Kira stared out into the empty void. She’d actually died. Of all the moments to die, why now? They’d been so close. She could hear the others still fighting in the party chat, but it didn’t really affect her at the moment. She wondered if they’d be able to kill the boss without her.

She gave a soft sigh and sat down, bringing up her menu and going through the options. She hated points like this. It was so much easier when she could just respawn, but now she had to wait until the fight was over. On the up side, they were almost at the level cap now, so Ervent had finally learned the revive spell. But now she couldn’t help but wonder if she really did run off on her own too often.

“We’re almost done, Kira. We’ll bring you back in a second. Just hold tight,” Orion said.

“I’m fine, good luck,” Kira said, trying to not sound as bored as she felt.

“Back off, I’m fine,” Ervent said, nearly yelling this time.

“Sorry, there’s a lot of undead,” Quill said. “Without your shield, maybe you should--”

“I’m fine,” Ervent said.

Kira frowned and brought up her friend menu. She quickly typed out a message and sent it to Ervent. ‘Hey. After this dungeon, wanna go on a quest, just the two of us?’

She received an acceptance almost instantly. Then about five more of them.

“Yes please, a thousand times yes,” Ervent said fervently.

“Huh?” Blueberry asked. “What?”

“Nothing,” Ervent said quickly.

Kira struggled to avoid laughing, covering her mouth.

“Okay, it’s going down! Almost there, Kira,” Orion said.

She nodded and crossed her arms, waiting. After a few moments the message came up, asking her if she wanted to revive. She hit the acceptance so hard she might have almost broken it if it was physical. “Ahhh man, I forgot about the penalties,” she said once she appeared back in the real world.

A warning had come up, letting her know that she had lost a bit of experience and she would suffer a death penalty to her stats. She shook her head and looked around. The field was now clear, but overhead dark clouds were spinning, bolts of lightning flickering off them in random directions. “We don’t really have time for this to come off, do we?”

“No,” Orion said. “Get ready, we have a minute or two for it to spawn, but we’re going to be in for a rough one.”

Kira nodded before glancing to Ervent. “You going to be okay without your shield?”

“Yeah,” Ervent said before tapping on the air and after a few moments a new one appeared in her hands. “It’s not quite as good as my other, no enchantments or anything. But it’s better than nothing.”

“After this is over, if you want I can help you get your other one fixed,” Quill said. “I have--”

“It’s fine,” Ervent said, gritting her teeth. “I know how to get it fixed and it’s not that expensive.”

Quill gave a sigh, lifting his hands up defensively. “Okay, okay. Sorry, just trying to be helpful,” he said before turning to look at Kira. “Hey, Kira? Why don’t you use any other magic?”

“Other magic?” Kira asked. “Like what? Shadow eruption was my best AOE other than my weapon skills.”

“Well, obviously. But why not learn the spells from other classes? Demons are the best magic users in the game. If you picked up a few angel spells you could have killed a ton of the zombies without getting so hurt.”

Kira opened her mouth to object but then stopped. She stared at him for a few moments before sighing. “Wait, what do you mean best magic users? How could I learn angel spells?”

“You have the most MP, the highest magic casting stat. And you mean you’ve never learned any of the other class spells? None of them?”

Kira gave a small shrug. “I like using polearms. I don’t care if they’re better casters or not. They--”

“Not better, best,” Quill said in a condescending tone. “Demons have the highest magic attack, angels have magic defense, dragons have physical attack, leviathans have physical defense, holy beasts have health and fay have critical damage. How do you not know this?”

Kira felt her annoyance only grow. “I didn’t care.”

Quill gave a derisive snort. “How can you not--”

“Quill,” Orion said, his voice turning stern. “Knock it off. It’s a game, she can play however she likes.”

Quill rolled his eyes before pointing back to Ervent. “She’s got the right idea. If you’re not going to learn the game properly then just play a support class. It doesn’t matter if you’re good or not so long as we help you out.”

Ervent let out a gasp and looked as if she’d just been slapped. Kira couldn’t believe it. She got to her feet but, before she could do anything, Blueberry of all people hit him in the back of the head.

Quill stumbled forward, holding the back of his head and glaring at him. “What the hell? I was just--”

“Knock that off. Both of them are valuable members of the guild AND our team,” Blueberry said. To Kira’s surprise, he looked ready to tear into him.

