Now at this point, you may be thinking, “A party of nine? Isn’t that a bit excessive? Aren’t most parties four to six people?” To which I have to say, yes. You are totally correct. 9 is definitely excessive. We can only blame Jake, our over-eager self-proclaimed party lead, for the fact that we had such a huge party (it’s definitely not because Jake, Garrett, and I all being melee completely off-balanced the party from the get-go. Nope).

Anyway, we finally get to the adventuring this chapter! It’s about time, ain’t it?

---

Before setting out, we made sure to go over everyone’s classes, skills, equipment, and magic. Unfortunately, the only skills we had at this point were Jake’s [Eye for Talent], Megan’s [Steal], and Lindsey relayed through Sam that she had acquired the [Martial Arts] skill. That one sounded promising, but it turns out that it would only help if she was attacking without a weapon (which we all agreed seemed a silly thing to try). In other words, we had no skills that would be useful for a fight.

When it came to equipment, everyone except me had a single health potion along with their weapons. That meant we had health potions, a [Hero] with a special sword, a [Berserker] with a two-handed ax, a [Knight] with a regular sword and a shield, a [Rogue] with a knife, a [Ranger] with a bow and a knife, a [Cleric] with a mace, and a [Sorcerer] and a [Wizard] with wands. Oh, and a poor sod who was stuck with his fists.

In regards to magic, the rest of the party, again excluding me, all had access to a low-level spell called [Identify]. After trying it out and getting such useful information like “level 1 human” (when cast on Jake) we determined that it wouldn’t be much help (and yes, I panicked when I found out people could [Identify] me. Fortunately, I showed up as [Half-Demon] just like I told the party I was).

The only offensive magic was [Mage Bolt], a zero-cost spell that Tim and Sam had access to. It didn’t seem like it would do much damage, but ranged damage for free was nothing to sneeze at.

The final magic, and our only defensive one, was Andrew’s creatively titled spell [Heal], which did exactly what it sounds like.

During this time, we found out that, unlike everyone else, I didn’t see the party’s HP, MP, and SP listed on the top left of my screen (and they didn’t see mine). Since the party interface was greyed out on my status screen, I assumed this meant that the [Demon Lord] was really not supposed to be in a party. Needless to say, I kept that last piece of info to myself.

After setting up a basic plan, we set off into one of the many tunnels leading out of the main cave and looked for our first fight.

We found it soon. It was almost a complete disaster.

The surprising thing was that we actually had formations planned, we knew what everyone’s role in fighting was, and everyone, Megan and Andrew included, had at least a bit of a background to understand our tactics. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Our first fight started just as we planned. Megan and Emilia were scouting ahead as [Ranger] and [Rogue] since we assumed that is their main role. Jake, Garrett, and Lindsey formed our frontline with Jake leading the way (he insisted since he was the party leader). Following them were our spellcasters; Andrew, Tim, and Sam (with Andrew sticking very close to Tim). And then me in the very back.

Why a melee in the very back? The politically correct answer to that question was that I was “watching the rear” and was to “engage any threats that got in melee range of the casters.” The honest truth? Nobody, me included, was very ecstatic about a class with no weapons, no skills, and no magic. What I did have was an HP bar that read 100/100 (tied with Garrett, Jake, and Lindsey for most HP). As such, I was the designated meat-shield for the casters since I had no other role I could fill, and they didn’t want me in the way of the people who actually had melee weapons.

Either way, our plan was solid. We travel down the cave paths in formation. Which we did.

The two scouts go ahead and report on enemy numbers. Which Megan did. “This tunnel leads to an open circular cavern just up ahead. It looks like there are five giant ant-looking things. I am guessing they must be our enemies?”

Jake leads the frontline in. “Garrett and Lindsey! Let’s go!” Which he did.

Everyone else follows in and spreads out. Which we did.

The enemy aggros[1] on the frontline, and they take them down nice and easy with ranged support from the backline. Which is where everything went sideways, upside down, and possibly diagonal as well.

The giant ants, who were the size of great danes and could easily be rode into battle should someone manage that particular miracle of taming, decided to not play along with our nice and neat plan and immediately charged our backline before anyone could get an attack off. Our stunned frontline paused for a second and then gave chase as Jake yelled out, “Mages fall back! Titus! Andrew! Intercept them!”

“On it!” I shouted as I ran in front of Sam, unfortunately, right as her opening shot finished casting.

