You have been Muted! All battle-relevant notifications will be disabled for the next 60 sec–... Wait a minute, this happened already!

You have been Taunted! Your Stamina Bar will now drain twice as fast!

You have been Coerced! You are now 50% more likely to do whatever this debuff’s caster suggests!

You have been Deeply Enraged! Why? Well, not only did you refuse the suggestion of your Coercer, but you were also under the Taunt debuff! You will now deal 20% more damage to your opponent!

Cerus sat me on the ground by a mailbox, and it took everything in me not to pass out. I’d used all of my Strength and Stamina in that fight with the Presence. I was too tired to think about what I’d done – well, almost done against the Presence – but I still gave it a little thought. I’d almost beaten it! Sure, between Essence of Aura, Boost, the Blood Amulet, and that Deeply Enraged buff I was way stronger than I should’ve been, but I would’ve won!

“You think I got an achievement out of that?” I asked Cerus, who’d been unusually quiet beside me.

“Certainly.”

I turned to her, choosing my words carefully. “Oh yeah, I’m sorry for ignoring you. I wasn’t in my right state of mind. I was debuffed.”

She didn’t respond, merely nodding and staring off into the distance. Opix snapped us to focus before I could push further.

Opix: I have enough MP to finish the fight. Let me know when you guys are ready to go.

Grim: We’re on our way. Are you alright?

Opix: Yeah, I’m alright… Just a bit tired.

Cerus: how do you expect to defeat her then angel boy

Opix: My Carryover Skill. It’s called Irregular Cast. It lets me cast non-physical Skills from anywhere on my body. I’ve only been using my hands this whole fight, so she’ll be caught off guard.

Cerus: how crafty

Opix: Thanks. Let me know when you two are in range. Be ready to run, because we need to gun it straight to the Mid Tier Zone. I have a few stamina potions left, but that’s it. If you have health potions, now’s the time to use them.

I checked my pack inventory to see what options I had left. There were two health potions and two mana potions, so I split them up so Cerus and I would each get one of each. Before I passed them to her, though, I noticed she was frowning at me in my peripheral vision. The moment I turned to her she looked away, acting oblivious before frowning again once I looked away from her.

If you ever get her mad, all you need to do is compliment her or something and she’ll usually drop it.

“I’m glad you were there to save me, Cerus,” I said, hobbling to my feet. “I would’ve died without you.”

I reached out with her two potions after drinking mine. They didn’t fully replenish my health and MP bar – and they wouldn’t fill her’s either – but I hoped she’d at least appreciate the gesture. She snatched the potions out of my hands and chugged them both at the same time, discarding the glass on the destroyed lawn beneath us.

“Oh my stars! I was not aware that you knew how to share!”

“I’m sorry?”

She gloured at me and shoved her finger in my face. “There were three rooms down there! We were supposed to kill those Rangers and share the experience! You hogged it all for yourself!”

I had done that, hadn’t I? To my credit, I’d been saying that I wanted to get stronger since we started with the Battle Network; but at the same time, I could understand her frustration. Opportunities like that probably weren’t common in the Ellalara Belt, and I hadn’t even considered her.

“I’m sorry, Cerus. I really am. Next time, I’ll–”

“I said you can take three of them! I would have been fine if you had gone over by one. Maybe two. But both rooms?” She scoffed. “The rest were for me! I am the strongest member of the Galerose Alliance, therefore the XP would have been better served being given to me! The strong are supposed to get stronger while the weak remain weak! That is basic economics, thrall!”

This is what I get for feeling bad for Cerus…

I didn’t even respond to her. Not that I could have even if I wanted to. I’d gotten her started, and she did not plan on stopping. I turned my attention toward the reverberations across town where Opix and Ciz were fighting. I tried to jump to a rooftop, but I didn’t have enough Stamina to complete the jump, something Cerus made sure to chide me on before snatching me into a princess carry once again. Cerus jumped from rooftop to rooftop, carrying me the whole way and complaining about my lack of generosity towards her.

