Lacie was next to the murderers from the second floot. I desperately tried to explain. Unlike apparently everyone else, I did not find the chat system intuitive.

  Maddy: Carlita Trentinoza attacked me stairs.

  Lacie: I'm hidden. I ran when you said and they immediately attacked. I'm not in the safe room. Explain again.

  Maddy: Carlita Espinoza, Chue Xiong, Jenny Carpenter, and Trenton C were waiting outside the floor-2 stairs when everyone who went down early popped out. They killed everyone but me.

  Lacie: So, hardcore murderers.

  Maddy: They had 20 skulls between them by floor two.

  Lacie: Uh, they show none, now. Same names, so it's got to be them, but they have some way to hide their kills. They just ordered the guards to hunt for me. I don't think I can get to the saferoom. Are you coming?

  Maddy: Can you stay hidden long? I can rush in and we'll be fighting it out, or I can bring some real trouble.

  Lacie: Bring real trouble. Also, what do you mean by "real trouble"?

  I'd assumed she would want that, so I had already started throwing my knife into the herd. I was yelling at them waving my arms, then sending more pitches. They may have acted a bit like bears, but they moved as a herd, and herds stampede.

  Maddy: By real trouble, I mean half-mantaur herds.

  It started slow, just a cluster turning my way, then more following, and more, and then all of them. I wasn't stopping there, though. I ran parallel to the city for half a mile—like thirty seconds—towards where I'd seen a second orchard. Sure enough, another herd was awaited.

  The idea was clearly that these were sufficiently-huge groups they'd be a challenge to handle. There was probably something else that was supposed to happen, but I didn't care. All I knew was that, seven minutes after Lacie said she was well hidden, I soared over the outer wall with hundreds of half-mantaurs bellowing and stomping after me.

  As I leapt from a rooftop over the open square the murderers were in, Chue tried to send a lightning bolt my way, as if I would have trouble dodging one little spell. The others were staring north, towards the rumbling behind me. I didn't slow, skating through town until I could grab Lacie.

  We kept going, the route out of town unguarded as everyone focused on the half-mantaurs.

  Maddy: Do you get the impression the dungeon isn't really designed for people to move this fast?

  Lacie: Honestly, the number of crawlers that could wipe out a town is very, very high. We're doing it a bit oddly, but neither of us is in the ballpark of Lucia or Prepotente. They wouldn't waste their time on a herd of 35's because the XP would be too low for them.

  Maddy: Huh. Alright. Well, anyways, do we go to another town?

  Quest Failed. You were supposed to save the town from the half-mantaur threat. But look down there. Look. That bugbear just got ripped in half. He's not safe.

  New Achievement! Startling the Whateverbeests

  You remember when Mufasa got trampled by those wildebeests just because he forgot he had a harem of lionesses and his son was totally replaceable? You did that with some half-mantaurs, but to like fifty fathers. Two hundred NPCs dead, and you didn't have to lift a finger. Good job!

  Reward: You've received a Gold Asshole's box.

  New Achievement! CockBlock!

  You have prevented another party of crawlers from completing a quest by destroying the entire town they were supposed to protect. Who were those crawlers? Who fucking cares?

  You get the reward they were promised!

  But wait, I imagine you're smart enough to say, wasn't that the quest you were already on? Actually, no. They got it as the mayor, so it's different, and because the designers did some seriousyl rushed work on this shitshow, that's enough different to count. You're welcome.

  Warning: You may only receive this award once. The next time you do it, we tell them who you are. And then they get a new quest to kill you. Nobody likes cockblocks.

  Reward: You've received a Silver Quest Box and a Town Upgrade Coupon!

  As we skated away, Lacie burst out laughing.

  "What? I didn't read the details."

  "We got more of a reward for destroying the town. Because they were the mayors, their reward included an upgrade. I mean, we can't use it as we aren't mayors, but we get one."

  "Do you ever feel like we're getting the B-grade quests out here?" I asked. "'Hey, uh, the orchard's being screwed with. Yeah, that's it.' Do other crawlers get actual quests in this place?"

  "Definitely," Lacie declared. "We seem to be side-characters as far as the universe is concerned. That may change, since, nevermind."

  I sighed. "Since our numbers went up. I know."

  After a bit, I stopped, looking back and finding the town out of sight. We were, at that moment, in the upper branches of a tree. I had figured out that, if I timed my strokes right, I could skate along tree-branches. I was still slower than I would be on foot, but staying in the treetops avoided traps quite well.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  "So, where to?"

  New Quest! Don't Get Trampled.

  What, you thought they were just dumb beasts? They are dumb beasts, but they also have an excellent sense of smell. You thought cattle, but you should have known the mannish beasts were swine. Specifically, when the description said they were rooting, you should have thought of truffle pigs, snarfling along the ground.

  They didn't smell their prey in that town, and now they're on the hunt.

  Deal with the half-mantaurs before they deal with you.

  Reward: You don't get torn apart by half-mantaurs. What, that's not enough? You already got someone else's reward from this quest chain. Stop bitching.

  "Fuuuuuuuuck," Lacie said.

  "So, hear me out," I said. "I will never have a better chance to work my kaeshi waza up."

  "I hate that this is our strategy. You know I'm going to be terrified the entire time you're fighting, and because there are so many of them, I can't really even help. If it's one or two, I come out in an ambush and only have a few seconds at the end. A herd of fucking hundreds?" She started recasting buffs on me, muttering, "Our plans are entirely off the rails, and we really need to be ready for attackers sometime."

