Night had fallen in the dark wood. Shadows from the nearby trees encroached on the clearing, the light of the silver moon hanging in the sky only falling about the area in small slivers. The elf spirit Rhaalir raised his translucent hand, examining it as a moonbeam cut straight through it.

  No matter how long he had been in this state, he wasn’t sure he would ever truly grow used to it. Wasn’t sure it would ever feel normal, or right. Even though he had been a spirit longer than he had ever been alive.

  Rhaalir turned his attention to Xavier Collins. The True Progenitor, the young dragonkin, whom he had contracted himself to, and watched in mute fascination as the man sent one Denizen after another into the Deathly Dungeon.

  When Rhaalir had originally contracted with the True Progenitor, Xavier Collins, he’d been dubious about the man’s potential, especially considering how brash he was. There was a fine line between bravery and stupidity, and it seemed as though Xavier’s actions pissed all over that line, then set it on fire.

  However, gaining a contract that would allow him to spend more time in the Mortal Realm was something he simply couldn’t pass up.

  The more time he spent with Xavier, the more he realised he had lucked into something special. Rhaalir had been around for a long time. He wasn’t really sure how long. He knew that his original universe no longer existed. Knew that it had burned away perhaps before the one he stood in now had even been born.

  Much of the time he’d been around, however, had been as a spirit in the Otherworld. For eons he lacked enough energy to have any awareness whatsoever. Being a spirit in the Otherworld, it took time to gather the necessary Soul Energy to become conscious once more. Some spirits are more adept at it than others—Volkarin, one of the seven, he knew came up fast, growing in strength and power at an almost unprecedented rate. For that dragon had once been a part of this universe.

  Rhaalir tilted his head to the side. Currently, he wasn’t allowing himself to be visible by Xavier. He did this sometimes, when he wanted to observe but not interact. That was one of the few things about the Otherworld that he missed—the solitude. It was easy to find quiet. Peace. Space.

  Easy not to be seen. Not to be talked to.

  Not quite so here.

  Xavier would weaken one of the D Grades to an incredible degree, then send them into the Deathly Dungeon and simply wait until the dungeon registered that it was open once more—meaning the Denizen he sent had died within.

  Rhaalir knew about the deal Xavier had made with the necromancer that resided within this dungeon. Knew that he intended to make her strong enough to leave this place.

  He’s… Feeding her.

  The True Progenitor did all this with a cool air of detachment. The people in front of him were all under his mental control. Rhaalir had seen the man do many things, but nothing so callous as this.

  Still, it was nothing compared to the things Rhaalir had done in life. Xavier had a sense of morality that was rare among powerful Denizens, or those Denizens that were destined for power—despite all he’d achieved, the True Progenitor was still early on in his path.

  He brought Volkarin back from the dead. Now, he is bringing this woman back from the dead, too.

  The System, on occasion, allowed for reincarnation. It did this in several different ways that Rhaalir had rather limited knowledge of—he’d heard stories of people dying only to end up being reborn as a baby on some other planet, or simply taking hold of another’s life, without ever having entered the Otherworld as he had.

  Placing a Denizen inside of a dungeon at the time of their death was simply one way the System facilitated reincarnation. This Romalda would have a second chance at life, just as Volkarin had a second chance at life.

  Rhaalir was glad for the position he was in, but he couldn’t help but wonder if the young dragonkin had plans to one day bring him back too.

  ~

  Romalda laughed, sitting upon her throne.

  He was doing it! The reaper was actually doing it!

  Not just a reaper anymore. A dragonkin.

  There was something terrifying about the man who had entered her dungeon, only to make a deal with her and then kill her. She came back to life, of course. She always would in this place. She had resigned herself to the fact that she would never be able to overcome this dungeon—never be able to actually escape.

  Until he had come.

  Now, the reaper was feeding her D Grades. And she couldn’t get enough of them. They came in so weak. So vulnerable. Their health so low. But because they were inside the dungeon and not without, it didn’t matter that they’d taken damage from another.

  She got full credit for the kill.

  The power she felt entering her, the power she was currently gaining, it was nothing to the power she once held in her true life, when she was a B Grade.

