411-420

"Anything?" I called out. We did not have to worry about the boss attacking us, but we were still trying to find some clue as to how to defeat this boss so we could move on.

"Nothing here!"

"Not here either…."

"Faith, I think we need to figure something else out."

"Alright, let's gather and eat something…." I had to think about this. The mushroom takes damage from physical attacks and sends it back to us. I felt this firsthand. I tried healing myself, and it had no effect. If my assumption is correct, the healing probably healed the mimic mushroom or the boss mushroom.

The only things I have not tried are casting attack magic on the boss mushroom or poking myself. Now I am no masochist, so stabbing myself does not sound like a good time. And I can't bear to harm the others either. But we were running out of options…. "You girls stay here. I will be right back. I need to get a monster in here to test something…."

"Okay." Adel and the girls nodded. I waved my hand and went to use dimensional transfer, but when I did, nothing happened.

"Hmmm?" I looked around and tried again. But still nothing. "Really? Is this room sealed from all transportation magic!?"

"It's probably because we are in a boss room. Remember before we couldn't leave the boss room no matter what?" Adel was right. The room was sealed with magic blocking all exits. This also meant transportation magic of any kind.

I couldn't help but frown. I grew stronger, but I was still too weak to overcome the stupid dungeon! I really did not want to do this, but we had no choice. "Adel, poke me with your sword…." Please visit 𝚒𝒏𝓃𝓻e𝑎𝙙. 𝙘ｏ𝑚

"Huh? Why would I do that!? No!" Adel firmly shook her head and seemed to be fully against stabbing me. Well, I can understand why. I also did not explain things clearly either.

"I need to test something, so just stab me." I needed her to do it because I could not let my health drop below a certain threshold. Even if I had to take damage until I was almost dead, it would be worth it to kill the boss mushroom. At least then they could heal me.

Adel bit her lip as she looked at me. She stomped her feet a few times before walking over and gently poking me with her sword.

[-1 Health….]

The -1 did not damage me but the boss mushroom! While I did feel pain, the small cut did disappear after. This was probably due to my new skill from my armor, less instant regeneration. It was not so instant on large wounds as my health was slowly still rising from my previous self inflicted wound. But now I know that as long as they all attacked me, we could defeat the boss.

"Okay, it worked. We took one health off! Everyone, attack me! Just do not go for fatal points." As soon as I said this, I got strange looks. "Just do it! I do not wish to spend the rest of my life stuck in a damn boss room!"

"Fine, but don't think I will hold back!" Sei smiled brightly as she walked over and wound up her fist, and threw a punch right at my face!

"Ouch! Why did you aim for my face!?" I held my nose, which was now red. At least I wasn't bleeding! I glared at Sei, who was holding her hand with tears in her eyes.

"Why is your nose so hard!" Sei cried out.

"Serves you right for aiming for the face! You should be using a sword and stabbing me with it anyways! Why are you punching!?" My poor nose!

"I thought I could get some payback for training!" Sei shook her hand and blew on it. In the end, I am not sure who took more damage, me or Sei. However, the mushroom did jiggle just now and was one hundred health lower than before.

I rolled my eyes and snorted at her as I picked up my sword and stabbed my arm through. It hurt like hell, but when I saw another six thousand health drop off the boss, I knew I was on the right track. I pulled my sword out, and the wound began to close up.

Now it was just a matter of who will die first. The boss mushroom or me from blood loss. I swear if I knew who created this boss, I would definitely hunt them down and kill them with everything I have!

But sadly, I do not have such an ability at this time. Because I am sure whoever created these dungeons in the first place was probably on a godly scale. How Azengrade was able to control a portion of the dungeon, I do not know, but I am sure their people never created such things.

If my assumption is even remotely right, I think Azengrade was really just running tests on the dungeon when we met up with him in the goblin dungeon at that time. Which means, my system and the dungeons have nothing to do with the Altorians.

"Alright, let's take this seriously, alright? Everyone, come at me and stab me!" I yelled out. The girls looked at one another before really doing what I asked. And I must say it hurt like hell. I do not know how people can become masochists. How do they even get through the pain? We continued this for quite some time until I began to feel faint and had to drink blood. Luckily I have many ways to heal outside of normal means.

We continued this back and forth for almost three hours when the boss mushroom finally shriveled up, and the mushrooms on our heads fell off. Only then did I let out a sigh of relief, but This left a sour taste in my mouth. Because now…. I will have to do this same tactic over and over until I am able to instant kill the stupid mushroom!

"Let's hope this is an infinite dungeon…." I mumbled as I stood up. We ended up taking a break while I fed on the girls. I still miss my refreshing Iena… Her blood is still the best, while Sei's tastes salty….

"Alright, let's move on to the next floor." The girls nodded, and we slowly began making our way down to the sixth floor. When we reached the plant life that made up the first five floors were replaced with a rocky landscape. I did not even need to ask what kind of monsters were on this floor since I could see rock golems and elementals all over the place. At least this place made things easier to level up with.

The previous floor boss didn't give us much. We got two skill stones for our trouble which I gave to Adel and Sei. This was after a fair roll to see who got them. I did not want anyone to think I was being biased about loot. So I had everyone play rock, paper, scissors to determine who would be the first to get new skills.

Basically, the next boss or when another skill stone drops, Adel and Sei will be left out while the rest of us battle it out. And once everyone has gotten one, we will just keep the same rotation. I already planned to go last, so I planned to make sure I did not win at all. It was not easy for them to get skills, while for me, it was pretty simple. I might not be able to buy normal skills, but I can buy other skills, which reminds me I have not bought any in a long time. I have over 1341 skill points, so I might go ahead and spend some later on.

But for now, the task ahead was power leveling once again! This time I just had the girls follow me as I killed everything in my path. One thing after the other, I killed, killed, killed. I did not leave a single monster alive! I was taking out my frustrations from the stupid mushroom level.

I do wonder how everyone else is doing, though. I mean, those in Diablo and Iena's team might be in for a bit of trouble. But then again, if those two can somehow figure out a different method like blowing up the entire room or something, then maybe, just maybe, they will not need to resort to the stabby stabby routine that hurts so much. 𝓲n𝑛𝓻ℯ𝗮d.＆nbsp;𝚌o𝒎

As for my slimes…. I do hope they will be okay. I do not think the mimic mushroom will be effective on them since they are slimes. Which means I think they can probably defeat it with ease. This thought kinda makes me wish I had brought a few with me, but I sent them out on their own. I do hope they all come back safely. My precious little balls of jelly!

While they have multiplied by many times, I have a feeling once they finish their training, they will be my Empire's most feared army. I do not plan to put them away anymore. Since they have all gained a bit of sentience, I plan to put them to work and reward them with some good stuff.

After everything that happened in such a short time, I think after all my preparations and growing stronger, I will be able to handle Azengrade, at least by myself. His flunkies I would not need to worry too much about his until they reached a super high level. But if we continue on this road, we are on now, we may be able to level quickly enough.

At least my group will not have too many problems. If I need to run teams myself, I can do that as well since my mana is infinite and will not run out anytime soon. I already had the girls tethered to it so they could cast spells at will. I just hope my too slackers are enjoying their free ride. Well… Grace is probably working since all she does is work, but that father in law of mine is another story.

Hopefully, he will not laze about too much while standing in for me. He knows my plans and should be able to sign off on things. I do have Anne helping him when she is free. I have been thinking that it might be a good idea to take a visit to Diablo's realm and try to persuade the other demon kings to come to my aid. But what I wonder is, if there are demon summons, are there any angel summons? There probably is, but it would require gaining the skill for it.

While lost in thought, we reached the tenth floor in a flash. This just goes to show how much easier it is to kill nonplant monsters. But I do hope this boss will be much easier.

[Boss: Mutated Rock Golem]

[Level 2341]

[Health 50000000/50000000]

[Mana 10000/100000]

"Oh? Looks like I will get a good chunk of experience this time, too, but….. Mutated…." The mutated, in its name, bothered me. The last boss had such a strange quirk about it that it made it hard to understand how to defeat. So I do hope this one is slightly different. If we all suddenly grow rocks on our heads, I will cry. I mean it. I will start crying here and now.

"Faith, what should we do?" Adel asked.

"Well… we are in for a fight no matter what because this thing's health is high as well as it's level. And when I say it is high, I mean really high. It has fifty million health. But only one hundred thousand mana. So I think it is more of a physical attack boss with high defense. We will need to work out a method to bypass its defense if we wish to kill it." I explained.

"We will follow your commands." Sei seemed ready to fight. Everyone else nodded as well. As team leader, I guess I can not let them down now, can I?

"For now, stay back. I will go in first to test the waters." I did not want to send anyone in just yet if we did not know exactly what this boss was capable of. But I do have a feeling that this will end up being a battle of endurance. We will need to fight even if we do very little damage to it.

I rushed in with sword in hand, wanting to test how much physical damage will do to the boss. Sure enough, though, as soon as I entered the middle of the room, the boss suddenly stood up, towering in the air. The huge boss room barely had enough room for how tall this boss was.

<strong>*Whirrrrlllllll!*</strong>

It made a strange sound before beating its chest like a gorilla and slamming its fist toward me. I quickly dodged to the side as I ran too close in but soon realized it was not a single attack. A rain of rocky fists suddenly powered down on top of me as I moved back and forth, avoiding them. The ground shook, along with dust and debris being shot into the air. This alone was enough to make me form a barrier around myself so I would not be affected by it.

I decided to take this chance as one of the fists were coming down to parry it and slash down onto the rocking arm that it was attached to. A clanging sound was heard as my hand vibrated from the impact. I could only frown as I spun my body around and aimed for one of the joints. Once again, my sword was reflected off its hard surface.

Seeing how my sword was of no use, I shot a few balls of each element at the arm to see if that would do any damage, and once again, I gained no results. "This is not working. I will try the head!"

The entire boss was made of solid stone except for two spots. One was the red ominous eye in the head and the black glowing core in the middle of its chest. I quickly cast a barrage of attacks at both spots, only to find my attacks to be quickly blocked by some kind of barrier. I could not feel any magic fluctuation in this barrier which made me frown even more. "This thing is like an impenetrable fortress!"

I quickly retreated and stood away out of arm's reach of the boss. As soon as I did leave its range of attack, it stopped moving once more. "Faith, how was it?"

"No good, not a single attack got through. No damage was done at all." I frowned as I looked up at the huge monster who was frozen in place. "There is some kind of barrier around the two spots that should be its weakness. But they are not made of magic, so I am unsure what to do."

"Faith if you go into your dragon form, do you think you can hold it off? I can try to use my dimensional attacks to bypass the barrier." Sophie suggested. I thought for a moment before nodding my head. "We can try, but you need to stay in your void. Do not come out when you attack." For more chapters, please visit

"Don't worry. I saw how quick it was. I will not let myself get hurt." Sophie replied. I smiled and ran forward as I shouted out: "Get ready! When you see me grab it, attack!"

I did not wait for her to agree before suddenly turning into my new dragon form. My entire figure grew to the same size as the golem. I reached out and grabbed a hold of it. But I suddenly realized something was wrong. As soon as I grabbed it, it immediately flung my arms away and punched me in my stomach! I felt the wind suddenly being knocked out of me as I was sent flying across the room. But I know why this happened. I couldn't sink my claws into it! A barrier appeared!

"Faith!" I heard the others call out as I tried to catch my breath. Luckily my defenses were still high in dragon form, or else I might have been swatted to death. I looked up to see Sophie swing her sword through the void to use her void slash. I was hopeful that it would work, but that hope was quickly shattered. The attack was still blocked, and nothing got through. Sophie quickly retreated, feeling defeated.

"Now what!?" Sei cried out as she stared at the massive golem. 𝒊𝓷𝐧𝗿𝚎𝘢𝒅. Com

At least we could attack it without much problem, but the fact of the matter was, was that we were in a pickle since we would be stuck here until we could defeat this stupid thing. Even if we could attack, it was useless if we could not do any damage to it. Thinking for a moment, I yelled out to Adel. "Adel, can you use cosmic magic and try to stop it?"

"I can try, but I think you should do it, no? You are closer to it in level." Adel had a point. I returned to my humanoid form and landed on the ground.

"Then let's try this. I will use cosmic magic at the same time as Adel, and if it works, I want the rest of you to attack the core on its chest with your strongest attacks. But only if it works. We will know if I get into range to use my magic." This was a long shot, but if this does work, we will be able to tear this big boy down. Although it still annoys me that my dragon form was swatted away like a fly. It actually took a bit of three hundred thousand health in that one attack. Luckily my current armor actually melds with my dragon form, too, which is quite nice. It gives me a kind of black scaled armor on top of my blood red scales.

At any rate, right now, we can only hope this works in stopping the stupid barrier on the boss from blocking our attacks. "Everyone get ready. I am going in!"

In many games, there is always that one boss that is not even the final boss that is always super hard to defeat. If you do not have max level with all maxed out stats and all the most powerful magics, weapons, and armors in the game, you will never defeat it, no matter how hard you try. Right now, that frustration when you were just about to beat said boss only to be wiped out when it got to one health was the feeling I had right now as I rushed forward.

