“What am I, your fuckin’ secretary? Come see for yourself.”

Markus hoisted himself to his feet and began to lumber his way across the room, listless motions propelled by a small, barely nourished seed of fortitude.

He needed to get his head back in the game. Yeah, what had happened had been fucked up. No, he hadn’t known. Yes, he could’ve done more to be aware of his surroundings, and no, he couldn’t fucking forgive himself for hurting anything that didn’t deserve to be hurt, not when he chose to go down there himself.

But there was more at stake than his stupid fucking feelings. So Markus did what he did best. He put on a brave face, he stopped feeling so fucking sorry for himself, and he told himself that he would do much fucking better from here on out.

He reached the chest, eyed the contents.

An entire quarter of the large chest seemed to glitter with gold and jewels. Beneath them laid a set of… what were those? Armguards?

[Identify] told him they were metal greaves. Interesting. He could really use some armour, honestly, though he’d been worried that wearing any might interfere with his speed.

“Phew… this is a lot.”

“Right? And that’s without mentioning these,” The goblin shook a pair of small vials in his right hand, before placing them next to two more on the side.

“What are they?” Markus asked.

“Chameleon potions,” the imp smiled, his eyes alight. “There was a little note stuck in there with ‘em. Half a bottle makes you blend in with your environment, a full bottle renders you almost invisible. There’s four here.”

“These chests are old as fuck, right?” Markus asked, stating the obvious. “How do you know if the potions still work properly?”

“That’s the thing, they don’t have to,” Abrah answered. “This shit’s real hard to make. They’re rare as hell. Bring this to almost any alchemist and they’ll pay through the fucking nose just to study its ingredients.”

“Take it you want one?” Markus asked.

“Two. One to sell and one to keep.”

“...sure.”

“Just like that?” the imp asked. “No haggling or anything?”

“I don’t need to,” Markus said, moving over to the greaves and picking them up. “Wanna count the money?”

“What, now you’re bossing me around?”

“You want your fair share, don’t you?”

“Grr…” Abrah grumbled, but he couldn’t seem to find a good enough reason why to vocalise anything. He began counting aloud, murmuring to himself as he sorted through coins of silver, copper, and gold.

Markus, meanwhile, picked up the greaves and began to inspect them. Unlike the dagger, he could feel the pulse of mana within them… Mystic Mana, alongside something else that he couldn’t quite determine.

He felt that he could pull the mana from the greaves if he so desired… but it would break something in them. Perhaps the component that allowed them to contain the magic. Knowing that, he decided to leave them alone, content to ask the blacksmith about them on his next visit.

“Grr…” the imp continued to grumble as he counted the fat stack of coins.

“What?” Markus eventually bit. “You really that annoyed that I’m asking you to count?”

“No,” Abrah spat, continuing to separate the coins into smaller and smaller piles.

“You sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure,” he repeated back in a horrible mocking tone.

“Because I can always do it if—”

Abrah smashed his fist onto the pile of gold coins, immediately scattering them everywhere.

“FUCK, YOU MADE ME LOSE COUNT AGAIN!”

“Just let me do it if you don’t wann—”

“FUCKING IDIOT!”

“Stop screaming at me,” Markus warned. “I’m not doing this with you if you’re gonna talk like that.”

“Oh, now you’re all high and fucking mighty, huh? What happened to your snivelling crybaby routine, huh? Where’d that fucking go?”

Markus felt a flash of indignance. He pushed it back. “Abrah, stop it.”

“Why do you get to be so fucking calm, huh?!”

“I took your advice. It helped.”

“WELL WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!” Abrah smashed the stack of coins again, dislodging more, then stormed across the room, snarling all the while. “I’m a stupid fucking ingrate traitor IDIOT that fucks EVERYTHING up! That can’t even fucking COUNT! Why listen to me?!”

He turned, walking over to Markus, shoving a finger in his face. “And why do I have to be the voice of reason to you, huh?! What, because you remind me of something? Because you pulled on my fragile little heartstrings? What a load of bullshit. YOU who has everything, WHILE I HAVE FUCKING NOTHING!”

