“…Hey… is it just me, or is Sidhe getting bigger?” I blinked at John’s words as we continued walking through the Dungeon, and I looked to Sidhe, who indeed didn’t fit properly in my hood anymore, so she now sat on my shoulder.
“Nah, it’s not just you. She grows a bit every time she levels up, and she should be approaching the size of a dog or slightly larger.” I mentioned, laughing at John’s fear and Sidhe’s ‘smirk’.
“Oh no… the evil will grow? We should purge it now, before it is too late!” he cried out in faux fear even as Sidhe yawned a bit and tried to snuggle into me so I scratched her ear.
It’s been a week since the U.N meeting, it was currently the 25th of February, and we were on the 38th floor, having rushed to meet up with Ichiro and Albert’s teams… according to the ‘leader board’ we were all tied though.
The leader board was a nice little innovation of the Guild that was only available to be seen by those actually on the leader board, and it automatically placed people based on which floor they were on, and if they were on the same floor they ranked them by level.
I was level 67 now, the levelling up was slowing quite a bit, but that’s just how it is sometimes. I was lucky enough that my levelling wasn’t slowed too much as long as I got the final hit with my Nameless Dagger, but the others were complaining for sure, as each of them were only level 65 now.
According to the leader board, Albert and Ichiro were both level 66, but considering their strength, they’d be my level very soon…
Loyiso was a surprise though, being the same level as those two, but he apparently explored the Dungeon at a much more sedate pace, going by the ‘patience will win the race’ method.
“Alright, let’s break here, we cleared out this area, we can only hope no demons wander in while we’re busy eating…” I said, and we all agreed, sitting down.
I looked at Sidhe with a frown, noting that she was level 61, having caught up quite a while ago due to the high level difference between her and us. She’d never catch up to our levels, but with her stats, it was becoming kind of fair…
I also looked to my own stats, contemplating on how it’s changed since the fight against Ignus, which happened around a month ago… my skill levels have changed, luckily, and my stats were starting to look just like I wanted them to, and I was still focusing on Dexterity and Wisdom…
Personal Information
Name:
Arthur Clive
Level:
67
12 683 EXP
Rank:
J
Class:
Smith
Familiar:
Cait Sith (Sidhe)
Kingdom:
Camelot
King
Anima:
Traveller’s Cloak
The Nameless Dagger
Stats:
Strength: 56 (70)
Dexterity: 76 (142)
Intelligence: 45
Wisdom: 82 (162)
Vitality: 56 (67)
Constitution: 45
Skills:
Shooting (K), Blade Wielding (A), Tactician (SSS), Recovery (A), Close Combat ©, Enchanting (A), Soul Reading, Dual Wielding (G), Quick Reflexes (A)
Class Skills:
Blacksmith (J), Fire Resistance (J), Metallurgy (J), Armour Appraisal (J), Weapon Appraisal (J)
My Wisdom especially jumped after I reached level 60 and Tactician reached SSS rank shortly afterwards. I also had a third element available to me now, magic wise, namely FIRE.
Yes, it is important enough that it needs to be in italics even in my mind, fire magic is common and considered fun to use, and luckily fire magic doesn’t inconvenience us even though we’re technically in an enclosed space. It should bother us if it was a real fire, but magic fire doesn’t work like that apparently… it was weird, but eh, we just had to accept it.
Familiar Information
Name:
Sidhe
Level:
61
9871 EXP
Rank:
J
Race:
Cait Sith
Master:
Arthur Clive
Elements:
Darkness
Mind
Earth
----
Stats:
Strength: 25 (31)
Dexterity: 90 (99)
Intelligence: 90 (95)
Wisdom: 90 (99)
Vitality: 25 (31)
Constitution: 25 (30)
Eh, Sidhe was mostly of use as a mobile magic battery in the first place, I approved of this set up, and while she didn’t fit in my hood anymore in her true size…
“Sidhe, shrink.” I said, and the cat meowed before shrinking back into the size of a tiny kitten and once more climbing into my hood, making John and the others stare for a moment…
Emilia was quick to be holding the tiny kitten and scratching its belly, Alice joining in on sheer virtue of cute.
“So it won’t be a problem. Sidhe can freely control her size, but she has limits.” I explained and John nodded, edging away from the cute kitten that everyone loved but him.
