At Nathan's question, everything faded. The wind died away from his senses and the gurgle of the water's movements disappeared.

  "Revive a system?" Charity narrowed her eyes. "I didn't even know it was possible for them to die."

  "Why, exactly?"

  "According to all studies that have been performed on the texts," she said. "Systems—or I should say System Administrators—don't have a life in the traditional biological sense. They're not powered by cells or blood. They're more... floating concepts that have been encapsulated into a form?"

  "That makes no sense."

  "Of course it doesn't! We're physical and three-dimensional beings attempting to comprehend a creature that's spiritual and encased somewhere in the fifth or sixth dimension. Anything that I say about it will seem foreign—you're going to have to accept certain aspects on faith." She held up her hand. "But again, I have to ask why you're requesting this information of me."

  Nathan momentarily considered lying and spinning some absurd story before he decided to just go for the truth. He figured that she would need to know every detail in case there was something that was important that he was unaware of. What if he lied and she gave him the wrong information, thinking that he was telling the truth?

  "I beat up a System Administrator, and now I need to bring him back."

  She stared at him like he'd just grown a second head.

  "What?"

  Nathan reached into his inventory and pulled out the system corpse. The small metal cube felt as heavy as a car, and it seemed to sap the warmth from his hand.

  Charity ran her fingers along the top of the cube and her eyes shot open to the size of dinner plates.

  "You're telling the truth," she said. "I don't know how, but you managed to kill a System Administrator."

  "Yes, that's what I said."

  "I won't ask about the why of it, and I think I can suspect the how—it relates to the last several messages in the final pages of the Holy Patch Notes, doesn't it?"

  "Yeah, when he went to possess some dude, he apparently made himself vulnerable? He got taken out by a bullet to the head."

  "A bullet? What is a bullet?"

  "Small thin metal projectile shot forward at unheard of velocities."

  It was clear she didn't really understand what he'd said, but she also didn't seem to particularly care.

  "I have a question," she said. "If this creature caused you so much harm, why would you wish to revive it?"

  Nathan's breath hitched.

  He looked off to the side where the watering hole was glistening in the sun. The hills poked out and dotted the landscape like ant mounds.

  "I'm gonna need his help," he said.

  He left it at that.

  "Very well. I will assist you to the best of my abilities."

  His head snapped back toward her. "Just like that?"

  A shy smile flashed onto her face. "Just like that."

  She shivered and stuck both of her hands into her long priestess garments.

  "May we relocate elsewhere?" she said. "I think I'm about to freeze to death."

  Nathan shrugged. "Sounds good to me."

  They'd set up a campfire in a low valley protected from the chilling wind. The warm embers of the fire illuminated their surroundings in a soft yellow-red. Nathan had pulled out some of the extra fish he'd caught and set it on the fire to be grilled.

  Truth be told, he still preferred it raw, but his experiences with others had taught him that doing such a thing would freak them out badly.

  "So if we were to revive B32," Nathan said. "What would we need?"

  She took a nibble off some fish on a stick. "For the most part, everything needed to revive the System Administrator should be within its corpse. Those thoughts, the mind, the personality, the memories—all of them are inside of that metal cube that you showed me earlier."

  She took one of the fish off the grill and gave it a small nibble. She reeled back, her tongue stuck out and her cheeks red. "Hot, hot, hot!"

  Nathan raised an eyebrow. "What's your level?"

  "81."

  Nathan's eyebrow shot up.

  "That high?" He tilted his head. "And I do have to ask, how did you even get access to the System?"

  "The System permeates every circle of the Apocalypse, even if it's not typically usable by us non-Delvers. Because we had access to the Holy Patch Notes, we were able to reverse engineer our own method into accessing it. Truth be told, it was relatively easy," she said.

  "As for your first question, yes, I can see why you would find it a bit absurd that I'm that high... However, do keep in mind that I have almost no points in Constitution. I'm fairly certain that a light swat from you would break every bone in my body."

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The min-maxer approach, Nathan thought. You know what? I think I might actually end up liking this girl.

  "Let's get back to the System revival. You were saying that most of what we need is already inside of the corpse?"

  "Yes. The problem is the energy. To maintain a conscious and living form, he requires energy."

  "If that's the case, could I somehow find a way to feed him my energy?"

  "Unfortunately, these higher dimensional beings are extremely picky when it comes to sources of energy. Energy with an affinity—and I assume that you have Water Affinity given your abilities—would be rejected."

  "So where can we find energy without an affinity?"

  "Let me ask you, what do you think created most of the monsters that you've gone up against in your quest thus far?"

  Nathan stroked his chin. "I think I recall a few of the conscious ones mentioning that they were taken from other worlds. Either that, or they were losers when they went through their own version of the Nine Circles. They were offered a deal and were reshuffled back into the circles as pawns of the system."

  "That is true," she said. "And many monsters are born that way. But there's another kind—those who are created directly by the system. These monsters are imbued with the System Admin's essence. In a way, they're the closest thing that a System Administrator has to children."

  The implications hit Nathan like a brick. "You're saying that we can take their energy and stuff it back into B-32."

  "Indeed. Not only that, but we don't even need that much. A small kickstart should be enough to allow him to passively begin regaining energy from his surroundings."

  "What's the catch?"

  "When I say that it doesn't require much, that may have been a mild exaggeration."

  Nathan took a bite out of his grilled fish. His eyes narrowed to pinpricks as he awaited the inevitable answer that would somehow ruin his day.

