A yawn was how Michael greeted the Monday morning, but within moments he felt wide awake. He was one of those kinds of people, who, despite struggling to wake up, once awake they were alert and ready for the day.
He was awaken in an undignified manner via pillow to the face by Alice, but after his brief surge of anger he sat up, and that was when the yawn kicked in as he heard a few feminine voices saying goodbye, then the front door of his house closing.
Michael scratched his head as he stood, noting the change to his LEV which now showed the number two instead of one, meaning he was now stronger than a normal adult male.
Well, he had placed his points equally, at the recommendation of his best friend Arthur, though he had one stat, namely Strength, be higher than the others, all his stats were at six except for Strength at seven.
His reasoning was that as an archer, his strength determined the power of his arrows, and his Dexterity determined his accuracy. Seeing as he wasn’t taking shots from a hundred metres away or anything like that, he wasn’t worried about aiming for now.
After washing up, brushing his teeth and such, Michael got dressed and ate his breakfast, a favourite of his… cereal.
He enjoyed that ‘I’m a cereal killer’ joke… the pun got dry after a while though.
After finishing his cereal, he looked around the now empty house with a sigh, knowing that he’d have to clean it. It’s how it went every day at this point, even before Red Sky Day.
Michael didn’t work much, though he did work part-time jobs every once in a while, he just hadn’t been sure what he wanted to do. Originally he had been thinking of joining the air force or the police, but he had never gotten around to joining.
Now, with the Dungeons, he had found his profession, an Adventurer, someone who entered the Dungeon as a candidate to slay Chronos the ruler of Hell… it didn’t pay a lot yet, seeing as Michael and his team weren’t that strong, but he was glad for it, knowing his pay would only increase.
Due to Michael not working, or at least not having to be anywhere early, he was left to clean the house after all three of his sisters left the house.
Yes, he had three sisters and he was the eldest of the siblings, it was difficult at times, and while his sisters all annoyed him to some degree he wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.
Michael had time to think as he began to sweep and pack away clothes, change bedding, and such, and during that time he thought to his team, Einherjar.
Michael had honestly been a bit worried when he had been placed as the leader, as he had been hoping for Arthur to take that place.
It was a strange thought to those who knew both Michael and Arthur, as clearly Michael was the more outgoing between the two… but Michael knew Arthur was a brilliant planner and he noticed things that Michael didn’t.
For example, during the day they had Awakened, when their group had separated to go their separate ways and think about their experiences, Michael had gotten a few messages from Arthur.
The main point of the first messages was that Arthur wanted Michael to be their team’s leader, or at least a spokesperson. From there they had discussed placements for the group, and what they would all do in their roles for the group.
Their skills weren’t quite known at that point, but Arthur noted his Soul Sight was activated for a moment then, just enough for him to see their souls… a scary prospect, but Michael didn’t hold it against Arthur.
From what he could see, their group all complimented each other, with a blocker, an archer, a healer, a thief/assassin and warrior, Arthur was quick to note he’d probably end up a magic user mostly…
He had ended up correct. Out of all six members of their group, Arthur had the greatest apparent magic ability and control over his magic, likely due to his large understanding of physics and an imagination that ran wild at times.
They could all do magic, but from what they had discussed, Michael noted that Arthur’s magic was one of, if not the best at pure damage dealing, for the simple reason that Lightning magic seemed to penetrate most defences.
So they all had their roles. Archer, Healer, Guardian, Assassin, Warrior and Wizard, and while there was clearly some uncertainty at this point, in time it would change.
Michael chuckled, thinking about how their Swordsman fit the role of a Wizard best as his phone vibrated, a message, likely from Arthur stating they would go into the Dungeon nearby without Alice, who would go with a team from her school.
Michael checked his phone, and indeed his thoughts were right, so he just shrugged, picking up the keys and walked out, locking the door and then taking the key and stashing it in his inventory (keys were a negligible weight really)
He was lucky enough to live near the Dungeon, it only took him about four minutes to walk there, a long time unless one listened to music like he did.
He really wanted a car, a BMW M3 to be exact, but he didn’t have the money, or the licence yet really, and so he had never gotten one… the fact that Emilia had one made him jealous, but just in the sense of ‘I wish I had one too’.
Motorbikes like Arthur, on the other hand, Michael decided to never buy. Motorbikes were death-traps in his opinion, with the exception of old school choppers, otherwise known as Harley Davidsons.
Michael looked around in thought, and frowned when he saw a man standing on one corner, shouting uncaring of whether or not anyone was listening, the man shouting about how all who wielded a LEV were vile for accepting a contract with a person who was essentially the devil…
The world had changed a lot, due to Red Sky Day, in ways not immediately apparent to some. For religion, it was proof that Hell existed, which meant that Heaven had to exist in some form right?