“That cat is racist; it’s just like an old black man, racist even to his own people…” I ignored John mentioning something I remember hearing in some messed up cartoon and focused.
The Dungeon was still dangerous, but at this point we just had to make sure not to be stopped during our explorations too often, and make sure to keep ourselves safe while we fight.
I had increased the ranking of my blacksmithing skill, as well as my Enchanting, which, combined with my new elements, meant I could finally enchant at least three people’s equipment (namely myself, Matt and Michael… you could only use an Enchantment if you had that element obviously) and I was mostly focused on defensive equipment.
The reason for that was the Anima themselves, Michael had his bow, Emilia had daggers, and Matt had his shield. I couldn’t replace those things, so I worked on everything else, I made sure to work on light armour since none of us really felt like dealing with heavy armour with the exception of Matt, and even he felt running around in that would be tiring, even with his Strength and Constitution stats being high.
So I worked on flexible gauntlets and greaves as my focus, and swords for Alice, Matt and myself, and I promised I’d find something for John eventually, who, up until this point, was using a carved wooden staff he bought on eBay.
…Who fights demons with something bought on eBay?
Seeing as we were having a bit of a break, I decided to pull my phone out of the inventory… luckily, messages and such didn’t work in the Dungeon. Cameras also didn’t work right, but for what I wanted to do now, it wasn’t an issue.
“Again? These days you’re starting to zone out on your music a lot more.” Alice noted and I nodded with a smile on my face as I pulled up some ‘feel good’ songs. I listened to just about anything but repetitive songs (I’m looking at you, 24k magic and Uptown Funk… his music was good, but I can’t handle repetitive songs. I much preferred his older songs and ‘That’s What I Like’…)
The music I was listening to lately was more upbeat Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendez, Maroon 5 and I’d even bring up some old school Michael Jackson occasionally. The song that I was listening to now was a Shawn Mendez song, ‘There’s Nothing Holding Me Back’.
I allowed myself to just listen to the lyrics and tap my foot as I lay against the wall, scratching Sidhe’s ear. During our breaks we’d have two people at minimum on watch, but I never got watch duty (I offered more than once, but was refused) so I ended up just losing myself into thought more often than not.
Normally I wouldn’t be so rude as to listen to music in earphones while my friends are around, but they understood that sometimes I just had to relax a bit from the plans and fights.
I had closed my eyes while listening to the song, it had finished and a song by Ed Sheeran came up, Galway Girl, and I felt something tap my leg, something cold, so I looked up and saw Emilia handing me a can of an energy drink.
I took it with a nod of thanks, putting it down so I could open it with one hand, shifting so I sat more upright and drank a bit, enjoying the rustic rhythm of the song… more than rustic, I think it was the strange sound that was similar to either a fiddle or violin that played in the song that made it sound so nice to my ears.
“Ed Sheeran?” I noted Emilia asking as I nodded (I caught Alice perk up a bit at the mention of the singer, he made good music and she liked his songs) and I was almost done with my can.
Thank the fact that the Inventory kept things just as cold or hot as they were when they entered; otherwise we’d be having lukewarm drinks.
“We’re just about caught up with the upper groups… we’re still a bit behind them, level wise though.” Matt was the one to cut to the core of the matter as I frowned… it was true, but still.
“Well, if we can kill a Demon Lord first, we’d catch up for sure, but let’s be realistic, the best way we would get that right would be to do that stupid thing I tried doing.” I admitted and the group as a whole frowned…
Fighting alone in the Dungeon… it wasn’t impossible, I proved that, but it was much more dangerous. Your teammates acted as a safety net, and allowed you to go much further than you would be capable of doing alone.
“Right, that should be the best way… but we don’t know of any other team doing that, so what are they doing that we aren’t? It should be time, if you think about it.” Emilia noted and I nodded, realizing her point.
“Right, for the others, they either truly enjoy this place like Ichiro, or do it as a mission, a career, like Albert… honestly, we’re just six friends who happened to get something good going early, and are still using that momentum to continue.” I admitted, and Michael pounded his fists together with a grin.
“Well, for six friends we’re doing very good… now all we need to do, is start putting in that extra time, that extra effort. The difference between the strongest and the second strongest is small, but we can bridge it. After all, the strongest is our leader.” Michael joked as I felt a bit embarrassed at their faith in me.
