Aegis – Within a house at Safe Zone 52

Within a relatively quiet room – if one were to ignore the gentle laughter echoing throughout it – sit three young adults. The room is furnished with furniture purchased from the Buy submenu, with four comfortable chairs, one long couch, one long table, and several random decorations assorted on the walls, including various wall-hung trophies awarded by the System for completing dungeons. Meanwhile, the trophies themselves consist of the name of whichever dungeon said trophy came from, along with the head of whatever the boss monster was for that dungeon.

Aidan – who is leaning back on a leather chair near the entrance to the room – chuckles as he watches the screen in front of him showing Wolf casually sitting at the bar on floor forty-five of the Administrator Dungeon. At the same time, Lexi and Katie both sit on chairs across the room from him, also with a screen opened up in front of them.

“Watching Wolf going through that dungeon sometimes makes me wonder if we should even be worried about him,” Aidan says, his chuckling dying down a little bit.

Lexi doesn’t look away from the screen as she mutters, “Yeah.”

The room falls silent again for several seconds before Katie looks at Aidan and asks, “Hey, did you ever go out drinking with Wolf? Before the Initialization, of course.”

“Hmm?” Aidan mutters, turning his attention fully away from the screen to look at Katie, “Yes, actually. But only once.”

Katy’s eyes widen at his answer before she crosses her arms and asks, “Really? Would you tell me about it?”

Aidan’s eyes flick over towards Lexi as she continues staring at the screen in front of her, only faintly nodding to let him know that she is listening, before he turns back to look at Katie again as he says, “Well, as you know, Wolf isn’t a very big drinker. Something about it dulling his senses and taking away his situational awareness. But even with that, he still went drinking with me and another friend of ours one night.”

Both of the girls quietly listen to his words as they continue to watch Wolf calmly drink a reddish-blue beverage whilst ignoring the occasional scorpion brawl going on around him.

“William, Wolf, and I all spent the night at my place and had a few drinks.” Aidan continues, his eyes returning to the screen as a small smile begins to stretch across his face at the memory. “It happened right after we graduated from high school, and the only reason Wolf came was because it was a sort of sendoff for me, since I was going to a military academy that was out-of-state.”

“Wait,” Katie interrupts, turning her attention away from the screen to ask, “William? Was he the chubby guy that came over to my house with Wolf a few times over the past few years?”

Aidan chuckles at her description of the man before nodding, “Yep, that was probably him. He was a rather cheery guy, and he could talk up a storm when in the mood. But the man never really cared about his appearance, so he never bothered trying to lose the weight.”

A light smile graces Lexi’s lips as she listens in, still not taking her eyes off of the screen.

“Anyways,” Aidan continues, shaking his head slightly, “while both William and I got drunk enough to damn near pass out, Wolf only ended up drinking two beers and was still perfectly sober when he decided to call it a night.”

“I think I might remember something about this, actually,” Katie mutters, “something about him staying the night at a friend’s house the day after his graduation ceremony.”

“Yep,” Aidan confirms, reaching his arm out to grab a glass of water that was sitting on the long table in front of him before frowning, “although it makes me wonder how William is doing right now.”

“If he is even still alive,” Lexi suddenly mutters from the side, toppling the mood in an instant within the room.

The other two look at her for a second before slowly nodding their heads in agreement as they watch Lexi with obvious concern on their faces.

‘I wish Wolf would talk to her more,’ Katie thinks to herself with a sigh, ‘I doubt it would fix everything, but it might at least make her feel better about Wolf’s changes…’

Aidan opens his mouth to speak, only to close it again as he sees Katie subtly shaking her head. He then sighs and turns his focus to the screen in front of him. However, before he is even able to watch it for a full two seconds, the door to the room they are in bursts open, and Luke enters with a frown on his face.

Lexi finally looks away from the screen with a frown as Aidan gets up from the chair he was on to face him.

“What’s going on, dad?” Katie asks, a serious look on her face as she closes out of the screen in front of her.

“The Abyss faction has made their first move on us,” Luke begins, looking between the three, “they have somehow summoned a dungeon right in the middle of the barren planes outside of the safe zone. And a high level one at that.”

Wolf

As soon as the flash of green light fades, I find myself once again in the entrance hall to an arena. This arena – however – looks slightly different from all of the arenas prior to now. This one looks to be about twice as big as the previous ones, and with a much louder crowd judging by the volume of the noise coming from the arena. The hall itself is made up of some sort of blue sand this time, and the sand seems to be giving off some… strange sensations. Kind of like its warping my balance somehow.

I ignore the blue sand for a second before approaching the guardians and stopping only after seeing the differences in the message that appears in between them from the previous messages on the past floors, along with the System Favor note at the end.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Welcome to the Arena theme’s second arc!

If you break any of the following rules, the guardians will be forced to deal with you:

Do not attack any members of the arena audiences, whether they be monsters or Competitors Speak with a guardian to sign up for a challenge Wait for your turn, and you will be placed into the arena for your challenges

Competitors are allowed to leave the arenas but be warned that the monsters outside of the arena are all incredibly powerful.

There are teleporters that lead from one arena to another, and to unlock access to them, one must complete the default arena challenge.

To unlock the exit to the next floor, a Competitor must complete the six-star ranked challenge in one of the arenas.

The teleporter behind you will send you to the arena hub, where you will be able to go to any specific arena that you have cleared the default challenge of before.

System Favor: The second arc uses unique types of sand that are found only on rare planets as the foundations for the arenas. These types of sand are meant as an additional challenge within the arena.

The type of sand used on this floor is a special type of gravity bending sand. This sand releases waves into the air around it that bend the gravity in random – but limited – ways.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Gravity bending… sand?

That’s just… strange. But I guess I’ve seen stranger within the dungeon, so whatever.

Besides, I’m used to the dungeon throwing new wrenches into the works of each floor.

I glance down at the sand for a second, still slightly unbalanced from the effects of the sand, before making my way through the message into the large arena.

It does make me wonder what type of sand will be on the fiftieth floor. Especially considering that it’s supposed to be a sponsorship floor.

A small smile comes to my lips at the thought before I hesitate as a completely new set of monsters filling the stadium bleachers enters my vision the second I step out of the tunnel.

Okay, so the sand isn’t the only new addition then.