As he settled, I still looked at him with an incredulous expression. Both his appearance and his voice were all too familiar, so much so that I began wondering if it weren’t some dream, but it clearly wasn’t.
This was reality.
He was real, just like Dungeon Master 07, who for very obvious reasons glanced intently at me out of the corner of his eyes. He was trying to be sleek about it, but being a wielder of the Eagle Eye skill, I couldn’t help but notice.
Repressing the apparent expression on my face that made Dungeon Master 07 look at me the way he did, I reached onto Dungeon Master 09's little shoulder and asked, "You’re alright now?"
"Um," he responded with a feeble nod, wiping his face on a handkerchief handed to him by Dungeon Master 07 for any lingering tears. He added, "I'm good now. Sorry for that, I didn't mean to... do that..."
I repressed the urge to wince at hearing his voice and managed to do so to the end of his sentence. Gently, I said, "It's alright. No need to apologize."
Despite my words, Dungeon Master 09 didn't seem to feel any better. After dozens of seconds of silence, he looked toward Dungeon Master 07 and asked, "You're Dungeon Master 07, right?"
Dungeon Master 07 responded with a nod, "I am," in a tone that felt so different from the one he'd used to introduce himself to me.
It was colder, so cold that it made me remember how he'd mentioned a few moments after I introduced myself to him, "Could it be that he thinks Dungeon Master 09 isn’t who he claims to be?"
I pondered the matter for a couple of seconds before coming to the understanding that it wasn’t that. It was something else, as proven by the question Dungeon Master 07 asked. "What happened to you?"
Dungeon Master 09 lowered his gaze, as if in shame, then explained what had happened to him.
In this incarnation, which was his eighth, he was born as the sole and lone son of two peons. "But they weren’t just any two peons; they were Elias and Miriam," he said, half-expecting us to recognize the names. Dungeon Master 07 seemed to, but to me, they meant nothing.
Noticing my confusion, Dungeon Master 07 intervened and explained, "I've heard of them. They're the couple that founded the Eldridge Escort Company, right?"
Dungeon Master 09 nodded.
Turning his attention to me, Dungeon Master 07 began, "The Eldridge Escort Company is, as the name suggests, a company that offers escort services. In other words, what handlers do, but as a company. What they do extra is centralize the otherwise disorganized activity of handlers and establish a structured system for convoy protection or just private escorting."
Handlers, as a whole, are a very decentralized bunch. It's a profession where anyone, as long as they're a Verdenkind, can become a handler. Heck, even peons can go around calling themselves handlers and pretend to be fit for the job. I once encountered a ragtag group who did just that, which cost them several limbs and a couple of dead comrades.
In short, it's a disorganized mess that somehow manages to work out despite the lack of centralization or formal structure. Everyone operates independently, taking jobs as they come and relying on their reputations to secure work. From what I understand of this company, it offers something regular handler groups don't, reliability and the possibility of having a journey made with just the same group without having to go through the hassle of changing handlers in every city.
Dungeon Master 07 continued, "As of now, they operate reliably across four major cities: Valoria, Ironhold, Stormwatch, and Emberfall."
With my extensive geography knowledge of the Land of Men, I knew that each of the cities mentioned had one thing in common. They were cities in the northern part of Eldoria, the kingdom Miriandelle was part of.
In that moment, Dungeon Master 09 added with a certain something in his voice that was quite apparent, "And of course Eldridge, the city the company sprouted from and expanded from."
Not missing the pride in his voice as he said those words, Dungeon Master 07 apprehensively nodded. "That's... right."
"The ones who founded the enterprise were my parents," Dungeon Master 09 explained.
It was under this setup that he was born and grew up. The same setup would later turn against him when it came time for him to head to Miriandelle as we did. His parents had a hold over the safe way to make the journey to Miriandelle, which was to go through the handlers affiliated with the company. Since it was impossible, or at the very least very dangerous and thus foolish, for the young and low-level him to do what I did, making the journey on his own, he was left with one option: going through unaffiliated handlers. Those still exist, though with the affiliates in the vicinity, they aren’t as prosperous as regular handlers in a city outside the influence of the company. It wasn’t exactly the safest way to make the journey, but it was the way for Dungeon Master 09 to make it to Miriandelle without being extradited back to his parents by the handlers working for them or dying another miserable death.
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Gathering the funds to make the journey wasn’t hard, nor was it to find an unaffiliated group to make the journey to Miriandelle. Making sure to cover all tracks that could make it known whose child he was before approaching the said handler group, Dungeon Master 09 had them accept to escort him with a generous price. One he believed wouldn’t make them turn on him, adding even a reward that he promised would be paid upon arrival at the destination to guarantee extra safety. But as it would be proven, it was a mistake to trust that would be enough.
At first, everything looked great. They left the vicinity of where the company mainly operated on the 64th day of the third moon, with no sign of them turning on him. If the journey had continued at that pace, he was positive he would make it to Miriandelle ten days in advance of the mentioned rendezvous day. However, that did not happen as he wished.
When meeting with another handler group about halfway through the journey to Miriandelle, there happened to be someone within the group who recognized Dungeon Master 09 for who he was, the son of the two peons that had made the man who recognized him leave the region he initially operated in, effectively forcing him to relocate. For being an unaffiliated handler was just not worth it anymore, and he couldn’t be accepted as a handler by the company due to his past, leaving him bitter and resentful.
