It is said that the sensation of falling is the fastest way to wake a person. An evolutionary trait from when humans were monkeys sleeping in trees, when a split second of wakefulness meant the difference between landing on one’s legs or furry head. Perhaps it’s the same jolting sensation that occurs when one peers over the railing on a skyscraper.

Whatever the origin of this bit of “common knowledge,” Max knew it to be false as surely as and for the same reason that he knew the tutorial to a game was not its most exciting part, and that a puppy an hour old was not yet at its maximum size.

The state of falling was a prelude to something greater.

“Ow, ah, fuck.”

Max woke from being dumped on the floor, and every part of his body felt like it ached or stung: his elbows, his knees, his head, his fingers. Untangling his limbs, he blinked and staggered to his feet, head pounding. The stinging faded, letting him focus on the throbbing lump on his head, the source of which he recalled after a moment. That was going to leave a mark, if not a concussion. A blindfold would have been fine, he grumbled in his mind. Then all thoughts were brushed aside by awe.

A young woman sat in an armchair facing him. She looked in her late twenties, with wavy brunette hair spilling over her shoulders, wearing a white dress with a navy-blue sash that highlighted her above-average bust and enviable waist. A heart-shaped face, broad cheekbones tapering to a strong jawline, a narrow nose and mouth, and full lips. She had an aura of attractiveness that Max thought he would have felt if he met in person an actress famed for her looks or a supermodel. What set her beyond that, though, were her piercing green eyes studying Max. They were like the first spots of color he’d ever seen, two glowing pieces of jade in a world of dirt. They pulled on him as if they were alien spaceships emitting tractor beams. Set in her flawless face with a celestial expression of revulsion so strong it looked like she’d eaten shit — huh?

“Mook, that’s Boss. Don’t look at her.” Mari’s voice came from behind Max. “She has a Skill that makes her feel gazes on her. Physically feel them.”

Physically feel? What on Earth did —

“Just stop looking at her,” Mari repeated.

Max hurriedly diverted his gaze to the floor to his left. A thick green-and-brown carpet patterned with curling shapes that looked like plants or vines enveloped his VR shoes, which were freshly stained with mud. His mind froze.

Mud. No. Not my VR shoes. They cost $400 to replace! That had better be mud!

Frankly, he shouldn’t have been the only one concerned — the carpet looked expensive. Did they care he might be dirtying it with “mud?”

Looking down was easy. Max always tended to avoid looking at girls he found attractive, as when he found a girl attractive, he found her intimidatingly attractive. And this one had club-happy backup, an I-will-squash-you-like-a-bug expression, and the fact that she was, without a doubt, the hottest girl he’d seen in his life. However, he couldn’t help but think: tsundere. Wasn’t this a classic web novel plotline? He’d been transmigrated to another world — he’d accepted by this point that transmigration was most likely his situation, or, at least, if he wanted to survive, he’d better operate under that assumption — and here was his love interest. The beautiful ice queen. All he had to do was learn her backstory and melt that ice with the warmth of devotion. In time, she’d look up at him with those icy blue eyes sparkling . . . his mind raced ahead toward his blissful future.

“Mari,” said a soft, enchanting voice from the otherworldly creature he wasn’t supposed to look at, “I thought we agreed on no prisoners.”

Listening to a conversation about him without being able to read facial expressions was nerve-racking, so he turned around so he could at least look at Mari. A little nervousness left him when he noted that she’d set her clubs down on a table and was leaning casually against a wall. Although, she seemed like the type to be relaxed even if the building was on fire.

The bigger revelation that developed from his graceful turn was the discovery of two other people present in the lavishly decorated room.

The room was a large living room — as one would expect of a large mansion, which in itself was surprising, as Max had expected a cramped underground bunker after the meeting in the sewers — the walls adorned with paintings in thick gold and silver frames, an odd assortment of expensive couches and armchairs that looked soft enough to swallow one whole arranged in no particular formation. The clashing colors of the hodgepodge of furniture pieces and artwork of wildly different styles told the story of either a tragically unskilled interior designer or a collection of upscale items acquired under unusual circumstances.

