Chương 13: Apparently, Walking Is Optional

The alarm on Matt's phone went off at 5: 10 AM. It wasn't a gentle rising melody. It was a harsh digital klaxon—the sort of alarm designed for a logistics coordinator who had once needed to wake up after a three-in-the-morning spreadsheet emergency. Matt opened his eyes inside the dark trailer at site C-87.

"… This had better be worth it." He slapped the phone silent and remained completely still for several seconds. Five ten. In the morning. Voluntarily. There were consequences to becoming self-employed that nobody talked about. Matt rolled out of bed, turned on the kitchenette light, and started the coffee maker. Today wasn't a normal farming day. Today had an objective. The Orchard Keeper. He tore open a protein bar while the coffee brewed and opened Ashfield Orchard's public Instance information on his laptop.

If Matt wanted his first personal clear of Ashfield Orchard, he needed a Boss Alive Instance and a head start. Getting there first didn't reserve the Boss, but reaching The Orchard Keeper before anyone else joined the fight gave him the best chance at the Solo clear he wanted. Black Hollow had already taught him one thing about live Bosses. Competition arrived quickly. Matt corrected his coffee with Perfect Temperature and looked through the small window above the sink.

Ashfield Camp remained mostly dark beneath amber streetlights, but movement had already begun. Two Delvers in light armor walked briskly toward the Gate, while a third jogged past carrying almost no visible loot storage. Matt watched them disappear.

"… Apparently I'm not the only genius." Of course not. Boss Runners were already awake. He finished the protein bar and started gearing up: armor, longsword, Pure Element, Elemental Ring, and Portal Scrolls. Yesterday's testing had established that repeated Leap Slam use could burn through his fifty-three Mana very quickly, so he added something he'd previously had no reason to carry. Beginner Mana Flasks. Two bottles glowed electric blue inside the protective case.

Unlike ordinary drinks, each could be consumed in measured pulls over several uses. Matt clipped three red Life Flasks to one side of his belt and the two Mana Flasks to the other, then ran through the rest of the checklist. Sword. Portal Scrolls. Heavy Strike. Cleave. Leap Slam. Then Slot Four. Matt paused.

"Bird murder." Blade Projection. Good. Then COPY. ACTIVE COPY SLOTS Slot 1: Anchored Step — C Slot 2: Quick Frame — C The Boss guide mentioned roots, and Ashfield meant Cinder Crows. Anchored Step and Quick Frame were staying. Overmuscle's extra twenty Strength was tempting, but Matt's normal STR was already 43.

"More damage isn't useful if I get rooted and hit in the face." He locked the loadout. Yesterday's Dungeon had already changed how he thought about COPY. Good. ◆ By 5: 45, Matt was walking toward the Gate. Ashfield was almost peaceful at this hour. Almost. One food truck had opened early, serving black coffee, breakfast sandwiches, and something wrapped in foil that smelled aggressively like bacon. Most of the campground remained asleep. Then Matt reached the Gate plaza. He stopped.

"… Oh." Roughly twenty people stood near the terminals. They looked different from the ordinary midday crowd. Smaller groups. Lighter loadouts. Streamlined armor. Several Delvers were stretching, one man repeatedly tested a short-range movement Skill in an empty strip beside the plaza, and a woman nearby checked three Mana Flasks on her belt. These people weren't here to collect Ember Bark. They weren't planning a relaxed three-hour farm. Boss Runners. Matt joined them. A terminal opened.

The Instance list appeared. Instance 102 — 42/64 — Boss Defeated Instance 103 — 28/64 — Boss Defeated Instance 104 — 9/64 — Boss Alive Instance 105 — 3/64 — Boss Alive Matt focused immediately on the bottom entry. Three players. Boss Alive. Beside him, the two Delvers he'd seen walking toward the Gate were using another terminal. One pointed.

"There." Matt glanced sideways. Everyone had seen it. Nobody owned it. He selected Instance 105. ENTER INSTANCE 105? Delvers: 3/64 Boss: Alive [YES] Matt confirmed. Around him, several other people moved almost simultaneously. He turned for the Gate. The duo jogged alongside him. Another solo runner accelerated from behind. One of the pair grinned at Matt.

"See you at the center." Matt kept running.

