We sit down upon a patch of surface covered in that strange glowing moss that seems to prefer hanging on the walls and ceiling of this massive cavern. And as I pull a couple of water bottles out of my pack, I can’t help but realize how similar this is to our lunch back after fighting Guardian Armosi months ago. Which, I suppose, was retroactively our first date. Yeah, I’m definitely not the best at romance. But as long as I keep striving to be better for Chloe, I suppose that’s all I can really do.

Chloe sidles up next to me as I pull a couple of cereal bars out as well. I hand a strawberry-flavored one to her and keep a blueberry one for myself. The two of us don’t eat in complete silence, but I do notice that Chloe takes steps to avoid creating undue noise while here in the cavern. There’s a bit of an echo even through the damping glow moss, and it’s not like either of us needs to speak to communicate with each other.

“Aww, but I wanted the blueberry one,” Chloe messages, noticeably waiting until after we have both started eating before pointing it out.

I roll my eyes. “Do you want the rest?” I offer it to her.

Chloe giggles before kissing me, not waiting for me to swallow the bite I was chewing.

“Nope, just wanted to try this, that’s all.”

“Talking with your mouth full?” I respond.

“I’m pretty sure your mouth is the full one, Sera.”

All I can do is sit there with an expression of complete bemusement as Chloe kisses me, only stopping once she decides she needs to breathe.

“I’ve always wanted to try that with you, Sera. We should do that with chocolate next.”

Truly, Chloe is something else. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

About half an hour later, the two of us decide to pack up and head toward the next floor. A task made more difficult by the fact that there are two paths before us. And while the right-hand rule served us well enough on the second floor, I can’t help but have a nagging feeling about this. A feeling that something else is lying in wait here. I don’t mean to jinx our dungeon delve, but that last fight seemed just a little too easy. Even if we managed to outwit the floor’s main challenge, there could always be a failsafe. More challenges, or perhaps— and I realize I might be getting a little greedy— more treasure.

“I want to try going left this time,” I message. “No particular reason. Just a hunch.”

“No visions from your past life telling you that this is the right path?”

“If I have another vision in here, you’ll be the first person to know. But no, it’s just a nagging feeling that’s telling me we should go left.”

Chloe pauses for half a second, though it feels like closer to three would’ve, considering the current speed of our thoughts. “Okay. We’ll go left, but if it turns out to be a dead end, I am going to hold it over your head for at least the next two hours.”

“Oh no, such a horrible fate awaits me!” I message back, my tone jovial.

We head down the left passageway, still careful not to make too much noise. The feeling of being watched has lessened significantly, but it hasn’t gone away completely. For as neutral as the System likes to present itself, awarding Skills and Experience and Levels and power in return for completing its trials and refining our strength through combat, today’s experience proves otherwise. There is no way that doppelganger would have known to appear as Alana without the System feeding it information.

My visions of my past life are more than sufficient proof for me, of course. And for Chloe as well, and perhaps a select group of other close confidants. But I think it will be necessary to start taking note of such strange phenomena when trying to convince the lay public, or worse, the politicians.

While we encounter no other monsters, or other signs of animal life, we do find a treasure chest. After doing the standard mimic protocols and confirming the chest isn’t about to eat us, I open it up and find a pair of fluffy snow boots, which I promptly hand over to Chloe.

“Oh, wow,” she says as she slips them on. “You weren’t kidding when you said that these are like, the most comfortable thing you’ve ever walked in. I can feel them adjusting to the contours in my feet even as we speak!”

“And what kind of stats are you getting from them?”

“Looks like… +20 [Defense], +5 [Agility], +5 [Magic Defense], and 33% Fire Resistance.”

“So you should have 50% Fire Resistance now?” I ask. Assuming that stacks with her [Wyvernscale Buckler] the way I think it does, that should be right.

“Uh… Yeah, looks like you were right on the money with that one.”

That fills me with an odd sense of relief, in that I’m at least capable of understanding the basic System mechanics. Although it’s strange that… No, wait, I should be able to pull this up as well. I mentally focus on my Status, asking it to bring up detailed information about my elemental affinities. And sure enough, after a second or two, I see a new status window:

[Elemental Affinities:

[Attacks with currently equipped weapon are [Light] Elemental.]

[Defenses:

Fire: 25% Resistance

Water/Ice: 25% Resistance

Earth: 0% Resistance

Wind: 43.75% Resistance (25% Resistance, 25% Resistance)

Light: 0% Resistance

Darkness: 20% Resistance

Lightning: 6.25% Resistance (25% Resistance, 25% Vulnerability)]]

I am a little perturbed that I have a lightning vulnerability

. Then again, I shouldn’t exactly be surprised by it, with the whole, being a [Mechanical Angel] with metal wings protruding out of my back like a pair of lightning rods screaming ‘please, drop the lightning of the gods on me’. I wish that the class or the equipment or whatever else had told me about the vulnerability. Though, I admit that knowing about it probably wouldn’t have changed my decision in the slightest. This class, and these wings, are too much a part of who I am and what path I want to continue along.

