At the quarry’s base, the morning sun was cooking Ivan alive in these leather garments straight from Hell. His brain was swimming in its own cerebral fluids, boiling. He hadn’t worn gear with such terrible fire resistance since he had been a mid-level newbie. That had been many, many months ago while he had still been living with Uncle.

Back then, he been wealthier… or less-poor for that matter.

Today, this character was a slum-dog rat. He had sold his last gold pieces for pill money, emptied his inventory of everything worth more than a few silver. All for what? Zip. Zilch. No job. No house. And only ten thousand credits in savings. Why bother with those pills anymore? For they were the bane of his life, the cause of countless problems.

Yes, he was done with that overpriced crap.

From this day forward, Ivan was a free man as nature had intended. No more doctor visits, and no more pills. No sketchy drug was his master. His only drug was life itself, and boy was he living the virtual reality life away from all the nonsense of the real world.

“Yarrrrhhhh!” he bellowed with his arms spread eagle. “No more fucking pills!” His voice bounced off the quarry walls back at him.

“Hmm?” Sazar hummed. “What are you screaming about?”

Oh, right, she was still around, busy helping him mine that one hundred granite. Behind him, she was swinging at a Granite Node with a pickaxe of glassy blue mana. Each strike made no noise.

He grumbled, “Just something annoying about my world. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worrying. Just curious. And it doesn’t sound like I’m the one who is worrying, Ivan Insane.” Her chuckles were cute. Then she ducked and rolled as a Granite Elemental spawned next to her in a vortex of dust and earthy mana.

Ivan was already on it, a dagger drawn. “Feral Chains,” he hissed and visualized his intention.

The very space in front of him rippled and tore apart. From a bubbling dark void, sentient chains whipped around the elemental’s body, restraining three boulders that looked nothing like arms and only vaguely like a chest. It heaved with a seismic groan, crumbled, and broke apart with ear-splitting cracks.

Ivan finished it with a Corrupting Needle through its core before it could set off a suicide explosion, which they were known to sometimes do. Not all of them. Just ones that were spawn-camped. Simple stuff. Any newbie could handle elementals.

He sheathed his dagger and wiped sweat off his brow. “As I was saying. Don’t worry. I can handle my own business, and if that mystery warrior shows his hood, he is finished. No one catches me off more than once, Kapish?”

“We’ll see about that,” she said in monotone, then swung at the node. A chunk of glowing rock fell off, whiter than typical granite. “And what does Kapish mean? Is it Russian?”

“Italian for understand.” He picked up the chunk, which weighed as much as a grain of rice, and gave it an Examine.

High-Quality Imbued White Marble

Buffs: Shrunken, Featherlight

This, right here, was worth one to two credits even without the Imbued tag, meaning its elemental magic resistances were capped for the type of material. With the tag, he estimated he could fetch up to four credits on a market upswing, a little over three if he were impatient and stupid, and he wasn’t stupid. Sure, three credits was only a coffee, but fifty cups of coffee were the equivalent of a week’s rent at a warmer part of Siberia.

Nice.

He dropped it into a crate inside his pouch—an inventory within his inventory. Much like Russian dolls except it could only be two layers deep maximum.

Sazar asked as he kept mining at the node, “You’re going to sell that on the adventurer-only credit market, aren’t you?” Her tone was slanted.

“Of course,” he said as a chunk fell.

Low-Quality White Marble

Buffs: Shrunken

Worth around 0.02 credits on a good day. Ivan chucked it over his shoulder. It bounced twice before enlarging.

Her head flinched. “Did you just throw it away?”

“I did.”

She softly sighed. “Why can’t you mine your own?”

“My professions are Tailor, Farmer, and Jeweler.”

Her tongue clicked in a way similar to Gabby’s mannerisms. “That’s an odd combination. Little synergy.”

“I used to grow silvershrooms and make rings and necklaces out of them. I made a killing, but now the seed prices now are through the roof. As for Tailor, Gabby and I both needed one, but it turns out it’s shit for profiting.”

“Sounds like you didn’t think things through before choosing.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault Synaptic changed the drop rate on silvershroom seeds.”

“Of course it isn’t,” she quipped as another abysmal-quality chuck fell to the ground. The white marble node depleted of its magic, and she moved onto the next one. Granite. A chunk fell off on the second hit.

