Four pairs of eyes watched me with a mixture of terror and hope, bound by ice cuffs that glinted in the dim light.
"Please, spare us," one of them begged, his voice trembling.
"Mercy!" begged another.
Ignoring them, I focused on the task at hand, feigning an air of nonchalance, which made the pleas and cries even more so desperate.
"Do you guys really want me to let you go?" I asked, as if I hadn't previously heard their pleas.
They all nodded in unison.
"Since you guys want to go so badly," I voiced out loud,"I will let you go."
They stared at me, confusion mixing with their fear. Returning their stares with a smile I calmly took a moment to explain the rules of the game I came up with with an almost childlike glee. "You see? I want you to run across that platform and bring me your leader above the boulder. That’s the premise of the game, the only rule is to make it across by using the platform as steps and nothing else. Failure to do so will result in disqualification."
"What do you mean by disqualification?" another one asked, his voice breaking, understanding that it couldn’t be anything good.
"You'll see," I replied with a smile, letting the words hang in the air, savoring the fear that rippled through them.
My gaze fell on the closest bandit, and he trembled under my scrutiny. "You’re first," I said.
"No, please, not me," the poor bastard begged, squealing even but his pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears.
"Please, I don’t want to die," he whimpered.
"Additional rule. Refusing to comply will result in disqualification," I said coldly. I then reached onto his shoulder, with a touch, the ice on cuffing him melted, effectively freeing him. "So choose. You either run and retrieve me your boss or are disqualified right here, right now."
I began to count. "0."
He hesitated, but the threat of disqualification spurred him into motion. He stepped gingerly onto his comrades, which were laying on the ground forming with their corpse a long linear platform of about a dozen meters, his eyes never leaving the boulder. He reached his head and turned, relief washing over his face just as I reached, "7."
"Time's up." The sword of ice materialized in the middair at my side, and with a swift hurtling motion, his head exploded in a shower of crimson.
The remaining bandits screamed, their horror filling the night.
"Why?!"
"No, no, this is unfair!" one of them cried out.
"I forgot to mention, there’s an additional rule," I said lightly, "failure to make it before I reach the count of 7 will result in disqualification."
"This is madness!"
Words of outrages were voiced out by the bandits, but there was no one here to care about what they felt about it except themselves. Their protests were simply futile. I turned to the next bandit, repeating the rules word for word. "I want you to run across that platform and bring me your leader above the boulder."
He barely needed encouragement, as panic drove him forward, upon hearing me count "0." He rushed, unlike the previous one, stepping without hesitation on the bodies. But as he reached the third step, he tragically tripped, falling face-first into the carnage. He scrambled to stand, but "7" came too quickly.
"Please, no, no!" he screamed, turning around to meet my gaze, as he understood after this what his fate would be. His pleas were cut short by the Frost Sword making his head rolling away.
I looked toward the third bandit who seemed to have understood the futility of begging, and yet he still went on to ask, "Why are you doing this?"
I responded with silence, the stillness making his terror even more palpable.
He listened as I recited the rules once more. "0." His run seemed promising, but then he turned, reaching onto a fistful of dirt then throwing it in my face, before attempting an escape for himself.
"Cheap tricks aren't very effective on me," I laughed. He thought he had escaped, but as he reached a distance, he suddenly stopped, began to scream, clutching his head in agony.
"I wanted you to have a quick death, but you refused. Now die in agony." The sword sliced through the air, and the next instant he was no more.
The last bandit was pale, his eyes vacant. He looked like a man already dead. I approached him, ready to repeat the rules, but paused. "Guess what?" I asked, touching his shoulder.
He repeated my earlier words in a monotone, "You want me to run across that platform and bring you our leader’s head above the boulder."
"Nope," I replied with a cold smile. "You're going to rearrange this mess. Make a longer bridge using your comrades." His eyes widened in horror, but there was no escape.
"You're going to rearrange this mess. Make a longer bridge using your comrades," I instructed, watching the man’s eyes flicker with a glimmer of relief. Relief that he wasn't immediately thrown into the same fate as his friends. Yet, as he started dragging the bodies, that relief began to fade. Halfway through his task, the realization hit him: his reprieve was temporary, it was a question of second before he too would be put down like were his friends.
He slowed down, his movements becoming sluggish, perhaps hoping to delay the inevitable. I obviously noticed and scolded the bandit. "Hurry up. We don’t have all the evening. I have places to be."
Fear spurred him to move faster, and soon he was down to the last body. As he approached it, his breathing grew rapid and shallow. I could see it in his eyes, the calculation, the desperate search for an escape. He glanced at me, then at the corpses, contemplating a run. But he knew the fate that awaited him if he tried.
He fell to his knees, then collapsed onto all fours, vomiting. I approached leisurely, standing beside him. Seeing my shadow looming over him, he looked up, eyes wide with fear as our gaze met.
"Stand up," I repeated.
"Why?" he gasped, desperation evident in his voice.
"I gave no answer to your friend. What makes you think I'll give you one?" I responded.
