Of all the things to take a blasé approach to, it turns out gravity is one of the more dangerous ones.

Now I know what some of you may be thinking. “Titus, of course, it isn’t! Falling too far in some games is an insta-kill!”

And that’s a fair point. However, I had already jumped out of trees that would have shattered my bones on Earth, and I took only a couple points of fall damage. I assumed I was dealing with a case where fall damage was limited and most likely capped.

I mean, even on Earth, you could argue that fall damage is capped by terminal velocity. However, even though terminal there isn’t supposed to mean fatal, it usually ends up being that too.

… I’m rambling again, aren’t I? Anyway, long story short. I fell. I thought it was no big deal. Instead, it was the second or third closest call I’ve had, and you’ll see why later.

In other words, don’t underestimate gravity. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

---

On my way down to my big splat, I had a bit of time to think about how I wanted to land.

I decided on a superhero landing. Bent over with my right hand hitting the ground in front, my left hand up behind me, and my left leg bent in a crouch.

It didn’t exactly work how I wanted. Whereas most superheroes land like that, and the ground kicks up around them as they shatter the earth, I… didn’t.

I landed like that, and my arm wasn’t strong enough to stop my momentum. It turned into a glorified faceplant with extra steps—a very painful one.

As I groaned in agony, I got the message that I was basically expecting at that point.

System: Critical HP Detected. Sufficient Level Detected. Demon Lord Form detected. Auto-activating Demon Lord Form.

System: Attempting to activate Wrath Form

Can I stop it? I wondered to myself. I tried to snap my fingers for the [Disrupt], but I was locked in place just like last time.

System: Wrath Form Activated

Here we go, I sighed internally.

----

The last time I had been in wrath form had been… unpleasant, to say the least. However, this time around, there weren’t any people around that I cared about. Or any people at all, for that matter.

My rational mind mostly just took a backseat as the Demon Lord of Wrath slaughtered monster after monster after monster. If I had been thinking clearly at the time, I probably would have clinically noted that [Monster Magnet] seemed to still be working even in that form.

Instead, it was just a matter of see threat, hit threat with giant flaming club- which is a really great strategy, by the way. I can’t recommend it enough.

However, it was over soon enough.

----

System: Time Limit Reached. Wrath Form Deactivated

I shrank back to my normal body and immediately looked around. I hadn’t moved very far from where I fell, so the only difference was that I was now surrounded by piles of bodies on all sides, and I no longer had my emergency option available.

“[Summon Dave],” I cast. The ball of slime appeared, and I ordered it to destroy all of the bodies. Then I immediately took off running.

Well, frick. With no wrath form, this place is a lot sketchier. I soon reached another ledge. I looked down, but only for a brief second. I dodged to the left and let the gargoyle that had flown up behind me sail past.

Which at least proves I’m capable of learning from my own idiotic mistakes.

Anyway, I was in a bit of a bind. I could keep going down and try to get out of the zone, or I could stay on level ground and just keep fighting until wrath form comes back up… In 24 hours.

I dodged another gargoyle and then had a thought. How are my resources? Status.

I checked them and then whistled aloud. At least the System was kind enough to put me back at full after coming out of that.

I was still waffling about what to do when I saw a troll off in the distance backhand my summoned dave. It instantly killed the poor ball of slime, and I realized that I may be on another clock that I hadn’t noticed.

“How long before that mess creates an undead heart?” I muttered to myself and dodged another gargoyle.

Now that it was done with my summon, the troll was also after me.

“Can’t stay here, down it is,” I said to myself. I cautiously moved around the ledge onto the wall and tried to think of a good way to go down without also going splat.

The only thing that came to mind was rappelling, but I obviously didn’t have rope. However, I could still take the idea of turning one big fall into a bunch of smaller ones.

I let go and let myself fall several feet before lashing out at the wall with an [Earth Strike] from each fist. I took a few points of damage for the trouble, but I was sure that I would be able to get to the bottom before I got too low.

