Breezy appeared between us and the entrance of Water Wizard’s Wonderland with a pillar of light. He had always been on our side, but I got the feeling that things would be different this time around.

  Bee and Tina were both time-frozen, and it was clear that he had come to ‘fix’ the issue with my existence.

  YOU HAVE CAUSED QUITE A MESS, GAMBIT.

  PANDAMONIUM AS WELL. YOU DID NOT ACT AS A BENEFACTOR DURING THE PREVIOUS LOOP AND THUS I ALLOWED YOU TO ACCOMPANY GAMBIT.

  BUT YOU KNOW THE RULES. ALL BENEFACTORS ARE SUPPOSED TO AVOID DIRECTLY INTERFERING WITH THE GREAT GAME AND MUST GO THROUGH PROPER CHANNELS TO GIVE GIFTS TO PLAYERS.

  “You know I’m not interfering,” Panda replied. “Besides, your rules also don’t seem to apply to the Flayed Lady, given her involvement in this dimension before the Great Game’s start.”

  IT IS FOOLISH TO BELIEVE SHE CAN BE REINED IN. REGARDLESS, THAT IS ABOVE MY STATION.

  HOWEVER, I DO DEAL WITH ENTITIES LIKE YOU AND THUS IT IS MY DUTY TO ENSURE YOU FOLLOW THE RULES THAT THE SYSTEM IMPOSES. THEREFORE, I WILL GIVE YOU A CHOICE.

  YOU MAY REMAIN IN THE COMPANY OF GAMBIT IF YOU AGREE TO ONLY GIVE BENEFACTOR GIFTS AS A REWARD FOR QUESTS AND MAKE THEIR POWERS PROPORTIONAL TO THE DIFFICULTY OF THE CHALLENGES.

  OR YOU CAN CONTINUE TO VIOLATE THE RULES, IN WHICH CASE I WILL BE FORCED TO ELIMINATE PLAYER GAMBIT.

  “Definitely pick the first option,” I said.

  Panda sighed. “I figured it would come to this, since I did play it a bit fast and loose with the rules. But I agree to follow standard procedure, Breezy. Don’t worry about me.”

  WORRYING IS MY VOCATION.

  I AM GLAD YOU ARE SO EASILY PERSUADED. I FEARED MY MANAGER WOULD HAVE TO STEP IN.

  “What rules was he breaking?” I asked. “I get that giving Benefactor Gifts without cause might be problematic, but it’s not like my previous Benefactors didn’t do that too.”

  PANDAMONIUM WAS EXPLOITING A LOOPHOLE THAT ALLOWS BENEFACTORS TO GIFT EXTRAORDINARILY POWERFUL SKILLS BY MAKING THEM A ONE-TIME USE.

  THE SYSTEM DOES NOT APPRECIATE SUCH SKILLS, SINCE THEY BREAK THE BALANCE OF THE GREAT GAME.

  I HAVE ALREADY CONFISCATED THE SKILLS IN QUESTION.

  “Damn,” I muttered. This meant I’d lost ‘Game.restart( )’ and ‘Match.maker( )’, which was a shame, since I’d been hoping to find out a way to break them or fuse them.

  “Just be glad that’s all he took,” Panda said.

  I AM NOT FINISHED.

  “Ah shit,” Panda said.

  “Don’t take anything else!” I exclaimed.

  ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH ‘MARIE KONDO’?

  WE WILL BE UTILIZING HER METHOD TO DECIDE WHAT YOU KEEP AND WHAT I CONFISCATE.

  I blinked. “What?”

  “He means you’re supposed to only pick the things that ‘spark joy’ and throw out the rest,” Panda explained.

  “All my Skills spark joy!” I yelled.

  BEFORE WE BEGIN, I MUST FIRST MAKE AN ADJUSTMENT THAT IS LONG OVERDUE.

  [‘Math.pow(Punch)’ x ]

  Evolved Ability

  Evolved from the ‘Math.multiply(Punch)’ Passive.

