Into the depths

'Ugh, what's happening?' I groggily opened my eyes, feeling like I was being carried around like a sack of potatoes. Not the most dignified way to start the day, but hey, it is what it is. My half-asleep mind tried to piece together what had happened. 'Right, I fought a bunch of crazy rats and somehow escaped to the first floor of the dungeon. But what happened after that?'

For the life of me, I couldn't remember what happened after reaching the first floor. The only thing I knew was that I was exhausted and desperately needed a break. 'Don't tell me I passed out on the first floor of the dungeon and became a meal for the rats. Am I dead already? Is someone carrying me to heaven right now?'

I blinked my eyes open and looked at the person carrying me to heaven. It was a cute girl who looked to be around 15 years old. 'Well, heaven doesn't look so bad,' I thought, trying not to grin like an idiot. She had the same red hair as the person I saw in that creepy lab in the dungeon, but who cares about details when you're being carried by an angel?

As I was basking in my heavenly fantasy, a sharp pain shot through my stomach. "Hey, you dumb cat, stop that! It hurts!" I yelled at the furball nestled inside my shirt. But then my brain hit the brakes. 'Wait a minute, did I just feel pain? I thought I was dead. Can you feel pain in heaven?'

"Oh, you're awake!" the red-haired girl said, her voice bubbly with relief. She immediately dropped me like a hot potato, and I landed unceremoniously on my butt.

"Ouch! Where… Where am I?" I grumbled, rubbing my sore backside as I looked around. The last thing I remembered, I was trying to escape this dungeon, but now it looked suspiciously like I was on a staircase... leading deeper into it.

'Is this girl carrying me deeper into the dungeon? Who in their right mind would take a 12-year-old kid into the depths of a dangerous dungeon?'

The girl who had been lugging me around turned and smiled brightly, completely unfazed by my less-than-graceful landing. "Hi there, little boy. I'm Arya," she introduced herself, extending a hand to help me up.

I reluctantly took her hand and stood, still trying to wrap my mind around what was happening. "Are we, by any chance, going deeper into the dungeon?" I asked, desperately hoping that it wasn't the case and that I was just sleeping.

"Yep!" Arya chirped, and my mood soured.

"I found you on the first floor of the dungeon," Arya continued as if this were a perfectly normal situation. "You were sleeping like a log. I tried to wake you up, but you just wouldn't budge. So I had no other choice but to carry you around with me." She stretched her body and rubbed her sore shoulders. "Thankfully, you woke up pretty soon. I was worried I'd have to face the entire dungeon with you on my back."

'Well, that would suck' I kind of understood how she felt. The dungeon was dangerous enough without having to protect an unconscious boy. 

But still, I didn't ask her to carry me around. My <Lurk > skill would have been more than enough to protect me from the low-level monsters on the first floor.

That's when it hit me—how did she even manage to find me? Shouldn't <Lurk > make me invisible to people around me? I frantically checked my status messages and found the answer: my skill had been inactivated because she was at a higher level than me. If she had left me there, I would've been rat food by now.

"Uh… thanks for the rescue," I said, sweating at the amount of danger I was in just some minutes ago. "And sorry for the trouble, I'll just head back to the surface. No need to worry about me."

I tried to make a quick exit, but Arya grabbed the back of my shirt and yanked me back.

"Hold it! I have some questions," she said, her tone shifting to something more serious as she held up the blue crystal bird I had swiped from the lab. "Where did you find this? Communication crystals aren't something a 12-year-old adventurer could afford. Who are you, and why do you have it?"

I gulped, not knowing how to smooth-talk my way out of this one. With no other choice, I spilled the beans, recounting everything that had happened up to my encounter with the red-haired man in the lab and my frantic escape.

Arya listened intently, her expression shifting from curiosity to concern. After I finished, she sighed and handed me a bag full of gold coins and a shiny dagger. "You can't just sell communication crystals. The only people who use them are nobles and powerful organizations like the church and the guild. Take this money and just forget about this dungeon. Don't tell about it to the others."

With that, she turned and started walking deeper into the dungeon, all alone.

"It's dangerous to go deeper, you know?" I called after her, my voice tinged with worry. "As far as I can tell, you're only around level 15, but the monsters down there are much stronger."

She didn't even slow down. "The person you talked to in that lab is my brother. If he's responsible for this mess, then I have to be the one to clean it up," she said while waving her hands, telling me not to worry and disappeared into the shadows.

"Let's go back, human," Systie immediately suggested, while poking its tiny head out of my shirt. I kind of agreed with the cat's proposal. This whole thing wasn't our problem. I even tried to talk her out of it. Whatever happens to her now, it's not my fault, right? I repeated these thoughts to myself, trying to convince my legs to turn around and walk away. But they stubbornly refused to listen.

"Hey, Systie," I muttered, more to myself than to the cat. "She could have left us on the first floor, and we would've been dead by now. She helped us. I don't want to owe her."

Systie harrumphed, clearly unimpressed with my newfound sense of morality. "Just don't get me killed, I still have Terra-sama's mission to fulfil," it said before retreating into the safety of my shirt.

I sighed, why does my stupid mind care about morality only during the worst of times? With a final deep breath, I steeled myself, activated <Lurk > and followed Arya's footsteps into the depths of the dungeon.

**********************

In the forest outside the city of Chandola.

In an underground chamber.

A red-haired man of about 20 years sat on a wooden chair, staring intently at his status screen.

Name: Ronan  

Age: 20 years old  

Gender: Male  

Level: 45  

Class: Novelist (advanced class) - evolves upon reaching level 60  

Ability: Probe (allows the user to hear the superficial thoughts of those around them)

Born in a non-combat class, Ronan was considered a failure by his own family, but he himself had a deep fondness for his class. 

He loved reading stories, and a smile crept across his face as he glanced at a particular book near him, 'The Legend of Systie, the Goddess of Information.'

Around him, there were many other books, such as:  

- The Weird Habits of Terra, the Goddess of the World

- Teachings of Terra and the Importance of Birth Control

- The Birth of the Sacred Beasts

- The Nightmare Demon: Plague Lord

- Introduction to the System and the Blessing of Systie

- The Three Continents of the World and Their Origins

All these books had one thing in common: they were all about gods and their influence on the world.

Ronan's smile broadened as he read through them, particularly because of his recent encounter with a 12-year-old boy and his mysterious black cat.

"A talking cat, huh?" he muttered to himself, flipping through 'The Legend of Systie, the Goddess of Information' to make sure he hadn't misread anything.

After a few moments of contemplation, he wrote a letter, tied it to the leg of a wind dove, and released the bird into the air.