The dungeon underneath was inaccessible to those not chosen. What were the requirements to be chosen? Hayden had no idea. But apparently, Masaru fulfilled all of them.
In fact, it wasn't even shown where the dungeon was in the original game. The only text description the game gave was, 'The Dungeon is located under The Academy.'
So Hayden did the only thing he could think of. Casting the Terraform spell, he began digging straight down. It looked as though he sunk through the dirt as it moved like liquid earth to commodate him. The other students practicing at the physical training ground could only watch on dumbly, Masaru included.
The ground then became flat once more, as though it had always been that way. Hayden was nowhere to be found. They didn't know whether to be in awe, terrified, or to start digging for their Queen like the dogs they were.
Masaru was the first one to drop to the ground. He began clawing at the ground with a ferocity little could match, even in a life or death situation.
*****
It was like wading through mud. But way less comfortable, and wading through mud wasn't comfortable in the first place! Hayden had already modified the Water Breathing spell to allow him to be able to breathe anywhere a long time ago.
Eventually, he managed to hit something solid. He moved the dirt, making out a little cave and inspected the dark, brick like wall. He winded up a leg, before kicking the wall.
BOOOM!
It disintegrated into a cloud of dust. Stepping through the newly made entrance, he quickly realized where he was.
'The first floor.' That was easier than he expected, honestly.
In two minutes. That was the amount of time it took him to get to floor twenty five. Casting Slow, and accelerate on himself, time seemed to slow down as he leisurely walked down the still floor.
"Ah! There he is, or... her? Whatever, he's going to be dead soon anyways," Hayden murmured to himself. Hayden walked up to the overgrown salamander.
That's what Nidhogg looked like. A thirty meter long, eight meter tall, salamander. More snake like than dragon despite being a descendant of such pathetic creatures.
"Couldn't even be a dragon right, can't even feel bad for you," he commented as he circled Nidhogg curiously.
"You look worse 3D." With those parting words, casting Construct magic, a giant hand appeared and grabbed the frozen Nidhogg by the scruff of it's neck. He made another hand, grabbing it's rear end, and pulled.
Nidhogg tore in two, it's guts falling onto the floor like long ropes as he dispelled Slow. Walking to it's stomach, he casually ignored the stomach acid and grabbed the blood covered branch of Yggdrasil.
In the game, once you beat Nidhogg, the dragon wannabe would say some stuff of praise and then barf up the branch. He essentially skipped the dialogue in real life, if that wasn't efficient, he didn't know what is.
'Honestly, killing is like, nearly the answer for everything,' he thought in amusement. He cut open his palm and jutted the branch into it.
It sucked up his blood as though it were a sponge. "A vampiric little bastard, aren'tcha?"
*****
Kea blinked as she stared at the branch shooting out from Hayden's palm. It looked painful as it bursts out of the skin on her hand.
But she didn't say that out loud. Her friend seemed to be having a fun time, so who was she, as her friend, to interrupt that? A bad friend, certainly.
"Kea! What're you doing standing around?!" Her teacher, Ms. Bere shouted. Kea jumped, her hair slightly standing as though she were a startled cat.
She nodded and promptly began the exercises. It's strange.
Why was she getting so enamored with staring at her friend? Is that normal?
'It should be normal, I can stare a little longer. She's MY friend,' she concluded with a nod of her head.
*****
Artoria grinded her teeth together as she stared at Hayden, who stood over her victoriously. How. In. The. Hell. Is. She. Getting. Stronger?!
She looks away for a moment, and suddenly, Hayden pulls new shit out from her ass! The bitch formed a wooden sword harder than mithril from her palm, show off much?! Also, was that even allow? The school issued wooden swords, but that was clearly not just any wooden sword.
But she couldn't even call the branch sword the reason why she lost. Even without it, she would've been heavily outmatched. Everyone else seemed to know it too.
While she wasn't a person interested in fame, getting jeered at by people did little for her mood. It made her hate how Hayden seemed to be able to do no wrong in people's eyes when she, herself, was so heavily scrutinized!
*****
Masaru, exhausted and wheezing, persevered despite his broken nails and bloody hands. He could do it. He can save her life!
He imagined the kiss he'd get for a reward. Well, no, he shouldn't expect anything.
*****
Hayden scratched his crotch as he stared at the ceiling.