I looked up at the massive stone fist about to splatter me against the dungeon floor and yelled out: "Stop!" It was not just my voice either but also Adel's. "Attack!" I yelled out quickly after as the wind from the sudden stop of the fist blew past my body, causing my hair to flutter in the air.

The fist was only about a foot away when it stopped, and I could tell one thing. It was not fully stopped. I guess this is a level thing. I had noticed the same thing when I faced Azengrade and the rest. They could still move ever so slightly.

Resistance to magic is a main in the butt, but this means when I get to a high enough level, nothing will be able to resist this kind of magic which is very op. But now that I think about it. I have a feeling if Adel ever out leveled me, I would be toyed with and wouldn't even know it. After all, out of all the girls, she was the biggest minx who loved to get intimate.

I also rushed forward with sword in hand. The attacks of the three girls in front of me finally all landed their marks. I was not skimming out either as I jumped up in the air and stabbed my sword down. A cracking sound was heard as the sword smacked into the black orb. I quickly jumped back, and all four of us quickly left the boss's attack range. "Faith, how was it?"

I was also curious about how much health we took away in this attack. And to be honest, when I used appraisal, I was not expecting to see that the fifty million health it had would drop to one million with a four pronged attack. I looked up at the core that was cracking and chipping away and understood why. It had massive defense with the barrier and large health but was still weak once you bypassed the barrier. This made it fragile to attacks. "I am going in once more. We will finish it after this attack."

"Awesome!" Sophie yelled out. I quickly took off before anything unexpected happened. I once more jumped in the air and brought my sword down, stabbing it into the same spot as before. This time a loud shattering sound was heard, and the entire core broke. But I forgot one thing about bosses. Sometimes…. They had a second or third form. Or it could be something even worse.

A great wind whirled up, and I was sent flying away. Dust and debris filled the air causing a wall of a tornado to fill the room. I was tossed back and slammed against the wall for the second time today. It did not hurt any less, either. As I gathered my bearings once more and looked up, multiple red lights could be seen shining from within the wall of wind. These lights grew brighter and brighter. I couldn't help but have a bad feeling as I used dimensional transfer to the girls and surrounded us in a fifty layered spinning barrier.

Just as the barrier formed, multiple red lights shot toward us like beams. The barriers, even though they were spinning, shattered one after the other. Such an attack was unheard of up until now in the dungeons I have been in thus far. And right now, I felt like maybe I would not survive this attack. Thirty barriers shattered almost instantly and kept shattering until they reached the last one when the rays of light dimmed and stopped only after cracking the last barrier.

The wind and debris also began to settle, revealing a metallic golem standing where the rock golem once was. But this one looked more mechanical. Which made me frown. But it did explain why I did not sense any magic. It seemed this boss was never an actual elemental based golem but a mechanical one?

But we had no time to rest when the golem suddenly raised its arms, and its hands opened up, showing two red spots that were glowing brightly. Seconds later, another ray of red light shot toward us. I once again formed barriers around us but this time, one hundred layers worth. But they all shattered under the intense force of the rays. Had no choice but to grab the girls and use dimensional transfer to relocate us to the other side of the golem.

"We need to spread out! Or we will never get any attacks in. Sophie, Sei, and Sally, I will leave distractions to you three. I will need to protect Adel and use stop on the golem, so we can get out attacks in. But for now, hurry and move! Stop!" I yelled out so we could get a chance to move. But Sadly, it seemed to be ineffective because all it did was cause the golem to rotate its arms behind it and shoot more red beams of light at us. We all had no choice but to scatter. I have no idea why stop was not working unless it had some kind of anti magic field up that was much more powerful than before. But I do know this was not something I really wanted to deal with!

"Faith, what should we do? Cosmic magic is not working!" Adel seemed worried, but that did not matter. As long as one of us can attack, we can at least do some damage. Since I had a bit of time between the boss's reaction time and my dimensional transfer. I quickly used Apprrsial on it. 𝑖𝗻𝗻𝑟e𝒶𝗱. 𝒄𝑜𝑚

[Hidden Weapon: X9-1289]

[Level 9000]

[Health 1,000,000,000/1,000,000,000]

[Mana ] NA/NA

[An ancient weapon used as the core of the Mutated Rock Golem. After breaking its binds, the weapon was fully released. Note: only activated under special conditions!]

Just seeing the stats made me scream out: "This is impossible!"

I can only think that I really jinxed myself. How was I supposed to know I would unleash some doomsday weapon? It fired lasers nonstop. If it was not for the fact that everyone here was quicker than the rate the weapon was firing, we would already be dead by now. But this makes me wonder. How was one supposed to defeat the golem if they did not destroy its core? It's like this dungeon is playing with me. First, I needed to be stabbed multiple times to beat one boss, and then I somehow awakened the ultimate weapon!

"I am open to any ideas!" I yelled out. I had no idea what I was going to do to get out of this mess. Please visit 𝙞𝓃𝙣r𝘦а𝘥. Co𝙢

"Faith, try using the skill stones. We gained quite a few, did we not? Maybe we can get a skill to defeat the boss." Sally yelled back. I thought for a moment and nodded my head. We ended up with like ten skill stones, so we might get something worthwhile, right?

I took a deep breath and activated the first skill stone.

[Common Skill Acquired: XXXXXXXXXXX (LVL 1(Max))]

I frowned. Yes, this skill was helpful in some situations but only when you are with your loved one! I now understand how Sei felt when she got her naughty skill. Frowning, I tried another one.

[Ultimate Skill Acquired: Atollie]

[Ultimate Skills Unlocked...]

[Atollie]

[The path to heaven is not an easy one...]

[Follow the path of butterflies...]

[Reach the end for untold power....]

The description was quite weird, but I had no time to really care about that. I had no idea what this skill would do, but.... For now, I could only try it. I took a deep breath as I dodged another barrage of lasers and closed my eyes, and let the name of the skill roll off my tongue. "Atollie"

At the moment the word left my mouth, it felt as if time had stopped altogether. The whole boss room began to light up as glowing butterflies began to fill the room in masses. I felt my body become lighter, and a surge of power welled up within me.

[Conditions met.....]

[Commencing Summoning...]

[Gate Has Connected...]

The butterflies suddenly condensed into a big massive glowing ball. It took up so much room that I had to retreat backward. My eyes were glued to the glowing ball as it slowly unfurled, revealing a young woman with huge glowing white feathered wings. She wore silver armor and had long blonde hair that trailed down to her back, just past her waist. She turned her golden eyes to me and softly smiled. "My name is Atollie. I shall smite your enemies."

