It was night time. While most people were getting ready to end the day and sleep, a glowing ball of fire entered the atmosphere.
It lightened the night sky and leaving behind a trail of fire, flew over the Solomon Empire, Fire burn kingdom and Robin’s estate, before vanishing to the east of the dreadful devils pass mountains, near the border of Renee Empire.
While technically it didn’t enter enemy walls, but unfortunately for the emperor of Solomon Empire, it did fall a little too close to them.
Which was why, even after three months had passed from the incident, the king of Solomon Empire, King Solomon the 25, was still feeling anxious.
The castle of once great Empire which was still standing tall, ever since the beginning of its reign, looked a little worn out than most days. The king was anxious, because most fireballs’ from outer space were a precious the source of meteoric metal, an inch of which could make a normal iron sword into a rare weapon and there were chances of the newest one to fall into the hands of the neighboring Kingdom.
So, he had, on the same day that the meteor had come, ordered his men to bring it to him, with no chance of failure.
And now when the heat of the event had died down, Solomon talked to his most trusted aide.
“So you came, Huh. You are a bit late, though. Did anything unexpected happen?”
A blurry dark figure slowly solidified in a corner of the room. It walked out from the shadow of the soft red curtains and courtly bowed in front of the person sitting on the gold covered, black diamond wood chair.
“Good evening my liege. How are you today? It’s such an exceptionally bright day, but you are still not enjoying yourself. You need to give sometime to yourself and enjoy living a bit."
“You know how it is and still ask me those useless questions! If you have so much free time, then use some of it and find out the one who tried to assassinate me.” The king spoke without taking a breath, which left him slightly winded.
King Solomon spoke crude words, but his voice contained no anger. Because the man who was currently respectfully bowing to him was an existence, who had single handedly ended the last war and was the only reason that even though the once great Solomon empire was on the brink of destruction, it was still standing.
“Ah! My liege! About that, you shouldn’t concern yourself with such trifling matters. We have already caught the perpetrator and it seems like, it is the usual play of ‘kill the king to gain the kingdom’. So, please don’t worry. I will soon make the heads of every single mastermind behind the incident to roll underneath your feet."
"I believe you Meredith, I believe you. So, tell me about that other matter? Did you find out anything?"
The shadowy figure muttered an, ’Oh!’ when he heard his master, but he swiftly replied back with a smiling face.
"You also know my liege, the commotion which ‘that’ created. It took us some time to protect it, but don’t worry it is perfectly in our hands now.”
Solomon’s brows furrowed when he remembered how much chaos that one space rock had caused, and sighed, “Even though it had fallen on our grounds!”
But it took a single reply from the humble Meredith to break the heavy atmosphere between them.
“My liege, we managed to find out everything that is needed to know."
“Good, good. So tell me everything…”
“Yes, my lord. We found the site where the explosion had occurred. It was surreal; destruction everywhere. I am sure even the highest tier spell that our magicians can use could not have caused travesty on such a scale!” Meredith spoke excitedly.
“Ho!” A smile formed on Kings Face as he spoke, “Good, good…”
“It was a meteorite my liege, but not a simple or regular one. It destroyed 3 villages, destroyed 10es of acres of fields and mutilated 10 miles of our land in its rage.”
“Ah, so a meteor it was. Well, the meteoric metal in our treasury is also on the low side, so it’s good enough, I guess. ” Solomon spoke, but with fading excitement and repressed mood.
Meredith saw his liege’s face becoming expressionless and his excitement dwindling. He hurriedly added, “My liege, it wasn’t just a meteor.”
“What??”
“Yes, my liege. Inside the crater we saw the meteor and inside the meteor we found an artifact; an artifact which even I could not identify!”
“Haaha, finally, finally, we will have our higher ranked artifact. Now we will see how that pathetic Bolt tries to go on war with us. What was it? Do you have it with you? Haaha, something that even you the greatest spy of our empire couldn’t identify! It must be a ‘legendry grade’ item or maybe even ‘Ancient’ one! GO on, don’t keep it to yourself. Tell me, don’t keep me waiting…” the king got so excited that he almost screamed at Meredith. His eyes got redder and redder with each passing second.
“Please sire, control your excitement. It is not good for you health. You already have so many enemies! Don’t add another one on the list. And about the item, it is a bracelet my liege.”
“Show me.”
But Meredith stuttered when he heard that. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the artifact, but the hands he talked about were his men. And they were bringing it to the capital, travelling through safe, unknown routs; Keeping it away from the eyes of enemy spies.
