Chapter 6

In the end she only suffered for two hours, the lowest time I had announced her, then fell asleep.

Both her body and mind had gone through intense pain and suffering, awake all along, and now she needed time and sleep to recover.

We’re also getting pretty busted here, Main.

I was getting tired myself. Death didn’t count as sleep, which really felt like a joke, so I actually had been accumulating a lot of exhaustion since the last time I slept for real.

However, I couldn’t get myself to sleep. I had to protect the kids, for starters, and besides, sleeping was a dangerous thing to do in any dungeon, even more in the Antitower.

Luckily Kael started waking up, taking my mind away from the problem for now.

We’re really just putting them to sleep one after the other.

Poor kids.

Well, they found us so I don’t think they’re really that unlucky.

I didn’t pay attention to my manyfold minds’ banter, choosing to help Kael wake up instead.

“Hello. How do you feel?”

Feels like a déjà-vu.

I’m afraid we’re going to ask them that question quite often.

“...Strange? Better. I feel lighter, as if my breathing was easier.” He looked around. “Everything looks a lot more clear, too.” He added, surprised.

Hum. Did he level up that much? I asked the mind in charge of analysis.

Not exactly. She answered.

Take a look. She pushed Kael’s status window toward me.

I looked at it and was slightly taken aback.

There’s this kind of class and title? I said, surprised.

* Kael Denian

* Race: Catfolk

* Age: 12

* Classes: Commoner 17; Allfolks Betrayer 6

* Titles: Hero Slayer

Allfolks Betrayer: A cursed class given to one that betrayed all the Folks of this world, a sinner who will forever be disgraced in the eyes of everything that is Beautiful, Good and Just.

Curse of the Betrayer:

Diminish the growth of all stats and skills based on the Allfolks Betrayer class level.

Oh god that’s bad.

Did I just fuck up Kael’s future?

Main, look at the title. Analysis mind said.

Hero Slayer I - (1/2): A title given to one bold enough to kill any of the wretched heroes, one willing to bear curses and disdain to gain power and fulfill their ambition.

All following bonuses scale based on the Allfolks Betrayer class level and Hero Slayer title rank:

Buff the growth of all stats and skills.

Empower all beneficial effects of curses for the user.

Empower all Evil-aligned Skills and Spell.

Bonus Damage and Resistance against the Holy Element.

Looking into the formulas of both the title and class and doing some quick calculations using tenfold minds and future extrapolation, I realized that the title completely nullified the curse from the class and, beyond that, even gave an actual bonus. The title more than counterbalanced the class.

This is odd.

Why is there a title like that?

It’s clearly, specifically, made to counteract the class.

…Feels like someone messed with the system here.

There were clearly two wills at play here, one that wanted to punish killing a hero, and another one wanting to reward it.

But only the Gods and the Chtonians can edit the system…

This smelled like foul play, but right now I couldn’t do anything about it. The best I could do was ask Samsara the next time we met.

Death was the most powerful Chtonians, if anyone knew anything about this it would be her.

Anyway, that’s why he’s feeling so good.

Yeah, his stat increases have been nerfed by the class but…

Well, the title more than compensated for that.

He has grown more than expected, that’s for sure.

“Okay, I’ve taken a look at your status,” I said to Kael.

“What, already?” He exclaimed, surprised. Everything went pretty fast in my head, after all, so only a second or two had passed. “Wait no, you’ve got Identify?” He suddenly added, feeling even more shocked.

“Of course I have, and you’ll both have it too when I’m finished with you. Identify is crucial to gather info on your enemies. Knowing is half the battle, because otherwise you can’t react in a proper and timely manner.”

He… nodded slowly. “Of course, we learned that, but…” He frowned. “Isn’t Identify really hard to get? And just as hard to use?” He asked.

“My boy, you’re past the hundredth floor of a Great dungeon. Hard is the norm.”

He nodded slowly again, then a bit faster. “Yes, of course. I still haven’t wrapped my head around the mess we’re in, sorry.” He apologized while scratching his head, a wry smile on his face.

