Galahad bought a few items before making his way to the Dungeon Gate of Diagon, hoping his plan would work at some point. He approached the massive white stone spire in the distance and eventually found a clerk at a booth to scan people in. The city was so much larger, that the spire on top of the gate was three times wider and twice as tall as the one in his home, the sheer size indicated the larger comparison of Diagon's to Teramore's gate.
If the gate was considered overrun or out of control, there was a demolition plan put together for any spire to collapse on top of its own gate. Just three rings of a bell would drop multiple tons of stone blocks onto whatever tried flowing out. The only reason humanity never buried gates in the first place, was due to the gate's ability to just swallow up whatever the surface tried to block it with.
Galahad waited in a short line of adventurers who looked much more prepared for entering than him. Something were inspecting bows, axes, and swords while waiting in line, and others were adjusting their various types of armor to fit as comfortable as possible. All he had was an armor undershirt and pants with an adventuring pack filled completely. Everything was fine until he finally gave the clerk his Karmic plate. His crystal flashed red for a moment and the man stopped him.
"Sir you don't have a contract or pass signed to your name. I can't allow you to enter the gate without an affiliation to the guild or a properly licensed business."
Galahad put on a fake expression of somewhat shocked and then pretended to realize his mistake.
"Shoot, I knew of the expiration of my contract was coming up soon, and I was only going to drop off food for my friends in the pavilion too. Talk about the worst of timing." Galahad complained. He opened up his full bag to show off there was indeed nothing but food inside.
The man looked at the bag of food and didn't think too much Galahad's attire. It was clear he had no intent to go anywhere past the benches and tables inside. After a brief moment of pondering, he spoke again.
"Go ahead, but know if you get caught going into the dungeon, you'll be arrested. So please don't go past the pavilion, it'll mean a lot of paper work and trouble."
"Of course, thank you."
Galahad pretended to be somewhat ecstatic, not sure if his suppressed emotions were real or not but his goal was met. He was managing his way into dungeon without a contract, now all he had to do was discreetly exit the dungeon later.
"And don't forget to renew your contract, not everyone will do this." The clerk said to Galahad's back.
He was well aware of the fact, that clerk wasn't his first try that day. His attempt to break in had just been his third one, each one of the first two failures meant awaiting for a new person to walk onto the shift each time. The first time the man questioned his under armor clothing and rejected him, and then the second time was a very short-tempered woman who yelled at him the moment it flashed red.
Once inside, Galahad sat at a table to wait for his nonexisting friends. He was actually looking around for any guild workers that might stop him from going within the dungeon without a team, weapons, or gear. At least he only appeared to be without any gear or weapons.
Beneath the rucksack of food he bought was Dante's sword changed into the smallest form the sheath and blade could take. He planned on practicing the lightning charged spell in the sword and becoming accustomed to its weight while he was in the weaker levels. He still had the black armor somewhere beneath his skin so he managed to sneak everything he needed inside he gate without a contract or pass. The chance he had been waiting for ever since he exited the rift with Solteer.
When Galahad was searching for workers that could catch him, he noticed how much different the inside of the spire was to the one at home. Not only was the pavilion much larger yet still very crowded, but there were vendors along the walls as well. Some buying and some selling miscellaneous things to adventurers. A few must have had special licenses to purchase mana orbs because adventurers were lining up to give a man in a black vest their orbs for credits.
Galahad stopped looking at the busy scene before him and gazed up at the progress bar at the top of his view with excitement faintly stirring in his chest. It had been so long to him since he had found more orbs to consume that he felt the hunger wanting to drive him straight into the dungeon like a starving animal. Only patience with his reckless plan was holding him back and that was hardly a thread at this point.
After waiting to see no one with a guild uniform on, Galahad entered the tunnels as discreetly as he could. The smells and taste in the air were all too familiar to him, reminding him of the past and his now inevitable future.
[ You've entered the Dungeon: First Floor ]
*****
Galahad was eventually alone in the dimly lit tunnels, a place where he finally revealed his armor and brought out his sword to begin pushing deeper into the dungeon. After a just quick thought, he was covered in black dyed armor and the blade took the shape of his old shortword, the only difference was the black hilt, blue blade, and unnaturally heavy weight.
The food still bounced on his back against the armor; He knew the food wouldn't go to waste as just cover, by the time he left the gate, the bag would deplete from hunger and slowly refill with mana orbs and potential drops inside.
Galahad took a few practice swings of the blade before feeling somewhat familiar with the unnaturally heavy weapon. He was going to need some time to adjust, and sometime in the future he would actually need to go learn swordplay.
Going off what his friends taught him and the one extracurricular class he took in school was not going to keep him alive as a battle class. He needed to find someone to teach him what every movement meant in a battle; how to dodge, counter, and analyze his opponent's motion were key things he lacked.
