Even before the chains had finished wrapping around Jane, Quill was throwing himself at the orc general. He aimed his mace at the orc’s wrist with the intent to disrupt the magic.

Using the flat of his axe, the orc casually swatted him aside.

Quill tumbled backward almost three meters and landed on his back.

Hale reacted only a moment later. A double slash clanged off the orc’s axe. He wove to the side and attacked again. “Let them go, fiend!”

The general effortlessly parried twice. Then, when the chains had finished securing Jane, he punched Hale, going right through the sword blocking him and slamming both knuckles and steel into the man’s face.

Hale crumpled, not dead, but in serious pain.

Quill was already on his feet. He leapt up and brought the mace down on the orc’s head.

Faster than Quill was going through the air, the orc spun sideways and chopped upward. He buried the blade of the axe in Quill’s chest.

Becoming a ghost, Quill didn’t hesitate because he knew every second counted. Hitting Yes, he respawned all the way back in Stormstadt. He jumped off the platform and ran out of the Grove, heading back to the battleground as fast as he could.

Unfortunately, strength determined movement speed. And he had a strength of one. It had been a problem ever since rolling. He could walk at a normal pace but barely run any faster than that. Much like the bodybuilder shuffling by earlier, he couldn’t go nearly as fast as he wanted to.

“Come on… Come on!” He fought to keep his frustration in check and failed. It was a long way back. There was ample time to see that he’d dropped back down to level three.

By the time he arrived, he was pissed off and worried sick that Jane would already be gone and that he’d never get her back.

Luckily, sort of, Jane was still there. The orc general stood next to a pile of hostages, all female, all wrapped in black chains. Jane, the red samurai, a woman from Hale’s party, and more all lay in the grass. Two wept. Jane looked half-scared and half-angry. The red samurai seemed resigned and perhaps relieved.

The orc general proudly walked in circles around the captives and jeered at the watching adventurers, those who had somehow survived and those who’d already respawned and made it back, several having passed Quill on his own journey. The orc called out, “Is that all? Nothing more from Stormstadt’s best? Is this how far the mighty have fallen?”

Quill came to stand next to Hale.

The fighter looked furious. “He has Juniper. And your friend.” He stared at the enemy with helplessness in his body language. “I don’t know how to stop him.”

The orc’s mocking voice carried over the field. “Come, human weaklings. One last chance. Here, here. I will not even use my axes. I don’t need them. All of you come at me once again, and I will crush your skulls with my bare hands.”

A nearby ranger scowled. “He could. He’s way too high level for us.”

“What the freakin’ piss is someone like that even doing here? This is the first region. So stupidly unfair.”

“Those crappy devs, man. They’re not going to give us a fair shot. Whole game’s gonna be like this.”

“Screw this. Let’s just ditch. I mean, there’s like half of us left. What could we possibly do?”

There was grumbling and silence.

Quill spoke up, “We fight. They have our people. They already took two, and we have no idea what’ll happen to them. We have to stop him.”

“Are you retarded? It’s impossible, Mr Level Three.”

A rogue mockingly waved Quill forward, “After you, Weak Sauce.”

Quill turned to Hale.

Hale stared at the ground. He opened his mouth to speak, then reluctantly closed it. He shook his head, looking frustrated and lost.

Quill looked around. He wasn’t near his own corpse, which still had his mace lying near it. But someone else had fallen a few meters ahead and hadn’t come back to reclaim their stuff yet. He strode forward and picked up the common sword next to the body. “I don’t know why we’re fighting a raid boss so early. But that’s life: it’s unpredictable.”

Others spoke dismissively.

“We had twice as many people before. Where are they now?”

“Too lazy to come back for their junk gear? It’s not like it matters for a lot of these people.”

“Prob gave up.”

Quill raised his voice. “Well, I’m not giving up.”

The orc general must have heard him because he stopped taunting other groups of players and turned his head in their direction.

Quill surveyed those around him. It was a small group and very dispirited. They’d all endured so much already. This fight was another slap in the face on top of so many they’d already suffered. “This game has been super unfair. But not impossible. There should be a way to beat him. Or at least get our people free.”

A smirk from an orange-robed mage. “Yeah? So what’s your idea, genius? Under-level him to death?”

Quill shrugged. “I don’t know.”

A fighter had had enough. “I’m outta here. Dying hurts way too realistically. I’m not going through that if there’s no profit in it.” He waved once and walked off back toward the city.

Quill looked at Hale, who had been a leader earlier. “Hale? We have to try.”

