I ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED A DUNGEON

A while later, Orin left the guild house, leisurely making his way down the street towards a small alley branching off the main square, as if the entire conversation with Felix did not matter anymore to him and was just a regular event in his daily routine. Walking through several shops on his way, he looked carelessly at some animal skins and wooden boxes, then he entered the alley.

A man was waiting there for him, clad in a cloak despite the warm weather.

"Got him. He’s already gone," Orin said, stopping next to the man, breathing out heavily.

"He was supposed to," the man replied, holding Orin’s hand and putting five gold coins into it. "And now go out of the town before he returns."

"I was halfway out of the town in my mind," Orin said, widening his eyes when he actually glanced at the coins, having a face of an unknown person depicted on them. He turned one of the coins around and saw deer horns etched on its other side. "For the first time in my life, I see these things close-up. It seems that the Kingdom of Tomorrow tries hard to compete with the Elysium Empire."

"That’s true," the man stated and turned to leave, not paying attention to Orin anymore.

"You did not tell me your name. You definitely know Felix well enough, knowing what to say to provoke him."

"No, I do not know Felix," the man said, dismissing this statement with his hand and leaving. "But I know Ephraim."

"What? Who is he?"

The notice paper mentioned a dungeon somewhere southeast of the Death Forest, which was recently spotted by a passing merchant who happened upon the entrance accidentally; there was a large opening in the ground which was wide enough to engulf a wagon completely. No information about the type of monsters, nor how deep the dungeon goes was known, except for a note scribbled in rushed handwriting on the side of the paper: proceed with caution, unusual activity reported near the site.

Felix barely glanced at it.

They managed to cross the outer farmland of the town by the time the sun was way past its high point, casting long shadows ahead of them on the road. Felix strode down the road with his hands deep in the coat pockets, jaw clenched, brooding about the discussion from earlier in the afternoon.

"That arrogant guy." He kicked a loose rock out of their path. "Wind user, so great. Almost half of all adventurers in this town are capable of performing the same trick after enough practice. It doesn’t give him any uniqueness."

"He looked very confident," Dune replied to his pacing, maintaining the same speed.

"Confidence is nothing but a synonym for stupidity, at least half the times," Felix growled, looking ahead to the forest edge. The Death Forest was still there, dark and quiet even despite the wind, lurking dangerously in the distance. "Do you know he tried to take a job from me last year? Escorting someone, not even bad money. He went behind my back to the client and undercut my price by two silvers. Two silvers, Dune. This man has no pride whatsoever."

"That sounds difficult."

"It was absolutely frustrating, in case you haven’t figured that yet." He kicked another rock out of their path with a bit more force than before. "The guy has been riding on other people’s coattails and thinking he created something of his own for years. Not that Driscoll isn’t guilty either, following him around and laughing at everything he says."

"You seem very angry."

"I am not angry," Felix’s voice rose in pitch, denying the statement made by her just in time. "Annoyed is a completely different thing."

"I understand," replied Dune, and that was all.

There was something about the way she just took that statement, without question, without objection, that annoyed him even more than if she had started yelling at him. He glanced at her sidelong, waiting for a response, waiting for her to throw back some sort of a challenge, but she just kept walking, calm and quiet, not even looking up.

He gave up and let out a big huff of air through his nose, and the conversation took another turn he hadn’t meant it to take.

"Then there is Anthony. Always ready with a lecture about how I am living my life. Just because he made the decision to go be a knight to some noble family, he suddenly knows everything about discipline."

The trees seemed to become denser and the road became narrower as the sun broke into broken beams of light overhead, and the air grew several degrees cooler with every step they took, bearing that familiar, wet, earthy scent.

"And he never was that strong, either," Felix mused aloud. "I used to keep up with him easily, even when he had a couple of years on me. He just didn’t want to admit it. Found some way every time to justify it to himself in terms of discipline or focus, or whatever he decided to call it this month. He was just jealous. Had to be."

Again, Dune remained silent, just continued walking.

"What, no comment about that one?"

"I don’t know Anthony well enough to have an opinion."

"Fair." Grunting, he let it go, some of the anger draining out of him the more they walked.

The trees were crowding in, roots twisting under their feet, and slowly the ground was changing too. Felix saw it first in the dirt, the dark rich earth becoming lighter and dryer, cracked in fine lines like dry baked earth, even though the shade from the trees blocked most of the sunlight.

The trees themselves were thinning, their bark peeling off, the leaves withered and brown despite the time of year, their branches bare in places where they should have been full this late in summer.

Stopping completely, he looked into the woods. "This is not right."

"What’s wrong?" Dune inquired as she looked around the forest.

"Nothing, really. Only that this half of the area lacks nutrients. The soil here is poor. That’s it."

He continued moving forward with no worries whatsoever, still keeping his hands inside his pockets. The landscape became more barren as they were going, the trees thinning out and turning into cracked shells, however, it didn’t slow Felix down at all.

"Whatever lies out there will not be a threat. I have defeated worse dungeons singlehandedly before. This one is just a training exercise."

"You seem very certain."

"I am and that’s what makes me different from people like Driscoll. They talk tough but fold immediately when things become dangerous. I do not fold."

Dune remained silent and kept following him, only looking around without any expression on her face.

"You do not know how strong I am." Felix straightened his back and lifted his chin. "So relax. I got everything under control."

"I know how strong you are."

"Yeah, but you haven’t witnessed that yet." He smiled. "In my earlier battles, I held back and did not use everything I could have used. That’s not happening this time. Whatever lies there is going to regret having shown up at my work site."

"I understand."

After that they were silent, until the dead landscape gave way to the slope made of loose gray rocks and led to the small mountain range, rising on the horizon. Felix scanned the ridge with narrowed eyes against the glare, until he saw the dark crack cut into the nearest mountain slope, just wide enough to pass through.

"There. The closest one."

He rushed to the entrance and stopped there, gesturing with his hand for Dune to come closer.

Dune reached by his side and stared at the entrance to the cave without saying a word.

Felix cracked his knuckles, both hands separately, and started moving towards the entrance. "Stay close and try to keep up."

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