Fallholt village is a small village with two hundred people lives in it. It is a part of the idrappateron Dynasty and it occupied its northern territory. Located near a river on the west making farming life prosperous. Decorated with wheat and corn field on the east and also surrounded by forest in the north, Fallholt village is a small but lively one.
Today the village was busing, more often than normal because today was the day of the Festivle Of National Heroes celebrating all the heroes that sacrificed themselves to defeat the legendary dungeon Nightmare Maze that attempted to invade the idrappateron dynasty 10 000 years ago.
In the middle of the village, a boy was currently playing with his friends when he suddenly stops.
“Dylan, it’s time to prepare for the ceremony” called a woman's voice.
“Can’t I have five more minutes, mum,” asked a boy back.
“No, the ceremony is more important, you can play later,” says the woman back as she takes a step out of her house.
Giving up, Dylan walked back inside, Dylan was an eight-year-old, he had brown hair and green eyes and was of regular height and build for his age.
As soon as he got inside he saw his mum and dad preparing some clothes.
“Come, son, try these clothes on,” says his dad as he points to a bunch of rags that honestly looked more like a loincloth then anything else and a huge sword that honestly looked like it would crush him if he tried to pick it up.
His dad was an ex-adventurer who had managed to reach the rank of B, a rank only one out of every hundred C ranked adventures could achieve, he had a muscular build and brown hair, blue eyes and a few scars scattered here and there on his body.
“Geez, honey, he can’t wear that, he should wear this,” his mother says as she then hands him a set of fine clothes, these ones looked brand new and had mixtures of green, blue and gold, on the side was also a wooden bow and an arrow holster.
His mother was an ex-ranger, a member of an elite archery force that was said to be masters of shooting on the move and from different angles, as for her, she had a slightly bustier build, golden hair and green eyes.
“He can’t wear that, he’s going to be a man, not some kind of pampered prince,” says his dad.
“Well at least these are better than those barbaric clothes you got out for him,” says his mum back.
“Barbaric, Andrew wore the exact same set of clothes and look out how he turned out,” says his dad.
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Andrew was his big brother, he was four years older than him at the age of 12 when he was eight, he underwent the ceremony and got knight as his occupation, he was then officially accepted into the knight's academy 2 years ago.
“Oh come on, you know that was coincidental, you’re just lucky that he didn’t get a barbarian occupation because of that, what the hell was I thinking marrying an idiot like you,” said his mother while shaking her head.
“Oh come on, in your clothes he looks like some kind of mannequin, he’s not a doll, and it’s not like I didn’t have other women, I was an infamous ladies man you know,” says his dad, a moment of silence descends before both of them started laughing.
“Maybe we both went a bit crazy about what to wear,” his dad says as he walks over to a closet to grab some other clothes.
Seeing all this Dylan couldn’t help but chuckle a little in his head as he eagerly thought about the ceremony.
The ceremony was an event that happened during the Festival Of National Heroes in which every child that had turned eight that year would have their occupation assigned, this was literally a make or break time.
The ceremony consisted of touching a magical crystal that could supposedly read innate talents, skills learnt before the ceremony, mana and destiny to discover the best possible occupation to allow you to succeed in life.
To every family, it was an important event and garnered much attention, as a good occupation like a knight would gain respect not only for the person but the whole family while an occupation as something like a farmer would garner nothing but humiliation.
This kind of thought naturally scared Dylan but it also excited him because even a bad job occupation could change to good, remembering the story of the farmer he was told as a child about a man who got the occupation of farmer but didn’t give up and through countless years of work was able to grow many powerful and helpful plants which helped the starving populace for the kingdom thus gathering more respect than even the king.
And there was always the option of becoming an adventurer, even though they were a mixture of many different occupations and a high ranking adventurer had an equal amount of reputation as a high-ranking knight.
By the way, there are also king and hero occupations plus many hidden occupations that all kingdoms and associations are eager.
Soon after his dad pulled out a set of regular clothes and they soon set off.