“Right… we can win; we’ve been winning since day one, so what if we missed one Demon Lord, of if we miss two? We just need to get more than the rest and we’re set.” I stood with the music ending as I put my arm down for Sidhe to climb as she got into her spot behind my hood.
“We’ve been entering the Dungeon at ten to four or so… let’s start going in from eight to four, and if that isn’t enough, seven to five, until our superiority is assured.”
Matt grinned as one would imagine a wolf to do as he stood from his previously seated position. “You’re the King; we’ll make your kingdom the strongest.” I had absently forgotten that bit… I was technically a King by the system.
That hasn’t caused any issues for me personally so far… yet…
“Alright then, seeing as I’m King, let’s do a march, we have things to kill.” I said, getting out my Cloak, Dagger, and sword. My Cloak was looking very different from the original brown, dusty one, and it was slowly being cleaned into a blue with gold lines running across it as if artistically done.
Personally my favourite colour is green so this was kind of annoying to me, but I thought the colours were nice. It was still kind of dusty, but with every level I earned it appeared just that little bit better.
I allowed a small smile on my face even as we moved forward, going a bit quieter, but still talking a bit between us… yeah, despite how dangerous this place was…
I truly hoped moments like these would never end.
After staying in the Dungeon until half past four in the afternoon, and handing our items over to Paul (who was leaving within the next four days apparently).
“…That’s still disturbing…” I didn’t blame John, nor did I blame Matt who stood very far away while I was busy exchanging the items, but… okay I got nothing, Paul was kind of disturbing, if we ignored that how Paul acted was very at odds with his appearance he was a nice girl to talk to platonically.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Get the idea? Good. If not… Paul was a huge bearded man. He spoke as if he was a woman that was frail. Now you have to understand how disturbing it was.
“Well, he’s leaving in four days, so let’s just accept that, work hard and leave Arthur to deal with him.” I deadpanned at them even as I raised my middle finger at Michael who spoke, the group as a whole laughing at my expression.
I was a bit disturbed as we walked home though, because every once in a while someone would stop and point at our group, or more specifically, me… I mean, my face was well known as the ‘strongest Adventurer’ due to the U.N meeting, so I was actually famous now…
We lived nearby (on the other side of the block actually) so we luckily didn’t walk far before we ended up inside our new home. Once inside, we all split up for a moment before I moved to my workshop.
The workshop was where I made most of our newer equipment and such, and I had moved my Enchanting bench over here as well.
Any metals and materials which would be helpful for the creation of items came through here to get processed by me and I had to pay attention to detail and customize each item slightly for the person using it, though enchantments would only go through Michael, Matt and I for now.
“Alright…” I made sure the door was locked before I reached to my desk, pulling a tiny key out of my inventory and opening a compartment I had placed on the side, inside was a small box which was opened using the key.
Inside the box was a notebook, a small but thick one. It wasn’t something like a Diary in case you are wondering. It was my observations, anything of note, or suspicion, I wrote in here. For example, my knowledge of the monsters we faced, the fighting styles of my teammates, what magic they used, and what formations worked when.
The reason I kept it so secretive was because I didn’t like being disturbed while I wrote down these things, and because this was my problem as leader of the team, no one else had to deal with it if I had any say in the matter.
I had different sections marked off with different colours of paper sticking out of that section, and I moved to the Black section which is where I placed my information on Demon Lords. Within only three pages was information written. I’d need to start moving the information from here to somewhere else though, because I’d eventually run out of space like this.
The three Demon Lords were Ignus, Blade and The Dark, and I had information on different estimations and on each, even if we would never fight them at full strength again, including guesses at how much experience was earned fighting one.
Demon Lords didn’t actually give fixed experience point values, but instead worked on percentages, the first time a Demon Lord was fought it always had a 100% of the experience needed to level up your current level, even if you were only 1% away.
After though, the percentage dropped to something around 40-50 per cent. This meant that fighting two ‘lower’ Demon Lords would roughly get you a level up, meaning it wasn’t really worth the effort at some point considering nine floors must be finished before fighting one, one couldn’t teleport to the floor after a Demon Lord then turn around and fight it.
And I had no doubt that the percentages would decrease as we levelled, because it would be too easy for someone to simply keep fighting Blade and become the highest levelled person after a few weeks.
