Golden Sun?
"God, I'm dying."
I grimaced and pounded a fist against the small of my back. Three climaxes in a row had left my lower half feeling like it was about to tear itself apart.
"Hss... is it because my Stamina stat is so low?"
Or maybe it was Durability. Either way, I needed to raise my stats — stealing Aquaril's ownership had driven that lesson home with a vengeance. The sooner I pushed them higher than they were now, the better.
I looked back at Aquaril, still sleeping soundly. She had exchanged a brief greeting with me and promptly passed out cold.
This world was real, but it ran on a game system. Aquaril's rank was low enough that three climaxes had been enough to seize her ownership. A higher-ranked Fairy would demand far more than that.
Alright. Time to get out of here.
We couldn't stay in this dungeon forever. Our only food was a sandwich and a bottle of water that Princess Pricia's soldiers had given us. Fairy or human, if you didn't eat, you starved. That much was the same.
Should I at least say goodbye?
Uroboros was still a monster. Sooner or later, I would have to bring it down. Maybe it was the old ranker's instinct talking, but the idea of anyone sitting above me had never sat well.
Whatever our relationship became down the road, right now it was the benefactor that had given me power and a chance to turn everything around. Even if I was leaving, the decent thing was to say farewell.
"Um... Lord Uroboros?"
Silence.
"My Lord?"
Nothing. I called for Uroboros, master of this Relay Dungeon, and not a single answer came back. It had probably returned to its nest at the dungeon's end. The six-headed serpent that had been watching us — the Hexserpent — was gone too. I had no idea when it had slipped away.
"Thank you for taking me as your servant. I swear I will do everything in my power to gather tribute so that you may recover your strength as quickly as possible, Lord Uroboros."
I said it to the empty air, then scooped the sleeping Aquaril into a princess carry and turned to go.
"Ah."
We weren't wearing any clothes.
"Right..."
I scratched my head, staring down at the heap of fabric on the floor. Back when Aquaril and I had still been enemies, we had gone at each other with everything we had, and the result was that both our shirts had been reduced to something that barely qualified as cloth. Rags, basically.
"Not like I've got a choice."
Walking out stark naked wasn't an option, so I pulled the ruined clothes on as best I could, gathered Aquaril up, and left the dungeon.
"...Anyone there?"
I kept my sword in hand and swept the surroundings, but no arrow came flying. Princess Pricia — the one who had cracked me across the back of the skull — was nowhere to be seen either.
She had probably handed me off to Aquaril and headed back to Indigo with Ryona.
"Haa..."
I stayed on guard for another five minutes just in case, then finally let out a breath and lowered the blade. I tipped my head back. The sky was brilliantly, almost mockingly clear — as if it were telling me this was what my future looked like.
"Feels like I've been living in that dungeon for months."
So many things had gone off the rails that it felt like months had passed. In reality, it had only been a few hours.
"So what now?"
Going back to Indigo was suicide. If I — a man who was supposed to be dead — went strolling through the city in one piece, Hwaryongwang would know something had gone wrong. Princess Pricia and Ryona, Hwaryongwang's Fairy, both knew my face.
But surviving out here in the middle of nowhere wasn't any easier. I didn't even know how to field-dress an animal. Forget that — I didn't know the geography of this place at all.
"What the hell am I supposed to... wait. Right."
I was chewing my lip, turning the problem over, when it hit me that I didn't have to solve this alone.
"Guess I wait until she wakes up."
I had been in this world for a week, if that. Aquaril had been living in this area far longer than I had. She would know things I didn't. A lot of things.
"I don't have to figure this out by myself anymore."
I adjusted my hold on her and started walking, just in case. I had become the Avatar of a 10-Star monster — Uroboros itself — and I was still the weakest thing out here. I had to think. I had to treat every shadow like a threat.
"Nnh..."
"Hah... hah... wait, what? She's up? Hss... of course she wakes up right as we get here. Aquaril? You with me?"
