Chapter Twenty-Two #4
Ah, I was so excited to go test out my new choice of weapons in a dungeon, especially with my new class.
And now, with a proper class, I could really get into dungeon grinding!
I had so many skills to unlock! So much experience to gain!
The introductory phase of the system was officially over and it was time to have all the fun in the world with the system to create the ultimate build! I couldn’t wait to—
“Master!” Lupa said, raising her voice in front of me as she tugged on my arm.
“Sorry,” I said. “I was thinking about dungeons again. What’s going—”
“Sev,” Rosie said, “look.”
The room filled with cheers.
“A Hero!” one of the women shouted.
“It’s the first Hero in centuries! And a man!” shouted another.
“Let me join your party! Please!” And then there were countless variations of that shout.
And then one of the nuns whispered as if praying, “Ah… for our Thor to be chosen as a Hero. He truly is the greatest man to ever walk our world.”
That gut feeling I had turned out not to be for nothing.
Hero had a single unlock prerequisite: beat the game at least once with any other character and class.
It was understandable that there were Heroes in the world’s history since that was part of the lore, but, as far as I was aware, I should have been the only one in the world capable of selecting that class now unless my theory was right.
So, if someone else was able to select it…
“Oi!” shouted a voice that was all too familiar to me. “Back up! Stop crowding around my Master!”
The crowd backed up as commanded, letting me see through it to get my first look at the new Hero.
Standing in front of the orb with a familiar dragon girl at his side as well as two other companions from the game was a man who looked like he was designed to be as…
stereotypically manly as possible. The kind of guy found on the covers of romance novels for women and as the protagonists of action games from the 2000s.
Tall, buff, sharp jawline, short hair and shorter facial hair, tanned, and wearing heavy armor that made sure to leave his muscles exposed for looks.
He looked so “perfect” that it was borderline uncanny.
And, aside from Valencia, the others were there, too.
Caeli and Seraphina, but also two other girls who I didn’t recognize from the game with giant breasts.
As for Caeli and Seraphina, their outfits looked even more sexualized than they did in the game, and all of the girls had metal collars around their necks just like Lupa had at first. Excluding Valencia, those girls weren’t supposed to be slaves.
“Anyone who wants to party with me is welcome to join my guild,” the man said. “We just founded it earlier today, so there are plenty of spots open for obedient women.” Then he looked straight at me before looking at Rosie and Lupa. “But I’m not interested in used goods.”
I found myself stepping forward to get between him and the girls as they reached for their weapons.
“So, you’re my opponent, huh?” he asked, looking straight at me with an annoying smile curling his lips.
Even his voice was stereotypically deep and masculine sounding to an annoying degree.
“The goddess who sent me here has a message for you.” A goddess sent him?
That confirmed it wasn’t Seth, not that Seth would ever send this bastard here in the first place.
“You can give up and go back to Earth if you want. Otherwise, only one champion gets to stay standing, and I don’t plan on dying.
” He reached behind the two girls closest to him to grope their asses in front of everyone.
“This world is too damn great to not take for myself.”
He clearly had more information about whatever was going on than me.
As far as I knew, there were no external conditions attached to my existence with this world.
But the annoying asshole in front of me made it sound like only one of us would get to stay, and his words implied we wouldn’t both survive.
Valencia stepped forward with that usual cocky grin I saw of hers in the game. “That’s the kid you have to kill, Master? Heh, he looks pathetic compared to you. You should let me kill—”
Lupa stepped in front of me with her daggers drawn. Not a single word needed to leave her mouth to get her intent across.
“Haah? A canid? A mutt doesn’t think she can stand against a dragon, can she?”
Lupa remained still and silent, her eyes never once breaking contact with Valencia’s. The stillness of her tail and ears reminded me of when she dueled Jeanne, and I knew it was for good reason.
Both girls looked ready to fight to the death then and there.
“No fighting is allowed in the city,” I said, placing my hand on Lupa’s shoulder to calm her down and pull her back. The nuns in the background were already rushing around to warn the others about what was going on, too.
Lupa sheathed her daggers but stayed in front of me.