Max assumed it was a little of both. A lot of both.

A thin, pallid girl with dark brown hair sat in on a plush armchair, one leg propped up. She looked as though she was in her late teens, and she wore a blue blouse and skin-tight black trousers. She smiled and waved at him. The smile had no warmth as if she were a child with a magnifying glass smiling down at an ant. Beside the armchair stood a very muscular older dark-skinned man in gray robes with his hands clasped behind his back, his back ramrod straight.

And pointed, dark-but-graying-furred ears. Cat ears.

Yes, this world was incredible.

At first, Max thought the old cat man was glaring at him, and he wondered what he’d done to piss off the intimidatingly buff cat man. Then, after a moment of eye contact, he decided the buff cat man wasn’t angry, but rather appraising Max as though he weren’t human. Perhaps, say, an ant.

What was it with these people and ants? He was not an ant!

Then Max realized that he’d been holding eye contact with the very cat man for a duration that could be interpreted as aggressive, especially by cats, and he hastily looked away.

Boss was, obviously, the boss of the group, but Mari and the cat man vied for the title of strongest. Jesus, Mari was huge. Less muscular than the cat man, but a few inches taller. That was good. Mari liked him, or at least she didn’t see him as a threat. If the others wanted to kill him — Boss and Scarlet — hell, all of them except Mari — gave him slightly murderous vibes — he’d have to hope Mari would protect him again.

“He’s not Crimson Tide,” spoke his Savior. “I saved him — they were going to kill him, by the way, even though they thought he was one of us — I saved him; thought he might be useful. Look at his clothes! And Mook, don’t hit on Boss, she has a Skill that lets her feel that, too.”

Shit! Why did she have to say that? He’d been doing so well! Focus on how to stay alive, he tried to think, not the hot girl!

“What about his clothes?” the cat man asked. “That they smell?”

“Ha, you’re telling him that?” the pallid slouching girl said to Mari. “You ogle every woman you see.”

“Not you,” Mari retorted. “I can’t help it. I’m a womanizer. Nerran gets jealous, how I attract — ”

“I’m not jealous.” The cat man — Nerran shook his head as though he couldn’t believe he had to assert this.

“Having low standards doesn’t — ” Scarlet started.

“Let’s save playtime for later.”

If Boss had laser vision, Max was certain, even though he couldn’t see her, that she would have glared a hole through his back.

“Mari, why is he here?”

Mari grinned mischievously. “Ask him why he was in the sewers.”

She seemed to be looking over Max’s shoulder right at Boss. How come she could look at Boss without issue? If Max had followed the back and forth just now, there was no way Mari didn’t find Boss attractive.

Shit! There were more important things to think about! He could tell them the truth, of course, but in web novels that always resulted in being labeled as insane or being exploited for his otherworldly knowledge. Getting his mind sucked out for information was not high on his priority list. Did he know enough to make up a story? They’d mentioned the Crimson Tide — those muggers had been Crimson Tide — he knew there was a Class system here — how cool was that? Just imagine — no, hold on, he had to concentrate on coming up with a story . . . had Mari or the muggers said anything useful?

“Why was he in the sewers?” Never mind look at him, Boss seemed disinclined to address him.

“I have no idea!” Mari laughed. “But I’m sure it’s interesting.”

“It’s obvious you don’t have a reason,” the cat man said in a detached voice. “You brought him here on a whim.”

At that, Mari’s eyebrows drew together sharply. Unlike during her banter with the pallid girl, now Mari looked genuinely angry. “That’s not true! He’s useful to us. I know it! He said some gobbledygook to the Crimson Tide like a weird spell, but it didn’t work! And afterward, I questioned him! I’m not stupid!”

A sigh came from behind Max. “Why were you down there?” the angelic creature asked.

Max’s brainstorming kicked up to a frantic pace. He could claim to be a peasant who pissed off a rogue mage. He was a dragon. He had amnesia.

“A little advice,” the pallid girl said with a smirk, “Mari has a Skill that detects lies.”

