Ever tried to find a single imp in a dungeon completely full of ‘em?

Turns out it wasn’t as hard as Markus envisioned it being. Not even remotely so.

“Yeah, I think I know who you’re talking about. Why the fuck are you looking for him?” he was asked the moment he found a lone worker, a bipedal furred thing with four arms that almost resembled a tiger, pulling a cart with two arms as she crossed the other pair over her chest. “He steal something from ya?”

“Eh, not exactly, but he definitely owes me. You know whereabouts I’d find the little bastard?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I’m going past there now. Wanna tag along?”

Markus nodded. It was a mixed bag down here. Half the people made him fear for his life, the other half almost didn’t seem that bad.

“He’s been on kitchen duty the last couple days. Only reason I know is because the other imps won’t shut up about it. Half of them fucking hate him. The other half…”

“What?” Markus chuckled. “Hate him more?”

“Nah. Not exactly.” The four-armed tigeress grabbed her cart and resumed pulling, and Markus started following after. “There’s two factions down here. I don’t know much about it, though. I ain’t worked here long.”

“Wow, and here I thought everyone here was Drathok’s slave. He paying you?”

Tigeress rolled her eyes, marching forwards as she spoke, keeping pace with Markus easily. “Of course he’s paying me, stupid. Imp barons bind imps to their service. They’re not capable of just forcing whoever they want to work for them free of charge.” She seemed to falter for a second, rubbing her fuzzy chin as she pulled the cart along. “Well, Drathok might be the exception there, but he still doesn’t. Everyone gets paid here.”

“Even the imps?”

“Especially the imps. He’s got a soft spot for ‘em, clearly. First I heard of a demon giving anything to their bound servants willingly. Fucking weird if you ask me.”

Huh. There it was again. ‘Drathok keeps us safe’, right? Well, shame that same sentiment didn’t seem to apply to anyone outside of his immediate workforce. Plus whatever this faction stuff was about.

Maybe there were two sides to that story. The way that imp had made it sound, Drathok was an evil torturer, and when Drathok had even suspected that Markus might’ve been screwed over by said imp, he’d offered Markus the right to murder the hell out of him.

So… yeah. Kinda conflicting sentiments.

“What’s it like outside this place?” Markus asked as they walked.

“Oh, you’re one of those poor souls.”

“Are we that common?” Markus asked, kinda grossed out by the notion.

“Summons from other worlds are all the rage these days. Firrelia has a variety of races, but creatures from other worlds are usually pretty different, and usually way weaker.” She nodded, a wry smile on her face. “People here really love a power trip, and seeing weak aliens struggle versus their big spooky monsters seems to scratch that itch pretty good. Bonus points if a Firrelian warrior goes and kills the monster right after.”

“That’s…”

“Fucked up? Yeah. But what isn’t in this world?” She shrugged. “Eh, I guess not everywhere’s this bad. Sun City’s a cesspool. Not the worst in this zone but far from the best, either.”

“Let me guess, zones are like… regions? With different levels of monsters and stuff?”

Tigress blinked twice. “Huh, you know your shit. Wouldn’t have expected that from an otherworlder.”

Markus gave a small shrug. “Just made sense. D Grade monster from a D Grade Zone? That’s what they said during my first fight.”

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s basically how it works. I mean, there’s more to it than that, zones are divided by which gods and kings have control of them and—wait hold on a sec.” She screeched to a stop with the cart. A crate fell off. Her eyes bugged. “Did you just say you fought a D Grade monster in your first fight here?” A beat. She stared at him closer. “And you’re alive?”

Markus looked her over even as he bent down to pick up the fallen crate. “Well, yeah. That’s what I said.”

“You’re lying.”

“Nuh-uh.”

She narrowed her eyes. “No way.”

Markus couldn’t help but smirk a little as he placed the box back inside.

“Way.”

“Ffff—” She looked away from her cart, put it down entirely, looked him up and down properly for the first time since they’d started talking. “Fuck, dude. That’s hot.”

Markus felt as if he’d just walked into a brick wall. He stumbled and skid to a halt. His Mana Generation might’ve just spiked again, that or he had butterflies.

“That’s… what?”

The six foot five tigeress with four arms bit her lip, averted her eyes, put a pair of hands on her hips, and waved away what she’d said with yet another hand. Or was she… fanning herself?

“I mean, y’know. I didn’t mean to just blurt that. Sure, I know you’ve been kidnapped from your world and that must really suck for you… but a D Grade monster? Holy fuck. That’s insane.”

