The following morning, Loki did something for me that changed everything we knew moving forward.
She called for me to go up to her room after breakfast after getting the report from Raul about me beating the Goliath on my own. And even if it were evidence that I was clearly beyond what was considered normal for any level one, that also didn't mean that I wasn't at least due for an update.
The Falna the gods granted the people of the Lower Realm, as Loki mentioned before, was a way to keep track of their feats and achievements—hence why it was already so strange that I had said achievements upon getting the Falna, and even more so that said feats and achievements pointed to things that should've existed only from games.
A person's Falna was nourished by the Excelia they accumulated, which yes does sound exactly like experience points also earned usually in games, but that was beside the point. And this Excelia was used by the gods to update the Falna and grow whatever parameters were already there. Sometimes, having enough Excelia could even grant Skills or Magic depending on the person—though according to Loki even she didn't know the full extents of how the Falna truly worked.
Which was why even when she said my situation should have been impossible—it was really only impossible given the sheer uniqueness of how I ended up with a Falna as well.
Raul and the others were busy telling the totally true and rather boring way I went through the Dungeon with them and how I offed the Goliath on my own when Loki barged through the dining hall with a bottle of booze and called for me so she could update my status.
I excused myself from the others and Raul went ahead with telling the story, getting right up to the part where I puked after blundering a bunch of monsters with a Magnega spell.
On our way up, Loki shared her relief.
"On the one hand, this fills me with confidence you should survive up to at least the fiftieth floor." Because the lowest level members of the Loki familia were only at level two and they could make it down that deep just fine. Anything lower than that though was reserved for the executives and the second-string groups from how… hectic the fifty-first and onward floors were.
Almost every inch of the Twilight Manor was lined with carpet except for the bath areas, the better to sneak around with Loki explained eventually. It was damn hard to clean too and it was only thanks to the magic stone dyson knock-offs we had that we could keep the place in livable condition.
"But that's also part of what worries me," I told her. "I'm as much a fan of the isekai genre as much as the next guy, but to actually be the said guy involves a lot of unwanted anxiety."
It was hard to decide how to feel about having powers beyond any of my wildest dreams so far, just having a Keyblade was already plenty when I could only dream about it back in high school. But wanting one through mystical unexplainable ways and actually having one also through mystical and unexplainable ways was like suddenly being given a gun and told to dance with it.
Absurd.
And sure, there were still some doubts at the time whether or not what I was experiencing was real or not but being here myself now, and after going through all that just to come back here, that was something I'd never want to experience ever again if I could help it.
"You and me both, I'm supposed to be the god here but all I've got going for me is a tattooed post-it, you, and a Keyblade that shouldn't exist. And after hearing what Raul, Narvi, and Aki all had to say about you in the Dungeon, we've got even more questions now how you ended up the way you did."
She opened the door to her room and let me in.
I expected horrible things but was surprised to see how mundane it was. This was either a decoy room or she had a secret room somewhere here. And one drunken night, I raided said room and found the speculated secret room and all I left with after that were regrets. Loki was one fucked up deviant. No snuff or scat at least, but damn was she disgusting.
"Take off your shirt and take the seat by the bed."
And for as disgusting as she was, Loki could be surprisingly prepared. There was a stool right by her bed side so anyone who wanted a quick update could just pop in and take said seat when she had the time for it. The seat was there mainly so whoever came in wouldn't have to sit on her bed and mess with her bedding. Which was already a mess without the need for any outside help, but apparently, she had a system with everything being in its place on said bed. In the few times I'd been there I never saw anything besides her blanket and pillows.
I would rather not think about whatever else lurked beneath that mattress.
I found the stool and sat on it as told.
Loki took something off her shelves and pricked her finger with a needle, before taking a seat by her bed and setting said finger to my back.
"Here goes nothing," she said.
Blue light emanated from my back and filled the room. I was expecting a bigger light show and even more of an event, would be the best to call it with me feeling all manners of sensations with the supposed gateway to my soul being laid bare, but yeah. Nothing special like that happened. There was just a touch of something a bit wet to my back and poof, light show there and then.
"So?"
Loki went ahead and did a few more things to my back, like finger painting, but that was about it.
"I… see nothing." Loki swiped at my back. "That can't be right."