“[Mage bolt]!” She chanted, causing a black ethereal cylinder of magic to slam directly into my back and make me stumble. “Sorry! I didn’t know you were going that way!” She quickly grabbed Tim’s hand and took off to get some more distance.

My stumbling from the friendly fire put me a few steps behind Andrew as he stepped up to meet the ants with his mace. He managed to swing it once or twice at them, but they ran past him too.

“Titus! You have to stop them, or they will get to Tim! That can’t happen!” Andrew started panicking.

“I don’t think that’s a problem,” I said slowly as I started panicking for a different reason. Despite our backline still making distance, the first ant had stopped, and the others soon did too. With all five of them surrounding me.

“Guys!? How did I get aggro!?” I screamed. I slugged one of them, but it didn’t seem to mind and took a bite out of my arm. I also felt bites taken out of both legs and my side. In a daze, I took a look at my arm, where I had been bitten. Huh. No blood. Must not be an M-Rated video game world.

“Break him out of there! Backline open fire!” Jake yelled out commands quickly and started swinging at the ant closest to him.

The melees started swinging, Emilia started shooting, the mages started [Mage Bolting], and I continued screaming.

The ant that Jake and Garrett tag teamed was the first to go down, and it fell heavily to the ground before disappearing with a puff of purple smoke and a flash of light. I saw that as my exit and took off in that direction. After running between both Garrett and Jake, I thought I was safe. Thought.

Seeing one of their own go down, all four remaining ants suddenly started making screeching noises. Which was answered by the same sound from the tunnel that we just came from.

“Come on!” I complained. “That’s not how ants communicate!” I certainly had my priorities straight.

The party managed to kill the remaining four, but the damage was done, and reinforcements were on the way.

Jake, stumbled a bit, but stayed on task, “Backline get further in the room! Titus, stay right behind us, and we’ll protect you!”

Tim and Sam started running back into the room, but they were quickly overtaken by a flood of dozens of giant ants coming into the room. Ants that once again ignored them and swarmed past them.

Jake spoke calmly, “Titus, just stay in formation, okay? We got you.”

I nodded.

The black and red tide came closer.

“Just stay in position.” At this point, Jake was reassuring himself more than me.

I hesitated but nodded again.

Then as the ants started flowing around the frontline, I broke away at a full sprint screaming, “I don’t want to die!” I gave it my all and booked it towards the tunnel at the other end of the cavern.

“No! Titus! Don’t get separated from the party!”

There was little to no chance of me listening to Jake at that point. At least, until I heard the same screeching noise coming from my destination tunnel as well. I made a quick 90 degree right turn and continued my panic in the new direction.

The frontline tried to catch up, but there were too many ants to get to me. Every step was hard fought for as they had to hack through ants like a jungle made of chitin and pincers. Fortunately, after a few seconds, the wave had passed them enough to allow them to run after me.

As for Tim, Sam, and Emilia? There was even less they could do except enjoy the free shooting range, so they just churned out as many spells and arrows as they could.

By this point, the ants were nipping at my heels. Fortunately, they were as dumb as rocks and always went in as straight a line towards me as they could (which meant they weren’t trying to surround me). Unfortunately, I was as smart as rocks. I soon realized that due to the circular nature of the cave, I was now heading back towards the entrance, which had a second wave of reinforcements pouring out of it. In other words, I was going to be surrounded anyway.

Before I let the two walls of ants meet with me in the middle, I took off back towards the center of the cave where Jake, Garrett, Lindsey, and Andrew had formed up and were waiting. I received a few more bites to my legs and side for the trouble. I also now had a wall of ants on my left, and my right headed towards me. I tried to urge myself to go even faster to break through before both sides met, but I don’t think I sped up much at all.

Jake called out, “Titus! Get over here, and we’ll surround you to take aggro! Andrew hit Titus with a [Heal]!”

“Got it!” Andrew called out. “[Heal]!”

The soothing light flowed out of his hand, flew daintily across the distance between us, before calmly being absorbed by my body.

Where I promptly screamed in pain. “Mother fudger! You son of a birch!” The unexpected pain caused me to stumble and take several bites from the ants that were chasing me.

“I was afraid of that!” Andrew yelled. “He’s a [Half-Demon]! He takes damage from my healing!”

“So we just have to do better protecting him! Titus, hurry!” I scrambled my way over to my saviors, hid in the middle of them, and took a deep breath.

