Prologue G

Prologue G

BLUNDER FOR WORK

'To the right.'

Dionysus was looking at the map in his hand which represented the dungeons of the land. It showed which dungeons were claimed and which weren't. It was a magical map that was always kept up to date, so there was almost no way for it to make a mistake.

Dionysus looked right, but all he saw was an absolutely humongous mountain. In fact, no matter where he looked around him, all there was were mountains, grass, and rocky terrain.

'The map wouldn't make a mistake as simple as getting the location wrong, I just have to look around a little.'

Dionysus set out to search, and along with the silhouette that was searching with him, they found the dungeon after around half an hour's worth of searching.

"Huh?"

The dungeon entrance was a bit ridiculous to Dionysus, as it was simply a hole in the ground. It wasn't even a big hole, it could barely fit a somewhat big person.

'Doesn't matter, I'll just change the entrance once I make the dungeon mine.'

Dionysus ushered for the silhouette to go back into his dimension and keep watch over Dionysus, which it promptly did. After that, Dionysus hopped into the hole which led to him falling for around half a minute.

SPLASH

Dionysus seemed to have landed inside of a sewer of sorts.

'This place is going to need a perk up after I make it mine.'

Dionysus continued to walk forward in this damp place. It reeked of the stench of carcasses after they decayed, and the rats running around in it weren't doing the place any honor. As he proceeded through the dungeon, it only got worse. The stench was starting to reek so terribly that he genuinely felt like he was about to faint.

'Wait a second… is this actually the dungeons defense?'

Dionysus had realized something important. The dungeon looked like it was just a maze in the sewers, and there were no monsters. It was very well possible that this was actually the dungeon's defense.

Instead of a test of power, it was testing the senses of the body.

'If that is the case, the silhouette won't do me any good in here. It's all up to me from here on out.'

Dionysus continued to walk through the maze of sewers. The stench only got worse and worse, but he wasn't giving up. In fact, it seemed as if he was more dedicated than usual.

'I can't be so spoiled that I can't even deal with just a terrible stench and visual, can I?'

He felt that if he couldn't even beat this, it was pointless to continue any further or farther in his adventure.

At some point, the smell actually started to affect him. He started to feel really weak in his legs, and he really did want to close his eyes to prevent the visuals from entering. There were rats eating the bodies of what he assumed were previous adventurers, creatures that looked so mutilated that he could mistake them for an alien not of this world, and so on.

At this point, holding his nose with his handkerchief was doing him no good. He put his handkerchief back in his pocket and continued. Finally, after walking for an extremely long time, he happened upon a humongous steel gate. It was easily tens of his size both height and width wise.

The humongous steel gate began to slowly open the second that Dionysus stood in front of it.

'It would seem as if it opens if anybody is at its entrance.'

"WOO!"

"GO, GO, GO, GO!"

'...?'

As the door opened up more and more, a light began to shine on Dionysus' face.

BHMM

Finally, the door had fully opened, and Dionysus finally saw what lied beyond. However…

'Huh?'

… it wasn't what he expected at all. What lied in front of him was an arena where people were having an absolute battle in the center. Surrounding that arena were stands where people were cheering so loudly that Dionysus felt as if his ear was ready to bleed.

"CLOUDRIS HAS BEEN SLAMMED INTO THE GROUND BY THE CHALLENGER, NIVIDRO! THE BATTLE MAY BE APPROACHING ITS END!"

As if the cheering of the people wasn't enough to make a person go deaf, someone had a voice that was extremely loud and was using it to announce what was going on in the match.

"Ah, excuse me, sir! Take these and put them in your ears!"

A man came up to Dionysus with something in his hand and was yelling at him about something, but Dionysus couldn't hear a single thing that he said. However, he understood the body language.

He grabbed the things that seemed like mufflers of some sort and put them in his ears.

SKRRRRR

After a blaring loud sound came out, everything seemed to be quieter. The cheers of the people were lowered volume-wise, and the man announcing things related to the match was much quieter as well.

"Whenever you come here, esteemed customer, you are handed this treasure that makes it so that everything is lowered to the right volume for you. You are required to return them once you leave, so make sure to find me before going."

After that, the man ran off into some dark corner and the iron door shut behind Dionysus.

'And I thought that my bar would be the most insane thing a dungeon could have…'

This dungeon had been filled with so many twists and turns it was insane. The whole dungeon experience was quite literally maneuvering through a maze of sewers, and the room that lied at the end of it all?

It looked like it was an underground arena in which people could come and watch battles between powerful beings play out.

"Here you go, sir."

The man who handed him the mufflers now handed him a piece of paper with 'A5' on it.

"That is the seat that you are assigned to sit at. A5 would be at the front row, fifth seat to the left. Hello esteemed customer, here are your mufflers."

After the man told Dionysus where his seat would be, he looked behind Dionysus and apparently began to speak to another person. Dionysus spun around to see that there was a line of people waiting to get into the arena.

'Pretty popular place…'

Dionysus grabbed the man by the hand, resulting in the man looking at Dionysus with a smile on his face.

"Do you require anything, esteemed customer?"

"How do I conquer this dungeon?"

"Ah, you should have said what you were here for from the start."

CLAP CLAP

After the man clapped twice, Dionysus apparently began to levitate into the sky. Dionysus wriggled around, but he couldn't find a way to make himself land.

