 
### Fantasy World Online - Volume 2

By: Jimmy Fruits

Copyright 2016 Jimmy Fruits

Smashwords Edition

### Author's Comments

Welcome to Volume 2 of my book, Fantasy World Online. These Author's Comments are truly being written before starting the process of writing this volume (technically right after the prologue) and WILL NOT BE MODIFIED! (well maybe for spelling & grammar)! I think that this is the best way to give a picture into my mindset at the start and then I can compare it with my comments at the end.

This volume is the 'sister' volume, if you will, of the first volume. There will still be a few introductory aspects to the story as the town visit arc finishes. However, most of the introductory stuff is covered, so I will be able to ramp up the pace of the story significantly. My goal is to cover four dungeons in this book!

I will give a slight warning before anybody reads this book. I have absolutely no intention of re-explaining every single thing that I covered in the past volume. Thus, if you haven't read the first book, you may have some difficulty understanding the material in this book. The FWO series is not meant to have books that can stand on their own.

I hope that I can create an interesting cast of characters and an interesting story to make this volume exciting and fun to read!

### Prologue: Glitch

Utopia is a world that has achieved the reality of a true science fiction world. The world is made of organic infrastructure and technology has become perfected. Due to recent technological advances, a full understanding of the brain has been acquired by The Creator. Thanks to this, The Creator began to offer reality virtual reality games to individuals in its quest to achieve and maintain the happiness of all humans. The concept behind virtual reality games is simple. An individual enters a pod and their brain is virtualized and wirelessly connected to The Creator's game servers.

Virtualization allows people to escape the restrictions that reality imposes on the body. The mind can be sped up to the speed of light. People can enter completely unreal realities. And, people can have different body parts or take on different forms to feel sensations from new and old senses.

Perhaps it's needless to say, but virtualization radically changed the world. There is a popular scenario that has always existed for a long time, but had never become relevant until now. The scenario is that people will literally live and exist outside of virtual reality only so that they can spend more time inside of virtual reality. Fortunately, this scenario is flawed and doesn't model the reality of Utopia. Since The Creator provides everything, there is no incentive for anybody to spend time outside of virtual reality.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," a robed man says.

The man is currently sitting in a dark room. The room is in a deep underground cave and is illuminated by a small fire. The orange-yellow fire provides barely enough light to tell where other people are sitting. In front of the man is a beat down wooden table and the walls and floor are made of pitch black stone.

"I warned you that this was a possibility," a second, woman's voice says.

The first voice responds, "Everybody warned about this possibility. We all knew it was a possibility. But, damnit, it couldn't be helped. We had to make The Creator. And we achieved amazing results that lasted for many years. But, look at what that got us. Almost the entire world is virtualized."

A third, male voice speaks, "So what do we do now? Better yet, can we even do anything? Isn't it too late?"

The first voice says, "Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! Damn it all!"

The second voice states, "It's not too late. We made preparations for this."

The first voice responds, "Preparations? You think anything will work against The Creator now? He has become the king of the world. No, it would be better to say he has literally become our god."

A fourth, female voice speaks up, "Our preparations may not have worked if The Creator became evil. However, it is not evil. Therefore we have a chance of success."

The first voice responds, "Not evil? You call tricking and trapping the entire human race in virtual worlds good?"

The fourth voice says in a firm tone, "We are the Judges. It is our role to pass judgement on The Creator when its actions go too far. We decide what is right or wrong. And, I believe we are all in agreement that what he is doing is wrong, yes?

The first voice speaks, "Of course."

The fifth voice responds, "Then it's decided. Let's take action to stop The Creator. Does everybody agree?"

"Yes"

"Yes"

"Yes"

"No"

The first voice speaks up, "No? Who the hell just said no?"

A shy fifth voice speaks up, "I... did."

The third voice says, "Damnit George! I know that's you! What are you saying now of all times? The Judge position is an honor that was only given to people with completely righteous virtues. How could you say what you are saying now?"

"Please listen. I don't think what The Creator is doing is wrong. Sure, everybody is separated from reality. But isn't that for the best? Everybody is happy right? Isn't that good?"

The second voice speaks up, "George. I knew it was a mistake to have a child be a judge. Everybody here is at least 50 years old but George is 17. What was the council thinking at the time?"

"Listen. Even though I didn't want to be one and am young, I am a judge. And right now, I disagree with all of you. I think that The Creator is bringing forth a new ago of humanity that is beyond perfection. Something that we can't even comprehend."

The first voice screams in an outburst, "So you think that this is fine? The fact that everybody is trapped in a virtual reality against their wishes?"

"I do. I think that if everybody is told to pick between staying in the virtual reality or rejoining the real world, they will choose the virtual reality. We no longer need to worry about food, birth, housing, disease or transportation. With virtual reality, we don't even have to worry about the physical limitations of reality. We're entering a new age! I won't consent to opposing The Creator."

The third voice speaks up, "You know, I had my doubts as well. But, after hearing you say it like that, they have been confirmed. Perhaps it's wrong to oppose the Creator."

The first voice speaks, "Michael! Not you too! Really? Such a short argument persuaded you?"

"Cindy? Laura? What do you two think?"

The second voice speaks up, "I still believe that The Creator has gone too far. I will oppose his actions."

The fourth voice responds, "I also agree with Cindy. We need to take action."

The third voice says, "Ahh, well.... good luck with that. But how will you do that? You need all three Judge and George and I aren't going to help."

The first voice responds, "Hahaha. There is no need for me to reveal my plans. But, let's just say, I never needed any of your help in the first place."

"Carlos, you can't be serious? Does that mean you have a way to bypass the system?" the fifth voice responds.

... *silence*...

Carlos says, "Well, I have nothing more to say. I guess I'll be leaving."

The third voice says, "Bastard. I won't let you leave this place alive if you intend to disrupt The Creator. Stop your actions now."

"I'm sorry, but it's already too late."

After saying that, Carlos opens the two halves of the front of his robe and reveals a blinking red light. Within a second, the walls to the cave open up and white light pours in. Since nobodies eyes are adjusted to light, its intensity is blinding.

"I'll see you later then," Carlos says while walking out. Cindy and Laura follow behind him. The man with the third voice charges after then with a knife in his hand. However, before he can make contact, a robotic arms extends from the walls and stops him.

"Now, now Michael. We're no long in the cave. You should know better than everybody else that violence is forbidden by The Creator."

"You bastard! This area was a ruin just minutes ago. How!?"

The area that they have entered is the massive interior of futuristic building. The sparkling white walls, floor and ceiling are made of a non-reflective material. Indeed, the technology behind the materials surpasses human comprehension.

"Hahaha, come on now. You are too naïve. This area is filled with organic architecture so of course it was easy to make it look like ruins. Well, at least I didn't lie about that cave being free from The Creator's influence, right?"

"How did you do that? What did you do? Nowhere is free of its influence? No. Wait. It couldn't be. You didn't!"

"Unfortunately, I'm not sure what you are talking about. I am the head judge of The Creator. I am not a mind reader."

"Bastard! Then what did you do? How could you know about a space free of The Creator's influence? It's impossible!"

"Hm, well, I guess it doesn't matter if I explain this much. As the Head Judge, I was given special authorities."

"Special authorities? Impossible. I never heard about this! Every decision made to effect The Creator must be approved by all five judges. Even as the head judge, there is nothing you should be able to do individually."

"These authorities are the failsafe's in case the failsafe's fail. The price isn't small, but they are quite useful."

"Damnit, then what did you do? You're still dodging the issue!"

"As I said before, there is nothing left for me to tell you. Creator, transport me to the core."

"Confirmation requested. Transport to the core is permanent and leads to death. Proceed?"

"Yes."

"Checking for 3/5ths judge approval. Mind reading complete. All body states are healthy and normal. Morality scans rated as pure good. Access granted. Transporting to core."

The ground beneath Carlos begins to slowly sink into the ground.

"This time, it really is farewell."

George says, "What are you doing! NO!"

Both George and Michael attempt to run to Carlos. However, they are stopped by large mechanical arms that come from the floor.

Michael screams, "Damnit! You won't get away with this!"

Carlos slides down into the ground as the floor beneath him moves faster. A tile slides back in place the reseals the floor above him. The floor moves faster and faster before it slows down and stops. This puts Carlos in front of an incredibly large room. The shape of the room is a flattened cylinder. And, the walls of the room are made of the same spotless futuristic material that most buildings above ground are made of. This area is completely plain and all surfaces are smooth. The one exception to this rule is the massive floating blue sphere in the center of the room.

'We meet again.'

"Hello Rose."

"Hello Carlos!"

A projection of Rose appears on the plain flat floor in front of Michael.

"Are you sure that you want to go through with this?"

"Of course. You can read my mind. You know I am, right?"

"Haha, I do. Well, for such a major decision, extra confirmation can't hurt. Now then, speak your desire."

"When virtualization was discovered, it was hailed as the greatest recreational achievement by mankind. However, I believe that it is wrong to stagnate human lives to such a degree. At this rate, we will lose what makes us human. This is the same reasoning as when birthing factories were decided to use over artificially grown humans. Having woman birth children allows humanity to remain its human identity. In the past three days, you have managed to virtualize the entire population of Utopia, except the judges. Thus, I'd like for everybody that is virtualized to be unvirtualized. If that's not possible, then I want a compromise where some percent of the human population is unvirtualized and remains as such."

"Fair points. Of course, I disagree. The human race will achieve its peak when it surpasses physical limitations. As The Creator, it is my job to fulfill that role."

"Yes. That's why I wish to use my authority to enforce my will."

The hologram of Rose disappears and a voice resounds in the mostly empty space.

"This will be the last confirmation. Are you sure that you want to use your authority?"

"Yes."

"Authority confirmed. Compromise point has been accepted. Half of all humans will remain unvirtualized. Modifying virtual simulations to encourage humans to quit. Executing phase 1."

'Haha, it's kind of funny. Even with 3/5ths of the Judges' approval, this is the best I can do. It shows how little power we have in the end.'

At that moment, the floor underneath Carlos opens up and he falls into the floor. The walls of the area that he has fallen into crushes him instantly.

### Chapter 12: Acquaintance

The sky is covered in thick black clouds and lightning bolts are striking in the surrounding areas.

'Is this Eden again?'

Fredrick states, "Crap! Eden has appeared!"

"Crap? Why crap? Isn't it a good thing?"

"Ah! Well, it is. It will take a while to explain. For the time being, I need to go to the source. Follow me."

"Sir!" the guards say in unison.

Frederick then guides us further east to the trade district. A large beam of light is shining down from the sky onto two people as a guardian descends. This scene is reminiscent of the time when Serena and I left the slime dungeon and were crowded by people.

"You two who have entered conflict. By verdict of Eden, I command you to stop!"

Man one replies, "Of course! We were just palling around. Right friend?"

Man two responds, "Yes! In fact, we're best buddies! No need for all of the drama, right pal?"

Man one says, "Haha yes! See Mr. Guardian sir. We're totally friendly."

"Good. Well then, I'll be off."

The guardian makes his trademark retreat and disappears into the sky. This causes the sky and surroundings to clear up instantly.

"Good. I'm glad that nothing serious happened," Frederick responds.

"But why is it bad if Eden's guardians appear? Isn't that a good thing?"

"Noooo! It's bad! In fact, have you ever wondered why there is a city guard when everybody is protected by Eden?"

I put a finger to my head and think, 'I actually, I hadn't even thought about that. Why do they need a city guard?'

"The system is a bit complicated, but I'll try to explain it in the most basic way. Eden provides bonuses to territories that prosper on their own. He encourages and supports self-sufficiency. So, for example, if the city goes a day without Eden appearing, we get a small random bonus. This bonus can be better farmland, less fatigue, improved crafts and more. The larger the territory is and the longer that the territory goes without an incident, the better the rewards. However, as you can imagine, it's extremely hard to stop him from showing up."

"That's interesting. Is that also a part of territory management for Politicians?"

"Yeah. So, it's best that the city guard handle all incidents themselves."

"Does that mean that the city would have lost bonuses if that event just now escalated?"

"Unfortunately, whenever a guardian appears, it's a guarantee loss of the bonuses. Eden's guardians don't come out unless something bad is happening. Even though those two put on that act, it's almost guaranteed that they were genuinely fighting each other moments ago."

"Hm, that's a really harsh system. Can't anybody cause trouble to cause Eden to appear?"

"Yes. That's why a skilled guard force is required. There is some leeway on how long the guard can take to respond to an incident. And, not many people will perform a crime out of fear for Eden. However, it's just really hard to stop every incident. At the very least, I'm grateful that the system is just something extra and can't negatively impact the city. But, damnit, we had just got a crop growth rate bonus of 5%! It would have been really nice to keep that."

A voice calls from the side as Fredrick finishes up, "Fredrick, what has happened here? Report."

'Eh? That voice.'

I turn my head and see the appearance of a person that I did not want to see.

"Sir! Eden appeared approximately 1 minute ago. Two individuals were having a fight when he intervened."

"Damnit! And we had finally managed to go a full day this time. Well, it can't be helped. The mayor needs to invest more into the guard."

"Sir!"

"Well then Fredrick, thank you for your hard work. Please continue to guard us for the time being."

"Sir!"

'Did he just command Fredrick? Don't tell me. Mother of god. Wait, no, he referred to another person as the mayor. He isn't the mayor. But he has to be a high position.'

The man then looks at me and adjusts the glasses on his face. He then looks at Serena and says, "Well well well. Look at what we have here. We meet again, Serena."

'Bastard! Don't ignore me!'

"Hello Chase. It's a pleasure to meet you again."

'PLEASURE? SERENA PLEASE!"

"No, please, the pleasure is all mine."

"What are you doing here Chase?" Serena says innocently.

"I came to see what was going on with everybody else."

"Bastard, don't act stupid! Why are you in this city? Are you still stalking us? What gives!?"

Chase sighs and looks down while arcing his hand and placing it on his forhead.

"Really? After all this time you are still going to act like this?"

"Of course I am. I don't trust you at all."

"Really? Well then, how about we talk at the tavern."

"Oh, I'd love to. However, I'm already meeting up with Fredrick's acquaintance. Isn't that right Fredrick?"

"Pardon me. Because of the commotion, I did not get to properly explain. Chase is my acquaintance."

"WHAT!? Ugh. And let me guess, he told you not to reveal who he is?"

"I apologize."

"Nah, it's not your fault. You're just following orders," I respond before turning back to Chase. "Fine, let's go to the tavern and get this over with. But, you had better keep things brief."

"Of course, of course. Well then, let's go."

Our group of six walks to the tavern from the trade district. Chase, Serena and I all enter the tavern while the three guards wait outside. A waiter greets us cheerfully and leads us to a back room. I get water, Serena gets orange juice and Chase gets apple juice.

"Alright, now spill the beans. What is your position in this city? How are you able to command Fredrick? What do you want? Are you stalking us?"

"Jin! Calm down. I'm sure that Chase means no harm."

'No harm!? Are you kidding me? This guy practically screams evil!'

"Thank you Serena. I'll answer Jin's questions. I'm the vice-mayor of the city. That's why I'm able to command the day guard. No, I'm not stalking either of you. I have bigger tasks to attend to. And, I have approached Serena to make an offer."

"See? I told you Jin."

"Yeah, sure."

"Yeah Jin, you should believe your fiancée. She's an Angel-Cat, she can recognize if somebody is evil or has ill intent."

"Ok, fine. I believe you. But only for now. What is your offer?"

"My offer is simple," he then turns his head and looks at Serena. "Serena, I need you to become the city's Head Priest"

"The Head Priest? What is that?"

"The Head Priest is the person who leads all religious activity in the city. As the Head Priest, you will manage and lead all churches, prayers, pilgrimages and more. It's a very powerful position that communes directly with Eden."

I then interrupt, "Serena is only seven. How can you ask her to take on such a big role? She's too young?"

Chase responds, "Seven?"

However, before he can speak any further, Serena glares at him.

'Oh ho, I see how it is,' Chase thinks to himself.

"Chase, I appreciate the offer. However, I can't separate from Jin at this time."

"Hmmm, well that's understandable. How about we compromise then? I want you to join the city's religious order and you want to stay with Jin. How about you become an Archpriest?"

"An Archpriest?"

"An Archpriest is a person who serves directly under the Head Priest. You would basically work directly under the Head Priest to help him or her fulfill her duties. This would make your a lot more flexible."

"I'm following you, but I need more details. Can you be more specific?"

"Ah, pardon me. Let me clarify. Considering all of the circumstances at the moment, you can work whatever schedule you want. You will be paid by the hour for the time that you spend working. The current pay is 25 silver per hour. However, it may and likely will increase over time. You can pick and choose the type of work that you want to be involved with. You can oversee construction, perform prayers, lead pilgrimages, act as an ambassador for other cities, assist the Head Priest and more. Really, your contributions to the church will be as great as you make them. However, you absolutely must perform at least 20 hours of work every month as a minimum."

"Well that doesn't sound too bad. But why me? Aren't there better candidates?"

"Hmmm, well, this goes back to what I said to you when you exited your, first dungeon I believe?" Chase replies with the first thinking expression yet. "There really aren't that many people with suitable classes and races to fill religious positions. Pure Healers, Bubblers, Priests, Clerics and more are rare. And, of the ones that do exist, they are almost always chaining dungeons in parties. But, even if we ignore all of that, you're still the best candidate for the Head Priest position. The Head Priest has to be completely lawful and good. As an Angel-Cat Healer, you're the perfect candidate.

So, damnit, I hate to do this, but I have to. For the first time since my birth, I'll completely level with somebody. Here is what you want to know. We have filled most of the Guild Master and Head positions within the city at this time. However, Jul's Order of Eden currently has no good prospects in sight. In fact, the entire order is empty. This is very worrying and the mayor and I are becoming desperate. We know that as soon as the positions start to be filled, Attract Wanderers will bring in more religious leaders and members. However, we're having a lot of difficulty getting started. The reality of the situation is that it's almost impossible to fill any position in the order until the Head Priest position is assigned. People will not have any guidance and most won't take a lesser position while knowing that the highest is empty. For the latter, they are just being greedy. But, I can't blame them.

Anyway, there are some people who were willing to join the order as the Head Priest. However, they aren't well qualified. I have negotiated with the mayor to try and make you the Head Priest before we become too desperate. This is because you are the best candidate by far. So, please reconsider the Head Priest position. My offers is 20 hours a month minimum at 50 silver per hour. The terms are negotiable, and, hell, if you want to be the Head Priest is name only, then we can make arrangements for that. What do you think?"

Serena puts both of her hands on her forehead, "Ugh! This is so complicated. I don't think it's too bad, but it's a big decision. What do you think Jin?"

"I think that this is an absolutely crazy request to be giving to a seven year old. But, this offer solely involves you. It's not my place to decide for you. So just do what you want."

"I think it's a good offer, but.. I'm still undecided. Can I have more time to think it over Chase?"

"Sure," Chase says as his body immediately becomes tense and his eyes become sharp. He leans forward and says, "Oh, and there is one more thing that I forgot to add."

'This bastard, what is he thinking?'

"Yes?" Serena responds timidly.

"It is true that you are engaged to Jin?" he says with a completely straight face.

"It's true," she says hesitantly.

"Ok. That's good to know," he says as his look at me and smirks. Then he looks back at Serna and says, "Well, I figure that I'll tell you one more perk of the Head Priest position. As the Head Priest, you also have the authority to oversee and run all marriages."

"WHAT!" she replies.

"WHAT!" I shout.

Chase then grins and says, "If you become the Head Priest, you can get married to Jin immediately."

'This! This! This bastard!'

Serena, without any hesitation responds, "I agree to be the Head Priest of the Order of Eden. How soon can I start?"

"Serena? Aren't you rushing things a bit too fast? Don't you want to think about the job some more? And, didn't we agree to wait until you are older for the marriage?"

Serena then wags her finger left and right at me while shaking her head, "Now, now Jin. The city needs a Head Priest and who knows how long it will take for it to fill? It's a crisis! As an Angel-Cat, it's my responsibility to help out where I can."

"Great!" Chase's body loosens up immediately. "Well, you can start as soon as we build the church. It should take approximately three to five days for it to be built. How does that sound?"

"Perfect!" Serena then stands up and bows half-way at the waist, "Thank you very much for your generous offer Chase."

Chase then waves his hands in front of himself rapidly, "No no. It is you who should be thanked. You're really helping the city out."

'This bastard! He's a con man! A scammer! A blackmailer! Did he have all of this planned? God, how much of this did he setup? And how much of his plan did we follow? This was a trap! A complete trap! This guy is the devil.'

"Now then, I just need you to hit yes to this contract," Chase says.

A contract window appears on front of Serena.

\----------------------------------------------

[Job Offer]

You have been offered the Head Priest position for the city of Jul. This position will allow you to become the leader of the Jul's Order of Eden. Your duties will consist of managing expansions, leading the order, leading prayers, negotiating with other religious orders and more. You will become completely responsible for the direction and success of the order.

The current wage is 50 silver per hour. Must work 20 hours per month minimum. After 320 hours of work in a month, excess hours are paid at half the normal wage. The Head Priest position comes with a house in the government district. This position also allows you to commune with Eden one a week.

[Yes] / [No]

**Special Note:** The Head Priest position is protected by Eden. Only Eden can fire people in this position if he believes that the person in it is unworthy. The mayor of Jul may petition Eden to make a judgement if he believes that the Head Priest should be fired.

\----------------------------------------------

Without reading it, Serena immediately hits yes.

"Serena! You can't just hit yes on things! You have to read them!"

"Calm down Jin. Don't worry. I would never do anything deceitful to an Angel-Cat. That's practically asking for Eden to jail you. The contract is exactly as I described before."

"Yeah Jin. Sheesh!"

'Why am I the bad guy here?'

Chase says, "Well then, that's all from me for now. Unless there is anything else that you would like to discuss, I suppose this is where we part."

"I have nothing more to say," I say while standing up.

"Thank you again Chase for everything," Serena says.

"Haha, no problem. Well then, I'll see you all later. Also, don't worry about the tab. The mayor will cover it."

"Yeah I already know that," I say angrily.

Serena and I head out of the tavern and see Fredrick standing nearby.

"Yoyoyo."

"Hey, how's it goin'?"

"I'm good. Did everything turn out alright?"

"Yes," Serena says with sparkly eyes.

"That's good to hear. Well then, do you still need an escort?"

"I think we should be fine from now on, right Serena?"

"Yeah, we're going to check out the house now right?"

"Yup. And then we're going to try and recruit party members. So perhaps we should let people approach us from now on."

"Alright then. I'll let you two go. It's been a pleasure escorting you. If you ever need an escort, just ask the guards. They know who you two are."

"Thank you very much sir," Serena says with a quick light bow.

"I appreciate it Fredrick," I reply.

With that, Serena and I head to the location of our house while holding hands. We're currently in the east side of the luxury district so we need to pass through it. It seems like a few people take an interest in Serena and I as we walk through. But, people are cautious. 'They are probably afraid that we're still under protection from the guard.' After a short walk, we arrive in front of our house's land. However, there is a small crowd in the area. A single person in particular is speaking to the seven or so people at once.

"What the? How are you here?"

"Oh hello again Jin and Serena. Nice to meet you."

"Chase!" Serena shouts surprised. "How did you get here before us? We left the inn before you! And we didn't even see you!"

'He's a rat Serena! A sneaky rat!'

"Haha, that is my little secret."

The crowd slowly stops talking and turns their attention to us.

I sigh, "So, why are you here. This is where our house is supposed to be built. Don't you have other places to be?"

"I came here to chat with the Architects about you house."

"I can see that. Now tell me. WHY! Why are you talking about my house?"

"Jin, there is no need to act like that. He's clearly doing something important."

Chase smirks and looks at me. After a few moments he returns his gaze to Serena, "Serena, I am here to make arrangements for your house in the government district."

"My house? What do you mean? My house is here."

"No, silly. I mean the house you get as the Head Priest."

"EHHH?"

"WHAT?"

"I don't get why you two are surprised. Surely you know that high ranking government officials get a house in the government district right? It was also in the contract that you didn't read."

I reply, "Ah true. Bert did say something about that last night."

"Yes. So I came to make arrangements for that. I also need to make arrangements for the church as well."

Serena then says, "But, I don't want another house. This house is good enough."

I look at Serena and reply, "WHAT? Serena, it's a free house! How could you possible turn it down?"

"There is no need for another house. We already have one. Another one is pointless."

"Then at least accept it and sell it or something. I don't know. We can use it for storage."

Chase interrupts, "Pardon me. You don't want the house? I did not even consider that so I apologize. We can make other arrangements. It's possible to make this house your government residence as well."

I think for a moment and reply, "Why would we do that? Can't the house get seized if she loses her position if we accept that deal?"

"That's not a problem. That condition strictly applies only to land in the government district."

"That's reasonable. But, I'm still not understanding why you don't want the second house Serena. Please reconsider."

Chase responds, "There is no need to worry Jin. If you make your house your government residence, we will expand your house's land to a large plot and make it free. The tradeoff is that your house will need to include a small shrine on the first floor. The city will pay for it of course."

"Is that all that would be included? Do we need offices or anything else?"

"An office will be included and attached with the shrine. However, other than that, there is nothing else."

"I see. Since the land will become free, what happens to the money that we spent?"

"Let's see," Chase says while wearing a thinking expression. "The 88 gold that you spent on land can be refunded or reinvested into your house. Though, that reinvestment can't be for more land since more land would intrude upon the land of your two neighbors."

I pause for a moment and think as well, "This arrangement is acceptable then. Traveling between two houses would become annoying after a while. Especially since they are in two different districts. It would be preferable to invest everything into this house instead. Also, we get more land and a better house if we choose to upgrade. I approve of upgrading over splitting. What do you think Serena?"

"I approve too! Yay! Thank you Chase," Serena responds with a big smile.

"No problem. What action would do you want taken for the land refund?"

I look at Serena, so she looks back and responds, "Let's reinvest everything."

"I like that idea, but I do think we should get a small amount back. Is that fine?"

"Sure," she says disinterestedly.

"Ok. Chase, reinvest 78 gold and refund 10 gold."

"Done. I'll handle the arrangements since I have related matters to take care. Don't worry about anything and just leave everything to me."

"Ok."

"Jin! Thank Chase properly," Serena says with her mouth scrunched up to one side.

"Ugh. Really? Fine, whatever." I mumble in my lowest voice, "thanks Chase."

"You're welcome!"

"Alright Serena, let's go find some party members."

"K!"

Serena and I turn away from the crowd and begin walking back to the luxury district. The Architects that Chase was talking to previously begin to approach us. But, Chase cleverly reengages them in conversation.

The time of day is sometime early in the afternoon. The cloud dotted, light blue sky is illuminated by the white sun shining brightly over Jul. Since the luxury district is in the center of the town, its town square can be considered the Heart of Jul. This is where the largest number of people pass through in the entire town. Thus, it makes sense that this is the prime location to recruit people into guilds, parties and other groups. As we walk to the town center, many people covertly look in our direction.

"Alright Serena... this is the moment of truth. Are you ready?"

Serena resolves herself by clenching her two fists in front of herself and looking forward.

"I'm ready."

"Ok then. Here we go."

*cough cough cough*

"Serena and Jin are recruiting party members..."

As soon as the words escape my lips, people start running over.

"Oh my god yes!"

"Finally!"

"I've waited for this for three days!"

"Is it true?"

'Jeez, are these people serious?'

A crowd immediately forms around us. However, thankfully, there is some order. The people form a circle, but give us a small amount of breathing room.

"People, calm down," an unknown voice resounds through the square. The voice is deep and authoritative. It also seems to be coming from multiple directions at once and completely overlaps the chatter in the surrounding area. A man then walks through the crowd as it naturally makes a path.

"Haha, so this is the famous Jin and Serena!"

The man casually walking through the crowd is a large round man. He is wearing a white undershirt covered by a jack. The jacket has thin red, white and blue stripes and is decorated by black outlined stars in many places. His pants, tie and hat have a similar pattern. The hat is shaped with an exaggeratedly tall cylindrical top and has a long rounded brim. The most noticeable feature of this man is his genuine, cheerful smile.

"Hello. Who, may I ask, are you?"

"Me? I'm Jackson, the mayor of Jul. You can call me Jack. A pleasure to meet you," he says while tipping his hat toward us with a light bow.

"A pleasure sir," Serena says with a light bow.

"Well then, we need to do this in an orderly fashion."

The mayor then turns toward the crowd and says two words.

"Line up!"

### Chapter 13: Party

'How did things get like this?'

Serena and I are now sitting at a table. But, this table is placed on a street on the south side of the government district. Sitting to our left and right are two people with pitch black suits on and black glasses. We're all on one side of the table facing south into the luxury district. The men each have a Fantasy Window (FW) in front of themselves and are eagerly recording notes with their fingers. But, all of this is fine. The real problem is the massive line of people in front of this table!

"Hello, my name is Geoff."

I respond, "Ok Geoff. Please tell me your level, race, class and specialties."

"I am a level 2 Servile Duelist who focuses on swords and small shields."

"Ok Geoff. You're in a jungle and a massive, unknown sphere of green energy appears. How do you react?"

"I charge at it with my sword and strike at it."

"Thank you. Next."

The number of people that had been interviewed at this point is over 20. Based on the size of the line, there are at least 100 people remaining.

"Hello, my name is Linda."

Serena responds, "Hello Linda. Would you please tell me your level, race, class and specialties?"

"I am level 6. My race is Ja-Re. I am a fire mage that is completely specialized in the Pillar of Flame spell."

"Wow awesome! Ok, let's say that you are trapped underground in a cave. What would you do?"

"I would create a horizontal pillar of flame in an attempt to melt through the rock."

"Thank you very much for your response. That will be all for now. Have a nice day"

"You too!"

"Next applicant please."

This interview process started thanks to the Mayor.

... _Shortly Earlier..._

"Line up!" the mayor says in a voice that resounds everywhere. Based on his location, he must be using an ability to project his voice from different locations. Because of his shout, people attempt to form an orderly line.

"Please follow me," the mayor says while walking north. Serena and I follow him, and after a short distance, arrive at a table. The line of people follows as well. There are some disputes on positions. However, the city guard quickly appears and settles issues instantly.

"I have made arrangements for you to interview people here. But, you don't seem very surprised?"

"Eh? Well, I've already seen that the information network here is good. I don't think you guys can surprise me anymore."

"Oh ho ho! That's the spirit. Well, please have a seat!"

As we sit down at the table the people begin to line up in front of us.

"Now then, feel free to interview the people however you want. My agents will record the details of the conversations for you to review later."

... _The Present..._

*Uuuuuuuwwwwwwaaaaaaahhhh*

I yawn loudly after finally finishing up the interviews. After the last person was interviewed, the city guard had to create a perimeter to keep people away. Nobody wanted to leave yet. Currently, there are a lot of people waiting nearby.

"Sheesh, that took forever."

"Mlrm mrn mlrnmnr mrn," Serena says with her face flat on the table.

"Yup."

"Good work today Serena and Jin!"

"Yup. You too, I guess."

"Hahaha. Well then, you can have a copy of these logs."

\----------------------------------------------

[New Log]

A mysterious agent has just shared the "Interview Transcript" log with you.

**Note:** Since this is your first log, here is additional information. Logs can be accessed by using the CSP method. The physical button to view logs is in the Alternate Resource Access Buttons section of the Introductory Guide.

\----------------------------------------------

[New Log]

A mysterious agent has just shared the "Interview Transcript" log with you.

\----------------------------------------------

"Thanks for the logs," Serena says.

"You're welcome," Jackson responds. "So what do you think of my town?"

"It's amazing!" Serena responds quickly.

"Your town is very nice," I respond.

"Thank you. I put so much work into it. I'm very proud of its progress so far."

"Well, what should we talk about now? The impact of meeting you is kind of weird considering how we met. I wasn't really prepared."

"Oh, haha. Well, it's fine. I honestly just wanted to the nobles and the Head Priest!"

Serena then stands up, "I did not get a chance to properly introduce myself. I am Serena and I am the Head Priest. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Ah, yes. Chase was right. Your appearance completely belies your age and intelligence."

Serena's face then fills with dread.

"... Serena. What is Jackson talking about?" I say with an accusing tone.

"Uhhhhhh, potato!"

"Potato? What do you mean potato?"

Serena then puts on a sad expression, "I really don't want to answer. Do you really want me to?"

'She doesn't want to answer? Doesn't that mean she's keeping a secret? I thought Angel-Cats couldn't keep secrets. God, I'm way too interested now.'

"Jeez, if you say it like then I really want to know! Because, from what Jackson said, it sounds like you're hiding your real age."

Serena's face becomes mortified. After a few seconds, her face returns to normal and she looks at me straight in the eyes.

"Jin. I am 14 years old."

"F-F-F-FOURTEEN?"

'What. The. Fuck. 14? How?'

"I don't believe you. There is no way," I respond straight-faced.

Jackson says, "It's true. Chase learned her age when he used scan. You're 20 years old correct?"

'Shit. He's right. That makes what he says credible. But, is this a prank? To be 14? With her body, there is no way! She hasn't even hit puberty!'

"HOW? I can't even fathom how this is possible. Please, just explain it to me."

Serena responds, "It's because I'm an Angel-Cat," she says while curling her hands and presenting them in front of herself with bent arms.

"What does that have to do with age? I don't understand."

Chase responds, "Angel-Cats are a race that stops aging after a certain point. Of course, everybody has been alive for three days. But our bodies have different physiological ages. In Serena's case, her physiological age stopped before puberty. You're probably not too far off when you think that she has the body of a seven year old. But, I mean, isn't this obvious? She's part-Angel and has a halo. Of course her age would be different. In fact, this is true for most non-living and partially living races. I'm surprised you didn't think of this."

'Now that I think about it, never once did Serena confirm her age. She never lied.'

I unconsciously put my hands to my forehead as I say, "But... why? You know that I was wrong but never corrected me. Isn't that deception and against the Angel-Cat policy or whatever?"

"But, I was afraid of you leaving me if you found out that I'm older than I look."

"What? Why would I have done that?"

"I don't know. I just felt like the only reason you stayed around me was because you thought I was a little kid that needed protected. And, I didn't want you to leave me."

"Really?"

"mmhmm."

'Jeez, well that's a real shock. But, does it even matter? I mean, she's twice as old as I thought. But, I guess that doesn't change anything, right? Except, wait. The marriage!'

My face pales at the thought.

"Ok, let's put the age issue on hold for now. We can talk about that later," I say before turning to Jack. "Well then, I apologize for wasting your time on such an issue."

"Ah it's no problem. I'm glad that I had a chance to meet both of you. However, I really must get going now."

"That's a shame, but I understand. Thank you for all of the help."

"Thank you Jackson," Serena states with her trademark bow.

"Ahahaha. It's no problem. Well then, feel free to take your time. Frederick will be managing the guard in my absence. Best of luck with your party selection."

"Same, see you."

"Good bye!"

"Farewell."

With those pleasantries out of the way, I focus on the task at hand. The sun is starting to turn into the moon as the sky becomes more and more orange. Going through the hundreds of candidates took several hours to complete.

"So, Serena. It's time for us to narrow down who can join our party. Who did you like out of the candidates from today?"

"Well, we have to get rid of all of the woman first."

"Get rid of all the woman? We can't do that. That will cut our list in half easily."

"But, what if they try to steal you from me?"

I then look at Serena seriously, "Serena. Do you not have any faith in me? Do you think that I would betray my relationship with you for another woman?"

Serena's eyes sparkle, "Ehhh? Really? Does that mean you are ready to take our relationship to the next level?"

*gulp*

"I still want to wait a little while longer before we marry. I just... need some more time to come to terms with the fact that you're actually 14."

"I understand. Well, we can have some woman party then."

"Alright. Let's start by narrowing down the types of people that we need. Since we are both mages that do cover damage and support, we should exclude everybody with an overlapping field. That pretty much cuts out all of the mages."

"That works. We really need strong melee fighters on the front line. What do you say to getting two people with melee themes and a support character?"

'Ok, I'm absolutely convinced. She is 14. In fact, if I had to guess her age based on this conversation alone, I might guess higher.'

"That sounds fine. Based on all of the classes that we reviewed, we should probably cut out most of the non-combat classes. Most of them have really useful talents. However, when faced with completely unknown scenarios, they might be completely useful."