With these words, she turned to the boss and raised her hand. A golden sword suddenly appeared in the air. It gave off a pressure I had never felt before. Before I knew what was happening, the one who called herself Atollie disappeared. There was only the sound of ringing going off in my ears as my level suddenly began to rise at an incredible speed.

I didn't even get to see what happened. The boss suddenly turned into balls of shiny light before dropping a huge pile of treasure. Slowly landing in front of me, Atollie knelt down in front of me and bowed her head. "I have dispatched the enemy, Master."

"Huh? Yeah...." I could only nod dumbly as I looked at the angelic-looking young woman in front of me. She was definitely otherworldly, that is for sure. She did not seem like anything that could come from any mortal plane of existence.

"Master?" Atollie looked up at me in confusion, but I was still out of it. It was not just me either. The girls all turned and looked at her as well, with shock written all over their faces. A boss... with one billion health died instantly. It was so fast I didn't even get a chance to figure out if she struck more than once or not. All I knew was that my crisis had come to an end.

Appraisal did not even work on Atollie. I tried two times already but got nothing. It was as if magic did not work on her. What was even stranger was that she did not seem to be disappearing....

"Ummm, Atollie.... was it? How.... How long is your summon time for?" I asked. I was a little scared, to be honest. I have never met anyone this powerful before. She was leagues above Diablo, and the rest, even Azengrade, could not hold a candle to her power.

"Hmmm? Summon time? I am sorry, I do not understand." Atollie blinked her eyes at me as she slowly stood up and walked to my side, and stood there like a statue. Was she planning on guarding me!? Not that I am complaining but still....

My level jumped by almost two thousand, and I am sure the girls got even more levels. The boss was like some kind of hidden mega boss and really gave us a ton of experience points. This was like a level 1 fighting a level 100 boss and winning. But I had no time to rejoice as I still needed to figure out what was going on with Atollie....

She stood at my side with her back ramrod straight. Her eyes darted back and forth as she looked around. I could see the excitement in her eyes. I guess this was all new and fresh to her. I scratched my head as the girls ran over to me and asked: "Umm.... Atollie, do you live off magic?"

"Hmmm? Of course. As long as I have magic I will never disappear." And so we have an answer. Atollie was probably one of those kinds of summons that would not disappear until you run out of mana to sustain it. And since I had infinity magic, I was basically made for such a skill. But an ultimate skill was something that summoned a powerful figure. I did not think such a thing would be possible. I wonder which realm or place Atollie comes from.

"I see... that is good. Well... Atollie, my name is Faith. This is my wives, Adel and Sophie, and these two are my closest friends, Sei and Sally." I went ahead and introduced everyone. I mean, I do not know if Atollie will ever disappear, but for now, she was our new friend and comrade, so....

"It is a pleasure to meet you all. My name is Atollie, one of the Thirteen Rounds of the Table of Gods. I will be in your care from now on." Atollie gave a knightly bow. But her introduction kind of said a lot more than I was ever expecting. Like, what is the Thirteen Rounds of the Table of Gods?

"Atollie, what are the thirteen rounds?" Leave it to Adel to pick up on the important stuff and ask right away!

"The Thirteen Rounds of the Table of Gods are a group of knights who protect the realm from any evil that dares to try to attack. You can think of us as the guardians of the gate. The table of gods is a table we all gather at for meetings. I never thought I would be summoned to another place." Atollie replied, her eyes still looking around curiously.

"Atollie, why do you call me Master?" This was something I did not understand. She is so powerful but is calling me Master. I feel she is much different than a demon summoned with enslave demon.

"It may sound strange, but when I was summoned, I was suddenly connected to you and was given an order from a higher power. I can not tell you more than this." Atollie's answer left even more questions. Is this dungeon truly messing with me in some strange way? Was this the reason it gave me this OP cheat!? I mean, Atollie is like the key to solving all my worries!

"We will be in your care from now on, then," I said with a smile.

"No, I should be saying this as I am now your guardian knight. It is a pleasure to serve one so cute." Atollie's lips curled up into a smile, as did her eyes. She seemed happy about her current situation.

"Was your job guarding the gate hard?" Sophie asked.

"No, but there were a lot of old men, and I was the one and only female knight. So being able to come here and see new things and hang around actual girls is something I have always dreamt of. It's hard because we can not leave the gate. I have been stuck there guarding it with the others for so long that I have lost count. Seeing the same sights every day gets boring and bland. I was hoping maybe one day I could escape such a fate."

"Well, hopefully, you will enjoy your stay here." I did not know how to send her back, and from the looks of it, she did not wish to go back, so this all worked out. We get a powerful ally, and Atollie gets her freedom from her boring life.

We ended up taking a long break. The last boss was just insane. I never thought such a thing would pop out, not in a dungeon where it was level based. Such a boss should be illegal, but somehow I got some kind of protagonist luck and ended up summoning Atollie. Not that I am complaining because the way I look at it, we would have died otherwise. There were no resets and no save points to load back into. Once we die, we are dead.

I was really out of options for that boss. It was completely made of metal, with no way of getting close to it to see if there was a weak point. So without Atollie, we would have been in a bind until one of us slipped and was hit by the lasers that shattered over a hundred layers of my barrier in an instant. To be honest, I would prefer to fight Azengrade head on than to fight such a monster again.

Now, if I was even remotely close to it in level, then that would be another story. I would definitely make some sort of plan that would kill it, but this time…. I could only let out a sigh. "I need to be stronger…."

"You will get there," Adel said softly as she snuggled up next to me. Sophie was already asleep in my lap. Sei and Sally were both a few feet away, passed out on the ground. Atollie stood at my side as stiff as a statue.

I turned my gaze down to Adel, who now had her eyes closed, and smiled. I tucked in a lock of her hair behind her ear before turning my attention to Atollie. "Atollie, you can sit, you know. You may be here because of me, but I will not treat you some sort of slave."

"Master is very kind," Atollie replied with a smile. She sat down on her knees and placed her sword at her side. It was as if she was ready to jump up and attack at any time. I guess in time, she will slowly begin to relax.

I guess I fell asleep at some point. I know this because I am no longer in the dungeon. I am currently standing in a field by myself. In front of me is a large door. It has many different carvings on it of monsters or animals that I have never seen before. It does not look evil in any way, but kind of gives off a holy feeling. Why it is here, I do not know. I only know that I am in the middle of this field that seems endless, with nothing around me but the door itself.

I slowly walked forward to the door and placed my hand on it. It is cool to the touch, and for some reason, I feel like whatever is on the other side is calling me. But no matter how hard I push on the door, it will not open. I can only stand here staring at it. Where this door leads to, I do not know.

"Faith!" A voice enters my ears. I slowly wake up to Adel and Sophie looking at me with worried gazes.