  By uttering the word ‘Pow!’ before a punch, the number of punches performed since the start of the fight are raised to the power of Punch divided by 10.

  Cooldown: 12 hours

  “Noooo!” I wailed.

  LET US BEGIN.

  “I can foresee this being painful,” Panda muttered.

  Breezy zapped me with a deep-blue beam and a menu appeared in the air between us. It was a list of all my Skills, active and passive.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded.

  IF I AM TO ALLOW YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN THE GREAT GAME DESPITE YOUR UNFAIR STARTING ADVANTAGE, THEN THERE IS NO WAY AROUND THIS. BUT FRET NOT, GAMBIT, THE SYSTEM HAS AN IMPORTANT ROLE FOR YOU. ONCE WE HAVE CONCLUDED THIS BUSINESS, I WILL EXPLAIN IT FURTHER.

  NOW, SELECT NINE SKILLS TO THROW OUT.

  I sighed deeply. I had really hoped that he would let me off like every time before, but he was taking this quite seriously. Granted, he had saved our lives by moving our phase-locked bodies outside the water park dungeon.

  “Let’s just get it over with,” Panda said.

  I looked at the list of all my Skills. ‘Math.pow(Punch)’ wasn’t on there. That probably meant I got to keep it, which was something. Even if it now had a 12-hour cooldown…

  [Gambit’s Skills x ]

  —ABILITIES—

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  I_CAN_FLY

  Dungeon-Break

  .interrupt( )

  Skater Boy

  There’s No Escape

  Giant-Slayer Soul Blade

  [Injection]

  Punch.spinTheWheel( )

  Time Save

  Rootkit

  .unicorn( )

  hole.Worm( )

  wakeUp

  throw Exception( )

  Cooldown Claymore

  Blink

  —PASSIVES—

  BIRTHDAY_SUIT

  Reflective Shell

  I-Frames

  Transition Lenses

  Silver Skeleton

  Rules of Anarchy

  SPRING_HEEL

  [Night Protocol]

  Damage.sleep(3000)

  Appraising Eye

  “Hey, where’s my Plugin Slots and Plugins??” I asked.

  THEY ARE GONE, SINCE YOU HAVE LOST THE CLASS THAT GAVE THEM TO YOU.

  Horrified realization set in, and my heart started beating like a jackhammer. “Am I going to start over from level 0??”

  I AM NOT ABLE TO TAKE AWAY YOUR LEVELS, BUT FOR NOW YOUR CLASS HAS BEEN SET TO ‘UNDEFINED’, THUS YOU HAVE LOST ALL SKILLS AND ITEMS TIED TO YOUR PREVIOUS ‘GAME.CHANGER( )’ CLASS.

  WE WILL TALK ABOUT WHY, ONCE YOU SELECT THE NINE SKILLS YOU WOULD LIKE TO GET RID OF.

  After thinking about it for a while, I could only think of five Skills I’d be okay with getting rid of. Those were ‘I_CAN_FLY’, ‘[Injection]’, ‘hole.Worm( )’, ‘throw Exception( )’, and ‘BIRTHDAY_SUIT’. I didn’t use the strange naked flying and hated having to take off my clothes to get faster. And the rest I either didn’t use or had better alternatives for now.

  “Add ‘There’s No Escape’, ‘Rootkit’, and ‘Transition Lenses’,” Panda said. “They’re all situational and won’t affect your overall power if you lose them.”

  “What about Night Protocol?” I asked, hating this whole process.

  “It’s keeping the Agencies from tracking you, so definitely don’t get rid of that.”

  I sighed and selected the eight Skills.

  EXCELLENT.

  THE LAST ONE WILL BE ‘DAMAGE.SLEEP(3000)’.

  “No! Don’t take that from me!!” I screamed.

  Breezy zapped me with a grey beam and the nine Skills vanished from the list.

  I dropped to my knees in despair, the life sucked out of me.

