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Para was their best problem-solver right now. She was a good meat shield. She could scout. She acted quickly, could strike in multiple ways, and scaled with Willpower and meat.

Zarian was Level 16 after the goblin takedown. He dumped his Free points on his best stats. Mysticism received 15 points. Willpower received 10 points. Wonder received 5 points.

He was inclined to think Wonder helped with perceiving the unnatural. Maybe even touching on extraordinary circumstances and luck.

Or it was the stat for faith. The police officer with Basic Healing scaled with Wonder. Maybe more Wonder would’ve helped Zarian save Wally before he met his demise.

If not Wonder, I’ll grow Agility to be faster on the draw next time.

Now his stats looked like this:

Willpower: 51

Strength: 15

Agility: 14

Wonder: 37

Mysticism: 135

The growth in stats, especially Mysticism, relieved the pressure on him by a lot. Maintaining the dark swords for everyone wasn’t easy.

Para ate the goblin corpses to refuel herself. Then she stored away Wally’s body and cleaned up the scene on the bottom staircase, leaving it spotless.

Being transgressors seemed to be a big deal here. Zarian figured it was best to leave less evidence of their kills whenever possible.

Zarian sat near the staircase entrance with his grimoire cracked open. Naomi and the police officers coached the others into basic weapon swinging techniques.

They treated the swords like a fusion between batons and machetes. Zarian was pretty sure that was wrong, but he’d never done martial arts with swords before.

Instead of trying it out, he focused on studying the pages in his soul bound grimoire. It didn’t seem to offer much more than what he already had, though.

No matter where he flipped, the heavy symbols and scribbles remained indecipherable to him. His Identify trait wouldn’t work on any single line or shape.

His personal level was probably too low. Or he needed to raise the grimoire’s skill level. It could be a combination of both to access more spells.

It was unfortunate that Bloody Lifesteal wasn’t that offensive.

“Or am I looking at it wrong?” Zarian rubbed his hand over a scrap of Para. “You’re a part of me, aren’t you? Yeah, you are. Hmm.”

Zarian pondered for a little while. He tracked the aura flowing inside of him.

For now, he was okay. He could feel it ticking down slowly. Thankfully, having more Mysticism seemed to increase recovery of the magical substance.

The great news was how the consistent practice helped Straight Darkness grow. His best alpha skill was becoming more refined.

Zarian felt confident in maintaining the shape of the eight dark swords. Even when members of the group moved under the weak sconce lights, Zarian kept his swords sharp and hard.

Naomi broke away from the others to join him. She stood attentively, waiting for his acknowledgement.

That was weird of her. She used to terrorize him when he was a recruit. She’d once tracked him down at a former trap house in the hood and made him run sprints with her in the early hours.

Maybe she really cares about me, Zarian thought.

He couldn’t be sure. But it felt like that. Or she was her own brand of crazy and would do anything to survive.

It was unfortunate he’d dragged her into a fight against corruption and goblins. But he was inwardly happy he had someone trustworthy backing him.

He would strip the flesh off anyone’s bones if they hurt her.

“Yes, Sergeant Washington?” Zarian asked.

“It’s Staff Sergeant.” Naomi shifted awkwardly. “I ranked up last week. But that doesn’t matter here. Let’s go with Naomi, if that serves you, sir.”

“Uh, sure, I can work with that.” Zarian tilted his hooded head. “Anything else, Naomi?”

“I went through the list. I had thirty options. Three of them are rare, and also the best. Can I have your help with choosing?”

Zarian nodded, patting the stone floor by him. Para was keeping watch of the staircase and the doorway at the top. She would warn them if another wave of goblins appeared.

Naomi took a seat beside him. “The police officers are thirsty, by the way. Hannah and Jack, too. Bianca says she’s alright, but she’s probably lying. I feel it a little, but not as much as the others.”

“You have the most stats in Strength and Agility. Either stat or both could improve your physical condition overall.” Zarian gave Naomi a half smile she could see under his hood. He kept his own needs to himself.

He’d been ignoring his thirst and hunger the whole time. He had the benefit of more physical stats than normal. But not by much.

“Would those monsters have water?” Naomi asked.

“The Slave Cook might,” Zarian said. “A cook would have water. Boiled, too. Now, let’s look at your options.”

She told him her top three choices. They looked something like this:

Choice one:

Two:

Three:

“Damn,” Zarian said.

