Chương 22: Apparently, Taking a Day Off Is Progression

The morning alarm went off inside Matt's trailer. He reached out and silenced it without opening his eyes. Ironvale Works was already producing its usual soundtrack outside. Heavy engines moved through Camp, backup alarms beeped somewhere across the paved lanes, and metal struck metal in the distance. Beneath everything came the familiar rhythm from the Dungeon. THUNK. THUNK. THUNK. The Dungeon apparently believed silence was inefficient. Matt didn't mind it today. He was Level Eleven.

Two Passive Points were waiting. Multistrike was socketed into Cleave. COPY had three active slots. And somewhere on the desk sat a twenty-thousand-dollar Unique Belt that may or may not have already convinced part of his brain that it was cursed. Matt got out of bed. Coffee first. He briefly slotted Perfect Temperature, corrected the mug exactly where he wanted it, then switched into his morning Crafting setup. All four copied Crafting Skills had reset overnight.

"Let's get to work." He had restocked the cheap clean Bases and common Currency from Ironvale's commodity market the night before, supplementing them with whatever worthwhile raw materials he had picked up personally. There was very little ceremony left in the process. The established defensive line came first. Ten cheap beginner Bases. Vital Imprint. Elemental Ward. Record the rolls. Move on.

The economics had remained stable long enough that Matt no longer needed to pretend every morning was a groundbreaking experiment. ESTABLISHED DEFENSIVE CRAFTING LINE Typical Full-Day Gross Sales: ≈ $4, 000–$4, 500 Gross. Not profit. Bases cost money. Currency cost money. Marketplace fees and taxes existed. Still, the line was reliable enough that Matt could use the range for planning. The weapon side remained less certain.

Weighted Edge and Quickened Temper let him guarantee Added Physical Damage and Attack Speed, but Tempered Edge remained B-rank and therefore outside COPY's current limit. Increased Physical Damage was still the gambling step. Matt had started describing the process as:"Manufacturing with gambling attached." Today he used the available weapon-Crafting capacity too. Yesterday, he had finally gathered enough practical information to stop treating every charge as a precious experiment.

This morning, he bought additional cheap clean Ironvale weapon and Glove Bases from the local market, combined them with his own drops, and started collecting actual production data. Some pieces came out worth selling. Some went into the experimental pile. A few looked promising enough to hold until he understood the market better. The spreadsheet still read: WEAPON CRAFTING — ECONOMIC DATA Sample Size: Insufficient Good enough.

By the time Matt finished breakfast, all four copied Crafting Skills were spent for the day. He packed the sellable pieces into padded containers. Then stood. Foundry Longsword. Armor. Flasks. His hand moved toward the equipment rack automatically. Matt stopped. The sword remained where it was. He looked at it. Then outside. Then at the planner on his table.

"No." Matt sat down again. That felt strangely difficult. He had quit his logistics job because he suddenly possessed money, time, and no idea what he wanted to do with either. Then he had discovered Delving. Truck. Trailer. Dungeons. Loot. Builds. It had sounded fun. It was fun. Very fun. Unfortunately, somewhere between West Virginia and Indiana, Matt had managed to construct another schedule around Crafting, Dungeons, loot, and the market. He stared at the planner.

"I quit my job." A pause.

"Then apparently built another one." No supervisor was waiting outside. No quota. No shift manager. No one would dock his pay if he failed to enter Ironvale today. He was already thinking about leaving F-rank behind and testing E-rank. That didn't mean he needed to sprint toward it. More importantly, he did not actually have to enter a Dungeon every single day.

"Day off." Matt looked toward the containers of finished Gear.

"After work." He wasn't going to waste forty daily Crafting activations just to prove a philosophical point. But after dropping the batch at the Marketplace Dispatch Counter? The rest of the day was his. Matt left the sword behind. Armor too. Fortune's Harness stayed on the desk beside his Combat Belt. Jeans. T-shirt. Coffee. That was enough. Then he stopped in the doorway. His eyes moved toward the laundry hamper wedged beside the bathroom. It had been there for a while.

