I had to stop drawing attention to myself as Matt. People were already asking too many questions.

Which was why, as I pushed myself out of the SUV and squinted through the tinted lenses of a pair of dusty Oakley’s Ire offered me, I committed myself to doing nothing but enjoying a heaping serving of barbecue.

With that in mind, I swapped from to If time-used factored into integration, I wanted to avoid integrating the personality quirks that came with until it was absolutely necessary.

I reminded myself that this wasn’t my region. Wasn’t my problem. I was just here for the food.

“God damn.” Ire slammed his door shut for emphasis. “That smells good.”

“Yes, this place serves mana rained down from heaven, we get it.” Grit sighed.

To Ire’s credit, the sweet, slightly sour scent of barbecue was making my mouth water. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. If the milkshake from Miles counted, it was probably yesterday.

Recalling how close everything that followed had been, my appetite wavered.

Ire slapped me on the back. “You’re not going to regret this, trust me.” The G36 rattled against his camo jacket as he walked towards a section of strip mall with red lettering overhead that read Smokey Jon’s, in a curvy font.

“Is he always like this?” I asked Grit.

“Until shit gets real.” Grit affirmed, scanning the parking lot. “The shit-gets-real-part’s worth tolerating the rest. Mostly.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Three people in business casual were strolling down the sidewalk and stopped to wave, all smiles. The one in front appeared to consider approaching us, but glanced at Grit and thought better of it, continuing on his way.

“Weird.” Grit said, giving voice to my thoughts.

“Very Truman Show. The whole region isn’t like this, right?”

“Just the ones we need to worry about.” Grit said.

Next to the barbecue place, there was a closed-down dominoes and a defunct donut shop. My mind wandered back to my time at Dunkin’s and my old boss. I wondered how he was doing. It’d been weeks now, since everything went to hell. Was he still alive?

Ire reached the door first, then turned around to call something back. The childlike excitement in his face died. He swung his rifle out and whistled, pointing two gloved fingers to our right.

Grit was moving to intercept before I even turned my head to look. He pushed a kid—a boy with brown hair, barely older than Ellison—up against a minivan that looked like it hadn’t moved in months.

“What the hell?” I called over.

“Little bastard was beelining straight towards you.” Grit responded, checking the kid’s inventory as he struggled.

“He’s just a kid—“ I stopped myself. Ellison was just a kid. He was also dangerous as hell. Instead of immediately intervening, I took a moment to study the boy carefully. didn’t flag him as a threat.

“It’s okay. Seriously. Let him go.”

Grit released the boy. The boy scowled at the mercenary and approached me. His shirt was tattered, covered in dirt, and his jeans were lined with holes.

Self-made holes.

“Sir, I don’t know what to do. My mom’s sick, and we can’t afford any medicine.”

“Uhuh.” I said.

“My dad went into the Gilded Tower a few days ago.” The boy continued. “There’s supposed to be a lot of treasure in there.” He’d turned to point to a giant structure in the background. It looked more like the remnants of a castle tower than a dungeon, though I knew from experience the inside probably looked nothing like the exterior. “But he hasn’t come out since. I’m getting worried.”

The boy took one look at my growing smirk, then turned and walked away.

“That’s it? You’re just giving up?” I called after him.

He thrust a middle finger up in the air.

“Come on, give me the pitch at least.”

“Fuck you.” He called over his shoulder.

The approach had been terrible, but that might have been due to the interference. He was fast on the uptake. Realized the mark wasn’t buying it and bailed out early before he got in too deep. While his dirty appearance was mostly self-inflicted, the loose-fit of the clothes and gauntness of his cheekbones weren’t.

“Are you hungry?” I called after him.

He turned and gave me a wary look. “You a pedo?”

“No.”

The kid pointed an accusatory finger at Grit. “Call of Duty cosplay over there was feeling me up. He a pedo?”

I glanced at Grit, amused at the way my bodyguard’s face was flushing red. “Can’t say, just met him this morning.”

“No one’s a fucking pedo.” Grit glared at the kid.

“Just doing his job, making sure you’re not a threat.” I stepped in front of Grit. The kid didn’t look sure, and I couldn’t blame him. He was still green. The worst he’d probably gotten was yelled at, maybe roughed up a little. Getting shoved up against a car and frisked had to be a reality check.

“What do you want, exactly?” He called over, still a safe distance away.

“Look, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But plenty are cheap. I just want to hear about the grift. It’s a public restaurant. You eat, you talk, you leave. Simple as that.”

“Fine.” The kid said, giving Grit a wary look. “But I don’t want him sitting next to me.”

“Done.”

/////

Ire hadn’t oversold the joint.

My middling hunger had skyrocketed the moment a rack was placed in front of me. Even the potato salad was phenomenal, and as a rule, potato salad was almost always trash.

After I cleared my plate, I let the kid continue to eat, teasing answers out of him piecemeal.

From what I’d gathered, it was safe to say it wasn’t a weird mind control thing, or even cult-ish. The people of Region 7 were being directly incentivized by the region leader to bring Users to the dungeon, and they were compensated for every referral in selve, scaling depending on the User’s level and whether they came with a group.

Civilians were able to give out quests centered around the dungeon, much as the kid had tried to do to me. And despite the obvious initial suspicion, he insisted that there was a steady outflow of people.

When I asked him how he’d picked me out as a user, he claimed everyone in Region 7 was capable of differentiating Users from civilians within a certain range.

Once we’d finished, the waitress brought the bill with a color printed pamphlet displaying a picture of the tower, full of bold, italicized text.

“Hone your adventuring prowess!”

“Untold mystery and treasure within!”

“Raise your level and acquire rare resources!”

It raised more red flags than a bullfighting arena.

I noted that the tower looked smaller in the picture, and the kid confirmed it. Originally, it had been around the size of a three-story building. Now it was—I didn’t know. Triple, quadruple that size?

Odd that no one noticed. Hell, I’d been flying above the city and I hadn’t noticed.

Ire waited until we were in the car to speak. “Well. We know they’re not feeding people to it.”

“Probably” Grit amended.

“Grit’s right. We don’t really know that.” I commented.

Ire twisted back in his seat to look at me. “How so?”

“Assuming everything that kid said was true? The scaling rewards. They’re incentivized to refer higher level Users.”

Ire considered that. “Rack up plenty of successful lower level visits as cover to create a consistent track record, a few high-level deaths would seem like a drop in the bucket.”

“This is all conjecture.” I said. “But it’s possible.”

I needed to decide how to proceed with Buzzcut soon. Preferably tonight. But getting a handle on what was happening in the city was part of my duties as region leader. And it was only a matter of time before adventurer’s from Region 14 started heading to Region 7 for free dungeon access.

Decision made, I spoke. “Mind if we swing by on the way back?”

“I’m game,” Ire said.

Grit groaned. “Kinsley is not going to be happy.”

I snorted. “It’s just a drive by. And if she gives you too much shit, feel free to blame me.”

“We’d do that anyway,” Ire said cheerfully.