Death

"Could you be any slower? Move it!"

Damien Wang heard a familiar complaint thrown against him as he trudged a sixty pound hiking backpack up a steep and rocky hill, his every weak footstep liable to send him slipping on a loose rock and tumbling down an entire goddamn mountain.

Sweat pooled from his face as Damien gritted his teeth and did as he was told, lugging the pack full of magical supplies for the armored and robed group of mages in front of him.

Their ridiculous garb looked like they belonged to a renaissance or cosplay convention, but there was no denying their power was real.

Not to mention their usefulness. It was no exaggeration to say that mages were the only thing separating the monsters of the Underbelow, creatures from mythology long believed to have faded away into the pages of storybooks, from sprawling out of dimensional pockets known as Rifts and overtaking the modern world.

"Got it," said Damian with a huff as he made his way up. He could not object. As a porter, the only thing he was meant to do was carry equipment, and talking back only made the abuse worse, because there was nothing worse to deal with in this world than a mage who thought someone lesser than them had infringed on their pride.

"Cool it, Alexander. Let Mule catch his breath," said a mage.

"Yeah, when you need a porter that knows what to do without being told, you hire Mule," said another mage. "There's a screw or two loose with Mule here - he never panics and he always keeps his cool. That makes him prime porter material, in my opinion."

"A Dud like him walking the same hallways as us – it sickens me. Seeing him carrying our equipment makes me feel just a little bit better. But only a little bit."

"Mule's quiet, obedient, and knows his place: isn't that enough?"

Mule. That was Damien's nickname among Delvers, mages specialized in investigating Rifts, taking loot from it, and then destabilizing them so that they faded away.

So called because Damien was always reliable at carrying packs with no qualm, braving even the most dangerous of situations to support mages that constantly looked down at him.

As for 'Dud', well, that was what mages called people that had little to no magic capability.

Two terms that Damien was intimately familiar with by now.

"You're giving him pity? Him? A mere porter and a disgusting cheat at that?"

"Come now, Mule is still of the same blood as Ella. Look! He's as talented at carrying bags as his sister was at magic. Shame what happened to her, a rising star like that struck down so young."

Damien froze up for a moment. His sister's situation was the biggest reason he was considered a cheat.

Though Damien had essentially zero magical talent, his little sister had been an incredible star attending Tintagel Academy, one of the better magic academies in North America.

Unfortunately, Damien's little sister had fallen into an incurable, magically induced coma, but Tintagel allowed a family member to sub in because ordinarily, magical talent was highly hereditary, passed down from parent to child with some but not extreme variance from sibling to sibling.

The logic being that the sibling was probably comparable in talent, not to mention how deeply important familial traditions and bloodline shenanigans were to mages. Tintagel wanted mage families to maintain the 'honor' of having their blood in their academy.

Damien's situation where his sibling was much more magically gifted than him was an extreme anomaly. A one in ten million chance. It might have been because of his parents.

His dad was known as a Breaker, a mage licensed to hunt other mages, and was feared and reviled by many as the 'Leaden Death' for not shying away from using firearms and modern explosives to kill mages even when mages looked down on them, for even though monsters were immune to bullets, mages sure as hell were not.

His mother, on the other hand, was a complete commoner. No magical prowess to note.

Perhaps the union of commoner and mage had produced something aberrantly odd, making Damien magically useless while his sister had some of the best spirit roots in the entire western hemisphere.

Damien had abused Tintagel's family substitute rule to take his sister's spot despite being a completely ordinary man recently graduated from a completely ordinary college because his sister's disease was magical in nature, and he wanted to study it.

Not to mention that both his parents had disappeared in the Underbelow under strange circumstances. He wanted to find them too. That was the reason his sister had taken up magic in the first place.

Of course, this meant that all the snobby and well off mages in Tintagel who came from thousand year old bloodlines or something dramatic like that all believed that Damien did not deserve his spot there, did not deserve to even breathe the same air as them, because what the hell was an ordinary, disgusting commoner doing with them?