The truth! Of course, my thin friend, I would never consider lying!

“Of course, Boss could just charm you,” the pallid girl said in a bored tone, “and skip this whole charade.”

Upon hearing this remark, Max though the proposition sounded tremendously appealing, but after a moment’s consideration, given the context in which she had said it, there was something a little terrifying about it.

Nerran glanced behind Max. “Based on our last discussion, in this instance, I think Mari’s Skill is sufficient for — ”

“Fine, fine,” Scarlet interrupted, “then I could just torture — ’

“I don’t know,” Max quickly cut in before Scarlet could propose any further ideas. “I think I was summoned from another world.”

The pallid girl kicked her legs off the arms of her armchair and sat up straight, suddenly interested in the conversation. This wasn’t an interrogation, Max assured himself. At the same time, cat man’s eyes widened.

Her anger gone, Mari grinned. “Either he’s very high Level or he’s not lying.”

“You were summoned?” Boss asked, apparently having overcome her inability to speak directly to him.

Max tried to describe the flying and yanking and the landscapes flying past. He was no poet.

“Is that a summoning? Scarlet?”

The pallid girl on the armchair was leaning forward now, elbows on her knees, hands clasped, as shook her head. “Most summoning spells are believed to work as gates, connecting — ”

“Nevermind, Scarlet,” Boss said, cutting the girl off. “You say another world? You mean continent?”

Scarlet leaned back in the armchair with an exaggerated pouting face.

“No,” Max said. “I mean another world. Planet?” Did they know what that was?

From their confusion, it seemed not. This world hadn’t discovered astronomy yet. Hold on — the gears in Max’s head whirred. What if this universe didn’t have planets? The world could be flat, balanced on the backs of tortoises, for all he knew. Or maybe it was donut-shaped.

“Uh, I’m very grateful that Mari found me,” Max ventured, sensing they might be willing to listen to him now. “Saved me, that is, from those muggers. And brought me here, to you nice people. Would you mind telling me who you are? And also where we are?”

Nerran laughed. It was not the laugh of a kind person. “Nice people?”

“We’re the most messed up people in the city,” Scarlet added. “Not that that’s saying much.”

“Hey! Don’t lump me in with you all!” Mari turned toward Max. “Those three are messed up, but I’m — ”

“Please, you’re the most messed up of all of us. Have you seen your room?”

“ — perfectly normal. My room is messy; that doesn’t mean I’m messed up!”

“We’re the Red Handers,” came Boss’s voice from behind him.

“We steal shit,” Scarlet added.

“I don’t steal,” Mari protested. “I find things and — ”

“Oh, give it a rest, Mari,” Boss said, sounding exasperated.

They were a group of thieves. As expected. Who else spent time in the sewers? Despite their protests to the contrary, they seemed a lot nicer than the other group of thieves Mari had fought in the sewer, the Crimson Tide. Those guys had seemed like run-of-the-mill assholes, or at least professional assault-and-battery assholes. Well, Mari and Nerran seemed pretty capable of assault and battery. Maybe Max just liked these people because they hadn’t pointed knives at him yet. Tomato, tomato, the point was, these people seemed nice.

“Describe your where you’re from,” Boss ordered.

It had nothing to do with how hot their leader was. He was calm and collected and always thought things through, even in stressful situations.

“Where I came from, we’ve explored the entire world, and there’s no way to get to here. Not by land, sea, or air. And we don’t have Levels or classes — Blessings. We don’t have magic, but we have techno — ”

Scarlet spoke up. “Another plane? Another dimension?”

“That’s impossible,” Nerran scoffed. “They’re closed off. Unless you’re suggesting he’s a god.”

“He could have slipped through somehow.”

“Maybe?” Max shrugged. Maybe his world was on another plane. Maybe it was an alternate reality. Could be a lot of things, and that was only considering the fiction he’d read. Maybe this whole multiple-worlds thing operated in a manner unimaginable to Earth’s authors.

“You don’t know which one?” Scarlet asked. “Is there a lot of fire? Lots of demons? Endless ocean? Eternal night?”

