“Yes!” Liam shouted. “Johan was right! I Leveled up!”

  It was night, and the only light in the compartment came from the corridor’s lanterns, filtering in beneath the door. They must have been sleeping for at least twelve hours.

  The sixteen-year-old got down from his hammock, thrilled.

  “You’re now talking with a Level 1 [Scout], with the Skill [Silent Footsteps].”

  Mark was a little envious of the energy of the teenager. It took him almost a minute to muster enough strength to sit up on the hammock. And if he was honest with himself, he could’ve slept another couple of hours.

  Gustav got up from his hammock. He also seemed happy with his new Class.

  “I’m a [Swordsman] Level 3. I gained the Skill [Basic Footwork].

  “Wow!” Liam said. “You leveled three times in a single day!”

  Gustav shrugged.

  “Yeah, I guess I did,” he said, smiling and looking very satisfied.

  “I gained the [Soldier] Class. Level 2,” Wyatt said. “And my Skill is [Second Wind]. I activated it to give it a try, and it made me feel more energetic for a while. But then I crashed down when the Skill ran out.”

  The injured man smiled.

  “It’s a kind of a fucked-up Skill to give to a crippled guy.”

  The Gamers looked at each other, not really knowing what to answer. Or what to do with Wyatt’s injury. Maybe they would have to take on the Viking’s offer to help—although they had insinuated that the injury would require an amputation.

  “You can activate your Skill?” Liam asked. “How do you do that?”

  “Yeah, I cannot activate my Skill either,” Gustav said, suddenly worried.

  “Don’t you feel within you the Skill and how to activate it?” Wyatt asked.

  “No.”

  “No.”

  “Your Skills are probably passive,” Tobias said from a corner of the room. ”You can’t activate them because they must be always on. Try using them.”

  Liam immediately started moving around the compartment, jumping from one foot to the other. He was completely silent. To make any noise, he had to deliberately step with force.

  Gustav got up and walked around a little, unconvinced.

  “I don’t feel anything… I guess it’s a combat skill. I’ll try it later. Somebody want to spar with me?”

  “Sure, let’s give it a try,” Liam answered. Then he jumped over a hammock and landed as quietly as a light-footed cat. “What did you get, Mark?”

  Mark had leveled his Class [Kilser the Traitor — Horsemen of the Apocalypse] to Level 3.

  Sadly, the Level Up hadn’t brought any new Skills. But he did feel a little faster, and he probably could use his Skills slightly longer—so it hadn’t been completely wasted.

  In any case, he remembered that Johan wanted him to keep secret the Class, so he answered:

  “I became a Level 3 [Rogue]. And I gained the Skill [Phantom Presence].”

  It was a lie, but a reasonable one. Rogue was the Class that most closely resembled his real one—or at least, he thought it was. And [Phantom Presence] was much less ominous than [Traitor’s Premonition].

  Liam stopped moving around.

  “What? What’s that?”

  Mark explained what [Phantom Presence] did—acting as if he were as surprised as everybody else.

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  “And I get this shitty thing about not making noise when I walk?” Liam said. “That’s not fair!”

  “Yeah!” Gustav agreed. “[Basic Footwork] is bullshit if Skills like that are available!”

  Arthur, who had been listening to the conversation in silence, smiled and said:

  “Fuck you, Mark.”

  And soon everybody piled on, a chorus of “Fuck you, Marks” echoing through the room.

  Until Emily jumped to his defense.

  “Well, he has been taking crazy risks all day. Ten minutes after we resurrected, he was already killing Mongol Riders. And then he saved a Gamer from a zombie. And then he ran through a battlefield filled with thousands of zombies. So it’s natural he got a cooler Skill than everybody else.”

  “By the way,” Emily continued, “I canceled my Level Up. Johan was right—you just have to wish to cancel it. I would have become a [Scout] Level 1. And my Skill was [Keen Senses].”

  After that outburst of loyalty, Mark felt a little bad about lying to her. Liam, having been reminded that Mark had risked his life just a few hours before, seemed to feel a little guilty about joining the enthusiastic “Fuck you, Mark’s” and changed the topic.

  “So, what about you, Arthur? I bet you got something awesome.”

  Everybody looked at Arthur, expecting the coolest Class and most impressive Skill.

  Even Mark reluctantly expected Arthur to astonish them with something incredible.

  But Arthur yawned and answered that he had gotten the same thing as Gustav.

