Chapter 390 - A Much Bigger Issue (Patreon)

For the first time in a long time, Zeke felt a spike of terror in his mind. It didn’t last long before he smothered it beneath a mountain of life-or-death experiences, but it didn’t really go away. It never did. Fear was just a part of life. Another obstacle to be overcome. And Zeke refused to let it dictate his actions.

So, he only let himself hesitate for the briefest of moments before he dashed away. The gargantuan foot descended with inevitable speed, but Zeke barely managed to reach safety before it hit the floor.

The tiles trembled under the weight, sending Zeke stumbling to the ground. But he turned that stumble into an awkward run that quickly took him to the pillar-like leg of the kitchen table. From there, he looked at the enormous creature that had descended upon the kitchen.

It was humanoid, and though Zeke’s perspective was a little skewed by the size difference, he could tell that its proportions were a little off. It was too bulky – like a power lifter who’d gone a little too far with his training – with slightly too-short arms and legs. But that was all relative, and considering that the creature was the size of a building, its proportions didn’t seem all that relevant.

“I’d have focused on the one eye and bulbous head rather than its weird body,” Eveline said as the thing took another step. It seemed to move in slow-motion, but Zeke had enough experience with enormous monsters that he recognized that as a trick of perspective.

In any case, Zeke used [Inspect] in a hope to identify the thing. The results were disappointingly vague:

Cyclops Patriarch – Level ??

“Well, that’s not good,” Zeke muttered.

“You probably don’t have to kill it,” Eveline pointed out. “I’m sure there’s a way through this without fighting a battle that should be impossible. Think of it as a…I don’t know…a wall to bypass rather than…”

“What?”

“I just realized that you usually try to go through walls instead of finding a way around them,” she said.

“That’s not even remotely true.”

“It’s a metaphor.”

“It’s really not,” he said. “But regardless, what do you think I’d get if I killed something like that? It’s not on a level with Mikaena and the Blood Wraith, right? It doesn’t feel like it.”

“First of all, your feelings are not always accurate. You have an inspection skill for a reason,” she said. “And it says in objective terms that you should not, in any way, even think about fighting that monster.”

“But I kind of want to. Besides, you didn’t answer the question,” he pointed out.

She gave a mental sigh. “Fine. If you want to consider killing yourself, go for it,” she said. “Don’t mind me. You know, the spirit who depends on you to not throw the both of us into an unwinnable fight and get us killed.”

“I’ve won unwinnable fights before,” he pointed out.

“That thing is at least level seventy-five,” she said. “Probably higher. It’s not at the peak, but…you’re not even listening to me, are you? You’ve already decided what you’re going to do.”

“You can read my mind. You tell me.”

“You’ve gotten too good at hiding your thoughts,” Eveline stated. “I can’t read everything.”

“Good,” Zeke said. He’d spent much of his recovery time trying to wrangle his thoughts under his control. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Eveline. He did. She had proven herself time and time again, and despite her origin, Zeke felt that she had his best interests at heart. Part of that was due to their shared circumstances – if he died, then she wouldn’t last long after that – but it was also because he’d resolved to let peoples’ actions speak for themselves. And through her actions, Eveline had earned his trust.

Still, he had never been comfortable with her knowing every thought that flitted through his head, so he’d taken steps to keep his mind shielded. If Eveline really wanted to, she could probably render his efforts moot; she was a powerful mind spirit, after all. But she couldn’t do so without him knowing about it.

“I disagree,” she said. “How am I supposed to tell you how stupid your ideas are if I can’t even see them? Ugh. Is it too late for me to latch onto that sorceress? She seemed far more reasonable.”

“Feel free,” Zeke responded. “I’m not your jailer, Eveline. If you can get loose, and if she consents, you can do what you want.”

Eveline gave a mental roll of her eyes, then sighed. “I was just kidding, you big idiot,” she said. “Besides, you need me.”

“Debatable, but okay.”

“So, what are you planning?” Eveline asked.

Zeke told her. What he intended to do wasn’t really all that complicated, but it could go wrong in a hurry if his execution wasn’t perfect. Still, he felt good about his chances.

Eveline clearly didn’t feel the same way. “This isn’t going to end well,” she said. “At best, you’ll have to spend another month in recovery.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But killing something like that is worth the risk, right?” he said. “It might even push me to level fifty.”

“Doubtful.”

Zeke shrugged again. “Here’s hoping.”

Then, without further discussion, he took a deep breath, switched [Triune Colossus] to the sleeker unattuned form, then took off at a sprint. By that point, the enormous cyclops patriarch had crossed half the kitchen, which from Zeke’s miniaturized perspective, put it at about two miles away. He had no idea if he’d shrunk or if everything else was just enormous, but it didn’t really matter for what he had planned.

His heart pounded out of his chest as he sprinted across the kitchen floor, and he quickly left the ant corpses behind. It was rare that he got the opportunity to run flat out, but the flat surface of the kitchen’s floor gave him a perfect chance to let loose. Zeke had never been a creature of speed, instead favoring defense and overwhelming strength. However, due to his reasonably high-tier agility and dexterity, he could still move pretty quickly when he put his mind to it.

As such, he ran at the speed of a sportscar, which let him reach the giant cyclops in only a couple of minutes.

Of course, that was when things went wrong.

