//…
//…
//…
//Error. User race currently undefined.
//Please wait. Admin assistance has been requested.
//Please wait.
//Please wait.
//…
//…
//Admin Override detected.
//User System Data is being complied.
//Please Wait.
//…
//Package received. Files downloading…
//…
//…
//Complete. All errors resolved.
//Admin Override has been lifted.
//User race redefined. Evolution complete.
…
//Congratulation! You have upgraded your Race!
//Race: Gremlin, has been upgraded to Half-Undead Gremlin!
//Notice: All Undead Users [If applicable] receive a 1 Point discount on all Death infused magics in the Skill Store.
//Notice: Your Racial Resistances have been adjusted.
//Slashing Resistance has been adjusted to Base 60% from 10%
//Stabbing Resistance has been adjusted to Base 60% from 10%
//Impact Resistance has been adjusted to Base -40% from 0%
//Fire Resistance has been adjusted to Base -30% from 10%
//Water Resistance has been adjusted to Base 60% from 10%
//Ice Resistance has been adjusted to Base 60% from 10%
//Darkness Resistance has been adjusted to Base 70% from 20%
//Time Resistance has been adjusted to Base 30% from 0%
//Light Resistance has been adjusted to Base -60% from 0%
//Death Resistance has been adjusted to Base 80% from 0%
//Life Resistance has been adjusted to Base -60% from 0%
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//Congratulations! A Skill has been ungraded due to Race Evolution!
//Deadly Poison Resistance Lvl1, has become Ailment Immunity!
//Congratulations! A Skill has been ungraded due to Race Evolution!
//Pain Resistance Lvl4, has become Pain Immunity!
//Congratulations! A Skill has been earned due to Race Evolution!
//Unaging unlocked!
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//Warning! You have been inflicted with the Curse of Undeath! Any being that you kill will now have an 81.2% [Before factoring personal resistances.] chance of being raised as more Undead.
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…
“Uhhh~…”
Bug slowly raises her head and looks around from where she lays on the ground, her body… surprisingly not hurting?
Some part of her is telling her that three of her rips are broken, the back of her head has a nasty welt on it, back is covered in bruises, a few organs are bruised, she is bleeding internally, and her tail is broken about halfway down, but… none of it hurts… at all? The knowledge about what is damaged is there, but just none of the pain that should be associated with her nerves screaming at her brain for attention. Rather, it is sort of like she just has a silent reminder floating in the back of her skull, patiently waiting to be noticed when needed.
Sitting up with no issues despite her wounds, Bug hears a startled scream off to the side.
“Huh?”
Blinking like she had just woken from a nap, Bug looks over and finds Hannah and the others standing not too far away, staring at her in fright.
“What’s the matter?”
Not getting an immediate answer, Bug looks over at her custom-made skeletons and then over at the giant Undead Spiders, coming to some conclusions of her own.
“Oh, don’t worry, they won’t hurt you. Not unless I tell them to.” Bug says as she works herself to her feet, something that takes some effort because her limbs are still all overgrown and dressed in blades and spikes.
Finally getting onto all fours again, Bug activates her spell and commands her body to return to normal. Switching to a bipedal stance finally, and feeling much more comfortable now- her neck and spine not really being designed for walking like a quadruped for extended periods – Bug gets the special pleasure of suddenly being the tallest person in the room for short while, not counting her skeletons, as she stands on her elongated legs.
Walking towards the humans as her limbs break and mend, shrinking and shifting back to normal, her wings flapping behind her to shake out some kinks, and blessedly, her limbs not radiating with any pain at all as they change. Bug notices as the humans slowly back away from her, stopping as they find the skeletons at their back.
Tilting her head as her horn return to normal and a bloody towel falls away from her face, tentacles being absorbed back into her body and elongated spikes shrinking back down into little nubs. Bug asks, “What’s wrong.”
Hannah wets her lips and carefully raises her voice, an obvious shake in her voice as she watches Bug shrink back down into her normal size and asks. “Bu- Bug? Are you… are you the Necromancer?”
Some part of Bug wants to be crule and play with these humans a little further, to try and toy with their emotions until she can wring all the enjoyment out of them. But that is the monster part of Bug, and it isn’t in charge. Bug is. The game is over now, and the cat, or she guesses, the Gremlin, is officially out of the bag.
“Yes, I am the Necromancer.” Bug says as she reaches back and grabs her tail, giving it a pull to force the broken bone back in place, her tail letting out a sickening pop that has Hannah cringing. Bug hardly even feels it.
Hannah looks like she is about to cry as she hears those words, and Bug wants to say something to try and reassure her only friend, anything at all to try and make her feel better, but Bug knows that she deserves the truth.
“I’m sorry, Hannah.”
“So, all this time… you were lying to us, to me? Why?” Hannah asks as her eyes grow wet.
