ã€ŠReincarnation of the Cheaterã€‹


 1 Unknown Message

    The sounds of a keyboard clicking echoes throughout the silent 1 bedroom apartment. The surrounding area was surprisingly clean for a shut-in who only plays games for a living. There surprisingly wasn''t any clothes on the floor, or any random trash throughout the apartment like you would normally expect of someone who wasted their time on games all day.

    "One more¡­ so close¡­ and Ace." I say anticlimactically as I adjust the blanket surrounding me.

    "Haha, dumbass. No matter how good you are you or how hard you try can''t beat someone who has skill and aimbot. I don''t even need to hide it since if I banned I can just make a new account. That''s one of the downsides of a free game, they''re destined to be plagued by cheaters like myself." I say as I continue to cheat while playing games.

    1 Game. 2 Games. 4 Games. 8 Games. 16 Games. No matter how many times I won I never felt truly satisfied. While others would feel some sort of joy or a sense of accomplishment at winning I never get a true sense of satisfaction. I can only get satisfaction through cheating. As long as I could remember I''ve had this kind of feeling. As if I wasn''t destined for this world, and was instead a spectator at everything that had happened throughout the years. Cheating in games brought me a sense of satisfaction that I''ve never felt in the real world.

    After a while, my alarm went off as I took out my phone from under the covers and check the time.

    "9:45 am, I should get ready for the tournament in ''Swords and Magic''." I say as I get up and make my way to the Soul Dive machine.

    With technology advancing at a rapid pace the entire world entered a new era. Video Games weren''t limited to consoles now, there was a full dive Virtual Reality system that made it so you can experience the game almost as if it was another world. With up to 99% immersion into the chosen game that you load into these headsets and Capsules, people started making games imitating the worlds from famous novels.

    As I remember to check the internet before entering the Game Capsule I turned around to turn off the console and powered on my laptop. After browsing the web for a couple of minutes searching the ''Swords and Magic'' forums I see some threads discussing the tournament. There are some crazy threads named "Swords and Magic''s First Major Tournament will the Devs stop the Cheater?" and "Unpopular Opinion but I don''t care if he cheats" where people discuss my rampant cheating the game. Honestly, these people can''t keep my name out of their mouths. Of course, I''m coming how can I miss something so big.

    As I close the current tab and turn around I see my front door''s knob starts to turn and the door opens as a middle-aged woman walks in and looks at me staring at her like a deer in headlights.

    "What is wrong with you, you promised me that you would go to school today." My neighbor yells at me as I run from the Game Capsule to the safety of my covers. She continues to yell at me saying I was wasting my life and throwing my future away by ignoring my education.

    This middle-aged woman has been taking care of me for as long as I could remember, she told me that my parents were killed in a car accident and that I wouldn''t have to worry about anything since they left everything to me. I have no memories of my family and this middle-aged woman is the only person who had cared for me as I was growing up.

    It''s been like this for months now. I can''t find the will to turn up at school. I''m fine talking with anyone but I like to keep my space and sometimes I just don''t want to be bothered with all the drama. After finding out about my ability there were many people who wanted to be my "friend" in the hopes that I would help them. I can''t find the will to go to school because they all look and treat me differently. Like I''m an exotic animal from a zoo or something. I haven''t been able to resist those stares and ever since then, I''ve decided that it would be better to just not go.

    "I can''t go today, I have something to do." I try to explain while hiding under the covers. No matter what I try to do I just feel like this world just isn''t for me, I feel like I wasn''t meant to exist here.

    After yelling at me to get dressed she eventually gives up and leaves. I appreciate that she looks after me since my parents passed away but I don''t think I can ever go back. I just feel like I don''t belong there anymore. I find it hard to look at the people I once called friends after knowing what their hidden motives were.

    As I lay in the protection of the blanket I check the time and see that it was and get up since the tournament was about to start. As I get out from under the blanket and walk to the Game Capsule my laptop makes a loud noise so I turn to look at it and all I see is a black screen so I walk over to inspect it as I try to turn it on. Finally, it turns on to another black screen but this one has some writing. Reading the screen I can''t help but laugh.

    [Do you feel like you don''t belong in this world?]

    [Yes/No]

    ''Is this a virus, or maybe a prank?''

    Upon going to click no I get the same feeling as I have been whenever I''ve got a new idea to cheat and my hand moves by itself as if I were possessed and moves to click ''Yes''. After clicking yes a new screen shows up.

    [Would you like to "Die"?]

    [Yes/No]

    With the room filled with silence, I laugh to myself at this prank and turn around to hop in the Game Capsule. As I turn around something new pops up on the screen and a voice echoes in my mind.

    [Thank you for choosing yes. Please wait as you are transferred to your "Death".]

    As the new line comes up on the computer it shines so brightly that eventually the light envelopes the room and I cover and close my eyes from the blinding brightness.

    Breaking News: 17-Year-Old dies due to suffocation from an unknown source. After continuously trying to give CPR he was pronounced dead at the hospital this morning at 6:12 AM.

 2 Transported to Another World

    With the light temporarily blinding me my body felt as if it was lifted off of the ground and I ascended into the air while being blind. After a while, the feeling of being lifted was gone as but it was as if I was spirited away. I still can''t see anything but instead of the blinding light its complete darkness. My body starts to feel different as I continue to stare out into the vast darkness. I can''t see anything I can feel my body changing slowly, almost like I was being reconstructed by the void. An endless amount of time passed as my body slowly changed into something that I couldn''t confirm, I''m not too scared at what I may change into as long as I can live my life.

    After an unknown amount of time, the blinding light came back and lifted me again until eventually I was put on the ground again and I slowly open my eyes to see complete darkness once again. I try saying something as I feel like I have control over my body one again.

    "Did this bitch really kill me? Am I really dead?"

    [System has configured recommended auto-start]

    [System has successfully restarted]

    [Congratulations for being chosen to host the one and only "Cheat System"]

    "What? What was that? Where are you, where are we, am I dead?" I say frantically while looking around for the source of the new robotic voice only to find the darkness of the surroundings. No matter how hard I looked I can''t find anything.

    [Host has been chosen to be the main character in a world that needs your help]

    "Do I have a choice?" I ask while trying to grasp where I am.

    [You don''t have a choice]

    So you''re basically forcing me huh

    "Is there some kind of starter pack at least?"

    [Quest Function has been Unlocked]

    As the system notification echoes throughout my mind, a window appears in front of me describing the quest.

    [Quest: Create your Character

    Rewards: Starter Pack (x1)

    Possible Additional Rewards: ???]

    "Why did that just come out?" I ask suspiciously of the system.

    [Think about Creating a Character]

    "So you weren''t planning on giving me a starter pack huh." I say to the system as I think about what kind of character I should create this time. In ''Swords and Magic'' you could customize your character but you couldn''t change the face so I liked to make characters often.

    [Create Your Character. Failure to do so will result in your character and hidden stats being randomized]

    "Character Creation"

    [Finished?]

    [Yes/No]

    "Yes"

    [Finished Quest "Create Your Character" Rewards: Starter Pack, Title "Main Character"]

    [Loading... Choosing a random area to spawn]

    As the system begins choosing where to spawn me a window shows up in front of me and starts rolling with different names. The names all represent different places I guess but as the system continues to roll through the options at an insane speed that I can''t really keep up with I catch a glimpse of something for a split second.

    ''Realm of Light? What''s that?'' I think to myself barely recognizing the words as they rapidly change and eventually stop at the words Captial of Light.

    [Capital of Light has been chosen]

    [Please keep in mind that you will be spawned in a forest near the capital to avoid causing a scene or getting the attention of unwanted people]

    [As soon as you spawn into the world you can check your status just like the games you played]

    With the system sending those notifications the blinding light from earlier comes back and I get engulfed in the light as my vision gets blocked and I feel as if I was falling.

    Upon feeling that I''m falling I open up my eyes to take in the scenery of the new world that I will be living in. The forest is pretty wide but I can see the Capital of Light in the distance, it''ll probably take a couple of days of walking to get to it though.

    ''Wait, why did you spawn me high in the air?'' I think complaining about the system.

    Although nothing responded to me I can feel the imminent death that is coming closer to me as I get closer to the ground and fall through the trees. After falling for what seemed like a while I close my eyes as I''m about to fall but the impact I was expecting didn''t happen, instead I feel wet sliminess under me as I get a notification from the system.

    [You have killed a Level 5 Slime and have gained 350 Experience]

    [You have reached Level 3]

    Upon hearing the notification from the system I try to open my status just like the ''Swords and Magic'' game.

    ''Status Open''

    Name: Bell(17)

    Race:

    Titles: Main Character

    Job: Cheater

    Level: 3

    Strength: 13

    Endurance: 13

    Agility: 13

    Intelligence: 13

    Wisdom: 13

    ''So I gain 1 stat point to every stat for every level up.'' I say to myself as I remember the starter pack.

    "Can I open the starter pack?" I say to the system.

    [Do you wish to open the starter pack? Y/N]

    "Yes"

    [You have chosen to open the starter pack]

    [Opening.....(50%)...(100%)... Displaying contents]

    You have obtained Basic Sword (x1), Random Food Ticket (x10) Random Cheat Ticket (x1)

    "System, what are the tickets supposed to be used for? Can I use them right now?" I ask the system as I go over the contents of my starter pack.

    [Tickets are used to give you certain items or skills, the tickets that you received are Random Cheat Ticket which will give you a random cheat upon use and the other Random Food Tickets will give you random edible food]

    "Okay, and the basic sword?"

    [The basic sword is just a common item that is mass-produced. Its an iron sword with decent durability]

 3 First Day in the New World

    As I take my sword out and start looking around the forest for something to gain experience from like a goblin or something like the slime from earlier I run into a group of 3 goblins. Curious about what the fantasy creature sounded like I decided to listen to them before attacking.

    "hweck krufs skhnd..." one the goblins says as he points towards the direction of the Capital of Light.

    Upon listening to the goblins talk back and forth as they point towards the Capital of Light as if they were scheming something I get a notification from the system.

    [You have come in contact with a new language, beginning auto-translation... Done]

    And with that notification from the system the goblin''s speech slowly started to change into something that I could understand. "Something fall out of sky over there, we check it out" As the goblins continue to argue if they should go to where I fell I decided to go in and get a surprise attack on one of the three so I could possibly make it a 2v1 fight.

    As I waited for them to pass me as I hide up in a tree waiting for them to walk under me so I could drop on one of them they continue to talk to each other. "If a human female, I get to go first." One of the goblins says as he hides behind the other two who don''t look as intelligent. The goblin that has a more understandable speech pattern has a stick looking wand like a starter magician in an RPG. As they walk in my direction the Magician looking Goblin walks from behind them to the front of the two goblins that each carried a sword. The swords that they have looked to have a lot of use and they looked as if they were on the verge of breaking.

    As they walk directly under me I drop down on one of the goblins holding a sword and stab through his head as I fall onto his body. With the other goblins noticing me after my sword pierced through their companion''s head it was already too late for them to react as I get a notification from the system.

    [You have killed a level 4 Goblin and have earned 110 Experience]

    As the two goblins try to react to the sudden appearance of a predator, the remaining goblin with a sword tries to thrust it at me while the other intelligent-looking goblin starts chanting something trying to use his magic to deal some damage. Dodging the sword strike from the bigger goblin I rush him and cut the hand that is holding his sword off and also go to cut off his head before the intelligent goblin can finish his chant.

    [You have killed a level 4 Goblin and have earned 110 Experience]

    [You have killed a level 4 Goblin Mage and have earned 110 Experience (x2)]

    [You have reached level 4]

    [You Have Earned Random Skill Ticket (x1)]

    "So if I kill monsters I have a chance to get Tickets interesting, System can you tell me the drop rate for the tickets?" I say while looking at the couple of Tickets taking up space in my inventory.

    [The drop chance depends on the monster, there is a couple of rules for the drops though would you like to hear them?]

    "Sure." I''m gonna need to hear them eventually anyway.

    [The difference between the hosts level and the monsters level have a huge impact on the drop, such as if the monster if a higher level then you have a higher chance to get better tickets, but if you are a higher level than the monster then there is a higher chance that you won''t get anything but the highest chance is to get normal tickets and skill tickets.]

    "Can I use the Random Skill Ticket?" I ask the system while looking at the ticket in my inventory.

    [Using Random Skill Ticket (x1)... Done]

    [You have learned the skill Sense Presence (Lv.1)]

    "Nice, my first skill. This skill could be very helpful for finding any enemies hiding out of sight. Just what I needed. I also reached level 4 after that fight so my stats are all at 14 now." I say while looking at my status.

    I may have completed that fight without getting and damage but that was because of the increase in my stats. With every stat increasing for every level I gain I can already feel the difference with only a 4 increase. I feel like I can lift 50-pound weights back on Earth with ease. This kind of strength on Earth would have been fun to experiment with but here it might be the norm.

    As I walked throughout the area that I was sent to I continued to hunt some small fry goblins that were in small groups while continuously using my new Sense Presence skill and brought it up to Level 2 while also reaching Level 5 after a day of hard work. With that, night approached and my first day in the new world ended after falling on a slime and slaying goblins throughout the day.

 4 Capital of Ligh

    With my first night being pretty bad due to sleeping in a tree while trying to train myself to keep Sense Presence on at all times. Using the skill doesn''t seem to use much but it takes a toll on my mental health since it builds up stress.

    "I feel like I pulled an all-nighter man. Am I sure I even got some sleep?" I say while walking throughout the forest with Sense Presence continuously on. Keeping it on for the entire night may be a problem in the future but the skill kept on leveling up throughout the night. Sense Presence is currently level 3 after using it for a full night.

    After deciding that keeping Sense Presence on for longer will be detrimental to me I decided to just head to the Capital of Light so I can go to sleep without any worries. While walking through the forest I run into some slimes and goblins again but this time I''m stronger than before so I finish them with ease. I put their remains in my inventory and check the notification I got from the system.

    [After continuous use of a Sword, you have learned the skill Sword Mastery (Lv.1)]

    As I walk through the forest towards the direction of the Capital of Light and eventually reach the end of the forest barely running into any monsters but running into just enough to reach level 5 bringing all of my stats one higher than they were before. With the increase of my level and the increase of all stats, the built-up stress lessened and my headache lessened as I reach the end of the forest and see the Capital of Light in the distance. Getting closer I see that there is a line to enter the city by foot so I wait in the line for my turn.

    "Identification please" The guard says while looking at me nonchalantly and holding his hand out.

    "I lost my identification while traveling, is it possible to get it reissued?" I answer saying a rehearsed line I thought of while waiting in line. Let''s hope it at least somewhat believable or maybe I can get some kind of identification here.

    "3 Copper coins to get in, if you have no money then after you enter the city you will have a guard escort you to the adventurer guild, or the merchant guild and help you sign up or trade some stuff." while saying that the guard calls one of his colleagues and tell him about my circumstances while also telling him to guide me.

    After some talking and pointing at me he leads me to the guard and asks, "Where to?"

    "Adventurer''s Guild, please." I say while looking through my inventory for some stuff to trade. I hope the 2 slime cores and 10 goblin remains are worth something.

