As I walked out from behind the building, I jumped as I saw the owllike Dota looking at me with an inscrutable expression, his feathered arms crossed.

After checking whether anyone was with him, I wrote, {Hi.}

“Hello,” he said with a curious tone.

...

“Sorry, I think my curiosity got the best of me,” he continued. “I hardly understand what I just saw, but I doubt you wanted me to see any of that.”

I nodded.

“Mmm...well, I’ll provide you the sanctity of privacy. Don’t expect me to blab about things I don’t understand. Besides, we may not be alive had he not swooped in to save us.” With a glance toward me, he began walking back to the exhausted group still resting far from the two of us.

A-anyway...

I barely understood what was going on myself, but I sure felt excited about it!

Also tired after everything that had happened.

As I walked toward the group, Asher was the first person...monster to approach me.

He sniffed me down, then turned his long head to Cobaltio. I nervously hovered a hand over my clipped sword, but he simply sniffed him as well with a...slightly perturbed expression, then glanced at me with a clear sense of indignance. He quickly walked away, then offered his back to Ritta.

“Oh, thank you, Asher...” he mumbled, climbing onto his back with an exhausted expression.

A few of my fellow escapees were talking to each other exhaustedly.

Thankfully for me, signing didn’t require me to stop breathing.

“Hey, Saya!” Reco yelled once Asher left me. “Could you tell me who that guy was? He saved our asses!”

I glanced to the side at Cobaltio, then raised my slate. {I don’t know,} I wrote.

She stared at me discerningly, then frowned, then shrugged. “Eh, whatever. More credit for...oh, who am I kidding, the whole mine collapsed from that single spell...” she said sadly. “We completely failed.”

“But we stopped the escape of monsters, right?” Thraisly countered, laying on Milo. “Plus I leveled up twice from that.”

Reco rolled her eyes. “Fair enough. I leveled up, too, and that’s saying a lot about that crazy ride.” She rolled her shoulders. “Heck, I’ve only killed one other boss before...”

“Dad’s mine...” Keen mumbled, staring at it with a mesmerized expression, leaning back on his hands, laying on the ground. “It...”

Symantha kneeled beside him and put her hands on his shoulders. “It’s alright, Keen...” She sighed. “We had no idea that would happen.”

That undead mage, who had once been the mine’s overseer, had been able to collapse the entire dungeon with a single spell, which was...suspicious. [Earthquake] was strong, but not that strong. Maybe it was some sort of intentional design flaw. I wasn’t sure how much control Maophas would’ve had on its creation.

I grimaced as I thought about what I’d done. The mine seemed really important, and...well, I’d maliciously sabotaged my own job. Heck, I’d nearly killed everyone while I was at it, now that I thought about it.

Maybe I really was in the right, but...I still felt guilty.

I would’ve felt that way anyway, dangit! What a useless, cruddy feeling!

Julius stood up, still breathing heavily like the rest of us. “We couldn’t stop it, and we can’t take it back. We’ll have to just deal with the consequences.”

“Easy for you to say,” Reco said. “I’m in for a lot of scolding once I get back. It isn’t really my fault we stumbled into a dungeon, but you all nearly died on my watch, so...” She grimaced. “I’ll take the fall for it all.”

Life just wasn’t fair, was it?

We settled down in the center of the mine’s main yard. Reco and Ritta began to walk toward the town further up the large but gently sloped mountain, ready to break the news that the miners might be out of jobs, at least until they found out how to re-open the mine, while Symantha began making us dinner out of spare resources in the buildings.

Meanwhile, the rest of us began consulting our menus.

First, I checked my:

Message Log:

You gained 36 Exp!

Cobaltio gained 32 Exp from [shared experience]!

Cobaltio leveled up!

Stat up: Str: +0 Dex: +1 Con: +0 Wiz: +0 Int: +1 Cha: +1

In combat...

You gained 149 Exp!!

Cobaltio gained 178 Exp from [shared experience]!!

You leveled up twice!!

Stat up: Str: +0 Dex: +0 Con: +1 Wiz: +0 Int: +0 Cha: +1

Stat up: Str: +1 Dex: +1 Con: +0 Wiz: +0 Int: +0 Cha: +1

Cobaltio leveled up twice!!

Stat up: Str: +1 Dex: +0 Con: +0 Wiz: +1 Int: +1 Cha: +0

Stat up: Str: +1 Dex: +0 Con: +0 Wiz: +1 Int: +2 Cha: +1

New bonus: [boss killer]- +5% strength and constitution growth rates

You gained [aerial fighter]!

You gained [golaiath hunter]!

You gained [monster hunter tier 2]!

You have 300 Class Points! (Exp to contribute. Name recently changed due to feedback for clarification.)

You may increase growth rates by 5% 4 times.A

I began the math on my chalkboard:

I gained:

Str: +1 Dex: +1 Con: +1 Wiz: +0 Int: +0 Cha: +2

+20% to assort to my stat growths

+5% to my Str and Con growths

And three different skills:

[aerial fighter]: you have a resistance to fall damage and have +3 to Str, Dex, and Con while in midair.

[boss nurturer]: when caring for a potential [boss] monster, the food you give it grants 20% more experience and is 20% more sustentative. It also gains an additional 5% in all stat growths when classing or classed up in your care.

[goliath hunter]: deal extra damage and take less damage from massive creatures.

In just the last few hours, I’d grown so much stronger. I could briefly turn ethereal, which I couldn’t even begin to consider the implications of, I was stronger in the air, I could fight huge creatures easier, and I was stronger in general.

If I hadn’t let the dungeon collapse, I might’ve come back with some of that monster-slaying ore, too.

I fiddled with my [Soul Cushion], downcast.

