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World: MSS - Loading...
"Speech"
"Thoughts"
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“G-GI-GI-GIAAAAAAACHA!”
1% of a 1%.
A .01% chance of a jackpot.
That’s what just happened in front of me.
I didn’t even have time to ponder how close I had come to becoming an unrecognizable puddle of blood on the floor. I had to deal with the present, which was surviving through the falling boulders. Luckily there weren’t too many boulders but on the flip side, they were the sizes of small boats. The dust cloud made it difficult to see but the loud booming sounds falling around me left me in panic.
“Please be alive.” I could only hope for Clover and Lety’s safety as I tucked myself into a ball with my shield on my back.
A I felt a few rocks hit my shield, but none of them were large enough completely pin me to the floor. But they would definitely leave a bruise, meaning if I didn’t have my shield covering my head, neck and the upper part of my back I could have sustained serious injury. I waited out the falling debris, hoping against all chances that the three of us could make it out alive.
When the rocks finished falling, I dared a look from under my shield.
Thankfully the pillars were still standing, none of them damaged. The last thing I needed was the ceiling collapsing on us. The dust cloud was still heavy, but I could start to make various shapes through it. The Lucky Beckoning Cat was nowhere to be seen and I doubted I could find the rings. Even if the Lucky Beckoning Cat hadn’t taken them in the chaos, they were probably buried under too much rubble. Besides, I had to prioritize the safety of L’teya and Clover before those things.
“Do I?”
I trusted the two but only to the extent that we were working together while we were slaves. But one day, we wouldn’t be slaves anymore. My immediate focus had been survival. L'teya and Clover were just convenient people to have around in that aspect.
But did I really think like that?
I barely knew them. My future plans so far involved me and only me, hence why I kept certain things close to the chest. I could have better prepared us for this dungeon, I could have told L'teya about the full extent of her Core. Even more so, I could have even told them about the dimension ring that I looted off of the-
I groaned out loud realizing that Clover probably saw me take out the other dimension ring from my pocket during the battle. There was a real possibility I had lost a lot of trust there. But did I even care about the loss of trust deep down in my heart? Was I concerned about the loss of trust because it was detrimental to my survival or because I actually cared about the two as friends?
I didn’t know what to think about this.
It wasn't like I had a wealth of experience to draw upon either. I had been a recluse, most of my time among my peers had been one of competition or agony. When my parents still had their business, us children saw the adults always try to one up another and mimicked it with no mercy. After my parents lost everything and divorced, I basically turned my back on society. It was my mom who taught me to never trust anyone, especially after what had happened to our family.
“God, I’m 30 years old and I'm just now starting to realize I have trust issues?” But it wasn't like this was the first time it was brought up.
“Lock!” Lety’s voice broke me out of my self-pitying.
“Where are you?” I called out, ignoring the fact that I should be keeping quiet in case the monster was still around.
I saw her limping through the dust cloud as she came into view. Other than a few wounds, she looked none the worse for wear. She had a hand over her ribs though, most likely cracked or broken.
“You are alive. Again.” Lety’s eyes held a certain amount of mirth despite the situation we were in. “I always said you were a survivor.”
“Let’s find Clover.” The worry in my heart subsided somewhat at seeing that Lety was alive, perhaps the beastwoman would be fine as well.
I lent my shoulder to the elf-barbarian and she leaned on it with thanks. We stumbled around the wreckage, trying to find Clover.
“There.” Lety spoke first, pointing a finger.
I helped Lety maneuver around some of the larger rocks and found Clover unconscious with one leg pinned under a rock. Dread gripped my heart until I held a finger to her nose, feeling the slightest flow of air going in and out. I sighed in relief.
“She’s alive.”
Lety frowned. “Her leg is broken.”
She was right. Clover’s leg was twisted unnaturally from the knee. She was most likely running when this rock landed on her joint and twisted it hard enough to break it. It wasn’t any larger than her leg which was the reason why she was even breathing at all. I wasn’t a healer but it looked like a healing potion might do the trick.
“Normal people would say doctor not healer.” A voice whispered in my head.
“The potions?” Lety asked.
It was my turn to frown. “Lost. Or taken.”
She grunted. “Help me move this rock, Slaveborn.”
We struggled against the rock pinning Clover’s leg. It took a few tries, mostly because L’teya was injured. If she wasn’t I was sure that she could’ve moved this on her own. As it were, we stopped to rest because she couldn’t get enough breath.