Matt considered pretending not to have seen it.

"…Right." He had chosen Ironvale partly because a Camp review had mentioned twenty-four commercial washing machines. At the time, that had seemed extremely important. He had subsequently spent every day walking past the laundry building. Matt grabbed the hamper.

"Day off." He looked at the clothes.

"With chores." Somehow that made it feel more legitimate. ◆ Matt's first stop was the Marketplace Dispatch Counter. The staff verified the morning batch, sealed the sellable Gear into insured consignment, and activated the listings. After that, the logistics network could handle the rest. Matt picked up the laundry hamper again. And, for the first time since arriving at Ironvale Works, walked through Camp without treating the shortest route between two productive destinations as the only part worth seeing.

Technically, he still had somewhere to go. The laundry building was somewhere. But nobody was waiting for him there. Nothing would die if he arrived ten minutes late. The washing machines did not care about his Level. Close enough. Matt's brain kept trying to identify useful landmarks anyway. Gate. Crafter Row. Market. Camp Office. Fuel. Trailer. Those mattered. Everything between them had mostly registered as infrastructure. Today, Matt actually looked. Ironvale Camp was enormous.

Paved roads ran between pickups, trailers, RVs, expedition vehicles, work trucks, service vans, and equipment haulers. Some rigs looked expensive enough to qualify as houses. Others looked as if one more bad pothole might detach a door. Delvers were everywhere. A group outside an RV played cards while one of them drank a beer despite it still being morning. Someone cleaned an enormous axe. Scorched armor hung from a portable rack to dry. Two people argued over a grill. A pair of Delvers slept in folding chairs.

A family loaded groceries into a trailer. A Crafter carried a box of unidentified metal parts toward a workshop. Matt slowed.

"… There are a lot of people here." Ridiculous observation. Of course there were. The Ironvale Instance terminal routinely showed dozens of people inside one version of the Dungeon. The Camp supported all of them. Matt had simply treated most of its human population as background scenery. He took another sip of coffee. Then noticed one of the sleeping Delvers. The man was sprawled in a folding chair beside a running truck. Not an electric vehicle. A large diesel truck. The engine vibrated through the pavement.

Nearby, a mechanic worked beside an open generator. Something heavy fell. CLANG. The sleeping man didn't move. Matt stopped.

"…How?" Another Delver stepped out of a nearby trailer and nudged the sleeper's boot.

"Lunch in thirty." The man cracked one eye open.

"Got it." Then closed it again. He shifted his head against the chair. Activated something. COPY reacted. UNIQUE SKILL OBSERVED SOUND SLEEP — F Active Effect Activated before sleeping. Allows the user to enter and maintain restful sleep despite ordinary environmental noise, light, uncomfortable sleeping conditions, or similar external discomfort. Provides no protection from actual danger. Flavor Text The world may refuse to be quiet. You do not have to listen. Matt stared.

"…Oh." He didn't hesitate.

"Copy." COPY COMPLETE — Sound Sleep — F Matt looked at the running truck. Then at the man sleeping peacefully beside it.

"That is actually excellent." Combat value? Basically nonexistent. Boss fight? Probably useless. Road trip? Completely different calculation. Noisy Camps. Truck stops. Rest areas. Cheap motels. Somebody deciding that Matt's trailer absolutely needed a generator six feet from the bedroom wall. None of those had to ruin a night's sleep anymore. And actual sleep before a Dungeon was not exactly optional. Matt smiled.

"Archive." He resumed walking. Something important had changed. Not COPY itself. Matt's understanding of what he should be looking for. Until now, most people he deliberately watched were obviously valuable. Combat Delvers. Crafters. Boss runners. People whose Unique Skills could improve his fighting, Gear, or income. But almost every ability user had a Unique Skill. Which meant entire categories of useful abilities were sitting around him every day, never announcing themselves with explosions or giant numbers.

Matt looked across the Camp again.

