The old man's question hung in the dust-filled air, as heavy and significant as the mountain of rock that now entombed the Great Cave Troll.
"Tell me, boy. Have you ever considered joining a guild?"
His voice was a cheerful, rumbling bass, completely at odds with the scene of impossible carnage he had just witnessed. His eyes, though, were not merely cheerful. They were ancient, sharp, and they saw far too much. They were not looking at the weak, resurrected body of Kazuki von Silverstein. They were looking directly at the soul of Kazuki Tanaka, the programmer, the anomaly, and they were not confused. They were intrigued.
Elizabeth, who had just begun to regain some semblance of her composure, went rigid. She stepped forward, placing herself partially between me and the old man, her hand instinctively moving to where her wand should have been. It was a protective gesture, as surprising as it was futile.
"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice sharp, trying to reclaim the authority that had been shattered moments ago. "This is a restricted area. State your name and purpose."
The old man chuckled, a warm, rolling sound. He took a long, leisurely puff from his pipe, the sweet-smelling smoke curling up into the cavern's gloom.
"My apologies, my lady," he said, giving a slight, respectful bow that seemed both genuine and mocking. "One forgets his manners in the face of such... invigorating entertainment. My name is Hemlock. Just Hemlock. And my purpose..." He smiled, his eyes twinkling. "Is scouting for talent. And I do believe I've just found a motherlode."
His gaze shifted back to me, ignoring Elizabeth completely.
[Hemlock - Guild Master of the Silver Gryphons][Level: ???][Class: ???][Title: The Old Lion, Grandmaster Adventurer][Status: Amused, Intrigued, Assessing]
ARIA's scan was both illuminating and terrifying. Guild Master. Grandmaster Adventurer. The question marks where his level and class should be were the most frightening part. It meant he was so far beyond my ability to comprehend that my system couldn't even parse the data. He was, in gaming terms, a legendary NPC, the kind that gives out epic quests and one-shots world-ending dragons.
"I saw the whole thing, you know," Hemlock said conversationally, as if we were discussing the weather. "From the moment you three walked in. Watched you handle the goblins. Very unorthodox, your methods. Then the big fellow showed up. A Great Cave Troll... haven't seen one of those this far south in fifty years. A nasty surprise."
He paused, his eyes locking onto mine. "And then you died."
The words were stated so plainly, so matter-of-factly, that the air went still. Elizabeth gasped. Luna whimpered, pressing closer to me.
"You were hit with enough force to turn a warhorse into paste," Hemlock continued, his voice never losing its cheerful cadence. "I felt your life signature wink out. Gone. And then, poof." He made a small gesture with his pipe. "There you were again. Stronger. Faster. And with a nasty little trick up your sleeve."
He knew. The "Ancestral Awakening" lie, the one I had so carefully constructed for Elizabeth, wouldn't work on him. He hadn't just seen the result; he had witnessed the entire process. He had seen the glitch.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, my voice steady, my mind racing. Deny everything. That was the first rule of being caught.
Hemlock laughed again. "Oh, I think you do. Boy, I've been adventuring since before your grandfather was born. I've seen magic that can bend minds, spells that can shatter mountains, and artifacts that can whisper secrets from the gods. But I have never, in all my years, seen a man treat death as a temporary inconvenience."
He took a step closer, his friendly demeanor not changing, but the sheer weight of his presence, his immense, unreadable level, pressing down on us.
"I don't care what your secret is," he said, his voice dropping slightly, becoming more serious. "I don't care if you're a demon, a god, or something entirely new. The world is full of strange things. What I care about is potential. And you, son, have more potential than anyone I have ever met."
He gestured around the cavern. "But potential without guidance is just a faster way to get yourself killed for good. You're making powerful enemies. A man like Duke Crimson doesn't take kindly to his pawns flipping over the board. He'll send more than a few clumsy assassins next time."
My blood ran cold. He knew about the Duke.
"How...?" Elizabeth breathed, her own shock momentarily overriding her hostility.
