It was about half a mile from the wall to the tree line, and another half mile to the entrance of the Dungeon. It wasn’t too impressive looking from the outside. It just looked like an old doorway carved into the side of a small, grassy hill. There were two guards on either side of the door, and a few small groups of adventurers relaxing on the outside.

  I was only at about half capacity on my [MP], so I decided not to head in immediately, and picked a spot in the grass a fair distance and used [Meditate], a skill I had gotten during my training. It was an application of [Mana Sense] and [Mana Manipulation] that allowed me to pull in mana from the surroundings to replenish my [MP] more quickly. Ordinarily, it sped up my recovery by a little over 3x, but sitting on top of the Dungeon, the mana was much more thick than it was anywhere else, so my efficiency doubled again.

  While I meditated, I thought about the details of the dungeon I was about to enter. The book on Dungeons that I had gotten had a few pages about this one, and I had read those pages over multiple times to make sure I internalized all the information. The Dungeon was named the Halls of Abomination, and it was full of mostly undead monsters and monstrous amalgamations.

  Its danger level was the lowest of any Dungeon in Ravel, and one of the lowest in the world. It was said that more adventurers returned sick from the sights and smells than returned injured by the monsters. Most of the monsters in the dungeon were slow and had weak attacks. The only thing that made them troublesome to deal with was their durability, and the fact that many of them had self-healing abilities. They were generally easy to defeat, and easy to retreat from, and overall, they didn’t pose much of a threat to me.

  The biggest danger in the Dungeon, rather than the monsters, was actually getting lost. The Dungeon was enormous, and shaped like a giant maze, and it was constantly shifting slightly. Fortunately, the act of going down a route had some sort of stabilizing effect on the Dungeon, and any path that had been traveled would remain stagnant until the person who had walked it had gone back over it again. As long as I kept track of the route I took in, I would be able to find my way out easily.

  Just under two hours after I sat down, my [MP] was full again, so I got up and walked up to the guards.

  “A bit late to be entering the Dungeon, isn’t it?” one of them, a man with graying hair, asked.

  I shrugged. “I suppose.”

  “You’d better be equipped to spend the night down there, or at least out here. The city gates close in a couple hours.”

  “I am,” I replied.

  “Well, suit yourself.” He shrugged, then held out his hand. “License or registration.”

  I summoned my new registration sheet from [Inventory] and handed it over. If he was surprised that I had pulled it out of nowhere, he didn’t show it. He looked it over, and then narrowed his eyes.

  “You just ranked up today? And through the exam?? And now you’re trying to go into the Dungeon? Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  One of the other guards whistled

  “Alright, miss, you seem to be eager, but you should really take a rest. It’s not good to push yourself so soon after something as, er, traumatic as that.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I’m back to full [HP] and [MP]. And that’s not the first time someone’s taken a blade to me like that.” It’s the second, I thought, thinking back to the assassins.

  The guard frowned when he heard that, but didn’t press further.

  “Well, your papers are in order, so you can enter.” He stepped aside and opened the door to let me through. Don’t push yourself too hard though. Feel free to take a break or retreat at any time.”

  “I will,” I said as I walked past him. “Thank you.”

  “Have a good dive. Don’t forget to mark your trail” he called just before the door closed.

You have entered the Halls of Abomination

  The first hall immediately beyond the door was the only one that stayed constant, regardless of the shifting of the rest of the Dungeon, so the guild had set up luminous orbs at regular intervals along the walls. At random intervals, large doorways or arches opened up to dark hallways leading off from the main hall. I passed by the first dozen or so because they all had obvious earth magic structures or other manmade markings indicating that other adventurers had already taken those routes. It would be pointless to go down any of those paths, since they would probably already be cleaned out of loot and monsters. When I finally found an unmarked hallway, I copied them and added my own earth spires before heading deeper in.

  I walked a mile in solitude, and just as I was preparing to turn back, assuming that some other adventurer had already raided this area without leaving any marks, I finally heard something moving around a corner in front of me. I stopped moving and listened closely. There were at least 3 sets of footsteps, but I couldn’t be sure of the exact number, because all them were walking very unevenly, and it sounded like at least one was dragging its feet. I activated [Stealth] and [Camouflage] and I peered around the corner to see what I was up against.

  30 feet down the hall, there was a small group of zombies walking around aimlessly. I had known that they would not be pleasant in appearance, but I hadn't been fully prepared for exactly how horrid they would look. The most intact one was missing half the flesh on his face, and one of his ribs was poking out from a hole in his shirt, while the worst had his intestines falling out of his gut and hanging like chains about his feet. They were moving slowly in my direction, occasionally moaning or grunting, but none of them seemed to have noticed me yet, so I began planning my attack.

