by Naosu N R
Wait, what skill is this?
"This first one is a magic trade window for your status screen. Then I need you to use it right away. Then I'll give you the real stuff," my brother Diego told me.
"OK..."
So you don't come with all the plug-ins in your status screen it seems. You have to work them in with upgrades, I realized.
But that makes sense. I have to unlock and acquire status screen plug-ins, like the one for mapping that everyone already knows about.
I picked up the book. Then I began picking through it.
Wow!
Within just a few pages, I can feel the energy going through my mind! The purity of energy also gave me a light headache as its 'tattooing' skill information into my brain.
I am acquiring the skill from the book already!
Skill books...their magic basically acts like a Xerox copier to your brain with the information. They are ridiculously expensive and cool. Everyone covets them, no matter how light the skill!
Then there's a ping on my status screen after I finished it, while the pages glowed briefly on the skill book as the magic went off!
['Inventory Trade Window' status screen skill plug-in acquired!] registers on my status screen popup window.
Its weird now that I can feel how to use the trade window with my mind and in my memories, as if I'd always known about it. But before now I didn't know this!
This feels strange to think about...knowing how to use something with second nature that I've never done before!
"OK, now use the skill to open a trade window with me," my brother told me.
"OK."
I did as he asked. A trade window screen made out of energy, looking like a blue screen and game like setup is hanging in the air in front of me. Then one also is hanging in front of my brother!
!
He then started putting stuff in the slots, just like we're in a game. However, we're not in a game. Its real.
"OK, just click accept. This is newbie trash gear so don't worry about it, OK? Its actually pretty cheap worthless stuff, but things you can really use. You don't owe me, and I don't owe you," he said. "Mom and dad gave me stuff just like this also. And they'd be mad if I didn't give you some free newbie gear to get you started. They forced me to do this."
One of the window slots now shows 'adventurer training sword'. Then the one next to it says 'Wooden shield'. Then next to that 'inventory slot' enchant skill book shows up. Then another says 'meditation' skill book. Then 'energy shield' skill book.
The quality doesn't look really great.
"OK, you can click accept. But I need to warn you Jay; you want to work up skills through effort more than using skill books. They will end up with higher stats if you gain it with your own sweat. So when you get rich you can come help us out OK?" he winked at me and then left after we'd finalized the trade.
But there's a problem already.
Both the shield and the training sword say; 'good slayer' enchant on them.
WTF?!
This worries me. I am very clearly not evil. And this is the classic family situation I'm in.
This was a trap to pull me in! They are clearly trying to influence me. If I use this, they are hoping I'll be using the enchant specifically! They were counting on me being blinded to go for anything with huge stats, no matter the cost.
I can't do that. Good thing my brother is in a hurry, or he would have noticed how badly I freaked out when I saw the 'good slayer' enchant.
When I read the description, it says 'good slayer' does bonus +50% damage on a being that its tied to. This is a huge deal, and not a simple enchant. Most enchants might give you +5%, or if you are lucky up to +10%.
Not only is it a quality enchant but its quite leveled up, despite being on a newbie item.
What the hell were they thinking?
'How do I survive being good, when born into an evil overlord family?'
I very clearly don't want to be evil. That's the game over route.
And crap, I also realized if anyone saw the 'good slayer' enchant gear, it could cause some serious problems for me!
I'd asked myself a lot of hard questions like this many times with worry. Somehow I'd have to get rid of this thing. It might even cause me harm if I trip while using it, etc.
Part of me wonders also if this is a trap by the family to draw me in. Otherwise wouldn't they have put something else as the enchant?
My heart shivers at the thought.
If I use this...that means it has a bonus for killing good people.
I frowned.
That's not what I want. I can't do that.
My existence is to resist evil and help good people! I know this!
So I don't understand why I was born into a family like this!
Jeez!
I began to sweat and worry.
This is really fucked up. If I stay here with mom and dad I can be rich and powerful. But it would come at the cost of my soul, and the chance to go to heaven and live with god if I be good.
I can't lose that!
Crap, crap, crap!
I was so stressed out, I didn't realize my other brother had shown up, and Diego is gone now. He knocked on my room door and waited a few seconds.
But then I realized he'd opened the door.
