We ended up alone with Lana in the meadow. She turned slightly towards me and ran me down with a sharp look. “Where’s your gear?”

  I reached into my pockets, pulled out my steel gauntlets, and put them on. “I’m ready.”

  “You cannot be serious. You are the lowest level, over ten levels under the rift level. You came here with no gear? Are you just an accessory to your mistress, or what?”

  My cheeks warmed up a bit. “Well, I don’t really use any other gear. Never needed it.”

  She stared at me for a moment. Ultimately, she raised her glasses and rubbed her eyes with her hand. “This cannot be real.”

  What was I supposed to say to that?

  The delusion of Kallisto walked into my view from my side. She circled around Lana. “This one isn’t all that terrible. She’s in shape, can do magic, and isn’t too old. I approve her as a side bitch for you.”

  I bit my tongue to not answer. My own delusion did not get a say in my romantic life. Nor did Mihael. “Anyways,” I said, “How about we just go?”

  She rearranged her glasses, shaking her head. “Just try to not get in the way and to not get killed. This is a level 35 – 40 rift, so it’s way beyond your level.” She stepped towards the path.

  I joined her. A part of me wanted to say that I punched way above my level, but I wasn’t actually sure of that. Yes, I had a bunch of fights against really high-level opponents, but I lost all of them, unless I was helped by specific rules. I also didn’t exactly punch above my level. I absorbed more punches above my level.

  We walked side to side, and the slowness of the walk started irking me. Lana carefully scanned, probably with some AI in her glasses, everything we passed. Great, but that wasn’t my style.

  The thick foliage surrounding a snaking path made it increasingly narrow. Soon enough, we couldn’t walk side to side and bumped shoulders as we tried to go first.

  She pinned me with a glare that screamed out of my way, low-level scrub. I stepped aside and let her go first. The foliage further thickened, a thorn vine stretching at the head level. She started ducking to go under it. The foliage tore apart, and a massive clawed paw swiped at her head.

  I tried to react, but was too slow. The claws hit her on the back of her head. Her shields shimmered, blocking the blow, but the impact still knocked her down to one knee.

  I finally moved, bursting into the foliage, running into the massive grizzly that was clawing its way to her.

  The bushes turned out to be thick, but narrow, so I tore my way through them, stepped to the grizzly, and punched him in the side of the head. The hit echoed from its skull, but the head barely jerked.

  Fine. I planted my feet, and with a slight spin, I followed up with a left uppercut. I hit the jaw, and the beast’s head jerked a little. As it did, he swiped a paw at me.

  The claws slashed my suit and cut me across the chest.

  As if I cared. I stepped in, hitting it with another punch.

  The bear roared and stood up, over two meters tall. With the head too far, I punched him in the gut.

  He half-jumped, half-fell on me, using the claws to catch my shoulders, and its jaws to try to bite my neck.

  Mid-fall, I covered my throat. The grizzly’s teeth bit into my gauntlet, not piercing through. But we fell, with the bear landing on me. That knocked the air out of my lungs. With my left arm stuck in the bear’s mouth, I punched him in the side of the head with the other.

  That didn’t do anything, so I punched him again, and then once more.

  A spell whistled through the air, piercing a hole through the bear’s skull. The beast went limp. I threw my hips up and slid away from its center of gravity to not get pinned down.

  Lana stood on the path, staff aimed ahead, the steel tip smoldering. “Are you alive?”

  I freed my leg from underneath the bear. “Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re bleeding from ten different places. He got past your shields as if you had none. We have to go back to the start before something else attacks us.”

  As she finished the sentence, I already caught the sound of heavy paws approaching from behind me. The next grizzly bear roared, charging at me. This one had company too, another large bear buddy, and then three smaller ones, the smallest the size of a mastiff.

  The smallest bear was the fastest. I stepped toward it as it approached, and soccer kicked it in the head. Pain shot through my leg, but the hit broke the bear’s run, and I threw it aside. There you go, you furry piece of shit.

