I’m Late… I hope that a 10k word chapter is worth it: I started writing BKR to become a better writer and I keep wondering how good I am doing. More important chapters like this bring that question up repeatedly.

Anyway, I decided to keep Gía until the rewrite, but it will disappear at that time and it will not be present in the next arc current working title = [Game Start]

After reviewing, I realized that the ingredient was originally on the 39th floor, but I edited that as it was supposed to be the 29th – which is the floor DeMorte starts the chapter on.

I also added a single line in the 3rd person PoV in chapter 28 about the adventurers being slightly more confrontational in recent years, specifically, since the borders were finally secure.

DeMorte has a very brief… episode that is more or less explainable, but do remember that he is not – by our definition – a particularly sane man.

Chapter 34: Feelings of guilt

“Bitch.” I grunted, looking down at the collapsed 3-headed spotted dog. The thing seemed to love breathing fire, so parts of my robe were burnt.

The stoning creature was the 4th such one that had interrupted me during my search here on the 29th floor. It was truly annoying as the things were just powerful enough to cast strong magic, while they were also fast enough to dodge most of my throwing weapons. The ones I found were also all female, which suggested that there was an alpha around here somewhere.

I resisted the urge to wipe the sweat from my forehead as I went back to carefully navigating through the plants, while looking for my final goal.

Starting on the 21st floor there had been an ever increasing amount of wildlife, starting with small patches of dirt, with the occasional batches of mushrooms and growing each floor. Currently, I was in an area that could almost qualify as a small jungle that seemed determined to try everything to kill me, including sweating me to death apparently.

With the poisonous spiders, snakes, and other smaller creatures in this place serving as part of a much more complex ecology than anywhere previous in the dungeon, this floor was the most interesting and annoying floor I had encountered thus far in the dungeon. It both produced more opportunities to research the dungeon’s internal system and hid both my

As if giving the variety of monsters and magical creatures more places to hide was not enough, the dungeon had started modifying the atmosphere of each floor. This floor’s humidity for example, was the highest I had experienced in the entirety of both my lives and was drawing out every drop of sweat it could from me.

Fortunately, this floor actually had a small stream, or else I might have been in real trouble as even with some newly applied cooling runes I was having difficulty keeping myself hydrated.

As a rarity, I actually found myself empathizing with the SRMs who had sent down to this floor before, I had to somehow find an even-spotted blue and purple mushroom. Of course, since this was an alchemic ingredient I had to be very careful to only recover it from this specific floor. Not to mention that I also had to count the spots on every mushroom in the clusters they grew in to make sure I did not retrieve the wrong ingredient.

I had already found two groups of the mushrooms, but they both had an odd number of spots on them. It was a pain, but I kept searching, taking some of the mushrooms that I did not need to use as studying material. The occasional attacks by various creatures, the now earth covered ground, and the hot, humid, air all combined to make finding the correct mushrooms a borderline nightmare.

To complicate things further, Bella had stopped talking to me a while back and actually tried to sabotage me at one point by trying to make me look in the opposite direction of some mushrooms that she somehow noticed before me. The mushrooms were not even a blue and purple one, but she had become remarkably less happy with me as we descended to our current floor.

I just sighed at the time as I realized that her rebellious cycles might be upon us. Still, children were children so I let it go.

I needed to find those mushrooms soon though, it had been at least 4 days since I entered the dungeon. I cast mana roots to absorb as much of the creature as I reasonably could before I went to check on the latest batch of mushrooms that I found, right before I was attacked by the bitch.

Counting all of the spots was annoying, but I was relieved as I came up with 20. I carefully reviewed my steps for confirming that I had the correct ingredient and recounted the number of spots, it was still 20.

I had what I was looking for and carefully harvested it according to how I was told to do so, namely, very carefully. I could not cut any of the mushrooms and instead separate them from their cluster and wrap them in some special paper that I had been given. The paper in question felt like wax, but I did not care, I could finally get out of this stoning place.

Even since that mental test on the 20th floor, I had been working under both the feeling and the assumption that I was being watched at all times and that I should exit the dungeon as soon as possible.

I knew the sense of control over an area that Gorith’s shroud gave and how easy it was to track someone within it. The idea that either the dungeon or something controlling the dungeon was in total control of my surroundings was discomforting at best and terrifying at worst.

While my curiosity and desire to explore this place was fairly strong, my will to live was infinitely stronger and that will had been pushing at me to get out of here as soon as I could.

I turned around and carefully started to scan the ground as I carefully made my way out of the jungle floor. There were many plants and animals down here in the dungeon that I had never seen before on the surface, but I only spared time for them if collecting small samples would not take too much time.

Being in this dungeon was interesting to an extent, but as I was making my way through the jungle maze I took the time to privately rant about being obligated to go through with this just because the Nalks had made me female…

That said, I realized that in some ways I was just avoiding what was really bothering me. So, while I could distract myself for a little while with thoughts of the interesting organism around me or by thinking about the Nalks, an idea kept creeping back into my head.

The creatures here mostly seemed to be hybrids or variations of a variety of other animals and while they did have viable DNA as far as I could tell, they were also… odd. This place, it was either keeping them somewhere where the creatures were breeding at a steady rate or it was somehow creating them.

If this place was creating living creatures though… gods that was a terrifying idea. Especially after I used some of what I called my ‘exotic’ spells. If the dungeon could control its creatures, much less make new ones, I might have given it some new weapons. Not only that, but any SRMs who discovered those spells would develop counters to them and inevitably spread them to others.

