The Sixth School.

Chapter Thirty Four: Problematic Bow…

Of course, it was a lie.

Out in the real world, Greg could use a storage ring to carry arrows around. As such, even if he wasn’t carrying a full quiver, he could still take out an arrow at any point and shoot with it. Inside the dungeon, however, the same was not true. Right now, Greg was just an idiot with a bow and no arrows. Not only had Greg messed up by being overconfident in his abilities and thinking that success was assured, but he also didn’t have the opportunity to go looking for arrows. Back at the tailor’s shop, when Greg remembered the soul bow, he’d realized that he’d need arrows. He, however, couldn’t exactly walk away from Zarra to go looking for arrows. Partly because it would have made Zarra suspicious and cautious of him, but mainly, because he wouldn’t have even known where to start! Greg still didn’t know much of the city of Torrin. Had he gone off looking for arrows, chances are that he would have gotten lost, and even more likely, run into members of the spider gang. Something he hadn’t at all been looking forward to. And even if he found the place to get the arrows, without a storage ring, Greg would have nowhere to keep them. He couldn’t exactly serve as a servant with a quiver full of arrows slung around his back.

His enemies, however, had no way of knowing that Greg didn’t have any arrows to shoot. He was counting on them believing that just as easily as he had summoned the soul bow, Greg could summon the arrows he'd need to shoot them down. That’s why Greg didn’t allow even an ounce of fear to show on his face. The success of his plan depended on how well he sold the idea that he was a lethal threat to the men before him. If he could get a few of them to tuck tail and run, then he would have better odds of surviving this. If he didn’t and this turned into a fight, Greg knew that his dungeon run would end here.

The trick worked!

In fact, going by the way color drained from the faces of all the men before him, it seemed to be working much better than expected. Greg had been hoping to scare off one, maybe two, of the thugs before him. But by the look of things, he might just pull through the whole situation without having to fight anyone. “Y… you are a mage!” The words were stammered by Sir Joram. The man’s eyes were fixed on the bow in Greg’s hand. Part of him seemed to want to reject what his eyes were seeing. At the same time, however, he couldn’t deny it. Where there had been no bow before, the boy had conjured one out of thin air!

With an amused smile, Greg tilted his head to the side. “Weren’t you just about to break the contract?” Greg posed instead of answering the man’s question. “Go on, I’m waiting,” He mockingly encouraged, even as he brought his free hand to the string of the bow like he was about to shoot an arrow. Greg could see in the eyes of the men around Sir Joram that they clearly didn’t want this to turn into a fight. Even the mountain of muscle that had previously been chomping at the bit for a chance to get at Greg, now seemed to be quietly sweating while he did everything to avoid Greg’s gaze.

In truth, Greg hadn’t expected such an exaggerated reaction from the group before him. The longer he considered the situation, however, the more he understood why. The result of a fight between five strong men against him, a single individual, was a foregone conclusion. The math, however, changed drastically when this single individual turned out to be a mage. To begin with, they had no idea what tier of mage he was. Even at just the second tier of magic, they would be completely wiped out. And should their lucky stars all shine on them and he turns out to be a first-tier mage, then the outcome only changes from a complete wipeout to some of them dying. None of the men had any desire to be the one dying in an attempt to take him down. 

Sir Joram’s eyes narrowed as he regarded him. Despite the fear he could see in the man’s eyes, he still seemed unwilling to let Greg off the hook. Greg could remember Zarra’s description of the man. As someone who had grown up with nothing, Sir Joram had grown up into a man who was always looking to gain more and more things. Such a man wouldn’t be willing to take a loss on anything. Even if he knew that there was a very real risk of death in an altercation with him, as someone who had been born and raised in poverty, he probably was no stranger to risking his life to protect what was his. He probably wouldn’t have made it to where he was in life if he was the type to back down in the face of danger. Greg suspected that if this was only about him being his wife’s servant, then the man would have backed down. He, however, had found his wife in another man’s arms. He wasn’t willing to see Greg go scot-free.

