By the time we leveled Junior up to five, the sun had begun to set, darkening the plains. We would have to be quick.

  As we crested over the hill, Rose let out a gasp.

  “It’s…beautiful,” she whispered.

  The sunset had turned the rolling blue cloudwall a thousand shades of pink, red, and orange, giving the impression of shifting fire.

  “Not now,” I said, gently pushing her forward. “We need to get through the desert before nightfall.”

  “What’s the rush?” Rose asked. “You can beat anything we run into, can’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” I sighed. “And if we end up running into something we can’t handle, I need to be able to see it. We won’t see much during the night.”

  “Grind…” Junior groaned. “If you want to go fast, why are you bringing all of this stuuuuff?” He gestured first to the bags of potions in his arms, then Axel’s wagon, currently filled with vast barrels of water.

  “We’re going through the desert,” I stated. “As long as you prepare properly, there shouldn’t be any issues.”

  “Like forcing me to wear a dress?” He snorted.

  “You’re wearing a thobe,” I sighed. “It’s a piece of desert clothing.”

  “Thobe?” He grabbed the ends of his white robe. “I don’t feel like I can properly express how stupid I feel wearing this.”

  “But it is comfortable, isn’t it?” Rose asked.

  Junior scowled. “Yes. And that’s beside the point. Grind isn’t wearing one!”

  The two of them glanced at my white shirt and black jeans.

  Rose squinted. “Yeah, why aren’t you wearing one?”

  “I need proper clothing if I want to fight,” I stated.

  “But jeans?” Rose asked.

  “These are super flexible,” Junior muttered. “You’re just uncomfortable.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Yes you are.”

  “Axxxxxeeeeeelllllll…” Axel groaned, grabbing his ears in his hands. He jabbed at Sern, then glared at the three of us until we stopped talking.

  Sern sat in a bundle ontop of the barrels, snoring like a foghorn. Thankfully, she rolled to her other side halfway through the journey, muffling the sound in her headscarf.

  Despite my best efforts to get us to the cloudwall on time, it was pitch black when we finally arrived.

  “Sir,” Rose started. “Are we going in?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not worth risking. We’ll head out in the morning.”

  Junior gathered sticks and built us a campfire, where we slept for the night. I say ‘we’ slept, but I kept awake with shovel in hand, watching for signs of life within the blackened cloud.

  Sometime around midnight, there was a tremendous roar as the ground sank down, forming a valley where there’d once been hills.

  “Grind?” Junior asked, peeking his head up.

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “Go back to bed.”

  After a bit of looking around, I learned that other hills within the cloud had been leveled, which led me to think that something big must’ve moved through the outskirts of the area, building up piles of dirt which the game then moved back.

  Beyond that incident, there were no monsters that night.

  My party woke to the small boar on a stick, roasting over the campfire.

  Junior started drooling. “Where did you get that?”

  “There’s plenty of animals roaming around,” I said. “So I can get more if this isn’t enough.”

  We dished the pig into eight portions, with three for Sern, two for Axel, and one each for me, Rose and Junior.

  Sern ate with little to no care for manners, grabbing hunks of meat and licking her fingers. I wouldn’t have thought much of it if the action wasn’t so utterly counterintuitive to the quiet, shy little Sern I thought I knew.

  “What’s going on with you?” I whispered.

  Rose blinked. “Eh?”

  “Just talking to myself,” I said. “Now, since we have some time, there’s something we could get done before we go into the storm.” I reached out a hand, resting a finger on Rose’s shackles. “If you want, I’m willing to try and get rid of these. I’ll warn you that they are enchanted.”

  Junior shrugged. “I don’t mind them so much. They make it hard to get my cloak on, but that’s about it.”

  “Hang on Sir?” Rose began. “What kind of enchantments?”

  “I don’t really know, beyond that if I try to break them, they’re supposed to kill me and you,” I said. “So, yes, it is risky.

  I turned to Sern. “I know her collar, for instance, is far beyond my current power and would at the minimum knock me senseless. But I might be able to remove her cuffs. If you feel like it’s worth it, I’m more than happy to do it.”

  Sern tilted her head.

  “Aaaxxxell,” Axel said, translating.

  Junior nodded. “Sern would rather keep those on, if you don’t mind.”

  I frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “Axel,” Axel said.

  “They help her train her suppression,” Junior said, struggling to translate. “And…that’s going to be useful where we’re going?”

  “If that’s what you want,” I said. “Junior? Rose? Axel?”

  Axel stood by Sern, uttering an incomprehensible string of syllables. Then he nodded to me, tapping his chains and hugging them to his chest. “Axeeel.”

  He would keep his. They were probably too dangerous to mess with anyway.

  “Well I want mine off,” Junior snapped. He took a step forward, before Rose dragged him back.

  “If it’s dangerous, I’m going first,” she stated. Junior opened his mouth in protest before Rose cut him off. “We both know I have a better chance of surviving. I’m more experienced.”

  “We’re the same age,” Junior grumbled.“Just because you spawned in looking older doesn’t mean you actually are…”

  One of these days I’d have to ask about that.