"Is something wrong?" I do not feel like anything is wrong, but the way they are looking at me is making me feel something is off.

"Your body was fading in and out…." Adel suddenly said, causing me to look down at myself. There was nothing wrong with me from what I could see, but if they say this, then it is probably true. Did this have something to do with my dream? Was it because of that door?

"Strange…" I furrowed my brow and stood up. I looked around and saw everyone, including Atollie staring at me strangely. "I do not feel anything off, so maybe something to do with the dungeon?"

"Master, a moment, please," Atollie called out to me. I nodded and walked to the side with her, away from the others. "Master, your body did flicker in and out a few times. By chance, did you dream of a door?"

My eyes opened wide as I turned and looked at her and nodded. She let out a sigh and placed her hand on my shoulder. "Do not touch the door in your dreams. I am sorry. This is my fault. I should have warned you. You and I are connected in a different way than a normal summon. We are soul bound. My soul is now part of you as yours is part of mine. It is something the higher-ups did to bind me to this world when I was called. They would not have done this if you did not have the mana to support me. I guess it was them giving me my wish. But because of this, you are now connected to my inner gate. That inner gate is dangerous for a mortal to touch as it will suck your very existence into it. Until you form your own inner gate, you can not touch the gate in your dreams, do you understand?"

"I do, but what is an inner gate?" I was confused on this point. I know it is dangerous for the current me to touch but what was an inner gate, to begin with?

"An inner gate forms when you are about to break your mortal body and become a higher being. You, people, call us gods. But in truth, we are nothing more than people who have lived a very long time and gained power one way or another or were born in the higher realms that are not easily accessed. Nowadays, it is rare for anyone to come from the mortal world. I myself was born in the higher realms. But only those who are born there are born with an inner gate. But for mortals to gain one, you must become powerful enough to form one. I do not know the exact process, but I am sure one day when you reach that point, you will know. I can not tell you any more than this, but please, if you ever dream of the gate again, walk away from it." Atollie's expression was serious, but I was still confused. Why was her inner gate calling me?

"Atollie, should your inner gate have been calling me? It felt like something on the other side of your gate was calling me." I asked. I had to know if this was a common thing or not.

"Calling you?" Atollie gave me a puzzled expression. "I have not even been able to open my inner gate since I was born. I am still not powerful enough, so for something to be calling you from the other side…. I do not know. I never heard of such a thing before."

"You haven't opened it?" I was surprised. With how powerful Atollie was, I would think she could open it.

"I am just a lowly guard. While my title may sound amazing to you, we are only a bit higher in status than the commoners of the realm. And our job does now allow us to get many chances to free ourselves from our post." Atollie saying that she was not that strong made me feel like I was an ant. She was so powerful! But I guess that is true for the world I live in, but for hers, she was on the weaker side of things. But her title does sound grand, so I am surprised by this.

"At least now you do not need to worry about seeing the same old sights anymore. Is it just your world's military that is stuck in such jobs?" I asked curiously. I had not been able to talk with Atollie yet like this, so this was good to get to know her better.

"Mmmm... Our jobs are decided based on our aptitude. While it can get better and we can become more powerful over time, mine was very poor to start with, so I was lucky that after a few million years, I started to grow in strength after many years of hard work. But then I was stuck with the post guarding the gate, but now I am here with you. If my guess is not wrong, someone took pity on me and allowed me to come to this world." Atollie's explanation was kind of confusing, but I guess I will understand in time. i𝘯𝚗𝗿𝗲α𝙙.＆nbsp;c𝒐𝐦

"Faith, what is going on?" Adel called out to us. I looked at Atollie, who shook her head. "Only I can tell you about this. It is not to be spoken about as it is not something a mortal should know. You can know because of our connection."

I nodded and turned to Adel: "It's nothing. I know what happened, and no worries, it will not happen again." At least, I think. Hopefully…. But I will not say this to them. I do not want them worrying more than they already are.

Adel and the girls seemed to be worried about my lack of response, but since Atollie told me not to say anything to them, then I won't. But I still needed to give them some sort of explanation. So after scratching my head and trying to figure out the best way to explain things, I slowly began to tell them what I could. "Basically, Atollie and I share a special connection, unlike other summons. This is totally different from Diablo, Iena, and Freidinia as well. Atollie comes from a completely different realm, and in short, our souls are connected. Due to me being able to provide her with the mana she needs to live on, she is now here to stay, but this also comes with a strange occurrence that I now know how to deal with. I can not explain things but trust me when I say I will not fade away anymore."

"I hope so…." Adel walked over and hugged me, so did Sophie. I sighed. I hated not being able to tell them the full truth, but it was probably for the best since I did not know what would happen if they knew. At any rate, for the time being, I will need to be careful in my dreams from now on. I just hope I can control my body during those times. After all, dreams are not always fully under someone's control.

But now that that was settled, it was time to take a look at the loot. "Oh?" I looked at the pile. I spotted not only skill stones but even a few limit break stones as well. "There are six here. So you girls split them up between the four of you. Sei, Sally, take the extra two."

"Huh? You are not taking any?" Adel asked in confusion.

"No, I already have one. And now also Atollie. I would prefer it if you all had better skills to work with. At least with the limit breaks, you will be able to have extra trump cards." I wanted the girls to have as many cards as possible to ensure their survival.

"I guess this is true…." Adel hummed. She looked at the skill stones and picked them up, and passed them out. I had given Sally and Sei extra ones because they will be the ones to protect Sophie and Adel the most. They were their personal guards now, after all. Luckily they were all now over level 1000 along with me…

[Humanoid Form]

[Name]: Faith Cyrilia

[Age] 17

[Level] 1428 → 3304

[Race] Drakani Demigoddess

[HP] 1052500/1052500(3052500)

[MP] ∞

[Attack Power] 1584950

[Magic Power] 584950

[Status Points] 5850 → 15230

[Strength] 158495

[Vitality] 105250

[Intelligence] 58495

[Mind] ∞

[Agility] 58495

[Skill Points] 1341 → 3217

[Limit Break( 1/3)]

[Total Domination]

[Skills]

[Appraisal (LVL 10(MAX))] [Military Command (LVL 10(MAX))] [Military Tactics (LVL 10(MAX))] [Business Tycoon (LVL 10(MAX))] [Acting (LVL 1(MAX))] [Enslave Demon (LVL 10)] [Charm(LVL 10(MAX))] [Dimensional Transfer(LVL 10(Max))] [Blood Frenzy(LVL 1(MAX))] [Blood Manipulation(LvL 10(MAX))] [Shadow Meld (LVL 1)] [Shadow Clone(LVL 1)] [Blood Enhance(LVL 1(MAX))] [The Starry Night Sky (LVL 1)][Armor of Infinity(LVL 1)] [XXXXXXXXXXX (LVL 1(Max))]

[Ultimate Skills]

[Atollie]

So basically, at this time, I am sitting on a mountain of points. Just in this current dungeon, I have gained 1876 levels, 9380 status points, and 1876 skill points. If you add in my trickle…. That is an extra 56280 status points which will really boost me all around. With such a power boost, we are basically leaving everyone else behind, but this also means that the next floor level will probably be much harder. I do wonder, though, since I have Atollie, can I not power-level everyone quickly if we summon the mega boss? I will have to test it to see, but if we can, then it will be worth the repeated dungeon dives, that is, if the ultimate boss is able to be summoned.

