Chapter 21: Speaking
"What do you mean it worked?" William asked in confusion. He propped himself up against the wall. Her face was filled with glee and excitement, like a child who had genuinely found a treasure. She grabbed his hand and pulled him.
"Come see."
She pulled him into the magical formation that she had set up and looked up at the ceiling.
"I heard your voice. I know you are there," she said.
There was no response. A few seconds trickled by, and then a minute went by.
"Tch, Violet, did you have too much to drink today?" William asked. "I told you there was no way this dungeon had a soul."
"Yes, it does," two voices replied at the same time, one belonging to Violet and the other to Kael.
Violet and William were stunned instantly when they heard the voice. They turned and looked around, William in fear and shock while Violet was filled with excitement.
"Why the hell do you look so scared? You are the one that summoned me here, did you not?" Kael asked William.
William panicked and shook his hands. "No, no, it was all her. She called you. I just kept her company."
"Hmmm, it doesn’t matter though. You two have managed to contact me. You are the first. It’s pretty wild. It’s been a long time since I spoke to someone," Kael said. He felt a tightening in his chest. It had been so long since he had someone to talk to aside from the system. It felt too good to be true.
"Hehe, I knew that you were here," Violet said. She smiled like a sly fox. "Especially after you ogled me that day," she said.
"Cough, cough, there was absolutely no ogling." Kael denied it. "I only wanted to have a closer look at the first adventurers that had walked in for a while."
"Wait, you were the presence that we felt that day?" William put two and two together and asked.
"Yes, that would be me," Kael said.
William was visibly stunned. He stepped forward as if trying to get closer to the voice. "So dungeons have souls? This is awesome. I never knew this."
"Uhm, I’m not really sure about other dungeons, but I do have one. This massive place belongs to me, kinda," Kael said.
"When you say kinda, does that mean that everything is not under your control?" Violet stepped forward and asked. Her previous expression had vanished, replaced with what looked like a curious and serious one.
"Well, yeah. I can influence things here, but this dungeon does run on an automated setting. For instance, the door that opened to the treasure room for you was me," he said.
Kael was not holding back in his speaking because this was the first time he had spoken. He wanted to get more conversations going. He did not know what would happen after they left. They might never return, so he wanted to ensure that he gave them a good reason to come back and meet him.
"The treasure room was you?" William asked. He looked down with a face full of thought. "That explains why it was never found before. It was too difficult to find unless you showed it," he muttered.
’Hmm, the two of them are pretty dang smart. I don’t need to explain details, and they seem to have understood everything.
They also don’t seem flustered that there is a soul in a dungeon. Well, that makes sense considering the fact that they are in a world filled with magic and more.’
William’s head snapped up, and he looked at the ceiling as though Kael was there. "This means you saw everything that had happened, even how our party members had betrayed us."
"Yes, I did. Who do you think caused their death?" Kael said, and his words dropped like a bomb on William.
"I knew it," Violet said excitedly. She turned and looked at the stunned William. "When we found their bodies, I knew that no low-level monster could have possibly done this, which meant it was at least a level three or four monster, and they could not be up here at that time if the dungeon had not allowed it."
After she was done, she turned and looked at the ceiling as well. "You brought the monster up, right?" she asked like a kid who already knew the answer and just wanted confirmation.
"Yes, that would be right," Kael replied. He cleared his throat a bit. "I’m sorry that I had to take their lives though. I had personal reasons for that," he added.
"No, do not apologize. They deserved what came to them, not for the artifacts but for the young man they killed," William said and then clenched his fist. "The kid had a mother and a sick sister. He wanted to become a great adventurer and make money for them. Sure, he was cocky and stubborn, but he worked hard. He struggled to pass the adventurer exam and become one.
Those bastards snatched the only son of a widow, and when we had to tell her this, we had to stand and watch her break before our eyes." William trembled as he spoke. Violet dropped her head.
’Ahh, it seems I had come to forget that they are not numbers but rather human lives. Everyone that has died here had someone that wished they did not, someone that would kill to ensure they stayed alive.
They are not just numbers on the system screen. They are all lives that I have, in one way or another, helped in taking.’
He paused and thought for a moment, his emotions choking him.
[You Are A Dungeon]
[You are no human]
[Death is inevitable. You died. Everyone dies.]
[Those that dare step into the dungeon are ready to face death]
The system sprang up with messages. Kael read them and clicked his tongue in silence. He drew a deep breath as if he had lungs.
"I hope she finds peace in the fact that her son’s killers are dead," he said.
