster and stronger! The bow is called the Eye Piercer because if you aim it right, you can pierce both eyes of just about anyone, no matter how strong their armor is. It just can't be enchanted armor. Or maybe mythril armor in general I guess."

"That's a lot of exceptions," I observed.

"Sh-Shut up! It'll be fine in the dungeon, idiot. Just wait and see. You'll be crawling at my feet before long."

"I hope not because you shot my eyes out."

"Hmph! That'll depend on whether you show me the proper appreciation or not."

"Noted." I turned to Hilda. "And you? How will you hold up in combat?"

Hilda waved a staff with a dark, pulsating crystal at the end. The staff seemed to be made of bone, and the top of it actually did have a skull growing right out of the bleached white rest of the staff. That was new, and went fairly well with her chitinous armor-dress-thing. It felt like Hilda had job changed overnight from black mage to deadly necromancer overnight. The power of wholesome character development.

"A lot of Curse Magic is weaker in the dark, since there's no light to destroy for fuel, but I'll be okay. It won't be pitch-black, and if it really comes down to it I can try hitting them with Miasma or Blind."

"Hey!" Sophia barked. "I'm going to be the one blinding them!"

'Ladies, ladies, please. There will be enough eyes for everyone to stab them out."

In any case, Hilda seemed like something of a weak link here, since we were going out of her element offensively and didn't much need her other abilities. Actually, her Doppelganger spell (the advanced form of the doll spell) would probably come in handy, but I had strictly forbidden her from ever making a Doppelganger of me. Thoughts of what she did with the doll were bad enough, but an actual Doppelganger? Nightmarish, and I didn't want to break that taboo here.

"And as for you, Rose..." I turned to her, and she gave me an expectant look. "Just kick ass like normal, I guess? Flip around. Try not to hit the ceiling with your feet. I suspect you would be fine on your own down here."

"Aye aye, sir."

The elevator reached the bottom floor, and we walked down a dark cave tunnel for a bit before reaching the dungeon entrance.

"Who makes these dungeons, anyway?" I asked out of idle curiosity.

"To my understanding, it was an especially eccentric Excursed from centuries ago. He was a master of Mysticism, and upon tapping into the Soul of the World, he immediately used his nigh-unlimited power to craft a wide range of chal—"

I raised a hand. "Okay, I get it. Arbitrary explanation for dungeons heard loud and clear."

She frowned. "You asked. If you did not want to know, you could have simply not asked."

"I just wanted to know if there was an answer at all."

"I mean... There is an answer for everything. That is how reality works. Cause and effect. Determinism."

"Where did you learn about determinism?"

"Church."

"OK."

Without further ado, I prepared to open the door to the dungeon. My heart was racing with excitement. Finally, time to do stuff. To level up. To engage in constant action paced out a smattering of puzzles. No politics, no drama, no web of conflicting motivations. Just me, a party of unusually attractive companions, and a helluva lot of monsters to kill. Time to go.

I threw the doors open and rushed inside, blade at the ready. I looked left. A seemingly infinitely-stretching hallway with nothing but occasional doors and branches to the right. I looked to the right. Another such hallway. I looked forward. Another such hallway, but with branches on both sides.

Woohoo?

Rose, Sophia, and Hilda followed me in. Their weapons were not at the ready. It seemed they did not share my enthusiasm.

"Onwards," Rose said. "I believe the most efficient path will be to simply walk to the end, then walk to the right."

"A-Adventure?"

"It will certainly be an adventure. We shall discover together how long we can walk along repetitive corridors before getting bored."

I frowned, but shook it off. So what if the first floor of the dungeon was so unglamorous, and vaguely resembled the literal trash can gym puzzle of Pokemon genwun? Soon monsters would be swarming, and only my level would be soaring higher than my battle-crazed erection.

And, in fact, that proved to be the case. Somewhat. At exactly the first cross-shaped junction between rooms, the point on the grid where we would be at the four corners of four different rooms at once, a group of goblins wearing armor rushed us. I stepped forward, heroically, and met them blade for blade. I slashed the throat of one, stabbed through another, kicked one down and shot a thorn through its throat. Rose killed a fourth, and Sophia pierced the brain of a fifth with an arrow.

Skill Up! One-Handed Blades Level 59!

Skill Up! Natural Level 38!

Level Up! All Attributes Increased!

Hell yeah mother fucker. The level up was largely unearned, since I was just getting the level up back that I had lost to Hilda's deadly vagina, but the skill points were nice. Sweet, sweet One-Handed Blades. I hoped to have it at level 100 by the time I finished this dungeon.

Hilda patted Sophia's back as Sophia puffed out her chest, head held high with pride. She gave me a smug smile, to which I returned a thumbs up. Hell yeah. Team work. Team bonding. This was the stuff.

We advanced forward, and another crowd of goblins came at the next junction. This group was a bit more deadly than the last, since it had two archers and a mage backing up three warriors, but Sophia took out both archers with a double-arrow and Rose sliced off the mage's head while I took down the warriors, Shadow Stitched into place by Hilda.

