“What are you doing?!” She shouted up at Zell. “Let me up! Hurry!”

“No, I’d rather not,” Zell shouted. “I guess you’ll have to kill it yourself! This would be a good chance to show off your ability.”

“Golden Glow! It’s Golden Glow! Now let me up!” Huay screamed at the man. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Zell stood there for a moment, visibly disappointed. He looked like he wanted to say something but, after shaking his head, a second pillar of sand exploded out from beneath Huay and her camel. Ram, freaked out by the sudden motion, almost bolted off the edge, but the platform shifted to keep her from falling.

“Golden Glow, huh? That’s a rare one.” Zell shrugged. “I heard some pretty crazy things about it.” He sighed. “Guess I’ll deal with this thing then…” Zell jumped off his pillar and fell a few stories through the air. The sand under his feet rippled like a lake when he hit the bottom, with Zell dipping down below the ground before bouncing up to the surface, sticking the landing uninjured.

The Shaam ray was getting closer, Huay could tell that much. Zell stepped out to distance himself from the relatively fragile pillars. A low rumbling shook the ground all the way up to where Huay was sitting. She gripped the reins tighter than usual, and though she was far enough to stay out of the fight, she didn’t want to make any sudden movements.

The rumbling crescendoed into a roar. On the desert’s surface a figure bulged through the sand, charging forward without hesitation toward Zell—who stood frowning with an uninterested glare.

Zell bent down and dipped his hand into the ground. When he stood up and lifted it out a few moments later, a long blade of sand had wrapped itself around his arm, his hand in place of the hilt. By the time he had fully raised his sword overhead, the weapon was no less than twenty feet long. It seemed impossible to use for anything practical, but Zell looked confident. Huay found the bizarre strategy oddly comical—though she didn’t feel like laughing.

The ray launched itself out from the sand like a cannonball. Level 7. Its visage was strangely typical of what one might expect from a manta ray with the most noticeable difference, besides the elephantine size and entirely black coloration, being its thin and streamlined body.

The creature was only in the air for a split second before Zell ducked down and slashed through its body with his sword. The ray, now split into halves, flew for a few more seconds before its lifeless corpse landed on the ground, its bright red blood spurting out in frightening quantities.

“+1630 XP.”

“Level increased to 14.”

Huay felt a surge of strength as the last embers of life faded from the creature. The body continued to twitch even after its death. She was starting to feel better about her body than ever before—even with the missing arm factored in—and she just wished that there was a way to continue leveling up without killing.

The two columns Zell had made for Huay and the camels slowly shrunk into the ground until everyone was back at ground level.

“That Title of yours is awfully annoying.” Zell walked past Huay toward the Shaam ray’s corpse. “But this thing was just a baby. A 20-footer hardly gives enough XP to stress about. Let’s set up camp here. We’ll have some fresh meat tonight.”

Death was becoming a common sight around Huay. She didn’t feel much more than relief when Zell effortlessly sliced through the ray. Killing monsters to get stronger had almost started to make sense to her. No. Living here doesn’t mean I need to accept it. This isn’t the way things have to be.

“So, umm, Zell, I know this is out of the blue, but what is life like in Misrafal?” The thought of civilization and its relative peacefulness came to mind.

“Hmm… Well, the main thing that would interest a foreigner is the sandstorms. They’re really something.”

“Uh, how so?”

“Around once a month a windstorm carrying sand thick enough to blind everyone ‘till it’s over blows into Misrafal, stopping everyday life.” Zell pointed his finger at some sand and shaped it into a small model house with odd curvature. “There’s thick barriers around the outskirts to dampen the wind, but it’s not enough to stop it entirely. So we build our houses like this—they don’t block the wind, they let it pass through. They’re not built strong enough to handle the wind in full force,” Zell said. “In some districts, you can hear a loud whistling as the wind comes by. Those buildings are designed to produce certain tones and, depending on the direction of the wind, various melodies are formed.”

Sandstorms strong enough to wreck buildings… “Uh, how do you even survive that?”

“It should go without saying that I’m unaffected,” Zell smirked. “But normal people usually hide in bunkers until the storm blows over. You really only see military people out and about during sandstorms—well, them and thieves.” The model house suddenly started expanding outward, retaining the exact design as the original model. A stable for the camels popped up a few seconds later and, with that, setup was complete. “And… One more thing. There’s a few dungeons near the city with factories built around them. The CFMPP is one of them—that’s where Misrafal gets most of its food. They get adventurers to run them over and over, then process the loot.”

“So they’ve just got an infinite supply?”

“Pretty much. That’s the main reason for Misrafal’s expansion as of late.”

The next thirty minutes were spent trying not to watch as Zell skinned the Shaam ray and cut up its meat. The camels stood near him and munched away at the carcass while he worked. Huay found it amazing that he was so desensitized to the gore—though she too was becoming woefully indifferent to the sight.

Thirty minutes later the fish had been cut neatly like sushi and was resting on a plate in front of Huay. “Are you sure it’s okay to eat this without cooking it?” She eyed the dish suspiciously.

“Some people consider rays a delicacy. Give it a try.” The entree was level 7. Zell hadn’t done anything to prepare it but, upon seeing him shovel it into his mouth, she decided that it was probably fine. Huay picked up her fork and gave it a try.

It tasted like fish. That was it. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. She finished her plate after a few minutes and set it aside so that Zell could make it disappear into the table. He gave it a tap and, sure enough, it was gone. Huay got up and excused herself before heading to bed.