    "Follow me." One of the guards says while the other goes back to work letting others in.

    "Here we are, we''ll head in and I''ll help you sign up."

    "Thanks, and sorry for the trouble."

    "No trouble at all, at least I have a reason to get a break from work." He says while we walk in and he leads me to the front desk.

    Ah, so he was thinking of me as a way to get a break huh. Well, not that I don''t understand sometimes you just need to let your nerves rest, working all the time is stressful.

    Walking in the Adventurer''s Guild there are people looking at the guard and I but they quickly look away as though they are used to this kind of event. Walking up to the front counter there is a receptionist who has blonde hair, blue eyes, and a nice figure. Seeing that we are heading her way she smiles and waves us to her while she starts to talk to the guard.

    "Welcome, Is this person someone who needs identification?" she says looking at the guard and then at me.

    "Yeah, he lost it while traveling," he says while looking at me as if this kind of situation was the norm. I guess people might be attacked by monsters or bandits often then.

    "I would like to register as an adventurer please" I say to the guild receptionist as I look around the front counter.

    "I''ll need you to fill out this form and write down any skills you have in this box. Do you know how to write?" She asks as she hands me a paper form and points towards the box at the bottom.

    As I look through the form and begin writing down all the information it asks me for the birthplace so I ask the receptionist a question. "Excuse me but my village was destroyed by monsters, what should I put down then."

    "It''s fine to leave it blank, there are many cases of villages or small towns being destroyed." The receptionist answers with a smile.

    As I go through the form there is only 1 thing left blank on the sheet of paper. Seeing this the receptionist asks, "You don''t have a job?"

    "Yeah, I never got the chance to change into a job." It''s probably best they don''t know my class, I don''t want to get mistaken as someone who has a unique Job or something. That will just bring in unwanted attention.

    "Do I need a job?" I ask.

    "Yes, you can''t go higher than level 5 until you choose a job"

    "I''ll get a job then."

    The receptionist grabs a crystal from nearby and holds it out to me. "Just put your hand on here and you can choose a Job."

    [You can choose a second class but leveling will require twice the amount of experience. You won''t gain any extra stats for the second job either.]

    ''That''s fine, I gain experience from killing monsters anyways.'' I say while taking a look at all of the job choices I have.

 5 Choosing a Second Class

    Looking at the wide selection of jobs that I could choose from I decided to see if any of these are worth choosing.

    [Apprentice Swordsman] [Apprentice Mage] [Apprentice Priest] [OtherWorlder] [Pugglist] [Hero] [Warrior] [Archer] [Ranger] [Thief] [Assassin] [Lancer] [Gunner] [Monster Hunter] [Trap Specialist] [Ninja] [Berserker] [Apprentice Summoner] [Soldier] [Knight] [ShadowKnight] [Hunter] [Enchanter] [Paladin] [Illusionist] [Gambler] [Apprentice Alchemist] [Apprentice Puppeteer] [Conjurer] [Diviner][Rogue] [Gamer]

    I don''t really want to stand out too much at the beginning so jobs that will draw too much attention like Hero or OtherWorlder is a no go, Unique jobs are going to have to be a no go as well. Maybe something Basic? Apprentice Mage sounds like a good start, I can use a sword and maybe go for magic swordsman as a third class later on as well. I have my entire life to be in this world so maybe I should get multiple classes.

    ''I choose Apprentice Mage as my second job.'' I think while holding my hand over the orb.

    [Creating a second job slot... Setting the second job... Done]

    [You can now sense mana]

    [You have earned Apprentice Mage Starter Pack (x1)]

    And with the system notification, I begin to feel the mana around me and in the surroundings as the orb began to brighten and glow until it eventually died down and displayed the job that I chose.

    "Apprentice Magician, that''s a wonderful job. It''s harder when you''re a low level but once you learn some magic you can become a deciding factor in a fight." The receptionist says as she finishes up my form for me and begins to fill out my adventurer''s card.

    "How does the ranking system work in the adventurer''s guild? What about quests?" I ask while she fills out my card.

    "We have a ranking system from G-rank to A-rank, there''s a special rank for those who have outstanding results called S-rank but there are only a couple of those these days. The ranking is shown on the back of the guild card so you can check it out later. At the start, you''re only allowed to accept random quests like picking herbs but if you prove your ability through a test then you can immediately be promoted to an F-Rank adventurer." The receptionist explains as she points towards the back of the guild card while handing it to me.

    "Where can I go to prove my ability?" I say while taking the guild card and putting it in my pocket.

    "The earliest we have a test scheduled for is tomorrow at noon." The receptionist says while looking at the clock hanging on the wall.

    "Alright, I also need to get some money for the entrance fee as well, can I turn in parts of the monsters I hunted?" I ask while eyeing my inventory with slime cores and goblin carcasses.

    "Yes, we exchange monster parts for money. Which monster do you wish to turn in?"

    "We can take the slime cores for 7 copper coins each and goblin ears sell for 3 copper coins each."

    After giving her the slime cores and the goblin ears I receive the 40 copper coins and give 3 to the guard since I needed to pay the entrance fee.

    "And with this, I''ll be on my way. See you around." He says sighing that he has to go back to work so soon.

    "Is there an inn around here that I can get a good sleep in." I ask before I head out of the guild.

    The receptionist grabs a piece of paper from under the counter and hands it to me. "This is a guide for newbies, there''s the inn that the guild partners with. You will need to sign up for the beginner''s program if you want to stay there though."

    "I''ll sign up then, how long will it take?" I ask since this might take my leveling time.

    "There are two versions you can take, the short version which lasts 3 days or the long version which lasts 2 weeks." The receptionist says while looking at me for my answer.

    It would probably be a good idea to learn from the natives here.

    "Sure, can I sign up for the three-day version?" I ask the receptionist as she begins bringing out the papers required.

    "Sign here and It''ll begin tomorrow at 2pm." She says as she hands me a pen to sign.

    After signing the paper I follow the paper''s directions I walk through the less crowded streets as I reach the inn that''s partnered with the guild.

    Upon walking in one of the waitresses talk to me, "Guild Card"

    "Here" I say handing here my guild card.

    After reading the brand new guild card she rights down the required information and hands the card back to me.

    "It''ll be 10 copper coins a night, that includes all meals and a shower every day." She says.

    "I''ll stay for 3 nights then." I say while handing her 30 copper coins.

    "Here''s your room key, your room is down the hall to the left." She says as she points in the direction of my room.

    As I take the key and find my room I sit down on the bed after getting undressed and look through my inventory. I have 7 copper coins left from all of today''s expenses, I have the job starter pack from choosing my second class, I still have the random cheat skill as well.

    ''Use the Random Cheat Ticket please'' I say to the system as I watch the Random Cheat Skill Ticket disappear from my inventory.

    [Using Random Cheat Ticket (x1)... Done]

    [You have gained the Cheat "Infinite Mana"]

    ''Nice, now I don''t have to worry about being low on mana. I can also use magic without restraint. Can I open the job starter pack '' I ask the system while I watch it disappear from my inventory as well.

    [Using Apprentice Mage Starter Pack (x1)... Done]

    [You have learned the skill Mana Manipulation (Lv.1)]

    [You have gained Basic Wand (x1)]

    ''Nice I got a skill and a wand. It''s a shame that I didn''t get a starter pack for my "Cheater" Job''

    While laying in the bed I look over my status and what I have gained today until eventually the stress caught up with me and I fell asleep.

 6 F-Rank Adventurer

    Waking up to the sound of the town clock and hearing 11 bells meaning that it is 11 am right now. Getting up from the bed and getting ready for a new day I put on my clothes and put my possessions into my magic bag. Grabbing my beginner adventurer gear and setting them up for today I head out the door and into the dining hall. The brown-haired hostess seeing that I am sitting down heads my way to come and take my order.

    "What will you be having?" she says as she hands me a menu and takes out a paper and pen as she gets ready to write down my order.

    "I''ll have today''s special." I say after looking at the menu briefly.

    While waiting for the food to be made I use mana manipulation to experiment with what I could do with it and see if I could understand how I could use this in a fight. After some testing and moving the mana all around my body I get a notification from the system.

    Through continuous use, the skill "Mana Manipulation" has reached level 2

    Through continuous use, the skill "Body Enhancement Magic" has been created

    After messing around with my mana I earned a new skill and my mana manipulation leveled up so I continued experimenting with my mana manipulation until the food came. With the food being delicious I left the inn with a great mood as I headed over to the guild as it was almost time for my 12 pm test.

    Upon reaching the guild I see the same receptionist from yesterday helping an adventurer so I wait in line for my turn.

    "Welcome, the test is being held right now. You can head through that door to the testing grounds, there will be a couple of people in there taking their tests already." She says as she points towards a wide door.

    As I go through the door I see two people fighting in the center of the room while others are waiting on the sidelines in seats. With the fight finishing up one of the guys who looked more experienced says to the other that was holding a spear.

    "You have the basics down but you''re overconfident. That wouldn''t be a problem if you had the ability to back it up but you clearly don''t. As a senior adventurer, I recommend that you get some experience in the dungeon''s first couple of floors and after a year or two you should be able to be confident about yourself." He says while looking at the young man with a spear with a stern face.

    Upon finishing up with the guy with a spear he looks towards me and says, "All the others have finished their tests, you''re all that''s left."

    "Alright, I''m ready when you are." I say while I take my sword out and stand before him.

    "I heard you were an Apprentice Magician. Why do you have a sword?" He asks while looking at me with surprise.

    "That sounds good, just remember that someone who is a jack of all trades will be a master of none. Let''s start then." He says as he starts the test and lets me make the first move.

    Seeing that he is going to let me make the first move I use mana manipulation to strengthen my body while using Body Enhancement Magic at the same time to receive even more strengthening and rush the test administrator.

    As we go back and forth eventually he stops and says, "Alright that''s enough, your mana manipulation seems fluid as well. How long have you been practicing?"

    "It hasn''t been that long. I was curious about it so I experimented with it a little." I say while putting away the basic sword.

    "Alright, from this moment on you are all F-Rank adventurers. I''ll tell the receptionist at the front. You guys wait here." He says as he leaves the testing room and heads to the front counter.

    After some time he comes back with one of the receptionists from the front.

    "Your all F-Rank adventurers now. You can come to get your guild cards updated at the front counter I''ll be doing them now." The receptionist says as she turns around and leaves the room.

    As we all head out of the room and go to get our guild cards updated at the front counter the test administrator stopped me to talk.

    "Hey, I''m Finn. I was your test administrator and I''m a C-Rank adventurer. Nice to meet you!" He says as he puts his hand out for a handshake.

    "Nice to meet you I''m Bell." I say while shaking his hand. He has a strong grip, he''s probably a high level.

    "I saw on the list that you signed up for the 3-day beginners class." He says as we wait in line for my guild card to be updated.

    "Yeah, I don''t think that I''ll be around long enough for the longer class. I want to see more of the world." I say as I want to get experience and level up fast.

    As we continue talking it becomes my turn for my guild card to be updated so he says, "I''ll head out then, see you around." and with that he left to some back room.

    "Next." The receptionist says as she extends her hand for the guild card.

    As I hand the receptionist my guild card she sets it under what looks like some sort of device. Seeing me staring at the machine the receptionist laughs and says, "This must be your first time seeing something like this. It''s a magic tool that was created to let us edit the guild cards. The only way to edit guild cards is with this machine."

    "That''s awesome." I say fascinated with the magic technology. I wonder what other things have been made for convenience around here.

    With the card coming back out of the machine the receptionist takes a look at it and then hands it back to me with a smile and says, "If you activate your magic the guild card will update your level and skills."

    With her explaining that I use mana manipulation to see just what the guild card will show. After using magic on the guild card it brightens and words start to form on it. With the light dying down, I look at what is written on the guild card.

    Name: Bell

    Age: 17

    Job: Apprentice Magician

    Level: 5

    Skills: Sense Presence, Sword Mastery, Mana Manipulation, Body Enhancement Magic

 7 An Unfinished Book

    After looking at my guild card I''m surprised that they can tell what my level is and which skills I have. I guess since I can do it with the system there has to be some kind of system in place in this world as well. The guild card can''t pick up some things like titles, Cheats, and the Cheater Job though so I guess it''s not going to be a replacement for me. I''ll update it whenever I have to I guess.

    With that, I ask the receptionist if there is anything I could do to pass the time and she gave me directions to one of the libraries close by. As I walk out of the guild the sound of 12 bells echoes throughout the city indicating that it was 12 pm.

    ''I have 2 hours before the beginner''s course starts. I''ll go see what''s in the Library then." I say as I follow the directions that the guild receptionist gave me and walk through the somewhat crowded streets until I get to my destination.

    As soon as I enter the Library the lady at the front desk calls out to me and says, "It''s 5 copper coins to enter. If you destroy any books there will be a fine." she says as she looks at me waiting for a response.

    "Here you are." I say taking out 5 copper coins to pay the entrance fee. I noticed that I only have 2 copper coins left after I gave the entrance fee to the librarian and make a mental note to go hunt some monsters later today.

    After handing the entrance fee to the librarian she puts the money away and quickly goes back to reading whatever book she had on her desk as the entire Library is filled with silence.

    Looking through the Library I see people sitting down reading books while spaced out so I look through the shelves of books looking for something interesting until I come to find one book that is labeled "The tragedy of the Goddess Alice".

    While reading the title of the book I look at the front and see a picture is of a woman crying while holding a child in her arms.

    Upon opening the book I immediately get sucked into it as I continue to read the flip through the pages absorbed into reading the story.

    Upon using the lifestyle spell light, the previously dark room becomes illuminated and a giant magic circle covers the floor. In the middle of the magic circle is a woman laying on the floor naked. Looking closer the woman is remarkably beautiful, her hair is golden brown, her body line is curvy which raises the question of why is she naked? Upon walking closer to the woman the magic circle lights up the room while it activates with the white light engulfing everything in sight. After some time the light dies down and the woman is already standing.

    "How long are you going to stare at me?" a feminine voice rings in my head as I notice I have been staring at her the entire time.

    "Why are you here?" I ask, blushing slightly from being called out.

    "You... that ring, where did you get it?" She asks in a commanding tone.

    ''What is this, her demeanor changed when she discovered the ring.'' I think to myself as I answer.

    "When I was around 5 years old one day it just showed up." I say to her. For some reason, I felt like telling her everything.

    As she hears my story she continues to stare at the ring.

    "Should we head back to the town? Our guild master will probably want to speak with you and get a report written down." I ask as I hand her some extra clothes I had on me, they may be men''s clothes but they were larger than her so they should do for now.

    "Sure. My name is Alice."

    As soon as I go to turn the page I realized that there were no more pages, every other page was blank. This was the end of the book, and yet while I was reading this book an unknown tear escaped from my eye.

    ''There wasn''t anything sad but I still shed a tear. Why is that?'' I say to myself as I hear the sound of 2 bells ring throughout the city.

    ''Shit I''m going to be late.''

    As I put the book away and begin to walk out of the Library I look for the librarian and see her putting books away in a corner so I quickly head over there since I''m going to be late.

    "Excuse me." I say while getting walking closer

    "Yes, what can I do for you?" She says as she turns and sees that it''s me.