“I can’t really blame you, though. You’ve spent all your time in a cave since you arrived here, so reality hasn’t had the time nor the opportunity to sink in yet. It’ll come soon enough.”

“Y-yes.” He seemed rather unsure and changed subject. “Anyway, what do my stats look like right now?”

“Well for starter you’re reached level 17 as a commoner and got the stat growth that comes with it.”

A perfectly average normal human had 10 in every stat: Strength, Constitution, Agility, Charisma, Intelligence and Determination, but in this world the power average was a bit higher than on earth.

A level 20 - the normal level for a twenty-year-old - commoner would be overall 50% better than that baseline, on average a 15 in each stat, although personal peculiarities often pushed points into one or two specialized stat, which meant people with normal 10 in most stat and one or two stat at 20.

For reference, someone with 20 Str(ength) would be exactly twice as powerful as someone with 10 in Str.

I had only 1 point in each stat, but with all my skills I ended up sitting around 100 to 200 in the end. For example, my final-calculated strength right now was 153, which meant I was 15.3 times stronger than an average human back on Earth.

Not that it was useful to me in battle, but I guess I could open very hard jam jars.

“However, killing me triggered… something else.”

I explained how he got a cursed class but also received a title that counterbalanced it.

“So I’m cursed but it’s a good thing?” He finally asked, a bit confused.

“I can’t really say that curses are good things, because you never know what is waiting in ambush inside of them to fuck you up but, from what I see, yes.” I answered carefully.

“It’s dangerous to mess with curses but it’s too late for both of you anyway, and your lives have been forfeited at the very moment you stepped on this floor, so I don’t think you should care. Worst case, you die.” I added with an emotionless voice.

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He seemed to struggle for some time with what I just said. He still had hope to survive but also knew I was right.

The fear of death wasn’t something easy to shrug off.

“O-okay. I understand.” He finally said, biting his lips. He would keep struggling like that for some time, and there wasn’t anything I could do to help him.

“You understand, don’t you? If you’re bound to die down here, then at least give it your all, don’t let morality or fear stop you from grabbing strength and power. And maybe, just maybe, that’ll be enough to get us all out of here.”

He looked at me, stopped biting his lips and clenched his fist. “Yes.” He said with a sharp nod.

“Good.” I simply said to close the subject. “Now I’ll see if I can look into your available classes. You’ve killed me after all, there’s bound to be at least one combat class in your list.” I added, going on about something a bit more hopeful.

Getting a new class was always something pretty extraordinary. When it wasn’t a cursed class forcibly bestowed on you, that is.

“What? A new class? I know that Identify lets you see the Status Window of someone without using a Godstone, but I’m pretty sure you still need a Godstone to add, evolve or remove classes, no?” He said, surprised.

“Hum… well. There’s no one down here beside us, so I guess I can tell you, but you need to promise me you won’t talk about it with anyone else but your sister and me, yes?”

“Of course! I wouldn’t betray you!” He answered with zeal.

“Okay. You see, I was given privileges as a System Operator by… someone.” Samsara, more precisely, but I wasn’t going to talk about her just yet.

At one point she tried to help me by giving me those privileges, to see if I could remove my heroic class, to no avail, and I had been an Operator since then.

I asked her if she was going to be in trouble about that, since mortals weren’t supposed to mess with the system, but since I was a hero, had been in her presence enough, wouldn’t get any Admin privileges, and could only do what Godstones were already doing, it was fine. The other Chtonians and the Gods wouldn’t be able to argue with her anyway, not with a solid case like that.

“So now I have the same abilities as a Godstone, but at will.”

“T-that! Isn’t that amazing?! You can make people evolve and give them classes anytime you want!”

“So far it has been pretty useless, but now that you’re here I guess that’ll come in handy.”

“Yes! Please look at my classes!” He seemed quite eager, which I could understand.

I was still a gamer at heart, and was myself quite curious about what this young fellow would get.

* Opening management window.

Hollow contract detected. Starting Recovery…

But just as I had opened it, a pop-up appeared, the kind of pop-up you need to answer before you can interact with anything else in the program, that kind of annoying pop-up.