"Don't be afraid, esteemed customer, as it is simply my ability. It will take you to the location that explains how to conquer this dungeon. Oh, you also have to wait in a line."

After saying that, Dionysus seemingly got flung all the way to the other side of the arena, where he crashed into the wall and fell face-first into the ground. Or, at least that would've happened if the silhouette didn't appear on the wall and stopped it before it could happen. It grabbed Dionysus by his vest, and then gently descended down the wall and put him down before it disappeared.

PAT PAT

Dionysus dusted his vest off and then began to inspect the area that he was in. He was on the opposite side of the entrance, and he couldn't quite see anything. There was a high concrete wall preventing him from being able to see the arena, but he could see the very top of the stands that people were sitting on.

'So I got thrown behind the stands.'

Dionysus then witnessed another man get flung in the exact manner that he got flung in, except he wasn't as lucky as Dionysus and face planted into the wall and then proceeded to fall on his ass.

Now that Dionysus was looking closer, he saw that he definitely wasn't the first person to get sent flying either. There was actually a fairly large line in front of him, and all that he could see at the end was some light shining in from the right.

'Must be how fighters enter the are-!'

Dionysus then realized the weight of what he was thinking. If his thought process was right, then that meant that he was going to be fighting in the arena.

Dionysus finally realized that he was selected as a fighter.

'And this all happened in response to my question as to how to conquer the dungeon… so this must somehow be the answer?'

Dionysus could appropriately guess what to expect. After all, no dungeon could be conquered by simply doing nothing. At the very least, there would be some final level challenge to prove that one was worthy of the dungeon.

'It's probably something like winning in the arena a couple of times…'

Dionysus concluded his thought process with that and then proceeded to wait for the line to move along.

After around half an hour of waiting, Dionysus was finally the one at the front of the line. In front of him was a wall with the letter V on it, and then there was also the man that happened to be standing in front of him.

"Here are the rules. Win three fights in a row, and you get to fight the final boss of the dungeon. If you can beat the boss, even after having fought three battles while it has fought none, you will have passed the condition to conquer this dungeon. Every fighter has to get past the same three monsters in the same order. Losing is the equivalent of dying, and all abilities are allowed."

The man explained it in a straightforward manner.

"Understood."

Dionysus nodded after saying this, and then the man that explained everything to him told him that he had to wait until the previous challenger had finished his challenge.

'To be lining up people to fight in the arena, it's almost as if they have absolutely no faith that any challenge will be able to beat it…'

Dionysus wasn't a fool. He realized that the dungeon's challenge was actually difficult, especially if the man in front of Dionysus was telling him to wait for the other man���s challenge to end as if he stood no chance.

"How long has this dungeon existed? Specifically, how long has the owner of this dungeon been its owner?"

"For two years straight. He took over the dungeon and manifested it as a maze with an arena at the end of it. While the maze is quite easy to overcome with just a bit of persistence, the arena is the actual hard part."

"Ah."

For two years straight, these arena battles have been a thing and they were still standing. Dionysus realized the severity of the situation.

"Hmph."

With a look of annoyance on his face, Dionysus swiftly turned around and began to walk away.

The man that explained to him all the rules looked a bit disappointed, but his face quickly returned to its normal empty stare.

After reaching around the halfway point to the way out in the sewer maze, the silhouette began to appear every now and then, and it most definitely wasn't him that was dragging it out. Every now and then when he turned a corner, he swore he could see it looming at the end of the large sewer pipe that they were in.

Albeit, something was different this time. Unlike all the times that it usually appeared, Dionysus could see that its face was contorted into one of extreme anger. Usually, it was just a black silhouette and nothing else, yet this time it seemed to have a mouth that was also white, and white spots also appeared to represent its eyes. The way that the mouth and eyes were combined was definitely a representation of anger no matter how one looked at it.

"As if I'm going to go purposefully commit suicide you idiot."

Dionysus' picked up the pace and began to slightly jog.

'I'm not the main character of some epic, I'm not going to walk in and defeat a dungeon that has been going for two years without a single failure.'

Dionysus wasn't a fool, at least not when it came to understanding his limits. He understood that he was somewhat above average, being able to conquer a dungeon. However, he knew that the dungeon that he had conquered was one of the simpler ones in the world. If he had to pick between this dungeon and his, almost anyone would admit that this dungeon was very much harder.

"...What now?"

The silhouette asked Dionysus a simple question.

"What do you mean, 'what now'? There's only one thing to do in this situation, and that's to get stronger before coming back."

The next closest dungeon was a week away from this one, and in the exact opposite direction from his original dungeon. There was no way he was going to handle two dungeons that far apart from one another.

Therefore, the only real choice before conquering a new dungeon would be to get stronger.

'As dangerous as it is to return now, the town is my only real choice to turn to.'

Dionysus put his tie that had come out of his vest back into it and then proceeded to dust himself off once again. The silhouette disappeared from behind the boulder in front of him and appeared in front of him.

Not in the slightest bit embarrassed about the situation, Dionysus hopped on the silhouette's back and it began to run. Fundamentally, Dionysus was getting a piggy-back ride from the silhouette.

Of course, the direction it was running in would lead to the town that they had barely escaped from.