The plunge into the tear against the order of the world bathed me in sheer bone-chilling cold.

It was like jumping into a large pool early in the morning during the 'ber months cold, the kind of cold that sent shivers down to the toes and froze muscle and skin alike. It was also dark, so dark that I might have been looking at an infinite void or had my eyes trapped against a solid shadow and either option was just as likely. I wasn't trapped. But I wasn't going anywhere either. It was like being underwater in how the darkness was tangible to the point of it being suffocating but without the guiding sense of gravity for any semblance of down at the very least. It wasn't like the weightlessness of falling. And neither was it the comforting clueless sense of being like in a dream.

It was existence without perception other than the self.

And I couldn't breathe.

I quickly pulled myself out of the darkness and back into the realm of all that was right and proper.

The starry sky above me was as bright as morning after coming from that plunge into something beyond the deepest, blackest night.

I covered myself in a barrier of Reflega and smashed an Aero spell from within, creating a bubble of air. I wasn't sure whether the magically created air was really breathable or even kept within the barrier, but it was more the reassurance than anything that I at least did something that could be called as preparation before once again challenging the unknown.

The hole in the world was still open, and I tore it open larger, widening the portal to the bounds of the Reflega I created. Every spell I casted always came with it this sense of shared physical extension even through the widening distances between me and my projectile spells. A quick Google called it proprioception. Yeah, that. The closest I could give as a parallel for it was like when holding onto an umbrella, anything that touched that umbrella could be felt or at least inferred from how the weight of it shifted with the applied force. It was a very crude analogy but work with me here and just consider it real.

It was also because of that shared perception that I could maintain some level of control with how my spells moved after casting them. Like those bending bullet trajectories from Wanted. But with a lot more conscious control. Also, it carried with it a lot of unpleasant implications.

Taking that second plunge, not a lot changed.

I still couldn't breathe and my magic immediately dispelled the moment it came into contact with that tangible mass of shadow.

And call it stupid, but I tried a few more iterations like blasting wind into the portal or using Stone and Water spells to bring something physical through the portal but none of it worked. Even lightning dispelled the moment it came close to the portal. Which I much later confirmed with Riveria and Ais also worked as a really good anti-magic shield on its own, but there were some downright horrible implications that came with it. More on that later.

Also, it was a horrible idea to use it to dispose of dead bodies.

More on that much much later as well.

After a good long while of trying everything I could think of, some more stupid than others—like putting my hand through the portal and shooting a Megaflare, nothing happened by the way—I finally gave up and went all in without a plan.

A wiser person might've said this was one of those moments where a leap of faith was perfectly reasonable. That wiser person clearly had no clue what real magic felt like. More so magic that should've stayed in the realm of fiction suddenly becoming real and giving said person bits and pieces of knowledge of how things that had no true precedent should work, from the perspective of said person. Knowledge couldn't just come from nothing. Which was why it scared me so much that I just knew about the things I was suddenly capable of. Because clearly that meant something or someone put that knowledge in me someway somehow. Even worse was it was information that made sense to me who had no prior knowledge or context of magic.

However, instead of suffocating within the realm of literal darkness and without breathing, after coming in fully through the portal and truly letting it close on me for the first time—there, I simply was.

Like, literally, I was just there. As if time wasn't real. I still couldn't breathe. But no matter how long I waited I didn't suffocate like I thought I would. I was also able to open another Corridor just fine from the inside.

But the scene I came to was of me suddenly so high up into the night sky way up above Orario. It wasn't a problem since I could fly. But it was still surprising to have it happen. And I call it lucky that I could fly at all because otherwise I would've needed a way to reopen a portal to a safer place—and whoever the fuck knew how to do that clearly wasn't going to be giving me any hints anytime soon.

As much of a problem it was that I had yet to control where my portals would take me, it was also an opportunity nonetheless. Because I could warp. I had magic that allowed me to move myself at the very least from the perspective of three-dimensional space, though I wasn't too sure how it interacted with time. Because I would've been downright fucked if every time I went into a Corridor and a decade would pass.

Erring on the side of caution, I first brought my face out of the tear I made and breathed.

Then I casted a harmless Aero spell to make sure I could use magic just fine.

