I slammed my sword into the dusty ground and leaned on it hard. My breaths came out in short raspy bursts as I glared down at what was left of the monster that the ninth combat had spawned. There had only been one this time, and it was so annoyingly small that it had taken all of our combined efforts just to pin it down for a handful of seconds.

That was when we’d found out it had about a million health. And that it was immune to all of our functions for some Godforsaken reason.

“Drown me, that was annoying.” Jun huffed with her hands on her hips. “I can’t imagine how much worse the next fight’s going to be if this one was so agonizingly slow.”

“Neither can we.” Mortician agreed from the ground. They’d stopped trying to help once Jun and I found out it was immune to functions, and had been lying on their back ever since. “Did either of your interfaces give you any information on the creature?”

I shook my head. Jun did the same. “All I got was a health bar with a number that gave me a headache. Not even a damned name after all this time.”

Jun stomped on the thing’s corpse, shattering it into bony splinters and revealing its core underneath. If we’d gone through all of that without at least a core as a reward, I would’ve offed myself.

“I’m taking this one.” She told us in a tone that left no space for argument. When neither Mortician nor I did, she pressed the core to her chest and consumed it. “So do we take another rest? Or should we push for fight number ten?”

“We have no issue with continuing.” Mortician informed us. “Though we know that means relatively little in the decision making process.”

It didn’t. But honestly, it didn’t matter if any of us were fine with continuing. We had to push forward, even if we weren’t perfectly ready. Scalovera’s mercenaries could appear at any time, and we didn’t know how many of them he’d send. Or if he’d even send any. I sighed and shook my head, trying to clear my mind to see only what was in front of us.

The simple fact was that this place was infuriating. The rewards were lackluster, none of the combats posed enough of a challenge to be worth the level of annoyance some of them boasted, and the variance was horrible; the only new creature we’d seen in four combats was this pixy-like little thing with skeletal butterfly wings. I honestly wanted to leave and find a different hazard to clear.

But this was the plan. And no matter what I wanted, we would stick to it. “I guess we should push on. Even if we aren’t getting amazing experience from these things, it’s the best we can hope for. I doubt any other hazards around here have a way for us to instantly leave when we’re done with it.”

“Good point.” Jun sighed. She glared at the footprint where the pixy-thing had been, then kicked dust over it. “How long have we been doing this for?”

“Fourteen hours.” Mortician said as they walked up to join Jun and I. “Each travel section takes approximately four minutes, and we rested for close to an hour after the fifth combat. Which means we have been in combat for just under thirteen hours.”

Jun groaned and stretched her back. “Fighting feels so much longer when it’s not challenging. And when my life isn’t on the line.”

“Mm.” I hummed in agreement. “Grinding up gear is a pain in the ass, but it’s a necessary evil. We’ll need at least hazard tolerance twenty five by the time we get out of here if we want to be safe. Thirty if we want to be sure.”

“We are not even at twenty yet. Is there any way we can increase our tolerance faster?” Mortician wondered aloud as they walked past the doorway. “Aside from gaining more powerful gear, of course. Is there a sort of… mastery component to it? A non-item mastery mastery component, to clarify.”

I shook my head. “Not that I’m aware of. As long as you’re high enough level to equip something, it doesn’t matter if you know how to use it. The system factors in the perfect scenario when it looks at hazard tolerance, not what you can actually do.”

“That is disappointing. Then we simply need more gear, and to level it up further.” Mortician slowly tilted their head to the side. “If that is the case… would trinket levels be excluded from the hazard tolerance calculation? Or something like Juniper’s godblood? Seeing as they are something non-standard between species, and even within members of the same species?”

Honestly, that thought had never crossed my mind. I couldn’t see why trinkets wouldn’t influence my hazard tolerance, but Jun’s godblood… there was no reason why it wouldn’t. But why didn’t it show up anywhere? Or… maybe it did, and we just hadn’t seen it yet.

“Jun, your health stat. It’s always been high.” I realized. “What if you can go above 100 because of your ancestry?”

Jun shrugged. “I’d have to hit 100 first.” She said plainly. “I’m only at 89 right now, so it’ll be a while before that happens.”

Only 89. I was at 78 myself, and raising it ten points could take months. Years, even. Once we took Rainbow Basin back for Okeria, I’d have to get into the routine to raise it. Jun would probably be at 100 in less than a year with her core, which would do wonders for her effective stats. And Mortician’s health was a little lower than mine.