Of course the most switched to religion in the past month was Christianity, due to Chronos referencing his domain as ‘Hell’ and speaking about Lucifer, though Michael wondered a bit at that…
Michael was a Christian, went to church every Sunday for mass and went to Sunday school until finishing that around the age of sixteen…
But he never considered Christianity to be wholly the correct religion. Or to be exact, after talking with Arthur for a long time about Arthur’s views on religion, he now no longer viewed any singular religion as correct.
Arthur’s views of religion were quite extreme, thinking that religion was essentially man made. That wasn’t to say he thought God or a being of that level did not exist, in fact Arthur believed that such a being had to exist. But why would said being care how the being was believed in?
As long as belief was there, Arthur claimed, it should be enough. Be kind, share, do not murder, things like those were taught in religion, but most of that was common sense, don’t kill someone’s mother because you wouldn’t like it if someone killed yours.
As for the act of prayer, again according to Arthur, it was a comforting act for humans who wished for acceptance and comfort somewhere in the uncertainty that was life, in truth whether or not the Creator listened it would comfort the person doing it, knowing that they let their hopes and worries out in some manner.
Michael didn’t agree with everything Arthur said, thinking Arthur to be one of those strange forward thinkers, but accepting Arthur for his views all the same.
The final thing of note about Arthur’s strange belief was that he ‘did not support religion, but he supported faith’, saying that religion, while a beautiful thing when done correctly, also had the potential for being twisted to the needs of the believers, much like the Crusades or Isis bombers, using religion almost as an excuse to hate or do violent actions…
Of course not everyone did that, but the fact that it could be used as an excuse at all annoyed Arthur, and made him refuse to even have anything to do with religion, rather having faith, but no religion. Called himself agnostic, which in the dictionary, meant a person who ‘was questioning the existence of God’ or believed that ‘even if God exists, we have no way of knowing what God would want from us’.
The only thing Michael agreed with Arthur whole heartedly was that no religion was innately more ‘right’ than another. Even Hinduism with its many Gods didn’t deserve to be looked down, as it was their faith.
Faith between people was just that, faith. There was no reason to hate a person for what they believed in, only when they tried to force another to believe what they did, would there truly be an issue.
Arthur’s family, like Michael’s, was Christian, though less religious, Arthur’s father was a humble sort of religious person, and while he had disliked Arthur’s refusal to adhere to any religion, he had accepted it in the end.
The Dungeon changed a lot about religion though, unfortunately… it was once more being changed by the views of man.
Chronos’ LEV was a contract between Chronos and every human on earth; Awakening was the acceptance of the contract and its terms. The terms were simple, get stronger, try and kill Chronos, the LEV will help with the ‘get stronger’ bit.
Many religions were split on how to take that, some believed that humans should use the LEV to kill demons, fight fire with fire, while others still believed that using the LEV was betraying a person’s basic humanity.
“The Devil’s Contract it is, don’t join those fools who walk willingly hand in hand with the truest of evil, no, we should stay away from temptation!” The man was shouting, spittle flying as he tried to get people to listen…
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No one did. There were only five or so Billion (more around 5.3 Billion) people left on Earth. Of that group, more than ninety per cent of those people Awakened, or died soon after they entered the Dungeon.
The amount of people walking around with their LEV’s Awakened were more than nine people to one, and even the people who weren’t Awakened usually didn’t because of other reasons, such as not wanting to fight, or being too young or old.
“None of you may care, but when your souls are dragged to the lowest pits of hell you will remember my words and wonder why you did not listen!” The man was pretty annoying, and Michael went into a shop and got himself something to eat for later in the Dungeon…
Michael thought that guy was preaching not only to the wrong crowd, but incorrectly… because every Adventurer was actively trying to get into hell anyway, so the dragging would be unnecessary.
As he approached the Dungeon, turning into the parking lot of the Adventurer’s Guild Building, which Michael had learnt was created using Earth Magic…
It would be made to look better as time went on, but for now it completed its job.
“Michael, you took too damn long!” Michael ignored the profanity and focused on the meaning of the sentence instead, having learnt to filter the vulgarity of Matt to just get the meaning of his words.
“Sorry man, had to clean the house.” Michael noted, getting a cigarette from Matt as Michael looked around, wondering where the other members of their team were, seeing Arthur’s bike.
“Ah, Arthur went to go practice his magic for a bit, he’s figured out a thing or two about magic.” Michael raised an eyebrow at this, wondering what Matt meant by that.
“Basically, he wants to check why his element manipulation doesn’t result in spells, and while he thinks he gets the difference between Spells and manipulation he wants to check it out first before he says anything is certain.” Matt explained, and while someone who didn’t know Matt might have been a bit confused by the difference in Matt’s first words and the factual tone here, Michael wasn’t.
