Old people are weird. Once, I found a group of old adventurers out on a voyage. Their vehicle was painfully slow to watch. In my graciousness, I chased after them to give them a lift. They reached their destination four times faster than scheduled.

  Even to this day, I still wonder why they didn’t stop to thank me.

  — System Admin 007

  Zayn was having a great day. He had one functioning arm and two people to face. Sure, one of them was a ghost, and the other was a blind old man.

  That's what made it dangerous.

  The worst part? Even his skill couldn’t tell what the old man was. At the very least, he… wasn’t the same as the Battlewraith. The Battlewraith was a ball of tangled threads, an undecipherable code. The old man was nothing. No mana signals to decipher.

  This wasn’t the same as fighting golems and treants. He was comfortable facing the monsters. Even though some of them were rather intelligent, that was only for monsters.

  People were different.

  When people got involved, things became unpredictable. They could smile brightly at you and still hold daggers in their heart. He didn’t understand people. He'd long since stopped trying.

  But he wouldn't claim himself to be different. If the position were reversed, he would neutralise the old man to avoid any threats. At the very least, he would gag him and tie him up.

  A couple of dozen scenarios ran through at the same time, and he came to an annoying conclusion: the best he could do was run.

  Even that would take all of him.

  The old man sensed his apprehension and smiled amicably.

  Zayn didn’t like that.

  Raising the Y-shaped Andolin in his hands, the old man began pulling on its strings. The air shifted as the mana moved under the order of his fingers, as though he were directing an orchestra.

  Zayn didn’t like that either.

  Whatever the old man was doing, he would not merely watch it happen.

  He cut all caution.

  Ba-dump!

  The monochrome world of his turned burning red, and the sound of his heart retracted into nothingness.

  Time slowed down to a fraction.

  Then, without warning, his heart thundered, reverberating within the entire area. A second beat came crushing down faster. Then his heart went completely haywire.

  As though an angry god was drumming, calling for an inevitable war.

  ‘Bloodflare’ active!

  Rivers of mana tore into his channels, flooding his system, burning his body. Rage flooded him, yet he felt calmer than ever. It was contradictory.

  He opened and closed his fists, amazed at the power flooding in his veins.

  Then, like a rocket, he leapt at the old man.

  Ropes of hair walled in front of him to stop his momentum. But Zayn ignored the cuts on his skin, ripped the wall of hair, and tore inside.

  When he was almost at the old man, a thin, sad tune finally reached his world of stillness.

  Clang

  The mana in the air weaved and rained down like tears. Cold, suffocating, and full of regret. He felt grief, melancholy, regret, loneliness, and everything else wash over him, all at once.

  It numbed his mind. Made him recall things he thought he'd forgotten.

  Under the assault of the contradictory feelings, his rage stifled and gave out. His heart stopped beating with a faint complaint.

  Bloodflare has ended!

  What the hell was this?

  His skill had ended before it could even start!

  It was cancelled.

  Cancelled by the old man. A deep sense of weakness filled him instead. He felt hollow. Emptied. Mana kept raining down upon him, like a mourning that never ended.

  You've listened to ‘A Thousand Years of Rain’.

  He lost all the will to fight. Only an inexplicable pain rang in his heart. Pain of separation. Pain of helplessness. Pain of regret and shame.

  “Everyone perceives rain differently at different times. To a person stranded in a desert, rain would be the highest form of happiness. If the same person were stranded in a sea, they would find themselves annoyed instead.” The old man started again, staring at him with a wrinkled, kind smile. “But you do not like the rain at all, do you?”

  Zayn stared at the old man with a hint of annoyance. He was still prattling on. Soon, he felt itching on his skin.

  “But regardless of your perception of rain, it is the bringer and carrier of life.”

  Huh?

  Zayn stared as the rain sank into his body. Next, he felt it patching up the bloody cuts on his skin. Even his fractured hand rejoined until only a faint tingling remained.

  “Your heart is in the wrong place, young man. Rage, it makes you feel in control. But truth is... it only ends up taking everything you hold dear.”

  Zayn turned a deaf ear to what the old man said.

  He checked his healed hands and stared at the old man in amazement. “Is… this your class skill? You can heal people with songs?”

  Since when were bards this powerful?!

  “That? I can see why you think so, but no! This happens to be my late wife’s song. I’ve been attempting to recreate it.” He smiled in a very proud manner. “What do you think? Did I do well?”

  Zayn shot a sceptical side glance at the battlewraith.

  Her?

  What did she sing? A thousand years of wail?

  “Don’t underestimate her! Back in her days, adepts and ascendants would line up just to hear a song from her. Just one! That one time, the Champion of Aderia offered a million grade-five Arax, asking her to replay a song, but she refused, saying she’d sung them all already. Then, there was this one time—” He scratched his rubbed head and frowned. The smile on his face froze, and he kept repeating those words. “…that time… what happened that time?”

  A million grade-five Arax? He had five thousand grade-one, and he thought he was rich. Though if this skill were just a copy, he could only imagine what the real one could do… Perhaps it raised the dead back to life? Give an increased lifespan to the listeners?

