Chapter 14: The First Assembly
The assembly hall rose like a vast Colosseum, its concentric tiers vanishing into a thick fog. And at the very top, on the highest platform, hidden from view, Freya sat.
She’d already been waiting a few minutes for everyone to arrive.
[ 342/363 participants. ]
Down below, a crowd was talking, scattered across the tiers. Shadows, for the most part. No physical bodies, just dark silhouettes drifting in the mist, some feminine, others masculine. Above each one hovered a few glowing letters, their respective handle.
Curious, Freya listened in on a conversation, hoping to glean some answer as to how they’d ended up here so fast. A masculine silhouette spoke first.
BlackFlame: "So you joined Maid’s faction too?"
DarkVortex: "Yeah. I went back and forth with SkyStrategist’s, but the chat won me over in the end. She had something more... decisive about her. More realistic too, in the way she spoke up."
A feminine silhouette slipped into the exchange.
ShoeSize?: "That’s the whole magnificence of Maid. She speaks little. She doesn’t lose herself in childish ideologies like SkyStrategist, and she hasn’t an ounce of poor Lucas’s naivety."
DarkVortex: "Wait... the foot fetishist was a woman this whole time?"
That’s exactly what I thought. Freya raised an eyebrow, caught between amusement and bewilderment. Still, isn’t it wild that she’s a woman? And where does this devotion toward me even come from? I barely dropped three sentences in that damn chat.
She could feel a troubling resemblance to Aria. Both of them cut from the same cloth. Completely gone.
It was a strange position to be in, really. Perched up there, invisible, listening to them talk about her like some distant figure whose every word they hung on. They didn’t suspect for a second that she was right above them, that she could hear them, and that she was really just a girl as lost as they were, without the faintest idea what she was doing.
Their conversation then drifted onto what delighted them most about this new world, and then onto a thousand other trifles. So Freya let herself drift too, gleaning a fragment here, a confidence there, soaking up whatever she could.
Until the notification dropped.
[ 363/363 participants. ]
And just like that, it was time.
She knew it. They all knew it too. Down below, the conversations died out one by one, until a thick silence blanketed the whole Colosseum.
She’d hoped the stage fright would fade with time, with those few minutes of listening. It hadn’t. It was still there, clinging tight, twisting her stomach, a little harder with each passing second.
I don’t even know how this situation spiraled this far... What am I even supposed to say? Where do I start?
The questions jostled against one another, in disarray, before she silenced them as always, with a long breath and her little mantra.
One thing at a time, Freya. One thing at a time.
She stood.
Three hundred and sixty-two silhouettes lifted their heads as one, their handles suspended above them. Not a murmur. Not a breath. Nothing but that immense silence and those hundreds of motionless shadows, turned toward her, waiting for her to speak.
The weight of all those stares came down on her at once.
Courage, Freya. Courage. You can do this.
Her throat was dry. Her mind, blank. And the silence stretched on, demanding words that wouldn’t come.
So, perhaps because her brain had just short-circuited under the pressure, perhaps because she truly had no idea where to begin, she uttered a single word. The one that had sat at the center of everything since her reincarnation into this world. Arm raised toward the vault of mist, chin high, frozen in a conqueror’s pose, with all the solemnity in the world.
"Death!"
Silence.
... Crap.
The silhouettes had frozen, dumbfounded. Freya felt the floor drop out from under her.
Crap, crap, crap! Why did I say that?! "Death"?! Freya, you’re making a fool of yourself in front of three hundred and sixty-two people!
"Huh...?" A voice, somewhere in the crowd. "Did she just say... ’death’?"
There it is. It’s over. They’re all going to realize their leader is a complete idiot and—
"Death..."
One silhouette had raised its arm. Then, its voice climbing a notch:
"Death to the other factions!"
Freya blinked.
A second arm shot up.
"Yeah! Death to Lucas’s faction!"
"Death to the heroes!"
And there, it tipped over.
One arm, then ten, then a hundred rose toward the mist. The isolated voices sought one another out, found one another, layered over one another, and the hesitant murmur of the start swelled into a wave, then into a deafening roar.
"Death to any who stand in our way!"
"Death to the whole world, if that’s what it takes!"
"MAID! MAID! MAID!"
The word passed from mouth to mouth, took on new forms, hammered out in chorus by a tide of shadows thrashing ever more violently in the fog. The handles danced above the silhouettes, the voices melting into a single rumble, a low and fervent clamor that rose from the tiers and set the thick air of the Subspace trembling.
Three hundred and sixty-two Dungeon Lords chanting her name and howling for death, drunk on a fervor she’d never meant to light.
But... but why has everyone turned so terrifying all of a sudden?! Just be normal, I’m begging you!
Heart pounding, she cast about for an explanation, any explanation, and her gaze fell to the side, on a window that hadn’t been there a few minutes before.
