“Well, would you look at that?” I laughed, jumping to a higher branch. “Hey Sern!”

  She glanced up from a pile of flowers.

  “This whole dungeon is a circle!” I shouted. At the center there were the ruins, then the dirt path, then the edges of the horizon where the skyline not-so-subtly clipped off. “We’ve been going in circles!”

  She ignored me, sniffing a large dandelion, brushing the petals against her face.

  I pointed due west, to a familiar bit of marsh. “I’d say that’s the exit.”

  While the dungeon was still large, it wasn’t nearly as large as I’d initially thought, and if you veered off from the circular path, then it only took a couple minutes to find the exit door.

  “I’d forget what fresh air smelled like,” I sighed, taking a deep breath as we stepped through, to the nice safe normal forest. “It’s really dark.”

  Evidently, the dungeon had a different day-night cycle than the rest of the world.

  Sern squeaked in indignation, clutching armfulls of little flowers to her chest. They blackened, then disintegrated in a poof of ash.

  “Yeah” I said. “You can’t really take much out of the dungeons.” Actually, I was kind of surprised how long those flowers lasted, disconnected from the ground. One of these days I’d have to learn how Dungeon Core’s dungeons worked.

  “Maybe later, we could buy some flowers.”

  It was almost midnight, so there wasn’t much open in terms of food, except for a little place just on the edge of town, beside the gardener's fields.

  Like virtually every other building, home, or restaurant, it was nameless.

  It was not, however, noiseless.'

  A bunch of (predominantly) older gentlemen sat on one end of the bar, laughing and howling. When we entered the bar, a couple gave a shout, beckoning the two of us over with the practiced ease of an Npc.

  I hurried past, squeezing Sern’s hand tight. “Maybe we should eat somewhere else…”

  Her eyes went wide, and she shook her head.

  “You like it here?!”

  She nodded.

  I grumbled. “Well, then that’s that I suppose.”

  We picked a table far from the crowd, in the back. I ordered the largest platter of appetizers the menu had to offer, which immediately appeared from the kitchen. Nothing we ordered was particularly healthy, par se, but it was filling and after a day of sweaty bog-crawling we’d earned cheesy fritters.

  Sern was particularly confused by these, trying to nibble the sides only for melted cheese to dribble everywhere. By the time she finished one, her face was covered in cheese, and I had to help her wipe it off.

  After that, she seemed to get a hang of things, cheerfully drinking the cheese out one side, then nibbling.

  Sern tilted her head, pushing the platter toward me.

  I smiled, taking another fry. “Sorry. I guess I’m just not that hungry.”

  There was something familiar about this bar, but nothing I could place a finger on.

  Sern huffed and crammed a cheese fritter into my mouth.

  I choked, then started laughing, and almost choked again, before I managed to swallow the mouthful. “Thanks Sern.”

  She crossed her arms and leaned forward bopping my shoulder with her head, then flopping onto the table.

  I shoved her back into her seat, clicking my tongue.

  Sern blinked, pinching the sides of her face, then tilting her head in confusion.

  “Smile?” I guessed. “I’m not smiling?”

  Sern nodded.

  “This place brings back memories.”

  Sern squinted.

  “There’s no sad memories,” I stated, scanning the barstool, and the counters, and the rickety floor. “But they have a sad ending.” I sighed. “Anyway, it was a long time ago.”

  She started poking the food, no longer eating.

  I took a crumb of bread and popped it into my mouth. “See? I’m eating too.”

  Sern leaned close, nose down and eyes staring intensely. She took a cheese fritter and waved it toward me. “Mmm.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I chuckled. “I guess I shouldn't have ordered so much food.”

  Other than with the fried and oiled cheese fritters, lathered in thick honeybutter, there were several cubes of meat—beef, perhaps—with a olive oil, salt, and wine marinade, beside stacks of bacon, and little crackers beside melted cheese dip and several slices of bread—

  “Who am I kidding?” I laughed, with a growl from my stomach. “I’m starving.”

  As I’d suspected, Sern was a great deal hungrier than me, snarfing the beef and cheese fritters, along with a small meat pie, three dumplings, and a loaf of bread. I ate in a family woolfish manner, popping the meat cubs bacon and ribs, with a honey-topped biscuit the size of my entire face.

  Even then, the sheer amount of food we’d got for a bronze ring overshadowed our appetites, and by the time we were full, there was still half the plate remaining.

