[ NEW S.T.A.T.S — STRENGTH: MAGICAL=24 - PHYSICAL=16 — TENACITY: DEFENSE=24 - SPEED=16 — APTITUDE: MANA=24 - STAMINA=16 — TILT: CONTROL=24 - LUCK=16 ]

  [ NEW COMMON C.L.A.S.S. ACTION: DULLAHAN / SUMMON ARMOR 1 — EFFECT 1: SUMMON 1 ADDITIONAL ARMOR ONTO A POINT WITHIN 1 BODY LENGTH OF YOURSELF — EFFECT 2: BASE MAX SUMMONED ARMORS += 1 — COST: SMALL MP ]

  [ NEW COMMON C.L.A.S.S. PASSIVE: DULLAHAN / BODY DUPLICATION 1 — EFFECT: MAX SUMMONED ARMORS *= 2 ]

  [ NEW UNCOMMON C.L.A.S.S. ACTION: DULLAHAN / SUMMON ARMOR 2 — EFFECT 1: SUMMON UP TO 3 ADDITIONAL ARMORS ONTO A SMALL TARGET AREA WITHIN 1 BODY LENGTH OF YOURSELF — EFFECT 2: BASE MAX SUMMONED ARMORS += 2 — COST: MEDIUM MP — PREREQUISITE: SUMMON ARMOR 1 ]

  [ NEW COMMON C.L.A.S.S. PASSIVE: DULLAHAN / BODY DUPLICATION 2 — EFFECT: MAX SUMMONED ARMORS *= 2 — PREREQUISITE: BODY DUPLICATION 1 ]

  [ NEW COMMON CORE PASSIVE: SONAR — EFFECT: AUTOMATICALLY DISTINGUISH EVERYTHING REACHABLE VIA SOUND WAVES WITHIN 104 METERS OF YOUR BODY — RESTRICTION: EFFECT ONLY ACTIVE WHILE ‘SIGHT’ SYSTEM SETTING IS TOGGLED OFF — TILT SCALING: CONTROL ]

  [ NEW UNCOMMON C.L.A.S.S. PASSIVE: DULLAHAN / BODY DUPLICATION 3 — EFFECT: MAX SUMMONED ARMORS *= 2 — PREREQUISITE 1: SUMMON ARMOR 2 — PREREQUISITE 2: BODY DUPLICATION 2 ]

  [ NEW RARE C.L.A.S.S. ACTION: DULLAHAN / SUMMON ARMOR 3 — EFFECT 1: SUMMON UP TO 7 ADDITIONAL ARMORS ONTO A TARGET AREA WITHIN 1 BODY LENGTH OF YOURSELF — EFFECT 2: BASE MAX SUMMONED ARMORS += 3 — COST: LARGE MP — PREREQUISITE: SUMMON ARMOR 2 ]

  [ NEW COMMON C.L.A.S.S. ACTION: DULLAHAN / RECALL HEAD — EFFECT: TELEPORT YOUR HEAD INTO YOUR HAND — RESTRICTION: HAND MUST BE AN OPEN AND EMPTY PALM — COST: TINY MP ]

  This whole last week, I’ve been learning to walk.

  Not too fast or it’s called ‘running’, not too slow or it’s called ‘go faster’. It got easier when I turned off my sight and bought Sonar. Especially with each of my 56 current bodies acting as a different origin point. But that mostly just improves my situation in a macro sense.

  On a micro level, it’s still a constant struggle just to establish the right speed and maintain constant leg movement while keeping that same lopsided body balanced, all without getting yelled at. Compared to that, it’s practically effortless to split focus and individually coordinate dozens of bodies at once. Just so long as none of them have to walk.

  But I’m getting better all the time. Not that there’s much else to do while Oneshot one-shots everything.

  As the rest of my bodies practice walking, he’s busy teleporting over to, and subsequently poking all the poorly hidden men with headbands and large tetrahedral knives littering the antechamber. Then he turns to the masked one in the center trailing a large chain clamped to either wrist.