The festival was already underway by the time Dylan and his family had left with countless stalls full of things from sweets to weapons, and at the centre of it all was a giant blue crystal standing in the middle of an altar.
“Dylan, go off and play with your friends for now, but meet us here in a half hour when the ceremony starts,” says his mum with a smile as she and his dad walk off.
Dylan quickly went to look for his friends when he saw a crowd forming up in a corner, curious he walked over.
“Hey, do you think it’s smart to be holding the festival now” whispers one of the group.
“What do you mean?” asks another.
“I'm talking about the dungeon Lurking Shadow Catacombs, it’s just entered it’s rank up phase and has become noticeably more violent, and it’s only a day away from here,” says the first person.
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“Come on, you know the guild Ocean Paladins are keeping an eye on it, and it’s still a day away from here, even if they do manage to beat the guild town, it’ll take a whole day before they arrive and by then we would have easily evacuated,” says the second person.
A guild town is essentially a town with a guild within it, commonly found around dungeons, their more like checkpoints in which adventurers can gather before they enter the dungeon, they also serve as the first line of defence against a dungeon attack.
Hearing this Dylan was naturally surprised, a dungeon rank up phase was a rare event that occurred where the dungeon suddenly changes, it’s unknown why this happens but what is known is that the dungeon becomes extremely more dangerous afterwards, during a rank up some of the dungeons creatures can even escape and invade the outside world.
After a second, however, Dylan decided to just forget about it and to talk to his parents about this later, he then continued to look for his friends.
Meanwhile, in the forest to the north, a group of five injured people and one unconscious person were moving quickly.
“Hurry, they're right behind us and we have to warn Fallholt village right away so fight through the pain and under no circumstances stop,” says the man at the front.
“Yes sir, all our comrades paid their lives to give us this chance, we can’t fail,” says another as the start to accelerate when.
“Aaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” a wolves cry emits behind them.
“Darn it, they’ve already caught up, we’ve got no time to waste, I'll hold them off for as long as I can, you guys continue” says one of the people as he pulls up his spear to hold them off but it was already too late, a shadow passed right by him, ripping him to shreds in a second, soon more shadows appear, chasing after them.
“Foolish human, they think that they can challenge me, the mighty Dromon and the mighty Crimson Eyed Pack, today Lurking Shadow Catacombs shall rise up and destroy the humans,” says the first shadow that had stopped to look at its kill when it senses something and looks up.
“Moczuaqaq, Arselous, uabrod and Armand, I didn’t expect the four of you to catch up so quickly,” said dromon with some disrespect while he looked at those four figures.
Moczuaqaq was a lich with glowing green flames covering his whole body and black smoke floating around him, behind him stood a legion of dread knights.
Arselous was a lamia with a bewitchingly beautiful female body upper half and a golden green snake bottom, behind her stood many snakes like creatures.
Uabrod was a ghoul, he looked human except for his pale white skin and pitch black eyes plus the fact that his flesh was rotting, behind him stood many strange incandescent figures.
Armand was a vampire, he looked exactly like Dracula except for the fact that he wielded a long spear designed to impale his enemies, many bats and lesser vampires stood behind him.
While Dromon was a werewolf, he had pitch black fur, crimson red eyes and was twice the size of a regular one, his group was the crimson eyed pack which went on ahead.
These five were the five strongest boss monsters of lurking shadow catacombs with a danger level of A+.
“Dromon, what are you doing here?” asks uabrod with obviously conceited tone.
“Yeah, the mighty Dromon can’t possibly be having trouble with those lowly C-rank raiders that escaped, can he,” says Armand as he looks at the body on the ground that was now four pieces.
“Of course not, after all, dromon is the supposed strongest of us all, there’s no way he can possibly be having trouble with those lowly C rank humans, I mean, not after we beat them up so badly,” says moczuaqaq in an extremely sarcastic tone before he starts laughing.
The five of them soon start to move again before they arrive at the crimson eyed pack and four dead bodies.
“It’s such a pity, an A rank adventurer sacrificed his life to delay us but here they are now dead,” says Arselous as she looks at the scene.