On the fourth page of the Demon Lord area, it was blank, but I had written one small line- estimated to be a Water Element Demon Lord. I wrote this because we had begun to fight water element demons (Fish-men who looked like bad childish drawings of a man with the head of a fish, they spat pressured water that would deal damage and slow you down)
I had noticed the pattern that in the first three or so floors after a Demon Lord (floors 1-4, 11-14, and so on) usually had ‘no element’ Demons such as Goblins and Kobolds.
After that, they would possess an Element which would hint at the next Demon Lords Element, much like how the Lantern’s and Blade were, and the Wisps and Ignus. With The Dark, that thing had these weak shadow looking things called Shades… the issue was that they were hard to see even if you looked for them.
I then flipped to the red section, the combat style section, where I noted Matt’s habit to lead with a shield bash wasn’t there anymore, as he had recently begun to start waiting to counter depending on the enemy, and cover his shield with magic to increase his defence or the power of his shield bash.
I also added John’s lack of skill as a note; he wasn’t an up close fighter in the first place. He finally had his second element (Water) so he could finally attack in some manner other than messing with the senses of the enemy though.
It was a waste to have him attack though, since he had to keep his magic for healing usually. We got hurt often during fights, though I was the one everyone was least worried for, as even if I did get hurt, my Vitality was up there in comparison to the rest, as well as my Recovery skill. No one else in the team had that (I think), and I healed really quickly now. 50% faster than someone would with my Vitality stat, but I also bled 12% more… weird how that worked.
Anyway, after inserting the notes on what my teammates did in certain situations and how they changed their fighting styles over time, I thought of equipment to supplement it.
After writing my equipment ideas (giving John boots which increased his escaping speed would be nice, but I couldn’t make such a thing yet) I closed the book and put it away.
I didn’t feel like making any equipment seeing as my Blacksmith skill wouldn’t raise beyond what it was currently. I could learn new methods and tricks, but whatever I made would probably be the best thing I could make at this point.
As I came out of my workshop, John was walking past in the corridor as he blinked at me… then he narrowed his eyes.
“Huh… you’re not in your workshop? What, don’t feel like making items today?” he asked and I shook my head with a sigh… honestly…
“Not really. I’ve been working hard for quite a while and I haven’t really relaxed in a while. Closest I came was that time at the beach, and even that was stressful.” I admitted and John looked a bit sheepish at the reminder of that time.
“Right… hey, why don’t you write? Isn’t your book just about done, Aegis right?” He asked and I shrugged thinking to the book… honestly, I had forgotten it, what with the Dungeon, fighting for my life and becoming an overnight celebrity (it’s horrible by the way, I hate attention)
Honestly, at this point, my life was more like a novel than the actual novel I’d written (for some reason I could imagine Agent George remarking about some kind of understatement)
“It was done… except for the editing and epilogue. And I hadn’t gotten a book cover from you, despite sending most of the book to you…” I glared at John and he really looked embarrassed at this point, as he patted my shoulder.
“I… I had a lot of projects and well… then the Dungeon… I had some of it done, the fine touches will be done soon, and then we can get you a publisher and editor. And with your new fame, it will be easy for you to get a publisher compared to some random nineteen years old with no previous works.”
…I could swear I heard Agent George laughing about something…
“Alright, alright… the final chapter was going to be a very short one after all, and an editor usually comes with a publisher, so yeah, it’s basically done… what did you think about it, by the way?” I asked as John blinked, before cupping his chin in a thoughtful gesture.
“It was good, and I say this with no bias as your friend. Someone as young as we are rarely makes a book that good. The quality isn’t on the level of best seller of all time, but for a new writer, it was excellent.” He then raised a finger with a smirk.
“One good point about Aegis was the characters and how relatable they are. The Main Character was very different from the standard Main Character in that he wasn’t the strongest or most important person in the book. He was special, yeah, but he wasn’t the best.” I blinked at his words.
“What I’m trying to say is, unlike most books where the Main Character happens to always be the one to fight the big bad guy, and go through some miracle upgrade in the middle of the fight to win, your Main Character, Jake, was realistic, had to train and practice to achieve his strengths, and even then he had no way of beating people with greater power or decades more experience than him. The only part that made him seem like that was the first chapter’s fight against that Aztec God, but that was explained by the mechanics of the universe in your book.”
