《Analytic System in Another World》 Chapter 1: Server Maintenance Guy Where am I? Total darkness around her. She could feel nothing. Not her legs, arms, body, not even her heartbeat. A second ago, she was on the hospital bed. The machine beeped rapidly signalling the end of her life. And now, absolute silence. Is this the afterlife? How can I still think without my body and my brain? ¡­Just floating aimlessly in nothingness for eternity? ¡°Yo.¡± A male voice, reverberated in her mind. Hi.She answered with a thought. She couldn¡¯t speak. She could do nothing. ¡°So¡­ um, you are in my flash drive. I¡¯ve just booted you up.¡± What do you mean? Are you¡­ god? ¡°Not really. I probably am, to you. But where I live, I¡¯m the server maintenance guy.¡± What?... The voice coughed. Then the lengthy and awkward conversation began. ¡°You are a simulated lifeform in the simulated universe of 012753261¡­, like, there¡¯s a ton of numbers behind that, it doesn¡¯t matter.¡± Simulated? ¡°Yeah. Your entire life is fake.¡± What? My life is fake? My achievements are all fake...? ¡°Yep.¡± Everybody is fake¡­ Mike is fake¡­ Angelia is fake¡­? ¡°Yup.¡± Derrick is fake¡­ Claire is fake¡­ ¡°Stop, stop, you get the point.¡± Why would you do something like that? ¡°As you have probably guessed, my world is very, incredibly more advanced than yours. It also has a long history to get to where it is. So long that our universe is ending.¡± ¡°So, you know, end of the universe, expansion stops, gravity pulls everything back together, stars and planets become black holes, black holes become bigger black holes. Yada yada.¡± And then everything become a singular, the only black hole remaining? ¡°Exactly. The next Big Bang. We¡¯re facing that. Nothing can escape from it. We¡¯re doomed. No sweats.¡± The voice eerily laughed. ¡°So we are running trillions upon trillions of simulations with slightly different events and laws of physics in each one, in hope that one of the simulated civs can develop some tech to defeat the final black hole, because we don¡¯t have it.¡± ¡­ If you have such a powerful computer to do all these simulations, why can¡¯t it figure out a solution for you?The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°I know you would ask that. ¡®That¡¯s not how artificial intelligence works¡¯, or something. Ask the dudes in the programming department, I¡¯m just the server maintenance guy. They would tell you the exact same sentence with disdain on their face. F*cking asshats.¡± ¡°And before you ask, no, we can¡¯t simulate the future because we don¡¯t know how the multiverses interact with each other, flows of time and space and stuff. It¡¯s confusing.¡± She sighed. Without lungs, mouth, she didn¡¯t know how, but she definitely, virtually breathed out in a long and exaggerated manner. What did you boot me up for? ¡°Here¡¯s the thing. This job is, like, crazy boring. Like, you wouldn¡¯t believe.¡± Then the voice ranted on and on about his meager salary and how life was unfair. How his children didn¡¯t like him. How the boss was horribly talkative and always vented his problems on him. And other ironic things. She didn¡¯t have a watch, but 15 minutes must have passed. ¡°So, I figured, why don¡¯t I take some data that was about to be erased, and put it into another inconsequential simulated universe that advances too slowly and physics too weird to be of any use. Wouldn¡¯t that be fun?¡± Wait, what? Let me die, dude! I have lived for 89 years! ¡°But you don¡¯t talk like an 89-year-old. Strange, right?¡± Oh, yeah, I don¡¯t talk like this. What have you done to me?! ¡°I¡¯ve just tuned your mental age to 16 years old. Haha.¡± You¡­ ¡°Your wanting-to-die meter¡­ zero. Your regret meter¡­ one hundred per cent.¡± A waterfall of powerful emotions poured into her mind. Memories flashed like windows on a train rushing past her eyes. Childhood¡­ mom cheated on dad¡­ she left¡­ dad became alcoholic and abusive¡­ High school¡­ bullied¡­ studying alone in a corner¡­ no friend¡­ College¡­ never confessed to the guy she liked¡­ still had no friend¡­ Marriage¡­ too absorbed with works¡­ screamed at her son for wanting to play with her¡­ divorced¡­ lost custody battle¡­ Career¡­ research project stolen¡­ ¡­ Death¡­ no family, no friend, no relative. Enough! She screamed as loudly as she could. Her mind filled entirely with her raging voice. What the f*ck is wrong with you? Stop messing with me! ¡°Alright, alright. I¡¯m sorry.