The room was silent. Greg could feel his body shaking like a frozen rabbit caught in the sights of its predator. A cold sweat had already soaked through the back of his shirt and the beating of his heart was already twice what it should have been. If his familiar hadn’t cast a spell on him that held him in place, there was very little doubt in Greg that he would have scrambled backward on the floor before turning around and bolting out of the room as fast as his body could carry him. As things stood, this wasn’t an option for him. Instead, he was stuck in place, looking at the hand that Olivia held out to him to shake.
Greg’s hand was shaking even as it slowly rose and move towards that of the familiar. Everything within him was screaming for him not to do it. He shouldn’t take her hand, he should never touch that hand or something really bad would happen, he was certain of it. Greg’s hand came within an inch of Olivia’s before he paused, unable to bring himself to close that final gap. The familiar made no move to reach forward and take his hand. Instead, she sat quietly, with a smile playing on her lips. Despite everything inside him screaming for him not to do it, Greg gritted his teeth and at last, pushed his hand into that of the familiar.
The moment that their hands touched, all the fear that Greg felt completely vanished.
“Seventy breaths,” she said. Unlike the day before where she was smiling as she said this, this time, there was a contemplative tilt to her lips.
The moment the prompt from the system had shown up, Olivia immediately intervened and told him that they needed to finish his willpower training first. Despite his burning curiosity, Greg had complied. As someone with titles, Greg understood just how important willpower was.
This time, Olivia did things differently. Greg had expected to be put through the same kind of torture that he had gone through the previous day. Olivia, however, had surprised him by suggesting something completely different. “I’m not training you to just be particularly good at not drinking water,” She had informed him with an amused smile. “Willpower isn’t only about resisting certain impulses. It’s also about holding firm and forging ahead, despite one’s fears and doubts,” She had stated. “Yesterday’s training required you to not do something. Today’s training will be the opposite of that,” She declared. “Within a hundred breaths, I want you to shake my hand,” She had said. “The sooner, the better,” She had added.
Greg had then watched as the familiar cast two spells, one after the other. The first spell was targeted at him and the other at the room. When hit, Greg immediately realized what the spell did. In his mind, he called it the rooted-in-place spell. While Greg could easily move all his limbs, like a tree, Greg couldn’t move from the position he was currently in. When he asked about the other spell, the familiar had said that it was to ensure that no sound left the room. When he asked why the two spells were necessary, the familiar’s simple reply had been to hold out her hand to him in a greeting gesture.
The moment she did this, however, a deep and cold fear like Greg had never felt before in his life, washed over him. Greg had thought that by knowing the trick that Olivia had used the previous day to induce the terrible thirst inside him he’d be better able to fight off its effects. The last coherent thought that he'd managed to have was just how wrong he had been. A scream of pure and unadulterated fear and panic had left Greg as he tried to scramble backward and away from that terrible hand
Unlike the previous day, where she had started with a mild effect and slowly built up towards an increasingly stronger one, this time, the familiar had started at the max, or at least the max that he could handle. From the relaxed way in which she was regarding him as he screened in terror, Greg knew she could have done far worse if she so wished. Greg had been so scared that it was a wonder that he didn’t pee himself. All the money in the world wouldn’t have been enough to convince him to look at that hand, let alone shake it
Every ten breaths, the fear he was subjected to ebbed and it was only after twenty breaths of time had passed that Greg stopped screaming in terror and only shook in place. Another twenty before he could hazard opening his eyes. And another twenty before the idea of reaching forward for the hand held out to him even crossed his mind. It wasn’t until seventy breaths of time had passed that Greg could combat the still significant amount of fear that he felt enough to reach forward and clasp the familiar’s hand. As such, while Greg had once again taken seventy breaths to accomplish his willpower training, today’s result was nowhere near as good as yesterday’s.
“Stubborn but not brave,” Olivia commented after a while of thinking. “You can be quite hardy and resilient in dire circumstances when all that is required of you is to hold out,” She said. “However, when the task shifts to acting despite your fear, you are not as ready to forge ahead,” She said. The dispassionate manner in which she spoke relayed that this was an objective assessment of him and not a personal attack.
Still, Greg couldn’t help but wince at the words. A charitable interpretation of them would be cautious. The plain meaning however was that he was a coward. “But I was ready and willing to fight my uncle even though he was a tier-zero mage, “ He countered.
“You only found out that he was a tier-zero mage at the very last minute, by which time there wasn’t any other choice but to fight,” Olivia easily countered. “Would you have been as confident in facing your uncle had you known that he was a tier-zero mage right from the start?” she further asked.
