Kyra led the way into the room of the defeated goblin tamer and pit wolves. The walls transitioned from gray to polished limestone while the ceiling rose up as high as a lavish ballroom.

  Whatever she'd expected to find here, it certainly wasn't an empty room. No bedding, no food, no tools. Nothing to suggest that it was home to five living creatures.

  She turned to Benny. "You said this place is a pocket dimension?"

  "Dungeons form in the space where magic lives," he replied. "Since magic has touched our world, portals will link us to these spaces."

  "So more and more portals will appear over time?" she said. "Is this what drives our extinction? Bigger and stronger monsters than we can handle?"

  "You're getting ahead of yourself," he said. "Show me you can survive these small and weak monsters first."

  The next encounters went better than the first. She was improving from one battle to the next. It wasn't just her sword skill, but her physical strength too. Before, her slashes failed to cut the hide of a pit wolf. Now she sliced deep enough to draw blood.

  But the biggest difference came from the knowledge she earned through hard experience. Every monster class liked to use its weapons in a certain way, and every weapon had its own strengths and weaknesses. Once she got used to it, it became second nature to predict the way a goblin was going to swing its machete or when a wolf was going to lunge. Combined with her new habit of appraising every monster she came across, she needed less and less healing after every battle.

  And Benny was there with advice to make her life harder.

  "You're relying too much on thrusting attacks," he chided.

  "It's the only way I can pierce their hide!" she protested.

  "Your sword proficiency won't improve without practice in all forms of attack."

  "I lack the strength."

  "Then put in the work."

  The fastest to improve was her flames, which had become so hot and long-lasting that it displeased Benny.

  "Fight this next one without fire," he instructed.

  "I'm better with magic. Why must I use the sword at all?"

  "To prepare yourself for the times when magic won't get the job done."

  In between battles she probed Benny with questions. He was oddly cagey about certain details, but slowly, methodically, she pulled out more information about the man she'd be working for.

  "You asked me before how it felt to kill for the first time. What was it like for you?" she asked.

  "It was so long ago that I don't remember," he replied.

  "A lifetime of separation, huh?"

  "Millions. Maybe billions. After a certain point, the count loses meaning."

  A million lifetimes. If what he sought couldn't be achieved after so many attempts, was it even possible at all?

  It certainly didn't bode well for her chances.

  "Let's make it so you can finally stop after this one, shall we?" she said.

  The corners of his lips tugged up slightly at her joke. "You must realize by now that when I asked you that question, I already knew the answer since I've known you in the other timeline."

  "You said the other Kyra dodged the question."

  "The answer is written in your actions. You take to battle without hesitation, like a seasoned warrior."

  The heat rose in her cheeks. "That's what you want, isn't it?"

  "If I knew what was necessary for my success, I never would have had to save you." He didn't say it in a mean-spirited way. But the careless manner in which he said it made it clear how little her life meant to him.

  However there was something else bothering her more. "I'm not like that, you know. I feel bad about killing them."

  "Maybe you do."

  She couldn't just leave it at that. "You don't think I'm some sort of heartless monster, do you?"

  He replied, "The world is going to need a lot of people willing to fight and kill monsters. Not everyone is cut out for the job. Some will always be bothered by what they have to do. Some learn to live with it. Some can get there with training. But for a very few, it's like they were born for it."

  "Which one would you say I am?" she said quietly.

  "It's time we moved on," he declared, pointing her toward the next room.

  As she led the way onward, he said behind her, "You don't have to worry about what I think of you. All you have to do is succeed."

  Kyra bottled up her indignation. He was right. What he thought of her didn't really matter.

  After what felt like an endless night of fighting, they reached a large oak door. Ornate patterns were carved into the wood, making it fancier than anything they'd encountered so far.

  Putting her shoulders against the door, it took all her strength to shift it.

  Benny grabbed her arm. "You don't have to fight this one."

  Noticing the sober tone, she stepped away and watched the door slide back into place.

  "Did I die in this next room?" she asked.

  "I don't need time travel to know what the outcome will be," he replied. "The boss monster of a dungeon is a rank above everything else. You just aren't there yet."

  "The dungeon will be cleared once we beat it? Does it come with a reward?"

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  "Dungeon bosses sometimes carry useful items. Though in a low-level dungeon like this, most of what you find is junk."

  There was something he wasn't telling her. She couldn't accept that the final monster of a dungeon would be unbeatable for someone who had defeated everything else before it. It defied all sense.

  That's why she decided to probe him a little. "If it's all junk to you, can I keep whatever the boss drops?"

  "You want rewards that you didn't earn?"

  "I cleared out the rest of the dungeon to get us here," she pointed out.

  "The boss battle is far more difficult than all the others."

  "I want the boss prize."

  He said sternly, "Then you'll have to fight the boss."

  "I'll do it!" she replied without hesitation.

  Her enthusiasm was met with a withering glare. "You just had your chance and you lost. Now it's my turn."

  She blocked his way to the door. "You didn't just time travel. I want my shot."

  "To you, any time travel would look like it never happened."

  "That may be so, but I can tell when someone is lying to me," she said.

  "Do you remember my warning about not dying carelessly? What do you think I will do if the burden of keeping you alive gets to be too much?"

  "Are you going to be holding that over my head every time we have a disagreement?"

  Her question finally gave him pause. He threw his hands up. "Fine! Go and take your lesson the hard way."

  Kyra put her shoulders to the door again. She could feel Benny's eyes boring through the back of her head. Instead of pushing on the door, she turned back around to face him again.

  "The truth is," she said, "I never had any intention of fighting the boss. I just wanted to see if you were willing to bend."

