AFKat and TripleBatsuDance left the snow-covered lands behind and reached the Bewitched Forest. It was a place where people making a second or third character used to grind from level 40 to 60 so they could breeze through the rest of the campaign and get to the endgame content. With the more recent changes to the campaign, it was no longer necessary, and the streamlined progression now meant only veterans would come here to relive their feelings of nostalgia.

  TripleBatsuDance was of the old guard, but AFKat had no attachment to this place. She trudged onward lazily, only hoping to get through here quickly, while the dancer took in the nostalgic sights. Prison of Eternity's graphics had already been amazing, but when the shut-in god turned it into reality, he upgraded it into photorealism.

  "Somebody help me~!!" came a female voice from the depths of the forest, and the two girls exchanged a confused glance.

  "Is it a trap? Were there such monsters here?" AFKat wondered. She remembered precious little of the campaign since her idiot brother made the guild pull her along all the way to max level with little time to experience the story.

  "No, that sounds like a person," said TripleBatsuDance with a shrug. "Could still be a trap."

  "Anybody got a mana potion~?!" the voice cried out. "The goblins are going to violate me~!!"

  The two girls exchanged another glance, eyebrows raised in consternation. Could that happen? This game obviously did not have such content before, but perhaps it did now. Who knew what the shut-in god added in his infinite depravity? They silently came to the agreement to head for the voice. After all, there was little in this level range that could touch them, let alone become a danger to their lives. Not that AFKat would ever be in danger as long as she maintained her build.

  They left the main path and entered the depths of the forest. It was designed with player mobility in mind, so there was barely any undergrowth. Hints of a footpath could be seen here and there, indicators left by the devs to direct discerning people toward the hidden treasures in this region.

  Soon, they came upon a clearing with a sight so ridiculous that they had to stop and stare. A female [Mage] was speed-walking in a circle, kiting over two dozen goblins chasing her. Her voluptuous body looked like the player had set her boob and ass sliders to the maximum and called it a day. She wore a wide-brimmed witch hat, a level 1 unique item with abysmal stats, while the rest of her equipment looked like whatever dropped in this region. The name over her head read BlackKokoro.

  She moved barely faster than the mobs, who ran after her on their shorter legs. She clearly had not put any levels into movement speed, and her boots likely had no speed boost either. This was a new player who had made the noob mistake of not stocking up on mana potions before leaving town.

  "Hello~! You two, please help me~!" BlackKokoro had the cutesy voice that was a stark mismatch with her body. Even now, she tried her hardest to sound sensuous, but it only came across as her dragging her words needlessly.

  "I don't want to," AFKat declared and turned around on the spot. She hated this kind of person.

  "I have no money~ I'm going to die for real~!" the witch cried out, causing the little catgirl to freeze. She did not turn around, but her expression went through all the stages of grief.

  "Come on, let's help her," TripleBatsuDance said with a wry smile, though she understood her friend's sentiment. They did not have the leeway to drag around a beginner. Still, it would not sit well with her to let someone die when they could help her. After all, they still did not know what happened to someone who died in this new reality.

  "You say that, but what can we do?" the little catgirl said with a shrug. "Although they may be level 38, we don't have enough damage to kill them."

  TripleBatsuDance stared at AFKat with a skeptical expression. Had she forgotten her own role already? Her taunt would draw the enemies off the witch immediately. And then they only had to slave away at it with the dancer's little damage output.

  "I have the damage, so just give me a mana potion, please~" the witch pleaded while continuing her for the potentially life-and-death situation unfittingly comedic speed-walking routine.

  "How long have you been at this? Shouldn't your mana have regenerated enough already? It's less than 80 mana to cast any spell at this level," the dancer inquired suspiciously. She knew the game inside out, having leveled every class to level 100 over the four years she had been playing this game.

  "I leveled up earlier and took the foundational passive [Elemental Judgment] without reading the fine print~!" whined BlackKokoro.

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  AFKat stared at her with a flabbergasted expression. [Elemental Judgment] disabled the player's mana regeneration in exchange for doubling the damage of elemental spells. Only a total noob would take it without having set up their build to accommodate its downsides.

  Although the real problem was that the game had become real, and teleportation no longer worked. Otherwise, she could have opened a portal and escaped to the city. It was a perfect storm that put BlackKokoro into this precarious situation. If they had not come around, she would have slowed down to a crawl once her stamina meter depleted from hunger eventually. Such a death would have gone down in the player-made Hall of Fame for Stupid and Preventable Deaths for sure.

  "There, I sent you a trade request." TripleBatsuDance waved her hand in the air for the menu only she could see. The jingle for the trade being accepted played, and BlackKokoro pulled a glass bottle filled with a blue liquid out from between her breasts. AFKat's expression distorted into utter annoyance at that sight.