The place where I felt safe enough to actually practice some new spells and have a relatively high chance of not being seen was now someplace where my secret stash of spells might be turned against me, even without Nalk interference.

The subliminal spells would likely be of varying effectiveness, but that sound blast spell that I tested nearly blew out my eardrums and I could only imagine what a creature inside of the dungeon could do with the acoustics of a rocky cavern like the earlier floors were. The specialized nerve gas, bacteria cultivation spells, and that odd burning lance that was created when I concentrated a large amount of light into one spot were all strange, but possibly very effective spells that I wanted to hold in reserve for emergencies.

The only spell that I tested that I did not worry about was the steps to create what Bella had taken to calling a “biopuppet,” because that spell was basically useless to the dungeon. Especially if it was actually creating these creatures from scratch.

I noticed that the foliage was finally thinning and realized that I could finally get out of this place and get back to the capital soon enough. After that, it would likely be a lot of walking and maybe the unpleasantness of a boat ride or something before I found the individual who could put me back into a male body. Ideally, I would have some sort of blackmail to combine with whatever financial incentive I could offer and…

You have always at least made the attempt to listen to me, on anything we talk about except this, why are you going this far?

I finally broke clear of the brush and walked down the long slope to the 30th floor and the express exit out of the dungeon. I took my time with my response to Bella as she seemed sincerely angry and although her control over our body had decrease significantly, she could still cause me a great deal of trouble if she wanted to.

Think about it logically Bella. Biologically speaking, there are a very few differences between males and females, with most of those revolving around hormones or the obvious difference that of someone’s sex organs. While we could manage this body like we have been and make sure that it develops in an appropriately powerful way, the fact would remain that this body would be female. We would have more management of our body for things like the menstrual cycle.

Also, I spent decades building up my own kingdom Bella and even then I could not shake the established opinions too much. I do not doubt that, regardless of how powerful we become in the future, we will still face established biasness against woman. You might think that it would be fun to fight against the established beliefs that you know are wrong, but that would not be what it ends up being Bella.

I know that I could also give you a lecture on endangering little Carlatus and the rest by having people connect the female us to them, but anything we do might find its way back to them. If we are known as a male individual instead, it will at least add one more degree of separation between ‘Bella of house Corpus’ and whatever our introduced name is.

In the end, being male will be simpler, not just because I am more used to a male body, but also because society will have an easier time accepting a man. I am sorry Bella, but I honestly do not know of any reason why staying in a woman’s body would ever be more beneficial to us. The closest thing to a benefit I can even come up with is the genetic recoder, but we can use the biopuppet creation spells as a starting point to build a magical device instead.

In fact, I needed to start designing that in my head, so I left the shocked Bella to try and come up with a reason to not become a male instead of staying a female. Of course, I had already considered most of her possible arguments, so I let her know about those as well.

The fact that I would have to put my body in someone else’s hands was one of the strongest arguments that could be made against attempting the change, but the possible long term disadvantages of having to fight societal norms as a women were a good motivator. Not that I was completely without bias myself, I wanted to be a man because I used to be a man and that was important to me.

I understood that Bella felt uncomfortable with the idea, but with both my personal convictions and logic on my side, I hoped that she could at least come to terms with the idea. The fact that we would eventually merge personalities notwithstanding, I wanted her to agree of her own free will.

I reached the end of the descent and found 3 different paths going further into the dungeon. I instinctively started examining the paths and the symbols above them before realizing that it did not matter.

I turned around and started walking through the 4th path, which traveled parallel to the way I walked in, the supposed express exit.

Almost immediately, I felt the air around me, the mana technically, change. Where I had the feeling of just being watched before, I now had the feeling that I was walking against a strong wind. The dungeon’s mana rolled around me and tried to blow against my body. Given how mana usually behaved, it was a rather surreal feeling that proved more interesting than annoying to me.

I kept walking and I felt messages and feelings start to form in my mind. Ahead was danger, behind was an adventure, ahead was a mistake, but behind was an endless opportunity, just waiting to for me to explore.

It was a strange feeling to know that the dungeon did not want me to leave, but if it was intelligent enough to figure out that I was now leaving and that it did not want that, I was in no mood to test how far it would go. I started running at a fairly decent pace, not willing to stay longer than I had to.

The mental prods and attempts to push me back down into the dungeon grew stronger over time as I steadily ran uphill. I was more worried about speed than stamina, but I kept my pace reasonable, using a bit of Gía to strength my muscles and ensure that I would not tire out anytime soon.

After a while, I felt the mental pushes retract and to my astonishment I felt what could only be described as a mental connection being offered. I actually stopped running and hesitated while looking at the magic with my third eye. It was… not wrong, per say, but it seemed off, like it was a half-done imitation of a different form of magic, one I did not recognize.

I hesitated, observing the mana and trying to decide if I should accept the offer or not. It could be a trap, but I suspected that the dungeon itself was responsible for collapsing the path behind me on the 10th floor, which would mean that it could do that again if I did not accept. Also, there were a few more, possibly lethal, ways that it could try and keep me from leaving, with the violent mana interaction that using Gorith’s shroud brought being one possibility.

After weighing the option as best I could, I reached out with both my mind and my mana and made the connection.

I felt anger, confusion, and a terse demand for an explanation.

