I called for Rose, waving her over. “Can you keep an eye on the others?”

  She nodded, folding the last bit of supplies into her purse. “Don’t make it quick.”

  There was something in the way she said it. Something in her eyes.

  “Sure.” I gave her a nod. “Stay safe.”

  With the four freed slaves traveling into the second area, we’d had to prepare quite a bit. Worse, news of their escape had already leaked out into the street, and by nightfall, we were forced into hiding, waiting between dumpsters in pitch black alleyways. It’d taken well over an hour just to reach the Bestiary.

  But, if I was being honest, I…I needed the time to think. It had been less than twenty-four hours since I killed Urgot the first time, and less than fourty-eight since I’d killed Dena. After tonight, I would have killed a person for every day I spent alive.

  Urgot is a vile, evil, heartless, dispicable man. He deserves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be killed. And even when killed, he’ll just respawn at midnight, much like everything else in the first area, if not all the areas.

  I’ve killed plenty of times before. This should be easy.

  And it is easy. It’s too easy. And that makes it hard to process.

  But, if Urgot lived again tonight, he’d start hunting down the freed slaves, and I’d promised them a head start.

  I left my companions, slipping into the bestiary entrance, a narrow, shadowy alley way. As before, cages littered the sides, but those had long since been broken. Chains were shattered and used like whips, scouring the brick and morot, until gouges developed. Several walls had been knocked down entirely, leading into other buildings.

  The bestiary itself was in substantially worse condition. On the outside, it had the shell of houses, pressed up together, blocking the sounds of screaming and crying inside. The shell itself was hollow—save for wood and steel support beams. It was once a remarkably study building.

  Now, one side bent downward, threatening to pull the rest of the building into the road. Beams had been snapped and dust and ash formed a blanket on the floor. Anything resembling a cage became utterly unrecognizable, and rotten food and trash plastered the walls, thrown hours ago, attracting thousands of flies.

  Only one thing was the same.

  As I drew closer, I heard a faint sobbing.

  Madelaid laid beside Urgot's beaten corpse, pressing her hands into his, weeping. But the moment I moved, she noticed, stiffening. Galaxies of purple and red flickered through her black skin, then faded into a soft yellowed glow of starlight.

  She was in worse condition that before. Much worse. The outer layers of her fine dress had been shredded, exposing scars along shoulders and one leg. The other children had probably beaten her the moment I left.

  “Honerable Sir,” Madelaid called out, bowing low, all the way to the ground. “I thank you again for my rescue.”

  I let out a sigh. “You’re not rescued.”

  Starlight flickered a number of different colors I couldn’t name, and she spoke again. “I have been returned to the one to whom I belong. For that, I thank you.”

  “Why are you here, Madelaid?” I whispered.

  She rose to her feet, hands clasped behind her back. She seemed nervous, shuffling onto each foot, her skin displaying a much wider and brighter range of color than usual.

  For a long time, we watched each other in silence.

  Finally I spoke. “Urgot’s going to respawn at midnight.”

  “I know.”

  “And I’m going to kill him.”

  “I know.” She sniffed.

  A star fizzled out on her neck.

  The street faded back into silence.

  From what I’d heard, and particularly what I’d figured out, Madelaid had been one of Urgot’s slaves for the longest amount of time. She worked as his assistant and informant, leading to the other slaves natural mistrust of her. But she wasn’t anything like Urgot. She genuinely cared about people.

  Urgot beat, struck, and whipped her for each mistake she made. By any logic, she should have hated this man.

  Even now, a part of my brain hoped that any moment, she’d suddenly switch sides. If I just said the right words, she’d change in an instant.

  I cleared my throat. “Madelaid, I need you to leave.”

  She bowed low, but only took a step to the side.

  “Madelaid,” I warned. “You don’t want to be here for this.”

  “I do,” She said.

  I took a step toward Urgot.

  “He wasn’t so bad,” Madelaid blurted, immediately clamping her hands over her mouth, looking sick. The starlight in her body had almost entirely faded, giving her the impression of a shadow.

  “He was, Madelaid,” I said, gritting my teeth. “He was a very, very bad man.”

  “You never really knew him,” she whispered.

  The clock struck midnight, and the street restored itself. Cracks and gouges pulled together, suddenly flush with a polished stone floor. Empty cages snapped into place, before flinging themselve up onto shelves and pillars. The building gave a tremendous groan as the roof pushed upward, dragging the severed beams into alignment, where they knit into a smooth, unbroken pattern.

