Runes everywhere.

The more he followed the wall, the denser were the Runes it was covered in.

Helial was gazing about himself with a distressed frown on his face. Apparently, before deepening his Runes knowledge, he was supposed to meet the person who still owned the Skill. Would this person be friendly, or turn out hostile? Would they fight?

Helial began to sweat as he analyzed the range of possibilities that might occur. A D+ quest. He was beginning to think that the outcome could not be as reassuring as the Devil had told him. Then, he gave a sigh and pulled himself together. He quieted down the Mana seething inside his Meridians and turned towards the others, who were staring at him in bafflement.

“We’ve stumbled on some Runes, guys. And I’ve received a Quest. In a 12 hours’ time, we need to find whoever it is that wrote them on this wall. The person this knowledge belongs to. I won’t like; it sounds like a hard quest. The difficulty level is D+. We all know what this means.”

Frankenstein asked: “So you’ve accepted it?”

Helial nodded slowly. “Backing off isn’t the best way to get stronger, is it? We never know when the moment comes for us to rely on ourselves only. We always need to be prepared for that, so we might as well begin now.”

Lulu looked puzzled. A second later though, her mind ran back to the day when Helial had whispered her the sweetest words after saving her life. She said nothing. Helial was the one who had taught her that despite her weakness, there was no feat she couldn’t accomplish. He certainly knew what was best for them.

Lumia stayed silent. She just walked close to Helial to snatch a bit of tenderness under the awkward gazes of the rest of the group.

Snowflake… well, he just reacted as you would expect of Snowflake. “Grade D+? PFFF. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! This Emperor here could easily complete a B+ quest, if he wanted to! PFFF! What does D+ even mean?! Tsk! Worst-case scenario, we’ll have to kill off another bunch of stinky dongs. Let’s set off!”

As he said this, Snowflake bounced forward and, at otherworldly speed, dashed away in search of more Rabid Hounds from the Netherworld to kill. He jumped for joy when he met a dozen dogs along the way, and killed three or four of them at a time as the others followed him at due distance, trying to avoid being covered in blood spatter.

As they walked on, Helial would remove the dusk from the surrounding walls. He began to have an insight into this. The more he looked at the Runes, the sharper he saw through them. Those Runes had been written in an ever more definite way indeed. As they ventured down the third level of the Dungeon, the Runic pattern grew neater and more complete. Some of them, those that had been drawn crisper, even glistened in a feeble glow. Whoever it was that had used that wall for practicing, they must have drawn Runes over every single tunnel.

Suddenly, Helial had an idea.

Skill Activated:

Flame of the Qilin

He drew the flame near the dusk, that evaporated away in a matter of instants.

Fhhh

What he unveiled left him rooted on the spot. It wasn’t merely the wall that had been written on, as he thought before; the entire tunnel, from floor to ceiling, was completely covered in Runes!

How much time, how much Mana must all that practicing have cost? How long had that creature been drawing and studying Runes? Could that even be classified as a common Dungeon?

An odd sensation was coming over Helial, a sensation he could not shake off. Somehow, he just felt the urge to turn back and dart away.

Obviously though, he would never. The thirst for power eroding him away since he was a child, or rather, the thirst for freedom that drove him, would never let him run away from a challenge.

In order to be free, he must become stronger and stronger. Power and freedom were thickly intertwined in Helial’s mind. Only a fool would renounce to the power overload that such a challenge would bring about. That was a luxury Helial had not.

Snowflake was slaughtering monsters wildly, when suddenly he stopped. He had sensed danger. All of a sudden, his white fur stood on end as he arched his back incredibly. His tail lowered, his paws plunged into the soil slightly, scraping the ground as he pulled out his claws.

“Where the fuck are we going?” the huge white cat grumbled. There was something dodgy about his.

He cast a glance behind his back and saw that Helial was just as worried as he was.

“If the little whiz feels that something’s fishy too, danger must be close,” Snowflake said to himself.

“You all right?” asked Lumia as he gave Helial a puzzled look.

Helial calmly curled up the corners of his mouth in a reassuring smile: “It’s alright.”

Despite that odd feeling, Snowflake kept stepping forward. And so did the others behind him. After a dozen more meters though, the tangible feeling of danger could not be ignored anymore. They had indeed stopped stumbling across monsters. Before them was nothing. The ground itself looked darker.

Helial was seized by a doubt that wouldn’t let words get past his throat. He leaned down and touched the sandy ground.

Then he brought the moist sand to his nose.

Sniff Sniff

“Clotted blood,” he whispered.

He slowly let go of the sand. As it gently fell back to the ground, his gaze met that of Lumia, so serious and mature… For an instant, it seemed to him to catch a glimpse of an innocent smile flashing on his sister’s face. A smile that was unaware of the dangers hounding the world. A smile that placed a total trust in the only center of her world, her big brother.

The ground they were stepping on was made of someone else’s previous attempts to become stronger. And now, they might become themselves someone else’s soil to step on.

Once again, Helial brushed his fingers against the ground.

“Even the weakest of all can get to pierce the bluest sky, but a touch of the heavens will always come at a price,” Helial whispered.

***

A few years before

“Boy! You finally made it. You took forever! One more minute spent waiting in this rat-hole, and I’d throw up!” said Vidio as he pointed at the Mana Congregation. The servants glanced back at that ungrateful Master with resentful eyes. He never really bothered getting a hold of the contempt he had towards the poor conditions he lived in, as well as towards the place that had hosted him after the exile.

Helial nodded, helpless. They walked past the main doorway of the Congregation and set out for the city center, probably heading to a tavern full of nice-looking waitresses.

“This is a real rat-hole,” Vidio heaved a sigh. “This town smells like shit. I say, why can’t these barbarians just copy the Capital’s sewer system?”

Vidio started off his usual tirade about the town.

“Master?” Helial called his name, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah?” said Vidio. His voice vibrated with the hope that Helial’s question would let him unfold one of his awesome stories.

“Why would you still live here then?” Helial asked in puzzlement. A doubtful expression hung on his face.

“Ahem,” the Master griped, “come on. You know how things work. I can’t leave this shithole, I just can’t,” Vidio said. His faint smile could cause a pang in the heart of any onlooker.

“Why so?” Helial insisted.

“Why so? Because… Uhm. Because I’m too weak. Yeah. Well, wait. What the fuck am I saying. Like, not really weak,” Vidio cursed.

“The fuck are you blabbering, Master? If you’re not weak, then why wouldn’t you run away and take me with you?” Helial asked again.

“See, boy, things aren’t so simple, they aren’t at all. Even the weakest of all can get to pierce the bluest sky, but this doesn’t mean they would always choose to,” Vidio sighed.

“Why not?” Helial’s expression grew more and more doubtful with each Vidio’s word.

Why would someone not choose to claim what they had a right to? To claim what does belong to them, what they have fought for? Wouldn’t someone who has worked hard willingly grab their hard-earned salary and just shove it down their pocket? Was it even possible to do otherwise?

Helial couldn’t follow that line of thinking. He racked his brains to come up with a reasonable answer. But it wouldn’t appear to come to him.

Power, glory, wealth… who would renounce to all of this, when it all lay within their grasp?

“Sometimes people just choose not to reach for the sky, boy. And you know why?” Vidio paused briefly, trying to force sobs back into this throat so as to be able to speak. He gazed up at the sky and the clouds, that had presently taken the shape of a woman whose tender eyes were full of concern for him. He fished out a golden coin from his pocket. Then, he hinted at the entry door of a tavern. “Because… because… everything comes t a price, boy. You can have the world. But even then, you are one step away from losing much more than you have ever had.”

***

Helial fixed his gaze on Lumia as he whispered: “Everything comes at a price. You can achieve whatever you want, but you would still be one step away from losing much more than you have ever had.” Helial saw the strangest melancholy flash across Lumia’s eyes. It was an inexplicable vacant stare, almost suggesting that Lumia really got what he said. An iron grip clutched his heart in its steely claws.

How much is left for me to pay? How long will the people I care for have to suffer?

The question echoed out through his head unanswered.