----------------------------------------
World: MSS - Loading...
"Speech"
"Thoughts"
----------------------------------------
“Don’t you dare fucking die!”
Someone pounded hard into my chest and I woke up, all my memories returning to me at once. I took in a deep breath like I had been submerged underwater, hearing myself wheezing for breath. It felt like all the air had been released from my lungs at once and now it was struggling to suck up all the oxygen.
“He’s back!”
I sputtered at the force of the blow, my head briefly lifting from the cold floor. The last thing I had seen was the Beckoning Cat’s body, cleaved in two and the Spirit Core-
“Core.” I managed. “S-Spirit Core.”
“Quiet.” The voice left no room for argument.
I let my head flop down to the floor and looked around, trying to see what was going on. I wasn't surrounded by the darkness, standing on a platform anymore. This was the shrine from which I had been teleported. It seemed that I had been transported here after the fight to the death.
Now that I had a moment to think, I considered the ramifications of what just happened. There had been almost no mention of the Divine Beings in MSS except through lore you could find through various hidden pieces. Namely, you could find out by closely following the path of the 6 [Heroes]. They were related to the 6 deities somehow but the game had left the details veiled in shadow. It was one of the things I had enjoyed, picking up the most useless looking weapon and seeing a vital piece of lore written on it.
But the question remained: had that presence truly been Oung?
“Bite on this.” Without waiting for an answer, someone shoved a piece of cloth into my mouth.
What?
“GHHH-GH,GHHHH” I convulsed and screamed through the cloth as burning hot liquid was poured on my stomach, bringing me out of my stupor.
Having the sense to look up finally, I saw Lety and Clover, the former pouring a healing potion all over my stomach and even my shoulders. I saw bits of smoke curling up from my wounds. Feeling the last of the burning sensation leave my body, I let go of the rag from my mouth. It fell to the ground with a wet slop.
“You two are alive.” The pain was fading rapidly, my wounds healed now.
All of a sudden, Clover’s face changed from worry to uncertainty. She started to chew her nail, her thumb in particular. Then looked at L'teya for guidance.
“Yes we are, thank you.” Lety was solemn, a rare moment for her. “Thank you, Lock Slaveborn.”
Then she returned the look at Clover, rather pointedly. Clover swallowed and looked at me in the eyes, her pink hair disheveled.
“You have my thanks as well, Lock.”
I didn’t answer, just grunting and sitting up. There was something in the corner of my mind that said to cherish this moment but I just didn’t know how. So I did the only thing I knew how to do and got straight to the point.
“What happened to you two? I passed out.”
“After you disappeared, Clover and I waited for your return.” Lety explained. “After waiting for a while, a strange light came over Clover and her leg was healed. Working together, we got ourselves down here where we found you.”
I liked how Lety described situations leaving only the important bits in. “Was there anything else here?”
“You mentioned a Spirit Core?” Lety shook her head. “We did not see anything of the sort.”
I sighed. I couldn’t help but feel that I had been ripped off by the goddess. I had gone through all this to come out with nothing-
“Let’s not think like that anymore. That wasn’t the reason you came down here.”
I came down here to save Clover and L’teya, hopefully to get them some healing potions. Oung hadn’t promised anything and if Lety’s words were to be believed, the supernatural healing that Clover received to her leg was obviously some form of divine intervention. Lety, Clover and I had all survived.
“Perhaps you absorbed it already?” L’teya obviously had no idea what I was talking about, she was just trying to make me feel better.
I waved her off. “It’s fine.”
“No, you should check.” She insisted. “Close your eyes, search deep into your soul. If you have truly absorbed a Core, you should see it.”
I decided to humor her and closed my eyes.
“Now imagine your soul as a room. Find yourself in it and look around.”
Doing as she asked, I felt the sensation of being pulled out of my body. It was that sensation of free-falling I often had as a child, drifting between the state between sleep and awareness. I opened my eyes immediately, suddenly scared that I was going to get teleported into another arena forced to fight a monster in single combat. When Lety saw my shocked face, she smirked.
“Again.”