“That’s right,” the guy said. “Control your bitch there. She—”
I looked him in the eyes and said, “You’ve lost weight, Dungeon God.”
I knew it.
That annoying man took a step back with a shocked expression before wearing a really pissed expression.
“You always were the trashiest content creator for Custom Dungeon World,” I said. “I’m surprised to see you change your looks when you had no problem talking about how ‘proud’ you were to be a fat bastard before.”
“How the fuck do you know me?” he asked.
“I lived, breathed, and slept everything CDW more than anyone else. You think I wasn’t watching and listening to every content creator for the game while I was playing it?
I recognized the way you speak as soon as you opened your mouth, plus your taste in girls matches your tier lists.
Watching you reminded me that no matter how bad most players were, there was always someone worse. ”
“Who the fuck are you? Tell me. Now.”
“I’ll pass. I mean, even when using broken builds, you still cried and whined about how unfair the post-endgame bosses were. I beat those bosses with the worst builds just for fun.”
“Fucking liar. That shitty antagonistic dev made those fights almost impossible on purpose since he got pissed off at players beating the rest of his shit fights and—”
“Skill issue.”
He started going red.
It didn’t matter that he made himself look like the exact stereotype of a man who everything else would think was handsome, stoic, and confident.
He was still a loser who got ragebaited by having people call out his skill issue.
But as soon as the other girls with him pressed their bodies up against him to soothe his ego, he calmed down with a stupid, perverted grin on his face.
On my side, I had two women getting ready to defend me while I focused on another man.
On his side, he had a harem of barely dressed women pressing their bodies against him while he clearly enjoyed it, and that was after making a display of groping their bodies and becoming a Hero.
It was obvious from looking around.
Most of the women in the room were on his side, not mine. Every local member of the church was probably already in his harem, too.
“I don’t know who you are,” he told me, “but I’ll make this world mine.
A weak soy bitch like you who doesn’t know how to appreciate women doesn’t belong here.
” He reached around to grope the chests of the women at his sides, causing each one of them to moan out and tremble with pleasure in front of everyone.
“I suggest giving up, because you won’t beat a Hero, and killing you will take time away from fucking my women. ”
I wanted to put him in his place right there.
But I knew causing any more of a scene was a bad idea, especially when I chose a class like Vampire while he chose Hero.
Not only would it be terrible optics on top of everything else, but there was a chance he was objectively stronger than me depending on his gear.
I didn’t trust the fact that he didn’t have a weapon equipped.
For all I knew, he was hiding an overpowered weapon in his inventory that could kill me in one strike.
Even if he couldn’t, his party would back him up and so would the church’s nuns.
Then there were the whispers from all the other girls watching.
“Look at how he grabs them! Do you think he’ll do that to me if I join his guild?”
“I’m so jealous of his slaves…”
“A total hunk of meat, Hero, and a man who touches his girls in public? Am I dreaming? Is he real? There’s no way, right?”
The low standards of this world’s women didn’t only apply to me.
I knew I should have just walked away and let it end there. Pissing him off was risky when I didn’t know his capabilities, it wasn’t like I could try to kill him in front of everyone, and any response I gave him would make it look like I was letting him get under my skin.
But I didn’t want to.
I ignored assholes like him all the time as a kid, and all it did was empower them. It let them feel like they won. Taking the “high road” and “being the bigger man” didn’t mean shit when they were happy to roll around in the mud while slinging it at everyone else.
I opened my mouth to say something.
But I stopped when I heard Rosie whisper, “So this is what the other men from your world are like,” to herself. Then she stepped forward while holding an arm out in front of me, guarding me even now as she declared, “My husband is a million times the man you are.”
The way he looked at Rosie’s tits instead of her eyes made me want to kill him on the spot.
The bastard replied, “The only reason you’re tolerating that weak bitch is because he saw you first. You’d be screaming my name every night if I had you.
Too bad you’re used goods now, Rosie. I’m not interested in sluts who can’t even save themselves for me, no matter how nice their tits might be. ”
“How am I going to scream anyone’s name when Sev keeps my mouth full all night? It’s already hard enough to breathe, let alone scream.” Rosie… looked so damn smug saying that.