“The rib-injury must be more serious than she’s letting on.” I told Lety to move aside and took a few minutes but managed to move the boulder off of Clover’s leg.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
The pain woke her up.
“Oooo…. L-Lety? L-Lock?”
L’teya bent down next to the beastwoman, checking her for other wounds. “Do not open your eyes yet. Do you feel dizzy? Sleepy?”
“H-hurts. My L,Leg.” I saw her try to sit up.
“No, stay down.” L’teya forced Clover down and whispered to me. “If she sees, she will hurt more.”
I had heard some cases of people’s adrenaline running so high that they didn’t realize how severe their injuries were until they looked at it. Looking at the injury would trigger the sensors in the brain connected to pain, because now your mind was aware of the damage done to your body. It looked like whatever L’teya knew about first aid, it wasn’t too different from where I came from.
“I’m going to take a look around. Call out for me if you see or sense anything.” If I wasn’t doing anything here, I wanted to at least figure out our next steps.
As I walked away from L’teya, I heard the elf barbarian say reassuring words to Clover. “Find a way out of this situation.”
If the Lucky Beckoning Cat was still around, it was under its [Invisibility] skill because I couldn’t find even a peep of it. Likewise for the dimension rings. The rubble created by the [Jackpot] were huge, some big enough to be the size of a large SUV. I used these as cover, trying to find a trace of the monster or something, anything that could be of help to us.
“Is it my fault? Did I make the wrong choice in bringing us here?”
When we had been attacked by the other party, all that had been in my mind was how I could use it to my advantage and get to this dungeon, something I’ve been aiming at since the orcs told us about the Desolate Sands. I had been aware of the dangers, yes, but it had been stuffed into the back of my mind. Was it possible that I grew complacent in the last month?
“Completely. I haven’t come face to face with real danger since the tunnels.” It was true. The tunnels felt like a lifetime ago and besides fighting for my life with the [Lesser Dokkaebi] I first encountered, nothing left a real impression on me that I could’ve died.
Until now.
“I’ve been taking it too easy.” This dungeon was one of the easiest dungeons that I could think of, with rewards packed to the brim.
Then again, it’s not like I was strong.
“Not even level 10 and trying to abuse my knowledge of the game. Some freaking cheat player I am.”
As I rounded the corner around a rock, I felt a cool wind brush against my face. Wondering what it was, I followed the source of the breeze and found an opening where a part of the floor had caved in. It led further down, deeper into earth but the marbled walls and flooring below told me that it was still part of the dungeon we were in. But there was an issue with this; I hadn’t been aware that this dungeon had another floor. It was simply supposed to be 10 waves of monsters and then-
Click, hiss.
Something made a sound down there.
A sound like a claw hitting the stone floor.
“So you’re down there, mother fucker.”
If we could kill the Lucky Cat, there was a possibility that it would drop the dimension rings that it stole from us. In addition, [Lucky Beckoning Cat] always dropped useful loot, potions included. The solution was brutally simple, we needed to get down there and finish the job. I quickly turned back the way I came, reaching Lety who was sitting with her back leaning against a boulder. Her face was pale and I saw beads of cold sweat dripping from her forehead. Clover’s head was in her lap. I knelt next to them and put the back of my hand on Clover’s forehead.
She was burning up.
“...You awake?” I whispered.
Lety opened an eye at my voice. “Did you find anything?”
I opened my mouth to tell her I had found the Lucky Beckoning Cat. But if I told Lety, then what? Were we going to leave injured Clover here and go hunt for the monster by ourselves? It wasn’t like we could piggyback Clover and go into the lower levels. Not to mention the fact that L’teya, our party’s powerhouse, had been injured.
“...I’ll be right back.” I said instead.
L’teya closed her eyes and mumbled. “M’kay, Slaveborn.”
I turned around, walking away from them.
“If I go to the entrance this way, I should be able to try and replicate what Clover did to the door and open it.” Then I stopped.
Why was I thinking about leaving them here and escaping by myself? Shouldn't I be trying to save them?
“But then I'll die with them... and they're just NPCs.” My survival instincts tried to rationalize my actions.
My breathing quickened.