Markus frowned. He didn’t wanna have to fight him if he could help it. He was almost sure he’d win. “You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that, or about me. Listen to me.”

“Yeah, whatever. I wish you’d fucking died. Just another failure I have to fucking stare at, another reminder of my mistakes that won’t fucking go away. But YOU get to face your mistakes and MAGICALLY feel better about them, and it’s all because of me! Well, good for you, asshole!”

“I don’t feel better!” Markus shouted, the only way he could be heard over Abrah’s fervent raving, staring at him all the while. “I still feel like shit! And I’ll probably feel like shit for a long fucking time! This whole situation is still fucking horrible to me! YOU said that I had to fucking get on with it, so I’m doing what YOU said I should! Why does that make you so angry?”

“I—” Abrah paused. He span around. He kicked the ornate chest so hard he stubbed something. “Fuck!”

Walking off the injury, panting, he attempted to find words. “I dunno. I felt kinda good that you felt so bad, that you felt like me.”

“Then why’d you help me?” Markus asked, eyes still trained on him. “Why say anything?”

“Because I wanted to hurry up and get that fucking chest open.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah,” Abrah growled, finally settling his foot. “That’s it.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“What, you think you’ve got some great fucking insight?” Abrah rolled his eyes, beginning to gather up the scattered coins off the ground as he went. “Well keep it to your fucking self. Every time you open your mouth it pisses me off.”

Markus did just that, not willing to poke this beehive any further. At this point, concerned or not, he just wanted to get his transaction with Abrah done and over with.

Needless to say, the silence served as its own catalyst.

“You know what I don’t get?” Abrah said, sliding coins from one side of the surface to the other as he went. “After everything, you wanna choose now to be fair and reasonable with me. Talk about fuckin’ overcompensation. You feelin’ guilty or something? Think you’re above talking down to me now? That you’re better than me, because you can pretend to be fucking fine so easily?”

Markus didn’t respond. He refused to take the bait.

“Because let me tell you, you shouldn’t bother. I deserve your fuckin’ animosity. I tried to get you killed. I tried to fuck you over. I might do it again. I don’t fucking like you.” Abrah turned then, shoving Markus’ shoulder. “Well? Say something!”

Silence. Markus stood inert.

“...”

A minute or two passed, the clinking of coins denoting each second. Markus got lost in the colours, watching as they slid from one side to the other, one by one.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I ain’t want anyone to feel the way I feel, except one person.” He didn’t speak for another ten seconds; the only sound was his breathing, the coins having stopped. “So I said something. I said how I tried to get better when my life got so fucked up.” He continued to stare at the wall, turned away from Markus, voice cracked. “But it didn’t work. Nothing worked. Something in my brain fuckin’ broke with those kids, and now I’m just so fucking angry. Angry and bitter and pathetic and fucking useless.”

“You’re not useless,” Markus said. “You’ve been a lot of help.”

“How the fuck have I been helpful?” Abrah asked, raising his hands. “I don’t care about you! You’re a fuckin’ tool to me! I’d sell you for a slice of fucking bread if I had the chance! You shouldn’t listen to a word I say. And I don’t want your fucking respect. Or deserve it.”

“I’d still be wallowing in that bed over there if it wasn’t for what you said,” Markus said. “Whether you care about me or not doesn’t change anything. You told me it’s okay to feel like this. And it was what I needed to hear.”

“Well it’s not,” Abrah spat, hunching, moving further into himself. “You should go wallow. You’re a fucking murderer, an ingrate, an idiot. A rotten, no good bastard.”

“And so are you,” Markus said, as calmly as he possibly could. “But if you can’t take your own advice, at least be happy that someone else did. Can’t fix shit that’s done, but you can be better.”

“There’s about five hundred gold of coins here,” Abrah said, pointing at the pile. “Once upon a time, this would’ve been life changing. I dunno what the fuck I’d do with it now. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

“Take half,” Markus said.

“Why?” Abrah asked, eyebrow raised. “What’s your game now?”

“No game. You were right, I wouldn’t have gotten these chests back up here without you. Finding 10 was a bullshit ask anyways.”

