Daniel woke to Ivey cuddling into him.

“Hey,” she whispered, giving him a small peck on the lips. “You did great.”

“Are they . . .” He nodded toward the hallway, asking about the zombies that had survived. Had they been trying to break in while he was unconscious?

“Nothing,” she assured him. “They have not come back.”

His head felt a little foggy. “I . . .”

“Shh,” she said, giving him another peck on the lips to stop him from talking. “Just take your time to recover. You have been unconscious for about thirty minutes. You were magnificent.” She sounded almost breathless as she remembered. “The way our traps crushed them, and your spikes tricked the fourth into an active trap.” He was a little surprised that she had picked up on that detail. “Then you one-shot the big one.”

“Is that a pillow?”

She grinned. “Yeah, the floor was uncomfortable.”

Then he realised he had one shoved under his head too. It was all very disorienting. Even the splinters had been cleared away, both from around him and her, and he could not feel any cuts on him. She had healed him as well.

“Thanks for the pillow.”

Ivey giggled. “Thanks for killing the big evil monster. It was very manly.”

“In a . . .“ Daniel hesitated, not sure what to say. Gandalf or Merlin, but they were the wrong type of wizard. After all, it all been done with what could only be described as druidic magic. “Magic manly way,” he finished lamely.

She giggled again.

Daniel wondered what the world had thrown at him. It had gone to shit, but his own prospects had improved, providing he survived. If he got back to his farm, he was inching to see exactly what this nature magic could achieve. Already he could imagine the crops that he could produce and then there was the girl in front of him. She had been a rare one-night stand, yet she was rapidly growing on him. There was a natural attraction, but there was more to it than that. He felt like he could rely on her, and she seemed attracted to him, too. The squishing her own bugs and firing arrows certainly helped with that impression.

“You know we can’t lie here forever,” she told him directly. “It won’t be hygienic to stay with the corpses and we still need more water.”

“And food,” he agreed with a groan.

“This chick had half a suitcase of food, so we are fine for a while.”

“What is there?”

“Lie there, and I will get you something.”

He lay there, remembering the battle, planning what he could have done better. That trick he had used against the big one had been pretty effective and had not needed a lot of wood. It required a stationary opponent or perfect timing, but providing he got either of those, it would be deadly.

It had a good kill-to-wood ratio.

Not that those sorts of considerations mattered; after all, the moment this floor was cleared, there would be an excess of timber. Daniel felt like groaning at the enormity of what they had to do. They had killed seven zombies so far. But there were at least three more out in the corridor and who knew how many out further. Then, once they had cleared this level, they had another twenty-five floors to kill through. That was a lot of fights, and given his current downtime between each engagement, it would take them almost a month to make it all the way down if the monsters were anywhere near as common as he suspected.

That was too long.

Ivey had mentioned leveling up and getting stronger. If that was true . . . Magic, he reminded himself—it actually existed. Everything she had told him had been accurate so far, and therefore, leveling his skills would make things easier. Also, his class was a beast whisperer; that meant an animal companion and getting a powerful creature to fight for him would absolutely change the dynamics.

“Ready,” Ivey called out.

Daniel pushed himself to his feet and picked his way over the shattered remnants of his traps. He was not looking forward to recycling it all.

Ivey was in the kitchenette, and she angled her body to stop him from observing what she was doing.

“Sit on the bed in the next room.”

He did as instructed. This room had possessed two queen beds, and they had been pushed together, so one would act as a table for the other. A bottle of Coke and Fanta were already in place.

He sat down.

Ivey came in with a bowl. “Medicine first.” She beamed at him. It was a nurse’s smile, but she made it look natural. She was gorgeous in the late afternoon sun. With a flourish, she presented the bowl. Five pebbles were in it.

“Cores?” he asked.

“Drink up,” Ivey ordered, ignoring him and nodding towards the Fanta. “And then I will keep preparing dinner.”

“What happens if it knocks me out at the wrong time? You know, again,” he protested.

“I read up on it,” she said instantly, like she had been waiting for the question. “Stress speeds up processing, so it will consistency occur after battle, but it won’t trigger during.”

“How the hell would it know?”

She tapped her head. “It is what you think and sort of my opinion.”

Daniel thought about the two times. In the latest fight, they had been safe. He remembered having checked the door and proven that the others had fled. He definitely recalled his shoulders sagging and the relief flooding through him when he realised they had survived. Yep, he had triggered the last event, but in the first one, the zombie had been alive. He had absolutely not felt safe.

