The exit to the anomalous Dungeon of Stars worked just as well as the real version and in the next moment they were standing in a shallow pool full of rocks being pelted by the waterfall.

  “Wooh! That was awesome!” Natsuko said.

  Shuixing, Sofiane, Pechorin, Daisy, right down to the remnants of Harald’s team, looked at Natsuko like she was insane.

  “Natsu, we almost died…” Shui said in a half-whisper.

  “I know! It was sick!”

  Daisy monitored the exit to the dungeon, but their assailant wasn't likely to attack out in the open. There wasn’t much use in killing witnesses if they would respawn in a few hours.

  “You’re a lunatic,” Harald said to Natsuko. He swiveled on Sofiane, “and so are you! Gods… Margaret…”

  The racoon girl helped Harald hobble off the rocks and towards the bank of the plunge pool. The water turned pink where he stepped.

  “Come on, let’s get you some food to heal you up. We’ll have time to go back and get Margaret when it’s safe,” the raccoon girl said.

  The three of them left with an unspoken truce with that the two teams wouldn’t bother each other for now. It concerned Shuixing to be in the dark about how much Harald’s team knew. The possibility of her secret spreading to the rest of the Heroes frightened her. It was bad enough a dozen or so people knew about forced dimension-jumping, but if the rest of the Heroes knew it could be done, there would be a mad dash to acquire that power before anyone else. Shuixing put her head in her hands. Her dream of understanding dimension-jumping was turning into a nightmare.

  “Your sorrow,” Pechorin said, standing off to her side at a respectful distance. “Let it flow unimpeded. Make it your power, as I did mine.”

  Shuixing, if she tried to, could not have come up with anything goofier to have said in that moment. In a weird way, the Pechorism cheered her up, or at least turned “sorrow” into something silly. For the moment, anyway.

  “Hmm… No change in the overall Use-Ranking,” Daisy said. Everyone checked the public Use-Ranking Chart. Margaret still sat at #164/190.

  “So… she’s alive?” Sofiane asked.

  “No,” Shuixing replied. “It means she’s not dead.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “It’s not like forced dimension-jumping where someone is dropped into the void forever,” Shuixing said, shivering at her own words. “I-I think Margaret is just in a limbo where she’s… erm… perpetually in two pieces.

  That wasn’t exactly a more comforting fate. And no one felt like thinking through all of the implications.

  “That means she's recoverable though, right?” Daisy offered.

  While they discussed this, Natsuko was doing a violent, flailing dance in the middle of the pool. “Hell yeah! My heart’s red-lined baby, let’s fucking go! We are so back!”

  “Would you take things seriously for once, please?” Sofiane said.

  “I am taking it seriously. That was seriously awesome! Wooh!”

  Splashing through the cold water, Natsuko ran up onto shore and threw herself onto a rolling field of grass as though she might explode with joy if she didn’t slow herself down. The rest followed her ashore, drenched with water and anxiousness.

  “Can’t say I share that sentiment exactly...” Daisy said, scratching her head, “but I s'pose I'm happy for ya.”

  Seeing they didn’t get what she was on about, Natsuko put her hands behind her head and propped a leg across her bent knee. “This matters. This actually matters! This isn’t just making some stupid number go up so you can have enough money to make more numbers go up. This is real! This is dangerous! This could— could get people killed! Maybe you all aren't, but I’m stoked to hunt this asshole down and kick the crap out of ‘em.”

  Shuixing wasn't quite so optimistic. There was no turning back from this. The potential to permanently kill another Hero was not some kind of special event that wrapped up neatly when they caught whoever had the papers. Unless they force dimension-jumped the thief—most likely their mystery assailant—the secret was out. It wasn’t a simple matter of beating up one enemy. Things were about to move in new and dangerous directions regardless of how well they cleaned up.

  “No need to look so glum, Shui, I’m sure we’ll catch them,” Natsuko said.

  “Not to mention, I doubt it will be hard to figure out who it was,” Sofiane said, folding his poofy-sleeved arms. “They fought the #4 Hero to a stalemate, which means they’re as powerful if not more so, right? It’s gotta be someone in the Top Ten.”

  Daisy shook her head. “Not… necessarily. I couldn’t use my full power since that weird—”

  “Anomalous.”

  “—Heckin’ anomalous dungeon wouldn’t let me use environmental damage, so I was sorta gimped. But, they also could’ve been holding back for their own reasons. Maybe they knew things had gone all topsy-turvy-like and didn’t want to give up who they were. I sure haven’t seen anyone in the Top Ten use abilities like that. Not a one of 'em! Not to mention,” Daisy paused to squeeze water out of her ringlets. “Where you are on the Use-Chart doesn’t determine how strong you are, just how much money ya get.”

  “It's still a pretty good proxy for how powerful a Hero is,” Sofiane said. “The celestials only like to summon the strongest.”