She hit my sides with some forceful taps.
"Sorry, force of habit." She was trying to fix my status like it was a faulty television.
The light
"So, how bad was it?"
"You have no Excelia, at all." Loki turned the stool over with her foot. Her face grim. "You should have even a little bit just for breathing and like, doing day to day stuff, it wouldn't be a lot, but it should be there. And I'm sure you weren't lying about defeating the Goliath."
"I take it that's not a good thing."
Because why else would Loki be ranting again about what was written on my back and with both hands taking clumps of her hair.
"I have a few thoughts as to why this might be happening, but none of them spell good things."
And really, what was a guy to do about hearing something so grave about the only way for him to get stronger in a world he didn't belong to—and I might've been strong at the start, but that didn't mean I was on top of the food chain by any means. I knew for a fact then that as strong as I was with being able to hold my own against one of the strongest members of the Familia—that was only from within my own little world.
There was no end to the things down the Dungeon that could end up killing the people that stood as my measurement for survivability—but from another perspective, it was already a blessing that I was already strong on my own without having to grow past that. It just needed to be enough.
Because it didn't seem like I had any proper way of levelling up from there.
"This is pretty stupid even for me, but maybe it's because you were given a Falna outside of this world that you're tied to your original world in a way that you can only gain Excelia from there."
Loki shook her head. "That's my most likely speculation, but I also have some other stupider theories. Another possibility, and this could tie in to you having a status straight out of a game, is that somehow, you finishing those games before in your old world somehow turned into your status here. I take it you've played through the games your powers came from?"
She was right on the money with my status apparently being tied to games, but the real truth behind it was… crazier.
"Yeah," I said, "I've at least played with Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy before. But I've also finished a bunch of other games too and yet those didn't appear on my Falna."
"That's a good point." Loki set a hand against her chin. "Which means there's good reason why we have at least those two games and not the others."
They were more or less under the same game studio and was also why I was so suspicious of Nomura being a Keyblade wielder. But that was a matter for after this story.
But even back then I already had my doubts.
"I have my own thoughts on the matter, though I doubt the director of the games had a hand in any of this. Does the name Tetsuya Nomura ring a bell?"
Loki shook her head. "We gods may have some limited omniscience within our adjacent worlds, but we're not that detailed. We know big things, like fashion trends, maybe some general technologies or schools of thought, but nothing as specific as names or dates."
Looking back, even if Loki did have an idea on who Nomura was it still didn't guarantee whether it could count as a clue or not. At best it might have passed for correlation but even then Loki knowing could not have been more than speculation.
"So that's a bust."
"For now at least, I think our best clue is for you to find out how you can use those two other magics."
Even if I didn't have a reason to believe Loki was lying, I also didn't have a good reason to believe she was telling the whole truth either. She knew I could fly, but what I didn't tell her was that I also had access to creating Corridors of Darkness, and that I could open and close any kind of lock.
I didn't share with her the full truth of what I already knew about my Keyblade and my Skills. I already knew what abilities belonged to what, that much my knowledge out of nowhere gave me. What it didn't though, were those two other spells that I could somewhat agree with Loki on being tied to my Formchanges. However, I had yet to use either spell so until then it was considered moot.
"Although, there's one thing I haven't tried yet. Do you have a lock on your door? Because if my Keyblade really could open any lock then… it would be something."
But it would be too suspicious not to share a little bit more on some things we knew the Keyblade should be able to do—but the Corridors, those weren't originally tied to the abilities of Keyblade wielders but instead with the denizens of darkness. At least, that's how it went in the games.
"You can try my door."
Loki walked over to her door and set the dead bolt on it.
I walked over and tapped my Keyblade against the locked door.
It swung open.
Loki shook her head and groaned into her hands. "So it really works."
I already knew that it was part of the abilities of the Keyblade, but even then it was still surprising.
She also let me test it out with other things that counted as having locks, like her music box, her display case, even a letter sealed with wax, a sword in its sheath, a belt buckle. Anything and everything that could be considered closed, or as far as we could think of counted as closed or opened could be manipulated via the Keyblade. What it didn't work on though, were people's opinions.
We did try it with Bete if he would become more open about his feelings, but no, the Keyblade was a lot of things, but it didn't work that way.
