Enochia pushed herself up from the floor, brushing dust from her knees as she took one last look at the rearranged skeletons. She had done her best to put them in respectful poses. She rubbed the back of her neck, embarrassment flickering across her face. “Sorry,” she murmured at the empty skulls, her voice softer than anything she’d said all day. “I’m really not the best with, uh… grim stuff. But I guess… rest in peace? For real this time.” With an awkward salute and a quick bow she didn’t put much thought into, she added, “Alright. Peace out. I’ll let you all rest for a bit.”

  And then she ran out of that awful, sulfur-infested hole. The moment her boots hit flat stone again and the wind hit her face, she gagged all over again just from remembering the smell. Even the oppressive heat rolling from the distant lava rivers felt cleaner than that pond; breathing here was like inhaling from an oven instead of from a hoarder’s fridge full of expired eggs. Improvement? Yes. Barely. But she’d take it.

  Enochia set her sights on the direction of the fallen tower and began walking, her steps unconsciously faster than before. The rhythmic crunch of her boots kept her grounded, but her thoughts drifted back, uncomfortably, to Roo’s earlier warning.

  She didn’t want to think about what that meant. She refused to think about what that meant. Because if souls could die here… if these skeletons were anything like her… then the consequences were beyond horrifying. “Yeah, healll nahhh,” she muttered under her breath. “To the naw, naw, NAW. We’re not unpacking that today.”

  To distract herself, she sucked in a steady breath through her nose and brought up her status window in a crisp wave of light.

  ─────────────────────────────

  STATUS:

  Name: Enochia Adams

  Title: N/A

  Level: 11

  EXP: 8,000 / 11,000

  HP: 1,250 / 1,250

  MANA: 3,300 / 3,300

  STR: 5

  AGI: 8

  VIT: 25

  FAI: 110

  LCK: 13

  DEF: 0

  Free Points: 20

  [ EXP ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓?????? ] 73 %

  ─────────────────────────────

  She grinned. “Twenty points… ALL TO FAI, LET’S GOOOOO!” She threw one arm forward like she was launching a rocket punch. For a moment she felt unstoppable, already imagining her FAI stat rising into the stratosphere.

  Then the system slapped her with reality.

  [Stat Limit Max Reached]

  [Further increase in FAI will require the user to reach Level 100]

  Enochia stopped walking. Her expression blanked. Then soured. Then she groaned so loudly her voice echoed off the distant crater walls. “You have GOT to be kidding me! THAT’S SO FAR, WHAT THE—” She stomped once, then deflated with a sigh. “Okay, fine. I guess I do need other stats. Ugh.”

  She stared at her stat spread again. STR was… pathetic. But her abilities didn’t use STR anyway. AGI? Actually super useful—she had been caught off guard earlier, and speed was always queen. LCK was weird, but she wouldn’t say no to a bit more loot and crit chance.

  Her fingers flicked through the interface.

  +5 STR

  +12 AGI

  +3 LCK

  “There!” she announced triumphantly. “This is gonna be super useful right now!” She nodded several times, as if congratulating herself. “See? I can make rational decisions… Rarely. But I can.”

  She kept walking, the tower looming larger with every step. A little laugh bubbled out of her. “Job good me! Wait—Me good job? No. Good job me.” She dragged a hand down her face. “Damn. I seriously need someone to talk to. I’m going crazy out here alone.”

  Her mind was drifting as it always did when she was left alone too long with her own thoughts. In all honesty, she had a bad memory with voices, and she LOVED hearing herself talk, so the thing she was really afraid of was forgetting her own voice.

  And felt like she was about five minutes away from exactly that happening, before her eyes caught something half-buried in the ground: a lumpy, irregular stone shaped vaguely, very vaguely like a smartphone.

  She stopped, squinting at it.

  Then slowly… a grin grew across her face.

  Followed by a bigger grin.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “Ohhh my GOD,” she whispered to herself, snorting. “Perfect, perfect, perfect! Practice time.”

  She bent down and scooped up the stone, turning it in her hand like she was checking a screen for cracks. The weight was wrong, the texture was wrong and obviously it wasn’t a phone, but she held it the exact same way she used to during brand collaborations.

  She cleared her throat, flicked her hair back and lifted the rock in front of her face like she was going live to millions of fans.

  “Alright, chat,” Enochia muttered to absolutely nobody. “Cheat Code Chia has officially lost her last braincell. We are OUT. OF. STOCK. Completely discontinued. How are we feeling today? Terrible? Well, me too!”

  She held the rock up higher, panning it across the molten nightmare around her.

  “Welcome back to the first episode of ‘I Should Be Dead but Apparently God Said LOL NO, THANK FUCKING CHRIST!’ Today’s theme: Hell. Actual Hell. Not edgy metaphor Hell. Not ‘my math teacher gave homework’ Hell. No-no! Lava, bones, screaming, and whatever the FUCK that crawling noise was.”

