endless path, infinite cosmos

chapter 31

Vahn ran towards the entrance of the dungeon as fast as he could. Behind him, Lili continued desperately chasing as she became short of breath...

A few hours before...

After agreeing to train Lili, they began getting to know each other better. She told him about her past, how her parents mistreated her and forced her to work as soon as she was capable of performing manual labor. She detailed the suffering she experienced after they both died in the dungeon.

Though she tried becoming an adventurer herself, she was unable to make any progress into the dungeon since she was just a child. Whenever she tried to team up with others in the familia, they would force her to perform all the menial chores like looting magic cores and carrying the luggage. Eventually, it escalated to full-on exploitation, as they started taking away her earnings for their own use. Fearing for her life, she ended up fleeing the familia and became a street orphan.

Eventually, a kind elderly couple picked her up, and for a time she was happy. They bought her nice clothes and treated her well for the first time in her life, and she did her best to help out in the shop and earn their praise.

Unfortunately, the group that had been taking her money ended up tracking her down. As punishment for her escape, they trashed the shop of the elderly couple before leaving a devastated Lili behind. The old couple that had been so kind to her before now looked at her with eyes of blame and scorn.

That night, she cried in an alleyway as she hid from the rain. Several days later, the same men that had forced her to a corner offered her a job. She would have to act as their supporter when they entered the dungeon, and in exchange, they would give her 1% of the earnings. If she refused, they would make sure that anyone who showed her kindness would meet the same fate as the couple.

Swallowing her tears, she accepted their offer...and that is when her true hell began. The men would often keep what little she earned while giving various reasons, often citing her incompetence as an excuse. The leader of the group even came up with the idea of forcing her to pay a 'protection fee' for keeping her from harm in the dungeon. Because of this, there were times when she would go days without eating until she collapsed from hunger. They would then give her rotten vegetables and stale bread while she tried to recover her strength.

After that things got even worse. Whenever the men got bored, they would force her to perform embarrassing acts like walking on all fours and barking like a dog while begging for food. As she continued to age, some of them even tried forcing her to engage in sexual acts, and when she resisted they beat her until she was unable to move. When they were done, they poured defective recovery potions onto her wounds and dropped her body into an alleyway to survive the night.

Following that event, she stopped talking, and even when they tried forcing her to act like an animal she just stood there until they got frustrated and beat her. She learned not to resist, as it only brought them a sadistic glee and extended the duration of the beating. All she could think about was preserving her dignity and saving enough money to buy her freedom and escape the familia for good...

Other than working for her tormentors, she started working as a 'Support-for-Hire' for newbie adventurers. She would find targets that had yet to become accustomed to the dungeon and lure them into a situation of false-security before stealing their valuables. Though she did her best to ensure they would be able to escape, things didn't always go as planned.

One of the young adventurers she had tricked ended up believing she hadn't abandoned him and continued fighting instead of running away. Lili watched in horror as he inevitably succumbed to the assault, and for the first time, she saw someone die. She was unable to sleep for more than a week after that, as flashbacks of watching the boy be ripped limb-from-limb replayed itself endlessly in her mind.