"I hear you're taking a break, yes?" The woman in front of me asked, her head tilting to the side as she curiously looked over to me from where she sat.
It was one of neutral disposition as if she neither approved or disapproved of the actions I was taking.
I nodded and sipped at the tea offered to me.
"Ah… then it was my junior, was she able to sway you that easily. Ah- who am I kidding, you were more focused on your forging and thought you would be able to get more time and sponsorship if you used this as an excuse."
I scratched at my neck lightly as I looked away. She had pierced straight through the veil of my thoughts.
It was sort of obvious that those were part of my intentions but there was another part of me that thought that it would be nice to climb with a companion.
As even just from the first floor I could see the difficulty I would be taking on. It was one that I could not do alone. Not with the meager power that I had now.
That fight with the last boss, it still haunts me to now.
It was one that I would have lost if it were not for me overloading [promised future] with all the mana that I could muster.
I still felt a pant of sadness at the loss of him. The sword had done me good. Brought me to where I am now.
"I… have a suggestion. Judging from your actions you most likely want to accumulate some more power. Find some runes and strengthen yourself while waiting for my junior."
"Yes." I say without hesitation. It really was useless to hid my intentions and thoughts from her.
It was as if she had some sort of mind reading skill. Allowing her to find out my deepest wants.
"I have a… mm… proposition."
I perked up and looked at her from the side.
"I'm listening."
"There is a certain group of people that want to raid this dungeon around the edge of the tower's influence. It's not particularly strong but the men leading it and participating have only climbed to the first floor."
I nodded and saw where she was going with this. She wanted me to accompany them, using protection as an excuse to garner me some power.
"I'll go with then, I'm assuming you want me to watch over them, make sure they don't get too over their heads."
"Yes, they only graduated from the normal difficulty so they won't be as powerful as you."
"Ok, just one more question." I start seriously, "what's a dungeon?"
…
I found myself waiting at the edge of town, the people around me purposefully avoiding me.
I had been here for little less than an hour and still the little raid group that I had been sent to help had not appeared.
Either they were just late or something had happened to them.
And judging how I saw a boisterous group of men matching Nia's description approach me I could take a guess that it was the latter.
They seemed the rogue type, ones that were arrogant to the core. The type of people that just grated on my nerves but for the dungeon I would not waver.
It had too much for me to break of relations over a personality dispute.
Speaking of the dungeons they were parts of the tower. Scaled to the level of the tower that we were at.
Apparently people were hiding a lot more from me than I had realized.
Considering that I had thought that this was the whole realm around the tower. It was actually only the first floor.
After every ten floors there would be a vast empty space where people could build and rest. Among this empty space were various dungeons that one could use to bolster their strength via hunting.
There were no points, nor were there monetary gains in the form of points. it was pure runes meant to bolster the stats and combat experience.
It was something that I had just learned. And I was quite frustrated that I was only learning of this now of all times. Right after I had told myself I would take a break.
But it was quite alluring to be able to hunt for runes. However I was not given the location, only the people that held it and told to protect them.
"Are you the one they sent to babysit us?" I looked up and found myself glaring. The callous way that he spoke was already grating on my nerves. Hence why I had only nodded instead of saying anything.
"Good! Good, then lets get going." The people behind him groaned for a moment before ultimately following as I did.
I trailed a considerable distance away from him, not wanting to be in his presence.
All around me was a vast plains, most of the ground turned into a path from the countless people that had walked it before me.
I found myself almost bored as all the entertainment I had for the duration of the journey was the bickering of the men in front of me.
Eventually though, we had made it to our destination. And unlike my expectations it was a relatively clean village.
I narrowed my eyes as I watched the wind, En humming in my hand as she found something wrong just as I had.
Following behind them I found myself even more wary than before. The men I was to be watching, while idiots, still had some strength and for them not to be able to observe what I had or at least feel it spoke to the danger of it.
I watched as they opened doors, kicking them down for fun and doing all of this stuff. Yet I could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.
"Is there really nothing here…" One of them muttered and I couldn't help but roll my eyes.
Right as he had said that something had revealed itself, almost ghostly pale with elongated arms and legs.
It was almost cliche in its appearance, both of them. Its physical appearance and its timing in appearing to us.