Nothing made sense anymore.

Even though this entire world was surreal, and I thought I was well prepared, I didn't expect any of this. It was a brand new dungeon, or at least it should have been, a fine opportunity to prove myself, and take revenge.

Humiliated by my remaining companions before, I fell only deeper into disgrace. I didn't pull my weight during this expedition, and now I was at their mercy, losing all hope.

The monsters outside were nothing compared to what we encountered down here. From the luminous floating planktons and the fairies, everything was dangerous. The harpies and horned minotaurs were one thing. I saw monsters looking like a mixture of children's nightmares kneaded together.

And if the smallest critters caused trouble, the largest one was deadly. It lost interest in us and flew off the distance, but everything happened so fast. If it decided to return, I would only notice that we were dead, which was still the better outcome.

Whatever my group of wizards ran into while chasing those pixies, they were all gone. They left nothing but mangled corpses behind. How much they must have suffered? Was it because of my bad leadership, or was it all inevitable from the start?

At least when the penal squad rebelled, they did it at the best possible time. They got themselves wiped out by the attacking harpies, and I only finished the job. They were too weak and disloyal even as meat shields, so I never felt bad for them.

But the gladiators were different. I didn't trust them as the wizards, but I relied on them. They were the cream of the irregulars, who honed their skills through brutal fights in the arena. Yet everyone I sent scouting vanished. The rest turned into ashes while running for their lives from the huge dragon appearing out of the blue.

Could the King's army fare better? Or if they had a more capable commander, who wasn't blinded by pride and the promise of revenge? I could only blame myself, for becoming a disgrace to the Sea People.

Now I was stuck in this alien world with the paladin and Nordhaben's Princess, the two people I hoped to get rid of first. It was no longer about getting back at them, it turned into a struggle for survival and a desperate search for a way out. After I acted all high and mighty, my entire world collapsed as I had to cooperate with them.

The fact that a Crantan deity possessed the Princess didn't help. But once the behemoth appeared, I downgraded it as the second biggest problem. I tried not to think about what would happen if a god got loose inside the dungeon since I was powerless against it.

That deity remained silent for a reason too. She couldn't deal with the dragon, a creature of pure legends, that nobody saw in centuries. Nobody defeated one in a millennium either.

Each could wreak havoc on my home if they escaped before I did, but a god could be at least reigned in by a banishment spell. Not that I could cast it or wanted to contact the Inquisitorias, but a solution existed for that problem. Against the behemoth, I saw no hope.

In every world or dimension, my expedition was disastrous. Even if I returned home at this point, nothing but shame would await me. But I wanted to survive, a good enough reason to work with the northerners or at the very least follow them around. I got reduced to this.

Forget about proving myself, or further the glory of Saipole. I could no longer pretend that I had come to protect them either. Even escaping this hell was more than I could hope for now, placing one leg in front of the other. If I didn't stop thinking about anything, I could only find suffering. That is, until we stumbled on those monsters at the smoke stack, and the idiots walked up to them.

Standing at the foot of a hill unnoticed by the enemy was the perfect opportunity to ambush. The minotaurs were only armed for a melee. But no, they gave themselves away. While following them was tempting, the danger startled me at the last moment. I hid in the dense forest to see how things would develop, and couldn't believe my eyes.

I should have expected it at this point, nothing went the way it should have. The monsters should have slaughtered them, but no. They offered them a meal, and while I was too far away to figure out what was happening, they didn't seem to be in danger. I couldn't help but notice those tiny flying menaces, doing my best to hide my presence in the mana. I reinforced my mind against their tricks, but by the looks of it, they forgot about me.

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Their brain could have been already under the control of those pesky flies, or they wanted to lose me on purpose. I got a chance to get away at least, but It felt like another depth of humiliation. I had to accept that it served me well this time. If they didn't want to acknowledge me, I'd become invisible, and observe them from afar.

