It was a mystical place… an island, when viewed from above, surrounded by dark seas and grey clouds, the entire island had its skyline dominated by a massive citadel, spanning a huge area.

This, was the fifth Area, The Ruined Kingdom, and where Arthur’s team was at current in the Dungeon, having killed the fourth Demon Lord a day or two ago.

It was the third of May, and Arthur was finding this island to be strange…

Unlike the third and fourth Areas, there was a lack of runes on the floor.

See, in the Dungeon, disregarding the first Area, the rest of the Areas had runes covering the floor and other areas, red in colour if nothing could pass, and blue if Adventurers could pass but monsters could not.

Those runes were suspiciously absent as Einherjar appeared from the stormy beach of the island, and yet despite the dark clouds and gale like winds, there was no rain hitting them as they looked across the place.

“Alright, from what Ichiro messaged me, this place has few monsters but they are all dangerous, and unlike other Areas, this place actually has traps." Arthur warned as they moved off the sand of the beach and onto the grey dead grass of the island proper.

Ichiro was one of the other Chosen, he was second or third after Arthur in strength and he was the Chosen of Japan, a friend of Arthur and they messaged each other frequently (kind of like pen pals) about the Dungeon and other things, usually anime.

Ichiro and his team was the group to kill the fourth Demon Lord first, having been in the Ruined Kingdom for the past four or so days.

Not long enough to have any concrete opinions on the Area, though they were on the forty second floor, meaning they had a bit more experience.

In the Ruined Kingdom, they were given a wide area to explore, and once one found a door with green runes on it, opening it would show the stairs to the next floor.

It was unknown if that was a constant, but the information was worthwhile.

Moving away from the beach, the goal was to head for the citadel, the main section of the fifth Area, and Einherjar moved, summoning weaponry and equipment.

Within a moment, the armour covered their bodies, a mishmash of leather and steel, with Matt being the most heavily armoured and John having the least due to him being a healer and not a fighter.

Arthur’s own armour was steel only on his chest and gauntlets, every other portion was leather to provide ease of movement, and then covered by his cloak, which amazingly enough never stopped Arthur from moving freely.

It never blocked his vision, he never tripped on it, the cloak flowed around him at his will, showing clearly that it was an Anima, and not some random cloak.

“Alright, look out okay, so far no groups of enemies were seen by Ichiro, but whatever enemies appear would need at least two of us to kill.” Left unsaid was that Arthur, with his stronger Skills and higher stats, could possibly kill such an enemy alone.

The beach had only one exit, disregarding the possibility of climbing the nearby cliff sides, there was one entrance, and moving through there, they found themselves on a grassy path, two enemies appearing before them.

The Ruined Kingdom’s basic monsters were these, the Wraith Soldiers, semi-undead in that they looked rotting and were probably dead, however they moved as well as any living being, even better considering their flexibility and speed.

They were also durable, though the two in front of them seemed to shy away from Arthur and his Dagger of Hunger.

It was a common reaction that all undead beings had to the Dagger, for even if the living feared it, the undead feared the blade even more, especially considering Arthur figured out that the Dagger was literally eating souls.

And an undead could, theoretically, be considered a soul remaining tethered to a body. Undead also gave more ‘experience’ compared to other monsters.

The split attacking was simple, with Michael and John staying back, Alice and Matt moved towards one, Emilia and Arthur going for the other, already used to the fighting styles of the other.

Matt and Alice worked best together, with Alice dealing huge damage with her variable weaponry, and Matt defending her during her attacks and recovery.

Emilia and Arthur on the other hand were quick and hit and run fighters, by fighting together, they constantly cycle in attacks while dodging the attacks of the enemy, though Arthur did notably more damage than Emilia with his weaponry.

Then with John and Michael, Michael was to send assistance via arrows to whichever group needed it, and keep enemies from approaching John who would need to heal others.

Depending on the enemy the splits would be different, but these three basic groups worked out well in most situations.

