The days passed by quickly and in much the same fashion as I continued to think about how to create the dungeon that Grainola required. I didn’t know how long it would take them to get the permits for the dungeon, and I couldn’t help feeling pressured by the unknown timeline.

Every day felt as though I had to come up with the breakthrough idea or else I wouldn’t meet the indeterminate deadline. All the stress was giving my heartburn. I poured myself a large glass of water and drank deeply to settle my stomach and suppress the acid burning my throat.

I needed to come up with an idea. Over a week had passed and I still hadn’t come up with even a basic concept for the dungeon. It seemed simple, water was such an abundant resource. And on a basic level, I could just make a dungeon that was a large lake with a dungeon core at the center. All the mana from the core would go to the lake, and boom you’d have mana rich water. But a design like that wouldn’t be sustainable. Moreover, it lacked the cachet of the type of exclusive product Jacques had designed. Any level two Dungeon Maker could make that. They wanted something that could be marketed as a unique drinking experience.

I felt myself growing frustrated, but I couldn’t seem to get my mind to start moving in any direction.

My stomach rumbled and I took another glass of water to soothe my throat. However, it didn’t really help, and I realized as my stomach continued to growl that I couldn’t remember the last thing I had to eat.

“I must have eaten dinner last night right?” I muttered to myself. “Or was that the night before?”

When I threw myself into a project I had a tendency to let myself go. Looking at my dorm, there were clothes on the floor of my bedroom. A pile of dirty dishes lay in the sink and clean dishes sat waiting to be put away in the automatic dish cleaner. I scratched my head and my hair felt oily. When was the last time I had showered?

I forced myself to close the bestiary. I searched through the depths of my closet and found a clean towel. I went and showered. I felt at my face as I scrubbed myself clean and noticed I had built up some pretty atrocious stubble. Unlike others I had never really been able to grow a full beard, and I wasn’t going to try now. I got out of the shower and dried myself off with the towel before using a Laser Razor to take care of my stubble. A fine cloud of hair flew up as the light of the razor passed over jawline and mouth. Then I scrounged around for some clean clothes and got dressed.

I spent a few minutes cleaning my dorm, putting my clothes into the steam cleaner and then taking the time to put away the clean dishes and wash the dirty ones. By the time I finished making my dorm habitable again my stomach was growling nearly every minute.

Putting my now clean clothes in the Press & Fold, I left my dorm in search of food, as I had little to nothing at home. I walked around the city, not sure what I was hungry for and hoping something would catch my interest.

The streets were bustling as per usual. I wasn’t too interested in the people hurrying about me, as my mind continued to toss and turn in anxiety, desperately hoping for an idea.

I pushed down my nerves, telling myself to relax for a bit. Beating my head against a wall wasn’t going to work this time, obviously. I saw a large crowd gathering ahead and wandered over to it curiously.

A pop up market had formed on the very outskirts of the Public Dungeon it seemed. I noticed a heavier presence of Guardians than normal. It made sense. Even before the Apocalypse, events like this would have a higher police presence. Now, well, when people could kill you with a wave of their hand the public naturally required stricter policing. Not to mention the Guardians were ever concerned with the use of fire magic in the city. Eyeing the wood buildings that made up most of the city outside of the Industrial District, I couldn’t help but be grateful for their supervision.

Asance was fairly blessed as far as cities went, but since the Public Dungeon was literally a giant mass of wood it was natural that most of the city, especially in the early days, was constructed using wood. These days you might have the wealthier members of the city shipping in stone and steel, but most construction still used wood.

I quickly found the line to enter the market somewhere in the middle of the mass of people. I stood in line, watching idly as the Guardians threw casual slaps at loiterers, urging them on their way. A number of peddlers of various wares were removed from the area this way, and the huge crowd slowly came under control, making it easier to see where the line to enter was.

Once order was restored, the line moved at a quick pace, and I reached the front within ten or fifteen minutes. I didn’t pay much attention to the Guardians as my turn arrived and I went to enter the market. But before I could advance more than a dozen steps inside a familiar voice called out to me, filling me with dread.

“Well, look who it is.” The voice drawled. I turned around to see Brock Baro striding towards me with a sneer on his face. Even worse he was wearing a Guardian uniform.

I tried to continue walking, hoping to lose him in the crowd, but he read my movement and with a step that literally shattered the ground, he suddenly appeared in front of me. This casual display of his strength, coupled with the look on his face, let me know I was in for it.

I stopped in front of him. Standing next to me, his height dwarfed me and if anything he looked like he had gained muscle mass since graduation.