Skill Up! One-Handed Blades Level 60!

Bonus: +15 Base STR!

Mmm, delicious, delicious numbers.

In retrospect, Koh'rin had been so devoid of meaningful violence that I had forgotten just how fast my levels really went up when in actual combat. Armored goblins were respectably deadly enemies, all things considered, and were not to be taken lightly, though these didn't seem too crafty. Either way, I was getting a steady stream of EXP and numbers. All my dreams were coming true before my eyes.

An encounter assaulted us at every junction like clockwork. Goblins, orcs, slimes (wherein Hilda's magic really came in handy), basilisks (wherein we ran for our lives and Sophia arrowed them down), skeletons, etc etc... Standard stuff for floor one, except the basilisks maybe. There were thirteen junctions along the way, which meant thirteen encounters. I got a skill level from each one, and two full-on level ups by the end. I even got Athletics up to 50, which gave me a perk for significantly buffed sprinting speed. All in all, just a little time on floor one had already made me feel palpably stronger. It felt like forever ago that it actually mattered, but my level ups did lead to my attribute points scaling exponentially, so every level up by this point was a huge buff.

It was worth noting, though, that I didn't feel myself getting much more muscular. I kind of wondered if it had just stopped at what I personally considered peak aesthetics, or something, because I certainly wouldn't have wanted larger muscles than what I already had now. There was a line between attractively muscular and unattractively muscular, and thankfully, I had stopped soundly within the "attractively muscular" zone for me. No being trapped in a muscle monster hulk body for me, at least.

In any case, we finally reached the furthest back-right room on the floor. There were one hundred rooms in this floor, spaced out evenly, and that made this the tenth room on the top row.

"And this should be it," Rose said. "Allow me to do the honors." She gripped the metal door, pulled it open, and we all stepped inside.

It was a bare, empty stone room. The walls were jagged rock and there was absolutely no switch in sight. Rose pulled out the map, frowning, and double checked. "This should be it," she said.

I shrugged. "I believe you. The walls must have shifted. Duran mentioned the walls shifted and the maps might end up inaccurate."

Rose's frown deepened. "Why would they go out of their way to make maps that will be out of date within days?"

"I think it's pretty obvious that having potentially incorrect information is better than having no information at all. I mean, sure, we opened an empty room, but we would have opened a dozen empty rooms anyway even without the map."

"I disagree strongly, but we can debate the danger of incorrect information once the queen is rescued. We need to start looking for the proper switches."

"Alright. I say we check all the rooms from this point to the rooms with the supposed other switches, then work our way down. These kinds of floors always try to punish those who get smart and try to think of some trick to find the switches the fastest. We're going to be thorough here."

The other two switches on the map were on the top left corner of the map, so we just went left from where we were. The encounter design made more sense when we were opening every door we came across; there was an encounter every junction, so it alternated evenly between opening a door and having an encounter. Some rooms had treasure chests inside, and we got some sweet loot in the form of potions, some gold pieces, and basic equipment far worse than what we had. Other rooms had yet more encounters.

It kind of struck me, as we discovered the top left rooms equally empty and started working our way down, that this room felt like a total mockery of fun and adventure. It was the ultimate time-waster, the pinnacle of absolutely terrible dungeon design. The only way to advance to the next floor was to methodically work your way through a hundred different rooms with literally constant battles interrupting you. And if your luck was really rotten, you would have to re-explore literally all 100 rooms to find the staircase once it appeared. That seemed unreasonably unlucky, but a rough estimation would put that at around a 1% chance, and if, say, 10,000 people explored your dungeon, that meant 100 people having to re-explore every room.

That said, despite the dungeon being like a slap to the face, I wasn't feeling down in the least. I was having a lot of fun just spending time with my party. A slime dissolved some of Hilda's armored dress, reducing her to a teary mess as she failed to maintain the necromancer gravitas she had been working on, and Sophia repeatedly failed to hit both eyes of literally anything with her bow, also turning her to a teary mess as she failed to show off. I never got tired of seeing Rose fight with the blade, too; she was fast and deadly, like a beautiful dancer cutting her way through a crowd. Somehow, she got increasingly hot the more blood splattered onto her. It was very strange.

Oh, and of course, I was getting levels galore. They slowed down significantly from the start, presumably since I was catching up to the exp curve (after having fallen seriously behind in Elflands?), but it was still a nice growth of palpable power that I hadn't been feeling in a while. I also managed to maximize EXP efficiency by using my lesser-leveled magic skills. I noticed, though, that my END was falling back hard. Magic and combat skills were relatively easy to grind, and AGI was getting a ton of points from Athletics, but my armor skills were going up pretty slowly since I basically had to let the enemy hit me. Not to mention I had basically swapped from Light Armor to Heavy Armor, "resetting" my progress. Again. Oh well.