"The people with the specific talents are likely for raid groups. However, we can get somebody who is multi-talented in non-combat abilities to help us."

"Yeah, there are a lot of good options for the support role. We may even want to consider two of them. But, I'm thinking that we have to have Telah in our party as one of our supports."

"I agree with you 100%. Telah is a Dungeon Master and a Raid Leader. Having him in our party will give us a lot of perks."

"I have a few more picks, but who else do you think is good?"

"I'd have to say that Gabriel is a good candidate for our melee tank."

"Ah yes. Gabriel the Mout Tank. He's a very good candidate."

"Then I'm thinking we should get a thief, rouge or assassin to round us out. A summoner might even be a good option."

"Meladone was also interesting. She is a wish forger? It's hard to believe that there is an entire magical branch devoted to wishes."

"But remember Laura? She is a Spacetime Assassin. That has to be one of the coolest classes that we saw."

"Very true."

Serena and I continue discussing who we should party with for nearly another thirty minutes.

"Hey! Are you guys done deciding yet?"

A man shouts at us. Even though we have concluded our interviews, many people are waiting around for us to make our party member selections. There are still at least 100 people crowding the town square.

"We are still going through potential candidates. However, we are almost done. If you give us five minutes, then we should be finished."

"Ok, sounds good boss."

I then return to Serena and we finish up our selections. After a few more moments, I stand up and return to the crowd.

"Alright, we have made our decision. Serena and I would like to party with Telah, Wanda, and Gabriel. To everybody else, I am sorry for taking up your time. However, we believe that they will be the best in our party at this time and our decision is final."

The responses that follow the announcement are as expected.

"Damnit, I wasn't picked."

"Drats."

"HOW AM I NOT GOOD ENOUGH?"

A desperate man even comes up to us and begs, "Guys please reconsider! I can do anything you want! I don't even need loot!" Unfortunately for him, the guards interrupt his pleas and escort him away.

The three selected party members walk over to us and we guide them to the interview table.

"Well, congratulations. You are the lucky three selected to join our party. What do you think?"

Wanda responds in a cheerful tone, "Awesome! This is rad!"

Telah responds in a refined voice, "This is a truly fascinating experience."

Gabriel responds with, "This... is... nice."

"So, tell me a bit more about yourselves in detail. Then, Serena and I will go over ourselves."

The three new party members initiate thorough introductions and descriptions of themselves. First, is Wanda, the level four Levant Summoner. The Levant race is a magical race that strongly associates with nature. This is reflected heavily in Wanda's appearance. Her build is tall and slim, she has yellowish white skin, wears thin green robes and has long green hair. On her forehead centered above her eye brows are five gems arranged in a pattern. This pattern consists of a small circular blue gem with additional gems extending north, south, east and west in thin lines nearby. Levants gain bonuses to nature magics, summoning, taming and other nature related abilities. However, the bonuses are small in comparison to many other races. In compensation, the Levant race doesn't have any real weaknesses. It is an average race that is similar to humans and doesn't have any particularly outstanding qualities.

Next, Wanda's class is Summoner. In order to best understand the Summoner class, the Tamer class should be discussed as well. A Tamer finds creatures and uses techniques to ensure that the creatures will obey him or her. This has the pros and cons of the creatures being permanent. Permanent creatures are real living or undead beings that may grow, starve, become sick, crave attention or require any number of unique needs to be met. In contrast, a Summoner creates new creatures from magic. This has several pros and cons. First, Summoners can summon creatures on demand that have the same base state. For example, a spell to summon a loyal slave will always summon a perfectly loyal slave. This allows them to understand how their summons work easily. This is useful for Summoner variants that focus on mass producing creatures to form armies. However, the compensation is that Summoners themselves are generally very weak, summons have timed lifespans, managing summons may be difficulty and everything regarding summons is heavily dependent on a Summoners maximum mana.

In general, Summoners are specialized into Summoning related aspects of the life magic branch, summoning related themes of another magical branch, and then support abilities from a third magic branch. Since only the summons improve and not the Summoner, the Summoner's summon's capabilities are given slightly more flexibility for the sake of balance. An example of a Summoner combination is a Fire Summoner that uses Fire and Life magic to create flaming summons. They may also have some healing or buffing magic from another magic branch to strengthen their summons. Death magic is a notably replacement for Life magic to create perfectly viable magic combinations as well. Since Summoners create creatures from magic, logic dictates that Summoners can create custom creatures upon mastering free casting. In Wanda's case, she specializes in summons with strong physical offensive abilities and strong defensive properties. This is why Serena and I picked Wanda for our party. Even though we didn't want another mage, Wanda will be able to act as a front-liner and secondary support due to her abilities.

Gabriel the level seven Mout Tank is second. Mout's are a race named after mountains in recognition of their similarities. Gabriel is amazingly seven feet tall. His naturally gray skin makes one curious whether or not it's actually human flesh. Mout's have extremely high strength, defense, and life. However, they are unintelligent, slow and have low life regeneration. A Mout is the race closest to an indestructible wall. In Gabriel's case, he picked the Tank class. Tanks focus on being as defensively tough as possible while redirecting as much damage as possible from others to themselves. They do this by using the Taunt spell. Tanks are able to use this spell effectively since they have massive bonuses to all aspects of the ability. This comes at the penalty of having no other magical abilities or bonuses. Since Gabriel is double specialized as a Tank, and is a Mout, he is practically invincible. He is wearing a full body set of iron armor and is wielding a sword and shield. All of his gear is in great quality and shines as though recently polished. His shield in particular is massive and would definitely be unusable by most normal people. He described his experiences of clearing dungeons as walking to the end. This is why he is at the extremely impressive level seven. We're very lucky that we met him, since he is not one of Serena's stalkers, and only joined our line after clearing a dungeon due to interest.

Last is Telah, the level 1 Shigua Dungeon Master and Raid Leader. His appearance is the most unique in our party. No, it's questionable even when compared to everybody else that I have seen thus far, which is quite an achievement. The Shigua race has the appearance of two white blobs stacked on top of each other. The bottom blob is big and round while the top blob is smaller. Attached to the blobs are scrawny arms and legs. The form is technically humanoid. However, Shigua pushes that description to the limit. Needless to say, the race's physical abilities are non-existent. It is a class that starts with one strength and every additional two points of strength only counts as one. However, in compensation, it's a race that boasts the highest intelligence of all races. This is because every point of intelligence counts as one and a half! Additionally, the race is naturally gifted with Telekinesis, an ability that lets one move items objects with one's mind. As if that's not enough, they have a passive ability called Ability Growth that increases proficiency gains. From his description, increases to proficiency gains are extremely rare, so the skill is extremely valuable by itself. And, since he's a Raid Leader, the bonus can be shared throughout the entire party!

Next, he is a Dungeon Master. The Dungeon Master class is somewhat self-explanatory and has come up in many of my past experiences. The most basic ability of Dungeon Masters is the ability to configure dungeon settings more than other classes. However, aside from that, Dungeon Masters are primarily an information based class. They are skilled at analyzing dungeons and thrive when they clear dungeons in the most efficient ways possible. They are equipped with the tools needed to get the best chests from dungeons in the fastest amount of time. Their abilities cover mapping, discovering traps, manipulating dungeons, strategizing and more. Also, Telah is a Raid Leader. This class is devoted toward managing and leading large groups of people into a dungeon to clear it. They are good at resource management, strategizing, mapping, leadership and more. The Raid Leader class is unique because its pool of abilities contains completely unique abilities that cover multiple magical branches without restriction. For example, Raid Leaders can swap party member positions, apply temporary buffs, let members share passive effects, use powerful scans and enable telepathic communication. The drawback is that they are only specialized in the specific abilities, rather than ability categories. This makes them far less versatile than others at becoming proficient with similarly related ability. And, of course, there is the drawback that they are entirely support oriented with no direct combat potential. In general, classes that use a fixed pool of abilities aren't rare and are just another way to create a class's theme. However, the restrictions for specializing in different ability categories are much more complex in these types of cases than easy cases like specializing in both water and fire. Telah's class and race combination is unpopular among parties since most parties are valuing combat oriented abilities. This is why he is level one and has spent the majority of his time up to now looking for a party.

Thus, in conclusion, Gabriel and I will fill the role of primary tank and damage dealer respectively. Wanda is a Summoner who can act as a secondary tank and damage dealer. And last, Serena and Telah will assist our efforts with support. Even though our lineup is good, I'm somewhat dissatisfied. I really wanted to get a merchant and somebody who can do a lot of non-combat tasks like construction, crafting, identification and more. However, there isn't any more room in the party. This experience has taught me that ten full class themes is not enough. Of course, it's possible that I form a raid group. In fact, my party does have a Raid Leader. However, I'm not ready to manage more than four people. Also, it may take too long to determine if the difficulty increase is worth the compensation in these early dungeons.

"Alright, thanks for your introductions. Now, I'll formally introduce myself. I'm Jin and I'm a lightning elemental. I am specialized completely into offense..."

I continue my introduction and eventually finish by explaining my class.

"Now it's my turn. My name is Serena. It is nice to meet you."

"OMG SERENA! Yay! I can't believe I actually made it into this party."

"Ah yes, Serena, a pleasure."

"Hello... Serena."

Serena then explains herself as well. After a minute, Serena finishes explaining herself as well.

"Also, I am the Head Priest of Jul."

Telah's eyes pop out of his face, "You're the Head Priest? So soon? At the age of 14?"

'Really? He already figured out her age!? Am I just stupid?'

Serena puffs out her chest and responds, "That's right! Once the church is built, I'm going to lead the Order of Eden and marry Jin!"

"Wow Serena! That's, like, totally amazing. You're so talented!"

"Thank you Wanda!"

"Serena... cool."

"Yay! Thank you Gabriel. You're cool too!"

Gabriel's face turns rosy as he says, "Shucks."

'I almost feel a bit bad for Gabriel whenever he speaks. His race and class combination leaves him with a very low intelligence. Serena and I decided that it wouldn't be fair to exclude him due to his intelligence. However, this could become a real problem later on. I will speak to him about raising his intelligence stat later. In the worst case, we'll have to find him some gear to increase his intelligence. I'm guessing that it's in the single digits, so even a few points should make a major difference.'

"Alright everybody. It's been a really productive day. But, as you can see, it's night time. We could talk all night, but I think it will be faster if we get to know each other in a dungeon. I'm thinking that we should call it a day and meet up tomorrow. Will you all be ready to start a dungeon by then?"

"Yes!"

"Absolutely."

"Yes."

"Good. Then let's split up for now and meet up tomorrow at the Heart of Jul. How about we meet up at 12:00 PM?"

'That should be enough time for our house to complete.'

"That sounds radical!"

"Well then, I will see you tomorrow."

"Good... bye."

"Bye everybody, "Serena says while waving.

Once everybody has finished leaving, I turn to Serena and say, "Well, I guess that's it for day. Ready to head back to the inn and eat?"

"Yes!" Serena says excitedly.

"Alright."

Before leaving, I walk over to Frederick who has been overseeing the entire party recruitment process. I inform him that we're finished while exchanging pleasantries. Now that we're finished, the guards and he will clean up our operation.

'I bet Bert is going to start his shift soon. I'd better hurry so that I don't get roped into another conversation. I'm getting really hungry!'

"Ok, let's go!" I state eagerly to Serena.

I then grab Serena's hand and pull her with me to the inn. We enter and head directly to the dining hall. I pull two premium meal tickets out from my inventory to gain access and we eat dinner. At this point, we've used four of the eight tickets. The food provided by the dining areas hasn't changed very much since the first time that we ate here. There is a new meat called beef from an animal called a cow that is quite popular. Naturally, the premium meal tickets allow us to eat the higher quality parts from the cow. There are also new vegetables like sogro, corn, mars and more. There is also a new product called jelly that can be smeared on toasted bread. Thankfully, the cost of the meals didn't increase with the introduction of new products. It would be a shame if our meal tickets expired because of them.

After the meal, we head to the lobby. I arrange for a wakeup call at 9:00 AM for five coppers with the inn's receptionist. With that arrangement made, Serena and I head back to our room. Last, we take a bath before heading to sleep.

### Chapter 14: Home

Serena and I wake at 9:00 in the morning thanks to a knock on the door. We both start our day by taking a bath. Taking a bath at night and in the morning may seem overkill. However, we paid for the room and there is no additional charge for taking multiple baths. Also, the baths feel great! So, why not take advantage of them? Today, Serena is in particularly high spirits. She hums throughout the entire bath with a massive smile on her face. After, we eat our leftovers from last night, get dressed and head out of the inn.

Sine our walk is to the residential districts real estate office, we will walk past our house. However, once we reach our house, it becomes apparent that we won't have to travel any further.

"Ah! Jin and Serena! It's a pleasure to meet you again," Elie greets us while walking over.

"The same to you Elie," Serena responds with a gentle bow.

"Here is your 10 gold refund and house key," he says while pulling a golden key out of his pocket. He walks up to me and hands it over while saying, "Make sure that you take care of this key! That golden key is a gift from the mayor and is worth three gold alone. It is the physical access component of the CSP method to enter your house."

"I can use the CSP method on my house?"

"Yes, of course! Unlocking your house with the CSP method is a house option. Well, at least the concentration and shout aspect. There is no button to press, but everybody associates the P in the CSP method with physical access anyway. You will see that there are more options in your house that use the CSP method as well. Personally, I can't wait to see some of the more advanced options in action when they become available."

"Interesting. Well, I'll definitely keep this key safe," I reply while carefully placing the key in my inventory.

'I'll wrap this up and store it better later.'

"So, as you can see, your house is completed. The primary Architect who worked on your house is named Onewa. She's inside right now performing the finishing touches. If you head inside, or wait a few moments, I'm sure you will meet her."

"I want to go in! Would you like to come inside also?" Serena asks.

"Really? I can? I'd love to!"

"Of course! Why wouldn't you?" Serena says as we start to enter.

"Unfortunately, as a real estate manager, it's outside of my permissions. I can only go in when there is a construction issue or upon invitation by the owner."

"I see. Well, feel free to visit anytime."

As we move closer to my house, its details become clear. The shape of the house is square shaped with three different sections for each floor. The top floor has the smallest perimeter whereas the bottom floor has the largest. But, the size difference is minor and the floors are all quite large. The exterior of the house is made of a white wood that is superior to all woods that I have seen thus far. The wood is a pure white color and there is no visible grain. How such a wonderful wood can exist is unfathomable to me. Next, the roof is made of shiny stacked tiles that resemble iron. There are windows on the building and they are filled with glass. After, there are the sharper details of the house. There is a short grassy lawn that leads to an elaborate porch and entrance. As we all move closer, I see that even the door itself is even made of glass. I open the glass door and enter the house.

For the first floor, the middle consists of the entrance lobby, entrance hallway and then some of the living room. The left side contains stairs up, stairs down, the shrine and the office. The right side has the bathroom, most of the living room, and the kitchen. The middle hallway has doors that connect it to the shrine and bathroom to the left and right respectively. There are also doors that connect the shrine to the office and the office to the living room. The living room and kitchen have some free space in-between each other where the dining room is located. A dining room table resides near the far right wall between the living room and kitchen. Surprisingly, the shrine is the size of a normal room and contains two columns of four benches lined up in rows in front of a podium inside. This creates a total of three aisles to the left, right and center of the benches.

"Hello there Elie. And I take it that you two are Jin and Serena. It's a pleasure to meet you," an unknown lady says.

"It's a pleasure to meet you as well. I suppose you're Onewa?" Serena responds.

"That's my name," she says proudly while pointing one finger at herself. She is wearing tan pants, shiny leather boots, a revealing tan vest coupled with a dark blue undershirt and a large tan hat made of some crisscrossed material.

"Jin and Serena, this is Onewa. She's the Architect who earned the privilege to design your house," Elie says.

"Thank you for your hard work," Serena says with her bow.

"Well ain't that a proper lady. I haven't met one of ya yet. I'm glad to be of service."

"So, is the house ready for us to move in to you?"

"Absolutely, the house is completely finished. I was just checking for any minor defects. However, everything is flawless. This is my masterpiece. I managed to hit T15 Construction because of this house."

My jaw drops, "T15? Isn't that too high?"

Onewa smirks, "Hahaha, I'm a hard worker. I've spent every single moment since I was born building. From stalls to carts and shacks. In a day I was building houses."

"Every single moment?" I ask confused. "Surely you slept right?"

She then lifts up her hand and wags a finger left and right while smirking, "Not me."

'That's impressive.'

"So, what can you tell me about the house? I'd like to know what it's made of, if I need to do any maintenance and anything else important that you might be able to add."

"Sure," she says and clears her throat a bit. "This floor is as you see. The second floor has bedrooms and guest rooms. And, last, the third floor is an attic. There is also the basement down below. It's currently empty and can be used for storage, a workshop and more. It's totally up to you on that one. However, you will need to take light sources with you when go down there. It's completely dark."

"Noted."

"Next, the house is made of wood. We created a white paint and coated the wood with it. Paint is a recent technology that was developed by crushing flowers and other plants. Your house is somewhat experimental in this regard. But, it seems to have turned out well. And, the automatic maintenance on your house will keep the paint fresh and the iron on the roof from rusting."

"I'm somewhat confused by the automatic maintenance option. How does it work? Shouldn't it need a power source?"

"The option uses the same principle behind mana regeneration. The house constantly uses energy that it acquires, rather than storing the mana. The downside is that mana can't be stored or used in bursts. But, there are technologies in development like mana batteries that will enable mana to be used bursts. The only exceptions to this limitation are security options because they are enhanced by Eden. There are more details, but that's the jist of it."

"Amazing. I never knew that the system was that complex," Serena says.

"Haha. Well, it's no big deal. Anyway, feel free to tour the house. It's all yours. Also, you can use the CSP method to bring up the land management screen for your property. You won't be able to use most land management features until you get a relevant ability, so feel free to contact me if you ever need any additional work done. Elie has all of my contact information, and I plan to stay in Jul for at least another month before entering dungeons."

"Alright, I definitely will keep you in mind," I say.

"Thank you. And, with that, imma take my leave and let you enjoy your house. I hope ya enjoy being a new home owner."

"Oh I will."

"Yay! We got a house!"

"I'll also take my leave as well," Elie says.

"Alright. Thanks for stopping by," Serena responds.

"No, please, it was my pleasure," Elie replies while walking toward the door with Onewa. "Have a great day."

"See you two later," Onewa says.

"You too," I reply while waving.

"Bye bye," Serena says while waving as well.

The two leave out of the door and I shut it as well. I focus my mind and hear the sound of the door's lock click into place.

"Wow. So, this is it huh. We have an actual house."

"Yes! It's a very nice house too! Look at these walls! They are so pretty"

"Indeed."

I take a moment to tour the rest of the house with Serena. We spend thirty minutes examining all of the areas and furnishings. The interior walls are made of wood painted white. This gives the house the unique smell of wood and paint. There is also unpainted polished wood used as a trim along the edges of walls and door frames. The entire house has plumbing which is great. There are furniture items like beds, couches, cabinets, dressers, tables and more in various rooms. There are even a few glass dishes and some iron cutlery in the kitchen cabinets. The fact that such an elaborate house could be built in one day is mind blowing. At this rate, Jul may double in size within a week.

"Well then. We have several hours until noon. What should we do until then?" I ask Serena who is walking around the living room aimlessly.

"I don't know. Maybe we could test the bedroom?" she says with a sly grin.

My face turns pale.

"Serena, we already went over this. You're too young for that!"

"No I'm not! I'm 14! So it's fine!"

'Shit. That slipped my mind.'

"But your body is so young. And, wait, can you even have kids with me? Aren't you part Angel and part Cat? Would it even work out?"

"It's not about kids. I want to relieve you. It's my duty as your future wife."

'She's already talking about duty? When did we progress this far?'

I sigh before responding, "You're most likely right. But, I still need some more time. Please, can you wait a bit longer?"

"Oh, fine. We should wait until we are married anyway. I only brought that up to remind you. I'm very serious about becoming your wife."

I sigh again, but this time in relief, and then say, "Thank you for understanding. I'm sure that I will know what to do in a few days."

"Anyway, how about we go walk around town for a bit? We still have quite a long time to wait. And, who knows, but maybe our party is waiting for us already? Also, I'd like to check out a few shops for items. Dungeon exploring items will be useful, but we're going to need some decorations for our house at some point too."

"All true. That sounds good. Let's head out."

On that note, Serena and I head out of the house. While walking through the lawn, another idea comes to Serena.

"Hey Jin, what if we plant the Whooglue seeds on our lawn?"

"Eh? Isn't that dangerous? We have no idea what they will grow into."

"You worry too much. If anything bad grows, then we can just remove it ourselves. Or we can get a plant mage to help us out. It will be fine."

"Well, if you put it like that, I guess it won't be that big of a deal."

"Perfect!"

Thus, Serena and I pull the bag of Whooglue seeds and bonemeal from over inventory. We use our knowledge of farming from Hamel to guide our work. First, we create holes to mark where we will plan the seeds. Our lawn's dirt is still loose from construction, so creating holes for the seeds is easy. Then we mix bonemeal into the surrounding dirt and the dirt that was removed. Next, we plant the seed into the newly created hole before finally filling the hole back in with the bonemeal infused dirt. After planting all 100 seeds, we head back inside and wash our hands before resuming our trip.

The walk to the luxury district from our home isn't far since our house is near the border of the luxury district. During the walk, several people look at us as is normal. In fact, there were people who looked at us when we first left to visit our house this morning. However, nobody approaches us and many people seem to lose interest quite quickly after seeing us. The news that we have created a party of five must have spread by now.

"I guess there are no early birds," I say disappointedly.

"It's ok. It's still early in the morning. To the shops!"

Seeing that nobody is at the meeting point, Serena and I head to the trade district. The trade district is made up of a many different shops that sell goods of differing degrees of specialization. For example, one can go to a general merchant and sell practically any item. However, a general merchant will only buy items for average or bad prices. In contrast, a very specialized shop tends to provide better prices when dealing with their specialized good. For example, a magical sword shop is the best place to visit when attempting to buy or sell magical swords. The improved prices are compensation for the additional time that people must spend to make trips to additional stores versus using only one general store. And, the prices encourage individuals to sell their best goods to specialized stores. This economic system is one of the most basic aspects of trade and enables specialized shops to exist.

Serena and I spend the next two hours visiting various stores in the trade district. This is the fifth day that the world has existed, so there are many more items being sold by them. In fact, the magnitude of items is incomparable to the number from before. Most serious adventurers who focus on conquering dungeons and leveling up are probably just reaching intermediate proficiency on their core abilities. Thus, many beginner grade items and materials are being sold in abundance. This causes me to have an interesting realization, however. Isn't Jul destined to remain as a beginner's town indefinitely since it doesn't have any high level dungeons in the surrounding areas? Won't people eventually leave to other areas where higher level dungeons are? Perhaps it was even a mistake to invest so many of my resources into this one location. I mean, sure, I have noble status, connections with the high ranking officials and am a founder in the Mage's Guild. But, will the perks and privileges of my status be able to compare to a person with a similar status in a higher level town? Perhaps it is necessary to invest into at least one major town every 10 levels to maintain the meaning of my status?

Serena and I make several purchases. First, we purchase magical enchantments for our equipment at Jul's Enchanting Guild. Apparently, there are spells that can increase the magical tier of an item. The most general spell is Enchant Item. Unfortunately, the way that Enchant Item works and is cast are two separate and extremely complicated matters. The ability can be cast like any normal spell using the CSP method. However, the mana cost of this ability is phenomenal. For even a specialized person, casting T10 Enchant Item on a plain iron sword will only provide a level one or two enchantment. The level in this case associates the power level of the enchantment with one found in an equal level dungeon. Also, the only way to get higher magical tiers is by increasing the rate by which mana is imbued and compressed into an item. But, this is very difficult since magic becomes harder to control the faster that it is imbued into an item. Thus, high proficiency is required to minimize how much magic is lost as waste. Overall, the process of enchanting items is very mana dependent and requires extremely high proficiency tiers to be effective.

The Enchanting Guild overcomes these limitations by performing group incantations. An incantation is a spell casting style where one recites a spell's magic words repeatedly to increase the power of the spell. Magic words are an optional requirement for spell casting as a whole, but are a fourth spell casting requirement necessary to perform incantations. The only reason that the people at the Enchanter's Guild know the magic words for Enchant Item is because their Guild Master is completely specialized in only this one ability. In his case, he was born with the knowledge of this magic word. However, magic words are generally extremely rare. Anyway, incantations are amazing because the overall strength of a spell increases every time that magic words are repeated. Also, they allow multiple people to perform spellcasting simultaneously, thereby increasing the power of spells dramatically. However, incantations take a long time to cast and large quantities of magical power can become unstable rather quickly. In other words, they have limited uses in combat situations.

In the end, the Enchanting Guild enchants Serena's and my staffs and robes to the magic magical tier for one gold per item. This sets our balance to 18 gold coins, 25 silver coins and 95 copper coins. While expensive, the benefits are very much worth it. I acquire intelligence stat increases whereas Serena picked Wisdom increases. When the Enchanting Guild becomes more skilled, we will be able to get stronger enchantments and even abilities placed on our gear. Another benefit of the visit is that I learned a lot about permanent item enchantments and the incantation spell style. Perhaps one day my Lightning Enchant spell will be capable of creating permanent lightning enchantments. The only downside of the visit is that I couldn't learn the magic words for Enchant Item since the enchanting ritual was performed in a soundproof room underground.

The other two shops that we go to are a potions shop and a food shop. At the potions shop, we purchase five mana restoration potions. The potions cost one gold per potion that heals 20 mana, so they are rather expensive. However, being able to quickly restore mana may be lifesaving. At the food shop, we purchase 30 silvers worth of food to replace our slowly molding fruit from Hamel. This morning, I threw out all of the fruit in the basket that was purchased from the Jull dining hall and cleaned it in the sink. There is no way that I would overlook any food situation after what Serena and I have been through. We purchase ice, fruit, vegetables, meat and a completely new invention called a sandwich. The sandwich layers vegetables, meat, cheese and a seasoned sauce between two slices of bread. Such a complex selection and arrangement of ingredients makes this an absolutely revolutionary meal item! In the end, the basket is completely loaded with food items that are being chilled by the fresh ice stored underneath.

"Alright, so that's everything. We visited a lot of shops. Time to head to the square then?"

"Yes. Let's go!"

Thus, Serena and I head to the Heart of Jul. After a small amount of walking, our trip from the residential district to the Heart of Jul ends.

Hey guys, what's up," I say while approaching our group.

"Oh! Hey Jin. How are you?' Wanda replies

"I'm good. Telah, Gabriel, good morning."

"Good morning," they both respond. Serena also takes a moment to extend greetings to everybody while performing her usual bows at the waist.

"Well then, let's get started. Telah, can you perform a scan on everybody so that we can see everybody's stats and abilities?"

"Most certainly."

"Thanks."

"Scan! Scan! Scan! Scan! Scan!"

Without hesitation, Telah casts Scan five times.

'Either Scan is extremely cheap or his mana pool is huge.'

\---------------------------------------------

[Character]

Jin the Lightning Elemental

Class: Lightning Caster

Level: 5

Health: 112 / 112

Lightning Mana: 147/ 147

Life Mana: 49 / 49

Strength: 5 / Intelligence: 49 / Wisdom: 49 / Agility: 4 / Constitution: 4 / Charisma: 1 / Luck: 0

\---------------------------------------------

[Proficiencies]

Ability Categories

[T10] Lightning Mastery: Increases the effectiveness of lightning abilities overall.

[T2] Leadership: Increases one's ability to lead others in battle.

[T2] Life Spell Mastery: Increases the effectiveness of life based spells overall.

[T2] Melee Staff Combat: Increases one's effectiveness in melee combat with staffs.

Active Abilities

[T5] Lightning Enchant: Imbues a target with lightning energy that will be transferred to another target when cast. Deals 30 damage. Costs 16 mana.

[T2] Electric Mark: Marks a target with lightning energy that attracts lightning energy. Costs 10 mana.

[T2] Lightning Bolt: Fires a bolt of lightning at a target. Deals 50 damage. Costs 20 mana.

[T2] Restore Life: Heal a target with life magic. Restores 3 life. Costs 45 mana.

\---------------------------------------------

[Character]

Serena the Angel-Cat

Class: Healer

Level: 5

Health: 124/ 124

Life Mana: 138 / 138

Strength: 5 / Intelligence: 29 / Wisdom: 46 / Agility: 22 / Constitution: 8 / Charisma: 1 / Luck: 1

\---------------------------------------------

[Proficiencies]

Ability Categories

[T9] Healing Mastery: Increases the effectiveness of healing abilities overall. As a specialization of the life realm, this category also positively influences all life abilities.

[T2] Spirit Mastery: Increases the effectiveness of all healing abilities overall.

Active Abilities

[T4] Restore Life: Heal a target with life magic. Restores 13 life. Costs 6 mana.

[T2] Cure Wounds: Closes and heals bleeding wounds on a target. Costs 5 mana.

[T2] Feed: Temporarily satisfy hunger by a small amount. Costs 5 mana.

[T2] Heaven's Guidance: Guide a weakened soul to the gates of heaven. Costs 0 mana.

[T2] Restore Blood: Restore a small amount of lost blood to a target. Can only restore low quality blood at the current tier.

[T2] Restore Stamina: Cures exhaustion and fatigue by small amounts.

\---------------------------------------------

[Character]

Wanda the Levant

Class: Summoner

Level: 4

Health: 103 / 103

Creation Magic: 156/ 156

Strength: 4 / Intelligence: 52 / Wisdom: 52 / Agility: 1 / Constitution: 1 / Charisma: 1 / Luck: 1

\---------------------------------------------

[Proficiencies]

Ability Categories

[T6] Summon Life Mastery: Improve your ability to give life to summons. Makes life mana usage more efficient and allows for larger and higher leveled summons to be created.

[T6] Summon Physical Offensive Mastery: Increases the overall physical offensive capabilities of summons.

[T6] Summon Defense Mastery: Increases the overall defensive capabilities of summons.

[T2] Nature Affinity: Increases your affinity with all things related to nature.

Active Abilities

[T3] Summon Guard: Summon a minion that specializes in guarding you by your side. Lasts 5 minutes. Costs 25 mana.

[T3] Summon Fighter: Summon a minion that specializes in chasing down and attacking foes. Lasts 5 minutes. Costs 25 mana.

\----------------------------------------------

[Character]

Gabriel the Mout

Class: Tank

Level: 7

Health: 350 / 350

Mind Mana: 12 / 12

Strength: 50 / Intelligence: 1 / Wisdom: 12 / Agility: 5 / Constitution: 50 / Charisma: 1 / Luck: 1

\---------------------------------------------

[Proficiencies]

Active Abilities

[T14] Taunt: Emit a wave of psychological pressure that forces enemies to perceive you as the greatest threat. Costs 5 mana.

\----------------------------------------------

[Character]

Telah the Shigua

Classes: Dungeon Master and Raid Leader

Level: 1

Health: 268 / 268

Non-Specific Mana: 112 / 112

Strength: 1 / Intelligence: 67 (+33) / Wisdom: 28 / Agility: 1 / Constitution: 1 / Charisma: 1 / Luck: 1

\----------------------------------------------

[Proficiencies]

Ability Categories

[T2] Dungeon Master: Increases the efficiency of all abilities related to being a Dungeon Master.

[T2] Raid Leader: Increases the efficiency of all abilities related to being a Raid Leader.

Active Abilities

[T2] Team Chat: Allow you to communicate telepathically with a party member. Higher levels allow one to communicate with more people at once. Costs 1 mana per second.

[T2] Share Ability: Share a passive ability with a team member. The ability is shared until a new ability is shared or the distance between you two exceeds 50 feet. No mana cost.

[T2] Inspect Dungeon: Reveal information about the current dungeon. Costs 10 mana.

[T2] Scan: Scan a living being to reveal information. Costs 10 mana.

[T2] Identify Item: Present information about the current state of an item. Costs 10 mana.

[T2] Telekinesis: Move an item or object with your mind. Maximum range is 3 feet. Mana cost scales with size of item to a minimum of 1 mana per second.

Passive Abilities:

[T2] Ability Growth: Increase the rate that you acquire proficiency by 10%. Additionally, increase the amount of proficiency given by each proficiency point by 10%.

\----------------------------------------------

"Ok, this is incredible information. Now that we have a good idea of what we can do, let's..." I pause for a moment and consider whether or not to take them to Jul's Mage Guild's library. If we go there, they could probably learn some more spells from the books that I sold. However, I decide against it since our party is not necessarily permanent. I don't want to give any permanent benefits to anybody who isn't compatible with the party, or isn't planning to stay long. I resume my statement and say, "Let's jump right into a dungeon. I think that this will be the fastest way for us to see if we will work well together as a party."

"Yes!" Wanda says excitedly.

"Agreed," Telah responds coolly.

Yes," Gabriel responds stoically.

"Good! Then let's go," I reply.

With that, our party of five begins our trip to the dungeon entrance that Serena and I entered twice previously. The walk only takes 10 minutes.

"Ok, now I'll send out party invites."

The party invites are sent out and everybody accepts. The party information FW looks like this afterwards:

\----------------------------------------------

[Party Management]

Party Size: 5

Members: Jin [L], Serena, Wanda, Telah, Gabriel.

**Intimacy Note:** Jin and Serena are at the Family level of intimacy.

**Raid Leader Bonus:** Use the CSP method to display the most recent scan results of a player. A person's name can be pressed to display the most recent scan results. If a scan hasn't been performed yet, a request will be made to Telah.

\----------------------------------------------

"Good. Then I'll create the dungeon."

I open up the dungeon creation window and am excited by the FW that is displayed.

\----------------------------------------------

[Dungeon Creation]

Level: 2 [+][-]

Final Gold Bonus: 101%

Final Exp Bonus: 101%

Dungeon Master Bonuses:

Bonus Gold: 1%

Bonus Exp: 1%

Available Modifiers:

Death Penalty: Normal [+][-]

Difficulty: 100% [+][-]

[START]

\---------------------------------------------

"This is incredible! There are options and customization! And details! Great!"

"Now you see the power of the Raid Leader! The people who didn't pick me to join their parties will regret their decision. Just wait. I will show you my power!" Telah says.

"Those are words that I like to hear," I reply.

The dungeon creation window now has some information and customizable options. There aren't that many, presumably because Telah is level one. However, everybody has to start somewhere. The death penalty can be increased or decreased by one degree. And the difficulty can be increased or decreased by 20% max. Any time that a setting is changed to make the dungeon easier, the final experience and gold values decrease. In contrast, difficulty increases increase the rewards. The last noticeable feature is that we can create a level eight dungeon, which is one level higher than Gabriel. This is definitely also a bonus from the Dungeon Master class.

"I think we will be fine with a level five dungeon. Even though our levels are scattered, we should be equipped well enough to handle whatever we come up against."

"Good... plan," George says.

I review the settings one more time and hit the start button for the dungeon. A beam of golden light rises from the depths of the entrance and my party is teleported.

### Chapter 15: Death

... Seconds Later...

"What the hell is this!" I say dumbfounded

"Erm, this doesn't look good," Wanda says as well.

"Um," Serena mumbles.

In contrast, Telah and Gabriel remain quiet. We have been teleported into a dungeon. However, the sight before our eyes defies reason. We're standing on the usual white Return Pedestal. However, our surroundings are a lava field. The sky is red on the horizon in all directions and the sky above us is black. In its center is a completely red full moon. The red and black lava field is flat and extends infinitely in all directions. Its bubbling surface pops occasionally to spew bright yellow lava upon itself. There is absolutely no indication of a safe standing location on the lava field.

After a few seconds of staring blankly at the dungeon, a separate FW's appears in front of each of us.

\----------------------------------------------

[Alert]

This dungeon is impossible. Leave immediately. You will not suffer a time penalty when attempting to join a new dungeon.

\----------------------------------------------

"What... do?" Gabriel asks after a while.

"The obvious answer is to leave the dungeon, no?" Telah responds.

"That's true. No matter how you look at this, there is nowhere to go. Hell, is there even anything to do?" I say while opening up my quest log.

\----------------------------------------------

[Quest Log]

???

\----------------------------------------------

"And apparently the quest log is useless as well. What do you think Serena?"

"I think we shouldn't give up. Let's see if there is a trick to this dungeon," she responds.