  “I’m a [Swordsman] too, although Level 4. And I also got [Basic Footwork].”

  “That’s super unfair!” Liam said. “You took the same risks as Mark!”

  Arthur shrugged.

  “What can you do? He has always been a lucky bastard.”

  When have I been lucky? Mark thought, remembering a barrel of a gun pointed at his head. But he decided to forget the issue.

  “I’ll tell you what we should have done,” Mark answered. “We should have put somebody to keep watch. I can’t believe we all slept when we’re sharing a ship with some fucking strangers.”

  Mark felt a little ashamed that they had forgotten to do something so obvious.

  “I have been awake all this time,” Tobias said, talking again from a corner of the room. “And nobody has come by; the Vikings are probably still sleeping. They spent yesterday fighting all the time; they might be more tired than we are.”

  Everybody looked at him, surprised.

  “You haven’t slept?” Emily asked.

  Tobias, who had been in the shadows lounging in his hammock, raised his hands, showing that he had been reading the magic book.

  “I couldn’t put it down. It’s truly fascinating.”

  “You don’t need light to read the book?” asked Mark, frowning.

  “Not really, the moving lines of the book glow bright enough to read by.”

  Mark remembered the fiery patterns of the book burning through his mind. And shivered when he realized Tobias had spent twelve hours staring at those patterns.

  “I understand the whole magic concept a little more,” continued Tobias. “There are different types of magic. And I’m pretty sure each [Mage] will have his own affinities. Magics they understand better. For example, I’m pretty sure I’m drawn to Fire Magic—it’s the part of the book I understood the best. And other parts of the book I couldn’t read at all. They made me feel a little like you muggles felt—dizzy, nauseous, and so very non-magical and mundane.”

  People booed good-naturedly. Gustav threw a small rag towards Tobias.

  “Let’s bring back witch-burning!” Liam shouted.

  Tobias laughed. Then he looked at Wyatt, who was in his hammock and seemed to have fallen asleep again. And at Arthur, still suffering from the injuries from the undead. And he lowered his voice:

  “And most important of all. In this book, there’s Healing Magic. It seems to be extremely complex—but it does exist. I’m pretty sure I could…”

  “I’ll do it,” Emily said.

  “What? But you haven’t even…”

  “I’ll do it,” she insisted. “You just said that you’re more drawn to Fire Magic, didn’t you? I’ll be the one to learn Healing Magic. If I’m completely honest, after seeing so many corpses, I don’t think I want to kill people, even if it’s with magic. It’s too brutal. On self-defense? I would totally do it. But I don’t want to focus my existence on it.”

  She gave a mischievous smile and added, “So I’ll learn this incredibly useful Magic. And all of you will be forced to do anything to keep me protected—and you’ll kill anybody who puts me in danger.”

  She settled it by taking the book from Tobias’ hands. Tobias seemed ready to argue about it a little more, but as soon as he lost the book, he yawned for almost ten seconds, and his head started to droop.

  “You heard us, Tobias,” Arthur said. “Leveling happens when you sleep. So go to sleep.”

  “First, tell me which pages are about healing,” Emily said, flipping through the book.

  Tobias took the book back, opened it to a specific section, and returned it to Emily. Without another word, he lay down on the hammock and immediately fell asleep.

  Mark observed him sleeping for a few seconds. And he knew they finally had their first [Mage]. Because no fucking adult should ever be grinning like that while sleeping.

  Emily lifted her eyes from the book and lowered her voice:

  “By the way… Do we know how long we’ll be in this place? The Viking king said that the pocket dimension will collapse on its own. But how long will it take?”

  “And how much time has passed in the outside world?” Gustav added. “Has it been twelve hours for the Mongols too? Maybe they’ll get bored and leave us alone.”

  Mark wasn’t very optimistic about that possibility. But it was Arthur who answered:

  “Maybe. We need more information. You all stay here for a while longer. Mark and I will meet with Erik Bloodaxe, and we’ll learn what’s going on.”

  They both left the compartment and walked out onto the upper deck. Erik Bloodaxe was waiting for them while sitting on the ship's railing, looking up into the starry night. There was no ranking of generals in the pocket dimension—only a seemingly infinite number of stars. His massive axe rested next to him, leaning against the ship’s railing.

  “Finally,” said the Viking king, looking at the two Gamers. “I have been waiting for you.”

  And then we'll jump into the first proper battle arc of the webnovel! It's long, detailed, exciting, and I'm super proud of the result!