  I immediately shifted weight and punched the next smaller bear. Its snout broke underneath the impact, stopping in its tracks. The third small bear leapt at me. I slipped sideways, grabbed its back paw as it flew past me, and with a spin, I slammed the furry fuck into the largest bear’s face.

  That didn’t even slow it down though. The grizzle rammed into me, sinking its teeth into my shoulder. I managed to withstand the impact, shifted my weight on the back leg, and kicked it in the groin with the front one.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The bear jerked, but bit down on my shoulder even harder.

  The second large bear ran into me from the side, biting my torso. I quickly planted the left foot back into the ground, withstood the impact, and rammed my elbow into its eye. Eye-white splattered from the hit, but the bear bit even harder.

  One of the small bears slipped under the first big bear and bit my left leg, pulling on it.

  Just as I was about to lose my balance, a spell whistled by my ear, and the head of the bear biting into my shoulder exploded. As it knocked him off me, I used the fall to punch down the bear biting my leg.

  I hit it behind the head, its spine cracking underneath my steel fist.

  Another spell whistled through the air, tearing apart the bear biting into my side. I shifted my weight, tore the dead bear’s jaw off me, and kicked off the bear biting on my right leg.

  Lana aimed the staff at the smaller bear. The staff’s tip shimmered, and the air between it and the bear blurred, whistling, carving a hole all the way through the bear.

  High-penetration force magic. Took a while to prepare, and it wasn’t easy to aim, apparently.

  I glanced at the last bear, a smaller one, which had a broken snout. He held a defensive position, head lowered, paws spread, growling.

  I stepped towards it. “Not so tough now, eh, furry xp bag?”

  The bear growled and bolted towards me. I stepped towards it in a wide step, and as the bear was about to pounce, I slid aside, shifted my weight, and soccer kicked it in the side. That threw the bear into a nearby tree.

  I followed up, lowering my stance into a full wind-up upper cut. I hit its side, shattering the ribs, the beast screeching as my gauntlet bore into its organs.

  That’s right. Time to cash you out. I knelt over the wound and punched the bear in the back of the head. The first punch wasn’t enough to break its spine. The third one was, and the bear stopped moving.

  “There you fucking go.” I got up and scooped the blood from my side to slick back my hair with it. “Piece of shit.” I kicked the corpse.

  Lana yelped, her staff aimed at me.

  Right. This wasn’t Takezo. “Sorry,” I said, softening my face. “Are you all right?”

  “What the hell was that? You are bleeding from twenty different wounds, and are looking to finish off strays instead of tending to your wounds.”

  I shrugged. “That’s the life of an endurance build. I get hit a lot, but I can also take a lot. I’m not too wounded, actually. Sure, I’ve got a lot of wounds, but the bleeding is so light that my anti-bleeding passives haven’t even triggered.”

  “Why would you ever spec into endurance?” Lana’s eyes widened, voice turning from curious to horrified. “That’s the worst stat in the system, bar none.”

  “Life forced me into it.” I walked past her, returning to the path to continue in our designated direction. “I had a few situations that forced me to put points into endurance so I wouldn’t die.”

  Delusion of Kallisto appeared next to me, clicking her tongue. “That’s not how you sell your build. Endurance is the best stat in the system, because it’s the only stat that’s useful during sex. Think about it. Strength is counterproductive because you’d hurt her. Basic dexterity is sufficient. Intelligence does nothing, and neither does willpower. Speed is counterproductive, and charisma gets you to bed, but does nothing in it. That’s how you should present your build.”

  I acted as if I didn’t hear that. I felt awkward just listening to it, especially with the context of real Kallisto being an endurance build herself.

  Lana caught up with me. “That’s kind of sad, actually. I spent months thinking my build over, and ultimately picked one that fits me the best, and that perfectly suits my talents and family’s legacy. I can’t imagine that being taken from me by circumstances.”

