Free Tier - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 65 - We Trusted the System

Xavier stood on the battlements on the one-hundred-and-fifty-fourth floor of the Tower of Champions, speaking to the King of Eldaarn, prompting the man to tell him more of what had happened to his world.

The man blinked, raised his head, looked Xavier in the eye. He seemed to see something, then, and nodded to himself.

King Elric began to talk. Once he got started, it seemed he would never stop. Three hundred years ago, they had opened a portal to another world. They hadn’t known what to expect. Their planet had remained insular for as long as their recorded history stretched. They hadn’t been invaded, nor had they been visited by outworlders.

But their civilisation had stagnated, and they felt as though they had to venture out if they didn’t want remain that way.

The Denizens of this world had originally gained their strength not through conquering and fighting one another, but through fighting the constant waves of beasts that plagued their planet. This world hadn’t been integrated in the System for very long by the standard of the Greater Universe—only five hundred years.

Apparently, King Elric had been there when it had all started.

That had taken Xavier by surprise. He hadn’t expected the man to be over five hundred years old. He’d met older people, of course, but it still came as a mild shock. Despite how normal everything else felt about being integrated into the System these days, he still struggled to wrap his mind around the long lives of the people within it. Of how much they must have experienced.

The beast waves of this world, according to King Elric, had been relentless. Even pre-integration, the predators here had been incredibly aggressive. The inhabitants of Eldaarn—what King Elric called their world, even if his kingdom no longer stretched all the way across it—had struggled to expand beyond small, heavily fortified settlements until the System had come.

The integration had actually been a saving grace for these people. Very few of them had chosen to become Champions, and once others knew what the choice meant—that they would have to fight one of their own to the death—it became anathema in their culture to do so. They were a people unified, and they would remain that way.

Fighting amongst themselves just wasn’t something they would ever choose to do.

Xavier couldn’t help but admire that. He wanted to ask more questions about their history, but he didn’t want to interrupt the king’s story.

At first, the predators of the world became even harder to handle. Then, once the Denizens here became familiar with their new classes—and found the class of Defender early on—the tide turned. They expanded outward. They were finally able to. The kingdom stretched across the world. They tamed the wilds. Beat back the beasts that had besieged their people for so long.

It was the System that had encouraged them to leave this world.

“We should never have left,” King Elric said. “We trusted the System, for it had hailed in a new era for our people. An era of strength. Stability. Safety.” He shook his head. “There were some who argued against ever leaving. They feared what we would encounter.” He sighed. “It shames me to say that I called them cowards. I still wish I had listened to their wisdom. But the System had given me a Quest. I thought it would lead to more strength for our world, ensuring our safety should outworlders come knocking. I was wrong.”

At those words, Xavier expected to see rage. Perhaps an echo of the same rage Xavier felt. But there was no rage in the man’s eyes. He didn’t look defeated. He didn’t look hopeless. There was still fight in him. He would fight to the last. But… he appeared resigned to his fate.

“This is the last bastion for our people.” The king sighed. Blinked. “I failed to mention the second most important spell of the Defender line of classes.” With his sword, he gestured at his people along the walls. “The second spell allows us to become stronger the closer we are. We get a buff. A powerful one. It increases the more Defenders we have. It also allows us to work in synergy. It creates a… Link between all of us. Not like a Communication Stone. This is more… a bond. The System description calls it a collective consciousness. We know where the other Defenders are at all times. We know the best way to fight alongside each other. The best way to combine all of our different strengths. It is why we have been able to remain in this castle for so long, and it is why our world was not instantly crushed when we…” The man trailed off.

Xavier inclined his head. He was beginning to understand. “The first spell locks you here, venturing out would reduce your power. The second spell locks you together, meaning you would all be weakened if even one of your number left or died.”

King Elric inclined his head. “Indeed.”

“What I don’t understand is how you haven’t become more powerful.” Xavier looked at the enemies outside the wall. The enemies out there weren’t something Xavier had encountered before. According to the System, they were Denizens, not beasts, as these people had traditionally been used to fighting. But to his eye they looked like beasts.