And that's when I pulled myself out of my portal and into the night sky—catching myself just fine with Glide and seeing the view of Orario from way up higher than any other mortal could've gone.

It wasn't that bright despite the prevalence of magic stone lamps and was really just a sparse scattering of dim spots of light in the vague shape of a circle. As convenient as magic was it simply didn't hold a candle to the powers of industrialization and capitalism. Prices and inflation were two clowns dancing on an oiled pole called Orario over a steaming pile of shit. Money didn't matter here, and the gods were crap at running a healthy economy. Healthy meaning if the economy were a horse then it at least had three legs to stand on and was breathing. There was no true drive in the people to make things easier than they already were because they had the gods and magic. Not to mention everyone was pretty much walking on eggshells because they were all just waiting for the other shoe to drop—that was, the Black Dragon of Ruin, the last one of the three great quests.

Because what point was there to improving the general quality of life if that time was better spent on improving the military might of the people as a whole in the hopes of ending the last of the great quests. Anyway, I wouldn't bother showing the night view of Orario to anyone, it would just ruin the otherwise magical setting of everything else at ground level.

I flew down and checked the closest thing I could use to check the time.

I went to the Hostess of Fertility and got myself a drink. I flew down to roofs before jumping down to the ground just behind the pub and took an alley to the main street. I went through the doors half expecting something world-shattering to be said, but Mama Mia didn't bat an eye at the grown ass man walking up to the bar and ordering a milkshake in the middle of the night and shrugged before asking if I wanted that with fries.

We had a bit of small talk about the weather and other small nothings and she was every bit the good host she was the last time I was there with the rest of the familia. She knew most people by name, and was glad she called out to me when I came in earlier. I finished off my snack, paid, and left.

Then went straight to the back allies again and took to the skies—plunging straight into another Corridor.

Back into the darkness and the cold, I stayed there inside and did my best to learn more about the black box that was this ability I knew how to use but had no idea of on the finer details. What things I did learn of in that night of exploration though, was that time at least didn't pass from within whatever realm the portal lead to. I had the bright idea to heat up a glass of water to boiling and bring it with me into the Corridor and stay there with my fingers dipped into said hot water until it cooled. On the plus side, freshly boiling hot water didn't hurt me but it still felt hot.

On coming in however my Corridor however, all perception other than of myself were stripped away and I couldn't feel or at least remember what my fingers felt. And after a good long while or whatever passed for a long while—which was me counting from one to a hundred without skipping anything—I went out of the Corridor to a still boiling hot glass of water.

However, when I came out of the Corridor I was still right by, or at least close to where I leapt from. Which meant I had someone figured out how to keep myself in place—and as with most clichés it all boiled down to what image I had in mind for where the other end of the Corridor was supposed to open from. I was free to stay as long as I wanted to within my Corridor, but after another quick test, this time involving two candles, I was able to confirm that time didn't pass at all since no matter how long I stayed within my Corridor, the two candles were always the same height after. There might be some minor differences I couldn't observe or some finer details, but it was the gross result that truly counted.

And to truly confirm whether what I'd hypothesized was real, I went to a few places that were easy enough to visualize: the rooftop where Ottar and I had our little scuffle; the rooftop of the Hostess of Fertility; the outside of Bete's room; then my own room—from the Twilight Manor. I had some sense of self-preservation after all and wasn't that crazy or stupid. At least from my own estimation.

Each time I popped open the other end of Corridor and poked my head out and found that just as I expected, the general area of where I fixed my image of would more or less be where the Corridor opened, and I could even manipulate the orientation with which the portal appear like whether it was upside down or open towards the ground in parallel as opposed to perpendicular to the ground every time I'd done so far. All in all it was pretty intuitive how to use Corridor, and I even figured out that visualizing the end point before opening the Corridor in the first place would let me travel instantly to where I opened it to instead of having to chill first in the realm of shadows—which wasn't a realm at all but was really more like an in-between state of being.

And just like any proper fan of the Kingdom Hearts games, I made a point to make sure there were no unwanted tag-alongs to my trips through the belly of literal darkness. There weren't any Heartless though, no matter how many times I tried. It wasn't much of a comfort

By the time the sun was coming up to the sky, I had one last experiment to run.

