Belamouranthe beamed as Charlie the red ant brought a boar pot roast to the table. She immediately dug in, ignoring the cutlery set out in front of her and tearing the meat apart with her hands.

  After listening to the Elphin girl rave about it for a while, he pushed aside his seafood pasta to give it a try.

  “Holy crap,” he muttered reverently. Around him, it looked like a bunch of the holograms were trying the exact same dish, prompted by the tiny girl. Granted, he couldn’t see their dimensions’ version of Belamouranthe.

  As soon as she noticed he’d taken a bit, she clutched the whole ceramic pot and hissed at him like a miserly cat.

  “It’s not good to be greedy,” he told her.

  “Get thy own boar! This is mine!”

  Before he could try to convince her, Shitbox interrupted him.

  [Another Player is trying to communicate with you. Do you wish to talk to them?]

  “Who is it?”

  [Player Willow Martin.]

  “I thought you weren’t allowed to tell me the names of other Players.”

  [I am allowed when they are requesting to speak to you.]

  Weird. Still wish it’d been able to tell me about that person I saw when I asked about the Self-devouring Eye Relic.

  [Do you wish to talk to the Player?]

  “Yes.”

  [Understood.]

  A hologram flickered into life on the opposite side of the wooden table.

  “You survived,” she said, relieved.

  Adam couldn’t help but smile. It was nice to know she cared about him.

  “I’m glad you’re alright as well. Did you get any of the bonus objectives?”

  “You mean the challenges?” she asked. “I got the Flawless bonus.”

  “Flawless?”

  “That’s what the no-damage achievement is called,” she explained. “It gave me 400 Points.”

  “Damn,” he muttered. He’d been so close to getting both of the achievements.

  “Did you get any?” she asked.

  “Nah,” he said, frowning. “I was 25 seconds off from the Speedrun. The last Wave screwed me.”

  She nodded. “Same. I was 50 seconds off from it, but my staff isn’t that great in tight spaces.”

  “How does it work?” he asked. “I haven’t tried that one yet.”

  Willow frowned at the way he phrased it. Still, Adam was glad that he didn’t have to hide his past loops from her.

  “It’s a bit odd,” she started. “You have to swing it to launch spells after preparing them. The base version is a ball of magic that’s hard to aim. I selected the Seeker evolution and now it fires a magical bolt instead, which is a lot faster. The other evolution, Acolyte, makes it possible to prepare more spells.”

  “That does sound weird,” Adam noted.

  “It’s pretty strong and it works well with the Slime Ring.” Willow lifted her hand and showed a ring that Adam remembered seeing last time they spoke. For some reason, he hadn’t realised that it was a Relic.

  “What does it do?”

  “It gives my projectiles Acid Burst, which makes them explode where they land, showering acid.”

  “I’ve never seen that before,” he muttered.

  “You know, I think there’s a bias to the randomness of the rewards. I’ve seen a lot of Mana-related stuff, but I’ve yet to encounter things like that Duellist’s Glove you were talking about.”

  Adam nodded. That makes sense, he thought.

  If there are dozens-upon-dozens of Relics available for every Stage, there has to be a way to make sure Players get something they can use. If they want to keep things fair, they probably wouldn’t throw Mana-related rewards at Players with Stamina-based weapons.

  Maybe that’s why Lenard couldn’t find the glove either.

  “Did you find the Secret by the red goblin guy, by the way?” Willow asked.

  “No? I didn’t realise there was one in that area. I only found the spider one.”

  “Spider one?” she asked, confused.

  [Another Player is trying to communicate with you. Do you wish to talk to them?]

  Adam lifted his hands forming a T for ‘timeout’.

  “Hold on, Willow, someone else is trying to talk to me.”

  He turned to the floating cube. “Is it Lenard?” he asked.

  [Correct. Would you like to speak to him?]

  “Merge him with our conversation like last time.”

  [Understood.]

  Lenard appeared next to Willow, a large pot of boar roast in front of him.

  “This girl’s a genius!” he exclaimed. “I had no idea boar could taste this good! Although I had to get my own since she wouldn’t share…”

  Adam laughed. “Good to see you again, Lenard.”

  “You’re both alright,” he said, sounding relieved. “One of the other people I’d been talking to… she didn’t make it…”

  “How can you tell?” Willow asked. Adam was wondering the same thing, but was glad she had the guts to ask.

  The German frowned. “If you search for someone in here with their full name, the black box will tell you if they’ve died.”

  Willow and Adam shared a glance.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Going to give it a try.”

