She grinned with teeth. “If I have to sacrifice slaves, so be it. We’ll get you there!”

  Oh yeah. Definitely awake now.

  “Should I go back in?” I asked, tilting my head and summoning every ounce of fake innocence I could muster. Sweet voice, wide eyes, channeling my inner Scamantha. “Those sacrifices must be costing you a fortune,” I added, nodding sagely like her profit margins were my top concern as we grabbed food from the camp line.

  Karzi paused mid-step, tray in hand. I could practically see the gears grinding behind her eyes. She needed me fed and functioning; high-level mages were only useful if they weren’t dead.

  “Oh, aren’t you clever!” she cackled, flashing me a grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You think you can get to level three without butchering anyone?”

  “I’m very good with the sword,” I said, keeping my tone neutral and my spoon steady as I stirred the suspiciously brown sludge that was the same meat as the previous day. Surely they imported a good meat and not… “And with my magic, I think I can handle the lower tunnels. I’ve got a plan.”

  I took a bite of the mystery meat, still tasted like rubbery regret, and chewed through the existential crisis. “Besides, killing slaves won’t get me to level five fast enough. Do we even have that kind of time?”

  “We’ve got a week, girly.” Karzi plopped onto a bench beside me, already halfway through her own meal with the grace of her wolves ancestors. “But I love your attitude. Don’t take dumb risks, you’re a valuable asset. But also? No babysitter. You wouldn’t level fast. So go wild. Just don’t die!”

  If she wasn’t such a morally bankrupt sociopath, I might’ve found that concern… almost touching.

  Swift death it is, I thought, then said, grinning: “Yes, Dame Karzi!”

  Today, the pile had hidden new goodies.

  Weapons, armor scraps, dented helms, cracked hilts; everything jumbled together like the leftovers of a very messy battlefield garage sale. I wasn’t about to question where the new arrivals came from. Especially not the reinforced shield still slick with half-dried blood and something that might’ve been brain matter.

  I wiped it clean with the edge of my already-filthy tunic, the coppery stench curling into my nose. I grimaced and shook my head. Whoever it belonged to… well, they didn’t need it anymore. Sad destiny, but lucky me.

  My eyes wandered. And there it was.

  A Zweih?nder.

  Massive. Half-buried under a pile of bent axes and snapped spears, its blade shimmered faintly with oil and leftover ichor. My fingers twitched with the urge to grab it, to lift it high and do something stupidly cinematic.

  But I wasn’t alone at the pile.

  And if they saw me try—and fail—to hoist it again, my pride would actually curl up and die on the spot.

  “One day, John,” I whispered, eyes lingering longingly on the sword, “your style will help me tear through the battlefield, Zweih?nder in hand, blade bathed in wolf blood.”

  Instead, I picked a practical toothpick of a blade and turned toward the nearest tunnel holes.

  Didn’t get far.

  Karzi materialized like a jump scare, grabbing my arm with all the subtlety of a falling whiskey barrel. Her grip was firm, her eyes alight with that terrifying glint she got when strategy met bloodlust.

  “We found an entrance,” she said. “There’s something down there. If you see the [Crystallized Synapse], or, even better, the [Crystallized Synapse Core]? Grab it.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “But if you see the [Crystallized Royal Resin]? That’s near one of the queens. Don’t go there. You’ll die. Horribly. And you’re too valuable for that.”

  She patted my arm in what might’ve passed as affection in her world.

  Did she just… Name-drop items? Like, in actual speech?

  “Yes?” I said slowly, trying to play it cool while my brain did a full system reboot. “I’ll be careful”

  And then:

  What?! I wasn’t exploiting! I was actively trying not to exploit!

  Fix your own spaghetti code, Seed! I’m just out here trying to live!

  I scowled at nothing and everything, clutched my tiny sword, and braced myself for another descent into the termite pit of death and weird loot names.

  The change was obvious.

  The tunnels were larger. No longer the tight, claustrophobic burrows of earlier. These were passageways, wide enough for three warrior termites to march shoulder-to-shoulder. And they did. Which would’ve been fine, if not for the minor complication that one elven mage, currently cosplaying a sword-wielding badass, was stupid enough to try to fight them.

  So that same elven girl, aka me, was now sprinting like a panicked squirrel through the winding labyrinth, boots skidding over slick stone, heart thundering like a war drum.

  Behind me, mandibles clacked like castanets of doom.

  Luckily, I had ice magic. And the newly upgraded spikes? Oh, those were sturdy enough to survive the impaling! I meant impaling the front line of charging warriors with a wet crunch that echoed down the tunnels. One let out a horrible, high-pitched screech as it collapsed, twitching.

  At first, it was easy. The small ones came first, nimble, but predictable. I cut them down without breaking a sweat. Too much experience, too many hours logged, too many patterns memorized.

  But my new level I got the other day? Gave me absolutely jack.

  No stat buffs. No hidden bonuses. Nothing. Just a smug system update and another entry in my emotional damage journal.

  My gamer brain refused to accept it. So when I stumbled into a wide natural cavern, walls glistening with moisture, floor littered with the carcasses of half-eaten prey, I made a decision.

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  I attacked the resting bugs.

  Could I have laid traps? Yes. Could I have prepped a proper line of impalement spears? Also yes.

  Did I do either of those things?

  Absolutely not.

  No, I wanted to go full fantasy warlord. Mage-warrior hybrid, tearing through enemy lines with blade in one hand and frost in the other.

  “I’ll make it work!” I yelled at the last bug barreling after me. “I don’t care there are usually limits! I will ex—eh, circumvent them!”

