Unlike a hyonic drive, which explodes blue, the core component of the laser gun exploded in bright yellow tinged with green. That’s what I noticed as I sat right in the middle of the blast, because there’s nothing else to see.

  Now I understand why this Body-Suit comes with a helmet, I thought. I flexed my hands, which haven’t taken damage either, despite not being covered by my plasma-retardant suit.

  The light faded fast, and it occurred to me that there wasn’t much noise to the explosion. When the town of Radix came back into my vision, I found myself in the center of a considerable blast radius. The front wall of the bank was scorched, and I could hear the creak of the water tower behind me. I glanced back to find the supports charred. That thing wasn’t going to stay standing much longer.

  Dave fluttered down to the ground in front of me, scattering the two piles of ash that used to be the other Hunters. I checked the target count that’s locked to the top of my screen:

  Targets Remaining: 4

  “How the lactating codfish did you do that?” Dave asked, his voice awed.

  I became aware then of a persistent klaxon sound. It had somehow been drowned out by the silent explosion. Either that, or everything was so loud that it blew my eardrums. My gaze tilted to the health orb in the corner of my screen.

  I was at seven hit points. Six. Five.

  Something carnal reared up in my chest and I lunged for the nearest pile of ash, gesturing to Loot All as soon as the icon appeared. I pulled up the inventory menu when I hit the ground, because there’s no time to loot the other pile. I could see several vial-shaped items in my recent pick-ups, and I manifested all three and swallowed them just as fast.

  All of this happened in the five seconds it would have taken me to bleed out, but by an act of the invented gods that rule over this world, one of the swallowed vials ends up being a health potion. It boosted me up to around 10% health and stopped the Bleed effect, but that was enough to clear the haze in my head, and save my life.

  “Whoa,” Dave said, taking an awkward step back on his taloned bird feet. “How low were you?”

  “Don’t ask,” I said, getting to my feet. I saw a new icon glowing outside my HP orb, and I kept my head stationary to tap it. It expanded to let me know that I had boosted my immunity to Nature magic with one of the vials I’d downed; that effect would last for ten minutes. With the final vial, I was actively regaining HP, a few every second. I was already up to 15%, but it wouldn’t last long enough to get me to full health.

  Shaking myself, I looted the other corpse, this one belonging to the shadow creature. It very conveniently returned my Green-grade pike to me; instead of it being destroyed in the blast, it had merely become part of his inventory. I saved that interesting tidbit for later.

  “Are you… okay?” Dave asked carefully. “You were acting a little clam-drunk there.”

  I almost asked, but didn’t. Seeing as how it was Dave, the phrase “clam-drunk” was probably related to women’s genitalia. I guessed that what he meant to say was that I had been acting woozy, which was true. After hitting around the 5% health mark, half my brain had seemed to shut off.

  I didn’t like that. It suggested that the Conduit were somehow inside my head, and that’s where I didn’t want them to be.

  I was about to tell Dave to fuck off when the Game Host started in with her Achievements again.

  Achievement! Don’t Bleed on My Rug!

  That’s not a euphemism. You almost bled out thanks to the Bleed effect, and that’s gross. It might be someone’s kink, but it’s not mine. Ew.

  Reward: Codex of Bleeder.

  I didn’t think I’d want to equip that skill, whatever it was.

  Achievement! Having a Breakdown!

  You have Dismantled your first item! Your hands, they are so dexterous! So skilled! So perfectly shaped for breaking machines down into their base parts, twisting them to suit your needs, making them crazy, making them beg for release, until, finally, they climax explosively—I mean explode explosively! Yes, that!

  Reward: 5 gold.

  Achievement! Loopholery!

  Of course, you weren’t supposed to be able to use pieces of an item that way. I mean, even in Seven Keys, all you get out of Dismantling is a few components you can use to build other items. Nothing explosive. Your sexy bang wouldn’t have happened at all if you had used an in-game item, but fortunately for you, that gun came from another, more advanced civilization. It was actually real… real turned on, that is!

  Okay, I’ll stop now. (No, I won’t.)

  Reward: a sternly-worded letter from the Developers not to do that again. You should frame it. Also, a pair of Apprentice Breaker’s Gloves (Orange Grade).

  “Seriously,” I said, “does she ever shut up?”

