Since that was such a mean place to end a chapter, I’ll cut my pre-chapter rambling short and just get back to it.

Deal?

----

I stood there staring down the [Hero’s] blade. Fortunately, I wasn’t a complete idiot. I had pretty much assumed this was coming. I, like anyone who had interacted with Jake for more than a few minutes, also knew that the chance of him cutting down a relatively unarmed person was basically zero. As such, I was a lot calmer than I expected when I raised my hands in surrender and asked, “I don’t suppose you could put that down so we can talk?”

“Give me one good reason why I should,” Jake said without moving his sword an inch.

“I don’t know, does saving your life count?”

That made him falter just a bit. “From the mimic? I mean, it wasn’t a sure thing I would have died there.”

I just laughed. “[Hero], you saw what the mimic in the tutorial did to me. And you know as well as I do that there are no respawns out here.”

“Fine,” Jake said. “Start talking then.”

I gave a sigh of relief as his sword disappeared. However, I finally noticed that a certain [Ranger] had an arrow nocked and pointed in my direction. “Uh, could you also put that away, Emilia?”

She gave me her patented death glare. “Why? It’s obvious that you’re the [Demon Lord].”

Jake walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Look, I know you’re not familiar with that term, but the [Demon Lord] is the big bad. The final boss. The guy that the party has to team up to take down. Titus is way too weak to be him. I mean, I accidentally hit him with 1 sword swing and did like a third of his health, there’s just no way.”

Ow. Harsh.

“I mean, he could be on the [Demon Lord’s] side though-“ Jake side-eyed me as he continued.

Emilia cut him off. “No, you’re wrong. Titus showed up the same time that the announcement came out that the [Demon Lord] was here. The monster waves also started the same night that he came to town. Now he’s claimed a zone for his faction right in front of us, and you’re going to let him get away with it!”

I’m glad I kept my eyes on Emilia that entire time. As she said that, she let loose her nocked arrow. I hadn’t checked my HP after I got tackled by the boss, but I knew that the number was “not enough to survive an arrow to the chest.”

I hit the dirt and barely managed to avoid said arrow.

“Hey! Emilia! That was out of line! You could’ve killed him!” Jake shouted.

“And then we’d be finished with the dang prophecy!” Emilia shouted back.

“A prophecy that specifically mentioned my [Half-Demon] class!” I interjected. I saw my chance, and I took it. “If I was the [Demon Lord], why would the prophecy say that you needed to wait for me? And why would you need my help to stop me? It doesn’t make sense! Also, [Identify] says I’m a frickin [Half-Demon]! My class just makes me claim obelisks for that side for some reason, okay?”

“Then maybe you found a way to trick the system into giving a bad prophecy!” Tim joined in.

Andrew nodded along. “Yes, I always knew there was something about you I didn’t like.”

“But, we would’ve died in this fight without him!” Sam pleaded. “I don’t think he’s a bad guy!”

“I still don’t think he’s the [Demon Lord], but I definitely think he’s playing for that side,” Jake said. “I mean, why else would he hide this from us?”

I practically erupted. “Because I didn’t want to have to deal with this BS!” The party looked at me, but I barely stopped. “Let me give you a hypothetical scenario. You’re brought to a new world. You’re given an obvious bad guy class. You’re stuck fighting freaking ants with your fists. The [Hero’s] party takes pity on you and takes you in. Then they freaking leave you in the tutorial! In the meantime, you find out that you can claim obelisks, but only if you aren’t in their party anymore because you claim obelisks for the freaking bad guys. You meet back up with the party that you still have spent less than a week with, are you going to tell them? Especially after a monster wave attacks the same night you get there? Heck, no!”

“Then why didn’t you tell us before you claimed the obelisk, huh?” Jake was clearly not buying it.

Because I got a freaking message from an admin and didn’t have time to think all of this through. I was hardly going to say that out loud, but I came up with an answer that was close to the truth. “First bonus for claiming a dungeon obelisk. I assumed there was an achievement for it, and I need the perk points. I didn’t realize until the last second.”

“And was there one?”

“Yes. Normal achievement is Conqueror, and I also got First Conqueror.”

“Well, that’s at least something we can verify,” Jake muttered and walked up to the obelisk. After a second, it shifted from dark black to bright white.

System: Zone, Faroff Forest, has been claimed by the Hero Faction

Jake paused as if he was reading something before continuing. “Well, he was telling the truth about that. I got the conqueror achievement too.” He stared me down. “But why did you need to get the first achievement?”

I gave an exasperated sigh. “I need as many perk points as I can get [Hero]! They let me have things like an inventory or magic. You know, the stuff that you all take for granted?”