But even he seemed to despair. “I want to. I want to help Juniper. And the others. But I don’t know how to beat that guy. Especially with fewer people.”

Quill turned and squared his body with the orc. “Let’s just try. If the others see us, they’ll follow.”

The orange mage pointed out, “Unless you can magically come up with stamina potions, which don’t exist in the game for some reason, we’re just going to die again.”

Quill had no argument. But he walked forward, hoping others would follow. But from the sound of it, he did so alone. He didn’t rush, but the orc seemed patient enough to wait.

The general clapped his big hands together in mock joy. “At last. One. One little maggot with the stones to face me. Ah, what a proud species you must be to wager your lives and those of your comrades on this, your champion.” He chuckled.

As Quill walked, he furiously tried to think of something he could do. What did he bring to the fight? He was slower, weaker, had less stamina and health, was shorter, had less reach…uh…had smaller teeth and no tusks…he had…maybe…he’d read more books?

The orc watched him coming. Nah, those eyes were pretty intelligent. And he was a general. He might be well-read. Let’s not go around labelling people with stereotypes just because of how they look or what they’re into.

So Quill had…nothing?

No, not nothing.

They’d beaten the moss bear by creating a sinkhole. They’d fended off wolves with the staff to occupy them while they hit them. Trouble was, all those solutions had involved others. And right now, Jane was all tied up…in a way that was very distracting. He tore his eyes off of her and focused them back on his opponent.

Quill was alone. What if he…set the grass on fire? Too green. Freeze the ground and make it slippery? But it would be slippery for him, too. But would it distract him enough to give them time to rescue people? Unlikely.

Almost suddenly, there was no more time to think or plan. He was standing in front of the orc general with a cheap sword in hand, no armour, and a whopping three levels to his name.

“So, is this stubbornness or stupidity that brought you out to me?” The orc grinned, apparently glad someone had at last come to face him. “What are you waiting for?”

Quill lifted his sword, feeling a bit silly but trying to improvise. “I challenge you to a duel.”

“Accepted. Begin!”

Quill could only blink in surprise at the instant agreement as the orc leapt at him before he could ready himself. Two huge green hands clapped into the sides of Quill’s head, the pressure on his eardrums excruciating. Then he felt himself being lifted into the air.

The orc evilly chuckled. “You know what I like about maggots? How they pop when you squeeze them.” His chest flexed.

Quill went blind with pain. He could barely scream. It went on and on…

Then he was standing over his corpse, a ghost, panting, mentally still freaking out and feeling phantom pain. He fell to his knees and reflexively cried out. Swaying, mind blank, it took long seconds to recover his equilibrium.

This is why the others hadn’t wanted to charge in again. Dying hurt.

The orc waved his hands in the air, snapping them at the wrist to get the gore off. He mumbled to himself, “Hmm. Now I remember why I don’t do that very often.” He wiped Quill’s blood and brains on his chest plate. As it was already filthy with blood, this didn’t really help. “Perhaps I should start carrying a towel into battle for times like these. Should have brought my adjutant. No reason to keep her safely back. These miserable humans are nothing but a lot of weak cowards.” He sounded disappointed.

Quill refused to look at Jane or the others, not wanting to see their reaction to his pathetic demise. He hit the Yes button.

As he made his way back from the Grove, now level two, he tried to come up with a way to defeat the general.

Could he ask Sapphire for help? Vice-captain Jeanne or Guang’ning? It was tempting, but no. They were NPCs; AI. He had no idea what would happen if they died. They might not come back to life. The idea of Sapphire dying a real death in here was too horrible to comprehend.

Sadly, he still couldn’t come up with anything.

He arrived at the battlefield for the third time that day. Adventurers still casually stood in small groups, watching the orc general, some bored, some angry, some impatient, but nobody seemed inclined to do anything about it.

The orc had begun toying with his hostages as a way to antagonize the adventurers. At this moment, he lifted a woman up into the air and licked her face. “Yum! I can’t wait to get these females back to our camp. What amusing trophies these will be before we toss them into the slave pens to breed.” He cast sly glances at the adventurers, but none took the bait.

Hale looked even worse than before, itching to go out there but still held back, helpless.

Some of those mocking Quill earlier turned and saw him coming back.

“Enjoy that? You some kind of masochist or something, mate?”

One laughed. “Dude, you shoulda seen it! Your head just splattered. Like a grape. It was awesome!” He mimed the gruesome explosion with his hands.