  I turned a meat pie over, watching the sizzling wisps of steam. “Funny. You would've thought its have gotten cold by now,”

  Sern contently nibbled on a hunk of meat.

  The bar had quieted down, now that some of the older gentlemen left, and most had fallen unconscious. Besides those, most noise came from e a couple noisy groups in the back, hunting down anyone who entered the bar alone, and begging them to join their raid party.

  Dungeons were dangerous. People were always dying, so new recruits were a valuable commodity, especially at taverns like this with adventurers who hadn’t quite established themselves and were desperate for money.

  Like us.

  What were we going to do?

  I tried to focus back on the meal, but my mind had already wandered off.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  What are we doing? Had I so quickly forgotten that I’d almost died in one of the easiest dungeons?

  I blinked hard, taking a slice of ham.

  Sure, I almost died, but I was still alive, wasn’t I? Thanks to Sern. And because of me, she was forced to kill a monster.

  The tender meat dangled in my hand.

  I’d forced her to kill.

  Sern licked the grease off her fingers, wiped her hands and pressed the ham into my mouth, then waited for me to chew, before nodding to herself.

  She worried about me? She always was.

  Of course she was worried. I’d almost died.

  What were we going to do tomorrow?

  I groaned inwardly, but kept a smile, and kept eating.

  The Core’s the hardest part of a given dungeon, usually because they have some sort of trick to them. The key is to find what that trick is through playing the dungeon, otherwise the fight would be next to impossible. So far, the two times I’d beaten a core, it’d been through brute force, mine, then Sern’s.

  That isn’t a plan, and it’s not going to beat a 2-star.

  “Grind?” A familiar voice echoed.

  I glanced up from the plate of appetizers, then frowned. “Quin?”

  Quin was looking over his shoulder, from one of the nearby booths. Suddenly , he bolted over, smiling wide. “There you are! Where’d you go, Grind? The squad’s been searching the entire city—”

  “I’m not doing it,” I snapped.

  “ But—” He frowned. “You haven’t even heard me out.”

  Sern turned in her seat, squinting at Quin.

  “Sern and I are a team,” I said. “We’re stuck together so—”

  “You’d like to avoid taking her into a dungeon?” He finished, noticing the rings in my hand. “I see you’ve clearly done it before.”

  “It…wasn’t a pleasant experience,” I muttered.

  “Hey, we’ll keep her safe,” Quin offered. “Remember when you were the packrat? Thanks to Bruce you didn’t take a single point of damage. Sern could try it—”

  “No,” I snapped. “Just because I’d never gotten hit doesn't mean I couldn’t have—”

  “Fine!” He threw his hands in the air. “Sern doesn't have to do anything. Zip. zilch. Nothing. We’ll just keep her in the back, and make sure nobody hurts her. But please, Grind, we need you on our team!” he dropped to the floor, begging. “Anything, Grind, anything. Name your price. You’re the strongest member of the team, and by a wide margin. We could run three dungeons a day, and then some!”

  “I’m not going dungeon hopping,” I grumbled. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Quin massaged his face and slammed a forehead onto the table. “Grind. We need this. You gave us your word that you’d work with us, at least for just a mission.” He sighed. “I'm not strong enough to force you to do anything, but please, Grind. We would’ve died yesterday, if you hadn’t shown up.”

  I sighed. “Haven’t you done dungeons on your own before?”

  Quin hesitated. “Yeah—”

  “You don’t need me.” I shoved him away. “Just be more careful.”

  “Grind, how hard was the last dungeon?” Quin blurted.

  I frowned. “Hard.”

  “They’re getting harder,” Quin stated. “Even the one-star dungeons have been killing players. I don’t know why, but it’s happening, and the raid captains are too spooked to do anything about it. Four hours, grind. It’s been four hours since a dungeon was completed by a raid captain. That’s unheard of, okay? The Core are getting smarter, and they’re getting stronger.”

  I looked to Sern, then back to Quin.

  “Grind, c’mon, this is about her, right? ”Quin asked. “There’s only one way to live in this world, and that’s to run dungeons. Sooner or later, you’ll have to do it again. So which would you prefer, going in just the two of you, no healer, no tank, no mage, or having an entire party to back you up.” He took a deep breath. “I know you care about us too, or you wouldn’t let me try to convince you—just do this, and you’ll keep us and Sern safe at the same time. Isn’t that worth something?”

  I let out a sigh, slumping onto the table. Sern tilted her head, and gave me a poke.