  “Relax, Gambit,” Panda said. “It’s not as bad as it could’ve been.”

  “You don’t get it!” I told him. “You’re never supposed to take power away from the protagonist in a progression fantasy!”

  All of Breezy’s eyes blinked.

  WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT?

  “I have no fucking idea,” Panda replied. “By the way, I just remembered this, but we found a candidate to be your pet.”

  Breezy’s eyes all fixed on the plushie with rapt attention.

  TELL ME MORE.

  “It’s a Greedling that lives inside Gambit’s Spin the Wheel ability. He said if we could get him a Contract of Servitude, he wouldn’t mind being your pet.”

  I got up from the ground. “What’ll happen to my ability if he vanishes? Am I going to lose even more power!?”

  “Gambit, chill the fuck out,” Panda told me. “You’re going to get more powers as soon as we’re done with this. I think it’s for the best that Breezy cleaned up all the crap you weren’t using anyway.”

  I sighed dramatically.

  “It doesn’t matter if I was suffering from Skill-bloat. They won’t like it,” I said.

  “Who?” he asked.

  I gestured around us.

  I AM INTERESTED IN TRYING OUT THIS GREEDLING.

  LESSER DEMONS ARE FEEBLE, BUT PERHAPS IT WILL SURVIVE MY PRESENCE.

  “Seriously,” I started, “what’ll happen to Spin the Wheel if Mammon disappears?”

  THE SKILL SHOULD STILL FUNCTION AS NORMAL.

  I reached out a hand. “Give me the contract and I’ll pass it on next time I use the ability.”

  A dark silver ring appeared in the air above my hand and landed on my palm with a thud. It was quite a lot heavier than it looked. It was also warm like a freshly-baked pie.

  My stomach gurgled.

  “Urgh, I’m starving.”

  I inspected the contract and was surprised to realize I could actually use it, since it was big enough to fit my pinky finger.

  [‘Contract of Servitude’ x ]

  Contract

  Owner:

  ‘The Breeze That Transcends Moments And Gathers Cosmic Dust Upon A Weighing Scale Of Bone’

  A binding contract in the form of a ring that will make the Wearer subservient to the Owner.

  The actual terms of the contract are written on the inside of the ring in a language spoken only by the Adjudicators and at a scale so tiny it may as well be invisible.

  Weight: N/A

  “Me-ow?” Lordie asked.

  “No, it’s not for you,” I told him. “I’m pretty sure if Breezy became your new master I would literally die.”

  THAT IS CORRECT.

  “See,” I said and put the contract ring in my pocket. Since I didn’t think I could use my inventory while in the weird state caused by Spin the Wheel, keeping it physically on me seemed to be the only way I’d be able to give it to Mammon.

  NOW THEN. AS I SAID, THE SYSTEM HAS A SPECIAL ROLE FOR YOU, GAMBIT.

  IT HAS CHOSEN YOU AS ITS PROPHET. THIS IS A SPECIAL ONE-OF-A-KIND ‘SPONTANEOUS CLASS EVOLUTION’ THAT HAS TO BE UNLOCKED WITH THREE ELEMENTS ORIGINATING IN THE FUTURE OF A PARALLEL DIMENSION.

  “Is this about that weird achievement message he got earlier?” Panda asked.

  I suddenly remembered what Tina had told me back aboard the CPS’ Hive Ship. She had said I didn’t have the means to use the Key and Keyhole that had appeared in my Intelligence attribute and Mana stat. The thing she had referred to was no doubt the ‘????’ item I had gotten from reaching level -20 during the fight with the Lord of Sinners.

  I pulled up my inventory and located the item it had turned into. It was now called ‘SYSTEM_CATALYST’.

  It seemed like the question-marked items were impossible to comprehend until I arrived in this dimension, which made me realize something else.

  “Why are you scrunching your face like that?” Panda asked.

  “Quest Log,” I said, ignoring him.

