Nathan was a lot of things. A fisherman by force, a warrior of (unfortunately) great renown, and potentially an undiagnosed psychopath given some of his more violent behavior.

  He was not, however, the kind of person who'd willingly doom two other species destruction for the sake of his own.

  While Fenrir had stepped into the hallway, an amused grin on his face, Nathan had signaled for Emi to stick with him and for them to gather together. She'd nodded without hesitation. Bjorn had stepped away due to Fenrir calling him away.

  Due to this, Lily had taken the opportunity to poke out in the middle of their little planning circle. The flower bobbed up and down, oddly quiet.

  "Let me get this straight," Chad said. "Only one species is going down to the next circle?"

  "Correct."

  "And we're not running out to find the other quest hubs because…?"

  "Because I don't feel like being responsible for Emi's death."

  Chad opened his mouth to speak when he paused.

  "Good point. Still, if we don't do anything about it, Fenrir will."

  Emi pursed her lips. "Nathan, we might not have a choice here. It looks like someone is going to have to—"

  "Stop." Nathan rolled his eyes. "Worst case scenario, someone has to cut a deal with the System. Don't you guys remember Zayen? His people managed to avoid the bloodbath, we would be able to do the same."

  "Ah, yes. A life of slavery to an eldritch horror," Bree said. "That sounds great."

  Chad coughed into his hand. "I think you've forgotten something kinda important, Nathan."

  "What?"

  "You killed the system admin, remember?"

  Oh… well that kind of throws that option out the window, then?

  Bree narrowed her eyes. "I don't think I ever got an explanation on that one."

  "Uh, I'll explain it to you later. But long story short, Chad is right, that option isn't gonna cut it anymore."

  "I hope you have an alternative, then."

  Nathan found his mind darting off in random directions as he tried to scrape together some kind of plan.

  He looked over at Emi. "How do you think the elves managed to get past the Sixth Circle?"

  Emi gave him an odd look. "How do you think they did?"

  Ah. Complete victory?

  "But then how did the orcs make it back?"

  "They didn't," Emi said. "The orcs were never taken, remember? That was part of why we had such a hegemony over them back on our planet, for a long time, we were the only ones with advanced magic due to our time in the Nine Circles. That all changed, of course, but at the time, we were the undisputed rulers."

  So the elves cut a bloody path through to the bottom, no hesitation, all ruthlessness. Nathan had to give them credit for finding a way to escape the Ninth Circle—he also had to figure out how they did that—but their solution wouldn't work for him. Mass violence was something he'd prefer to avoid being involved in.

  "We need help, don't we?"

  The voice who'd spoken was small, quiet. Nathan looked down to see that the sound had come from Lily.

  Out of the corner of his mind, Nathan noted that it was rather odd that Lily was capable of projecting a voice from a plant, then he remembered that she was doing telepathy or something.

  He kneeled down next to the flower. "Help?"

  "Yeah. Can't you think of someone who might have what you need?"

  Nathan tilted his head. No one was immediately coming to mind—

  He froze.

  Of course, why hadn't he considered it ages ago?

  He stood to his feet and held out his hand.

  "[Summon Fish]."

  The air in front of him swirled like water. Chad took a step back, eyes wide. Bree blinked. Mara nodded to herself as if she'd come up with the plan all on her own.

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  A tiny silver-colored minnow passed into the air.

  "Damn it, what kind of landlubber woke me up from my nap—" The fish stopped in midair. "Nathan? Is that you?"

  Nathan found a grin coming to his face. "It is. Finny, how've you been?"

  For the next fifteen minutes, Nathan found himself explaining everything that had happened since their last meeting. The twists, the turns, everything.

  Once in a while, Chad would pipe in with a brief observation, or to correct the occasional fact that Nathan got wrong. Mara would do the same. Lily remained silent, perhaps intimidated by the new person? Nathan hoped he wasn't accidentally making her too shy for public interaction, that would be rather unfortunate for her in the long run.

  He pushed those thoughts aside and continued with his explanation.

  "—and then we came to here, in the Sixth Circle, and, well—"

  "They hit you with the question, eh?" Finny sighed. "An impossible dilemma. Doom a species, either your own or someone else's. It's completely unreasonable, a bucket of barnacles."

  "What we were hoping for was some help?" Nathan asked. "Maybe an alternative solution?"

  "Mate, I'm a fish, not a miracle worker."

  Nathan scratched the back of his neck. "I know that, but still, you guys must've been thinking about how it might be possible, right?"

  Finny sighed. "Sure. Of course we did. And none of our ideas had any fruit. It was all pointless speculation based on thin air."

  "Yeah, but things have changed."

  Finny scoffed, his fish body bobbing in midair. "How?"

  "For one thing, I've got the sea on my side."

  "…true. I can practically smell it rolling off you. You've got more ocean in you than man, and that might be an underestimation, so to speak." He shook his head. "But that ain't enough."