In the last month I’ve been here, I trained with the other slaves as well, not just Lety and Clover. I ate with them, slept in the same room as them and listened to their tales. Before there was a sharp delineation between what I considered people and NPCs. Now... not so much. It was much more grey. That was even more so for the otherworldly races that I had encountered. At first I had been put off by any race not human but the more I spent time with the the more I realized, everyone was just a regular everyday person.
It was getting harder to lie to myself.
No, I never lied to myself. I just chose not to think about it, because it meant that things would change.
“They’re real people… I just didn’t want to admit it. Because acknowledging it meant I would have to choose.” What did I need to choose?
“I need to choose whether to trust them or not.”
My thoughts remained silent this time.
L’teya, the elf-barbarian. Dark skinned and muscular, she turned heads wherever she went. She was skilled, much more skilled than the other slaves who obviously came with some sort of combat training. But instead of reaching out for them, she chose to take me and Clover in. She placed more emphasis on people’s character than she did their backgrounds.
She saved my life.
Clover, the sheep beastwoman. She had pale skin, pink curly hair and two mismatching eyes: one with a horizontal pupil like a sheeps and another a humans. There were two ram horns that curled around her heart shaped face. She had a sharp tongue and a sharp mind, something probably honed from years of her traveling with her family. She didn’t say much about it, but I knew there was a painful story behind her being captured.
She, too, saved my life.
No matter how much I tried, I couldn't find it within myself to leave them down here while I tried to escape by myself.
If I left them here to die, I'd be leaving a part of myself to die here along with them.
But to save them, I would need to descend into an unknown part of a dungeon that I’d never experienced even as a player. The only chance of them surviving was my successfully killing a Grade-8 monster, while I wasn’t even level 10 and Coreless. It was suicide. Going down there went against everything I had done so far for the sake of survival: putting people at a distance, focusing on things like Stats and Cores…
“Goddamn it.” I wasn’t this type of person.
I had always been a loner. I liked video games and reading. I liked spending time by myself, listening to music and writing strategy guides to post online. I liked getting into debates about the best fields to level up and sharing tips about MSS. It wasn’t like I trusted L’teya or Clover either. I tried to hide that dimension ring from them and I was always tiptoeing about the information I shared with them.
I never needed anyone.
Ever.
Then why the hell were my footsteps heading towards that godforsaken hole in the ground?
“You’re such a fucking fool.” I said to myself, grinding my teeth.
I made sure my sword’s edge was true, sharpening it against a nearby slab of marble. Looking over my round shield, I made sure there were no obvious cracks or dents that jeopardized the integrity of the metal. The shield would do its job and block what it was meant to block. My sword would cut what it needed to cut.
Slowly, ever so slowly I stepped into the darkness below.
Into the darkness.
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“H-He’s not coming back.”
“Shh. Sleep, Clover.” Lety tried to move her hand over the sheep woman’s eyes, but Clover turned her face away.
Both their faces were pale and pallid, having lost the glow of life and losing it still. They weren’t in danger of death, not really. But L’teya felt that she had several broken ribs, even if she tried to move ignoring the pain she would be easy pickings for whatever monster came for her. Clover’s leg needed no explanation. The two were at Lock’s mercy.
Lety knew that Lock would have to pull off a miracle. He’d have to win in single combat against a monster without a Core or any sort of formal training.
Yet… for certain reasons she wasn’t worried.
The same reason that she was glad to find a human with a stash of exploding magical stones in the tunnels. It was the same feeling when Lock bit off his opponent’s ear when they had to fight for food and shelter, ensuring that no one challenged them after. The way that Lock led them to this dungeon and had avoided confrontation with those adventurers who had been hunting them.
Lock Slaveborn had a way of making things happen and doing whatever he needed to do in order to survive.
“H-Hid dimension ring from us.” Clover’s voice shook, both in pain and indignation.
Lety smiled sadly.
“Yes, I know.” She whispered.
“He w-won’t come back.” The sheep beastwoman closed her eyes. “Going to leave us here.”
L’teya looked into the darkness that Lock walked off into.
She was a barbarian and she had known how to fight her entire life. The elf-barbarian seen people die for honor and kill for much less. She had seen warriors choose between their duty and family, being forced into situations where they had to risk losing everything that they had built as a warrior.
She recognized the look in Lock’s eyes.
They weren’t the eyes of a coward.
They were the eyes of a man on the brink of something great, of making a choice that would shape the rest of his life.
“Hopefully.” L’teya spoke into the silence. “He won't leave us here for long.”
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