An hour later, Charlemagne watched as his three Party members tackled the wave 10 Boss of the Team Battle Simulation, their combined efforts more effective than last time. Part of the reason was that each of them had leveled up, with Ndiogou sporting the largest increase in levels since he still needed to catch the others. But fighting together during the round one battle royale event had also helped the team to gel, growing not only their teamwork but also their trust level in each other’s abilities.

  Sirius darted in towards the Boss’ cylindrical body, trusting that Phatagin would drain the momentum from any tentacle that came too close. As she entered the Boss’ melee range, Ndiogou distracted it by throwing his axe at full strength, forcing the Boss to focus on defense instead of taking advantage of its longer reach to score a preemptive strike against the canine. The tactic worked like a charm, or it would have against an opponent with fewer appendages. But Sirius was an expert closing into bite range, and she nimbly dodged two wickedly sharp swords as she doggedly advanced. She didn’t see the third weapon approaching from her flank.

  The rusty cutlass sliced through the air in a deadly arc, cunningly aimed by its wielder to take advantage of Sirius’ own momentum as she evaded the first two strikes. The blade struck true…and stopped short. Phatagin had sapped its momentum at the last moment.

  “It’s wide open!” Ndiogou shouted, pointing out what the canine already knew.

  Sirius leaped high into the air as she opened her jaws wide. Her sharp teeth penetrated deep into the rubbery flesh of the octopus-like Boss, allowing her to bodily latch on to the larger creature and immobilize it. Just like last time, Ndiogou took advantage of the opening, with Phatagin providing support. The pangolin dumped a good chunk of energy from his Momentum Core to empower the human’s axe. The Boss’s pulpy body exploded in a shower of gore.

  “Should we forfeit now?” Phatagin asked, eager to be done with the combat simulation and already thinking of a nice long nap in his new tree.

  “Bawk!” the rooster angrily denied.

  Charlemagne continued to observe his Party as they battled all the way to wave 15, where they stalled out. The wave consisted of a cloud of insects that swarmed all around the party, landing whenever they could and attempting to burrow through fur, scale, and skin. They undoubtedly would have attempted to dig through the rooster’s feathers as well, but his Ember Shield Skill had rendered him completely invulnerable to the insects, which burned up as soon as they landed on him.

  “This…is…not…fair!” Ndiogou yelled as he slammed his hands together as quickly as he could manage, each strike culling a handful of insects out of the thousands swarming the Party. “Charlemagne, do something!”

  The rooster did nothing.

  Seriously, can’t we just forfeit? Phatagin demanded through the Party chat, having rolled up into a ball to protect himself. The pangolin rolled this way and that, pulling kinetic energy from dozens of insects and crushing them after they landed in his path. But the insects replenished their numbers as fast as Phatagin could take them out, and it was only a matter of time before the troublesome opponents managed to burrow through his shell.

  Sirius was having the hardest time of the three. She chomped at the air, her fangs crushing many of the flying creatures. Others, however, were maimed but not killed. These began to burrow into the soft tissues of her mouth, putting the canine on the clock. She howled in pain as more insects bored through her thick fur and unnaturally hard skin, damaging nerves, blood vessels, and muscles in the process.

  Cut it out! The pangolin yelled, once again using the Party chat to make himself heard.

  Ndiogou suddenly stopped what he was doing and cupped his hands to his ears.

  “What is that sound?” He yelled. “It feels like you’re stabbing an ice pick into my brain!”

  Charlemagne adjusted the mana signature of his Ember Shield, blocking out the unpleasant noise, and then continued to watch. Sirius’s howl rose in pitch, passing beyond what unaugmented humans, chickens, or even canines were capable of hearing. Ndiogou’s nose began to bleed and Phatagin’s eyes itched.

  “Turn it off!” the human cried as blood began to stream from his ears and eyes. But Sirius either did not hear Ndiogou or simply did not care. Her powerful voice continued to ring out.

  The first insect dropped to the ground, its exoskeleton a ruined mess. Then another, then another, and then dozens all at once. It was the best kind of insect rain: the kind where all the insects are dead.

  Sirius finally shut off her newly acquired sonic attack and slumped to the ground. Her fur was matted with blood, but, more than that, she appeared completely spent by the effort required to generate her newest Skill.

  “I would like to forfeit,” she panted.

  “Bawk,” Charlemagne denied.

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  “I don’t understand, why are you pushing so hard?” Ndiogou demanded. “Yesterday you couldn’t wait to run off and ditch us. Now you’re acting like a kung fu master from one of those old movies. It doesn’t make any sense at all!”

  “Bawk,” the rooster replied.

  The next wave began.

  Wave 16 consisted of an enormous, shaggy-looking elephant with three trunks and six tusks. Sirius dragged herself to her feet, but Ndiogou put his hand out, indicating that she should stay back.

  “Rest a bit and recover your strength, I got this,” he assured her.

  After the rest of the Party was taken out by wave 16, Charlemagne finally forfeited, appearing next to the other three outside. They had been waiting angrily for him to appear.

  “Why didn’t you let us forfeit!” Ndiogou demanded.

  “I don’t like losing pack members, even if it’s a simulation,” growled Sirius.

  “My spinal column was not meant to be outside my body,” Phatagin sniffed. “Even if it was quite an educational experience.”

