"Uh… hi?" she spoke with a slightly awkward face as I looked at her. There was a slight tinge of horror in her eyes, but overall it looked like she was fine. More like she was planning her way to escape out of here at this moment, too.
"You should rest a little. I am here to talk about something," I spoke as I looked at her and she, though not completely convinced, still nodded before looking at me with a serious face.
"Want to meet your daughter after all this is over?" I asked, making her narrow her eyes at me. She then asked,
"What do you want in return?"
"Build a force. I want everyone in the entire Forest of Death to be prepared for a war that is going to happen in 4 months time from now. Also, try to bring in monsters from other places also," I spoke as I, too, turned serious.
Hearing my demand, she closed her eyes for a few moments before speaking,"I have two questions."
"Let's hear them," I spoke with a bright smile on my face, at which she gulped before asking,
"Why me?"
Already knowing the question which she was going to ask, I answered with the same bright smile,"because the Forest of Death abides by the law of the strongest and you are the strongest that all the monsters know of."
She kept her eyes concentrated on me before asking her second question,"what do you gain from all this?"
"The enemies that are approaching here… I have got a personal vendetta against them,"I spoke as my expression turned from a nonchalant one to a slightly furious one. Just recalling them and all the horrendous things they did makes my blood boil.
Envy, observing my furious face, took a few steps back as she gulped and observed me. Though I sighed before speaking,"Any other questions you have?"
"Yeah… Why can't you be the one ruling and gathering people.. You are clearly stronger than everyone else not just here but in the entire Netherrealm," she spoke a bit cautious, a bit curious.
I nodded at her reasoning before explaining,"I have two reasons for that.
One is that I don't have time to prove my strength and then force everyone to follow me. While I can ask everyone to prepare for war, I might have to waste a lot of time fighting them first to prove my strength. You are clearly better in this case.
The other thing is, once again, time. I have something else I need to do while you are gathering all the people here. A solo trip of sorts."
I explained my reasons to her, and she pondered over it for a few moments before asking,
"Back then you spoke something along the lines of my daughter being still alive. Can you explain how that is possible after almost a century has passed since I have been here?"
I nodded at her before explaining about the artefact that can increase one's life slowly and slowly from an average span of 80 years to as much as 150 years. How she became a saint, how she survived all this time, I explained everything to her in detail and, listening to my story, she smiled frequently as she heard the tales of her own daughter.
"Awaaah…" she stretched her back as she yawned loudly with a blissful face and spoke,"well. All that I need to do is to create an army of monsters here, right?"
I nodded at her and she stood up before speaking,"Then I will start immediately. You better not forget about the promise you made. See ya later…. Ummm.. what should I call you?"
I chuckled at her change of behaviour before answering her,
"I go by Reaper but… Call me Zero. We are going to be sticking close together quite a lot when we leave to meet your daughter."
She, though a bit confused, nodded at me before vanishing from there.
I just remained there at the branch for a few moments before proceeding towards the closest dungeon nearby. While I did gain a sudden boost, it would be better to test and try my powers.
I still needed a lot of training regarding how to best use my fragments. Not just the Rejection Fragment, but also the Ablaze Fragment and the Breath Fragment.
'I refuse to believe that allowing me to breathe and using a special kind of light are the only powers that these fragments have… Using them right might make them strong enough to break into another level without sacrificing much,' I pondered as I kept running towards the nearest dungeon.
Actually, the nearest dungeon was within the Forest of Death itself. Or more like at the epicentre of the Forest of Death.
'The infamous dungeon, Dungeon of Death,' I thought as I reached the entrance of that dungeon. It was a kind of mystical area with that tablet floating in front, bound by that ghost.
Last time I came here, I did enter the dungeon, though I could only reach up to the 27th floor of the known 27th floor at that time.
Though, unlike the Dungeon of Chaos, my home sweet home, this place was more like a normal dungeon to me, which I was trying to venture deep into for the sake of adventuring and competition against the rest of the monsters.
Each floor had monsters and monsters and monsters. The difficulty kept increasing with each floor and at that time, I was about S4 level so the monsters on the 27th floor were around S6 or something. I had spent over weeks on each floor before I could clear them.
'I wonder if I could beat the floors below now. Also… I wonder what kind of reward exists deep below there… and… if there is any secret hidden there, too?' I thought as a smile formed on my face and I approached that dungeon's gate.
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