Arthur Clive. He had short black hair and nondescript dull brown eyes. He was a bit shorter than most in America, and he always seemed a bit bored.

Arthur Clive was not normal. He knew that, and was reminded of it every day of his life through his own thoughts and minor realizations of reality.

Arthur Clive was a scared person who didn’t think of himself as amazing at all. In fact, he thought of himself as a hypocrite on the best of days, and a coward on the worst, for all that he feared confrontations and loved senseless violence.

For what would you call someone like that, but a hypocrite? Arthur was strange and his mind-set alien to those around him, luckily those that understood him to a certain amount nearly always ended up becoming friends with him… otherwise, living might have been too difficult for him.

The sound of a television was what woke Arthur, as he yawned and stretched, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he blearily reached for the remote, making the volume increase a bit.

“…and so we believe these ‘Dungeons’ will be open soon for registered people, ‘Adventurers’ so to speak, this was decided at the recent U.N meeting following Red Sky Day-”

Arthur didn’t care much for what those people were saying, despite realizing the importance of what the News Anchors were saying.

Red Sky Day, Dungeons, Adventurers, lots of terms that would have been strange, had it been a month ago.

It was currently January 4th of 2020. Last Month/Year, December first, a lot had changed for the world, and the world was still adjusting to it.

On the first of December, there had been an ‘invasion’ by paranormal entities… basically, demons.

It had practically been hell on earth for the one hour in which they attacked, only three types were known, a giant centipede one that attacked on the ground, a flying snake thing and some aquatic shark demon.

Seeing as Arthur had been on solid ground during Red Sky Day, as the day was now known as, he had been one of many who had encountered the centipede demons.

He had survived, killing the demon with a knife and assistance from a friend of his who had a gun for some reason… Arthur didn’t want to ask why they thought a gun was necessary.

But yeah, the demons weren’t as strong as they appeared. Sure, they could kill people easily, but it was the same vice versa, a bullet or two would kill those centipede things if they got hit in the head.

Arthur and his friend who had been helping him had actually hunted the things down during that hour, despite both of them being scared out of their minds at first…

Well, Arthur had been detached from it all, his friend was the one that panicked for a while before calming down… Arthur on the other hand, was eerily calm about it, as if he wasn’t even being affected by the fact people had been dying around him and he would die if he got hit by the centipede things that had blades for front limbs.

It was just one of the strange things that made Arthur who he was, he accepted himself as a strange person, and if someone couldn’t handle that then they’d have no right being involved with him.

Red Sky Day was dangerous for humanity as a whole though, having reduced the population of eight billion to roughly five billion over the course of the day, Arthur was just thankful that no one he knew died that day, as he didn’t want to know what he would have done…

Probably sworn vengeance like some Shounen Anime character… he liked those.

But no one he knew died. He had few friends, and of those friends, no one had anyone in their family die. One of them mentioned a colleague from work dying, but that was about the extent of it.

Arthur considered himself lucky, even if he didn’t care about humanity in the long run; he knew he was lucky to not be part of the three billion that died, or the people who knew them.

But Red Sky Day wasn’t just about the whole ‘invasion from Demons of Hell’ thing, though that was obviously the most noticeable thing that happened that day. The second most notable thing was getting an announcement, from the Devil of all things.

Arthur looked to his wall, where he had written the words of the self-proclaimed Devil.

Greetings to all leftover living members of humanity. I am the Devil, Ruler of Hell. Note, I am not Lucifer the guy who used to run this place, I’m a different person. You can all refer to me as The Devil, Devil or Chronos. I like the last one. So, I bet you are all wondering why you are hearing a voice in your head from the Devil of all people.

Well, as the Devil, I’m sure you all know what the Devil does, the Devil makes deals… and I’m here to offer all of humanity one.

See, Lucifer, Angel of Light and Warden to Humanities Sinners, was the previous ruler of hell. It was stable, and everyone in Hell pretty much picked fights with each other and stayed there. It was pretty boring.

Then I came along, got strong pretty quickly and kicked Lucifer off his throne out of sheer boredom. It was a difficult fight, but fun.

Then I sat on the throne for about a month before getting bored again. So I decided on something crazy awesome to do.

