Chapter 2

Okay. Here we go.

My name’s Nathaelle Calcendre. At 22 I was a University student, until I wasn’t anymore.

Isekai? Summoned to another world? Be a hero to save the world?

Eh. Yes.

In all honesty, I had been pretty elated at first. Me, a hero? Hell yes!

But I wasn’t the only one. We were five, all summoned together. Some are summoned with their family, or their close friends.

I was summoned alongside the four people that were beating me up at the time.

Nice, right?

It didn’t stop there.

Three of them got summoned as humans, one as an elf.

I was summoned as a Demi-human, half-human, half-monster. A Demi-mimic more specifically, one of the most hated monsters.

At the start, though, nobody seemed to care that much. It was all about training, duties, rewards, how we had to purify the five great dungeons to prevent the apocalypse.

All was well, for a time. We trained together, the other four weren’t so bad, the nobles and other influential people were trying to tangle us in their web of politics, but the priests and mage that summoned us protected us from all of that.

Then came the expedition to the abyss, the Antitower, one of the five great dungeons.

Just for training, of course. None of us were ready to tackle the deep floor, even the middle floors were out of the question at that time.

There I was killed. Of course, as one of the five heroes, I couldn’t truly die. All five of us had an ability that would revive us after a death timer passed, losing some stats and levels.

So, to avoid any problem, they threw me to the deepest floor of the Antitower, way beyond the hundredth floor, beyond what any human ever explored, a depth only reached by the previous generation of heroes and their companions, if even at all.

And I died again, and again, and again, losing my levels, losing my stats, slowly fading away as my intelligence dwindled, as my determination atrophied.

I tried to survive at first, did all I could to avoid dying, lamenting when it happened, screaming at Death, crying, begging her to do something, but as my body withered, my strength and agility disappearing, I slowly lost the will to survive.

Life was pain, death was relief.

For a time, I don’t know how long, I was just rolled around, my body never totally destroyed ‘thanks’ to my blessing as a hero. I died and woke up in an unknown place, then quickly died again. Of course, when you also factored in the blur, the haze surrounding my weakened mind, you could understand how I felt.

Like a leaf swept away by a storm.

Then, little by little, my skills started to build up. Resistance skills first, then physical and mental fortification skills. The resistance skills gave me more time to be alive, and this time turned into experience points for my fortification skills.

It turned out that, when you have 1 in every stat, even just trying to think straight is hard enough to be considered as good experience to upgrade your mental fortification skill.

That was also true for all the other skills. Simply moving a finger trained strength, trying to move at a normal pace trained agility, etc…

***

Death by immolation - oh, I maxed Fire Resistance on that one -, death by drowning - really uncool -, death by poisoned water - AGAIN -, death by digestion - I stopped to count that one -, death by loss of blood, by beheading, by dismembering - It took longer than you think, because of all my skills -, by… well, you get the gist of it.

I die, I meet Samsara-chan, who would kill me if she knew I called her that, I take a bath, maybe we read something together, or we play a game, or we sleep cozily, and then it’s back here.

It’s not all bad, I guess. Not everyone has a place to come back to, and a nice girl to welcome you, even if that place is the afterlife and the girl keeps changing her appearance to her whims because she’s an anthropomorphic representation of Death.

And then, at times, the dungeon, Antitower, could be pretty beautiful and peaceful. When they didn’t turn out to be disguised monsters, the fruits here were exceptionally sweet and savory, and since I was a Demi-mimic, monster meat was quite good to eat, the rare times I found dead carcasses.

There were also more than a few places to gaze at in amazement, with the Antitower itself, for starters, a giant pit with rings of terraces on each floor of the dungeon, each with a different ecosystem that blended with the top and bottom floor to which they were connected by cliffs.

Waterfalls could be seen, giant trees and magnificent rock formations protruding from the walls. Above and under, floating islands dotted the sky, and clouds would roam at all levels.

Happiness is found during fleeting moments, mine were just a lot more fleeting than most, and also a lot more punctuated by my death, but that was something I was pretty sure was unique to me.

And so between the pain and the death, there was still happiness and amazement.

I thought that would keep going on forever and, by that time, I was at peace with the idea.

