Delving Deeper into the Hollows

Den and Chad the Dudebro packed their tools into the team vehicle. Den was exhausted enough he was nodding to sleep on his feet, but the Dudebro took no notice, going on and on about who won their wrestling matches or what was the best position in the suburb’s local festival. Did Den look like he was interested? No. But he no longer had internet to listen to music to clearly show his desire to be left alone.

“The Running of the Gambit is in only a couple months,” Dudebro said, slamming the vehicle door shut. “You should join us. It’s the best event of the year here in the old two-three.”

Den quickly shook his head. “No, thanks, uh-- I’m good,” he said. Den had never gone to a festival in Starter Town. All those people and outdoors events? Yeah-- that was not his scene. The thought of having to force himself to make conversation with other normies like Chad drained his people energy reserves in an instant.

The man laughed and gave Den his by now familiar confused smile, as if he could not comprehend why Den would answer that way. “You still don’t get how great it is? I guess I’ll just need to work harder to convince you!”

No please, Den thought. You really don’t have to.

He made his escape with the end of work and without any internet to connect his phone to, Den could only head to the Hollows and hope that his party was meeting without any changes. The hills sang with cicadas and he itched a new mosquito bite on his wrist while he waited in the field in front of the Guildhouse. The Guildmaster slowly made his way around the building, cutting back the worst of the tall weeds. At the four o’clock meeting time, Rika and Grengalheim arrived to find Den laying on his back staring up at the clouds through a hole in the shimmering green canopy. It was a beautiful day, but Den was iching and restless. How did people ever survive without the internet?

The moment they saw him, Grengalheim clicked his tongue and Rika grinned. “Pay up,” she said.

Grengalheim regretfully handed over a hundred doubloon coin. He fell into a squat next to Den. “I didn’t think you would show. I expected you to wake up tomorrow morning after sleeping all day.”

“But this is Den we’re talking about,” Rika said, gesturing at Den’s prone body. “He’s half dead but still here. I wouldn’t have been too surprised though... Back when I pulled all nighters drawing, I’d wake up in the middle of the night after missing a whole day.” She crossed her arms and looked down at him with an exacerbated grin. “But why are you here?”

Den could only give a weak smile. He’d almost fallen asleep in the grass waiting for them and his whole body ached savagely, but the thought of skipping a day hadn’t even crossed his mind. “This is all I have,” he said. “If I don’t come, I’m not going to make it.”

“Why are you not responding to the group chat then?” she asked.

He explained his newest predicament, and in his great benevolence, Grengalheim connected Den to his phone’s hotspot. The wonderful moment of getting all the notifications he had missed flowing into his phone gave Den new life.

While he got up, quickly checking ChaosChat and his other apps, Rika crossed her arms and turned away. “You can take a rest day if you need it, you know,” she said. “It’s not like I’m worried about you or anything, just so you know.”

Den looked up from his phone, a smirk growing on his face. Did she really just say that? Rika was worried about him? “You’re just worried I’m going to become a higher level than you if I make it in more often.”

“That’s not true!” she said, her shoulders rising. “As leader, it is my duty to make sure my teammates are not overworking themselves.”

Did he really look that beat-up? The sentiment pierced Den like needles, his excitement he’d managed to cultivate hissing out of him. “I promise I won’t hold you back,” he said.

Rika’s eyebrows drew together. “You’re tough, Den. I like that. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t disappoint you,” he said, balling his fists. He wanted to be done with that. He was going to give his everything now. He would not be the one to make the team unable to reach their goals.

They pushed into the Third Layer by teleporting down at the Connecting Crystal. This layer looked much like the last, but the tunnels were wider and taller, more sizable stalagmites rising up from the ground, giving more places for monsters to form and come at them. Den asked Grengalheim if each of the Layers were directly over each other, but it appeared that they existed more as pockets wrapping around deeper and deeper under the great mound their suburb sat upon.

They made it past a skeleton mini-boss in good time thanks to Grengalheim now hulking around a sledge hammer. It put Den’s own hammer to shame. Embarrassed by his uselessness in the last skeleton battle, Grengalheim now made simple work of it, though he seemed disappointed in himself that he didn’t have a traditional adventurer’s weapon. As usual, Den pulled up the rear as they pushed on through a wide tunnel. His legs were dead, but he gritted his teeth and forced them to move. No complaining! Just keep moving! A flash of red eyes near the ground alerted Den to the arrival of a monster.

