Second floor
In the forest outside the city of Chandola.
Inside a dark, dreary dungeon.
I stretched my arm while looking around.
It's finally happening: the dream of a great adventure that I always had was finally coming true.
I wasn't much of a reader back in my world; I was too busy 'borrowing' money from others to care about something mundane like reading. Still, I knew a thing or two about novels, and dungeons were one of the most intriguing things in them for me.
And right now, I was in one such dungeon. That thought alone brought much joy to my face.
"What are you grinning at, you creepy human? We are not here for a picnic. Stop slacking and move," came the voice of an annoying cat.
"Yeah, yeah, moving. Talk about being a spoilsport," I grumbled while glancing at the cat tucked inside my shirt.
Yep, you heard it correctly. The cat, which was eager to explore the dungeon on its own, was now carefully tucked inside my shirt.
Why, you ask? Well, of course, because the damn thing lost all its motivation—and by extension, all its courage—after I offered to explore the dungeon together.
Shaking my head, I stepped ahead into the dungeon. The entire dungeon so far was made up entirely of tunnels. Glowing mosses and some purple-colored crystals were sticking out from the roof of the dungeon, providing us with some much-needed light.
I used my <Lurk > skill to carefully navigate the dungeon, peeking around every corner to make sure no high-level monster was nearby.
Turning around a corner, I saw a pair of rats eating what looked like a dead rat. Yep, these monsters are cannibals. The stench of the dead rat and the image of them eating made my stomach churn.
"Human, I feel like throwing up. Barf."
"Hey, don't throw up in my shirt!" I almost screamed and pulled the cat out of my shirt. Let's hope my skill hid that sound; if not, we are toast.
*Barf*
I knelt next to the cat and patted its back to help it calm down. After making sure it wasn't going to puke anymore, I placed it back on my shoulder. But within seconds, it went back under my shirt.
'What am I going to do with this wimpy cat?' I groaned while sneakily moving toward the cannibalistic rats.
"Human, they are levels 7 and 8."
The cat informed me, and I lunged at the level 8 rat, slicing its head off with one clean hit.
*Ding*
*You killed a level 8 rat.*
*You gained experience.*
*You leveled up to level 8.*
*Warning: you attacked an opponent; <Lurk > skill is no longer effective.*
I ignored the notification and dodged an incoming attack from the level 7 rat. Furious that its attack missed, the rat lunged at me again, but this time I ducked down and thrust my knife upwards. My knife penetrated its stomach, dealing critical damage and ending its life.
*Ding*
*You killed a level 7 rat.*
*You gained experience.*
Taking in a deep breath, I calmed my nerves and consumed 2 MP to reactivate my <Lurk > skill.
After that fight, my status looked something like this:
Name: Ervin
Age: 12 years old
Gender: Male
Level: 8
Class: Rogue (basic class) - evolve upon reaching level 20
Ability: Prankster
Stats
HP: 18/18
MP: 21/23 (rest recovers MP)
Physical Attack: 23
Physical Defense: 11
Magic Attack: 9
Magic Defense: 12
Agility: 24
Skills
Slot 1—Lurk
Slot 2—
Slot 3—
Slot 4—
Skill Points: 5
We continued through the dungeon, killing a few more rats until finally finding some mysterious stairs that led much deeper into the dungeon.
"Do we need to go down?" I asked the cat just to make sure, and she nodded. 'Deeper it is then,' I psyched myself up as we ventured further down into the dungeon.
The second floor of the dungeon was a large chamber big enough to contain an entire city. Short green grass grew everywhere along the dungeon along with the glowing moss. The walls and roof of the dungeon had many colorful crystals sticking out from them.
The entire view was a sight to behold, but the thing that caught my eye was a large, almost 6ft tall chunky grey rat with buck teeth, eating what looked like a bunch of red roses. Yes, that's right, red roses—the very same flowers that I had been searching for days.
The rat was chewing those flowers like it was plain grass; the stupid thing probably didn't even know that those flowers were worth 100 cents each.
"What is its level?" I asked the cat while preparing to strike it down in one hit, but the cat's response knocked the wind out of me.
"It's an evolved forest rat called Chunky Rattus. It's level 21."
I immediately hid myself in the grass, hoping against hope that it didn't see me. Exploring this dungeon isn't going to be as easy as I thought.
************************
Near the city gates of Chandola
Two security guards sat at the gates, barely awake. They were the city guards who had the bad luck of getting a night shift. As they struggled to keep their eyes open, a red-haired girl wearing mage attire and holding a staff stood in front of them and hit their heads with her staff, jolting them awake.
The guards hurriedly picked up their spears to combat the malicious creature that had woken them up from their sweet, sweet sleep, but then visibly relaxed when they saw it was just a red-haired girl rubbing her temples while staring at them.
"Oh, it's just you. Please don't scare us like that, Lady Arya."
"What do you mean it's just me!? How many times do I have to tell you to be more careful during the nighttime? Seriously, what would you do if a monster suddenly attacked the city!?"
"Don't worry, Lady Arya. We will protect the city with our lives."
"That's not what I wanted to hear. Ah, never mind. I am going out," she informed the guards, causing them to panic.
"You can't; it's dangerous to go out during the night," they tried to convince her, but she just said, "I will be fine," and walked away.
None of them noticed a mysterious silhouette listening to their conversation. The silhouette belonged to a burly man in his mid-40s. He had dirty grey hair and black eyes. The man hurriedly sneaked into a remote alley and took out a piece of paper. He wrote "red alert" on it and then threw it into the adventurers' guild hall.