Welcome to the 11th floor, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you had your fun on the 10th floor, for that was quite a gamble considering what you had to do to overcome the challenge. Risks need to be taken to achieve your goals, for fear of failure is the doom of progression. The fear of the unknown is what prevents the world from growing! … As such, let this be a lull moment. No particular rules, but to get out of this floor and onto the next, you must find your way through a maze of portals leading to everywhere but also nowhere. Nowhere for you, aside from that one door everybody can use to get out. Also, to note, those artifacts are defunct now so throw the empty husks away before I blow them up. I’ve also sent your rewards to everybody’s current position and more will await you if you continue down! … Or, you may find that one portal which will let you out of this nightmare, but where is the fun in that, little cheaters?
“Gruuuh …” I let out a deep moan, before grabbing my head, as I felt such a pain rushing through my brain and into the back of my skull, giving me this terrible uncomfortable feeling I wanted to punch out of myself. Unable to stop groaning, I pushed myself up, finally able to see my hands pressing on the ground, causing me to smile.
Urgh, survived another stupid fever.
[Arcane Fever] successfully survived; well, thankfully it hadn’t gotten to the moderate stage thanks to the fulinoe tea and dragorade I drank en masse during that entire portal ordeal. Still, this hangover-like feeling wasn’t pleasant, no matter how often I lived through one. It couldn’t be helped since it was necessary this time, and once again, I couldn’t be more thankful to be born with insane mana growths and arcane corruption resistance.
Thank goodness for my [True Draconic Lineage].
[“Master!”] Out of nowhere, a signal appeared below me as that voice entered my mind, only for my strained body to be assaulted by the head of a tiger jumping out of my shadow, striking me back onto the floor as he rubbed against me.
“Raakaah?!” My eyes widened as I heard my voice, instantly realizing I was still in my minor form. Now that I thought about it, my snout was quite long. [“Rajah, stop! Haha, I’m happy to see you too but my head hurt.”]
I pushed his purring face back into my shadow, finding it increasingly hard to keep this overgrown kitten from acting as if he was still a lap cat. Still, the power of cat rubbing seemed to have cleared up my head a bit. I stood back up, stretched a bit, and … I suddenly noticed there were more people behind me than I remembered before I fell unconscious from the [Arcane Fever].
I turned around, noticing Tatsuya, Kyouya, the Ankoran King and his party, and Vifi’Yok … but Franz and the students weren’t around … Oh, or the knights either, of course. Couldn’t forget about them, of course.
“Lass, you’re awake.” The king waved at me while the two elven rangers bowed, greeting me with what looked like a thick white-sauce stew with carrots, meat, and mushrooms. “Asked the lads what you liked to eat. The elves prepared something for us while we waited for you.”
Reintroducing himself as Astello, he pulled off his hood and mouth mask, revealing his short lime-colored hair marking him as a wind elf. “The freshness can be argued with, sadly, your grace. Still, it should be to your taste. Melted mottra cheese from our finest milk moths—creamy on the tongue, light on the stomach—dried venison, vegetables and fungi to energize your body with sufficient nutrients, and, of course, seasoned with care but abundance.”
“We are but humble rangers, your grace, so we apologize if it doesn’t reach your standard.” Ihrwin, a high elf, stated almost as a precaution, looking slightly unconfident in what they both created. “We are not used to cooking for royalty, well, the mundari king doesn’t mind the quality too much, so we aren’t too sure. However, we assure you we put our all into it out of respect for the forest and lives we used for this meal.”
“Oi, yfleis!” With his samurai helmet off, King Fugnarus’s samurai bodyguard, Ungi, shouted at the two elves as he cleaned off some white sauce from his beard. “We don’t need knife ears to hear ya! The shame these Saelari throw at us after we shared our finest wines and sake with them! Aye, mates?”
The three dwarven earthshakers raised their mugs, toasting each other with a loud “Aye” before they drank some of it. With a loud moan in satisfaction, they agreed with Ungi's proclamation.
“Since when have we tazongs devolved into rats, aye?! Nothing beats a drink with a fine meal, and we have tongues to figure that out!”
