“It’s for level hundreds,” Cayn said. “Not for us.”

  Bel felt way better and motivated today. She wanted to be part of it, because maybe it was an opportunity for her to get a title. “We beat a World Boss, what is a level hundred dungeon?”

  “You are insane, we lack experience, what if we fight something stronger than us?”

  “We did, and we won, what’s the big deal?”

  Once again, Astor will have to decide.

  Cayn argumented first, “A Journey is made to learn from our experiences and grow as a person. We do not need to put our life in danger.”

  Bel spoke, “A dungeon core is worth a village.” Bel won. Astor’s greed always prevailed over his own life, for reasons unknown to her.

  They decided to sneak past security. To do so, they used Astor’s newly found powers: invisibility with the [Corpuscle] skill. It only lasted a few seconds though; they had to run.

  “Did someone see us?” Bel asked, hiding with the other two in a corner of the dungeon.

  Cayn answered, “I do not think so. You did well Astor.”

  “Yeah, good job blue-eyes.”

  Astor didn’t give any response to the compliment. But he was flattered… she guessed?

  Bel spoke, “Anyways, what do we do now?”

  “Perhaps we should join the big group right there?” Cayn pointed.

  An amalgamation of parties were gathered with someone speaking up about the plan on how to explore each area of the dungeon. As usual, the dungeon had multiple floors, they were on the first one and the number of floors was unknown. They haven’t located the dungeon core either, it could be in the last room with a dungeon boss or hidden in a secret room. The guideline was simple: parties familiar with dungeons will fight the monsters clearing the way for the other parties. The less familiar would explore each parcel of the dungeon.

  Bel wanted to fight but resigned as it was too risky. She will have to be content with going around exploring something new. All she had to do was find the core and break it, easy.

  They joined the group tasked to explore and went down to the second floor. It got cleared a few hours ago and was the reason for the call to arms today.

  Carved murals. Marble towers. Numerous rooms with different dispositions. Surprising how intricate the dungeon was. Dungeons were usually more abrupt in their shape, from what Bel recalled. Their functions were to collect and breed as many monsters as possible to protect the dungeon. Pretty straightforward. So where did the display of civilization come from?

  She went around and asked the most intellectual-looking person she found, “Hey, what do you know about this dungeon?”

  “Where do I start… Do you know about the monsters?” he answered.

  “They are kinda docile?”

  “They are, yes, but apparently if you try to take away their mana cores, the whole pack will retaliate.”

  “Is it a big deal?”

  “Kind of, the monsters of this dungeon have impeccable teamwork, not only that but they are also strong.”

  “Cool, cool. What about the dungeon itself? Why’s it so… like… you know.”

  “You mean well made? As in human-designed?”

  “Yeah, exactly!”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Well, I do have a little theory, come here,” he led her to one of the murals. “You can find this carving at the entrance of the Second Land.”

  Really? Bel called over Astor for confirmation. He confirmed it. “Do you recognize anything else?” she asked.

  Astor pointed at everything he recognized, they all were from another part of the Second Land. Bel got chills. Truly abnormal. Frightening even.

  “Is someone messing with us and has been making this dungeon, or rather this area in secret?” the intellectual-looking person said.

  “And the dungeon core popped out of nowhere and took possession of it instead of building the things itself?” Bel guessed.

  “I hope so.”

  The person didn’t have anything else interesting to add and they went back to their activities.

  “What do you think, Astor?”

  “Are dungeon cores supposed to be smart?”

  “Smart like a three year old kid, kinda?”

  “Isn’t it normal for a kid that age to copy things?”

  He got a point. But a dungeon core? Something sentient made out of pure mana?

  “Yeah, but a kid that age can’t copy things so well; it’s too detailed.”

  “What if they had a good memory and a lot of time?” Astor said, hiding his face.

  “Are you trying to say that this dungeon has been laying around for a long time?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Perhaps indeed, good intuition soldier Astor.”

  “Thank you commander.”

  A little banter to lighten the mood, nice.

  The whole floor got thoroughly inspected while the other group was clearing another floor. Nothing of importance was found. Only creepy perfect copies. Do dungeons even have hands? How does it work? Is it earth magic? If so, then maybe the dungeon core had some skills. This might be dangerous, no wonder the requirement was level 100 minimum. What should they do?

  The day at the dungeon ended when the third floor got cleared. It was getting late so they had to go rest, the exploration would start tomorrow. They went back to the inn like they left it: in discretion.

  Another night, another babysitting from Cayn, another banter before going to sleep.

  ***

  “Hey Bel, my parents told me to not spend time with you anymore. They said you were a ‘defect’ or something, I don’t know what that means but bye.”

  Bel lost her friends one by one. She was indifferent at first because she had a lot of friends. But as the number dwindled down, a feeling started brewing inside of her. So she fought back. She tried to convince the ones still there for her that it wasn’t a big deal. Failure. Parents didn’t let the ones that were convinced to spend time with her. She was left all alone, begging for attention.

  “I’m sorry Bel, it’s my fault,” her dad said. Many put the blame on her dad, for she was born out of “cheating.” He left for a time, trying to find a “cure” for her.

  Her father, on the other hand, stayed alongside her. He might not be blood-related to her but she was his one and only daughter. She was very thankful for that; her father was her everything at that point.

  Time at school was harsh, she spent most of her time isolated, to the point where only a few kids remained in her class; the others transferred to other classes. She was being slowly but surely ostracized and there was nothing she could do about it.

  One day, during class, she learned about the Journey, where many adventures happened at a certain age. What caught her attention, though, was the lesson about “title.” Finally, someone was willing to tell her what it truly was. An ornament given by the System itself, as a reward for outstanding feats. The true definition that a person “not part of the Pink tribe” could relate to. All she had to do was accomplish something amazing and be acknowledged by the System. Simple!

  She dedicated herself to training, day and night. Not like she had anything better to do, friendless that she was. It felt lonely at times, but when her father could, he’d joined her. They would train to be stronger, better, faster, together. She’d also study a lot more at school, to know what she could do to acquire a title.

  Months passed and a dungeon appeared.

  ***

  The third floor opened. This time, the level requirement was lifted as that floor was bigger than the second floor, triple time bigger. The only requirement was eating stats-buffing dishes of the highest quality. It was a huge boost. Poor [Chefs] were overworked though.

  “Who knew the tallest mountain hid a big ass dungeon like this,” Bel said, contemplating the third floor.

  Cayn agreed, “It is quite impressive, the high ceiling makes me nauseous.”

  “Cat,” Astor said, pointing at the ceiling.

  There was a huge painting of a cat, very realistic, too realistic even.

  “What’s up with that?” Bel said.

  “Let’s go see,” Astor continued, making a stair out of barriers. “I like cats.”

  The trio separated themselves from the others, going up to the ceiling.

  Cayn asked, “What is it painted with?”

  “Fruits?” Bel guessed, by the color and texture of the painting.

  “Can the dungeon do agriculture too? I do not think we have yellow fruits on the mountain.”

  “Maybe? I did see some flowers here and there. Maybe that’s that too.”

  “So the dungeon knows how to make paint now?”

  “Listen, I don’t know, this dungeon is so weird already.”

  Astor went along the whole painting, touching it with his whole palm. He vanished in a blink.

  Wait. What?

  “Where is he?!” Bel yelled.

  Cayn ran around, making as many barriers to step on as needed. They both looked around in a panic. Not under, he didn’t fall. Not above, the ceiling was there. Maybe in the air? Wait, can’t he turn invisible? His barriers were still here so it’s not like he disappeared too far away.