“There! They’ll have to aggro on us now!” Jake said confidently.

Jake’s confidence put me so at ease that I immediately straightened back up and got ready to run again.

I was glad I did. The ants rushed up to Jake, but instead of attacking, they simply shoved him aside and onto the ground to start biting me again. Bolting past Lindsey and Andrew, I took off running yet again, this time with a bit less screaming.

My ant entourage followed right after me, but Jake and the rest had finally gotten the hang of their weapons, and more of the ants were being dusted.

Unfortunately, I soon reached the wall, and I had a decision to make. Wall of ants on my left, or wall of ants on my right? Panic decided for me as I received a bite on my right side and jerked to the left out of reflex.

Going to the left took me past our backline, who were still taking to their role of being stationary turrets. It worked out pretty well at that distance since they were able to focus their attacks on the ants that were closest behind me. They weren’t killing too many of them, but the ants staggered half a step when they were hit, so I was bitten less often. I was glad I went that way until one of Emilia’s shots went wide of its target and lodged directly into my back.

I screamed again, “What the hail?!”

“You uhh, got in my way, idiot!” Emilia shouted back. It was at this time that I noticed something was seriously wrong with my party members because Lindsey, Andrew, and Garrett suddenly made exaggerated attacks too. Andrew and Garrett ended up meeting the ground. Surprisingly, Lindsey actually remained standing. She did wave her arms around a bit to catch her balance, though.

I didn’t have long to admire my party’s clumsiness before a red ant caught up to me for the first time. Just like all the previous times an ant got in range, I was bitten, but this time the bite was followed up with a miniature flamethrower.

You know, at this point, I had almost completely stopped panicking. The rational part of me had taken back over, and I realized I just had to give the ants the runaround and let my party take care of all of them. Ants with flamethrowers, however, put me right back into panic mode.

“That is not what fire ant means!” I screamed and kicked back into gear since I noticed most of the remaining pursuers were red ants.

The next several minutes of the fight involved me leading the ants in wide circles past our frontline, my party tripping two more times, and me calming down again since I thought we had it in the bag.

Then I suddenly doubled over and started gasping for breath. My legs refused to carry me beyond a walking pace. I was quickly caught and surrounded by a sea of red carapaces.

Too tired to scream, I raised my head and a single hand towards the party and croaked out. “Help.” Then I started taking bites and flames from all directions.

“Oh sit! He’s probably out of stamina! Quick!” Jake called out, and our frontline charged into the fray.

Unlike before, they made good progress. Killing ants left and right, they cut a swathe of destruction through to me in just a few seconds. That was fortunate because I probably didn’t have very many seconds left at that point. Reduced to gasping for breath and getting bit, my HP was dropping dangerously low.

As they approached me, Jake called out, “Hey, Garrett! Get ready to carry him out!”

I missed the mischievous grin on Garrett’s face as he answered a quick, “Got it!”

Garrett’s two-handed ax disappeared back into storage as he and Jake broke through to me. I was expecting a fireman carry, or at worst having to go piggyback. I didn’t expect Garrett to literally sweep me off my feet into a princess carry.

He took off back through the path that they cleared and started running laps of his own around the room with me in his arms. All I could do was mutter, “Well. This is humiliating.”

Garrett chuckled and joked aloud to the entire party. “Ah. Come on. Why does the first damsel in distress I save have to be such an ungrateful grouch?”

I silently fumed as the rest of the party chuckled, but then I had an idea. Shrugging off the embarrassment, I went with a different tact. “Ah, but isn’t saving damsels the [Hero’s] job? Aren’t you encroaching on his turf?”

He frowned a bit at that. “I guess you’re right. Most of the ladies will probably go for him instead of a scarred up [Berserker] like-”. It turns out that talking with him distracted him from the important job of running for my life. That meant one of the ants was able to catch up and take a bite out of me. The subsequent flamethrower also burned Garrett a bit too.

“Ahh!” He jumped away from the ant out of reflex and ended up lifting me out of reach of the enemies.

As the ants paused in a circle around us, we learned a few things.

I still had aggro (which wasn’t a surprise) Garrett was able to lift and hold me at head level (or even above his head) with minimal effort The ants couldn’t jump and didn’t seem to think to try to climb or attack Garrett

We sat there somewhat astonished as the remaining ants stopped where they were and simply stared at me.

