Chapter 854 - Spectators (Patreon)

There are a few things that I will bring with me to my grave. Some will never even grace my thoughts ever again.

Almost dying to hair serum is one of them.

I sit here, very, very carefully circulating thermal energy through my body to heal up. What the serum did was use some of my resources to speed up hair growth. It made me hungry, tired, thirsty, and lightheaded.

I am confident there should be some sort of warning label for that level nine hair tonic made by the Healing Order of Absolute Zerathusa, and Selene should totally have told me about it. But it is very, very likely that silly woman just didn't expect my constitution to be such, and I totally don't plan to complain now. I also don't plan to kill her for the attempt on my life, it would be too awkward to explain.

“I-Iset! I said level nine!” After staring at me with her mouth wide open, Selene turns to shout at her colleague.

“Lady Selene, but I did take level nine, look!” Iset rushes to the selari and starts showing her the bottle.

I, meanwhile, remain sitting in my chair, surrounded by my luscious locks of hair. Blowing a bit, I make a small path in my hair to widen the gap so I can watch them.

Selene is once again glancing at me after reading the bottle. “T-there is no way. The bottle must be mislabeled!” she shouts and moves in front of me, bowing very deeply. “Mister Gwyn, I apologize very deeply for putting you at risk in such a way. I should have warned you about the risks of the serum. Please, direct your anger at me. Iset only followed my orders.”

She doesn't even try to make excuses and instantly takes it all on herself. I notice her shaking a bit, and her heart beats wilder. Selene doesn't see it, but behind her, Victoria is standing up, locking her fingers together and straight, like a sort of blade, as she takes a step towards them.

Before the situation is pushed further, I just say, “I will ignore it this time.”

For a moment, I glance at Vic, who catches my gaze and then nods, sliding back to her chair to sit in that super proper, formal, serious way she likes to sit in, which can't be comfortable.

Selene, Iset, and, for some reason their third colleague begin to thank me like I just saved the lives of their entire families. There is that feeling that they owe me, and I quite like it. Of course, it can be an act from their side, and it is possible they are spies or hired assassins, but who the hell knows? I just know I will try to use that to my advantage somehow.

They get to work on my hair. As I ask them, they first cut it so it extends slightly below my shoulders, and style it nicely. I stand up and look at myself in a mirror. Unlike Savant's, my hair is not as dark, and it is slightly wavy, but looking at myself, I have to say that not only are my mana reserves higher, but my looks are better as well.

Still not tired of winning, I sit down, and they continue cutting it down until it is at my preferred length of a finger. They style it a bit in a formal way that weirdly seems to fit with the clothes I am wearing.

Once they are done, I raise up thermal energy and entirely burn all the scissors, towels, and hair left behind. It melts the floor quite a bit, but I already disconnected this room from the central alarm system, so no alarm rings. The defenses here are honestly… not that good. So I suspect that, as fresh participants of the Games, they didn't assign us the premium rooms.

At one point, someone knocks on the door, and Selene goes there, meeting with a human woman who hurriedly whispers something, causing Selene to widen her eyes. Once the human woman leaves, Selene comes back to us, clearly thrown off by the situation and thinking of something.

Neither me nor Vic ask her a thing, and we wait patiently until she shakes her head and says, while looking at us, “I apologize, my friend just told me a rumor that the Ruler of Envy will be spectating the games, so I am a bit thrown off.”

In reaction to that, Iset squeaks in surprise, causing her to get a harsh look from her colleague and quickly calm her expression to stand back up in a proper pose. Though her heart beats wildly in excitement.

While the two women seem like they just heard there will be a big celebrity or leader of a state coming, Selene is much more nervous and shows even a bit of what feels like fear.

“Is a Ruler coming as a spectator that rare, Selene?” Victoria asks her.

That gets her a nervous, unbelieving chuckle. “Very rare, Miss Victoria. He is a Ruler. One of only fourteen. He isn't even from our galaxy, nor is our galaxy one of the central ones.” She gestures wildly as if she has a difficult time explaining, so she just ends with an emphasized, “He is a Ruler.”

“But he is a new one, and possibly the weakest. I bet some powerful Absolute like the Magi or a proper replica of the last Elf would fuck him up.”

“Language, Nathaniel.”

“Sorry, Vic.”

Selene looks at me in a way that makes me suspect she wants to call me a back-galaxy bum or something else, but she patiently says, “Even if he was crowned not that long ago, he is still one of the most powerful in the universe. If he willed it, he would be able to destroy this world and many others in our galaxy. Just releasing his presence fully would probably kill everyone on this planet, minus people at the brink of becoming Champions, Champions, and Absolutes. You can't even look at the true body of a Ruler, as looking for too long will burn your eyes, not to mention their presence. There aren't even that many planets in the universe where a Ruler can fight without destroying them instantly. Possibly not even ours. And I'm talking about this planet that got strengthened through multiple pairings. A planet like yours that just awakened would be annihilated.”

“I see,” I nod. “What about Beyond?”

She seems confused but answers, “I think deeper floors should be quite durable.”

“You seem to know quite a bit, Selene,” my sister says.

“I try to, Miss Victoria, sweetie. There are many things I have learned from the academy, and further under the tutelage of my master. Then I took many courses to get into the position of support staff in the games,” she answers proudly.

“Any other interesting people that will be joining the spectators?” I ask her before she can go into bragging about herself, as I'm sure she would.

This time her eyes gleam like those of a fangirl. “Yes! There will be Felix Maro!”

“Selene, I'm just a bum from a barely awakened planet.”

