That's mean, insisted Merry, as we watched Chelle immediately jump back into her second fight. The poor girl is exhausted.

I nodded, but I was smiling. She needs the closure, I replied. To know that she really is different, that it isn't an illusion. Part of that was probably me projecting my own feelings onto her--but part of it was also my Telepathy skill, as I tried to read her emotions and reactions. She was exhausted, but I would bet good money that walking away and wondering what might have been was not going to cure that.

The skill had come in handy several times, as had the Strife Aura I put on the Fallen Angel's Halo. It was meant to be used against enemies, of course--but I'd had the inspiration to use it on Michelle so she wouldn't see me as being a member of her team. If she wasted time asking me for help, or if she got stuck in a mental look where she was waiting for me to save her, I don't think she would have made it through the fight. It did also take a bit of acting, but... well, it worked out, even though the poor girl also wasn't sure whether she trusted me.

More importantly, I don't think I could have gotten her out of the way of every strike without knowing when her attention was slipping. I would otherwise have had to guess, and I would have defaulted to trusting her.

In any case, Merry still disagreed with my assessment of the girl, even as she sensed the same things coming from my skill as I did. She's going to be traumatized, like you were, she insisted. She needs to rest.

My mental reply was kind of a half-instinctual math... well, not an equation, nor a formula. It was an... impression of the math involved; this was going to be a much shorter fight than Merry thought it was. The difference in attack power would make all the difference.

The mummy lunged, that gleaming white sword punching through where Michelle should have been, but the girl--and in some ways, she was just a girl--didn't just step to the side. She actively circled around the mummy, her gleaming blade cutting not once, not four times, but endlessly. The mummy was slow to turn, and Chelle had confidence, now, in how slow it was, and how fast she was. She might have been a trace over-confident...

But no, all of a sudden, the mummy fell to one knee, its health at half. and Michelle continued rushing through cutting at her enemy, doing damage over and over again. She didn't kill it before it turned into a copy, and she didn't kill it before it turned and started fighting her, but it was only a few cycles after that, that the fight was over already--again.

It was over in maybe five minutes of fighting, after nearly two hours the first time--and only that short because of a very heavy piece of rock travelling pretty damn fast.

Michelle stood there in shock and confusion for a long minute before I started applauding, my Halo vanishing again. She raised her sword at me, still angry--and I could sense her train of thought, though I was somewhat surprised she'd believed me about the soul slavery thing.

It's not like anyone else my level could do that; it was kind of a paranoid thing to believe, true as it might have been.

"I told you you could do it," I said, cheerfully. I wished that I had the emotional range to be warm and inviting, even fatherly, but I could sense through the telepathy link that it came off as disrespectful, even cruel, somehow. Instead of trying to figure it out, I just closed the link. "Don't worry, I'm not going to--"

She lunged at me anyway. I wasn't watching her mind anymore, but I'd gotten the impression she might, so I deflected it with my mind pretty easily. Her sword aura actually burned at my telekinesis a bit, though, which was new; it was highly amplified thanks to her sword, but it also had changed to a highly specialized force of destruction when she rebuilt her skill.

Which, if I understood what Kalamitus had told me, put her at least temporarily in the lowest reaches of X-rank, where I should have been from the very start--if I hadn't completely screwed it up. With my changes, in theory, I'd get there now, hopefully before I killed Bo.

"Easy..." I didn't even get to finish pandering to her when she turned and swung at me again. In the end, we danced a bit, her seemingly very certain that I was going to betray her, but... I ended up speaking as calmly as I could through it. "Easy, easy... I'm not going to kill you or steal your soul, I promise."

It took her a little bit before she seemed to accept or believe me. "You're... you're not." It was less a question than it was her accepting what seemed to be staring her in the face. "Then why did you say something that... that horrible?"

"The same reason that I used Strife aura on you," I answered, my voice more cheerful than I meant it to be. "You had to be in the right mindset in order to get there. You weren't scared enough of death, and you thought I'd help you. It had to be just you against something greater than you--your fate had to be so awful that you couldn't accept it, that you'd fight with every last ounce of strength to avoid it. And you got there; I'm proud of you."

She kept a white-knuckle grip on her sword, which I couldn't help admiring. It was better than any sword I had, for sure; I was tempted to fight this boss now that she was done, either her version or mine, but... but Merry was definitely right about one thing: the girl was now stressed beyond her ability to handle things, and if I went into a fight with a level 100 copy of myself, I'm not actually sure that I could keep her safe. If I kicked her out the exit first, she'd have to wait in a creepy graveyard surrounded by monsters, or maybe just make a run on the exit... I just shook my head.

