“These are the ordinary ones? You got to be kidding me,” Rick said his spear ready to strike.

The two large rodents stood side by side, blocking the corridor. Their bodies hunched forward, they let out deep squeaks, as if to warn him to stay away.

“Lemegeton, what are these?” Rick murmured under his breath, before quickly adding, “Show the information on the screen”

Ding

A pleasantly surprising notification rang immediately. Rick looked at the blinking notification and the agitated rodents before him, shifting his gaze between the two.

‘I can’t focus on both,’ he resigned. Tossing two golem cores, he apparated two Earth-golems. A tremble shook the building as two fat six feet tall cat-statues appeared.

‘One, stand to the right, touch your belly to the wall….’ Rick instructed the two golems to sit down next to each other.

The passage was now blocked. With the relative increase in safety, he quickly opened the notification.

[The creatures are “Sentinel Mice”]

[Sentinel Mice grow stronger with time as they devour weaker sentinels. They protect the Czar Mouse]

[For further information, refer to the Lemegeton]

“Okay, so I have to get through you to get to your leader,” Rick mumbled as he searched through his Storage Ring. Meanwhile, his two golems were being ripped to shreds by the two Sentinels. But the golems stood strong.

‘Found it, I need to sort that place,’ Rick thought as he withdrew his consciousness from the storage ring. Shifting the spear to his left hand, he pulled out one of the Beaver Needles he had collected on his trip with Jay to the Rose Park.

‘Adolebitque Huoagni,’ he cast the Hot Hands spell. The needles were metallic and soon turned red hot.

Resting his spear by the wall, he cast a look at the door behind. He instructed the first cat-golem, ‘Move one step forward’.

Everything seemed to slow down as he waited silently in the dimly lit corridor, his hand tightly clutching the beaver-needle in his right hand.

A moment passed, then the chitters stopped. And then from the gap he had left between the two golems, one of the rodents weaselled through, immediately laying eyes on his.

‘Move one step back,’ he screamed his instructions at the golem mentally. Simultaneously, he threw the beaver needle at the advancing mouse with all his weight behind him.

The sizzling needle flashed through and stuck to its cheek.

“Chiii…” the mouse stopped in its path and let out a withering groan.

He picked up the spear from the wall and charged at the stationary mouse. The mouse slammed its paw at Rick, tearing through the fabric of his jeans and drawing blood. But Rick did not stop and through pure adrenaline stabbed the mouse right at its eye.

“Chii... chii...” the mouse lashed out at Rick furiously, forcing him to jump back leaving his spear. The mouse tried to claw at the spear, only causing more damage to itself, before it collapsed, dead.

Finally snapped out of his state, Rick slumped back against the wall.

“That was harder than I expected,” he said. He was sure that the Karakonza was at a higher level than this first guard to the main villain, the level 9 Czar Mouse. But he felt more exhausted in this scuffle.

He bent his leg to check the tear in the jeans near his thigh. The Mouse had left three scratches deep enough to draw blood. But only the red fabric around the tear was witness to it now. The wounds were now only three long scabs.

“Aaah! It’s itchy,” Rick scratched around the edge of the scabs.

After the moment’s respite, he finally stood up. The scratches on the golems were now louder, more furious than before. He cast a gloomy look at the dead rodent beside him, but soon put the thought out of his mind. ‘There is a bigger picture here,’ he reminded himself.

He placed the talisman next to the golem and walked back the spear’s length.

“Golem One…” he started readying himself. “Disapparate!”

A winning smile on his face, he slashed his spear through the talisman laid on the ground, and immediately a loud, “Chii…” rang out.

He had prepared the Noise Talisman to record the dead rodent’s desperate squeak. With its sensitive hearing, the other mouse was sure to be affected by this, he reasoned.

Rick was right, nothing charged forward. The second mouse was completely frozen still. Dropping the spear, he ran at the mouse bare-fisted, only for a beaver needle to appear in the last second that he lodged into the mouse’s skull.

This immediately broke the mouse from its trance and it too screeched in anger. It was not hurt as much as the one before. The rodent clawed Rick’s face before he could duck and instead fell on the floor.

“Aah!” he groaned in agony. Blood seeped down his face, the salty taste filling his mouth, but there was no time.

He crawled back and reached for the spear. The claw dropped down a second time, but Rick dodged it in the last second, surviving with a mere few tears on his shirt.

The passage was too narrow for his to get quickly, and with no other choice, Rick ducked his head.

“Unseal,” he screamed, threading his way to the Beaver-needle lodged in the second rodent.

No attacks fell on him, but he did not dare look up. All Rick could hear was the incessant furious screams of the rodent, before its dead corpse fell on Rick with a thud.

“It worked?” Rick said, more a question than a statement. He was not sure it would work. The fire elements that the Beaver-needle could seal was not enough to start a fire, instead, once unsealed it would melt. This meant that the target had to be close enough for him to even unseal it.

“Aahaha…” he chuckled. Goosebumps ran through his body, as he recalled how close to death he really was just then.

