After the longest, most uneventful walk of Karstens life, the two rookie Adventurers finally arrived in the small town of Alles.

Not wasting any time, they immediately headed to the local Guild Office, registering their application for entering the dungeon and partying up. As there were no people in the dungeon at the moment, their applications were promptly accepted.

Heading in the direction the Guild Official had pointed them in, they started talking. Well, Karsten started talking.

“So what should we do when we’re in?”

Henry looked at Karsten as if he were looking at an annoying cousin. Which, he supposed, he kind of was.

“Kill monsters.”

Karsten rolled his eyes, “Obviously. But how should we go about doing that? What roles are we playing, party-wise?”

Henry glanced at him.

“You distract them, I kill them. You’re a Bard, not a Fighter. If one gets past me, maybe you’ll get to poke them with your new fancy sword. Actually, that’s a good idea… I’ll let a few of the weaker ones pass me if you draw them to you through your tricks. Get the sword as bloody as possible. I’ll even give you a bigger share of the reward.”

“Seriously? Why?”

Henry grinned, “The look on my dad’s face when he sees his statement piece ruined is the only reward I need.”

Karsten chuckled. “I’m not planning on ruining it, but I’m sure I can rough up some few monsters for you.”

Shortly after, they saw the entrance of the dungeon. It was an unassuming cave entrance at the foot of a hill at the edge of the village.

Two Adventurers stood at each side of the entrance, making sure no monsters came out, and no uninvited Adventurers came in. They were Adventurers hired by the Guild, and were given pretty fair salaries. Many who became Adventures only did so in order to work for the Guild in the first place, Karsten had been told, so he supposed it was an attractive job.

As they approached the guards, Karsten kept asking about the things he was curious about, much to Henry’s chagrin.

Still, he answered each question without much fuss.

“Are all level 1 dungeons the same?”

Henry shook his head, “Even in beginner dungeons, there are different levels of difficulty. All levels have an A, B and C tier assigned to them, A being the strongest, and C being the weakest. Even so, the assigned difficulty isn’t necessarily something you should take at face value. Let’s say it’s a level one dungeon that doesn’t have any light sources within it,” He explained, gesturing toward the cave entrance, “Such a thing would up the difficulty rating of the dungeon, but it wouldn’t affect a person with dark-vision at all. For us humans it’s a bit of a pain if you don’t have a party member who knows a light spell, but those spells are among the most common, if not the most common; Basically any type of spellcaster knows at least one, so it’s not really much of a problem. Even so, it is still technically a more challenging dungeon. The one we’re going in is a B1."

As he finished explaining, they arrived at the cave entrance. Henry showed the guards their approved application, then asked Karsten to bring out his spear from the bag of holding. Karsten drew out the long spear from the tiny bag and handed it to his party member.

Looking at the cave entrance, Karsten noticed that although it looked like nothing of note from a distance, from up-close it looked abnormally dimmer than the surrounding area. He squinted his eyes to try and see inside it, but his eyes couldn’t penetrate the thick darkness. It was as if the cave swallowed all the light that entered it, and the effect gave it an aura of gloom.

“You’ve never been in a dungeon before, right?” Karsten suddenly asked his pretend cousin.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

Henry scoffed

“I know how to hit things with a spear, so yeah, I know enough.”

Karsten chuckled, “That’s fair, I guess.”