“If you are such a powerful mage, then why did you run away from the thugs that chased you through half the city!” He posed. Despite the fear Greg had seen in his eyes none of it could be heard in his voice. Like him, the man was hiding his fear. The altercation hadn’t been averted. Instead, it’d just been moved to a verbal and psychological realm. Both Greg and Sir Joram were targeting the other four men present. Greg had been trying to get them to lose the desire to fight. Sir Joram, on the other hand, was trying to downplay the threat that Greg posed and to rouse the fighting spirit of his men. Whoever won in this verbal contest, would determine how this scenario played out. “If you really are that powerful, then how did a solitary female take a priceless gem from you?” The man further asked.

The smile on Greg’s lips widened even as his gaze grew even colder. “For the same reason I didn’t kill you the first time you questioned me,” He replied. “Unlike you, Sir Joram, I don’t feel the need to kick every dog that barks at me,” He stated. “When said dog insists on trying to bite me, however…” Greg let the sentence hang for a second before finishing. “Then I have absolutely no qualms about putting it down!” He growled even as he pulled back on the string of the bow. If Greg hadn’t been consciously trying to portray confidence and thus keenly aware of his expression, then his eyes would have gone wide. The same, however, was not true of the men before him. Their eyes were wide, not with shock, but with cold fear.

The moment Greg had drawn back the string of his soul bow, it was as if he had roused a terrible beast. There weren’t any drastic changes visible to the eyes. If someone were to paint the scene, it’d just look like a young man pulling on an empty bow while facing off against five men. Everyone in the situation, however, could viscerally feel both the bloodlust and resentment that was coming off the bow in waves. If Greg could put words to it, it was almost as if the bow was resentful of those before him for being alive and wanted nothing more than to remedy this situation. So thick was the bow’s desire to kill that even Greg wasn’t too confident that he wouldn’t become one of its targets as well.

As wary as the men seemed to be of the bow, Greg was even more on edge than they were. The reason being that he could feel something that the rest of them didn’t. In addition to the aura of bloodlust, the bow seemed to be slowly gathering power. It was like watching a trap being slowly wound back before it sprang forth and caused absolute carnage. The longer Greg had the string pulled back, the more power it seemed to be accumulating. The reason Greg could feel it and not the others, was because the bow wasn’t pulling this strange power from the air. Whatever this power was that the bow was accumulating, the bow was drawing it from Greg.

When Greg had drawn the string back, his intention had been simple intimidation. He had wanted the men to think that there was some invisible ammo that he could call on to damage them. Now, as he stood there holding the drawn-back bow, there wasn’t even the slightest doubt in Greg that if he aimed the bow at someone and let go of the string, a lot more would happen than just the twang of a bow. Greg didn’t know how much damage the bow would do in the final analysis, he, however, was certain that it wouldn’t be nil. If anything, the longer Greg held the string the more power it drew and the more damage it seemed to promise to deliver.

Eventually, the pressure seemed to be too much for the group and one of the three men with a spider tattoo under his left eye stepped forward. As soon as he’d moved, Greg had raised the bow in his direction, ready to let the string go. The man had immediately raised his hands in what seemed to be a sign of surrender even in this world. Much to Greg’s surprise, with his hands still in the air, he bowed low at the waist towards Greg. “The spider gang apologizes for this misunderstanding!” The man spoke in a gruff tone of voice.

Before Greg could even make heads or tails of this sudden turn of events, Sir Joram’s angry voice was heard. “What the hell do you think you are doing?” he barked at the man. The spider gang member that had stepped forward, however, completely ignored the man’s outburst. His gaze remained fixed on Greg awaiting his response to his apology. Looking at the two other spider gang members, Greg could easily pick up on the relief in their expressions at the fact that this guy seemed to be trying to pull them out of the altercation. The man that had bowed must have occupied a higher rank than the rest and had been the one to make the call. “The spider Queen will hear of this!” Sir Joram, who hadn’t stopped talking, started to threaten.

Without looking back at Sir Joram the man replied. “If I were to make a mage an enemy of the spider gang, she’d do much worse to me than anything you might think she’ll do to me for avoiding this fight,” He declared. With slow and deliberate movements so Greg could see everything that he was doing, the man pulled a small golden card out of his pocket and threw it onto the pile of gold before them. “Show that card to any member of the spider gang and they won’t bother you,” The man said. “If you wish to meet the spider queen, just tell them that you wish to find the center of the web. The meeting will be quickly arranged. The spider gang would be happy to host you,” He added before offering another bow and turning around. “Come on,” He ordered his two subordinates and in short order, they had made their way out of the garden and probably out of the house altogether.

