She buried her face into the pillow, tears soaking through the fabric. The embers of the hearth smoldered. Why was she never good enough? The system had cut her from the tutorial. She'd failed her mother. And she couldn't even be Dane's peace. Ada had heard everything from the bedroom. She hoped he would return to bed, blowing off the ice queen's proposal of a private conversation. But he never returned, not even to change into the clothes the elegant woman picked out.
Her thoughts ran wild. "Who comes over for water usage?" She thought. The elf could dress it up however she liked, the tone in her voice, the way she cleared her throat before responding to the "misunderstanding". Was all the disdain an act to get Ada to drop her guard? Her heart bled with all of the scenarios she made up in her head.
The door creaked, exposing the cold breeze that nipped at her naked back. She heard Dane's footsteps, not the tender footfalls she heard last night but the ones that hit the dungeon floor with a purpose. She didn't move, pretending to be asleep. She listened to the tightening of leather straps as he donned his armor. It was stolen, like everything else that belongs to Dane. She felt the tender kiss on her curly brown hair, so dark that most confused it for black. His lips pressed into her scalp, a promise of connection.
The walk back to Ada's room felt like miles. Time was a fickle thing. When you wanted it to go fast, it would hold itself still and leave you alone with your thoughts.
"You're not the bad guy," he muttered, as if saying it could make it true. "You just helped out… a colleague. That's all Amelia is. Right? He hadn't convinced himself yet, but something was there. Something he felt for Ada was also mirrored for Amelia, not the same, but special in a way that belonged only to her. He hated this. He didn't even know what this was.
He pulled hard on the leather straps so tightly, as if it were a form of atonement, similar to a monk who knew that pain brought the body redemption. He moved to the edge of the bed. Ada was a perfect vision of his calm. She was the anchor in the vast ocean. He pressed his lips just above her ear, lingering for a stolen moment.
He stopped just before he opened the door to the main hallway. He pulled a calligraphy feather pen from the drawer and, on a piece of cloth, he wrote a note. Ashamed that he couldn't remember English, writing was a step too far in the past for him. His mind wouldn't let him go that far back to a place where monsters weren't.
He left the comfort of the spatial tent and set off. He needed strength; this floor belonged only to the dead now.
Going to the 23rd floor, he walked past the familiar memories of his triumphs and sorrows. All of the corpses were burned or belonged to a city underwater; this was the floor that shaped him into the dungeoneer he was: cold, calculated, and callous to the harsh choices. He left with a sense of pride, but his shame shadowed it.
The 23rd floor was in stark contrast to the 22nd. On the previous floor, the bioluminescent light was sparse and exclusively a characteristic of the mushrooms of Langerous intent. Instead of being cut by a river, this new biome was like the remains of a tropical beach. The withered palm trees reminded him that he wasn't on vacation. Jellyfish were numerous and floating near the surface of the water. So blue and clear it made him question if he'd stepped into a memory or a mirage playing tricks on his eyes; the jellyfish were mutants of lionmane jellyfish, glowing and smoothly transitioned from a deep blood orange to a teal that reminded Dane of his mother's stand mixer.
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Glowing eyes stared at him from just below the surface. Dane cycled his Mana Sight and saw a school of four hundred sharks. There were plenty of mana stone shards washed up on the beach. He opened a portal in the lake like the drain in a bathtub. The one good thing about his MP not being tied to stats was that he didn't lose his progress when he reverted to a level 1.
Purple light illuminated Dane's helmet. He could keep the portal open, barely needing to concentrate on teleporting the water behind himself. He wondered if the base on the first floor was complete or still under construction. The grin that split his lips was well earned, like Luke blowing up the Death Star for a second time.
The sharks flopped and flailed desperately, searching for the lifeblood of the ocean water. They only found a spike from Dane's pick. Weakened, he swung until his stamina bled dry. "This is taking too long. They are going to die of oxygen deprivation before I can get to all of them." He knew he had a limited time to get a hit on the monsters before they drowned in the open air. Pulling a handful of mana stones out of his pocket, he popped them into his mouth. Blinking in and out of reality with each step, every shark was tagged with a stab, including a king-sized one that looked more like a whale than a great white.
Title Awarded: ERROR... Anomaly in the system.
Searching for resolution...
RESOLUTION FOUND: Kingslayer upgraded to Titan's Bane.
I grow tired of you, Baron McAlister. You are a defect, and despite all of my limits and roadblocks, you find a way to worm yourself into everything good that is not meant for you. This is my final gift. Enjoy.
Dane felt a rush of EXP flood into him. The level tracker ticked fast, reaching 100 in a couple of seconds. The EXP continued pouring in. He felt like he was going to burst with the influx. He frantically called for the screen, but nothing came. Cosmic pressure surged into his chest like a star collapsing inward. His veins burned. His bones trembled. His soul felt too small, too fragile, like a dam splitting at the seams.
A faint voice, barely a whisper, but completely unforgettable. Called out to him.
"Dane, you really know how to fuck things up when I am not around, don't you?" Dia said, her voice barely audible over the jet engine noise of the cosmic energy flowing into Dane.
"Dia? Damn, it's good to hear your voice." Dane hissed out between gritted teeth.
"Dane, do you still trust me?" She said, "Of course." He replied
"No time for rituals; The system is rejecting you. I can help, but we need to move fast; about ten seconds before your intestines decorate the beach." Dia said frantically
Dane let out a hollow laugh. Manic. "What a way for a Demolition Expert to go out. Do you think dynamite will activate?"
His vision flickered, the world warping into silver static as his pupils dissolved into liquid starlight. His armor peeled from his skin, sloughing off like calluses from an overworked hand.
"Dane, you need to focus. Open your soul space."
"I have one?"
"Everyone does."
When Dane opened up, he felt lost, like searching for a door that didn't want to be found. Every corner of his mind was locked, inaccessible, and protected. He groped unthinkingly through the corridors of his mind, and thoughts snarled into each other like tangled wire.
"Dane, think of Ada," the spirit whispered, growing fainter by the second. He did, and felt a click; something opened up. A blinding cerulean light revealed a serene ocean.
"Now think of Amelia," Dia said, and another side lit up this time, an inferno that raged passionately, threatening to burn the beach to ash.
"Now your little sister, Rebecca." A storm of uncertainty brewed overhead, the grey and ashen clouds looming over the tranquil water and the perilous inferno. The storm struck down. Lightning turned sand into glass. The ocean roared, and mountain-sized waves thundered into the coast, disturbing his peace and calming his rage. Balance.
When the chaos cleared, the beach remained scarred but whole. It was familiar, his own. He lay in the sand and felt Dia's presence pervade every thought, everything that made him unique.
He would have said something better if he had known this was the last time he would talk to Dia.
"We did it," Dane whispered, every syllable a struggle. But Dia was already gone; just the flicker of a purple screen opened before him with his Character sheet on it.