"Let's get to town," I said, cheerfully, and gestured to the giant hole in the ceiling. "Would you like a hand up?"

"Don't touch me," she hissed, but I thought she was less suspicious than he had been a minute ago. She circled back to the hole, and found that there were now dangling roots that she could climb. She sheathed her sword and made her way to the surface, with no small amount of determination, and I just smiled sadly at her retreating figure.

It all felt pretty familiar.

When she was clear, I lifted myself out easily, and just kind of casually followed as she cut her way through the undead on the surface. Even the vampires, as fast as they were, suddenly didn't scare her quite so much. They were still scary--they always would be--but as I'd hoped, she got through that trauma stronger, without feeling helpless. Now, faced with lesser threats... they were just, lesser.

We took a break at the exit of 18, where it was safe, and I moved politely away so I wouldn't hear her crying. The Administrator threw some hordes at me for fun while we waited, and I used those to gather some experience, some of which still went into stabilizing Merry; we hadn't fixed her Julius problem in the Fairy Dungeon, because Kalamitus said to have a bunch of XP on hand, but we would on the way back. In the meantime, she was mostly back to her old cheerful self, but it still hurt her on occasion.

If would hurt her more if she tried to fight again, but we both knew she wasn't going to need to.

After a little bit, when Michelle seemed calmer, I came back and sat down with her. She didn't immediately want to talk, instead staring at nothing for a while, and then staring at her sword for a while.

"That's a really good sword," I said into the quiet, still envious.

She nodded, and looked at me, and I could tell she had kind of... made peace with not trusting me. "It's perfect," she said. "As a Kensei, my weapons level a little bit as I do, so this is going to last me a long time. I... I can't even imagine fighting without it, suddenly. It's so beautiful."

I... well, I kind of half knew that this was a rude thing to ask, given that she really didn't trust me, but I wanted to know. "Did you get a second one for the second fight, or a different piece?"

Michelle just shook her head. "Cloth wrap armor."

I whistled, again envious. I still didn't have a good piece of armor. Both her weapon and her armor were now better than anything I had--well, any equipment. Honestly... she was pretty well set for a while. "The Administrator here is a good guy. An impossible fight... gives equal rewards. I mean, I guess they're kind of obliged, but... he does a good job with it."

She looked at me, clearly confused.

I just shrugged. "I'm kind of on the inside of a lot of weird quests and things," I shrugged. "I've met administrators, and ...something else, and know a bunch of secrets, plus there's Merry..."

"Oh! The fairy!" Michelle suddenly sat up straight. "Is she still here? Can I see her again?"

I grinned, and Merry, I could tell, was a little embarrassed, but she popped out behind my head, suddenly shy. "Uh... hi?"

Michelle moved from sitting on her butt to kneeling and wiggled over closer so she could see. "Hi! Thank you so much! I have no idea what exactly you did, but I feel so much better." I... tried not to stare at the girl, and mostly, I felt better seeing that Chelle was in a better mood, but... also, I felt very awkward being in between them.

"I'm glad! Honestly Jerry and I were just working on this stuff. When he went through a fight like that, he broke his skill wrong and it hurt him for a long time, but we just fixed it! Your skill is gonna be a lot better now."

"It already is." She took her sheathed sword in hand and studied it without drawing it. "The--the skill... I don't know." She suddenly drew the sword in a single violent motion, and it lit up with white fire. "It wasn't... what it could be. It could be more. It is more. A kensei is supposed to be more than just a warrior. A true sword aura... means more than just holding an edge. It's a different kind of power."

I nodded, focusing on her words and trying to ignore that a stranger was closer to me than I was comfortable with. "My telekinesis is the same. That's what got me through that fight... I mean, the one that changed me, years ago. The skill on its own was..." I considered. Kalamitus said that the beginning of S-rank was knowing the potential of the skill? "...what skill growth rank were you with your Kensei aura? Do you know?"

Chelle was more interested in looking at Merry, but rocked back a little and considered me when I started talking. "I don't know," she admitted. "I know there are ways to check it, but--"

"I actually have Skill Sage," I admitted, "among other things. If you trust me, I can check it--"

Chelle actually scooted back a bit. "Honestly..." she shook her head. "After what I went through... no, I kind of don't. No offense--"

I held up both hands in defeat. Some part of me wanted to be appreciated for having gotten her there, but really, all of this was her--I just pushed her into it, and saved her neck a couple times. "None taken," I said, "but you should look into it. Use your skill at as high a level as you can for a while, and when the level goes up a few times, you should have plenty of points to spend when you next go to a Skill Sage. I don't know how many, but... if my sources are accurate, the level we're operating at gives a lot of points."