I’m going to slowly invade Earth. And Earth is going to fight back. And hopefully it will be interesting.

Admittedly, it would be boring if humanity, as it is, were to try and fight me and my army of beings from Hell… so I decided to give you all quite the boost.

No need to thank me, it’s the deal. You fight and you will be rewarded with more power. Fight more, gain even more power. Eventually, get strong enough to fight me, maybe even kill me, and I’ll be glad to get rid of my boredom.

Oh, and if by some miraculous way of impossibility I get killed by someone… That person will become the new Ruler of Hell, aka The Devil.

If that doesn’t sound interesting, this next bit will be. Hell is a world onto its own, and it isn’t just fire and brimstone, though that is here.

Hell has armies and power, food and water, Hell has resources, and I know you humans are running out.

So yeah, your only option to live longer than about… fifty years on your planet?

Take over Hell and share its near unlimited resources with Earth… I hope you humans become interesting.

It was… weird… and complicated. The words of the Devil, or Chronos as he wanted to be called, seemed to make him out as some battle hungry guy who just got bored, took over Hell, got bored again and decided to take over Earth.

He even provided humans with ways to get stronger and fight equally with Demons, which Arthur noted absently on his wrist which had a slightly glowing tattoo.

LEV 01 was what it stated, showing that he hadn’t grown any stronger using it, but that he had it. It provided quite a bit more features than just glowing, though Arthur wasn’t capable of using it just yet…

He’d first need to go to a Dungeon Entrance and talk to a ‘Guild’ member there. Upon going through some legal red tape, he’d ‘Awaken’ to whatever abilities Chronos had granted him through this deal…

This was a strange deal which required Arthur to get stronger to kill Chronos the deal maker.

From what was released to the public, Awakening would provide four things, each associated with a common RPG element in Arthur’s mind, except for one.

Stats were one thing that would appear, there were six stats, split into Physical, Mental and Defensive, with two stats for each category.

Physical had the stereotypical Strength stat, as well as Dexterity. Strength measured just that, physical strength, whereas Dexterity measured flexibility and motor skills, with too little Dexterity one could run face first into a wall when one tried to run, and with too little Strength one would be incapable of fighting at their best.

Defensive had the Endurance and Vitality stats, Endurance representing how resistant a person was to damage, while Vitality represented the recovery speed a person had.

Mental had to do with that thing nearly every human wished they had when they learnt of it, magic.

Intelligence affected the amount of ‘Mana’ one could possess, as well as being the main source of damage for magical abilities offensively. Wisdom affected the rate of recovery for Mana, and affected how well defensive magic worked.

Intelligence and Wisdom both affected the effects of Supplementary magic, such as magic that increased strength or speed, with Intelligence factoring into the strength of said magic, and Wisdom giving control over the magic and keeping it lasting.

Arthur was quite excited when he heard of this, knowing already what else would follow, especially if stats existed.

Levels existed as well, as verified by the tattoo on Arthur’s arm, stating his current Level to be one, though he was incapable of using its abilities… it wasn’t actually awakened through this process though, seeing as everyone already had one.

Magic was the next thing awoken, the dream of all who heard of it, the ability to cause phenomena with your will. Anyone could use magic apparently, to a limited degree, and your elemental affinities were decided during Awakening, with most having just one element, rarely two.

Following Magic were Skills. Skills weren’t entirely rare, but they weren’t common either. Just about everyone would awaken to at least one, but after a certain point it just got rare.

In addition, Skills had rarities and levels, upon levelling up a Skill through use, it would change in Rank. If its Rank increased enough, it might evolve into a different skill, or perhaps change rarity.

The final thing Awakening caused was the one that was confusing to Arthur, even as he finished his morning rituals of showering, eating his breakfast and brushing his teeth…

The final thing to appear with Awakening was Anima. At first the word provoked thoughts to the band, or perhaps even Carl Jung, a famous psychologist slash philosopher, and his theory of the Anima being the unconscious feminine side of a man… then people simply translated it, from its base Latin to English, and its real meaning was found.

Anima, in English, meant ‘Soul’. While the term was correct, it didn’t quite describe what an Anima was, and everyone was quite frankly confused on it themselves.