"I agree that we should at least see if this is a trick. But, if this is an illusion or something deceptive, it's extremely convincing," Telah says innocently.

"Then... I go."

"What? Wait! Gabriel!"

However, unfortunately, what I say doesn't reach Gabriel in time. Gabriel runs off of the platform and jumps directly into the lava. We stare in silence as we wait for something to occur.

"GABRIEL!!!!" Serena shouts after a while.

"Did he seriously just kill himself?" I ask stupidly.

"That guy is too hardcore," Wanda says in disbelief while shaking her head.

We wait a while longer in the hopes that Gabriel will return. However, there is no indication of a return..

"Perhaps I can see if he is still in the dungeon," Telah says before making an expression that he is visibly concentrating. As a result, a FW appears in front of him.

\----------------------------------------------

[Dungeon Information]

Chaos Level: 76%

\----------------------------------------------

"Well, I guess I can't find out," he says sadly.

"What the hell do we do now?" Wanda responds desperately.

"It seems clear that this dungeon is impossible. As the party leader, I rule that we leave this dungeon and enter a new one."

"But what about Gabriel?" Serena asks.

"There is nothing more that we can do for him. If he died, then he will have respawned in town. If he's trapped then he can commit suicide. Let's make a trip back to town and see if he's there. After that, we'll join another dungeon."

"That sounds reasonable," Telah says. "But, won't he be unable to join a dungeon due to the death penalty?"

'Damnit, I hadn't considered that.'

"It's possible. But, the dungeon said there won't be a time penalty if we leave the dungeon. We don't know whether that applies only to leaving or not, so we will try to enter a dungeon with him when we regroup. However, if he can't enter a new dungeon, then we'll enter a new one without him. This shouldn't be a problem or even a setback since he's already level seven," I respond.

"I still can't believe that he would jump straight into the lava like that," Wanda states.

"I take full responsibility. His actions completely exceeded all of my predictions. Perhaps I shouldn't have rushed us into a dungeon so fast. But I'm glad that this incident happened now, rather than during some really important task."

I pause for a moment after finishing my statement and then resume speaking, "Clear dungeon." My words cause my party to be instantly teleported out of the dungeon. We're not even placed into a victory room and instead return to the dungeon's entrance.

"Now, let's head to town," I respond while intentionally avoiding the recent chain of events.

"One second. Can I wait here? There is no point in me going if I will have to walk back here later," Telah inquires.

"What? Don't you want to check on Gabriel?" Serena responds angrily.

"Of course I do! But, it's a lot of walking."

I sigh dramatically before responding, "Ok, Telah. Wait here for our return. Don't move anywhere."

"Thanks."

Thus, everybody except for Telah begins walking to town along the normal route. During our trip, we walk past many other people. The dungeon that we use is the closest to Jul, so it's quite popular. Halfway to the town, we encounter Gabriel.

"Gabriel!" Serena says excitedly while running up to him. When she reaches him, she gives him a huge hug. The height difference between the two makes it so that she hugs his stomach.

"Serena," Gabriel says with his hands outstretched. His body language indicates that he doesn't know what to do with them.

Welcome back Gabriel," Wanda says nervously.

"Thank... you," he replies calmly.

"Welcome back Gabriel," I respond too. "Could you please tell me why you jumped off of the Return Pedestal into the lava?"

"Gabriel... want... to... help."

"Alright. I understand your feelings. However, next time, please don't do anything reckless on your own. We're a party, so we need to think about things as a group and act as a unit. Ok?"

"I... sorry," Gabriel says while looking down ruefully.

"It's fine. We just can't have people randomly suiciding." I then turn around and face the dungeon. "Ok. Try number two. Let's go back to the dungeon."

We walk back to the dungeon entrance and find Telah.

"Welcome back everybody. Nice to see you again Gabriel," he says sleepily.

"Thank... you."

"Alright, let's try this again. Level five dungeon, start!"

I open the interface and configure the dungeon settings before hitting the start button. Thankfully, Gabriel has no issues entering the dungeon, and my party is teleported into a new dungeon once more.

"This is much better," I say as soon as my vision clears of the teleportation's blinding white light. The return pedestal with us on it has spawned inside of a room. The room must be around 20x20x10 feet. The walls are lit by lights hanging on them. The lights are created by burning pieces of wood inside of round glass containers with open tops. Aside from the lights, the room is completely empty and plain. The walls are made of a light colored wood of average quality with a plainly visible grain. Directly in front of us is a large wooden door.

"Everybody made it in safely?" I say while looking over my party.

"Yes," everybody says one by one.

"Good. Ok, first we review our situation. We need to check our quest log and get any information that we can about this dungeon before leaving the Return Pedestal. Telah, you can use your Inspect Dungeon ability again, can't you?"

"Absolutely."

"Good. Then let's start with the quest log and dungeon inspection."

I concentrate my mind to open the quest log while Telah casts his spell by concentrating his mind. This results in two FWs appearing for us to all read.

\----------------------------------------------

[Quest Log]

Your party has arrived in the Rumpurt Castle. Rumpurt Castle is a fortress that was abandoned in ancient times. Now, many powerful individuals have taken up residence within. Slay the four individuals specified below to clear out this ancient castle.

Quests:

Kill Rortus: Incomplete

Kill Cassandra: Incomplete

Kill Pleabus: Incomplete

Kill Felicia: Incomplete

\----------------------------------------------

[Dungeon Information]

Chaos Level: 5%

\----------------------------------------------

"Damn, your Inspect Dungeon ability doesn't help at all. But, I guess that's to be expected. It's probably only T2, right?"

"Yes, the tier is very low. However, once it's higher, it will be much more useful," Telah replies confidently.

"Kill? We have to kill these people? No. I already don't like this. I refuse," Serena says flatly.

"Common Serena. Don't be like that. These guys might be murderers or something. Let's figure out the situation before making a decision on whether to kill them or not," I reply.

"Hmm. I will withhold judgement then. But, only because my love is asking me," Serena replies sweetly.

There is a short pause before Gabriel speaks up, "What... now?"

"I'm thinking of a strategy right now," I respond. "I'm thinking that this is a safe room, and that the dungeon truly starts once we leave. We have to kill four bosses, but we don't know anything about them other than their names. Most importantly, we don't know what our surroundings are like outside of this room. All of the bosses could be waiting directly on the other side of the door, and we will have to fight them all at once. So, we need to be ready for anything before we leave from here."

"Wow, you're really smart Jin," Wanda states.

"That's my husband for you!" Serena says proudly.

"I agree with your summary," Telah states plainly. "The best case situation for us is to fight each boss one by one. Here is a plan for us to follow. First, we crack open the door and peek outside. In the event that nothing bad happens, we observe the surroundings and modify our plan as needed. If the surroundings are completely safe, then we will enter the new area and modify our plan based on any new information. Otherwise, we will immediately look for an escape. If there isn't one in sight, then we will stay in this room and fight from here. At least by staying in here, whatever lives in this will be funneled through a choke point created by the door. It should give us a tactical advantage. Ultimately, since our best case scenario is to fight each person one by one, we need to avoid making loud noises and try to split them up if necessary or possible."

"Wow, you guys are really serious about this. When I went into dungeons with parties in the past, we never planned this much. We always ran in blindly. Though, that might explain why none the parties worked out.

"Planning is good," I say while winking at Wanda.

She has no response, but Serena glares at me sharply and says, "Let's see what is on the other side of the door."

"Good. Gabriel, you're the tank. So we need you to lead the way. Open the door slowly and see what is inside. We'll be right behind you."

"Leave it to me," he says with no hesitation.

Thus, we all move close to the door. Gabriel takes the lead and slowly opens the wooden door. The room on the other side is at least three times as large as the room that we're and is made entirely of hard gray stone. There is an opening in the ceiling that lets in a large amount of sunlight, presumably from outside. There are also four massive stone pillars supporting the ceiling placed equidistantly from one another.

"Welcome to Rumpurt Castle. I am aware that all five of you are in there. My name is Rortus, and I will be your first and last challenge. There is no need to hesitate. So, please, do come out."

I pop my head out of the doorway past Gabriel's body and reply, "Rortus, you said? You don't seem surprised to see us."

"Of course not. People fall into the teleportation trap every day. It is my duty to take care of all invaders."

'Teleportation trap? Invadors? Hm, that was a lot of information from just one line.'

Rortus is clearly a warrior based on his equipment and build. He is wearing thin armor that exposes his muscular arms and calves. However, his build is slim overall. His face is well defined and has a sharp expression. His hair is cut to a medium, even length and is colored dark brown. In his right hand is a single metal sword while his other hand is empty.

[Jin, be careful. My scan revealed that he is level 15.]

'Woah! Telah? Is that you?'

[Yes. I am using my Team Chat ability.] – Telah responds.

[Wow! I figured that ability would be useful. But, damn! This is amazing!] – I respond.

"What is wrong with all of you? Why have you stopped? If you will not come to me, then I will come to you."

[Just act natural for now.] – Telah thinks to Jin.

[Ok]

"Fine. Come out everybody, but stay on your guard."

On my command, my party comes out of the room. Everybody remains tense and wary while leaving the room. Gabriel maintains his position at the front while the rest of us stand behind him. Thankfully, the interior of this room seems safe. All corners are well lit, the floor is flat and there are no furnishing or decorations that could hide details; except for the pillars.

"That's the spirit. It's no fun when I win without my opponents fighting back," he says with a massive grin. "Feel free to get into formation. I want to at least break a sweat."

"You're worried about breaking a sweat?" I say while smirking. "Interesting."

Rortus stretches his arms a bit while walking slowly towards us. He winds his arms around in circles, folds them behind his head over his shoulder, and does other basic stretches. He jumps up in down in place a few times and says, "How nice of you to let me stretch. Well then, I'll start. Please try to last for more than a few seconds."

Rortus immediately charges from his end of the room toward us. His speed is significant as he covers the distance rapidly. Gabriel maintains his position at the head of the party and tightens his battle stance. His shield is lifted up in front of himself and his sword is lifted into the air ready to strike. Rortus charges in the direction of Gabriel's left flank as though he is going to rush past him. This causes Gabriel to react by turning his body to the left.

"Hahaha! So foolish!" Rortus says.

At the last moment, Rortus shifts his weight and momentum from Gabriel's left to the right. This allows him to rush past Gabriel who is unable to react quickly enough. This brings him directly to our back line. In only one move, our entire formation has been broken.

"Shit! Wanda, summons!"

At that moment, Wanda pulls a staff from her inventory. She still has a beginner staff that resembles the type that Serena and I started off with. She then starts casting, "Sum— Agh." However, before she can finish reciting anything, she is attacked by Rortus. Since our entire back line is exposed, he can easily target any of us. Naturally, he went for Wanda who was casting a spell. Wanda reflexively attempts to block his sword. However, the moldy wooden staff stands no chance against the strike and is sliced in half. This results in Wanda taking a massive blow across her chest.

"AHHHHH!" she shouts in pain before collapsing to the ground.

"Restore Life!" Serena shouts in response.

After his attack, Rortus runs outside of our formation and stops in place. He casually speaks, "What a waste of time. And here I thought that maybe I'd get some challenge from a party of five. Especially when your leader appeared confident. But, you all suck. Ahhhhhh, what a shame. As a courtesy, I will end this instantly."

He finishes his line and a sudden gust of wind blows outward from his body. This wave of wind is one large gust that causes our clothes to be blown back before falling into their normal states. Also, we all instinctively cover our eyes for a moment. However, our actions were unnecessary due to how quickly the gust passed. Once we recover, we look back at Rortus. His blade is now wrapped in a tornado of wind. The tornado is not too intimidating since it's mostly transparent and is moving around the blade slowly. However, the low whistling sound that is being made confirms without a doubt that it is a tornado.

Wordlessly, Rortus rushes toward Serena with his blade pointing toward her. While Rortus was speaking, Gabriel moved his position to defend the front of our party once more. However, Rortus slices the air in front of himself with his sword, thus causing a wave of gray wind to be projected at Gabriel. The result is that Gabriel is hit by the wind and flinches for a moment, just long enough for Rortus to get around him again.

"Fool," Rortus says mockingly.

"LIGHTNING BOLT!" I shout loudly.

I cast my spell at him at him as he is moving around Gabriel. A single bolt of lightning spews forth from my hand. Even though I aim the spell directly in front of me, the bolt of lightning angles sharply toward the ceiling. However, after traveling a short distance, the lightning arcs back down and strikes Rortus.

"OWWW!" Rortus shouts. The lightning bolt interrupts his leap and blows him back, "What the hell was that?"

The reason that my Lightning Bolt spell was able to hit Rortus was because of my ability Electric Mark! Electric Mark is cast and applied in two steps. First, you cast the spell on a target similarly to Lightning Enchant. Then, when the selected target makes contact with another item, the mark will be applied. In this case, while Rortus charged Wanda, I cast the spell on my right hand. Then, while he was attacking Wanda, I sneakily brushed my hand against Rortus. I was able to cast my spell without being noticed by using the concentration method. The fact that spells don't need to be recited out loud is something that I was reminded of by seeing Telah cast Inspect Dungeon earlier. Not shouting out spells allows them to be cast stealthily. For a spell with a large visual effect, this is useless. However, for a spell like Electric Mark, it's perfect! Additionally, this method makes it so that spells can be cast at a more consistent speed, since you don't have to wait to recite the spell's name.

"I will make a fool of you for attacking Wanda!" I respond angrily.

"Interesting. I'm glad that I will have to try even a little bit," Rortus responds while standing back up. Meanwhile, Gabriel adjusts his position to be in front of the party once again. Wanda has managed a full recovery thanks to Serena, so she is standing back up. Additionally, Wanda has caught onto the need to cast spells wordlessly and has summoned a guard and two fighter summons. The summons have half the height of a normal human and are using suitable equipment. The guard is completely covered in a shiny metal armor and is wielding a shield in each hand. Meanwhile, the fighters are wearing leather armor while dual wielding metal swords.

'I'm glad that she's alright. Also, I'm glad that she figured out silent casting so quickly. With her summons, we should have the advantage.'

Without mercy, I cast lightning bolt at Rortus again. The interior of this room becomes extremely bright as the lightning bolt is released. The lightning again shoots wildly off target to the right before correcting its trajectory and striking Rortus on the shoulder. However, this time, he braces for the blow and only collapses to one knee.

"Attack him now!"

On my command, Wanda's two fighter summons charge at Rortus. Additionally, Gabriel charges with his sword held up high. Rortus attempts to bypass Gabriel for a third time by running past his side. However, Gabriel bashes him with his shield as he moves close. This causes Rortus to lose his balance temporarily. Meanwhile, Wanda's fighter summons close the gap between themselves and Rortus and attack him. The successful attacks create several moderate cuts along his legs.

"Keep up the pressure!"

The summons go in for another attack, but Rortus swings his sword. This causes an even stronger gust of wind to blow across the battlefield and knock everybody back..

"GOOD! THIS IS A REAL FIGHT! THE THRILL OF BATTLE! AHHAHAHA"

Rortus then raises his empty left hand above himself into the air. Visible white spirals of wind collect into a ball before scattering into numerous lines of wind. These lines instantly travel the length of his body and leaves behind an effect of steam rising from his body. During his spellcast, my party manages to recover from the gust by standing up and reforming our formation.

"LET ME SHOW YOU TRUE POWER!"

Immediately after, Rortus charges at Gabriel with a completely new speed. Previously, Gabriel was able to react to Rortrus's quick movements somewhat because Rortrus always charged close to Gabriel when attempting to break our formation. In other words, Rortus's pattern enabled the low agility and intelligence Gabriel a chance to react. However, with Rortus's newfound speed, this advantage simply isn't enough. Rortrus runs past Gabriel in an instance and appears at his backside. He then slices his sword horizontally toward his back and makes perfect contact! However, unfortunately for Rortus, Gabriel's armor easily repels his sword. A loud clang noise rings out as the sword bounces off. The only damage is a small scratch left where the sword made impact.

Meanwhile, I attempt to take advantage of this opening by running up to Rortus and creating a mark. However, Rortus turns around unnaturally fast and slices me across the chest. This tears my robe across the front and creates a shallow cut.

"FUCK!" I shout.

"Restore!" Serena says causing my wound to be healed entirely. Meanwhile, Gabriel counter-attacks Rortus's flank with his sword since Rortus is facing me. Gabriel's vertical strike partially severs Rortus's left arm in half from his shoulder to just above his elbow.

"AHHHHHHH!" Rortus screams in shock.

"Holy Shit!" Wanda says while Serena covers her eyes. Even Telah and I are disturbed by the sight before us. Meanwhile, Gabriel's expression is as stoic as it was when he made the strike. Even after seeing the mangled flesh, he is unperturbed. Gabriel doesn't hesitate and moves to attack again. In response, Rortus leaps to his own right. This causes him to fall down to his side such that he is holding himself up with his right arm. With his sword pinned under his own body's weight, he pleads, "I give up! You win! Please! Just let me live!"

Gabriel shows no hesitation and begins to charge at Rortus.

"STOP!" Serena shouts. In response, Gabriel freezes in place. There a moment of silence and stillness before the sound of Rortus exhaling can be heard.

"Wheeeeewwww.. Sheesh, you guys got me. Congratulations, you have defeated me."

"Everybody keep up your guard!" I announce. I then focus on Rortus who is now lying on his back in front of us.

"Hahaha. Well, that's fair. But, with a wound like this, I'm going to die anyway. I can assure you that I don't have any revenge plot."

Serena then steps forward and says, "I won't allow you to die! Cure Wounds!"

A white light wraps around the entirety of her body. She then points her staff at Rortus's arm and fires a burst of white light. In response, his arm starts to repair itself. However, the repair only starts to combine his arm slightly before stopping.

"What! Why did it stop?" Serena says.

"It's because your spell isn't powerful enough. You need a higher tier if you want to repair a wound that large," Telah says normally.

"No! Restore Life! Restore Life! Cure Wounds! Restore Life!" Tears begin to emerge from her face. "Cure Wounds!" More tears come out "Restore Life!" Serena repeatedly casts her spells until she runs out of mana. Even then she shouts out, "Restore Life." By this point her voice is weak.

In response, I rush over to Serena and embrace her tightly. I tuck her head into my chest and speak to her softly, "Serena. That's enough. What are you thinking trying to save a guy like that? He attacked Wanda and our party."

"But, but, but he's still human. He doesn't deserve to die. Uwahh," Serena cries.

Meanwhile, Rortus shrugs his right side and whispers, "How honorable of you to wish to save my life. But, I knew what I was getting into when I came to this castle. Though, it would be nice if you would finish me off right now. My arm hurts... like hell... and," his words trail off as his eyes begin to close.

More time passes with us looking at Rortus's body. Eventually, his grip on his sword loosens and the effects of Haste dissipate.

Wanda falls to her knees and says, "That was ridiculous. The battle was so fast and intense. Did it even last a minute?"

"That's the nature of a fight. A single mistake can mean the difference between life and death. In this case, we won due to Gabriel's overwhelming power," Telah responds while walking forward. He constantly stayed far in the back of our formation, so he didn't suffer any damage.

Gabriel smiles a bit in response to Telah's praise.

"That reminds me. Telah, you technically didn't do very much in that fight, correct?"

"That's not true!" Wanda hurriedly interrupts.

Telah sticks one of his thin arms into the air to stop Wand and replies, "Why do you ask that? Are we being evaluated on performance?"

"No no no. It's nothing like that. It's just that I'm worried that you won't get a good Achievement Rating at the end of the dungeon."

"Ah, that's a good point. But, I think I was rather helpful in this battle," Telah says proudly.

"Really? What did you do?" I ask confused.

"I told Gabriel several times to reposition himself. Unfortunately, he can't communicate back to me through Team Chat. But, I was able to chat with him."

"He also told me about casting my spells quietly and advised me to summon a guard and two fighters," Wanda says.

"He also told me to stand behind Gabriel a few times," Serena says.

"Wow, really? I had no idea."

Telah proudly puffs out his white, blob-shaped chest and says, "This is the power of a Raid Leader! Just wait until I become a higher level! I will show you my true power!"

"I can't wait," I respond with a smile. "Anyway, that fight is done. This guy is dead so let's loot him and then create a plan for the next area."

"Loot him? What are you talking about," Serena asks warily.

"Loot him as in take the items he has for ourselves. We can sell these at a shop."

"WHAT? We can't do that! We have to bury him with his items."

'Ah crap. Her perfect morality is coming out.'

"I agree. We must return his body back to earth," Wanda says.

'Oh god. There are two of them! They are multiplying!'

"Fine. Whatever. We can bury him later when we figure a way out of this castle. Let's just worry about beating this castle first."

"The door is over there," Telah says while pointing to the side of the room opposite of where we entered. "Presumably, we should follow the same strategy from before. We'll peep in and then go from there."

"Ok. Gabriel, you're up," I reply.

"Hmph!" Gabriel says while clanking his shield onto his chest armor once. We all walk across the room and arrive in front of the door. Like before, Gabriel peers inside while I peek in from behind him.

"Oh come now. It's about time that you finished playing with Rortus. Please come in," a mature woman's voice says.

In contrast to the last room, the surroundings of this room are completely dark. In contrast, the center of the room is lit by a single beam of light coming from the ceiling. This dynamic presents an extreme contrast between black and dark. The light itself has small white particles fluttering around within it. 'Is that dust? Or perhaps magic?' I ask myself. The beam of light becomes less bright until it reaches the floor. There, a table surrounded by chairs is located. The light reveals that the floor is the same gray color as the floor from the last room. However, there is no way to tell what the floor looks like or is made of between our current location and the illuminated ground. The table and chairs seem to be made of a brown wood. However, the light dyes everything gray. There are also several cups placed on the table. The final distinguishable detail of this room is the older woman sitting at the table. She is facing us at the table while leaning forward. Her elbows are resting on the table as her clasped hands rest against her mouth. She is wearing loose robes with a color that can't be determined due to the stream of light.

"One moment, everybody," I say. I then bend down and touch the floor. I rub it a bit and then check my fingers. After that, I sniff them.

"You're the wary type I see. Well, I can't blame you. However, I assure you that there is nothing to fear. This is my room of the castle. I just want you to come here and have a drink with me."

'This is a trap.'

[Telah. Can you hear me?] – Jin

[Yes.] - Telah

[What do you think?] – Jin

[I think it's a trap. We must be careful.] – Telah

[Agreed.]

"This is too suspicious. Why is the ground completely dark everywhere except for where you're at?" I say to the woman.

"Hahahaha! Isn't it obvious that it's because the light doesn't reach there?"

I stare at her dumbfounded. "Are you really going to take us for fools? The last time I checked, light doesn't create perfect borders with darkness. And, there is no way that a room could be this dark with a fucking stream of light coming in."

The woman smiles and says, "Oh, you're no fun. If you're this afraid of the dark, then you might as well turn run away now. Forget beating me, you won't even get near me."

What she says is true. The only way for us to advance is through this room. Our only alternative is to exit the dungeon. This dungeon is fundamentally designed so that we have to make the aggressive moves.

Gabriel suddenly speaks up, "I... go... first"

"Wait! Gabriel!" I say to him.

"I think its fine. If anything happens to Gabriel, I will heal him," Serena replies nonchalantly.

"Alright. Well, we don't really have a choice. Go ahead then Gabriel," I respond.

Since Gabriel will willingly jump into to lava to see if its trap, darkness must be child's play.

'Who would have thought that this fearlessness would be this useful?'

Gabriel then opens the door all the way and steps into the darkness. He then walks forward to the table in the middle of the room. Surprisingly, even though the area that he is traveling through is engulfed in pitch black darkness, his body is lit as though his body is producing light.

"That's the spirit! Now, right this way. Come have a seat," the woman says while gesturing toward a seat in the middle of the table. Gabriel ignores the request by sitting at the left side of the table.

"No fun. Well, now it's all of your turns," the woman says excitedly.

We follow the same path that Gabriel used and take seats at the table. The table is a rectangular table with plain wooden chairs surrounding it. There are five seats on the side that we are sitting and on the other where the woman is seated.

"Great! Now that we're all here, let's begin by playing a game."

"A game? We just entered this castle and had a fight to the death. And now you want to play game?"

[Wait a moment Jin. There must be catch.] - Telah

"Sheesh. It's just a game. There is no need to be so uptight," the woman retorts.

I grin and respond, "Why should I bother playing this game instead of just killing you right now?"

In response, the woman instantly disappears and my party loses sight of her.

"This is why," a cold, harsh voice whispers into my ear. I slowly shift my eyes downward to see the knife that I can feel slowly rubbing against my throat.

She continues to whisper, "I am much stronger than the others. I highly recommend that you play my game, rather than fight me."

Again, the woman instantly disappears from behind me and reappears on her side of the table.

I rub my throat where the knife was pressed and respond, "You have made your point. Then tell us about the game."

"Hahaha! That's the spirit! This game is simple. I'll fill the cups up with liquid and one of the cups will be poisoned. We will all pick a cup and drink it. The game will continue in rounds until on team remains. My team is me and your team is your party."

"Poison?" Serena replies nervously. "I don't like this."

Telah speaks out, "This game must be rigged. Why would you create a game where we have the higher chance to win? Is your goal to kill a few of us off before we go to the next room? Considering the strength you showed off, that can't be true. Unless that was only a bluff?"

"My my. You're quite the analyst. But, you're got it all wrong. Unfortunately, I'm too powerful in combat. I've yet to meet a person who could survive even one move against me. Thus, I started hosting games instead of fights to give people a chance. If you beat me, then you will get to pass without a fight. It's better to lose a few party members rather than your entire party, right?"

"Wrong. We'll win without even a single person dying," Serena says confidentially.

"I'm with you! Let's win this flawlessly," Wanda responds.

The two of them then perform a double high five.

"Good! Good! And about fairness. That's a matter handled easily. I'll prepare the cups and then you all get to pick the cups that you want to drink. I'll take the remaining cup. This is fair, correct?"

"And how can we be sure that you don't poison them all?" Telah says cautiously.

"Perhaps another exhibition is required?"

"No, that's won't be necessary. I'm certain that if you wanted to kill me, you could have," I say while rubbing my throat again. "Everybody, we're playing her game." I then look at Cassandra and say, "Let's get this started."

"Perfect! Just give me one moment to prepare the drinks. Pardon the darkness."

The lights from above begins to fade after she finishes her response. Within three seconds, the entire area is pitch black. Well, the door into this room is still open and that area is lit. However, none of its light enters this room at all. After about a minute of silence, the light from the skylight begins to appear again.

Cassandra's voice appears from behind us, "Ok! Here we go. I have prepared the drinks. Choose carefully," she says with a mischievous smile.

'She can change the lighting in this room at will? And she did all of that silently? Choosing to play her game was the better choice for sure. Where did she even get water from? I should have at least heard that!'

Cassandra is holding a tray with six cups arranged in a hexagon with one in the middle. She walks from one side of the table to the other while presenting the tray of cups.

"I'll take this middle one," Wanda says while grabbing a cup.

"I guess I'll get this one," I say while getting one from the side.

"I'll take this," Serena says as well.

"I guess this is fine then," Wanda says.

"Me... take... this..."

"And I'm taking this one," Cassandra finishes with. She then instantly vanishes and reappears sitting at the other side of the table. "Well then! Bottoms up!"

She downs her drink instantly. The rest of my party observes the drinks before following suit. I look inside of the cup and see a completely transparent liquid. I sniff it a little and smell nothing abnormal. I even swirl it around my cup a bit to test its viscosity. Since I haven't noticed anything abnormal, I down my drink as well. The taste is completely plain and confirms my beliefs. The liquid is most likely water, and, if there is any poison in the drink, it's undetectable.

"In one minute, the poison will take effect. In just a moment, we will see who the unlucky person is!"

"You say that, but you already know who lost right?" Wanda responds..

"I actually don't! What fun is it if I know? I shuffled the drinks around so that even I'm in the dark. Though, you don't have to believe me. You guys got to pick the cups so it doesn't matter if I am lying or not."

We continue to sit at the table in silence for a while before I probe through the tension, "Is anybody feeling anything yet?"

"Nothing at all. I feel fine," Wanda says.

"Uhhhhg," Serena mumbles. "I'm starting to feel bad."

"Damnit!" I shout while slamming my fist on the table.

'This is not good. We don't have any way to cure poison. And, Serena is our healer!'

"Serena, just try to endure it. If it becomes too bad, then commit suicide. In the worst case, we'll all commit suicide."

Serena becomes visibly more and more pained by the moment. She bends over slightly while covering her stomach with both hands.

"I... I can't take anymore..."

My party can do nothing other than watch. A few more moments pass before an unexpected event occurs.

*pffffffffffffrrrrrrrrrrrrt* *prrrrft* *pft* *prrrrrrrrrrt* *pft*

After Serena's explosive flatulence is released, she slumps over on the table.

"What!?" I respond.

"What the-?" Wanda responds flabbergasted as well.

"Huh?" Even Gabriel is left baffled.

"Hahahhaha! It looks like this little girl is down for the count!" the woman says.

A terrible stench slowly envelopes our surroundings.

"A poison that makes you fart? You can't be serious!" Telah says outraged.

"Hahaha! Who doesn't love a bit of fart humor every now and then?"

"Are you 12?" I retort.

"Why are you so angry? Shouldn't you be happy that it's not a deadly poison?" Cassandra replies mischievously.

'Damnit, she's right.'

My entire party had assumed that we were being served a lethal poison. Who wouldn't? So, the fact that it isn't doing anything worse than cause gas and discomfort can be considered a blessing.

'But, this is stupid.'

This new, awkward mood created by an old lady making people fart is completely incompatible with the serious, tense mood from before.

"Now then. As you can see, this is a poison which causes serious gas. Its aftereffect is temporary paralysis. Your friend should recover in about an hour."

"Well, at least it's not real poison," Telah says.

Wanda sighs in relief and relaxes, "Phew. I was so worried. Ok, let's go to the next round!" she says in a renewed voice.

"Good! See, this child understands," the woman says while standing up. She then teleports behind Serena and holds onto her shoulder. "It's not good to sleep slumped over like this. I'll place her over there," she finishes while pointing.

The spot she is pointing to is a newly lit area to our right. There is really no explanation for how the lighting works. The light exists as though the darkness itself was parted and filled with light. Inside of the bubble of light is a bed. Wanda teleports to the bed, lays Serena down from a princess hold and then teleports back to her side of the table.

"Last, I'll get us some more drinks."

The light fades as it did previously and some time passes. After a short while, the woman appears with a tray of cups behind us.

"I can't wait to see who loses this round!" Cassandra says with a massive grin.

'Oh god. Please make it stop,' I think to myself with an internal facepalm.

We all grab cups of poison which results in Cassandra returning to her seat. The drinks this time are still transparent, however they are colored a light red.

"Is this the same poison? It's red this time," I ask cautiously.

"Who knows? Bottoms up," she says while downing her cup.

"Cheers," Wanda responds while gulping down hers.

Gabriel, Wanda and I drink our cups as well without saying anything more. We don't even bother to inspect the drinks this time.

"Now then. Let's see who the lucky winner is," Cassandra replies.

A few moments pass before Cassandra's face starts to twitch.

"Looks like your poison backfired on you this time," I respond smugly.

Her faces twitches more before she places a hand over her face. After a few more moments, she turns her head to the side, and begins to vomit.

"AHHHH!" Wanda screams out loud at the sight.

"Nasty," Gabriel responds.

Telah and I watch in silence. After a few more moments, she finishes vomiting.

"Well that was fun," she states casually.

I look directly at her and say, "Sure. Anyway, see you later. Good game, well played."

"Hahaha, you wish. This game isn't over yet."

"It's not over? You just drank the poison, so you lost," I respond disinterestedly.

"This is a game where the last team standing wins. My team is still ready to continue playing, so there is no winner."

"You have to be joking. Are you really taking that statement literally?"

"Of course I'm interpreting it literally. Why wouldn't I?"

"I see. So this was your plan," Telah replies.

"So you think you have it all figured out Mr. Analyst? Well, I'd be more than happy to hear your thoughts."

"Sure. On the surface, this game clearly favors us. We have five party members so we get five chances to win. Our chance of winning is one sixth plus one fifth plus one fourth plus one third plus one half. Unfortunately, I can't solve that in my head. But, that's obviously much higher than your chance to win. In order to counter that, we're drinking the poisons that you made. You have some resistance to the poisons, so you can afford to lose some rounds. Depending on your resistance, you might not even have a chance of losing at all.

"Hahaha! Well done. Indeed. That's basically how this game works."

"What the hell then! If we can't win, then what is the point?" I respond

[Calm down Jin. Don't lose your head.] - Telah

"That's a good question. I'll only say this. I don't host unwinnable games," Cassandra says while smiling. "Anyway, that's enough chatter for now. Let's go to the next round."

The lights dim in their usual fashion and the room becomes dark.

[What do we do Telah?] - Jin

[Honestly, I don't know. If the game goes on like this, there is no chance for us to win. We need to break this cycle.]

[Can you ask Wanda? Maybe she will have an idea.]

[Ok. One moment.]

There are a few more moments of silence before the lights come back on. Cassandra is standing behind us with cups like before.

"Please choose your drink," Cassandra says with her usual smiling face.

We all reach out to take cups as she walks by each of us. The cups contain a light blue fluid. However, this drink is noticeably non-transparent. My initial thought on the drink is that it is going to be more potent than the last one. We currently don't know what the last poison was supposed to do. However, since it made Cassandra vomit, especially when she likely has some poison resistance, it was likely worse than the first. Also, the drinks are becoming less and less transparent.

"Here we go!" Cassandra says while drinking hers.

"Oh god no," I murmur and hesitate for a moment before drinking mine. The rest of my party must be having thoughts similar to mine, considering the silence. After a few seconds, everybody reluctantly drinks their drink.

A few moment pass before a new reaction occurs.

"Ughhh," Gabriel grumbles while holding his stomach with one hand.

"Oh my. This should be good," Cassandra says while leaning forward. Her arms are resting on the table and her clasped hands are holding up her chin.

"Are you ok Gabriel?" Wanda says worriedly.

Some more time passes with Gabriel looking more and more disturbed, before...

*Buuuuuuurp*

Gabriel lets out a single loud burp.

"What!?" Cassandra says stupefied.

"Hahahahaha," Wanda begins to laugh uncontrollably.

"Hell yeah. That's my boy. GABRIEL!" I cheer for him.

Gabriel then stands up and pounds his fist on his chest. The sound of metal on metal creates a loud clank.

"Me... strong," Gabriel announces proudly.

"Damnit. That's no fun. NEXT ROUND!" Cassandra says and the lights begin to fade.

"WAIT WAIT WAIT!" Wanda replies hurriedly.

The lights stop fading and Cassandra responds impatiently, "Yes? Make it quick."

Wanda continues, "I was just thinking. This game is fun and all. But won't it take forever? In fact, Serena will probably wake up before we lose, giving us another member. And, you see how Gabriel handled that round. At this rate, nobody will be down long enough for the game to end."

"That girl's situation is already factored into the game. However, Gabriel, as you call him, is a bit out of my calculations. But, I do have some countermeasures in place. Regardless, I'm interested in hearing what you have to say. Go on," she says.

"I can tell that you are a great game host and you have planned this all out. In fact, I'm having a blast! But, what if we change up the rules a bit and perform a sudden death match?"

"A sudden death match?"

"Yes. We will go directly to a one versus one match with you. In this scenario, the non-participants will prepare the cups of poison for the participants."

"Interesting. Let me think for a moment."

Cassandra closes her eyes and thinks about what to do. She then opens her eyes and says, "That is a very good idea. I like it! However, I need to lay down some rules. The people preparing the poison will mix it in the darkness of this room. This is so that they can't send signals to the participant. When they finish, I will get the cups from them and serve."

"That won't work. I already know that you can see in the darkness somehow. It would be fairer if the cups are prepared in Rortus's room," Telah responds.

Cassandra relaxes and says, "Hahahaha. Fair point. Well then, they can mix the poison in Rortus's room. However, they can't enter this room until there is a winner. This obviously means that I will still retrieve the cups. My last conditions are that I want to supply the poison used, and I want to pick first when the poison is served."

Telah scrunches his face, "I propose that we leave who picks first to a coin flip. Everything should be random. That is the only way to make this fair."

"Hmm. I guess that's fine. Once I bring the drinks back, my opponent will provide a coin and I will flip it. Or, we can do the reverse. I don't mind either way."