"Hey Jay, can we talk?" he asked.
I nodded for him to come in.
"What's with the long face?" he asked.
"Just worrying about a lot of stuff," I said.
"Yeah, I hear you. Hey listen, don't stress too much. There's a lot of pressure as a new adventurer in the dungeons. I felt that too. I know what you are going through. If you worry about all that you will be worried sick all the time. Just try to take one step at a time. Go at a pace you can understand and do. And plan well, don't get yourself caught flatfooted without preparations. It will get better. It will even get fun and exciting actually when you realize all the things you can do from dungeon adventuring and leveling up," he added.
"Th-thanks."
"Did the others tell you about the family business?" he asked.
"Uh no...I'm not sure I'm ready for that anyway. I need to think things through."
"Jay, you really should do the family business with us. Please consider it. Its very profitable. You can live the good life, and have a lot of nice things! You know mom and dad set up a really sweet arranged marriage with me with a really hot girl? I also have my own big house now and a good life as a 'managing partner' status there in the firm. Plus, I have a stable income; which is what women also want. And you should be planning on that, because a lot of the nature of your happiness depends on your marriage and who you marry. My wife lets me have a mistress also, two of them even, because that's the family way. Because of our family's status, its already a given that monogamy is out. Plus mom and dad will want you to have lots of women to be used as minions, to further the family power foundation, and possibly breed us more soldiers. Its awesome bro. You get a lot of benefits if you work with us," he added.
He left not too long after trying to tempt me more, leaving me with my head swimming to keep up.
I didn't like how he worded that. It sounded kind of ridiculous actually.
Jeez...that's a lot of temptation.
And its particularly difficult when the questions and decisions are coming at you faster than you can figure out the previous one.
You have to ask yourself what you want in the long game. The short game isn't sustainable. Most cheating in life comes from the idea that 'future consequences' can be voided if you deny that there's accountability after this life. Or following the crowd too easily.
Unfortunately I know there is accountability. So following my family and following the easy way out won't work.
But one by one, each of the family is piling up more temptations.
After that, came texts from my sister, whom I rarely heard from with her own encouragement texts. Then one from dad, hoping I'll think about working for him. All are encouragem
ent to 'join the family business' and riches will follow.
Its hard to not give in on this actually.
Mom sent me a text that she was going to have other relatives give me a call to set up offers for marriage and mistress interviews.
'Huh? What do you mean by offers?' I sent.
'Jay, our family is from the other world. You can't think like this world's mentality, because our system doesn't fit well with this world's thinking. Our skills and classes and mindset only work with the other world's thinking. That means, there aren't many people that can carry our genes to your children and descendants; who you marry matters. Those that do have to also come from the other world, or we lose benefits. That means, you will have an arranged marriage with your 1st or 2nd cousin, and more. We need to plant as many genes in this world as possible to take back what's ours also someday,' mom sent.
Uh...wow.
That's a bit.
I stopped.
I was about to think that was freaky but then I stopped. Actually all of the people in our family are super, super good looking because of the other world genes. Even my parents who are in their 40s get mistaken for early 30s and young often.
And it was already revealed that we come from another world that is magic rich.
But it makes sense.
If our magic skills are dependent on mating with someone from the other world, and only a rare super small group of people come from that world...
It would mean we'd have to marry in our own clan, but not so close also. This would make a lot of situations people from this world wouldn't understand.
And it would mean they'd have to pursue a 'genetic expansion' policy as much as possible to avoid our getting trapped.
So if I don't do this, will my posterity also be magic less? Or severely limited in magitek skills and the 'status screen' system?
My other clan members are all good looking also. People with magic usually are, as it raises their stats just by having access. Plus, the clan is big enough that people can call each other relatives without actually being too close in the same tree.
But its complicated also, and must be part of the evil ensnarement plot too.
Shit.
What do I even do?
So much temptation right now.
I still don't know much about the murim world either or how to progress in it.
I've even only heard that name, Murim a few times also.
Like where do people meet up with each other in it to train? Are there buildings for it? But how much of what people are doing is actually evil in it? And how do I avoid those? Is kung fu, and martial arts the same as murim or not? And where would I go to buy equipment and stuff?
