Mathew laid on a couch, rolling the small staff weapon between his hands. Everyone in the room was quiet. Just him, Adam, and Jon sat in silence.
All those who died were burned in a pyre, including Mark. It’s been an entire day of rest and recovery. Mathew had conflicting emotions going through him. Everyone did.
Adam was in the middle of writing out new documents and rulings with the help of Mathew. His scribe abilities still worked wonders even without the profession's old title on his menu. “Jon, you need to sign this one.”
Jon reached out with his missing right arm, then paused. Anger formed on his face, but there was nothing there to keep it. Just a defeated sigh as he reached with his left hand. “Fucking stupid piece of shit.” He muttered.
Mathew continued to look up at the tents ceiling. Dozens of hundreds of ideas crossed his mind. Leaving everything here behind and searching for the blood mage to properly kill him. To cry. To scream at the so-called Gods. Even going as far as using his token to return to Blue Oaks, pack everything up, and scour the entire planet until he found Aaron.
He squeezed his eyes closed, pushing all those thoughts away. For now.
“Mathew I think that’s everything, you can go back to your own tent.” Adam said. “You’ve been a grand help. Really.”
“Hmm, sure I have.” Mathew muttered and stood up. He hated that he knew the correct things to do. To accept Mark's death and move on. Yet, he couldn’t. Not yet.
The exact words he told Leo kept ringing through his mind on loop. He was cold hearted. Just wanted to leave the entire place to get somewhere safe for himself, not Leo. If Mathew knew he could get away with it, he would have killed Isabell then and there, just to hurry up out of that old hellhole.
Now, he was Leo. Watching his brother die, and the reason for it was still alive. Bob was still alive.
Mathew went into his tent and collapsed onto his bed. Even after sleeping several hours, he was still exhausted. There wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Not even the sight of one of his Axiom’s upgrading brought any positive emotions to his mind. The Axiom of Bolster upgraded to Beginner rank after that fight. It made sense, he was pushing his body more than anything. The constant blood loss caused by Aaron forced him to focus on that one the most.
Aaron was strong. Stronger than Mathew. Stronger than Murthos. Stronger than any other person he could compare to. His name just never appeared on that damn leaderboard. No Aaron Kinko at all.
Name
Level
Zachary Man
40
Ju-Long
39
Zoey Beckham
34
Marcelo Furtado
34
---
---
Tristian Bari
30
Adam McGonald
30
Jonathan McGonald
30
Leo Santez
30
Kawamoto Naoki
30
---
---
Mathew McGonald
29
---
---
Susan Henderson
28
Kris Bolotin
28
The absence of Mark’s name continued to bring dread to his face. Not even the sight of a few familiar names did anything but remind him of his responsibilities. The reason he entered this place alone. To gain power.
Mathew fell asleep again, but only for a couple of hours. After another meal, he knew the next choice of action. If power is what he wanted, then power it was he would gain. He had a quest to fulfill for a God. She owed him bonus rewards for completing it alone. A reward Mathew will ensure he gets the best of.
Without telling anyone, he started to pack up. He didn’t belong here. This wasn’t his home. His home was back at Blue Oaks. Jeffery was still out and about, while Agnox and the wisps were unsummoned.
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He walked out of his tent to see Beth standing there with her arms crossed. “Fucking knew it. You were going to leave us weren't you?”
“Yes.” Mathew said and moved to walk past her.
“Let me go with you.”
“And let you die? Yeah right. You need to stay here with the others.”
Beth grabbed Mathew by his arm to stop him. “I can’t. I see dad everywhere. I need to get out for a little while. See other sights. Adam can lead everyone perfectly fine.”
Mathew turned to look at his niece. “Beth. Your father is dead. Jon is missing an arm. Out of all the most powerful people here, it’s you. Adam isn’t a fighter. You are the strongest person here if I had to guess on overall power. You need to stay.”
“What about you? Fucking hell we saw you fight Uncle Mat. You were just as strong as dad was. Without some crazy buff ability. You are not even level thirty and are putting everyone here to shame. If you leave us, you are the one weakening this place, not me.”
“Mark weakened Aaron enough for me to take him on an even field. You think I was holding back anything? I was exhausted. Six hours on the wall defending, then doing that? No. Mark was stronger than me.” Mathew sighed. “He always was better.”
“It’s funny. Dad said the same about you. Free to do what you want without the McGonald name hovering over your head. You did it all on your own without any help. He said you were the true McGonald to me once when I was younger.”