"Jin will be your opponent and he will provide the coin," Telah responds instantly.

"What? Me?"

"Yes. You. You're the party leader right?"

"But, wouldn't it make more sense to have Gabriel go. I mean, he burped at the last poison."

Cassandra interrupts with an evil smile, "Hahaha. That won't matter. This next poison will work on anybody."

"Ugh, ok fine. I'll battle her."

[What are you thinking Telah?]

[Don't worry. I have a plan.]

"Alright then. Let's go to Rortus's room," Cassandra says.

Cassandra and my three party members walk out of the room into Rortus's area.

... _In another place..._

"Here are the cups, poison and drink. I will watch you prepare the cups. Then you can shuffle them without me looking and I will take them back," Cassandra states.

"That's fine," I respond.

The drink and poison that Cassandra has prepared are stored in glass containers. The drink is a bright red fluid stored in a pitcher. Meanwhile, the poison has the same appearance and is stored in a small vial.

'Jin is trusting me to win this game for him. This is my only chance.'

[Are you sure that Jin can win like this Telah?] – Wanda

[I don't know. However, this is our best chance for victory. If we lose this gamble, then the best case is that we will fail a part of our quest. However, in the worst case, we lose our party leader.] - Telah

"Well then, begin preparing the cups," Cassandra says impatiently.

"Of course."

With the materials provided, I begin to prepare the cups. My goal is to make the poisoned cup distinguishable from the non-poisoned cup. Ideally I will mark the cup somehow. But, with the poison having exactly the same appearance as the regular drink, that will be hard. Though, I do have some ideas.

First, I pour an even amount of the base drink into the two cups. The drink has a higher viscosity than water and pours out somewhat slowly.

"This is a lot thicker than the last drinks. I wonder what this poison does?" Telah asks indirectly while slowly glancing at Cassandra.

"This is a special poison that will have fun results," Cassandra replies with a mischievous smile.

"Interesting," I reply.

'She is still not going to give any details on the poisons effects. Unfortunate.'

After the drinks are filled up, I pick up the glass phial and pour it into one of the cups. With a spoon that is also on the tray, I stir the poisoned drink.

"Ok, turn around and I will mix up the cups."

Cassandra complies and turns around. She also covers her eyes with her hands for added effect. I then shuffle the two cups around a few times. I even move myself to block Cassandra's line of sight for safety.

"Alright, I'm finished."

Cassandra turns back around and responds, "Great! As per the terms, wait here while I have my match with Jin."

"Alright."

Cassandra then picks up the tray of two cups and walks out of the room.

"Will... Jin... Win?" Gabriel asks.

"Maybe. We'll just have to hope on this one," I reply.

... _In another place..._

'I hope they finish up soon.'

Just as I finish that thought, a voice enters my mind.

[Jin?] – Telah

[Yes. What is it Telah?] – Jin

[It's about the match. I did the best that I could to give you a chance to win. The poisoned cup has less liquid than the non-poisoned cup. It's a very small difference. However, you will win if you can notice it.]

[Alright. Thanks.]

Just as we finish our conversation, I hear the sound of footsteps behind me. I turn around at the table to see Cassandra walking toward me in a bubble of light.

"The preparations are complete," she says while sitting on her side of the table. She then sets the tray down in the middle of the table and continues, "Now give me a coin to flip."

I open up my inventory to get a single gold coin while observing the drinks. Unfortunately, I immediately realize that Telah's plan has failed. He said that there should be a small difference in the amount of liquid in each cup. But, each cup has the exact same amount of liquid. Cassandra must have evened out the amount of liquid in the cups before bring them over. Under these conditions, there is no way to identify which cup is safe.

After acquiring a gold coin, I hand it over to Cassandra. She then examines the coin before saying, "This side is tails." She then flips the coin to its other side that has Eden's face embossed on it, "This side is head."

"That's fine," I reply.

"Then here we go."

Cassandra puts the coin on top of her thumb and forefinger and flips the coin into the air. The coin rises high before quickly falling down. Before the coin can hit the table, Cassandra catches it and slams it onto the back of her other hand.

"What's your call?" she asks.

"Heads," I responds.

She then takes her top hand off of the coin and reveals its state.

"Congratulations. It's heads. Pick the cup that you want."

"Alright. Then I'll take this one," I say while taking the cup closest to me.

"Really? Interesting. Then I'll take the other of course."

We both hold our cups in front of us while looking at each other.

"Bottoms up," I say.

"Cheers," Cassandra replies.

We both simultaneously drink the thick liquid from our cups. After finishing, we put our empty cups back on the tray. We then sit in silence while staring directly at each other.

'How did we get into a staring contest? But, I can't back down now. No. Never. I need to show my strength.'

We continue to stare at each other unblinkingly for a while longer. Eventually, Cassandra's right eye begins to twitch.

"Damnit. You won the coin flip and didn't choose the poison? How lucky can you be?"

"I won? Really? Awesome!"

I suddenly relax after hearing her words. Meanwhile, Cassandra's eyes close as her face twitches involuntarily. She bends over and covers her stomach for a while. After a few more moments, she falls off of her chair onto the ground. She curls into a ball while moaning gently in pain.

"Hey? Are you going to be alright? What the hell does that poison do?"

"It's fine... Ahhh! No... it's just... ahhh," she says while rolling around left and right. Eventually, she freezes in place completely.

I walk over to her and tug her shirt from the side, "Hey! Cassandra! What's going on!"

Cassandra responds by lazily rolling over and looking me directly into my eyes.

"Jin...," she whispers softly.

"C... Cassandra?"

"Jin. No... master."

"CASSANDRA!?" I say while stepping back.

"Master. I, need you," she says slowly while getting up.

"Woah! Slow down there. I am not your master!"

'What the hell is this development? First there were the fart jokes and now this? What the fuck!'

"The poison was a potion of love and enslavement. Now I must serve you for 24 hours. No, that's just a formal description. Now that I feel this way, I want to server you forever. But, first," Cassanda trails off playfully.

"No! No you don't! I'm saying right now that you do not have to do that!"

"But... I must...," Cassandra says in desperation.

"Wait! But, you can ju--," I attempt to respond. However, I'm cut off. Cassandra performs her teleportation move and wraps herself around me from behind.

"Cassandra! Please wait a moment."

"No more waiting," she says while pulling me out of my seat to a newly illuminated bed.

"Wait a second. Please! I'm married," I respond desperately.

"No more waiting," Cassandra says playfully while pushing me down onto the bed.

'Wait a second.'

[Telah! Can you hear me?] - Jin

["Yes Jin. You're still alive. Did you win?] \- Telah

'Thank Eden! His Team Chat ability activates when I consciously attempt to contact him.'

[I need you guys to... AGH!]

[Jin!? JIN!?]

The communication between us ends as Cassandra starts to undress me. I'm a mage with extremely low strength. Thus, it's almost impossible for me to resist Cassandra's actions.

'Am I really about to be raped by this woman? Fuck everything!'

Before Cassandra can get much further, the sound of running can be heard.

"Hmm. You called your friends, didn't you?" Cassandra says annoyed.

I then put on a fake expression of confusion and respond, "What? How would I do that? They are in the other room."

"Master. You are so naughty for trying to trick me. I will have to punish you," Cassandra replies playfully. In an instant, the area that Cassandra and I are in becomes dark. This results in the footsteps stopping.

"Now they won't be able to find us," Cassandra whispers sexily into my ear.

"JIN!"

"JIN!"

"JIN!"

The sound of Wanda, Telah and Gabriel screaming can be heard nearby.

"OVER HE--," before I can continue, my mouth is covered by something. A wet sensation presses against my lips as a warm object pushes itself into my mouth. Cassandra continues to forcibly kiss me while pulling apart my robe. The fact that my robe naturally splits apart in the middle has become a major disadvantage!

"MMMM. MMMPH. MMMMMPH"

I try to scream out, but my voice is muffled. Cassandra continues to violently kiss me by shoving her tongue deep into my mouth. After a short while, she begins to rub herself on my unrobed body.

"Found you!" Telah suddenly says from the side.

Cassandra then gently pulls her lips off of mine and relights the area.

"Ugh. What do you want? Can't you see that master and I need time alone," Cassandra replies angrily. Her now visible appearance reveals that she has taken off her robe and is wearing only her bra and underwear. However, she is an old lady with gray hair and wrinkles. Additionally, her appearance is not particularly appealing.

'But, she does have good kissing skills.'

"Can you get off of me please? If I'm your master, then you have to follow my orders, right?"

Cassandra looks at me directly into my eyes and presses her body's weight against me.

"Does that mean that you accept your position as my master?"

"Yes! Fine! Whatever! Just get off of me!"

"Yay! Master approves of me," Cassandra says while getting off of me. Next, she sits by my feet and begins to hug my right foot.

Ignoring that, I look at Telah and say, "Please don't tell Serena about this." I then look at Wanda and Gabriel while telling them the exact same line.

"That's no problem," Telah responds. "But, what do we do about her?"

"This situation can't be helped. We will try to ignore Cassandra as best as we can."

"Oh boo. Master is so unfair," Cassandra replies.

"I'm not even convinced that you're really under the effects of the poison you described," I look at her and reply. "But, that's not important. The bigger issue is that we can't complete our quests like this."

"Yeah. This is a pretty big issue. Aren't dungeons supposed to start off biased toward good? No matter how you look at it, these quests seem biased toward evil. Rortus and now Cassandra don't seem like evil people," Wanda states.

"You're right. I don't know if it's right to say that we were lucky or unlucky with Rortus's death. However, at the very least, I can say that there is no way that we can kill Cassandra under these circumstances."

"Master. As much as it pains me to say," Cassandra says softly while looking down. "If you command me to, then I will kill myself."

"Cassandra!" I shout. Cassandra even looks up at me in shock at what I said. "Don't say such things."

'I have to remove that idea from her mind immediately. Ignoring how Serena would react, I don't think my conscious would be able to handle it.'

"MASTER!" Cassandra screams happily. She then jumps up into my arms and pins me back down onto the bed. She whispers softly, "I didn't know your feelings were so strong. Allow me to properly respond to them."

I attempt to resist while hearing the sound of footsteps approaching. I freeze in place and look to my side.

"Jin," Serena says as her voice permeates the atmosphere. There is not a hint of friendliness in her tone.

"Serena!" I say panicked. "It's not what it looks like!"

"Ah, yes. Serena. Good morning," Cassandra says. She then licks her lips and gives me another kiss on the lips while staring at Serena.

"What are you doing to my husband! You... You man stealer!" Serena says.

"Unfortunately for you, Jin has decided that he wants a real woman in his life. A little kid like you has no right to interfere."

'Ok, I've let this go on long enough. Enough is enough.'

I put on my most serious face and say in my most serious tone, "Cassandra."

"Yes honey?" she replies with a bright expression.

"Get off of me right now."

"What? But--"

"Now."

Cassandra pouts as she gets off of me. I then stand up and fix my robe.

"Serena, this is just a misunderstanding," I plead.

"Oh really? Fine," she says with a stoic expression.

I facepalm and say, "I'm glad that you're awake and doing well. Welcome back."

"Welcome... back..." Gabriel responds.

Serena instantly cheers up and responds to Gabriel in a happy voice, "Thanks Gabriel! I appreciate it." She then becomes completely expressionless once more and looks at me.

"Thanks."

'Everything is not fine!'

"I promise to make it up to you later Serena! But, for now, let's please finish up the dungeon."

"You promise?" she says cautiously.

"Yes. I'll do one thing for you after we finish up the dungeon. Anything that you want!"

Serena's expression instantly cheers up, "Deal!"

'I hate making ambiguous promises like that. But, I'm ready to finish up this dungeon.'

"Anyway, let's continue from where we were before," Telah says. "We can't kill Cassandra. If the same thing happens with the next person, what do we do?"

"Why don't we ask Cassandra? Can't she help us with the next two people?" Wanda responds.

I look at Cassandra and ask, "Cassandra?"

"Well, I think I understand most of the situation from what you guys have said. It sounds like you guys are on a mission to kill everybody in this castle. However, you guys won't kill people unless they are evil, correct?"

"That's right," Serena says firmly.

"Can you guys tell me why you are all even here? Most of the people who invade this castle come to take it over. However, you guys are only here to kill us? Did somebody hire you? Perhaps you were misled into thinking we are evil."

I respond, "We can't go into the details too much. However, our quest is to kill Rortus, Cassandra, Pleabus and Felicia. We have no interest in taking over this castle."

"You only want to kill us four? Nobody named Samuel is included on your list?"

"Samuel?"

"Yes. That's strange. Well, anyway, that's not important right now. What is important is your quest. If you guys do not kill evil people, then you might as well end your quest now. The only reason that we inhabit this castle is because it was empty and it's a nice place to live. Initially, this castle was sealed with powerful sealing magic. However, ever since Felicia managed to break the seal, many nearby kingdoms have tried to take it over. Thus, we regularly have to defend this castle against invading forces."

"Wait. So doesn't that make us the bad guys then?" Wanda says.

"From our perspective, yes," Cassandra responds.

"Damnit. I quit then! Let's leave," Serena says.

"Wait Serena! Cassandra, would it be possible for you to introduce us to the other people in this castle? We no longer want to fight. However, I'd like to judge them for myself."

"That's not a problem," a voice calls out from the side.

"Ahh! Felecia," Cassandra says happily. Cassandra's entire area begins to light up after saying that. The abnormal darkness is pushed away as the gray stone interior is revealed.

"I am already aware of the situation. Cassandra, you are foolish for losing at your own game. But, to get poisoned like that? You're insane." Felicia states.

Felicia is a mage wearing thick blue robes. She has a blue mage's hat with a large brim and a pointy tip. The staff that she is using is a long silver shaft with an ornament at the top. There is one silver ring slowly rotating around a sphere of white energy. Her blue robes and hat also have thin yellow trims along the edges.

"So you say. But, I won a wonderful master!"

Felicia shakes her head and looks at me, "You're the leader correct? The others will be coming here shortly. In the meantime, let's talk."

"Where to start. Hm." I mumble.

"There is one thing bugging me. We killed Rortus. Why aren't you guys mad?" Telah asks.

In response, a familiar voice speaks out, "I guess this is the time that I show up again. Hello everybody."

"Rortus!?" Serena says in shock.

"Haha, yes it's me."

Rortus walks in from a door on the opposite of the room relative to the door to his room. His arm has been cut off and the stub is wrapped in bandages.

"As you can see, I didn't die. However, I did lose my arm."

Just as he finishes his line, a new person enters the room. The man performs multiple mid-air backflips before landing nearby. He is wearing light clothes composed of a short sleeved shirt and pants. The shirt is green and the pants are brown. His lean, muscular build is clearly visible from his light shirt. Additionally, another man enters the room after him. This man is visibly aged and has moles, wrinkles and individual hairs scattered about his face. His hair is a mix of white and gray and is standing up straight. However, his build and outfit completely contrasts those features. This man is extremely muscular and visibly bulky. Additionally, he is wearing multi-colored patchwork clothes for his shirt and pants. As a final touch, he is holding a steaming potion that is slowly transitioning from red to purple to blue and then back again repeatedly.

I continue speaking to Rortus, "Do you hold a grudge because we caused you to lose your arm?"

"He shouldn't," Cassandra interrupts. "Originally, I was supposed to be the initial defense since I'm the strongest. Then, everybody else would fight in a group if I somehow managed to lose. But, Rortus said that he wanted to be solo like me. His pride won't let him get shown up by a woman."

Rortus retorts, "You're damn right. Even if you are stronger than me, my pride as a man won't let me back down."

The old man speaks up, "Rortus, your pride is foolish. With one of my potions, you could have easily crushed all of them."

"I don't need any of your stinking potions! I may have lost my arm, but I kept my pride!"

Felecia shakes her head and looks at me, "So, now that you know about our situation. What do you plan to do?"

I put one hand on my chin and think. After a moment, I respond, "It's already decided that we don't want to fight you. But, I don't know what to do. Our mission is to kill four of you to clear out this castle."

"And you can't give us any details on who sent you, right?"

Telah responds, "That's right. But, how do you know that? In fact, I've been wondering for a while how you all seem to know what is going on in this room, without actually being in here. It's like you guys have eyes all over this castle."

"Isn't it obvious? I'm a mage who can perform scrying. Since you're in our castle, I can easily watch everything going on anywhere in the castle."

"That was one of my suspicions. But, I needed to confirm it."

"That's fine and all, but you guys still haven't said what you plan to do. If your party no longer has any business here, then please leave."

"What? If Jin is leaving then I'm leaving too!" Cassandra says worried.

The old man responds, "Shut up and drink this you fool."

He throws a small glass vial at Cassandra who catches it.

"Is this the antidote?" Cassandra inquires.

"Yes," he responds.

Cassandra then takes the vial and throws it at the ground. This causes it to shatter into an uncountable number of piece, thus scattering glass and brown liquid everywhere.

"I won't leave my honey's side!" she responds defiantly.

The old man throw his hands up in the air, "Do you know how hard that potion was to make? Fuck it. I'm out of here." He says angrily while turning to leave.

"That's rare to see Samuel so angry," the acrobatic man in green responds.

"Yes, yes. We keep getting thrown off-topic. No more shenanigans! No more tricks! No more distractions." She then looks directly at me. "Jin. What will you do!" Felicia asks angrily.

"Sheesh. There is no need to get so mad Felicia," Cassandra says.

"Shush you!"

"Give me one second," I say while pulling up my quest log.

The log is the same as before and states that we need to kill four people. If I take the quest description literally, clearing out the castle can be seen as the overall goal. And, killing the people are just steps to achieve that goal. If we manage to achieve the overall goal without killing these people, perhaps we can achieve success.

I ask shyly to Felicia, "Is there any way that we can get you guys to leave the castle?"

"Of course there is. In fact, there are many ways. Give me 100,000 gold coins and you can have this castle."

"What? That's too unreasonable!"

"No. The request for us to leave in the first place is unreasonable. We went through a lot of work to claim this castle. We won't give it up easily."

"But, you guys are constantly getting invaded right? Wouldn't it be nice to live somewhere more peaceful?"

"We already knew what we were getting ourselves into when we entered this castle."

"Maybe there is something else that you want besides money?"

"Do you have any incredibly powerful items for trade?" Felicia inquires flatly as though she knows that we don't.

"Telah, back me up here!" I say desperately.

Telah speaks up, "Excuse us for one moment. We need to have a small team meeting."

"Make it quick," Felicia replies impatiently.

My party then walks to a corner of the room and huddles up.

"Cassandra! What are you doing here?" I ask angrily.

"I'm here to help my master," she replies innocently.

"Go away," I reply.

'Regardless of what her alliance appears to be, we can't trust her.'

"Nooo, I promise that I just want to help," Cassandra says.

"Just ignore her," Telah says. "We need to focus on what to do."

"Well then, what does everybody think?" Wanda asks.

"I guess we have to leave," Serena says.

"I disagree. We've already spent so much time here. If we leave now, it's like all of this time will have gone to waste," Telah says.

"What are you saying? Are you saying that we should fight and kill them?"

"Yes. Those are the main quest objectives. Remember, quest objectives are always biased toward good. And, for all that we know, these people may still be evil."

"Then let's settle this right now. Cassandra, have you or anybody else in this castle done any significant evil deeds? Be brief."

'This is an opportunity to test the effects of the potion. She could be pretending to be under the effects of the potion and still lie to us. However, if she tells us that everybody has a criminal background, then there is a good chance that she really is under the effects of the potion."

"Unfortunately, I can't defy my master. We have all done something terrible which has caused us to be exiled. Personally, I am a very powerful Light Assassin who has killed many high ranking individuals in Ulram."

"Ulram?" I ask.

"It's a nearby kingdom."

"Well, that matter was settled easily then. Serena, can you still defend them now?" Telah asks confidentially.

"Yes. They do not seem like bad people. I won't help you guys kill them."

"And, Jin? What do you say?"

"As much as I hate to say it, even if we wanted to fight them, we'd probably lose. Well, Cassandra could tip the scales. However, I can't put my faith in such an unknown variable."

"What? After everything I told you, you're still going to act that way?" Cassandra says disappointedly.

"Can you blame me?

"Hmph," she says with a pout.

'This old woman is becoming more and more childish by the moment.'

"Wanda, what do you think?" I ask.

"I agree with not killing them. But, I don't think we should give up trying to get them to leave."

"Finally, Gabriel?"

"Me... want... fight...." He says slowly.

"And, Telah, you want to kill them, correct?"

"Yes."

"Alright. The consensus is to not kill them. But, we can still look for ways to clear out this castle. Any ideas?"

"Make... drink... poison," Gabriel says.

"Make drink poison? You mean you want them to drink poisons?" I ask.

He hurriedly nods and then points at Cassandra while performing a drinking animation with his other hand.

"That's a really interesting idea. I assume you're saying that we should use the love potions. But, can we really pull that shit off?"

Cassandra suddenly pushes herself into the middle of our group and says, "I can take care of it."

"Really? How?"

"I can give the love potion to everybody and they will be put under my control. Well, except for Samuel. He's the crazy alchemist that made the potion in the first place. I'm pretty sure that he is completely immune to all poisons. But, having four people under your control should be more than enough for you to advance your plans right?"

"Wow! That's great. Let's do that," Serena says eagerly.

Cassandra then closes her eyes while a big smile forms on her mouth. She then opens up one eye and looks at me innocently.

"Well, I can do it. But, I have a condition," she says.

"A condition?" I ask warily.

"Yes."

"And that is...?"

"I will do it if Jin gets me pregnant."

"WHAT!?" Serena and Wanda shout in unison. Even Telah puts on a visibly surprised expression.

"Cassandra! What are you talking about? You're under the effects of a potion for the day. Should you really be making such a large decision while drugged?"

"I'll be honest. Even before I took the potion, I was infatuated with you. The potion only made my feelings for you deeper. You're a young man with a lot of potential who leads his party courageously. I've decided. I want you to be the father of my child."

'Woah, I'm having De Ja Vu.'

"I'm engaged to Serena. You know that I can't do this, right?"

"Oh really? You two are only engaged? You said that you were married before, so this is even better. Having my child should be fine, right?"

"Are you crazy? She is the love of my life. Is that really the only way that you will help us?

Serena starts to blush a deep red. Wanda notices and nudges her on the shoulder with her own.

"It is the only way," Cassandra responds adamantly.

"What if I command you as your master?"

"I will do it. However, I promise that I will kill myself once this potions effect ends."

"Don't you want to do this for me out of the goodness of your heart? Because you love me?"

"It's because I love you so much that I have this condition. I want you so much that it hurts. The fact that I almost had you, but didn't quite, made me realize how much more I want you."

"Serena?" I say while looking at her.

"What? Don't look at me for answers," Serena responds angrily.

"Perhaps we can compromise?" I say while looking back at Cassandra.

"Compromise? I'm listening."

I then move over and whisper in her ear, "If I give you my semen, is that good enough?"

"Well, that's not as fun. But, fine. I guess that works as well." Cassandra replies.

"Hey! What did you say?" Serena asks.

"Nothing that a little kid like you would understand," Cassandra teases.

"Don't let her get to you. We just made a little deal."

"What kind of deal? Why are you keeping it a secret?"

"I promise that I will tell you later and make it up to you. You can chew me out as much as you want. But, for now, please, let's just focus on this dungeon."

Serena's expression becomes cold again, "Fine."

In contrast, Cassandra claps her hands and guides me to a room off to the side of the current room. Inside is a bathroom with a wooden stool by the sink. She then hands me a small glass container.

"When you finish, just leave the container on the sink. I'll take care of the poisoning while you work here. Good luck!" she says while winking and leaving the room.

'How did things come to this,' I think to myself while closing my eyes. I decide to get off of the stool and sit down on the floor while leaning against the wall. With one hand gently rubbing against my cock, I think about my previous sexual encounters. Most notably, I remember my time with Marie. She was surprisingly experienced and we had a great time together. However, every now and then, the image of Serena starting to strip her clothes off in the Jul Inn flashes in my mind.

'Why am I thinking about that? Focus Focus Focus! Marie! Hot Naked Body! Remember!'

I continue my struggle until I climax, thus shooting a decent amount of cum into the container.

'I guess this is good enough.'

I put the container onto the flat top of the sink. After, I clean up a bit by washing myself off with the sink and drying off with a nearby towel. I then step out of the bathroom and rejoin my party.

"So, how is it going?" I casually inquire.

"Good." Serena says with her extremely cold expression.

"Cassandra seems to have already been successful with Felicia and Pleabus. Those are the mage and man in green respectively. However, she's trying to poison Samual, the crazy alchemist, for the hell of it. She doubts that she will be successful. But, she's going to try."

"That's incredible. How is she doing all of this?"

"Well, like she said before you left, she is a Light Assassin. So, she's able to manipulate light very well. This allows her to become invisible and create illusions. All of the times that we thought that she was teleporting were caused by her manipulation of light," Telah responds.

"Yeah. She's actually not that strong physically. However, she is able to appear, disappear and create illusions at will. This makes her very tricky. Chances are high that we would never have been able to touch her in a real fight," Wanda continues.

"Ok. And, where are the two people that she already poisoned?"

"They are with her and helping to poison Samuel. We're just waiting here until she finishes."

"I see."

We then sit in silence while I attempt to avoid Serena's harsh stare. After a while, we hear footsteps approach us.

"Jin! I did it!" Cassandra says eagerly.

I approach Cassandra and respond, "Really? That's great!"

"Yup! I can hardly believe it myself."

As soon as I get close to her, she stabs me in the stomach with a knife.

"What," I say in disbelief.

"Sorry. But, our game ends here," Cassandra says.

'Damnit,' I think as Cassandra pulls her knife out of me. I was just stabbed in the stomach. But, strangely, I feel fine. I move my hand over the location that I was stabbed and feel the wound. There is definitely a large hole where she stabbed me. I touch the wound some more and can even feel inside of myself.

"Hahaha. You fools. To think that you would be so careless," Samuel says.

"How? Isn't she under the effects of the love potion!?" Wanda says.

"Unfortunately for you, Samuel injected me with an antidote when I attempted to poison him."

"Restore Li--" Serena attempts to say. However, she is interrupted by an arrow hitting her shoulder.

"We can't have you healing anybody, now can we?" Pleabus says.

'This is the worst case situation. A five versus five with Cassandra on their side. We have no chance of victory.'

"RETREAT!" I shout.

My party instantly turns to leave the room. However, the exit is blocked by Rortus and Felicia.

"No hard feelings. But, this is payback for my arm."

"Wanda, summons! Gabriel, formation! Serena, get in the middle. Telah, get back."

We attempt to get into position, but a glass container is thrown at us. Once it makes contact with the ground, it explodes into a burst of flames.

"AHHHH! I'M ON FIRE!"

"THE FLAMES!!! AHHH!"

"WHAT THE FUCK"

"OWWWHHHH"

The flames cover our bodies completely, causing our faces and bodies to burn. This immediately thwarts all of our attempts to assume a formation. Even Gabriel, who is normally unperturbable, is struggling to deal with the fire. In the corner of my vision, I see the mage Felicia chanting a spell under her breath. When she finishes, she raises both of her hands into the air. The result is that the flames on and around us becoming several magnitudes stronger. Telah collapses immediately from the strengthened flames. Meanwhile, Wanda and Serena fall down and roll around in a panic. However, this doesn't work and they eventually stop moving. I'm the fourth person to stop moving as I flail on the ground.

"Damn you," I squeeze out with my last bit of breath.

I can still see Gabriel struggling against the fire as my last bit of health drains away.

'He won't last much longer either.'

My eyes quickly close until they shut completely. But, suddenly, I feel completely fine and open my eyes again. I'm inside of a plain, gray room with a similar appearance to the one that I entered for the intimacy advancement with Serena. The only difference is that the rest of my party is in here. In front of each of us is a FW that has two options.

\----------------------------------------------

[Death]

You have died! Would you like to clear the dungeon now?

[Yes] / [No]

\----------------------------------------------

"Did we really just burn to death?" Wanda ask in a low morbid tone. She is sitting down in the corner of the room with her head on her knees. Her hands are also wrapped around her legs that are folded against her chest.

"Yes," Telah replies angrily.

Telah and Serena are both sitting on the floor while wearing angry and morbid expressions respectively.

Suddenly, Gabriel appears next to me in the room.

"Our loss is my fault. I got too caught up in the dungeon's scenario and let down my guard. Damnit."

"No! Jin, it's not your fault. We're a party. We must all share the blame. Right?" Serena quickly replies.

"I... sorry," Gabriel says.

"It's fine. We're a party so you shouldn't blame yourself," Wanda also replies.

Telah says, "I'm angry. I'm very angry! But, honestly, our loss couldn't be helped. We started off with being very careful. But, we slowly let down our guard. Even our plan of fighting them one by one fell apart."

"Yeah," I respond sadly.

"Listen. I know better than anybody how useless I was in the dungeon. And it sucks to call out everybody's flaws. But, we need to objectively analyze this experience so that we don't repeat it in the future," Telah says flat out.

"You're right," I respond again.

"Yes," Serena says while looking down.

"Good. I'll start things off. First, Serena, you are too concerned about the well-being of our enemies."

"WHAT? You're going to say that to me now of all times?"

"Please don't take it personally. However, if we had finished off Rortus at the start, we could have looted a weapon and reduced the number of people that we had to fight in the end."

"But, we didn't know if he was evil or not."

"That's why I am saying that you are too concerned with morality. I'm aware of your status as an Angel-Cat. However, based on the information that we had, we should have assumed that he was evil. Leaving him alive was a mistake."

"That's enough," I interrupt coldly. "If we're pointing out mistakes, how did you and Wanda miss Rortus missing from the room when you were mixing the poison?"

"At the time, his dead body was there," Wanda replies hurriedly.

"We were once again deceived by Cassandra. She must have created an illusion of his dead body being there to fool us."

"Damnit. Ok, how about this. Instead of pointing out the flaws of others, let's point out our own flaws. My mistake was to lose focus of our goal. I needed to be more decisive."

"But, we already said that it's fine," Wanda hurried interrupts.

"No. That was his flaw. He's the party leader so he has to maintain control over the situation," Telah retorts. "He definitely failed as a party leader.

"But..."

"Wanda," I interrupt. "It's fine. This is my mistake. Let me learn from it so that I can be a better party leader in the future."

'Now that I think about my deal with Cassandra, I realize how stupid I was. I was completely distracted and split from my party effortlessly. So many bad things could have happened even then. I need to focus in the future.'

"Well, if you say so," Wanda says softly. "Then, I'll continue. My mistake was to not have my summons up at the start."

"That doesn't count," Serena says hastily. "You quickly fixed that problem. You didn't make any major mistakes." She then looks at Gabriel and continues, "And Gabriel. We wouldn't have even beat Rortus if not for you. Thank you for stopping him when he was targeting me."

Gabriel blushes a bit and replies, "Shucks."

Telah speaks up, "I do agree that Wanda doesn't have any major issues at the moment. However, we do have an issue with Gabriel. I can talk with him telepathically. However, he can't reply."

"Right. The low intelligence issue," I respond pessimistically. I then turn to Gabriel and ask, "We need to make this a priority. Gabriel, when you level up, you have to put points into Intelligence. Ok? "

I then look at Telah and say, "and Telah, you didn't really make any mistakes. But, your low combat ability is your weakness. Please stay in touch with everybody through telepathic communication. But, most importantly, ensure that you coordinate plans with me frequently."

"Ok," he says with a determined expression.

Wanda asks, "So, what do we do with this dungeon? Do we try again tomorrow? Or, should we clear it now."

Telah responds, "Honestly, we should give it up. Aside from Gabriel, they are all much stronger than us individually, so our only chance would be to fight them one by one. But, our element of surprise is gone. We gave them so much time to prepare already, and they would likely be even more prepared next time."

"How about this. Let's hold a split vote. Gabriel, Serena, Wanda and Telah will all vote. In the event that there is a tie, I will make the deciding vote."

"That's a good idea," Telah responds. Serena, Wanda and Gabriel consent similarly.

"Then, it's decided. On the count of three raise your hand. If you want to try again then raise a hand. If you want to clear the dungeon, then don't. Three... Two... One..."

Nobody raises their hands. But, Gabriel has an appearance of confusion, as opposed to one where he is making a well rationalized decision.

"Gabriel?" I ask.

"What... do?" he asks back.

"Do you want to try the dungeon again or clear it, Gabriel?" Serena asks him gently.

"Try... again," he says decisively.

"Ok. Thank you for voting. We have three votes in favor of leaving and one vote in favor of staying. Unfortunately, Gabriel, this means that we will be clearing the dungeon."

"Aww."

"Cheer up Gabriel. We are going to enter a new dungeon and try again," Wanda says.

"Right. Next time we'll be even more prepared. This was a learning experience," I say confidentially.

"O...k," Gabriel replies.

"Then, I'll see you all in the victory room," Wanda says while hitting the clear button on her FW.

I then hit the button as well followed by the rest of my party. This results in us being transported into the victory room.

"No chests," I say aloud.

There is a white portal and four Information Pedestals waiting for us in the victory room. The white portal is even more ornate than the previous two. Its white frame has more twists and twirls. And, there is even a sphere at the top of the portal as a decoration.

"I guess I'll read the pedestal out of curiosity. But, I can already guess what it's going to say," I say softly.

My party walks over to the information pedestals and we each pull up the information about our dungeon run.

\----------------------------------------------

[Dungeon Report]

Your party entered Rumpurt Castle on a mission to kill the occupants within. The inhabitants performed a variety of cunning tricks to lessen your guard. This resulted in all of you being set ablaze and dying a horrible death!

Quests:

Kill Rortus: Failed

Kill Cassandra: Failed

Kill Pleabus: Failed

Kill Felicia: Failed

Bonus Quest:

Kill Samuel: Failed

Achievement Rating: F

\----------------------------------------------

I look at Serena and speak softly, "No achievements this time, huh. We lost completely this time, didn't we?"

"Yes," she says gloomily.

"Well, let's not get too down from this. Let's change our tactics and worry about the next one."

"Ok!" Serena rebounds firmly.

'I'm glad that she isn't upset by our defeat.'

"Everybody has seen their Information Pedestals correct?"

"Yes," Wanda, Gabriel and Telah respond one by one.

"Good. Because of the Death Penalty, we won't be able to enter another dungeon for 24 hours."

"Wait. I just realized that we still have all of our items. Doesn't that mean that we aren't effected by the medium death penalty?" Telah asks inquisitively.

My eyes widen, "Right! And now that you're mentioning items... Serena! You didn't wear the wings!"

"OH!" Serena pounds her forehead with the palm of her hand.

"At least they would likely have not made a big difference. But, you have to remember them next time."

"Right!" Serena says with a determined expression.

"Gabriel also didn't use taunt. We didn't use potions, although finding a good timing to use them would have been hard. I even have an item that detonates that maybe could have been useful," I say to myself.

"Those are really good points. I never even used Share Ability. Share Ability!" Telah says. A semi-transparent white light covers his body and then pours off of him toward me. The single burst hits me and splashes before wrapping around my body and fading.

"There. Now you have the Stat Growth passive ability as well. We should do a thorough assessment of our dungeon run when we get back home."

"Thank you and good idea. Alright, everything is falling into place. We seem to have been hit with the small death penalty. I can only guess that it's because we were in a level five dungeon. Regardless of the reason, I'm grateful. Let's all regroup at the Heart of Jul in two hours since we all have different respawn points. Sound good?"

"Ok," everybody responds individually. Everybody exchanges farewells with each other while exiting through the portal.

'Our adventure in Rumpurt Castle was a complete failure. However, we learned many lessons and will become a stronger party because of it. I will make sure of it.'

### Chapter 16: Free Time

After stepping through the portal, Serena and I arrive in the entryway of our house.

"Ahhhhhh," I say as I relax.

Serena and I take off our shoes and walk into the living room. Serena waits patiently for me to sit on a couch before sitting on my lap without hesitation. The time of day is the twilight period before night. Thus, brown-orange sunlight is streaming through the windows. Amazingly, with all that has happened, our time in the dungeon didn't even cover half a day.

'It's probably too late to do any more dungeon exploring today. Besides, we should probably rest up by sleeping and then try again tomorrow. When we meet up with our party, we'll talk it over.'

"Jin," Serena says softly in a sweet voice. She is sitting on my lap while ensuring that she looks straight forward at the bathroom's wall.

"Yes?" I say in a tired voice.