However, since I’d already had several disasters caused by not tracking my enemies well enough, I decided to look up and see how the troll was doing. I assumed that it would be about at the ledge and that it would begin slowly climbing down after me since they had already demonstrated their climbing prowess earlier.

I didn’t expect the troll to take one look at me over the ledge and immediately jump.

I said several words that immediately got censored as I kicked myself a foothold and then jumped to the right. The troll’s clawed hand was mere inches from grabbing me as we fell, but I managed to stop myself with another [Earth Strike] and a bit more HP damage.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “That was close.”

That brief pause almost cost me dearly. It kept me in place long enough for a gargoyle to take a dive at me, and I barely managed to drop below it. It crashed into the wall, and I decided to continue my descent immediately.

The next several minutes continued being sketchy. The gargoyles attacked me one at a time, but I managed to avoid getting hit by making sure to drop more often. Another troll also dropped from above, and I had to frantically dive to dodge that one too.

Meanwhile, the first troll had started climbing back up, so I had a third problem to deal with. Fortunately, it turned out that a goomba stomp[1] counted as good enough for [Elemental Strike], and I was able to crash down on the monster’s head with two [Air Strikes] that knocked it back to the ground. I also had to scramble to keep myself up on the wall, but that was a small price to pay.

Like that, I managed to make it down to flat ground. All told, it was significantly less demanding than the trip up since I had gravity working with me, but I overlooked one issue. The trolls.

Unlike before, when I could just use gravity to kill them by continually pushing them off a ledge, I didn’t have that luxury on flat ground. To handle it, I was planning on using my recently discovered technique of just running away.

There was an issue. The trolls were faster than me.

I had been running for a few seconds when I first realized that the lumbering footfalls were getting closer, and I barely managed to turn in time to see the attack coming.

However, that did not mean I was fast enough to dodge it.

The troll’s arm bowled me off my feet into a rough tumble, but I got control of it and popped up to keep running.

I flipped open my status and grimaced when I saw that a single attack had done 75 damage, leaving me at 305 HP.

I rolled to the side to dodge another strike and decided to retaliate. “[Summon Dave],” I cast as I [Air Strike] punched it at the closest troll. Trolls aren’t exactly known for their intellect, and I was hoping that my dave would be able to just slowly take it down. Or even better, count as grappling the troll and make it so that it couldn’t chase me.

Those hopes were quickly dashed.

The troll brought its arm down on the helpless dave and slammed it into the ground. The dave disappeared shortly after.

Even though it looked like daves weren’t going to be any help, I was confident that I could still take both trolls on in a fight. Their attacks were telegraphed and easy for me to dodge if I didn’t get blindsided. However, I couldn’t afford myself the luxury of stopping to fight them.

I need to get out of the zone, or more reinforcements will just keep coming.

Fortunately, at that point, most of the reinforcements were just gargoyles. It also turned out that I was faster than them, so I left them behind even though my running was intermingled with dodging attacks from the two trolls that had caught up to me.

However, two wasn’t enough, and another troll soon joined the chase.

The third troll ended up being a blessing in disguise, at least for a while. With three of them running after me, they often got in each other’s way, and I ended up having to dodge less often.

However, my SP was still slowly draining, and I couldn’t find enough lulls to consider myself resting.

I eventually saw my salvation.

System: Zone entered, Wilderness

I ran a bit further into the zone and prepared to fight them head-on. After a couple of minutes of dodging and [Fire Striking], I came to an irrefutable conclusion.

They were regenerating faster than I could damage them.

The first idea that came to mind was simply to press the attack harder. I dodged underneath one swing, got in close, and started peppering the troll with [Fire Strikes].

It might have worked too. However, the troll was not alone. One of its allies came and tried to help out.

I didn’t have room to dodge like I had been, so I did the only thing that came to my mind.

I held out my hands and caught the arm that was sweeping my way.

I was surprised when that not only worked, but I took no damage from it. However, staring slack-jawed in the middle of a battle is a good way to die, so I snapped out of it and tried to figure out what to do with the colossal figure that I now technically had grappled.