“I wish we had thought of this earlier,” I mumbled. Garrett nodded his stunned agreement. Though if we had planned to do this, I would have probably objected to doing it in a way that resembled a very awkward Lion King moment. “Do we just wait them out?”

“I guess so. Seems the safest way of doing it.” We idly watched the rest of the party as they cut through the remaining ants. Garrett took to shifting me around with different heights and ways of holding me as we waited around.

There were about 5 ants left when something seemed to click inside of one of them. I don’t know if it finally rubbed its two brain cells together into a solution, or if there was simply a bug with its AI, but it stopped accepting that it couldn’t reach me. The ant reached up as far as it could and bit Garrett on the arm and unleashed its flame instead of going for me. The unexpected arm barbeque caused Garrett to yell and drop me. I had barely hit the ground before the ant refocused its attention on me and lunged to bite me. I managed to dodge by rolling to the side, but I was about to be surrounded.

Panicking again, I popped up and ran a few feet before remembering, Oh yeah. Out of stamina. I doubled over. 4 of them had been taken care of, but the last one was right on me. I could only watch in fear as its mandibles opened wide and... Jake’s sword cut through it, ending it on the spot.

With no enemies in sight, I sighed in relief and immediately collapsed onto the ground, laying on my back. The party gathered up near me and sat down on the stone floor. “I hate this gosh darn world. And these fudging ants. I wanna fudging go home.” I complained. Crud! We have a kid in the party. I sat up, looked over at Andrew, and apologized. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to swear in front of Tim.”

Andrew looked nonplussed. “I don’t really consider words like darn to be a swear word. If that is as filthy as Tim’s mouth is when he grows up, I would be grateful.”

“Wait a second.” My mind finally caught up to what my mouth had said. And also what it had been saying during the fight. I pointed at Tim. “Cover his ears for a second?” Andrew complied and put his hands over both of Tim’s ears. Guess I go in alphabetical order. “Asp. Asp howl. Base turd. Birch. Count. Dang. Fudge. Hail. Sit.” And that’s all that comes to mind at the moment. “Well. Looks like we have a chat filter.” I put finger quotes around chat filter. “So, I guess there’s nothing to worry about.”

Jake and Garrett also tried swearing and had the same results. When we were convinced, Andrew removed his hands from Tim’s ears.

Which caused Tim to tug on his dad’s sleeve and whisper. “Uhh. I could kinda still hear everything they said with these.” He wiggled the dog ears on the top of his head.

Andrew panicked slightly. “Just uhh... Don’t repeat anything that they said, okay? Those are naughty words!” Tim nodded in agreement as the rest of the party chuckled.

Feeling a bit more relaxed now, I went to lay back down. However, there was a part of my back that just felt... uncomfortable. I reached behind me and found the culprit quickly. “Hey, archer girl. I think this is yours.” I pulled the arrow out of my back and tossed it to Emilia. She looked like she took offense, but didn’t say anything since I was pointing out she literally shot me in the back.

She was saved from any further embarrassment by Jake. “By the way, what HP did you get dropped to while we were fighting? We can’t see your resource bars, so we may need you to call it out.”

I chuckled darkly, “I didn’t exactly have time to check while I was running for my life.”

“Well, even just percentages of your health bar would be good to know.”

I grit my teeth. “I. Didn’t. Have. Time. To. Check.”

Jake threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Geez. I get it that you were busy, but how long does it take to look down in the bottom left of your HUD and call out a percentage?”

I suddenly realized we were not on the same page. “Wait, wait, wait. You mean, you can see your HP in the bottom left of your vision at all times?” He nodded. “Let me guess, MP and SP too?”

“Yeah?”

“GOSH DARN IT I HATE THIS PIECE OF SHIP WORLD!” status. I opened my status to look at my HP the long way since it was the only way I had.

Status

Name: Titus

Level: 1

Class: Demon Lord (Displaying Half-Demon)

Race: Demon Lord (Displaying Half-Demon)

HP: 8/100

MP: 0/50

SP: 2/150

Age: 24

I paled. “Guys, I’m down to 8 HP. That was way too close.”

“Ship!” Jake tried to swear and then paused for a second when he heard what he said. “Well, I think we made enough progress for now, so how about we head back and let Titus rest up? Also, let’s get you a potion.” He materialized one from his inventory and handed it to me. “But now that I think about it... That might also hurt you, right?” He paused. “I guess... Try taking as little of it as you can?”