They were large insects, uniform in size and shape—as uniform as the different Defenders on the wall, he supposed. Each insect was roughly the size of a horse. To him, the closest thing he could compare them to were ants. Except that didn’t describe them perfectly.

Ants didn’t have ten limbs, and ants weren’t armoured and bristling with weapons, either.

When he’d set foot on this floor and looked out at them, the sight had unlocked some small, primal fear within him. The fear didn’t linger, of course. For a moment he’d been curious about that primal fear—he no longer had the same instincts as when he’d been human. He was dragonkin now. The deep, evolutionary instincts within him had evolved in a place he’d never even seen, a place he knew very little about.

Again, like the Defenders of the Kingdom of Eldaarn, there were a few distinct types of these insects. His Identify skill called them Arakashinai. As that was a bit of a mouthful, he’d heard the of Eldaarn defenders calling them Araks.

Six of the ten Arak limbs appeared to be legs—though Xavier had seen them clutch things with the clawed appendages at the ends of those legs, so it appeared they possessed multiple uses—while four of those limbs were arms. Each of those arms held a weapon or a shield.

When he’d compared their size to horses, perhaps it would have been more apt to compare them to centaurs. Insectoid, four-armed, six-legged centaurs with short sword-sized pincers and large, bulbous eyes and antennae jutting from their foreheads.

Xavier identified three types of Araks. The first type was the general foot soldiers—heavily armoured Araks that wielded two axes and two shields respectively. Then, there were the mages, with their long-range, acid spells that slowly ate at the castle’s defences—defences that were constantly being repaired, as all the Defender line of classes seem to have spells that helped repair them.

Finally, there were the flyers that caused death from above. They were the only Araks that were winged, though they were otherwise the same size of their kin.

King Elric sighed at Xavier’s question about why they hadn’t become more powerful. The man sheathed his short sword and took off his helm. Sweat streamed down his forehead. He ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t as jittery as he’d been before, his glances toward the enemies having lessened. It seemed he was starting to trust that Xavier’s time dilation field wasn’t about to falter. Though he was far from relaxed.

“A downfall of the Defender class,” King Elric said, “is that when both of those spells are cast—the spell that strengthens us in our territory, and the spell that strengthens us when we are beside our brothers- and sisters-in-arms—it makes us incredibly powerful. Far more powerful than we have a right to be at our grades and levels… That power comes at a cost.”

Xavier refrained from saying anything about that. The man was right, in part. These Defenders were powerful for their levels. In fact, they were far more powerful than he’d expected them to be.

But he was a lower level than the majority of them, and he didn’t doubt for a second that he could get past their defences.

Though I’m not exactly the average D Grade…

“You see,” the king continued, “when both spells are active, it heavily reduces the amount of Mastery Points we are able to gain, lowering it down to a mere fraction of a percentage of what it should be. This is only a cost we must pay when both are active. And, well…” The King of Eldaarn lowered his head. “Anything less would mean our deaths. We have tried to fight without them. Tried to level up one person at a time, thinking the reduction in our strength wouldn’t be too much. All it ends up doing is getting my people killed.”

Xavier raised his chin. His gaze passed over the people of Eldaarn along the walls. That was a high price for those spells. He understood why these people had made their decisions, back when the System had first come. They seemed perfectly logical, even admirable. Honestly, when the man had told him there hadn’t been a single war between his peoples, not even a rebellion, Xavier had been surprised. He’d scanned a few of the Denizens again, making sure they were actually human, and not some other, more peaceful race. It had made him wonder what Earth might have looked like, if only the people had banded together like these had.

It wouldn’t have prepared us for when the System came, but perhaps people would have lived happier lives before then.

Xavier had already made his decision about the spell he wanted to gain from this floor—from these people. Not a spell Rowalla had told him about, but one he could see would help him greatly in his fight against the World Destroyer—as long as a few key criteria were met, criteria he hadn’t puzzled out yet. He could figure that out later.