I would not mind seeing my level hit nine thousand plus. Then again, greed is not a good thing either.

While I know, Azengrade is still at a higher level than me. He is no match for Atollie, but I do not know about the people above him or how many levels of ranks they have above general. Speaking of this… "Atollie, if one wanted to take control of this dungeon and slightly alter it, how powerful would they need to be?"

"At least around my strength to alter it. Even I can't do too much to this dungeon as it seems to be created but someone very powerful. Although if you were to have a tool made to change part of the dungeon from a powerful person, then you could still alter it at your level but such a tool would need to be crafted by someone even stronger than me." Atollie replied, which made me feel no better than before. So if what Atollie is saying is correct, then, Azengrade did not control the dungeon himself but used a tool to do so.

Scratching my head, I leaned over and whispered: "Is it possible for someone from your realm to be able to come down here and mess around?"

"Mmm… it happens all the time. They get bored and decide to do things down here to entertain them. It really depends on who and what they design to do." And those were the words I did not wish to hear. But this only brings about more questions. Like who is behind the Altorians, and were the Altorians created by this being, just following their orders, or are they something else? I felt another headache coming on. I am wondering why I was reborn in this world where it seems everything wishes to be on a power scale much stronger than I am. I thought I was amazing being a dragon, but I guess I am just a frog in a well. Or did these things all happen because I am here with this strange system?

I massaged my temples as I walked over to Adel and placed my forehead on her shoulder. This allowed me to receive head pats. I do this when I need to clear my mind. Head pats fix everything!

After sorting through all the items, Adel and the girls all got new armor. I did not take anything since my armor was probably the best I could get at this time. After all, it was the armor Trinity wore, and I still did not know what level she truly was. But one thing did come to mind. If Atollie had blood, would I be able to drink it? And if so, would I be able to gain experience from it?

I kinda wanted to ask, but I figured I would wait for the right time. My quest to grow stronger was real, but I did not wish to force anyone into anything.

"Now that things are put away, I want to rest a little longer. I need to take a look at my skill menu." With so many skills points, I really wanted to see if there was anything useful that I could use. I sat down once more and opened my menu, and began looking through the skills. There were so many skills that I really had no idea where to start. "Cooking mastery…. Fishing Mastery…. Tracking? Hmmm….. Let's get this….. And max it to level ten."

I kept scanning through the skills and came upon one called mesmerizing, which worked the same as my charm, so I skipped it. There were many that were absolutely useless. But if you look deeply, you can find a few gems here and there, like practical skills. Tracking, for instance, allowed me to track not only animals but any race with a quick look. I grabbed this since it seemed quite useful. "Hmmm? Lingual Mastery? A skill to allow me to understand any language to ever exist…." The price of this skill was high. While maxing out tracking costs me ten points, this skill will cost me one thousand points to max out. Just to buy it costs ten points. But this may just be very useful later on.

With these two skills, I decided to close my menu. I am sure there are more, but I do not want to waste too much time sifting through all the skills. "All set?" Sophie asked as she saw me stand up.

"Yeah, let's move on," I replied with a smile. We gathered our things and began deciding down to the eleventh floor. The first five floors were a forest area, the floors from the sixth to the tenth were all rocking areas, and now we seemed to be in a fire area. It was hot. I mean, this is coming from a dragon girl! It was really hot! The floor was sizzling under our feet. If we did not use ice magic to keep our feet cool, we would have already retreated. The only one who seemed fine was Atollie.

"Atollie, you are not hot?" I asked. Please visit 𝘪𝙣𝓃𝒓𝗲𝒶𝗱. 𝐜o𝗺

"No, this kind of temperature is not that bad. But I do suggest that you be extra careful there are some powerful elementals on this floor. They are hiding within the lava at the side and watching us." Atollie warned me, making me pursed my lips. Why do I feel like having Atollie here might have caused a break in the dungeon system?

"It would be funny if the boss for these floors is a dragon." Sei looked at me and snickered, which in turn made me stick my tongue out at her. But to be honest, it would be amusing.

Luckily I did not stuff my foot in my mouth, and the level of the monsters did not reflect Atollie's level in the slightest, but this did not change the fact that we were still on the eleventh floor of the dungeon. And that was because we were basically in a wave type scenario. One of those situations where monsters just kept spawning over and over and over again while you killed them over and over again.

We were all fighting at full force except for Atollie, who I asked not to get involved unless one of us were about to die. She was basically our chaperone for this level. And one thing I noticed was that the girls were really lacking in skills. We got a handful recently, so I figure once we get out of this wave killing situation, I would give them all the skills so that they could try to pick up some more useful things. Maybe they can also get an ultimate skill. Although this is probably doubtful. I probably used up a life's worth of luck to be able to summon Atollie. Please visit 𝑖𝓷n𝘳ℯ𝐚𝐝. 𝒄om

Not that I am complaining because with her here, I can concentrate on actually fighting without much worry. It reminded me of the first dungeon when I first summoned Diablo. But even so, I do wonder if I will ever be as strong as the both of them. Although I say this, I am slowly progressing. I have gotten lucky and boosted my level by a lot. While we were already way past the level I wanted to reach, it was still a good idea to keep going as much as possible. After all, the others had just started, and it would not be good for me to leave first.

Plus, I also wanted to see just how deep this dungeon would go. If it really did dive down over a hundred floors or so, I would not mind, but the fact of the matter was that each of the bosses so far had these tricks to them and were completely unnecessarily hard! After almost an hour of fighting fire elementals, we finally cleared the wave and got a breather. I passed out the skill stones as we took a rest. Each girl got five skills in total. And somewhere normal common skills like Adel got cooking, and Sally got hunting. There were a few that surprised me, like Adel got a skill called detonation sphere that she could send out bubble like objects that stuck to her enemies and then exploded on command. She could only cast five at a time for now, but it said the skill was upgradable so it would help her greatly.