“Aye, for shame! From our own drinking allies! Didn’t even bother bringing some wine to share, just to hog all we brought with us!”
“Throw the bottle at those bootlickers, I say. Not like we ourselves made some meat loafs to contribute!” one of them commented sarcastically, pulling out a wooden plate with a near finished meat pie showing it off before he placed it back on the ground.
“Your food culture was made from miners and smiths! We wield the gifts of the forest to prepare something for a princess!” the elves fought back. “The stew is ranger and traveler food, but we didn’t just stuff up that pie to make it filling! There is an art to cooking, mundari! Learn something from your soba and noodle masters; the fine arrangements of a noodle soup would be brilliant here!”
“Oi, all of you, shut up and eat!” Finally having enough of all this shouting, King Fugnarus stopped everyone's grumbling by ramming his axe into the ground, splitting the ground. He then pulled out a clay pot cooking from inside the camp fire they made, opening it and revealing some steaming rice. “Come on, lass. Eat. A day probably has passed since you passed out.”
At this point, passing out after some extraneous activity should always warrant time passing … It’s as bad as my bad luck with encounters.
While I did want to eat the stew, I handed it back begrudgingly. Instead, I turned back into my moderate form and faced Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Vifi’Yok who had been quiet for the whole conversation. Hearing me address my party also silenced the rowdiness of the dwarves and elves, making me doubly suspicious of what was happening here.
[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]
“Where is my cousin? Where are the other students? The knights?” I composed myself, but everything still felt extremely off since not even a single student was around.
“‘Cousin?’” The dwarves and elves reacted to that, but I ignored them. I had kinda forgotten I hadn’t told them about Franz yet.
The boys spun their spoons as they looked at each other, not making this situation any easier on me. With conflicted expressions, they nudged Vifi’Yok with their feet, causing the demonkin to let out a deep sigh, looking more annoyed than frustrated. She looked into my eyes.
“Just don’t get mad, okay?”
“If you keep stringing me along, I will.” I tried to keep up a smile, but dropped it as I had a feeling this wouldn’t turn comical. “… Just the truth. Like I told you before, I only want the truth. Don’t hide things from me.”
Shrugged before picking up what looked like a party bracelet from where she sat. I swore I saw it before, somewhere.
“That makes this discussion of ours easier. Just … I tried to stop him.” She shoved the party bracelet onto me and told me to access the notepad function; however, when I tried to access it, the bracelet mentioned how I didn’t have the correct mana signature for it. Only the person who owned it could.
The normal functions like making a party and sharing exp was available, but I couldn’t access any of the additional features like inspecting an ID, making notes, or even opening my Quest list with it. Vifi’Yok suggested I could unlock the bracelet since I had a [Crystal of the Divine System], but I didn’t know how to do that.
“I can do that.” The Ankoran King stood up and walked over to me, prompting me to pull out my crystal and hand him the bracelet. “Just to tell you, it’s illegal to actually de-register a party bracelet without a proper reason, like death of the owner, them giving it up, or due to a law. In fact, as a private owner, if you were to break that law, you would have to give up your crystal and pay a fine! An elf once abused the crystal so much, we were forced to make it an international law!”
I stared at him with a horrified look, remembering the cost to create and buy this thing. However, he bellowed out a laugh and patted me on the back.
“No worries! We aren’t on Ankor-Nazta grounds right now, so I can’t enforce those laws. We are in Manethala’s land.”
With that chilling remark showing how much he respected Manethala’s rule over his dungeon, he invoked a blue screen before calling me over to read it with him. He pointed at a section of it, explaining that performing any ID creation was also strictly regulated by the governments of the local lands.
“You don’t have any power in that field, understand? Once again, some elf ruined it all for everybody so we have to enforce these laws to make sure we don’t have a similar situation like in the past. The books described the incident as just a giant mess, financially and logistically.” Once he was done with that warning, he returned to the process on hand. “Now, when it comes to party bracelets and IDs, all of them are made with a piece of a dungeon core. Regardless of the size, they all work with a crystal, no problem, but you usually want to use some special tools to make the process easier. We’ll be doing it the old way.”