Even his sister had dealt with a massive share of her own bullying for being the daughter of a mage hunter, but what Damien faced was a hundred times worse.

So here was Damien scraping by as a porter, a job ordinarily reserved either for first year students apprenticed to proper Delvers - mages that broke apart Rifts - or extremely desperate commonfolk who needed money without regards to their safety.

The pay was decent, though increasingly less so when counting for the fact that the proper Delvers took almost everything from successful dives, always arguing down Damien's contributions so that he got close to nothing, probably trying even harder to make sure he got nothing to spite his status as a Dud, cheat, and the son of a mage hunter.

At the end of the day, after Damien paid off his sister's hospital bills, he had enough to survive by paying for rent in his godawful, soon-to-collapse one bedroom apartment in the worst part of town.

"Heh, his sister, was it?" said the mage, Alexander was his name, that had constantly harassed Damien. "I never saw her personally, but I heard she was beautiful. What I would give to have a go at her. Maybe introduce some pure mage blood into her."

That was when Damien dropped his pack and balled up his fists. The immediate shift in his tone was instantly noticeable, and the mages straightened up as they stared at Damien, some of them beginning to channel magical energy in glowing auras around them to blast him to smithereens with.

"Stop, all of you," said a blue-eyed, blonde-haired mage that was the spitting image of the typical guy that had everything going for him. Crimson red robes patterned with the insignia of a dragon flowed around his body like living flames. Looks, money, status – he had everything.

This was Lance Windsor, heir to the Windsor family, one of the best worldwide in the field of pyromancy. Someone that Damien only knew in passing, seeing his face once or twice because Tintagel as a school was pretty big and a bigshot nobleman like Lance had no reason to ever busy himself with someone as lowly as Damien.

"Damien here is a student of Tintagel just like the rest of us. He deserves the respect afforded by one that stands in our prestigious halls, regardless of his circumstances," said Lance. "And Damien, please, I know it is hard for you after Alexander's insensitive comment, but try to calm your anger.

We are in a Rift, and even if it is a pitifully weak class 10 Rift, it is an environment filled with risk. We must still foster trust amongst ourselves. Here, let me make it up to you for I know an insult to a family bloodline is a grave one indeed.

The singularity point is ahead of us, and no doubt, the monster sustaining this Rift is within.

How about I grant you the core of the beast within?"

Damien took in deep breaths, trying to calm his rage to the best of his ability. He wanted to punch Alexander's face into the dirt, but the prospect of getting the monster's core was too tempting.

If in video game terms a Rift was a 'dungeon', then a singularity point was a 'Boss Room' and the monster within the 'Boss'. A boss monster's core, even in a grade 5 Rift like this, was extremely valuable, likely fetching up to fifty thousand dollars.

Damien unballed his fists and sighed. "I want the whole core. All of it."

"Done," said Lance.

"I want a guarantee," said Damien. "A Geass."

A Geass was a contract that bound two individuals together at the level of the soul. It was written in blood and though a simple spell, was quite unbreakable.

"You dare to ask Lance, a man of noble blood, to bind his soul to you? You filthy commoner? Son of a mage hunter? Swine that dares to filthy our halls?" said Alexander.

"Shut your mouth, Alexander," said Lance, his voice firm and deadly. "I can defend my own honor."

Lance turned to Damien with a smile. "I will take the Geass. Here-,"

Lance unsheathed his weapon of choice: a longsword with a gleaming orange blade, and nicked his palm with it, letting a drop of blood pool out onto the rocky ground. The blood pattern started to glow brightly as he channeled his magical energy into it.

Damien knew a little of how a Geass worked. He just had to extend his hand out and project his will into the drop of blood, and he did so. He felt warmth prickle around his body as the contract began to form.

"I, Lance of House Windsor, do pledge to you, Damien Wang, that I shall grant you the core of the beast within the singularity point. The whole core, undamaged and untouched."

"Promise me you will not come after it. Not your friends either," said Damien.

