The first-ever Gamer-Viking summit was currently happening.

  But nobody was saying a word.

  Erik Bloodaxe studied Johan “ILoveFurries” the Seventh. They stood at a similar height. Blonde hair. Corpulent bodies…

  Then the Viking king shook his head, his lips twisting in distaste, as if tasting something sour. He looked at Mark, who was standing next to them and starting to fear the summit wouldn’t be the success he had hoped for.

  “Are you sure he’s a descendant of my people?” the Viking king asked.

  It was the fourth time he asked.

  “Yeah. Johan’s a pure Norseman, just like yourself. Direct descendant of the Vikings. Right, Johan?”

  Johan nodded. He seemed a little nervous.

  “Born and raised in Stockholm.”

  Erik Bloodaxe glanced at the men behind him, asking them silently if they recognized the town. Harald shrugged. Bjorn seemed to recognize the name of the city for a moment, but then he thought better and shook his head.

  Erik Bloodaxe looked at Mark again.

  “And are you completely sure he comes from…”

  “I fucking know he comes from your people!” Mark interrupted, losing his temper a little. “It’s not my fault your people became weak and degenerated!” He pointed at Johan with disgust. “That’s what your people became: the mighty wolf was domesticated, and now he’s a fat labrador, who likes to spend his free time working on open source software and loves to cuddle near the fireplace.”

  “I don’t…” Johan started. “That’s a simplification, I dare say.”

  “That was in your Tinder profile. You told me once.”

  Johan looked around. Eric the Zealot observed his general with a little smirk.

  “In confidence,” Johan said. “I told you that in confidence.”

  Erik Bloodaxe kept his lips twisted in distaste, looking at his supposed descendant.

  Mark could understand the doubts. There were some physical similarities between the two generals. It was just that Johan was…

  Soft.

  In every sense of the word: Physically, mentally, spiritually...

  He was soft.

  At least, softer than anybody the Vikings would recognize as their own.

  Now that we talked about it, I can totally see him cuddling in front of a fireplace,Mark thought.

  Eventually, Erik Bloodaxe shrugged.

  “Mark’s a mighty warrior. An honorable ally. If he vouches for you, I shall take his word for it.”

  He extended his hand, and after a second’s hesitation, Johan shook it, and while clasping each other’s hands, they kept looking at each other. Then Johan asked:

  “We met back in the caverns. Don’t you remember?”

  Erik Bloodaxe nodded.

  “Yes, I vaguely remember you introduced yourself. But my instincts told me you would die in the first five minutes, so I didn’t pay you too much attention.” He looked at Mark, a smirk on his face. “He did look like the cuddly type.”

  And that’s when Johan’s well-hidden ego—the same one that had turned him into a meme back on Earth—decided to burst out.

  “And here we are. I’m the sixth among all the generals—my face up in the stars, staring down into a whole new world. And you have five men left, begging for my hospitality. So please, please, tell me more about your instincts, or the way I look.”

  Johan blanched when his mind finally caught up with his mouth.

  And there was silence.

  Deep, heavy silence.

  The brutal, oppressive silence of an upcoming slaughter.

  And Erik Bloodaxe was still clasping Johan’s hand, shaking it slowly. Very slowly. Johan made a feeble, unsuccessful attempt to disengage. But Erik Bloodaxe kept staring at him and squeezing his hand.

  Then, the Viking king broke into laughter.

  “Maybe you are a descendant of our people! I finally see some of our fire!”

  “And our stupidity!” added Harald with a laugh.

  Erik Bloodaxe laughed too, and then he embraced Johan, patting him on the back with way too much force, enough to make some serious bruises—Mark nodded proudly when Johan took it like a man, barely whimpering at all.

  “Well, now that we all know each other…” Mark said. “Johan, please tell us, what the fuck have you been doing? How did you take this fortress? Who are those guys walking around?”

