[Hex Components Harvested]

[Notification]

Congratulations! You've been bestowed a Title!

Title Name: Kinslaughterer

Description [Identification Lvl.10]: You have transcended mere betrayal and bloodshed—yours is the art of eradicating entire bloodlines and turning your back on the deepest of bonds. The title of Kinslaughterer is granted only to those who revel in the massacre of their own kind with unparalleled skill and cruelty. This title provides immense power when fighting against humans and those of your own race, making you a nearly unstoppable force in any conflict where your kin becomes your prey.

Title’s Bestowed Enhancement:

- Human Attack Potency: Your proficiency against humans is now unmatched. You deal 60% increased damage to human opponents. Every strike will tear through them with ease, leaving no room for hesitation or mercy.

- Critical Strike Chance (Humans): Your precision is elevated to deadly heights when fighting humans. Your critical strike chance against humans increases by 40%. Each blow carries overwhelming lethality, ensuring their demise with terrifying efficiency.

- Resistance Bypassing (Humans): Your assaults ignore a vast majority of human defenses, reducing their resistance to your attacks by 80%. Armor, magic, and barriers will crumble before your onslaught, offering no protection as you carve through your enemies.

- Kin Carnage Surge: For every human of similar tier of level slain in combat, you gain 5% of your maximum HP, MP, and SP restored, allowing you to sustain yourself in prolonged battles and continue your bloody conquest without pause.

- Fatigue Reduction: The exertion required to combat humans is drastically reduced, lowering your rate of fatigue accumulation by 500% when engaging human opponents. This allows you to maintain peak performance and endurance, outlasting your foes with minimal weariness.

At the sight of that interface, I sighed, shaking my head in irony as I muttered, "Finally!" It had been a while since I had wanted to acquire that title. KinSlayer was cool once, but it's not anymore when you've lived for hundreds of years.

The irony of acquiring that titlle now was that, for the past century before the fifty years I holed myself in the Voidborne Catacombs, I had been actively trying to level that title to KinSlaughterer, the improved version of KinSlayer.

I could remember clearly how, when I first got KinSlayer, it caused big problems, especially with the faith I had gotten involved with because of Dungeon Master 07. I was no longer the little girl I used to be, the nobody I once was. Back then, it was problematic for me to bear that title as that made me in the eyes of the faith a paria. But for people like kings who consider themselves—and are even seen to be—above others, it’s normal to wield the KinSlayer title.

After all, those bastards betray and kill each other as soon as they get the opportunity. But with KinSlaughterer, people might, well, they definitely would raise an eyebrow, especially considering the amount of kin slaying required to unlock the skill. But, when you have the power or the means to do so, no one dares to say much. In my case, most of my efforts to unlock that skill were done under the guise of being a king who abhores bandits and did her best to exterminate the vermin from this world. No one dared to complain—not even the church—when I, in one night, eliminated all the bandits in a region. In fact, I was often praised, mostly by the common people. That being said, those of higher influence weren’t all that fond of my raids. But, well, it wasn't like they interfered so it's fair to say that my "glitch" worked. And yet, even through hundreds of years of slaughtering bandits until banditry became a thing of the past, I was not able to get the slaughterer title.

But I did not give up. My next attempt came in the form of going after my fellow king and his closest ones. To be fair, getting the KinSlaughterer title was not exactly the main goal but more of a secondary one. Anyway, it still resulted in me not getting the title. Fifty years... fifty years since I haven't killed a human. I didn’t even think about acquiring that title today when I decided to go against Alexander. All I thought about was harvesting memories and experience from him, and yet I got it somehow. "Perhaps this is what’s called a miracle. Gotta thank the Goddess properly for this," I said, kneeling down to retrieve my prize. It was then, just as I finished, that I saw Dungeon Master 05, on Veilleuse-19, make a landing a few meters away from me.

Staring at what I held in my hands, he asked, "He’s not going to fall upon us for this, is he?"

"Who? Oh, him?" I replied. "Don’t worry, he’s a monarch. He will never leave his domain."

"Even if we just killed one of his kings?"

