Day 79, 10:10 AM

  Floor after floor we went, clearing abominations until we reached the stairway leading to the seventy-fifth. The big, slow lugs made for easy kills, mounting them and steering them into landmines did the trick. The ones causing trouble were the more exotic creatures.

  A praying mantis-octopus hybrid was a real horror show. It could change its color, hide itself from all senses as it waited for us to approach. It sported eight serrated blades sharp enough to put scalpels to shame. Edna still spotted it and killed it with an enormous fireball, nearly a whole yard in diameter.

  The orb of fire struck the creature, unleashing an explosion worthy of a mushroom cloud. Others were easier; four fell to Batsy II, another three to Edna’s tactical missiles, and I got another attribute point for all my effort.

  “Shall we return?” Edna asks, snapping me from my consideration about how easy the descent had been so far.

  I still stare towards the tunnel leading down.

  “You stand no chance.” I guess my desire to head down is that obvious. “I have killed all abominations since we’ve set foot on the seventy-first floor. The one we slew here was close to evolution, meaning the one below has evolved into an elder abomination. And in case I need to remind you, my ancestors have abandoned the floors beyond ninety exactly because they housed elder abominations, and fighting them meant almost certain loss of life. It’s simply not worth the risk.”

  The compulsion from increasing my attribute points combined with the fact that I have Redo fuels the voice whispering in the back of my mind that there is no harm in trying. That, in and of itself, is worrying. Whatever effect I’m under is enough to suppress the tremor of my hands and the gagging nausea from thinking about redoing.

  “Yeah,” I nod, “we should leave this place. I’ll come back in a week or two to practice magic on the upper floors.”

  Unaware of my thoughts, Edna nods, and we head back, three heavy sacks laden with priceless minerals for Deephorn slung across my shoulder.

  I make use of the peaceful time by casting spells and experimenting with the scanner until my inner mana drops low enough for my head to spin. It recovers in about an hour of walking, and I start anew.

  Heading up forty floors took us over seven hours of constant walking. Neither of us is exhausted, but constant abuse of magic has tired me mentally.

  “Do you want to push four more floors so we can camp with the girls, or would you prefer to stay here?” I’m more or less fine with both. The former means we get to eat Gila’s decent cooking, and we don’t have to do camp chores ourselves, the latter means we can rest right where we are, which is also an attractive prospect.

  “We’ll stay here.” As expected, Edna wants to keep away from Lucy and Gila.

  “What do you have against them?” I ask.

  “Why do you value them so much?” Edna counters.

  “A good question,” I say in a calm voice. “Lucy wants to escape the church-run society by traveling and keeping away from the castles. Gila wants to flee into a brightly decorated room. They both understand their society is broken, but they are powerless to change the fact, they can just instinctively tell and watch the world fall apart around them. I believe that empowering such people will make for a better world tomorrow.”

  Edna’s about to guffaw, but I continue speaking, strangling her mocking.

  “Don’t laugh. Changing and overthrowing corrupt governments is an irresistible urge for me. In my previous life, I overthrew a corrupt dynasty, took leadership, and became the new king, protecting my citizens against invaders time and time again, until I ended up conquering the entire continent.”

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  My lip twitches, but I share the embarrassing reality just like I shared the glorious one.

  “The life before that, well, it was embarrassing. I had no special powers, no superhuman intellect or strength, nothing worth noting. Then, one day, I had a crazy idea. I started killing corrupt clerks. I figured if everyone who was disgruntled and aware of corruption killed even one or those people ruining our lives, it would result in a revolution and a better world for all of us.”

  Edna considered the thought and nodded.

  “Well, that makes sense.”

  “It does in theory. In practice, it doesn’t work. The authorities labeled the murders random, the corrupt officials painted virtuous. It was sickening. In the end, I gave up, and went straight for the king, dying in the attempt. After death, the whole affair tasted sickening and sordid. Then I found out that the universe itself is just as corrupt as those clerks, and it broke something inside me.”

  “So you slapped the god of death?”

  “I think it was a god of death, not the. But yes. That was the only way to express my general discontent with the management.”

  We chatted for about half an hour, then ate and went to sleep. Nonstop magic use exhausted me to the point that I fell asleep as soon as my body achieved the horizontal.

  I slept ten hours straight, wolfed down my breakfast, and we went up four floors before meeting the girls.

  “Any problems?”

  “We both cast the scanner spell.” Lucy beams a proud smile, she has caught up with Gila.

  “Great, Edna and I will teach you spells you will need for the next level.” They are slower learners than me, so teaching them won’t take much time. “The plan is to head to Hadriuse’s Abode and check whether there’s anything useful inside. Notes from an archmage or a grimoire or equipment, even what the old establishment of mages considered mere curios might prove useful or even groundbreaking for us.”

  The girls don’t seem as excited as I am, and I really can’t wait to see whether an ancient archmage actually used his brain to observe natural phenomena or was he like Edna, shrugging everything off and just saying magic is magic. I hope not. The very thought of the most learned, most intelligent people of the world showing zero interest in their surroundings is heartbreaking.

  Leaving the dungeon takes the better part of the day, and by the time we get out, the rain is already intensifying.

  The lack of day and night cycle in the dungeon screws with the sense of time, and even my innate clock lost a couple of hours, probably while I slept more than I thought I had slept.

  I commit the danger to memory. Redo relies on my ability to perfectly replicate the previous life or at least track events through time well enough not to interfere with them. Who knows if stepping in the wrong place might get me killed while Redo is red.

  Maybe I can do something to time my sleep, or train myself to sleep six or eight hours on the dot? Nah. I need to let my mind and body rest as much as they need to, but—

  “Edna, is there a spell which keeps track of time?” I haven’t seen clocks or hourglasses so far, but maybe we could find or buy one.

  “Several. There’s also a spell which draws your attention after a certain period of time passes, a certain time of day, a certain intensity of rain…” She lists several potential skills, and I pick the alarm.

  The spell is a bit more advanced than others I have been using so far; a mix of violet for time and blue for order. Violet mana diminishes constantly, and blue mana draws my attention to the violet mana’s disappearance while allowing me to check the remaining percentage. A clever mechanism, but timing the amount of violet mana correctly requires practice.

  By the time we reach the indestructible monument, Edna has already explained the finesses involved and taught me the song and the gestures. The only thing left is for me to practice diligently during my waking hours.

  I hum about the alarm clock I hated a thousand years ago. I hated the damn thing so much it transcended a dozen real deaths and centuries of life. The second, more peaceful image is that of drops of water dripping from a cracked bucket hanging off a rusty hook. While the amount of water seemingly remains the same, I know that with enough time, the bucket will run out.

  “Stop your practice. The jungle is infested, and I don’t want to cast offensive magic in the garden in case some of the old wards and defenses are still active.”

  I nod and take point, Edna calling out the lobsters, centipedes, and orb-weavers in time for me to attack them.

  “Do you mind not doing that?” I ask after squishing yet another centipede. “These monsters are already easy enough, and having someone point them out continuously would degrade my instincts too much.”

  “My apologies, I didn’t think about that.”

  We advance through the downpour in silence, reaching the largest mansion I have ever seen.