Quasi-contractual Contraptions Conjured From Containment

Well, the light were low, and there wasn't a lot of places to go. Mainly due to the bloody snow. Yes, it was winter already. Well, early winter, not exactly a whole lot for met o do than try to find wood that isn't moist and frozen from the frost.

I had a feeling that despite how beautiful autumn was, there was always that nagging little voice in the back of my head, even before the "wendigo curse" occurred, that winter was always something that comes after the grandiosely artistically inspiring days of the fall.

I guess that's why they called it the fall perhaps, because it was always the most obvious sign to start getting a move-on on the harvests and all of that. Grand, just grand. Well, walking through the snow, looking at the sky completely and utterly covered over by the clouds, watching the little flakes come in one by one.

It was picturesque, I'll be sure of that, but starvation and hypothermia doesn't quite sound as romantic as normal, so here I was, looking through here, trying my best to find something to keep me and the children warm. I had matches, thankfully enough, they do help but that's not going to cut us about more than thirty days of shivering frost.

No no no, that will not do. I do not intend to have subordinated freeze in from the cold when I barely haven't even gotten them loyal, that's by far an exceedingly foolish thing to try and consider.

And yet as I looked at the dead trees all around me, I could only sigh st the fact that we were going cold tonight as well, and that we were going to have to pull a very specific scifi series just to survive, only with me instead of the giant bloody alien.

Nothing terrible, just mildly scarring is all.

Standing up from searching the ground for anything, I could only walk my way back to see the little chipmunks snacking on another piece of "me jerky". I didn't really expect much, but it's still a little jarring to see them going at it with such gusto, despite the fact that they had more than enough regular food to go through this winter.

And yes, I made use of the realm one last time before the winter came, I'll be able to access the thing throughout the winter, but I don't quite have that many hopes for it, well it's my imagination and mind after all, if my skull pops like a balloon it won't exactly help the children's case here.

Climbed up the tree, shook my head, watch them sign another time as the ballsier one looked at me with very cold eyes. "Not yet, after dark."

Do not take my words out of context or I will skewer your genitalia on a barbecue stick and force-feed them back to you, male or female, I'm not exactly picky.

The little one nodded as they loosened the grip on the bone axe that they got from me and sat back with their sibling, watching the clouds pass by.

I always did wonder what exactly did they go through for them to be this alone. I can assume the skeleton might have been a parental figure and probably even their parent, but what truly confounds me is the fact that they still sit here, in this tree, starving to death and yet they didn't think to move.

Were they, something important? They were elves, I can completely understand whatever could that mean, but, I can't help but feel a shred of pity for the younglings.

Alone in the world, starving, aggressive to just about any threat that they would perceive? It's a right shame that they met me. Considering what a right cunt I am. Well, if fate has a way to really try to make things the way they are, I suppose I gotta have to give it to them for being able to make me have some of the most interesting ideas.

This tree, I may not be able to really find any good spots to make a "dungeon" but come on, the sort of setting, as much as it is an odd one yet relatively cliche, it fits a very interesting theme here. Hole that leads below the earth, to a grand dungeon mastered by a monstrous wendigo that eats the meat of man.

That's just, oohohohoh, you can smell the sort of poetry you could cook up in the air. It's probably a very very bad thing, but nonetheless, I will be trying to do my best with this. I'm not exactly a very very good person when it come to this, but I could try.

Trying never usually hurts, but that saying's extremely circumstantial, very very very circumstantial. So, I couldn't help but glug a gallon of water and feel something really new in myself to attempt something this idiotic.

But that's for tomorrow. Tomorrow, I wanna do my best to keep a clear mind for what I'm going to do. After all, it's supposed to be my main occupation, so what is a dungeon monitor to do without a dungeon to actually monitor?

I tell you what I would normally do, I would get fucking gutted like a pig after I have my head bashed in. And I would also see two elven children huddling up in the body of their lexicon teacher while they had that look in their eyes that they were hoping for a deity to allow me to come back.

Classical, absolutely classical. Well, I grabbed the two of them out of my now very cold corpse as I shrugged and thought that it was good that it was winter, since that meant we could store more meat than just the lean and flavorless cuts.

I will be the first to admit, well, I am the only one that actually has to admit since nobody else can really say for me, but I haven't exactly lost body fat since I've come here.

Now I'm not exactly morbidly obese or even a completely ugly bloke, but more or less I'm not exactly the sort of lover material, I'm more than confident in that, but that fat was more of the meaty type, and if I was correct it won't exactly taste a whole lot like a disgustingly sweet yellow compound.

Well, I suppose that the fat of a human would predominantly taste sweet since it's filled to the brim with bloody glucose. But here's the spicy and delicious little surprise that I have, I have something that can help with that little issue, i.e salt.

Not the sodium chloride in it's purest form, oh absolutely not, I am not a monster of extreme magnitudes here my friends, I am classy enough to actually bring in the iodized variant.

And so if I didn't have any ways to keep the little ones warm, then at the very least I'll do my damnedest to keep them all fed right.

The cuts of meat that I chose were some of the more fattier parts, since they have more shelf life now that it's freezing right now. Oh yeah, about the tree, it still keeps it's leaves despite it being so cold out.

And it has the exact same low glow to it even though it really shouldn't even have leaves right now, you know, since it doesn't quite count as one of the trees that still have leaves despite winter hammering in.