I nodded and repeated the process, concentrating on imagining a room. The pulling sensation happened much quicker and I could feel that I was still at the shrine in front of Clover and Lety. Yet with my eyes closed, it felt like I was in a dream or a vision. There were two little pedestals in front of me. One was empty, on the other stood a familiar figure: the Lucky Beckoning Cat, otherwise known as Gacha Cat.
“I did absorb it!” I yelled out loud. A little too loud, probably a bit uncharacteristic of me.
Lety yelled with me and even Clover did a little clap. I looked at my hands, my chest and touched my face, making sure this was all real. I had been doubtful that I could even absorb a Core when the people of this world mentioned making ‘room in your soul’ for Cores. It had been a point of concern since my soul wasn’t technically from here.
“Holy shit I have a Core?!”
Joy spread through me. When I played MSS as a kid, I would always go to sleep thinking about what kind of Spirit Cores I would like to have. It was kind of like how people fantasized about being a superhero or a monster trainer, for me that fantasy involved being a real-life MSS adventurer.
“Do you know how to use an ability?” Clover asked.
I shook my head.
“It’s all about visualizing. If you don’t know what the Core does, there is a high chance you won’t ever know. But if you fought the monster yourself you should have a good idea.” The elf-barbarian explained.
I already knew the Gacha Cat’s two possible Core abilities though: [Invisibility] and [Coin Toss].
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Please let it be invisibility.” I stayed still, trying to imagine myself growing invisible.
“Are you upset?” Clover asked after a while. "Why're you glaring?"
“Fuck.” I cursed inwardly, then imagined a coin being flipped.
｢Lock Slaveborn has cast [Coin Toss] ｣
｢[Jealousy] has been increased ｣
My body was covered in a thin yellowish light.
“Oh! Oh! A gold coin! I saw it! Right above your forehead.” Lety almost jumped then swiped at my forehead. Even Clover’s eyes had grown with greed for a moment.
It was typical. Core Abilities that had superficial effects just for the sake of it were rare in MSS. So it wasn’t too surprising that Lety or Clover might never have seen anything like it. I tried to see if I could sense which of my stats had been increased but no dice. I couldn’t even tell if it had been my [Physical] or [Mental] related stat that had been affected by the skill.
“Fucking trash skill… why couldn’t I get something like Lety’s [Death Worm] Core? If only I had something useful…”
For the first time I found myself jealous of the woman. Lety smacked my head.
“Ah!” I glared at her. “Why?”
“Your eyes were not like your usual self. They were full of darkness.” She said, frowning.
“So basically I just pissed you off. Must be nice to lean back on your barbarian cultural heritage to just do whatever you want… I wish I had something like that.” I sighed and tried not to glower or glare at the two.
There was a bright side though. This grade-8 Core came with the active ability [Coin Toss], meaning it came with the better of the two passives: [Lucky Strike]. The other passive that the Beckoning Cat possessed, [Greed] wouldn’t exactly help me anyways. It wasn’t much to feel better about, but it did improve my mood a little. By .001% if I was being exact.
“Enough of that.” I pushed everything unrelated to my task at hand to the back of my mind. Oung, my sudden use of Aura and the supernatural healing that saved L’teya and Clover.
“We need to continue and finish this dungeon.”
“Still?!” Clover backed from me, her eyes fearful. “We almost just died!”
“There’s only one entrance out of this dungeon and that was the way we came in. If we’re unlucky those guys could still be waiting there for us.” I explained.
The last thing I wanted to do was face them without being prepared. Sure, I had a Core now but Clover was still pretty much useless against them. She’d need to have at least one Core of her own and if not, we needed to ransack every corner in this dungeon until we found something useful. Just because the situation inside the dungeon had changed didn’t mean that our situation outside had gotten better.
“We need to grow stronger in this dungeon. They already outnumber us.” I told her.
Clover nodded then held a hand to her head, hissing in pain.
Alarmed, I asked. “What is it?” I looked at our surroundings.
“Nothing.” She muttered. “I’ve been having these sharp headaches since I woke up.”
