Ding-!

-System: The Demon King admires you.

-System: He wants to give you something. Do you agree? Yes or No.

'What are these notifications? I have never seen anything like this before.'

Sung-jin looked flabbergasted. He tried to decipher all the new information in his head, but nothing really came to his mind. He looked down to see the chest and what it had dropped, but to his surprise, nothing was there. The chest had disappeared, and the ground was empty.

'There are really no items in the chest? The only thing I got were these notifications.'

He looked up at the notifications with his hand on his cheek. To him, items didn't matter at the moment since his combat abilities were more than enough to compensate for them. But the mentioning of the Demon King greatly worried him.

'The Demon King admires me, and he wants to give me something… Could this have anything to do with my Dark Apostle title? If so, should I just say yes and take a gamble?'

He wondered for a while, and since Sung-jin already knew the history of the world he was in, he hesitated to say yes. But even though he knew that the demons were the bad guys, he couldn't help but get excited.

'This path might be interesting, so, of course.'

"Yes!"

Sung-jin made his choice without knowing what it entailed. He didn't hesitate to take this chance. All he wanted was to get stronger.

Ding-!

-System: The Demon King admires you.

-System: Player obtained the 'Demon King's Quest.'

"A quest?!"

He said with an excited voice upon reading the notifications.

'This has become rather interesting. Before I got rebirthed, I had reached the farthest in main quests, so I have pretty much done all quests there are. But this quest is a complete mystery to me.'

He bewilderedly thought to his past. But as nothing came to his mind, he then tried to open the quest menu.

"Quest menu,"

He said out loud.

-Quest(s)

Demon King's Quest (incomplete):

Information restricted until LVL 15.

'What's this? It's restricted!'

Sung-jin disappointedly read the text. But he wasn't discouraged for long when he remembered that the tutorial was done, and he could now start on a new adventure. He quickly threw his worries away about the Demon King and the quest.

"It doesn't matter! Now, let's go and clear the game!"

He exclaimed, making an excited sound that he hadn't made in a long time. He turned the opposite way from the corpse and walked toward the big blue portal.

'Uhm, I leveled up too, right?'

He took a quick look at his stats right before going through the portal.

-Status Window

Name: Sung-jin | Level: 10 | Age: 20 | Title: Dark Apostle | First Generation

Strength: 10

Vitality: 10

Agility: 50

Dexterity: 10

Intelligence: 10

Stat Points: 5

Skills:

Night Slash: Dark Type

Titles:

Dark Apostle: Lvl 1 [Exp: 1%]

[Effect: 5% exp gain]

[Effect: 10% damage gain. Dark Type skills only]

…

Kintroies, also known as the City of Beginnings, holds everything someone needs to start their adventures. Its history of being the longest-standing city in Aephioros makes this city the best option for anyone who seeks protection. Surrounded by the weakest monsters and no real threats, anyone who seeks harder challenges won't stay for long, making the city helpless under any attacks by hordes of monsters.

For the past five years, the city has seen major changes in the form of an influx of new people. When a mysterious gate in the town square opened one day, and strange people came out. The word "Player" was thrown around by the new people, so the inhabitants got accustomed to it and began to call the ones coming from the gate "Players." At first, the inhabitants were scared, but the changes these players made significantly improved the city as time went on. They protected the citizen when stronger monster attacked, they gathered materials and supplies from the dangerous forest that surrounded the city. The citizens admired these "Players" and what they did.

Coming to the present day, the players had become significant figures in society, not only in Kintroies but all over the Aephioros continent. Nine players were more noticed than the others; the Nine Pillars was their name. They were the only survivors from the first generation of players, making them the strongest in the world.

The Nine Pillars chose to keep people safe as the top priority, and they individually formed their own guilds. And now, these nine guilds were on top of the world, lending their hands to those in need.

