"Think about it, in a world where your all is measured by something so accurate and tangible as a number, and that number directly feeds into how powerful you are, well, of course those with
more
are going to lord it over those with
less
. Fantasizing that society wouldn't be anything but a hierarchical nightmare is simply naive."
-The man who lived in a pithos.
-
"What level are you?"
"...I'm.... I'm level one..."
"Exactly. Like a
child
." She flicked him on the nose.
She had to bend down to do so due to his height, a diminutive four foot six, a child's height. Which would have been fine if he were a child, but as an adult human it wasn't exactly ideal.
Rain reacted a moment too slowly to fend off the flick and his skinny arm whistled through the air hitting nothing.
She laughed at his flailing and wrapped her arm around Adlen's shoulders.
"Aww look at the child rage. Pathetic."
"I'm not a child. Just help me like you said you would and I'll grow out of this, that's how this leveling thing works, it builds up your body."
"Stamp your foot harder if you want it so much, no, better yet, lick my foot," leered the elf girl.
"Ew. Are you serious Myra?" said Adlen eyeing the Elf hanging off his side.
"Deadly serious." She flicked off one of her sandals and waggled her toes.
Rain eyed her foot with dismay.
"Come on you worthless little shit, tongue between my toes or I'm going to leave you in the forest to die, no one will say anything, and you know you don't have the levels needed to survive out here. Your life depends on me, on us."
"I..."
"Do you want to die?"
Rain wanted to run away never to see the horrible elf girl again, but he knew he would be throwing away the tiny thread of hope that had drawn him out of town, and likely his life too. Rain was a
survivor
, his life had centred around it, and survivors did what was needed to survive. So, unhappily, reluctantly, he got to his knees and crawled toward her.
"Holy shit he's actually going to do it, what a little freak!" laughed Adlen.
Rain crept forward and stretched out his tongue, the tip about to touch the tip of her toe. Myra shrieked and kicked him in the face
hard
. He collapsed to the ground.
"Urgh! Gross! He touched me!" said Myra, dramatically wiping her toe on the grass as though to rid herself of the touch.
Adlen rolled his eyes. "You were going to do that from the start Myra. You'd never let a dirty little runt like him touch you."
"Mm, true, a level one is no better than trash really. A level like yours on the other hand..." She looked up at him with half-lidded eyes then grabbed his hand and placed it on her hip.
Rain looked up at them from the ground. He hated this, he hated his situation that had led him to be so reliant on these arrogant assholes... Most of all he hated himself for being jealous of them.
Adlen was a muscular giant at six foot three inches and Myra had the look of a toned athlete, tall for a female elf at five foot eleven. The gift of levelling young, levelling young meant a stronger bigger body as it boosted growth and development.
He himself had none of that, much of his childhood had been marred by nights going cold and hungry, desperate enough to chew pieces of leather to numb the hunger pangs. He remained stuck at level one because there had been no one willing to help him find and kill a monster. Suffice to say the lack of levels and the lack of food had ruined his growth, he looked positively skeletal in comparison to the pair.
He slowly got to his knees.
"Keep perving because you're never going to get this," said Myra, grinding up against Adlen.
"Tease."
"Should we do it in front of him? It would be pretty twisted," said Myra.
"I would, but no, the others will be back any moment now."
"Fiiine. No show."
Rain gritted his teeth and held back a scathing comment. He had had an overwhelming urge to lay into them, but he was dependent on their goodwill and couldn't afford to go against them in the slightest.
He wiped blood from his lip and slowly climbed to his feet.
"Myra stop fucking around. The horses are hobbled, let's get inside this damn dungeon already," said an even taller guy than Adlen who pushed aside the foliage and stepped into the clearing. A pair of girls followed behind.
Rain eyed him warily. While Adlen was an intimidating level nineteen, this one, Brax, was an incredible level twenty eight, a prodigy, and because of that one of the most desirable men in the dungeon town of Lynthia, Rain's home. Seriously, Rain had seen him simply walk up to a random woman and take her hand and draw her away. She would happily follow, hopping like an eager rabbit into the nearest bedroom with him. It helped that he looked like an idealized adonis with long black slightly curled hair, though as always a person's level was cause for greatest attraction, a high number charmed people like nothing else.
That two of the three girls of the team seemed to have attached themselves to him did not surprise Rain in the slightest. In fact he was more surprised Adlen had any chance at all with Myra.
"Oh we were just having a little fun, nothing serious!" she pouted at him.
"Just a little eh?" he slapped his thigh and Myra bounced over to him where he wrapped one large arm around her hips.
Adlen scowled seeing that. Rain had to hold in a snort of laughter, he knew well that Adlen would love to say something but like himself he would have to keep his thoughts unspoken for fear of getting beaten to a pulp by the higher leveler.
"Hey you wanted us to go, well, let's go," said Adlen, clearly hoping to distract Brax from Myra. He gestured behind himself to a stone entrance.
It was an impressive thing, the entrance to a dungeon. At least twenty feet tall and built from heavy block stonework. Large angular runes from a dead language marked the thick arch, the stone chipped and marred with age beneath thick green moss that crawled across its surface.