Arthur, activated his Lesser Spark Step ability, his signature Skill really, boosting his speed as he dashed forward, blocking Emilia from the sight of the bigger Wraith Soldier, seeing the enemy about to swing.

Lashing out with his off-hand weapon, the Bone Blade, Arthur parried the strangely curved blade of the Wraith Soldier as Emilia ducked under Arthur’s arm, slashing into the side of the Wraith Soldier, spilling golden blood as she moved to its back.

The Wraith roared in pain, turning and slashing at Emilia who simply hopped back out of the way, leaving the monsters back open to Arthur.

A mistake, as Arthur stabbed forward with his Dagger of Hunger, aiming for just next to its spine as his blade pierced straight through its chest, giving him a chance to activate the ability Void.

Void allowed the Dagger of Hunger to act as if it were a weak black hole, and when stabbed into a creature, it crushed the creature, typically killing most creatures.

The Wraith was not as weak as most creatures, a chunk of flesh vanishing into golden motes as it roared, trying to attack Emilia again, ignoring the pain in its back as Arthur stared with wide eyes.

Right… this enemy was a bit more extreme than what he was used to, as Arthur focused some of his mana to his Dagger, slashing through the neck of the Wraith, decapitating it, and ending the fight.

Looking over to Matt and Alice, the two were finishing up with Alice cleaving off the head of their Wraith with the weapon dropped from Guldan, the Goblin War-blade.

“Any thoughts?” Arthur looked to his comrades as he thought about the fight.

“They hit surprisingly hard for ‘normal’ monsters, though they can’t break through my defence.” Matt, the tank of the group, had the highest defence in the world bar none, his Endurance was his highest stat, even Demon Lords couldn’t really get through his defence entirely.

“They also seem to ignore injuries, moving as if they didn’t get hurt.” Michael noted, having fired an arrow or two into the crowd to contribute to the battle.

“Yeah, that’s a common trait of undead, but unlike most undead these guys can actually be aggro-ed.” Arthur warned, and that was true, hurting an undead usually did nothing to them until they died, and they’d go for the same enemy constantly.

The only exception was Despair, the Demon Lord of the third Area which dropped Arthur’s current sword.

Arthur, as a dual wielder, used the Dagger of Hunger in his left hand, and a sword in his right, swapping as necessary while fighting… he couldn’t equip two swords though, because of said Dagger.

Skipping that digression, Undead of typical intelligence were single minded in their attacks against one living organism at a time, whichever got their attention, but smarter ones could recognize which target was better, or what hurt them.

“So they have intelligence, understandable given their fighting styles.” Matt complained, as their enemy had more time to move compared to Arthurs, and the Wraith was actually capable of flips and according to Ichiro one even did a ‘matrix dodge’ as they fought.

They could have the thought of dodging injuries, so they knew injuries were ‘bad’.

Not a huge amount of intelligence, but they had some.

“According to Ichiro, the Wraith’s are the only enemy for this floor, but at their highest they appear in a small group of four or five at max.” Arthur warned and the rest of Einherjar nodded.

From their previous fights they now only really considered a group of six or more monsters to be a ‘crowd’. Monsters appeared in different amounts depending on their strength, with weaker monsters gathering in crowds and stronger monsters only working with smaller amounts.

Wraith’s counted as a ‘stronger’ monster.

“This place is kind of interesting though…” Arthur said, holding out his hand to help John up a ledge, with how the Ruined Kingdom was, it was like a platform game of some type, with them having to jump across gaps, climb, and at one point Arthur even did a wall run.

It was much easier with his high stats than it would be without.

Throughout this exploration was encounters with strange birds attacking them while travelling, and when there was enough space, the Wraiths would appear, guarding areas before they could pass.

“Yeah, mapping this place would be kind of pointless, huh?” Emilia asked, and as a cartographer for the group she really did have little to no job in this Area, it was a straight line (metaphorically) to the stairs.

