Episode 22

1

"That Caim fellow is progressing well. The candidates have been worsening for a thousand years, so maybe in old times he would have been pretty average. But maybe he will make it."

"I know the candidates have been getting worse; I've killed most of them. And I know Caim is doing well. What I don't understand is why you think I care. In the slightest."

"Well, it should be important. Even if it seems hopeless, we have to keep trying and praying for a miracle. Otherwise, what are we alive for? Maybe Caim will be the one to succeed."

"Or he'll die and replace the third boss on the first floor."

"If we're going to be pessimistic, you could have said he'll die in the fourth and join the rotation."

"Isn't that worse? Getting so close, almost making it after more than a thousand years, and then barely missing?"

"No. Because if he dies in the fourth, it means he could have made it. There was hope."

"Yeah, a hope that hypothetically ended up shattered." The woman shook her head. "I don't understand you. No matter how much time passes, I don't understand you. It's like we're from different planets."

They talked as if they had originally been human, but in truth, they looked like they were from different planets. The man's hair was long, wavy, and the color of old silver. His pointed ears, his slit pupils, and the purple color of his eyes were signs of an elven lineage.

The light that enveloped him was as faint as the rest of him.

He looked like a specter who would disappear in an instant under the rational light of the sun. But neither the sun nor the moon could penetrate the Tower, so he had wandered its corridors for a thousand years and might wander for a thousand more, always empty-handed.

If one sought proof of his suffering, one need only look at his face, always marked by cruel fire. Though his body seemed insubstantial, could it be that the burns still hurt him? If so, how could he bear the sanity of such pain for a thousand years?

Or the mere prolonged existence for so long. Humans had been made to die for a reason, after all. Life was misery and pain. If he could transform into water, the misery and pain of more than a thousand years trapped in the Tower might overflow even all the seas of the world.

The woman, in contrast, was undoubtedly pale but solid. And clearly human, at least her upper half. As for her lower half, perhaps it was best not to talk about it. At all, ever.

"Maybe that's why the Tower brought us together."

"Sure it did. God exists and is a fucking sadist."

"You know? That, at least, is something we can agree on. The idea of a higher power never gave me any comfort."

In the end, they would be like animals to that being, like ants.

The man and the woman, transformed long, long ago into creatures, laughed as if they were sharing a private joke that really wasn't funny at all.

Not a bit.

2

They were where they were, so of course they soon ran into more trouble. After beating the crap out of a cyclops, now they would have to deal with an orc.

Caim raised a hand to stop them, without taking his eyes off the creature. A somewhat unnecessary gesture despite the poor lighting of the place, they had surely seen it without any problem, but it never hurt to make sure.

If you assumed too much, sooner or later you would pay for it and look like an idiot. He knew that well. Well, you'd be lucky if looking like an idiot was the worst of your problems after screwing up in a situation like that.

Caim was the leader, and that meant he had the responsibility of keeping not just himself alive. It was a heavy responsibility.

He assessed the situation quickly. It might be big, but it was just one orc with its back to them. It couldn't be simpler, in theory.

"Shush," he whispered. "The best way to win a fight is before it starts. I'll handle this."

As he advanced stealthily, though crouched, he moved as fast as if he were standing and barely making any noise. This was actually Yonah's specialty, but he wanted to do it and surprisingly she hadn't protested with all that about him always wanting to be the one to run into danger (which was true, he had never argued about it and had no plans to do so), so why not?

His size, both length and width, might impress, but it would be enough to slash the neck from behind. Then he'd just have to worry about not being crushed when it fell.

It was all very simple in theory, on paper.

This was the reality:

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Just at the last second, almost as if it had been aware of his presence from the first moment, the orc turned with agility and reflexes unusual for its species.

Its arm, green and thick as a tree trunk, intercepted his blow without any trouble. The blade didn't even penetrate its skin, let alone the flesh. Not a single drop of blood was seen.

Caim had no time to react as he should.

Not because he had been too surprised, losing a few valuable seconds. It simply beat him.

It sent him flying backwards. He landed on his butt. He was breathing perfectly and hadn't suffered any injury, it hadn't even touched him, just the sword. Well, did a wound to his pride count? He felt humiliated.

He rolled back before getting up, assuming it would do the obvious. Pounce on him, not let him recover. But no. It stayed where it was. It didn't move an inch.

Then he knew why it hadn't taken advantage of that brief edge, even though it should be irrationally aggressive like any monster.

The simplest answer tended to be the right one.

It simply wasn't irrational.

"Why does everyone try to do that?" the orc asked. It sounded more confused than angry, even scratching the back of its head. If it weren't because it was an orc, you might think it was being sarcastic, openly mocking him. The one who was more confused here was actually Caim himself. He didn't waste time, got up quickly, even before processing it all.