"The Silver Gryphons have eyes and ears everywhere, my lady," Hemlock said gently. "We make it our business to know things. We know about your family's debt. We know about this marriage contract. And we know the Duke is a man who likes to clean up his messes."
He had laid all the cards on the table. He wasn't just a powerful individual; he was the leader of a powerful organization. An organization that could offer something I desperately needed: a shield.
"My offer is simple," Hemlock said, turning his full attention back to me. "Join the Silver Gryphons. All three of you. We are the oldest and most respected adventurer's guild in the kingdom. We provide training, resources, and most importantly, protection. A registered member of the Gryphons is under the guild's protection. Not even a Duke would dare to move openly against one of my own."
It was a lifeline. A way out of the corner I had been backed into.
"What's the catch?" I asked, my mind immediately looking for the hidden clause in the contract.
"No catch," Hemlock said with a shrug. "You fulfill guild contracts, you earn your keep, you follow our rules. The primary rule being: don't use your power to harm the innocent or destabilize the kingdom. Beyond that... your secrets are your own. All I ask is that you use that... unique talent of yours for the benefit of the guild when called upon."
He saw me as an asset, a secret weapon. Just like Elizabeth did. The difference was, Hemlock was offering a framework, a system where I could grow and operate, instead of just a tense, two-person conspiracy.
"We are nobles," Elizabeth interjected, her pride resurfacing. "The heir of House Silverstein and a daughter of House Crimson do not become common adventurers."
"Don't they?" Hemlock countered, his gaze softening as he looked at her. "My lady, your nobility is a cage. You know it as well as I do. The guild offers a different kind of life. A life where your worth is measured by your skill and your strength, not your bloodline. A life where you can forge your own destiny, free from the machinations of men like your father."
His words struck home. He was offering her the very freedom she craved.
I looked at Elizabeth. Her face was a war of conflicting emotions. Her pride was at war with her ambition, her caution with her desperation.
I made the decision for her.
"We accept," I said.
Elizabeth's head snapped toward me, her eyes blazing. "Kazuki! We did not agree to this!"
"I am the head of this party, am I not?" I said, my voice calm but firm. "And the head of House Silverstein. I am making an executive decision. This is the most logical path forward. It provides us with allies, resources, and a shield against the Duke. To refuse would be foolish."
My blunt assertion of leadership, something I had never done before, stunned her into silence. The dynamic had shifted yet again. I was no longer just her co-conspirator. I was her party leader.
Hemlock beamed, a wide, genuine smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Excellent! A wise choice, young man. A very wise choice."
He reached into his robes and produced three small, silver brooches shaped like the head of a gryphon. "Your provisional membership pins. They will grant you access to our guild hall in the capital. Come and find me when you are ready to be officially registered. We have much to discuss."
He handed a pin to each of us. The metal was cool and smooth to the touch.
"I will take my leave now," Hemlock said. "I have a feeling the local guild branch will be in an uproar about a troll appearing in their favorite training spot. I should go and... smooth things over. Try not to break reality too much more before you get registered, eh?"
With a final, knowing wink in my direction, he turned and simply walked away, disappearing into the shadows of the cave as silently as he had appeared. The immense pressure of his presence lifted, and the air in the cavern suddenly felt thin and empty.
We were left in the silence, the weight of what had just happened settling upon us. We were no longer just a trio of rogue nobles. We were provisional members of the most powerful adventurer's guild in the kingdom.
"You had no right," Elizabeth finally said, her voice a low, furious hiss.
"I had every right," I countered calmly. "It was the correct strategic move. Your pride would have made you refuse, and we would have lost our best chance at survival. Our alliance requires us to make logical, not emotional, decisions. And that was the logical choice."
She stared at me, her jaw tight, but she had no counter-argument. I was right, and she knew it. The fact that I was right only seemed to make her angrier.
It was Luna who broke the tension. "My lord," she said, her voice filled with awe as she looked at the pin in her hand. "Does this mean... I am an adventurer now?"
I turned to her and smiled, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Yes, Luna. You are. You've earned it."
Her face lit up with a joy so pure and bright it was like a second torch in the darkness.