  Johan smiled, finally free of Erik Bloodaxe’s embrace:

  “We have been very busy! I’m sure the recovery of the magic book was somewhat exciting. But to take the fortress, Eric and a bunch of his men had to climb up one of the walls and fight some wolves. They had made a nest near the entrance.”

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  Eric the Zealot puffed his chest with pride. He carried himself in a weird manner—walking very stiffly, making his sword clang with every step. It was like a parody of a military parade. Or like a child acting like the soldiers on TV.

  “It was nothing,” Eric the Zealot said, “I leveled as a [Warrior]. Twice. But it was nothing.”

  Mark shared a look with Tobias, in a corner of the room. He remembered running through a battlefield with thousands of undead, escaping from a horde of Mongols through the forest, training on a ship in a pocket dimension—and seeing dragons and a massive monster destroying an island. Then fighting almost sixty Mongols, with an epic final battle on a burning ship.

  And Mark and Tobias started laughing. Mark tried to explain, but he looked at the confusion on Eric’s face and had to laugh again.

  “What? Were the puppies too big for you?”

  Eric got offended.

  “What, four wolves are not cool enough? What did you do? Why do you have that burning scar, by the way?”

  Mark dismissed the questions with a gesture. He looked at Tobias.

  “How did you say it, back on the first day?”

  Tobias thought for a second, and then remembered. He composed himself, smiling slightly:

  “We came. We saw. We motherfucking conquered.”

  “Amen,” Mark added.

  Johan took control of the conversation again.

  “Yeah, yeah. We’ll compare notes later—or measure each other’s dicks, whatever you guys prefer,” he noticed the Vikings’ confusion. “It’s just a figure of speech, guys; Scandinavia hasn’t changed that much. For now, we’ll show you guys the fortress and introduce you to some of our new friends.”

  “Finally!” Mark exclaimed. “Who are those guys?” he repeated.

  They were in a big room of the fortress that seemed to be the command center of the Gamer Battalion. They had arrived at the fortress in the middle of the night, and it was already dawn. From a window into the training field, Mark saw a few of the older men giving weapons instruction to tens of young Gamers, mostly guys from Eric’s Zealot Brigade.

  Eric answered with pride:

  “They are Marines. World War Two, Normandy Landing, Nazi-killer Marines. Call of Duty caliber Marines. My people found them too.”

  Mark looked at Johan for confirmation. Johan shrugged.

  “They wandered to the door of the fortress, and we allowed them in.”

  “My men were standing guard at the door, though,” Eric added.

  “And you’re not worried?” Mark asked Johan.

  “About what?”

  “Ah… that they will open the door, condemning us all to slaughter?”

  “Nah. They’re cool people.”

  “Oh… I mean, if they pass the vibe check…”

  “Don’t worry, they lost their general the first day, in the big battle at the beginning. Their general was killed by Kublai Khan, who apparently is Genghis Khan’s grandson.”

  “Fuck. How many Khans are in the forest?”

  “They were a pretty famous family of conquerors—so probably a lot?”

  “But what are they…”

  Then Johan looked at Mark sideways and made a small gesture, indicating that he preferred to speak later, when there weren’t so many people listening. The Gamer General looked at his lieutenant Eric and told him:

  “Go find some accommodations for my ancestors. Find something nice. Near the kitchen—and explain to them our schedules for eating. And Eric… tell everybody that tomorrow morning we’ll start testing for magical affinity. So anybody who wants to be a [Mage] has to be at the training field first hour of the morning.”

  Mark looked at the shining, hopeful eyes of Eric. For a moment, his “military dignity” charade fell. And the young man looked at the magic book Tobias held with the eyes of a child who had waited for years next to the mailbox, hoping to finally receive the letter telling him that he was really a wizard.

  And Mark smiled with gleeful anticipation, thinking that soon everybody would be faced with the magic book… and be destroyed by the brutal reality that even after being resurrected in another world, not everybody got to go to Hogwarts…

  I suffered that shit, so now it’s their turn.