The only thing that came to mind was a throw that Lindsey had used on me, so I tried to replicate it. I turned, put the arm over my shoulder, and slid back a bit towards the troll. Then I yanked.

I’m sure that from a bystander’s viewpoint that it would have looked comical. A guy trying to throw a troll twice his size over his shoulder. It would be like a grade-schooler trying to throw a grown adult. It was a feat that would be completely impossible on Earth.

Fortunately, I wasn’t on Earth.

My level 18 [Demon Lord] body was up to the task, and I managed to throw the troll over my shoulder into its friend and knock both of them to the ground.

I snapped out of my surprise even faster this time and managed to dodge the incoming attack from the third troll.

I knew that I got faster as I leveled, but… I guess I didn’t realize that I got stronger too.

I would like to say that I had an easy time after learning that I was capable of manhandling the 400+ pound beasts, but that still didn’t handle the regeneration problem.

In fact, I also ran into another age-old problem. Stamina.

Fortunately, I was able to get into a rhythm with their attacks so that I could rest and not die due to running out. Unfortunately, being nearly out of stamina meant that I couldn’t use it on [Fire Strikes].

The solution has to be daves then, right?

I couldn’t just put a dave on them and hope, but I could stockpile them off to the side and have them all attack at once.

However, that meant that I was in for the long haul.

I summoned three daves with my remaining MP, threw them off to the side, and then prepared to wait for my MP and SP to slowly regenerate.

I had a bit of a scare when some gargoyles appeared, and one immediately dove to attack a dave, but I needn’t have worried. The gargoyle connected, the dave stuck to it, and the gargoyle fell to the ground.

Huh. I guess they’re small enough that the daves can grapple them. I watched as the other gargoyles didn’t do a thing until the first finally died. Then the next flew down only to meet the same fate.

“Yet another hard counter,” I said with a chuckle. “Thanks, Alt-.”

The reminder of who exactly gave me my summon fired my rage back up.

System: Attempting to activate Wrath Form

System: Wrath Form on cooldown. Canceling

Instead, I just vented some of my frustrations by hitting the ever-regenerating trolls a bit.

I don’t know how much that helped, but I did eventually calm back down.

The fight ended up going into the night. I had to continue fighting the trolls, and some of the time, gargoyles spawned and decided to go for me instead of the daves.

Surprisingly, the gargoyles didn’t end up adding much to the mix.

Their attacks were even easier to dodge than the trolls’ swipes, and some of the time, when they dove, the trolls stopped themselves midswing to avoid hitting them.

I pondered that a bit even as I was fighting.

Huh. Numbers don’t help much against a single target if you aren’t coordinated. My thoughts turned to the party. Not that that helps me. As long as they have [Enhanced Party], they’re always going to be coordinated.

My eyes widened as I came to a realization. I almost took a troll claw to the face for the trouble, but after managing to dodge it, I thought it over. That… That might work. It would probably only work once, so I should save it… I also don’t know if it will even last… But, if they aren’t expecting it…

After my realization the previous day, I had a tentative plan for fighting the [Hero]. With my new insight, I also had an idea for dealing with the entire party. Holy carp. Could I actually win a fight? I shook my head and decided not to think about that too much. Plan A was still firmly “do not fight them at all.”

Meanwhile, the fight with the trolls just continued dragging on.

Eventually, I had five daves prepared, and I decided I may as well just go for it.

I baited one of the trolls over towards the daves, grabbed its next attack, and flipped it over onto its back.

“Attack!” I commanded my waiting summons.

The daves eagerly hopped on, and the troll bellowed in pain.

I immediately ran back over to the other trolls to ensure that I retained their aggro. However, one of them seemed no longer interested. It ran around me over to its ally.

It’s going for the daves! I ran after it and watched as it reared back to attack one of the daves.

I could afford to take a hit, so I decided to try something. I ran between the two and hit the oncoming attack with a [Fire Strike].