The look on Sir Joram’s face was an ugly mix of anger and despair. No matter how strong, a one-on-one fight between a mundane human and a mage had almost zero chance of going the mundane human’s way. If Greg had been a mundane human, then his bodyguard alone would have been enough to fold him like a cheap rag. Now that he turned out to be a mage, even if Sir Joram himself joined in the fight, things didn’t seem likely to go their way. The man’s bodyguard by his side had an equally ugly expression on his face. The man looked like he was almost about to cry at how the situation had turned out.

Greg didn’t feel any pity for the bodyguard. He knew that if the man found out that he wasn’t actually a mage, he wouldn’t show him any mercy. Still, Greg had to be smart about this. He may have succeeded in deceiving them, but if he was taken in by his own deception, his ending wouldn’t be a good one and he’d deserve every bit of it for being so stupid! The real danger to him wasn’t the mountain of muscle that was Sir Joram’s bodyguard, it was Sir Joram himself. The more he could isolate that threat, the better for him. “Does your contract require that you save your employer’s life?” Greg spoke up, a cold and pitiless gaze fixed on the man.

The man seemed to shrink under Greg’s glare, still, he nodded in the affirmative. This first question had been a test by Greg. Anyone with even a bit of intellect would of course require their bodyguard to save their life if they can. Greg’s only intent had been to figure out if the man would speak the truth even though it would put him in more danger. If he had tried to lie, Greg would have attacked right there and then. He couldn’t make any plans relying on a man that he couldn’t trust. Now that the guard had spoken the truth, however, Greg could move on to the next part of his plan. “Does the contract require you to do this at the cost of your own life?” He asked.

For all his muscles, the man clearly didn’t fit the stereotype of a muscle-brain as his eyes went wide with an immediate understanding of what Greg was trying to drive at. A bit of life seemed to return to the man’s face and voice as he answered him. “No! It doesn’t!” He asserted. “If there is no chance of saving him without losing my own life, then I am allowed to preserve my own life,” he revealed.

A wide grin spread across Greg’s face as he regarded the bodyguard with a maniacal gleam in his eyes. “Then I guess the only question you need to answer is whether you think there is a chance you will survive fighting me?” He offered in the cold tone of one that was ready to kill.

There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation in the man as he turned around, practically ready to flee from the scene.

“If you run away, then you better leave Torrin altogether!” Sir Joram growled at the man who was about to pass him by. Though he did his best to hide it, everyone present could hear the slight panic in Sir Joram’s voice as he uttered the threat. In short order, Greg had taken away every ally that he’d thought he had in this fight. If this last ally left, there was very little doubt as to what his fate would be. Unfortunately for the man, his bodyguard didn’t even falter or break stride at his threat, if anything, he broke out into a sprint as if he couldn’t leave Torrin quickly enough.

In the end, it was just Greg and Sir Joram left at the scene, with his wife off to the side worriedly looking between the two men. Greg tilted his head to the side slightly, a mocking smile playing on his lips as he regarded his foe. “Well?” He mockingly asked. “Weren’t you about to annul my contract with your wife?” Greg posed in a voice dripping with provocation “Go on then!” He urged.

There was a look on the man like he’d been forced to swallow a fat fly. Both men knew perfectly well that if Sir Joram ended the contract, it would be his last act in this life. Or at least in this current dungeon trial. Despite being from the twenty-first century where the rule of law was paramount, Greg wasn’t as averse to killing as one might expect. He wasn’t a psychopath. He didn’t take any pleasure in the pain of others. The altercation with his uncle, however, had driven home to him that this was a new reality with new rules to it. Here there was no jail, and no cops were coming to the rescue. There were no courts, presumption of innocence, or rights to speak of. The strongest fist simply carried the day. If his uncle had succeeded in beating him, then he wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him. If Greg hadn’t pretended to be a mage, then the members of the spider gang would have unflinchingly tortured and killed him. If he didn’t outsmart this man before him, Sir Joram wouldn’t have shown him any kindness for it. This was a dog-eat-dog world and Greg wasn’t going to be the dog that got eaten out of some misbegotten sense of morality that only works in a different world. To those who were kind to him, he would be just as, if not more, kind. To those who sought to do him harm, however, Greg would give no quarter!

