Kelima had thought her heart would stop when Terry, the madman who would pick a fight with just about anyone or anything, threw down his axes. She could tell she'd gotten so much stronger on this trip. She also knew that the madman was so far ahead of her that he might as well be a speck on the horizon. If he didn't think he could win a fight, she was doomed. What she hadn't expected was to hear the lich or whatever it was draw in a sharp breath of what seemed like surprise. It happened right after Terry asked it some wholly insane question about something called a Bee Bee Sea.

She was left speechless when the thing that had seemed prepared to murder them reached up and yanked back its hood to reveal…a girl. A girl who couldn't be much older than Kelima herself. A girl blessed with a mane of wavy, red hair and bright green eyes. The girl? Lich? Necromancer? Kelima really wasn't sure. The redhead surprised Kelima again when she thrust a finger at Terry, eyes wild, and shrieked.

"Bloody hell! You're from Earth!"

"I take it you got isekai-ed here, too?" asked Terry, lowering his hands.

The redhead put on a look of supreme annoyance and nodded.

"There I was, in London, minding my own business. Then, bang, a lorry comes out of nowhere and runs me down. Next thing I know, I'm here. You?"

"Truck-kun ran me over on a hiking trail," said Terry.

Kelima had no idea what a lorry or a truck-kun was, but apparently, they were pretty murderous.

"A hiking trail? Seriously?" asked the redhead.

"Yup. Damn thing didn't even have a driver. You don't get more Truck-kun than that. The fucker," grumbled Terry before he eyed the redhead. "So, um, what's with the Sith lord outfit?"

"Ugh. I almost have to wear it. It's got all these defensive stat boosts that synergize with my class."

"Wait, you got a class?" demanded Terry. "What the hell was it? Ring Wraith?"

"Arch-lich," said the girl with a shake of her head. "What class did you get? Barbarian-samurai?"

"I didn't get one," said Terry.

"You didn't?"

"Nope. I got summoned here by the cultivators up north, so I guess I'm a cultivator. Sort of. I'm a little hazy on the details. They started talking about some army of evil, and then my role as a chosen something or other. I took the path of least pain and bounced the very first chance I got."

"So, you're not getting aggravating quests you can't turn down all the time?"

"Not a one. However, I also didn't get one of those handy LitRPG stat screens. It's so goddamn hard to track your progress without something like that. I shit you not."

"I bet," said the redhead, nodding in a sympathetic way.

Kelima's head was starting to pound. It felt like she was listening to people talk in another language. There was so much she didn't understand. What made it worse was that the arch-lich did understand every last piece of crazy that came out of Terry's mouth. Kelima had gotten into the habit of just dismissing most of the things Terry said that she didn't understand. She figured he was just saying nonsense to her to be annoying. But…But what if it was all true? Her mind rebelled at the very idea. More importantly, just because Terry and the arch-lich came from the same world, it was no guarantee that the girl wouldn't turn on them the second she was done reminiscing. Kelima realized that she'd stopped listening and forced herself to focus again.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"I know," said Terry. "The people here are so weird."

"Hey. We're not weird. You're the weird one!" Kelima shouted.

Terry and the arch-lich both looked over at her with startled expressions. It was almost like they'd forgotten she existed entirely. That was a bit of a blow to her self-esteem. It was one thing when Terry forgot about her. He was lost in his own head half the time. For the lich girl to have forgotten her meant that Kelima posed exactly no threat. She simply wasn't worth remembering because she couldn't do anything.

"Oh, right," said Terry. "This is Kelima. She's a local. Kelima, this is—"

Terry blinked at the redhead, who blinked back at him.

"We never exchanged names, did we?" asked the redhead.

"Nope. Skipped right over that. I'm Terry Williams. You are?"

"Eliza," said the redhead, and lifted a hand. "Don't. I've heard every My Fair Lady joke there is."

Terry seemed to think for a moment before he said, "Fair. I assume your last name isn't Doolittle."

"Acton. Eliza Acton."

"Eliza Acton, this is Kelima—" Terry trailed off.

Kelima wanted to scream. He still hadn't remembered her name.

"Silventar, you insufferable ass," she said through clenched teeth. "My name is Kelima Silventar."

"Well, color commentary aside, that's Kelima Silventar."

The redhead looked at Kelima, lifted a hand, and waved.

"Hi."

"Hello," said Kelima, feeling so awkward about every single thing that was happening at the moment. "Terry, can I have a moment? Now."

Before he could answer, she grabbed his arm and dragged him away a few steps.

"Listen. I'm sure you're excited to meet someone from home, but did you miss the part where she said she's an arch-lich? Those generally aren't nice people. How do you know she isn't going to kill us?"

Terry pondered for a moment, then did something that made Kelima want to scream again.

"Hey, Eliza, are you still planning to kill us?"

The redhead eyed them briefly before she said, "It depends, I guess. Are you really just here for the orichalcum ore?"

"Yep. I got sent on a fetch quest by a smith to get some unobtanium so she can make me some badass swords. And maybe a badass hat."

"You and your hats," muttered Kelima.

Terry continued like he hadn't heard.

"Then, it's back home to fight a small monster army before they do, well, whatever it is that small monster armies do here. I assume that pillaging and burning are right at the top of the list."

"Yeah, that's their usual SOP," said Eliza. "As long as you aren't here to kill me, I think we're good."

"And you don't mind if I take a bunch of the ore?"

"I don't need it. I mean, yeah, it's valuable, but it's not really useful for being a lich."

"Awesome," said Terry, and turned to Kelima. "See, not a problem."

She shook her head at him, but he'd already grabbed his axes and started walking toward a wall.

"What are you doing?" asked Eliza.

"I have to get the ore out of the wall somehow," said Terry, hefting an axe.

"No, no, no," said Eliza. "That is work for minions."

Eliza lifted a hand and snapped her fingers. Kelima froze as a hole opened in the back wall of the cavern. Zombies and animated skeletons marched in. Eliza pointed at a wall and spoke in a commanding voice.

"Mine some orichalcum ore!"

The undead minions shambled over to the walls and started working. Kelima watched Terry as he watched it all.

"Undead minion army," he said with glee. "That is so badass."

Of course, thought Kelima. Of course, he's impressed by the undead minions of the pretty girl who's probably not even alive herself.

"I know, right?!" shouted Eliza. "It's not my dream come true, but it's still a nice consolation prize for the fantasy geek girl."

"What was your dream?" asked Terry.

"Queen of everything, obviously."

"Well, if you're gonna dream, dream big."

"How about you?"

"I was aiming for a multi-hyphenate. Billionaire-Olympic Gold Medalist-Movie Star."

"Nice! What happened?"

"It turns out, you need talent and luck for all that stuff."

"Didn't have the luck?"

"Well, a cosmic murder delivery truck ran me over, so I'm going with no to that luck thing. Turns out, I didn't have talent, either. I was blessed with crippling introversion, though. That was always super helpful in achieving my goals."

Eliza laughed and said, "I'm quite sure that it was. Seems like you've gotten over it."

"I wouldn't say that I got over it. It's just that the anxiety you got from social situations doesn't quite measure up to the anxiety of having monsters try to murder you every other day."

"That makes sense," said Eliza before she looked over her shoulder and seemed to sniff the air. "Are you hungry?"

"I could eat. What have you got?"

"I have, well, I don't want to oversell it. I'm not a very good cook. But I have something vaguely resembling curry."

"Sold!" shouted Terry.

Kelima shook her head as Terry willingly walked off with the arch-lich. If that woman wanted to kill him, he was going to make it so easy for her.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.