  As they approached, Lacie concealed herself in a tree so well I wouldn't know she was there without the letter-jacket's benefit telling me where she was. I felt more ready than ever for this fight, which honestly didn't scare me. There was tons of open space, only one type of enemy, and no weird boss in the mix, so basically an ideal grinding scenario.

  Also, Lacie's buffs were really getting better. Her Soothing Stream now ticked twice as often. Windswept Crag granted even more benefits to my ability to leap long distances. Strength of the Wilds now granted +30 strength. Symbiotic Barkskin could take more damage.

  As the herd neared, I charged. I didn't want them anywhere near Lacie. One was out front, so I spun into a body-check that tossed him a good forty feet back, and then I was into the mass of them. As expected, they were easy to dodge. They had little concern for each other, piling up in their rush to hurt me, but I could jump about five times as far as they could, so I would just leap to some other part of the swarm and keep going.

  For the first few minutes, I just kept dodging. Kaeshi waza was every bit as good as it sounded. I had this instinct while dodging to push off of my attackers in very specific ways, leaving them stumbling and slipping about me.

  After a few hundred regular triggers, I felt the position as one swiped at me, instinctively grabbed the arm, tucked into it, and flipped it into another one like I was swinging a sack of potatoes. It did a lot of damage.

  Maddy: How long can I practice, or do you want to get the kills and get out?

  Lacie: You're not killing them? What the fuck, Maddy! The entire herd left that town behind. Those murderers could be coming for us right now.

  Maddy: Oh! Shoot, sorry. I was just enjoying the workout.

  Lacie: It's fine. Just kill them. Please.

  I started throwing the Extremely Sharp Knife as fast as I could. I had figured out while practicing my throws at the end of the last floor that I could, while jumping, tuck into a pike to make the dungeon think I was doing a full wind-up, flip through a double-double (that's two backflips while doing two twists) to mostly max out my reduced flippy shit bonus, and send powerful shots out quickly.

  I alternated fastballs and breaking balls, wanting to practice each. The piercing effect of the knife as a fastball let it hit two of these in the open, but I found that the dense scrum when they tried to pile on me let me hit nine or ten. Meanwhile, the breaking ball could nick five to seven, depending on how well I steered it.

  Once I got going, ruptures were ticking all through the herd. Soon, this created a new problem. There was blood everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It was more than ankle deep, but also formed a thin coating across every one of their bodies, and doing my leaps was getting more difficult.

  One of them managed to catch me with a stray kick, triggering my uncanny dodge. Having that on cooldown worried me. Deciding this was stupid, I leapt clear and started moving away while still throwing at them.

  Lacie: You still alright?

  Maddy: It's too slippery with all that blood.

  Lacie: Okay. I'm going to loot them.

  It was while doing this, skating backwards and throwing casual pitches into the mass, that WOW, THAT WAS DUMB popped up and I leapt away. The blast came a half-second later. It shattered a tree and filled my sight with flame.

  It didn't hurt me.

  I realized that the Jailbait barrier, which had been at full for a while already, was back to 6%.

  Lacie: What exploded? I'm coming!

  Maddy: Someone put a trap out here, but the Jailbait Barrier reflected the blast into the trap. I'm fine.

  Lacie: Be careful!

  Maddy: Don't worry. I'm fine.

  At that moment, they were piling against the base of a huge pine I'd jumped into, scrambling up it. I waited a moment longer, then went skating down the pile, trailing the Extremely Sharp Knife through them like a brake.

  As I sped out of the mess, I saw that most of them were dead, so I headed back towards Lacie. I sent a series of fastballs back, the Heavy Steel Ball to slow them down, then skidded to a stop by Lacie.

  She punched my shoulder. "Be careful!"

  "I'm realizing you were right. If the find traps hadn't warned me, I would have been entirely surprised. Even if the barrier hadn't triggered, I dodged far enough that I would have survived."

  She glared. "If you think the compliments are helping, I assure you they are not. No more close calls."

  "That's not why I came back. The new kills after that blast recharged the barrier." I pointed at my chest. "Check it out."

  The Jailbait logo had turned from a dark blue to a bright blue glow.

  Her lips twitched towards a smile, but didn't quite make it.

  "I just wanted to say that, even if I wish it said something else, it does look extremely cool." I glanced at the last of the half-mantaur herds. "Now, I gotta go distract these. If I string them out, are you good to get these kills yourself?"

  She said yes, and for the last twenty, I skated into them and managed to toss them her way, either with kaeshi waza or a fastball, so she could get some practice for her Invasive Growth. As darkness came, the quest completion popped up. No reward, just some snidery about girls killing pigs and thinking it was impressive.

  "It's not wrong," Lacie said. "We got levels, but only a few. The level says a bit, but actual mob power varies widely, and you get a reward for the challenge, not the level. Those were as easy as a 35 gets, hence why they came in a herd."

  "They destroyed that town."

  Lacie said, "They were designed to be able to do that, some part of the quest probably. Remember, everything in this dungeon is halfway rigged and halfway random."

  "Fair enough," I said. "Where to now?"

  "Onwards. Those murderers have to know where we are. We're lucky they didn't already attack."

  "Also," I said, "I get sponsorship-decal payments now. That was another 1400 gold. Not a ton, but not nothing."