My stamina wasn’t enough to pull such dangerous monsters reliably, and combined with their one-hit-kill punch, the disaster was born. As I was winding down, Lucas was lurking around the hole, measuring their strength and poking them with his staff.

That was so cute, so I grinned. Wait, what am I thinking? My smile intrigued him, so he sat beside me and stared at me with a nervous expression, as if he wanted to ask me something.

“Charlie, I wonder… How to kill them? Should I use spark? It will take forever though, and I am not confident enough to cast it that many times.” He furrowed his brows and threw a nervous stare at the hole. “I mean, it’s good that they can’t move, but the other thing is, we can’t kill them easily. Why won’t they climb? Is their AI broken?”

Before I could stop myself, I burst out laughing. “Nothing like that.” To calm my laugh, I rose to my feet and dusted my potato-bag-dress. “They… Haha… They… They… Hahaha!” Memories of one of my first exploit returned and I couldn’t control my emotions. Lucas grimaced uncomfortably, and I had to hold my mouth. What the hell? Stop, John, it’s not even that funny! Stupid hormones.

After I calmed down, I said, “They disabled climbing after the Goolems ambushed the poor test guys a few times. Goolems used to climb on top of the cliff and jumped on them in droves.” I peaked into the hole and heard the echoes of their voices as they tried to climb. “The programmers were lazy and disabled the climbing; I kept quiet and wanted to cash out on the bug-find. It’s up to us to exploit this mistake.”

“Wait, I thought the AI developed the game? The marketing said the game’s revolutionary first solely AI-developed game,” he whispered into my ear, his breath tingling. It felt strange, as there wasn’t a reason to whisper. And being so close.

Lucas, I’m still the same. I have a dress, but I am still me. Not interested in you… I think.

To be on a safe side, I pushed him away and said, “First, Goolems can’t climb, so we were safe. Second, no, not at first. The AI is going to continue with the development. Don’t think we are the only ones who can exploit things, though. I bet thousands of people are exploiting as we speak.”

“The hole exploit about Goolems?”

“No, silly Lucas. They are level 9; who would have thought you can do it? The world is enormous, almost the same as Earth! Millions of monsters mean millions of exploits.”

She was fast. Whatever. To ventilate my anger, I took my almost-broken staff and smashed Goolem’s head. “It took them longer than I thought, silly team,” I said without holding my jealousy inside and smashed that thing's head again.

Lucas closed his eyes and said, “That could have been us. Imagine if it said praise the group of Lucas!”

While he was grinning, I retorted, “For your info, it would be a Princess’s group.”

“Maybe we should have asked to join them? I mean, you are a Priest, they always come in handy!”

“I don’t think so. She had a guild with her; they are strict about it. Get the thoughts of your head! Let’s grind, because it will take only over 200 hits combined!” He nodded and joined me in the smashing job with his stick.

After a while, I got fed up with how he was accidentally brushing over me, so I glanced at him and searched for a reason to distance myself. Easy! As a mage, he needed to learn to cast spells. I said, “I suppose you should use a spark and then rest. You need to get the hang of it and increase proficiency.” Lucas wanted to protest, until I glared at him, so he reluctantly created the runes in the air and set the Goolems on fire.

When he tried that, his fire just fizzled around them, not doing any actual damage. “They are immune to my fire! It does only 1 damage! If we farmed the gray wolves, we would be level two already,” he complained under his breath, but diligently continued with another spark.

“This is faster, just you wait until we will slay only one. If you complain after that, I’ll take you to the elf village,” I smirked and focused on bashing their stone skulls.

My staff durability was going down faster than I predicted, but it should last through the onslaught for another two hours. Although, even if it broke, I could use any other random stick as there would be no difference — even the description said so.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” I shouted with joy and tried to fist bump with Lucas, but he hugged me instead. I shrugged and embraced the hug, but then I pulled out and examined the sweet loot.

“Charlie, it’s not that I was doubtful-”

“What? You weren’t?” I tried to kill him with my threatening stare and shoved him with all the loot. “Identify.”