A sound from my back said she was about to come around, so I set her down and looked at her. I had been carrying her for close to an hour, and I was soaked through — like I had taken a shower in my own sweat.
"Aquaril?"
"...Ah."
She really is beautiful.
Fresh from sleep, she looked like Snow White after biting the witch's poisoned apple. Her skin was snow-white and fine, as clean and unmarked as a child's. She was tall, and her chest was generous; the rest of her figure was a work of art.
And a girl like this is my Fairy.
I still couldn't quite believe it.
"...Master?"
"...Yeah. I'm your Master, Aquaril."
She had called me that once already, but hearing it again made something swell in my chest. At the same time, it sank in that I had truly become a part of Fairy Masters.
"...Ah! Forgive me, Master! How dare I greet you while lying down — what insolence!"
Aquaril had been staring up at me in a daze. Then she jolted as if struck by lightning, lurched to her feet, and dropped to her knees in front of me. She glanced around, spotted her sword on the ground, and in one sudden motion drew it and set the edge against her own throat.
"I will atone for this discourtesy with my life! Forgive me, Master!"
"Hey—! What the hell are you doing?!"
A thin line of red welled against that deer-slender throat, and I lunged, tearing the blade away from her. What was wrong with this girl?! She had actually tried to cut her own throat! What was she, a samurai?
"Kh...! Master, your strength...!"
Aquaril's fist trembled around the hilt. The sword itself did not move an inch.
Becoming my Fairy had dropped her Strength from twenty-seven points to sixteen. Mine, thanks to the buff from the Avatar of the Serpent of Greed trait, had climbed to nineteen. I had a full three points on her.
"Have you lost your mind? What is this all of a sudden?!"
"But if not with my life, how can I atone for the discourtesy I have shown you, Master—"
"Discourtesy? Who committed a discourtesy? Want me to show you what 'committing' something actually looks like?!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Ah— that's not— forget it!"
"Ah...!"
Aquaril tilted her head, completely missing the point, and I snatched the sword out of her hand before she could do anything else. Then I hurled it as far as I could so she couldn't grab it again.
What... I stole a Fairy and ended up with a lunatic?
She had tried to throw her life away because she had looked at me while lying down. I didn't like saying it, but for a second there she had genuinely looked insane.
"Even if you are rude to me, I have zero intention of getting angry or punishing you. None."
"But Master, that is—!"
"Ah-ah. Who interrupts when their Master is talking?"
"Ah... kh! I have been discourteous to you again...! A thing like me truly ought to die—"
"I said don't die."
Let me correct myself. She wasn't like a lunatic. She was a lunatic.
If I didn't shut this down right now, she was going to spend the rest of our lives announcing that she deserved to die. Better to settle it here.
"Aquaril."
"Yes, Master."
"If I hear one more word about paying for your sins with your life, I will abandon you. Understand?"
"What? Th-that is—!"
Tears welled in Aquaril's eyes and hung there, trembling.
I hadn't met that many Fairies, but every single one I had encountered clung to their Master like a lifeline. A Fairy laughed or wept on a single word from the person they belonged to.
And the thing they feared most was not death. It was being abandoned by the Master they loved.
"Answer me."
"Y-yes! I will never do anything like that again! So please... please don't abandon me, Master..."
"Uh. Uh...?"
Aquaril clung to my leg, tears dripping off her chin in a miserable little stream. The reaction was so much more intense than I had expected that I was the one who ended up flustered. I hadn't meant to push it that far.
"There, there. No more crying. Chin up."
"Chin up."
"Good. That's it. So no more of that strange talk. Do that, and I will never abandon you. Understood?"
"Yes, Master..."
I soothed the Fairy whose eyes had gone red as a rabbit's, then pulled the sandwich and water from my inventory and held them out to her.
"You're hungry, right? Eat this first."
"...Thank you, Master."
Aquaril glanced at my face. When I smiled and nodded, she began to eat the sandwich in small, careful bites.
Damn it, I'm starving.