“You know a lot about this,” I noticed.
Surprisingly though, the Ankoran King suddenly went silent. With a small frown, he shook his head. “… Well, I had to listen through the entire lecture once. Too enthusiastic to stop, but I guess that’s how we tazongs act when we’re passionate about our craft. Forget about it. Look.”
He pointed at a few icons on the blue screen, where I noticed there was a “Connect to party bracelet” function there. King Fugnarus explained how everything revolved around the [Crystal of the Divine System] and the numerous manatech nowadays, which used dungeon core pieces to connect to the Divine System itself, surprisingly.
As I learned pretty early on from Tasianna, the System adapted itself to the world’s inhabitants and what they wanted to do. The entire backbone with the Job and Quest System and how it functioned nowadays with the Crystals was due to the System adapting itself to everything. This knowledge meant the development of manatech was all thanks to the deepening understanding of the Divine System.
It reminded me of how the mage’s guild was currently trying to innovate on the current messaging system. To get messages from one area to the next the fastest, it was dependent on messenger birds—either mechanical or living—and couriers. The mage’s guild wanted to create a device that could send messages to a different location similar to the way an internet forum or a social media direct message worked on Earth.
In any case, after some menu moving, King Fugnarus removed the ownership over the bracelet—Franz’s. I knew I recognized it. Keeping my word to not be angry at Vifi’Yok, I didn’t question her and instead opened the notes function of the device to only find a single one stored. I opened it, showing Franz’s message to me through a blue screen. It was filled with typos.
Dear Hestia,
I know finding what happned through this mesage wouldn’t be the most ideal method, but I had to rush. as such, please, excuse the mistakess I made.
To put it plainly, since I noticed a few times how suspicious you loked at me, yes, I did not find about you purely due to the Berliners. My associates, theos who told me about the demonkin, and I have made a deal. I am allowed to utilize their facilities, trainers, netowrk, contacts, and other benefits—although, I do not trust them—in exchange, I will join their organization as a commander. I will be bringing the others under me, although I have a feeling Takuma won’t be too accepting of it. Hopefully, with us revealing the truth to them and also knowing who you are, they will be cooperative.
I also want to admit, I had wanated to meet you at a different time. The call from the church to assassinate you was not planned, in fact, until I saw your dragonewt form after your first encounter with the dargonslayers, I did not know who you truly were. I am sorry for being discreet about it.
I am sorry I cannot join you. I very much want to. However, at the same time, you deserve a better life—a better chance on everything so the same mistake won’t happen again! But, I also witnessed how you aren’t that same Hikari I’ve always known, despite being the very same I’ve come to love as my cousin. I won’t babysit you; you’ve your own goals, plans, and objctives that only you can fulfill. I too have the same, and to assure my issues and ambitions will resolve themselves, I have to be away from you. I have to be in the Empire with this organization.
I apologize that I left when you fell asleep, but the circumstances did not allow me to stay. Don’t worry, the dungeon rules allowed us to leave however we wanted without any consequences.
And, to end it all, you probably cant remember it, but while you were drowsy, I promise to you: I will change the Empire, while you change the Church of Aurena. To fully reconstruct the Church of Aurena, you have to also influence their largest supporter in the Folschreck Empire. However, doing this alone is reckless, and you dont know enough about the Empire to do so.
I do, even if I am still ignorant. You cant change it in a short period of time, the nation is far too large to do so, but that is why I will help you in my own way. I will set the foundation for when you have to make the radical step, for when you enter the Empire as Champion and Idol of Aurena. As one of their blessed. I will not allow the scum and corruption of this despicable country to spoil that light youve regained after so long!
That promise we made for each other when we were still kids … I want to see you perform, and I will help you achieve it in the Empire. The greatest star … but for that, I have to leave you. Hikari/Hestia, this is from Franz Akabane. I am your cousin, even if we do not share blood any longer. We will meet again.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
P.S. I know about “Valeria” so thats blackmail my associate is able to use to deal with her in case she betrays you. I recommend you keep her close. Her strength might be useful.