But I didn’t feel as good as I could’ve about it. I had endangered my friends on purpose, and they didn’t even know it.

I gripped the green string tightly. I needed to get better, to get smarter. I needed to be so strong that I didn’t need to feel that way.

I looked back up at my menu, then I attributed my stats and swapped my skills. I placed two points into strength then two into dexterity. My technique was good, but it meant nothing if my hands were unsteady and even less if I couldn’t make a dent in my enemy’s armor.

Rerolling...

You gained +1 Str!

Oh, cool, I didn’t waste the growths by leveling up before I applied them. I opened my personal stats.

Saya: Age: 13

Chaotic Good

Patron: Maophas

Class: [apprentice] [trailblazer]

Race: [human]

Level: 13

Exp: 23

Base Stats: Str: 16 Dex: 14 Con: 12 Wis: 19 Int: 17 Cha: 17

Stat Growths: Str: 55% Dex: 30% Con: 25% Wis: 40% Int: 35% Cha: 30%

Inherent skills: [mute] [fast learner] [trainer] [don’t despair] [student of magic] [planeswalker] [determination] [oathbreaker]

Trained skills: [storytelling tier 3] [scribing tier 2] [magic tier 1] [print communication tier 2][monster hunter tier 1] [swordsmanship tier 1] [reasonable writer] [ruthless striker tier 1] [perception tier 1] [boss nurturer]

Inactive Skills: [poison resistance tier 1] [stealth tier 1] [goliath hunter] [dead as nightfall] [aerial fighter] [back to back]

Maophas had become my patron? And what was [don’t despair]?

[don’t despair]: Never give in. I’m with you!

Was this a joke?! Did the god of death just give me an inspirational speech?

What a nice guy.

It also seemed to have increased my Cha, similar to [hope]...seraph had given me that skill, hadn’t she? It had the strange ability to act as an anesthetic, but was [don’t despair] just a friendly message, or did it do something similar when I fell in a pinch?

Either way, it was nice to have a patron again. He’d saved my life, and he might do it again, just like Seraph had in the past.

I had 300 class points as well...I didn’t have a clue as to what class I’d get next, and I was sure I’d unlock whatever I wanted by the time I was level 20, so I raised my slate.

{Attribute 200 points to lowering the [visibility] of [oathbreaker] and 100 to [trailblazer]}

Points attributed!

I looked down to Cobaltio, my duties done. “What do you think?” I asked him. He was staring at his own menu, trying to figure out how it worked. I could feel his annoyance as he was perplexed by it. I could also feel that he’d grown a lot smarter after leveling up, but clearly it was still too complex for him.

He had gained:

Str: +2 Dex: +1 Con: +0 Wiz: +2 Int: +4 Cha: +2

+20% to assort to stat growths

+5% to his Str and Con growths

Since he barely understood what was happening, I decided to educate him on how it worked, signing the details to him.

So, assorting your stat growths basically makes those stats grow faster over time, I signed. You want to assort your growths where you want to grow.

“What are the stats?” he asked aloud.

I paused and glanced around the bonfire we’d made. I got some strange looks, but nobody seemed interested in questioning my talking Dragonborn, maybe too exhausted.

So, S-t-r means strength, D-e-x means dexterity... I signed. There weren’t abbreviations in the sign language, so I had to sign each letter individually.

Once I finished explaining what each stat meant, the sitting drake said, his voice still a bit scratchy and slow, “Do I get big if I get strong?”

No. But you do get strong.

“Okay. If my wisdom is low, am I dumb?”

Oof, that was a landmine. N-no, you just aren’t a good decision-maker. I could hesitate on words in sign language, a level of subtlety I wasn’t capable of with my slate.

“Oh. Can I get smarter then?”

Did he see through my white lie? Actually, if he was already talking almost like a normal person, how smart would he be in a few more years? I was excited to see my friend grow up.

Do you want to assort into wisdom?

“That makes me smarter?”

I nodded. Yes.

“Yay! Then that!”

What about the other stat growths?

“I wanna be strong...strength?”

I attributed 10% into both Str and Wis for him.

Cobaltio: Age: 1 Real age: 2 months

Lawful Good

Patron: Drakonis, Maophas

Class: [dragonborn]

Race: [cobalt drake] [zethokin]

Level: 8

Exp: 12

Base Stats: Str: 14 Dex: 14 Con: 13 Wis: 9 Int: 30 Cha: 17

Stat Growths: Str: 55% Dex: 15% Con: 35% Wis: 30% Int: 120% Cha: 50%

Inherent skills: [blessed of Maophas] [minevore] [draconic leniage] [drake lineage] [Draconis’s fate] [deaf] [infernal resistance]

Trained skills: [noble presence] [language] [stat enhancement tier 1] [shared expirence] [noble taste] [area denial]

Equipment: [natural armor tier 2] [death wing]

Magics: [fire breath tier 2] [draconic imbuement tier 2]

I’d overlooked it earlier, but during our fight with the [hellish foxhounds], Cobaltio’s level-up had gifted him a new skill, [area denial].

[area denial]: your attacks that create a large area of effect are amplified in size and damage by 1.2x.

It wouldn’t be long before he got his own class-up, at an amazing rate! It wasn’t exactly normal for somebody to get a class-up only months into their lives.

As I took stock of everything that had changed, a message appeared in both of our menus, highlighted in a deep neon green.

A new global update has been made!

It may take some time for your menu to adapt to the changes. If there are any bugs, please address them to your menu immediately.

It is suggested for you to read the update notes.

I blinked, surprised at what had just happened. Updates were only made every few years, so it was a huge deal and changed a ton when they were made.

Everyone else gasped and wowed in surprise, getting the notification at the same time as me.

Cobaltio tilted his head. “Up...date?”