Surprised, one of my minds forcibly halted the progression of whatever operation was going on, using our Operator privilege.

Hollow contract?

Seems like they still have their curse of Enslavement.

They still have their contract?

Yes, but since they’ve been fully unequipped…

The contract doesn’t have an owner right now… Can we stop the recovery?

One of my minds tried to do that just as I asked about it, but the sole answer I got from the system was an error message.

Tss.

“Kael, it seems like right now I can’t interact with your Status. You’re still under a slave contract and each time I try to go into your management window the system tries and force me to make me your new owner, and I don’t have the tools to break that kind of curse so you’ll be stuck like that for now.” I said with annoyance.

“Oh.” He said, then tilted his head. “Well, just make me your slave then. It won’t change anything anyway, right?” He asked, and I was taken aback by the candor and simplicity of the argument.

Of course, what he said made sense, but still, I thought he would have wanted to be a free man by now, instead of becoming a slave again.

“Aren’t you… desponded at the idea of still being a slave?” I couldn’t stop myself and asked him.

“Well… yes, of course, but I mean, it’s not like our life is worth anything right now, no? You said that yourself. And I don’t think you’ll abuse us or anything, you’re not a sick noble who wants to rape us or such other things. You’re so much stronger than us, if you wanted to harm us you wouldn’t have waited, no?”

Using our own words against us…

Clever boy.

Well, what are you waiting for, Main?

I was still feeling restless at the idea of owning a slave but…

“Okay, but before I accept, I have one last thing to share with you and your sister, so let’s wait for her to wake up, okay?”

“Sure.” He answered simply with a slight nod.

***

It took another eight hours for Lana to wake up. In the meantime, Kael and I tested if he was finally able to eat some of my cooking, without much luck. He could eat up to ten spoons, way more than his sister, but it was still only a pittance compared to how hungry he was.

As such, I explained exactly what was going on with his sister and extended the same offer to him, which he readily accepted.

He wasn't less fearful of the pain than his sister was, nor was he bolder or anything, it's just that since Lana was already doing it he couldn't lag behind.

Well, he didn't say it like that but from how he reacted to the whole thing, and what he said, that's how I understood it.

Since he couldn't eat and was stuck with me like that until his sister woke up, he started asking questions about the dungeon.

As I had perused earlier, he was quite sharp and curious, and showed a real eagerness to learn new things.

I indulged him. After all, hadn’t I said earlier that 'knowing is half the battle'? Understanding what the dungeon was like, the traps, monsters and loots that it could produce, was invaluable for dungeon-diving, and let's just say that what we were slightly past the point of just ‘diving’.

He ended up falling asleep as we spoke, though. The stress, the strain of leveling up and of being here, wasn't something you could shrug off by gaining some stats and sleeping four hours.

I let him sleep as I thought alone, reinforcing our position little by little, by anchoring spells and remodeling the cave to be more homely.

By the time Lana woke up, the place felt more like a dwarf house than anything natural.

I had scrapped all the moss and drained all the water, closed the only way out with a heavy stone door, hung crystal lanterns all over the place and placed the twins on proper beds I had retrieved from some ruines-style floor.

There was also a table and three chairs, a luxury we could afford now that the floor was actually flat, and a heating crystal was nestled in a fireplace-like space I had carved in a wall.

It took me multiple hours to finish my work properly. For one, I wasn't a craftsman by a long shot, I never had the opportunity to learn or train, and even beyond that, I simply adjusted the speed at which I worked to match my mana regeneration, without using skills like Power Overwhelming and Mana Overflow to boost said regeneration. It was too costly to use those outside of battle and I had the time, anyway.

When Lana finally woke up, she blinked more than once at her changed surroundings.

"Where...?" She started asking, before spotting me sitting on a chair. "Where are we?"

"Still the same place. I remodeled the cave while you were both asleep." I explained with a very faint proud smile.

She nodded, blatantly disregarding how preposterous my claim was. I think I was starting to wear down her common sense.

"Why is my brother asleep now?" She worriedly asked, looking at Kael.

She didn’t even talk about the pain, about what she just went through. Her only concern had been her brother.

