I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I regained consciousness. I was still in the safe room, as safe as I could expect to be. I immediately began to heal myself, trying to recover from the damage I had taken. Two days passed by the time I had regained my strength and recovered. As I lay down, a silent sword at my side, I stared up at the final mural. It was an image of the girl holding the ancient sword. Darkness was closing in around her.
At first, I didn’t understand what it meant, but since I could barely move, I had enough time to dwell on it, and I started to come up with a theory that I thought was accurate. Time passed, and I slowly forced myself to my feet. I had to get Alysia back, defeat this dungeon, and then save Eliana and Faeyna from the demon lord. The me from before might have fallen into despair. However, now, I would keep walking forward until I was dead.
With a breath, I continued forward and left the sanctity of the safe room for the final trial. As I had predicted, the final trial was no longer a coliseum. It was a boss room. Sitting at a seat at the end of the boss room was the little girl. She had a malicious grin on her face.
“I know who you are… and what you did,” I said.
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “And what did I do?”
“Killed your father… turned him into a sword.”
“Heh… I didn’t do anything to him that he didn’t do to me first.”
“He didn’t kill you.”
“No.” She made a face. “He let a dungeon do that for him. My father was an accomplished dungeon diver. He had lived an adventurous life, but retired from it before I was born. He used to regale me with stories of his adventures in the dungeon. How could a young girl not grow fascinated when she stumbled upon such a dungeon one day?”
“He should have cautioned you.”
“I was only ten! You know… it wasn’t the monsters that killed me. The dungeon… it took pity on me. It left me alone. But… I was lost. And scared. And alone. I starved to death in that dungeon. I cried for papa as I died, but he never came!”
“That… that might be so, but he didn’t know. He did look for you.”
“Hmph… look, maybe.” She shrugged. “But when he found me, the dungeon had left my soul alive. That wasn’t good enough for him. So… he conquered the dungeon, and replaced the dungeon master for himself! Then, he took my soul. No, he didn’t just take it. He harvested it. He was bad at controlling miasma. He could only make a little of my soul at a time, which he put into boss monsters. He’d then kill me, over and over again, collecting my soul one piece at a time! When he finally had recovered enough, he turned the entire dungeon into a sword, locking my soul inside!
“But that wasn’t enough for daddy. He became obsessed with power! He started to kill and slaughter, and reforge me, burning my soul over and over and over until I was strong enough! I didn’t kill my father! I stopped him! And then I did what he did to me. I turned him into a weapon, and I tortured him night and day. I made him feel all the pain that he gave to me!” She looked at the sword in my hands. “Eventually, he just went dead and rusted away. I hope you got familiar with that wretched sword. It’s now going to be your fate.”
A force ripped the sword out of my hands suddenly. It collapsed on the floor somewhere between the pair of us. A chain came out of the floor and grabbed my ankles. As I went to grab them, more chains grabbed my wrists. They immediately pulled taught, stretching me into an X. In a few seconds, I was chained up and unable to move.
“How does this pass the rules of your trial?” I demanded.
The little girl laughed. “This trial was never yours. It was hers.”
She waved her hand, and Alysia appeared once again.
“D-Deek?”
“Go forth! Kill this man! Kill the one who wronged you! Turn him into a sword and fulfill your destiny!”
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel