Alissa felt exposed in more than one sense of the word. The garment—if it even deserved to be called such—she'd found in an unspeakably horrible store shortly before meeting Doug provided her a constant stream of those accursed points as long as she was in the presence of other human beings, as she'd suspected. It was so tight, she sometimes felt she might as well have been walking around naked.

But that discomfort was nothing compared to standing less than a hundred metres away from a monster larger than a bus that had just swatted aside their strongest combatant. It had been so fast, she'd barely been able to follow what had happened. One moment, the man had been charging at the monster, launching a barrage of fireballs. The next, he'd been soaring through the air, before the darkness swallowed his form, and she lost sight of him entirely. The crow let out a great caw and flapped away into the darkness, chasing after him, with the dove and two parrots following close behind.

Alissa knew her breaths were coming too fast. Her heart was clenched in a vice of fear so tight she was sure it had been compacted to a third of its usual size. Knowing she needed to get a hold of herself and think rationally wasn't actually helping her to do so, however.

She really hoped John wasn't dead. Much as the boy was an obnoxious showoff, he was the only one among them who presently had any chance of defeating this beast, in her estimation.

The demonic crab towered over them, each of its legs twice her height, and she was no small woman. Those giant red pincers looked like they could snip her in half as easily as scissors through paper. And she'd already seen its speed. She eyed Doug as the group got into their formation by sheer habit. What they thought their teamwork could achieve, she didn't know, but there was some small comfort in knowing they were in this together.

"Eyes sharp," Douglas said. "Be ready for anything. If this is a red, it's probably going to have magical abilities of its own."

As if seeking to prove Douglas' point, the crab's mandibled mouth yawned open wide. Alissa initially braced herself for another of its thunderous roars, but her eyes widened when a hellish red light built within the inky darkness of its maw.

"Move!" Doug said, and they did their best.

What came next reminded her of war movies, in a roundabout way. In them, a missile fired from, say, a helicopter was typically represented as a relatively slow-moving thing, giving its targets enough time to at least dodge out of the way.

But when you saw actual footage of what a ballistic missile looked like, you saw how unrealistic that was.

Alissa had barely even moved a step before there was suddenly a line of red light linking the crab monster's maw and a spot on the ground at the centre of their little formation. Next came a clap of thunder, a wave of heat, and then a wall of force that struck her body all at once.

Next thing she knew, the world was spinning. Up became down became down became up, and she quickly lost track, wrenching her eyes shut, focusing everything she had on her system even through the dizziness and nausea and pain. More pain came when her body slammed into something hard, but she'd been ready for it, and a second later blessed relief flooded her as a level up returned her to a healthy state.

Moving quickly as she could, she snapped her eyes open and scrambled to her feet, taking in her surroundings. It briefly shocked her to find that she'd barely been thrown a dozen metres. In the air, it had felt like she'd suffered John's fate, launched fully across the room until slamming into wherever the far wall rested. Regardless, it would have dealt serious damage if she hadn't had several levels saved up.

She never thought she'd be thankful that the overwhelming majority of the options her 'system' offered her were too distasteful to consider, even in the desperation of this disastrous situation. It meant she'd accumulated a lot of spare points that she could put into levels in times like these, simply by existing with this outrageous bodysuit on.

A bodysuit that was only more revealing now, she realised. There was a distinctly cold breeze on parts of her skin, and she didn't dare look down and see just how much of it had been damaged by the previous attack.

Her jaw clenched so hard she worried for her teeth, but couldn't find the will to relax it. Rage suffused her, mingling with embarrassment and shame to form a horribly potent cocktail. She told herself her family would understand her situation. They'd know, from context, that this awful Sluttiness, as the system called it, and the shame it was inflicting on her was up there with her worst nightmares. The idea of people seeing her in this state made her skin crawl.

But she was alive and uninjured now, and she hadn't fully compromised herself yet. That was what mattered.

The others didn't appear so lucky. Lit by the fire the crab monster's laser had created and the three colours of the great eyes, she could see most of her comrades sprawled on the ground, having been thrown around by the monster's attack. Only Douglas seemed completely unaffected, apparently having temporarily frozen himself; as she watched, his spell came undone, and he rushed straight to Jade, who was nearest to him, pushing herself up to her hands and knees while coughing violently.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Help Chester!" he called out over his shoulder, and Alissa was briefly confused, as her understanding of where they'd been standing in their formation put Lily as closer to her. But a glance at the American girl showed that she was back on her knees, if unsteady, and aiming her crossbow at the monster. Alissa turned away and dashed for Chester, the sound of a triple-burst of arrows flying behind her.

Chester was in a bad state once again, and Alissa grimaced. Much of his hockey armour was blackened and singed, and his face was red as a tomato. His eyebrows were gone, and the smell of burned hair told her what had happened there. He was quietly whimpering, rocking from side to side like a turtle that had been knocked on its back and couldn't get up.

There was no chance she'd be able to do what John had done for the boy, carrying him close to the monster so he could land a shot on it. At least there were no limbs bent the wrong way. But his raspy, rattling breaths would perhaps be considered a worse outcome.

"On your feet," she hissed at him as she came close. Sympathy was hard to summon when she could hear the crab monster on the move once more behind her. She did not want to discover what else the creature was capable of.

Grabbing him by the arm, she pulled him up. Her strength was above and beyond what she had ever been previously been capable of, as she'd been putting the majority of her points into the stats the system gave her, finding its ability options largely distasteful. A few days ago, lifting a grown man as if he were little more than a child would have been unthinkable—and especially not a musclebound, six-foot tall man like Chester. Even in the midst of mortal peril, she had to fight a smile at the absurdity.

A furious frown soon overcame it, though. The severe danger of her predicament greedily swallowed any amusement that could arise.

In the distance, she heard the caw of a crow and the answering voices of those vulgar parrots, and dearly hoped that meant John was alive. She didn't care for him much, but he was undeniably their hope, here.

Alissa pulled Chester along as she ran towards where Doug had successfully helped Jade to her feet. At a glance, it was clear she hadn't levelled herself, but perhaps wasn't injured enough to justify it. Of all of them, her armour provided the most protection—Lily's chainmail covered only her upper half, and the motorcycle helmet wasn't exactly designed for these purposes; Chester's hockey armour and army helmet were even worse; and Alissa and Doug didn't wear armour at all, standing exposed in their own ways.

"Up to us, huh?" Jade murmured as they gathered back into their formation.

The crab monster hadn't taken a single step from where it had slapped John aside. It was watching them with those awful red eyes, and she hoped it was her imagination projecting amusement onto the way they seemed to curve at the edges. The monster was dangerous enough without being the kind of sadistic creature that would toy with them.

She tilted her head, squinting at it. Then again, if it took them seriously, they'd be dead immediately. Was it actually playing with them, or were there nonsensical unwritten rules at play yet again? The three eyes were watching it closely.

"Why hasn't it finished us off?" Jade asked, voicing an approximation of her thought.

"It easily could," Doug mused, rubbing his chin. "It only attacked John after he'd got some hits in. Is it giving us a chance, too?"

"Turn-based combat," Chester gasped, his voice tight with pain. "Hate that shit."

"I did attack it, though," Lily said with a tremor in her voice. "My fire bolts did nothing to it, man."

"And it attacked us first," Alissa pointed out. "We had done nothing to it when it fired that laser."

Doug shrugged one shoulder, still watching the monster warily. "Well, the fact is, it's doing nothing right now. There has to be some reason for that, and I'd feel better if I knew what. But I suppose we can't have everything we want. Don't see any easy way to figure out the rules, unless one of you feels up to asking it?"

No one replied to that.

"Thought so," Doug muttered.

"If it is giving us a chance to attack," Alissa said slowly, "do we take it?"

Chester looked at her askance. "And put it back on its turn?" He wheezed a mirthless laugh. "No," he gasped out between laboured breaths. "Fuck that. Keep it waiting. For John."

Jade shook her head. "What if there's a time limit? It looks like we basically have a free hit right now, but I severely doubt that's going to last forever. We should take the chance to do some damage."

"One at a time, you think?" Doug asked.

Lily lifted a hand off her crossbow, though she was still aiming at the giant metal crab. "I've already attacked. I'm worried it will retaliate if I attack again. If it's waiting for our turn, then it's up to the rest of you."

"So we know that piercing attacks like arrows won't work," Jade said. She glanced at Alissa, only for her eyes to widen and quickly trail down Alissa's body. "Caustic attacks, then? Like the rock golem back there?"

Trying not to imagine what the Scottish woman had just seen, Alissa took a deep breath, and spoke through clenched teeth: "We attack together, then."

"And… what the fuck… am I meant to do… here?" Chester asked.

"You just sit this one out if it seems too much for you, lad," Doug said with a hint of frustration in his tone. "Lily, stay with him and give us some covering fire if we need it. Jade, Alissa, with me. I have some ideas."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.