“Ahhhhh, my head”

I woke up on a bed, I had nothing on except my boxers, my head was throbbing painfully…where am I? I looked around what looked like a small cave but it was very homey, it had a yellow table in the middle of the cave room, something that looked like a kitchen bench was on the far left side while the right side had a black three seater couch.

“Oh you’re awake”

That soft, gentle appealing voice came from the head of the bed.

“Whoah!”

I let out a little yelp, the bee was sitting on the wooden headboard, she smiled at my little yelp.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, I washed all the blood off of your clothes, here you go.”

The bee flow over and handed me my clothes and a cup filled with a liquid the resembled tea. I put my clothes back on quickly and stared at the smiling bee.

“Go on, drink it, its honey tea, it’ll help with that headache of yours”

Hmm, I stared at the tea with suspicion.

“It’s not poisonous, I’ll even help you get rid of that headache with magic, just give me a second.”

The Bee grabbed the tea from me and placed it on the cave floor and flew in front of me, it held two hands out with palms up. Did it want me to high five its hands or something.

“Hear my words dungeon, I ask to be surrounded, filled and illuminated with the dungeons flowing energy, hear my plea ‘The Power of Light’ Healing Headache”

A light illuminated around me as I looked on amazed at this sight, my head started to feel lighter and I could feel some of my internal damage getting healed. Was that magic?

“Wow, you were more injured than I thought, now please drink up”

The bee picked up the tea and handed it to me, I still looked at it suspiciously, but if she wanted to kill me she could have done it already. Although, maybe she wanted to see me in pain and was going to torture me. I ended up taking a sip and…it was delicious, a perfect balance of natural sugar and sweetness.

“See, I told you it wasn’t poisonous, you’re not a very trusting person.”

The bee smiled at me and sat on the bed next to me. What is up with this creature.

“Let me introduce myself first, my name is Miko, I am the floor guardian of the first 10 floors I am known as the Mythical Princess Bee.”

The what and the what? So this creature was a monster, and she was some sort of floor guardian, did that get explained to me? I don’t think so.

“I want to ask you a few questions, first, how can you understand me? You need to be at least level 35 to obtain the Monster Whisperer skill and you also need to have the basic Taming skill, which, you don’t, and you are only a level 2.”

Look, I had no idea what she was talking about, I just sipped my tea and looked at her, I was ready to make a run for it when she let her guard down but her eyes were completely fixated on every movement I did. Damn it! She has her guard up just as much as me.

“No response huh? That's ok, let me ask you another question, why is your guild gem clear, like really clear and why is your guild bracelet made of stones and twigs?”

Now she was looking at my guild gem, is a floor guardian some high level player?

“Did you break all the guild rules and that is why your level is so low but the gem is crystal clear?”

“No! I didn’t break any rules!”

I snapped, I wasn’t going to sit here and take this shit again, getting accused for crap I never did! I stood up and through the cup of tea across the room smashing into the cave wall, the smash made the bee girl jump in fear.

“I don’t know what you are or what your deal is but I’m leaving now!”

I started to walk where I thought the exit was.

“You weren’t summoned here were you?”

What? What did she just say? Summoned?

“What do you know about being summoned here?”

I turned to see if she was lying.

“First, tell me your name and if you’re a human.”

Miko looked at me squinting her eyes as to figure something out.

“My name is Kubo Udon, Kubo is my family name, and I am human, last I checked anyways.”

“You must be a summon with that name, that would explain why your gem is clear and that you don’t have any of the starting equipment. But a summoned hasn’t been heard of in centuries, it’s turned into a myth.”

She knew what was going on, hmmm, maybe I should hear her out. I sat down at the table and waited for her to come over and sit opposite me.

“What is a summoned? Did you do this to me!?”

“Calm down, please, no, I didn’t summon you, only the Creator can do a summoning, but again I haven’t heard of one in years. I was only out there looking to exterminate the monsters that had made their way down to the first floor, the purple slimes especially, they target other poisonous creatures and would destroy all the herbs that would counterattack poison.”

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So she didn’t have any answers for me either, damn it!

“So you don’t know anything, then we’re done here, I’m leaving.”

I stood up and started walking towards the exit again.

“Why didn’t you kill me? Any player would have loved to kill a floor guardian and take their power, but you just stood there, why?”

What the hell was she on about now, why I didn’t kill her? I should have! I should not care what happens to anyone else but me.

“I didn’t see any need to kill you, thats why.”

I told her as I looked down at the cave floor.

“Thats not it, you looked right into my eyes and a tear fell, what happened to you?”

Damn it! She saw that, what does this thing want? To make fun of my pain and misery.

“You are imagining things, I’m leaving.”

“You can leave if you want but you need at least two party members to go to the second floor.”

What!? I never got told that, so I’m stuck on this floor that has no answers to where I am and why I’m here!

“I can help you if you would let me.”

The Bee flew up and came over to me, help me? Really? What was she going to do?

“Intelligent Floor Guardians or Bosses can decide to create a contract with a player if they have a strong feeling towards the player. Of course, it is up to the player if they accept them or not, and the Floor Guardian looses most of their originally power until the contract is terminated. If you would allow me to, I would like to join your team and travel the dungeon with you, you can say no but even if you accept me you can terminate the contract whenever you like and I’ll immediately get sent back down to this floor.”

So I can have a slave like team member that I can dispose of whenever I feel like it, I don’t see what’s in it for her though.

“What’s in it for you? Why do you want to travel with me?”