"It'll be useful somehow, somewhere, who knows, with everything that's happened so far you might just find a locked door down in the Dungeon?"
"Would that be a good thing?"
"Probably not, but do you really have a choice on whether to open it or not?"
Curiosity killed the cat. But in this case, the cat had no choice but to open each and every single box in search of answers. Even with the Corridors of Darkness, that didn't immediately guarantee me a way home. I still needed a way to test out what would happen if I used it. A smarter more trusting man would have shared with this with Loki first.
I was neither.
Tuckered out and with the beginnings of a headache, Loki dismissed me after that. And since I was free now to enter the Dungeon on my own, I went ahead and made my way back without an escort. My three escorts could easily vouch for my durability being on par with a first-class adventurer, and they had no doubts that nothing could kill me up until at least the thirtieth floor.
And lastly, since now I didn't have a bunch of eyes watching out for me, I had more freedom to really explore what I could do.
I quickly made my way back down to the Dungeon, not really bothering to check if I had a tail or not since if I had and Loki didn't trust me enough, then I didn't mind showing off what I had. It would just be confirmation of us not trusting each other fully. Also, I had no good way to detect if there were others following me anyway.
After a quick job towards the tower in the middle of town, I showed my license to the Guild guards at the Dungeon's entrance and quickly made my way down the dreary hallways, not really caring too much about the way back. I was curious, but I wasn't that stupid. I made a point to seek out the most remote area of the third floor where no one had any right going to and transformed my Keyblade into Nightbringer, donning the familiar black cloak.
I knew this formchange was supposed to hide my presence, but how well remained to be seen.
Wearing my shroud of darkness, I walked through the halls expecting at least a goblin or kobold to stumble into me. But after a good long minute of walking aimlessly, nothing barred my way. And though there was the beginnings of a hypothesis forming, it was still better to confirm with more tests.
I went ahead to the fourth floor still wearing the Cloak and remained unbothered all the way until I chanced upon a young adventurer fighting a group of kobolds with nothing but a knife. He was holding his own well enough and neither did he or the kobolds notice my presence even after I inched myself closer to their heated battle.
The white-haired boy dodged and weaved between the monsters attacks and made swipes at their encroaching limbs whenever he had a chance. These were the same monsters that couldn't even bare a light tap of my foot and hurled their guts out after. And here he was, not exactly fighting for his life but not exactly having an easy time either.
The boy eventually won and stabbed the last kobold in the chest before the thing exploded into ash. He seemed disappointed from that, likely because that happening meant the monster's magic stone was broken with his last attack. And a broken magic stone was next to worthless. Not because it lost the magic it held, but because there was still no good way to extract magic power from multiple stones at the same time. Most magic tools right now needed a particular stone of a certain size to be able to correctly match the needed output that their function was built for.
Keeping with my stroll, I followed the boy for a while until he eventually called it a day, all this while not noticing me following him. Whether that was descriptive of the abilities of my Cloak or how clueless he was remained to be seen. I went ahead down to the fifth floor and sought out to follow more adventurers, taking pleasure in the voyeurism of watching these people live out their lives in this world.
But where there were those who managed to eke out a decent living, I also saw the desperate, less shiny side of living as an adventurer. It was when I came across a group of older adventurers, mostly human but with a Prum supporter bringing up their rear. They were all clearly much stronger and better equipped than the boy I encountered earlier, but there was a certain… dissonance with the way they approached the dungeon.
"Hurry up Arde! Those ants are coming soon," said one of the guys.
And sure enough, another one of their group was dragging a half-dead ant through the ground and everywhere he passed, cracks began at the walls. Arde—the Prum—was spreading a liquid along the ground shaking it out and making sure there was enough of that liquid everywhere.
The guy who egged her on earlier then took out a torch and lit it up with something from his hands.
"Move your ass or you're next!" He shouted.
The guy leading the ants left his burden right before the liquid started and leaped towards the guy with the torch who then threw the source of flames just as the ants bunched up where the Prum laid her trap.
The corridor went up in thick flames, real ones, not made with magic or anything. There was a foul smell in the air where the liquid burned but I couldn't place what it was; the ants that were caught in the flames scrambled but continued their charge anyway.