“Uh, my world’s pretty similar to this one, except the Sun is yellow and brighter and we only have humans. We have animals and humans, but no magic. No demons, or, uh, eternal night. The oceans are big, but not endless.”

Scarlet looked as ecstatic as a spoiled child on her birthday after three days of fasting being presented by her parents a triple-scooped cookies-and-cream ice-cream cone. “I’ve never heard of such a plane.”

Silenced reigned as the Red Handers digested Max’s story. He could have thanked every God he’d ever heard of for Mari. Without her Skill convincing the others, he would have been in deep shit. Mari winked at him as if she understood his thoughts. Max shivered. In this world, maybe she could. Not much he could do about it — and he was telling the truth, anyway. It is all true, he thought as hard as he could, I’m being completely truthful!

They had been more surprised that his world was similar to this one than the fact that his world didn’t have a game-like level system. Wasn’t such a world supposed to be incomprehensible to them? A world without Blessings and Levels?

“This is ridiculous. Summoning from another plane? He must have a Skill that can fool Mari.”

“I could always torture him to double check,” Scarlet offered.

Come on, I’ve been completely honest!

“The important thing is,” Mari insisted, “he has no Levels!”

“I have one Level.” No one was going to accuse him of even a shadow of dishonesty.

“The important thing is, he has one Level!”

“The Empire could have sent a Deathseeker to infiltrate us. Or any of the noble’s we’ve stolen from. More likely that than … summoning.”

“If he’s telling the truth, though,” Boss said, “he’s almost exactly what we’ve been looking for. If I were you, Nerran, I might believe the Lady of Justice to be showing her approval.”

“If he’s telling the truth, then it means even more we shouldn’t keep him. We already have the girl; she’s easy to control. He’s trouble. If our lazy Mage is this excited about him, trouble will be drawn to him like moths to a candle. Will you charm him? How else will you guarantee his loyalty?”

“I’ve never charmed any of you,” Boss said softly, but she didn’t respond to the rest of Nerran’s concerns.

“Scarlet, did you fall asleep?” Mari grinned. “Where’s the the gods are deader than my grandma and I’ll shove my Dagger of Justice up your ass?”

“What does that mean?” Max asked. There were gods here? Of course. But they were dead? Something had killed them?

“Her grandmother is very dead,” Mari answered helpfully.

“The gods are dead,” Scarlet said slowly, “but I have to admit this is an unlikely coincidence. We got the girl, gave up on finding a Deathseeker willing to abandon their combo, but this — ”

“He’s not worth the trouble.” Nerran stared at Scarlet as if daring her to argue with him.

“I’m inclined to agree with Nerran.” Boss’s voice suddenly grew cold. “If the Lady of Justice supported us, she would’ve sent a woman.”

What the hell did that mean?

If they wouldn’t let him stay, then hopefully they’d at least give him some food before kicking him out the door. He’d been summoned to this world, so it was pretty unlikely that he’d starve to death, but there was always the possibility of one of those “hardship and suffering” storylines. It would be best if he could avoid those.

Scarlet stared past Max and seemed to lock eyes with Boss. “Throwing him away is stupid. He’s exactly what we need. The girl will take six years, minimum. He could be ready in three.”

What they needed? Although they seemed nice, at least Mari and Nerran, they were a self-professed criminal organization. What if they wanted a disposable assassin, or another Mari? Max didn’t think he could go around clubbing people in the head.

Nerran’s eyes scanned Max’s body from head to toe. As if he could read Max’s mind, he spat, “He looks soft.”

“I am soft,” Max volunteered, happy to prevent any misunderstandings. “I don’t like fighting. Actually, I’ve never really fought before.”

“We don’t need a Fighter,” Scarlet pressed, “we need a Thief.”

In that case, this was exactly what he’d been fantasizing about — acting out his D&D campaign! He’d never done a pacifist run before, but surely it couldn’t be too difficult. He shot the dead gods a quick thank you.

“This isn’t the Alossian Council,” Boss said.