[ Skill activated: Word of Greed. ]
An icy shiver ran through her. So it hadn’t been a mere slip. Something, inside her, had just acted. Something she didn’t control.
And... what does this one do, exactly? she thought, cold sweat running down her back, while below the tide went on exalting itself.
[ Word of Greed: Allows the wielder to influence, through speech, the deepest desires of any being, drawing to the surface the greed of those in resonance with the word spoken by the host. ]
Freya stared at the window, then at the clamor, then at the window again.
... Aaaah, crap. I’m completely done for.
The clamor was still ringing, hammering at the thick air of the Subspace, and Freya sat there taking it a moment longer, breath short, while her brain caught up.
She quickly concluded it had to be a skill she’d acquired with her second title, the one whose effects she hadn’t yet taken the time to read.
But how the hell did it activate on its own?
This time, the system stayed silent. No answer. Freya found that suspicious, but didn’t dwell on it. She had more pressing matters to deal with.
Because down below, three hundred and sixty-two avatars were still howling for death and chanting her name, and she’d better take the reins before this went completely off the rails.
All right. Breathe. The damage is done anyway.
And somewhere, a small voice whispered that since she’d triggered this, she might as well turn it to her advantage. The panicked, timid girl faded, and the calculator took over.
She deactivated the skill first. Greed had already taken root in them, no point piling on. Then she raised her hand.
The shouts died down. The silence returned. And she spoke.
"There will be only one rule in your conquest of death."
In for a penny. Might as well set a limit.
She raised a finger.
"First and only rule. All attacks between us are forbidden. Whether physical, mental, or by cunning. Our faction is meant to rise, and to rise, we must support one another."
From the little she’d had time to consider, it was the only rule that truly mattered.
No losses within our ranks. And that way, I can amass as much mana as possible over time, without a single member slipping away from me.
Below, the silhouettes bowed, nodded, approved without reservation. Freya let her gaze glide over that devoted tide, and her mind set to turning at once.
All right. I’ve got a faction. A big one. And each of them funnels me a share of their mana. She kept coming back to the same point, to the thing that had been thrilling her from the start. Now to push them to harvest as much of it as they can. The harder they grind, the richer I get.
The problem was motivation. A faction of three hundred and sixty-three members was still a shapeless mass, and nothing guaranteed each one would give it their all. She needed a way to spur them on, to raise the best of them and pull everyone else up along with them.
And there, the idea came to her on its own.
Maybe I could have my own version of the four heavenly generals.
An elite. A handful of chosen ones above the mass, and a seat to be won that would make them all outdo themselves. The idea appealed to her at once. She lifted her chin.
"One more thing." Her voice carried through the mist, and silence fell again. "Over the coming month, I’ll be watching you. The four of you who harvest the most mana will be granted the title of General. They will stand at my side, above the rest."
A moment of hesitation. Then a first voice rose.
"A general...?"
"Only four seats..."
And it climbed.
"That title will be mine!"
"In your dreams, I’ll harvest twice what you do!"
"Out of my way, that seat’s already mine!"
The assembly flared up again, harder, more violently even than the first time. The silhouettes sized one another up, weighed one another, challenged one another through the fog, ready to devour each other over that handful of seats.
Whoa there. That’s... that’s a bit much, isn’t it? Freya blinked at the sudden fervor. I knew the promise of a title would motivate them, but to this extent—
A detail snagged her gaze. Off to the side, the window. Still open.
[ Skill active: Word of Greed. ]
...
... Son of a bitch.
She’d thought she’d shut it off. And there it was, switched back on all by itself, right as she voiced her promise, stoking their greed far beyond what she’d intended.
This piece of garbage kicks in the second I touch their desires, is that it?!
She cut it off with a sharp gesture, hands a little unsteady. The damage was done, once again, but at least the fit of collective madness dropped a notch.
That said, watching the tide of avatars still glaring one another down, greedy, determined to harvest the mana of the whole world just to earn a place at her side, she couldn’t help but note one thing.
Well... deep down, this serves my interests perfectly.
She savored the spectacle a moment, a half-smile on her lips.
Then she’d had enough.
"That will be all."
She cut the skill with a gesture.
The Subspace dissolved. The mist, the tiers, the hundreds of shadows, all of it vanished at once, and the deafening din along with it.
Silence crashed down.
The real kind, this time. Total. She was alone once more in the gloom of her dungeon, before the Heart pulsing softly, and the contrast was so brutal she stayed stunned for a moment, ears still full of cries that no longer existed.
... That was completely insane.
She let the pressure drain away, digesting what had just happened. An entire hall howling her name. A faction of hundreds hanging on her every word. And her, in the middle of it, who had set the whole thing off with a single word blurted out in sheer panic.
She thought back to the window. To that skill that had woken on its own, without her lifting a finger.
And that skill... I really am going to have to figure out how it works.
A shiver ran down her spine. A power like that, uncontrollable, should have terrified her. So why was part of her looking forward to the next time?
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