“Who’s Gloria?” Mary asked and tilted her head. Although she had planned on killing Grimmy with the Dragon Slayers’ assistance, after Kondra had appeared, Mary performed a strategic retreat. “What did the Dragon Slayers do?”

“Gloria is Grimmy’s daughter,” Tafel said. “The Dragon Slayers shot her with a ballista bolt.”

Mary’s brow furrowed. “How did they shoot her? That holy dragon discovered us. There’s no way the Dragon Slayers could’ve shot Grimmy’s daughter unless the holy dragon allowed it.”

Tafel shrugged. “I’m not certain about the details, but it’s safe to say Gloria’s holding a grudge against you.” She turned towards Vur. “Speaking of which, do you have to fight Mary now because of your code of honor?”

Vur shook his head. “Gloria will get her own revenge,” he said and crossed his arms over his chest. He shifted his gaze onto Mary. “If Gloria fails and asks for help, then I’ll beat you up for her.”

Mary frowned. “Aren’t we friends? I made you a staff.”

Vur nodded. “I won’t use it to beat you.”

Mary pursed her lips. The odds of her having to fight Vur weren’t that high. Since she couldn’t defeat Grimmoldesser, if the black dragon helped out its daughter, wouldn’t Gloria be able to beat Mary? Then again, if she climbed to the very top of the tower, perhaps that would change. Mary ignored Vur and turned towards Tafel. “This is the fourth floor, right? If I’m not mistaken, this floor has the group exam. I’ll team up with you to help you pass.”

“I don’t think you can retake exams,” Tafel said before glancing at Lindyss. The cursed elf shrugged. Tafel nodded. “Don’t worry. With my current group, there’s no possible way we can fail. By the way, what floor are you on?”

“I cleared the eleventh floor,” Mary said. “I was going to the twelfth, but Joe told me he found you.” A furrow appeared on the red-haired woman’s forehead. “Why didn’t you accept my invitation to the tower? I didn’t get any notification.”

“Vur accidentally broke it,” Tafel said, “so we had to enter the normal way.”

“Of course, he did,” Mary said and looked at Vur. He crossed his arms and snorted in response. Mary looked past him at Melody and Kax. “Who are they?”

“Right, let me introduce you,” Tafel said and turned around. She gestured towards Mary. “This is Mary Scathir; she’s from Erde like us. She’s really strong, but she gets lost easily.” Tafel gestured towards Kax. “That’s Kax; he sold his soul to Auntie, so he’s following her now.” Tafel gestured towards Melody. “And that’s Melody; she’s from Earth and happens to be one of Vur’s followers.”

Mary nodded at the duo before facing Tafel. “Are you part of a guild or a clan? I took over this group called the Virtuous Hand. They’re not very strong, but they have a lot of helpful information. Do you want to join?”

“You took over the Virtuous Hand?”

“Yeah,” Mary said and nodded. “They recruited me, but when the leader realized how strong I was, he made me the boss.” A slight frown appeared on Mary’s face. “But then he got assassinated and replaced by a chimera named Joe. He said he knows you guys.”

“Oh.” Tafel rubbed her chin. “Apparently, the Virtuous Hand’s ideals aren’t that well received by the lords of the tower. You could be in danger if you stay as the head of that guild. How about instead of us joining you in the Virtuous Hand, you join us in the Extreme Heat Clan?”

“Okay,” Mary said and nodded, not giving the decision a second thought.

“Great,” Tafel said and clapped her hands together. She raised an eyebrow at Mary. “So, how did you end up in the tower in the first place?”

Lindyss cleared her throat. “The two of you can take your time catching up with each other,” she said and headed towards the main building. “I’ll be going on ahead and getting things done for us like signing all of us up for written exams.”

Tafel made a face. “C’mon,” she said to Mary and followed after Lindyss. “You can tell me as we walk.”

***

Ryan sighed as a he took a seat behind his desk where a large stack of papers had been placed. He was the head instructor of party-composition theory, but now, his precious time and brainpower were being used on menial tasks. He was a genius, a true mastermind, yet he was broke. It was a shame academics such as himself weren’t compensated fairly for the value they brought to society. He had to accept donations from the major guilds to sustain his lifestyle, and in return for those donations, he had to manually grade the written exams of newcomers to find the large guilds diamonds in the rough. Of course, he could always use some funds to hire someone to grade the papers for him, but the last time he did that, the donations coming to him had stopped and flowed to the person he had hired instead.

Ryan made a face, his wiry mustache contorting, as he picked up the first paper and read the first question. What was the job of a tank? To attract the attention of monsters onto themselves. A standard boring answer for a standard boring question. After skimming the first page and haphazardly scribbling red checkmarks on the responses, Ryan flipped the exam to the second page where the answers to questions varied based on the examinee’s personal experiences.

Pretend you’re the tank. One of your damage dealers attacks a deadly target you haven’t marked, drawing its attention and anger onto your group. What do you do?

In rough handwriting, the response read, “Let them tank it. If they die, they die.”

Ryan nodded. It was quite clear this individual had a lot of experience dealing with brain-dead damage dealers. They’d be a perfect fit for the Eyeless Fist guild. If the rest of their answers were satisfactory, he’d recommend this individual to those morons who thought with their bodies and not with their heads.