6. Chatty
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The door glowed blue light and all the mana that I felt earlier vanished! Like it never existed. I payed no heed to that and focused my intention on the door as it started opening by itself. The blue light also vanished and behind the gate a voice traveled through my ear.
“Congratulations! for making it this far, little demon”
The voice that traveled to my ears felt like a smoothing calming wave in the ocean.
I was surprised at first and then tried to look for the owner of this voice. No matter how much I looked around, nobody was there, however before me were stairs, I looked above me there were stairs …again.
A tick mark appeared in the corner of my forehead, I really don’t get it why do I see stairs everywhere in this dungeon.
Calming myself, I saw the stairs glow slightly, “does he want me to follow the stairs?” I took a chance and started climbing the stairs, unlike the place when I first entered the dungeon, here everything was simply walls and ..stairs.
10 minutes later.
I finally arrived at the end of the stairs and saw a door, this time It wasn’t huge …thankfully. “But why am I sensing a pattern here ?”, I looked around, and saw that gargoyles didn’t appear. Sighing in relief I headed towards the door and as I was preparing to knock, the same voice as earlier sounded from inside the room “The door’s open”, making my hand stop midway to the door and instead reached at the handle.
Opening the door made a creaking sound, the door was wide open allowing me to see- what looked like an attic, there were books left and right like a huge library, and at the end of it all were chairs and a desk with a globe sitting on it. At the closest chair of the desk sat an old man, he had a white beard and a pointy hat like a wizard he also had an eye glass on his left eye, he wore a plain purple robe that didn’t have a speck of dust on it.
“Is this a theatre or something?”
I instinctively blurted out my thoughts and looked at the old man for a reaction.
“Hahaha aren’t you a funny little brat, a good guess but no, this is no theatre.” The old man laughed lightly and spoke.
Then I questioned him. “What is this place?”
“This place ? Its a forgotten dungeon, one of the nine mysteries of the Hellzarr continent, aren’t you a bit uneducated for a Demon of Noble lineage ?” He looked at me curiously as he spoke.
*Pffft* I pointed at myself “Me? A Noble? Hahahaha aren’t you funny old man.” I laughed at the joke but when I saw his serious face I stopped.
Cough “I think you have the wrong person here, I was born from an egg in a barren field, I have no idea what you are talking about.”
He rubbed his wizardly beard and came closer to me, I didn’t move away as I didn’t sense any ill intent toward me so after he arrived a foot near me he touched my head with his fingers and spoke like he was enlightened.
“I see, but that still doesn’t change that you have a Noble lineage, your talent is also superior considering you can enter the door of this place.”
“Are you saying my parents left me in a barren field?” I gave him a dumbfounded look as I asked.
“It could be possible, but there are not many reasons Nobles would throw their child out of their household.”
“Reasons?”
The old man nodded his head and continued
“Yes, there are two reasons a noble child can be thrown away, the first one is tainting your bloodline by being an illegitimate child and the second one is due to war.”
“But I haven’t seen a single demon all this time I have been roaming this so called Hellzarr continent let alone building, let alone armies that can go to war.”
The old man let out a sigh and looked at me “You have a lot to learn little brat, but even though you were born in the barren lands, your intelligence is really high to be able to perceive these things without knowledge.”
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From what I remember I indeed was called indeed called a genius in my previous life, but this “old man” doesn’t need to now about that.
*Cough*
The old man coughed getting my attention and introduced himself.
“Forgive me for priving you, let me introduce myself, my name is Matock Spellfinden, but you can call me old man tock.”
I was caught of guard by the weird name but I still introduced myself.
“My name is Leonidas, old man”
“Leonidas ? That’s a good name”
“Thanks I guess?” It’s way better than yours that’s for sure, but I didn’t say it out loud.
“It seems you are quite cocky demon brat!”
My eye twitched slightly. I guess he found out.
“Hahahaha, it’s fine brat I was just joking with you and it’s not like you are the only one who thinks my name is silly, but weirdly most of them suffered injuries by unlucky accidents”
The old man waved his hand as he said this with a smile that didn’t assure me at all.
“So what now?” I asked him.
“What - what now?”
He looked at me confused.
I looked at him with a displeased expression and pointed to the ground.