"Hopefully not." The man laughed. They hit the Gate only seconds apart. Blue light swallowed everything. ◆ Dirt appeared beneath Matt's boots. Warm air. Dry grass. The eternal orange-purple Ashfield sky. In Ohio, sunrise hadn't properly started. Inside the Dungeon, it was sunset forever.

"… Still weird." Matt didn't stop. His AR interface established his position. The Orchard Keeper's arena lay broadly toward the center of the Instance. The exact arrangement of walls, orchard rows, creeks, and farm structures differed from yesterday, but the objective was simple. Center. Matt drew his longsword and started jogging. Grass rustled. An Ash Rabbit burst onto the path and lowered itself to attack. Since his first day in Black Hollow, the default logic had been automatic. Monster meant XP. Loot. Kill it.

Matt slowed. Then remembered why he was here. Not farming. Boss. He was alone. Nobody behind him needed a cleared route, and one Rabbit's possible drop wasn't worth surrendering position in the race. Matt looked at it.

"Why am I fighting you?" Mana moved. Leap Slam. Matt launched over the Rabbit. The creature snapped at empty air beneath him as he landed farther down the path and immediately resumed jogging. He didn't look back. A smile slowly appeared.

"That feels wrong." Another step.

"But efficient." A hundred yards farther on, a thick knot of thorny vegetation blocked the main path. A Briar Husk emerged from it. Matt looked past the creature. Clear dirt on the other side. Leap Slam. He sailed over both monster and obstruction. That was when the route started changing in his head. Another long stretch of path. Leap Slam. A low stone wall with four Ash Rabbits resting behind it. Leap Slam. The wall passed beneath his boots and the Rabbits scattered behind him. Matt kept moving.

Years ago, sitting in front of a monitor, he'd watched high-Level ARPG players cross maps this way. Teleport. Dash. Leap. Charge. Movement Skill after movement Skill, as though locomotion itself were an enemy to defeat. Matt had always thought it looked vaguely ridiculous. Another stretch of unnecessary running opened ahead. Leap Slam. The world dropped away for a moment. He landed significantly closer to the center.

"Okay." Matt resumed running.

"The games may have had a point." It still looked ridiculous. That didn't make it slow. Movement flickered through parallel rows to his left. Another Boss Runner. The solo Delver from the plaza. The man used a rapid Dash-type Skill, blue Mana flashing around his feet as he alternated between sprinting and short bursts of supernatural acceleration. Matt watched him.

"Definitely not the only genius." A harsh caw sounded overhead. Matt looked up just long enough to see a Cinder Crow with fire forming in its beak. Yesterday, he would have killed it. Today? No. The fireball came. Matt activated Leap Slam and launched forward. The attack struck the dirt behind him.

"Not today." He landed and immediately tried to Leap again. Nothing happened. His legs bent. Mana responded weakly. No activation. Matt stumbled into an ordinary run.

"…Right." He checked his resource bar. Mana: 7 / 53 He'd been so pleased with skipping terrain that he had barely watched the cost. Repeated movement activations had done exactly what he already knew they would do. Drained him. His legs were fine. He could still physically run. Most of the rest of his Skill toolkit, however, also wanted Mana. A blue flash appeared behind him. The Dash runner burst through the trees. He spotted Matt jogging normally.

"Morning!" The man blurred past. Matt stared after him.

"…Rude." He unclipped a Mana Flask and took a measured swallow. The liquid tasted like somebody had dissolved a battery in citrus sports drink. Matt grimaced.

"That is terrible." A cool tingling pressure spread through his chest as Mana began returning while he jogged. Not instantly. Enough. Matt capped the bottle. Still plenty left.

"Worth it." He waited until he had a comfortable margin, then activated Leap Slam again. The Dash runner remained ahead. The path curved sharply around an old cluster of trees. The other Delver followed the road. Matt checked his AR. The Boss direction did not curve. He looked toward the inside of the bend. Dense brush. A wooden fence. Beyond that, open ground. Matt left the road. Leap Slam carried him over the fence. A shallow creek cut across the orchard. Another Leap crossed it.

Then he cleared a second band of brush and emerged on the far side of the bend. The Dash runner came around the road seconds later. Matt was ahead. The man stopped his Dash long enough to look over.

