The throne room was very brightly colored. A red carpet led up to steps from the doorway, which on top of a stage held three thrones. Giant gothic windows blazed light just outside of the carpet’s reach, as if indicating a holy walkway. The ceiling was an opaque blue glass and a sphere hovered at the center, emitting a faint white light.

Roa was the middle of the crowd that shuffled into the throne room. The king was already sitting in the middle throne, twiddling his thumbs. After the last person came in, he lazily gestured to a group of guards, who hurried off. He turned back and began to talk.

“As you have all heard, today you are going on a dungeon expedition. Some of you may be questioning why I’m rushing you all to battle already. This is to quickly get you used to this world, and to improve your levels. I highly doubt any of you will take damage at all from the journey. All of you, along with the priestess, will trek inside the dungeon Gresknov. I have sent the guards to bring gear suitable for you all.”

As he finished his line, the guards were already back. Everyone was given a leather garb and a gleaming steel dagger. The king appraised the equipment, and nodded.

“Most of you are extremely powerful and will likely not need to rely on our equipment. As such, you will only be given a leather garb that allows us to track your location, and a steel dagger for those without a weapon summon.”

As Roa received the equipment, he inspected the leather garb to look for a tracking device, but failed to find one. Instead, he noticed an inconsistency in lining of the garb, where the breast pocket would be. Fiddling around, he heard something crumble.

“Oops” he murmured.

“I sincerely hope none of you wish to betray our kingdom. Even if you do, I will warn you now that you will be alone in the wilderness. The devils, dwarves, and beastmen are all evil, vile creatures that kill humans on sight.”

After his speech, the king promptly got up and left. The king was not in a good mood, and forcefully ordered the guards to “escort” the world travelers out.

Mana, the priestess, was waiting for them outside, gesturing them to follow her.

They were led back to the place where they first came into the world.

“Before we proceed, I need to ask you all something. Originally, we were to teleport to the dungeon via the teleportation portal accessed here. However, overnight the teleportation portal has suddenly disappeared. Obviously a perpetrator was behind this, and if you know who did this, please let us know. Until then, we will walk to the dungeon until the portal can be set up again.”

Roa’s heart was beating faster than usual.

The castle’s design took a very medieval approach. The houses that were erratically strewn across the land were biggest the closer they were to the castle. However, the houses that lined the wall broke that rule: they were just as majestic as the houses closest to the castle. Although the walls were made of stone, the wall which surrounded the entire place had the impression that it was made from one giant rock.

Mana noticed everyone’s glances, and began an earnest history speech as the group went down the mountain’s steep incline.

“This land was actually once a mountain that had a dragon living inside it. Dragons have a very keen sense of energy, and the more powerful ones occupy the places with a higher energy density. It is said that the dragon that once resided here was one of the most powerful dragons that has ever existed. Our forefathers, Tarbin and Luhtbur, in a stroke of luck was able to deal a killing blow to the dragon that lived here. Because of the high magic density of this land, the land itself was extremely hard. Even with the best earth mages in the world, it took us over 100 years to terraform the land how it is now.”

Roa found the story to be very cliché, while everyone else seemed to be listening in awe. He believed that the story was heavily exaggerated as it was passed down from generation to generation.

As if on cue, once Mana finished her short history lesson, they arrived at a cave opening.

“This is actually the cave where the dragon once resided. A few years after the dragon was slain, our ancestors discovered an entrance deeper inside the cave. That entrance, is the dungeon we are about to enter.”

---

Upon entering the dungeon, Roa was greeted with a message that popped up in his head.

Gresknov Dungeon

Floor 1

To Roa, the itching feeling in his head when the message popped up felt wrong. He couldn’t fathom how the others could bear with the weirdness of it.

The dungeon itself just looked like an extension of the cave, only more narrow. The group carefully treaded on, reaching a large opening. A nest of rats rested in the center of the opening, and beyond that one could see a bridge that led to a floating island. The rats noticed the group approaching, quickly preparing themselves for battle.

The giant rats instilled a natural fear in all of the students. Seeing a creature they were all disgusted by, and then having its proportions massively blown up, did not exactly raise morale.

Except for Laur, who charged in whilst chanting.

“Summon Uriel’s Sword!”

Sudden wisps of light shaped a sword directly into Laur’s stuck out hand. It looked like a regular old steel sword, only glowing. Everyone couldn’t help but stare at it. Something felt off about it.

Laur easily pierced through the rat’s head with one stab of his sword.

