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“Can someone please explain to me why we let Rock handle the cooking?” Eve looked across the clearing at the enormous gem golem wearing an apron and attempting to cook pumpkin soup. Rock was over three meters tall, with various stalactites of gems coving his back. Nobody knew where he came from, but he was famous in the Empire for stories about how a few dumb nobles died trying to capture him and mine the gems off his back.

A man wearing a bright blue business suit combed back his silky black hair with his white-gloved hand and sighed. “Eve, if you want to tell that dumb oaf what to do, be my guest. But we all know what happened to the Raven family when they tried to harvest him.”

Eve shuddered and sat back down on the hard ground. “Yeah, you’re right, Zedd. It’s just…he can’t taste or smell! How can Rock possibly cook anything? The last tomato soup he made us was downright horrendous! Sam even threw up!”

The timid mage winced at the memory. “T-that was so embarrassing.” Sam covered his face with his hands in shame.

Zedd chuckled from the side while he inspected a razor-sharp black dagger. “Careful, Eve. Making fun of a disciple from the Hackers clan is never a good idea.” He then pointed the blade at Eve. “Even that legendary bikini armor won’t save you.”

Eve looked down at the bright pink bikini that failed to hide her ripped muscles. It was a legendary piece of armor she had found on the fiftieth floor of the Empire’s dungeon. Unfortunately, wearing it made her famous in the Delvers guild…for reasons she didn’t appreciate.

Eve snorted and put a slightly muscular arm around Sam’s shoulder. “We are buddies, aren’t we, Sam? Please don’t send your mentor after me…”

“I a-am n-not sure w-we could be considered f-f-friends…” Sam stammered as he nervously tried to push the Amazon’s arm off his shoulder. “W-we j-just met only a w-week ago.”

Eve pushed her long, flowing pink hair behind her ear and grinned at the blushing mage. “Well, that means we have all the more to talk about! Say, Sam, tell me about the Hackers guild?”

Zedd shot Eve a threatening look, but she ignored the rogue businessman; she acted politely and posed the question in a friendly manner, but she was really curious. Information on the Hackers guild was almost impossible to come by other than asking one, and there were so few of them that it was hard to meet one. Especially a Hacker as easy to manipulate as Sam here.

“I c-can’t say anything.”

Eve frowned and moved closer to the mage; her breath tickled his ear as she softly whispered, “Okay, but what about you? So few Hackers join the Delvers guild, and you are adamantite rank before even doing a single mission. I am soooo curious.”

Sam’s sandy-colored hair and green puppy eyes made Eve feel bad for the young lad. But having a one-on-one conversation with a Hacker without an escort of knights was so rare that she just had to take the opportunity.

Sam lowered his head and mumbled, “I can change stats…”

“HUH?” Eve’s eyes went wide; she had never heard anything so ridiculous. “Change stats? How—”

“FOOD. READY.” A thunderous voice echoed through the forest, sending a flurry of birds into the sky. “ENJOY!” The titanic gem golem shook the earth with every step as he tried to carry over three tiny bowls on his fingers. Once the golem arrived, he cast a shadow over the whole area. He gazed at his three travel companions with his diamond eyes, and a crooked smile appeared on his face. “BEST. FOOD. YET!” His hand smacked the ground, causing everyone to cough as dust exploded through the air.

“Control your strength, you dumb rock!” Eve hollered between coughing fits. Once the dust settled, everyone reached out and retrieved their bowl of…nothing. Bright orange pumpkin soup dyed the golem’s route from the cooking pot and the crater around his hand.

“Wow, so scrumptious!” Zedd said sarcastically as he looked into his empty bowl. “Are there seconds?” All three instantly eyed the cooking pot a few meters away.

“FINISHED. ALREADY? WOW! YES. THERE. IS. MORE…”

It all happened in a flash. Zedd was gone in a puff of smoke, and a black shadow of a figure dashed toward the pot.

Sam stood, raised his bamboo staff, and commanded, “System access, identify user, fast cast, swap DEX with STR.” Complex runes that defied logic appeared. Eve had seen the runic language used by mages before, but this one differed. Instead of an ancient script, it was all in green zeros and ones that warped around Sam before tearing a hole in space and surrounding the moving figure.

Zedd tumbled over himself as his movement spell canceled. He tried to push himself off the floor—but screamed as he flew farther than he anticipated and smacked his head on the cooking pot like a gong…causing it to tumble and spill all of its contents.