  Then, while Eric and the Vikings left the room, Mark vaguely wondered if he could organize some gambling around the event.

  We could bet on whether or not they’ll be capable of learning magic. If they will cry when they can’t…

  Eric the Zealot turned around and brought his hand up to his forehead, executing a military salute toward Johan, who returned it with equal seriousness. Then, and only then, Eric started closing the door. Johan kept a serious, calm facade until the door was closed. Then he started walking around the room, almost pulling his own hair.

  “Thank God you arrived with the magic book. I never lost faith, of course, but it’s been four days since we saw you for the last time. I knew you had to be alive, because I’m the sixth dude in the sky, and we in this goddamned fortress haven’t been doing shit.”

  “You’re telling me your glorious lieutenant hasn’t already conquered the world?”

  “No. Eric’s great. No, don’t look at me like that. I know what he and his idiots look like. I can hear the whispers—that he and his Zealots are larping incels and shit like that. But guess what? When you’re actually doing the job, you’re no longer larping, you’re just doing the job. And they are doing the goddamn work! Every fucking important position in my army is covered by one of his Zealots. From guard duty, to protecting our weapons, to protecting me. They are the only ones taking this seriously.”

  “What’s going on? Why are you so worried?”

  “We are not leveling. We’re getting weaker instead of stronger. People are not listening to my orders. If a small army tried to storm this fortress, I’m not sure I would be able to find even a hundred soldiers willing to defend it.”

  Mark started to get a little worried himself.

  “Let’s go by parts. What’s the highest level in the Gamer Battalion?”

  “Eric. Level 4 [Warrior Captain]. Two from the wolves, as he told you. And the other two might be from training, or from organizing his men to work. I don’t know. Gaining levels on basic Classes wasn’t the plan; but we kept waiting, and our position was getting ridiculous.”

  “Level 4’s not great.”

  “I assume not. My only real hope is that the other armies are fucking up their leveling. One of the marines gained a couple levels as a [Cook] before he came with us; so hopefully the other armies are leveling on stupid stuff too. What’s the highest of your group?”

  Mark and Tobias looked at each other.

  “Last we checked, it was Liam, I think. Level 9 [Scout].

  Magic Classes seemed to level slower than the Classes. Mark’s Class [Kilser the Traitor] seemed slow to Level too. Arthur had decided to spend the first few days refusing any Level Up, hoping for a more special Class… And Mark didn’t remember the current level of Gustav—they hadn’t talked about it in a few days.

  So it was probably Liam.

  Learning their current Levels got Johan truly depressed—he sat in the wooden chair presiding over a rectangular marble table and slouched down.

  “The other armies must be getting completely away from us. The only thing protecting this fortress is the fact that my face is up in the sky every night, and the other generals assume I know something they don’t know. We have been offered a couple of alliances, you know? But I have to play coy because if they meet anybody from this army, they’ll realize we’re easy prey—and they’ll fucking hunt us down.”

  “We’re not a good example, though,” Mark said, trying to cheer up his friend. “We have been out for longer than expected. You know the Hyperbolic Time Chamber of Dragon Ball? Where you could go in for a day and train for a full year?”

  Johan nodded.

  “Of course.”

  “We did something like that. With less time training, but similar.”

  That got Johan’s attention. Mark stopped the upcoming barrage of questions.

  “Later. The story is long, really long. First, show us around.”

  Johan shrugged and got up, making a gesture so they would follow him to the door.

  “Sure. There’s not much to see, to be honest. Where’s Arthur, by the way?” he asked, opening the door.

  “When we arrived at the fortress, he escaped into some room with a pretty girl,” Mark answered, walking out.

  “That dude knows how to live,” Johan said, sighing.

  “Right?” Tobias asked, following them out of the command room.

  Mark rolled his eyes. He was pretty sure his friend Johan was about to join Arthur’s “Church of Bullshit.”