42nd Looper [Isekai / Time Loop / LitRPG]

Jeru was silent.

There was a part of Penelope that could feel the emptiness in her mind. It was like receiving the silent treatment, but on a much more personal level. Closer to what she imagined an amputee would feel. She sighed as the figment of his voice telling her how it was possible to know what that felt like played in her head. There was a longing to hear his voice, but not even that was enough to prompt the chatty Elf out of wherever he was hiding.

She looked at her menu to check the time.

It'd been three days since he'd last spoken. They'd only done 26A the day before, with 26B and 26C the day before that. If there had been any grumbling about slowing down significantly, it hadn't reached her ears. They only had 27, 28, 29, and 30 left, which gave them 39 total squares without counting the boss room. If they spent three days on each column, that gave them 17 days to prepare the area around the boss room for the fight.

The plan of letting the timer expire didn't sit right with Penelope. She knew that it would allow them to couple up on how many people could fight, but there had to be some penalty for letting the timer expire other than just having the floors open for the Demons to move through.

Penelope had spent the last few days trying to think of questions to prompt the parasite in her mind to talk, but nothing had loosened his tongue. She stood in front of the barrier to 27E and took in the walls that Patrick and Archer had made. She'd have to send her balls into the square before they went in just to make sure the monsters were staying away from the walls. Even though none of the monsters had an explosive skill, they had decided that it was for the best to slow things down and use the walls for cover. It allowed them to move around safer and funneled the monsters towards a central point, which minimized the danger.

For a moment, Penelope thought about resetting and trying to implement that on another run, but the idea had been brought up earlier and discarded due to time constraints. The only way that she'd be able to push for it was to either take charge, which she didn't have the clout at the beginning of the floor, or for there to be a tragedy that required it.

"Ready to start?" Circe stepped out of the shadows behind her.

Penelope pointed at the tops of the pine trees over the wall. There were a lot of different trees, some of which she didn't even recognize, like the blue-leafed, minty-smelling tree, but the pines were always the tallest, with some of them so tall that the tops bent against the clear blue ceiling that doubled as a sky.

"It's so peaceful without being able to see the monsters." Penelope leaned against the oak tree beside her.

"Imagine what this floor will look like once all the monsters are gone." Circe motioned behind them, back towards the entrance. There was an entire barrier, with each square boxed in by a stone wall.

"You think people are living on the second floor?" Penelope leaned the back of her head against the tree.

"I think that there were only so many people who could stay in those buildings." Circe shrugged. "As long as they have water Casters, there are showers, so yeah, I think there are people living in our old rooms."

Penelope nodded as she thought about what else there was on this floor. Patrick had built new sleeping quarters in the 35-column, which was where she'd moved. There were more than enough individual rooms, so everyone could have their own private room, with others to spare. Considering it was 1,500 feet to walk a single column, they kept moving their base of operations closer to the current column they were on, which meant that once they cleared the next square, Patrick would start building rooms in 27E for them to stay in.

"Are you thinking about the surface?" Circe picked up an okay leaf off the ground and tore off a little piece with her thumbnail.

"I'm thinking about taking a break for a bit once we finish this floor." Penelope swallowed. She knew that she wasn't going to go down to the fourth floor because the barrier around the campus was going to go down, which would let the residents from Dinmar in as well as let them go into the city itself, but she couldn't tell Circe that.

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"You can't quit!" The brunette ripped the leaf in half, letting each part fall on either side of her. "You're like our best fighters; what are we going to do if you…" Circe paused for a moment, her voice squeaking in a hushed tone. "You're not going to give up like Marlow?"

"What?" Penelope rolled her eyes. "No, I'm just…" She motioned at the trees. "We've been constantly fighting down here and I need a break for a little bit."

"But isn't that what we're doing while we're waiting for the timer to expire?" Circe tilted her head.

"Sort of." Penelope shrugged. "But that's kind of my point. We're going to have over two weeks without having to fight and that's if we stick to this slower pace." She looked over her shoulder at the group that was heading their way. "There's no reason to head straight to the next floor on day one."

