Chương 5: The rats are well-fed

The Little Horn. The fuck? Three things hit me at once, and my brain couldn't pick which one to process first, so it jammed on all three simultaneously. Wasn't I supposed to pick my nickname? Normally, yeah. But apparently, someone picked for me. Most likely Cassandra. She rigged the wheel, clearly, and she wrote my climber file, so she chose the nickname. Sure, I got the bible reference, but it still sounded like a dick joke.

And it was already broadcast too, so if I ever complained about it or asked for it to be changed, it would tell everyone that it wasn't about the bible. I even heard a bit of laughter from the Yamato section. Yeah, non-Christian nations weren't going to get the bible reference. Fuck. Cassandra was going to pay for this. And finally, I apparently had met Gilgamesh. The Gilgamesh. I didn't know it was him. I even blasted him with a spell. Like, no wonder he was unscathed.

One of the five rulers of the Secret Societies was expected to tank the third-strongest spell of my second-best succubus. I wanted to melt into the floor, but the floor wasn't cooperating.

"Come on up!" The host beckoned, smiling with insufferable professionalism. He was just here doing his job, a part of which was not telling his name. I got that. But still. I stood, straightening my jacket. I made my face blank with a faint smile. Being raised by succubi taught a man a thing or three, and this was one of them. The host met me halfway, his microphone catching every word. Up close, he was even more annoyingly good-looking. And I looked good enough for the succubi to not complain about it.

"Now, Damian," he said, his voice projecting warmth and entertainment value in equal measure.

"I can't help but notice you're not wearing any armor. That's a rather daring choice for a level zero mage, isn't it?" I kept walking, smiling in the process.

"I'm a mage. Why would I wear armor?" The host chuckled, together with part of the crowd.

"Not even a weapon? Just about everyone else has brought some weapons, together with some armor." I smirked. Oh, yeah, come to think of it, I was going to love this.

"Just about everyone else has shit for shields then." I stopped by the prepared pod to glance at him.

"My mind is the only weapon I'll ever need." I slid into the pod. The pod's holographic displays lit up, showing my face, levels, and my health and mana bars. All of that got shown on a screen up above. At least the bars didn't have numbers. Damian Gabriel O'Connor Level: 0 Tower perks: 0 Artifacts: 0 Highest floor: 0 Time to change that. The pod closed, cutting off all the sound from the outside. I realized I had received no instructions on how this was supposed to work. Just in case, I prepared my shields.

Now, in the solitude of the pod, I had the time for unpleasant thoughts. Like, what if I couldn't summon demons into the tower? That was the option I had realized, and willfully ignored. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Darkness blinded my vision. I blinked, and I stood in a cavern. I didn't feel any transition, any mana, any pressure or dizziness or anything else. A giant rat pounced at me from the side.

My shields shimmered around me, subconsciously activated. The rat hit my arms, its massive fangs trying to bite into my wrist. It bounced off the shield. The rat landed, screeched, and the entire floor moved. Rats covered the cavern so thickly I mistook them for the floor. Each the size of a large dog, with matted grey-brown fur, yellow teeth longer than fingers, and eyes that reflected the bioluminescence like tiny malicious lanterns. Hundreds of them, pouring out of every shadow.

Oh, Astarielle was going to love this... if I could summon her. Well, time to see if I was getting flown out of the islands tomorrow. With a clenched heart, I pulled on my power. Astarielle. Crimson flame swirled near me, forming into her shape. Just like on Earth. Fuck yeah! But damn, without the summoning speed enhancement, this took forever. The rats swarmed me, biting at a hundred spots at once. I didn't even feel it, my shield blocking it all off, only draining a bit of mana.

I wasn't lying about having no use for armor. With the amount of mana I had, anything that could get through my shield could also destroy any armor. Astarielle finally formed. She wore a fitted black dress that ended just above the knee. Dark heels, modest by her standards, which still meant they added four inches. Her hair was down, horns polished, face as pretty as a picture. She looked like she was arriving at a cocktail party. Then a rat the size of a retriever lunged at her face.