It wasn’t a good time to add fuel to the fire, and it almost started another shouting match. Fortunately, our [Berserker] kept a level head. “Woah. Easy everyone. Let’s take a quick breather. Even if Titus is the [Demon Lord], do we have to do anything right away?”

That poleaxed all of us. “What?” I managed to ask.

Garrett looked at me and then back at the party. “I’m serious, even if Titus is the [Demon Lord], we’ve determined that Jake can handle him easily. So, why do we have to do something about him right now?”

“I…” Jake started and then paused. “I mean, if he’s the bad guy, we have to stop him, right?”

Garrett snorted. “From doing what? Right now, he just finished helping us clear out a dungeon so that the [Demon Lord] can’t attack Faroff. If he really is the [Demon Lord], then what was the play here? Why not just leave?”

“Thank you!” I said. “And if I was really on the [Demon Lord’s] side, all I would’ve had to do is not wake anyone in the village up during the wave. Or let the [Hero] get eaten by that mimic! Instead, I risked my life for this party and for that stupid little town!”

That started another round of clamoring. We were in danger of going nowhere when Jake finally pulled out his sword and activated [Sunder]. “EVERYONE SHUT UP!”

He looked at me. “Stay right there, we’re going to go decide what to do with you. If you move from that spot, we have no choice but to assume the worst. Rest of the party, with me over there.” He pointed towards the forest.

I sighed and sat down with my back to the obelisk while the party went off to decide my fate.

-----

As Jake moved away from Titus, he could practically feel the unnatural anger leaving him. “Okay, I’m not the only one that is on a hair-trigger around Titus, right? I’m not crazy that there’s some jank system stuff going on?”

Garrett thought about it. “I haven’t really noticed anything.”

Andrew scowled, “I don’t know that Titus needs any help angering people.”

Really? I could’ve sworn with how things were going… Jake just sighed instead. “Okay, well. Let’s talk this out. It all boils down to 2 questions. One, what do we think that Titus is, [Demon Lord] or otherwise, and two, what are we going to do with him?”

The party was pretty split on things. Sam and Garrett were the main ones defending Titus, while Andrew, Tim, and Emilia were deadset on him being the [Demon Lord]. Jake was actually somewhat neutral between the two points. He believed that Titus definitely had an evil class, but there was just no way he thought it could be the [Demon Lord].

Lindsey was just as silent as ever, but Jake realized there was another opinion he was missing. “Megan, stop [Sneaking] around and join the party discussion already.”

Megan reappeared and said, “Oh, fine. You want my thoughts?” Jake nodded, and she continued. “Stop worrying about question one and worry about question two. What are your options? If he does have an evil class, are you going to kill him?”

“No! Of course not!” Jake answered.

“Then what would you do with him?”

Jake paused. “I guess… I would leave him behind while we finish the quest.”

Megan raised an eyebrow. “So, you would leave him alone with the poor defenseless villagers?”

That stopped him. She… Has a point. “Okay, then what do you suggest?”

Megan didn’t hesitate. “Give him the same treatment you gave me. Keep him in the party, but keep an eye on him. You’ve already established that he’s not a threat, so if you find more proof that he’s the [Demon Lord], you can just take care of him then. If not, then you saved yourself from messing up the prophecy.”

“That… Actually, might work.” Jake looked around at everyone. “Show of hands. All in favor of Megan’s plan? We keep Titus around, but keep an eye on him?”

Jake, Megan, Garrett, Lindsey, and Sam voted yes.

“It’s decided then,” Jake said. “We keep him with us, but we watch him like a hawk.”

“I still think this is a mistake,” grumbled Tim. “If he’s the [Demon Lord], he might just be using us to get to the dungeons since he’s so weak.”

“Hmmm,” Jake nodded. “That’s a fair point. However, we only have to stop him before one of them, and we have 4 shots. If we have to waste the first dungeon to make sure of his motives, then I think that’s worth it.”

Tim seemed to grudgingly accede to that, and the party went back to tell Titus the verdict.

-----

I was a lot calmer than I thought I would be while I waited for them to come back. It was likely a mix of the fact that my fate was completely out of my hands and that I doubted the party would choose to kill me.

Either way, as soon as they came back and I saw a scowl on Andrew’s face, I figured that the news was going to be in my favor.

Jake broke the verdict. “We’ve decided to keep you in the party-“

“Phew, you guys really had me worried-“ I started.

He held up his hand. “On several conditions. First, no more secrets. That includes anything about your class or about this world.”

“Of course,” I immediately lied.

“Second, we’re going to be watching you. Especially as we get closer to the southern dungeon. However many party members we tell you to stick with, you stick with.”