“No, this is the Imperial Council,” Scarlet retorted, “and your Imperial Councilors are considering whacking some sense into you.”

“We have it covered,” Nerran insisted. “He’s older; perhaps he’ll learn faster, but he’s also from another world. It’ll be like teaching a baby, except this baby talks back and thinks with its dick. If he were a Deathseeker or a Blessing Crafter, maybe, but we don’t need another blank slate.”

“He’s a mook,” Mari added helpfully. “From another world.”

“Wait, a Blessing Crafter?” Max asked, his spidey-sense tingling. “What’s that?”

“See?”

“Scholars who theorize about optimal Blessing combinations,” Scarlet explained.

By the gods! Min-maxing! This has to be my storyline!

“I’m that! Blessing Crafter!”

Min-maxer, Blessing crafter, hell, he’d go by System Shitter if it got him the job. Didn’t every self-help book say the key to a happy life was to work at a job one loved?

“They’re also considered heretics by many churches and outlawed in the more religious countries, including this one.”

What the hell, fantasy world? The one thing he was good at came with a helping of burn-you-at-the-stake stigma.

“Uh, in that case … ”

“You said your world doesn’t have Blessings,” Boss said in an accusatory tone.

“We have different sorts of Blessings. I’m really good at Blessing crafting. We called it theorycrafting, or min-maxing. I was called Max the Min-Maxer!”

“You had a title for Blessing Crafting?”

Mari raised an eyebrow. “He’s embellishing but not lying.”

Max pushed on. He might have failed at grad school, and dungeon mastering, and as a boyfriend, but no one could call him a bad min-maxer. He straightened his back, hoping his posture exuded confidence. “If you teach me how your System works, I’m sure I’ll be useful. I’m also good at math! I took calculus, linear algebra, differential equations.”

Scarlet whistled. “We should take him. Not sure what the last two were, but I heard of calculus at Crinevet’s. It’s necessary for high-level research.”

Yes! The power of math! He’d send an apologetic thank you to his freshman math professor.

“We’re not a Mage group.” The big guy seemed to realize that the tide was moving against him.

“We’re posing as one,” Scarlet shot back. “At the very least, he’ll be helpful with the Veck job.”

Take him down! Max cheered on the thin girl in his head. He’d be so helpful that they’d be begging him to stop helping. All he needed was a chance to show his skill.

Boss let out a drawn out sigh. “If he’s trouble, this is on you two, Scarlet, Mari. And he’s staying in Mari’s room. Mari, find another one.”

“What? I don’t want to move!”

“Yours is the only one out of my range.”

He could’ve kissed the brunette smokeshow — in a completely platonic manner. This was perfect! Even the distracting specter of the super-hot Boss was banished before the mighty possibility of min-maxing in real life.

The bane of the min-maxer was the earlygame. The sweet promise of a perfect, god-like lategame build that smashed armies with a glance and broke the system itself had lured countless of his theorycrafting brethren to early TPKs and stalled videogame playthroughs. In this new world, Max’s greatest danger was his lack of knowledge about what dangers existed and what the system’s rules were. If the Red Handers protected him and gave him knowledge of these Blessings, he would be free to min-max straight to divinity.

“He, he, he.” Max swallowed as his salivary glands went into overdrive. When he finished the main quest, he’d have an insane story for his D&D group. Imagining Kristoff’s face made him want to cackle. Would he even be able to play D&D after experiencing it in the flesh?

“You have until we leave Rhinia to prove you’re useful. Otherwise, we’ll leave you behind. Since you’re in, you might as well meet our fifth member.” Boss’s voice gained a dangerous edge. “She’s a child. If you lay a hand on her, I’ll tear your limbs off.” There was no humor in her voice.

“No way,” Max replied with haste, wiping the lascivious leer off his face. He began to reevaluate his assessment that Boss was just the face and brains of the Red Handers. “I’m not a pedophile; I only like big girls. I mean, women. I like women.”

Shit. Max turned to Mari for help, who laughed. Damn it, don’t laugh! Back me up here!

“Amelia!” Boss raised her voice. “You can come out.”