“How many did you clear before the boss?”“All of them.”“And then?”“Then I found out why they call it a boss.”— Overheard at Scavantis medical bayThe stupid math worked, and I needed high ground.[Mana LP gained!][Mana LP progress: 11%]I stared at the notification with a stupid grin on my face. That was… my first LP. I glanced around at all of those enemies and suddenly I felt something unclench inside my chest.“Let’s go grind.”I checked the time on my band, and it was not even midday. Which meant if the remaining groups yielded anything approaching this rate, I’d finish soon, crack open the rune book and unlock whatever the next progression tier had decided I’d earned.I unclipped the Scavantis bag from my belt and went over the loot.The fragments the creatures had left behind were small, dense, crystalline things. I dropped them in without examining them too closely. Time for appraisal later, when I wasn’t surrounded by other things that wanted to contribute their own opinions about my continued existence.The loot bag sealed with a soft click.I clipped it back, checked my coilgun’s thermal reading, and looked across the plateau.The other patrol groups drifted along their routes with the nonchalant patience of things that had never experienced a school schedule.The boss sat in the center of it all, a geological formation that breathed, its massive carapace rising and falling in slow rhythms that I was choosing to interpret as deeply unconscious rather than simply unconcerned.Good. Stay asleep. We’ll say hi to each other eventually.Right now I needed elevation.I flipped the switch.[MIRAGE Adaptive Camouflage System: ACTIVE][Power: 78%]The hoodie and pants hummed, and the plateau (...)