Legendary-Quality Imbued Granite (1)

Buffs: Shrunken, Featherlight, Protection

Whistling, Ivan picked it up and checked its price through the web browser. The search was slow to execute. At the top, most sell-offers were sitting at five credits… for one. Further down, full crates of fifty were going at two hundred credits for over three pages. Trading volumes were hiking upward for all building materials—possibly good news.

He smiled warmly at her. “Nice work. Maybe you’re not so useless.”

“Hmph. I kind of wanted to keep it.”

“Why? So you can build an expensive house?”

“Yes.”

“You really, really want a house? A castle? How many of these chunks will you need?”

“Hmmm. A few thousand will do.”

Just as he had estimated. He grunted. “Want to know how many of these I’d need to sell to buy a mediocre house in my world?”

A chunk fell off, and the cavity in the node regrew in a flurry of earth-gray tones. A regenerating node. She asked, “How many?”

“Over twenty thousand for a small two-bedroom house at a run-down rural town close to the Arctic.”

She keeled over, her pickaxe dropping to the ground and shattering into sparks. “You’re joking. I could build an underground fortress with that many.”

His eyebrows shrugged. “Believe it, girl.” He picked up a darker chunk, examining.

Abysmal-Quality Granite (1)

Buffs: Shrunken

“Fucking bitch,” he swore in Russian, then re-examined, making sure his mind wasn’t playing tricks again, but he was seeing it fine. Shit. Absolutely worthless; the market was filled with these, but no one was buying. It wouldn’t go for 0.001 credits. Maybe half of a thousandth if he were lucky. Not wanting to make a mess, he dropped it into a crate to be emptied later.

Meanwhile, Sazar was still looking at him wide-eyed behind the mask. Not just staring—flashing him. The right strap of her dress had fallen down. Her breast was nice and perky… but extremely pale to the point that it was quite off-putting. Not the best or biggest he had seen, but she was very, very fuckable. He would take her right here if he were in the mood, but he wasn’t. Why? Sexual dysfunction was another side-effect of those blasted pills.

She noticed he was staring at her chest, and didn’t react at all, simply pulling the strap back up. She asked, “So almost everything in this world is worthless to your kind?”

“Ten gold pieces is worth one credit on a good day.” He threw the chunk onto a pile of similarly useless crud she had shat out.

“Why?”

“You want to know the truth?”

“Yes. I can handle it.”

He inwardly shrugged, uncaring if she would go crazy or something worse. There was a section on the official guides advising players to not talk about this near NPCs. “This world is just a game to us. You may think it has existed for however long, but it has only existed for a year at most. Time works differently in my world. So does the laws of nature. We made this one for our entertainment, because our world can be very boring and… difficult. It is an escape, a fantasy world of magic and war. Do you understand?”

Slowly, her face returned to a blank expression. “I see.” Her wrist twirled, and a new mana pickaxe formed in her grip. She resumed mining.

Laughter came from his stomach. “I thought you were about to attack me. That is one of the usual reactions.”

“No, Ayla told me something similar, but I still hardly believe it. I don’t believe that your kind would create a world full of misery and—”

“Save me the rant. I’ve heard it a million times.”

“Fine.” She visibly breathed, her shoulders rising and falling in between swings. “But how does time work differently?”

“Five hours here is one there. It used to be ten to one.”

“When did it change?”

“There were many complaints about adventurers unable to schedule around the old system. Don’t worry.”

She nodded. “How many complaints does it take to change things?”

“Ah… It depends. If it’s a big complaint, then it’d need a lot of people agreeing. Small complaint? Sometimes they change and fix things almost no one notices, and—”

“Help! Help! Help!” someone in the far distance screamed.

Dropping to a fighting stance, Ivan cast his eyes along the cleanly-cut edges as though he could see beyond. He swore the mine wasn’t so deep.

“What is it? Sazar asked.

He twisted around. “You didn’t hear? Someone screamed for help.” He stabbed her with his meanest scowl, but jitters shook his body. A muscle at the back of his head was cramping, painfully, like electricity short-circuiting in the bone. “Well?!”

“I didn’t hear.” Monotone.

“Are you playing games with me?”

