A Side Villain…

In the game’s folklore there’s this mention of the Great War that occurred a thousand years ago. In the Great War on one front it was the alliance of Humans, elves, dwarves, dryads, fairies and likes on the other side it was the alliance of the Demon race and Mana beasts. The war started because both the Demon Lord and the Human kings at that time were of expansionary nature, they wanted to have control over more land, more resources, more people and at last wanted to have more power and authority. It was basically the sin of greed and gluttony that was the underlying cause of this calamity.

 

At first both the Human armies and Demon Lord’s army marched from their respective continent and started conquering the nearby places. None of the other human kingdoms or other races objected but when the burnt of expansionism reached their own doors they retaliated. Demon Lord’s armies reached the human continent  and started the fight, the humans tried to resist but the might of the Demon army far outmatched the combined efforts of all the human kingdoms, there were a few exceptions like that of the Von Astrom family which resisted the attack and kept their land to themselves but it was only for a small period of time.

 

Humans requested the help of other kingdoms like that of Elves, dwarves and dryads and at first they were reluctant to join the war but when they saw the unstoppable march of the demon army they joined the fray and with their combined efforts a stalemate was achieved. Things were peaceful for a few years but changed at a rapid pace when the nobles of the Demon empire and the Demon Lord himself appeared on the battlefield. It was mayhem, thousands and thousands of people were killed on both sides, rivers were dyed red, the place where battle took place became infested with the souls of dead soldiers, the balance of nature, the balance of life and death was disturbed but both sides didn’t paid any attention to that and continued with the War.

 

Dragons were neutral in this war as for them the fighting of such grade was beneath their level but when the balance of nature, the balance of life and death was disturbed they could not sit idle. Obsidian Dragon the tier X character arrived at the battlefield and flared his aura which was so overbearing that it instantly stopped the fighting and everyone looked in the air and dreaded his arrival. The big shots of both sides gathered and welcomed the Obsidian dragon and then asked what was the reason of his arrival to which he answered,

 

“You beings have disturbed the balance of nature, the balance of life and death so stop this futile war at once.” His voice was filled with power and authority.

 

When both sides have lost so much, when blood ebbed like water, when death of the other party was the only solution, who would accept his demand? But then again who could resist him? Even if they forgot their differences and fought him with their tier S characters could they defeat him? Not without losing a majority of their strength. So in the end they accepted his demands but asked for some security against each other.

 

Obsidian Dragon thought and decided to send some of his descendants to the empires of other races, some went in the demon empire some to the humans and then some were sent to other places, these descendants were to make sure that a second war never happens and to also act like checks and balances against each other. Everyone agreed and signed the ‘Treaty of Copernicus’ that demarcated the territory of the demon empire and other empires. And ever since the demons have not entered the human side and vice versa.

 

Human and other race empires were devastated and it would have taken quite a long time to rebuild and recuperate if they were to do it on their own so they decided to live in harmony and build a new empire called the Origin empire with Origin City as its capital. The same happened on the other side but since there was no connection between the two sides no one knew what exactly was going on. There were some brave men from both sides who dared to venture out but after leaving one side they never came back so it became an unsaid rule to never cross the sea that separated the two massive continents.

 

After a couple of years passed in the Origin empire people in the upper echelons began to understand the gains of the war, by killing demon and mana beasts their strength has increased and also the discovery of certain secret lairs was announced. These lairs were created underground at the place where intense battle took place and since the battle itself was so scattered these lairs were also scattered across the continents. 

 

With time these lairs began to be called as Dungeons and subsequently the adventurer’s guild was formed and adventuring became a respected profession. Dungeons not only helped in gaining strength it also gave core stones which were reverse engineered to provide power for various things and when empires saw how useful these dungeons were they nationalized some of them. Each Dungeon had 100 floors to it with increasing difficulty level the amount of reward and danger also increased subsequently, the most anyone in the entire Origin Continent has gone is 68th floor before they had to come out. The information of dangers and creatures that attacked upto 68th floor were kept by the Von Astrom family and only the king or direct descendant could view that information meaning that Richard had access to it.

 

The first floor of Origin dungeon

 

“This feeling of teleporting for first timers is quite bad, I feel like the insides of my stomach has been turned upside down and my entire self is shaky.” Akira said while sitting on the ground.

 

The portal always teleports to a safe location, in my case it was the entrance of the Dungeon. The dungeon’s entrance was in the shape of a half arch supported by white pillars from both sides.