"… I should probably do this more often." ◆ The laundry building was exactly as advertised. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Twenty-four commercial machines. Concrete floor. Fluorescent lights. A bank of dryers along the back wall. Long folding tables. A vending machine that appeared to have survived multiple wars. And a room full of superhuman monster hunters watching their clothes spin. Matt loaded a washer, paid, and sat on a plastic chair.

A woman in her forties folded towels with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done this in dozens of Camps. Two men debated whether Dungeon soot came out better in hot or cold water. Someone's armor padding repeatedly thumped against a dryer drum. A young Delver sat cross-legged on a folding table reading a Dungeon guide. Nobody was doing anything remarkable. That was the remarkable part. Matt leaned back against the wall. For thirty-eight minutes, he had absolutely nothing to optimize.

It was deeply uncomfortable. Then, eventually, it wasn't. ◆ His next discovery happened near the Camp restroom and shower facilities. Two lightly equipped Delvers were checking their packs before heading toward the Gate. One nodded toward the restroom.

"You going before we head in?" The other shook his head.

"Don't need to."

"We're doing the long route."

"Still don't need to." Matt slowed just enough to remain within sight. The second Delver activated a Unique Skill. COPY immediately responded. UNIQUE SKILL OBSERVED CLOSED LOOP — C Active / Toggle Effect While active, the user's normal physiological need for bodily waste elimination is suspended without discomfort. Does not replace food or hydration and does not neutralize harmful foreign substances. Flavor Text Civilization invented plumbing. The System invented patience. Matt stopped.

"…" He read the Rank again. C.

"…C?" He had seen combat abilities ranked lower. Matt considered the actual utility. Long Dungeon route. Boss Rush. Rescue work. Extended travel. Any situation where stopping at the wrong time was inconvenient or impossible. The ability removed an entire category of biological interruption. Matt's expression changed.

"…Wait." He looked toward the two Delvers walking away.

"That's incredibly useful." Not glamorous. Operationally excellent.

"Copy." COPY COMPLETE — Closed Loop — C Matt continued staring after them. C-rank. Weird. Extremely practical.

"That's going in the weirdly useful folder." There was no weirdly useful folder. There probably should be. ◆ The food-truck area was busy by the time Matt reached it. Dungeon Camps didn't really have normal meal schedules. Someone coming off an overnight run might be eating dinner while another Delver bought breakfast before entering the Gate. Burritos. Burgers. Coffee. Protein-heavy meals advertised specifically toward physical Delvers. And ice cream. Matt stopped.

"It's morning." Several customers clearly considered that irrelevant. He bought a breakfast burrito from the least crowded truck and took it to a picnic table. A heavily built man in a soot-stained jacket occupied the far end with an enormous plate of eggs. He nodded at Matt. Matt nodded back. Neither spoke for several minutes. That was fine. The burrito was excellent. Matt ate slowly, which was not something he had done much since arriving in Indiana. Usually food happened between other tasks.

Fuel between Dungeon and market. Today it was breakfast. The man eventually spoke.

"Not running today?"

"Day off." The man grunted approvingly.

"Good." Then went back to his eggs. That was the entire conversation. Matt liked it. At another picnic table, a young woman held out one hand toward her friend.

"You want one?" Her friend looked over.

"Seriously?" The woman activated a Unique Skill. A small cup of ice cream appeared in her palm. COPY reacted. UNIQUE SKILL OBSERVED A SPOONFUL OF HAPPINESS — F Active Effect Once per day, creates one serving of an ice cream the user has personally eaten before. The recreated ice cream matches the remembered flavor. Flavor Text Some miracles save the world. This one saves dessert. Matt stared.

"…" This required genuine thought. Combat value? None. Dungeon logistics? Barely. Business potential? One serving per day was not an industrial-scale operation. Then Matt remembered the relevant part of COPY. Unlimited storage. He looked at the Skill again.

"Free ice cream is still free ice cream."

"Copy." COPY COMPLETE — A Spoonful of Happiness — F Matt walked away smiling. No Dungeon. No combat. One load of laundry. Three copied Unique Skills already.