“No. I didn’t hear. I’m not lying.” She maintained eye contact for exactly five and a half seconds, then resumed mining. Another chunk soon fell to the ground.

Hairs on the back of his neck had stiffened. Hot and cold goosebumps were rolled down his body as he realized it was just the fiends again, doing as they do. “I must be imagining things. The heat is getting to me.” He wiped his forehead, then picked up the chunk, examined it through suddenly dry, sore eyes.

Normal-Quality Granite (1)

Buffs: Shrunken, Featherlight

Worth around 0.03 credits… And not even good enough for Derek’s quest.

She asked, “You didn’t bring a water flask in your adventurer pouch, did you?”

“I had a really good one, but I sold it for credits.”

“That’s a shame,” she mumbled as brown winds swirled behind her.

Before the elemental’s body formed, Ivan was on it. A raven burst forth from his chest. Chains reeking of darkness shattered through the boundary between dimensions, and smothered earthen mana. No one, not even a stupid pile of animated boulders, was going to squish his new credit-mining girl on his watch.

Seconds turned into minutes under the summer sun, and before Ivan knew it, he had been guarding her for over an hour. The elemental onslaught was rapidly intensifying with every chunk they mined. He was wiping sweat off his forehead after each kill, and when the system clock blinked at 12:31, the first Lesser Fire Elementals crashed their party in tufts of fiery mana—a group of three that he easily eviscerated with his dark power. They died with their usual windy cries.

Some pain was radiating from the back of his right hand, his dagger clunking to the ground. Skin had been burned off. A layer of fat and muscle had rendered into a black mush clinging to his bones. The visuals were disgusting, just the way Ivan liked his games.

He sheathed his left-hand dagger, reached into his pouch, and a thumb-sized vial was withdrawn from his player inventory. Uncorking with his teeth, he drank the pineapple syrup. Magic of the calming variety pooled into his stomach, then rushed up his shoulder and down his arm. Flesh regrew with a maddening crawl of surrounding skin.

Mana surged from underground, then a monster of an elemental spawned upon him in a vortex of dust and rocky bits.

[T1 World Boss] Granite Elemental Elite: Level 221

Health: 623,100

Mana: 52,600

Stamina: 200,310

Buffs: Hardened Skin

Ivan scrambled for his daggers, but stone bands seized his arms and legs in a crushing hold. His right humerus creaked, then snapped with a shit load of pain. A barrier of Earth mana prevented his blink, his own mana recoiling and lashing up his chest, dealing little damage.

A giant fist of stone swung left.

“Fuck!” he yelled.

Sazar blinked in front of him with a swirl of smoke—Puff. One, she was butt-naked. Two, in her right hand was the same narrow longsword from last night. She muttered words in the dark language with a flourish of her sword. Runes glowed down the spine. A familiar cold, malevolent mana flooded the mine.

The Elite’s fist crashed into a wall of bone—flaky bone that held together long enough for Sazar to summon a hundred pieces of varying sizes and shapes. Mist laced with darkness pooled into the mine. She said a final word that echoed in Ivan’s skull, for he remembered it far too well. This was Rowan Black’s exact same necromantic power.

Piece by piece, a snake-like dragon with heart-shape wings was granted false life. Lightning fast, it coiled around the Elite, then squeezed with deathly strength. Spiky bone dug deep. Tainted ice ate away at granite. The bone dragon’s jaw unhinged, and fangs sank into the Elite’s mana core, air shuddering.

Before the Elite exploded, Sazar grabbed Ivan’s wrist. The mine tumbled and smoked in a sickening spin of the world. But Ivan was long used to it from when Gabby had enjoyed teasing him with this prank. Swallowing bile, he landed on his bum. And as the ground shook in the fallout, he stood straight, coughed twice, yanked his hand from her grasp, and glanced over the ledge. Bits and pieces of frozen bone and rock littered the mine’s bottom. He glared at her arrogant smile, re-examining.

Sazar Everlight (Death Knight): Level 266

Health: 745,000

Stamina: 430,000

Mana: 305,000

Buffs: Demigod’s Blessing

Although Ivan was itching to slap her for last night’s stunt, he wasn’t stupid. These leather garments weren’t even half-decent in terms of stats, and she was a bloody demigod Death Knight. But not a World Boss, peculiarly. Her real last name rang bells. He growled, “So you’re Zaine’s sister? I thought you looked similar to someone.”