Naomi sighed. “Exactly my point, sir. I didn’t get enough of … Wally’s expertise when I should’ve. But I got the gist during his fastest rant. This life-and-death game requires some strategy. The points I receive can decide what stats and powers become stronger down the road. But once I choose, I’m picking a specialty. And specialties aren’t perfect for every situation.”

“You’re right about that.” He had his own concerns for being an extremely dark and evil-aligned edge lord of the Infinita Star System.

It looked like one of Naomi’s options would make her evil aligned, too. Zarian wasn’t sure if he wanted her to go down that road. Although, it could be nice to have another evil presence other than him.

“Can I explain my thought process?” Naomi asked.

“I’ll listen,” Zarian offered.

He was interested in how a non-nerd would handle this. Zarian had his biases, but people outside of geeky niche cultures could offer unique insights.

“Each class is rare, which is better than the rest. Each of these classes offers different approaches that can help in the here and now.” Naomi lowered her voice. “One, the Battle Psion Initiate makes me think it deals with PSYOPs and mental shit. I can probably do some crazy stuff to people’s minds.”

Naomi jerked her head at the police with the Command skill.

Zarian wondered if she would turn those powers on anyone else, like him. He wasn’t sure. But he wouldn’t deny Naomi going after that class.

She carried on: “Or two, I pick the Holy Maiden Trainee and nab that Holy Ray skill. Big issue with that is the stats don’t go with what I’ve been pumping up so far. I’ve ignored Wonder and Mysticism. Now I’ll need those to catch up if I go all holy. I’m gonna guess that Holy Ray scales with those and it’ll come out weak otherwise. Am I right?”

“Yes, you’re right.”

Naomi smiled in relief at Zarian’s answer. It was a nice and human look on her, a crack in her normal tough act. Zarian’s trust deepened as she spoke further, sounding more excited, like a fledgling gamer.

“Third, I get three choices in skills with the Earth Destroyer Junior. Look all around us. Earth. Outside is going to be more earth on the ground. I won’t ever run out. It’s weird that it’s evil aligned, but I’m no princess either way, so I don’t mind dancing with that devil.”

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Naomi sighed, shoulders slacking. “See my dilemma, sir? But I’m not one for laying out problems without solutions.”

“What do you have for me?” Zarian asked.

“Well, if I look at the option of getting a rare trait, that might be major for me. So that eliminates Earth Destroyer Junior. If I think about building up what I started so I can get a major advantage, like compound interest, Holy Maiden Trainee can’t be the one.”

Zarian nodded slowly. He was thinking the same thing.

If Naomi wanted to be as strong as possible, she had to lean into the min-max principle.

Yes, it was possible for her to recover in the later levels if she shifted stat priorities. But there might not be a later if she couldn’t survive the trial right above them.

Zarian moved his face close to hers.

She leaned even closer, cheek to cheek, lips to ear.

“Don’t fuck with my head, Naomi,” Zarian grunted. “Unless I tell you to, or you give me a fair warning. If you do fuck with my head, it better be for a good reason.”

It was a simple demand with a lot of weight.

Naomi gulped audibly. Then she whispered back into his ear. “I thought about that. I’m going for a class with potential powers that screws with people’s heads, including yours. So, yeah, I’ll be extra careful and keep you updated. Thank you for trusting me … Zarian.”

She sounded like she wanted to say more. But she kept it at that. She was waiting for his permission.

“Get the Battle Psion Initiate,” he told her.

She selected the class. Then she picked her skill before telling him about the new additions.

She had a rare trait called Psionic Affinity, and her new skill was called Mind Spike. She could drive a horrible, brain-damaging migraine into an observable target that was fairly close to her. The closer, the better.

Both of her new abilities scaled with Willpower.

“I lost the nerves,” Naomi muttered.

“You had an option for influencing others and didn’t choose it?” Zarian whispered.

“I thought about how people won’t trust me if they knew I had that skill,” Naomi said, glaring at the guy with the Command skill. “I couldn’t risk it in case we have to get friendly with locals.”

Zarian stood up and offered his hand to Naomi to help her stand. Once she was on her feet, he said, “You’re already intimidating enough.”

Naomi flinched back.

Zarian thought little of it and looked past Naomi. The rest of the group was ready to move on. Now that he was informed, they did look thirsty.

Bianca was calmer, the dark sword steady in her hands. That was a good sign after her sobbing episode from earlier.