Actually, now that I thought about it, I was probably getting a bunch of points myself--but, Chelle distracted me, and I didn't end up getting into it then and there.

"Honestly," she said, more quietly than I expected, "I'm just so sick of being in danger. I think... I think I just want to go home and sleep for a while."

I nodded. "Okay. I'll clear the next floor for you, and you can go home."

Chelle, to my surprise, just stood up. "Yeah," she said, "that sounds good."

So I stood up and we moved into the floor exit, coming out on 19.

The overall biome was that of a graveyard, and the boss for 19 was a big haunting spirit. I'd honestly not spent a lot of time thinking about the floor itself; like I said, I kind of rushed the biome, and every time after the first, I was more... thinking about the one that followed, than thinking about this section. So it kind of surprised me when there were a lot more hooded figures in the graveyard on the next floor than I'd thought there were. I kind of knew that they were there, and why--necromancers, the Administrator's flavor to justify the biome and the boss--but I'd never faced much of a grouping of them.

For some reason, the Administrator spawned a big mass of them, and I discovered that they would just keep spawning low-level mobs constantly. I didn't care--I did the same thing with them as I did with the flame lions, picking them up and using them as bludgeons to crush their friends--but I honestly started to get irritated, in part because the whole idea of me clearing this stage was to keep Chelle from getting freaked out.

Of course, she wasn't really that freaked out--none of this was a danger to her, she was just tired. I did feel kind of like a chump, though. In the end, I used my Telekinesis, with some help from Merry in coordinating it, to pick up a whole big mass of the stupid low-level skellies and just pitch them willy-nilly around the stage as we moved towards the boss arena. Being thrown around wasn't quite enough to kill them, but... I didn't really care.

The boss monster, which had never once actually impressed me, was a giant fake-ghost. The first time I saw it, I remembered feeling like it was an insult, as a psychic--or, well, a maybe-psychic, at the time. It was, I guess, drawn from popular culture more than tangible reality. It wasn't as bad as a "bedsheet-ghost", but it was wrong in the worst possible way.

It was sane. Ghosts were never sane, not like that. They were... well, it's hard to say, exactly, but whatever life had been in them was gone.

But no, the big ol' specter rose, humanoid and smiling, looking too much like an actor playing a role. It wasn't off the way ghosts were supposed to be; it was just a person that happened to be ethereal, and not even a twisted or psychotic one.

"Gentleman and lady," he practically purred, as we entered the graveyard, "you're just in time for tea, and then I'll have to chop your heads off. You there!" He gestured at nothing, and fake ghostly form appeared--a non-entity, I knew. "Set the tab--"

My Executioner's Blade aimed for the creep's neck, and I was a little surprised that he dodged this time--he usually didn't. His level was a little higher, again, but I also wasn't going all-out.

"Oh-ho-ho! We've got a live one, boys!" The specter raised his hands, and marionette strings or something cast out to a bunch of ghost puppets. "This will--"

This time, using my telekinesis to gain the upper hand, I did hit him straight in the chest, the broad fan tip of the blade impacting right about the solar plexus--not quite precise enough for a critical hit, my Assassination skill told me, but I hardly cared. Instead of worrying too much about it, I mentally dragged myself around behind him, putting telekinetic sharpness on the blade, and put a full-force swing behind it. I didn't bother worrying about whether it took one hit or five, just used my Telekinesis to keep him within range of my strikes until he was dead.

I'd always hated this boss, and I never once had let him play things out the way he wanted them to go. Even when my damage was low, I was always interrupting his stupid bullshit theatrics. Everything he did offended me, and I was glad to see him gone.

As the vapor dispersed, though... it did occur to me. The Administrator himself was supposed to be fueled by ghosts and nightmares, right? That's what... what Kalamitus said, and the Administrator agreed, or didn't contradict him. So certainly he knew ghosts, as well or better than I did. I would have taken it up with him then and there, but... well, I didn't want to do that to Michelle. Either way... suddenly I didn't see the gregarious specter as being quite so offensive, not that it mattered.

Anyway, we went on down to floor 20, me not doing more than glancing at my inventory and the rare drop--different, but not interesting, as far as I could tell.

I didn't even think to put myself in stealth as I entered the floor, not remembering that twenty was exactly the place I'd gotten myself in trouble on my first run--well, in trouble with the law, not just generally in trouble. Because even back then, they'd known that there was an NPC that accepted corpses as payment in the Cannibal biome... so they'd set up a checkpoint.

I just sighed as a level 25 man with a US National Guard badge and a priestess both stared uncomfortably at the level over my head, already annoyed by the conversation I knew was to follow.