The enormous creature stopped and then, for one reason or another, glanced down. Its single eye widened in shock, and then it moved. Once again, it looked like it was going in slow motion, and the trick of perspective fooled Zeke into thinking he had more time than he really did. Before he could react, a pair of fingertips closed in on him.

Zeke tried to dodge, but those digits were far too large to avoid, and a moment later, he was in their grip and rising into the sky.

“You remember how I said this was probably going to go wrong?” Eveline pointed out.

“Not now!” said Zeke, struggling to free himself. Because of the skin’s pliability, he hadn’t been crushed, and the pattern of the monster’s fingerprints gave him plenty of handholds. Still, it took all of his strength to pull himself from one ridge to the next.

“I’m just saying that I told you so.”

“Not the time!”

“Well, considering we’re both about to die, I think it’s the perfect time.”

Zeke tuned her out as he focused on the task at hand. The pair of fingertips were pressed together, and though the pressure wasn’t enough to kill him, it was certainly uncomfortable. More importantly, it made wriggling loose that much more difficult. Still, Zeke persisted, and in the next few seconds, he finally broke free.

The moment he did, he was buffeted by a strong wind that nearly sent him tumbling from the monster’s finger. He looked down and was immediately beset by a wave of vertigo. The floor was already hundreds of feet away, and with every passing moment, he continued to rise.

Marshalling his composure, Zeke dashed across the monster’s skin, aiming for the gaping opening of its shirt sleeve. The ground – or rather, the creature’s arm – trembled, but Zeke maintained his balance as he reached his destination. He raced into a forest of hair follicles – the thing was like a gorilla in that respect – as his footing shifted.

Suddenly, he was tumbling downhill, hitting one hair follicle after the next until he finally managed to arrest his momentum by grabbing hold of one. His fingers dug into the hard, cuticle-like surface as he hung, suspended in mid-air. The rough fabric of the creature’s shirt pressed down on him, pushing the hairs flat.

His grip loosened.

And then, he fell down what amounted to a vertical shaft – the monster must’ve raised its arm – once again hitting every hair on the way down. Finally, he hit the ground – or, rather, the creature’s shoulder – where he lay for a long few seconds, groaning in pain.

The fall had been more disorienting than damaging. With his endurance, Zeke felt confident that he could survive just about any fall. However, the sheer scale of the monster had taken him aback. It was one thing to look at such a thing from a distance, but it was something else altogether to encounter arm hairs as big around as pine trees.

Zeke’s footing continued to shift as he took a moment to gather his wits. Once he did, he pushed himself to his feet. Eveline said something pithy, but he ignored it as he got his bearings. After a few seconds, he recognized the direction he needed to go, and he set out. The way was difficult, not only due to the constantly shifting skin beneath his feet, but also due to the increasingly steep incline as he strode across the monster’s shoulder.

After a few minutes – his pace was atrocious – the ceiling collapsed, and he was nearly crushed beneath the incalculable weight of something massive.

“It’s trying to scratch an itch,” supplied Eveline, who was detached enough from the situation to provide some context. For his part, Zeke had everything he could handle as he tried to avoid being crushed.  A moment later, the fabric of the monster’s shirt retracted, returning to its former position.

“Ugh…”

“Told you this was a bad idea,” Eveline stated.

Once again, Zeke ignored her as he picked himself back up, then continued to trek across the cyclops’ shoulder. Eventually, he reached a much steeper slope, which he interpreted as the thing’s trapezius muscle. After taking another deep breath, he pushed forward. After only a few dozen feet, he was forced onto all fours as he clamored up the incline. And finally, he emerged from the cavernous space between skin and shirt.

It felt like standing atop a skyscraper, only one of such height that he could scarcely wrap his brain around it. Thousands of feet worth of open air stretched out below him, and, due to his elevated position, Zeke could see the kitchen in much greater detail. To his surprise, he recognized it.

“What the hell…”

“What?” Eveline asked.

Clutching a stray hair for balance, Zeke didn’t immediately answer. Instead, he just stared at a kitchen that was laid out almost identically to the one he’d left behind on Earth. Details were different. Colors were slightly off. And certainly, the kitchen of his childhood home had never played host to a cyclops. But for the most part – aside from a lack of modern appliances – it was identical.

Which made no sense at all. Still stunned, Zeke haltingly explained it to Eveline.

“I…I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it’s using your memories? But if so…”

Then, things started to click into place. The riddles were the key. They were too close to his experiences with his brother for it to have been a coincidence. And once he accepted the possibility that the dungeon was building things based on his personal memories, things began to make more sense. Most of what he’d seen came from horror movies and video games he’d played with Tommy, but the circus was a combination of Tommy’s favorite movie and their lone visit to an actual circus.

It was like the dungeon had taken a bunch of happy memories, twisted them into something almost unrecognizable, then populated them with monsters.

Zeke felt his knees grow weak as he was assailed by the grief he’d thought he had left behind. It didn’t last long before he managed to regain control of his emotions. The feelings didn’t disappear. Instead, he shoved them into the back of his mind next to all the others he didn’t want to confront.

“Ezekiel…”

“Don’t,” he said when Eveline tried to talk about it. “Just…don’t. Not now.”

She seemed to understand and accept his reasoning. After all, he was still perched on the neck of an incredibly huge monster, and he still needed to take it out. And now that he’d figured the dungeon out, his resolve had thickened.

He didn’t just want to conquer it.

Instead, he intended to destroy it altogether.

And the first task on his list was killing a giant cyclops that he wasn’t supposed to be able to kill.