Walking through the secret tunnel beneath the estate left Kiki feeling strange. She hadn't been down here in years, ever since her daddy decided she was old enough to drive the little electric carts, which most personnel used to get around the estate, without any supervision.

  By that point, the fantasy of secret tunnels had long been forgotten and it had just become a normal short-cut, one that was long, boring, slightly claustrophobia inducing, and had slightly stale air. Once its convenience was surpassed by the adventure that was driving around the estate on four wheels, she had stopped using it, and ultimately almost forgot it even existed.

  Now? Walking through this tunnel left her nostalgic, but the realization of how much she had grown hit just as hard. Once, this tunnel had felt high and wide. Not large by any means, but the walls were far enough apart that she couldn't touch both of them with her hands at the same time.

  Now that she was following behind Jack, because of course he once again insisted to stay in front of her at all times, she knew there was no way she could fit past him unless he turned sideways and allowed her through. And her Zweih?nder was a pain in the ass to deal with in the tight space.

  And it would be a pain in Jack's ass, if she didn't pay attention to where she put it at all times.

  Then again, that was a lot easier to do than she would have thought. Just the need to pay attention to her weapon left her with a rather strange feeling of how exactly the weapon was positioned. Part of the effect of 'The bigger the better' making itself known for the first time now that she paid attention to it.

  "Great." Jack complained. "It would have been REALLY nice to know about the SECRET PASSAGE leading right into the middle of the house I'm supposed to keep safe." He had been going on about this for a while now, and while Kiki could kind of understand where he was coming from, she was also starting to get annoyed.

  "Look, if everyone knew about it, it wouldn't be much of a secret passage, now would it? Besides, it's not like there is any chance anyone will ever be able to find or use the entrance on the other end. We should be coming up on it now."

  "I think I can see it!" Elias called out at that moment from the very front. "There is a bend in the tunnel."

  "Now let me through, I have to open this door as well."

  She made her way past him, pushing Jack to the side of the tunnel so she could get to the front, and by the time she got there, Elias had already squeezed himself into the corner so she could get through easily.

  In front of Kiki was a heavy metal door. Not quite on the same level as the bunker, rather far from it in fact, but it had the same scanners and was much more durable than any of the more direct entrances into the manor.

  Behind the door was another short tunnel, ending at a metal ladder. Climbing up with some difficulty, as trying to do so while carrying a Zweih?nder didn't make it an exactly easy process, she quickly reached the top where she pressed a button on the wall to her left. Doing so resulted in the ceiling above her moving away to the right, letting Kiki see the sky.

  Carefully Kiki lifted her head out of the hole and looked around, though there wasn't much to see. A brick wall behind her, bushes in front, and on the left a small path to the front of the small building the entrance was hidden behind. Not a single monster in sight, or range of her hearing.

  Quickly, and as silently as she could, Kiki clambered out of the hole to make space for the two men following behind her. Once all of them had come out, Kiki turned towards the tunnel's cover. It was one of those enigmatic boxes that kind of stood around everywhere in public and went entirely ignored because only a professional would ever know what was even inside them.

  As far as Kiki knew, it had something to do with the local power grid, or the internet, or... something. This particular box however, while looking like the real thing, was anything but. It could still be opened like normal, which Kiki did, but only one of the switches inside would actually do something. It took her a few tries to find the right one, but flicking it down and back up made the top part that had shifted aside move back above the entrance, hiding it from sight once again.

  "That's neat." Elias whispered, showing himself capable of appreciating a well-hidden secret tunnel.

  Jack, on the other hand, still didn't stop grumbling about it.

  "Let's go," Kiki waved for the two men to follow her, trying her best to make as little noise as possible as she moved along the small path to the front of the building. It wasn't anything large, just a small hut containing all kinds of equipment, for all the kinds of jobs that needed to be done when maintaining such a massive estate.

  Kiki stopped at the corner of the building, but before she could take a look, Jack pushed himself past her.

  "It's clear. Which direction do we need to go?"

  Trying her best not to get annoyed at him, Kiki answered: "To the left, then the second path on the left."

  "Hmm," he grunted in ascent, moving in the direction Kiki had indicated.

  With Jack in front and Elias in the back, Kiki decided to focus on listening, and she was glad she did just a moment later. "Stop!" she whispered, silent but insistent, causing Jack to freeze just before he looked around the corner.