    "I would like to know if there''s a second part to "The tragedy of the Goddess Alice" I can''t find it anywhere." I ask as an unknown curiosity overcomes me.

    After a pause she says"Ah that story, it''s a kids book that was never finished since no one knows the author. We keep it here since we were ordered to but it looks like no one in the world has the next part." She says after remembering the story.

    "Thank you for your help." I say while leaving the library disappointed.

    As I head back to the Adventurers Guild I noticed that my emotions seem out of control today, overwhelmingly sad while reading the book and heavily disappointed that I couldn''t find the next part of the book.

    ''This is the first time I showed such emotions upon being summoned'' I say to myself as I looked down onto my arms.

    They were different than the ones I was used to, the ones I spent 17 years with. This body was said to be modified by the system from my old one but there are too many differences. In fact, the only similarity is the age. I just hope that I can continue to live happily.

    While I walk in the Guild a familiar voice says to me, "You''re late. Class is going to be long today."

    Looking up to see the familiar voice I see the Test Administrator from earlier.

    "Follow me. The others are already studying." He says as he goes to the back of the guild and enters through a door.

    Following him, I enter into a room just like the classroom from Earth. Chairs everywhere and a teacher''s desk with a podium at the front.

    "Now that everyone''s here I''ll begin telling you about monsters in the dungeon and their characteristics. This will be a long 3 days." He says in a loud voice as he begins going through what to expect in a dungeon.

    ''No matter which world I''m in I''ll eventually have to go to school huh.'' I say while sighing and taking my seat for the lecture.

 8 Last Day of the Beginnerâ€™s Class

    After 2 continuous days of long lectures with little to no breaks, we finally are on the last day of the beginner''s course. Cramming so much knowledge into my brain makes my head hurt but it''ll be worth it once I go inside the dungeon.

    After the classes would end it would be around 9 pm so everyone would head home to sleep and finish their day but since I had no money I had to hunt in the forest until 11 pm. While hunting in the forest I got a couple of system notifications.

    [You have reached level 6]

    [Through Continuous use, the skill "Sword Mastery" has reached level 2]

    And even that wasn''t it since while trying to use mana for other things in my room at night I ended up making water with it and after forming it into a ball I received a notification from the system.

    [You have learned the skill "Water Magic (Lv.1)"]

    Since I was staying up these last two days to earn some more money for my living expenses I woke up later today but I have no idea what time it is so I rush to the guild just in case I was late again.

    Upon arriving in the agreed meeting room I hear the same voice as last time sigh and say, "You''re late again."

    "Sorry Finn, I slept in on accident. It won''t happen again." I say while awkwardly smiling

    "Since you''re late again you need to do 20 push-ups, then we''ll start." Finn says as he crosses his arms and waits for me to finish.

    Ugh... getting down on the floor in the push-up position I do 20 push-ups and get back up.

    [Secret Quest Completed: Work Out!]

    [Secret Quest Description: Work out for the first time in the new world.]

    [Secret Quest Reward: Healing Card]

    ''What''s a healing card?'' I ask the system surprised about the new item.

    [A healing card will heal any injury as long as the person is not dead.]

    ''What system why didn''t you tell me about this earlier!''

    [Do you not know what the word secret means dam- System can''t display secret quests.]

    ''Well today is not my lucky day, the system seems to be pissed, and I feel like It''s going to be a long day.''

    "Alright from now since this is the last day of the Beginner''s Class we''re gonna leave the city but first we need to assign partners, seeing that we have an odd number the last here is partnered with me. Introduce yourselves and something you are good at starting from you." he says as he points at the girl with animal ears on the right.

    "My name is Eve desu, I use the mace and light magic desu." now that was an introduction, what guy doesn''t get excited when a pretty girl introduces herself, yesterday I heard that some people in the world are discriminating against the beastfolk but they''re even cuter than I imagined.

    [To be honest, you can''t talk, did you forget you made your character with the beauty of an elf.]

    ''Shut up system it''s a habit from making characters all the time.''

    "Marvin, I''m a ranger, I use curved daggers and specialize in stealth." his name sounds very familiar.

    "Ryu, Fire Mage" The quiet girl in the corner says.

    "My name is Bell, I''m an apprentice Magician. I only know the water ball spell though so I''ll mainly be using the Sword and Body Strengthening Magic." I say when my turn comes up.

    "Alright, I''m Finn. Everyone follow me. For the last day in the Beginner''s Class, we are going to get you guys to experience the dungeon that the guild uses for teaching newbies how to hunt." he says as everyone follows after him.

    As we leave the city we head the same way that I came from but instead, we head past the forest and reach a giant mountain looking thing with soldiers guarding the entrance. While staring at the dungeon entrance someone calls out to me.

    "Hey, Bell are you okay?" Finn says as I notice everyone is looking at me.

    "Your face just changed expressions a lot and you weren''t really responding"

    "Yeah, I''m fine It''s my first time in a dungeon so I''m kinda worried." I say as we head in with Finn leading the group.

    As we wait to enter into the beginner dungeon Finn talks to the guards at the entrance and them after a couple of minutes he comes back.

    "They said that there have been some weird things happening lately but with me here we should still be good to go in safely. So we''re gonna enter right away. " He says as he gets ready himself.

    Upon entering the dungeon Finn turns towards us and speaks to everyone.

    "Alright everyone, get into the groups that we decided earlier." Finn says as he waits for us to get into the decided teams.

    ''Sucks that I''m on his team, he''s probably gonna make me fight alone.'' I say while sighing to myself.

    As we go deeper into the dungeon I get surprised by a notification from the system.

    [Secret Quest Completed: Enter A Dungeon]

    [Secret Quest Description: Enter a Dungeon for the first time in the new world.]

    [Secret Quest Reward: Random Cheat Ticket]

    ''A Random Cheat Ticket from completing a secret quest. It seems like this is going to be my main source of Cheats from now on then. System, use the Random Cheat Ticket.'' I say to myself as I immediately us the Random Cheat Ticket hoping to be able to gain a great skill in return.

    [Using Random Cheat Ticket (x1)... Done]

    ''Come on, please give me something good.'' I say while looking at the display finish randomizing and the system display leaves me frozen just staring at it.

 9 Dungeon Training 1

    [Using Random Cheat Ticket (x1)... Done]

    [You have gained the Cheat "Time Stop"]

    While staring at the system window in front of my I continuously rub my eyes to confirm that I''m not seeing things as I didn''t believe that this kind of cheat would exist.

    ''Impossible, there''s no way this is allowed. There''s no way that my luck is that good right?'' I say to myself amazed at my luck. I''ve never been a lucky person, no lucky encounters, and no lucky rolls. Hell even in a gacha game I never got an SSR rated unit.

    As I think over what could have changed my luck I remember one of the perks of the cheater class. +1 to every stat, as well as the title that I received upon completing the character creation "Main Character". One of these cheats have influenced my luck and I can''t wait to see what else I will be receiving now.

    "Here we are, from here we will be splitting up into the teams and explore. We will meet at the entrance to the second floor and head in a group from there." listening all of them head in with their partners leaving only me and Finn. "Let''s head in, just follow me I''ll show you how to hunt kobolds efficiently," he says as he motions me to follow like a senior telling a junior what to do. Heading into the dungeon I can see people in the distance fighting something, the walls are covered with moss, and it really just feels like a big room overall.

    "Up ahead are 3 Kobolds watch how I fight them then you will fight the next ones." he says as he runs off at a speed of at least twice my own. Reaching the monsters Finn pulls out his long sword and stabs one in the head while they weren''t paying attention. As he quickly pulls the sword out the other kobolds turn around and block his next attack at a speed no less than my own. ''So these monsters are at least level 7 or higher''. As the kobolds are taking the recoil of blocking Finn grabs the dagger he has hanging on his waist and slashes both their throats and they fall dead with blood all over. Cleaning the blood off of himself with lifestyle magic he turns to me. "Like that." he says as if expecting me to say okay and do an exact copy. Man, so this is what talented people are like.

    "So you want me to catch them off guard, distract them with one of their owns death, then sacrifice a weapon to take another sneak attack." I say testing the waters to see if he is all muscle or not.

    "Well you can do anything that comes to mind really, these things aren''t really that smart plus they are weak due to the barrier that the guild put in place so you shouldn''t run into any problems," he says while looking around for more kobolds nearby.

    ''Well no shit they are easy prey for you, you said you were a C-Rank adventurer, I imagine he probably has a pretty strong class. System, when can I upgrade my class from Apprentice Mage?'' As I ask the system this question a new system window shows up in front of me so I take a look at it.

    [Level 20 First Upgrade]

    [Level 50 Second Upgrade]

    [Level 100 Third Upgrade]

    [Level 200 Fourth Upgrade]

    ''Ah so that''s why it was so weird for me to not have a job at level 5, people choose a job at level 1.''

    "Alright let''s look for some more kobolds so I can try." I say trying to clear my head from all his titles

    "What are you talking about there are kobolds heading right to you. You kept staring into space and you weren''t listening so I thought you were in the zone or something. Good Luck!" he says as he watches me from behind with a thumbs-up.

    I sigh as I thrust my sword into one of the two kobolds running at me, the sword enters its stomach and it drops the weapon it was holding and falls onto the floor with its hands holding onto my sword. With no time to pull out of sword from the kobold holding onto it, I let go of my sword and grab the kobold''s short sword mid-fall and chop its head off since it was crouching down giving me a free shot.

    You have killed a level 3 kobold and have earned 30 Experience

    As the notification for the experience enters my vision I change targets and block the attack from the other kobold that was with it. Upon blocking the incoming sword I noticed that this attack was heavier than the others so I look at the kobold and notice that it is a slightly different color and is a little bulkier than the other one, seems to be smarter as well since he decided to try and get me when I finished off his friend.

    ''Ugh looks like it will be a tough fight'' I say while grabbing my sword out of the dead kobold and thrust the Kobolds'' sword at the variant. As a result, he tries to block it with his ragged sword so I put more strength into it, and as the two swords clash a loud sound of metal breaking echoes throughout the surroundings. With both swords broken and the variant kobold staggering from the powerful blow so I swing the basic sword at it and it goes halfway through the variant''s arm but gets stuck. With the howl of an injured kobold echoing throughout the floor I try to pull the basic sword out of the variant but the skin was too tough and it wasn''t working so I punched the variant in the stomach as hard as I could and backed away to rethink my plan. The kobold variant howls as it falls onto its knees in pain but with no weapon, I can''t finish it.

    ''Maybe I can put the sword in the inventory and take it back out?'' I think to myself as I put my hand on the sword and it disappears and reappears.

    With the kobold variant heavily weakened and my sword slowly slicing through the thick kobold variant''s skin I eventually stab it through the heart and get a notification from the system.

    [You have killed a level 9 Kobold "(Variant)" and have earned 1000 Experience]

    [You have reached level 7]

    [A Random Skill Ticket has been found]

    [You have gained the title ''Variant Killer'']

    ''Not now'' I say as I close the system windows and turn around to see Finn''s strong gaze. Looking at his face I can see suspicion, caution, and conviction written all over his face. It looks like he noticed something. Did I give anything away? I wasn''t even using magic.

    "At first I thought that maybe you were an inexperienced elf who had only changed his ears due to being naive but you''re a Reincarnated Person aren''t you?" he says looking at me the most serious I have ever seen him be.

    ''Damn busted'' I say under my breath while putting the kobold bodies into the inventory.

 10 Dungeon Training 2

    "You, you''re a Reincarnated Person aren''t you?"

    ''Man did that scare me at first but now that I think about it, it seems like he has something special about him as well.''

    "Why did you think that? Is being a Reincarnated Person a problem?" Let''s test the waters and see if this will be a problem.

    "It''s not wrong, in fact there are at least a hand full of them. You''ve had some special kind of aura around you ever since I''ve met you so I wanted to confirm my suspicions." he says with a relaxed face.

    "So there''s that many huh, what are the gods thinking?" I say to myself out loud while shaking my head.

    "There''s a reason for everything." he says waving off my question.

    "Most reincarnated people have a faster growth compared to the natives here as well as a special skill that they received as a bonus to help them in the mission they were given. You act like this is a video game, you treat monsters as if they were nothing to you and they couldn''t threaten you but you are a mere level 5 apprentice mage, either you''re an idiot or you''re a newly reincarnated person who isn''t used to the threat of monsters."

    "That''s true, the only monsters I came into contact with in my world was in games. What about you? Are you a reincarnated person?" I ask since it seems like he is a reincarnated person as well.

    "Yes, the God that reincarnated me is the Dream God, the mission he gave me was to protect a certain someone until they reached level 20. After that, I''m free to live however I wish."

    "If you''re fine with me asking, who is that person?" I ask suspiciously of what he is about to answer with.

    ''There''s no way'' I say to myself as I wait for his answer.

    "My mission is to stay in the Capital of Light and wait for someone to appear. I was told that the person I was waiting for will be a newbie with Silver Hair and Blue eyes. You match the description and I get a weird feeling when I''m with you as well so just in case I''ll protect you if you run into any troubles until level 20." He says while looking as if he wanted to ask me a question.

    "Okay, shoot."

    "Where did you reincarnate from?" he says with a curious face.

    "We called the planet Earth, its a rocky, terrestrial planet. It has a solid and active surface with mountains, valleys, canyons, plains, and more. Earth''s oceans were enormous, water covered about 70 percent of Earth''s surface."

    "That sounds like it would be fun to explore. I wonder how it would compare to my world. How long ago did you come here?"

    "Like, 3-5 days ago."

    "That matches the feeling I got. 3 days ago I had a sudden feeling that my 3-year wait would be over soon." he says while murmuring something else under his breath.

    ''Was he the one that sent me here?''

    "I was only told my mission and nothing else if you wish to ask then go to the City of Dreams where the Church of Dreams is located, that''s the only place that you can contact the Dream God." Finn says in a more friendly tone as the mood lightens from its seriousness earlier.

    "Alright, I guess. There''s no way I''m going to say no to a free boosting service." I answer with a laugh.

    "Alright let''s continue then, you lead the way and take care of the monsters, I''ll lend a hand if you look like your in trouble. Let''s level you up quickly." Finn says trying to complete the mission given to him by his god as quickly as he could.

    While walking through the dungeon floor we run into a single kobold so I decide to try and test out the new cheat skill that I received from the system.

    ''Time Stop''

    As the skill activates everything in the surroundings comes to a stop, the kobold that was running to me with its sword pointing to me has stopped in place with an angry face. Walking around the kobold I place my foot in front of it and get my basic sword ready.

    ''Amazing it''s like everything just froze, Even Finn stopped in place. The sounds of the others fighting stopped..no...every sound around me had stopped. Honestly, it''s kinda creepy considering that it was pretty loud from the others fighting before'' I say to myself while getting ready to resume time.

    As time resumes the kobold continues running until it hits my foot and falls face-first into the dungeon floor, with its head facing towards the hard dungeon floor I swing down onto its neck and chop its head off as the system gives me a notification of gaining experience. With the single kobold dead, I put it into my inventory and we both walk around looking for some more monsters.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Unknown Location (Demon Continent)

    "So that''s him huh. He looks weak according to our information." one of the shadowy figures says while watching a live stream of what was happening in the dungeon.

