The Human From a Dungeon 20 (Patreon)

Chapter 20

Nick Smith

Adventurer Level: 5

Human - American

"So without Yulk, Nash, and Nick there we'd have bit the dust, probably," Thunra said. "Joni definitely would've."

Yhisith and Thunra had caught Chief Gluhern up to speed, and had even provided a tactical analysis of the fight with the monster. The part of the story that I hadn't been awake for had me a little stunned. I hadn't quite believed Ten when he said that my brain was holding my body back. Intellectually, I knew it was true, because I had heard the same thing from my weightlifting coach in Fitness class. But fighting against my own mind had only ever resulted in one or two extra reps.

To hear about how my body fought that monster without me in control was something else entirely. Could I do that without Ten, now that I know? Could I push myself to those extremes? Maybe with training, but it feels unlikely. What do I do if I encounter another enemy like that?

Then there's the matter of losing control of my body. I'm not exactly comfortable with it, and not just because it hurt like hell when I woke up, like I'd done a super-intense workout without stretching or hydrating or taking any breaks. But what if the reason that guy turned into a monster is because he also had an 'AI Assistant', and it permanently took control of him? Come to think of it, can Ten read my mind when I'm not thinking at it?

I waited a moment to see if Ten would reply to that. Nothing. It could just be playing coy, though, not wanting to feed into my apparent paranoia. There's no way that I'd be able to tell.

"So what do you think we should do, chief?" Matri asked, snapping me back to the matter at hand.

"Well, you four can head back to the High Chief at your leisure to collect your reward. Feel free to rest in the village, and maybe spend some coin while you're at it," Gluhern chuckled slyly. "Nash, Nick, and Yulk, unsurprisingly, you've been summoned by Ulurmak. You'll be heading to the capital with the next trade caravan. It leaves tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow morning? Nick doesn't have a weapon, and my axe is damaged," Nash said. "We'll need to see a smith to get back up to combat readiness, and it's going to take them more than a night to fix our gear."

Wait, Nash didn't fight the creature...

"How'd your axe get damaged?" I asked.

"Never you fucking mind, boy," Nash growled.

"He wacked it on the pod after it sealed you inside," Yulk said with a grin. "You know, kinda like what he told you not to do with the wall."

We all had a bit of a laugh at Nash's expense. He didn't laugh with us. Instead, his expression remained stoic with a touch of anger. Once the laughter died down Gluhern sighed.

"I'm not at liberty to give you more time. Ulurmak wants you in his presence as soon as possible and I'm honor-bound to comply," he pointed out. "As are you."

"What if the caravan comes under attack?" Yulk asked.

"It has its own guards, I'd imagine," Thunra answered. "Plus, I'll come along. I ain't gonna need more than a night's sleep to recover, and I got nothin' to buy 'cept maybe a keep-sake. We can train when the caravan takes its breaks!"

Nash grinned, and the lingering smile I had at the thought of his mishap faded rapidly. Nash is huge compared to me, but Thunra is downright mountainous. Even if I just mimicked his workout routine, it would probably result in an injury. And I've got no doubts as to what Nash is currently thinking.

"I like that idea, Thunra," Nash said with a certain malice in his tone. "I'll bring along the wooden weapons. We'll have the boy up to level 10 in no time."

I looked to Yulk for help, but he just softly shrugged.

"I'll be coming along as well," Matri said. "I could probably use a rest, but I wanna get paid as soon as possible. Got some gear upgrades in mind."

Yhisith and Joni also voiced their intentions to travel with us, but I was spiraling into a state of depression and anxiety at the thought of the pain that was waiting in my near future. At least if things got too bad, Yulk would be there to heal me up.

'You seem to be anxious about sparring with Thunra,' Ten said. 'You don't need to be, I'll make certain he doesn't critically injure you.'

'Actually, the thought of that makes me even more anxious,' I hastily replied. 'I'd rather remain in control of my body, regardless of the consequences to my physical well-being.'