  As the Game Host had been speaking, I’d been getting the hell away from the main square outside the vault. For one, other Hunters had likely either seen or heard the blast—I still wasn’t sure if it had been silent or if my ears had just essentially gone dead—and more would be coming. At 20% health, I didn’t want to face them. The vault might be safe on the inside, but by the time I left, it was very possible that all four remaining Hunters would be camping the place. I knew how this sort of thing worked.

  For another, that water tower wasn’t going to hold for much longer. If I got unlucky, it might come down on the vault door and block my exit entirely, or worse, it might come down on me.

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  You mean the Game Host? Dave said, through a Whisper. It had taken me a second to notice the line of text in the lower corner of my HUD. No. You can’t turn her off. But you can dilate her.

  An involuntary shudder went through me at the word dilate. It conjured gynecological images that I didn’t want to associate with the sex-crazed robot in my head.

  What does that mean? I wanted to say. I needed to figure that out, and figure out this Whisper business, too. I put together a plan to do just that as the Game Host finished up with one final Achievement:

  Achievement! Two-For-One Tuesday!

  Okay, it’s not Tuesday, but you still killed two rival Hunters with one attack. Is that your kink, then? Taking on two at once? Because I’m a bit of a jealous girl. I’m not sure I could take that. I don’t want to share you. But maybe we could consider it for your birthday. Or Christmas. Easter at the absolute most. I imagine me and the other girl could have fun with the Easter eggs or something. I mean, what else are you gonna use those things for? Eating? Yeah right. They’ve been on the ground.

  Reward: a Reverse Tigerwatcher Helm (Green).

  Dave swooped low, landed daintily on my shoulder, and scoffed. “She didn’t even give us good stuff for that explosion. Just 5 gold? Psh. You must have really pissed off the Developers.”

  “They don’t like us using loopholes, then?”

  “Come on, Remnant. You know they’re very keen on their precious rules.”

  Right. I had to keep pretending. “I’ll be sure to watch myself from now on,” I said with a growl. Watch myself do it again, that is.

  I slowed my jog to a stop, having reached the mayor’s mansion on the north edge of town. The long, two-story log cabin was situated atop a small rise, with its own wall guarded by men in red uniforms. They were Riftguard, marked by the crouching Scael insignia emblazoned in silver across the front.

  “What are we doing here?” Dave asked. “And why aren’t we in the vault? You really should be allocating your stats.”

  Right. I had stats. I’d forgotten all about those. “How many do I have floating?” I asked.

  Dave took a second to check, navigating my system for me as I strode up the wide, wagon-riveted path to the front gate.

  Dave whistled, or at least mimicked a whistle. “You’ve gained six levels! Holy six-inch stilettos!”

  I missed a step and swiveled my head to look at him. “Wait, I leveled? But nothing happened!” In Seven Keys, people glowed when they leveled up. I had done no such thing, not unless I’d gained all six levels while in the middle of that laser explosion.

  “Remmy, did you hit your head or something?” Dave said. “You know the Conduit stopped doing visual leveling cues six seasons ago, when that guy blinded himself with his own light after killing that boss, and ended up walking off a cliff. The viewers were pissed off, because all the bookies said it counted as a loss against the boss. Caused all kinds of ruckus.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “Damn, that shit back there really did make me woozy. Well—what stats can I allocate, then?”

  Dave squinted, at what I wasn’t sure. “Huh. Looks like you can’t allocate the new stats unless you do all the other stuff you got for leveling, too. Spell slots and stuff like that. You can’t even get the HP gains.”

  “What’s my HP?”

  “120.”

  That seemed low. “We should level now, then.”

  Dave shook his head, making his crest feathers bob. “I don’t think we should risk it. It might make you go through all the upgrades at once, and you can’t leave the menu while you’re doing that. At six levels, that’ll take some time. We shouldn’t do it out here.”

  I sighed. Even when I did level, there was barely any safe place to do it. “Well, what stats have I got already? Unallocated,” I asked, pausing about ten feet from the mansion gate and keeping an eye on the surrounded exposed hill. I didn’t think and Hunters would have reason to come here just yet, but maybe they’d try to kill the mayor for XP or something.

  “You’ve got six,” Dave said, sounding disappointed. “You had three already, but you got three more for killing that shadow guy.”