He slowly got himself up.

It was still a dungeon, after all, no place to get enlightened about one’s own mortality. Rick scanned throughout the ground-floor of the place but found nothing else. The next destination was the first-floor.

“I should prepare an escape,” Rick though aloud. After a brief though, Rick immediately lined the wall to the door with other Noise talismans. “Let’s go Two!”

He instructed the second golem to walk in front. The wooden stairs creaked with every step they took. It was a boon that it was narrow enough for a single golem alone to block the path. This meant Rick could use a similar tactic of just allowing one of the two golems to enter while the golem blocked the other. But the only downside was that he could not see up the stairs with the golem walking before him.

After the slow march up the stairs, Rick finally reached the final steps to the first-floor. Just then, the attacks against the golem began again. Scratches and bites tore into the golem, this time much more intense than the first time around. The golem was barely holding on.

“The Noise Scroll was really my more potent creation,” he smiled bitterly, proceeding to place a Noise Scroll on the ground. “Round two!”

Taking a few steps down, Rick instructed the golem, ‘Turn a little to your side’ and immediately proceeded to tear the Noise Scroll.

The blood-curling shriek of a rodent rang throughout the building and as per expectation, the rodents were put to a daze and didn’t strike. But Rick could not get himself to attack either.

“Fuck,” he blurted. His arms left heavy and his legs wobbled as he looked at the view behind the golem.

Rodents, more than he could dare to stop and count littered the as far as his eyes could see. Although stunned by the Noise Scroll, for now, it would be his death, if he waited long enough for them to recover.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he turned around and rushed down the stairs for the door. As he reached the corridor, he could hear the cacophony of the screeching pests rush down the floor at him.

Rick did not bother with the other golem either, he let it be, there was no time. With all his might, he rushed out the door and firmly locked the door behind. He was finally out. Cold rays of the sunset poured over.

[You have left the dungeon Milo’s Gym]

He wanted to shout at it that he had never even reached Milo’s Gym, but this was not the time. Although he was sure that the Czar’s mouse army would not be able to leave the dungeon, he did not want to wait around.

He apparated Holmes and climb aboard.

Ding! A notification popped.

‘Hmm...’ Rick quickly glanced at the door to the building, fearing the worst. But there was nothing there. Curious and aware that he could still sprint atop Holmes if he needed to, Rick opened the notification.

[Note: Milo’s Gym, Level Reconfiguration]

[Milo’s Gym]

[Level 11]

“Bloody broken system. This is not a game you stupid god!” Rick screamed enraged. A moment later, he finally calmed down, “Useless! Lemegeton, make sure you verify the difficulty of the dungeons on your own. Don’t rely on the Lesser God’s System.”

With his anger released, he looked up at the sky. The sun was past the horizon and the sky was quickly getting dark. With no other option left, Rick headed back to the Cock and Haunch Pub for the night. It was only a few minutes away and although pretty wrecked on the inside, would be safer than any of the other building.

By the time he reached the pub, the stars were out. Rick apparated an earth golem to lie on the ground and laid on top of it, with Pip curling up beside him.

“Did you have fun?” Rick asked the Firebird.

“Peeeeep pep,” she happily bobbed her head in reply.

He smiled looking at the excited bird.

“By the way,” he suddenly recalled, “Can you fly.”

Pip turned around towards Rick, surprise apparent on her face.

“Peep peep…” (I like your head better) she said and almost immediately fell asleep.

“Bad acting,” he murmured.

The mice at the dungeon still on his mind. He was already pushing his luck trying out a Level 9 dungeon. It was the highest among all the three he had shortlisted anyway. But for it to become a Level 11 dungeon was completely absurd. There was no way he could do clear it.

“Maybe. Just maybe if I had a team,” he thought, drifting to sleep himself.

-----------------------------

He was back on Holmes early the next morning and swiftly bid the pub goodbye once again. He headed off to the north, not towards the Gym.

‘Know your limits,’ he berated himself every time his heart leapt up to give the Gym another try. Afterall, he had successfully killed the first mouse and although a horde of them appeared right after, they were all stunned immediately!

But he did not budge from his decision.

Rick had to the other edge of the city. The third dungeon was located at the northern part of the city, the Harow Bridge. A place that was already sparsely visited even before the Heaven’s Dictate, he knew this place, unlike the other two dungeons.

A chuckle escaped his throat as the large fences to the Harow Bridge once more. The place was infamous for being the dating spot in the city. The large fences and rusting railway carts providing cover for any curious couple.

“Stop! Or we will attack!” a loud voice roared, snapping Rick’s gaze over. At the distance, he saw around a dozen people standing with weapons in ready. Looking right over at him.

Samira had told him that camps and cities were popping up close to Dungeons, but he had not expected to find one here when the Settlement by the Library was so close by. Besides, the dungeon here was not even a high-level one.

“Anything but this,” Rick grunted under his breath, immediately coming to a halt. This was the last thing he wanted to do after yesterday’s fiasco at the gym!