Ryona (1)

Aquaril and I ranked up to 2-Star at the same time. The million-gold ingots we'd set in front of the headless statue vanished with the promotion.

Eighteen days into my second life, and I was already 2-Star.

Is this fast? It has to be fast, right?

By game standards, it was painfully slow. Eighteen days to take a player character from 1-Star to 2-Star? That was the pace of someone who didn't even want to play.

But this wasn't a game. This was reality.

Personally, I figured it was pretty damn fast — especially in a place like Indigo, where the king had made dungeon-clearing all but impossible.

Could I take Hwaryongwang right now?

In my previous life, I'd crushed Hwaryongwang and his six fairies without breaking a sweat.

The final battle of Chapter 2 took place in Hwaryongwang's palace. Palace was a generous word — it was more like a lord's castle, really.

Anyway, as you wandered the halls, Aquaril and Ryona showed up as mid-bosses, each leading a squad of soldiers. Even together they would've been easy. Separately? A cakewalk.

Beat those two and you faced Hwaryongwang with his remaining four. As I remembered it, Hwaryongwang had been a 2-Star mage. Of the leftover fairies, two were 2-Star and two were 1-Star.

The first time I cleared him, I'd whale-summoned a team of five fairies at 3-Star or higher and steamrolled the fight. No mechanical skill required — I just stat-checked them into the dirt.

But could I do that now?

Not a chance.

Princess Prisia Lily and Prince Bison Trilly had been 1-Star in the game. Here, they were 2-Star. Hwaryongwang would be stronger too.

Summon more fairies? Pad out the roster?

I currently had a whopping 880 Gems — enough for two summons. Two extra fairies would plug the holes in my firepower.

"...Tsk. Not even worth thinking about."

"Pardon? What did you say, Master?"

"Nothing. Let's head back. We should get some rest. Tomorrow — no, first thing in the morning — we'll buy what we need and get back to clearing the dungeon."

"Yes, Master."

Summoning more fairies would obviously help. More available combat power was never a bad thing on its face.

But I knew better. Holding more fairies than you could actually raise was poison.

Fairy Masters threw a flood of fairies at you specifically to scratch that collector's itch. The moment a player saw one they liked, they cracked their wallet and started pulling like a lunatic.

And that was the developer's trap.

Whether the rates were dynamically rigged or just cursed, the fairy you actually wanted never dropped. And even if you got lucky, you opened your fairy roster to find a bloated pile of bodies you never asked for.

That was the first time the money vanished.

Raising a fairy took Growth Stones, Skill Stones, the whole resource sink — and pushing one all the way to the max rank of 10-Star ate an obscene amount of everything. Players who opened their wallets easily almost always wanted their fairies grown now.

So when the Growth Stones ran dry, what happened?

The wallet opened again. They slammed every Growth Stone package the shop would sell them and force-fed their roster.

Second round of spending.

And even after dumping a fortune into stones, they still couldn't push anyone to 10-Star. Why? Because they didn't have the upgrade materials or the levels.

So they opened the wallet a third time, chasing the resources and the levels those promotions demanded.

Once you started paying, it was like pouring water into a bottomless jar. That was the pipeline whales — the mega-spenders — walked down every time.

And right now, I'm F2P.

This was reality, not a game, which meant I was stuck on the free-to-play path whether I liked it or not. And the single stupidest thing an F2P player could do if they wanted to grow fast was pull indiscriminately.

You only kept the fairies you could actually afford to raise. An F2P player grew one of them to a respectable level — 4-Star or 5-Star — and only then started on the next. A fat roster didn't help. It just made you choke.

There were practical problems, too. Aquaril and I were already burning through a serious amount of money every day. No house meant inn fees every night, plus food, clothes, gear — the expenses never stopped coming.

Add another fairy on top of that? The costs ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠scaled right with her.

If I'd had a real foundation under me, maybe. As it stood I was basically a beggar. Summoning anyone now would sink me for good.

The gold I have needs to become Gems.

One of the effects on my Temptation skill was Exchange 100,000 Gold for 10 Gems. A conversion rate so insulting it made my jaw hang open — but I had to take the win for what it was. At least I had a way to restock Gems at all.

I needed 3,000 Gems in the next eighteen days to offer Uroboros as tribute. Fail, and this beautiful Uroboros's Avatar class would disappear.

I have no interest in becoming an ordinary Master. Not now. And besides... if Uroboros's Avatar vanishes, Aquaril might leave me.

The only reason Aquaril — originally Hwaryongwang's fairy — could become mine was the power of that class. If it vanished, the soul-thread tying us together might snap with it.

She'd only just hit 2-Star, but I already couldn't imagine a life without her.

Stack every reason I had, and summoning another fairy offered me exactly nothing.

I rented the inn room for another night and slept in. When I got up, I bought everything we'd need for camping and headed back to Greed's Uroboros Nest.

