About half an hour after they started eating, it seemed like everyone had finished. And, as their conversation wound down, Lilith turned to Maia, giving her a warm smile. “So, have you given any further thought to what kind of hunts you want to be doing?”

  “A little.” Maia said. “But I keep running against the issue of strength. I know you said it can be adjusted, but doing that is going to result in an awkward experience; if we bring me up to your levels, then I’m not going to be able to use that strength with any sort of proficiency. If we bring you down to mine, then you run a real risk of overestimating your abilities and getting yourself hurt.”

  “Don’t worry about that.” Eve said. “Most of us are familiar with fighting while our strength is lowered, and even if we do make a mistake, we can’t actually get hurt. The worst that happens is we ‘lose’ and get kicked out of that simulation or something.”

  “Maybe we should start with a warm-up?” Lia suggested. “Something easy, to get us used to fighting at whatever level Maia wants us to fight at.”

  “I don’t suppose any of you have a way for me to watch from afar while you hunt?” Maia asked. “I’d like to be able to get a feel for how you all fight so I can lead us properly. Um…I was leading, right?”

  “However you want to do it will work.” Maven said. “And yes, there are ways for you to watch us. We can even split into individual groups and you can watch each of us in sequence. Time flows strangely here, it won’t feel like it takes any longer for us even if it takes you twice as long to watch them all than it did for us to do the hunts.”

  “I think it would be better if you all work as one unit.” Maia said. “I want to see how you work as a team. We’ll have you hunt…uh, I guess a bear monster or something? They’re usually pretty durable and that should give me plenty of opportunity for me to see you in action.”

  “Do you regularly hunt bears?” Ellie asked. “I thought their meat wasn’t very tasty, and you hunt mainly for food, right?”

  “Food and occasionally trade.” Maia replied. “And I hunt whatever I can get. Monsters in the Deepwood are a lot more dangerous than monsters outside of it, so if I find something that doesn’t use poison or venom, and is relatively easy to kill, then I hunt it. And, yes, I am increasingly coming to realize that living there is something most people would consider insane, but…well, it’s where the people in my village were born, and we don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

  “And I thought I had come from the poorest background of us…” Lia muttered.

  “Aren’t you some sort of queen or empress or something?” Maia pointed out.

  “I was born a commoner and put into this situation by a cosmic coincidence.” Lia replied. “My family was pretty poor, especially after my mom died and my dad turned to drinking.”

  “Well, I’ve really felt poor, I never struggled for food and had everything I wanted.” Maia said. “Life was just…dangerous. While I don’t know enough details to say for sure, I think I would prefer my life to yours.”

  “Come to think of it…what is the status of your parents, all of you?” Tess asked. “I realized I don’t even know even though we’ve talked…I guess not a lot, but it feels like it.”

  “My parents died years ago, as did about half of the older population in the village.” Maia said. “There was a particularly bad monster attack and they didn’t make it.”

  “Mine are both alive.” Lia volunteered. “We resurrected my mom, and my dad never died.”

  “I didn’t have any, unless you count Jerry.” Connie said. “So, I guess alive?”

  “Mine are alive but they’re not family.” Amelia said. “I’ve cut ties.”

  “And I was reincarnated directly, so I don’t have parents as such this time around.” Rose replied. “The ones from my first life are long dead.”

  “And ours are alive.” Eve said. “So…there you have it, I guess.”

  “Sorry to derail things a bit, I was just curious.” Tess replied. “Anyway, why don’t we walk while we talk? Then by the time we’ve finished talking we can get started.”

  “Yes, let’s do that.” Maia said. “Where do we go?”

  “Just walk in any direction and we’ll find wherever we need to go.” Lilith replied, striding off. And, sure enough, after just a few moments they came across a door with the words “hunting simulator” written above it.

  “See?” Lilith said. “This place is nothing if not convenient.”

  “Creepily so.” Maia said.

  “Can’t deny that.” Tess said. “Anyway, you said you wanted to watch us first, right?”

  “If you would. It sounds like some of you can cast tomeless magic, so those who can, will you cast all the spells you can? I’d like to be able to take them into account.”

  The others shared a glance. “About that…we all can, and for some of us it’d be easier to list things we couldn’t do than list things we can.” Lilith said. “That being said, I think if we stick with just our preferred toolset, you can figure out how to use us from there.”

  “All of you can, and that much?” Maia asked, dumbfounded. “How much time did that take?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “For most magic, next to none.” Maven said. “It is a matter of how magic in our universes is structured; the system we talk about is in place to allow people to use magic much easier, whereas magic in your world doesn’t have that guiderail. I assume you learn magic without a tome by way of using tome magic until the sensation is familiar enough to do it unaided?”

  “More or less.” Maia replied. “How do we start this?”

  Lia opened the door then stepped aside and ushered them in. “Just step in, it’ll either take us where we need to go, or there’ll be a very obvious label or button for it.”

  Everyone began to file into the room, and once everyone was inside, Lilith stepped in herself. She suddenly found herself in the middle of a wooded area with the others, and her mental link with Eve had been restored. With no further indication of what to do, Lilith decided to take the lead.

  “Okay, so…we don’t know where the thing we’re hunting is, I propose we split into two groups to find it; Eve and I can act as our communicators.” She said.

  “Seems sensible enough.” Tess said. “Who’s going to be with who? Do we just want to divide it by universe?”

  “Let’s do that.” Amelia said.

  “Just so long as you have good enough detection capabilities in your group.” Rose said. “Amelia and I can easily handle ours, but what about you?”

  “I’m our scout, I’ve got a few hundred feet of range where I know absolutely everything.” Tess said. “I’m not sure what your ranges are, but that should be enough, right?”

