The Dungeon I

The class was very lively, we were all sitting in our homeroom class. Oscar was chatting with his group and I sat by myself while I scribbled in my notebook.

'Nii-san, what are you doing?' I looked at her surprised.

'Don't call me nii-san in public, I'm Mordred remember?'

'Ah, oh right, hehe.' She rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment. I ignored her and waited for class to start, she sat down next to me.

'You know you're not supposed to use your notebook for scribbling right? You're supposed to use it to take notes and write formulas.' This time it was me rubbing my head. Edwina came up to me.

'Hehe, well sorry.' I smiled awkwardly. She looked at me for a second then let out a sigh and smiled.

'Well if you ever need help then don't hesitate to ask me! The great Edwina will help you!' I laughed to ease the mood.

'Well, I'll be in your care Edwina-sama.' She was a bit cold before but her personality did an entire 180.

'Edwina-sama, I like the sound of that! But since I am the gracious Edwina Miller I will allow you to call me just by my first name, so be grateful!'

'Thank you very much.' This was one of the reasons Edwina was such a great character. She was extremely powerful and extremely easy to befriend. All you had to do was feed her ego and she'd be a more loyal companion than a dog. But why is she being so nice to me? Doesn't she hate me?

In her character dialogue, she talked about how she hated Mordred. She never specified why though. It was also said in Mordred's guide that you should never put him on the same team as Edwina. But it seems like that was unfounded and untested and was only said because of her dialogue. She's being very nice to me right now even though she supposedly hated me. I wonder why.

Suddenly I heard a loud thump right next to me.

'I can sit here right?' I looked up at who was next to me, his height always slightly intimidated me but comforted me. It was Edgar, it seemed that one, short encounter with him made him trust me and call me his friend.

'Go ahead I don't mind.' I saw Octavia looking at him from afar.

Edwina was pouting at him, it seemed that she wanted to sit next to me. But why would she want to do that? After a few seconds of standing around, she realised that all 3 of us were staring at her and her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment and she quietly took a seat next to Akari. This is nice.

'Alright everyone it's time for class. On the agenda today we have physical education, political studies, and historical and geographical studies. So work hard.' Our homeroom teacher announced this and immediately after some people from our class groaned in disappointment.

In addition to our elective classes, we had mandatory classes taught by our homeroom teacher. These classes were just basic subjects, we had physical education first so we walked over to the area the school used for physical education.

There was a massive dirt track at least 2 kilometres in size which also doubled as an arena. 'Everyone get on the track and start running. Run 2 laps around this track, magic is not allowed. That's all I require of you for now.'

'Alright let's go!' Edgar seemed fired up as he stretched his legs.

'What a simple task!' Edwina was also stretching. From what I could see everyone that was born in this world was extremely adept at physical activities. In contrast, my classmates were all groaning except Renji, even Akari was a bit down.

All 24 of us were situated on the track, but not in a straight line so it would be chaotic. 'Ready, set, go!' Everyone dashed forward and I did too. But while running I ended up getting dust kicked into my eyes.

Fuck, I need to keep going. Indeed I kept going. Every time the fresh air would enter my lungs and the carbon dioxide would leave them I felt refreshed. But my body started to get tired and my legs started to hurt.

By the time we finished, I was lying on the ground like a dead fish. Breathing in and out so fast that my lungs themselves started to hurt.

'Hey, Mordred are you alright?' It was Edwina, she placed 2nd in the race, just behind Oscar. I slowly got up and nodded my head.

'Yeah, I'm fine.' I coughed a few times. 'Were you worried about me?'

'Why would I be worried about you?' She pouted and walked off.

I had placed 11th in the race. The only people who did worse than me were Katheryne and Octavia. Even Renji placed 10th place. The reason for my worsened physique was the fact that I had no cores because I had turned them all into circles and I couldn't change them back until the next week because there was a cooldown.

After a short break and a shower, I headed off to the next class. We had political studies, it was bound to be a boring class. But it was an important class nonetheless because we learned about the current state of political affairs in other countries.

'The Marickan empire is currently having a power struggle within its borders, does anyone know the reason why?'

Octavia stood up. 'It is due to the three princes vying for the throne because the king will announce his successor in 3 months' time.

'That is correct, does anyone know anything of the situation in the Marickan empire?'

This time I stood up.

'Each prince has some sort of backing. The first prince is only backed by the fact that he was the first, he has no actual backing and is often seen as a moron with no viable claim to the throne whatsoever.'

'And what of the second and third prince?'

'The second prince has the backing of the entire political cabinet and the third prince has the backing of the military. I believe that the second prince has the highest chance of ascending to the throne due to his connection with the cabinet politicians and many high-ranking nobles.'

'That is a good analysis student Mordred you may sit.' I sat. After class ended we had a 10 minute break until the next class started. This time we were learning about the history of the empire, specifically, we were learning about our war with the Genan empire.

The Genan empire overpowered us using powerful magical weapons known as flame launchers. Other strategies included espionage and a massive bait. During the Battle of Skirra, the Genan empire had led our soldiers far into their territory, far away from our supply lines and then turned the whole situation back onto us and annihilated our army.

Today our empire is merely a part of the Genan Empire. But we just learn from our past mistakes. That you will need to do. During our second year of school, war will break out at the Northern and Eastern fronts.

We will be drafted to fight on those two fronts. From what I remember the Northern front was easier than the Eastern front, but both have very good loot. There were a couple of strong enemies you would fight. If memory served me correctly then the one that showed up at try Northern front would have a legendary sword.

Our geographical studies class was boring. I've always paid attention to lectures so far but even I was starting to fall asleep.

'Alright class be aware that tomorrow we will be having a trip to a nearby dungeon. We will be subjugating the monsters there so be prepared.'

Here it is. The main gameplay loop* of King's Fall, conquering dungeons. Dungeons were places that could be accessed using a portal that would be found randomly in the world. Dungeons ranked from F-S in difficulty. With F being the easiest and S being the hardest, you were able to discern the difficulty of a dungeon using a small device called an 'energy measure'. It measured the quality of the mana in the dungeon. The more impure mana there was, the higher the difficulty of the dungeon

Randomly though, dungeons could skyrocket in difficulty and would be much more difficult than what was measured, this was called a dungeon boost. The chance was very low though so it would seldom happen. Throughout my multiple playthroughs of the game, I only ever encountered this happen twice.

In addition to dungeons, there were also lairs. Instead of being a portal that leads elsewhere, lairs are a tangible physical dungeon. They were usually much harder than dungeons, and there was no way to gauge their difficulty until you explored them first and experienced them.

But I knew the difficulties of most lairs in the game, but you wouldn't encounter a lair until your third year, at least in the game you wouldn't.

But this world is different from the game, Dengen never had Final Stand and Effervescent didn't move this early. I had to be vigilant and prepare for anything.

'We will be raiding a D-rank dungeon tomorrow.' After his statement, everybody started whispering.

'How will we get there sir? The trip will take 12 hours at least.'

'We will be using way gates to get there.' Way-gates were the game's fast travel system, you could travel to way-gates you activated, but here I couldn't just fast-travel between way-gates as I pleased.

'Isn't that too high sir?' Too high? As I am now I could take on C-rank, maybe even B-rank dungeons.

'You are all students of the Heroic class. It has been assessed that you will be able to take on the challenge. Anyone who doesn't want to take on the challenge raise your hand now and I will shift you to the normal class instead of the Heroic one.'

Silence.

'If that is all then class is dismissed.'

P.S.: Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you enjoyed this (semi) mass release! I'll be away with my family for the next few days so I won't be able to upload a lot. Thanks for reading!