“I have decided to solicit opinions. I presumed the alleged Gacha Core undertook to transmit us home. Have we returned to Commandment of Hero?”

Boxer Andit looked left. “No Freegate.” Right. “No Perandra Splendida.” Left again. “A dinosaur.” Right. “Demon horde.” Forward. “I say no, no we haven't.”

“I don't know. I hear Part 3 starts pretty wild. Did you hear about the bat girl?” Ulrik finished checking his robes for tears, which took some time for so much robe. “Of course this isn't home! Look at your character information. Tell me it says 'Eclipse' under Mentor Tendradius Pux so I can call you a fibber. I'm not an Inferno here, even though my vitality and optimism remain. You can trust me. I won't say anything that's not true unless it helps me in some way.”

“Agreed. Next query. Have we been teleported to Holy Legend Army?”

“That's thinking. Yeah, that's really thinking! How do we find out, Big Pux? Here, I'll help you up. Just gotta roll these crusaders offa you.” Andit poked the Vampire and Dwarf lying on top of Mentor Tendradius Pux with his right to nudge them onto a bed of lilies, and offered his left to the freed officer, who did not refuse help in such a matter.

“They will inform us whether that theory is right or wrong when they regain consciousness.”

“Why? You didn't know if you were in your home game. And you have goggles!”

“I was in a position inconvenient for surveying. Now I stand, and I will proceed to test my condition in battle against the first Rare I see.” Mentor Tendradius Pux's sword crackled with interstellar menace as the futuristic beam portion activated.

“So you say. But! Is a Rare in Commandment of Hero a Rare everywhere? No! My confidence comes from asking philosophers in other games that during our expeditions. They said yes at first. I argued the issue until they gave me the answer I wanted. Like this.” Ulrik sheathed his scimitar, seized the unconscious Vampire by his lapels, and shook him, throwing in a few punches for variety.

“Uggh . . . oooo . . . Ah! I have awakened! Ouch! Thank you, friend. Yowch! But where are we? Surely not home. Owowow! Nary a dinosaur have I seen during all my time in those sentimental fields. Oof!”

“That's enough, kid. Put him down.” Boxer Andit tapped Ulrik's shoulder, watched him set the crusader down, and took over. “Have one of these!”

“Aaaaah! My torpor has dispelled entirely. Not for centuries have I felt closer to the life lost to me long ago.”

“Excellent. Reinvigorate the other crusader while I extract information from Vampire Lord.” Ulrik held up the dwarf in order to relieve Boxer Andit from having to stoop when he delivered body blows. Meanwhile, Tendradius proceeded with the extraction. “You claim to be fully aware. Look around. Are you confident this is not Holy Legend Army? We must rely on your judgment.”

Vampire Lord pulled up his blue cape, dark as the ocean after sunset, and squinted as he looked around. “Indeed not, friends. The dinosaur is unknown to me, and the demons I might advise to see to their exercises before claiming kinship with those of our land.”

“True! They're softer than you, and you're dead! Urf! Ha ha ha!” Ulrik set down Reginn after he perceived that the Dwarf had recovered enough to laugh at his own jests, which are what people call jokes that cheer them up without being funny. “So we're not in our home, and not yours either, or else you would have said so. That's fine when the world makes it easy for us to find out. Beat it out of the demons if they can talk or take their drops if simple enemies they turn out to be. Either way, it's gain for us! Ha ha ha!”

“Yes,” Mentor Tendradius Pux said. “I concur. Ha.”

The five marched toward the demons in a direction they decided to call north, or Demonic North to be precise. The dinosaur of course stood to Demonic South or Dinosaur North, depending on the system employed. As they walked, they saw toward Demonic East high mountains that pierced the very clouds and a line of trees whose foliage shunned such commonplace colors as green and orange, preferring instead silver and sapphire blue. Fields of lilies, peonies, and that kind of junk welcomed their feet while their elated vision soared upward through the high blue sky where strands of clouds seemed to spiral toward the center of creation straight above.

“Think this is a fantasy game?” Boxer Andit said as he bounced along and treated the empty air to jabs and hooks.

“Unless a spaceship lands right now. No! Even then. Our publisher calls Commandment of Hero 'the ultimate new era fantasy' when it has this guy in it.” Ulrik's scimitar paused with its point approximately in Pux's direction before resuming its rhythmic vertical swings. “I can't be strict about labels with that background.”

“Do they, now? Makes 'the beyond myth fantasy' sound a little dull when set side by side. Their marketing has leveled up, that's the explanation! I won't blame them. Not if they ascend me! Ha ha ha! Ah, a moment.” Reginn held his hand up and called the group to a halt before it reached the demons. Those horrible fiends with their barbed and twisted spears held in ragged claws, their sneering faces full of uneven fangs, their tattered wings and emaciated bodies might have chilled the hearts of ordinary men, but caused that crusader to ask a single question only. “I recall that Vampires can heal. Do I recall the truth?”

“You do, for my kiss of blood may heal my allies as well as myself.”

“A lengthy answer! Now for a lengthy battle, I hope, ha ha!”

“Wait, wait, kissing?”

“Vampires call their bites that, I believe. Correct?”

“Even so, friend Pux.”

