Dungeon Chapter 3 (Patreon)

I was a little shell shocked. After that, Crimson put her hand on my back and walked me out of the stadium field amid deafening shouts that didn’t seem to be quieting down any time soon.

We walked into an area that would normally be reserved for sports teams and their support staff for a game at the stadium.

But for the examination, it was instead an array of the major dungeon academies and tables with uniforms, and starting equipment.

The sound from the stadium turned into a dull roar and the people back here were looking around stacks of equipment trying to see what was causing the commotion.

So when I came down the ramp with Crimson in toe everyone perked up first they were whispering about Crimson only to wonder who the heck I was.

Meanwhile I was still in as much shock as everyone else.

Crimson smiled. “Like the attention?” She pulled me out of my stupor.

“I don’t know what to do with it.” I answered honestly.

She laughed. For someone so powerful, it was a particularly girly laugh. “Doesn’t know what to do. At least you aren’t going to bullshit me.”

“Not that it would be productive.” I shrugged. “Besides, you are… well you are Mistress Crimson and you helped me out there when everyone turned away because I am an…” I struggled with the word that had just cause me so much trouble. “Aberrant.” I came out in a single breath.

Crimson pursed her lips and stopped short of stepping up to one of the tables leaving the whole room curious about where she would go. “Yes. No one wants to take a chance on an Aberrant class. I bet you trained hard to come to exams. What if I told you that classes were the most important part of the exam?”

Given the reaction I had just received I’d believe it. “Because that’s the foundation?”

“At least you aren’t dumb. I was a rogue when I started in the dungeon. Basic, but effective class. Classes can change through your experience in the dungeon, but a rogue will never be a druid. A berserker will always beat a fighter in a one on one. Most adventurers will double their stats in the first year. Skills and equipment if used right will close the gap in any flaw in ones capabilities if done right.

“So. Class then becomes the thing that matters most at this point.” She glanced around the room. It was just a small flit of her eyes to scan her surroundings.

I also noticed that she had put herself with her back close to a wall, and her gaze even went up towards the ceiling.

She was so used to scanning her surrounding in the dungeon that she even did it in a conversation here amid the stadium.

That’s when I realized just how serious she took the dungeon. The media painted her as flirtatious and carefree.

But the woman in front of me was a spring coil permanently wound tight.

“So. Then do you know what my aberrant class is?” I asked, if it was the most important thing then she must know to take a gamble on me.

“No. But I know your potential.” Her eyes flashed with the skill he’d seen earlier. “Is endless. One day you could be strong enough to dive to the depths of the dungeons others won’t follow me to.”

I swallowed, feeling an intensity ripple out of her and threaten to consume me. It felt like standing before a mountain, but I would not bend.

She only grinned wider. “Your potential might be endless but you are far too weak currently. Haylon will not be a comfortable ride for you. If the headmistress hasn’t already decided it, she will decide to try her hardest to fail and expel you. I will not stand in her way. Then she will use you as the reason that Haylon will never accept another man.”

I was riding the high from being accepted only to be told that they would try to expel me. “Then why accept me?”

“Because I demanded it. Not only will you destroy your future, but you will mar my name. So I propose a bet with you.” Crimson licked her lips and it looked like she was fighting a smile.

“What’s the bet?” I wasn’t going to be expelled. Not by some headmistress that wanted to use me to prove a point. Besides, grandfather would likely kill me. He would consider me entering Haylon to be the greatest fortune in the world, to spoil it would me I was cursed I his mind.

“If you get expelled you will become my eternal servant.”

Maybe many men would be excited with such a prospect but her eyes made me shiver. It wasn’t a pleasant kind of servitude. “If I win?”

“If you survive a year.” She clarified the conditions. “I’ll be your servant for a day.”

“W-what?” Maybe it was grandfather’s teachings but my vitality almost didn’t hold up. Blood welled up inside of me and threatened to run out my nose.

Lewd ideas popped up in my head, before I  grounded my mind and realized another thing.

One day with the greatest adventurer. She could take me to levels of the dungeon that were years outside my grasp and accelerate my grown to an astonishing degree.

But which was more worth it?

Almost as if she could sense the war in my mind, she smiled and bent over, exposing the tops of her breasts. “Whatever could be going on in that mind of ours? Don’t forget, if you agree to this, I could very well try and fail you myself just to have you as my eternal servant. If you potential is truly so endless, then why wouldn’t I crush you and then have your servitude to mold you into the adventurer I want?”

Somehow her challenge struck a cord with me. “You won’t arbitrarily fail me on anything. In the event I find a judgment unfair I can appeal the grade to another member of the staff. Furthermore, you can’t purposefully give me unfair conditions.”