"Because he's tired. I haven't done anything this time. In fact, let’s wake him up right now. We were waiting for you to wake up and he fell asleep."

"Shouldn't we let him sleep then?" She said, concerned.

"No, if you start having different sleep cycles it'll be a headache for everyone."

"O-kay. Yes." She nodded and went to Kael's side, gently shaking him.

Soon enough the twins were both awake and sitting at the heavy square oak table I had taken from my Inventory, looking at me curiously.

"First, let me check something with you, Lana, if you will?"

She nodded and looked at me, waiting to see what I would do.

I reached for her management window and, sure enough, it was the same that had happened with her brother.

I then proceeded to explain to her what I already said to Kael, about the slave contract and all, and she basically answered me as Kael did; just make her my slave.

"I see you're both willing so let's cut to the chase; before I take you as my slave, there are one or two things you need to know, because you'll most likely get involved in my problems a lot more if I take you as my slaves than if you remained free from me."

Both nodded, waiting for me to get on with it.

"First and foremost, and maybe Kael is already aware of it, but I'm a Hero." I simply said.

Lana seemed to frown before her eyes opened wide and, looking at Kael, I could see the confusion for a second before he did a facial expression that would have been best translated by 'I’m a dumbass! How did I miss that?! It's written in my status that I killed a Hero, Duh!'

So he missed it.

Yeah, he missed it.

Not his fault, there are too many things going on right now.

Then, as they processed the info, they grew fearful, to my confusion.

"What is it?" I asked them, and I could see that they were both making an effort to remain calm.

"Y-you're joking right? You can't be a Hero." Lana said, not accepting my claim.

"R-right. There are only four Heroes, and they're all cruel rulers that wage war all the time." Kael added.

What the fuck? What did those morons do in the hundred and twenty years I wasn't there?!

"...Would you care to explain a bit more, please? I should remind you that I've been trapped here for a very long time." Which was true.

It was more an amalgam of rumors and legend than anything else, really, but Kael proceeded to explain what he knew.

Thirty years ago, the four Heroes that had been summoned to contain the Four Great Dungeons had succeeded in their task and, even more so, they had done a feat that no other hero was able to claim before them: they had cleared all four dungeons, killing each dungeon master and each taking the control of a dungeon core.

As the new dungeon masters, the Heroes became even more powerful and they quickly took control of the Adventurer Cities that used the Great Dungeons as their natural resources.

Up to that point, everything was well and right but, soon after that, the heroes grew... greedy.

They started waging wars with other close cities, each hero trying to carve their own kingdom out of free cities and even part of other kingdoms.

War ensued. Many wars, in fact.

The balance of power was mostly restored when the biggest countries of the continent allied themselves to put a stop to the heroes' advances. That, combined with the fact that the heroes were growing wary of each other and started backstabbing their fellow dungeon masters, put an end to their expansion.

Still, the four new countries that had appeared and were still under the helm each of one Hero were known for their brutality, their warlike tendency and their lawlessness. Corruption ran rampant, slavery was encouraged and crime rings has free reins to do anything they wanted as long as it helped the Crown.

"It's a raiding party from Karfagos that attacked our village." Lana confessed, and I understood why I had spooked them.

For the twins, Heroes were synonymous with bloodthirsty bastards, monstrous kings and queens that had led to the downfall of their village and their status as slaves.

"So you can't be a hero, right? There are only four of them anyway..." Lana said, careful and hoping that I had lied.

I shook my head slowly, sorrowful. "To think that those guys would go to those kinds of lengths." I sighed and looked back at Lana and Kael.

"There aren't four heroes, there are five. Only, the fifth hero got betrayed by the other four..." Lana and Kael listened carefully as I spoke, "...It happened long ago, more than sixty-five years. The fifth hero was backstabbed by the other four and left for dead in one of the Great Dungeons, the Antitower. That's me. That's why I can't die, as you experienced firsthand, and why Kael received the Hero Killer title. I'm pretty sure that your story mentions at least the fact that heroes are immortals, right? With proofs like that, it's hard to take away my claim. I'm a hero, the fifth hero."