  "Have you heard of the elves?"

  "Of course, they're one of our best customers."

  "Then you also know that they managed to escape the Nine Circles—something that shouldn't have been possible, right?"

  Finny froze in midair. "That—that's true. I didn't even realize it, but I've never heard of a species making it back to their homeland, which means they must've pulled some kind of trick."

  Nathan had him hooked, he knew.

  "Finally, the circumstances have changed."

  Nathan reached into his inventory and pulled out a small metal cube. The [System Corpse].

  Finny glanced at it with vague interest. A window popped in front of him with information. The longer he read, the heavier his breathing got.

  "You… you killed a system admin?" Finny said.

  "Yup."

  "A real system admin, and you managed to put it down like a dog?"

  "Yes."

  Finny swam around in circles, muttering to himself. After a few seconds, he stopped in front of Nathan.

  "I'm going to need to take this further up the chain," he said.

  "Does that mean…?"

  "You'll be talking with the big boss-fish himself. And with any luck, he'll be able to give you the help you need."

  It would take time to arrange the meeting. Proper channels had to be established, or so Finny had claimed. He'd been practically bubbling with excitement the whole time they'd planned things out.

  After he'd unsummoned himself, the next step had been establishing a base of operations. Given the fact that fighting was prohibited in the quest hub, it seemed like the most natural place to put the base. Nathan opened up the portal and coordinated with Fuge and Bree to organize scout teams to head into the hallways and hunt down the other quest hubs. They also fortified the entrances so that Fenrir wouldn't be able to just… barge into nathan's town unannounced. Not that Nathan was worried about that too much, Nathan trusted in his defenses at this point. What he was more worried about was the reaction of his townspeople to a tall, green-skinned stranger with red eyes poking around. That was bound to end horribly.

  Nathan instructed the scout teams to avoid conflict with the orcs. Best not to cause an incident, if at all possible.

  When he'd gone to sleep that night, he was faintly worried… but still confident, if that made any sense? He was surrounded by strong and smart allies. And they seemed to think this had a shot of working, so…

  His eyes snapped open and he took in the sight of the shoreline. Thalassa had summoned him.

  He glanced over to his right to see her sitting on the shoreline, knees drawn to her chest, a sullen look on her face.

  Nathan stepped over to her and kneeled down.

  No response.

  "Thalassa?" he said. "Hello?"

  She jerked, her eyes widening and her pupils shrinking to dots. She turned and glared at him.

  "Why did you surprise me like that?" She stood to her feet. "Rude, don't you think?"

  Nathan raised an eyebrow. "You summoned me here and then you get surprised when I try to talk to you?"

  She blinked. "I did?"

  "Well, if you didn't, I did it, but since I know I didn't, that means you did it—"

  "Please never speak again, I can feel a migraine coming on." She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Since you're here anyway, you might as well update me on what's happening."

  "Nothing too interesting." He shrugged. "We might have a lead on bypassing the Sixth Circle."

  "That's good."

  Nathan raised an eyebrow at her clipped reply. "Still need to figure out how to beat… her."

  The temperature dropped, but at this point, Nathan was used to it.

  "Hm."

  "I also came up with a recipe for curry. I named it after you."

  "Interesting."

  She was completely out of it. Nathan sighed. Was this maybe just a consequence of her being the sea? The oceans were famously temperamental and random. It wouldn't surprise Nathan if she were prone to mood swings.

  But she'd generally come across as rather stable in the long-term. Her brief moments of oddity were swift and excusable, they'd never lasted this long.

  He snapped his fingers in front of her face. She started.

  "What was that for—?"

  "You've been like this since the last circle, and it's been getting worse," he said. "What's wrong?"

  She chewed the inside of her lip.

  "You said that you're thinking of how to defeat her?"

  It was a clear topic switch, Nathan would've eaten his own thumb if that was actually what she was worried about.

  "Yes."

  "You're in the wrong mindset," she said. "You have to shift it. Remember, we can't beat her. You can't beat a force of nature. You can only distract her and delay the inevitable." She shook her head. "We can't talk about this, you know that."

  "Who exactly am I supposed to talk about this with?" He let out a sigh. "You know, I'm not even sure what we're doing any more. You haven't really guided me too much. Before, your goals made sense to me. You wanted revenge on B32, but… I did that, haven't I? So why are you still here?"

  She didn't speak for several minutes.

  "Find a way to steal some of the Golden Realm's properties and apply it to yourself," she said. "That's the only way to give us the chance to talk freely."

  The energy seemed to drain out of her.

  "But you're not entirely wrong, Nathan. I haven't been a very good partner, have I?"

  The dream flickered like the static of an old TV.

  "I don't even understand myself, most days," she said.

  The dream flickered again, and Nathan was staring up at the ceiling of his office, a frown on his face and the distant smell of sea salt on his tongue.