Prologue I
REQUIREMENTS ARE INVALID
After the fight had concluded, Cerberus turned around and kneeled in front of the supposed king.
"Thank you for sponsoring me, your majesty."
Cerberus said this with his head down. It was as if the king was in such a higher league that he wouldn't dare to even look at him.
'Oh? Here I was thinking that he was but a mad dog.'
This especially surprised Dionysus, who was of the mind that Cerberus was a mad dog.
"You've represented me with valor and honor, young Cerberus. You may leave today with your head on."
The king gave out this order, and the guards that had apparently been guarding the tunnels that lead in and out of the coliseum arena moved away from it.
"I am not worthy of the compliments, your majesty."
After saying that, Cerberus raised his fist. It was a clear representation of his loyalty to the king. After that, he proceeded to leave.
However, midway through him making an exit…
"Oi, it ain't funny to come and watch the guy that nearly killed you."
Cerberus, who was at least a hundred yards away from Dionysus, whirled around and looked exactly in Dionysus' direction while saying that. Dionysus could feel the pressure that Cerberus was letting out of him, even though he was so far away.
WOOSH
All of a sudden, Cerberus was sitting in the vacated seat next to him. Apparently, people were too busy trying to figure out where Cerberus disappeared to see that he was right here.
"Speak up, and I won't murder you. Why're you here?"
Cerberus said it while sending out a pressure so powerful that Dionysus genuinely could not stand up.
"My good man Cerberus, let's be honest with each other. Nobody can be so powerful that the pressure they send out would make it so that one can't stand up, so is that your ability?"
Dionysus had deducted that the pressure was actually an ability of his.
"Possibly, but that's not what we're going to discuss. Answer the question, Dionysus."
Dionysus looked at Cerberus with some shock on his face once he realized that his name was known, but he quickly concealed it as to show that he had a calm demeanor.
"I need to get stronger, so I thought I'd come and fight. If possible, I'd like for you to train me."
At these words, Cerberus looked at Dionysus with shock in his eyes.
"You have no pride or something? Who just comes out and openly admits that someone is better than them at something?"
In contrast, at Cerberus' words, Dionysus scoffed.
"It's less of a matter of pride and has more to do with me understanding my upper limits. As I am right now, I can only capture dungeons on the weaker side."
As it was right now, Dionysus understood his limits. He conquered his first dungeon because it just happened to be one of the weaker dungeons in the world, nothing more and nothing less. He wasn't actually all that proficient battle wise, and the experience he had really didn't amount to much.
"..."
After everything that Dionysus had said, Cerberus stared at the sky. It looked like he was contemplating something, or at least that's what Dionysus thought.
"...follow me if you want to get stronger. If not, stay away. Also, we're no longer required to hunt you down, so you're safe for now."
Once Cerberus said that, he stood up and began to walk away. Dionysus, realizing that he was in a position to get stronger if he followed him, immediately followed after Cerberus.
"H-He's right here!"
One of the people had finally identified Cerberus who was casually leaving the coliseum.
"Who's the guy behind him?"
Some of them saw Dionysus' figure, but his face was covered by the 'hood' that he had over him. Both of them walked out of the arena, though one of them was seemingly limping.
'...What is that?'
Dionysus, as inexperienced as he was, could see something, but couldn't see it at the same time. Cerberus had been missing a foot ever since his battle with the silhouette, yet he still had a 'foot'. Although Dionysus couldn't describe it very well, the closest thing to it would be a ghostly apparition.
"It's the result of my awakening, but I didn't need to use it on the weakling in the coliseum. I must say though, your little shadow really did make me somewhat worried during the battle."
There was no doubt that Cerberus had something similar to his foot, and he himself had just confirmed that it was his ability.
"We're going to somehow make me stronger, right?"
Dionysus was starting to get worried. He was beginning to realize just how sudden all of this was happening and was beginning to think about how he simply invested his trust into Cerberus.
"Yeah, you'll be getting stronger, the only issue is that…
Cerberus took a deep breath during his sentence.
"... you might find yourself dead afterwards."
--- SEQUENCE 2 ---
They had left the city and headed out to the west, the direction in which the dungeon that Dionysus had concluded was impossible to conquer was located.
"It really is nice that right outside of the city is a bunch of grassy flatland, right? Along with that, I'd say that the mountains in the background make for some nice scenery."
While saying all of this, Cerberus began to take off his black gloves and threw off his bright white trench coat. He also threw the top hat away and took his shirt off.
"Is that how a loyal servant to the king acts?"
While Dionysus was somewhat teasing and shaming Cerberus, he too had also taken off his vest and white shirt beneath.
"Bastard, mock me and I'll rip your tongue off and shove it up your ass."
BULGE
Cerberus' muscles began to tense to a degree that Dionysus would not think possible, so much so that a sound literally came out of them. The veins on that man's body were insane, it was as if he was muscle incarnate.
"You know, I'm about to turn twenty-five this year ...
Dionysus stared at him while he said this.
"... yet, I still feel like I just enlisted under the royal guard. I enlisted because I heard that the king was constantly hunted down, so it sounded like it'd be full of action."
"The king himself saw potential within me and taught me how to fight. I wouldn't recommend underestimating the old fart, he could probably whoop my ass in a second flat."
Dionysus was starting to feel like this was becoming too long of a talk.
"How are you going to make me stronger?"
"Ten thousand fights."
"Huh?"
Dionysus blinked in genuine shock for the first time in a long while. It was because of the fact that the things that came out of Cerberus' mouth were excruciatingly absurd.
"The king himself taught me how to fight starting at the age of fifteen, and he also used this exact method on me. It wasn't until I was seventeen, nearly eighteen, that I stopped fighting."