Remembering the time I spent as a spirit, I sent a simple message through the link stating that I had completed my job. While I sent this message, I also made sure that appropriate mental blocks were in place to keep whatever I was communicating with from reading more of my mind than I intended.

Before I received another response, I felt the mana around me gravitate towards my bag and I used my improvised shroud to make sure that the dungeon could not touch the mushrooms. The wax like paper that they were wrapped in was supposed to keep them safe from such things, but I would rather not test it.

More anger came through the connection. It had a job, a need, to fulfill that had not seen anyone worthy of using it to fulfill that roll in a very, very long time.

I shook my head at this information, I had originally thought that the dungeon was man-made, but the more I learned about it the more I was caught between it being elven-made or somehow being an evolution of something natural.

While traveling through the dungeon I briefly wondered if it was an ancient form of life that had somehow created this place, despite the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, mana did not work like that. Even Natural mana, when it gathered into lay lines, could rarely cause anything more than the odd spell to shoot off, usually just causing some random mutation to affect whoever was unlucky enough to be standing nearby.

Curious, I sent a new message, asking what the dungeon was and what its job was.

I heard a growl from behind me and turned to see a rather large 3-headed dog standing behind me, the alpha. Its 3 heads bit at the air as if they wanted to eat some imaginary bug that was flying just in front of them. “Heel Spot.” I told it sarcastically, “I am having a conversation with your master.”

Unfortunately, said master sent its response at this point, a feeling of training, of growth, and the desire to see and recognize that growth. At which point, the connection was cut and the Alpha attacked by breathing fire from its central head.

I dodged and struggled to pull out one of my iron spikes as the creature advanced. I dodged another breath of fire as best as I could, as I pulled one of my spikes and threw it with all of my normal strength, plus a small amount of Gía assistance.

The Alpha did not just dodge my spike, but instead did something more incredible, it turned sideways and dodged while its 2 outer heads snapped down and caught the spike mid-air. They the two heads seemed to start arguing over it like 2 separate dogs with a stick. It was so odd to see that I even forgot to take out another spike and simply paused to observe this odd behavior.

I was only jolted out of it when the third head bent down and grabbed at my spike, trying to take it away from the other two. The action caused my spike to warp and bend until it broke in the mouth of the middle head, who yelped in pain. The right head then gave a low howl and I felt the creature use some sort of magic inside its body.

When the middle head coughed out a bit of blood and then seemed to be fine, I more or less figured it out. Each head was likely responsible for one form of magic. I pulled out another iron spike and watch the creature carefully.

I thought about putting down my items, but the dungeon might steal the mushrooms if I put them outside of my sphere of protection and I was not sure how far away I could be while still keeping my modified shroud intact. As it was I was worried that the dungeon might try to take them by force by simple ripping that shroud apart and making this whole trip meaningless.

I also held some slight doubt about whether or not Bella was going to mess with my improvised shroud. She usually stayed quiet and watched my spellwork during a fight, but I had no guarantees that she would continue to do so and going back down to get hunt for more mushrooms was not my idea of an efficient use of time.

I got ready to throw the spike again and watched the Alpha. If my theory was correct and each head had a specialty than the left head might be in physical control of the body. To test this I sent a small flurry of death spells at the creature. To my surprise, it jumped directly into the spells and the left head gave a loud bark, cuing a shield of mana to appear and block the death spells.

As it charged me yet again I shook my head and focused my weight on my toes while seeming to prepare to throw my weapon again. At the last moment, the Alpha tried to go around me while it both started breathing fire and threw up a mana shield.

I used most of my strength to jump back of the reach of the fire. The middle head turned to try and follow me, but it would not be able to correct its course in time, which was what I was aiming for.

As I landed I threw the spike, this time with quite a bit more Gía than my previous attempt. It flew directly into and through the fire, aimed just a below and off to the side of its source. I heard a yelp, but only saw the results a moments later as the flames went out.

The large spike was now imbedded in the Alpha’s lower neck and upper chest, as it cried out on the floor. I sent a death spell into it and ended the creature’s life, just before I heard that same soft chime as I heard on both the 10th and 20th floors – ding – reverberate in the air.

I scowled and looked down at my sleeve, which had received a slight burn when I turned away to shield my pack. Walking over to the dead Alpha, I used mana roots to absorb just enough to help make the spike easier to remove. I also noticed that I had accumulated a small reserve of excess fat on my chest while I was not paying attention.

I paused for a brief moment and scowled at the things before deciding to ignore them, they would go away if I cast a few more spells.

As I was removing and cleaning my spike off, I both felt and saw the mental connection from earlier being offered again.

I ignored it this time and sent my mana at the area the spell seemed to be originating from. I wanted to know who was in charge of this accursed place and if they were paying attention to me, then I should be able to trace the spell back and at least get an idea of who they were.

My attempt failed, however, as my mana met the wall and was completely stopped. It was like the walls of this place needed a special spell or spell instruction to be able to be bypassed! Cursing quietly, I formed the mental connection again and immediately sent my anger into it.

I received back confusion and annoyance. I was supposed to be different, my actions showed someone who thirst for power or knowledge or to prove myself. The phrasing was so off to me that I had stop and try to sort out the statement before I could respond.

This thing wanted me to test myself? To actually attack this place, not for money or some special alchemic ingredient, but to prove myself… As I thought about it more I realized that I might have been misinterpreting this things actions. What if this place was sentient, but not intelligent? Like it had been given a mind to understand its purpose, to test and evaluate those who came in, but it did not really understand how to do that?