The only assurances involving Anima were that each was unique to each person, similarities could exist, but they would never be wholly the same, and that everyone had an Anima, some rare cases even spoke of people possessing two.

Of course, some philosophers and psychologists were happy and disturbed with these new revelations, Arthur remembered reading quite a few articles of outrage at the Anima.

Anima… they were the truest form of the soul apparently and while not all were physical, as some Anima manifested as spells or skills, the most common spell type Anima being one centred on healing… though most were physical, like swords.

But should one be judged on their Anima? If a sweet and innocent little girl awakened to a screaming Scythe that devoured souls, would that make the little girl the grim reaper?

It was still up for debate in most first world countries, but then again, most countries didn’t have the freedom to care about such worries, as they’d rather send the little grim reaper girl to go kill the enemy than worry about her soul being in the form of screaming death.

Arthur felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and checked it with a bit of an annoyed look, disliking social media and long distance communication. It had to do with him disliking how he couldn’t read someone’s expression through a text.

When he saw the message, he just sighed and left the house, leaving a note on the table that he was leaving to a nearby Dungeon Entrance with some friends, and that he’d be home for dinner.

Upon leaving the plain soft green house with a white picket fence and immaculate garden, Arthur moved to the driveway, pulling out his keys and zipping up his jacket.

Leather was important to wear when on a motorbike, especially during winter when the cold bit into ones flesh when driving around at a hundred miles per hour.

Arthur started the bike and drove off, the Dungeon Entrance wasn’t too far away, but he liked the thrill of driving around on a motorbike at high speeds, it made him feel alive.

A few corners from his home, ignoring the left over destruction that was slowly but surely fading after Red Sky Day happened a month ago, he arrived at the Dungeon Entrance, already seeing a line forming to talk to a Guild Employee.

“Arthur! Over here!” Arthur kept his helmet on as he got off his bike, but took it off immediately after, clipping it to his bike as he walked over to the people calling to him.

There were two already there, though three more would be on their way to meet up with the two currently here.

“Alice, Michael, it’s good to see you two.” Arthur was surprisingly sincere when it came to his greeting, though he didn’t step in close beyond what was necessary for a handshake, liking his personal space too much.

“You’re a bit late… though the others are too.” Michael, the eldest one of the three, was also the tallest, at roughly six foot two, he was a giant, despite his lankiness, and he had spiky short black hair and brown eyes, his clothing was similar to Arthur in that he was wearing Jeans and boots, but he had a zip-up hoodie instead of a leather jacket like Arthur.

“Why am I here…” the half-dying girl was Alice, the eldest of Michael’s sisters, though she was still younger than he was.

Alice was short, but her physique ensured no one thought of the term ‘child’ when looking at her, she had straight black hair going to just about her shoulders and brown eyes much like her brother.

“You’re here because you wanted to quit school remember?” Michael rolled his eyes at her antics, though he didn’t blame her, considering they were standing in the cold at seven in the morning on a Saturday so soon after school re-started.

“I don’t want to quit school… I just want a part-time job I’d enjoy instead of hate. Can you imagine me at McDonalds saying ‘May I take your order?’” Alice asked with a slight glare at Michael, though Arthur chuckled a bit at the imagery.

“Sure, sure, but you realize that if you’re in school we’d still need to continue this without you?” Michael raised a valid point as Arthur nodded sagely.

“Yeah Alice, we’re planning on doing this as a career, but you’re part-timing. See the problem here?” Arthur asked and Alice sighed, knowing that the both of them were right, but not wanting to outright admit it.

“High School seniors are being given the opportunity to focus on this, so during school hours I’d probably be able to go into a Dungeon nearby, as long as I went with fellow students.” She explained and Arthur widened his eyes at her words.

“I’m impressed… are they really letting you do that? I mean, the laws haven’t changed yet you know, if students get harmed during school hours that’s on the school, especially if they know where the student is.” Arthur wondered how likely it was to be true at this point.

“Yeah, though we wouldn’t be allowed past a certain point until we reached certain levels. They’re letting it happen because this could be a well-paying job.” Arthur didn’t deny Alice’s words, fighting in the Dungeon was apparently worth a lot.

