Milock sat next to Ryan, sleeping despite the fact they were flying in a private jet. The luxury felt odd again, his seat was too plush, the surroundings too fancy. Ryan tried to lean back, trying to get comfortable.

  He couldn’t fall asleep. Ryan remembered acting like he was used to the luxury. But now? He was just waiting for Pinkie to drop down on him.

  Ryan took out his smartphone and connected it to the inflight wifi and started scrolling through profile pages of adventurers in the third realm.

  The research and planning began, even if he was undecided on his actions as a whole, researching his opponents would never hurt. He scrolled through, checking out handy profiles already collated by fans and even blog posts by the very adventurers themselves.

  Yes, they probably knew by now that he looked them up. It was far, far too late to remove their public profiles when everyone backed up the realmnet onto other sites. He started taking notes…

  Ryan was surprised to hear the Captain on the speaker. Had they arrived already? It felt like time had gone by in the blink of an eye. He shook Milock awake and supported his half asleep friend through the security and back into Milock’s car.

  The valets were once again amused by the fact that they were using a premium service for such a crappy car.

  Ryan drove while Milock looked like he was trying to sleep, his friend kept tossing and turning, his own car seats much less comfortable compared to Seffara’s jet’s.

  “Hey Milo?”

  “Sup?”

  “You think what they’re saying is true? That I’m like a dude that came back from a war?”

  Milock raised his sunglasses and gave him a weird look, then shrugged.

  “You don’t seem different to me. Honestly after what you told us… I completely get it.”

  “You don’t think my plan’s going too far?”

  This time Milock sat up, putting his seat up. He gave Ryan a perceptive look that was uncharacteristic for his friend.

  “I mean, if they’re out to kill you then it’s fair game. I’m on your side, get as strong as you can with your safety. Focus on yourself first then see if you can help others, right? Like what the Tyrants did. Don’t do that shit where you try to help someone else without having sorted your own life first.”

  Ryan drove in silence, the conversation with Barry about keeping secrets flashed by his mind. Nobody else but the Witch Tyrant knew that he’d lost his safety life. How the hell was he supposed to bring that up now?

  Milock didn’t notice the guilt on his face.

  “Hey man, I’m still with you all the way. If you want to go back to The Realm and mess everything up, go for it. I’m not telling them anything.”

  “Thanks Milo.”

  Milo shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I’m serious, do you remember the first time you went to Seffara's house?”

  “Yeah?”

  Milock was talking about when Ryan had snuck away to Ulverra and kidnapped Jecharim and his body had been soulless on Earth.

  “Uh, Barry told me to snitch on you if you went into The Realm without telling them.”

  “That sneaky motherf-” Ryan shook his head, exasperated. “of course he did, Barry has got to be the sneakiest [Berserker] that’s ever existed.”

  “I know right? He has to be the first actual case of someone faking another class while being a [Berserker]. I can’t believe people thought [Chieftain] was a weak class back then too.”

  “It’s crazy. Literally everyone that picks orc [Warrior] hopes to pick up that class these days. Stupid Settlers.”

  The two lovers of everything adventurers continued to geek out over classes, history and everything else. It was nostalgic, arguing over builds and classes, pros and cons, trying to figure out something unique.

  It used to be something fun that they’d discuss while working. Now? It was something fun to talk about so he could get his mind off all the crazy shit he’d gone through.

  That he was going to go through.

  –

  An unknown location, hidden away deep on Earth where nobody would ever care to look.

  The dastardly [Rogue] was deep in his research, a devastating plot to take the ultimate prize. Burn down the most powerful establishment across both worlds and rack up his realm achievements. He grinned like a madman as he kept finding flaws, the smile grew wider and wider until it started fading.

  So much complacency, especially now.

  Everyone was still talking about the blacklisted dragonslayers. Earth, which had been cut off from The Realm, was just catching up to speed with everything that had happened in The Realm.

  Not only that, over fifteen blacklisted dragonslayers had strong-armed their way back into Earth while the realmbound ones hid deep in The Realm. There were rumors that the Witch Tyrant had leaked the list of dragonslayers involved and was judiciously hunting them down.

  It put everyone on edge.

