The new sword was hilarious, but thank God most of the time it only talked inside my mind—anything it said out loud would probably get you arrested in England right now (small 2026 vibes).

  Since I hadn’t taken possession of the third floor yet, I kept repeating the same path over and over to reach the boss.

  That skeleton was insanely skilled, and the darkness in his hollow eyes ran deep.

  The cold air, the endless clinking of sword strikes… he became my master without even knowing it.

  I have no idea how many days—or maybe even months—I spent there, just grinding to master the blade.

  It was incredibly useful knowing the trick with the levels: whenever I needed to rest, I’d kill the necromancer, head back home to Lupita and XD, and recover.

  But XD had been acting really strange lately.

  She was getting way too close, behaving almost disturbingly human.

  So I told her to take a walk with me so we could talk properly.

  I started by saying she could count on me for anything she needed.

  Whatever was going on in her head, she could tell me.

  “Maybe I’m just a human and won’t understand everything like you do, but I’m here for you.”

  That’s when she started crying. I was in absolute shock.

  For a second I thought she was gaslighting me or rage-baiting, but just in case, I grabbed her by the hoodie, pulled her close, and let her rest her head on my shoulder.She kept crying, and between sobs and sniffles she explained that ever since I conquered the 199th floor, that update had given her real feelings.

  Frustration, jealousy, envy… all hitting her at once.

  Because the sword could talk too—and it could actually go with me into the dungeon instead of staying behind like she had to.

  Maybe Lupita felt the same way, but there was no way in hell I’d drag either of them straight into those death traps.

  Sure, there are women adventurers out there—don’t get me wrong—but there’s no glamour and barely any safety for anyone who can’t fight at that level.

  I don’t even know if Lupita (or XD in her current form) could survive down there.

  That’s exactly why I’d never take them in unprepared.

  An experienced adventurer? That’s different.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  It’s their life, their choice.

  I stayed with XD the whole day.

  She mostly cried, but when she finally calmed down, she said something that broke me a little: “I never knew being more human would be this hard.”

  As an AI without feelings, she hadn’t cared about anything;

  she saw herself as nothing more than a tool. Now she didn’t want to be a tool anymore.

  So she made me promise to find a way to transfer her intelligence into a real body—so she could be with me every day, every moment.Saying yes hurt like hell, but I promised I would… with one condition: we had to be reasonable about the “never being alone” part.

  I actually love her, but I need my space too.

  If she doesn’t have the ability to sleep or switch off, it’s going to be a problem.

  So yeah, I need to figure that out.I told her I loved her.

  And before anyone starts calling me a clanker lover—well, I’ve got two women down here.

  How many do you have in your house? Go get one and then come talk to me.We kept talking for hours.

  I told her human relationships are complicated and I didn’t want to hurt her, so I’d do my absolute best.

  That night I went to bed and leveled up four times. I even got a new title: Wildstray Owner. Pretty cool.This time I broke my routine of training against the skeleton on floor 3 and pushed up to the fourth floor.

  It was like a spiral library that went on forever, but only one ring-shaped walkway was actually accessible.

  There was another undead waiting, but not like the others—this one talked.I would’ve been surprised, but since my sword talks to me and I’m not freaking out about it, I just went “wow, not WOW.”

  It started like a classic NPC about to drop a tragic backstory, so I cut its head clean off before it could finish. It asked why I wouldn’t let it live.

  I told it there was no reason to spare it.

  Then it said this entire library contained all the knowledge it had developed… about turning men into women.

  I crushed its head in the most violent way possible—so hard that even Wildstray went “Whoa, what did he do to you to deserve that?”

  I calmed down and muttered that there was no way people like that had made it here too.

  They were enemies of my Lord. I would…

  That’s what I was saying until I realized what I was about to say.

  Bad memories from my old world.

  There was only one monster on that floor, so I advanced, took note of the floor number in the tower, and decided I’d come back later to burn every single book while claiming possession of the place.

  Since that felt too quick to call it a day, I went straight to floor five.

  It was packed with zombies. They stank so bad I didn’t even want to get close.

  I started sniping them with magic from high up.

  The floor was a maze, and there didn’t seem to be a boss—maybe the whole horde was the boss, and you could just sprint to the exit if you wanted.

  I tried that, but the door had clear text: You shall kill all zombies to pass through.

  What a pain in the ass.

  Good thing zombies are drawn to loud noises (all their other senses are already rotted away).

  I launched a massive fireball into the center to make a racket and pull them all together.

  The place had a medieval Asian aesthetic—perfect rooftops for staying out of reach.

  They rushed toward the explosion, so I just had to drop twenty-five fireballs in the exact same spot to clear the floor.I was exhausted by the end. This floor looked like a whole city, and I was excited to see where it would appear in my territory.

  I headed toward the door… and then the pain hit. Huge, overwhelming pain.

  I dropped to all fours, mumbling, struggling, using the sword like a cane just to keep moving. When I finally reached the exit, I don’t even remember the rest clearly.

  I just remember praying with everything I had to make it home, to see XD and Lupita again.

  I didn’t want to miss dinner this time.

  I barely made it inside the house perimeter. XD woke Lupita instantly.

  They both rushed to me. I was a wreck—vomiting, in agony, barely conscious.

  They didn’t know what to do. I spent the whole night like that, throwing in a huge pain.

  They stayed by my side, terrified, thinking I might actually die.