“You see, this place wasn’t meant to be a dungeon,” Bob whispered with a hint of anger in his voice, “Oh yes, it was supposed to be much more than that...”
As his voice rang out around the room, the pressure around his body instantly spiked and Rin was now struggling to breathe.
Fortunately, the man soon noticed his blunder and got his emotions under control.
“Sorry about that...” he rubbed the back of his neck, “What I meant to say is that you have done something incredible. And with that comes the rewards.”
Hearing this, Rin raised one of her eyebrows as the man sat back down on his chair.
“Rewards?” she asked.
“Oh, you know, things that make you stronger. Stuff like that,” Bob replied, “Check your status at least.”
Pondering over his words, Rin didn’t think it would hurt to try.
‘Status,’ she thought.
Name: Rin
Titles:
Mana Core Connoisseur: (Ability to eat Mana Cores)
Wolf Slayer: (You deal 5% more damage to wolf type enemies)
Irregular (lvl - 1): (Gain 100 stat points in all attributes)
Exorcist: (Increases effectiveness of Wisdom and Vitality by 300%)
Race: Hum-{Error}
Class: Heiress of Ice, Seraphim of the Night
Level: 23
HP: 16,000/16,000
MP: 33,500/33,500
[Attribute Multipliers: Protection of Ice (Effectiveness of All stats Doubled)]
Strength: (10 + 25 + 100) * 2
Endurance: (40 + 25 + 100) * 2
Vitality: (35 + 25 + 100) * 5
Wisdom: (215 + 20 + 100) * 5
Intelligence: (225 + 20 + 100) * 2
Agility: (185 + 20 + 100) * 2
[As the number of titles are exceeding the limit of (3) please select the titles you would like to equip.]
“What. The. Fuck. This is insane,” Rin said aloud.
Ignoring the system message for the time being, she looked at her current stats with widened eyes. She hadn’t even noticed the increase in strength, but now that it was right in her face. Her body felt like it was overflowing with power. Rin thought that her current stats would be equal to the average level 40.
What had happened was that she had gained a level in her Irregular title and also achieved another new title called Exorcist. Which lead to her health and mana points almost quintupling themselves since the last time she had checked her status.
“Like what you see?” Bob grinned as he looked at the expression on the girl’s face.
“Well yeah... it wasn’t really what I expected,” she muttered, still in astonishment.
The grin left his face as soon as he heard her words, with a look of disbelief replacing it.
“What did you expect then?” he asked, “Don’t tell me you think that you didn’t deserve it.”
Rin shook her head to the side.
“It’s not like that... it’s just that, doesn’t it seem like a bit much? I mean for the amount of work done. All I did really was kill some tall giants,” she explained.
Bob let out a light laugh, “I wouldn’t call them just some giants. But I do suppose that you made it seem effortless.”
But upon hearing his words, Rin turned her attention away from the screen to the man with a frown.
“You were watching me?” she asked.
Bob shrugged at the question.
“It was either that or doing nothing. Seeing you arrive... you could say that it was a breath of fresh air,” he said.
Unable to refute the man, Rin let out a sigh and returned her attention to the system screen in front of her eyes.
[As the number of titles are exceeding the limit of (3) please select the three you would like to equip.]
She wasn’t unfamiliar with the message and quickly equipped the ones that had the most value to her. The titles that she had chosen were her Irregular, Mana Core Connoisseur and Exorcist.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Looking over her status for the last time, Rin smiled seeing all the numbers. Although they were but a mere fraction of her former strength, they would only continue to grow from there.
Closing the system window, Rin turned towards the man.
“Can I test something?” she asked.
Bob raised an eyebrow as a look of interest appeared on his face. He wasn’t sure what the girl was planning to do, but he assumed that it would be fine and gestured in front of him with his hand.
“The floor is yours,” he smiled.
Seeing that the man had agreed, her lips curled upwards into a grin. Rin closed her eyes and relished the newfound power within her body. Her bones felt more durable while her lungs felt like they could contain more oxygen. The feeling of growing in strength was exhilarating.
Opening her eyes, she created a pillar in front of her and made it to be about a metre thick. She then conjured a blade into her right hand as she narrowed her eyes on the center of the pillar. Slashing forward, her muscles rippled with strength as the ice was immediately split into two halves. All in a single graceful movement.
One thing she noticed was that her ice would come into existence quicker than before. It wasn’t a massive difference, but it would definitely help in those split-second scenarios where speed was key.
“Impressive,” Bob said and clapped his hands.
For the man it was a matter of child's play, but the girl in front of him contained more power than the level 23s he had seen. Wanting to see more, he walked in front of her.
“Would you...” he paused before a crease appeared in his brow, “Hmm... it seems like we don’t have much longer.”
“Does that mean I can leave now?” Rin asked in response.
She dismissed her ice and looked up towards the man. There didn’t seem to be anything going on, but he looked somewhat worried.
“Yes, that would probably be for the better...” he said and looked up at the ceiling with a frown.
The man squinted his eyes as if he was searching for something but soon released a sigh.
“Damned prison...” he muttered and clenched his fist.