Greg couldn’t help but press his lips together in a straight line. He didn’t say anything because they both already knew the answer to that question. Greg’s lips however quickly tilted into a smirk as he remembered something else. “I played with the Town-head’s wife even though he was just a few feet from me,” He said confidently.
This earned him an eye roll from Olivia. “People do stupid things all the time in pursuit of short-term pleasure,” she replied. “Do not confuse recklessness with bravery,” She stated calmly. Greg couldn’t help but deflate when he heard this. Part of him knew that she was right so he didn’t try to argue. “Look, the fact that you are not perfect in every arena doesn’t make you a failure, master. It just presents you with the opportunity to learn and grow,” She said.
There was a bit of silence as the familiar allowed him to process her words. This, however, was followed by a smile from her. “Now, let’s move on to what you are really looking forward to.
Greg couldn’t help but smile, his bitterness at being called a coward soon forgotten. “What can you tell me about the dungeons?” he asked. Greg was itching to jump into the dungeons. He, however, didn’t want to jump blindly into something he knew nothing about.
“There is one simple rule to remember no matter which dungeon you find yourself in,” She informed him. “Remember that it’s all fake, but treat it like it’s real,” She quoted with enough seriousness that Greg knew that this would be very important in his dungeon dives. “That’s as much as I can tell you about the inside of the dungeon, the rest you can find out on your own,” She stated with a cat-like smile. “Why spoil a perfectly good surprise,” She added offhandedly.
“Outside of the dungeon, however,” The familiar continued her tone once again becoming serious. “There are a few things that you need to know. One, Inside this particular dungeon, if nothing happens to you, you will experience a whole day,” She relayed. Greg’s eyes went wide and was about to give up the idea of dungeon diving altogether. Tomorrow was the day that the healer would start training him to become a mage. He had no intention of missing that, even for the dungeon dive. He was about to say as much, but Olivia held up a hand cutting him off. “I said you will experience a whole day, not spend a whole day there,” the familiar said, already seeing the issue that Greg was about to raise. “Outside of the dungeon, it’ll only take the amount of time it takes for this stick of incense to burn out,” She relayed. With a flourish of her hands, an incense stick appeared in the familiar’s hands.
Greg quietly observed the stick for a long while. The familiar knew that Greg was worried about how long he would be spending inside the dungeons, as such, she allowed him to observe the incense stick burn in silence. After five minutes of observing the thing burn, Greg estimated that it would take roughly two hours for the slow-burning incense stick to completely burn out. Meaning that, despite spending a whole day in the dungeon, only about two hours would have passed in the real world. Greg couldn’t help but sigh with relief, as his excitement for the dungeons was rekindled.
Seeing that his fears were assuaged, the familiar waved her hand and caused the incense stick to vanish. “Because of the time difference between this world and that of the dungeons, your mind, and soul will be put under strain trying to parse out the two realities,” She informed him. “Trying to squeeze the experience of a whole day into two hours is not something either your mind or soul will be able to easily handle at present. You might not understand what that means right now, but you will when you come out,” She relayed. “The best advice I can give as far as that is concerned is for you to think of the dungeon experience like some elaborate dream or game,” She relayed.
“The other thing you need to know is that, like a dream or game, nothing you do there matters, outside of how the system assesses your performance at the end of the run. If you chose to, you could kill everyone in a particular dungeon,” she relayed. “The next time you enter that dungeon, everything and everyone will be back as if nothing ever happened to them,” She stated. “Heck, you could die within the dungeon and all it’ll do is prematurely end the particular dungeon dive you are on,” She stated. “Also, nothing you do there will have any effect on the system,” She relayed. “Even if you slept with a thousand different women in the dungeon, it won’t count towards anything as far as the system is concerned, no different than if you had dreamt up the whole thing,” She said. “This explains the first half of what I told you at the start,” She explained. “Remember that it’s all fake,” She reminded him.
“At the end of the dungeon dive, whether you finish it naturally or are killed before you do, your performance will be assessed by the system. There are five possible assessments that you can get. From best to worst they are, perfect, praiseworthy, passable, poor, and finally, putrid!” She relayed. “This is why the second part of my advice is to treat the dungeon experience like it’s real. The assessment you gain from the system for your performance within the dungeon will determine what rewards you get,” She said. “Perform poorly and you gain dismal rewards from the system. Perform well and you’ll love what you get from the system,” She relayed.