  “Me too,” she added.

  Lenard smiled sadly. Perhaps he felt like he’d passed on cursed knowledge. After all, sometimes it was better to not know if someone was dead or alive.

  Adam looked at Shitbox. “Show me Helena Fischer.”

  [The Player you are searching for has perished.]

  He clenched his jaw.

  “Show me Christian Fischer.”

  [The Player you are searching for has perished.]

  Adam continued through the names of his aunt and uncles.

  Each and every one of them had perished.

  I’m the only one left out of my entire family…

  Fuck…

  “How many Players are left?”

  [419 million Players survived Stage Two. Currently, 121 million Players are utilising the Dimensional Tavern.]

  Okay, that’s not as bad as I feared…

  Although that’s still over 100 million who died…

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Goddamn.

  “Charlie,” he said, calling over the tavernkeeper.

  “Yes, Adam?”

  “Bring me a milkshake and three croissants. And some dinosaur nuggets. Oh, and a smaller version of the roast that Belamouranthe got.”

  “Strawberry again?”

  He nodded.

  “I will be back in a moment,” she said with a giggle and left.

  Adam looked at the Elphin girl. She was leaned over the table and snored loudly. Her hands and face were covered in the oily fat from the bottom of the ceramic pot.

  He smiled and reached over, patting her on the head.

  Even though you’re just a figment of this world, it’s nice to have a companion at least.

  Belamouranthe frowned and started mumbling angrily in her sleep.

  Adam turned back to his companions, rejoining the conversation.

  “Did your girl fall asleep as well?” Lenard asked. “She’s snoring really loudly next to me.”

  “She did,” he replied.

  Willow frowned. “I made the mistake of letting her try my milkshake. She’s been sprinting up-and-down the tables for the last 2 minutes. Pretty sure you’re not supposed to give sugar to elves…”

  The two men laughed at the scene they imagined in their heads.

  It was good to have an excuse not to think about the death of their loved ones. Previously, Willow had said that she thought her brothers were dead as well. Based on the distant look in her eyes, he guessed that she’d gotten confirmation about their fates, and it hadn’t been good news. But then it vanished as she fixed Adam with a hard stare. “So, what was that spider thing you mentioned?”

  He grinned. “You first,” he said.

  “I was just talking about the Lucky Stone. You didn’t find that one?”

  “I found that too,” Lenard said. “They didn’t really hide it very well.”

  Adam’s grin faltered. “I missed it… Where was it?”

  “Inside the Hobgoblin’s chamber. The same place Bel was kept hostage,” Willow answered.

  “It increases the rarity level by one for the next reward options,” Lenard explained, before he could ask. “I used mine and got an Epic-rarity necklace. It has a weird side-effect though.”

  “I’m saving mine for later,” Willow said.

  “Damn, wish I’d found that,” Adam muttered jealously. “It would be really powerful if you mix it with the rarity bonus from doing a Wave really fast.”

  She nodded, clearly thinking the same thing.

  “So, the spider?” she insisted.

  “It’s kind of dumb. It was inside one of the goblin huts at the end of the village. Like in a hole full of webs. Belamouranthe went down the hole and got it for me, after I removed the webs of course.”

  Lenard looked horrified. “You made a child get in a hole full of spiders!?”

  “I didn’t make her do anything,” Adam immediately replied. “She went in there on her own. Also, there weren’t any spiders. Just this cocoon thing. It was called Weaver’s Egg.”

  “What does it do?” Willow asked. “Did you get a spider companion?”

  “I wish,” Adam replied with a frown. “It’s just a vanity vendor that was added to the Market in my world.”

  Both of them seemed surprised by the answer.

  “I didn’t know we could find more vendors,” Lenard said.

  Willow nodded. “I’m surprised there were two Secrets, since the first Stage only had one.”

  “I think it might have had two as well,” Adam replied.

  “Where would they have hidden it? It wasn’t possible to leave the clearing.”

  “Maybe inside the tree?” Lenard guessed.

  Adam blinked.

  Holy shit. That’s gotta be it!

  I can’t believe I didn’t think of that!

  The slimes’ attacks dissolve the tree, so it’s no doubt meant to be something that can be accessed by goading them into hitting the tree repeatedly.

  “I’ll try to ask around and find out,” Adam said. “Maybe someone managed to break open the tree.”

  “What’s the point?” Lenard asked.

  Before Adam could bullshit his way out of the very poignant question, Willow said, “If we know about what kind of Secrets there are, it may be helpful for the next Stages.”

