《Odds》 Chapter One - Where It All Began... "Hey... Are you still there?" The voice woke me up from my thoughts. Damn. My thoughts were the only place I could escape, where no one could follow me. But, like every time I ran away, something always managed to pull me back. I stared as hard as I could to the speaker''s eyes. He probably took it as an agreement and continued. "The deal will go on as we agreed then?" He looked nervous, no doubt he heard the rumors about me. The guy was here to make a deal about a new expansion location for my company. I had no idea who sent him, he was not the best, hell, he probably wasn''t even in the top ten in where he came from. Probably no one else wanted to talk to me. It didn''t matter. I didn''t care about others. His deal was agreeable and I was quite bored from listening to his voice. Taking the pen and the deal from table, I continued as I signed the parts needed. "Very well. I will not be following the rest - it is all bureaucracy anyway. Don''t bother me with every little thing, contact Alex from now on." He relaxed on the couch and let out a deep breath. Nervousness visibly left his eyes. Then, he took a breath. He was probably say something about how the deal was nice, how I wouldn''t regret it... Classic bullshit. I raised my hand to stop him. "Alex." Taking the cue, he stopped. I turned to leave. The moment he left my vision was the moment I forgot about him.My destination was the elevator, then garage and lastly my home. Only place where no one bothered me. When I left the room, someone was standing beside the door, waiting for me. I didn''t stop, except for the brief moment when I talked. "I''m leaving," I said to anyone who heard me. It didn''t matter if those who needed to hear heard it. They would soon enough. While walking slowly, I started thinking about this whole company. It was the last gift of my father - one I was sure to never give anyone. The company was the reason why I was bothered constantly, but it was also the reason why those people always stayed on a reasonable number. The money made sure of that. Being rich had its perks. But honestly? If it wasn''t my father''s last gift to me, I would''ve probably bailed out years ago. It was making me feel old, and I was only 19. My school life was destroyed by this company work as well - homeschooling was the only choice for me until university considering what I needed to learn compared with what they taught in high school. After high school, everyone expected me to apply for an economic degree - it would be quite helpful after all. But I knew what I wanted, psychology. The secrets of humans lay there, together with the answer to the most important question I had: "Why I was like this?". University also helped me get away from the company work - after all, I was studying now. Sadly, the first two semesters did not help me in my quest for answers and left me to my own devices when they ended. Seeing me being free, I was pulled in to the company business again, ergo the situation today. Whenever I was present in the company, someone made sure that I had a job on my hand. Sometimes I wondered whether I was the leading figure or not, but it was probably the result of neglect during the year. Thus, home became my only escape. I barred doing any business done in my house, every visit could purely be a visit to see me. It made sure I had the time to relax my mind and not go on a rampage. The elevator door opening to garage didn''t woke me from my thoughts, I simply entered my car and drove off. My house was a bit outside of the city center, but it was a lovely one - another gift of my parents. It was quite big for me to live alone, but I didn''t want anyone polluting there. This house was where we lived before they passed away - I wasn''t going to let anyone dirty it. The housework was done by someone when I wasn''t there, no idea who it was. Entering the house, I simply walked towards my room, and laid down. A sleepiness was on me, and it was getting stronger as the time passed. The deal probably tired me more than I expected. I checked the TODO list on my head - there was nothing to do. I let myself drift to sleep. When my eyes opened again, the room was quite dim. The windows showed the setting sun - I had slept shorter than I expected. Normally, I would''ve slept until the middle of the night. My focus slowly returned from the sleep, and my jaw dropped. What. The. Fuck. A screen was in front of me. Literally. With something writing on it. Now, I liked acting like a mad person, it kept the undesirables away. But, being real mad? That was not what I wanted, at all. That would be bad, not being able to control my thoughts. It terrified me. Perhaps this was a dream - rather than me being mad?. Trying to wake myself up, I slapped myself, hard. It hurt quite a bit. The pain, sadly, didn''t took away the screen however. No dream. Damn. After trying a few more things to wake up(I even punched the screen! My hand just passed trough it.), I stopped caring. It didn''t matter whether I was mad. No one was going to know about it. I was going to take constant notes to check my mental wellbeing, and focus on my major more. It was not going to affect me. I made some small plans - and it relieved me like always. With the relief, my attention turned to the screen itself. [The System is loading... 99% completed.] I should''ve checked this before making any assumptions. The possibility of me being mad was still there - there was no way I was convinced this early. But, it also looked like something that existed in science-fiction. Well, the stuff that would prove me being mad did also exist in quite a bit of movies - but the possibility of this being real excited me a bit. A real change in my life would be quite nice. With a spark of an idea, I rushed to the bathroom. Perhaps something was attached to my face? It would prove this being a kind of a technology, especially if others could see it. The question then would be who? Aliens? Government? Terrorists? Some other bullshit? No matter who it was, I didn''t like the thought of someone doing stuff to me. Perhaps it was time to upgrade the security system and hire a better team. Nothing was on my face. After moving my erratically for some time, I was quite sure - unless someone did something to my eyes or brain. That possibility later was getting higher and higher. I could see the window with my eyes closed, and it always followed my vision. Touching my eye returned no results as well, it didn''t even got distorted. This would''ve been visible to me even if I was blind. If it was the result of some technology, I was quite sure it was not from humans. We didn''t have anything as sophisticated - not even close. After doing everything I could think of, I returned to my room. Now, it was time for waiting - I didn''t know anything about what was loading - except the name, of course. It didn''t take much time to load, a few minutes at best. [The System is loading... 100% completed. Complete.] [Welcome to the System. Your planet''s ambient mana reached the minimum requirement for the introduction of the System. The System will automatically adjust your mana settings to the rest of the universe. The tutorial will now begin. We wish you good luck.] [Tutorial starting.] [To accommodate the newly introduced worlds to the rest of the universe, the System will help you learn the skills that is required around the universe and will help you hone your bodies. The monsters will be spawning soon as the ambient mana level increased very quickly. When you kill a monster, you will earn experiencewhich will be used to increase your level. One of the most basic parts of the System is your class. For System to increase your skills and adjust you, a direction is needed. The class will be providing that direction. After the tutorial, you will be taken to the class screen. The Status is one of the main parts of the System. It is the quantification of you, and it is a list of the skills you have. It can be opened by simply thinking about it. The stats in your status is the quantification of yourself. To learn more about the stats, you can think about them in your status. This is also true for any skill, affinity or anything else you can be curious about.] [Tutorial ended. The class screen will be opening.] I... Wow. The meaning of shocked still became quite apparent to me at the moment. No matter I expected, it wasn''t anything like this. Mana? Experience? Level? Class? What was this, an RPG game? What kind of bullshit was that? I upped the possibility of me being mad to max - aliens wouldn''t bother with this shit. Interestingly, acceptance came easier than I expected. Probably because I accepted the possibility of me being mad - in other words, nothing mattered. No matter why, I didn''t dwell on it anymore - no answer would come out of that question. Not with the level of knowledge I had. Most of my attention was on the tutorial - the best place to get more knowledge. It was pretty straightforward. Combined with the similarity with RPG games, there was not much to question for me - except what would be the mana, but I was pretty sure it would be the outside the scope of this tutorial. I had no idea what ambient mana was, never seen it, never felt it before, but it was probably the main component of magician classes, if something like that existed. I was not sure whether it existed or not - my class screen felt a bit unique even if I had nothing to compare. [Available classes(1): - Child of Luck ] My first guesses about classes were the classic D&D classes, at least a twisted version of it. Warlock, Sorcerer, Monk, Druid, etc. I could bet that this Child of Luckdidn''t fit into any of those, no matter how you twisted it. Another problem was me having a single choice - it wasn''t much of a choice than, is it? It was certainly possible to have a list consisting of multiple classes, considering the number showing number of available classes. I didn''t know why. But as before, thinking why wouldn''t give me any answer. There was simply not enough knowledge for me to even speculate shit. Perhaps I could take something out of my ass, but that wouldn''t help me any. Instead, I focused on the class to get more information. [You can not see information about this class.] No info available for me... I didn''t want to blind shot my class. At all. If this all thing was real, it would be the dominating part of the life - therefore classes were extremely important. As tutorial said, it would be the direction which would shape my future. I tried again. Result was still the same. Bloody hell. It seemed like the system was bent on not giving me any information before I chose. There was nothing I could do, as it seemed like I couldn''t interact with the system before choosing my class - trust me, I tried closing this window. With a sigh for the frustration the system caused me, I chose the Child of Luck. This would definitely not be the last time system caused me sigh this way, I was quite sure. With my class decided, quite a few windows opened. Of course, now was the time for it. Not before I chose, no. Bloody system. However, I couldn''t read the windows - except the last one. That had my total attention. [You have died.] ... Oh. --- When my eyes opened again, what greeted me was a scarlet sky. My memory slowly came back - together with that last window. I had died. Why, I had no bloody clue. The sky made it sure that I wasn''t on Earth, there would never be a sky this crimson there. Before I read the windows, I took a quick look around to make sure there was nothing dangerous. It didn''t seem like it, so I started reading. [You have entered hell. This is where souls unworthy of heaven goes after breaking away from their bodies. You have been deemed unworthy by the gods, and thrown in to the hell. What awaits you is the worst nightmares you can imagine.] Hell, huh. Isn''t that lovely. I am not denying it''s not where I should''ve gone after my death - definitely not heaven - but it was a bit early for me, being only 19 and all. However, this explained the my apocalyptic environment - an unending scarlet sky with a bright crimson sun. It was quite odd, seeing both sky and the sun were shades of red. I thought they would''ve blended into each other, but the sun was quite distinct. It was glowing with a blood colored halo around. There was nothing else on the sky, at least nothing else I could see. The ground was not much different than the sky - it was as bland. Unending rust colored plains, with few white something dotted around. Same color, different pattern of whites filled everywhere. The hell seemed quite flat - I couldn''t see the end of the plains, and there was no horizon. On top of that, the whites were quite far away as well - no way I could see what they were. All this blandness of sky and ground made what was visible in the distance much more out of place. A black arc. Given the distance, it must''ve been gigantic for me to see this clearly. Or it could''ve been the work of magic - it was certainly possible given the place I was in. No matter what it was, the arc was quite majestic. It was as dark as the night sky, gray filled the place between its legs. My eyes were glued on to it - I couldn''t take them away. That is, until a window opened. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. [Gate of Hell - This is the only exit of Hell. This gate is open to everything - if they can reach it. It opens to the whole universe with the sole exception of Heaven, as those who were tainted by Hell can never enter that place.] Well, my destination showed itself. I would''ve probably gone there even if I didn''t know what it was considering that was the only interesting thing I can see. Now, however, it became a certainty. Although my knowledge of hell was quite limited - i.e none - it seemed like quite important. And if the window was to be believed, it was the only exit from this bland place. The blandness had already started to bore me - exiting this place was quite the priority. I closed the windows about hell, and continued reading. The reason for my death was quite important - why the fuck I was dead? There was two screens opened before the "You are dead" one - except the long one, which I assumed was about my class. [Skill used: Manipulate Luck] [You have taken damage: -120] If I didn''t know better, I would''ve thought that someone was joking with me. The windows suggested that I used a skill, named Manipulate Luck no less, and it led to my death. Why would changing, manipulating, whatever my luck made me die? Should it be, I don''t know, send me some angels from heaven to help me or some bullshit? Complaining to no one didn''t help. The system was unresponsive, even though I cursed it quite a bit. No one else did either, no god/goddess, demons, Satan... Not even an angel came to admonish me. Giving up, I opened the last screen. [The class Child of Luckhas been chosen.] [Child of Luck: Owners of this class is from the race of Lokkich. They could somehow manipulate their Luck, bending the universe to their bidding in a much different but similar way to the magic. Because of their threat to the balance of the universe, they were eliminated by the concentrated efforts of those who protected the balance of the universe. Be wary of them. - +1 for stats every level, additional +1 for intelligence. - Race changed: Lokkich. - Luck stat disappeared. - Mana has been eliminated from your body. You can not use mana. - Lack of mana has made your affinities be always zero - they no longer can be seen in the status. - Skill granted: Manipulate Luck. - Item granted: Lucky Die. - Title granted: Lucky. Trust your luck.] My lack of information showed itself, I didn''t know whether the stat increases were good or not compared to others. But everything else was, well, quite peculiar. Most important was the information about my new race, but I left it for last. It would''ve taken quite a long time if that was what I focused first. Mana was apparently eliminated from my body - no magic for me. Tough luck. Considering I never felt mana before, it didn''t affect me much. Perhaps after seeing what others could do with it I would feel jealous, but there was no turning back. The disappearance of Luck was the same. I never knew what it did, so it didn''t matter much. Not knowing what I lost was a strange way of relief, but it worked at the moment. Also, it made more sense than the mana. Considering the skill I gained was named Manipulate Luck, it would be weird if I could still see it on my status. The item interested me quite a bit. As recommended by the tutorial, I focused on taking it out. It appeared on my hand, out of thin air. The color of die was opposite of the normal white with black pips(dots) - it was black with somewhat glowing white pips. It felt nice to touch. I focused on it once again - I wanted to know why it was given, and what it was. Like I expected, a window opened immediately. [Lucky Die - This die is made from combination of soul of the user and the fabric of the universe. It cannot be used by anyone except owner without permission. Manipulate Luck is much easier to use on this die.] The first sentence was ominous, and I had no idea what it meant. The soul, fabric of the universe, those were above my pay-grade. Quite a bit, in fact. The rest was much easier to understand - it can only be used by me, and my skill was easier to use on it. With these done, I thought of my status. [ Status Screen Name: (not yet decided) Race: Lokkich Class: Child of Luck Level: 1 (0%) Strength: 8 Vitality: 7 Sensation: 14 Perception: 10 Agility: 11 Dexterity: 9 Intelligence: 16 Skills: - Manipulate Luck Titles: Lucky Items: - Lucky Die ] The status was quite straight-forward and I was immediately drawn to my stats. As expected, my mental and sensational stats were much better than physical ones - I was not a fan of working out. However, when I thought of the stats no explanation opened. Was this not what tutorial meant..? Instead of stats, I focused on my race. Still no explanation. Perhaps there were a problem with the system. Leaving the issue of explanations aside, I continued my inspection of my status. It was quite simple, not too crowded, concise and to the point. I was getting redundant. First and foremost, the name tab was empty, no, it was apparently waiting for my input. My name was not yet decided. I thought of giving my old name, but I stopped. If this were a new start, what did I want? Continue being old me, or start again? A true escape. One that no one will ever be able to find me. Being a different person. Wasn''t it always my wish? But it would also mean leaving behind my parents - there would be no new start without leaving them behind. Thinking for a bit - or a long time, I was not aware of time too much - I decided to change my name. No matter what, my parents were dead. They would not be coming back, and they would''ve wanted me to start anew as well. I had just the name as well - class of Child of Luck, a title Lucky, a die as a starting item - so while apologizing to my parents, I inputted my new name. Odds. No middle name, no surname, nothing to tie me. A true new start. But, I couldn''t bear to let myself be excited. It felt like a true separation from my parents. Even if I knew that I would never be forgetting them, it felt wrong. This time, I was not going to let myself be tied to something. Nothing and no one was going to be my weakness. Nothing would be able to influence my escape if I wished. At first, it was a friend, then it became my parents. Now, I was free. I swore to never get attached again after my parents, and I was not going to break it anytime. With a sigh, I cleared my thoughts. Thinking deep was not going to help me, especially in this situation. My help would be the system. With that in mind, I took the only item I had - my die. I rolled it in my hand. How was this going to help me? A 100% percent win ratio while gambling? I rolled it expecting a six. It was a two. How was I going to use this die? I actually knew how - it said it would be more effective with Manipulate Luck but... Well, I didn''t know what it was doing, but last time it activated, I FUCKING DIED. It was normal to fell apprehensive about using it. Sighing yet once again, I rolled the die again. This time, I used Manipulate Luck on it. Well, used is a bit of a strong word given I didn''t know what I was doing - it was more like thinking about using the skill repeatedly. To my luck, the system understood what I wanted do and a screen opened. [Skill used: Manipulate Luck] Together with the screen, a feeling filled me. Something I had never felt. The feeling was asking, no, demanding two things from me: A target and a direction. From the timing, it was apparent that it was connected to the skill. So this was how a skill were used in the system. Curious. Although I was relaxedly thinking these, the feeling was getting stronger and a hunch was slowly filling me: it would be bad, very bad to let it go in this state. The thinking would be for later. The target was simple, the die. The direction was a bit more tricky, how did you directed the luck? A positive, negative system? Something more concrete? Not knowing what to do, I guessed. The direction I chose was the six. Just that. I imagined the die rolling six. True to my imagination, the die immediately stopped spinning. A six. This was quite cool. I could be the best gambler with this die, at least in die games. I rolled the die and wished for six again. Another six. One more roll, one more six. No matter what I wished it stopped on that number. It was actually working, I was manipulating the luck. Jokingly, I rolled it again, and wished for it to stop on a corner. Like in a movie. It stopped not long after. On a corner. It looked quite stable too, it was not rolling to another direction. It was somewhat creepy. Cool, but creepy. I tried this again, and it showed the same results as my previous testings. Excitement started to fill me, this was not just being lucky. This was something else. There were tons of stuff that was coming to my mind to try - some would even be used in attacking or defending. I rolled the die again. This time instead of wishing a result, I simply wished it to not stop. Roll forever. The die rolled. And rolled. And rolled. Even though I felt like quite a bit of time passed, it never showed any sign of stopping. I broke the skill, and the die immediately fell to its side, a three this time. I was quite sure that if I were to never broke my concentration the die would roll, forever. It was a chilling thought. What happened to the rules of the universe? Gravity, conservation of momentum, the entropy... My thinking was completely broken. I knew that this system was something above the physics, but seeing it, hell causing it, felt weird. Like somehow the world I knew ended at that moment. It was a new world, for my new beginning. I smiled at the thought. Shaking myself from the thoughts, I returned to my experiments. With the result of the last one, I knew which phenomenon of the universe I wanted to challenge next. Rolling the die on my hand, I prepared the skill. This time my wish was simple, for the die to stay in its place - not stopping its rolling but never moving from its position. The moment my skill completed, the die disappeared. What happened just know? I didn''t know what happened, or where the die was. Losing it would probably be the end of me - I had no other idea to help me. Using the skill on myself was a big no no, and I was feeling that using it on someone else would be quite hard. I hurriedly opened my status, and to my relief, the die was there. I took it out again, but didn''t try anything just know. Instead, I started thinking. My skill was not the problem - I didn''t feel anything when using it. It couldn''t have been it anyway, why would it cause it to disappear instead of not activating? No, the problem must''ve been about the direction I gave. But why? I just wished it to stay in its place so it should have floated on the air but it didn''t... My thoughts were getting quieter and quieter. The problem was damn obvious. My wish was it to stay in its position. It meant one thing, its absoluteposition. If this hell/world was moving through the space it was in, then it meant that the absolute position moved away from me - no, I moved away from that position in a matter of instants. It would explain why it was in my status again, if the die had some sort of distance limit. I couldn''t believe I did this kind of a mistake - what if I were to never get the die back? My wish to experiment returned, albeit slowly and with a huge amount of caution. A mistake like last one would be quite bad. Still, I needed to confirm my ideas before I even begun to leave this place so it was an obvious choice. I rolled the die on my hand again. This time, I focused it to not move and roll in the same place forever, but the position of it was relative to me and the world and my hand... It was quite a difficult direction. If you know about the Cartesian coordinates, then you would understand what I did. I made the point I was standing and the die was in relativeto the world I was on the origin point. That was the reference. I wanted die to not move, relative to its position to the new coordinates I gave. In simpler words, I fixed the point of origin. I slowly moved my hand downwards, taking care to not move the die much. After a few seconds of slow descend, the tickling feeling of the die left my hand. My eyes were fixed on it. There it was, floating on the midair. Rolling slowly, but never stopping. I made something float. By myself. Well, the system helped too, but this was amazing. With this die I could bend the rules of the universe, however I wished. My experiments continued. Next, I tried moving it on the air. Check. Returning the die to me. Check.Making it somehow sharp. Check. Though it was quite weird. My direction was quite vague, I just wished it to not be stopped by anything. When I threw it to the ground, it simply moved, making a die sized hole. My last experiment was about the limit of distance I could have. While moving the die at a constant speed, 5m/s, I counted my heartbeats. Although they were not the most precise way to measure time, It would do in a pinch. And if my calculations and time measured were not wrong, the limit was about 100 or so meters. With everything done, I looked towards the horizon, and more importantly the gate that signified my escape from here and started moving. Chapter Two - Being Bored is the Worst I was walking for a very long time. Although there was no way to know the time, considering even the sun was not moving, I knew that quite a long time has passed since I started walking. I was quite bored. At first, I was inspecting my surroundings for something weird to pop out, or an attack. Nothing came. Nothing. There was no movement at all. Not even wind was blowing. If I was not seeing the ground change, I would''ve thought that I was not moving at all. Naturally, I got bored, quick. Instead, I started playing with my die. I had a half mind waiting for something, but most of my attention was on the die. Practice was important, after all. I was flying the die around me, trying different scenarios that could happen. I wanted to be damn prepared if something was going to attack me. Considering the monsters were even in Earth now, the hell would be filled with them. Controlling the die was much easier than I anticipated - that is, if