"Why am I here?"

  "Moral support."

  The girl to Nathan's left leaned back against the boat wall and winced when her spine touched stretched out. "You drag me out here, and you can’t even provide a proper chair."

  Nathan rolled his eyes. "Next time, I'll be sure to get some padding."

  They were currently in the Golden Realm. Nathan had considered just chucking his sister through the portal and letting her freefall for thirty minutes, but had decided to use a boat and avoid the trouble. He flooded the wood with his energy, and it had halted in midair.

  When he’d approached Sarah, Nathan had made an excuse about needing to practice [Astral Fishing] in another dimension and about how he needed someone to keep an eye on him in case he got in over his head. Sarah had, of course, pointed out the obvious—that if it was outside of his power to deal with, it would definitely be outside of hers. However, she ended up agreeing anyway, citing that she was bored to tears.

  For the past ten minutes, Nathan had been pulling in small pieces of gear and items that he was planning to distribute back in town.

  His fishing rod jerked.

  He pulled up on it and reeled in the item. It dropped in his lap, and he stared at it.

  [Spaghetti] – F rank.

  A bowl of spaghetti from times long past. Where did it come from? Who is it for? Is it still edible? These thoughts and more echo through your mind as you look at the carefully designed pasta.

  He promptly chucked the spaghetti back into the void and looked down at his dirty pants. "Dammit, and these were my nice jeans too."

  As best as he could tell, using [Astral Fishing] in the Sixth Circle seemed to result in fairly reliable yields. Fishing in the Golden Realm, on the other hand, resulted in completely random items that had no clear theme or correlation with each other. Sometimes he’d get a grenade. Sometimes he'd get a knife. At other times, he’d get rotten food.

  Nathan’s best guess was that [Astral Fishing] was influenced by where he was using the skill. Even more so than the skill description had originally implied. The Golden Realm was connected to so many different places due to its nature, whereas the Sixth Circle was a bit more limited.

  Sarah’s eyes flickered over at him, then darted back toward the infinite, unknown void.

  "So, you gonna tell me what this is actually about?" Sarah said.

  "I already told you what this is about. I just wanted some company while I practice my skills."

  "Yeah, that’s why you’re tapping your finger against your fishing rod like a march drummer."

  Nathan’s finger beat against the handle of his fishing rod. He froze and forced the muscle movement to stop.

  Sarah rolled her head around and faced her eyes toward the sky.

  "Believe it or not, I do care about you. You’re my brother, after all. Even now, I’d like to think that means something," she said.

  Nathan wanted to tell her what had happened—but there was a part of him that was terrified she would end up going crazy just like everybody else who found out about the Mother System.

  Maybe he could avoid telling her the whole truth, and just the parts that would be safe for her to hear?

  "I ran into a shapeshifter," he said. "It took your form, and Emi’s."

  "Really?" She yawned. "That’s pretty scary. Did you take care of it?"

  "It got away."

  "From you? Mr. Number One in the apocalypse?"

  Nathan snorted and adjusted his grip on his fishing pole. "I’m not invincible."

  "You sure seem like it to most people, though."

  "I almost died to an eel in the tutorial circle. Before that I nearly drowned. Trust me, I’m a lot more fragile than you think."

  There was a tug on his fishing pole. He pulled it up.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  [Celeste Steel Blade] – C rank.

  Forged in the heart of a dying star—

  Nathan stuffed it into his inventory. He was sure Chad would find a use for it.

  "Sorry for being so busy, by the way," Nathan said. "You’re finally here, and I’ve been off running around like a headless chicken. I haven’t even gotten the chance to make sure you’re settled in."

  "It’s fine, little bro. I know you’re busy saving the world and all that." She waved him off. "And for your information, I’ve been settling in good. Chad’s been helping me out a lot."

  Alarm bells blared in Nathan’s head.

  "Oh?" His tone was carefully neutral. "Tell me about that."

  "A few days ago, he showed me around the town. He took me to a restaurant, actually."

  Nathan’s knuckles turned white as he gripped his fishing rod. "Did he? That’s nice of him."

  Sarah yawned into her hand. "Yeah. It was real nice of him."

  "And he did this with you… alone?"

  She shrugged. "Yep."

  Nathan chuckled, the sound more like a held-back screech. "That’s good. That’s good."

  Now, Nathan liked Chad. He really did. Chad had shown himself to be a loyal friend, a surprisingly intelligent social operator, and, in general, a key ally in facing the Nine Circles.