    "Are you sure that''s the one with the Hero Job?" another shadowy figure says towards the demon currently kneeling in front of them.

    "Yes sir, it''s been confirmed that he has the Legendary Blink Skill said to only be available to the Hero Job." one of the demons kneeling nearby says.

    "He has no connections to any of the self-proclaimed "Gods" or any of the Divine as well... continue observing him and send someone in the proximity to test him." the says as they both disappear into the dark.

    "As you wish my lord." the demon says as he bows at the disappearing shadow. After some time he turns and talks to a guard.

    "Send Kirim to test him he should be in the same area as the hero. Let''s see just how strong this hero really is." The Demon says to one of his subordinates and then turns to smirk at the live stream.

 11 Dungeon Training 3

    While Finn and I continued to hunt kobolds on the first floor I reached level 8 after an hour and he had all of us go down to the second floor of the dungeon. On the second floor of the dungeon, the monsters were a little stronger but only by a little bit. After finally making it to the second floor Finn decided that on this floor we should all try to work together so he had us fight in groups.

    With Lance and Eve holding the kobolds at bay while Ryu and I get into place so that we chant our magic while Marvin gets ready to finish up any kobolds left over. With a couple of the kobolds falling before our magic had the time to get ready Eve and Lance backed off for the incoming magic.

    "Fire Ball" Ryu shouts as a ball of fire shoots towards the last couple of kobolds and makes them fall onto the ground in flames.

    "Water Ball" With my magic shooting after Ryu''s it hits the kobolds and lets the fire out but they are still alive since it seems that mater magic doesn''t do a lot of damage.

    With both of the kobold barely alive Marvin drops down from his hiding place and finishes up the barely alive kobolds. The amount of experience I received from the kobolds is minuscule so I guess the amount of experience you get correlated to the amount of damage you do to the monster. As we continue through the second floor we reach the end but since I am barely getting any experience from the kobolds due to what little damage I am doing I didn''t level at all on this floor. We reached the end of this floor but upon walking to the stairs to go down to the third floor Finn stops us to talk.

    "Alright everyone, we reached here together so let''s end this together as well. The next room is the boss room, the boss is a king kobold which is a monster that only C rank adventurers can solo, but because the guild has put a special barrier on the dungeon the king kobold can''t level so he is stuck at level 1, DO NOT let that make you cocky even I would have to be careful while soloing it and I am a C ranked adventurer. Get into any fighting stance that makes you comfortable and get ready to follow my orders. One thing to look out for is when he screams you need to get as far away from him as you can because that scream causes an abnormal effect of confusion and terror. Other than that you guys should be able to manage. I''ll watch from behind." He says as he goes down the stairs to the third floor of the dungeon.

    On the Third Floor of the Dungeon, the entire floor is just a small area leading to a set of metal rusted doors. Walking up to the set of metal doors we stop in front of them and Finn talks again.

    "Alright if everyone sticks to my orders and we take out the guarding kobolds first we should be able to do this pretty easily. Let''s head in. " He says as he opened the huge rusted door.

    Finn has a serious look on his face as he stares at the area behind the King Kobold. As he stares intently he shouts "Who''s there!"

    "Keke... Wonderful, a human who can sense me is pretty rare around. Are you someone special?" An unknown voice says from behind the King Kobold.

    The second the voice echoes through the boss room everyone is frozen in place as the surrounding air turns cold. Looking at the kobolds they all had their head chopped off and someone is standing on the king kobold''s shoulder as the king kobold''s face shows a trace of fear. We make eye contact with the person who has a light grey skin tone, little horns protruding out the top head, black hair, black eyes, and a savage smirk on his face as he looks at us in contempt.

    "Demon." Finn says in a whisper to us but it seems that it was loud enough for him to hear us, he looks towards me with his pitch-black eyes and smirks.

    The adventurers all gasp seeing that a Demon has intruded upon the guild''s newbie training dungeon but I felt like this can be suspected. This probably has something to do with my title, main character. This title is gonna bring me into a lot of forced events but it seems like my luck rose as well.

    "How did you get in here without being detected, there''s only one entrance." Finn says getting ready to attack the Demon.

    "Since you humans aren''t my target I''ll give you a chance. The only humans that I have business with are the silver-haired human and the human that found me the rest of you weaklings can just die." he says he disappears from the king kobold''s shoulder and reappears behind Ryu with his fist closing in on her face.

    ''Shit, if that hits her with her constitution as a mage. She''ll die.'' I say to myself with the resolve to stop the Demon.

    ''Time Stop''

    And with Time Stop activating before Ryu could even finish screaming I see that the Demon''s Fist was just about to hit her face. Any slower and she would probably be dead. Grabbing Ryu and moving her to be beside the other adventurers I resume time and the Demon''s Fist strikes through the air.

    This Demon feels stronger than anyone here, if I wasn''t here everyone would probably be dead.

 12 Dungeon Training 4

    "Everyone, leave this Demon to me and go get help from outside. This Demon is too strong for any of us but I can at least keep him here while you get help." I say while still facing the Demon ready to cast time stop in case he decided to attack again.

    The Demon looks at his fist in wonder and then back at me and smiles widely.

    "I''d have it no other way. This mission would have been too easy if they died just like that." The Demon says while laughing.

    "Everyone run and get help from the guards. Bell and I will hold him off." Finn says while getting ready to attack the Demon to keep him occupied so that the others can run.

    With the other adventurers following Finn''s order they all retreat and run through the metal doors closing them after themselves as they run up the stairs to the second floor. As they run as fast as they could to be able to get help from the guards in front of the dungeon it just leaves Finn, Me, The King Kobold, and the Demon in the boss room.

    "You''re just going to let them go like that." I ask while eyeing the Demon for any suspicious movements." With them gone Finn and I should be able to hold off until help arrives.

    "It''ll be alright after all, I''m going to need a snack after completing my mission aren''t I?" He says as he disappears again.

    He may be fast but he can''t beat cheats.

    ''Time Stop''

    With time coming to a stop for another time I look around for the Demon only to find him nowhere in sight. I begin looking for him in the room but I can''t find him anywhere and the metal doors haven''t moved.

    After being unable to find him I decide to have time resume and manage to see Finn''s surprise at the Demon missing.

    "Where is he?" Finn says while looking around the boos room.

    "I can''t find him anywhere. Be careful he may be hiding somewhere dark." I say but it''s too late as the scene of the Demon coming from Finn''s shadow and about to puncture his stomach.

    ''Time Stop''

    After a bit of a surprise, I stop time once more to try and stop the Demon''s strike but it already connected with Finn so even in the world of stopped time the Demon''s arm is somewhat in Finn''s body already.

    Taking the Demon''s arm out of Finn''s body I see a gaping hole just sitting there in Finn''s chest. It missed the heart so he should still be alive but I don''t think he could survive in this fight any longer. After a moment of panic, I remember the thing sitting in my inventory that should be able to solve this situation.

    ''System, use the healing card on Finn" I say hoping that time stop didn''t affect the system as well since it gave me the cheat in the first place.

    [Using "Healing Card"... Done]

    With time resumed once more Finn immediately gasps in pain but then looks down and sees nothing so I say, "Finn, follow after the others and get help. We need someone stronger."

    "No, I promised to keep you safe. You aren''t even level 20 yet there''s no way I''m abandoning you." He says arguing with my plan.

    "I understand, but just then you would have died if I didn''t save you. How could you complete your mission if you die first?" I say trying to change his mind.

    After hearing my words he takes a serious look at where he was punctured and sighs.

    "Alright, I''ll be back with backup. You aren''t allowed to die you understand me!" He says as he runs up the stairs with as vigor.

    As he runs up the stairs a voice comes from behind me.

    "Finally they all fucking left. Hey Hero, why do humans act like they care when they just met you?" He says as his face has a questioning look on it, it looks like this bastard isn''t even taking me seriously.

    "Why did you wait for them to leave?" I mean I''m pretty sure he could just kill them all if I wasn''t there. So why didn''t he?

    "Well, you see I''m not strong enough to offend some of the people they work under, That Finn guy has a strong aura of one of the "Gods" if I kill him who knows what would happen to me. That thief as well, he didn''t even have an aura so he was suspicious. I decided that if I let them go they wouldn''t try to get revenge later on." He says while smirking.

    "Any particular reason you haven''t tried fighting me yet?" I ask while readying my sword for any incoming attacks.

    "Let''s see... if you were to see the most delicious food in the world but someone else has already laid claim to it would you still try to eat it knowing that you''ll die if you do?" He says with a regret-filled tone.

    "What do you mean by that?" I say intrigued, by his saying I''m claimed as someone else''s prey.

    "The Demon King has claimed that your life is his to take, so anyone else trying to take it would be disrespecting him, and that will incur his wrath. That is why I''ll capture you and gift you to the demon king. Why don''t we play for a little while so I can be somewhat satisfied" he says as he has King Kobold rush towards me.

    Holding the hilt of my sword tightly to not let go I rush King Kobold as well and my sword clashed with its claws just barely holding it back. Right now would be a good time.

    ''Time Stop''

    And with that everything comes to a halt and the pressure from the King Kobold claws disappears from my body as I climb its nearly 8-foot tall body and stab into one of its eyes. As I finish stabbing its right eye time resumes automatically and I hear a deathly wail as the King Kobold swipes at me with its claws. I ended up getting hit directly and sent flying.

    "Interesting, so that''s the Legendary Skill "Blink". That''s one dangerous skill for only the Hero to be able to learn. That''s kinda unfair don''t you think?" The Demon says while looking at the King Kobold which has been howling loudly in excruciating pain the entire time as he was holding his hands in front of his damaged eye.

    While the Demon is talking a wave of pain flows through my head as time stop has been taking a toll on my body. I thought that Time Stop would take mana or something but it seems that I was wrong. This cheat is seriously affecting my body.

    "What''s wrong Hero? Does the legendary skill have an incredibly high mana cost?" The Demon says laughing while sending the King Kobold to me once more.

    "You''re in the way." I say as I decide to move a large amount of my mana to encase my sword.

    With an infinite amount of mana encasing my sword, I swing it at the incoming King Kobold with as much strength as I could muster as the body of the King Kobold flys right by me. The head of the King Kobold though was currently on the floor in front of the Demon as blood splattered everywhere.

    [You have killed a level 1 King Kobold and have earned 2000 experience]

    [You have reached level 9]

    At first, the Demon was staring at me with a surprised look on his face but he eventually started laughing.

    ''Time Stop''

    As the Demon laughs and begins to talk I decided that this was the last I wanted to deal with him so even though Time Stop takes a toll on my body I activate it once again and rush the Demon frozen in time with a mana filled sword.

 13 Getting Help

    Running up the stairs as fast as I could I eventually reach the second floor of the Dungeon. This Dungeon was modified by the guild so the monsters will only respawn after everyone leaves the Dungeon.

    ''Dammit. I shouldn''t have slacked in my training.'' I say to myself while reaching the stairs to the first floor of the Dungeon.

    ''I was a burden to him instead of being able to help him. I would have died if he didn''t save me. Someone who has been in this world for maybe a week is already stronger than me. Why did I slack on my training?'' I think to myself while regretting having to leave Bell behind like that. I may not be able to help him but the guard captain for the Dungeon is an A-Rank adventurer. He should be able to deal with the Demon and save Bell as well.

    As I run up the stairs to the first floor I run into the other newbies as they are going to get help as well.

    "Who''s there!" Lance yells in my direction.

    ''I guess they think it might be the Demon'' I think to myself as I call out to them.

    "It''s Finn, keep running. The guard captain should be able to fight the Demon." I say as I catch up to them and run past them while panting for breath.

    We run through the first floor and reach the entrance within minutes but every second will count. Upon reaching the entrance the guards see us running and wave but upon seeing us so out of breath they feel that something is wrong.

    "Is something wrong?" One of the guards says.

    "There''s a Demon on the Third Floor in the boss room. It took control of the boss and is currently fighting with one of the adventurers. We need the guard captain." I say to the guard in a hurry.

    After sending one of the other guards to go get the captain the guard that waved to us talks to me to get more information about the situation.

    "There''s a Demon in the Boss Room? Why did you leave a newbie to stay behind?" He says questioning me.

    "Yes, it was originally just going to be me and the newbie staying since the Demon said he had a mission. The Demon was after one of the newbies so he let the others leave." I answer looking around to see if the guard captain is here yet.

    "And why are you here then and not with him?" The guard asks showing he was suspicious of me.

    "The newbie has a unique skill that will guarantee his survival for a short period. After he told me about the skill he had me go get help." I answer kind of annoying that this guard is suspicious of me.

    With the guard continuously asking questions to get a feel for the situation I answer them all honestly and after a while, the guard from before comes back with the guard captain. As they look around the guard captain looks at me and confirms the information. With them knowing the situation the guard captain

    With all of the guards

    "Finn are you sure it will be okay to leave Bell alone like that." Marvin says in a worried voice as he looks towards Finn with a disappointed face.

    "It should be but just in case lets follow the guards, I mean you guys heard that scream right? That should have been the king kobold so at least we know he should still be alive." I answer as I run back into the Dungeon''s First Floor following after the guards.

    As we run through the Dungeons floors we eventually reach the stairs to the third floor.

    ''It looks like the guards are already down there.'' I say to myself as we head down the stairs.

    While going down the stairs I don''t hear any sounds of fighting either.

    ''Wierd, they would definitely fight that Demon right away.'' I think to myself as we reach the end of the stairs and see the familiar sight of the metal doors wide open. All the guards are sitting there as they surround the entrance to the boss room. Making my way through the crowd I see the guard captain searching someone who was laying down.

    As I get a closer look at whoever was laying down in the boss room the entire boss room is silent as every person there had a surprised or shocked face as the person on the floor was Bell. Everyone stared at the person laying down asleep as if they were looking at a monster. The reason? Well, that''s because they were currently looking at a person who should have been a newbie have the Demon''s head laying right next to him. A Demon who even a C ranked adventurer feared. He had no wounds whatsoever but it looks like his body is as overexerted as possible and he immediately fell asleep on the Dungeon Floor.

    After searching around a bit the guard captain notices me and turns to ask me a question.

    "This is the newbie you left here?" The guard captain asks with his face full of surprise.

    "Yes, I''m just as surprised as you are. He told me he could only keep himself alive with his unique skill." I answer while staring at the sleeping Bell.

    ''Man, the mission I was given by the Dream God is just a joke isn''t it.'' I say to myself sad that I couldn''t do anything this time.

    "Well, we''ll have to make a report to the Guild Master about this. A Demon showing up in the Capital of Light is a big problem. The Church of Light may get involved as well." The Guard Captain says as he has some guards gather the evidence and have others take the unconscious Bell to the guild''s medical hall.

 14 Waking Up

    Waking up I open my eyes with great difficulty only to notice bandages wrapped around my chest and head. Looking around It seems I''m in some kind of fantasy hospital room with beds lining the walls. I''m the only one here. What happened after I blacked out though... I defeated the King Kobold and the Demon but the non-existent rewards I got for it makes me depressed on a whole other level. Looking at the system notification from the Demon I sigh to myself at how unlucky I am.