  Ignoring the empty cages, the Bestieray looked exactly the same as it had before.

  Then Urgot rose, color returning to his face. His broken bones cracked as they moved into place and his clothes knit together.

  The Slaver landed upright on the ground, crackling with energy.

  Urgot was a beast of a man, three feet across and six feet tall. While he looked fat, the majority of his bulk came from muscles, enhanced by a remarkably high strength stat, especially for area one. That was then increased by the stats he bought with slave money, all to make himself harder to kill.

  Urgot smacked his lips and rubbed his eyes. He glanced to Madelaid and gave her a smile I’d almost consider fatherly, if there wasn’t so much teeth behind it. “Ah. You’re here. Good girl.”

  Madeliad lit up, bowing respectfully.

  He finally noticed me, and his jaw clenched.

  “You’re here to kill me twice?” Urgot muttered. “Figures.”

  I lowered my shovel.

  {Grind}

  //100,000 Str//

  Energy exploded off my clothes, visibly glowing. It rose and fell, almost to a beat. Excess energy melting the newly fixed ground, heating Crapshoveler’s blade to a scalding white, baking into the ground.

  Urgot let out a sigh. “Show off.”

  But he stayed where he was. With the speed and strength that I had, there wasn’t much of any point running.

  I took in a long, slow breath, preparing myself to kill. Just one more time. I raised Crapshoveler up and swung down.

  Then I yanked backward, seizing up at the last moment, barely managing to avoid cleaving through Madelaid’s arm.

  She clung to Urgot, eyes squeezed shut.

  Then she slowly opened her eyes, looking from me, then to Urgot.

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  Urgot groaned. “Get off of me, or he’ll kill the both of us.”

  “N-no, he won’t hurt me,” Madelaid whispered. “I-I’ll be a shield for you, so th-then he won’t hurt you either, Master.”

  As I was Madeliad had thrown herself between me and him.

  Explosive blooms of color washed over her arms, up into her neck and eyes. “Please.”

  Urgot shook his head. “Madelaid. I’m finished.”

  Then I finally noticed his stats.

  ~Slave Lord~

  {Urgot}

  [666 Str 666 Hp 666 Mana]

  “That’s it?” I mumbled.

  Urgot glowered. “You killed me.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  Madelaid closed her eyes, squeezing tighter. “Master! We need to go before!—”

  I was behind the two of them, moving Crapshoveler in a smooth arc through Urgot’s spine.

  {Urgot : (-1000) -333 Hp}

  Madelaid still clung to him, watching the black blood drip down from my shovel. More blood pooled on the floor, wading out from Urgot.

  I found that I had no regret killing him. No regret whatsoever.

  She lost her grip and Urgot crumpled into two pieces, restarting revival process.

  After a long moment, Madelaid bowed, offering her hands toward me. She was bracing herself, for whatever reason.

  “Make it quick.”

  Ah.

  I wiped the blood off my shovel, sent it back into my inventory, and started walking away.

  “Sir!” Madelaid cried, almost in a panic. “Finish me off!”

  “No.”

  She staggered, dropping down beside the body. “Please. I-I can’t do this, Sir. I can’t. Let me be with him.”

  “No.”

  Her hands had started to shake violently, and all color had drained into a endless black. “I-I-I’ll fight you. I’ll hit you, and then you have to—”

  “I won’t,” I hissed. “Absolutely nothing you can do will ever convince me to kill you.”

  Her eyes flashed with a dangerous glint. “Nothing?”

  I spread my arms wide. “Kill me.”

  She faulted, and a smile spread across my face.

  “You can’t even begin to imagine it, can you?” I asked. “You’re not a killer, Madelaid. Not in a hundred million years. And because of that, there is absolutely no justification to kill you.”

  “Even if I want it?” she whispered.

  Madelaid was crying now, staining the ground with glistening white tears.

  “Escpecially then,” I said.

  She bowed over Urgot’s, wrapping her arms around his severed body.

  There was absolutely nothing I could do to fix this. So I left. And I left with a bad taste in my mouth.

  Rose noticed immediately, crossing her arms. Thankfully, she didn't say anything.

  Junior did though.

  “You talked to that freak Madelaid, didn’t you?---” He snapped.