That’ll make it really hard to go activate the dungeon before them. I managed to not let my panic show. “Makes sense.”

“Third, you have to keep contributing as a member of this party.”

“Gotcha.” There was silence for a bit. “Is… that it?”

“Uhh, fourth, you have to agree to any other restrictions the rest of the party comes up with!”

You... Didn’t actually have a list before you started talking, did you? “Okay, fair enough.”

Jake gave a satisfied nod. “Well, shall we get out of here? We have some levels to spend back in town.”

“Wait [Hero]. I would like permission from the party to reclaim this dungeon for a moment.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Just like that, I could tell Jake was suspicious again.

“Because this might be the last chance I have to buy a perk for ages?” I answered. “I doubt you want me claiming the town obelisk for the Demon Lord’s faction, so that means that claiming this dungeon in the middle of nowhere is our best bet for me to actually buy magic like I wanted. Also, you and the village elder asked about my perks, and I’m also curious.”

“Thoughts, anyone?” Jake asked.

“I mean, the person who had the most perks was you, and you only had… 4? In addition to the 9 purchasable perks?” Garrett replied. “It shouldn’t take that long to have him go through his.”

Jake nodded slowly. “Fair enough, alright. Give us a rundown of your perks. Oh, and since you seem to have a different list available than us, go ahead and ask it to tell you to show you all perks. And make it quick so that I can reclaim as soon as possible.”

“Okay, claiming,” I said as I walked up to the obelisk. After the familiar prompts and the obelisk changing back to its jet-black color, I went into the perk section and asked it to show me all perks.

It was pretty overwhelming.

Class Perks (4 points remaining):

Decreased Skill Experience Gain (ALL) - -15 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Healing Inversion - -15 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Heavily Decreased Class Experience Gain - -10 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Monster Magnet - -5 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Asexual - 0 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Health Regen, Slow - 1 Perk Points - Obtained

Quest Interface - 1 Perk Points - Obtained

Skills, Limited - 3 Perk Points - Obtained

Status Display - 3 Perk Points

Magic, Limited - 3 Perk Points

Inventory - 4 Perk Points

Weapon Use - 5 Perk Points - Unobtainable

Armor Use - 5 Perk Points - Unobtainable

Health Regen, Normal - 5 Perk Points - Unobtainable

Skills, Normal - 5 Perk Points - Unobtainable

Party Interface - 5 Perk Points - Unobtainable

Skill/Level Downscaling - 5 Perk Points - Unobtainable

Fire Immunity - 5 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Dark Vision - 5 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Demon Lord Cold Resistance - 5 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Magic, All - 10 Perk Points - Unobtainable

Health Regen, Fast - 10 Perk Points - Unobtainable

Skills, All - 10 Perk Points - Unobtainable

Status Effect Resistance - 15 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Magic, Advanced - 15 Perk Points - Unobtainable

Biologically Needless - 20 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Ageless - 25 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Demon Lord - 25 Perk Points - Obtained (Innate to Class)

Memory Protection - 50 Perk Points - Obtained

I went a bit crosseyed and whistled out of reflex when I saw all of that.

“What is it?” Jake asked.

“Oh, just a lot to unpack here.. I guess I start from the top?” I started listing out my perks and their costs.

[Decreased Skill Experience Gain (All)] explained why Jake had higher skill levels than me even though I had spent a lot more time fighting than he did.

[Healing Inversion], [Heavily Decreased Class Experience], and [Monster Magnet] did explain a lot about my time in this world so far. I was glad that those mysteries were solved even if I had already come to terms with them. Though, the second one did make me realize something.

“Hey [Hero], you said you had [Increased Class Experience Gain], right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

And he’s always been 1 level ahead of the rest of the party. In the tutorial, people could get to level 5 off the elite ants, maybe even level 6, while I could only get level 4. Does that mean… Jake counts as 1 level lower, and I count as 2 levels higher for experience?

“Focus, Titus, you said you would hurry,” Jake said.

“Right, of course.” I read out the next entry. [Asexual].

That actually got a comment from Jake too. “Uhh.. Titus? Do you not have... You know?”

“Of course, I still have.. Guy parts..” I turned bright red when I realized that Megan was one of the people listening in on the conversation. “It must mean that I uhh.. Can’t have kids?”

Jake chuckled, “Or just that you can reproduce via mitosis.”

“Maybe.” I frowned and kept going over the list. Health regen, quests, and skills were all straightforward since I had, in fact, purchased those.

Then we got to the three options that were actually in my budget. [Status Display] (which the party had forgotten I don’t have those nice resource bars telling me when I’m about to die), [Magic, Limited], or [Inventory].

