Chapter 24: I Come in Peace
In the dungeon chamber, the Heart was pulsing.
Slowly, steadily, and Freya no longer needed to look up to know its rhythm. It was hers. She could no longer tell which of the two had ended up following the other.
She sat on a throne of stone carved straight out of the rock, veined with mithrite all the way to the armrests — a fortune the crown would have seized on the spot, had anyone known it existed. Chin high, gaze cold, she considered the man standing before her.
Blond, blue eyes, white and blue armor that caught the light of the Heart with every breath. The kind of armor you don’t wear to fight in, but to be painted in.
Straight out of a novel. It wouldn’t even have surprised me if his name was Pendragon, or something along those lines.
"Creature!"
The man’s voice filled the chamber all at once, projected as if from a stage, before a crowd that didn’t exist.
"Know before whom you shall answer for your crimes! I am Aldric Paydragon, Consecrated Blade of the—"
Freya lost it.
The laugh escaped before she could make the slightest move to hold it back, and once it was out, it wouldn’t stop. She doubled over on her throne, one hand on her stomach, the other waving at him to wait, incapable of stringing a word together.
Pay. Pay... Paydragon.
She was off again.
"...What exactly is so funny?"
The tone had dropped a whole floor. It was no longer a proclamation, but the voice of a man sincerely wounded.
"It is a very, very ancient name. My family has borne it for eleven generations."
"No, no." Freya wiped the corner of her eye and straightened up. "Sorry. Go on. It’s a very lovely name."
She breathed in, once, then twice, and the laughter finally receded. She settled back into the throne and took her time placing her hands on the armrests.
The cold returned to her eyes the way one puts a mask back on.
"Hero." She spread her arms wide, a smile worthy of a demon king on her lips. "So you have made it all the way here, despite the trials. I congratulate you."
"Do not play the confident woman with me, vile demon! I know you seek only to buy time, but know that it shall avail you nothing."
He had already found his stage again.
"Buy time?" Freya raised an eyebrow. "For what, exactly?"
"So that your servants may close their circle at my back, obviously! I did not cross half this kingdom to be caught in a snare so crude."
"There’s no one here. Look around you." She let her hand trace a lazy arc across the empty chamber. "There’s only you and me."
"That is precisely what a vile demon would say."
"That is precisely what someone who doesn’t want to fight would say."
The hero opened his mouth, closed it, and a crease of doubt crossed his brow. Freya seized it.
"Listen to me." She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "You came here because someone told you the evil was in this cave. Did you pass through the village on your way?"
"I saw what was left of it."
"And you think that was me."
"I know what I see, creature." His voice dropped a note, and for the first time, he wasn’t declaiming. "The oracle pointed me to this cave, and to reach it I crossed a village where nothing breathes any longer. There is a fresh grave outside your door, corpses lying at the foot of your throne, and you would have me believe you had no part in it."
Freya didn’t answer right away.
Well, when you put it like that...
"I know everything points to me." She went on, lower. "But you know, first impressions aren’t always true."
The hero didn’t blink.
"Fine. All right. Between the oracle, the village and all the rest, I’ll admit it’s a lot." She raised a hand. "But just try to—"
The sword left its scabbard.
And Freya’s whole posture collapsed at once.
"No! No no no!" Both her hands flew up in front of her. "We can talk about this, dude, I come in peace!"
And she raised two fingers in a V, as if to underline her words.
"Do not try to ensnare me, creature from another world." He leveled his blade at her. "My heart shall not be corrupted by your superbly very, very, very pretty appearance."
"...Huh?"
"Do not play that game of seduction with me!"
"Dude, sorry, but I’m more into women..."
The sword rose above his head, then came back down and pointed straight at her throat. Golden light burst from the hero’s body and wrapped his armor whole, and from his back, two wings of light unfurled all the way to the chamber walls.
"CHARGE OF THE BRAVE!"
"Wait, hero!! I really did come in peace, I’m begging you, don’t—"
The words stopped there.
The sword was already at her throat.