  But it felt intoxicating, nonetheless. Like someone who’d gone without food for an extended period of time, only to stumble upon the most meagre of meals, something bland and unappealing, that turned out to be the most delicious feast of their entire life.

  That was what she was feeling right now. Starved for power. Starved for Mastery Points. Starved for advancement.

  Each kill brought her strength. Strength enough to break free from this place soon.

  The last thing she wished was to actually sign a contract with the man outside. In her first life, she had never once signed her will over to another. She had served others. That was true. Sometimes, such a thing was necessary. And in certain parts of the universe, there were systems of hierarchy that required a kind of loyalty that didn’t necessitate a System contract.

  She’d vowed that for as long as she lived she would never sign one.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  To surrender one’s will completely with a contract… It was a suicide of one’s personal agency.

  She would have rather died.

  Now that she had died, however, she was beginning to see things a little differently. She hadn’t signed such a contract as long as she’d lived. Not in that life. This contract? It would not last forever. When it finally came to its end, she could move on from this place.

  And she would do it with her life in her own hands.

  Never again would she let herself fail. Never again would she let herself die.

  She was a necromancer—a commander of death!

  The Great Romalda Heralda sighed. She had given the man her word, and she would keep it. Even if she had a chance to escape him once she left the dungeon—and she sincerely doubted that. She knew that Xavier Collins would be standing right outside.

  When yet another D Grade fell to her minion army and she gained another level, bringing her to Level 100, a notification appeared before her.

  She hadn’t realised the dungeon would require her to reach E Grade for it to release her. How she could ever have done that without help, she didn’t know.

  The notification said once she advanced to the next grade, she would be free of this place, and the dungeon would dissolve into nothing.

  She also, however, got the choice of remaining within the dungeon—she could become its core. She could expand the domain of the dungeon, and in turn become a natural dungeon.

  This was a choice she didn’t know she would have. Her knowledge was vast, but she had never been much for dungeon lore. She’d heard of natural dungeons, of course. What she did know about them, however, was that unlike a System Dungeon—which she currently was—they were not a permanent fixture.

  Natural dungeons could die.

  Something tells me the True Progenitor isn’t going to want a dungeon constantly expanding on his world—and this wasn’t the deal we made. He could easily come in and destroy my core, or harvest it, leaving me either dead, or with no power of my own…

  Romalda chose.

  ~

  Xavier waited.

  He still had a great many D Grades, loitering in the forest around him. He had hardened his heart to what he was doing. To those looking in, Xavier would appear cold and calculated as he reduced the health of the next Denizen in line and sent them into the dungeon to die.

  But inside? He felt their deaths. He had his justifications. He did not regret what he was doing, nor would the guilt linger—he had done worse, in his time, he was sure.

  Still, he felt them.

  And so, he waited. For the next D Grade Denizen to die within the dungeon. Until it was time to send in another to their fate.

  If you try to kill me, you put your life in my hands. This is something the Greater Universe needs to learn.

  But the dungeon did not reopen. He kept checking, examining the coffin lid that was the dungeon’s entrance.

  Romalda didn’t usually take this long to kill a Denizen he sent in. Perhaps…

  The coffin burst into flame. The wood turned to ash as he watched it. And from those ashes, a person emerged.

  The Great Romalda Heralda.

  The woman had a sinister grin on her face. She looked much the same as she had before, but there was a sense of power about her that hadn’t been there the last time he’d seen her in the dungeon. She wasn’t powerful. Not compared to Xavier. Not even compared to those E Grades Xavier had back in Collinsville.

  But she seemed to wear the power with more ease than they did, and the way she stood, the confidence, the eagerness, it was as though she radiated a sheer sense of potential.

  Or maybe that was all in Xavier’s head, considering he knew what this woman used to be.

  Xavier rose from where he’d been kneeling over the hole that had held the coffin, the entrance to the Deathly Dungeon, as the necromancer emerged from the ashes. “Romalda. It’s good to see you outside the dungeon.”

  Romalda stretched out her neck and arms, giving the impression of a cat. She released a yawn, then her grin returned as she looked at Xavier. “It’s good to be back in the land of the living.” She looked behind Xavier, her eyes widening in greed. There were still several hundred D Grades. Denizens of the army he had taken control of. “Are those for me?”