I nodded and unstoppered the potion. I took as small of a drink as I possibly could. And then my mouth immediately burned.

“Son of a birch!” I checked my HP. “Down to 3 HP.”

Jake took the potion back and then said. “Well, sidenote, it looks like potions can heal up to 100 in increments of 5, assuming it hurts you as much as it is supposed to heal.” Then he looked at me with concern. “Okay guys, first priority is to get Titus back to safety. If we want to, we can adventure with the remaining eight of us after that.” He was performing a headcount as he was speaking. “Wait. Where’s Megan?”

----

Megan was having a great time exploring the cave by herself. I can’t believe how easy it was to slip away! She had followed the plan initially but slipped away as soon as the reinforcements started pouring in. The best part is that they must have pulled in every ant in a mile radius! I haven’t had to deal with a single one! She grinned.

Or maybe the best part was the levels? Megan was surprised the first time she leveled because she was just walking along when she tripped over her own two feet. She initially thought it was just a fluke, but the second time made her pause. A sneaking suspicion led her to check her status, which showed her at level three. A third fall and she confirmed that it was definitely leveling up that was causing her to say hello to the ground. She chalked it up to her new body that she still wasn’t used to suddenly getting a bit faster. It was a bit annoying that she had no indication of when she was going to level, but she wasn’t complaining too much. Leveling up to 4 without fighting a single enemy? Not bad.

Then Megan managed to see a hidden side passage that she had to squeeze to get into. And that changed her mind. Never mind. This is definitely the best part. Her eyes gleamed with greed as she gazed upon the first dungeon chest that an adventurer from her world had ever seen.

-----

Meanwhile, Jake and I were getting into a shouting match.

“I’m telling you the whole party should go after her!”

“And I’m telling you that I would die!”

The rest of the party except Garrett seemed content to not get involved in the argument, but fortunately, Garrett decided to intervene. “Easy there, guys. Easy. Jake, Titus is worried about his safety. He is only at 3HP, so it is dangerous for him to keep exploring.” I gave a smug smile, and Jake looked like he was about to argue, but Garrett held up a hand to stop him. “And Titus, I understand where Jake is coming from too. We have had it ingrained in our heads as gamers not to split the party. So what we are going to do is take a step back and think for a second. Jake, why is going after her so urgent?”

“She is out there alone and could be in danger!”

“Stop. Think for a second. You can tell if she is really in danger or not.”

Jake looked puzzled for a second before he caught on. “Right. The party interface shows her status.”

“And her status is?”

Jake mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“All resource bars full.”

“Good. So we can make a logical, educated guess that she is not in dire need of saving at this exact moment. If she were, we would at least expect to see her stamina going down from sprinting. So we can take our time, make a solid plan, and then go from there.”

“Fine.” Jake agreed and calmed down a bit.

“Now we get to Titus, why do you insist on bringing him?”

“You saw our last fight! He constantly has aggro, so we just need you to hold him in the air, and any fight will be a cakewalk!”

Garrett shook his head, “Since we’ve only had one fight we can’t just assume that each will work out like that. Especially since that last ant wisened up enough to bite me. Instead, let’s go back over what we know. First off, we were told this dungeon is a tutorial. Then our first fight had dozens upon dozens of ants, some of which could breathe fire. So, something doesn’t add up.

I see three options. Option one, we were lied to. We don’t have much of a way of telling if that is the case until we get in a few more fights. Option two whatever brought us here considers that fight easy enough for absolute beginners,” he paused there. “Honestly, if that is the case, I don’t like our odds. What are late-game fights gonna look like? Oh, where was I? Or option three, there was some type of anomaly that caused this. I am personally leaning towards the last option.”

“And what oh wise sage, do you think that anomaly would be?” Jake asked in mock reverence with a small bow.

“Oh shut it, you toddler,” Garrett grumbled. Shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts, he pointed a finger toward me and continued, “If I had to guess, their behavior is related to him. A group of four or five of the black ants would be enough for a tutorial enemy for most parties. However, when the ants saw Titus, they grouped up on him and then called for reinforcements. Though I would like to see how they react when Titus isn’t with us, I don’t like the idea of leaving him alone in the middle of the dungeon with 3 HP to his name. There is also the chance that taking him with us could cause a repeat of this fight, which I don’t think he would survive.”

“So, it sounds like you are saying we can’t leave Titus, and we can’t take him. But we also can’t just leave Megan out there by herself!” Jake argued.