As someone from Earth who enjoyed gaming quite a bit, Greg could easily understand the concept behind the dungeon. A fake world where you could either live or die based on your choices is the concept behind almost every game out there. From what the familiar was saying, the dungeons would just be a deep-immersion VR version of a game. He, however, could understand why the familiar would feel the need to explain the dungeons to someone like Roka who’d probably never experienced any such thing. He didn’t interrupt on the off chance that there was some key information that she could give that Greg wasn’t aware of. Other than the toll that the dungeon dives would take on his mind and soul, Greg didn’t see much difference between the dungeons and simple gaming. Back on earth, concepts like mind and soul would just be figures of speech. In this world, however, Greg knew that they were very real entities that mattered. Until his mind and soul were used to it, he’d have to dungeon dive sparingly.
A smile crossed Olivia’s lips as she said. “See you on the other end.”
Greg couldn’t help the smile that crossed his own lips as he accessed his system and moved to the DUNGEONS section. Under the OWNED DUNGEONS tab, there was only one dungeon available. ‘A Dinner Party' was the only dungeon Greg could access thus far and so, without hesitation, he clicked on it.
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As soon as he did, clouds seemed to emerge from nothing and completely obscure his vision. Before Greg could make sense of what was happening, he found himself standing on clouds looking at a large sprawling city.
WELCOME TRAVELLER, TO THE CITY OF TORRIN!
A CITY OF DREAMS AND OPPORTUNITY.
THE MAYOR, SIR ROTHAM IS HOLDING A DINNER PARTY TONIGHT.
YOUR OBJECTIVE IS TO ENSURE THAT YOU ATTEND THIS PARTY!
GOOD LUCK!
Rules of the dungeon.
1) Only innate abilities can be carried over from the real world.
2) No system shop, except at the beginning.
3) Leaving the limits of the dungeon leads to automatic disqualification.
4) Failure to achieve the goal within the time limit leads to disqualification.
5) Injuries do not carry over to the next dungeon trial.
6) Relationships do not carry over to the next dungeon trial.
NO DUNGEON SHOP COINS DETECTED.
ACCESS TO DUNGEON SHOP DENIED.
BEGINNING DUNGEON TRIAL…
Given that the system was connected to him at the level of the soul, it knew the moment Greg read the last prompt. Greg’s first instinct was to panic when he found himself falling through the clouds on which he’d been standing. He, however, quickly remembered that none of this was real, and so he relaxed and watched as the city grew closer and closer. It didn’t take long for Greg to figure out that, based on his trajectory, he wouldn’t be falling inside the city limits. Instead, from what he could see, he’d be landing just outside the city’s southern gate.
There was a long line of people outside the southern city gate waiting to get in. Greg’s eyes went wide with some trepidation when he noted that he was about to land on a young man about his age. Was the system planning to have him start off the dungeon by killing someone? Was that part of the challenge? Figuring out a way to attend the mayor’s dinner party despite being a murder fugitive? These were the thoughts that were going through Greg’s head when he landed on and sank into the young man.
It took a second for it to register in Greg’s mind that he hadn’t actually killed the young man. Rather than kill him, he had become him. Despite all the momentum of falling from the clouds, there wasn’t even a slight bending of knees by this new body that he occupied. It was as if he had been inside this body all along. Greg looked around at the people behind him and before him in the line. Greg couldn’t help the surprise he felt at noting that everything and everyone here was real. Of course, he hadn’t expected to find himself in a 3D rendering of reality. He, however, also hadn’t been prepared for how real the people in the dungeons were. Other than his memories of being in his room in a town nowhere near this city less than three minutes before, there was nothing in this world that would have given away that this wasn’t a real world, from the people to the animals to the wagons they pulled to even the very dust in the air. Everything was perfectly real. After seeing the strange animals back in his actual town, Greg wasn’t as surprised about the strange animals pulling the carts. Still, he was slightly curious to study the large beetle-like creatures that were the size of small armored cars.
“Stop holding up the line!” A strong, but gruff voice reached Greg’s ears. Greg, who only now noticed that he had come to the front of the line, was forced to turn his attention to the one that had spoken. Before him, stood a man in full-plate armor and a sword hanging by his side. Greg had long since accepted the fact that he was no longer in his old world. However, there were moments, like this one, where he became even more acutely aware of this fact. Of course, there had been a time back on Earth when people wore armor like this. But in the twenty-first century, outside of a renaissance fair, where would one find someone unironically wearing full-plate armor?