I asked Miko, at that question her cheeks seemed to go red and she looked away from me, it was getting quite hot in this cave so I can understand that.

“Well, it’s just that, I want to travel with you thats all, you saved my life, I feel like I owe you.”

Hmm, so she thinks I spared her life and wants to make it up to me, I don’t have a choice if I want to go further and find more answers.

“Fine, I’ll let you join me, but any funny business and I’ll get rid of you just as quick.”

The bee gave out a little cheer and raised her little arms in the air, huh, she kinda looked cute doing that. I accepted her as a party member and that was that, she was now apart of my team, I could see her name under mine, in the top left corner of my vision.

Udon-Lv. 2 >

Miko-Lv. 10 >

“Are you really only a level 10?”

I asked surprise.

“I wasn’t, but I told you majority of my power will be reset while the contract is in place.”

That made sense I guess.

“We should stay here the night and head out tomorrow ok?”

Miko suggested as she smiled and sat down at the table.

“Thats probably a smart decision, I need some answers about this so called dungeon as well.”

Maybe she can give me some information on what the process of this world is.

“Sure, what would you like to know? But I haven’t been out of this cave in over 300 years because the humans would hunt me down.”

She’s been cooped up in this cave for over 300 years!? Far out thats a long time, humans due tend to hunt anything they haven’t seen before, more of the kill and dissect rather than observe and research.

“You said something about needing more party members to go up floors, does it increase every floor?”

“No, this is only for the first 11 floors, you need at least a party of 2 for the second floor, then a party of 3 for the fourth floor, then a party of 4 for the sixth floor and a party of 5 for the eleventh floor.”

Damn it! I need more party members to go further, a minimum of 5, seriously!

“What do you know about Guilds and why is my Gem clear?”

“I know joining a guild gives you exclusive quests for the faction you are in, but if you fail a Guild Quest you lose points and possibly a rank if you fail often. Players that are apart of a guild faction do gain more experience and their base stats are increased depending on what rank they have achieved. For why your gem is clear, I don’t know, if you haven’t broken a Guild Rule and it was clear when you were summoned, I really don’t know.”

So she couldn’t help me with my Gem either, damn it! And Guild players gain more exp points just for being in the stupid Guild!

“What about open quests, what are they?”

“Oh, thats simple, each Guild has open quests that are for anyone, no matter what Guild or Rank or Faction you are, the quest is filed under an ‘unofficial guild’ so if you fail the quest you don’t lose Guild Points, but you still gain Guild Points, and exp points and rewards if you successfully complete it. Players can also steal and interfere with an open quest though, so not many players take them on.”

Yeah, I know that part of it, jerks.

“To get an open quest you can go to any Guild or the Towns Guild Hall and ask for the open quests and they’ll be more than be happy to give you them as the Guild itself gains more points when you complete them.”

This is starting to become clear to me at least, this world truly is survival of the fittest.

“What are you? And are animas and monsters different?”

I remember seeing that rabbit getting eating by the slimes, does that mean animals couldn’t fight back.

“I’m the Floor Guardian for the first 10 floors, each major floor has a guardian, they cannot respawn and they are alive to ensure the monsters don’t grow out of control and grow to big in their numbers, they can control a total of 10-35 floors. The higher floor guardians control a greater number of floors. Each Floor Guardian has a crystal core that can be used for magical power, some Guardians leave their own territory floors to attack other guardians to gain the crystal core and gain more power along with the expanded territory of taking over the defeated Guardians Floors.”

So Guardians seems just as dangerous as other players, if not more.

“Animals and monsters are different because animals are all herbivores and can’t really fight back, there are different animals on each floor, the main ones around the lower floors are unicorn rabbits, they are quite tasty, humans think the animals are only around to keep the monsters fed and their own bellies fed but they are around to keep the vegetation down on the floors, so one of the main issues the Floor Guardians have, is keeping the animal population well stocked.”

Humans being humans, dumb as ever.

“Last question, I heard something about a player granting a non-player a skill, do you know anything about that?”

It seemed like a convenient skill to have if I needed a party of at least 5.

“Players can acquire the skill that allows the player to grant non-players skills to help them with all sorts of tasks, but players rarely do this because they only want to enhance themselves, and they are to lazy to master any trade skills, so no one is very good at making weapons or armour or anything really these days.”

This world sounds like a whole lot of pain.

“What is a non-player?”

I was starting to get curious of all this non-player and player talk.

“Originally, centuries back, every person could join a guild and complete quests, they also had the ability to unlock skills and improve their attributes, but, when humans arrived in the dungeon, all that changed, they brought Guild Gems with them and the Gods only let people with a Guild Gem join, and then all the others lost the ability to gain skills and improve their attributes, so one of the top players in the Creating Guild, designed an artificial Gem that gave the exact same powers of a Guild Gem, it did miss a couple of things and wasn’t as strong, but, non-players could gain skills now, so majority of people in the dungeon go out and acquire an artificial Guild Gem just so they can protect themselves.”

Hmm, sounds like humans made the dungeon worse, and Miko just said humans turned up out of the blue, where they summons?

“I think it’s time for dinner.”

Miko said as she flew up and headed over to the kitchen, I snapped out of my train of thought, guess I’m eating dinner made from a magical bee…this is still weird to me.

Miko made Unicorn Rabbit Stew, it was quite tasty. We stayed the night in her cave, I slept on the floor with a spare wolf skin blanket while Miko slept on her bed.