“What do you mean when you say ‘your opinion’?”

“We are linked. Do you remember that first event? That was me. It was trapped, and I was like, ‘Yes, we won’. Then you keeled over and I had to stab the thing to death to make sure.”

Daniel nodded. It made little sense, but he could sort of see how it could work. There was actual magic. It was not like a small amount of extra crazy was impossible given that already ludicrous fact, and if Ivey had written rules that seemed to work elsewhere and she was telling him they applied to him, then it was better to accept what was happening rather than fighting pointlessly against them.

He glanced at the bowl that he had been given, four smaller ones and one larger one.

Twenty-five floors to fight through. Literally hundreds of fights. Even if he had a ninety-nine percent chance in every battle, they were not good odds. He needed power. Daniel fiddled with the stones momentarily as he thought about it. What was a bit of pain versus living? It was almost a bargain.

He swallowed the smaller ones and washing them down with the sweet orange juice. They felt like future pain as the lumpy masses went down. Two were probably speed and they would be fine, but the other three were unknown, particularly the giant stone. He knew where that had come from, that massive zombie. Hard feet, large and immensely strong, but little more beyond that. What would happen if he took it?

Would he get that strength or the size?

That was the question.

Ivey was watching him, so he swallowed the fourth core.

Looks aside, size could easily be a negative, especially inside a hotel where he might need to squeeze between potentially small spaces. A couple of inches were fine, but if he ended up looking like that monstrosity, that was not something he wanted.

Ivey was still looking, so he pretended to have the core while leaving the stone pressed tightly in his fist.

“Good boy.” Ivey sauntered away.

He needed a hiding spot. His club was next to him and, almost without thinking, he slapped the stone against the wood. His magic flowed along it, and the alien object sank into the wood like he was pressing it into wet clay. There was no noise, no sign apart from the green glow of his hand, and then it was done. He examined the outcome curiously, and the club was flawless.

It seemed absurd that he had just sunk a foreign object into it because, as he studied the wood, there was no raised spot. The grain was unbroken; there were no physical clues to be found.

He could hide anything in solid wood. It was a crazy use of his magic powers, but if he went into smuggling . . .

“What are you smirking at?”

“Magic.”

She stood there smiling prettily at him. Holding something out of sight.

“Are you admiring your club?” she asked.

“It is very fine,” he answered, stroking it.

“Very fine, so large.” She poked out a tongue at him, breaking the moment. “Ta-da,” she said, stepping fully into the room and presenting the plate to him. It was a tuna salad. She was grinning. Then her face fell at his expression. “Let me guess, you are a meat and potato type of guy.”

Daniel felt more than a little guilty. “No, I like salad.” He took the fork and riffled through it, very surprised that she had the ingredients. It looked cafe level decent. “Is that cheese?”

She beamed again. “Goat cheese, it was in the fridge. Eat, eat.”

The salad was lovely, and it was nice to sit there eating, but the spectacle of what was about to happen still hung over the two of them.

“We need to kill a lot of zombies, don’t we?”

Ivey finished her mouth full of food. She swallowed. “Yes.”

“You think anyone is alive?”

Ivey nodded, still eating.

“I was thinking we can just go out the window and lower ourselves to the ground, but we can’t do that, can we?” Ivey kept eating, but she was listening to him. “Because there are as many monsters down there, and we need to go room by room looking for survivors.”

Ivey put her fork down. “I think you are right. As depressing as this is”—she waved her hand to indicate the broken doors and the lack of furniture—“the entire building is a good grinding spot. With your skills, we can always fight from trapped fortifications.”

“Grinding?” he asked with a small smile.

“What? You never played computer games?” she shot back.

“No,” Daniel answered honestly. “I am a farmer. I never had time for that sort of thing.” My friends did, he thought privately, even the farm kids.

“This is clearly not a computer game. But . . .” She pointed to her skull. “The interface system is close to one. We kill stuff and we get experience. That strengthens us. We eliminate zombies.” She made an inverted quote when she used his expression in place of her preferred actual one. “And we both get experience, and you get the cores, which strengthen you again. Grinding is killing monsters to grow your abilities, and this tower is damn good for that.”

He finished his salad. Sometimes, she was cute when she lectured.

“Okay, let’s do some grinding.”