If its purpose was to test me… I sent a new message to the dungeon. It stated that I was not mature yet and I could not go as deeply as I wanted, but I promised to return soon enough and test myself against it once I was fully prepared.

There was a moment of silence before a grudging assent was sent and the connection was broken. I blinked as the feeling of being watched left me and the mana went back to its previous state, moving deeper into the dungeon.

I sighed and relaxed a bit, keeping my modified shroud up and around the mushrooms as I checked on them. After confirming that they were fine I started up the long slope to the first floor.

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I breathed a sigh of relief as I finally reached the first floor. The hike had been quite impressive and I actually had to pause and work on my muscles with mana periodically to make sure that they were rested. It was interesting, but most ‘healing’ spells could be called time spells, instead ordering the body to restore itself it its previous state.

Since I actually knew how my muscles worked, I could deliberately manipulate them to prevent a simple restoration of my previous condition and instead make them actually heal. This could actually allow me to build muscles extremely rapidly as instead of waiting days between exercises I could just eat a meal and use my spells.

Of course I did not have to do it often, but hiking this much, uphill, while in my full equipment was quite the task even for my muscles. I felt the comfortable burning sensation and my I allowed myself a little smile of triumph, before I came to a small podium that looked identical to the one on the 20th floor.

Breathing deeply, I felt myself relax as I put my hand into the carved depression on the podium. The depression, like the one on the 20th floor, was a bit to off for me to think that it was made for human hands, but it did have 4 fingers and a thumb in the depression, so I could have been wrong.

As the side of the cave rumbled and opened up I cast an illusion spell over myself again. This time I went with Osiris’ face when he was in his teens. I stepped out into the dungeon wondering if I should cast a spell on my item too, but invisibility spells were incredibly mana intensive and-

I ducked and rolled across the rocky floor of the dungeon to the wall, narrowly dodging a fireball that was thrown at me before coming up, ready to fire off a dozen death spells at whoever attacked me. I saw a large man that took me a very brief moment to place, as he was the guild enforcer I had met before.

I saw a spell with my third eye come from both the enforcer in front of me and from someone behind me. I tried to dodge both, but the one from behind tracked me and the spell activated right as I tried to duck underneath it.

The spell was a modified fireball spell, which exploded in a small, but bright and intensely hot ball of flame.

If it was not for my illusion spell making me seem taller than I actually was, I would have been blinded in both of my eyes. It was not a commonly used method, but an intense and sudden heat in front of unprotected eyes could dry them out and cause temporary blindness.

[AN: Wielding accident, not to me, but it did happen to someone I know.]

Since the spell would typically explode outside of contact with someone’s mana shield, I was vaguely familiar with a variant that I used in my previous life, but I had never been on the receiving end before. The exploding flame ended up blinding me in my left eye and shattering my illusion spell. My right eye was not the best, but it could still function, even if everything was blurry.

“Stones!” I tripped and went into a roll as I fell, before forcibly expanding my modified shroud into the area around me to compensate for my loss of vision in my left eye. Although not quite as effective as Gorith’s shroud, my modified version still allowed me to feel the area around me and control it to a limited extent.

I felt 2 people circling around me, but they did not attack. “Is that you little DeMorte?” it was the enforcer I met before, “I am disappointed in you. Now then, please come with us and we can take care of your eyes and talk about your foolish little escapade.”

I could not construct a spell to ensure my eye healed properly in the time it would take for them to realize that I was stalling, so I focused on the spells I did know. Most of the spells I knew were not appropriate to this situation though, my shroud and third eye could give me an idea of what was going on, but not enough for me to safely use my Gía as much as I liked.

As it was, I decided to concentrate on my hearing to try and locate where the dead-man-walking was. I calmed my breathing and kept my senses on edge as much as possible before a smile appeared on my face. “People always ask me what I have against adventurers, but it is this kind of specialized bull excrement that really ticks me off.”

“You only have yourself to blame.” I tracked the voice, also listening for his silent companion, who had moved outside of my shroud. That was remaining perfectly still as far as I could hear, unlike the one speaking.

“True, even though I knew you were all mercenaries, I suppose that I actually expected you to keep the façade up a bit longer.”

“I have no association with the Adventurers Guild, if I recall correctly I told you that before.” He was pacing, the soft chink of armor already apparent was joined by the sound of a slightly runny nose.

I shifted my bag and prepared my spells. I hated deciding things with magic because of how uneconomical it was, but I doubted that my iron knives would easily find their target. “No official standing that is.” I corrected. “You fools think that you can hold on to power here because of this place, but you are wrong. Even though you station guards at the exits and ensure that only your people can go down under the guise of ‘protecting’ others, you are nothing more than another group of corrupt fools.”

Power corrupts everyone and everything. Even I was not immune to it, I just corrupted more slowly because of the Guilt. The famous ‘Adventurer’s Guild,’ though was an old organization in both worlds I was familiar with. It specialized in training and equipping a private force that, although it almost never sallied as one, was considered an army. What is more, they had such a good reputation that their members were treated well and given discounts at many stores.

A culture that believed in them, childhood stories that put them up on pedestals, a private army that believed it was always right, and no competition – usually by royal decree… Was it any wonder that I disliked them?