L’teya and I shared a look but the elf-barbarian shrugged.
“It’s not like this girl would have mana deficiency or something similar to it…” I decided to wait and observe for now.
“What’re we going to do about these?” L’teya gestured to the floor.
It seemed that the various loot dropped by the Lucky Beckoning Cat had also been transported with me. I saw the two Dimension Rings as well as other useful drops, such as potions. The jagged sword that the cat had been wielding was also there.
I bent to pick up the Dimension Rings then stopped. “Right. I hid it the first time around.”
“It’s fine. We already knew about it.” She shrugged. “I’m sure you had your reasons.”
I opened my mouth but no words came to me. Clover didn’t look too hurt and neither did L’teya. If anything, L’teya had a smile on her face and was grinning from ear to ear between the two of us. It seemed the two of them had overcome this even before I had. The elf-barbarian grabbed us both around the shoulder.
“We trust you, Lock Slaveborn.”
That drove a pang of pain through my heart. This must be what they called Guilt.
I debated whether to come clean with them, about my goals about who I was. But would they believe me? It was a long story of how I got here and even longer to explain the process. Hell, even I didn’t understand some of it. I was only beginning to think about it now in this dungeon because I was worried about more than just survival.
“You can tell us when you’re ready.” Clover closed the matter, seeing the struggle on my face. “As L’teya said… we trust you.”
“It’s true. They do.” At that moment, my background or my reasons for why I hid the dimension ring from them didn’t matter. What mattered was that when their life was in danger, I had risked mine to save theirs.
“I shouldn’t have hid it.” I sighed to myself, wishing I could wind back time..
But it had become a habit by now, trying to do everything in my power to get even the smallest advantage I could for my survival. It would be a long time before I could get rid of it. Grabbing the two dimension rings off the floor, I debated handing them over to Clover. In the end I put one in my pocket again and handed Puca’s to her. But Clover had noticed my hesitation and raised a pink eyebrow at me, questioning.
“I…” What should I even say? “Let’s take stock of our items later.”
She smiled in understanding. “Will do.”
Little steps, small steps and everything in between. I would take it slow.
We looked around for more useful things on the floor. I kept the Beckoning Cat’s jagged sword for myself. Continuing to search, I also found the hilt of the gladius I had used; the blade all but gone. Regardless, I stowed the hilt in my dimension ring. Clover stowed all the health potions since in battle, she’d be the one most likely to administer them to us.
I found my shield, but it was dented beyond saving so I left it on the floor. The helmet that I had been wearing during the battle was rusted over once more, back to how it was when I initially found it. The gloves were in the same state. It was slightly disappointing, since I had thought that perhaps they might hold more clues or were powerful items themselves. I stored the glove and helmet anyway.
L’teya found herself a pair of leather bracers that protected her forearms. There was also a jagged axe that she kept to replace the one she lost before. She was still dual-wielding but the set was mismatched now which seemed to depress the barbarian. As I said before, Barbarians are very sensitive about the state of their equipment.
Once we were satisfied with what we collected, we started climbing out of the shrine and back into the dungeon.
“So what is your goal, Lock?” Clover asked. “It seems like you have a plan in mind.”
I thought about all the things that I needed to do. “First and foremost, survival.”
Lety smiled with her teeth. “Then?”
“...Getting stronger. I don’t plan to stay as a slave of the Samak Horde for my entire life. Right now they’re beneficial in that they provide protection and even training.” I answered automatically. “But they’re doing that for a purpose.”
Clover nodded. “I might have an idea of what they’re planning to do.”
I looked at her, listening.
“Look around Lock, they have nothing in this desert. No agriculture, no valuable minerals. But what they do have in abundance is monsters and dungeons.” She shrugged. “But they lack the manpower to farm those things.”
“So we’re just going to end up as dungeon divers for them.” I muttered, the pieces starting to come together.
“Partly.” Clover and L’teya reached the top before I did, mostly because I had stopped to talk and think. “But there was another rumor about the Samak Horde I heard back when I was- before I was captured.”