Our attacks bounced off each other, and we both staggered a bit.

I was baffled because I was positive I hadn’t taken damage and fairly confident the troll hadn’t either. How does that work?

Meanwhile, the downed troll had finally regained its feet and swept one of the daves off.

The other troll also regained its composure and sent another attack my way. I met that with another [Fire Strike], but it didn’t lose its balance as much that time. Another attack came right on the heels of the first, and I blocked that one too.

The third troll tried to run around the mess to help, but it was too late. The daves took the first troll down, and it collapsed to the ground.

That made my next move easy. I grabbed the troll in front of me on its next attack, flipped it, and had the daves attack it. Then it was just a matter of blocking the other troll’s attempts to help.

Like that, the second troll perished. However, my second victim did take two of my daves with it before it died.

That left one troll versus me and two daves, which made the last part the easiest. I flipped the remaining troll to the ground and just pinned it there as the daves went to work.

Even as the troll struggled uselessly against me, I was already thinking about other things.

I was able to block their attacks. Maybe it was something I should have figured out a long time ago, but trying to stop an attack from a monster twice your size by punching it with an attack that does less damage wasn’t an idea I would have usually entertained. However, the interaction bugged me because it reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite place what it was.

Meanwhile, the troll struggled frantically and almost succeeded in knocking me off. That irked me.

“Would you just shut up and die?” I snarled.

System: Attempting to activate Wrath Form

System: Wrath Form on cooldown. Canceling

As I looked at the words, I realized. That was it. I thought back to the reddish haze of wrath form and the giant club that I brought down on the [Hero]. I thought of how he managed to counter it with a [Power Strike].

No matter how you look at it, he shouldn’t have been able to stop that attack just because of the sheer mass difference. I looked back down at the now-dead troll that I was pinning and let go. I guess mass doesn’t matter nearly as much in this world, though. Does it?

I flopped to the ground and looked up at the nighttime sky. I was tired. I was mentally exhausted from fighting and being in danger for so long and also just done with being in Placeholder.

How is this world fair? I understand that [Monster Magnet] makes everything worse, but how would a normal party handle these trolls? I immediately imagined the [Hero] encountering a troll and one-shotting it with [Sunder]. I shook that thought away and frowned.

No matter what he is, the [Hero] definitely isn’t normal. I decided to mentally pit another party against the 3 trolls that I had faced. I went with the only other one that I had really known.

Doubloon… No, wait. Already used that one. Zoom… That one too. I frowned. It was getting a lot harder to come up with names for them. I finally got one. Kaboom Agree. I paused. Didn’t I already use Boom, though? Eh. Whatever. Kaboom Agree versus three trolls. Who wins?

I mentally set the stage. Rich, their [Warrior], up front. Nick, their [Rogue], being midline or going for [Backstabs]. Then their [Cleric] Samuel and [Wizard] Ethan in the back.

I didn’t have enough data to make a good mental simulation. I didn’t know the damage numbers the party deals or their cooldowns. I also didn’t have a clue how the trolls’ regeneration worked. However, I couldn’t help but favor the trolls in those fights. 75 damage an attack. The party would be level 10, so a lot slower than me. I’m not sure if Rich or Nick would be able to dodge in time. I thought back to the rest of their party. I guess they do have a healer but isn’t 75 damage a lot to heal?

I thought back to Andrew, almost murdering me. However, I wasn’t really interested in the emotions around that, so I tried to just shove them aside and remember the data I wanted. He did 75 damage with a [Cure]. If I assume that it damages the same amount as it’s supposed to heal, and if I also assume that’s the cap, then that means a single attack from a troll is equivalent to a [Cure] spell.

Unless they were able to somehow burst the trolls down with a [Fire Ball] or something… Which Ethan definitely didn’t have the last time I saw him… then I think they would end up dead. I sat back up. In fact, they couldn’t even run. Trolls are faster than me, and I’m level 18.

