Roa didn’t know what to do, so he stayed hidden.

“If you’re not coming to me, I’m coming to you.”

In a single breath, the wind whistled in Roa’s ear, and the person was already in front of him.

At first, the person was frowning, but was then all smiles.

“Hey there, fellow human.”

Roa couldn’t put his finger on it, but the voice he was hearing from the other person made his skin crawl.

“Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then can you come out where I can see you?”

The other person hesitated for a second before walking into a small patch of light. Shadow covered half the body, but Roa was still able to tell some characteristics. The person was a human male, older and taller than him. He had piercing golden eyes and a buzzcut. The rest of his body was obscured by a pitch black robe that covered from head to toe.

Fate poked out of Roa’s pocket, saw the man, and started screeching.

“Hey, could you turn your rat down? It’s a bit annoying.”

“Fate, quiet down will you?”

Fate bit down on Roa’s skin, giving Roa a tingling sensation. Believing that Fate was acting weirdly, he pushed Fate back into his pocket and zipped.

The man gave Roa a curious gaze.

“Hey, are you able to leave the forest?”

“What do you mean?”

“... Can you walk over to the plains over there?”

“...”

“Look, it’s not a trap, ok? Here, I’ll even give you this pill if you just cross on over.”

From his robe, the man slowly took out a red and white pill the size of a pin and tossed it at Roa.

The pill fumbled in Roa’s cupped hands and almost fell through his fingers. When he was able to grasp it and identify what it was, he only looked at the cloaked man.

“What, you don’t know what this is? If you swallow the pill, after 24 hours you will get one extra health! I had to go through great lengths to acquire some.”

“...”

An audible sigh emanated from the man.

“Of course, you don’t trust me. Look, I’ll take one just like yours.”

Once again reaching into his cloak, the man pulled out another pill and swallowed it immediately.

“See? No harm done.”

Roa was still hesitating. Why would this strange man want him to cross over? Why couldn’t he do it himself? Was the reward worth it?

Although the reward was a measly one health, the anguish deep within his heart refused to let any stat growths go to waste. One health may not mean much, but 100 of the pill would double his current health. Stuck forever weak, his only chance of getting stronger was through this pill. Perhaps out in the wild, there were better health pills, or even pills for other stats.

In his momentary thought, Roa had nearly squeezed the pill in his hand into powder.

Roa pressured himself into doing the task, scared of being forever weak. No alarms were ringing in his head, so he didn’t worry as much.

Turning sideways, Roa carefully watched the cloaked man as Roa began to leave the forest. As soon as he felt the ripple in his mind, Roa saw the man’s eyebrows raise. Before Roa had finished walking to the end of the forest, he heard the man’s voice call out for him.

“Hey, uh, could you come back? I want to ask for another favor.”

Roa stopped walking and turned to fully face the cloaked man, but not moving a single step towards him.

Watching each other, the cloaked man and Roa just looked at each other for a minute before the man piped up.

“Right, right, I forgot. I’ll give you another pill.”

When the word pill reached Roa’s ears, he unhesitatingly walked towards the man until they were in arms reach of each other.

“Ok, that’s close enough.”

As the man extended his arm towards Roa, his cloaked fluttered and Roa was able to catch a glimpse of the clothing underneath. Once again, the clothing looked distinctly familiar, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Hold my hand.”

“...............”

Roa didn’t know much about the world, but he could easily assume that malicious intents could easily be transferred via skin contact.

“Oh, come on.”

“...”

“Fine, I’ll give you another pill, but that’s it.”

The man mumbled under his breath.

“To think I started with ten pills and only have seven left before anything has started.”

Roa hesitated a bit before nodded. The man tossed two pills at Roa with his other hand.

As soon as Roa touched the man’s hands, the man began to walk towards Roa. Fearing something was wrong, Roa immediately retracted his hand and retreated a few meters.

But the cloaked man did nothing, only smiling at Roa.

“Thank you for helping me. I’d best be on my way.”

Watching as the man disappeared into the horizon, Roa contemplated what just happened. Though the cloaked man did arouse some suspicions, nothing had happened to him.

He looked at the three red and white pills that he was gripping. When Roa released his grip, only then did he realize how hard he clutched the pills by the red marks on his palm.