“I never lied.”
“But you said-!”
“What did I say? Have I ever actually spoken a lie?”
“Wha?”
“When they asked me if I was a human, did I ever say I was?” Bug asks as she points at the adventurers.
“Yes… no, wait…” Hannah tries to remember.
Max answers for her from where he is leaning against Jakub. “You told us you are a person.”
“And that wasn’t a lie.” Bug agrees, holding down the urge to smile and laugh. After all, her friend is sad right now and that wouldn't be appropriate.
“I told you I was a person, and you all came to the assumption that I must be a human or whatever else after you learned about Body magic from Hannah. You assumed that I had turned myself into what you see before you. I simply never corrected you.”
Jakub asks nervously. “What about the bounty?”
“Very much real. The amount that I told you was what I learned the bounty to be when I had learned of it myself. It is probably higher by now… Jakub, would you like to try and claim that bounty?”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
He pales as he looks at Bug and then at the surrounding Undead. Shutting his mouth, he quickly shakes his head no.
Sam asks a question as Hannah is getting worse, teardrops forming at the edges of her eyes. “If you aren’t human, then what are you? A Demon?”
“No, I’m not a Demon. I would be considered a Demi-human. I’m a Gremlin, born of the first floor of this very Dungeon a little over a week ago.” To accentuate this point, Bug moves her broken rat tail behind her and wiggles her long fluffy ears.
Sam looks at her with a bit of shock and after a while says, “Holy shit, I can actually see it. Make the face uglier and more rat like, get rid of the hair and the fur on her ears, make the eyes red… change the legs to be less human… You really are a Gremlin, aren’t you?”
“Mhm.” Bug nods.
Max asks. “How could you possibly be born from the Dungeon? Those things up there, those creatures… That’s not possible.”
Bug opens her mouth to try and tell them about the System and how it is the cause, but finds that nothing will come out, no matter how much she tries.
Huh… well that is interesting. I’m being censored.
Shrugging, Bug changes up her answer. “I was born different. Just a little mistake of the Dungeon. One that it will suffer dearly for.” Bug has to say with a smile on her face.
“So that’s why you didn’t know so many things… What do you mean by making the Dungeon suffer?”
Bug goes to answer, but is interrupted by a crying Hannah, the tears finally falling. “Why? Why Bug? Why did you do it?”
“Why did I do what?”
“Us. Traveling with us. The lies. The -”
“I never lied.”
“Then what was it!?” Hannah cries.
…
Bug looks to her crying friend, the urge to cry building up in her as well as she sees how much she is hurting her. But she holds it all down and tells her the truth. Because Bug never lies.
“It was fun.”
“What?” Hannah asks with surprise in her voice.
“I was having fun, Hannah. At first, I was just tricking some humans so I could have them guide me to the second boss faster. I wasn’t lying when I said that the Necromancer wants to make distance between her and her pursuers. But I was also having fun learning what I could about your people and the outside world, trying to see how well I could blend in with humans without getting caught. It was fun.”
“So all of this was a game to you?”
“Not all of it, Hannah. Not all of it…”
“What do you mea-" Hannah tries to ask but is interrupted as Max repeats his question, this time being more demanding.
“What do mean when you say that you will make it suffer? What are you planning to do to the Dungeon!?”
Bug keeps watching her friend for a long moment before finally turning to address Max.
“I plan to destroy the Dungeon. I will fill it with Death, one floor at a time, layer by layer, until I finally reach its core. First, the Dungeon will be unable to eat. I have already made it to where most humans can’t risk entering the Dungeon. It’s primary food source has effectively been cut off. Next, is to deny it even the energy of its own creations. I will flood every floor with the Undead, and as a result, the Dungeon won’t be able to reabsorb its own creatures when they die. Next is to defeat the Dungeon at its own game. I will clear it floor by floor, just like you adventurers would. I will prove to it that I am not some trash mob that can be thrown away as a training target for novice adventurers! That I am not some mindless creature, born to die after a single day! And when I reach the core, having beaten the Dungeon and starved it? I will have my revenge and kill the Dungeon! And then I will be free to escape this place! To finally walk on the surface and live like a PERSON! To not have to spend every day of my life since my birth, fighting for survival! I will be free! Free!!! I’ll be able to make friends! I could buy cookies! Hell, I’ll learn to bake my own cookies, and then share them with my friends. I could go on adventures and see the oceans, the deserts, the mountains. I could ride on an airship! I could have a life out there! Something that I can never have if I am living as a SLAVE!!!” Bug screams at the humans, her body shaking as tears start to fall from her eyes as well. Her emotions running wild at finally, finally, getting to tell another person about her life. About WHY it is that she is doing this. To tell them her dream.
The humans all look at her in shock, Hannah’s expression an unreadable mess of emotions as she is trying to wipe away her tears.