A small furry beast burst out of the shadows with shocking speed. A long nosed, tailed rodent scampered straight at Den. It was smaller than a cat, but even as Den swung to meet it with his go-to rodent dispatching screwdriver, the monster sprung up at him. It sank its teeth into his leg. Den screamed and stabbed it with his tool, quickly knocking it off and smashing it against the ground with his hammer.

The other two turned around to see him drop his hammer and hold his leg. The strange rodent burst into smoke, but stuck around long enough for the other two to get a glimpse. With wide eyes, Grengalheim ran to Den’s side.

“Did it bite you?” he asked, his voice holding an uncomfortable intensity.

“Yeah-- little shit,” Den said. He drew his hand back away from the wound to find purple liquid running with his blood. His heart skipped a beat. “What the hell is this?”

“That monster was a Solenodon. They have a venomous bite.” Grengalheim gritted his teeth and swung off his backpack.

“Is Den going to die?” Rika asked, running in, her face going white. “Are we going to have to cut off the leg?”

“Why are those the first two options you go to?” Den asked, unable to help the tremble in his voice.

“He should be okay,” Grengalheim said, pulling a plastic bottle out of his bag. It was filled with a sparkling pale blue liquid. Den recognized it as monster slime. He had collected a few bottles of it himself. “Pour some of this over the wound and drink some. That should counteract the poison.”

Den accepted the bottle but held it uncertainly. He’d seen the monsters they’d taken this from. He wasn’t very fond of the idea of drinking the acidic lifeblood of a slain enemy. He glanced back at Grengalheim. “Do I have to?” he asked, recognising how pathetic that plea sounded.

“We could cut off the leg instead if you want to wait and let it get to that point,” Grengalheim replied.

Slime potion it was then. He removed the lid and gave it a small sniff. As expected of a sparkling drink, it had a sharp carbonated smell. He poured it on the bite mark, surprised that the liquid ran easily like water as opposed to viscous slime. He sucked air through his teeth. The wound gave a soft hiss and the pain numbed.

“This is only a blue slime so don’t expect much on the healing factor. It’ll clean the wound and cut the pain at least,” Grengalheim explained. “Make sure to drink some too. We need to counteract any poison still in your body.”

Den gulped looking at the liquid. Squeezing his eyes shut, he brought the bottle to his lips and took a long drought. His eyes flew open in surprise. The drink wasn’t half bad. It was a bit sour, but it went down easily and left his mouth tingling. It only took a moment for the pleasant sensation to spread through his whole body. Like his leg, the pain he’d been feeling numbed. “Wow,” he said. “It’s not disgusting! And it's working.”

Grengalheim gripped his shoulder. “Glad we don’t have to cut off your leg.”

With the exhaustion and various aches and pains in his body numbed, they managed to fight their way through the rest of the layer with surprisingly little difficulty. Shortly after they exited the Primordial Hollows, however, the effect of the slime potion faded and a wave of exhaustion slammed down on Den. He fell back in the grass. “Ugh, everything hurts,” he said.

“I’m glad the slime potion lasted as long as it did,” Grengalheim said, “But what we can gather in the first Stratum is little more than an anti-bacterial and light anesthetic. It’s not really healing the wear and tear on your body.”

Den breathed heavily. “Still,” he said. “We made it past a mounted-skeleton thanks to that stuff.”

“You were awesome, Den!” Rika said, pumping her fists. “Even with just the three of us, if you are able to run around like that all the time, we’ll be able to make it through the First Stratum in no time!”

“Hold on there, Rika,” Grengalheim said, holding up a hand. “I know I said that should be the goal, but it’s still too early to be thinking like that. The Fifth Layer is a hurdle in of itself. Realistically, that’s all we should be hoping to complete right now. Rather than worrying about depth, we have more worrying priorities.”

Namely money.

When both Sam and Chloe finished work, the party met at their convenience store downtown. It was only nine at night but the sun had set and Den could barely keep his eyes open as he slouched in his corner seat. The party ate their meals while looking down at their phones in deep thought. Grengalheim ate from a plastic container of croquettes. Rika bounced in her seat humming to herself as she tore through fries and Chloe quietly but continuously made her way through a salad. Sam ate meat off a stick. All Den had been able to afford was a small beef bowl that had disappeared into his stomach but still left him ravenous.