“Of course, not every student can become an Adventurer, we still need teachers, doctors, engineers and what not, and so only six per class can do that.” And there the catch was, she’d need to secure a one in five chance to continue going into the Dungeon on her school hours.

“Right… where is everyone else by the way?” Arthur complained, checking his watch on his right wrist, a habit from his father who was left handed, and Michael shrugged.

“Matt should be arriving soon, it’s really easy to tell when he’s close, John might have fallen asleep on the bus… and as for our sixth member you know her more than the rest of us.” Michael smirked at Arthur at his last words and Arthur looked away trying to ignore what Michael was insinuating.

“Well at least I got here on time, the place is opening soon.” Arthur tried and failed to ignore Michael’s words, but at least he made it appear as if he heard nothing.

“Yeah… so, any ideas on what you’d get?” Alice interrupted their moment of silence as both Michael and Arthur shrugged.

“No idea. We know everyone starts with stats of five and gains a Class which grants skills and stats per level, but what Class you gain is apparently dependant on your Anima… who knows what you’d get there.” Arthur complained as the two looked at him.

“…What?” Michael and Alice remembered that Arthur was the type of person who’d win a game, then read a wiki to know more about it, then would win it again. He liked knowing things and putting those things to use.

“Okay, so you have no idea on what Class or Anima you’d get, but what about Magic and Skills?” Michael voiced out, and that got both Alice and Arthur thinking, even as they all heard the roar of an engine approaching.

“Magic is based on feelings and personality so unless I see a graph I wouldn’t know… skill-wise, there are a huge amount of them, but apparently a good one to get is a stat-booster skill, such as Hero’s Strength or Quick Reflexes.” Arthur explained and Alice’s eyes glinted at the idea of stat-boosting skills… then the engine’s roaring got close enough for them to see the Nissan Fair-lady-Z parking near Arthur’s bike.

From the car appeared another member of their group, Matt Jacobson, a tall guy with short curly hair and a short beard and moustache, in Arthur’s opinion he looked like a taller, more thug-like James Franco.

“What up motherfuckers!” and there his language was, Matt swore a lot, he was loud, and he was violent. Great friend though, without a doubt, just don’t mess with him.

“Yo Matt, glad you got here on time.” Michael greeted, Arthur giving a short wave as Matt tried to ruffle Alice’s hair, only for her to dodge.

Matt was Michael and Alice’s cousin, meaning that Arthur was the only one not related here by blood, not that he cared, the Grave’s welcomed him anytime, usually with a serving of food.

“Yeah, I’m still tired… I just want this done.” Matt was not a morning person, despite how he just sounded… Arthur was pretty sure his shouting of greeting was more of a reflex than not though.

“Hey, weren’t we going to go into the Dungeon today?” Michael complained and Matt raised an eyebrow as he shrugged.

“Maybe, maybe not, it depends on what you awaken as. People with classes like Blacksmith usually aren’t allowed to go in, unless they have a combat skill. Even then, who would let untrained civilians enter a combat zone?” Michael nodded at Matt’s words, Arthur agreeing, though with reluctance at the truth in those words…

Yeah, this was going to be a profession soon, but that didn’t mean people had to just rush in and die.

“Well, normally you’d be right, but according to the reports the first floor just has Slimes and Goblins that even children could win in a fight… as long as mistakes don’t occur.” Arthur made sure to add that last bit, knowing the fallacy of arrogance.

“So the first floor of the Dungeon is actually open to anyone, but going beyond the first floor requires more than what average people can do, meaning you need to be a higher level, probably four or five.” Arthur noted, and Matt looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Yeah, that makes sense… good skills could also ensure that going into a higher level would be alright, but how could they enforce it?” Michael asked and Alice piped in.

“They can’t, Dungeons can only be entered with a group of six at the max, and even if you enter the same Dungeon you won’t see anyone else.” Alice added, and Arthur nodded.

“Yeah, so it’s not a hard limit, if someone thinks they can survive further they can go ahead, but they are warned beforehand that should they die in that situation, it would be their own fault.” Arthur added, even as someone walked up to them with a yawn.

