The next day, Akira and Haruka were waiting on top of the building.
"We will first go to the nearest weapon or artifact dungeon," said Akira, fully focused on raiding dungeons.
"You said the first batch of dungeons' rewards are special, how are they different?" Haruka asked, but she wanted to ask something else, but she couldn't get the courage to disturb him at that important time.
"You will know once you see," he replied.
"Ah, you are so sure," she asked suspiciously.
Akira got caught off guard. "I mean, we can see it when we get there." He made it sound vague.
"I wonder how Michi, Rina, and Saki are doing. We should visit them after going back," said Haruka, keenly observing Akira.
Akira flickered his eyes, unable to remember who they were, but if she mentioned them, they must be her friends.
"Yes, I should also visit those idiot brats," said Akira in a panic inside, thinking, 'I almost didn't remember. Good thing those names jogged my memory. I even forgot that I have friends. In my past life, we were a team until I got trapped by the organization.'
But he was a step too late, and Haruka started to doubt him.
When the clock struck 11, towers rose here and there with 2 floors, but there was only one visible in the distance for the duo.
"There's a weapon dungeon," said Haruka, and both went downstairs by jumping from floor to floor. When they reached the tower, they saw many people grouped in front of it.
"What is this? Why are you stopping us?" a player asked.
"Crimes are increasing because of unregulated players," said the person stopping players, "so we will only allow players who are registered at the player association. After becoming a player, you have to wait until an organization bids for this dungeon. If no organization bids within a day, you can pay a fee to enter the dungeon."
Two men stopped everyone, while one of them had a laptop with a scanner attached to it.
"What? Doesn't that mean we normal players can never enter a dungeon? This is too unfair. Organizations will buy everything."
"Let's find other dungeons without guards."
Akira and Haruka reached the front and showed their VIP status on their mobile phones.
"Excuse me, we would like to enter the tower," said Akira.
The guard looked at another guard. The other guard scanned the QR codes on the mobiles, and the laptop showed with a green highlight, access permitted.
Suddenly the guards became polite and said, "Please have a bountiful raid."
The other players got angry and started to cause commotion when they said that.
"Who are they? How can they enter?"
"Are they your relatives? We will file your corruption."
"Stop it!" shouted the guard. "Those two have 3rd level VIP status. If you want to enter the dungeon freely, then get that."
"What is that? Are they working for the government?"
"No, look. It's on the internet. Those who paid 50 million yen worth of materials as tax get that status."
"50…50 million yen, not just that. Did I hear it wrong, it has to be paid with monster materials?"
"Even if we hunt for the rest of our lives, we won't get that much." Everyone became disappointed.
The duo entered a forest.
**You entered Duyana forest. Collect 1000 points to find the entrance to the 2nd floor. The number of points is equal to the level of the monster you kill.**
"Won't the association get the wrath of all players?" Haruka asked.
"Soon they will join some organization and stay at the bottom of the ladder. They will only be loud until organizations start to recruit. After that, no one will care about solo players."
"Won't we be stopped when our status becomes equal?"
"We will always collect a lot of materials and pay taxes. I think we will be ahead of them in status as long as we don't stop fighting. As I said before, they need the materials they collect.
They can't pay taxes, even if they pay, they can't do it to many players, and one player can only hold one dungeon. Just trust me in this matter and don't worry. Just be carefree and fight to your heart's content; I will take care of these tedious things."
Haruka suddenly became quiet again, which bothered Akira. He tried to ask her, but he sensed something. He quickly caught Haruka's hand and jumped back.
A 3-meter-long cheetah-type monster attacked them, but Akira dodged it by jumping back. He was only able to dodge it because it was waiting to attack at the perfect time.
'Level 45 monster from the get-go?' Akira left Haruka and jumped to the other side. Then he threw a card that pierced the monster. The monster turned to Akira quickly and attacked him.
It was faster than Akira, and he couldn't dodge it. It was so fast that Haruka didn't process it. Akira got collided with a tree with that attack.
'Damn! Speed-type monster is the worst enemy for equally distributed stat players. And it is several levels above even when stats are considered.' Akira felt pain after one whole week, which was a rarity for him.
Haruka's body moved on its own before she realized and stabbed the monster from behind. "You bitch! How dare you hurt him?"
"No, run away, white." Akira positioned himself at the monster's front side and stabbed it to get attention, but that monster attacked Haruka by quickly turning. Haruka fell away, and when the monster got stabbed by Akira, it tried to run because Akira stabbed a weak spot.
Akira's dagger came out along with blood flowing out nonstop.
"Haruka, level up," he shouted while he also leveled up one time. She also leveled up, and all of their injuries healed, and the pain completely stopped.
Both of them quickly chased the monster, and as the monster got slower, both stabbed it from behind. As Akira stabbed another weak point, the monster collapsed, and he swiftly killed it.
"See, this is the danger I am talking about," said Akira.
"Aren't we using S-rank weapons and artifacts? Why is it stronger than us?" It was an unexpected experience for her. She believed monster stats would be nearly equal to human stats at the same level. And as she had weapons and artifacts that increased her stats, she should be more powerful.
"Monster stats are higher than humans at the same level," said Akira. "Don't judge them by human levels. No, not just humans, each species of monster has different stats, and most of them have better stats than humans, so be careful."
"Ok, this level-up healing is very handy. It healed all injuries. Isn't this a cheat?"
"Cheat? Ask those who don't have stats like us. They would have already leveled up. These speed-type monsters are the worst opponents for us. Do you want to level up?"
"No, look at my limbs." Haruka showed her arms. "They are shaking in fear. If I want to overcome this, I have to go through this." Her heart was pumping with fear, but she feared more being left behind by Akira.
Akira suddenly turned his head to the right and said, "2 more." Haruka quickly jumped to his back to cover his backside. 2 more similar monsters came with the same level.
"Guess we have to take our sweet time clearing this dungeon. There is a lot to train." Haruka dashed towards a monster.
They fought the 2 monsters for over 15 minutes before they killed them.
"These two forced us to level up 4 times," said Haruka, "by the way, calling black bear and white rabbit is long in a fight. Let's just call you black and me white."
"Ok. Let's rest for 5 minutes."
While they rested, Akira looked at bushes as he sensed someone and a 22-year-old woman walked by and noticed the duo.
"Someone is here?" The woman became fascinated, she had an arrogantly cheerful attitude. "Did you come before the player association took control?" She asked.