  A manic grin split across her face.

  “Anyway! Quick mental health update: I’ve been alone for… I don’t know. Three hours? A day? Time isn’t real. I talked to a rock. This rock, actually. Say hi, Chad.”

  She shook the stone violently.

  “Oh my god he said nothing, iconic!”

  She kept walking, step bouncing like a feral raccoon who found caffeine.

  “So listen up, viewers. When I get out of here? I’m pulling the sickest comeback arc anyone’s ever seen!” She turned the rock toward herself and made her best deranged grin.

  “Observe this face,” she declared proudly. “This is the face of a woman who has held a full conversation with a wall and came out of it feeling emotionally supported.”

  She tapped the rock lovingly.

  “Don’t judge me, Chad.”

  She suddenly whispered, leaning into the “camera”.

  “Anywayyy, this was just a quick update, so make sure to like, subscribe, hit that bell, and pray for your girl… Wait, no actually don’t pray, that might send the wrong signal down there, uhhh just manifest good vibes. Manifest me a bath. Manifest AC. Manifest me some LIVING HUMANS TO TALK TO OH MY GOD—”

  Her voice cracked into a feral screech, then she caught herself and slid right back into the manic smile.

  “Love you guysss! Mwah mwah, stay up there!”

  She lowered the stone, stared at it for a long moment, then let out a breathy laugh.

  “That… that actually helped,” she admitted, shoulders relaxing for the first time in hours. “Okay, I still got it.”

  After a few seconds, the embarrassment hit her in a delayed wave, like her brain only now queued the cringe notification properly. “Nevermind,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. “That was… way too cringy. Ugh. Pretentious. Forced. Like ‘YouTuber apology video’ energy except I’m not even apologizing for shit.” She rolled her eyes at herself, tossing the rock over her shoulder.

  “People used to like that kind of thing before, sure, but even then it was just… too much. Maybe influencer-me was built different. Or maybe my mentality slightly changed since dying? Who knows.” She waved the thought away. “Anywayyy, as long as my soon-to-be title still helps the same way it used to, that’s all that matters. Hype sells itself.” She hummed, already brainstorming. “I’ll see if Hell has anything actually exploitable like resources, landmarks, bosses, cursed loot or whatever and then I’ll write that idea down for later for a vid. Hopefully I can use that for a vid, and that some things work the same in both worlds. There’s a reason my name was Cheat Code Chia”

  She looked up again and realized she had gotten much closer to the fallen structure than expected. The tower dominated the landscape now, lying at an angle like some giant had tried to plant it into the ground. Around it swirled a faint miasma, rising from cracks like smoke. Just to the left of the tower was a field of jagged black rock formations, each spike marked with glowing red lines.

  It was the sort of thing a normal person might stop and investigate, but to Enochia…?

  “Damn,” she said flatly. “Clear to see why that sad guy called this place cursed." She stepped over a crack and squinted at the tower more closely. One side had collapsed inward, forming a ragged opening. It wasn’t huge, but big enough that she’d be able to squeeze through.

  She hesitated at the threshold, glancing at her minimap again. Nothing. Just the little tower icon. No enemies. No traps. No loot. Nothing. After a moment of debate, she shrugged. “Whatever. Into the shady death hole we go.” She placed her hands on her hips, looked left and right out of instinct despite nobody being anywhere even remotely close, then stepped inside.

  The interior was tilted, the floor slanting upward toward a wall, while the ceiling sloped down like it was trying to kiss her forehead. The whole layout was confusing. Dust and ash coated every stone. Enochia took one slow look around, sighed dramatically, and muttered, “Yeah… can’t say I’m surprised.” She kicked a pebble, which rolled sadly down the incline.

  “IS WHAT I WOULD SAY IF I WAS A LOSER!” she suddenly shouted, raising both fists. “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS??? Who builds a whole-ass tower in Hell and leaves NO loot behind? Not even a chest with garbage in it? Did this person never play a single game in their LIFE?” She gestured violently at the barren stone. “This is obviously a dungeon! Where’s the reward? Where’s the miniboss? How do you forget THE BASIC RULES?”

  Her fury spent itself quickly, and she caught herself, breathing heavily. The anger surprised her more than anything. She usually didn’t snap over loot of all things… but something about this place did weird things to her temper. Then again, she was alone, stressed, hungry, tired, dead, and trapped in a fiery wasteland made to torture the scum of humanity. Maybe she was justified. She pinched her nose, exhaled slowly, and nodded. “Okay. Fine. That was valid. But chill, girl, chill.”

  “Besides… that sad guy was here before me. He probably looted it all already. Figures.”

  She made her way to the right end of the slanted chamber, where a large fracture was connecting with the ground. Her foot hit something hard beneath the surface, something different from the stone around it. She froze. Then grinned like a kid on Christmas.

  “Well hello there.” she whispered. She swept aside the ash with her boot, revealing a rectangular outline of scorched metal.

  It was a trapdoor.