"Fuck," said Isabelle as she staggered to her feet. She only had 18 hp left! How fast was her H-Regen, again? Isabelle quickly checked her character sheet to confirm.

  Character Status

  Name: Isabelle

  Gender: Female

  Level: 78

  Class: Shadow Mage

  Race: Human

  Alignment: Chaotic-Evil

  Affinities

  Slots: 2

  Shadow Affinity (I)

  Predation Affinity (I)

  Attributes

  Hp: 1088

  H-Regen: 2.4/5sec

  Mana: 723

  M-Regen: 4/1sec

  Stm: 1005

  S-Regen: 0.7/sec

  Skill Points

  Str: 643 Int: 469

  Dx: 514 Wis: 500

  Const: 448 Char: 379

  Magic Ability Levels

  Enchant: 3 Summon: 2

  Heal: 3 Destroy: 13

  Transmute: 3 Confuse: 3

  Shadow: 5

  Normal Ability Levels

  Crafting: 8 Sneak: 12

  Archery: 11 Lockpick: 5

  Armed Combat: 18 Melee Combat: 4

  Speech: 17 Sleight Of Hand: 8

  Great. So Isabelle had an H-Regen of 2.4/5sec, which meant... she was totally fucked! She had 18 fucking hp and something had just nearly one shotted her for 1070 hp! That shit was insane.

  [Hp critically low]

  [Stamina low]

  [Mana low]

  "Isabelle, you look like shit," said Tahsi Junior. "Let me cast a healing spell on you!"

  [Tahsi Junior cast 'Healing Scales' on you]

  [+10 hp]

  [+10 hp]

  [+10 hp]

  Okay, that was a nice boost, but it wasn't going to make Isabelle battle-ready.

  [+10 hp]

  "Isabelle, my son is doing a great job healing you, but that isn't going to be enough to get you battle-ready," said Tahsi Senior as he stuffed three donuts into his mouth and chomped voraciously. "That's why I'd like to offer you some healing donuts."

  [Accept 'Stale Powdered Donut x4' from party member 'Tahsi'?]

  [Y/N]

  [+10 hp]

  Isabelle thought yes. Then, she quick equipped them.

  [Stale Powdered Donut equipped]

  And she ate them.

  [Stale Powdered Donut eaten]

  [+40 hp]

  [Stale Powdered Donut eaten]

  [+40 hp]

  [Stale Powdered Donut eaten]

  [+40 hp]

  [Stale Powdered Donut eaten]

  [+40 hp]

  [+10 hp]

  Isabelle checked her hp levels.

  [Hp: 238/1088]

  Wow, Isabelle was still weak as shit and in no state to fight that battalion of geometric monstrosities.

  "Guys, I think we should run the fuck away," said Isabelle. "Respectfully."

  "Honestly, same," said Ignis. "I don't wanna get one hitted."

  "Nobody does," said Tahsi Senior as he swallowed a donut hole whole. "Except for One Hit Carl, but that guy's crazy, and he's got so much hp it's damned near impossible."

  [Updated: One Hit Carl]

  [Objective: Figure out how much hp One Hit Carl has]

  Isabelle rolled her eyes at her system. Overall, having it working properly was a godsend. However, sometimes the way her questing menu was functioning seemed to operate on a lot of assumptions. Isabelle didn't give a flying fuck about One Hit Carl. She just didn't feel like dying.

  Except.

  Then, Isabelle remembered what she'd stolen from Shiach. Besides sealing Shiach in a vial in her inventory, Isabelle had also used her frying pan to extract the power of Shiach as a phoenixborn to reincarnate. But not to reincarnate into a new life, like Isabelle assumedly had into Beaubinte. No, the power that Isabelle got from Shiach was the power to reincarnate in the same world, as the same person, all over again. Seemingly, ad infinitum. For a moment, Isabelle wondered if that's how the Overlord and his party members got their immortality, but then she remembered that the Overlord's immortality seemed to be systemic in function in that his party members literally could not die, case in point the severed head of Stelas Stelford.