  First, I shut my eyes while I cast [Flash] hoping to take away their vision. The moment the light faded, I immediately started casting [Water Siphon] and [Water Blade], aimed at the neck of the foremost zombie. It cut cleanly straight through to the other side, and his head and body hit the floor a second later. For the second zombie, I used [Stone Bullet] aimed straight at his head, and he fell to the ground as well.

You have slain [Zombie] lvl 3

You have slain [Zombie] lvl 3

  The remaining zombies started moving slightly more quickly, and moaned and groaned louder than before, but [Flash] seemed to have confused them, and I dispatched them before they located me. Once they were dead, I waited for a minute or so, looked around and listening to make sure that I had gotten them all before I started to loot them.

You have slain [Zombie] lvl 3

You have slain [Zombie] lvl 3

You have slain [Zombie] lvl 3

  They were all unarmed, and dressed in rags, so there was nothing of value on them, but their cores could be useful. Unfortunately, their cores were located at the center of their ribcages, making them very messy to acquire. I refused to touch the rotting corpses myself, and instead used [Telekinesis] and small applications of [Water Blade] to find the cores. 15 minutes later, I held 5 zombie cores in my hand.

  I cast [Light] so I could get a better look at them, but soon extinguished it, as they were nothing interesting. They were just small, green, slightly reflective rocks. They would fetch a couple coppers apiece back in the city though, so I put them into [Inventory] and moved on, searching for more. I continued to wander the halls, carefully marking each path I took so that I would be able to find my way back, and occasionally taking out a random group of zombies.

  Overall, it was a very boring excursion. The zombies were far too weak to give me any kind of challenge, and they were so sparse that I spent far more time walking than I did dealing with them. After a few hours of this, I decided that I would be better off trying to find the way to the second floor. I had technically already accomplished my goal, since I had gotten a few dozen cores, which would earn me a fair bit of money, but I was feeling very unsatisfied. Despite how much I used them, none of my spells gained more than a level. I could have done better than that just training in the woods again.

  According to the Dungeon book, there was no easy way to get to the boss room that led to the second floor. Not the first time at least. It was all based on luck. Some adventurers would find it within minutes of choosing a path, while others could wander the halls for days and not find anything. Once I did find the way down though, the Dungeon would register me with its own version of the System, and I would be able to access the second floor whenever I desired.

  Unfortunately, even after another six hours of searching, I couldn’t find the way down, so I decided to give up and head back. My further exploration had brought my total number of zombie cores to over 60, and together, those would be worth close to two gold, so I had earned enough to last me a little while. I would be able to get down to the second floor another day.

  I walked back down the hallway towards the stone spires at the crossroads that would indicate which direction I had come from, but when I got there, the path that the spires pointed to had been replaced by a wall. At first, I thought I might have just been looking at it from the wrong angle, so I walked around the spires, but no matter what angle I looked at them from, they were pointing me into a blank wall. I had been trapped in.

  The first thing I did after realizing that I was trapped was attempt to dig my way out. I used [Earth Manipulation] to carve out a section of the wall in the direction of the hall that no longer existed, but once I got more than a few feet in, I could no longer dig any further. It was like there was an invisible wall blocking my mana from reaching beyond it. I grabbed one of my unenchanted knives and tried to dig further by hand, but it didn’t so much as make a scratch on the wall behind the invisible barrier.

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  When I realized that I was trapped, I started pacing back and forth wondering how I was going to get out, and how I had gotten trapped in the first place. The book had definitely said that the dungeon paths wouldn’t change once they had been traveled. Anatoly did say that the book might be slightly out of date, but surely I should have noticed if something this important had changed. The guard at the gate would have warned me at least. But he was only concerned that I might be trapped outside the city gates, not inside the Dungeon, which meant if the Dungeon did shift while people were still inside it, he was not aware. Or he had intentionally failed to inform me…

  It was also possible that someone had intentionally blocked my exit to trap me in, but I couldn’t imagine who would do that, or why. The only people I had antagonized either didn’t seem to care much, or had been made my Thralls, so I didn’t have any enemies. Unless Alyona was a better actor than I thought and had trapped me in order to get revenge. If that were the case that would explain my inability to damage the wall in front of me. If someone as high level as her had conjured it, and was maintaining it, then it would make sense for me to be unable to do anything about it.