Without stalling further, they stepped forward and entered the dungeon.

~~~

At the two took a step forward, the world around them disappeared. Karsten, slightly concerned, raised his hand to his face to check the visibility. He waved it back and forth, but saw nothing but inky black.

“Cast a light spell already,” Came an impatient voice from his left.

Karsten sighed, and readied himself.

‘It’s finally time…’

Karsten had been waiting for an opportunity to use his magic for what felt like multiple millennia, and now, finally, it was time. He wondered what spell to use, but immediately figured it would have to be Prestidigitation. The spell offered an infinite amount of options with regards to application, so creating a small light source would be the easiest thing in the world. Also, it was his forever favourite spell. His heart had already decided.

Still, he wondered what aspect of the spell he should use. He could probably create a light that could follow them, but he could also create flashlights, a luminous disco ball, or the illusion of a miniature sun. He quickly noted the problem with Prestidigitation; There were too many options. He could do whatever he wanted with the spell, and so he felt stumped.

‘Having endless options is really a curse. I have no idea what to choose…’

He thought about it for a few more seconds before coming to a decision after hearing Henry’s exasperated sigh from next to him.

He closed his eyes, and spoke. He could have simply thought about whatever spell he wanted to cast and it would be cast, but there was absolutely no way that he wasn’t going to be dramatic about this. These were superpowers, goddamnit, and they would get the flare they deserved.

He drew in a breath, envisioned the effect he wanted to create, then uttered mystically:

Prestidigitation

Immediately, he felt the slightest tinge of electrical energy move through his veins. The small charge leapt out of him quicker than anyone would be able to see, and formed the effect Karsten had envisioned in the air before him.

From nothing, a small, brightly glowing, red eye opened. The eye was bloodshot, and it looked as if you’d hear crazy ravings if you stared into it for too long. The gaze of the eye was intense, lasering in on the two men before it. Before it could do anything, however, a silver spear suddenly stuck it directly through the pupil.

“Azzy!” Karsten exclaimed, his right arm extending outward so as if to shield the little eye from harm.

Yet, when the spear hit it, it passed through the eye harmlessly. The little eyeball simply kept hovering carefree in the air, illuminating the area as if nothing had happened.

“You psychopath!” Karsten turned to Henry, finally being able to see.

Henry looked at the apparition in confusion for a moment, then lowered his spear and turned to Karsten, yelling, “Seriously? This is what you thought of? A fucking demon eye?”

"Eldritch eye! And his name is Azaroth.”

Henry massaged his face in frustration. “You could have fucking warned me! I thought it was a monster, Bellux be damned.”

Karsten sighed, exasperaed, stating, “What do you mean I should have warned you? Of course I was gonna summon an eldrich beast!”

Henry shook his head in frustration. “Whatever. Let’s just start.”

Saying so, he walked past Karsten and his eye, heading further into the cave.

Karsten turned to his new illusory friend and whispered, “Not everyone appreciates Chuthulu’s lovely children, but don’t worry, I think you’re the cutest little devil alive! Well, you’re not ‘alive’, per se, you’re a light illusion, but-”

“Karsten!”

“Ugh, fine.” Karsten started walking leisurely towards where Henry had gone, the eldritch hellspawn, Azzy, following shortly after, trailing behind Karsten’s right shoulder like a flying puppy.

He shortly caught up with his party member, and they both started walking down the seemingly never ending cave tunnel.

Henry walked first, his spear tightly gripped in his hands. Karsten could tell the previous scare had affected him somewhat, and he felt slightly bad.

Slightly.

Looking over his shoulder at Azzy, the beautiful horror, Karsten decided to be nice. He added a pink bow to the eye, and gave the eye lids. It drew ever-so-slightly upon his magica reservoir, but it was barely noticeable.

‘There. Now you look like the most dapper lad in the lands.’

He turned back to Henry, who had turned his attention back at some point, looking at Azaroth with a lost expression. He glanced at Karsten, then turned back and started walking like he’d seen nothing, murmuring, “Whatever.”

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‘See? Not scary at all!’ Karsten smiled and picked up his pace.

After a time, Henry abruptly stopped, raising his hand in a gesture for Karsten to stop and be quiet.

Henry leaned forward slightly, trying to hear if there was anything up ahead.

Karsten readied his still nameless shortsword and looked ahead, thinking of what spell or cantrip he would use if there was really a monster there, charging at him.

“Cast an sound illusion or something 50 metres ahead,” Henry suddenly whispered, and Karsten did so.

Mentally, he cast the simplest form of Prestidigitation.

A short-lived sound of footsteps echoed from about 50 metres ahead.

Immediately, chaos erupted. Countless small, black bats filled the cavern.

