The three of them were on their way. Off to adventure. To discover the world. To see the sights. To find and kill giant slimes. The American Dream! George was leading. George was wandering? George was puttering about? George was... At any rate, the dog was at the head of the company, admirably performing his canine duty of courting as much superfluous danger as possible.

  Bob and Sophie trudged along behind, Bob lugging a big camping bag on his back. Sure he could have made George carry it, but he hardly felt the weight anymore and, call him old-school, he preferred to keep the essentials on his own person. Some things you only trust yourself with.

  Bob had tried to convince Sophie to do likewise, but for some inexplicable reason she'd refused. Why she didn't want to wear a big, bulky army pack over her new, summer dress was something Bob found impossible to understand. Women, am I right? Thankfully, she had accepted a few health patches which she kept stuffed away somewhere. That was a weight off Bob's mind.

  Hitherto their expedition had been fruitless. They'd zigzagged back and forth for over an hour and found nothing worthy of a tale. Some Raupenfliegers, one or two grass crocodiles, a reaper-insect, no beetles; where have all the beetles gone? In a word, small-fry. Guys, Bob's a D-Ranker. These creatures aren't his equals. He wouldn't stoop down to hunt such insignificant life-forms. They didn't give him any experience anyway (he knew; he'd tried).

  Instead, they let George get the first couple kills. The dog needed to earn back any decayed experience, before they went after a rank D. Once they were confident George was sitting on the cusp of level ten, they switched to feeding Sophie. Power leveling was surprisingly easy when you understood the mechanics behind it and two of your party members were ridiculously overpowered. There must be a booming intersystem business carrying spoiled brats through the lower ranks.

  "Milady."

  Bob gave Sophie a tilt of his head as he deposited a live-captured Raupenflieger at her feet. Bob was a little in awe of his powers post evolution. Everything felt smoother, easier, like he'd been doing it all his life. And Harry, Harry was... there was no other way of saying it, Harry was a part of him now. Bob felt like he could manipulate the cloak better than his own hands. The cloak simply danced around enemies. It would float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, and smell like mud the whole time.

  Sophie grimaced and glared down at the little, brown package. Bob had opened a slot in the side, too narrow for the caterpillar to squeeze through, but wide enough for a dagger. Sophie clutched a system knife in both hands. She slid the blade into the slot. There was a muted splatting sound. She glared at Bob, who grinned back.

  "Milady."

  Big game was even easier. The poor, little Spinnenhüpfer never had a chance. Mud dart, mud dart, mud dart. The animal was writing on the ground in a pool of its blood, trying desperately to drag itself as far away as possible from the dark lord of the mud.

  "Milady."

  Bob tilted his head and gestured Sophie forward. Sophie grimaced. She glared down at the dying spider. Sophie clutched the system knife in both hands. She slid the blade into the spider's stomach. There was a muted hiss and the spider went still. She glared at Bob, who grinned back.

  "Milady." Bob's eyes widened. "Has Milady hit level six?"

  "No; maybe; but how do you always know?"

  Bob tapped his nose and smiled wide and smug.

  That was mighty good progress for an impromptu hunting session. But they weren't here for Sophie. They were here for George. And they were getting nowhere. Sophie's open-invitation perfume party had done a real number on the grassland wildlife. One good hour is enough to destroy a thousand-year old ecosystem.

  Consequently, they were going to have to expand their hunting area. Bob started them off in the direction of a large body of water he'd seen from the hilltop. It was in the opposite direction to the mass extinction event so fingers crossed. And yes, he ought to have asked Xenophon about the best way to find higher ranked monsters. But he had the next best thing, his system primer. He queried and read. He queried and read again. The primer wasn't exactly a chatbot. You had to actually look for the relevant information. Here is what Bob managed to digest:

  The world was divided up into ranked, ecological zones. For example, their home grassland zone. A zone's rank determined the rank-ceiling for monsters appearing in the zone and was itself bounded by the world rank. Now here's where things got interesting. Each zone would have a boss monster, who sat at one level higher than the zone rank. Defeating a zone boss would trigger the zone to rank upgrade.

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  Our old friend, Der Glibbermeister, had been the grassland zone's boss. And since the world had evolved to rank D and Lord Brown had slain the evil slime demon, the grassland zone should now sit at rank D. This is where you ask, where are all the D-rankers off to?

  A good question, but the kind of complicated, multistep question that primers don't tend to cover. Maybe it took time for an area to upgrade. Maybe new higher-ranked monsters were spawned gradually so as not to overwhelm adventurers. Maybe they'd killed off so many monsters that the area was critically endangered and couldn't evolve properly.