Bug is breathing hard as she wipes her own tears away, her four arms working to clean her face as she sniffs her nose.
Max speaks slowly, his hand raised before him warily. “Bug… if you destroy the Dungeon…”
Bug sniffs back some snot from crying. “I know, the city will be destroyed, and the plague that is growing within the Dungeon will be released out to the surface.”
“Do you have any idea how many people will die if that happens?”
“No, I don’t. But I also don’t care.”
“You don’t care!? Silest has over eighty thousand people living in it! Woman and children, the elderly, whole generations of families living there! And you don’t care!”
“I will do anything to be free.” Bug says resolutely.
“Then you are nothing more than a monster!” Max yells.
Bug answers back calmly, not raising her voice in the slightest. “How can I be a person if I am not free? You may call my actions that of a monster, I will not deny that. But I choose to be a person. I choose to be free, no matter the price.”
“A real person wouldn’t-“
Bug speaks over Max, asking a simple question. “How many humans died in that last war you were a part of? You guys told me about when you worked as mercenaries, you've killed people too. What was it for?”
“What?”
“You don’t know, do you? What was the war fought over?”
“What, it was…” He looks to Sam and she just shrugs.
Sam answers for him, “No idea. Different Kingdoms go to war all the time. We’re just peasants. Nobles pay us coin, and we go out to kill the other side’s people to take their stuff and be able to feed ourselves.”
Bug asks her, “And does that make you a monster? Because you killed other people for their stuff and your own benefit? If your Kingdom were to attack another Kingdom’s city and destroy it, would that make you monsters then?”
Sam just shrugs again and lets out a breath. “No. It would make us bad people. Maybe even evil depending on how we treat the other side. But at the end of the day, we are still doing it so we can make a living. So we can put food on the table and ale in our mugs. We’re still people.”
Bug looks over the humans, looking each one in the eye before asking, “Then how am I am any different? I am fighting for my freedom. I Am A Person. Regardless of if I am a good one or an evil one, and Hannah, I am sorry, but I told you that I am not a good person. One day, I might be, but not now, not while I have to do what I must to get what I want; to get what I need. Not when I have done horrible things to other people already.” Bug says as her eyes go to the abominations and horrors of human bone that are standing around the humans.
The others turn and look at them as well, slowly realizing just how many bodies it probably took to make a single one of these horrible skeletons. Each one, being a person who most likely died at Bug’s hands.
Max wets his lips before opening his mouth, his words coming out with some apprehension. “Humanity won’t let you do this. They won’t stand idly by as you erase a city from the map. As you release a plague of Death upon the world. We won’t let you get away with this.”
“I know, and I will kill anyone who tries to stop me. It is as simple as that.”
Max tenses as he expects Bug to attack him then and there, but she doesn’t move. She just watches the humans to see what they will do.
As the tension starts to increase, Hannah nervously asks, “Couldn’t we just tell people to evacuate? Can she even be stopped at this point?”
Sam gives a sigh. “Honestly, Hannah… I don’t see it going well either way. You try telling a city full of people that they need to pack up their lives and move. Some might, but most of them will refuse right up until the day the ground is falling out from under their feet… And Max… I don’t see anyone beating her anytime soon. Maybe if the Church could hire an Immortal, but then the Immortal is just as likely to end up destroying the Dungeon and even the city by accident in the process. And what about an extermination team from the Guild? They are going to have to fight through hell and back to reach her now, no?” Sam finishes by shifting her question to Bug.
“Yes. I already told you what I plan to do to this layer, and eventually the next. The longer it takes for you humans to stop me, the harder it will become. Your only hope is if the Dungeon manages to stop me, and you already saw how that went, even with the Dungeon cheating.” Bug says as she points to the mushroom covered Cleaner.
Max looks around at all the destruction that was wrought by this little Gremlin and then shifts his weight a bit as his wounded leg stings. With resignation, he lowers his head and gives up. Even if he and his friends where fresh and at their best condition, they would never be able to defeat her. Especially not now that she has the two boss monsters under her control.
“What do you plan to do with us? Now that your fun is over, are we going to end up like them to?”
Hannah looks in shock at his question, her eyes turning to Bug in fright. That look, the fact that she could even consider the thought of Bug hurting her, wounds Bug in a fresh way that really hurts her heart, but Bug doesn’t let it show.
“No. You are free to go. Use the teleporter and leave the Dungeon. I will not stop you.”
Max says, “We are going to tell them everything. You know that right? Hell, even if we didn’t want to, there is no way that the Church and the Guild won’t be demanding everything we know.”
Jakub hits Max, trying to tell him to shut up. But Bug doesn’t care.