Even though he’d thoroughly lost in this altercation before even the first blow was struck, the man didn’t seem even a little bit apologetic. Greg could see it in his eyes that if the man got another chance to come after him and thought that it had a relatively high chance of succeeding, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it. Unfortunately for Greg, with him not having broken the contract verbally, it was still in place, and so Greg couldn’t do much of anything to him. The same contract that had been protecting Greg thus far was now the shield that kept Sir Joram safe from him. A fact that frustrated Greg to no end!

“You can’t do anything to me and we both know it!” Sir Joram spoke, his lips twisted in a sneer.

Rather than be caught flatfooted by this provocation, Greg smiled, having already thought this far. “I might not, but I’m curious what my master will do when he finds out that you tried to have me killed,” Greg wondered out loud with the self-assured tone of one who already knew the answer to their own question. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” He added with a shrug, his smile widening as Sir Joram’s face once again became pale.

Greg needed a way of keeping the man from attempting something else in the remaining time that he had within the dungeon. He may have succeeded in fending off this first attempt, but there was no reason to believe that the man wouldn’t make another even more concerted effort to kill him. Greg wasn’t going to make the same mistake again of thinking that just because his enemy was pacified for the moment he wouldn’t strike at him in the future. That’s where his fake teacher came in. If Greg was the man’s sole target, Sir Joram would probably still have enough confidence and motivation to make another attempt. Especially because he’d come upon his wife in Greg’s hands. With a mysterious teacher brought into the picture, however, the whole scenario changed.

Of course, the man knew that there was a chance that Greg was lying. He, however, just simply couldn’t take the chance. Mages in the lower tiers rarely if ever took on students of their own. After all, they too were still pursuing higher tiers of magic. As such, whoever this mysterious teacher was, they would at the very least be a third-tier mage or, more than likely, higher than this. For a mundane human, making an enemy of someone like this would be no different from begging for death. If the young man did indeed have such a teacher, then Sir Joram would either have to make amends or join his bodyguard in leaving Torrin and finding some remote corner of whatever kingdom this is, to hide in.

“I will give you double this amount as a token of my apology,” The man spoke after a while of silence had passed. His shoulders were slumped and a thoroughly defeated look on his face.

“Ten times,” Greg countered mercilessly causing the man to look up at him in outrage. “And before you ask, the answer is yes! This time I am extorting you!” He declared in an icy tone. Although Greg just wanted this whole issue to be over and done with, he knew that, to people like the man before him, to show kindness was to show weakness. He had tried to be reasonable with the man and all that led to was the man bringing in even more thugs to deal with him. Now, he planned to take a chunk of flesh out of the man, just so he would think twice about what it would cost him to make another attempt at his life.

“Are you crazy!” All the fear seemed to have been forgotten as the man looked at him bug-eyed. “The most I can do is thirty thousand and not a single coin more!” he declared in the tone of one who was being asked to cut off a limb.

“Now it’s a hundred and twenty thousand!” Greg countered coldly.

“Fifty thousand!” A vein was bulging on the man’s forehead as he forced himself to utter the words.

“Suddenly, I feel like a hundred and fifty is the right amount!” Greg replied without missing a beat, his gaze as unyielding as ever.

“Seventy thousand! That’s the best I can do, otherwise you might as well just kill me right now!” The man said, a real desperation now clear to be heard in his tone of voice.

“The number just grew to two hundred thousand,” Greg replied not the least bit bothered by the man’s distress. “Oh, and you don’t have to worry if it’s death you desire, my teacher will be more than happy to oblige. I’m sure your wife and I can come to a… mutual understanding after you are out of the picture,” Greg said with a suggestive note to his voice and a glance in Zarra’s direction. Greg hadn’t been sure how the woman would react to this whole situation and how it had played out. Much to his surprise, however, the woman blushed at his words, unconsciously biting at her lower lip. Part of Greg had been worried that the woman would turn on him and take her husband’s side. From the look in her eyes when their eyes met, however, Greg could see that the woman was still ensnared by his allure, a look of deep desire in her eyes even as she blushed and looked away from him.

“He… he can’t go beyond a hundred thousand!” It seemed the glance from him had reanimated Zarra as she revealed this. “A… any more and our family will go into crippling debt,” She said.