After a moment of hesitation, Greg took a step forward and approached the man that had spoken.
“Place your hand on the orb,” The man instructed in the bored tone of someone that had spoken the same words a thousand times over. Greg looked down at the blue orb with some curiosity. The thing looked like it had been cut out of sapphire given the mesmerizing blue hue it gave off. The thing was a perfect sphere and so smooth that Greg almost couldn’t believe that a machine wasn’t responsible for making this. “Do we have a problem?” Greg could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as he heard the threat in the armored man’s voice, Greg knew that if he kept delaying, things would turn very ugly very quickly.
Without saying anything, Greg placed his hand on the orb. For a second, nothing happened, the blue orb then turned a pure, snow-white. The man eyes the orb calmly before continuing. “Have you broken any of the kingdom’s laws?” he asked.
Greg had no idea what Kingdom this man was talking about. Something, however, told him that the man wouldn’t believe him if he said as much and things would turn ugly from there. As such, without any hesitation, he answered the man. “No.”
There was a bit of a pause as the man looked at the now white orb Greg had his hand on. It was clear that he was looking to see if there was any reaction from it. When nothing happened, he continued. “Are you a fugitive from any of the territories within the kingdom?” He asked.
“No,” Greg replied simply.
Again, the man looked at the orb. When the orb remained white, he seemed to relax a bit. Greg got the impression that if he had turned out to have broken any of the kingdom’s laws or had been a fugitive from any of the kingdom’s territories, this man would have been the one to deal with him. “Do you have any luggage with you?” the man asked. Despite having relaxed a bit, the man’s voice was still a bit hard and demanding.
“Nothing but the clothes on my back,” Greg answered with a smile.
Greg didn’t miss the disdain that settled on the man’s face as he regarded him. “And what brings you to Torrin?” the man asked. While his tone of voice hadn’t been that friendly, to begin with, it had become decidedly colder after finding out that he didn’t have anything.
“I’ve heard that Torrin is the city of dreams and opportunity,” Greg replied. “I’m here to find my own,” He went on to say. “Who knows, I may even be dining with the mayor by the end of the day,” he added with a smile.
Greg didn’t know when the gauntleted fist connected with his stomach. One second, he was smiling at the guard, the next, he was on all fours struggling to breathe. It was a good thing the body was yet to eat anything, otherwise, it would probably be on the dirt before him. “Know your fucking place,” The man growled above him. “If I find you anywhere near the noble district, I’ll take your head off on the spot!” He warned. “Welcome to Torrin!” He spat, both the words and literally.
From the clouds, Greg had gotten a cursory view of the layout of the city. Much like the town Roka was from, the more opulent section of the city was right at the center. Whereas the poorer members of society were relegated to the outermost parts of the city. Unlike his hometown where everyone could find enough logs to make a decent home, however, the houses in the poorer districts were small and cramped compared to those that Greg saw in the inner districts. Some of them were little more than shacks that were about to fall over at any moment.
As Greg stood there, a few feet away from the gate he’d just walked through, the challenge of this dungeon was becoming all too clear in his mind. Here he was, a nobody that had just walked into a city he didn’t know, with no money, no connections, and no idea where to start. And yet, somehow, by the end of the day, he was supposed to attend the mayor’s dinner party. Greg was almost certain that it’d be suicide to try and sneak into the party. He needed to find a way to legitimately be there. A feat that if not impossible, came pretty close to it.
With no idea where to start, Greg could only sigh as he let his growling stomach be his first guide. He needed to find something to eat. It took a bit of asking around, but eventually, Greg was pointed toward a tavern where he could get a fresh meal for a few coins. Greg tried to find out more about the coins and denominations, the man he was asking, however, gave him an odd look then turned and walked away muttering about kids wasting his time. Despite his lack of money and knowledge about the units employed in this dungeon, Greg still walked towards the place he’d been told the inn would be at.
Just as he was turning the last corner of to get to the inn, Something slammed into him causing him to fall over on his back. The wind was knocked out of him and Greg found himself gasping for breath even as a weight pressed down upon him. When there were no more spots of light in his vision and Greg could draw in some air he turned down to find long blond locks of hair spread across his chest. Looking further down, Greg noted that it was a young woman, about his age, that had rammed into him. Propping himself up on his elbows, Greg was about to reach out and try to shake the girl awake. She, however, seemed to come to at just that moment. There was a few seconds of confusion as she looked about herself trying to get her bearings.