it was on my sight. The moment I lost sight of it, when it was on my back or underground, it became much, much harder to control. Giving it a precise location was quite hard, and vague directions didn''t work most of the time. My imagination was not enough to move it. Several solutions were on my mind, finding another way to move it around, teaching myself to feel the space around me better - I had no idea how to do this!), or establishing a connection between me and the die. After all, if the system was to be believed, it was made from my soul. I should be able to feel it, right? To my surprise, I could! When I focused on the die, I could feel a strong link. It felt weird, like the feeling whenever I used my skill. Next, I dunno, 60, 70 minutes - that''s how long I felt, no way to be sure - passed with me focusing and learning about the bond and the die itself. The bond itself was not something too interesting, only thing I could feel was a similarity between me and the die, like a rope was tied between two apples. The die, on the other hand, was much more interesting. I could easily feel my soul, it was the familiar part of me. But the other part of the die, felt familiar but at the same time, as if I was knowing about it for the first time. Like, meeting someone that looks like someone you know quite well. That kind of feeling. The inspection of that part did not go quite well, I was not sure how to inspect it. Only thing I knew was that part was somehow dissolving in to the outside, no, like somehow it was a part of everything outside the die. At the same time, it was more unique than everything. Also, the was I was feeling was with my new sense. Somehow, I was able to sense my own soul. Whether this extended to other souls, I had no idea, but it was definitely a new sense. Something like seeing, tasting, hearing - it felt natural to use. My working theory was that it was a perk of my new race. Speaking of my new race, there was no obvious changes, with two exceptions: my skin was much whiter than before, I felt like a vampire and my hair was golden. Not blond, but golden. The first thought on my mind when I saw it was the stereotype of the color of luck - it felt like the luck itself. How it felt like that, or how luck was able to be felt in any way, I did not know. When I finished inspecting my die and my new race, I was left with nothing to do. I was still working with my die - I even tried to fly on it, didn''t work out spectacularly well - but I was bored. Never knew that being bored was this terrible, I was always full back then. Now, I just wanted something to happen. Well, not really. Even if something were not to happen, I was not too depressed, first breakpoint I decided was getting closer and closer. It was the starting point of the white dots I saw when I first looked around. The dots slowly got bigger as I approached, and their figures got clearer. When I managed to see them clearly for the first time, I stopped where I was. They were humanoid shaped. They somehow looked like humans as well, if they were to have a skin/muscle/nerve/tissue on them. White, human shaped monsters - the first monster to be seen in quite a lot of RPGs. The skeletons. The problem was, this was not an RPG. Death meant that, death. After I died for the first time, I woke up here, and I didn''t want to try my luck again. Caution was a must. Avoiding them wouldn''t work. There was no path that was not crossing them that goes to the door. Except the giant ravine of course, but I had a feeling that would be much worse than this. Nevertheless, caution was a must. My die was quite strong, and if I was going back to earth, getting stronger was a must. Whether the system considered these monsters or not, I didn''t know, but it would actually be great if they gave experience. Taking care to make myself smaller and not making any noise, I neared the skeletons. They did not seem to notice me, even though I was not far away from them. About 20 or so meters. Perhaps they were not hostile? It would be nice if they weren''t. I stopped advancing to observe them. No, this was not the time to relax. Relaxation would lead to my death. Still, waiting was not helping, I could not see anything useful. Taking the same pose before, I continued. After I advanced about 10 meters, my wish for them to be not hostile was broken. One of them noticed and immediately started walking/rushing towards me. Its height was around my shoulders, making it not feel to dangerous. Taking care to not disturb anymore, I slowly backpedaled. To gauge their strength, one on one would be much better. Still, if I knew they were hostile, I could''ve simply sent my die to lure on of them in. To my relief, none of them followed. After the others was quite a distance away, my whole attention turned to my pursuer. For some reason, I could not feel the adrenalin filling my body. That explosive strength would be quite helpful, as well as the increased focus. But it was not the time to think about useless things now. I readied my die. As a trial, I sent the die to its head while making it sharp. I was not quite hopeful, although the sharpness of the die was nice, it was too small. Die flew in the direction I gave with the fastest speed I could make it go - around 50 meters per second. After flying for a moment, the die hit the skeleton head on. What happened left my mouth open. Unlike my expectations, the moment of penetrated the skull, the skeleton fell down. I was not that strong, I knew that. The die was too small to damage it properly. Perhaps the skull was its weak point? It coincided with what I knew from the games as well. Usually, weak point of the zombies and the skeletons was the skull. When it was destroyed, they died instantly. The reason usually was along the lines, brain of the zombies make them live, and souls of skeletons was on the skull. If that was true in here, it would be very nice. Now was the time to check whether these skeletons gave exp or not. It was quite unnerving, if they didn''t, I had no knowledge about how I could gain levels. Still, waiting would do no good. I opened my status. [Level: 1 (30%)] It worked. I could increase my level with these skeletons. If they all were as weak as this one, then wouldn''t I increase my level easily? Although it may be because I''m level one. Closing my status, I walked towards the skeletons. This time, I decided to go without trying to hide myself. Killing a single one was easy, so two shouldn''t be too much of a problem. And indeed, not long after, they saw me and started walking. Around seven of them were coming, but they were slow. Too slow, in fact. If I were to run to other side, they would lose me n minutes. Nothing to worry about. Encouraged by their speed, I decided to put around 30 meters between us and sent my die. My first target looked quite similar to the one I killed before. Shorter than me, with pristine white bones. I could even say it looked cool. No matter what though, it was going to die. My die reached it soon after, and passed through its head. It slumped to the ground. Nice. I sent the die to the five Next minutes were basically me slaughtering(?) skeletons. I killed any that come into my 30 meter limit. Soon after, there was no skeletons that was around me. About 100 meters were cleared, making it around 100 skeletons. This should get me quite a bit of exp. Excited, I opened my status. [Level 6 (38.75%)] Level 6? Just that? How low was the experience these skeletons gave? Or is it because leveling is hard? One skeleton was 30% when I was level one... This was somewhat outside of my expectations. I thought my level would go up quite a bit considering how many of them I just killed. Well, whatever. Leaving behind the stuff about levels and experience, I neared one of the dead skeletons. With the exception of a hole on their head, they were complete. I started my inspection, although they were quite weak I was curious about their physiology. First was the limbs. How did they move? I could not see anything that would make them move. So, the answer was apparent. Magic. The rules of the universe was powerless against that. The bones were quite strong as well, which I noticed when I tried to break into their skull. Let alone breaking it, my hands didn''t even leave a scratch on them. They left a red mark on my hand though. It didn''t discourage me though. Expecting it to open from my hands were idiotic in the first place. Instead, I searched for a rock around me. Something small enough to be strongly gripped in my hand, but strong enough to not break from the collision. After trying few rocks around me, I found the one I was searching for. After preparing my strength a bit, I hit the skull. It didn''t break open, but there was a small mark on where I hit it. So I could break them. I continued my onslaught on the dead skeleton. After around twenty tries, the skull cracked, and next few hits broke it open. The whole process hurt like a bitch though. My hand was throbbing, and it looked like it was about to bleed. Still, I was happy to be able to inspect the skull. It was something unknown to me. Inspection didn''t take much time. It appeared that my first thought about skeletons having their souls inside their skull were true. Because with the exception of a fading feeling from the skull, there was nothing in it. I did not expect any brain or something, but they were capable of thought. Not consciously perhaps, but instinct was thought enough. This pretty much proved me that the thinking part of us was the soul. Then what purpose did the brain serve? Was it something like a container for the soul? Or was it something part soul, so when it got damaged humans changed personality/died? Or was it something completely different? I stopped myself there. If I were to continue that line of thought, I was going to spend a lot of time doing nothing but thinking. This was not the time for it. Thought I made a mental note to learn more about it when I returned Earth. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. On a different subject, I noticed a change in my body. I didn''t know whether this was the result of my new race or hell, but it seemed like I didn''t need any food or drink. It was quite helpful in this environment. If I needed something to eat or drink, I had no idea where to find it. Though it also made me feel like I lost something precious. After finishing my inspections on the skeletons, I continued my journey, with a new breakpoint in mind. There was a mountain somewhere in the distance. I would''ve thought it was a normal mountain - if it had its center. The shape of the mountain was a bow, it only had its outlines, the center was completely empty. Gravity didn''t look like it had any effect on it. Though I had seen a lot of weird stuff these days, so I did not have the energy to get shocked. I simply continued my journey. On the road, I saw a lot of skeletons. Without exception, all of them walked/rushed to me. And without exception, I left all of them with a hole on their skull. I didn''t know whether the skeletons were getting stronger or not, but they got faster and faster as I continued towards the weird mountain. Their speed didn''t matter much though, my die was quite fast. Anything that entered my 30 meter line was dead. The problem was the repetition. I got bored. Again. Like, there was nothing to do except killing skeletons. And when they died with a simple hit to head it became somewhat, well, monotonous. On the road, I started singing whatever I remembered. My repertoire didn''t hold out much. I was going mad. This continued until I reached the mountain. --- "Finally, I reached the mountain. It''s damn big though. What do you think, Lucky?" I murmured to no one. That''s right. Lucky was the name I gave to my die. Around when I was middle of the road to the mountain, I started speaking to the die. That was not a sign of a healthy mind, I knew as well. However, I was going mad. Having no one to talk to, as well as only repeating the same motion for like, forever, made me insane. I never knew that I was going to miss people so much that I was asking, no, begging for someone to talk to. Hell, after I started talking to Lucky, I even stopped checking my level. It was simply not important. Hell, even few windows opened in the middle of my journey. They were cast aside too. However, I was curious, now that I finished my journey. I started with the windows. [Title gained: Skeleton Slayer] [Title gained: Enemy of the Skeletons] [Title Gained: The One Hated by the Skeletons] Apparently, I had gained three titles. Though, I still did not know what titles meant, let alone what they did. I focused on them to get more information. Perhaps this time it would work. As if. Haha. [Skeleton Slayer: You have destroyed 1.000 skeletons. By cleansing the world from them, you have done good for everyone. +25 to all stats.] [Enemy of Skeletons: You have managed to kill 10.000 skeletons. Your hatred for them goes above the normal. You hate them to the core of your being. They are your arch-enemy. +50 to all stats.] [The One Hated by the Skeletons: You have killed 100.000 skeletons. Alone. No one would help you in this meaningless massacre. Although they were not exactly the most normal, they were still living. You are a monster. All skeletons hate you, as much as you hate them. +100 to all stats. All skeletons will attack you on sight.] The system answered my wishes. O great system, this lowly one is eternally thankful. Also, if you would explain WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH MY RACE, I would be most grateful. Regards, Odds. Jokes aside, I did not expect the explanations to pop up, at all. Why did the system not explain my other title or my race? Perhaps there was some reasons