Deadworld Isekai

Lucy was right.

The system notifications were of a “hell yes” quality, perhaps even bordering on “fuck yeah” levels. More importantly, this gave confirmation that the general system and dungeon system were distinct. Perhaps the biggest tell was that the dungeon system's windows were a different color than the system's.

If the dungeon system was just another part of the general system, that would make it really easy for the system to keep screwing with Matt. Although the fact that the system had to mess with Matt's settings to modify the dungeon had implied a separation, it wasn't concrete proof. With Matt's life on the line, he was reluctant to leave something at “maybe”.

The first dungeon notification solved those maybes.

Dungeon Entrant Checksum Error Assessment

On entrance to this dungeon, the entrant’s system file was found to have several recent changes. This combined with verbal objections to dungeon settings implies an error. In light of this, a previous positive response to the dungeon entrance confirmation implies outside interference in the entrant’s system, the dungeon, or both.

Due to inconveniences imposed on the entrant and to limit the severity of future occurrences of errors, additional prizes have been awarded.

Rewards:

System Screen Enhancement Token: User preference lock

Reinforced Survivor’s Garb Set (Less previously acquired pieces)

Lesser Repair Stones, 5x

 

The survivor’s garb and repair stones were nice, but there was a clear winner in terms of the best conversation starter among the prizes.

“Does that mean what I think it does?”

“Probably? We're in weird territory here, I've never heard of such a token. But it sounds like it’s going to lock your user preferences down.”

“Does that mean the system can’t change them again?”

“Matt, honestly, I don't know. I’m surprised it could even do that. The way I understand it, the system really does have to follow a baseline set of rules. From what you explained, it somehow found a loophole where it could pretend it was helping you when changing your preferences.”

“Like an ‘oh, I thought that’s what you wanted?’ sort of thing?”

“Yeah. But now, it won't have the same excuse.”

They talked it over and eventually agreed that while the token wouldn’t be a 100% guarantee against shenanigans, Matt didn't have much to lose.

While the general system might have been running a very long con, it sure seemed like the dungeon system was working in opposition to the general system's goals. Nothing was certain, but it was a good sign. And the token wasn’t even the real showstopper. Not by a long shot.

Elite Dungeon Conquest Completed
You have completed this dungeon at the highest possible optional difficulty settings. In addition to this feat, you managed the following accomplishments:

 

Alpha beast (Optional)
An alpha beast has spawned! Alpha beasts are rare variants of normal run-of-the-mill foes. Face it if you dare.

 

Double Dare (Hidden Accomplishment)
You returned from certain death twice in one dungeon. Non-repeatable.

 

Chateau De Dungeon (Hidden Accomplishment)
You have established a secure residence within a naturally occurring aspect of the dungeon and lived there for longer than a week. Non-repeatable.

 

Offer Is On The Table
You have left a dungeon without claiming your reward. Non-repeatable.

 

Assessing appropriate rewards….

 

For completing “Offer Is On The Table”, you have been rewarded:

One-time teleportation to dungeon entrance plinth token

Dungeon Reward Retrieval Token

“Oh, huh. I hadn’t even thought about leaving the rewards behind.”

“Sigh, idiot.”

“Thanks… Now, let's talk about the big one.”

Combined Award

The other accomplishments have been amassed into a single prize suitable for the feat of defeating a max-difficulty dungeon run alone at a tremendous level disadvantage. Enjoy!

Reward: Property Token: Estate.

Matt once again found himself relying on his video game knowledge. This sounded a lot like something that would allow him to claim real-world Gaian property. Lucy was happy to offer confirmation of that thought.

“The Estate Token is the best possible thing you could have come up with, Matt. Even with all of your little near-death modifiers, you had to get really lucky to get this. Like winning-the-lottery lucky. It doesn’t even make sense.”

Unless the dungeon system is on our side. Matt didn’t want to express that thought out loud quite yet. He had no idea if the system was listening, and what it might do with that knowledge. He suspected that the truth would come out soon enough. No reason to hurry it.

Even if he wanted to stay awake, he found himself nodding off. He had to sleep. Lucy was pacing, now over-excited, and mumbling to herself about the possibilities of the various tokens.

“I’m going to bed, Lucy.”

“What? Oh, yeah, go ahead. I’ll think about this more while you sleep.”

“Thanks.”

It had been a long couple of weeks. It didn’t take Matt long to start snoring.

—

When Matt woke up again, it was time to realize the spoils of his dungeon run. Going through the notifications, he noticed that none of them came from the general system. The experience and stat increases that he had taken for granted never came.

“Oh, that's neat,” Lucy was standing next to Matt as he confirmed his loot selection and watched the dungeon materialize the rewards. The dungeon had decided to spit the rewards out from a shimmering blue bubble. A few months ago, this would have been the weirdest thing Matt had ever seen. Now it was just another Tuesday. “You can’t see what’s going on here, but it’s neat.”

“Yeah? What's so hot about the bubble?”

“The bubble isn't just for teleporting stuff out. It's kind of doing that. But it's more actually building your rewards. It does the same thing within the dungeon but it's rare to see it happen in the real world.”

Matt stopped to gather the items as they fell and activated the System Screen Enhancement Token. “What’s it making them out of? Energy? Mana? Or something else?”