When she finally looked up at him, Greg tried to offer an amiable smile. While being tackled into the ground wasn’t the best of experiences, if he could get someone more familiar with the city to show him around in exchange, it would be a worthwhile trade. His attempt to be friendly, however, seemed to fail miserably as the girl’s eyes went wide with fear and she scrambled, trying to get to her feet as quickly as possible. Was his smile really that bad?
Wait,” Greg tried to call out to her.
She, however, didn’t even pause as she stood up and took a few quick steps past him. From the looks of it, she would have shot off running once again if not for the large hairy arm that forcefully grabbed her upper right arm.
“Got ya, ya little thievin' bitch!” A heavily accented male voice resounded. A large, barrel-chested man was now holding tightly to the woman that had run into Greg. It now clicked in Greg’s mind that the woman had probably run into him because she was trying to run away from this man. Her attempt to get up as quickly as possible, and run away probably also had to do with the man and not his smile. “Where is it? Huh? Where’d ya hide it ya thief!” The man demanded even as his hands roamed all over her body. There was no modesty in any of his actions. The man clearly didn’t care that she was a woman. Vague notions like chastity or her honor were the farthest thing from his mind at that moment.
By the time Greg had regained enough presence of mind to rise to his feet, five more men had appeared and were circling the woman. Greg would have intervened, a few details, however, stood out to Greg that made him wisely keep his mouth shut. Each of the six men had a tattoo of a spider under their left eye which told Greg that they almost certainly belonged to some kind of gang. And by the way the people around were giving the group a wide berth, Greg could tell that they were bad news. The kukri-like blades they all had attached to their belts, only further reinforced this impression.
“Don’t touch me you fucking pig!” the woman uselessly tried to struggle out of the man’s grip with very little success. “Help!” She screamed. “Help me!”
Unfortunately for the woman, even the people on the other side of the street were turning their heads to look away, clearly wanting nothing to do with whatever was going on there.
“Give us the gem ya daft cunt, and maybe ya guts get ta stay on the inside!” one of the men had drawn the blade at his side and now had it painfully pressed against the woman’s abdomen.
Greg turned around, smiled to himself, and started to walk away. “The old ‘damsel in distress' trope,” He muttered to himself with an eye roll. “Could you get any more stereotypical than that,” He continued in amusement. Did the system expect him to pit himself against six armed men with no form of combat training and no weapon to boot? “Fat chance!” he added with a snort. He wasn’t some knight in shining armor looking to throw his life away.
Greg may have been able to beat his uncle. He, however, wasn’t deluded about his abilities. He hadn’t engaged his uncle in straightforward combat. Instead, he had overwhelmed the man with numbers and tried to blow him up to kingdom come. And even then, that hadn’t worked. If Greg hadn’t taken advantage of his weakest moment, then chances were he would have lost that fight. Unlike in the real world, however, inside the dungeons, Greg didn’t have access to either one of his shops and as such couldn’t overwhelm any of his enemies with magical items. Inside the dungeons, his ability to fight would be the sole determiner of whether he came out on top in a fight or not. And given the fact that Greg knew next to nothing about actual fighting and the fact that he would be going up against sixth men, it didn’t take a genius to figure out how this would end.
Greg placed his hands in his pockets and was about to start whistling a simple tune from back on Earth. Greg, however, was stopped short when he felt something hard inside his pocket that hadn’t been there before. Without thinking, Greg grabbed the thing and pulled it out to see what it was. His eyes went wide as saucers when out of his pocket, Greg pulled out a red gem the size of a pigeon egg. Two things immediately clicked in Greg’s mind. One, this thing had to be worth a crap ton of money. And two, this was probably the gem that the six armed men were looking for!
The girl must have known that she’d be caught and so had taken advantage of the chance that running into him had presented to her. How Greg didn’t notice a gem so large being placed in his pocket, he didn’t know. One thing was for sure though, whether willing or not, the young woman had just made him her accomplice. Greg doubted that the six gruff men were the kind to listen to explanations.
Immediately, Greg clenched his hand into a tight fist to ensure that no one caught sight of the gem. With his heart hammering in his chest, Greg tried to be as natural as possible as he brought his clenched hand back into his pocket. It was purely a stroke of luck that Greg had been walking away from the group and thus had his back to them. This prevented the men from noticing what he had pulled out of his pocket. Greg, however, wasn’t as lucky in his attempt to put it back in.
“Hey! What’s that in your hand?” Greg heard one of the men call out to him.
“Shit!”
Without even turning back to see which of the six men had called out to him, Greg shot out in the fastest run of his life…