The guy who threw the torch was now in a defensive line with two others, shields interlocked just enough to cover the width of the hallwaw and equipped with mismatched short swords. They met the ants head on, bashing and slashing where appropriate. The guy who served as bait earlier took out his mace and shield and likewise got to work, filling up the rear and cleaning up whatever the line didn't do in.
The fight lasted long after the flames died down, after which the Prum girl made a point to double tap on the already dead ants just in case any of them survived the brutal line, and after that got to work with dismantling the corpses. Monsters dissolved to ash once their magic stone was removed from their bodies, but destroying the magic stone while it was still in the monster did the same thing.
Hitting a monsters weakpoint was the easiest way to kill it, and knowledge of general areas where magic stones were were valuable information for any fledgling adventurer. However, it wasn't always in everyone's best interest to kill the monsters as fast as possible since breaking the magic stone also significantly reduced one's income since each stone was graded and there was a minimum buying rate per grade.
The truly most efficient way to kill a monster and farm stones at the same time was to dig in and pull out the stone from the monster directly. A favored tactic of Tione, one of the Loki familia's executives and easily the person with the worst temper in the group.
Call it creepy that I was enjoying just seeing life through these people's eyes, but it was something else to be observing the way people lived that just… tugged at the right strings for me. Though, observing a certain white-haired boy brought me more trouble later on.
But it was what happened after that that really left an impression on me.
When the Prum girl finished cleaning up the stones, she put them all in a bag and gave it to the guy who threw the torch, I think his name was Canoe? After she did that, the guy fished around the bag and threw a couple shards on the ground which broke, and which she then picked up.
That was just fucked up.
And there I was, presented with a situation that was so disgustingly familiar even coming from a far-away world. I didn't need to hear what they were saying to know it wasn't any good. Maybe there were other ways to interpret what I'd just seen. Did it matter? Not really.
But the real question was, what should I have done? I could step in and maybe bring her to Loki and see if they would take her in, or I could force them to take her in. But with how worried Loki was with how durable I could be, I highly doubted someone who struggled in the seventh floor would make it far with the Loki familia.
Did I beat up the people abusing her or report them to the authorities? The Guild didn't have the manpower to observe whatever went on in the Dungeon—none of them even had a Falna in the first place, so even if these people were sanctioned above ground there was still nothing stopping them from doing bad things after or down the Dungeon.
Also, why did I feel this sudden need to care about someone else when I had bigger problems of my own? Was I wrong for thinking this kid's plight was worth looking into? But why did I bother observing long enough in the first place? Was this Thor's influence rubbing off on me? But if it were, then did whatever thing that gave me Nightbringer likewise do the same?
Doing the right thing. It was such a difficult thing to stick to no matter where or the circumstances. It wasn't hard to choose, just difficult to keep doing consistently. Here I was with all this power, and I was dumbfounded by the scene in front of me.
It was mortifying.
I didn't like it.
I followed them for the rest of the day until they called it quits in the Dungeon. I followed them to the Guild to exchange their stones for cash and I saw everything that person had to go through. Was I planning to do this with every poor supporter I ended up seeing? That was what they called her: a supporter. But it wasn't the same way we treated the supporters in the Loki familia.
There was no doubt there was more than one of her in the vastness of this city and down the Dungeon, and I couldn't, wouldn't be able to save all of them.
But just because I wanted to go home and might've had a way to do so already with my Corridors, didn't mean I couldn't at least live out more than just my peeping fantasy.
I followed the girl on her way home, her big bag still on her back and the dirt still on her clothes. She didn't even stop somewhere to have dinner and went straight to this already closed down shop.
I would've wanted a way to track those other guys with her too, but I didn't have anything like that in my arsenal. But even then, what did I want to do?
Still wearing my Cloak, I went around the city taking in the sights from the point of view of someone not there. I visited the slums called Daedalus street, flying over the jagged zig zags of streets without reason or planning, I saw the people's faces the ones you knew had no hope of making it out of there besides with a dream and a shit ton of luck.
I visited the pleasure district and saw such haunting faces, faces that had given up, some that were content in that little pocket of heaven. They were all different ways to live. I visited the different homes of different familias; there was a grandiose opulence of the Ganesha familia; the eerie emptiness of the Soma familia; the sordidness of the Ishtar familia; to name a few.
