I could not sleep.

  For the life of me, I could not sleep for a single minute, and it had nothing to do with the hard floor mattress provided by The Cave. I felt like I was about to explode with stress. I rolled around on the mattress, getting the blanket all jumbled up.

  The two hamsters running my brain were occupied by two all-consuming dreams.

  The first one was imagining a really nice and wholesome hug with a certain person, who had an amazing smile—and the second one was busy imagining me and that same person living a nice and long life together, filled with unique legendary drops and endless guild wipes.

  No, brain! Stop daydreaming! I told myself. I met her in a game a week ago. I don’t know her real name. I don’t even know where she lives.

  I never used to think about girls. I had a small crush on Eve last year, sure, before the betrayal. I thought she was a cool person, but I still never seriously considered asking her out. I was always too preoccupied just playing Wonderwind. Legendary gear drops were much more interesting than girlfriends.

  But goddammit, Veyra had the right priorities in life as well—to level up and hunt for items. She was genuinely happy while playing Wonderwind, and that was so insanely attractive.

  And my head wouldn’t stop thinking about that goddamned hug!

  Listen up, brain cells! I yelled in my head. How about this? Imagine winning Worlds instead. Wouldn’t that be nice? Surrounded by stage lights with everyone cheering for you…

  But what if I won Worlds together with Veyra? We were close to getting an invitation ticket, after all.

  For fuck’s sake! I yelled. Brain, shut up!

  But hold on, though. If I competed in Worlds together with Veyra, I’d also meet her in real life. And when we won it, I could tell her how sexy her quick-casting was, and I could give her a hug, after which we would—

  Brain cells, HELLOOO!? No more cute delusions for tonight!

  I smashed my head against my pillow repeatedly. This was insanity. No, this was just plain cruel. How could life give me hope like this?

  I was destined to be single forever. I was the rent money assassin, the cup noodle thief. I literally lived in a fucking cave.

  I wasn’t supposed to be dreaming about dating the most amazing mage in the whole world.

  I grabbed my phone to scroll the forums to distract myself, filtering my feed to only show me memes. It sort of worked. Now only half of my brain was stuck on Veyra, with the other half trying its best to focus on whatever nonsense people had posted on the forums.

  I laughed a little at a clip of Oblivara raging after losing his breastplate in a raid. In the end, I probably got two hours of sleep that night, until my alarm told me it was time to log back in.

  ***

  “Morning!” Veyra yawned, stretching her arms up as we spawned back in the Portal Mage’s Crypt.

  Oh my god, there she was.

  “Morning,” I said.

  She tilted her head, then gave a teasing smile right away, as if seeing something off. “Well, someone slept well.”

  I must have looked like a zombie. “This is just what happens when the store only has off-brand noodles.”

  She let out a laugh and said, “I dreamt of this dungeon, actually. I sneakily logged in to solo the boss without you. Except, uh, in the dream, the boss room didn’t have any boss at all. It was just my old guild mates nagging at me.”

  “Oh, what did they say?”

  “Meh, my guild leader just called me a cheater for being too good at the game. So I hit her in the head with my staff and ran home, annoyed and disappointed.” She paused and added, “Oh, and Aiden?”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Yes?” I said.

  The pause continued as she thought about her words. “I calculated how much we’ve been earning every day. At this pace, it could be just enough to make my goal. So… thanks. This solo together thing really works, huh?”

  My breath caught.

  She saw my expression, and chuckled. “You’re a silly idiot, though.”

  Ask her out right now!

  I didn’t, and instead opened up the system menu, saying, “Nah, here’s proof that I’m definitely not silly.”

  I then proceeded to show her screenshots of the silliest and dumbest memes my sleep deprived brain had found funny yesterday.

  I’m talking shit like “Oblibeaver.” Someone had photoshopped Oblivara’s magma wyvern set onto a particularly chonky stock photo of a beaver, except with his breastplate missing.

  Veyra just shook her head with a vaguely amused smile on her face. “Yeah, I saw that clip. Poor guy.”

  “They already retrieved it though, sadly.”

  We talked for a bit, until I got too nervous and said, “Alright, so the last frostfang feather. Are we ready?”

  “Yep,” Veyra said, looking excited. “The same procedure, as always.”

  I nodded. “I’ll warm up during the fight.”

  We prepared to hunt from there. Veyra separated the first time mage from its group with her portals. She teleported it straight to me, and the fight began.