 

For someone like me who has seen this too many times was used to it but seeing the real thing blows my mind. Some people who were already present at the entrance of the dungeon looked at me and chuckled while shaking their heads. They were right in thinking that I was in a daze after looking at this marvel but they would be wrong if they took me for a newbie. At the entrance there were several counters, built to safeguard the place and allow adventurer’s to enter. I showed my ID card at one of the counters and was allowed to enter. 

 

The insides of Dungeon were spherical in shape, it was almost like a small world in itself. The area of each floor was quite massive if one really wanted to descend down and reach the next level they have to clear at least 70 percent of the monster present at that floor, even if one cleared that condition the dungeon repeatedly re-spawned those dead monsters making it an uphill task to descend and that was the reason why even the strongest in the entire Origin Continent had managed to reach only the 68th floor.

 

“That guy who reached 68th floor was a tier S character meaning that the difficulty of the floors are not something to be scoffed off.”

 

“Heck even the protagonist who was trained from childhood has only managed to reach the 4th floor on his own. If I want to grow strong then there is only one way.” He said and stood up from his place.

 

On the first floor it was mainly slimes and some low levelled mana beasts like big insects which were easy to kill only if you knew their weak points. For slimes it was their core which was most vital for their survival so if one uses his sword to attack that they would die.

 

“Let’s go and kill some slimes.” He said and went ahead to the centre place of the floor which was infested by a lot of slimes, they were of different colors and each had different properties. 

 

Red Slimes could produce fire and you have to be careful before hitting their core areas, blue slimes could shoot water jet but it was a low level one so apart from getting wet it didn’t do anything else, the purple slimes produced electric currents but and they were only comparable to the electric eels back on earth, the white slime were quite dangerous especially for the female adventurers, it didn’t have any special characteristic but the only thing it could do was to eat clothes.

 

After spotting a few white slimes Akira said, “Good thing I am not a female but then again could they use fire magic to burn the entire place?”

“Since I am here, why don’t I try using magic?”

 

He knew all the theories on how to use magic, courtesy of the game, but there was a small problem. Most of the spells that he knew were used by the protagonist and whether they would work for Akira or not was doubtful.

 

“Let’s try. If it doesn’t work then I always have the sword in the storage ring to protect myself.”

“Spells”

 

“Not bad he has at least four basic spells but when compared to the protagonist who has almost 37 spells it is not so good.” He said in a deflated tone and it was true that the protagonist had more than 35 skills out of which many were of advanced calibre, but one had to keep in mind that he was a prince of the human empire and Akira was a commoner with no innate skill.

 

“I do remember that Akira used a sword but how proficient was his swordsmanship?”

 

“Skills.”

 

 

“Richard’s Spearmanship was at Tier 2, eighth level and that was at the start of the game. If I keep comparing him to Akira then it would only bring negative emotions, let’s focus on grinding some exp.”

 

Now that my focus was not on the protagonist I looked at the scenery ahead of me and was shocked again, VR was VR and let’s just say it couldn’t beat the real thing. I brought out my sword from the storage ring and slashed at one of the slimes which instantly disappeared giving me a little exp. 

 

It also left a small core stone which could be sold at the Adventurer guild so he carefully picked it up and kept it in his storage ring.

 

“It’s not gonna give me much exp so the only thing to do is breeze through them and reach the second floor.”

 

After that he used some mana to increase his speed and began slashing and cutting through the jungle of slimes, whether it was red,blue,purple or white all of them were killed indiscriminately. Sometimes the red slimes would try to use fire to impede his killing but he would use his water shield to resist that. The other adventurers present on the first floor were shocked to see him going on a killing spree, it was like he was possessed by  something and wouldn’t stop until his goal is achieved some of them wanted to tell him to stop and take rest but after looking at the intense emotions at his face they didn’t interrupt him.

 

Three hours later

 

“Haah, Haah” A figure could be seen panting while gasping for air, his entire body was drenched by sweat and some burn marks could be seen through the holes present in his outfit.

 

He took out a water bottle from his storage ring and chugged the entire 1 litre bottle in one go; he was currently walking to the second floor of the dungeon. It took him three hours to clear 70 percent of the slime population and only when the completion window came in front of him did he stop and look around.

 

Thousands of small core stones were lying on the ground indicating his successful grind, these core stones would not fetch much but were still better than nothing. He could also show this to his parents and surprise them so he collected every single one of them and kept them in his storage ring.

 

The second floor was entirely different from the first one, if on the first floor people felt easy and calm then the second one made them uneasy and anxious. The mana density here was greater than outside and is difficult to adjust  for a first timer, the surrounding was like that of an underground cave which reeked of blood and filth.

 

“Okay time to get ready for floor two.”