  Theory aside, the fact of the matter was they hadn't found any rank D monsters and so they were heading for the lake zone. An independent zone with its own independent rank D zone boss. That's who they were looking for.

  "Down boy." Bob had caught sight of something on the lake bank. It looked like a cow. It smelled like a cow. It pooped like a cow. That made it a cow right? Those were the three cow-defining necessary and sufficient conditions, were they not. Picture one of those highland-cattle, you know, the ones with long coats of thick, brown fur and upward-tilting horns. You know, rounded, rectangular body, four hoof-tipped legs, swishing tail. Hell it was even bending down and chewing on a patch of grass with yellow flowers. A cow had made it through the initiation. Good cow. And then the "cow" looked up.

  "What the..."

  Bob involuntarily gagged. He looked away and then he looked back. And then he stared. It was a cow's head, alright, but the face, the face was that of a human woman. And under the face, yes under the face, was a second mouth, tucked into the neck folds, a mouth stuffed full of green grass, that it chewed on in that horizontal bovine way.

  The cow was wearing the mask of a young woman? But no, it was the cow's face. The eyes were moist and alive. The mouth smiled softly. The cheeks had a hazy blush to them. And, you know, now that the initial shock had passed, the face was rather beautiful, enchanting almost. The fur hung down in a way that almost looked like long, brown hair. There was something gentle and soothing about her features. Something that put one at one's ease. She was a soft and innocent creature. Someone to be protected.

  George knocked into Bob. Stupid dog. The cow had lowered her head again and was munching on more grass with that chin-mouth of hers. The system had populated an annotation: Gesangserin (lvl 9). Level 9? That's a bit charitable in Bob's estimation. King Arthur of the Gladiatus Rhinocerix had been a level 9. This was just a cow. A strange, messed-up cow, sure, but a cow nevertheless. She had no claws on her feet and the tilt of her horns meant they were entirely decorative. Ordinary humans without magically powers can defeat cows. We've been feasting on their flesh the whole world over for centuries now.

  Prefect. This here was a good learning opportunity for Sophie. Character building and all. If she wanted to be on team Brown, she had to be willing to take risks, to act independently, to prove herself able to do the hard stuff.

  "So Sophie, thoughts?"

  "She is hideous. There's something most unsettling about that second chin."

  "No, I meant... oh, but yeah, you're totally right, that thing is an abomination. What I'm asking though is: do you think you can take her?"

  "Robert, I'm not a fighter."

  "Neither am I. I work in quality assurance."

  She bit her lip and eyed up her opponent.

  "Come on, Sophie. It's only a cow. A cow, Sophie. And we'll be here to back you up if anything happens."

  "I want you to come with me. Please Robert."

  Bark! George had been sitting to attention, quietly observing their exchange, and now he'd decided to give his two cents. He squeezed his way between the two of them and then turned to stand beside Bob and face Sophie. He barked twice. The intention was pretty clear.

  "Robert, your dog is making fun of me. Bad dog. Bad dog."

  "Sophie, I think what George said is most reasonable. I think you ought to reflect on his arguments." George gave a cheerful ruff. "You've welcome George."

  Sophie gritted teeth. "Fine. Just you wait. I'll show you both."

  "That's exactly what we want, eh, George? Good luck, old girl. Bring home the beefsteak."

  To her credit, she didn't charge straight in. She stood there a while, thinking, formulating, coming up with a foolproof plan. Bob beamed. Look at how my little girl has grown up. And then a grin started to spread over her face. She'd had an idea. Wonderful. She looked straight at Bob and beamed. Peace on earth. Except, why, there was sinister spark to that smile that Bob didn't like; no he didn't like it in the slightest. Bob started to frown.

  "Sophie."

  Sophie took out her perfume bottle, closed her eyes and began muttered something.

  "Sophie, hey, Soph, do you maybe want to tell us your plan? You know we could brainstorm together. Agree on details."

  Sophie opened her eyes. The woman was crazy. She dashed out a splash of perfume on George, and then started running off into the underbrush, cackling to herself. A witch! Bob crouched down and sniffed George's fur. There was no smell. He sighed out with relief. Thank god. She'd just been pretending. She'd never actually use us bait would she? No that would be a line too far. Even Sophie wouldn't do that?

  The cow suddenly lifted her head and gazed searchingly into the distance. No? Its very human nose started to sniff. No way? The cow seemed to lock on to some scent in the air. She didn't. She can't have. The cow started to tread forward into the taller grasses. It was heading straight in their direction.

  That bloody cow.