He unhesitatingly swallowed all three of the pills. Roa knew the pills could be a trap, but the allure of even the most miniscule amount of stat gain was too enticing.

After a few minutes, Roa had felt nothing. He shrugged, assuming they were duds.

Although Roa had gained nothing from what just occurred, he had only spent maybe ten minutes talking with the cloaked man.

Without a single worry left, Roa advanced towards the patch of red and blue in the distance.

When he got there, he discovered that it was indeed the herbs he needed, but different from the patch he had discovered previously.

In the center was a gaping hole about ten meters deep, with herbs on the perimeter of the hole. Roa peered into the hole and gasped. To his amazement, in the center of the hole was a steel dagger exactly like the one he was given, and a part of the dungeon with a black crystal jutting out.

When he tried to get up, a knot had caught on to Roa’s pocket zipper and opened his pocket. Out popped Fate, who climbed on Roa and bit him multiple times in the ear.

“Ouch! Ok, I’m sorry!”

Seemingly contempt, Fate glanced over Roa’s shoulder and saw the black crystal. With a face full of greed, Fate became a blur and moved towards the black crystal.

Hopping frantically for a second, Fate opened his mouth and began to chew through the black crystal like jelly. In the next second, the black crystal was completely gone, leaving the chunk of the dungeon with a hole in the center. Before leaving the pit and climbing onto Roa’s shoulder, Fate picked up the steel dagger with this teeth.

Roa gently lifted the dagger out of Fate’s mouth, and inspected it. What surprised him wasn’t the dried blood on the dagger, but how worn it was. It had only been two days plus who knew how long he had been falling since he had fallen and at that time no one even touched their dagger. To the students, the dagger was useless since they relied had better equipment given to them a few days after the first expedition based on their contribution. Everyone aside from Roa had a huge power-up in levels and equipment, not to mention how their teamwork had improved.

To see a worn dagger in just two days meant that at least one of the students had become desperate. Looking up at the sky, Roa found no sympathy for any of them.

--

“Hurry up!”

Since the dragon incident, the students were scared witless. Many confined themselves to their rooms within the castle, afraid of ever going back into the dungeon.

The king was at first in shock at how many were unwilling to go back inside the dungeon, but after Mana’s explanation he understood how they felt. He once again summoned them all to his hall.

As the students piled in, he noticed a few were missing, most notably the kid he had met personally. Looking at Mana, the king couldn’t trust the priestess anymore. She had hid information away from him, which had never happened before.

Regardless, the king stood up from his throne and rumbled.

“I have heard from Mana about yesterday’s incident. First off, I am terribly sorry for any of the losses you may have experienced. No one had ever seen anything spawn on the third floor boss area, but we will take all responsibility.”

The king saw the students faces ease up, and continued to speak.

“Just like the previous expedition, we will not force anyone to go any further than they want. But I must remind you that if you don’t want the same thing to happen again, you must all grow stronger. And the best way to grow stronger, is to keep fighting.”

With a simple speech, the students were lively once again. In the next couple of days the second floor bridge was shoddily reconstructed, enough for one person at a time to pass without breaking, and the students progressed farther and farther until they were stuck on the seventh floor.

Before they had stepped into the portal, Mana had spoke out.

“The next floor is different from the rest. The monsters will only respawn after you’ve defeated all of them, and will take about a month to respawn.

The floor was like a colosseum. The monsters that the students fought came out one by one from the seats, pitting one monster against the whole group. There were about 100 monsters in the beginning, and they were finally at the last one.

Similar to all the other floors, the boss was at the very end. The final monster to come out, however, was four times smaller than the others. In addition, it looked very similar to the rats they had encountered on the first floor. Its fur was longer than its whiskers and it stood upright.

But what shocked the students and Mana the most was that the rat could talk.

“Ah, otherworlders, you’re finally here.”

Everyone had become as stiff as a rock. The rat chuckled, and continued.

“Initially, I had doubts on how far you all would get. I really underestimated you otherworlds, being able to get this far in only two weeks! You could say I was quite surprised that you even beat the dragon on the second floor that even I had never seen spawn before.

Laur was the first to break away from the tense atmosphere, and angrily shouted back.

“So it was you who did this to Evan and Michelle!”

