I stared at the white, blinding, haze I was walking into.

Whelp, there goes my communication.

Abs was on my left acting like a human snow blower as he walked through the waist deep snow. Meanwhile me and Ismund were to his right, lightly stepping on top of the snow. I was appreciating not sinking.

From what Abs had said, the entrance to the next dungeon was somewhere in here. It was always surrounded by a storm. I had asked why with my stone slate, but he just tapped the side of his nose and (I think) chuckled.

We’re gonna be wandering around here forever if we keep using Ismund’s strategy.

His plan was to walk in a spiral towards the center of the storm to find the entrance. His reasoning was that way we don’t miss the middle by accident and walk past it, which we would risk if we walked straight into the storm. It made sense at first, but I figured out pretty quickly that the corrupt energy’s density was increasing as we got closer to the middle, I’d be able to locate it pretty quickly. Thankfully the shield the System gave me was back up, so I wouldn’t fall apart in the dungeon or something horrible like that.

I shivered at the thought.

Unfortunately, that also meant that hearing things further away from myself wasn’t as effective because the System’s energy was in the way diluting it.

Well, I shouldn’t waste any time, Ismund doesn’t like that.

Looking over to face him I could immediately tell that something was wrong. He had been more blank recently without showing as much of as opinion as usual, but he was acting outside the normal confines of that and his old self. He kept looking around at the ground with wide, unblinking eyes like he was waiting for some sort of trap to spring up. He was normally so confident… I found it confusing.

I don’t know what it is, but maybe getting inside the dungeon will clear it up, he’s always very determined in those. It might distract him from whatever it is. Granted, I’ve only been in one dungeon with him… but I don’t see why that would change. He said he wanted to get… more powerful, so he’d want to go into a dungeon and beat up some monsters, right?

I still didn’t like his motive. It didn’t have any meaning or purpose behind it.

That made me think for a moment longer.

Well, Ismund says he’s doing this to get more powerful, that’s probably his goal in life, yeah? I don’t think it’s right… but, well, I can only say that’s bad if I have a better option, which I don’t have in the moment. Actually, the more I think about it, I don’t know that I have any. I’ve been so caught up with figuring out where I am and staying alive that I hadn’t thought of it.

I need to figure this out.

I furrowed my brows, I was nervous about the conclusion I’d come up with, but I was going to see it through.

Well, I want to do something good that has a lasting impact. I can build off of that.

I held my chin.

I probably won’t be able to do anything very special in the long run, I mean, people that have been living in this timeline their whole lives haven’t figured out much, and I’m a weak outsider who doesn’t know much. No shot I get rid of all the monsters or cultists or something crazy like that.

So… how can I do something good that lasts and is also within reason so I can actually succeed… I also don’t want an end point, otherwise I’ll end up losing direction again.

That could go in some very bad directions which included ropes, choking, and general miserableness. I’m not gonna end up there.

I steeled myself.

Never.

I still didn’t know what direction I was going in, but I kept chugging along.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Okay, so good, achievable and also never ends. That sounds like a contradiction. Wait, no it’s not. You can have a list with tasks and make the tasks achievable and infinite. Yeah, that’ll work.

I ran into another issue.

“Why does this have to be so complicated,” I mumbled to myself.

I don’t want a list of things though… that sounds kind of pointless to just chase a list of things around. Umm, well, maybe just a task that I can do over and over again… that’s good.

I bit my lip in thought.

Okay, now I need a category, otherwise I’ll make a bunch of sandwiches for the poor endlessly or something like that for my life goal. Like, it’d be a great thing to do, but I could do more.

Could I do something good forever in lots of different ways where I can also, I don’t know, have it invest in something that goes into eternity? I’m not.. sure. It’s not like just doing a bunch of arbitrary good things for my own ego will do a whole lot, I’m not a great person. I’m only safe from Sheol because…

I smiled.

That’s it.

Ugh, I shouldn’t have forgotten. Shame on me.

