In the morning, Daniel looked at his current status. All the fighting yesterday and the training on guard duty improved his attributes by a good margin. His high regeneration meant that he was now fully rested after only 4 hours of sleep and his lost life force had fully regenerated over the last hours.

Status Daniel Krieger

Level

XP

Free Attribute Points

6

6641

0

Attributes

Strength

Agility

Vitality

Endurance

Mana Capacity

Regeneration

Mana Regeneration

Toughness

31

38

14

26

39

37

11

12

He hadn't woken Anna, she had chosen to focus on mana regeneration so her physical regeneration was still human and she needed sleep. It surprised him when she woke up after only six hours of sleep. On earth he had needed eight hours on a normal day and yesterday had been pretty draining for both of them.

"Good morning. I hope the sleeping bag was comfortable enough." He greeted her.

"Yes thanks. With the air mattress it was a vast improvement compared to sleeping on the ground. You must have been the most lucky one of all the people who arrived here. You got protection, a real weapon and even camping gear. Oh, and you've had the honor to meet me!" she told him with a huge grin on her face while she pranced around like a peacock.

Daniel had to laugh.

"Please stop that, it looks ridiculous and why do you have such a good mood in the morning. That is not normal. Normal people are grumpy and need their caffeine fix after they wake up." Daniel complained.

Anna became serious again.

"Well, it is the first time since I arrived here, that I had a good sleep. The other nights I was cold and miserable. I woke up a lot and when I decided to get up, I still didn't feel recovered and my whole body was hurting. So, I think my good mood is only reasonable." Anna explained.

"Ok, I can understand that. So, are you ready for a new day full of adventure? I mean a day of dismembering goblins like fire wood and cleaning all their blood and gore from you after a fight." Daniel asked in a half serious tone.

"You really see the positive in situations. Yes, I'm ready. Hopefully we find another living human today. My worst fear is that we escape this dungeon and find out that we are stranded in a world full of barbarians. No culture, no technologies, no entertainment, everyone is just fighting monsters all the time. A few more people from earth could really improve such a situation." Anna explained.

"I don't know. Normally it should be pretty unlikely that there are other humans in this world outside the dungeon. The message told us that we were summoned randomly. I don't know the range of the system, but I think we travelled here faster than light. If the range is not limited, it could have summoned thousands of species from all over the universe. At least, if there are other planets with intelligent life in the universe." Daniel contemplated.

"So let us hope the range is limited and the system summoned humans to another dungeon on this world before. While you are in very good shape and I'd like to have a family at some point, I don't want to be Eve and give birth to a new human population." Anna declared.

"Thanks, I guess?" Daniel laughed. "So we need to find at least 20 other woman? I'm prepared to sacrifice myself for the future of the human race."

"Sometimes I think all men are pigs." Anna responded while shaking her head.

"Come on, that was a joke. Which sane man would want to have 20 women. I'd grow insane in a week." Daniel explained.

"I think we should not go deeper into that subject and start moving." Anna decided.

Daniel nodded and they left the cave through a tunnel they hadn't explored, yet. In the next hours they fought their way through more than a hundred goblins. They didn't find another body or something that looked like a safe zone, but it seemed like the goblin groups became larger in the direction they were going. The last one consisted of 19 of the small creatures. They leveled up again and Daniel was now level 7 while Anna was level 6.

When they heard noise off a battle, hoping to find other survivors, they followed it until they arrived at a large cave. More than thirty goblins were fighting something. It had a human shape, but it was difficult to identify with all the goblins around.

The system showed them the answer.

Human - Level 8

"Let's help before they get him." Daniel decided.

Anna nodded and started to kill goblins with her Water Jet spell. There was not enough distance between the goblins and the human to use Air bomb or Acid Cloud. So, Daniel went directly into melee and attacked the goblins from behind. He used Air wave to clear the unknown humans flanks from goblins. Anna helped him by picking off goblins that tried to get behind him. She herself kept some distance. Her lower agility and missing protective gear would make it pretty dangerous to engage in melee in a chaotic battle like this.