I flew and flew and looked and looked and saw the despair that so thoroughly wrapped itself upon the hearts of those who lived in Orario. It was the same, familiar kind of hopelessness, just manifested in a different way. At the root of it all was the simple fact that the world was cruel and unfair, and even with the gods walking among them; these people were no better.
Nothing was perfect.
But that didn't mean that nothing was beautiful.
Yes, there was hopelessness in the whorehouses, but that didn't mean that everyone there had stopped dreaming. Yes there was emptiness in the people's eyes, but that didn't mean they stopped fighting through that hopelessness in search of whatever light they could find.
These were all people living the same lives, just in different worlds.
They were no different than the people I'd known and lived with and loved.
We were all just trying to go through this thing called life.
And here, I wasn't just some guy born to a modest family. Here I was a bastard with cheats and powers far beyond any mortal means, if that didn't allow me some level of selfishness then how could I even call myself a main character? I only ever wanted to live in peace, but so far the world has deemed me unfit for that life of quiet nothings and simple pleasures.
It was high time I did what I wanted.
I made my way back to Twilight Manor and sought out Loki who was about to get herself shitfaced drunk.
"Loki, I need to ask you a favor."
She put down the bottle.
"So soon?"
"Can we take in one more person into the familia?"
"I didn't take you for one with a bleeding heart."
"I'm not, but it feels wrong to not do anything."
"And whose sob story did you listen to to get to where you are now?"
"Didn't listen to anyone, instead watched without permission."
She raised her brow.
"Nightbringer apparently works like an invisibility cloak, I can hide in plain sight. I followed some random people in the Dungeon and happened upon the person I want to take into the familia."
"You do understand we can use that ability of yours for far more important things."
Evil looks were shot my way from a majority of the familia from the dining hall. Said majority being the women.
Loki stood up with a sigh.
"Thomas, come with me to my room."
That was the second time that day that I visited her room.
Loki sat on her bed and patted the stool next to it.
"I get that your heart's in the right place, but have you stopped to consider why this familia isn't any bigger than it already is?"
She had a really good point about that. And I did consider it to some extent, but not to the same level of detail that I should have.
"It's because everyone here goes on the expedition and needs to be strong enough to do so."
She shook her head. "Try again."
"Because your decisions are final on who gets to join or not?"
She shook her head again. "One last."
"Because it takes time to find the right people?"
She smiled. "Close, but not quite. It's because there's no point to a familia if I can't love all my children. And let me tell you now but I have no love for humanity as a whole—and I mean that including what the humans might refer to as demi-humans, to us gods they're all under the same banner of humanity. But I love all my children equally."
"You want to do a good thing, I get that, but you ultimately can't be responsible for them, now can you?"
"You're right." I didn't have any words to refute that.
"So what brought this on? I highly doubt that little time you had in the Dungeon made you this compassionate over just a few hours."
"Call it a remnant of economic trauma? I saw this Pallum girl getting harassed for being a supporter and having to live off of scraps. It hit a little too close to home."
"Cruelty and suffering, two of the things that are always there as long as people live. It sucks, doesn't it?"
"It really does."
"And now you want to make a difference for that one person?"
I nodded.
"Didn't you have plans to get back to your world? What would happen to her then?"
"At least just enough to get her on her feet."
"And what if your chance to go home comes before she can be ready? Will you leave her care to us?"
She was right again. If I did take her in, then I would be the person ultimately responsible for them.
"I'll have to choose myself," I said. Without hesitation. That was one thing growing up taught me. Admit to your wrongs and do better after.
"You get it now? That's the reason I make a point to either have the people I know will still be here after tomorrow, or the next month, or the next year be the ones to have the final say on who gets to join or not. You were a special case since Thor asked me to, but everyone else had to go through Finn, Gareth, and Riveria all the same."
"I'm not about to say no to whoever it is you want to join the familia, but I won't immediately say yes either. Show them to the three first if you must and see if they'll agree with you. I trust them to keep the familia's best interest at heart."
We went back to dinner after that and me with a lesson I had almost missed.
