An Unbound Soul

My [Redistribute] completed, and I stood up to join Cara and Calvin, who were staring around in awe.

"Where are we?" whispered Cara with reverence, the surroundings being sufficient to momentarily distract her from her group's imprisonment and Dominic's death.

Perhaps I'd been a bit hasty in teleporting them here. The first time I'd set foot on this floor, I'd struggled to even breathe in the dense mana, so like my [Inventory], there was a chance they'd end up outright cooked. Like my [Inventory], though, the mana didn't interact with them at all. They gave no indication they'd even noticed the crushing density of it.

"The core room of the great dungeon," I answered. "But you can have the tour later. For now, we want a different room."

The pair of Earthlings trailed along behind me, like lost little ducklings. They weren't happy with me; that much was obvious. Neither were they happy with Harry. They knew his decision to kidnap Cluma had escalated the distrust between us to the point it was effectively unreconcilable. Likewise, they knew Dominic had made a real attempt on my life. Not one he expected to work, perhaps, given my previous faked demonstration, but certainly one he hoped would work. That made it hard to complain out loud that he'd died as a result, whatever they may have been thinking internally.

Perhaps, if given a few minutes to think, they'd decide how they should react. They didn't have a few minutes, though, because the memorial of the destroyed civilization was only a short walk away.

The pair stared around at the gravestones, then both fixed their eyes on the memorial at the centre of the chamber.

"Why is there a graveyard at the bottom of a dungeon?" asked Calvin. "Did they keep dead delvers like prizes before they learnt the resurrection trick?"

His information was slightly off, having come from others at the institute rather than anyone who had been in personal contact with Erryn, but apparently he knew the safety net was recent.

"Heck no. There's a memorial plaque in each core room to commemorate the dead, but none of the bodies."

"Then what is this?" asked Cara. "Your own private place?"

"No. The great dungeon is... well, Erryn. Erryn was a dungeon core. This place is something she built to remember the previous civilization, that destroyed itself before she was born."

I didn't elaborate, because it was obvious no-one was listening. Neither scientist had heard the last part of that explanation on account of the first part blowing their minds.

"Erryn? As in 'earth mother' Erryn? As in, the Erryn that created all life on this planet? As in the Erryn that decided mind controlling the planet was a good idea? That Erryn was a dungeon core?"

"Dungeons are really good at creating life," I pointed out.

"Well, that explains a few things," commented Cara.

"It does?" I asked, nonplussed.

"Of course. As far as I understand it, dungeon monsters have clearly defined roles, despite being highly intelligent in some cases. They stay where they're put, unless those rules tell them to wander. They fight delvers to the death, even if they stand no chance of winning. The sort of mind control the Law entails is standard behaviour for a dungeon. She's basically just created a planet-sized dungeon, and populated it with her monsters. The monsters just happen to be people."

I blinked, having never thought of it in that way before. Cara was right, though. I'd fought monsters intelligent enough to make complex plans. I'd met multiple monsters that were clearly sapient, and even more that seemed sentient. Sapience was obviously not a hard dividing line. Then what did divide monsters and people? A soul? A certain slime had one of them, too. Biology? Monsters lived off mana, but so did demons. Monsters were born from mana, but so were demons. Were demons monsters? Was not-Blobby a person? The distinction was arbitrary. You were a person if the System said you were, and it said not-Blobby wasn't.

Erryn had dungeon instincts. She'd let people die in her dungeons because of course people died in dungeons. She'd felt bad about it, but until I pointed out that there were other options, she hadn't stopped to consider them, let alone implement them.

Was that all the Law was? A dungeon instinct? Her monsters should behave according to their assigned roles. She'd created the surface races, but the surface was her. They were just zeroth floor monsters, and their role was simply to live. Not to build a civilization, because Erryn had created pre-stocked cities for them. Not to learn or grow. Just to exist, and not destroy themselves.