While they were silent on their own, the small swarm together formed a cacophony of noises that were almost deafening.

“Backup!” Henry yelled as he raised his long silver spear and smashed it directly into the tiny, ugly face of the closest bat.

Karsten didn’t hesitate either. He immediately opened his mouth and yelled, “Thunderwave!”

Blue lightning spread forth from his body, filling the air around him as if he was at the epicenter of an uproarious storm. Along with the lighting as a wave of force, spreading like a ripple in a pond from Karsten’s body. All the bats within 10 meters of him were blown back, shrieking in pain as the lightning coursed through their bodies, damaging their internal organs and making the smell of burns hair fill the air as their fur was singed.

Dust and sand was blown away, as well as all the stones and shrubbery where Karsten was standing.

Henry’s hair was ruffled, but his feet didn’t move a centimeter. Seizing the opportunity, he lunged forward at the bats that had now fallen to the ground, aptly spinning his spear, plunging it deep into the flailing bats.

There were some, about four, still in the air. Henry ignored them, calling for Karsten to take them out as he killed the last of the flailing bats.

After not hearing a confirmation for a moment, though, he turned his head back and saw Karsten staring at his own hand as if it were some holy artifact.

“I’m Zeus. I’m fucking Zeus,” The idiot muttered to himself, lost in a daydream.

“Fucking hell. Karsten! Bats!”

“Huh? Oh! Right.” Karsten brandished his sword and took a stand, turning his attention to the bats.

“Complete idiot, honestly…”

Karsten bit down his retort - the bats were upon him. After the Thunderwave, the bats had become stunned, then they had promptly placed their attention on him.

Taking a deep breath, he positioned the blade horizontally beside him, ready to strike at any moment. He relied on his newly acquired Proficiency ‘Shortswords’ to guide his actions. Surprisingly, he felt like the stance that he had almost instinctively taken felt natural, as if he had done it hundreds of times.

‘This is such a cheat...’ He laughed internally.

“SKREE!!”

Four bats quickly flew through the air, shooting straight at Karstens head. Karsten took a deep, calming breath, then, when the first two bats entered his range almost simultaneously, he lept into action, swinging his sword in a horizontal strike with all the power his muscles could muster.

The sword stuck the first one, slicing off a big part of it’s face, causing blood to sputter onto Karsten. The bat chirped weakly, its little mouth gurgling, and fell to the ground beside his feet. Karsten didn’t pay it any mind, however, because the second bat was now directly in front of his face.

Shifting his feet, he ducked backwards faster than he’d ever thought possible, accidentally smashing his own head into the ground with a dull thud.

“OW.”

Jumping to his feet, Karsten swirled around quickly, looking for the bat. Before he could think, the bat was in his face again. This time, however, Karsten was ready. With one arm, he slammed the tip of the sword into the creatures head, killing it instantaneously.

He had no time to celebrate, though, as the last two bats were only moments away from plunging their fangs into his back.

Taking a quick step to the side, he turned to face the remaining bats.

There was some distance between the two bats, so Karsten took on another stance.

Taking two swift, decisive steps forward, both hands on the handle of his sword, he swung two clear arcs in the air. The first arc hit the first bat across the torso, and it fell to the ground, dead. The second one lost its one wing, falling to the ground helplessly.

Not wasting any time in case of mishaps, Karsten turned his attention to the two bats lying on the ground that he hadn’t fully killed yet. Raising his foot, he stomped down hard, splitting the first’s head open like a small watermelon. Then, he raised his sword again, stabbing the sword directly into the small back of the last bat.

He straightened his back and looked up at the cavern roof, panting.

His hair was a mess. His body was tired, and his arm was slightly sore, yet he felt exhilarated.

He grinned.

‘This is so fun.’

He took a few deep breaths to steady himself, then turned to Henry and showcased his now bloody blade.

Smirking, he asked, “Is this bloody enough for you?”

Henry, leaning on the tunnel wall with crossed arms, shrugged, “I think you need more than that to really piss off my dad. Maybe get it chipped a little Luckily, we still have a while to go. This dungeon takes about a day to finish, so you’ll have plenty more opportunities. Also, you look crazy.”

Karsten cocked his head.

‘Crazy? Me?’

Then he noticed how he was standing in a circle of bat carcasses, blood on his face and clothes, grinning like a lunatic.

‘Wait - clothes?’

He inspected his new coat, and indeed, there were splatters of blood all over the front of it.

He sighed dejectedly, then shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess. But didn’t you say all powerful Adventurers had a screw loose?”

Henry chuckled, “I did.” Then, he turned around and gestured for Karsten to follow.

There was a long way to go before the dungeon was cleared.