  These were desperate people with skills that could level a city in minutes… seconds if they were a [Mage].

  Nobody cared about Artigan anymore. A grave mistake.

  Now might be the best time to strike. It was so tempting, the more the devilish [Rogue] researched, the more things he found.

  What had he been researching?

  All the adventurers in the third realm.

  Every. Single. One.

  Their blogs, their vods, their team composition, their gear and even the food they ate. There was supposed to be an information lockdown on Guild operations in Sector Three, but it was oh so hard to keep so many adventurers in control.

  They didn’t post their location, that would have been a Guild infraction.

  But a social media post about their team’s lunch? You couldn’t stop that, that would be tyrannical.

  This was the modern era, where low realm adventurers were budding celebrities, you couldn’t stop them from trying to engage with their fans. That would incite a riot.

  “This amperdon belly steak with these plates can only be from the restaurant in Lazhen. Mahjit, dangerous [Savant Mage], heh, apparently not [Savant] enough.”

  Fools.

  The desire to interact with the outside world would be their undoing. The [Rogue] noted it down. Next to the team’s location had their skills, achievements and anything else that could conceivably be useful. Nobody kept secrets in the lower realms. It simply wasn’t done.

  After all, how were you supposed to attract fans and sponsors if you didn’t stand out?

  Artigan kept scrolling, kept clicking and kept writing. Plotting his return. Plotting their demise.

  –

  In Milock’s small bedroom.

  “Holy - how long has he been doing this?”

  Clara nudged Milock as they watched Ryan mutter to himself and laugh evilly. Milock just shrugged.

  “I don’t know, I fell asleep like six hours ago. I think he hasn’t moved.”

  Clara and Milock kept yapping away as the scribbling and the scrolling continued. None of Ryan’s notes were neat, there were plenty of scratched out words and scrunched up papers. Anything that was truly important he’d made sure to memorize.

  Skills, powers, codewords, behaviors and emergency items.

  Milock whispered to Clara.

  “You know Barry said that Ryan might be, you know, like an army guy coming back from war -”

  Ryan sighed.

  “You know instead of staring and whispering behind my back you guys can just ask. And I’m sorry for using your room like this Milo.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Clara stepped closer to look at his notes.

  “Ryan, are you okay? Milock says he’s worried.”

  “Hey!”

  “I’m fine.”

  Ryan pinched at the bridge of his nose. Even for him, sitting in front of a monitor unblinking for nearly eight hours had taken a mental toll.

  “You don’t sound fine. When was the last time you slept? I heard you basically got ambushed the moment you got back.”

  “I need a lot less sleep now, that’s not the problem.”

  Actually, that might have been the problem. He didn’t know when the last time he’d gotten a full night’s sleep. He couldn’t really do it in the Trial forest and he hadn’t slept since he’d returned to Earth either. But no, that wasn’t the real reason why he felt mentally exhausted.

  Ryan gradually slumped more and more the more research he did.

  “What’s the problem then?”

  “Barry was right.”

  Ryan said it like it was the most disastrous thing that could have happened to him.

  And it was.

  –

  A beautiful [Warrior] jumped and danced around like a woman out of an action film. She had a mad grin on her face as she beat down a thornbear with a simple bo staff. It had blue highlights in a cool carved pattern crafted by elves.

  Blue paint, not enchanted.

  She had taken the aggro by matching the bear’s strength, the monster only focused on her as the actual threat.

  “Now!”

  A figure that had hidden with [Natural Camouflage] appeared by the thornbear’s side. [Slashing Strikes] spread out at the thinner drooping skin at the armpits of the thornbear. It screamed as large gouts of blood started spurting from the cuts.

  “Back up! It’s going to-”

  A barrier encased them both as the thornbear curled into a ball and, true to its name, shot thorns from the magical plants on its back. The spikes started smashing into the magical barrier as it showed signs of cracking. The thorns were magically charged and were damaging the barrier far more than the team had expected.

  “Oh fuck,” the [Warrior] woman cursed.

  “Damnit I told you he wasn’t ready!”

  The bear, seeing both its targets standing in a shattering barrier and huddled together, stopped shooting the thorns and sprinted at them. It charged with its back first, the thorny plants pointed right at them.