  Regardless of all that, Isabelle was suddenly far less afraid. In fact, she was barely afraid at all. And she was getting an idea.

  "All set to run away? Isabelle, ready to hop on my back already and escape?" said Ignis with an expectant huff.

  "Eh, actually, I've had a slight change of plans," said Isabelle, rolling her eyes. "See, whatever energy beam that geometric thing shot at me was so powerful it took over 1000 hp from me at once, and also sapped all my mana and stamina."

  "Yea, of course I see that, we all saw it," said Ignis. "That's why we're running away."

  "See, but here's the thing about that," said Isabelle, rolling her eyes. "The thing is, that must be a super powerful spell."

  "Oh no," said Tahsi Senior as he side-eyed a cheese danish. "I can see where this is going."

  "What?" said Ignis. "Us? Going far away? Running away, you might say?"

  "No," said Isabelle.

  "Oh my gods," said Tahsi Junior. "I think I know, too."

  Isabelle rolled her eyes and sighed.

  "WHAT?" said Ignis. "What the fuck is going on?"

  "She wants us to rush up there so she can smack one of them with her frying pan," said Tahsi Senior as he sloppily demolished the pastry in his claw. "You know, to use her shadow magic to take their powers. Basically."

  "What in the fuck, Isabelle, seriously?" said Ignis with a huff. "You would put all of our lives at risk to become more powerful?"

  "Technically, just your lives," said Isabelle. "Since I can reincarnate like a phoenixborn. But yes, the answer is yes. This is a surprise to you?"

  Ignis was fuming, but all she really did was grumble deeply and huff smoke out her nostrils.

  "This is bullshit," said Ignis.

  "Yea, that's what I've been saying," said Isabelle. "And I wanna make sure I never get nearly one hitted again. What's the best defense? Being able to one hit everyone around me, obviously, so it's vital I do this."

  "Hey, Isabelle, I already know the answer to this, but would you please consider not doing that?" said Tahsi Senior as he equipped a baguette to feast upon. "Like, it is an objectively terrifying and horrible idea and the risk is just not worth the-"

  "I'm doing it, with or without you dorks," said Isabelle. "So, are you in or out? We all know I kick people from my party like it's going out of style so don't mince words."

  Begrudgingly, and with a tingling fear, all of her party members eventually relented.

  "Great," said Isabelle. "Let's go fuck shit up, then."

  [Frying pan (imbued) equipped]

  [+2 str]

  [+1 const]

  "Or get our shit fucked up," said Ignis with a huff.

  "Or that," said Isabelle with a sigh.

  "Okay, great, I have a plan, everyone!" said Tahsi Senior. "Isabelle, you go up there riding Ignis, get zapped, and maybe die. Then, my son and I provide a distraction with my bread! Maybe we can even breadify those things again!"

  "Breadify them? That's your strategy?" said Ignis with a huff. "Breadify? You'll just get us all killed. Again."

  "It's a better plan than just 'let's hope we don't die!'" said Tahsi Senior.

  Isabelle wanted to have some fun.

  [Speech attempt: mislead]

  "Look, idiots, I already have a plan and it's nothing like any of that shit," said Isabelle. "Basically, my plan is to ride Ignis up to the enemies, hit them with my frying pan, maybe I get zapped maybe I don't, and meanwhile you Tahsis can make up some distractions or whatever or even breadify the monster. But also, I might just be able to zap the monsters back once I steal the spell. Who knows!"

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  [Speech succeeded]

  "Wow, Isabelle, that was a much better plan than my dad's," said Tahsi Junior. "It was also totally different!"

  "Agreed!" said Tahsi Senior as he finished off the butt end of his baguette before equipping another.

  Ignis, meanwhile, just huffed.

  "Whatever," said Ignis. "Just get on my back."

  Isabelle smiled at that. She was ready. She was also ready to die, but that was okay. She'd just get right back up again. This whole reincarnation thing was a cheat code, and Isabelle was planning on abusing it for all it was worth.