“I’m sorry my liege, but I don’t have it with me right now, but a young fine man is bringing it to the capital.”
Solomon gritted his teeth, but understanding that it must have been very difficult for Meredith to secretly get his hands on the Bracelet, h didn’t say anything. And also the prospectus of having the Bracelet, gaining abilities and powers to once again prosper his empire soon relieved his tension. After all, what did a day or two mattered, after three months worth of wait.
“Oh! So how long will it take?”
“Don’t worry my liege! He’ll be here within a week. I was informed that he is coming via the barren lands near ‘The Devil pass’ mountains. Nothing resides there, so there is no way for any mishap to happen.”
Solomon sighed, hearing the name of those cursed mountains.
He looked toward the north, looked past the glass window of his spire tower and even though the ‘Devils pass’ mountains were far-far away from the capital, when Solomon looked outside, he clearly saw a huge silhouette with a sharp peak and dark atmosphere staring back at him.
Memories came flooding out, making him remember the past, but he just sighed looking at the otherwise beautiful scenery of his gardens and the old city buildings behind the castle walls.
“You better be right Meredith! You better be.” Solomon spoke slightly lost and tired.
****************
Back in the dungeon, Rocky woke up with a headache and blurry vision.
He hurriedly looked around, but when he didn’t find anything unusual, he felt a little broken.
‘Well, forget it.’ He thought. Thinking that there were more important things to do, than to waste time think about things, that he even didn’t know were real or not.
“Minnie!!” He called out after coming out of his inner world, and saw that she was currently floating in front of him, looking toward the entrance, toward the hole to the surface.
“Oh there you are!!” he called out, but Minnie seemingly lost, didn’t reply back.
He waited after a minute and she finally turned around.
“Hey, sorry about that! I think I slept…”
But then he noticed her eyes becoming watery and tears flowing down “Huh??” he said out loud.
“What happened?”
But Minnie didn’t reply back and instead came flying at him, with her hands wide open. She tightly clutched him and started crying, making his surface slippery and wet with snort and tears.
“You are back! You are finally back!!” she sobbed.
“I thought that girl had killed you and you had combusted your mana to deal a final attack!” She fired word out of mouth like a machine, seemingly lost in explaining whatever she had dealt with, but unfortunately most of them went over Rockies head.
“Wait-wait hold on, hold on for a minute! What girl? What are you saying?”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Minnie looked at the crystal like she was looking at a fool.
She calmed down when she thought about it.
‘He was sleeping after all. So maybe he doesn’t, but… AH! Let’s just ask him.’
“So you didn’t release a burst of purple eerie energy to protect me…” She blushed, “I mean yourself from the humans?”
But that confused him even more. Both his dream and her behavior weren’t normal after all.
“What? Humans attacked us? When did this happen?”
Then he noticed the things and changes that he had initially blurred out of his vision by focusing only on Minnie.
Firstly he saw that there were no ants in the cave, and secondly, the spherical crater that he was in also wasn’t there at the start.
He first called Minnie to his inner world and then pointed towards the crater to ask when that had happened.
Minnie seeing that he really had no clue to anything recounted the last two days, from the moment he had gone sleep.
When Rocky heard what she had gone though during the time, he was left speechless, but the news that shocked him the most was something else.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“Ant soldier.” He spoke pointing some distance away and to his surprise or not an ant soldier appeared out of nowhere.
He rubbed his temples when his suspicion proved to be true and he spoke out loud.
“So that wasn’t a dream! That really happened! Wait, then what would have happened if…”
Minnie saw him talking to himself and smiling awkwardly, she nudged him to ask why he was behaving like that.
Rocky looked into her eyes and slapped his small face before replied, “Something not great. Actually…” and recounted his dream or the fiction like reality which had occurred right in his inner world.
Minnie face went through a series of fascinating and funny transitions throughout his story and at the end she was left tongue tied. When Rocky asked her, whether she had any thoughts about it all, she gave him a frightening answer.
“You almost died, you know.”
Which, proving his suspicion, scared him a little.
“And if I am right, then the dark devil or something was trying to absorb your soul…” She said while pointing at him, “and possess over your body.”
His mouth opened and he scoffed hearing that.
“And he would have been successful, if you were a human.” She mocked him. To which he reacted taking a breath of relief.
“But what how did it enter my body?” Rocky asked.
“Lets see…”
And, recounting their steps backwards, they got to the item of suspicion which had led to the situation.
They both looked at each other and cried out at the same time, “THAT BRACELET!!”