I didn’t even wait to hear the party’s opinion. I purchased [Magic, limited]. Seeing my resource bars wouldn’t be that helpful when I was already used to checking my status manually, and an inventory isn’t useful when you don’t have anything to put in it.

I simply told the party that I purchased [Magic, Limited] and then moved on.

[Weapon Use], [Armor Use], and [Health Regen, Normal] were all pretty straightforward too, so I didn’t spend much time on them except to say that I was pretty sure that weapons and armor must have prereqs since I couldn’t see them the last time I was getting perks.

[Skills, Normal] left me wondering exactly what I was missing from my skill options, but I figured I would find out eventually. Most likely, the hard way.

My next perk I read off almost caused chaos. [Party Interface]. “What do you mean you could’ve gotten the party interface for only 5 perk points?! And that you were only one away?!” Jake facepalmed. “Titus, if we’d known that was an option, we would’ve found a way to get you one more perk point-”

“The Skilled achievement would’ve done it,” Megan interjected.

“Exactly, we could’ve just had you get a single skill to level 5, and then you could’ve joined the party for real! You would get a share of the experience-”

Oh. I completely spaced on the experience.

“And we would be able to sense your intents and know where you are all the time so that we don’t have to keep such a tight leash on you!”

Oh, thank goodness I bought magic instead of that. There would’ve been no way to activate the dungeons without them knowing. I didn’t let my relief show in my voice and decided to just apologize. “Sorry everyone, I’ll make it a priority for my next purchase.” Note to self, do not let the party know about any more perk points that I get.

I moved us on to the next item on the list. [Skill/Level Downscaling]. I had no idea what the purpose of that perk could be, so I mostly just said it and then moved on.

Next, I confirmed to no one’s surprise that I had [Fire Immunity], [Dark Vision], and [Cold Resistance]. The last perk was actually [Demon Lord Cold Resistance], and I almost blew what little remained of my cover then and there before catching myself and giving the shorter name.

Then we got to the crazy perks. [Magic, All] sounded like I could possibly get any magic, whereas [Wizards] and [Sorcerers] couldn’t get [Cleric] spells. At least as far as I knew.

[Health Regen, Fast] made me pause. If slow regen takes twice the time, would fast be half the time? That would be insane. My health would regen fully in 30 minutes. Permanently.

For [Skills, All], my best guess was that I could gain skills from other classes, which would be one of the most overpowered perks I could think of. Imagine having [Quick Cast] mixed with [Overchannel]. Or maybe I can steal the [Hero’s] skills? [Sunder] would definitely be my pick. I chuckled to myself and then kept going.

[Status effect resistance]. I hadn’t seen that many status effects yet, so it didn’t seem that useful. However, I determined it was probably the reason for my insane poison resistance, so I would have died back in the cave without it.

[Magic, Advanced] stumped me. If [Magic, All] was already listed, what could possibly be more advanced than that? I decided to just keep that one in the back of my mind.

Next on the list was [Biologically Needless]. The party nodded along as they had realized that I still had yet to eat any food or drink any water, but since I had already given it away, I decided to come clean about not needing sleep either.

“Why lie about that?” Jake asked. “Seriously, dude.”

“I was paranoid, okay?”I answered. “I was worried that any little thing I told you about my class would make you guys suspicious of me!”

“And it worked so well,” Megan snarked.

“Anyway, moving on!” I tried to just sweep that under the rug and get moving.

[Ageless] was straightforward and made Jake yell, “You’re immortal?! You’re going to outlive all of us?!”

I paused. “I don’t exactly plan on sticking around this world if I can help it, so that perk will likely not matter.”

Jake just nodded. “Oh yeah. Forgot about that.” A look of concern spread across his face. “By the way, are you almost done? I’m really worried about having this obelisk claimed like this for so long.”

“Almost. 2 left.”

I waffled a bit about what I was going to say for the next one. “Yeah, I’m a [Half-Demon], but I have a perk titled [Demon Lord].” Nope. Going off the lie that AltSys had fed me, I said the perk was “Half-Demon” and that it was probably the one that made me claim the obelisks for the Demon Lord faction.

Then I got to [Memory Protection]. Crud. What do I say about this one? “This next one was either the best or the worst purchase I’ve ever made. I can’t decide which. [Memory Protection] for 50 points.”

“50 points!?” Jake nearly shouted. “You could have bought basically everything else you listed!”

“Yeah. I know. Don’t remind me.”

“But… What does it even do?” Sam asked.