“The deeper we press, the more likely it is that we’re going to run into an enemy we can’t deal with given our current weapon lineup. We need another Enchanted Item,” Sam said, squinting at their phone. “I’m already getting sick of skeletons.”

“Says the person in a skeleton onesie,” Den said with a raised eyebrow. His whole body hurt remembering their battles and his fingers twitched from the damage they’d left him with. Den allowed himself to hold his head up high. “Aren’t my rocks good enough?”

Grengalheim laughed. “Well, for now, yes. While reaching the Tenth Layer is on the backburner for now, it doesn’t change the fact that without another Enchanted Item it would be impossible for us right now.” Grengalheim looked over Chloe’s head at Sam. “Your Enchanted Item doesn’t have an affinity, does it?”

Sam shook their head. “Just an awesome klaboom.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. Only direct damage, huh? Same as my Slash Ring then,” Grengalheim said, leaning into his laced fingers deep in thought. “We don’t have a weapon that can hit with elemental damage. We can fumble our way through undead battles with simple bludgeoning damage like we have been, but in the not too distant future there will be monsters we simply can’t get by without elemental or magical damage.”

Den nodded. They needed more magic? You didn’t have to ask him twice. While stabbing rats with screwdrivers and bashing skeletons with rocks did the job, it was far from his ideal image of an adventurer. But while he was pretty proud of themselves for making it as far as they have with their current gettup, he didn’t really have a lot of confidence they would be able to keep delving deeper with only a sharpened stick and garage tools. “Alright, I guess we just have to bite the bullet and upgrade our gear.” The others didn’t speak. The bell at the door chimed as an old woman entered the store, welcomed by the staff. “What?” he asked. “What did I say wrong?”

“While it would be nice to have more Enchanted Items,” Rika said, looking off to the side with a distant gaze. “Aren’t they really expensive? I have other plans for my loot.”

“Chloe sees no problem with spending money on Enchanted Items,” Chloe said.

“This is coming from a girl who has a house full of Enchanted Items,” Grengalheim grumbled. “Can’t you just ask your mother for one or two? That would change our game.”

Chloe shook her head. “Chloe’s mother has never once let Chloe touch her collection. Mother believes that Grengalheim’s father’s consumption of Enchanted Items in the field is a great loss to the Empire’s history.”

“So there you have it, Den,” Grengalheim said with a sigh. “I would love to save up for an Enchanted Item, but as the owner of a convenience store, I just don’t have the capital. I need to spend my share on shoring up some of the loss this energy crisis has brought on.”

“Oh, come on, just how expensive could an Enchanted Item be?” Den asked. “It’s not like we’re trying to buy a house or a car.”

“You might as well be,” Sam said. “Have you really never looked at the item marketplace?”

Den shook his head. His parents used to laugh at people who were involved with the Hollows. He’d admired his grandfather, but until he arrived in the suburb, the world of magic had been completely out of mind.

Grengalheim lifted his phone and mashed the screen as he talked. “Let’s say anything was on the table. What we really could use is a holy or elemental object. They don’t use up much Essence Ore and would fill our magic needs.”

“That sounds great. How expensive are we talking?” Den asked.

“I’ve been afraid to check.” Grengalheim leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. He brushed the screen before turning the tablet back to face them. A photograph of a fist-sized white crystal sat in a velvet lined box. It was labeled as cut Grade A Essence Ore, a best seller. “This is the Guild Marketplace. This is the biggest and most reliable place to buy and sell Enchanted Items.”

“The issue is that with more people than ever thinking about the Hollows, Enchanted Items are more expensive than ever,” Sam said, finishing a meat stick and balancing the stick on their upper lip, leaning back in their seat and crossing their arms. “If we’re lacking elemental or sacred coverage, shouldn’t it just be easy enough to narrow our search?”

“I can try,” Grengalheim said. “I can’t imagine what would be in our range...” He exited the picture of the first item and manipulated the search filters.

Rika leaned in, squinting at the screen as the request loaded. Her eyes went wide. She swallowed her mouthful of food with difficulty and gasped for air. “Ooo! Let’s do this one!” she said, tapping the screen. She opened a photo of a gleaming red katana.

Chloe paused in her eating and lifted a hand to cover her mouth. “Chloe approves. Chloe wishes to destroy her enemies with such a weapon.”

