The air stank of blood, ozone, and the sour reek of Grendelkin bile. I leaned against the slime-glazed wall, my breath rasping through clenched teeth. Pain screamed across every nerve. My mana reserve blinked empty, and my health bar hovered in the single digits, a pulsing red slash of warning in the corner of my vision. The ground around me was choked with corpses: black-fanged Grendelkin, some still twitching, leaking viscous fluid into the cracks of the stone floor. The fight had been close, too close.

  I wiped the back of my mouth, tasting copper, and forced myself upright. The den was tight, walls close, the ceiling drooping with fungal growths and spiked bone protrusions. My steps dragged through matted straw and half-digested meat, each movement pulling at wounds that hadn't had time to close.

  Then I saw it, half-buried beneath a pile of nesting filth and shredded armor plating: a chest. Iron-bound and still whole, its presence alone was a miracle. The rest of the room had been shredded by claws and spellfire, but the chest looked untouched, save for the grime coating its lid.

  I stumbled closer and dropped to one knee. My fingers slipped once before I got the leverage to kick the latch; the old metal shrieked in protest, but the lid gave way. Inside, resting in a faded velvet lining stained with old blood, was the prize: a ring. Unassuming, it was a thin band of polished bone fused with a cloudy shard of crystal, its surface pulsing faintly with a rhythm that wasn’t mine. It looked like nothing, yet it felt like everything.

  Parchment flared to life in front of me.

  {ITEM ACQUIRED: RELIC OF RECOLLECTION TYPE: ARTIFACT – MINOR EFFECT: BINDS THE SUMMONING SIGNATURE OF PET 'THUMBS' TO THE WEARER. ENSURES SUMMON STABILITY ACROSS RESETS.}

  For a moment, the pain vanished and the exhaustion dropped away. I could feel the relief building like a wave cresting behind my ribs. Malikap wouldn’t get him again. I wouldn’t have to run through the entire floor, and resummon him with Aerlyntium, never again.

  I wiped the gore from the ring with my glove, then slid it onto my finger. It tightened gently, just enough to let me know it was real. A warmth spread through my hand. It wasn't heat exactly, more like a pulse, a presence settling beside mine. I let out a long, shaking breath and slumped against the wall again. The poison was going to kill me, but I wasn’t going to let my run end here. I dragged myself, painfully, back to the entrance, and put everything into the vault.

  The entrance darkened as the drain came like it always did, reality loosening around the edges. The final seconds of the run ticked away.

  {End of Run 12}

  The world reassembled itself around me. There was no pain this time, no fire in the bones or screaming nerves, only pressure. A deep, internal twisting as if something had yanked my soul forward by the spine and stuffed it back into shape. My lungs seized for a second, then dragged in a breath of sterile, freezing air. The taste of ozone and raw metal clung to the back of my throat.

  I gasped once, then exhaled sharply. The golden plinth beneath my feet vibrated with lingering heat, pulsing faintly in time with my heartbeat. My skin prickled, and my knees buckled slightly before I caught myself with one foot forward, the movement instinctual. The dizziness hit a second later. It was familiar now, a tilt in reality that faded as fast as it came. Aurentum’s space hummed around me, neither warm nor cold, the geometry bent inward again with that constant impression that the room was alive and watching. Sand hung in the air, motionless, waiting. I pulled out my new ring, not bothering to talk to Aurentum after not even making it to the boss on the last run. Then came the sound, a gentle pop, like a cork pulled from the fabric of reality.

  Thumbs landed beside me, tumbling once on the smooth floor before scrambling to his feet. His arms pinwheeled for balance, then he spotted me and rushed forward with a whimper. He clutched my pant leg with both hands, pressing his cheek against my knee, his whole body trembling. “Bad Cleric!” he cried, voice rising with remembered fear. “Master went splat! Splat! Klericho mean! Big mean!”

  I hadn’t been able to resummon him in three runs, because he was stuck in the boss room Aerlyntium, and every time I went to it, I had run out of organics. I said nothing. Thumbs looked up at me, his eyes wide and glassy with emotion. Then he noticed the band on my hand, and his face changed, relief dawning through the haze of panic. He patted the ring softly with his clawed fingers. "Magic! Magic!" he said, nodding rapidly. “Glow! Thumbs here, Thumbs here!” He didn’t let go.

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  I reached down and placed a hand gently on his head, not needing to say anything more. He was here, and this time, he would stay.

  The hum in Aurentum’s chamber thickened, not in sound, but in pressure, like something just out of sight had drawn breath. The voice came without warning, sliding into my skull with the elegance of a knife through cloth. Cold, sharp, and laced with the same amused detachment it always carried. {Back on the hamster wheel, Argent?} {Such dedication to failure. Although, one must admire the novelty: killed by the very zealot you dragged back from the void. Poor judgment does make for compelling theatre.} I clenched my jaw.