“Grr…”

He could grumble and gripe about it all he wanted, he was taking half.

***

Abrah eventually left with about 200 gold coins, leaving Markus roughly 300’s worth, plus the majority of the silver, the magical greaves, and two bottles of chameleon. There were a few gems in the chest too, of which Markus retained all, including a red crystal with a strange symbol etched into its surface.

He didn’t know what to think of Abrah anymore. He seemed like a deeply broken man. Markus wanted to have some faith in him as a person, to believe that he didn’t mean every horrible thing he said, but he thought the truth of it might be more complex than that.

Likely, Abrah meant every nasty abrasive thing he said just as much as he meant every soft and compassionate thing. There was a duality in him, something cracked down the middle that likely couldn’t be healed.

Perhaps he’d never tried to follow his own advice. Maybe he had always been that way.

Maybe he’d been through so much that attempting to keep on top of his guilt and his trauma simply wasn’t enough anymore.

Markus didn’t want to be like that. He didn’t want to indulge his worst instincts.

He needed to find balance, and he wasn’t going to find it in following someone else’s advice or learning from their mistakes.

He could only learn from his own. Be his own role model, as he always had.

He’d find a use for the giant cores. He’d been reluctant to slot any of them as he wasn’t sure which he wanted to use, and while he had a limit of 4, he was hardly hurting for power right now.

But he didn’t feel right using those cores to fight. He’d find something better to do with them. He didn’t know what, but he’d hang onto each of them until he found a way.

The bats were native to the caves, simply bats. The bear creatures too. Everything else was either tainted or at the very least, questionable.

Even the power he’d attained, the last twenty levels, he’d gotten at least some of it from ill-means. No, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight with that strength. He needed to. If it was just him on the line, that was one thing, but there was a lot more than just his survival at play.

If anything, Markus didn’t just feel upset, didn’t just feel guilty…

He felt angry. These fucking assholes had put him in this place and forced him to fight like this, to search for any means to become stronger, to abandon his own worries and concerns and focus solely on progression, even to his own detriment.

None of that would change now. He still needed to get stronger. He still needed to get out of here.

He could do it without taking undue lives. He could do it without hurting people who didn’t deserve to be hurt.

He wanted to apologise to Rika. The time spent with her had been the purest moment he’d had in months, perhaps longer. She had wanted nothing from him but his time. It was a level of respect that none of these others had managed to afford him even once.

Even Cyrus hadn’t been that way. Cyrus was wonderful and pure and deserved his freedom and happiness a thousand times over, but he hadn’t intervened because he liked Markus. He didn’t know him. He’d done it to fulfill a moral obligation, because he was chivalrous. Honourable. A good person in a world sorely lacking in good people.

Rika had just liked him. And that was it. And she, despite barely knowing him, was willing to do things for him solely to make him happy.

And that inherently made her scary. Something to fear. Not just the power that someone so freely giving, so unfettered with an agenda might have over him, but the power another might have if they found this weak link of his and chose to exploit it.

Better to cut off contact before he started to care about her. He couldn’t protect her with a chain around his neck.

Markus’ ruminations and staring at his recently accrued loot were interrupted by a certain female imp appearing at the door to his cell.

“Prisoner!” she half called, half sang, her voice light and airy. She paused. Looked him up and down. “It’s…” she rubbed her temple. “Wait, don’t tell me. Mannus, right?”

“Markus,” Markus corrected, almost feeling a smile tug at his lips.

“Ooh, Markus. What’s that mean?”

“Right now? Tired. What’s up?”

“Well, I’m here to inform you that your fifth fight’s been moved up. That means you’re fighting twice tomorrow. Once in the morning, once in the evening. Also—oh hey, you’ve got a puppy in here!”

That was it. Lexi dropped everything to waltz across the room and greet Ember, pushing her face somewhat close and raising her pitch even higher.

“Hey, aren’t you a sweet little thing?!” She turned to face Markus, whispering with the back of her hand. “She a biter?”

Markus shrugged. “Not recently?”