“I thought coming here to this dungeon I would be able to fight monsters, but all I fought were weird gargoyles that could bleed and monkeys that only how to throw stones and all of them led me to this place which almost got me injured”
“Gargoyles that can bleed? All gargoyles bleed” I could tell he wasn’t joking.
A tick mark appeared on my forehead “That’s not the point I am making here.”
“Okay okay I’ll tell you, but sit down first so we can talk.” He pointed his hand towards a chair.
I sit down and continued “So tell me”
Being totally oblivious to my question he asks me.
”Would you like some tea?, oh I forgot you don’t know much about society, you see tea is boiled wate-”
“I know what tea is, can we go back to my questions.”
“But didn’t you say you were born in barren lands with monsters how can you know about tea? Something that the Hellzarr population have no idea about?” He looked at me questionably after he took a sip of his tea.
…Crap I slipped, so I tried making something up.
“Ah, about that.. you see when I hatched out of my egg, I recieved some memories about random stuff, but nothing important really.” With this he won’t question me anymore.
“Memory Manipulation huh” He sipped his tea and sighed.
“Okay brat, lets get to the main topic, the dungeon you came was only made for one purpose”
“Purpose?”
“Yes, and that purpose is to find a successor for myself.”
“And that successor would be …?”
“As you may have guessed, you.”
Cough
“Why would you make a whole dungeon just to find a successor?”
The old man looked at me and said proudly.
“Brat!, this old man isn’t as simple as you think, my name is known all over the continents. I am known as the Ice Sovereign because of my accomplishments in Ice magic, so getting a successor who is talented in Ice magic is very hard to do.”
Clap Clap
“Hooo, this is the first time I am impressed by you old man” I said to him as I clapped my hands.
He looked at me seriously and asked me with a cold tone, “Brat, do you think you are talented enough to be my successor ?”
I laugh at him and said “Hahahahaha, Talent? Why dont you see for yourself old man”
He puts the teacup at the desk, stands up and replies “Very well then, follow me”
I quickly stand up and follow him. We headed towards some shelves of books so I questioned him “Where are we going?”
“Just follow me”
We arrived in front of the shelves filled with books and a sudden thought came to my head which I blurted out, “A hidden room?”
The old man looked at me dumbfounded and said.
“Quite polite of you to ruin the surprise.”
I raised my hands innocently “Maybe you are the one who sucks at giving a surprise.”
“Hahaha, brat! It’s been a while since someone talked at me like that.” He eyed me as he said.
I didn’t say anything and followed him, he looked at the books at the shelves and mumbled “hmm which one opened the door again?”
I facepalmed myself at his irresponsibility.
“Found it” He pulled a certain red book and the shelves started to move sideways, revealing a wooden door. He opened the door and said “After you”
“How can I trust you. Who knows what’s behind that door?”
When he heard my words his face blackened and angrily shouted “Damn brat! I show you kindness yet you disrespect me? An Arch-mage ?”
After he finished his words he grabbed the collar of my shirt and tossed me inside the door.
“Wha-“
After I was thrown inside the door, I magically appeared hundreds of feet above the ground. When I looked down I saw ..snow, a lot of snow.
The mountains, hills and the trees around were all covered in huge chunks of snow, I started getting cold but not something that my body couldn’t handle. At the moment I was thankful that there was snow, to lessen my impact with the ground otherwise that lunatic could’ve killed me.
To assure myself I added the remaining status points available to [Vitality] going from 59 to 71 points. I needed to even my vitality with the other stats anyway, but what better way to do it when your life’s in danger right?.
After finally an eternity later, I fell on an abnormal pile of snow.
Although my head hurt a little bit, My anger for the perpetrator exceeded my pain as I flashed him a look of anger at the old man beside me.
“Long time” He said
A tick mark appeared for the third time today, but who’s counting.
“Long time ?? Why the hell would you throw someone from that height”
He looked at me and said with a look of disappointment.
“It’s not like you’re hurt, why whine so much, the door must have ‘accidentally’ changed the coordinates a bit higher than intended when I tossed you, I thought you were going to appear directly in the ground”
“Accidentally?” I knew that was on purpose but when I suddenly thought about what he said earlier.
“Weirdly most of them suffered injuries from unlucky accidents”
This old man takes things too personally…