We get through the fourth floor without incident, but the fifth is where our problems begin. This floor of the school has the first of the boss monsters: floor guardians that must be defeated to progress onward. Some people are stuck grinding on lower floors until they level up a bit more, but I can usually climb about three-quarters of the way before the fights start to get difficult. I don’t know how Marie♥ will fare. Surely she’ll pass the first challenge, but what of the 25th floor? The 50th?

“Яagnarok,” Marie♥ says, shrinking behind me. “How are we supposed to get upstairs?”

A huge dog paces from one corner of the room to the other. Its dark fur and glowing red eyes give it a devilish appearance. Long, wicked steel claws leave impressions in the floor. With a hideous underbite, saliva trails down its chin. Its long tail flicks back and forth deliberately.

“The Black Shuck!” I exclaim, remembering the event previews. “We’ll have to fight him.”

“I couldn’t.”

“You mean with your current gear? I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“No, I mean... he’s a good boy, isn’t he?”

What in Milky Way are you talking about? He’s a hellspawn!”

At the sound of those words, he looks directly at us. My hand tightens on my whip, my special event weapon. He doesn’t have any kind of fear aura, but I’m still afraid. He’s designed to be big and mean, and Marie♥ is walking over to him, oh my god!

“Marie♥, don’t—!”

She doesn’t listen to me, of course. She gets close enough to trigger the monster’s threat radius and places a hand on its flank. It suddenly sits down and barks. The sound makes my blood run cold.

What the... She’s petting it?!

Its tail thumps against the ground, wagging at a mile per minute.

“Don’t do what, Яagnarok?” She looks like the picture of innocence, a beautiful maiden who’s tamed a dangerous beast.

“Nothing.” I’m puzzled. Does her werewolf-themed equipment give her some type of affinity for animals? Has someone taught her a trick to cheat the event system? “How did you do that?”

“He’s a good boy,” she repeats, still petting the Black Shuck. “Aren’t you, buddy?”

Bark! Another chill runs through me.

“You wanna come with us and protect us?” she asks it. “Huh? You wanna?”

Bark!

This is insane. I don’t understand it, but she’s tamed the boss monster. A collar appears on its massive neck, and a thin silver chain pools on the floor by its feet.

“How about I call you Denver?” Marie♥ asks, gently picking up its leash and fastening it on the collar’s ring.

The Black Shuck licks her face without hesitation.

“Can you set him as your familiar?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “He’s not familiar. I’ve never seen anything like him before.”

“A familiar is a pet that binds to you and supports you,” I explain, wondering how she’s survived this long without basic information like this. “You remember how you equipped the ears and costume? Familiar is just another slot.”

We peek into her inventory together and, as I’ve predicted, there’s a dog totem in it that represents the Black Shuck. She tucks it into the appropriate slot. The dog glows golden for one second. The equipping is complete.

“Let’s—” I look at the Black— at Denver, but keep my distance. “Let’s explore the floor. There should still be some ghosts here.”

Sure enough, with the high spawn rate of the low floors taking effect, it’s only another few steps before another ghost appears. This time, rather than a person wearing a sheet, it’s actually a transparent specter. A human body with no lower limbs, just a nebulous bottom half ending in a wispy tail, floats along with malice, seizing the opportunity to appear in front of Marie♥ with a wail.

Denver pounces! It’s a one-hit KO! The monster picks up two candies in his jaws and brings them back over to Marie♥.

“Den, give.”

The dog shakes its head.

“Den, I’m warning you.” With a surprising amount of boldness, Marie♥ reaches into the dog’s mouth and pulls the candies out. She hands one to me. “For being here to help.”

As much as I want to protest, I can’t. Each candy I get is one step closer to first place. Arguably, even if I aim for the top, I’ll probably end up in tenth or so, but a man’s gotta have dreams, right?

The ghosts pose no challenge between my whip and her familiar. It’s like I’m climbing with another veteran — or at least someone else who belongs with eleventh-grade content.

I try to make conversation as my stamina drains to zero. “Where did you transfer here from?”

“That’s a good question,” Marie♥ answers. “I don’t remember.”

Is the girl of my dreams acting like a newbie because she has amnesia? I feel terrible! I’d been judging her this whole time and there was a perfectly good reason, if only I had thought to ask her before jumping to conclusions.

“I remember a few things,” she says. “Like my family and my name. But nothing else I remember feels real. I don’t understand it. My doctor says that it’s like a response to trauma, but nobody knows what that trauma is. I’m— Oh, Яagnarok, I didn’t mean to talk your ear off about this, please don’t just stand there!”

Huh? What did I do now?

“You still want to climb with me, right?”

“Of course I do!”

“But you’re standing still.”

“Well, yeah, I’m out of stamina. Hold on.”I take a stamina potion out of my inventory and chug it. Ah, refreshing! I catch up to Marie♥ in no time.

Of course someone who doesn’t remember events won’t remember that their stamina will run out if they expend too much of it at once. She was probably a smart girl that took her grades one day at a time, never trying to binge content all at once, so she probably never ran into a zero stamina roadblock outside of events, either.

“You’re amazing,” Marie♥ tells me with a look of admiration on her face that I surely don’t deserve.

“I’m just an average person who knows how to save his items.”

An average person whose shit-tier luck has turned itself on its head this year, if this thing blossoming between us was to be believed. Maybe the real five-stars were the friends we made along the way?

Gross. I’ll pretend I never said that.

Suddenly, I notice someone familiar among the other students on the floor. “Look, there’s Thagomizer!”

“The Student Council president?” Marie♥ follows my gaze.

“She’s a good friend,” I answer. “Most of the time.”

“Most of the time?”

“Яagnarok! Marie♥!” Thagomizer greets us cheerfully, just in time to save me from having to explain my petty jealousy. “You’re climbing fast today.”

"Gotta rush,” I explain. “The top floor waits for no man. Or woman. Or... werewolf...”

Holy shit. I notice with a start that Thag’s also got the Sexy Werewolf costume. I don’t really like to think of her that way, but this outfit makes it impossible to ignore that she’s actually kind of pretty.

“You got the ears, too?” Thag asks Marie♥. “How many tries did it take you?”

“Um, two?”

“Just two?”

“You count the free one first, right? So two.”

“You got it on your first paid pull? Even I had to try three times.” Thag looks impressed. “I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”

“That’s right!” Marie♥ exclaims suddenly. “Friends! Thagomizer, would you like to become friends? Friend’s list friends?”

Thag laughs. “You don’t have to be so formal about it. We’re both in the Student Council, if nothing else.”

The usual dialog box appears between them. The request is sent, then confirmed. I can practically see Marie♥’s strength get a passive buff from Thagomizer’s supports — not that she hadn’t been buffed by mine first, but the stronger stuff does take priority.

I yawn, but there’s no rest for the wicked.

When we’re in the middle of an event, time passes differently. Nobody expects us to leave and go to our dorm rooms to sleep. Days and nights lose meaning, often arbitrarily taking place for the sake of cutscenes. People only stop to sleep when their stamina hits zero — if they let it hit zero in the first place.

We all carry sleeping bags and supplies to bunk down in whatever dungeon or tower we’re adventuring through. At least, most of us do. I’m sure Marie♥ doesn’t have anything of the sort.

Oh! What if we have to share a blanket?

“Let’s goooooo!”