Episode 20

The Skeleton Knight was defeated.

Caim had many questions, and this creature must answer them. No, it had to answer. Because if it refused to speak, it would be torn apart immediately. At least by speaking it would prolong its existence.

It was no ordinary monster.

When he killed it, it would disappear without a trace. Like footprints in the snow erased by the very snow that continued to fall. Therefore, although it was not really what mattered to him, this was his first question:

"Have you encountered my kind and are still here?"

"Are you going to waste your first question on that? Isn’t it natural for a monster in a dungeon to return no matter how many times it’s killed?"

"So, you're just another monster, although you can speak and reason."

Caim believed him, though he had no proof. Anyway, it changed nothing. The fact that you wouldn't stay dead didn’t make dying any more pleasant. Anyone sane would want to postpone the agony of death as much as possible. No, if we're talking about sanity, the rational thing was to commit the madness of believing that there was 'hope' even in a situation like this. That’s how he wanted to live, looking for a chance to escape.

It could be a monster, but it was human enough to behave that way.

"Something like that."

"What do you mean?"

"I could answer, but that's not really what you want to know, is it?"

He was postponing the questions that really interested him. And he was only curious. He had already defeated that guy. Yonah and Victoria would find him, they would continue moving forward together, and they would leave him behind. The Knight had this part of the Tower. They would not meet again, whatever it was, or whatever it might be. It was just curiosity, he had no real reason to insist.

So he didn’t.

"It irritates me that you know more than you should, or that it’s so obvious, but you're right. The others like me... How far did they get?"

Yes.

Deep down in his heart, he felt that the Tower was here for him. That it was his destiny to conquer it... But he wasn’t the only person with horns in this world, not even in this Tower. What a convenient fantasy it would be to believe that he was the only one of his kind who had come this far!

That’s why he had tried not to think about it, but there was doubt and fear in his heart... that what was his, his only place in the world, would be snatched away. That he would turn out to be nothing more than a failure, a stepping-stone... for the true chosen one, the person who had to take it all, the destiny.

This journey was not only for answers, but for the urgent need for meaning.

It wasn’t as if his suffering would disappear like mist if he understood why he had to suffer, but it would be easier, at least. He wanted that kind of answer... Something that would make the fact that he had to be born into this world just to suffer bearable.

He would drink from that 'chalice' without a second thought, even if it were poisoned. Therefore...

"I see. Why was I born, no, why was our species born into this world?"

"You won't believe me, but I don’t know. As a consolation, I will tell you that there are only four floors. Exactly four. Though 'only' is the wrong word."

He could imagine it. The first floor, which had felt endless, was surely the smallest of all and the least dangerous. A natural progression in every sense.

... The entrance to the Tower was a door floating in the void. Therefore, people called what was on the other side 'Tower' on a whim. Rumors taking on a life of their own and taking flight. There was absolutely no proof that the Tower was a tower, although it was definitely something that had to be ascended.

And if it wasn’t a Tower, the floors were not floors. If they weren’t, the answer that came to mind... maybe they were...

The twisted smile of the Skeleton Knight and the inscrutable darkness of his empty eye sockets that could be infested with worms seemed to suggest that he was reading his mind. And that his thoughts were correct... although, like those who spoke irresponsibly of a place they had never been, he had no proof of it.

"Four floors, eight bosses?"

"Twelve."

Caim frowned.

Well, it didn’t have to be the same number on each floor, but places like this usually followed their own rules. If the inner workings of the Tower or whatever it was were in some way similar to a Tower, more reason to believe that was strange.

The dungeons... Each one was different, but they had their own rules. They were like game boards. The players could change, but not the pieces nor the rules.

"I only killed two on the previous floor."

Could it be that they simply hadn’t encountered each other? That he had passed by without knowing? Surely he couldn’t conquer the Tower if he didn’t kill it as well, they would have to turn back in that case. It was dangerous to backtrack, if they could go back at all, but it wasn’t possible that there were no consequences for not facing the third boss.