"Oh, come on!" Matt grinned.

"Morning!" Then jumped again. ◆ The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The orchard gradually changed. The neat rows became less orderly. Trees grew older, thicker, and twisted. Patches of earth showed signs of burning. Matt began hearing something ahead. Wood. Huge pieces of it creaking under strain. His Boss marker was close. Matt slowed. Not because he was tired. Because he wasn't stupid.

His Mana was low again, and winning the race only to enter the Boss arena nearly empty would defeat the point. Matt stepped behind a thick tree and checked himself. Life full. Mana low. One Mana Flask partly used. The other untouched. He finished the first and took a smaller pull from the second, waiting while his resource pool recovered. Footsteps were still distant. Good enough. Matt confirmed his three Life Flasks, remaining Mana Flask, Portal Scrolls, sword, Skill Gems, and COPY loadout. Mana full.

He secured the bottle.

"Running out in front of the Boss would be embarrassing." Matt took one slow breath.

"Go." ◆ The final line of trees opened. Matt entered a broad circular clearing where everything had burned away. No grass. No living orchard rows. Only cracked black earth and an old wooden boundary fence. In the center stood The Orchard Keeper. Nearly ten feet tall, the Boss resembled a monstrous scarecrow assembled from scorched timber, straw, chains, and thick black vines. Its head was a hollow wooden stump with fire burning deep inside the cavity where a face should have been.

The Boss held a long rusted scythe. The blade alone looked large enough to remove Matt's entire upper body. His interface responded. THE ORCHARD KEEPER Ashfield Orchard — Instance Boss Life: 100% Matt scanned the clearing. No other Delvers. Yet.

"First." The Orchard Keeper's burning head rotated toward him. The fire brightened. Its scythe rose. Matt started running. There was no reason to wait. The Boss swept the weapon horizontally in an enormous arc. Obvious. Matt ducked beneath it, stepped into the recovery window, and activated Heavy Strike. CRACK. Wood splintered. The Orchard Keeper rocked backward. Its Life dropped into the low nineties. One attack.

"Good." The Keeper recovered and slammed the butt of its weapon into the ground. Matt felt the dirt shift beneath his boots.

"Roots." Anchored Step. Thick black vines burst upward, wrapped around his ankles, and pulled hard. His boots scraped several inches across the scorched dirt, but Anchored Step kept him upright. The Orchard Keeper clearly expected the root attack to create an opening. Its scythe came down in a brutal overhead chop. Matt watched the blade descend. The roots still held him. He released Anchored Step and activated Leap Slam. The movement tore him free before the vines tightened again.

Matt crossed over the Boss's shoulder. The scythe smashed into the dirt behind him. He landed, turned, and drove another Heavy Strike into the Keeper's back. CRACK. Matt backed away before the counterattack.

"That's why you're equipped." Anchored Step kept the root mechanic from controlling him. Leap Slam got him out before the follow-up landed. The Keeper roared. The sound resembled an entire pile of burning logs collapsing at once. One wooden hand plunged into the fire inside its own chest and ripped out three fist-sized balls of flame. Matt recognized the guide description.

"Ember Toss." The Boss threw. Matt shifted left and let the first two fireballs strike empty ground. The third clipped his shoulder. Elemental Shield flashed around him. Life: 137 → 125 Twelve Life. Noticeable. Controlled. Master of the Arena immediately started restoring it. The Boss advanced. Matt raised his sword. The Orchard Keeper was dangerous. Obviously. That scythe was not decorative. Standing still and trading attacks would be a terrible idea. But the Boss was readable.

Matt settled into the pattern: evade the enormous scythe, punish the recovery with Heavy Strike, anchor against the roots, reposition before the follow-up, then avoid Ember Toss and close again. The Boss bar steadily fell. 75% The Orchard Keeper abruptly stopped. It planted the scythe and spread both arms. The flames inside its skull and chest surged. Trees beyond the arena shook. Matt heard the sound he had been expecting. Caw. Then another. Caw.

"Of course." Three Cinder Crows burst from the canopy. They circled overhead. Matt immediately raised his longsword. Blade Projection. A translucent blade shot upward. The first Crow vanished. The second banked sharply, causing Matt's next projection to miss, then entered a dive. Quick Frame. The bird's path sharpened in Matt's perception. He waited until it committed. One normal swing. Ash. Third Crow. Blade Projection. Hit. Gone. Less than ten seconds. Matt stared briefly at the empty sky.

