What the hell are these people?
They came out of nowhere.
And what are they wearing that I cannot even see their faces? So this is how I die now? No, I suppose it would be more accurate to say I keep dying until I am dead.
Even after I took the heads off several of the men who ambushed me, they pursued me relentlessly. In the end, after dying and getting back up several times, I was bound hand and foot. Without knowing where I was being taken, I was dragged along until we reached a tent.
"Put me down a little more gently. I have been dragged around for days without being fed. I am exhausted."
"..."
"Ignoring me now, are you?"
I was soon thrown onto the tent floor. Groaning as I pushed myself up with my hands and feet still tied, I saw someone sitting on the bed: a woman with golden hair, golden eyes, and black clothes, beautiful enough to seem like God had made her with special care.
The inside was larger than it had looked from outside, and the room itself seemed to flaunt the fact that she was in charge here.
Then the bitch lifted my chin with her foot and inspected me for a long while. After that, she addressed me in words that seemed to be hammered directly into my mind.
"They call you the Mad Dog, yet you look perfectly ordinary."
"My head hurts. What did you expect me to look like?"
"I thought you would be a wolf or a dog, like Maliketh. But you are just an ordinary human. Still..."
I was wondering what Maliketh was when something dog-shaped appeared behind her. No, it was an actual dog. The air around us grew heavy, and the dog bared its teeth at me with a threatening growl.
"You are not from this world."
"How do you know that?"
"I cannot feel anything from you. You are like an empty shell. No, there does seem to be a curse left within you. Perhaps the [Elden Ring] has not taken hold of you yet."
"What are you talking about? More importantly, are you going to keep reading my thoughts? The dog behind you has been growling this entire time. Could you put a muzzle on it? I am scared to death here."
"Maliketh does not bite. Besides, this works out well. There was something I wanted to test."
"What works ou—"
She suddenly closed the distance in an instant, threw me back onto the bed, and smashed her lips against mine. The moment I wondered what the hell she was doing, something strange was branded inside me.
Mmph!
I wanted to pull away, but she held my face firmly with both hands, refusing to let me escape. For what felt like an eternity, unable to breathe, we stared into each other's eyes. When our lips finally parted, a long silver thread stretched between them before snapping.
"Ugh! What was that?"
I barely had time to process the fact that my first kiss had been stolen before agony erupted in my chest. Before I had adapted to pain, I had once been swallowed by an ancient dragon and dissolved in its stomach.
"Aaaaaaagh!!"
My screams filled the tent. The hellish pain continued for a long time, so terrible that even the agony which had made me beg for death while being eaten felt milder than this.
"Hah... hah..."
"Hmm. Not bad for a first attempt."
Once that hellish stretch had passed, the pain finally vanished. The bitch who had done this to me had moved aside and was watching me. Her eyes held satisfaction, a sense of conquest... and the faintest trace of embarrassment.
"Was that your first time?"
"Yes. It was my first time too."
"Mine was the worst."
"I liked it. More importantly..."
The woman before me smacked her lips as though regretting something. Then a sound echoed from my chest. Several rings of light overlapped one by one, until three had formed.
"These are rules I have carved into you by splitting off a portion of my [Elden Ring]. From now on, they will be the rules by which you live."
She was suddenly getting all serious.
"What did you say, you bitch?"
"...First, from now on, you are forbidden from speaking. Your mouth is far too vulgar."
"Mmph...!"
"Second, you will obey only my commands absolutely. Well, I doubt I will have much use for that. You are weaker than me anyway."
With every word she spoke, the pain in my chest intensified. I had grown accustomed to pain over the hundreds of years I had lived, but this was so severe that cold sweat ran down my body.
"I will give you the third rule later. And I will grant you my blessing, so you cannot die without my permission from now on. You already had a curse that kept you from dying, but I have covered it with my blessing. You can consider that curse gone, for all practical purposes."
Come to think of it, the distinct urge to slaughter things had lessened ever since I first fell into this world.
"From now on, you will grow stronger, and you will not die until you have killed every last one of my enemies. Yes! You will become my personal kni... no, slave. Yes! A slave who does everything he is told and cannot even die!"
Lost in her own little world, she climbed on top of me again and spouted lunacy. The woman I had fallen for at first sight was already gone, erased into some distant place. My wildly beating heart cooled into ice.
You bitch. I take back what I said about you being beautiful.
Now that I look at you, you are just a bitch.
Send me home.
You bitch.
"No. You are mine. My enemies are far too powerful, so you would definitely be eliminated halfway through. That will not do. You will grow stronger and spread the Golden Order, the Golden Law, across this land, expanding our power. Then I will become the Queen of Gold—no, the Eternal Queen—and rule this land."
What was wrong with her? Was she insane? There was already a Dragonlord ruling this land, and they said there were giants in the north. She expected an ordinary man like me to deal with all of that?
"Hmm... Your body is fine, but your head is utterly empty. From now on, I will have to fill it completely with Runes. Yes, go out and gather some Runes. You do not have a maiden, so I will take her place. Do not die along the way, though. It would not be the end of the world if you did, but when you die and come back, all the Runes inside you scatter. Do not make me do the same work twice. Oh, and stop using such foul language. What is this 'bitch' nonsense? How uncultured."
The first command imposed by the [Elden Ring]. I tried to curse her again, but it felt as though even the thought itself had been blocked.
More importantly...
Seriously? I was supposed to work myself to death like a slave? And I had already cleared out this whole area, so there were no beasts or dragons left. Was she telling me to head north? I did not want to go there. There were giants there, and they were hard to kill because I could barely reach their heads. Ah, I want to go home...
"Oh, and I have watched the experiments you conducted so far. Your goal is to return home, correct? Work hard, and I will look into that for you as well. So do your best."
Go gather some Runes. I want to get stronger quickly.
I had no choice.
I should go at once, for my queen.
Home, wait for me!
But what is your name?
"My name is Marika. I am your new master, and soon I will become this land's queen. Work hard, my slave."
Damn bi—
"Nice words."
"Mari... can I eat?"
Yes. More importantly, please stop reading my thoughts.
You keep knowing whenever I curse, and the puppy behind you is about to bite me.
That was how my first conversation with Maliketh began as well.
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