Chapter 3 – Dungeon

The interior of the dungeon was dim and cold, reminiscent of a cave. The walls were damp, covered in luminescent moss that provided just enough light to render torches and other light sources unnecessary.

The dungeon was structured in a maze-like manner, having many intersections that forked out in different directions. Each party's guardian was provided with a map of the first two floors, as we have been forbidden from going any deeper than that. One floor was more than enough for six small parties to comfortably level up, let alone two whole floors only for eight groups.

Clive walked a little behind me and Merlin, letting us use the provided map at our request. In truth, Merlin was using his [Map], which showed the exact structure of the dungeon and positions of all beings as dots within range in real time. Party members automatically showed up as blue dots, neutral or friendly people were green, animals yellow and monsters or hostile people in red.

After a few minutes of walking, we finally encountered our first monsters. A pair of giant ants patrolling through the dungeon. True to their names, they were literally just oversized ants, about the size of a dog. Three pairs of legs, dark copper colored exoskeleton and mandibles that could definitely chop off a hand.

During the after-training lessons at the castle, we were taught that giant ants were vulnerable in their joints and antennae and that it was recommended to attack those areas if we ever fought one. They were also weak to magic, but because Merlin was still supposed to be low level and not have access to spells, he had to use the simple bow he was provided. Thankfully, their exoskeleton was only about as durable as slightly resilient tree bark, so arrows could technically pierce it with enough momentum.

"Alright, you two, get ready to fight. If anything happens, I'll interfere, so fight comfortably. With your classes being what they are, I think even these two might pose you some trouble, especially while you're low level."

We aren't completely low level though. And our classes are a lot stronger than normal, too.

I readied my glaive and slowly approached the ants. The space in the dungeon was wide enough for me to swing a glaive comfortably, so I didn't have to worry about my weapon getting stuck on the wall or ceiling. It would be annoying if I suddenly had to switch to a different weapon because of space restrictions.

Thankfully, Merlin did get some training in with the bow, so he had access to some bow martial arts skills. Why do they call it martial arts skills, anyway? Calling it empowered attacks would make more sense. But hey, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

"Take out the ant that's closer to us. I'll deal with the remaining one when it comes rushing."

"Got it. Through and Through."

Merlin nocked an arrow onto his bow and released it with a martial art that gave the arrow additional piercing power, allowing it to deal damage even to armored parts. The arrow shot through the air and lodged itself in one of the ant's head, killing it on the spot. The body of the ant crumpled to the ground lifelessly, which startled the other ant.

Our very first monster kill was super anti-climactic. Bummer.

The other ant appeared to be startled momentarily, but then sniffed its felled companion with the antennae.

"Kiiiiieeeeeek!"

The ant screeched and without hesitation started rushing at us.

I started running towards the ant and just when it was about to crash into me, I sidestepped its charge. I swung my glaive, aiming to cut through the joints, and successfully dismembered two of the three legs on its left side. This made the ant lose balance and it crashed to the ground.

"Repeating Thrust."

Exploiting the ant's loss of mobility, I used a martial art of my own, which were three simple thrusts in quick succession.

"Kiiiiyeeeek!"

My glaive managed to tear through the exoskeleton and damage the ant heavily. I aimed my glaive at the ant's neck brought it down, stabbing through it and managing to decapitate the monster.

[You have gained 70 XP]

[Your level has increased by 1]

I marveled again at how stupidly overpowered [Extreme Experience Boost] was. Ten times experience gain that is shared equally is cheating, no matter how you look at it. Normal residents of the world would obtain maybe 2 to 4 XP per F-rank monster, but I and Merlin gained 20 to 40 XP per monster. Not to mention, normally, the full XP would go only to the person who delivered the killing blow, while those that helped with taking down the monster would receive half of what the person who dealt the killing blow gained. As such, our experience gain wasn't ten times faster, but more like fifteen times faster, because we didn't need to worry about who would go for the killing blow.

The ants' bodies started dissolving into mana and returned back to the dungeon. Thanks to occasionally killing insects at the castle, both I and Merlin were already level 4 before we even entered the dungeon. This fight now brought us to level 5, so Merlin should have access to quite a few spells.

"Woah. That was clean. I think not even most young knight recruits would be able to perform this cleanly on their first real fight."

Did we overdo it? I was already holding back quite a bit, so Clive shouldn't have figured out anything yet.

"Uh, I guess getting pummeled for almost a week straight by Simon helped me increase my kinetic vision or something? And went through rigorous training with our weapon of choice. I mean, the ants aren't that strong or fast to begin with. A few well aimed hits and they go down."

I hoped this would remove any suspicions Clive might have against us.

"Well, that's true."

Phew. Crisis averted. I internally struck a victory pose, glad that Clive didn't try to pry deeper into how we were so effective in taking down monsters.

After a very quick checkup we returned to our previous formation and continued with exploring the dungeon. We encountered some more giant ants, but effortlessly dealt with them. Thanks to Merlin's [Map], we managed to avoid running into any of our classmates, so nobody knew about our whereabouts. After about thirty minutes of mostly walking around, we found ourselves in front of the path leading to the second floor.

The path looked the same as the rest of the dungeon, the only difference being the slight incline that would lead us lower.

