Chapter 111: Absolution’s Hypocrisy

After protesting and hurling every insult she could think of at that system which knew the meaning of neither a gift nor a concession, she moved on to the next upgrade.

"System, raise the Summons category to level six, please."

[ Spend 2,000 mana points on upgrading the Summons category to Level 6? ]

"Yes~!"

[ You have unlocked three new summons! ]

[ TetraGorilla Arcanist — Level 1 (0/10) — Rank B — Cost: 200 mana ] The scholars of their kind, Arcanists spend their days in the Mage Tower studying, theorising, and committing to paper formulas nobody else will ever read back. They regard outdoor experimentation as a last resort.

[ TetraGorilla Battle Mage — Level 1 (0/10) — Rank B — Cost: 200 mana ] Battle Mages train in the Mage Casting Grounds, putting into practice whatever the Arcanists write down. They regard reading the formulas as a last resort.

[ Mimic — Level 1 (0/3) — Rank B — Cost: 200 mana ] A Mimic blends into an existing chest, absorbs its contents, and gains a bonus or a penalty depending on the value of the treasure taken in. Requires 10 treasure chests per summoned Mimic to function. A Mimic never truly dies: it will reappear once 10 new chests have been made available to it.

[ Adjustment! In light of the world quest launched against you, and to balance things out, the system is offering you an exclusive summon! ]

[ The system hopes you make it through this dark stretch! Good luck! ]

[ The Chimera King — Level 1 (0/1) — Rank SS- — Cost: 10,000 mana ] The Chimera King is the one who keeps the cycle of hatred turning. Made from nothing, he has sworn to create the finest chimeras in the world in order to take revenge on the one who made him. Works with mana and bodies to forge chimeras in the Chimera Forge.

"Oooh~!"

Freya couldn’t help exclaiming, all her resentment toward the system forgotten in an instant thanks to this lovely new surprise.

Unlike the usual, where the summons simply filled out the buildings with no real surprises, this time one of them stood out.

Mimics!

As in every dungeon worthy of the name, you needed a few. And she remembered their strength very well, mainly thanks to one particular work where the thousand-year-old elf with white hair fell for it every single time.

Hahahah~ And to think I’m the one setting them now~!

She also found the mechanic attached to them very interesting, this system that required her to place ten chests in order to summon a single Mimic.

But she couldn’t help it, as usual, and the questions started coming.

Why does the dungeon want me placing chests and rewards? Does it want to give adventurers a reason to come back? What’s the point of all this? Or is it simply a mechanic the Mimics need to exist, and I’m reading too much into it?

Her brain kept running hot and firing off in every direction for a few minutes, until she eventually decided she wouldn’t get anything more out of it, once again, and that in the end it suited her just fine.

Because it still fitted neatly into her positive loop, while strengthening her dungeon through the Mimics.

Apart from that, the Chimera King’s rank had surprised her too. She hadn’t imagined for a second that it could go that high.

Aria had explained to her that the higher the ranks climbed, the greater the gap in strength between them became. She had said, for instance, that the difference between a rank S- and a rank S+ was wider than the one between a rank G and a rank S.

And that made sense, really. Rank S existed above all to label the special beings, the ones that no longer fitted into the basic classification.

But even accounting for that, and in fact especially accounting for that, rank SS- was extremely high for one of her dungeon’s summons.

I just hope he won’t be, let’s say... strange...

And on that doubt tightening in her chest, she turned her head to confirm something she already knew. On the butterflies’ feed from outside, night had fallen.

It was time. Time to get everyone out of the dungeon.

So she did a round of it, gathering what they needed for the meal with everyone’s help, and took them all outside. From the Mycfox to the museum’s guardian, all of them came out for a meal under the stars in the forest.

The girls were delighted, and Laïa was already drooling over the roast turning on the fire, sitting as close to it as she could without anyone needing to tell her where to settle.

Mei had set herself a little apart with a bottle of that liquor she had brought back last time, training in her divine style between mouthfuls, her body growing looser the further the level dropped.

Further off, the Mycfox, the bees and the Silkweavers had mixed together into a joyful mess, chasing one another between the roots and through the grass, while Kumoko let a good dozen of her young climb all over her back without a word of complaint.