Wow, he really did pay attention to my book if he was saying that… I had expected just an ‘it was good’ and nothing more.
“Lots of Mythological references too, due to the nature of the book. I’m sure it will sell brilliantly.” I smiled at that and nodded… then I realized I kind of wanted coffee.
“Thanks man. I’m going to go raid the kitchen for some coffee.” I said as John nodded, and I heard him mumbling about how to design my book cover. I’d pay him back, obviously, but still, it’s good having friends who can cover your shortcomings.
…My friends… I haven’t actually had any meaningful discussions or simple ‘chill’ time with any of them in a while… might as well mess with all of them, except John of course, he had to finish my book cover and I wouldn’t disturb.
Huh… who should I mess with first…
I heard Ed Sheeran- Photograph coming from the kitchen and my decision was made as I entered to see Alice listening to the music, sitting on her phone.
She looked up as I entered, tilted her head, and continued with her phone as I put on the kettle, looking at her for a moment… then I waited… and waited…
“Okay, what is it Arthur?” jackpot, starring at someone was always annoying and it got attention quickly.
“I’m wondering what you’re doing on your phone.” I said, and she blinked at my simple response, having expected something else apparently.
“Oh… I’m on Facebook… well, I was for a bit, but I’m actually reading that book of yours.” Oh? Well, I had sent it to all my teammates, and it was a fairly large book, I finished prepping my cup of coffee for when the water was done boiling and sat down opposite Alice and tilted my head.
“You know, I was just talking to John about that… How far along are you with reading it by the way?” I was actually pretty embarrassed by people reading my work, but getting views on the book was nice.
“I’m at the scene where Edgar is getting chewed out for not fighting during the Tiamat incident… hey, I know it’s a spoiler, but why doesn’t he fight? Because the book is from Jake’s perspective, I haven’t quite gotten the idea…” She said, and I heard the kettle finish.
I continued making my cup of coffee even as I listened to her continue with her contemplations on one of the deeper and more important characters in my book.
“I mean, Edgar seems like a lazy character, just by your description of what he wears and how he keeps leaving his jobs, but he is also hyped out as one, if not the strongest character to ever appear in the book. So why doesn’t he fight?” she asked as I took a sip of my coffee… it was slightly sweet, but I always got the temperature right. I was good at that.
“Well, seeing as you want the spoiler, Edgar is the strongest demigod, and is famous across the world as the protector against the gods who are trying to kill humanity. The spoiler should be simple enough to understand if I ask this question… How would gods be created? Or to be exact, how would a mortal or a semi-mortal being achieve full godhood?”
I didn’t have to say anymore, Alice was smart… she thought about it for a bit, then widened her eyes and looked to me for confirmation as she voiced her opinion.
“Wait, so to become a God, one would need the faith of all of humanity, belief, right? So Edgar already has a huge amount of belief from the entire world, plus being a Demigod already, he’s becoming a God?” she asked and I nodded with a smile as I sipped my coffee, noting that A Team was playing.
“Yeah… it was a random thought, but the leader of Aegis, the defenders of humanity who fights against gods, becoming a god himself seemed twisted in irony. Becoming a god is obviously bad news though, as he’d forget all mortal memories to an extent and would change. Also, like other gods, his presence would in some way harm the world.” I explained, finishing my cup and placing it in the basin as I looked up.
“Also, Edgar’s fighting style involves sealing divine power and stealing it for himself, stealing divine power by killing gods is not helping his case… from that area where you are in… I think about two arcs later, they reveal the whole thing to Jake.” I explained as Alice nodded, and then went back to reading and I smiled.
Alright, the plan of connecting with my team once more was working to an extent, one down, and three to go… Michael, Michael would be next.
I looked around for him, and was quick to find him in the lounge. We all agreed to fund a bit towards what was in the lounge, namely a gaming suite with the latest consoles, a massive flat-screen television, surround sound, a pool table in the corner too.
No one played when Michael was busy with the table though. Playing an archer/sniper in a game involving accuracy was retarded.
Michael was currently sitting on Call of Duty WW2 (The latest variation of the game, one of the best ones in my opinion, though Modern Warfare three was a favourite)
“Hey man, pass a controller.” I sat down without much fare and was handed a controller (I noted it to be a Play-Station 4 controller… I could play well with any controller really, so it wasn’t an issue beyond knowing which button was to shoot.)
