It truly was Peter’s luck that right around the time he set off for the Old Graveyard dungeon in the outskirts of the city, that the heavens would open up and release a truly torrential amount of rain. He didn’t know if it was just his personal spite at the world for how things had shaken out for him talking, but Peter was pretty sure that the rain today was not even that salty – in other words, perfect for one to drink.

He shook his head and did he best to clear his mind of such thoughts – refocusing his full attention on the ticking countdown timer that he had affixed to the top right of his vision so that he could always know how close the upgrade was to completion.

Time remaining until task: [Idle Progression] -> [F+] rank is complete: 2 days, 1 hour, and 30 seconds!

Only two more days to wait until his first perk upgrade was finalised, and honestly, he was desperate for the wait to be over. Before receiving his system, he’d never understood why it was that adventurers always seemed in a hurry to be everywhere, but now that he had a system of his own, he understood perfectly.

Time wasted improving a non-useful skill was time not spent boosting one’s power, and though Peter knew that the upgrade he was doing would help boost him in the long term, the jump from F to F+ was never a significant one and he knew deep down that his perk would not be an exception to that general rule.

The only thing Peter could say to cheer himself up was that he was still in the early days and that once he got the ball rolling, as it were, he would look back on these times with pride. Though, as his rags began to waft a funny smell thanks to the rain and stick to his body, Peter began to doubt that this time period would ever be one he would think back on with nostalgia if/when he became a powerful person.

This intuition was reinforced when he arrived at the dungeon to find that the man from yesterday was already there, waiting for him, and judging by the look on his face – he was not happy with Peter.

“I said crack of dawn you good for nothing rat!” The man shouted at Peter as he approached, before doing something that Peter hadn’t expected and delivering a harsh disciplinary slap to Peter’s cheek.

“What the…” Peter was about to profane, but another slap to his cheek caused him to fall to the ground – silent.

“Let me get something straight with you, rat, here and now. You follow my orders to the letter, or you get beat – understood?”

Peter only nodded in response, his body still in a state of shock from being hit by the man.

“Oh yeah, and when you address me, call me Sir or Master – I don’t care which, just make sure you’re respectful with it. Is that clear?!” The man said in a voice that left no room for argumentation.

Peter nodded once again, and the man seemed happy enough with that as a reply and walked away from the downed Peter and back towards the entryway of the dungeon. Though, Peter swore he heard the man mutter, “Such fucking disrespectful brats these days”, under his breath as he walked away.

“You planning on sitting there in the mud all day rat?!” The man yelled whilst facing away from Peter – instantly setting Peter onto his feet and rushing towards the dungeon’s entryway.

A tattered bag 2x the size of Peter was then thrown at the boy, and he caught it with his two hands.

“Every bit of loot we find goes in that bag, is that clear?”

“Yes sir.” Peter grumbled back in response, earning him a slap.

“What did I tell you about being respectful?”

Peter didn’t say anything, yet the man broke eye contact anyway – clearly wanting to get the dungeon run over and done with as quickly as humanly possible.

The wind began picking up as the two stood before the strange doorway sat in the middle of what must have used to have been some kind of central marketplace, though like with most things related to how the world was prior to system integration, Peter was mostly clueless and so he truly had no idea what ruins he stood above now.

“Place your hand on the door, rat.” The man ordered, and Peter quickly obeyed – causing a blue panel to appear in his vision.

Dungeon:

Name: Ethyl’s Crypt

Rank: [Copper]

Type: [Slaughter]

Difficulty: [F+]

Would you like to enter?

* Party Leader has selected Yes (Entering dungeon…)

However, before Peter could properly read through the panel’s full contents, the world around him disappeared, and he suddenly found himself standing in the middle of a field of bone white grass – a crimson sky far above.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Peter was momentarily mesmerised by his surroundings, that was until he spotted that all around him a wave of skeleton warriors numbering in the hundreds were all charging towards both him and the man – their bony weapons raised high in the sky.

“Stay still, and do not even think about stealing my kills. Your work comes after these weaklings are all dead.” The man said without any hint of uncertainty or fear in his voice before his body surged forward and moved at an incredible speed away from Peter, and towards the oncoming wave of skeletons.

The man’s towering 7 ft frame crashed into the line of skeletons with a flurry of fist-based attacks, all of which sent some skeletons’ cores flying across the plains, and or caused their entire bone-built bodies to literally turn to dust.

It was only as Peter watched the man fight that the full extent of the terrifying giants power became clear to him. This dungeon and its monsters posed absolutely no threat to the man, who dispatched dozens of skeleton warriors with every skill he deigned to use, and it looked as though the man’s body hadn’t even been damaged yet.