"That’s because one of your predecessors not only killed the third one but erased it from existence. I know how, but obviously, I wouldn’t tell you something like that."

His head had gone mad, imagining the worst possibilities without reason. The Skeleton Knight laughed repulsively, as if mocking him, but Caim remained calm. Because he didn’t believe he was lying. If it was a piece on the board, it had no reason to lie to the 'player'. It had to follow the 'rules', and besides, a cruel and ruthless place like the Tower wouldn’t allow him to pass to the second floor without fighting all the enemies in his path anyway. It had been a ridiculous idea from the beginning.

"Next time don’t insult my intelligence by telling me things that are so obvious."

"I see, I see. There might indeed be a next time. We shall see. Are you satisfied?"

Caim didn’t respond. Well, maybe the tentacles tearing the enemy to shreds counted as a sort of response. He reduced the proud knight to anonymous bones scattered everywhere, and his sword to a ball of metal crushed beyond recognition, no longer recognizable as a weapon.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

He stood for a few moments, watching.

The bones didn’t start coming together, regenerating. He didn’t behave like the common skeleton warriors he had fought several times.

The tentacles had not only scattered him around, but they had undoubtedly killed him... Well, 'killed' didn’t seem the right word when he would undoubtedly continue to exist, and stand in the way of those who came after them as if nothing had ever happened here.

But, in any case, it was undeniable that Caim had won. Although he didn’t feel like a victor in the slightest.

The usual tentacles emerged from his bones and lunged at him like a rain of spears. Caim didn’t move from the spot, of course, at this point he was used to it.

He moved only once, to spread his arms to the sides. Welcoming them.

He even closed his eyes, wondering only what kind of power he would gain from the defeated Knight, as they pierced him, twisted his guts, changed him... and plunged him into a deep sleep.

2

In that deep sleep, he saw one of the many stories that had happened on the long journey to the Tower. Maybe because humans were such partial and limited animals, for whom the past and future were uncertain, it was a story close to the end of the journey.

Or maybe it was because what he had done that day was particularly significant, and it still remained in his heart like a scar.

In any case, he suddenly found himself in a desert.

Struggling in the sand against a horned woman like him, only with much larger horns. They rolled over the ground, sand slipping into their shirt necks and under their clothes everywhere, it was damn slippery. It scraped the skin, reddened it, and hurt.

But, of course, that was the least of it.

The important thing was the knife they were struggling over with all their might.

"Why are you doing this?"

The woman ended up with the knife. Maybe she would have won anyway, but in reality, Caim had lied before. He hadn’t given his all. Everything had happened too fast, after all, and he still resisted treating her as an enemy even though she had tried to kill him.

After all, she was a person with horns, like him.

A daughter of the devil.

They shouldn’t be fighting. The whole world was already their enemy, so why seek out more unnecessarily?

This shouldn’t be happening, and yet it was.

They both rolled back over the sand, stood up, and lunged at each other. But Caim was the only one who did it with bare hands. He wasn’t very good at hand-to-hand combat and, anyway, she wasn’t leaving him much room to counterattack.

He barely had time and skill to dodge her slashes, in fact.

The pressure of the metal approaching to snatch his life joined that of the arid air, where sometimes it was even difficult to breathe. Although the desert was calm at the moment, unlike them, that could change at any time.

"We don’t have to fight. I don’t want to fight, just to help you!"

"Then fight!"

Those were the first words she had directed at him since the incident had started. They didn’t even make sense, what the hell was wrong with her? He had made a serious mistake trusting her enough to move away from the group to talk alone, but how could he have guessed this would happen? It was happening in front of his eyes and he still didn’t understand anything.

Caim kept dodging, looking for a gap to counterattack in vain. Every time it seemed there was a gap, Caim’s instinct told him he would be torn apart if he dared step forward, he wouldn’t have enough time. He was starting to think he wasn’t resisting, but slowly dying. That his defeat had already been confirmed without him knowing it, in a way.

Then, she slashed his shirt.

She tore the material with ease and painted a red line so bright it burned the retinas on his chest.