“Hey, I wasn’t saying that about you,” Quill said. “You’re cool. I just think that most girls--”

“ENOUGH!” Orion yelled, silencing all of them. “It’s coming!”

Kira glanced up and held her ji ready, eyes narrowing on the swirling mass of clouds. A bolt of lightning struck down between them, sending dirt and rocks into the air. They scattered, though the clouds struck down a moment later, spreading out and washing over them.

For a few moments she couldn’t see anything, the cloud covering everything in sight. Then it retracted, forming a strange, cloudy monster. Towering over them, the creature seemed to be made entirely of cloud. The name ‘Syn the Decayed’ formed over it a moment later.

“Okay, everyone, get ready!” Oliver yelled. She saw him charge in from the right, bringing his mace down against the side of the mist. “Freezing crusher!” His mace hit the whirling winds and encased it entirely in ice. It only lasted a second before shattering.

“Why’d you use that spell?” Quill asked. “It’s all but immune to status effects like that! Fire blast!” She saw fire crashing into the winds a moment later.

While the ice didn’t last long at all, she had a pretty good idea on why he used that attack. The moment where the creature had been frozen had allowed her to see the entirety of it. While it looked like a whirling vortex of cloud it DID have a hidden humanoid shape. More importantly, now that she had seen it she knew where to strike. “Corrupting strike!” Kira cast. Though her stats were lowered from the earlier death, the revive had restored some of her MP, as well as the short break they’d had before the fight. The dark washed over the blade of her weapon and she dug it in deep to the winds, rewarding her with a heavy thunk.

On her left she saw Ervent, her left hand out and casting her own spells. “Ray burst!” she cast, unleashing torrents of rays on the creature.

Kira slashed again before glancing towards the party’s information. They weren’t fairing much better than her in the MP department, but their HP was at least pretty high. They might be able to do this. She hoped.

The winds suddenly picked up and a limb of cloud shot out towards her. Kira stepped back, swinging her ji down and attempting to knock the strike away, but all she managed to do was push herself back. Lightning surged out from the clouds, traveling up the pole and directly into her body. She stumbled back, her entire body going numb from the strike.

“Restoration,” Ervent cast. A moment later a light washed over her and the numbness faded.

“Thanks,” Kira called to her before running forward back at the clouds. She swung the ji down but, this time, she only hit clouds. There was no satisfying thunk. She started to push forward towards the clouds, if she could get under them then she was sure she--

Kira leaped back and shook her head. No. Before they even came to do this dungeon Orion had warned them about that. Going into the clouds was deadly as they’d electrocute her. She stabbed twice more and on the second hit she felt resistance. “Found you,” she said. She stabbed twice more before jumping back and away, narrowly avoiding another swing of the clouds. However, she didn’t just get swung at once this time. A second limb of cloud burst out from it and the vortex started to move after her. “Oh no,” she said and tried to get back.

“Look out!” Ervent yelled.

“I’m working on it!” Kira yelled back, backstepping as quickly as she could. Unfortunately her footing wasn’t nearly as secure as she would have hoped and, with a startled shriek, she tripped. The arms came crashing down on her, hitting against her polearm again and again. Electricity flowed into her hands with each strike, but her ji stood strong.

Then the arms retracted. She was doing a lot better than she thought. Then suddenly a strange, silver sword struck out from the clouds, wielded by one of its arms. When it struck her polearm it cleaved through the shaft with ease and embedded deep into her chest. “Aghhh!” she screamed, her ji turning to red sparkles in her hands. She tried to pull away but it refused to let her, hacking at her now that she had nothing to defend herself with.

Kira was going to die again. Her eyes narrowed. Well, there was never a better time to try a new spell than right before dying, right? At least, she hoped so. “Shadow form!” she cast. Rather than having the shadows wrap around her body like they did when she shadow melded, instead the shadows seemed to flow out from her. The sword cleaved right through her this time, hitting the ground beneath her. The clouds swung twice more, but it just went through her. She lifted up a hand and tried to open her menu, but it refused.

