A rexabeast peacefully chomps on the body of a fallen dino. It has no real care in this world except to find dead bodies and eat them when it gets hungry. The weather is nice year-round, except for stormy season, and mates are easy to find in this massive jungle. It’s the king of the food chain, a scavenger mainly but also a fierce fighter.

One would cower in fear at this rexabeast if they were to come upon it. And it takes great pride in knowing that fact. Instilling terror is the way it survives, the way it thrives. It barely even has to fight for food; it can wait for another predator to take down a foe, then swoop in and get a nice meal with very little effort.

Such is the life of a rexabeast.

But this rexabeast here did not expect, out of nowhere, a giant blow to the face that zips by so fast it can hardly take stock of it.

The monster falls to the ground, shrieking and roaring and generally making a racket. It looks to the sky, and sees the only predator willing to take it down:

Me.

I’m flying in the air on my trusty sky raptor steed, Yoshu, and fully equipped in armor made of lightweight, yet fascinatingly durable raptor bones.

The story of how I came into allyship with Yoshu is a wild and exciting one, but for the short of it, after a tactical [Empathetic Link] spell cast into a murder of sky raptors, and a day’s struggle of battling and refusing to injure this beast, I managed to tame it and bring it on my side.

It turns out that [Empathetic Link]’s claim of requiring sentience is a little more broad than expected. But, of course, claims of sky raptors’ lack of intelligence is also a little overblown. I’d say they are fairly sentient beings, now that I’ve gotten to know Yoshu. It does not speak to me in words, only feelings, but we have a close bond after these recent trials.

Together, we swoop back down and attack the Rexabeast before it can get back up. It’s dead before it knows it.

Ding!

I love me some dings early in the morning.

And a few dozen more to go before the end of the day.

***

It’s been a couple weeks since I landed in prehistoric Mystix. Training and surviving in the ancient past.

I’ve been blessed by The Goddess, somehow or another, with a second chance to fix my mistakes and defeat the United States once and for all. Plenty of time to come up with an ingenious plan, one so idiotic that the President of the Americans, Joe Biden, could not possibly foil them.

And with such a dangerous, unknown world I’ve ended up in, it’s plenty of time for...

A roar, and a giant wildebeast attacks Yoshu and me while we’re resting off our latest victories. We both leap out of the way, and I zap it with some magical spell, probably [Lightning Bolt] or something.

Ding!

Plenty of time for fighting all sorts of monsters. Infinitely more fulfilling than abusing the likes of open world video games.

And thanks to being so far in the past, each new interesting location I discover... is the first time it’s ever been visited by an [Adventurer]! I can gain hundreds of Destiny Points a day just by traveling around Mystix on the back of my sky raptor, defeating monsters that threaten me.

It’s a paradise for any system user.

I skin the wildebeast and take the meat and hides back with me to my makeshift home...

A cave decorated with wood carvings, lit up nice and warm with a campfire.

Francis greets me with a bright smile and, when I approach him, a nice little kiss.

As I go back to Yoshu to set down the spoils of victory, Francis shudders and groans.

He’s still recovering, slowly, from his near-fatal injury at the hands of Biden. Never again will my lover be able to fight in a battle, but that’s perfectly alright with the both of us.

While I’ve been getting ever-stronger, Francis has been improving at some amazing life skills as well. He’s gotten really good at foraging in the pink conifer forests around the cave, and amazing at cooking, too. His food’s starting to remind me of that good old orc Borguk, back when I was a part of Team Fanghook...

It feels like an eternity ago, when I was the weakest member of a group of [Adventurers]. I’ve come a long way. And a long time.

“What have you been doing today, dear?”

“Ah, just reading again,” he says. “I’m about halfway through The Perfect Run now, and I’m really enjoying it.”

“Oh, is that the one about the boy who loops around with spiders?” I ask.

“No, that’s RE: Monarch,” he says. “Wait. Nevermind, wrong book. I meant Mother of Learning.”

“Ah, yes, that one. I enjoyed the parts of it you read to me very much.”

“Yeah! It’s the best. They’re all really good. After The Perfect Run, I’m gonna start on Agartha Loop. My Bac Nation peeps told me that one was so good and gay and stuff.”

“You do enjoy gay and stuff,” I say.

“Hehe.” Francis blushes. “I’m just so glad I had my Nook on me when the battle began. The battery’s lasted all this time, and I’ve gotten to read so many awesome Progression Fantasy novels, all DRM-free. Jester of Apocalypse and Minute Mage and all that. I’d been meaning to read all this stuff forever, and I guess suddenly I’ve got all the time in the world. Hehe, time.”

“Well, I’m level 83 now,” I say. “Still no sign of Rank S anywhere in my system. I have not a clue where the limit may be. So it may be longer yet before I can truly let us leave this place.”

“No rush,” Francis says. “I’m still healing, but I’ll live. We can just kind of hang out forever, for all I care. Just us, and your sky raptor guy I guess. I’m trying to say, I love you, bro.”

“And I, you. But we still must save the day. Biden is out there, in the future, about to destroy our friends and armies and soon the entire multiverse due to his extreme neglect over The Goddess’s Domain. We must eventually go back, or else we will lose track of our real mission.”

“Yeah... I guess so. I’d like to get back to streaming, myself,” he says. “And... I kinda want to write a new book when all’s calmed down.”

“A book? What about?”

“Well, I’ve been reading all these Progression Fantasies, which is cool and all, but I’ve had this idea in the back of my head for a while and I’m kind of excited about it all of a sudden. It’s called I Took Magic as a High School Elective!, and it’s this magic boarding school parody type story.

“Ah, like the one decent series written by the awful lady,” I say.

“Yeah, that one, but a lot funnier and more cynical. It’s just at some normal high school, and some freshman kid signs up for this elective they see on an obscure corkboard because they think they’ll be getting easy class credit for some dumb party tricks and Houdini bullshit. But actually, they’ll be forced to survive a whole year of actual wizardry classes, and all the stupid hidden magical world stuff they’d really rather not deal with. I think it’ll be super funny, and totally up the alley of a lot of my fans.”

“It certainly sounds interesting. Does it have a system of magical mechanics like the Destiny Deck System?”

“Hell no. I’ve had enough with this system bullshit for a lifetime,” Francis says, channeling his inner Delta.

“Perhaps you’re right. But I’m still eager to explore my system. And tomorrow, I’m going to gain a mother lode of Destiny Points.”

“Oh yeah, how?”

“I’m going to head to the Titan’s Domain and fulfill a cosmological prophecy by slaying a mythical beast and its entire army,” I say.

“Cool story, bro.”

“Cool story, indeed. Thank you very... Wait, are you trying to trick me into some sort of joke? I don’t understand it. Why are you laughing so much, Francis? Please explain the joke, dear. Dear? Oh my.”