While Eliza gleefully played with Dusk and Kelima sulked, Terry wandered around the big cavern and collected his unobtanium. Which, on reflection, he realized was a bad name for it since he had, in fact, obtained it. I guess I should have called it the Macguffin, he thought. Oh well. Something to consider for the future. With the long-sought rocks now in his possession, though, he started worrying about getting back. This whole trip had taken way longer than he'd anticipated. Of course, he hadn't been expecting to handhold a wayward noble girl or get trapped in a dungeon.

He was pretty sure that the tropes had been working against him there. Or they conspired to make sure he could only possibly get back just in the nick of time. He hated that in pretty much all media because it felt so contrived. Terry had always managed to get to work on time despite anything else that was going on. How hard could it be to get back before the inevitable plot event? Time management, anyone? Now that he was on the other side of it, though, he felt like he needed to cut the heroes in those stories at least a tiny bit of slack. You really couldn't time manage something like an impromptu, unplanned dungeon raid when it was happening in real time.

Nonetheless, Terry felt like everything had been in a holding pattern before, but that he was on a clock now. It wasn't a good feeling. Granted, nobody was going to claim that he'd gone out of his way to form close, personal relationships with the people in Miner's Mark. It was, however, basically the first place he came across where something bad didn't happen to him within a few hours. That made him partial to the town, and he didn't want to see it overrun by monsters. Besides, his house was there. And his chicken-lizard. It had come as a surprise when he realized that he actually cared what happened to the big, dumb, cowardly thing. He supposed that she must have grown on him when he wasn't looking.

All of that was weighing on his mind as he walked back to the other room. Eliza had Dusk sitting in her lap. He honestly wasn't sure which of them was happier. The kitten was sprawled in a boneless way that reaffirmed Terry's suspicion that cats were actually made of liquid. He could hear her purring from across the room. Eliza's eyes were closed, and she wore a contented smile as she pet the potential chaos-spawned deity of doom. Other-Terry's reticence to talk about Dusk's actual identity had regular-Terry leaning in that direction. However, Terry also thought that a god would probably be less lazy than Dusk. It was hard to know. Whatever the case, he suspected that it was time to gather their things and get moving.

Kelima took one look at him and immediately started to gather their few belongings. Eliza gave the noble girl a curious look, then turned her attention to Terry. It seemed she was able to read his intentions from his expression.

"You're leaving," she said in a glum voice.

"Yeah, it's about that time."

"I can't talk you into staying for a day or a month, maybe? We could complain about how bad the last season of Game of Thrones was."

"Yeah, that was pretty bad," said Terry before shaking his head. "And I would stay if I wasn't worried that a bunch of monsters were going to burn down the house I just bought. I haven't even gotten furniture for it yet. Although, who knows what those three have gotten up to since I left."

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"Those three?"

"Some adventurers I was—" Terry paused. "I'm not sure what the right word is. It was half babysitting and half palling around with. I guess it doesn't matter as long as no one painted anything bright pink."

"I like pink," said Eliza.

"On your walls?" asked Terry.

"Okay, that might be kind of horrible."

"Precisely. But I tell you what. After I go deal with the minor monster horde and whatever tropetastic misery comes right on its heels, I can try to come back."

"Tropetastic?"

"I don't know if you've had a problem with it, but my life has been absolutely littered with trope landmines. I've been trying to sidestep them as often as possible with admittedly limited success, but I really don't want to get stuck in some hero plotline. Those people suffer way more than I want to."

"I haven't noticed any tropes," murmured Elize, "but I wasn't looking for them either."

"Maybe it's just me, then. Either way, if we don't get moving, I'll miss my window to arrive at the last possible second to save the town. Then, I'll get stuck in some worse scenario, like a quest for vengeance."

"Oh yeah, those are always bad for the main character. Even if they win, they lose. I understand. It was just nice having company for once. Like you said, those zombies aren't exactly brimming over with stimulating conversation."

"And, if your mandatory quest finishes up, you're welcome to come visit me."

Eliza nodded more enthusiastically at that.

"Any advice about that dungeon? It might be close enough that I could go run it without triggering some penalty."

"Take a ton of minions with you. There's no telling exactly what you'll get in there, but we faced at least one insect swarm. You need bodies to throw at something like that if you can't crush them with overwhelming brutality or magic. Also, that last floor was no joke. There was a huge berserker minotaur that nearly got me. The berserking skill will run out eventually. I think it took about ten minutes, but surviving that long wasn't easy."

"How huge is huge?"

"Twelve feet? Fifteen?" said Terry. "It was big enough that I called it Kongotaur."

Eliza snorted in amusement, but nodded.

"I guess that paints a vivid enough picture to get the idea," she said before standing up.

She carried Dusk over to Terry, who deposited the limp kitten inside the pack Kelima brought him. The noble girl seemed oddly enthusiastic all of a sudden. Terry wasn't sure why. Compared to the dungeon, this trip inside the mountain had been downright restful. Once they left the mine, they'd be back to fighting all the time in a monster-infested forest. People were so weird. He turned his attention back to the displaced Brit.

"Well, thanks for not turning this into a brutal death match. I always appreciate that. Thanks for that curry, too. It was a real taste of home."

"Thank you for not attacking me instantly. And thanks for confirming that I'm not crazy. I was starting to wonder if all those memories from Earth were just a hallucination. So, is it straight back to the blacksmith, then?"

"Yep. Oh, first we need to collect the demons. After that, though, right back to the blacksmith."

"You're going to fight demons?" asked Eliza.

"I only wish we were going to fight them," grumbled Kelima.

"Ignore her," said Terry. "No, we're not going to fight them. I want them to come back to the town where I live and open an inn."

For the first time since they'd met, Eliza cocked her head to one side and looked at Terry like he might not be entirely well.

"But, why?"

"Apple pastries. Really good apple pastries," said Terry before his eyes went wide with realization. "Oh, I guess the demons had an oven! I just didn't see it."

"Right," said Eliza slowly while casting a questioning look at Kelima.

The noble girl sighed, shrugged, and said, "Welcome to my world."

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