The enforcer’s voice, surprisingly, became softer, “you are a brown-souled child, with a head as thick as granite. Do not throw your life away just for a foolish moment of rebellion against-”

“You have options,” I overrode him, deciding that it was time to end the discussion. “Option 1 fight me and die.” I stood up and swayed a little despite myself. “Option 2 apologize and walk away right now. Or option 3, do something stupid, like not accepting option 2, because you think you can win. Your choice.” I pulled out one of my iron spikes and rapidly pumped mana into my improvised shroud, rapidly expanding both it and my awareness.

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There was a sigh as he chose option 3, but I could not tell who made it, me or him.

Either way, I felt a blast of mana that tried to blow my shroud apart from both the man who spoke and the individual who was silent. Instead of preparing a defense, I turned and charged at the silent one.

I concentrated my shroud around and in front of me while the two of them started shooting spells at me. Taking my iron spike, I stabbed it at the spell from the silent mage and popped it like a bubble, with the iron eliminating the key instructions that made the spell work.

I also dodged the spell from behind easily enough, although it tried to turn and chase me before I pulled out an iron knife and used it to intercept the spell. Luckily no one, including Anton, had ever figured out what exactly made the mage’s third eye work and therefor there was no way to block it.

As my shroud went sweeping past the silent mage, I realized that this particular corridor led deeper into the dungeon, which was perfect. The silent enforcer fired a few stun and pain spells at me as I rapidly approached, but nothing lethal. I dodged most of them, but let my iron chainmail take a few.

Instead of getting into a fight while at a disadvantage, it would be better to fall back and see what pain I could cause while I did so. Hitting this enforcer with MIT (mana implosion technique) for instance, would do a lot of damage. So, as I got closer to him I threw the spike and wrapped myself in mana armor.

He dodged out of the way of the spike, putting his back to the side of the dungeon and wrapping himself in his own mana armor. I was not the best at it, but I had at least been practicing on occasion in my new body, so I could protect myself easily enough. I had also had time to practice MIT and slammed a full 9 circles worth of mana into his armor as I ran past him.

Unlike other techniques, MIT had an incredibly low calorie consumption rate, namely because there was very little manipulation of mana. MIT, for its long name only really involved vibrating mana so destroy your opponent’s insides.

That graveborn of mine, Regis, had used a much more refined version of the technique, but I was not nearly as polished and burned away a sizable portion of my caloric reserves simply smashing into, and through, the enforcer’s own mana armor. I could not guarantee that it would kill him, but it would at least keep him from chasing me until I could restore my sight.

Once I did that, I could kill them much more easily.

I ran past the now gravely injured man and tossed a few death spells his way, but they hit iron and were negated.

The other enforcer shouted something about my worthless elven-soul, but I was not paying too much attention to him, calling up some of my Gía to make me rush at super-human speeds into the dungeon.

The unfortunate part of this strategy was that my opponent could use Gía as well and he could actually see where he was going without concentrating on ‘feeling’ it with a spell.

I felt as much as heard him roar and charge after me far faster than I could safely run.

I launched myself forward and pulled out as many knives as I could before turning just long enough to launch them as the charging man. I knew from experience how hard it was to dodge at that speed and I threw the daggers as hard as I could at the angle I was a.

I felt some of them hit, but he was still coming so I charge forward as best I could. Fortunately, he started lagging back, even as he started shooting dozens of death spells at a time.

I did not stop running though and as I finally pulled away I heard the unmistakable sound of a human death rattle. Instead of slowing to finish him however, I just sped up as I felt a turn come up. Afterward I turned around the hard corner, I quickly started to prepare the spell I would need to heal my eyes and finally slowed down as my shroud turned around the corner behind me.

The healing spell did not take long as I had partly formed it before I started running away, but it did take long enough to throw me off.

The man who had been talking earlier should had died by now, but I did not feel the Guilt waiting at the edge of my consciousness. Which likely meant that he had somehow been administered a healing potion. Thankfully, for that level of a wound, it would take a lot more than just a health potion to get him into fighting shape again.

I opened my eyes and blinked as the annoying red light of the dungeon greeting my blurry vision. I had to blink a lot and cast another minor healing spell before my vision finally cleared. I was pleasantly surprised that I was given as much time as I was and immediately sent my shroud around the corner, probing for my pursuers, but there was nothing.

Thinking that they had retreated to get help, I rounded the corner and started running after them, iron spike in hand, while spreading my shroud ahead of me to make sure that there were no more surprises in store for me.

I ran down the path faster than I retreated earlier. Additional enemies were not what I needed right now, but if the enforcer who spoke to me before was being carried, then I could likely catch up to both of them before too long.

Then I found the enforcer, he was laying on the ground where I left him, apparently pretending to be dead. I checked with my shroud and made sure that there was nothing else in the area around him and threw the spike ahead of me. It hit and stuck in the enforcer’s body without him so much as twitching.

I cast a death spell while running up and sent it into his body while the spike was supposed to interfere with his mana, but he still did not react.

I slowed as I neared the body, picking up the telltale smell of death. The enforcer was already dead, obviously killed by his comrade if I did not have his soul circling me by now. All the better for me, I thought simply, happy that his death was not on my head. I just ripped the spike out of it and took a moment to retrieve my daggers.

After that was done, I absorbed a bit of him with mana roots before casting flesh fire to consume the remains. It was a bit of a waste of mana, since the dungeon would absorb him anyway, but it never paid to leave corpuses laying around. Burning the dead was one of the few acts of ‘common decency’ that even the hardest of men tended to adhered to.