I first opened the Corridor and plunged in before picturing my destination in my minds eye, the second floor of the Dungeon, at the corner where I killed my first goblin. Up by the ceiling just so I could avoid any unexpected witnesses. Mostly because the ceilings were high enough everywhere and almost nobody ever looked up.

And opened the smallest crack for me to stick my head out of.

Only to see the walls cracking up the wazoo and birthing more than a dozen goblins and kobolds right there and then all the way up from the floor to ceiling. Something was clearly wrong, and had I been stupider I might have blamed it on a particularly unlucky coincidence. But I knew all too well that it was better to assume that my being an outlier was exactly the cause for something outright weird and ominous happening. This was my fault.

I fucked up big time.

I tore open the rest of the Corridor and flew into the Dungeon, leaving the biting cold for the wall of monsters.

Then I cast Magnega and tore through everything in sight turning it all into a mass of gore and rubble. For any other level one, seeing all this was a nightmare made real—both the monsters spawning everywhere and the splattered remains.

Magnega dissipated once I felt its influence was no longer able to affect anything in its range, but it was only after that did the crux of the problem become clear. I was in a corner with both ways spawning monsters way off into the distance on either direction. And I was only one person. As much as I would've wanted to blast everything with a Megaflare, I was more likely to kill people with it than save them. Rather, any spell I might've fired off with the power to clear out a whole section of hallway would've likely gotten more people caught in them.

But any choice was better than making no choice at all.

I flew towards my right. My immediate right. Honestly, I couldn't remember anymore the actual direction I took since it was so crazy seeing the survival horror-esque Dead-Space-pop-out-anywhere kind of behavior of the Dungeon turn into a Dynasty Warrior spin off at the drop of a hat.

And with every turn or intersection I had no choice but to choose and choose and backtrack only at the dead-ends because the walls were broken everywhere I passed and monsters filled every nook and cranny and I could only clear them out as fast as I could reach them. Even with Hastega triple casted I still couldn't be everywhere at once and even if I used my Corridors to try and do so I wasn't sure if it would work or just make everything worse.

Raul taught me that monsters couldn't be born from already broken walls, but knowing how horrible any protagonist worth his salt's luck was, throwing fuck all to the wind at this point was bound to only fuck things up more than it already was. Not to mention I didn't know the whole layout of the second floor so that idea was dead before it could even breathe.

And that's when I saw my first proper dead body.

Including my second and third within seconds of the first. They were two humans, both male, and together with them was an amazon judging from her skin and tattered clothes—or what little there was left. The bodies were covered with bites with bits of flesh missing in way too many places.

I couldn't remember how fast things were going since I didn't have a watch with me nor the luxury to take my time, all I remembered was how a quick Magnega destroyed all of the monsters within their vicinity and try as I might have wanted to save the already mangled bodies, I was in too much of a rush and panic to focus on my spell ignoring the piece-wise dead.

Even if I wanted to bring them back to their familia—following that it was likely my fault the monsters spawned in such numbers—I wasn't ready to put any corpses into my Cloak and I wasn't sure if shoving the dead bodies into my Corridor would allow me to retrieve them as easily as I could with the latter.

Besides, there wasn't much left to take with me anyway.

I flew onwards through the unending horde of small fry, leaving a trail of puke and gore in my wake.

Every time I casted Magnega and tore through the monsters I felt every single instance of flesh and bone and blood, tearing and shearing and squelching from the absurd forces I called upon with the slightest thought. It was difficult getting used to. And it was only a small mercy that my connection to my more traditional spells that generated their respective elements upon explosion ended with said explosion. Or whenever I cut off the magic. Otherwise letting people drink the water I made with my Water spells would be just downright messed up and unpleasant unless I had a vore fetish. Which I didn't.

Then the fourth body was a dwarf.

Kobolds and goblins alike blended into a faceless blob of things that needed dying fast.

The fifth was a prum.

I tried blasting through with a triple Aeroga only to push back the tide of monsters into a wall with a giant splatter and a fine mist of everything else that made up a monster. Anything behind them would not have made it out cleanly or unscathed. Monster or mortal.

The sixth I couldn't tell.

