The orange glow of the lights created a cozy atmosphere in the house which was quickly disturbed by the children swarming towards him.

"He's baaaack!!!"

How all of them had grown up. When he had brought them here all they could do was sob and cry, completely different from the beautiful smiles that they were making at the moment.

“What should you say in reply?”

“Walaikum Assalam!”

Their voices resounded across the hall, causing him to wince. Their high-pitched voices were a bit too sharp as they stung his ears.

“Good, all of you have prayed?”

“Yes!”

“Had breakfast?”

“No!”

“And you guys still have so much energy without anything in your tummies.”

He shook his head as he advanced forwards into the house. The swarm of children parted ways allowing him to enter the hall. The smell of breakfast started entering his nose causing his mouth to water even though he was not hungry.

“Uncle…”

The little child quickly covered his mouth with his little hands but he had already heard him. Without giving others time to react, he picked him up with one hand.

“You dare!”

The child quickly shook his head but no one could save him now. His hand quickly shadowed the head of the child and closed down. The child shook as the hand came closer and eventually covered the nose. When he removed his hand, the nose was not there. The child quickly brought his hand to the nose but his hand could not feel anything there.

“Ha ha ha. Now I have stolen your nose for your crime. Take it if you can. Ha ha ha.”

All of it happened so quickly that they could only see a blur. He placed the child down slowly and carefully, not wanting to hurt him.

“My.. nose…”

Tears came in the eyes of the child and all the other children started getting rowdy.

“Return it!”

All of them shouted and came swarming towards him but he just slightly jumped which was enough to sail across nearly ten rows of children.

“After him!”

One of them shouted as they started running after him. He carefully maintained the distance from the swarm, sometimes accelerating, always within hand's reach, providing them hope that they could eventually catch up to them. As he was playing with the children, suddenly the child whose nose he had hidden started brawling out.

“Waaaaa!”

“Waaaaa!”

“Waaaaa!”

Like a domino effect, all of them started crying. His head quickly jerked his head around and jumped to the first one. The noise was visible again as he stopped the illusion but the damage was already done.

“Shhhhh shhh”

“Stop, please stop.”

“Weren’t we just having fun?”

He rotated between all of the crying ones, desperately trying to stop the inevitable.

“Idiot brother!”

Out came his sisters as she was warping the scarf on her head, snarling at him. He quickly squatted behind one of the kids. Unsurprisingly, all of the ones crying had stopped, just making do with hiccups.

“I can see you!”

When he saw her storming towards him in such anger, he briefly contemplated whether he should maintain the dignity as big brother and confront her. It was only brief though, his sister was no longer cute since had handed over the business to her.

“If it isn’t my lovely little sister. How did you know that I came back?”

His voice resounded across the hall, inducing confidence in the children who had quietened down. Their hopes were quickly shattered as he remained behind them with no intention of moving.

His sister glared at him as she stopped to complete the scarf.

“Why were you children making so much noise. Look, now you have disturbed my hard-working sister.”

He quickly placed all the blame upon the children without batting any eyes. They all glared at him but his skin was significantly thicker after nearly dying every time granting him the immunity from the little shiny beads that were all staring at him accusingly.

“Big sis! It was big brother Jabbar’s fault. He stole Ali’s nose.”

“I saw it.”

“Me too.”

“Me too.”

The glares all gathered upon him but he just shrugged and picked up Ali as he came in.

“Sorry little guy, was just messing with you. Forgive me, will you?”

The little guy sniffed and slowly asked him.

“Only if you correct Usman’s feet. I will forgive you.”

“Now that would be unfair to others.”

“Hmmm. I will make his test a bit easier. Usman, start the preparations, k.”

He stood in front of his sister who had just finished setting her scarf.

“Oh stop glaring please. What if I get a heart attack?”

“It seems you are very free. Why don’t you come with me today.”

“Me? Free? How did you ever get that impression?”

“If you have time to pull pranks on children you surely have time to help me.”

“Two hours I can give you at max.”

“That should be enough, thank you.”

He nodded and went to the dining area. The room looked more like a hall and it was quickly filled as the children swarmed into the room and started sitting down on the embroidered sheets that were spread across the floor. The heaters created a cozy temperature as compared to outside and slowly breakfast started arriving. The dinner was filled with the laughter of innocent children. None of them showed any discontent about the food, after all, there was a time where they had none, and even though to their short lives that now seemed far away, their minds and bodies still remembered it.

After eating breakfast he and his sister drove towards the office. There he had to spend a lot more time than he had thought as he helped out his sister. She was still new and even though he had made sure everything was as smooth as possible when handing things over to her things still popped up now and then.

-----

“Hey ya, how’s it going Jabbar?”