But before we get to what happens next between the invader and the invaded — and I leave it to you to decide which is which — let us go back a few days, to a time when Freya’s laughter did not come so easily.
The others had gone back inside a while ago.
Freya had stayed.
She stood before the freshly turned earth, arms at her sides, her hands no longer knowing what to do with themselves. She had carried him from the tunnel, through the village, for the whole time the pyre had burned, and all the way back. Now she had nothing left to hold.
At the head of the grave, the stump of the sword stood planted upright in the ground. The bluish thread still ran the length of the break. The enchantment was still there — the same enchantment that hadn’t been enough to bring the beast down, the same enchantment that hadn’t been enough to spare Kyū his brave sacrifice.
She looked at the earth for a long moment before she spoke.
"I’m going to look after the others."
Her voice didn’t carry far. There was no one to hear it anyway.
"Jūyon, Roku, the little ones... all of them. I won’t let them go out ahead of me and pay in my place again." She paused. "I don’t know if I’ll manage it, but I’ll do my best. I promise you that."
The wind passed over the clearing, and nothing answered her.
"I’m sorry. I’m the one who took you down there thinking I was clever, and you’re the one who paid for it."
She let a pause settle.
"Thank you for everything. Rest in peace, Kyū."
Then she turned around and went back inside.
The dungeon was silent when she came in.
Aria, considerate after everything that had just happened, had left her alone in the Heart chamber with her thoughts and taken the girls with her, taking the opportunity to resume their training — now more than ever, given the circumstances.
Aaaah... it’s so quiet, and so heavy...
Freya couldn’t stop her mind from going back over what she had done wrong, and then over what she had done afterward out of anger — justified anger, all the same.
She remembered what she had done to the village, then to the village chief, and what she had promised afterward.
I really do carry this title well, Calamity of Greed. In moments like those, there isn’t much humanity left in me.
Anyway. There’s no point dwelling on it, or wallowing.
Because yes, Freya knew what was left to do, and it was as simple as it was difficult: become strong, grow her domain, expand, swallow more than she could ever spend.
She wanted it more than anything right now, and her helplessness before the Rank S beast had only sharpened that want — the thing now lying dead on the floor of her own chamber.
"I must have received the faction’s mana in the meantime."
She pulled up her counter, and found a number she had never seen before.
[ Mana: 622/1000 ]
If it’s already that high after the ten hours or so that must have passed, and with only 1% of their mana... it means some of them have already started pillaging elsewhere.
She recalled the [ Management ] category in her Overlord menu, where she could probably check a ranking, but she passed on it for now, telling herself it wouldn’t do her any good at the moment and that she’d look later.
"Right! Now for the serious business. System, upgrade the Upgrades category to level 2, please."
[ Spend 200 mana points to raise the Upgrades category to level 2? ]
"Yes."
[ Upgrades Category -> Level 2. ]
[ New upgrades are now available. ]
[ Dungeon Heart — Level 2 -> Level 3 — Cost: 250 mana points ]
[ Buildings Category — Level 2 -> Level 3 — Cost: 300 mana points ]
[ Summons Category — Level 2 -> Level 3 — Cost: 300 mana points ]
So that opens up a whole new stage for my dungeon. Honestly, that went pretty fast.
"System, I want to buy the Heart upgrade, please."
[ Spend 250 mana points to raise the Dungeon Heart to level 3? ]
"Yes."
New windows opened, and at the same moment, the Heart changed. It hadn’t grown by a single millimeter, and yet something in it had thickened, as if the black hole had gained mass without gaining any size. Freya wouldn’t have known how else to put it.
[ Congratulations! Your Dungeon Heart has reached level 3. ]
[ You now generate 10 mana points every hour. ]
So it was times two this time, not times five. But still, going from 120 mana points a day to 240 is a good deal.
She let the thought drift, her mind already on the next step. In the corner of her vision, the counter read:
[ Mana: 172/1000 ]
And all around her, littering the floor of the chamber, were the many corpses that made up her next mana reserve.
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