I was just as hungry as she was, but I didn't let it show. My stats were higher. Her combat experience, though, dwarfed mine. If something life-threatening came at us, she would handle it far better than I would.
And I knew next to nothing about this place. I had no choice but to lean on the one person who did.
"Um... Master."
"Hm? What is it?"
"This..."
"Huh?"
Aquaril, who had been nibbling her way through the sandwich, split it in half and held one piece out to me.
"You're hungry too, Master."
"No, I'm fine. You should—"
"Please eat."
"...Alright. Thanks, Aquaril."
I had meant to refuse, but the sandwich won. The moment I took it, Aquaril turned her face away and smiled — a small, shy, unmistakable smile.
Well. My first Fairy wasn't a complete lunatic after all.
We finished the sandwich between us and turned to the question of what came next. I laid out our situation as it stood.
"That's where we are. What do you think?"
"Mm... Hwaryongwang will already have felt the connection with me break. Knowing him, he will try to find out what happened here — or rather, what happened to me."
Fortunately, a transfer of ownership did not wipe previous memories or anything of the sort. Aquaril listened to my explanation, called up everything she knew about Hwaryongwang, and spoke.
"There is something I would like to ask you first, Master."
"What is it?"
"What is it that you want to do?"
"Come again?"
"Is your goal to enter Indigo? To clear dungeons? Or do you wish to leave Indigo entirely and settle in another city?"
"Hmm..."
I thought about it.
What we were shortest on right now was daily necessities and armor. I still had to gather the three thousand Gems of tribute I owed Uroboros, but twenty-nine days remained. Survival came first.
"How far is the nearest city from Indigo?"
"Two days by carriage. Five or six on foot."
"Tsk."
I clicked my tongue. If money were no object I could hire a carriage, but we had other things to spend on. I couldn't just throw gold around.
Which meant another city was off the table.
That left getting into Indigo. I opened my inventory.
The thing I had the most of was Gold I couldn't spend out here. Put it to use inside a city, though, and supplies and armor would not be hard to come by.
"If we go into Indigo — can we get in without being seen?"
"I would need to confirm it, but... yes. It is possible."
"Wait. It is?"
I blinked at her. I had assumed slipping in unseen was out of the question.
"How?"
"Some time ago, black-market merchants used a hidden passage to sneak into Indigo. We never caught them, but the passage they used is still there."
"Oh! There are black-market merchants?"
Of course there are. If they existed in the game, there was no reason they wouldn't exist here.
Playing Fairy Masters, you would occasionally find a black-market dealer in a city — the kind who sold rare items you never saw in ordinary shops, or goods with a distinctly unsavory look to them.
"Will it be watched?"
"I would have to check to be certain, but there will be no soldiers guarding the passage. Hwaryongwang does not have enough men to watch something like that."
"Is that so."
Another city was impossible, so we had to get into Indigo one way or another. There were dungeons inside the city as well — ones Hwaryongwang managed himself.
"Then let's start with that hidden passage."
"Yes, Master. I will lead the way."
We stood and set off at once for the secret route into Indigo. Watching Aquaril walk ahead of me, I nodded to myself.
Stealing a Fairy isn't such a bad deal. If I had summoned one instead...
Taking Aquaril's ownership was the only reason we could get into Indigo at all. If I had spent three hundred Gems to summon a Fairy, we would have starved or been killed by monsters — one or the other. A newly summoned Fairy was like an infant. You had to teach them everything.
...So this is how I get what I wanted in my previous life.
I had said it more than once already: in my last life I had been a high-ranking player in Fairy Masters. But except for a single time, I had never broken into the top ten. I had spent most of my career bouncing between thirteenth and seventeenth.
I used to look at the powerful Fairies other players had raised and think, I want those. And now that wish had come true — like this.
Huh. Guess I've got a bit of an NTL streak.
Should I dye my hair blond and get a tan?
With that idle thought rattling around in my head, I followed my first Fairy — Aquaril — down the path.