After a few minutes of awkward silence… I’m still lying down on the ledge with my leather pouch acting as a cushion for my head... Xiao Qing (小青, literally meaning Green, XQ) was standing leaned against the cave wall at an angle I can see if I slightly turned my head over. Their arms are tucked in front and when they saw me looking at them, they just looked at the other direction, showing they are still mad...

Still trying to ignore me, huh? Whenever they turned to see me looking at them, they looked at the other direction to show that they don't want to talk to me...

“…... I’m sorry okay? Can you tell me what’s going on in here?”

XQ: “…... Hmmph! Fine… I wanna get this over with soon anyways. I’m here to meet with the new registered Dungeon Keeper… DK for short… ...... Aaaahhhh!!”

…… Oh boy~~ This cannot be good~~ They screamed out of embarassment as if my very eye contact had caused them verbal harassment!

XQ: “Hey! Don’t start giving short-formed terms for initials ok?! I won’t forgive you for calling DK as … You know what I’m saying right? I'm warning you, if you do that I'll kill you!!”

“Hey… I haven’t said anything… Why would I call DK ….”

XQ: “I’ll kill you if you even say it you got that??! … Anyways I want to get this over with and go back to my own Dungeon.”

“What?! This is not your Dungeon?!”

XQ: “Of course not! My Dungeon is no way as messed up as this one is… If you’re the DK here, good luck to you…”

“Wait a minute, things are getting weird here… You’re a DK and you’ve come over here to meet another DK? … Eh~~~? ......... NO~~~~!!! No way!! You knew this was gonna happen and you wait until I’m screaming like a girl then you decide to save my sorry…??! Argghhh!!!”

I was lying down but now I sat up when I heard that. Is this a joke or something?

XQ: “You’re fine being a girl anyways… Not that I care… I think I did you a favor already… Who knows how long you’re gonna have to run before finally die together with that foul mouth of yours, eaten by worms?”

“…” (Grrr…) This guy, girl, whatever is starting to get on my nerves…

XQ: “You’re lucky I’m talking to you okay? Anyways… I’m here to find the DK here and convey the message of the Boss. Since you’re the only one around, I’ll assume that it’s you!”

“… What message?” (You’re quite eager to find the easy way out, huh?! Just saying whatever to whoever?)

XQ: “…… Fine, I know that the new DK is you, okay? Now, here comes the hard part… (Ok, you can do it…) Here goes… Here are his actual words. ‘Explain the situation to the newly recruited member. Then, assist him to devise a plan to handle the situation.’ ”

Nothing seemed to be making sense now. “…… Ok… I check-in first day and I have to deal with… how should I put it, this??!”

XQ: “Hey, don’t try to insult the Boss’ wisdom ok? He thinks you can do it, so what could go wrong?”

A few massages on my throbbing temples later…

“So let’s say I’m the DK for this dungeon. What are DK’s supposed to do?”

“Huh? You don’t know? Take care of their dungeon, of course! Just do your best to make things better or at least maintain it as it is. We act as butlers for the Boss… Or like a Branch Manager for a company’s CEO… Anything that happens in the dungeon is your responsibility! Your dungeon falls, you’re to blame and you go down with it… Of course if your dungeon is well managed, then you’re the one who will benefit from it! The Boss is quite generous with awarding people who shows good talent, does their work well and taking good responsibility!”

“…… So what is this incident that I’m supposed to deal with?”

XQ: “You know the silkworms on the ground? They’re abnormal…”

“Yeah, surprise~ me!! …… You mean the silkworms in the trees are normal? So the ones on the ground are some sort of Residence Evil or Walking Dead, huh?” (Jokingly…)

XQ: “Hmmm… You can say that… They are somewhat like zombies, that’s for sure…”

“… I was joking, you know… So they are zombie worms? …… You’re serious!? Oh Lord!!

XQ: “They had been infected by a parasite, which take over their minds gradually. They need to feed on mana to help them grow, that’s why they’ll attack humans with large pools of mana. The larger the pool of mana, the more likely they’ll detect when approaching and the more aggressive they’ll become.”

“I have a large pool of mana? That’s the only good news I’ve heard so far. Is the parasite infectious?”

XQ: “Nope, it is only infectious between silkworms. Humans and other animals are not affected. Any other questions? …… Okay… So now, we need to device a plan and then fight them.”

“I’m sure we need help on this. In case the Boss didn’t know, WE’RE JUST A BUNCH OF 10 YEAR OLDS!!!”

To emphasize how stressed I feel, I cupped my hands in front of my mouth and shouted out loud to let this Boss know a piece of my mind of how absurd this plan of his will work out.

“Hey, stop!” XQ looked at me alarmed, rushed over to where I was sitting, squatted down beside me and put a hand over my mouth with another hand on the back of my neck. For a moment, I was surprised since this happened in an instant. I was stunned, I didn’t notice my hands are now in a sort of ‘I surrender’ posture. And then I turned a bit and for the first time, looked into her eyes…. And then I couldn’t stop staring...