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He couldn’t help but ask, “What are adepts and ascendants?”

  “Bastards! They are just a bunch of murderers… They were all just lusting after her power. They… they killed her…” The old man had completely lost it at the mention of them. “No… no!”

  What? He brushed his eyes at the battlewraith who followed the old man like a doll without a string.

  So he was right.

  That thing really was a ghost…

  “It was me! I killed her. It’s… all my fault.”

  The mana in the air turned unstable, as though mana were attuned to his mood.

  Zayn took a step back in caution as the old man devolved into unintelligible muttering.

  This guy… was crazy crazy.

  He had a ghost pretending to be his wife, and now he was saying he was the one responsible for her death. Watching him prattle on and on, a smirk broke onto his face. This was good! Great, even!

  As long as he ignored the madness, the possibilities were limitless. The old man was a bard and had incomprehensible mastery over songs, like a named NPC of sorts.

  And his class, it worked perfectly with buffs and songs.

  He surely had other songs he could play, and if all of them were even half as impressive…

  Suddenly, defeating this dungeon didn’t seem impossible. That is, if he could convince the madman in the first place. But he would argue him being a madman boded well in his favour. If this were a normal person, Zayn would cower, maybe keep ten feet away. But broken people were easier to manipulate.

  Licking his lips, he readied himself to put forth his best ‘conman’ skills. “Are you from Eldera?”

  “Eldera? Hmmm…” The old man suddenly calmed down and tried super hard to remember, scratching his bald, wrinkled head comically. “I forgot. I've been stuck here too long. Too long for it to matter anymore.”

  “You’re stuck?!” He frowned, “How long have you been here?”

  “Too many moons… too many. Wait… why do you care so much?” The old man turned cautious all of a sudden. “Are you here to steal my wife, too?! You’re not getting her!”

  “Of course not!” Either he was a terrible—terrible communicator, or the old man was just insane. “I just want to get to know you! What should I call you, mister? Do you have a name?”

  “What use is a name?” A small mutter reached Zayn. “She won’t use it to call me anyway.”

  The old man suddenly turned around and started to leave with the battlewraith, as though he feared Zayn would steal her if he stayed any longer.

  The wall of trees moved by themselves to make way for him.

  Zayn felt slumped.

  Who the hell said broken people were easy to manipulate?

  And the battlewraith was a ticking time bomb, which was a whole other conversation.

  Communication was hard, especially when the opposite party was a wife-obsessed madman, level max.

  Hence, going solo was better!

  And no, grapes weren’t sour. Maybe inside the house, there would be more sane powerhouses to recruit onto his team.

  He jumped up to the door and burst inside the house. The decaying door crumbled without resistance; dust flying over his shoulder.

  Cautiously, he took a step inside. A coldness emanated from the minuscule cracks in the stone flooring, biting his exposed skin. He counted multiple smells wafting through his lungs at once—wet, musty, even a faint metallic smell.

  Clearly, this place hadn’t seen sunlight in forever.

  In fact, as he entered, the light got lost and blurred in the distance. The blackened stones devoured it, blurring everything after a few yards.

  He forced a minor cut on his forearm. His shoulders relaxed once he found nothing suspicious. Then he snorted self-deprecatingly. He’d gotten too comfortable injuring himself, hadn’t he?

  ‘Do it unto yourself before others do it to you,’ as they said. Or something like that.

  With sufficient caution, he moved deeper.

  He hadn’t noticed before, but ‘I See You Now’ was really good at seeing in the dark, like X-ray vision with extra steps. He did a quick scan of the place.

  Oddly contoured monolithic stone sculptures were the first things he noticed, most of them blown way out of proportion. Many depicted humanoids. Some were amalgamations of bipedal animals. Others were ferocious creatures he’d never seen—some of them beyond his comprehension.

  Each statue was adorned with intricate metal jewels and ornaments. The faint sunlight reflected upon them, illuminating them with a dim shine. He ran his fingers along their edges and felt a… hunger inside of him.

  If he took everything here and sold it, how many Arax would that be?

  A bunch, probably.

  He edged towards the grey walls on the sides, cautiously scanning everything. On each wall were etched perfect masonry—laden with letters and symbols of a foreign language. Their strokes and edges arched mesmerisingly, reminding him of Chinese calligraphy.

  He stared intently, hoping to learn something like Allspeak or Master Tongue that the old grey had. Some games did that thing where you just intuitively learned language skills just by observing. It wouldn’t hurt to try.

  Almost a minute passed before he accepted that it was not the case here.

  “Of course it wouldn’t be so easy.” Disappointed, he delved deeper inside. At least nobody had seen him fooling around with the calligraphy stuff.

  The further he went, the more the length of the place hit him. It was built like a hallway—only, instead of humans, it seemed to be made for giants.

  Most of the inlays, tablets, and sculptures he saw along the way were of stone. Stone and metal accessories, too. The expensive kind.

  He grabbed them and threw them into his ring.