She honestly looked as if she’d turned a bit red. Markus felt red. Where the fuck was this coming from all of a sudden?!

“How’d you even do that? You’re like, human. No offense. But like, yeah. Are humans from your world just built different or something?”

“Uhh, I dunno. Maybe?” This might’ve been the most out of place conversation ever. How had they gotten here so quickly?

“Because you know, like, D Grade monsters are like elite hunter level. The kind you pay in gold, not silver. You must be super strong. You don’t look it. You’re tiny compared to me. That’s so surprising… I wonder if it’d hurt if you stepped on me?”

What was that, a fucking invitation?! Markus fought against the blush assailing his cheeks, awash in non-stop flattery.

“What is it? The powerful fighter thing or the creature from another world thing?”

“I mean, both!” Her tail swished as she spoke. It was bushy and huge and looked like it could wrap fully around him. “Who doesn’t love an underdog story? I’ve always wanted to see a summoned fighter beat this place. It never happens. Some might last for a while, but then…”

Suddenly, she seemed to sober a little. It was as if her own words had knocked her out of a trance. The reality of the situation set in for them both, and Markus cleared his throat.

“Well, I’m planning to do just that. So maybe you’ll get what you want.”

“If I was getting what I wanted right now, we wouldn’t be stood here talking,” she said, and Markus almost choked on air.

He decided to think the best of it. Maybe she just meant she’d rather not be working! Markus found that easier to accept than the prospect of how hard she was flirting with him right now. He’d mentally prepared for a lot of things when it came to facing this dungeon, and this wasn’t one of them.

Not that he necessarily hated it, but that was besides the point.

“Anyways, look! We’re here already! Didn’t that go fast?”

Yeah. Positively flew by.

“If you wait here, he’ll come out eventually. You’re best off not just barging in. Anyways, I’ve gotta go deliver these boxes, but we should meet up at some point. I’ve got a vested interest in your survival, now.”

She walked right past him, brushing him with her tail as she left. “I’ll look for you tomorrow. Try not to die in the meantime!”

Man, that was quickly becoming like a catchphrase regarding him, and Markus wasn’t sure he liked it…

Still, fuck. A lot had just happened there. A lot that made his ears feel hot. Markus felt as if he’d just acquired a fan.

A slightly overzealous fan, maybe, and one that seemed like she wanted to jump him, but a fan nonetheless, and he’d been needing that. He figured more had to come of this than bad, even if he was slightly terrified.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Also flattered. Like, wow.

Okay, Markus, focus. You’ve got a mission. A reason you came here. Last I checked, that mission isn’t daydreaming about flights of fancy. It’s getting some leverage. Time to do the mission, and get your damn head out of the clouds.

That determination stayed for all of two minutes. Wasn’t long until he was thinking about all the people out there that might see him the same way or differently.

He hated the arena goers. He was sure of that. Didn’t matter if they booed or if they cheered for him, the fact they even attended was reason enough to despise them.

This was different, though. She just worked here. She wanted him to live because she thought it’d be awesome if he did. He shared that sentiment. It would be fucking awesome to get through this in one piece.

He spent the time he had waiting attempting to Meditate, sat against a wall overlooking the double doors that led into the kitchen of the dungeon’s food hall.

It was something he’d started working on the night before, something he’d gotten at least the very least slightly competent at focussing on, and Markus had at least managed to figure out how to heal specific parts of his body in that time, directing particular attention to his worst cuts and gashes and a fair amount of time to trying to repair his broken nose.

He’d also had Ember help him out a bit. She was more than happy to, to the point that he didn’t have to ask or direct her at all. That said, he felt bad getting her to do more than the minimum. She was helping him, and he ought to help her. He resolved to bring her something tasty when he next returned to his cell.

That said, the sensation of rapid healing was insane. It kinda itched, but in a good way? Like an itch that was being satisfied even as it appeared. He couldn’t properly describe it, but the feeling was pretty satisfying. Not to the degree that he wanted to hurt himself just to get to do it more, but he was sure he wouldn’t have a choice in getting injured a thousand more times, and if this process was waiting for him on the other side, that at least made the prospect a little less daunting.

Plus, his pain tolerance had grown since absorbing the goblin soul. That only helped matters.

And the increase in Spirit meant he could sit here in Meditation for a good long while without getting bored or sleepy. Which was good, because he’d been waiting for at least an hour now, maybe longer, and those doors hadn’t opened once.

