Silvia peeked out from behind the counter, trying to look at the door. Of course, Modak quickly pulled her back down, trying to shush her.

  "What are you doing?" Silvia whispered, and the orc looked at her perplexed.

  "What am I doing? I'm trying to not get us killed!" he whispered back, and Silvia sighed.

  "I was just trying to see if someone was coming!"

  "Then do that more... subtly!"

  Silvia groaned quietly, once again peeking up and over the counter. The explosions had kept on happening earlier, though they were getting further and further away, and so did the fire. Luckily, it seemed as though Richard was moving into the opposite direction, so Silvia and Modak had relaxed for a while. For a while. They were just sitting here, waiting while staring at the map, when they heard a noise outside. Something had shifted open, with a metallic clicking sound. That must have been one of Richard's robots.

  And so, they did the only thing they could do. They hid. Right behind the gift shop's counter. The clown wasn't here right now, so there was plenty of space back here for both of them.

  "By the way, if you want us to hide, maybe you should have grabbed that first," Silvia pointed at the speaker still set up in the centre of the room. In their hurry, the pair had completely forgot about it.

  "Oh, fuck..."

  Modak stared at it nervously. It was even still playing that spell-song that was supposed to block out sound from reaching outside. Modak had completely faded it out at this point. He quickly tried to stop the song, tapping at the display on his arm. But right when he did and the song turned off, a slight creak could be heard. The door opened up, and closed again soon with a click.

  "Uh... guys?" a familiar voice asked, and Silvia and Modak let out deep sighs of relief, "Why did you turn off the speaker? I told you to keep it on for as long as possible."

  "Thank the gods," Modak groaned loudly as he stood up from the ground.

  Silvia quickly explained, "We thought you might be Richie..."

  "Ah. Yeah, okay, that makes sense," Ryan said as he approached the chest in the corner of the room. The elf and orc looked at each other confused for a moment. They could see Ryan's injuries and the cut-up clothes. Modak quickly glanced down at the pamphlet - the map was still the same.

  "Did you..?" Silvia wondered, but Ryan shook his head.

  "No. The door to the core room is closed. And it's got a kind of fucked-up condition..." he said, letting out a loud sigh. Modak's eyes widened.

  "Wait, he was right?" Silvia said surprised, "Modak said it might be possible there was some condition for the core room after we saw Richard rampaging in the distance..."

  "So... what is it? What's the condition?" Modak asked, already not excited to hear the answer.

  Ryan pulled the backpack off his back and opened it up, putting all the coins and even the plastic statue into the chest, "Seven 'perfect completions'."

  "Ah, fuck..." Modak's face went pale for a moment, "How are we supposed to do that? You have two, right?"

  "Mhm. It means that we need to figure out how to get the rest of them."

  Silvia glanced over at the map Ryan was holding, "So the rest are... the funhouse, the haunted house, the arcade, the rollercoasters, and... uh, what's the last one? Is it the office? Or the food courts?"

  "I actually think it's the gift shop," Ryan closed the wooden chest, and quickly opened it up. He took out the card, and looked down at the third symbol that now appeared on the plastic point-card, "This place follows along with gimmicks from when this place was running. I don't know for sure, but I feel like you'd get a special reward if you got all the 'big' rewards for each area. The office and the food courts wouldn't have had that."

  "Wait, does that mean you killed the dungeon's boss? Is that why you're so hurt?"

  Ryan answered Silvia's question with a silent shake of his head. After a few moments of confusion from her and Modak, Ryan explained exactly what happened down there just a bit ago. While he was at it, he also explained all the other things that he figured out or saw down below in the labs.

  "... Wow, so... you barely managed to take down one of Richie's robots... and he has a bunch of them?" Silvia asked, clearly growing nervous, and Modak slightly hit her arm, "What? I'm nervous!"

  "Don't worry, she's right. That's what happened. It sucks," Ryan groaned as he pulled off his new hoodie, "Silvia, could you help me bandage this up? We need to figure out what to do next before I head back out."

  "You're going back out? Seriously?" Silvia asked as she grabbed the first-aid kit from Ryan's backpack.

  "Well, what else am I supposed to do? We can't just sit here. At least we don't need to worry about Richie getting to the core room first for now... So we've got a little more time."