"What do you two want to do? With your battle sense, I think you won't have much trouble even if we go lower. The only difference between floors is the number of monsters that roam around, after all."

Naturally, my and Merlin's decision had been made before we entered the dungeon.

"Of course, we'd like to go deeper. Maybe we'll stop getting picked on so much if we manage to survive on the second floor despite our low rarity classes."

"Alright. After you."

Clive gestured at the pathway and let us take the lead. We descended to the second floor.in our usual formation, me in the front, glaive at the ready, Merlin in the middle, covering me, and Clive in the back, ready to jump in if anything went awry. The air got colder, ever so slightly. The fluorescent moss, on the other hand, now covered most of the walls and ceiling, making this floor much brighter.

Just like on the first floor, we encountered the occasional giant ants, which now moved in groups of three to five ants per group. Merlin would usually take out at least two ants before they got into melee range and I'd hold off the remaining ones so Merlin could pick them off one by one. This strategy seemed to be to Clive's liking, as he kept on praising us for a job well done. I focused on aggro and defense while Merlin safely eliminated the ants.

<Master, we'll soon reach the pathway to third floor. Merlin asked me inform you of when he's about attack Clive. Be ready at any moment.>

Sera let me know about the information Merlin wanted to convey to me without Clive knowing. It was nice having a way to communicate information between us without the need to speak or use gestures, even if it was in a roundabout way.

We ran into a yet another group of three ants, just a stone's throw away from the entrance to the third floor. I could already see the opening that would lead us deeper into the dungeon from where we were fighting.

"Kieeek!"

I sliced off an ant's antennae, massively crippling its orientation ability and leaving it practically blind, and left it for Merlin to finish. One of the three ants already dissolved back into mana, the arrow that took its life now lying on the ground.

The remaining ant came rushing at me, trying to bite at my legs with its massive scissor-like mandibles.

Swish. Swish.

The air got sliced every time the ant snapped its mandibles shut. After yet another failed attempt at chopping off my leg, I kicked the ants head. It staggered and left its neck wide open. I quickly swung my glaive at the unprotected neck, separating the ants head from its body, instantly killing it. As the corpse dissolved back into mana, I turned around and saw Merlin shoot an arrow straight into the last living ant's head.

[You have gained 100 XP]

A sudden deafening pressure enveloped me, but passed just as quickly. Clive also noticed the sudden change and looked around in confusion.

<That was Merlin's <em>Sound Barrier. Get ready, Master.>

Alright, it's time to get the ball rolling, not way out of this now. Well, not like we had a choice to begin with.

"Say, Clive."

"What is it?"

I started a conversation with Clive in order to draw attention away from Merlin, who already begun casting another spell. He looked at me, but still kept a tiny amount of vigilance.

"You ever heard about a 'Curse of Subservience?'"

Clive's face instantly transformed from one of confusion to one of a battle-hardened warrior. He was about to reach for the sword strapped to his waist but…

<Now! >

"Shock."

"Charge."

Both I and Merlin unleashed our attacks before his hand ever touched the sword. Merlin used a tier two lightning spell, Shock. This managed to paralyze Clive for a short moment, giving me a long enough opening to drive a martial art empowered glaive through the armor into his chest.

"Ghuh!"

Clive coughed up blood and clutched at the glaive that pierced him. I could see great confusion and hatred filling his eyes, but unfortunately, staring at me like that wouldn't make me keel over.

"Aaargh!"

"Ugh."

Despite being hit with two surprise attacks and taking a lot of damage that would have killed a normal person back on Earth, he managed to push me off and drew his sword. I quickly ran towards Merlin, positioning myself between Clive and him. This allowed me to block Clive's potential escape route while also allowing me to protect Merlin.

"Cough. How did you- how did you undo the curse?! No, how the hell were you even aware of it? The spell should have been flawless!"

Coughing up some more blood and cursing, Clive turned to us with a demented look.

"Would us telling you change anything?"

I decided to talk with Clive to stall for time so that Merlin could cast some buff spells on me.

"No. No it doesn't. You'll talk once I drag you back to general Bakecria."

"I'm afraid that won't be happening."

"Strength. Resistance."

Merlin managed to cast both buffs that would prove invaluable in time. Seeing Merlin already use more than one magic attribute, Clive grew visibly flustered, cold sweat running down his face. Both from the fact that our abilities were unknown to him and the fact he had a glaive pierced in his chest moments ago, which probably hurt like a bitch.

"Oh Siceborn, please grant your loyal follower your bless- argh!"

Clank!

Clive started praying to his god, but I didn't let him finish, as I rushed at him and swung the glaive at his head. He managed to block the attack and my glaive clashed with his sword. My strength seemed to still be slightly below his, even with the buffs, but he was already heavily hurt and was beginning to get slowly pushed back. I didn't let up and showered him with a dozen slashes, stabs and sweeps in order to keep my momentum and deny him any room to breathe. Allowing him to catch his breath would be very dangerous, since his overall level and stats dwarfed both me and Merlin.

"Ice Arrow."

Fwiish.

A chilly, white projectile flew past me and struck Clive into his knee, making him lose balance and forcing him to kneel. Merlin's support with magic was very much welcome, as it gave me an even bigger upper hand.