“This world is really a heck-hole when you think about it, isn’t it?” I asked the open air. Especially since I can’t even swear. What the frick is up with that?

I didn’t have the mental energy to move, so I just laid there throughout the night and watched the stars. The gargoyles even ended up leaving me alone because they went for the daves, so it was the most peaceful night I had passed in a long time.

When the sun finally rose, I reluctantly got to my feet. “I guess I should get moving. I’d hate to get to the ice dungeon second just because I took a break.”

I looked over at the 3 daves that were scattered around the troll’s corpse. “Oh, yeah. Cleanup.” Then I remembered all of the bodies I had left behind me on the mountain. “Oh, frick! Cleanup!” I groaned.

There’s no way I’m going back up there. I looked down at the daves. But I guess I don’t have to…

I ordered the daves to clean up the bodies that were scattered in the area. There were quite a number of gargoyles at the point, so it took them a bit, even with the 4 extra daves I summoned to help. After that, I tried to figure out the best orders I could give them to clean up all the bodies I left behind.

The simplest I could come up with was, “Go that way. Destroy any corpses you see.”

I could have tried to shoehorn in orders that they should defend themselves, but they seemed to pretty much do that anyway. Also, any order I gave them about how to handle a troll wouldn’t matter. I just had to hope that they didn’t encounter one before they could clear most of the bodies.

I looked at the mountainous terrain still ahead of me and sighed. “I hate mountains.”

With that uplifting and encouraging thought to guide me, I took off.

I soon reached the next section where I would have to climb again and paused as a health bar for a heart of undeath popped up. Clearly, the daves hadn’t been up to the task.

I groaned. Dang, it. Now I have to go back and kill it. I frowned and thought for a moment. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, right? Maybe it will be fine. Or maybe someone else will clean it up.

“Who am I kidding,” I said aloud. “It’s not like I could fight it anyway. You know what? That can be someone else’s problem.”

I continued my climb, even as the health bar hovered ominously. However, a few hours after that, I heard a loud boom echo off into the distance. At the exact same time, the heart’s health bar dropped to nothing and vanished.

[Hero]? I asked myself. I shook my head. No, that didn’t sound like [Sunder]. It sounded like…

I struggled to think of what could make that noise, and when I finally realized it, I groaned aloud. “Really? Did the undead heart just yeet[2] itself off the cliff? Sure! Why not!? It’s not like the last one was capable of leading a fricking army against me, and this one doesn’t understand how gravity works.”

I honestly should have just accepted the good luck where the System was giving it, but I felt more like complaining.

After that, mountain climbing was still awful, but at least I didn’t encounter another zone.

However, with how slow climbing was, I constantly questioned whether it would have been faster to go around, no matter how far out of my way I would have had to go. However, grit, determination, and the sunk cost fallacy[3] eventually saw me through and back onto level ground.

The next few days after that were uneventful, but then I ran into a road. Now, the original reason I hadn’t used roads was so that I wouldn’t run into the party. The secondary reason was that I wasn’t sure if the road would take me on a straight shot north.

However, for this road, the second reason wasn’t an issue. This road was basically going the same way I wanted to. I would have had to go out of my way to avoid it.

As for the first reason, I assumed there was no way that I could run into the party after how far I had gone out of the way. I also wasn’t sure if the party was still ahead of me because of my delays in the mountains or if my tireless running cross-country had finally put me ahead of them.

Either way, I figured the road should be safe and started running down it without further thought.

----

“I still don’t get why all of us have to camp outside of town,” Emilia complained as she sat on the ground next to Jake.

Jake sighed. His girlfriend could be a bit of a handful at times. “Come on, Em. I know you were looking forward to sleeping in a bed tonight, but they don’t have anywhere that could take all of us. Much less the horses.”

“Then we could have at least had some of us stay in an inn while the rest camped out,” she replied.

“I guess,” Jake said. He didn’t feel like arguing about the call he had made a few hours ago. “It’s a bit late, though. We can’t go marching back up and demand beds for a few of us, especially when someone has to stay and guard the horses from monsters.”