  “Brother!” Rose snapped back “That is inconsiderate!—”

  “We were all thinking it—”

  “You were thinking about it! Beside you know how Sir Grind feels about the matter—”

  “He feels sorry for the girl, womp-womp. That doesn't mean I have to! She ratted an escapee just last week—”

  “Well if you’re going to insult someone I expect a more dignified approach to it!” Rose shouted.

  “Aaaaxxxxxeeellll,” Axel hissed, snapping at them from ontop of the dumpster.

  Junior flinched. “I told not to repeat those words.”

  Rose blinked. “Repeat what words?”

  This wasn’t helping. And it wasn’t the time to fight with each other.

  I cleared my throat, putting on a smile. “Yes, Madelaid was there. We had a chat. But it’s alright.”

  Junior shrugged. “So, are we going to go to the second area or what?” he hesitated. “Why’s it called that anyway? ‘Second area.’ sounds kind of stupid if you ask me.”

  “Well maybe it has its own name for itself,” Rose huffed.

  “Axxxxxeeellll,” Axel hissed, pounding his bare chest.

  Sern clicked her tongue, scooting closer to him, adjusting her grip on his head. She moved slow and precise, brushed the long white hair out of his bright blood-red eyes.

  His hair immediately flopped back down, and Sern threw her hands in the air.

  I allowed myself to take a deep breath. It was going to be alright.

  Sern was doing better this reset. Far better. In previous resets, she’d sit still on the ground for hours, without so much as a sound. She spent an entire day staring at a wall.

  Having a real friend was doing her wonders.

  I waving the party forward. “Does everyone have their supplies?”

  They nodded, patting bags, purses, or in Axel’s case, a barrel, which he lugged over one shoulder.

  Thankfully, the first area supplies were cheap, and I still had a bunch of money. Most of the potions had only cost a bronze coin—though some of Axel's had been pricey. Since nobody actually knew what was in the first area, and I couldn’t find an adventurer from there, I settled for buying everyone something of everything and hoping, no matter what we ran into, someone would have something that’d work against it.

  Potions, tools, medicine—even an elixir of health.

  Thanks to the dungeon map, we had a decent idea which direction we were supposed to be going, since the map just faded off at one point, into a tan region marked with a big cactus.

  We set off, into the unknown.

  “Are we there yet?” Junior whined.

  Rose beaned him over the head, and he ran around in circles, crying and screaming until the two of them started shouting at each other, and then he fell silent.

  “Are we there yet?” Junior asked, massaging his head.

  “I SWEAR—” Rose screamed, suddenly cutting herself off. “What’s that?!”

  “AAaaaaaaaxel.” Axel stated, pointing to a massive boundary of clouds, curling up in an invisible wind. They swerved around, like a vortex of turbulent energy, masking the path forward.

  Beyond this point, there were no trees, plants, or shrubs. Only sand.

  “I think this is it,” I said.

  The clouds were much further off than they’d first appeared, which meant that we spent a good hour or two walking through the cold sand. As we move closer, either the presence of magic or something about the wind started dropping the temperature.

  If it was a desert, we'd at least started our journey during the night, when the sun wouldn’t be up, and we’d brought plenty of water.

  Hopefully we’d make it to the other side before getting cooked alive.

  But even if it was so much further off than before, I was at a hundred thousand in the majority of my stats. I could handle anything that was thrown our way. Who know’s? I might already be the strongest person in the second area.

  I took a step into the clouds, and a shiver passed down my spine.

  //108,000 Hp 108,000 Str//

  [Notice]

  [You are entering an area of greater magical potency.]

  [Enemies will be more dangerous. Stats have a reduced effect. All objects, plants, animals and people in this area will be orders of magnitude stronger than the previous area.]

  [Experience in this area will cause you to adapt.]

  [You have passed the threshold for [Dirt] 100%]

  [Current adaptation process toward [Tin] : 0%]

  [The next area operates under slightly different fundamentals.]

  Rose took a look at my notifications, eventually stopping at the last line. “Fundamentals? What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s a warning of some sort,” I muttered, taking another step deeper into the layer of clouds.

  {Grind}

  //106,000 Hp 105,500 Str//

  Rose glanced up, to the screen over my head. “Why're you suppressing your stats?”

  “I’m not,” I said, taking a few steps closer.

  //103,000 Hp 100,000 Str//

  The air was getting much, much thicker, clinging to my body, stifling movement.

  There was a rush of wind, and tremendous weight settled upon my shoulders, my knee creaking in protest.

  //65,000 Hp 45,000 Str//

  I swallowed hard. “Well…that’s not good.”

  // {Notice} //

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