"This is going disturbingly well." ◆ The outdoor training area was more crowded than Matt expected. Individual Delvers tested equipment on practice targets. A small group ran movement drills. Farther across the field, an Atlantic Delver Academy training cohort rotated through a simulated retreat exercise under an instructor's whistle. Not Ethan and Chloe. Different group. Matching training Gear. Organized roles. Students. The instructor blew the whistle.

"Again!" Several students began another retreat drill. One carried a heavy shield. By the time they reached the end, his breathing was visibly worse than the others. The instructor looked at him.

"Can you continue?" The student took a breath.

"Yeah." He activated a Unique Skill. COPY responded. UNIQUE SKILL OBSERVED SECOND WIND — C Active Effect Temporarily suppresses accumulated physical fatigue and allows the user to continue physical exertion normally. Does not restore Life or Mana. Flavor Text Tired is not the same as finished. Matt's expression changed.

"…That one's good."

"Copy." COPY COMPLETE — Second Wind — C The distinction mattered. Not healing. Not Life restoration. Not Mana. Fatigue. An exhausted body could temporarily keep performing as if the accumulated physical exhaustion wasn't there. Emergency evacuation. Long exploration. Rescue work. A Boss fight that lasted much longer than planned. Matt probably wasn't replacing one of his default combat copies with Second Wind today. As an Archive option? Absolutely.

One of the students resting near the edge of the field noticed him.

"Trailer guy." Matt looked over.

"…Is that what I am?" The student laughed.

"You're staying at Ironvale?"

"Probably not much longer."

"Where next?" Matt glanced toward the Gate.

"Thinking E-rank." That attracted a little more attention. Another student looked over.

"Already?" Matt shrugged.

"I'm Level Eleven." The instructor approached. He didn't launch into a lecture. He simply said:"If you're moving to E, research the Dungeon before you drive there." Matt nodded.

"I always do."

"Good." That was apparently the entire speech. Matt appreciated it. ◆ The corporate Delver group was impossible to miss. Same logo. Same trucks. Same equipment cases. Same awnings. Same general family of armor. The complete opposite of the independent Delver areas, where everyone looked as if they had assembled their builds from completely unrelated Marketplace tabs. Matt stopped near the training lane. Several younger Delvers were running drills while support personnel moved between them.

A quartermaster inspected returned Gear. Replacement equipment sat in labeled cases. Flasks were being distributed in organized batches. Matt's Crafting experience made something obvious. These people were not wearing random beginner equipment. Life. Resistance. Useful defensive coverage. Across the entire group. Not necessarily perfect. Not individually optimized down to every roll. Consistent. Matt stared.

"…That's expensive." One trainee stepped onto a firing lane carrying a Dungeon-native firearm. She raised it. There was a slight movement in her hands. Then she activated a Skill. The tiny motion vanished. COPY responded. UNIQUE SKILL OBSERVED STEADY HAND — C Active / Toggle Effect Suppresses small involuntary movement in the user's hands and arms while performing precise actions. Useful for aimed weapons, tools, and other fine manual work. Flavor Text The target was never shaking. Matt blinked.

"Copy." COPY COMPLETE — Steady Hand — C He looked at his hands. Sword Warrior. No gun. No bow. Still useful. Aimed weapon someday. Tools. Precision work. Another answer stored for a problem he might not have encountered yet.

"Archive." Matt stayed near the training lane. The corporate operation itself had become more interesting than the Skill. Everything was organized. Equipment inspected. Supplies logged. Damaged Gear separated. Replacement sets prepared. Matt had spent years in logistics. He knew what a system looked like when someone had paid a lot of money to make uncertainty boring.

"Corporate team." A voice behind him answered.

"Not exactly rare." Matt turned. A relaxed-looking man sat beside a neighboring RV with a cup in one hand. Matt nodded.

"I know." He looked back at the corporate Delvers.

"I just realized I haven't actually been looking around." The man raised an eyebrow.

"…Huh?"

"Gate. Market. Crafter Row. Trailer." Matt gestured around them.