"Yesterday that would have taken forever." The Orchard Keeper had not politely waited. Its scythe was already moving. Matt jumped backward beyond the arc. Back to work. ◆ The Boss dropped steadily through the sixties toward half Life. Matt was spending Mana much faster than he had against The Old Foreman, but this time he had planned for it. When his resource bar dipped low enough to matter, the Keeper telegraphed a huge horizontal Reaping Swing. Matt simply backed outside its range. The blade passed.

The Boss needed time to recover. Matt unclipped the remaining Mana Flask and took a quick pull. He didn't wait for a perfect bar. Only enough. Then he stepped back in.

"I understand why they sell these next to the Life Flasks." The Boss hit fifty percent. Fire surged. More caws. Three Cinder Crows again. This time the Keeper kept moving.

"No free phase." Good to know. One Crow attacked from above while the Boss threw Ember Toss. Matt moved behind a charred stump near the arena edge. The wood blocked one fireball and gave him a momentary angle on the nearest Crow. Blade Projection. One down. Another crossed overhead. Matt fired. Miss. The Orchard Keeper came around the stump. Matt abandoned the bird and handled the immediate problem. Scythe. Move. A Crow fireball struck his leg. Life dropped slightly. Regen started working.

The second bird entered a swoop. Quick Frame. Matt tracked the dive and cut it down with a basic attack. The final Crow stayed high while the Boss launched another Ember Toss. Matt avoided two fireballs. One grazed his side. His Life fell into the one-teens. Still controlled. He created distance. Blade Projection. The final Crow disappeared. Matt looked at the Keeper.

"Your turn." Leap Slam carried him past the Boss's weapon side. He landed behind it. Heavy Strike. CRACK. The Boss staggered. Matt smiled.

"I like this one." There was something deeply satisfying about a Skill that existed purely to hit one thing very hard. ◆ Below forty percent, the Orchard Keeper accelerated. Not dramatically. Enough. Recovery windows shortened, and the scythe combinations became less leisurely. Matt adjusted. Quick Frame remained available, but he only toggled it when the timing demanded the extra Dexterity. The Boss began another sequence. A large swing. Matt moved. Roots. Anchored Step. Attack. Then the Keeper feinted high.

Matt stepped in too early. The scythe reversed. He saw the mistake. Too late. SMASH. The weapon struck Matt squarely across the chest. His supernatural Life protection prevented the actual injury. The force did not stop existing. Matt flew backward, hit the ground, rolled, and stopped with the entire orange sky spinning above him. His UI registered the damage. Life: 98 / 137 Matt stared.

"…That one counts." Almost forty Life. One attack. Enough to make the point. Matt got up immediately and pulled a Life Flask. Warmth spread through him as the Flask and Master of the Arena worked together. The Keeper approached. Matt didn't wait to refill completely. He moved. The scythe struck empty ground.

"Okay." Matt reset his stance.

"Respect the Boss." One bad timing decision had been punished. Correction made. ◆ At twenty-five percent, the orchard shook. Matt heard wings from several directions. He looked up. Four Cinder Crows.

"Ethan was right." One fireball came down. Matt moved.

"I'm never telling him." Blade Projection erased the first Crow. The second moved laterally while the Orchard Keeper attacked, forcing Matt to prioritize the scythe before firing again. Second Crow down. The remaining pair descended lower and began circling near the Boss, preparing a combined fire volley. Matt started to aim at one. Then stopped. Two birds. Boss. Same space. Different answer. Cleave. The red arc exploded outward. It crossed the Orchard Keeper's torso. Both low-flying Crows vanished with it.

The Boss lost Life too. Matt blinked.

"Okay." He repositioned.

"That's convenient." Rook had called Cleave his Area Clear Skill. Roles were priorities. Not prisons. If three valid targets happened to occupy the same arc, the battlefield did not care what category Matt's spreadsheet assigned the Skill. The Boss fell into the low teens. The arena became quiet again. No Crows. No other adds. Just Matt and the Orchard Keeper. Then Matt heard fast footsteps. He glanced toward the entrance. The Dash runner appeared between the trees.