“That actually wasn’t what I was going to recommend. We had both Emilia and Megan scouting due to their classes, remember? Assuming Emilia is up for it, we can just send her. If she gets in trouble, she can probably outrun it because she is level 4, and Titus was able to outrun them even when he was at level 1.”

I was nodding along with Garrett’s suggestion when his last statement caught me off guard. “Wait, wait, wait. Emilia is level 4?”

“Yeah? We all hit level 4.” Garrett looked confused for half a second, and then he caught on. “Wait. You didn’t?” He mumbled. “Can’t see your status. Didn’t level.” He closed his eyes for a second and turned around.

Jake looked at him, dumbfounded. “What are you doing?”

“Checking to see if I can determine where he is through the party.” He opened his eyes and turned back around. “And sure enough, I can’t. In other words, I think he is in the party, but he doesn’t get any of the benefits.” With a grimace, he said, “So it sounds like to level you we will have to actually let you get last-hits.”

“Pardon me for a minute,” I said calmly as I walked towards the side of the cave. And then beat my head into the wall. “Stupid world!” I beat my head into the wall one more time. “Stupid class!”

I was winding up for three when Garrett yelled out, “Wait! Stop! We don’t know if you can damage yourself on the environment or not!”

I checked my status and almost had a heart attack when I saw I was down to a single HP. “What a way to go. New [Demon Lord] kills himself by banging his head against a wall. And thus, the world was saved by Wall-kun the [Hero]!” I muttered to myself.

“Jake, I really think I should get him back to safety. If an ant even looks at him funny, he may die at this point.”

Jake finally gave in. “Oh fine, dang it all. If Megan wanted to stay safe, she shouldn’t have split from the party.” He paused for a second. “Wait a minute. Did anyone see when she slipped away? Did anyone see her fight any of the ants?” Garrett, Lindsey, Andrew, and I shrugged. “Backline? How about you guys?”

“I was too busy watching out for Tim,” replied Sam.

“I was too focused on my archery to keep track of a petty thief,” Emilia hmpphed.

We looked at Tim, who was talking to his dad enthusiastically. “It was awesome! I would [Mage Bolt] the ants and go kapewwww. Then the ant would go ahhhh! And then I hit another one, and it exploded! I’m the best [Wizard] ever!” We took that as a no.

“Okay, change of plans. We prioritize the safety of our party member who is at 1 HP over the safety of our [Rogue] who abandoned the party. And we get Titus back to the obelisk room while avoiding any fights. Everyone clear?” I was a lot more in line with Jake’s plan this time around.

We settled on a bit of a strange formation with Garrett and me in the middle. The idea being that I would be safe from immediate attacks from any direction, and if worse came to worst, Garrett could simply lift me up again to buy us some time.

We traveled for a bit without anything happening. The silence was also beginning to be awkward, so I decided to try to strike up a conversation with the friendly [Berserker]. “So, what’s the deal with you and the [Hero] anyway? You guys mentioned you’re his guardian?”

“That’s a bit of a story, actually.” He paused for a bit and then threw out a question. “Hey Jake, where should I start the story about how we met?”

Jake replied in a huff from the front of the party, “What’s there to tell? We met when I was twelve. You adopted me. Done.”

Garrett winced and then turned back to me. “Please forgive him. Even 10 years later he still doesn’t really like talking about it. Also, I think the full story might not be uhh kid-appropriate.” He nodded over toward Tim.

“Got it. Then how about you tell me about why you picked a human with the [Berserker] class instead?”

Garrett laughed. “Oh, that was not my best decision. You see, visiting Comic-Con was one of very few vacation days that I was able to take this year. I was working at a company that promised ‘unlimited vacation,’ but that really meant you could only take vacation they approved you for. Which was basically never. To get these days off, I had to come in early and work late to get things done ahead of time, and only then was I approved to get a few days off for Comic-Con.

As for human, it was the simplest, and I didn’t want to put in a lot of effort. As for [Berserker], I mostly just wanted to turn my brain off and hit stuff after the hail that I put myself through to get here. I didn’t think my choice would matter much, and I definitely didn’t think it would be permanent, or I probably would have gone something else. [Cleric] or [Wizard], maybe?” He mused for a second. “Anyway, I’m not generally the hack-and-slash type, but I think I should still be able to get it to work out.” He gestured toward me. “Enough about me. Why did you pick your class?”