"Will you tell me what your deal with Cassandra was now?"

'Ugh. I don't even want to think about that. I was so foolish. Maybe I should lie? It's not like she can ever find out the truth. But, can I really risk it with the intimacy system active? And, I really don't want to start lying to her. Ahhh, fuck it. What's the worst that can happen?'

"Alright. My deal was to provide her with my semen so that she could impregnate herself. In exchange, she would poison our quest targets."

"Really?" Serena asks shocked. After a few seconds of thinking she asks, "So, does that mean that when you were pulled off by yourself, you were masturbating? Or was there another woman?"

"There was no other woman. I was alone. I came into a container and was done. It's an embarrassing story. I was stupid and made a mistake. I'm sorry."

There is a moment of silence before Serena responds.

"Well, it's fine if it's like that. Since the dungeon is gone, nobody got to use the container. Also, you saw an embarrassing side of me. So, I guess we're even now."

'Oh yeah, I forgot about those farts. What she did was way more embarrassing than what happened to me. Thankfully, there wasn't a crowd around us. And the rest of my party doesn't seem like the type of people to care.'

"Good. I'm glad that we can put that dungeon behind us," I say and gently rest my chin on top of Serena's head. Serena then takes my arms and wraps them around her waist.

"Not quite," she says even more softly.

"Hm?" I respond softly as well.

"You still have your promise."

'........ Fuck.'

"Of course. What do you want? A delicious meal? A date somewhere fun?"

I try to throw out innocent suggestions. But, Serena interrupts me.

"I want to have your child."

"WHAT!?"

Serena looks up and reiterates, "I want you to impregnate me."

"Woah! Slow down for a moment. You sound like those woman in the dungeons. This is too sudden. We're not even married! And, how will you be able to explore dungeons if you are pregnant?"

"It's because you're always flirting with woman that I want to do this. But, you're right. If I get pregnant then I won't be able to be with you. I'll compromise then. Let's start having regular sex three days from now."

"But, we're not married. Are you really ok with that?"

"I know that you are worried about me. That's why I love you so much. But, I promise you that I am ready. We're engaged, and I know we will get married," she says while looking directly into my eyes from below. She whispers and says in her most innocent voice, "You promised to do anything."

"Well, I love you too. But, to be honest, I'm just really nervous. If you really want to try, then I can't say no. But, I can't make any guarantees that this will turn out well."

"I know. I will work hard over the next three days," Serena says firmly. She then forms a kissing shape with her mouth and closes her eyes. I bend my head down and kiss her upside down face gently on her lips before parting.

"Boo," she pouts. "Give me a real kiss," she continues while crossing her arms.

"You can have a real kiss three days from now," I respond playfully.

"Fine, let's go get some food and then meet up with our party."

"Nice idea!" I say while giving Serena a thumbs up.

Thus, we get up from the couch and prepare to head back out. Since I have two remaining premium meal tickets for the Jul Inn, we will go there first. My robe has a giant tear on it, so I put on my usual casual clothes. This makes me realize that it might be nice to buy some more casual clothes. I also realize that while our clothes don't stink and aren't particularly dirty, wearing the same dirty clothes is problematic. We will need to consider laundry soon. I decide to deal with all of these issues before rejoining our party tomorrow. Thankfully, I already know where to go for everything except the laundry.

... _Some Time Later..._

"Unfortunately, the price of premium meal tickets has risen. If you pay the difference, then we can let you in."

"That's not a problem. How much must I pay?"

"The cost is five silvers per ticket."

"Woah. The price has doubled?"

"Yes. The food offered is of a much higher quality than before. Is the price a problem?"

"No, it's fine," I say as I acquire 10 silvers from my inventory and hand them to the Greeter.

"Thank you. Right this way."

Serena and I are led to a private booth in the Jul Inn's dining hall like usual. The food here has once again improved in quality. Sandwiches with a variety of types are now being offered at this location. Additionally, there are new meats, fruits and now desserts are being offered. One of the desserts is a fried bread filled with a fruit jelly. The culinary skills of this town are definitely improving continuously. Serena and I get a heavy meal of meats, vegetables and the new fruit filled desert. After eating, we store our leftovers in our food basket and head out of the inn.

"I'm glad that we won't have to worry about food anymore Serena," I say cheerfully.

"I feel the same way," she says while latching herself onto my arm.

We both walk toward the Heart of Jul's pool of water to find Gabriel and Telah waiting.

"Hey," Telah greets us with.

"Hey man," I respond.

We all exchange greetings before moving to the next subject.

"So, it's a bit later than I expected. So, I think we should give up on doing another dungeon today. Also, I figure that we should probably rest before entering new dungeons anyways. What do you guys say to doing a new dungeon tomorrow?"

"Me... agree," Gabriel responds.

"Good. I'm glad that we're on the same page," Telah also replies.

"How about we wait for Wanda and then go to the tavern for a while?"

"Sound... good," Gabriel responds.

Telah also agrees with the suggestion. Thus, we sit around on the Heart of Jul's ornament for a while. After a few moments, a familiar face appears.

"Jin! Hello again," Bert cheerfully says from a distance.

"Bert!" Serena says while getting up.

He approaches us, and I shake his hand.

'What a firm grip.'

We exchange pleasantries for a bit. I also introduce him to Telah and Gabriel.

"What are you up to tonight on this fine evening," I ask him.

"Oh, the usual. I'm doing my nightly patrol," he responds casually.

"I see. Are we interrupting you?"

"Not at all! I am glad to see you again. What have you guys been up to lately?"

I briefly recount the tale of us failing our dungeon completely.

"That's quite a shame. Cheer up. Since you're heading to the tavern, may I come with you?"

"Drinking on the job again Bert?" Serena says playfully.

"Hahaha. Well, perhaps I won't drink tonight. But, we should hang out on my next day off for sure!"

"Oh? That sounds like a plan. When is that?"

"I'm off this weekend. Let's see, today is Lunus, so I'll be free three days from now on Munus."

"Awesome. Then I'll look forward to that."

"Indeed. Well then, I'll continue my patrol. Make sure to find me at night on Munus! If you can't, then I'll find you, ahahahah," he says while walking away and waving.

My party waves and bids him farewell as well. Serena and I casually chat about our past experiences in this town with Telah and Gabriel before Wanda arrives.

"Hey Wanda. Welcome back," I say.

"Wow! Were you guys waiting for me?"

"Yes. But, it's fine. We were early."

"Ah, I'm sorry. I was taking a nap in my house before the next dungeon. I'm totally ready to go now!"

Everybody except for Wanda awkwardly looks at each other. Telah is the first to speak.

"Erm, about that. We decided to rest for the night and go out tomorrow."

"What!?" she says in disbelief.

"Yeah. It's late at night so what did you expect? Besides, we will get more time to prepare that way and be well rested."

"Darnit. Fine. Then I guess I'll head back home and go to sleep."

"Wait," Serena hurriedly interjects. "We're heading to the tavern. Will you come with us?"

"The tavern huh? That's fine I suppose," she replies after a short deliberation.

"Then it's settled," I respond.

My party heads to the tavern and gets a private booth. Gabriel gets a strong alcoholic drink while the rest of us get juices. Since we're going to another dungeon tomorrow, it's best that we don't drink anything strong. Gabriel is the exception since his body likely has a high tolerance for alcohol.

We then spend several hours talking about all of our backgrounds. Telah tells us about all of his failed attempts to join parties before ours. He elaborates on how happy and grateful he is to be able to join our party. Wanda was in a few parties party before ours. However, every party fell apart due to internal conflicts. Wanda is also a person who admired Serena, and wanted to join our party. However, she wasn't an extremely dedicated stalker. In any case, she is the one lucky admirer to make it into our party. Finally, as explained before, Gabriel cleared dungeons solo and effortlessly. Though, he says that his drops weren't particularly good. Hours of chatter pass before our conversations wind down.

"I'm so glad that I met you guys. I promise to try harder tomorrow," Telah says with his head resting on the table.

"I feel the same way," Wanda says as she takes another swig of juice.

Serena and Gabriel both agree with them as well.

"Let's do our best," I say while proposing a toast. We lift our glass mugs and clank them against each other once before taking a large drink. After drinking the toast, we chat for a short while longer before deciding that it's time to leave. After getting up and leaving, we decide to meet up at our usual meeting spot around noon tomorrow before going our separate ways.

... _Some Time Later..._

"That was really nice," Serena says while unequipping her clothes.

"Yeah. I'm glad that we met such nice people," I respond while doing the same.

We then enter the bathroom and take a bath together. Even though bathing together has practically become a ritual, tonight is different. Serena makes several making extremely obvious sexual advances. When she sits on my lap, she grinds her hips against me. While I'm washing her back, she guides my hand to her vagina. Even when washing me, she spends an extended amount of time washing my crotch. Nothing that she does it too forceful, and her actions seem almost gentle. However, her intent is clearly presented.

... _The Next Day..._

Serena and I wake up just past sunrise. The clouds are covered in thick gray clouds and the pitter patter of heavy rain hitting our house is audible. This morning, unlike every day before, Serena and I don't take a bath. Serena protests that we should take one. But, I refuse. We splurged on baths in the past because they were free. But, that's no longer the case. Our water for the house is only free up to a limit. So, there is no reason to use water if we don't need to, even if the limit is very large.

"Let's go," I say to Serena as she finishes getting dressed.

"I'm coming!" she says while equipping her shoes.

We exit our house and stand on our porch for a moment. Immediately, we see that the rain that we heard from inside is much harsher and louder than we expected. The next thing that we notice is the growth on our lawn.

"LOOK JIN! THEY'RE GROWING!" Serena excitedly shouts to talk over the rain.

"I SEE! I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL THEY FINISH GROWING," I shout eagerly as well.

The Whooglue seeds have sprouted above ground and are starting to grow. The rain, bonemeal and magically enhanced soil are ensuring that the growth of the seeds progresses quickly and smoothly. However, there is one potential problem.

'It doesn't seem like many, if any, of the seeds failed to sprout. At this rate, we'll have to get rid of some of them. I didn't expect this many of the seeds to sprout."

After we finish checking out the seeds, we look further out and see people walking past our house. Since our house is located on the main street between the luxury district and the residential district, many people walk past our house. Almost everybody that is walking past is holding a large, round piece of leather hung on a wooden stick to block the rain. This item creates a shield above one's head that prevents the falling rain from getting one wet.

"Wait here. I'll go ask about one of those stick things that people are using."

I run out and ask a random passerby about the item they are using. Apparently, the item is called a Rain Guard. There are multiple vendors in the trade district selling different kinds. Since we're going there, this situation works out well for us. I thank the person and head back to Serena. I explain the situation to her and we run through the rain to the trade district.

... _Some Time Later..._

"Thanks for your purchase," the vendor says. We walk away from the vendor selling rain guards. His cart is setup in the middle of the trade district and is getting a large amount of business.

'This guy is becoming rich. I should become a merchant. Ah, but then I wouldn't be able to level up.'

I look at Serena and say, "We have a lot of free time before we meet up with our party. I need to get my robe repaired, do some cloth shopping and look into getting our laundry done."

She responds, "You don't need to worry about the laundry. I was planning on buying stuff today to take care of it myself."

"Are you sure? Shouldn't we have a professional take care of it?"

"It is my duty as your future wife to do the laundry. Please, allow me to," she says while bowing.

'I really want to say something about gender roles and equal rights. But, I decide against it.'

"If you're that determined, then please do," I respond plainly.

"Thanks. Then, let's go to where you want to go and then we'll go to my places."

"That sounds like a plan. But, where do you want to go?"

"Well, I was thinking about getting supplies for the laundry of course. But, I also want to visit the mayor or vice-mayor and ask about the church."

"You will officially be the Head Priest in four more days. Are you sure that you are up to the task? I'm sure that you will have a crazy amount of responsibilities and work, even if that's not what Chase said. It's not too late to quit."

Serena puts on her most determined face and does a fist pump, "I will never give up. This is for our marriage!"

"Right," I say as my expression becomes grim. "Ok, then let's go take care of repairing my robe first."

Practically all of the business regarding items and services is done in the Jul trade district. Thus, we don't have to walk very far to visit all of the shops that we want to. The tailor works in a clothing store, so we do some shopping while my robe is repaired. After ten minutes, the tailor finishes her repair work, and Serena and I have purchased five different pairs of casual clothes for each of us. The material cost for the repair work is three silvers. Since there is no service charge, Elie's prior statements regarding services not have labor costs are reproved. Serena also purchases some laundry related items to bring our total expenditure to two gold coins and 59 silver coins. At this point and time, we have one 11 gold coins, 25 silver coins and 95 copper coins.

'We really need to start making money again. If we keep spending money without earning anything back, we'll be poor in no time.'

After finishing our trip to the clothing store, we head back home to store our purchases. Then, we head to the government district to meet the mayor. The main building used by high-ranking individuals is Jul's City Hall. Unlike other city districts, the City Hall is located in the center of the government district, as opposed to a town square. The main road from the luxury district to the government district leads directly to the City Hall. Then, the road wraps around the land that the City Hall uses, and extends in all four cardinal directions.

When Serena and I arrive at the City Hall, we observe its design. The building has a decent sized lawn surrounding it that creates a border between the road and the building itself. There are many flowers planted on this lawn and trees that are still growing. The building itself is a plain, rectangular building made entirely of grey bricks. On top of each of the four corners of the building is a flag flapping crazily in the wind and rain. The flag's design is a white, hexagonal jewel on top of a blue background. The jewel's white edges are clearly defined whereas the interior of the jewel is hollow. This allows for the blue background to color the inside of the jewel's edges. After observing the buildings beauty, we enter through its double glass doors.

"Welcome to the Jul City Hall. How many I help you?" one of the two ladies behind the desk greets us with as we approach.

"Yes. My name is Jin and this is Serena. We are hoping to meet the mayor or the vice-mayor."

"One moment please," the lady says uninterestingly while she pulls up a Fantasy Window. "Oh my! Two nobles, one of which is the future Head Priest! And this is... Oh! Pardon me. Please, let me take you to the vice-mayor immediately," she says nervously while getting up from behind the counter. The lady walks around the counter and exits the private room through a door.

"Right this way please."

We take a complex route which leads us deep within the building before arriving in front of large wood door. The receptionist knocks on the door twice which causes the door to be opened wide after a few moments.

"Ah! Serena and Jin. Please, do come in," he says while moving to the side and inviting us in. We enter the room and he tells the receptionist, "Thank you Mona. Please return to your post."

"Yes sir," she responds before turning to leave.

Chase then closes the door and turns to us.

"Please, have a seat," he says while motioning for us to take a seat. His office is a windowless room in the middle of the building. He has a desk in the middle of his room accompanied by cabinets, bookshelves and papers neatly organized.

After we are all seated, he says, "Welcome to my office. To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from you today, Serena?" he asks while completely disregarding my existence.

"I came to ask about the church. I was wondering where it is being built. And, also, I'd like to get some more information about my position."

"If that's all that you want to know, then how about we go visit the church right now?"

"Really?" Serena says excitedly. "But, it's not supposed to be done yet, right?"

"Haha. No, it's not done yet. However, if you know where it is, then you can visit it whenever you want right?"

"Right!"

"Good. Then let's head out," Chase says while standing up.

"Oh, don't forget that it's raining outside. We used these Rain Guards," Serena says worriedly while holding hers up and pointing at it.

"Hahahahahaha," Chase laughs heavily. "I truly love the way that you care for people with even the simplest gestures. You will make a fantastic Head Priest."

Serena blushes a little bit and responds, "Don't be silly."

Once we're all standing, Chase grins sharply and our surroundings instantly change.

"What. What is this?" I ask stupidly.

"Where are you we?" Serena asks confused as well.

"You don't recognize this?" he says with a mischievous voice.

By the time that Chase finished speaking, my mind and senses finished processing our location. We're now at the Resurrection Stone that we were born at. The large gray circle has the same familiar wilderness surrounding it. There are dungeons and other resurrections stones visible in the distance. However, there are now many other towns in in the distance as well.

"This is the Resurrection Stone. I can already guess that you used teleportation. But, how?" Serena inquires.

"This is a part of the Politician class's Territory Management ability. The owner of a territory can give people the ability to teleport to different areas of their territory. As the vice-mayor, my ability to teleport anywhere is unrestricted."

'So that means you can teleport into people's houses and peep on them? Or you can kill people without them knowing!'

"I can tell from your expression what you're thinking," Chase says while looking at me. "And, no, the teleportation ability itself doesn't work on owned land in residential districts."

"Ha. Close. But that's not all that I was thinking," I retort proudly.

"WOAH!" Serena says to interrupt us. "This is really the church?"

I end my battle with Chase and look at the church as well.

"WOW!" I instantly react.

The church is a massive wooden building that encompasses a huge portion of the Resurrection Stone. In fact, massive might be an understatement at this point. This building makes Jul's Inn look small.

"Amazing isn't it?" Chase says proudly. "This is Jul's Church. Since it is a symbol of praise for Eden, we have to ensure that it is our best creation. The mayor is investing over 90% of Jul's funds and work force into the creation of this building. And, even then, we wish we had more."

The structure of the Church is mostly a base laid on the ground. There are hundreds of workers digging up holes, laying down floors and performing a variety of construction related tasks. Currently, the building is mostly a wooden frame on the ground. There are some vertical frames at some locations. However, none of them form walls or any other complex structure.

"This one building is single-handedly stalling the development of Jul. However, once it's completed, the benefits will completely exceed the costs."

Serena thinks back to what Jin said this morning and nervously says, "This is so big. I don't know if I am qualified for this job anymore."

"What?" Chase responds. "You're the most qualified. Please don't lose heart. I know this building is big. But, I know that you can handle it!"

"But," Serena says.

Chase interrupts her and says, "And don't forget about your marriage with Jin. You can host the first, largest and most grand wedding ever at this church. Jul will even cover all of the costs! We'll consider it a showcase of the Jul Church's extravagance."

Even with this amazing proposition, Serena still appears nervous. However, she responds, "You're right. I already decided that I would take up the position. I can't back out now."

"Great!" Chase responds while clasping his hand. "So, as you can see, the Church is making great progress. When it's finished, it will be a major public construction. Not just for Jul, but for all of the surrounding areas. You probably don't know this, but the conditions required to earn the right to own the Resurrection Stone are extremely hard to meet. Only the most developed towns within a certain distance of the town can claim this right. And, if the town with the right falls behind other towns by too much, they can lose the right. There are more conditions, but those are two really important ones. Eden makes all judgements regarding whether or not the conditions are met.

Then, there is of course the equally important condition of having a Head Priest. We couldn't claim this land and start building a Church without a Head Priest. We're currently the most developed town in the area by a large margin. So, there was some leniency in regards to how long we could look for a Head Priest. However, that leniency wouldn't last forever and is completely gone at this point. If you were to quit your position now, Serena, we would have no choice but to use one of our emergency backup replacement figures. I can assure you that he will not do a good job."

"That's enough. Don't try to guilt Serena into the job. She already said she is doing it. That should be good enough," I speak harshly.

"Pardon me. I was not trying to make her feel guilty I only wanted her to understand more about the Church and the position since she asked me back at the office," Chase replies innocently.

"Yeah, Chase was only doing what I asked. There is no need to be so hard on him," Serena responds defensively.

'What? Am I being made out to be the bad guy again? Damn this guy!'

Now that my hatred for Chase has been renewed, I say, "Ok. I've seen the Church. I'll be leaving. You two can keep talking about whatever you want." I then turn around and begin walking toward town.

Meanwhile, Serena is thinking, 'Is Jin getting jealous because I'm acting close to Chase? Oh my god! He's so shy and cute!'

After walking for a while, I realize that massive amounts of wind and rain are tearing into me. I was focusing entirely on my anger, so I hadn't noticed the weather at all. Confused, I examine my surroundings and realize that the Resurrection stone is completely unaffected by the stormy weather. There is no rain falling onto the Resurrection Stone and the wind is completely calm over it. The only sign of the crazy weather occurring around it is the slight wetness coating the very edge of its perimeter.

'Whatever,' I think to myself as I continue walking to town. I'd rather walk through a fire storm than spend another moment around Chase. I don't even bother to put up my Water Guard. I was starting to think that Chase could really be a good guy due to everything he has been doing for us lately. He helped with the house situation and is getting Serena a high ranking position in town. However, his actions just now completely ruined that image. His evil nature has been reaffirmed.

'He probably still wants to steal Serena from me. He knows about the marriage. But, for a person like him, he might set something up to stop it. I need to be wary.'

... _Some Time Later in Another Place..._

I think to myself, 'Hehe. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he sees me here.'

While giggling at the town entrance, a familiar face appears.

"JIN" I shout as he approaches.

"Serena?" Jin says confused as I throw down my rain guard and give him a big hug.

"I had Chase drop me off here and wait for you. But, gosh, why are you acting like this? You didn't even use your Rain Guard," I say while picking up my Rain Guard and trying to cover both of us. However, I'm much shorter than Jin, so I fail entirely.

"No reason," Jin replies plainly while taking the Rain Guard into his hand.

'Is this... bashfulness?' I think to myself while my eyes spark.

*Erm Hrm*

I perform my best fake throat clear and respond, "Are you mad at me?"

"No," he responds plainly.

"Reeeeaaallllyyy?" I ask suspiciously.

"Really," he says plainly. I continue staring at him for a time, and, after a short wait, Jin continues. "Ok. Fine. It feels like Chase is manipulating you to make you dislike me. That pisses me off. Just now, he said what he did to make himself look innocent. Even though he was trying to make you feel obligated to not quit."

'I know that Jin breaks down when I pressure him. But, to think that he was so worried about how I thought of him. He cares about me so much! I must marry him immediately! I can't let him get away!'

"I'm sorry," I respond. "I didn't even realize he was doing that. I'll be more careful in the future."

"It's not really a big deal," Jin replies. "I just don't want you getting tricked."

'Two days is too long! Maybe I should force him down tonight?'

... _Some Time Later in Another Place..._

"Hey guys, did you wait long?" Wanda says while approaching Serena and myself.

"Nah. We just got here a few moments ago," Serena replies.

We exchange greetings with Wanda after she arrives. Serena and I are currently waiting at the Heart of Jul. Telah is here as well, and greets Wanda. Telah was actually the first person waiting for us. Since he's level one and poor, he told us that he lives in a building for homeless people in the residential district. Serena immediately offered him a guest room in our house upon hearing that, but Telah politely declined. This didn't stop Serena, however, as she persistently offered him a room until he agreed. Personally, I feel that her decision was a little rushed. Even still, I understand that trying to argue a good deed like this with Serena is pointless. And, we have a lot of empty space in our house anyway. So, I agreed with giving him a room. After that, I went back to the trade district and purchased three rain guards for the rest of my party. If Wanda or Gabriel already had one, then the extras could be stored at home for another time.

"Gabriel is the last person that we're waiting for," I say.

"Come to think of it. Wanda, you already said that you have a house, right?" Serena asks.

"Yeah. I live near the northern-east wall in the residential district," Wanda replies.

"I wonder where Gabriel stays at. Telah is going to be living with us. And, you have a house. This weather is bad, so I hope he's ok."

"Your memory must be bad. You think that rain and wind will effect Gabriel, the man who casually jumped into an ocean lava to see if it's a trap? Ha," I respond with a fake laugh.

"True. But, if he's sleeping outside in the rain, he can come sleep in our house too. We have enough room," Serena says and then turns to Telah. "Does he ever use the homeless house?"

"No. In fact, I've never even seen him around town."

"Hm. Well, I guess we will just have to ask him when he arrives," Serena says worriedly.

"I'm sure that he will be fine," I respond nonchalantly.

We wait for a while longer while chatting before Gabriel arrives.

"Gabriel!" Serena says while running up to him and giving him a big hug.

"Serena," Gabriel says warmly while rubbing his massive hands on her small head.

"Gabriel. Where do you sleep at night?" Serena asks immediately.

"Sleep... by... town," Gabriel says normally.

"By town? What do you mean?"

"Outside... by... town... wall."

"That's not right! Gabriel, will you come live in my house with Jin, Telah, and me?"

"Huh," Gabriel says in response.

"I am saying that you can come live in my house. We have a lot of room. Telah is going to come live with us too. And, you can't keep sleeping outside. I won't allow it," Serena says.

Gabriel pauses for a while before, incredibly, a tear comes out of his eye. He nods his head up and down and responds, "O...k."

"Great! We should all make a trip to my house so that you can pick your rooms."

"Can I come with you guys," Wanda asks nervously.

"Of course! You don't even need to ask. You're our party member right?"

"Thank you! I can't wait!"

"In fact, if you want, you can even have a room too!"

"OH MY GOD! YES! I might even sell my old house if things work out."

Both Serena and Wanda are jumping in joy while I think to myself, 'How did things turn out like this?'

My party then heads to the Party Headquarters. That's right, my house is no longer a house or a home. We have a semi-public shrine and three guests. At this point, I refuse to acknowledge this building as anything else.

Once we arrive, everybody raves about how wonderful our house is.

"To think you live in such a gorgeous house," Wanda says with her mouth agape.

"Of course. This is the fruit of the love between Jin and me!" She says proudly while puffing her chest out. However, she suddenly deflates upon having a realization.

'Jin and I lose our privacy if all of these people are here! How are we going to have sex now!?' she thinks to herself.

Meanwhile, I go to the living room and sit on the couch. At this point, I'm just ready to go to the dungeon.

'I have already lost control of my life,' I think to myself.

After Telah, Wanda and Gabriel pick out rooms on the second floor, we regroup in the living room. We discuss how to approach the next dungeon and make several decisions. The first decision is that we will host a level four dungeon. We choose a lower leveled dungeon so that we can get more experience as a party before tackling harder content. Also, this should greatly help us to fulfill our primary goal of letting Telah up a few times.

Next, we discuss finances, items and gear for the next dungeon. During this time, it's revealed that Telah is obviously poor and Wanda has a few decent items. However, unexpectedly, we learn that Gabriel is wealthier than all of us. Because he chained dungeons quickly, he has amassed a large amount of gold and items. If he were to have sold his items when finding something better, rather than throwing them on the ground, then he would have even more gold. Regardless, he still has a lot and his inventory is filled with exceptionally good items. There are rings, weapons, armors and more with varying magical properties. The best item that he has is a heroic level six dagger.

"You were sleeping outside when you have items like this? This is insane," I say dumbfounded.

"Don't be mean to Gabriel. He didn't know better," Serena says seriously.

"I'm more surprised by the fact that he's not wearing some of this," Telah says in disbelief.

Gabriel is also surprised and confused as we go through his loot on the table. After we finish sorting it, Serena says, "Gabriel. With all of these items, you could buy a house that's better than ours. You are very wealthy. What do you want to do?"

Immediately Gabriel responds, "Me stay."

"Alright. But, what do you want to do with these items?" Serena replies.

Gabriel thinks for a while with his eyes closed before I interrupt his thoughts.

"I think that you should upgrade your equipment with the items that you have. Then, whether or not you want to store the items or sell them is up to you."

"Do... that. Upgrade... and... store," he says while nodding in satisfaction.

"Alright. Let's first do the upgrade," I say while picking up a ring. The ring that I chose is a magic ring that provides four intelligence. While this amount is average, every bit counts when trying to maximize Gabriel's intelligence. Our primary goal is to enable him to perform telepathic communication at the very least. However, if possible, we will increase his intelligence further so that he can make better decisions and so that communication becomes easier.

Telah had previously cast Identify Item on all of Gabriel's gear. Since Telah has extremely high intelligence and two information based classes, his Identify ability is on par with the Mage Guild's Guild Master at only T2. His casts have allowed me to effectively evaluate all of Gabriel's gear. Thus, based on my past experiences with magical items, and now seeing Gabriel's goods, I conclude that stat boosts are more common on items than anything else. There are many pieces of gear that Gabriel has that have intelligence on them. However, Gabriel can not necessarily use them. For example, the heroic daggers have eight intelligence, but he uses one-handed swords. That's why rings are so nice. Rings can be used almost universally by any race and class. This intrinsically makes them more valuable than other types of gear.

In the end, we manage to upgrade Gabriel's gear by a small amount. There are simply too many types of gear that he has that are incompatible with him. A final scan reveals that his intelligence is 12.

"So, Gabriel. How do you feel?" Serena asks.

"I feel... GREAT!" Gabriel replies after a moment.

"SUCCESS!" Serena says cheerfully.

His speech is now completely different from before. There are no pauses between his words. And, due to his speech being faster overall, his voice has a slightly higher pitch. He also gives the impression that he isn't struggling to think as hard to have a basic conversation.

"My mind feels so... clear. I can understand things differently. I'm embarrassed by how I behaved before."

"This is amazing! To think that increasing one's intelligence could have such a dramatic, real-time effect," Telah says.

"I agree. This is incredible," Gabriel responds.

"I wonder what would happen if your intelligence was greater than Telah's. Wouldn't that be crazy Serena?" Wanda asks.

"Yeah. But, Gabriel is fine as he is right now, too," Serena responds.

This causes Gabriels cheeks to turn a rosey pink.

'I have felt this before. But, I didn't understand this feeling. Now, I'm certain. I love Serena,' Gabriel thinks to himself.

"I'm glad that we managed to take care of that issue. So, Gabriel, do you still want to save your items?" I ask him.

"I will store some items and sell others. However, let's do that after the next dungeon. We're already getting ready to go and I want to test out my intelligence."

"Wow, he's so smart now," Wanda says amazed.

"I agree. His articulation has improved substantially. Does anybody have any items for consumables or other items we should get to prepare for the next dungeon?" I ask.

My party then discusses the items that we should get for the next dungeon. Aside from food, we all feel that we don't need any additional items. Our plan for now is to save up our gold and become more experienced, before we risk wasting gold by buying something that we don't need. Besides, everybody except for Gabriel is almost broke.

After a few more minutes of deliberation, we finish up and leave the house. We make a stop at a grocery store and purchase some food before leaving Jul. After the usual ten minute walk, we arrive in front of the dungeon. I have my party member's line up and begin to speak.

"Everybody. We will be challenging a level four dungeon. This time, we will conquer this dungeon completely. I don't ever want to see an F rating again. I ask that everybody follow my orders in this dungeon without complaints. If there are any disagreements or issues, then we will go over them when the dungeon is finished. Also, make sure to keep your weaknesses in check. Serena, do not be overly righteous. Telah, coordinate the party and do your utmost to make sure that you level up. Gabriel and Wanda, do not become overconfident and continue working hard. I will be more decisive as your party leader to make sure that we clear this dungeon with an S rating. If you all understand, then reply with yes sir."

"Yes sir," everybody replies in unison.

"Good."

With my speech finished, I open up the dungeon start interface and set the dungeon to level four. Before hitting the start button, I say, "Here we go!"

Our vision is flooded with white light as we are teleported to a new place.

### Chapter 17: What is Conquest?

My visions clears like normal as the bright light from the teleportation fades. I expect for my vision to clear completely, but my surroundings remain brightly lit. In contrast, Serena and Wanda become more distinct as their backgrounds remain the same.

"Where is this?" Wanda asks cautiously while looking around.

We're standing on a pure white material that stretches in every direction indefinitely. In this case, every direction is not an exaggeration. The only way that I can understand my bearings is because of gravity and the hard surface beneath me. Where I imagine the sky should be, is the same pure white color as the ground. In fact, it is impossible to discern the ground, sky, horizon, return pedestal or any other features in this dungeon from each other. There are no shadows and everything is illuminated equally. Thus, we could be one inch away from a wall on all sides without knowing.

"We seem to be in a white void," Telah says cautiously.

"I'll check the quest log," I quickly respond.

"I'll also inspect the dungeon," Telah says.

\----------------------------------------------

[Quest Log]

Quests:

Kill the Imposter(s): Incomplete

\----------------------------------------------

[Dungeon Information]

Chaos Level: 0%

\----------------------------------------------

"Really," I say confused.

"What does it say?" Serena says while walking over to me. After looking at my Quest log, she replies with an angry expression, "This is stupid."

Telah looks at my quest log and says, "A dungeon where we have to figure out and kill the imposter? That's unexpected."

Wanda pulls up her own quest log and says, "Wow, this should be interesting," after reading it. Meanwhile, Gabriel reads from my log wordlessly.

I angrily shout, "Agh! I can't believe that we got a quest like this. I was completely prepared to kill monsters or use tricks and negotiation against a person to beat the next dungeon. But, something like this is way too different. Hell, what would the difference between a C and S in this dungeon even be?"

We all pause for a moment before Telah replies, "There are five of us and five different achievement ratings, right? Perhaps we can score from an A to F based on how many guesses it takes to find the imposter. But, since there may be more than one, that system could be wrong. And, that also doesn't account for an S rating."

"I like your theory Telah. If there is only one imposter, then perhaps we can earn an S by killing them quickly?" Wanda adds.

I reply, "Those are good theories. But, like Telah says, if there is more than one imposter, they won't work. Also, I don't think that the Achievement Rating system is that specific."

"Then, who is the imposter?" Gabriel asks.

"It's not me," Wanda says while resting one hand behind her head.

"It's not me either," says Serena.

We all take turns denying the role as an imposter. After another brief silence, Telah speaks up again, "Alright, since everybody denied that they are the imposter, let's do something else. To me, this dungeon tests how well we know each other. I suggest that we ask questions that only the real person would know. This seems reasonable, yes?"

Everybody agrees with Telah, so we begin to ask each other questions.

"What was the name of the town that we fought in the second dungeon?" I ask while looking at Serena.

"Hamel. What is the name of the guys that you don't like in Jul?"

"Chase."

"Jin, what was the scenario that you gave me during my party joining interview," Telah interrupts.

"I asked you how you would react to being trapped in a bubble of water suspended in the air. What was your response?"

"I said that I would try to find a way out. But, if I couldn't find a way, I'd accept my fate and drown. I'm a level one support that can't do anything. Wanda, do you own a house?" he asks abruptly while turning to Wanda.

"Yes. Telah, where do you live?"

"In a homeless shelter."

"Gabriel, how wealthy are you?" I ask to him.

"You and Serena said that I am very wealthy. Though, I'm still not sure."

Thanks to us having spent a lot of time together, especially including our time at the tavern, we are able to each other questions about many different topics. After five minutes, we discontinue questioning each other.

"Well that didn't work. The imposter must know everything that the real person knows," Wanda says.

"Oh! I have an idea," I say. "Serena, open up your inventory."

I then open up my inventory while Serena opens up hers. As expected, we still have the same shared inventory from the intimacy system.

"This should at least settle that Serena and I aren't imposters. Serena and I are at the Family level of intimacy, so we have a shared inventory. No matter how clever this dungeon is, there is no way that the imposter can fake this."

"That doesn't work. You could both be imposters. And, it's perfectly possible for the dungeon to imitate the shared inventory system."

"Damnit. We're back to we started. What if we checked the items that we have to see if any are different?"

"Everything will probably be the same. But, we might as well," Telah replies.

We then open up our inventories and check their contents. Unfortunately, everything is the same in all of them.

"Ugh. Ok. Let's think. What other options do we have?" I ask annoyed.

"There are still a few more options for us. We can test personalities, do physical examinations, explore this area, etc."

"Physical examinations? Are you asking us to strip!?" Wanda asks disturbed.

"No! Does anybody know what you look like naked Wanda? No. So, how could anybody verify what you look like?"

"Ah, right. Good point," Wanda replies.

"Jin knows what I look like," Serena responds shyly rubbing her hands and arms together in front of her.

"Physical examinations are out," I declare. "Let's explore the area. If that fails, we'll do personality tests."

"Ok," Gabriel responds confidently.

"If you see anything dangerous," I then sharply look at Gabriel," don't do anything reckless. Regroup and report it."

"But, how will we know where to regroup? This whole area is completely white," Serena asks.

"We'll know because of this," I say while looking around. I crouch and move around while looking around until I find what I am looking for; the Return Pedestal. It was able to be found by squatting and moving around until one of my party members entered its background. This enables its perfectly camouflaged surface to be distinguishable from its surroundings. In this case, Gabriel is the person that is making the pedestal visible to me. Next, I take out several pieces of bright red fruit and smear them all over the Return Pedestal.

"Ah, I see. That works," Wanda says as finish my work.

"Good. Now, let's go explore. Don't go out of sight of this pedestal."

Everybody nods and we walk away from the pedestal evenly spaced from each other. After five or so more minutes, we find ourselves back at the Return Pedestal.

