Milo had his face pressed to the ground, peering down with one wide-open eye. There was stuff down there. And things. Stuff and things.
Murkily lit by an unidentified source, Milo saw spreading some hundred or so yards below him a landscape he would have maybe expected to see up on the surface, but never deep underground like this. It looked like some kind of marsh.
Most of what he could see were the dark tops of trees poking out of a shroud of fog that lay thick on the ground, interspersed by the occasional spire of rock jutting upward. He saw movements as well, some kind of large, slow-moving creatures wandering in the mist.
What the heck am I looking at here? Milo stared down, fascinated, as several large, winged shapes dropped from one of the spires and took to the air. This has to be a dungeon. There’s no way all that’s down there without magical shenanigans.
For one thing, the ceiling of the place, made of that black material, was only a couple of inches thick and didn’t appear to have any supports helping it to hold however many thousands or millions of tons of earth—altabar?—it was holding up. For another, there was a whole thriving ecosystem down there that had no access to the sun’s energy, which meant it was getting energy from somewhere else. Clearly, there was magic at play here.
So how do I get some of it?
Milo didn’t have the first idea, and he thought it pretty unlikely that environmental mana could somehow seep into him, but he excitedly started widening his peephole and hoped that something would work out.
Making extra sure to keep a firm grip on his hammer so he didn’t lose it down the hole, he broke all the rest of the asphalt-stuff free. The resulting debris disappeared below him, perhaps hitting some luckless monster far below.
Oh. Hold up.
Milo, ever a munchkin, suddenly got a devious idea of how to abuse this situation.
He had a gap that was probably as big around as his head, at a rough estimate. I’m up here...there are monsters waaay down there...
...And I have rocks.
Affecting a maniacal giggle, he rounded up as many of the rocks and small boulders as he could and started chucking them down through the hole he’d made. He did about four before he suddenly thought to worry if he were being evil. After all, those creatures down there hadn’t done anything to him.
…Nah. That’s a dungeon. Dungeons are full of bloodthirsty monsters. I’m a good person.
Having successfully rationalized his definitely not-evil behavior, he continued releasing missiles on the unsuspecting beasts below.
About fifteen or so rocks later, it occurred to him that something had made this hole that he was currently using, and it appeared to have done so from the far side of the barrier. This made him pause for much longer than his moral quandary had. Could the beasts below retaliate somehow, maybe launch a projectile powerful enough to punch a hole in the black barrier?
After some thought, Milo kind of doubted it. More likely, some overpowered spellslinger had traipsed through and blasted a hole in the ceiling while aiming for one of the flying things.
Feeling reasonably safe from retribution, he resumed his barrage until he finally ran out of stones.
Well, that was anticlimactic.
Sadly, he hadn’t gotten any kill notifications. Milo hadn’t expected to get a ton of hits, but he’d hoped for at least one. Depending on the level of the creatures, it could potentially have given him a huge boost to his growth once his level cap was removed. After all, the system had told him his experience from killing that puma raptor was deferred, not lost.
Not ready to give up on this tactic, Milo decided that today would be a day dedicated to murder. He determinedly made his way up the long shaft back to the surface, belatedly remembering to turn off his phone when he got to the very top. Come to think of it, I probably should have turned it off when I opened up that hole. There was enough light coming through it. Ah well, live and learn.
Shrugging internally, he set about gathering as many rocks as he could that were only slightly smaller than his head and rolling them down the shaft. He wasn’t sure how tough the creatures in the dungeon were, and he wanted to be darn sure that, if he did get a hit, it would be a fatal one. Thirty-plus pounds of stone moving at what he presumed was well over a hundred miles an hour would probably do the trick as long as they weren’t at some crazy high level.
Milo basically gathered until he was really tired of prying stones loose from the mounds of dirt and rolling them over to the shaft with his foot. Once done, he grabbed his belongings minus two Soylent boxes before heading back down, having decided that the cave was a good place to take shelter from the elements and any more puma raptors.
The light spilling up from the dungeon was dim, but once his eyes adjusted it actually did provide all of the light he needed, so Milo opted to leave his phone off. He regathered the stones that had bounced and scattered all over the floor and resumed taking potshots.
He did his best to vary his aim, figuring a scattershot approach would give him the best chance of hitting something. The size of the hole didn’t afford him a lot of leeway, but by rolling the stones in from various different directions he could at least get a little variation in trajectory.
By the time he’d exhausted his second round of rocks, he was starting to feel frustrated. Still no hits, or at least nothing the system had credited him with. He nearly gave up, but decided to try at least one more batch. After that, if his efforts still failed to bear any fruit, maybe he could try exploring some more.
And that’s what he did, rinse and repeat.
This time, however, after only two rocks, incredibly welcome system-generated words appeared in his vision.
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Yes!
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Congratulations! You have slain a level 14 Swamp Lurker. Bonus experience earned for slaying well above your level. Experience deferred due to level cap.
Congratulations! By managing to slay a monster more than 10 levels above your own unaided for the first time, you have been awarded an additional fusion point.
Congratulations! By slaying a monster from more than 100 meters away, you have gained access to the Sniper class.
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Wow, I’m really starting to rack up these fusion points. I hope they’re as useful as they seem. Milo still hadn’t even chosen a class yet. He idly thought about how ridiculous he’d feel if he died out here in the forest, classless, hoarding fusion points.
...Don’t care. Waiting for the magic.