Grandfather had often told me to never underestimate an adventurer that had gone deep in the dungeon. That the depth someone could dive to was not only a measure of their combat abilities, but also their intelligence and decision making.

Standing before the greatest adventurer in the world, I could only assume she had layers to this plan.

“Oh? I’d never commit foul play.” She gave me a sexy pout that completely threw me off. “But you conditions are fair. I won’t purposefully make your conditions hard. Shake on it?”

I sighed knowing that there was something else coming as soon as I shook her hand and tried to think it through as I extended my hand.

She eagerly clasped mine and pumped it several times. When she smiled, there were two disarming dimples in her cheeks.

“You have enemies in Haylon.” I realized. “And you just made me your pet student.”

She only smiled wider, those evil dimples growing larger. “Smart. No one would go after me directly. But I just bet some of my reputation on you and those that would like to see me falter, would love to use you to damage my reputation.”

“Haylon just became a minefield.” I sighed.

“One that will make you stronger. Remember, unlimited potential, but currently you are too weak. If people throw challenges at you, use them to become stronger.” Crimson glanced around the room again.

“Maybe we should keep moving?” I offered.

“Yes. Let’s go catch up to that cute druid. She’ll be in my class too.” Crimson walked me up to the Haylon table as the woman behind it gave me an odd look.

I was going to have to get used to that.

“Can you see the future?” I asked wondering what caused her to always seem so sure of everything.

“No. Just practiced at seeing what comes next. Her father has some pull and with me teaching there, he will most certainly try and push to have her in my class.” She predicted.

I couldn’t see a flaw with her logic and instead focused on the table in front of me covered in uniforms.

“A large?” I asked looking at the stacks in various sizes.

“A woman’s large?” The girl asked with an expression that was equal parts confused and scared. Though the fear was at Crimson.

“He will be attending Haylon and be in my class.” Crimson’s voice seemed to cut over the hub of noise in the room. “Give him extra large.”

The other girls behind the tables quickly started whispering and spreading Crimson’s words.

It was enough that Charlotte looked up from where she was further down the line looking at staffs. “Hmm?”

Bun-bun roused slightly only to see me and chirp once before settling back down.

“Yes.” Charlotte patted her head. “Nice to see you, Ken.”

“I look forward to our class together.” My words were formal, but I was feeling a little stiff under all of the watchful gazes.

Charlotte nodded as if it was normal, despite everyone else’s intense reactions to me being accepted to Haylon. “Good luck.” Her eyes flickered to Crimson behind me.

“Getting along nicely.” Crimson picked up a few pairs of uniforms from the table and handed them to me.

“Uh…” I glanced at the stack. “These have skirts and I have to draw a line.”

“Wear the pants you have. Maybe we’ll get you some in the same fabric as the jackets.” Crimson dismissed my concern. “The uniform policy isn’t strict, girls will be modifying them tonight and adding their own flair.”

“Oh.” I had no words for it.

Most likely I would stick with my normal uniform.

I moved on down the table picking up a few pamphlet that I would read later and hurried on to the equipment section.

“How long are you going to hold all of those in your arms?” Crimson asked. “Or have you forgotten?”

I glanced down at the CID on my arm. With a thought, it flickered open to a series of boxes and I pushed the uniforms in, then my duffel bag. It functioned as an inventory.

You could get nicer ones from the United Guilds, but they were costly. Even the one on my wrist right now was worth over fifty thousand ren. That was more than most people made in a year.

“Can I see your stats to know what gear to give you?” A Haylon woman asked across the table.

“Sure.” I thought it and the CID popped up my sheet.

Before I had been distracted with everything going on and hadn’t looked it over entirely.

Ken Nagato

Class: Aberrant

Level: 1

Experience: 0/100

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 11

Stamina: 10

Magic: 8

Mana: 12

“Oh.” The lady paused.

“Just give him leather armor, a curved short sword if you have one and a combat knife.” Crimson was quick to push past the confusion of my class.

“How do you know I used a curved sword?” Besides her other assumptions that one almost felt like I’d been violated.

“You held the straight one a little too high in your practical fight and the stroke of your sword assumed a curve.” She said off handedly.

But her analysis of my fight told me two things. One, she had been watching me closely before I had shown up as an aberrant. Which meant she saw something before then. Second, it meant she had a frightening level of combat experience.

The woman behind the table blinked but went into action quickly, gathering up a stack of leather armor and handing it to me over the table and then grabbing two weapons just as Crimson had asked. “Here you go all set up.”

