I have trained for many years now.

I can’t keep an exact track of how many, to be true. I never learned how to count properly.

But it was enough for my hair to become white at the sides. For me to enlist to the royal army twice.

All this time I have been training because of what someone said to me once.

I was just a boy at the time.

A hungry boy on the street.

Passed out again, in the cold.

It wouldn’t be long before I died.

And when it happened, my body would be eaten by the dungeon. The dungeon beneath the city, were the [Dungeon Master] would suck the aura from the dead.

It was common for us.

The king had given that dungeon to the [Master] many, many years in the past. The village was founded because the [Master] had conquered the dungeon and desired for trading.

Dungeons are powerful things, and valuable things as well.

They can be used to breed monsters with cores in then, and those monsters become obedient to the will of the dungeon.

They can be used to harvest aura greater than any mortal man can muster by itself. And then use this aura.

They can even make a human ageless, as the dungeon’s crystal entwine itself to the [Dungeon’s Master] body and soul.

So those who Accomplish getting to the last floor of a dungeon and fusing with the crystal within become beyond human, and bring prosperity to wherever they are.

Our city was prosperous back then.

We didn’t have good crops since the dungeon would suck the energy from the ground, but the [Dungeon Master] would trade monster cores, hides and other items with us.

Then we would trade those with merchants and travelers, and also farmers from far away, and we would live good lives.

But I was unfortunate.

My parents had died. I had become diseased and couldn’t work anymore.

I tried begging, but it only worked in the Autumn, when people had a lot to spare.

Winter was too cold, and in spring no one would sell me cheap food.

So I started to break in into houses to sleep, and steal to eat.

It was just a little, so I wasn’t arrested. But I couldn’t work and I people wouldn’t give me things if I begged anymore.

So I started to pass out of hunger.

One of the things the [Dungeon Master] ordered us was to throw the dead inside of the dungeon.

Cemeteries are dangerous. Dead people can come back to life, and hex rats can be born of regular rats eating the corpses, so that’s why everyone burns the dead.

But not there.

There, the [Dungeon] would spread its invisible hands over the dead, and feed on their corpses.

That would be my fate, sooner or later.

Passed out in the cold, there was no mistake.

Until someone touched my shoulder and I felt warm.

I couldn’t see who was the one who healed me.

My eyes were foggy because of the cold.

But I was healed.

And the person said to me: “Get up. Take this and find yourself something to do.”

It was a woman’s voice under the hood, and I felt heavy coins on my hand.

I replied with the greater compliment we knew at my town.

“May you become an Accomplished someday.”

The woman scorned and said to me:

“There are better things to be than that.”

Those words marked my heart. They became the foundation of my belief. Of my belief that there was something greater than being a [Dungeon Master].

Once I heard the legend of how people could become greater than the Accomplished by secret methods of training I started to believe even more.

That was it.

That was the thing my savior was talking about.

And that was the thing I was looking for all these years.

At least until now.

I’m too old.

It’s time to face it.

The greater and more expensive spell of [Magical Transmutation] I could buy wasn’t enough to make me go beyond the Superior Human limit.

I tried for many years, but after seeing the witches’ daughter coming back I realized it was futile.

The spell won’t miraculously start to work after eighteen years. It hasn’t brought the smallest of changes to my body in all of this time, it won’t bring any now.

Still, the abnormal.

I always kept my distance from her.

She’s powerful. But she’s an abnormal.

She may have convinced lord Blackscale that she isn’t a threat, but you never know near this kind of people.

She may be cunning, or hiding something.

Still, it’s time for me to take my chances.

Even if she doesn’t know of a way for me to go beyond my limit, I’m not so innocent not to have realized what she’s doing here.

She’s building an empire for herself.

A small village, where everyone is indebted to her.

A small village, far away from any others.

And still, a small paradise.

I don’t have children, but If I had I would make sure that they become friends with the abnormal’s grandsons and granddaughters.

A man from like me know that, in a few years, she will have enough power to do almost anything she wants.

Lord Blackscale’s power is declining by the day. The new [Dungeon Master] has stripped the Blackscale clan of a huge amount of land and power. This village now has a [Forest Spirit].

So he will decline as Marie grows in power. As his voice becomes smaller, hers become stronger.

And soon she will bring forth a [City of Miracles] like the one in Ytrmund Kingdom.

Who knows. They say there us Normals where seen and used like cattle. But then she wouldn’t have married to a farmer or married her daughter to an adventurer. People are afraid she will eat them as well, but she would do anything for that grandson of hers. She even forgave the Dorians for him.

Maybe she is one of the [Divine Sages]. Or even the [Abnormal Queen] herself.

Soon the militia of today will have become the [Miracle Army] or tomorrow. They say there were people above the Superior Beings in the [Miracle Army]. And that they weren’t Accomplished.

Maybe, if I help her. Maybe, if I’m useful to the [Abnormal Queen].

Then she will grant me my wish.