Wish Fulfillment System

In a private room of a small restaurant, Isaac was seated at a table next to Jakk and across from Kalin. While eating the noodle dish he had ordered, he observed the youth in front of him, especially the pendant around his neck. It was made with a sturdy string and held a small stone ring, nothing special. Still, the accessory made him look back at how they, this group of three, got here.

Shortly after Kalin had slain the dungeon lizard, the three of them introduced themselves to each other. While doing so, Kalin had searched the mangled and unrecognizable pile of flesh and bones that was his father for anything salvageable he could take with him to remember him by. That was when he found this ordinary pendant amongst the remains and took it with him after cleaning it.

For some reason Isaac didn't know about, the adventurers generally avoided taking the corpses of their companions out of the dungeon. And that was even though they knew that the dungeon would absorb those to seemingly feed itself. Honestly, it didn't make much sense. Why would anyone leave the corpse of their companion to such a fate if they could just bring them back outside? But for both Kalin and Jakk, it seemed like the logical thing to do. They didn't even question it. This intrigued Isaac a bit, so he resolved himself to investigate these circ.u.mstances in the future if he found the time.

Still, with that, at least the three didn't have to carry a bloody mess with them to the outside. He was quite glad about that.

When they finally left the dungeon, Isaac's monster slaying quest was at 180/1000. His earnings for today amounted to exactly 11.000 valis. A dungeon lizard's magic stone turned out to be worth 200 valis, while its drop item, one of its scales, was worth 1000. The entire harvest consisted of nine dungeon lizard magic stones, one dungeon lizard scale, 34 kobold magic stones, four koblin nails, 38 goblin magic stones and three goblin fangs.

After both Jakk and Isaac had used the Guild's equipment maintenance rooms and showers to clean away all the filth that had acc.u.mulated over the past few hours, they were surprised to see Kalin still waiting for them. The youth then practically begged both of them to let him treat them to a meal to show his gratitude. Of course, Isaac was aware that this was just a cover Kalin planned to use to ask something of them. Or to be more exact, of him.

What slightly amazed Isaac for a moment was that Jakk agreed to this invitation and didn't just go home while ignoring the miserable youth. But after observing the bunny boy for a moment, Isaac could see pity and empathy in his eyes. Never before had Isaac seen his roommate show such feelings. It didn't take long for Isaac to come up with a conjecture: Jakk had a tragic past as well. Seeing Kalin go through such an ordeal had softened the antisocial hume bunny's heart a bit and made him want to cheer the young human up. Whether that was true or not, Isaac couldn't say for certain. If he ever was sufficiently bored and had the time, he would ask Jakk about it.

The death of loved ones was even more frequent in this world compared to the world Isaac had lived in previously. From what he understood, many different gods with related divinities had created kingdom-style familias and led them to wage wars against each other non-stop. As there were many gods related to the dark side of society as well, many shady things took place on a daily basis with no-one to stop it. Besides a few places, the entire world was constantly in chaos. The areas dominated by monsters didn't help out either. Even here in Orario, the most beautiful pearl of this entire world, many despicable acts took place every day, even the Guild couldn't stop it.

Isaac only stopped ruminating on thoughts like these when he finished his noodle dish. He hadn't really paid attention to its taste while being distracted. To get rid of the slight and pleasant aftertaste, he took a sip of his glass of water. He was the only one in the room who chose such a basic beverage.

Jakk chose a drink similar to lemonade, while Kalin decided to order some beer to drown his sorrows, at least a little. If Kalin had been a friend of his and this wasn't such a devastating time for him, Isaac would have heavily criticized such behaviour. The consumption of alcohol was entirely harmful to the brain, after all. No matter how much his past society normalized it because of sheer idiocy, Isaac obviously was very well informed about what kind of poison it truly was. Still, unless it was someone who was really important to him, like Ais, he had long since decided to just let people do whatever they wanted to. He simply wouldn't bother with them. Even just explaining in detail about what kind of horrible idea it was to drink alcohol always took up a lot of time, which was better used elsewhere.

"Again. Thank you, both of you."

After expressing these words of gratitude, Kalin took a while to continue, seemingly in deep thought. He honestly felt a little bit apprehensive about what he planned to ask the young man, even a little bit guilty. His life had been saved by him but instead of being grateful, he was going to shamelessly ask something of him again…

This hesitance didn't escape Isaac, while both he and Jakk assured Kalin that helping him out hadn't been a problem at all. Only after that did the youth finally ask what had been on his mind the entire time.

"Isaac… I know this is presumptuous, but… could you teach me how to fight?"

