Apophis and Ceasar remained silent while the other three members of the party debated heatedly about whether to accept the quest offered by the Goddess Varda Elentári.

“I think we agree,” said White, “that the penalty for failure is ‘much’ worse than the reward for winning!”

Hulk nodded. “Even though the unique skill reward would surely be a mega-powerful upgrade… If you fail, you lose everything. I agree with White.”

Chocolate seemed to agree, too.

Ceasar opened his mouth to reply to them—

Apophis clicked “accept.”

[0)ᴠᴇʟ He was the leader of the group, after all.

Everyone looked shocked as they received the notification of “quest accepted.” They looked like Apophis had done something wrong.

Even Ceasar felt annoyed, but said nothing. He’d agreed to follow Apophis’s leadership, and so he’d follow, even if the penalty for failure was far greater in scope than Ceasar had predicted.

Hopefully, it would all turn out for the best. The party had managed to clean up all the floors of the dungeon tower, after all. Apophis had proved himself to be a good leader thus far.

But White shouted out, her voice full of anger. “Are you serious? Why’d you make such a big decision unilaterally? It’s not just a resurrection penalty that lasts an hour! If we fail, we lose a whole month of progress! Give me an explanation immediately!”

On the other hand, the Hulk says the same thing:

“Are you fucking serious, man? You accept a quest that will impact our character, without consulting us! We’ll have to kick your ass for what you just did!

Apophis answered. “Look, this is a unique level X- quest. It might be the only quest of this rank you see in your whole life. We’re the first team to try a Nightmare dungeon, remember?

“You really want to play it safe just because you’re afraid of losing a lvl 7 character? You agreed to follow my direction, so follow! Anyway, I’m certain we’ll be able to beat this quest, despite its difficulty.”

Ceasar finally spoke up. “How can you know all this, Apophis? The game’s only been out for four days, and there haven’t been any substantial leaks that could tell you these details. I’ve been watching you since we started this dungeon. Your strategies go well beyond basic MMO tactics.

“You’ve known the AI of every encounter in a way only a practiced speedrunner could, and that spiritual skeleton of yours is far more powerful than any other skill I’ve seen so early in the game.”

Apophis was caught off guard, but Ceasar’s words sparked an idea. “Well, I had access to a leak that didn’t go public. Trust me, I know this quest, and I know we can beat it. Once we do, it’ll all be worth the difficulty.”

Apophis had lied. This was a new quest, even for him. Yet, it seemed to make sense to the rest of the party. Now he had to act quickly before anyone could raise another question and expose his lie.

Apophis had held onto the skill books he’d acquired from the Zetark facilities, and he now spread them—eight in total—on the ground between the party members.

“These are for you!” he said.

In the short term, losing the books meant losing an immense amount of money… at least several million GC, he estimated.

Yet, the potential gain would far eclipse that in the long term.

Despite themselves, the party’s morale rose significantly at the sight of such rare and powerful skills. There were no more complaints.

Once everyone had learned their new skills, the five players set off for the last floor of the dungeon called Gravedigger Tower.