"I have killed one of his kings before. Two, in fact. Did he leave his domain to come for me?" I asked.

He shook his head.

"See? People think that our beloved emporor cares the slightest bit about his kings, but he’s indifferent to them and their drama," I explained before adding, "To him, his kings are just components he feels he can replace anytime. If he has any concern, it’s perhaps not having something to replace the lost component. Remember what I did to the King of Graysteel and his dynasty? Why do you think I somehow managed to become king myself?"

"I see," he nodded.

I smiled. "As Goblin told you, there’s nothing to worry about kings or emperors here,"

I said. He nodded again before looking at the grotesque mess in my hands.

"Did you level up?" he asked.

"No, but I’ve acquired a title I’ve been looking for for a while," I replied before asking, "Do you have a spatial ring? Can you store this for me?" I tossed my prize to him, which he clumsily received.

"What!? Why?"

"I might have use for it later. Careful—it’s a king’s head that you’re handling with so much disgust," I said. He seemed to expect more explanation, but since I gave none, he accepted it and proceeded to store the thing away.

"You don’t have a spatial ring? Those are sold for cheap by the guild to high-ranking adventurers."

"Oh," I responded, "I had one that I purchased from the guild, but I gave it away."

"Why?"

"Someone needed it more than I did, and I don’t like it all that much. It’s too convenient."

"Too convenient?"

"Yes. Have you ever gone on a journey with a horse and a backpack before? You know what, never mind. If you don’t get it now, I don’t think you will."

"Alright." Glancing down at the headless corpse beneath me, he asked, "What level was he?"

"Him? I don’t know, but he was at least level 70-ish. Easily 75, even, I would say." Despite none of the battle prowess he displayed suggesting so, he was without a doubt within that range. It was just that he happened to be heavily exhausted by what he went through before I caught up to him.

"You’ve killed someone level 75, and you’ve not leveled up?"

"Well, I was basically picking up on a weakened opponent," I said, reaching onto Alexander’s leg and dragging his body. "The system saw that, and the all-knowing system is always fair," I added, dragging Alexander’s body by the feet before launching it high up into the sky, where Veilleuse-19 engulfed the headless corpse in one single bite.

I felt it was a bit of a waste to dispose of the corpse like that, but it was a far better fate than that of the last king I'd slain. Fifty years ago, right after taking down one of Cleon's most loyal kings—one of his original companions, one who was at his side when he ascended as a monarch—I had left the corpse there for Cleon to find, along with a letter of challenge, in an attempt to lure him to come after me to the Voidborne Catacomb. But then, from what I heard, while he found the letter, he found no corpse—it was nowhere to be seen when, in fact, I was sure I left it there, making me theorize that the corpse had been seized by some third party. For what purpose, I could only think of one involving necromancy; that's the only reason I could imagine. It wasn't his family; it couldn't be, not after the carnage I left behind. So that's the only reason I could think someone would want the corpse of a king—one that was closing in on the three-digit threshold level. I was no necromancer, but had I known it would have gone like that, I would have rather kept his corpse to myself, fed it to Veilleuse-19 like I did with Alexander's corpse. The idea that someone made a gain on my back pissed me off.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"I guess there’s that..."

"There’s also your level requirement," I added.

"What’s even your level?"

I chuckled. "75."

He had a look that made it clear he didn’t believe me. "Is that true?"

"I have been level seventy-five for the past fifty years," I answered.

He still seemed unconvinced, especially with how he eyed me up and down.

"Why would I lie about that?" I asked, coming to my own assumption. "Is it because I haven’t told you that I went through a class change when we talked about the class I chose when I reached level 50? I haven’t lied back then. I did choose Mage; I just then changed my core class to Monk when I got the opportunity to," I explained, before adding, "I just didn’t tell you about it. I wanted it to be a surprise."

"A surprise, huh?" He didn’t seem to enjoy my little surprise all that much. This one is uptight, as expected of someone raised by him, I chuckled internally. "Is that why you never mentioned the specifics about us coming here? Like the fact that Dungeon Master 09 and 13 wouldn’t be with us for the journey, or even the fact that you didn’t mention the existence of that girl—was that supposed to be a surprise too?"