"... Any chance that you're currently spouting utter bullshit, Cerberus?"
"Nope, none."
KRSHH
All Dionysus heard was something similar to an explosion before all he saw was black eyes and bright red hair in his face. He attempted to put his hands up to guard against the incoming dropkick, but…
DRIIFFFFFF
The kick was so powerful that he felt his arms nearly shatter, and he had been pushed back by quite a distance. The trail of dirt that his two feet left while leaving him standing said it all.
'W-W-Where is he…'
Of course, that wasn't the end of his issues. By the time that Dionysus had put his guard down, Cerberus was nowhere to be seen. It didn't make it any better that they were on completely flat land and the grass was short, meaning that there was no way that he could simply go into hiding.
WOOSH
Dionysus noticed that something was to his back and immediately swiveled around, only to see that there was an empty hole.
WOOSH
'... shit.'
CLASP
Dionysus was fully expecting a blow to land on him any second now, yet it seemed as if it wasn't going to appear anytime soon. He twisted his body around to witness that it wasn't that Cerberus had granted him mercy, but that it was instead that the silhouette had grasped his fist mid-swing.
"There you are, your physical partner really isn't much without you."
After saying that, Cerberus grabbed the silhouette's arm with his other hand and twisted it in the completely wrong direction. After that, he made sure to aim a kick at the groin.
SLAM
All that Cerberus could tell before he started falling was the fact that someone had hit him in the back of the head.
'Must be Dionysus, and it isn't a punch. He has a weapon of sorts.'
Right after concluding this, he made a hole appear on the ground and fell right into it. Dionysus went into his dimension, and the silhouette followed after. Dionysus began to look around the cube that he was in.
'Is it possible to see him when he is in an alternate dimension from here?'
The whole point of Dionysus' ability, Behind The Curtain, was to be able to gain a moment of reprieve and inspect the situation before entering the scene again.
'... there's nothing.'
Yet, no matter how much he looked around with the ability that was meant to give him an advantage by allowing him to see everything, he couldn't find Cerberus.
"It's useless against people that also have abilities that take them to a different dimension."
WHOOSH
The silhouette attempted to high kick Cerberus, who simply side-stepped it and shoved the silhouette into his hole.
"Wha-!"
Dionysus was beginning to investigate as to just where the silhouette had been taken, but it was safe and sound out in reality.
"Now, what happens when you and the silhouette are separated?"
Cerberus looked at Dionysus with a wide smile on his face. Dionysus was beginning to break out with a cold sweat, but he knew that he couldn't let it end just because he had the silhouette taken away from him.
"Duuuuuummmmmbbbb assssss."
Cerberus said those words in the most exaggerated tone possible, but Dionysus didn't have the consciousness and time to translate just what he meant by those words and began to try and fight back.
He threw many punches at Cerberus, but his opponent was simply better than him in every aspect. Whether it be how he manipulated his ability to his advantage, how tough his body was, his reaction speed, his mind's deduction abilities in the middle of combat, or quite literally anything else, Dionysus couldn't compete. Cerberus simply evaded all the attacks and countered Dionysus with a punch to the liver being the finishing blow.
Dionysus hit the ground very quickly.
"B-Bastard…"
Dionysus said this as blood leaked out from his mouth. Cerberus looked down on him with a wide grin on his face, as usual.
"Heh…"
"Huh?"
SMASH
Cerberus had his whole body lodged in the side of the cube. The silhouette had appeared behind him due to a curtain that Dionysus had put down in that specific spot.
'Shit, I didn't even know that you could actually destroy this place.'
Dionysus slowly stood up with the support of the silhouette wrapping its arm around him to help him up. He had a bloodied smile on his face, which just went to show how happy he was with the current situation.
CREAK
Cerberus' arms lifted themselves up and pushed against the wall which Cerberus was currently embedded in. After pushing against the wall for a while, Cerberus' body was once again free and walking around.
"Damn, you can break stuff in this dimension of yours? Your viewing glass is kind of broken now, dumb ass."
Cerberus crossed his legs and said that as he took a seat. He saw the goblet that Dionysus had used in their previous battle, picked it up, and then began to gulp down everything in it. No matter how much he gulped down though, even more appeared.
"BASTARD!"
The silhouette jumped him for even daring to drink from it. Cerberus dropped the goblet and put his hands up in the air while holding a heavy smile on his face. The silhouette stopped its kick that was winding up before it had fully winded up.
"What's up with being stingy about the goblet, ey dion?"
It seemed as if Cerberus had come up with a nickname for Dionysus.
"It is a goblet with wine inside of it that immediately heals the user of all the physical injuries, except for diseases. I made the wine myself after years of dedication, and it is a limited amount. However, since I've been making it for a while, someone could drink it constantly and it wouldn't run out until a month has passed."
Dionysus replied with a depressed look on his face thanks to Cerberus chugging quite a bit.
"That's one out of ten thousand. We'll go at a pace at which after every battle, we have a thirty minute break. For the three meals of the day, we'll dedicate only ten minutes to eating. We'll both be getting eight hours of sleep each day, and that sound's to be it. Ah, as for food, you can go hunting during the breaks."
"Essentially, we'll be fighting all day except for some certain moments."
Dionysus, who was on the ground trying to regain even the slightest bit of energy from the break, was looking at Cerberus with eyes of confusion.
"What about your work? Aren't you a proud servant of the king or something, you buffoon?"
Dionysus did, indeed, bring up a valid point.
However…
"Eh, the old fart can go suck one. He can rely on his millions of other citizens for a few years."
Just like that, the training hell began for Dionysus. If there was anything that he had learned through this, it was that his requirements were invalid in front of Cerberus and the hell presented.