Chapter 131: Ch. C5 – Late

We enter our house and Lucy is already angrily waiting for us, "Where have you been!? You two are late!"

She leads us toward the meeting room and gestures for us to sit down, "Now, mind telling me why you are late?"

"Alright then", I take a deep breath, "I talked with Elly about your little disagreement, put her out of her misery, and went on a date with Eclaire to take my head off of things, then the solid road ate us, and a secret underground passage somehow led us to a new dungeon entrance. So in short, it was really just a normal Friday afternoon."

Eclaire facepalms, "Jared..."

Lucia is confused, "You've... found a new dungeon?!"

Why is that what she's focusing on? Given Lucy's jealous nature, I would've expected her to react to the first statement. Guess she's growing up a bit. Just a tiny bit.

Also, who would believe that crap!? None of this makes any sense!

"This is indeed what I said, yes. However, the whole thing is very suspicious. The entrance disappeared once we got a bit away from it."

Eclaire adds, "Not only that but the entrance itself was sealed behind a slab of metal too massive to be called a door. You'd be forgiven to think it was full body armor for a boar."

"Yeah, someone wants whatever is inside to stay there. Though, it would've been nice if there was a sign on the entrance that told you what is inside, or rather if the strange symbols on the frame were readable; who knows what they mean. I couldn't even tell you whether whoever designed that seal could be our enemy or not. For all I know, they have the mother of my previous life imprisoned there."

Eclaire asks confused, "Now that I think about it, I still don't understand why this passage was there in the first place. The last System update said they had finally fixed travel methods that normal people shouldn't access."

Lucia facepalms, "It says that almost every time. But as you can see, nothing ever changes. Not that any of us ever used any of these... allegedly problematic methods."

"Sounds more like they are fighting against the damages caused by Glitches - and failing. How long has that even been going on?"

Eclaire answers, "Longer than any of us has been alive. Way longer. Even the people that raised us said not to worry about it, it was a recurring entry for probably thousands of years if not more."

Maybe when we find out what's going on with Justo we could ask him. He's several thousand years old after all, he might know something about it.

Lucy suddenly makes a wild guess, "Say, could your discovery be where the world-threatening artifact we're looking for is hidden?"

Eclaire shrugs, "Honestly, I hadn't thought of that. I assumed it would be a dangerous creature or something like that. But why would it be here, Lucy? And behind a glitch passage no less?"

"It probably isn't. Not really. Earlier I ran into one of the glitch creatures that should've been sealed behind the barrier. Anyway, he... dragged me around for a while, and the path he took made absolutely no sense. From that, we can assume that spatial connections are just different for Glitches than for real people."

Eclaire jumps in, "They are Features, not Glitches."

So I'm not the only one that talked with them? Strange, I assumed I would be the only one because of this... 'Customer' business...

"Oh, did you run into them, too?"

Lucy gets impatient, "Doesn't matter. So from what I understand, you traveled through a glitch-created passage - which normal people shouldn't be able to enter - and ended up in a place that may not even be anywhere on this continent. There you found a sealed-off room which may contain the source of all of our troubles?"

You are reading story Deteoh – A Glitched World’s Isekai Story at novel35.com

"It is just as likely to contain a monster that is even more dangerous than the artifact."

She beams, "Then it is a good thing we're monsters as well, right? That'd simply improve the odds that they'd be a powerful ally."

Monsters? Hardly. If we were, we wouldn't be talking here, we'd be out there doing... monster things.  Hunting, killing. Thanks to [Mindless Monster], the System controls them, not themselves.

Eclaire disagrees with her other half, "That’s not how this works, you impostor. That’s not how any of this works. I mean, even if it did, what does it matter? Nothing stops humans from fighting among themselves either, right? So why should it be different for anyone else? Or have you already forgotten about the boss fight in the disaster dungeon where we had to pick the side of one monster army and help defeat the other?"

What? I wasn't present for that!

"Shouldn't you start by refuting us being monsters? That seems more important to me than a lesson in philosophy."

She shakes her head, "Eh, have you looked at yourself recently? Mr. vampire?"

"Uh, I guess... fair enough. But what about you?"

She spreads a pair of bat-like wings and rubs one of them in my face, "I'm not sure what your Hybrid glitch-magic did to me, but it certainly didn't make me more human, and I was already some kind of unholy chimera before that, thanks to you two!"

"Eh, there's more to a chimera than just one or two little extras..."

Eclaire shouts at me, "Not the point! But it should be obvious that we're getting further away from being humans. Just look out there! Most of the people who got one of your Hybrid blessings have also received some monster-like features."

Lucia adds, "That is if they haven't completely lost their mind and fully started behaving like monsters... that has happened a few times as well..."

"But we're not monster monsters, right? We don't suffer from the [Mindless Monster] skill after all."

Eclaire hesitates before answering, "I... wouldn't be so sure..."

"And what's that now supposed to mean?"

Lucy frowns, "Just... check your skill display filters, Jared."

I'm not in the mood for this, "I swear if that is just a setup for yet another prank..."

If I recall correctly, the filter option was kinda hidden in the skill menu somewhere under appraisal. Ah, there it is!

...and it is running away. You goddamn button, hold still!!

Ha, got you!

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