“I get it. I was starting to wonder what kind of game Holy Legend Army was, you know?” Andit elbowed Ulrik, who admitted he knew.

“I don't! Not at all! Now then. 3! 2! 1! Raagh!” Reginn jumped in and swung his hammer, which struck a demon with all the force of a skill. A criticism of their comrades the officers had struggled to suppress throughout their joint operations was that crusaders did not announce their skills in a clear and obvious manner. There was Ulrik, a Rare and therefore not burdened by the duties of gentlemen, nevertheless calling out Inferno Strikes and Intimidating Strikes for the edification of his party while Vampire Lord used his supernatural strength to crush demon heads in unbroken silence. Was that the heal? No, there. A small heal, but more than required against those enemies.

“Punching these guys is bad for my training. I'll lose strength if I keep it up. On the Ropes!” Andit's glove ended a demon's infernal career then and there, freeing the vanquished fiend to consider something more in line with its abilities such as nature photography or transistor development. Anything but fighting.

“Weak! Too weak!” Mentor Tendradius Pux separated the north part of a demonic torso from the south part. “Or I'm too strong. Whose damage buff is this? I don't recognize it, but it stacks with my own. Not all do.”

“Ah, making use of my Forge Lore, are you? That will be five hundred gold.” Reginn held out his hand, which soon withdrew. “Ha! But I'm glad to hear it. That's my S2, and if we meet a dragon, you'll see the truth of it all right, and so will the dragon, sure enough. Yes, there's no dragon that can handle you as it stands, or that you'll let go unhandled, from the look in your eye.”

Dozens of demons became dozens of loot piles, and all their numbers gave them was a chance for some of them to suffer officer Novas. The crusaders tried to hide their envy when Ulrik revved up and obliterated a pie-slice of demons with an arc of flame by covering it with conversation.

“Friends, I ask in all curiosity, why is it that Ulrik uses his S3 first among you? Pardon me, his Nova. If it relies on a gauge charged through combat, should the higher rarities not have an advantage?”

“I'm a Reaper! I love to fight! My class bonus increases my Nova gain by 15%! There's fire in my body!”

“All of that is true. Some metaphorically. I am a Strategist, and accordingly have increased debuff chance.” Mentor Tendradius Pux divided a demon into thirds before any part of it hit the ground. “But no debuffs. Andit was once a Champion and had increased critical chance and lowered chance of being critically hit because of it. The developers allowed him a Class Evolution, an elevation given to a select few, much like your Ascensions. He retains the old bonus and, as a Boxer, doubles the duration of buffs applied to his person.”

“It's all about training! Gotta have endurance. Strength ain't nothing without endurance.” A demon felt the effects of a Boxer Andit crit and lost structural integrity like a ship with the main character of an RPG on board. “Though if you got endurance without strength, I dunno what to tell you. Lift a cow every day. Eat eggs.”

“Ah, I had wondered at the significance of classes in your game. We Vampires share appearance, S1s, and S2s, with variations permitted, of course.” Vampire Lord swirled his cape that was the color of night in some movies. The ones with questionable budgets.

The warriors eradicated the demons and raised their arms in triumph. Mid-pose, space sword over his head, Tendradius said, “We never asked them anything.”

“Oh.” Boxer Andit lowered his glove, and then raised it again. “Oh well! Find some more, that's all! Nobody that weak knows nothing anyway.”

The others submitted to his reasoning and ventured on. They splashed across a stream and strolled on the shore of a lake that glimmered with the light of the sun and of some arcane power of its own that tinted the waters pink. Not every game had that sort of thing, on which basis the wanderers eliminated Climax Net, Endless Disco, Convergence/Divergence, P****** o* t** K***, Dust and Highway, and Brave Cumulus from the list of possibilities, not to mention Fields of Steam (not enough steam), Gold and Dynamite (no one panning for gold), and Universe Testament (not in space). The earlier dinosaur sighting indicated Dinosaur Rumble, but the wanderers had started all the rumbles themselves, a circumstance which pointed the other direction. Paradise the Enchant? P******* C****** R*:****? The list, though shortened, still had the sort of length only Santas could navigate unaided.

“Crocodiles!” Boxer Andit shouted, proving his eyes to be as practiced as his fists. He looked at things all day, after all.

“Bad news. Crocodiles are found in Lanmaran back home. That's a boring country with boring people except Sibyl. This game may be just as boring,” Ulrik said as he pulled his hood back from his spiky black hair in preparation for action.

“Wait, friends! For as much as we understand this land, its crocodiles may well be cursed with intelligence.” Vampire Lord drifted forward and raised a hand before lowering it upon reconsidering the intricacies of cross-cultural communication. Even intelligent crocodiles did not and could not raise their hands, he expected. “Hallo! We are travelers whose way has become uncertain. Might you tell us, kind hosts, what game this is?”

In defiance of the laws of hospitality, the crocodiles ignored him and continued sitting on rocks, which gave the officers and crusaders a reason, or rather an obligation, to grab them by their tails and test the practicality of the crocodile-sword in drills against one another. Mentor Tendradius Pux won and the animals lost. They flopped around too much for proper swordsmanship.

“As well, they scrape my hands,” Vampire Lord said. Ulrik agreed, which caused Reginn to wonder why anyone would not wear gloves at all times. None had an answer that satisfied him.