Good question. I don’t think I should tell them about their minds getting altered every time something in this world gets changed. Or just call it what it is, Titus, every time the world gets patched. I went with the tamer part. “Well, what I thought it would do was help with my memory, I’m not sure if it really did much or not.”

“Why would you need help with that?”

I could tell that I had piqued her curiosity, and there was no way she would let it drop. I sighed. “Hey Sam, if this isn’t too personal of a question, what are your mom and dad’s names?”

“Susan and Greg,” she replied. “Why?”

I looked up at the sky. “Because I couldn’t tell you my own parent’s names, and the more I think about it, the more holes I find in my memory.” I looked back down at her. “Remember when you talked about your triple kill with that Halo 3 sniper? Well, I can remember how the Halo 3 sniper works. I know a headshot is an insta-kill. I also remember the fact that it could ricochet and hit more people, and I even remember fusion coils being Halo 3’s take on the exploding barrel trope.” I looked down. “I can’t for the life of me, remember ever playing it.”

“That’s horrible!” Sam gasped.

“Not only am I not sure it worked, I think that perk is why I don’t know what my skills do. To borrow a comp-sci term, I think my memory is write-protected. That means that skills and perks can’t just overwrite my memory to tell me what they do.”

There was silence for a bit, and Jake shifted awkwardly. “Uhh, Titus, if you’re done, can I reclaim the obelisk now?”

Right. Still have it claimed, and unless AltSys was lying, it’s in combat mode. “Okay, one last thing, then you can claim the obelisk again,” I said. I went into the spell section.

Spells Available for Purchase (8 points remaining):

Summon Monster - 5 Points

“Looks like the only option I have is [Summon Monster], so I guess I’m taking it,” I said to the waiting party.

I was surprised to get a notification from the system

System: Create a new monster or choose from an existing template

Uhh. I looked over at the [Hero], who was impatiently tapping his foot. “I have to pick a monster, [Hero], just give me a minute.”

“Okay,” Jake said without stopping his foot tapping.

I’m on a time crunch, show me the existing templates.

System: Templates Available

Slime – Acidic Amorphous Monster – Level 5

Is that it? I looked back over at the impatient [Hero]. Fine, I’ll take it. Slime it is.

System: Congratulations! You have created a new monster that will spawn in appropriate biomes

System: Choose a name for your personal summon

System: Choose a name for the new species

“Looks like I get to name both it and its species. Huh.” Jake didn’t look terribly amused. Right, still in a time crunch here! Uhh, first name that comes to mind. “Dave.”

System: Summon name accepted!

System: Species name accepted!

I looked back and forth between the two lines in horror. No, there’s no way. “Hey, uhh. How do I know the chant for my new spell?”

“It’s listed under the spells section!” Sam answered.

“Thanks,” I muttered as I opened it up. I noticed 2 spells in there, [Identify], and… “[Summon Dave].” A little lime-green ball of slime about the size of a basketball appeared in front of my hand and plopped to the ground. “[Identify],” I cast at Dave and groaned.

“What is it?” Sam asked while the rest of the party started casting [Identify] as well.

“Wait, level 5 dave?” Jake asked. Then he bust up laughing, “You named its species dave?!”

“I didn’t know it would use the name for both!” I indignantly tried to defend myself while the party just started laughing.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Garrett said as he wiped a tear from his eye. “Not only are all slimes named daves now… Your slime is Dave, the dave?”

That brought another round of laughter.

To all the Daves and Davids of whichever worlds this story finds itself in, you have my humblest and most sincere apologies.

When Jake finally managed to stop laughing, he reclaimed the obelisk. “Oh, that’s new,” he said. “Looks like I can change the mode of the obelisk? Inactive, Combat, or Training. Huh. Let’s try training out.”

It looked like he was reading or trying to figure something out for a bit, but then he continued. “Hey, cool! It looks like that setting makes the dungeon try not to kill people in allied factions, and it will port them out if they get below 10% HP. So if we leave it like this, we can let other adventurers use this dungeon to level up!”

“Seems fine to me, let’s get out of here,” I replied.

“Hold up. Cool! There’s an option to teleport your party to the entrance! Let’s do that!” Jake said.

“Wait, [Hero] I’m not-“

There was a flash of light, and the party vanished.

“In the party right now,” I said to thin air. “Well, at least I have your help for the trek back out, right?” I looked down at the ball of dave- er- slime that was flattened out against the ground and oozing a little. What a great summon, I sighed.

“Come on, Dave, let’s get going,” I started jogging towards the entrance of the cave.

The obedient dave hopped behind me as fast as it could… Which was about my normal walking pace.

I sighed. “5 perk points and how much mana for this?” I asked and looked at my status. “50 MP for you. How are you worth that much?” I picked up the dave and started shaking it.