Behind him, farther back, came the pair from the terminal. They weren't in attack range yet. But they were here. Matt's eyes returned to the Boss. If they reached the fight and contributed, the clear would no longer be Solo. Fair. Also inconvenient. The Dash runner saw the Boss bar.

"Oh, come on!" Matt almost laughed.

"Sorry!" The Orchard Keeper raised the scythe for one enormous final sweep. Matt had enough Mana for one more sequence. He waited. The Boss committed. Leap Slam. Matt sailed over the sweeping weapon and landed behind the Keeper. The Dash runner entered the clearing. Not close enough. Not yet. Matt gripped the longsword with both hands. One target. One answer. Heavy Strike. CRACK. The blade drove into the scorched wooden frame. Straight through the burning core. The fire inside the Orchard Keeper fractured.

Orange light split across its chest. The entire construct froze. Then collapsed into black timber, chains, burning straw, and finally ash. The System chimed. THE ORCHARD KEEPER DEFEATED A second notification followed. LEVEL UP Matthew Hayes has reached Level 8. Then another. DUNGEON CLEAR RECORDED Ashfield Orchard — F Rank First Personal Clear Complete And one small change at the edge of his interface. Passive Points: 0 → 1 Matt lowered his longsword and breathed out.

"…Nice." The satisfaction landed harder than the Level notification. The changes he had made to his build had worked, and he had converted them into a Solo clear. Not perfectly. The missing chunk from his Life bar made that clear. But successfully. Cleanly enough. The Dash runner slowed to a walk several yards away and looked from the Boss ash to Matt.

"Damn." The duo arrived behind him moments later. Matt raised one hand.

"Sorry." The Dash runner waved him off.

"You beat us." His eyes moved toward the Boss remains.

"Didn't even get close enough to touch it." One of the pair looked at Matt.

"Solo?"

"Yeah."

"Nice clear." No hostility. No complaint. They had raced. Matt had won this one. Tomorrow somebody else might. The Dash runner sighed.

"Guess we're finding another live Instance." Then he glanced at the blue light gathering in the Boss remains.

"If it dumps a pile of whites, you keeping them?" Matt frowned.

"Probably."

"Crafting?" Matt paused.

"That's the current theory." The man laughed. Not mockingly. Knowingly.

"Have fun." Matt narrowed his eyes.

"That sounded threatening."

"It wasn't." The runner turned toward the Gate route with the others. Then paused.

"Mostly." They disappeared between the trees. Matt stared after them.

"That was not reassuring." Then the light inside the Orchard Keeper's remains pulsed. Matt's attention snapped back. Loot. ◆ Mana Stones came first. Not one. Not three. A lot. Dense blue Stones spilled through the Boss ash and scattered across the scorched ground. Matt's AR contacts began estimating their market value. The number climbed. And climbed. Then stabilized. Estimated Total Mana Stone Market Value: ≈ $3, 000 Matt stared.

"Oh." He checked again. Still there.

"…Oh." Three thousand dollars from the Mana Stones alone. And because nobody else had participated— all his. Matt looked toward the direction the other Boss Runners had disappeared.

"So that's why you wake up at five." Burn Mana Flasks, skip irrelevant monsters, race to the center. One Boss could pay extremely well even without a rare item. Then the System light pulsed again. Equipment started appearing. A sword. An axe. A shield, helmet, boots, gloves, chest armor. Then more weapons and armor until Matt stood surrounded by what looked like the inventory of a very poorly organized medieval sporting-goods store. He slowly turned.

"…That's a lot." His AR contacts identified the nearest weapon. IRON LONGSWORD Rarity: Normal Nearby: REINFORCED BUCKLER Rarity: Normal LEATHER GLOVES Rarity: Normal Matt scanned several more pieces. Everything was white. No Unique glow. No Rare. No obvious Magic equipment. Just plain Gear. A lot of it. Matt looked around.

"Did I kill a Boss or rob a sporting goods store?" Until now, he'd mostly treated Normal Gear as vendor fodder. If he wanted something to wear immediately, an unmodified piece wasn't especially exciting. Then the Boss remains flashed a third time. Smaller objects scattered between the equipment: a jagged crystal fragment, a smooth metallic sphere, a flat rune-marked token, several pieces of translucent material. More followed. Many more. Matt crouched. His AR contacts focused on one.

