My clothes were as they were before I had jumped in, dry and dirty. Looking at the sun, it looked like no time had passed since I first entered the dungeon. I decided it was best to go back before I raised any alarm. I had been out for a while and hoped no one would be disgruntled by it.
As I walked back, I wondered how to access the cupcake system. It seems my thoughts triggered it, for the same holographic panel popped up displaying the exact words it had back in the dungeon. Status: Level 1, quests open 3.
This was actually really cool; it was like the video games I always watched my classmates play, leveling up systems to get strong. I tapped the quest options, and it displayed three quests:
[Awaken magic +1 level. Kill something +3 level. Kill a monster +2 level]
[Completed the first dungeon raid +1 level +1 Magic manual, confirm?]
I hit confirm with my eyes, and I automatically felt twice as strong as I had been. My muscles stopped screaming, and I could breathe easier. I felt like I could run for miles and not grow weary. Then, a book materialized from the air and dropped into my hands. I smiled; my love for books was unending. The smell and feel of the little leather spiral-bound book were comforting.
I hid the book in my skirt and ran back to the castle. I arrived in about 30 minutes when it had initially taken me an hour. I thought this level-up system was quite handy. To my great relief, I slipped into the castle, where it seemed I had not been missed at all. I hurried back to my room and closed the door; I could not lock it, for it had no lock, so I pushed a drawer in front.
I then settled on the floor with my back to the bed but faced towards the door and, taking the book out, began to devour the contents. When I opened the first chapter, all it said was: "To activate magic, you must understand the element you are working with. Then, a table of contents for all magic types.
This magic manual is for body hardening." I flipped to the rest of the pages, and they were all blank. "This is way too confusing. Isn't there supposed to be more magic explained?" I murmured to myself.
[Learn new magic hardening: Yes/No]
Surprised, I hit yes. It couldn't possibly be this easy. Magic didn't sound simple at all, but then I felt a moment of eureka, and I suddenly understood how to use the magic hardening. I put my newfound knowledge into practice by forming a fist and letting the warm tendrils of magic flow into it.
As I softly hit my hand on the ground, I felt nothing. To put the sensation in words, my whole hand was numb as if a piece of steel had replaced it. There was no feeling in the muscles of my hand. Turning to my wooden bedpost, I swung my new magic fist at it, and it cracked the whole top piece off, splintering the decorative wood into unsolvable jigsaw puzzles. Now, this was something I could work with.
The sun slowly reached its full cycle, and night dawned on the world as I finally exhausted my magic supply. Flopping on the stone floor, I heaved a sigh of relief and accomplishment. I could feel my whole body radiating from working out almost every part of my body with the new stuff. I got up only to push the drawer away from the door, then lay back down for just a moment. I said to myself, but when I opened my eyes, it was morning.
[Bing Bong awaken magic quest complete +1]
The mechanical voice of the system rang like a gunshot in my ears. I shot awake, blood pounding in my ears. Coming to my senses, I looked around and, seeing the pieces of splintered wood remembered the events of yesterday. I immediately got down and started doing pushups.
I could rack out twenty pushups with no problem, whereas yesterday, I could barely do ten till I failed. Then I noticed something strange and warm in my heart, and I looked at the system status. The quest I had completed was magic activation. I could feel a power radiating off me, and I felt stronger than I had ever been before. Opening my status, I looked at the numbers and was now level 2. Flexing my fist, I wondered if levels did all that much in terms of strength.
Slipping out my door, I was scared the servants would have something to say. However, my presence was like a bug on the sole of their shoes. They saw, looked disgusted, and scrapped me off their minds without a word. "Being a filthy commoner has its perks," I muttered walking swiftly past them and into the forest.
"Bam" I punched the first tree I saw, tested my punch first without the magic armor, and it hurt so bad I sucked in a sharp breath. "Again," I muttered and tensed my fist, wrapping the warmth around my knuckles and going for another punch. The same numb feeling was there, and I felt no amount of pain no matter how hard I hit, and it even left a tiny indent in the tree. However, when I deactivated the magic, my hand began throbbing with a fierce intensity. I grimaced, looking at my hands, and decided I needed to get used to pain; I am pretty fragile.
But one thought was on the surface of my brain, swimming around with vigor:
"Punching is really fun."
After the eventful time in the dungeon, my life became smooth and structured, and I would wake up before the sun rose and start my daily exercises. I pretend to be sleeping when the maid brings her usual food. Yet, when the maids switched, and it came to the mousy maid's turn to feed me, she would use me as her personal stress reliever. Dragging me from my bed, she would force me to eat the terrible cooking she created. One day, it was a mix of worms with my high-quality fish, and another day, maggots.
What could I do? I had no power, no authority, no one to lend a listening ear. I would eat it, work out, and pretend to be a good rat in my room if anyone calls me. I was especially demure when the doctor came to take my blood, and I would ask how my "family" was.
