On the veranda, I finished serving one last guest who arrived during my absence.

He is an elderly dwarf from a humble rural life. Of [lv: 4], the guest is satisfied with something to drink and compliments me on the kindness I reserve for him with great reverence.

He doesn't have a good command of language and limits himself to asking me a few things. He asks if he will be granted eternal bliss and how I fit into the pantheon of his religion.

Once finished I show him the board and ask if he wants to play. He thanks and refuses. Playing where he lived is considered diabolical and he thinks I'm testing him.

Humble and distrustful.

I invite him to take a walk in the desert and he simply nods and follows me. When he moves his stench of metal and sweat spreads all around.

He died in the mine. An unexpected vein of a particular liquid metal.

I use [Judgment] and he doesn't object.

[Judgment: Dream]

Burning away, I see him tear up.

“Don't worry, you will be blessed.”

He nods and disappears.

Sigh. And this person also left satisfied.

Well.

I look up at the porch.

It is there, resting on the railing, yawns, and lazily wags its flaming tail.

Gron is waiting for me.

♦

“Not ready yet?” I sit on the cushion, next to the chessboard.

Gron turns and adjusts its position on the railing. Its scars have completely disappeared, a sign that nothing remains of it on its home planet. Its stats are also slightly increased.

“I'll be ready when I am, are you in a hurry to send me away? I'm a cat, people are usually flattered by my presence.”

“I'm in no hurry, really. It's just that your presence here, like this… seems to me to be incorrect. To do things right I would have to judge you.”

“Prr. And who says it? What if I felt comfortable here?”

I start fiddling with the Warlock on the chessboard. I turn it over between my fingers and run my thumb over its hooded head and the blade of the scythe it holds.

“The System and custom say so.”

“The System or custom? They are two very different things. And then, to be nitpicky, what or who is the ‘System’? Is it a deity? A being like you or even superior to you?”

I put down the chess piece and glare at Gron.

It is still lying on the railing still waving its tail.

Its question troubled me.

It's a disturbing question and it's because I tend to believe it's right.

Who or what is the System? What does it want and what does it do?

My anxiety about Gron's presence is the result of custom. The System has nothing to do with it.

The System manifests itself only through the grimoire and is unknown in most worlds of the universe. All I know about it is that it created everything and that the Devil, the God of Wisdom, the Ocean, the Underwasteland, the cosmos, and everything that is part of it and changes it.

Everything.

Yet it is the great absentee.

My father told me of its empty throne, destined to remain empty forever. The System has created a throne for itself, in this same world. It is deep in the Underwasteland and no one can sit on it.

Ironically, neither does the System, as it is absent from its creation.

So, it's the custom…

I think it's bad for me to keep a cat here, I think I'm doing something wrong with my duties as [Empress] of the underworld.

I look up at Gron.

What should I tell it?

“Well, I think you're right. This is customary. I am used to not hosting the deceased for longer than necessary.”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Ci-cin.

Gron stands and arches its back to stretch its extremities. Then it jumps down and the boards creak on impact.

“Prr. The System intrigues me,” Gron crouches on the cushion in front of me, on the other side of the chessboard on the table. “It seems like the typical mystery that my Dal would be jubilant about. He sure knew how to go crazy over mysteries. As much as he loves adventure, the curious nature of us cats, you know? I have never been on his level. Do you want to play a game?”

Gron's newfound loquacity leaves me speechless.

I thought my answer might offend it but I must have been wrong. It seems to be as lively as when it just arrived.

With its little paw it is giving the pieces of the chessboard a little beating, licks its chops, and goes back to playing.

“You know how to play?”

“The chessboard of the gods, right?”

Like Lajal, Gron also knows a variation of the game. I'm starting to suspect that the System has spread the game into everything that is created.

I nod and Gron and I exchange rules and knowledge. The games we know are similar, practically the same apart from the names.

Let's start playing and play a few games.

It's not very good. In fifteen, or twenty moves I close every time. Gron spends its shifts ranting about this and that and it seems to have forgotten about the question that…

“Prr, am I the only one talking? Don't you want to tell me anything about the System?”

Ah, was its speech a diversion to get to this question? Or did it bring up this question because it saw that it upset me and wanted to distract me from the game? Well, we're already three-nil, I might as well allow it to distract me.

As I turn the little round head of a [f] between my index finger and thumb, I think of a satisfactory answer.

“The point is that I don't know much about it either… deep down I know that there is an empty throne, but I've never seen it.”

Gron's eyes widen.

“You have such an important throne under your feet and you don't go to see it!? Oh God, but where is your curiosity, your spirit of adventure!? Then you tell me you're bored, of course, N, of course!”