Item Category: Crafting Currency Another. Same category. Different object. Several kinds. Enough that staring at them was obviously not going to teach him how they worked. Matt picked up the rune-marked token. The description contained several unfamiliar terms. He skipped most of them. The important part was simple. Used in equipment crafting. Matt stopped. His eyes moved from the Currency to the Normal longsword beside his boot, then across the piles of completely unmodified equipment.

His old gamer instincts woke up.

"…Oh." Matt picked up the Iron Longsword. Normal. No affixes. No special modifier. Clean. He looked around again.

"These are bases." A Normal item wasn't necessarily worthless finished Gear. It could be a starting point. Whether any particular piece was a good starting point was another question. Matt compared two Normal swords. Different Base Names. Different requirements. Different Item Levels displayed through his AR contacts. So even the white items weren't interchangeable. And Matt had absolutely no idea which ones deserved Crafting Currency. That meant there was only one correct decision.

He carefully put the sword back down.

"No." Then picked up the Currency.

"Research first." He had learned not to spend unknown resources blindly. The Dungeon System was remarkably good at converting ignorance into lost money. Matt wasn't going to start consuming Crafting Currency because his gamer instincts whispered click the shiny thing on the sword. ◆ Then came the less glamorous problem. He had to carry all of it. Matt started with the compact, expensive items. Mana Stones went into padded pouches and the reinforced loot bag.

Crafting Currency followed into a separate secured compartment so he wouldn't spend the rest of the morning hunting strange little Orbs through scorched grass. The equipment was another matter. Swords. Armor. Boots. Gloves. Shields. All physical. All bulky. Matt lifted one armful and immediately pictured the walk back to the Gate.

"…No." He opened COPY. The Boss was dead. Quick Frame had finished its job. Matt swapped it out. COPY LOADOUT CHANGE Quick Frame — C → Archive Light Load — E → Active He activated Light Load and picked up the same bundle again. The difference was immediate. The armor still occupied exactly the same amount of space. The swords were still awkwardly shaped. But the effective weight dropped dramatically. Matt smiled.

"There you are." Light Load solved weight. It did not solve volume. He still needed straps, the heavy-duty loot bag, and several minutes of arranging weapons so none of them stabbed him in the leg on the walk out. Matt scanned each piece while bundling them together. Different Base Names. Different Item Levels. Different requirements. He didn't understand enough to distinguish valuable Crafting Bases from mediocre ones. Therefore the current sorting policy was extremely sophisticated. Keep. Keep. Also keep.

Definitely keep until researched. Matt reached another longsword.

"You too." Eventually the ground around the Boss remains was empty. Matt stood with a secured loot bag, a bundled stack of Gear, and several additional pieces strapped together awkwardly but safely. Light Load made the weight manageable. The rest was simply inconvenient. Matt tightened the final strap.

"I bought a trailer." He shifted the bundle onto his shoulder.

"Might as well use it." Before leaving, he checked the two notifications that actually mattered. Level: 8 Passive Points: 1 Then his Dungeon Record. ASHFIELD ORCHARD — FIRST CLEAR COMPLETE Matt smiled. Level Eight was good. The first clear was good. The roughly three-thousand-dollar Mana Stone haul was very good. But the unfamiliar Crafting Currency? That was new. That made it interesting. Matt pulled a Portal Scroll. Ashfield's eternal sunset vanished. ◆ Real Ohio morning replaced it.

Matt stepped out of the Gate into daylight. The sun was still low, and people were only beginning to properly fill the Camp roads. He had entered an eternal evening. Killed a Boss. Returned to breakfast time. Matt looked at the real sky.

"…Still confusing." He adjusted the bulky Gear bundle—Light Load was still doing most of the work—and headed toward the Mana Stone Buyer. The clerk looked at Matt. Then at the pile of weapons and armor. Then at the amount of blue Stone he began unloading from his secured pouch.

"Keeper run?"

"Yeah."

"Solo?"

