“W-where am I? Hello, is anyone here?”
A man’s voice echoed faintly in a sterile stone-walled room. He sat on a plain steel chair bolted to the floor, his posture stiff from lingering pain. His breathing was uneven. Although his wounds had been treated, he still felt the effects of the spores that had left him paralyzed.
He appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties, though hardship and sun exposure might have aged him beyond his years. Thick calluses covered his palms, and scars ran across his fingers. These were the hands of someone accustomed to swinging a hammer and working with metal. His short beard was tangled, and the dark rings under his eyes hinted at long nights without sleep. Despite having well-defined muscles, he looked leaner than he should have. It was clear that food had become a rare commodity in his life.
The only source of light in the room came from a strange orb embedded in the ceiling above and produced a steady, non-flickering light. The man blinked slowly, his vision adjusting to the unnatural glow. Shadows stretched and warped along the featureless walls, twisting in rhythm with the spinning of the room, an aftereffect of the spores.
Without warning, the door to the room creaked open, and a lone figure stepped inside. It was a woman dressed in a maid uniform, but something was off. Large black cat ears rose from her head, and though her face was hidden behind a mask, it was clear she belonged to a feline beastman tribe. Her attire matched that of a traditional maid, yet her movements were silent, the kind only honed by years of deadly experience. Something the man could recognise thanks to having experience from watching adventurers.
“W-who are you?”
The woman gave no reply. She simply approached the table at the center of the room. Her boots made no sound on the cold floor, and her masked face offered no hint of emotion or intent. In her hand, she held a small box covered in glowing runes. She placed it on the table in front of him. Without warning, the runes pulsed with a strange energy.
The man's eyes widened. He had no idea where he was or whether he was in danger. The last thing he remembered was being dragged off by some kind of plant creature before everything went black. Now he was here, wherever here was. It felt like a dream, and for a moment, he wondered if he was dead. But this didn't feel like any afterlife he had heard of. He could still feel the lingering effects of the spores, and that was all too real.
“Please, place your hand on the device.”
The woman finally spoke. Her voice was strange and mechanical, lacking any trace of humanity. She pointed at the object on the table and said nothing else.
“What is that?”
He asked. His voice trembled, and his eye twitched as he stared at the pulsating runes.
“What do you want from me?”
Instinctively, he tried to push his chair back, but it didn’t move. Only then did he realize that his left hand was locked to the chair, and both his ankles were restrained. Only his right hand remained free, clearly left that way so he could touch the box.
“No. I’m not touching that thing.”
The woman didn’t respond. She stepped forward and reached for him. He tried to move away, but his restraints held him tight. Her small hand gripped his wrist, and the pressure felt like a vice was holding him.
“Wait! Stop!”
He shouted, struggling in vain, but her grip didn’t loosen. Despite her size, the strength in her hand overwhelmed his larger muscles. Soon, she forced his palm down onto the box. The moment contact was made, the runes flared with light. A surge of energy shot through his arm and into his head. He gasped as his eyes rolled back and a wave of unnatural comfort washed over him.
“Good. Now, please tell me your name and your profession.”
She let go and stepped back. His mind felt strange, detached yet calm. He didn’t try to pull his hand away. He no longer felt afraid. Now, answering her seemed like the most natural thing in the world.
“M... my name is Ermes. I’m a blacksmith.”
“Good. That matches the identification scan. The device is working.”
The woman nodded, then tilted her head toward the light above them.
“Make sure you record all of this.”
The light flickered once, as if in response. Unbeknownst to the man, in a separate room far from the interrogation cell, two other women sat watching a large screen. They wore the same maid uniforms, their eyes fixed on the live feed streaming from the room. A golemic eye, hidden behind the ceiling light, captured every moment.
“Do you think we should tell her about the gray hair? It’s hard to miss from this angle…”
One of the women shifted in her seat, fidgeting with her hands. The other rolled her eyes and pinched the soft skin of her arm.
“Take this seriously. If the Head Maid catches us slacking, we’ll get reprimanded. Worse, our salary might be cut.”
“Ow!”
The pinched maid yelped and rubbed her arm, shooting a quick glare at her partner. Her gaze drifted back to the screen, where the masked woman continued to question the man. Then, after a moment, she spoke again.
“So, who do you prefer? The Lord or maybe the High Commander? I bet there’s a real hunk under all that armor.”