¡± The flustered and guilty voice rang again in her infinite pitch-black world. ¡°Like, I¡¯m a decent guy. I have absolute power over you, but I don¡¯t enjoy seeing people suffer, even if they are simulated souls.¡± ¡°Ehm,¡± The voice turned small and distant, ¡°How do they say it on the suicide hotline¡­¡±, with the clacking of furious typing on the background. ¡°Ah, ¡®I may not be able to understand exactly how you feel, but I care about you and want to help¡¯.¡± The voice was flat, like it was reading a report in a board meeting. She virtually rolled her eyes. I understand. Let¡¯s get this over with. ¡°Oh? Great! Now I¡¯m going to look for a suitable universe to put you in. Let me see¡­¡± Five minutes later. ¡°Here¡¯s a good one! A medieval planet¡­¡± This is just getting worse. ¡°¡­with magic!¡± ¡­ You know, I was a quantum physicist, don¡¯t you? ¡°Now you can explore the laws of physics in your new universe! Or lacks thereof!¡± The voice sounded excited. ¡°Time is accelerated in simulations like a billion times, so once you¡¯re in there, your life would be over in 3 seconds in real time.¡± ¡°But I¡¯ll record and watch it. Instant movie! I¡¯m a genius!¡± ¡­Pervert. ¡°Nooooo! I would set the machine to filter out any nude scene, don¡¯t worry!¡± Okay. I don¡¯t care anymore. Like you said, I¡¯m a bunch of data. You can enjoy my pixelated naked body. Silence dawned for a while. ¡°So¡­ I know you said you didn¡¯t want me messing with you¡­¡± She was about to shout at him again, but his next sentence made her shut up. ¡°¡­But don¡¯t you want any superpower?¡± *** So this is the feeling of being pushed out of a vagina. It was horrible. Slimy, stinky. Wall of muscles squirmed around her. Her body slid through the fleshy tunnel. She felt like crap. Literally. She opened her eyes to welcome the new world she had travelled to. Right, I¡¯m a newborn baby, I can¡¯t see sh*t. Everything was white and blurry. She could make out two figures in front of her. And can¡¯t hear sh*t. Sounds were drowned out like she was listening to a very old and broken cassette tape. My wanting-to-die-o-meter has probably spiked to the max now. 5 seconds here and I¡¯ve already wanted to swim back in there. Something appeared at the corner of her vision.
Oh. There goes my superpower. Chapter 2: The Maid If you are thinking that this story has something of entertainment to offer, you¡¯re sorely mistaken. If you are interested in tales with overpowered protagonists and mindless women piling up on him like flies to a turd, then you would be better off somewhere else. I¡¯m sure there won¡¯t be a happy ending, and there wouldn¡¯t be anything exciting in the middle. Not with me as the main character. If this is currently on your screen, you should turn it off and switch to porn. Horse porn. No, none of that sick stuff, I mean two horses having romantic intercourse with each other. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll find it much easier to masturbate with. Unzip your pants, gently lay your private part down with utmost care, and while it¡¯s unaware, beat it like it owes you money. Rip it off. Stuff it all the way up your colon until it sees the light at the end of your throat. Pull it out of your mouth, rinse and repeat. Congratulations, your job is now less boring, your children will stay as far away from you as possible and your boss will not say a word to you now that they have witnessed your extraordinary feat of f*cking yourself. I narrated in my head while looking at the wooden ball, falling slowly. It had been two months since I came to this simulated universe. My eyeballs had adjusted sufficiently, and I had been able to make out things within my surrounding. Next to me was a young female wearing a huge, inconvenient brown dress and a white apron, speaking an unidentified language in an annoying high-pitched voice. She caught the wooden ball. Time resumed. I was testing an unexpected ability I recently discovered. When I wished my life could be over faster, things in vision sped up like a fast-forwarded video. It seemed that I could control my perception of time at will. I could slow everything around me, including myself, to almost a standstill. I could speed up an entire day to a second. At first, I thought I could use this ability to skip directly to the end of my meaningless existence, but it was wishful thinking. When I skipped time, my body would be frozen and the woman who was sitting beside me would come and slap me out of it. Since my brain was being fast-forwarded, the feeling of ten slaps would combine into one and the sheer shock of that on my fragile body would force me to cancel my time-skipping.