Taking off after the silent enforcer, I came to a screeching halt when I found him, dead like his partner. I looked around and even sent my shroud out as far as I could, but there was no one else here.

I had already cast a spell to confirm that this one was dead, so I knelt down and examined the body, curious how he died and hungry after expending all of that mana. It took me a few seconds, but I confirmed that he died from mana implosion technique. It made a rather distinctive mark on the inside of the individual, so it was easy to tell.

Curious, I searched for any other signs that his death was caused by anything other than that technique, a poison pill for example, but there was nothing. I kept my shroud far enough away from me that it could tell me if anyone approached and started using mana roots to recover some calories.

I would have simply stolen his food, but most of it looked half-rotten anyway and mana roots seemed to have a scarily high absorption rate if used on dead humans.

While I did that, I tried to come up with a reason for why someone would use the same technique I did to kill this person. It would have been much easier to simply knife them in the back with some iron and it was not like they needed to worry about anyone else finding the bodies…

Perhaps this was a message to me? Or maybe-

By the gods! You killed him! Why is that so hard to understand? You killed them both!

Bella the Guilt always finds me. Always. If I did kill them, we would both know it.

Even if you, were standing in someone else’s version of Gorith’s shroud?

I jerked and stopped moving when I heard those words, considering them carefully.

The Guilt was, in the end, a form of soul magic. It might have been divinely imparted soul magic, but it was still soul magic that temporarily summoned a soul closer to me, just close enough to touch it and know that person absolutely… Or at least that was the best theory I had come up with after years of dealing with it.

For it not to activate… for me to not even feel it on the distance, the dungeon would have had to claim the soul for itself.

If the dungeon really could take someone’s soul… then it was suddenly fairly reasonable that the mercenaries were so careful about going into the dungeon. If they made it public that going into the dungeon actually risked your own soul, than far fewer people would want to become an ‘adventurer.’

I grimaced and looked down at the corpse before using the flesh fire spell. To my surprise, it felt… wrong to not feel the Guilt after killing someone and I was surprised that I felt another type of guilt, a more natural one seeming to originate in my gut.

Of course I knew that was not correct, guilt would come from my mind and- No. Irrelevant. Why was I thinking such things? I started walking back to the exit while the odd feeling persisted.

I knew the normal feeling involving the Guilt and this was not it. There were no visions of the person’s life. There were also no feeling of being haunted, which would normally happen anytime I was still in danger, less I break down in visions of the past in the middle of a battle. I was just feeling… like I had done something wrong for some reason.

After all this time? After all the killing I had done, why in the name of the gods would I feel guilty?

If anything, did I not deserve a break from the visions? From feeling the press the weight that a human life bore? I had suffered for decade upon decade, wearing my pain and sin like my stoning cloak – like I was stoning proud to kill all of those fools! Why would I be? They chose to fight, to oppose me, and I always gave them a choice if I could, but they STILL chose to fight me! After all the time wasted living the life of the dead, why did I feel like this? They chose to die at my hand, but that was always their choice, even with those enforcers!

Stones! I was the only one without a choice in his entire stoning life! I never had a choice to not feel the Guilt when I killed, so why in the stoning ovals was I feeling like this!?

I am DeMorte, I am the man who broke whole kingdoms across his back! The man who broke the ‘Game’ of gods who dedicate their whole existence to it! For what stoning reason would I feel guilty just because I killed someone?

These-these-these tears must be from my healing spell to rehydrate my eyes, I understood that, but what was with this infernal feeling that I had done something wrong?! I… WAIT! I understand… This is a trained response! Ah, I always feel the Guilt after I kill someone, so my subconscious is trying to apply the feeling that it ‘knows’ I should be feeling!

“Hahah.” So that was it, I was just applying what I was used to, which meant I was applying my own punishment and earning paying for the life I took with my self-imposed suffering. I was the only one making me feel this way and it would pass soon enough.

You… monster. I will never be you, not as long as I

QUIET! WHAT YOU WANT IS IRRELIVENT, I AM THE KING! Now and forever I am the ruler, the general, and the commander… anyway, I am in NO mood for your nonsense Bella, so be silent.

I took a few deep breaths and collected myself. It took a few moments, but the feeling of guilt slowly passed and faded to nothing, it was just like I thought.

I nodded to myself, I was still in control of myself, so long as I kept my emotions under control anyway. As the feeling of guilt was receding I took a few more deep breaths and realized that I had unfairly snapped at Bella.

I apologize for raising my voice Bella, but that was a truly odd experience to me and I am afraid that I did not handle it well. I know that feeling the Guilt does not excuse my taking a human life, but it does help me understand and accept responsibility for the life I took.

She did not respond, likely still angry with me, though I did not want to further antagonize her by pushing into her mind to check. I lost my head for a moment and that was my fault, but I could reconcile with her after we left the dungeon city.

She was a part of me after all, so she would understand eventually.

As we walked out, I remembered my current appearance and changed my ears back to nonpointed ‘human’ ears, though I kept the softer and more feminine face. I could completely turn back into Set after I changed clothes

I followed the thinning mana trail out to where the exit of the dungeon was and found a small group set up around a campfire. I briefly wondered if I should cast another illusion spell, but one of them stood up and I knew I had been seen.

The rest of the group soon stood up immediately afterwards, there were 5 in all. “Excuse me sir, but there have been reports of an intruder in the dungeon, would you mind showing you identification?”