Freya sat slightly back from all of it, glass of wine in hand, her gaze lost somewhere on the dark horizon between the trees.

She didn’t say much for the whole meal.

Then, once it was over, her mind still elsewhere, she stood and made her way to a spot a little away from where they had settled. A place she hadn’t seen in a few weeks, and one she needed to see right now.

She walked for a few minutes, back toward the entrance of her dungeon, until she made out a broken sword catching the moonlight, driven into the earth.

Kyū’s grave.

She came closer, her white hair carried by the night breeze, the sound of the trees and the leaves all around her setting a melancholy hush over the place.

"Hey."

She stood there a moment, looking for something to say, then ended up sitting down in the grass in front of the blade, arms around her knees.

"We’ve come a long way, you know. Well. I don’t know if you can see it from where you are. Maybe there’s nothing at all and I’m talking to a piece of scrap iron."

She looked at the broken metal.

"That would be just like me, that would."

The wind passed through the branches above her and moved on.

"I did some introspection after taking Evangel. It’s something that mattered to me, with everything changing about me in so little time, you know..."

She stopped.

"And then I thought about that day."

Her fingers found a blade of grass and started twisting it.

"Aaah... I really was in a pathetic state that day, Kyū. Truly pathetic. But human."

The blade of grass snapped.

"Despite everything, I accepted my changes. I accepted all of it. I accepted the system’s will and maybe the world’s too, to make me humanity’s enemy. I accepted becoming a calamity. I accepted all of it, because I had no choice."

She let out a short laugh that died immediately.

"Or maybe all of that is just an excuse."

She said nothing for a while.

"Maybe I enjoy it, deep down. Maybe this is the real Freya. The one breaking free of the walls human society built around her all her old life, the one who only wants one thing now, to reach her goals by whatever means are necessary."

She stopped.

"I don’t really know anymore, between the emotionless database that passes for my memory and everything else."

She looked at the blade for a moment.

"I don’t know anything anymore. I doubt everything. Lately I even doubt the one who has stood by me from the very beginning."

She let the silence settle, longer this time.

"I don’t know."

Her hand came to rest on the blade.

The metal was cold.

"Anyway. For all my complaining, I’ve made my choice, Kyū."

She pressed her forehead against the flat of the sword.

The wind dropped all at once, and there wasn’t a sound left in the forest.

She stayed like that for a while, forehead against the iron, then straightened up and shook her head.

"That’s why I came here, in fact."

She ran a hand over her face, as though putting things back in order.

"Whatever happens, I will never back down. I’ll always make sure I have as much luck on my side as I possibly can."

She drew a long breath.

"And that’s why I want you to rise again."

Her voice cracked halfway through, and she waited for it to come back.

"I know. It’s selfish. You’re fine where you are, far from any fighting, far from everything. And here I am, asking even more of you, when I promised you I’d handle it all."

She lifted her head.

"But I need you."

She rose slowly, her hand still on the sword.

"My number nine."

She let it go.

"I’ll come for you soon. Forgive me."

And without another word, she left.

Not back toward the girls, but toward the dungeon itself. Because there was a reason she had brought everyone out. She had done it to use the dungeon option she hadn’t touched yet, having waited on the category upgrades so she could work with whatever ended up inside.

Once she was standing before the dungeon’s entrance, her mind still on the conversation she’d just had, she laid her hand against it and took a long breath, then called up the option with a single thought.

[ Dungeon Remodeling ]

~~

As Freya walked away from the place where she had spoken a few words meant more for herself than for the one she was addressing, her face closed all the same, a fly was hovering not far off, beside a tree.

It had watched everything. It had listened to everything, not missing a moment of what it considered the character development of this world’s protagonist.

Because from where it stood, moments exactly like that one were what made all the difference in what it considered the show of a lifetime—the kind you simply couldn’t afford to miss.

CLAP

Two hands closed around it from behind and killed it on the spot.

Two violet horns caught the moonlight, and the thoroughly furious face they belonged to turned slowly, until its eyes came to rest on the sword driven into the ground in front of her.

She had heard it all too, and seen it all.