“…” I clutched the bracelet, feeling so unsatisfied after reading all of it. This organization he mentioned wasn’t even named; he was keeping their name hidden from me. Did he trust me, or what was he planning to do here?!
Franz …
I turned to Vifi’Yok. “… You mentioned trying to stop him. How did they escape?”
“A void-touched is on their side, someone who’s far better than you at the magic. They opened up a giant portal to transport the students out.” Vifi’Yok frowned a bit when she mentioned that other person. I had to prompt her to continue, seeing as she might possibly know him. “Hey, I’m not trying to lie here, okay? They concealed their face, and I honestly have never heard their voice before.”
“What’s the blackmail?”
She froze up when I mentioned that, eyeing the dwarves and elves, prompting me to tell them I would cast an [Air Shield]. King Fugnarus told me he would let me, but he did want to be briefed about it in the future. Considering we were allies, I had to acquiesce to his demand. Regardless, once the shield was up, Vifi’Yok spoke.
“That void-touched somehow recognized me before your cousin could tell him who I was. It shouldn’t have been enough time to use [Telepathy], I think. The blackmail itself is related to him knowing who I am and implying he might tell Lord Wrath. Unless you’re a demonkin in his platoons or one of our ‘helpers’ you shouldn’t be able to recognize me that easily. I was quite new as a Warbringer.”
“He’s really showing signs of being his father's son.” Tatsuya commented from the side, causing me to snap my head over to him. Surprised by this, he apologized and explained himself. “His father is known to use literally anything and everything to gain an upper hand. Blackmail, threats, instigating small incidents to discredit people. Worse part, he represents a lot of shady organizations and firms just because of the money.”
Kyouya nodded. “We already talked about it, but that father is the reason why Tatsuya hates Light, I mean, Franz. Caused a scandal for Tatsuya’s father just because he was a business rival for somebody. Well, considering how we now know what Franz’s attitude is towards his father, I can guess he must be talking about some corruption within the Empire or something. If we had the chance to speak to Aiko, or any of them, we probably could have figured this out.”
“… So, a shady organization, somebody with [Space-Time Magic], and they are demonkin sympathizers … It’s a bit early for me to make a guess, but something is telling me the answer is already on the tip of my tongue.” I grimaced as only a single name came to mind. “Yanderu Eluseuss … Of fucking course, they would ruin my life once again. One of their underbosses, Eithalr, bought a ton of the Berliners I first sold there …”
“Eithalr, huh? Streiga mentioned that name once or twice when he talked about you,” Vifi’Yok noted, but her composure suddenly changed as she gulped. She looked at me. “I—”
“You don’t have to listen to them, Vifi’Yok.” I quickly ascertained what her worry was, shocking her as her eyes widened up like a fish’s. “As I said at the very beginning, I want your help, yes, but I won’t force you into it. I’m planning on making peace between the Empire and Bole’Taria, and trying to put you in a hard spot by pitting you against your own people because of a threat? That only makes me a hypocrite and my ideals moot; if you want to help us, then it has to come from here.”
I pointed at my head and heart. I wasn’t about to drag a person into a war who didn’t want to fight it. I was already worrying about having to fight the unwilling conscripts in the future, so even if Vifi’Yok was an extraordinary fighter, if the reason why she deserted the army was to get away from the fighting, then so be it. Trusting her was already hard enough with how much she kept from me, I didn’t want to stoop so low as to force her to fight.
“But, I’m not naive enough to let you go entirely. I still want information, Vifi’Yok. I won’t force you to fight, but the number of people you’ve indirectly led to their deaths is still a reality. I’m having you take responsibility.”
The demonkin kept staring at me after I made my demand, not looking away, only blinking as her mouth was slightly agape. We stood here, staring at each other before my stomach began to growl, indicating I was getting hungry. However, I kept still until Vifi’Yok finally rebooted, stuttering around as she was trying to find an answer, only to finally let out a loud and long sigh.
“… Feels like you’ll have more time before I get those stacks of donuts from you.”
My eyes widened as my mouth twitched, forming into a smile as I managed to understand what she meant. “You work, you’ll get more of my pastries. You don’t even need to take a step onto the battlefield.”
