East Tide was a quiet place that day, and with the pearl in her hand, she made her way into the ever growing dungeon. Passing by an army of summoned skeleton minions, she found Gray who sat alone in his office. He seemed tense, as if he had a hint of what was going on.
“Isabelle?” he asked. “What’s going on? Where’s Aria?”
Her answer was to roll the pearl over to him. Seeing that, Gray seemed to realize what had happened.
“A slime pearl? Don’t tell me —”
“Aria’s been stolen away.”
“By who?”
“By Sloth and Wrath.”
Gray froze. He knew who those people were — no doubt about it. He took the pearl and dropped it into a cup of water before standing.
“Wrath and Sloth? Tell me, were they a blond spearman and a blond martial artist?”
“You know these people? Who are they? Assassins? Kidnappers? Imperial spies?”
He held his head in one hand, sitting back down with a thud to confess it all.
“They’re two of the seven deadly sins — the SDS — working underneath the Emperor.”
“The Emperor!?”
“They’ve been stalking me for the past year, watching my every move. For my own protection, I built this dungeon to give myself a home field advantage.”
“You hired Aria, knowing she’d be in danger because of you?”
Gray fell silent, then nodded.
“I knew she’d be put at risk, but she was — to me — an alarm system. If she were to be kidnapped or killed, that meant the SDS were about to knock on my door.”
“Old man, are you serious? Did you really put a child at risk to protect yourself?”
He didn’t answer. His silence was the only answer she needed to hear.
“I can’t believe you. You put a child’s life on the line, and now that the consequences lie before you, you don’t even flinch. Were you planning on having her kidnapped like this?”
“If you knew who the SDS were, you’d prepare for anything with any method.”
She didn’t even recognize the Gray who sat before her. Sure, he could be mean and was a harsh taskmaster, but she never expected him to be maliciously cold and calculative, tossing aside the lives of children for his own survival. She was worse than the most cruel demoness who wouldn’t dare harm children.
“Just what are you, Gray? Are you even human?”
“That’s a question I could ask every person I encounter. Humans and their lives are strange — we weigh them heavier than the lives of monsters, yet in reality, they weigh the same.”
“How heavy is a human life to you? How many milligrams? Zero?”
“When you know the truth like I do, you’d understand that the number zero is the most merciful of them all.”
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She had enough. With the snap of her fingers, an explosive wisp appeared before the two.
“Are you planning on blowing apart my office?” he asked. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, lest you get crushed beneath a pile of rubble.”
“I’ll do something worse.” and that’s when he saw it in the corner of his eye. A see-through being slipped out of his filing cabinet with a piece of paper in his hand.
It was Isabelle’s contract which was given to him by Aria for safe keeping. With the explosive wisp, she began burning its corners.
“A contract is no good as a pile of ashes now is it, hmmmm?” she warned him with a mixture of threats and taunts. “If you answer my question wrong, I’ll torch it, torch you, and burn this place to the ground. I’ll drag you down to Hell where my demon kin can eat you alive, ripping you limb from limb.”
“Interesting proposal, coming from a demoness who hasn’t even become an archdemon. Go ahead — do your worst.”
Pen Pen flew out of his shirt pocket, defending him with its fountain-tip.
“Tell me,” Isabelle asked. “Just who are you?”
“I am Gray Arkal, master of the East Tide dungeon. All who cross me are given the cruelest, most merciless deaths possible. Every summoned skeleton of mine used to be a living being, and if you want, I can recount each one of their deaths — all slow and painful.”
“Tell me, why are the SDS coming after you?”
“I am an enemy of the Ardyne Empire, and thus, they want me dead.”
“Dead because you could lead an uprising or dead because the secrets you know could start one?”
Gray smirked.
“Why, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a detective here. Clever, clever, but I’m afraid you’re in the wrong genre here. LitRPGs have no need for detectives. They’re mindless entertainment, strictly designed to avoid any and all deeper thinking beyond fighting, grinding and strategy.”
“Answer my question,” she warned, burning more of the contract — the contract that’s preventing her from attacking Gray under the God of fairness, Seti’s, rules.
“I could do both easily. I have the connections, the wherewithal and the knowledge required to topple an Empire. For christ’s sake — I could do it in five minutes, but I wouldn’t because I know that peace is a valuable resource. The quiet of peace calms the hearts of the people, and combined with the mundanity of every-day-life, you could calm a herd down to complete and utter submission. Envy and sloth are the weakness of a peaceful world, did you know that?”
“And why’s that?”
“Envy leads the greedy by the nose, guiding them down the path of the ruiner — breaking the rules that govern a nation in order to enrich themselves. Sloth leads the masses, guiding them down the path of the disconnected observer, begrudgingly accepting every misfortune brought upon them. Together, the two groups crack the foundation of society, leaving it shattered enough that one blow is all it takes to send it crashing.”
“Are you saying the Empire’s going to collapse?”
“I’m saying it could collapse, and the culprit behind that collapse will be the seven deadly sins. When that collapse comes and when the world as we know it ends, I’ll be sitting pretty in the safety of my dungeon, sipping on a cup of tea.” and he took his glass of water, swirling about the pearl which had gradually grown in size, regaining its former self.
“The fact that Aria’s been kidnapped says it all. The SDS are working towards their plan of collapse. The greedy will continue to take advantage of a rotten corpse of a system, the slothful will continue to live their monotonous, meaningless lives, and when collapse comes and everyone of the Empire disappears, no one will notice a thing. It will be a quiet collapse, like dying in your sleep.”
“And you’re going to do nothing as the world burns?”
“You may look back and turn to a pillar of salt. In the meantime, I’ll continue living on, enjoying what life has to give to us all.”
Isabelle had enough. She heard all she needed to, and with her flame, she torched the contract.
“You know how to prevent it, and yet you’re doing nothing. You’re a greater demon than me!”
“Do you believe this world ought to be saved, Isabelle? A world where children are driven to tears, forced to kill — to become powerful enough to protect themselves from monsters who threaten not only them, but their friends and family?”
Aria’s face appeared in Isabelle’s mind — a face caked with blood, forced to kill to become powerful enough to protect her servants.
“Bring to this dungeon ten righteous people. Show me that there are good people worth saving, and when you do, I will rise from my dungeon with my army and I will save this world — a world so rotten that even the seven deadly sins want it destroyed.”