Fortunately, on that one, I was a fool.

***

I had revived for some time already, and was wandering through a floor that was very calm.

It looked like a meadow, with a very high ceiling and a particularly open area. Instead of the normal ring of alien greenery surrounding the pit, which then turned into rooms and corridors of a style fitting for said floor, this one was completely open from the pit to the outer edge of the dungeon, where a massive wall of rough rocks marked the end of its area of influence.

It was still massive enough that, in the middle, I could neither see the outer edge nor the pit, which gave me a new sense of how large this dungeon was.

The pit itself was most likely at least fifty km across, and from what I saw of this meadow, the dungeon was at least thrice that large overall, with another fifty km on each side of the circle for a total radius of one hundred and fifty km.

This dungeon was bigger than my home country back on earth.

In fact, if you added the total surface of each floor, with 100 floors postulated, it meant that this dungeon had one sixth of the US surface area, and was at least 10 km deep.

Damn.

More importantly, as I said before, this floor was relatively peaceful, with only low-level monsters roaming around, for some reason.

It was suspicious but it’s not like I had to worry. Worst case, I died.

No biggies.

Bind. I used a simple spell to stop the creature in front of me, a goblin. With Quick Cast and Chant Revocation maxed, I could just wave my hand and think of the spell, and it would appear.

But still, so much mana for a simple bind, even with Mana Efficiency, Spell Optimisation and Precision Cast…

My legendary class, Enchanter, was a support/control hybrid class, which looked great on paper, until you realized the mana cost of even the tiniest spell was preposterous, the cast time horribly slow and the cooldown insanely long.

I mean, yes, I only had 1 point in Intelligence, but I still had Mana Capacity and Mana Storage maxed! Capacity was a multiplier on my base mana pool, which wasn’t that big but still correct thanks to Legendary Soul, which boosted that 1 point of intelligence a hundredfold, giving me the mana of a level twenty-five mage, and Storage was a flat bonus, so I should have been sitting around a level thirty or thirty-five mage in term of mana capacity, yet this bind still took 3% of my total mana pool!

I had used Precision Cast to only create a single bind and entangle it around the legs of the goblin, minimizing the mana cost, yet it still cost that much to cast.

What a shitty class.

I had so much hope for it at the start. After all, I loved support classes! You had a ton of impact without being exposed too much or having the stress of killing the enemy, and you kept your allies alive and gave them opportunities to shine!

Back when I was still in the Hero Party, I had been around level fifty, yet even at the time I could only use spells like minor heal and bind, while my fellow heroes would cast firestorms or cut an ogre in two with one slash of their sword.

No wonder nobody saved me when I was betrayed.

Demi-monster, trash class and no people to support me.

I wanted to vent my anger on something, anything, but I knew I couldn’t.

Oh, I would have loved to beat that goblin until it died but…

I didn’t tell you the worse part about my class.

I couldn’t inflict damage at all. Any damage spell I would cast would produce 0 damage, and I couldn’t equip any weapon.

I couldn’t even take a knife in hand, nor cut food by myself.

The me in the past would have screamed and trashed about how unfair that was, but the present me… I was at peace with it.

There was no reason for me to kill anything, anyway, I didn’t want to level up just to feel that power exit me the next time I died.

Coming to peace with those thoughts, I kept wandering the dungeon meadow, searching for something to eat, waiting for the catch to appear.

***

I could hear the sound of people running. Curious, I scaled a tree and blended with the trunk.

Half-mimic, remember? I can change my body to take the color, texture and some properties of any material I knew.

I felt tiny claws and suction cups appear on my back, anchoring me to the tree as I looked down to see what the fuss was about.

Truesight. Tremor Sense. Thermal Vision. Manasight. Aura Revelation. Tracker’s gaze. I called all my detection skills forth and felt my mind buckle under the load for a second, before I adapted.

I didn’t keep them on all the time because it was tiring and made me react slower. Too much info isn’t good for you.

Multiple individuals, one carrying another, chased by twelve others. I directly saw what was approaching. All fourteen are tiny, with the first two without much mana and weak auras I don’t recognize, the other twelves are clearly hobgoblins.