Boy, was that a mistake. The dave latched onto my arm, and its acid started eating into me.

System: You are grappled and cannot move

I shook my arm and yelled, “Get off! Get off!”

The dave flopped to the ground.

System: You are no longer grappled

I stared at the dave and saw that it wasn’t making any more moves. Okay, at least I didn’t aggro him. How much damage did it deal? I checked my status and realized I was at 15 HP. Unfortunately, I had no idea how much HP I had right before that.

Either way, after all the waiting we had just done, I assumed it was actually quite a bit of damage.

“Okay, Dave, we’ll do a damage test when I’m back to full health. For now, let’s just get out of here.” I looked back towards the obelisk. Maybe I should just take the shortcut- My thought was cutoff midway as I realized the obelisk was no longer there. Instead, there was a familiar pedestal.

I groaned. “No way, don’t tell me the boss respawned?” I looked at Dave. “Well, follow me. We’re going to try to walk out of here first. If that doesn’t work, I guess we wait for the party to come get us.” There’s no way we’re taking on the boss alone.

The walk to the boss room entrance was uneventful, and we reached it fairly quickly despite me going at a dave’s pace.

“Okay, moment of truth,” I said as I reached out a hand towards the tunnel. As I expected, I encountered an invisible wall. I sighed and sat down against it. “Well, Dave, any bets on how long it takes them to come get us?”

The dave did not reply.

-----

Jake had completely spaced on the fact that Titus had left the party when he chose to teleport out. As such, the party was currently standing around in the forest, debating if they needed more resources before they went back for him.

Their debating was interrupted by not 1, but 2 sets of howls.

Frick. It just never lets up, does it? Jake thought even as he gave commands to the party to form up through his perk.

An entire pack of dark wolves burst onto the scene, and the ranged members of the party started lighting them up. However, the surprising thing was the 2nd set of wolves that ran in and immediately began attacking the others.

Jake [Identified] one of the white-furred blue-eyed wolves, and the system told him that they were “noble wolves.” I guess they’re the opposite of dark wolves? However, battle wasn’t the time or place to be worrying about that. Instead, Jake just gave the command for the party to help their new allies.

Most of the battle was over too fast for them to do much. With the wolves dealing about 10 damage per bite and only having about half of that in HP, that meant that whenever 2 wolves clashed, the most common outcome was both landing an attack and falling dead.

The exception to that was the 2 alpha wolves that were circling each other slowly. Jake decided to put an end to that the most decisive way he knew.

“[Sunder]!” Jake’s blink attack took the wolf completely by surprise, and it fell dead.

Well, that was really easy. Jake grinned. He didn’t notice the other alpha approaching him until it was too late. The giant beast's mouth opened wide… And licked him across the back of his head with enough force to knock him over.

“Ewww, gross,” Jake said while the party laughed a bit at his misfortune. Meanwhile, more howls sounded in the distance, and the wolves took off.

The party regrouped, and Tim was the first to speak. “It would seem that claiming a zone has more consequences than we thought.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jake replied. “If being under the Hero Faction makes the mobs friendly, I guess we don’t have to worry about protecting anyone going into the forest anymore.”

“Which means we can leave as soon as we have rested and reclaimed our [Demon Lord].”

Jake decided to not get into another argument about [Demon Lord] or [Half-Demon] and just let the point rest. “Well, he only has to get through 3 rooms and then the forest. Honestly, he might be okay by himself if he gets back to full health first.”

Garrett’s eyebrows raised. “You would really leave him alone in the dungeon like that?”

“Only if I knew he wanted to fight it out by himself!” Jake paused. “Which, I guess we can’t know because we would have to talk to him first. Right.” Dang, I guess we do have to go on a rescue mission. Our regen timers are getting pretty long at this point, though.

Megan raised a hand. “I could go ask him.” At Jake’s confused look, she clarified. “I’ll just [Sneak] on through and then [Sneak] back.”

There was a quick discussion of how she would get through without light, but it turned out that she could carry a torch and still [Sneak]. The light would be visible to anyone that knew she was there but invisible to people who didn’t. That particular weird game mechanic aside, the party waited at the cave entrance until Megan returned.

“Uh, bad news,” she said. “It turns out the boss respawned, and he’s stuck in there now. He said we may as well rest up and then come back tomorrow.”

“I guess that works,” Jake said. “Okay, everyone, let’s head on back.”

“Or we could just leave him there,” Tim said.

“No, we aren’t leaving a party member behind.”

