Bee, Tina, and I appeared on the carpeted floor of an office, directly in front of a cubicle within which sat a strange figure. There were thousands of cubicles spread out across the floor, each with their own occupant, but this one was the only one that mattered.

  The creature inside was a child-sized cicada. In front of it was an old off-white and chunky monitor that showed me from above, as though there was a camera glued to the ceiling. Next to the monitor was a box that showed the text ‘Cringe!’ in red. On the desk in front of the monitor, where a keyboard would normally have been, was a large red button with black text on it that said, ‘Bad Catchphrase!’

  There was a delay on the monitor, so it still showed me standing outside the water park dungeon on the street.

  I stepped forward and reached over the cicada’s shoulder to grab the button.

  “I’ll be taking that,” I said.

  It spun around in its uncomfortable-looking plastic chair to look at me, seeming just a moment from protesting about my interruption when it realized who I was.

  “Oh no,” it said in a high-pitched man’s voice. As our eyes met, my Appraising Eye ability triggered and showed me his info.

  [Appraisal x ]

  Level 3 — ‘Chiiiiiiiiii Mim-Squeal’ — Associate

  “I press the button.”

  Job: Achievement Punishment-Reward Associate

  Affiliation: Achievement Narration Inc.

  Chiiiiiiiiii is but one of untold thousands of cicadas who work for the Achievement Narration Inc., which facilitates narration, rewards, punishments, and other achievement-related activities.

  In case you’re wondering, they don’t handle appraisal narration. We’re actually part of the Skill Management department that’s incorporated into the GREAT GAME. For some reason, achievement-related stuff was outsourced to this company.

  Anyway, like all other Cicadas, Chiiiiiiiiii is a Button-presser. But that sounds very dreary and bland, so the company calls them ‘Associates’. It doesn’t change the fact that he and all others of his species simply press buttons. Some of the buttons send achievements that are queued up and ready, other buttons give rewards, and some, like Chiiiiiiiiii’s button, deal damage based on a specific trigger.

  Considering that he’s been pressing this button and hurting you, he’s rightly very terrified of what you’re about to do to him.

  “Have you been pressing this button the whole time!?” I accused him.

  “I didn’t mean to antagonize you!” Chiiiiiiiiii quickly replied. “If I don’t do this job, my 387 kids won’t be able to eat! I just press the button when the screen tells me you’re being cringe!”

  “That’s very dystopian,” Bee remarked.

  “Nina says your new Narrator is around here somewhere,” Tina told me. “We should go find her.”

  “Wait,” Panda said. “How does this thing actually work? Gambit unlocked the Bad Catchphrase achievement, and presumably this button, back in the previous dimension.”

  “Don’t ask me,” the cicada replied, clearly able to see and hear Panda. “But I’ve been here this whole time, pressing this specific button.”

  “Maybe this Achievement Narration Inc. company is able to traverse dimensions?” Bee suggested.

  “That raises a lot of uncomfortable questions,” Panda muttered.

  “Why are you able to see me on your screen?” I asked the cicada.

  He shrugged. “I’m just an Associate. I know nothing except ‘Press the button when the monitor says so’.”

  “Do you enjoy your job?” Bee asked him.

  He shrugged again.

  “I think maybe the footage on the monitor is coming from Messimer,” Panda suggested.

  I sighed. “So what’s the point of having the Night Protocol passive? I thought it was supposed to stop them from observing me.”

  “It probably only works against the Agencies, but Messimer is pretty close to the power of an Absolute, so I doubt you could stop him even if you wanted,” Panda said.

  “Can I have the button back?” Chiiiiiiiiii asked.

  “Fuck no!” I told him.

  He slumped down into his chair. “Aww, what will I tell my kids?”

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  “Me-ow?” Lordie asked.

  “What? No,” I replied, appalled by the suggestion. “This guy is just—”

  Before I could stop him, Lordie pounced from the top of my head and down onto the cicada’s face.

  A loud series of clicks, squeaks, and buzzing emerged from the guy as the seven-fingered sapient hand sucked the life out of him, producing the sound of a straw sucking at the last bits of a juice box.

  When he was done, Chiiiiiiiiii had been reduced to an empty shell.

  “Fucking hell, Lordie!” Panda exclaimed.

  “That was messed up,” Bee said, looking at me like it was my fault Lordie was a psycho. “The guy was just doing his job.”

  “In the last dimension you kept killing secretaries,” I told her.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Secretaries are complicit in the horrors perpetuated by evil companies.”

  “Wouldn’t that make this guy complicit too?” I argued, pointing at the cicada’s hollowed-out shell.

  “That’s different. He was a low-wage grunt,” she replied.