I'd burned through ten million gold on rank-up materials, but I still had more than that left. Being one of the few Masters in Indigo had its ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠perks — namely, a fat wallet.

I'd also figured out that stashing things inside a container, like a strongbox, let me cram more into my inventory. So I stocked up on the best ingredients, sleeping bags, and everything else a proper camp required.

"Aquaril."

"Yes, my Lord."

"Take these first."

"Pardon? These are... Growth Stones, aren't they? How did you...?"

"Picked them up on the way."

"What?"

I pressed thirteen Lower Growth Stones into Aquaril's hand while she stared at me, completely lost. I'd lifted three from Prisia ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Lily's room when I cleaned it out, and the 2-Star achievement had dumped another ten on me.

All of them were going into Aquaril. Eat up and grow, kid.

"I'm fine, Master. You've already funneled most of the Growth Stones my way, haven't you? So this time, you should—"

"Tsk. That's an order from your Master. Quit arguing and eat them."

"...Thank you, Master."

She'd tried to give them back, but the word order ended the debate. She swallowed the stones.

Fairy not listening? Then give her an order.

You've gotta be fucking kidding me...

I checked Aquaril's stats and scowled. Not the result I'd wanted.

Thirteen Lower Growth Stones. Three of them were Wisdom stones; the other ten rolled random stats.

Of those ten, the stats that actually mattered — Strength, Agility, Vitality — had gone up a measly four points between them. The leftover six had landed as two points of Wisdom and four points of Luck.

A rotten spread. I hated it.

Hah... it's fine. The stones will even out later. Regression to the mean, right?

Flip a coin enough times and it lands fifty-fifty. The main stats hadn't moved this time. Next batch of random stones, they would.

"It's late. We'll start the dungeon tomorrow."

"Yes, Master."

The grinding days dragged on, dull and endless. Hitting 2-Star had inflated the experience I needed per level, so the levels themselves crawled in. The Growth Stone drop rate wasn't doing me any favors either.

I wanted nothing more than to flip on auto-hunt and walk away. Sadly, reality did not come with an auto-battle function. A tragedy, really.

Before I knew it, a week had gone by.

"Ah..."

I'd just caved in the skull of a horned snake when the windows bloomed in front of my eyes.

Status.

The window confirmed it. I'd pushed past level 30 — the recommended clear level for an E-rank dungeon.

Once your level sat above the recommended range, killing monsters stopped giving experience and Growth Stones entirely.

Which meant it was time to graduate from E-rank and start running D-rank.

D-rank is going to be a problem...

A D-rank dungeon was not something the two of us could clear the way we'd been doing. Recommended level ran from 31 on the floor to 60 at the ceiling, and the higher you climbed, the more the monsters scaled — exponentially, not linearly.

Worse, D-rank was where magic-using monsters started showing up. Between the need for more firepower and everything else, the time had come to take Hwaryongwang's head.

"Is something wrong, Master?"

Aquaril had just taken a snake's head off. She looked back at me.

"I leveled up."

"Ah. Then..."

"Yeah. Let's kill the boss."

We'd been leaving the boss alive on purpose. Kill it, and the E-rank dungeon closed for good.

"And once the boss is down, we go back to Indigo. Take a day to regroup, and then..."

Then I'd deal with the king, the prince, and the princesses waiting in the city.

"At last... Yes, Master. I shall serve you."

We were on our way to kill her former Master, and Aquaril didn't hesitate for a second. If anything, she looked like she'd been waiting for this moment — battle-ready and burning for it.

"Shall we?"

"Yes, Master."

Aquaril and I headed for the dungeon's final chamber. After coming in here several times a day, I could've found the path with my eyes closed. I didn't even bother with the flashlight anymore.

Ssssshk! Sss-sss-sshk!

A massive serpent with five horns crowning its skull rose to greet us.

"Hmph."

Maybe it was the levels. The thing used to radiate a pressure that sat on your chest. Now it just... sat there. I wasn't about to get sloppy, but I also didn't feel like I was going to lose.

"Same as always. I'm the shield. You're the sword."

"Yes, Master."

Sword in my right hand, shield in my left, I started toward the Five-Horned Serpent.

Ssssssssshk—!

It launched itself like a coiled spring. The fight was on.

Past level 30, the Five-Horned Serpent was no longer a real threat. It fought like a boss — it always did — but we put it down without any serious trouble.

"Huh?"

"H-hands up!"

"What?"

I'd barely stepped out of the dungeon and was still reading the windows in front of me when a stranger's voice cut in. I dismissed the display — and found soldiers leveling spears at us.

"Aquaril!"

"...It's been a while, Ryona."

Behind the soldiers stood a beauty with a short crop of green hair and a bow in her hands. Hwaryongwang's fairy. Ryona.