"Apparently there's an entire Camp between those places." The man laughed.

"Model Delver."

"That sounds insulting."

"A little." Matt stayed by the fence.

"So they're employees?"

"Yeah."

"Delvers working for a corporation."

"A lot of people do." A quartermaster handed a replacement piece of Gear to one of the trainees. Matt watched.

"What's the appeal?" The man lifted his cup toward the operation.

"You're looking at it." ◆"Gear," the man said.

"Every beginner over there has something usable." Matt nodded. He could see that.

"Life. Resistance. Flasks. replacement equipment. Skill Gems. Support Gear. The company buys in volume, keeps stock, and moves it where it needs to go." That language Matt understood immediately.

"A bad drop doesn't leave one employee wearing garbage for a week."

"Exactly." An independent Delver needed to find something, buy something, Craft something, or continue using whatever was already equipped. A corporate operation could pull an appropriate prepared item from mundane inventory and hand it to whoever needed it. Matt watched one trainee return damaged armor. A replacement appeared almost immediately.

"That would have been nice in Black Hollow."

"That's why people sign contracts." Matt considered the obvious downside.

"What happens when one of them finds something expensive?"

"Depends on the contract."

"Unique?"

"Company usually handles the item. Employee gets compensated." Matt grimaced slightly.

"How much?"

"Good contracts can get pretty generous. Qualifying finds can get close to a half split."

"Half?" The man looked amused.

"You didn't buy the Gear." He pointed toward the trucks.

"You didn't buy those either. Company pays Camp fees, training, logistics, replacement inventory, travel support." Matt considered it.

"…Fair." Not necessarily pleasant. But fair. He looked at the group again.

"An independent party gets excited when it sees a valuable Unique."

"Sure."

"How often does a company like this see one?" The man smiled.

"The company?"

"Yeah."

"Every day." Matt looked at him.

"Every day?"

"They have teams running Dungeons across the country." Ah. Not this team. The organization. One team found a valuable Base. Another hit a Unique. Another brought in Mana Stones. Another acquired rare Crafting Currency. The company aggregated the randomness, sorted the output, and redistributed whatever was useful. Matt's logistics brain clicked into place.

"So one team gets lucky." He pointed toward the trainees.

"And another team gets the Gear." The man smiled.

"Now you're thinking corporate." That was extremely powerful. Not because individual employees possessed impossible luck. Because the organization had volume. Human-scale randomness became industrial consistency. Matt almost admired it. Almost. Then he remembered yesterday.

"Do they do the Belt thing?" The man looked over.

"What Belt thing?"

"Item Rarity. Swapping Gear before the finishing blow."

"Ah." The man drank from his cup.

"Amateurs do that." Matt waited.

"Companies just employ somebody whose job is landing the final hit in Magic Find Gear." Matt stared.

"…Of course they do."

"Salaried."

"Of course." The stupidest tactic Matt had learned about all week had a job title somewhere. That felt completely appropriate.

"Pay decent?"

"For active field work? Two thousand a day isn't difficult for a competent corporate Delver." Matt stopped.

"…That's good." His brain immediately tried to compare the number with the daily Crafting line. Then he stopped himself. His situation involved an SSS-rank COPY Skill quietly collecting monetizable Crafting abilities. That was not a normal baseline. For an ordinary Delver? Company backing and high field pay was a strong proposition.

"Then why stay independent?" Matt asked. The man laughed.

"Because there's a second page." ◆"First, you don't always pick your build." Matt immediately frowned. The man nodded toward the trainees.

"Company invests in you. Your Unique says you're good at holding a line, your Stats fit it, their analysts already have a tested route." He mimed handing something over.

"Congratulations. You're the shield guy." Matt's expression worsened.

"Approved defensive Passives. Approved Skills. Approved Supports."

"What if I want a bow?"

"Maybe they say no." Matt visibly recoiled.

"…I would hate that."

"A lot of people would." Buildcraft had become one of Matt's favorite parts of Delving. The idea of someone examining his Passive Tree and telling him what he was authorized to click felt personally offensive.