It was a pair of large, beautiful, dark brown eyes, glistening and looking as serious as can be. Then I caught glimpse of her hair that was rolled into a messy bun, which looked nice really… It was black at a distance, but up close, with the sunlight in her hair, I saw that it was really dark brown. Then did I confirm that it was a girl… A cute Asian girl with a nose as cute as a button and a pair of healthy pink lips.

She must have noticed that I was staring then… That’s when she realized that she had just touched me, she started to look uncomfortable... Then she let go and backed-up a bit and stood up to take a few steps back.

It was a bit embarrassing at first, since we were just talking about some really heavy topics and I was stressed, but suddenly the pressure had lifted… Is it just me or did the air surrounding us started to glow in a pink arc??

XQ was the first to break the silence. “Stop it, you’ll attract too much attention from the infected worms around here. …… It’s not safe to stay here long. First, I’ll train you to control mana from leaking and then we’ll try to reach your office in this level. From there we can speak with the other fellow DK’s. Come on, stand up now. And relax and close your eyes. ”

XQ reached out a hand to help me up. I looked for a moment and then I reached out to her. She helped me up and then she started tutoring me on mana manipulation.

XQ: “First things first. I need to teach you how to control your mana. Mana condensation is the first technique learned by magic users and the most important step to start using magic! Learning this technique will enable you to absorb enough mana or 'fuel' to channel mana to your arms and cast spells! You need to learn how to hold your mana in and not let them diffuse so easily out. Having a large mana pool but unable to withhold the mana is equal to wasting it. You can imagine your mana pool to be like a balloon, since your mana will leak out unintentionally. Now, you need to imagine yourself sort of breath in the mana in the air. How do I put this… Imagine surrounding mana like water vapor and your balloon can hold it in better if it is condensed. Another important thing is to clear your mind from any other thoughts other than the task at hand since loosing focus will cause this process to be difficult. This may be hard for most individuals but I believe a person like you who’s chosen by the Boss can do it!”

After a frustrating 20 mins…

“Is it just me or is this is really hard? I don’t feel any different.”

XQ wore a puzzled expression. “This is strange… Did you clear your thoughts?”

“No… I don’t think I can… Not after that frightening incident. And there are a lot of questions about this world that I haven’t asked… Who am I? Why am I chosen? What kind of Boss would let his freshie take up something like this on his first day? Something just felt not right…”

“Hmmm… You’re a DK that’s for sure. We are the few chosen ones to take charge of the Dungeons. We all went through a very difficult test that pushes us to the limit. According to the Boss you are the first person to take the Mentality test upon entering and was also the first one to pass it. And from the reaction of the infected worms to you, you have a large pool of mana but you don’t know how to suppress it. That was also probably why you are able to withstand that attack. Normal adventurers would have been sucked dry of their mana and lost their will to fight on the spot… Then the parasites will start to absorb the life energy from them until they die. So you should be quite gifted… You should be able to learn to condense your mana after some practice.”

Why do I not have any memory of passing any test?

“… Does the attacks of the Zombugs have anything to do with my situation now?”

“I don’t know… Why?”

“Those worms fed on my mana right? That may have affected my mind and made me lose focus. And I suspect that there are wounds in my mana body inflicted by the parasites in the worms… They shouldn’t be able to suck mana so efficiently if they cannot tear down the protection on it and inflicted a few wounds… By the way, I wanted to ask this for a while now. Does this world allow us to use Appraisal or some function to check our current status? That will help a lot.”

XQ: “Yeah… About that… I asked the same question to the Boss… This was the reply… ‘Why let people depend on something so convenient and let them lose their sense of creativity? Appraisal and even system notification for newbies is just like giving a smartphone to a toddler. They’ll want to use it to play games or surf the Internet so you use it more and more often, yet they don’t know why they’re given it. Up to a certain point, they cannot control the urge to use it like they cannot live without it and that’s not necessarily for contacting people like the sole purpose of the phone is made for! Why, because they’re plain lazy to find out by themselves, that’s why! Adventurers should be given the chance to experiment, learn, make assumptions and come up with that data from observation on the results themselves. That’s the fun of adventure you know!’ ”

“…… I’m speechless… I’m probably heavily wounded now you know! And I don’t know that for sure… I’m trying out now! ‘Appraisal!’ …… ‘Check stats!’ ……” …… Nothing…!

A whole 10 other trials later using commands, all the time imagining a status page will appear.

“Arrgghhh~~! Nothing’s working! This is depressing… Argggh!!”

XQ: “Don’t be a baby… This is all new to me too! Just accept it and move on! If you can’t use magic for now, then just use your weapon! You should have one provided by Boss right?”

“I suppose so! Even if I have a cool weapon… I don’t really want to… ……. Huh??!”

I let out a shout that shocked XQ again. (That almost got me a second moe moment, now that I think back… But at that moment I didn’t even think about it…)

I started checking my clothes on the front and the back like I did earlier for a rape check… Then came an alarming realization after a moment of stillness…

XQ looked at me worryingly. "What's wrong??"

“My knife, my only weapon… It’s gone!!”