Nathan walked up to the pillar. He was… more than a little bit confused. Wasn't he supposed to get the key of unnecessary bullshit? What was this thing supposed to be?

  There was a grand staircase leading up to it. He took the first step.

  A rumble.

  The next step cracked and then a wall appeared in front of him. It had a three by three square marked out with numbers in some of the boxes.

  Nathan scratched his chin.

  "This is just a Sudoku puzzle."

  The puzzle didn't respond.

  "Wait, Sudoku?!"

  Nathan looked back. Mara bounded up the stairs, wide grin on her face. She examined the numbers closer and gave a small, determined nod to herself.

  "This is easy," she said. "Like, pathetically easy. Like, I could solve this one in my sleep."

  "So can you do that, then?"

  "Solve it in my sleep? It might take me a while to get to bed."

  "No, I meant just solve it like a normal person."

  Mara perked up. "Oh, yeah, I understand what you mean!"

  She pulled a marker out of her inventory. Her hands made quick motions as they knocked out number after number after number. In about a minute, every box had been filled in.

  "Used to do this with my mom," Mara put in another number. "Before they realized I was insane, that is."

  "Oh. That's… nice."

  "Yeah, it's a really fond memory!"

  The sudoku puzzle glowed. The wall tumbled to the ground and into the floor.

  Nathan reached up and scratched the back of his head. He wasn't qutie sure if that was meant to be difficult or more of a distraciton than anything else?

  He took a few more steps and approached the key at the top of the pillar.

  Nathan reached out to touch it—

  The ground shuddered again, but this time it was even worse. Sand dust fell from the ceiling in clumps.

  The sand clumped together, bit by bit, forming itself into a humanoid shape.

  [Guardian of the False Key] - Lv. 110

  The Guardian of the false key. A creature composed entirely of sand, his main gimmick is being really annoying to fight due to your eyes being constantly irritated. Have you even gotten sand in your eyes? It sucks. Sand sucks in general. It's coarse, it's rough, it's irriatating, and it gets everywhere.

  Nathan breathed in and out and got ready for the latest fight.

  The sand clump seemed to look at him.

  It raised its hands.

  Both its hands.

  "Did it just surrender?" Chad asked.

  Nathan blinked a few times to double check that he was seeing correctly.

  "Yeah, I think it did," Nathan said.

  The sand melted into the ground and disappeared. Nathan stayed on edge, ready for a sneak attack of some sort.

  But none came.

  The guardian had seen Nathan and just decided that it would be too scary to fight him.

  "That's convenient," Nathan shrugged. "And vaguely confusing."

  Chad clapped his back. "Don't think about it for too long. Besides, we got the key, didn't we?"

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "No we didn't." Emi tapped her chin. "I remember what we were told to get. It was the key of unnecessary bullshit. The key in front of us is the key of mildly inconvenient bullshit."

  "How do you even remember that?" Chad asked.

  "I pay attention."

  Nathan winced like he'd just been struck in the back of the head.

  "So, I mean, I guess we just get going? Nathan asked. "I mean, this is pretty clearly a fake."

  Chad shrugged. "I guess so."

  Nathan had figured the distance was off, anyway. He wasn't 100% sure how long they'd been walking, but it hadn't been long enough for them to arrive at the real key location—at least, if the map was according to scale.

  Nathan took a step away from the key.

  [Warning!]

  Are you sure you don't want to take the key?

  Y/N

  Nathan clicked the Y button and walked forward—

  [Warning!]

  Are you really sure? Like, super duper extra sure?

  Y/N

  Nathan clicked Y again. He took anotehr step.

  [Warning!]

  But it might be important! How do you know that it isn't actually super useful? Maybe the key has an interesting backstory. Have you ever considered that? Maybe these notes are just lying to you and that's the real key!

  Y/N

  If B32 had been the one responsible for writing all of this, then he had way too much time on his hands.

  Nathan sighed and clicked the N button. He turned back around and snatched the key off the pedestal.

  Chad's outstretched hands were locked in place. He'd been mere seconds from taking the key for himself.

  "Bro, what was all that about?!" Chad stomped his foot into the ground. "I was going to take that!"