“I saw it first!” Rika said. “I call it.”

Sam tapped the screen, making the item description appear. “The blade is at level 67 and was used by the Isekaijin EnochxEffervescence until his retirement and has since been passed down his line. It was used through the 77th Layer. It can summon and control fire and has been enchanted in order to unlock its third state transformation: Phoenix Rising.’”

“What does that even mean?” Den asked. That line of incredibly cool words sounded like they were written by a middle schooler writing about their OC. He couldn’t even imagine what kind of firepower they were talking about.

“I don’t know, but I want it!” Rika said, her eyes shining. “We definitely need this.”

“I’ve got a feeling this might be out of our pay range,” Sam said with a worried grin.

“I’d definitely throw in my paycheck from work for a weapon as awesome as this,” Rika said.

“Weren’t you the one who didn’t want to pay the Guild entrance fee?” Den said with a squint.

“I’m thrifty okay!” Rika said, leaving the picture and scrolling down the page. “Just how bad could it be?” She froze when she reached the price. “Wha-- what is this!?”

Chloe leaned in. “How many zeros is that? 6,700,000 doubloons?” She looked at Rika. “If your paycheck can pay for this, then you deserve to use it first.”

“Maybe we should organize from cheapest to more expensive?” Sam said, correcting the search.

When the order went through, Rika groaned. “These are so boring! Mini-rain cloud in a bottle? One-minute sapling seeds? Infinite candle!? Come on, we need to get out of these noob early game objects and find us a real weapon!”

“Why don’t you click on that infinite candle?” Grengalheim suggested, lifting his chin to Rika. “How much is it?”

She rolled her eyes but did as he asked. When she scrolled down the page, her mouth dropped open. 15,000 doubloons!? For a stupid candle?! What is this? That’s half a week's paycheck at my job!”

“With the demand as it is, it’s only going to get worse from here.” Grengalheim lifted his arms in a helpless shrug. “There are only so many Enchanted Items left. It’s not like we can make them anymore.” He sighed, poking at his dish of croquettes. “To think that Infinite birthday candles were once a First Layer drop item.”

“So what are we going to do?” Den asked. “I mean, if the marketplace is unreachable even if we did pool our resources, then what can we do?”

Grengalheim turned off his tablet screen and put it away in his bag. “We ask around and see if we can’t get a deal from someone we know.” He glanced quickly at Chloe, but she had returned her focus to her salad. “I do warn you that any item we might have a chance at won't be easy. It will be tens of thousands-- no, hundreds of thousands of doubloons.” He gave them all an even stare. Rika gulped at those numbers, her face going white. “Are you willing to go in together on that kind of investment? Is adventuring that important to you?”

Rika hesitated a moment, but her face hardened. “If that’s the kind of investment it takes to make adventuring pay back, I’ll do it.”

Chloe lifted a hand. “Chloe is willing to offer all her personal funds-- though it is regrettable to say her commission business is not particularly lucrative.”

Sam laughed weakly. “I’d be willing to go in on a good item. I know that without the right tools, we will never succeed. I have my part time jobs. There is literally nothing more worthy of those funds.”

The eyes of Den’s party members fell on him. He tightened his jaw. “I have no right to say what I want. I was given years to make my ideal work pay off and it didn’t. I lost all the things that brought me happiness. To be honest, the idea of putting so much hope in another thing…” He grabbed his chest. “It hurts.” He took a deep breath. “But our time together has been really fun. More fun and fulfilling than anything I've ever done. Even when I’m hurting, at least we’re all hurting together. That feels good. I’m not afraid to work hard and scrimp pennies if it means we can keep this up.”

Grengalheim nodded. “Thank you all for your honesty. It shouldn’t have to be said that in order to bring honor to my Great-grandfather’s name, I am all in too.” He rubbed his head. “I’ll ask around, but even if we do find someone selling, we better bet we won’t be the only ones ready to drop money. I’m afraid that even if we did all seriously pool our funds it still wouldn’t be enough.” He picked up his phone. “We could look into taking a few loans to make a downpayment--”

“No!” Rika shouted, slamming her fists down on the table.

Grengalheim paused and all eyes turned to their stoney-faced leader. She grinned sheepishly. “I just think it’s a little early for that, don’t you think? Shouldn’t we try to pay out of pocket even if it runs us dry?”