I did not stop. “You make it sound like you own the dungeon.” If there was any place where death was an option it was here… In fact, should I bother holding back if the dungeon was actually keeping me from feeling the Guilt?

The SRM who spoke before started blustering about something, but a man in iron armor who clearly had plenty of magic to spare, waved him off. “Are you telling us that you are the intruder?” He asked glaring at me as I walked forward.

My heart was starting to beat wildly. I had calmed down for a moment, but I had an opportunity to rid myself of more trash, Guilt free! It was an intoxicating temptation… or it was until I realized that I would likely have to deal with my mind’s instinctual reaction to expecting the Guilt regardless. I let out a sigh and I lost some of the bounce that I had apparently put in my stride without noticing.

“I mean that, unlike your 2 dead guild enforcers, I have no ties to the Adventurer’s Guild. I came here as a mercenary because your Guild was incompetent.” I kept walking forward, but more sedately now, as I took the time to talk to them. Of course, I was not especially hopeful that these fools would listen to reason, but I would at least give them the opportunity before I killed them all. Guilt or no, it was both an old habit and arguably the ‘right’ thing to do.

All of them stiffened. “So you admit to assaulting Guild personnel?” the man asked.

“That depend on the Guild’s position, do they ever admit to employing assassins?” I stopped a few paces away from the adventurers.

“The Adventurer’s Guild would never hire such individuals, but you admitted to not belonging to the Guild, which would mean that you are the one who assaulted Guild members and forced their way in here.”

I snorted, “Or there was an unnamed adventurer who forgot his identification and forced his way past, only to pay the price later. After all,” I paused, enjoying the look of confusion, “that would mean that the adventurer’s guild was competent.” I took a few steps forward and poured out as much killing intent as I could, while taking out one of my swords in one hand and slipping a dagger into the other.

“Of course, if that theory is not correct, than maybe everyone will hear about how incapable the Guild is, after all, you cannot even stop one little girl like-” the youngest looking adventurer fainted “-me.” I finished, before retracting my killing intent. “Think about it boy, think about what the odd are of you winning this fight and think about what will happen if word gets out about it.”

I let my eyes bore into his for a moment as I concentrated on him and saw the uncertainty in his mind. “You are the man on the spot and all of your friends here are waiting on your orders.” I gestured with my sword to the other, who were all in battle stances, but seemed to flinch back at my mere gesture. “You decide what to do, but if you attack me than you will not live to regret it.”

I started walking forward again, resting my sword on my shoulder and keeping my dagger held low. I walked at a very deliberate pace, my Gía ready to surge at any moment.

Everyone tensed up and I mentally marked the 3 mages in the group for immediate execution if they moved. Since 1 or the 3 non-mages was already down, it only left 2 normals, who looked like they would like they wanted to be anywhere else, but here.

As I passed by the first few of them, none moved and I started to relax as I stepped around the fallen one and walked up to the leader, who was standing in the back so bravely.

Pretending not to notice him, I stepped past him, right as he found his courage for a moment. He twisted, bringing up his sword to slash at me, but I merely met his eyes and hit him with a large blast of killing intent. The man instinctively jumped backwards and recovered his stance, but I just continued walking.

My path out of the dungeon was clear and no matter how much I strained my ears, I could not hear them moving. I could hear them all breathing raggedly though.

Hunting monsters and hunting humans was not the same thing.

I would rather be lucky than good, I thought to myself as I exited the dungeon. Meeting cowards among the SRMs though… should I even call that luck? For all of their self-righteous prattle and even their combat experience, they were used to fighting non-sentient creatures, not humans who were just as clever as them. From my experience, even the SRMs who hunted bandits tended to simply think of them as smart beasts, so maybe it was to be expected… Or maybe the Nalks were at work again, but if they were I could not tell and likely did not matter anyway.

I got out of the dungeon and soon I would get away from the fools in this city.

It was just before morning twilight outside and the sky was just starting to light up beautifully. I quickly climbed to the edge of the pit and got out of range of the giants wards that were apparently not under the SRM’s control – or else they would have attacked me just outside of the dungeon.

I turned back and briefly looked at the dungeon as a thought ran through my mind. What would happen if you gave a ward an endlessly complex system of repair and monitoring instruction? What if you gave it the ability to observe intelligent creatures and even interact with them to a limited extent?

Could it fake intelligence? Could something as artificial as a ward actually gain sentience?

More questions that I would have to wait to get answered, I had to change my clothes before the adventurers found their courage and called for reinforcements. Then I could turn back into Set and go back to the capital. After that…

Well, I probably had quite a bit of walking ahead of me before I got to the ‘after.’

* * *

A fortnight later…

Capital city of the Kingdom of Zootrofi, Thysia:

Her beady little eyes stared into mine without so much as twitching. Rapier hated those eyes more than anything, even more than those thrice-cursed elf ears, and she was sure that they would appear in her dreams… in her night terrors.

Rapier stared at the device that Bella had placed on the table, it had instantly created a basic privacy ward and set Rapier even more on edge. They were in public right now and it was unlikely that she would try anything foolish against a member of the Royal Magician’s Corps, but Rapier was all too aware that there were any number of ways to kill someone in public.

As it was they were both staring at each other in a city tavern, with 2 mugs of cider sitting practically untouched on the table between them.