“Hey guys and Alice… what did I miss?” This was the fifth member of their group, John Collins, aka the black guy, not that he’d let you say that.

“We’re talking about the Dungeon… so, you going to be a blacksmith?” Matt joked as John calmly raised a middle finger in response.

“Ha, ha, funny, and I guess you going to be thief so you can shank people?” the jokes, despite their words, were harmless, as one could tell by the tone of their voices, still being jovial.

“Hardly, you’re more likely to be a thief, you could just fade into the shadows.” Arthur thus proceeded to ignore the witty banter of semi-acceptable racist jokes… it was all fair, John was aware of his own racial stereotypes and just rolled with them, it’s not like he fit them anyway, seeing as he was more, in his own words, African American, than black.

Racism, everywhere, but unnecessary beyond a good joke in their opinions.

Arthur just sighed at his friends antics before he turned and saw a white BMW M3 pulling into the parking, and he smiled as it parked and their last member walked out.

Emilia Vasilievna was a Russian student studying architecture and was in Arthur’s University, the New York Institute of Technology, a prestigious affair, one that Arthur’s friends liked teasing him over.

Back to Emilia, Emilia was pale, with surprisingly golden blonde hair and bluish green eyes, as she walked over wearing warm clothing for the mid-winter weather as she walked over before giving Arthur a brief hug.

Again, Arthur disliked it when people entered his comfort zone, but when it was a friend he’d leave it alone for a bit… a bit, any longer and he’d start feeling irritated. His friends all knew this, so Emilia let go quickly as she greeted everyone, trying to remember their names as she had only occasionally met the rest of the group.

“Alright, looks like we’re all here… and the Awakening Chamber will be opening. Let’s go.” Michael noted with a look over towards the line, all six getting into the line, with Arthur being last unfortunately.

The ‘Awakening Chamber’ wasn’t all that amazing, seeing as it was a rush job. See, to awaken your stats, skills and whatnot, it required accessing a podium in front of the Dungeon…

Unfortunately, accessing it for the first time was a surprisingly private affair due to how it worked, so a kind of larger cubical was created hastily to defend the privacy of people undergoing Awakening.

After doing so, accessing the podium would do very little more, beyond allowing one to update their stats, skills and such.

To explain that last bit, one could fight at level one for a whole day, getting enough ‘experience points’ to level up three times, but one would only level up at the podium.

This prevented people from rushing through the Dungeon though from tests it was worthwhile, as they tried to see what was the limit one could go involving held-back levels. The test subjects all experienced intense nausea at levelling up six times without using the podium, so going beyond that was probably bad.

Arthur had his own theories on why it worked like that, but he wasn’t the authority on it and he was not willing to just randomly share thoughts on it.

As mentioned though, the ‘Awakening Chamber’ was merely there to hide the accessing of the Podium for the first time, and to provide privacy for later users.

Luckily Dungeons didn’t pop up in crowded places or inside buildings, or else they’d worry about a Dungeon in the middle of the road or something, so there was space for the government to build Guilds.

The line was moving slowly but surely, as Arthur sunk into his own thoughts, Emilia looking behind her to see Arthur nibbling on his lower lip making her stifle a giggle as she turned to face the front… you could trust Arthur to look like his thoughts were an intense mathematics question.

Guilds were the thing Arthur was thinking about, or to be more precise, the Guild, it was made up of Government Workers, Soldiers and more… secretive, occupations.

The Guild was there to monitor the people leaving and entering the Dungeons as well as to be a neutral party between the ‘Adventurers’ people who would enter the Dungeons, and the Government, as well as helping non-combatants ways of asking materials or assistance from Adventurers.

Scary thing was that Guild Leaders were all required to be at least level ten, at least, this early into the Dungeon explorations, but that number would likely rise. Guild Leaders were supposed to be strong enough to be on equal grounds with Adventurers, or possibly stronger, so as to ensure compliance with laws.

This was obviously going to happen in Arthur’s opinion… give everyone on earth magic and what amounts to superpowers, and rotten people would start appearing a lot often with their new ‘freedom’.

In fact, Arthur had heard that a prison or two had jailbreaks when Dungeons and their podiums had appeared inside the open areas within prisons, and the prisoners would get access to magic and their Anima’s.

