In the end, convincing Cedric and the others to go to the dungeon had been no trouble at all. In fact, Daven had jumped at the opportunity to prove himself after last time—though he’d winced at his own raised voice—and Diana seemed on board as well.

Valerian had gone along with it with a simple noncommittal shrug, and Cedric himself didn’t last past the second batting of eyelashes by Lanna, even if the barmaid seemed more embarrassed than him by the end of it. Alex planted the suggestions just as Lanna had brought their late breakfast, so the whole conversation had seemed natural.

After eating, they’d taken to the road at a relaxed pace, and this time Cedric brought them all the way to the official start of the dungeon. Though the dome of the dungeon allowed access at any point, the trees leading to the entrance made a sort of funnel to this one spot where a big wooden plaque was staked to the ground like a road sign. The whole place looked like the entrance to an open-air museum more than anything.

“Come here,” Cedric called, leading them near the plaque. The face of it was tilted upwards at a slight angle, and a thick layer of dust and fallen leaves had settled over it. He wiped it off with the back of his hand. “Daven, tell me what you see.”

“Oh, oh, I know this,” Daven said, crouching before the plaque. The archer had sweated off the hangover in the first hour of the walk and was back to his usual level of energy. “It’s those ratings you showed us a couple of weeks ago.” He squinted down at the writing, using his cloak to wipe the plaque some more. “Uh, yeah, I see now why you didn’t let us go into that other dungeon. Sovereign’s big hanging man-tits, but this dungeon is weak in comparison.”

Cedric laughed. “I told you, didn’t I?”

Alex approached as well, curious. There was nothing special to the plaque beyond the words and numbers set in relief.

Dungeon 0014239

0-1-1-0-0-1-0

He frowned. “What does it mean?”

Cedric raised an eyebrow toward Daven. “Go on, this is on you.”

“Aside from the identifier, the numbers are the AMORTEM rating the CCC gave to this dungeon,” Daven said. He put his thumb against the first zero on the bottom row and started, “Access, Monsters, Oreum, Record, Terrain, Environment, and Mental. All rated zero to ten.” The way he spoke, he sounded just like Diana explaining her Siren. Then he gave the plaque a dismissive flick, and the spell around his words broke as he laughed. “Basically, this dungeon is trash.”

Alex looked down at the different numbers. With the way it came up almost every time a dungeon or chasing in general was brought up, it was past time Alex learned what the CCC was. At the same time, with how ubiquitous it was, he couldn’t just reveal his ignorance of it. So he chose to stay on the safe side of what a hopeful would ask.

“Uh, I suppose I can rationalize most of them, pretty much,” he said. “But what does Oreum mean?”

“It’s an old term for treasure or riches,” Valerian explained from the side.

Daven’s smile grew wide. “Loot,” he said. “First-blessed loot!”

“Don’t get too excited,” Cedric said, patting the archer on the back. “I didn’t find any in my last run, and we sure as shit looked for it.”

“Well it does say it’s possible, doesn’t it?” Daven said, crossing his arms in denial.

Cedric shook his head. “You won’t find a zero-rated dungeon when it comes to Oreum,” he said. “As weak as they may be, they’ll have an Enhanced or two starting on the third stage that drops something. It’s just that monsters in the first two stages—the ones you need to clean up for a basic pruning—don’t usually drop any loot in most dungeons. This one is no exception, unfortunately.”

An Enhanced? Some kind of a special monster, sounded like. Alex pursed his lips. The quest said he only needed to prune the dungeon, no more no less. He would worry about Enhanced monsters when the time came.

“Gah!” The archer snapped and rose to his feet in a jolt. “What’s with all the joy killing going on? Let a man dream, damn it.”

Diana made a mocking face. “There, there, little brother,” she said with an obnoxious level of affection. “We’ll get you a toy with the peddle later.”

“You’re just upset ‘cause I got to keep the bed even after losing,” he said, blue eyes dancing with mirth.

“I let you have it so you didn’t spend all of today complaining about it,” she said, putting her nose up in the air.

“Alright,” Cedric said, waving a hand in the air. “Enough wasting time. Let’s get this done. Remember the rules. Stay together. Eyes open. Follow your leader’s lead. And don’t fuck up.”

