The Shackles of Pain
The Shackles of Pain. A snow-covered plain.
“U-Ukkiik...!” A baboon sprawled flat on the snow, trembling violently. The way its teeth chattered nonstop suggested it wasn’t accustomed to the cold. I had no idea why it was cowering right beside me. Annoying. Freezing.
‘That thing’s definitely a monster, isn’t it?’
It resembled the baboons from documentaries I used to watch, but its size—comparable to an adult man—made it obvious this was a monster. Besides, I’d never heard of ordinary beasts living inside dungeons.
“Hmm.”
I had been aiming the muzzle at the shivering monkey’s head, but I lowered the gun after taking my eye off the sights. It wasn’t because I had any principle against unnecessary killing. If anything, I rather enjoyed turning living things into non-living ones. The pleasure outweighed any guilt over taking life. If you’re thinking I’m not exactly sane, you’d be correct. I haven’t been since the day I got trapped in that lovely game called Terraforming.
Imagine a world where failing to kill means being killed instead. Hell layered over reality. A blood-soaked abnormality. An endless cycle of suffering. In a filthy world where humans no longer see each other as human, the so-called normal people who preached mercy toward enemies were long since shot in the back of the head and reduced to biomass for the infected. Only the less-than-one-percent of madmen who adapted to the stench of blood and converted guilt into pleasure could stand at the end of a ruined world. I was a veteran among those deranged madmen. That’s why I’m still alive.
So why did someone like me—someone even serial killers might mistake for a kindred spirit—spare this utterly useless baboon monster?
‘Even for a monster, it produces quite a decent amount of fear.’
Obviously, to harvest a little more terror. You don’t kill the bee that keeps feeding you sweet honey just because it annoys you, do you?
Fear Eater
Fear is your origin.
— Conversion.
Mana Body
Careful—if you let your guard down, it might start leaking!
— Substitution.
If sweet honey flowed through my veins instead of red blood, all the better.
[MP: 30,521,530]
See that? It had dropped below twenty million, but now it’s climbed back above thirty million—my mana, my life, my time!
[MP: 30,521,530]
[MP: 30,534,302]
[MP: 30,555,830]
[MP: 30,574,627]
The remarkable part is that even now, after several explosions, my mana keeps steadily accumulating even though I’m doing nothing. And in increments of ten thousand at a time! Every breath I exhale carries a sweet scent that leaves my mind pleasantly hazy. It’s like the finest drug imaginable—far more euphoric than alcohol, cigarettes, or any stimulant. The desire to savor this moment forever wells up from deep in my chest.
‘But I can’t do that.’
My precious contractor is waiting out there, shivering in the cold. Yes, it’s time to wrap this up. I can’t stand the thought of her catching a cold and sniffling.
***
I turned my gaze from the monkey’s red rear and quietly stared at the deer-man who had been leaking sticky waves of fear for some time now.
‘Is this thing pretending to be dead right now?’
Its body was split in half, organs exposed, yet I could tell it was still alive. The constant trickle of fear already gave it away, but there were other signs too. The hole in its head had vanished. Even though its body had been cleanly bisected, no postmortem spasms had occurred. Quite the performance, really. But it wouldn’t work on me—someone who had honed their instincts fighting the Doctor’s enhanced humans, who repeatedly faked death and ambushed me using their superior regeneration. Besides, if it wanted to play dead, it shouldn’t have shown off that regeneration in the first place. It survived a chain of explosions, so what’s with the act now?
I had wondered if its rather threatening ice magic meant it possessed human-like intelligence, but watching it bury its head in the snow like a terrified ostrich convinced me that monsters are still just beasts.
‘If you keep lying there like that, I’ve got my own methods.’
To wake the deer sprawled on the freezing ground, I decided to try injecting fear—a technique I had never used before due to lack of opportunity.
“Filling.”
The fear that intelligent beings dread more than death itself.
Charge
‘Agliophobia’: Fear of pain or physical suffering.
—That one.
Injected Fear: ‘Agliophobia’]
Mana Injected: [10,000]
Remaining Mana: [MP: 30,785,115]
The old, impoverished me would have trembled while charging even 100 MP, but things are different now that I’ve had my revelation (if you’re short on fear, just cause chaos in the dungeon!). Feeling generous, I flexed ten thousand mana, aimed the muzzle at the deer-man’s head, and pulled the trigger.
“Hey. Time to get up, deer.”
“....”
When the demon spoke and received no reply, I quietly squeezed the trigger.
Click.
.......
Just like with the fear of blades, no gunshot rang out. Instead—
AAAAAARGH!!!
A delightful scream echoed across the plain. Fear overflowed like a cup filled to the brim. At the same time, the deer-man’s body rapidly regenerated. Flesh filled in, blood returned, muscles reconnected. In moments it had returned to a fully intact state. Yet even after its body healed, it continued thrashing and howling in agony.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
‘Must hurt quite a bit.’
The sound of something hard breaking and being crushed repeated. The creature rolled violently across the snow, repeatedly smashing its own head and regenerating. It seemed the fear of pain was being applied directly to wherever the muzzle had been aimed. I couldn’t gauge the exact intensity, but if it was enough to make it bash its own skull in, it had to be the kind of agony that would drive someone to suicide. The fear flowing from it was far richer than when I used fears of explosions or blades. Quite the efficient little fear. Perfect for situations where I want to dispose of something without leaving evidence.
The self-harm had been worth it.
But—
AAAAAARGH!!!
...Just how long was this pain supposed to last? More than five minutes had passed since the initial trigger, yet the deer-man was still rolling in the snow, continuing its self-mutilation. The endless screaming was starting to make my ears ring. Normally, screaming that long would leave someone hoarse, but thanks to its remarkable regeneration, it kept shrieking even while coughing up blood. I had only meant to leave a short, intense burst of pain to stop its pathetic acting. The effect was far stronger than intended—almost too strong. A bit troublesome, really.
***
The moment Sion’s party instantly slaughtered the Wendygo clone that had been about to ambush the escapees—
‘...One of my temporary clones was defeated?’
Wendygo sensed that five of the clones it had created had lost their power and returned to soil.
‘How dare they... How dare they...’
Blue light flickered in the empty sockets of its eyes, fueled by rage at having its escape plan disrupted.
Grind....
‘I must endure...’
Even though it had lost five clones, it still had forty-five more sacrifices it could use to create new ones. The plan had merely been delayed a little. In the end, everything would go according to its will. It always had before.
‘Anger is a poison that clouds reason. I must not let it consume me.’
It nearly lost control for a moment, but Wendygo managed to maintain its sanity through self-suggestion—until Raven drove the fear of pain straight into its skull.
‘W-What is this... Why does my head suddenly feel so heavy?’
The first sensation was a splitting headache. It was bearable at first—just the unpleasant feeling of hundreds of insects crawling inside its skull. But as time passed, the pain grew unbearably intense. When the entire head began to feel as though it were burning in phantom agony—
AAAAAARGH!!!
Wendygo screamed, unable to endure the pain. Its immortal body automatically regenerated from the lethal agony, yet the pain did not vanish.
“AAAAARGH!!!”
Even smashing its own head—the source of the torment—only brought it back to life and plunged it once more into the swamp of suffering. For over ten long minutes, it continued to wail endlessly in agony, gripped by the overwhelming terror that it might be forced to live in this never-ending pain forever.