“Yeah… I guess this is a sort of prelude to different types of Areas?” Arthur said, and his words drew a sigh from the rest of Einherjar and a shake of the head from Emilia, already knowing what kind of thoughts were going through Arthur’s head.

Arthur was the main expert of the Dungeon, and while some would think that was a given with his title of ‘strongest Adventurer’ it wasn’t that simple, the rest of Einherjar knew less about the Dungeon despite being in the same team as their leader.

This was because Arthur liked questioning things about the Dungeon that others took for granted, or simply don’t care about, such as the runes, how the Dungeon was actually connecting worlds, how levelling up worked, Arthur knew a bit about everything.

The mind-set of ‘why’ is how Arthur got those bits of information, and it was only supplemented by the fact that he was good at theorizing plausible situations involving the Dungeon.

The only problem with this was that Arthur rambled while theorizing, it was difficult to follow, even for Alice and Emilia who were up there in intelligence along with Arthur.

Matt, Michael and John were by no stretch idiots, but they were average intellectually, rather leave that to those who were good at it.

“Okay, Arthur, this is one of your moments where what you are thinking is a bit too far, think a bit more, tell us the results, please don’t tell us how you got to your conclusions?” Alice warned, getting a nod from Arthur.

He wasn’t oblivious to how he sounded when he started making his guesses.

He was under the assumption that the Dungeon floors would remain a constant ‘maze’ with monsters roaming freely, and they would only be allowed in certain areas, with a safe zone occasionally, up until this Area, that was the case, but now that was different.

This Area, at least so far, had only one path from the goal to the end, and included terrain traversal and enemies placed along the path, erasing the ‘exploring’ part of the Dungeon, and emphasizing the fighting while adding the trickiness of getting from one point to the next.

For now, Arthur referred to such an Area, at least in his head, as a Platform Area, with the usual Dungeon type of exploring to be a Labyrinth Area.

But if there were two, who was to say that there wouldn’t be more types? Maybe there would be one where they were required to solve puzzles to continue, ones where the entire Area was open to explore with ways of differentiating floors?

Again, all guesses, but who knew with Chronos and his Dungeon… after all, before this, they were always ready to rush forward, looking through all the paths to create a map of the Dungeon.

Now they simply had to move forward while killing things in their way. Much simpler, even if the enemies were stronger than usual.

Coming across three Wraith Soldiers, Arthur paused in his thoughts to attack, handling one alone with Michael taking his place in a team with Emilia.

The fight was over soon, and Arthur once more confirmed that Wraith Soldiers seemed to dislike going after him…

They’d definitely hit back, but if they could attack the others instead, they’d rather do that. It was probably some aspect of the Dagger of Hunger… intriguing how certain Anima had more effects than what was known.

“…Arthur, I actually only noticed now, but are you constantly keeping Lesser Spark Step active?” John asked from his position at the back of their group while Arthur sparked slightly.

“Yeah, it gives much lower experience to the Skill Level than the basic variation, but with my current Mana regeneration I can keep it up indefinitely.” Arthur admitted with a smug smirk.

He had invested into Wisdom, the stat that governed Mana Regeneration per minute, where most would go for a mix of Intelligence and Wisdom, or focus on the former.

Arthur had done so under the knowledge that every ten points in Wisdom was one per cent of Mana regenerated every minute, and knowing that his magic was one of his strongest points…

Well, he wanted to make sure that he could constantly use magic without end… he was getting there, with his current stats he could regenerate almost fourteen per cent of his mana per minute, while Lesser Spark Step consumed about six to eight per cent of his current Mana.

The exact number was odd, so Arthur worked off feel.

“That’s bullshit. And the basic version?” Michael was blunt as he complained about Arthur’s magical strength, with Arthur briefly swapping to the average ‘Spark Step’.

“The basic version takes up a bit more Mana than I regenerate a minute… I could probably use the basic one for about an hour or so?” that number brought glares from everyone, and Arthur revelled in their jealousy.

In all honesty they were glad that Arthur’s magic was so powerful, he was their leader and his strength was theirs, and vice versa.