It didn’t take as long as I thought, but I had a goal in life now.

I can just do good as best I can for the Creator. It… lemme see, yep… that’ll fill in all the things I wanted, give me some flexibility to keep following Ismund around because of the System.

I folded my hands and said a few words under my breath.

Done with that, my mind drifted back to the incoming dungeon.

Maybe with Abs here it’ll be easier and a little less crazy.

I looked at Abs again as he took another swig of his flask necklace.

…or we’ll have more man power to fight the monsters. Either way, I don’t think we should waste any time.

Grabbing the sleeves of both men, I walked into the middle of the storm. Abs came along easily seeing that he didn’t seem to like Ismund’s plan too much to begin with. Ismund, on the other hand, immediately got himself free from my grip looked like he was about to say something before Abs picked him up and threw him over his shoulder, posed, and marched forward like a soldier behind me as lead them towards the entrance. I couldn’t tell what Ismund was thinking now seeing that he and Abs were now just dark shadows in the dense, dancing snow, but I couldn’t imagine he was too happy with his situation.

Here.

My right hand gripped the snowy handle which was connected to the equally snowy door in front of me. That was it, nothing in front or behind it.

There must be some space magic compressing the dungeon, otherwise this would make even less sense.What would happen if you attacked the dungeon’s physical entrance?

I shrugged to myself.

Time to see a magic portal!

As my thoughts darted around, Abs made a move for the entrance. He threw the door wide open so we could see the unobstructed view of the same blizzard we were in already in front of us again. There was no magical glowing portal like I’d hoped.

I’ve read to many books. If it glowed it would be wasting energy and would be pretty obvious. Still, how do you even get inside?

To answer my question, Abs placed Ismund on the ground (who started to immediately attempt confronting Abs), turned the toothpick-lover towards the entrance, and punted him towards the door where he just vanished.

Violent are we?

…

I’m worried about what he’ll do in an actually violent situation now.

Giving him a quick smile, I skirted inside to avoid punt-ation.

Doing a quick look around I could see that the ground was snow, the air was full of snow, and there was a giant snow wall ascending to the sky. It was starting to get a little stale… I still liked the snow though, I just wish these monsters were, I don’t know, more creative. I didn’t know how that would work though, it’s not like they design the rooms.

My mind was a bit of a mess. Last time I was in a dungeon, we almost died. I was only okay coming back seeing that it was a different one, I had to, and it was going to be easier than last time.

I looked over at Ismund standing off to the side: his nostrils flared as he looked towards the approaching local alcoholic and stopped rubbing where he’d been kicked.

Abs stopped beside the two of us and took a stance with his hands on his hips thrusting his chest out and taking a big breath of the chilly air then breathing it out in a blast of steam, not dissimilar to older trains.

I wonder if those are operating on other continents.

After that he waved us forward as he started walking. To the right of the hallway it was open, to the left there was another path but it was blocked by some sort of invisible force field. Abs turned right. As soon as he started moving Ismund walked beside him. I didn’t think he wanted to visit with him, he was being competitive. It might not be greatest for the relationship, but at least he was acting like himself a bit more.

System, how long until I can change the settings on my Bandana?

[That will require an additional twelve hours]

Ah, I guess I’ll just be a bit lonely then. No, well yes, but no, I could work on my magic. I need to be efficient with my time.

I nodded to myself. It’s what Ismund would’ve said, maybe, and he’s good at fighting in these dungeons. And since it looks like we’ll be doing this for a while, I want to be good at that too.

I’d rather not die.

I gave myself a strained smile.

Okay, so there’s my souls sound, and the energy field from the System, the dungeon’s corrupt energy, andohmygoodness!

I stood bolt upright with a bit of a cold sweat building.

I had really thought I’d done it right, or at least well enough for the patch job to stay but I was so wrong. He probably knows as well. Maybe those mini Ismund’s are coming in handy? The parasite on Ismund’s back was back and kicking.