  It was also possible that someone completely random had done it, and that I was about to be attacked and robbed or something like that, but I couldn’t sense anything else around, and [Detection] was silent.

If someone had trapped me, then it would be annoying, but I would eventually be able to get out if I found the boss room and won the battle. If it were the Dungeon that shifted though… Then I might be in trouble. The Dungeon shifting with adventurers still inside it was not something that should have happened. Either what had happened to me was an anomaly, or the there had been a recent change to the way the Dungeon worked, and I was one of the first victims. Both options were equally bad for me, and I would have to be much more cautious than before, since I would not have warning or prior knowledge of it, like I had with the Dungeon when it functioned properly.

  I decided that staying where I was would do me no good, so I stopped pacing and set off again down the opposite tunnel from the one I had entered. I walked for a few minutes, making two turns down branching hallways, marking them both times before turning around and trying to return to where I had been. I made it back to the first branch without issue, but when I tried to go to the second branch, it was blocked off in exactly the same way that the previous blocked passage had been. I tested again with [Earth Manipulation] just to make sure, but like before, I couldn’t dig more than a couple feet in before being stopped by an invisible wall.

  That confirmed with me that whatever was going on was a result of the Dungeon, rather than another person. It was probably still technically possible for another person to have been responsible, but if it was, they were so high level that I wouldn’t be able to do anything against them, and it wasn’t worth thinking about. I started to think further about my predicament under the assumption that the Dungeon was shifting, rather than being shifted by someone else.

  In that case it was likely that it had been happening ever since I entered without my noticing, which meant that even if I did manage to find my way back onto one of the earlier passages I had been on, there was no guarantee that I would be able to make it back to the surface. My only choice was to wander the Dungeon at random until I either somehow made it back to the entryway, or I found the boss room and got the item which would let me leave the Dungeon.

  I started doing just that, moving very slowly and cautiously, in case something other than the floor plan had changed, and I encountered stronger monsters. My worries were somewhat alleviated when I came across another small group of zombies, just like the ones I had been slaughtering up until that point. I wiped them out effortlessly, collected their cores, and continued on my way. This happened two more times before I started to let my guard down and move a bit more quickly.

  I walked for another hour without incident, suddenly the pitch blackness around me was interrupted by a flash of blue light. I stopped dead in my tracks, and looked around to find myself surrounded by a group of zombies. I reacted quickly, summoning my enchanted blade and decapitating one before charging past it using [Sprint] to put some distance in between them and me before turning around to continue the fight. However, despite appearing right next to me and me having killed one of them, the others either didn’t notice me, or didn’t care about me, and simply started milling about aimlessly as I looked on.

  I used Siphon water to summon a water sphere and held it in front of me, waiting for the zombies to notice me and attack, but it never happened. They walked in circles for a minute or so, occasionally bumping into each other or tripping over the corpse of their fallen comrade, and then they started drifting in my general direction, still showing no signs of aggression. I stood my ground as they approached, but there was no change in their movements, even when they were only a few feet away.

  I stepped aside and put my back to the wall, tensed up and ready, in case they decided to suddenly attack but they carried on with their slow, shuffling gait until they were past me, completely ignoring my presence. I looked down at myself to see if I had somehow become invisible, but I could still see myself clearly using [Dark Vision]. I watched the zombies walk until they reached the point where the hall turned, and they disappeared from my sight.

  I was frozen in confusion for a few seconds before I began to process what had just happened. They had completely ignored me, as if I wasn’t there, even after I had slain the other member of their group. I wondered if it had something to do with the way they had appeared. Clearly, I had witnessed their ‘spawning.’ Maybe they weren’t fully active immediately after spawning, and they needed a little while to warm up. But that didn’t make much sense. What was there to warm up? They were just animated corpses? And they hadn’t acted any differently than the ones I had encountered previously.

  On top of that, it was strange that I had even witnessed them spawning. I didn’t think it was possible for that to happen. From what I’d learned about Dungeons, monsters usually were already waiting when Adventurers arrived, or they appeared in response to very obvious actions, such as pulling a lever or taking a suspiciously placed object in a room. I had never heard of monsters spawning directly in front of an Adventurer.

  I had a gut feeling that the reason for their spawning was related to the reason that the halls were shifting behind me, but I still couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t attacked me. Then, it hit me.

  There was nothing unusual going on with the Dungeon. It had not changed, and there was no anomaly. I was the anomaly. I was an undead exploring an undead dungeon. It probably didn’t recognize me as an adventurer. And the zombies had assumed that I was with them, since I was an undead, so they passed by me without attacking.

