~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Congratulations!

The Floor has been cleared, as well as the special bonus.

.

.

.

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The writing stopped, but I wasn’t teleported.

I thought it flickered for a second before more words showed up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your reward for the special bonus has already been given.

Your party mates have ranked the highest in the colosseum challenge and have been rewarded.

The final floor reward shall be sent to your home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was already rewarded? With what?

“I didn’t get anything!” I shouted.

But I was teleported and was back on the lawn in front of the rest house.

A chest was in front of me before the others arrived.

“Hey Lefty, what was that special bonus.”

Before I could suppress it the images of my siblings came back to me.

“Just a sick joke, I’m gonna go cook.”

I cancelled the mana on Mezu and went into the kitchen.

Again, it was restocked and after washing my hands I started cutting up onions.

Despite being able to suppress the usual tears they caused by using my mana I didn’t.

It was just an excuse.

I let the tears come.

It wasn’t even long. Those ebashin only didn’t exist for a matter of seconds. It didn’t change anything. The next time that scenario was used they’d be in the same situation. They’d exist just like that, in the same pain.

It’s probably all they’ll even know…

This stupid tower.

The only thing I’ve gotten since coming here is a bit stronger. But not strong enough. Even with Dot we still wouldn’t be able to get back at them.

“I wonder what’s making my kid brother cry,” Dot said in egalthi.

I ignored her, she only called me that when I was in a mood. Even back at wasarera she only said it when we were alone.

“I awoke dark mana” I said in an attempt to get her not to press further.

“What really” she said excitedly but then cut herself off “no, we can talk about that later. What was the bonus?”

“Can we not?”

“Not an option lil’ bro,” she washed her hands as well, “we promised no secrets remember?”

I glared at the chopped onions in front of me and heard her start cutting something next to me.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“The hidden treasure I had to find and reveal….” I started, but I couldn’t finish.

Sure, they weren’t real, but it still was implied that it happened. To create that detailed of a world, it had to have been based on something.

All of it was just unnecessary. Just overly cruel.

“We’ll be able to get some revenge just by trying to clear the tower remember.”

I sighed, she didn’t even need to ask more questions, it was already clear to her what I was thinking about.

“And despite how apathetic Quartz tends to be, the only thing that’s clear is his intent to climb the tower. I have a feeling we’ll get to know some more soon enough, but if even we have a reason to climb, I know the rest of them do.”

“I’m sure Dodger was just bored.”

She snorted, and I couldn’t help but chuckle as well.

“Yeah, well I’m sure when we do clear it, we could try getting her to come help us go after the worst at wasarera.”

“If he wasn’t already dead, I would’ve had to make her promise not to touch him.”

She laughed, “yeah well you would’ve had to do a lot of repetition to make sure she remembered his face.”

We cut for a bit more in silence and the desire to let myself cry withered away. I used mana to stop the onions from continuing things and my sight cleared up.

“Let’s make ukuyon, since it’s your favorite, and Quartz’s. He seems even more annoyed than before.”

I heard a slam, and then the floor shuddered.

“Was there not enough for them to do?”

“Not at all. And whatever he’s hiding from us is getting worse.”

I didn’t really know how it could get much worse from what it already was but at dinner I knew what she meant.

Fluffy, who normally sat next to him was in his lap, and he was muttering annoyed into his hair.

It was like he was conversing, but we all thought Mezu didn’t speak.

I mean there were certainly a few weird things about the kid aside from the whole eating thing. We had already come to the conclusion that the contract probably restricted what he could tell us, and there was a possibility that Mezu and him could converse, but I didn’t think so.

Whenever he was actually speaking to Mezu it seemed like he waited for a response, and since Mezu would gesture or sign, the few words that Brick had taught him, it didn’t appear that Mezu could talk with Quartz telepathically.

Not to mention the fact that Quartz would occasionally look off in a very specific direction and glare before correcting himself.

He had also been spending a lot of time outside or in the basement. He had also slipped into just speaking in dwarvish, his accent was a lot different than Dot’s. She said he sounded like he was from the north of the Dwarven lands. But occasionally there were times where she didn’t recognize what he had said.

She had just chalked it off to local words she didn’t know, but honestly, they sounded like the curses that Dodger would occasionally yell.

I know he spoke at least dwarvish, common and elvish. And occasionally I wondered if he understood egalthi, but I wasn’t sure, and he never attempted to speak to me. But out of those four none of the words he had said sounded like it.

He growled suddenly, took his bowl and Mezu and left the kitchen.

“So, do we want to talk about that?” Dot asked.

We all looked at each other.

Sure, we trusted each other to have our backs, but we all were aware that we were keeping secrets.

“I’m sure it’s just got something to do with his contract with whatever Mezu is,” Paeris said.

“Sure, but it’s been getting worse, if it isn’t and he’s just like hearing things, don’t you think it’ll cause problems?” Dot asked.

“It may, but the past few floors you’ve all been separated with Mezu. Nothing happened right?” Sailhin asked.

Me, Dodger and Brick shook our heads. He kind of just was there with us.

Brick started to sign, I only caught a few of what he had said but before Dodger could translate Paeris spoke, “yeah but they were young dragons, it was probably just some weird thing among kids. But I mean he didn’t do anything to hurt you guys right?”

“Yeah, but it’s still a bit weird that he spent time with each of you, and he followed after Lefty earlier.” Dot said.

“I guess the only new thing is that both me and Brick awakened a new attribute.”

“But I didn’t get anything” Dodger complained.

“What was it?” Paeris asked ignoring Dodger.

“Dark.”

“I’ve never seen a dark manipulator before you have to-“

Sailhin stuck her hand over his mouth.

“Back to my point. If someone else is alone with him on the next floor lets count that as four coincidences too many. If it’s something bad, we can’t do anything to prepare for it.” Sailhin reasoned “Quartz wants to climb the tower just as much as we all do. I don’t think he’d do anything to mess with our progress. He’s stuck with us just as much as we’re stuck with him.”

“Maybe it’s a collect them all situation?” I suggested.

They all looked at me confused.

“Look, what if it’s something only he knows but can’t tell us until Mezu’s spent alone time with each of us. Let’s say Dot goes next, if he’s with her then it just leaves you two. So, after three floors he might tell us, or we’ll find out. I’m sure if we requested to go to the next floor now, he’d say yes even if he was missing a limb and had to wait for it to grow back.”

“He’s right, at least on the floors he isn’t distracted as much as he is here.” Paeris said, “I mean I’m not tired, so I could keep going.”

“Even if you were on your own with him?”

“I barely used any mana last floor, what about the rest of you?”

Dot shrugged “I could go for another one.”

Sailhin shrugged, “Whatever you guys want.”

I was right, he jumped on the option and when we stepped through the door, I was with everyone but Dot and Mezu.

I glanced at Quartz, and he seemed calmer, only three more floors and maybe we’d have an explanation. If not, I think we’d be well within our rights to ask him. At least then we would probably be able to tell if he was restricted from answering us.

When the world built around us though, he stiffened. But then looked confused at his own physical reaction to our surroundings.

Hopefully that didn’t mean anything too bad.