“I am. If he finds my body in a creek, you’ll know he’ll—”

“I won’t kill you, but what the fuck happened last night?”

“Oh, that.” She touched her hip, her weight shifting to face him head-on, her feet a bit further apart. Her pussy was nice and pink and tight-looking, shaved. Very pale, but still smoking hot. “What about it?”

If this was her apology, he gladly accepted. “Why’d you attack me? Start explaining.”

“Oh, no reason.” She pushed her sword into an invisible sheath at her hip. The katana-style hilt faded. “I was star-gazing, and then you came along screaming at the moon like a mad man. You ruined the quiet mood, and I was already annoyed. That’s all.”

“You being real? That was all?!” His voice reverberated off the mine’s vertical walls.

“That was all, Ivan Insane. Sorry?”

He pinched his nose bridge. Another bad episode was encroaching. He breathed through it.

She asked, “Why were you screaming at the moon? It looked like you were possessed. Do you have a hidden malady of sorts?”

He shrugged, mumbling, “Of sorts.”

“From your world or just in this one?”

“Why do you care?” His chin lifted at her. Again he glanced at her nakedness, feeling a faint echo of lust and no more than that—his damned pills again. He would take her right here if he were able. He wasn’t able. “And you can put your dress and mask back on. Why’d you take it off?”

“I didn’t want them damaged. They were gifts from my mother.”

“Pfffft, I thought you were offering yourself as an apology.”

She blinked in such an innocent way. “Hmm? You want some?” Her fingers groped toward her pussy lips.

“Nah.”

“I’m kind of in the mood.” Her body really was, her pussy glistening wet, asking for it. Her hips rolled seductively. Her other hand massaged her breast.

A stronger lusty echo lapped at his insides, but it was still only that, an echo. Even dark mana—known to turn girls into horny depraved sluts—flowing in his blood didn’t help. “Don’t bother. Get back to mining.” His chin jerked toward a couple of nodes. “Cut it out. Back to mining.”

Her hands dropped to her sides. She was confused for only a tick. “It’s your malady, isn’t it?”

“You’re smart, but it’s none of your concern. Just get back to mining.”

“Want me to write to my mother for you? I may be a Dark Human, but I’m still good at heart.”

In the background, the fiends started up again: “Help! Help! Help!”

He was chuckling. “What can she do? Is she the god of healing? Don’t bother answering, cause even if she were, she wouldn’t be able to help. It’s a problem with my head in my world. It’s called schizophrenia, and my pills makes me unable to fuck.” But in due time, once the effect of those pills wore off, he could fuck all day every day for the rest of his days.

She slowly understood, frowned. “What kind of healing is that? This sounds like the opposite of healing.”

“You’re right about that much. It’s not healing. It’s something else. Something useless.”

“Then I’ll write to my mother for you.”

“Get back to mining, Okay?” His neck rolled in impatience. He would whip her. She would probably enjoy it too. She was practically made of dark mana.

After a contemplative moment, she nodded. “Okay, but I’m staying naked. It’s getting too hot.” Giggling, she wordlessly summoned her mana pickaxe. With a single hit, a gleaming gray chunk fell from the node.

[T1 World Boss] High-Quality Granite

Buffs: Shrunken, Featherlight

A tenth of credit right there.

His eyes flicked back to the square brackets. “What?” he blurted. Daggers at the ready, he examined the chunk twice over. The World Boss tag definitely was there. “Do you see that?”

“Hmm?” Sazar hummed in a trilling, throaty quiver of her voice. Her backside was green. Her skin was all green, and the trees above were turning white. The sky was yellow. The world around him was suddenly warping, as though made of melting jelly. He checked his debuffs, but he was clean.

Meanwhile, Sazar was giggling again. The pitch of her voice was rising and falling.

Big, bold letters in a computer font appeared.

DESYNC DETECTED. ISOLATING PLAYER ID 1729301387…

Everything faded to white, including the game interface. Only the error message stayed. Ivan hanged on out of curiosity and greed, because Synaptic Entertainment might pay a hefty sum for catching a bug. Seconds turned into minutes, and when he had enough, he looked for a logout button that was also missing.

Shit.