“Can we trust her though?” Tatsuya brought up. “That she won’t betray us? You trusted Daisy, but look where that got us. This demonkin still hadn’t mentioned anything substantial to us yet.”
“And I probably won’t in the future … at least, not everything,” Vifi’Yok looked onto the floor. “It’s not because I care too much about the people I met in the military … but it’s as she said, I don’t like the idea of having to fight my own people. If I told you everything, I would indirectly cause their deaths. I might be the reason Lord Pride and … a friend of mine will die by your hands.”
“A friend?” Kyouya raised a brow. “Didn’t you just mention you didn’t have any close bonds?”
She scratched her head, looking conflicted before giving up on staying quiet. “She’s the next Prince of Lust. Her predecessor sacrificed herself to summon a favor from the Edjurl Gods; that was how we summoned you brats. At a pretty hefty cost too, from what I heard, aside from the life of a Prince of Sin.”
Wait, didn’t Aurena mention this to me when she told me how the students were summoned to this world?!
“Hold on, this ritual, can you perform it, again?” I asked, to which Vifi’Yok shook her head.
“It was a one time trick, since the Origin Gods did not expect it. Unless you pray to them, the gods can’t see through your eyes, right? A good chunk of demonkins are also Marsven followers since he resembles the Edjurl gods the best, but is close enough for us to pray, but once you become a prince, you're effectively cut off from all connections to the gods of this world,” she explained. “So, no, we can’t do it, again. It was even, more or less, a last resort move since we can’t do it again. As I said, whatever they used for the ritual, it probably was pretty expensive and rare since Lord Wrath mentioned how it wasn’t doable again.”
“… This is a headache, you know?” I groaned. “I knew you demonkin were planning something with them, but it’s that grand to the point you can’t do it again?”
“I can say this much — the plan has always been to destabilize the Church of Aurena and the Empire, in addition to bringing this war between the humans to an end. To bring about the extinction of one of our races.” She paused, before she continued. “Your cousin is smart enough to figure something like this out, depending on who his friends are. If they really are the Yanderu, which isn’t something I can guess. Streiga survived the Elyond siege, so he’s planning things. With him scheming, I wouldn’t let my guard down.”
“… Do you know their leader?” I asked, taking advantage of this moment where Vifi’Yok was willing to talk.
Sadly, she shook her head. “At the end of the day, I was the newest Warbringer. I know some things, but I don’t know much. If you want to know about their plans, I can only guess, like with this dungeon attack here. I don’t know much about the Yanderu, but Lord Wrath had told me before I ventured to this part of the continent to always be wary of them. ‘They are on nobody's side,’ he told me.”
“Daisy isn’t an idiot; at least, I don’t think he is. He is going into this with some plan, otherwise, he wouldn’t leave us. Leave you with how he reacted,” Tatsuya stated. “What’s your opinion? Should we chase him after we’re done here?”
I thought about it for a moment, rereading his message to me, before shaking my head. “It’s not feasible. Entering the Empire at this point is like wandering into the den of a dragon flight. We will be surrounded by only enemies. I can’t go there, even if I wanted to help him … so we have to follow up with what he wants us to do. Attack the church, while he deals with the Empire from its underbelly.”
“The Prince of Envy.” Both boys stated simultaneously, followed up by Rajah mentioning how he will train for that moment. I then turned to Vifi’Yok. “Last chance to jump off. I won’t stop you. Even if Franz placed a spy on us, he would know I let you go peacefully. He should respect my wish.”
She shook her hand. “I won’t give you an answer for now. I will delay my donut package. Your cousin told me to keep you alive through this dungeon and then bring you to the Empire, so at the very least, I will have to stick with you for that. Whether I will help in any meaningful manner aside from some bits of information, I won’t guarantee anything.”
“What’s keeping you here, though? Didn’t you hear what Hestia-san said? You should be free, you don’t need to escort her to the Empire,” Tatsuya snapped at her, showing his disdain for her presence.