behind that. No matter what, this was a good thing. Information would be useful. According to the explanations from the system, I must''ve killed at least 100.000 skeletons on my way here. One. Hundred. Thousand. No wonder I felt the insanity creeping into me. That was madness. Doing the same thing over and over again... I got depressed by remembering. Never again. If I leave this shithole of a place, I was directly going to my home, and sleeping for as many hours as the number of skeletons I killed. Still, the titles felt good. Although I still did not know what the stats did, considering I did not feel any increase in my strength or my ability to control the die, except my endurance. The need for sleep, rather, I was not even a little tired after walking for that long. What was going on? I thought of my status. [ Status Screen Name: Odds Race: Lokkich Class: Child of Luck Level: 91 (61.86%) Strength: 8 (274) Vitality: 7 (273) Sensation: 14 (280) Perception: 10 (276) Agility: 11 (277) Dexterity: 9 (275) Intelligence: 16 (373) Skills : (Skill Points - 9) - Manipulate Luck Titles: - Lucky - Skeleton Slayer - Enemy of the Skeletons - The One Hated by the Skeletons Items: - Lucky Die ] Wow. My level was much higher than before. Still, this was quite confusing. I would''ve thought that many skeletons should''ve resulted in a much higher increase. Even if they were level one, the sheer number should have made a difference. Also as I moved, the skeletons got stronger as well. That should mean an increase in skeletons'' level, right? On a side note, inspecting the skeletons yielded no results. It was the same as my race or the stats. It felt like the system didn''t like me very much, considering how I was limited from the stuff mentioned in tutorial. Back to the levels. If it was not because of the low exp intake, then it must mean an absurd level of experience requirement. If so, that was terrifying. If I was only level 91 after that much killing, I could not even begin to imagine the requirements for higher levels. Perhaps there was some exp multiplier for bosses or stuff, if they were even real. That must be true. Yes. My stats was still the same as before, but this time they had a number on the side of them. They looked somewhat similar to the original ones, I started doing calculations. If my mental mathematics were true, than the side numbers showed the new stat value. Together with my titles and the increase from levels, they were exactly the same. But why was on the side- A massive feeling of fatigue fell on to me. It simply felt like the total acclimated fatigue from the journey. Fatigue of days, perhaps months of non-stop walking came back in an instant. My eyes closed as my body fell to the ground. Even before I could start thinking about why, I was asleep. --- My eyes opened to the same red sky. My head had no dizziness from long sleep. In fact, everything felt more bright, colorful, lively. Even if I was in a bland Hell. It was as if a giant curtain was taken from my eyes. As if I saw the world for the first time. So many details in every side. Mesmerized, I pushed my body to stand. That was a mistake. A giant, terrible mistake. From the force of my push, I rocketed towards the sky. Ground was too far away from me. The mountain was in a clear view. My eyes opened as I saw its real shape from top. Before I could understand what it was, I stopped on the air. Oh no. As with basic gravity, I knew what was coming next. The fall. From the height I was in, it meant death. My body could never, ever stand the crash. What was I going to do? Every-fucking-thing disobeyed the law of the world, why was I subject to this terrible gravity?! I didn''t want to die after killing that many skeletons! That was a terrible last act! My eyes teared at the thought. A solution. There must be a solution. Think brain, think! The die. If I could fly with it... I remembered my last tries. Hopping on to the die only meant fall. What if I were to hold on to it with my hands and simply float down? Canceling my momentum now would be the same as hitting the ground. A more delicate way was required. I immediately took the die out, and floated it to the front of me. This time, the position was simply relative to me, so it was following me at the same distance I put it. My hands clamped on to it. First thing I did was to correct my position. Going head first to the ground would not help me. Thankfully, the strong wind resistance helped me with that. As soon as I tried to correct myself, I push from the wind completed the action. First phase, done. Next was slowing down. My speed was at the terminal velocity right now. This meant that I was not getting any faster. If this was the same as Earth, then it meant that my speed was around 190 km/h, or 54 m/s. It was probably not the same, but it was the only data I had. Focusing on to the speed of the die, I slowed it to 53 m/s. That was a terrible mistake. It was too slow. The force threatened my arms to leave my shoulders. My focus immediately got broken. This would not do. I had no way of knowing my speed. Then, a light-bulb flashed on my head. What I was trying to do was damn stupid. What I needed was an upwards acceleration right now, nothing more. It did not need any actual data. I could simply start from lowest and increase it slowly. That was what I did. Focusing on the die in my hands, I applied a 0.1 m/s upward acceleration. It showed no change, no slowing down, not even a pull to my shoulders. I slowly increased them. 0.5, 1, 2, 3... As the acceleration increase, I started feeling the pull of gravity increase as the wind resistance fell. I continued the increase and when it was around 13 m/s, my speed slowed down for the first time. This meant that my acceleration passed the gravity. But the rate I was slowing down was not enough. I continued to increase the upwards acceleration. My speed fell down faster and faster as I increased the acceleration. Soon, it became zero, and I immediately adjusted it to the gravity I felt while increasing. 12.something m/s. I did not want to go up. There I was. Floating at a spot on the sky. The view was awesome. Taking the chance that I could see quite a lot, I looked towards the gate. The view was much clear than I saw before. But, it was too far away. As I compared it to the distance I came or rather, from the start of the skeletons, I cried a bit. The distance I came was not even the 1/50 of the whole. This shit was going to take a lot of time. Still, there was a pro to this as well. A city or a town in the distance. Around the middle of the road, I could see some buildings. Of course, it being a city was simply my speculation, but it was my heartfelt wish. The loneliness was simply too much. Still, first thing was the mountain. As I lowered myself slowly, I tried to make sense of it. It was the same as something I knew, but I didn''t wish to believe. It was simply impossible. An anchor, with its chain going down in to the ground. Chapter Three - Down I Go After I landed correctly, I took care to not move. Last time, my lack of experience caused me to rocket myself to the sky and I wanted nothing like that. First question was why. Why the fuck I launched myself when I simply pushed the ground? I only used the same amount of power I always did - no. If the way I used the power was on percentages, and my subconscious used the same percentage again without checking whether my power increased or not... Worry started to fill me. The power management was always handle by the subconscious. If, somehow, my physical strength grew unimaginably then what would happen if I were to try to walk? How about breathing? Or the muscles on my heart? This was terrible. Why did my power increased in a moment anyways? Was it about the system? I thought of my status. [ Status Screen Name: Odds Race: Lokkich Class: Child of Luck Level: 91 (61.86%) Strength: 274 Vitality: 273 Sensation: 280 Perception: 276 Agility: 277 Dexterity: 275 Intelligence: 373 Skills : (Skill Points - 9) - Manipulate Luck Titles: - Lucky - Skeleton Slayer - Enemy of the Skeletons - The One Hated by the Skeletons Items: - Lucky Die ] My status was mostly the same, but for some reason the numbers previously in parentheses became the default values. What was the difference between now and then? Sleep? Was sleep the time when system increased our abilities? That would explain why this happened after I woke up. Perhaps system was also responsible for the sleepiness that came before? If it was, then why it happened after I reached the anchor/mountain? Of course. It was waiting for me to be in a safe spot, I was constantly fighting with skeletons before! That''s why it never tried to force me to sleep, because it would cause me to be in danger. System was unexpectedly kind. Still, this did not answer why only the force I used consciously increased. With this much increase, I would have expected my heart to get crushed under its own force. After all, my normal push was enough to make me fly to the height if a mountain. Perhaps my subconscious got slowly used to it while I was asleep? Or perhaps the system protected me. Whatever it was, not dying because of my own strength was nice. If I did not hit myself on a mistake. Very, very slowly I took a step. As I slowly pushed the ground I felt the force increase and then, boom. I flew to the back, and crashed in to the ground. Whew. That was damn dangerous. If I were to fell in to the hole the chain of the anchor created... That would probably be death. Nevertheless, I needed to move. Slowly straightening myself, I stood up once more. Trying to not make the same mistake again, I took a step even slower. It felt like my feet was not moving at all. But, needless to say, this resulted in another rocket launch. Every time I flew to somewhere, I immediately stood up and tried again. Not being able to move as I wished was a terrible feeling. My body did not felt like it was mine at all. As the number of time I flew increased, the distance I flew each time shortened. Then, after I took a step, I didn''t fly. Just a very strong vibration happened as I resisted the urge to fly. It came as a surprise. My original thoughts was that I needed to practice this for quite a long time. My subconscious was getting used to it very quickly. The practice about walking followed a step. Walking turned into running, and I could not believe how fast I could run now. In fact, I was sure that no one on Earth was able to run as fast as me. Knowing this power came from that terribly boring skeleton hunt made me think about it a bit more nicely. I still hated how boring it was, but getting stronger was nice. The only increase was not on my strength either. My nearly everything was better. Much better. For example, after a few times I noticed that my crashes did not hurt me. Like, at all. My reactions were completely unnecessary, and out of habit. My senses were much better as well. After waking up, I noticed this about my vision a bit, but now whenever I focused on a sense I got much better and clearer results. My eyes could see much much far away, the previously undetected smell of the ground assaulted my nose, the sounds of my crashes felt like a plane crash. Not having anything to eat, I left the taste for later. And I had no idea how to test touch. My mind was much more focused as well. The increase in intelligence was not something I could detect, but the fact that my memories came much faster was not something I could miss. I remembered quite a lot of the stuff I read and watched before. While practicing my movement, I slowly got information about physics and few fantasy books with deep background about magic. Even if it was not true, I wanted to have at least an idea about what could be the magic. But my research got cut short by the end of my practice. My movements were now much like before. That was actually wrong. My movements were much more fluid than how I used to move. This new fluidity made me aware of something I never thought was possible - the air resistance was very strong. It reduced my speed quite a bit when I was running around. Still, my speed was much better than before. This meant that I could reach the gate much, much earlier. Next thing on my list was the anchor mountain. Standing far away from the giant hole of the anchor, or more precisely the chain of the anchor, I debated whether to go in or not. The mountain was interesting, that much was true, but I didn''t know what was beneath. If it was too deep than I would not be able to continue due to lava and the time I spent would be a complete waste. Though it awakened my adventurous nature. I wanted to know what was there. After a few moments of contemplation, I walked towards the anchor. If I wasted time, then I wasted time. It was not like I had any reason to hurry up. Reaching Earth early would be nice, but I was damn sure there was nothing like this anchor there. And my speed was much faster now, so the time I needed to reach the gate was much shorter. As I neared the hole, abyss, whatever you wanna call it, I noticed that the ground slowly changed color. Very slowly. It was just a change in hue, but it was noticeable. Ground was darker than normal, and this darkness increased near the hole. Whatever was the cause of this, it looked like it was waiting for me underground. But, there was things to do before. First, I reached the aboveground parts of the anchor. It was on a deep blue color. And somehow, it was cold. That felt wrong. How come it was cold when it was under the constant sunlight? Only explanation that came to my mind was that something underground was causing the coldness as well, just like the color of the ground. But, that was weird too. The deeper you go, the hotter it should be, at least according to the normal physics and geology. Considering the things I saw before, it would be pretty normal if it was colder as you go down. The anchor itself didn''t look too different than the chain going down - same color, same pattern that made them look old, no, ancient. Whatever this metal or alloy was, it must''ve been very durable to stand like this on the ground, otherwise it would''ve already been crashed under its own weight. And if it had this much scratches and marks on it... I could not even began to imagine how much time passed since this anchor came into being. It was older than the human civilization, that much was certain. The longer I looked at the anchor, the more I wanted to go down. What it was holding? How big it was? And more importantly, why something was needed to held that this kind of measure was required. If I was able to somehow illuminate the die, then I would be going down. To my relief, the die lighted up with no problem. As soon as I wished for change, it turned into a miniature lamp on my hand. It looked rather nice as well. Not too bright, not too dim, just the way I wanted. A nice, golden color. With all the problem handled, I checked my belongings before heading down. Die, check. Me, check. Everything was there. Now came the hard part. The descend. I first checked whether the die/lamp was bright enough - as it turned out, it was. The hole lighted up for about 20 meters with no problem. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The distance between the edge of the hole and the chain was not massive, but it was still not something I could jump over. Instead, I decided to fly. With the experience I had from my previous totally-not-an-accident flight, I was confident with my ability to fly. Not really, but still, it was nice to have some experience. I held on to the die with my both hands, but left out few gaps between my fingers for light to pass. It was a damn weird shape, as the die was too small for holding with both hands. Rather than both hands holding the die together, I was holding the die with one hand and my remaining hand was holding the one on the die. Damn awkward as well. Not comfortable, to say the least. Still, whatever worked. The duration of my flight was not set to stone but if my stamina held up for that long of a walk, holding a die for few hours shouldn''t be a problem. It should not be too deep considering the planet I was on (was Hell a planet?) should have about 7.000 kilometers radius. Of course, that was quite a speculation. The calculation assumed the density of this place similar to Earth. Holding the die hard, I increased the upward acceleration. From my previous experience, I knew the needed acceleration to float. 12.x m/s. With the rate I was increasing, it didn''t take too long to reach that much of an acceleration. The acceleration I settled on was 13.5 m/s. Not too high, not too low. After few seconds of speeding up, I lowered the acceleration and stopped. Now, I was floating about 5 meters above the ground. On top of that, I noticed something I didn''t when I flew before. Probably because of the panic I was in - holding myself up did not take any force at all! This was a damn nice discovery. Actually, I should''ve assumed this after noticing the increase in my strength but... For some reason it never came to my mind. Still, it was nice knowing I would not be strained to hold myself up while descending a deep hole. After relaxing myself for a bit, I found that holding the die with one hand was much easier - my increased strength made my weight feel like nothing. With that, my second hand was free - it would be useful in any difficult situation. I increased the sideways acceleration. On a side note, I had no idea how I was increasing the acceleration without knowing the mass on the die. It should be somewhat impossible - what was the limits of this? Could I just put it under a car and increase the acceleration? Hell, was mass even a constraint? More experiments were required. After few seconds, I cut the acceleration and let myself float a few meters before the wind resistance stopped me. The hole was just below me, and to be honest, it looked like a monster with its mouth open. It was somewhat terrifying. I slowly lowered myself. As I descended, the sunlight disappeared and after a few minutes, the only light was coming from my die. The light illuminated the walls of the hole, and the chain. Now that I was even closer, its massiveness left my jaw open. How much material was used for this? If it was made from steel, earth probably did not have enough of it. This reminded me of the problem with the first design of Dyson spheres. Simply, the amount of materials required for a sphere to completely encompass a star would probably be collected if you mined the whole star system. That is, of course, assuming there was enough rocky planets. Descent was going without incident, when I noticed the increase in markings, scratches, small holes on the wall and the chain. At first they did not make any sense, but as I moved deeper they somehow started to resemble something. It looked like as if someone or something tried to climb up, but after a while it slipped. Why did they? Was the chain slippery? It looked pretty easy to climb to me. Thinking that, I touched the chain and took back my hand immediately afterwards. The chain was cold! In fact, if I were to continue touching, the skin of my hand would probably be left behind. Did the increase in my stats not increase my resistance? Or was it too cold for even strengthened me. If it was latter, I could not imagine how it got cold this much down. The last thought made me try to sense the outside. It should''ve been hot this much down here, but it was cold. Probably from the chain, but still, not seeing any increase in heat made me question my previous knowledge. My descend continued. The markings stopped increased in size but the numbers were constantly going up. If this was the result of failed climbs, then either something tried it quite a lot, or there were quite a bit of whatever tried to climb. Next few hours passed without anything new. I simply descended on a constant speed - 50 m/s if my starting calculations were correct - and stopped paying much attention to the walls. That lack of attention was probably the reason why I failed to notice that the distance between me and the wall increased. My descent route was based on the chain, so the distancing of the wall gone unnoticed for a long time. Until, I noticed how bright the surroundings looked. A bluish light was coming from the walls and from below! Something new was coming up. Impatient, I nearly doubled my speed. After few minutes the hole started to grow, and then, it abruptly ended. Floating in mid air, I looked around. I was in a giant cave, with illuminating ceiling and nice terrain. The ground didn''t look like it was in a cave at all. It was as if this was an underground world... And this underground world was absolutely breathtaking. My eyes were jumping around, trying to see everything interesting at once, the water flowing to the side, few hills around me, the stalactites and stalagmites dotted around... After the bland aboveground, this cave''s diversity felt refreshing. It was like heaven for me. However, I quickly noticed that this was not the end. The chain was going straight down in to a hole. But, this was a nice place to take a break. Touring around a bit would not hurt, right? Especially after that monotonous descend, I wanted to do something more interesting. Discovery of a giant underground cave would fit that nicely. Deciding to visit the river first, I flew up and mapped the surroundings on my head. Not being able to find the chain afterwards would be disastrous. Scratch continuing the descend, I would not be able to leave this place. Well, I could probably create a hole with my die, but it was not worth trying. After making sure I remembered everything correctly, I took off. I was still flying, because it was much easier to see where I was going from above. It was also fun, so it was no-brainer basically. My surroundings were really as amazing as I saw from afar. The bluish light made everything look as if they were either wet or underwater. It looked really gorgeous, even though I didn''t like the water, rather, sea and the ocean very much. Their only purpose on my life was sitting on the beach, and watching the waves hit the rocks. It somehow relaxed me. Remembering those times, I slowly relaxed. After the action filled days since I came to this foreign world, this relaxation felt eerily normal. As if I was getting used to this damn hell. But no matter how much I got used to this place, I was going to leave it. If nothing else, just because it was not earth. No matter how much I didn''t like the people around me, earth felt like home. That was where I came from, where I was born, where all my memories belonged to. It was basically my hometown. Even if I left to visit somewhere else, that was where I would return. Still, what was I going to do when I got back? There was no one waiting for me. Well, I knew what I was going to do first. Relax. Sit on the side of a nice, comforting place, and relax for few months straight. Then, perhaps I could be a merchant? If that was still a thing when I got back. Trading with no one to dictate my time would be nice. The strength I gained from here would probably help me. Or perhaps I could open a casino. Child of Luck and all, it would fit nicely. Chapter Four - Nice to meet- My relaxing journey continued with no problems. Although I saw few interesting things on the way to the river, I did not stop to see them. First, I was not even sure what they were. They were just different colored objects in the distance. No matter how interested I was, if I were to detour for everything interesting, I would either waste too much time, or possibly get lost. Instead, I focused whatever was on my road - few trees were down there. When I first saw them, I thought they were something else. After all, blue trees? They fit the environment, sure, but that just felt wrong. As if I was seeing something made with CGI. Well, my current position could be called CGI as well so... Still, it was wrong. End of story. The trees'' bark was quite hard - I couldn''t take it out with my hand. They simply refused to budge. But it was no challenge for my die. Haha, I was damn happy that I discovered I could make it sharp. I still didn''t know how it worked out, but it was able to pass through everything like a knife through butter. The reason I was trying to get the bark was to see beneath it - to learn whether any bugs existed here. There was no animals, no, nothing living except the trees here. How did that happen? I mean, if trees could survive here, then herbivores should as well, right? After taking the bark out, I looked it from quite close - to see at least something moving on it. I wished for something living - not like skeletons or trees, bug just something living normally. An animal, a person, a bug... Didn''t matter. If I could find someone to interact with, I was even going to shelve my personality and act nicely. That''s how terrible my situation was. While holding the bark and praying/wishing for someone, The bark slowly started to change color. From the blue, it first started changing to gold. While it was happening from one side, the other side started turning to gray. What was happening? Was the bark was dying because I took it from the tree? But barks were dead material! How could it change color? As the bark started changing color, I noticed that the tree I was leaning started changing as well! On top of that, to the same colors! What was going on? This could not be something natural? Why would a tree change color? Under my amazed gaze, the tree slowly finished its transformation. There was no sign of the original blue color. If I did not see it change with my own eyes, I would probably believe this to be its original colors. One side of the tree was completely golden, same color as my hair. It was somewhat shimmering as well - though I was not sure my hair was doing the same thing or not. The leaves and the branches had different hues, the leaves were more bright and lively than the branches. But, the color of branches somewhat made it look like it was more solid, strong. The other side was gray. I did not know original name of the color, but I was sure that it was death gray. A gray close to white - like bones of a skeleton. The branches actually looked like the bones of the skeletons I killed before. It was very eerie. The leaves looked like they lost their luster - somehow they managed to look similar to bones. This part of the tree did not look like it was alive - but I knew it was. The hardness of it was not lost, and the leaves were not crumbling when I took them as well. Of course, that was the extent of my botanic knowledge, but it was enough to know that the tree was very much alive. I backed of from the tree a bit. First of all, considering how the other trees were same as before, it looked like I somehow caused it to change. Not knowing why, I felt an aversion towards the tree - I did not want to go too close to something weird, especially if it was caused by me. Call me a coward, but I would prefer to be safe than sorry. After inspecting the tree for a bit and not finding anything particularly dangerous, I sat a bit far from the tree and opened my status. If there was anything that could answer my questions, it was the system. [ Status Screen Name: Odds Race: Lokkich Class: Child of Luck Level: 91 (61.86%) Strength: 274 Vitality: 273 Sensation: 280 Perception: 276 Agility: 277 Dexterity: 275 Intelligence: 373 Skills : (Skill Points - 9) - Manipulate Luck Titles: - Lucky - Skeleton Slayer - Enemy of the Skeletons - The One Hated by the Skeletons Items: - Lucky Die ] My status offered no answers, but it created a new question for me - what the hell was the status points. I tried to remember whether they were on my status before, and they were. If my memory was correct, they were there since I reached the mountain. I wanted to facepalm. The ease of killing the skeletons and the increase in my strength made me ignore this. That was not good - getting relaxed usually resulted in something terrible. It was nice that I noticed them before something happened. From the number, it looked like I gained one per ten levels. But what use they had: improving my existing skill, or for obtaining new ones? The answer was, as courtesy of system, both. The skill points could be used to improve my existing skills. There was not much information about the improvement, it just wrote general improvement of the skill. Getting new skills were quite different though. For that, I would need to find a skill store on any place that was inside the system. The skills available changed from store to store as well - low level places had worse skills. Getting new skills would be actually awesome, although my existing skill was powerful enough, I wanted variety. For now I only used it on my die, trying it on something else filled me with dread. Probably my abrupt descend to hell became a bit of a trauma. The die was enough for now. It did everything I asked for, though being able to fly on my own would be quite nice. But, I decided against waiting for a skill store. Although I was able to live nicely in this place for now, it was called hell. Who knows what waited me ahead. Perhaps I would find a skeleton strong enough to resist my die. Then I would be literally screwed. Rather than gambling with my life, it would be better to get stronger know. With that decided, I assigned my skill points to my skill. The assignment was quite easy, I just wished for it, and accepted the are-you-sure window. After the assignment, two new windows opened. [Skill: Manipulate Luck (5) Due to reaching skill level 5, you can know give a direction to the skill. The skill is now easier to use on outside world.] [Skill: Manipulate Luck (9) The skill reached level 9. The skill is now easier to use.] Right. Waiting a better explanation was my fault. Still, it was nice to know that the direction I felt while using my skill was something real. And this new ability to use direction was probably the reason why the last time the skill got used I died. Still, why the skill activated before, I had no idea. After the distribution, I got up. Sitting while doing nothing would help me accomplish nothing. My journey was still long, I was still not near enough to see the river clearly. Holding onto my die once more, I started flying. Using the skill on myself could wait for more appropriate time. This time, I was not going to stop anymore. The stop at the trees wasted me enough time, and I honestly didn''t want something weird happen again. I was going to visit the river, take a break, see around for anything interesting, and come back to chain for continuing my descent. As I was already around the third of the road, the remaining passed quickly. Especially now that I was not watching around for interesting stuff. I simply cranked my speed up, and went my way. Not long after, the river was in sight. It was a very clear but blue river. The water, if it was water of course, was casting an ethereal blue glow around it. It looked like that nearly everything in this cave was glowing blue. Dropping myself near the river, I took care to not touch the water. If something happened like the tree if I were to touch the water, that would not be cool. A single tree was alright, it did not affect the surroundings much, but a whole river? No way. I did not want anything to notice my handiwork. After making myself comfortable, I doze off into the glow of the river while playing with my die. The small waves of the river was relaxing me, as if I was sitting near a sea on Earth. The trees on either side of the river was stunning as well, with their blue shimmer. My eyes relaxed themselves on the waves, trees, the smoke in to distance, the hills around... Just like Earth. Wait. Smoke in the distance? Just like Earth? Feeling most excited since I came here, I literally jumped to my feet and took off. My destination was the distant smoke - if there was a smoke looking like it was from a chimney, it may absolutely mean people were living here. My speed was much more extreme than normal. The smoke was on distance, just following the river would get me there. It was behind a hill that river curved around - I decided to simply scale it. No need to take the long road. The hill was not too high, and reaching its top took me at most five minutes - I was going really fast. After reaching there, I took a stop to survey around. Knowing more about my destination was always essential. My hope now was the smoke coming from something man-made, or whatever-made. Not something natural. If it was like a vein of a volcano, I would be too disappointed. I prayed to every god I knew. My prayers were half answered. The smoke was coming from a hole on the ground, probably a vein like a thought. But, that flew from my head almost immediately. Because, I saw something much more familiar - a town. The buildings looked like they were from middle ages, some were made from stone, some from dirt, some from wood. Still, no matter the age, it was nice knowing that there was at least similar buildings. If they were something completely unfamiliar to me, I would''ve stuck. Similar buildings meant similar shapes - the first meeting would be nice. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I could see the inhabitants of the town from where I was - small, blue figures moving around. As expected, like everything in this cave, they were blue as well. Still, I did not care. And if they were not racist and did not care about how I looked, then it did not matter. Taking my time, I slowly neared the town. Whatever they were, I was anticipating a conversation with someone. Anyone. Even a child would be okay. After I got about fifty meters of the town, the blue people noticed me. At least, that''s what I thought. One of them started moving its hand weirdly, and pointed towards me. Some noise was coming to me as well. Their shape was just like what I would expect from a human - with few exceptions. They looked like they had a natural decal, a pattern on their skin. From the places I could see over their clothing, it looked like there was a hexed pattern. A light blue color denoted the hexes. The most glaring difference however, was the single horn coming from the middle of their forehead. It looked like a unicorn''s horn. Twirly, and somewhat bony. They looked like blue demons. As I neared, the activity on the edge of the town near me increased. The number of blue demons were much higher than before. I could see at least 50 of them. After getting about 20 meters close, I stopped. Them coming to me first would be better for first communications. Like I expected, three of them slowly started making their way towards me. Their height was looked similar to the skeletons, about my shoulders. They were talking something between them, I could see their mouth moving. They stopped after noticing me trying to listen them. They completed their remaining walk in complete silence. The distance between us was about 3 meters, a conservative distance for talking, but I did not care. I met someone else for the first time in who-knows-how-long, something so petty as this would not even deter me. My only problem was that I could not read their faces, their expressions. We stared at each other for few seconds. Then, the one in the middle, after what I presume sighing, opened its mouth. "?????" "Oh, same to you, same to you." I replied. "???????? ?????? ???" the demon continued. I started to notice the problem. Our languages was not the same. Hell, their way of talking was not even remotely similar to anything I''ve heard of before. How was I going to talk with them?! This was damn terrible. Still, I did not give up. I repeated the phrases in every language I knew. Perhaps they would be familiar with one of them. While I was trying to talk to them, I noticed that demon that was staying back was changing color. They did not seem to notice it. Not knowing what is happening, I tried to warn them. At first, they did not understand what I was saying, naturally. After that, I changed my way of communication. Shouting and making hand movements. While pointing at him, I simply made noise. They turned to where I was pointing immediately. After seeing it turning slowly gray, they rushed to it. After few seconds, one of them turned to the ones on the back, and shouted something. Then, it turned its head towards me. I could swear that it was making a malicious expression. Few seconds passed in silence, and a sound rang around. Thud. The noise came from my shoulder. Something hit it. Whatever it was, it felt like it was burning my shoulder. My head rigidly turned there. I saw what hit me. An arrow. And it started to hurt. My brain started going overdrive. Ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurts. The arrow on my shoulder bore a hole in it - the head of the arrow was completely on the other side of my shoulder. I was not able to think clearly. Only, I noticed more arrows hitting around me. What was happening? Still, I was not going to sit still. Although moving at all made my shoulder burn, sitting hear meant death. I rushed back, towards the river. They immediately started following me. Thankfully, my speed was much higher than them - I reached the river in few seconds. Although they were rushing here, it would take them some time to reach. I had some time. Taking the arrow from my shoulder came before anything. It needed to be gone, with the pain affecting my mind I could not even defend myself, let alone counter attack. My knowledge on what to do in this situations was limited - but I knew that the arrowhead being outside was a good thing. Remembering few bits and pieces from documentaries, I took a branch on the ground, and bit it. Then, after a deep breath, I broke the arrow. The pain made me dizzy, I could faintly notice myself screaming. Few moments later, my consciousness came back. The branch in my mouth was completely destroyed. I looked up to see where they were - they were much closer. Not having much time, I closed my eyes and pulled the arrowhead. It hurt like a bitch. Still, my head was much clearer now, and I could move my arm a bit. Even if it was not working properly now, at least I could move around without too much pain. Pushing myself with my working arm, I got up. It was time for payback. Summoning my die, I slowly made it revolve around myself. Although I could not catch the arrows with it, I could kill them easily - the sharpness made sure of that. And with them having same shape as me... A head-shot meant instant kill. While I was waiting for them, I inspected their equipment. From the 20 following me, most of them had bows on them with few having swords. They did not look to accurate as well, they did not even managed to hit me properly when I was standing still. When they reached about fifty meters, I sent my die at full speed. In a second, it was in front of them, and with only requiring my thoughts to work, I hit the foremost demon instantly. The moment my die passed through its head, it fell to the ground. With the knowledge of head-shot being effective, I starting sowing chaos on the group. They started to fell down one by one. This was easy. Huh. If only you bastards hadn''t attacked me, we could be friends. You massive fuckers. My shoulder was still hurting. Whew. An arrow came from the side and scratched my cheek. A burning line formed on my left cheek. Ducking, I looked towards the direction the arrow came from. A group of nearly 200 demons. They somehow avoided my gaze, and put me in a pincer attack. What was I going to do now? Even if I were to run, they could probably hit me with arrows. In a situation like this, I did something I should never have done. I panicked. Not knowing how to get out, and feeling the pain of an impending doom, my feelings were in turmoil. There was only one solution coming to my mind - using my skill. If my head was clear, I could easily notice more, I could simply fly and run, revolve the die around me and simple walk towards them shredding everything, etc. Instead, I used my skill. With a very simple direction - kill all the demons, and make sure I don''t get hurt. At first, nothing happened. Then, the skill activated, and I learned for the first time what my skill was capable of. When my skill activated, a demon looked like it was charging a magic towards me from its horn. Just before it fired, my die happened to pass near it and messed up its the spells direction. Instead of me, it hit the river. A giant explosion happened. For a few seconds, there was an extreme silence. Slowly, a shadow appeared on the water. Then, too many things happened at once. It felt like I was watching a movie, somehow, I noticed all the details the camera focused on. And, a feeling of safety was on me - as if nothing could hurt me. First, the shadow from the water exploded and when the water fell to the ground, my jaw dropped. A massive blue dragon was flying towards us. Its size was about the same as the hill I first saw the town - basically, massive. A small part of my brain asked why everything in this hell was massive. Seeing the dragon coming towards us, I reflexively recalled my die. At the same time, one of the demons relaxed its hand, and caused an arrow to fly towards me. But before it could hit