"Second?"

"Destination." Matt nodded.

"Company chooses."

"Usually."

"So it's still a road trip."

"Sure."

"But someone else chooses the road."

"Exactly." Matt considered that.

"…Worse road trip." The man laughed.

"Third, the Gear."

"I thought that was the good part."

"It is. Company wants employees alive." Reasonable.

"Dead employees are bad business." Also reasonable.

"So they issue whatever meets the benchmarks. Life. Resistance. Defense. Enough to keep personnel functional." He looked at Matt.

"But if you personally know you can afford something substantially better, do you want to trust your life to whatever the company decided was enough?" Matt didn't need long.

"No."

"Exactly. Plenty of employees spend their own money improving company setups anyway." Matt frowned.

"So you get company Gear and then buy Gear on top of it."

"Some do."

"Independent still sounds better." The man tilted his head.

"You're missing a big advantage." Matt considered everything he'd heard.

"Money?"

"Credit." Matt blinked.

"What?" The man leaned forward slightly.

"A-rank and above is a different world. Reputation. public records. Companies competing for you. Banks know what they're looking at." Matt nodded.

"Below that, walk into a bank as an independent Delver and tell them you make great money."

"Okay."

"They ask whether it's stable." Matt winced.

"You tell them it depends on what dropped this month."

"Right."

"They ask what happens if you get hurt. Whether you have a salary. Employment history. Benefits." Matt laughed.

"You're telling me a superhuman can get rejected for a mortgage?"

"A superhuman with irregular income and a dangerous job?" The man nodded.

"Absolutely."

"That seems unfair."

"Your Level isn't collateral." A pause.

"If you die, the bank can't repossess your Stats." Matt laughed again.

"That is a very good point." A corporate employee had a salary. Employment history. Institutional backing. Things ordinary society already knew how to model. Matt considered it.

"I don't need a house." The man looked toward Matt's trailer.

"You're living in one with wheels."

"Exactly."

"Marriage?" Matt stopped. The man smiled.

"Retirement?"

"…Okay."

"Eventually you might want an address that doesn't move."

"Unproven." The man laughed. Matt understood the broader point. Corporate Delving wasn't simply a company stealing half your loot. It exchanged freedom for infrastructure. Some upside for predictability. Personal control for stability. For someone entering Delving without much capital, the corporation could also finance Gear, training, travel, stronger teammates, and progression support. Matt had begun with a hundred-thousand-dollar severance package.

Then COPY had accidentally turned him into a low-Level manufacturing operation. He was not a normal comparison. Corporate Delving made much more sense when you didn't have an SSS-rank money printer hiding in your soul. Matt kept that thought to himself. Instead, he extended a hand.

"I'm Matt."

"Wes." They shook.

"You staying at Ironvale long?" Wes shrugged.

"Maybe. You?"

"Probably moving soon."

"Where?" Matt looked toward the Gate.

"Thinking about E-rank." Wes's relaxed expression changed slightly. Not alarmed. Interested.

"Level?"

"Eleven." Wes considered him.

"Enough to start looking." Not: You'll be fine. Not: You're too weak. Just: Start looking. Matt liked that answer.

"What Level are you?"

"Thirty-five." Matt stared.

"…" Then:"Wow." Wes laughed. Matt glanced toward the F-rank Gate. Then back.

"You're way past this."

"Yes."

"What do you usually run?"

"D. Sometimes C with the right group."

"Then why are you here?" Wes took another drink.

"There's no rule saying I have to spend every day inside the hardest Dungeon I can survive."

"EXP?"

"Not everything is EXP." Matt waited. Wes gestured around the Camp.

"You know what happens if you risk your life every day of the year?" Matt considered.

"You level fast?"

"You go insane." Matt laughed. Wes leaned back.

"Although maybe the people crazy enough to do it are the ones who eventually hit A."

"…Comforting."

"That was a joke."

"I hoped so." Mostly. Wes's tone became more serious.

"F-rank is forgiving." Matt listened.

