8 The past

"Five. Let's do something, an oath, an oath of truth. You and I will swear to speak the truth until we leave this room. What do you think?"

"Is it reliable?"

"Of course. Oaths are sacred to us monsters! It should be the same for you since you will soon become a dungeon master."

"Alright then."

...

While the two were eating, Harriet patiently talked to Five. Directly or indirectly, she enquired about his past. He was very resolute at first, and directly avoided the topic. But Harriet was very stubborn. She gradually wore down Five's defences. She was very sincere, explaining her own situation and how she only hoped that he would succeed in the future.

Five felt like a child being interrogated by his mother for being naughty. His hardened heart could only soften, under the constant assault of that harpy. He could not find the will to reject her, until finally, the two decided to share their respective pasts.

"Just imitate me," solemnly said Harriet,

She put her left hand on her heart while her right hand was raised. Her posture was similar to the one, doctors adopted upon swearing Hippocratic Oath, "I swear that to speak the truth and solely the truth to Five as long as we remain in this room. May Sancus witness my oath."

Five naturally imitated her. He initially thought the oath would involve a longer process, but turned out to be much simpler than expected. Sancus was the god of honesty; he was a neutral god and so all the races respected him.

"Now, I hope that you will believe me when I say that this room has no ears. Only us can hear this conversation. Not even master can hear us," said Harriet.

"Mmm," Five nodded. Although he had no absolute guarantee, it did not seem like Harriet was lying. Either she was an extremely good actor, or she was telling the truth.

Having progressed that far, Harriet decided to tell her own story first to gain his trust. "I guess I should be the one to start," and with a deep breath, Harriet started narrating her own story.

"A long time ago, during the holy war, the harpies were about to be completely exterminated. We were surrounded by dragons and giants with no escape path. But at the last moment, the harpy queen sacrificed herself and made a pact with the gods; they would save the harpies, but in exchange, the future harpy queens would have to serve the dungeon masters who will summon them."

"I was selected, as the representative of the Black Wing clan, to be summoned by the dungeon masters once I came to age. We were all given three chances to reject our owners; it is possible that our personalities do not match or the dungeon itself won't fit us. I myself, rejected two other dungeon masters before meeting Kroff and since he did seem to care about his own monsters, I decided to follow him."

A pained expression appeared for a second on Harriet's face, but she quickly hid it and continued:

"Everything was fine, Kroff was very nice at first. He spent some DP for my sake and summoned the harpies that you saw earlier. He gave us a nice village to live in. I can show it to you later if you want. The other monsters were also very friendly with a few exceptions."

"But one month ago, the dungeon masters, including Kroff received an oracle; soon, new dungeon masters would be born, and everyone would be tasked into guiding one for a short period of time. It was great news for the dungeon masters' community. Everyone was glad to be able to raise the next generation."

"However, that did not last for long. One week later, Oroculos, one of the five strongest dungeon masters had a vision, and what he saw was destruction and chaos all over the continent. The new dungeon masters would rebel against the older ones. Instead of allying to fight against the other races, the new dungeon masters would establish their own alliances and fight against the old ones, causing many dungeon masters to perish."

"When they heard that, all the dungeon masters broke into panic, but they had already accepted the task of grooming the new dungeon masters and could not back out. I don't know about the situation in the other alliances but when it comes to the Cyclone Alliance, the Duke Shercliff made the decision to bind all the new dungeon masters to the alliance. This way they would at least direct the fire towards other alliances."

"This is why Master is so inclined upon making you join the Cyclone Alliance. Right now, you are a threat to him and to the other dungeon masters. If he cannot ensure that you won't harm him, then he has no incentives to raise a ticking time bomb."

Five nodded. He now understood why Kroff was so against him, but he felt that the situation was so unfair. They all went crazy because of the words of a single person?

"Isn't that too much? How can they all trust the visions of one person?" asked Five.