  He considered the answer for a bit, before conceding. “That’s a good point. I think I’ll ask about the different Relics that people got.”

  “Wait, what was the thing you got? The Epic-rarity one?” Adam asked before he could leave.

  “It’s a necklace. It’s called Hobgoblin Pendant.” Lenard lifted a string of hair up from under his straw-brown sweater. Three carved finger bones were attached to it. “It makes me immune to pain and I can survive a fatal hit, but it’ll break if that effect triggers.”

  “What’s the side-effect?” Willow asked. Adam had already forgotten about the off-hand comment, but she was good at remembering small details.

  Lenard ran his hand across the table. “It makes me unable to feel anything like physical touch.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” she remarked. “You might get seriously injured and won’t even notice until it kills you…”

  “I know,” he replied, his tone serious. “But the last Stage was pretty rough. The spear goblins did a real number on me. I had to eat a lot of those disgusting bugs just to survive.”

  “Is your shortbow not working well?” Adam asked.

  Lenard frowned. “I’m going to see if I can’t buy a Relic that makes it stronger, but right now it seems very weak.”

  Willow looked poised to say something, but she stayed her tongue. Adam could probably imagine that her comments might sound incredibly biased since she’d spent her life mastering archery.

  “If you can’t find some strong Relics,” Adam said, “then maybe you should try and swap to a different Weapon Type.”

  Lenard looked down at the weapon next to him. “But my bow is level 11. Maybe if I evolve it again it’ll become better.”

  Adam knew that it was a tough decision, especially since swapping weapons now would mean giving up all of his upgrades and likely falling behind the difficulty curve.

  “If you evolve it again, you’ll have two Mastery Shards,” Willow told him. “Then you can buy the Second Sheath upgrade from the black moth. That’ll let you have a backup weapon if you need it.”

  I hadn’t even thought of that.

  Lenard nodded eagerly. “Thank you, Willow. I think I might do that!”

  She smiled warmly.

  It’s like she was born for this, Adam thought.

  I wonder how Ilya did. He seemed like a perfect pick for the Trials as well.

  If these Trials really are being broadcasted, I bet most people are watching those two.

  I wonder who the spectators actually are… Aliens? Other beings like Shitbox maybe?

  He wanted to ask the tesseract, but it probably wouldn’t give him a straight answer.

  “Let’s meet up again tonight,” Lenard said. Then he stood up from his stool and vanished.

  “I’m gonna hit up the Market,” Willow said.

  Adam nodded. “Talk to you later.”

  Just then, Charlie returned with his mountain of food.

  Willow gave him an incredulous stare.

  “Don’t fat shame me,” he told her.

  She laughed as she got up and vanished as well.

  After searching for over 20 minutes and trying to refine his query in a way that would actually work, Adam managed to find someone who had the information he was looking for.

  The man sitting opposite him wore a dark-blue short-sleeved shirt. He had a buzz-cut and dark skin. Adam was fairly sure he was Japanese, though he hadn’t spoken a word yet. Despite accepting his request to talk about the Secret from Stage One, he’d held up a hand and silently asked Adam to wait until he was done making his food.

  In front of the man was a small one-time-use grill and he had six meat skewers lined up on it. Every few seconds he’d flip one or stoke the coals with a simple paper fan in his hand. Adam had to admit it looked quite delicious, even though his stomach was already full to the bursting from eating his croissants, nuggets, and boar roast.

  I guess it’s possible to ask Charlie for something like this as well.

  I wonder what the exact limit on her requests are.

  Like, can I ask her to bring me a chocolate fountain?

  When the man was finally done, he handed the skewers off to the side, where they quickly vanished.

  Wait, he spent that long making it just to give it all to Belamouranthe?

  The man continued looking off to the side, probably watching as his unseen companion scarfed down the skewers. He smiled to himself a little.

  “Apologies,” he then said, looking back to Adam. His voice was kind and warm. “The girl was hungry.”

  Adam reached his hand across the table. “I’m Adam.”

  The man looked at the outstretched hand and then reached out to shake it. Of course, they were unable to touch.

  “I am Mori Toshio.”

  Adam was glad that he’d guessed the man’s nationality correctly. There’d often been many Japanese tourists where he lived because of the mountains, which were apparently similar to those in Japan. In fact, it hadn’t been more than a week since he’d recently helped two Japanese women find their way to the nearby theme park. It had been kind of awkward because of the terrible translation app he’d been using.

  I never did find out if they actually made it there.

  But, unlike back then, we can now communicate with effortless ease.