"It gives beginners room. Bad position? Recover. Misread a mechanic? Hopefully survive it and learn. Gear isn't perfect? There's usually margin." Wes looked toward the Gate.

"E gives you less room." That landed differently from a simple statement about stronger monsters.

"Hits matter more," Wes continued.

"Bad positioning matters more. Misreading mechanics matters more. Eventually you start making decisions with your Life bar as the stake." Matt frowned.

"Literally?"

"Your Life bar first." Wes looked directly at him.

"If you screw that up badly enough, the other kind." Matt understood. Life was the System's protective margin. Let it reach zero and the protection disappeared with it. Abilities stopped being the important problem. Then you were a human being standing in front of a Dungeon monster. Wes didn't dramatize it.

"People clear E-ranks every day. Good Gear. Good information. Know your exit." Then:"Don't get clever just because F stopped scaring you." Matt narrowed his eyes.

"…That last one was aimed at me."

"Little bit."

"Fair." Matt hesitated. Then admitted:"I bought Fortune's Harness yesterday." Wes stared.

"The twenty-thousand-dollar Belt?"

"Yeah."

"First day wearing it?"

"Unique dropped." Wes closed his eyes for a moment.

"Oh, that's dangerous." Matt blinked.

"The Belt?"

"Your brain." Matt started laughing.

"Chloe said basically the same thing."

"Good Chloe."

"I know it could've been random."

"Could've been."

"Or the Belt."

"Could've been."

"That is not helpful." Wes smiled.

"Welcome to Magic Find." Matt sighed.

"First E-rank?" Wes asked. Matt answered immediately.

"Combat Belt."

"Good."

"Fortune stays in the trailer."

"Better." Matt nodded. No argument. Not on the first E-rank. The Belt could psychologically torture him again later. ◆ Wes gestured toward the Camp.

"And do this." Matt looked around.

"Do what?"

"This." People eating. Talking. Repairing Gear. Training. Sitting outside RVs. Doing absolutely nothing for experience.

"Take days where you don't enter a Gate." Matt glanced toward his trailer.

"I did work this morning." Wes looked unsurprised.

"You seem like the type."

"I had forty Crafting activations."

"I don't know what that means."

"Money."

"Of course." Matt smiled.

"I also did laundry." Wes pointed at him.

"That one counts." Matt considered arguing. Then didn't.

"Fine. Take days where you only work in the trailer," Wes said.

"Acceptable." Wes looked toward the corporate trainees.

"A lot of new Delvers think progression means being inside a Dungeon." Matt listened.

"It doesn't." Wes counted casually.

"Gear is progression."

"Information is progression."

"Rest is progression."

"Knowing people is progression." Matt thought about his day. Five new COPY targets. Corporate Delving. E-rank advice from a Level Thirty-Five veteran. Clean laundry. All without killing anything.

"…Yeah." Matt nodded.

"Thanks." Wes looked at him.

"For what?"

"Career counseling."

"I bill by the hour." Matt smiled.

"Send it to the corporation."

"That joke doesn't work when neither of us works for them."

"I know." Wes laughed. Matt pushed away from the fence.

"Good luck."

"You too." Matt had taken several steps when Wes called after him.

"Matt." He looked back.

"Don't rush it because F got easy." Matt nodded.

"Got it." ◆ Matt collected his laundry on the way back. Warm. Dry. Smelling like something other than a Construct Dungeon. He folded everything at one of the tables because carrying it loose after waiting thirty-eight minutes seemed offensive. Then he didn't return directly to the trailer. That felt like it would defeat the point. Matt kept walking. This time deliberately. A repair crew had damaged plate armor spread across a worktable. Two Delvers argued about where to drive next.

A family RV had outdoor chairs arranged beneath an awning while someone cooked. Crafter Row remained busy. Corporate teams came and went. Students trained. Veterans rested. Beginners looked nervous near the Gate. People returned covered in soot and left carrying fresh equipment. Matt had originally thought of Dungeon Camps as parking lots attached to portals. That was wrong.

