I

The inside of the dungeon was a narrow, dark cave filled with webbing that made traversal difficult. The damp smell of mold hung in the air. Instead of using light to see, Eva chose to Infuse★ her shortsword with fire to both light her surroundings and set the spider webbing alight. Burning the spider webs sped up her pace a little, but it was still slow going.

The dungeon layout was in the same vein as the other dungeons she’d been in--the small cave opened into a larger room with a small number of spiders inside. They were level 15--a significant increase over what she had seen in the Tutorial. The information the tailless had said turned out to be true. It would be more difficult, but it was probably within her ability to conquer on her own.

With the hate filled strategy of burning the place to the ground, Eva made her way through the normal part of the dungeon. The boss room was slightly larger than the other rooms had been, but it still fit with the same theme. The boss itself was a larger version of the spiders she’d already seen--just five levels higher--and it died to a single Fireball★. She would have to learn its attack patterns at some point, but Basic▲ was not the time. She wanted to see its skills as well, and, as it only had one, she would rather wait until Adept✶ to figure out the fight and prepare for Master✷.

The biggest surprise from Basic▲ was that there were Novice Shard✦ drops in addition to the Basic▲ ones she expected. Eva suspected this was due to the monster level, but it was yet another thing she’d neglected to ask Sun about when she’d had the chance.

II

Eva popped in and out of the dungeon over the next several hours. The increase in monster level as the tiers went up was exactly the same as in the Tutorial, with each adding five levels.This meant that when she entered Master✷ five hours after starting her conquest, the minions were level 35 and the boss was level 40. By the time Eva had cleared the trash mobs and arrived at the boss, she had enough experience to increase each of her Stats several times. She gained no levels from it, but the higher Stats made her feel better going into the fight since she had no more Health Potions left, mostly for lacking a good liquid to use as the base.

The boss room was significantly different than the previous difficulties had been. There were webbed corpses--she checked--tucked into the corners by the entrance. The boss room was outside on a rocky surface in a narrow chasm only twenty feet across and twice as long with spider webs narrowing the safe fighting space farther. Waiting for Eva in the middle of the room was an enormous spider that barely fit in the non-webbed area of the room. It was easily ten feet wide and at least fifteen feet tall with a long stinger coming out of its butt.

Eva smiled and readied a Fireball★. It would be a tough fight, but she would be damned if she wasn’t going to enjoy roasting the disgusting spider in front of her. She took a deep breath and stepped out into the open area. Immediately, the gigantic spider lowered its head and glared at her. She felt a shiver of fear rise up her spine while a sense of being trapped with a monster floated through her mind. Then she remembered that she was the one in control here--she was the one with the Fireball★, not the spider. The Skill sailed through the air before it impacted the spider, eliciting a deafening scream of pain. The fight was officially on.

In a few quick exchanges with the boss, she guessed that, despite the ten level difference, its Stats were roughly comparable to hers. That was the good news. The bad news was that the tier difference meant she hit with the force of a wet noodle, and it could soak up plenty of damage, while a scratch on her end would be much more effective against her--and she was all out of healing. The only saving grace was that the monster seemed to still be vulnerable to fire, which would give Fireball★ a nice workout throughout the fight.

Eva steadied herself once she had a game plan in mind. She readied another Fireball★ and tossed it at the boss, who shot flaming web at her--set alight by her own Fireball★--that she had to dive to the ground to avoid. Despite the near miss, she kept up her barrage of Fireballs★ while trying to leave herself as much room as possible to avoid any counterattacks by the giant spider.

The boss threw several Skills at her--from summoning smaller spiders to harass her to attempting to Pierce her with its stinger--but the most dangerous aspect was its size in relation to the battlefield. Eva had to Dodge★ through its legs every minute or two just to have enough room to continue fighting, avoiding several legs that were trying to Step on her in the process.

Eva drained her Mana reserves quickly with each successive Fireball★ she threw at the monster. Each impact filled her with joy; each lungful of spider smoke caused her smile to grow ever wider. Though the fight took a fairly long time and was rather painful, she finally got the confirmation that she had killed the monster and gained control of the dungeon. She collected the shards that were the boss reward and took a look at another System notification that had appeared as soon as she had exited the dungeon.

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Choose a dungeon to enter:

Spider Cave✦

World Dungeon✹

She backed away from the entrance to collect her thoughts before jumping into something that might outright kill her if she attempted it. Eva wouldn’t back down from the challenge, of course, but she wanted to brew a few potions and set up the permissions for the dungeon before she checked out the World Dungeon✹.