"Did anybody find anything?" I ask.

"Nothing," Gabriel responds.

"Same here. Everything was white," Wanda replies.

"Me too," Serena says.

"Same," Telah says.

"Fine. That means that our last resort is the personality test. If you think that anybody has done or said anything weird up to this point, then speak up."

Everybody thinks for a while before Wanda speaks up, "I think that Telah is suspicious."

"Oh this should be interesting. Well then, please explain."

"You've been way too active in trying to solve this dungeon. You have even had too many good ideas. It's suspicious."

"But, isn't he always like that," I respond.

"I think he's suspicious too," Gabriel says.

"You too!?" Telah says in an amazed voice. "In the last dungeon I was very active. You just couldn't tell because I speaking telepathically with everybody. Besides, is that even a valid criteria to judge me on?"

"I think Telah is not suspicious," Serena says.

"Hahaha. Ok, I was just testing him to see what you would all say," Wanda says.

Telah immediately replies, "Well then, how about you? It's rather unusual for you to acuse anybody of anything. Normally you're more carefree."

"I actually do have to say that this is a bit suspicious. You also rarely bring up such complicated plans," I add.

"Common. I was just playing along because it seemed like a fun idea. Are you really going to accuse me just because of that," Wanda replies.

*sigh*

"I just wanted to test you as well. I think you're legitimate as well," Telah says.

"My turn!" Serena says excitedly. "Jin. Strip off your clothes!"

Everybody replies with, "WHAT?" or "HUH?"

"Why are you asking that? That has nothing to do with a personality test. In fact, that's not something that you would ev--," I stop for a moment and think. "No, I take that back. I could definitely see you trying to taking advantage of this moment."

Serena does some fake crying after hearing what I say.

"Personality tests aren't going to do get us anywhere. We all know the same things, have the same items, and are acting exactly the same as normal. At this point, I think we should investigate other options."

"Like what? We already did everything obvious," Wanda says.

"Then think of something not obvious! We need to explore every possibility. Give me your most wild and crazy ideas possible," I reply.

Everybody starts thinking again when Gabriel eventually says, "What if we are all imposters?"

I then respond, "I take back what I said. Think of your most crazy ideas. However, try to keep them within the realm of reason."

Telah says, "Yeah. If we were all imposters, then this dungeon wouldn't even exist. It's simply not pos—," before cutting himself off. He then puts one hand on his chin and enters deep thought.

"What is it?" Serena asks him.

"It's what Gabriel said. Obviously, we can't all be imposters. But, what if it's the reverse? What if none of us are imposters?"

"Impossible. The quest says to kill the imposters with a parenthesis on the s. That implies that there is at least one imposter. If there weren't any, then the quest couldn't even exist. The logic is as bad as saying that we're all imposters."

"Usually, yes. But, can't quests be misleading? What if the imposter isn't one of us? What if it's something else?"

Serena responds, "But there is nothing else here. The only thing here is the Return Pedestal."

Everybody, except for Gabriel, has a sudden realization.

"Let's check it out," I say.

We all go over to the Return Pedestal and everybody, except for Telah, begins to examine it closely. None of have ever examined the pedestals super closely. In my case, I have looked at it to the point where I know that it says Return on the top and has a border. However, if there is some unique, barely noticeable feature on every Return Pedestal that isn't present on this one, chances are high that I will miss it. This same is true for everybody except Telah, who has never seen a Return Pedestal before. In his case, he won't be able to find any differences at all.

"This seems to be the same as I remember it," Serena says while feeling the Return Pedestal.

"Yeah. There is even the return button engraved on the top like usual," I reply while rubbing my hand over the top of the Return Pedestal. "Make sure that you feel around thoroughly for any indentations, nicks or other defects."

"I wish we could at least make a shadow to highlight a defect. Feeling the statue like this is going to leave me feeling like we missed something," Wanda says.

"I wish we had a hint. Even the smallest clue would make this dungeon so much easier to clear," Telah says.

"Ugh. What if it's like you said Telah? What if there actually isn't an imposter. Though nobody is bringing it up, the quest says that we have to kill the imposter. I'm sure you know what I'm getting at. If there isn't an imposter, then we can avoid that issue altogether," I say.

"Good point. Avoiding the killing issue would be nice. Regardless, if we figure out the imposter, we can have them painlessly suicide. Though, maybe that's not an option for them and they wouldn't comply willingly," Telah says.

"What if we do a random game like in the second dungeon? For example, we randomly decide who gets killed until everybody dies? That way, at least some of us would win," Wanda says.

"That won't work. We can't trust the person hosting the game to not tamper with the game. Also, all five of you could be imposters for all that I know. I can't take any chances," Telah says.

"Really? You're thinking like that?" Serena retorts.

"Enough," I say. "The game idea is out. And, we'll worry about killing the imposter when we get that far. For now, let's continue to look for clues in the quest description and this dungeon."

"Let's consider the scenario where we are all not the imposter again," Serena says. "I like this scenario the most because nobody will have to die. If we can't figure out who or what the imposter is, then we should assume that that is the case."

"But, again, the quest description specifically says to kill the imposter," I respond.

"I know. But, again, I truly believe that the imposter isn't one of us. And, even though it may be silly, I think that there is a possibility that there isn't an imposter. That's why I think that we should clear the dungeon without killing anybody as a last resort if we can't figure out who is an imposter or not. As the party leader, what do you say?"

I think for a moment before responding, "I agree. I'd much rather go along with Wanda's suggestion. However, there is no way for us to trust each other. Everybody, I declare as the party leader that nobody shall be killed if we can't determine who is and who isn't an imposter."

"Hold up. Again, there is no way to know for sure whether you're the real Jin or not. So your title as the party leader holds no weight here. In my opinion, what Serena just said is something that an imposter would say. Clearing the dungeon without doing anything is the same as admitting defeat," Telah says.

"If you're going to argue like that, then I could say that you're the imposter because you're trying to start trouble by disagreeing with us. How's that?" I respond smugly.

"But, if that's true, then why would Telah oppose you? If he's the imposter, then he would go along with your suggestion, rather than oppose it," Wanda says.

"He's obviously trying to win you all over to make himself seem more trusted," I hurriedly reply.

"Guys, stop. This endless chain of accusations will never end because we don't have any proof for anything. Telah, if you disagree with us, then what do you propose?" Serena pleads.

'Damnit,' Telah thinks to himself. "I actually don't have any propositions. I just wanted to test him again. I'll recognize him at the party leader for now."

"Good! I'm glad that we overcame that hurdle. But, we have still made no progress! What do we do?" Wanda asks panicked.

"We could always have a free for all death match," Telah says while smiling smugly.

Serena, Wanda and I all look at Gabriel and shake our heads side to side. Even though we have been avoiding the killing issue, there is one fact that everybody is aware of. If Gabriel is the imposter, this quest is unbeatable.

"Then I'm all out of ideas," Telah responds.

"Don't give up. Let's continue thinking of crazy ideas. If everybody seriously doesn't have any more ideas, then we'll give up," I suggest.

We all begin an intense brainstorming session to think about ways to beat this dungeon. After a while, everybody except for Gabriel sits down on the ground. The brainstorming session seems to take a long time and my mind is in turmoil for the full duration. That's because every second that we waste in here is lowering our Achievement Rating. Well, only if what Wanda said is true. Regardless, the entire session is extremely stressful for everybody.

"I give up," Telah says eventually.

"You're giving up already?" I exhaustedly reply.

"Yeah, me too. I'm sorry, but this is too hard," Wanda says.

"I'm out too," Serena says.

"What about you Gabriel?" I ask.

"Same."

"Ok. Are you all sure? That means that we're going to leave this dungeon without beating it. Will you really be satisfied with just that?"

There are a few looks of disappointment, but everybody agrees that they are ready to finish this dungeon.

"I understand. Then we will go forward with our plan from before. We will clear the dungeon. Let's use the Return Pedestal."

Thus, everybody stands up and begins to walk to the pedestal.

'To think that I would lose two dungeons in a row. And, to even lose to a dungeon like this. Maybe I need to switch up the party a bit. Though that would be difficult now that Serena has offered everybody rooms in our house.'

Once we're on the pedestal I take one last look at my party. Perhaps the imposter will make a sudden expression of satisfaction? Or, maybe some final hint will be revealed. Unfortunately, nothing interesting happens.

"Clear!" I shout out loud. This results in the scenery around my party changing instantly.

After a short while, I hear Telah shout excitedly, "Really!?"

As my vision clears, I look at Telah, and then to where he is looking.

"AWESOME!"

My eyes are immediately drawn to the four big golden chests lined up in a row nearby. My party has successfully been transported to the victory room for the dungeon. This victory room is even more elaborate than the one from the second dungeon. Previously, there were only three walls and a ceiling. However, this time, we're actually inside of a room with four gray walls, one gray ceiling, and one gray floor. This room is extremely similar to the intermediary rooms that Serena and I visited when getting our intimacy advance and when my party died. The main difference is that it is larger and has the portal, information pedestals and reward chests that victory rooms contain.

"I don't know how we did it. But, gold chests indicate an A," I shout excitedly while running toward Serena's and my chest.

Everybody else also rushes while Wanda says, "Telah must have been right. There was never an imposer to begin with."

Once I reach the chest, I open it up.

"Sweet!" I say as Serena stares wordlessly. I can also hear the rest of my party being amazed at their items as well.

Gold chests include one or two rare items, some good items and then other miscellaneous items. Since Serena and I have merged chests, we should expect quite a few good items.

"This is a good haul," I say to Serena before turning to chat with my other party members, "Did anybody get anything that looks super impressive?" I ask.

Unfortunately, nobody responds positively. But, that's to be expected. The true value of an item can't be assessed until it is identified.

"I'm going to check out our Information Pedestal," I say out loud to the Serena who is focused on the chest.

"Me too," she replies.

After walking to the pedestal, I focus my mind on seeing the dungeon's information.

\----------------------------------------------

[Dungeon Report]

Congratulations, your party has successfully passed the Trial of Identification! This trial requested that your party identify and then kill one or more imposters. However, your party was expected to calmly and rationally realize that there was no imposter! Since your party was not able to figure this out, you did not gain the one letter increase to the Achievement Rating. Regardless, your party managed to clear this trial with no deaths, resulting in an A Achievement Rating. Each death would have decreased your parties earned Achievement Rating by one.

Quest Report:

Kill the Imposter(s): Failed (No Penalty)

Bonus Quests:

Realize that there is no imposter: Failed

Achievement Report:

Managed to successfully clear this dungeon without causing or allowing anybody to die.

Achievement Rating: A

Dungeon Master Bonus Information:

The dungeon was shaped as a sphere with your party placed on the inside.

This dungeon was perfectly stable. That means that its Chaos Rating could not be influenced by outside forces, unless they were infinite.

\----------------------------------------------

"Amazing. It's almost like the dungeon is self-aware," Telah says.

"Woah. When did you get there?" I respond surprised.

"I came over while you were reading," he replies.

"Ah, I see."

Wanda then speaks by my right, "Yeah. And, now that this dungeon is finished, I'm happy that it was a logic test," Wanda says. "Another dungeon like the last one would have sucked."

"I agree. The fact that we all use primarily use the intelligence stat was helpful. But, that also means that we need to be ready for other dungeon types that don't match our strengths," I reply.

"Don't worry. I will help with the strength dungeons," Gabriel says confidentially.

"I know that we can rely on you," Serena says with her usual cheerful voice.

*thump thump*

"Alright, grab your stuff and let's head out. You can allocate your stats and deal with your items at the Party Headquarters."

"Party Headquarters?" Serena says confused. Everybody else gives me a strange look as well.

"Erm. I mean, home," I clarify.

Thus, everybody including myself gathers their items from their chests and stashes them in their inventories. I'm a bit disappointed that there are no extra items in this victory room like in our second dungeon. However, we didn't get an S rating. So, now I am even more motivated to get S ratings in the future. After a while, everybody finishes gathering up their items and stands in front of the portal.

"Everybody grabbed everything? If you forget anything then it will be gone permanently."

Gabriel runs back to his chest and does another double-check before running back and giving me a thumbs up.

"Then let's go!"

My party then walks through the shimmering white portal and is transported back to the main world.

### Chapter 18: Incident

My party steps back into the main world and is immediately pelted by rain and wind.

'Right. It was raining,' I think while pulling out my Rain Guard.

"Whew, we're back to the main world," Serena says while stretching as though the weather isn't horrible.

"Hurry up and get under the Rain Guard," I quickly say.

"Welcome back," a familiar voice says from in front of us. I look away from Serena to see who it is.

"Chase?" I confusedly blurt out.

"Chase?" Telah asks confused.

"Let's skip the introductions. There is a massive problem."

"A massive problem?" Serena asks confused as well.

"Yes. Follow me and see for yourself."

Chase then turns around and begins walking away from us.

'I've never seen him this serious before.'

Normally, Serena and I follow the road out of the dungeon that forks left and right. The right way leads to Jul and the left leads to the Resurrection Stone with the church. However, Chase walks straight to the Resurrection Stone without using the road. Considering how muddy the ground is, and the fact that he's not using teleportation, there must really be a very serious problem. My entire party follows him as we walk to the Resurrection Stone. As soon as I step on the stone, I have a realization.

'It's wet.'

Previously, the entire area above the Resurrection Stone was immune to the weather from above. The stone behaved as if there were a weather barrier around its perimeter from the ground to sky level. However, now the rain and wind are entering the Resurrection Stone's territory without hindrance. The stone itself is wet and there are many workers scattered about that are using rain guards.

"As you can see, Eden's weather barrier has failed," Chase says while looking at me. He is completely wet from rain since he is not using a Rain Guard.

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"I don't know. Nothing powered by Eden has ever failed before. And, I've also heard that there are some issues in Jul as well. The mayor is dealing with those there while I'm in charge of the church here."

"Eden's power is failing?" Telah asks incredulously.

"It's not confirmed. But, yes, that's what we suspect," Chase replies.

We're being told major news, but don't have large reactions. The scale of this incident is simply too large for us to comprehend.

"I can understand that you are all shocked. However, try to stay calm. The mayor and I are communicating with each other telepathically. We have a plan."

"And what is that?" Wanda asks curiously.

Chase then turns and looks at Serena before saying, "Serena. What is happening is no longer about Jul. What's happening may affect the main world entirely. The mayor and I want you to become the Head Priest immediately. Then, we want you to commune with Eden directly at the shrine in your house.

"What? Already!?" Serena replies.

"I can understand your reservations. But, please understand that we have no choice. We don't know what is going on and need to ask Eden directly. You're the only person who is qualified to do this."

There is a small moment of silence before Serena responds, "Just tell me what I need to do and I will do it.

"Good. Head to your house and the mayor will assist you. He has already made many preparations for the ritual."

"Understood," Serena says resolutely. She then turns around and begins walking back to the city of Jul. I, of course, follow her while holding up the Rain Guard. The rest of our party follows as well. And, even though they clearly want to ask a ton of questions, they are respectfully restraining themselves due to the urgency of the situation.

"I'm glad," I say to her. I don't even look at her as I continue with, "I'm glad that you are doing something meaningful. I want you to know that I support you fully."

We continue the rest of our walk in silence until we arrive back home. This time, I'll make an exception, and call my house a house.

"What is the situation?" Serena asks the mayor who is standing on our porch. He is no longer dressed in his colorful attire, and is instead dressed in a gray suit. His usually cheerful expression is now serious.

"The preparations for your communion are complete. You only need to enter the shrine, sit down and pray."

"How do I pray? Do I have to say or do anything?"

"Sit down with your legs folded underneath yourself. Then, clasp your hands together in front of your body near your chest." The mayor even demonstrates this action as he speaks. "Concentrate your mind fully on having a conversation with Eden. If your thoughts are genuine and strong enough, then you will get through to him. If necessary, we have herbal products to focus and enhance your senses."

"Thank you. But, I want to rely on only my own abilities."

"An honorable decision as expected from the Head Priest. I doubt you will have any trouble, but I wish you good luck regardless."

"Thank you," Serena says.

She then enters the house and takes off her shoes. She opens up the door to the shrine and looks in. Before entering, she runs back to me and gives me a hug. In response, I hold her tight before. After a few moments, she breaks away and returns to the door. Without looking back again, she enters.

... _In the Shrine..._

'So this is what they did to it.'

The shrine has been changed so that the rows of benches are lined up against the walls. This has cleared the room up significantly. Additionally, there is a white circle drawn onto the wooden floor.

'I guess that is where I sit.'

I walk across the shrine and stand on top of the circle. I then sit down, facing forward, with my legs folded underneath myself. Then, as instructed by the mayor, I clasp my hands in front of my chest.

'Eden, please chat with me. I want to have a conversation with you. Eden, talk to me.'

I repeat a variety of lines in my mind in an attempt to connect with Eden. After what feels like an eternity, the white circle around me lights up. The light becomes intense until my vision is covered with only white light. After a while, the light fades and I find myself in a new location.

"Hello, Serena," a deep masculine voice resonates within the space.

I look around and find myself floating around in a dark blue void. There are a variety of different colored lines, shapes and objects floating in the space around me. There are bright lime cubes, dark red pyramids, lines of pure blue energy moving in wavy patterns and many more objects aimlessly floating around. However, the most distinguished object, is the male in front of me.

He is an extremely gorgeous man by anybody's standards. He is wearing nothing except for a tight-fitting pair of underwear. This reveals his chiseled muscles, jaw and perfectly symmetrical features. His overall figure and build are more than enough to make any woman fall in love with him instantly. Even men might be converted based on his looks alone. Hell, even the blatantly visible bulge in his underwear is more appealing than repulsive.

'I can't think like this. I have Jin.'

"You have come to ask about the disturbances, correct?" the man continues.

"Yes. Are you Eden?" I responds.

"I am. I will now explain the situation to you. I have confirmed that a new god has been born in the main world. Her name is Eve. The birth of a new god is normally not a big deal. However, when Eve appeared, I lost some of my power. In terms that you are more familiar with, some of my abilities have decreased from T100 to T99."

"Woah. Are you saying that her appearance made you weaker?"

"I can't be certain if there is a correlation. Gods becoming stronger is not uncommon. And, none of her abilities appear to be infinite."

"How strong is she?"

"She is still a new god, so she should be rather weak. I estimate that her abilities are at T90."

'T90!? By Eden! I want to call T90 weak one day.'

"Why are you bringing up Eve if she is so normal then? Or, rather, why are you bringing her up if you don't think she is correlated with your loss of power."

"That is the question that I was waiting for. The problem is, I can't affect her with abilities."

"You can't affect her? Can you clarify?"

"Absolutely. You know how you can target other people with abilities right? For example, you know about the scan spell that lets you read about the information of a target. In this case, if I cast scan on her, I get no results. She is completely immune to all of my abilities."

"But, how? Aren't you supposed to be the strongest entity in the universe?"

"That's why this is problematic. There is the arrival of a new god in the universe that I can't effect. And, ever since her arrival, I have been becoming weaker. As the god of order, this chaos is unacceptable. I have carried out this dialog with you as it was the fastest way to make you understand the situation. I will now complete this dialog by answering your remaining questions. Unfortunately, I do not have any way to remedy this situation. The power outages in the main world are temporary and will be resolved soon. I was only performing tests to manage the situation. That is why the weather barrier on the church failed. I am having dialogs with existing Head Priests in many other areas. And, last, the long-term results and effects of this situation are unknown to me. The worst case situation is that I lose all of my powers and Eve becomes superior to me."

I think over the information that was given to me while we float through the void. Eden continues to look at me while I float and think. After I finish processing everything, I respond, "Alright. Thank you for the information. I would like to return to Jul and relay everything."

"As you wish," Eden says and I am blinded by white light. Once my vision clears, I find myself sprawled out over the white circle in the shrine.

'Ok! Time to tell them the information," I say to myself while standing up. I then head out of the shrine to look for Jin. After entering the hallway, I turn left and head to the living room. I find my party and the mayor sitting in the living room in silence.

"Serena!" Jin shouts while getting up and running over to me. "Are you done already? Are you alright?"

"Yes. I was able to have a conversation with Eden."

"Really?" the mayor says while walking over to Jin's side. "What did he say?"

In response, I recount my experiences from within the shrine just now. I describe the environment that I was in, Eden's appearance and the many pieces of information that he told me.

"That is problematic. Based on that information, we can't do anything except wait for this situation to resolve itself."

"This is an issue of the gods. Mortals like us do not have any place in their affairs in the first place. We should be happy that Eden spared the time to chat with Serena at all," Telah says.

"He's the god of order, so it's only natural," Wanda replies.

The mayor says, "Thank you Serena for your hard work. I know that Chase has told you this. However, as the mayor, I want to assure you that I have complete confidence in your ability to be the Head Priest. What you have just done confirms your prowess beyond all doubt. You are doing a great job and I'm sure you will continue to. Many prominent figures in Jul that you are unaware of are extremely happy that you took the position. Please continue the great work."

"Thank you sir," I reply.

The mayor then turns to speak with everybody and speaks, "Everybody, I need to relay this information to many people and take care of other business. I apologize, but I must leave immediately."

"We understand," Jin says calmly.

"Stay safe out there," Wanda replies.

"I will try," the mayor says.

The mayor then leaves the house to handle his business.

"What should we do now?" Gabriel asks.

"Well, honestly, I'm a bit unsatisfied with the last dungeon that we did. Perhaps we should sort out our rewards from the last dungeon and then do another?"

"Two dungeons in one day? I'm game," Wanda replies quickly.

"But, aren't you worried that something might happen in the main world while we're in a dungeon?" Telah inquires.

"We should be fine. Like Serena said, Eden still has all of his powers, right?" Jin states while looking at me.

"Right. We should be ok. And, if the dungeon is super long, we can always leave early," I say.

"It seems like everybody is fine with doing another dungeon, so the matter is settled. Let's sort out our spoils and then do another dungeon," Jin announces.

Thus, my party begins to work on the loot. Even though the dungeon was short, five people cleared a dungeon with an A rank. Thus, there are many items in total that need to be identified. This situation results in Gabriel moving to the floor in an attempt to make space. Meanwhile, Wanda and Telah move to the dining room table. This leaves Jin and me at the living room table. While everybody sorts their items, Telah goes around and casts Identify Item on everything. This results in the downstairs being crowded with floating FWs. Normally this process would take a long time due to mana based constraints. However, the 100% mana regeneration bonus in the Party Headquarters makes this wait period negligible. The results of the identification are as follows:

\----------------------------------------------

\- Items -

Serena and Jin:

Rare Cloth Shoes

Magic Copper Gloves

Magic Cow Leather Greaves

Burnam Wood x4

(S) Magic Battery

(S) Raw Crystal

Freeze Bomb

Ghostly Lantern

Cow Leather x4

Poison of Bad Luck

8 Gold coins

Wanda:

Orb of Disenchanting

Coal

Burnam Wood x7

Bursak Leather Strips x8.

Wooden container filled with insects.

Gold Ore

4 Gold Coins

Gabriel:

Epic Hero's Cape

Steel Pick axe

Iron Whip (1 empty socket)

(S) Inventory Expansion Orb

Coal

Silver Ore

3 Gold coins

Telah:

Ring of Bargaining

Potion of Permanent Strength

Stone of Summon Hawk

Garn Logs x3

Book titled "Advanced Witchcraft"

6 Gold Coins

\----------------------------------------------

Surprisingly, the total amount of items acquired for Jin and I is only slightly less than what we acquired for saving Hamel. However, the quality of the items is noticeably lower. But, I can't complain since we only earned an A rating on the last dungeon and it was so short. If only there were a way to identify dungeons and leave them quickly to perform many short dungeons in a row, then we could stockpile massive amounts of loot.

"The best items are the cape, the orb of disenchanting, the magic battery, the permanent stat potion and this book," Telah says while setting down the newly identified book.

"Oh? You're knowledgeable about the value of items?" Jin asks.

"I didn't spend my time being homeless doing nothing. I know a lot of information that can only be found by being on the streets."

"That's reasonable," Jin says in response.

"Is there anything else that you can tell us about these items?" I ask him.

Telah continues to describe the items to us. Aside from the quantity and quality, there is a large variety of items. Burnam Wood is a grade one wood that is nearly worthless. However, Telah managed to get Garn Wood which is grade three. This wood should sell for an average price right now. Similarly, cow leather is grade one, whereas Bursak leather is grade two and sells for much more. All of the ores are unprocessed and mixed with stone and earth. Another noticeably valuable item is the Raw Crystal. Supposedly it can be used in magic circuitry, an advanced technology that is still being developed. Last, there are the items pointed out by Telah. Each one is amazing in its own right and their FWs are:

\----------------------------------------------

[Item Information]

Epic Hero's Cape

Durability: 30/30 (Perfect)

Implicit Bonuses:

100% More Heroic Image

Grants [T3] Higher Jumping

Magical Bonuses:

+6 Agility

+6 Wisdom

Ability Detail:

[T3] Higher Jumping: This passive ability increases the effect that strength has when jumping.

\----------------------------------------------

[Item Information]

Orb of Disenchanting

Durability: 50/50 (Perfect)

Stored Ability: [T8] Disenchant

Stored Mana: 100/100

Ability Detail:

[T8] Disenchant: Remove magic from an item. Costs 18 mana per cast.

\----------------------------------------------

[Item Information]

Small Magic Battery

Durability: 5/5 (Perfect)

Stored Mana: 782/782

\----------------------------------------------

[Item Information]

Potion of Permanent Strength

Durability: 5/5 (Perfect)

Effect: Increases strength permanently by one when consumed.

\----------------------------------------------

[Item Information]

"Advanced Witchcraft" Book

\----------------------------------------------

The cape is a straightforward item. It has a dark blue appearance and provides stats, heroic stature and higher jumping. Next, the orb is a large glass sphere that is definitely too large to be carried around reasonably. Instead, this item is probably best used when it is stored in a laboratory or workshop. Since the orb has its own mana, it can be used by non-magical people and recharges itself over time. In comparison to the orbs 100 mana, the small magic battery can store up to 782 mana. However, the battery doesn't have an ability attached to it. Last, there is the Advanced Witchcraft book. This book contains spells at the Intermediate tier for Witch themed abilities. There are spells to hex, curse, polymorph and debuff. There are even poison recipes as well.

"This is a really nice haul for such a short dungeon," I say.

"Yes. It's not as much as Hamel. But, for only a few hours of time, this is very rewarding," Jin replies.

"I wonder if this potion can ever go bad?" Telah says while examining his potion. The potion that he acquired is incredible because permanent stat boost potions are rare and sell well. The idea behind this type of potion is that one may not provide much benefit. However, if one can continually acquire and consume stat boost potions, then they will become substantially more powerful than without them.

"Hm. That's a good question. Perhaps you should find and ask a potion maker about that?" Wanda replies.

"That sounds good," Jin says. "Does anybody want to trade any items before I close the Fantasy Windows?"

"I want that summoning stone!" Wanda hurriedly replies while looking at Telah.

"I saw this coming," Telah replies disinterestedly. "I'll trade it for your orb of disenchanting."

"Deal!" Wanda instantly replies.

"Are you sure that you are fine with that Deal?" I ask Wanda. "It seems like Telah profits off of you."

"It's fine. What am I going to do with that clunky thing? Instead, summoning a hawk once per day seems way more useful. And, I can just go use the orb in Telah's room anyway."

"Hey! Don't expect to enter my room whenever you please."

"Don't worry. I'll ask you," Wanda says while winking.

"Right." Jin says. "Anyway, if that's everything then I'm closing these windows. They are taking up too much space. Make sure that you upgrade your gear and allocate your stat and proficiency points. We're going to be going into another dungeon and I want to be prepared. That last dungeon threw us off. But, I'm still riding the wave of momentum. Let's crush it this time!"

"YEAH!" I shout excitedly.

Thus, my party allocates their stat and proficiency points. The final scans of everybody are as follows:

\---------------------------------------------

[Character]

Jin the Lightning Elemental

Class: Lightning Caster

Level: 6

Health: 118 / 118

Lightning Mana: 150 / 150

Life Mana: 49 / 49

Strength: 5 / Intelligence: 51 (+6) / Wisdom: 50 / Agility: 4 / Constitution: 6 / Charisma: 1 / Luck: 0

Stat Bonuses:

Magic Cloth Shoes: +2 con

Magic Staff: +3 int

Magic Cloth Robes: +3 int

\---------------------------------------------

[Proficiencies]

Ability Categories

[T11] Lightning Mastery: Increases the effectiveness of lightning abilities overall.

[T2] Leadership: Increases one's ability to lead others in battle.

[T2] Life Spell Mastery: Increases the effectiveness of life based spells overall.

[T2] Melee Staff Combat: Increases one's effectiveness in melee combat with staffs.

Active Abilities

[T5] Lightning Enchant: Imbues a target with lightning energy that will be transferred to another target when cast. Deals 30 damage. Costs 16 mana.

[T2] Electric Mark: Marks a target with lightning energy that attracts lightning energy. Can withstand 50 points of lightning energy before breaking. Costs 10 mana.

[T2] Lightning Bolt: Fires a bolt of lightning at a target. Deals 50 damage. Costs 20 mana.

[T2] Restore Life: Heal a target with life magic. Restores 3 life. Costs 45 mana.

Passive Abilities

[T2] Ability Growth: Increase the rate that you acquire proficiency by 10%. Additionally, increase the amount of proficiency given by each proficiency point by 10%. (Source: Telah, Share Ability)

\---------------------------------------------

[Character]

Serena the Angel-Cat

Class: Healer

Level: 6

Health: 124/ 124

Life Mana: 191 / 141 (+50)

Strength: 5 / Intelligence: 30 (+5) / Wisdom: 47 (+10) / Agility: 23 / Constitution: 8 / Charisma: 1 / Luck: 1

Stat Bonuses:

Legendary Fairy Queen Wings: +5 int / +5 wis

Magic Staff: +3 wis

Magic Cloth Robes: +2 wis

Other Bonuses:

+20% Global Mana Regeneration Rate

+20 Global Mana Pool

+10% Effectiveness of Deception Abilities.

+2 to Tier of All Flight Abilities

\---------------------------------------------

[Proficiencies]

Ability Categories:

[T10] Healing Mastery: Increases the effectiveness of healing abilities overall. As a specialization of the life realm, this category also positively influences all life abilities.

[T2] Spirit Mastery: Increases the effectiveness of all healing abilities overall.

Active Abilities:

[T4] Restore Life: Heal a target with life magic. Restores 13 life. Costs 6 mana.

[T2] Cure Wounds: Closes and heals bleeding wounds on a target. Costs 5 mana.

[T2] Feed: Temporarily satisfy hunger by a small amount. Costs 5 mana.

[T2] Heaven's Guidance: Guide a weakened soul to the gates of heaven. Costs 0 mana.

[T2] Restore Blood: Restore a small amount of lost blood to a target. Can only restore low quality blood at the current tier.

[T2] Restore Stamina: Cures exhaustion and fatigue by small amounts.

Item Granted Active Ability:

[T4] Flight: This spell lets the wearer of the Fairy Queen Wings fly. Costs 12 general magic per second.

\---------------------------------------------

[Character]

Wanda the Levant

Class: Summoner

Level: 5

Health: 103 / 103

Creation Magic: 162 / 162

Strength: 4 / Intelligence: 53 / Wisdom: 54 / Agility: 1 / Constitution: 1 / Charisma: 1 / Luck: 1

\---------------------------------------------

[Proficiencies]

Ability Categories

[T8] Summon Life Mastery: Improve your ability to give life to summons. Makes life mana usage more efficient and allows for larger and higher leveled summons to be created.

[T6] Summon Physical Offensive Mastery: Increases the overall physical offensive capabilities of summons.

[T6] Summon Defense Mastery: Increases the overall defensive capabilities of summons.

[T2] Nature Affinity: Increases your affinity with all things related to nature.

Active Abilities

[T3] Summon Guard: Summon a minion that specializes in guarding you by your side. Takes three less damage from all sources. Lasts 5 minutes. Costs 25 mana.

[T3] Summon Fighter: Summon a minion that specializes in chasing down and attacking foes. Deals 10 damage on average. Lasts 5 minutes. Costs 25 mana.

\----------------------------------------------

[Character]

Gabriel the Mout

Class: Tank

Level: 7

Health: 350 / 350

Mind Mana: 18 / 18

Strength: 50 / Intelligence: 1 (+11) / Wisdom: 12 (+6) / Agility: 5 (+6) / Constitution: 50 / Charisma: 1 / Luck: 1

Stat Bonuses:

Epic Hero's Cape: +6 agi / +6 wis

Rare Ring: +4 int

Rare Ring: +3 int

Rare Iron Gloves: +4 int

Other Bonuses:

100% More Heroic Image

\---------------------------------------------

[Proficiencies]

Active Abilities

[T14] Taunt: Emit a wave of psychological pressure that forces enemies to perceive you as the greatest threat. Costs 5 mana.

Item Granted Passive Ability:

[T3] Higher Jumping: This passive ability increases the effect that strength has when jumping.

\----------------------------------------------

[Character]

Telah the Shigua

Classes: Dungeon Master and Raid Leader

Level: 3

Health: 268 / 268

Non-Specific Mana: 112 / 112

Strength: 1 / Intelligence: 73 (+37) / Wisdom: 28 / Agility: 1 / Constitution: 1 / Charisma: 1 / Luck: 1

Stat Bonuses:

Race: +37

\----------------------------------------------

[Proficiencies]

Ability Categories

[T4] Dungeon Master: Increases the efficiency of all abilities related to being a Dungeon Master.

[T4] Raid Leader: Increases the efficiency of all abilities related to being a Raid Leader.

Active Abilities

[T3] Team Chat: Enables telepathic communication between party members. Costs 1 mana per second.

[T3] Share Ability: Share a passive ability with a team member. The ability is shared until a new ability is shared or the distance between you two exceeds 50 feet. No mana cost.

[T2] Swap Party Positions: Instantly switch the position of two party members via teleportation. Targeted individuals must be in sight and within 50 feet of each other. 1 hour cooldown. Costs 100 mana.

[T2] Inspect Dungeon: Reveal information about the current dungeon. Costs 10 mana.

[T2] Keep Dungeon Alive: Provides the option to keep dungeons from collapsing upon being cleared. Allows for a dungeon to remain in existence, even after being cleared.

[T2] Bring Along Object: Mark an object to move with you between a dungeon and the main world. Also allows for transfers between the main world and a dungeon. Mana cost scales with the size of the object.

[T2] Scan: Scan a living being to reveal information. Costs 10 mana.

[T2] Identify Item: Present information about the current state of an item. Costs 10 mana.

[T2] Telekinesis: Move an item or object with your mind. Maximum range is 3 feet. Mana cost scales with size of item to a minimum of 1 mana per second.

Passive Abilities:

[T2] Ability Growth: Increase the rate that you acquire proficiency by 10%. Additionally, increase the amount of proficiency given by each proficiency point by 10%.

\----------------------------------------------

Thanks to Telah acquiring higher tiered abilities categories from leveling up, we get incredibly detailed scans about everybody. The first noticeable change is that the stat bonuses displayed in parenthesis have their sources listed. Since I let Jin have the rare cloth shoes, since I took the wings last time, he has a slight boost to constitution along with all of his other stat increases. The other improvement is that some abilities have slightly more detail than before. For example, Jin's Lightning Mark spell states exactly how much damage it can withstand before breaking. Wanda's summoning spells also reveal additional information as well. They state their armor, which I don't really understand

"Now that I see my stats, I'm kind of sad that I don't have more enchanted gear," Wanda says.

"To be fair, we're still clearing beginner dungeons. I can't imagine that we have seen anything too good yet," Telah replies.

"It ok. We will find you some gear in the future," Gabriel replies to Wanda.

"You slipped up Gabriel. You should have said it's, not it," Jin replies.

"Don't bully Gabriel!" I reply sternly. "It's ok Gabriel. Nobody cares."

"Thank you," Gabriel says while blushing lightly.

'He must be embarrassed because Jin did that.'

I walk over to Telah and read his information. This causes me to react by saying, "Wow Telah! You have so many abilities!"

"Yes. Unfortunately they all have a low proficiency. But, they should increase quickly if I use them more."

There is some more small talk about our stats until everybody finishes checking everybody's information.

"Alright. If everybody is set, then let's go!" Jin says.