With his attention momentarily leaving me, I prepared to deliver the killing blow. I angled the glaive so that I could stab Clive at any moment and used a martial art.

"Well, this is farewell I guess. Thanks for guiding us through the first two floors. You will not be missed. Repeating Thrust."

Stab. Stab. Stab.

Clive attempted to block my attack, but an arrow dug itself straight through his right hand, making him drop his sword.

"Aaaargh! Gurgle."

I stabbed three times in quick succession. Once in the chest where I struck him previously, once in his left shoulder so he wouldn't be able to suddenly use his dropped sword, and the final and killing stab went right into his throat.

Thud.

Clive chocked on his own blood and he finally stopped breathing. Shortly after, a blue light started seeping out of his body and was absorbed by the dungeon's floor. This was probably the phenomenon of the dungeon feeding on Clive's mana, now that he was dead.

[You have gained 1 200 XP]

[Your level has increased by 1]

After we reached level 5, the experience necessary to level up massively increased, so I was very thankful for the sudden XP influx.

"Oh, he gave quite the chunk of experience, huh."

"Don't treat people as experience grab bags, Merlin."

I chided Merlin for his usual nonchalant attitude. I mean, I was surprisingly fine myself, considering I just stabbed a person in the throat. I did mentally prepare myself quite a while, but I felt absolutely nothing, except maybe a bit of pity that he was the unlucky one to get assigned to us.

"Oh, lay off me, would you. You know well enough I wouldn't kill everyone we meet just to get XP. Probably."

"Yeah, that 'probably' is the fucking problem."

Merlin shrugged his shoulders. I couldn't help but sigh deeply. I kneeled in front of Clive's corpse and started searching for anything that could be of use to us.

It didn't take me long to take everything that was of value. Because he was here in his official capacity as a knight, he didn't bring many belongings with him. Just a pouch containing some coins, two lesser health potions and two lesser mana potions, which Merlin promptly threw into [Inventory], and his iron sword.

I strapped the sword to my waist to leave it there as a secondary weapon while Merlin counted the value of the coins. Speaking of, the currency all of the nations of this world used was called 'Coins', and a single unit was a 'Coin.' I'm guessing that because they never had the need to use other forms of currency, the term coin became synonymous with the name of the currency itself.

One bronze was worth one Coin, a large bronze was worth ten Coins, a silver was worth one hundred Coins, then came gold, large gold, platinum and finally white platinum. Each time the value increased by ten, so a white platinum was worth 1 million Coins.

"One gold, three silvers, twenty large bronzes and twenty-four bronzes, for a total of 1 534 Coins. Truly, the heir of a noble, just carrying that around."

Merlin made a snarky comment, but truth be told, Clive carrying around so much money is truly a great help to us.

"We've got to thank him properly. His money just fattened our pockets so we won't have to worry about getting funds for a good while."

Merlin looked over the pouch full of money one last time and then stored it in his [Inventory] with a gleeful smile.

"What do we do with his body?"

I looked at Clive's corpse. The stab wound in his chest, shoulder, throat and the chunk of ice stuck in his knee all suggested he was, in fact, killed by humans and not by giant ants.

"Hmm, let me try something."

Merlin approached Clive's body and it vanished when he touched it. I can't get used to how things simply pop out of existence when he stores them in [Inventory]. No special sound effect, no special particles, no tiny door opening into which he'd throw the object he's storing. They just disappear.

"Huh, looks like I can store corpses in [Inventory]."

"Well, that's that problem solved."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Now it will take them much longer to realize our group has gone missing than if someone found his body.

The fight against Clive brought us to level 6. Couple that with the ridiculous number of stats we get per level up due to our myth class, and I'd say we're more than enough to take on an E-rank monster. Merlin also has access to second tier spells, thanks to his [All Magic Mastery] cutting the MAG stat requirements to use higher tiers in half.

"Anyway, let's get on with conquering the dungeon? [Seraphim] did say she could alter the coordinates of where we'd be teleported when we conquer the dungeon, but how big of an alteration are we talking about?"

<Expect 500 700 ranges within to meters away from the original teleportation exit point, which is entrance of dungeon.>

Sera shared this information to both me and Merlin thanks to her using the party system, so I didn't need to repeat all of that back to him.

Merlin washed away the blood with some simple water magic and we got moving to the third floor. Because we didn't really rely on the paper maps provided to us but relied on Merlin's [Map], getting through the third and fourth floors wasn't very difficult. The floors all had a similar size, so after quickening our pace and no longer holding back, getting to the fifth floor took us maybe thirty minutes. We truly blitzed through.

We took our time exploring the fifth floor in order to get ourselves to level 8 and when our goal was reached, we made our way to the guardian room. Finding said guardian room was an incredibly easy task. An imposing double door made out of stone, about as tall as two men, practically screamed that the core guardian was behind it.

"Alrighty. Giant Ant Queen guardian room discovered."

"Here, Phi- Astoshan, HP and MP potions. It'll be better if we rest a little and recover before fighting the boss."

"Thanks."

I received the potions Merlin handed to me and gulped them down. I instantly felt my fatigue leave my body. I didn't really need to drink the mana potion, but I drank it anyway. While I wasn't as reliant on mana as Merlin, martial arts skills still used up some, though nowhere to the extent spells used. But because I also had far less mana, we were about even when it came to mana consumption.