She frowned but said nothing.

Fortunately, that seemed like it would be the end of it. Not that Jake was terribly happy about things either. The [Hero] and his party camped a short walk outside of town just because there was no room in the inn… And I guess sleeping in a public space is illegal or something? Jake still didn’t quite understand it, but the end result had been the party camping out with their horses to protect them from the single monster attack that would come that night.

And guessing it would be a single attack wasn’t a stretch either, though sometimes there were two or even three on a particularly hectic night. Without Titus here, there certainly are fewer monsters. However, Jake didn’t want to dwell on that and instead pulled Emilia to him.

The two continued their “watch.” They sat together under the dimly lit nighttime sky and watched the stars. Emilia could hear the wolves coming long before they attacked, so it wasn’t like they were shirking their duty. Jake still felt a bit guilty about it, though.

The two lapsed into a comfortable silence as Emilia rested her head on Jake’s shoulder. “The only sad thing is that the stars don’t seem to move,” she finally said.

“Yeah,” Jake replied. “That is a bit of a bummer, but hey! Maybe they change over at the seasons just like the temperature!”

“If they do, I wonder if they change over at midnight.”

Jake chuckled. “That would be a sight to see. We’ll have to stay up for it and check.” When she didn’t reply, he looked back down at her and saw her ears twitching. “Another monster attack?” he asked.

“No,” she replied slowly. “It’s a faint sound, definitely not wolves. It’s getting closer.”

Jake still didn’t hear anything, but he trusted her [Enhanced Senses].

“It’s rhythmic, and coming from the road, I think? It might be someone running?” she asked.

“Who would be running this late at night?” Jake wondered aloud. “We better go take a look.”

They walked back to the tents that the party had set up just in time to see a figure passing by on the road.

Jake watched as Emilia’s face twisted into fury.

----

I zoned out pretty hard on my run. The simple road I was traveling on was going through boring old plains, so along with having to rest in between strides, there wasn’t much to think about.

If I hadn’t been interrupted, I might have run straight into the small town ahead of me without even realizing it.

It turns out that I was jolted back to awareness in time, though.

An arrow through the shoulder is a pretty effective way to snap someone out of their daydreams.

I stopped for a half-second even as I looked off at the tents that I had ignored in my stupor. My immediate concern was who had shot me, but that was answered as her shrill yell rang out. “He’s here! Everyone after him!”

Emilia. The party’s here! I located the voice even as the second arrow was on its way. I punched it with an [Earth Strike] and was pleased when the arrow crumpled, and I took no damage. However, I was straying from plan A, so I immediately turned and started sprinting after that.

I could barely hear Jake call in the distance. “Emilia! Stand down!” And then more in my direction. “Titus! We just want to talk!”

While I might have believed his words if they had come out sooner, the arrow that was still sprouting out of my shoulder didn’t lend a lot of credence to his claim. I kept running, even as I pulled the arrow out and snapped it.

I looked ahead and saw the approaching town and a gigantic river beyond it. The town was my first concern. Okay, I’ll have to run around it, but that’s fine. I’m faster than them. I was about to head off the road to the east when I spared a quick glance back and tried to swear.

I had forgotten about the horses. The party had mounted up and were gaining on me.

I just need to get to the river, and I’m home free, but they’ll catch me before then. I thought about using my plan I had prepared to fight the party, but it was still too early for that. Instead, I looked at the village ahead of me. I don’t want to do this… But I may have to. As I got closer, I got an even better idea. I just have to do most of it.

I ran for a few more seconds and then stopped right outside of town.

I turned to face the party that was galloping furiously down the road. As they approached, they slowed, and when they were about 50 feet away, I called out to them. “That’s far enough, [Hero]! One more step, and this village gets a monster wave!”

“You’re bluffing!” Jake called back.

“Am I, [Hero]? Try me!” I picked one of my feet up and prepared to step backward.