My attention was drawn back to the massive pile of rubble that entombed the troll. The loot. My glitched, unique reward.
I walked over to the rock pile, Elizabeth and Luna following behind me.
"The core should be in the center of the beast's chest cavity," Elizabeth explained, her voice still stiff but now focused on the practical task at hand. "We'll have to dig for it."
It took us the better part of an hour. Using my enhanced strength and a combination of Elizabeth's force spells and my own crude PULL commands, we moved tons of rock. Finally, we uncovered the troll's massive, crushed torso. And there, nestled amongst the shattered ribs, was the heart.
It was not the small, grey stone of a goblin. It was a massive, crystalline object, the size of my own head. It pulsed with a soft, internal light, a deep, earthy brown shot through with the same chaotic, electric-blue static as the glitched goblin core. It was beautiful and deeply unsettling.
[Heart of the Mountain Troll (Glitched)][Description: The crystallized core of a Great Cave Troll, warped by your reality-bending influence. Contains immense terrestrial power. Consumption is... inadvisable, but likely spectacular.]
ARIA's warning was still there, practically screaming at me from my internal HUD.
"That's... impossible," Elizabeth breathed, staring at the core. "A troll's heartstone should be a dull, earthen brown. It shouldn't... glow like that. What is that blue energy?"
"That's the glitch," I said, a reckless grin spreading across my face.
I reached in and pulled the Heart free. It was heavy, and it hummed in my hands, a low, powerful vibration that resonated deep in my bones. I felt an instinctual, primal urge to consume it, to make its power my own.
"Don't even think about it," Elizabeth said, her voice sharp as a shard of ice. "You saw what happened with the goblin core. It nearly overloaded you. That thing..." She gestured to the massive, pulsing heart. "That thing contains a thousand times more energy. It will kill you. It will tear you apart from the inside out."
[I concur with the ice queen,] ARIA stated in my mind. [My simulations indicate a 99.8% probability that consuming this item will result in your consciousness being permanently erased and your body detonating with the force of a small tactical nuke. I strongly, strongly advise against it.]
They were both right. It was the logical, sensible, and safe thing to do. We could sell this core. The price it would fetch, even in its strange, glitched state, would be astronomical. It would solve all our financial problems in one fell swoop.
But I wasn't the sickly, cautious Kazuki von Silverstein anymore. I was Kazuki Tanaka, the man who had found the ultimate exploit. And I was Kazuki Silverstein, the man who died twice to get stronger. Caution wasn't what had gotten me this far. Reckless, calculated gambles were.
"My entire existence in this world is a paradox," I said, looking from the horrified face of Elizabeth to the pulsing heart in my hands. "I'm allergic to reality. I get stronger by dying. My magic is a bug in the source code. At this point, what's one more 'inadvisable' action?"
"Kazuki, don't be a fool!" Elizabeth pleaded, her voice losing its composure, genuine fear coloring her tone. "This isn't a game! You can't just... respawn from everything!"
"Can't I?" I asked, looking her in the eye.
Her breath hitched. She had no answer to that.
"My lord, please," Luna begged, her eyes wide with terror. "Don't!"
Their concern was touching. It was real. But they didn't understand. To get strong enough to protect them, to protect myself from the Duke, I couldn't afford to be cautious. I had to push the system until it broke.
"Trust me," I said.
And before either of them could move to stop me, I opened my mouth and took a bite out of the Heart of the Mountain Troll.
It tasted like soil, granite, and lightning.
The world ended.
If the goblin core had been like plugging my soul into the universe's server, this was like plugging the universe's server directly into my soul. The sheer, raw, overwhelming power was a physical thing, a tidal wave of terrestrial energy that crashed against my consciousness.
My bones felt like they were turning to stone, my muscles to tectonic plates. I felt the slow, patient life of the mountains, the deep, rumbling power of the earth itself. The blue, chaotic energy of the glitch fought against it, trying to rewrite it, to corrupt it, to make it my own.
My vision went white. My ears were filled with the sound of grinding rock and roaring thunder.