  That one just bobs its hands up and down and back and forth while watching Oneshot through a singular eyehole in its stripe-pattern mask.

  After a brief face-off, they both jump at each other.

  Chuckling to himself mid-jump, Oneshot throws a thick knife he got off one of the headbanded guys he just killed.

  The masked man flies forward, straight into the oncoming knife. But it just phases through his head as he extends one long-sleeved hand.

  But just as the last enemy is about to touch Oneshot’s flank, he vanishes.

  The same instant, Oneshot reappears above the still-lunging robed form with one arm reaching towards a far-off empty wall.

  Winking at me, Oneshot uses his sudden lack of momentum to swing himself around in midair and gently tap his arm blade against the chain-wielder’s back from above.

  The masked man goes instantly limp and collapses in a sprawling heap as an opaque, blinding ‘1’ rises from its back in time with Oneshot’s yell.

  Meanwhile, Oneshot falls the remaining foot to the ground and lands on his neck to receive by far the most damage I’ve ever ‘seen’ him take. “FUCK!!!”

  He rushes to cover for his flubbed landing as he hurries to get up and put himself together before turning to me and clearing his throat. “Now PEN, before we go through that final door… Do you know why we’re here?”

  I nod. “So you can show off and thereby cement yourself in my mind as ‘impressive’?”

  “Civetta told you that?”

  “Yes.”

  Groaning to himself, Oneshot leads the way to the Raid Boss door. “I guess that’s not entirely wrong… But it’s really more of a side-benefit. And frankly, I can do that anywhere. It’s not why we’re HERE.”

  I nod.

  Oneshot waits for some reason before elaborating. “‘Dullahan’ is good. It’s a great choice in general for natural multitaskers… Who can stand the head-detachment thing. But that doesn’t really seem to bother you. And you’ve got a crazy affinity for it. You’re already piloting, what, 47 armors at once?”

  “56 is the current maximum allowed by my Skill selection.”

  “Really? How many do you think you could handle at a time? I mean if you had the requisite Skills and all.”

  “16,384.”

  “Really? That many? All at once? I know that’s the max the Skills can allow, but… And you’re saying you could control them all as well as you’re doing with the armor I’m looking at right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about a 16,385th?”

  I nod. “Impossible.”

  Oneshot blinks. “Huh…”

  He shakes his head in bemusement. “So yeah, safe to say you’ve got an affinity with your CLASS. But your CRAFT? No. It’s basic. Basicer than basic. Medieval is the most simplified, classical version of armor there is. Culturally, anyway. I guess the mesopotamians did have some sort of armor system. But that’s not exactly what comes to mind when you think of ‘armor’, is it?”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Nothing approaches my brain upon contemplating ‘armor’.”

  Oneshot sighs. “Ignoring the fact that you don’t actually have a brain, mine is approached that way. Same for just about anyone from Earth. That makes ‘Medieval’ one of the most historically accurate armor categories out there. Now there’s another word for ‘historically accurate’ in this world. Do you know what that is?”

  I nod in recollection of one such synonym. “‘Realistic’?”

  “Yes, actually. It amounts to the same thing in the end, but I was going for ‘weak’. All the myths, legends, and even slight exaggerations have been filtered out by people showing up with actual, factual knowledge about medieval armor. Which makes it very realistic. And weak. And that brings us here. After I kill the next boss, we can hopefully get you a real armor CRAFT. Maybe ‘real’ isn’t the right word… ‘Overpowered’, maybe? Yeah… An overpowered armor CRAFT. Or at least something to hold you over until you can do this raid again with someone else.”

  I nod. “Are you unavailable after this? This has taken several hours already and I know your time is valuable, so I understand if-”

  Oneshot shakes his head. “It’s not that I’m unwilling to carry you in a raid again. If I could, I’d do this shit all day, every day, for as long as it takes. Not like I have much else going on… But I can’t. Not with you. Not this cycle, at least. The System won’t let you team up with any of the same people to do the same raid for another… 17 months or so. And this raid is a bit special.”

  “It has personal meaning to you?”

