When the next morning came, I heard someone knocking on my door and before I could answer it, the guy opened it. It wasn’t like I had the keys to lock it, so that didn’t surprise me. It was the Captain, I could see the look of disappointment on his face when he realized that I was already up and ready to leave.

“We don’t have all day, let’s go.”

His name was Rowan, he didn’t seem older than someone in his early twenties, and he looked quite a bit like Rayner with his black hair, but his eyes were a bit darker than the emerald green of the family. He was probably a cousin of Rayner or something… and it looked like he respected him a lot since his behavior was practically a mirror.

I got up from my bed and then I heard a crack from it… when I turned around, I found a piece of wood falling from one of the legs of the bed. I ignored that and then put on the clothes that I found in front of my room that morning. The pants, shirt, and boots were just a newer version of what I already wore, but I also received a knife and a cloak with a hood to keep my appearance hidden, for obvious reasons.

Although I was smaller than a ten-year-old boy, I still looked suspicious while walking around like that. As soon as we crossed the gate of my home, I found a lot of people looking at me suspiciously. They all looked like civilians, so it was fine. Still, it felt pretty good...

It was the first time that I left home, so I got a good look around the area… the buildings were all made of brick and they had this air around them of simplicity. There were plenty of alleys between the houses, but the place was pretty tidy. A lot of the nearby houses were pretty big, so it seemed that we were in the noble district of the city.

‘I said that I would save money to buy that kind of implement, but I still have no idea how I can make money. I have more knowledge than most kids, but I don’t have any real skills.’

As we moved away from that district, the houses started to become smaller and the streets a little more crowded. Rowan was almost two meters tall, so he attracted a lot of attention toward us. He was wearing simple clothes, but he had a fancy sword on his side and that was enough to make people recognize him.

A large building in the distance began to stand out since it was the size of a block and bigger than some of the fancy houses. However, it was an old and simple-looking building. A lot of armed people were coming and going there and they were wearing armor and carrying all kinds of weapons.

‘Oh, the adventurer’s guild…’

Although the dungeon belonged to the Dawnshield family, it still needed some people to manage it. Since the time the dungeon appeared, the head of the family decided to let the adventurers manage it in his place, but with the rules that he had decided.

We passed in front of the place and the people looked grumpy… some of them glared daggers at Rowan… they probably wanted to work on the dungeon, but the place had been reserved for the morning, so they couldn’t work. I felt bad for them, but the cause of it was my stiff family, not me. I could only just follow orders like them as well.

The walls of the city weren’t that far away from that point and soon we crossed the gate and we found a large forest ahead. It was pretty dense, so I wondered why the place wasn’t opened a bit… the dungeon was in that direction, so if something happened, the trees would get in the way.

After walking for half an hour, we reached the dungeon. There was a small camp of guards keeping the place watched. The ten or so guards there nodded while looking at Rowan. It seemed that everything was ready for us.

The entrance of the dungeon looked like the maw of a giant monster, it had a stone path going downward, but it didn’t look natural since it was perfectly even. There was a weird smell coming from it as well, so it really felt like the mouth of a monster… it was a damp smell mixed with something decaying and bloody.

“We will find goblins on the first floor, but they only use stone weapons, I will clear the path until the entrance to the next floor, and then you will kill the last monster guarding the place.”

“All right.”

Rowan squinted while looking at me, it seemed that my nonchalant attitude pissed him off. I didn’t feel bad for him, he might be more important than me, but that wouldn’t be enough for me to respect him or anyone else for that matter. The valor and importance granted by that human society wasn’t something that would affect my judgment. People would be treated the same way they treated me. I acted like that in my previous life and I was planning to keep things the same way.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

In any case, one of the guards passed a torch to Rowan, and then he took from his pocket, a blue stone. After he infused the stone at the top of the torch that absorbed the stone, some flames appeared on it.

‘Wow… I had seen the candleholders at home being lit like that, but not from this close.’

That was one of the reasons I decided that following the warrior’s path would be boring… the magic technology in that world was truly interesting. It was difficult to create magical implements like that, but they could do all sorts of things. The downside was that they either needed the mana of the user or of some mana cores that only a few monsters dropped. It was a matter of luck…

We went downstairs and I followed Rowan behind… I already had my knife in hand, but he still didn’t unsheath his sword. He probably wanted to crush the skulls of the goblins to relieve the stress or something.

