“I’m going to work now,” Claire said as she stood up with the empty bowl in her hand.

  Viktor lazily watched as the woman took it to the washbasin, then disappeared into her room to get ready for work. Soon, she would return. White blouse, black skirt, blonde hair tied neatly into a braid, as polished as ever.

  Another morning. Another breakfast. Another round of this whole cozy-family act.

  Yes, an act. That was all it was.

  After all, this was not his family. His family had long been bones and ash, and no amount of plain porridge or meaningless pleasantries could bring them back. What he was doing was nothing more than wearing the mask he had been assigned. To him, Claire was a stranger. He might be a bit less irritated by her presence than he had been when he first started living here, but a stranger she would remain. She was not his sister, and she never would be.

  “Are you going to Alycia’s place today?” the woman asked once she was back.

  “Yes,” Viktor lied effortlessly, “after I finish the chore.”

  Boys his age were expected to start preparing their future: find work at a shop, or learn a trade under a mentor, or train to become an adventurer. Obviously, he didn’t have time for such nonsense. He had a dungeon to run, after all. But if he didn’t do anything, people would start asking questions. Which meant becoming Alycia’s apprentice had another perk: it gave him the perfect cover. Everyone, except Rhea, assumed he was going to the blonde’s place to learn every day. They didn’t know, and didn’t need to know, that he only showed up there once a week.

  Of course, trusting Alycia with a secret was like balancing a bucket of water on a wobbling stool. She leaked information without even realizing it. So he had given her a firm warning: if she breathed even a hint of this to anyone, he would cut ties completely and walk out of her life. That would have put real fear into her, and ensured her discretion. Probably.

  So no, he was not going to her place today. Usually, he would only see her on weekends, but maybe this week he would give her more than a day of his time. Her shop was supposed to open soon, and she needed some extra hands. Why now, though? Why in the dead of winter, instead of waiting for spring like any sensible person? Oh well, trying to figure out the workings of that woman’s mind was a massive waste of time.

  Anyway, he was going to her shop tomorrow—no, tomorrow he needed to see Orloth. So, the day after perhaps.

  After Claire left, he turned to his daily chore, and less than thirty minutes later, everything was done. Normally, this was when he would call Celeste to have her teleport him into the dungeon. But today he had other plans.

  Today, he was going to organize, to take all the scattered pieces of information he had gathered over the past weeks and lay them out clearly. And then, once he had lined up what he knew and what he didn’t, he would plan the next move.

  He brought a stack of parchments to the table, along with a quill and an inkpot. This was supposed to be the kitchen table, but hey, it was the only table in the entire house, so he had to make do with it. He really should ask dear sister to buy him a proper desk someday.

  He uncorked the inkpot and dipped the quill. On the sheet, he wrote down the letters in steady strokes.

  “Path of the Thaumaturgist” and “Path of the Dungeon.”

  Those were the names of the two “modules” he and Celeste possessed. Some sort of system that allowed them to grow stronger as long as they fulfilled certain conditions. For Celeste, it was to harvest the essence of the adventurers who died within the dungeon.

  As for him—

  In theory, he had two options. In practice, there was only one. Sure, killing creatures with magical abilities also granted Arcane Points, but the yield was miserable compared to the alternative. That was why, back in the past, when he had become strong enough, he always went straight for the Dungeon Cores. Monsters slain along the way were just a bonus.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  In other words, the system all but pushed him toward hunting Cores. He had never questioned it before, but now, he had Celeste as a partner, and after that little chat they had the other day, he had realized that the Thaumaturgists were basically the natural enemies of the Dungeon Cores.

  He wrote on the parchment: “Why?” Then below it: “Who decided it this way?”

  The gods? The myth said they had created the dungeons, so perhaps they had created Thaumaturgy as well. But to what end? Did they simply force conflicts for their own entertainment, or did they have other, deeper reasons? Maybe...

  He drew an arrow from “Path of the Thaumaturgist” to “Path of the Dungeon” and wrote beside it: “To keep it in check?”