When we arrived, the first thing I noticed was how bad Ciz looked. Despite being in the upper yellow at around 70%, she panted heavily as she bared her fangs at Opix. The part of her I’d been paying most attention to, though, was her right eye. Cerus had said that damage to a Presence is reflected to the user, but seeing her right eye jammed shut made me wonder what her upper half felt like considering it’d been eaten on her Presence just a few minutes ago.

Opix, unlike Ciz, looked like he’d just run a mild jog. Sure his health was in the yellow, but he carried himself like it was full green. He stood tall, hands on his head as he waited for another strike from Ciz. Part of me felt a bit envious of him because of how cool it looked, and another part of me was cringing at that. I focused on Cerus to distract myself.

“Can you put me down no–”

Cerus threw me like a human javelin straight at Opix at the same time Ciz lunged at her with fangs bared. While I was in the air, Opix blasted Ciz with a Wind Burst strong enough to send her flying across town. He tried to catch me before I landed, but I ended up barreling headfirst into him hard enough to get the Dazed debuff for three seconds.

“Sorry,” I said, stumbling to my feet. “I–”

Ciz lunged for me this time, and once again Opix blasted her back with a Wind Burst. She tried a few more times, growing more visibly annoyed with each failed attempt. She finally stopped when Cerus called out to her from the roof.

“Ciz Weroz! Be grateful, for you have earned my respect. Not only did you doom those damnable Rangers to their death, but you ensured that their suffering would be slow and painful! Surrender with pride; I will not look down on you. Nay, I will remember you favorably when I claim my seat at the head of the Ellalara Belt!”

Opix: Grim, take this Stamina potion. It’s time to go. Cerus, come down here, please. We need to go.

Grim: Got it.

Cerus: thanks for saying please and not just acting on your own haha

“I am happy to know you look upon me so favorably, though I am not finished with this fight! Battle Points be damned, I am not leaving Satyrsong without that Heavenly Gem!”

Cerus jumped from her rooftop and sped between Opix and me. Ciz, who I could only assume was gathering Stamina, didn’t stop her. Instead, she stared at me as her red irises grew to make her entire eye red. Just like with the Presence, I felt myself honed in on Ciz; anticipating her next words with almost childish eagerness.

“Come to me, Grim Hearts. I will keep you–”

Opix launched himself forward with Wind Bursts he cast from his feet. He reached Ciz faster than she could react, breaking her concentration on whatever spell she had over me. She put her guard up, but she wasn’t fast enough. Opix blasted Ciz with a Wind Burst so strong it destroyed the city block in front of him and sent Ciz flying. When the dust settled, the street before us looked like it’d been hit by a hurricane. Ciz was nowhere to be seen, either. What we did see, though, was a victory screen.

Battle Complete!

The GALEROSE ALLIANCE has defeated VRI’S VAMPIRES by way of forfeit! The GALEROSE ALLIANCE is immune to all attacks from VRI’S VAMPIRES for the next two hours!

Your alliance now has 1212 Battle Points! Just a little bit more to go…!

 

“Could you not have done that when we arrived?” Cerus accused, putting her hands on her hips.

“She was too strong for that to work. I had to whittle down her Stamina and make her get sloppy, first. Besides, then you two wouldn’t have gotten any XP.”

Oh brother…

“You make a great point, Opix Gale!” Cerus turned to me. “Did you hear that, thrall? Opix Gale intended for us both to get experience!”

“I… did… Am I missing something?”

“I’ll explain while we run. We need to make a beeline to the village, right? Let’s just do that for now.”

***

Escaping the High Tier Zone and its surrounding forest was much easier than I thought it’d be. Ciz was nowhere to be seen, and I could only assume she was caught up with the mobs I’d summoned. That didn’t mean we were out of the woods yet, though; both figuratively and literally. As soon as we’d gotten halfway through the forest, our minimaps all lit up with red dots. A flock of what must’ve been fifty 6-Star Tucaby all chased us, zipping through the trees to ram their beaks into our backs. I had some MP left, but I didn’t have any Skills like Opix’s Wind Burst or Cerus’ Big Ice Attack so I had no choice but to trust that they’d defend me.