"Yeah." The clerk gave him a brief look of approval. Nothing dramatic. Impressive for a newer Delver. Not unheard of. The Mana Stones went onto the appraisal platform. MANA STONE SALE Gross Sale Value: $3, 000 Mandatory Loot Tax: -$150 NET: $2, 850 The money transferred. Matt looked at the balance notification.

"I approve of mornings now." The clerk glanced at the white equipment.

"Selling those too?"

"No." Immediate. The clerk raised an eyebrow.

"Crafting?" Matt looked down at the Gear.

"…That's the current theory."

"Good luck." Matt stared at him.

"There it is again."

"What?"

"Everyone says that like Crafting is going to hurt me personally." The clerk smiled.

"Didn't say that."

"You implied it." Matt gathered the equipment and left. ◆ Getting everything into C-87 was less dramatic than getting it out of the Dungeon. Still annoying. Light Load solved the weight problem right up until Matt had to fit the physical objects through a travel-trailer doorway. He carried in the loot bag first. Then the bundled weapons. Then armor. Then the rest. By the time he finished, swords, axes, shields, armor, helmets, boots, and gloves covered enough of the floor that the trailer seemed noticeably smaller.

Matt stood in the narrow aisle. Looked down.

"…I may have underestimated volume." Someone knocked lightly on the open doorframe. Matt looked out. His neighbor at C-88 sat in the usual lawn chair, except the beer had been replaced by morning coffee.

"Moving in again?" Matt looked at the mountain of equipment.

"Apparently." The man raised his mug and returned to whatever he was reading. Matt closed the door. Then stared at the mess. A random heap of mixed equipment covered his living space. Matt lasted about thirty seconds.

"No." He opened his laptop. Years in logistics had left scars. One of them was a pathological inability to tolerate unsorted inventory. New spreadsheet. BOSS CRAFTING BASES — ASHFIELD Item Type Base Name Item Level Requirements Rarity Notes Matt picked up the first sword. Scan. Type. Then the next item. Helmet. Gloves. Boots. Another sword. The white rarity clearly did not tell the entire story. Similar-looking items could have different Base Names, requirements, damage values, or Item Levels. Matt added all of it.

Not because he knew what it meant. Because he didn't.

"I don't know what's good yet." He typed another line.

"But I know how to inventory things." Weapons went to one side, armor to another, with shields, boots, and gloves separated into their own groups. Matt looked at the newly organized floor.

"This is disturbingly comfortable." Then Crafting Currency. That was worse. Matt emptied the secured Currency compartment of his loot bag onto the table. Shards, Orbs, tokens, crystalline pieces, metallic fragments. Multiple types. Multiple quantities. Matt had no idea which were common, expensive, dangerous to waste, or basically pocket change. Or which one Chloe would physically travel to Ohio to stop him from using on a Level Eight sword. He found an empty plastic storage bin and placed everything inside.

Then took masking tape. He wrote: CRAFTING Matt stared at it. Then added another line. FIGURE OUT LATER He nodded.

"Accurate." The bin went beside the desk. Not into deep storage. Matt had a feeling it wouldn't remain unopened for long. ◆ He took out his phone. BLACK HOLLOW GROUP Matt: boss down Ethan: BIRDS? Matt: dead Ethan: MY MAN Chloe: Level? Matt: 8 Chloe: Nice. Matt: about $3000 in mana stones Ethan: MONEY HAYES Matt: stop Matt looked around. Then took a photo. The trailer floor. Neatly separated piles of completely Normal equipment. The plastic bin full of strange Dungeon Currency. He sent it. Matt: also this Silence.

Then: Ethan: did the boss explode a walmart Matt: basically Chloe: Normal bases? Matt: mostly Chloe: And currency? Matt: a lot Chloe: Keep it. Matt: Already did. A pause. Ethan: oh no Matt: what Ethan: you're going to craft aren't you Matt looked down. A clean Normal Iron Longsword rested across his knees. The bin sat beside him. Matt: maybe Ethan: MONEY HAYES IS ABOUT TO BECOME NO MONEY HAYES Matt winced.

"That is not encouraging." Another message appeared. Chloe: Research the currencies before using them. Matt: planned to Chloe: Especially the rarer ones. Matt: how do I know which ones are rare The typing indicator appeared. Then: Chloe: Exactly. Matt stared.