"Oh…" Circe shuffled her feet, then looked up at Penelope. "Well, if you're not going, then neither am I!"

Penelope chuckled but didn't try to argue. With Jeru being eerily silent, it was nice to have someone to talk to, even if that someone had occasional boundary issues.

"You're not worried about losing your place as the head of the Casters?" Circe paused.

"If someone else wants to lead them, I'm okay with that." Penelope shrugged. "I never wanted to be in charge anyway."

"But…" Circe tugged at the sleeve of her jacket. "You won't be getting first pick of the gear anymore."

"I haven't gotten any gear in a while." Penelope shrugged. "Only one piece of magic gear with two stats on it dropped in the last column. The other stat was Defense and the wand didn't have a skill or passive on it." Not that I'm using the one I have on my other wand, but that's not the point.

"You really should make them give you priority on both sides." Circe let irritation creep into her voice. "Aly was telling me about the Magic/Speed gear they got for her."

"And Aly is a Spellshot, like me, so that's the gear she needs."

Circe's brow wrinkled. "Didn't you get a new class?"

"I'm a Mystic Spellshot now." Penelope shrugged. "Still a Spellshot, just with a fancy modifier."

"Oh…" Circe sighed. "But doesn't that mean that if you don't go down to the fourth floor, Aly will start getting all the new gear?"

Penelope opened her mouth, then closed it before she spoke. Jeru had told her something about being able to upgrade her own gear once she got into Dinmar, but that was information that she couldn't justify knowing. For a moment, she thought about revealing what she knew about the next floor, just to see if Jeru would force a reset, but decided that it wasn't worth it.

"If things keep going like they have been, then there will be plenty of Magic/Speed gear for the both of us." Penelope pointed at the wall in front of them. "The fourth floor should have 16 Shadow Demons per square and with 97 squares, that's 1,552 pieces of gear."

"The numbers make my head hurt…" Circe rubbed her temple. "But not all of those are going to be Magic/Speed. A lot of them won't even have two stats."

"No, but if I only got Magic/Speed gear, then I'd have too much Magic and Speed." Penelope shrugged. "It'll all work out one way or the other."

"But…" Circe's shoulders sagged.

"If you're worried about your gear, then stay with the group." Penelope held up her pinky. "I promise that once I take a break for a few days and catch my breath, I'll come down and party back up with you."

Circe's eyes brightened as she stepped forward and wrapped her pinky around Penelope's. "You promise?"

"I promise." Penelope looked over at Patrick and the small group with him, who were getting close enough to talk to. "Don't we have another hour?"

"We don't have to wait on everyone to get up." Patrick grumbled. "I'm going to try to start a little earlier today and see if we can't throw those buggers off our schedule."

Penelope unhooked her finger and eyed the balding man. "You didn't say anything to me about that last night."

"That's because you ducked out once the briefing was over." Patrick shrugged as he put on his helmet. "Plus, I knew you'd be here before everyone even if we started at seven."

"True…" Penelope turned to Circe. "Is that why you're out here already?"

Circe grinned and took a step back.

"Well, I guess I need to make sure there's nothing on the other side of the wall waiting for us." Penelope pushed off the tree and walked over to the barrier. While she could see with <Clairvoyance>, her range was greatly increased by sending two sets of <Light Torrent> into the square. It required her to keep one limb through the barrier, but that was a small price to pay for the information she could garner.

"It's clear!" Penelope sat down on the grass and twigs while keeping her hand through the barrier. It would take more mana to recast the spell, but nothing to maintain it, so she didn't have a problem holding the spell while the others got ready. Plus, after a while, the monsters would ignore that they were being spied on, which would allow them to walk into the square without the monsters being lined up and ready for a fight.

It was the first time that Penelope had done a briefing without Jeru's help and she hoped that she'd covered everything she could the night before, because if she hadn't, she'd have that information for the next round.