Edge slothed his way down the steps of the inn. Mornings were not his favourite. The girls sat on the floor around a low dining table in the onsen’s great room. Breakfast was forthcoming, he hoped.

“So, as I understand it, we save rubies by sharing a room. But then why does Edge get his own room?” Claire asked.

Oh no, not this again. This conversation was heading in a direction that might get him stuck sharing a room. Images of sleepless nights wrapped in soft suffocating bodies sent a digital chill down his spine.

“. . . and why is it okay to spend money on cake, yet we can’t afford a room for each of us?” Claire complained. She makes a good point. Please listen to her, Edge begged internally. Half their earnings seemed reserved for the cake fund these days.

“Edge gets his own room so that his precious virginity is protected,” declared Daphne, with her hands on her hips.

“Are you Edge’s little sister, Daphne?” inquired Claire, honestly.

The girls broke out into fits of laughter, except Daphne, who was in a state of stunned frustration.

“What is it? What’s so funny?”

“Morning ladies,” greeted Edge. “I see the excitement is starting early today.”

Claire suddenly took a scolding tone. “Edge, when I agreed to join your group, I thought you were all high level Gambits trying seriously to beat this game. But from what I’ve seen so far, all you do is play around, wastefully. I won’t be in a group who acts like this.”

A tiny smirk caught at the corners of Edge’s mouth.

“We’re not Gambits,” reproached Belladonna.

“So this is a group of Glitches then?” Glitches, he hadn’t heard that terminology before. It made a sort of painful sense. Bugs in the system, players who wouldn’t play.

“What did you call us?” Belladonna’s temper flared into life.

“Bell, that’s enough,” said Edge in a tempo he usually reserved for battle.

“We’re not Glitches, and we’re not Gambits either,” said Edge, truly. “There’s no proof that winning the game will get us out of here, nor is there evidence that someone is trying to save us. But, if there is a way out . . . we’ll work together to find it.”

“Together, with just the four of you?” snorted a skeptical Claire. “The Gambits have over a hundred members now. They’re saving every emerald to make it farther in the game. They have a whole army of people aiming for the same goal.”

Edge recalled the bloodied face of an elven gambit, who was now nothing but a tombstone in a field. The Gambit leaders didn’t have enough crystals to waste on armour for that guy, or the others who’d died for their cause. “What about those people who died . . .” said Edge. “Would you sacrifice their lives so that you can get home sooner?”

The remark hurt Claire. “That’s not what we-it’s not like that. Everyone volunteers for training. No one is supposed to . . .”

“Training? By fighting without the right equipment, or the right teamwork.”

“We were all level two,” she protested.

“Listen to yourself. Level two. This is Levia Online. It’s not about level here. Every mob is three times tougher than any online game I’ve ever played. Even around the starting point, the mobs are tough enough to kill you. I keep thinking to myself, thousands of people gave money to the crowdfunding for this game. Even if there are fifty cities like Cobbletown, how many players survived to get to this point, do you think? How many tombstones are out there somewhere, in some remote place we’ll never find, forgotten. Never even given a fair chance. Every person who’s made it this far is important. Their lives aren’t something that should be put at risk for nothing!”

“Then what were you doing at the crossroads in the first place? Going to kill bandits? Did you know that one bandit is two times harder than a caravan guard, and for the same experience?”

He didn’t know that. One of their group’s big weaknesses is a lack of information from other players, especially the Gambits, who they’d been trying to avoid. But . . . he needed to make Claire understand the difference between them and the Gambits.

“Sakura,” he began, his eyes in a deadlock with Claire’s, “we chance upon a group of a dozen bandits. They see us, and there is no avenue for escape.”

“I check the distance, and then get into position to cast a [firebomb].” Sakura was too quick.

“Daphne.” Edge called the roll.

“I check everyone’s life points, then I get into position in front of Sakura, but so that she’s within range of my songs. If we’re full health, I start my damage buff right away, and I wait to shoot at the nearest target, or your orders.”

“Belladonna.”

“I take position beside Daphne, and I use my stun arrow on either the closest target, or the highest threat mob. We know the bandits have archers too, so if Sakura’s firebomb doesn’t get them all, I make sure that the rest are stunned or down.”

“What’s next?” asked Edge, of the group.

“Prepare for kiting,” said Sakura, announcing her role.

“Healing, dashing, and kiting,” added Daphne.

“I keep up damage, and use dash to encircle the mobs, and stun any reinforcements,” added Belladonna.

“And I retreat for heals, kiting, and to group the mobs for Sakura’s next spell.” Edge finished. Did Claire see the difference between using a strategy to find easy mobs, and using tactics in order to defeat an enemy, no matter their strength, or what surprises they throw at you. It didn’t hurt that their party’s DPS was already absurdly high.

“Would you win?” Claire asked the group.

Edge didn’t want to answer; there was no real way to know for sure.

“Flawless victory,” quoted Daphne in a scary voice.

“We’re lucky if we even get to shoot at the mobs after one of those firebombs goes off,” said Belladonna.

Sakura’s glasses reappeared on her face just in time for her to adjust them, with a glimmer. “I calculate our odds at [95%] success. The other [5%] of the time Edge dies saving a new girl.”

Claire stood up to talk with Edge, face to face. “You’re not like I expected you to be,” she said. “I don’t know if you’re all talk, but you . . . you make me want to find out,” she said, reaching her hand out to seal their arrangement.

“Yay, our group is full!” Daphne cheered, leaping onto Claire’s back. She whispered into Claire’s ear menacingly, “he’s mine, moo-moo-chan. Hands off.”

“Congratulations,” said Sakura. “Now please sign this membership contract,” she teased.

“Special Team Edge initiation ritual number two, [Melon Torture],” announced Daphne from her place on Claire’s back. She then proceeded to squeeze, rub push and pull Claire’s boobs all at once.

“Pervert,” stated Belladonna, knocking Daphne off of Claire with a punch on the top of the head. So that’s where Daphne learned to do that! Though, by the dazed look on Daphne’s face as Belladonna dragged her across the tatami mats and out of the dining room, Daphne still had a lot to learn.

Edge heard a splash as someone was tossed into the hot spring. He wondered when breakfast was coming . . .