  But that did not mean he was okay with the man going behind his back and attempting to seduce his widowed sister.

  "I had no idea that your friends were so famous," Sarah continued, seemingly oblivious to Nathan’s darkening expression. "I mean, the streamer that everybody watches, the leader of the elf people—oh, and I guess Mara too."

  "I take it you don’t like her?"

  "It’s not so much that I don’t like her as that she doesn’t like me." Sarah sighed. "I honestly don’t know what I did to her, but every time I run across her, it feels like she’s planning some new and interesting way to put me full of bullet holes."

  Nathan frowned at that. Mara was definitely… a character. Despite that, he didn’t know her to be the type to give unwarranted hostility. Even when she was murdering people, she did it with a smile on her face and without much sense of anger or spite. The only exception was when Nathan had taken their friendship for granted and, in so doing, hurt her. Despite her sadism and sociopathy, she took friendship quite seriously.

  Nathan shook his head. "I’m sure she’ll warm up to you eventually."

  "Just like how your other friend will warm up my bed eventually."

  Nathan jolted. His fishing rod flew out of his hands, and he quickly scrambled to snatch it back out of the air. He turned and glared at Sarah, eyes twitching.

  "What did you just say?"

  "Nothing."

  She smiled, eyes wide like an innocent angel.

  Nathan had never wanted to sock someone in the face so much.

  The two remained in silence for a little bit longer.

  "Hey, do you…" he began.

  "Yeah?"

  "Do you blame me?" he asked.

  She looked at him, and something passed over her eyes that Nathan felt uncomfortable with. Her body tensed.

  "Blame you for what?" she asked.

  "…nothing."

  The two were silent for the rest of the trip.

  After briefly speaking to Chad, he wasn’t expecting to receive any more visitors.

  That was, until he received a message from Bjorn out of the blue—a request to meet.

  Nathan, still trusting Bjorn despite the total disaster with Fenrir, followed the letter and went out into the sixth circle. Lily had relentlessly told him that he was being an idiot for trusting Bjorn—Nathan somewhat agreed with her. But at the same time, he was pretty confident that anything Bjorn threw at him would be possible to deal with.

  “Nathan. It’s a pleasure to see you,” a voice said.

  Nathan was broken out of his thoughts by the speech. He looked up to see Bjorn at the end of the hallway. Nathan walked down and shook his hand.

  “Bjorn, it’s been a little while,” he said. “What did you need?”

  Bjorn opened his mouth, then shut it. He sighed, then crossed his arms.

  “We met a while ago, then talked about something dangerous. Something so dangerous I had to have my mind wiped,” he said.

  Nathan winced. “Yeah, I should’ve known that it would be a bad idea to talk about it.”

  “I apparently failed, too. From what I understand, I shouldn’t have told Fenrir, yet I did so anyway.”

  Nathan frowned. “How did you know that?”

  “Because that’s what I told myself.”

  Nathan’s eyes widened as he quickly caught on to what he was saying. “You wrote a letter to yourself. Before you had your mind wiped, you wrote down what you needed to do, along with any context you needed to know.”

  Bjorn nodded. “You’re quick. Yes, I left myself a letter. It avoided mentioning the information that was so dangerous, but still gave me a plan of action.”

  “And what was that plan of action?”

  “Repair relations with you and with everybody aligned with you, and aid you in your goal of bypassing the Sixth Circle.”

  Nathan felt a smile creep onto his face.

  “And you’re just planning to do that? You’re not going to ask why your prior self might’ve wanted to do this?”

  “No. I would simply have to have my mind wiped again. But I trust that I was thinking rationally and that I had good reason for the decisions I made. Now, all that’s left to do is follow through and do what must be done.”

  “Perfect. All right, I’ll take you back to my town and we can work on a plan of attack with the rest of my friends—”

  “Nathan, there’s one thing you need to know.”

  Nathan perked up. “Yes? What is it?”

  “Given that we’re going to be working together for the foreseeable future—and given that I’m betraying my leader for your sake, I— ”

  He stopped.

  There was something in the orc’s tone that made Nathan want to squirm. He could already tell he was about to hear something really bad.

  “How bad is this?” Nathan said.

  “Bad enough that it could destroy our alliance before it even takes off. That’s why you needed to know.”

  Nathan sighed. Best just get it over with. “What is it?”

  “You recall how Emi blames me, at least partially, for her parents’ death?”

  Nathan felt his heart sink.

  “Please don’t tell me…”

  He nodded.

  “I was the leader of the unit that killed her parents.”