  Natsuko chuckled. “Or the ones with the most Ero-Art…”

  “Well, that’s sorta what I mean,” Daisy said. “Celestials care about stats, sure, but we don’t know anything about them, and they aren't always rational. We wouldn’t have to bother with playing our archetypes if only the stats mattered. All that’s to say there ain’t no guarantee it’s someone high up on the Use-Charts. There could be uh... diamonds in the rough?”

  It wasn’t a fully convincing argument. They all knew stats were still the main concern, and that whoever attacked them had been a roughly equal match for Daisy, even if it hadn’t been a perfectly fair fight.

  Natsuko’s eyes wandered towards the waterfall. “I mean… we could always stand around the entrance with my bottle and whack them into oblivion when they walk out.”

  Pechorin shook his head. “No. T'would be dishonorable.”

  “Yeah, that! And also, they move way too fast for that to work,” Daisy said. “Y'all didn’t see them when they were trying to burst through my defenses, they're faster than I am. They mis-underestimated us this time cuz they didn’t know I’d be with ya, but we can’t guarantee things'll go down like that next time."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Sofiane ruffled his hair. “Rrgh! Alright, it isn’t that large a world, so even if they’re not one of the Top Ten, they’re not nobody. That still narrows the list by a lot.”

  Natsuko would normally have started a fight over the implication that she was in the “nobody” pile, but she was in too good a mood to let it bother her. And then something occurred to her that she thought might be of use in the discussion of tracking their mystery attacker down.

  “Uh, are we a team then? We doin’ this together?” Natsuko asked.

  Sofiane raised an eyebrow. “A team?”

  “We’re the only ones that can go after this guy unless we wanna go running our mouths about forced dimension-jumping. And Sofi has already been loafing around Verm?genburgh, following us like a kicked dog so…”

  “I have not!" Sofiane said. "I’ve been looking for potential advantages for—”

  By this time Natsuko had already turned her head towards the other. “Pechorin, you’re not doing anything productive lately, right?”

  “I am dedicated to hunting the people who murdered my clan—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're in,” Natsuko said, glad to have a piece of cannon fodder for their crazy strong homicidal enemy. “And uh…”

  Shuixing was a given, but Daisy was the unspoken elephant in the room/overworld. She wasn’t under any obligation to join them, and she was also the only one still in contention for being on the Use-Rankings. In other words, the only one that had other things to do. Wasting time chasing some mysterious figure was time she wasn’t grinding for experience, equipment, and levels. The apprehension showed on her face.

  Daisy rubbed her arm. “Umm… I uh… boy, this sure ain’t an easy choice.”

  “Not like you’ve got an option. You’re sorta stuck,” Natsuko said.

  Daisy squinted. “What’d’ya mean?”

  “Well, you could leave the investigation in our hands and the person who stole Shui’s papers most likely murders us all, takes my bottle, then goes and turns all the other Heroes into their little bitches by threatening to murder them. Or! You can help, cuz you’re the only Top Ten Hero that knows about forced dimension-jumping. Any way you slice it, you went and got yourself tangled up in this,” Natsuko said, bouncing the foot resting across her propped knee.

  Daisy pouted. “Oooh! But you—! I came here for pie, not a crisis! Urgh!”

  Suddenly, Daisy started walking around in a small circle. Her hands pressed against her ears. The rest of them shared a look at the less than normal behavior.

  “Sometimes I gotta do this to un-heat my brain, just gimme a sec!” she said. After another minute of circling she finally said, “oh alright, fine. I’ve got time to kill before the Yishang push the Mist back. Most of the other Top Ten are thinking it'll be around Halloween, so let’s try to bag this guy before then.”

  Natsuko clapped her hands together. “Awesome! Rad! Groovy! Let's go save the world!”

  The newly-formed team of five was soon sitting around a keg table on the stone porch of Bier-und-Brot. The clear skies from earlier had filled with a ceiling of fluffy silver. Shadows in Verm?genburgh grew long and the air held a tense anticipation, as though at any moment waiting to split open into a storm. The colorful, half-timbered townhouse out of which the restaurant operated had shut its windows and the wind clacked shutters in their frames. Between the party was a platter of open-faced rye sandwiches with smoked salmon, pickled herring, and liver paté. Only Natsuko was especially hungry, wolfing down six by herself. Daisy ate one to be polite. The plate in front of Shuixing had a single sandwich with a tiny nibble in the corner.

  “So, we're for sure investigating the Top Ten first?” Daisy asked.

  “I wish we had more to go off of,” Shuixing said, “but for the moment that seems the best place to start. You know them best, Daisy. Who do you think we should investigate first?”

  Daisy rubbed her neck. “Well… uh… I don’t think our mystery person fought like any of them, honestly, but it's definitely not my teammates Boulanger, Ailing, or Jouchi. None of them fight anything like that.”

