As soon as I finished with the leveling screen, I stood up in the water, ready to get going.

  “Wait,” Dave said. “You should check your—”

  He stopped talking so abruptly that I looked around for Bridget. When I saw no one, I gave him the side-eye on my shoulder.

  “What?” I said.

  He made a quiet swallowing noise. “I was in your equipment screen. Your NerveGear just… changed.”

  I blinked at him, then pulled the screen up for myself. He was right. The helmet still took up my helm, plate, and leg slots, but its name had changed, and so had its image on the screen. It didn’t just blank out the body slots—it populated my suit into the slots. I could actually see my slacks, blazer, and shirt on the equipment image, where before they hadn’t even appeared on the screen at all.

  The new name for the item was NerveGear Upgradeable Cyberpunk Suit. It showed up in all three slots.

  “I don’t…” I began, because I wasn’t sure what this meant. Then it hit me, and I hit myself, on the forehead. I groaned.

  “Looks like it merged the suit with the helmet,” Dave said. “Guess you’re stuck with that snazzy getup. Forever.”

  I let out a breath. “Yeah,” I said roughly. I was now officially stuck in a formal suit from now until I won this game or died. Because of the Lucky Socks upgrade, the NerveGear had become something new, something upgradeable. It had absorbed my suit, and made it a part of the helmet.

  “I have to say, it is a look,” Dave commented. “It’ll be perfect next time we need to attend a ball. You know, after we kill all the people attending it.”

  I didn’t want to ask whether he meant there might be a real ball or not. With this game, it seemed possible.

  “Guess it could be worse,” I said. “I could have been wearing a T-shirt with holes in it. Anyway, what were you saying before? You said I needed to check something.”

  “Oh, yeah. Your stats. I have a surprise for you.”

  I rolled my eyes. I already knew that Dave’s surprises weren’t usually good ones. Regardless, I had yet to actually look at my stat screen. I hadn’t seen the point, since we all start the game at zero anyway….”

  My mouth dropped open at the sight of my stat list. “What… what the hells?”

  All of my stats were where I expected them to be—1 Luck, 5 Tech, 2 Con, 3 Intelligence, and no Charisma or Dex—except one. Strength.

  It was at 31.

  I blinked at it, then switched over to a Whisper. Anytime I asked questions now, I tended to do it over Whisper, to be safe:

  Remnant: How is that possible? I only added 12 points, and most of those were during Setup Mode. How can I be up to 31?

  Dave ruffled his feathers hard, almost like he was vibrating. He stepped from foot to foot in his excitement as he Whispered,

  Dave: Surprise!

  I felt my expression go flat. “Dave.”

  “Okay, okay,” he muttered.

  Dave: Here’s what happened. Returning Hunters get perks, remember? You got nine stat points to start off with. Players also start automatically with ten points. That’s why you have nineteen more points than you thought you did.

  Remnant: So that’s why I was able to use the Bell Katana even though it had a high Strength requirement….

  Dave: Yep!

  Remnant: So Remnant chose Strength? At the outset? He funneled everything into Strength?

  I had seen that strategy before, but with all the trouble Remnant tended to get into, I had trouble believing he wouldn’t want at least some Constitution.

  Dave: Starting stat points are automated based on the player’s personality, or so they say. The Conduit system decided Remnant was pure Strength. Which is why you’ve got what you’ve got. You’re right, though. It does lower his survivability in the early game. It’s another way they’ve tried to screw him over.

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  Remnant: Did he usually go for pure Strength builds?

  Dave: Every game is different, but generally, yeah.

  I thought about it for a moment, wondering if I should switch up my strategy. Damn you, Dave. If you had told me this earlier, I might have….

  What? Spent more points on Strength? No. That part of my strategy wasn’t going to change, and anyway, it was early enough in the game that I could still alter what I wanted to do.

  Remnant: This is good. It means I can use melee weapons until my Tech stat and my ability to craft weapons is up to snuff.

  Dave: It’s also been what’s kept you alive in half these fights. You hit harder than you think you do, for one. For another, you know how you have been getting a 1HP upgrade each level?

  Remnant: …yeah?

  Dave: Well, that could be 1 mana point instead. See, every level increses MP or HP by 1, depending on your highest stat. Strength boosts HP, while your next highest stat—Intelligence—boosts mana points. Meaning you’ve gained a bunch of HP where you should have been gaining MP.

  I frowned. “How long have you known about this?” I asked aloud.

  He shrugged. “From the start.”

  I wanted to throttle him. I could have been increasing my mana points all this time… oh.

  Remnant: Mana points weren’t useful to me until level 10, were they? Since I couldn’t even equip spells until then, and even then, I could only equip one.