“THERE. WAS. ENOUGH. FOR. EVERYONE.” Rock slowly said as he looked at his ruined cooking. “NOW. THERE. IS. NONE.” Rock sat down on his butt and started poking at the ground with his head hung low.

Eve had never seen a depressed golem before. Maybe Rock was more intelligent than he looked? “No, that can’t be possible,” she whispered as she looked at the behemoth that had caused so much terror in the Empire over the last few months.

“Say Rock…” Eve appeared in front of the titan, waving a hand in his face. “Why did you become a Delver?”

“DELVER?” The golem scratched his head, and a few gems flaked off. Eve twitched as she resisted the urge to bend down and pick them up. “WHAT. IS. THAT?”

“This, silly.” Eve pointed toward the piece of adamantite on a silver chain around his neck…although it was hard to see amongst all the other bright gems like rubies and emeralds that covered the golem.

“OH…HUMAN. GAVE. ME. THIS. SAID. IT. WAS. REWARD. FOR. MY. CHEF. SKILLS.”

Eve gently bent down and joined in with Sam and Zedd, who sneakily grabbed all the gems from the forest floor. “Oh…yeah, right. Your chef skills are indeed top notch…” she sarcastically said and stumbled back as the gem golem smiled.

“YES! ME. BEST. CHEF.” His voice hurt Eve’s ears. It was so bloody loud.

“I bet the Empire is using us as glorified babysitters,” Zedd sneered as he pocketed a rather large piece of tanzanite. “Pay was good, though.” He shrugged as he stood up. “Nothing in this forest can hurt us anyways, so long as we stay away from the dragons.”

“Pay was good for you,” Eve grumbled. “I still have to pay back the tax on this bikini armor. I have said this before, and I will say it again. Just because the Empire owns the dungeon doesn’t mean they should have the right to any items we find! It’s ludicrous! They can make up any price and force us to repurchase it from them if we want to keep it!”

Sam coughed on the side. “There was such a rule?”

Eve waved her hand at the mage. “Rules? For Hackers? They don’t exist; you guys are protected entities by law. If the Empire tried to take something away from you and extort money from a Hacker, then one of the big wigs from your guild would make a move, like your mentor, for example.”

Sam shrunk back from the angry warrior. “S-sorry about that. L-life is not fair, it s-seems.” He reached into the pocket of his bright green poncho and dumped a handful of gems into Eve’s hand. “T-take this…”

With a grin, Eve smacked his hand away. “I don’t need your charity; we will find something in this forest worth a lot… I am sure of it.”

The two smiled for a while until Rock shouted, “INTRUDER.”

Everyone turned and saw the most impressive monster they had ever seen. It was a Nightmare, a breed of demonic horse with beautiful raven fur and ruby-colored eyes that stared at them with endless hunger. The horse’s head also had rows of shark-like teeth and nostrils that flared and emitted plumes of smoke. But this was no simple Nightmare; it was over twice the size of a normal one, almost matching Rock in height.

But that wasn’t all. “Greetings,” a human torso exclaimed. It was attached halfway along the Nightmare’s body and made Eve double-check if the rider had any legs. Seeing the torso was indeed fused with the horse raised some…questions.

“My name is Henry, and I have come for negotiations,” the torso said as it whirled its midnight-black spear over its head. “My lord is merciful, you have trespassed, but I can overlook—”

“A CORRUPTED!” Sam shouted with more vigor and certainty than the Emperor during his speeches. Everyone, even the Rock, turned toward the timid mage who had taken on a completely different demeanor. He stood taller, stronger, and his eyes glowed with a conviction of the highest order. “Begone!” Sam raised his staff, and the unassuming bamboo pole shone with a golden light. “Initiate program: EXECUTION.” His eyes exploded like beacons of golden light along with the bamboo pole as he began levitating. Everyone nervously stepped back; nobody here had witnessed a Hacker unleashing his true power.

Sam’s mouth moved at inhuman speed as he rattled off commands that caused the surrounding air to become hazy and shimmer. Green lines of zeros and ones whizzed around in endless streams without coherent sense.

“Target lock, swap affinity, reduce stats, debuff, silence…”

A blue stone around the boy’s neck exploded as the code surged forward and impacted Henry.