  After all, the Abyss was a dungeon, a colossal one. Bjorn claimed that it had once tried to swallow the entire world. A myth, of course. But his master had also said, “One day, the Abyss will consume us all.” That was also why the old man had chosen to live at the very edge of the Abyss: to watch it. To stand guard against something normal people couldn’t reasonably guard against.

  So perhaps that was the real purpose of the Thaumaturgists: to keep the dungeons in check, to stop them from growing into something unstoppable.

  Viktor sighed. Too bad his old master had gone missing suddenly. There were still too many things he hadn’t learned from him yet.

  He had paid it little mind at the time. After all, to the him back then, Thaumaturgy was just a means to an end. Power was the whole point, as he needed it to settle scores with those who had wronged him. Thinking about it now, however, he couldn’t help but feel a tint of regret.

  His fingers tightened on the quill, but he shook his head. Sentiment could wait. There was work to be done.

  So he wrote “The gods?” next to “Who decided it this way?”

  Who were the gods, anyway? And how many of them were there? When he listened to the stories of Fianna, Orloth, Khenemhotep, and Haku, he had learned about their gods, but those were gods of the other worlds. Did they have any connection to the Forgotten Gods who once ruled his?

  Then again, gods were probably not bound to a single realm; they wandered from one to the next. So perhaps they were the same deities, who were just at different places at different times. Lloyd said there were twelve of them in total, but there was no way to verify whether it was true or not.

  Viktor wrote down the names of the gods he knew.

  “The Storm Titan.”

  “The Great One.”

  “The Bearded God.”

  “Iseth-Ra.”

  “Lord Monkey.”

  Hmm... one of them stands out from the rest. No, not Lord Monkey.

  He circled “the Great One” on the parchment.

  From what he had heard of them, the other four gods were fairly orthodox. Yes, even the ever-whimsical Iseth-Ra. They were rulers or patrons, to be feared and to be respected. But the Great One of the Deep was different. He was an evil god who wanted to drown an entire world. And not just one world. He moved on to new targets as soon as the previous one was fully submerged beneath his dark tides.

  In fact, when Viktor first heard about this god, he was reminded of...

  “The Abyss.”

  He wrote the word down and drew a line linking it directly to “The Great One.”

  And if the Abyss was also a dungeon, then...

  He drew another line connecting it to “Path of the Dungeon.” Yes, it should have the “module” as well.

  Wait—

  He tapped the quill against his forehead.

  I forgot one god.

  “Nakhran.” He added the name, drawing a line connecting it to “The Bearded God” with the word “war” written above it.

  That man used to be a mortal, yes, but if he could fight a literal god to a stalemate, then surely he deserved to be recognized as a deity in his own right.

  But how? Where did his power come from? Viktor had assumed that he was aided by other gods, but what if that power came from a different source altogether?

  He glanced back at “Path of the Thaumaturgist” and “Path of the Dungeon.”

  For the longest time, he had believed that he was unique, that apart from his old master and his own apprentice, he was the only one in the world with this kind of power. Apparently, he was wrong. Turned out, Celeste, and maybe every other Dungeon Core, had it too, just with a different “path.”

  And if there was a second path, then there could be a third. A fourth. A fifth.

  A tenth.

  A hundredth.

  He thought of Brandt, his talking sword, his companion, his equal in power. Did he have a path, too? Unlike Celeste, Brandt never showed him a stat screen, so he had never suspected anything. But now... everything seemed possible.

  Then there was Ekon. That bald, dark-skinned pyromancer wielded a strange but fearsome power. If what he had cast was magic, then it was unlike any spell Viktor had ever seen. So, maybe that Southerner had a path as well.

  And, of course, that golden man. Someone who had come here from a different world to become a Guardian in a dungeon. The strongest adversary he had ever faced in his past life. Could he also have had a path?

  Wait.

  There was a word for it, wasn’t there? Something the golden man had said. Viktor didn’t think much of it at the time, and his memory had since become hazy. But it was...

  Ascendant.

  Yes, that man had said, “We’re both Ascendants.”

  So, that was it? Ascendants were the ones who had a path? But why “Ascendants”? Ascend to what, exactly?

  His gaze shifted again to “Nakhran,” the mortal who had gained the power to challenge a god.

  Ascend... to godhood?