I sat down heavily on a log. My heart was hammering a techno beat against my ribs.
"That," I wheezed, loosening my tie, "was highly irregular."
Sera stood panting, her sword tip resting in the mud. She was covered in green blood and muck, but she wasn't injured. She wasn't fainting.
She slowly turned to look at me. Her expression was unreadable.
"How did you know?" she asked softly. "The shield. The spears. The mud. You barely looked at them."
"I told you," I said, cleaning my glasses on a relatively clean patch of my shirt. "I'm in operations. Everything has a breaking point. You just have to know where to apply the pressure."
I put my glasses back on. The blue interface text was still scrolling in my peripheral vision, detailing the XP gains.
[Level Up!]
[Arthur Pendergast is now Level 2.]
[Attribute Points: +5 Intelligence, +5 Agility.]
Sera walked over to me. She didn't loom this time. She sat down on the other end of the log. She sheathed her sword with a click.
"I... could not have done that alone," she admitted. The words seemed physically painful for her to say. She stared at her boots. "My mana is full. I didn't have to use the big blast."
"Efficiency," I said. "Conservation of resources. It's the only way we're going to get through this dungeon."
She looked up at me. "You aren't leaving."
It wasn't a question. It was a statement.
I looked at the dark forest. I thought about the four hundred goblins waiting out there. I thought about my empty apartment back on Earth, the cold coffee, and Kevin eating muffins with his mouth open.
Then I looked at this chaotic, arrogant, helpless girl who had just fought like a whirlwind because I told her where to step.
"No," I sighed, realizing I had just accepted the worst job offer in history. "I suppose I can't leave. The exit interview would be murder."
Sera smirked. It was a real smile this time, small and tired. "Good. Because I'm hungry again."
"Of course you are." I stood up and picked up the frying pan. "Let me see what I can do with a goblin ear and some swamp moss. But tomorrow, we are finding a town. And you are buying me new shoes."
"Deal," she said.
I looked into the fire. We had survived the night. But as the system interface flickered in my vision, I noticed a new notification blinking in the corner, ominously red.
[Warning: Floor Boss "The Rotting King" has detected high-level combat activity.]
[Approaching in: 12 Hours.]
"Let's circle back to that shoe budget," I said nervously. "We might need to expedite the procurement process."