'If I survive this whole experience with enough mana orbs, maybe I can just jump straight to summoner class and have them fight for me. That would certainly help to have something like a giant bird or crazed warriors fighting beside me.'
Each time he found himself walking near a group or the sounds of clashing, he'd walk the other way. He didn't need to show himself to anyone so they wouldn't deem the lone wanderer as suspicious. He knew he had enough questioning to deal with when he returned to Teramore, especially when his parents wonder why he left.
'Focus on the now, I have about eighteen hours left before I should have to return to the surface and see about getting a place to together. And I need to find a cavern to hide out before midnight, I don't need to waste time returning to the top alone.'
Galahad wandered and thought for a moment before realizing he was hearing a faint buzzing ahead. The soft ascension was almost unoticeable until he felt it trembling along the ground and through his boots. He had the sword ready in front of him with a strange tension growing along his face.
'Now why the hell am I smiling? This is my first time down here completely alone.' Galahad thought as he realized the tension was in fact his signature grin. He couldn't figure out how is absolute isolation in the dungeon was making him feel this way.
He didn't have any or his friends or family with him. Solteer wasn't there to back him up again and no adventurers were anywhere near this section of the dungeon. He was on his own and somehow it felt . . . so natural.
'Guess I'm just excited to finally stop hiding.' He thought when his pace pick up little by little.
Galahad found himself at the crescendo of the buzzing vibration. He turned the corner of a tunnel to find a small cluster of Golden Vesplugs.
They were enormous wasp like creatures the size of a human torso and six insect like wings. The extremely reflective wings and fur near their massive rear stingers were a metallic yellow color that added emphasis to the word 'Golden' in the species names.
Galahad watched them swarm around a puddle of carnage that began slowly melting and boiling back into the surface of the dungeon tunnels. It appeared to be the remains of a small group of weakling monsters that unfortunately met their end to a more superior species. They could have been gnomes, goblins, or silver rats but all the same, Galahad still sneered at the demons before him. He pivoted a foot in front to take a solid stance against his prey.
"Such savages, At least I don't play with my food" He commented before swinging a blue bolt of lightning at the horde of wasps.
It took Galahad five minutes to clear out the Golden Vesplugs from their food, he killed four at the beginning of the fight and that made the remaining five retreat. He chased after them with clear annoyance all over his face. He was agitated at himself because only the first lightning strike hit anything, the following two missed and bounced aimlessly against the low dirt ceiling.
That low ceiling gave him the advantage of swinging the sword just high enough to do some damage and take out his fifth bug. His annoyance only grew as the Vesplugs were spreading away from the previous fallen he would need to return to after the fight was over and pick up their orbs.
The larger sized monsters were taking too long to melt for him, Galahad couldn't just confirm and keep running because of what he knew about his strange powers so far.
'I can't consume anything beyond my level, but saving them is still vital. As for confirming the orbs, once one is within my sight or physically on my body, I can easily begin the process when I start walking back. Hopefully no one comes across them when I start going back.'
Galahad had swung the lightning spell off the sword one more time before the remaining monsters scattered along the tunnels that forked ahead. They split up as two and two each, leaving Galahad a choice of either the left or right tunnel. The chase went on for another half hour and Galahad only managed to kill the two that went into the fork on the left, he couldn't find anything in the other side without wasting too much time.
He returned to the pile of monsters the Vesplugs were messing and the sludge was nearly gone now and a few glowing blue beads remained. He collected all of them and went over the list that conjured itself in his head.
[ Please select mana orbs for consumption ]
[ Goblin lvl. 1 ] [ 25 XP ]
[ Goblin lvl. 2 ] [ 30 XP ]
[ Goblin lvl. 2 ] [ 30XP ]
[ Golden Vesplugs lvl. 6 ] [ 75 XP ]
[ Golden Vesplugs lvl. 6 ] [ 75 XP ]
[ Golden Vesplugs lvl. 7 ] [ 75 XP ]
[ Golden Vesplugs lvl. 7 ] [ 75 XP ]
[ Golden Vesplugs lvl. 7 ] [ 75 XP ]
[ Golden Vesplugs lvl. 8 ] [ 75 XP ]
[ Golden Vesplugs lvl. 8 ] [ 75 XP ]
"Let the feast begin." Galahad said to himself.
*****
Out in the distance, a group of adventurers fighting in the tunnels were taking a break. A group of seven regulars that always fought together and were close enough to think of one another as family.
While leaning against a rock, one of the two archers in the group suddenly perked his head up. He angled his head to hear a faint popping noise going off somewhere else. He didn't know what could make such a sound, but after he told his friends, they knew it was something to investigate.