By the time I return, thirty minutes remain until the attack, I spot Tess next to the rest of group 4; everyone else is already gone. As I land beside her, she seems tired.

So, even the extrovert class can take damage from prolonged exposure to another extrovert’s leech aura.

“Don't look at me like that, Nat, it pisses me off. I swear some people are straight-up stupid.”

“Surely you mean Gareth. Has he already revealed his true colors?”

“Gareth is fine, he’s probably the most reasonable goddamn person in Hell difficulty believe it or not. Group 4 included,” she sighs. “Savant keeps calling Gareth disgusting and then leaves to do his own thing while calling you dumb for not using [Restriction].”

“Well, his face is stupid.”

“Then there’s Tacita. Anytime I try to ask her for anything she just draws her emoticons and shrugs when I ask her anything. By the way, good job killing BenDover, the others from his group refuse to cooperate.”

“I can go smack them around if you like.”

“Please don't.”

“Okay. What about the natives?”

“They’re mostly ok. According to them, we’ve been sent here by their Champion to help with the defense so they mostly listen. The one with the highest level is close to three question marks, and the others are level 200 and below. There are a few civilians, but we’ve sent them to hide in the mines. We’ll probably be rewarded based on how many natives survive and how much damage the mines take.”

“Did they know anything about the Pairing, the 1st Generation, or the Tutorial?”

“Nothing, they feel more like machines, they’re not quite as human as the residents of the other floors.”

“And the attackers?”

“Tens of thousands of monsters controlled by a neighboring kingdom that specializes in the taming and controlling armies of monsters.”

“Damn, Sophie's in for a treat.”

Tess nods, “She’s already setting up her web with the twins. If you have any free time, try to make some improvements. How’s your crown?”

“It's as full as it’s going to get, but it would take days, not hours to completely fill it.”

She points at her own [Storm Crown] that floats over her head, “It’s the same for me, but it’s nice to have some preparation time and this event seems to be more fitting for those of us who focus more on regeneration rather than amplification.”

It’s hard for me to abide by such heresy but I may as well let it slide, this time, “Do you still want me to go all out?”

“Yes. Blow up the mountain, burn the valley, and just do your thing. I want to scare the others a bit. Samuel’s too cocky for my taste. He keeps forgetting how much more powerful people from Hell difficulty are compared to his group from Hard difficulty. It should also make Gareth more cooperative since he seems to think that his group can deal with anything, so prove him wrong and you’ll make things a lot easier for me.”

So interesting. “Are you planning to take over?” I ask her.

She looks at me for a moment and sighs, “I wanted to take it easy and delegate a bit. But Gareth is too soft. I mean, even that could work, he and his group are powerful enough but it's painful to watch how slowly he’s been moving. Meanwhile, Samuel’s trying to recruit us all into the army so we can serve the greater good the moment we step out of the tutorial.”

“Anyone else?”

“A few guys from Hard difficulty but they’re too weak to mess with anyone from Hell difficulty. Group 3 with your friend BenDover seems like they just want to leech off the others and group 8 with AnotherOneHere and Swordmaster showed a degree of interest before the 1st event. Apparently, you kicked their collective asses and they’ve been mostly neutral since.”

“It sounds like you’ve been super busy, but Tess, what do you want out of this? You know we can easily ignore all this and focus on our own group. Between us, we’ll be fine no matter what happens here or after the tutorial.”

“I agree.” She gestures for me to come closer while she creates a field around us to prevent anyone from listening in on our conversation. “But you’re too antisocial, Nat. Sure, we can make it out on our own and threaten people with [Disintegration] and whatever fucked up bomb you develop by then. That would be doable, but things become much simpler if we can get a few more guys on our side. What if the other rounds end with one person at the helm? What if we return to Earth and someone else has already seized control? Some of us could die if it came to this.”

“It annoys me that you’re right.”

“Yeah, me too. I just want to make a place for our group so we can stay together and bring our families with us. But for now, let's make some connections. Do you mind?”

I shrug, “Not really. Just ask and I’ll do what I can, I know I make you deal with a lot of annoying stuff so that's the least I can do.”The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“You are reliable as always, Nat. Do your thing and I’ll do mine. I can’t help but notice that Tacita seems to like you if we can call it that. She ignores me so maybe try to get her on our side. That girl is scary. Don't take it personally but if you don’t pull something out of your sleeve she will be the one winning the duels.”

“Yeah, I know, but have some faith in me, I already have some ideas to work on. By the way, what the fuck is Izzy doing?” I point at the 11-year-old girl sitting on the stairs with Noodle coiled around her.

There’s some kind of weird construct floating over her head that seems to be manipulating the light around her in some weird way, and two blue flame orbs float at her side. They’re as big as basketballs and I can feel their heat increasing.