Rocky rubbed his temples again from all the stress before speaking, “Should I take it out?”
“No!! Just let it rest in the item box. If it really was the cause, then we have to get it away from us, but for now, let it rest there. Afterwards we will gift it to some stupid human and get rid of it.”
Minnie saw him looking at her with puppy eyes and understood what he wanted. She rolled her eyes and sighed before saying, “Or we will check it once again after you gain some levels.”
Rocky nodded his head, of course not without smiling like an idiot. Understanding that it was probably the best to let the item rest in his inventory, he changed the topic.
“So what now?”
“Now, we will see whether you gained some levels from killing those humans or not. And then, after distributing the skill points, we will create our first floor. Okay.”
“Capishe.”
“What?”
“Nothing, just my foreign memory acting on its own. Anyways, should I open my…”
“Yes, open you status and share it with me.”
Accepting her request he shared his status with her.
Status
Self / Dungeon
Name
None
Race
Crystal
level
5
Affinity
Dark, Fire, Life
Rank
0
Job
Dungeon Core
Nature
(-10)Neutral
Class
none
…
Titles
Born Killer, Named Helper, Fairy’s Blessing
…
Health
85
Health Reg.
1.1/min
Mana
485
Mana Reg.
1.3/min
Vitality
8
Knowledge
32
Resistance
10
Intelligence
18
Skills (Passive)
Telepathy, Mana Presence lv(1), Mana Regeneration Lv(1),
Skills (Active)
Outburst(Special), *Locked*, *Locked
Skill points
50
But when Minnie looked at his status, she was left slacked-jawed. Her eyes fell to the ground and she spurted out a fountain of blood, at least her expression presented such.
He wanted to ask her what had happened, but she spoke on her own.
“That… is that status real?”
And thinking that maybe it was possible to temper with one’s status, Rocky replied, “Yeah… why, anything wrong?”
But unlike what he was thinking Minnie started laughing creepy as if it was that day.
“Hoho, Wrong?” she opened her mouth wide and shouted as her white gems shined with otherworldly light, “There is nothing wrong. This… your status… it might be this world’s most powerful status that I have ever seen.”
“Really?” even Rocky got excited though he didn’t actually understand what she really means.
“Just let me explain.”
“Okay.”
“So, firstly you have 50 skill points at level 5. 50 not 25, not 5, but 50.” She pointed all of her fingers toward him to exaggerate that 50. She continued with, “This itself is enough to make you centre of jealousy, but you also have three… three fucking affinities, and one of them is even a rare type. I mean do you personally know god?!”
She saw him smiling at her, while scratching his head like an idiot. She couldn’t control herself and let one out.
*Pfft*
“Not that I don’t like it.”
While Rocky was thinking who this god was.
*Sigh* he lost interest in the thought and rest the case.
“Oh! That’s good enough. So what should… I mean what about the skill points? Are they powerful?”
Then he searched his mind and enough information about them surfaced to freeze him up.
According to his mind, normal humans get five points per level, and he saw that he had double that amount.
Nodding his head he continued reviewing.
Most humans or even other intellectual creatures don’t even have an elemental affinity, forget about three like him.
Yes, he felt happy knowing that he was better than those humans.
Minnie also repeated the same information, but added that once a person reaches level 100 they are given a quest to rank up, and the reward is a new and more powerful class depending on the kind of experience they had to go through their life to get to that level.
“Well, at least you won’t have to worry about not having enough mana to summon more ants.”
“Yeah, haaha..”
“Okay, that covers the skill points. Now, we’ll talk about the attributes.”
“No I know about them too. Vitality for health and disease resistance, resistance for the ability to resist damage, intelligence for brain capacity that in turns affects the amount of mana, wisdom for calculation speed and it also affects total mana.”
He spoke, while Minnie looked, no, stared at him touching his lips with his fingers like a hungry and drooling coyote. She felt a slight urge to run and do something with his lips, but she controlled her shaking legs at the end, somehow.
*Ahem*
“Right… that covers everything. Let me take a look at your born to be a killer title. I am somehow finding it intriguing.”
“Sure. Here goes.”
And his personal status slide away to make room for the title information box to come up.
Title: Born to be a Killer.
As destiny has it, killing and strength goes hand in hand.
You are no stranger to death that comes after struggle for living, it is what you live for.
Only Those who Kills someone within five seconds after their birth are worthy of this title.
Effect:
Gain Intelligence and Knowledge of subject killed
Gain Skills at twice the speed for half the effort.
Reward:
*Locked*
*Locked*
Bonus reward
1st Dungeon floor set unlocked
“Well, that explains it.”