  "What do you mean?"

  Answering in Ryan's stead, Modak said, "If, uh... if you need seven 'perfect completions', Richie screwed himself over a bit. Boss monsters take a day to reconstitute themselves. And since this gift shop's perfect completion condition are to collect all those boss statues, probably... well, we've got a day until that boss comes back."

  "Right, and even then, Richie didn't even know about it. He just left it all behind, so he probably doesn't have a ton of info on this place," Ryan added, rubbing his forehead while Silvia was wrapping up the wound on his arm, "Even so... I'll need to prep a little bit. I'll go through the rest of the rollercoasters first, and then I'll give the funhouse a shot. I'll do the haunted house after that, and the arcade last. The arcade is the least dangerous part of this dungeon."

  Modak and Silvia glanced at each other, "How 'least dangerous' is it..?"

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  "Hm? What?" Ryan asked, a bit confused by the weird grammar, before realising what they meant. And most importantly, why they asked this, "No, you guys, you can't do it. The certificates are written for each individual. I have to do it myself."

  "But what if you don't?" Modak asked.

  "But... I do?"

  The orc stared at Ryan for a moment, before walking up to the counter on the other side of the room, standing next to the shelves that would usually be filled with different special items. Ryan widened his eyes, "Wait, are you saying you think you actually could get the certificate for me?"

  "We could try?"

  Ryan sighed, "Well, maybe, but... Okay, the arcade is pretty straightforward. We actually do know the perfect completion condition. You just need to get a high-score on each game. But the games are way harder, kind of buggy, and if you get a 'game over', the game electroshocks you. It's not a lethal shock, but you can only take a couple of them before it gets dangerous."

  "Uh... how does it shock you, exactly?"

  Ryan looked at the orc, confused. His head was still hurting from the mana potion, so he was having a tough time following his friend's insinuations, "It just... shocks you? Like, really hard? Have you ever touched one of those electric cattle fences before?"

  "Where would I find cattle fences in New Riverside?"

  "Whatever. It's that, just more than a dozen times worse. It's painful as hell, and can kill you if you're not careful."

  "Okay, but is it a physical, electrical impulse, or is it just magic with electrical properties?"

  Ryan was about to ask why it mattered, when he already realized, "You're shitting me. Are you saying you're immune to attack magic?"

  Silvia shot to Modak as well, "Are you saying that?"

  "No, no, I'm not... I'm not immune... just very resistant. Like, the effects can't penetrate into my body. It would still hurt, and maybe singe my skin or something of that sort. But that kind of magic can't get deep enough to do real damage. Electricity is fatal because it can damage and interrupt the regular function of the cardiovascular system or other important organ functionality. It might make my muscles tense up, but it can't actually reach deep into into me. At least not with that kind of strength, I'd say," Modak pointed out, smiling lightly, "So... if that's the case, while you're off taking care of some of the others, I, or we, could at least take care of the arcade for you."

  Ryan was about to shoot them down, but instead, he just let out a long sigh, "Fine. But the moment you realise it's too much, or you think you're in danger, you come back here. The closest arcade is actually just a minute away, anyway, so..."

  Modak widened his eyes, "Really? You're sure?"

  "Dude, don't make me double-guess it. I'm not at a point where I can debate this too much," Ryan sighed, trying to rub the migraine away through his forehead.

  Silvia, finishing up the first-aid of Ryan's arm, "Are you okay? Did you... wait, did you take the potion?"

  "Mhm," he nodded, "I had to against that Roxie robot."

  "Are you okay? Isn't that basically super toxic?" as if trying to see whether there was some physical change to Ryan because of the potion, Silvia looked him up and down. He just shrugged and stood up.

  "I'm fine. I can take this. Just... I probably shouldn't take another anytime soon," Ryan said, glancing at his backpack. He did have two more small bottles in there. Though Kim had told him how intense the side effects were, he didn't really expect this.

  "... If you say so," Silvia said nervously. She quickly put the Urban Knight outfit onto the table next to Ryan, "Just get changed for now. The clothes you're wearing are totally ripped-up."

  "Thanks."