Sophie got a skill that allowed her to create a large shadow under her enemies that would then have shadowy hands come out and wrap around those in the shadow and pull them down. Where they went from there, I have no idea. Sadly skills were not copyable because both detonation sphere and shadow grab, as it was called, were useful. However, I can recreate my own version of detonation sphere, which would probably be more powerful.

We keep moving forward floor after floor. And surprisingly, when we reached the fifteenth floor, there was no boss. The theme continued all the way to the twentieth floor, where I ended up slapping Sei on the back of the head. "You had to say something stupid!"

"Hahahaha!" Sei laughed. She looked at me and winked as she said: "It's your chance to show that dragon who is the better dragon!"

I sighed, looking at the huge dragon sitting in the boss room. It was a red fire dragon. "Appraisal…."

[Boss: Flamed Tongue Hordren]

[Race: Fire Dragon]

[Level: 4500]

[Health: 300000000/300000000]

[Mana: 300000000/300000000]

Yep, it was insanely strong…. But I still have one thing going for me! I was a dragon too! So maybe…. Just maybe we can talk things out. I took a deep breath as I looked at the girls and said: "I will go talk to him and see what he has to say. You stay here."

"Don't get eaten!" Sei let out a chuckle. She really found this whole thing funny!

I sighed once more as I transformed into a dragon and walked over to the middle of the room. The fire dragon opened its big eye and looked at me. "What does a youngling like you want!? Leave before I burn you to cinders!"

"Ummm…" I was quite surprised it was able to talk and even was willing to let me leave, but…. Sadly the room was sealed off… "I would love to, but we are stuck in this room."

"Hmmm?" The red dragon lifted its head and looked around, and snorted, causing flames to come out of its nostrils. "So you were stupid and got trapped here too? Heh… sadly, you will have no choice but to fight me then."

"Oh? Well…. Let's chat first, shall we? We have plenty of time." I wouldn't mind getting to know other dragons. It is my first time meeting another dragon, after all.

"I guess we could. I do get bored just lying here. But this form is probably not good. Let's take on human form, shall we?" The red dragon asked. I nodded, and the both of us shrank down. In front of me was a handsome young man with red flaming hair and orange eyes. I smiled as I took out some chairs and some snacks before calling the girls over.

"Faith, what is going on?" Adel asked as she sat down.

"Hmmm? We are having a conversation with a dragon. One from another place, I guess." I really did not know how else to explain it. I figured it would be a nice change after all the fighting we have been doing.

"Oh? Quite a few of you and…." The fire dragon looked at Atollie and quickly lowered his eyes. "It seems even if we do fight, the outcome is already decided. So I guess to have tea and snacks like this is not a bad thing."

"Even if that is the case, Atollie will not attack unless one of us is about to die. I know this isn't something you want to hear from me, but you should know that we have no choice but to continue on. Whether you are good or bad, we can not stay here. And our only way to leave is if you have died." I couldn't help but feel like a jerk when I say things like this. I feel so cold hearted but what can I do? I can not be stuck in this dungeon, and the dragon will actually respawn, I think…. To be honest, I do not know. It might end up being another monster altogether…

"Don't worry, I know." The fire dragon let out another sigh before picking up his cup of tea. He took a sip and then looked at me. "You seem to have questions."

"Mm…. It's about dragons. I want to know more about them. You are the first dragon I have met." After all this time, I had yet to meet a dragon. And I know they are hiding somewhere in this world, but I have not met a single one of them.

"Mmm…. Dragons are pretty much loners. We only mate once every few hundred years, and that is it. You would be considered an oddity. You are roaming around with humans, and either race like it is nothing. Even a higher being is guarding you. You can say out of dragons, you are something that would draw attention no matter where you go. Then again, we are from different worlds with probably different values.

"Dragons on my world rule the skies. We stay out of worldly affairs and only slumber quietly. Who would have thought I would end up here? Is it wrong to want to stay in my cave within a mountain and protect my treasures?" The fire dragon seemed depressed, but I was instantly drawn to the word treasure. After all, treasure meant shinies!

"Ahem…. You do not know how you came to be here?" I asked. I did want to ask more about the treasure, but I figured it wouldn't be here, even if that was the case.

"No. I was in a thousand year slumber, and when I woke up, I was here." The fire dragon replied. "My treasure is now gone, and all I have is the peace and quiet of this cave. But now you are here, and it seems my time is about to come to an end. I do wonder what I have done with my life."

My brow wrinkled. I do wonder…. "If we could somehow fake your death, then we could take you with us…."

"Master, you can try a taming spell…. Although it will bind the fire dragon to you for a period of time, from what I can see from this dungeon so far, it would probably count you as defeating the dragon if you tamed it. Then you could set it free once we leave the dungeon."

"A taming spell?" It was a possibility. I did have Mr. Blobs. So I know it is possible to tame monsters. I looked up at the fire dragon who was staring back at me. "Do you want to try?"

"Would I be able to leave this place?" The fire dragon asked.

"As long as it allows us to pass through the boss room, then yes, you will be able to. And. I will not bind you to do anything. You can roam the world as you see fit." I would not bind him into being my pet or anything like that. I am only doing this because I do not wish to kill one of my own kind who did not seem to be bad in any way. To be honest, it kind of left a sour taste in my mouth thinking about killing another dragon.

"Then we can try…." The fire dragon bowed his head. I smiled and walked over to him. I placed my hand on his forehead and closed my eyes, and took a deep breath before opening them again. A white light began to shine underneath us as a magic circle formed under us. It did not take long for me to see a new message pop up.

[Would you like to tame the Fire Dragon?]

I hit yes right away, which caused the light around us to increase.

[Name your new pet.]

"Hordren," I whispered, causing the light to glow so bright that everyone had to shield their eyes.

When the light dimmed. The barriers blocking the exit from the boss room disappeared. It had worked. Not only did I not need to fight Hordren, but I was able to save him from the dungeon. He could now roam freely around the world once more. I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "You are free," I said with a smile.

Horden looked at me with tears forming in his eyes as he knelt down in front of me. "You have my thanks. I owe you my life and will help you whenever you need me. Just call for me when you are in need of my help."

"Alright, but for now, I still plan to dive deeper into the dungeon so take a rest inside your space. My. Blobs says it is actually quite cozy in there." At least, I think this is what he said…. It is hard to judge sometimes based on jiggles.

"Then I will. Please call me if you need me." With that, Hordren disappeared into a stream of white light and entered my body. It felt kind of strange. I was a dragon with a dragon pet…..

I looked at my pet window to see an avatar of Hordren there next to Mr. Blobs and the rest. At least for now, he would be able to live freely once I leave the dungeon. Where he will go or what he will do, I will leave that up to him.

