Level 1 Fallen

By the time that I had been pulled out of the dungeon, my body was covered in bloodied scrapes. My wrist was snapped in half, the latest crystal skeleton still dragging me along. I heard a round of gasps, and then Bella’s voice shouting out my name.

“Drake! What happened?!” she called, rushing over. The skeleton moved to defend me, brandishing its sword, but Bella shot its skull off before it could respond, arriving at my side to lift me up.

“Get me… to respawn stone, then kill me…” I muttered, coughing up blood as I thought about how I had managed to escape.

Now I knew why the structure of the dungeon was a maze. It wasn’t to confuse the challenger, it was to make sure that they had to double back closer to the center if they tried to leave. By the time we got a third of the way through the return trip, we were running into respawned golems, forcing me to summon additional skeletons to serve as protectors.

If I had the skeleton carry me instead of dragging me, it wouldn’t have been able to fight with even one hand, so I had to endure being dragged along the stone ground. Worse, at one point when the monsters showed up, its grip tightened on my wrist, crushing it.

When my Mana Burnout finally wore off, I was bleeding too much to move on my own. If I didn’t heal quickly, I would die again and be sent back to the pedestal at the start. Thus, I reluctantly had to use Internal Recovery to repair my body, which put me back in the Mana Burnout state and needing to be dragged again.

Unfortunately, the skeleton’s grip would always tighten when it saw a threat, meaning that my wrist was doomed to be broken every time I had healed it. Still, that was the only way I could even attempt to make it through this dungeon, as even a grazing attack from those giant golems had the potential to kill me.

Now, with my body screaming in pain, it was all that I could do to maintain my consciousness. I couldn’t risk dying if I passed out. The guards had said that the respawn anchor was only twenty meters away, so I should already have been in its effective area, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

I felt Bella lift my body up and run along, following one of the guards to the respawn point. Sure enough, I saw a familiar stone embedded in a portable altar. “Are you ready?” Bella asked, pulling one of her pistols out and pressing it against my forehead. I could see the concern in her eyes, but I couldn’t muster the energy to explain at the moment.

I simply nodded my head, and my vision went dark with a click. A moment later, I appeared standing next to the respawn altar. My gaze swept side to side, making sure that I was truly out of the dungeon, before confirming that the brand on my hand was gone. I crouched down, looting my body and looking at the two girls nearby, as well as the knights who sent me pitying gazes.

“This dungeon is a trap,” I said through gritted teeth, opening my inventory to see what I had lost. “It presents itself as though it were going to offer a reward for an unusually powerful Fallen. However, once you get to the center, you are stuck with a horde of level one hundred golems, and all of your traits are disabled. Worse, there is a respawn anchor in the final chamber, so you can’t get out by dying.”

Not only the girls, but even the guards were shocked at this news. “Then, how did you get out?” one of the guards asked, recalling the crystal skeleton that had dragged me out.

“One of my skills lets me harvest consumable items to summon defeated monsters. Thankfully, we’ve spent the last few days farming a dungeon to level up, so I had about eighty of them. I had to burn through sixty just to make it to the exit. If I had died near the end, I don’t think I would have had enough resources to make it back out again.”

Diane’s eyes darkened, and Bella clenched her fists. “You think it was the monsters that set up this trap?” Bella asked, and I hesitated, looking around.

“Probably,” I answered aloud, while typing a message. No, it wasn’t them.

The two girls widened their eyes at the secret message, looking at me curiously. However, I clicked my tongue. “I lost my Animate Shadow, Lightning Bolt, and Blood Puppet skills.” When they heard this, Diane and Bella froze.

“How many times did you die?” Bella asked, her voice dropping dangerously.

“I don’t know. I was a bit too busy trying to find a way out to keep count.” After reviewing my inventory, I stood up and made my way back towards the dungeon.

“You’re not thinking of going back in there, are you?” Bella questioned, eyes wide.

I simply shook my head, looking at Yashima. “Your quest is complete as long as the dungeon is considered solved, right?” I asked, eyes narrowed. He gulped, quickly nodding his agreement.