Whatever their reasoning was, they didn't give away my position. Soon, a smaller group of minotaurs set out with them at the other side of the hill. I followed them from the shadows, with no reason to stay here and no better idea. I sneaked after them, trying not to make a noise or reveal myself to the fairies, and at least my lethargy was gone.

Their pace was too much though. I had to go around their camp avoiding curious glances, the thick undergrowth slowing me down. Then I had to catch up with them, traveling fast on a well-maintained road.

To call it a road might have been generous. But a jungle trail that allowed two minotaurs shoulder to shoulder was luxurious. Traversing it was risky, it felt like walking with a big target on my back. Yet, I couldn't hope to stay on their tails if I avoided it.

Just because they weren't attacked, this could have been a trap. If I stayed hidden all this time, showing up now might have triggered it on me. Besides, I was curious where this all would go but didn't want to fall with them. I didn't mind if they got eaten or sacrificed. I would have loved to see them getting tortured after all the humiliation I suffered, but first, I wanted to get out.

I hugged the alien vegetation in case they ever turned back or some flying monster decided to join. Since most of the leaves were blue or red, my robes did a decent job blending in. This was still too slow, and I resorted to sprinting after them in short bursts. The magicules augmented my body to cut the exposure time, without letting them out of sight.

Even like this, I could never get close enough to hear what they were talking about. I caught a few words and recognizing them surprised me. Even the monsters spoke the common language, making me wonder what this place was.

Minotaurs often appeared in children's stories but nobody saw them on the continent. Codexes categorized them as abyssal monsters, which meant they were dungeon dwellers. But the pit fiend at the entrance was a different kind, an infernal creature.

To my limited knowledge, these rarely ever mixed. Each dungeon had an ecosystem inherited from the dimension they splintered from. I never heard about different types appearing at the same time. That said, since we descended, infernal monsters eluded us. So why were they guarding the entrance?

I had plenty of time to think about it but couldn't come up with an explanation. Observing my surroundings didn't help either. The jungle was alien but didn't match any descriptions from the codexes I found. The sky seemed alive at times, and completely fake at others. It was man-made.

I knew a dungeon didn't have to be underground, yet the purple expanse overhead felt painted on. While the clouds were real beneath the ceiling, the missing sun also reinforced this idea. It made me wonder how the monsters kept track of the time too. They behaved much more organized than I thought, now that I followed them for a while.

And the Princess and paladin remained unharmed, walking for hours on that trail. Nobody else seemed to use it, and I became braver tailing them, still keeping my distance. Now I hoped they would forget about me. My legs started to get tired, we walked quite a distance before we got to that hill too. I wondered when they would finally stop.

I could fall asleep at any moment. I dragged myself along that trail, and still couldn't figure out where they headed. Neither did I see the signs of getting tired. Whatever that paladin and Princess were made of, they couldn't be normal human beings.

I was about to give up when I noticed an imposing castle towering over the jungle. I couldn't grasp its true scale until much later, but from the first moment, I knew it was the center of this dungeon. It dwarfed anything I have seen here, or back home. This included the Royal Palace in Saipole and the massive gardens surrounding it.

I looked at it for so long, I didn't notice that the girls disappeared. The distance kept growing between us, but it was easy to keep an eye on them on this long, straight road. Until they were gone. There was no point running now, I struggled with every step and decided to stop for some rest. Calling it a decision might have been a strong word. I collapsed on the endless trail, and the best I could do was to hide in the vegetation.

It was impossible to focus. All my mana concentrated on regeneration, I struggled to stay awake. My eyelids felt heavy, and the damp air pushed on them even more, making my battle against sleep one-sided. The moment those lids closed, I lost.

The purple sky gave way to the endless, dark gray abyss. It was a blessing that I was too tired for nightmares, or any dreams. I only fell deeper and deeper, no longer burdened by my sore limbs, the exhaustion, or the shame of my expedition.

In secret, I hoped I would never wake up, but even those thoughts melted away over time as I descended. Or hovered, it was hard to tell as my consciousness drifted away, only the darkness remaining. For some reason, I was very mindful of it.

Nothing made sense anymore.