Yes, I did have power here—but that wasn't a license to do anything I wanted. I was still bound by the rules of how this world worked and since I was ultimately just passing by, any decisions with long lasting effects were best left to those who'd have to live with them.
I really wanted to see if I could already escape from here with my Corridors.
But for now, I needed to at the very least get Finn's opinion. Or all three if I could manage them.
By chance I was able to see Finn on my way to my room and got to talk to him about what I'd seen. Throughout the tale there was a brewing depth behind his eyes that at least showed some of his stance on the matter, but it all ultimately boiled down to one question:
"Did that person ask for help?"
"Should they have to? There's no dignity in that manner of living."
"Maybe, but they are alive, right?"
"And what if circumstances force them to live like that?"
"They chose to live that way, there is no such thing as no choice. There is always a choice. Whether that's to stand your ground or run away. There will always be a choice."
"But that's a privilege of one who can make that choice, whether by context or conviction. To someone without a say in where their life was going then they won't even know how to save themselves if it bit them in the leg."
"We're not an orphanage or charity, Thomas. We're adventurers who brave the unknown in the hopes of bringing an end to the age of monsters."
"But that goal neither has a definite end nor definite steps to be achieved. It's not a reason not to help."
"Then can you make that conviction? I'm sure Loki's asked you this herself before, but have you stopped to consider whether doing this would be for that person's good or not? What if you end up robbing them of a destiny they could've had since you intervened? You have to remember that you're not truly part of this world, and any consequences of your actions will eventually end up with us who have to live here to deal with them."
"Then is there a good way to help?"
"I don't know, but the way I decided on is to be strong enough in the hopes of ending the Dungeon once and for all. Only by then will the threat of people losing their loved ones to monsters truly end."
Finn set a hand on my shoulder.
"There are many ways to help Thomas. Doing what feels right isn't the only choice. There will always be other ways to do what needs to be done."
That night I couldn't sleep so well. Doing the right thing wasn't so easily done because the right thing wasn't always so clear. I had hyped myself up believing myself the main character whose values would trump the absurdities of this made-up world—but I was wrong. I was just deluded into thinking this world cared about what I thought. Just like the world I came from. It didn't.
It was just what it was.
But if I did just sleep on it then I wouldn't be any better than the person I'd been even before I had my powers. So what was it I could do?
Under the cover of night, I donned my Cloak once more and went out into the darkened streets of Orario looking for an answer wherever I might stumble upon it.
I visited the places I had yet to visit: the smithing village where artisans worked day and night toiling at their wares; the markets that were still so lively deep into the night, peddling and still chasing for that one last sale; I visited the quieter residential areas by the outskirts of the more commercial streets. Far and away from the city center that never sleeps where the stars shone brighter and the nights were deeper.
Here it was quiet and the sheer size of Orario made it all the more deceptive how so many people decided to live their lives so close to the mouth of an active volcano, figuratively. Though even in my old world there were a lot of people like that. Why did people choose to live in poverty? Was there really no choice but to stay where they were? How could anyone even know if there was a choice to be made in the first place?
But wasn't the same question applicable to me? I already knew I had my Corridors, then what was stopping me from trying to go home? I had the Cloak, and the Keyblade worked the same, so wouldn't the Cloak protect me from whatever Darkness laid within or outside of the Corridors?
Why didn't I try and wake up from this dream earlier?
I brought my hand forward, calling upon whatever concept it was in the back of my mind that told me I could open the said Corridors of Darkness, and rent the space in front of me, unleashing a tear in the reality of the world. A kind of miasma leaked out of the tear, wisps of brilliant slivering black filling me with a strength that welled from my heart and threatened to burst out in great leaps of joy.
Why was this ominous scene so nostalgic that it filled me with such comfort?
I stuck my hand through the portal, pushing through a viscous, heavy, force devoid of substance or texture. There was just the presence in whatever laid beyond the portal that gave away as I intruded upon the wound of the world.
I took out my hand and saw it still intact and retracted where my Cloak covered it. There were no suspicious changes to my skin or any strange feelings or aftereffects. Whether that was a sign of safety or the lull of a trap was not clear.
There was always a choice.
I covered my hand once more with the cloak before setting either hand against the tear, and plunged my head into the eye of darkness.
There I saw infinity.