  "It's a fake key, it's not actually useful."

  "You idiot, people don't collect because it's useful. They collect in order to show off their superior collection skills to their friends and neighbors."

  That's a rather cynical take.

  Nathan ignored Chad and opened up his inventory. The key sat at the bottom. He decided to take it out and give it to Chad.

  It slipped free of his inventory easily enough. He made to throw it toward Chad and hit him in the back of the head—

  [Soulbound Items can't be removed from the person they're bound to]

  Nathan's fingers clenched up and he found himself unable to make the throw.

  You've got to be kidding me.

  Nathan resigned himself to keeping the key and stuffed it into his inventory.

  They wrapped around the back of the room. As expected, there'd been a hallway heading straight to the next section.

  Hour after hour passed in silence. Nathan was starting to reach his limit from the amount of inane shenanigans he'd been through.

  It almost would've been better is that sand guardian thing had fought us. At least, then things would be in line with my expectations.

  Instead, it had surrendered, run away, and left nathan with a bullshit soulbound item that didn't actually do anything except consume inventory space.

  Thanks, B32. You're hilarious.

  Nathan felt that if the system were alive, it would be cackling in joy at Nathan's annoyance.

  Footstep after footstep.

  "Alright, that's it, I'm calling a break," Nathan said.

  "Oh thank goodness," Emi said.

  Bjorn grunted. "Makes sense. We've been walking for some time."

  Mara cackled and pulled out a few rifles form her inventory. "Excellent, I needed a chance to attend to my babies!"

  "Please don't call them that," Chad said.

  As everyone settled in for the night, Nathan pulled out the map and gave it a once over.

  By his count, they'd reach the end of the map sometime tomorrow.

  He sent a quick message via Dither to Gius.

  He got a response back just as quick.

  Fifty million left. Not a lot.

  Against all odds, Nathan had already done the impossible. The majority of humanity were now stored across a sequence of Soulbound towns, and all Nathan had done was ask for people to do what he asked. He didn't even provide the rationale—they'd all apparently just trusted him and his reasonings implicitly.

  Nathan usually thought that the titles people gave him were kind of stupid. Fisher King being the stupidest of them all. His reputation had ballooned completely out of his control and it was really annoying look at for too long.

  But if his reputation would help save the what was left of humanity… well, Nathan was willing to put up with it for a bit longer.

  "Penny for your thoughts?"

  Nathan jerked in place.

  Emi smiled down at him. She sat to his side and tucked her knees to her chest.

  "Where'd you learn that expression from?" Nathan asked.

  "Chad taught me. He used it on me, and when I'd asked him what it meant, the meaning stuck with me for some reason."

  I hummed. Reasonable enough.

  "How are you feeling?" Emi asked.

  "Kind of a loaded question, isn't it? What if I need to traumadump all over you?"

  "What is this traumadump you speak of?"

  Nathan waved her off. "Nothing. Anyway, I'm doing fine. Good, even, despite it all."

  Emi laughed and covered up her expression with her hand. "Yes, the past several days have been something of a whirlwind, haven't they?"

  "Whirlwind is something of an understatement." Nathan paused. "I'll admit, though, it's been nice. All of this reminds me of the First Circle."

  Emi gave him a look. "Why exactly would that be a fond memory?"

  "I'd rather be in the First Circle than this place, frankly."

  "Ah." She paused. "No, I understand your reasoning." She hook her head. "Truth be told, I've found it a bit overwhelming, traveling with all of you again. So much has changed and stayed the same all at once."

  Nathan looked around at their small camp. Mara continued to clean her guns. Bjorn polished his sword. Chad talked to his stream. Each of them had grown, but they were also fundamentally the same.

  Nathan chuckled to himself. "I guess people don't change. Maybe that's not a bad thing."

  "Hm?"

  "Nothing."

  Tomorrow, they would find the key. Nathan would buy as much time as possible for the remaining millions who had yet to find their way to a Soulbound Town.

  Yet for some unexplainable reason, Nathan felt a deep sense of discomfort.

  Thalassa still hadn't gotten in contact with him.

  It's just my imagination, he thought. She's busy.

  It would be fine.

  It would all be fine, in the end.