  “I can’t,” I muttered. “This was the last dungeon. We'll just go straight to your quest, Sern.”

  She shook her head violently, pointing to Quin, and nodding up and down.

  “Seriously?” I asked. She wanted to go through dungeons?

  She nodded again.

  “I’ll never understand that girl,” I sighed, breathing in then out. “Quin. You do whatever Sern asks.”

  Quin nodded. “Done.”

  “You never tell her anything. You will only ask questions, and you will wait for an answer.”

  “Done.”

  “If things get dangerous—” I gritted my teeth. “---When things get dangerous, don’t you dare leave her behind, just because she’ll be able to respawn.”

  “Sure!” Quin laughed. “Whatever you want, sir!”

  “Call me Grind,” I muttered.

  “This is fantastic!” Quin grinned madly, sitting down in our booth. “With you, there’s not a Core in the world we can’t handle.”

  I took another deep breath. “Here goes nothing, I guess. To dungeon hunting.”

  “Dungeons?” Another man strutted up to our table, grinning from ear to ear. “Know any good dungeons?”

  “Get out of here, rookie,” Quin grumbled, showing him back.

  “He’s fine, Quin,” I stated. Never hurt to give a rookie some advice. “I know a few bad dungeons—and there’s a dungeon in the forest where the core’s in the mud.”

  “What’s the core?” he asked. “Oh who cares, we’ll figure it out. Where in the forest?”

  Goosebumps ran down my back and arms. “I’m sorry, are you?---”

  I cut off, meeting eyes with the stranger and his wild greasy hair.

  “Dexten?”

  He blinked, smiling like the lunatic he was. “YEAH! Have we met before?”

  “You’re dead,” I whispered.

  Dexten blinked. “Really?” He pinched his arm, then cringed, shaking it out. “No—gah—yeah I’m alive alright. Hoo!” He rubbed a bright red splotch on his arm. “That was a horrible idea!”

  Quin looked from him to me to him again. “You know this guy? He seems like an idiot—”

  A woman bashed Quin over the head with the end of a tray, and he collapsed face first into the table. “You’re rude, dork.”

  {Quin (-12) 1Hp}

  “Mall, we can’t go around hurting people,” Dexten chastised.

  She grabbed him by the ear, glaring. “You are an idiot. They’re obviously already in a raid party—”

  “Wanna join?” I blurted. “We’re pretty good. We’ve got decent stats.”

  Cierin wandered over, scratching the back of his head. “What’s going on over here?”

  “Join a raid party?” Dexten paused. “We'll, I've never thought of it. We’ve just been wandering around these bars, looking for quests.”

  “But idiot or not, Dexten’s far superior to level six rookie,” Mall scoffed. “He’s the strongest person in the whole city. Level seven.”

  Dexten scuffed his feet. “Aww..”

  “That is to say, we need him, and he isn’t yours,” Mall grumbled. “Don’t get a big head Dexten.”

  “But, you’re level one, aren’t you?” I asked. “---No, you’re level eight, right? And Cierin’s level five?”

  Cierin jolted. “How’d you know that?!”

  “I told you, I’ve met you guys before. Grind? I have a shovel?” I pulled it out from my inventory and gave it a twirl.

  Cierin shuddered. “It feels evil.”

  Dexten laughed. “I have no idea who you are, new friend, but I want to find out. What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”

  “Vanilla?” I shrugged.

  “I’m more of a strawberry fellow myself but I can respect the classics—” Mall jabbed him in the side, and he cut off.

  “This is pointless,” she snapped. “If we join a big group, we’ll be cannon fodder.”

  “Our group isn’t perfect, but we’re good enough to survive,” I said. “I’m the strongest in it, but the others are decent.”

  She rolled her eyes. “How can I trust you?”

  I pulled up my stats, and she made little choking sounds.

  Cierin shuddered. “Stats go that high?”

  Dexten laughed, patting her on the back. “Guess I’m the second strongest man in the city.“

  {GRIND}

  Level 6

  Rank “Uncommon”

  [ 50 Hp 57 Str]

  [ 30% AtkSp 2 Mana 3 Dur]

  Mall squinted, poking the screen. “What’s with the bold number?”

  “I’m holding it back,” I stated. “It’s actually two hundred or so, but I’d rather not break the floor.”

  //(+10) 60 Hp//

  Dexten cackled. “All in agreement?”

  “No—” Mall burst.

  “DONE!” Dexten shouted, shaking my hand. “We’re part of your team now.”