Michael was quick to put it on multiplayer and we looked at each other… “Versus.” He said and I responded in turn with- “Two versus ten.” He glared at me for a moment… then we compromised.
“Five versus five, four bots each, first to one hundred, best of three, we’ll use random maps.” It was a quick alternative, and we both agreed to the terms, and we began our gaming marathon.
Michael was scary good at first person shooters (on the opposite end, John was about as good as Michael when it came to third person shooters) and I honestly should have lost a lot more if it came to just pure skill…
But stats have an effect in lots of different parts of life, for instance, reaction speed and Dexterity. The Dexterity boosting skill was literally ‘Quick Reflexes’. So that evened the game, despite Michael’s already insane reflexes.
Plus, Michael was good at outside of the box thinking in games like this, he had a very flexible play style, but that also meant he was weak to certain things occasionally.
I preferred my rapid fire submachine guns, while Michael preferred slow shooting assault rifles and sniper rifles, but with the bots, the tide turned a bit as both of us got extra targets (we didn’t think of bots as opponents but as targets)
In the end, I lost just barely in the third round, after winning in the second and Michael having won the first round. I wasn’t too annoyed even if I walked away with Michael laughing saying that me having no expression was funnier than if I was pouting. I don’t pout luckily… I don’t.
That done, I moved over to the garage where I knew Matt would be, either tuning up his car, or just sitting around watching something on his phone. As I stepped into the garage and heard something about a ‘Shinpachi’ I knew him to be watching one of, if not the most famous parody anime in existence, Gintama.
“Damn, been a while since I watched that… what episode is that?” I asked as Matt laughed at something that was said (I didn’t understand Japanese to be able to know what was said) as he pointed at the phone he held in his hand.
“The one where they dress up as ninjas… it sure is damn funny man.” I tried to remember… oh, yeah, I got that, I remember…
“Haemorrhoids jump ninja is in there right… Zenzou I think? That guy’s hilarious too, especially the episode where that badminton guy tried to get a ninja license. With a C-class license you get a small frog.” Matt got the joke and grinned.
“B would get you a bigger frog I think, and A-class was a Kyuubi… the Naruto references were insane there.” I agreed with his opinion, even as he let me see the episode he was talking about.
“Nah, my three favourite episodes… would be the one with the Neo Jet Armstrong Cyclone Cannon, aka the snow sculpture that looks suspiciously like something adult rated… the episode with the bee-hives and how the queens die due to Xbox, and Play-stations, and the Wii was too small to kill the last… and finally the episode where they try to teach history to that kid in the red light district, and it ended up sounding like some futuristic planet of the apes vibe.”
We both laughed at some of the parts I mentioned though Matt stated that he thought the Bahamut snot dragon was a hilarious episode that deserved mention, as well as the episodes where everyone had the gender’s changed. I agreed, those were funny too, especially the Bahamut one.
Seriously… that snot was alive, and everything… they should have played that song at the end, it was only just a dream. It would have made it even funnier.
We talked about the anime more, and I watched an episode with Matt before he decided to work on his car, and I left him to his business (I understood, I mean, no one touches my bike without my permission and trying to tune it? Well I’d be very angry then… very.)
After that, I would visit Emilia… I didn’t know where she was though… She had mentioned that she liked sitting on the roof occasionally though, so I assumed she was there… before I went out though, I got myself a coat and got one for her as well, just in case…
When I got there, lo and behold she really didn’t have a coat. I sighed and placed it around her shoulders as she sat and looked at the sky, she wasn’t surprised by my presence (at this point none of us could sneak up on another without noticing it, not even John who could use Mind Magic)
“Thanks…” she said as I sighed, before I sat down next to her, looking up at the sky… the stars weren’t that bright, and I frowned.
When I was younger my family had occasionally gone camping. During those moments, I had seen the stars and I was firm in my belief that the stars weren’t as beautiful as they were in nature than they were in the city, because the lights of the city competed with them.
“You’re welcome, but bring a jacket or something. Even if we heal faster and are more resistant to temperature changes, it’s still necessary.” I said with a frown, not daring to look at Emilia in the face.