  [Gambit’s Quest Log]

  —Seek the Truth, Glitched Prophet—

  System Quest

  “Use the SYSTEM_CATALYST to activate the Key and open your Mana’s potential.”

  Reward: ‘System Tracer’ Mod

  “At last!” I exclaimed. “Everything makes sense now! This is where I was meant to be all along! I understand now! I see the matrix!”

  “Ah shit, losing his Skills made him go mad…” Panda muttered.

  Breezy observed me intently as I pulled the Catalyst from my inventory.

  I paused, looking at the thing that had landed in my hands. “That’s not what I expected it to look like,” I said.

  It was a sticky ball of glowing red goop.

  [‘SYSTEM_CATALYST’ x ]

  System Item

  Rub me.

  Squeeze me.

  Eat me.

  Weight: N/A

  I sighed. “Goddamn it.”

  “I thought for sure the Agencies were responsible for all the weird item triggers, but it turns out it was the System’s doing all along,” Panda said.

  DO IT, GAMBIT.

  THE SYSTEM WILLS IT.

  I paused and looked up at Breezy and the way his countless eyes were laser-focused on the goop ball in my hands.

  “Are you getting off to this!?” I accused him.

  Every last one of Breezy’s eyes blinked and he cleared his throat with a cough.

  ABSOLUTELY NOT.

  NOW, GO ON. I AM VERY BUSY AND ALL THAT…

  “This Great Game is full of freaks…” I muttered in disgust.

  I rubbed the goop ball, and it purred and vibrated.

  “Ugh…”

  I squeezed it and a little mouth appeared. Then it started singing like an opera singer who just took a drag of a helium balloon.

  “What are you waiting for?” Panda asked when I didn’t immediately try to eat it.

  The ball kept on singing.

  I sighed again and shoved the goop ball into my mouth. The moment it touched my tongue it melted and became like a fizzy soda that ran down my throat. A taste like kombucha and rhubarb yogurt filled my mouth.

  Even as a liquid, it was somehow still singing on the way down to my stomach.

  Breezy groaned at the sight and his tentacles undulated in a strange manner, almost like in a dance.

  “Is this like some kind of religious thing for you?” Panda asked him.

  THERE IS NOTHING HOLIER THAN THE SYSTEM. TO WITNESS IT BIRTHE A PROPHET IS A SACRED HONOR.

  I AM THE FIRST AMONGST MY PEERS TO HAVE WITNESSED SUCH AN EVENT.

  MY PROMOTION IS ALL BUT CERTAIN NOW.

  Once the entirety of the goop was gone and dissolved into my stomach acid, my status screen appeared in front of my eyes.

  [Status x ]

  Level -20 — ‘Gambit’ — undefined

  INSANITY GAUGE: 200%

  STATS

  Health: Isn’t It Great? — Stamina: いいな

  Armor: Dinner Plate Armor — Carry Weight: 1050 Pandas

  Top Speed: Racing Bike — Mana: <( iNsErT kEy )>

  ATTRIBUTES

  Strength: 2415 lbs. — Dexterity: Death Adder

  Intelligence: O=pp — Vitality: Brisket

  Athleticism: 獺 — Perception: 2801

  Wisdom: (╯?-?)╯ — Defense: Ceramic

  The strange Key symbol lifted off the screen from my Intelligence attribute and floated out in front of me, spinning like a bad 3D effect in a kids’ movie.

  I reached out and grabbed it, before inserting it into the slot in my Mana stat.

  The key was yanked out of my hands and flew into the screen.

  Then the screen winked out and a tremor rolled through me. Every vein in my body lit up with internal red light, and a whisper spoke directly into my right ear with a lisp.

  SPONTANEOUS CLASS EVOLUTION TRIGGERED!

  You have evolved into ‘Glitched Prophet’.

  I'm trying to build up a lot of chapters, since I set myself the goal of finishing book 3 before the end of August.

  And I'm about to head into a lot of summer vacation time, so I'll be writing like crazy.