There he goes, I thought. He finally mentioned it. Though in truth, even if he hadn’t, I had already guessed that was what it was about.

"So that’s what it was about," I said, pretending not to have guessed it.

"Yes," he said, "that’s what it is about. Blondie, you and Dungeon Master 06 called her. Who is she? For I know for a fact that that girl isn’t any of us Dungeon Masters, yet she seemed thoroughly involved in all of this." He began to complain before ultimately asking the question at the heart of the matter: "Who is she?"

"Well," I sighed, "first, how about you calm down? I wasn’t hiding anything." Though, to be honest, there were indeed subjects I believed could be left for later—such as this one—but now the time had come for it to be addressed. "It was as I said earlier. I wanted to keep it a surprise. Her existence is one of those surprises. Blondie is—" I began, before interrupting myself when something caught my attention.

"What is it?" Dungeon Master 05 asked, smart enough to pick up on my reaction.

"Someone’s fighting," I explained, staring in the direction we’d come from. "And it’s coming from where Goblin and the others were."

----------------------------------------

Riding on Veilleuse-19, Dungeon Master 05 and I quickly reached where the source of the battle was. Hovering above, I saw three people: two girls and an elf. The man was pinning one of the girls to the ground, while the other girl was holding a fancy cane, at the end of which a magic circle appeared, ready to unleash its effect at a serpentine creature. Anyone familiar enough with magic circle staves would recognize the cane as such. She was holding it like someone ready to unleash it at a moment's notice.

Jumping off, as there was no correct landing spot for Veilleuse-19, Dungeon Master 05 and I landed not far from the three of them. The scene we arrived to was that of a battle at a moment of suspense—or perhaps, more accurately, a finished battle. About a dozen meters away from me, a fellow Dungeon Master of mine, Goblin, was ungentlemanly pinning down an young female elf by the back of the neck—one that I had seen no earlier than this morning. She was one of the elves that had come to meet us high up in the sky, seemingly ready to engage if we were hostile, which we weren’t.

Some distance away, a girl dressed elegantly with golden hair was ready to assault a creature that, from high above, I had assumed to be a wyrm. But from the distance separating us now, it was obvious that what she was practically holding at gunpoint was, despite the color susceptible to being mistaken for another of its subcategory, a mythical creature known as a Dilong---a subspecies of Loong. Loong were monster that belonged to the Mythical Beasts category just like my dear Veilleuse-19, save that this one was clearly of a sub-par tier of strength.

"What’s going on here?" I asked, approaching.

"We told her to leave, she wouldn’t listen," Goblin explained, mercilessly increasing the strength with which he restrained the girl.

The sight made me question the way I raised him. My boy, haven’t I taught you to be gentle with the ladies? Well, I’m joking and all, but in truth, this was no laughing matter.

I only needed a glance to understand what was happening. From the look of it, and as Goblin had said, he had told her to leave. The girl was clearly coming to see my battle against Alexander but was stopped by Goblin and Blondie.

Goblin had explained it earlier in the day—she had been keeping them on their toes ever since she got roped into the mess of this ploy to bait Alexander here.

The initial premise of this plan, as I had devised it and forwarded to Dungeon Master 07, was to lure Alexander to Elven territory, where I would handle him myself. But as Goblin explained, something happened that made them—Dungeon Master 06, Dungeon Master 09, Dungeon Master 13, and Blondie—step forward and defeat him. The reason was that Alexander stumbled upon the bait that brought him here too quickly, and from the way she literally came out to meet us in the sky earlier today, I could see how it happened.