Mathew smiled slightly. “I wish I came back home sooner. I do. And I want to stay. The thing is I have shit to do. Quests. Reality doesn’t stop because someone close to you dies. You have to keep moving forward. It’s a shitty truth.”
“I know. Are you sure I can’t go with you?” Beth asked one last time.
“Please don’t. As much as I would love to have another human with me, I have to do it alone. My quest gives better rewards for doing things alone. Everything is about doing things alone. The System values that more than working with a large team.”
Beth shook her head. “Now you sound like Uncle Jon. Don’t die please. It’s bad enough with Uncle Benji and Dad. I can’t lose you too. You were always my favorite uncle.”
“Beth, don’t lie to me like that. Luke always gave the best gifts for your birthday. I distinctly remember you bragging about it all the time. Using it to blackmail me like some title.” Mathew jested.
Beth let go of Mathew’s arm. “Well, it’s yours now. You didn’t save dad, but everyone else at the very least. Please come back to visit us. If not here, then back home.”
“Of course.” Mathew said with a nod. “I want to say goodbye to my own dad too. Properly. Did you bury him in the graveyard with Mom?”
Beth shrugged. “No clue. I wasn’t allowed to see any of that. I’d assume so. Dad was pissed the entire first couple of weeks. He kept mentioning Nana’s name as its own curse.”
Mathew sighed, “Sounds like Mom. Tell Adam and Jon I'll miss them. I’m shit at goodbyes, and they probably already guessed I’d be leaving soon.”
Beth winced slightly. Mathew narrowed his eyes. “They sent you to try to keep me here didn’t they?”
She reluctantly nodded. “Yeah. They want, no, need you here.”
Mathew wanted to yell at her, but didn’t. “Well, I needed them all those years ago, so think of this as calling it even.”
“Matty, you stay safe okay? They won’t like it, but they can’t stop you. Just means we are going to be leaving sooner than later out of this quest place. A few of us might stay with teams. I know mine will.”
“If I see you on the next floor, we can team up then. I don’t think I can fight a high level Apprentice floor boss.”
“I’ll hold you to that promise. Now get out of here. Next they will send mom to guilt trip you.”
Mathew walked off without another word. Several people watched him leave. Each of them either nodded out of respect, or looked at him with lost hope. Losing Mark was a huge burden on them all.
Spending a couple of hours wandering tunnels let Mathew not focus on anything. Rogue kobolds and goblins were killed off by Jeffery. Anything he couldn’t handle Mathew helped with. After fighting Aaron, everything else felt easy. Mathew hadn’t needed to physically fight like that in a couple of weeks.
The experience was eye opening. To what those with true power could do. What he could one day do. Four summons wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Not just for his soul, but to overwhelm his enemy.
A personal army all controlled by him. Fighting in unison.
He chuckled at the thought. Mathew was no war general, but he was learning how to fight. His own powers reflected that. Both Agnox and Jeffery were close to Apprentice rank as well.
Mathew found a small area to sit down and eat some food. He summoned Agnox at that point, letting the imp be fully free once again. He didn’t say anything, just grabbed a bowl of food and ate in silence.
Once their bellies were full, a conversation on what their next plan started.
“I want to finish Gaia’s quest sooner than later. I think it’s the best course of action. The only other two quests I have I can’t finish anytime soon. I need one more Hearth Crystal and two more elemental inspirations. I bet Gaia can give me an Earth based one. Maybe metal or something.”
“What about improving our powers? This is a great place to train and fight.”
“We can do both. There are no floor bosses, probably won’t be for another two weeks. I want to try and hide inside a Dungeon for this week. So we have five days until the next horde. In that time we can get Jeffery up to Apprentice rank, get some of your stuff up in levels, maybe improve our Axioms as well.”
“I like the sound of that. I think I have a way to improve mine. A certain phrase, or rather image.”
Mathew raised his eyebrow. “Do you have an image for your Axiom?”
“Oh yea. I just see this flame that eats everything that it comes near. Wood, food, metal, blood, bones, buildings, worlds, everything. It’s small now, so these last few are not viable. You don’t have one for yours?”
Mathew thought about it for a moment. “Kinda? I know what they are supposed to do to an extent. I haven't really put an image up for them other than what I saw when I acquired them. Axiom of Resistance is the only one I didn’t receive a vision for actually.”
“Maybe a phrase works better for you? My vision was just a bunch of fire doing different things in that Challenge. You have five Axiom’s, so it’s probably harder to focus on them so much. Having one means I just use that one and only that one for everything.”
“It makes sense.” Mathew admitted. “I’ll try that too. It can’t hurt to try.”