  Lordie hopped back to my head and his status appeared.

  [Familiar Status x ]

  ‘Lordie’

  Maturity: 62%

  Hunger: Pleased

  Favorite Foods

  Eau de Tonsil-Stone Eye-Bleach

  Cicadas

  Twizzlers

  Canned Cat Food

  “Lordie’s maturity has gone up a lot,” I realized.

  “And now cicadas are on his list of favorite foods…” Panda remarked.

  Tina tapped me on the shoulder. “Security is coming.”

  I turned to look where she pointed and saw large beetles shoving their way through a crowd of panicking cicadas to get to us. I hadn’t even noticed that all the other cubicles had been abandoned in a hurry.

  Bee squealed excitedly. “Those are ‘Rhipicera Femorata’!” she exclaimed. “They’re a type of cicada parasite beetles!”

  For some reason, the sight of the beetles reminded me of samurai. They were tall insects with broad fan-like antennae combs that curved inward slightly at the tips and their black armored bodies were covered in white dots. They all had their wing casings partially opened, making it appear like dense capes hung from their backs, while their black and translucent wings poked out slightly. Their heads had large mandibles, and their arms were tipped with claws at the end.

  [Appraisal x ]

  Level 25 — ‘Number 119’ — Security Guard

  “Get back to work, Associate.”

  Job: Security Guard

  Affiliation: Achievement Narration Inc.

  Calling this guy and the rest of his unit ‘guards’ is a bit misleading, since they spend most of their days making sure the cicada Associates are not slacking off. They also handle the on-the-spot execution of employees that fail to do their jobs.

  I suppose I should also point out that these guards are from a species of beetles that parasitize on cicadas. It’s honestly kind of fucked up using them as the security, but it seems to work, since the cicadas are all very motivated to not shirk their duties.

  He and his friends want to beat the shit out of you for impacting company productivity.

  Bee lifted her crossbow, but I stopped her.

  “Let me handle this,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure if Tina had gotten any useful Skills yet, but I knew that Bee’s weapon wouldn’t work against these guys.

  “Cooldown Claymore,” I said and strode towards the incoming beetle guards.

  [‘Cooldown Claymore’ x ]

  Golden Fusion Ability

  This Ability is pretty overpowered to be honest, but man is it cool.

  Manifest a claymore of crackling golden-orange energy that can cut through anything. Every kill made with the weapon lowers the active cooldowns of all your eligible Skills by 10%.

  Ineligible Skills:

  —Cooldown Claymore—

  —Rules of Anarchy—

  —Time Save—

  Duration: 30 seconds

  Cooldown: 1 hour

  This Ability appears on your Appraisal!

  The first two leapt forward with a blur of wings and I swung my orange-glowing blade through them, its energy blade crackling and sizzling where their white blood touched it.

  As their friends fell into pieces, the other guards paused.

  I triggered SPRING_HEEL and shot through their ranks while spinning the sword in my hands.

  After skidding to a halt following my landing a few yards past their group, the beetles all collapsed into chunks of exoskeleton and squishy inners, with their white blood soaking into the office carpet.

  The cicada employees were rapidly exiting the large cubicle chamber through a small fire escape, many of their fellows trampled beneath the press of bodies.

  Tina and Bee walked up to me, with the woman continuing through the sea of cubicles and heading for a small door with a red light above it.

  “How’d you do that?” Bee asked, stopping next to me.

  “It’s one of my Skills,” I told her. “I got it from killing a pawn of the Flayed Lady.”

  “She’s the one responsible for turning those people in the mall into monsters, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Come on!” Tina called back to us from where she stood next to the door with the light above. Just then, my claymore fizzed out.

  Bee and I ran over to where she waited, and I noticed a sign next to the light that read, ‘Do not enter while on!’

  Even though it was glowing with a red light, Tina pushed the door open, and we followed her in.

  Through the door was a hallway leading to various rooms with glass doors, but the place looked like a bomb had gone off inside, with dozens of the beetle guards splattered against the walls, ceiling, and floor, many of them missing chunks of their armor and flesh.

  Down at the far end was a child-sized shape hunched over a body and chewing loudly, the sounds echoing in the hallway.

  I stepped out in front of Tina just as the dark figure lurched upright and stared back at us with two round white eyes set into its black body.

  [Appraisal x ]

  Level 99 — ‘Billee’ — Spawn of an Absolute

  “Heyyyy!”

  Job: Substitute Narrator

  Affiliation: Achievement Narration Inc.

  Since you’re seeing this appraisal, it means you’re quite close to this creature. I would recommend you turn around and run, given the Absolute that Billee is spawned from, but you’re unlikely to escape.

  She’s very glad you came.