“Don’t you see? It’s perfect! He can’t leave the boss room, and there’s no way that he can defeat it alone. That means that it will be the perfect prison until we have gone and cleared the earth dungeon!”

“No, Tim,” Jake answered firmly. “We just voted on this. We keep him with us.”

Andrew patted Tim on the arm and leered a bit in Jake’s direction. “Don’t worry, Tim, we’ll convince them before it’s too late.”

The [Wizard] sulked the rest of the way to Faroff.

And that trip was dull compared to what the party was used to. 2 quick fights happened, but both had one pack of dark wolves and one pack of noble wolves, which skewed the fight heavily in the party’s favor.

As such, they were able to press on without waiting to get any resources back, and they made it back early into the evening. Since they had some time before bed, they decided to hit up the obelisk right then and get any upgrades finished off to have them ready for the next day.

Jake went up first and immediately looked into the option “choose class upgrade.”

He had two options listed.

Upgrade Warrior to:

Fighter

Sword Master

Ooh, I like the sound of that second one. Maybe I should run things by the party first, though. He kept the interface open, but asked the party, “Hey guys, it looks like I have two options, [Fighter] or [Sword Master]. I’m leaning towards the second one, but I thought I would run it by everyone first. What do you think?”

Garrett stroked his chin. “Well, [Sword Master] does sound rarer, and usually, the rarer the class, the better in these situations.”

There were no disagreements, so Jake chose that upgrade.

System: Applying held experience

What does that mean? Jake flipped open his status and saw that he was now up to level 11. “Oh, cool! It looks like it stores the experience that you get at level 10 until you upgrade your class.” Then he noticed his resources. “Wow! Guys, Between the level ups and the class, upgrade my MP, and SP basically doubled! I’m at 260 HP, 195 MP, and 585 SP now.”

“Lucky!” Sam shouted. “Me next, me next!”

“Hold up, I still have 2 more things to check out.”

Jake looked at his skills, and once again, the only option he had was [Stance Change]. He decided to hold off on getting it for now. He was really curious if there were any good skills that he could get for 15 or 20 points, and so he would rather just wait the 4 levels until he knew for sure.

The next question was what to do with the 5 perk points he’d received from the Dungeon Delver achievement and the 2 he got from the Conqueror achievement. He went into that section and noticed that he had a new restriction and a new perk in there, [Restriction - Swords Only] and [Sword Mastery]. The first would have made him unable to use weapons that aren’t swords (if it wasn’t for the [Hero] class’s [No Restrictions] perk), and the latter increased his damage with swords even more.

As for perk choices, he had a choice between getting [Enhanced Interface] and [Skill Experience Increase] for 2 points, and then [Survivalist Party] or [Enhanced Map] for 5 points.

The map was already working well enough, so he decided to see what [Survivalist Party] would do. He ran it by the party first, and there were no objections, so he went ahead and bought it. The knowledge of the perk flooded in. If a party member was brought below 0 HP, they wouldn’t automatically start losing HP as long as a party member with more than 0 HP was nearby.

That left 2 perk points, and he tried to buy [Skill Experience Increase] for [Swordsmanship], but it said that he couldn’t increase its experience gains anymore. That being the case, he went with the [Enhanced Interface] option, which would let him see buffs and debuffs affecting party members.

His upgrades complete, the party gave up and let the overeager Sam go next.

“Well, first things first, get [Ice Bolt],” she muttered. Then she gasped. “Guys! Titus was right! I have an option for [Elemental Sorceress] now! Avatar [Sorcerer] was worth it!”

“Well, I guess, go ahead and get it?” Jaked half-said, half-asked. No one in the party was opposed, so she got that upgrade and then used her perk points to increase her mana pool.

Her ending resources were 187 HP, 275 MP, and 250 SP. She also found out that she had [Restriction – Elemental Spells only] and [Increased Elemental Skill Experience]. She grumbled a bit about the 2nd one. “How am I supposed to afford all those stupid elemental skills, though?”

The party didn’t have an answer for that.

“Well, I know how I want to spend my perk points if no one minds me going next,” Garrett said.

When there were no objections, he walked up to the obelisk. “Looks like I just get the basic upgrade to [Woad Raider]. No other options.” He paused and then said. “For skills, my only option is [Retribution], so I’m taking that. Huh, I guess that passively increases my damage when I’m hurt. And now, the moment I’ve been waiting for these past 6 months.”

Garrett stepped away from the obelisk, pulled a shirt out of his inventory, and tugged it on. “Ah, so much better.” The [Berserker] sighed in contentment.

“Noooooooooooooo!” The party turned to the source of the cry and saw a [Sorceress] reaching out towards him forlornly. She turned bright red. “I mean, uhh.. Wasting your perk points just so you can wear a shirt? Doesn’t it make more sense to increase your HP or something?”