  By now, I was experienced enough with the time mages that I could use them for warm-ups. Their attacks were still insanely fast, but the more I fought them, the more predictable their techniques became. Despite their insane speed, the monsters here lacked a quality that any expert fighter required: adaptability.

  Dealing with the same attacks over and over again was becoming routine enough by now that I had enough mental space for distractions.

  Is it weird to ask a girl out in a dungeon?

  Should I ask her out at all? Asking a girl out is the easiest way to make things awkward, is it not?

  I should really wait for the right moment. I couldn’t just go for it randomly. But also—

  My thoughts were cut off when the time mage teleported right behind me. I tried to use [Shadow Dash], only to realize it was still on its five second cooldown.

  Oh fuck. I moved The Immortal for the block. The monster’s claws collided.

  I failed the perfect block, getting a regular block instead. I was blown back by the attack’s force and found myself cannoning through the hall, about to crash into a wall.

  [Shadow Dash] finally came off of its cooldown, and I used it to stop the momentum just before crashing. That saved my life, and I faced the four swords again.

  There’s no way I’m so distracted I can’t even keep track of cooldowns!

  I forced myself to focus on the remaining fight, though I still found myself positioning in such a way that I could see Veyra from the side of my eye.

  She was almost casting two spells simultaneously. While [Chronorift] was forming out of her staff, she already started casting [Ray Of Time], followed by [Absolute Zero].

  That wasn’t easy. Quick-casting spells was insanely demanding for the mind, like playing a constant rhythm game inside the brain. Yet, she barely looked bothered.

  The first lost time mage died. It dropped no frostfang feathers. Veyra joked about the developers nerfing the drop rates just to slow us down. I laughed, and I really wanted to say something funny myself, but thanks to nerves, I awkwardly said nothing, and we moved to fighting the next monster, this time a Sword Of Time.

  I couldn’t focus on that fight either. My brain just had more important problems to figure out.

  Someone like her must have tens of guys already sending her friend requests with legendary items as gifts.

  I landed a perfect block and dodged the swordsman’s teleportation attack with [Shadow Dash], followed by another perfect block, while Veyra’s spells blasted it down.

  I can beat all of those guys in pvp, though.

  The monster’s sword glowed, indicating it was using sword enhancement skill. That couldn’t be blocked—even The Immortal’s 500% enhancement wouldn’t be enough.

  So Veyra dealt with that. Her response came perfectly on time; she spawned a portal underneath me, moving me out just as the ranged projectile slashed from the monster’s sword. I had a good angle to fight it again.

  But does she feel anything similar when she looks at me? Does she want to hug as well?

  My brain was stupid. I hated how strong the feelings in my chest were.

  And also, why didn’t any mind reading spells exist in the game to let me know what she thought of me?

  The Sword Of Time tried to attack me again. I blocked its attack, and instead of running like usual, I dashed forward, dodged one more attack, and drove Lichfang’s eight hundred thousand damage into its neck.

  Slash.

  [You slayed Sword Of Time (Level 385) with assistance from Veyra. Experience divided.]

  [You Leveled Up!]

  Oh. It died.

  “Nice,” Veyra said casually. She checked the loot drops. Her cheek lines rose. “It dropped one! That’s eight now. We got the last one!”

  “Fuck yeah,” I said.

  “I guess that’s the end of this dungeon hunt, then,” Veyra said. “We can’t defeat the boss, and the remaining ingredients, the fire seed whatevers, aren’t here. Hunting here is profitable, but the quest should still be the priority. Any ideas on the next dungeon?”

  “Let me think,” I said, and I laid out my map in front of us.

  She eyed it next to me, our shoulders very nearly touching. “So, we’ll have to search for a dungeon with magma or fire. Or do you have ideas on where to go next?”

  “I think I have an idea,” I began. A date. We should go on a date.

  “Oh, and also…” Veyra said, as if remembering something. “What are we going to do with that Syntrix guild?”

  “Syntrix?” I asked. “What about them?”

  Syntrix was the second best guild in the world right after Zenith Protocol. Syntrix had over a hundred members, and fifty of them were in the top five hundred, with two from the top ten.

  “What, you haven’t been checking the forums?” Veyra asked. “SoulShadow from Syntrix found the Wizard’s Tower last night.”

  I paused. “Oh shit.”

  20 chapters ahead on !