Now that we were level 8, we had grown immeasurably stronger compared to than when we were first summoned. I opened up my status window to check my stats.

Astoshan Vikra

Race: Human

Trait: Humanoid

Age: 18

Sex: Male

Class: Godslayer

Level: 8 (110/1 320 XP)

Titles: [Mythical] [Otherworlder]

HP: 1 500

MP: 170

VIT: 150

DEF: 76

STR: 210

AGI: 210

DEX: 44

MAG: 85

Magic:

[Lifestyle Magic I] [Null Magic I]

Active Skills:

[Polearm Arts LV. 2]

Passive Skills:

[Language Comprehension LV. MAX] [Abnormal Status Immunity LV. MAX] [Health Regeneration LV. 1] [Mana Regeneration LV. 1] [Mana Control LV. 1] [Mana Sense LV. 1] [Glaive Mastery LV. 2] [Glaive Proficiency 21%]

Unique Skills:

[Adaptability] [Experience Boost] [Seraphim] [Rewind] [UNKNOWN] [UNKNOWN]

It's truly beautiful to look at. Thinking back on how all my stats were a measly ten back when we were summoned… I'm truly thankful for whatever system malfunction occurred that blessed me with such an amazing class.

After resting for about ten minutes, we walked up to the giant doors. With a resolute nod, we pushed and the doors opened, accompanied by sound of heavy stone sliding against stone.

The inside of the guardian chamber was built like a dome and was absolutely massive. I'm pretty certain the room itself is as large as the throne room in the castle, maybe even bigger. The luminescent moss was on everything except for the floor, covering the entire chamber with dim blue light.

At the furthest point from the doors stood the core guardian of this dungeon. A cow-sized ant with five pairs of legs, mandibles that could split a person in half and a shiny copper exoskeleton.

The queen was accompanied by four additional giant ants. These were bigger than the ants we've encountered so far, about the size of a wolf. They had four pairs of legs and their mandibles were also proportionally larger, though still smaller than the queen ant's mandibles.

"Royal Guards?"

<Correct, Master. These are called royal guard giant ants, or ants if you don't want to say their whole name. They possess much tougher exoskeleton than normal and they also able spew poison from mouths. faster, stronger more ferocious regular further adding onto the difficulty of dealing with them.>

"Well, you heard her, Merlin. What do the queen's stats look like?"

It was time to finally properly utilize Merlin's [Analyze]. It didn't see much use so far, simply because we had no need for it. We planned to abort the whole Clive assassination plot if Merlin judged his stats were too far above ours, but thankfully, it worked out just fine.

"The guard ants are about twice as strong as a regular giant ant and the queen is about four, five times stronger than a regular giant ant."

I clicked my tongue. Their strength is above my estimations. It's still doable, but with our current stats, I think we'll be cutting it close.

"Tsk, this'll be annoying. Let's take out the guards first, otherwise we'll get overwhelmed."

"Agreed."

The ants didn't take long to notice us. Three of the guard ants rushed at me and Merlin while the last guard positioned itself between us and the queen.

"I think you'll have to use some magic in order to deal proper damage them. I'll give you some buffs, but I think you'll still have hard time getting past their exoskeleton without magic. Strength. Swift Action. The bastards have [Iron Skin]."

<[Iron Skin] greatly increases the toughness of user's skin, rendering iron weapons and made out poorer material practically useless due to increased resistance against physical attacks.>

Merlin gave me buffs that increased my STR stat and movement speed and Sera added onto Merlin's warning with an explanation. Thanks to null magic I had some ways to deal damage with magic, but it simply took far too much mana from me if I really wanted to hurt the ants.

I used my glaive like a pole to propel myself above one of the ants rushing at me and I jumped above it. I slashed at it's back to see just how tough the exoskeleton really was…

Clank!

"No bloody damage at all?!"

It felt like hitting iron with iron. This one strike quickly made me abandon the notion that I could deal with them the same way I dealt with the regular giant ants.

"Kieek!"

"Oh no you don't! Impaling Thrust!"

Another ant to bite at me with its mandibles, but I quickly countered it with a well-aimed martial art straight into its head.

Clang!

Despite the empowered attack, the glaive didn't pierce the exoskeleton, but this time it at least made the ant stagger back.

"Ugh!"

My arm felt like it was going to go numb from the recoil. Despite the buffs, killing these bastards would prove to be difficult without magic, just as Merlin and Sera warned me. I wasn't in a tight spot because I was still faster than the ants, but by the stars, these things were built like reinforced doors.

"Screw it, Mana Blade."

I gave up on preserving mana for the fight with the queen and decided to use a tier one null magic spell, Merlin can do the damage dealing to the queen later. A quarter of my total mana got sucked away in an instant as a translucent blade of purple mana formed around my left hand. It looked strikingly similar to a certain energy sword from a famous futuristic sci-fi game. Thankfully, this spell lasted for about three minutes before it had to be recast, giving me plenty of time to deal with the guards.

"Kiek?"

I swung my left arm at the staggered ant's head and the blade peacefully sliced through it, killing it in an instant. I was momentarily dumbfounded by just how easily it cut through and solved all my troubles. I almost wanted to marry the purple blade on the spot. My guiding moonlight was by my side all along.