  “You don’t need this,” he claimed as he grabbed the ornaments on the statues, flashing a shameless smile. “This sword would be very useful, thank you.”

  Another sculpture was robbed of its weapon.

  “I could use that mug. You statues don’t drink, ah—” He said as he broke the hand of a statue to take a mug. That one was crucial, actually. He apologised for the broken arm, but it wasn't like they could listen.

  His grin reached from ear to ear.

  This place was a treasure trove waiting to be unearthed! Enough to steal for days.

  No—wait, he wasn’t here to steal!

  But then again, this was not stealing! He was excavating! Preservation of culture and lost history!

  Having found a justification for his unjust actions, he got more indiscriminate, moving with the gait of an explorer. Breaking out weapons and treasures and taking them all for himself!

  His expedition ended once he realized his ring was much too small. Having only two hands was inconvenient, too; if he had many limbs like the animals in the statues, he could carry far more.

  How regretful!

  He sighed with a defeated shrug, “I didn’t even take 10% of the good things I saw.”

  That realisation hit harder than the pain of his dislocated bone earlier.

  He strode forward, trying not to look at anything anymore. There were no valuable things here. None with any mana.

  It was useless, certainly. All of it.

  After a while, the stone statues changed their shape. No longer did they depict animals of cosmic horror; they featured a far worse brand of creatures.

  A couple of lovebirds.

  His eyes were instantly drawn to the woman. Not because she was pretty. She was, but her features began as blurry and unclear, as though the sculptor didn’t know how to etch them.

  As though he didn’t know her.

  But as he progressed through the statues, they became prominent—the high cheekbones, the almond-shaped eyes, the gentle smile curving upon her lips. Her clothes were folded with delicate grace and her thin robes full of intricately sculpted folds.

  When he detected the pointy ears sneaking out of her hair, he realised what she was. An elf. A really, impossibly pretty elf.

  But that’s like their entire brand.

  The man, on the other hand, started as a valiant young man. Part human, part monkey-like beast.

  "Sun wukong?"

  He certainly looked like him.

  His sharp, brutal eyes narrowed with a glint. The majestic mane spread on the side of his face. His eyes. The challenging posture. All of it was too similar.

  But that changed soon.

  With each consecutive depiction, the discount sun wukong lost some of his human features—eyes turned serpentine, arms gained scales, bone spurs sprang out of him.

  Eventually, he was a beast more than a man.

  The final statue was of the elf woman. Her chin touched her neck as she glanced downward, both of her hands lovingly caressing her stomach.

  He followed her gaze and found nothing.

  What was she staring at?

  Was she hungry?

  Zayn brushed his eyes at the sculpture a second time, and then a third, every time finding new details that amazed him.

  Other sculptures depicted her peerless beauty and gracefulness, the features that made her seem near perfect. But this one… this one had the scars. The signs of age at the corners of her eyes. How her lips bent a little unnaturally as she smiled. Even her teeth were a bit uneven.

  She looked like a real person.

  Like if she walked out of the statue the next moment, he wouldn’t be too surprised. Which was a scary thought in itself.

  Yeah, please don’t do that.

  But he could tell. This statue was—

  “A labor of love!” A old voice completed his thought.

  He jumped like a cat again.

  The old man stood beside him since who knows when. Once again, it was clear that he had no sense of propriety.

  Zayn scowled at him.

  The old man pretended to look at the statue. “It’s easy to fall in love with their beauty, but true love is when you fall for their scars too.”

  He shot the old man a deadpan stare.

  This guy had nothing better to do than talk about love, did he?

  Also, it unsettled him that he never opened his eyes. Perhaps the grey-robed man had some skill like ‘Mind’s Eye’.

  Though there were more pressing concerns.

  “Old man, do you know who any of these people are?”

  “They’re irrelevant. Now listen, you wouldn’t believe this. Merisa had this mole under her lip…” He started speaking nonstop about his ghost wife in obsessive detail.

  Zayn turned around and walked away as fast as possible, but the old man hovered just beside him and kept blabbering.

  Perhaps the real horror of this dungeon was this old man all along.

  He felt his social battery drain absurdly quickly as the old man kept muttering obsessive jumbles about his wife and her weird hobbies, pastimes, and thirteen other things.

  Good for him, or whatever.

  He was not listening to all that.

  The Battlewraith followed them closely, her blackened hair causing screeching noises. Somehow, a goddamn blabbermouth scared him more than an actual ghost.

  Did his old bones not hurt from all that talking?

  Eventually, he walked even faster to get rid of the old man.

  “Do you have someone you love?” Old Grey asked out of nowhere, making Zayn stop in his tracks. “Or… something?”

  “No.” He answered without hesitation.

  “Why not?”

  Thoughts buzzed in his head, memories stitched in rust scraped out of a forgotten corner of his mind. He shoved them back to where they were. He wouldn’t allow himself to fall there again. He couldn’t afford to.

  Because everyone and everything he had ever claimed to love eventually, with absolute certainty, always left him.

  “I see.” The old man said nothing more before leaving.

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