“I actually didn’t have a choice. I was assigned [Demon -],” I coughed to try to cover up my slip. “I mean, I was assigned [Half-Demon] just because of the tablet that I was given. [Hero] over there had the same thing happen to him, though I think he got a much better deal.”

“Yeah, your class is really rough. I wonder if it has some hidden bonuses or perks to it? Or maybe it is just a really good class in the late-game?” he wondered aloud. At that, Garrett turned to Andrew. “By the way, why did you pick [Cleric]? It seems pretty rare that people are willing to go a healing class.”

“Well... You see...” Andrew muttered. “I didn’t actually pick my class or race.”

“Oh, you had it assigned like Titus and Jake?”

“You could say that, I guess. I haven’t had time for video games in... well... years at this point, so my trip with Tim to Comic-Con was more to spend time together than for me. Anyway, to keep a long story short, I decided Tim could pick for me.”

Garrett raised an eyebrow. “Oh? So I guess I asked the wrong person then. Oh great [Wizard] Timothy. Why did you choose a dwarven [Cleric] for your father?”

Tim puffed out his chest at that address. “I picked the [Cleric] because it sounded like that was the healer, and I didn’t wanna be one. Then I made him a dwarf so that he wouldn’t be so tall.”

Garrett gave a small bow, “Ah, truly your foresight is impressive great [Wizard] Timothy. So why did you choose [Wizard] and to be a dog beastborn?”

Tim’s eyes lit up. “Because dogs are the best! And [Wizard]s can make things go kaboom! Or light stuff on fire!”

The party chuckled. “Well, I think you have me beat for reasons why you picked your setup.” Garrett directed his next question towards Sam and Lindsey. “What about you two? Why did you pick your setup?”

Sam was once again the spokeswoman. “Bunny and cat was my idea! Because what better races are there for picking up-” she glanced at Tim. “I mean, meeting guys?” Lindsey’s face turned an impressive shade of pink at that statement. Sam continued on after giving a quick grin to her embarrassed friend. “Just like Garrett, I wouldn’t have picked them if I knew it was going to be an isekai deal because I only wanted to draw in attention if it was fake. Extra attention to a fake video game body? Sure. Extra attention to our actual bodies?” She shivered. “No, thanks.”

“What about your classes? Why a [Knight] and a [Sorcerer]?” I asked.

“Well, I picked the [Sorcerer] because magic. And Sam the [Sorcerer] just sounds so much better than Sam the [Wizard].” She grinned cheekily. “I’m only mostly joking about that. It was honestly down to a coin-flip between the two, so the added alliteration may have actually been the deciding factor.

As for Lindsey, I told her that I would probably need someone to protect me since I was going to be a squishy spellcaster, and she didn’t even hesitate before locking in [Knight].” She paused. “It also was just a good fit. She is the strong protective type anyway, so that class suited her to a T.” She called out towards the elf that had remained silent and was in front of the group scouting. “Hey Emilia, why did you choose your setup?”

Emilia hmpphed and said, “My reasons are my own. Thank you very much. And don’t distract me when I am trying to make sure the way is safe.”

“Sorry!” Sam called out. Then she muttered under her breath, “Frigid birch.”

Topics turned to less serious ones after that. I didn’t have much of an opportunity to speak, but I was okay with that. With the awkward silence ended, we covered ground quickly and soon found ourselves back at the room with the obelisk.

A ball of light appeared above Jake’s shoulder, and he flinched. “That’s gonna take some getting used to,” he muttered. He saw the rest of us looking at him a bit oddly before remembering, “Right. You guys can’t hear it. This little annoyance appeared above my shoulder and shouted, ‘hey!’ in my ear.”

“Anyway, it sounds like the fairy had some more info that we could use. It turns out that we gain things called skill points and spell points when we level. They must be those extra points that we saw in our statuses after we leveled,” Jake looked at me and corrected himself. “When most of us leveled. Sorry, Titus. Anyway, we can turn those in for skills and spells at obelisks.”

He paused for a second as if he was listening again. “It sounds like you just touch it and say the word upgrade?” Jake hopped up onto the platform, touched the obelisk, and said the word. He cocked his head, and we guessed that it didn’t work. “Oh. I guess I have to claim it first?” After a few seconds, the obelisk suddenly changed from grey to a bright white.

Everyone was suddenly hit with a notification.

