The Prefereti looked down at him, dumbfounded. “I said, what are the odds?”

  Momentarily out of place, Ludere snapped back into it. He had a headache? He remembered being flattened, but he had done it. His Spears Proficiency had gone to level four. Four levels in one vision was far more than he expected. He had done good, until the hulking demon landed upon him.

  “Oh, apologies. Even odds. Will that be fifteen Dinarii?” Ludere held out his hand.

  The man blinked at him several times and brought out exactly the amount that he asked for.

  “Alright, uh…”

  Ludere handed him a chit that he had written quickly with his other hand.

  “We’ll see you here for your winnings!”

  Ludere had never seen a Prefereti so off-kilter as he had in that moment. All he had done was perfectly predict the man’s…

  He had disappeared faster than a legionnaire on holiday.

  “What did you do to him?”

  Ludere turned to his partner in crime. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  Erebus just shook his head. Ludere was a fan of how quickly the man would adapt to what he was thrown. But he didn’t have the time to explain his situation every single time if he was going to have to get his skills up and any useful skills from anybody inside of the arena. It would be best if he could get his scan to a high enough level to just understand what everybody else was packing.

  He’d heard stories that people with high enough scans could determine entire skill sets behind competitors. It would totally make sense why some felt so confident betting on certain gladiators consistently. Not that scanning was a rare skill; it was just that if you didn’t have it, then you were at a disadvantage against someone that did.

  There was an information gap. Ludere was going to find out what everyone had and swap and gain as many skills as possible. He didn’t have a use for every skill, but if his life was being trapped in these visions? He would have to think about all the choices he made throughout his life and how to make things better. Experiencing life roughly an hour at a time meant that he wasn’t really going to be experiencing much else.

  Luderes took a moment to scan every person within view. If he could only find one person with a magic skill, he might convince them to trade for a day, but what could he possibly offer them that he had?

  He needed to level his Spear skill. That would do a lot to keep them alive as much as possible. If he could survive longer into the invasion, then maybe he could get better at it and eventually fight his way past it. It was a long shot. What choice did he have?

  One of these visions was going to turn out to be real, wasn’t it? If not, this would be the worst nightmare he had ever experienced repeatedly.

  He really wished that he had memorized the particular robes that would show someone belonged to the magic school. One of them would have something. He hadn’t tried to steal a skill from somebody, but he knew it was potentially possible. He nudged at his Skill Swap ability, and it was not entirely necessary.

  It wasn’t a steal because he was swapping something, but they didn’t have to know that they were getting something swapped. They would just find out that they had something new temporarily and their old skill would be grayed out. He checked his skills. Based on the way the skill worked, his other skills that he had swapped should have been greyed out.

  It was probably some part of the timeline resetting that let him not have to have a grayed-out skill where he otherwise wouldn’t have had one.

  If this continued, he would have to get a little better at talking to people. He’d already talked Gia to death, but maybe she had more secrets.

  He saw her familiar figure pop up. “You need to resupply?”

  Gia nodded, holding out her empty tray. “And deposit some lucre. Can you help me with that?”

  She handed him enough money that he had to begin a chit for her in duplicate.

  “You’re all set! Pleasure doing business with you. Are you about to go on break?”

  “Why do you ask?” Gia said, counting out the small coins she had before stuffing them into a pouch.

  “I’m trying to find someone, but I’m not sure who.”

  “Well, do you know why then?”

  Luderes scratched his head. “I am looking for someone with a magical skill.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Any magical skill will do because I have one that would be next to useless for you.” She had a glint in her eyes that scared him.

  For a moment, Ludere considered telling her he knew which skill she was talking about. It would blow her mind, and then he would have to explain everything again. He’d already explained it to her three times, four times? It was as if she’d spent the last three hours with him, although she wouldn’t have remembered any of that.

  Regardless, he remembered it and knew that she was a kind person who had helped him out so much so far. When this was all over, he was going to do something for her. He briefly thought about how to quantify what he wanted to do for her, but then realized that he could just give her some excellent skills and that would bridge the gap.

  He daydreamed about having great skills to give to people as bribes. He would then open up some sort of business where he could get paid to get skills out to people who needed them. He could be a skill trainer. By the time he got his skill to a certain level, he would know how to train it. Or he’d trained somebody else in it and they would get part of the cut.

  He scanned every single person they passed.

  “What’s going on? You look… different. And since when do you carry a spear around?” Gia gasped. “Have you been taking lessons?”

  She almost reached out to touch him, her hand darting backwards quickly.