"We've done nothing to you," he pleaded.
"Done anything to me... Well, I guess you're right. But you're bandits. Isn't that a good enough reason for you to understand what's happening to you?" I said with a cruel smile.
Torn and unsure of his next move, he made a desperate decision. Reaching for a dagger at his waist, he swung it towards my gut. The attack was slow and predictable. I snatched his wrist effortlessly, stopping the blow. He followed with a chaotic swing aimed at my face, but I caught his other wrist just as easily.
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His face turned pale, then flushed with anger and fear. I locked eyes with him and began to apply pressure, bone-rupturing noises echoing through the night. He screamed, but the sound was cut short as I grasped his neck, freezing him into a statue of ice.
"You wanted to know why?" I said, increasing the pressure until the ice began to crack. With a final push, the statue shattered, killing him instantly.
I watched with a smile as a notification and ultimately the answer to the man’s question appeared in the corner of my vision:
Legacy of Agony, an innate ability I acquired upon choosing Hexcaster as my core subclass and receiving the Dread Seer title. It allowed me to harvest the final moments of a chosen target and then impart those memories onto another, causing them to experience the same excruciating agony, albeit only mentally. Despite not affecting physical health or stamina, the mental assault left the target vulnerable to subsequent attacks.
One of the most valuable aspects of Legacy of Agony was its low casting cost. Just like skills drained SP or MP, most abilities taxed fatigue percentage status, this can go from a percentage of one digit to a two one, making it that some abilities can be cast repeatedly a day and others can’t be afforded to be cast multiple times over a day. This one, however, had a ridiculously low casting cost, allowing me to cast it over a hundred times a day. The second one is that with just a thought and visual contact, I could activate any of its subabilities harvesting, echoing, or engraving effortlessly.
This framed the ability as the perfect one, however, the ability came with its own fair share of limitations. It was ineffective against undead and elemental creatures. That was pretty reasonable actually. After all, how could I harvest dying memories from something already dead or lacking a brain and heart? Thus when using this ability, my perfect targets were either animalistic creatures or sentient beings. Humans, being the most accessible sentient beings on this side of the world, became my primary subjects.
For animalistic monsters, Legacy of Agony operated similarly to how it did on humans, with an added layer of complexity. The memories harvested from one type of animalistic monster might not be compatible with another due to the vast diversity within the category. For example, a memory harvested from a Hexfen wouldn’t work on a Thunderflamme Ursus, just as a Thunderflamme Ursus's memory wouldn't be effective on a FrostFang Serpent.
It took quite some experience to figure out the ins and outs of the ability, but I got to understand that generally, if the ability worked on one animalistic creature, it was likely to work on others of similar classification and elemental affinity. For example, if it worked on a wolf-like creature, it would probably work on another wolf-like creature, even if their elemental inclinations differed. This rule of compatibility applied to most mammal-type animalistic monsters. It also applied for reptile-type animalistic one, as for insectoid type ones, it was a little more complicated, even when they shared the same elemental characteristics. So, while my odds weren't precise, they were reliable enough to navigate most encounters.
Luckily, humans were less complicated. There were only two types of them, excluding peons: Highbreed and Verdenkind. Despite minor differences, what worked on one typically worked on the others. This consistency made them the perfect subjects for my [Legacy of Agony].
"That's why," I muttered to myself, looking at the remains of the bandits.
That's why I so viciously attack bandit camps. I needed their memories, harvested in the most gruesome ways possible. The more potent the fear in those final moments, the more effective the memories would be when cast onto a target.
Most of the time, when raiding a camp, I harvested memories from bandit peons just like I harvest Verdenkind’s, like the four I had just dealt with. On its own, memories harvested from peons couldn’t hope to ever be effective against a Verdenkind , but even then memories could be useful. Merged together, they helped raise the maximum level I could affect with my ability. Sure, it was a slow process, requiring way too many peons to equal the effect I would get from a single Verdenkind, but it wasn’t like it was a hard task. In fact it required both minimum effort and a minimum of imagination. Easy money, as they say.
At the beginning of my harvesting journey, I wondered if I could have my ceiling reach level 25 using this safe method of just harvesting memories from peons. Back then I surmised that if I were to slaughter every bandit camp of the continent I might be.
How naive I was back then. Now, I understood it wouldn't be possible unless I carried out a complete genocide, for there clearly weren't enough bandits in Fiendfell for that, and I couldn’t see myself carrying that out on just random people. Lost in thought I found myself wishing for more of them around.
"Wishing for more bandits?" I muttered, shaking my head. "What am I saying?"
That was a thought none of my previous incarnations could have ever dreamed of thinking. I don’t need more bandits, nor does the world. The most optimal way to raise my ability’s ceiling is by defeating Verdenkind or Highbreed bandits. Though I’ve never encountered a Highbreed bandit, not that I would know one is a Highbreed unless they introduced himself as such. Anyway, that was the optimal way.