"Oroculos has never been wrong about his predictions. He is a powerful seer. He was able to become one of the Big Fives. Even though his monsters are not the strongest, he is able to use them with maximum efficiency every time. He started at the very bottom, but not once did he lose a war," answered Harriet.

Five paused for a moment, quietly processing the information he just received.

"And that's it. That's the current situation," concluded Harriet, "Now it's your turn, I hope that you will respect the pledge."

Harriet made a solemn expression as she looked at Five; she just opened herself and revealed her past to Five. She was honestly hoping that he would also do so. She was not doing it for Kroff, but for herself. She saw Five as a friend and she did not want conflicts to emerge between him and her master.

After a moment of hesitation, Five finally decided to share his own past. After all, Harriet sincerely shared hers, he had no good reason to go against his words.

"Do you really want to hear about me?"

"Of course, I am very curious as to why you are trying to act as an antisocial person when you are clearly not."

"Fine," said Five as he gulped down the water in his glass before starting:

"I lived an ordinary life as a normal human. I graduated from university and went to look for work. I became a regular entrepreneur and helped my family grow the family business. We slowly gained popularity and attracted more and more customers, slowly conquering the market but then, my peaceful life was suddenly disturbed three years ago. The big rich companies were not pleased to see us stealing their customers."

"They initially tried to buy our shares, but we refused since we did not lack any help or capital. They were not pleased with our attitude and so they applied pressure on us, but we did not give in. We persevered, and our small business slowly grew into a medium size company. We even opened a second branch. However, seeing that we were prevailing through their storm, these bastards did not stop there, they used more extreme methods."

"They started to aim at my family. I myself almost got into a car accident. They even sabotaged our products, causing a lot of health problems for the users of our products. And as a result, we were forced to shut down. In the end, they even succeeded in stealing our patent and then claimed to be the righteous creators. I started a legal battle but how could I fare against a massive corporation? Although the law is clear, society is corrupted. It is different from the developed countries like the US, where I come from, as long as you have money and influence, everything is possible."

"My parents could not support the shock. They were quite old and had weak hearts. In the end, they ended up suffering from mental breakdown and passed away all because of that incident. I brought that case to the court but in vain, they had huge backings and I ended up having to pay a fine for slandering instead."

Five paused for a moment. Tears appeared at the corner of his eyes as he thought about his parents. It was all his fault, if he did not maintain such a firm stance, maybe they would still be alive and living well. He laughed at himself for how silly he had been.

"I lost everything at that point, but I could not let these bastards enjoy their lives. I was recommended by a traitor that I considered as a friend to recruit an assassin. My life was already destroyed, and I was willing to give up everything to bring them down with me. But the organization I contacted refused to carry out the job. Instead, they invited me to join them and to do it by myself. At that time, I was blind, naive and mentally unstable. I agreed, they accepted me and trained me into one of their men. Now that I think about it, it was a really stupid decision!"

"I carried out several missions for them, did the dirty work. And when it was finally time for me to take my revenge, my supposed teammates turned against me and I ended up arrested by the police. That organization of assassins was, in fact, a long-time partner of those bastards. It was too late for me when I realized that to prosper, most people would have to have some contacts with the dark side of society. They used me as a pawn. When I was no longer useful, they revealed the assassinations that I performed, and I was sentenced to life imprisonment."

"And then, I thought everything was over, but I was given a second chance by Gaia. She gave me the task of building a dungeon in this world."

"This is it. That's my story, pretty hard to believe, right? I made several stupid decisions but as unreal as it seemed, I am not lying. When you live in underdeveloped countries, you are bound to be used by the ones in power," concluded Five with a sarcastic look. He was not aiming it at Harriet but at himself for all the wrong decisions he took in real life. When he looked back at it, he could only laugh at how stupid he was.

Harriet calmly listened and did not interrupt Five as he spoke. Even her facial expression did not change, but inside she was shocked to learn about the darkness of Five's world.

"Although there are many terms I do not understand, I do understand what happened to you. I am sorry to have brought that up..." apologized Harriet.