Extra Chapter 1 - Burden

The stone corridor was large and made out of massive stone blocks. Usually it would have been dark and damp, but right now it was covered from floor to ceiling by a thick layer of glowing blue ice, with spots of colors mixed in here and there, all of them Oozes, evolved slimes, that had disregarded the heavy bloodlust dripping from the man.

He was tall, with short, blond air and eyes the same color as his ice. A thick fog appeared from his mouth each time he exhaled, and his hands were covered by a thin layer of ice. A large bright-blue circle was hovering in front of him, slowly dissipating into nothingness.

Having dispatched all enemies, he relaxed for a second. That’s when another Ooze attacked, grasping the opportunity of an unaware foe.

“Light Shield!” Someone screamed, and threads of light quickly shot out of a yellow-white runic circle, spun together to stop the monster, burning it as it bounced back from the holy shield.

“Entomb my enemy in frozen eternity, ice coffin!” He may have let his guard down for a second, but the man was still a veteran and, when his support mage protected him, he took the chance to recover and cast an offensive spell, a new blue runic circle appearing in a flash.

The combat ended in less than five seconds, and the calm of a frozen wasteland descended upon the corridor once again, the ice thicker on the man’s hands.

“Master…” A voice whispered behind him before a Dogfolk girl appeared, her black pointy ears resting tightly against her head. She walked by his side and broke the ice away, warming his hands.

“...Thanks.” He said, avoiding her worried gaze as his bloodlust recessed a bit. She just saved his ass after he fucked up, again, and felt bad about straining her so much.

Of course, if he was to ask her, she would answer in a heartbeat that he should be relying on her, but in this case he was just making debutant's mistakes.

“My lord!” Another voice suddenly called and, from a corner, two people appeared.

The first one, the one that had called him, was an old man wearing formal black and white attire, looking clearly like a butler, even if his equipment was armored and tuned for dungeon exploration, creating a strange mix of battle and formal butler apparel.

“Please, I must ask you, stop rushing forward like this!" He sounded worried. "I know you have nothing to fear from those upper dungeon floors, but you know this one isn't normal!" The butler added, going to his side.

The older gentleman then spotted the ooze that just attacked his master and, with only one glance, he understood what just happened.

“You are lucky that Alistair is there to protect you! She may be your slave but the gods know that she shouldn’t have to keep up with your… your… whatever bullshit this is!” He said with anger, and the Demi-dragon girl with purple scales and eyes at his side raised her eyebrows.

“Be careful with your words, Sebas. I am still your Lord.” The nobleman said without conviction, but the butler would have none of it.

“I’ve been serving and fighting alongside you for more than ten years, my lord, so I won’t apologize for my choice of words when you’re being reckless inside of a dungeon. You’re not the only one that your rash behavior put in danger, just look at Alistair!” The butler pointed.

The girl was out of breath, for sure, and if no wounds could be seen on her, multiple holes and tears in her light armor pointed to the fact that she had healed them, instead of simply being unharmed.

“I-It’s nothing, I can still support Lord Martyane!” She answered, slightly flustered, clenching her fists. “You shouldn’t slow down or stop because of me, my lord!” She ended up saying as she turned her eyes to look at her master, her ears sadly swept backward.

However, contrary to her expectation, that speach didn’t reassure the nobleman at all. In fact, when he realized how much he had pushed his support mage, he grimaced.

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“Sorry Alistair, I didn’t keep your condition in mind.” He ended up apologizing before turning to look at the corridor, gritting his teeth.

“...My Lord.” The Demi-dragon suddenly said, the aura of her lineage barely contained by her will. “Stop blaming yourself. It wasn’t your fault.” Her voice was deep but soft and her eyes were relaxed, yet an underlying tension could still be felt.

“Sayilgan is right, my lord. None of us felt the trap, and none of us reacted fast enough. You said it yourself, you faced it those past few days: this dungeon is strange, it doesn’t make sense," The butler said with a sigh, "Please, stop blaming yourself,” Sebas doubled down on the Demi-dragon’s sentence.

