-Decision-

After exiting the dungeon, Kenshin exchanged numbers with Maria and reported what he had experienced on the first floor to the DCB office. It took some time but after its completion, he was allowed to go back home.

Suguro seems to not care too much about Hashimoto and his group, he was more interested in the new information that Kenshin had provided.

His enthusiasm had vanished with his emotions in disarray.

Tossing and turning in his bed, that night Kenshin didn’t get a wink of sleep. He was thinking about the revelation he had gone through in that white space.

He was forced to make a decision; the time limit was two days.

Flashback

“Why are you saying all this to me?” Kenshin asked in puzzlement. He had a bad feeling about this. This self-proclaimed dungeon core had explained somethings that even high-level decision makers of the world didn’t know.

He was not naive to think that this thing was simply telling him for the sake of making him knowledgeable.

“Recently there was a complication arose with this dungeon. I am about to vanish. If I vanish then something very bad happen to you humans” the dungeon core said ominously.

“What? What will happen to us?” Kenshin tensed his muscles.

“If I vanish, then the thing that keeping these monsters in the bay will vanish. All these undead will pour out and cause mayhem everywhere. They will kill everything ‘living’ in their sight and poison wherever they go. I am pretty sure, you humans don’t want that!” the core said with a glint in his eyes as if daring him to deny his claim.

Unfortunately, Kenshin couldn’t deny it. It was true that these undeads will cause a massive amount of damage to the living in comparison to other monsters. They were unfeeling, unkillable and poisonous.

Though Mito was a small town, it still contains a population above 270, 000. The number of hunters in this region will be inadequate for such a massive amount of monsters.

This dungeon, Ekla’s Garden, holds more than 1000 monsters and all of them were specters or undead types. Although small in number, their destructive capability towards living was far more terrifying than anything.

“This is really bad!! What can I do to stop this?” Kenshin asked being anxious about the future.

“What makes you think that I have a way out?” the core asked with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

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“You took your time in explaining all these facts. I don’t think you are doing this just for the sake of doing it…you must have a way around and need my help” with added points in WIS and INT, Kenshin was no longer a dimwit ignorant person.

He began to take notice of the smallest things around him. Though not a master of psychology, he was intelligent enough to catch on to the core’s drift.

“Straight to the point! You are boring, no fun at all. It would have been better if you panic more and deny everything” the core seems to have spoken some dangerous stuff just now but Kenshin ignored it.

He had something more important to do rather than nitpick with his attitude.

“I can’t stop the dungeon break from happening. What I can do is limit the number of monsters that can exit the dungeon. Right now, somebody seemed to have sucked away all my acquired mana, making me very weak for the moment. I don’t know their identity, but I can be sure of this fact that they were powerful. With the loss of mana, I am losing control over this dungeon. To conserve what little amount of mana left, I sealed myself inside that red crystal you have seen earlier. If I can regain some amount of mana, then I can stop all the weak monsters from leaving the dungeon during the break” The core explained his plan.

“And how can you gain that mana?” Kenshin asked. He wanted to everything within his power to stop such tragedy from happening.

“Contract” the core answered reluctantly.

“Contract!?” Kenshin asked in surprise.

“Yes, contract. You must enter a master/subordinate contract with me. That would allow me to absorb some amount of mana from every monster you slay. After gaining enough mana, I can put on a limiting condition on the dungeon, forbidding all the low-level monsters from exiting” the core said gloomily. For a being like him to enter a master/subordinate contract with a mortal was very demeaning. But, what can he do? Desperate times call for desperate measures. He will just have to grit his teeth and endure it for the time being.

“That sounds too good to be true! What are the consequences?” Kenshin asked. From the time he discovered about that scam attempt on him, he had stopped taking things at face value.

“Two drawbacks…one, this contract will be permanent. Second, this contract will do some changes to your body. I don’t know what will happen, but I am half sure that you will stop being a human gradually”

“What!? Stop being a human! What do you mean?” Kenshin was a little scared. It was normal to get afraid when someone tells you that you will stop being a human.

“We, the dungeon cores, are not actually living beings nor are we dead. We are concepts given consciousness. We are born from an idea and will exist until that idea exists. I was born from the idea of balance decided by someone else. I will exist until that idea exists. Currently, someone is destroying that idea. If he/she succeeds in doing that, I will seize to exist forever. By forming a contract with me, you will be coming in direct contact with concepts. Even I don’t know what will happen”

“Concepts??” although Kenshin didn’t understand what the core just ranted, he got the gist that the core was something beyond human understanding. By coming into contact with it directly, it will somehow affect him.

Before now, something like this never happened, so the core also didn’t know the consequences.

Seeing his ghastly white face, the core sighed.

“You can take two days to think about it. If you agree with me, then come back and we will form the contract then”

[Flashback ends]

Closing his eyes, Kenshin tried to sleep but was unsuccessful in doing so. He was too tensed to calm down on his own.

Like this, the night was gone as the morning rays of the sun penetrated through his window screen and falls on his face. But he was wide awake. His eyes had bags under it and he looks visibly tired.

Wheather he should do it or not, only 46 hours and 57 minutes left to make his decision.