Chapter 64: Did you just Scam us?
"Do you really want to know?"
Both Serene and Zane nodded, looking at him expectantly. They desperately wanted answers about what had happened while they were unconscious, and how they had managed to make it out alive.
Alen looked at them calmly and replied, "Okay... So, first off... if you want to know how you got here, it will cost you 100 gold."
"If you want to know who defeated the monster, you have to pay 250 gold."
"If you want to know how that person defeated the monster, it will cost 500 gold."
"If you want to know the whole story, you have to pay 2,000 gold."
"And if you want to know absolutely every single detail, you have to pay 5,000 gold."
Alen smiled smoothly.
"So... what do you think? Which option do you want to choose?"
Both Serene and Zane looked at him in a daze as he continued to casually rattle off pricing tiers.
"What are you doing? We just want to know what happened behind our backs! Do we really have to pay to know that?" Serene muttered, exasperated.
"Of course! Everything has a price. And besides, you two also have to pay me back for the hospital fees, the travel fare it took to reach this place, and the healer’s fee... all of which I paid for out of my own pocket earlier."
"So, if I calculate all of that, it comes to roughly 1,000 gold, including interest."
Zane glared at Alen, feeling incredibly annoyed by the obvious scam. However, he still really wanted to know what had happened, and 5,000 gold wasn’t a big deal for him.
Zane opened his storage window and threw a heavy bag containing several thousand gold coins onto Alen’s lap. It was more than the actual price Alen had asked for.
"Now tell us. What happened?" Zane demanded.
Alen smiled and happily accepted the money. He straightened his back and sat up properly in the chair.
"So, where should I start... Hmm..."
Serene and Zane waited impatiently for him to speak.
"Ah, right. So after the naive lady was knocked out... I was also beaten up by the Dungeon Master..."
"My attacks completely failed to work on him since he was way out of my league."
They both stared at him with intense concentration. They wanted to know the secret he was hiding. Since they were both unconscious, they knew Alen was the only person who could have defeated the Dungeon Master. They were incredibly curious to hear how he pulled it off.
"The Dungeon Master beat the crap out of me and knocked me out..."
"But while he was distracted, thinking I was already finished, I snuck up and stole his grimoire right from behind his back."
"And after I stole his grimoire, his body just melted away. He died, and the trial was finished."
"After that, I asked your shadow for help carrying you, we left the dungeon, and we reached this hospital. And as you can see, now you are completely fine. That is the story."
Alen lied with a perfectly sweet, smiling face. He hadn’t planned on telling them the truth in the first place; he absolutely did not want to reveal his secrets or his power.
They stared at him in a total daze.
"Unbelievable... Do you honestly think you could have easily stolen the grimoire from a Peak A-Rank monster without him even detecting you?! That’s completely impossible!" Zane yelled.
"And even if you did steal it, how the hell did that kill the Dungeon Master?! He wouldn’t just die simply because he lost his grimoire! That’s unthinkable!"
"Hmm... It’s your problem if you don’t believe me," Alen shrugged casually. "But I told you the truth. You have my promise."
"Hey, bastard, don’t pin your promises on me, you motherf*cker..." Zane growled.
Alen sighed, shaking his head. He looked inside the bag of gold, carefully extracted the exact 6,000 gold he had priced for the story and the medical bills, and stored it safely in his Shadow Inventory. Then, he threw the bag containing the leftover gold back at Zane.
"Well... I don’t take extra money. I have my dignity; I won’t take free handouts," Alen said piously.
Zane glared at him.
"So you have the ’dignity’ to reject excess money, but you will gladly scam people out of thousands of gold for a blatant lie? Is that it?"
Alen simply looked out the window, completely ignoring his angry words.
"Hey, you bastard! Look at me!"
As the two boys continued their noisy bickering, Serene sat quietly on her bed. She let out a soft sigh and leaned back against her pillows, tuning them out.
...
As the morning slowly turned into afternoon and the boys’ bickering showed no signs of stopping, Serene felt incredibly bored. Just as she was about to call Zane over to talk to her, she suddenly felt a fluctuation of mana coming from her storage ring.
She quickly flicked her finger to retrieve the item.
A small rectangular object appeared in her hand. It was her smartphone, which she had stored in her ring during the trial.
Because modern smartphones in Asterion ran on mana, they could still receive signals even while kept inside a storage ring. Since the ring itself was made of mana and remained tethered to the real world, the signal was not restricted.
However, phones couldn’t work inside the Ascension Realm. Although ambient mana existed within the dungeons, the specific "network coordinates" required to carry a signal did not.
Across Asterion, network coordinates were scattered everywhere, covering the entire globe. These coordinates were naturally woven into the ambient mana of the environment, making them difficult for an Awakener to sense, but they allowed phones to perfectly communicate and function as a global network.
Because the Ascension Realm was a constantly changing dimension, it was impossible to establish permanent coordinates there. The Ascension Realm possessed its own unique laws and didn’t entirely operate on the Laws of the World. Attempting to draw network coordinates inside a dungeon was the most stupid task a person could undertake; the realm would simply disintegrate the area once the trial was finished.
This was also the exact reason no one had ever figured out where in the universe the Ascension Realm was physically situated. If humanity knew its location, they could uncover the history behind its emergence and the true meaning of the trials.
*Buzz!* *Buzz!*
The sound of her phone vibrating filled the hospital room. Both Alen and Zane stopped arguing and turned their eyes toward her.
Serene looked down at her screen. It was a call from her family’s estate.
She looked up at Zane with a tense face. He slowly walked over to her side.
"Who is calling you?" Zane asked softly.
"Haron..." Serene muttered.
"You mean the butler? Sigh... You should pick it up."
Serene nodded nervously and answered the call.
"Hello...?"
<My lady! Where are you?! Are you alright? I have been calling you for days and you haven’t answered!>
the frantic voice echoed from the speaker.
Serene swallowed hard.
"I’m alright... Did Dad come home?"
The butler on the other end let out a massive sigh of relief.
<Yes, my lady. Master had arrived a week after you left. He has been worried sick because you haven’t appeared for months.>
Serene didn’t reply. She had secretly slipped away while her father was busy with his own trial, sneaking off with Zane so they could attempt a Trial together. But because she had gotten separated from him inside the Ascension Realm, she was severely delayed.
No matter how much time passed inside the Ascension Realm, completing a trial always equated to exactly one month passing in the real world.
Normally, her mother and father were used to her sneaking off. But they still worried, as Ascension Realm trials were highly unpredictable and could easily cost a person their life. Her father never would have let her go alone. But since the rules of the Ascension realm dictated that only Awakeners in the exact same stage could group up, he couldn’t have accompanied her anyway.
When her father returned, he expected her to be home within a month. However, because Serene got separated from Zane during her previous trial, she was already a month late. By attempting a second trial right after, it meant two full months had passed in the real world.
Her parents must be worried to death. As their only child, they simply couldn’t bear to lose her.