“Er… eh, well… the fact is that it is a dangerous area, hehe.”

I feel embarrassment color my cheeks. I wish I hadn't said anything about it!

Gron makes its move. Since it does not have an opposable thumb, it only makes moves that can be performed by pushing the piece. It tells me the other moves and I do them for it.

It gives me a check. The first time in four games.

Not bad, I have to concentrate. I can already feel the embarrassment disappearing behind the mask of the more experienced player.

“Dangerous, prr! And what's dangerous here if everyone is asleep?”

“Well, it's not as it seems. I don't know if anything is said in your area, maybe your creator might have understood something about it.”

“About what?”

With a move of [W] and the sacrifice of a [f] to move again, I free myself from check. Now it is Gron [G] that is under siege.

Ci-cin.

“About dreamers. Some creatures are still dangerous from the dream. In the room beyond the Golden Doors, above the Ocean, these entities find rest. The only ones above level ninety—except the oldest Bakenekro. And there is the throne.”

I smile because I realize an inevitable checkmate for Gron, eight moves left.

But Gron doesn't move its pieces, licks its paw, and looks at me.

“So, there are such illustrious deceased? A tomb for the illustrious deceased. Yes, it makes sense. Even in my adventures, I happened to come across great treasures. But only and only in rooms where the danger was equally great. I would like to see this room. Not that I can do much about it, but I'm sure Dal-Dazzer rests among them.”

My eyes widen. “A humanoid over level ninety?! already over sixty is very rare.”

“Prr… the last time I met him he was at seventy-three. Dal has always been humbled, but he has never been a mortal like the others.”

Tapping my index finger on my chin, I think back to the main encounters my father had in my presence.

In those twenty years, I have never seen any illustrious entities. Not like that at least. The demonic crow was the most illustrious and for now, that was enough for me.

In any case…

“If he's at those levels there, he's probably in another room. You need to know that leveling scales on cosmological proportions. All the experience needed to go from zero to ninety is equal to that needed to go from ninety to ninety-one.”

Gron listens by wagging its tail and turning on the cushion. It is restless and continues to lick its chops.

“Prr… listen. Wouldn't you take me to see if he's there? There are some things I would like to tell him, which I have carried with me since our first adventures. I know he's not necessarily there, maybe he's learned not to age or he's gotten younger or… I'd just like to try.”

Since Gron is already dead, there is no problem in having it meet another deceased.

However…

“Gron, if I agreed to let you judge me I'm sure you would meet him in a dream. Both in the case of positive and negative judgments.”

“How can you be sure?”

Ci-cin.

«Fsss!»

I lower my ears disheartened. “I'm not sure. I like to believe that the System did things properly. What sense would there be in me welcoming and consoling the dead, if they would still have regrets?”

Silence falls.

Gron moves away from the cushion and paws onto the porch.

“But-but the match!?”

“Prr, I don't feel like playing anymore. I can't win anyway.”

I go from kneeling on the cushion to sitting, straightening my skirt, and looking at the chessboard.

Maybe I offended it?

Did I say something wrong?

“N, look… you're very nice and all. But hours, days, and weeks spent with you are not enough to erase years and years of life. Maybe I'll seem arrogant to you, well I'm a miracle cat, I can afford to be arrogant. You can't do anything. It is obvious to me, outsider, that you are just a tool. Take away my regrets? And how? You can just act as a comforting friend!”

“Gron… I…” Its words hurt me.

I've never felt like this.

A weight in the chest. A dark liquid that rises to the eyes, blocks the nose.

I'm crying. I'm trying to hold back a sudden sense of inadequacy.

The tears come, like when I was a child.

Ci… cin.

“Gron, I… I just want to… be nice! I would like to be useful to you… to all of you who are so sad.”

I feel the tears running down my red cheeks. The snot drips onto my upper lip and I see the first drop fall onto the chessboard. The white, dusty box turns dark grey.

“Useful? What do you want me to know? You are definitely of no use to me! I didn't want to die. I had a lot of plans. Lots of projects were ruined by one stupid accident! Died from a fish bone. You're not useful, you're just in a hurry to put me to sleep. Make me disappear and get back on with your ‘boring’ life. You are like him, you are like Dal. A selfish one.”

Crying in silence, I look for Gron. I do not see it. No one has ever said anything so mean to me and I can't handle my emotions.

They explode, they hurt and they would like me to react. But I don't do anything because I feel guilty, guilty about a cat's words.

I stand up but still don't see it.

I sniff and clean myself by rubbing my arm. I'll take two steps forward.

I see.

Under the black and bustling sky, ready for the rain.

It runs in the desert.

It runs away from me.