    [You have killed a Level 43 Lesser Demon and gained 9000 Experience.]

    That Demon was way stronger than the damn Kobold King I should be getting more experience than that man. It didn''t even level me up either since it takes twice as long to level up now. And I didn''t get any kind of tickets or rewards for killing something 34 levels higher than me. Who designed this system?

    I''m now a level 9 apprentice mage so maybe I should start learning other magic. Water magic isn''t cutting it out for me. All I can do is throw water at people right now. I think the next magic I''ll go for is Wind. I''m thinking that I can use this magic to cut some monsters from far away so I don''t need to be in their range either.

    As I sit up in the medical bed I notice that my body is completely fine and I felt as is I had the best sleep I''ve ever had.

    ''With time stop using some kind of power other than mana I thought that it may leave lasting effects or some short term effects that will eventually go away but maybe I was overthinking it?''

    While sitting in bed I continuously create wind with mana until eventually, I get a notification from the system telling me of my achievements.

    [After continuous use you have learned the skill "Wind Magic" (Lv.1)]

    With the notification from the system saying that I learned the skill it becomes easier to create wind from mana so I practice until I can make slashes and have them fly forward. As I continue practicing with wind magic someone enters the room.

    Looking up at the person I see that it is an unknown person but they have a washbin so I assume its a nurse. She stares at me sitting up like nothing had happened in shock as she drops the washbin and turns around to leave the room.

    "Wait, where am I?" I ask quickly before she leaves the medical room.

    Hearing my question the nurse turns around and answers, "You''re in the Guild''s Medical Hall. I''ll be right back, I have to report that you''re awake now."

    After telling me that she turns back around and leaves the room.

    ''I''ll just sit here and wait for her to come back.''

    After a while, the door opens again and the nurse from earlier came in with Finn.

    "You''re awake." Finn says as he looks over me.

    "Yeah, I am." I say confused at his actions.

    "Damn, no wonder I feel like I slept like a baby. It''s been 3 days. What happened after I fainted." I ask shifting my position in the bed to get more comfortable.

    "We ended up reaching the entrance of the Dungeon and got help from the Guard Captain. By the time we got down to the boss room, the Demon and the King Kobold were both dead and you were sleeping on the Dungeon Floor with an angry face. We brought you to the Guild''s Medical Hall to get you healed as we reported to the Guild Master." Finn says while reaching out and handing me a paper.

    "What''s this?" I ask looking at the paper.

    "It''s the report for what happened. We have already turned in our versions of the reports to the Guild Master. You''ll have to get your report in as well." Finn says while handing me a blank paper and pen.

    With the blank paper getting filled out basically just writing what happened to me I get to the part where I''m debating how I should tell how the fight with the Demon went. I''m not gonna expose myself since these cheats could get me stuck in between some powerful political fights.

    Finn seeing me stare at the paper not wanting to fill it in anymore says to me, "You don''t have to expose your unique skill to anyone. You can just say that you killed the King Kobold and the Demon. Do you think that you can walk?" Finn asks me seeing that I''m sitting up in the bed.

    "Yeah sure, where to?" I ask curiously about where he''ll be leading me.

    "The Guild Master''s office. He wants to meet you anyways, follow me." Finn says as he gets up out of his chair and has me follow him out the door.

    As we walk to the Guild Master''s office Finn and I talk about how I should act in front of the Guild Master.

    "No one expects curtsey from adventurers but try to not be rude and ask unnecessary questions. Just answer his questions and give him your report and that''ll be it." Finn says as we reach teh Guild Master''s office.

    "The Guild Master is in here doing paperwork. A Demon showing up at the Capital of Light has brought up some people questioning the Church and the Adventurer Guild''s authority. Just knock and wait for an answer I''ll be waiting at the front counter." Finn says as he leaves me in front of the office door.

    As I knock on the door someone on the other side yells, "Come in, the door is open." so I open the door and come face to face with the Master of the Adventurer''s Guild located in the Capital of Light.

 15 Meeting With the Guild Master

    "Welcome, you must be Bell I heard about you from Finn''s report, I am the guild master Zachary. Come take a seat let''s talk about the incident." he says with a smile on his face as he motions me to sit in the chair in front of him.

    "Sure." I say as I move to sit in the office looking chair.

    As I sit in the chair he motions for me to give him the report in my hands so I hand it to him and he reads the report before saying anything.

    "Your report is missing what happened after Finn left." He says as he finished the report and put it down on the desk.

    "Yeah, I''m not sure what to put for that. I don''t really want any attention for this. I just want to lay low and travel the world." I say while scratching the back of my head awkwardly.

    Seeing that I don''t want to go any farther the Guild Master sighs and writes something on the paper. Once he is done he faces me again and says, "I understand, the story will be that the Guard Captain Austin and Finn fought together to bring the Demon down. The only part that you''ll have in this is that you ran with the others to get help. For that to go through though I would need to know the actual story." He says as he waits for me to answer.

    "Thanks, I think the Demon underestimated me. If it were seriously trying to kill me it could have. But this Demon kept laughing and taking my struggles as his pleasure. When the King Kobold Died he went to try and capture me since he thought I would be tired but when he came close I put as much mana into my sword and I swung. I was too tired to see the results and I fainted from using all of my mana." I say trying to sound as believable as I could.

    "Hmmm, alright. I''ll keep the report as I said earlier. I''ll finish the report you can leave." He says as he goes back to work on finishing up the report.

    "Thank you." I say as I get up from the chair and head out the door.

    As I leave the Guild Master''s room I hear him say something under his breath but I couldn''t hear what it was so I just leave the room like I didn''t hear him say anything.

    Leaving the office area I enter the front of the Guild and see Finn sitting waiting for me. Seeing that I came out from the meeting with the Guild Master Finn gets up and walks over to me.

    "How''d it go?" He asks as we walk out of the guild.

    "It went okay. The story is going to be that you and the guard captain defeated the Demon and that I went to get help with the others." I say as we walk through the crowded streets.

    "I understand that you don''t want to draw attention to yourself. Too much attention can lead to some bad things." Finn says.

    "I just don''t want to have someone approach me and when I decline they send an assassin or get offended." I say following the flow of people looking around the stalls for something to eat.

    "Let''s grab something to eat. I''m starving." I say as I pinpoint a food stall that sells kababs of meat and vegetables. I may have been asleep for 3 days but my appetite is surprisingly not affecting me that much right now.

    As Finn and I order some kababs and wait for them to be made he asks me, "What are you going to do moving on? Any plans?"

    "I would like to level as fast as I could for now. While my class is Mage Apprentice I think that using the Sword is going to help me a lot being solo. I''ll head to a nearby Dungeon and level up on the easier floors. I want to advance my Job as fast as I can." I say as the food is made and I begin chowing down on the unknown meat.

    "I recommend going to the Dungeon nearest to the city. The Dungeon is near the forest by the city, you can find it pretty easily if you just follow the signs on the main road. It''s a Dungeon full of undead though so make sure to not get bitten. Also, watch out for any of the Church of Light members there and stay out of their way. They don''t own the Dungeon but the church uses it to level up their members since the undead are weak to the holy element." Finn says trying to be helpful.

    "Nice, thanks for the tip." I say with a smile as we finish up the kababs and I feel full.

    "Well, I''ll be heading off then. I still have to protect you until you reach level 20 so if you run into any trouble use this and I''ll head to your location immediately." Finn says as he hands me an object that I can feel mana coming from.

    "What''s this?" I ask looking curiously at the object.

    "It''s a magic tool, it can send me your location and a 1-minute long voice message if you insert your mana into it." Finn says as he shows me that he has one for himself as well.

    "That''s cool, I''ll make sure to send you a message if I run into any trouble then." I say as we part ways and I decide to walk through the crowd and head for the entrance of the city.

    It''s about midday so there are a lot of people going around the city so I decide to head to that Dungeon that Finn told me about. As I go through the gate I look at my inventory to see the spoils for killing the King Kobold.

    In my inventory, I see a familiar ticket sitting there taking up a slot. The ticket is a Random Skill Ticket so I guess I''ll hope for a useful skill.

    ''System use the Random Skill Ticket.'' I say as I watch the ticket disappear from my inventory.

    [Using Random Skill Ticket (x1)... Done]

    [You have learned the skill "Heal (Lv.1)"]

 16 A Certain Guild Masters Memories 1

    Going back in time to when Bell left the Guild Masters'' office.

    The Guild Master sat in his chair staring into the air as if remembering a fond memory.

    "Really that kid can already defeat a Demon, even though the Demons are stronger. You really did chose someone worthy Alice. It won''t be too long now." the Guild Master smiles as he leans back in his chair with a smile and stares at the ceiling while recalling one of the turning points in his life.

    As he sits in the chair remembering the good old days he says to himself. "On that day you came into our world, you acted like a normal human, you sang songs for me on my birthday, you helped me with my depression, and we both fell in love. But when they attacked you and sealed you, you told me not to worry, to forget everything, and to not get involved. How could you ask that of me?"

    A single tear falls as the Guild Master sinks into the endless embrace of a heartwarming memory.

    ---------------------------------

    Unknown Dungeon - Unknown Time

    "Zach, are you done daydreaming?" the voice of a man in his late 30''s echoes throughout the floor.

    "Yeah yeah, Mark. I hear you."

    While getting up from the dark and dirty dungeon floor bodies of monsters all around us disappear as they enter the storage bags mark and I have.

    "Zach, I''ve always wanted to ask, why do you stare at that ring of yours at almost every chance you get?" Mark questions me as he looks at the ring on my finger

    "I''m pretty sure I''ve told you the story before, no matter how many times you ask the story is still going to be the same. One day when I was 5 it was just there on my finger and it wouldn''t come off. After my parents tried their best to take it off they decided that there wasn''t anything wrong with it so they decided to just not worry about it." I answer agitated as I look down at the ring again. Why can''t I read that last word, the more I try to read it the more it blurs.

    ''Appraisal''

    Item: Ring of the Fated One

    Rating: SSR

    Description: A ring that leads the one who''s fated with '','','','','','',.

    Effects: Gives the unique skill "Increased Growth Rate" Cannot Unequip,

    We continue onto the last floor of this unknown dungeon. It was found 3 days ago and our A rank party had to clear it first to determine the dungeon''s rank.

    "Even though these monsters are A-ranked monsters they all have the lowest level''s I''ve ever seen an A-Rank Monster have, even the boss is an A rank monster but it''s only level 1." Mark says as he looks through the final room using his Appraisal skill. The skill is really rare so only Mark and I have it in the guild. We decided to form a party because we have this in common.

    "This entire floor just gives me a bad feeling altogether. Let''s get rid of this boss and go back to report." I reply to mark while readying my sword.

    After defeating the boss and its minions we put all of the monster corpses into the storage rings. While mark puts the monsters he killed in his storage bag I check my status for the first time in a while.

    ''Appraisal''

    Name: Zachary Rode

    Titles: A-Rank Adventurer, Dungeon Conqueror V, Demon Slaughterer, Sword Genius

    Race: Human

    Age: 40

    Class: Sword Saint

    Level: 121

    Strength: 121

    Agility: 121

    Endurance: 121

    Intelligence: 55

    Wisdom: 55

    Skills: Appraisal, Intermediate Sword Mastery (Lv.Max), Slash (Lv.6), Heal (Lv.Max), Greater Heal (Lv.3), Cure (Lv.Max), Purification (Lv.4), Chantless Magic (Lv.2), Body Strengthening Magic (Lv.4), Poison Resistance (Lv.Max), LifeStyle Magic (Lv.7), Presence Detection (Lv.5), Mana Manipulation (Lv.4), Fighting Instinct (Lv.Max)

    As the Boss'' body disappears into the storage bag the entire dungeon starts shaking violently.

    "Hey is there an earthquake or something?" Mark asks as he covers his head from the rubble falling from the above dungeon floor.

    "It''s fine, this happens whenever a dungeon is cleared for the first time." I answer since I had experienced this before.

    After the shaking stops, Mark looks around the dungeon boss room and points towards a hole in the room''s wall and asks, "Has that hole always been there?"

    "Not that I''ve seen. Maybe it''s one of those secret rooms we''ve been hearing about. I hear the monsters in there give rare drops and a treasure chest at the end of the room that may contain a rare potion that increases your physical abilities."

    "Then let''s head in, same rules as usual. Whoever gets the drop will keep it."

    On Mark''s suggestion, we head into the hole in the wall.

    Walking through the hole in the wall we follow the path until we reach a room that is completely dark. The light from the boss room only reaches the entrance.

    ''Light''

    Upon using the lifestyle spell light, the previously dark room becomes illuminated and a giant magic circle covers the floor. In the middle of the magic circle is a woman laying on the floor unconscious. Looking closer the woman is remarkably beautiful, her hair is golden brown. Upon walking closer to the woman the magic circle lights up the room while it activates with the white light engulfing everything in sight. After some time the light dies down and the woman is already standing.

    "How long are you going to stare at me?" a feminine voice echoes in the surroundings as I notice that the woman was now conscious.

    "Why are you here?"

    As she looks at me with a deadpan face the light from my lifestyle magic reflects off the ring on my finger as it shines in the woman''s eyes.

    "You... that ring, where did you get it?" A commanding tone comes from the unknown woman.

    ''What is this, her demeanor changed when she discovered the ring. Maybe she knows something about the ring.'' I think to myself as I decide that it wasn''t harmful to tell her.

    "When I was around 5 years old one day it just showed up on my finger. I''ve kept it with me ever since."

    As she hears my story she continues to stare at the ring.

    "Should we head back to the town? Our guild master will probably want to speak with you and get a report written down." I ask as I hand her some extra clothes I had on me, they may be men''s clothes but they were larger than her so they should do for now.

    "Sure. My name is Alice. What''s yours?"

    With Alice following after Mark and I, we leave the dungeon and head towards the City.

 17 A Certain Guild Masters Memories 2

    The Iron Tavern - December 31, 69

    "CHEERS!!" all voices around say together as we drink a mug of ale.

    "Captain make a speech." a slightly drunk adventurer yells across the room.

    "I... I don''t know. I didn''t expect to be able to become an S-Ranked adventurer." I say stumbling over my words from the sheer shock of being able to advance.

    "You beat a dragon with 2 people and didn''t expect to make it to S rank, did you not know that it was an S+ rated monster." another adventurer shouts while filling up his mug with another beer.

    "Haha..." I laugh nervously.

    ''It was all due to Alice, our Priest. I can''t thank you enough.'' I think as I look at her having fun.

    As she catches my gaze she goads me into a speech.

    "SPEECH!"

    "SPEECH!"

    "SPEECH!"

    As the loud roars of adventurers fill my ears I eventually give in.

    "Alright. Alright. You have known that I''m not a speech person but here are some true words." I say raising my ale high.

    "I started off thinking a job as an adventurer was my last resort, I had no talents other than the sword and my personality was unfit for a knight. Hard work has determined that the sword I have has reached even a dragon. Work hard and you will be rewarded!" I shout as all of the adventurers in the guild cheer and fill up on alcohol and snacks.

    "A corny but good speech." Mark says as he raises his mug.

    "Thanks."