“Honey, everyone knows Felix Maro, he is a very powerful Absolute! Two thousand years ago, he started his tutorial in Beyond.”

That piques my interest, and I sit up straight. “Tell me more.”

“There are many stories of his tutorial, the most powerful S rank, completing many 1000-year quests. He was even later taken in as a disciple of The Ruler of Temperance. There is a rumor that the Ruler of Temperance is raising him as a successor!”

“Selene, I have a question.”

“Yes, mister Gwyn.”

“Who is the Ruler of Temperance? Then, in a simple way and shortly, name floor by floor all of the Rulers.”

“I apologize, but this sort of information-”

“Nathaniel, don't be too greedy,” my sister interrupts her.

“Vic, this is very simple information that everyone should know, and that should be fairly widespread. There are so many tutorial attendees, and on each floor you can meet a Ruler if-”

“You can meet a Ruler on each of the floors!?” Selene looks like a hungry dog as she moves closer, ready for gossip or information to sell.

“Ehm...” I just say, looking for help from my sister, who steps in, making Selene change the subject.

Meanwhile, I muse that maybe some information that Ruby gave me isn't that freely available. Am I maybe too spoiled? Did I spoil information for Selene, a sort of endgame info she would want to have fun getting to and discovering on her own? Or is she maybe going to sell it later?

In the end, I come to the conclusion that the education here is the worst, and people of this galaxy lack curiosity.

But in the end, I get a description of the Ruler of Temperance from Selene. Though people almost never get to see a Ruler in their lives, there are rumors and legends of their appearances. Temperance, for example, is seen as a very gentle lumoran man who is fond of using war armors.

There is only one being that fits that description from the floors I have visited so far.

It also makes me wonder. Did Champion Feroy succeed at the end of the seventh floor, or is the Ruler of Temperance a special grade mimic that was able to take him over?

Selene continues to be polite, explains some stuff, and mostly talks about etiquette and our schedule. After a while, a drowsiness starts washing over me, so I listen with half an ear, sometimes asking questions about the Rulers.

I find it very interesting to see how someone born long after their planet’s tutorial and after multiple pairings sees a Ruler. Maybe for the first time, I truly see someone admiring them in a way akin to gods, even if she never saw any and only heard about them. A ton of information since her birth, things she learned in the academy, from her tutors, and the rumors and past legends. Tidbits of information on the appearance of a being that is a Ruler, and the destruction they might bring.

There are also a few wild stories about subclass Absolutes forming temporary alliances to take down a Ruler, so they can later fight each other to claim the vacant seat. Even then, the chance of that ever happening is very rare, and it usually ends with the Ruler wiping out the party instead.

Absolutes like Lissandra, The Last Elf, the Magi, and some like the Slayer, Void Caller, or Pale Titan, are exceedingly rare, often seemingly not interested in the spot of a Ruler. Hell, many people consider even a wyvern as rare a sight as a Ruler, with dragons being even rarer, not to mention the very few gods still alive and hiding somewhere.

Over the past few years, I came to see most of these things as normal and had a chance to meet some, even if just copies. It is easy to forget that the First Generation that enters the tutorial is just barely under 40 thousand people, with not all of them surviving and not all of them having the opportunities I had. And then, thousands of years could pass on Earth without people, even awakened ones, having any chance of seeing the things I did.

When Selene talks about the Ruler of Envy, she doesn't talk about the dickhead I saw in the record getting curbstomped by the imitation of the Ancient Monster, even the Rulers are scared of. Selene just sees someone who, despite the efforts of many thousands of powerful Masters of Envy, was able to push through and get to the spot of the new Ruler of Envy after the Ruler Tyven died.

And the longer she talks about it, the stronger Envy begins to seem. But it doesn't make me respect him or even admire him. It just makes me realize that maybe I should be a bit more thankful to Sandra the Cockroach.

We are led to a smaller room where other participants mingle. There are a few hundred of them, though Selene tells us there are a few more rooms like that, and more "prominent" participants have more luxurious places, probably because they're too pure to interact with us, commoners.

Left alone, me and Vic make our way through the room, dealing with many waves of detection again while doing our own. Probing people and making sure to remember the ones that seem like they could be dangerous, though I have to say there are not that many of them.

What brings most of my attention is the walls placed all over the room. They seem to be made of glass, and on them, in extremely high resolution, a sort of hype reel plays. There are even snippets with me on them. Me against Savant during the first tournament. Me against Ruby’s avatar during another tournament. The fight against the Leviathan Fish, and then even the boys standing up against Nyssa, with the video being cut there as a cliffhanger to make the viewers wonder how it ended.

As Vic taps my shoulder and leaves to talk to a few people, I also watch some of hers. Both of us against Lissandra, even if Lissandra’s face is blurred. Victoria in what seems like a nest of ants, getting torn apart, and her duplicates fighting. Her on the snowy lumoran planet surrounded by multiple Greater Mimics. Her in the rainforest of the ninth floor, facing off against clans of demons throwing themselves against her, with the forest set on fire and monsters rushing in in waves, and Victoria standing there unbothered and mowing them all down.

When the videos show someone else, I stop looking and glance towards her, feeling a smile climbing onto my lips. Vic seems to sense my gaze as she turns to me with a question, and I just shake my head. She then returns to talk to some weird looking bear like man, and I find a quiet corner to move into after grabbing some snacks.

The entire time, I continue to scan the area and keep an eye on Vic, unbothered by the hundreds of flickering presences in the room.

Next Chapter