When the seal containing Abri broke, Abri stood up and stretched. With her newfound freedom, she looked around the room. The room was far different than last time, with no haphazardly strewn about rocks, instead with intricately carved columns. The floor was now smooth, and the doorway now had a majestic door, woven with powerful metals and enchantments. Abri headed over and saw the enchantments made the door one way, you could only leave until someone left.
Scouring the room one last time to see if there was anything of note, Abri headed out. Immediately, a great bear appeared before her. Abri sighed, hoping for at least some peace as she went home. As the bear and Abri fought, a party of adventurers showed up at the tunnel in and out of the boss room.
“Someone got here before us? Doesn’t she know Cain’s guild reserved the dungeon?”
“She’s wearing casual clothes. Maybe she got severly lost, or got teleported here.”
“The sealed room is open! Let’s check it out!” A third party member commented, heading over faster than any complaints or warnings could come.
Sighing and shaking their heads, the rest of the party joined their errant member. Inside, they found an adventurer with crushed dreams, vocally complaining that someone else had taken the ‘great beast’.
“Hello. Do any of you know the way out of here?” Abri asked, drawing the gaze and attention of several party members.
“The path is almost entirely straight, there are no side paths. Just straight hallways and staircases.”
“Ah, thank you. Goodbye then.”
“Wait, do you know what happened to the ‘great beast’ sealed here?”
“First I heard the term ‘great beast’, but that would be me,” Abri said, leaving the party in shock as she hurried out to town.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
Abri was about to head into her hometown when she encountered a guard.
“State your business: Visiting, making deals, or being a resident.”
“I guess I'm a resident, but I haven’t been here in years. However, unless property law changed I should still own my house.”
“If you haven’t been here for years, you should take the tour,” the guard pointed to a crowd of people, with a big blazing sign proudly announcing a tour of Origin.
“Thanks for the advice,” and Abri joined the tour.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
“Welcome to the town of adventurers, Origin. Here is where the first adventurers came from, and wrote the whole game. They made adventuring a job, guilds a business, and made monsters into materials. A key figure as you all know is Cain Hunt, the so-called ‘king of adventuring’. Here is his hometown, as well as the headquarters of both the Cain Guild and Adventurers Association. This town went from being rather ordinary to being a key location with rather extreme housing prices. But I’m sure you all are far more interested in the tour. We’ll start with the east gate,” the guide monologued, before heading off to the close by gate.
“The east gate is by far the largest, as it’s closest to the forest of beasts. You may be wondering what makes the forest so popular. See, the ‘first dungeon’, is in the forest.”
“The Great Dungeon of Revival?!” a murmur spread like wildfire through the tourists. Highly confused, Abri asked about what that even meant.
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“You don’t know?!” the person she asked responded incredulously. “It has the fastest respawn rate of any dungeon, with an added benefit of having a triple S boss. Do you know how useful that is?! It singlehandedly keeps the mage's association running!”
“Ah. Thank you.”
“Everyone, everyone, calm down. We’re moving on now. If you don’t want to fall behind, you gotta come along.”
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
“Here is ‘Business Street’. There’s the Blacksmiths Association, led by Jane Hunt. For those of you unaware, Jane married Cain. We also have the Adventurers Association, Cain’s Guild, and a mysterious house. The house is from before the ‘Magical Awakening’, and is under some rather extreme legal protections, to the point where the owner's name is subject to rumour and mystery. Some say it’s actually Cain, other’s a ghost. But the theory with the most backing is that the owner is the ‘great beast’. This is from statements given by the Hunt’s, who are the most vocal defenders of the home. They have used their power to make sure the government doesn’t even try to take the house.”
Abri just watched as everyone ogled her home. She debated whether or not to just go in, but she decided against it, thinking the attention was unneeded, and she’d miss the rest of the tour.
The tour continued on for several hours, with many places explained. Her former school had serious upgrades and had become an adventurers school. It covered many topics and specializations, such as ‘tanking’ or ‘DPS’. The stores expanded their stock, selling enchanted weapons, tools, and monster materials. It was strange seeing such pristine quality perishables but with the introduction of time-stopping magic, it makes a lot of sense.
With the tour over, Abri split off from the group and slipped into her house. Seeing the dust that built up, Abri sighed over forgetting to make a spell to keep it clean. Weaving a spell, she had the dust floating in a bubble before tossing it in the trash. She quickly headed to bed, and slept, planning the next day.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
“Hello, Cain. It’s been a while,” Abri said, walking into a meeting, pulling out a sheet of paper before continuing, “Oh Jane, it’s wonderful to see you.”
“It’s wonderful to see you again Abri. I don’t know if you heard, but I got married,” Jane replied, completely nonchalant.
“Oh, congratulations! I hear Cain’s the lucky fellow.”
“Why yes indeed!”
“Congrats Cain on getting married!”
“Thank you. It was quite wonderful,” Cain replied, beaming.
“Got off track there. Cain, I’ve come for revenge. You will suffer my wrath,” Abri read from her script.
Cain stood up and peaked at the script.
“Hahahaha! You may have escaped the seal, but you cannot defeat me!”
Cain quickly guided Abri to the training hall, before continuing, “If you wish to defeat me, come at me with your strongest attack!”
Cain and Abri quickly dropped the script and got to genuinely fighting. At the start, Cain clearly had the advantage, the decades really helped his strength. But Abri didn’t have divine growth for nothing. Within minutes Abri was dodging half the strikes, and by the end of the hour, nothing Cain did could hurt her. Sword swipes? Magic spears floating around? Nope. Fireballs, lightning bolts, spacial tears, nothing could touch a hair on her skin.
The clock kept ticking for hours and hours, with Cain slowly draining. At the dawn of the 27th hour, Cain got slow enough for Abri to fight back. Without much ability to resist, Cain redirected all the attacks to his highly armoured arms. But, every action cost Cain more than Abri, and she kept attacking. Slowly, ever so slowly, Cain fell. On the 35th hour, Cain fell and was swiftly killed.
Abri quickly told Jane she’d be back tomorrow to finish the confrontation, and she hoped that she could get an identification card to make entering easier. Playing along, Jane gave her a time to finish the meeting in front of the rest of the guild leaders. Thinking a big audience would make the show more valuable, Abri jumped on the idea.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
“Well, Cain? Anything else to say?” Abri melodramatically announced, playing her role as faithfully as possible.
“You have bested me. I have nothing more to say.”
“Alright. So, genuine question, how do you make a guild? I’m thinking that might be fun.”
“It’s gonna take a while. Why don’t we get Jane and talk about this in meeting room 3?”
“Sounds good. I’ll be waiting.”
Abri sat at her seat, glad Cain was truly the nice but serious individual he always portrayed. Her future waited, and she was glad such experienced people were willing to help. Her path may be difficult, it may be hard, but it would be walked. Abri had no doubt.