In raiding this camp, I encountered only three Verdenkind: the leader and two other captains. Their gang, from their numbers to their Verdenkind-to-peon ratio, reminded me of the gang I stumbled upon in Gork Village. It’s hard to believe it’s almost been a year since that happened. Time flies so fast. Well, actually not so fast as it was still not the 80th day of the second moon of the year 616, but still five days before it.
The day after I heard the mention of the bandits, I decided to leave Miriandelle to visit the neighboring city. At first, I considered going straight for the bandits but ultimately chose to keep that for the end. I went southeast, visiting neighboring villages and towns, actively looking for monsters to defeat and perhaps accidentally stumbling upon bandits to harvest the memories of. I went for a week, then returned to Miriandelle, feeling like the reward was much more deserved than before. Then I went back out, heading west, from where I came from, but this time I didn’t follow the main route and went through the woods, camping, passively searching for monsters in the region for a little over a week. Returning to Miriandelle, I felt more deserving of the reward than ever, so I stayed three days in Miriandelle before heading out again. This time I went northwest, actively seeking the bandits. It didn’t take long to find them. The rascals had set up camp half a day away from where the town known as Sandlow should be, a town I had no plan to visit.
With this, my job here was done. I could now return, but feeling that I wouldn’t be able to sit still for five days waiting for the 80th day of the second moon of the year 616, I decided to spend an additional three days here, well, not here, as I wanted nothing to do with what happened in this place, but somewhere else. Then I would head back to Miriandelle, where I would reward myself like never before.
After scavenging what was there to scavenge in the bandits "camps", which I quickly found was lootless, or at least had nothing worthy of my attention, I left the place to set up camp further east, hoping to find somewhere with a nice view.
I found it, a hill overlooking a lake, above which hung the giant W?hppr, also known as the third moon. Two days later, early in the morning, I left the spot, heading back to Miriandelle.
A day later, I was back at the Seagull's Nest, just in time for a late breakfast. Eating to my heart's content, I made a special request to the owner and the cook for the next day, which they accepted. Then I made my way to my room, not exiting for lunch and dinner, as I had them be brought to my room. Holing myself up there, I slept so the next day would come faster.
***
On the 80th day of the second moon of the year 616, I woke up early, before the sun’s first light even filtered over the horizon. After a quick bath and changing my clothes, I descended to the lobby. There was no one there except the owner, who was wiping glasses with a white cloth, and his youngest daughter, the girl who had held the sign at the entrance the day I arrived at the establishment. She and her father were already waiting for me, as the moment they noticed, the father had his daughter go to the kitchen to get my command of the day before ready
"Good morning, Miss Arianna," she greeted me with a smile.
"Good morning," I replied.
The owner, hearing the greeting, looked up and asked, "Something good happened?"
"Pardon?"
"I said, did something happen? You look particularly happy today," he remarked, warmly.
"I do? Well...I suppose I am. Today is a very special day for me."
"Oh...I see. That’s wonderful to hear! I hope your day is as special as you want it to be."
"I hope so too," I simply replied.
Not probing deeper, the owner went back to polishing his glasses, and soon his daughter returned with my breakfast.
I made quick work of my meal and promptly left the establishment for the place I had left the Chateau, crossed three kingdoms to reach this city for.
The city was still sleeping, devoid of its usual loudness, shrouded in silence. The quietness made the sound of my heart beating in anticipation even louder. I was happy, anticipating. I had waited years, no, decades for this moment, from my very first incarnation to this seventh one. Finally, it was here.
After walking for what felt like an eternity, I arrived at the plaza with the fountain at its center. It sat there, lonely. Just like the day I first saw it, I took a seat and waited, as that was the only thing to be done. Waiting, for how long exactly, I couldn’t tell. I just knew that waiting was what I had to do. I watched the first rays of sunlight wake the city. The plaza, initially empty, soon filled with passerby, men with their bundles heading for the sea, women carrying or back-carrying their babies as they too headed toward the bay. Later, children began to play around. Some noticed me, and some, remembering me, approached curiously, seating themselves next to me. But when called by their parents, they left, leaving me alone, waiting.
It was then in my wait that I was joined by a tall old man. As if I had taken a spot that was his, he approached from across the plaza, staring at me. Without a word, he took a seat to my left. He, like me, seemed to be waiting for something, or rather, someone. Minutes passed in silence. Finally, deciding to take a chance, I turned to him and asked, "Are you my Grandpa?"
His green irises widened briefly in surprise, apprehension, or perhaps something else entirely. But whatever it was, it confirmed one thing: I had found what I was looking for. With a collected voice, the old man responded calmly, "That depends. Who am I dealing with?"
A large smile, one I could no longer suppress, spread across my face. I lifted five fingers, then another three. In that moment, the man, understanding who I was, mumbled the name I was known by among my brethren. "Dungeon Master 08?"
Not feeling like answering his question, I, despite having a clear idea of who I was dealing with, asked, wanting to hear his name from his own mouth. "You?"
The old man smiled, raising five fingers then two others, saying, "Dungeon Master 07."