  Sofiane held back a whistle at how casually Daisy name-dropped the #1, #2, and #6-ranked Heroes like they were nothing.

  “Are there any Heroes you know of whose abilities come close? Maybe their class or elemental affinity has some weird alternate uses?” Shuixing said anxiously.

  “I guess the closest might be Yu—”

  “Hero from Shikijima, #10 Yuna Shikansogo? Leader of the band of revolutionaries the 46 Ronin? Samurai class and elemental affinity for Water which she uses in ice form? Desperation Art is a three kilometer-wide blizzard? That Yuna Shikansogo?” Sofiane rattled off.

  “Uhh… yeah,” Daisy said. “I call her Yun-chan.”

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh. What about her? You think she was the killer? What is she like? How does she smell?” Sofiane asked.

  “She’s very no nonsense, which doesn’t work for me cuz I love nonsense. And do I think it’s her? Hmm, I guess it's not impossible for it to be her. Our thief-assassin wasn’t wielding a sword, but I’ve seen stranger-looking weapons that were technically “swords” before, so it’s possible that instrument counted as a Samurai-accessible weapon. I don’t know if ice is a great way to cause booms though.”

  “Actually,” Shuixing said, adjusting her glasses. “If there’s a way for her to conjure extremely cold pockets of water droplets that immediately come in contact with warmer air, you could cause pressurized explosions.”

  Natsuko slammed her fists on the table. “Hell yeah! We got her dead to rights! Let’s go kick her smarmy little face into the dirt until she confesses.”

  “I had a strange case of déjà vu just now,” Pechorin said.

  “Sofiane, you know fancy words, what the hell is he talking about?” Natsuko asked.

  “He’s asking why you’re such a moron,” Sofiane replied.

  “I asked nothing at all,” Pechorin said.

  “Guys, please, let’s stay focused,” Shuixing said.

  Natsuko gave her friend what she thought was an apologetic look, but she found it difficult to keep the excitement off her face. Not only was getting to have a real adventure again, but she was going to humiliate a Top Ten to boot. Oh, and there was the matter of exposing them as a murderer. Maybe Natsuko wouldn’t even have to bother with this whole Use-Number crap because the other Heroes would shower her with gifts and praise for saving them from being shunted into oblivion by a psychopath.

  “Where do you think we can find her, Daisy?” Shuixing asked.

  “The Heavenly Card Parlor in Tianzhou,” Sofiane answered.

  Everyone, even Daisy, seemed unsure that he wasn’t pulling it out of his ass.

  “She just loves cards! Don’t ask me why. Every Hero has their vices,” Sofiane said.

  “A hard-ass revolutionary like Yuna plays cards?” Daisy asked.

  Sofiane rubbed his blushing cheeks. “She doesn’t just play cards, she loves cards. Not only that, she insists on putting money on the line. Some of the Non-Heroes at the Heavenly Card Parlor call her Ms. Money Match, because sometimes that’s all she’ll say to folks. Sit downs, pulls out her deck, and says, “money match"."

  “Doesn’t that mess with her archetype?” Shuixing asked.

  “She doesn’t care. Her Use-Number used to be higher, but the Celestials didn’t like that their badass, step-on-me, revolutionary mommy is actually a gambling addict.”

  “Huh, I wondered why she dropped so far,” Daisy said, not sounding entirely convinced.

  Natsuko clapped her hands. “It's gotta be her! We’re looking for someone who is stronger than their Use-Number says, and here we’ve got Ms. Money Match."

  Shuixing side-eyed Daisy looking for any hesitancy, but she appeared to be in implicit agreement with Natsuko about where to start their investigation. Shuixing herself felt more apprehensive. There was something about going to Tianzhou that didn’t sit well with her. Or going anywhere, really. She liked her little home in the Mage's College.

  “Sh-Shouldn’t we consider all of the other suspects before we commit to Yuna?” Shuixing asked.

  “What other suspects?” Natsuko said. “We’ve got the momentum, let’s just go beat her up.”

  Daisy raised an eyebrow.

  “I mean go have Daisy beat her up.”

  Daisy nodded approvingly.

  “Or, we can ask her questions and suss out what she knows before tilting at the first windmill that comes our way,” Shuixing said, adding more barb to her voice than she meant to. It sounded very rude to Shuixing herself, but her baseline tone of voice was so soft Natsuko didn’t even notice.

  “Yeah, we can do that too!”

  “When do we leave? My soul is restless and desires blood.” Pechorin said.

  Natsuko leapt out of her seat. “Right now!”

  “Tomorrow,” Shuixing said, pushing her plate with the barely-touched sandwich away just as the first tinkling of rain landed on the porcelain.

  A moment later, the long-awaited drizzle came down. If Shuixing’s calculations were right, and they always were, they would be across the border and halfway to the city of Tianzhou by tomorrow evening. The thought made her stomach turn.

  Statistics: