Since he wanted to know about me, I went ahead and told him my story. After all, it was only fair after he shared his own. I didn’t feel much pressure talking about myself, it wasn’t like I was revealing everything. I simply told him what my death was like, my experience in that place, my encounter with Mighty K.R.U.L, and what I had been through since.
I mentioned myself dedicating my time to harvesting G.P and fending off the constant invasions against me. I also mentioned my encounters with the Authority wielders, Kristian and Tusko Vagar, though I kept the details of my own Authority vague, only hinting at its existence.
In other words, I only shared information that I knew wouldn’t put me at risk, so there was no reason to stress over it. Besides, even if I did reveal something harmless, I had no intention of giving him the chance to use it against me.
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Echo-13: ...It was then that I believe you and your comrades entered my domain.
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I explained as we finally got to the part where our stories, his and mine, converged.
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Echo-13: I will skip the next part, for I think you already know what happened next.
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At the mention of his comrades, I felt the man’s anger rise to a new level, only to ultimately cool down to a reasonable level. I guess he finally got used to this or, to be exact, adjusted himself.
“Yes. You don’t have to.”
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Echo-13: Great, I was hoping for exactly that.
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The man stood, sinking the whole room into a strange silence. Wanting to break it, I was about to venture the question that he earlier refused to answer without me answering his question first, which I did, but just as I was about to, he said, “At first, I thought that the time you either spent in that place or as a Dungeon was what thinned your humanity. Now I realize you just never had much in the first place.”
Whoa, really? What a hurtful comment?
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Echo-13: Oh, you think so? That might be true, but I doubt you’d be all that different from me, had we shared the same circumstances.
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In several respects, our circumstances were similar. We had both been here for a very long time, and we had both traveled through the ages, though by different means: he through repeated reincarnation, and we by simply being what we were.
When exactly did I notice? I confirmed it when Dungeon Master 06 discovered his domain’s unique property, how rapidly the creatures within it were multiplying, or more precisely, procreating. But even before that, I had my doubts, especially in my early days as a Dungeon Master.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
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Echo-13: You and I must have arrived in this world at roughly the same time. I can’t really tell time down here so, tell me, how old are we?
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He rudely looked at Dungeon Master 07’s guardian and said, “I don’t know. I’ve only heard about you later, several lifetimes before I became Kevin Karstark, but I heard that this Dungeon was one of the first Dungeons to spawn in Fiendfell, so at least a couple of thousands of years.”
A couple of thousands of years, huh? Even though I more or less guessed it was roughly more than a thousand years, I was still nonetheless surprised to hear such a big and vague number.
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Echo-13: I see...
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That much time, huh?
We tried to keep my internal composure, but we were not able to.
From the day we discovered what could be done with Dungeon Master 06’s domain, we quickly came to notice that there were some strange time dilations going on. We understood that time might not be, or at least the same way it does for us than it would with anything else. The rate at which we were invaded, the rate at which Dungeon Master 06’s cattle were proliferating was living proof of that. So even though I was aware of the said time dilation, thousands of years were, for a formerly human like me, a ridiculous number.
Back then, I didn’t even live past thirty so to think I’ve been here for not just hundreds, not just a thousand, but thousands of years… It’s truly an absurd amount of time.
But as ridiculous as it is, it finally put to rest my doubts about the intelligence of this world’s people. Though, honestly, you’d think they would have learned from the mistakes of the countless generations before them. Then again, I suppose not many of those ancestors who entered my domain ever made it back alive to warn the next generation.
“You actually might be older than that. You can’t just assume we were born around the same time,” he added.
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HighBreed, Knight, Level 92, used skill: Elemental Control
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Using a skill, he created what looked like a chair, then sat down.
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Echo-13: How’s that?
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“I’ve been told that other &%$#@-users were born later than I did and than you did.”
It took me a moment to fully process what he had just said, but eventually, it sank in.
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Echo-13: Who is that person who told you that?
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“Why do you want to know?" he asked with a frown.
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Echo-13: I just want to know.
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“Then why would I tell you?”
Why wouldn’t you?
Didn’t we establish a bond already?
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Echo-13: If that person is the same person you earlier mentioned to have wanted your authority, why wouldn’t you tell me?
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His eyes widened in surprise. “How?! How do you know?”
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Echo-13: If that person is the same person you earlier mentioned to have wanted your authority, why wouldn’t you tell me?
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“I guess I did say that,” he mumbled, finally realizing.
Watching the complicated expression he took, I couldn’t help but wonder if that other Authority-wielder didn’t kill him in an attempt to seize his authority; that was a possibility. Given the reaction he gave me, that was definitely a possibility.
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Echo-13: That person killed you, didn’t they? Just like I had. But you didn’t come back for him like you did for me, have you. Or else you would have not one but two—
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“You’re wrong.”
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Echo-13: How so?
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"He didn’t kill me, nor did he even try," he said with a sigh, clearly hesitant to explain, but in the end, he did. "He came to talk."