“We already have two, don’t we?” Sam said. “That’s actually pretty good. It’s not really like we can use Enchanted Items freely with the ridiculous Essence Ore cost they demand.”

Grengalheim again put down his phone with a shrug. He lifted his fist bearing a gleaming black ring. “I’ll start asking around for now. See if I can get any leads.”

“I do love my Pointy Stick,” Rika said in deep thought, lifting up her current Pointy Stick of Destruction in her right hand. “But I also love my Bashy Stick too.” She pulled up her other tool in her left. Was it really okay for her to be bringing those things in here?!

Den let out a sigh and looked out the dark windows. “I do look forward to when we can get our hands on Enchanted Items. I‘ll never feel like a real adventurer until I have an awesome one like my Grandfather’s old Smoke and Mirrors.”

“What was your grandfather’s Enchanted Item?” Sam asked.

“It was a reflection gauntlet. It could reflect any kind of vibrations. My Grandfather became famous with it.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Grengalheim said. “Was it a custom craft?”

Den nodded, remembering the pictures his grandfather had shown him of the gleaming copper item. A pair of shining shoulder pauldrons connected to a gauntlet by a chain that wrapped around the arm. “It was one of a kind. He upgraded over years of adventuring.”

“That sounds expensive!” Rika said. “I take it you don’t have it now?”

Den sighed. “My Grandfather sold it so he could retire and move to this suburb with my grandmother. Talk about a disappointing exchange.” Den stretched. “Well, my Grandfather himself didn’t have any Enchanted Items when he started his adventures. I suppose I should just shut up and do the same.” He pulled the Slip Tiara from his pocket. “We still have a lot of work ahead of us.”

---

The next day, Den entered the Hollows with Rika and Sam. First, they cleared the Third Layer to get Chloe the certification to continue, then pressed on into the Forth. Den was in good spirits since he had been given the secret to success. Slime potion truly was a miracle substance. It answered all his problems. With the magical drink running through his system, his minor injuries and soreness were numbed, his hunger of which convenience store meals did little to sate was reduced, and the tingling sensation that filled his head and limbs gave him a very pleasant drunkenness. It was the perfect drug! He nursed a bottle of the stuff throughout their time in the Hollows to be sure it didn't wear off.

The party of three had made it some distance into the Fourth Layer when they came to a round chamber with a single leafless tree standing in the middle. They paused just inside the room, eyeing the massive patched-together nest in the top branches that appeared to have been made using every single leaf off the tree.

“Now, I don’t like that,” Den said.

A single squirrel stuck its head out of the nest, scurried its way down the truck, then paused at the base to stare at them. This was no unusually big or magical animal-- it was just a squirrel.

“Aw!” Rika said. “I like squirrels!”

Sam’s brow knitted. “Don’t tell me…”

The squirrel’s eyes flashed red and it hissed.

Rika yelped. “Not that one! Bad squirrel!”

The squirrel charged them, but Den didn’t feel much threat given it was just a squirrel. A flash of movement caught his eye, and looking up, he saw several dozen more squirrels with glowing red eyes pouring out of the nest and down the trunk. It was a simple matter to swing his hammer and smack the first squirrel out of the air when it jumped at him, but dozens more ran in organized regiments falling upon Den and his friends in seconds.

“Dear God. Hive mind squirrels!” Sam yelled as the horde of rodents clawed their way up their bodies. “I’ve read about these. They nibble as one to rend any enemy to pieces!”

The battle sank into chaos in a second as the chamber was filled with their screams as they were bit and clawed by the endless swarm. They rolled around on the ground smacking off the monsters, crushing and stabbing as much as they could. Den was at least able to use his own weight as a weapon as he rolled around brandishing his tools wildly, crushing and cutting his way through the mob of furry beasts. But there were just so many!

“They’re in my pants! Ahhhhh!” Rika screamed, swinging her Pointy Stick of Destruction around with one hand while punching the squirming mass that had burrowed its way into her sweats.

“Mmmfffffgg!” Sam had met an even worse fate. A squirrel had disappeared halfway into their mouth while a massive mob focused their efforts on completely covering them. Den’s party member disappeared from sight as the mass of surging fur covered every part of their body. Sam fell back, covering their face with one arm, the other swinging wildly as they begged for mercy.