Shield shimmered around her, blocking off the rat. Astarielle realized what had just happened. Her eyes shot wide. She yelped, floated up, and fire exploded from her. Before the rats even caught ablaze, she released a crimson chain lightning, followed up by six fireballs, which detonated all over the cavern. My shields blocked the heat, the flames, and the shockwaves. Astarielle remained floating, gaze darting around.

"Do you see any more rats?" White text popped into the air in front of me. [ENEMIES DEFEATED – SEMI-GIANT RATS (105)] [Drops: Rat Fang (Common) (x210), 4 copper, a rusted dagger (common), a dim crystal (2) (common)] Hmph. Would you look at that?

"I think you've killed them all somewhere between the second and the third spell," I said. The loot appeared in a pile in front of me: a few coins, the dagger, the two crystals, and a pile of rat fangs. The tower had its own system, apparently. Separate from whatever System everyone else used on Earth. I pushed power into my eyes, the world's colors flipping. Magic revealed itself to me like spills of paint.

Except I didn't see any other than my dark red shields, and Astarielle's bright crimson mana scattered all over the place. The tower's system apparently didn't leave any traces. If it even worked mechanically in a way I could detect. I picked up the copper coins and the two crystals. Those looked useful. Okay, they didn't, but some loot had more value than no loot. Nothing useful remained in the cave, just burning rats and scorched stone. The smoke started to fill the air. Wait a second… did the rats have souls?

I raised my hand and pulled on my power. Lantern of Endless Suffering. Yes, I was sixteen when I made this spell. A lantern made of dark blue light appeared underneath my hand. I reached out through it and then drew in. A hint of teal energy burst from each rat, all converging into the lantern. They concentrated inside into a small teal flame. Astarielle snorted.

"You aren't catching anyone worthwhile with rats." Maybe. But it was worth trying. Looking for new demons through mana alone had the problem that I essentially found one random demon in Hell. But souls functioned as bait. My idea, so far untested because I never got enough souls, was that if I used souls with the summon, they would be like a worm on a fish hook, and hopefully, it would attract more useful demons. I withdrew the lantern and headed out, at least toward where I thought the exit should be.

"Ehm," Astarielle pointed into the cave.

"I'm pretty sure the exit's that way." I maintained my direction. After a few dozen meters, I walked out of the cave. A valley spread before me. Massive. Miles wide, miles long, stretching out beneath a sky that had no right to exist inside a building. The ceiling, or the sky, or whatever it was, glowed with diffused golden light filtered through simulated clouds. The air smelled different here, cleaner, like earth and grass and distance. Rolling hills covered in green.

Patches of forest, dark and dense, scattered across the landscape. A river cut through the middle of the valley, glinting silver in the false sunlight, winding toward a town. Well, fuck. The dimensional anomaly sure had a size to it. Fresh wind kissed my face, carrying the scent of trees. No sign of any technology anywhere. Or any mana or magic-focused building. When I thought of a tower floor, I imagined a couple of rooms. This was a lot larger. Astarielle arrived at my side. She wheezed.

"That's the prettiest subdimension I've seen." It did look pretty. But… what was I supposed to do, actually? The point was to climb to the next floor. Okay, great, I imagined it meant I should find stairs that led up to the next floor. That wasn't going to happen with a sky above me.

"So…" Astarielle said.

"It's a nice view and all, but shouldn't we be like, I don't know, doing something?"

"Like what?" She narrowed her eyes, getting the point. I focused on myself and got a pop-up of my health and mana bars, and also the duration bar. It lost barely a percentage point. Nothing to worry about, so I did have some time.

"Let's ask around in the town." I headed into the valley. She came with me.

"Ask around, as in straight, or do we first set it on fire, and then ask survivors?"

"Straight," I specified.

"At first, at least."