I turned to the ant I just jumped over with the help of my not-so-trusty glaive and saw it clicking its mandible while rushing at me.

"Spectral Lance."

I used a martial art and threw my glaive at the rushing ant. The glaive flew true and struck it right on the head, halting its rush and staggering it. Before it could recover I sliced its antennae and then decapitated it with my mana covered left arm. Two gone, two to go.

"Kieeek!"

Actually, one to go. The third ant just got skewered by a bunch of Ice Arrows.

"Kieeeeek!"

"Khiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiik!"

"Ugh!"

An extremely unpleasant screeching sound, similar to a fork scratching on a plate, came out of the ant queen's mouth. I covered my ears, but it did little to stop my ears from hurting like hell. I turned my head to see why the queen screeched like that, but what welcomed me were two copper objects barreling at me.

"Oh shi-!"

Klack.

The guard ant tried to split me in two with its mandibles. I jumped back and managed to avoid such a fate by the nick of time. That wasn't the end of my problems, however.

"Khiiiiiieeeek!"

"Ack!"

The queen rammed into me with her massive body, sending me flying a good few meters back. Isn't the boss supposed to wait in the back until all of the lackeys are taken care of? You're breaking boss fight etiquette, giant ant queen!

I quickly sprung back to my feet and glared at the ant queen.

"Merlin, get rid of the guard! I'll keep her royal highness occupied!"

"Got it!"

I shouted at Merlin and prayed he'd be able to remove the guard from existence posthaste. I rushed up at the queen and she tried to bite me with her massive mandibles. I deflected her attack with a swing from my not-so-trusty glaive and swung my Mana Blade covered arm at her front legs. Both of her foremost legs got cut off, but despite the loss of her front limbs, her balance still seemed to be rather good.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a few sudden bright streaks of light and the heard the last guard screech at Merlin, but I didn't have enough leisure to confirm it myself, as I was currently busy with trying not to end up dead in the jaws of an ant monster.

A sweeping attack came at me from my left in an arc, so I dodged backwards where it wouldn't reach me. A straight follow up attack after the sweep, so I dodged the right, evading the queen's attack once more.

"Khik!"

Suddenly, the ant queen stumbled and turned her attention away from me. She turned around and I could see a huge icicle protruding from her back. I guess Merlin already got rid of the last guard and attacked the queen to help out, since my damage options were limited. I really need some skill to help me deal melee magical damage when I run into opponents with abilities that render physical attacks nearly useless.

"Khieeeeek!"

The ant queen was about to charge at Merlin, but I wasn't going to let her do that. I aimed the flat side of my glaive at the icicle stuck in the queen's carapace and whacked it in deeper.

"KHIIIIIIIIIK!"

That nicely drew her attention and she immediately forgot about Merlin and focused back on me.

"Don't even think about going after him, girly. I'll need you to dance with me just for a while longer, yes?"

My Mana Blade already wore off and my buffs wouldn't last for much longer either, but I believe it won't take us that long to kill her anyway. Sera informed about a plan Merlin thought of and I thought it was a good enough try. If it failed, I'd at most have to keep her attention on me for a bit longer and dodge a few more times while Merlin turned her into an icy porcupine.

I couldn't deal much damage to her anyway, so I switched to a more evasive and defensive pattern than before. I completely gave up on attacking and counterattacking and made my priority to keep aggro on me so Merlin could work his magic. Literally and figuratively.

I kept running around the room, dodging and evading and annoying the ant queen, waiting for Merlin's signal. It came soon enough, as Merlin shouted to catch my attention.

"Astoshan, lead her to the spot where I placed the empty potion bottle!"

I looked around and spotted the bottle right away. Intent on ending this fight soon, I lead the ant queen in its direction. I ran past it, the ant queen following closely behind me.

"Fire Pit!"

When the ant queen was right above the bottle, Merlin cast a tier two fire magic. The ground below the queen crumbled and gave way to a wide but shallow pit and she fell in.

"Khieeeeeeeek!"

That wasn't all, the pit was filled with scorching flames that were now cooking the ant queen alive. The pit was only about a meter deep, but because I hacked off her two front legs and the rest of her legs were now quickly losing their functionality, she was having an incredibly hard time climbing out.

Merlin struck her with a few more Ice Arrows or Lightning Arrows while I pelted her with Mana Bullets whenever I felt like she was about to get a good angle and climb out, promptly pushing her back into the flames. It took about thirty seconds for the ant queen to stop screeching and drop dead. She dissolved into pure mana that was then absorbed by the dungeon, signaling the end of the battle.

[You have gained 440 XP]

"Haaa. It's over. That was super annoying. Who thought giving an E-rank monster such heavy physical resistance was a good idea?"

I grumbled my injustices to nobody in particular.

<Master, most people possess at least one magic attribute, even if it's low level, so they don't really run into the same problem you did. Your weapon was also not of good enough quality to fight an E-rank monster.>

That's true. Iron weapons are good enough for F-rank monsters, but from E-rank it's advised to use magisteel, which is a special metal alloy capable of conducting mana. The ability to conduct mana allows the user to make their physical attacks count as magical attacks. Wait, how the hell does the system differentiate between the two? In the status window, there is only the DEF stat, which I imagine is for physical defense, because it would make no sense to differentiate the two otherwise.

