Chapter 9: A Source of Entertainment
"Wh-Where am I?" The girl asked herself, her eyes darting around the cave she was in.
Her school clothes were soaked, and her entire body shivered as the water she just threw herself from was colder than anything she ever experienced.
She had no idea what to do with the situation she was in.
One moment, she was in her classroom, being the social outcast she was, and the next, she was drowning, clawing at her throat trying to breath as she violently thrashed in the water.
She barely breached the surface in time, and climbed onto the land, coughing up more water than she could've thought entered her system.
"Is this... a d-dungeon?" She stuttered, examining the glowing moss hanging on the walls, and listening to the eerie background sounds echoing throughout the darkness.
*RUMBLE*
The ground shook, a deep roar resounding in the distance.
The girl cowered, grabbing her head and ducking towards the ground.
It was her instant instinct to hide, and she tried to do so.
She waited a few moments for the quaking to stop, and once it did, she slowly opened her eyes.
"W-What do I do?..." She asked herself.
The cave she was in seemed to grow darker, feelings welling up in her heart.
Before her eyes a blue screen appeared, her eyes starting to glow with profound emotion.
"N-No way.." She muttered. On the screen that she stared at was a status sheet.
{Status}
[Name: ???]
[Class: - ]
[Level: 1 ]
[Exp: 0/10]
___
STR - 5 DEX - 2
END - 4 AGI - 4
INT - 10 WIS - 6
CHA - 9 LUK - 12
(Note: 10 is the peak for Humans.)
___
The screen said, the girl reading every last part before confusion started to rise within her heart.
"My name... What's my name?" She mumbled, a small amount of worry, and fear sparking.
She immediately started trying to recall minute details from her life so far. Things like her address, the names of her parents, what school she went to.
She couldn't remember any of it.
She couldn't even remember if she had siblings or not!
"I-It doesn't matter! T-This is a new life, I can start fresh." She said to herself with a nervous smile, rising to her feet and trying her best to ignore how she was freezing.
"10 experience points. I'm sure there are some bug's around here!" She said positively.
It was clear she was trying to take everything nicely.
"Exp. Exp. Maybe if I level up I can get more endurance, and I'll be fine with the cold!" She said, slowly moving, looking for something weak and small to kill.
Surprisingly, she didn't seem to find much difficulty with the thought of killing another creature.
She wasn't in panic with her situation.
She didn't miss her family.
Even her fear of death has grown less severe.
It was strange to say the least.
...
...
...
{Dungeon Ability}
-[Emotion Collection]:
[Description]: Emotions emitted within the dungeon can be collected and transformed into many things that can give a boost to the dungeon's power. This emotion can be turned into ethereal liquids that induce mass amounts of the emotion onto an existence, or it can be used to create a region where this emotion lingers. It can even be turned into system points for the Dungeon Lord to use freely.
[Level 1]: Emotions can be collected to give slight boosts in power to you and any desired creature. You can also transform mass amounts of emotion into system points.
[Level 5]: Emotion points can be manifested physically into a permeable energy, and turned into different types of physical constructs. Be it an orb of light, or a sword of energy.
[Level 10]: Collected emotion can be easily harnessed and refined into a different emotion, be used against others. Emotion points can be used to manipulate another, inflicting emotions onto them.
[Level 15]: Emotion is harvested more efficiently.
[Level 20]: You can use tamper with emotion quite effectively, being able to induce illusions on another that cannot be easily dispersed.
[Level 30]: …
____
Lust floated in edit mode, levitating in the air next to the girl.
He was glad he grew his level through Denos and the adventurers. He had reached level 24, and upon unlocking the most recent threshold for [Emotion Collection], an incredibly useful skill was granted to him.
He currently watched over the girl as she crept through the dungeon.
He was proud of himself for having manipulated the poor girl, making her think she was gifted a system by some god.
Upon seeing her school girl uniform, timid attitude, and overall appearance, he had just prayed this introvert looking girl was familiar with common anime and light novel tropes.
He tampered with her mind, filling it with so much emotion that she lost certain memories.
Then he fed her enough emotion to induce a sort of Schizophrenic disorder within her that he had full control over.
This false disorder manifested in the form of a blue screen that only she could see, which he could use a conduit to unsuspiciously communicate with her.
He fed her certain emotions like, wonder, and desire to drown out her fear and reasoning, driving her towards the goal of growing powerful through her system.
Of course, he could not give her visions of this system without having a way to show her real benefits.
He could easily raise her status by feeding her enough Emotion points to boost her physical prowess overall, making her grow stronger. He could even make her brain grow more powerful, and alter her physical appearance, but her [Luck] was something he didn't have any actual control over.
But of course, he could make it seem like he did! It would be easy to fabricate encounters within the dungeon! After all, he had complete control over virtually everything within his domain, as he was the Dungeon Lord.
"I'll use her as entertainment, and maybe she can even help me with gaining more play things." He smiled, still hovering over her as she encountered her first mob.
[Level 1, Ratroach]
A Health bar and Nametag floated above a large bugs head, the girls eyes widening.
"A fucking cockroach!" She yelled in a hushed whisper, her fear overpowering Lust's false emotions.
'That is not optimal.' Lust though, feeding her two more Emotion points worth of energy, a sense of confidence filling her.
"I can do this!" She whispered, grabbing a large rock off the ground, and approaching the lone, rat sized cockroach that had its head dipped into a small puddle.
She crept as close as possible, bringing the rock high above her head as Lust watched with interest.
"Hyah!" The rock fell came crashing down.
[Two experience gained.]