  Just around the corner, Kiki thought she had heard the silent crunching of gravel, similar to the sound the three of them made with every step on the gravel path. "I think I heard something behind the corner."

  Jack nods, and slowly moves up to the corner, looking around it carefully. "There is one. We will have to..."

  "Elias," Kiki interrupted him. "Did you manage to get your magic working?"

  "Kinda?" he answered.

  "Think you could... I don't know, make something get stuck in the ground or hamper it somehow? Between that and a numerical advantage, we should be able to deal with a single one of them."

  For a moment, Elias closed his eyes as he seemed to think. "I can try, though I'm not sure how effective it would be."

  "Then go to the front and try." Kiki decided. "Between me and Jack, we should be able to take it out relatively easily. Besides, sooner or later we will have to try it."

  "Let me see, then." he said, as he moved to the corner of the hedge, Kiki following close behind.

  Kiki made herself ready to run around the corner and deal with the monster as quickly as possible, when suddenly, she could feel the strange energy around Elias again, followed by the sound of struggling from behind the corner.

  Taking it as her signal, Kiki ran, ready to smash her sword into the creature, but before she could even take two steps...

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Jack fired three shots.

  And the moment Kiki could see around the corner, she saw the monster collapsing to the ground, one of its paws buried in a small mound of earth.

  "What the HELL are you doing!?" Kiki barely manages to keep herself from screaming as she turns on Jack.

  Seeing the man's satisfied grin only made Kiki more angry. Sure, she had intended to fight and kill the Monster herself, and would probably have a similar expression after. But she's had just about enough with him. He was supposed to be a professional but for a while now, he has been growing more and more erratic. And now this.

  "Why the hell are you so satisfied with yourself!? You were the one who didn't want to use the electric buggies because you didn't want to risk the noise attracting monsters, and now you shoot your gun?"

  Sure, we haven't really talked about it, Kiki thought, but even to me it's obvious that dealing with a monster close up with a sword makes so much less noise! And it wasn't like it was especially dangerous, it sounded like Elias had it pretty good under control.

  "Oh, come off it!" Jack turned to her, his face one of anger. "I'm suppose to fucking protect you! But no! Little miss special has to decide she wants to run off to commit suicide via Monster. You should be happy that I've come along, because what the hell do you even know about fighting!?"

  "Both of you, calm down! We have to leave before more show up." Elias interrupted them.

  "We will talk about this!" Kiki decided, before turning around the corner and jogging towards their goal. It wasn't very far anymore anyways, and she didn't think they could afford to take it slow and careful any longer.

  She was proven right moments later, when another of the creatures shot around the upcoming corner from the right, sliding as it scrabbled for grip on the gravel path. And having prepared herself for just such a possibility, Kiki didn't leave Jack any room to even consider firing again, sprinting forwards as she brought her sword around in a wide arc. Just like the first time she fought, her blade bit deep into the monster's flesh, vibrating as it hit resistance.

  But many things had changed in those past few hours.

  For one, she was prepared, mentally, at least to some degree.

  And for another, she had a Skill.

  Kiki hadn't known what to expect, but the difference was more significant that she ever dared to imagine.

  Her mind was calmer.

  Her strike better aimed.

  And whatever the twenty percent did was enough that her sword didn't get stuck, but instead went right through the creature's skull, the crystal that was its weak spot, and back out the other side.

  It was pure habit that allowed her to keep the blade moving, swinging it around her head, and bring the weapon around for another strike as she turned to her left where she had felt Elias' energy erupt from the ground.

  A single glance was all she got before her blade hit once again, this time biting deep into the monster's side and getting stuck. A single pull told Kiki that she wouldn't be getting her blade back quickly. Instead of trying, she instead held the handle tight, pulling it to the side and onto the ground, using her blade as a lever, pushing the monster onto its side.

  The moment she did, a wave of earth erupts from the ground, covering the monster to keep it where it lay. This in turn gave Kiki the chance to stand back up, and stomp on the creature's head again and again, until it stopped moving.

  Once it was dead, it didn't take long to brace her foot against the monster's side, giving her the leverage needed to get her sword back.

  Kiki tried her best to ignore Jack's angry expression as she followed after the men that had now overtaken her, and it was only another ten meters or so before they turned onto a path to the left, leading directly to the front door of the Beckers.