Does she know? Is that why she waved to me in the streets? Rapier could not calm down, knowing that the person who had most likely killed-

“Is something bothering you Lady Rapier?”

It was hard not to notice how white Bella’s teeth were when she smiled. She still did not look the 14 cycles she must be by now, but it was primarily because of her height and the fact that she was growing a tooth that showed her youth. Her elf ears would earn her some enmity if she showed them, but they were hidden under hair just long enough to cover them.

I cannot believe that this thing can look so innocent on the outside. Rapier forced her emotions down for now though, she hardly needed proof to kill this thing, but it would be best to gather the fact first. “Someone I knew died recently”

Rapier had only found her by chance and was not eager to let her go, but the fact that she was acting so relaxed confused the royal mage. Not that Rapier was likely to be wrong, why else would he have died?

“No one close I hope.” Bella stated sadly.

Not as close as I wanted him to be, because of you. “Actually, I was hoping that you could help me with that, he went missing near Entrials almost a cycle ago.”

“Near Entrials? Perhaps it had something to do with the fear runes? I could only imagine how easy it would be to drown if he was fighting them and fell into the river.” She is not lying, but she is hiding something.

Rapier was trained to detect lies and a teenage girl would hardly be able to fool her, Rapier had been one herself and remembered how they thought.

“That is one possibility.” With the other being that you somehow killed him you poisonous little black-soul. “However, everyone in my profession has a special device, like this little ward builder of yours, but much more complex.” React, give me an excuse, confirmation of what you did, something. I can figure out the how later.

Bella blinked in what appeared to be honest surprise and curiosity. “So he was a royal mage as well? What does this device do?”

Rapier smiled viciously, “It lets the capital know how and where someone like me dies as well as any last messages.”

Surprise, but not fear painted Bella’s face, could I have been wrong after all? “What did his say?”

“Bella.” Show me a sign, give me the face I need to kill you without feeling guilty. Rapier had a hand on below the tavern’s table on a hidden dagger, ready to pull it out and take the young woman’s head off at a moment’s notice.

More surprise, a hint of confusion, and finally a bit of suspicion. “With respect Lady Rapier, that makes no sense, why would your friend’s last message be my name? Did his magical device get damaged somehow?”

“I do not know, but the device might also be called a spell that turns us into the magical device you see, because it is placed in our souls.”

Fear, surprise, confusion, curiosity, and realization flitted across her face. The last of which, immediately caught Rapier’s attention. “Is that not… you know, soul mage?”

Rapier blinked in surprise, the girl was serious, “no, it simply put the spell in our soul, like an extra piece of fabric being added to a robe. Anyway, do you know of anything that might have affected someone’s soul to hurt the device? If not than I still need an explanation.”

Bella hesitated and Rapier spoke sharply, “only the truth Bella.”

She spoke slowly, not lying as far as Rapier could tell, but recalling a specific memory. “I was testing myself against the fear area one day and…” Rapier almost growled at the pause. “I was the only one who saw it and given the nature of the area I could have been wrong, but… I swear that I saw a rune… made of zugoran.”

Rapier inhaled sharply. She is telling the truth. Plus, zugoran could have drastic and unpredictable effects on people. Gods, I even heard a rumor that they found some ancient mine just across the border with zugoran in it… and to top it all off, that evil metal is much more likely to kill a fully trained royal mage than some little girl… gods above, was I really wrong?

There was silence for a moment as Rapier collected her thoughts, before she grudgingly asked Bella for the details. It took quite some time, but eventually Rapier was at least mostly satisfied that she had a viable lead to look into, especially once she heard about the adventurers who found a dagger made of the stuff.

“I do hope that you will look after my family if you investigate the case yourself, I would not want anything happening to them like it did your friend.” Bella stood up from the table, but Rapier did not move.

Was I really wrong? Can I chance letting her get away? “Where are you going?”

“I was thinking of making a pilgrimage to the holy city. I always planned on becoming a Healer, but my boat will leave out of the south soon so I will need to get there before nightfall.” Is it that late already? Darn it, she is right.

Does that mean you are running away or just leaving temporarily? “Someone as young as you should not leave their parents for too long Bella, make sure you come back and visit them.”

“I will, I do not like the idea of being away from them, but I need to settle my own life first.” That look… she is telling the truth and even if she was lying… I will find out soon enough and I can track those ears easily enough, no matter how well she hides them.

“I wish you well then.” Rapier forced a smile and let Bella walk away while she continued to vent internally. Why could she not have been the answer? It would make things so… ah well, Rapier sighed quietly to herself, that is self-explanatory, nothing in life is ever simple.

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I thought about having DeMorte get captured and escorted to the Adventurer’s Guild Hall, but I was at 7.5k words already and I couldn’t come up with a reasonable way for DeMorte to get out of that situation without causing WAY too much bloodshed – to the point where it would have come back on Bella’s family.

Future changes:

-RMC should be more secretive, so in the rewrite, Bella/DeMorte will not know who Rapier really is.

-All mages should be more ‘magically’ talented and inclined to use those spells – including DeMorte

-Killing intent should be better explained as a powerful psychological weapon, especially against large crowds of normal people or a single opponent in a duel. It should essentially activated fight or flight response in a big way, with a strong push towards flight

Time skip of 1 cycle will be initiated between now and the next chapter, where DeMorte may or may not end up in a convent… it would be fun, but I’m wondering if it would fit =P

Again, I apologize for the delay and hope you continue to read BKR.

Thank you, B_S