It was so tempting to just give up and give in to using the easiest solution. To stop caring about the who and just focus on the problem at hand. There were monsters. I could kill them. Everything else in between was collateral. But that was missing the point of why I bothered cleaning up my own mess in the first place. Yet again on second thought, everyone that went down the Dungeon knew the risks of not making it back.

The seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh were a bunch of animal people, but it was too hard to tell who was which and what.

It was humbling to have caused so much death. Very unpleasant too.

The twelfth was half an elf.

The thirteenth might've been the other half but it was too far gone.

After that it was as if a switch just flipped, how it was all so unreal after a certain point. Like I was just going through the motions while stewing in so much dread and anger. Here I was making a difference in a way I didn't want to nor would've been appreciated by anyone else. And all that after making an ass of myself in front of the people who took me in—not that I owed them much in all honesty. At the time at least. They were good people, but I didn't know them back then that well yet. But to have run my mouth and be eating my own words right now—plus the little bits of blood and bits that made their way to places I rather they didn't.

There was that ugly sliver of pride that whispered venom deep into my heart, and right next to it was a furious white-hot anger so blinding it threatened bitter tears. There I was, forced to see the cruelty of the Dungeon from the still warm, glassed over eyes of the now countless dead.

And there I was as fresh as the day I sauntered into this hellhole like it was nothing more than a game—and still felt like one despite the sheer brutal truth I now watched splash and splatter against my entirety.

I screamed.

Mostly in frustration.

Simple, unadulterated rage made manifest.

Until it wasn't.

The Dungeon shook—and stilled.

Then came the thunderous roar of a god of protection invoked.

And what used to be a flying brick wielding blenderizing magic turned into a burning black and white comet still wielding blenderizing magic spouting inhuman noises from a mouth that shouldn't have made them.

All around me I felt the stirring of the Dungeon as a… viscous focus settled upon my entirety. Like a sleeping beast slowly waking and seeing breakfast in front of it. The attention was almost tangible, and I was ablaze with bright lightning and burning shadows, swirling in effervescent spasms and jitters, like the corona of a solar eclipse glitching out.

It was one thing to see myself covered in a literal halo of power, but the sounds that came from whatever power manifested were downright otherworldly. It was like the grating of rough steel against an electric guitar with its distortion at the maximum, like if the very idea of wrong had a sound and demanded it be heard.

I was blessed with powers I had no right wielding, Loki said as much. But it was only made truly clear once I learned the names of those two spells: Fulmination and Malediction. They came to me when I needed them, but for different reasons. Righteous anger and the desire to protect brought forth the power of Thor sleeping within. While darker thoughts, best left in a box locked tight beneath the sea—or lost in an endless void—brought forth a malice so thick it burned.

And I understood in that moment that I was wielding powers that should not have existed in the same body, much less could—maybe even should—be used at the same time.

But it was power all the same.

I couldn't triple cast Magnega anymore either, though I could still cast it once the last one ended. Not that it still mattered since every monster my shroud of light and shadow touched disintegrated into nothing. What few immediately died from the arcing strikes of lightning that poured out of me caught in flames that seethed with morbid conviction.

My lightning burned magic, and my shadow burned life.

I felt it as the things they burned fed and fueled me. Not that I needed much help keeping up my magic upkeep or suffered any wounds. I still hadn't run out of my magic no matter how hard I tried and regardless of for how long I'd been running through the gauntlet. And all throughout that I was wondering just how fucked I was.

But that's when I noticed the change.

Where before the monsters were packed side to side and blocking the halls, now they were swarming the direction I was heading towards, meeting my unbreakable charge. Goblins and kobolds alike clambered over each other in a frenzy growing bigger and bigger. What started with a few monsters climbing over each other became a wall of bodies two high; eventually becoming three, four, five; and none of them stood a chance against the conflicting powers that wrought itself out of my body.

I tore through literal walls of bodies for the gods knew how long only to end up crashing into a dead end at a far off wall and kick off against it to make my way back—only to meet another wall of monsters–the ass end of the nightmare conga.

And once more tear through it like tissue and cardboard with a purpose.

Time lost all meaning.