When we reached the first floor, I looked around and confirmed that the walls, the ceiling, and the floor were rugged. It looked like a proper cave. Albert didn’t mention anything about the appearance of the dungeons he had been in, he only mentioned the monsters a bit. Still, the darkness of the place made me frown.

‘Even on the first floor, most people would have a hard time fighting alone, unless they have some sort of tool that helps them see in the dark or can fight with a single hand.’

The torch that Rowan was using was illuminated only an area of ten meters around us and the flames didn’t flicker all that much, all thanks to the fact that it was a magic implement.

We barely took some steps before we heard the snarling sound of something approaching. I furrowed my eyebrows when I saw a goblin for the first time… the creature was as tall as me, so around 130 cm tall and it had a stone knife as well. The creature dashed at us like it was possessed and made a weird sound with its mouth.

A piece of cloth was covering its lower parts, the creature was also gray instead of green. It had a small head, some long and deformed ears, and its irises were in the shape of a line. When the creature was five meters away from us, it stumbled on the ground, and then its head rolled toward us.

‘What the heck… when did he attack?’

Rowan was touching the handle of his sword, so he definitely attacked the beast, but it had been so fast, that I didn’t even notice it. I heard that some classes granted attack speed, but I didn’t think that they would reach such levels. Or perhaps Rowan used a skill to show off… there was no need for someone like him to use a skill, after all.

We kept moving in a straight line and the goblins showed up every one hundred meters or so. It made me wonder why they didn’t come in groups. The corridor was large enough for them, but maybe they spawn separately… I didn’t find any information about that, so I couldn’t tell.

Either way, Rowan kept disposing of the goblins in the same way… their heads kept rolling at us and I had to see that every single time as the smell of blood grew stronger.

It was quite sickening, but the first floor wasn’t that long since the labyrinth had twenty floors. We soon found a single goblin standing in the distance while looking around in confusion. Behind the creature, there was a hole and a stone staircase that would lead to the next floor.

Rowan stepped to the side and that was my cue… the creature seemed weak enough, but I was still a bit nervous. I was pretty sure that Rowan weakened the goblin when my older brothers came here to get their class. Still, I couldn’t expect assistance when I wasn’t planning to follow in the footsteps of my ancestors.

I stepped forward while holding my knife, my body was stiff and my hands were sweaty… still, I couldn’t hesitate there. This was my real first step in the world. As someone who was a half-vampire, I needed the strength to protect myself, and I couldn’t waste time obtaining that strength.

After I took some steps, the creature screeched in anger and then dashed toward me with its mouth open, I could see the dirt and deformed teeth of the monster and spit coming out from its mouth. It was disgusting, but I had prepared myself mentally for years.

The beast jumped toward me and then swung down its stone knife at my head. I twitched my head to the side and avoided the weapon and then impaled my knife on the face of the monster using both of my hands.

Our bodies collided and then I was knocked down by the weight of the beast… I thought that using my two hands would grant me enough power to kill the beast in one attack, but being a kid held me back quite a bit. The knife pierced the face of the monster, but not enough.

The monster grunted in pain and trembled while it was above me. Blood began to fall on my face alongside spit… it made me feel like puking, but I didn’t pull out the knife. I tried to pierce deeper.

The monster began to contort in agony and its stone knife hit me a few times, but only caused scratches thanks to my clothes. I wouldn’t last for long, even like that… using all my strength, I twisted the knife in the face of the monster while trying to pierce it further… eventually, the beast stopped moving and fell above me. My body got covered in blood, even though I was fast enough to pull the body aside, the damage was already done.

You received 02 experience points.

You completed a trial. Please choose between the classes: Warrior, Archer, and Mage.

I sighed and noticed Rowan studying me with caution… he was probably waiting for my vampire thirsty to awaken or something, but I only felt disgusted thanks to the smell of blood and dirt. It smelled like the goblins pissed and shit themselves, but they didn't know how to clean themselves afterward...

The message was still in front of me, so I had to choose one option… I was truly torn between mage and archer, the only thing that made me make my choice was the fact that there were hundreds of dungeons in the world and I could pick a class that I ignored before in another dungeon… I didn’t find any information on a dungeon in the Bastion Empire offering the same in another dungeon, though. So, I would have to travel a lot to make that possible. So, I made my choice…