“Can’t handle the dungeon?” one of the tailless mocked her. “You look like a scared monkey!”

“Huh?” she answered, deep in the dungeon ownership menus.

“Scared of the big bad spider? I told you that it wasn’t going to be that eas--!”

“Oh, I already finished,” she said. “Just figuring out what the toll should be and who should be allowed. Let’s see… humans are free… tailless are 50% of collected shards and banned from accessing the World Dungeon✹. That sounds about right.”

Eva looked up at the alien, who now looked like it was rather constipated. She smiled, knowing her work was done.

“I’ll be back later,” she said as soon as she saved the dungeon settings.

III

The sun was just dipping below the horizon when Eva came across what she had been looking for: fresh water. The stream wasn’t that large, but it was enough for her purposes. She filled her cauldron with water and began the process of randomly creating potions.

Every random potion she created that was not a Health Potion of some kind got tossed into the stream again. This had some rather interesting results every now and then, like when she dumped a Fire Potion and the stream burst into flames! When she finally created a good Health Potion★, she proceeded to bottle it up with the remaining bottles she had leftover from the Tutorial and from passing them out in the morning.

Just fishing the bottles out of her backpack turned into an enormous pain in the ass since the rocks she’d stored to fight with on occasion were still taking up room, and dumping everything out would make a mess of what she did have. By Fireball★ light, Eva sorted the contents of her backpack and stored all the goodies she still had along with most of the new potions.

The only thing left to do, now that it was night time, was to figure out what she was going to do--spend the night where she was or return to the dungeon entrance and take a peek in there to see if resting inside might be better. Although the Earth she had returned to was different, she still felt safer where she was. Even if every animal--and even some of the plants--had turned into monsters or something, she wasn’t terribly afraid of them and decided to build a fire by the stream and spend the night there.

IV

In the morning, Eva awoke to see the fire she’d set reduced to coals. A light dew blanketed every exposed surface--herself included, although the fire had driven away the moisture on one side of her body. She got up and brushed off what water she could before turning around and walking back towards the dungeon.

Along the way, she tried various plants she had never encountered before along with several she had in the hopes that they wouldn’t be poisonous and also that they would fill her stomach a little. Although Eva didn’t need as much food as she had before the System came, she still needed to eat something. Fighting on an empty stomach was just a bad idea.

Eventually, Eva arrived at the dungeon entrance with a mostly full stomach and a few new poison immunities. Several humans and a tailless were congregating around the dungeon, no doubt about to run the dungeon. Even losing 50% of the shards they found, the tailless would still be able to gain experience. They could cheese the fees if they brought humans in to kill the monsters, but that also meant that humans would be getting stronger at the same time--another benefit.

She approached the dungeon entrance as soon as the party of humans and tailless entered. She selected the World Dungeon✹ option and walked into the dungeon. Unlike the spider dungeon, the World Dungeon✹ looked much like an open field. Next to her was a pillar of crystal about fifteen feet high. Touching it gave her the option of returning to Earth or delving into the spider dungeon. She nodded in understanding and checked her surroundings more carefully. It was a dungeon after all.

Undulating fields of grass spread out in every direction. In the far distance on one side, Eva saw a line of trees--the only thing that stood out from her vantage point. Even climbing up on top of the pillar did not reveal anything else that she hadn’t already seen. There were no other pillars within view, nor were there monsters, aliens, or humans either. There was no sun in the sky, yet the dungeon was lit as if it was noon. Puffy clouds lazily drifted with the barely perceptible breeze. Eva decided to go in the direction of the trees as that was the only thing that stood out as different.

Although she had managed to pack away some food and water from the walk over in the morning, she foraged through the field as she went. That she didn’t encounter any monsters during the ten mile hike to the edge of the forest was a little disconcerting. Still, she continued on into the forest until she found a tree that was tall and thick enough that she could climb to get a better view.

From the top of the tree, she looked back and saw the field stretching out as far as she could see--easily 25 miles. Eva could see the pillar she’d come from, and still could not see any other pillars or other structures that might denote there being a dungeon. Likewise, the forest seemed to go on forever. Unlike the field, she was able to spot a few birds flying around--whether those were animals or monsters, she wasn’t sure. Additionally, she spotted a few breaks in the tree cover that would be worth checking out. She climbed down from her perch in the tree and began to walk towards the closest clearing.