Dungeon Master 09, his gaze downcast, recounted how the unaffiliated handler group he'd hired had turned against him, driven by an instigating handler's festering bitterness.
First, he attempted to buy his way out. He offered a hefty sum, enough to make any handlers reconsider. But the ringleader, consumed by a deep desire couldn’t even bring himself to consider the bribe.
Still undeterred, Dungeon Master 09 spun a tale of even greater riches upon reaching Miriandelle. He claimed his parents would reward the group handsomely, a fabrication easily exposed by the instigating handler's surprisingly sharp mind. After all, why entrust their only son to unaffiliated strangers? This suspicion sprouted a dangerous seed, the boy was likely a runaway, not on a sanctioned journey.
In a final, desperate act, Dungeon Master 09 tried to leverage his parents' fearsome reputation. He threatened vengeance, a brutal retaliation should any harm befall him. But the handler remained cold. If Elias and Miriam truly cared for his safety or at the very least knew of this expedition, wouldn't they ensure their son's safety themselves? This confirmed the handler's belief, Dungeon Master 09 was alone.
This realization sealed Dungeon Master 09's fate. The group, fueled by bitterness and resentment, turned on him. After stripping him of the money he had on him, they beat him mercilessly, leaving him at the brink of death, before tossing him into the river, assuming the current would be his executioner.
However, Dungeon Master 09 possessed a hidden advantage, a unique HP-recovering skill. This skill, a twist of fate as it were one of the skills he was born with in this incarnation, allowed him to claw his way out of the river's grasp, alive. But even then the river, a churning beast, carried Dungeon Master 09 far from where he’d been dumped.
Battered and barely clinging to life, he drifted for hours, the current eventually spitting him out onto a muddy riverbank far from civilization. Here, stripped of his former life, he found himself a literal level 1 Verdenkind in the midst of nowhere. Dungeon Master 09's only saving grace was the relative tranquility of the area.
There, monstrous threats were scarce, replaced by smaller, more manageable wildlife. Hunger gnawed at him, but with his meager skills, he managed to scrounge for berries and hunt small critters. Days blurred into a desperate struggle for survival.
One glimmer of hope emerged. By sheer luck, his desperate wandering led him to a well-worn path, a common route used by travelers.
Passing travelers, moved by the miserable state they found him, took him in, offering him the first real food he'd tasted in days, a simple but life-affirming stew. But more importantly, they offered him a ride to Miriandelle which happened to also be their destination.
The journey was long and arduous, but under the travelers' apprehensive watch, as they didn't exactly instantly accept him, most likely considering the possibility that he was some sort of elaborate bait or potential danger, Dungeon Master 09 finally felt safe. They arrived in Miriandelle around midnight the night before, a stark contrast to the way he'd envisioned his arrival.
"Yet, despite that, I was alive, and finally in Mirandelle," he said, a little emotional. "The unfortunate thing was that I made it a day too late, or at the very least that's what I thought, until I saw you two," Dungeon Master 09 said, wiping teary eyes of relief.
Upon hearing Dungeon Master 09’s harrowing story, I couldn’t help but feel a mix of anger and sadness. Dungeon Master 07 was the first to speak.
"You were close to missing us," he said, shaking his head. "Had it not been for Dungeon Master 08, I would—" He looked at me, cutting his words short.
Ignoring Dungeon Master 07’s glare, I asked Dungeon Master 09. "What else do you know about the handlers' group you traveled with? Their names or anything that could help—"
"What do you plan to do?" Dungeon Master 07 interrupted me.
I met his glare with my own, feeling a rush of determination. "What do you think I plan to do? Didn’t you hear what he just told you those bastards did to him?"
Dungeon Master 07’s expression grew even sterner. "Dungeon Master 09 we don’t have time for that."
‘Don’t have time?’ I thought. What are you talking about? With the info we already have on them, I was positive it would take me less than a month to track the bastards down and even less time to make them regret what they did to Dungeon Master 09. But I said none of that. I just kept my stare, not backing down the slightest on what I was planning to do.
"Did you already forget what happened to him, or do you want to go that sa—"
I could already foresee where he was going, and most likely so did Dungeon Master 09, who in that moment stood up from the edge of the fountain he was standing at, protesting, "You two, it’s alright, I’m fi—"
However, as he did, he suddenly stumbled, initiating a face-first fall. But before it could happen, Dungeon Master 07, whose reflexes were faster than mine, caught him. "Thanks... Sorry, I didn’t mean..."
"You’re alright?" I asked.
"I’m fine," Dungeon Master 09 said.
He seemed about to add something else when Dungeon Master 07 reached out to his face, applying a light one-handed pressure to the side of Dungeon Master 09’s face. Though the sight was confusing, it wasn’t hard to guess he was using one of his skills or abilities as proven by the notification in the corner of my vision.
After a couple of seconds and some more pressure across Dungeon Master 09’s face, Dungeon Master 07, like a doctor, came to a prognosis. "You are tired, sore. You should take your time to rest."
Dungeon Master 09 nodded, adding, "I’m also very hungry."
Not so much surprised, Dungeon Master 07 turned toward me, asking, "How about we have him get a good breakfast first, then have him rest before continuing the talk we were having?"
Glancing down at Dungeon Master 07, I heaved out a sigh then said, "I was about to suggest the same thing."