At some point, I must’ve fallen asleep outside because when I opened my eyes again, it was both darker and cooler out.
The stars sparkled brightly against the dusky sky, and the moon reflected off the Oprad Sea in the distance. Below, the city of Ridahr was lit with amber street lights from the palace and academy down to the docks and the beach.
A much better view than the last time I woke up.
As my stomach growled, I spotted a tray of food on the side table beside me. An assortment of local fresh pomegranates, persimmons, and plums. Small bowls of figs, dates, almonds, and walnuts. Tiny plates of potato fritters and savory hand pies.
Had the food been delivered by Helas or the dean? Or maybe one of the academy staff? Either way, it all looked delicious and I was hungry. Ravenous, even.
I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing one of the dark purple-red plums. Bit into it with my mouth watering. And I was rewarded with the taste of tangy and sweet flesh, a little splash of sour because of the skin.
Sitting back, I polished off the rest of the plum and watched the sun rise. Back when I lived in the countryside with Mother, we used to do the same. Eat breakfast and stare at the sky as it gradually changed from night to day.
After I popped the last almond into my mouth, I stood to study the city in front of me. Somewhere in this city, Harorin had encountered a demon.
The bright, beautiful estates of the nobles and aristocracy sat in stark contrast to the dark shadows hiding the slums on the other side of the bay. I could make out outlines of a merchant district near the docks and a red light district near the slums.
It couldn’t have been in the slums because he had no reason to visit them as a marquess’s son. And he wasn’t the type to visit the red light district. So where would it have been? Between everything else I had to do, I had to figure it out. It’d bother me if I didn’t.
A pervading warmth chased the cool night breeze that rustled through the leaves of a forest that seemed to cover the other side of the hill. I hadn’t noticed it before because of the city and the ocean, and it was still too dark to see exactly how far it went.
Not too dark, though, to spot someone sneaking from the castle and into the forest in a dark cape. Their only defining detail was a small stature. I’d bet money that the dungeon Helas wanted me to enter was hidden there somewhere, and that there was a student hoping to put in some extra work to get stronger. Good for them.
“Geram!” Helas yelled as she opened the door, wearing a simple outfit in dusty blue of loose pants and a tunic with some gold embroidery. “You’re already awake? Damn.”
“So sorry to disappoint,” I said as I brought the tray inside. “I’ve rested and eaten. Do we get to enter the dungeon now?”
“Two years too late to apologize for that.” Helas scoffed as she closed the door behind her and pulled out a fresh change of clothes. Shoving them at me, she said, “Put it on. Dhysrya’s waiting for us in the courtyard.”
I eyed her. Somehow, she looked older than before. Had she gained a few more wrinkles overnight? Or perhaps she’d used transformation magic to alter her appearance to be less recognizable here.
Dragons, like other Cored Beings, could use elemental magic without any spells. They could also use transformational magic like the Demeot. Hybrids like dragonkin and tieflings often could use transformational magic as well. Something easy to forget when they almost always appeared as a Souled Being.
“Quickly,” she said, shooing me with her hands.
“Black, though?” I asked. To be precise, a black pair of loose pants and a black tunic.
“The dungeon’s climate is more like your home kingdom.” She retrieved a pair of black boots and tossed them on the floor. “Quickly, I said.”
More like Noveden meant colder and wetter and dryer. Fighting somewhere familiar was always better than somewhere unfamiliar. I’d never fought in a place with such high temperatures as Shazia. But I still sneered at the thought a little. No one liked training in the rain.
When I finished changing, we met the dean in the first floor courtyard rather than the one in her quarters. From there, I peeked into a few classes in session in the rooms along the courtyard hallway and snuck a glance into the library when a small group of students left to head to their residences. While we headed out of the academy’s main building, the students turned the opposite way—toward one of the four houses Tairayat was famous for.
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A tingle of excitement crept up my back. It hadn’t been a bad deal to agree to apply to the academy. After all, Tairayat was basically the best of the best. Getting in wouldn’t be easy, but I liked a challenge.
Outside, I caught a good look at the main building. Typical of the southern style, it was square with arched doorways and window frames and balconies on every corner, intricate embellishments carved into its faded terracotta exterior. It wasn’t nearly as tall as Bolstaor University with four stories in some places, three in others.
We stepped into the forest behind the academy after a short walk over a well manicured lawn that hosted a garden toward the ocean and a greenhouse to the other side. The scent of resin and earth permeated the air, mingling with the sweet fragrance of eucalyptus. Birds chatted as they flitted from branch to branch.