Unconsciously, he brought a hand to the red line..., and froze, feeling the blood sliding between his fingers. It had been close. Too close. A second earlier and instead of making a slash she would have stabbed him in the chest.

Maybe not in the heart, but he would surely have said goodbye to a lung. In any case, it would have been a serious wound. A sure stab.

A second earlier and...

The faces of his loved ones flashed in his mind like ghosts through the fog. A second earlier and he would have disappeared forever. In the darkness of death, there would be nothing, not even warm memories.

Caim howled.

Before he realized it, he had snatched the knife away. And this time he didn’t hesitate. He savagely stabbed her half a dozen times in the chest, her knees weakened and she collapsed in his arms. Caim lowered her to the ground with some gentleness as if it didn’t matter, as if he hadn’t just murdered her.

When he 'realized', when he 'woke up', he backed away as if frightened by a jolt and threw the blood-stained knife far away, which quickly got buried by the desert sands.

"Why? Why did you force me to do this?" he asked in a hoarse, broken voice, although it didn’t really matter. Even if he knew the reason, the damage was already done.

"I didn’t have the courage to kill myself. Thank you."

She smiled with blood-stained lips.

So... it was about that... Such a stupid thing!

"We saved you. We gave you another chance!"

"For what? Life is misery and pain." Her eyes were already becoming glassy. While the nearby sand was painted red, she was only capable of expressing her pain and resentments.

His heart hurt. For what he had done, and for realizing that she was the kind of person who had been dead even before he killed her. Life had crushed her, reducing her to a shadow that still staggered without knowing why..., so, in a sense, this end was natural. However...

"There’s a lot of misery and pain, it’s true, but that’s why you have to keep fighting to find your happiness. I never believed I would be so happy, but I was accepted... and loved... They are like my family. You could have been part of that family."

To his sincere and emotional words, she only responded with a smile. It wasn’t a cruel smile as one might expect. Rather it seemed like the amusement of a mother watching her child stumble while learning to walk. Caim had never experienced something like that, but that’s what he thought anyway. Dreaming was free and his mind was always spinning something, nightmares and dreams, when not reality.

"Fool. They are humans, sooner or later, they will turn their backs on you. Or rather they will stab you in the back. In every sense."

"They would never do that." Caim didn’t doubt for a second.

"That’s why you are a fool... You’re like a beaten dog. Always loyal to the first people to treat you with a minimum of kindness... But, you’re still a dog. You’ll never really be a person... Do you understand?"

Her words were harsh, but the hate in her voice wasn’t directed at him. That, at least, he understood perfectly.

"Okay, I can’t trust them, but what about me? And if we’re not talking about a simple friendship, but... about love."

He was overcome by an impulse and didn’t stop to think if it was a good idea, he simply leaned down and planted a kiss on those freshly blood-stained lips, but they were already cooling anyway.

It didn’t last long.

When he pulled away, the woman looked at him with wide eyes. She didn’t seem surprised. She seemed scared. Precisely now, not when he had pierced her with the knife, not while she was dying lying in the sand, lamenting her fate.

"Why are you telling me this now, you idiot."

Those were her last words.

3

Finally, they found him.

The enemy that had taken him far away was nowhere to be seen, and Caim was lying on the ground, apparently unconscious. At least, he didn’t have the strength to speak or move, or he hadn’t even noticed their arrival.

Only because of that they couldn’t know if the enemy had won or if Caim had prevailed.

He might have been defeated, but considering what happened to him after defeating one of those special monsters, those bosses, he might also have won.

However, it was a bad time to lose consciousness with the injuries he had. There was so much blood. If you fall unconscious at a time like this, you might never wake up again.

Then, she noticed something.

She would have noticed it from the first moment if it weren’t for the blood distracting her. Caim’s state was obviously the priority, but...

"My God. His horns... they have grown."

And not a little. If it weren’t because Caim was covered in blood from head to toe, it would have jumped out. His horns had become enormous.

Victoria swallowed.

Episode 20: FIN