The ember of hope in his eyes couldn't be hidden. As someone without a falna, improving his technical skill to a level approaching Isaac was his only real way of growing a lot stronger. He had to feed himself, after all, so he couldn't really stop going to the dungeon. Not that he wanted to, either. Ever since his father died, his desire to slaughter monsters in revenge wasn't something he planned to repress. He had taken his first step on a path of slaughter, with no end in sight.

While he wasn't particularly surprised at Kalin's request, as he had already expected something along these lines, Isaac still found it humorous that on the very same day, two people had asked him this question. If he hadn't known better, he would have almost believed that he was playing a student collection game right now.

Once he got rid of these distracting thoughts, Isaac gave his response.

"I'm currently already teaching Jakk. So if you're fine with not being my only student, I'll teach you as well."

His reasons for such a decision were pretty simple, almost the same reasons he had when he accepted Jakk's request. Kalin could be a useful minion. Additionally, because he wasn't an adventurer yet, he could be of use to one of Isaac's plans as well. It was not a devious plan at all, by the way. Not at all.

Although he was still in a devastatingly bad mood, Kalin felt quite happy about this reply, he even showed a slight smile. His worries over whether or not he would be accepted as a student flew away, replaced with pure relief.

"Should we ask Loki to accept him into the familia?"

When Kalin heard Jakk's question to Isaac, he almost dropped his glass. His eyes opened wide in disbelief while he stared at the two in front of him unblinkingly. He was simply awestruck and it took him a moment to collect himself and ask a question.

"Are you two from the Loki Familia?"

Kalin's shock wasn't a surprise. At the moment, the Loki Familia was one of the two top familias in the entirety of Orario. Even just interacting with one of their members was something that most people would never have the chance to do. So when his saviours acknowledged that they were indeed from such a place he never even dreamed of reaching before, Kalin was incredibly excited. Now that he could possibly join such a prestigious familia, he started to have all kinds of heroic fantasies. Also, at this point, he wasn't surprised by Isaac's inhuman skill level anymore. As someone from the Loki Familia, anything and everything should be possible for him. As someone on the bottom rung of society, Kalin didn't even question such prowess and took it for granted when it was connected to a top level force.

Before Kalin could start getting overly excited, Isaac's words interrupted his delusions.

"Calm down for a moment. Even if we recommend you to Loki, she might not accept you into the familia. But there is no need to be discouraged. I'm working on something that I can't talk about yet. It will take a few weeks. I can guarantee that what I'm working on will be just as good if not better for you than joining the Loki Familia. And I can guarantee that you will get a falna. You don't need to worry about waiting for so long either. Excelia is always acc.u.mulated, even if you haven't been blessed yet. I promise you that you won't lose out. What do you say?"

The one who was the most dumbfounded by these words wasn't Kalin, but Jakk. When he thought about what Isaac could possibly mean with the words 'better than joining the Loki Familia', he paled and asked a question in sheer disbelief.

"You couldn't be thinking about leaving the familia, right?!"

Although Jakk didn't know of any familia offering better conditions to an adventurer than his own, this was simply the only option he could think of. Nothing else even made sense.

In response to this worry, Isaac showed a gentle smile.

"No need to worry, I won't leave. What I'm planning also won't hurt the familia one bit, it will only help."

There was no reason for Isaac to leave the familia that was Ais' home. If he did that, he would be insane. After all, how else could he be close to the girl of his dreams so easily?

Having observed his two saviours' interactions and thinking about Isaac's words, Kalin finally came to a decision.

"Alright, I'll wait. Let's see what you have in store."

It couldn't hurt to wait for a bit longer, after all. Also, Kalin couldn't deny that he was quite intrigued by what could possibly rival membership in such a prestigious familia.

As if she had known that Isaac had been thinking about her a bit just a few minutes of small talk prior, just when the group was leaving the restaurant, a system notification briefing Isaac about Ais' monster slaying progress appeared.

[ Secondary host Ais Wallenstein has slain 4000 Level 1 monsters.

She completed the quest 'Kill 4000 Level 1 monsters.' and was rewarded with 400 AP. ]

'So fast! She has 1000 AP in total already.'

Slightly distracted by thoughts like these, Isaac said goodbye to Kalin for the day. They promised to meet at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning at the northern entrance of Babel.

"I'll go back to the Twilight Manor now, what about you?"

In response to Jakk's question, Isaac showed a mysterious smile. Ever since they had ran across Kalin in the dungeon, he had already made plans.

"I still have something to do, I'll be back sometime after dinner."