It was a horribly depressing thought. I could make it even worse, by suggesting that the true purpose of the surface races was to make Erryn feel better about the death of the previous population. That I'd been, essentially, reborn as an emotional support human.

Or I could make it better, by remembering the way she sacrificed herself for a group of dwarfs. She cared for them. For us. She wouldn't have sacrificed herself to save a random monster that was being slain by delvers.

A dungeon she may have been, but that wasn't all she was.

I sighed as I remembered why we were here. The graveyard had no wasted space, but there was enough room around the edges to lay out a body. One issue I hadn't considered was that graveyards were traditionally positioned in an area of deep soil, while this place was composed of some sort of high-ranked dungeon flesh material that I had no chance of digging through, but damned if I was going to do a one-eighty right now. I had the wood in my [Inventory] for a coffin, and with the aid of [Advanced Crafting] building one wouldn't take long. The time it did take would give me time to think, too.

ding
Skill [Advanced Crafting] advanced to level 11

Hah. Apparently I considered it meaningful enough to earn a skill level, too. I brought the corpse out of [Inventory] and nailed on the lid.

"You're just going to leave that there?" asked Calvin, after watching my construction in silence.

"Kinda hard to bury things here."

"Perhaps you have a different understanding of the word 'burial' than I do, then, if you don't think it requires burying something."

"Okay, fine, I admit it. I forgot what the floor here was made of, and didn't want to own up to it."

Cara cracked a slight grin at that.

"What do you want me to do?" I continued. "Leave it here, find another graveyard, cremation or decay grenade?"

"If you grenade it, can you leave one of those markers?"

"Don't see why not," I answered, thinking through the metal I had in my [Inventory]. My enchanted adamantite and hihi'irokane tools would work fine on raw steel without even heating it, and with the mana density down here I could easily convert it to something else once I was done. Gold would be more appropriate, though, and was even softer.

The three of us watched the coffin disintegrate, the corpse within mostly hidden by the sawdust that the wood became, before the red and white-tinted cloud dissolved to nothing. I placed the carved golden plate where the coffin had once stood, and flooded it with the dense mana, converting the memorial to orichalcum. Would the dungeon eat it once we left? It hadn't eaten the bones in here, so hopefully the room was an exception to the usual clean-up rules.

"That'll do," mumbled Calvin, making some sort of motion with his hands as he tipped his head towards the plate.

"So, now what?" asked Cara. "There doesn't seem much point in us going back to the institute."

"On the contrary; they'd love to keep you, purely for your expertise on doing science. But if you don't want to go back, I've often lamented the fact that small villages tend not to have schools, or any organised education for their kids. Too stuck in the mindset that only a [Teacher] can teach. Settle down in one, or travel between a bunch."

Cara blinked, the suggestion having come completely from left field. I had no idea if she'd make a good teacher, but it was true that it bugged me that we hadn't had any education back in the village. The System covered for some stuff, but it wasn't a substitute for a school.

"I'll... consider it," she said, and as far as I could tell, she was serious.

"I think I'll head back to the institute," said Calvin, raising his head and turning back to us. "Shall we get going? And can you bring me back here on occasion?"

"I can, but before we go, I have one more thing to do. I promised to free you all from the Law, and I keep my promises."

Not that I had any clue what would actually happen if I messed around with the crystal. I hoped it would (correctly) implement my judgement, but it still seemed more likely that it would simply store my thoughts ready for Erryn's later perusal. But it was something for me to try, and now that we had protection from Earth, I was as sure as I could reasonably be that it wouldn't make things worse.

The pair followed me back to the core room, now a little more animated. Meanwhile, the three I'd left behind in the ark had taken a bed each, and seemed to be sitting or laying in silence. Or at least, their mouths weren't moving. Harry had been mostly right with his analysis; I couldn't hear them, nor see in the conventional sense. More problematic was the fact that I couldn't monitor them while I was asleep. Keeping them confined for the rest of their lives was going to be a logistical and security nightmare, but I'd finally put my own ideas of morality into words, and I wasn't going to back down now.