They did, thankfully, and we’d fallen into a rhythm of Cerus and me dodging and Opix blasting the Tucaby with Wind Bursts from his mouth, though they did absolutely no damage. As we ran, I made sure to explain everything that happened downstairs between Cerus and me and the shriveled-up Rangers. Cerus chimed in to make sure Opix knew that I’d ignored her multiple times. When I got to the part about me getting taunted, he’d been visibly awed by my ability to nearly kill the Presence. I felt pride at that, though a part of it waned when he told me I’d been hit with Ciz’s “Presence Ability”. He’d fallen for it as well, though he talked about it like was some sort of mild inconvenience and not a brain-scrambling debuff. Cerus, not wanting to be left out, made sure to add that none of what I did would have been possible without her which, to be fair, was true.

Thankfully the Tucaby stopped chasing us by the time we arrived back in the ruined village on the outskirts of the Mid Tier Zone. We weren’t alone, though. There were mobs there called “Mold Eaters”, dark-green slime creatures that were eating up all the rubble and debris from our battle with Henrietta. Most of them were 0-Star, with some 1-Stars thrown into the mix. None of them were hostile, and unfortunately, I didn’t have the energy to capitalize on that. Cerus did, though, and she made sure we knew it. She ran off like a kid at an arcade, yelling the whole while, “I will be Level 90 before I go to sleep! You two will bow to me by the end of tomorrow!”

She kept at it, destroying the village further as I stared off into the sunset. It’d only been two days but it felt like it’d only been half of one. Moments like this reminded me that I hadn’t truly been able to sit and think about everything that’s happened to me beyond the surface level of being Isekai’d, and now I had even more thoughts to add to that pile given the day’s events. Before I started thinking about the past, though, I wanted to look to the future.

“What now?” I asked Opix, who’d been transfixed on Cerus’ one-sided assault on the Mold Eaters.

“Hmm? Oh, that depends. We either try to all hit Level 99 tomorrow with regular Quests or we can blitz Battle Network Quests? We’ll only be able to do a few at a time since you have so many active right now.”

“We’ll be able to get more Battle Network Quests than you probably think,” I said. “Ciz killed almost all of the 3-Stars and poached everything from those Quests. Nothing about the 4-Stars and the 5-Star, though.”

“That leaves us with seventeen slots, then. Good. I bet those mercenaries are happy they got all that stuff.” Opix laughed. “Honestly, if we play our cards right we might be out of here in a day or two.”

I felt a pit form in my stomach, immediately followed by a wave of anger at my own anxiety. “What about after that? What’s next for the Galerose Alliance?” I tried to play it cool, but I ended up stammering.

Opix shrugged. “We’ll have to become an actual party so that we stay together. We haven’t stumbled across any Guild Halls, which means it’s probably in the Master Zone. Lucky us.”

“Master Zone?”

“It’s where 10-Star animals and mobs naturally spawn. They don’t in the Serenth and Fantasia Sectors, so it’s usually where the most important buildings are and where the wealthiest people live.” He shrugged. “Master Zones in the Serenth Sector are small, though. Kinda like how the High Tier Zone is just a town here while it took up most of the map in Mephistos.”

Cerus cleaved through the last Mold Eater in town, leaving the three of us as its only inhabitants. She shouted her victory, crowning herself the “Ultimate Destroyer” before sitting between Opix and I. Thankfully she was in higher spirits than earlier because I honestly didn’t feel like dealing with more of her complaining about those Rangers.

“What were you lovebirds talking about?” Cerus chided.

Opix gloured at her but didn’t fall for the provocation. “We were talking about what’s next after we leave Satyrsong with the Gem.”