    "So how long have you and Alice been a thing?" Mark asks while sipping at his beer.

    "About 3 or 4 months now, sorry about that I wanted to tell you sooner. " I guiltily answer while patting Marks'' shoulder.

    "It''s fine, ever since we helped her out of the dungeon she''s been clinging to you and when others show interest she isn''t interested in getting close to them." he answers while looking down contemplating.

    "I hear you found someone now. How is it?" I ask trying to change the topic.

    "It''s been good, the priests at the church say that we can expect a child is expected in April, around the 20th." he answers slightly drunk.

    "That''s good news. How about your wife? Is she alright?" Alice says jumping in our conversation.

    "Yeah, the doctors say they haven''t seen someone in such good condition during pregnancy," he answers slowly.

    "Well Zach and I have to go, we have to wake up early tomorrow." Alice comes in from talking with her friends as she grabs my

    "Alright see you later. Get home safe you hear?" Mark says as he gets ready to leave himself.

    As we reach the Tavern entrance I look back but it is just all the adventurers from the guild, they didn''t even notice me leave as they continuously cheer and drink alcohol. They really are just looking for reasons to drink.

    As we head down the alley under the dark sky Alice speaks up.

    As we head out of the town and into the forest all low leveled monsters avoid us as we have an intimidating presence. After walking without talking for some time we reach a hill that looks over the town.

    "I found this place a couple of weeks ago and I have been waiting to show you." she says as we look over the bright town. The view is breathtaking, the birds chirping as they fly by, the sound of the town quietly in the distance, the technology given to us by the hero long ago has been advanced working fluidly.

    "This view is beautiful, thank you for sharing it with me."

    I thank her for showing me something so beautiful. These moments fills my heart with happiness as I think about the future.

    "I wanted to say one last goodbye. I can''t stay here any longer, they''ve already found traces of me and I don''t want them to hurt you. I''m sorry but we can''t go together." As I''m feeling the bliss of the situation she drops a bomb on me.

    "W-What, your leaving? Why? Why can''t I go with you?" I say stumbling due to how fast it was said.

    "It isn''t a place that humans can go." a voice from behind me answers as I fling around to see the voice.

    Turning around there are 12 people hovering mid-air, all of them have an aura around them that makes the dragon we fought look like a child. The massive amount aura suffocates me as I try to speak but am unable to.

    ''Monsters''

    "We finally found you, bitch. Hiding in the human realm so we couldn''t have any chance huh. We had to make avatars just to abide by the Plane''s Laws." one of the voices said as he reaches out towards Alice.

    "I''ve been hiding because I didn''t want to be found. Isn''t that just common sense?" Alice says as she backs away from the incoming thing not affected by the aura at all.

    "If you run, this human dies." as the same voice from earlier says that the surrounding aura changes into killing intent and smothers me even more, I can barely stand in place as the aura crushes down on my body.

    As Alice looks at me in the current situation she unwillingly sighs and casts magic.

    "Teleport"

    As the magic is cast, I thought it would be her running away but the magic flies through the grass and engulfs me as my vision changes from the forested hillside to our house in the city.

    "NO!" I yell running out of the house while grabbing the elven sword I keep under my bed. Running out of breath as I jump onto the rooftop and leap over the lively city I reach the entrance of the forest and try to follow the exact route I took last time. As I get closer to the hill the aura of whatever those things are starts to smother me the same as last time making it hard to control my body. The sounds of screams echo throughout the forest as I rush through it. Hearing the screams I activate all my skills and having mana cover me entirely as to resist the aura as I rush to the other side of the hill only to see Alice in chains and something pulling her into what looks to be a crack in the Dimension.

    All 12 of the beings enter into the Dimensional crack quickly after her and the crack closes up like ti was never there in the first place.

    ----------------------------

    As he stares into space and daydreams about his past he murmurs, "I pray... that somehow... one day... you will be relieved of all your suffering."

    With that sentence quietly echoing throughout the room, the tear falls from the Guild Master''s face and onto the desk.

 18 Entering the Undead Dungeon

    [You have learned the skill "Heal (Lv.1)"]

    ''Nice, a skill I will be using a lot from now on. It''ll even be useful against the undead since undead are damaged by anything of the holy element. I wonder how it feels.''

    As I decide to try and use heal on myself I place my hand on my stomach and activate the skill only for nothing to happen. All I felt was a wave of mana go through my body but other than that nothing happened.

    ''Wierd. Maybe I need to take some kind of damage.''

    While following the road signs that Finn said would lead me to the Undead Dungeon I pass by quite a lot of adventurers on the main road. Every now and then a couple of them look at me while whispering to themselves but I don''t feel any bad intent from them so I keep walking.

    "Hey, don''t you want to visit your home? Hasn''t it been a while since you''ve seen your parents?" One of the passing adventures says to another.

    "Yeah, but it would take a week to travel there and the cost to ride on a carriage is incredibly high as well. I send letters every now and then as well."

    "Money won''t replace your family. Go see them sometime, sending letters is different than going in person."

    Upon overhearing the adventurers talk brought up the feeling of being homesick swelling up in Bell''s heart. With the emotion swelling his heart he had begun to regret listening in on their conversation.

    While I had been trying to shut out any emotions that could cloud my judgment in the Dungeon. I let some slip up every now and then. I gotta not let these emotions put me in danger, I don''t know what kind of dangers could be in this world. I don''t want these emotions to be something that could be the end of me.

    As I walk along the road I stare at the ground and think about home and my neighbor Reina who looked after me for as long as I could remember. There was a time where we were having dinner at her house. Normally she didn''t talk about my parents but one night she got drunk and told me about my parents. Telling me about how they were truly the definition of free and how they liked to travel and do anything that they found fun.

    As I reminisce about the past I reach the road that splits off to the entrance to the Dungeon. At teh entrance to the Dungeon, there is a group of 3 people sitting together laughing while one of them was staring at me. I ignore the group of adventurers and show the guards at the entrance of the Dungeon my guild card and enter into the Undead Dungeon.

    The Dungeon entrance is in the side of a mountain so the entrance itself is a cave. There isn''t anything right at the entrance so I walk through the beginning of the first floor with the sense presence skill currently active.

    Upon approaching the skeleton as I get close enough the skeleton reacts to my presence and tries to attack me. I wait for the incoming Skeleton to get close enough for me to hit it as I knock it down onto the Dungeon Floor as I crouch down and touch the skeleton''s bare bones. I use the heal skill and activate it once I touch the skeleton. The skeleton starts to struggle as the skill activates and tries its hardest to get out of my grip but eventually it disintegrates into a pile of ashes and I get a notification from the system.

    [You have killed a level 13 Skeleton and have earned 210 Experience]

    The bad thing about the heal skill right now is that the range on the heal requires physical contact so I have to grab any of the undead if I wish to use the holy element against them. As I begin to contemplate how to use this in the future I remember that the skeleton wasn''t detected with my sense presence skill and say to myself out loud, "So the sense presence skill doesn''t work on the undead. I guess it''s because they aren''t technically alive."

    With that piece of information, I decided to turn my sense presence skill off since it won''t be of any help here in this Dungeon and it would only drain my mental energy from constantly using it.

    With the skeleton dead and the only thing remaining is a pile of ashes I have the inventory collect the ashes just in case they are worth something or they could be used as an ingredient for something. Following the path to go further into the Undead Dungeon''s First Floor I run into some skeletons in groups but they all fall quickly since none of them are armed and they aren''t very strong.

    I continue to go through the first floor of the Dungeon until I get a notification from the system giving me a surprise.

    [You have found an Upgrade Ticket]

    I was surprised at the new type of Ticket coming from the system. I wonder what kind of things it can upgrade.

    ''System what does the Upgrade Ticket do?''

    [The Upgrade Ticket is a ticket that can upgrade almost anything. There are only a couple of things that it can''t upgrade, cheat skills, the cheater class, and the system itself.]

    ''So I can upgrade skills, items, and armor. Interesting.''

    With the system notification taking Bell''s attention, he had failed to realize that he was being watched. The attackers finally found an opportunity when his attention was taken away by the system notification and he stopped paying attention to his surroundings and with this heaven-sent opportunity, they decided to act on it and "Hunt" this newbie.

 19 Attacked in the Undead Dungeon

    Newbie Hunters. Bell had been told about them from Finn. They were people who found enjoyment from hunting newbie adventurers. Killing newbies and taking their gear they normally aimed for those who either looked loaded or newbies who were naive enough to think they could enter the Dungeon alone safely. Although there weren''t a lot of confirmed cases for newbie hunters since there wasn''t any surveillance in the Dungeons a lot of newbie deaths are rumored to be tied to their "Hunt". And now, it was happening again.

    Although Bell may have not been focusing on his surroundings all of his stats still increased upon leveling up. Even the hidden ones. Although he had poor senses leveling up had increased and sharpened them.

    "Now" One of the adventurers whispered as they all began their "Hunt".

    By the time that the 3 attackers had made their moves and gotten close to Bell with their skills going off and their weapons incoming fast Bell had already reacted by stopping time and moving to a safe location before yelling at them.

    "Who are you? What are you trying to pull!"

    Bell had asked them this even though he knew what was most likely the answer. They were probably the newbie hunters that Finn had warned him about.

    "Oooh, this newbie has a nice skill. How long is the cooldown on that?" One of the adventurers says in amazement as he eyes Bell looking to attack again.

    "Probably a long cooldown since it involves teleporting. Skills like that always take a lot of mana as well."

    ''Speak of the Devil and he will show. These newbie hunters really had to show themselves.''

    Although he knew they wanted to hunt him an up and coming newbie he still hesitated. He knew that he had to act in self-defense but instead he instinctively ran away. Even if he thought of this world as a Virtual Reality game there was always the chance that it wasn''t. That this was actually a different world. And that these were actual people and not avatars. Killing them would be against everything he had learned from Earth''s Society. and so instead of killing his attackers he instead asked them why.

    "Why do you kill newbies? There''s no need."

    "Ahh, We love to hunt newbies like you. Newbies who believe that killing people is bad. Newbies who instead of protecting themselves decide to run away. It brings the best feeling in the world especially once they start to beg for their lives." One of the 3 adventures that looks to be the boss says. He had a disgusting grin on his face as if the joy he felt from this situation was overwhelming. The emotions that he was feeling would burst at any moment and he may not be able to hold himself back.

    ''They won''t let me go.'' He told himself as one of the two incoming newbie hunters'' head went missing.

    ''It''s either me or them.'' He said as the other incoming newbie hunter fell onto the Dungeon Floor in two pieces.

    Seeing his comrades fall so quickly and without any chance to resist the Last Newbie Hunter''s mental state quickly fell into disorder. At first, he refused to believe that he was seeing but even after blinking and rubbing his eyes the situation refused to change. It was a literal nightmare for him. He the "Hunter" had someone he considered "prey" to become the hunter instead.

    "They''re just trash. It won''t matter if I kill them." He said to himself out loud as he made his move to finish the last of them.

    With an infinite amount of wind blades closing in on the Boss of the newbie hunters he wasn''t in the right mental state to react and instead was chopped to pieces. No one would ever know that the last thing on his mind at that moment was that he was not the "Hunter", he was the "Hunted".

    The sound of someone vomiting resounded throughout the empty First Floor of the Undead Dungeon. Oddly enough no one else was in this dungeon for now.

    After vomiting, I started to feel relieved of the twisted pain from my stomach. Although that pain was still there it is more bearable.

    ''This world is real.''

    With the feeling he had when he killed the newbie hunters he had in turn begun to realize that this world wasn''t like he thought. This world isn''t some virtual reality game this world was real. Not everyone would be nice and there were people who would have ill intent. He had thought that the run-in with a Demon was some forced event for the plot but now it looked like they are actually aiming for his life.

    ''I need to get stronger. Stats may make me physically stronger but knowing how to fight would be better. I can''t rush levels without having the experience on how to use my power.''

    Through this event, he had decided that rushing to increasing his overall level would instead be worse for him in the long run. While increasing his level would increase his power in the short term the natives of this world leveled not through experience gained from monsters but instead through gaining insight into their class and increasing their skills.

    ''While the cheater class may be unknown for now I can definitely increase my knowledge on the mage apprentice class. Actually using magic is something new for me so I should experiment with it since I won''t run out of mana anyway.''

    After activating Sense Presence again while still being cautious of his surroundings Bell had begun thinking to himself for a while. Eventually, he made a decision.

    ''Let''s go home and practice magic. I can practice the sword at the guild''s training area.''

    With the decision to train instead of leveling for the first time since coming to this world Bell had decided that he should become stronger without relying on Leveling for now.

 20 Increasing Skill Levels

    After leaving the Dungeon I headed for the guild to turn in the kobold bodies that I forgot about. I turned those in at 20 copper coins each and the variant went for 15 silver so I have at least a month''s worth of expenses settled for now. I decided to test out my magic at the guild''s training grounds instead of my room since I wanted to try fire magic.

    Although the guild''s training ground was mostly empty at this time of day there was at least another group of adventurers there practicing doing fighting drills and one other person was practicing his magic. The amount of mana he has was very little, in fact, I was wondering if it was just me who had an enormous amount of mana. Even before I got the infinite mana cheat, I still had 10 times the amount than this guy had.

    ''I guess not everyone is born with the same amount of mana.''

    Taking my attention off of the guy controlling his mana I decide to try to see what my limit is for controlling the infinite amount of mana. Even though I may have infinite mana there is still a limit to the amount of mana that I could control so I want to increase that for now.

    ''System what is the best way to control mana.''

    [Controling mana is different for every person. Although there are mana circulation techniques compatibility is a key factor while controlling mana. It is recommended that you try circulating the mana inside yourself to avoid affecting the others around you.]

    Taking the system''s advice I try it myself and circulate as much mana as I could around my body. While tracing my body with mana I add on a little more mana whenever I feel that I could control more. I continue practicing my control until eventually my entire body is filled with mana and I get a notification from the system.

    [Through continuous use, the skill "Mana Manipulation" has reached level 3.]

    ''Nice, now that is encouraging. Now I know I''m going in the right direction. It seems that encasing my body in mana could help toughen my body past its current limits.''

    With the system notification showing the increase in skill level I continue trying different things including focusing all the mana that I could in one spot but at the most that I could do was create balls of water and have them hover around me. I made sure not to create them too big since it would cause a commotion but instead I tried to create as much as I could while controlling them all at the same time.

    After creating 3 balls of water having them hover around me and training with them for about 10 minutes I get another notification from the system.

    [Through continuous use, the skill "Mana Manipulation" has reached level 4.]

    ''Even though mana manipulation increased water magic didn''t.''

    Seeing that just making balls of water wasn''t enough to increase the skill level I made a whip out of water and started moving that around as well.

    With water magic increasing I start to try and create fire out of mana as well.

    After spending a couple of minutes visualizing fire I feel confident and manipulate the mana around me to create fire above my hand. With the mana following my will fire is created hovering above my hand.