“Maybe you’re right, but it’s kind of hard fitting into society when you’re running around shirtless all the time.” Garrett looked at Sam quizzically for a second before shaking his head. “Anyway, 250 HP, 37 MP, 375 SP.”

Wow, his stamina’s lower than mine now. I guess [Sword Master] must have had better scaling or something?

“If you’re finished, I would like to go next,” Tim said. The [Berserker] nodded and moved out of the way. “Hmm, it would seem that I have a [Fire Wizard] option in addition to [High Wizard]. However, I think I will stick with [High Wizard].”

“Why, though?” Jake asked. “Doesn’t [Fire Wizard] sound rarer? Shouldn’t you go with that one?”

“If it functions like Sam’s class, then I do not want to be locked into only fire spells. That is doubly true if Titus is the [Demon Lord] since we have established his [Fire Immunity]. That being the case, I’m going [High Wizard], picking up [Air Bolt], and using my perk points to increase my mana. My resources are the same as Sam’s at 187 HP, 275 MP, and 250 SP.”

Jake was a little miffed that Tim dictated what he was doing instead of checking with the party first, but he decided to just let it go since he couldn’t see an issue with Tim’s logic. Locking into fire magic when the only demon-ish person they encountered was immune to it did seem like a bad plan.

The other upgrades were straightforward overall.

Emilia upgraded her class from [Ranger] to [Scout] and used her perk points to increase her HP, but didn’t get anything else new. She had 250 HP, 125 MP, and 375 SP.

Lindsey also had a straight upgrade to her class from [Knight] to [Defender], but she did mention that she also had [Monk] as an option (which the party assumed was due to her [Martial Arts] skill). She had 375 HP, 125 MP, and 250 SP.

Wow. Maybe we should have her on the frontlines? Jake thought when he realized Lindsey now had 100 more HP than anyone else and also a [Shield]. He looked over at Sam. Assuming we could ever convince those two to separate, that is.

Andrew also had a straight upgrade from [Cleric] to [Bishop], and like the other casters, he went with an MP boost. His resource pools were also the same as theirs at 187 HP, 275 MP, and 250 SP.

That last one to go was Megan. “I only have one option,” she sighed. “Okay, here goes.”

Jake watched as Megan’s class changed from [Rogue]… To [Thief]. He snickered. “Hey! It’s pretty accurate!”

“Thanks, Jake. I didn’t notice,” she deadpanned. “Looks like I should finally pick up [Knifemanship], and I guess I will also take that HP boost.” The HP boost and the class upgrade brought her up even with Emilia at 250 HP, 125 MP, and 375 SP.

With that, the party was done with their upgrades.

It approaching dusk, so they decided to get to bed early since they would have to fight the boss again the next day.

Jake and Garrett walked back to their house in silence, but Jake was the first to break it. “Hey, old man.”

“Yes, spring chicken?” Garrett replied.

“I think I may have been wrong about Titus.”

That caught the [Berserker’s] attention. “How do you figure?”

“Well, you know how he got that new spell, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, why would it let him name the entire species of monster like that? That doesn’t sound like something a [Half-Demon] should have the power to do.” Jake mulled it over a bit more. “In fact, I don’t think most of his perks sound right. Why would a [Half-Demon] not age? Why would they not have to eat food or sleep?”

“Jake, you’re overthinking this. How many weird things have we seen since we’ve come here? Why are there fire-breathing ants? Why do wolves drop gold coins? Not everything has to make sense.” Garrett paused a bit. “Also, I just don’t see Titus’s motive if he is the [Demon Lord]. Why would he travel with us? Why would he want to activate the portals at all?

I guess he has a point. “So, you still think waiting and watching is the best play?”

Garrett nodded. “I think it’s the best play we can make right now with the info we have. And if Tim is right that he really is the [Demon Lord], he shouldn’t be much of a threat to you anyway. In that case, it’s still a better idea to keep him close, in my opinion.”

Jake reached up and punched Garrett lightly in the shoulder. “Ya know, I really appreciate you. Even if you are an old geezer.”

Garrett punched back hard enough to almost make Jake lose his balance. “And I appreciate you even if you’re a foolish young’un.”

Soon enough, the pair reached their abode and fell fast asleep.

The [Berserker’s] familiar snoring echoed out of his room.

Meanwhile, the [Hero] tossed and turned. He found himself in a dream where Titus was chasing after the party while riding a tidal wave of slimes and laughing maniacally. He woke up in a panic before laughing it off and rolling back over. Like that could ever happen.