Kira sighed and slowly got to her feet, backing away from the cloud while she waited out the effect. Well, she didn’t die at least. Though now her MP was zero again. The effect disappeared after a few few more moments and she quickly opened her inventory, looking over her weapons. She mentally kicked herself for not having any more end game weapons. Then again, she’d never had a weapon break in battle before. She drew the halberd she’d used before her ji and ran back into the fight. “I’m out of MP, sorry!”

“It’s fine, we’ve got this,” Orion said. “Everyone, just be careful.”

Kira couldn’t help feeling more frustrated the longer they fought, though. Without any of her spells and with her main weapon broken, she felt all but useless. To her surprise, her weapon wasn’t the only one to fall to the blade of the cloud. Orion’s mace was destroyed as well and if he hadn’t managed to pull his shield back in time, she suspected it would have been too. The sword was destructive, even cutting through Blueberry’s armor and causing it to disappear. Finally with a powerful fireball from Blueberry, the clouds dispersed, flying up to the sky and then fading away with another thunderous boom of lightning.

“That was miserable,” Kira said before shaking her head. “What kind of boss BREAKS weapons and armor?”

“Some of the end game angel ones can,” Orion said sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know Syn could.”

“It just breaks them? Like that?” Kira asked. “How is anyone supposed to beat that? It can just cleave through all your gear.”

“Carefully, that’s why it’s called end game,” Quill said, his voice filled with condescension.

“Quill, don’t start,” Blueberry said.

“Oh, come on. She doesn’t even know how any of this works. She’s playing a DEMON who fights in melee. Who does that?” Quill asked, gesturing to her.

“Most of them,” Kira said with a shrug. “I see it all the time.”

“Yeah, if you’re not smart. What stats does that even use? The weapons that give the best magic stats are--”

Then he was gone, disappearing with a light pop. Kira blinked a few times before looking around. “What happened? Not that I mind.”

“Sorry,” Orion said with a sigh, putting a hand to his forehead. “I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t expect him to be this bad. He’s usually not.”

“This is why I said bringing him with us on this was a bad idea,” Blueberry said.

“I know, I know. I should have listened. Kira, Ervent, I’m really sorry. He’s not the best at talking with people. I thought he’d gotten better, but it seems not,” Orion said. “I won’t bring him with you guys again, I promise.”

Kira nodded, though she couldn’t help feeling a bit annoyed. “If you knew he was a problem why did you invite him? How do you even know someone like that?”

“He’s my cousin,” Blueberry said with an exhausted sigh. “Yeah, he’s a jerk. He can usually hold it in, but, well...” He glanced to Ervent and shook his head. “I’m really sorry, Ervent. It seems you’re his type. If I’d known I never would have let him come with us.”

“I’m his type?” Ervent asked, the look of shock quickly turning to one of disgust. “Err, I know he’s a member of the guild, but can I put him on my ignore list? He keeps messaging me.”

Blueberry’s eyes narrowed. “Is he now? Yes. Please do. And don’t worry, he won’t bother you again, I promise.”

Kira gave a small nod, though she couldn’t help feeling a little bit of pity for Blueberry. Having a cousin like that couldn’t be easy, especially if trying to be nice and inviting him into games. “Yeah. There are other people in the guild we can probably do stuff with. Though, he did bring up one point. Well, a few. Should I learn more magic? Is it really that important?”

Orion shook his head. “Not really. You’re only a few levels from capping your demon level anyway. Once you are you might want to try and pick up some of the utility spells. But the key stat of your species isn’t that big a deal. Once your character level hits the stat cap, it’s hardly even noticeable.”

“You sure? He seemed to think it was pretty terrible that I was fighting with my ji,” Kira said before bringing up her status screen. “How do you change races, anyway?” Her polearm and medium armor skills were capped, her demon levels were only a few levels from being capped as well. All of her other class, weapon and armor levels were at zero.

“There’s quests for it. They’re not hard and can be done pretty easily, I’ll send you the information on it later,” Orion said. “It’s not important, though. You only need to play the way you want to play, if you don’t want to play the other races you don’t need to. You definitely don’t need to learn to fight with magic if you enjoy fighting like that.”

Kira nodded, though she couldn’t help feeling a little more annoyed. Maybe it was time that she went and unlocked the other classes. It’d only take a few quests. If it meant she could do better with everyone else, then wasn’t that important? She glanced to Ervent, looking the girl up and down for a moment. “Hey. So Ervent and I are going to head out. We’ll see you guys later, okay?”

