Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 162

Lucas

The goddess spoke to me for the first time since the Cataclysm while I was trying to coax myself into getting a class.

As it turned out, dealing with the people who were worshipping me was no less awkward in person than it was observingt them from afar. More awkward, if anything. Mostly, I asked them what they were doing, and then they had me say a few words of encouragement.

I did start to get a better idea of what they were doing, at least. They weren’t worshipping me because they truly believed I was a being on the scale of the goddess or anything—no, instead, it was just because I was the first powerful figure that had treated them with true kindness in their lives.

Given how little I’d done for them, that was really, really sad.

Goddess, you think this is enough? I thought, watching over them as I bid them a good remainder of their session. Consistent food, shelter, and eliminating the Sword of Damocles from above their head. Is that too much to ask?

“I would make a better god than you,” I whispered. “I know you’re listening. You’re always listening.”

No response.

“Did you feel like you were close to a revelation or anything?” Anton asked. “I don’t remember how you flavored multiclasses when we had them.”

“Neither do I," I replied. “I think I just let you guys do it.”

“Shame. I don’t think the same applies here.”

“Nope,” I said. “Maybe I need more followers. If I can convert people away from the goddess, maybe I can get an alternate class? Something like [Heretic]. Or maybe I can actually do what you suggested and become a god.”

“You’re close enough to one already,” Anton said. “It’s not too many steps from this to actual godhood.”

“Well, I’m doing better than she is at taking care of my followers, I think,” I said.

That was what sent the goddess over the line.

She had, in fact, been listening.

[You are no god. You will never be a god.]

“Welp,” I said to Anton, “the goddess is angry with me now.”

“She wasn’t already? I sort of assumed the ‘kill this guy now’ quest meant that she was.”

We were still at twenty-one days left on the ticker, but time was running out. I tried asking the goddess for hints, but she was clearly in no mood to deal with me.

Huh. I’d started conceptualizing her as a person. As an overly moody teenager, really. I wondered what had triggered the change. When I’d come to this world, the goddess had seemed like an unapproachable deity. Even the way she spoke brought that to mind. Every sentence was a riddle, and every word was infused with power.

Now, though, while her words were no less powerful, the words she put that power into were angrier. I felt the human emotion in them.

That made me wonder. From what I’d read, the goddess had had her bouts of being temperamental in the past, interspersed with long, serene periods where she was closer to what she’d been like a year ago.

What had changed? Was it the Omen? The king?

…had she changed because of me?

That might have been assuming a little too much of myself, but she had taken a direct interest in me. Maybe something I’d done had triggered her to do some self-reflection.

I wasn’t going to learn the answer now, though. The goddess went silent immediately after her first statement, and no matter how much I badgered her for answers or guidance afterwards, she said nothing.

“She really is like a high schooler,” I told Anton. “Says one pissy line and then gives me the cold shoulder.”

We both laughed at that, but we sobered up pretty quickly.

As laughable as it was, ascending to godhood had been one of the potential cards on the table. That was now out.

What else did we have?

I went to think about it, but then two group of level 4 otherworlders managed to friendly fire each other so bad it was a wonder nobody had died yet.

“Ah, shit,” I said. “Anton, I’ll catch up with you later. I have a crisis to deal with.”

There were two parties—one with two people, the other with four. Both parties had one person with a cheat skill, and both had unleashed one major attack—a [Fireball] and an [Earthquake]. There were broken bones and burns all around, but one of the smaller party had broken his neck and two of the larger one were definitely going to die if they didn’t get immediate treatment. A [Stabilizing Ooze] wasn’t going to be enough for this.

I [Reshape]d the land, then realized that I wasn’t going to be able to get under them without being noticed. The [Earthquake] had broken the land up too much, and more importantly, there was another, currently occupied tunnel directly underneath them.

So I decided to show up in person. It was a risk, but worst case, I could just heal them and throw them into a bunch of [Stabilizing Ooze]s.

“Hi, I’m Lucas,” I introduced myself.