“Good enough for me!” Lexi immediately began to rub her hand into Ember’s fur, completely ignoring the flames, scratching her behind the ear and not recoiling even when Ember’s coat burned brighter in response, the dog panting and rearing at each of Lexi’s ministrations.

“What a good girl…”

Markus watched on in subtle disbelief. “Hey, are you like, immune to fire or something?”

“Eh, highly resistant,” Lexi answered, continuing to stroke her new favourite thing in the world. “All demons are!”

Hey, that was actually good info. Shit.

“Well, is there anything you’re super vulnerable to?”

“Hah, you think I’m dumb or something, don’tcha?” Lexi turned to him, chipper smile everpresent. “I know you’re thinking up something in that head of yours. Well, forget it. I ain’t telling you nothing. That said… you need anything? Figured you probably ain’t eaten in a hot minute.”

Oh, fuck, food. Kinda forget that food exists down here sometimes. Hmm…

“Yeah, I could eat. You wanna write down what I ask for, or something?” Markus asked, biting his lip. “Figure that way you’ll have an easier time.”

“Huh?” Lexi stared at him like he was crazy. “Nah, just tell me. We got most things over in that kitchen, and I can get something made to order if we don’t. What’s your fancy?”

Shit. Okay, think of something simple. Something she can’t fuck up.

“Can I just get like… a steak?”

“Okay! Steak. What meat? What marinade? How aged? What rarity? Fried, grilled, or seared?”

“Uhh…”

“You want anything on the side? How about sauce? You need a drink to wash it down?”

“Literally any steak,” Markus said. “As long as it’s not literally raw, I’ll eat it.”

“Okay, great! Coming right up. Think we had a couple of rasko briskets laying around…”

Lexi teleported away before Markus could say another word.

What the fuck was a rasko steak? Maybe he should’ve thought twice before ordering mystery meat from the demon kitchen on another fucking planet.

***

As it turns out, rasko meat was fucking good.

Markus still had no clue what it was. Or what this sauce was. Or what he was drinking.

But it was tasty. And he might’ve been slightly drunk off half a glass of this stuff. It went down pretty smooth, but kicked like hard liquor.

Markus couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a good drink. He’d always been too busy.

He resolved to enjoy it. His life could end at any given moment here. He had to be responsible for his own happiness somehow.

He’d been left with a bottle, which still had about half its contents left.

He considered necking it. Wouldn’t have hurt to stew in liquid courage for a few hours. Surely it’d take the edge off of sitting in this shithole.

But he had the morning to consider. Two fights. Hopefully they’d be relatively easy. Markus was expecting Drathok to bump the difficulty at some point, but he was still fairly sure that he hadn’t learned the current extent of Markus’ power yet.

He’d try and keep it that way for as long as possible. And while the dungeons beneath here were no longer any good option for training, he imagined he could find another substitute if he tried hard enough. Training skills alone was enough to get him levels, and between experimentation with mana and sparring with Cyrus, he was sure he could get it right if he tried hard enough.

Markus had been about to drop off the rest of the bottle in Cyrus’ cell when he walked straight into Rika.

He blinked like an idiot, slightly drowsy, moving back and holding the bar behind him as he caught himself.

“Wh-what are you…” Markus wiped a hand down his face. He looked at her, his eyes bloodshot.

“I told you that you should leave. I told you this is dangerous.”

“No, actually, what you said is ‘I’m dangerous’ like some kind of edgy teenager.”

Rika laughed. Markus blinked in disbelief.

“Anyways, I did leave. Now I’m back. I’m dangerous too, motherfucker, and I brought more books.”

Markus stared down at the top title of the three or four stacked books in her hands.

“Rectal Discomfort and You - A No Holes Barred Commentary.”

“E-excuse me?”

Markus watched as her surefire grin morphed into a look of utter bewilderment.

He snickered. He’d already made his mind up.

So much for pushing people away, huh?

“Alright, fine. Get the fuck in here.”

Rika went to do just that, then paused at the door, all four fists clenching, her tail immediately springing up.

“Is that a freaking hellhound?!”

Right. Something about cats and dogs.