"Certainly," said Lance with zero hesitation, and Damien began to wonder if something was afoot. Damien did not trust any mages, but a Geass was unbreakable, even by the best mages in the entire world.

And the temptation of a core coming free to him was so incredibly sweet that Damien only waited for Lance to finish the contract.

"I will not confront you for this core now or ever. I will absolutely ensure that all those around me will not do so either and will employ force against them should it come to such a situation."

"Get them to sign on the Geass too," said Damien, covering all his bases.

"Signing on a Geass with this filthy dud?" began Alexander.

"Do it. Now." Lance's voice ensured that there would be no objections.

"I abide by Lance of House Windsor's terms," said a mage.

Then another, then another, and finally, Alexander repeated the phrase, sealing the contract.

"Alright," said Damien.

"Good," said Lance with a nod. "Then the contract is written and sealed."

Lance closed his fist and the blood splatter faded away, dissolving into black smoke.

"Now then," said Lance. "If you will excuse us, Damien, we will defeat the beast within and have your core out in a moment's notice. Thank you for carrying our equipment. Take a break. You deserve it."

Damien only gave the group of mages a nod as he watched them move out, walking into a dark cave that emitted wisps of hot smoke.

==

Exactly thirty minutes later, Damien saw the mages come out with Lance at the head. Some of their clothes were scorched, but they had no real injuries on them. They were first class mages, after all, all members of powerful noble bloodlines even if they were still only students.

A grade 5 'boss monster' might have put up some kind of fight against one of them, but a group of four? No way.

Which made Damien wonder why these guys were even here. They should have been out in a grade 4 Rift at the very least with how strong they were. Hell, if they were a little more coordinated together, they could even clear a grade 3 Rift.

Not that Damien cared much. He did not ask because he never tried to talk to the mages he carried equipment for, and he would not start now.

"Here is your core," said Lance as he flashed Damien a wide smile. He held out a basketball sized mass of crystalline black. Inside, there was a smoky, flickering pattern that constantly flashed against the surface of the core.

Magical energy practically exuded from the core in thick, smokey grey wisps.

This was the real deal.

"Go on, take it," said Lance as he held it out.

Damien's eyes widened as he reached out to the core with shaky hands. With this, he could pay to keep up his sister's treatment for years. Maybe even get another good healer to take a look at her.

He could pay his rent, he could actually buy equipment to survive properly in the Rifts, he could-

Damien felt heat sear into his stomach. He gazed down to see a burnt out hole where his innards should have been. Smoke lingered out from Lance's extended finger. The nobleman stared at Damien with a neutral expression, like he was watching an ant writhing in the sun and dying.

Damien buckled down to his knees, his vision immediately blurring. He was going to die.

"You-you promised-," began Damien weakly.

"The Geass stipulated that I would not take this core from you. I will not. This is yours," said Lance as he knelt down and placed the core right in front of Damien. "Yours forever. Consider it a parting gift to the grave."

Damien collapsed over the core, his blood pooling over it. He could not move now. He felt death's cold grip reaching over him, numbing his body. His touch faded, then his vision, leaving only his hearing to crumble apart last.

"The human sacrifice is complete. Now, as promised, take us into your ranks." Damien heard Lance's voice, but did not know who the nobleman spoke to. There was more conversation, but Damien's hearing faded as he felt the life in his body drain from him.

Thoughts raced through Damien's head. Regret that he could not save his sister first, then anger. Anger first at the world.

Why was it so goddamn unfair? Why has he blessed with literally nothing? Why did it want to crush him like this? Taking his parents first, then his sister, and now him? When he had nothing to begin with?

Then anger at himself.

Anger that he was so weak. That he was so useless. That he had no power to change his fate. That he would get stepped on like this, sacrificed for some ridiculous reason that had nothing to do with him, all because he was seen as weak and disposable.

But all those thoughts were for nothing as death came for him as it did for all things.

…

…

…

In the vast, unending darkness, another voice –

[The Host's heart has stopped beating. All necessary conditions have been met...]

[System Activated]