“OW! Hey, stop that!”
Another quick pinch made her flinch again.
“Only if you stop daydreaming and focus.”
A small tear appeared in the maid’s eye, but this time she didn’t argue. She let out a quiet sigh, reached for her notepad, and joined the other woman in silently recording the information their superiors demanded.
They had been instructed to complete this task as quickly as possible and then move the man to a room with better furnishings. He was apparently not an enemy, but they were ordered to keep him confined without revealing their true identity or the fact that they were in Albrook. None of them knew where he had come from, and they understood it was wiser not to ask their superiors.
Soon, the room filled with the sound of clicking and clacking as both maids began typing on devices that resembled modern keyboards. These were larger than their other world counterparts and constructed almost entirely from metal. Thick cords connected them to small screens where a rudimentary word processor allowed them to record every detail.
“Why are the letters arranged in this strange order and not alphabetically…”
“Don’t ask questions. Just keep working.”
“Fine…”
The louder maid frowned, clearly annoyed that her question had been ignored, but she returned to her task without further complaint. The keyboard was one of the many inventions developed by the High Commander, a brilliant figure respected by all in Albrook. Being among the first to use it was, in its own way, a reward.
******
“Master, the report has arrived.”
“Put it up on the big screen.”
Roland had eaten and endured a stern talk with his wife, who was not pleased that he would not be staying for the night. At the moment, he was inside his workshop, reviewing the information related to the blacksmith named Ermes. He had assigned the task to Mary, and she had sent out her maids to complete it.
“They seem to have gotten used to the interrogation tools I’ve provided.”
Roland mumbled to himself as he watched through part of the recorded questioning. The box they used functioned similarly to a truth serum. It compelled anyone affected by it to speak only the truth. There were limitations, since individuals with high-tier classes and strong willpower could resist its effects. However, someone like this tier 2 blacksmith would not be able to.
“There are some typos within the report… Those maids might need some more training and reading classes.”
He did not have time to watch the entire hour-long interrogation. The magic device he had created caused the affected person to speak very slowly, which made the process even more time-consuming. Instead, he had assigned maids to listen in, type out anything important, and send him a written report. The tool he provided was just a simple text editor with no features for correcting or detecting spelling mistakes, something he planned to improve if time ever allowed.
There were scribing classes in the world that made recording information much easier, but their skills did not seem to carry over to typing on a runic screen with a text editor. Roland was not sure if the maids would eventually develop some new skill to ease this limitation, but it might be wiser in the future to have a proper scribe use their top-secret runic keyboard system instead.
“Now then.”
Roland scanned the report with his eyes, and a story quickly began to take shape. Through a series of questions, Roland had learned who the man was and why he had been left to die. He had been one of the apprentices of a tier 3 blacksmith in the settlement, someone who was on the verge of advancing to an even higher tier. Apparently, a disagreement had arisen between the master and certain members of the ruling adventurer group.
To make a point, they had tried to kill one of his apprentices. There were not many skilled craftsmen within the confines of that dungeon, and returning to the surface to recruit more was both expensive and dangerous. Because of this, those with influence often resorted to monopolizing the few craftsmen who were willing to live there. If no one volunteered, the guild would usually hire a tier 3 craftsman to reside in the settlement, but once they arrived, the local laws took over. Controlling the craftsmen was a profitable strategy, since a great deal of money could be made through their services.
"Whoever is in charge there is probably trying to control the other adventurers by limiting their access to repairs. If someone cannot maintain their high-grade equipment, they risk missing out on valuable rewards."
This was likely the core of the situation, but it complicated matters for Roland, who now had to decide what to do with the man. The questioning had also revealed that the blacksmith had a wife and a daughter still living in the settlement. His wife worked as a cook in one of the inns, alongside their teenage daughter. For now, it seemed they were safe and possibly being looked after by the master blacksmith, but Roland could not be certain of their fate. The men who had brought the blacksmith to the plant appeared to have their own hidden agenda.
The most reasonable course of action was to report the case to the guild in Isgard and let them handle it. However, he couldn’t be sure how far the corruption had spread within the guild ranks. If those in charge were either complicit or indifferent, then the blacksmith and his family might be in even greater danger than before.
"Sebastian."
"Yes, Master."
