Chương 163

-0-0-0-0-0- The Creator, Occupied Atlantis, The Kalenic Sea -0-0-0-0-0- The silence stretched for several seconds as my Avatar sat in that chair in Isid and Jerrard's living room, and my claws remained interlaced. The humans shared glances before Layla stepped forward and sat in the chair opposite me. With care, she reached her hands up and behind her head, untying her black silk blindfold. Her black, star-speckled eyes met my illusionary ones immediately.

I heard some gasps from others who hadn't seen her eyes before, but I ignored them for now.

"Yes, Creator," Layla answered plainly.

"We wish to be given leave to leave the island and explore the Eleventh."

"And why should I allow this?" I shot back, not shifting my gaze or pose for a second.

"Letting you all leave exposes my Children to great risk. As long as you're here, both you and my Children are safe from one another."

"Have we not proven ourselves enough?" Layla asked, tilting her head and folding her hands on her lap, the blindfold held between them.

"We submitted to your rule of Atlantis, overthrowing the rightful lord of the island. We followed your rules and guidelines about delving into the dungeon. My aunt and her party have conducted themselves well among your children on the Ninth and Tenth, as have those of us who remained on the surface. We have put ourselves at your mercy to escape a crusade called upon you for your own actions. We are guilty by association, in their eyes. They know who we are, and if they ever encounter us, they wouldn't hesitate."

"That's fair," I allowed, unfolding my hands and smiling.

"To be honest, I planned to let you explore eventually. I was waiting for you to get stir-crazy enough to ask." Layla nodded, like she'd expected an answer like that.

"You've made it clear you value free will and the ability of people to choose their own paths. Do you have any conditions?"

"Of course," I nodded back, pulling an illusory piece of parchment from my jacket and holding it out to her. Layla hesitated, reached out, and touched it. She took it from my hand and held it, examining the writing upon it.

"How... can I read this?" Layla said with a faint wonder in her voice as she ran her hands across its false texture.

"It's made entirely of Light mana, and yet... feels and looks exactly like paper should."

"Because it's an Illusion," I answered frankly, tilting my head.

"Isn't that obvious?"

"That's not quite what I meant," Layla clarified as her star-filled eyes narrowed at me.

"If it were ordinary light mana, it'd still just be a single plane of mana, and entirely illegible. I can read the words, see the purplish-black of the ink, and the slight variations in the colour of the paper. But, even then, I can tell it's still made of just light mana. How did you do it?"

"It's in the name," I shrugged." Light mana. Just as the visible light spectrum is composed of the various colours you perceive as red, blue, green and so on, Light mana can be tuned to whatever colour I want it to be. Yes, it's a bit more complex than just making light mana emit a certain colour in the illusion, but by making the light mana itself a different colour, beings with conditions like yours can read notes, and perceive these illusions just as any other person would.

How do you think I've been able to hide the secret doors and tunnels my Children and monsters use from Isid so well?"

"I thought you overloaded the walls and such with mana, so I couldn't tell the difference," Isid chimed in, sounding curious.

"I did at first," I admitted.

"But it's much easier to make the illusion mimic the colour of Earth mana, or whatever mana is in the surrounding area, than wasting mana coating everything evenly. Then, the light mana emits a different kind of visible light, cloaking the illusion from both normal people and those with manavision."

"And so... that's why I can see you as if you're normal?" Layla asked, hesitant.

"Golden scales, white claws... It's all light mana?"

"It's not entirely light mana," I shrugged, bringing an arm up before my avatar's face to twist and observe my clawed hand.

"It has a physical skeleton and a core, something to anchor the illusion to. Technically, this isn't a true dungeon avatar, like what Polish is capable of producing. It's something I've been working on since... jeez, the Gorge Twins? A long fucking time ago, with each iteration getting closer to something usable. I don't like hijacking my Children's bodies; besides the disphoria, it feels like a violation, even with their permission. This is... better. Even if it isn't perfect."

She nodded, taking that at face value as her attention returned to the 'paper' itself. She took a deep breath as she finished, and put the note down on her lap.

"Your conditions are reasonable."

"Excellent!" I clapped, "I'll elaborate for everyone here, since the kids over there look like they're gonna explode."

"Hey!"

"I'm Perfectly Calm!"

"Honestly, yeah."

"Bruce!"

"What? Like you're not dying to know!" I chuckled as they started arguing amongst themselves.

"Calm down, calm down. I'm getting to it. Right. Condition One: I've got a lot going on right now, so I'll be assigning you a sprite to follow you around and let me know if you're not following the other conditions. Condition Two: your right to explore the Eleventh and maybe eventually the Twelfth can be revoked if you break any of the conditions, depending on the severity and intentions of the breaking of said condition. This includes 'losing' or 'getting rid of' your assigned sprite.

Condition Three: My Children are just as sapient as you all, as you should know by now, and unless they otherwise make it clear, they're non-combatants. Don't fight them, and they won't fight you. Condition Four: Follow the laws of the towns when you're in them. If you get kicked out for breaking them, you get kicked out. Don't throw a fit about it. Condition Five... If the crusaders manage to make it down this far, you agree to take part in the defence of the floor."