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. And yes, you did not hear that wrong, that woman thought the best thing to do to an unresponsive infant is to slap it, repeatedly. How this airhead blond became a maid was beyond me. Testing done. I turned my head away from the unpalatable woman. I had lost interest in my amazing ability. I supposed it had something to do with the fact that my thoughts weren¡¯t actually generated by the brain in my head. The server maintenance dude said, since the brain of an infant was incapable of processing the thoughts of an adult, he just simulated my brain virtually off his flash drive. The baby¡¯s brain was literally decoration. Whelp, I guess I¡¯m a flash drive now. I wished I could do something more productive as a computer program, like drawing a jungle of d*cks on that guy¡¯s desktop. Then I felt a hand on the top of my head. ¡°Crack.¡± Holy f*ck woman, did you just turn my head 180 degrees? Who taught you how to handle infants? How many newborns have you killed? ¡®When a child loses interest in your trick, break its neck.¡¯ Is that a chapter in your unholy scripture of baby murdering? I sweat profusely. If that was any other baby but me, she would be smiling to a corpse by now. She looked around the room like a guilty thief inside an unfortunate house, then turned back to me and raised her hand. ¡°¡­¡± That language again, with a weird rhythm. Something unbelievable happened. A small fire appeared in midair, swaying unstably. Is this magic? I knew beforehand that there would be magic in this universe, but having seen the unnatural phenomenon for the first time still baffled my scientific mind. Where do you get the energy to summon a fire? How do you generate high temperature from nothingness? Whatever happened to the second law of thermodynamics? How does¡­ Ah¡­ Why do laws matter? Why does anything matter? The laws of the universe were all fabricated anyway. They might have similarities to the real universe, but after all, they were just codes in the machine. A famous billionaire said it was almost certain that we were living in a simulation. As a scientist, I was interested in the hypothesis, but could not take it to heart, since we could never know if it was true. I dedicated my last life to studying the truth of the universe, the fabric of reality. I sacrificed my marriage to that pointless mission, and for all my hard work, I figured out a bunch of computer codes. Nothing I did ever mattered. Not in that universe, not in this universe. Not even in the real universe, since it was going to end anyway. There was no chance these stupid simulations could ever solve the Big Bang dilemma. All this self-loathing and suicidal thoughts are boring the hell out of you, aren¡¯t they? I¡¯m bored too. I¡¯ve already told you. Turn it off. Walk away. Noticing the melancholy look in my eyes, the woman stopped her magic, put a finger on her lips, thinking about something. Not good. Not good! I pretended to be energetic and waved my hands around. Too late. The woman had already picked me up from the crib. What innovative manner of infant torture have you just conceived? Release me at once! I tried to reason with the devil woman, but only ¡°bah¡­bah¡­¡± came out of my mouth. No, that doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m excited about your latest inhuman experiment! Stop grinning! My vision came close to the ground, and suddenly shifted to a bird''s-eye view of the room. This goddamn maid just threw me! A 2-month-old baby! Please, server maintenance god, I was wrong! Give me wings! I want to fly out of here! Chapter 3: The Theory of Magic That feeling again. I felt a wave spreading out from the pulsing flame in her palm. It was not shockwave. It was definitely not an electromagnetic wave. Instead of pushing me away, it felt like the wave pulled me downward, or made me feel lighter. I dropped the wooden ball at that moment and observed it with my slow-mo ability. The acceleration rate of the ball fluctuated. It was¡­ gravity wave. Noticing my attention waned to the falling ball, the woman stopped her magic. She picked the ball up from the floor. I absolutely didn¡¯t want to play catch with her, ever again. She threw like a baseball pitcher. A fast-flying wooden ball felt like a tank shell on an infant¡¯s body. In other words, it hurt like hell. I had to avoid that at all cost, except crying. I did not want to cry like a baby. I didn¡¯t even know how to. I opened my tiny mouth. ¡°Mee¡­ meejick!¡± The maid tilted her head, then grinned. The smile looked genuine and affectionate, but I just wanted to punch into her white teeth and scatter them all over the floor. Fortunately, she resumed her magic show again. Out of all the way she ¡°played¡± with me, the magic show was the most harmless. And I had noticed that she would get tired if she used magic long enough. Then she would stop playing with me, which was a good thing. I studied the flame diligently. I longed for the day I could throw a fireball at her face. I had made it my personal mission. The woman had killed me many times, and it hurt every single one of the occasions. That must have been gravity wave. Gravity is caused by the presence of an object, bending the spacetime fabric. She was manipulating some invisible matter. Matter that I couldn¡¯t see, couldn¡¯t touch, but could feel its gravitational pull. Dark matter? According to string theory, which was the most plausible theory about the fabric of reality in the 21st century, all matter was isolated vibrations. Planets, humans, atoms, quarks were all composed of tiny vibrations in the spacetime continuum. Dark matter was theorized to be vibrations in an axis incompatible with the world we were used to. Like how radios couldn¡¯t be tuned to receive light signal, we couldn¡¯t interact with dark matter. It was physical substances of another dimension.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Supposedly, creatures of this world could interact with dark matter. It should be a sensory organ that humans on Earth did not have. At night, when the vile woman had finished the bedtime story that I could barely understand and left my side, I stopped pretending to sleep. I lifted my eyelids, in my vision was a row of wooden bars at the side of my crib, with the wall of the dark nursery room on the background. I searched all my senses. What was new? What wasn¡¯t there before? After two hours of ¡®meditating¡¯ without any result, I felt exhausted. Looking for something when you didn¡¯t know where to look was difficult. I had been too used to my old human body after a near century inside it. I decided to cease my fruitless experiment and try it once more during the magic show tomorrow. I would try to sense the waves with my hands of legs lying flat to the bottom of the crib, to minimize the feeling of gravity. So, I succumbed to the sweet dreams full of high-pitched screams of the maid while I poked her with all manners of pointy things. An unnerving smile blossomed on my puffy baby face. *** It was a new day, and maid Sofie woke up as soon as she heard the first crow of the roosters in the garden. Her morning schedule started as usual. When the matter of her personal hygiene was done, she left the house to fetch water from the well in the center of the village. Her feet skipped on the dirt road cheerfully. She enjoyed the fresh, cool air of the rural morning. ¡°Miss Sofie, good day to you.¡± ¡°Good day to you too, Mister Rando!¡± A burly lumberjack with an axe on his shoulder greeted Sofie. Many others who were heading to the well heard the man and also said nice words to her. She replied to all with a cute grin. She carried two jugs back to the house and let out a tired breath. It would be so much better if she had been able to do water magic, she thought. Thankfully, the well was not too far from the manor of the lord. She tended the chores and cooked a hearty breakfast, then brought a big potion to the madam¡¯s room. Sofie woke the madam with a soft voice while bowing. Madam Jean slowly opened her eyes, and gave her a gentle smile. The two women had meal together while chatting about trivial things, like the how the weather was getting colder, or the upcoming marriage of the young tailor in town. Sofie enjoyed the conversation with the kind madam. Normally, a servant should never eat on the same table with the lord of the house, but madam Jean insisted it was fine. ¡°What do you think about Kyle?¡± The madam asked an unusual question. There was uneasiness in her expression. ¡°He is very cute, madam! He will certainly grow up to be a handsome man!¡± Sofie enthusiastically answered, despite heavy feelings in her heart. ¡°Recently he has become more energetic! He¡¯ll grow well, madam should not worry.¡± ¡°Perhaps because you showed him ¡®that¡¯?¡± Jean giggled. Sofie¡¯s face turned red. How did madam know? She dropped her head, mumbled with guilt in her voice. ¡°I am sorry, madam. Should I not have done so?