“...But it is my fault. They’re my slaves, my responsibility, my people to protect, like you two...” He said with sadness, looking at Alistair and Sayilgan, regret and frustration visible on his face.

“Master, in the end, dungeons are still dungeons. Adventurers lose people down here all the time…” Alistair said before taking her master’s head in her hands, making him look into her eyes, “You can’t realistically believe that you’ll be able to save all of us, even if I know you want to. You care, you really do, that’s one of the things that makes you great, but now you need to focus on the people that are still here, even if you're still hurt from losing two of us, and children to boot.”

For two days the noble had been throwing himself at the dungeon, freezing anything that met his path as his attendant and slaves looked at his grief. They knew they had to let him vent a bit, but this was getting overboard.

“Let’s go home, Akatau. We all need to sleep and eat," she smelled his hair, "and a good bath," she added, looking at her lord, and he nodded weakly.

***

The trip out of the dungeon and back to his mansion was uneventful.

The entrance of the dungeon was situated relatively high in the mountains, but not high enough that snow would block the path at this time of the year. The entrance and the road were surrounded by a forest of massive pine trees, green all over the year, and you could smell the particular perfume of pine resin floating in the air, carried by the cold wind.

In between the gigantic yet spaced trees, you could see a beautiful green valley and a grand city nestled in it but, as the carriage brought them back home, they were all so tired that they didn’t even look at the beautiful landscape around them.

Their final destination was the city in the valley, Martyane. Home to tens of thousands of people, it was made prosperous by the abundant coal and iron mines that surrounded it, helped by the fact that it controlled one of the mountain roads between the corrupted kingdom of Karfagos and the Cartanean Principalities, a bunch of small allied princedoms, one to which Lord Martyane had pledged allegiance.

Even though the city was situated in the mountains and fertile land was hard to come by, the people didn't starve thanks to the booming commerce flowing through Martyane's roads. Karfagos’ grain was cheap since it was produced by slaves, and the Principalities sold Martyane their own grain with pleasure. After all, as a march, Martyane was of strategic importance to protect the Principalities and, with their economy geared towards iron refining, their weapons were always in high demand, from the bloodthirsty corrupted kingdom as much as from the princedoms.

Marquis Akatau of Martyane finally came back home after nearly a week of dungeon-diving, but he couldn’t rest yet. Although stricken by grief, he was still the lord of a large march city, and his seneschal could only do so much.

Between administrative work, official noble duty, his self-imposed training and taking care of his slaves, Akatau didn’t have much time to rest at all.

His mind was elsewhere as his carriage rolled through his prosperous, peaceful city, and he would answer the people's acclamation with empty-minded waves of the hand.

Back at the castle, Alistair dragged him to the bath and cleaned him as usual, then he cleaned her, even though she was just a slave. They went to bed and slept like logs.

For a time, work made him forget about the tragedy that unfolded in the dungeon, until…

* Lana Denian’s contract has been forcefully transferred to another owner.

* Kael Denian’s contract has been forcefully transferred to another owner.

For a second, it felt as if his soul was ripped in two. Ink spilled all over the official document he was writing, and he even broke his quill, crushing it against the parchment.

“Akatau?!” Alistair exclaimed worriedly, rushing to his side.

“Akatau?” She said again, trying to see what was wrong with him, waving a hand in front of his eyes.

He let go of the broken quill and took a deep breath. “They’re still alive.” He suddenly said.

“What?” Alistair asked.

“The twins, Lana and Kael. Someone just took away their contract from me, Profie announced it, so it means they’re still alive.”

The Dogfolk girl took a second to process what Akatau just said, then a smile appeared on her face as her ears perked up. “That’s good. That’s great!”

“It is. Come, help me deal with all this tedious business as fast as possible. In two days, we go back into the dungeon. One way or another, we’ll save them.” He said with determination.

“And if the person that stole the twins dared to hurt them…” His determination turned into bloodlust, and Alistair had to intervene again to stop him from scarring his maids and butlers.