They wanted to raid a dungeon. I did not approve. Ducker was especially bad, ranting about precious treasures waiting to be found.

"Hey, why are you looking at me like that?" asked Ducker. He was a fool, but at least he wasn't foolish enough to miss that I thought he was an idiot.

"You'll come with us, won't you?" asked Sachi.

I tried to keep up my stubborn expression but she made it difficult with the way she scratched delightfully at the base of my golden-furred ears. Fine. I'd come along to keep them out of trouble. But I wouldn't be happy about it. This was a lot more time out of my day than I'd budgeted.

"Wonderful!" said Tetsuo. He attempted to sweep me up into a hug but I deftly dodged and sent him tripping onto his face as punishment. He was swift to jump up and dust himself off though, rushing to lead the party as if the embarrassing misstep was nothing special. Sachi and I shared a small laugh at his expense before following.

I really wasn't thrilled about them entering a dungeon, but I understood Keita's reasoning. If their guild truly intended to enter the front lines some day, defeating field mobs wasn't enough. There was more to fighting on the vanguard than levels. Some experience could only be gained inside dungeons.

As dungeons went, they hadn't picked a bad one. The 27th floor dungeon was only memorable for its puzzles. The mobs were strong and well-armored but extremely slow, easy to handle for anyone with the right equipment and a bit of experience. The puzzles were the only thing that had slowed me down when I'd cleared it some time ago. The puzzle to open the boss door was so frustrating that I'd pummeled a dark dwarf guard to death with my bare fists. Then I'd kept kicking until its body turned into a bloody mist. Overkill, but my patience had long since flown by then and taking out my frustrations had allowed me to settle down enough to finally open the door. The success had wiped away any feelings of guilt I'd had over the matter. The dark dwarf was humanoid, but in the end it was still just a mob.

I was a little worried over the boss. As I recalled, it was a level thirty-four steel elemental. It was roughly on par with forty-eight moderately skilled players of similar level put together. But with the slightly exponential growth that came from leveling, the five level forty to forty-one players of the Black Cat Guild had a good chance of overpowering it. Level forty also unlocked black-gold armor which their tanks had a smattering of already, which should allow them to tank the boss for a considerable length of time. The only thing I was worried about was that their damage output wasn't high enough, especially with the metallic boss's ability to negate 500 damage from every hit. They'd be in trouble if they were stuck fighting for hours and ran out of stamina. Even a single hour might be difficult for them as they were now. They lacked the mental fortitude of the vanguard players, and asking them to fight for days on end like I'd sometimes been pushed to would be a joke.

I'd interfere with the boss if I had to, I decided. But not too early. I didn't want to reveal my true power to them yet and destroy our friendship, but that wasn't all. I feared my help in leveling them had already given them a false confidence. They needed to learn what they were up against before they bit off more than they could chew. This wasn't a game where they could start over and try again if they failed. Dungeon creeps were far more dangerous than field creeps. They didn't stop pursuing until they or their target were killed, and there was no guarantee a player would have enough time to teleport out.

But maybe I'd be better off taking a nap instead. It took them twenty minutes just to open the door to the dungeon, but Ducker still whooped and hollered at the victory. At this rate they'd only make it through the first level of the dungeon before calling it a day.

I didn't nap, but I did let my consciousness drift. Other than keeping an eye out for Sachi's safety I let my mind drift back to my main problem. In some ways my visit to the Black Cats was for distraction more than anything else. My prize was so close at hand that I felt sometimes like I was burning up with greed for it, but an impossible obstacle lay in my way.

[Michael, Archangel of Mercy]

I'd seen him from the hall outside the boss room days ago. The six-winged angel glowed as he sat in an immense window, bright even against the light of the sunlit sky. A sword was sheathed in stone beside him, slender but with a heavy presence as if it lay ready to cut the world.

At the time he was only level fifty to my fifty-six and barely larger than a normal man, but I didn't trust the apparent weakness. My experience as a lifelong gamer and an animal instinct for danger trained by living on the edge of death for months cried out to me that this boss wasn't that simple. By all rights he should have been at least level fifty-four following the examples of previous floors. To be a lower level, there had to be some secret ability lifting his power level.