System: Zone, Tutorial Cave, has been claimed by the Hero Faction

“Well, that was a thing.” Jake shook his head and then looked thoughtful for a second. “We really should be going back for Megan, but I think we can spare a bit of time to upgrade first. Especially since we won’t have Titus with us, and we may need the extra firepower.” I was fairly confident that his rationalization was very much an afterthought and that he really just wanted to upgrade his stuff. Still, I couldn’t blame him because I forgot about Megan momentarily when he mentioned upgrades too.

There was plenty of room on the obelisk, so we walked up to one of the sides, touched it, and then said, “upgrade.” I also went along with it because I figured that I could at least see what upgrades I had available. I managed to get a side to myself, and I said “upgrade” expecting some type of game menu.

I was surprised when I got a system notification instead.

System: This obelisk does not belong to an allied faction. Would you like to claim it?

Uhh. Sure? Who would be enough of an idiot to attempt to claim an obelisk that had literally just been claimed by the Hero Faction? The answer is me. I am that much of an idiot.

System: Initiating claim

System: Warning! Attempting to claim obelisk for 2 different factions. Hero and Demon Lord

That doesn’t sound good...

System: ERROR! Cannot resolve conflict. Contacting admin

Let me out! Disconnect! Stop claim! I screamed internally.

System: Obelisk error resolved

Thank goodness.

System: Force quitting all from obelisk. Jettisoning offending entity from obelisk

Wait, what?

Jake was the first to speak. “Hey, it kicked me out for some-” but he was interrupted by an explosion. An explosion that sent me flying backward thirty feet and then into an awkward ragdoll tumble.

“Titus!” Jake screamed and ran towards me with most of the party following soon after. “Titus! Speak to me, man! Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you. Geez. Stop yelling,” I mumbled due to my face currently being on the floor.

Jake reached me and flipped me over. “Are you okay?”

“I said, stop yelling! Ow. Everything hurts.” I tried to get up and found I couldn’t even move a finger. “And why can’t I move?”

“Titus, what HP are you at?”

“Well, I’m not dead.” Status.

Status

Name: Titus

Level: 1

Class: Demon Lord (Displaying Half-Demon)

Race: Demon Lord (Displaying Half-Demon)

HP: -49/100

MP: 0/50

SP: 15/150

Age: 24

I took in a sharp breath when I saw my HP. And then saw it drop to -50. “But I am, in fact, dying. I’m at negative 50 of 100. Anyone have any ideas for healing besides [Heal] or potions?”

Jake snapped out orders. “Everyone except Andrew, Sam, and Tim fan out and ask the other adventurers if they have any other healing skills. Andrew, if we don’t hear anything back, we are trying another [Heal] on the off chance it works when he is in the negatives. Sam, take Tim away from this.”

The party fanned out and started asking any of the adventurers who had remained behind if they knew any other way to heal me beside [Heal] and health potions. A couple of agonizing minutes passed where all I could do was lie there in pain with Jake whispering encouragement to me. “Come on, Titus, you can make it. Hang on.” He was also racking his brain for ideas, but nothing was coming to him.

Meanwhile, the cold, clinical side of me was curious and had started counting the time in between losses of HP points while I waited. The count came out to a consistent 3 seconds. It was about that time I said, “One minute left [Hero].”

Unfortunately, the rest of the party didn’t turn up anything. Garrett was the one who broke the bad news. “No healing items available except potions. No other healing spells or skills available.” He looked troubled. “I’m so sorry Titus.”

“What HP are you at?” Jake asked quietly.

“Negative 90 as of right now,” came my soft reply.

“Okay Andrew, you’re up. Smallest [Heal] you can.”

Andrew nodded grimly, “Got it. [Heal].”

The pain came once again, and I replied. “Nope. Down to negative 97 now.” I looked around at the party minus Megan, Sam, and Tim and then said. “I’m scared. I don’t want to die.” I started crying. “So I guess this is goodbye then. Please, if you ever make it out of this world, let my parents know what happened. Their names are-”

But I couldn’t finish my sentence before everything went black and I knew no more.

[1] Aggro is a gaming term related to “aggravate.” Since most game enemies are relatively simple, they tend to focus on one character at a time. As such an enemy “aggros” on the person they choose to focus on. The term is also flexible because you can “have aggro” when multiple enemies are going for you, you “pull aggro” when you do something that causes the enemies to switch target to you, and you “lose aggro” when they stop focusing on you.