  “Scatter!”

  Both [Warrior] and [Rogue] dashed out of the shattering barrier as they fled the raging bear. The [Warrior] laughed, like she wasn’t running away from a massive pissed off monster. The [Rogue] managed to keep his camera steady, showing the [Warrior] laughing her head off as she grabbed the hidden [Mage], put him on her shoulder and started bounding off.

  The [Mage] was less than pleased as he hammered futilely on the [Warrior’s] back.

  “Hey! Why’d you pick me up? You have the aggro you idiot!”

  The cameraman [Rogue] tried to keep up, falling behind the [Warrior] as the bear gained on them.

  “Hey, slow down! you’re going too fast!”

  “Hahaha!”

  The video continued from there. Even though the later bits weren’t of any use Ryan couldn’t stop watching. They argued over responsibility and mistakes, the [Warrior] unrepentant as she picked at an earhole. The [Rogue] captain yelling at her and trying to make her understand her mistakes.

  At first Ryan had watched coldly, analytically breaking down their skills and tendencies.

  Then he got a little bitter, he was so jealous of what they had… Then…

  Then he realized he couldn’t do it. His original plan had too many holes, too much possibility to put them in danger.

  Sooner, somewhere, somehow, adventurers would die and it’d be his fault.

  He needed a better plan than the one he’d told Seffara.

  Not all adventurers were silly like this, but enough were. The others? They were at least like Garbolt. Annoying and pretentious, but they were trying their best to stand out, to make something of themselves.

  Ryan tried to tell himself that these people were fake, that they were just trying to be marketable and were copying what worked.

  Being goofy and silly worked, it worked just as well, if not better than being all heroic and cool.

  That was the thing people had figured out in recent years. A team mucking around like idiots could bring in much more followers. It mattered, these were people that were soon going to be capable of destroying cities.

  Being personable and relatable showed that they were human.

  As much as Ryan wanted to be cynical, his mind could see the truth. There were far too many angles of adventurers being genuine for him to see anything else.

  The team blamed each other, then got truly angry and turned off the camera. A couple weeks later they had made up, but you could still see the rift. It was all cleared up during a particularly difficult third Trial where they talked with their fans in the after action report.

  Now their friendship seemed stronger than ever.

  How could you not get invested?

  Ryan loved adventurers. Oh he was still jealous of their camaraderie, it beat in his chest like a green monster that was desperate to take it away from others. The green monster was interrupted by a blank faced Clara that covered his screen.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah I’m fine, just need some rest.”

  “Okay good, cause I need you to tell me everything that’s happened, Milock didn’t tell me everything and the world’s gone crazy, we’re just finding out everything that’s happened and it’s become a whole thing. Do you know what’s going on? What’s uh, the news with the dragonslayers and you know who?”

  Ryan blinked.

  “Hey Clara, it’s good to see you .”

  She blinked. “Oh duh, it’s been a month for you. Man that’s so weird.”

  Milock interrupted the moment.

  “Hold it.”

  His friend took out a little wooden box that had no real discernible features. Milock put his thumb on it as it formed the faintest of barriers around them. The magical silencing device looked even more advanced than Seffara’s.

  It even turned off the laptop Ryan was working on. Since when did magical artifacts have that much discernment in the hands of a normal human?

  Clara marveled at the bubble.

  “Whoa, that’s new.”

  The barriers seemed to adjust to Milo twisting something in the side of the box. It became completely translucent but Ryan assumed the bubble was still there.

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “Milo, how did you get this?”

  His friend blinked, having forgotten about the incident with laptop only half a day ago.

  “Promise you won’t get mad.”

  Ryan already realized where his friend had gotten the enchanted device. The fucking [Secretary].

  “Give it here, I’m going to smash it.”

  “No! She swore it wasn’t bugged. Hey!”

  “And you believed that?!”

  Ryan was trying to be gentle as he grabbed his friend’s arm. His stupid greedy friend had the item in a death grip around his chest and the newly minted realm three [Rogue] wasn’t exactly sure how much force he could use on his friend.

  “It was in the contract! It says none of her devices are bugged, and she promises it or the contract wouldn’t work!”

