Crow led the others back outside. There were few houses in the area, but he could see the remains of their structures as the dark lines of ash on the ground. Others were visible by the pools of water contained by poured-stone upon which the structures had once stood. Another type of poured stone—this one black to the other’s gray—was laid out in a long strip along the ground. This one had yellow and white markings on it. While not comfortable it, it made for a much easier path than the mud and ash on either side did.

  Finding a monster turned out to be much more difficult than it should have been. Rainbow claimed that was the curse’s doing. After all, the monsters would die to the curse if given enough time. Perhaps that was why the curse had been unleashed in the first place? A world without magic suddenly having monsters everywhere would lead to desperate people doing desperate things.

  The monster Crow and his crew found was a towering giant made of a black-colored stone. Flame ran along its surface. It was a form of coal prized by alchemists, and something that was worth a good amount of money.

  “Looks to be early tier 3,” Crow called out.

  That was troubling. They were middle tier 3, and so held only a slight advantage—one that the monster countered on account of its large size. It would be an even fight. Or it would have been, if the monster wasn’t severely weakened by the curse.

  “The curse seems to have ravaged it,” Rainbow stated.

  “Take it down from range!” Crow commanded.

  He aimed his energy rifle at the monster and fired. His goal was to sever its legs. Once on the ground, it would be a much easier target. Sunshine focused her magic on putting out the flames. Not only did those strengthen the monster, but they were a danger for Bob when she was up close with her spear. Rainbow kept an eye on the monster and used his magic to hinder it so they the others would have an easier time of it. As the monster was already injured from the curse, it fell after a short battle.

  Right when the monster was killed, Crow heard a sound. He looked around to see where it had come from but couldn’t see anything. The others had bewildered expressions on their faces. Then he saw a message in his vision that seemed to move with him. It took a handful of seconds before the universal translator converted the symbols into something he could understand.

  “What’s this?” Bob asked.

  “No idea,” Crow said. “Anyone else seen something like this before?”

  The devils shook their heads.

  Crow had felt the essence enter him from the kill. It had been a good sized amount. But did it match with what the message was telling him? Only killing another monster would be able to say one way or another. Although they’d now checked off the first item—kill a monster—the second item now required more research and testing. What was this message and where had it come from?

  Crow collected the pieces of the monster in his storage ring—after Rainbow cleansed the curse from the monster, himself, and the rest of the crew. Then it was off to find another monster. The next one they found was also early tier 3—a worrying sign. It was a goblin that was dispatched more quickly than the golem had been—if only because it was smaller.

  He paid attention to the essence as it entered his body and compared it with the amount the message said—70. It was eerily similar. The golem had given slightly more essence than the goblin had. It seemed there was a connection, but it needed to be thoroughly tested first. He did wonder what all of it meant.

  As if hearing his thoughts, additional boxes popped up with an explanation of some of what he was wondering about. After reading through the boxes, he was convinced that experience and essence were the same thing. That was when another box popped up that showed his strength accurately—or at least he assumed so. It stated Crow was level 21 and tier 3, where each tier was broken down into eight subdivisions. That put him on the 5th subdivision of the 3rd tier, which was correct.

  The same box showed the magic he had available to him—called skills—as well as how much essence he had infused in his body that hadn’t been allocated yet. When he checked how much he had and how much the box said he had, they matched! Crow felt like there was something watching him, and it unnerved him. The sooner they could figure out what this thing was, the sooner they could leave and never return!

  Stolen story; please report.

  “What do you think?” Crow asked after explaining what he had found.

  Bob gasped while the devils took it in stride.

  “Looks right,” Sunshine stated.

  “Mhm,” Rainbow agreed.

  “But this is supposed to be kept secret!” Bob exclaimed.

  “Can you read mine?” Crow asked?

  “N-no, sir.”

  “Then I think we can leave it be. If there’s some entity strong enough to do this kind of invasive probing without our knowledge, there is nothing any of us can do about it.”

  “Oh,” Rainbow said. “I think I found something.”

  “What is it?” Sunshine asked.

  “It looks like you can spend essence directly on increasing the level… 100 times the level you are now. And just with a thought, too! This is so much easier than those methods we learned back at the academy.”

  “Careful,” Bob warned. “You never know what could be hiding in this thing.”

  “Mmm,” Crow agreed. “Still, it’s worth investigating. I wonder what other functions it has…”

  “Magic,” Sunshine said immediately. “You can buy magic directly instead of building the template yourself. Only 1000 each is a steal! And there are so many options!”

  Crow looked for himself. Though called skills by the box, there were an uncountable number of them available. Experimentally, he picked one he’d been wanting for a while, but didn’t have the money to buy the scroll for. It was called Hunter’s Mark and gave a slight bonus to damage from raged attacks to the marked creature.

  He also added two levels to himself. The effect was immediate! His core move two stages towards tier 4 and he felt the boost in strength right away. It was so much more efficient than the way he’d been taught. Cycling his essence in a particular pattern gave results to be sure, but it cost nearly five times as much essence!

  There was a problem with it, though. It wasn’t as flexible as the way he was used to. Sure, it was instant and cheap, but the results were middling. Still, it was an acceptable trade-off in his opinion. It was more progress in a single day than he’d made in a year!

  For the next week, Crow and his crew slew monsters and messed around with the boxes. He came to understand just how much of an unfinished project it had been. It was like someone had started this grand creation, only to be swiftly destroyed by the curse along with everything else on the world.

  Their due diligence complete, they returned to the planet they had come from—only after cleansing the curse. The last thing Crow wanted was for them to bring it back and have it spread! While it might not do much to someone at their strength, there were untold multitudes weak enough that they would die in days.

  Crow handed in his report to the local government along with 20% of everything they’d found. Then the spoils were split with his crew. It was time to relax before the next gig came knocking!

  The curse didn’t spread from Crow, but it did spread. Other crews weren’t as well versed in how curses operated, and that curse was a particularly strong one. The handful of planets connected with Earth were locked down until high-tier healers were able to come and wipe it out. Billions died. As a result, Earth was listed as a condemned planet—one that not even criminals could be exiled to. Access was locked down.

  Any items recovered were worth a large amount to collectors from the novelty of the situation. The technology the primitive natives had used wasn’t too interesting, but the story was. It was the world that had destroyed itself when magic had come. The system they had used and the curse that had spawned were believed to have been intertwined somehow. But with the world being condemned, that was never confirmed.