  “Um.”

  “Have you been going to gladiator practice or something?”

  Ludere grunted. That explained so much. She liked a good training session!

  “I have, uh… An interesting story to tell you.”

  He scanned the crowd as they moved around to the break area. He got the notification of his skill leveling up, but pushed it aside. Unless he was sparring with someone, he wouldn’t get much out of practicing with his spear.

  “So you learned Unarmed Combat from me and then Spear Proficiency?” Gia said. Once again, she took what he was saying at face value. He thought about how adaptable she had to be to actually believe what he was saying. But it was unbelievable, and she had spent a lot of time staring at his tunic, which, for the first time in forever, felt a little tight on him.

  That hadn’t happened since last year’s feast with Commander Kane. On that day, the bread had flowed like a clogged river of logs into his mouth. He wished he could see just himself eating a lot of food and then realized that he might do that. Just because it had happened three times didn’t mean that there would be a fourth or a fifth. He didn’t want to become complacent, but now thinking about how it might work out; he had Gia in front of him telling him she wanted to practice Unarmed Combat.

  “So why do I need to take my shirt off?” He said, play fighting with her.

  “I just need to see how you move in that… style of yours. Are you absolutely sure that you learned this from me?”

  She dodged his punch easily.

  “You have been very helpful during these visions.”

  She grabbed his arm, yanking it forward. Ludere’s concentration slipped briefly and suddenly he was in a headlock. She was fantastic at this. He almost wanted to compliment her, but realized that he had no brass to do that with. Instead, he just tapped her arm with his.

  She tightened her grip, and he choked. He struggled a bit before she released him. “So I guess you learned that defense now.”

  “If you want to break my neck, say so. I thought it was a perfectly fine neck until you tried to twist it this way and that.”

  “I just need you to know who’s in charge here.” She released him fully, and the air felt so much more delicious in that moment. He felt another skill advancement ping. He was on the right track.

  “So you’ve been doing the same things each time in these visions, huh?”

  “I keep dying by demons, though. It’s… Not the best thing that could have happened to me. But I’m getting there. Provided I don’t actually die, I may come out of here a decorated war hero like Commodore Kane.”

  “Let us not get ahead of ourselves. So you need some good skills. We all want good skills, but we have to go buy what the Prefereti give us.”

  There was so much wasted opportunity there that the Prefereti saved for themselves. Why did the best crystals would go to the prefereti?

  Gems would stop at the best and brightest, instead of trickling down to the lowest class.

  It really was a shame, but it was one of those things that would have gotten him up in arms if he wasn’t so tired and busy working to support himself and his family. But perhaps that was the entire point of a system that kept the masses under the bespoke sandal of the system.

  “This is great, Gia. When this is all over... I’m going to help you out as much as I can. You’ve been like a skill gem, but better.”

  Gia nodded. “I expect full repayment for every time I’ve helped you. My deaths are not coming cheap!”

  Of course, none of his deaths would come cheap, either.

  They disengaged. He was clearly catching up to her a bit. He could see her skill at play, and it was leading him to get better, but this wasn’t the same as his training session in the last vision. This felt wholly different, probably because they were unarmed. He felt naked without his spear, though it was right there.

  “If what you’re saying is true, then we should just keep practicing your skills for the rest of the time we have. At worst, the boss will figure out we’re sparring, then he’ll make us both quit.”

  Ludere chuckled. If his skill gains kept up how they had, he would eventually be a hero of the republic, or at least on par with some of the old monsters.

  “I’ve got nothing better to do. So you think I should train with you? I can deal with that. Tell you what, though… I wish I could give you my Athletics skill.”

  “I’m just naturally athletic. You were apparently very sedentary before. Don’t give me that look! I’m just remarking that you appear to have gotten a lot more muscular since earlier today, I guess before your vision started.”

  “Is there a noticeable difference? That’s new. I guess that kind of would make me stand out. We had spoken before today.”

  The time before the loop was going to be a little fuzzy to him. He remembered it, but he had died three times, and now he was reliving it a fourth or fifth time. He thought about how he would have to make tally marks to keep track of how many times he’d looped back around. And then he thought about how even if he made tally marks, they wouldn’t exist in the next time, unless he somehow got past all these demons or whatever was keeping him stuck here. If this was some lesson from the gods, he did not appreciate it. He wasn’t going to blame them; he wasn’t going to quit, but he sure as heck didn’t appreciate it.

  Edited 1/28/26

  Edited 1/30/26