A bit bashful, Zoey turned to her teammates—a silent, ‘how did I do?’ on her face.

“A bit sloppy,” Delta said. “But you’ll get the hang of it, for sure. There’s a fighter in there, I can tell.”

Rosalie nodded in agreement.

Zoey blushed. The earnest encouragement affected her more than she’d have thought. It wasn’t effusive praise, but Delta had sounded genuine.

“Thanks. But yeah, sloppy.” The melee parts especially. Her spellcasting wouldn’t wow anyone, but her physical fighting skills especially wouldn’t.

Zoey also got the impression Rosalie and Delta weren’t easy to impress, so the fact she hadn’t gotten a wrinkled nose and a grimace before a conciliatory response probably meant she’d actually done well. Having prodigies for teammates did come with some downsides—the difficulty of matching up to them being the primary one.

She walked forward, deeper into the shard. She’d finished her first fight, but Rosalie and Delta clearly wanted to see more of what Zoey could do. And, preferably, without relying so heavily on Burst—that was a skill supposed to be used for emergencies, or at least the harder fights and key opportunities, since it drained her Lust resource so rapidly. She’d empowered almost every one of her spells last fight, and it had taken a toll.

The next brawl was a little more hard-fought, with Zoey leaning less heavily on her Boost ability. She still came out comfortably the victor, but it took a few more exchanges than the first. Even that was probably an indicator Zoey was still, all things considered, under-prepared as a wayfarer. A third-advancement adventurer should probably steamroll her way through a first-advancement shard. Though a support-class, the least so—at least she had that excuse.

But definitely better than where she had started. That was plain even to Zoey.

Rosalie and Delta gave her suggestions, critique, and commentary after each bout. The shift from all the inappropriate activities prior into brutal combat and tutoring was amusing, though not as disorienting as some of the times in the past. Zoey was getting used to how shards flip-flopped between the raw adrenaline of a fight and the stickier, other sort of heart-pounding adventures she got into.

As Zoey struggled through fight after fight, Delta’s eyes faded from bright pink into a murkier purple-pink, and finally back to her typical violet. With her better senses returned, Zoey organized a quick discussion about the questionable situations they could get into—namely, aphrodisiacs.

Unsurprisingly, Delta just seemed amused that Zoey wanted explicit clarification. Zoey thought it smart to be mindful about that sort of thing, however obvious it might seem. A blanket agreement that if the shard put any of them in compromising situations, where their judgment might be impaired, that each of them had consent from each other in advance, made her much more comfortable with the situation.

With Zoey’s brief training session—or maybe even evaluation session—completed, Rosalie and Delta rejoined the fray, and their progress through the shard turned from a crawl into a blaze.

It gave Zoey a newfound appreciation for the skill of her teammates, not that she had ever not been impressed. The ease they dispatched the low-level enemies made Zoey jealous. Again, having a couple of combat prodigies as teammates came with obvious upsides, but it did make Zoey the slightest bit self conscious.

Soon enough, they’d cut their way to their first loot room. Zoey briefly wondered whether they should skip it and forge forward to Mel, but again, they’d already wasted around an hour playing with the vines, then letting Zoey train, so if she objected a few-minute stop to pick up free items, then she’d be a hypocrite.

Though their dallying started to concern her; Mel was well within the ‘safe’ time frame she’d given, but Zoey felt they probably ought to be rushing to her as quickly as possible, simply for the principle of the matter.

Still, telling a wayfarer not to collect their earned loot probably wouldn’t go over well. Even lower-level stuff, like what this shard would offer, could sell for decent money, or be useful. Especially since Zoey and her team were needing to build up an arsenal of weapons and armor that interacted with … well, her particular sort of shards.

Rosalie cracked open the hefty wooden chest, then reached into the inky black portal and rummaged around. Zoey and Delta, like always, watched with anticipation. Maybe they were on a time-crunch, and this event in general was concerning—being related to the end of the world and all—but she’d never get tired of new items.