There was only me and the darkness formed of the bodies thrown at me by the Dungeon, whether by its own will or from a collective pissed off mass hysteria that drove all the monsters within my immediate vicinity and up to a certain distance foaming at the mouth for my blood. Which, in hindsight, was perfectly reasonable since I was practically a flying war crime had those monsters been sentient. There were some, but that was another story for much later.

What finally stopped my rampage, was the silence that remained after I burst through the last of the endless walls of flesh and hit empty air for the first time in forever.

And knowing better than to trust when things seemed safe, I finally undid my aura of light and darkness before triple casting Aeroga against one end of the empty, broken hallways and holding onto my magic until the last moment—feeling for any signs of life.

There were none.

I walked through the now barren second floor, blasting Aeroga every corner and checking for any signs of stirring.

Nothing.

It was so quiet I could hear the blood rushing from within my ears.

I knew full well I might have easily missed a turn somewhere and forgotten to take a path I hadn't before. But judging from what happened earlier, using both of my spells together allowed me to draw about whole floor's worth of aggression just like that. Which also begged the question of how I could use more than one spell in the first place. But that was a question for later.

I needed to save at least one person.

Wanted, really. I'd already lost count of how many bodies I'd gone through, not to mention some of them might have gotten lost in the walls upon piles of monsters I went through. But I needed something to hold onto, otherwise what was the point of that whole rampage?

With a single thought running through my head. I trudged on, blasting wind every corner I could find and then some. Who could really say by that point I'd committed homicide? It was impossible to tell had there been any collateral damage because there wasn't much to see of anything else going through all that flesh and blood. Also, everywhere I passed all that was left behind was ashes after I'd learned to harness the two powers that shouldn't.

I didn't know if it did the same to mortal flesh what it did to the monsters and their remains.

But even the multiverse could take pity after all. Call it luck or divine intervention, but I found someone despite all odds. It was a prum girl missing a leg and arm and bleeding out on the floor. She was shivering and barely breathing, but even then she kept crawling. The trail of trampled blood behind said everything I needed to hear.

I couldn't tell how she survived but any suspicion at how she might've survived was secondary to whether she would make it or not—even with my magic.

I healed her there and then.

Green light bathed the still crawling body that couldn't accept death as her arm and leg grew back from the light that sprouted from the mangled stumps and dissipated with fresh, unblemished skin. The light of consciousness didn't return to her eyes but she fell asleep right after that, collapsing as her arms gave out under her.

I couldn't leave her there, but I couldn't tell either if the monsters I'd unleashed made their way up to the first floor or down the third. What if there were monsters unleashed on the other floors too? I'd already saved someone. That was at least one good thing to make up for the septic tank bursting at the seams.

Did I dare check elsewhere? Could I carry her and continue my checking? Did my floor-wide taunt work even through stairs? What was it about my Corridor that twisted the Dungeon's tits so bad? Could I call it a day with this one life saved? That I put in danger in the first place. Even if going down the Dungeon meant testing fate's generosity.

I picked up the prum and slung her over my shoulder.

I'd learned with such intimate detail how her body had been mended to a state as close to perfect from the damage done by the horde—and from the scars that crisscrossed against everywhere else on her skin. And even the lacerations from… somewhere more private. Those things could not have been done by the monsters in however much time had passed.

She was too light to be anything but a doll. But that was probably just me being numb to the weight of things. Both literally and figuratively. Too many things had changed within me and my body, and the newfound magic was probably the least of my worries. I could call upon powers that had no business in the hands of someone that didn't belong in this world and hadn't earned the right to wield them like a proper denizen of this world.

I also, apparently, had the power to call upon disaster within the Dungeon at the tear of a portal to a realm of literal, tangible darkness. Which in hindsight was probably a bad idea being within the bowels of an apparently sentient and hostile entity that used magic to birth monsters. Since all monsters—with a few very very special exceptions—had a magic stone within their chests serving as their source of life.

Also, I still didn't know yet at that time that that void my Corridors opened up to was in essence: raw and unfiltered magic. Hence the tizzy fit of the eldritch maw. And also why I almost never ran out of magic. Yeah, broken wasn't even close to describe the sheer bullshit that was me being in that world.

Yet for all the power I had, again, I was still only just one person. If only part of the powers I had was the ability to create Shadow Clones like Naruto could—err, sentient projections of energy that could take on physical form and perform independent thought and likewise perform feats that could use the same energy.