Yet it wasn’t only the raw power infused in every one of the man’s attacks that impressed Peter, but also the incredible speed at which he seemed to move in between enemies. He would get into range of new opponents as if he were a gale of wind blowing through the bone-white plains, reaping death, and destruction wherever he went.

In mere minutes, the battle was over, and the horde of skeleton warriors was well and truly dead. Thus, as the man so elegantly put it, it was now Peter’s time to work – and that he did, for what felt like hours.

It seemed his job as a baggage slave consisted of searching for skeleton cores in the pale grass, which was like looking for a needle in a rather large stack of needles, whilst also keeping an eye out for any potential special drops given by the system on rare occasions – though it seemed the system hadn’t given any out today.

All in all, after about 3 hours of being forced to meticulously scan the entire dungeon's floor for anything and everything of potential value, Peter was struggling even to drag the bag of loot – so full of stuff was it that it must have weighed at least a few dozen kilograms.

However, remembering that his freedom was at stake if he couldn’t manage to haul the bag by himself, Peter put every last ounce of his energy and strength into pulling the bag by himself out of the newly opened exit to the dungeon.

Once outside, however, the man grabbed the bag from Peter’s hands and smirked.

“We’re back here again tomorrow, rat.” He said, before leaning in – fist raised as if he were about to punch Peter square on the jaw and then saying, “And if you’re not here before the sun, then you won’t live long enough to see the moon come up again.”

And with that death threat levelled in a sufficiently terrifying manner, the man walked off with his loot in hand – spoils he had done absolutely nothing to help collect.

Yet, Peter had not left the dungeon totally without reward – a fact that came as a surprise to him as he scanned his eyes over the many and varied system prompts.

You have gained the [F+] rank trait: Determined

Description: You have demonstrated determination in the face of physically strenuous circumstances.

Effects: +1% Max MP

You have gained the [F+] rank trait: Dungeoneer

Description: You have entered a dungeon at least once.

Effects: +1% Boost to EXP gain whilst in a dungeon.

You have gained the [Active] [General] skill: [Inferior] Detect Objects (Lvl:1)!

Description: When activated, objects within a 1mx1mx1m area are made known to you directly.

Peter could hear his heart was beating very loudly in his ears as he dismissed the various system prompts. He never imagined that his crappy working situation would produce good fruit for him, but it seemed there would be a silver lining to his hours of unpaid labour after all. He almost wondered if, at the end of the contracted period, he might look back on this whole affair and think it worth the medium amount of suffering he was undoubtedly going to endure from now on, but hurriedly rejected such a possibility - primarily because he didn't think he would ever be able to forgive the giant man for extorting him as he had.

A moist gale of wind blowing against his face brought Peter's attention back out of his thoughts and into the real world. He looked up into the sky and something just told him that it would rain soon, and that was bad news for him as he still hadn't found a new place to stay in the long-term. He'd already been strong-armed by an overbearing goliath into doing menial labour one too many times recently and that made the prospect of returning back to his old spot and being press-ganged into running for Fred a complete non-starter for him, though he doubted Fred wouldn't at least send someone to try and find him considering Peter's kerfuffle a few days ago.

In fact, a part of Peter wondered if the person who had attacked him that day was acting on behalf of Fred but then again, if the person attacking him had been sent by Fred then it made no sense that they would dump him haphazardly in a non-descript back alley after concluding the beating.

Yet, although the person attacking him being a member of Fred's gang was the only motivation that made any logical sense to Peter, he knew that it was possible that he may have been attacked by a complete stranger for an equally unknown or dumb reason. Perhaps he'd been attacked because he had been loitering for too long in a place the city guards felt he didn't belong, or perhaps he'd made a weird face whilst fantasising about gaining power, or maybe it was just that a kid from one of the higher social classes had stuck one of their thugs on him on a complete and total whim or for the kicks.

Whatever the reason, however, just as he had promised himself back when he'd first woken up in that back alley, Peter would do his best to find out the culprit and pay them back for not only the beating he'd received but also the crappy work situation that the beating had inadvertently put him in.

A raindrop landing against his skin once more interrupted his thinking, and Peter at once began running back towards the centre of the city and away from the dungeon. He didn't go too far as tomorrow he didn't want to give the man any excuses to make the situation worse for him - though, inwardly, Peter doubted the man truly needed an excuse to do as he wished to him considering the humungous divide in not only physical strength but social status that existed between them.

And, come the next day, and the one after that, and the many weeks of hard work ahead of him, he would come to know just how right his hunch was.