"I see... You've gotten practice. And, to top it off, you even talk. Fuck me."

It was to be expected that the Tower would be full of unthinkable things, but this had not been in his plans.

Not only was it strong and big like all orcs, but it had survived long enough to develop some intelligence. It might be the intelligence of an eight-year-old child, but no child was two meters tall nor robust as a fucking oak. Maybe he should have left the job to Yonah, after all. Too late to reflect and think better of it, however, as usual.

Well, it shouldn't be that big a deal.

Normal orcs were dangerous enough, but this one had been strong enough to... well, mature. That would make it twice as dangerous. But even then, it was just one orc. How could a single monster that wasn't even a boss give them trouble?

Yes, he had assumed too much.

The troubles began immediately. The orc approached him, roaring, stomped and that made the floor come down. More incredulous than scared, Caim fell spinning through the air, debris following closely into the depths of the darkness.

He felt stones, small and larger, hitting his head, his armor. With a bit of bad luck, which he had plenty of, one of the stones would be too big and knock him unconscious.

So the first thing Caim did to try to get out of this in one piece was to raise his arms, protecting his head. He didn't have to fear the fall. No matter how much distance remained until the ground, he could save himself by shooting webs, forming a net that would absorb the impact of his fall. It would hurt, but that would be all. He would save his neck.

He shot webs through the darkness, anticipating the obvious course of events. But that turned out to be just another dangerous assumption. From the right, something approached crunching horribly, a sound so piercing that it even competed with the noise of the debris rain. Another hungry monster that had patiently waited its turn?

No.

It was something.

Nothing more than a piece of metal; its insides, a bed of spikes. He knew what it was. And it was of no use to him. He couldn't dodge in the air. He didn't give up, he wasn't that kind of person, he shot as many webs as he could at the iron maiden despite assuming it wouldn't be enough. And he tried to summon the tentacles to intercept it, all he would need was to cut the rope, one tentacle was really enough. He focused everything on one tentacle and…

He was caught like a fly and dragged along with the swinging iron maiden back again, as it followed a pendulum movement. Of course, in the process, the spikes dug even deeper into him if possible. But there the webs shot saved him.

The pain had blanked his mind.

He could hardly think and barely breathe, but was vaguely aware that if not for that, many more spikes would have penetrated him instantly, turning him into mince.

At least this way he had a chance.

How treacherous was this damn place.

He wasn't capable of comprehending how quickly things had gone south once again

But at least there was something good, it turned out that going ahead instead of sending Yonah to do something that was her specialty hadn't been a mistake after all. It was a thousand times better that he was trapped in this situation. She didn't have to suffer like this.

3

The specter of the elf or whatever he had been a thousand years ago (after so much time it was doubtful he himself remembered, or that that fact had any importance when his time had died while he was forced to persist) turned to the woman who, much to her regret, always accompanied him.

"You did that, right?" It wasn't a question.

It hadn't seemed even remotely like a series of natural events, so who else could be responsible, what other alternative was there? Unless God had finally gotten bored of sitting on the bench, watching as his creation set the world on fire.

"What do you want me to say? It's our job. If it were as easy as just letting ourselves be defeated, this would have ended a long time ago."

Of course, but that had seemed unnecessarily twisted and cruel. He was intimately familiar with duty and honor, but going beyond out of sheer pettiness was repulsive.

Even so, the apparition chose to remain silent.

What was done was done. And anyway, he wasn't going to manage to change her way of thinking. It would be a gross mistake to imagine that beings who had lived for hundreds of years should be open-minded, it was quite the opposite.

Adults were closed-minded. Children, who didn't know how the world worked, were open to possibilities.

Experience corrected that and slowly crushed your soul into a rigid way of thinking that served as a prison..

So they had no way of changing after a thousand years. They were only allowed to exist as hunting dogs to test the intruders. See? Even if there was a one in a million chance of a miracle occurring, they couldn't experience anything that would lead to a change of opinion.

They could only go around the same old thing in the dark, abandoned by everyone and everything.

He was more than fed up with all this.

4

Caim had just managed to prevent the iron maiden's doors from closing on him, burying him alive, but he was far from done. He had only just begun. He had to get out of this deadly trap.

And he had to do it on his own, right now.

Otherwise, the swinging of this damn thing would finish shredding his organs and kill him. One of his lungs would have more blood than air, he could bet. He coughed up a bit of that blood immediately afterward.

So he would have to crawl out of the iron flame, pushing with all his might, while the spikes twisted inside him.

Just thinking about it held him back, but damn, he had no other choice.

Damn.

Episode 22: FIN