We arrived on the outskirts of the mine far too late in the day for me to feel optimistic. The looming dread of being reset and respawning back in town gave rise to anxiety in my chest. I had to do this the right way, but I also had to do it quickly.

"I thought this area was empty," Agus said, his eyes glazed over and blue as his focus was within his menus. "The map is blank."

I smiled, knowing full well that within the starting areas of every MMO, peoples only desire was to get out and get powerful as quickly as possible. They didn't spend much time investigating the random areas nearby where the rewards were sure to be next to nothing.

This was the perfect location for something such as this.

Blue trailed along, the ball of slime hopping cheerfully in its element. The starting areas were probably where Agus had found him. Maybe even nearby.

"Not much farther," I said, opening my menu and selecting a new option that I had added from the [DEBUG] menu.

On the way to the mine I had been half-paying attention to my surroundings, half-exploring the [DEBUG] menu's depths. Unfortunately I found out that it drained my HP the longer I was in the [DEBUG] menu and the deeper I got. I wasn't sure what was causing it. Perhaps it was mental strain or simply some sort of limitation put on by developers.

But then again, developers would have no way of knowing a human player would be controlling an NPC.

I had been able to find a couple really useful options that were instant selections, though now I was exhausted and would have to try again after getting some rest. Who knew what kind of options were available deeper in the menu system.

Maybe I could find my subroutines...

As the entrance of the mine came into view, I smiled and used my new ability.

[Scan - Level MAX]

The moment I saw the option to have an NPC level scan, I added it to my NPC menu without a second thought. Sure my scan already had given me the ability to see names, levels etc. But this had to be something far greater.

And holy shit it was.

My vision flooded with information, almost to the point of making me feel sick. I had to bite down and focus hard to parse everything swimming past my eyes, focusing all of my attention on the mine and not the bombardment of data flowing past me.

[Selevax Mine]

[Quest Only, not accessible through regular means.]

[Danger level 999]

That caused me to stop in my tracks. Agus turned to see what the hold up was. I slowly lifted a scaly, clawed hand.

"Hold... hold on just a moment."

I caught up to him, thinking hard on the situation. I hadn't encountered any enemies the last time I was here, but was that because I was an NPC? Or was that because I hadn't gone deep enough into the mine to find them.

If it was the latter, we would be fine simply by the fact that an entire world of wealth was waiting for us in a safe location.

If it was the former... well at least Agus was only a video game character and not his real self.

Still, the pain was real, the fear was real, and the memories were real.

"What's going on?" he asked. Blue scuttled up to his leg, looking up at me with big round concerned eyes.

We were so close I could almost taste the Orihalcum.

Wait, why could I taste them?

I realized that I wasn't tasting them, but scanning them still with my max level ability. The data flowed out of the cave, revealing its contents to me.

The word Orihalcum swam by my eyes in the thousands.

I turned my scan off and felt like I could breathe again.

"Sorry about that," I said. Should I tell him? I couldn't think of a reason not to.

"I have discovered something new about our quest... The danger level of this mine is..."

"Way high? Yeah I figured when my scan came back with a bunch of question marks. Now that I look at it, there's a big red X in front of the entrance. I don't think I can enter."

Well that solved a problem. He needed me to even enter. I had been worried, only briefly, that once I showed him the location he would just start coming himself and not bring me along.

Then I'd have to find someone else strong to assassinate him.

And it would start a war.

And I didn't have time for that. Somewhere Draconisia was sitting on my throne and every second longer I thought about it, the more rage built up inside of me.

"I don't think we will encounter any enemies," I said, taking a deep breath and continuing forward, steeling myself. I couldn't back down now. I had too much to accomplish.

"But, keep your guard up. Daylight is running out and I'll respawn in town."

Agus looked at me with raised eyebrows. "You're sure self aware for an NPC."

I looked at my feet uncomfortably.

Not yet. Let's get this over with and maybe I could tell him. But I couldn't distract him.

"Shall we?" I said, ignoring his statement and motioning for the cavern entrance. He nodded and we entered the Selevax Mine, a nervous looking blob hopping along behind us.

I wiped sweat from my brow... is it even called a brow on a Lizard? and how was I sweating?

So much didn't make sense. I just stopped trying to piece it all together.

"I still can't believe this," Agus said, as he tossed another fist sized Orihalcum stone into a leather bag that I had brought along for this purpose. The bag was a magical item that could hold up to a specific weight. Fortunately Orihalcum was fairly light for a gemstone. Also, the bag was free. Shopkeeper NPCs needed large storage space to move around goods so it appeared by default they had large storage bags in their inventory.

"Me either," I said through huffed breaths. I wasn't doing any mining, I was only watching. But I did my best to not waste any time and traversed my [DEBUG] menu. It was an unnatural feeling, hitting exhaustion while sitting there thinking. I hadn't made it very far before needing a break.