  "Ignis, you know what to do," said Isabelle as she climbed onto the dragon's back.

  Isabelle was so, so ready.

  Ignis didn't waste a second. She crouched, her powerful leg muscles coiling like steel springs, and then launched herself into the scorched, grey air. The ground dropped away, the kobolds shrinking into dots. The wind screamed in Isabelle's ears, whipping her hair across her face. This was it. The pure, stupid thrill of it all.

  "I see you!" Ignis roared, her mind-voice cutting through the wind. "They're not even reacting! They're just... sitting there!"

  Isabelle squinted. Ignis was right. The geometric figures just hung in the air, impassive, unmoving. It was more insulting than if they'd been charging. They were waiting for them. They were an automated sentry system, and the intruders had tripped the alarm.

  "Get me closer!" Isabelle yelled.

  Ignis banked hard, skimming low over the grey, lifeless plain. The nearest of the floating figures grew larger, its facets catching the harsh, sterile light from the rift. It wasn't a creature. It was a weapon. A piece of living artillery.

  Isabelle focused on it.

  ['Chailong Warrior']

  What the fuck was a Chailong Warrior? Well, Isabelle was facing one.

  And it was attacking again! The beam shot out from its spherical head of constantly changing proportions.

  "Brace yourself!" said Ignis.

  [Ignis used 'Barrel Roll']

  [Ignis Stamina 85%]

  Isabelle held tightly to the dragon's scaly back as Ignis flipped over and over again, narrowly evading the blast. The beam of red energy carved a molten trench in the plain behind them.

  "We can't keep dodging those!" said Ignis as she leveled out. "It's too precise!"

  "I don't need you to dodge the next one!" said Isabelle. "I just need you to get me in range!"

  Ignis roared in frustration or agreement—it was hard to tell—and pushed on, her wings beating furiously. They were closing the distance. Fifty yards. Forty. Thirty.

  Isabelle could see the details now. The Chailong Warrior was made of a crystalline material that seemed to absorb and refract all light, creating a dizzying kaleidoscope effect. There were no eyes, no features, just complex, interlocking shapes that shifted and reconfigured themselves with silent, mathematical precision.

  "Almost there!" said Ignis.

  The Chailong Warrior raised a multi-faceted limb. Not to fire the beam this time, but to intercept. It was going to swat them out of the sky like a fly.

  "NOW!" Isabelle screamed.

  She pushed off Ignis's back, a suicidal leap into the void. For a heart-stopping second, she was falling, the grey plain rushing up to meet her. The frying pan felt heavy in her hand, a ridiculous, absurd weapon against such a foe.

  Then, her shadow magic flared.

  [Active: Shadow Step]

  The world dissolved into smoky tendrils. She reappeared directly in front of the Chailong Warrior, so close she could feel the cold, sterile energy radiating from its form. It was a cold like the deep void of space, a cold that promised the end of all motion and life.

  [Mana 85%]

  [Using stamina for extra battle focus]

  [Stamina 69%]

  And then, Isabelle swung her frying pan down at the fiend.

  Time slowed down. The pan, a cheap piece of cookware imbued with Isabelle's own shadow magic, connected with the crystalline surface of the Chailong Warrior.

  A web of black cracks erupted from the point of impact. The cracks weren't physical; they were fractures in reality itself, leaking pure shadow. The Chailong Warrior's perfect geometry distorted, its form flickering like a bad hologram. A high-pitched whine filled the air, the sound of a million microscopic systems failing at once.

  [Critical hit]

  [Chailong Warrior -1 hp]

  [New spell stolen]

  [Learning spell]

  [...]

  [Spell 'Quantum Disentanglement Beam' learned]

  Isabelle sighed. Of course her frying pan would hardly do any damage, even with a crit. But hey, on the bright side, it looked like she'd managed to steal whatever sort of death ray the son of a bitch had shot at her. Nearly fucking killed her.