“Partially, yeah. It’s probably cheaper to make it inside the dungeon, where it has more control. I'm guessing that's why it doesn't do this too often,” Lucy studied the bubble as she spoke. “The bulk of it is stuff coming from the dungeon, but it's also sucking air into that bubble and pulling apart the atoms or something.”

“That is neat.”

“Yeah, this is the coolest thing I've seen on this forsaken planet.” As Lucy finished her thought, the last of the treasure spilled out of the bubble, and it winked out of existence. She pouted for a second.

Matt was already busy shimming into his new armor. It was a nice piece of gear. He had expected it to be heavier or more stifling than his normal survivor's garb, but the set was surprisingly easy to wear despite being built with defense in mind.

Matt didn’t exactly feel safe in it. He wasn’t sure he’d ever feel fully safe again after those moles. But he felt safer.

When he stooped to pick up the estate token, he found not one but two coins on the ground. “What’s this?” he asked Lucy, “Do we get a two-for-one on estates today?”

“No, dummy. One of those is the dungeon prize teleport voucher thing you won.”

Thinking back to the rewards screen, there had been three separate screens of rewards – one for leaving his prizes in the dungeon. He hadn’t been thinking about rewards when he cleared the dungeon, but the extra bonus was nice.

“It seems like a pretty lame prize, considering you had to take the risk of leaving all of your dungeon clear rewards. Wait, why did you leave them again?”

“I was sort of in a hurry. Moles and all that. You understand.”

Matt put the token in his bag. Lucy was right that it probably wouldn’t be useful any time soon, but you never knew with those kinds of things. He picked up the estate token and flipped it like a coin, whistling happily as it glinted in the dull light of the suns.

“So what does this do? We can just use this wherever?”

“Use your head Matt. First, imagine you tried to use this thing during a dinner at the palace. Palaces are important places. You can't steal someone’s house, let alone the seat of power for an entire country.”

“Ok I get that.”

“So you need the land to be available. But even among available land, not all land is created equal. You’d want to look for a good spot first. This would all be a lot more obvious to you if anyone else on this planet was, you know, alive. Putting this down near a major road would let you do a lot of things, like opening a trade depot or a hotel. That’s a big deal.”

“...but we live in a dead ruined world and there’s no trade, so any place is about as good as any other. Got it.”

“No, Matt,” Lucy said. She looked at him intently. “That’s not exactly what I said. Please think back.”

Matt was still getting used to the weird don’t-talk-about-system-authority restrictions that seemed to bind Lucy. Luckily, her usual dialogue didn’t include a whole lot of subterfuge or hidden meanings, which made it much easier for her to create read-between-the-lines messages when she needed to. He thought back to what she had actually said, examining it a little closer.

“Oh. OH.” Realization suddenly hit Matt.

“I want to be clear that I have no idea what you are just now realizing, and had nothing to do with you realizing it,” Lucy said with a smile.

“Deal. So… shall we?”

“We shall, Matt. We shall.”

If Matt was reading Lucy correctly, this was going to piss the system right off. He liked the idea of that a lot.

—

On their way to the destination, Matt spent some time doing an inventory. The torch he had received from his initial survivor supplies was much more magical than he had first assumed. It served him for much longer than a normal torch should have, and always lit up on command. But it wasn't invincible. From the looks of it, Matt had used up an awful lot of its lifespan getting him through his ordeal in the dungeon. He had tried to ration it, but there was only so much to ration. Given how much help it had been, he was reluctant to lose it.

The same problem was true for his water stone. He had repaired it back from a broken state, which according to the then-helpful system was just a drop in the bucket. He had no idea how fast water stones wore out, but he didn’t want to find out by working it to death. Replacement was the most expensive form of maintenance, and Matt wouldn't know where to find another water stone anyway.

The rest of his equipment didn’t take much maintenance, so long as he kept doing dungeons. It appeared wear, tear and breakage were all included in the dungeon's auto-heal package. Much to Matt's chagrin, consumables weren’t on the same plan. He pulled two items out of their respective containers and lined them up on the ground.

“Those two things, Matt? Are you sure?”

“Yup. I’ll still have some repair stones left.”

“You barely use that torch.”

“It seems like I've been using it a lot lately. You know, with moles and caves and all.”

Lucy made a face of realization. She hadn’t been there for the moles. “Good point. Yeah, go ahead.”

He lit up the repair stones, which again just disappeared from his hand, failing to glow in any satisfyingly magic way.

Repair stone consumed. Water stone repaired.

Water Stone (Good Condition)
A common water stone, used in a home or fountain. Produces water until the container it’s stored in is full, then automatically shuts off. This water stone is in good condition.

Item durability: 30/50

Repair stone consumed. Instant torch repaired.

Instant Torch (Good Condition)
A torch with an instant-light mechanical mechanism for quick illumination of dangerous spaces, both inside and outside of dungeons. Enchanted for long use.
The predecessor to the instant-light lantern, this torch produces only an hour of light per durability point, but makes up for it through the versatility of an open, easily accessible flame.

Item Durability: 40/50

The items repaired, Matt and Lucy continued their trek. Both of them were in a hurry to get to their destination at once, even if only one of them could talk about it.

They could hardly wait to get there. If this worked, it was going to piss off the system so very, very much.