Josh checked his combat log, and snorted in derision. “Got one point of experience each.” He hadn't even noticed the mist flow into him, it was so minor. He looked around. “Not sure about the loot situation.”

  “The cracked cores are worth something,” Darius said. He gave Josh a look. “They would have been worth more if they were still intact.”

  Josh rolled his eyes. “You want intact slime cores, you can walk up to the next group, reach inside them, and pull the bloody things out yourself.”

  It seemed Darius wasn't that interested in cores, because he ignored Josh's jibe. “Furthermore, the dust should have its uses in alchemy. I am sure that Miss Sarah will appreciate us bringing some back.”

  Collecting the dust took longer than killing the monsters had. They had enough water bottles—proper plastic bottles, not their improvised wooden shite that were useless for anything besides terrible grenades—that they could get it all, but that just meant it took them even longer. They had to scrabble on the floor, seemingly searching for every last grain.

  “What I wouldn't give for a Gatherer class right now,” Josh muttered. A Scavenger could have swept their hand and immediately collected everything of value in the room.

  “At least you have that storage ring, yeah?” Mary said. She tossed him another bottle, which he dutifully stored away. “You think the orc guy will have one on him too?”

  “Eh, maybe?” Josh shrugged. “Not going to say it's impossible, but it would be a stupid move for him to show his face anywhere near here ever again. I expect he'll send Jael rather than dealing with us personally. We beat him pretty good last time with our weakest member.”

  Darius raised an eyebrow. “You think you are the weakest member of our party?”

  Josh snorted. “Of course!” He pointed at Ruth. “Exemplary-tier Attacker.” He pointed at Mary. “Exemplary-tier Attacker.” He pointed at Darius. “Improved-tier Defender.” He pointed at himself. “Basic-tier Crafter.”

  Darius opened his mouth as if to argue, but then thought better of it. He shook his head. “I suppose I cannot fault your logic.”

  Josh did most of the rest of the dungeon by himself, though he let Ruth and Darius borrow his sword to fight a few times. Ruth didn't like the sword, and gave up pretty much immediately, while Darius did like combining it with his shield. They weren't sure giving him a sword full-time would be a good idea, though. Mary, of course, refused to even touch it. She had her guns, and she was going to stick with them.

  The dungeon was only four rooms long, not counting the entrance and the final boss chamber. None of the rooms had anything besides metal slimes, and none of the slimes were higher than level 10. By far the hardest bit of the endeavor was gathering up the cores and dust. In no time at all, they were waiting at the door to the boss chamber.

  “So,” Mary said. “It's going to be a giant metal slime, yeah?”

  Josh snorted. “No bet.”

  “It really could be anything,” Ruth insisted. “Don't slimes evolve every four levels?”

  “Dewdrop slimes, yeah,” Josh said. “Different variants have different rules.” Once weaker monsters evolved into a stronger variant, they would shift to evolving every eight levels like normal.

  “So if the boss is at least level 12, then it will have evolved into something else.” Ruth looked at the doors, as if she could see the boss already. “What's the worst-case scenario?”

  “Dragon,” Josh and Mary said at once.

  But Darius shook his head. “No, I don't think that, at least, is something we have to worry about here. From what I understand of how rifts work, they only draw through monsters of the appropriate level. No dragon would fall through a rift this weak.”

  “The one we found Flamebreak in was level 8 too,” Mary retorted. “Exceptions happen.”

  “Of course. But that was also a very old rift, as far as we could tell. This is brand-new.”

  Josh wasn't sure that would matter. He would admit to being a mite paranoid on the matter. He'd delved hundreds of dungeons, and the town had delved almost as many just in the past few days with this weird plague of rifts. No one had ever found a dragon in a dungeon before.

  Still. He'd keep his escape options open.

  “All right, putting aside a dragon, then it's probably just another slime. What can a dewdrop slime evolve into?” Josh knew the answer, he was just curious as to what Darius would say.

  Darius pushed up his glasses. “A giant version is the most obvious,” he said. “That might also be the most dangerous. If its core is out of reach, then we will have to burn it down the hard way. That will be annoying, especially with Josh as our only valid pseudo-Attacker.”

  Ruth gripped her hammer tighter. “How much danger will he be in?”

  “Almost none. With my shrouds, he can be kept safe indefinitely. If he does take damage, we have real healing potions from Sarah the Alchemist.”

  Ruth looked more alarmed at that. “He's not supposed to take any more potions yet!”

  “It will be fine,” Josh insisted. “I'm not going to get hurt. I promise, if things look bad, I'll retreat and let you have a go. I won't take any potions.”

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  She relaxed, a tad. “Okay, good.” Then she sighed. “I wish I could do something to help. Some sort of cutting spell, or something.”

  Mary shrugged. “Just remember to bring a backup weapon next time.”

  Josh barked out a laugh. “You of all people don't get to complain about someone only bringing one type of weapon.”

  “Hm? Oh, you mean my guns?” She smirked. “Who ever said all I had was guns?” She reached down, pulled up her pant leg, and revealed a long knife strapped just above her ankle. “Never leave home without them.”