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. The room was silent as the humans all processed my words, and I sat back, pulling out a cartoonishly exaggerated 'tobacco-pipe' from my 'coat' and blowing 'bubbles' from it.

"Well, what do you think?"

"What kind of sprite would it be?" Elize asked, the secret princess speaking up from her place behind the rest of the group. I gave her a long look, then a smirk.

"Sound," I answered. While the locals were confused, one of the teen heroes immediately realised what I was getting at.

"Wait!" Akio started, leaning forward. I could almost see the stars in his eyes.

"You mean-!" -0-0-0-0-0- Guildship The Adventurer, The Eleventh Floor, The Dungeon -0-0-0-0-0-"He's a pirate, HE's a pirate, he's a PIrate, hesapirate!" Bruce heard Akio sing as he climbed the rigging, the Japanese boy quickly making his way up to the crow's nest.

"Duh-duh-DUN DUN, Duh-duh- DUN DUN!"

"You've been singing since before we got on the ship," Bruce commented, not getting up from where he was meditating as the singing boy and the floating ball playing the background music appeared over the lip of the platform.

"Are you going to stop anytime soon?"

"If it stops playing bangers, maybe?" Akio stopped singing to reply.

"And if The Creator really gave it all the music he knows, then it's probably not going to. Right, Navi?" The sound sprite paused its rendition of 'He's a Pirate' to trill a musical tone that meant 'Yes.' At least, that's what Bruce thought it meant. Bruce shook his head with a smile as Akio stood against the wooden bannister around the crow's nest, looking out at the ocean around them. Navi switched to a chiller tune Bruce recognised as a shanty, just without the words.

It didn't seem like it could speak, but that was probably just because of its nature as a sprite rather than it being impossible.

"What will we do with a drunken sailor~" Akio, however, belted the accompanying lyrics without hesitation. Bruce had to admit, his fellow hero had an okay singing voice. It wasn't anything amazing, but he was at least in tune.

"Did you know that Samurai, Pirates, and Cowboys were all around during the same time period?!" Akio enthused when the song was done, turning to Bruce and away from the view.

"I did," Bruce answered.

"I saw that Reddit post. And the one that said Samurai could have realistically faxed President Lincoln."

"Yeah," Akio sighed, smiling as Navi started playing some softer, generic guitar.

"Honestly, dying and being Ieskai'd is probably one of the best things to ever happen to me."

"Most Isekai protags think that," Bruce countered.

"It's most often a combination of the lack of anything to return to and better prospects in their new world. I mean, what would we do if we went back? finish school, get a job, pay taxes? Buy a house, settle down, have kids, grow old and die? Where's the excitement? Where's the adventure?"

"I dunno, skydiving?" Akio offered, sitting down next to him.

"People on Earth do weird shit to get their kicks."

"And people here don't?" Bruce asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We're literally adventurers. Anyway, did you want something?"

"Just checking on ya," Akio shrugged.

"You've been up here on your own for a couple of hours now. Watching the girls find their sea legs has been hilarious, and you missed it!"

"And I'm sure you were a perfect gentleman about it," Bruce shot back with a smirk, then shook his head.

"When I go down, they'll be fine with me, but they'll be irritated with you for a bit."

"You're trying to distract me!" Akio pointed out, pointing his finger at Bruce. Damnit.

"How's the whole Xianxia thing going?"

"It might be a dead end," Bruce admitted, letting his head hit the bannister behind him.

"Sure, I've strengthened my mana circuits and refined my control, but my manacore is the same size, and it's not like it can get any denser. If I had to compare it... I've reached a plateau. I think the only way to get better is to fight monsters, for now." Akio nodded as he understood.

"You've reached a bottleneck! Now you just need to come to some profound realisation about the nature of the universe or something, and you'll be able to push through into the next realm! If manacores count as Golden Cores... your next realm would be Nacsent Soul!"

"I don't think it works like that, Akio," Bruce shook his head again.

"This just isn't a Xianxia world. Mana isn't Qi. They're fundamentally different energies, even if exercises about one seem to work on the other. Here, Guilders get stronger by killing monsters, absorbing XP from them, and training their skills. This is a western RPG, not an eastern one. Honestly, I was surprised we didn't have some system or something like it."

"I know," Akio replied, sadly.

"I wish I could just meditate on a mountain or something to get stronger, but honestly, Xianxia protags seem to have that 'may you live in interesting times,' curse anyway."

"And we don't?" Bruce commiserated.

"We got Isekai'd, trained by a church, sent on a quest, abandoned our watchers, turned against the very church that summoned us to side with the reason we'd been summoned, and have now fully committed to defending the dungeon the rest of the heroes summoned with us are currently trying to destroy."

"Hey, the Creator said he's working on isolating them enough to see if they're willing to switch sides, too!" Akio reminded him. Bruce could only nod, but let out a snort of air anyway.

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see," he eventually said. They sat there for a while, chilling as Navi filled the air with background music.

"Hey! Bruce, Akio! Get down here!" Bruce heard Sophie call.

"We've almost reached an Island, which you'd know if you were paying attention!"

"Land?" Akio asked, getting up and looking over the banister.

"LAND! LAND HO!"

"NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!" Sophie shouted back.

"NOW GET DOWN HERE BEFORE I GET REALLY MAD!" -0-0-0-0-0-