They would always tell me the same thing: I was sick, and it was contagious; my magic could overflow and kill everybody, so for their sake and mine, I should just stay in my room and let them take my blood. It seemed my diagnosis was different with each question I would ask.
I was too puny and feeble to do anything now, but with the hope of strengthening myself with my newfound magic, I would be ready for war and anything else that threatened my existence.
I had written everything I remembered from the novel onto my magic manual, and from what I knew, the Duke of the North sided with the neighboring country's general to keep the monsters away. Although the general was the most dangerous villain in the whole novel, it was fine. I needed to be on the Duke's side, not the generals.
I heard the Duke was a good leader and did not discriminate between nobles and commoners. They were his people, and he protected them. He only cared about their capability. If I could successfully fake my death, then I could cut all ties with this Marquis of the South and join the knights in the North. But right now, my goal was to get as strong as I possibly could before being sent off.
My eyes went to the small window near the bed, and the sky, beyond the dirty sill, was so big, and I so small. But that is what I found to be so beautiful.
All this planning and calculating made me happy. I had never had control of my life before, and all this was fun. "Freedom is a heavenly thing, isn't it?" I breathed. I had freedom in my waking hours, but at night, I would continuously have nightmares. I would wake myself up by screaming, and the servants in my corner of the castle would always yell through my door to quiet me. To put my mind off odd feelings and scary dreams, I threw myself into becoming stronger and thoroughly enjoyed the process.
Every day, I could feel a little growth. It was at least six months since I had arrived at the Marquis Vale's estate when my fist could make a fist shape in the tree I had been beating up since I first awakened my magic. Leveling up really brought my physique to higher states at each level. However, I only. I was on level three since getting stronger without leveling up took ages. I decided it was time for me to fight and kill something…
I am unsure what changed, but the servant's gaze turned from disdain to disgust. When I went to train in the woods daily, they would whisper none too quietly that I had gone crazy from the loneliness and guessed that I went to the forest to talk to ghosts and throw pebbles into the haunted lakes.
Some servants even jumped out of the way when I passed. Hmmm, being crazy might be a good idea! I thought I'd been going to the woods only an hour a day not to raise suspicion. But going to that creepy forest was probably already suspicious in itself. I had something in mind to kill.
Slipping through the dark corridors behind the tapestries had become second nature for me, and I found that the name of the mousy maid was Bertha. She was a farm hand but came to the city and the Marquis' mansion to work as an errand maid or cook help. Every day at the break of dawn, she would water the vegetable and herb garden to bring in fresh produce for the Marquis and his family.
The communal water well was used in the opposite direction from the garden and used more directly by the stable hands. So, more often than not, she would go into the forest and take water from the lakes even though the servants were banned from using them. Coming from the farmlands, she did not believe in the rumors of curses or superstitions of the city folk.
This was the perfect time to execute my plans. I had followed her for the past two days to make sure of her trek to the lakes and the people who would first notice her disappearance.
On the third day, I waited for her to lug her bucket to the lake's edge while I watched her from a tree branch directly above her. I brought a hefty rock with me, and I felt my heart pumping excitedly. I waited until she dragged her very heavy bucket filled with water onto shore.
Taking one small step, I let myself fall through the branches and brought down my rock on her head with my full body weight and strength. Immediately, she fell, her heavy body slamming into the muck. My brows creased. I had gotten a lot stronger, but this way is too easy…
I took her bucket of water and hoisted it over my head, emptied the whole thing onto her head, and gave her a few slaps on the face. She sputtered awake, clutching her head in pain. Her blinking, confused eyes landed on me, and looking as if she'd seen a ghost scrambled backward. It was then that I saw myself in her eyes, I was smiling, grinning from ear to ear, with a bloodied rock drip, dripping onto the fresh green grass.
"Why are you doing this? "Bertha wailed, "I'll give you money, treat you well. What do you want, child?!?!"
I winced at how loud she was but felt that the fear-stricken face of my maid was much better than the one that shoved my head into bowls of worms with glee." This is what I want," I said, holding out my rock. I said it so quietly she had to lean her dented head in to hear, then finally registering my words, she looked at me in confusion.
Yet, all the while, I could see her fingers digging around, trying to find something to hit me with. Before she could do anything, I brought my arm back and, with as much momentum as I could gather, punched her square in the nose. But once wasn't enough, it could never be enough. Again and again, I let my hand fly until all that was left of her once smug face was a pool of brain matter, blood, and dented flesh.
[Ding dong, +3 levels]
The fatigue that had built up during my workout session had been eliminated, and I felt refreshed and renewed. I dragged her body into the depths of the monster territory I had found in my adventures and left it for nature to do its job. Hurriedly, I returned to the spot where the deed was done and, taking a carving of an animal's foot, stamped it everywhere in the mud while erasing my footprints.
Satisfied with the job, I knew that the servants wouldn't overthink because they were all foolishly deep into the rumors that surrounded the cursed forest that one missing servant would only spread them more.