  Ryan quickly got changed. He would hopefully not need to fight his way through the lab the same way he did before when he went down in a bit. Plus, this outfit was better for the fighting he would have to do in the haunted house, anyway, even if it might not be the best for the funhouse.

  And once he changed, the trio got moving, quietly making their way to the nearby arcade. It was a small building, in a similar style to the buildings of the mascot plaza, just standing on its own on a disconnected plot. Ryan led them inside and looked around, giving Modak a bag of the plastic coins.

  "You'll need to pay with these. There's five different games that still work in the dungeon's arcade. They're the only ones that are still up and running in the first place. Be careful. Really, really careful, okay? They're insanely, insanely hard. If you get shocked, and it's too much, just... leave, okay? And if you do manage to get the high-scores and the certificate, just go straight back to the gift shop as well, yeah? We'll meet up there in... two hours?"

  "You got it," Silvia and Modak nodded. They were clearly extremely happy that they could actually help out in here. And then, Ryan turned around.

  "Wait!" Silvia stopped him, "Where are you going first?"

  "The rollercoasters."

  "Right, I meant to ask you, but... I thought you can't get the perfect completion thing for those."

  Ryan sighed, slowly shaking his head, "No, uhm... sorry, I should have said," he was exhausted, "There was something downstairs. It was, like... a weird cart-thing, and the cart was 'alive' like the rides from the rollercoasters. The dungeon probably thought it was its own ride and counted it. I'll give it a shot on the way back to the core room later."

  "Okay... uhm..." Silvia carefully gave Ryan a hug, "Just be careful, okay? I know you're the pro here, but what you said just now counts for you too, okay? If it gets too dangerous or too much, just come back to the gift shop, yeah?"

  Ryan smiled, slightly squeezing his friend back, "Yeah. I'll do that. I'll see you guys later."

  And so, he went on his way, leaving Silvia and Modak on their own. The pair quickly walked deeper into the arcade. For the most part, it looked just like a regular arcade. Tons of game cabinets were lined up along the walls, but just a couple of them were actually lit up. To Modak, they actually looked pretty familiar.

  "Hold on, is this..?" he quickly rushed over to the first cabinet he saw that was actually lit up, "Oh, shit, it is!"

  "What? What is it?"

  "I'm pretty sure I've played this game before. Like, a lot... There used to be this old arcade down the road from where I lived. They closed down now, but I used to go there all the time... the owner was my granddad's friend, so he used to just give me a bunch of coins so I could play without needing to pay for it myself," Modak pointed out, smiling lightly, "I think I played all of these before."

  Silvia grinned lightly, "Then you better get started. You got this! I'm sure the exploit will work for this part of the dungeon as well! And if not... you'll be able to coach Ryan when he comes back later!"

  The orc laughed, "Yeah, true. Well, he'd probably have a better shot than me, anyway, though... he just got superhuman dexterity, so it feels a little cocky to think I could actually be better than him at this kind of thing."

  "Well, it's not just the stat that counts! His dexterity is good for building things, yours might be... good for playing games? And also building things. I don't know. Just try it!"

  Modak took a deep breath and nodded. He stepped up in front of the cabinet, pushing one of the plastic coins into the coin slot, then slightly cracked his knuckles. He placed his left hand onto the joystick, and his right hand onto the buttons, "The text is messed up, but I think this is 'Gunslinger's Ascension'. It should basically be one of those bullet-hell games. Just dodge, kill your enemies, and then you're good! The longer you survive, the higher the point multiplier.

  He quickly pushed the start button as the cabinet's music started sounding out. Just as he remembered, it was a bullet hell game. The first wave of enemies was already pretty rough, very different to how he imagined it. But worst of all, the screen just kept glitching out, the bullets skipped pixels, and sometimes his own shots wouldn't land on the enemies.

  "Oh, come on!" Modak groaned, as he lost his last life. A 'Game Over' text flashed on the screen for a moment, until Modak felt a flash of electricity hit him from the buttons. He twitched intensely and pulled back as quickly as he could, waving his hand to try and get rid of the pain. Though, by then it had basically already faded, "Shit, that hurts like hell!"

  "Like a bullet hell?"

  "No... just... a lot," Modak sighed, turning back to the game, "But, I think I'm right. It's magical electricity. So, let's do this."

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