She conjured up some of her red lightning before answering, “Franz told me he’ll help lift up my restriction over my wrath powers if I help. I don’t know how, but I did give my sin stone to Streiga. If this really is the Yanderu, then I believe I can help myself. As much as the severed arm is a scar, I don’t want to stay crippled forever, if possible. So I’m taking a chance, even if it means going into the Empire where my former compatriots might find me.”
Tatsuya groaned in dissatisfaction, but Kyouya kept him from continuing the act. Satisfied with what I heard, I offered Vifi’Yok a fist bump, causing her to recoil back a bit. After I told her this was my sign of a temporary peace, she told me I was naive, but still responded back with a bump … after telling me to give her a donut.
Eat more of it, come on. Get fat so I can punt you away, you little brat! I kept my childish complaint behind a smile. It didn’t really mean it.
Once that was done, I told King Fugnarus we were done and I finally had my meal. During it, we discussed what we all wanted to do considering the situation we were in. Who wanted out and who wanted to continue the trip.
The king wasn’t willing to exit, since he wanted to investigate the instigators of all of this, and he was sure something was happening with Manethala, the dungeon master of this place. However, if I wanted out, he was willing to go since he came here for me. I declined it. I wanted to get to the bottom of this, as well.
I personally felt something was off considering the giant drake allowed us to circumvent the rule with a space-time portal. Considering how long it took, he could have stopped us at any time if he wanted us dead.
We considered sending somebody out to inform the others outside the dungeon, but it wouldn’t benefit the ones staying at all. People who left the dungeon couldn’t re-enter due to the Event, and getting down here would take days, probably, considering the Event had been going on for nearly a week now and nobody else was here yet. In fact, without my [Room] rune, getting any reinforcements was out of the question.
Our first goal was to find Saintess Fleindia.
“Hmm?”
Just when we finally finished our meal, eating enough to the point even I was full, one of the nearby doors suddenly began to brighten up. In fact, multiple doors were sharing the same action.
Ahh, it seems like the gambles are going well. I always love it when little humans, elves, and dwarves try their best and exceed my expectations! You can’t have good rewards without risks, now, right? You on the 11th floor should hurry up, though, because I don’t want this Event to last for too long, now! People are incoming!
What?!
“Hestia-san, we packed up the rewards for our side and our classmates and the knights!” Kyouya called me out. “No equipment, just a bunch of super good materials we can give Grimnir and Tasianna later for gear!”
I gave him a nod, but just as I did so, everybody’s head snapped towards a single door opening up. Two signals were coming out of the portal. It was then I also picked up a scent that sent a chill down my spine, jump starting my battle instincts as the memory of a single man came back in my head.
Shit.
“Ahhh, good thing we listened to you.” A man’s voice came out of the portal before a woman was sent flying out of it, crashing onto the ground as if she was a lifeless corpse.
I took a glance at her, but my eyes still widened when I noticed her white-golden robes, decorated to the brim with embroideries and sigils. However, this beautiful robe was in tatters, littered with deep cuts and blood discoloring the white. She was a holy priestess, definitely, and I could hear her ragged breathing before she coughed up a bit of blood.
“A gamble well chosen.”
From the portal, a man dressed in red-scaled armor appeared, holding onto two long ice swords. Strangely, I could smell myself on it, but there was a terrible bitterness to it, irritating my nose. I couldn’t see his face through the helmet, but I knew exactly who this was.
S-shit!
[Terror (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]
The sight of that dragonslayer. He was here again and close enough to attack me. Memories of him cutting my arm and nearly killing me with that anti-fire dragon venom flashed before my eyes, stunning me in place. Like being watched by a predator awaiting my next, futile move. The feeling of my limbs shaking from having to fight this person again made me light-headed.
“Hunting time.” That red aura from before appeared again as he bashed his swords together, causing a loud metallic sound to echo throughout the area. He sunk down, readying himself in a stance to—
Shit! I tried to pull out my glaive from my storage, but my trepidation made me act a second too late. One second he was in my eyesight, and in the next, my skills were warning me of an attack coming from my side just a millisecond too late!
Clang!
I couldn’t fully avoid the attack, as it left a long scar on my black armor, but Grimnir’s craftsmanship didn’t disappoint. It protected me from the surprise attack.
