Congratulations! You have reached lvl 55.

  The notification lit up the top corner of my HUD as I yanked one of my daggers out of the pustulating belly of a rabid doe dancer.

  “This takes me back,” I sighed, remembering my first encounter with the oddly named and vicious monsters. I hadn’t come across one in quite some time.

  We’d been fighting for hours, rushing to get ahead of the more misguided among the captured civilians. They had run off before us, but it didn’t take long to catch up to most of them. Sadly a few were still in front of us somewhere, I only knew that because I heard the intermittent screaming which, more often than not, quickly turned to gurgling.

  So far the monsters had been no match for my team. We were well trained adventurers and they were simple mobs, so simple that they’d allowed themselves to be captured. Some were pretty strong, but nothing we couldn’t handle.

  Our biggest concern was attrition. We were trying to speed run the maze but everyone’s mana and stamina was running low. Well, everyone apart from me, who had no mana.

  However, I had already drained three stamina potions in the last five hours and my supplies were dwindling. I’d have to stock up again once we finally beat this place. Bell had bought the last batch so I supposed it was my turn to do it this time.

  The maze was a frustrating place to be. Large stone walls surrounded us, touching the ceiling. Every few feet there was a twist or a passage and there was a new batch of monsters to clear out at almost every turn.

  It felt a little bit like playing the original Doom games, minus the guns… mostly.

  Jack had his magic sniper rifle, which didn’t shoot bullets and only vaguely resembled a sniper rifle. However, in these close quarters it wasn’t the best weapon. He’d resorted to firing magic missiles from his hands, which he’d explained was also the spell he used to make the gun work.

  Apparently, a normal magic missile wasn’t nearly as powerful and broke up after a few hundred meters. But because of the focusing crystals Jack had installed into his sniper, firing a magic missile through that increased the power and the range tenfold.

  He was an interesting guy, if a little sketchy. A strong fighter though, and right now that was what we needed most. Even if having him along made our party even more unbalanced. I mean, what kind of DnD party would be made up of mostly ranged damage dealers with only a single dedicated melee guy?

  Even though I had only used melee so far in the maze, my best attacks all stemmed from my bow.

  We continued on and the hours ticked by. It was a constant slog of fighting and I levelled up twice more, as did the others. At this rate I was going to reach silver rank in no time and the prospect had me wondering if this world had dungeons.

  If it did, I bet I could outrank Sally by the time we saw her again. Imagining the look on her face caused a slight smile to appear on mine, fleeting as it was.

  As I thought of her, I felt a little down. It was the first time she’d entered my mind since we’d parted. I’d been so busy, but that was no excuse. She was my friend and she was hurt. It’s strange what thoughts plague the mind in the moments between battles. I wondered how she was doing; it had been almost a month since we’d left Cali Port.

  Maybe I should send her a system message.

  Kaleb: Sally, how’s it going. You feeling any better?

  *This chat is muted*

  Damn, I thought, feeling even worse than before. I’d forgotten that she’d muted the chat again. I’d explicitly asked her not to do that anymore after the incident with Clive the elder lich but that stubborn-ass cat never listened to me. I had asked Freja to send me updates, which she had so far neglected to share, so whilst we had a moment of peace I decided to send her a message too.

  Kaleb: Hi Freja, how are you guys doing? Is Sally any better?

  Freja: I’m busy at the moment, I’ll send you a more detailed message later. Have you made it to Castalor yet?

  Kaleb: We have, we’ve met with the director and are currently completing a quest for Regina.

  Freja: Be careful, Castalor is a dangerous place. Talk later.

  “Something’s up ahead,” Bell said, raising her hand to halt our party and pulling my attention back to what lay ahead.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Hand signals were part of our new tactics as well, though I guess they weren’t all that new to us anymore. So far I had been acting as scout in Asmodeus’ stead, but we’d been trekking through the maze for so long that we decided to take turns.

  Scouting took a lot of mental concentration and even with our superhuman abilities and stats, the mind still fatigued. It was the reason why I still slept, even though my body didn’t strictly need to anymore.

  And because I liked sleep.

  “What is it?” I asked, stepping up beside the fireball mage and peering into the distance.

  “I’m not sure, but for a second I thought I saw an aura surge and it looked pretty wild.”

  Beyond the enclosed hallway the maze seemed to open out a bit. Had we reached the end? If so, I was willing to bet that a much more powerful monster than anything we’d faced so far was guarding it. There was no way the Marquess would ever risk letting one of the civilians escape.

  “Ok, step lightly and get ready to spread out as we hit that opening. I want everyone in diamond formation, Rex at the tip, Panda in the centre to coordinate.”

  The others nodded their agreement and though I could see the determination in their eyes, I could tell that everyone was as exhausted as I was.

  Fighting for this long was usually a big no-no. Rex had drilled that into us from the start. You have to watch your mind, he’d said, it’s easy to keep at it for too long when your body doesn’t tire but battles are often won and lost by a single error.