I waited a bit more and, finally, I saw the individuals I was tracking appear at the turn of a nearby hill, and I was startled.

Tenfold Mind, Thought Acceleration. I called for two other skills I didn’t use most of the time. I had quite the embarrassing moment in the dungeon some time ago when I unlocked twofold minds, talking to myself and all but, in the end, I switched the skill off. I didn’t need to talk to ten other copies of myself.

I didn’t use thought acceleration most of the time because, well, it just made me feel like I had to wait longer before I died, and either I didn’t need it because the thing threatening me was too weak, or because it was too strong.

What the fuck is happening?

Are we sure that Truesight is working properly?

It is, six, seven and I just triple-checked.

So those two are really…

And they were ‘really…’ , indeed.

Really just two kids, no older than twelve, a girl carrying a boy, both with cat ears on their head and a cat tail waging behind them, although the boy’s one was hanging limply at the back of his sister

Kids.

Catfolks.

What are they doing here?

They may have brought here, like us.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Dubious, we’re too deep.

What about a trap?

A trap? A teleportation one?

That would make sense. They’re naked after all.

Teleportation traps are known to strip you of your equipment.

But they look too young to be here.

Identify, I targeted them both, taking a quick glance at their profile.

* Lana Denian level 10 Commoner Catfolk age 12

* Kael Denian level 10 Commoner Catfolk age 12

I scrolled through the rest of their profile, letting my other minds take care of processing the info.

Conclusion.

They’re really just simple catfolks.

They’re too low-level for their age.

Their skill list is too short.

It’s short but look at them!

Why are their agility, strength and constitution Skills so high?

They have both fortification and growth skills, too!

And their stats!

Kids their age shouldn’t have a few specialized skills like that.

Nor those kinds of stats.

Wait, they’re slaves.

Oh yes, I missed that.

Their slave collar must have been unequipped by the trap.

Slave Collars are cursed items, it’s difficult to unequip them.

Sheesh, those teleportation traps really are something.

Enough digression on their status. I, the main mind, called.

We need to take a decision now. Even with Thought Acceleration our time is not infinite, and I don’t want to accelerate further.

Yeah.

Well, they’re lucky to be alive, the hobs’ don’t have any ranged weapons.

Nor magic. Another mind called after she checked the monsters’ status.

Do we really want to take care of those kids?

I’m not sure we could, anyway, we’re not even able to keep ourselves alive.

And for what anyway.

It could be entertaining.

A change of pace?

Why not?

What a hassle though.

They’re too low-level.

Hey, original mind?

Yes? I answered. It was never a good sign when a fold-mind called me like that.

Mind looking into that for me?

I felt a memory resurface in my mind.

Okay.

***

“Look look! Brother!” He called to me, showing me how well he scored on his last test.

“This is so much fun!” He said, as I helped him swim in the pool.

“Thank you big bro!” He exclaimed as I bought him his preferred food.

“He’s happy to see you. You’ve worked a lot lately.” My mom said as we looked at him running around in the house.

“This movie is so cool!” He told me with a sweet smile.

I loved sharing things with him, taking care of him, giving him what I didn’t have when he was my age.

My little brother.

Sweet, sweet little brother, cute and smiling.

***

…

Main?

Main, you’re there?

What did you sho-

Engage main battle protocol.

Okay let's go!

Future Extrapolation, Magic Amp, Mana overflow, Power overwhelming, Battle Mind, link and engage. My multi-fold minds said, calling forth my battle skills.

They can’t fight like that.

Agreed.

Checking Inventory for adapted items to remote-equip them.

It’ll cost a lot of mana.

We’ll budget around that.

Mana Overflow will give us the leeway needed.

Be careful with Power Overwhelming, I’m not sure how long we can keep that up.

But we need the mana regen.

Start casting.

Mind seven to ten ramping Thought Acceleration to the max.

Copy.

Let’s go.

We’ve got this.

Rescue time!

Be careful to no wear yourself too much.

Six is in charge of coordination.

Aren’t we overreacting?

It’s better to go too strong than too weak.

It doesn’t cost us anything, anyway.

Opening Inventory.