I felt as though I had just run laps or something.

Agus started swinging again, the metallic sound of an axe on stone rang throughout the cavern. He had easily reached level 10 in mining by gathering us some iron that I needed for my earlier quest. Fortunately level 10 also was all he needed to mine orihalcum. The failure rate was high, however. For every 3 we attempted, only 1 was successfully mined. I imagined this would get higher with his mining level. But still, 1 in 3 was nothing to scoff at. We still hadn't sensed or heard any enemies, so while initially we had attempted some sort of stealth, that had all been thrown out by now and he hacked away with speed and a degree of recklessness.

“I’m going to buy my mom a house,” he said between swings. “She lives in a run down shack right now, ever since dad left. She deserves something better.”

Agus had been planning all of the things outside the game he was going to do with his money, once he sold or traded it in. I hadn't even thought of it, keeping all of my focus forward. Was I going to even survive this? Nobody would be taking care of my body while trapped in here. Fortunately the TTR would allow me lots more in-game time to accomplish my goals.Besides, I couldn't focus on what I couldn't control. That wasn't the HellBlade way. That was the path to anxiety and indecision, something I couldn't afford.

I opened my mouth to say something to him, but realized I had nothing worth saying. Perhaps I had chosen someone worth helping after all. Someone deserving of it. Sure that hadn't been my intention when recruiting him, but at least I could sleep easy at night knowing I wasn't giving millions to someone named Ur-Mom-69.

“And then I’m going to upgrade my gear. I’m still playing on last gen’s headset, can you believe it?”

Another Orihalcum was tossed in the bag, another mansion.

“Though I expect you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you. Regardless of how lifelike you seem, you’re just an NPC.”

Agus stopped to rest and lifted his cloth tunic to wipe his face.

The words came out before I knew what was happening.

“I’m not an NPC,” I said.

Agus looked up at me between the sweaty strands of red hair, confused.

“What are you talking about?”

I noticed him scanning me. He would see that I wasn’t a player, but was an NPC.

“Nice one. Wonder which developer programmed that in you,” he said, as he turned to pick up his axe.

Well the cat was out of the bag, might as well let it run.

“No, I’m serious,” I continued, taking a step towards him. “I’m a player. Something… happened. I’ve been trapped in this NPC for a few days now. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

Agus looked at me like I had lost my mind, which who knows. Maybe I had. Maybe I was really dead and this was my afterlife, or I was in a coma. Though I couldn't remember any car crashes or accidents.

“What part of the quest is this? Is this where you try to kill me and turn into a boss or something?”

I felt his power rise as he started to trigger some skills.

“No no!” I waved my lizard hands frantically. “I can prove it! Ask me something an NPC wouldn’t be able to answer, or have me do something an NPC wouldn’t normally do.”

A few swear words, dirty jokes, and copyright infringing song choices later, Agus looked at me with wide eyes. Though Blue, who I was sure had no idea what was going on, was now awake, looking at both of us with excitement.

“How is this possible?” he asked, moving in close to touch my lizard arm. I let him.

“No idea. One second I was sitting on my thro…”

I stopped. Most people didn’t like HellBlade. I was the Overlord of the Evil Empire after all… I may have trusted him enough to tell him the truth, but the HellBlade stuff would have to wait. As a player, I was hated by rival clans, websites, forums, you name it. As a person I was thought to be some rich spoiled kid, or a "mom's-basement-dweller". Either way, It wasn't good.

They thought they knew me, but they didn't.

Was that regret that I felt? Or simply frustration that I had almost messed up my plans.

When you’d lived as the “bad guy” for so long, it was hard to tell which parts of humanity were real and which parts were just you rationalizing your actions.

“So you can’t log out, you can’t gain experience, you can’t message any of your old friends… What are you going to do?”

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked at Agus.

“I’m going to take over take over this fucking world,” I thought.

“I’m hoping you could help me,” I said.

Both thoughts were left in the air as a vibrating roar echoed throughout the cavern, knocking me to the ground and Agus to his knees.

The beast roared again, preventing us from getting up. It’s power felt like gravity, like the pressure of giants pushing down upon you.

As HellBlade I had slain hundreds of giants.

“Well, the moment was nice. But looks like we better get out of here,” I said, grabbing my back and hauling it over my shoulder. As Level 1... me, whatever it was, giant or not would destroy me with a glance.

“Agus nodded, and picked blue up. The little blob wouldn’t be able to keep up with us.

I tossed an Orihalcum to him, which he caught in his other hand. He nodded at me in thanks, and we ran, something big tearing its way through the caverns toward us from behind.

[Quest Complete: A Secret Worth Mining For]