  Rose held out her hands.

  “Do it,” she said.

  I took her wrists in mine and closed my eyes.

  At first there was a wall, utterly beyond anything I could push through. But the longer I waited, the more I sensed a backdoor, of sorts, allowing me to access the enchantment.

  And there, hiding within her skin a toxic energy, like a wolf baring teeth. I put out a little mental energy, and the enchantment pushed back, fuzzing against my mind.

  So I focused, bearing down with the full force of my will, splattering the enchantment against layers of bedrock and metal with a hiss of poisonous mana.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw the cuffs had dropped into pieces, shattering despite the softness of earth beneath, like frozen bubbles on concrete.

  Rose kept her eyes closed. “Is it over yet?”

  I nodded.

  She couldn’t see that, obviously, so I cleared my throat, trying to hide the embarrassed blush in my cheeks. “Uh yeah all good.”

  She looked up into the sky, frowning ever so slightly, before massaging the indentations on her wrists. “I feel a little different. Maybe…lighter? And my thoughts are a little sharper. But that might not even be an enchantment—”

  “AHEM,” Junior chuffed with a big smug grin all over his face. “Rose, you can let go of his hands now.”

  His sister blushed, clasping her hands behind her back. “Sorry Sir, I lost myself.”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I glanced at Junior. “I take it someone’s impatient?”

  “Of course I am!” Junior scoffed. “We all know who’s the real protagonist of this adventure. ME!”

  We gave him a pitiful look.

  Junior shuffled back. “You don’t have to be so jealous, guys. Some people are just fated to be faceless background dweebs with a polymorphous physical appearance because the author can’t be bothered to keep his facts in order.”

  “Axelllll,” Axel said.

  Junior cringed. “Okay, okay, it wasn’t very funny. You don’t have to be mean about it.”

  “AAxxxxeellll.”

  “Yes I understand the basis of good comedy is timing and that a forced joke lacks fundament—”

  I snatched his chains and concentrated, blasting them apart at the faintest touch.

  Junior staggered onto the ground.

  I blinked. “Are you…okay?”

  “Uuh-uh-huhuh.”

  “Good ‘cause we’ve got your collar to get rid of.” I knelt beside him, placing a hand on his throat. “You two want these removed, don’t you?”

  Rose held a hand to her throat, looking down. “I…I’ll keep mine. It’s not much of a bother, and…besides you need to keep your energy up, Sir.”

  “Junior?” I asked.

  He puffed out his chest. “She’s just being a sissy.”

  “I am not!” She shouted.

  “Are too!” he screamed back.

  I stuffed a bandage into his mouth. “Bite down on that. We don’t want you breaking a tooth.”

  “Mmmmhhmhmmm?”

  “Well this is probably going to hurt. A lot.”

  There was a much stronger enchantment on this one.

  I was incredibly powerful, mentally speaking, so even a stronger enchantment was relatively easy to break. For Junior, it must’ve felt like baseball to the nuts, since he immediately crumpled into a ball with muffled screaming.

  Finally, the last bits of the enchantment faded and he spat the wad of bandage on the grass, in which there were noticeable bite marks.

  He reached for his collar, finding scarred skin.

  “Whoa!” He took in as much air as he possibly could, then shouted at the top of his lungs until his head was blue, and he fell on the ground, laughing. “I’ve always wanted to do that!” The next moment the pain had been entirely forgotten and he was jumping up and down, grabbing his sister. “Get yours off! Don’t you want to see how much louder you’ll be?”

  She flushed. “I’m fine.”

  “It’s not an issue, Rose,” I said. “I have more than enough energy to break it.”

  “I said I’m fine,” Rose snapped. She took a deep breath. “See? Fine.”

  “Okay,” Junior muttered. “Do as you please, Sis. Just know that I’ll be louder in every argument from now till forever.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Rose said. She glanced around. “It’s pretty bright now. Should we go?”

  Whatever was going on, she didn’t want to talk about it. And she didn’t have to.

  “Race you to the other side!” Junior cackled, sprinting into the cloud as fast as his little legs would carry him. Axel lifted Sern onto his back and sprinted on all fours, towing the wagon of supplies behind himself. Despite all the added weight, he shot far ahead of Junior.

  Rose tried running, before she stumbled, barely catching herself.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She held a hand to her mouth, failing to disguise her heavy breathing. “Nothing. We’ve…just done a lot of walking already.” Rose smiled, watching the two specks in the distance. “Where do they get all that energy?”

  I leaned toward her. “Wanna win?”

  She blinked. “Of course I do.”

  “Hold on tight,” I said, scooping her into my arms.

  {Grind}

  //20000 Str//

  “Wait, hang on—” Rose started.

  Her voice cut off in a scream as we brushed against the clouds.

  “WHAT IS HAPPENING?!” Rose shouted, clawing into my neck.

  “I jumped!” I shouted with a grimace as she tightened her grip. “I did tell you to hold on, didn’t I?”

  “THIS IS INSANE!”

