Days bled into weeks, into months, into years.

  Penelope changed living spaces three more times before she neared the end of her training montage. Once she capped all the jobs she could at thirty, it took more effort to convince Cirdor to let her go off alone and practice her other jobs. There weren’t a lot of materials that she could work with that would increase your job experience and letting the others know that she was sitting on level thirty in almost all the jobs was an easy way to stir up suspicion.

  Jeru had estimated that it’d take her two years to bring a single job up to forty. That meant entire runs of seeing only a little progress, but she didn’t give up. The routine gave her comfort as she settled into doing the same thing over and over again. Each seventy-four days at a time.

  “Aaand you’ve proven that I will go crazy from repeating loops faster than you will.” Jeru grumbled as Penelope walked back into the Dungeon.

  She rolled her shoulders as she looked around at the destroyed boss area. Xaiq was over in his corner, going over the monster corpses, but that wasn’t why she was down here. She wanted to look around at the Dungeon one last time before her full reset.

  I feel older. Penelope looked at her hands. Despite her time in her body, the body itself didn’t show signs of aging. Instead, she was still looking at the hands of a twenty-two-year-old woman.

  “It’s because you are older.” Jeru floated around to face her. “You capped out alchemy, enchanting, sewing, leatherworking, blacksmithing, woodworking, and jewelry making. You’re essentially a forty-four-year-old in a twenty-two-year-old’s body.”

  People were going to need armor and weapons. Penelope took a deep breath. If I can outfit people, then we won’t lose as many during the boss fights.

  “You’re going to end up spending most of your time building gear for people.” Jeru sighed. “And you know that you can only copy enchantments of gear that you find or passives that you learn.”

  I know. Penelope to the other side of the wall. She didn’t want anyone around to see what she was planning on practicing.

  True to his word, once she’d brought her Aura jobs up to thirty, Jeru had told her the light-based spell that would allow her to change the element of her spells to whatever element she wanted. While knowing the basics of the spell would allow her to learn it with the system once she hit level eleven, she had been spending the last day of every loop trying to learn it on her own. Part of the reason that she’d taken so many jobs to forty was because she was having trouble casting the spell without the help of the system.

  Today was different, though. Instead of casting a spell using raw mana, she started with a , then changed the structure of the floating ball to represent a prism. She aimed her wand at the prism in front of her.

  “Light Beam.”

  She didn’t need to speak the spell. She’d learned over two decades ago to cast the spell with a simple thought, but it felt powerful speaking the beam of magic into existence.

  The yellow beam shot out of the tip of her wand, connecting with the triangular object. A red beam shot out the other side, bathing the tree at the end of the beam in fire.

  With a thought, the beam turned blue, dousing the flames in a stream of water.

  “I think you figured it out.” Jeru clapped his hands. “Though you’re going to have to wait until you learn before you can do it.”

  It’s better than having to wait until the second floor, though I’m not sure that having a different element will help much on the first floor.

  “You’ll be able to take out the Shadows faster.” Jeru shrugged. “But you’ve got a point; there’s not a lot more you can do damage-wise on the first floor.”

  The charred tree loomed in her vision. The image became a focal point as she ran through her thoughts. The checklist of the things she needed to do once she went back to the beginning filled her mind.

  -Stop Oakley’s group from going in

  -Find a reason to exclude Judah from the group

  -Prevent Raelyn’s nephew from getting killed on the surface

  -Gather two teams to go down into the Dungeon.

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  “You’ve got the teams chosen?” Jeru tilted his head.

  I’ll join Ula, Patrick, Circe, Raelyn, and Riva. I’ll need Eldri and Nina to join Frederica, Oakley, Marlow, and Judah.

  “You’re going to keep Judah on Freddie’s team?” He shook his head. “He has worse aim than a stormtrooper.”

  He’ll figure it out. Penelope chewed on her lip. We both know that he’s got the potential to be the best fire Caster we’ve got. He’s got the heart of a hero; he just needs time to work on his aim.

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Jeru snickered. “You’ve had years to practice throwing around spells. No one is going to be as good as you on the first floor.”

  I don’t need them to be as good as me. Penelope sighed. I just need him to keep any stray monsters off Eldri and Marlow. Nina and Frederica can handle the monsters on their own.

  “I like how you’re planning on spinning things to explain how you know so much, though the name could use some work.” Jeru shrugged. “I’ve not had someone claim this is just like a game they played, though you’re going to run into some issues with true gamers like Dawson.”

  Dungeon of Earth’s Exiles is a great name. Penelope shrugged. At least it makes sense when you think about how all of us have been stranded from home.

  “Earth’s Exiles was actually what most of the races called themselves after they were banished from Earth almost two millennia ago.” Jeru smirked. “So it doesn’t exactly apply to you.”

  I’ll call it a TTRPG, and maybe someone will think that the Elves or something put the weird game on Earth just in case something like this happened. She shrugged. There’s movies and anime about stuff like that.

  “I’m not saying it won’t work, just that there are going to be a couple of the gamers who will be offended that you know things about a game they’ve never heard of.” The blue man sat down in front of her. “Add in that you basically have no idea how to actually play a ttrpg and I don’t see how this could possibly backfire.”

  Simple. I’m going to claim that I memorized the stats sheets instead of actually playing. Penelope took a deep breath. I know it’s not the best defense, but unless you’re going to start adding a lot more information to the index…

  “That would be a big no.” Jeru shook his head. “I’m on fumes as it is. If I start drawing too much more mana, then the archdemon is going to figure out that something is leeching off of him, and then the whole thing is over.”

  Then we go with plan B. If I explain to everyone that the way we level up is by absorbing the essence from the Demons we kill—

  “Circe’s father will whip a faction of ‘purists’ into a frenzy about how you’re slowly becoming Demons yourselves.” Jeru shrugged. “Been there, did that.”

  So what? I need to jail the guy who kills Raelyn’s nephew before he has a chance to kill anyone?

  “You jail people because of crimes they’re going to commit and you’ll have anarchy in a moment.” He rubbed his chin. “You could always bring him into the Dungeon with you.”

  You want me to level someone who is okay with killing people just to see if they get any experience from it? Penelope shook her head. Hard pass.

  “The alternative is to wait around on the surface until he makes his move, but if you do that, you’re not going to be able to keep the groups from going into the first floor.” Jeru smirked. “Save one or save twelve?”

  I refuse to let you turn this into a trolley problem. Penelope swallowed. I’ll figure something out. There has to be an answer that lets me save everyone.

  “Eventually, you’re going to have to choose. People don’t always act in their own best self-interest. Pride gets in the way and clouds their judgement so they’ll choose a destructive path even though they know there is a better way. They just don’t want to admit someone else is right.”

  You’re including me in that… Penelope tapped on the side of her head.

  “If it helps, I’m in there too. If I hadn’t been so sure that I’d be able to fix this on my own, I could have taken more time and set up a better system and maybe even been able to have two loopers.” Jeru sighed. “I was so full of power and thought there was nothing that I couldn’t beat, so I charged in like an amateur, and now this burden has fallen on you.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  It’s okay. Penelope took a deep breath. We’ve got the training on the fourth floor done and out of the way. She looked at the trees on the Dungeon floor, taking in the scene that she’d be seeing again in less than two months. This should be the hard part.

  “You have no idea what the last few floors are like.” Jeru shook his head. “Trust me, this was easy compared to that.”

  I’ll deal with it when I get there. Penelope closed her eyes. Alright, let’s go back to the beginning.

  Even with her eyes closed, she could see the bright light washing over her. It was finally time to start playing for keeps.

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