“A few things to note about this dungeon,” the dean said as we weaved between clusters of pines and cedars and cypresses with limbs outstretched like welcoming arms. “Its primary purpose is a training dungeon, so the system works to protect those who enter while also providing opportunities to get stronger.”
That meant the system would try to guide people with lower levels who entered away from areas that could get them killed. That wasn’t going to be a problem for me.
The dean continued, “That doesn’t mean that students—including those who may be at higher levels—won’t still find themselves in a dangerous situation. For this reason, I ask that you treat this dungeon as any other dungeon.”
Helas gave me a hearty pat on the back. “You’ll be fine, kid. Just avoid the Shadowlands—that’s the only area designated difficult if I’m remembering right. Probably too hard for your first trip in.”
Was she goading me?
“You are remembering correctly,” the dean said. “I would personally recommend starting with a quest triggered in one of the easy areas—the Silver Lake, the Moonlit Meadow, or the Dark Fortress.”
At this point, any quest less than Transcendental wasn’t going to gain me enough experience points to level up much more. It’d give me a chance to gauge my new stats, but that’d be it. I needed more than that from this dungeon.
As our path started to slope downward, Helas leaned into me and whispered, “Go to the Silver Mines. Kill a silver spider to trigger the quest to kill the queen. Then kill a silver golem, trigger the quest to kill the king. Probably neither will get you killed.”
The dean lifted an eyebrow. “I can still hear you, Helas.”
“Like I was saying,” Helas said, this time shoving me forward. “You’ll be fine, kid. Go on. Have fun. Roast a silver rabbit for me.”
The dean stopped at an oak tree with a gnarled trunk, the entrance to the dungeon flickering in front of it and distorting the air like heat waves. For the first time, I noticed a faint glow from its edges—white. Was that the color of its core?
I paused. “For you. So you’re not coming. I’m going alone.” I’d meant to ask, but the answer seemed obvious by the time I opened my mouth. Helas always had been a hands-off mentor, but that was what I wanted.
She fetched a second satchel out of her own. “I packed for you. I’ve got to finish checking up on a few things here. Get a residence set up for us. Figure out how to summon your patron god. I’ve got some ideas that’ll work well with …planar pops. Ten hours will give you a full day in there.”
“Normally we don’t allow students to enter alone,” the dean said, “but you’re not a student yet, so I’m making an exception. I’ll reiterate myself for you: I’d recommend one of the easy areas. Please don’t die and make me regret this exception.”
“Got it,” I said and stepped through before either could nag at me anymore.
The feeling of passing through the gate to some other place was an out-of-body experience not unlike dying. Now that I’d traveled by portal, I better understood why some scholars believed some dungeons weren’t so much as portals to another world as they were fragments of them kept in some in-between realm.
Dungeons were the reason why we believed there could be a system that connected our world to other worlds. But they also were a reason to believe we were alone in the entire universe, connected only to what remained of other worlds.
【DUNGEON NOTICE】
You have entered the Silvernight Dungeon [Common], where the night never ends.
A landscape always basked in silver moonlight, the Silvernight Dungeon welcomes all to row their might against its beasts and test their limits against its quests. Begin by exploring the Silver Lake, Moonlit Meadows, Crystal Caves, or Dark Fortress. Next go on the hunt in the Silver Forest, Silver Mines, or Silver Mountains. Those who travel to the Shadowlands do so at their own peril.
Local Time: 10:00┃ Capacity: 2/35┃ Areas: 0/8
Student Bonus: None
Do you want to access the Dungeon Map?
From one tree, I’d stepped out of another at the edge of a cliff. Two dozen more steps away, a roaring waterfall plunged into a glistening lake the size of an entire city. All round, an endless forest of evergreen trees like redwoods and hemlocks with mossy trunks reached toward the starry night.
Helas hadn’t been lying. The place did look like Noveden in the spring. Except where there should’ve been a sun high in the sky because of the local time, there was only a moon. At least it wasn’t entirely dark out; the sky was the dark blue-yellow of dawn.
I could guess the forest and the lake below, but I pulled up the map anyway. They were labeled accordingly as the Silver Forest and the Silver Lake, the Crystal Mines labeled so closely that it must’ve been hidden behind the waterfall.
North of here was the Dark Fortress, nestled along the river that snaked through the Silver Forest into the mountains. The Silver Mines were west of the fortress and the Moonlit Meadows were south of the lake. The blackened land on the map to the west of the mountains was obviously the Shadowlands. Conveniently cut off so that it’d be nearly impossible for a student who couldn’t handle it to reach it.
Obviously, that didn’t include me.