  "First, you'll need a way to catch and store monster energy," she said.

  Nathan snorted. "Funnily enough, that's actually taken care of. I have a jar that this blacksmith gave me when I was making my fishing pole."

  "A blacksmith? A fishing pole?"

  "It's a long story, I'll tell you another time."

  Nathan breathed out. "And what's the second catch?"

  "You'll specifically need Boss Monster energy." She put her index to her chin and looked up toward the sky. "I suppose you could make do by harvesting about a thousand normal monsters."

  "...That doesn't sound too bad—"

  She winced. "Actually, did I say a thousand? I meant ten thousand."

  "Yeah, that's not happening." Nathan sighed. "Do you know if the Dark Lord at the center of that castle is the made-by-the-system type or hired-into-it type?"

  "The Patch Notes are very clear—the Dark Lord is a mindless automaton, created solely by the will of the System Administrator."

  "Honestly, that's not too bad. I thought that—"

  "There's more."

  She had a sheepish look on her face and an awkward grin.

  "What is it?" he said.

  "You see... our knowledge of the system and how it works is very high, but as for actually doing anything..."

  "You can't. That's where that was going, right?"

  "You got it! The Holy Patch Notes have a great deal of theoretical information, but our technology is just in its infancy. We have access to the system, and levels, and skills, and that took about... 200 years of sustained effort? Something as advanced as reviving a System Administrator from the dead is probably perhaps beyond our current abilities."

  "Great. Just great."

  Where am I gonna find someone who can directly access and manipulate system variables? he thought.

  Nathan turned to his right. He could see the castle in the far distance. He would have to get involved in the final battle for the circle—there was no way to avoid it. He needed to collect the final boss's energy to revive B-32.

  But it wasn't exactly a priority, right?

  No reason to rush toward the goal. He could take his time.

  Charity's head drooped and she rubbed her eyes. "I think I'm about due for some rest."

  Nathan shrugged. "Do as you will."

  She tumbled to her side and pressed her palms underneath her head as a makeshift pillow. Within seconds, she'd conked out and was snoring loudly. By the time she awoke, Nathan knew he would be long gone.

  Nathan adjusted his wig and tightened it down as best as he could.

  The idea of his legend already spreading to random towns miles away from where he'd landed was low in terms of probability, but he didn't want to make a fool out of himself if he could avoid it.

  He approached the outskirts of the small hill village. The buildings were low and tapered—if Nathan had to guess, he'd assume it was to reduce the impact the wind would have on the structure. Several of the hills had been converted into rice paddy fields, like something he'd seen in a few anime he'd watched back when he was still into anime.

  "The goal is simple," he muttered to himself. "Get in, ask for information on the closest fishing hole, then leave."

  As he approached, it was hard not to notice the discrepancies.

  The paddy didn't have any water.

  And the grass was dirty, a yellow tinge to it—not completely dead, but not the bright green that he'd associate with the plant.

  He passed by a man with gaunt cheeks and a somewhat bony body.

  It has nothing to do with me, Nathan thought. Nothing to do with me, I'm not associated with these people, I can't fix every problem I come across, I'm on vacation!

  He bumped into a young woman. He grabbed her shoulder and prevented her from falling over.

  "Sorry about that," Nathan said.

  The woman shielded a package in her arms with her hands. "It's fine. What brings you here, stranger?"

  "I'm just looking for the closest fishing hole."

  She grimaced. "You'll have to travel far to find one of those, stranger. The water's all dried up. Not only that, but all of the wells have gone empty."

  The story was shaping up to be extremely familiar.

  "What happened?" Nathan said.

  "When the otherworlders arrived, our Shrine of Blessing went dormant. It's awaiting someone who can pass it—a few otherworlders attempted to take the trial, but the system said that they were disqualified."

  "...I see."

  Nathan's jaw clenched.

  That woman... she wasn't holding a package... she was holding a child. A child with cracked lips and shaky breath.

  Nathan ran his hands down his cheeks. "Where is this shrine?" he asked.

  "It's over to the northwest. But stranger, you almost certainly don't have the qualifications to—"

  "When your well starts producing water again, you owe me." Nathan narrowed his eyes. "I'm about to go to a lot of trouble and do exactly the opposite of what I said I wouldn't do, so... just... I don't know, you owe me. Got it?"

  "Okay?"

  It was clear the woman was very confused. Nathan walked past her, and headed northwest.

  The shrine hadn't been hard to find. It was a giant black finger-shaped rock in a sea of yellow-green. Nathan would have to be colorblind to miss it.

  Just like the previous shrine, there was a pedestal in front of the structure and a door that reminded Nathan of garage shutters. He sat down and transformed back into a human in front of the building. He walked over to the pedestal and made it halfway to it before he stopped.

  "I can't believe I'm doing this," he muttered.

  He closed the distance and touched his hand to the top of the pedestal.

  Blue lines like wires lit up the sides of the pedestal and ran into the shrine. The shutters of the door shuddered and opened up, revealing the elevator interior.

  Nathan still didn't fully understand why it was that these only opened for him. From what he remembered the woman said that Otherworlders were disqualified. The same as the people trapped on this circle.

  He could only conclude that this was meant to be a special circle meant to be led by the highest person on the leaderboards... which was still Nathan, unfortunately.

  Maybe I should try to help Leviathan, Nathan thought. Maybe if we work together, we can knock him up to first place and then I can disappear into the wind.

  He walked over to the elevator door and it slammed shut. He felt the floor move under him and descend into the ground.