"Hey, Sera, how exactly does the system calculate physical damage and magical damage? There is only one DEF stat in the status window."

<Certainly, Master. Physical damage is calculated as a flat subtraction. You slash someone with sword and deal certain amount of damage. Depending on the sword, skills, stats so on, your to enemy's HP changes. The you would inflict then has DEF stat subtracted from it, which results in final result. If inflicted lower than stat, attack will simply do nothing. That precisely what happened when tried guard ants only iron glaive.>

That made sense. Basically, it followed the formula of ATK-DEF = DMG. Very straightforward and simple.

"I see. Then what about magical damage?"

<That is slightly more complicated, Master. The DEF stat divided by one hundred and the resulting number percentage of attack that gets mitigated. Basically, if your hundred, would be 1%. Therefore, you were hit with a magical dealt damage, 1% mitigated, so it only deal ninety-nine damage. However, maximum can ignored at 80%. Unless possess skills allow to ignore cap, some amount damage will always dealt, as opposed physical>

Is there even anyone who'd be able to reach 8 000 DEF? Doesn't this make magical damage a lot more useful than physical damage? But then again, according to Merlin, there are quite a few spells that can help mitigate it, and according to Sera, there is quite a lot of skills that can heavily dampen it or straight up ignore it. I guess whether physical or magical is better depends on the matchup.

Taking my mind off of how the system works, I walked to the back of the chamber where a new alcove had formed. When the ant queen died, a portion of the wall opposite the entrance crumbled and led to a hidden room.

The new room was very dark. The only place that provided light was the luminescent moss covering the circumference of the square room, where the floor met the walls. In the middle stood a gray pedestal with a blocky appearance. It looked as if someone cut cubes and blocks out of stone and stacked them on top of each other.

The top of this altar housed a brilliant milky white orb. The core of this dungeon. Our ticket out of this mess.

"Well, here we are. Our path to freedom."

Merlin merely nodded at my words and then went off to pick up some of the luminescent moss, losing all interest in the dungeon core. Right, even back on Earth, he was very much into biology and chemistry. I bet moss that can produce light like this is of great interest to him.

While he played with the moss, I approached the altar.

"So, what now?"

<Place your hand on the dungeon core.>

I did as Sera instructed. Shortly after, a stream of messages appeared in front of me.

[Capture of the dungeon Shroury Ant Hill confirmed]

[You have gained 1 000 XP]

[Your level has increased by 1]

[You have obtained Aura]

"Oh, got a skill. Lucky!"

"Seriously?"

Merlin raised his head from moss gardening and looked at me inquisitively. I opened my status window to double check.

Astoshan Vikra

Race: Human

Trait: Humanoid

Age: 18

Sex: Male

Class: Godslayer

Level: 9 (190/1 850 XP)

Titles: [Mythical] [Otherworlder]

HP: 1 700

MP: 186

VIT: 170

DEF: 83

STR: 232

AGI: 232

DEX: 50

MAG: 93

Magic:

[Lifestyle Magic I] [Null Magic I]

Active Skills:

[Polearm Arts LV. 2] [Aura LV. 1]

Passive Skills:

[Language Comprehension LV. MAX] [Abnormal Status Immunity LV. MAX] [Health Regeneration LV. 1] [Mana Regeneration LV. 1] [Mana Control LV. 1] [Mana Sense LV. 1] [Glaive Mastery LV. 2] [Glaive Proficiency 24%]

Unique Skills:

[Adaptability] [Experience Boost] [Seraphim] [Rewind] [UNKNOWN] [UNKNOWN]

"Yup, got a skill from our very first dungeon. Nice."

"Looks like [Mythical] is working as intended."

Indeed, it was said in the title's description that we were much more likely to obtain a good skill from conquering dungeons. Now that I think on it, what are the chances for getting skills from dungeons in the first place?

"Um, Sera, what are the odds of gaining a skill after conquering a dungeon?"

<About 2%.>

Woah, that's low. What is this, a freaking gacha game? And there's no pity system either. You could theoretically conquer a dungeon one hundred times and still get nothing.

"And what are our chances after [Mythical] increased them?"

<About 20%.>

Yep. This world's balance is fucked. I have a ten times XP multiplier and only feel like I'm getting an adequate number of XP. I can't imagine how grueling trying to level up must be for this world's denizens. Granted, this is reality and not a game, and it is possible to gain XP from things other than killing monsters and conquering dungeons, so I guess the low XP gain is there to balance that out a little, but getting only 100 XP from conquering a dungeon feels too little. Or, I guess since this is an F-rank dungeon the amount is just right? I don't know.

We gained somewhere around two and a half thousand XP, if I exclude what we got from Clive. If I wanted to level up once without [Extreme Experience Boost], I'd have to run the whole dungeon five times in order to gain a level. No wonder most people never reach level 100, that shit simply takes way too freaking long.

<I shall now begin on altering our exit point, Master. It will take around three minutes.>

"Got it."

Merlin finished up his botanical survey after storing some of the moss in [Inventory] and also touched the dungeon core to get his rewards. He also managed to get a skill. It was called [Tracking] and allowed him to see footprints more easily by highlighting them with light.