He was almost starting to wonder if he was waiting in the wrong place. He got up for a minute to look around, but he couldn’t see any other doors in sight. He thought about peeking in, but remembering the tigress’ words about going in there, he held off, plonking himself straight back down and returning to his Meditation.

He decided to focus more on the part he’d been finding most difficult, yet the part he imagined would wind up being the most rewardnig, cycling his mana.

It was an extremely difficult process. He’d only recently learned how to move his mana from one part of his body to another, or how to isolate different kinds of mana within his body, but he found that certain kinds of mana were more receptive to movement than others. Divine Mana stayed within his navel at all times and he couldn’t budge it.

He felt as if he could let it all out in an instant if he wanted to, but he’d have no control over the rate at which he did so and after he’d finished, it’d all be gone. He imagined that was something to do with the Grade, but it could’ve been the type also. Markus imagined this kind of stuff wasn’t easy to find information about. Most people weren’t Mana Manipulators and had likely never even met one, so he doubted information about how to specifically wield different mana types was in heavy supply.

That being said, Divine Mana was easily the hardest for him to utilise, but Spirit and Frost Mana were both pretty easy for him to maneouvre and play with.

He soon found that the first secret to cycling mana wasn’t simply to isolate a specific kind of mana and move it within himself, but to compress it, then allow it to breathe, to repeatedly push it into a tight ball and then uncoil that buildup and allow the mana to flow through his body.

When he did so, he found he could release a small portion from his body with reasonable effort, though it got a tiny bit easier every time. In time, he found himself able to release both Frost and eventually Flame Mana from his body in incredibly small doses, enough so that he was ticking down in mana ever so slightly more than he was ticking up from his natural generation.

It was a start. Not anywhere near the limits of what he felt he might be able to accomplish once he’d mastered cycling, but it was a start. When he looked within himself, he could see the mana within his own body, but everything else around him felt black. He felt that wasn’t right.

That if he trained his senses for long enough, he might be able to experience the mana even beyond himself and understand it better. It was an internal feeling, and he couldn’t be sure if it was correct, but he trusted it implicitly, for it was what his gut told him.

And when all of your power was basically contained within your gut, you kinda learned to trust it. His instincts had been keeping him alive up til now, at least.

The first thing to break Markus’ focus was a level up. Who knew he could even level from things other than fighting?

He didn’t get a point in Greater Meditation, or anything like that, but a full level. It seemed that Meditation was an activity that counted to his overall experience, and unlike other abilities, this one could only be upgraded by upgrading other things that contributed to it, rather than simply by continuous use. Perhaps it was because it was something he’d gained from a Path?

He was mulling it over as he looked over his stat points and considered where to stick them until finally, finally, the doors ahead of him swung open, and Markus caught a glimpse of the most massive kitchen he ever did see.

Gordon Ramsay would be jealous. This was truly Hell’s Kitchen, and it resembled a blazing inferno inside. A massive wrought-iron furnace with massive spits of meat over it surrounded lengthy cooking stations that teemed with imps and other demonic creatures that Markus didn’t recognise at a glance. The room was filled with anger, sweat, and more curse words than one might find in a sailor’s convention, and what accompanied all of that was the notes of the most complex and mouth-watering aromas Markus had smelled in years…

Or perhaps he was simply starving after days of subsisting off of basically nothing. Hard to tell.

Oh well. He wasn’t here for food, even if he kinda wanted to be.

The moment the little shit came out those doors, Markus entered stealth mode, which is another way of saying that he put his hands over his face in an effort to not be seen.

Shockingly, it didn’t work out very well.

The instant the imp saw him sat there, he bolted, and Markus took off in quick pursuit.

Needless to say he caught some eyes as he rounded the corner and cut off the little creature’s escape, but that nasty fucker wasn’t half as fast as he was insane, and stopping him in his path was a lot easier than Markus had anticipated it being.

“Hey! I’ll call for help! I’m not afraid of you, you overgrown hairless ape!”

“Hey, keep your fucking voice down!” Markus shh’d him, grabbing his wrist and yanking him to an adjacent corridor.

The moment Markus grabbed him, he allowed a pulse of mana to pass between them. It went off just as easily as he’d hoped.

“What the fuck is this about?! And why the fuck am I still alive if you survived, anyways?” He dug his claws into Markus’ wrist, but Markus continued to hold him in place regardless, unfettered. “You just wanted to do me yourself, is that it?”

“Will you please keep it down?”