Rin wasn’t sure if she was meant to hear what the man had said and kept her expression neutral. She watched as the man paced around the room before turning back towards her with a weary smile.
“It seems that I am powerless,” he said with a chuckle, “But there is one last thing for you.”
Whispering a silent incantation, a magic circle appeared into the air before Bob. He then reached into the circle and pulled out an item. The item that he had brought out was a black leather box with golden runes embroidered into the leather. To Rin it looked rather luxurious.
“What’s that?” Rin asked.
But the man didn’t respond and simply handed it over to the girl.
Rin looked down at the box in her hands with a slight frown. There was a certain weight to the box that didn’t fit its size while it radiated with an energy. It was almost chaotic, but also contained at the same time.
She figured that it wouldn’t be safe to open the box at the very moment and stored it into her inventory with the goal of opening it later in her room at the guild.
Keum... Keum...
Hearing a pained cough, she turned back towards the man who was currently standing in front of a shining white door.
“The exit is here, just walk through the door to leave,” he said with a grimace.
Rin raised a brow as she looked at the man. On the inside she was slightly worried, but due to her pride she didn’t let it show.
“Okay...” she replied.
She started to walk towards the door but just before she reached the exit, she was interrupted.
“Wait. Could I get your name?” he asked.
Turning back towards the man, she noticed that there was blood at the edges of his lips. Obviously, she was curious, but she decided not to pry and responded with her name.
“It’s Rin.”
As her words rang out into the air, the girl stepped through the doorway as a bright white light enveloped her body.
“I will cherish it...” he muttered, looking at the afterimage of the girl’s fading body, “Rin.”
As the doorway disappeared, the man immediately collapsed onto the floor as the mansion and hearth faded out of existence. He looked lifelessly in front of him before his eyelids closed over his pupils.
“Until we meet again…” he whispered before his body faded away into a black mist.
****
Opening her eyes, Rin found herself at the entrance to the so-called gates of hell. It was exactly as she remembered it to look. But at the moment, the corrupting energy that used to be overflowing had seemed to wane.
Turning around, she walked up the blackened stairs and felt the sun’s heat on her skin. It was a change of pace from the dungeon. It was nice, but what hit her next wasn’t nice at all.
Rin immediately felt a wave of hunger and drowsiness that had accumulated over her time in the dark.
Inside it hadn’t been a problem at all, but now that she was outside of the dungeons effects. She felt it at full force.
‘Ugh…’ she groaned.
Feeling her head spin, she stumbled to the side and leaned against the wall as a support. She paused for a moment and popped a mana core into her mouth to regain her strength before resuming her climb up the stairs.
Reaching the top, she scanned the surface. It seemed that nothing had changed since she had entered the dungeon. The sun’s position was still in the same spot in the sky while in the nearby distance the dwarf was still sitting on the driver’s seat of the carriage.
“Hey missy! Are you just going to stand there?!”
Hearing a voice call out to her, it confirmed her suspicions.
‘So it was like that…’ she thought.
Time had flowed at a slower pace in the dungeon compared to the outside. But the odd thing was that it seemed that not even a single second had passed.
“If you’re not going in let’s get outta here!” the voice called again.
What had concerned her was that in her current state she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep in the forest safely. Monsters and other creatures would be roaming about so far from the city. But as time hadn’t passed, she had a way to get back.
“I‘ll be right there,” she replied.
She looked back at the doors of hell with a soft smile. It was such an odd experience for a dungeon that it almost felt like a fever dream. Especially with meeting an entity such as Bob, but the power flowing through her veins along with the gnawing hunger in her stomach told her otherwise.
Overall, it had been quite a fruitful day.
Rin walked up to the carriage but this time she didn’t climb onto the top, rather taking the stairs leading into the open carriage door. Inside there wasn’t much but a wooden table and bench.
“By Tera, this place gives me the creeps,” the dwarf muttered from the front.
The dwarf’s quip brought an amusing thought to mind. If the atmosphere alone was enough to scare the dwarf, she laughed at the thought of him entering the dungeon. But of course, that wouldn’t be possible as he exceeded the level limit.
“Ready to go?” he turned to ask the girl.
She flashed the dwarf a quick thumbs up and leaned back into the bench. Feeling the carriage start to move, the slight rocking and vibration of the vehicle of the carriage caused her to fall into a light sleep.
A little less than an hour had passed as Rin heard a knock at the side of the carriage which caused her to wake up.
“We’ve arrived.”
Yawning, Rin opened her eyes and looked outside of the carriage window. The scenery had changed from the corrupted forest to the inner-city wall.
Climbing out of the carriage she walked up to the dwarf.
“Thanks for the ride,” she smiled.
“Anytime Miss, but I won’t be going back there,” he replied.
“I won’t be going back either, so it’ll be fine,” she said.
Walking into the heart of the city, she soon arrived at the guild and headed straight towards the elevator. She brushed off those that wanted her to join their parties; the need for more sleep was too great.
Opening the door to her room, she didn’t bother to swap into a change of clothes as she hopped on the bed and quickly nodded off to sleep.