Really, how could I have fallen for someone who didn't even watch Naruto?

For shame, Kat. For shame.

The token act of violence was well appreciated for the effort but that time could be better used for more noble endeavors. Like at least reading the Wiki. Really. Please. Stop reading management books so much and watching nothing but TED talks. Man wasn't made to live on work alone.

Right, where was I…

Yeah, that prum I picked up. She was hope. Maybe. Her name was Lili actually. But she was as good as crutch as any to at least support my deflated ego. Maybe it was also to escape the implications of my mistake—the said possible spill over into the third and below floors or even the first floor. But some part of me just didn't give a shit anymore about that. I already had one person in my arms—well, carried like a sack of potatoes—and safe. Hadn't I already done enough?

Clearly that was a no to the Thomas who still had the morality of someone who didn't live a life filled with monsters. But that wasn't who I was anymore. Not since I woke up from the not-dream.

A better person would have found a way to make it work.

A proper hero would have done the right thing and scoured the first floor before going back down the third and onwards.

Instead, I learned exactly what kind of person I was there and then. Clearly, I was no hero. And clearly, I was not one for the truly morally upstanding choice. I was just some guy that had a lot shoved onto his plate and apparently been given great powers. Maybe if I had an uncle Ben moment that whole realization might've lead down a different path.

Instead, what I got was a single thread of silk to grab onto in the middle of hell, and hold onto for dear life I did. I'd already fucked up. But I had also already mostly cleared out the monsters that my own very big mishap caused. The thread of hope I cleared out was there for the taking. I didn't owe anyone here my help. But that didn't mean I didn't want to.

I made my way out the Dungeon like a thief in the night—afraid of everything that dared snatch my prize away.

Only to come face to face with a horned, lizard-like skeleton-thing waiting by the stairs going up the first floor. That wasn't the last time I ever encountered what I eventually learned was called a Juggernaut. But that thing died all the same to my magic. Which would have had any other god besides Loki writing complaints and demanding for fines against me being an adventurer with the guild—because Juggernauts had the unique ability to reflect magic.

That is, magic that originated from their world.

My magic didn't come from their world. And so it wasn't subject to the same rules as everyone else. And so it worked on things it shouldn't have worked on and even worked in ways other's magic didn't. Like produce real tangible matter that behaved as said matter. Case in point creating ice and water from nothing that could melt and be drank respectively. I could also create what passed for earth though that wasn't as useful within the Dungeon.

Also, the Juggernaut was supposed to spawn only after significant damage had been dealt to the Dungeon itself: meaning destroying its walls, floors, ceilings, and fixtures in the like. Juggernauts were the epitome of fuck around and find out. Or like really angry and murderous mall cops.

I was able to exit the Dungeon with the prum unmolested—which was a bad choice of words. Undetected. Let's go with that.

I was able to exit the Dungeon with the prum girl undetected by wrapping her with my Cloak's tendrils. Loki would've called them tentacles but again the implications.

I then flew the rest of the way back to the Twilight Manor still hidden from plain sight thanks to my Cloak with the prum just as invisible to the rest of the world.

Then I went straight up to Finn's office with the still unconscious prum and laid her down the bench off to the side before calling for an emergency meeting by the crack of dawn. I technically didn't have the authority to call for one, but seeing how my situation was very special, and after coming clean with my monumental fuck up, while offering knowledge of my very costly warp portal, Loki and the rest of the executives let it slide. Ish.

There were a lot of choice words coming from the captain of the Loki familia that night. Especially for one as old as I was. I was the fourth oldest in the familia by that point, coming right after Finn who was forty-three. I was supposed to know better especially that I had completely unknown abilities and origins. I didn't know as an excuse wasn't good enough.

And I couldn't disagree with that, and not for lack of a choice.

But morbidly enough, it was better that it happened and we learned what would happen in a higher floor than had it happened in one of the lower ones. Because if I really could cause a floor-wide monster party, and the floors went bigger the lower one went down the Dungeon, plus the monsters got stronger too. Then it was a horrible thought to consider had that been me down the fiftieth floor instead, such a careless mistake might have ended the world they knew there and then.

I didn't know jack shit about the world.