I forced a smile on my face. “Hello Brock. I see you’re with the Guardians now. Congratulations.”

He snorted, a malicious look in his eye as he continued to block my way. “As if I need a scrub like you to congratulate me. With my strength and my family’s prestige joining the Guardians is only natural. They even directly made me a lieutenant.” He grinned ferally, gesturing with the baton I noticed he already had out at his chest. I saw an insignia that didn’t hold any significance to me, but obviously must have indicated his rank.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve done so well for yourself. If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to get something to eat.” I went to move around him, but he jabbed at my chest with his baton stopping me. The force of it made me wince and rub at my chest. I was going to have bruises later for sure. Another Guardian walked over as Brock stopped me.

“Problem?” He asked.

Brock nodded, grinning. “This little Dungeon Maker,” He said, putting venom into the two words. “Just tried to evade arrest when I tried to stop him for questioning.”

I went to deny it, but Brock casually backhanded me. I went flying a few feet before crashing into a stall that was set up by the entrance, eliciting a shout from the vendor as he stared in dismay at the caved in wood.

I felt my cheek swelling instantly and a warm trickle coming from my nose. I felt dazed. Brock walked over to me with the other Guardian. However, before Brock could continue, the stall owner stormed towards him, cursing.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You just destroyed my stall! Moreover, I saw the whole thing, the kid hadn’t even done anything. Do you believe I won’t report you? What’s your badge number?”

Brock’s face darkened as the stall owner’s tirade continued, and I began to fear for the man. Brock went to raise his baton again, but the Guardian accompanying him gripped his arm, holding him back. He whispered something to Brock that I couldn’t make out. Whatever he said, it seemed to calm Brock down as he visibly restrained himself. The other Guardian stepped forward.

“We were simply ensuring the security of the market as is our job. This man attempted to evade us, so we simply performed an arrest. You are welcome to report to our superiors. Guradians Baro and Severo, headquarters will figure out the rest.”

With that, he turned to leave, dragging Brock with him. As they left the stall owner shouted, “And what am I supposed to do about my stall?”

“Submit a claim to the city and they’ll reimburse you.” The other Guardian, Severo, said, not even turning back.

The stall owner grumbled to himself as he stared after them. “Fat lot of good that will do. With the speed that the city’s bureaucracy moves at, I’ll be lucky to see a check a year from now.”

I started to sit up, but let out a groan as the effort caused a sharp pain to pass through my ribs, up my spine, and behind my eyes, ending at my throbbing cheek.

The stall owner turned at my groan and tutted. “And I don’t suppose you’ll be compensating me for it either will you?”

I opened my mouth to apologize, but he cut me off waving his hand. “No, never you mind, it wasn’t your fault. You just ended up on the wrong side of that Guardian. A mean one if I’ve ever seen one. You’d do well to steer clear of him in the future. We all would,” He added the last sentence as he looked around at the other stall owners nearby him. A few nodded in acknowledgement. I hadn’t even noticed they were looking, but I supposed it was only natural to look when such a scene happened.

The stall owner walked over to me and helped me sit up, ignoring my groans as I did so. “None of that. Movement will only help you. It’ll keep those injuries from stiffening up and making your hurt even worse.”

I let him drag me to my feet before apologizing anyways. “I really am sorry. This is sort of my fault. That Guardian who hit me, he’s from my university. He has always had a problem with me. And now your stall is ruined.”

He shook his head. “Not your fault. If I don’t miss my guess, that one is from a rich family. Probably bought his way into the Guardians. They normally do a better job of keeping that sort out, but sometimes the rich ones manage to buy their way in. Notice how that other one kept him from going too far. They probably assigned him to keep an eye on the mean one, keep him from doing too much harm.”

I shook my head. It hadn’t looked like Severo was really restraining Brock from acting that way to me. Instead, he just kept it from blowing up too much. That meant that either he wasn’t too bothered by Brock’s actions, or he and his superiors tacitly approved of what Brock was doing. If not for Brock destroying the stall, it was possible he would have let Brock beat him up even more.

When Severo had first come over, I had held out hope that he was going to intervene. But I had seen the look on his face when he heard Brock call me a Dungeon Maker. Disdain was written all over his face. He might not be as destructive as Brock, but in his mind if Brock beat someone like me up, well, that was just the way things were.

I pushed the familiar bitter thoughts down along with my anger, before turning and apologizing again to the stall owner. “In any case, I’m sorry for affecting your business. Let me try to help you fix your stall. It’s the least I can do.”