  Thumbs looked up, sensing the change. His hands stayed tight on my leg, but he didn’t speak. Aurentum didn’t need a body to loom; the presence alone coiled through my mind, condescending and insistent. {Let us reiterate the terms, lest your grief addle your memory further,} he continued, shifting from mockery to something like instruction. {The Orbs accumulate. A small, tedious mercy from Penance, granted for persistence alone. Consider it a reward for enduring the grinder.} A pause followed, long enough to carry weight. {But your pathetic fortifications? Your temporary allies (save the goblin tethered by that new trinket)? Your fleeting enchantments? Wiped clean. Gone. Dust. Penance rewards stubbornness, Argent, not sentiment. Or shoddy craftsmanship.}

  I exhaled slowly, trying not to bite back. It would only feed him. Instead, I looked at the counter on the parchment.

  {ORB COUNT: 45 / 100]

  The number glared at me. It looked solid at first, tangible progress, but I knew better. In here, even forty-five could feel like zero. I flexed my legs, and the Greaves responded instantly, the artifact’s quiet charge humming up through my calves, reliable and permanent. Then I touched the ring. The Relic of Recollection pulsed gently, a faint warmth spreading through my hand. The connection held; Thumbs was here, and this time, he would not be lost. Aurentum’s voice slithered away for now, satisfied with the damage done. I waved away the parchment, and looked ahead. There was work to do.

  The voice had faded, but the echo of his name remained.

  Klericho.

  The memory slammed into me like a hammer behind the eyes. His face came first, drawn tight with fury, but beneath the anger, there had been something worse: horror, betrayal, a righteous revulsion so sharp it carved the word from his throat like a blade. “Abomination! Defiler!” He had screamed it before striking, not in anger, but in conviction. He hadn’t seen me as an enemy; he had seen me as a blasphemy.

  I stood there for a moment, eyes unfocused, the chamber around me receding. My hand rested lightly on the Crystal, but I didn’t feel it. I was back there just for a moment, back in that room we had almost stabilized together, before it all unraveled. I replayed it again in my mind. What had I missed?

  He saw it as the ultimate sin: binding a soul, especially one chosen by Rellum. I had anchored Elizabeth to a fragment of crystal, held her in defiance of every law he believed sacred. To him, it wasn’t just sacrilege; it was desecration. And maybe it wasn’t just faith. A colder thought surfaced: maybe it was jealousy. Rellum’s golden boy, passed over; the faithful servant left behind while the unclaimed thief was handed the keys to the floor. I had been tasked with restoring what he had sworn his life to protect. To him, it must have looked like corruption, like mockery. It broke him. Or maybe I did.

  I clenched my fist, the gloves creaking. Understanding the motive didn’t clean the blood or erase what happened. I had pulled him back into this world, hoping to mend something I barely understood, hoping, foolishly, that shared purpose could overcome belief. I pushed him. I underestimated him. And I broke him. A weight pressed down on my chest, not just for the death, but for what I had done to his faith, to his soul.

  The link in my mind flared with a sudden pulse. It was sharp and cold. {Regret is rust, Argent.} Aurentum’s voice returned, quieter now, stripped of sarcasm. {It serves only to slow you down.}

  I didn’t respond, not out loud. He wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right, either. Some rust stays for a reason. And maybe I needed to carry a little of it, just enough to remember where the blade slipped. I let the memory go. Not because it stopped hurting, but because pain didn’t matter if I was dead. Survival came first; regret could wait its turn.

  I deliberately, fully shut him out. Whatever mental link he used to drip his cynicism into my thoughts, I walled it off. I focused inward instead, pulling my thoughts into order, laying one stone after another until the noise receded. The path forward was brutal, but clear. Orbs came first. That was the contract, the price, the grind that wore me down one floor at a time. It couldn’t be ignored. Without them, I didn’t move forward; the system remained in stasis, and every death became just another loop.

  Thumbs stood at my side, looking up at me, his expression still uncertain, his wide eyes flicking between the exit and my face, waiting for the signal. I placed a hand on his small shoulder and gave it a squeeze, just enough pressure to steady both of us. “Alright, Thumbs,” I said, my voice even, not triumphant, not defiant, just steady. “Let’s get started. Again.” I took the first step toward the corridor and didn’t look back.

  The Distinguished Mr. Rose

  by QuiteTheSlacker

  There is one thing Lucius values in life above all else, and that is beauty.

  As the humble owner of a flower boutique, one with a bloody secret hiding underneath, Lucius is surrounded by all the beauty he could ever want. Flowers, art, and even people... everything in no short supply.

  But when he's suddenly whisked away into the sky along with the rest of humanity, and forced to participate in a series of games, trials, and adventures into foreign dimensions by astral beings, Lucius discovers a new frontier full of possibility. This wide universe, these unique lands brimming with beautiful, blossoming souls—the world is endless, and so too is inspiration.

  With style, with grace, and with a gentlemanly candor, Lucius seeks to draw out the inner beauty in all.

  And he will not rest until they bloom as their truest selves.

  CONTAINS: A villainous, but gentlemanly MC, excursions into a wide variety of worlds, classes and skills, deception and manipulation, tea parties.