  Before Adam could even ask, Mori lifted a scabbarded sword up onto the table. It seemed quite heavy. Both the scabbard and blade were covered in a layer of stone. Gold poked out from cracks here-and-there. It looked powerful.

  “This is ‘Gram’,” Mori explained. “I obtained it in the first Stage by chopping down the large tree.”

  “You chopped it down!? How?”

  “I selected the Woodsman type. It gave me an axe. It was the only weapon I was familiar with from the selection.”

  “Did you switch to this blade then?” Adam asked.

  Mori nodded once. “It is powerful. Its unique skill is called ‘Anvil Splitter’. I used it to kill the red ogre in one hit.”

  A unique skill? I’ve not heard of that before.

  “Thank you for telling me, Mori,” Adam said.

  In exchange, Adam told him about the black moth, along with the Flawless and Speedrun bonuses.

  I can’t wait to try out that weapon when I go back.

  I mean… If I go back.

  He said goodbye to Mori and almost made to leave the Tavern, but realised he had one more query he wanted to search.

  “Show me all the Players that obtained the Flawless and Speedrun achievements for Stage Two.”

  [Understood.]

  The air flickered and three people appeared. One of them was Ilya. To his left was a woman in a blue business suit with blonde shoulder-length hair. She looked like a humourless entertainment lawyer. Further down the table was an older guy with a scraggly black beard and a dark winter coat. He was sleeping next to a bunch of bottles.

  Only three people? Out of the 120 million currently in the tavern?

  For a moment, Adam wanted to ask them how they’d done it, but they were all quite imposing. After all, they were each a 1-in-40-million Player. It was an insane accomplishment he thought. Despite not being as much of a threat to him as the first Stage, the second had actually been quite challenging, considering its mix of close quarters, ranged enemies, and ambushes. Anyone who obtained both achievements had to be quite skilled.

  Even Ilya, who he thought was his friend, looked quite intimidating. The fact that he’d managed to get both achievements two Stages in a row was also a testament to his terrifying power.

  Since he hadn’t talked to them, they didn’t know he was watching. So, he decided to observe them for a bit to see what their Relics and weapons were. Almost immediately, the businesswoman got up. Just as she disappeared, he noticed that there were dark swirling tattoos on her hands.

  That has to be a Relic. Or maybe it’s her weapon?

  He switched his gaze to the sleeping drunkard. Fortunately, his weapon was right next to him. It was a large ornate book.

  No. Not a book. A tome.

  I think he must’ve picked Warder. That’s a Rare Weapon Type.

  I wonder what it does.

  In terms of Relics, he couldn’t tell what the man had.

  Then he looked back at Ilya. He was in the middle of talking to someone, though Adam obviously couldn’t tell who nor could he hear their conversation. His weapon was somewhere out of sight, but Adam was quite sure he’d gone with Javelineer, since he’d mentioned the Boomerang Pendant which worked well with thrown items.

  It seems like a pretty terrible fighting style without such a Relic, Adam thought.

  Thanks to Ilya’s baggy t-shirt, he couldn’t tell what other stuff he might have, which was a shame.

  He was about to get up and leave, when the Russian guy turned to look at him. “Hello again, Adam.”

  Adam got such a shock that he tumbled off his stool and fell on his ass.

  The holograms flickered and disappeared.

  What the fuck!?

  “How was he able to see me??” he asked Shitbox.

  [I do not know.]

  Who the hell was he talking to??

  That can’t have been a coincidence!

  I've read, and continue to read, all the comments. I really enjoy the wild theories and theorycrafting people

  come up with.

  I also appreciate everyone who has taken the time to leave corrections and/or bring up

  how weird my shield dimensions were in Chapter One (already fixed, lol).

  And those who left reviews despite it being early days are just awesome.

  I haven't even shilled my Patreon yet, but quite a few people have signed up, which I really am grateful for.

  I also decided, as you may have noticed, to not do a ton of shoutout swaps, as I think it can be a bit distracting

  if they show up on every chapter. I'm still doing a few, since I have friends whose stories I really love or who have

  done a lot for me and I thus feel indebted to. But yeah, they won't be super frequent going forward.

  I was in a bit of a writing slump after Christmas, because of editing a ton on "Isekai Exorcist" and "Madman" as well

  dealing with some pretty stressful exams. The Loopshard launch has really invigorated me though and I'm back to writing

  a bunch every week. I've got all of you to thank for that!

  Bit of a rambling message and perhaps a bit cringe (as usual for me...), but I really just felt the need to show my gratitude.