“Rumor?” That piqued my curiosity.
“That they found out the best way to make money is the slave trade. They will sell some of us as a slaves to the other nations.” L’teya helped me up out of the collapsed floor. “That’s how I was captured. I was looking for my brother who was captured over a year ago.”
“Huh. So she had that kind of backstory.” This was the first time L’teya had told me anything about herself besides the strictly necessary. I really felt the need to apologize.
“I was looking around the city, hoping to catch wind of my brother.” The elf-barbarian dusted off her hands. “Did a little digging, but it seems he was sold off to a different country. Which country, I am not sure.”
“What was his name?” I looked around quickly, making sure everything was as we left it. There could be a monster straying around here.
Come to think of it, since I killed the Lucky Beckoning Cat, shouldn’t the 6th wave have started?
“Altan, first son of Agad.” L’teya’s [Tremor Sense] didn’t seem to have picked up anything either.
“I will remember that. But I fail to see why selling us to other countries as battle slaves is illegal in the first place.”
“Strictly speaking, it's not. Mostly it's taboo to deal in slavery in the Zimmskar Kingdom.” Clover answered my question. “The Samak Horde is right in between the Turina Empire, the Free States of Jayu and the Zimmskar Kingdom. The Zimmskarans hated slavery, their nation was born of former slaves. It's becoming a political issue now, especially since the Samak Horde has been kidnapping beastman and selling them to the Turina Empire.”
I wasn’t too aware of what she was talking about. Some of these countries were new to me.
“The Zimmskar Kingdom is the country of beastman, who are descendants of the slaves from the Turina Empire. They have a strict no-slavery pact with the Turina Empire and even the Jayu States; if they’re caught trading beastman slaves who're Zimmskar citizens… it could cause a global conflict.”
“But there’s always a Black Market.” I recalled my time in the game.
“Yes. It’s iffy now because it’s the Samak Horde and some other lesser powers doing the kidnapping, training and selling. Technically these Orc Hordes are not under the same treaties that the larger empires are. The Turina Empire and the Jayu States are big enough to say they can’t police everything that goes on in their lands. Which is reasonable.”
“So that’s the major players in this landscape… this is useful information.”
"Are you from Zimmskar?" I found myself curious about how Clover got captured after Lety had opened up..
"Yes." Clover looked sad, but it disappeared fast. "I was following my parents on some business near by when..."
“What about you? How were you captured?” Clover changed the topic to me.
Now, how do I answer that?
That I was sitting in front of a Computer Game about to defeat the final boss of a game called MSS when I was transported here? That I’m actually from a different world who was reborn in this body? That I wasn’t aware of the real name of this body and that Lock Slaveborn was a name that I just made up?
“...I don’t remember.” I decided to feign ignorance.
I trusted L’teya and Clover but couldn’t bring myself to share everything. I needed to gather my own thoughts first. Hell, was I even the same person who I was a month ago? Surely not. If anyone ever needed therapy, it was me.
"And to think I turned it down all those times after my parent's divorce... It took a supernatural event placing me in a video game world to convince me I need one."
Clover shrugged, my deflection not bothering her as it used to before.
“It's because she trusts me now.” I felt like I was using their trust and to some extent, I guess it was true.
"Then is Lock Slaveborn not your real name?" Lety asked, looking disappointed. Clover laughed.
"It is... for now." I answered her and it seemed to cheer the elf-barbarian up for now.
We began to head deeper into the dungeon where I had left L'teya and Clover. It should bring us closer to the part where we had been waiting for the monster waves. We reached it soon enough but made sure there wasn't anything that we should be worried about.
“I’m not sensing any movement.” L’teya had been scanning the area. She pointed towards the hallway where the monsters had been coming from. “What should we do?”
She had been directing the question to me. I didn’t have to think too hard about what our next steps were. Regardless of whether monster waves would continue or not, our objective of clearing this dungeon didn’t change. I put us in the same marching order as before, L’teya in the front and me in the back with Clover in between us.
“Let’s go.” It was time to resume our dungeon exploration.
----------------------------------------