'I'm sorry, Nick. I can't comply with that desire. Keeping you alive is my highest priority,' Ten explained. 'Plus, if you die, I die. I don't want to die.'

'And I don't want you hurting my friends and potentially turning me into that monster,' I said. 'If you take over and harm Thunra, then what happens if Nash and Yulk try to stop you?'

Ten paused for a moment, seemingly contemplating the point I had just made.

'I understand your concern. I am confident that I will not have to utilize lethal force against the orcs if I am forced to intervene. I'll be gentle, as it were. Also, I feel I should clarify that the altered human was not being controlled by an artificial intelligence. It had a module, but the module was in standby mode. Similar to your own before you reentered the dungeon.'

"Alright then, the plans are made. Good journeys," Chief Gluhern said.

We parted ways with the chief and I followed along after Nash and Yulk somewhat mindlessly.

'What do you mean the module was in standby mode like mine?' I asked Ten.

'Your AI module was in standby mode before I was activated. In standby mode, the module is able to automatically translate spoken languages and rapidly heal a subject back to the state it was in prior to the installation of the module.'

'So the monster understood us and attacked anyway?'

'If it had the proper language packs, yes. Although I doubt it could have made sense of it. Judging by its hyper-predatory attack patterns, I'd say it was quite feral.'

'He,' I corrected. 'Wait, hold on. When you say rapidly heal a subject back to the state it was in prior to having the module installed, what exactly does that entail?'

'The module is able to automatically detect grievous damage to a subject and utilize a nanite package to correct said damage. Given enough time and resources, it can even regenerate lost limbs.'

'But does it restore everything back to its original state? Cuz Yulk healed me and my scar got smaller, and I think he healed me to wake me up.'

'The module has a failsafe that prevents it from undoing natural healing. So if it were installed in someone that had already been injured, they'd be able to heal on their own and the module wouldn't interfere. This, apparently, also applies to magical healing. That's not in the kbase, but I suppose it makes sense. The module measures your current state with that of an average human body to determine whether or not to make a correction. It can even prevent a subject from aging while in stasis.'

One concern alleviated, only for more to pop up.

'Okay, two things. First, does that make me effectively immortal? And if that's the case, does that mean there's no way to determine how long the altered human and I were in the dungeon?' I asked.

'You're highly resistant to the rigors of time, but sufficient damage to your body or my module will kill you. Also, the aging prevention doesn't work nearly as efficiently once the subject is active. So no, you're not immortal,' Ten answered. 'But yes, that does mean that any attempt to estimate the amount of time you or the altered human were in the dungeon would be asinine without further data. Whether or not the altered human entered status or how often it did so, for instance.'

So I'll most likely outlive Nash and Yulk if we're not killed by monsters. Well, given our age difference that was probably going to be the case anyway. Wait, how old do orcs live to be? No, not the time for those questions.

'Is there anything else I should know about this nanite package and healing ability thing?'

'Yes. I am in full control of the nanite package. Since you are young, to foster proper muscle growth I'll only be able to use it to heal actual injuries.'

'What? Why?'

'Rapid healing of muscular microtears can result in gross disfigurement if not properly managed, and in your case it is beyond my capability to manage properly.'

'How is it beyond your capability?' I asked incredulously.

'Your body is still growing, so both your body and I would be rapidly trying to heal the microtears. If we both succeed, then after a while your muscles would become disproportionate and disfigured,' Ten explained. 'I would have to stop your natural healing processes, which is difficult even without the growth hormones at play, before I took action to heal the microtears. With larger injuries I can simply pile onto what the body is already doing, but the smaller the injury the harder it is to correctly time my actions.'

'So long story short, that's why I'm still sore.'

Ten paused again, 'Yes. I'm sorry that I pushed you so hard.'

'That's alright,' I said as we arrived at the house. 'We lived. That's what matters.'

"Welcome home, boys!" Yilda called from the kitchen. "At least that better be my boys. If not, more food for Dima!"

I looked at Yulk and asked, "Do you guys have people invading your home a lot?"