Daniel heard that the unknown human was laughing like a maniac. He wore a heavy plate armor, a heavy shield and a brutal looking mace which he used to bash in goblin heads. From the shield there were earth spike growing out of the front. After the man bashed his shield into a goblins and some of the spikes broke off, new ones grew back. An interesting use of earth magic, Daniel thought.

Two minutes later, the last goblin died under the heavy steel boot of the stranger.

"Ha, that was fun, but why did you kill my prey?" the stranger asked in a half serious tone.

"Well, I don't know. But, I think my definition of fun is a bit different. It looked like you could need some help and as a fellow human we didn't want to see you die." Daniel responded dryly.

The stranger hesitated for a moment and it looked like he was checking his status window. Then he responded.

"Na, I would have survived. Probably." The man removed his helmet and they saw a short haired man around 30 with a thick beard looking at them. On one side of his face as a 5 cm long scar.

"Fedor Ivanowitsch, professional fighter at your service." He introduced himself with a bow.

"Anna O'Leary and that is Daniel Krieger. Are you wounded? I have a spell to clean and to disinfect wounds." Anna responded in an uneasy tone.

"No wounds only a lot of bruises, the goblins can't pierce this armor. But I wouldn't say no to a cleaning spell. All this gore and blood makes moving in the armor harder." Fedor declared looking down at himself.

While Anna used her water magic to wash of the dirt, Daniel couldn't keep his curiosity at bay.

"How the hell did you get a full plate armor, shield and mace. Nothing we've met in the dungeon dropped any gear." Daniel asked.

"I'm a very good guy. So, the heavens summoned me to this paradise while I was standing in front of the armor of some great russian knight in a museum. and it accompanied me." Fedor responded with a huge grin on his face.

Daniel looked at Anna. Hadn't she joked a few hours ago that he was the luckiest traveler?

"I wouldn't call this a paradise, more like a hell hole." Anna interjected.

"Ha, no this is heaven. I love the rush of a good fight. Back in Russia I was in the army. But most of the time it was guard duty, or patrol or something else that was boring. Then I started MMA fighting, but while the fights were awesome and sparring ok, there were weeks, most of the time month between fights. Here, I can fight all the time, betting my skills against my enemies, the rush and it even makes me stronger. I love it, I was made for this!" Fedor responded in a serious tone.

A real battle maniac, Daniel thought. But, he decided that while Fedor may have a problematic personality, he was a lot better equipped than himself to tank the front line. He would be a huge help in larger battles.

You have met another dungeon traveler. You can create a party and all XP will be split to each party member.

"Any interest in teaming up? I've found the exit and it told me that I need to clear the first level of the dungeon, if I don't want to lose everything I got here. That probably means a boss fight and while you seem to be very strong, at some point you will run out of life and stamina, if there are enough enemies and your armor doesn't look like it would be easy to flee from a fight in it."

"There is no honor in fleeing an honest fight. But, you are right. While I love the rush of battle, one cannot beat every enemy alone." Fedor agreed with his assessment of the situation.

Fedor Ivanowitsch wants to enter your party.

Accept/Decline

Daniel was surprised a bit. He'd thought they would need to convince Fedor of the advantages of teaming up. He and Anna both accepted.

"Welcome to the party. Did you meet any other travelers?" Daniel asked.

"Yes, but both of them didn't want to leave their safe zone, so I moved on. Fucking cowards." Fedor cursed.

"The safety period ended. They have no choice now. Should we check on them?" Daniel asked.

To his surprise both Fedor and Anna shook their head.

"If they were too gutless and too stupid to team up with a heavy armored frontline fighter, they are useless." Anna responded.

"I don't team up with cowards. You can't trust them. They turn their back on you in the worst possible situations, when you depend on them the most. I got this scar when a man I thought my comrade fled the battle and left me alone with the enemy." Fedor explained.

Daniel had made a similar experience with a teammate, that wanted to sacrifice him to save herself just yesterday and couldn't really object to their reasoning. He just nodded.

"Do you need a longer break to regenerate life or can we keep moving after a short break?" Daniel asked Fedor.

"I'm good for now. With the three of us, there shouldn't be a large danger from goblin groups of this size."

So they moved on after their mana and stamina were full again.