“No more deaths, please,” Zarian said. “You can hate me as much as you want, but now we really need each other to survive.”

“You don’t need us,” Jack said.

Zarian shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. You all have uniquely quirky skills that are useful for different situations. And as your resident wizard, I’m into magic of all sorts. Even the smallest power can be super useful in the right situation.”

“Like Dungeons and Dragons?” Hannah asked demurely.

Everyone glanced at her in surprise.

She was a woman in her early thirties. She didn’t look like the type to play a nerdy tabletop game whatsoever. Only now did Zarian notice she’d dropped her shopping bags a while ago.

“My ex-husband used to love those games. He tried to get me into them. I wouldn’t have minded if his friends weren’t, um, hard to be around,” Hannah explained.

Zarian nodded. “Nerd culture can be intense. Or smelly. Anyway, let’s get going. We need to find what the goblins call a Slave Cook. Maybe they will have water.”

Everyone’s eyes gleamed with thirst at the mention of water. The importance of that revealed a notification above all of their heads.

It was blue instead of gold, which made sense if it was addressing a group:

“That’s that quest thing you mentioned?” asked Mark, the officer with the Super Punch skill. Zarian had broken his shoulder earlier, but now it was mostly healed. “I can’t believe we’re in some little kid’s psychotic fantasy game. What did you kidnap us into?”

“Wally liked it. And Wally died to it. Shut up and follow me.” Zarian turned away and strode inside the staircase.

Para had scouted ahead for a while now. There were no signs of incoming enemies. Zarian took the short, uneven steps four at a time.

He wasn’t a tall man, only five-foot-nine, but the goblins made him feel big with these stairs. He reached the top and entered a more well-lit hallway.

The floor and walls were still made of stone, but it looked better than the floor below.

There were two directions to choose from, left or right.

Zarian reached into Naomi’s gun belts and stole a bullet. He hid his hands behind his back, swapped the bullet around, then held out his closed fists to Naomi.

She picked left. The bullet was there.

Zarian took the group down the leftward direction from the stairs.

He caught a look from the police officers. They were either amazed or horrified by his stellar decision-making trick.

It worked out well enough after Para found two traps and a small group of goblins later on. The monsters were in a garage-size room filled with piles of trashy stuff.

The darkness was weaker on this floor with the increased illumination. That was fine, because Zarian had a new idea.

Grimoire in hand, he evoked Bloody Lifesteal. His focus split between channeling the gruesome spell and eight dark swords.

He grunted in pain, his head throbbing, his aura draining. He still kept the magic flowing.

Zarian strode into the rubbish room, catching the goblins’ attention with the glowing red light from the grimoire. They were slow to react to Para as she launched the bulk of the attack.

The Parasite Cape had already infiltrated the room and piles of trash with threads of her flesh. Her threads sprung rapidly around the goblins like steel wires, slicing into their limbs, binding them quickly.

Bloody Lifesteal went into effect through Para, draining their life energy and feeding Zarian, dimming his headache and giving him a hell of a high. More parasitic flesh entangled the goblins, latching onto them with teeth and spurs of bone.

Pushing the gruesome factor, Para dug needle-thin wires into the flesh of the goblins as if she was going to consume them from the inside out. Or do way, way worse than that.

Before Zarian secured total victory, the goblins responded after the element of surprise came and went.

Four goblins used Shadow Rush to slip away from Para’s hold. Four others used Shadow Strength, bulking up with shaded muscles.

Bianca revealed herself from behind Zarian, one hand holding a dark sword. The other hand raised to direct her Searing Flash skill. She wore a brave face as she risked her life again to play her part.

Zarian was glad to see it, but God, did her skill hurt. Zarian felt his inner darkness roiled from Bianca’s searing light. His flesh felt a little sunburnt, like he was developing a rapid rash that would flake and itch like hell.

The damage wasn’t lasting since Bianca was low level, but she was going to be a pain for him once she grew stronger.

The pain was worth the reward. All the goblins with Shadow Rush turned solid again, surprised and hurt. They screamed even more than when Para had them.

The goblins with Shadow Strength stumbled and lost some of their might, but they proved more durable as they stumbled forward on a blinded attack.

Thankfully for Zarian, Para wasn’t blinded and kept entangling and draining the life out of the goblins. The goblins with Shadow Strength slowed down heavily, and Zarian recovered faster.

