“Even, if one of the Gate Keepers is Ai?” Mizuki asked with a wry smile across her face.

Sora’s footsteps could be heard coming to a grinding halt. Then, loud stomping could be heard as Sora made his way back up the spiral staircase.

“What did you say?” He asked in an exceedingly menacing manner, once he climbed back up the stairs.

“Will you defeat the Gate Keeper, even if the Gate Keeper is Ai?” Mizuki asked; calm as ever – even with Sora boiling made in rage, she was least affected.

Sora hesitated – he didn’t care for Ai. Why would he care for an NPC? However, wasn’t it the work of providence to bring them together in the desert? This woman was trouble – Sora knew it now for certain. Sora knew Ai well enough – after all she had shared with him most of her memories. It would have been impossible for Ai to come up with the idea to become a Gate Keeper – the girl didn’t have a single violent bone in her body.

There was no ambiguity that Mizuki had a role to play in this. The way Mizuki’s lips curled up in delight seeing Sora frustrated further proved this.

“Fine, then I’ll take her out.” Sora bitterly replied – he sure in hell wasn’t going to allow Mizuki to have it her way. If she wanted him to leave, he would stay. If she wanted him to not fight Ai, then he would fight Ai. He was going to be as unhelpful as possible. Sora was aware of the possibility that Mizuki may employ reverse psychology but his instincts guided him that ‘that’ wasn’t the game she was playing with him.

Mizuki was startled – but remained calm. Sora remained elusive and distrusting towards her as ever. An ordinary hero would have cursed the villain (in this case Mizuki) and then tried to free the friend.

However, Sora was different – and Mizuki, clearly failed to grasp that. Heroes lived in the world of idealism where all can be saved, where the evil perish and the good live. Most adventurers that Mizuki had encountered before could be considered ‘idealistic’ and therefore ‘naïve’. In the world of Sora, there was no good or bad, right or wrong. There was cause and effect. There were people with different value systems and conflicts usually just centred around those. Sora wasn’t going to give into Mizuki’s plans – assuming she had been conniving right from the start.

“Sora, I did say the girl was a Dredger…even if you are strong, you can never hope to match up to the girl…” Mizuki rebuffed.

“Even with these restraints off?” Sora asked as he pointed to his eye-patch.

“The price is your life. I will not stop you.” Mizuki surrendered – further talk was pointless.

“There are times in life when we all must make some mistakes, so that we can learn from them .” Sora said as he headed back out. “Even when we know that what we are doing is a mistake we must make them.”

***

Being monsters was very different from being a “intruder”, as referred by monsters to those exploring dungeons. The difference lay in access to various floors. Sora could easily move from the upper floor to the lower floor – with no monster preventing him from doing so. The reason being he took out the ‘Gate Keeper’ of this floor a while back. It was also the reason why Mizuki wanted Sora to become a ‘Gate Keeper’. The fifth floor was missing its ‘Gate Keeper’ – there was no one to keep check who went down and who came up.

Mizuki could not be personally bothered with these affairs – as she hated grunt work. Furthermore, her position was far too elevated to allow her the luxury to do such grunt work. She was after all the floor master. Her duties transcended this dungeon….but those details are for another time.

No monster would dare stop Sora from going below.

Why would they? He was a fellow monster.

As long as a monster had sufficient strength then there were no restrictions on them descending to lower floors. If a monster didn’t have sufficient strength then he was heading towards his doom. This was a world where the strong preyed on the weak and descending floors was like moving from a smaller pond to a larger pond. Who knew what monsters lay on the floor below? At least in the first five floors, the rules were clear – monsters don’t kill monsters. However, below the fifth there were no rules. It could be considered that the first five floors were incubators and floors below that was where the dungeon truly began.

Lower floors were not only safer for a monster but had fewer outside disturbances. Lower the floor more the benefits – greater concentration of ‘malice’ or ‘miasma’. Naturally, good things came with the bad. If you were god like strong on the upper floor then you would average on the lower floor. The monster’s ego really took a hit on that. Some monsters even if they wanted to go ascend, wouldn’t be able to because of the thinning of the ‘malice’ in the atmosphere. Remember, ‘Malice’ sustains monsters. If there wasn’t sufficient concentrations of it a monster would be like a fish out of water – gasping for breath. Of course, not all monsters required high concentrations of ‘malice’ – these were the monsters that would seek to go back up. However, they would be prevented by the Gate Keeper.

The Gate Keeper was the regulator; ensuring that the floor strength was maintained to the right level. They were also the last line of defense for each floor to prevend intruders from progressing further. The other tasks which the Mokanas mentioned were really the floor master’s jobs – but Toketsu had taken them on since he fancied Mizuki.

The Gate Keeper was often seen as the final boss of the floor by ‘intruders’ or ‘explorers’. If you finished off the Gate Keeper you could be certain that you have cleared the floor. Sadly, killing Gate Keepers resulted in no treasures. Also ‘finishing off’ didn’t necessarily mean ‘killing’ – if the ‘Gate Keeper’ were intelligent enough to yield then it was up to the winning side to decide the Gate Keeper’s fate. 99% of the times the intruders would kill however there were those rare one of events where a Gate Keeper would be allowed to live – this happened in a case where the winning party could not bear to kill someone so ‘human’ like. That party died the very next floor because the next floor was filled with vampires. There is no place for kindness in dungeons.

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Author's Note:

1. Back from the oblivion! Happy reading.