  And now, the Chailong Warrior's spherical head started to creak and groan as it seemed to be concentrating energy and its attention upwards. Towards her.

  Isabelle had to act quickly. She raised her left hand and thought 'Cast Quantum Disentanglement Beam.'

  [Error: Insufficient mana]

  What? Hadn't Isabelle's mana nearly reached one hundred percent again?

  [Mana 95%]

  Isabelle thought, 'Cast Quantum Disentanglement Beam' again.

  [Error: Insufficient mana]

  [Clarification: Even if your mana was at one hundred percent, you would still not have enough mana to cast Quantum Disentanglement Beam. It is an incredibly high-level spell that was not originally intended to be 'stealable.' Then again, you are a shadow mage, so that shakes things up a little bit. Still, though, Beaubinte as a world does not expect you to be able to handle this situation, at all.]

  "FUCK OFF! GOD FUCKING DAMMIT THAT IS SUCH FUCKING BULLSHIT!" said Isabelle as she sighed and rolled her eyes.

  But there wasn't time for more deliberation. The Chailong Warrior's energy was started to look so charged up that it was leaking pre-attack energy all over the place.

  Isabelle didn't wait to see what climactically happened next. She Shadow Stepped again, this time aiming for Ignis, who was already circling back to scoop her up.

  [Active: Shadow Step]

  [Mana 20%]

  Isabelle reappeared in the air a dozen feet from the dragon's path, falling again.

  "I've got you!" Ignis said with a roar, banking sharply.

  The dragon's claws closed around Isabelle's armor with a screech of metal on scale. A moment later, the red beam lanced out from the Chailong Warrior, missing them by inches. The sheer force of the passing energy sent them spinning.

  "Did you get it?" Ignis said with a grunt, struggling to stabilize their flight.

  "I got it but it's useless!" Isabelle said as she yelled back, clinging to her forearm. "It costs too much fucking mana!"

  Below them, the kobolds were living up to their promise. Tahsi Senior had unleashed a barrage of baguettes, which were now raining down on the assembled geometric army. The loaves bounced harmlessly off the crystalline surfaces, but it was distracting. Several of the Chailong Warriors had turned their attention to the ground, their faceted heads tilting in unison.

  "BREAD FOR THE BREAD GOD!" Tahsi Senior said with a bellow, lobbing a sourdough round. "PASTRY FOR THE PASTRY THRONE!"

  One of the Chailong Warriors pointed a limb at him. A different beam shot out, this one a shimmering blue.

  [Tahsi Senior cast 'Carb Shield']

  The blue beam hit Tahsi Senior's shield of solidified bread and dissipated.

  "It's working!" Tahsi Junior said with a squeak, throwing a cinnamon roll that exploded in a shower of icing and glitter.

  It was a pathetic, beautiful, and ultimately doomed display.

  "We can't win this!" Ignis said, her voice tight with strain as she dodged another red beam. "Their firepower is insane, and your stolen spell is a dud!"

  "I'm not leaving without a goddamn prize!" Isabelle said as she sighed and rolled her eyes in frustration. "I bet those fucking Chailong Warriors are absolutely oozing with Raw Essence. You know Raw Essence, right, Ignis? Raw Essence, the thing that lets me level up at will. Raw Essence, with it, hell, I could probably level up enough to have enough mana to cast that spell I stole from the Chailong Warrior!"

  "I'm sorry, Isabelle, but did you just say that you don't want to leave and you don't want to stop fighting these seeming unkillable enemies capable of nearly one-shotting you because you think doing so would level you up so much that you'd then be able to use a spell you stole from them?" said Ignis, skepticism in her tone.

  "Not just that," said Isabelle. "They'd probably level me up so much I'd be able to cast the spell multiple times in rapid succession! And do you know what THAT means, Ignis? Do you know what it all really, truly means, you insolent little flying lizard?"

  "Don't go calling me the L word right now, Izzy," said Ignis with a huff.

