Despite the tight confines of the hollow, Winston slept deeply. He was dragged out of his dreamless bliss by the rhythmic pounding of footsteps and voices around him.

  “Come on, Caedric! Don’t be a coward!” The…sounds grated on Winston’s ears, but still, he understood them. “We’ll never move up in the ranks if we don’t have the strength to do so!”

  “We’ve been hunting for hours!” Though the voice sounded no different to Winston, he could still glean a whining tone from the words.

  Winston shifted himself slowly until his head just barely poked out of the hollow. Standing around him were half a dozen of the humanoids he had seen when the faceless titan had given its speech.

  A bulky Caltheran with dozens of crystals placed sporadically over his face and body turned to another Caltheran, this one with far fewer crystals overall, but those that he had were arranged into symmetrical patterns.

  “So what if we’ve been hunting for hours? Isn’t this why we came to the Tower? To get stronger? You’ve gained 3 ranks, haven’t you? That’s 3 ranks farther up in life! 3 steps closer to surviving the tower! That alone is enough to bump you up hundreds, if not thousands, of places on the leaderboard, Caedric.

  “If you don’t want to hunt anymore, so be it! Then go, begone! Don’t insult us with your presence if you’re too lazy to put in the work that’s needed!”

  Caedric’s eyes widened at the outburst, “Alright, alright! I’ll keep hunting. There was no need for that!”

  A Caltheran leaning on a nearby tree snorted, spinning a spear in his hand. “Well, then, Caedric, we let you join us because you were a scout, didn’t we? Make yourself useful, why don’t you? Run one of your little scans on the area.”

  Winston froze, not making a noise, not even breathing. He didn’t even let his ears twitch at the sound of their voices. A scan? What would that mean for him? Would they notice him?

  Seeing Caedric nod, Winston ducked his head back into the hollow. Pressing his ears back against his head, he squeezed his eyes shut, hoping whatever scan the Caltheran were using would pass him by.

  “There’s nothing of note in the area, just a few Initiate 1s…what did the system call them? ‘Finches’?” Hearing this, Winston relaxed slightly, but he didn’t dare let out the breath he was holding.

  The bulky Caltheran grunted in acknowledgment, “Very well, let’s get a move—”

  “Wait,” Caedric called, “Captain! There’s something else in the area! It’s…a Contender? They’re Initiate 1 as well, so I nearly passed them over.”

  There was a collective cry of alarm from the Caltherans, and Winston heard someone issuing orders.

  Shrinking back even further, he let out a whimper of fear. It was so quiet that Winston himself barely heard it, but somehow, Caedric did too.

  “I heard something over there!” Caedric shouted. As the footsteps drew closer, and Winston heard the sound of metal grinding on metal grating in his ears, he cracked open an eye. “Draw your weapons!”

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  “We don’t take orders from you, you’re just a Thren,” another spat, the disdain in his voice evident, but he drew his spear anyway.

  “Enough!” The buff one that seemed to be the captain shouted, silencing the ranks. Turning towards the spear wielder, he spoke. “And you. I don’t care that Caedric is a lower tier than you; you’re barely any better. You are both under my command, and I will not tolerate infighting. Understand?”

  The spear-wielding Caltheran gulped and nodded, head down.

  “Good! Now get moving, and search the area!”

  Winston watched in horror as the half-dozen Contenders searched the area, coming dangerously close to his hiding spot. He began to quake in fear as an archer wearing a simple cloak and with nearly as many crystals as the captain chose the same tree he was burrowed under to rest on. It took everything he had not to pant and give away his location.

  Winston’s relief was palpable as the Caltheran stepped away from the tree once more, but it wouldn’t last. As the archer stepped away, he pushed off a patch of dry grass, launching the dust into the air around Winston.

  Fighting as hard as he could, Winston buried his face in his furry body, but it was too late. All he could do was try to muffle his sneeze.

  Despite all that he did, the sneeze still came out, albeit as a high-pitched squeak. A high-pitched squeak that several Caltherans heard very clearly.

  “Over there!”

  “Are they in the tree?”

  Winston froze, mortified, but there was nothing he could do anymore. He trembled as the archer responsible for his sneeze turned and dropped to his knees before the tree.

  Finding himself face to face with the blue-faced and crystal-covered Contender, Winston let out a whimper, trying to shrink back, but finding there was no more room.

  “I’ve found…it?” The archer shouted, uncertain of how to refer to Winston. “I…I don’t know what it is, but it is oddly cute.”

  “You think something’s cute? Nothing we’ve seen so far was cute. I’ve got to see this,” the captain guffawed, bending down to join the archer. “Oh my, it is cute!”

  One by one, the stony-faced warriors dropped down around the tree, and one after another, their faces went soft.

  [Passive Charm lvl 2 → Passive Charm lvl 3]

  Winston leaped back in surprise, hitting his head on the soil above him and letting out a yip.

  “It may be cute,” the spear-wielding Caltheran spoke, “But does anyone actually know what it is?”

  The gathered Contenders responded with a series of grunts and shrugs, waiting for someone to answer. When none came, the captain spoke, “Well, didn’t you say it was a Contender, Caedric?”

  Caedric nodded, still staring at Winston with a mix of adoration and confusion.

  “Well, then,” the captain added, gesturing at Winston, “would you care to explain this?”

  “My skill says that it’s a Contender,” Caedric sighed. “This doesn’t make any sense. The only Contenders in this group should be Caltheran. And it doesn’t make sense for him to come from another group; the system itself said that we wouldn’t cross paths until the 11th floor!”

  “Well, I suppose we should take a vote,” The captain said. “All in favor of letting it live?”

  There was a chorus of grunts and nods, to which the captain snorted, “Then what? Will we keep it as a pet?”

  Despite being meant as a joke, several of the warriors nodded enthusiastically. The captain sighed, walking away, “Very well. It’s up to you to find a way to bring it back to the camp. And has anyone even bothered to identify it yet?”

  “The system says it’s a ‘corgi,’” the archer, Erynd, responded, reaching out to grab Winston. Recoiling, Winston snarled at the hand, striking at it with his paw, but to no avail. Ignoring Winston’s incessant attacks, pulled him out by the scruff. “It’s scared! Does anyone have a spare piece of clothing or cloth we can wrap it in?”

  Just minutes later, Winston found his miniature body wrapped in a spare cloak and tucked under Erynd’s arm, being dragged to their camp.