Besides, the spell wasn’t the only thing of interest to him on this floor.

The Eldaarn people had summoned a Champion to their world because, much like many conflicts Xavier had arrived in, they needed a way to tip the balance. They needed fighters to help even things out, so they could finally relax the spells they were using, so their people could finally start gaining more power.

Xavier had been intrigued by that. Gaining enough Mastery Points to reach the next level for people in high D Grade would take a long time—even facing what they faced. That meant this floor was a long floor, much like the hundredth floor. There had been no notifications when he’d arrived, however. Nothing informing him that time moved differently here, or that he only needed to defend for a certain number of hours or waves until the floor would be cleared.

He assumed that once some arbitrary goal had been reached, he’d be teleported off the floor. Xavier just wished he knew what that goal was. Looking out at the army, this appeared like the perfect floor to farm levels for himself. Not only himself, either. The Spirit Golem, with Rhaalir piloting it, needed to gain more levels as well.

But without knowing what would trigger the clear, Xavier didn’t want to accidentally clear it too early. More often than not, he was glad he came onto floors without any prior knowledge or preconceptions—thanks to the unique restrictions the System had put onto him—but sometimes he couldn’t help but be rankled by it. He inwardly sighed, rejecting this floor as an opportunity to farm Mastery Points.

There will be time for that later.

The next information he needed to gain next from the king would decide how he acted here. Whether he would gain the spell he wished to gain, finish the floor as swiftly as possible, then move on.

Or whether he would do what he truly wished to do.

Elric had made it clear that his people had been peaceful—with each other. He had been vague, however, about what had caused them to come into this predicament in the first place.

“When you left this world, did you try to invade the Araks’ world? To expand your kingdom?” Xavier took a step toward the man. He was aware the king could lie about what he and his people had done, but he didn’t wish to lose the man’s trust by discerning truth from lie with Willpower Infusion.

He wasn’t above slight intimidation, however.

“Before you answer, I need you to sign a truth contract,” Xavier said.

The king blinked. He looked at Xavier anew. At the step he’d taken. The expression on his face shifted to one of slight defiance. His helm was still in his hand. Without haste, he placed it back on his head then rested a hand on the hilt of his short sword. “You are a Champion of the System. You were summoned here to help us fight. You must do this.” His eyes narrowed. “Why are you questioning me? What will my answers tell you?”

Xavier smiled. “I don’t have to fight for you.” He turned his gaze toward a door in one of the guard towers. It was an extra door, one only he could see. “There is an exit to this floor. I could simply leave. When I return to this floor, I will be in a new universe, speaking to a different King Elric. He and his people would get the chance to live, while yours…” He shrugged. “Will continue in this struggle.”

King Elric’s face took on multiple different emotions, each flashing on it fast. Rage was the one that won out. He tightened his grip on his hilt. It was clear the man was exercising a great deal of restraint not to draw it. “You dare threaten me? Here? Do you truly believe you would make it to that exit alive? I knew the costs of calling a Champion. Gods, I knew it was a foolish thing! But that damned System. The notification. It told me this would be the only way.”

Xavier blinked. “The System told you to summon a Champion?”

“Aye. Once again, fool I am, I listened to it.” The king sighed, seeming to deflate, then, the rage slipping away as fast as it had come. “When I scan you, I can tell the System lies. You are no swordsman. And those wings… You are more than you seem, aren’t you?”

Xavier gave a curt nod.

“I suppose I have no choice, whatever you are. Stopping you from leaving would doom us all the same. I don’t know why this is important to you. I would have answered your questions without a contract. Without lying. Trust is important in Eldaarn culture. The glue that holds us together. To be accused as being a liar?” Elric’s rage reappeared as he spat that last word. Then the man scoffed. “We seem to be an anomaly in that regard, from what I’ve experienced.”

Xavier couldn’t help but agree with that.

Once the contract was signed, Xavier asked his question again. “Did you invade the Araks? Did the Araks come to this world for retribution?”