“Fine! Everyone stop!” Jake called. The party halted their horses and dismounted. “We just want to talk, Titus.”

I snorted. “Sure! And that arrow must have been a new type of sign language.”

“Look,” Jake snapped. “Yes, Emilia was out of line, but threatening a town’s out of line too. Just… Come with us, and we can talk.”

“No thanks, I’m fine right here, [Hero],” I replied with an extra dose of sarcasm on the last word.

“I knew it. We need to stop him,” Emilia said as she pulled back her bowstring.

“Now, now,” I replied as I lifted my foot up again. “Put your bow back.” When she didn’t move, I continued. “If the monster wave isn’t enough to convince you, need I remind you what I turn into if you injure me too much? Put your bow away. Right. Now.”

Jake walked over to her and pointed her bow toward the ground.

She was still glaring holes through me, but she did finally put the bow away.

“Alright, then,” Jake said. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk,” I replied. “Without you having the upper hand. Without you being able to dictate the terms. So, here we are. I’m sure you all have questions. Go ahead. Ask.”

Surprisingly, Tim was the first to respond. “What do they have on you?”

“What?” I asked and cocked my head.

“Your actions are inconsistent. You are fixated on completing this quest, but you had the option to let me and my father die. Instead, you risked your life for us. The only thing I could think of is coercion. Is it mind control? Blackmail? Why are you doing this?”

That little sit is too smart for his own good sometimes. I sighed. “Fine. You want to know what they have on me?” I pulled open my status and leafed through it. With my limited access to most things on that screen, that was a rare thing for me to do, so it took some time. However, I finally found it.

I pulled up the quest Admin had given me so long ago.

“Re-open the Demonic Portal”

Quest details - The demonic portal was supposed to start open, but due to meddling, it now requires the Demon Lord to activate the four elemental dungeons. Activate all dungeons in sequence and then open the portal in the far west

Reward: You will be sent home

Decline/Failure: You will be stranded in this world with no way to leave

As soon as I had it up, I made the same flicking motion that Jake had done to share his map with us. Based on Tim’s expression, it seemed to have worked, so I repeated that and showed the entire rest of the party.

“There you have it!” I said. “My one and only ticket home and out of this godforsaken world!”

Tim’s brows furrowed. “Titus… How long have you had this?”

“Right after the very first monster wave.” I briefly debated telling them about admins and who gave it to me, but since the party took it so poorly last time that it forced a reset, I decided against it.

No point in repeating this conversation.

“Was…” Sam said softly. “Was all of it a lie?”

Lindsey stood right next to her, and I could tell that she was burning with the same question.

I’m sure right then I could have convinced the party it had been my master plan all along. That everything I had done was just to manipulate them. However, that would have run counter to my purposes. I didn’t want to fight the party, so I didn’t even need to lie.

“No,” I replied with a shake of my head. “I was planning on giving up at the second dungeon. Maybe even tell you everything after.” I laughed bitterly and pulled Megan’s necklace out of my pocket. “But then this world decided to take everything from me yet again. So you see, there really wasn’t a choice left.”

“You haven’t lost everything, Titus,” Garrett said softly. “We can still be here for you if you’ll let us.”

I laughed aloud at that and put the necklace back in my pocket. “A convicted liar and murderer, and even worse, a [Demon Lord]. Yeah, Megan’s gone, but you all can just sweep that under the rug and pretend like it never happened.”

I locked eyes with Jake. “Go ahead. Tell me that we can go back to being friends. That we can travel the world together again. Tell me you won’t think less of me. Tell me that I’m forgiven for what I’ve done and for what this world has turned me into.” I spread my hands out and looked at the rest of the party. “Tell me all of that, and I’ll give up right now. I’ll accept a duel with whatever terms you want and give up on the quest.”

The silence and averted gazes that greeted me told me all that I needed to know.

I dropped my hands back to my side and sighed. “And that’s why I have to go home. On the same day I lost Megan, I also lost all of you.”