  “Bullshit!”

  Clara clapped her hands loudly, both Ryan and Milock stopped struggling as they turned to her. She looked in surprise at the fact that they’d stopped.

  “Huh, so that’s why Seff does it. Guess I need to do that more. Can either of you explain what’s going on first?”

  Ryan made a face but let his friend go. He was going to have to check Milo’s contract out himself. He shook his head as Milock told Clara all the details they knew, leaving out the parts where Ryan talked about the end of the world.

  “Yeesh, that’s crazy, the world’s gone nuts and the first thing the Tyrants’ Secretary does is go straight for you.”

  Ryan raised his head in surprise, he hadn’t expected Clara to understand that so quickly. It had taken him a little bit before that implication had hit him. Ryan wasn’t even sure Milock had figured it out yet.

  “Oh shit, that’s true. That is wild when you think about it.”

  Milock was of course still Milock. Ryan laughed and flopped onto his friend’s bed. Looking up at the ceiling.

  He still couldn’t sleep.

  His stomach rumbled.

  “Oh right, I need to eat more on Earth, I completely forgot.”

  “Ooh, alright, let’s go out to eat. No burgers!”

  “Aw come on Clara, I’ve been eating nothing but rations and monster meat for a month, I could really go for a burger.”

  “No. Burgers. My treat! Some actual food, like sushi or something. I got accepted at my new job! And the head waiter is really cool.”

  “Ok, ok, sounds good.”

  Ryan thought about how much money was left in his bank account. It wasn’t like beggars could be choosers anyway, and sushi did sound nice.

  –

  Clara’s excitement over treating her friends to food that wasn’t burgers slowly vanished as Ryan scarfed down his fifth plate of sushi. Milock wasn’t that far behind, halfway through the third plate himself.

  “I know I said my treat, but uh, I don’t actually have that much money right now.”

  “You said it’s your treat,” Ryan said with his mouth full, like a monster that hadn’t had a well prepared meal in months. “You said you’re working in a really nice restaurant right? I’m sure you’ll earn this amount very quickly in tips.”

  She sniffed.

  “Okay, that’s not fair, be a little nice to your friend Clara, please?”

  Clara was going to demand Seffara to give her some spending money. This was supposed to be a mission from veteran adventurers! She should be getting paid for this.

  Ryan laughed at her. “You should see your face, relax Clara, we’ll split the bill.”

  “What? Oh man.” Milock stopped scarfing the sushi down and leaned back. “Well, I’m full anyway.”

  “You guys are the worst, you’re such a villain, Ryan.”

  Ryan stopped shoveling food into his mouth, he looked at the sushi with a blank look, then shrugged.

  “Guess I am.”

  “Oh no, sorry I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Villain was a loaded term, it wasn’t used much since the superhero generation. For good reason too.

  Ryan sighed.

  “It’s okay, I know what I said I planned on doing. Don’t worry, I realized I can’t go through with it.”

  Clara blinked, she hadn’t been expecting that. She caught a flicker of his eyes as he saw the surprise on her face. She tried to go back to her bubbly Clara self, trying to shake the piercing glance like it was nothing. Of course she had brought up the villain comment on purpose.

  “Really? That’s great! I meant, it doesn’t mean I thought your plan was bad or anything but -”

  “It’s pretty bad, there was a good chance it blew up in my face and set me down a bad route. You’re probably right about that.”

  “What? I didn’t say that. When did I say that?”

  He gave her a knowing look. Ryan just chuckled as he signalled a waiter for the check.

  Darn, he was onto her.

  –

  Ryan checked his bank account.

  $98.42

  Blacklisted Adventurer account: 11,456 realmcoins. Well over eleven million dollars.

  Well, not like money mattered. The [Rogue] stretched. Clara had wanted him to go to his parent’s house and he’d told her that he’d go to their house on the weekend. Otherwise he’d stay at Milock’s place.

  Then he lied to Milock and said he’d change his mind to meet his parents.

  A vague new plan had started forming in his mind. One that put his goals into context with everything he wanted.

  He hummed as the world seemed to quieten around him, the unconscious activation of his aura was how he knew he was on the right track.

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