My remembrance of the twenty-fifth floor boss was enough to further raise my alarm. It was still just a hunch, but from that two-headed giant's power I suspected there was something special about the twenty-fifth increment levels. That giant's blows were so powerful that even the backdraft of its blows were enough to force me to use healing potions. And when the vanguard challenged the giant with ten levels of advantage they'd still lost thirteen players and were forced to retreat, only challenging the boss again two weeks of grinding later. It was a loss of life so great that I'd started leaving notes behind for them on how the bosses fought, though it was so difficult to organize my thoughts on paper that I wasn't sure how much I'd helped.

And so with caution in mind I'd gone back to grinding, returning days later. But even with nine levels on the boss I still felt fear looking through the doors to the boss room. Despite seeming to be in peaceful repose, there was a menacing aura around the archangel that promised death if I opposed him. It felt like a single stroke of his sword would end me, as if I was incapable of resistance.

Level sixty I'd fight him, regardless of how I felt. At that level I'd have access to better daggers, as well as a ten-up skill boost that I'd use to increase my my speed even further. It was easier said than done though. Grinding grew exponentially more difficult the higher my level grew above the level of the floor, and unlike the vanguard I couldn't just skip ahead to higher floors. The extra time the delay would keep me in this death game grated on me, and there was a certain fear as well. I was running out of time before the vanguard would catch up on my position, and I dearly wanted to avoid fighting or even talking to them again.

My nervousness grew as the Black Cats slowly worked their way through the puzzles and struggled with the relatively weak mobs. I really was wasting a lot of time here. But leaving wasn't necessarily the right decision either. I wanted to keep them safe, but I also needed to decide what I wanted to do with the Crystal of Rebirth. Even if I had it in my hands I'd still need to think of how to use it. Transforming my body was obvious, but choosing a new skillset was unfathomably tricky.

Tank? Archer? Spearman? All had benefits and downsides, but I wasn't certain that any were the correct answer. It was clear though that my own build wasn't working anymore. Area of effect abilities were too common and too powerful. It was only a matter of time before I made a mistake and I shattered like glass thanks to my glass cannon build. And my daggers, while versatile and powerful thanks to dealing damage based on my high agility and ability to strike weak points, were simply too short-ranged to excel against enemies larger than ten feet tall. For true giants it was difficult just to break past their skin. But would changing my class make things any better, or had I just reached the limits of solo-play?

I kept thinking there had to be something I was missing, some exploit or skill combo that could let me keep forging ahead. Without me paving the way, deaths would go up massively. Even if I was allowed to join the vanguard as a supporting player, deaths would be unavoidable. I hadn't thought of a way yet, but I had to. After my monumental mistake of not opening the teleport gate in the early levels I hadn't yet earned the right to show my face in front of any of them.

"Look! Over here!"

Dimly I followed Ducker's call with the others. Inwardly I was still crunching numbers trying to find the right combination of stats and skills. A kiting ranger class held some promise. I already had good aim from throwing so many needles, so switching to a bow shouldn't be too difficult. And while I'd been using daggers extensively, I had some background with swords. A little higher strength and constitution, with the better weapons making up for the loss of agility. The loss of raw speed worried me though. I had my doubts the build would work without at least one partner at my side. Or a pet, perhaps? It would be odd to have a pet after being treated like one for weeks, but it would fit in nicely with the ranger aesthetic. I couldn't deny that a part of me dearly wanted to get back to the cool look I'd had in the Beta, rather than constantly being looked down on as first a little girl and then an npc pet.

I froze as my eyes picked up something unusual. These glowing runes around the hidden doorway Ducker found, hadn't I seen them before? No, I definitely had. But they weren't from this floor, but from the dark dwarf cultists nearly twenty floors up. It was only because they were from a recent floor that I remembered the rune style at all, but that made it all the more strange. It could be coincidence, but the lore in this game was incredibly deep.

There was no way I would have noticed this the first time through. Only the earring of arcane sight I was still wearing had allowed the runes to show up at all, which was likely how Ducker had found the entrance. That meant that the rewards of this hidden room should exceed the level of the dungeon. But wasn't this room much too plain for its size and secrecy? The only thing within room was a single large treasure chest, without even any apparent puzzles to protect it.

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