  The witch chugged the potion while walking before throwing the empty bottle aside and wiping her mouth. It shattered on the ground, causing her to stare at it in passing. That had never happened before.

  But there was something more important to do right now. BlackKokoro spun around and brandished her simple wooden staff. The goblins closed in as she chanted her spell, "O' Lords of the elements, heed my call! Fire, Ice, and Lightning! Form the trinity of catastrophe! Rain death and destruction upon mine enemies! [Chromatic Storm]!!!"

  "You don't need to chant anything!!" AFKat snapped in anger when the witch roleplayed even under these circumstances.

  A tornado of the three elemental colors, red, green, and blue, arose amid the goblins and engulfed them all. It lasted only a few seconds before dispersing in an explosion of shiny particles. The two dozen mobs lay charred, frozen, and twitching on the ground.

  "Thank you so much~! You saved my life~" BlackKokoro approached them with a grateful smile and bowed deeply before them. Her cleavage hung right before AFKat's face, causing her left eye to twitch in anger. "I am BlackKokoro, the Witch of Calam-"

  "How did you take [Elemental Judgment] without mana gain on hit?" AFKat interrupted BlackKokoro's self-introduction and asked with a rare irritated expression. Even she knew about the foundational passives of the shared skill tree since she looked over them all when making her character to find as much damage reduction as she could.

  "I just started the game the day before yesterday~" argued the witch, putting a finger on her cheek. It came across as a cutesy gesture - a stark mismatch with her mature appearance. The player behind this voluptuous witch avatar was likely a child. She was the exact opposite of AFKat.

  "Don't be too hard on her," TripleBatsuDance put a hand on her friend's shoulder and said with a wry smile. Then she addressed BlackKokoro, "I'm TripleBatsuDance, and my class should be obvious. This is Afu- um, AFKat, a [Vanguard]."

  "A [Vanguard]~? I thought they were all big buff guys wearing heavy armor~" The witch looked at the crown of thorns and the oversized white shirt on the little catgirl with a skeptical expression.

  "Looks can be deceiving. Especially when you can transfer outfits or buy skins from the shop that look very different from the armor they're applied to," TripleBatsuDance explained, holding back from gushing over the game's countless cosmetics. "Although AFKat's outfit here is the real deal. She's just making use of certain game mechanics."

  "It's all going over her head," said the little catgirl when she noticed BlackKokoro tilting her head with a blank expression.

  "Oh well... what will you do now?" TripleBatsuDance changed the topic.

  "I wanted to continue leveling up here since this place is easy~" BlackKokoro said innocently. The catgirl and dancer exchanged a glance. This noob witch would have died if they had not wandered through. Most lower-level players hearing the announcement from the shut-in god would likely have sought the nearest town to take shelter. Yet, here was an idiot who wanted to keep playing even when there was a chance of death.

  "Are you an idiot?! You heard the announcement from that shut-in god! This is a death game now!" AFKat roared at the witch. She flinched and shrank before the much shorter girl's ire. "Head for the nearest town immediately and seek shelter!"

  "Will it be any less dangerous with players over there~?" BlackKokoro wondered with a cutesy head tilt. She made a good point. There was no way for her to know that they had encountered a cheater along the way, but her instincts were surprisingly sharp. Other players were actually more dangerous than monsters in this death game now, since they were unpredictable.

  "Come with us. We're heading to Dragonheart's Sanctum to meet up with our guild," TripleBatsuDance stepped between them to assuage the little catgirl.

  "That's Act 5. She'll have to level up along the way and do all the quests for the exp," argued AFKat with a frown.

  "She got us two here. We can keep her safe," said the dancer with a shrug. Then she gestured toward the witch, and a window popped up, asking for partying up. She looked at it for a moment before accepting with a joyful smile.

  "My first party, yay!" BlackKokoro sounded more like a child than ever when she expressed her joy by jumping up and down. AFKat stared at her voluptuous form bouncing in all the right places with an eye twitching.

  "Now I can see your build. Let's see here..." TripleBatsuDance flipped through a menu visible only to her, and her expression grew increasingly confused with every movement of her finger. "Huh? You didn't put a single point into health... Without my auras, you would have 0 defenses and resistances!"

  "I just like big damage numbers~" BlackKokoro muttered as she shrank.

  "No cast speed either... It's all just pure damage." TripleBatsuDance suppressed the urge to sigh and instead found the silver lining with a wry smile. "You're sitting at around seventy thousand dps at level 38. At least that should carry you into the endgame."

  They didn't have to worry about being slowed down during their journey toward Dragonheart's Sanctum. BlackKokoro did enough damage to destroy all regular enemies in one hit, and bosses would melt quickly, too.

  With this, the three mismatched girls formed the most unbalanced party in existence.

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  BlackKokoro, The Witch of Calamity (self-proclaimed):