  Everyone stared.

  “You had a spare weapon this entire time?” Darius demanded.

  “Why didn't you say anything?” Josh added. “God dammit, I was running around like a maniac, when you could have been helping!”

  Mary shrugged. “You looked like you were having fun.” She drew out both knives, one from each leg, and handed them both to Ruth. “Here. You're not a weapon specialist, so you might even get a technique for them.”

  Oh right, Josh hadn't even thought of that. Ruth used hammers and clubs so exclusively, he had forgotten that they didn't actually have anything to do with her class. She might be able to get some easy techniques without too much trouble.

  Ruth considered for a moment, then handed one back. “We should all be armed,” she explained. “I know it should be an easy fight, but...” She shrugged helplessly. No one could disagree with that, so Mary took the knife back and held it, ready to go.

  The entrance to the boss chamber, unlike the other rooms, wasn't just an opening in the wall with an invisible barrier. It was a tall pair of steel doors, wide enough for four people to walk through side by side. Strange designs and glowing runes etched the door, though Ruth said most of them didn't do anything important. Without another word, they all reached out to one of the hand-shaped symbols on the doors.

  Light flowed out from where they touched the door, running through veins in the steel like electricity in a circuit board. In seconds, a pattern emerged, a complex geometric rune, and then the doors cracked open and revealed the chamber on the other side.

  It was bigger than the one they were already in. It was hard to tell for sure, because there were no walls, no ceiling. Instead, it was as if there was a large circular platform suspended in a sea of stars. Twinkling, glittering motes of light danced in an infinite expanse of black, making it feel as though they would all tumble out into the void if they took a single step.

  Huh, Josh thought. Is this the new standard?

  In the middle of the chamber was the rift, a purple-edged tear in the fabric of reality itself. It felt as though a massive claw had reached out and ripped the very air apart, as easily as if tearing a painting. It stretched from the floor to the ceiling, tall enough for a giant to walk through and wide enough for a boat to sail through.

  Thankfully, there was no dragon curled up around the rift this time. Instead, there was a man sitting cross-legged in their path, idly sharpening a sword.

  At least, it looked like a man at first glance. On a second look, its clothes were made of the same silvery material as its body, the same silvery material as its sword. It didn't look up when they entered, giving Josh a moment to scan it.

  The core, it turned out, was in the monster's crotch.

  “That had to have been a joke, right?” he asked no one in particular, as silver dust settled onto the floor. The fight hadn't been difficult with all four of them piling on. Josh would have killed the boss in the first hit if the core had been in the head. “The System somehow managed to put the core there just to screw with us.”

  “I dunno,” Ruth said, cocking her head to the side. “I'm not sure how much control the System has over...” She waved her hand vaguely. “Everything. I don't think it can really do something like that.”

  “The description was a joke, though,” Mary said. She cleaned off her knife in a few swift motions, then returned it to its sheathe. “It could have told us where the core really was.” She raised her voice to the ceiling. “Could have even made some good jokes about it, too! But no, it thought it would be funnier to see us wiff a one-shot!”

  “It's something important to keep in mind,” Darius said gravely. “The System is not our friend.

  Josh snorted. “Yeah, learned that lesson a while ago, thanks.” He wasn't even worried that the System might get annoyed and do something. It didn't mind people talking about it. As far as anyone could figure, it thought it was funny.

  “I still thought it would be tougher,” Ruth said, poking at the broken core with her boot. “I know we were all like four times its level, but my shroud took a full-force hit without breaking!”

  Darius could not hide a small smile. “Well. I suppose we should all be thankful for our shrouds, then.”

  “Oi,” Mary said, her tone flat. “You preen any harder, you're liable to break something.”

  “Still!” Ruth said. “My dad always said to be careful, even if you have the level advantage! I've seen him kill things with twenty levels on him.”

  “That's because he's smart,” Josh insisted. He gulped down the water in his bottle, then bent down and started gathering the silver dust into it. Sarah and the other Alchemists had better appreciate this. “Levels work pretty well for measuring power, but they're not perfect. Especially when you bring smart blokes like your dad into it.”

  Darius raised an eyebrow. “I note you didn't include yourself in that list.”

  Josh ignored him. “No matter how strong this slime was, it was still mindless. If we had let the fight go on for longer, you would have started to notice patterns. Just repeating the same two or three moves over and over. Pretty easy to beat it like a rented drum, once you've figured that out.”

  “Most monsters aren't quite so predictable, of course,” Darius added, picking up the explanation. “They're animalistic, but still possess a rudimentary intelligence and ability to learn. I imagine whatever monster your father killed was something he was familiar with, and could kill relatively quickly. Correct?”

  “It was a human,” Ruth said flatly. “A criminal outside the Burn Line who had been feeding monsters bloodstones and people to grind them up for experience.”

  They all stared at her.

  “So,” Josh said dryly. “Yeah, it was a monster he was familiar with?”

  Ruth let a small smile cross her face. “Yeah, I guess so.”