Anyway, the result of all this was that Alexander was defeated, but wanting to still adhere to my plan to defeat him myself, the four of them held the king captive, awaiting my arrival, where I was expected to follow through and defeat him myself. I can't say I admire the devotion, but I also can't help but be impressed by the idea of restraining a king. Defeating someone is one thing, but keeping them captive is another. But, well, they managed to do so, with only one recurring problem—her. She was apparently intent on figuring out what happened to the man who had suddenly attacked her and was swiftly defeated by strangers who seemed all too ready to handle him. Perhaps she realized that her role in this whole plan was that of bait, or perhaps she was just eager to know the fate of the man responsible for the downfall of her family. But the fact remains that in the following days, even weeks, she had been monitoring Goblin and Blondie to figure out the truth. It's not hard to understand—that's what happened here again. And today, as she took notice of the commotion of our battle, she wanted to see it but was stopped by Goblin and Blondie.

Looking at Goblin, I could tell he was annoyed by the girl, but I knew the Dungeon Master well enough to know that the light in his eyes wasn't just annoyance—it was something more ominous. Which is why, with a stern voice, I ordered, "Release the girl, Lee."

"Yes, Ma'am," he obliged, withdrawing without a complaint.

I glanced at Blondie, my gaze meeting hers despite the visor hiding her gaze. She withdrew her magic circle, and as she did, the small loong lunged at the elven girl, coiling around her body like a very clingy pet.

After throwing a mean glance at Goblin, who didn’t show a hint of a reaction to it, the girl on the ground stood up, dusting herself off. Her blue eyes met mine—no doubt the same curious eyes from that day, albeit older. The elven girl’s hair was tied in a simple ponytail, hair that was an unusual shade of blonde that I was tempted to describe as ashy blonde despite not being quite that. The elf looked older than the last time I had seen her, but it had been centuries ago, so of course she looked older. But, once again, if one considered the fact that it was centuries ago, not much had changed. She looked at best eight years older than back then.

"It's been a while since I last saw you, Miss Aquaflora."

"It's been almost two centuries, Miss Arianna."

To rocket the chitchat, I really felt like mentioning Alphonse, but I quickly realized that was a very awkward subject to talk about, since the fate of the man was obvious. Humans don’t live that long, unless, of course, they managed to level their longevity skill, which is a privilege available to just anyone.

"I'm surprised you still remember me after so long."

"I have heard about you," she said.

"Oh, you have...."

"Yes," she nodded. "So perhaps I should call you Queen Arianna."

"Arianna is fine," I said. "No need for such formality between friends, because we're friends, right?"

In that moment, she cast a glance at Goblin, whom she clearly wasn't fond of at all, then Blondie, then Dungeon Master 05, who stood still where he had landed, before looking at me again. "That depends."

Girl, you're so brave you're stupid, I thought. The right answer to that question is obvious. But calmly, I just asked, "Depends on what?"

"That man... the king... Alexander. What's your link with him?"

"My link?" I echoed.

Girl, my link with him is that I'm the one who had him baited to his demise—the bait being you. I felt like answering, but I couldn’t do that, so instead, I said, "None. He is just one of my... fellow kings."

The expression on her face made it clear that she didn’t believe my words, so I felt like adding more to coat my lies. But a glance at Dungeon Master 06, who seemed very fed up with the girl, and another glance at Dungeon Master 05, who literally stared at Blondie without giving the poor girl a second of respite, made me decide not to entertain this any further for now. I had more urgent matters to tend to.

"I have heard about the strife between you and my fellow king, so I can assure you he won't be a problem to you anymore, in any way," I reassured before adding, "You may go and live your life as you used to."

The girl clearly didn’t seem satisfied, but not giving her the chance to add anything, I continued, "You once saved the life of someone very dear to me, which left me in your debt, despite what I gave you to thank you back then. But today, I believe I have finally repaid that debt, leaving the two of us on equal footing. We might not be friends, but we are by no means enemies, so I suggest we keep things that way, or else..."

In that moment, perhaps understanding the threat carried by my words, the loong clinging to her retracted, and she instinctively glanced at Goblin, who stared at her with a glare that was outright malevolent. Despite the boldness she had displayed thus far, she understood my point. She retrieved her broom from a corner and used it to make an ascent into the sky, disappearing from the scene, leaving only the four of us: me, Goblin, Blondie, and Dungeon Master 05, who looked at me with an expression that demanded an explanation about the identity of the girl: Blondie.

I couldn’t help but sigh a little.