The inside of a rift is a new world... but not a full world. It was just a fraction of it. Sizes may vary, but even the smallest, however, could span a few dozen kilometers at the least.

Even if we assume this is the smallest one, barely 500 square kilometers, it would still take a long time for us to scrub the entire space in search of the boss.

This is why rift raiding parties require scouts with them.

Without scouts, the party would waste precious hours searching inefficiently.

You’d end up cutting through empty terrain, burning stamina and resources, while the clock on the rift kept ticking. I’d watched it happen more than once in the previous timeline—parties spending four hours covering ground before anyone thought to ask if they were even heading the right direction.

Unfortunately, right now, none of us were built like scouts.

I might have a high level of senses, honed in real battle for decades, but even I can’t predict where the boss would appear inside a rift. If lucky, it could be right outside the entrance. If not, then it could be dozens, hundreds of kilometers away instead.

"Master, the boss monster is over there!"

"Huh?"

But to our surprise, Sunny confidently pointed in a single direction. Respecting the bearings before we entered, it should be southeast.

"It should be roughly 20 kilometers this way." She claimed.

"This..."

Did I add a sensor to Sunny’s build? I don’t think so... Still, given how confident she looks, I guess we could start with the direction she’s pointing at first. Even if she’s wrong, that’s still one out of many possibilities eliminated.

"Alright, let’s go check then." I urged. "Sunny, lead the way." 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"Yes, Master!"

---

Rifts usually expand as time passes.

The bigger the rift is, the stronger their effect on the world, hastening the dawning of the game world. But as it expands, it also spawns more monsters within.

Which means the longer we take, the worse things get.

"More monsters coming! Ram, intercept them! Gwen, clean up the previous batch! Sunny, cleanse the plague around us, I’m getting itchy!"

Right now, we’re in a spot that’s covered with tall rock formations on both sides. Basically a canyon, narrow enough that there’s nowhere to run, but wide enough that we all could stand side-by-side without worry.

As I commanded, I drove the flag straight into the ground and held my position. The next moment, the flag’s buff—the base ones at 50% Attack and Defense and 10% Regeneration per 10 seconds.

It had been two hours since we entered, and overall, we had traveled roughly 10 kilometers.

The pace could be called decent, but it was still too slow.

Almost every hundred meters, another wave of Plague Canines gathered around us like the rift itself was watching and sending more in response.

And the numbers didn’t feel right either.

Even compared to my memories of the previous cycle, the number of monsters in this newly formed rift was beyond reason. Even if we assume this was a three-day-old rift, the number of monsters we had killed already crossed paths with was already ten times the normal count.

’Something’s definitely wrong...’

I wasn’t entirely sure what, but things were really diverging dramatically from what I knew. At this rate...

"Hey! Ram! Don’t let the beasts slip past! Gwen, speed up!"

Seeing that a few of the dogs actually slipped past Ram’s blockade, heading straight for me and Miyabi, I started to tense up. At worst, I’d just have to—

"Step back!"

But before I was forced to act, Miyabi jumped ahead of me.

She had picked up a katana from the earlier drops, so she was finally able to make proper use of her skills. She stood before me, lowering her stance, and held her sheathed sword with a calm that didn’t match someone who had never actually fought outside of a game until today.

The moment the dogs came within range, she calculated the trajectory and moved.

"Iai Slash!"

A single move, fast enough that I could barely catch her hand move. In a single slash, a white flash, and all three dogs suddenly got split in two, spreading green blood as they fell.

This girl... Her sword skills were seriously improving beyond imagination.

That quickdraw was as fast as a master already.

’The pace at which she’s growing is also an anomaly... just like how the number of monsters in this rift is!’

"Hehe! I’m strong! I can kill them!"

And after getting her first real-life kill, Miyabi was getting a bit full of herself.

Without waiting for my word, she just rushed to Gwen’s side and began slashing down the monsters there. Although I wanted to pull her back, seeing the crazed smile across her lips—

"..."

I think it’s better to let her be for now. Not that I was scared after seeing her look so happy slashing monsters into pieces. Definitely not.

Anyway.

Just like that, we continued moving forward.

Another two hours passed before we finally found something in the distance.

We were on top of a tall precipice of a rock, overlooking the valley below. Completely filled with the orange-purple and white colors of the ground, grasses, and trees.

Within view, standing roughly five kilometers away, a large figure loomed.

So large that it was clearly visible even at this distance, cutting against the bleeding red-yellow sky like something that had no business existing in any world.

By estimates, it should be at least a couple dozen meters tall.

Even bigger than the Basilisk we hunted before—and that thing had been a hundred meters long.

"So that’s the boss..." Miyabi whispered, her earlier energy dimming into something more careful. "Looks powerful. What level is it, Kamishiro?"

"I don’t really know."

Normally, rift bosses are as powerful as a certain fraction of the total strength of all the monsters inside the rift. This meant that, in normal cases, a rift boss should be about 100 to 200 times more powerful than the mobs present.

But on the way here, we had already hunted tens of thousands of those mutts.

Even if we take the minimum, a conservative estimate of 1% of the total power, that’s still a thousand times stronger than them. In terms of level, that’d be...

"By estimate, about level 60. At least."

"Sixty?!" Miyabi gasped. "Can we even handle that at our current state?!"

I stared at the figure in the distance, watching it move with the slow, unhurried weight of something that had never needed to be in a hurry, and slowly shook my head.

"I’m not sure either..."

If it was a normal rift boss, I could handle it even without the android girls’ help. It would take a long time, but it was doable. I had done it before, with worse odds and less support.

But now that the rift was running some kind of anomaly, the boss becoming far stronger than anticipated was easily foreseeable. If the monster density inside had already multiplied tenfold, there was no reason to assume the boss hadn’t scaled with it.

Rushing in there without accounting for that was how people died in ways that didn’t make the highlight reel.

Considering the cards dealt to us right at this moment...

"I think we should retreat for now." I said, frowning. "A level 60 boss is too complicated for us to clear right now. But if we complete our second class advancement first, level up a bit, then return..."

It should be doable.

Not only that, I could summon more androids to support the fight. And with my funds sitting at nearly two million dollars, adding even more to my roster was a real option. If I could field at least three full android parties...

I guess, as long as we get a fixed tank, a scout, and a heavy dealer like a mage, then we should be all set even if we fight the enemy at level 50.

"Retreat..."

Miyabi whispered, her voice split evenly between disappointment and grudging agreement. "I guess we have no choice. It’s better to fight prepared than fight blind."

"Exactly."

But, of course, we couldn’t just leave the rift unattended either. If we did, then who knew what sort of tragedies would unfold in the meantime? I turned to the three android girls and nodded.

"Ram, Gwen, Sunny, you three should stand guard at the entrance. Eliminate any monster trying to exit, and prevent anyone else from entering too."

Right now, if a curious civilian accidentally wandered in, that was one corpse to feed the mutts. Even if they were a Heaven’s Path player, I doubted they would have the ability to fight anything in here unless they were around the same level as us.

The chances of that were pretty low.

"Got it, Master."

"Gwen understands."

"Orders received, Master!"

Thankfully, the three didn’t object and just nodded.

There was one problem, though. If we left them here guarding the entrance...that meant they couldn’t log in. Which meant...

"We could only play without the androids today..."