“Go ahead. I won’t stop you. Tell them everything you have learned about me. Try and evacuate the city if you can, help with their efforts to slay me, or take whatever chance you get and run far away. Your choice is yours to make. Just know that if we meet again as enemies, I will not hesitate to kill you.”
Max nods, watching Bug intently. “Right… Then we are leaving, now. Let’s go before she changes her mind.”
They turn to go, but Bug raises a hand and stops them. “Wait.”
They all freeze up and watch nervously as Bug casually walks up to them.
“Max, hold still.” Placing her hand on his leg before he can try and back away, Bug uses Become Weapon on his wounded leg, compelling his injury to rapidly heal, not even leaving a scar behind.
Taking a step back from him, Bug looks up to him and says, “Thank you for protecting Hannah.”
Looking towards Sam, Bug tells her, “Thank you for teaching me how to light a torch.”
And Jakub. “Thank you for the stories and the food, it was good.”
Turning towards Hannah, Bug hesitates... Eventually, she just moves a distance away from the group and then wave for Hannah to come over to her. The other girl hesitates for a moment, looking to the others before eventually deciding that she should probably do as Bug says. The others initially try to stop her, but when the skeletons take a step towards them, they faulter.
Bug yells over, “I’m not going to hurt her. This is… a private matter!”
Hannah share one last look with them before coming over. Quietly and nervously, she asks, “Bug?”
“Hannah, I’m sorry. I know you probably hate me now, but I really do consider you to be my friend. That night when you shared your story with me… I won’t ever forget it.”
Hannah looks like she is about to start crying again as she says, “Bug, we aren’t… we…” But she can’t finish the sentence as she sees Bug’s face, her little friend being so close to tears again as well.
“Bug, thank you for listening to my story, and for the cookie… It was delicious. It was short, but thanks for being my friend.”
Bug smiles as she looks up to her very first friend. Slowly reaching up, Bug cups Hannah’s cheeks and gently pulls her down to her level. Moving forward, Bug wraps her up in a hug. The very first that she has ever willingly given.
The hug is short lived and Hannah is too stunned to be able to reciprocate before Bug releases her, and Bug’s body was unnaturally cold against hers, but it was probably one of the best hugs that Hannah has had in a long time.
“Uh, ah, Bug?”
Bug just gives her a little laugh. “Hugs feel weird. I still can’t get used to it. But if it makes you happy, then I don’t mind doing it.”
“Ehh!? Eh, wait, so can I hug you then?”
Bug looks up and thinks for a moment. “Hmmm… No.”
“Oh…”
“But. If we meet again, on the surface. I will let you give me a hug.” Bug says with a smug and teasing smile, her beautiful emerald eyes shining with mischievousness.
Hannah can’t help but blush. Quickly standing back up as she straightens her clothes, Hannah quickly looks away and clears her throat. “Mrrh… You’ll never tell a lie, right?”
“I never have, and I never will.”
“Then… It’s a promise…”
“Mhm, it is. Bye Hannah, I’ll see you later.”
“Mhm… Bye Bug. I-I’ll miss you…”
Hannah turns to head back to others, her heart feeling fluttery at finally getting a hug from Bug. Even if Bug is a bad person, she still honestly believes that she is nice.
Before she can get too far, she is stopped as Bug quickly calls out to her. “Ah, wait!”
“Mh? What is it?”
“I almost forgot! What was the name of that village, the one that killed Jesica?”
“Ehh? It’s Galvorn. More of a small city or a town than a village though, why?” Hannah answers honestly on reflex, the pain of remembering that horrid place hitting her a moment later.
Bug just give her a big innocent smile. “You are better off if I don’t tell you. Bye Hannah, the Dungeon will be a lonely place without you.”
Hannah looks surprised for a moment until understanding hits her, she returns Bug’s smile, feeling a little better already. “Thank you, Bug. And you’re right, it is better if I don’t know.”
The two part, Hannah heading to the teleporter with her companions as they give a wide birth to the mushrooms that are already starting to slowly spread through the Boss Room, an evil thought sprouting in her mind as she prepares to finally leave the Dungeon.
Perhaps I should head home sooner, rather than later. After all, I wouldn’t want to miss it when Bug decides to give that place a visit.
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Stats
Name – Bug
Age – 0
Race – Half-Undead Gremlin
Class – Little Bodily Horror
Level – 28
EXP – 42/8000
Free Stat Points - 0
Heath – 273/318 [Health loss from internal damage greatly reduced by 70%]
Stamina – 105/105 [Stamina consumption reduced by 50%] [Stamina drain: Sunlight]
Mana – 157/157 [Total = 470] [-313 From Control Upkeep]
Vitality – 53 [+1 From Equipment]
Endurance – 35
Strength - 35
Dexterity - 50
Magic - 50
Intelligence - 50
*Luck – N/A
*Note: Luck is a work in progress stat. Points cannot be put into this stat at this time.
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