But I did still have some presence of mind.

"I have no idea what's going to happen when I touch this crystal, so I should teleport you two out of here beforehand," I admitted. "Nor do I have an institute teleport point, so I'm gonna have to send you to my bedroom. I'm sure you can find the front door from there, and it's near the Delver's guild. Can you find your way back?"

"Yes," nodded Calvin, so I teleported the pair of them back to Dawnhold.

And then I held my hand against the crystal, and the soul magic contained within wrapped around me. Just like last time, I felt the question echo wordlessly in my mind, the weight of expectation bearing down upon me.

Unlike last time, I answered.

There were no words, just my unfiltered thoughts. The Law on the whole was a good thing, and an improvement to the world, but murder was wrong, and imposing the Law on someone against their will was murder. The end didn't justify the means.

For a few seconds, nothing happened, but then the question repeated. Confused, I repeated my answer. The cycle repeated several more times, but beyond that, nothing else happened. Was that it, then? It had recorded my answer, and we were done? [Soul Perception] showed that Harry still had his chains. It hadn't acted on my judgement, and I'd have to find a different solution. Tracking down the other two administrators would be a good start.

Disappointed, I released my touch of the crystal and the mana withdrew.

"Back to the ark, then," I muttered, turning my back on the crystal.

"Back to the ark, then," came my own voice from behind me.

"What?" I exclaimed, spinning around and coming face to face with myself.

"What?" repeated my copy.

[Mana Sight] and [Soul Perception] showed it as an amalgam of soul and light affinities, and looking closely, I could see the imperfections. The outline was blurred, clothing fused to skin and part of the same whole. The catkin ears weren't even twitching realistically.

Of all the outcomes of touching the crystal that I'd considered, this hadn't been on my list. "Hi?" I tried, cautiously.

"Unable to understand," it replied.

"Uh... It's just a greeting?"

"Unable to understand. Judgement was contradictory. Unable to implement."

"Whu?" I replied, stupidly.

"Unable to reconcile contradictions. Refraining from implementing judgement."

Oh, for goodness' sake. Was I dealing with a bloody computer again?

"What was contradictory about it? It was simple enough, wasn't it? Keep everything as it is, but no Lawifying people against their will."

"To apply the Law to an unwilling sapient being is equivalent to death. Killing a sapient being is universally wrong. Killing a sapient being is sometimes the correct course of action."

I frowned in concern; that last bit hadn't been part of my answer. Where the heck had that come from?

Announcement

One more chapter to go!

Excluding epilogue and side-stories, of course, which means it's time for the once-a-volume side-story poll. Normally I only run the poll on Royal Road to avoid any confusion as to the winner, but there are more options than usual this time, given that I wrote a few extra side stories after volume 8 was published. (And so aside from the first Peter's Celebration/Maximillian's Madness and Earth's Regret, these are not in the e-book. I'll probably extend it at some point, but the NSFW chapters will never be in there.) I haven't included Mating season day 2/3 in the options, since they follow directly on from day 1.

Since there are so many options, I'll be posting the winners of both sites. If here and Royal Road have the same winner, I'll pick one of the runners up instead. If the NSFW option (somehow...) wins on Royal Road, I'll swap the chapters between the sites to keep Royal Road clean, and post day 2 instead of a runner up if it wins on both sites.

Or if you want to read all 9 side stories right now, you can obviously do so on patreon.

Edit: Looks like Scribblehub has limits on the maximum length of poll options, so the 5 that are missing explanations are:
Unexpected Employment - That time Peter got [Expert Delver] and changed his class to [Maid], and Cluma had a little accident
Goddess - A background info chapter on Erryn and what her various bits of soul got up to after she broke herself
Maximilian's Madness - A maximillian POV chapter starting with his death in Lily's world and ending just before the village
Earth's Regret - A Gregory POV chapter, starting from the dungeon core cache discovery and ending in his old age
Monsters - A short bit about Benjamin, Emma and Noah, set a year after Maximillian's attack on their village