  It was good advice, but sometimes it just wasn’t possible to take it. This was one of those times.

  Treading lightly, we walked out of the end of the passageway and spread out into a diamond formation. I tried to survey the area but it was pitch black. My dragon’s eye tingled but I couldn’t see anything.

  My foot slipped as I stepped in something wet and sticky. My mind was cast back to the screams I’d heard earlier.

  “Keep your guard up,” I said, “something’s in here.”

  Congratulations!

  The female voice, which I had to assume was the Marquess, blasted out all around us.

  You’ve almost made it out of the maze, how very adept of you. However, your most fearsome challenge now awaits you. The final battle for damnation of glory!

  Lights blasted on from all around us, it felt like we were in an arena as the spotlights blinded me. They felt warm, bright golden light which chased away the maze’s natural shadows.

  Before you, stands the guardian of the maze. Defeat him and the prize is yours!

  Her words conveyed the jovial announcement of a game show host. They were filled with hope and were clearly meant to entertain the noble audience that I knew she had with her, thanks to Jack’s intel.

  But there was something in her tone that betrayed her true thoughts. She was furious. Through whatever mana-fuelled device she was using to communicate with us, I could hear the clicking of her teeth, the clenching of her jaw.

  Her tone was happy, but thanks to my enhanced perceptions stats, I could hear the little things in her body language that gave away her true feelings.

  If anything, it spurred me on. I was going to kill this bitch. Not because Regina asked me to, not even to get that warm trickle of dopamine which flooded my brain when a quest completion notice appeared.

  No. I was going to kill her because I hated those who took advantage of the vulnerable. I always had. I felt the same way about the slew of stepdads I’d had growing up. The same way about my old boss before I’d gone self-employed.

  As my vision cleared, I looked up at the boss monster snarling before us.

  It was fucking massive.

  Standing so tall its heads touched the roof; it looked like a dragon and its nine Siamese twins. Bright purple, it stood proudly, each head holding a slightly different expression. A myriad of torn and bloodied corpses lay at its feet, blood covered the floor and I knew that these were the last of the civilians who had run off ahead of us.

  Idiots, they should have listened.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered as the HUD notification popped up.

  You have discovered a new monster:

  Hydra

  No, it’s not the nazi bad guys from the Captain America movie, though this little fella is probably a bit of a fascist. With the body of a dragon and nine serpentine heads, it’s obvious that this isn’t a natural monster found out and about in the wilds of Celestia. This guy is the result of years of interbreeding and mana splicing – an outlawed practice in the civilised world. This guy is more inbred than a turkey sandwich, more inbred than your distant cousin from Alabama, more inbred than… well you get the picture.

  I hope you’ve been reading up on your mythology, you’re going to need it.

  “Well shit,” I said, drawing my bow. “New plan, Rex, draw its attention and try to slice through as many heads on the right as you can. Bell, you take the middle, Jack and I will take the left. If this is like the hydra from Greek mythology then we’ll need to cut off all nine heads at the same time so we’ve gotta coordinate.”

  Strictly speaking it was Panda’s job to coordinate fights but I had no idea if my sage familiar was… well… familiar with Greek mythos. Considering that even the system had mentioned it, I had to assume that this monster would follow the same laws as the hydra from the Hercules stories.

  Greek mythology wasn’t exactly my area of expertise, but I doubted there were many people from a country with mandatory education who hadn’t heard of a hydra before.

  The battle commenced as I drew on my stamina coil and forced as much energy into my arrows as possible. I was aiming for a soul infused acid rain. Though I wasn’t sure how well that would work, but an AOE attack made sense for a hydra right?

  ROOOAARRR!

  Before I’d even begun to charge up, the middle head let out an ear-splitting roar which bounced around the room, dazing me.

  In unison, the leftmost and rightmost heads shot out balls of fire and lightning. Abandoning my charge up, I dived to the side, crashing into Jack who softened my fall as we rolled, a tangled mess.

  “Watch what you’re doing,” he snapped.

  “I just saved your arse from frying!”

  “I had it handled!”

  “Just shoot the damned thing!”

  He complied, giving me the stink eye, and fired off a barrage of magic missiles in quick succession. Two of the heads fell off followed by a third and fourth as Rex jumped into the air and cleaved through them in one, well executed, blow.

  Bell’s fireball took out the lightning head. It looked like the battle might be easier than I was expecting.

  Not wanting to be the one to let the team down, I fired off a single, quick soul shot, decapitating the head just to the right of the centre.

  Six heads down, three to go.

  “We’re almost there!” I yelled, but my voice was cut off by another screech as the middle head opened its mouth once more.

  The six heads we’d managed to cut off grew back and it had only been a few seconds. They grew back almost instantly, leaving practically no opportunity to strike them again whilst they were weak.

  Then, without warning, my dragon’s eye exploded with pain as the room filled with a vile, multicoloured aura.

  “It’s about to attack!” I yelled, “get down!”