  “Sorry!” I shouted.

  We crashed into the ground, leveling a crater in a half-mile around the stormwall. Thanks to the light, I could still make out Junior and Axel some ways ahead. We needed to catch up to them, before they got lost.

  “Sorry,” I said, setting Rose onto the ground. “I didn’t really think all this through—”

  Rose jabbed me in the shoulder. “What are you doing? We haven’t won yet.”

  “Do you want to jump again?”

  “Obviously.”

  I blinked.

  She blinked.

  “Please?” Rose asked. “If Junior wins this he’s going to wave it over me for the rest of eternity.”

  I scooped her into my arms again, then jumped.

  When Junior finally wandered to us, he was puffing for breath.

  Rose looked up from her spot in the sand, giving her brother a little wave.

  “No faaaiiirr,” Junior groaned. “If Grind carried me then I’d win too!”

  Axel and Sern sat next to Rose, watching the rolling clouds and wind.

  Junior wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Funny. I don’t see the end. How long is this?”

  “Very,” I said. “We’re maybe a quarter hundredth of the way there.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I am not.”

  Junior sank to his knees. “I’m going to die out here, aren’t I?”

  “Don’t say things like that,” I grumbled. “Look, if you don’t want to walk thirty or forty miles then I can just carry you. Of course I’d have to limit my jumps or the impact would kill you.”

  Junior blinked.

  “Oh,” I said. “The second area has more magic pressure than the first, so your stats will go down to…basically nothing, really. Mine too. So between the air resistance and the change in weight, we should be fine.” In fact, my stats had already begun decreasing.

  “Worth a shot.” Junior shrugged. “As long as it’s faster.”

  Rose rolled her eyes. “We’re not going to risk our lives just to save a couple of hours.”

  Five minutes later I braced myself against the ground while the rest of my party climbed ontop of one another. Axel, of course, had the wagon on his shoulders. We wouldn’t want to leave all those supplies behind.

  “Can you carry us all? What if there are monsters in the sky?” Rose gasped. “What if one of us falls?”

  “Don’t,” I stated.

  Junior cackled. “He’s got you there.”

  Sern squirmed around so she wasn’t touching the other two quite so much.

  “This is a horrible idea. Axel, please stop breathing in my face.”

  “Aaaaxxxxellll.”

  “You know I don’t understand a word you say.”

  “That’s a funny way of phrasing it, Sis, since Axel really only says one word—”

  “Shut up, Junior.”

  “Could you three stop squirming around?” I snapped.

  Sern hung with her arms around my neck, while Axel held onto her and to one of my arms, with the wagon in his metal jaws, while Junior grabbed Axel’s hair and my arm, and Rose squeezed between everybody else.

  “Ummm…Sir?” Rose asked. “This is both uncomfortable and incredibly dangerous.”

  “Life is for the living!” Junior cheered, punching the air.

  “HOLD ON!” I ordered, and all four locked into place, perfectly stable.

  //100596 Str//

  The ground buckled underneath my feet as I rocketed up and up, into the sky.

  We plunged deep into the storm and I felt the sudden explosive pressure as the clouds pressed against us. Thankfully, the others remained blank-eyed, unmoving, despite the sudden change.

  {Grind}

  //1000 Hp//

  So long as I kept my health low, the force of the impact wouldn’t harm anyone.

  Well, theoretically.

  After shooting over miles and miles of sand—and after a few close calls when distant lightning flashed near the metal wagon—we eventually crashed down, knocking up a plume of sand the size of a small house. Between the soft ground and the intense cushioning of the air, not a single person got hurt.

  “HA!” Junior shouted, snapping out of the command. “I told you it’d work!”

  “I…didn’t think about using our command state,” Rose admitted.

  “I should have given you more warning beforehand,” I said. “And sorry for the order, but that was the only way I could guarantee you all held on.”

  “Oh it’s not a problem,” Rose said with a smile. “I don’t even remember most of the ride.”

  “It should be a problem,” I said.

  Junior shrugged. “We’re all safe and sound so no harm no—WHERE DID MY STATS GO?!” he crumpled into a ball, rocking himself back and forth.

  “Didn’t I warn you? You won’t be as strong in the second area.”

  {Better Grind (Junior)}

  [10 Hp 4 Str]

  “What’s the point of getting stronger if we’re just going to lose it all,” Junior asked, with a whimper.

  “Health is what I’m more concerned about,” I said. “Even when suppressed, you won’t die until you’re all out of it.”

  The endless seas of the clouds stretched further on, but we had already passed through at least half of it. With that kind of a head start, and with the cover of night on our arrival in the desert, we should be able to leave the desert without a single person falling unconscious.

  “Axel,” Axel grunted, tugging the wagon behind him. He huffed louder, straining a little before he managed to force the wagon into moving again.

  Odd that he’d be having so much trouble pulling it forward.

  Junior frowned. “Hey, Grind…how are we going to move the wagon once we lose all our stats?”

  I immediately facepalmed.

  // {Notice} //

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  Race Day — Thirty

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