“But the real question is the boost… is it constant?” Emilia realized something and asked, and Arthur’s awkward smile revealed the issue.

“Well… as it is, I’m not getting as much of a boost from the Lesser Spark Step as I used to, probably because my level and stats have increased so much that the Lesser Spark Step is essentially obsolete.” Arthur admitted, thinking about it.

The Spark Step series of spells all provided a boost, that was certain, but as he grew stronger, the boost was felt a bit less.

When he was level twenty, Lesser Spark Step felt like he doubled his speed, but now when he was almost level sixty it felt like it was maybe just an increase of about a fifth or sixth of his speed?

And overloading the spell by forcing more Mana into it, a trick that a mage in Russia figured out, simply forced the Lesser Spark Step to jump to the basic Spark Step instead.

“Man… so you need to keep upgrading your Wisdom and Intelligence to keep the same boost from your spells?” Matt asked as Arthur shrugged.

“I’m not sure, the Lightning Elemental Skill is a bit vague, and it is a Rare Skill, so I doubt that it’s going to remain a small boost… but like you said, you need the strength to use the Skill.” Arthur shrugged, thinking to his Skills.

Arthur possessed the most Skills in Einherjar, and not only that, his Skills were also the highest ranked overall, with two Unique Skills, one Rare Skill and three Common Skills…

Lightning Elemental was the Rare Skill, and his two Unique Skills included the ability to see Souls, and Sword Sage, which boosted all his bladed weaponry.

Skills were ranked based on how long they took to level, with Unique taking the longest, but in exchange for taking so long, they’d definitely provide large boosts, with Rare being in-between Unique and Common.

Taking into account his multiple Animae, high stats, and powerful Skills, Arthur was pretty secure in his strength…

If it weren’t for the fact that he knew there was someone stronger than him out there, someone who managed to fight Shaun to a standstill.

And Shaun was roughly the same strength as Arthur, meaning that Arthur was worried for his chances against said person.

Said person was a serial killer, known for now as the Adventurer Killer, and he was dangerous and clearly against the U.S, having threatened the President, the Guild, and Arthur as the Chosen.

Even back when they first learnt of his strength he was five levels higher than Arthur, who knew if that gap closed or widened, but Arthur had to get stronger.

Thinking of that, Arthur and Einherjar walked forward, accepting that Arthur’s magic could now be continuously activated.

Arthur also took the opportunity to use his main Unique Skill, Soul Sight, on the next batch of Wraiths, looking at their pale gold souls, screaming in pain…

Arthur hated looking at Souls, and yet he couldn’t stop looking for advantages, looking for information… he knew that one day he’d probably learn something that would ruin everything, but until then, he’d just move past his dislike for their souls…

It took an entire hour to move down the path, taking into account travel time and they soon found themselves in front of a huge stone door with green runes covering it. Opening the door, the stairs were there.

“Huh, this Ruined Kingdom place might be the fastest Dungeon Area yet…” John noted, for if the entire place was one straight shot to the Demon Lord, then they could theoretically just keep rushing to the Demon Lord, and given that they were stronger than they needed to be for this Area…

“Well, that’s if the passages don’t get longer, and if the monsters don’t get much worse.” Arthur warned, they couldn’t get complacent, even if they were much stronger than the monsters in the Ruined Kingdom.

Having walked down the stairs and onto the forty second floor, they found themselves coming out on the other side of the door with green runes, once more proving that space in the Dungeon was strange.

It proved even stranger when they looked forward, finding a circular platform, almost like a fifteen metre wide arena, with a being floating atop it, blocking the path to stairs heading to the citadel that they could see since entering the Area.

The being floated, covering in straps and cloth coverings which appeared Middle Eastern in appearance, face covered by wrappings leaving only glowing gold eyes visible.

Getting ready to fight, thinking this was an enemy, the being instead looked to the Citadel, and then back to them.