Crimson snatched the curved sword and pinched it with two fingers. “This seems low quality even for beginner equipment.” Her fingers tensed and she snapped the blade in two.

“I swear. That was just the top one on th-the pile.” The woman rushed away to grab something from the back room.

Frowning, I glanced at Crimson. “Was that really such a poor sword?”

She smiled. “No. It was average. She’ll bring the best they have back there though after that.”

I just couldn’t get a read on Crimson.

At times she was threatening me, other times she was helping me. Yet she was always pushing me forward.

Just what exactly did she want?

Was it really so simple that she saw that much potential in me?

Couldn’t she pick nearly any adventurer and invite them down on a dive in the dungeon?

It just didn’t make sense to me.

The Haylon woman rushed back holding a plain looking sword and handing it to me.

I grabbed it, immediately feeling a difference.

This was a magic weapon.

Putting it in my inventory, the CID displayed a +2 agility in its description.

“Don’t want me to test that one?” Crimson joked.

“If  you break all of the weapons here, then I’ll have nothing to use.” I griped at her. If she was going to be hot and cold with me, it was time that I stopped treating her like the revered adventurer and just another person.

She pouted at my reaction but followed me as I continued to gather supplies offered to the new Haylon students.

With Crimson behind me and after her display with the sword, no one gave me any trouble despite all of the strange looks.

At the end, a large group of girls were waiting.

“This is where I leave you. The headmistress will come and take us all to the academy once she’s collected her seventy five students. Three classes of twenty five each.” Crimson said, stepping aside, yet not leaving.

Dungeon dives were primarily taken by five people. Any less wasn’t a problem, but if more than five people gathered in a space together, the dungeon changed, becoming harder.

The general consensus among adventurers was to dive in groups of five. Parties larger than five happened, but they were normally special circumstances.

So twenty five for the class, and I assumed that meant we’d be practicing in groups of five.

I saw Charlotte among the girls sitting and waiting for the quota to be filled.

She was the only familiar face, so I came and sat next to her.

“Hi. So Haylon.” I struggled to make conversation.

“My sisters are here. At least I have a support system.” She glanced around, I was attracting a lot of attention. “Do you know anyone here?”

“No. Not really, besides Crimson.” I said without thinking.

“You know Crimson? Are you related?”

I shook my head. “No. She just… I don’t know. She is taking me under her wing.”

Charlotte’s brows raised and Bun-bun perked up. “That’s a big deal.” Yet her tone was still the same flat sleepy tone.

I sighed and pressed my fingers into my brow. “Yeah. I guess it is.” Things were only starting to settle into my mind. I had been operating entirely in the present, focusing on dealing with Crimson and my new status as the first guy at Haylon. “But you are DuVell, as in Marcus DuVell’s kid?”

She nodded. “Yeah. My family is pretty serious about the dungeon. A lot of pressure, but that’s why I have Bun-bun. She does all of the heavy lifting.” She plucked the rabbit off her head and pet her gently.

“My grandfather used to be a big deal in his day. He was part of the first group to break through the 40th layer.” I knew it was something that most people would recognize.

“Oh.” Charlotte’s eyes went wide. “The Silver Fangs. I remember my father having some of their posters when I was a kid.”

Each time humanity managed to break through another ten floors, it was a big deal. Though, the current hurdle was the 60th floor.

Beyond that, who knew what worlds the dungeon connected to.

“Yeah. He was their assassin.” I quickly added.

She nodded again. “I see. That make sense for how you fight. What sort of class did you get?”

“A-aberrant.” I tensed waiting for a reaction like back in the stadium.

“Ah. So you are a mystery box.” She said it without any particular bias. “Surprised you got into Haylon.” Then it clicked for her. “But that was Crimson. Huh. You are kind of a dark horse then?”

“Yeah. I guess you could say that.” It was about the best description I’d heard yet for an aberrant class.

“Then maybe we’ll get to dive together at the academy. They have their own dungeon entrance and I hear about a third of the first year is practical application.” She said having likely heard quite a bit from her sisters.

“What about the rest?” I asked eager for a leg up with some insider knowledge.

She tapped her lips a few times. “Boring things?”

I nearly fell over.

She really didn’t remember?

Then again, the first year was probably learning more about the dungeon and the monsters within. Grandfather often said that knowledge of a dungeon floor was the most important weapon you could have.

“Well then, we’ll just have to see together.” I put on a big smile despite feeling like everyone was watching me.

AN - Tomorrow I have to finalize edits for SSV 3 and maybe a little writing there, so I probably won't get another chapter of this tomorrow. But I'm striving for every other day.