  “Yeah, and Lilith and I can make up for anything beyond that.” Eve said, walking over to her. “Shall we?”

  The two groups split up and began to search for a target. Lia hung back with Connie as they moved, taking a moment to chat with her in a hushed tone. “How are you feeling about this?” She asked.

  “It’s interesting.” Connie replied. “I don’t get to do this sort of stuff very often, so it’s novel. Just, uh, don’t expect a lot from me, I’m pretty rusty in combat.”

  “That’s fine, you just do what you can and have fun.” Lia said. “It’s not like there are any stakes here.”

  Connie nodded. “Yeah.”

  A minute or so later, Rose stopped the group. “I’m sensing something to our south.” She said. “Lilith, will you call the others?”

  “Got it.” Lilith said. There was a moment of silence, then she gave a nod. “Alright, they’re on their way.”

  A couple of minutes later, the others arrived and they took a quick moment to discuss strategy. The plan they landed on was simple; Amelia and Rose would keep it from flying away, and everyone else would focus on dealing damage.

  They moved out, and once they were in range Amelia and Rose entrapped the wyvern in ropes of vine and chains of darkness. Lia prepared a spell as Lilith shot it with some sort of bullet that twisted and undulated beneath its skin in a decidedly-unpleasant way.

  The wyvern roared in pain, but Ellie was already on it, four flying swords swirling around her head before burying themselves in the wyvern’s chest. A few more shots of magic from Maven, Lia, Connie, and Maven hit it before Tess and Eve slashed into it with a pair of claws and Eve’s sword respectively, then…it was still, and everyone found themselves in some sort of control room with Maia.

  “Well, that was interesting.” Connie said. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  “That was…I thought you were really going to struggle with that.” Maia said weakly. “We did bring you down to my level, right?”

  “In terms of raw power, yes.” Rose said. “In terms of skill? No. Amelia is the most naturally gifted mage any of us have ever heard of, and her spell construction is enough to bring her up a notch in terms of actual threat. Likewise, the rest of us are very skilled in our own right and the diversity of our abilities make up for a lack of power.”

  “If that’s not accounted for.” Eve said. “I think it’s more likely that Maia is underestimating herself; it would seem she’s yet to push herself to the limit, and I think she’d be surprised with what she’s capable of if it really came down to it. Regardless, we just need to bump up the difficulty of our foes a notch and that should make it a bit more engaging. That or limit a few more of our abilities. What do you think, Maia?”

  “Me?” Maia asked. “Um…let’s limit ourselves a bit more. I think if we just refrain from completely locking it down like that then it’ll be fairer. Unless you all think differently?”

  The others didn’t have any objections, and once the last of them had said so, the room around them melted away and they were in the woods again. “Alright, Maia, you’re in charge this time.” Lilith said. “How are we doing this?”

  “Let’s split up to find it, like you did before.” Maia said. “I’ll go with Tess’s group so that the numbers are even.”

  So they did. They moved through the forest stealthily, and it went much the same as the first time, except this time, Lia’s group was stopped by Lilith. “They found something. Let’s get moving.”

  They made their way over to the other group, which was notably missing Maia and Tess. A few moments after the two groups had reunited, though, Maia walked up from the north. “It’s a really big boar.” She informed. “It’s distracted right now, so we should hurry, Tess is keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t get away or anything.”

  “Lead the way.” Rose said.

  Maia led them back through the woods to Tess. “Is is still there?” She asked.

  “Yeah, still digging.” Tess confirmed. “How do you want to do this?”

  “We all attack at once.” Maia instructed. “The idea is to kill it before it knows what’s happened and can start attacking us. These types of monsters tend to get really, really angry and will fight even when most other monsters would flee.”

  “What about us frontliners?” Ellie asked. “I mean, I guess we all have ranged attacks too, but…”

  “Use your ranged attacks, then I need you to be ready for if it gets close.” Maia said. “I’ll need you to try and keep its attention so the others don’t get targeted.”

  “I can handle that no sweat.” Ellie said, thumping her chest proudly. “Alright, let’s go.”

  Tess and Maia led the way to the boar, which was still rooting around the trees. They carefully got into position, then, on Maia’s signal, fired their attacks. The volley hit the boar, which let out a squeal of anger as it whirled unsteadily to face them. Ellie rushed forward to take its attacks, but that proved to be unnecessary; a second round of fire stopped the boar in its tracks, and a third caused the already wobbling boar to fall to the ground, dead.

  “And so the tribe fells its prey, and food for the coming week is secured.” Eve said, putting on a strange, deeper voice.

  “What?” Lia asked.

  “Sorry, just making a joke.” Eve said. “There’s a style of show in my world that would talk like that, usually educational content about animals or history. Don’t worry about it too much.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a hunt that went quite like this.” Maia admitted. “It was only ever me and maybe a mentor, it was just too dangerous to go in a group.”

  “We’ve got a pretty stacked team here, too.” Ellie said. “We’d probably have to really crank up the difficulty to make it anything like what you’re used to. Do you want to try that?”

  Maia paused. “No, that’s too stressful, I think. I’ve got an idea of what it’d be like, and that’s good enough for me. What do you all usually do for fun at these things? I’d like to try that.”

  They did a few other things, mini golf, laser tag, some arcade games and board games, and eventually ended up sitting and talking with each other as the party wound down. It was mostly them sharing stories about their lives, and Lia felt increasingly sure that, though Maia may have thought otherwise, she definitely had had the hardest life out of all of them. It was kind of refreshing, since–

  Lia rolled over in bed drowsily, took a moment to snuggle up to whoever was laying by her that night…Amelia, by the feel of her, then fell back to sleep.