“Cheery as always, Ishmael.”

He closed the door of the storage house and moved forward towards a wall with a handle. He pulled at the wall and a whole section started moving out. It looked effortless as the wall slowly came out revealing a path behind.

“Whistle~ How much does this thing weigh? A ton?”

“Around 450 kilos.”

“Stats?”

“Body 185.”

“Stress?”

“None.”

“Hey hey, won’t you, like, become hulk if you keep on going like this.”

“Paint yourself green if you want. I like myself as I am.”

“Oh no! Uncle Asghar save me! This monster wants to paint me green.”

The two other men were donned in white salwar kameez and black waistcoats. One of them had a beard that had more white than black hair. His face was stoic and his voice deep making him look exceptionally more mature.

“Please don’t joke with me, sir.”

Next to him stood a clean-shaven person who appeared to be in his thirties. He had a smile on his face and his eyes were focused upon his companion.

“Ishmael, did you consider what I said?”

He motioned for them to come inside. After the guests had entered, he closed the path after pulling back the wall.

“Hey it's cold in here.”

He came in and turned on a button. Orange light illuminated all the sheets on the floor, the table, and the equipment on it. He then switched another button causing warm air to slowly come inside.

“So?”

Jabbar asked as he sat down next to the table.

“It will drastically cut down the time, that is for sure.”

Ishmael replied as he sat down on the opposite side. The other two men sat at the 2 vacant sides.

“But, it will become a very dangerous game. Even I myself will not be able to save my neck if something goes wrong.”

Jabbar nodded.

“But it will cut down the time drastically. Maybe we could even see the result in our lifetime.”

“That. That is why I am here.”

He pointed his arms towards the two men.

“These old guys here, they will help you with all the other stuff. You just get the stories, ok.”

Jabbar nodded.

“You provided them with the things I gave you?”

“The things you bought from the dungeon? Yea. They really are amazing. No matter what my men did they couldn’t get into their software. They can still be destroyed though, so keep that in mind.”

“As long as the data is safe, other things don’t matter. I have already set up a server here. You will need to test it too.”

“How much did it cost?”

“A lot.”

Both of them continued their discussion while the two men that Ishmael had brought with him tested the equipment that was going to be used in the operation.

-----

Azaan opened his eyes to the ever white room. He instinctively gripped his hands before remembering that they were supposed to be cut off but he could feel them. He lifted his arm up in the air.

There was a clear distinction of where his arm had been cut off. Just above his elbow, he could see clean skin while everywhere else on his body was covered with blood, dirt, and what had now become scraps instead of clothes.

As he finished his inspection, the statue suddenly spoke causing him to flinch.

“Calculating payment.”

A hologram appeared before his eyes.

Base Payment: 10 CP

Additional: 2 CP

Achievements: 3 (F)

Total: 12 CP, 3 (F)

“Leave the dungeon.”

Exit the Endless Dungeon

Y/N

-----

Azaan checked the time while shivering from the cold. The moon was visible from the window and the time told him that he had only been gone for just a bit above an hour. It was ludicrous to him that such a small amount of time had passed.

His thoughts were quickly diverted elsewhere as the cold made him turn on the heater. He took out another set of clothes from his closet which were quickly dwindling. This was the second set that had been shredded leaving him almost naked. He ran back in front of the heater after taking a cold shower. In the orange glow of the heater, he took out the crate of ration packets and quickly ate. Unlike the massive protest that his stomach was making, it took very little to satisfy it as he could not eat more of this amazingly good food and water.

He laid down in his bed trying to sleep but his mind was very active. Though he could no longer feel any pain, the memories were still fresh. He tumbled around on the mattress but still could not sleep. So in the end, with much difficulty, he got out of bed and setup his laptop on his mattress.

The game that they had just completed had been an open-world RPG but this time he wanted to do something different.

"Rhythm? Mystery? Horror? Maybe puzzle."

As he was thinking about what the game could be about he thought back to the conversation he had with Incatu when he had asked for poison. There were three types of goblins that he had seen. The first type was small and overly aggressive. The second was bigger and faster with their faces twisted in emotions while the third type was even bigger than Azaan himself, able to use magic and physically powerful.

He wrote down the ideas as they came into his mind recording them to show his team when they returned from the holidays.

As the night deepened, the warm mattress gradually swallowed his body and sent his mind to the faraway dreamlands.

-----

Ring

Ring!

Ring!

Ring!

Ring!

He woke up and shut off the alarm. It took a lot of effort to leave the warm embrace of his bed and venture out into the cold. In the bathroom, he performed ablution and quickly dried himself. After performing the prayer while his body shivered from the cold, he sat on his mattress and started doing zikr. Again sleep overcame him despite his best efforts to keep doing zikr.