“WELL COME ON THEN YA BASTARD, I’LL GLADLY WELCOME DEATH IF IT MEANS I DON’T HAVE TO SCRUB ANOTHER BOWL FOR THAT POMPOUS RED CU—”

Markus grabbed him by the neck, cutting him off entirely.“Fucking shut it, or I will kill you. That’s a promise.”

Silence on the other end. Sounded like for all of his bravado, he didn’t like the sound of that too much.

Good. He deserved to sweat a bit after what he did.

“Now listen,” Markus waited a second, made sure no one was coming to check on them. Luckily, the kitchen was so loud with the doors open that it was likely the commotion hadn’t brought them much attention at all. “I didn’t ratfuck you after what you did to me, and I fucking well should have. You deserved everything you had coming to you for what you did to me.”

“Drathok… deserved to lose you…”

Fuck, how hard was his grip? He let up a little, making sure the prick could breathe. “Look. I don’t trust you one bit, but you owe me, and if you want me to keep our shared past a secret from here on out, then I need a favour.”

“Oh, I’m meant to do you a favour after you throttle me! Well isn’t that a wonderful fucking idea! Should I thank you for choking me, too? Would that make you feel like a big man? Would it?!”

God, this guy was awful. He couldn’t wait to have this shit over with.

“You owe me,” Markus repeated, his voice stern. “This isn’t up for negotiation. Help me or I’ll drag you to that master you hate so much right now and you can explain how you nearly got me killed. Your choice.”

“...fine. What do you want?”

“I want a way back to the lower levels.”

“The… why? You think there’s a way out down there or something?”

“Maybe, but that’s not what I’m worried about right now. There’s monsters down there, and I wanna get stronger.” Markus lowered his voice. “But I can’t get down there on my own. There’s always guards posted near the stairs and it’s pretty clear they don’t just let people wander off down there. I need you to help get me in. Make it look like you’re taking me somewhere, or something.”

He waited as the imp processed what he was saying, as the gears in his brain began to turn. “That’s it?” he asked, looking as if he were surprised. The cracks in his weathered face began to shift into a smile; it was like watching a dead planet terraform. “That’s easy! I don’t have to walk you down there! I can just do this!”

Markus went to ask what ‘this’ was, but he didn’t need to. The imp began channelling, his body glowing purple, and within three or four seconds, the two of them had vanished from the spot, reappearing in the dark depths below.

The moment they did, the imp pulled a torch from his belt and struck it.

“This was it? This was all you wanted?”

Markus instantly heard the sounds of various creatures springing to life around him, his heart pumping faster as he instantly realised how imminent the danger had suddenly become.

He steeled himself. Whatever was down here couldn’t be worse than the trimander he’d faced, or it’d be valuable enough to be locked away. Or maybe that was bullshit reasoning. All he knew was that if he wanted out of this place, he needed to get significantly stronger, and waiting for arena fights that were under the control of Drathok alone was only playing into his hands. He needed to create his own edge if he wanted to end up on top, and that was exactly what he was going to do here.

“Yeah… I’m good with this. Keep that torch burning while I fight. I know the light keeps them away, and I wanna be able to run if I need to.”

Markus took a couple of steps, and the imp immediately started laughing. When he turned back, his body was glowing purple once more.

“Heh, you really are fucking stupid, aren’t you? You need me to get in and out of this place. Well what if I just leave?! Good luck telling Drathok what I did when you’re sat in the bellies of fifty different monsters! Stupid fucking human, hahahahaha!”

The imp continued to channel his teleport, intent on leaving victorious, allowing Markus to fight and struggle in this place losing himself in endless corridors until he eventually succumbed to his wounds and died.

Markus only grinned. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“And why the fuck wouldn’t I?!”

“Because,” Markus tapped his glaive, and the imp immediately clutched his chest, the purple glow around his body dissipating.

“Wh-what the fuck did you do?!”

“I learned a skill yesterday,” Markus started, slowly walking towards him. “It’s called Detonate.” He smiled wider as he approached, leaning down and staring at him. “I read all about it. It’s a pretty cool ability. It requires prolonged contact, and it costs a bit of mana, but what it does is pretty simple…”

He tapped the glaive again, sending another pulse through the imp’s body.

“It blows shit the fuck up. And if you do anything to fuck with me while I’m down here, just know…”

One more tap for good measure. The imp dropped to his knees.

“Let’s see if you’re listening. What will I do if you try to fuck with me?”

“...blow me the fuck up?”

“Bingo.”

There. To say that was satisfying was a fucking understatement.

That matter settled, Markus immediately got to work on finding the first band of monsters he could unapologetically murder.