They moved further down the trees until they stopped in front of the shimmering dome of the dungeon. Cedric stood at the front, his bronze-bladed spear in hand. Alex and the siblings slid in behind him, while Valerian took the rear. The paladin had come down from his room just before they left the village with a short sword strapped to his waist to go with his shield. He had yet to take the sword out of its sheath, even though Daven had bothered him about it the whole morning.

“One more thing,” Alex said just before they stepped inside. “What about Record? What does it mean?”

“That's easy,” Cedric said. “It’s to do with how many have died in the dungeon.”

“Oh,” Alex said. That was promising for his quest. “So no one’s ever died here?”

The crew leader snorted. “Oh I’m sure a farm boy or a lone hopeful have, coming here as a dare or to prove themselves. But the Record only counts for licensed Chasers. They’re the only ones the Company can keep track of if they die or go missing.”

xx

The sun was not yet at its highest point in a blue sky only speckled with clouds. Sunlight filtered through trees in the dungeon, and a light breeze blew around them. Had they not walked through the dome and straight into the earsplitting screech of a Killer Sloth, it would have made for a pleasant day.

“Nice welcome party,” Cedric said, grinning. Like him, Valerian showed no signs of suffering under the monster’s scream.

Daven tried to open his mouth to say something along those lines, but his teeth were gritted so hard he barely managed to mutter something.

HP: 59.5/60

MP: 130/130

Keeping his HP bar at the corner of his eye, Alex looked around the tree tops for the familiar monster, fighting through the pins and needles poking at his head. He found it soon enough. On the tallest arm of an unnaturally tall oak a few feet away from them—so close to the entrance the tree’s branches brushed against the dome—a man-sized sloth had its head thrown back as it cried out. The beast had the same brown fur and white head as the one he’d fought earlier.

And who could forget those talons? The Killer Sloth held on to the tree trunk with a single nail impaled into the wood nearly to the finger. Lovely little things they are.

[Killer Sloth lvl 2] (Frenzied)

Of course. Are they always frenzied or something? That had scared him the last time he faced the same monster. Now… now all he felt was excitement. He felt it creep up his arms, across his chest. His skin was prickly with it. It was EXP time.

Then again, today he had something better in mind that a stick of wood to use against the sloth.

Before he could make the first move, a blade of solid air zipped past his head, soaring toward the tree tops. With its head turned up, the sloth didn’t notice Diana’s trace until it’d nicked its arm as it flew by. The shrill screech stopped immediately, and its beady black eyes turned down to stare at them

Alex looked to the source of the magic. Diana stood before the crew, her arms up in a stance. Another blade was already forming between them. She gave him a smirk when she noticed him looking.

Oh fuck no. Warmth climbed Alex’s arm until fire bloomed on his hand, then it quickly formed into an arrow. And he fully intended to use a living target practice this time. The Killer Sloth wasn’t nearly as cute as Lanna to convince him otherwise.

When Alex turned his eyes to the monster, the thing was already moving. It jumped down the branches like a monkey. When Diana released another blade of air toward the sloth, he didn’t do anything, just waited.

He knew the beast. It wasn’t as foolish as the wild boar to charge recklessly. Before the compressed air could strike it, the sloth planted its steel-like claws on the trunk and swung around it. The blade hit the side of the tree, biting into the bark. But no cake.

When he heard Daven unsling his bow from his shoulder, the string already in place and ready, he waited. By whatever trick of the trade, the archer managed not to damage the string with the jostle of the road, and his first arrow flew just a second later.

Again, the sloth danced around the shot, raking its claws on a higher branch so his descent slowed just enough to avoid being tagged. The arrow flew aimlessly between the boughs, and Daven cursed.

Through another air blade and two more arrows, Alex waited. The Killer Sloth dodged and swung around each attack, sometimes even flinging itself up again to avoid being hit. Yes, he knew how good the beast was jumping around among the branches. Up there was its domain, its playground. But he also knew when it was the most vulnerable.

“Here it comes,” he heard Cedric mutter under his breath.

Alex grinned. The sloth landed on a low branch with a heavy thud, howled out a screech, and launched again. He waited for the last possible moment, a stretch of second where you couldn’t know whether the beast was aiming at another branch below, or at them. But to someone who’d seen it before, like he believed Cedric had, it was a completely telegraphed move.