“Travellers… how long since we’ve had guests…” Hearing the being speak was a surprise, and immediately put the group on guard, every being capable of speech in the Dungeon typically tried to kill them shortly afterwards, so they were right to fear.

“I’m afraid you are quite late though… this Kingdom is ruined, and worthless… but if you are just passing through… well, I wish you luck.” The being raised its hands in a shrugging motion.

“You will need the luck to survive the absurdities of this place… I take my leave, knowing that we will likely meet again.” The being spun, bursting into black feathers, gone from the vision of Einherjar, leaving the team a bit wide eyed.

“…Do we continue?” Arthur asked, as Michael’s face pulled into an awkward grimace.

“…Leaving after that kind of cut scene would be kind of…” Michael’s admittance was agreed to by everyone else, it was like pausing a game just before the last boss and coming back later to finish it, or pausing a movie just before the last action scene.

It left a strange dislike in their minds.

“Well, it is only ten… we’ve got time.” Arthur shrugged, agreeing that for once, they wouldn’t turn around once entering a new floor, as strange as this place was.

They’d only stay until about three anyway, considering time needed to return.

Not to mention that… now that they thought about it, team Spicy Chicken (Ichiro’s naming sense with atrocious) didn’t mention encountering that being…

Possibly because Ichiro wouldn’t want to say any ‘spoilers’ or because that being never appeared before them, who knew…

“Still, that’s the first time we’ve encountered a being that spoke before the Demon Lord, it’s interesting.” Arthur said, ripping the Bone Blade out of a Wraith’s skull as it dissolved into golden motes of light, leaving behind a Soul Stone, the ‘currency’ Adventurers used.

“I won’t deny that it is, but you are a bit biased when it comes to how interesting something is in the Dungeon.” Michael’s smirk conveyed that he was joking, and Arthur got the message as they laughed about it.

“Maybe he was the boss, or he’s a mini-boss?” Emilia offered, picking up Sidhe from the floor as she walked over to Arthur.

Sidhe occasionally jumped out of Arthur’s hood to run around doing her own thing. At first the group worried for the cat, but she seemed to rarely be noticed by the enemy even then.

Only John disliked the cat, but that was because the cat seemed to growl at him every once in a while, occasionally even sending weak attacks at him.

They never really hurt, but still, John was weary…

And they also said it was because John was worried that Sidhe was going to take over his position of token black teammate.

The racist comments were accepted given that John was usually the one who instigated them.

“Who knows, maybe not all beings in the Dungeon are violent? It’s a stretch, but hey, it might happen eventually.” Alice offered, and the group as a whole shrugged while moving on.

While Einherjar was in the Dungeon thinking about its oddities, Shaun Fife, the Head Guild Master, was talking to Clayton Andrews, the current president of the United States of America.

“Shaun, I’m telling you, going naked is the only way to have enough speed to kill the Elder Dragon.” It wasn’t a very important conversation given that the topic was a certain game where dying was normal, but Clayton sure was enthusiastic.

“I’m not denying that, but wouldn’t swapping to light armour do the same thing, I mean, the difference between almost no weight and some weight is next to nothing in that game.” Shaun was arguing back that simply wearing light armour was a solution.

“Maybe so, but carrying three plus ten Greatswords would already take up a lot of weight.” It was an argument that was going on for a while, and at some point the other people in the room began to ignore them in favour of talking about more serious matters.

“Are you certain about this?” Dante, Shaun’s second-in-command, asked as he looked to the notes handed to him.

“Positive, the Dungeon has some sort of mental effect on those who enter.” The other person was Grey Vincent, Shaun’s protégé in terms of being a government agent (of some kind) and the person Shaun typically sent on surveying missions.

“From the list… lowered aversion to murder, some exhibited signs of addiction to the feeling of levelling up, and not only that, for some reason the Dungeon acts as a universal translator, allowing everyone to be understood within?” Dante asked, and Grey nodded.