“So what's next?” asks uabrod.
“If I remember correctly, there is a town called Fallholt to the south of here, and today is the day of the Festival Of National Heroes, the perfect next target,” says moczuaqaq as he starts marching towards the south.
Completly unaware of what just happened the festival was still going on and the ceremony was about to start.
a huge line of people was standing in front of the alter, Dylan was a little late and as such had ended up fiftieth in the line.
“Okay, quite, we shall now begin the ceremony, I am priest Delwin and I'm in charge of this ceremony, will the first person in line, please step forward,” says a person as he gestures his hands.
The first person walks up, he was a slightly bulky person, with clear defined muscles, black hair and brown eyes.
“What's your name boy,” asks delwin.
“ Cuchumaquic,” says the bulky boy.
This name slightly startled the priest but he quickly calmed himself down.
“Okay, Cuchumaquic, place your hand on the crystal,” says the priest as he points to the crystal.
Cuchumaquic quickly followed the orders and placed his hand on the crystal, a series of lights lit up and soon a page emerged on the crystal.
Name: Cuchumaquic
Occupation: Blacksmith
Level: 1
Strength: 50
Dexterity: 30
speed: 20
stamina: 30
mana: 20
mana regeneration: 5% per hour
skills: basic hammer skills lv 2
basic forging skills: lv 1
basic smelting skills lv 1
Looking at this page, priest Delwin holds a crystal up to it and then a bright flash appears before the page disappears.
“Next,” says the priest.
This cycle repeated itself over and over again until it was only one person was before Dylan when.
“Okay, next, and” but before he could finish his sentence an arrow suddenly appeared out of nowhere, killing him.
This scene was immediately followed by more arrows, killing all the soldiers that stood on guard before the altar and an army of shadowy wolf-like creatures emerge quickly jumping into the pack of shocked people killing them left and right.
Soon everyone started to panic, running every which way, trampling a few people to death but it soon turns out that everything is in vain, they are soon surrounded by four more armies of monsters, quickly getting rid of any hope that any of them had to escape.
All of this panic had also hit Dylan as he was tossed and turned until he reached the altar, his hand falling and touching the crystal, causing a bright ray of black light to appear like an ominous sign.
This shocked all the figures present when suddenly inside Dylan's head a voice appeared.
“To think I would find someone with such a similar mana wavelength, this is interesting, I only formed about a month ago and I already have found my dungeon master,” says the voice in an excited tone
This however shocked Dylan and even more shocking was the fact that five figures had suddenly appeared.
They were the bosses from Lurking Shadow Catacombs.
“To think we would meet one of them here, what should we do,” asks Arselou.
“Capture them if possible, we could get a subordinate dungeon, if not, kill them as to eliminate any possible threats,” says Moczuaqaq as he orders the troops to move in towards Dylan
This shocked Dylan when the voice suddenly spoke again.
“Hey, we only just meet and you're already in such a predicament, quickly make a contract with me and then you can escape, now hurry,” says the voice in a hurry.
This however only confused Dylan more as he started to hurriedly look around for his mum and dad when he notices in the corner, surrounded by skeletons were his mum and dad or at least their bodies as they had swords impaling their vital organs.
This scene shocked Dylan as he started to cry, he tried to control himself as he knew now wasn’t the time but he just couldn’t help it, he turned to look at the creatures advancing on him
“No no no nnnnnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooo” yells Dylan causing a strange scene to occur, the metal in every store and in every weapon started to vibrate fiercely before they started to melt into pools of liquid metal until.
“Swoosh” they suddenly struck out impaling and killing all the creatures that seemed to be attacking Dylan and formed a protective spiral around him, a small amount also went to his parents and swallowed up the sword, bow and arrows that they had before encasing them in coffins of metal before rejoining the spiral.
“Wow, you awakened your dungeon master skill, living liquid metal, not the flashiest name but it explains it I guess, anyway I'll take that as a yes,” says the voice as a bright light suddenly flashes and Dylan plus the two coffins of metal suddenly disappeared.