“Oh, that was Sophie's idea. She did some mumbo jumbo and manipulated the light, and air around Izzy to work like a magnifying glass. Izzy can absorb heat like you but in her case, it’s easier to take it from natural sources while you can take yours from skills. So she’s charging it up.”

Oi, I'm jealous now. I know I shouldn’t be since my skill still seems to be stronger, but I can't help it after seeing Izzy’s new shiny toy.

“I’m going to hang around a bit, I’ll join you before the attacks start,” I tell Tess, already on my way over to Izzy.

Tess waves me off as if she had expected that response, she has a look on her face, almost like someone having to deal with a silly child, but I decide to let it go.

As I stop in front of Izzy, she opens her eyes and shouts, “Stupid Noname!”

“Yes yes, so what has Sophie prepared for you?” I point at the construct hanging above her head.

“I don't know, but it makes the sun warmer and I can absorb all of the extra heat.”

Well, warmer is an understatement. I’m fairly sure that if Izzy wasn’t absorbing the excess heat the concentrated light would be melting through the stairs right now. It would certainly be more than enough to burn a normal human alive. However Sohie’s construct is also very fragile, I’m sure it’s ready to crumble at the slightest touch. It’s also connected to her web and seems to be receiving power from it. The mana cost to maintain it isn’t very high either, it’s honestly pretty efficient.

Maybe I should sit down with Sophie and the twins when I find some time. Lately, they’ve been cooking up some really nice stuff.

“And what is Noodle doing?” I look at the pearl-white snake with green eyes. The beast with an ancient bloodline or something.

“Noodle eats mana.”

“I know that; he’s always done that. Has he become any stronger, or gained any new abilities? What else can he do?”

Izzy starts thinking and then adds, “Noodle sleeps a lot too!”

I exchange a glance with the aforementioned danger noodle, and he flicks his tongue at me.

So eating and sleeping. What a life.

I'm jealous. Not even joking.

POV Sophie Martinez

“That maniac is at it again!” Aaron says out of nowhere, and I look up from the table where the three of us have been drawing our web.

By maniac, he can mean only one person. With a sigh, I connect to our web, and he’s right, the maniac is there. He’s going through the entire web of extremely delicate mana pathways I created as if it's nothing. He’s reading them at a speed that still shocks me, even now. How does he do that?

“Shhh, he might hear you,” Dennis says quickly and turns to me. “Should we try to push him out?”

“Just let him be, he’s done it before. He’ll get bored eventually,” I turn back to the table.

“But how does he do it? We are using [Connection] so we can cooperate, and he just cuts in. Oh, wow look! He made a change!”

“He’s infusing his mana into our web, though he’s not connected to it. I could spend more time on defenses, but there is no need for that now. And it’s okay, he’s creating a backdoor so he can connect to our web more easily next time.”

Dennis takes a moment to connect to the web and observe what the maniac is doing, “I wonder if it would be the same if we hadn’t restricted ourselves.”

“Yes, it would,” I respond. “Focus on your work. Though that does remind me, you guys are getting better at this, you should speak to him after the event. Maybe you can learn the coordinates from him and sell them at ten thousand shards a pop. He’ll probably want a portion, but you can still earn a decent amount.”

“A few thousand shards is nice, but after hearing how much he has, it feels depressing,” Dennis sighs and connects to my current project to help me with it.

The skill he shares with his brother is a boon when it comes to connecting the smaller webs of my design. Both of them have already acquired [Mana Manipulation], and I’ve agreed to teach them a bit.

I am just happy that they don’t blame me for failing to fight the First One back then. I wouldn’t blame them, and they were angry, but after what happened to Aaron's disciple on the 5th and to them on the 6th, they’ve opened up a bit. Things here are complicated.

It’s a new experience for me as well, but for now, I think I’ll go along with Tess’s plans. It's not so bad, and most importantly, Izzy seems to be having fun. She’s finally stopped pestering me about befriending the others.

Her [Empathy] is something else, it makes for a really scary skill, and my precious little sister is slowly growing up. Surrounded by danger she shines so painfully bright, constantly reminding me how much I love her.

The same is true for the twins; I can see the constant messages they exchange and the care they show for each other.

“So what do you think?” I ask them as they examine my preparations.

“We probably won’t be able to finish it before the attack starts, but somewhere in the middle, we should be able to convert your webs into a single unit for a short moment. The communication part is easy.”

“That much should be fine; Gareth and his group's pathetic web can fuck off.”

“Yeah, fuck off Gareth!” the twins smile happily, “Our skills work well together. Maybe we can be the psyops unit of group 4.”

“Tess will be the leader, and Lily will be our healer, Biscuit and Noodle will be the mascots. Izzy, well we’ll come up with something for her to do, and Kim can be long-range artillery with Tess while Maya tanks for us.”

“How about the maniac?” I ask curiously.

“He’s the person we call when we need to blow shit up.”