  With that realization came relief. If what I guessed was true, I suddenly had much less to worry about. The Dungeon had not changed in a way that would endanger me, and in fact, it would make my progress faster if I didn’t need to stop to take out every single group of zombies I came across. All I had to do was find the entrance or boss room.

  I used the water orb that I had created to cut into the fallen zombie and collect its core, and then I started jogging down the hall to where the other zombies had gone. I found them not much further ahead, and ran past them, continuing on my way. I jogged my way through too many stone corridors to count, past nearly a dozen groups of zombies before I made it to a hallway that was different from the others.

  Up until that point, they had all been plain carved stone, but this hallway had brick floor, walls, and ceiling. Excitedly, I jogged to the end of it, and found a large set of double doors decorated with images of skulls and swords. It was exactly as the book had said the boss room would look.

  According to the book, the boss off the floor was a group of six armored zombies that were stronger and faster than the other ones, and more durable too, since they had armor. I almost pushed through the door as soon as I got there, but I stopped myself, and instead sat outside it for a short while to meditate and recover my mana.

  It might have been pointless, since the zombie knights could also recognize me as a fellow Undead and remain passive, but if I was wrong, and the boss room was different, going in unprepared would be unwise. Once my [MP] was back to full, I double checked my equipment, summoned my enchanted knives, and went inside.

  The boss room was a throne room. It was large and spacious, with pillars lined up on either side to support the tall ceiling. At the back of the room, there was a raised dais with a throne in the center, and the six zombie knights stood in front of it, with their swords stabbed into the ground in front of them and their rotting hands resting on the hilts. Their equipment was all rusted and chipped, and some off the knights were missing pieces off their armor, but even with that, they appeared much more formidable than the normal zombies.

  I summoned two water orbs, which was my limit, and floated them in front of me while I walked slowly forward. At first they didn’t move, and I was beginning to think that I wouldn’t have to fight them, but once I got a quarter of the way to the throne, they all simultaneously pulled their swords out of the ground and started walking toward me.

  “Shit,” I said, as I turned my water orbs into vertical blades and sent them at the nearest two.

  The zombies cut the blades with their swords, but the two halves of each blade continued on and hit them. The blades left cuts in the armor, but didn’t do much damage to the zombies underneath. I switched to [Stone Bullet], and aimed two of them at the same two zombies as I backed up. Again, they deflected the spell, and survived relatively unharmed. However, the same could not be said about their weapons. One of the swords broke near the hilt when the stone projectile hit it, and the other chipped and flew out of the wielder’s hand.

  I immediately followed that up with another volley of stone bullets, this time aimed precisely at the zombies’ heads, and both corpses fell to the ground.

You have slain [Zombie Knight] lvl 9

You have slain [Zombie Knight] lvl 9

  While I was fighting those two, the other four had drawn near enough that I had to use [Sprint] to race along the edge of the wall and circle towards the throne to gain back some range. A minute later, the other four knights were dead to the same tactics that had taken the first two.

You have slain [Zombie Knight] lvl 9

You have slain [Zombie Knight] lvl 9

You have slain [Zombie Knight] lvl 9

You have slain [Zombie Knight] lvl 9

[Sole Survivor] lvl 10 -> lvl 13

[Earth Manipulation] 9 -> 11

[Stone Bullet] lvl 8 -> lvl 10

[Water Manipulation] lvl 11 -> lvl 12

[Siphon Water] -> lvl 9 -> lvl 11

[Water Blade] lvl 9 -> lvl 11

[Sprint] lvl 10 -> lvl 11

  After I finished reading my level up notifications, another window appeared.

Congratulations! You have completed the first floor of the Halls of Abomination! Would you like to move on to the next floor, or return to the entrance?

[Continue]

[Return]

[Minimize]

  I chose the [Minimize] option to get the screen out of my face while I contemplated my next move. I explored the throne room, and used both [Mana Sense] and [Aura Sense] to search for hidden areas where there might have been more treasure. When I didn’t find anything, I returned to the corpses of the zombie knights and began using [Telekinesis] and [Water Blade] to carve them up and collect their cores. The cores of the knights were twice the size of the normal zombie cores, but still the same dull, somewhat reflective green. I put them into [Inventory], and then did one last sweep of the room to double check for additional loot before I resummoned the window and selected [Return].

  When I did, I found myself back in the same illuminated hallway that had been the start of my dungeon adventure, and walked down it towards the door. When I opened the door, I was greeted by the pleasant orange of dawn on the horizon and a pair of mildly surprised guards.