"Hmm. Think if I dressed as a warrior, people would try to keep their distance? I mean, I have enough muscle to pass as a vanguard and I think I can definitely do multiple roles, now that I have [Tracking] as well."

"Dude, you're built like a mountain. People would definitely want to keep their distance, but I think it is kind of pointless to think about that right now. After all, I'm here to keep them at bay while you throw magic at them."

"Fair enough."

Having finished everything we needed to do here, we now waited for Sera to finish altering our exit point from the dungeon. Three minutes passed by in the blink of an eye and Sera's voice echoed in my head.

<Preparations complete, Master. I can begin the teleportation sequence at your command.>

"Good job, Sera."

<I'm only doing what I can.>

But that alone is already immensely helpful, you know? I shook my head with a light smile at Sera's humble response.

"Merlin, keep an eye on your map in case any bastards decided to wander off from camp. Your [Map] can zoom out, right?"

"Yep, not too far out, but enough to view about fifty kilometers around me."

Merlin nodded in acknowledgement. Stars bless our ridiculous skills.

"Hopefully, it'll be enough to get us to the nearest city that is not the capital. Start the teleportation, Sera."

<Affirmative. >

[You will be transported out of the dungeon in ten seconds]

"A shame the monsters in the dungeon dissipate into mana. I wonder how monster meat tastes."

"Merlin, dude, we just got done fighting a bunch of oversized ants and you already want to try eating them? In the first place, can monster meat be eaten?"

<Yes, most monsters are safe to consume.>

Sera, without missing a beat, answered my rhetorical question. I did not want to know monsters can be eaten, but I guess it could come in handy if we're ever forced to camp in the woods without rations. Like the situation we're about to be in. Guess I should come to terms with having a monster meat diet occasionally.

[You will be transported out of the dungeon in five seconds]

"Swear to god, I would not be surprised if I found bodies in your freezer back on Earth."

"Neither would I, I am curious as to how human meat tastes. Also, the Godslayer swearing to a god. Ironic."

[You will be transported out of the dungeon in three seconds]

I chucked a small pebble at Merlin to make him shut up. I'll have to somehow keep him on a leash so he doesn't go and kidnap some random villager to satisfy all his curiosities, just to be safe. He wouldn't actually go and do that, right? Yeah, I don't want to know the answer to that question, because both yes and no are equally as likely. Ugh, why does my best friend have to be fit for a psycho ward?

But Astoshan, didn't you kill a guy in cold blood just so he wouldn't tattle and talk to the voices in your head? Shut up! That's different! Me conveniently justifying certain events and hearing voices is nowhere near as bad! In the first place, Sera is not imaginary!

[You will be transported out of the dungeon in two seconds]

[You will be transported out of the dungeon in one second]

My vision went white and I felt the space around me become intangible the same way when we were summoned to this world. We were literal microseconds either from freedom, or from having to fight beings that could crush us like ants. An unfamiliar sensation energized my body, all the way to the tips of my fingertips.

Whatever may come, bring it on. We'll earn our freedom.

[You will now be transported out of the dungeon]

○○○

We had just finished our leveling quote and left the dungeon barely five minutes ago. As I sat on one the ground near my twin sister, Sarah, I internally thanked Philip once again for giving me that piece of paper to mentally prepare me. Had it not been for his foresight to warn me, I definitely would have spilled the beans about getting a [Mythical] class before I realized that something was wrong here.

I hadn't told anyone yet, not even Sarah. I'll first need to figure out how to get rid of her 'Curse of Subservience' and 'Suggestion Weakness.'

"James, want something to eat? I'm planning to go grab some food since I'm feeling a bit peckish."

Sarah patted her stomach and looked hungrily at the small buffet laid out not far from us. The general and the coachmen prepared a variety of food for us, mostly sandwiches, salads and smoked meat, while we were leveling up in the dungeon, as a small service for working hard and because it was long past noon now.

Our group was the second one to get out of the dungeon, because my [Experience Boost] got upgraded to [Extreme Experience Boost]. The first group was Simon's. What a shocker.

"Can you get me two of those sandwiches? Thanks."

 "On it lil' bro."

I'm younger by only a few minutes. The heck do you mean 'lil' bro.' I gave her the middle finger as she playfully stuck out her tongue at me and skipped away to go grab the food. Evelynn and Elizabeth were both already filling their plates full of food. I moved a little higher on the ground so I could rest my back against the tree that was behind me.

"Status Window."