Den could only pray for his teammate’s soul to find peace. There was nothing else he could do for his friend now. A flash of red hot light burned Den’s eyes, cutting out of the swarm. A second later, another blast shot through the air an inch from his head, knocking off a few of his own squirrels. Sam rose up out of the horde, firing their Roll blast, taking out a dozen squirrels at a time and screaming, “Not like this! Die squirrels!”

It took them an embarrassingly long time until they finally crushed the last squirrel. They heaved and trembled on the floor of the cavern. Den passed around his bottle of slime potion and they leaned against each other's backs as they caught their breath. They’d defeated the squirrels, and collected a decent amount of Ore out of the nest, but even then they would be leaving the chamber with less Ore than they entered with. After using up all ten of Sam’s daily allotted Roll Blast on cleaning vermin, Den was left reeling in the pointlessness of the battle. Checking his Guild Profile, the squirrels hadn’t even given them squat in experience.

“I think we should put getting another Enchanted Item on the backburner too,” he said. “I feel like even if we had one we’d only end up wasting more Essence Ore.”

His other equally defeated teammates did not need to be convinced further. They had won the battle but were the true losers in the end. The squirrel’s strike had been perfectly coordinated. The single factor that allowed them to come out on top lay in the fact that while they had been outnumbered a hundred to three, a single squirrel brain is still only a single squirrel brain.

They completed the layer and met the others that evening at their convenience store. Den sprawled on their table looking at his phone while the others finished their purchases. He scrolled down his website that currently had three posts. He paused on the picture they had taken after they finished the First Layer thanks to Sam’s arrival. At the time, Den had been sweaty and tired after they had finally agreed on what they wanted as a party. In the picture, the five of them were tired as they fit in around the full Infinity Chest, but their smiles were genuine and filled with excitement about the future.

It hurt how only a few days of reality had already managed to wear them down. He looked up at his teammates as they sat down. No one said anything as they started on their meals. Den wasn’t the only one looking ready to nod off in their seat. He returned his gaze to his phone. He’d hoped to make videos daily to build up a readership early on, but he could only upload video while tethered to Grengalheim’s phone and the sheer exhaustion of their work left him only able to write three posts. This was not going to be enough.

“So, no word on Enchanted Items?” Den asked Grengalheim. He shook his head without slowing in eating his mabou doufu bowl. “In that case…” Den tabbed over to his Nile Shipping app. “I was hoping to buy a few items that might make it easier to take pictures and video down in the Hollows…” he said.

“Chloe just remembered Den has a blog,” she tilted her head at him, her bunny ear standing up. “How famous are we?”

“We almost have fifty page views…” Den said. “I need to take better pictures. If we got better equipment I think we could really make some good content.”

“And when were you thinking we’d have time to do that?” Rika asked, surprisingly calm as she ate a banana. “When did you get money to spend on new film equipment?”

Den didn’t have any answer for Rika. He lowered his head and stowed his phone.

“I didn’t think I would be even more poor as an adventurer…” Rika murmured.

A distant explosion rumbled the windows, and a small quake shook the building, a few objects falling off shelves. Den looked up, his heart skipping a beat. The soft conversation in the store went silent. Den slowly sat up, a shiver running down his spine. What was that? Another quake shook the building, followed by a distant roar of a monster.

“Woah, woah, woah!” Rika said, springing to her feet and out of the booth. “What are we missing?”

The party’s exhaustion forgotten, they ran out of the convenience store and into the plaza. The buildings were dark, but the low clouds overhead were cast white by intense flood lights out beyond the mob wall. In the eerie white light, a tower of smoke rose.

“What’s happening in the Great Field?” Chloe asked.

“Today was the first new wind farm installation, wasn’t it?” Sam asked. “I heard the EEC have been working all through the night.”

Another roar sounded and the earth shook, a ball of flame exploding on the far side of the wall. Den’s heart sank. “Something spawned? I don’t think you need fire to fight buffalo herds.”

“Let’s go,” Grengalheim said.

They ran their way under the train station and along the line out to the massive closed city gates. Dozens moved with them, taking the staircases on the wall up to the tourist viewing platform atop the wall. As soon as they entered the wide viewing area, another ball of fire lit the green field ahead. They pressed up against the window, looking down on the Great Field, the grass below gleaming pale white under the wall-based stadium lights.

Den’s breath caught in his throat as he took in the towering form of a Grass Giant hulking over the construction area below. The monster stood nearly three stories tall, it’s body turtle-like as if a few hills had stood up. Dirt rained from it's stubby limbs as it trudged through the newly assembled solar field. Metal and glass flew when the monster’s heavy feet crashed down.