[WARNING! WARNING! CATASTROPHIC SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT!][MANA RESERVOIR HAS BEEN SHATTERED! REBUILDING WITH NEW MATERIAL SPECIFICATIONS!][HOST'S BIOLOGICAL AND MAGICAL SIGNATURES ARE UNDERGOING FORCED EVOLUTION!][THIS IS A VERY, VERY BAD IDEA! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS A BAD IDEA!]
My body convulsed. I fell to my knees, screaming, a sound that was not entirely human. Cracks, like fissures in dry earth, began to appear on my skin, glowing with a deep, brown, earthy light. The blue static of my glitch power arced between the cracks, a chaotic storm trying to contain a geological event.
"Kazuki!" I heard Luna's terrified scream as if from a great distance.
I was losing myself, my consciousness dissolving into the raw, elemental power of the earth. I was becoming the mountain. I was becoming the stone.
No!
A single, defiant thought, the core of Kazuki Tanaka, the programmer, asserted itself. This is my system. My body. I am the admin here!
I focused all my will, all my INT and WIS, not on fighting the power, but on containing it, on shaping it. I didn't want to become the earth. I wanted the earth to become a part of me.
I issued a command, the most complex one I had ever attempted, a desperate prayer to my own glitched godhood.
INTEGRATE!
The warring energies inside me shuddered. And then, slowly, painfully, they began to merge. The stable, powerful earth energy provided a foundation, a bedrock. The chaotic, glitchy blue energy acted as the mortar, the code that bound it all together into a new, stable, and utterly impossible whole.
The light faded. The shaking stopped.
I was still on my knees, gasping for breath, sweat pouring down my face. But I was whole. I was alive.
And I was different.
I looked at my hands. My skin was the same, but it felt... harder. Denser. I felt a deep, unshakable connection to the stone floor beneath me. I could feel the entire cave system around me, not with my ears or eyes, but with a new, fundamental sense.
A flood of notifications, a triumphant cascade of blue and brown text, filled my vision.
[Evolution Complete!][Your mana system has been upgraded. You now possess a 'Geode Mana Core.' Your base mana is derived from terrestrial energy. MP capacity has massively increased. You now regenerate MP by being in contact with natural earth and stone.]
[New Passive Skill Unlocked: 'Stone Skin.'][Description: Your skin has taken on the properties of enchanted granite. Provides a significant, permanent boost to physical damage resistance.]
[New Active Skill Unlocked: 'Terraforming (Minor).'][Description: You can manipulate natural earth and stone in your immediate vicinity. Shape walls, create spikes, open fissures. The scale of the effect is dependent on mana cost.]
[Your 'Beginner's Mana Affinity' has evolved into 'Geode Soul Attunement.']
[Your class has been upgraded.]
I slowly, shakily, pulled up my new status screen.
STATUS
Name: Kazuki "The Loophole King" Silverstein Level: 1 Class: Glitch Sovereign (Adept) Title: Trollbane, Giant Slayer, The Immovable Object
HP (Health Points): 75 / 75 MP (Mana Points): 150 / 150
STATSSTR (Strength): 5 -> 10 DEX (Dexterity): 8 -> 12 CON (Constitution): 5 -> 15 INT (Intelligence): 48 -> 55 WIS (Wisdom): 41 -> 50 CHA (Charisma): 12 -> 15
The leap in power was staggering. My Constitution had tripled. My HP and MP pools were enormous for a Level 1 character. I had become a walking fortress.
I finally looked up. Elizabeth and Luna were staring at me, their expressions of terror slowly being replaced by sheer, unadulterated disbelief.
To prove to myself that it was real, I focused on the stone floor in front of me. I pictured a spike of rock rising from it. I fed 10 MP into the command.
SPIKE.
The stone floor rippled like water, and then a sharp, perfectly formed spear of granite, a meter long, erupted from the ground. It stood there, a testament to my new, impossible power.
I had done it. The gamble had paid off in a way I could never have imagined.
I looked at Elizabeth, at my brilliant, terrified, and now utterly outclassed wife.
"See?" I said, my voice a low, rumbling echo of the mountain's heart. "Spectacular."