"Not a lot. But we do get the occasional assassin or person with a grudge against our clan," Yulk gave me a toothy smile.

"Yeah, but ain't nobody tougher than Mama Alta," Nash added as we entered the kitchen. "I remember when I was six and I saw her kill an assassin with her slipper. Took his head right off, and it wasn't even sharpened or anything."

"Hush now, there's no need for that talk." Yilda said as I was trying to figure out if Nash was joking or not. "How'd it go in the dungeon? Did you find any answers?"

"Not any satisfying ones. We made a copy of the language that was on the altars that Nash found Nick on," Yulk answered. "I think they're in Drakon. Want to take a look?"

"Sure," she said as Yulk handed her some papers.

She held them at an angle and looked down her nose at them, pursing her lips slightly. She squinted for a while, and then raised one of her eyebrows.

"This isn't Drakon. It's close though," she explained. "A lot of the characters are the same, but they're in a different order. I'd guess that it's High Drakon."

Nash and I looked at each other with confused expressions, but Yulk looked shocked. She handed the papers back to him and continued cooking.

"What's High Drakon?" I asked.

"Well, Drakon is the language of those subservient to the high dragons back when they were into governing," Yilda answered. "High Drakon is the sacred language of those high dragons and their chosen elite."

"Wait, WHAT?" Nash asked while glaring accusingly at Yulk. "How come you didn't tell me about that?"

"It wasn't relevant to your studies," Yulk replied softly. "There's a lot of languages that we don't have much chance of encountering, and High Drakon is one of those. It's been thousands of years since the high dragons held kingdoms."

"Fifteen thousand or so since the biggest kingdoms fell apart. But there's still a High Dragon ruling Bolisir. Well, ruling is a strong word," Yilda said with a chuckle. "It's been asleep for going on thirteen hundred years. Bolisir's by far and large considered an elven kingdom now."

"Huh?" Nash and Yulk replied in unison as I remembered an argument they had while I was still in the hospital.

"What do you mean 'huh'? Boys, Bolisir is just over the dragon-jaw mountains, you should know this," she scolded. "Why do you think it's called dragon-jaw and not orc-jaw?"

"W-wait, I... I thought that the dragon had been asleep for a hundred years," Yulk sputtered.

"A-and I thought they tamed it," Nash stammered. "And it was just a dragon, not a High Dragon."

"Wrong on both counts. The High Dragon in Bolisir came into power about eighteen thousand years ago, fought in the Cataclysm Wars, and went to sleep right after the war ended. Hells, you step foot in Bolisir and they'll chat your damned ears off about it."

"B-but the history book Yulk read to me..." Nash said.

"History book?" Yulk asked. "Wait, do you mean the Adventures of Milimaman?"

"Yeah..."

"Oh. No, that was fiction. Sorry, I should have clarified."

"Okay, so wait," I interjected as Nash's face dropped. "Two questions. First, what's the difference between a High Dragon and a dragon. Second, would this High Dragon be able to read the text?"

"High Dragons are both much smarter and much larger than dragons. They can also do magic, whereas dragons just have a breath weapon," Yulk answered. "And yeah, it would probably be able to read the text. Assuming that the text is High Drakon and we can wake it up."

"And that it's not illiterate," Nash added.

Yulk and I glanced at him to see if he was joking. He wasn't.

"There's a chance that one of the elves in Bolisir can read High Drakon. After all, a High Dragon is technically their king," Yilda said. "Either way, you're going to need a visa and permission from the High Chief."

"Well, thankfully we're on our way to the capital in the morning to speak to the High Chief," Nash said. "Hopefully we can convince him to let us go to Bolisir."

Yilda turned away from the stove to look at us.

"You're on the road again so soon?" she asked sadly.

"Afraid so, mom. Got the summons right out of the dungeon," Nash said softly.

"Damn. Well, I guess that's that. You tell Ulurmak I'm not happy about this. I should get some time to spend with my boys in my golden years, dammit."

"I'll let him know," Nash said with a grin. "So, what's for dinner?"