    [After continuous use, you have learned the skill "Fire Magic (Lv.1)"]

    With fire magic acquired I continue to experiment with it since Fire Magic will be doing more damage for now. After experimenting for 20 minutes of trying to create different things with magic I end the training session being able to create fireballs and being able to increase the heat in my hand without hurting myself. While trying to create the fire hand spell I ended up slightly burning my hand until I was able to think of making only the area above my hand burn. Though it didn''t hurt since I could heal myself instantly I don''t recommend using magic on yourself without preparations.

    After leaving the guild''s training ground I ended up with Mana Manipulation reaching level 4, Water Magic reaching level 2, gaining the Fire magic skill, and Increasing my Heal skill to level 2. I also gained some insight as to what the heal skill does to the body so I would say that today''s training was a success. Its dinner time so tomorrow I plan to train in the morning with my sword.

    After reaching the Inn I lengthen my stay for 2 more weeks as I decided to train my skills and reach level 20 before going anywhere else for now.

    Inside my room, I go over what had happened today and how I could do better in the future. I can''t let my guard down in dungeons. But keeping the Sense Presence skill on would bring me a ton of stress.

    ''Wait, what about the upgrade ticket that I got today.''

    Remembering the upgrade ticket that I got today I look at my inventory to see the ticket sitting there. After debating what I could upgrade I finally decide on what to upgrade.

    "System, use the upgrade on the Sense Presence skill."

    [You would like to use the "Upgrade Ticket" on the Sense Presence skill. Please Confirm.

    [Yes/No]

    After selecting yes the system loads my request and the upgrade ticket disappears from my inventory.

    [Upgrading "Sense Presence"... Done.]

    [The skill "Sense Presence" has been upgraded to the passive skill "Presence Detection (Lv.1)"]

    ''Since it''s a passive skill I guess I''m going to have to get used to feeling any presence near me.''

    After checking the skill out it looks like I can turn off the passive skill but using it won''t cause any stress to me so I decide to activate it for now as I lay on the bed thinking to myself.

    ''It has been a crazy few weeks since I got to this world. Being forced into a different world for an unknown purpose, no goal, and no known way back. I guess I''m going to have to look into Libraries to see if there is any knowledge on a way to go back.''

    While deciding on a temporary goal for now I slowly drift asleep as I think about what to do from now on.

 21 Humanitys Greed

    Looking down at the report on the desk the Demon Looking figure sighs and leans back in his chair.

    ''With Kirm dead the enemy is now stronger. Although Kirm was a low-level demon he was still a Demon. All Demons are born as strong as a B-ranked adventurer so it seems that this Hero has a trump card.''

    While thinking to himself and going over the matter in his head this Demon couldn''t figure out how a newly summoned Hero could defeat a Demon without any help and with minimum training.

    ''Isn''t this just cheating. What kind of monster did those Humans summon? When will they ever learn that their greed will be the end of them?''

    Looking at the report anymore would just frustrate him so instead, he got up and called in one of his subordinates.

    "Send this report to the Demon King, tell him that ''The Hero is growing fast and can already defeat low-level Demons. I suggest that we bring forward the attack''. Make sure to properly convey what is on the written report as well. Don''t let Kirm''s death be in vain."

    "Yes General!"

    With the matter of reporting to the Demon King settled the Demon King''s Third General sat in his chair once more.

    ''That Hero bastard. Kirm was one of my people and you dare to kill him.''

    Although the Third Demon General didn''t want to get frustrated he had still let this mater affect his emotions. Kirm may have been a low-level Demon but he was related by blood to his right-hand man. He was currently trying to figure out how to calm his right-hand man that was outside "training" the ones who sent Kirm.

    ''Man I kinda feel bad for those Demons, they''re getting the shit beat out of them.''

    Looking outside the window at the training area all that could be seen was 4 figures and a floor full of blood. Some of the figures'' limbs are bent the wrong way but there''s nothing that can be done to save them from this hell. The only things they could hope for was the mercy of the one beating them.

    While looking at this sight the Third Demon General felt next to nothing but instead said to the air around him "Hans, go and tell Amos that I''ll let him use "it" to get his revenge. Anything that happens will be on him."

    As soon as he finished speaking a Demon dressed as a butler appeared out of thin air kneeling in front of him.

    "As you wish, Master."

    With that, the Demon Butler Hans disappeared once more only to appear in the Demon''s training area.

    "I''ll leave it to Amos then. He hasn''t failed me yet, lets hope he doesn''t this time."

    ----------------------------------------------------------

    A little while later near a Human village.

    "Soon I will avenge you, father."

    This man looking for revenge was Juan Escalera a Hunter for a nearby village. He had been hunting animals for this village ever since he reached 15. His father had taught him how since he was young so that they could both be the village hunters.

    After a couple of years went by his father died while they were on a hunt together. Even though they are called "Hunters" by the villagers they had little power and were low levels. So with them running into a strong monster they could do nothing but run in the face of adversity. Even though they were running for their lives at full speed the monster followed behind them at half speed. As if he was playing with his food.

    His father realized that if they continued running they would bring disaster upon the village and seeing that the monster was playing with them decided to fight the monster and at least keep him there so that his son could live.

    "Run and don''t look back! I''ll hold this monster back!" His father yelled as he prepared himself to fight the monster.

    Even though his father told him to run at that time he had stopped and turned to fight with him.

    "Just run! Don''t let us both die!" His father yelled at him for his actions but he couldn''t bring himself to leave.

    "Run!" His father yelled once more.

    Seeing his father so desperate he turned and ran as fast as he could. While running he heard screams but he couldn''t turn back. His father didn''t want him to.

    After a while, the screams stopped and he heard the monsters loud footsteps once again. The monster had killed his father and lost his trail. He ran down the mountain and hid in a cave until he couldn''t hear the monster''s footsteps anymore.

    ''Why do I have to be so weak. I couldn''t do anything but leave him behind.''

    He had been in the cave for an unknown amount of time waiting for the monster to leave so by teh time he had left the sun was already coming back up. As he was leaving he heard something talk to him from inside the cave

    "Do you want power?"

    Hearing the voice from inside the cave the hunter Juan turns around and yells, "Who''s there!"

    "I can give you power."

    After debating if he wanted to leave he couldn''t stop thinking about the offer.

    ''Power. If only I was powerful.''

    The thoughts of what if had clouded his mind and instead of leaving, he walked further into the cave.

    "Yes! Let the greed for more power consume you. Nothing else matters, only power! Let the greed course through you for my revenge!" The voice yells in excitement as it sees the human coming closer.

 22 Sparring with a Guild Staff Member

    Thinking to myself that night I decided to focus on increasing my skill levels instead of raising my level for now. I had been training the sword in the morning, training magic abilities in the afternoon, and training mana control at night. After 2 weeks of training skills, my current status looks like this.

    Name: Bell(17)

    Race: ???

    Titles: Main Character, Variant Killer

    Job: Cheater, Apprentice Magician

    Level: 10

    Strength: 20

    Endurance: 20

    Agility: 20

    Intelligence: 20

    Wisdom: 20

    Skills: Presence Detection (Lv.1), Sword Mastery (Lv.4), Mana Manipulation (Lv.5), Body Enhancement Magic (Lv.3), Water Magic (Lv.3), Wind Magic (lv.2), Heal(Lv.2), Fire Magic (Lv.3)

    Cheats: Infinite Mana, Time Stop

    Although my skills were slowly increasing I had leveled up after training with fire magic. After asking the system it seems that you gain experience from doing certain actions with classes. Training with a sword if you had a swordsman class or using magic with a magician class. Even though I was gaining experience I didn''t get any system notifications from it and since I can''t see how much experience I need to level up the only way to rely on that is to use my infinite mana to spam spells. With Sword Master leveling up twice I had become more proficient at wielding a sword, with the increase in Water, Fire, and Wind magic I am able to use more spells like Water Bolt, and Fire Bolt. Even though wind magic''s level increased all that increased was the power of the wind I can create.

    Every now and then in the guild''s training area, I would spar with some other people who were training or some guild employees who wanted to make sure they weren''t rusty. Today I''m gonna spar with one of the guild employees who would watch over the guild training area, from what I heard he was really strong so I''m looking forward to what I could learn from this fight.

    Walking into the guild''s training area I see a group of people talking to the guild employee I''m supposed to be sparring today. Upon noticing me enter the training area he calls out to me.

    "Yo Bell. I''m ready to go so just tell me when you''re ready." He said in a happy tone. It looks like he''s looking forward to the spar as well.

    "Let me stretch before we fight. I don''t want to pull a muscle." I say excited for the fight as I begin stretching.

    After stretching for a little I feel that I stretched enough so I called out to the guild employee.

    "I''m ready Keenan."

    With that, all the other adventures that were going to watch the fight all back away to give us enough space as Kennan and I both have training swords that the guild has sitting on a rack. Although they are made of wood I can feel that they conduct mana very well.

    As we both move into position the surrounding became quiet and Keenan spoke to me, "I''ll let you make the first move."

    As we both face each other I move at my fastest speed as I try to strike him in the waist. With the sword having no mana in it at all I swing for his waist but he blocks my sword with ease. With the free hit blocked we continue to go back and first trying to hit each other. Either blocking or dodging each hit we both continue to fight as we unintentionally move around the guild''s training area. Although it is a big space there are still people watching so we have to avoid certain places so we won''t run into anyone watching. After 2 minutes if fighting I still haven''t hit him but neither of us is tired so we continue to fight until we reach the 5-minute mark.

    "You''re even better today, you have been improving fast lately. Have you been entering the dungeon?" Guild Employee Kennan asks as if he was having no problem with the current fight.

    ''You think that you have enough room to talk while dodging me huh.''

    "I was thinking of going again recently. I wanted to increase my skills instead of my level for now."

    I said as I put some mana into the sword and swing again. This time though when the two wooden swords collided his wooden sword was knocked away and since he couldn''t block it so it continued to get closer. As the sword was about to hit him he jumped backward and dodged it.

    Although the sword was knocked away he grabbed it when he was backing away.

    "That was a good strike! Since we''re using mana don''t mind if I do. There''s only 1 minute left so you better be quick to hit me." He said enthusiastically as he readied himself to block any incoming attacks for a minute.

    "You talk too much." I say as I put more mana into the sword and encase myself in mana as well and attack.

    After attacking in multiple directions there''s only a couple of seconds left until we reach the 5-minute mark.

    "One last try." I say under my breath as I swing straight at him. Although this swing doesn''t have much mana in it I decided to not lose this fight.

    As the sword got infinitely closer to Keenan he reacted by bringing his sword in front of mine almost instantly. If I continued to swing this hit would definitely be blocked unless I do something else.

    ''Time Stop''

    With the two swords about to clash I stop time and put my wooden sword past his and then let time resume. Keenan put his strength into blocking and thought he had blocked me but seeing the incoming sword that had already passed him he could do nothing but smile as he was hit.

    After laughing to himself he said, "That was well done. I didn''t expect that in the least. An afterimage due to how fast it was, simply amazing."

    "I tried to hide it but it seems that I can''t get it past you, old man." I awkwardly say as I rub the back of my head in embarrassment.

    ''So you can leave afterimages after being too fast.''

    "Nicely done. Keeping a trump card is always the best decision that could save your life. Make sure to be careful while using that."

    "Yes sir." I thank him while moving to put the wooden sword back.

    "Ah, just throw that away. I doubt that someone else would be able to use that now." Keenan says as he looks towards my wooden sword.

    Looking down at the sword in my hands I notice that the wood that was previously smooth was now splintered and dented in some places. After throwing the wooden sword in the trash I say goodbye and head outside.

    ''Right now it''s probably around 4 pm. I think I''m ready to go back into the dungeon now.''

 23 Back in the Dungeon

    Leaving the city I follow the road until I reached the Undead Dungeon. Even though I had been working on increasing my skills recently I hadn''t had any opportunities to use healing magic so going to this Dungeon where I can use heal offensively will help as I go through the Dungeon Floors. I can also practice with healing since having it at higher skill levels increases the amount it heals.

    As I go through the guards at the entrance I buy some information about the dungeon from them and they hand me a paper filled with information. This Dungeon was called "The Undead Cavern" since it was full of undead. The church was the first to find it and when reported to the lord they had named it based on what type of monster was inside and the layout of the dungeon. With the Dungeon being a large cave with stairs going down each floor they decided on naming it a cavern. The dungeon had 5 floors, each floor had a different undead monster on them. The First Floor of the Dungeon contained Lowest-Class undead Skeletons, The Second Floor of the Dungeon contained the Low-Class undead Zombies, The Third Floor of the Dungeon contained wraiths, The Fourth Floor of the Dungeon had Ghouls while the Fifth Floor of the Dungeon contained the Boss and a group of all of the monsters from each floor.

    With the information on the Dungeon contents from the guards, I head into the Dungeon with Presence Detection on. I learned from last time that even if I couldn''t feel the presence of the undead I could still feel others in the dungeon, like anyone from the church or other newbie hunters like last time. I''d rather not run into anyone in the dungeon for now.

    After following the same steps as last time through the Dungeon I run into more undead skeletons this time so I''m using heal more often. For now, if I can finish them with heal I''d rather do that so I can increase the skill level as fast as I could.

    Every time an undead skeleton would run at me I could hear it coming near with its bones hitting the dungeon floor so none of them could run up on me without me noticing. With the skeletons being nothing other than bones I could hear them if I focused my hearing so I used that to hunt them down instead. After killing a couple of skeletons and getting the notifications for their deaths I make sure to put the ashes that they turned into in my inventory with the others and move further into the Dungeon''s First Floor looking for the stairs down.

    While passing through the Dungeon I can sense some people but I make sure to avoid them since you never know who could be in a Dungeon. Newbie Hunters, or the people from the church. It could even be other adventurers but for now, I just want to hunt alone.

    [Through continuous use the skill "Heal" has leveled up]

    After about an hour the skill levels up to level 3 and as a result it is stronger than before. The range increased as well, although I don''t have to touch the target anymore they still have to be within 2 feet of me so I''m basically within arms reach anyways. Now I can just spam the undead while running past them with heal until it levels up again.

    With another hour of looking for the Dungeon stairs leading to the lower floor, I decided to try to go to that one place I''ve been avoiding this entire time. The group of people that have been sitting in place for the past 2 hours. Although they have been sitting there they still had people on the lookout so it may be some adventurers.

    While walking towards the only group of presences that I can feel on this floor I begin to hear the group of people talking to themselves. From what I can hear they sound like they are from that church of light that I''ve been hearing a lot of lately. Even if they were from the church of light I still decided to approach them cautiously ready to run or fight just in case something goes wrong.

    "Are you sure that the oracle said someone other than us was supposed to be in the Dungeon today? None of the adventures come here anymore right?" One of the priest looking people says to the person in the middle of the group.

    A majority of the group of people that are sitting at the Dungeon''s stairs have the attire of a priest while some have a modified priest outfit but they have swords at their waist''s. Those are probably paladins or their special knights. The person in the middle looks to be a higher ranked priest since he has a more flashy outfit that screams "look at me". It was a white outfit with golden symbols on it.

    Hearing the priests doubt of the oracle the higher ranking priest frowns and says, "You better not let others hear of your doubt, even though I may be lenient and not mind you talking like that the others would excommunicate you for doubting the words of the oracle. Remember, the oracle''s words are God''s words."

    "Yes, si-. Someone''s approaching!"