They were temporary towns built around impossible places, complete with their own markets, services, jobs, social circles, supply chains, and rhythms. Matt had spent most of his stay moving through one with the mental equivalent of blinders on. He finished the coffee. There were probably thousands of Unique Skills being activated around him every day. Most wouldn't be useful. That didn't matter. COPY's Archive was unlimited. Matt smiled.

"This might be a problem." ◆ Back in the trailer, Matt put the clean laundry away first. Then he checked the Archive. Five new Skills had brought the total to sixteen. NEW COPIES Sound Sleep — F Closed Loop — C A Spoonful of Happiness — F Second Wind — C Steady Hand — C Matt stared at the list.

"I didn't enter a Dungeon." Five new Skills.

"That is a good day." Only three copies could be active at once. Yesterday, three slots had felt enormous. Today he had added sleep, long-route utility, fatigue suppression, precision, and magical dessert.

"…Three slots is already not enough again." That was probably the point. Unlimited library. Limited loadout. COPY gave Matt answers. It did not let him carry every answer simultaneously. His eyes paused on one entry. A SPOONFUL OF HAPPINESS — F Matt stared.

"Right." Once per day. He hadn't used his copied version. Matt activated it. Something cold appeared in his hand. A small serving of ice cream. A familiar flavor he had personally eaten before. Matt stared. Then took a bite. Exactly right. Cold. Sweet. Ice cream. No hidden drawback. No bizarre System interpretation. No monster involved. Matt swallowed.

"…Okay." Another bite.

"This one's good." For a brief moment, his brain attempted to calculate the market value of one magically generated serving per day. Matt stopped it. His Crafting operation already existed. There was absolutely no reason to turn dessert into another revenue stream.

"We're not monetizing dessert." That sounded like a healthy boundary. ◆ That evening, Matt opened the National Dungeon Map. Search. Rank: E Wes's warning returned. Don't rush it because F got easy. Matt added his practical filters. NEXT DUNGEON SEARCH Rank: E Travel Trailer Access: Required Results populated. Matt started reading. Locations. Camp information. Dungeon themes. Hazard summaries. Recommended preparation. Community build discussions. He did not choose a destination. Not yet.

"Research first." Two Passive Points were waiting. His next Gear decisions should depend on what the next Dungeon actually demanded. He had a Combat Belt. Support options. Multiple COPY loadouts. No reason to solve a problem before knowing what the problem was. Matt looked toward the desk. Fortune's Harness rested beside the Combat Belt. He pointed at the Unique.

"And you're staying here." No response.

"First E-rank gets the Combat Belt." Still nothing.

"Good." Matt opened the planner. NEXT Research first E-rank Dungeon Check recommended Gear and Resistances Read Rook's Passive continuation — two Points waiting Review escape procedures Combat Belt for first run Choose route Do not let Ethan convince me to wear Fortune's Matt stared at the final line. Then added: Take another day off eventually. He looked at the word.

"Eventually." Matt sighed.

"Still an office drone at heart." ◆ Ironvale grew louder again as another wave of Delvers returned from the Gate. Equipment carts rolled past outside. A truck reversed somewhere nearby. Metal clanged. Someone shouted. A generator continued doing whatever generators did when specifically positioned near people trying to sleep. Matt lay down. Clean sheets. That had also been today. Then he remembered something. Sound Sleep.

"Might as well." Matt activated the copied Skill. The Camp did not become silent. The truck was still there. The generator kept running. Metal continued striking metal somewhere in the distance. The sounds simply stopped preventing Matt from settling into sleep. He relaxed. No experience today. No Boss loot. No Mana Stone farming.

Instead, Matt had added five Unique Skills to the Archive, learned how corporate Delving turned randomness into infrastructure, met a Level Thirty-Five veteran, received his first useful warning about E-rank, and discovered that an entire town existed outside the shortest path between his trailer and the Gate. Also his socks were clean. Not bad. His eyes closed. The noise outside continued. It didn't keep him awake. Matt's last coherent thought was irritatingly simple.

Apparently, taking a day off counted as progression too.