“Yes, we tested it, even deaf people could hear once within, and the blind could see.” That drew wide eyes from Dante, and managed to pause Shaun and Clayton’s talk to look over to the younger Agent.

“I’m not sure on why the translating feature is there, but I believe that I can explain those phenomena.” Shaun said, thinking back to Arthur.

The leader of Einherjar was the lead researcher on the Soul, for it was now a quantifiable thing, especially to his unique eyes, and thus many a theory had been submitted by Arthur, none capable of being disproven, and each having small cases of proof in the favour of said theories.

“According to one of Arthur’s Soul Theories, the reason we get stronger by levelling up is because our Soul is increasing in size, and somehow this has an effect of our Soul ‘bleeding over’ into the material world, resulting in increased strength and speed.” Shaun reminded, the other three members of the conversation nodding, having read those theories themselves.

“What wasn’t mentioned, only implied, was that the Dungeon increases this effect by a certain magnitude, which is why inside the Dungeon we are stronger than we are outside.” It was something more negligible the stronger you got, and at level fifty six, Shaun found himself as strong as a level forty Adventurer when outside the Dungeon.

“Okay, so the Dungeon increases the effect of the Soul on reality, at least when inside it. You think that this boosted effect allows people to see and hear inside it?” Clayton asked curiously, thinking about it himself.

“Possible, if we consider the Soul as a sort of supplementary thing to the physical body, could a person see or hear through their Soul? Could the Soul translate language automatically?” that latter part could even explain why people in the Dungeon heard others in their native languages.

“That is intriguing… but this also raises questions on why people think murder is acceptable after Dungeon diving…” Dante warned, and Grey shook his head in response to the statement.

“No it doesn’t, within the Dungeon killing a monster is something natural, but outside people still show aversion to murdering a living creature such as a dog or cat.” Grey said, and Shaun frowned, raising a hand to cup his chin.

“Like the whole seeing and hearing thing, it might be something unique to the Dungeon, and everyone always enjoys improving themselves so that explains why people get addicted to levelling up. As for the murdering thing, who knows why the Dungeon makes it easier.” Shaun shrugged at the last bit, leaving it for Arthur Clive to look for, Shaun wasn’t a researcher for the Dungeon and Soul like that one.

Even if Arthur wasn’t an Adventurer, he still could have made a living by giving speeches on his discoveries… better as an Adventurer though.

“Well, that bit of research is something to be thankful for… that being said, Shaun?” Clayton gave his best friend a pointed look as Shaun sighed, knowing why.

“As you know Shaun, you don’t really have much of a choice in the matter. We will handle logistics hear in America, but you are going out of country soon.” Clayton didn’t dare send Shaun immediately, not when his child was about to be born, otherwise Clayton would be killed.

By Sera, Shaun’s wife, Shaun wouldn’t even get a chance to move.

“What’s going on?” Grey asked, he and Dante were both out of the loop for this one given how they didn’t quite understand what was going on.

“Oh, Shaun is going to, along with five other Guild Leaders, infiltrate Columbia in an attempt to figure out what is going on in the country.” Clayton warned, and the agents looked at Shaun who shrugged.

“Suicide mission essentially, infiltrating a closed off country with only five others. Love it.” His sarcasm was ignored.

Shaun might be in trouble soon if he didn’t figure things out.

But that story was for another time.

Arthur Clive

Level: 58 (C-Rank)

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

No Change

Primary Element: Lightning

Other Element(s): Darkness

Personal Skills

Tactician III (113/150) - increases Wisdom by 20% (total 145%)

Sword Sage II (132/300)- Any bladed weapon deals 30% extra damage

Soul Sight II (267/300) - Allows insight beyond mortality

Dual Wielding III (141/150) - Greater use of two weapons

Lightning Elemental III (15/300) - Use supplementary lightning spells

Quick Reflexes II (47/100)- Increases Dexterity by 15%

Stats

Strength: 71

Dexterity: 91 (104)

Intelligence: 52

Wisdom: 95 (137)

Endurance: 52

Vitality: 71