One thing bothers me as we reach the semi-expected dead-end and return back to the previous fork in the road. Where are the other monsters on this floor? Was the [Doppelganger] supposed to summon them? Or maybe create them out of its own flesh? I would have expected at least something. Or maybe I’m just projecting the fact that I want something to fight, in order to cut through the low-level tension that permeates the entirety of the caverns.

But nothing comes, and after one thousand nine hundred and sixty-four steps through nondescript cavern walls without a single semi-intelligent life, we find a stairway leading upward. A stairway made of stone and hardened dirt. It’s like the System is trying to maintain the aesthetic of the natural cavern, but the stairs just dip it into the uncanny valley.

“Time to leave?” I ask.

“How’s your [Ether] situation?” Chloe immediately rebuts.

“Looks like… 2,478. So about 80%, give or take.”

“Let’s wait a few more minutes.”

And we do. A few minutes of silence pass, but then we hear footsteps, and the clanging of metal. The hairs on the back of my neck immediately stand on end, and my palms break out into a cold sweat. Waves of pressure follow, so intense that they threaten to knock me unconscious. Chloe shivers, pulling her arms inward.

“We need to go, now!” I force through our bond. “I don’t know what is coming, but I know we’re as good as dead if it finds us.”

In truth, it’s only by the grace of… the goddesses? The System? I don’t know what to give thanks to, but for whatever reason, that thing is content to saunter along, being loud and obnoxious and making it abundantly clear that we are in capital-D Danger. I suspect that this creature’s purpose is to prevent challengers from spending too much time on any given floor, camping out and casually restoring their [Health] and [Ether] to maximum. And it’s working. With no objection from Chloe, we make our way up the stairs and up to the following floor.

Or is it a floor at all? It takes a moment to adjust my eyes to the bright blue sky present on the fourth floor of the Gauntlet. There’s even a facsimile of a sun hovering high overhead, nurturing a lush field of verdant grassland before us. A warm wind blows, carrying with it the scent of the grassy plains. Even the pollen is seamlessly replicated, something I realize the moment I sneeze and feel my eyes start to water.

“Bless you!” Chloe messages.

“Ugh. I wish I’d known to pack some antihistamines this morning.”

This gets Chloe to laugh out loud. “Yeah, I guess even you can’t prepare for every eventuality.” She steps in close, draping one of my wings around her.

“At least whatever that presence is, is gone now.” And I suspect that it won’t be coming back for at least a few hours. Which is good, because this grassland seems to stretch out to infinity.

“Do you want to fly up and take a look?” Chloe asks.

“Why don’t you?” I ask. “I could use a little longer to regenerate my [Ether]. If you see anything that looks suspicious, we can drop down and head over there on foot.” I don’t immediately see anything too threatening that might attack her if she goes airborne for a few moments.

Chloe tilts her head, sending a small wave of befuddlement. “You’d trust me?”

“With my life. As I’ve done every day since the System arrived.”

“No, I mean, I thought you’d be all ‘It’s too dangerous, I’ll do it instead.’”

“Part of me wants to. But I think this is better for both of us. And I…”

“And you? Go on?”

“I need to remember that you’re not weak, Chloe. You’re strong. Stronger of heart than I am, with a brave and unflinching will and moral compass. And you’re growing stronger of body and magic with each passing day.”

She leans in to kiss me. “Good girl,” she messages before sprouting her [Etheric Wings] and taking to the air.

And yes, I do steal a glance at her from behind as she launches herself into the air. She launches up about a thousand feet, circling around me a few times as she stares out toward the horizon in every direction.

“Do you see anything?”

“No, I… Oh, yes, I see a castle, about five miles, in that direction” Chloe drops down to the surface. “Looks like it’s just below the horizon from the surface.”

I leap up a dozen feet in the air, and sure enough, I can see a couple of crenelated battlements streaking over the endless green of the horizon. With no other leads on how we might get through this floor, the two of us make our way at a light jog. Or at least, it feels like a light jog, but it’s clearly far faster than pre-System sprinters could ever maintain, as we arrive within the span of six minutes.

Sure enough, as Chloe insinuated, it’s pretty much the bog standard European-style castle straight out of medieval times. A large stone wall, with round towers upon each of the perimeter’s four corners. A large keep in the center, and all the various bells and whistles and defenses one would expect of such a structure. Including the large, imposing main gate, a moat filled with some sort of acrid, swampy sludge, and hundreds of soldiers manning the walls.

“I don’t suppose we’re going to receive a warm welcome,” Chloe says.

“Not if a warm welcome doesn’t consist of hundreds of [Fire-Tipped Arrows] raining down upon us,” I respond, just as the first volley is loosed down upon us. I, in turn, raise a [Repulsion] barrier over Chloe and myself, causing the four shots that would have hit us to instead fall harmlessly to the ground, their flame dispelled from contact with my shield.

“Well, Chloe,” I say, tapping her with the light of [Angel’s Grace]. “Shall we get to work?”

“Let’s,” she responds.