  More like Isabella than circumstances. “It’s not that bad. I hated the build too at the start, but then I met an endurance build user so absurdly strong that I think I’ll be fine on the high levels.”

  The path before us cleared a little, the forest clearer. A massive spider with a blown-up side lay there, so this is where the others went, most likely. “If you make it to them. The bears would have torn you apart if I weren’t around. Endurance just makes you die slower, but you still die.”

  “I would have approached it differently if I were alone.” My cheeks were slightly flushed though. I didn’t have any other way to approach fights.

  “But you had no idea what my build was or if I even had any offensive spells to help you.”

  As if I had thought of that. “I believed in you.”

  She rolled her eyes, but stopped talking.

  We walked my more monsters, some blown up, others cut apart or charred by lightning. Yeah, Takezo definitely went through here. “Let me guess, Jaden makes explosions.”

  “And your Japanese friend cuts things with a sword. He’s so beating the stereotype.”

  I chuckled. “He’s also heavily invested in stealth and dexterity, just in case someone accused him of not being a ninja.”

  We laughed.

  The number of corpses by the path progressively increased. While we were taking a stroll, Jaden and Takezo clearly raced to see who could kill more monsters. They got a lot more than Lana and I did.

  None of them looked as tough as the bears though. Okay, maybe the huge spider did, but he was just one.

  A palisade loomed ahead on a meadow, a few hundred yards away. It had an opening, which looked like a blown-up gate. Next to the gate, a man in steel armor. Wait, that was Jaden, wasn’t it?

  Lana tuned in that direction before I did, rushing a bit ahead.

  I joined her in the course.

  “Are you all right, Jaden?” she shouted before she reached him.

  Well, them, because when we got closer, I noticed Takezo sat next to him.

  Jaden waved with the gauntlet-covered hand. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  He looked all right, just had two thick spikes struck in his armor. Takezo had his suit drenched with blood, most likely his own. I walked to him with a smirk. “Don’t tell me you got stuck.”

  He smirked back at me. “I see you took a detour through a meat grinder.”

  “Had a great view.” I stopped by him. “So, what’s the hangup?”

  “The boss is in the middle. It’s a large orc that uses some magic, probably. He’s got a guard of about twenty orcs, and then he’s got a pet, which is a weird bat-porcupine-lizard chimera. The thing’s got blindsight, so it’s hard to sneak on, and it’s got a great effective range. It wouldn’t have been a problem if Jaden here had any damn defense, but it turns out the armor is mostly for show.”

  Jaden glared at him. “As if you did any better. You ate two spikes and ran like a little bitch.”

  “Let’s calm down,” Lana said, surprisingly sharply. “We are all here, so resolve the problem efficiently. I’ll map the situation with my drones, and we'll draw a plan based on that.” She tapped the side of her glasses, and the top drone lifted off her backpack. It hovered next to her, and the second drone also lifted off.

  Now that I saw them moving, I recognized weapons on them, or at least the second drone almost surely had a small minigun attached to it. The drones lifted high up into the air.

  Or, well, they tried to, because the moment the drones got above the palisade level, a thick spike hit the first drone, sending it scattering on the ground before it blew up.

  Takezo snorted. “Told you it’s got a good range.”

  Lana tapped her glasses again, and the second drone bolted up diagonally, away from the palisade. Another spike hit the drone, shooting it down.

  “It’s also precise,” Takezo added.

  Lana tapped the side of her glasses, clearly disconnecting the drone interface. “Anyways, we should brainstorm a solution, or possibly seek our mentors to finish the dungeon. We have plenty of time, and our goal is to incapacitate the boss, so we have time to mine the dimensional crystals and anything else that’s valuable in here.”

  I glanced at Takezo. “You done slacking?”

  He got up, stretching his neck. “Yeah.”

  I headed to the opening in the palisade.