  “Kinda? But no, not like that. It’s special because the drop rate is amazing. Do you remember what I showed you right before we came here?”

  I nod. “Macross Frontier. Should I watch it again now?”

  “…Now? I mean no. We’re doing a raid. We’re almost done, but strategizing aside, the rewards will get a little worse if we take 20 minutes to watch an episode of something.”

  “I can do both. One of my bodies is always in my room. From there, I am consuming media on a permanent basis.”

  Oneshot blinks. “‘Permanent’?”

  I nod. I’m using a media playback option that treats the screen as a System readout, so their visibility isn’t affected by the ‘sight’ slider. “Is that a problem?”

  “Kinda fucks up my whole plan with Macross Frontier… Actually, you said you could watch it again? So yeah, do that right now. But just the final battle. Let me know when you start and that’s when I’ll-”

  “Done.”

  Oneshot freezes mid-enunciation, staring into the open neck of one of my headless bodies.

  Then, he grins. “Wonderful. In that case, just stay out of my way and enjoy the show.”

  Turning his smile towards the door, Oneshot kicks it down. Or he would if it actually counted as an environmental object. Which it doesn’t.

  So his kick like a System Train only results in the door creaking open, totally unhurried.

  Once it finally clicks into place at a 90o angle to form an ostentatiously arranged opening, Oneshot walks through it and into the next room with a dejected grumble.

  Inside, a lone figure sits on a rectangular chair that despite its simplicity, is unmistakable for anything but a throne. Covered neck to toe in some kind of armor with a bunch of flappy bits, his uncovered head rests on his closed, gloved fist, itself supported at the elbow on the throne’s flat arm. As he lackadaisically rises from his seat, the spiky-haired man’s eyes flash with a kaleidoscopic pattern before settling into an array of concentric circles.

  Stepping forward, he wordlessly cracks his neck.

  I don’t even have time to fully process my jealousy over the flappy armor before Oneshot teleports over and boops him in the snoot.

  They both disappear in a wall of blinding ‘1’s. While the identical numbers exist, reality itself seems to lag as everything takes just a bit longer than the time that actually passes.

  By the time the 1’s stop getting in the way of my Sonar somehow, Oneshot stands over a flappy-armored, spiky-haired, eyeless corpse as a pedestal rises from the room’s central deus.

  On top are four balls. Two seem to emanate a distinct feeling of tranquility. The others, violence. Each is adorned with a different symbol floating inside. The more I think about it, the less I understand why I can see into the orbs at all. Another question in the Queue for Civetta then.

  Cracking his neck in the spot he fell on earlier, Oneshot winces at just how loud the snap is.

  Blinking, he wordlessly takes out and downs a red potion while he walks over to the pedestal. “So like I said, ‘we’ just completed the Anime Raid. And here’s our reward. The only reward, in fact. But it’s exactly what we were after. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t have any business being here in the first place. What we have here is one CLASS and one CRAFT respec tailored to each party member. But each of us can only take one, so don’t bother trying to split them evenly or anything.”

  [ C.L.A.S.S. RESPEC: SUPPORT / UTILITY / TELEPORTATION / ANIME ]

  [ C.L.A.S.S. RESPEC: ATTACK / MID-RANGE / VAMPIRISM / ANIME ]

  [ C.R.A.F.T. RESPEC: COMMUNICATION / ENTERTAINER / SINGING / ANIME ]

  [ C.R.A.F.T. RESPEC: DEVELOPMENT / SMITH / LIGHT ARMOR / ANIME ]

  Oneshot’s eyes seem to flash just like the spikey-haired flappy-armor guy’s did as he immediately chooses the first option, even while scoffing at it.

  I nod. “That expression is meant to denote disappointment, yes?”

  Oneshot sighs. “That’s right, PEN.”

  “Then you are disappointed?”

  “You could say that, yeah.”

  “I am confused. Did you not begin by saying you had nothing to gain from this raid?”

  “I guess… Look, it’s complicated. I got an Anime CLASS specializing in teleportation. Which is perfect for me. It’s even something I’ve been fantasizing about for over a century at this point.”

