Chapter 41

Carl watches Donut enter the second phase of the dungeon alone for her first real fight against an opponent named Robert the Human. Meanwhile, Odette reveals her true motivations for helping them: guilt over past betrayals that led to the deaths of her cousin Pieter and friend Armita, and her obsession with helping Mordecai escape the dungeon to atone for breaking him. She hints at a larger plan to shut down the crawl system responsibly.

Donut is teleported to the choosing arena while Carl remains behind with Odette, Zev, and Lexis. Zev is suddenly called away due to a security incident—an unmanned liaison ship shot down, which Odette reveals was deliberately timed to give them a private conversation window of approximately 15 minutes. Donut selects Miami as her destination and enters her first combat scenario against Robert the Human, a level 40 deranged elderly man in a sailor outfit accompanied by two totem cards: Robert the Doll and Dog. During Donut's fight, Odette confronts Carl about his anger at her refusal to be adjutant, claiming she did so to protect him from assassination. She then makes a startling confession: her entire motivation stems from guilt over a childhood incident where she threw a rock at her younger cousin Pieter and was later forced to choose between him and her friend Armita when entering the dungeon seasons ago; she chose Armita, and both eventually died. To atone, she became a game guide and later made an illegal deal with Huanxin (using credits meant for Mordecai's bonus) to help advance Mordecai, who reminded her of Pieter. The deal backfired when Huanxin demanded more payment; Odette broke the deal, resulting in the death of Mordecai's brother Uzzi. Huanxin later killed Armita in revenge. Odette confesses to these crimes and was arrested but was purchased by her future husband. She reveals she has been watching Mordecai deteriorate for years and now seeks redemption by stopping a larger system: the crawl itself, which mines elements from seeded planets to fuel something beyond the games. She hints at a plan to shut down the crawl responsibly this season. Carl remains torn between skepticism and belief in her story. During the conversation, Donut's fight ends abruptly when Mongo kills Robert the Human by biting his throat. Donut collects Robert's sailor hat and examines the cards he dropped before being transferred out to rejoin Carl.