  He looked ready to murder her. "Oh my god. You pulled this same deranged stunt last time too. It's just so stupid that I suppressed all memory of it."

  She patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry. I don't remember it either."

  Beyond the final door was the first fully featured room of the dungeon. They were greeted at the entrance by a row of wooden training dummies. Beyond that was a network of yellow lines on the floor marking out a sparring arena that took up most of the space. At the far back were racks of assorted weapons.

  At the center of it all stood a solitary monster with the appearance of a goblin but the size of a man. In place of the makeshift armor of its lesser cousins, this one had a professional lamellar coat. It was training when they entered, swinging about a broadsword that could have come from a master blacksmith. Witnessing the incredible speed of its practice strikes, Kyra was relieved that Benny would be handling this one.

  Appraisal was giving her far more information compared to when she started out. The hobgoblin was the first monster she'd seen with fire resistance, and she was glad that none of the other monsters had been able to negate her greatest strength. It was also the only monster she'd seen so far with the evasion ability, though that wasn't anything special, as she had it too.

  The stand-out feature of course was its rank. Its E-rank status seemed to be based on its sword proficiency. And while its practice swings looked impressive, she was left wondering how much of a difference could one letter make.

  The hobgoblin didn't say a word, instead acknowledging their presence by adopting a ready stance. An invitation to fight.

  Benny stepped into the arena while she stayed back by the door.

  Even with how much better she'd gotten at it, Benny was still beyond her ability to appraise. Surely this meant that he was at yet another level compared to the hobgoblin.

  But the hobgoblin wasn't to be underestimated. Just as she was studying it, it was studying them back. Its eyes never left Benny, and she got the sense that while the fight was yet to begin, it was already searching for weaknesses in the way he moved.

  Benny's walk turned into a charge. The battle had begun! The hobgoblin matched him for speed, its rippling muscles bringing its own sword to bear. The two clashed with great force.

  Kyra understood now that this battle truly was beyond her. Had she been the one to receive that blow, her arm would have been wrenched from its socket.

  The two combatants circled one another in a complex dance of footwork and positioning. From time to time there was a brief, tentative clash of steel on steel. They were still sounding each other out.

  Benny's approach seemed overly cautious for one whose ability was supposedly on another level to his opponent's. But it also hadn't escaped her attention that he had no protection other than the simple clothing he'd been wearing since he pulled her from the car. He had to target the gaps in his opponent's armor with great precision while the hobgoblin just had to land a hit anywhere.

  Ten minutes in and both fighters were still cautious. Twenty minutes and Kyra was already feeling the drain; she couldn't imagine how it must feel for the combatants. Thirty minutes. She thought about stepping in to help.

  Forty minutes in she began noticing small changes in the combatants. Their footwork was slower, less precise. The sword movements no longer as graceful. It had taken this long for the battle to wear them down.

  But one was affected more than the other.

  And that was when she clicked on to Benny's strategy.

  This tiniest shift in the balance between these two fighters would decide the outcome of the battle.

  Kyra turned her focus on the hobgoblin. It must be smart enough to have realized this too. It had to make a move and end this now—even at a disadvantage.

  But it was Benny who lashed out first. The hobgoblin's reaction was a fraction too slow. Benny landed the first hit!

  The two moved apart, the tip of Benny's sword stained red while blood dribbled out from the gap in the armor below the hobgoblin's shoulder.

  From there the injuries piled on fast. It seemed that after every clash, the hobgoblin was left with another cut and sometimes a gash.

  At last it charged at Benny in a desperate all-out attack, but by then it was already too weakened and drained to have any hope of success. The time traveler easily parried and knocked the creature off balance, creating an opening for the final blow.

  With the battle now over, Kyra approached. Benny was fishing through the dead hobgoblin's pockets. He pulled out a small blue orb.

  The orb went into his own pockets before he grabbed the creature's limp hand. There was a ring, which he removed.

  The ring he gave to her. "You'll need this more than me. Use it well."

  It was a small ruby set into a simple gold band. Had she found it in a jewelry store, she wouldn't have suspected it was magical at all.

  Together they returned to the door. Before departing the boss room, Benny turned around to survey it one last time and then turned to her and said, "That must not have been the spectacle you were expecting. Are you disappointed?"

  "I think I understand the limitations of your powers now," she replied.

  There was a glint of amusement in his eyes. "Is that so?"

  "Having the ability to turn back time doesn't mean you'll have a talent for combat. Even so, it's strange that your sword proficiency doesn't measure up to the fact that you've lived a million lifetimes. I've been trying to understand how this can be."

  Since he was listening with interest, she continued, "I remembered your warning about how you can only step through time at great cost. I don't think it's something as transactional as having to sacrifice some ability every time you want to go back. What I think happens is that you return to your body as it was in that moment."

  He seemed pleased with deductions and said, "That mode of time travel is called regression. I can go back to any moment of my life in the past. I lose everything that I've gained except my memories."

  "But there's an additional cost," she said.

  "Why do you think there's an additional cost?"

  "Otherwise you wouldn't have objected to me dying in this room."

  He nodded pleasantly. "Reason it out however you like. As long as you understand that it's my power to use and not yours to rely on. But I was actually trying to teach you a different lesson."

  She frowned. There was another lesson?

  Benny spun around and pointed at the hobgoblin's corpse. In an instant the entire arena was swallowed up by silvery flames. The heat was unbearable even with the protection of the ring of fire resistance, and she wasn't even inside the inferno. It only lasted a couple of seconds—all it took for the hobgoblin corpse to be reduced to a pile of ash—before Benny closed his hand and the flames winked out.

  She never forgot his next words.

  "I told you before, didn't I? You've got train where you're weakest and master all disciplines."