January 19, 2034.
Time passed...
There was a mini New Year's Eve party, celebrating the simple fact of living to remember all that happened, something many were not lucky enough to celebrate.
Also just today was Emma's birthday, with a warm party where even some military people both low and high ranking attended. Many people came to like her for her warmth and sincerity.
In this time the family had made great strides and had also returned home, where they were living together again.
Lucia was still talking with her friend Melissa, and Viktor's family decided not to hold a grudge or anything similar, since in their opinion, they had done nothing wrong.
Melissa had even wanted to go out on a limb for her friend, but her family prevented it, which was perfectly logical.
Still the situation couldn't help but be a bit awkward when they met Viktor, so he simply avoided meeting Melissa's family.
Being already level 26 the family started hunting all kinds of monsters and being quite important within the local headquarters of the monster hunters association.
Viktor now frequently conversed with some of the military, although he never completely trusted them. Still, he came to respect General Glak in a certain way…
And this same one called him again, of course, not simply to chat informally. That would not be this general's style.
He wanted the family to have a relatively important mission.
Currently, there were 3 groups of civilians who were protected by the local military group.
These were called "Civil Squadron(C.S.) Alpha, Beta and Tita". They had 12, 10 and 13 people, including in C.S. Tita, 2 children, one of whom was Little Susan, who was quite close to Lucia. The other was a boy about 11 years old.
Susan is petite, extroverted and has a princess-like appearance, with her black hair reaching her waist.
The other is an introverted boy of about 11 years old, with dark skin and beautiful light brown eyes.
And obviously the military couldn't protect them for free forever. There was no such thing as free.
And no one was going to trust that there would be such a thing. They all wanted strength right now... Power. The Health of the people needed the efforts of many people.
'And it was decided to train civilians. If they were always going to be a burden, sooner or later we wouldn't be able to help them anymore, even if we wanted to.'
That was the thought Glak used, to calm his thoughts a bit about how cruel they were being to send innocent people to a place where there would be only evil.
This current world was a reality he could not deny.
With a sad expression he cut to the chase, not wanting to waste Viktor's time and asking him and his group to go to one of the "controlled dungeons", to train the civilians as safely as they could.
At least in this dungeon there would only be lesser monsters, and the civilians would survive if they were "protected".
This was the first time the family had entered a dungeon.
Although they had read a lot about these, this was the first dungeon they would enter. All controlled dungeons were found by big organizations, and they were taking control of them.
For the government to let them into this dungeon was in part a recognition of the family.
***
January 22, 2033 (Afternoon).
The mission was to train these new "soldiers''. Getting them to level 8 might have seemed like a difficult mission at another time, but now that they were high level, they were confident that it was going to be relatively easy.
The C.S. Alpha, had 12, the youngest of them a young man of the age of 17 with a rather large body.
That young man had a rather peculiar name; Ickia Foltré. He was quiet and did not want to talk about his private life, so no one could find out the origin of this strange name.
He also didn't seem to care about any family member, perhaps he had no one to worry about.
Viktor didn't bother to remember the others' names, but this young man, something about him caught his attention.
'He's similar to me...Maybe that's really it. He's lonely and a bit empty.'
***
Soon they arrived at the dungeon. The path was straightforward, with many soldiers guarding it.
There were different types of dungeons in the world, some were just portals, without any effect on the planet earth until the monsters came out, others modified the earth.
There were also some combinations, as in this case. A dungeon that modified its surroundings a bit, but most of the "world on the other side" was in a portal not connected to the physical space of the earth.
In this case, only the entrance was a combination, an earth cave with energy inside, which teleported into the depths of the dungeon.
In the cases of dungeons that modified the environment they still had an obvious connection to a planet on the other side and to an energy called "space magic".
Since space still suffered alterations such as having a lot of space in a small place formed on earth or strange alterations such as the power to disorient, which was also related to a strange space magic, since it occurred only in certain places.
At the entrance, Viktor felt a gloomy feeling. He wanted to ignore the strong feeling, convincing himself that this was just the heavy feeling there would always be in a dungeon.
After all, it was a place where monsters accumulated, it was logical to feel something strange...
There was a feeling of constant war, with death and infinite condemnation for its inhabitants.
Yes... It is surely a feeling given by the constant death of its inhabitants.
Behind the whole group, Viktor kept a blank stare. Trembling slightly from the sensation, which he convinced himself he should not fear, he ordered the group to enter.
A group of 4 trained soldiers accompanied them, who entered first, along with the new C.S. Alpha squad.
Then the rest of the family entered, which caused some determination in Viktor, who after a brief sigh entered, feeling a sense of loss in his heart.
His chest ached, he thought. And the eye in his forehead too, as if connected, both synchronized to notice something...
Something Viktor ignored.
Soon, all the soldiers guarding the gate were shocked by what happened.
Something they had never seen before...No, something no human had ever seen.
As soon as Viktor entered the door changed. First it trembled, then it shrank.
Minutes later...
Now, the door was only about 2 centimeters wide. The entire group of both civilians and "the hunters" who entered with them were trapped inside.
Half an hour later a burly man arrived, and bravely took a step towards the new portal, something that even the brave soldiers at the entrance of this dungeon did not dare to try.
But an aura repulsed him even before he touched the portal.
Even with his strength as a level 30, he couldn't break through this.
"It hurts more, every time I force "General Glak commented.
Next to him, Markus' face darkened.
What had happened to those who had entered this dungeon, had they turned to dust by now?
Marcus felt something heavy in his chest, an incredible pain...
Was it really something sentimental? How long had it been since he had felt pain from feelings?
Why did he feel so much pain at the thought of the death of a group he barely knew?
Why did he feel the same way he felt when his best friend died... And why? Why was he thinking about that girl, whom he barely met a couple of months ago?
Had they gotten so close to feeling this way at the thought of her possible death?