Greg smiled at the woman. “Fine then, the amount of coin I want will drop back down to a hundred thousand!” He said in the tone of one who was making a big concession. Greg could see it in Sir Joram’s eyes that if the man could, he would eat his flesh and gnaw at his bones just to vent the fury burning inside him. Greg pretended not to notice and continued to speak with a magnanimous air. “But it’s only because you asked nicely,” he said with a wink at Zarra who blushed and looked away. “Do you agree to this or do you wish to bargain some more!” He asked turning back to Sir Joram.

Everyone in the garden knew that if the man tried to bargain once more, the price would shoot back up to two hundred thousand, probably more. Gritting his teeth, Sir Joram merely nodded in assent, unable to bring himself to speak.

“Good,” Greg spoke up before turning to Zarra with a stern expression. “And you,” he called out to her causing her to startle. “You will pay off the other hundred thousand!” He declared.

The woman’s eyes went wide. “But… but I don’t have that kind of money,” she said in horror.

Greg’s stern face morphed into a lecherous smile as he looked at her, not at all hiding the way his eyes roamed over her curves. “Don’t worry, we have the next ten cycles of the seasons for you to slowly work off your debt!” He said with a roguish smile playing on his lips.

The color that had faded from Zarra’s face returned tenfold as what Greg was implying dawned on her. She cast a guilty glance in her husband’s direction, before turning back to him “I… I’ll do my best,” She acquiesced to the demands in a mosquito-like voice.

“I’ll… I’ll pay it,” Both Greg and Zarra turned in surprise when Sir Joram spoke up once more. “I’ll pay you the two hundred thousand coins! Just… just don’t touch my wife,” He half-pleaded, half-demanded.

Greg was both surprised and unsurprised at the same time. The reason he was surprised was because of how attached to his money the man had thus far seemed. Even with the threat of death looming over him he had still been willing to bargain! For him to be willing to fork up even more money was an unexpected turn of events. At the same time, however, even during their first meeting, Greg had picked up on the fact that this man seemed to really care about his wife. As such, that he still wanted to keep her from falling into the arms of another man wasn’t too far out of the realm of understanding.

There was a long silence as Greg found himself conflicted. A big part of him wanted to decline the offer and take Zarra. Not only because he desired the woman but also because a deeper darker part of him wanted to spite the man! He wanted Sir Joram to know that because of his actions, he was forced to pay money to the man that was fucking his wife. However, killing the man for self-defense was one thing, forcing him to undergo humiliation just for his self-gratification was another. Did he really want to be warped into the type of person who took pleasure in the pain of others?

Greg knew that he wouldn’t just wake up one day and be that type of person. Instead, it would happen slowly, over time, through many micro-decisions just like the one placed before him right now! This was probably what his familiar had been trying to warn him about when she said that while pain might be jarring and easily recognizable, pleasure was a silent poison. Every time he said yes to his baser desires, it would make it just a little bit easier to say yes again the next time. In the end, it would warp and change who he was without him even noticing it. One day he would wake up and just simply not recognize the person he had become.

Turning his head, Greg looked at Zarra to see if he could get a hint of what she wanted. This, however, didn’t help as she seemed to be just as conflicted as he was. On the one hand, that the man was willing to fight for her was an unexpected gesture that took her back to the times when this man had been pursuing her like she was the most precious thing in the world. On the other hand, however, this man had already pursued her once before. He, however, lost all interest in her once he had her. Perhaps the fact that he felt like he’d lost her was what had motivated his instinct to pursue what he didn’t have. As soon as he thought he had her again, there was a chance that she would just be forgotten again. And all this was without even considering the strange feelings that the young man beside her who had turned out to be a mage evoked in her. In the end, her gaze just turned towards the young man awaiting to see what his decision would be.

Seeing that he wouldn’t be getting any help from Zarra, Greg turned back to Joram. A sigh left his lips even as Greg turned the bow that had been aimed at the man towards the sky. Given the fact that the bow had been gathering energy all this time, Greg knew that whatever attack it unleashed, it would be deadly. Not wanting anyone to be accidentally harmed by it, he aimed upward at the empty air. A big part of Greg was protesting his decision, wanting him to go with the more pleasurable route. Still, Greg gritted his teeth and gave his answer. “Fine then!”