Orion cringed, shaking his head. “I really am sorry about what happened, really. I promise it won’t happen again. I didn’t know he--”

“It’s not that,” Kira said before reaching out to take Ervent’s hand. “We just gotta go do some shopping.”

“Shopping?” Ervent asked.

“Yup. After all, we still need to decide what kind of armor we’re getting, right? And I’m not really in the mood to go stab some things. So let’s go figure out what we want. After all, Orion and Blueberry owe us big after all they put us through. So they’re gonna have to help us get them once we decide.”

“Wait, what?” Blueberry asked. “We never agreed to--”

“After THAT run, you owe us big. I’m not taking no for an answer,” Kira said with a smirk, glancing back at him. “Maybe you’ll think about that next time you make us play with your cousin.”

Blueberry yelled back at her. “Hey! You can’t--”

Kira ignored her, leaving the party and teleporting out from the dungeon. She appeared a moment later in the middle of their guildhall, the coliseum. She didn’t see any players but she could see plenty of NPC warriors ‘training’, a feature she’d made sure to setup so it always felt alive. A moment later, Ervent appeared behind her. “That wasn’t very nice,” the angel said.

Kira sighed and glanced back at her. “Neither was any of that. Are you okay?” she asked before sending an invite over. “This is part of the reason I prefer to play alone.”

Ervent nodded, quickly accepting the invite and walking behind her. “Sorry. I uhhh… don’t really run into those issues often.”

“Really? You’ve been playing this game a lot, haven’t you?”

“I usually play alone. People message me a lot, but I usually ignore them. But they’re not guild members and, I mean, it’s kind of like a job, right? You can’t just ignore your coworkers,” Ervent said softly. “And there’s not exactly a manager to go to about it.”

Kira felt a small, uneasy worry forming in her stomach. “I see. That’s not quite the same. If anyone gives you trouble, come to me. Okay? If Blueberry gives you any grief about this, let me know. We can go somewhere else.”

Ervent gave another sigh and shook her head. “No. It’s not that. People in the guild have been really good. It’s just that I’m not really… nothing. It’s not important. We’re going to look at armors, right?”

Kira gave a small nod before glancing back at the girl. “Yeah. I figure we can look at demon and angel armors. After that, we can get started on harvesting them. Oh! Or actually...” She tapped on her menu a few times, a grin forming on her lips. “You know, I never really thought much about it. But this might be a time for Doof!”

“Doof?” Ervent asked.

“Doof!” Kira said proudly. “My dog. He’s a companion. Best boy. I really should try leveling him a bit. Did you ever get an animal companion?”

Ervent blinked a few times before her cheeks turned red. “Err, yeah. But it’s kind of silly.”

“I have a giant blue dog I call Doof. I don’t think it can get much sillier than that,” Kira said.

“It’s a carbuncle,” Ervent said, her cheeks going bright red.

“Okay. What’s wrong with that?” Kira asked.

“Carbuncles are part of the magic beast family. They’re really weak,” Ervent said again.

“Oh. So, why one of those?” Kira asked.

“I got one in the fae lands when I unlocked the class. I wanted to try the fae step. It was kind of cute and I got attached to it. I didn’t find out until later that they’re actually kind of weak, as companions go, but I didn’t want to toss it away,” Ervent said.

“Really? Why?” Kira asked.

“They do low damage, have low stats and all they really do is give you buffs,” Ervent said.

“Sooo… why is that bad? Sounds pretty useful,” Kira said.

“They don’t actually give you much more power than if you didn’t use one at all. Since using a pet reduces all your stats,” Ervent said. “There’s ways to make them useful I hear, but I don’t really know how.”

“Well, who cares? If you like it, then keep it. It’s just a game in the end. The whole point is to have fun, right? And if you like having a carbuncle with you, who’s to say that’s wrong? Besides, it’s not like we use them that often. So wanna go to Feldusk first?” Kira asked before walking up the last steps of the arena and opening up the guild teleport options.

“Huh? Oh, right. Feldusk is fine,” Ervent said.

Kira nodded before tapping the option. A moment later, the world around her disappeared. At least this time she didn’t die.