  The rooster had to agree with the pangolin’s second sentence. His Vertebrate Anatomy Skill had leveled up.

  But that was probably not the best point to make at that particular moment, so Charlemagne wisely chose not to share that bit of information. Instead, he walked right to the line for the Battle Simulations.

  “You can’t be serious!” Sirius complained. “We just all experienced getting horribly killed. There’s no way that we can just dive back in. Besides, we’d get a lot further if you’d help us instead of standing around.”

  The rooster turned and glared at the canine. Ordinarily, he felt the most kinship with her. After all, they were both social animals that established a clearly defined hierarchy among their own kind and ganged up on outsiders when needed. But the canine was starting to get on his nerves. Despite him pushing her to the point where she had gained a new Skill, one that would undoubtedly close one of the biggest gaps in her combat style, she was more focused on how it felt to die than how it felt to grow.

  Unbelievable.

  Charlemagne held his tongue until the Party was back in the Group Battle Simulation. Then he glared at the three of them and motioned for them to stand in a corner.

  “Bawk,” he ordered.

  “Wait, you’re going to fight alone? Why?” Ndiogou asked.

  “Ah, I think I see what our good friend is getting at,” Phatagin chuckled. “He’s going to show us how he would defeat wave 15.”

  “Why would he do that?” Sirius inquired. “I mean, I think he probably could do it, but what does that teach us?”

  “Maybe he wants us to see how powerful we could be if we applied ourselves?” Ndiogou guessed.

  “Yes, perhaps you’ve hit upon it,” Phatagin agreed.

  “As good a guess as any,” Sirius added.

  The rooster was once again annoyed. He had no intention of doing anything but pushing his Party members to acquire new Skills and grow their old ones. And to do that, they needed to be challenged. As the other three Party members watched, the rooster engaged wave after wave.

  In less than five minutes, he was at the first Boss. The giant floating cephalopod once again appeared, wielding eight bladed weapons in its tentacles. Charlemagne charged straight into its melee range without hesitation.

  What’s he doing? Sirius asked, confused, as the rooster made no effort to dodge the trio of blades that rushed out to meet him. But, just as he was about to be cut by the first attack, Charlemagne adjusted his posture the tiniest bit, causing the blade to slice nothing but air. The second weapon clanged off the ground as the rooster sidestepped at the last instant and then hopped, causing the final blade to pass directly under him. While the Boss was off balance, Charlemagne closed, favoring the Boss’ right side since three of its four tentacles were out of position. The fourth whipped around, bringing up a saber into a defensive position.

  Charlemagne’s beak slammed into the blade, and broke it. Then he broke the Boss.

  “I knew Charlemagne was strong, but seeing him toy with a Boss that took all three of us just to have a fighting chance, that’s crazy,” Ndiogou murmured to Sirius and Phatagin from his corner. But the rooster wasn’t done yet.

  Waves 11 through 15 were demolished with a similar ease. For wave 15, Charlemagne expanded his Ember Shield to cover the entire party, defeating the insects with the same ease that he had taken out the first Boss.

  When wave 16 began for the second time, the rooster stepped back and called to the Party, indicating that they should step in and start fighting.

  “All right,” Sirius growled. “It’s payback time!”

  “Let’s stick together better this time,” Ndiogou suggested. “We’re fresh, we know how it moves, and we’re going to win this time.”

  “Once more into the breach!” cheered Phatagin.

  Three minutes later, the four Party members once again found themselves in the plaza. Charlemagne considered what to do next. Perhaps they should give it another try, or perhaps it was time to change tactics. After all, the others hadn’t even come close to defeating the giant hairy elephant, and they had entered the fight at full strength and armed with prior knowledge of the beast’s capabilities. It wouldn’t do for them to die another twenty times before one of them developed the Skill they needed to breakthrough.

  On the other hand, they were awfully whiny, and dying a few dozen times in the Battle Simulation might just toughen them up, or at least damage them psychologically to the point where they no longer complained. The rooster was ambivalent as to which.

  “Well, what are we going to do now?” Ndiogou asked, his stomach still aching with phantom pain from being gored to death by one of the creature’s enormous tusks.

  “We could try again!” Sirius barked.

  “I, for one, would like to hold a strategy meeting before attempting further combat with that particular individual,” Phatagin added. “If Charlemagne permits it, of course.”

  “Bawk,” the rooster agreed.

  “Wait, really?” Sirius inquired, having not expected the rooster to be so agreeable after yet another Party wipe.

  “Bawk,” Charlemagne repeated.

  “All right, let’s head back to the dormitory and see what we can figure out,” the human said.

  “Charlemagne, are you coming?”

  Without responding, the rooster walked off to one of the other buildings that stood within the enormous courtyard, scattering several competitors that happened to bar his way by accident. The other three stood watching as he disappeared around a corner.

  “I wonder,” Ndiogou mused, “just how many times did Charlemagne die in the Individual Battle Simulation?”

  “That is not the most important lesson to be learned here,” Phatagin objected.

  “Oh yeah? What should we be learning? How to cower behind our Party mates?” Sirius demanded, annoyed by the pangolin’s constant cowardice.

  “My dear friend, I have no idea what you’re referring to,” the pangolin responded, not missing a beat. “The lesson here is that Charlemagne has left, so there is nothing stopping us from forfeiting once we run into trouble.”