Chapter 168: Mediocrity or Greatness [Bonus Chapter 3/3]

Melody set down her fork. "So what’s the plan?"

Lukas leaned back in his chair, thinking about it.

"There’s not much time to do anything else today, so we’ll use it to get comfortable with the apartment. Figure out where everything is, and of course, how to set up a defensible position when we’re attacked or ambushed."

He looked at each of them. "Tomorrow, we’ll find a map for sector four. With the size of the city, we’ll definitely get lost if we don’t identify where we’re going beforehand."

"We can spend the following days or months slowly getting familiar with the city. But until then, we use a map. When we get the map, we find a Faustian Bank branch and then open bank accounts and deposit the money we have on hand."

"And," Melody added, "we find wherever they sell cars."

Akira pointed her fork at her. "You’ve been thinking about that since the vault, haven’t you?"

"I’ve been thinking about it since we arrived in Salaria," Melody corrected. "It’s convenient. We’d be able to move around the city without relying on trams. And if we’re going to be living here, we should live properly."

"She has a point," Lukas said. "Even if we don’t have enough now, we can save up to buy one. It could also be useful on the Second Floor."

Akira sat back. "Fine. I also want one."

"Beyond the car," Lukas continued, "we need two other things. A pocket watch, so we can keep accurate time, especially once we’re on the Second Floor." He paused. "And bigger spatial rings."

Melody looked at her ring. "How much bigger?"

"Big enough to store lots of monsters," he said. "On the Second Floor, the monsters have more value than what we’ve been dealing with." 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

"You can sell them whether you got them from a dungeon or in the wild. As long as the creature has value, someone will buy it. We need the storage capacity to take full advantage of that."

Akira nodded slowly. "That makes sense. There’s no point leaving good material behind because we ran out of space."

They agreed, and finished the rest of the meal without rushing.

When the plates were empty, Akira stacked them without being asked and carried them to the kitchen.

Lukas heard the water running, then the quiet sounds of her washing and returning each plate to its cabinet.

She came back and dropped onto the couch in the living room.

Melody had already curled into the corner of one, her legs pulled up beside her. Lukas took the seat nearest the window.

Outside, the sky was changing. The last of the light had pulled back from the rooftops, leaving a deep blue that was slowly giving way to dark.

The city below them was beginning to glow, lights coming on in windows and along the streets.

They sat in silence for a while, watching it.

"If someone had told me this is where I’d end up," Akira said quietly, "I wouldn’t have believed them."

Melody turned her head. "Me neither."

She was quiet for a moment. "My family always planned it out. A year to reach S-rank, because they’d have kept a close eye on me the whole time. Then find a husband. Then stay home."

She looked at her hands. "Women in my world were caretakers. That was the expectation. And I always knew it was coming."

She glanced at Lukas. "I have a husband now. But I also have this. I get to fight freely with my husband by my side, climb the Tower, and delve into whatever dungeons I want to. I didn’t think I’d ever get both."

Akira was nodding. "I thought I’d spend the rest of my life in the Sisterhood."

Her voice was even, but her jaw was slightly clenched.

"I could feel it building. There was going to come a day when I snapped and killed as many of the upper echelons as I could before they stopped me." She exhaled. "That was the future I saw for myself."

"Thankfully, that won’t happen. Now, I can see myself living to a ripe old age." She turned to look at Lukas. "What about you?"

Lukas looked at the window, watching the blinking city lights through the glass.

"I always knew I had two paths in front of me," he said. "Mediocrity or greatness. I knew which one I was going to take the moment I understood the choice existed."

He exhaled. "I’ll reach the top of this Tower or I’ll die on the way up. There’s nothing else for me."

Neither of them responded immediately.

Then Melody said, "We’ll get there with you."

Akira nodded. "All the way to the end."

No one added anything after that. They sat there together, enjoying the silence

The sky outside had gone fully dark, with a crescent moon high in the sky.

The city stretched beneath them, glowing with lights and indifferent to the three people watching it from the fifteenth floor.

After a while, Lukas stood.

"Pick your rooms," he said. "We have things to do tomorrow. Early to bed, early to rise."

Melody uncurled from the couch, while Akira stretched her arms above her head and rose.

They said their goodnights, and each disappeared through a separate door.

Lukas went to his room, pushed the door shut behind him, and dropped onto the bed.

He lay on his back and looked up at the ceiling. The room was quiet. Through the window, the faint glow of the city filtered in, casting a pale light across the far wall.

He stared at it until his eyes grew heavy.

Then he fell asleep.

Hours later, he woke up with a yawn.

He laid there for a moment, blinking at the ceiling.

Through the light filtering in from the window, he could tell morning was slowly coming, the sky outside slowly shifting from dark blue to a dull grey.

He didn’t move right away.

There was a lot to get through today. He ran through the list in his head, already trying to figure out where they’d find a map.

Then he heard the sound of glass shattering.

He immediately leapt out of bed, fully alert.

Were they under attack?