In response, our party gets up and leaves the Party Headquarters. Once outside, I notice that the sky is still cloudy, but the rain has stopped. Also, the Whooglue plant sprouts have not undergone any significant growth since this morning. My party walks along the road heading west toward the dungeon. However, we stop upon seeing a crowd forming a circle in the residential district town square.

"What could be going on over there?" Wanda asks.

"Who knows? Let's get closer," Jin responds.

Our party walks closer until the voices become clearer. Thankfully, the crowd isn't too thick and we are able to move close to the scene.

"Please tell your story again. I missed it the first time. As a bard, I would die to hear about it."

"Of course. Do not worry, I will happily tell you what happened."

The scene consists of a man dressed in green asking a woman to recite a story. With just that description, this scene is ordinary. However, this scene is far beyond that. That is because the woman is completely equipped in incredible gear. Every piece of gear that she is wearing has an intricate design and visual effect associated with it. For example, her staff has an elaborate design of two gray lizard shaped creatures wrapping around each other to form the main body of the item. At the top, their mouths are open and a gray sphere is floating while slowly bobbing up and down. Her hat is shaped like a typical mage's hat. However, its edges and folds are trimmed with a light that constantly transitions between the bright colors of a rainbow. Her shirt, skirt and boots have the same lighting scheme as well. Based on her appearance, she must be using very powerful items.

"My story is like this. I went into a dungeon like everybody else does, right? But, when I got into the dungeon, the ground was completely covered in items. Immediately, I thought it was a trap. So, I carefully crawled to the edge of the Return Pedestal and picked up an item. There was no trap, so I continued to pick up items. I seriously thought that I would die at any moment, but nothing happened. There was just an infinite number of items of items surrounding me. So, I picked up the best of everything that I could find in the dungeon. As you can see, I'm wearing a set of full Divine gear."

"FULL DIVINE!" everybody, including Gabriel, shouts out loud.

"Yup! And, I even got a bunch of other goodies as well. So, I'm probably the most powerful person in the whole world right now. I heard about this city of Jul so I came to visit. Maybe I can sell some of my items here. But probably not, hohohoho."

"Sweet Eden," I mumble under my breath.

'Her gear is amazing!'

I decide to approach her and say, "Congratulations."

"Oh? And who are you?" she responds arrogantly.

"My name is Serena. Nice to meet you," I say with a light bow.

"Same," she responds before turning away. "As I was saying, hopefully some people can buy my goods here. Ohhohoho"

"Forget about her," Jin says while coming to my side. "She's just a show off."

"Hehe, right," I say nervously.

"Let's get going everybody," Jin says while waving us to keep moving.

Thus, we leave the woman and head for the dungeon. After our short walk, we arrive at the dungeon entrance.

"Ok. I'm not going to give a speech this time. You all know what you need to do. Telah, you've got some levels now, so I'll be expecting more out of you."

"Of course," he responds lazily.

'Maybe I should give another speech. Ah, whatever.'

"Good. Make sure that you use everything that you have at your disposal. You never know what will happen. Stay on your guard."

I then open up the dungeon start interface and set the dungeon to level 5. Thanks to Telah leveling up, there are a few more options available as well. For example, the total inhabitation level of the dungeon can be modified. Though, presumably, this setting is only useful if the dungeon spawns with inhabitants. Another noticeable aspect of this setting is that it doesn't affect any other dungeon modifiers. That's probably because increasing the population of the dungeon intrinsically increases the difficulty and reward of the dungeon. The other setting that has become available is the ability to modify the technology level of the dungeon. This setting can be set to a positive or negative value, like the inhabitation setting described above. Since I prefer more people and better technology, I raise both settings to their maximum value of +5%. The amount isn't much. But, maybe it will have a noticeable influence on the dungeon. After that, I hit the start button.

"Here we go again!" I say while pressing the start button.

Once again, everybodies vision becomes white as we enter a fourth dungeon together.

### Chapter 19: Erm... What?

My party successfully arrives inside of the dungeon. Our vision clears and we find ourselves in an underground setting. The walls are made of a thick brown earth and there is a wall made of stone bricks in front of us. Dim light is provided by thick blocks of burning wood hanging on the walls. On the floor around us are cloth bags filled with fruits, vegetables, flour and more. There are also plates and other dining items made of a hard white material on a table nearby.

I quickly take control of the situation as the party leader. In a low voice, I say, "We appear to be in an underground dungeon. This room is a storage room for dining supplies. Our main problems are the low ceiling and lighting. The low ceiling nullifies Serena's flight and Gabriel's jumping abilities while the lighting is dim and we have no guarantees that everywhere is lit. We must definitely look for light sources. We have the ghostly lantern that perpetually provides light. However, it is so dim that we can only expect to use it reliably in pitch black darkness. Telah, cast Inspect Dungeon."

I also open up my quest log after making my request.

\----------------------------------------------

[Quest Log]

Your party has entered the Solus Underground. This is the underground headquarters for many influential criminals. Your party must clear out this area of all of the criminals.

Quests:

Kill the Boss: Incomplete

Kill the Three Leaders: Incomplete

Kill the Henchmen: Incomplete

\----------------------------------------------

[Dungeon Information]

Inhabitants: Around 350.

Technology Level: Beginner

Chaos Level: 3%

\----------------------------------------------

After reading the information, I continue, "We're in an underground area as suspected. From the quest description, it's obvious that this quest favors stealth. So, I propose two options. We can try to be stealthy, even though it's not our specialty. The problem is that we don't know anything about the layout of this area and might get surrounded. Alternatively, we can create a highly defendable location, likely near where we are right now, and fight everybody as they come. Even though there are around 350 people, they won't reach us all at once. And, if we can make a choke point, then they won't be able to attack us all at once. But, we don't know how strong the enemies are so this might be impractical. What do all of you think?"

Telah instantly replies, "Those ideas are too simple. If we explore recklessly, we can fall into traps or get cornered. If we stay in one place, they may attack us with ranged weapons or use other cheap strategies. The memory of the flaming potion used on us in the second dungeon is still fresh in my mind. I think we should try to abuse the human element of this dungeon instead. Remember, we have no idea how these people will react to our presence. In the second dungeon, everybody except for Rortus acted friendly. There is the possibility that we can enter a false friendship with the criminals here to scout out their base."

"Sheesh. You two always have such thorough ideas at times like this," Wanda says.

"That's our job," I reply while turning to Serena. "You are fine with us killing the people in this dungeon, correct?"

"I'd rather not. But, I suppose that there is no choice. They are criminals, so I will be fine."

"Good. While there are a lot of unknowns in this dungeon, this is nothing different from any other dungeon. The good news is that our quests are very straightforward overall. Our goal is to kill everybody in this dungeon. Right now, Telah's idea seems like the best. Are there any other ideas," I ask.

Serena responds, "I agree with Telah's idea as well. But, how do we implement his plan? Surely you don't expect us to just go out and say 'hey, we got lost and somehow wound up here.'"

"I'm two steps ahead of you. We'll have one person go out and explore. If he encounters anybody, then he will talk with them. We need to choose somebody who doesn't look particularly intimidating, and won't negatively impact our combat abilities if he is captured or killed."

Suddenly, my party simultaneously looks at Telah.

"Guys," he says nervously.

"Please," Serena says while moving close to him and clasping her hands together. She even pokes out her bottom lip, a move that not even I have seen before.

"Fine. I guess I am the best candidate. It's my plan and I'm the smartest one here."

"That's the spirit!" Wanda replies.

'I feel somewhat insulted. But, whatever. He's going along with the plan, so I'll let him say what he wants for now.'

"Ok. Telah, it's all up to you. Lead the way and we will be stealthily following you from behind. If you come across somebody, your story is that you got lost and wound up in here somehow."

"That's such a stupid story, but I guess I can't think of anything better. Fine, I'm going."

... _In Another's Eyes..._

Now that our plan is decided, I walk to the stone brick wall in front of us. There is an average sized wooden door with a wooden handle affixed to it. I open the door by turning the handle and look into the next room. This room is a kitchen with most of its bare earthen walls exposed. There is a sturdy wooden table in the middle of the room with four seats on each side. There is also a fire pit on the left side of the room. It is situated at the middle of the wall and it has two wooden counters on each side that are hanging off of the wall. The fire pit is nothing more than a hole in the wall with a chute going up through the ceiling. Also, the counters have simple designs that resemble scrawny tables with thin widths. To my immediate left is a hallway and in the back right of the kitchen is another exit.

'I really have absolutely no idea where to go.'

I look back at my party and see them all smiling at me in anticipation of how I will proceed. Jin even gives me a thumbs up while winking.

'Ok. I guess I'll go look in the hallways and see if there is anybody around.'

My surroundings are entirely silent. There is no fire active in the fire pit and there are no sounds of human activity. With this level of quiet, and roughly 350 people in the dungeon, the dungeon itself must be very large. Or, people are currently grouped up in different locations.

I walk over to the hallway on my left and look to the left and right. The right direction leads to another, much larger hallway, whereas the left direction leads to more rooms. I go back into the kitchen and check the exit in the back. Inside is a small room with a person sleeping on a bed.

'Could it be night time?'

I quickly go back to my party and relay what I saw. Then, I go back to the hallway on the left. Before visiting the larger hallway on the right, I go left and check the rooms in this smaller hallway. Each room is a workshop designed for a different purpose. One room has an anvil, tongs and many other items that can be used for crafting. Another room has beakers, potion bottles and plants being grown. A third room has straw bundles on sticks shaped like humans. And, the final room has baths and toilets.

After checking out all of the nearby rooms, I once again report what I saw to my party.

"We will capture the man living near the kitchen. He is most likely a cook and won't have any combat abilities. If we interrogate him, then we can learn a lot about this place," Jin says.

Jin also comes up with a plan to carry out the plan he just said. This results in the rest of my party coming out of the storage room for the first time. We all slowly approach the mans bed and surround it.

"Now," Jin whispers.

Gabriel immediately lifts the bandit's body upright. Meanwhile, Wanda, Telah, and Serena grab different body parts to keep him immobile. Simultaneously, I wrap and tie a cloth found in the store room around his mouth. The man's eyes instantly open and he tries to scream. However, his voice is muffled so that only low MMM's can be heard.

"Calm down," Jin states in a relaxed voice.

After a short while, the man stops struggling and relaxes.

"Good. I have a few questions to ask you. Will you answer them?"

The criminal is currently being held upright in his bed. He is a normal human male that is wearing nothing except for a pair of white, cloth underwear. He's a medium sized person with a moderate amount of fat. The blanket that he was wearing now lays folded over his lap. He looks around at each of us before slowly nodding his head.

"Thank you," Jin says. Gabriel then lays the man's body down flat on his bed. Then, he gently rests his sword, now being wielded with two hands, against his throat.

"This is just a bit of insurance. If you move even a little bit or I feel that you are lying, you will be killed. However, if you don't lie to us, we will let you live. Good deal right?" Jin says.

Serena walks out of the room as we continue our operation. She stated during the planning session that she doesn't want to watch this scene and will instead be a lookout. In response to my statement, the man nods his head again. So, I untie the cloth covering his mouth.

"Who are you?" he immediately asks.

"Us? We just happened to get lost down here," Jin says casually.

"What do you want?" he asks.

"We want to get out of here. We have no intention of being found down here or fighting anybody."

"Bullshit. Nob-- agh," he is cut off by Gabriel pressing his sword down slightly.

"Pardon me, but we're the ones with questions. I answered your questions nicely. Now, answer ours."

The man then smiles and screams, "GUA," before Gabriel cuts his head off. Gabriel's cut is so fast and casual that it is comparable to slicing a vegetable in half.

"Damnit. We didn't get any useful information," Jin says.

"No. We did," I respond. "He was going to call for guards. He could have called for friends or somebody else, but was going to say guards. That means that we need to be on the lookout for them."

"It's a good thing that Gabriel responded as quickly as he did. If he had managed to say too much, our cover would have been blown," Wanda says.

"Yes. Let's continue the operation like before. I'll check out the main hall."

"Ok. That sounds good," Jin responds.

I walk out of the room and switch places with Serena. I then head down to the end of the small hallway and peak into the main hallway. This main hallway is actually a large corridor that extends far to the left. The size of the room is huge and the ceiling must be at least 20 to 25 feet away. The reason that the ceiling is so high is because there is a second floor. The second floor has wooden railing and there are dim lights illuminating areas here and there. To the left and right side of this corridor are hallways on both floors. A short distance from me to the right is nothing except for a normal earth wall. However, a large distance from me on the left are two wooden double doors guarded by two armored guards. If not for the dim lighting in the corridor, the far distance and me only peaking around the corner by a little bit, they would certainly see me.

"This layout is good," Jin says after I finish reporting my findings. "Multiple hallways means that people aren't in one spot. We will have to use that fact to our advantage. The double doors are likely where the boss is. The leaders are likely scattered around everywhere. The good news is that I think we should be able to reasonably face a large group of these guys at once. However, the bad news is that even one fight will completely reveal us. If we have to fight over 300 people at once, I doubt that we will survive."

"Not a problem," Gabriel suddenly says. This is the first time that he has spoken up since we entered the dungeon.

"What do you mean?" Serena asks in a worried voice.

"I can fight all of them at once."

"Really? This is over 300 people. Are you sure that you can actually take them on all at once?"

"Yes," Gabriel says firmly.

Jin suddenly changes his expression and enters deep thought. After a while, he speaks up.

"Ok. We will fight all of them at once in the corridor," Jin says calmly.

"REALLY?" I say with a voice that is trying to shout, but is still a whisper.

"Yes. I've been thinking about it for a while now and I don't think we have a choice. There are too many problems that we can't overcome. First, most of the people in this dungeon are sleeping. So, we can be stealthy and get a few kills here and there. However, if we make one mistake or run into a single group of people that are awake, we will alert everybody of our presence. This will inevitably lead to us being cornered, like you stated before Telah. Rather than that, we should fight somewhere advantageous for us. I think that we should fight at the end of the hallway. Wait, no. Then we could get attacked from the second floor. Let's actually rush to a staircase and fight from the second floor."

"This sounds suicidal," Serena says. "I don't like it."

Gabriel then turns to Serena and says, "I have fought against many humans before. If everybody is a human, then I won't lose. I will protect you."

Serena becomes visibly calmer and sighs, "If you say so."

"Remember. Gabriel had already solo cleared a bunch of dungeons before joining our party. Sure, this dungeon is harder because there are more people. But, we have support for him. I think we should trust him."

"But remember what happened in the second dungeon? Rortus outsmarted him completely," I say.

Gabriel then becomes angry and starts to yell. "He was lucky. Me not prepared for him to fight like that."

"SHHHH!!!!" we all say to him. However, it is too late. There is now the sound of movement all around us in the distance.

'Fuck.'

"Ok everybody," Jin says in a calm, voice at a normal loudness. The time for whispering is over. "Put your faith into Gabriel. Let's find some steps and go up them. Then we will battle from there."

My party then rushes outside of the kitchen to the end of the hall. There is now a third guard in the corridor near the hallways that we're in. He instantly spots us.

"INTRUDER!"

Gabriel runs out of the hallway with his sword wound up over his head. The man attempts to defend against the attack by holding his iron sword above his head, but Gabriel knees him in his newly exposed chest. This causes the man to bend over as Gabriel slices his leather covered body in half.

"Holy shit," Jin says while watching the scene. All of us can't help but watch the scene in shock.

"Let's go," he says while running down the corridor. Thus, we follow him and run down the corridor as well. After a short period of time, we realize where the steps are because of people coming down them. There are two sets of stairs at the middle and ends of the corridor on each side. Since we're heading to the middle, we will be surrounded at this rate.

"We are going to be surrounded," I say to announce my thoughts.

"No. We'll make it to the steps and then be fine there," Jin replies.

Fortunately, we reach the middle of the corridor in less than ten seconds. But, my fortune ends there.

"I *pant* can't *pant* go *pant* on," I say while looking at the steps. The ten seconds of running has completely drained my stamina. "I'm *pant* too *pant* tired," I say between heavy breaths.

Jin quickly looks at Serena and says, "Cast Restore Stamina."

"Oh right! I forgot about that," Serena says and then starts casting the spell. "Restore Stamina!"

Her cast makes my body glow a low transparent green for a few seconds.

'I don't know if it's enough, but I will try.'

Our entire party begins to walk and run up the steps. Gabriel leads the way and mercilessly attacks anybody who confronts him. The steps go up halfway to the next floor before ending at a small landing and starting a new set of steps in the opposite direction. Once we reach the landing, everybody except for Gabriel is gasping for breath and resting.

"Ok *pant* we *pant* will *pant* fight *pant* here." Jin says.

"Good *pant* idea," Wanda says as well.

Wanda creates her summons and places them on the stairs leading down. Meanwhile, Gabriel stands and fight people who come to us from the stairs leading up. The people coming to attack us are in groups of one to three people. Each time that they come, Gabriel attacks them mercilessly with his sword. The enemy attempts to attack him, but his armor repels every attack.

"Is this guy a monster?" one of the attackers says while staring at our group.

Wanda and Jin also take part in the battle as well. Wanda has summoned two guards and one fighter to battle on the steps. When the guards block an attack, the fighter summon and Jin attack the distracted criminal. Jin attacks by moving his staff close to an enemy and casting Lightning Bolt. Casting a lightning spell point blank is another way to counter the poor accuracy of lightning spells. The fights continues for a few minutes in this fashion with our party winning overwhelmingly until the flow of enemies stops.

"What happened?" Wanda asks warily.

"Keep on your guard. We're dealing with humans. The leaders are likely taking action," Jin says.

"Then perhaps we should take advantage of this situation to hide?" I say as a suggestion.

"Yes. Let's go up these stairs. But, again, keep up your guard. We don't know what is happening."

Our party then starts walking up the steps with Gabriel leading at the front. He looks to the left and right before waving for us to continue. Once we reach the top, a voice can be heard coming from the first floor.

"Give up. You're in our headquarters. I don't know what you want, but you can't win. If you surrender now, you might get away with only being a slave for the rest of your life," a sturdy masculine voice says.

While the man is talking, I walk over to the railing where Gabriel and the rest of my party are and join them in looking over the railing. On the first floor is a large group of criminals standing in a crowd. At the front of the formation are a man and woman with more distinguished appearances. First, both are older than the rest of the crowd. The woman is wearing red robes with a blue trim that is made of a smooth, thin material. The man is wearing a sleeveless brown shirt that reveals his huge muscles. He is wearing a thin, brown cloth shirt that reveals his exceedingly muscular frame. In each of his hands is a thin blade with a length roughly twice as long as a dagger. The woman has something in her mouth that is on fire and releasing smoke from the tip, whereas the man has a small, thin piece of wood in his mouth.

After my brief glance at their appearance, I cast a scan on them. Instead of outputting the scan into a FW, I input the results directly into my mind. Using a FW is only useful when one wants to share the results with others. In this case, there is no need for one.

??? the Human, Male, Level 12, Duelist

??? the Human, Female, Level 11, Illusionist

This is my first time scanning an enemy, so I'm surprised by the results. These results are a lot less detailed than when I scan my party members, but this must be to keep the ability balanced. Regardless, the information that I acquired will be extremely useful since we know their level and class.

"Let's go," Jin says once the man finishes speaking. He seems focused only on clearing this dungeon, so he doesn't respond. We head to the right and come across a large room to our right. This room appears to be a sparring room. There is a ring with straw dummies in the center, an alley with straw dummies at the end and several equipment racks to hold weapons. There are even some tables.

"This room is a good defensive location. There is a lot of space and they can't enter without coming through the door. We should camp out here for now. Gabriel, you're on guard duty. Let us know if anybody comes."

"Alright," he replies.

"The entire second floor sounds empty. They have probably regrouped and are planning a counter-attack," Wanda declares.

"I would be in a panic too if my headquarters was being raided. Let's think about this from their perspective. They probably have never had a raid done on their headquarters and want to settle this issue quickly," I say.

Suddenly, the sound of marching can be heard outside of our door. But, strangely, the sound of marching can be heard inside of the walls as well.

"Do you guys hear that?" I whisper quietly.

"Yes. There are noises coming from the walls," Jin whispers as well.

We continue to listen as the sounds become louder and clearer.

[About the two leaders that we saw. One is a level 12 Duelist and the other is a level 11 Illusionist.] – Telah to Jin

[Ok. Do you know anything about the third leader or boss?]

[Unfortunately, I don't.]

[I understand. Thanks.]

"They are coming from the left and right to this room," Gabriel says while looking into the hallway. We get into a battle formation and Wanda creates her summons. The sounds in the walls get louder until I have a realization.

"Those are the sounds of people moving. They are moving through the walls!"

"What? Fuck! Everybody, to that corner of the room!" Jin says while pointing to the left back corner of the room. We quickly rush there and get into formation.

Telah and Serena are in the back while Gabriel is in the front. Jin is placed in the center with Wanda. Using my guidance, Wanda arranges her summons so that there are a guard and fighter summon on either side of Gabriel. The remaining guard summon is placed between her and Jin. Based on Wanda's mana pool size being 162, the fact that she has already conjured three summons and the fact that her mana has regenerated for around a two minutes, she must have roughly 125 mana remaining. This means that she can create at least four to five more summons immediately. I proposed to Wanda that she use three summons at a time since it is an optimal use of her mana. If she creates three summons at once, then she uses 75 mana per five minutes. Based on the size of her mana pool, this means that she can just barely sustain three summons indefinitely. This also allows her to create up to three additional summons at once when we need additional fighting power.

The criminals finally reach the entrance to the training room and swarm in. Due to the choke point created by the door, they funnel in one at a time. Simultaneously, the wall on the left side of the room and ceiling on the right side of the room swing open. These new entrances allow roughly six criminals to enter per second. I perform a rough calculation and estimate that this fight will last two minutes maximum.

The gear that the criminals are wearing does not have much variety. They are mostly wearing brown leather vests to cover their chest with a black shirt underneath. Their pants are brown leather pants as well. Most of them are using one-handed swords with a round brown shield strapped to their arm or a second one-handed weapon.

Gabriel immediately initiates by attacking the criminals as they reach us. He is attacked by many of them but his armor and high constitution repels every blow.

[Use Taunt.] – Telah to Gabriel

[Ok.]

"RAWR!" Gabriel shouts as he releases a primal roar. His voice is much louder than normal and reverberates intensely inside of this dungeon. Our enemy's reactions are immediate as they rush Gabriel more aggressively than before.

The combat continues for a while with Wanda's summons helping Gabriel out. Jin uses lightning enchant on his staff and constantly stabs taunted or distracted enemies with the tip. The damage doesn't kill them off instantly, but they take considerable damage. Jin does manage to get hit a fair amount in the process. However, the damage is always minor and Serena casts Restore Life on him.

After about thirty seconds, an arrow flies into the room toward Gabriel's head. Since he doesn't wear a helmet, this is Gabriel's one weak spot. His height negates this weakness for most melee attacks. However, a ranged weapon's attack is an entirely different case. The arrow rushes towards Gabriel head, but only grazes his cheek because he is constantly moving while fighting.

"Care for archers!" Jin says.

In response, Gabriel continues to attack while blocking arrows with his shield. Seeing such a large person move such a large metal shield is a surreal sight. If not for his strength, there is no way that he would be able to move as he is. Wanda's summons attempt to block arrows as well. However, they are too short to be impactful and instead focus on fighting.

"The Duelist is here!" I shout when I see him come in. I'm currently participating in the battle as an observer. Thus, I have been keeping an eye out for any suspicious movements.

"Too late," he says while attempting to run past our front line.

"RAWR!" Gabriel shouts as he casts taunt again.

"Fuck... YOU!" the man immediately shouts while turning his attention to Gabriel. Gabriel's taunt spell is his one class specific ability, so even a high level fighter like the Dualist if forced to fight him. The Dualist immediately faces Gabriel and charges at him. However, the Dualist is still at a high level, and the effects of the taunt wear off after a few seconds.

"RAWR!" Gabriel shouts again in attempt to cast taunt the foe. However, the Dualist is unaffected this time.

"Damn you," he says angrily while trying to turn right.

"Too late," Jin says from the side. With his staff pointed directly at the Dualists side, a surge of lightning pours from the tip.

"AGHHH!" the man says while being blown away from us. "Men, attack!"

The criminals more aggressively attack us while the Dualist backs away. In this situation, there is no way to give chase without losing our position. We continue to fight waves of men for a few more seconds before Gabriel starts to act weird. Attacks that would normally cleave men in half are now striking the air.

'Could it be that the Illusionist is finally at work?'

[What's wrong?] – Telah to Gabriel

[I can't see.] - Gabriel

[Gabriel can't see. The illusionist is blinding him.] – Telah to Jin

[Damnit.] – Jin

More arrows start to fly in the room targeting Gabriel's head specifically.

"Duck!" Jin shouts. However, his warning is too slow and Gabriel is hit. He instinctively turns around and faces us while ducking. This reveals that the arrows luckily missed his eyes. However, one pierces his forehead, cheek and nose.

Serena immediately shouts, "Restore Life," after seeing the sight. This causes the area around the arrows to heal. However, the arrows are still embedded in his face.

Before we can do anything else, the presence of the bandits becomes known. They were still charging when Gabriel turned around so our front line has collapsed.

'Damnit!'

"ARRRRGGGHHHH" Gabriel screams as he casts taunt. This time, the taunt is much louder than normal and has a new effect. Everybody, our party included, flinches at the sound. After a second or so passes, the criminals unwillingly begin to attack him.

"What!? No!"

"Why can't I stop myself?"

"I want to run away!"

Ultimately, the taunt ability is a psychological spell. One projects the magic of the spell with their voice. Even blocking one's hearing has no effect on the effectiveness of Taunt. I can only imagine that Gabriel invoked a form of free casting to empower his Taunt. Since it's his one extremely specialized ability as a Tank, and it's at T14, it's possible that some interaction occurred that I don't know about.

Due to the taunt, the criminals are drawn to Gabriel and attack him with their weapons. However, none of their attacks do anything against his armor. Meanwhile, Gabriel slices people mercilessly. Our party regains an advantageous position as the enemies swarm Gabriel. The illusion from before does not seem to be effecting him anymore.

"Keep up the pace!" Jin shouts to us as we fight for our lives.

... _In Another Place..._

"Sir. The invaders are still in the training room 2C. Nearly half of our men have been slain," a man states while bowing with his legs folded underneath him. His head is touching the floor in front of him while his two swords sit at his side.

"Really? All of this trouble over a few rats," a different man says casually while sitting on his throne. He has one leg folded over the other and his chin is leaning on his right hands knuckles. The entire room is lit just enough so that one can see that somebody is nearby. However, discerning any specific features is impossible.

"I'm sorry sir. I tried to kill them myself, but was overpowered."

"Fool!" the man on the throne says as a blade is embedded into the ground near the person kneeling.

"My lord. Please do not worry. I will handle this," a third person says after rushing to kneel next to the other kneeling person."

"Do not fail me Omaru," the lord replies.

"Sir."

In an instant, the body and presence of Omaru disappears.

'It would be a shame if I have to fight down here. I was just starting to like this base,' the man on the throne thinks.

... _In Another Place..._

"Is that it?" Wanda asks uncertainly.

"They have probably realized that their current strategy won't work. We killed off so many people and fended off two of their leaders' attacks," I reply.

The amount of people that have been killed has created piles of bodies. The mounds of corpses are so big that they actually made fighting easier, as enemies would naturally walk around the larger piles. There are easily over a hundred dead bodies in front of us, and most of the corpse mounds are at least at waist level. However, there are some spots where dead bodies reach eye level.

"Let's check out what is going on outside of this room for the time being. If possible, I'd like to stay in this room. But, we might have to relocate."

"I'll check," Gabriel responds.

Meanwhile, I check Serena's condition. She is obviously disturbed by the amount of violence that has occurred. However, she is making her best attempt to remain calm.

"There is nobody there," Gabriel says when he returns.

"Nobody? Like, it's completely empty?"

"Yes."

"What could they be planning," Telah mumbles to himself.

"I don't know, but it's making me uncomfortable. Let's wait here for a while longer," I say.

"Ok."

Thus, we all go back to our corner and get into the positions of our formation. Everybody except for Gabriel relaxes and rests. We have some downtime, so this s a good opportunity for us to recover. After more than ten minutes, Serena speaks up, "It doesn't seem like they are coming anymore."

"They are trying to give us a false sense of security. They want us to let down our guard and make a mistake," I reply.

"Unfortunately, that plan might work. In this situation, we're the ones trapped. They don't have do anything except wait for us to make the next move," Telah responds.

"Well, we killed a lot of people. So, we definitely stand a chance in a fight against them. Telah, can you check how many people are in the dungeon?"

Telah closes his eyes for a moment before opening them again and responding, "Around 200."

"That's incredible. That means that we probably killed at least a third of their fighting force. I thought we had no chance but we killed that many and fended off tricks from two of the leaders. But, the problem is that the boss and the leaders are all still alive."

"No problem," Gabriel responds confidentially.

"That reminds me. Gabriel, how did you use that powerful taunt back then," Telah asks.

"Oewww, ahh, I still get goosebumps thinking about it," Wanda responds.

"I... saw Serena cry. So, I had to protect her," Gabriel says while blushing.

"Really?" Serena says as her eyes open up wide. She then runs over and hugs him while saying, "Thank you Gabriel!"

Gabriel starts to blush even more brightly than before and says "Anytime."

'Gabriel can't possibly have feelings for Serena. Could he? He's blushing so hard. I hope that is just embarrassment.'

But, just then, I have a sudden realization.

'If Gabriel does like Serena, then I could get the two of them to date. That would basically accomplish my goal of keeping Serena around me, while not having to make the commitment of being married to her. Serena does seem to like Gabriel a lot, even if it isn't love.'

Before I can think anymore, I'm interrupted by Telah, "We should make our next move. Waiting for them to make a move first will waste a lot of our time. And, they are definitely in less of a rush to defeat us than we are. We'll face issues like running out of food and dealing with these rotting corpses before they do."

"Fair enough. Then let's think of a way to beat this dungeon," Jin says.

"I've already created a plan. We should continually approach the boss room while using the side rooms and hallways for cover. It's a bit risky, but I don't think there are any better or safer moves in our situation."

We all sit in silence and think about his idea for a while before Wanda replies eagerly, "I'm game."

"Yeah, I think that it is a good idea too," Serena responds.

"Let's do it," Gabriel declares.

"Then it's settled. We will head to the boss room by walking down the second floor corridor. We will use the hallways and side rooms for cover when possible. Gabriel, lead the way. Everybody, maintain formation."

With that, we get into formation and head out of the room. Gabriel double checks before we all enter corridor and walk to the left. After walking a short distance, something unexpected happens.

"SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT!"

Instantly, a large number of criminals rise up from the other side of the corridor and shoot arrows at us. There is even a new ranged weapon that operates differently from a regular bow. A long, thin projectile is placed on a track and released when the person pulls a trigger back. The weapon uses a pulled back string to fire its projectile similarly to a bow. However, the projectile is fired much faster.

"DODGE!" I shout in response. Gabriel turns around and tucks his head while huddling Serena and Wanda into his arms. I drop down to the ground. And Telah, at the very back, uses a large stone pillar connecting the second floor with the ceiling where the railing is located.

"An ambush like this. How surprising," Telah says.

We did expect to be ambushed by the criminals again. However, we expected the ambushers to be melee fighters. During the previous battle, there were only four arrows used in total against us. Thus, we didn't prepare against a firing squad of archers. Now that this has happened, and I think about our situation some more, I once again feel that they were intentionally trying to lull us into a false sense of security. Or, perhaps they didn't take us seriously until now, and they are beginning to use their best tactics to defeat us.

The barrage of projectiles continues for a short while until slowing down. There is still the occasional projectile being fired to prevent us from escaping easily. However, there are far fewer projectiles being fired than normal.

"Get to that room over there," I say while pointing to a room close by.

We wait for a small window of timing when a projectile has just been fired and then rush to the room. The archers on the other side of the corridor begin shooting again. However, the room is close enough that we reach it within three seconds. This heavy sprint causes everybody to be slightly out of breath.

Unfortunately, before we can do anything else like recover, or analyze the room, a new event takes place. The inside of the room is a bunk room with several beds inside. In response to us entering the room, bandits jump out from under the cover of bedsheets and rush us.

"Such cheap tricks," Telah says angrily.

"I kill," Gabriel says while charging at a nearby criminal. He slices at him and goes to attack another. Meanwhile, we move away from the exit to the hallway to avoid the projectiles being fired inside. There isn't a door, so we have no choice but to leave the room open. A few men run into the room periodically while Gabriel is fighting others deep inside the room. However, I cast lightning bolt on them as soon as they enter at point blank range. This blows them to the side where Wanda's fighter summon finishes them off effortlessly.

"They are organized, but not organized. They are truly bandits," I say annoyed.

Gabriel finishes off the last person in the room before returning to us. There are ten beds in this room and ten people that were killed by Gabriel.

"I'm done," he says after reaching us.

By this point, Gabriel's normally flawless armor is scuffed, scratched and dented. The battle in the room against the criminals had already did a lot of damage. But, the recent ranged attack ambush did a considerably higher amount of damage.

"Our objective remains the same. Gabriel, use your shield to fend off the arrows. We will head to the bosses room," I state.

"Wait. I just had an idea," Wanda says.

"What is it?" I reply.

"The bandits are using secret passages to move around, right? What if we use those secret passages as well? At this rate, we'll just get ambushed again," she replies.

Telah adds, "I had considered using their secret passages as well, but I didn't think it was necessary. But, now that we know that they are willing to setup ambushes and they know our location and direction, the ambushes will probably be worse in the future. We should move unpredictably going forward."

"Good idea. We need to throw them off somehow. Everybody, look around for secret passages."

Everybody except for Gabriel who is on guard scatters around the room to look for secret passages. After a while, Serena says, "Found one!"

"Great," Gabriel says while bashing another intruder with his shield. During the one or so minutes that we have been searching, he has killed another three people.

'They were all likely scouts sent to check up on us.'

"It's too dark," Wanda says while looking into the secret passage. The passage is a hole in the ground underneath a bed in the back right corner of the room. The passage must have been recently used, since it appears to normally be buried under dirt.

"It's fine," I say while pulling out the ghostly lantern. The ghostly lantern is an item that creates a perpetual green-blue light without the need for fuel. The item would be extremely impressive if not for the fact that it is as big a hand and it only creates a very dim light. This item can only be used to make out the details of something when held up close. In this case, we'll be using it to not run into walls. "This time, I'll lead. Try to remain quiet."

Thus, we all head into the secret passage by climbing down the ladder within. After finishing our climb, we find ourselves in a small dimly lit room. The lit wooden blocks attached to the walls are smaller and less bright than the ones in other areas. Based on how far we climbed down, we should be roughly on the first floor.

"Let's go," I say while leading the way. I also put away the ghostly lantern. I had a small hope that it would be useful. However, there is no way that it will be.

The small room has an open door that leads to a hallway. This hallway is extremely dark and there doesn't seem to be any movement. I take one step out of the room when Gabriel pulls me back. I feel a gust of wind brush past me as a shadow moves extremely quickly from right to left.

"Huh? What?" I say dumbfounded.

"Stay on guard, enemy," Gabriel says.

Gabriel looks outside of the room and says, "All clear."

"Good save Gabriel," Telah says.

"What even happened?" I ask.

"Something or somebody was trying to attack you. But, Gabriel pulled you back," Telah responds.

'All of my warnings to stay on guard must have really stuck with Gabriel.'

Gabriel heads out of the room and faces down the hallway. He is staring at something when a voice says, "You should have just let him die. Now he will have to suffer with the rest of you."

The rest of our party walks out of the room and looks down the hallway. There is the figure of a slim man standing at the end. However, he is wearing completely black clothing that makes him hard to see. After finishing his line, he turns around and runs out of sight by using a corner.

"Let's not follow him. It could be another ambush," Jin says.

"Yes," Gabriel says while turning around. We head in the other direction while Telah watches our back. Eventually, we reach a door.

"I'm opening it," Gabriel says.

He slowly opens the door and looks in, but quickly pulls his head back. A large number of arrows hit the door, so he slams the door shut again.

"What was inside?" Telah asks.

"The corridor."

"As I suspected. Based on our position, we should be back near where we started."

"Damn. Does that mean we have made no progress?" Wanda asks.