Riled up, he screamed at the top of his lungs, “TOO FUCKING EASY” as he charged towards more rats. It took Roa a few seconds to realize that everyone else was also charging at the rats.

Roa snuck up on a rat from the back, and shakingly stabbed it with his steel dagger. Yet, even with the steel dagger that he was provided, Roa couldn’t even scratch the skin of the rat. The dagger simply bounced off as the rat took notice of him and tried to bite his head off. In a nimble move that seemed beyond ten agility, Roa just barely dodged the bite. He quickly realized he was so weak that the he couldn’t deal a single damage to the giant rats. He wanted to be useful in some way, to prove his worth, but everyone else was dealing only killing blows to the rats.

Roa noticed a rat that was about the size of the ones on Earth sitting about in the center of the battle. It also eyed Roa, and began to approach him faster than he could see it.

Many people would say that they would be more afraid of a super high-speed rat over a really big one. However, speed would mean nothing if there was no power behind it. Before Roa could even react, the rat had bitten his arm. Roa jumped back, wary, and after a moment realized the sensation he felt from the rat was similar to a tickle.

After all the rats were slaughtered by the group of students, Roa was still engaged in battle with the normal-sized rat. Lucin shouted at Roa.

“Finish up the fight and follow us when you’re done. We’ll be going on ahead.”

The majority of the students also felt bad for Roa. It could have been them who could’ve received such subpar stats. Of course, not everyone felt that way.

“Isn’t it quite obvious everyone? The stats were distributed based on our rankings within the school. Because this guy wasn’t part of the school, he’s the weakest!”

Laur’s observation made a lot of sense. Laur was indeed the at the top of the academic rankings in their school, the person with the second highest stats had the second best rank within the group, and so on and so forth. With that information in the back of their heads, the other students were less inclined to be nice to Roa.

Right as everyone left, Roa noticed a pattern in the tiny rat’s movements. When it was moving beyond what his eyes could see, the blur always moved in a straight line.

Roa rushed straight at the rat. When the rat dodged, he stuck his hand out at the direction the rat was facing. The blur crashed straight into his hand, and Roa gripped tightly.

The rat bit and scratched at the hand that was gripping it tightly, but realized it was a fruitless endeavor and gave up.

Roa stared at the rat, preparing his dagger, but something in his head told him not to do it. He had some doubt on killing the rat. He had never killed another living creature before. And just like him, the rat was weak, who was only able to watch what was likely his family get slaughtered by humans. Roa sympathized with this tiny rat that couldn’t even deal a single scratch on the weakest person in his group.

It was then that Roa noticed how much everyone had changed already. Although they were only rats, the students were killing them without any hesitation whatsoever. He himself was just about to do the same. The mentality of the students didn’t seem to match up. He eased the grip on the rat, and gently put it back down on the ground. The rat scurried away faster than ever into a hole, as Roa proceeded on. Inside the hole, the tiny rat stared at Roa until he couldn’t be seen.

Each new region of the dungeon was separated by a bridge that led from island to island. Each island was floating, and beneath was an abyss that was completely pitch black. Roa carefully crossed the bridge from his current island to the next, afraid of looking down.

Roa got off on the next island, and saw dozens of giant arachnids dead, and on their back. The students had already annihilated this island, and was already on the next. Afraid that some of the arachnids were still alive, Roa perked up all of his instincts and stealthily walked around the edge, looking for the next bridge.

Suddenly, his ears picked up some light scratching. Roa was afraid, but curiosity got the best of him and he went to investigate.

Dead arachnids were lined up like walls, as if gesturing Roa to walk forth. Alarmed, but even more curious, Roa kept walking the path that led him to the center of the island.

It was then that he noticed a arachnid, bigger than the others, still scuttling about. The arachnid sensed his presence and turned around, staring straight into his eyes.

Roa realized he was paralyzed and couldn’t move despite his efforts. Cold sweat formed as the arachnid inched nearer and nearer.

At about a meter distance away, the arachnid suddenly stopped moving. At the same time, Roa was freed from the paralyzation and was about to run for his life, if he didn’t notice that the arachnid was injured on its side, and only had two of its legs.

As if leaving a parting message, the arachnid once again looked into Roa’s eyes, and mentally voiced a word before it collapsed.

