As soon as we left the rift, the first thing we did was contact Eri and Kiki.

Of course, I didn’t tell them to log in and level up with us immediately. Instead, I told them to meet us at the station first.

Together with Miyabi, who had a sullen look the entire time, we returned the way we came. We arrived at the station in just a few minutes and stood right outside, waiting for the two to come.

Thankfully, neither of them had classes at noon, so our meetup wasn’t delayed too much. In just 20 minutes, the two arrived together, looking chic and pretty like always.

Seeing them walk up together like that—completely unaware of everything that had happened this morning—felt a little surreal, honestly.

"Kamishiro, Miyabi, sorry, did you wait long?" Eri smiled and greeted.

"Sorry, I got delayed by my prof." Kiki grumbled, arriving half a step behind.

"That’s not important." I quickly raised a hand, stopping the two. "Right now, we should head somewhere private. I have things to tell you two, and especially toward Kiki who wasn’t with us yesterday."

"Huh?"

Eri quickly picked up on what I meant and turned serious, but Kiki just looked dumbfounded and confused. "Wait, what do you mean? Did you guys talk about something behind my back?" She asked, her persecution complex acting up right on cue.

"Don’t worry, it’s not that." I quickly shook my head. "But it’s a pretty important topic, so we can’t talk about it in an open space like this."

"Then let’s go to my house again. I’ll call a cab now." Eri said, raising her hand toward the road.

I sat at the passenger seat with the three girls in the back, close and chummy as always. There’s no way I would’ve chosen to sit there—I’d get labeled as a pervert for sure.

The entire way, other than me and the driver talking casually, the others remained completely silent.

Even Kiki seemed to understand the gravity of the situation just from reading Miyabi and Eri’s expressions, and wisely chose to stay quiet for once. The silence from her side in particular said a lot.

Normally, keeping Kiki quiet for more than five minutes in a confined space required either a very interesting gaming video on her phone or a genuine miracle. That she managed it the entire ride told me she was taking it more seriously than she let on.

Only after we reached Eri’s house did Kiki finally open her mouth.

"Holy shizzles... Eri, you’re loaded!"

Her reaction was as natural as can be—almost exactly the same way Miyabi and I had reacted the first time. And with Eri having called ahead to prepare the underground training room, we didn’t need to delay and headed straight for it.

And there, first, we began explaining things that Kiki missed the previous day.

Things that, normally, would be completely unbelievable. Like the game bleeding into reality, or that their bodies are powered up by their game character’s actual stats scaled down by a hundredth.

"This is a joke, right?"

As expected, she didn’t believe us at first.

But after the three of us demonstrated Moon Waltz, and she herself tried it out and succeeded, her doubt turned to excitement as she kept trying out the ability nonstop.

She was grinning wider with each attempt, the kind of grin that said she had already stopped questioning whether it was real and started thinking about what else she could do with it.

"You should hold back, or you’ll be facing muscle pains for the entire day tomorrow." I warned with a wry smile. "Anyway, now that you’re updated, let’s talk about the real problem."

I turned to Miyabi and nodded, signaling her to explain.

"Roughly five hours ago, we found the rift—the source of the mysterious dog-like monster that got hit by the train in the news." She explained. "After entering and exploring for hours, we located the boss monster, estimated to be level 60."

"...What?"

"Ah! That one that caused my train to get delayed!"

Of course, just that wasn’t enough for them to understand the full picture. I sighed and added the missing context—why the level mattered, why we had retreated, and why that sullen look on Miyabi’s face was going to stick around for a while.

By the end of it, both of them were quiet in a different way than before.

"This feels like something straight out of an urban dungeon-based manga... So cool!"

Kiki looked more excited than anyone. As if not taking the situation seriously at all. Though honestly, given her personality, I should’ve seen that reaction coming from a mile away.

"So those rifts... if left alone, would call forth even worse monsters into reality?" Eri muttered, placing a finger to her chin. "And to clean it up, you need to push your android girls to level 60, is that it?"

"Android girls? The ones in the game?"

As expected, she was quick on the uptake. She had even figured out that I wasn’t asking them to fight the boss themselves, but to help the androids get there.

Kiki, who hadn’t seen Ram and the rest yet was confused, though. But explaining them was too bothersome.

"Exactly." I smiled.

"And to be more specific, I plan to add a few more androids and build a full raid team to handle everything. At the current stage, fighting it with my own strength is literally impossible, after all."

"I see..." Eri nodded. "Then, should I donate a few million to help with your funds?" 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"This..."

Eri’s offer was honestly nice.

Although I had nearly two million dollars right now, the cost of making androids and unlocking slots for them kept increasing with each new one. Even burning through all my funds, I predicted I could get only around six more fully-modified androids at most.

Six was good, but not enough for what I had in mind.

However, for some reason, I found it hard to accept her offer. Almost as if my instincts were telling me there was a reason she was offering financial help beyond just the benefit of society. After hesitating for a few seconds, I smiled.

"Nah, I’m good. Thanks for the offer, though." I could only refuse politely.

Borrowing from her later down the road was still an option if I ever ran dry, but not now.

"For now, let’s postpone everything and log in as soon as possible. What time works for everyone?"

We all lived in different areas, after all. And for efficient use of time, syncing our login times well mattered. I was about to start planning out the logistics when—

"No need." Eri smiled suggestively.

"Huh? Why?"

"Actually, I bought several sets of VR Dive Ring and set them up in my personal gaming room. There’s enough for everyone. As soon as we finish basic setup for each, we can log in from here."

"Eri..."

Each VR Dive Ring cost $10,000. It wasn’t cheap at all. But she actually had several units sitting ready as "extra" in her game room... Just how rich was Eri, really?

I was starting to think I had been severely underestimating the answer to that question.

"Ah, before that, can I get lunch?" Miyabi shyly raised her hand.

Right. We had entered the rift early in the morning and hadn’t had the time to eat since. It was already about 1 PM, so it was no wonder she was getting hungry. Honestly, I was surprised she had held out this long without saying anything.

That sullen mood must’ve been killing her appetite earlier.

"That’s fine." Eri, once again, showed just how far her consideration for us went. "I already prepared a buffet in the dining hall. Let’s head there first."

It was Miyabi and my second time having a meal here, so we were a bit used to the maids pacing around the table, attending to us. Kiki, however, looked thoroughly shocked by the whole scene—her eyes trailing after each maid with an expression that cycled between awe and disbelief.

She spent the first few minutes just staring rather than eating, occasionally glancing at Eri like she was seeing her for the first time.

After half an hour, we were done eating, then spent another 30 minutes handling "other matters"—things that needed not be announced. The only thing I’ll say is that when something goes in, something should also come out. Timing, as always, was not particularly convenient.

Anyway, after that, Eri led us to her gaming room.

And to my surprise, she didn’t have beds for us to use while diving, but rather, specially designed half-egg-shaped capsules. Built so we could stay still comfortably and lessen the disorientation the brain feels from the difference in orientation between lying down in reality and standing up inside the game.

The engineering behind it actually made a lot of sense. The look of them, though—somewhere between a hospital pod and something out of a sci-fi film—took a moment to get used to. Kiki circled hers twice before getting in, eyeing it like it might do something unexpected.

After calibration and a bit of waiting to sync our accounts, all four of us finally entered the game.

This time, we needed to push through eight solid hours. And level up as high as we possibly could before time ran out.