  Cue fate tripping me.

  I stumbled. Hard.

  A jagged chunk of stone caught my boot, and the next thing I knew, something fierce and very large slammed through my back. A flash of white-hot pain stole the air from my lungs, and I heard something snap. Bone, armor strap, sanity, take your pick.

  My legs gave out. Numb, but kinda functional. At ten percent.

  “No!” I gasped, rolling sideways, grit and blood smearing across the stone. With everything I had left, I jammed my shield up in front of me like a fragile wall between me and death. My other hand flared with ice-light, shaking as I formed a spear for the incoming ram.

  I didn’t brace properly. Just shoved the shaft of the ice-spear against my stomach and prayed.

  It worked.

  Sort of.

  The spear did puncture the charging bug. Right through its armored thorax, that effective the ice was. Unfortunately, the force drove it through me, too. Pain exploded through my gut like a forge blade had been driven in and twisted. Warm blood soaked my tunic, dripping down my side in sluggish, nauseating pulses.

  Vision tunneling. Breath short. Body shaking.

  Before unconsciousness could swallow me whole, I shoved a healing spell into my core. Didn’t direct it. Couldn’t. Just released it like a desperate flare and hoped it hit the important parts.

  Every inch of me screamed. Bones groaned. Nerves flared.

  “I swear I’m not a masochist,” I rasped into the cave floor, tasting iron. “Just… stubborn.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered, breath coming in shaky little wisps. My limbs trembled with the aftershocks of pain, but strength was starting to trickle back in, like whiskey filling a frozen cup. “You are not kind.”

  I kept channeling the healing, golden light pulsing from my rune at my fingertips in lazy, flickering threads. Each surge sank into my skin with a soft, tingling burn, like whiskey in an open wound, gentle but fierce. Once I pulled myself away from the edge of death, and internal body soup, I started directing the magic toward the worst spots.

  I didn’t know much about anatomy, but I figured: hurting = bad. No hurting = better.

  I squinted upward like I could glare through the system itself. “Still not kind. I have no idea what that rarity means. I just assumed more rare = more awesome. But how much more awesome? What does it do? Why is there no tutorial? How do I level it up?”

  “Oh!” I jerked upright, then winced and promptly slowed down. “Sorry, I guess? But I really am not… I think?” I glanced around the cavern, blinking at the blood smears and cracked stone like they held the answer. “Is me existing an exploit?”

  I stared at the floating message.

  “…Uhmm. Sorry? I’ll try to… exist less hard, I guess?”

  I pushed myself to my feet slowly. My hands moved fine… Steady, flexible, no pain when I curled my fingers or rolled my wrists. “Check. Good.”

  Then I looked down.

  “What about legs?”

  A cautious step. Then another. No stabbing pain. No limp. Just blood-stained boots and faint soreness that could’ve passed for a brutal leg day. I flexed my knee. “They’re working,” I said aloud, almost in disbelief. “Huh. Guess I’m patched up.”

  A quick, relieved breath left me, and I stood taller.

  At the end of the tunnel was something I was warned about by a certain crude wolf woman.

  Queen chambers.

  The air shifted before I even stepped into it. Thicker, hotter, tinged with an intense, acidic stench like vinegar mixed with rot. My boots crunched over loose bits of shell and slick grime, the walls glistening with resinous mucus that reflected my torchlight like an oil-slick mirror.

  The chamber itself stretched out like a subterranean cathedral, sprawling and alive. Pulsing membranes coated the ceiling, and fungal growths illuminated parts of the hive in a ghostly blue hue. Nestled near the side like a bloated monarch on a pulsating throne was the queen.

  Not that massive. Pale. Sickeningly regal.

  Her engorged body was sprawled across a mound of birthing resin and twitching larva, abdomen swollen and veined with pulsing lines of green. The sound she made, somewhere between a wet hiss and a laboring breath, rattled in my bones.

  And she wasn’t alone.

  Hundreds of tiny termite drones scuttled around her like obedient courtiers, each one twitching and chirping in mindless unison. Among them crawled warriors, their carapaces shimmering, mandibles snapping like drawn weapons. Easily dozens. Maybe more.

  But what truly froze my blood were the guards. The personal ones.

  Each was bulkier than a regular warrior, with darker chitin etched in natural patterns like living armor. Their legs were thicker, their movements slower, like soldiers trained for death. The closest one stood barely ten feet from me… between me and the queen.

  Just one.

  I eyed it, then looked past it at Her Majesty in all her revolting glory.

  “Doable?” I whispered, almost hopefully. “I know, I know. A wise woman would turn around, grind skills, get a Zweih?nder and gut everyone here... later.”

  I swept the room with another glance. There were too many enemies to count. An almost guaranteed death sentence. “A wise woman would practice the limits of her new skill. Find a way to ex—uh, utilize it properly.”

  I took a single step forward. The air buzzed with insect clicks. The closest guard hadn’t moved. “But I am not a wise woman.”

  I charged.

  Mana roared to life inside me like a tidal wave through a narrow pipe, cramming itself into a single spell formation with reckless speed. The frost responded instantly; the spear forming in my hand with a hiss of condensing air, and the backlash slamming my magic into a longer cooldown.

  “But most importantly—” I shouted as I rammed the icelance straight into the royal guard’s back. The spear drove through with a sickening crunch and pop, bursting out the other side. The creature dropped before it even shrieked.

  I was on the queen in a breath, feet slipping across mucus-slick stone.

  “I’m Princess Charlie, and I have a godly skill!” I yelled, blood singing in my ears. “Fight me as royal, Queen!”

  “That’s a thing?!”