“Sorry! I mean… I was. You delivered what you said. How it is possible to get 150 XP in one go? Isn’t that insane? The gray wolves are giving 1, or sometime 2 XP.”

“The Goolems are special mini-bosses that go in groups in three, at a minimum, so they are giving x20 XP more than the normal monsters. Now shut up and identify the loot,” I urged him, and impatiently observed his identifications.

Mages had a spell of identification, making them ideal companions for the better than normal monster drops. My lovely walking identification friend groaned, as he had to cast yet another spell. He stared at the invisible screen for a while, concentrating on it. Too bad I couldn’t see the runes.

I could have teased him if he did it poorly. But then he would do the same to me, right? Thank gods it’s hidden. “Hey, it wasn’t my idea. You wanted to be mage yourself! Try properly to remember the rune. It will materialize!” I couldn’t wait and pressed him again. What the hell was wrong with me? Why were the shoes looking especially… desirable?

“Charlie! Ugh, quiet, I am focusing!” He had to re-do his spell when he failed again. Only after a tenth attempt, he handed me a book. “I guess this is for you.”

I could learn it right away, but I hesitated, bit my lip nervously. Until the level ten, I had space only for five spells, so it was a tough choice. No, it was better to wait for skills with rare ratings or higher.

The other book was a spell for mages, so the system rewarded us accordingly. I guess it was because we got the first kill of Goolem? Then, he identified the shoes and threw them at me with a smug on his face.

“Thanks!” I beamed at him and equipped them in an instant. For a celebration of finally getting to the end of my barefoot journey, I walked forward and fell. Thanks to the unexpected calamity, I buried nose into the ground, and tasted the rough soil between my teeth. What the hell? Lucas laughed at me and even rolled on the ground; the personification of rofl. Sometimes he could be so childish.

Infuriated, I examined my new equipment, clenching my jaw to keep from screaming. And then shouted at the entire mountain, “Why do these stupid shoes have heels? How am I supposed to walk in them?” Because he was still laughing, I threw a rock at Lucas for 0 damage. “Damn, at least I could walk when I was barefoot. Aren’t they sexist? Look at your robe, it reveals nothing. Compare that to my robe that covers nothing; I could live with that, but the heels?”

After I ventilated my anger, I tried to walk, but it was far from comfortable and how was I supposed to fight in them? I sure hoped it’ll come with practice, because the item was universal. That meant it changed the appearance based on my gender and role - Priest. How thoughtful of the programmers. I didn’t know they had such a great sense of humor. Naturally, I knew how it looked for others, but they forced it upon me, so it wasn't my decision!

The unstable laugh of Lucas was annoying, and he even fueled it himself. “You are a girl for like five, six hours and you are already a feminist!”

Glaring at him, I sighed and practiced walking around the hole and ventilated my anger at the trapped monsters. The poor creatures stared at me with anger and tried to hit me with their minuscule hands, but that was only a hopeless effort. No monster had ever escaped from my exploits.

After they relentlessly bashed at the poor creatures, the Goolems succumbed to their injuries. The book turned out to be an electric spell for mages, so Lucas was more than thrilled. Another thing that elated him was the leveling speed! That was something miraculous. However, after the scene with shoes that almost killed him, he feared what the crate might be.

He hoped for mana elixirs, but given his bad luck it turned out it was a booze. As far as his memory went back, he remembered that Charlie — no, John — was a vivid drinker. At first, he found it amusing, but his friend's drinking habit continued even after they graduated. Not that Lucas hadn’t enjoyed the taste of a good vodka. He may have had a few drinks now and then, but compared to John, he was a lightweight.

The hours John spent in that old Irish bar were uncountable. If it wasn’t with Lucas, it was with their other old highschool friends, Ian or such. John's go-to excuse for his drinking was his perceived social ineptitude.

What a nonsense. He was only a coward! He should have to be brave and face the people! It wasn’t even that hard. You just had to talk, nothing more. It wasn’t like he was asking him to shoot someone.

He didn’t want to ruin the image of Charlie with the drunk John, but he sighed and sent the crate to John-Charlie.

“Charlie… This is something you’ll love for sure.”