  I nod. “Ah, I understand now. You are disappointed that you were wrong.”

  Oneshot shakes his head. “I can’t use it. I mean I could… But I couldn’t. And wouldn’t. And aren’t we here for you? Which one do you want?”

  Belatedly, I examine the reward options. After careful consideration, I indicate the vampire CLASS.

  “What? We’re here for you to get a CRAFT. It’s why I just chose that CLASS without letting you pick. But suddenly you want the other CLASS of all things? Why?”

  “It is the first choice.”

  “We’ve gotta get you to stop doing that… I’d ask which of the other two you want, but you’ll just pick the first one, won’t you?”

  I nod. “That is correct.”

  “And you’d pick it strictly because it’s the first option… Right?”

  I nod. “That is correct.”

  “Great… Do you even know what singing is?”

  I nod. “No.”

  “That’s what I thought. Also, don’t nod while saying ‘no’. It’s confusing. And you should pick the Light Armor CRAFT. Heavy would be better. Or medium. But even Light armor has better synergy with your CLASS than singing.”

  “Very well.”

  “You don’t have a problem with me dictating your future?”

  I rotate my head in three consecutive circles. “No.”

  “You should be dictating your own future. Don’t leave it up to anyone else. Not even me. The sooner you take fate into your own hands, the better.”

  I rotate my head in the opposite direction. “Very well.”

  [ C.R.A.F.T. RESPEC GAINED: COMMUNICATION / ENTERTAINER / SINGING / ANIME ]

  Oneshot watches, enthralled as the Anime Armor Respec disappears from existence along with the vampire one. “Oooh… Oh, that’s just greeeat…”

  I rotate my head once more. “I am happy you approve.”

  “Then why didn’t you do as I said?”

  “I did.”

  “I guess It’ll be a while before you can use more and better armor than you can buy super cheap in bulk… And it’s not like you can’t get another respec later. So fine. Go with singing. See where it gets you.”

  “Are you… Disappointed in my choice?”

  Oneshot can’t help but sulk. “Why yes, PEN. I am. But like I said… Whatever. At the end of the day, it’s your afterlife. Now, next up is your Attunement. What element do you want to specialize in? Probably Agni, right? That’ll make you attuned with fire. And I think Dullahans have some tie to fire. Like, they can throw flaming pumpkins or something?”

  I rotate my head once more. “I don’t understand. Is fire the best choice? Also, what is fire?”

  “You… Wow, you’ve really never experienced fire, huh? But no, I don’t assume you’d choose it because it’s the best choice. I expect you to choose it because it’s the first choice. At least alphabetically. And stop spinning your head. If that’s your solution, just go back to nodding.”

  I nod. “Which is the best choice?”

  “That’s entirely subjective. All the elements are pretty balanced, so how effective one would be over another really just comes down to your build. And some other things. But mostly, your own personal preference and affinity.”

  “What is your personal preference and affinity for my build?”

  Oneshot throws me whatever a side-eye is. “PEN, that’s not even remotely what I was hinting at. But alright, fine… So what would I pick in your place?” He seems to think for a moment. “Now this might just be on my mind thanks to the theme of the raid boss. Or the teleportation respec, now that I think about it. But I can’t get the idea out of my head that you’d be missing out by not picking wind.”

  I nod. “Then that is what I will do.”

  Oneshot’s eyes bug out. “Really? Why, though? Alphabetically, Horus is the last choice. So is ‘Wind’, I think. I’m not entirely sure, but I can’t think of any synonyms for the other elements that start with an ‘X’, ‘Y’, or ‘Z’.”

  “Would that not make it the first choice in reverse-alphabetical order?”

  “I… I guess..? That’s still a bad reason to choose it.”

  “That is not my reason.”

  “So what is the reason?”

  “I do not wish for you to be disappointed a third time today.”

  Oneshot’s eyes go wide and damp at the same time as his shoulders slump. “Oh… I mean… That’s still not…”

  He seems to think better of whatever he was about to say. “Thanks.”