“You…”

Roa was startled at the voice in his head, but quickly realized it came from the arachnid that just died in front of him. He tried to figure out what it meant by save. Whilst trying to think, his habit of walking led him to discover a pocket sized egg on a pedestal while circling the dead arachnid. The egg was radiantly glowing, with ripples forming at the slightest touch.

The egg screamed importance. A beam of sunlight in the cave shone directly at the pedestal at a 30 degree angle.

Roa scoffed. Either it was an elaborate trap, or a seriously amazing treasure. He decided to risk his luck on the skill he learned about yesterday.

Placing his hand on the egg, Roa murmured.

“Absorb”

You have absorbed 1/10 trap points.

The aura around the egg receded. Roa grabbed the egg tightly, and put it in his left pants pocket. He also noticed a small glint at the center of the pedestal from where he grabbed the egg. It was an extremely small cyan colored plate, barely the size of the fingernail on his pinky. As he put the plate in the other pocket his pants held, everything went dark.

---

Roa awoke and found himself in his room back at the castle. Lucin was sitting in a chair next to the bed, dozing off. Roa faintly smiled, sat up, and prodded Lucin.

“Hey, wake up.”

“Hnn… just a few mo- ah Roa you’re awake.”

“More awake than you seem to be.”

“Oh come on, don’t give me that. You’ve been asleep for over a day you know?”

A day of rest was nothing to scoff at. If Roa were to use his newfound ability at every waking moment, there wouldn’t be many waking moments at all. He left this super overpowered ability for emergency use.

Although his stats were average, he didn’t think any other abilities could top his trump card. To be able to completely mitigate something without any effort was something even Laur could only dream about. The only problem was the major side-effect after use.

“So what happened? We found you collapsed next to the biggest spider on that island. You know I was the one that dealt the killing blow on it right? The priestess even said that it was a really tough boss for the lowest level floor, but we wiped it out pretty easily.”

“What are you talking about? It was indeed hurt when I got there, but it was still alive and kicking! It was only until it was about to eat me that it bent over and died.”

“Hmm, maybe it was just playing dead when I landed that final blow. But whatever the reason for?”

“Who knows. Maybe it learned that move from watching others?”

“Impossible. When you were left behind, the priestess told us how the monsters are born. Apparently the dungeon has a really high concentration of pure energy, and the monsters are born when some of that energy becomes impure. That’s the reason why as you go deeper and deeper, the monsters get stronger as the energy becomes more condensed.”

“That was probably the reason why the kingdom was built here.”

“Maybe. You still haven’t told me why you were asleep on the floor.”

Roa wanted to keep his ability a secret, so he told a half-truth.

“Well, near the boss spider was a pedestal with an egg on it. So I grabbed it and the next thing I know, I’m sitting on my bed talking to you.”

“Pedestal? What pedestal?”

“You know, that Roman thing that held a vase?”

“I know what a pedestal is. What I meant is that I didn’t see a pedestal when I was there.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely sure. Ask the others.”

“So explain to me how I have this egg then?”

Roa took out the egg from his left pants pocket, and held it up for Lucin to see.

“Egg? Roa, this is a rock.”

Roa looked at the egg, and noticed it indeed looked like a rock. The egg was hard, and had random jagged juts piercing out of the egg. It had a grey color with what looked like bands that were normally on a rock.

“It can’t be, rocks aren’t this li- w-wait!”

In a flash, Lucin grabbed the egg from Roa’s hand. He got up and threw it as hard as he could at the wall. The egg barely flew before it crashed into the ground without a scratch.

“See, a rock. An egg would’ve cracked open.”

“But… how can that be? I saw it with my own eyes.”

“It was probably an illusion. When we killed the spider, some of the poison probably got into the air. Then, you arrived.”

Roa didn’t want to believe Lucin. The whole experience felt extremely real to him. Yet, he knew that illusions could feel just as real as the actual world. Still, he couldn’t bear to part with the rock.

“Well, now that you’re all up and peppy, I’m going to go back to my room. I’ve been in this room since we found you, and unlike you I’m lacking a lot of sleep.”

Roa watched as Lucin left, then hurriedly grabbed the rock and put it back in the left pants pocket.

As he slid both his hands into his pockets, mumbling and pacing around the room, he felt something in his right pocket.

Taking it out, it was the cyan plate from before. After seeing it, he was convinced that what happened was not an illusion. Illusions simply did not have the ability to conjure an item.

A few sharp raps on the door started Roa. Putting away the plate, he opened the door to see Mana, the priestess.

“Hello. Roa, was it? We have a new stat card ready for you.”