DD 202 The Story Thus Far (Patreon)

The story thus far.

Ken, an adventurer with a few years experience diving into dungeons and a powerful class he has only begun to tap into, returned from an adventure in the nearby elven world to find his classmates more than ready for the next school year.

He knew that adventurers at large needed to grow stronger after a recent Naga attack had nearly taken the most powerful adventurers down, but he had not considered the degree to which his world would continue to change.

When the students returned to school, the Headmistress put pressure on the upperclassmen to improve, and especially to stay ahead of Ken’s class in progress. She instituted a level requirement for graduation that would steadily increase over the next several years.

All in, humans were reacting to the naga invasion and pushing all of us harder. Without Crimson, humanity would have lost.

Not all students were able to meet the challenge of the new requirements. Some were too weak to keep up. As Ken’s class progressed through the dungeon, two students ended up left behind. One student could not handle the constant death that surrounded being an adventurer, and her friend left with her.

The class was being driven hard to hit the 32nd floor and prepare for their first raid. Alongside them would be classes from the other big four dungeon colleges.

The first semester of Ken’s second year was harsh as he and his party pushed themselves to their limits. The class even rotated parties to get varied combat experience and celebrated their wins together in the 25th floor safe zone.

While he made faster progress, Ken was repeatedly put to the test and challenged. He had gotten a new stalker, of the dungeon monster variety. The dungeon repeatedly put him up against a panther made of smoke that no one else could harm. It appeared several times, only to leave after killing Ken.

Thankfully, other adventurers were able to revive Ken after those deaths, and he slowly was able to fight back as he built new skills and learned the panther’s moves.

In the end, Ken found out that the panther was a type of trial given by the dungeon. Crimson had undergone a similar trial, earning her famous Limit Break as a result.

Ken and Crimson had worked together to train him to defeat his own trial, bringing them even closer.

The Harem Queen’s class caught up to Class A, and a spark of rivalry formed between Crimson and Heather.

Finally on the cusp of being attacked by the final remnants of the Kaiming Organization, Ken defeated the Smoke Panther and gained [Liminal Speed], a powerful ability to rival Limit Break.

Limit Break provided Ken the ability to continuously gain speed until he uses the stack skill to freeze time. The amount of time frozen was proportional to the number of stacks he was able to accumulate.

The ability soon saved him as his party as they were attacked by the remaining Kaiming assassins.

Testing out his new skill with the United Guilds, Ken is able to show off his skill and keep up with Crimson, blowing everybody away.

With the skill, Ken knows that the barrier of potential between him and Crimson is gone and begins to push his teacher back against a wall and eventually into a bed.

As they grew more intimate, Crimson was able to receive Ken’s portal ability. In typical Crimson style, she uses the new ability to antagonize the Harem Queen in the class next door.

As the classes continued to dive deeper, they came across a new conflict they had not been expecting. 

A dwarven queen and her colony attacked the safe zone with acrid smoke and a rapidly increasing army of dwarves made by the queen. It seemed the queen had been pushed out of her territory and was working to establish a new area for herself.

As their class was attacked, Crimson headed off to deal with the greater safety of the UG, while Ken defended the Haylon students and building.

The Harem Queen joined Ken amid the chaos, and when dwarves kept coming, they realized the Dwarf Queen needed to die to stop the attack.

In an epic battle of Queen vs Queen, Ken joined the fight to tip the scales and help Heather, The Harem Queen, win the fight. Unfortunately, the assist cost Ken a mana burn in his arm.

In the end, his Harem took tender care of him while he recovered. Soon they would move to a new event where they could quickly grind to an appropriate level to take on the raid before the end of the first semester of their second year.

AN - Whoops forgot this earlier.