He saw the dark sword in Bianca’s hand was still there.

It was a little ragged from the Searing Flash, but enough remained for Zarian to fix it up. Its edge became sharp again.

Naomi stepped into the room. She muttered her skill as she pointed at her primary targets, the agile goblins. “Mind Spike, Mind Spike, Mind Spike, Mind Spike.”

The goblins dropped to the floor, holding their heads, screaming in pain from brain-hemorrhaging migraines. They would have a hard time using their alpha skill to rush around.

Naomi grabbed Bianca and guided her forward to team up on a single goblin. She helped the young woman with expert patience while hyper attentive to danger.

Zarian looked over his shoulder. “Come and get these levels.”

Jack swept in first, followed by the police officers. Hannah shuffled inside last.

By then, Para had chewed through the strong goblins. She looped her threads in and out of their bodies. It was horrifying to see, like watching dozens to a hundred long and thin worms wriggle in and out of humanoid creatures.

It looked like Para killed faster from inside the targets. She seemed to enjoy the horror-show this way. She purred against Zarian’s back with each death of the strong goblins.

The combination of Parasite Cloak and Bloody Lifesteal, while Zarian had his stats empowered by the Overpower trait, was, well, overpowered. Zarian controlled the entire scenario with some help from the others and fed kills to his group.

Naomi and Bianca killed two agile goblins together. Jack and the officers worked hard to kill one agile goblin.

Zarian wrapped up the final goblin with his parasite and slammed it into the wall.

“Where’s the Slave Cook?” he asked, using Identify to translate the goblins’ words.

“Kill you, kill you, kill you. I’ll fuck your corpse, stupid, tasty human! I’ll find your family, corrupt them, then eat them alive!” The goblin raved madly, spitting and thrashing.

Zarian asked it questions a few more times while Para sliced, drilled, and wormed into the goblin’s flesh. It didn’t seem to care or understand its situation. It kept promising obscene acts of violence.

Were all goblins like this, or was this the corruptive work of the Shadowfell Tears?

His growing curiosity almost wanted to see a human example.

“Hannah,” Zarian called.

“I’m not like you. I’m not strong enough,” she said.

“I’ll help you.” Zarian placed his hand gently on her sword hand.

He guided her sword to the goblin’s neck. He gently urged her and she did the rest, shoving the tip harder and harder because of her lack of Strength. Eventually, she gouged out the goblin’s throat and spilled enough blood until it died.

“My family had a farm when I was growing up,” Hannah said shakily, staring with eyes wide at what she’d done. “Mama made me get chickens and kill them from time to time to eat. This feels different.”

“The goblins are way worse than chickens.” Zarian let Para store the body instead of eating it.

She could save it as a snack for later.

“Did you get anything from that monster?” Jack demanded from Zarian.

“No.”

“My bad, sir,” Naomi said.

Everyone looked at her in surprise for apologizing. Zarian figured she was blaming herself for not grabbing a mind controlling skill.

The other option was having Lincoln use his Command skill.

Zarian wasn’t sure if he trusted any of the police officers yet.

“We’re stronger now,” Mark bragged after catching Zarian’s gaze.

Zarian identified their low levels. “Good for you.”

Zarian was now Level 17. All three skills had leveled up. Straight Darkness, Level 7. Grimoire of Black Magic 101, Level 4. Parasite Cloak, Level 4.

He invested 5 Free points into Agility.

Naomi had mentioned her reaction time was far quicker than before the integration to the System. That sounded like something Agility would improve.

There goes my perfect min-max build.

Oh well, better reaction times might come in handy for later.

Zarian looked around.

The trash in the room looked like a mix of rusted odds-and-ends and garbage. No serviceable weapons remained, just snapped swords, broken shields, heavily dented armors, and splintered spears.

He used Identify and received a bunch of details from common items with no magical effects. Yup, all trash.

“Back to the side quest,” Zarian said. “I wouldn’t trust using anything here.”

“Um, Zarian, sir, your book is glowing,” Bianca pointed out.

“It does that,” Zarian said dismissively before glancing at the flipped open pages.

There was, in fact, a glow. It was not red or black. The grimoire was open to a new section where the pages emitted a ghastly black, green light. Zarian read some of it and found that they made sense.

“Oh, wow,” Zarian said.

“What is it?” Naomi asked.

“Necromancy.”