"…Fair." That was an excellent point. He knew exactly enough about Crafting to be dangerous. Not enough to know which button was expensive. Research first. ◆ Matt checked the time. 9: 30 AM. He stared at it.

"… That is unsettling." Matt made another coffee, corrected the temperature, and sat down. One new Passive Point waited at the edge of his interface. Rook's beginner build had more directions available beyond the first six. Matt could research that immediately. He didn't. The Boss Rush had given him a different problem to think about first. Yesterday, the optimization question had been: How do I kill Ashfield monsters faster? This morning, the Rabbit he had jumped over had provided another answer.

The fastest way to kill an irrelevant monster was— don't. Matt opened another spreadsheet tab. RUN TYPES FARM RUN Kill packs Collect loot Gather materials Optimize monster density Balance Mana use against kill speed BOSS RUSH Ignore irrelevant monsters Reach Boss quickly Use terrain shortcuts Preserve enough Mana and Flasks for Boss Beat competing runners to the objective Matt looked at the two columns. Same Dungeon. Same character. Same Skills. Different objective. Different optimal behavior.

"You don't optimize combat." He paused. Not quite.

"You optimize the objective." Better. That was also why the movement-Skill spam that had always looked so ridiculous in games worked. Matt sighed.

"Movement spam is unfortunately correct." Possibly the most disturbing lesson of the morning. His cursor moved toward the Passive Tree. Then stopped.

"Guide first." He closed it. No improvising because he had won one Boss fight. Rook would probably sense it from another state. ◆ Matt opened his personal Dungeon Record instead. Two entries mattered. BLACK HOLLOW MINE — F First Clear Complete ASHFIELD ORCHARD — F First Clear Complete Matt stared at them.

"Two." A tiny number. The national Dungeon map contained more markers than he could reasonably process. F-ranks. E-ranks. D-ranks. Higher. Every state. Every direction. He had cleared two. One in West Virginia. One in Ohio. Not bad. Also not finished. Ashfield Orchard recommended Levels Four through Ten. Matt was Eight. Killing the Boss didn't mean he needed to hitch the trailer and leave this afternoon. There were still monsters to farm, loot to find, Skills to practice, experience to gain— and now Crafting.

Matt looked toward the plastic bin. Black Hollow's Boss had given him one extremely valuable finished tool. Ashfield's Boss had given him plain equipment and the resources that might turn some of it into something better. Matt picked up the Iron Longsword. IRON LONGSWORD Rarity: Normal No affixes. No bonuses. No glowing text. Yesterday, Matt would have glanced at it and moved on. Now he knew enough to ask different questions. What Base Type was good? What did Item Level change?

Which Currency worked on which rarity? What happened when you started Crafting a Normal item? How expensive could the process become? Could a plain sword become better than something that dropped Magic? Rare? How much was deterministic? How much was luck? Matt slowly smiled.

"Oh, this is going to be a problem." He opened a new browser tab and typed: BEGINNER EQUIPMENT CRAFTING GUIDE Results appeared immediately. Dozens. Hundreds. Videos, articles, forum posts, Build sites. Matt read the first few titles. BEGINNER CRAFTING: STOP WASTING GOOD BASES NORMAL ITEMS ARE NOT ALL THE SAME ITEM LEVEL FOR PEOPLE WHO HATE READING TOOLTIPS YOUR FIRST CRAFTED WEAPON I SPENT $10, 000 CRAFTING A LEVEL 12 SWORD SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO Matt stopped at the last one.

"…No." He hovered over it. Then deliberately moved the cursor away. One step at a time. Matt picked up one unfamiliar piece of Crafting Currency from the bin. Looked at the white sword. For a brief moment, the temptation was almost overwhelming. Use it. See what happens. That was how games worked. Click. Learn. Except this wasn't a game where he could reload a save. The Currency was real. The item was real. The money was real. Matt put the Currency back.

"Research first." He reopened the beginner guide. The Orchard Keeper had dropped three thousand dollars in Mana Stones. That money was already solved. Safely in his account. The plain white longsword rested across his knees. A box of Crafting Currency sat beside the laptop. That was still unsolved. Much more interesting. Matt clicked the first guide.

"Okay." He turned the unmodified sword over in his hands.

"Let's ruin some perfectly good equipment."