So Guild Leaders were the law, not counting police officers who now also underwent mandatory Dungeon ‘diving’ so as to maintain a lead on criminals that could shoot fireballs out of their hands.

“Next…” Arthur blinked as the world came back into focus, and it would be his turn soon as John walked in… followed by Emilia who waved at him as John walked out a bit to the side, stumbling a bit.

“Next…” Arthur felt sorry for this Guild Employee who stood there with a clipboard, dark circles around his eyes and wearing glasses.

“Name, I.D, address, contact number…” the man rattled off absently as Arthur took the pen, glad that he remembered everything as he entered in his information.

“Enter…” the man blearily continued, though Arthur wondered at the flash of green in the man’s eyes as he looked over to Emilia and the others, he wrote it off as his imagination.

The Awakening Chamber was quite bare, beyond the podium of obsidian; the flat, angled top of said podium was white, black lettering floating above it as if it was a hologram… fantasy and science fiction, both were awesome.

The lettering simply stated: Place LEV hand on access panel. And So, Arthur followed the instructions, raising his left hand, as the LEV always appeared on the non-dominant hand, and then placing the hand on the panel.

Arthur jolted as the breath was knocked out of him, his airways clenching as he tried to scream, no voice exiting as his head throbbed as if his heart had decided to move there… and suddenly Arthur wasn’t inside the Awakening Chamber anymore.

You are mortal, you are weak. How do you fight?

I fight with both mind and body, through control and everlasting force.

You fight in such a manner… what would you learn through such fighting?

I would learn tactics of war, I would learn combat… and…

And?

I would understand.

How would you understand… rather, what would you understand?

I would understand myself, I would understand my allies, and I would understand my enemies… I would understand them at their core, and accept them.

You would accept your enemies?

Yes. I would accept my enemies even as I’d slay them piecemeal.

Why?

Understanding is how we better ourselves… understand the world around you, and you better the world.

Interesting… what do you think of yourself?

I think myself… a hypocrite. I think I’m both a coward and a warmonger.

How so?

I dislike emotional conflict. I understand both sides, and thus feel the pain of both in such conflict… yet conflict of the flesh excites me, drives me, in a manner I know is not acceptable in the world I live in.

Do you seek acceptance from the world, or from yourself?

I seek acceptance from myself of course… but the world is important as well. My opinion matters the most, but the world itself affects me.

A balance, albeit a lopsided one… one that does not favour you.

Indeed, it does not… but when is one person more important than the world?

When indeed… When one is more powerful than all.

…So power. I seek power?

Maybe you do… if you do, what would you do with power?

I would… I would…

Infinite, unimaginable power, all in your grasp… what do you do?

…I devour. I protect.

Once more, such confliction… to devour is to attack, to protect is to defend. How would one accomplish both?

Through… through connections, I would accomplish both. To my poisonous enemies, I would devour them; to my steadfast allies I would protect them at the cost of my life. My connections shape me, and so my connections shall shape the world.

…How unique.

And suddenly Arthur was heaving gasping breaths, as he struggled to hold back from vomiting… he luckily succeeded, the pain wracking his body going away rather quickly as he stood, surprised that he was not sweating or in pain anymore, looking towards the ‘access panel’ for answers.

Arthur Clive

Level: 1

Class: Linked Swordsman- Grants one stat point to Strength and Wisdom per level

Gives Soul Sight (Unique) Skill

Anima

Dagger of Hunger

Cloak of Will

Anima Skills

Dagger- Devour- Increase Soul Gain by 6.25%

Cloak- Defence- lowers damage taken by 1%

Primary Element: Lightning

Personal Skills

Tactician I (0/50)- increases Wisdom by 10%

Swordsmanship I (0/50)- Increases ease of weapon handling

Soul Sight I (0/200)- Allows insight beyond mortality

Stats

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Endurance: 5

Vitality: 5

It… was quite neatly arranged… but Arthur wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing, and before he could focus on it, the Guild guy glared at him, his eyes shifting green for a moment.

