Chapter Text
I, Greg Veder, was a loser.
I was awkward, clumsy and immature. I had no social skills, effortlessly annoying others as easily as I breathed. I tried, I really did make a sincere effort to interact with others, to follow all the invisible rules that everyone else seemed to know.
And that especially showed with my interactions with Taylor Hebert, especially my most recent one.
"Yes Greg, it is laundry day. Of course, I had to finish it last night to make sure things matched. You'll notice there's no glue or juice on this hoodie... Something to think about next time you decide to sit back and do nothing."
Taylor Hebert had come to school... in Teeth colors. I'd tried to play it off as a joke with some of their members nearby, only for her words to hit me like a metaphorical gut punch. Throughout the rest of that dreadful day, I had tried to recover from my self-esteem being irrevocably shattered to pieces.
Barely retaining enough of my senses to get through the rest of the day, I tried to recover from the feeling of being so useless.
I'd wanted to help Taylor? Bullshit, the Locker Incident had happened!
I would've intervened if he had the chance? I was a total computer whiz, and could've plastered video proof of the Trio's abuse online within minutes!
"Something to think about next time you decide to sit back and do nothing."
It was just as Taylor said. I wasn't just a loser.
I was a coward.
And perhaps it was karma that this had happened after trying to go home and cry myself to sleep.
"What's it gonna be, bowlcut?!" The E88 thug hollered as he kept a tight grip around my neck from behind, trying not to shiver more than I already was from the frost creeping out from his grip. "You gonna pussy out like some little race traitor bitch?!"
And as bad as it was for me, it was definitely worse for the black girl being held between two other E88 thugs, her mouth gagged while her eyes stared in naked terror. The knife that had been shoved into my hand definitely added to that, me avoiding her eyes to focus on the purple streak in her hair as a distraction to calm myself down.
It wasn't working.
"Look, are you sure we can't just go straight to Kaiser?" One of the guys holding the girl spoke up. "We already exchanged a small fortune for those vials and got instant superpowers without any of that trigger baggage. Do we really need the extra bit?"
"Yeah. This pussy can't even stab a little nigga bitch." The other thug scoffed. "I say we just off them both and get going before nightfall."
"Are you shitting me?! We've only got one chance to really impress Kaiser and get good spots at the high leagues!" I tried not to let my grunt be too loud when the cape with obvious ice powers jostled his grip a little. "The Empire ain't like those ABB losers, who've only got some Baku-something bitch now after Butcher was done with them. If we wanna stand out, we've gotta go for maximum effor-!"
Before I could make myself hesitate, I stabbed the blade in my hand up into the guy's throat.
"Something to think about next time you decide to sit back and do nothing."
For two painstakingly long seconds, the girl and the other E88 members stared as my captor released my neck and futilely reached for the knife in his throat. This granted me enough time to temporarily kick aside my utter terror and disbelief at deliberately killing somebody before smashing my fist into the nose of the one who had the tighter grip on the girl.
Unfortunately, I'd forgotten one crucial fact: I was weak as you'd expect an average computer geek to be.
"You... fucking race traitor!" The thug snarled through his bleeding nose before he swung his palm towards me, causing something loud and bright to explode in my face and knock me into the wall at the other side of the alleyway we were in.
"GAAAAAAH!" I cried as I clutched my burned face, which of course made the pain even worse.
"That fuck!" Somebody screamed. "Gary's bleeding out!"
"Call Othala or something!" Another voice shouted back before I felt myself hauled up. "I'll break this fucker!"
I choked when a fist slammed into my own nose, definitely breaking it as fresh pain exploded anew. Still, I weakly clawed at my assailant, hoping beyond hope that their original victim had run away by now. I wasn't going to let another innocent person suffer again. Not on my watch.
"Something to think about next time you decide to sit back and do nothing."
Never again.
[Trajectory]
[Alignment]
[Agree- ARISE]
"No. That one's... an important experiment."
I suddenly lost my footing a second later when there was a sudden change in our surroundings. Crawling away from the shocked thug after he dropped me, I also looked around to regard our new location. Rather than the dinky alleyway, all five of us, including the very shocked black girl, were now in a massive and circular chamber with mysterious blue flames lighting the area through torches circling the upper walls, along with two pillars by what looked like the entrance/exit with larger blue flames searing at the top within braziers.
Additionally, there were many gigantic statues standing against the wall, most of them resembling knights. Sure they had moss covering plenty of their bodies, but that just added authenticity to their looks. Especially with the giant stone throne holding the biggest statue of them all. It faintly resembled a king or priest, as its design included a crown and robes, and its presence made me shiver just by looking at it, especially with how I could almost imagine it looking at me.
Was this some kind of dungeon boss room?
"Oi!" The thug that had been strangling him suddenly shouted, looking around wildly for clues. "Where the fuck are we at?!"
"Forget that! I haven't been able to teleport ever since we got in here! We gotta leave, NOW!" The other E88 thug shot back with his bleeding out friend hoisted onto his back. "Look, there're the doors right there! Fuck these two and let's just go!"
Completely ignoring me as well as the girl who was apparently brought along too, the thugs rushed towards the door with one of them waving his hand to cause an explosion that briefly deafened me.
However, no visible damage was left on the doors after the smoke managed to clear, not even scorch marks.
"The doors are cape-proof...?" The girl muttered in confused terror, both her and I flinching when we saw something else begin to move. One of the giant statues right at the doors swung it's mace-like lance faster than I could see, and suddenly there was so much blood- "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
"C-Come here!" I managed to scream as the statue slowly returned to its prior position, completely unbothered by the blood splattered allover it now. "Away from the statues!"
The girl staggered to her feet and rushed towards me, none of the other statues thankfully reacting to her until she came to an unsteady stop beside me. "Wh-What do we do?"
I didn't know what to do! All I got was the statues were bad news- Wait!
My stare turned back to regard the biggest statue of them all and gut twisted at the fact that it was looking back at me with it's eyes starting to glow-
"Get down!" Instinct had me force both the girl and myself down to our stomach, a rush of something hot and bright engulfing the space our upper halves had been a second ago. We both stayed as still as we could manage, with me slowly raising my head just to see the last wisp of smoke escaping from the statue's eyes before their glow faded. Behind us, the eye laser attack had gouged a molten trench across a good chunk of the ground.
"I-If y-you d-didn't see th-that coming..." The girl began to shudder heavily, tears dripping down her cheeks as she began to cry quietly. I didn't blame her in the slightest. This had to be a dream, some sort of nightmare that I was stuck in.
After all, what else could one call the casual slaughter of three capes, even if one of them had already been injured by me. And it didn't help that any potential rescue was unlikely to show up in any way.
Just look at Winslow.
I'd never wanted to cower in my entire life as much as I did now.
"Something to think about next time you decide to sit back and do nothing."
But forget dying, would I be able to face Taylor again, if I did nothing again?
Think, Greg, think! Every scenario had its 'rules'! The statues had attacked the E88 thugs for attempting to leave or attacking the doors, but not me and the girl. The big statue had shot freakin' eye lasers at us, but hadn't attempted to correct its aim or shoot again to hit us... this time...
My stare shot towards the statue again, confirming that it wasn't making any indication to attack us again. But when I moved to get up, the statue's eyes lighting back up had me dropping back down immediately and gasping when they faded away. "It won't fire... if I stay 'down...? So there were 'rules' to follow..."
"R-Rules?" The girl whispered next to me. "L-Like that over there?"
Following her pointed finger (after checking if the statue would laser her for that), I saw what she meant when my gaze landed on the only standing statue had neither a weapon or a musical instrument. It instead had angelic wings and a large hood obscuring whatever face it could have along with a large stone tablet with writing on it.
Taking a wary crawl towards it, both of us inched closer and closer until we could both read the writing clearly. "C-Carthenon Temple's Commandments. First, worship the Lord. Second, praise the Lord. Third, prove your piety."
Wait, these... Was this all created by some religion-themed cape? "Those who do not follow these commandments..."
"...will never return alive." The girl weakly finished what I couldn't. "Wh-What does that all mean?"
"They're win conditions." I realized. "I don't know how exactly, but we've been somehow obeying them. Those guys tried to leave without clearing them and..."
And they'd died. However, this in turn meant that there was a chance for me and the girl to escape with our lives... as long as we followed the commandments. "Trying to leave gets a statue to swing at you... And getting up has the big statue lasering you..."
No... not getting up. Failing to worship the 'Lord'. A.k.a. the sole statue with both a throne and the closest thing to a crown. "That's the 'Lord'... Follow me, um..."
"...Aisha." The girl provided.
"Greg." I replied before leading the crawl back towards the center of the room, already having an idea of what to do once we were both before the Lord directly. How exactly would one 'worship' a 'Lord'?
Well, considering that it's laser attack could be considered a 'punishment' for holding one's head too high...
"First, worship the 'Lord'..." I took a deep breath and did the opposite of holding my head high.
I fully bowed down, to the point of pressing my sweaty forehead against the stone floor. A second later, I could hear Aisha uncertainly copying me. A few seconds of absolute discomfort passed before the sound of grinding stone reached my ears. Risking a glance at the statue, I choked at the expression on its face, having switched from complete indifference to a wide grin of sadistic cruelty.
"That sick fuck's enjoying this..." Aisha muttered.
"Yeah... but it's not attacking." I replied as I remembered the next win condition. "Second, praise the Lord... Are we supposed to sing hymns to it or something?"
A much louder rumble resounded through the chamber as the Lord got up from its throne, the ground trembling as it took a quaking step towards us after standing up to it's colossal height.
Along with it's glowing eyes, it's sheer size reminded me of-
-BIG-
-molten rock skin-
-glowing singular eye-
-NO, STOP REMEMBERING THAT!
"G-Greg, it's moving towards us!" Aisha grabbed my arm with justified panic, snapping me out of it. "What do we do?!"
I looked around desperately for a clue, but all around us were just the other statues. Considering what happened to the E88 thugs, neither of us had any extra lives to spare at the risk of moving towards them for cover, especially with their weapons and instruments...
Instruments...?
What would a attacking statue do with an instrument instead of a weapon? Heading towards them was a huge risk... but waiting for the Lord to reach them was certain death.
"The statues with instruments!" I gasped as I ran towards the closest one, this one being an unarmored woman in a robe while carrying a large violin. It thankfully didn't do anything to us after we reached it, but also didn't seem to beckon to stop the Lord's rumbling approach.
"Wh-Why isn't it doing anything?!" Aisha screamed.
"...because there's two of us." I realized before pulling my arm free from her grasp and taking some steps back. Almost immediately, the statue's eyes glowed as a soft melody emanated from the stone musical instrument. "It's one statue per person! I'll go for another one!"
Unfortunately, there were two knight statues between me and the next 'praising' statue, meaning that he'd have to run out of their range and risk getting into the Lord's. An uncomfortably close rumble reminded me of my lowering time.
"GODDAAAAAMNIIIIIIT!" I yelled as I took off as fast as I could make it, throwing myself aside to dodge the stomp that would've flattened me before sprinting towards the statue of an unarmored man with a drum before him.
Unfortunately, this was when my luck decided that it had reached it's limit, my path straying too close to the nearby statue of a knight with a halberd that moved to bisect me-
"GREG! FROM YOUR LEFT!"
-only for Aisha's scream to have me throw myself towards my right side and turn the lethal slice into a grazing cut that still stripped a good chunk of flesh from the left side of my torso.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" I screamed as I collapsed in agony before the 'praising' statue, unable to stop the tears of pain and relief in my eyes as the statue began 'drumming', which in turn pacified the Lord and had the massive statue return to its throne.
"Greg!" Aisha ran all the way towards him, only pausing to check when none of the knights moved despite her entering into their range. When she finally reached me, she choked at how much of my blood had already stained my blue shirt. "Oh, god... That's... That's too much blood..."
"It's fine... I'm not having any trouble breathing or spitting out blood, so it missed my lungs..." I tried to assure her, which clearly didn't work given how pathetic I must have looked to her. "C'mon, we've still... got one last win condition to pass..."
"R-Right..." Aisha gulped when the Lord sat down and waved its hand towards the center of the room, causing the entire chamber to shake when the circular emblem on the ground at that spot rose up to mimic a pedestal. "Wh-What now?"
"...third, prove your piety." I grimly responded, not missing how much that thing could pass for an altar. "Now that I think about, these are all the main stuff to do during church services: worship God, sing praises to Him... and offer up offerings. Or in the Old Testament or basically any pagan god mythology, sacrifices."
"...one of us has to die?" Aisha whispered.
"...I'll do it." I whispered, causing her to freeze. "I'm too injured to run away or do much else anyways. Plus, I've not really got many people that'd miss me."
"Something to think about next time you decide to sit back and do nothing."
"...besides, I wanna feel like I saved somebody today." I reached up to grasp her arm. "Now, help me to the damn altar."
"B-But what about the last commandment?" Aisha asked desperately as we slowly approached the altar. "We've obeyed everything, haven't we? Why would they put something like this then?!"
"Because the person who thought this up was a sadist." I determined as all the statue heads slowly moved to regard our approach to the statue. "I got too hopeful. The things I thought were win conditions had no clear reward, just punishments for losing."
Maybe this was my penance for being such a cowardly hypocrite.
Finally reaching the altar, several regular fireballs flared to life around the altar one after the other in a counterclockwise fashion until we were surrounded. Then another ring of fireballs surrounded us again, this time as blue as the ones illuminating the chamber and more numerous. But still, the flames did nothing to us.
Yet.
The doors suddenly rumbled open, spreading out invitingly into the void.
"They opened..." Aisha gasped, only to flinch when all the knights began moving towards us. Matching their movements, the ring of blue torches began snuffing out, as if counting down...
"Aisha, run." I decided, cutting her off before she could complain. "I can't guarantee that they'll ignore you, but we both know exactly what those statues will do to if somebody gets too close to them. Run, before they get too close!"
Aisha teared up before grabbing me into a brief but tight hug and then running towards the open doors with tears running down her cheeks. To my great relief, the statues completely ignored her as she made it all the way to the door and crossed it's threshold, vanishing the moment her body crossed its border.
"Ah, it probably teleported her back to where it took us from..." I determined as the doors closed back, the blue flames continuing to count down with every rumbling step from the stone knights. At least, it was me instead of another innocent girl needlessly suffering. "...I wish I'd at least apologized to Taylor."
I stared up at the first stone knight to reach me, wondering if the cape moving it could hear me through it. I wished I could give some sort of badass last words. A one-liner that maybe the cape would remember as at least something use later or as something to muse over. Hell, maybe even a bloody smile to haunt them with.
But I didn't have it in me. The best I had was a grimace, and I'd even closed my eyes in a futile way to ignore my incoming death.
That didn't make the giant stone sword that slammed down onto my shoulder any less painful, a scream ripping free out of my mouth and lungs as the weapon brutally cleaved upwards in a manner that sent both my right arm and body flying away in two different directions, feeling my ribs creak when I slammed back down onto the altar while my blood splattered down around its runic engravings.
This time, there was no denying the wad of blood I choked up as I began to cry again. "No... I don't wanna die..."
Another statue raised its spear before swinging it down, the large weapon obliterating my entire torso and pinning me to the altar while more blood gushed out of me.
"I... I..." I guess I couldn't even speak properly at this point, my lungs completely lost as even my breathing failed.
My last ever sight would be a giant stone knight raising its massive shield right above my head. If... If I had even the slightest chance to survive here...
The last blue flame extinguished.
And time itself froze.
The shield that had been in the middle of slamming down to crush my head stopped mere inches above me, all sound cutting off from my surroundings.
.
-:|Alert!|:-
You have completed all the necessary requirements of the secret quest 'Courage of the Weak'.
.
Huh? Was that... an interface screen or something? Why was there a blue and transparent computer-like screen hovering before his eyes?
.
-:|Alert!|:-
You have acquired the qualifications to become a Player. Will you accept?
.
Player? Like a game? What kind of cruel joke was this?
.
-:|Alert!|:-
You do not have much time remaining. If you refuse, your heart will stop at approximately 0.02 seconds later. Will you accept?
[YES/NO]
.
Despite my current state, I still stiffened in trepidation. So there was a hidden win condition for finishing all of the commandments? But this meant that the cape in charge of all this had been clearly testing us all for... whatever this implied. If I didn't accept, I would die. If I did accept... I would be used for something.
Something I had no clue off... but still clearly required me being alive. And I wasn't very picky at the moment.
.
-:|Alert!|:-
Welcome, Player.
.
"...finally. A successful Player."
After confirming with Igris that the girl had been properly umbraported to her home, Jin-Woo let out a weary sigh at the sight of the boy before him. After twelve carefully selected failures, this damned trial had finally spawned a successful Player. It personally disgusted him to use this particular method, but it still did the job of ensuring that he didn't grant the power of a Shadow Monarch to the wrong kind of person.
The mantle that he (and now his son) carried was a heavy one, millions of soldiers following his every step. It was because of this that he had personally taken the fight to the Itarim, and had happened to free another Earth-like world from one of them during his campaign. However, he'd been surprised to encounter how this world seemed to be suffering an invasion of its own. Knowing that he couldn't just put a pause on the Itarim, Jin-Woo had decided to go with the Ashborn Option.
A.k.a. Cultivate some unfortunate but responsible schmuck into another Sovereign of the Dead. However, considering that the person wouldn't have the advantage of being descended from him like Su-Ho, that meant that they would have to become a Monarch the same way Jin-Woo had.
Worship the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
Prove your piety.
"I'm really sorry about this." Jin-Woo sighed as he repaired Greg Veder's body and downloaded a variant of the System into him as well as a sliver of the Shadow Power. "But I never know when my son might need a Monarch ally of his own."
If this went well, perhaps he'd repeat this for other worlds as well.
Stepping back, Jin-Woo admired his handiwork and umbraported them both to the nearest hospital, gently dropping him amidst the stunned civilians. "Good luck, kid."
With that said, the Shadow Monarch stepped back into the void.