Quill ignored them. “Anyone come up with any ideas of how we can beat him? Or at least distract him long enough to rescue people?”

“Forget it. There’s no point. We’ll just wait the event out. It’s got to end at some point, right? They’re not going to leave a raid boss sitting here all the time.”

Quill countered, “You don’t know that.” The naysaying and negative attitudes were really frustrating. It took an effort to stay calm. “And what happens to the women he took? They slowly dehydrate to death? Or maybe the system will keep them alive and miserable there until we beat him? Or he takes them off with him, and we never see them again?”

One sighed, getting fed up. “Stop trying to be a hero, dude. No one’s impressed.”

“Yeah. Just relax; stop trying to show off.”

That set Quill aback. Show off? He wasn’t trying to do that at all.

“Give it a rest. It’ll all be over at some point. Then we can loot all those orcs we already killed.”

“Looot!”

Conversation amongst half the adventurers turned to talk of the spoils, none of them concerned for the hostages at all.

Frustrated and alone, Quill stalked through them. He picked a wooden staff some fallen mage had dropped and strode toward the orc once more.

Hale caught up and grabbed his shoulder. “Hey. Don’t do it. You’re just going to die again.”

“You want to give up?”

“No! But what else are we going to do? Beating him is impossible.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

The orc general saw him coming. Like a few other key AI beings, he seemed smarter and more aware, for he recognized Quill. “You again? Were you lucky enough to have a spell of resurrection cast on you?” He placed the woman he’d been scaring down and watched Quill come, then sighed. “I don’t think we have to choose; it’s both stubbornness and stupidity, isn’t it?” He showed less interest this time, his smile having a tired disappointment to it.

Quill lifted his staff, holding it like a baseball bat. “I challenge—“ He didn’t even get a chance to finish his sentence.

The orc stepped forward in a blur, grabbed Quill by the shirtfront and lifted him up. “You think you can beat me?”

“I can try.”

The orc sneered. “When pigs fly. Here, I’ll show you how.” He spun and threw.

Quill sailed up, high…high into the air. Have you ever had one of those dreams of falling, where you get absolutely bloody terrified as you can’t stop it, and you fall and fall…

He popped up in ghost form, heart hammering. “Fu—“ He panted. “Holy crap.” That had scared him. He glanced at his body and looked away. It was intact, but the head was looking in the wrong direction. Eager to get out of there, he his Yes and woke up in the Grove yet again.

And now he was back to level one.

He sat there on the stone block in the Grove for a minute or two, contemplative.

Why was he pushing himself so hard like this? Why had he died alone — twice? To prove some point? To who? And for what? He’d lost everything he’d worked so hard to gain. How often had he lamented over his poor progress? How much had he hated himself for having low stats and being unable to grow faster? How badly had he wanted to level up during this event? So badly he could have tasted it.

Yet he’d just thrown it all away. Gone back to square one. Or level one, as it were.

Thing is, he wasn’t being driven by loot or levels anymore, was he? He had been, up until Jane had been taken. But he hadn’t thought of XP or epic items at all either time he’d confronted the orc alone.

Being weak had pushed him into a dark place earlier, the depression almost making him give up on everything. One himself.

On Jane.

Thinking of her caused something to burn in his chest. Was that what was motivating him now? Her?

Thinking back, he’d never been particularly driven by personal ambition. In a sense. That is, he’d been driven to be the best version of himself when it came to being a good boyfriend or getting better at a sport; these were things he was passionate about.

But he had never been driven to go out and achieve wealth or fame for himself. That was probably why he was in his mid-thirties and had such a lacklustre career with few prospects. Oddly, even when it had come time to saving himself from dying in this game world, he’d started giving up on himself, as if his own life hadn’t been worth saving.

But for Jane? For someone else? For someone worth his effort? He looked into himself.

For them, he could be motivated. For Jane, a friend, he could face all of hell and stand his ground against an army of demons.

Or a giant, orc general of fantastic power.

When he’d first met her in the game, he’d felt good. Hopeful. Positive. But being surrounded by so much selfishness and corruption, then by fear of dying and grief, and by the unfair hand that crippled what he was capable of so that he felt worthless, he’s lost himself. Lost his path. Started worrying too much about himself, started wallowing in self-pity, and forgotten what mattered, forgotten what he thought was worth fighting for.

Other people.

He felt awful about not being his best for Jane these past days. But that would change. Because he was going to save her here and now no matter what. And they were going to get out of this game together.

Then an idea occurred to him. And just like that, he had a plan.