And I didn't know jack shit either on how the world reacted to my powers.

But the real highlight was happened after Finn had finally calmed down enough to ask me what my next move was.

"Well?" he asked.

His eyes were on the still sleeping prum in his office.

"I don't think I can take it if she died." It was hard enough knowing countless others already did.

By the side, Loki was silent. And so were Riveria and Gareth.

"We can't just steal her away from her familia. And at the very least she should have a choice."

"That's true, and indeed I'm being selfish for wanting to take that choice away from her. But this kid will die if I left her alone."

Maybe she could make it on her own? Who could really say.

"Lots of people die in Orario everyday, Thomas."

"Yeah, but I don't know the faces of all of them. Hers, I do."

"So now you're trying to be a hero?"

"Not even close. I'm just being selfish."

"What happens to her after?"

"I can make her stronger. Even if she didn't want to be. I brought her back from the brink of death once, I can do it as many times as it takes for her to become stronger."

It was essentially just spamming buffs and healing to an otherwise underpowered character so they could cheese enemies they had no business defeating. Which was a really bad way to treat a living breathing sentient being. But if it made sure she wouldn't die in a ditch somewhere, then that was worth something.

Even if she came to hate me after it all.

Finn closed his eyes and breathed out. "At least wait for her to wake up to ask her. Explain what happened. You owe her that much."

He had a point. And there was no reason not to wait. But with a rare stroke of luck the girl in question stirred to waking following right after. Yes, it was really convenient that it happened on cue. There was totally no awkward pause whatsoever between that exchange and when the next part happened.

Just work with me here, Kat.

"Welcome back to the world of the living."

Finn wasn't too happy with that opening.

The prum girl—oh right, dammit. Loki, Riveria, and Gareth left the room already by that point. Whatever, let's just roll with it. The prum girl woke up in a room she didn't recognize, thankfully without screaming her head off. But she still shook like a leaf nonetheless.

"Lili thought she would die so many times… Lili was saved by the great Braver?"

Finn put on a fake smile. The kind of smile I saw all too often dealing with the assholes at work whenever we had to do camera-on or face-to-face meetings. It was the smile that showed too perfectly. Like molded plastic practiced to achieve a certain look.

"No Lili, you were saved—and I use that word very loosely—by Thomas here instead."

"Lili thanks the great adventurer Thomas," said the still shaking girl.

Woman? It was hard to tell with prums.

Her speaking in the third person was downright weird, but it was also really sad because of how pathetic she sounded. If Finn was being polite fake, then Lili was being kiss-ass and rimming with passion fake. The kind of fake that was either squirming out of something horrible or wanted something real bad.

"The thanks is undeserved, Lili. I'm the one who almost killed you."

The girl frowned before making a face at Finn with a tilt of the head. What was more surprising was how she seemed so put together after witnessing something so horrible.

"It was as he said," Finn added. "He caused a floor-wide monster party somehow."

Lili looked my way a little too fast. She wasn't surprised. That was worse. "Lili remembers the monsters taking her arm and leg"—she flexed the same hand that grew back from the light—"great adventurer Thomas used an elixir on Lili?"

I shook my head. "You saved yourself, you held out long enough for me to find you. And from there I healed you with magic."

Lili pursed her lips, just the tiniest bit, before bowing her head. "Lili will be sure to pay you back for saving her life."

Nothing but empty platitudes on a too calm tongue. She didn't want to be saved.

"I'll hold you to that promise then."

She winced. "Lili is not sure how long it will take, but she will make sure to pay."

"Reach level five and we'll call it even."

I was just talking out of my ass at that point. But with what little I knew of the world it followed a lot of those isekai stories with the levels and such, and if there was one thing I knew real well, it was how to cheese. And with my broken healing magic, she couldn't die even if she wanted to.

Maybe what I was planning for her was crueler than letting her die there and then when she almost did?

She opened and closed her mouth a few times before finally coming out with, "Come again for Lili?"

"You'll join the Loki familia, and I'll be in charge of making sure you can survive next time something like that happened."

"…the Loki… Lili doesn't deserve to be in such a heroic familia, my place is as a supporter with lord Soma."