YOU HAVE DIED!

The change was so sudden that for a long moment, Greg couldn’t even process what it was that he was looking at. It didn’t even register in Greg’s mind that he was back on top of the clouds above Torrin until a block of text started to appear below the pronouncement that he had forfeited his life inside the dungeon.

DETECTED THAT THE USER WAS ABOUT TO USE AN ATTACK THAT WOULD HAVE SEVERELY INJURED THE USER’S SOUL. TO PREVENT HARM AND PRESERVE THE INTEGRITY OF THE USER’S SOUL THE DUNGEON TRIAL HAS BEEN PREMATURELY ENDED. WHILE MINOR INJURIES TO THE SOUL MAY BE ALLOWED WITHIN THE DUNGEON, THE POSSIBILITY OF MODERATE TO SEVERE SOUL DAMAGE WILL LEAD TO PREEMPTIVE TERMINATION OF THE CURRENT DUNGEON TRIAL. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM PLACING YOURSELF IN SUCH DANGER IN FUTURE.

Greg was left in a daze as he looked at the block of text before him. For a moment, Greg thought that he had died because he had agreed to Sir Joram’s proposal. But now, there was no doubt in him that the soul bow was at the center of this. According to Olivia, given that he was a mundane human, the thing should have been no different from a normal bow. And yet, it had been like a rabid animal out for blood. Greg doubted that his familiar had knowingly lied to him about the abilities of the soul bow. After all, Greg had a whole slew of far more powerful weapons available in the system shop. Plus, she had no reason or motivation to lie about it. It was the bow itself that was peculiar.

It took a lot of thinking, but Greg couldn’t help but grit his teeth with frustration as he kept coming back to the same answer. Olivia’s explanation of soul gear was that it’s attached to one’s soul directly. That’s why such items are very compatible with their specific users and can even enhance the abilities of their owners and grow in power with them. Just two days prior, before meeting the deity-level being, Greg wouldn’t have known what the cause of this abnormality in the soul bow was. He, however, could quite clearly remember the deity-level being informing him that enough of Roka’s soul had been left to keep the soul seed granted by Olivia’s original, that is the system, going!

Given that he was not angry or bitter about anything., Greg suspected that it was this last vestigial remnant of Roka’s soul that had infected the soul bow with such an aura of bloodlust. The soul bow and what little remained of Roka’s soul, were both attached to Greg’s soul after all. This last part of Roka must have accessed the soul bow through Greg’s own soul. Given the circumstances around his death, watching his father die at his uncle’s hand and knowing that he would be next, Greg knew that Roka had probably died with a lot of hatred and grievances. With most of his soul having been turned into nutrients for Greg’s soul, Roka himself was truly dead. What little remained of him, however, seemed to be full of rage, hatred, and a desire to kill, and the soul bow seems to have been infected by these same desires.

Greg didn’t know what to make of the situation. The worst part was that he couldn’t even ask Olivia and get her advice about it as he had no way of explaining the situation to her. Part of him felt sorry for Roka and how it was he had died. To be left with such grievance and hatred in death was a terrible fate for anyone. At the same time, Greg couldn’t help feeling a bit of annoyance and frustration directed at Roka for messing with what would probably become one of his primary weapons in this world. Heedless of Greg’s internal ruminations, however, the system continued to produce more text.

THE DUNGEON TRIAL HAS ENDED.

ASSESSING PERFORMANCE.

STARTING PERKS AND BONUSES: NONE (NO PERFORMANCE MODIFIERS APPLIED).

SURVIVAL

Survived city gate guard encounter.

Survived elite thief encounter.

Survived gang encounter.

Survived gang chase.

Survived merchant’s wife encounter.

Survived tryst with tailor’s wife.

Survived merchant encounter.

Survived Ambush by merchant and his men.

SURVIVAL RATING: PASSABLE. 

EXPLORATION

Explored slum district: 13%.

Explored market district: 5%.

Explored forge district: 6%.

Explored noble district: 9%.

EXPLORATION RATING: POOR.

COMBAT

None.

COMBAT RATING: PUTRID.

LEARNING.

New knowledge acquired;

None.

LEARNING RATING: PUTRID.

SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS

MINOR CHARACTERS;

Seduced tailor’s wife.

Received oral sex from the tailor’s wife.

MAJOR CHARACTERS.

Seduced merchant’s wife.

Fingered merchant’s wife.

SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS RATING: POOR.

MAIN QUEST.

Attend the mayor’s dinner party!

Failed.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE: POOR!

WEALTH CONVERSION.

WEALTH OBTAINED WITHIN THE DUNGEON, WHETHER IN TERMS OF ITEMS OR IN-DUNGEON CURRENCY, IS CONVERTED INTO DUNGEON COINS BASED ON PERFORMANCE. THE BETTER YOUR PERFORMANCE THE BETTER THE CONVERSION RATE, THE CONVERSION RATE IS AS FOLLOWS:

PERFECT — WEALTH X 10 = NO. OF DUNGEON COINS OBTAINED.

PRAISEWORTHY — WEALTH X 1 = NO. OF DUNGEON COINS OBTAINED.

PASSABLE — WEALTH X 0.1 = NO. OF DUNGEON COINS OBTAINED.

POOR — WEALTH X 0.01 = NO. OF DUNGEON COINS OBTAINED.

PUTRID — WEALTH X 0.001 = NO. OF DUNGEON COINS OBTAINED.

YOU OBTAINED = 200,000 coins.

PERFORMANCE = POOR (X0.01 multiplier)

TOTAL DUNGEON COINS OBTAINED = 2,000 DUNGEON COINS.

CALCULATING REWARDS…

Even as the system continued to judge what Greg should receive for his performance within the dungeon, he himself was closely reviewing each of his assessment parameters to figure out what each part meant and what he'd need to focus on in future dungeon trials. The first section was a bit confusing. Greg had no idea what perks and bonuses for the dungeon were or how one even got them, to say nothing of how they modified one’s score for the dungeon run. Greg, however, didn’t fuss all that much, he could always ask Olivia about it.

The next part on survival had a rather straightforward explanation to it. Greg got a higher survival rating for every situation in which there was a potential of death that he got out of. Greg wasn’t all too surprised by some of the things listed. Others, however, caught him completely off guard. That there was a chance he could have died by the hand of the guard at the gate of the city before even setting one foot inside was quite a shock to him. Perhaps if the large orb that he’d had Greg hold had indicated that there was something off with him then the man wouldn’t have hesitated to run him through.

Another shock was the thief, or elite thief as the system called her. His bumping into the thief had been random happenstance. According to the system, however, there was also a chance that he could have died here. Perhaps if he had been stupid enough to try and stop her, then she wouldn’t have hesitated to end him right there and then. That his first meeting with Zarra was also on the list wasn’t as shocking when Greg thought about it. A merchant’s wife like her probably had a few lifesaving means available to her just in case of anything.

The exploration section was also easy to understand. Given the fact that Greg had only run through the streets of the various districts and not into any buildings, it came as no surprise that the percentages were as low as they were. Heck, given that he couldn’t retrace his steps to most of the places that he’d run through, Greg would have given himself a lower score than what he got from the system. As for the combat section of his assessment, there wasn’t much that Greg could glean from it. To get a higher rating in combat would probably require that he not only engage in more battles but also that he win them. The assessment of how much Greg had learned was an interesting metric as it hinted at the fact that, within the dungeon somewhere, there was some hidden knowledge that he could have garnered had he gone looking for it. In this run, however, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he needed to learn anything.

The division between major and minor characters, when it came to the assessment of his sexual encounters was an interesting one for Greg. Although he couldn’t be too sure, Greg suspected that the major characters in the dungeon were those who could help Greg achieve the main quest of the particular dungeon. Zarra for example, could have helped Greg get into the Mayor’s party if he didn’t die too soon. The tailor’s wife, however, would have had no way of getting him into the party regardless of how drawn to him she was. This was why the former was a major character while the latter was considered a minor one. It wasn’t a comment on their worth as individuals or even their wealth, but rather, how key they were to the main quest.

All in all, despite his poor performance within the dungeon according to the system’s assessment, Greg was more than satisfied with the experience. Rather than the stereotypical dungeon that Greg knew from his old world, he found this new dungeon even more exhilarating. An open world with characters who were in no way any different from real people and an unlimited number of ways to play through the dungeon. In a city as large as Torrin Greg could have taken any number of different paths and they would each have led to their own unique adventure through the dungeon. The possibilities were endless and Greg couldn’t help but feel giddy with excitement at the thought of future dungeon dives.