The stall owner gestured for me to go ahead, and together we sorted through the pieces of the stall. Luckily it was just the main counter that was broken. We managed to salvage enough whole pieces of wood to set up a rudimentary counter.

After we finished I wiped the sweat from my aching head. My breathing had grown ragged. As I leaned on the counter, a tap on the wood made me look up. The stall owner was looking at me with concern. “Are you alright there lad? You’re looking a bit green in the gills. Maybe you’d better go to the hospital after all.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t afford a hospital visit right now. Some bed rest would do it for me.

“I’m fine. I just haven’t eaten in a day or so, been too busy with work.” I gave an excuse.

“Well, it’s not much but as thanks for helping with my stall let me go ahead and make you a cup of coffee.” The man offered.

I nodded thanks at him, continuing to lean heavily on the counter so that my legs wouldn’t betray me.

He walked over to the coffee machine he had set up before exclaiming. “Oh, damn!”

I looked over. “Something wrong?”

The stall owner waved dismissively. “No, not really. It’s just that my water cooler was knocked over.”

“Oh well, it’s not a big deal. Thanks for offering anyways.” I wasn’t going to make things hard for the man, he had already been extremely polite about the whole thing. Not to mention if he hadn’t stood up for me earlier, there’s no telling how far Brock would have gone before Severo decided to stop him.

“No, no. I can still make coffee. I just have to make some more water first so you’ll need to wait for a bit.”

“Sure, sure.” I said, not too concerned. I was finally catching my breath and my vision, which had been swimming all this time finally returned to normal.

I watched as he cracked the lid on the top of the water dispenser. I watched curiously as he lifted out a small monster I didn’t recognize. I hadn’t seen something like it before, but it looked like a weird cross between a fluid and solid, kind of like a slime, but completely clear. I didn’t see any eyes or other features on it, but by the way it moved I knew it was alive.

Initially I felt kind of bad for it, since living a life stuck in a water dispenser must be pretty awful. Still, that was just the way the world worked these days. Truthfully, it wasn’t that different from the days before Janus came. Cows were kept in barn stalls and used for their milk, or slaughtered for their meat. That was just the way of the world.

He took the strange creature in both hands and squeezed. It popped like a water balloon and a large amount of water, way more than what the creature itself could have contained, fell into the water dispenser. He quickly heated it and used it to finish brewing my cup of coffee.

“What sort of creature was that?” I asked, curious.

“Oh, that little guy?” He laughed. “That’s just a Water Sprite. They’re pretty harmless little things. They’re basically just a lot of water held together by a bit of mana.”

I felt a thought flowing around the edges of my mind. “Are they expensive?” He shook his head as he finished making my cup of coffee and handed it to me. “No, not really. The little guys should be pretty common.”

He didn’t stick around to talk, quickly apologizing to the line of customers forming now that the commotion had died down before taking their orders.

But I wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. The cup of coffee was hot and had started to burn my hand, but I was too absorbed in my thoughts to pay any attention to it.

The way the Water Sprite had burst like that, it produced way more water with its death than it should have contained. The man had said it was a being of just water and mana, so if, on its death, it left behind more water than it should, wouldn’t that mean that water should have come from its mana?

I brought my focus back to the cup of coffee in my hand. I took a sip of it hesitantly, paying close attention to how I felt as I did. I felt an instant rush as I drank it. It wasn’t huge, and if I hadn’t been looking for it I might have dismissed it as being a reaction to the caffeine. But it wasn’t the caffeine. I felt a small amount of mana course through me as I drained the cup, wincing as the scalding liquid burned my tongue and throat. However, despite the pain, I couldn’t help grinning.

This was it. This was what I had been looking for. I felt my thoughts race as a plan for the dungeon began to take shape. I quickly threw out my coffee cup and began to hurriedly leave the market. Before I went too far, though, my stomach began rumbling again, reminding me of my original purpose for coming here.

“Food first,” I muttered to myself, limping to the nearest stall without caring about what food they were serving. It looked like some sort of barbecued lizard being roasted on a spit. I barely paid attention to it as I paid for a plate and mechanically shoveled food in my mouth.

First, I would eat. The dungeon could come later. But come it would. The anxiety of the past several days lifted from me and I straightened my back unthinkingly, before wincing at the pain and hunching over again. I focused my attention on devouring the food in front of me as fast as I could. I had work to do. I would forge a place for myself in this world, no matter what it took. And once I had, I’d show Brock Baro and all those like him what it was like to feel helpless.