James Neumann

Race: Human

Trait: Humanoid

Age: 18

Sex: Male

Class: Spectral Hound

Level: 6 (230/950 XP)

Titles: [Mythical] [Otherworlder] 

HP: 1 000

MP: 240

VIT: 100

DEF: 62

STR: 134

AGI: 144

DEX: 45

MAG: 120

Magic:

[Lifestyle Magic I] [Null Magic I] [Lightning Magic I] [Transmutation Magic I]

Active Skills:

[Blade Arts LV. 2]

Passive Skills:

[Language Comprehension LV. MAX] [Abnormal Status Immunity LV. MAX] [Health Regeneration LV. 1] [Mana Regeneration LV. 1] [Mana Control LV. 1] [Mana Sense LV. 1] [Sword Mastery LV. 2] [Sword Proficiency 20%]

Unique Skills:

[Adaptability] [Extreme Experience Boost] [Avatar of Falsehood] [Dimensional Tunnel] [UNKNOWN] [UNKNOWN]

I opened my status window to confirm that the stream of messages I received in the dungeon was not just a hallucination. Thankfully, [Avatar of Falsehood] allowed me to fake or hide certain aspects, including my status window, so I wasn't too worried about the Status Crystal check back at the castle. Philip did write that they would hang around for a short while after they manage to escape in case I wanted to tag along, but I'm pretty sure that time frame is long gone. In the first place, I'm not leaving without Sarah. And she won't leave without Elizabeth and Evelynn, so I'll first have to figure out how to break their 'Curse of Subservience' and 'Suggestion Weakness' as soon as possible.

[Dimensional Tunnel] let me create a warp gate to a different dimension that worked like a bridge between two points in this dimension. It was basically a miniature wormhole, if I understood it correctly.

Sarah used to be the class representative back on Earth and had a rather good head on her shoulders. When we were in the dungeon, she dictated the flow of battle with her commands, showcasing her ability as a leader, and when she got access to spells, she started dashing out damage left and right thanks to her class, archmage, further increasing our clearing speed.

When my experience boost got upgraded, she looked taken aback for a second, but when we made eye contact, she seemed to instantly realize it had something to do with me and decided to stay silent. Philip wrote that he and Merlin had no clue what either of the two things cast on us did, but they had their theories.

'Curse of Subservience' would make us unable to refuse any command from the caster or people designated as our masters, while 'Suggestion Weakness' would weaken our minds to be more easily influenced and fanaticized. Their theory holds merit, since if the 'Curse of Subservience' automatically made us act or tackle anything suspicious and report it to the higher ups, Sarah wouldn't have glossed over the increase in XP the way she did.

I looked around and saw most of the class already out of the dungeon, swarming around the laid-out tables topped with food. Philip and Mark were missing, naturally, but other than them, I think only one group was left… aaand they just walked out of the dungeon as well. Which meant only Philip and Mark were the ones missing. And if they managed to pull off their escape, they were a good few kilometers away from here by now.

Sarah came back to me, along with Evelynn and Elizabeth in tow.

Evelynn had waist long, wavy, dark green hair, wore round glasses that often hid her emerald green eyes, had a beauty mark below her left eye and was all around a bubbly klutz. Her chest assets were, frankly, massive. She wasn't very tall, so her height accentuated her chest even further.

Elizabeth had chest length light brown hair and light green eyes. She was fairly tall for a girl, but it honestly fit her. I could not for my life imagine a shorter Liz. Her chest was also sizeable, though not to Eve's extent.

Sarah had blonde, curly hair and the same deep purple eyes as I did. Unlike me, however, she was always cheerful and collected. I was more on the calm and collected side of things. And I also didn't have curly hair.

"Here, two sandwiches, as per your orders."

"Thanks."

I took the sandwiches from Sarah as she happily nibbled on her own sandwich. We bantered around for a bit when I saw a knight rush up to general Bakecria in a panic, when the general's booming voice resounded throughout the temporary camp.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T FIND THEM?!"

Ah, guess they finally realized Philip and Mark went missing.

"Wazak! Arsim! Olga! Go and thoroughly search the entire dungeon, check every nook and cranny! Overturn every stone! I want you to find them!"

The three knights saluted the general and then ran into the dungeon. I saw Simon separate from the rest of his group and walk to the general. I couldn't hear what they were saying from this distance, but I very vividly saw Simon laughing when the general told him something.

Simon turned around and with spread arms loudly announced what the general told him. In his own words, anyway.

"It would appear that those two losers are even bigger losers than I initially thought! They managed to get themselves lost in the dungeon so thoroughly that not even the knights can find them!"

Simon laughed and his lackeys did the same. Most of the class looked troubled, but didn't voice their thoughts openly, in fear of rubbing Simon the wrong way. He was quite chummy with the princess, after all, and he was a piece of shit by nature.

We spent a long time before the knights came back, who had nothing of substance to report, other than 'sorry sir, we found jack shite!' The sun was about to start setting, as the sky was slowly starting to turn slightly orange.

"FUCK!"

BAM!

The general punched a tree… and broke it in half. The trunk got smashed into pieces, splinters flying in all directions, while the upper part of the tree fell down as the branches snapped and broke under its own weight.

"Since their bodies were nowhere to be found, they couldn't have died. The twenty-four hours necessary for the dungeon the absorb their corpses have most definitely not passed, which means they somehow exited the dungeon throw different means. Olga, when we return to the capital, visit count Alsaar and tell him Clive has gone missing. He'll have the Alsaar Black Hawks sniff them out in no time."

"Yes sir!"

The general turned to us and spoke in a commanding voice, his mood far sourer than anything we've seen from him so far.

"Get on the carriages, we're going back."

We all boarded the carriages in a huff without anyone uttering a word. The general covered his face with his palm, which slowly slid down. He looked into the now setting sun and sighed heavily, as if hoping that would solve all his problems.

"Haaa, His Majesty and prime minister Feroni are going to be furious when they learn of this."