The system clock showed the time to be 4:03 p.m. when Jakk left. There was still plenty of time for what Isaac planned to do. So after blurring his existence yet again, shielding himself from the eyes of others, he quickly made his way towards the more dilapidated and lawless areas of Orario. Towards the alleyways around the south-eastern main street.

The south-eastern main street was close to both the entertainment district on one side and the impoverished district housing the Daedalus street on the other. Just as one might expect, the entertainment district was this city's red light district. In this world, slavery and human trafficking, along with a whole host of other crimes, was even more rampant in such an environment than in Isaac's old world.

Isaac decided to go to the alleyways surrounding such a tumor of society to recruit more minions for the future. As Ais was currently still in the dungeon, according to the system map, he had nothing better to do anyway.

Now that he had already accepted two students, it wouldn't hurt to get a few more. With the way things were going, Isaac was sure he would run across someone who wanted to be taught by him again sooner or later. So he would rather get all of these encounters out of the way as soon as possible, so most people joining him would be at around the same starting line. If the discrepancies in strength were too massive, it would be annoying to have to avoid certain dungeon areas just because of that, after all. If he wanted to form a sizeable cohesive unit of around the same strength, he would have to pick up people suitable to be his future minions, people with a strong desire for strength and growth.

Admittedly, Jakk already being a Level 2 adventurer was somewhat not to Isaac's liking. After all, everyone else who would join him would be significantly weaker than Jakk for some time. Still, if he succeeded in polishing his roommate's character and personality a bit, he could be somewhat of a leader figure amongst his lackeys.

Once his group had grown big enough, he wouldn't have to worry about accepting new people either, as he could just let a few of the ones he had taught for a longer time accompany the newcomers in their fledgling state.

One might wonder why Isaac would even try to create such a group in the first place. He was part of the Loki Familia and didn't have to worry about not having anyone to explore the lower floors of the dungeon with. After all, down there, there wouldn't even be time to rest if a force wasn't large enough to fend off monsters nonstop by rotating members. The Loki Familia could easily solve that problem. So why create a seperate force?

It was simple. The Loki Familia wasn't under Isaac's control, they had to listen to Loki's orders and whims. If Isaac wanted to move separately or the main force of the familia wasn't available at the moment, he needed his own party. Additionally, the Loki Familia wouldn't be able to do everything they could possibly want, they were bound by certain rules all gods and their familias had to follow. Isaac didn't know about the details, but he was already preparing to work outside of such a strict framework.

Maybe it would have been barely sufficient for his purposes to only rely on the Loki Familia if he planned to exclusively live in this world. But as he had far greater plans, building up a force he could take with him was necessary. He couldn't just take the entire Loki Familia and leave, after all, too much chaos would ensue.

Because of this goal, he was roaming the most desolate alleyways of Orario in search of people in dire straits. Without anyone noticing, he passed many groups of small-time crooks and criminals.

After such encounters became more frequent, he briefly thought about getting rid of one of these groups to test how the system would react to such actions. What stopped him from doing so, however, was the presence of a Level 2 adventurer in every single one of these small criminal groups. While a Level 2 wasn't someone Isaac had to be scared of, he wasn't entirely confident in instantly getting rid of them without using his existence-blurred default state. And using that felt akin to cheating, something he would feel slightly bitter about doing. If he just fought a group containing a Level 2 head on, who knows what might happen. If they lasted long enough, many reinforcements could arrive, even his familia could somehow get involved if some bystander reported everything to the Guild. It was just too much trouble that Isaac would rather avoid.

Of course, he could just take the easy way out and cheat, but unless he had a good reason to do that, he wouldn't.

Technically speaking, using his default state was part of his strength, there wasn't really a reason to restrict himself like that. He was just following his principles and avoiding having everything handed to him too easily. Basically, he was handicapping himself.

During the next few hours, Isaac wasn't that lucky. At one time, he had just slightly been too late to prevent the murder of a potential minion. Many other crimes had also taken place under his watchful eyes. Still, it took him until around 7 p.m. to finally encounter a promising situation.

It was a situation happening all too often here in the labyrinth city.

-----

Mina Teagle was a 16 year old chienthrope girl. Chienthropes were a race quite similar to hume bunnies. Instead of the bunny ears and tails, they had various different dog ears and tails. Mina had come to Orario in the company of her parents for the first time today. Her parents were farmers from a village not too far from the city. Now that it was still winter, they had a lot of free time. They also had a good harvest last season so with enough money, they wanted their daughter to see the world a bit.

Mina wore her dark-blonde hair in a shoulder-length ponytail, her bangs were long enough to almost cover her eyebrows. She had droopy, long dog ears and light brown eyes, filled with innocence and naiveté. Her clothes weren't extravagant whatsoever, she just wore a simple brown linen dress and cheap leather shoes. That was already the best her family could afford. Of course, like every other person, she also wore undergarments, but that shall not be further discussed here.