"Blah, blah, blah,"

Sung-jin muttered to himself, closing the window with information of the city he was in. He stood in the middle of the town square in front of the blue gate, right after going through it from the other end. The square was busy as ever. He spotted many guilds trying to recruit the new players, but it seemed to be a bit of a challenge for them.

'The new players didn't know they were teleported into a new world right after fighting for their lives just a moment ago. So they are obviously shaken a bit—'

Ding-!

-System: Information about Kintroies available.

The system interrupted, reminding him of an obvious fact.

'I already know this! So, there is no reason to read a twenty-page story about the starter city!'

He angrily cursed at the system for interrupting his thoughts.

'But the information about the Nine Pillars has been added after the time I was here. So, there might be something new for me to read?'

He thought, surprised that the system updated this kind of stuff. Sung-jin hadn't been in any major city in a long time, and he spent most of his time in dungeons, so his basic knowledge was a bit outdated.

'Okay, I don't want to stay too long in the town square since somebody might try and get in contact with me.'

He quickly moved away from the center and into an alley not too far away. The alley was placed between two big buildings about one hundred meters away from the center of the square.

'I know about many places that ordinary people don't since I used to only move in the shadows as to not get noticed. And I know that there should be an underground market in this alley somewhere. I think I can find interesting things there.'

He thought he could find this underground market easily so he walked along with confident steps.

…

Sung-jin had walked for a while, searching for the market he supposedly knew was somewhere in this alley. He couldn't quite find it since he had never been there before.

'It stinks so much!'

The excited Sung-jin from before now regretted his choices. He had to maneuver around piles of garbage that had been there for God knows how long.

'I got this information from an older man in one of the major cities after rescuing his dog from a big cat. So, there must be something here.'

He pondered the legitimacy of the information as he spotted two people seemingly standing guard over a pile of trash. His intuition was good, so he decided to approach the two men.

"Hello."

He greeted them, standing suddenly before them, startling them. They stepped backward, hitting the wall. One of them hit his head on the wall, making him quite upset.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

He stepped in front of Sung-jin, yelling loudly into his face. He tried to grasp his collar, but he suddenly froze in motion.

"I'm greeting you. Wasn't I clear enough?"

Sung-jin's passive-aggressive voice answered him back, and his murderous look made both the men stop their advance and make them reconsider what they were about to do. The one in the back quickly changed the topic at hand since he knew just by his eyes alone that this wasn't a match for him.

"I'm sorry for my friend. What can we do for you?"

He grabbed the shoulder of his friend, pulling him away from Sung-jin.

"I need some good stuff."

Sung-jin agreed to move along, looking him deep in the eyes. He didn't care about what just happened, and he just wanted to get away from this alley. There wasn't really any reason to be secretive since they were the only three there. But he wanted to be completely sure and not get caught.

"Ah."

The man looked at his friend for a short moment before grabbing one of the trash piles and moving it to the side.

"I welcome you to the Underground City,"

He continued as a hole in the concrete was revealed underneath the piles of garbage. It looked like it led down to the sewer. An awful smell soon followed, even worse than the one in the alley.

'Oh, great!'

Sung-jin was already tired of this, but he got happy when he found out that there actually was something in this alley. And the information wasn’t a scam.

'I must endure this smell!'

He slowly stepped down the hole, and it didn't take long before everything went dark. The man on top had moved the trash pile back just right after Sung-jin had descended so the hole couldn't be seen.

'I guess I have to walk in the dark then… Not scary at all.'

He leaned his left hand at the wall, using it as a guide to move down the path.

…

Sung-jin walked for a while, not knowing if he had taken the right way. But then again, there was only one way, and that was straight. But he did want to see at least something living that wasn't rats.

"Oh, finally!"

He suddenly exclaimed when dim light around a corner slowly got brighter and brighter.

"I really hope this place has something of interest!"

He said as he now had a full view of the Underground City. After walking in the dark for fifteen minutes, he could now sigh a relief as the smell somehow got better the closer he got to the city.