Once again, I felt a pit form in my stomach as I anticipated Cerus’ words. Maybe it was more accurate to say the pit that’d already been there got bigger. Wider? Whatever, I was scared. I’d come to consider these two my friends, and I didn’t want that to end. This alliance was always going to be temporary, but I wanted to see the Ellalara Belt with them.

“That is simple! The three of us will travel to Unhome and slaughter the Rangers where they lie!”

We. She wants us to stay together.

I felt myself blushing like an idiot, so I turned away hoping wouldn’t notice.

“First off, we’d get killed in minutes. Second, we’re all under 3-Star so we’re probably gonna stay in the Serenth Sector. If we don’t end up in Swingtail, we’ll be in Unity.”

“In that case, I vote Swingtail! We will go there and face off against Honeydew Henrietta and her Solstice Serenade!”

“Cerus, we can’t choose where we spawn until we’re 4-Stars.”

“If I say we are going to Swingtail, then we are going to Swingtail!” She scoffed. “The Ellalara Belt knows who daddy is. Grim, did I use that word properly?”

“Oh… yeah. You did.”

She tilted her head at me. “Were you not listening to anything I said? I did not speak out of kindness, thrall!”

“I’m sorry, I was… distracted. There’s so much I don’t know about the Ellalara Belt, and I was thinking about what w-we’ll find in the… Sectors we go to.”

I could feel my cheeks tingle, but I did my best not to look at any of them. Whether they noticed anything or not, neither of them said anything about it. When Cerus did speak, it was to describe the Sectors of the Ellalara Belt to me in the simplest way possible. The Serenth Sector – the Low Tier Sector we were currently in – was where most combat-averse people lived. The Fantasia Sector – the Mid Tier Sector – was where most of the Ellalara Belt’s population lived. It was also where the Rangers were most active, meaning as soon as we all hit 4-Star we’d be running into them way more often.

That thought reminded me of my time downstairs with Cerus and that wave of anger and disgust that came over me before I killed those Rangers. It’d been so easy to kill them, and it felt so right. Killing them made me feel like I was staring down the world’s futility down and spitting in its face. That was something that I wanted Grim Hearts to do, and I felt pride surge through me as I came to understand that.

This is who I want to be. More than a few traits, I want to be someone who fights against that futility.

Mrs. Gertrude said she was proud of me for doing that. Surviving this long. Fighting for this long. The way I saw it, that time on earth was preparation for this.

“...and the Luminae Sector is what keeps the Ellalara Belt running. The Gems form in Azeltos, most items you earn from achievements are made in Sera Town, and the System itself is managed in Mephistos by some really smart Bargainer Wolves apparently. It’s all way more complex than that, but I don’t want to bore you guys with the details.”

“You already have!” Cerus spat.

Opix laughed, only because it was evident she’d been paying close attention to his mini-lesson. I’d been too deep in my own thoughts to pay attention, but I’d make sure to ask him about it later. Right now, I wanted to get stronger.

“I kinda wanna go to Mephistos. I know you said we can’t right now, Opix, but one of these days I’d like to go. Training with Dogtooth seems pretty invaluable.”

“We’ll have to in order to become 10-Stars.” He shrugged. “Honestly? I’m okay with not meeting Dogtooth anytime soon. There’s no way the guy that turns people into living zombies is a fun teacher.”

“Where would you rather go then, Angel Boy? Tell me now!”

“I… S-Sera Town,” Opix blushed. Cerus laughed, but I didn’t know why. “I’ve always wanted to learn to craft weapons! I imagine that’d be a useful skill for our party to have in the future.”

I stifled a smile. “What’s Sera Town?”

“It is where Gnomes of all sorts build trinkets for children!”

“Oh yeah, the spear you got me was made by Gnomes, right?”

“O-oh, yeah! It was!” Cerus stammered. “Anyway, I would like to go to Unity! I enjoy tropical weather.” She stood to her feet. “Ah, the sun has begun to set! I believe we should return to town now! Our Stamina has replenished enough, has it not? Come, team! We are off!”