“Oh, like, the [Tour Guide]!” one of them said, remarkably calm when two of her comrades were currently bleeding out on the flood.

“Yep. That’s me. I make an appearance from time to time. Let me heal your injuries.”

Healing them was easy enough, and when I disappeared, the parties barely discussed my appearance amongst themselves before apologizing to each other and splitting up.

Huh. That had gone much more smoothly than I’d anticipated. They seemed to assume I was some kind of NPC, which maybe wasn’t the wildest assumption when they’d all been teleported from the safeties of their homes into an alternate world of sorcery and gods.

I’d keep that in mind. Human appearances are possible.

As soon as I finished with that party, though, another idiot somehow managed to chop his own legs off when he wildly misinterpreted a [Shadow Illusionist]’s reach. He was a level 9 [Blademaster], and I’d had my eyes on him ever since he used [Death Cut], which was a lame name but apparently was a unique skill that made even a regular kitchen knife deadly sharp.

Sharp enough to cut his legs off, at least. I’d had high hopes for him.

He… did not take my appearance as well, which I had been expecting. The [Blademaster] didn’t speak English, and I didn’t speak… Korean? I was pretty sure it was Korean, at least.

It was faster to heal him out in the open, anyway, and I was sixty percent sure the bow he gave me was thankful in the end. I sure hoped he was. Anyone not grateful for having their legs reattached had to get their head looked at.

Then when he was done, there was another crisis, then another, then another. Once I started looking for them, they seemed to never stop.

Before I knew it, another day had passed. Then another.

There were nineteen days remaining.

#

[ARI - new message received!]

Status update—Iris. We’re a few days out, we think, and the number of otherworlders is spiking. Our current estimates sit at almost ten times more than our last one did in terms of total numbers transmigrated in. They’re everywhere. We have a lot of them with us, since we can feed and shelter them, so we’re moving slower.

Some of them don’t have the objective to destroy Centerpoint, but they all have a quest to get to you. Their timers all agree. They end nineteen days out.

#

[ARI - new message received!]

Hey, it’s Anderson. Same deal as before, but worse. I might’ve picked up, like, a few hundred otherworlders? They have the way to Centerpoint, and I know we’re getting close, but yeah, the situation’s getting weirder.

I’m seeing traces of your influence, though. The monster hordes have thinned out considerably, and every monster we passed by was friendly. I recognized them. [Displacer]s, or something like that.

Good work. You’re saving lives out here, man.

That does bring me to another question, though.

How much space do you have? We have a lot of people coming in.

#

I typed out a hasty reply. Even when I’d been putting out fires over and over, I’d been multitasking. With the raw power I had now, I’d been able to expand a lot, and wow had it been necessary.

In the last three days, the number of otherworlders had gone from about a quarter of the ex-Kingsguard population to over quintuple their size. We were approaching urban city levels of population, and I had been forced to [Assimilate] with all the power I could spare as frequently as possible.

With the mana of over fifty thousand people, my dungeon now spanned nearly eight miles in radius. Most of it wasn’t even developed as the dungeon yet, and a lot of the early arrivals were much further in, but I’d been improvising.

#

To Iris and Anderson both—I see the situation, loud and clear. We have 50k+ in the dungeon now, but the boundaries are 7+ miles from the center now. Every successive level of the labyrinth I’ve made is wider than the last, and new arrivals are going in early, so we’re kind of managing. Poor saps aren’t getting anywhere, though. Deepest dive so far is floor five, and that team is stuck until they can figure out how to get past a [Displacer].

I have a bad feeling about this. If we don’t figure something out soon, a lot of people are going to die.

#

[ARI - new message received!]

This is Ashley. I think Lisa told you that we tracked Tuyu down a couple days back, but we’re closing in on her.

Looks like she was in the king’s capital. That’s good as confirmation to all of us that she turned traitor.

We’re going to execute her. Thought you’d like to know.

#

Wait, what?

I’d known that Tuyu had swapped sides the moment she’d started accusing me of things I knew I hadn’t done, but that didn’t warrant an execution, did it?