"I need to go kill that bastard Prometheus, snort his ashes, consume his soul, and drink his blood. That should, theoretically, increase my fire magic to SSS tier," he thought aloud. Unfortunately, he was on floor 150.
It'd take at least a few days to get there since the bigger and more maze like the floors got as you descended. What stupid person designed it that way?
Hayden wanted to shove his foot up there ass.
*****
Masaru collapsed into a puddle of his own sweat, blood, and tears. He couldn't do it. He couldn't save Hayden, the love of his life.
"She's gone," he muttered to himself, despondent. He curled up into a ball, tears and snot sliding down the side of his face.
"Hayden..." he whimpered.
"Hayden." he moaned.
"Hayden!" he sobbed.
"HAYDEN!" he screamed, unleashing all his emotions into it.
"You... uh, you called?" Masaru blinked, and rubbed his eyes. It wasn't an illusion. Hayden was actually... there, before him?
"HAAAYDEN!" he lunged at her, wrapping his arms around her long, shapely legs. They were softer than he imagined.
"Hayden, you're okay...!" he cried, relieved.
"The fucks wrong with you?!" Hayden kicked him off, but he didn't even mind as he felt her shoe imprint on his stomach. It felt nice, a type of pain he could get behind if she was the one causing it, at least.
The pain of love, and he was a masochist for it. His heart thumped wildly.
He may not wash his stomach anymore...
*****
After that weird encounter with the Protagonist, Hayden reentered the dungeon. While Hayden was a bit fan of that lore shit, he knew a lot about it. Hard not to know it after getting every ending aside from the true one.
This place was actually called the dungeon of Babel. It's said to be as deep as Babel was tall. Unfortunately, Babel fell in ages past, and all that was left is it's dungeon. The Academy being built over it unknowingly.
So, yes, it was deeper than a thousand floors. He never actually reached the end of it in game. No one had, but the devs said the true ending lied at the end of it.
He would find out what it was no matter what. His completionist's soul finding it unacceptable for anything less. Anything else was unimportant until then.
*****
"Get fucked Prometheus! Haha! Can't handle a cold, motherfucker!?" Hayden laughed maniacally as he spammed Electromagnetic Frost Murder.
The titan, indeed, couldn't handle it. After ten minutes, the fiery bastard was dead.
"That must be a world record, right?" It was sad only he would know about it.
Stopping his lightning and frost pelting, he dethawed the titans corpse. After that, he built a spit roast.
Using Eternal Hell Coal, coal which burnt eternally, he shot the hottest flames he could make. Hellfire.
"Now... he'll need to sit for about... five days if the game is correct. Kinda underwhelming that the Firestarter only needs five days to be cooked." Examining the 160 meter tall and 35 meter wide corpse for one last time, before he skipped time on command by falling asleep.
*****
"C'mon, C'mon, C'mon, Kea! Let's spar!"
Kea looked at her... new friend, Amelia? She was a red haired girl, with contrasting pair of beautiful blue eyes. Of course, Hayden was better looking, being her best friend and all.
Honestly, this girl was a bit too energetic. But she wouldn't deny a good spar. Despite the distraction though, her mind was occupied about where Hayden has been, not having showed up to class in five days.
'Does she not want to be my friend anymore?' Kea thought as she dodged a punch from the ferocious girl. The very thought of that pained her.
But she knew Hayden wasn't like that. She thinks. Probably. Okay, she was sadistic enough to go that far, but she wouldn't.
Right...?
*****
Injecting and drinking a vial of Prometheus's blood, Hayden went over to where the titans corpse once was. All that's left were ashes.
With little to no hesitation, he snorted that shit, and grabbed the soul floating in the air before shoving it down his throat.
"Buuurp, ugh," Hayden belched flames, blinking in surprise.
"This is the spiciest food I've ever had, I guess he's good for something after all," Hayden nodded his head in approval. Now being done and over with it, he checked his new title.
[Title: Firestarter
Description: You are the one who brought humanity fire. The one who set alight the very first flame. The one that set the world ablaze with new possibilities.]
[Fire Magic-EX]
[Title: EX
Description: You go beyond. You go extra.]
Hayden grinned. "My first EX skill, huh? Not bad."
He really was speed running this. Masaru was too much of a pussy to eat the ashes in the game, so that must've been what pushed his Fire Magic over the edge.