Matt was loud and violent, but he was most certainly not stupid. He was actually very attentive and capable of speaking calmly… he just chose not to.
Matt’s reasoning was unknown to Michael, but Matt assured Michael that it was just how he was at this point.
“Ah, Michael, you’re here, John and Emilia should be by in a moment… we are only going to go a bit further than yesterday, since while we’re all stronger, we’re also down a member. Is that right?” Michael held back his chuckle at Arthur’s antics…
Arthur had just essentially told Michael what they should do, but he had voiced it as if it was a question instead of fact… it was a habit that Michael was certain Arthur knew he possessed…
Accountability was something that Arthur feared. That wasn’t to say he was a coward, but rather that he feared having expectations heaped on him, and then coming up short.
So instead of being the leader, and thus having expectations, he pushed the role on others, only on those who’d thrive there though, such as Michael.
A puppet master would be one way of looking at Arthur’s habit of making other people lead while he advised them.
“Sure, that’s what’ll be done.” Michael didn’t mind though… despite his apparent role as leader, he knew that he wasn’t a long-term leader. He could lead in a fight, he could come up with plans on the fly…
But long term situations required fore-thought, something Michael wasn’t that good at in comparison to Arthur.
“Right then… well, I’m going to be listening to some music while we wait.” Arthur removed his phone, but before he could plug in his earphones Matt stopped him with a grin.
“Don’t do that man… how about we talk about girls… or rather, your girl.” Matt grinned even as Arthur carefully kept his face neutral… Michael indeed found this to be more interesting.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Arthur denied, though Matt and Michael, who was also smiling by now, didn’t accept his denial.
“Oh you know who we mean… haven’t you been brushing up on your Russian a lot in the past year?” Michael joked, and Arthur looked away in an attempt to hide his embarrassment at his words.
“Emilia has to speak her second language to us all the time, I figured she’d be happy talking in her home language.” Arthur said, and even as he said it he realized he was making a mistake.
“Aha, so you admit you learnt Russian for Emilia! You like her, right?” Matt added in as Arthur folded his arms as he looked at the cousins, unsure whether or not to glare or look passive.
“Whether I do or not, means nothing at this point.” Arthur neither confirmed or denied, because if he were to agree, more teasing would follow, were he to deny, they would likely switch to asking why he wouldn’t like her while listing her positive traits.
Traits such as her beauty, her interest in books almost on the level of Arthur himself, or her kind personality, for example…
“Oh, is that a blush?” Arthur inwardly cursed, hoping for something to distract them from their line of questioning… and was awarded with a white BMW pulling into the parking lot.
“Oh look, Emilia and John just got here, let’s go there and ignore what we were talking about before.” Arthur said the sentence so quickly Matt and Michael were a bit uncertain to his words by the time the three reached the car.
After greetings were done, though Emilia was curious on why Arthur seemed to be a bit quieter than usual, they headed inside to the Adventurer’s guild.
Once inside, they signed up with Ellie once more, and went to the access panel once it was opened.
Their group, Einherjar, was still listed as their team, but this time there were only five of them, which was acceptable to the Dungeon.
After checking their skills, and Arthur noting worriedly that his Soul Sight skill was getting better at a notable pace, they moved into the Dungeon after summoning their Animae.
Fun fact, Anima is Latin for Soul, and Animae was the plural, meaning ‘Souls’. Just in case that wasn’t known at this point.
“Alright, let’s move. Take care to note that Alice isn’t here, meaning more pressure will be on our melee fighters.” Emilia and Matt nodded at Michael’s words, while Arthur just listened in…
Everyone at this point knew that Arthur was the real leader of the group, Michael just being a really good spokesperson… but no one would call Arthur out on it.
Their movement through the Dungeon was simple, much like the day before, due to Alice being incapable of hurting the Slimes much, when against Slimes they rarely felt the loss of a person to their group…
Soul Sight, Arthur’s chosen/forced method of experimentation proved something, lowering the amount of people in a team would not increase the individual ‘experience’ a member would receive.
Though Arthur did mention once in a while that he’d think he was seeing something involving the pieces of souls approaching their own… but he wasn’t sure what it was yet.
It was only upon reaching the Goblins that the loss of Alice was felt, as this time the first Goblin was eliminated by Emilia and Michael, with Matt being an efficient guard for when she’d almost get hit by the Goblin’s rusty dagger…
The rust made Arthur wonder about sickness, and whether or not they’d even get sick anymore… possibly, but only if the sickness was really unique.
Arthur’s understanding of the soul grew as he witnessed the destruction of clear souls and the absorption by unique, colourful souls, and he was beginning to understand that his theory was correct, Souls impacted the world, using the body as the medium.