REWARD ASSESSMENT DONE.

REWARDS:

200 DUNGEON COINS.

TIER-ONE MANA ARROW ENCHANTMENT.

Greg only had a second to look at his rewards before he was whisked away by the system. The two hundred dungeon coins were understandable, if a bit underwhelming. Given his performance, however, he wasn’t too surprised. At the very least, with this reward plus the 2,000 that he earned from this trial, he’d have 2,200 dungeon coins to spend the next time he attempted the dungeon. Whether that was a lot or little, Greg wouldn’t know until he saw the prices in the shop himself.

Greg was of two minds about the mana arrow enchantment. He couldn’t be too sure, given his limited knowledge of magic, but if it did what he suspected that it did, then it was both useful and useless at the same time. Greg suspected that the system had given him this reward as a result of the fact that he’d faced off against Sir Joram and his goons with a bow and no arrows to speak of. If the enchantment worked the way Greg suspected that it did, then it would fashion arrows out of the mana that Greg supplied to it. This means that, as long as Greg still had mana, he would have an unlimited supply of arrows. On the other hand, however, Greg was a mundane human at the moment. With two years of setting up his foundation before he stepped into the first tier of magic before him, Greg wouldn’t have mana of his own any time soon. Of course, out in the real world, Greg would be able to make use of Olivia’s mana through their bond. In the dungeons, however, he still wouldn’t be able to make use of it as he didn’t have access to Olivia’s mana while inside the dungeon.

Before he could dwell too much on the issue, Greg's vision once again went completely white, and before long, he found himself back inside his room, with Olivia seated across from him. A grimace crossed his face as severe nausea, disorientation, and a nasty headache all slammed into him in one go. Greg could remember his familiar’s warning that neither his mind nor soul was capable of having the experience of a whole day shrunk into a little less than two hours. The truth of those words was now hitting home as Greg was forced to sit still and keep his eyes closed to keep himself from collapsing on the floor. “C… can you heal me?” Greg asked when after ten minutes he still felt like his insides wanted to be on the outside while at the same time, someone had stuck a metal rod into his head and began to stir vigorously.

“I’m sorry, but this is beyond me,” Came the disappointing reply from Olivia. “What you’re feeling right now isn’t a physical malady,” she informed him. “It’s an expression of the discomfort your mind and soul are feeling at having to parse out the two realities. Your mind and soul were given an avatar to ride in a reality that looks and feels every bit as real as this one. You only managed to survive for about five hours and not the full period that the dungeon would have lasted. Still, these five hours have to be squeezed into a much shorter time in reality. Suffice to say, it’s not the most comfortable of processes,” She informed him. “Frankly, I’m surprised that you are still conscious,” Olivia stated “Given the fact that you are a mundane human with no prior training in soul-strengthening techniques, I would have expected you to pass out the moment you came out of the dungeon,” She relayed. “That you are still conscious right now is both surprising and commendable. It appears that your soul isn’t as weak as most others,” She relayed. “Perhaps the system did a much better job of restoring your soul after your accident than I initially expected,” The familiar mused to herself.

Greg said nothing in response, partly because of the fact he felt like shit already. Another part, however, was because he knew that the strength of his soul had nothing to do with the system. Sure, the system had helped stabilize Greg’s soul after he was brought into this world. The fact that his soul strength was higher than average had more to do with the fact that the deity-level being that brought him into this world had used Roka’s soul as nourishment for his soul. It was an uncomfortable truth for Greg. Despite not having a direct hand in it and knowing that there was nothing he could have done to stop the being from doing what she had done, Greg still couldn’t help but feel guilty for it. Still, Greg didn’t allow these dangerous thoughts and feelings to leak out beyond the secret room in his mind. 

“Remember what I told you before you went in,” Olivia continued to speak. “Force your mind to think of the dungeon trials as lucid dreams or an elaborate game. It should, in a small way, help reduce the difficulty and discomfort of parsing the two realities,” She advised. “Other than that, I’d strongly advise that you rest now. You begin your journey as a mage tomorrow,” She reminded him…

***