“What explains what?”
“I mean this title explains your knowledge. At first I thought that you were a reincarnated person or a returnee, considering your knowledge, but seems like I was wrong.”
“hahaa… I didn’t notice it. But when did I kill a human?”
“Idiot…” she scoffed. “Then who do you think blasted the poor bastard who was afterwards eaten by the wolf?”
“Oh so that was done by me?”
“Probably, the explosion which gave you the skill outburst and let me find you killed him too.”
“Oh!”
That was a like a revelation, an almighty message to him. That killing others had been a part of his life from the start. That he was born to kill others.
“Look we won’t have to buy the first floor for our dungeon too.” Minnie happily pointed at the bonus reward given by the title, but Rocky interrupted her.
“Huh, it says set. What’s a set?”
“Damn, a set. We got a free set. Damn that saves us so many credits. Damn this title is too good. Damn I want to eat you right now.”
She found him looking at her with furrowed brows, after her performance and faked a cough, again.
“Ahem. A set is five floors. A floors costs 1000 Dc so your title…” she pointed at the screen, “Has saved us 5000 Dc. See now we can happily shop with our saved credits to our heart content.”
“So should I…”
“No, let’s distribute points to your attributes first.”
“Okay.”
“So, firstly add one to all four of them and then we’ll pick up from there.”
“As you say professor.”
Distributing the points, they noticed that a point in vitality gained Rocky an increase in his health by 10, a point in resistance increased it by .5, one point in intelligence and wisdom, increased the total mana by 10 and 5 points respectively, while his health and mana regeneration increased by .1/min.
Minnie looked at the result and clapped her tiny hands.
“Okay, because you are a dungeon core, you won’t be fighting directly. So there is no need to increase your health. Let’s just put 40 points into your Intelligence and the rest into wisdom and then we’ll buy the ants and start carving the floors.”
“Ah… sounds right. Okay, let’s do as you say.”
The increase in stats looked like this:
[Mana: 915]
[Intelligence: 72]
[Wisdom: 24]
Minnie opened the Dungeon interface to see how many credits they had and sadly after the expenditure and shopping spree that they both had gone to, to kill the wolf, their savings had dwindled, a lot. And even the gain from their recent profitable business or the human’s death hadn’t gotten them much at all.
Dungeon credits : 690 + 245
“That’s it?” Rocky lamented.
“What did you expect? Who told you to blow 350 dc on that Wolf, and thank god your dream somehow magically blew up those people, otherwise we would have been left with nothing in our hands or maybe we would have even died.” She preached him, but he just drank the poison like it was water and replied like it wasn’t him who had done it.
“That… sounds creepy.”
“Yep, creepy it is and that amount to a total of 935. Now it’s either 18 workers or nine soldiers or we can buy four soldiers, one for every floor and then workers with the rest to dig out our dungeon.”
“What we need to dig?”
“Or what did you think!”
“Anyways, let’s buy four soldier ants for 400Dc and ten ant workers for the rest.”
“As you say boss.”
And as they finalized their purchase, balls of lights started forming in the real world one by one, and in less than five minutes, 14 ants, big and small emerged from the great beyond.
Minnie bobbed her head up and down, confirming the emergence of ants.
“Now is the matter of our floor design.”
“What? Oh! I see, you mean to make sure that those invaders would stay the most time inside and grant us some credits and then die horribly, right?”
“Yup, that’s right. So let’s brain storm the plain and get the workers going.”
Then after one full hour of deliberate discussion, they finally got a design ready for their first two floors.
After taking with Minnie Rocky decided to create the replica of a real ant hill for the first ten floors.
The first floor was a straight tunnel. Rocky didn’t cover the spherical crater, which his purple doppelganger had blasted, and left it as it was.
The tunnel was made narrow and low, so low that it was just the right height for the ants to travel through and after the first 100 meters of it was an small 3metre tall, 5 meter wide and 5 meter long antechamber, extended from which were three tunnels which were connected to three different rooms of 10x10x10 size rooms.
Following which was a single human size tunnel, leading to the last room of the floor, followed by a slope to the second floor, which was a straight and narrow tunnel, again.
Because they didn’t have enough monsters for all the five floors, they decided to settle with just three floors for now.
The third and the last floor were dug as winding passages, having more than one tunnel leading to the last room. Rocky made sure that most tunnels were dead ends, and that only two would be leading to the last room where he had shifted to.
The ants busied themselves with the digging, while outside the dungeon; the wolves were getting ready.