Anyways, chopped off some of the belly meat and salted it well for the little ones, and now that I can feed them for the winter, I suppose it should be time for me to actually create a proper shelter. Or, you know, get some firewood from the trees that may have been fallen.

You know, I really should have thought this all out a bit better than just watching the days go past. After all I had more than one axe, I should have actually taken my chance to pluck a couple of these trees and strip them down to proper firewood.

But that's from the past, I'll deal with the now.

Hindsight is good, it's just that it's not exactly something that you should worry about when you actually have an issue to try and solve.

I grunted a bit when I climbed my way down the tree again and sighed, watching the vapor come out of my mouth. This is going to be a long winter, isn't it?

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/????POV/

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The grand priest stood before the end, watching the great fires that wracked the holy city of 28$_-3($8';3. He coughed a little as he saw the blade poking right where his heart was located at.

"I see that, you've come already." the words were all that he could say as the blade was ripped out of him with such a degree of vitriol that it almost seemed like it was personal.

And for the grand priest, within his last and dying breath, looked at his executioner and shed a tear, for he knew that he was not a sinless man himself, and he could only helplessly try to word out an apology, before the great void came up to subsume him.

[An Excerpt from the Burning of 28''+;2910'2-!)'/:?3]

Haruka looked at the slate and shattered it when he realized that he was too late."ALL OF THESE JUMPS, ALL OF THIS DEATH AND LIFE AND DEATH AND LIFE, FOR WHAT? WHY HAVE THE GODS CHOSEN ME TO BE THE ONLY ONE TO WITNESS IT ALL IN THE END?!"

He could only look at himself with pity in the beautiful flowerfield where he found the slate. Haruka had been subjected to the same fate as many of his classmates and friends, a complete transmigration from their own world to another.

At first glance, he and all of the others were so happy and excited to figure out that they were in a truly fantastical place. But that immediately changed when they watched one of the magicians claw out his own organs to remove some form of crystal, which was forced down all of their throats.

The other magicians in the room were apologizing and crying as they themselves did the same to every student. Haruka clutched his gut as he felt the crystal growing again.

They were made privy to the details of what exact form of isekai they had been subjected to when they saw the royalty who had ordered them to be brought from their class to the new world.

A king of rags, wearing a wooden crown and baggy eyes, sitting upon a half-destroyed throne of skulls. "I would say that I am sorry, but I would be lying to you children. And I would also be lying to myself if I were to say that this is completely justified to do since we fight against a man who has more power than us, but that would also be a lie."

The king stood as some knights with chipped blades on their waists attempted to help him up, but he waved them off as he eyed Haruka and his classmates.

"I, am a king who has failed, one who has chosen to finally call upon the heroes that we so desperately need. Those were the exact words that my father said when he summoned his first batch, and my father's father, and the father of my father's father, and I say these words with the same poison and hatred that the enemy used upon us when he grew truly angry."

"If you wish for an apology, forgive me, for I know that the grand gardens above are denied to me, for the sins that I have done over my reign, and the sins that my blood bears for what I have done."

"I will not apologize, I will simply ask of you, will you fight for me? A failure of a monarch? One who is most likely to fail his battles, over and over and over?"

When the words finally died from the king's throat, Haruka looked at his classmates as he gulped. And yet there was always going to be the ray of sunshine of their class trying to see the light in the situation. "Yes! We'll help you!"

A voice that he cared about rang out amongst their crowd as Haruka couldn't help but wince from what he heard. 'No, please don't let me remember this.'

'Why shouldn't I? Weren't you the one that wanted to save her? Or should I say love? She was bright, but not in the intellectual ways, no, she was just like a star. Shining brightest when they're just about to go out, just when they're going to die such a saddening worthless death.'

"So what was the point in forcing me to relive those memories you bastard?!" a raspy voice cried out as it came from a truly horrifying sight. The voice matched the body, in which it was the body of a boy who had lost an arm and a leg, with the remaining limbs festering and atrophied.

The maggots bore around the flesh of his arms, and yet the only thing the boy cared about was why he was being tortured in the ways where it truly hurt. "Because I want you to watch it, my dear little traitor, my insider. I want you to watch the day that you betrayed the love of your life for your own."

"Damn you! Just, damn you. Why, what happened to this world that made you do all of this?! What did this world do to you?"

Haruka could only open his left eye, and the sight before him was always so blurry, always so painful, and always so bright. It was always the same end at the hands of the man behind everything, but each time was worse than the last. Even when he finally found a method to win, he witnessed one of the worst possible endings.

"I have to thank your classmates lad. They were, quite the enlightening bunch. Giving me updates as to what the literary cliches were in the world after I left it.

All of that entertainment in their minds, and yet only just getting a taste of satisfaction when they get ripped out of their own homes and made to fight a monster that they can never ever properly go up against.

I thank you, and I apologize to you, for making things terrible for my own plans."

Haruka was tired, he didn't want to try anymore, and he now knew that his prayers were about to be answered when he saw the strange contraption in the hands of his executioner, a contraption that he once evaded to ensure he could save his friends from a fate that wasn't meant for them.

But he knew, in that moment, that there was no such thing, as going against the tide of fate itself. And he resigned himself, hoping that his friends' souls would see peace in their next life.