“One of the temporary mob barrier generators must have gone down,” Grengalheim said. “I read that there was speculation that these brownouts are really tough on them. It’s really hard for the machines to keep mobs from spawning when there are so many people out there.”

Thousands of orange suited workers screamed as they ran, abandoning man-drawn carts and shining crates to the monster. They massed at the long tunnel that protected the road and rail that shot out into the darkness between the suburb and Starter Town. One machine at the feet of the giant lay shattered and smoking, and a half dozen solar panel installations lay in pieces, but the monster did not look like it had moved much from the large pit it had been born out of.

Grengalheim looked on with folded arms. “We knew that monsters were going to spawn the moment they started gathering people to build infrastructure outside the city. We’ve been lucky this is the first big event.”

“Do you see them?” Sam asked, pressing their face against the window. “That’s got to be Shockwave!”

Another ball of fire flew up at the monster, slamming into its gnarled head. Squinting, Den made out a group of five people standing off at the edge of the solar field facing off against the monster.

“That’s them, arlight,” Grengalheim said. “Suburb 23’s top party. Keep your eyes open, everyone. These are what real adventurers look like.”

The one in the middle wore a waving cape and their long red hair blew in the wind. They raised a bow at the monster. With a flash, an arrow cut the sky and disappeared into the mud monster. A massive explosion blew the monster's head apart. The hulking beast fell back to the earth, but as it struck, it broke into a dozen smaller earth giants which ran at the adventurers.

Without hesitation the other four members ran forward to meet the oncoming horde. It was over in less than a minute, and Den could barely keep up with the smooth and fast exchange. One member with a shield caught the tackle of one of the giants twice their size and blew it apart, making it rain piles of turf. Another team member with shining fists met a giant fist-to-fist, knocking it back then blowing a hole through its chest with another swing of their fists. One with a shining katana burst forward on the draw, rending through three giants in a blinding flash, landing on one knee and returning their weapon to their sheath so fast, Den never saw the blade.

A strange electric charge filled the air, sending a chill up Den’s spine. The hair on his arms stood up as if lightning were about to strike. The earth gave a low, deep quake. The air crackled as the energy fizzled and the ground shook as another giant lifted out of the earth, raining dirt as the last of the previous wave were splattered.

“So that’s what a Horde Spawn Event feels like,” Grengalheim said.

“I don’t like that at all,” Sam agreed with a shiver.

The monster turned to the last remaining team member and with eyes flashing red under heavy eyebrows, it reached for them. In that moment, the adventurer lifted a long gun out from under their cloak and pointed it up at the monster. The hole of the muzzle glowed and a huge blast of fire rolled out, blowing apart the top half of the monster and leaving only the smoking legs to crumble.

Den and his team members watched on for another minute, but when there appeared to be no other monsters to come the workers spread back out to continue their work in the field. It was Rika at last who turned away and put her hands on her hips with a huff. “That’s hacks. Enchanted Items are OP.”

Grengalheim raised his hands in a shrug. “And you wonder why they are expensive?”

“What are we even trying so hard for?” Den asked. Seeing it for himself-- the difference between those who had skill and resources and the pathetic efforts of Den’s own team, it was embarrassing. “We’ll never become like those monsters.”

“They’re just rich people with good Enchanted Items,” Sam said with a shrug. “It’s hard to imagine that that kind of damage is still nothing compared to what the real Isekaijin used to do. Those items still won’t get people past the Thirty-Fifth Layer.”

“And we’re hoping to reach the Hundreth?” Den asked, deflating. “What can a loser like me do?”

“Don’t worry,” Chloe said, patting his head. “We’re all losers.”

“I would have appreciated it if you had tried to find a way to refute the idea of me being a loser.” He looked down at the workers running about attempting to regain control of the construction zone. Den could never see himself becoming one of the adventurers that took down that huge monster, but he could easily see himself ending up as one of those poor Emergency Energy Corps saps. He shivered. “I could have been down there.”

“Whatever we’re doing, at least we’re still better off than in the EEC,” Sam said. “I checked. At least with our Guild membership we’re immune to conscription.”

“That’s only so good as we can keep our membership,” Den said. “I don’t want to end up down there if we can’t make our payment.”