  The door stood open, letting Elias and Jack inside, with Kiki only moments behind.

  They probably heard the shots and realized we were coming. Kiki reasoned.

  Once she was inside, the door closed quickly behind her.

  Before she even had the chance to take her sword from her shoulder, she heard the voice of an elderly woman. "Girl, what the hell do you think you are wearing?"

  Kiki flinched a little at the question. As much as she liked these two, they were a bit behind on the times. There was a good reason Kiki never told them about her forays into Cosplay.

  "It's armor, gran." Kiki tried to explain, "It keeps me safe from the monsters."

  "A! We have seen those buggers," another old voice, this one male, came from the direction of the door. "Strange creatures, those are."

  "Armor, huh?" Margret asked, clearly not believing her. Turning towards the men, she squinted her eyes and asked: "Did those two force you to wear that?"

  "Nonono! Gran, I put this on myself! It will keep me safe, really!"

  No matter how many issues she was starting to have with Jack, no one deserved to be on the receiving end of this old woman's wrath.

  "Hmm... Even then, a young woman shouldn't run around in skimpy outfits like that. What would people think of you!?" Margret complained.

  "Anyways, we don't have much time right now. Since SOMEONE decided to make a bunch of noise, I think we should get moving before the Monsters have a chance to gather. Gran, gramps, did you happen to have some strange text show up in your vision?"

  Kiki really hoped they did. As physically fit as they were, their age hadn’t left them unaffected, and Kiki doubted they would be able to run for extended periods of time. And if Kiki's suspicion was correct, there was a good chance that both of them would have...

  "Yes," Nikolas was the one to answer. "We were planning to go with it to the doctor sometime tomorrow."

  "You shouldn't..."

  "Stop it Jack!" Kiki interrupted him. "There is no way we can move them safely as they are. Not after you attracted all those monsters!"

  "Listen, it's a little bit hard to explain quickly, but you have to trust me with this. You have to ask the System to let you choose your Class. The rest will work itself out from there. Then we can bring you two to the manor where it should be a lot safer than here."

  "Are those... 'Monsters' as you call them, really that dangerous?" Nikolas asked as he moved to stand next to his wife.

  "People died."

  It was all Kiki had to say before the old pair followed her advice, despite Jack's protest.

  Like always, the change was quick, and just as extreme as Kiki had suspected. It was something she had previously not thought about, thinking Purity's extreme change was simply due to her Rare Class. But since then, she has had another thought.

  Kiki herself had been 'normalized' until she had a total of seventy personal Stats total, losing nine points in the process. But Kiki was healthy, in her prime, and had a probably unusually high value of Charm. Then what would happen with someone who was, for example, old, or weak, or generally unhealthy? Someone who might have LESS than seventy personal Stats? Her guess was that instead of losing points, they might actually gain some, on top of those granted by their Class.

  Her assumption was in all likelihood proven correct when she watched the husband and wife change only moments later. Contrary to purity, whom Kiki was reasonably sure had gotten a good chunk of Charm from her Class, the couple didn't seem to change all too much. Their forms filled out, and they stood a bit straighter, but that seemed to be all at first glance But on closer inspection, they seemed to radiate... healthiness, vitality, more so than was reasonable for someone who still looked as old as they did.

  They also seemed to radiate a similar energy to Elias, though Kiki could tell that there seemed to be some kind of difference.

  "Well," Nikolas said, "I haven't felt this young and spry in a while. If I didn't know any better, I would think I'm back in my twenties!"

  "Shame you don't look like it," Margret commented.

  "Eh, not like you care anyways."

  "Right you are! But I can see why the young man would be suspicious. Something this good rarely comes without a price." Margret explained, much to Jack's satisfaction.

  "Hm! But I for one feel like I could keep going for another hundred years, instead of retiring in ten, so whatever the price is, it may very well be worth it."

  "That is, of course, also very true." The old woman agreed with her husband's words.

  "Well, it's good if you're feeling that healthy. And I hope it's enough that you can go for a little run." Kiki said.

  "Should be," Margret said, a grin on her lips that seemed surprisingly excited to Kiki. "But couldn't we also take one of the buggies?"

  Just as Kiki wanted to answer, Elias spoke up.

  "There is no more time!"

  This entire time he had been going around, checking outside the windows.

  "We are almost surrounded. They came out of the bushes all at once. Just from here, I can see about twenty of them!"