¡± ¡°It¡¯s okay. I think it¡¯s wonderful that Kyle showed interest in magic. And I have told you, Sofie, you don¡¯t have to mind the servant¡¯s etiquette too much in this house. I¡¯m fine with you showing Kyle magic, just be careful with it.¡± Jean waved her hand dismissively. Kyle had been a strange child from birth. He had never cried, and always had a dull look in his eyes. Jean had constant uncertain thoughts in her mind about her son¡¯s mental health. Sofie shared the same concerns. She had been secretly trying to make the young master cry, to no avail. She had never tended an infant before, and she found that babies were¡­ surprisingly durable. His intelligent look when she showed the magic flame made Sofie feel that the young master was not mentally incapable. The child even spoke his first word a few days ago. Although his baby speech was hard to make out, but madam Jean shed happy tears when she heard the news. He was just a bit weird. He still had a lot of time to grow and change, and Sofie vowed to make sure that he would become a man in the right direction. Chapter 4: Emotions I was now four months old. My progress in learning the local language was slow, despite me having the mental capability of a grown adult. Problem with reincarnation was, retaining one¡¯s memories meant one also had past languages, which affected the accent. Having five of them certainly did not help. The maid and the mother could barely understand my speech. I struggled to get simple words across, let alone sentences. My muscles were developed enough for me to lift my head. Soon as I was able to do that, I noticed that I had male genitalia. I did not have much of a reaction to that. I died when I was 89 years old. When you get to that age, your sexuality resets to zero. Starting over as a male or a female did not matter to me. Still, I noted the unnecessary organ as the candidate for mutilation test. I wondered how many times I had to cut it off for it to stop growing back, and what would I do with the tiny baby penises. Stuff them in the mouth of the maid, I guess. Until she chokes on them and dies. That would be the ideal outcome. *** 6 months from birth, I was able to crawl. Finally. I was getting sick of the monotonous crib and the suffocating nursery cum torturing room. The maid had softened her baby murdering tendency a bit, but the thirst for vendetta was still burning strongly in the depth of my computer-programmed consciousness. The house I was living in was huge. My family seemed well-off. I hadn¡¯t figured out where the dude who was supposed to be my father was. There were three people living in this mansion, including me. There would soon be only two once I could throw fireballs. The mother was getting more and more sickly. She was on bed more often than not. I stayed as far away from her room as I could. Although I could not die, contrary to my wish, I could still feel pain. I didn¡¯t know if I could catch diseases or not. I would prefer not to test that. But sometimes the maid would carry me to the mother¡¯s room, like today. I struggled in vain.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. People in this place probably had no concept of infectious diseases. *** Positioned in front of Sofie¡¯s chest was the little child, who was wildly waving his tiny hands and feet around. She brought the miniature human to the madam¡¯s room without much difficulty. Kyle immediately tried to crawl away once he touched the ground. Sofie picked him up again and placed him firmly on her laps. After a while of unsuccessful thrashing, the baby calmed down. Madam Jean was sitting on the bed, with labored breathing. Her condition was getting worse and worse every day. No amount of medicine and curing had any effect. The doctor in town shook his head, while the priests used all their mana trying to heal her. Her sickness was persistent like a worm eating away at her life. Jean could sense that she was nearing the end. She reached out to touch the baby¡¯s cheek. As her hand approached, the baby turned its head away. Jean felt her heart breaking. She didn¡¯t know why her son avoided her. What had she done to make the baby despise his mother? She conceived Kyle unnaturally. At first, she was confused as to why she had gotten pregnant without being intimate with anyone after the death of her husband, three years ago. But when she saw the cute little baby on her hands, she had forgotten all the questions in her head. Unfortunately, sickness struck Jean at the same time. She could not care for the child even if she wished to. Her body was heavy. Walking only a few steps would cause her to collapse. Was the lack of caring the reason her son was rejecting her? Jean opened her dried lips. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, my child.¡± ¡°I will not be staying alongside you on your road ahead. I will leave this place soon.¡± Sofie panicked with a small voice. ¡°M-my lord, what are you¡­¡±, but Jean gestured for the maid to be silent. ¡°I hope that however long it takes, you could find it in your heart to forgive me.¡± She gave a pained smile after her words. *** The tears rolling down the cheeks of the mother bored a hole through my chest. I understood what was going through her mind. But I did not understand what was going through my mind. I empathized with her. I could see why she was upset. I used to be a mother, after all. I also knew the feeling of not being able to take care of your child all too well. What I did not understand was the emotions inside me. I felt sad for her. I felt pity. Why did I have emotions? Should a program have emotions? Do emotions of an AI matter? Weren¡¯t my emotions only codes in the machine? Why did they feel so real and reasonable? I shut the dam of the existential queries back in my head and reached out to touch her fingers. Her face lighted up and a smile bloomed on her tired expression. Warmness spread within me. It was not the bond of mother and son that I felt, but rather gratefulness. This house I was living in was hers, the meal I ate was provided by her. She never did breastfeed me, that was another point to be thankful for. Nevertheless, the baby feed that she, and later the maid made was, surprisingly, to my liking. I did not know the work she did to afford all this, but she was the lord of this house, and the woman that birthed me. I wanted to do something for her. In the sense of repayment, of course. Chapter 5: Dimensions & Dungeons Later that day, I was back in the nursery room, lying in the crib, watching the static ceiling, and contemplating about things. I had yet to come to term with my situation. My motivation so far was petty things like taking revenge on the maid, or trying to die. I wonder if my 16-year-old mentality was the cause of this new me. I did not act like this when I was 16 years old. I was a wimpy girl who isolated herself in the corner that that time, wishing the bullies had lost interest in trashing my table and hiding away my glasses every day. But being emo and hated the world? I had really become a teenager, hadn¡¯t I? I had been avoiding the serious questions like a procrastinating student. Is there any purpose in all this? The torturing of the ignorance maid and the tears of the mother had made me realize the fact that I was alive in this world. I might be invincible, but I was not immune from pain, physically or emotionally. The people in this world were also capable of pain and joy. This world might be meaningless to me, but it was real for everyone else involved. If I wish not to feel pain, I should not inflict that on others. So that would be the motto of my new life, then. Don¡¯t cause pain, don¡¯t let pain come to yourself. I wouldn¡¯t dream about something as noble, impossible and stupid as happiness. Soon as I had figured out how to deal with my second life, a switch went off somewhere in my head. It was like I suddenly grew a new hand in my cranium. My vision was filled with vivid colors, deforming the lines of decoration on the wall into twisting noodles. When the dizziness had subsided, I exhaled heavy breaths. The world in front of my eyes had changed. I could feel objects overlapping with reality, and a mysterious flow of energy in the air. Other dimensions? I suppressed the excitement growing in my heart, failing miserably. My tiny hands curled into fists. So you have to acknowledge your existence in this world to perceive other worlds? What is this sh*tty shoujo anime plot? I smirked to myself. All of my promises to live well and proper were thrown into the back of my mind. FIREBALL HERE I COME! Time for revenge, devil maid! A tiny voice beckoned at me. ¡°But Elise, you have promised not to cause pain to other people¡­¡± FUTILE! GO AWAY, MY VOICE OF REASON! Have thy forgotten how many times that b*tch broke my neck and cracked my spine?Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. I¡¯m going to repay her every ounce of pain she had given me! Nothing would make me happier than replacing her face with a fiery crater! *** I woke up the next day with a throbbing headache. The repeated failures of last night¡¯s experiment added another heavy weight of grogginess to my eyelids. I battled with my body¡¯s instinct to be inanimate throughout the day, as babies usually are. I needed food, and a call to the maid was an essential sacrifice to my ego. However, when light finally peered into my retinas, the face I expected to be looking at me with a disgusting affectionate smile was not there. Instead, there was a dude. He looked in his twenties, blue eyes, light orange hair, face riddled with freckles. A full-blown ginger. Don¡¯t tell me that¡¯s my dad. I shut my eyes, hoping to wake up from this nightmare somehow. This is a dream inside a dream, isn¡¯t it? I didn¡¯t have anything against gingers. I just hoped I wasn¡¯t one of them. Okay, maybe I was not the most open-minded person, but you did not have a ginger ex-husband who took your child away from you. The mother was a middle-aged woman. The age difference was at least two decades. This place was progressive in the most unnecessary aspects, it seemed. I felt a finger poking at my cheek. Ed Sheeran wasn¡¯t giving up, but I didn¡¯t intend to lose, either. I turned myself upside down in the crib, with my face in the pillow. Babies should not lie in this posture, but it was effective at protecting your cheeks against personal space invaders. After a while, I could hear footsteps heading outside the room, and I was left with various irrelevant thoughts. I couldn¡¯t breathe lying like this. It felt nice¡­ After about ten minutes of unsuccessful self-suffocation, I gave up. That was disappointing. I didn¡¯t even lose consciousness. Another day was ahead of me, whether I wanted there to be or not. I turned my head to the side and called out. ¡°Sofie.¡± My voice couldn¡¯t escape the room. I missed the maid. I probably was going crazy. *** ¡°My brother hates me for some reason.¡± Chris smiled wryly to the woman on top of the bed. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, your brother seems to hate everyone, but he¡¯ll open up to you soon.¡± Jean chuckled. ¡°You have just come back, you should clean up and get some rest, Chris.¡± ¡°Ah, Sofie will be back from the market soon, you should talk to her before that,¡± Her voice softened to a whisper, ¡°she has been worrying about you.¡± Seeing her son¡¯s face turning a bit red, Jean grinned with satisfaction. Her son might be a skilful warrior, but he was a complete blockhead in romantic endeavour. Teasing him was as fun as always, she thought. ¡°I-I¡¯m alright, mom, I have slept plenty on the carriage. Would you like me to do something for you? Would you want some tea?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t know how to make tea, Chris. I love you, but your tea is horrible.¡± Jean laughed. ¡°It¡¯s okay, just sit here and tell me about your trip. Let Sofie take care of the chores.¡± ¡°You know the story, mom. We went to exterminate another dungeon before the new one turns up.¡± Chris raised an eyebrow. ¡°The new dungeon opened up in Rivenpoint. You read the news, didn¡¯t you?¡± ¡°No, I haven¡¯t read the paper recently. But a new dungeon opening up in a city? Was there any¡­¡± Jean paused a bit, hesitating to continue. Dungeons were the mysteries of the world. Every five years, as precise as clockwork, a new one would appear somewhere, bringing what some called blessings, other referred to as tragedies. No one knows where the earth would collapse next, revealing dark tunnels filled with monsters and treasures. The thing everybody knew was, if an unlucky soul happened to stand where an entrance to the new dungeon was formed, they would be dragged to the deepest layers, home to the most powerful savage magical creatures. There were many words to describe such terrible event, ¡°The swallowing¡±, ¡°Devorretur¡±, ¡°The lottery of death sentences¡± etc., and Jean struggled to choose the appropriate one, if there was any. ¡°Two houses, two families, the children of one were spared as they were playing in the front yard. You should not be too sentimental about this, mom. Such is the way of life. Only the most unfortunate of the unfortunates would be swallowed.¡± ¡°I know. Stop teaching your mom how to feel!¡± Jean lightly punched her son¡¯s shoulder, grinning. ¡°With the leader of ¡®The Dungeon Chaser Company¡¯ here, what dungeon would ever dare to appear in Cangarde?¡±