From a hole opening in the fabric of existence, a thing looking like those old sci-fi wormholes, seven ropes shot forward, zeroing in on those hobgoblins so fast they couldn’t react to them before they were entangled.

Applying Bind to those ropes.

The spell was quickly cast seven times, turning the simple ropes into vessels for the spell.

Their mana conductivity is shit.

It’s still more efficient than casting Bind without a vessel.

Only because of our maxed Imbue, though.

The girl ran for a few more seconds before she dared take a look behind her, suspicious of the different noises the hobs’ were making, and her eyes turned round when she saw the restrained monsters.

We need to make contact.

Looking like that? They’ll never trust us.

There’s a quick fix, though.

Let’s adapt our appearance.

We need something welcoming.

And as the least suspect possible.

Let’s go for a woman.

A mother figure?

Yes, at least looking old enough to be dependable.

And a catfolk too.

Good idea.

Maybe mimic the color pattern of those two?

Hum, I’m not sure how that would do, maybe their pattern is their own.

It could be strange to have the same.

Then let’s go for black.

Yup.

Black is cool.

What about red hair?

A ponytail?

No, let it flow on our back.

Long enough to touch the middle of our back.

Give it enough volume.

Let’s go for a tall frame, 1.80m

Big enough to appear imposing but not too big.

Large breasts and hips.

We want to give a motherly vibe, so don’t overdo it.

I still want to be sexy, though.

Be careful about the eyes.

We need a great smile, too!

As part of my minds were working on designing my appearance, another group was finishing the job of restraining the hobgoblins, the ropes wrapping around their hands and feet, an end stuffed in their mouth.

The young catgirl, her orange tabby-coated ears wildly flickering just like her gaze, didn’t take more than one or two seconds to see that she had the opportunity to flee, and to find an escape route.

However, when she turned around to grab said opportunity, someone was waiting for her.

I’m pretty satisfied with the result.

Humu humu! It’s quite good!

You can nearly feel the aura of Ara Ara~~ gushing from us.

Back to standby, don’t clutter my mind.

Copy!

I didn’t turn off the manyfold mind skill yet because I needed them to keep restraining the monsters, but all that chatter in my mind was tiresome.

The young catgirl, Lana, stopped dead in her tracks, fear blooming on her face.

“Do you want to survive,” I asked her calmly, my gaze locked with hers.

Oh come on! Can’t you be warmer or something? A fold-mind berated me.

I simply pushed him back with the rest of them, annoyed.

“W-what?” The girl finally answered. Her voice was a bit deeper than I had expected. There was strength in it.

“Do you want to survive?” I asked her again. “Do you want your brother to survive?” I added. Maybe it would help drive my point home.

It still took her a handful of seconds to process what was happening, though.

From her remaining stamina, I could see she had been running for a long time, and my appearance and actions had been quite sudden, so I didn’t rush her.

“Y-yes!” She finally answered, and I nodded.

“Then you can’t flee this battle.” My voice was really soft and warm, like honey or something. The manyfold minds did a great job.

Thanks!

“W-what?” She answered, a bit slow to follow.

“If you want to survive this place, you can’t flee this battle.” I said again, waving my hand.

Her brother started levitating and she raised her head, panicking, but I snatched him before she could react.

“I will keep him safe, as he would hinder you. Don’t worry about him, he won’t be harmed.”

“N-no! Give him back!” She said, jumping at me.

However I quickly struck her chest, my hand moving like a viper. “I said it, you can’t flee from this challenge. He’s safe, and you can fight.” My red hair flew in the wind as I pushed her back, unharmed.

She has quite the gale, attacking us while naked.

It’s a true life or death situation, she doesn’t care.

Too much adrenaline.

SHUT UP!

Urgh, that’s why I kept that skill under wrap.

Equip her now, while I’m still touching her. I don’t want to waste mana.

Copy.

For an untrained external eye, she would have appeared to be naked one second, then fully equipped the next but, for my mind, under the effect of thought acceleration, I was able to see the full process.

Manaweaved underwear went first, covering her ‘modesty’ as some would call it and her eight budding breasts, resistant enough to be worn during battle, and a shirt and pants of the same material followed suit.

