In the middle of the kingdom. Two shitty circle cities with a river away from the previous generic circle city with a body of water. The king sits upon his throne. A call comes in from his brother. “Put it in the screen.” He commands like Captain Picard, except nothing like Captain Picard, because this is a fantasy world and not a sci-fi world. Trust me guys. It’s a fantasy world. XD

(please note the previous and all following uses of the term ‘XD’ are ironic and for comedic effect. Along with all jarring fourth wall breaks.) It’s a call from his brother, the Demon Lord of destruction. “Hey. My brother, long time no see. How have you been?”

“Not good.”

“Well, that’s not good.”

“Correct, it is not. One of the dungeons has gone rogue.”

“Oh no! That’s a tiny problem. Anything you want me to do about it?”

“Your annoying golden boy is protecting it.”

“Oh noes. How could HIro do that?”

“Easily. He is very powerful. I need your help to destroy this dungeon. Take him out of the picture for a few moons.”

Meanwhile….

“Hiro, a request came in for you.” Hiro takes the letter from the guild master and opens it.

“What a shitty quest..” He complains before picking up his stuff and heading out of the guild.

Sometime later….

Hiro arrives at the manor of a small noble. The noble’s land includes a large forest. The site of a great war that happened at the birth of this world. When the world was new, humans did what humans do, fight over land. A large fight that resulted in hundreds of deaths. One of the bloodiest wars in this world’s history. Bodies left in the forest don’t just rot away. They stay there until the ambient magic reanimates them. There are hundreds of walking corpses intent on destroying any living being they come across. It has been a great shame on this noble, but because he is such a poor noble he has had no way to clear it. This request from the king was truly a generous offering. Hiro hated it. Why the fuck did he have to do bussy work? He wanted to go forth and conquer dungeons. The Air dungeon just got a new master. It would be super formulaic, but at least it would be newish. It wouldn’t be the same though, ever since Anon came the older dungeon formulas just don’t stick right with him.

“Hiro the hero. Welcome, come on in. What do we owe the pleasure?”

Hiro nudges a girl forward. She’s by adventuring standard a rogue, but by non-adventuring standers a face. She does the talking so Hiro doesn’t have to. Her blond hair, blue eyes, big breasts, fancy dress, and noble title make her perfect for dealing with everything Hiro doesn’t want to.

“We’re here because of the undead in your forest. The king has contracted us to clear them out.”

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“80%”

“Of what?”

“Those zombies carry weapons and armor from the great wars. We want 80% of the drops. You are on our land after all.”

“We were just going to purify them and let them decay.”

“Then we will charge you the gold for setting up a rescue mission for those artifacts that they drop.”

Sherri, the party rogue is dumbstruck. How can a noble be so greedy? She makes the mistake of turning to the party for help. She meets eyes with Hiro. He begins to walk foreward. “No stop!” She puts her arms on his shoulders to hold him back, but it doesn’t work. “Hiro, No! You can’t.”

Hiro lifts the noble up by his collar. “We clear the forest. Then we go dungeoneering. You don’t take money from my dungeoneering fund.” He says it as a command, but the noble interjects.

“Yes, but well, you see, I just don’t see why you, a group of commoners, should even be allowed on my lands unless you pay me.”

Hiro spins the noble around. Building up speed until eventually, he chucks him. The noble is sent flying in the air. The party sighs.

“You’ll lose your hero title if you keep killing nobles.”

Hiro shrugs. He hadn’t lost it yet so the title yet, so it probably wasn’t tied to moral actions. It was just something that he reincarnated with. Its buffs were useless now anyway. ‘900% increased EXP gained’ does nothing when you’ve reached the max level.

Meanwhile back at the dungeon, a certain skeleton is learning about levels….

“Greeting’s master I have awaited your return.” The vampire lady bows as I approach the entrance to my dungeon. “Yeah cool.” Son and I walk past her. Son leans into my ear. ER… Where my ear would be. “Are you sure you should be treating such a high leveled person so badly?”

“How is she high level? She’s literally my gate guard.”

“No, I mean physically high leveled. She’s a higher level than me.”

I laugh at him. She is not a higher level than him. I put him on the second level of management in this dungeon. She’s like fourth. I’d trust the demihumans before I’d trust her. “And what level do you think you are?”

“I’m level 168, she is level 356.”

Why is he giving me numerical integers? “Is there some kind of ranking system?”

“It’s not a ranking system. How do you not know this?” His eyes flash purple as he inspects me. “You’re level one!”

“Yeah. Top level in the dungeon.”

Son groans. “You’re not understanding me. Here…” He explains a very simple spell then gives me some of his magic power.

“Inspect?”

There it is. A UI like you would see in a game world. His name, race, level, job. It’s all displayed. Seeing it has awakened one of my fears. “This is just a shitty isekai trope.”I close the UI. I hate leveling systems, but now that I know about it I have to level myself up. “How do you level up?”

“Through slaying monsters.”he pauses then adds “Er.. and humans. Don’t ask me how I know that one.”

“Let me see your gun.” He hands it over. I summon a goblin then shoot it. “Did I level up?”

“No, you need to kill at least a thousand goblins to level up.” I roll my eyes at him. What was this world designed by a Korean MMO dev? “What counts as me killing them?”

“Direct actions,” he says as we walk past the bottomless pit. It gives me a good idea

“Like this?” I summon a goblin over it. It falls to its death screaming the whole way down. “Maybe?”

I scroll through to the more powerful monsters. I won't drop anything intelligent down the pit, but the large insects that cost a lot of DP should be enough to boost my level. I drop a giant centipede down the hole. “What about now?”

He inspects me. “Level two.” I don’t feel any stronger.

“Cool. Well fuck, now I know how I’m going to spend my afternoon.”

“Maybe when you’re done with that you could conquer some dungeons.” Son supplied helpfully.