“Hey— I’m supposed to be the one throwing!” He jumped to his feet, then crouched like a football player. He shuffled a couple feet to the left, a couple feet to the right.

  Desiree giggled and chucked another rock at his head. “Catch!”

  James watched the rock approach. She had a good arm for a kid. Stats definitely played a role, and she was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked.

  Even so, it would have been easy to sidestep the projectile. She was far enough away that he had plenty of time to avoid the rock, but he didn’t just want to dodge — he wanted to dodge by using the skill.

  “Dodge,” James said at the last possible second. His body jerked to the side like he’d been yanked by an invisible string.

  James was jubilant. It worked!

  Another stone came hurtling his way. Desiree was having way too much fun with this exercise!

  “Duck!” That same invisible string jerked him down, and the rock went sailing overhead. “When did your aim get so good?” he yelled.

  “Agility! Hah!”

  James continued to duck and dodge and even occasionally dive. Gradually, use of the skill began to feel more natural. If he triggered it while he was standing perfectly still, the skill would yank him to the side in a way that was brutally effective and entirely uncomfortable. If he was already on the move though, the skill would integrate with his momentum to make a more skilled evasion.

  It used the same amount of mana either way though. Only five points, so it was almost negligible in a fight, but still worth keeping in mind.

  Finally, Desiree ran out of rocks. She reached down for the next one only to find grass at her feet.

  James breathed a sigh of relief. Even with his high health and agility, the exercise was surprisingly stressful. It reminded him of dodgeball back home, but worse — for obvious reasons. He smirked at the idea of going back now and playing a game of dodgeball in an old basketball court. With his stat-boosted reflexes, James would be the fastest guy on the team, no doubt.

  “Okay, your turn!” Desiree was bouncing on the balls of her feet, staying loose like an MMA fighter ready for the match of a lifetime.

  James hesitated, still thinking about his boosted stats. “What if it hurts you?”

  She blew a raspberry. “You won’t even hit me,” she taunted and juked from side to side to show she meant business.

  James bit his lip… but at the end of the day, they both needed to get stronger. That meant making the most of their skills, practicing where they could. And if Inara had been worried about the rocks, she would have stayed outside. So it was probably fine…

  “Oh! And to make it interesting, I’ll try and hit you with my spell while I’m dodging! So if you don’t throw those rocks at me, it’ll just make you easier to hit!” Desiree flashed a wicked grin.

  James’s jaw dropped. She wouldn’t really —

  “Sanctified Bolt!” The spell shot toward James, proving that Desiree did not share his hesitation and was ready to get on with it.

  “Ah! D-Dodge!” He was so surprised that he wasn’t moving with the skill like he was supposed to. It yanked him sideways so he stumbled, but at least he got out of the way in time.

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  Before Desiree could launch the spell again, James whirled his arm back and threw the first rock.

  She Dived under it and rolled free, laughing.

  After they got started, it didn’t take long to get into the swing of things. Once Desiree started throwing rocks back, it even almost felt like playing catch, and since the rocks didn’t hurt her that much after all, even when they hit her square on, James started to enjoy himself as much as she was. It was a game. It was all just one big game, and the secret to winning, he realized, was—

  “Sanctified Bolt!”

  James was mid-throw and too slow to get the hell out of the way. He twisted his body, but the spell singed his arm — and that was enough.

  He yelled and threw his hands up in surrender. Inara didn’t come running out this time — she knew what they were up to and wouldn’t be caught off guard again by his plummeting health.

  Desiree halted her attack and came running instead. “James!” she yelled, concerned even though she knew he would recover.

  In fact, it had hurt him less than the first time. Somewhat confused, he saw that his health had only dropped by a third instead of half.

  Because it hadn’t hit him straight on? But it hadn’t been a critical hit the first time around, and as he understood it, that was the only variable that mattered.

  James checked his stats to see if he’d somehow raised his CON during the spar. Surely he would have gotten a notification if he had, but something was different, that was obvious.

  James gasped.

  “What? What is it?” Desiree grabbed at his arm as if to reassure herself that he was okay, that she hadn’t done any lasting harm.

  Name: James

  Race: Human

  Class: Hero

  Level: 34

  HP: 400/400

  MP: 710/710

  EXP: 59,000/104,000

  Fire Affinity: 14

  Water Affinity: 11

  Earth Affinity: 7

  Infernal Affinity: 36

  “My infernal affinity,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s ten points lower than it was last time I checked.”

  “What!” Desiree squawked. “Are you sure?!”

  “Pretty sure…” Though of course as soon as she asked, he became less certain. “And your holy spell didn’t hurt me as much as before.”

  The girl gasped. “What if you’re getting immune to my spell!”

  James blinked at her. “Can that happen?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe! Why not?”

  James frowned. “It could be anything,” he hedged. “Maybe my affinity was related somehow to being inside the dungeon, and now that I’m out, it’s been dropping. I haven’t been checking, so I don’t know when it happened.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Desiree rolled her eyes, “or why didn’t mom or I get an infernal affinity, too?”

  “Huh.” That was a good point. “Well, maybe—” Before he could finish his thought, Desiree had her hands cupped over her mouth.

  “Mom! Mom, c’mere! James’s stats are acting weird!”

  **

  Inara joined them out on the field. Once she’d gotten over the alarm of “stats acting weird” and scolded Desiree for her phrasing, she’d settled into a more academic curiosity.

  “How about now?” she asked. “Any change?”

  James checked, then shook his head. “Still 36.” By this point, he’d had time to run Vital pulse and regain all his health. It was also kind of nice, sitting out in the grass with Inara and Desiree. Honestly, he would have really liked Grimora if he could enjoy a peaceful farm life with them. Anytime he drifted too far into that fantasy, though, he only had to glance back at the village and smell the ash that still lingered on the wind.

  If he wanted a peaceful life in this world, he would have to save it first.

  “Desiree should hit you with that spell again,” Inara suggested.

  “What?!”

  “Woo! Sancti—”

  “Wait!” Inara held up a hand and shot her daughter a stern look. “Let’s think this through. We know that holy spells are strong against infernal creatures. We know that James was less damaged by the holy spell after his infernal affinity dropped. It’s also possible that his affinity dropped because he was hit by the spell.”

  James chewed that over. “Okay, that makes sense. But if it drops infernal affinity, does that mean it can raise holy affinity? And my axe is more powerful the higher my infernal affinity, do I want to drop it?” As he spoke, though, James knew the answer. It was most obvious at night — the whispers in his mind that he should defeat the Demon King and take his armies as his own. That he could rule better, that you had to break a few omelets to make an egg.

  He wanted those whispers gone. He didn’t want to follow the same path as the Demon King before him, and if there was actually a clear way to discard it, of course he would take it.

  Inara grinned a wicked grin, and suddenly James knew where Desiree got it from. “There’s only one way to find out,” she said.