We were alone on the roof, and very close to each other. I wasn’t completely blind to the fact that Emilia liked me in some fashion, but the problem was me… I didn’t know how to deal with that knowledge…
Made it worse due to her looks… don’t get me wrong, I mean, both of the girls on our team were beautiful, but Alice didn’t like me in that way, and I thought of her as family.
“I’ll keep that in mind if you promise to come watch the stars with me again.” I heard her words and looked at the array of stars. I knew no astronomy, and I could barely find Orion and his belt, that was it.
“Sure. I wouldn’t mind… it’s nice up here.” I said, noting that at this time of the night, the city was still wide awake. Thank you, parents, for leaving me in the city that never sleeps. Nonetheless, it was much quieter than the day and the air was cool and comfortable with my jacket on.
“…Arthur, why do we need to fight?” Emilia asked me and I blinked… then I sighed, making sure not to put her into my vision. I couldn’t look straight at her with this question.
“…I’ll be honest, I don’t know why you all follow me into that place… I originally went because I wanted revenge, I wanted to kill Chronos and destroy him… now...” I found it in me to look at Emilia, seeing her ocean blue eyes meeting my own as I fought back my instinctual need to avoid eye-contact with any human being.
“Now I still want that… but I just want to keep going into the Dungeon because it keeps us together.” I said, and she widened her eyes at my words and I looked back to the sky, the stars seemed a bit brighter, or was it my imagination?
“I’ll be honest, before the Dungeon, I was just going through life without any real purpose. I would become a Mechanical Engineer, design parts and tools, possibly operate and fix machinery, even fixing cars would be fine even if that wasn’t my original goal.” I said, holding a hand to eye level as I clenched it.
“I had friends, and we just… existed honestly. John had a good future as a prospective art student, but honestly speaking art is a difficult area to make huge amounts of money in.” I explained, before moving onto my other friends.
“Matt was studying something involving electrical engineering but he was quiet about that, he was much happier with his cars, but that was it, I honestly rarely spoke to him much beyond sharing Anime and occasionally playing Call of Duty.” I looked back to Emilia, and she looked sad… I wonder why?
“Alice wasn’t even sure what she wanted to do, and she and Michael both couldn’t go to study further due to lacking money…” I then reached out to her, and she didn’t flinch away as I stroked her cheek.
“And you… you looked so sad when we first started College together. You spoke to me, and when I accepted you, you smiled so brightly… but what kind of life have you lived to make someone you barely know mean that much to you?” I asked, and as she was about to answer, I cut her off.
“I don’t need to know, and you don’t need to explain to me right now… that can be for another time… but… I’m glad we, all of us, are together right now. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life since we started going to the Dungeon together. And if becoming stronger is necessary to stay together, than I want to be the strongest.” I explained, even as Emilia finally reached out and hugged me… she still looked so sad…then I realized I was crying… why was I…
“Arthur… it’s okay. It’s okay to be thankful for the good things. Even if something bad was the cause of the good thing, it’s fine to be thankful for the good, and dislike the bad.” I realized why when she spoke… I…
I felt guilty. I felt guilty for being happy about the Dungeon, when it was a sign of death, the death of my parents and youngest sibling… and yet, the Dungeon was what was causing me to live in the happiest (and most stressful) time of my life…
We just sat like that for a while, and I had stopped crying a while ago as I looked to her, an awkward smile on my face even as she looked at me.
“I must be messed up huh?” she looked at me with a sheepish smile and tilted her head.
“I don’t think I can judge… I just think I should be there for when you get like that.” I nodded with a smile… how embarrassing though… this was the second time I’ve cried in front of a girl I liked… that was embarrassing…
“Ah, this is a true sign of power…” I heard another voice and froze as Emilia and I both turned to see John staring at the stars… how long…
“Yes, the night sky is beautiful. It reminds me of the old world. Much black and so little white.” I blinked at his words… then realized who said them and I stood before shouting at him and he ran back inside while I chased, Emilia laughing behind me even as I went inside. John hadn’t seen it, but Emilia had.
I had smiled when I stood. I had good, no, the best friends. Even if they occasionally did strange things like slide down handrails, interrupt private moments, prank people, speak multiple languages at once as a joke or even throwing bladed weaponry at pieces of wood to get over their girlfriends dumping them.
Yes… there were a lot of interpretations of power… some might believe that strength was power, or political connections were power…
Me? I believed that having the support of my friends was a power unto itself. And I was in the pursuit of power.