This was my window of opportunity, but before I could grab my glaive, it disappeared right before me before another metal sound erupted around us. Vifi’Yok to the rescue!
“You, again?” The dragonslayer stared down the demonkin as she protected me, only for him to blink away, appearing in front of the injured woman as the Ankoran King smashed his axe onto the ground, sending a dust cloud to cloak up the area, including my vision of the man.
“Hahaha!” I could hear the boisterous laugh of King Fugnarus. “It seems I am allowed the chance to protect you, lass! The Earth mother is allowing me to restore my honor … MUSTER, MY MEN!”
“AYE!”
The sounds of metal shield slamming against the solid ground burst out like a choir, perfectly synched as the rhythm was maintained with no issue, making this excessive display more intimidating than it probably should be. The dust settled as it continued, followed by two arrows piercing through everything, nearly hitting our enemy before he was forced to dodge.
“Dragonslayer!” The elves shouted. “On Saelariel grounds, you would have been dead! Human, you will die here for raising your hand against Kargryx’s princess!”
“Say it louder, yflei!” Fugnarus shouted before walking up to the agitated dragonslayer. “Rank S, Galg. The laws set up by my predecessors say I may allow you passage, but if your kind keep on hurting my allies, I will have to deal with this issue by changing the laws to fit the changing of era!”
Runes on his armor and axe began to shine brightly, lightning up as they were ready to activate.
“Move,” Galg murmured in a low voice.
King Fugnarus readied himself. “She’s my guest. You don’t tell a tazong to move, akong … Dhuinn Runes.”
A pair of large, chest-sized runes began to light up on the front and back of his chestplate, while another illuminated the blade of his axe. Dhuinn runes—powerful runes able to create battle changing effects like my [Dhuinn Rune: Fearless Defense].
“The Ankor-Nazta musters its strength to protect the Third Dragon Princess, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. Prepare to face the landslide of the mountains!”
----------------------------------------
“I ordered you to kill them!”
[“I cannot break the rules, dwarf. You did not tell me one of them was a space-time mage.”]
In the depths of the earth, two individuals were currently arguing. One was a massive being able to dwarf the mansions of nobles with ease, protected by hardened scales tempered by the heat of the earth itself. The other was a dwarf.
However, the one to bow their head was the former.
“Be warned, Manethela, if you fail once again, my master will assure your precious belongings will be destroyed. Your wealth, your memories, everything!” The crazed drooling of the dwarf kept going and going, slinging out threats left and right to intimidate the massive being before him.
Was it fear that made the dragon bow, or was this just a chance to bolster the ego of an already broken man before striking?
“Work!” he shouted before turning around. “Yes, that dragon will die, hehehe. Grimnir will die, too, hahaha! Ahahaha, Broggart, you will be avenged by your father and the glory you lost to that damnable nephew of mine will be restored! I will help you! Soon! The ultimate weapon! Just a bit longer, my son; listen to father, ehehe.”
Pitiful puppet …
Manethela did not fear the dwarf walking away, as he was nothing more than a disillusioned maniac. Still, he listened, for he feared the puppet master behind the deranged and grieving father, for if he were to fail in his task, everything he loved would be lost forever.
He touched his dungeon core, the item he thought of as the only other life he could value was quivering as if it was in pain. The usually azure-blue color was nowhere to see, tainted black by the many deaths happening above this room. Usually, a dungeon would be happy for the many dead visitors, for it would be able to feast on all the mana left behind, but at this moment, it was gaining none of it. Everything was being siphoned somewhere else.
A blue screen appeared before the being’s face, revealing a large text log notifying him that the participants on floor 10th had successfully survived the gamble he set up. He couldn’t help but smile, for his own play was successful. The people he needed were here, brought to him by the Event Quest.
Chihiro, you junior reincarnator is here. So close. It was fate that we met, but this time, the puzzle pieces are aligning perfectly. All I need to do is to push the rest in.
He clicked a button, opening multiple portals throughout the Event dungeon. Each presented people a trial to take on, allowing them to all skip right down to the eleventh floor.
Chihiro, you might be gone, my beloved, but I will protect your workshop until my dying breath!