The first object out came in two parts: a small rectangular slate that could fit in her hand, and … something recognizable. Curved and phallic-shaped, it couldn’t be mistaken for much else.

Except … with the small remote-looking rectangle …

Zoey laughed, shaking her head. She had an idea of what this thing was. Better to make sure, though.

[?an? of R??t? Pl??s??e]: ???e. Eq??p, then a?ti??te from a dis???? lo??io? to ???vi?e a t??il??ng e???rie???.

Zoey went still. Her amusement at what she suspected the item to be disappeared. The block of information that normally inserted into her mind on using [Inspect] was … mangled. Almost coherent, but warped and twisted.

Haywire. Zoey had almost forgotten about that. Mel had warned them that whatever the thing was that was ‘eating her’ would leave her shard unstable.

“What the fuck,” Delta said.

Rosalie held the item, staring at it with an aghast expression. Delta seemed likewise unnerved. Even more so than Zoey would have expected.

But she supposed the reactions were fair. This was a world Zoey had simply arrived to, so its basic ‘rules of nature’ were all strange to her, and seeing them behave oddly was bizarre, and uncomfortable, but not terrifying. To Rosalie and Delta, natives of this realm, experience such a blatant break-down of how items should work was twice as upsetting.

“That’s confirmation, then,” Zoey said. “Something really is going on with Mel.”

Because they hadn’t had proof, yet. The vines had behaved oddly, but that hadn’t confirmed that Zoey’s dream hadn’t been a normal one. Mel’s request for Zoey to come help was legitimate. Zoey had already known that in her heart, but concrete proof was nice.

It also redoubled her conviction that they should get a move on.

“What is it?” Delta asked. “Or, supposed to be. Can you make out the description?”

“Kind of,” Zoey said. Since she already knew what the item was, or had suspicions, she could make guesses what the warped and mangled information was supposed to mean.

[Wand of Remote Pleasure]: Rare. Equip, then activate from a distant location to provide a thrilling experience.

Which was a shame. It was an item she’d have very much liked to use. But while Zoey might sometimes be reckless in her eagerness to test strange items—Sabina’s recommendation not to just take the dream potion came to mind, with how unknown its effect was—but of this variety? Something visibly broken, disconnected from whatever system made all this ‘work’, so to say? Yeah, Zoey wasn’t that unheeding of consequences. She’d rather not be sucked into a black hole, or whatever might happen using a magical artifact that had gone haywire.

She repeated the item’s effect—her guess, at least—to Rosalie and Delta. Normally, Rosalie would wrinkle her nose and seem exasperated, and Delta would leer and make a joke about how it’d be put to good use, but instead, the two girls continued to seem uneasy. The situation had unnerved them. And to be fair, Zoey wasn’t wholly at ease, either.

“I don’t think we should keep digging around,” Delta said, eying the loot chest. “If the items are messed up, sticking your hand in a portal that might be the same could be … bad.”

“Agreed,” Rosalie said. “What do I do with this?”

“Just carry it around,” Zoey said.

“And is that safe?” Rosalie asked.

“Not in our inventory,” Zoey said. Putting a broken item into their inventory, which worked on the same system, could be dangerous. “I mean manually. I’ll do it.” She needed to keep her hands free the least—and also didn’t contribute much to fights. “I don’t think we should leave it behind. Maybe it can … I don’t know. Give insight to whatever’s going on.”

Rosalie considered that, then nodded. She handed the item off to Zoey. Zoey looked down at the remote vibrator. It was seriously a shame that it was broken—if ‘broken’ was the right word. She’d have liked to use it.

“We should get to Mel,” Zoey said. “Pick up the pace.”

“I’d rather not be here when things really start to break,” Delta agreed.

Rosalie gave her own assent in the form of turning and striding forward, leaving the open, half-empty chest behind.

Delta and Zoey followed after.