He had known the two for a long time, even actively helping him bully others.

“Young otherworlder, you need to calm down. I did not of th-”

Before the rat could finish talking, Laur slashed at the rat with Uriel’s sword.

Compared to before, Laur had drastically improved his speed in battle. He had strove to get faster and faster, enough to see his stat growth was drastically skewed the day before they entered the dungeon again.

Name:Laur MofferAge:16Gender:MaleLevel:1Class:Hero Apprentice-Health:1232/1232Mana1232/1232Strength:1310Stamina:1232Agility:1435Resistance:1232Magic:1232Magic Resistance:1232-Elemental Affinity

Wind, Fire, Earth, Water, Thunder, Light

Skills

[Unique] Incantation of Uriel

Continuously drain 10 mana per second to summon and equip Uriel's Sword.

[Unique] Aura of Propensity

Party size increased from 3 to 10.

Increase in 10% experience for everyone in party when leader.

Rite of A Hero

High possibility to become a hero.

Increased stat growth.

Able to understand all languages.

Titles

World Traveler

Traversing the dungeon again had once again made his speed improve after continuous battles. At this point, it seemed to the others that his speed had doubled from before.

When the rat got slashed, it only smirked as its silhouette slowly began to dissipate.

“I was going to give you this floor’s boss as a freebie, but I guess you don’t want it! Hahaha, I’ll see you all in the later floors.”

When the rat fully vanished, the students who still gaping turned to look at Mana, only to see her gaping as well.

It took the students a few minutes to settle down, before returning to normal. They leisurely walked across the arena towards the portal to the next floor.

Laur was the first to step onto the portal, and did it alone. When he shimmered into the second floor, he was greeted by a bald gorilla’s face. At first alarmed, he hesitated for a second. Fortunately for Laur, the gorilla simply smiled at the sight of Laur’s shock.

Laur was immediately battle ready after recovering from the shock, and launched towards the gorilla, brandishing Uriel’s sword with two hands.

He sliced at the gorilla’s leg, and was astounded to find that he had not even left a dent on the bald gorilla’s skin.

It seemed to Laur as if the gorilla’s smiled had widened.

For the first time ever, Laur was at a loss, and without hesitation ran away.

As the next group of people shimmered into the eighth floor, they saw Laur disappear back into the portal.

Confused, they saw turned around and saw the gorilla running towards them. Shrieking, the two students froze, and were smashed into paste by the gorilla’s fists with the strength of a bomb.

Still smirking, the gorilla also stepped into the portal.

On the seventh floor, Laur shimmered into existence, and kept running. Everyone was confused until they saw the gorilla also shimmer in. They could guess why Laur was running, and everyone followed after in a panicked hurry.

They had ran all the way to the second floor, with the bald gorilla playfully following after. One by one, the students ran through the bridge as the gorilla was shimmering into existence once again. When the gorilla was able to see what was happening, it ran towards the bridge angry. It was able to discern that the bridge wouldn’t carry its weight, and that the distance to the next island on the second floor was too far for it to jump to.

By the time it had reached the bridge, only one person was left. He had just began to cross when he saw the gorilla right in front of him. With a second wind, he ran across the bridge faster than ever.

The gorilla grabbed a part of the bridge ahead of the student and teared it to pieces, breaking the bridge in two.

In a stunning display of acrobatics that even the student didn’t know he had possessed, he lept onto the next part of the bridge. As if on instinct, he took out the steel dagger he was given and rammed it into the steadily falling bridge. He grabbed on as hard as he could until the bridge slammed into the side of the island, finally stabilizing.

Shaking, but generally unhurt, the student began to climb up the bridge, using the dagger as support and leverage.

As the student neared the end, he eased up and began to climb with more gusto. Right at the end, he was careless and stabbed the dagger into a missing part of the bridge. Feeling nothing but air, the student let go of the dagger and screamed as he felt vertigo spreading throughout his body.

Suddenly, a hand reached out and grabbed the student by the arm. As the student was dragged up, he felt the stress pile up as the endorphins washed away.

When the student was on solid ground, he collapsed.

“Thank you, Lucin.”

On the other island, the monkey was furious, slamming his fists onto the ground in anger. The floor rumbled, and pieces of the ceiling fell into the abyss.