  I almost did a double-take. “I thought I didn’t get stats for…” I said, before realizing I shouldn’t say any of this out loud.

  You’re wondering why you get starts for killing Hunters now, Dave said. When you only got stats for humans before?

  I nodded. Either he was reading my mind, which was bad, or he was smart, which was good. He might be an ass, but at least he wasn’t stupid.

  Well, you don’t get stats for Hunters that haven’t killed any other Hunters, Dave explained. Looks like that shadowblast had killed three, so you got all those new stats from him. Phew. I’m glad you got rid of him when you did… but yeah, you got nothin’ for the krikkerik.

  I guessed that the “krikkerik” was the slime creature, and the “shadowblast” was the black thing with the antlers. I shuddered. What had he said? That he was here because he’d killed twenty people?

  Dave shrugged. “So what do you want me to do with the stats? Since you can’t be bothered to do it yourself.”

  I considered this for a moment. In that last battle, I’d survived thanks to my suit, which was immune to three game elements. I had very much appreciated that safety, but it wasn’t immune to the other six elements. I had to guard against those.

  Lore would have told me to pump everything into damage. But I’d been in a lot more fights than he had, and keeping yourself upright for longer was a better way to win.

  “Put one stat into Constitution,” I said. “I’m saving five in reserve for more Conscripts.”

  Dave outright gasped. “I thought you were done with that! You do realize those Kitty Scouts and that cheese puff guy are probably dead right now, right? And you wasted seven stat points on them!”

  He had a point, and I flatly ignored that point. “One to CON. Hold the rest,” I said.

  He grumbled to himself, but I presumed he did the thing, because I felt a bit stronger the next moment, a bit more stout. I was pretty sure it wasn’t in my head.

  The thing was, I wanted to get stronger. But I also hated the idea of coming up against another Coreless, and not being able to help them. Dave had said there would be more of them in the levels, but so far, I’d only seen NPCs. Since one of them was Moran, I had to think that all the NPCs were made out of people with ID chips. The Coreless would look like something else.

  “So, tell me again why we’re not at the vault?” Dave groused.

  I faced the wall surrounding the mansion again. “This place is safer than the vault,” I said as I hailed the Riftguard soldier atop the low wall with a wave. He waved back, then shouted down to someone behind the wall. It swung open for me, and I strode right through.

  “Doesn’t seem safe to me,” Dave muttered. “Not if they’re just letting in the riffraff.”

  “I’m not riffraff. I have that Red Riftgard Key, remember? It practically makes me one of these guys. No one else will be able to get that key yet, so as long as I’m inside this mansion, I’ll be protected by my own personal army.”

  Dave swiveled his head around, surveying the walls, which were guarded by one NPC about every 20 meters. That wasn’t great, but they were all level 10. Most of the Hunters had started at level one, so even level-10 guys would challenge them. I’d rather have that small buffer than use the unguarded vault where everyone else could easily find me.

  At the front door, the two guards didn’t say a word as I turned the door handle and walked right in.

  My vision flashed violet, and I stopped. Next thing I knew, I was standing inside the mansion’s foyer, an impressive space dominated by a deer-antler fountain and a wide set of stairs leading up to the next mezzanine.

  Huh. A loading screen. Can’t say I expected that.

  It happened in the game whenever players entered most buildings, cities, or mob areas, but this was real life. It seemed odd that the real world would need a loading screen, however brief it might have flashed. My hand wasn’t even on the handle anymore; it was like I’d been teleported three feet into the room.

  “Weird,” I said.

  Inside the foyer, everything looked the same as the game. Half the place was made from pine, from the polished floorboards to the knotty balusters at the base of the stairs to the darker bark wainscoting. Candles along the walls provided all the light, generating much more than they would have in real life.

  I stopped at the fountain and dipped a hand into it, cupping a mouthful of water and bringing it to my lips. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the flavor, but it turned out to have a pleasant, sprucey aftertaste, a little like cheap gin.

  As I drank, my HP orb roared to full. I grinned. So that hadn’t changed from the game, either.

  “Huh. I guess you were right. This was the place to be,” Dave admitted. He then added in a Whisper, Now would be a good time to tell me to fuck all the way off. Remnant didn’t much like me talking.

  “I’m always right, you flying cucumber,” I told him. “Now go shove yourself up an ass, where you belong.”