Meaning that they were now more soul than body, which was likely why Awakening felt so painful. It was essentially causing the Soul to act in place of the body in certain situations.
Running, for example, if someone could someday run at the speed of sound, the sound barrier would not break.
This was because the souls only partially impacted the world, making certain ‘laws’ no longer affect them.
Logic and the power of the soul were not good friends. For instance, a fireball should theoretically hurt more than getting hit with a ball of air.
This was not the case, as an ‘air-ball’ dealt just as much base damage as a fire-ball, and it confused Arthur when he witnessed this with help from Emilia and Michael against a Slime or two.
Emilia shot a globe of water at them. Slimes resist water to some extent so obviously the damage was slightly lower… but because they were mostly of a liquid, they resisted fire just as much.
The result was that both required two ‘shots’ to kill a Slime, despite fire being more destructive and the water like splashing a bucket of water on someone.
It was this last bit that proved that Arthur was right, though the guys in his group didn’t seem to care, saying that it was magic, what else could be expected?
Emilia on the other hand realized what he was saying, and sought to understand… if only in an attempt to keep Arthur from becoming depressed that something he discovered with excitement was being written off as boring.
“But… but, souls can ignore physics… why isn’t that interesting Emilia… why?” Arthur was half way to sobbing as he sat on the floor while Emilia patted his head in an attempt to help him.
“There, there Arthur… remember that Michael didn’t do Physics, Matt isn’t that great at it, and John is an artist, he has nothing to do with it… they don’t get it.” Emilia stated.
“You’re right… do you think Alice would think it’s interesting?” Arthur stood after a moment and Emilia nodded with a small smile.
“Surely, she’s pretty good at Physics, she might find it interesting.” Emilia stated as Arthur calmed down.
Their dungeon-dive was over within two hours, most of the time being spent travelling or mentally relaxing after a fight, usually through music.
Certain things could not be brought into the Dungeon, such as guns or vehicles, but surprisingly phones could be brought in, and while Einherjar had not done it, they knew that skateboards and scooters, the ones without motors, could be brought into the Dungeons.
As they began to leave the Dungeon, their group agreed to get themselves some form of transport inside the Dungeon until their movement speed overtook the speed on a skateboard or scooter.
Their levels, to their annoyance, had stayed level two, though from what Arthur could see, they would have only needed a few more kills to level up, something that made all of them happy as they’d definitely have a chance to fight tomorrow.
Michael was the first to leave, due to needing to unlock his house for his sisters when they came out of school, and then he’d simply zone out for the rest of the day.
While Michael’s end of the day plan was decided, Arthur and the others did their own things, Matt took off in his Nissan to just drive around, the love of going fast is what caused that kind of reaction.
John was an artist studying graphic designing, he had projects and commissions outstanding so he was busy even beyond the Dungeons… one of said commissions tying into Arthur’s plan for the day.
Arthur, with his love of books, was trying to write his own story. He’d succeeded, though he had yet to edit the book, or have a cover for it…
Said cover was meant to be designed by John, who had been putting it off for a long time, to Arthur’s annoyance.
Emilia, for the day, decided to hang out with Arthur. Something everyone else was quick to take note of and tease both of them over… even Arthur’s parents when they got to his house.
Emilia didn’t go out much, partly because she didn’t quite care for dressing up and going shopping for needless amounts of clothes, though she still liked her shoes.
The other reason she didn’t go out was because of her looks actually, much to her displeasure she had a habit of turning heads with her looks.
To Arthur and Emilia, it was perfect though, as Arthur also wasn’t one for going out much, when the two just relaxed in each other’s presence reading their own books, listening to music, it was a tiny world for the two of them, filled with soft music and the occasional sound of a page turning.
And no, they were not dating, no matter what anyone said... Arthur was too indecisive and Emilia wasn’t used to actually liking another person romantically… quite silly to anyone who knew the two… but this was how their group handle their days until the weekend, where Alice would join them once more.
On that note, Alice’s day was filled with the boredom of school, a sneeze during physics class and an annoyance at her time in the Dungeon with ‘incompetent’ partners who didn’t know how to decide a leader.
But that was her problem.
Arthur Clive
Level: 2
Class: Linked Swordsman- Grants one stat point to Strength and Wisdom per level
Gives Soul Sight (Unique) Skill
Anima
Dagger of Hunger
Cloak of Will
Anima Skills
Dagger- Devour- Increase Soul Gain by 6.25%
Cloak- Defence- lowers damage taken by 1%
Primary Element: Lightning
Personal Skills
Tactician I (1/50) - increases Wisdom by 10% (total 110%)
Swordsmanship I (1/50) - Increases ease of weapon handling
Soul Sight I (6/200) - Allows insight beyond mortality
Stats
Strength: 6
Dexterity: 6
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 7
Endurance: 6
Vitality: 6