  "IT MEANS THE NUMBERS GO UP!" said Isabelle. "That's what it means!"

  Ignis sighed deeply, a puff of smoke escaping her nostrils. "Your obsession with making the numbers go up is going to get us all deleted from existence."

  "It's gotten me this far, hasn't it?" said Isabelle, sighing and rolling her eyes.

  "Debatable," said Ignis with a huff.

  Below them, a Chailong Warrior had locked onto the kobolds. Another blue beam lanced out, vaporizing Tahsi Senior's freshly conjured 'Focaccia of Fortification'.

  "My focaccia!" Tahsi Senior lamented. "It was herbed with rosemary and thyme!"

  "There has to be a way to get that Raw Essence without getting turned into a fine red mist," Ignis said, her mind racing. "They're just constructs, right? They must have a core. A power source."

  Isabelle's eyes widened. A core. Of course. Everything in Beaubinte that wasn't a standard NPC or player had a core. A loot pinata. The problem was getting to it. Her frying pan had done next to nothing to its structure.

  "What if we don't break them from the outside?" Isabelle said, an idea, stupid and glorious, blooming in her mind. "What if we break them from the inside?"

  "I am not letting you get eaten by a giant light prism, Isabelle," said Ignis with a huff.

  "I wasn't thinking about getting eaten," said Isabelle with a roll of her eyes. "I was thinking about my new spell. Quantum Disentanglement Beam. The system said I didn't have enough mana to cast it. But it never said anything about not having enough mana to channel it."

  Ignis banked hard, narrowly avoiding another attack. "Channel it? What in the seven hells are you talking about? That's not how magic works!"

  "It is if I say it is," said Isabelle. "I just need a focusing medium. A conduit. Something that can take the raw, untamed energy of the spell and aim it."

  Isabelle looked down at the frying pan in her hand. It was already imbued with her shadow magic. It was the vessel for her thieving power. What if it could be more? What if it could be a barrel for a cannon she couldn't possibly fire?

  "Ignis," said Isabelle, her voice low and serious. "I need you to trust me. I need you to get me right up next to one of them. And when I say so, I need you to breathe fire on my frying pan."

  Ignis was silent for a long moment, the only sound the rushing wind and the crackle of energy from the Chailong Warriors below. "That is the single stupidest plan you have ever conceived of. And that's saying a lot."

  [Speech attempt: intimidate]

  "Do it or I'm kicking you from my party, slaying you, and replacing you with a pet rock," said Isabelle. "A very boring pet rock that doesn't talk back."

  [Speech failed]

  "Sure," Ignis said with a huff and a snort. "Right after I go join a dragon nunnery."

  "Suck my dick," said Isabelle.

  "Look, Isabelle, I'm sick of this suicide mission," said Ignis.

  "But look at the Tahsis!" said Isabelle, gesturing down to the kobold and his dragon-kobold son. "They're having so much fun."

  Tahsi and Tahsi Junior were, in fact, having a blast. They had constructed a small bunker out of croissants and were currently pelting the nearest Chailong Warrior with cream puffs, which burst into sticky, creamy clouds on impact. The warrior was methodically attempting to vaporize the clouds with its blue beam, but they were too numerous. It was a battle of attrition between baked goods and an ancient, reality-bending weapon.

  "They're insane," said Ignis.

  "They're roleplaying," said Isabelle, sighing and rolling her eyes. "Now, are you going to help me commit a war crime against fundamental geometry, or are you going to be a big scaly coward?"

  Ignis growled, a deep, rumbling sound that vibrated through Isabelle's bones. "Fine. But if I get vaporized, I'm haunting your inventory."

  "It's a deal," said Isabelle.

  "Alright, you suicidal maniac, hang on," Ignis roared, and dove.

  They plummeted towards the Chailong Warrior that was currently distracted by the cream-puff apocalypse. The wind howled. The ground spun. Isabelle held the frying pan out in front of her, her knuckles white.

  "I'm going to swing in close!" Ignis said. "Get ready!"