"I need you to contact the Guild Master. I’m sure he has more information about the Isgard Guild than we do."
Although Roland knew the names of the guild leaders, he had not gathered any detailed information about them. It was probably best to make sure he was not walking into a wasp nest, or if he was, that he had enough firepower to handle it.
"As you wish, Master."
After giving Sebastian a few more orders related to gathering intelligence, Roland made his way back to the teleportation gate chamber. Time was critical, and he still needed to grow stronger before reaching the Valerian Duke’s estate. He understood how extravagant nobles could be, and even duels might break out during their visit.
Each of the brothers was allowed to bring only a limited number of guards, and only one personal guard would be permitted inside the Duke’s castle. This would be his main role, and he had not yet decided how to approach it. Most of his strength came from his armor and runic enhancements, but bringing in magical equipment above a certain power level was forbidden. As things stood, he would need to leave his main armor with the rest of the troops stationed outside or hide it somewhere closer to the castle. Doing so, however, could be seen as an act of treason or an attempted attack on a noble's life.
‘Well, at this point, it would be strange if it were easy.’
Over the years, he had come to find the events unfolding around him more irritating than anything else, but he was beginning to make peace with the chaos of his extraordinary life. He understood that more obstacles would inevitably appear, and making the right moves to protect himself and those he cared about had become a routine part of his existence. He was not sure if it was healthy to think this way, always looking over his shoulder, but for now, he had accepted it.
His armored form moved through the teleportation gate, and he reappeared inside his small secret lair hidden within the dungeon. He glanced toward the console, which activated at once. A viewer display was ready, showing logs similar to an event tracker. The golems he had left behind were programmed to record any abnormalities and mark timestamps for later analysis. For now, however, nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
"Just a few monsters wandering around. I made the right choice building this safe house here."
Now that everything was in place, it was time to expand his influence throughout the dungeon. He had restocked all of his sensors and had enough to deploy across the entire area. Once the network was fully set up, not a single creature, adventurer, or even a drifting spore would escape his notice.
‘Time to get to work. Maybe once I’m done, I’ll be able to bring Agni in here too, but for now, it’s too dangerous.’
As he floated up through the lone opening, he thought about his fiery companion. The wolf had not been pleased about being left behind during the dungeon exploration. Both of Agni's forms were rare, and his level was only just high enough to handle the lesser dragon-type monsters that roamed these depths. Before Roland could allow him into the dungeon, he needed to make sure neither the monsters nor the adventurers could pose a threat. For now, this mission required stealth, and he could not trust his wolf to stay quiet.
Once outside, his crimson-scaled armor shimmered with something resembling starlight. Just like the surface, this place followed a day and night cycle. It was synchronized with the real world above, which made it easier to move unnoticed during the darker hours.
The area was dim, but nothing his enhanced vision could not handle. He immediately noticed that the plant monster he had defeated earlier had returned to its original spot. This time, however, it was already agitated. It seemed that some monsters grew more aggressive during the night, which in a way made hunting them easier.
With a hand gesture, a torrent of fire surged forward and engulfed the flesh-eating plant once more. As before, the creature stood no chance and was destroyed within seconds. But to Roland’s surprise, the blaze did not scare the surrounding monsters away. Instead, it drew them in. Multiple creatures of the same type began crawling toward him, as if they had sensed that he was in urgent need of experience points.
Soon, a controlled inferno erupted as he spun in place, setting every nearby plant monster ablaze. His armor, designed to amplify the power of his fire spells, was perfectly suited for extermination, and tonight, the dungeon would become a sea of flames.
Ash fell around him like snow while he burned through the advancing creatures. When some of them caught fire, they let out high-pitched screeches that were quickly silenced by the sound barrier his golems had set up around the area.
| Congratulations, you have leveled up! |
"Not bad, that's one level down."
At first, he had wondered where the best place to level up would be. After surveying the area more carefully, he realized this location was far more efficient than he had expected. In addition to the plant-based monsters that yielded a decent amount of experience, there were also plant-type drachinids nearby that he could target next.
He stepped forward into the darkness. The lingering embers drifted toward him, drawn into the red scales of his armor, which pulsed faintly with heat. Time was running short, but he was confident that within the few days he had left, he could reach level fifty. All he could do now was hope that the effort would be worth it, and that the gods who granted skills would show him mercy.
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