When Jake finally replied, it was incredibly bitter. “Isn’t there anything we can do to convince you to stop this?”

“No,” I replied bluntly. “Which is why it’s my turn to talk now. Make no mistake. I will beat you to the dungeons, and I will open the portal.” I sighed. “However, since you’re all fond of this world, I would hate to leave it a mess. So, here’s my proposal.” I paused. “You let me claim the dungeons, and I help level you to face the demons that will come out of the portal. I can control the monsters the dungeons will make, so I’ll force it to make only the highest-level ones. If you don’t think you’re a high enough level after all of that, I can even join your party and kill dragons for you until you’re satisfied.”

I realized that they might not have believed my last statement, so I followed up. “And yes, I can kill dragons without going into wrath form. It just takes a lot of daves. If you don’t believe me, check my level.”

As Tim took me up on that offer and started muttering something, I continued. “So, what will it be, [Hero]?”

He looked down, took a deep breath, and then looked back at me. “You know that I can’t do that. I was called here to protect this world, and there’s no telling what will come through that portal.” He shook his head. “We may become the strongest party in the world, but what if something stronger than a [Demon Lord] comes out? Or what if an army of demons is more than we can handle?” He looked at me, his gaze both resolute and pained. “I’m sorry, Titus. The answer is no.”

“A pity,” I replied. “Well, in that case, it appears the race is back on,” I remembered a key detail. “Oh. I will still do you one favor. When I claim an obelisk, it puts it in combat mode, and combat mode means that it will take over nearby zones. Anyway, I’ll try to wait for you before claiming the obelisk. I’d hate to accidentally take over the world and then leave.“ I paused for a bit. “Also, I have no idea where a wave will spawn when I enter any given town after midnight.”

The party shared looks of confusion at that off-the-wall remark, but I clarified it right after.

I took a step backward.

“So you better start looking right away.”

As I took off at a sprint to the east away from the party, I spared a glance back. It was just in time to [Earth Strike] punch the arrow Emilia sent my way. However, the monster wave threat worked, and the entire party mounted their horses and took off into town.

Except for Jake.

I tsked when I saw that. I was hoping they would all go after the wave, but Jake must have trusted the party to handle it without him.

“Give up, Titus!” Jake called. “Even you can’t outrun a horse!”

I planted my feet, spun around, and launched a dave at his horse’s feet.

The dave immediately caused it to stumble, and Jake tumbled off it. After a few seconds, the horse was dead.

That handled, I went back to running. However, all I had chasing me was a level 14 [Hero]. I no longer needed to sprint.

It was honestly pretty similar to the wolves that had been chasing me during my travels. However, this opponent was a bit faster, so it took longer to figure out how to break even on stamina with my resting.

Meanwhile, he just kept chasing, even as I eventually turned north and headed towards the river.

I finally stopped when I got to the water’s edge. I could finally appreciate how fast it was moving and also how wide it was.

“Dead end, Titus,” Jake said. “There’s no way you can swim across that.”

I snorted. “I’m a level 18 [Demon Lord], with level 4 [Athletics] who doesn’t need to breathe.” I paused and took one last look at him before diving in. “See you at the Ice Dungeon, [Hero].”

----

Jake had failed. Titus had gotten away, his horse was dead, and he wasn’t in position to help fight the monster wave.

He flipped through his party members, trying to figure out where the wave was so that he could go there immediately. However, none of them were in combat.

Jake finally figured it out and couldn’t help a dry chuckle as he looked out at the swimming form. “That base turd… He faked it.”

[1] Goomba stomp – The act of jumping on top of someone or something’s head. Named after the mushroom-like enemies in the Mario games that you jump on top of to defeat.

[2] Yeet – verb (slang). To throw something with great force

[3] Sunk cost fallacy – An economics term this time. Basically, it’s when people continue a course of action because they already “sunk” time or money into it. In this case, I had already started climbing the mountain. It would have likely been faster to go around at that point (even with turning back), but I had “already spent one day climbing it”