The fire arrow took the beast straight in the chest. Flesh parted before fire made solid, and the sloth howled even as it fell down. Alex saw his fire arrow dispersing in the air, leaving behind a cauterized wound in its place. Not a second later one of Daven’s arrows found its mark on the sloth’s shoulder, and Diana’s air blade cut into its thigh.

The Killer Sloth hit the ground already dead. Soon, it was dust.

Daven whooped, a fist pumping in the air. “Fuck yeah!”

Diana was more subdued, but she smiled as well, nodding Alex’s way.

However, it seemed not everyone thought their first kill was a success. Valerian was shaking his head, huge arms crossed around his middle.

Cedric’s cough stopped any further cheering. “Alright, well… this was a great example of what not to do in a dungeon,” he said, almost laughing. “It’s so bad that I’m glad it happened here, even if this will be an easy run.”

“What do you mean?” Daven sputtered. He pointed at the spot where the Killer Sloth had disappeared from. “We totally dusted it! I mean, did you see my drawing speed?”

“Yes, I saw that,” Cedric said, all patient and smiley. An indulgent smile. “I also saw all three of you focusing solely on the same target for more than fifteen seconds.” He hefted his spear in one hand, turned stark right, and flung it like one of Daven’s arrows toward the brush. A piercing squeal followed the sound of a wet thunk. When he turned back to them, his expression was grave. “I saw one of your deaths, too, when Valerian and I weren’t here and that boar crept up on you.”

Alex gaped at the spot Cedric had thrown his spear at. He hadn’t sensed anything coming at all. The other two seemed to be just as surprised as him, if horrified.

As if on cue, the wind gusted past them, sweeping up loose leaves. It carried the leaves southward, toward the direction of Cedric’s spear. Ah. The wind was blowing the wrong way, he realized. And I couldn’t smell their stench.

“Just because the dungeon is tame doesn’t mean you can’t die,” Cedric said. “There might not be any Chaser deaths on this dungeon’s Record, but I already told you that plenty of inexperienced hopefuls like you took their last breath here. And I know, maybe you could have seen it just before it attacked and avoided it. Maybe you could’ve heard him and blasted with your magic or filled him with holes. I know.

“But the point is to minimize maybes. Eyes open,” he recited, his commanding voice a strong contrast to usual, and Alex could suddenly see just why he was a crew leader. Why people like Orson and Lanna and the rest of the crew respected him so much. “The rule is there for a reason. There’s a place for risks as a Chaser—shit, risk is what keeps us in business. But that doesn’t mean you take them when you don’t have to. Got it?”

It felt like a bath of cold water to Alex, and he nodded along with the others. This hadn’t concerned strength or ability with his powers, this was basic common sense in a place like this. He thought he already knew the monsters of the dungeon. The Killer Sloth with its dive bomb attacks, the boars rushing being hailed by their sound or their smell.

But like Cedric said, there were maybes involved. Possibilities, chances. He might be able to blow up a dozen boars on his own, but the thirteenth might get him if he turns his ankle on a root, or a sloth might dive at him from his blind spot.

Sure, his magic played out like a video game. But he had ran and sweated in this world, ate and drank and dreamt at the Bedstone inn, felt the godly power beyond the gates in chest when he focused. It was too real to be just a game.

Alex had no intention of testing out if death here was legit too. He’d been given no choice when he was brought here; but if he had to play, he’d do so to win

“We’ll go around like we entered the dungeon,” Cedric’s voice broke through his thoughts. The lancer moved to stand in front of the crew he led. “I’ll take point, the three of you will snipe any mob from behind me, and Valerian will take the rear. We’ll move—always move, when we can. The monsters will come to us, and we already saw what happens if we stay still too long here.”

They hadn’t taken five steps when a small stampede of boars emerged from the brush some fifteen yards away. The five monsters stopped by the tree where Cedric’s spear was impaled, almost as if they knew it marked their companion’s grave. Then they turned to stare at them, red eyes full of hate.

Each had a tag floating above them.

[Wild Boar lvl 1]

“It seems we have our first volunteers,” Alex muttered under his breath.