Shortly after they had entered the city, while the group of three was still touring around and dazzled by the prosperity of the city, Mina's beauty caught the eye of a certain group of five men.

They were slavers.

Seeing such a young, naive and beautiful girl with obviously no powerful background, they determined her to be their next target. After all, no-one would miss a small farmer family. And even if someone did, they weren't influential enough to be a problem or even possibly find out what had happened. Immediately, the group formulated a plan as to how to best capture her and sell her to one of the brothels in the entertainment district.

A series of small plots ensued.

And at their end, Mina found herself desperately running through empty alleyways, trying to escape. Her parents had already been murdered in cold blood. Tears were still unabatedly streaming down her cheeks when she thought about how her father sacrificed himself just to buy her enough time to escape the encirclement. She had to escape, or else everything was in vain!

Without caring about the mess at all, the slavers just left the corpses of Mina's parents right at the scene of their ambush. After a few minutes, they were already hot on her heels. Like fishermen using an inescapable net, they led her right where they wanted her to go. After all, the girl didn't know anything about her surroundings, while they knew them like their own backyard.

Soon, they had led the young farmer girl to a dead end.

When she saw the wall in front of her, with no way out and no way to climb it, even more tears burst forth from her eyes uncontrollably. Mina was desperate and scared. Upon turning around, the entire alleyway was blocked out by the five men. Their faces were twisted with sadistic pleasure from having driven her into a corner. The hate she felt for them ever since they had killed her parents got even stronger when their revolting gazes wandered all over her body, seemingly wanting to strip her n.a.k.e.d.

Less than thirty meters of alleyway were left between Mina and a lifetime of suffering. The group of men slowly and menacingly walked closer, trying to break her spirit by delaying the inevitable.

Yes, it was quite the cliché situation. A damsel in distress, stereotypical villains…

Because of that, Mina couldn't help herself from wanting someone to save her. Like in the fairy tales she had been told when she was younger. Besides that, she also longed for one other thing: revenge. If she wasn't almost scared out of her mind, her eyes when looking at these villains would be entirely dominated by hate.

Sadly enough, Mina was a smart girl. She knew there wasn't any help coming. So even that hope of hers died almost as soon as it appeared, the spark extinguished by her rationality.

Right at that moment, one of the slavers walking towards her tripped a little, as if he had been shoved aside by someone for a moment. But there was no-one there. So after a moment or two of slight confusion, the slaver determined he probably just tripped over his own feet accidentally and continued onwards.

Seconds later, a young man, a human, appeared in front of Mina. His silver light armour and black clothes gave him quite the dashing look. Coupled with the young man's handsome face and the timely moment of his appearance, Mina felt like her Prince Charming had finally arrived. The extinguished spark rose again like a phoenix from the ashes, her heartbeat quickening.

The slavers were taken aback by someone just appearing out of nowhere as well, so they cautiously eyed the newcomer. While keeping track of the group of five, the young man turned to Mina and addressed her.

"I can save you and give you strength. In return, I want absolute loyalty. Deal?"

These words instantly shattered Mina's expectations. He didn't swoon all over her, treating her like a princess. He didn't even save her out of the goodness of his heart. He wasn't comparable to the valiant hero she had expected at all. Instead of the care she expected to see on his face, it was cold and emotionless while the only feeling his eyes conveyed was overwhelming loneliness. This man was the complete antithesis of the ideal prince she had wanted to be saved by.

At this point, the slavers had already recovered from their shock and shouted something Mina didn't pay attention to. Neither did the young man in front of her, he was waiting for her answer.

The moment he had appeared, Mina's only focus was on him.

Instead of being shocked for too long, her thirst for revenge, her wish for the men who murdered her parents to suffer, whispered to her that she should accept this deal. She was aware that, if she did so, from this day forward, her life would change forever. The freedom to make her own decisions in every possible situation would disappear. Instead, she would have to follow this young man's orders. Her life would be in his hands. Still, even if it wasn't for the desire for revenge trying to convince her, he was also currently her only hope, her only way to escape a tragic fate.. It felt like a bittersweet deal with the devil.

She steeled her heart. Her eyes turned cold and the scared expression on her beautiful, tear-stained face changed into a mask of viciousness when she directed her gaze towards the slavers, who were still shouting and getting closer and closer. Of course, she completely ignored their words in their entirety.

"Deal."

The moment this word had left her lips, the young man in front of her turned towards the group of slavers.

Ten seconds later, five decapitated heads hit the floor.