I wrote a reply to the Pallbearers, Starfall, and Lisa only.

#

Tuyu locating squad: I don’t think she deserves to die. She helped save a lot of lives. Our lives. She took the wrong side—I assume for the goddess—but I think we can bring her back. It’s not her fault the goddess chose a shitty path.

#

The reply came almost immediately, as if they’d known what my reply was going to be.

[ARI - new message received!]

Ashley again. Lucas, you’re kind. You’re too kind. No matter what Tuyu did in the past, her actions in the now directly led to the deaths of 90+ percent of the kingdom (someone fact check me on the numbers) and at least a hundred thousand otherworlder deaths. And it was you that saved our lives, not her. If you want to attribute the lives you saved to her, then attribute the deaths the king and goddess to her as well.

You’re kind, Lucas, but this isn’t a kind world.

We’ll let her say her piece. There’s a chance she has useful information.

I don’t like killing a friend. But it has to be done.

Her bridge has already burned.

#

Ashley

The combined Starfall-Pallbearer group devoured the distance between their parties and their mark. Within half an hour of spotting her, they were less than ten miles away.

“Where the hells is she going?” K’lon frowned when they gathered together to communicate. Thorn was princess carrying him, which Ashley found utterly hilarious given the fact that the [Champion] was at least twice as large. And also because K’lon was being carried by telekinesis. The carry was entirely for show.

“Just south,” Thorn said. “Not due south, and not directly away from us… she has a destination in mind, I think.”

“Probably a mission for the king,” Charles grunted. “Bitch thinks she hasn’t hurt us enough yet.”

Ashley bristled at the casual insult to her ex-teammate, but she couldn’t entirely fault him for it. She wasn’t going to hop in and defend a mass murderer.

“Ideally, we’ll get to her before she’s able to find whatever it is she’s looking for,” Thorn said.

“There’s nothing in the south,” Lisa said.

“There was the Omen,” Sarah replied. The [Astral Monk] was mostly incorporeal right now, but Ashley got the vague impression she was smiling. “Not anymore.”

“We’ll see when we get there,” Ashley said. “Now, get back to running alone. I don’t want us all bunched up and easy to target.”

They split apart, spreading themselves across the better part of a mile, and they closed in.

#

Tuyu

She wasn’t going to make it. Tuyu’s [Sight Beyond Sight] flickered on every now and again, telling her where everyone was, and she knew that her pitiful [Flight] wasn’t going to be enough.

Nora had tried to escape the tower, and now, the very land around her was collapsing. The king would be on his way to eliminate her. He would know how valuable a hostage was against Lucas, the one who cared far too much for every being within his realm.

He cared even for her. Though Tuyu couldn’t access the ARI anymore, her [Sight Beyond Sight] let her see from others’ perspectives. She’d seen the Pallbearers receive the message begging them to spare her.

It had hurt more than she thought it would when Ashley had typed a rejection, but she understood. She had to.

Nora was going to suffer, though, and Tuyu wasn’t going to make it in time. She harbored no illusions about what was going to happen when her party caught up to her. They weren’t going to hear her out. There was nothing she could say that would convince them to.

If only I could still [Teleport], she thought, but that wasn’t an option anymore. The king had forbidden it.

There was only one choice left, which was the same as no choice at all. Tuyu didn’t know if it was even open to her anymore, she who had forsaken everyone she loved before forsaking the goddess she had left them for.

“Please,” she whispered. “Just give me this last chance. I killed for you. I ruined for you. I gave everything for you.

“At least let me save one more soul.”

For an instant that lasted an eternity, Tuyu felt the heavy weight of the goddess’ silence.

[One last time, blessed one.]

[You had potential.]

Past tense.

And yet the divine power surged through her anyway. One final hurrah from the goddess she’d sacrificed a kingdom for.

For what she knew would be the last time, Tuyu channeled the power of her master.

[Divine Intervention], she whispered, and then she was no longer here.