  If I had been leveling at a normal rate, that would have been a colossal waste on me, especially with Bleeder active. I needed HP right now, way more than I needed mana. In fact, I’d come close to death several times now. If I hadn’t had extra HP, I would have died three times over.

  Dave: Right, but that’s not the only reason you want HP over MP right now. Your equipment isn’t giving you any armor. The NerveGear takes up three slots that aren’t buffing your ability to take damage at all, and your Con is low. Those extra HP points are crucial right now.

  He was right. Still, I didn’t appreciate having the secret kept from me all this time.

  Remnant: Why didn’t you tell me?

  Dave: Because, look, I’m sorry kid, but you’re a moron. You would have to be, because you’ve never played this game before. The more information I took off your plate, the better. Plus, it’s not like it was something we could change. It was automated.

  Dave: Which is why you should be happy right now. Surprise! Consider it my gift to you.

  Dave hunkered down on my shoulder in a bizarrely self-satisfied way. It was amazing how much emotion he could convey as a parrot.

  I sighed, but the mention of mana points made me remember that I needed to equip spells to my new slots and figure out the gesture for them. I equipped Pinprick, the aura, into my open spell slot first.

  “Still don’t know why you picked the tiny-penis spell,” Dave said. “I mean, Pinprick, really? You’re gonna always have your prick up now, all right, and it costs half your mana just to keep it active! You barely have room left over to cast Rock Tumble once. Why do you even have it?”

  “Don’t you worry your tiny little bird brain about it,” I said, although it was a problem. I wouldn’t be able to passively upgrade my mana points for ages because of my high Strength.

  The Conduit really had hobbled Remnant by putting all his points into one stat like that. It forced him—and by extension, me—to avoid magic altogether.

  Lucky for me, I wasn’t much for obeying authority. I might be behind on all stats but Strength, but I could keep leveling the other stats to bring them in line with Strength. If there was anything I’d learned from my brother’s current character—one that went almost entirely into Intelligence—it was that an unbalanced character had better be the one hitting first. Strength and Intelligence could hit hard, sure, but those stats didn’t defend against attacks the way the less-glamorous Charisma and Constitution did.

  So far, I hadn’t been good at hitting first, anyway. Hells, even in real life, I had usually finished fights, not started them. Ree used to hate that about me.

  “Let me equip my new spells, and then we’re out of here,” I told Dave. I activated the Pinprick aura with a gesture like stabbing something with a pin. Yellow Vescent light flared around me in an orb shape, large enough to encompass me completely and go a foot above my head and disappear into the ground. For a moment, it magnified everything in my vision, making it so I could see the other side of the Gem Baths clear as day.

  It faded fast, though, so as not to obstruct my vision. That must just be an effect applied to the casting. Still, it could be useful later.

  For my Depth slot, I installed Void Slice, because it was the only decent spell I had on hand in an element I could use. Once my Depth meter was up to full, I could cast the Depth spell at double efficacy. That would be one hell of a slice. Enough to manipulate the environment, maybe? I could replace it later if I found something better.

  “Did you see your new Value, too?” Dave asked when I finished up. “It’s next to your level on the stat screen.”

  I checked it. I had a Value of 9.

  “What’s that?” I said as I clambered out of the pool. Hergvor instantly rounded the edge of the pool to stand beside me.

  “It’s how many Hunters you’ve killed, plus however many Hunters your victims killed, too. If you die, the Hunter that kills you will get that many stat points.”

  I scowled and started walking along the stone path back toward the Slain Crags. Bridget was not currently anywhere in my HUD screen, but I hadn’t seen her leave the other area yet. I might encounter her again soon, but I was a lot stronger now.

  Strong enough to have a decent kill Value, apparently. Huh. The better the Hunter, the juicier the target. Maybe I should avoid killing Hunters…?

  No. Fuck ‘em. They all killed children. All of them.

  If killing them made them want to kill me, then they were welcome to try. I had protections now, and lots of them.

  And learning my Value had reminded me that I still had nine unallocated stat points. I opened my menu, and threw four of them into Strength.

  “I thought you didn’t want more Strength!?” Dave protested. He went so far as to squawk at me.

  “Yeah,” I said, “but I happen to have a pretty nice weapon that only works when you have 35 Strength.”

  I grinned, and pulled the Pocket Sand Club from my inventory. It was my best item, aside from the NerveGear.

  Dave narrowed his beady little eyes at me. “You still have five unallocated stat points left.”

  I met his gaze. “I know.”

  Our eyes stayed locked for a moment longer than they should have.

  Dave: You’re not planning to Conscript more people, are you? You told the Developer that you wouldn’t.

  I didn’t answer him.

  I just stepped out of the pool, and headed for war.