~~~

In another part of the cave, about 200 meters from their first confrontation, they were met with a drop that led to a small, desolate cavern.

Luckily, and to Karstens bafflement, there was a human-built staircase in place.

“You’ll see a lot of these kinds of things in frequently raided dungeons. Some dungeons even have cities in them.”

“Entire cities?”

Henry nodded and started down to descend the staircase. “Yeah. Those ones are pretty high-level dungeons, though, so we won’t be seeing them anytime soon.”

“What’re their levels?”

“Don’t remember,” Henry stated evenly.

“Right… But I have to say, though, the stairs really ruin the immersion. It’s supposed to be a dark and gloomy dungeon, not something akin to a travelling destination.”

Henry raised an eyebrow, “Would you rather have jumped down? And then climbed out on the return journey after you’re exhausted from fighting?”

“...No. I would not.” Karsten admitted.

Contrary to Karstens expectations, the cavern was empty.

‘How boring.’

“Is there a boss room at the end or something?”

Henry stared apathetically ahead as they walked.

“Not really a room. There isn’t a door or anything, but at the end there is an open area where there is a stronger monster. The one in this dungeon is not very strong. Obviously. My guess is that it’s just a bigger, meaner bat.”

“I see… By the way, have you leveled up yet?”

“No.”

“Will killing the boss level us up, then?”

“Yeah.”

“How much experience do you think we'll get from it?”

“A lot.”

“Cool…”

The conversation dropped dead, and for almost an hour, they walked in silence. Even when a small group of five bats came charging at them, they simply silently killed them without the need to communicate much. The fight went much like the first one, with Karsten distracting the bats, Henry leading the strike, Karsten casting Thunderwave, and then killing off the stragglers.

Thunderwave was the most powerful, and technically the only offensive spell Karsten knew. As a Bard, he was centered around being a Jack-of-all-trades, so most of his powers were based around utility. Essentially, he was a support class Adventurer who dabbled in offensive magic.

When it had first really dawned on Karsten that he was indeed in a fantasy world, he couldn’t help himself as he envisioned himself casting a mountain-top-melting fireball, or creating lightning storms that spanned the world.

If he was going to have superpowers, he wanted them to be cool, he’d thought.

Now, however, he had changed his mind.

As he and Henry had fought, Karsten had thought about how he could use his power set to his advantage. What he had come to realize, was that he had severely underestimated the efficiency of Bards.

Not ‘power’, but ‘efficiency’.

Bards had so many cards up their sleeves that, if played at the right time and in the right order, could maybe kill monsters even faster than some fighters could. He didn’t know how realistic this thought was, but he felt like that was the case.

Karsten acknowledged that, if one were to measure him on pure, offensive power alone, he would be ridiculously weak in comparison to, for example, Henry.

Yet Karsten had still kept up with Henry at almost the same pace, and, in the last battle, killed three out of five of the bats himself utilizing Thunderwave and his sword.

After that battle ended, he realized that although Bards are not strong per se, they have so many ways to close the gap by feinting, casting illusions, and otherwise deceiving the target that strength almost goes out of the equation.

Karsten even went as far as to hypothesize that as long as the monster was less intelligent than himself, and was not worlds apart with regards to strength and constitution, he could even take it on alone.

Even if it were so, however, Karsten had no intention of being a solo Adventurer. Not only did he feel it was an utterly stupid and inefficient way to clear dungeons, it also seemed super boring.

Feeling optimistic, he pushed on with a slight smile on his face.

~~~

After a few more battles with varying sizes of bat swarms, they soon saw what Karsten could only assume was the Boss area up ahead.

The stalagmites and stalactites almost seemed to become more and more viscous looking the closer they came, and there was a strange feeling of a slight pressure in the air.

The tunnel they had come from opened up to a rather large area with some small hills here and there. Finally, after only seeing gray for half a day, there was some shrubbery in the form of blue, glowing mushrooms scattered across the dungeon floor and ceiling.

Karsten and Henry crouched down and scrutinized the area.

“Doesn’t look like there’s a boss here.”

“Well, there is. Why don’t you try the sound illusion again? Can you cast it over there?” Henry asked, pointing to the opposite side of the cavern.

Karsten took a look, but promptly shook his head, “No, it’s too far away. I can cast spells a maximum of 50 metres away from myself.”

Henry nodded. “Well, time to use a simpler method then, I guess.”

He picked up a small stone, stood up, and chucked it with all his might. It flew across through the air, but before it could hit the other side a gigantic bat monster with glowing, huge fangs dropped down from a hidden nook in the ceiling.

Having noticed the stone as it flew, as well as where the stone was thrown from, it spread its veiny wings that ended in sharp claws and looked straight into Henry’s eyes.

“SKREEEEEEE!!!!”