On a certain floor of a skyscraper, Captain Leo Quinn was sitting down, appearing to be waiting.

A resonating sound of high heels was approaching him, and the sound of a woman called for him, “Captain Quinn, the generals and the admiral are ready to see you.”

I nodded as I followed the woman.

I’ve only been back for less than 12 hours and made my report, which apparently had a huge chain reaction, and the second the two generals and the admiral heard my report, they stopped everything and started a secure video call.

When I came out of Ravenswood and asked the other soldiers about the other gates and saw no changes, I knew my report would cause a commotion. That’s why I asked the men to keep their experience to themselves, at least until I spoke with higher command.

And so here we are now. The woman led me to a semi-dark room with only one other man sitting in it, and I was surprised as I recognized this man; he was Alex Watson. He became famous after the media revealed that he entered a dungeon alone and survived to tell about it.

The room only had one large table in the middle, many chairs surrounding it, and three screens, so it wasn’t hard to guess who they were.

I gave a salute as the three men on the screen retuned it. I took a seat next to Alex, and it didn’t take a second before one of the two generals, General Ford of the Army, started to speak.

“Captain Quinn, we’ve seen your report; in fact, everyone up to the president saw it, and we would like to thank you and your team for your service and courage. We’ve also informed Mr. Alex of what you’ve gone through at that gate.”

Seeing that they had told a civilian such important information, I was a little puzzled. After all, if he spread such information, and with our inability to stop civilians from entering, it would be pandemonium.

I was even ordered to set a team on standby, just in case a civilian tried to enter; they must enter before them, and not even the soldiers who were ordered to do that know what to expect inside the gate.

“You don’t need to worry, Captain Quinn; we have already reached an understanding with Mr. Alex before flying him up here; he will help us during these dire times in our fight against whatever threatens the safety of our nation.” General Grant of the Air Force spoke when he saw the complicated face I made.

I responded quickly, “Understood, sir.”

General Ford continued, “You understand how important it’s to keep what happened inside the gate ‘Ravenswood’ as classified as possible. That’s why we would like you to take full authority over the gate ‘Ravenswood’ and its surroundings. We want you to keep all relevant information about it as classified as possible without getting much attention.”

The importance of ‘Ravenswood’? Isn’t it a factory for superhumans? It would be weird if they didn’t value it.

“The official story will be a cooperation between the army and the first human to reach level 1 in our nation to clear the monsters at that gate. The two of you will enter the gate with a new team of recruits as an escort, and in case anything happens, you can take care of the team; after all, we can’t just have blind trust in these people inside the gate.”

I expected something similar when I heard that Alex agreed to cooperate, but "sir, what about the team that explored the gate with me first?"

Now It was Admiral Linda who answered me, “You probably don’t have much information, but there are tornadoes worldwide, and they aren’t normal. Scientists are still gathering information about them, but what is really important are the monsters that appear near them.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“We’ve sent your men to areas that are currently infested with monsters, mostly in coastal cities, but you need not worry about them; we are taking good care of them, and they are with very capable teams.”

I took a deep breath and said, “Understood, ma'am.”

After a 20-minute talk, General Ford addressed the both of us as he said, “Captain, Mr. Alex, you both will be given secure lines with national security; use them when necessary, and Godspeed.”

I stood up and saluted the two generals and the admiral, as Alex did the same.

After this whole thing was over, Alex and I talked for about an hour; he told me exactly what happened to him, and I did the same. Then we started talking about other things, and eventually we both left for the base near gate 'Ravenswood', which took about two hours.

When we reached the base, we were relieved to know that no civilians had entered 'Ravenswood'.

Even though Alex is technically a civilian, he knew it wouldn’t be a good idea for too many people to know of this gate too soon.

After resting in the base for a few hours, the people we were supposed to escort to the gate arrived. They were practically a mix of every military department, about 100 in total. Obviously, we can’t take them all at once; we will have to do it in groups.

The good thing is that now 10 people can enter the gate at once instead of the original six.

It’s been about 20 hours since I left the gate, and now I will be back. I have to say it was faster than I expected.

Alex and I led the team to the gate; this time, we only took three tactical vehicles with us.

And as we entered, we received a message.

"Alright everyone, follow my lead and Alex’s; this room is safe; there will be no monsters here; however, once we leave this room, monsters will attack. If they didn’t change, then they are called slime, very fast; each one has a special characteristic; the people who will give you advice while fighting call it elemental control; so be careful; you might get heart."

The nine newcomers were as confused as they could be. That’s when Leo Quinn pulled them together and moved them together to the second room. When the team was at the end of the hallway, they saw it dividing into two hallways, with a sign above each one of them.

One of them was saying, ‘level 0’, while the other was ‘level 1 or above’

This chaos guy is as rude as ever. Alex and I can go together, and as for the others, they will be on their own. We were ordered to escort them, but Alex will never risk his life and disobey the gate rules, and honestly, I don’t feel like risking it as well.

After discussing with the other 8 members of the team for a while, I sent them alone. As long as they don’t do anything stupid and listen to my instructions, nothing wrong should happen, but I'm still a little anxious

Then Alex awakened me from my daydreaming: “Can we go now?”

I looked at Alex and nodded. -I knew he only wanted to get stronger by coming here, and I'm not against it. After all, I know what kind of man he is, and I have come to respect him by now.-

….

I walked through the long hallway behind General Leo Quinn. To be honest, when I heard about this kind of gate, I didn’t believe it at first. I mean, a gate created by a god to strengthen humans, with a bunch of people sending messages through the system.

It didn’t make sense then, but now I started to believe it, and I couldn’t be more excited.

As Quinn and I reached the end of the hallway, we saw a very spacious room, very well-lit and made from white surface walls and floor, and the only thing that disturbed the great harmony of white was the man wearing the pitch black robe with strips of golden red and long black hair, with a sheathed long and thin sword in his right hand, giving his back to us.

A melodious sound resonated within my head as I heard

“Pick up a weapon and fight me to death.”

The man said as he pointed with his left arm toward the weapon's holder on our left, all without even turning to look at us.