me, it collided with my die and both of them ricocheted towards the dragon. The arrow hit the dragon first, to the diamond shaped lump on its chest. It must''ve been a weak spot, because dragon started getting angry. Opening its mouth to the limits, a giant, blue breath flew towards the demons. While its mouth was open, I glimpsed my die entering the mouth. As abrupt as it started, the breath ended in seconds. There was no sign of the demon army now. The breath wiped them out. Still, it did not made me relax - the death just felt like it changed shape. I recalled my die again. While I was waiting for my die to came back to run, the dragon started whimpering on the air. It looked like something was making was hurting it quite a lot. After getting hit by an arrow myself, I sympathized a bit. It was not a nice feeling. After trashing around a bit, it started sending its breath to random directions. I immediately ducked - getting hit by a random breath would make me deader than dead. The random breaths nearly destroyed everything around me, but thankfully did not hit me. Then, the breaths disappeared and a giant tremor passed through the earth. The noise was like a plane crash. At the same time, my die finally reached me. Taking care to not get spotted, I slowly stood up. What I saw made me feel terrified for the days to come. Terrified from my own skill. The dragon fell on top of the town. Chapter Five - Demon Lives (dont) Matter When my heart was settled from the near-death experience, the dust was scattered as well. The body of the dragon was clearly visible - the town, not so much. Because of the size of the dragon, when it fell, it completely crushed the town. A quick look around made sure that no demon survived. The terrifying power of my skill was still on my mind. No matter what I did, I could not shake it. Just by influencing few actions, it succeeded in everything I wished. In fact, not only it succeeded, it overdid - there was nothing left. The potential of my skill was actually scary. With this much power, I could do everything. And it being something with infinite potential meant only one thing - there must be some rules about it. Restrictions, in other word. I still did not know what they were, but some must exist, otherwise, there would no difference between me and an omnipotent god. Still, this was not the time to experiment on those restrictions. My legs were still shaky from my last use of it. The skill really started to become a trauma. It wouldn''t affect my experiments in the future, at least I wished it did not, but having a bit of precaution would not hurt. The things it did was not something I decided - what if in the future I forget to add something important? From what happened just now, the possibility of something bad happening was quite high. The shaking of my legs subsided a bit, and I moved towards the now dead dragon. Seeing something so out-of-a-fantasy-book was fascinating on its own, if I were to forget what it did for a bit. As the corpse got close, details I missed before appeared. Its scales were glowing as well but some of them were dimmer than the others. Perhaps they were dying of as a result of the dragon dying. The claws were retracted as well. And most importantly - there was a very obvious hole on its head, the path my die taken before. "Screeeeeeeeee!" A scream sounded around - and it was quite similar to how dragon roared before. And from to sound of it, the thing was coming closer. Deciding against a possible confrontation with another dragon - one perhaps knew the one I accidentally killed, I quickly took my leave from the scene. My interest in dragon was not high enough to risk my life. After moving behind the first hill I saw the town, I quickly found the path I took. For some time, I did not want to take the air - it was the place of dragons and like. Being a land mammal, I was happy with walking. Only stopping to take a break at the place I stopped before, I rushed towards the chain. I was simply going to go down, and come up - no more exploration. What happened in this one was enough for long. If I wished to explore, then I was going to be doing it at Earth - the danger there would be much, much lower. Reaching the chain did not take much time, and I decided to take a short break before heading down. Why? Because I wanted to check my status while in relative safety. I was curious whether I gained any exp from the fight before, or not. [ Status Screen Name: Odds Race: Lokkich Class: Child of Luck Level: 104 (30.54%) Strength: 287 Vitality: 286 Sensation: 293 Perception: 289 Agility: 290 Dexterity: 288 Intelligence: 399 Skills : (Skill Points - 1) - Manipulate Luck (9) Titles: - Lucky - Skeleton Slayer - Enemy of the Skeletons - The One Hated by the Skeletons Items: - Lucky Die ] It looks like I did receive the experience. This was good news, but at the same time, confusing. The experience came from who? Demons? Dragon? Both? What was experience anyway? Not reaching any answer, I turned back to the status. After reaching level 100, I gained another skill point. Considering how my skill saved my ass, I didn''t even hesitate to increase its level. After the assignment of skill point, the usual message saying I could use it more easily came. But, the window had an addition. [Skill level reached 10 - You can not increase it any further until you reach level 10 in another skill.] This system was a bastard. This development did not bode well for me. Like, at all. With this, I could not use my skill points until I reach Earth. Because, the possibility of a skill shop here was quite low, me getting over the language barrier was zero. To stop myself from cursing the system more, I decided to move. Staying still was only going to make me depressed. In first glance, the hole did not seem different from one I came in. At least this was going my way. If it didn''t as well, I did not know what I was going to do: sit here until I cry? Still, the road was okay so I took of. I should have known that saying it was going to jinx me. After descending for quite a bit, the hole started expanding. If it was like before, then this meant another cave. Since I had already decided to not stop anymore, I sped up. But, the life was not so nice. The moment I saw what was waiting me on the surface, I stopped. No, waiting for me was a wrong choice of words. Something welcomed me. A town of blue demons. With chain passing from the middle of it. As I was unable to properly see how the previous town looked like, I took a quick look. The town seemed like it was built around the chain - like a temple or a shrine. The focal point of the town was the chain - nearly all roads led to there. The town looked much bigger than the one before though - if 300 people live before, then this housed at least a thousand. Chain being the focal point of town did not bode well for me. I mean, I could pass it quickly, but if I needed to run to the to from whatever was below, then it would be a great danger. Meaning, an extermination was in order. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Still, the die was on my hand and I definitely did not want to use my skill alone. Especially If I had the option to use my die. First, it was good practice, and second, it was not as dangerous. Even if I knew that my skill was going to protect me, seeing the dragon breath coming for me was frightening. To use my die, I needed to get down to the ground - it was easy enough. Just taking care to not get spotted, I skirted around the wall of the cave and landed just behind a hill. There was no way they could see me now. To see the town better, - I could not use my die without knowing where my target was - I climbed the hill and crouched to the ground. The town was in full sight, together with demons. Although they looked somewhat small in the distance, this was enough. Still, the distance was about 100 meters, so it was quite visible, and just in the limit of my die. The die flew quietly towards my first target - someone that was alone. Getting noticed late would be good. In fact, getting noticed never would be better. The die passed through the first one easy enough, and immediately flew to the next one. Same thing happened to it as well. With this method, I killed quite a few of them easily. Next, I waited for two demon groups to break up for a bit, and killed them both quickly. With this way, the demons that were watching my side was completely wiped out. To continue my self-given mission, I needed to enter the town. My hundred meter limit would not cover all of it unless I stood on the middle - and that would be giving the demons a perfect target. Instead, I entered the town from where no guard existed anymore. Trying to be sneaky, my steps were much more careful than usual, not making much noise. At the same time, my eyes were constantly scanning around to see any survivors. As being sneaky was the secondary objective, I took my sweet time making sure nobody noticed. Sometimes, a new demon would enter from a nearby street, only to be met by my die. This continued until about 300 demons were dead - then, one demon noticed what was going on, and rushed back before my die could reach it. Damn. This would complicate everything. Now was time for me to get hidden. Entering a nearby dead-end, I waited until I could hear something. The suspense was going to kill me before those guys did. But thankfully, they did not take too long to come - after about five minutes, quite a number of footsteps reached me. They slowly came closer and closer, then, they passed in front of me. Why they were not looking around carefully, I did not know, and did not care. Not getting spotted was nice, and it gave me a nice chance as well. Waiting until all of them passed me, I threw my die to the one at the back. Then, I moved the die from person to person - only killing the one at the back, and ones who noticed something. Soon after, not one of them was alive. But, I was not happy at all. The way I was killing them was quite stupid - I could simply step on to the highest building, and kill everyone from there! Since they would never be able to connect me to the die, it would be most sneaky as well! Cursing my stupidity, I took off. Making sure I stayed the clear streets, I found to highest top and flew on top. From there, I could see demons moving around in a hurry, and a big group of them were near the chain. Seeing the opportunity, I slowly killed the ones scattered around the streets. As I had no reason to care about stealth anymore, it ended rather quickly. The only ones remaining were the ones around the chain. My guess was that they were the civilians of the town, and the ones I killed was the troops. I debated whether to kill them or not, and ultimately decided to wipe them all. Because, I did not know whether they were civilians or not, for all I knew, they could be the main army or something. Leaving behind an enemy was only something a fool would do. My die started to take lives immediately. While a small die was causing massive amounts of deaths, my conscience was abnormally clear. For some reason, my brain did not count them as living beings at all. This was probably subconscious racism. Because of their looks, I defined them same as skeletons I killed before. Noticing this left me a bad aftertaste though. Still, what was done was done. They were all dead. Taking care to not touch any corpse, I continued my descent. The place got colder and colder as well - and another cave greeted me, as well as another city. Knowing what to do, I simply repeated the process, just with more efficiency. My continuing journey was a complete repeat. Descend through the hole, murder demons, descend, murder, repeat. This process repeated for exactly 20 times, making a total of 22. At the end, it started to feel like I was on the surface killing the skeletons. It was that boring. Hell, on the 11th one, I even tried talking again. Sadly, the same things repeated itself. One of them fell to the ground, and they attacked me. Another massacre followed. From then on, I stopped caring. Whatever these guys were, they were clearly hostile towards me. Then, after passing through the 22nd cave, the cold started increasing very quickly. It was getting harder to breathe as I continued. The end was probably near. And well enough, after another ten minutes, hole expanded into another cave and the chain was twisting around something. The blue glow was much more ethereal now - and a mist was shrouding the chain below. As I neared the mist, it slowly cleared, showing me whatever chain was holding. A giant, watching me with interest. Chapter Six - Hangin Around As the giant watched me, my eyes inspected him as well. It was in quite a bondage, if the situation was not like this, I would''ve wanted to learn more about it. The chain was wrapped around quite tight - in fact, it didn''t look like giant had any capability of movement. But, this did not relax me at all. There was an invisible pressure on me - presumably originating from the giant. It felt, dangerous. Like I was a prey watched by a hunter. Even if nothing was pressuring me, the sheer size of the giant would be enough to deter me from any thoughts about relaxation. It was simply too big - if I was not a distance away, it would not even fit into my vision range. Still, my reason for coming this much down was to see whatever it was on the end of the chain. Leaving just because of something scary showed up would make everything go to waste. Even though I was quite sure that the language barrier was still there, if on off-chance we managed to communicate then I would be most happy. It did not seem like the giant was any interested in starting a conversation, so I started. "Hi?" Alright, that was quite lame. My throat felt weird