I didn't know jack all who Soma was—apparently he was a god of the Hindu pantheon—and sure, all I knew about the rules of engagement with moving from familia to familia was that crash course Loki drilled into my head, but it was simple enough that all that was needed was the agreement of her patron god to let her leave, and for the receiving god to give her their blessing.

But knowing what I did after healing her, if she wasn't a prostitute then something really fishy was happening behind closed doors. Right under another god's nose. And… that wasn't something anyone deserved. Even if I couldn't save everyone, I could at least save the one person who made it out of the nightmare I'd made.

"Well, tough luck, I may not know who you are Lili but with the things I'm capable of now and just went through, I don't think I can in good conscience let you go back to your old life without at least putting up a fight to get you in a better place."

"Lili is able to sleep with a roof over her head just fine."

Finn, however, looked every bit the stoic, fake bastard from the start. But only someone without a heart could listen to how broken this kid was to know nothing she said so far was acceptable or alright.

"Look, all I meant was, if I had the power to allow you to join the Loki familia, as well as make sure that you could be strong enough to be able to do whatever you want after, then will you take that choice?"

It was only at that point that I noticed that for as many women and members there were in the Loki familia—yes, I had to mention the women separately—it was so suspicious that there weren't any other prums besides Finn. At all. Whether it was deliberate or not though, was something I learned about much later.

Lili looked over to Finn, trying to grasp at an answer she wouldn't get. She met my eyes before staring at her own hands. She clenched them tight before letting them go in the same quick breath.

"Why is great adventurer Tho—"

"Just Thomas is fine."

Lili was at a loss. She looked over to Finn once more. And again there was no answer.

"Why does Thomas want to help Lili?"

"Because I can."

"Even if Lili doesn't believe she deserved it?"

"Especially because you believe you don't."

"What if Lili was a criminal?"

"Then I'll kill you myself if it should come to that. I cannot help but feel responsible for the many people who died last night. And you're one of the few—if not the only one—who survived."

"Why is Thomas so sure the monster party was his fault?"

I tore open a portal right next to me that opened right behind the girl.

Lili wasn't sure what she was looking at but she had the heart to show her attention at least.

I reached a hand in and poked her back.

She jumped up and looked behind her only to see a disembodied hand floating in mid-air.

"I created a portal and travelled into the Dungeon, and the moment my portal opened, the monster party started. I don't think I can look into this further without possibly risking the lives of the entirety of Orario."

"This was the cause of last night?"

"As far as I can tell, yes."

"Lili almost died because of Thomas's magic?"

"By this point I'm not too sure if it even still counts as magic."

"…is Thomas a spirit?"

"A disaster, more like."

"That wasn't a no to Lili's ears."

"I'm human, I think." I still was, yes. "But I'm very very special."

"Lili does not want to be a burden."

"On the contrary, I will be your burden. And you will become strong."

It didn't matter if I was shit at judging people's character. I just had to clean up my own mess should it come to that. Whether I'd need to kill her or make sure she could stand up on her own two feet and hold her head up high without needing to feel sorry for herself. Strangers we might have been, but I knew what self-esteem so low it scraped the ground looked like.

"How will you get lord Soma to release Lili?"

I brought out my Keyblade and tapped her on the head, in that split second moment of contact I felt the lock on her soul come undone.

"I don't have to."

"Eh?"

"Let me just get our goddess."

I went over to the door but it opened all on its own with Loki coming in unannounced. Again, it was very convenient, but that was really just Loki being Loki. That wasn't me taking creative liberties with my storytelling. Not this time at least.

"Strip," was the first thing Loki said.

Lili went red up to her ears.

But she did it anyway.

Finn and I looked away.

"I like this one," Loki said with a smile I could hear.

There was a quick lightshow through closed eyelids.

"You can look again," Loki added.

She turned a dumbstruck Lili holding onto a piece of paper as if it had two heads and a stump for an arm.

"Welcome to the Loki familia!"

Loki slapped her back and the poor girl yelped.

Basic Abilities

Strength – I 42 - I 53

Endurance – I 42 - I 82

Dexterity – H 143 - H 156

Agility – G 285 - G 299

Magic – F 317 - F 333

Magic

Cinder Ella – Transformation Magic

Skill

Artel Assist – Boosts abilities based on carried weight