Ultimately, we found the first switch in the fourth room of the third row. The second was in the ninth room of the second row, and the last one was the second room of the first one. In other words, they were all concentrated in the first few rows, the opposite end of where we started. We had done seventy pointless rooms, and thus seventy pointless encounters.

"Well that was pretty shit," I said aloud. I had powered up, but at what cost? The sweetest thing was my Level 75 milestone for One-Handed Blades, which gave a huge buff for cutting through armor or other thick/hard substances with one-handed blades, but still. Seventy plus encounters. God damn. I had been complaining about the lack of action in Elfland, but now that I had actually spent like ten full hours straight doing nothing but slaughtering, my enthusiasm was more than a little dampened.

I looked around. Hilda was exhausted, having run out of MP thirty-some encounters ago. Rose was breathing harder, covered in a sheen of sweat disguised only by the sheer quantity of blood splatter covering her helm and armor, but her sword was as deadly as ever. Sophia was probably feeling the best out of the three, but she was still rubbing her arms. They were sore from pulling back her bowstring so often, not that she would ever admit it. On my end, I was feeling mentally exhausted from boredom, but physically fine. Not even slaying literally hundreds of monsters had depleted my absurd stamina. I kind of got the feeling that my stats were gearing me up for hours-long duels to the death with incredibly deadly opponents, not a swarm of EXP-packed but nonetheless weak mobs, so it made sense that I was so unaffected. It was like JRPGs, as I said so long ago. You grinded for boss fights, and the mobs themselves never posed a threat unless you fought them while totally drained. Though only now did I really appreciate how kinda shit that really was. CRPG chads, I kneel.

"Anyway. As for our next move," I said, drawing eyes to me. "I say we keep going and camp out on the second floor. My worst nightmare right now is us leaving and coming back to find the switches moved somewhere else. If anyone's too tired to fight, Rose and I can pro—" I didn't finish my sentence. A familiar friend had come to say hello.

With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.

I wish I could say I was surprised, but I really wasn't. What else would a damsel in distress be in this situation if not a time limit? I had absolutely no idea what happened to Queen Daiya, but she only lasted with her abductors for about a day before dying. Once again, there was no "tomorrow" in this loop.

"Malcador?" Rose asked. I had cut-off mid sentence and stared into the distance for a bit.

"Right. Er, well. I try not to talk about this time loop stuff with you guys too much, but shit's fucked. I have to go back within an hour or so."

Rose frowned, Hilda shrugged, and Sophia scowled. I had explained the time loop to all of them in detail after I was sure the elf loop was done, which had been fairly uncomfortable, since it felt like revealing forbidden knowledge, but the whole soul-binding didn't leave me with much of a choice. All my companions would remember their most, well, romantic (?) moments with me throughout the loops, and Rose at least was intelligent enough to deduce some sort of time travel fuckery was going on. Hilda, as a non-companion leech attaching herself to my quest through sheer power of love and sexiness, did not share these circumstances, and overall I felt she was the least invested out of anyone in the time loop. It didn't feel real to her, which I could understand fully. Sophia mainly seemed mad to know I had memories she didn't, hence the scowling. I promised her that she had only embarrassed herself a little, which had not gone over well.

"What's the plan, then?" Rose asked.

"We bumrush the rooms to try and find the stairs as quickly as possible so future-me knows where they are. That's pretty much all that matters now. Also, if any of you see a huge armored dude teleport out of nowhere with like, fire for a face, and a very scary looking mace, start screaming really loud. I will not want to stick around with him here. If you can see him at all, that is."

Rose nodded, and we were off, running from room to room, throwing the doors open to look for stairs before dashing off again. Splitting up might have covered more ground, but leaving Sophia and Hilda to die still didn't sit right with me, loop or no, and Rose couldn't have protected both of them on her own while also rushing to rooms as fast as possible. It was (probably) faster to just stick together.

And so we did, blasting through at record pace. We scoured the first, second, third, and fourth rows to no avail. That was forty speedran encounters, and if I was being honest, Rose Unleashed was stealing a significant amount of EXP. When she abandoned the concept of long-term survival and defense, she moved even faster and deadlier than before, but not at the cost of taking some arrows and slashes head-on. Not all of the blood on her was splashback blood anymore, but her sacrifice paid off. The first room on the fifth row had the staircase. It had been entirely invisible before, but now there was a humble wooden staircase smack dab in the middle of the room.

"See?" I said. "These kinds of floors always fuck with people who try to get smart. If you try to start from the back instead of the front, you'll be doing the exact opposite of the right thing, and then the staircase is in the middle, to minimize the chance of someone finding it faster by starting from the front or back. It's all cleverly designed to ma—" This time I was interrupted by Sophia and Hilda shrieking.

Behind me was, presumably, Sauron. Even Rose's eyes widened at the sight of him. "Is that," she began, but my instincts told me to get the mace was coming. I had to get out.

"Quickload," I said, and everything went black. Maybe if I described Sauron in more detail, past-Rose would recognize him from the description alone.