As she walked up the stairs—which was something today’s house had—she thought about what might happen in the coming days. Zell had told her about some of the wildlife native to Shaam, and each additional creature she learned about was crazier than the last: entire fields of jellyfish that exploded like landmines with even the slightest touch, giant crabs that stood at more than a hundred feet tall, and sentient patches of sand. The most notable creature of all, though, was the Raxzal whale: a beast large enough to swallow an entire pack of fully-grown Shaam rays in a single gulp. The more sociable ones were known to sometimes converse with humans they came across.

Huay set up her bedroll on a fake bed made of sandstone in the middle of a room separate from Zell’s and called it a night. The hard pillow got in the way when she was trying to sleep, but she was too tired to complain.

She awoke to sharp pain in her right shoulder. A nightmare about the dungeon had her breathing heavy and her stomach uneasy. Visions of wandering an endless maze of old rickety bridges branching from and connecting with each other like underground roots haunted her. It felt as though she had been trapped, searching aimlessly, for years—though she knew it had only been a few hours since she’d gone to bed. The sun still had yet to rise and it would be a while before it did.

Huay sat up and felt at the ugly scab where her arm should have been. It was really gone, and the everlasting scar was all that remained. The pain wasn’t so much what bothered her as what the wound represented: two people dead at her hands and a third left scarred by her lies. She sighed. Being alone with her thoughts was something she decided was best to avoid. A distraction was necessary.

She lifted her left hand up before her. It felt lighter than she was used to because of the level ups. It was newfound strength, but it was tainted with guilt. Okay, this isn’t a very effective distraction. She lit up the room with Golden Glow, whose light was brighter than before, the level ups having increased its luminance. Huay sighed. Her power was yet another reminder of the dungeon.

Jumping up from the bed, she decided to head downstairs. There wasn’t much to do in the desert, but anything was better than just sitting with her thoughts until sunrise. She went downstairs and entered the kitchen.

She noticed as she made it to the bottom of the stairwell that there was a rustling coming from just outside the building. That there might be a monster was her first thought after having already come across so many, and she was cautious approaching the window.

Upon peeking through the hole in the wall, however, she saw Zell standing alone, his back drenched in sweat. He would tense his whole body before molding the pile of sand in front of him into various houses, castles, farms, and other structures, with immaculate attention to detail. Then, he would make them disappear into the sand before starting again. The camels watched from the stable while he trained.

I don’t want him to notice me. Huay slowly crept back toward the stairs, trying to move as quietly as possible. She barely made it halfway before Zell called out to her.

“Good morning. We can get going pretty soon if you’re ready.”

She winced. “I didn’t realize you were out here.”

“I try to practice a few hours every morning.” Zell snapped his fingers and let the structure behind him collapse with an enormous thud before walking over to the house. “You should be doing the same. Maybe it’d have helped you in the dungeon.”

“Maybe…”

“Seriously. Why did you even go in there in the first place?” Zell phased himself through the wall and stepped inside.

“I didn’t have a choice… I was stranded there.”

“Oh, I remember Valnier mentioned something like that. But you could’ve at least tried selling what you had to the merchant. Your clothes look high quality—minus the bloodstains.”

“Right.” Huay wanted the conversation to end then and there.

“Honestly, that’s the problem with people like you. There’s no need to run a dungeon above your level, you’re lucky even to be alive.”

“I didn’t want to go in there…”

“Then why were you stranded there? There’s nothing else in the area, and it’s not even near a trade route.”

Huay looked down at her feet and said nothing. There was no reason to tell him the truth.

“Listen. If it’s money or fame that you’re after, you should stop. There’s no reason to get ambitious. At your level, you shouldn’t even try adventuring—get to 20, or 25, and maybe then you can run Sand-Swept Tomb.” He sighed. “I remember when I started running that dungeon. I was level 10 back then. Thought I was going to die every time I stepped foot in there. You shouldn’t follow in my footsteps, any of those runs could have been my last.” Would you have even gotten to level 20 without running the dungeon so many times?

Huay nodded slowly, avoiding eye contact with Zell.

“You ought to take a job in the factory. Hardly any risk that way. You can spend the rest of your life without a care in the world—they’ll provide you food and housing. I sort of envy the workers over there. A simple life like that would be nice. But I don’t like being bossed around.”

“I see.”

“That Golden Glow of yours will have scouts flocking to you if you’re not careful though. They’ll probably try to get you on one of those power-leveling programs they have and, if you survive, they’ll try to get you to sign your life away to them or whatever. You ought to stay away from those folks. Joining a dungeoneering firm is how talented people get killed. Stick to the factory.”

“Yeah… Salein told me about that.”

“People like us—people with powerful abilities—usually die young. Society expects us to do their bidding and we’re supposed to be on board for that. They expect us to die so that they can sit around and do nothing! But we’re the ones who should be lazing around! We’re the strong ones!”

“Uh-huh.” Huay made eye contact with him for the first time since the rant began. His expression was intense. “Well, umm, it’s still awfully early. I think I’ll go back to bed now, if that’s okay.”

“We’ll leave at sunrise.” Zell turned around with a scoff and went back outside to continue his training.

Huay went back up to her room and laid herself down flat on the bed. She didn’t feel even the slightest bit sleepy, but lying on the bed was decidedly better than dealing with Zell and his oddly passionate opinions.

A few hours later, the sun began creeping over the horizon. Huay was groggier than she had been when she returned to bed, but it was time to get up and so, with a groan, she got her things together and went to her camel.