“It’s not something we can worry about right now, so don’t think too hard, Seb.” Jun said, snapping me out of my thoughts as she played with the seed from the fifth combat. “Do you think we could turn this into a trinket?”

“Probably.” The seed didn’t seem like anything special to me. “Why?”

Jun shrugged. “It just feels like it should make something interesting. And I mean, look at it. If you wanted to make it into a bullet, all you’d have to do is dip it in metal.”

…She wasn’t wrong. “Do you still have the regular bullets Okeria gave you?”

Jun shoved the seed and a bullet at me. “Here. Oh, and I also have this… and this.”

A small metallic chain and a small piece of amber joined the things Jun had given me. I held them in my hands and raised an eyebrow at her, which she couldn’t see anyway. Well, there was only one way to see if these things would make a good trinket. Or if they’d just make another weird bullet.

I opened my interface, swiped over my core, and activated //peer-ahead with all of the materials I had in my hands. Much to my surprise, I found myself staring at three separate options. One I instantly swiped away, which was to destroy everything I was holding for potential, but the other two were each worth at least something in their own right.

//SHUDDERSHOT

//Can only be loaded into weapons of core mastery 41 or higher.

//When impacting an enemy, burrows into them and deals continuous damage for as long as it remains.

//Enemies with at least one burrowed shuddershot round take increased damage from all sources.

//ACCOMPLICE(//CORRUPTED,Masterpiece)

Core mastery requirement: 38.

Current item mastery: 1.

//PARTNER-IN-CRIME: Bullets ricochet to 2 nearby enemies, dealing 50% damage. If there are no enemies nearby, the bullet can ricochet to an ally, granting them a stat buff instead. The stat buff is equal to 15% of the bearer’s total stats. Completely removes friendly fire damage from ‘bullet’ projectiles.

I twisted my interface so Jun could see what I was seeing. “Unfortunately for you, there are two pretty damn good options. So unless we can find another seed, you’re going to have to make a hard choice.”

“Give me Accomplice.” Jun said almost instantly, much to my surprise “Cacophony isn’t core mastery 41, so there’s no point in taking Shuddershot. And I can equip Accomplice right away. And it means I don’t have to worry about hurting you or Mortician when I’m trying to shoot around you.”

“Good point.” I agreed. I reached into my core and felt the symbiotic seed twitch between my fingertips, and right before I corrupted everything into Accomplice, something stopped me. A sensation like reluctance, but not at being corrupted; at what it was being corrupted into. It knew it could be so much more. I just hadn’t given it what it needed to succeed. And that I’d find what it needed if we pushed deeper into this hazard.

I pulled the seed back out with a frown on my face. “It doesn’t want to become Accomplice.”

Jun tilted her head in confusion.“It… what? The thing inside of that is sentient?”

“Not sentient, but… something else.” I said reluctantly. “It knows it can be something so much better than Accomplice, but I don’t know how. It… there’s something deeper in the hazard that it wants to be corrupted with.”

“Well, let’s go get it then!” Jun said with instantly restored enthusiasm. She snagged her materials back from me and shoved them in her inventory as she jogged to catch up to Mortician. “Maybe this isn’t as much of a waste of time as we thought.”

I wasn’t that excited over the fact, but knowing that there was something worthwhile waiting for us somewhere further down the line did wonders for my motivation. I closed my inventory and brushed off the strange feelings the symbiotic seed had planted in my mind, then hurried after my friends.

{Congratulations for reaching the tenth combat! Surprisingly few have reached this point in the past few years, even with all the decreases in difficulty the hazard has done to attempt to draw in new blood. Thank you for your continued attempts!}

I shared a look with Jun and Mortician at the strange tone shift for the announcement. Could a hazard get lonely? Or was it just screwing with us?

{Past this point, the hazard will revert to its original difficulty. Monsters will be tougher, prizes will be better, and more enemies will gain cores for you to consume. Your modifier for this and all future combats is: all battery regeneration effects only have 75% effectiveness. Modifiers are not active within the safe room, so if you wish to recover, it is recommended to do so within its confines.}

The ground rumbled beneath us, and a quick scan with my helmet’s function revealed three of the things from combat five rising through the ground. Four of the annoying pixy things flashed into being, already zipping around and throwing functions on each other that the single one we’d fought hadn’t shown.

{Good luck, and good fortune!}