  Xavier considered. He had intended to feed the entire army to the dungeon, if necessary. He hadn’t known how strong the woman would need to become to finally break free.

  But… He had done what he’d needed to. He had brought Romalda out of the dungeon. That, and acquiring the corpse of a D Grade swordsman, had been his goal here.

  He wished to kill three birds with one stone—acquire the corpse, free Romalda, and finally, send another warning to the Silver River sector.

  That warning might be better if he left some of these people alive to tell the story of just how their army had been defeated.

  “These ones aren’t for you,” Xavier said.

  Romalda’s face fell. Suddenly she looked like a little girl who’d just been told she wasn’t allowed to have ice cream. Xavier touched the Portal Stone on the ground nearby, activating the portal back to the world with the frozen tundra that had been a battlefield not so long ago.

  He would return these people to that place, retrieve the Portal Stone he had left there, then make his way to a certain bookstore, hoping that he wasn’t spotted on his journey.

  The D Grade Denizens began stepping through the portal at Xavier’s mental command. There were still a couple hundred left, after all that. Lives that he would spare, as they no longer needed to die. If he could have sent beasts into the Deathly Dungeon, he would have.

  The wheels in Xavier’s mind started turning as he returned these people to the frozen world. Something Alexic had said, something that had stuck with him. The man had thought Xavier one day wished to rule the Silver River sector. It had never really occurred to Xavier to do so.

  But it had made him wonder.

  The worlds he was sending these people back to were his enemy because they had sent invaders to claim his world. They had then, both of them, sent an army to deal with him.

  Not everyone in those armies held a contract—he knew that because he already had one of their soldiers, formerly of the Bellaran Confederation, back in Collinsville.

  But many of those soldiers were contracted to serve their masters.

  What would happen if he went to one of these worlds and assassinated their leaders? Leaders who had ordered the invasion on his world. Leaders who had ordered his own death.

  How would the populace react to someone with as much power as himself doing such a thing?

  Xavier didn’t intend to rule, but he did want to bring worlds together. He wanted the next world to be integrated into the Greater Universe not to suffer the fate that Earth would have suffered had he not been there to protect it.

  He just wasn’t exactly sure how to make that happen.

  Once the last Denizen Xavier had sent through the portal to the frozen world had departed, Romalda cleared her throat.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something, Xavier Collins?” The necromancer raised an eyebrow. “I hate to remind you, but there is a contract we are supposed to sign.”

  Xavier tilted his head to the side, Rhaalir’s words still fresh in his memory.

  Instantly, he had known the elf spirit to be right. True loyalty didn’t come from the signing of contracts, especially when the person signing said contract didn’t feel as though they actually had a choice.

  The only reason this woman had likely agreed to sign a contract with him was because he promised to free her from the dungeon the System had reincarnated her into.

  And now, she would know there would be no way she could escape signing it with her life, not with how powerful Xavier was compared to her.

  He thought about that for a long moment.

  Loyalty.

  The people back at Collinsville didn’t sign contracts to show their loyalty—other than Alexic, of course—nor had his party. He simply trusted them to do what was right and trusted them to listen to him.

  But the Great Romalda Heralda was different. Xavier had seen what the woman had been like, long before she’d become B Grade, while she was on a floor of the tower, protecting a town of pacifists from an army of the undead.

  Well, at least, he’d seen what a different version of her had been like. That had technically been an alternate reality.

  The woman had been ruthless, and Xavier was sure that ruthlessness hadn’t gone anywhere. To become B Grade… One would have to be ruthless.

  Xavier was nowhere near B Grade, and yet he had been forced into being ruthless—and had actively chosen to be ruthless—more than once since he’d been integrated into the System.

  He came to a decision. Or, at least, the beginnings of one.

  “Come with me, Romalda.” He gestured toward the portal. “We’ll worry about that contract later.”

  Accidental Champion!

  my patreon has 31 ADVANCED CHAPTERS to enjoy!

  https://www.patreon.com/posts/free-tier-book-4-116513628

  https://discord.gg/nsgnbpWJ7S