Dungeon

I woke up to the sound of Hawkes fighting. Looking out to the wide landscape, I see 2 massive Hawkes clawing at each other. They look like flying double-decker buses and when one if them falls I hear a loud thud even though it looked like it fell at least a mile away.

Truly puts me in my place. I was still tiny in the grand schemes of things, ranked F- out of who knows how many ranks?

Did it go up to S rank or SSS rank or maybe even higher?

Alright, I think that's enough thought for one morning. I have work to do.

So, I get up from the cold, hard floor and make my way back to my civilisation. Taking directions from the map, as I walk, I check the 2 icons that were there yesterday.

They were still their one being the moon I just slept near, and the door still left undiscovered.

Feeling a burning sense of curiosity, I decide I would find out what the door meant today.

After a few minutes of walking, I make it to my home to find my citizens already doing their work. How nice of them really warms me up in the morning.

After a few pleasantries, I also get to work. I still had my half-done house to complete.

2 hours later, I had completed my house. It was a house, that's for sure: with a flimsy door and 4 very shabby wooden walls. It fit the minimum criteria of what a house was.

I loved it, though; it may have been a shack made in a few days, but I had made it myself and felt a proud sense of achievement whenever I looked at it.

After this, I gathered my hunters and went in search of lunch (we skipped breakfast as we did not have the time).

In the forest, we managed to find 4 wolves in an hour. It seemed as though blue hair was practicing tracking and when we finished our fight, he would look at their tracks and even smell them, after we would go in a direction he had pointed out and then after a few turns he would find another.

I would agree my sense of smell and hearing has increased, if only slightly, but it seemed like he had the senses of a wild animal.

Anyway, I was proud of our new tracker and decided I would reward him when I could. Sadly, we were still broke so that would have to wait.

Later, we had got 9 bodies when we called it quits and returned to base.

When we did return, we were greeted with 7 newly completed houses and the rest (12) were at minimum half way done. It was impressive speed as when we left, they were no completed houses.

Subsequently, we had a big feast, and I went up to the blue-haired citizens.

"Tell me, what is your name?" I ask as I wanted to hear from him and not just inspect it out of him.

"I do not have a name." He says, now it was my time to be confused. Did he not actually have a name?

I inspect him.

[Name: Azuliam Requiem] [Age: 19]

[Species: Regular Demon]

[Agility: 3]

[Strength: 3]

[Intelligence: 2]

[Mana: 1/2]

[Bloodline techniques: None]

[Overall rank: F--]

Yeah, he has a name, but does he not like it or does he not know it?

"Azuliam," I say to his face and to my surprise he immediately jumps at me.

"HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT NAME?! He screams whilst attacking me.

He does not do any fatal damage as I'm stronger, but if this kept up, I could be badly injured.

"I simply inspected you, so calm down."

He immediately calms but still looks at me with suspicion. It seems as though he did know of inspection, but still thought I could be lying.

To try to tame my only good citizen, I say in a calm voice, "I mean no harm and I'm truly sorry for startling you. If you would like me call you something else, please tell me."

Yep, I decided to give in. As demons, I found aggression the best method in most cases, but here my human inside me told me he needed someone to rely on, so I moved against my instinct.

"Oliver, I want to be called Oliver" He then walks off, as any angry teenager would.

Oliver huh, what a human name. maybe he wants to be more human or maybe it has got something to do with his history.

Moving on from him, I wanted to explore that door thing. I get out my holographic map and find the door that leads to the icon.

Through the dark tunnel, I climb over rocky terrain to find a dark red door at a dead end of the cave.

As any curious man, this only exited me further so I climbed over and started to study the door.

Unlike the dark rocky surroundings, this door was made of premium wood and even had what looked like a silver door knob.

A pattern of a pitchfork was prominently in the middle of the door, giving away its origin. It seems to have something to do with the FFA. This is what I called the games the gods had put us in, as it fit the situation of a free for all.

I used my inspect on it and immediately I received a notification.

[Dungeon: Hell's gate] [Rank: Mid]

[Due to the first time inspecting a dungeon, a tutorial will be provided]

[Dungeons are permanent entities that house monsters and riches. They are the backbone of a kingdom and are generally used to rank empires. Dungeons provide unique materials and a near-infinite supply of food. But they also are a catalyst for war as any kingdom lacking a dungeon will attempt to gain one at any cost.]

[Due to a 2-star starting position, a low-mid-rank dungeon is expected]

[Dungeons are ranked: low, mid and high]

Great, I was wondering how my long-term food problem was going to be solved.

It also seems like I got the mid instead of low rank dungeon, which is great.

Finally, Hell's gate seems to fit me as a demon, though it did say that the starting location would be biased towards species.

Do I go in and explore? I really want to go, but I have a feeling that's my, do first think later, demonic thoughts, so I'm going to refrain for now and maybe take my hunters when we have free time.

After I climb back over the rocks, I make it back to the base and help out until the time reaches 4ish and then I went hunting. After a successful hunt, we all ate, and then, finally, it was time to explore the dungeon.

All 4 of us, (myself, Oliver, Asylum, and Aggressor), entered the dungeon through the blood-red door.

Our 2 new companions I had gotten familiar with were Asylum and Aggressor both were females but had much less of a personality than Oliver. They seemed quiet and had fewer thoughts. They were a bit like robots and just did what I asked with no resistance.

Actually, in general I had little resistance in ordering people round and I believed it to be Demon blood that was the cause. Demons seemed to obey those of higher rank naturally, like your parents when you were young kind of feeling.

It was both useful and annoying as I could order them to do anything I liked, but when I wanted to have a real chat, they would get formal and say stuff like `I am unworthy of sharing my opinion`. How useless is that?

To be a good king, I need to know more about them and if pleasantries were getting in my way, I may need to remove them.

It was a weird trade off, absolute order for Diplomacy but if I wanted to be a king, I at least wanted my citizens to be happy and not just soulless robots who only work.

Sadly, I did not know how to remove the statuses ingrained in my and everyone's blood. It was mystical after all, and I was no where near an expert at the stuff.

So I had to settle for telling them it was useless to bow to me and all those stupid things they do every time I saw them.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, we were just wandering through a hot forest. I call the forest hot, as the trees are scarlet red and the ground is deathly black, giving me the idea that we're in some hell forest or something.

But it was Hell's gate, not Hell's forest, so right now we were wondering around looking for a gate.

The sky was a permanent red, and the clouds were only pitch black. They looked like sin itself floating around this horrid environment.

Passing through the thicket of trees, we finally made it into a clearing. Finally, I set my eyes upon the thing this dungeon was called.

A great gate made of what looked like the hardest metal stood miles high and kilometres across it dominated my view, looking almost like a gate to another planet.

Leading up to the gate was a purely white road. The contrast between the white of the road and the normal colour of the ground only emphasized the difference and led to me believing someone had purposefully done so to enhance the image.

First, we went onto the road, which when we stepped on it, crunched like we were stepping on...

Bone.

It was made of bones.

Now that I looked at it, it was obvious, but at the time I was focussing on the contrast.

Disgust welled up in my heart at the thought of how many died to make this road. Millions, no billions maybe. The road did stretch as far as I could see in the opposite direction of the door and bent and weaved its way across mountains in the distance.

It truly was the entrance to Hell.

And we were about to enter the real deal.