Seven chairs had been placed around a table with a huge world map spread over it. The seventh chair looked newer than the others. Shuutarou sat on it, although he felt like he didn’t belong. Opposite him was Elroad.
“‘Create Dungeon’? I’ve never heard of such a skill,” Elroad said, leafing through a thick tome.
Although Shuutarou never intended to take over an Evil Overlord castle, he felt a sense of duty toward them now that he was their master, and he’d decided to be open with them and tell them about his skill.
“True, our castle is underground… Can you show me on the map where you were when you used your skill?” asked Vampy, who was sitting next to him.
Shuutarou stood up to see the world map better. He remembered a blog he used to follow with passion: Beta Tester Yoritsura Is In!
In the one month when the game was open only to beta testers, starting out from the city of Allistras, Yoritsura managed to explore Ilyana Tunnel, Ur Sluice, Emaro Town, Olstrott Monastery, Calloah Castle Town, Kiren Graveyard, Kleeshira Ruins, and Ken-Ron Sky Cave. Nine areas all together.
For the first time, it occurred to Shuutarou that when it came to his interests, he had an excellent memory.
Early players pointed out that the difficulty of a location could be guessed from its name, with names higher up in the Japanese alphabetic order being easier than the ones farther down. Some posters on online message boards mocked the supposedly super-advanced Mother AI for a lack of imagination.
“I was here, in Allistras,” Shuutarou pointed on the map, having finally found the place.
He looked around the room, gauging the reaction. He was wary of the Evil Overlords, so he didn’t want to tell them that Allistras was the starting town, probably chock-full of players at the moment. The fate of those players might have accidentally landed in his hands.
Theodore cocked his head.
“Allistras?”
“I-I’m not lying!”
It didn’t take much to make Shuutarou panicky.
Theodore didn’t bother with a long explanation. Instead, he pointed to a different area on the map.
“Ross Maora, Den of Demons, is here. Ross Maora Castle is located in the farthest reach of this area. See the distance from Allistras?”
He traced his finger from Ross Maora to Allistras, from one edge of the map to the other.
“It’s too far.”
Theodore looked straight at Shuutarou. The gaze of his golden eyes was so piercing that Shuutarou felt as if the man could look straight into his mind, in which case he would be able to tell the boy wasn’t lying, of course. Still, transfixed by that stare, Shuutarou felt as if he’d done something wrong and should apologize.
He’s so scary…
Shuutarou was trying very hard not to break down into tears.
Here’s what had actually happened: Shuutarou used his Create Dungeon skill at precisely the same moment the game locked its players in. The change in the game’s mechanics caused a temporary reshuffling of map coordinates, linking Shuutarou’s location to a yet unimplemented area—Ross Maora Castle. It was completely unintentional, not only for Shuutarou and the Evil Overlords, but even for the Mother AI.
“I fail to see how your skill could have caused you to appear in our castle, but here you are. Perhaps the intense power Sylvia had sensed is somehow related to this phenomenon,” Elroad said smoothly, dispelling the tension in the air. He opened a thick notebook. “Master, can you tell me what exactly your skill can do?”
The three Evil Overlords looked at Shuutarou, who compliantly navigated to the skill from his menu and opened the dungeon menu for the first time.
The last two options seemed to have immediate effects, so they were better candidates for showing off the skill’s uses. Shuutarou selected BUILD and then picked ROCK, which cost him one point.
WHOOSH! A big rock sprouted from the floor, pushing one of the chairs up into the air. The chair fell to pieces when it landed.
Shuutarou was frozen in shock, his fingers still hovering over the menu.
“Basic Earth-attribute magic? That’s it?”
Vampy sounded suspicious.
“On the contrary, it’s quite impressive…!”
Elroad examined the rock with interest.
The only purpose of obstacles was to block paths inside dungeons, so their cost was low. One thousand points were initially available when creating a new dungeon.
“Vampy, all the furniture in our castle is made from kojid ore. Magic and skills don’t work on it.”
“! You’re right.”
Vampy regarded the rock with newfound appreciation as Elroad wrote something in his notebook. Meanwhile, Shuutarou was fidgeting restlessly, worried about having destroyed someone’s chair and creating an obstacle that he had no idea how to remove.
Theodore drew his greatsword from the scabbard on his back. The ominous blade was elaborately engraved. It glinted with a strange light, emanating dark miasma.
“Eep!”
I’m gonna die, Shuutarou thought.
The blade struck the rock with a reverberating clang, and the rock shattered and crumbled into dust…leaving behind a stone chair. Satisfied, Theodore returned to his seat. With that fearsome move, he’d carved furniture out of the boulder.
“Master, is there anything else your skill can be used for?”
“Uh… Oh yeah.”
Elroad’s question helped Shuutarou snap out of shock. He selected SUMMON from the menu.
Shuutarou figured that the slime shown at the top was the monster he was supposed to start with. Dungeon creation was an ability rarely featured in games; it allowed players to make their own dungeons, populating them with monsters and equipping them with traps to kill intruders and gain experience points—EXP—which could then be used to expand the dungeon. At first, Shuutarou would only have weak slimes and basic traps at his disposal, but as more corpses piled up in his dungeon, more options would become unlocked, allowing him to make the dungeon even deadlier.
But if someone killed him, that would reset his points to zero and destroy his dungeon. Given that dying in the game meant death for real as far as he knew, having to rely on starting monsters to keep him safe was too much of a risk. He’d practically be a sitting duck.
He idly scrolled through the menu, wondering if maybe there were other available monsters further down the list. He got to the very end…and he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“One hundred twenty?!”
Shuutarou covered his mouth. He knew from the walkthrough sites he’d been avidly reading that level differences in Eternity mattered a lot more than in other games. If you pitted ten level-10 players against one level-20 player, the latter would win hands down.
The number of experience points required to level up was also unusually high. Some classes had it easier than others, but even top players couldn’t manage to get higher than level 40 after a full day of grinding.
For example, to have any hope of defeating Dullahan—a level-30 Undead boss monster—players would need to form a party with members who were at least level 30 and had weapons or skills exploiting Dullahan’s weaknesses. When there were only the hundred beta testers on the server, they managed to slay Dullahan only with a full party of six people all meeting those requirements. Progressing through the game got way slower after this boss, which was why by the end of the beta, only two areas past Kiren Graveyard had been explored.
Without saying a word, Shuutarou selected the slime and summoned it. The first summon was free. A blue magic circle appeared on the ground and began spinning slowly. A semitransparent blob emerged from its center, bouncing energetically.
The three Evil Overlords bent down to peer closely at the slime on the floor.
“This seems to be a common slime.”
“Yet our unique skills don’t work on it, as with our master.”
Shuutarou petted the slime, trying to distract himself from his anxious thoughts. The slime bounced, happy to get attention from its master.