“Hey, you can check that later, step aside.” He had a point, so Arthur walked away; still uncertain by just what happened to him during his Awakening as he stepped outside, still in a daze as Michael threw an arm over his shoulder, a faux grin on his face.

“Well, exciting, wasn’t it? Let’s go sit over there… and talk.” The last bit was said in a monotone unlike the rest of his sentence… but no one seemed to care at this point… even Arthur himself as he sat down at a bench.

Emilia ambled to a nearby shop for some drinks and returned, handing Arthur… apple juice. Well, he’d normally take energy drinks but he didn’t think that would matter much. He just needed something.

“So… that was not what we were expecting.” Matt said easily as they all nodded, the whole group feeling quiet. It was not out of awkwardness, or disgust or any other truly negative emotion… it was rather a moment of introspection. They were all thinking about what they had seen.

“…Hey, did anyone else… have a conversation with a strange voice?” Arthur asked, knowing the question to be quite sensitive, but willing to ask, in the same manner an addict might ask fellow addicts about the pain of going cold turkey.

“I… I don’t remember.” Emilia shook her head, the rest all shaking their heads along with her as they looked to Arthur.

“I… I think I remember because of a skill I got.” Arthur voiced his opinion, making them look at him for answers.

“Soul Sight… I can… what was the description… see what mortals are not meant to see.” Arthur explained, knowing instinctually how to use the ability… and desperately trying to not use it.

“Oh… what… what was the conversation about?” Michael asked, and Arthur held his head in his hands as he focused on remembering.

“It was… questions, I guess. The voice never referred to itself, only asked questions… the first question it asked was how I’d fight, as a weak mortal… from there it just continued.” Arthur said, stopping for a moment to think.

“It… I couldn’t lie to it; I couldn’t help but speak honestly… and after hearing that… I don’t know how to feel about myself right now… I guess that’s why you’re all like this too.” Arthur pointed out, pausing to drink a bit of his juice.

“You don’t remember it… but you can feel what happened, and it’s very… invasive, and slightly degrading. Worst part is that it wasn’t the voice’s fault… it’s ours. The feeling of everything you are, being laid bare.” He shivered and they all looked at each other.

“…Let’s… let’s not go into the Dungeon today… tomorrow?” Michael offered, and they all agreed there, as a man walked over… a man with glasses, sans clipboard this time.

“Smart choice… I reckon you all might survive.” The man said as he patted his shirt pocket before sighing.

“Right, don’t smoke anymore… ahem, my name’s Shaun, Shaun Jacobson. I’m the Guild Leader, and I’m guessing you all might survive a bit longer than others.” Shaun said as the group froze a bit, at the idea of someone stronger than them had just spoken to them…

The minimum level for Guild Leaders was ten. Starting Classes, regardless of rarity, provided two stats per level, and five stats per level to go to stats of the person’s choice.

If five was the standard of a person, seven times nine was… sixty three, even divided over all six stats; Shaun would be three or so times stronger than any other human, discounting magic.

“So, in line with that, here.” He handed six card shaped objects to the group, who all looked at it in confusion as Shaun sighed once more.

“Channel some Mana into it; you’ve all got magic now after all.” He reminded and they realized the strange feeling starting in their chests as they began to move the feeling around… it was slow going at first, before the feeling finally touched the cards in their hands, the cards changing.

The cards gave their names, their levels, their Class, and finally floor cleared, which in this case showed [N/A] seeing as they hadn’t even entered a Dungeon yet.

“That’s an Adventurer Card. Normally I wouldn’t hand those out until the first time you enter and leave a Dungeon… but, I’m the boss around here, I make the rules. I hope you all get stronger.” Shaun said, walking away with a calm wave as he went back to his work of registering people with the Government.

Arthur didn’t even have time to wonder about the card as the group just looked at each other.

“…Let’s just… see you all tomorrow.” Arthur couldn’t even feel it in himself to finish his first sentence before they all just nodded and left in their own ways, Alice and Michael walking, Emilia in her BMW M3, Matt in his GT-R and John walking. Arthur, on the other hand, drove home on his bike, wondering…

“To Devour and Protect.” He stated to himself absently as he parked his bike at his home. The rest of the day he was quiet, and he went to sleep still thinking, still pondering, over his Awakening.