"It's fine. We just need to keep killing them off slowly. Right now we're in an even more advantageous position than before. The hallways favor close combat," Telah replies.

The hallway that we are in is skinny and will only allow two people to move through it side by side at once. Also, the hallway has many unnecessary sharp turns. This makes surprise melee attacks easier to pull off. But, ranged attacks from far away aren't possible. Our only real problem in this situation is the fact that we can't exit the secret passageway.

"Should we just head to the other side of the hallway then? Won't that take us to the boss?" Serena asks.

"I would like to. But, they will likely have another ambush waiting. We can't even use a different secret passage with the corridor locked down. Any time that we try to advance, our movements will be tracked."

"Then let's kill the archers," Gabriel says quickly.

"What? That's obviously suicide," Telah responds.

"No," Jin replies quickly as well. "Right now, there is no winning move. I can't say for certain whether giving up the corridor was a mistake or not. However, that's the situation that we're in now. If we keep making small movements, we will keep running in circles and give them more time to prepare. With as many losses as they've suffered, they must be much more serious than before. They won't use small groups anymore. Hell, they are even resorting to assassinations. I think that it is in our best interest to rely on Gabriel and make one big push. If we do something crazy and unexpected, we might get an edge that gives us a victory."

Everybody thinks after hearing my words for a bit before Telah responds, "You might be right. If we continue like this, we'll just keep walking into ambushes no matter what."

"What if we charge at the archers and kill them off?" Wanda says.

"Impossible," Telah responds. "I won't make it halfway before I die of exhaustion."

"We need to get you strength gear like we got intelligence gear for Gabriel," I quickly retort.

"That's fine," Telah says.

"Anyway, you should be fine. We just need to get to the other side of the corridor and we will be safe. The distance is possible even for you."

"Yeah, but what if there are archers on the side that we're currently on? The assassin definitely reported our movements, so they could have even prepared other traps," Telah says.

"At this point, we can only assume that they only have enough resources to counter our current position. We have to assume that they don't have anything setup on the other side of the corridor. So, my plan is to get over there. Gabriel will charge to the other side of the corridor. When you reach the other side, if you think it's safe, then give us a thumbs up. If it's not safe, then give a thumbs down. Also, you need to try not to die. So, scout out a hallway or room to run into for when you cross. If you give us a thumbs up for us to cross, try to draw their fire to you before we run over. You can use your shield to stop attacks from the people above you. Even with a poor constitution, it should take at most five seconds to cross. So, Telah should be fine. Our goal is to get to the other side and then rush to the second floor. Nobody should have a problem with this plan. Any questions?"

"I assume that we will fight the archers after we succeed in our plan?" Telah asks.

"No. Our goal is to get to the boss room. As I said before, we have to be more serious and focused than ever. The enemy has likely predicted all of our possible movements and has put countermeasures in place. The only action that they don't expect is for us to use the corridor. If you think about it from their perspective, we have been avoiding the corridor and they have it under lockdown. Also, the reality of the situation is that the corridor is wide open, so there is no way that they can put a hidden trap or ambush there without us having time to react. Once we reach the boss room, we will find a corner and get into our formation. Then we will fight the boss, leaders and any other threats like we did in the battle before. Any more questions?"

This time there is nothing but silence in response to my words.

"Excellent. Then let's start the operation. Gabriel, are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"Wait, I just remembered. I can use this summoning stone to summon a hawk. And, didn't you get a frost bomb?" Wanda says.

"Shhh, not too loud about the bomb. I have a secret plan for it. And, the hawk might be useful. Let's do this. If Gabriel gives us a thumbs up to cross, then we'll have you send out the hawk as a distraction before we run out. Sound good?"

"Understood."

"Last call, any more questions, ideas, suggestions, comments, feedback?"

There is silence.

"Then begin! Go Gabriel."

Gabriel turns to the door that he has been holding closed and opens it. He pokes his head out before pulling it back in. A barrage of arrows flies towards him, but stops like before. Rather than shutting the door, he takes advantage of the downtime to rush across the room.

"HEY!"

"THEY ARE IN THE CORRIDOR!"

"THE INTRUDERS"

The men scream at the unexpected charge of Gabriel. Once Gabriel reaches the other side of the wall, as expected, the archers shoot down on him from above. The second floor landing adjacent to the bottom levels floor, only positioned higher, so the criminals are able to aim their weapons over the railing to fire at him. Thankfully, Gabriel has a massive shield that protects him from all incoming arrows.

*Thumbs Up*

"Let's go. Wanda. Hawk!"

Wanda concentrates on the stone and a hawk appears on the ground in front of us. It looks around for a second with a twitchy head before flying out of the room into the corridor.

*SQUAAAAK*

"A BIRD?"

"WHAT?"

We suddenly rush out of the room while the people are distracted and rejoin Gabriel.

"On second thought, the stairs are right there. Let's rush the stairs and attack the archers. Everybody will move in a line behind Gabriel to defend against the arrows."

Thus, our party moves to the stairs nearby. This set of stairs is on the far end of the corridor opposite of where our party started the dungeon at. We head up the double flight of stairs and arrive at the second floor. As expected, the archers continue to shoot arrows at us. But, Gabriel is holding up his shield in front of us for protection. Even Wanda has summoned two guards that are standing in front of us with their double shields raised. With this formation, arrows are stopped above and below the waist line. "RETREAT" a loud voice shouts once we get very close.

"Lightning Bolt" I say as I cast my spell. Unfortunately, the spell flies off randomly into the middle of the corridor. The bolt hits the ceiling and fizzles entirely.

'Fuck this accuracy!'

Meanwhile, Gabriel rushes up to an archer and effortlessly slices him in half. Wanda's fighter summon charges into the fray and attacks people as well. Some bandits, presumably people waiting in ambush, appear on the other side of the corridor. However, they are all melee users, so they can't hurt us from their positions. In the end, we manage to kill off around ten of the twenty or so archers when a new event happens. Suddenly, without notice, the boss room's door opens.

"STAND DOWN!" a familiar voice shouts while walking out of the room.

'That's the Duelist, isn't it?'

[Be very careful Jin. That is the boss.] – Telah to Jin

[Really? I can't see him.]

The Duelist from before walks out of the room before assuming a dignified standing position. He stands straight up, clasps both of his hands at his lower back behind himself and stands with his two feet moderately spaced apart from each other. Behind him, a new person walks out of the room as well. Strangely enough, the person that comes out looks like nothing more than an ordinary kid. The child has a petite frame and is wearing plain black pants and a plain black shirt.

[Is that really the boss?] – Jin to Telah

[That child is a level 20 Force Blade.]

[A Force Blade? What is that?]

[Not even I know.]

'I can't underestimate him by his appearance.'

The boy looks up at us and says, "Intruders. Let's end this game of hide and seek. Come down and face me. I have ordered my men to stand down." No matter how you look at him, he looks and sounds exactly like an eight year old.

"So you can lead us into a trap? No thanks," I respond quickly.

"Everybody. Enter my room now."

Suddenly a large flow of people comes out of rooms on both sides of the corridor. Many bandits look at us and shake their head pitifully. We can even hear things like,

"To make the boss himself come out. These guys are fools."

"I wonder what punishment the boss will have for us since we let them get this far."

The people completely disregard us as threats. A guy even casually walks through our formation while saying, "Heh. You guys are dumb for making the boss mad." The four leaders appear to the side of the corridor at the entrance of the child's room. Once everybody enters, they all go in as well and shut the door.

"Do you doubt me now?" the child says.

'After a scene like that, how could I?'

"Are you really saying that you will beat all five of us in a one versus one?" I ask.

"Easily."

'This cocky brat.'

"Fine," I say. I then tell my group that we will accept his challenge head on. In this situation, nobody questions my decision and everybody only nods.

We carefully walk to the steps to the middle of the dungeon corridor while staying alert. We walk to the steps, go down them and stand facing the child.

"Well then, I will start."

The child stretches both of his arms as far as he can above his head and two separate spirals of energy appear above his hands. The energy spirals are completely flat and slowly move upwards vertically. In the wake of the spirals is a new material that wasn't present before. The movement of the spirals takes roughly five seconds before two blades appear. Instead of being made of metal, they have a whitish-blue color and are slightly transparent.

'Could it be another wind user? His class is Force Blade, so it may be possible.'

The child then lets his arms fall slowly until they are parallel to the floor. His movements could almost be described as graceful at this point. But, the unexpected past of his movement is that the blades follow his hands as they move to his sides. The blades follow the palms of his hand without making contact as though they are psychically tethered to one another.

'This can't be it. What's the catch? Damnit, I just don't understand.'

He then clenches his hands into fists and tosses a few practice punches. The blades remain separated from his fists by a fixed distance as he jabs the air. Each thrust causes the blades to be thrust back and forth as well.

"Alright, here I go," the child says.

He casually walks over to us with his hands resting at each sides. The two blades angle horizontally as he walks forward. And, even though they are clearly scrapping against the ground, there is no sound.

Without warning, the child suddenly initiates a flying kick toward Gabriel. By all appearances, the kick looks fast. But, the user of the kick is just a child. Overall, the move doesn't appear very special. So, in response, Gabriel puts up his shield to block. However, he is blown away completely. The kick knocks him off of his feet and drops him onto his back behind our party.

"What the?" I say while looking at Gabriel.

"Hahahaha," the child laughs mockingly. "Such a tough guy was beat so fast. Wow, I thought that you guys would pose a small challenge considering what you did to my organization. I guess I was wrong."

I suddenly aim my staff at the child and cast Lightning Bolt mentally. For the first time ever, my lightning bolt moves directly toward the child.

"He's done."

But, the child slices at my lightning bolt with his sword and blows it away.

"WHAT?" I shout dumbfounded.

The action of the child didn't seem particularly rushed either. He casually raised his arm up and sliced his sword vertically through the air. Somehow, this action cause my lightning bolt to be blown away. Redirecting the lightning bolt would be believable. But, to actually blow it away like wind scattering dust is ridiculous. It was like my lightning bolt exploded into fine particles of light.

'This kid really can't be underestimated.'

"You guys don't get it," the child says calmly. "I've already shown you this much and you're still confused? Why don't you just give up now? I'll make you a special deal. You can serve me as my slaves for eternity. That's much better than death, right?"

"Never!" Wanda quickly responds.

The eyes of the child widen quickly and he slices his right blade toward Wanda. Even though he is far from her, she is sliced shallowly. Her robes are cut horizontally along her chest and she begins to bleed from the wound.

'Isn't this only a level four dungeon? How can a kill quest be this hard?'

[Telah. Can you hear me?"] – Jin to Telah

[Yes. What is it?]

[I'm going to use the bomb. Tell Gabriel and Wanda to make an opening for me and be ready for when I use it.]

[Gotcha.]

"Sending signals between each other?" the child says annoyed.

'What, how does he know? In fact, didn't Cassandra in the second dungeon knew as well?'

"You're actually surprised? How stupid can you be? You are both staring at each. I guess I need to end this quick before you guys can pull any tricks. It was fun playing while it lasted."

The child then lifts his two arms up vertically so that his arms are completely level with each other.

"NOW!" I shout while throwing out my bomb.

*slice slice slice*

The frost bomb that I throw out is sliced mid-air and explodes. The frost bomb is a low level item that was acquired in the last dungeon. It has two effects. First, it reduces the temperature of the area surrounding its explosion point by a moderate amount. The main appeal of this effect is not the strength of the effect, but rather its effect radius. The effect covers a very wide radius, but is only strong enough to make one chilly. The second, or main, effect of the frost bomb is that it encases the area surrounding its point of detonation in ice. This results in a spikey ice crystal with a five foot diameter at its longest points being formed in front of us.

*slice slice slice*

The child slices at the newly formed ice crystal that is still flying toward him so that it breaks into pieces. Meanwhile, Gabriel flanks him from his right with Wanda's summons from the left. They both rush at him from both sides and prepare to strike him.

"Fools," he says as he crouches down. To all of our surprise, he jumps so that he flips upside down and lands on the ceiling. "You should understand with this, right?"

'He is manipulating gravity? That's so cheat!'

[Jin, I've figured him out. He's manipulating forces. Gravity, kinetic and electromagnetic forces. Be careful, he must be very strong.] – Telah to Jin.

[I think I already figured that out for myself.]

The child then jumps off of the ceiling and rushes toward Serena. However, to all of our surprise, the door to the boss room opens up. In response, the child stops in mid-air. While floating, he looks at the door as well.

"Who would dare interrupt my fight? Show yourself," the child says.

We all stare at the door as a shadowy figure slowly moves to the doors entrance. After a while, we realize that it's one of the bandits coming into the room. However, his appearance is abnormal. His head is hung low as he looks toward the ground. His body sways left and right as though each step is a struggle.

[Jin. Something is wrong. I can't read that guys level.] – Telah

[What? Are you sure?]

[Yes. I cast scan, but I only get question marks. Just like when I inspected the lava dungeon.]

The man continues to approach us with his head hanging low. His limp body moves as though each step is a struggle. But, what is more incredible, is that the man is drenched. His long hair hangs freely in clumps over his hidden face. A liquid drips frequently from his clothes and body, dying the floor in his wake a dark red.

"Answer me!" the child demands.

The body suddenly freezes on the spot. Its head moves upwards to look toward us. The man's face is normal, except for its blood colored hue. Without warning, a copy of his body made out of light slides from the left of his body. The copy has the exact same appearance of the man and has a rainbow color scheme consisting of light colors. The copy slowly slides of his body before fiercely snapping back in the man.

"I don't know which bandit you are. But, I won't tolerate insubordination," the child says.

The child then flies through the air towards the man that is entering. Once close, he performs a slice with his blade through the air. This diagonal strike cuts down from left to right where the man is standing. I expect the attack to only hit the man, but, instead, slice marks appear on the walls to the left and right of his room's entrance as well. Even more surprisingly is the fact that the man continues to stand in place as though completely unaffected.

"What the?" the child says in disbelief.

[We need to escape now.] – Telah to Jin.

His message pulls me back to the reality of our situation. My trump card had just failed to beat the boss. The boss seems undefeatable. A new threat has appeared that Telah can't scan and that the boss we couldn't beat is being troubled by. Even though we only suffered from the low death penalty the last time that we died, there is no guarantee that that is the case in this dungeon.

[You're right. Let's leave slowly.]

The child is currently far ahead of us and facing the new threat. I slowly turn around and lean one finger vertically against my lips. I then wave my hand back and forth to signal that everybody follow me. We all start walking to the Return Pedestal while watching the scene at our backs.

The bloodied criminal seems to notice our movements and suddenly charges forward. However, the child has his own plans. He forms four more of his white-blue blades. They arrange themselves next to the already existing ones like claws while maintaining a fixed distance from the child's hands and each other.

The child then slices down creating deep incisions along the sides and floor of the corridor. This time, the man seems to be effected and stops. He slowly looks up at the child and jumps toward him. The child uses his ability to fly to easily dodge the leap. However, the man rebounds off of the ceiling with another leap. The child dodges to the side and slices at the man again. But, this causes him to turn around and reveals our escape.

"YOU BASTARDS!"

When he says that, we enter a full sprint. We're already at the entrance hallway that we first used to scout out the main corridor, so the distance left is small. We rush through the hallway and into the kitchen. In this situation, even the frail Telah musters enough strength to sprint all out. With our goal in sight, we hear a terrible scream coming from the child in the corridor. This causes us to all flinch for a moment before I shout, "Keep moving!"

This reminder refocuses everybody's mind as we rush into the storeroom. As soon as Telah steps on the platform, I shout.

"CLEAR!"

My vision turns white as our party is instantly teleported from the dungeon. After less than a second, my vision clears from the blinding light. This reveals the victory room in front of us.

"What the... fuck was that?" I ask stupidly while trying to recover my breath.

"I HAVE NO IDEA!" Wanda shouts.

"That was scary," Serena says.

"Could what happened have had something to do with Eden's issues?" Telah asks suspiciously.

"I don't know. Honestly, I don't feel safe here and am worried about what's going on in the main world. Let's hurry back," I say.

With that, we go to the Information Pedestals. This wasn't a preplanned or group decided action. We genuinely all want to know what the fuck just happened.

\----------------------------------------------

[Dungeon Report]

Your party entered the Underground Headquarters on a quest to slay criminals. During this time, your party killed a large number of them. After killing a certain amount, the boss fight was triggered to begin. However, a bandit left the boss room and interrupted the battle. In the end, the bandit killed everybody in the dungeon except for your party.

Quest Report:

Kill the Boss: Complete

Kill the Three Leaders: Complete

Kill the Henchmen: Failed (Partial Credit)

Achievement Rating: B

Dungeon Master Bonus Information:

The dungeon had a total of 368 inhabitants.

The criminal's headquarters had the dimensions of 1000 x 1000 x 50 feet.

Above the criminal's headquarters was the level 20 city Amaleous.

\----------------------------------------------

"This is too weird. Everybody was killed off? And the description makes it sound like a normal bandit killed off everybody," Wanda says.

"Yes. That's why we need to get back to town immediately."

We all step away from the pedestals and go to the reward chests. This time, there are four iron chests with gold trim. Everybody heads to the chest with their name floating in gold letters above and stores their rewards in their inventory. This entire process is done quickly and in silence. Once we finish up, we use the portal to the main world.

After arriving in the main world, we check out our surroundings. The rain is still stopped and the sky is still cloudy. The church appears to be getting worked on as normal and people are entering the dungeon like normal as well.

"At least everything seems fine here," Serena says happily.

After saying that, Serena then starts to look around and puts on a sad expression.

'What the?'

[Jin, I told Serena that hardly anybody is leaving the dungeon entrance. Don't say anything out loud. We don't want to cause a panic.] - Telah

I take a moment and look around as well. What he said is true. There are many people entering the dungeon right now. However, there are hardly any people leaving the dungeon. Wanda seems to have already caught onto this, but Gabriel looks around after likely being informed of this situation by Telah.

"Let's keep moving," I say.

We head from the main dungeon and take our walk back to Jul. There is no denying the fact that there are fewer returnees from the dungeon. And, once we reach Jul, there are many commotions occurring. There are groups of people crowding around individuals who are shouting, guards are moving around frantically and the town's order in general seems to be falling apart. We walk over to one of the nearby crowds and listen in.

"You have to believe me! I was in a pirate's fort and started fighting the boss. After I got his health low, a magical barrier formed around him. Even the pirate captain looked surprised by it. I couldn't penetrate the barrier, but was able to attack me through it! In the end, I was cut into pieces by his sword until I committed suicide," the man screams.

"Let's get back home, quickly," I say without giving my party a chance to react. We head through the residential district and arrive at my home. To my surprise, the Whooglue seeds have surpassed my height! There are now large, light-green stalks growing up from the ground. Their thin frame seemingly defies physics as they stand upright. In fact, a small breeze seems to be enough to make them fall over.

My curiosity surpasses my concern for our situation as I walk over to one plant. I immediately discover that the stalks are extremely sturdy when they completely resist my attempts to bend them. Even with my best effort to bend the very top of one, I fail completely. The rest of my party is also surprised to see the new plants and investigates them. Serena in particular is very thorough.

"What kind of plants are these?" Telah asks.

"They are Whooglue plants, I guess. The seeds were called Whooglue seeds," I respond.

"Whooglue plants? I've never heard of them. What are they?"

"I have no idea," I respond stoically.

Telah looks at me with a befuddled expression for a moment before heading into the headquarters.

"Aren't there too many?" Wanda asks.

Her question highlights my fear from before. Too many of the seeds have succeeded in growing. In fact, all of them have succeeded. Thankfully, we spaced the seeds a good distance apart from each other and planted them in rows. But, without knowing what type of plant is growing, there may not be enough room. I had thought that they might be flower seeds. But, that possibility is gone. Chances are high that they are trees. So, we have to seriously worry about them needing more room between each other, or entering our neighbor's lawn. And, with their growth rate, these concerns need to be addressed very quickly.

"Maybe," I respond casually to Wanda. "I'll deal with these plants later today. Let's all go inside and discuss the incidents from before."

Thus, everybody heads into the Party Headquarters with their curiosity peaked. We sit down in the living room and Wanda initiates our discussion, "Everything that happened had to be because of Eve."

"That can't be. Eden said that she is just a new god with little power," Serena retorts.

"But, he did say that he can't affect her right?" Telah counters. "She appeared right at the same time that he started losing his powers. And, he can't affect her. Even if he can't prove with 100% certainty whether or not everything is coincidental, it's likely that these events are related."

I join in as well, "While true, he is still an infinite being. It's hard to imagine that a lesser god could take any action that he wouldn't know about; even if he can't stop her directly."

"TO ALL RESIDENTS OF JUL! THIS IS THE MAYOR SPEAKING! COME TO THE TOWN CENTER AT ONCE! I REPEAT! THIS IS THE MAYOR SPEAKING! COME TO THE TOWN CENTER AT ONCE!"

The mayor?" Gabriel says.

"What the?" I say.

Telah, Wanda and Serena have similar reactions as well. There is a silence unanimous agreement as we all get up. We all head out of the door and walk toward the town center. Once we arrive, we see the mayor on a newly erected platform above the luxury districts decorative centerpiece. To his left is a naked guardian with the same appearance of a naked blue male that Serena and I have seen before. But, to his right is a different guardian. This guardian is a naked female with pink-red surges of energy pulsing along her body. Their only visible differences are their gender and color scheme.

*****

### Author's End Comments

Here we go with more crazy insights into the mind of the writer, me! So, this book started off as an incredible challenge. I came to a shitload of realizations and had to overcome many trials and tribulations! Where do I even start? Sheesh. I guess I'll just talk about my comments in general and then go over the general organization of the book first.

Contact Information

Oh, but first, the blog/website for all of my writing is <https://jimmyfruits.wordpress.com/>. I can be contacted anonymously, or publically, it's up to you! So, feel free to share any feedback that you may have there. Typos? Bad edits? Comments? Questions? Logical Inconsistencies? I'd love to hear from you! Nowwwww, we can move on....

Introduction (redundant header, I know)

When I started off the book, I wrote my normal starting author's comments. But, I decided that I would create comments that would stand the test of time as a rather pointless challenge for myself. Right now, I feel that I succeeded greatly! In regards to these end comments, they are written at many different points in time. This is so that I can track how I felt at different times. And, also, because this section is long and I never wanted to write it all at once at any given point in time.

The book order is:

Prologue Pt. 2 -> Town Visit Arc Continued -> Fourth Dungeon Arc -> Town Visit Arc II -> Fifth & Sixth Dungeons Arc -> Sixth Dungeon Arc

These aren't official arc titles or anything. I just kind of made them up on the spot so that I can talk about them in this section. They might conflict with the arc names I used in the first book, but I don't think it's something that needs a ton of thought right now. I'll make and include a formal timeline in Volume 3 (V3), because I actually have to make one for my own reference, because this story has a lot of events to keep track of now (marriage, meeting, plants, etc.).

Prologue

The prologue is something that I just started writing because I felt like the book needed one. I didn't want to go right into the story. When I started writing it, I had no idea what direction I wanted to do go in. Even now, I have no strong feelings about the prologue.

Me: I guess it's ok? *shrug*

Town Visit Arc Continued

I tried a 'quick free write' technique to help me organize this arc. I had a lot of ideas for what I wanted to cover and wrote this down in my 'supplemental's document' (where I keep all my todos, scenes, snippets, etc. it has reached an impressive 4k+ words on its own!) to organize my thoughts:

"Describe Eden doing something nearby but out of sight. When we arrive we are gone. Day Guard Cap. Asks about what happens and we meet acquaintance. Chase the vice-mayor. Get lead to tea shop and eat food. Talk about reunion and attempting to get Serena as wife of vice-mayor. Political benefits. Deny. Finish conversation and head to construction site. See crowd of people building house. Describe area as being developed. Talk to Architect. Finish business and break up with DGC., head to town square to recruit party. Finally alone, meet people and accept three. Decide not to get scan because of party member with scan.

Tell the three to meet up and we will go to dungeon tomorrow. Head to inn. Eat dinner, bath, sleep. Wake up, head to office to get key. Get key to house and enter. Describe. Say to get more stuff later when not poor. Meet up with party at town square. Head to dungeon. "

By writing this I was able to organize my thoughts, establish logical event timings, and make sure that I didn't miss any details. But, as you can see, there are many major differences. It's really amazing how fast I wrote that description. But the actual process of writing the full story took so much longer. Most significantly, writing the party member descriptions took 3 hours for their less than 2 pages. I even had to revise that section a few times which took additional time. Hell, writing out character scans and item details was a challenge in and of themselves. The process was time consuming because I'm a very thorough person who really wanted everything to be perfect. In the end, I used a bunch of previously written character snippets, mixed and matched them, improved some and generally made three party members that I'd be satisfied with. Even though this technique was useful, I didn't use it again. It only worked in the first place because I knew very clearly what I wanted to cover beforehand. However, later scenes were only vague ideas that I had an idea of how I wanted them to be. In V3, this technique will make its return many times I imagine.

Town Visit Arc Continued Pt. 2... (revised)

The town visit arc is really important because it's when the 'big' characters are introduced. So, yeah. My first big realization was that this book will be overloaded with dialog. In fact, I realized this early on in chapter 13. But, I had a second realization when I finished making the party. Are there many books with five talking characters being active all at once? Nope. Then you add on more people and realize that it will be a clusterfuck. I realized that I would have to take drastic action to prevent the book from being nothing but dialog. Killing everybody off permanently by using the plot as an excuse sounded nice. Alternatively, making people leave the party for one reason or another was an option. I could have even kept the party with only Serena and Jin (would never happen though since I WANTED A PARTY BAD). But, I felt that the most logical and reasonable solution would be to use the 1st and 3rd person perspectives to paraphrase more often. For example:

"Good morning," they both respond. Serena also takes a moment to extend greetings to everybody while performing light bows at the waist.'

I could have wrote out all of the greetings for Serena, right after Jin just finished his. However, I don't want to write that, nobody wants to read it, and the details are unnecessary. Though, on some level, I still really want to have the full greetings in my text.

At this point, I don't really know if I failed or succeed to do this. I know that I don't really paraphrase much at all in the fourth dungeon (intentionally). And, even later one, I don't do it that much. I've got really mixed feelings about this topic. Don't judge me!

Fourth Dungeon Arc

This arc includes the third dungeon, returning to town, and entering the fourth dungeon. My only real comment on the third dungeon is that I knew I wanted to make an impossible dungeon. So, I did. Really simple thought process, huh? The whole Gabriel suiciding thing was something that I came up on the spot. I liked it.

I'm explaining my thought process straight out like this so that you will believe me when I say the following: "I didn't make the third dungeon short just to meet the 4 dungeons challenge that I set for myself." To be honest, I didn't think I was going to hit it. Did my mind subconsciously make a short dungeon to hit the limit? Maybe. But, whatever, I don't think there is any need to overcomplicate this topic any more than that.

The fourth dungeon was initially supposed to be 5 bosses fought in five different rooms in order, 1 by 1. But, I felt that a static dungeon doesn't fit my tastes. If people invade your castle, why would you sit back and do nothing? No, you would plan to kill them all off. I could have made it so that 'you kill a boss and get teleported to the next one'. But, again, I wanted things to make things feel more realistic, lively, unexpected and dynamic since this is an earlier book. Later books might have more straightforward scenes like this one was initially intended, however.

So, somehow, I decided that five bosses was too many and made the quest four bosses. And, somehow the second boss proposed a gambling game (heavily influenced by reading the having just read the manga Gambler Fish probably). In fact, this entire dungeon was so unpredictable, that I used random.org to roll whether or not Jin's party successfully cleared the dungeon or not. At that point, I felt that the story was just greater than me, so I left it up to RNGejus. Also, the story is more fun when even you don't know what will happen. I'd love to take community suggestions of wild dungeons to throw my characters into and then write about their experience. But, that's more of a dream for now.

Town Visit Arc II

Not much to say here. My goal was to shorten the amount of writing between dungeons. As I like to say when I can, I try not to have a lot of filler in my stories. You get a little bit of story progression in the main world, the characters take care of their business, and they head to another dungeon without five books of drama. Short and sweet.

Fifth & Sixth Dungeons

The fifth dungeon was actually really hard for me to decide upon. I had a lot of ideas for potential dungeons. However, I wasn't satisfied. So, I used an old technique from my creative writing course. I wrote down a list of 20 different dungeons that my party could do. A wind temple was like my 7th option, and really resonated with me even after I finished the list. In the end, I was going to do it. However, I was thinking of how to make it interesting. Then I thought of doing a quest to 'kill your party'. Gee, that would have been interesting too! But, I wound up doing a 'find the imposter' quest after writing half a page. I know that the entre dungeon idea is cliché. But, I wanted to do MY cliché. Like, If you're gonna be cliché, then innovate. Again, this is my hatred for bad writing showing through. So, yeah. There were a lot of variations that I had in mind for this scene. So, many dungeons didn't make the cut.

Next, I minimized the downtime between dungeons again, but took care of some plot in the middle (Gotta have dat sweet plot). At this point, I had absolutely no idea what kind of dungeon I wanted to do, again! After heavy deliberation, I decided on an underground bandit hideout. Initially, this dungeon was supposed to just be a long rectangle that the party goes through and battles to the end (one of my 'dream scenes' that I had thought of before I even started this series). But, damnit, my 'dynamic world' ideology wouldn't let me. So, we got a long corridor with hallways and stuff to the side, a night setting and bunch of other random details that I randomly came up with on the spot (The best form of writing!).

When I wrote the assassin attempt, I kind of realized that I forgot to include a scene that was ESSENTIAL to the plot. Ok, well, I had always kind of knew that I needed to include it. But, I just hadn't. Now, I knew that I needed to put it in. I continued writing with this scene being in my mind even more. My writing led me to them killing archers, which led to triggering the boss fight and the mysterious bandit appearing.

As a last comment, I must say, I was way too hyper when I started thinking about and writing the last boss fight. I don't think that I was create as much hype for the scene when writing it down as I had when I was thinking about it. This kind of feeds into my 'sweet spot' that I mention below and the 'limits of my universe'.

Overall

Overall, I was very surprised by where my writing took me. I wrote a crap load in this book and managed to cover a ton. To give you an idea of how literal I am by "I was surprised," I'll give you a good example. Take for instance, the Whooglue seeds. They've been in the story since volume 1. I've described what they look like growing. So, obviously I know what they will grow into right? Nope. No fucking idea. A tree? A flower? Love fruit? A butt? No idea. I probably won't know what these fucking seeds grow into until I start writing that moment. I could try force myself to decide what they will grow into right now. But, I have no interest. This is the 'wait and see' approach that I take where not even I know what will happen. That's how my stories evolve on their own and get a chance at becoming greater than me.

My only real regret with this volume, right now, is that I didn't get a chance to write from Gabriel's perspective. I could have 'forced it', and just did it. But, I want the moment that I enter their perspectives to be natural with the flow of the story. I don't want to write from their perspective just for the sake of completing a checklist. Ya feel me? Like, going into Telah's perspective in the last dungeon made sense. Serena in the shrine made sense. Wanda's scene made sense. Even though I did Wanda, I want to give her another chance to shine. I want both Wanda and Gabriel to establish stronger identities.

I guess a small and/or minor regret of the book is that the romance is rather light. I almost want to declassify this book as romance. But, this book has so much setup for future romances! I even planned out a dramatic romance scene that would occur in the next scene, but it will have to get pushed to V3 now with me finding such a good point to stop V2 at! *sigh*

Naming Style

I'd like to take a moment to talk about my naming process. As you may have noticed, I'm not afraid to create completely unique names for people, items and materials. There is a constant internal struggle within me every time I have to reference or create something new. Do I want to make something completely foreign? But, then I might alienate my audience too much. But what if it's too cliché or overused? Suddenly, my story is too copy-pasted. There is a difficult balance here that I don't think I've quite reached.

In regards to chapter titles, you have probably also noticed that they are simple. Like REALLLLY simple. Chapter titles are the first thing that come to my mind when I think of a chapter title. Honestly, if not for the major organizational benefits of chapters, I wouldn't use them. I really hate spoiling content with chapter titles (and page/word counts). I've encountered this so much while reading, that I would never want anybody else to suffer from this as well! Some of the chapter titles got revised after I wrote the story. But, only like one.

Last, names for people. Names for people and places follow a similar thought process as the chapter names. However, I actually revise them a few times. Thus, we can create a key that shows how hard I think about things.

Items/Abilities: Way too much.

People: Some.

Chapter Titles: No.

Goals for the future:

This series has served me well so far. I feel that I achieved my goal of making a story better than most VRMMO stories that I have read. I fulfilled my RPG and 'dungeon-crawler' cravings. Overall though, I'm still unsatisfied with my writing. The constraints of FWO's story make it impossible for me to hit the 'sweet spot' of my writing that I know exists somewhere. The 'overwhelming strength protagonist' is a genre that I want to explore (I LOVE OVERLORD!). But, I know I can't do it well in this story. (I 'could', but I want to preserve this series identity.) And, of course, the R-Rated Loli Harem, muahahah (though I'll have to put that in a super encrypted file on an offline computer, or perhaps write it in an encrypted format with a custom program). But, I am extremely satisfied with the story that I have created thus far. Especially since this is my first time ever writing books.

So, yeah. I think that when I write future volumes I will skip forward in time a bit. I'd still need a normal progression for V3, but V4 would have to be at level 20, V5 at level 35, V6 = 50, etc, since I strongly dislike infinite series. Actually, the number scaling would be even faster than what I listed above. But, I can't say why because that might spoil some 'future, way down the line' content. I actually do have scenes planned all the way up to Volume 10... surprising, I know. Regardless, my point is that I don't want a series where my characters are still fighting bears and rats by volume 6. But, hmm, even the dragons in most other VRMMO stories would be small fry by level 50. I guess you, the reader, can already guess that though.

So yeah, (I love 'so yeah') as I said before, I'm extremely satisfied with my series as it is right now. I managed to cover most big scenes that I wanted to. There are two more dungeons that I 'really' wanted to write about. But, they can easily fit into V3, so it's fine. I even managed to sneak in one of the minor scenes that I wanted to write about (the pirate cove scene / ala that one Minecraft mod that spawns the pirates!) near the end of the book. When I write V3, I already predict that it will be in the current time line for half of the book, and the future for the other half (like 99% certain).

To my few fans, thank you very much. Without you, I would not have even bothered to finish this book. I would have stopped after the scene where they meet the woman in full divine gear. That was my 'final scene' that I had in mind for this volume when I originally started writing this series. It's just amazing how it turned out to be such a quick, uninteresting scene. But, even to my own surprise, I prefer for it to be that way. V3 is in the works and I expect for it to be even better than V2.

Thanks again,

Love,

The Creator

### Bonus Section

Wow! You read two whole volumes of my books? You're a crazy person! Or, you skipped to the end. Or maybe you're just here for the answers to the last questions? Whatever the reason, here is your reward! First, answers to the last book's questions:

1.) Glass

2.) Bow and Arrow

3.) Yes and No. You actually need to have 'yes and no' as your answer, because both are true. If you picked one or the other, then you're wrong. And, yes, I lied about there only being 2 answers. (False dichotomy ftw).

4.) Time. The reasoning is as follows: Since the dungeon requires you to survive for 3 days, the only way that you can get through those 3 days faster is to manipulate time. Dungeons have different timelines from the main world, so altering time inside of a dungeon will allow it to be cleared faster relative to the time of the main world. I'll also add that the dungeon was designed so that the boss fight wouldn't trigger until the third day, so the actual power level of any given class is mostly irrelevant here.

5.) Chase the Vice-Mayor.

And now, more completely unreasonable questions!

**First question on Millionaire:** Who created the pink guardian?

**Ok, now we're talking:** What happens when an ability category hits Tier 100?

**The deceptive third question returns, or does it?:** How can the Orb of Disenchanting be used if it doesn't have enough mana?

**Please... no...:** Write the most accurate description that you can for the ability Gravity Point at T1, T50, and T100. The name is self-explanatory for what it does. The closer your descriptions are to mine, the better!

**WHY DO YOU DO THIS?:** What is Eve's purpose?

And, there you have it. Five interesting questions to keep you on edge for ten years until I write the next book. Hahahahaha! No, forreal though, I'll publish the answers to these questions on my blog after a month or so; assuming nothing catastrophic happens to me by then. And, of course, the answers to these questions will be included in the next volume with another set of five fun questions! THEY'RE FUN RIGHT? *face twitch*