“Good. In that case, everyone should back up. I have some issues to work through.” I walked up to the dungeon, aiming a hand at it. “Darkness and light as the origin. Chaos and order unravel. Twist, defy, distort. Reduce all that was built to nothingness.”

Channeling Martial King, Shadow King, and Dungeon Breaker, I created a sphere of black and white light in front of myself. The energies began to mix chaotically before firing forward, piercing through the protective barrier around the dungeon’s entrance. A massive explosion erupted, sending dirt flying in all directions as the hill was reduced to a smoldering crater.

With that, I turned to look at Yashima. “Consider the dungeon solved,” I told him, gesturing for the other two to come over. They did so, and I teleported all of us back to the palace in Fallcry.

“Can you explain things now?” Diane asked in a chilling tone once we arrived. “What couldn’t you say before? If it wasn’t the monsters, then who was it?”

“Most likely, it was Athua themselves,” I answered with a sigh. I had a lot of time to think during the process of my escape, and thinking was the only thing that kept me from passing out. “Even considering that the dungeon could be designed to look for powerful Fallen, but those able to fight a hundred levels higher than themselves while their own level is in the single digits? As far as I’m aware, I’m the only one like that.”

“In addition, the dungeon just happened to appear right outside the very same city where I first made my debut. And it was advertised through a quest given to a desperate player, ensuring that they would reach out to you to get to me. The monsters wouldn’t have been able to set something like that up so easily, so the only options that remain are the existing nations or the Game Masters. But we already struck a deal with the GMs, so they shouldn’t be targeting my trait anymore.”

“The most likely suspect is Athua, but it could theoretically be any of the nations working together with them. All you really need to make a dungeon like that is someone who has reached the grandmaster level from the basic Architect skill.”

“I see…” Diane nodded her head in understanding, looking up at me. “What are you going to do, then? You wouldn’t just accept a targeted attack like this, would you?” 

I could see her fingers twitching, and a small smile rose up on my face. “You’re already contacting Wisteria, aren’t you? I don’t think the League will make a move against a nation for targeting one of its members, but they should be willing to gather information at least.”

“As for what we do after the information has been gathered…” I took a deep breath, calming my nerves. “Let’s see who was responsible. If it was some lesser noble, I’d be more than happy to show them hell. If it was the decision of a nation’s leading force… we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Although this ‘attack’ had been carried out through various schemes, it was nonetheless an assassination attempt on a foreign king. It would be well within reason for such an event to spark a war.

For that reason, I was prepared to muster any allies I could, whether it was grandmasters like Kelly or leaders of major powers like Ella and the Questing King. If I could get the League involved, I absolutely would. There was no way that I would not retaliate after such a major attempt on my life.

Of course, before any of that could happen, we’d need to figure out exactly who was behind the incident in the first place. I took a deep breath to calm myself, looking at Diane. “Did you at least get your payment?”

Diane blinked, having seemingly forgotten the reason that we had gone to the dungeon after everything that happened. “Yeah, we settled that while you were inside. He was confident that you’d be able to figure out whatever secrets were in the dungeon. And if you couldn’t, that itself would be more than telling enough.”

I couldn’t help but agree. If there were others able to fight past those golems at level one, I had never heard of them. That’s why I was so confident that the dungeon was set up as a trap specifically for me.

“Either way… let’s go meet Hammerhead,” I told the other two, noticing a message blinking at the corner of my vision. “It looks like he’s finished up a project that I left him with.”

I had been concerned when he didn’t message me while we were farming the crystal skeleton dungeon. However, now that he was letting me know that everything was ready, there was no reason not to take these two to retrieve the goods.

Bella and Diane both looked at one another, as I still hadn’t told them about what I was having Hammerhead make. Still, they followed me out of the palace and down the street. It would take time before the League finished its investigation, so we had nothing better to do for the moment, and I had no desire to go dungeon hunting again just yet.

As we walked through the streets, I could hear Sapphire’s voice carrying in the air, and see the group of people surrounding the central plaza. Nuoda and Ennolf were passing out food and drink for those listening, and a pleasant atmosphere radiated through the city. This helped calm me down more as we made our way towards Hammerhead’s workshop, pushing past the numerous deaths and the harrowing escape.

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