He checked his new class acquisition, finding it to be a journeyman class, and also finding that he didn’t particularly care; he’d played a number of shooting video games over the course of his life and sniping wasn’t for him. Sitting around waiting for a shot was boring, and worrying that someone would sneak up on him while he was peering through his scope was stressful. Give him a shotgun or even a melee weapon any day.
Of course, he did end up dying a lot with his choices.
Ignoring that for the moment, along with the repeated cognitive dissonance of identifying as a careful person while also enjoying rushing into danger, he focused on tossing more rocks down.
Perhaps the first dead monster had drawn scavengers (assuming it didn’t magically dissolve into nothing), because he got one more kill notification before he ran out of stones.
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Congratulations! You have slain a level 13 Screaming Leatherwing. Bonus experience earned for slaying well above your level. Experience deferred due to level cap.
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Say, weren’t these creature names sort of…on the nose? Why aren’t they some weird alien name, like…bistelgraps or…or snurfflehogans? Milo dismissed it as another mystery for later.
Finishing with the third round of stones, Milo had a debate with himself. He could keep trying to rack up a higher body count, or he could continue with his original plan for the day and explore west.
On the one hand, it was extremely tempting to just stay here. It felt safe compared to the forest with its puma raptors, and he’d found a way to hack the system for easy experience. On the other hand, if he stayed here too long and never managed to find civilization, he could starve and die.
Reluctantly, he made the decision to go exploring. He could always come back here and exploit the dungeon after he found people, right? Right.
Milo packed up some Soylent and water in his backpack and tiredly climbed the steep path up to the surface. This is going to get really old before too long, he thought, thighs and calves burning. He looked up for the sun to try to get a bearing, but it was almost noon now and he couldn’t tell at a glance which way was west. Instead, he backtracked a bit and found two X’d trees, getting a good heading that way. He’d known which way he basically wanted to go, but it was good to be as precise as possible.
He hiked for an estimated three hours out, same as yesterday, and fortunately didn’t encounter anything dangerous. Remembering an earlier thought, he kept an eye out and noticed that yes, he did see the occasional bird. They didn’t look particularly remarkable compared to Earth birds, though. At least, not from as far away as Milo saw them.
The most notable feature Milo came across on this trek was a much larger stream than the previous one he’d found, roughly an hour away from the mine and also running north. It didn’t quite deserve to be called a river, he felt. It rose to mid-shin probably at its deepest, but it was several strides across and fairly swift-flowing. Milo was able to cross it without getting wet by using a fallen log as a bridge. The log had been well out of the way, and, after crossing, he had to fight a slight compulsion to backtrack over to where his line of X’s had led to the water’s edge before continuing on. He found himself irked that his path of travel for the day would have a big jag in it. Whatever, shut up stupid OCD brain.
The creek was probably his best candidate so far for finding civilization. He’d heard that, when lost in the wild, it was pretty much always a good bet to follow the water; people congregated around water. He had a couple more days, but if he had to choose a direction today, he would happily come to the stream and just follow it north.
His return hike was even faster than yesterday, not weighed down by nearly as much weight as the day before. He suspected he’d covered more overall ground today as well.
It was early evening by the time he returned to the dig site, and by that point the last two days were really starting to catch up with him. He’d already been pushing his body with his exercise routine before he’d been teleported from Earth. Then he’d had his wrist chopped off, did some heavy rucking for five hours, barely slept (in the rain), hauled a bunch of rocks, climbed up and down a very long, steep incline several times, and had just now completed another extended hike. He wanted to roll down the mineshaft and collapse in a heap at the base of the slope for three days. However, he knew it would be foolish of him to waste the opportunity to prepare another volley of rocks before he headed down.
Stones were getting harder to find at this point, forcing him to make do with some that were smaller than he would have preferred. He suspected they’d still be pretty devastating regardless. He gathered a good number of them, but the pile was admittedly smaller than those he’d gathered previously.
After chucking the last rock into the opening, he followed it tiredly, stumbling and falling to his ass about three quarters of the way down. He slid the rest of the distance to the bottom, where he chided himself for carelessness. He hadn’t gotten hurt, but now he had way more dirt in his underwear than he wanted.
Brushing himself off and doing his best to shake dirt out of his nether regions, Milo proceeded to gather the rocks scattered around his little artificial cave and tossed them one at a time down the hole. To his disappointment, he received no kill notifications by the time he’d released his final stone. He waited hopefully until he was sure it had landed, then sighed. Well, there’s always tomorrow.
Milo got up and unrolled his thin mat and sleeping bag next to the hole for light, having decided it was time to do some studying before turning in for the evening. However, his brain wasn’t having it. His eyelids kept drooping shut as he tried to focus on the medical textbook.
He gave up after less than ten minutes, realizing he was fighting a losing battle. He wasn’t ready for bed, however, his bladder complaining at him.
With a groan, he realized he’d have to climb back up every time he wanted to relieve himself if he didn’t want the cave to end up smelling like an open sewer. Unless…
Milo’s eyes drifted to the hole next to him. He grinned. Sorry, swamp monsters. Rough day for you. He unzipped and positioned himself in a prone position over the hole, too lazy to stand up and not wanting to risk missing the small hole and splashing urine around the opening.
That was when he felt a…new kind of tingling on his private bits.
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You have breached the Unending Descent. Be wary. The only way out is through.
Stand by.
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Startled, Milo pulled back, realizing this was the first time he’d actually stuck any part of himself down into the hole, and that the action was now causing entirely unexpected and wholly unwelcome consequences.
Well, he tried to pull back. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out that way. It was like time had stopped, and the world around him seemed to be dissolving. Or maybe he was? He—I—wha—