"Now then…. I guess we should finish our little tea party, shall we? Atollie, come take a seat." Since we already had things out, I did not plan to finish my tea party too soon. We ended up spending quite a few hours chatting. The girls tried to include Atollie as much as possible, but since she had no idea what we were talking about, she only gave a gentle smile. I must admit that smile was very angelic.

Afterward, we packed up and moved to go to the twenty first floor. We were met with a major issue. We stood on a rocky outcrop that overlooked a vast ocean. Behind us was just a door that stood in the middle of nowhere. You could literally look at the back side of the door and only see more water. But if you stood in front of the open door, you could see a staircase leading up.

"What should we do?" Adel looked at me, and I looked at the others, but no one had any good ideas on what to do here.

I sighed and transformed my armor into a bathing suit, and said: "Stay here. I will be right back." I then dived into the waters to take a look, but as I swam down, I could only see darkness… I did not wish to go too far, so I quickly resurfaced. When I reached the top of the waters, I saw that I was a little further away from the rocky outcrop, so I had to swim back. I climbed back up with the help of the others and shook the water off my body. "It's too dark to see. But if I am right, we will need to dive to the bottom." 𝐢n𝑛rℯ𝒶𝚍. 𝑐o𝘮

"How are we supposed to do that?" Sei asked, but the answer was simple. "We will use a spinning barrier to form a bubble around us. But I am unsure if we can fight like this…." I answered with a sigh. Because there were many flaws in my idea, we would need to move to the bottom of the ocean floor, but how were we going to fight?

"That may work, but if the barrier is spinning, won't we be asking for punishment if a powerful monster appears? We won't be able to avoid it if we accidentally attack it." Sally made a good point.

"Then, no spin, and the barrier will expand and retract as needed. This way, we can fight monsters as well to keep gaining experience points. I would hate to give up any free experience, but…. It will be hard to find the exit to the next floor…." I did worry about this, but I do wonder what we are going to end up fighting.

"I wonder if the exit will have a barrier keeping the water from getting into the stairwell or if it will just be a deeper water zone. We might have ten more floors of this or maybe twenty….." Adel also brought up some good questions.

"We can only keep advancing and try to work things out. Sei, you are good with map making, right? Can you keep track of our progress?" I asked. Sei seemed to have a knack for keeping a map inside her head that let us traverse areas quite easily.

"Will do, but I am not sure how well it will work underwater."

We took another small break before standing at the edge of the outcrop. "I will stick a barrier around us. I will use wind magic to keep us from falling too fast in the water."

The last thing I wanted was for gravity to take effect and the girls to fall through the barrier. It would only be designed to keep water out, and that was it. I did not wish to block other things. Because if a monster shows up, it could swim at us and attack and then fall into a space with no water where it would be vulnerable. Easy win!

With this in mind, I wrapped our feet in wind magic to make us all hover in the air and then put a barrier around us. I reached out and took Adel's and Atollie's hands. "Hold hands. We will jump at the count of three." When everyone was ready, I counted down. "1…. 2…. 3!"

We were definitely a good team. We were all in sync as soon as we jumped. Even Atollie jumped at the right time. We jumped up into the air and out into the water. The water began to part as he landed, and with the wind magic under our feet, we floated in the middle of the ball like barrier I made and slowly sank to the bottom of the ocean.

Our vision grew dark as we slowly descended. Many fish even entered the barrier, but these were just normal fish. We fell into the abyss of the deep dark ocean for what seemed like forever until we finally reached the sandy floor.

"Why is it not muddy?" Adel asked in confusion, which was not surprising. After all, the whole area was once under water until the barrier pushed the water away.

"The barrier repels all the ocean water. This includes the water in the sand. It won't affect living begins, though." I answered. I also did not wish to be walking through a bog the entire time we were trying to find the exit to this floor.

"Ah! I knew my wife was smart!" Adel praised me, causing me to blush. Only when they call me their wives do I remember I am really married. Diablo does the same thing as well. Not that I plan to run off and marry someone else. To be honest, I find having four people hard enough to deal with. I love them all, but I have to always make sure they are not being neglected. Relationships are hard, and even more so with more than one person.

"So, which way do you think we should go?" I asked. I had no idea where I should go from here.

"Well, we can backtrack to the rocks that support the outcropping we jumped from, if there is any, and try to see if we can follow anything," Sei suggested.

"Then let's do that. It is better than wandering aimlessly. Sei. get ready to map things out." Sie's idea was the only option. If we began wandering around underwater for years on end, it would not be too good. I did wish to try to reach the end of this dungeon. So far, things have been quite steady, and we have only spent a few days down here, and I wanted to keep it this way.

We did as Sei suggested and moved backward. Luckily the base of the rocky outcropping was really there. It was just a bunch of rocks, but it was enough for us to at least have a starting point. Sei took out a piece of paper and marked it on the map. "Okay, we will say that anything directly away from the rocky outcropping is north. We will walk around the rocks and see if it extends into a lower wall that we did not see while above water. So let's head southwest around the outcropping and then south."

"Sounds good." I nodded, as did everyone else. We walked towards our right since we were going southwest. Please visit 𝙞𝙣𝗻𝒓𝗲𝓪d. c𝘰m

The rocks were piled up as if someone had placed them by hand. It looked strange and unnatural. I do not know why I felt this way, but I did. We walked for like five minutes before Sei stopped. She was leading us since she was mapping, but she stopped and took out the map once more. "The underwater portion extends out like this…." She drew more lines on the map that showed that the further we followed the rocks, the more it brought us to a wall that blocked us from heading any further south. "It seems if we wanted to go south anymore, we would need to jump off the other side of the rocky outcropping."

"Well, if worse comes to worst, we can do just that. There is nothing stopping us from surfacing and going to the other side." I did not see any issue with us being blocked off. I just worried that there was no end to this room.

"I figured the same. So let's follow the wall for now." Sei suggested, and once more, we were on our way.

The thing I found strange thus far was that there were no fish this deep in the ocean. I had yet to see any monsters as well, unless they were waiting in other areas that we had yet to reach. But for now, we were taking the safest route, and hopefully, if we were lucky, we would end the path to the next floor.

We walked for a few more hours, taking a few twists and turns as the rocking wall that blocked us was not straight. We rested for about thirty minutes before continuing our walk. Atollie seemed excited as she walked beside us with her eyes glowing. I guess things like this were not something she would get to see at all. I do wonder how long she was truly stuck guarding the gate.

I know I would go crazy if I was stuck doing such a thing. But then again, it seemed someone took pity on her and allowed her to come down here with me, which was a good thing, I guess. But everything had a time and place, and right now was not the time. Our quest right now was to find the stairs leading to the next floor.