when it tried to talk as well - the lack of conversation was quite detrimental. The giant did not gave any reaction to my greeting. It was still watching me, so there was that but nothing to indicate whether it heard me or not. This was annoying. At least it should''ve made a gesture about whether it understood me or not so I would know whether I should leave. "Hey, can you understand me? If so, please give me an answer." This time it reacted to my voice. It did not seem like it understood me, but then it closed its eyes and made an expression as if concentrating on something. Before I could fell in to my usual contemplation/questioning round, the eyes opened. "Yes, I can understand you now." Now? This was weird. Still, SOMEONE TO TALK TO. Thank god or deity or devil or whatever existed there. Finally. Finally someone could understand me in this beautiful shithole. Then, my feelings died down. The excitement was still there, but making sure that my expression was not weird was important to continue. "So, uh, who are you?" It looked a bit amused. As if my question was something it did not expect, something weird. "Me? I would be called, hmm, Svargand in your language. It is one weird language as well - I must admit. It feels like one of the ancient ones. What is the name of it?" Is my language weird? Wasn''t it English? What''s so weird and ancient about that? I mean, it could be weird for all I care, but ancient? Who the fuck calls English ancient? Paying attention to my speech again, I answered him. "My language is called-" before my sentence was complete, my thoughts were frozen over. Something I would never expect was happening. Whatever I was talking in, it was definitely not English. My subconscious was telling me it was Lokkish, the language of my race. But why? It was the result of my race change, but why did my language change as well? Still, this was not the time. Not wanting to wait the giant too long, I repeated my answer. "My language is called Lokkish. It is the language of my people" - if they existed. The window explaining my race told that they were exterminated. I froze again. Why the fuck would I use the name of the language then? Was I looking to die? If they could get exterminated with the abilities like mine, then they would be able to kill me with ease as well. Still, next words of giant put me at ease. "A language I have not heard of before. But, the ancient aura could easily be felt from the way you talk. Is your people, perhaps, one of the ancient races?" Oh no. A wild question I totally did not want appeared. Time to play dumb. "Well, if we were ancient, we would not be still living, right?" My lack of knowledge about the subject was glaring. My words were just something I pulled from my ass. Still, doubling down was the best choice. "So, no, we are not part what you call ancient races. Just somewhat isolated, in fact, I am one of the few outside." This would perhaps explain my lack of knowledge. But I needed knowledge, quick. Going blind was a terrible idea. "Also, can you enlighten me about the ancient races? My people have not heard of them. Perhaps we were isolated for far too long..." I finished with a mutter intending to be seen as talking to myself. "Alright. But I want you to explain your people to me as well, is that all right?" "Of course." Stupid mouth. Why did you accept?! What I was going to tell? The Earth? "Then, about the ancient races. There is not much knowledge about them actually, so it is normal for you to not know. Even the gods do not know much about them. I could be considered one of the best on the subject." It was bragging. Definitely bragging. "The ancient races were a group of races lived during or near the creation. They were the first rulers of the universe, as well as the caretakers. When the other races started to born, they made sure that no race had gone extinct. Then, one day, they disappeared. We still don''t know what caused it." --"They are the makers of the system everything uses. This is usually a secret from the mortals, as gods like them to think that the gods created the system. But that is wrong. The gods had no part in the creation of the system. In fact, they could only use it very limitedly. If the system was not working automatically, the gods would not be able to start it. The most they could do is to change parts of the explanations and add small stuff - like new titles. Gods are not kind or omnipotent or omniscient. They are simply people like you, but with immortality and very strong power." --"Number of the races are up to much debate, but it is usually considered as two or three. I am part of the three camp, but the evidence is too low to put any definite answer due to the passing of time. We do not even know the names of the races, or even their titles. When they disappeared, it was as if they took all the records with them." Wow. The amount of information was not too much, but there were many things I had no prior knowledge of. So, the gods existed - and they were not omnipotent. It appeared like that the races it talked about was like gods themselves, but then why did they disappear? Well, the ancients and like was much above my pay grade. But, something was clear in his speech. An obvious hostility to gods. If someone else were to hear its words about them, they would consider it a heretic. "Who are you really? How do you know so much about gods?" To my question, it smiled. "Now now, first, how about you answer my question?" The longer it smiled, the higher its amusement looked like. It was as if this conversation was something much outside of its knowledge. Time to bullshit my way through. "My race was living on a far away world. Too far, in fact, there was no one else that came to there. The only thing we knew about outsiders was from our records. We mainly focused on technology, magic was never our forte. Then, after few thousand years of isolation, the leaders decided to sent around. I was one of them, and followed an arbitrary route to here." That should be enough, right? "That is quite interesting. I am surprised that the system allowed you to leave without enough mana in you, but it looks like you were quite strong in other subjects. You called it technology, right? What is that about? Something without mana is quite interesting." This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Well, fuck. I shot myself on the foot, than cut the other one. Time for delay tactics, then bail out. "I answered your question, isn''t it your time to answer now?" This was a dangerous gamble, but my trust in chain confining the giant was quite high. Even if it did not work, I could simply run with my skill. Also, the smile of giant looked even bigger. A good sign, I think. "You''re right, apologies." The smile grew even bigger. I could even feel the amusement of it now. "I told you before, but let me introduce myself again. I am Svargand, the old god of space." Hey, understanding.exe, are you okay? Do you need any restarts? How about you get some help from the comprehension.exe and speech.exe? In fact, while you are at it, please start the what_the_fuck_is_going_on.exe, thanks. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN A GOD?! Wasn''t the gods lived on heaven or something? Why are you in this shithole with a chain around you? Someone have a grudge or something? Also, why do you not act like a god? Shouldn''t you go, I don''t know, ''O mortal, I welcome you to my place. Your soul cannot stand my presence for too long...'' etc etc?! This was quite clearly outside of the script. It appears that my agitation showed on my face, because the giant was laughing now. I calmed myself. Whatever happened, happened. Even if it was a god, it was still in chain. Also, my trust in my skill was quite high - even if I could not kill it, running should be no problem. My skill relaxed me, and returned me to my previous state. "Wow, I did not expect that. Then, are you in chains? Did something happened? A feud, grudge or something?" It stared at me, hard. The gaze was boring into me. Hell, my mind was constantly on my skill - I felt like a trigger happy policeman. I was just shy on using it. If the answer was something negative, then I would simply run. My objective could be considered finished, so leaving now would not be a waste of time. But, the hostility I was expecting did not came. "Alright, I will explain to you. But since I would be answering you twice in a row, you need to answer two of my question afterwards." "Alright." "Then, the answer to why am I here. A big part of it is about history and part of my question so I will be explaining it simply. The reason is like what you assumed, a feud. Someone had tried to kill me in the past, but could not manage before I ran away. Because of my powers, running was quite easy - so they trapped me with this chain. Although this chain stops me from moving at all, it also protects me - nothing could attack me as well. If they wanted to kill me, they would need to take the chain of, but those cowards are afraid that I will run away and kill them one by one. That''s basically it." --"Now, to my questions. First, please show me this technology you talk about. Everything I know works with mana, at least indirectly. Something that does not work with mana... That''s something that would change everything." Well, here comes the dreaded question. How am I going to show this non-existent technology? How- no. What if I were to show my die? It''s part my soul right? Considering I have no mana, it probably does not either. Yes, it could work. If it doesn''t then I could always blame our people''s lack of perception. "Okay, I will be showing my basic weapon then. Here it is." I took the die and floated it near the giant. In the bluish light of the cave, it was quite clear. Svargand focused on the die. After a few minutes of staring, it sharply turned back to me. "How does this work?! There is not even a shred of mana! And it''s... it''s somehow connected to you and-" Svargand took a deep breath and calmed itself. "Somehow, it looks like it is part of the universe and at the same time not... How does something like this actually work? What is the connection between you and this object?" Well, according to the agreement, I was only going to answer one more question. The smug smile on me was definitely not obvious. Yup, just checked, totally not obvious. "Is this your second question?" Svargand would definitely not ask this. From his explanation before, it looked like it was a request rather than a question. I was not going to accept it, but listening would be nothing bad. "No, no. Alright. My question is not too much of a question, but more like a request. I wish you will accept it." --"It is about the people who put me in this chains. When I told you it was old history, I meant something quite old and something not known by mortals. You probably know that there could be more than one god of light or god of time or lightning etc. The titles does not limit the number of gods. But, when you say God of Space, it always means a single entity. That is because we, gods, take some authority about our subject from the universe. The on with most authority is always a single person, to protect the balance. They are the strongest of gods, and the rulers." --"That kind of thinking was our mistake, however. A new generation of gods, that was born after us, created a group. And somehow, they managed to get the help of the most ancient god - God of Time. When we were most unsuspecting, they made a coordinated attack on all gods - and immediately usurped the authority. I am the last remaining from my generation, and even the reason I was chained is because of that God of Time." --"My request is simple. Although it would mean that you are going against the gods, I just want you to get the key to my chains, and free me. If you do that, then I would reward you very handsomely - I would even make you a god by giving you my blood. If I managed to get away from here, killing other gods would not be hard, I was defeated because of numerical disadvantage." --"Of course, getting the key would not be easy. If you accept it, then my advice was to being a priest of a god. After you rise through the ranks, then you could get the key after getting their trust." Noooope. No way. Get away by yourself. What do you mean steal something from gods? If you wanna die, then die by yourself. There is no way I will do that. Also, Svargand, you don''t look like you would give me your blood either. You look untrustful of gods - and after what they made you, would you create another God of Space? "No, thanks. I am on a mission right now, so I can not spare time for it. But, if I got time, then I will look for a way to free you." After my rejection, Svargand''s eyes turned hostile. Completely hostile. It did not look like it was waiting a rejection. Then, the pressure on me doubled. "Well, that''s not good. Now that you know that I am trying to escape, I can not let you blabber to them, can I?" The pressure increased even more. Although it was not something that I could not stand, it meant that it was time to bail. Taking my die, I immediately started soaring. As I neared the hole, the pressure continued to build up. When I entered the hole, I could hear him cursing to the chain and me. Still, it was not important. This fucker thought that it could bully me into being an enemy of gods. Fuck that. With my anger slowly increasing, I tried to calm myself while climbing the hole. During the climb, I passed through the towns I massacred before, and offered a small apology. The climb did not take long with no reason to stop now. After not even the tenth of the time I spent during descent passed, I could see the sun and the red sky. It was time to leave this hell.