I suppose I could try to just go where the normal people go to level up and team up that are part of the human magitek. But that would mean also leaving behind tons of disadvantages and going up from the ground up.
Oh dear....
I took a nap.
When I got up it was around 8:43 PM.
So I went to the library.
Murim, murim, murim...
This is what I'm looking for. This is the term for this hidden world.
But its not only martial artists, but also mages. It encompasses a broad range of many job classes.
Everything in the library is organized by topic.
I didn't find in 'geography' or 'science'.
The odd thing...and another signal about my family being evil also, was that I found the books on the 'murim underworld' in the section on 'world domination'.
That's...quite interesting.
I flipped through a few books, skipping around by table of contents.
'The world of the murim seems to be the world's mana feeding around different places of seeding the hidden world, within the world, and the hollow world.'
So, the hollow world or murim underground world is related? Are they code words for each other, or what?
Maybe the hollow world legend is really about the dungeon in this world?
Strange.
I found a bit more research. But that too was hidden and had taken a lot of effort to even find brief bits of info.
After quite a while I had a few bread crumbs, because I thought of indirect topics having chances for brief mentioning of the search topic, that might be missed.
And I was right!
The murim world is divided into good, bad, and some neutrals that are also gangsters themselves. It seems like there's not a lot of good there actually.
But key big cities have some kind of teleport network between each other where 'ONLY' supernaturals can be found and accessed. Its possible these teleport networks intersect within certain hidden areas of this hidden world. And the hidden world of the dungeons and insides of this world also inside of this one contains concentrated magic, and monsters also.
They call this a murim world.
Or a world within a world; a hollow world.
The way to ascend into the hollow world and cross over to the hidden world within a world is by ascending the 'Dungeon Tower'. Most everyone tries to ascend this and level up sooner or later.
And monsters? Do you think they are real?
Many still don't, but as magitek knowledge becomes more common, people are starting to think, 'if magic is real, what about these other myths?'
Normal humans think their nightmares aren't real, but some of them are hypothesized to be part of monsters escaping the defended murim world into humanity. Or in some cases, monsters hiding among humans.
NYC has one of these networks. So does Seoul, Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, Chicago, and Los Angeles. (Cairo and Shanghai used to be part of this but had been cut off somehow a few decades ago.)
So is this the physical manifestation of the murim world?
It might explain a lot.
But if my parents aren't near those portal networked cities, why is that?
I read further.
The world of the murim consists of both martial artists, enhanced humans, mages, and werewolves on the human side. The enemies of the murim to all factions are demons, shadelings, and vampires.
So how am I going to get through this?
I can't join my family. If I do I gain this world at the expense of eternity in failure and in falling with no chance of redemption.
What a headache.
This means I have to leave my family, I realized. Its the only way to avoid the bad guy route.
That's going to be really hard. Living is expensive also in the normal world. Plus, the clan wouldn't take it well if I left, so I'd be in hiding.
I feverishly keep reading.
I have to know more! I have to know everything! Somehow I have to find a way, before my family escalates trying to recruit me!
Shit, shit, shit...
I have to do this. But I need to buy time also.
I don't have a lot of savings. Also I'm not physically powerful (yet), and that makes it hard for me to go somewhere or leave this area. If I was someone super powerful physically, it wouldn't be hard to live outside. But for me living outside doesn't work well.
The only way to get through it is to level up first.
This presents a lot of problems to avoid.
My uncles and aunts I believe are part of the main family doctrine. But I'm also not sure why my evil is evil. I won't be able to trust anyone with my real thoughts and feelings.
Dad had hinted something about from us fighting a hero and losing in a war. Then they left here, but that had to be maybe several hundred years ago. But the exact date is unclear or at least not mentioned here in these resources.
This is a world of leveling up.
But you just need magitek and scanning to see it.
To be fair, even normal humans can level up. But they just don't have magic, which means lower stats when they level up also. This is why some people can get survive a shooting and live while others can't. If a normal human had enough health points they can live through getting shot. But man
y can't.
Why some people die in war, but others don't.
You can find a level 11 police officer for example, just as you can find level 3 police officers, or level 14 police officers.
Or a level 7 prison inmate, or a level 4 inmate.