Directly after, a suit of cloth armor started to unfold. White and gold with metal reinforcement, it looked made for a battle priest.

It quickly unfolded and wrapped around her, making her look a lot fancier than before, even if her dirtied face still stuck out like a sore thumb.

The whole set was completed by a pair of rings, an amulet, enchanted bracers, even a fucking magical hairpin that wrapped and anchored her hair into a ponytail, to avoid it getting in her way.

It wasn’t because I liked ponytails that she had one, I swear.

Ahum.

Anyway.

It was the only stuff that her level, stats, class and, in a less system-y way, her height would let her wear.

Of course, her stats skyrocketed instantly. The rings were low-level physical and spiritual enhancers that even she could use, but they were still rare and powerful dungeon loot with low requirements, fit for newbies, and the amulet raised her defense across the board.

The hairpin was also important, a unique green jade drop that would raise her speed even more, and speed was power, as bullets and railguns projectiles showed us.

Sadly the armor affixes and suffixes mostly boosted holy magic proficiency, but it was already worth wearing simply for the protection it brought.

I couldn’t use any of those since my stats were too low to start with, but it didn’t mean I wouldn’t horde such items when I found them. My inventory was pretty fat now anyway.

Finaly, I took out the one thing I couldn’t equip myself, the very thing I needed the most yet was unable to use.

A weapon.

And, in this particular case, a sword.

In very particular, the only sword she could use right now.

You see, catalyzers such as weapons and staff have the highest requirement of all pieces of equipment, so I was pretty limited here.

The sword I pulled out of my storage was black, from blade to pommel, with two lines of gold underlining the central gullet of the blade before turning into the hilt, then seemed to flow into the black handle.

It was also fucking massive, way too large compared to a realistic sword, and a strange ravenous aura surrounded it.

The Fallen Sword, Terrenacht.

* Terrenacth, Fallen Sword.

After a long and arduous battle against a major demon, the hero wielding this blade sacrificed her life to finally kill the demon.

The blade was corrupted in the process.

Ravenous Curse: The bearer of this sword can’t unequip it, nor can the bearer use any other weapon.

The blade will eat a large part of the XP gained from any kill made with it, but will transfer shards of the killed entity’s skill to the user.

Effect: - 60% XP gained from kills.

10% chance to transfer 2-30% of any skill’s advancement from the killed to the user.

Can’t be unequipped.

Can’t equip other weapons.

The XP loss was daunting, honestly, but the skill absorption was insanely powerful, and it was the only weapon that this girl could equip right now, anyway.

Cursed Items had no prerequisites, unlike their normal counterparts.

Back in normal time, the catgirl fell on her feet, recovering quickly while looking surprised, checking her whole body and touching her hair to explore the equipment I gave her.

Sword in hand, unaffected by the curse since I couldn’t equip any weapons, I was looking at her calmly.

“This is Terrenacht, your sword. Take it and kill them.” I simply said, pointing at the hobs’ I was purposely freeing slowly.

Manipulative? As much as a teacher or a parent teaching their kids what to do and what to avoid to stay alive.

She started reaching for the sword, but I stopped her.

“This is no mere sword, it is cursed. Once you take it, you will be bound to it. But if you don’t, you won’t be able to kill them, and you will forever be weak, and by ‘forever’, I mean only the handful of hours you’ll be able to survive if you don’t choose to fight.” I explained.

“This is a Great Dungeon. You fight or you die, you and your brother alike.” I may have been a bit of a cold fish at the time, a bit rough, but it was my first interaction with a real sapient being since I fell here, and I was pretty rusty.

And maybe a bit uncaring, too.

She hesitated a bit, looking at her floating brother and the hobgoblins starting to free themselves, then locked gaze with me and, without looking at the sword, grabbed its hilt.

A jolt went through her body and she fell on her knee, screaming for a second before she forcefully closed her mouth, strain visible in her eyes.

Support, now!

Hay hay!

I started multicasting an array of healing, support and fortifying skills on the lass to help her through the shock of being bound to a cursed item, and to strengthen her in the coming battle.

“Leave the support to me.” I nodded at her and she nodded back as she rose to her feet, soothed by my spells.