    While listening in to their conversation it seems that one of them noticed me so I make sure to put my sword down so that they don''t think that I am hostile.

    ''Priests from the Church of Light should be trustworthy right?'' While saying that to myself I show myself to the group and speak out to them.

    "Hello, are those the stairs that lead down to the Second Floor of the Dungeon?" I shout to the group with enough distance between us while pointing towards the stairs.

 24 Second Floor

    Of course, I knew that they were the stairs down to the Second Floor of the Dungeon but I didn''t want to rudely walk past them without saying anything.

    Upon hearing my question the entire group smiles awkwardly and one of them says, "Yes it is. We''ll move out of your way. Sorry about that."

    With that, they all get out of the way of the stairs so I go past them while still on edge just in case.

    ''This seems fishy. Why would they be sitting here for hours just to let me pass without saying anything else? Especially since they seem to be looking for someone.''

    After passing through the entrance to the stairs I continue down towards teh second floor. As I reach the end of the stairs I hear them speak again.

    "Alright, we''re leaving. We know what he looks like so let''s go back and report."

    "Yes Sir!" The group says as they follow behind their leader leaving the Dungeon.

    Since they had left the Dungeon without doing anything else I continued on through the stairs and enter the Second Floor of the Dungeon. Upon teaching the Second Floor of the Dungeon I can feel some presences so I follow one of them from a distance. While they don''t seem to be people I want to see just what these things are.

    After following the source of the presence I hold my breath after seeing what the source of the presence looks like. A decayed human body slowly walking around the area. It smells horrid and looking at the zombie makes me gag. Even though zombies are reanimate corpses this zombie''s face is nonexistent since its face just didn''t even exist. It was missing its face like it fell off somewhere else in the Dungeon.

    ''That''s gross.''

    Even though I found it completely disgusting the entire Second Floor of this Dungeon is only zombies so I''m going to have to put up with it. Since the zombie is just walking in circles I walk closer to kill it.

    Upon the zombie noticing my presence, it screeches and runs towards me at a speed that I was not expecting. The zombie was pretty fast considering that it was decomposing. Since it was coming towards me I slash at the incoming zombie but make sure to not kill it so I can use heal to finish it instead.

    ''Heal''

    After using heal on the zombie it gets absorbed back into the Dungeon but some teeth are laying where it once was.

    ''Yeah, I''m not touching that. That''s disgusting.''

    Since I decided to ignore the zombie drops if they continue to drop teeth I try and quickly find the stairs to the third floor of the Dungeon since the second floor was so unsatisfying. After about half an hour of looking while hunting any zombies that I came into contact with I decided that I''ll just come back tomorrow.

    [You have killed a "Golden Skeleton"... Received 3000 Experience]

    [Congratulations you have reached level 11.]

    After defeating a golden skeleton I had received enough experience to reach level 11. Although I was happy about the level up I was unsatisfied that even though I had been using heal on the undead this entire time it still hadn''t leveled up. Considering that it was only level 3 right now I''m beginning to worry about future leveling speeds and how long they would take me.

    As I left the Dungeon I pass by the same guards at the entrance while leaving so I gave my thanks for the information and head back to the capital of light to go grab some dinner. On the walk back to the capital I had begun thinking as to what it is that I want to do in this world. Even though I want to get stronger I have n goal as of yet. Even though it had been a little longer than a month since I''ve been here. As I walk while thinking of the different things that could become my goal a memory that I had long forgotten had popped into my mind again.

    When I was about 10 I had been playing while my neighbor Reina had watched over me at the park. Even though all the other people were watching their kids in pairs she was the only lone one. Thinking that she was lonely I had told her ''I''ll marry you when I get bigger. I promise.'' and then went back to playing.

    ''I can''t really keep that promise in this world can I?''

    While reminiscing about the memories I had with Reina I had unintentionally walked all the way back to the capital without noticing.

    ''I guess that I''ll have to make it my goal to go back and fulfill my promise won''t I?'' I chuckled to myself as I head back to the Inn.

    Since it was a little late for dinner I had to wait for the food to be reheated as others sat in the tables drinking ale and beer. Whatever they were talking about they were saying it pretty loudly so I unintentionally overheard their conversation.

    "Be careful while leaving the city. People have been reporting that they hear some people screaming but when they go to check it out they find nothing." One drunk person says to another while they drink more beer.

    Even though they weren''t talking to me what I had heard piqued my interest so I listened in for more information.

    "Yeah Yeah, I know. Don''t enter the forest, and don''t go out of the city alone. The guards have already put up a notice at the gates leading out the city. You hear anything new about it?" One of the drunk people says with a grin in his face.

    "Of course, I had heard that some of the screams were people screaming ''Why won''t it activate?'' and ''Where did it go?''. These rumors are floating around for now so the lord was going to put a quest up at the adventurer''s guild to find more information.

    After receiving my food and listening in some more I got some interesting information that I didn''t think I would run into in this world. With an unknown entity hunting people in the forest that I came from and the fact that something won''t activate or it disappeared only brought up something, I got from reading Japanese web novels for too long. Someone is hunting people down for their items.

 25 Running Through the Dungeons Floors

    Although someone was hunting down people for their items it had nothing to do with me so I finished my dinner and went to bed. Even though I had been in the Dungeon fighting for a couple of hours I was pretty tired so I blinked and it was already morning once again.

    For now, I just wanted to conquer the undead Dungeon and Fight the boss. Since heal is effective against the undead as well as being used to heal injuries I wanted to level it as fast as I could. Recently though it seems that heal has hit a wall, no matter how much undead I finish off with it I never get the notification that it had leveled up.

    Since I was just going to run through the Dungeon floors today and hopefully fight the boss I asked the waitress for a packed lunch and head out of the city towards the Dungeon. It was surprisingly quiet on the road to the Dungeon today, there were no adventurers on the road at all even though it was 10 am. There weren''t any merchants carts passing by either.

    ''Is it a holiday or something?''

    Following the quiet road, I reach the Undead Dungeon, even though I hadn''t seen anyone else I did see the guards at the entrance today.

    Upon seeing that I was approaching they waved at me and as I got closer they called out to me, "Oi, I''m surprised that you want to go into the Dungeon on a day like this." One of the guards says to me astonished like I was going in on a holiday.

    "As I thought, is it a holiday or something? Why am I the only one on the road?" I ask the guard since it seems like they aren''t busy.

    "It isn''t a holiday, there are rumors of a unique monster around the Capital right now. The rumors of people disappearing and not coming back were found to be true so we are in a state of emergency right now. Most people just decided to take an off day but we guards still have to work." He sighs as he slouches over like he didn''t want to work today.

    "A unique monster huh, what''s that?" I was interested since if it was anything like the unique monster like the manga and novels that I read then things are going to be interesting around here.

    "A unique monster is a monster with a unique skill, this particular monster must have a nasty skill since no one that has run into it has lived to tell the story. Be careful if you go into the forest, the city lord is looking to make a punitive force to wipe it out beforehand."

    "Thanks for the information." I say while passing by him entering the Dungeon.

    ''So it was a unique monster huh, how interesting.''

    Although the unique monster had piqued my interest it was only a shallow curiosity since I had never seen one myself. I still wanted to get stronger so that I can travel around the world looking for a way back to Earth. I might even find a way to be able to travel back and forth between the two worlds so that I can keep increasing skill levels.

    [A Random Skill Ticket has been found]

    ''Nice, a new skill ticket.''

    With the appearance of a new Random Skill Ticket, I felt even more motivated than I was before and increased my speed through the second floor while looking for the stairs.

    ''If I got a Random Skill Ticket on the second floor I can''t wait to see what other things I could get from this dungeon.''

    While hunting zombies all throughout the second floor I make sure to finish them with heal so that I can increase the skill level but no matter how much I kill it still hasn''t increased. I''m beginning to wonder if it has something to do with me so I ask the system for some advice.

    ''System, why is heal''s skill level not increasing?''

    [After killing this much of the undead I''m just as surprised as you are. While there are some exceptions the only explanation that I can come up with is that you have very little talent for healing magic. So little in fact that it''s almost non-existent.]

    ''Well then. Even if you learn skills you have to have the talent to increase their level huh. Sounds like a scam.''

    [That''s just how this world is structured. The only reason that you even got the skill was because of the system, you reaching level 3 was probably the limit of your talent.]

    While the system had told me about talents I decided that I wouldn''t believe it, I refuse to believe that there''s no way that having low talent would cap the level that your skill can be. It probably just takes more experience than others. While thinking about how to increase the skill level of heal I continue to go through the second floor looking for the stairs.

    After 3 hours total of being in the Dungeon, I had finally reached the third floor. It was already 1 in the afternoon so I ate lunch on the stairs while keeping Presence Detection on just in case anything tried to approach me.

    ''If I remember right the third floor had wraiths.''

    Although wraiths were a ghost or ghostlike image of someone, these wraiths were created by the Dungeon''s mana so they didn''t resemble anyone. They were just shadowy figures that floated around everywhere. I can detect them with Presence Detection so I hunted them down while looking for the stairs for the fourth floor. After hunting 30 of them I received a notification from the system.

    [You have reached level 12]

    ''So they give a lot of experience huh, I thought that they wouldn''t since they were so easy to kill.''

 26 Finding the Boss Room

    Even though the wraiths were easy to kill there weren''t a lot of them since on the entire floor there were only 40 of them. I couldn''t find any more wraiths so I proceeded to look for the stairs leading to the fourth floor instead.

    Even though I had been hunting monsters for hours I made sure to take breaks at each set of stairs before heading onto the next floor. Upon finding the stairs for the fourth floor the time that I had been in the Dungeon had been around 5 hours, so it is about 3 pm outside.

    On the Fourth Floor of the Dungeon, the monster inhabiting this floor is the Ghoul, a monstrous humanoid type of monster that acted on its instincts. Even though they aren''t that many of them on the whole floor, they are all spread out and from what I can feel they are all alone, so this should make clearing this floor even easier.

    I walked towards the closest ghoul that was currently walking around the Dungeon. Upon seeing the ghoul sitting there with something in its hands eating it with all of its focus on whatever it was eating. Looking closer it seems to be consuming a piece of human flesh.

    I was filled with Disgust as I look at the Ghoul currently having its full attention on eating the flesh in its hands. Since the Ghoul was fully focused on eating and didn''t pay attention to its surroundings I walked up to it as quietly as I could while hiding the emotions in my heart.

    The Ghoul eventually noticed my presence but it was already too late since I had made a move and the Ghoul''s head was detached from its body and I got a notification from the system telling me about the experience I got from it. I wasn''t too focused on the experience though because my attention was completely on what the ghoul had dropped when its head went flying, it dropped the flesh that it was eating. The piece of flesh didn''t look identifiable but I decided to burn it to avoid letting the other ghouls on the fourth floor to get a chance to eat it.

    After burning the piece of flesh I continued on through the Fourth Floor of the Dungeon hunting down the other ghouls to earn more experience and hopefully get some tickets off them. These ghouls were all level 20 but in total on the floor, there were only 25 of them so with that 8 level difference I had gotten no tickets but a lot of experience. After killing 20 of them I had gotten the notification from the system telling me that I was now level 13.

    [You have reached level 13]

    Even though leveling was going to take twice as much experience from now on killing higher leveled monsters brought in more experience so I was still leveling at a decent pace for now. This floor only took an hour to clear and find the stairs leading down to the Fifth and Final Floor which contained the Boss of the Dungeon and a group of all of the monsters from each floor.

    While resting before entering the boss room I look in my inventory to check the tickets that I gained from hunting in the Dungeon. In my inventory rested 3 types of tickets that haven''t been used yet. The One Random Skill Ticket that I had gotten earlier, The Seven Random Food Tickets that I had been saving for emergencies, and the One ticket that I don''t remember getting the Quest Ticket. Even though this new type of ticket was in my inventory I can''t remember the time that I had acquired this ticket.

    ''System, when did I get this quest ticket. What does it do?'' I didn''t know when I got the ticket myself so I thought that I could ask the system instead.

    [You had gotten it as a drop from one of the Ghouls, and it actively randomly creates a random quest based on the user''s surroundings.]

    ''But I didn''t get a notification for it though?''

    [The system sent out a notification, it is up to the user to read them]

    Looking through the recent notifications I notice that there actually was a notification from teh system. Seeing that I felt an indescribable emotion as I stared at the system interface.

    ''That''s weird, I definitely didn''t receive it.''

    Since I see the evidence of the notification I chalk it up to me forgetting about it and go ahead and use the ticket that I had planned on using before I head into the boss room.

    ''Use the Random Skill Ticket''

    [Using Random Skill Ticket... Done]

    [You have gained the unique skill "Appraisal"]

    ''So now I can appraise things as well peek at people''s status huh. Sounds like it''ll be a lot of annoying clutter.''

    Since I had received a unique skill from the system I was happy but appraising everything in sight sounds like it would take a while.

    ''I''ll just save it for appraising important things, or things of interest.''

    After 20 minutes of resting had passed I got up and headed towards the door leading to the Boss room. This was technically my first battle with a boss monster since the guild''s dungeon had the boss under a level cap, as well as it being manipulated by the Demon so I couldn''t fight it at its best. I was excited to fight a boss monster so I opened the boss room''s door with vigor as teh door scratched the Dungeon Floor and all of the Monsters inside the Boss Room turn towards me like I was interrupting something.

    "Nice, it''s a Skeleton Knight!" I shout as I see the Skeleton looking Boss on a skeleton horse.

 27 The Skeleton Knigh

    "Nice, it''s a Skeleton Knight!" I shout as I see the Skeleton looking Boss. The Skeleton Boss monster was a Skeleton Knight just like the ones from some of the Virtual Reality games I played on Earth. The Skeleton Knight had armor on and the skeleton horse that he was sitting on had leather armor on. The Skeleton Knight was in the middle of a small group of monsters from each floor, with two monsters from each floor acting as guards for him.

    Upon noticing my presence the Skeleton Knight screeched as half of his guards ran towards me bloodthirsty. With one of each monster from every floor running towards me I use wind magic to cut at their feet to slow them down so that I could deal with them at my own pace. Even though the monsters saw the incoming magic they completely ignored it as if it wasn''t there.

    ''Even the monsters on each floor reacted to things I did, why are these ones focusing on only me. Was it that screech from earlier?'' With nothing else to go on, I decided that the screech from teh skeleton knight from earlier must have put them into some kind of frenzy as they ran at me with all of their might, wanting to kill me and please their master.

    ''If they aren''t going to even dodge attacks why would I let this chance go for free?'' With the monsters ignoring defense and going full offense I decided to slow them down with magic until I can finish them with a sword. Since heal had been stuck at level 3 I had less motivation to use it so I put it on the backburner for now as I spam water magic to slow the incoming monsters.

    As the water balls hit each monster every one that was hit was knocked back from the force of the impact, with each monster having different stats and resistance some had only been knocked away slightly, while some had only been kept in place. The ghoul was surprisingly resistant to the water magic that I had sent out.

    ''Fine, fire magic for you then.'' With the ghoul being resistant to the water magic I decided that fire magic would be a better option here since I can just keep the fire going until it burned to ashes.

    Creating a whip with fire magic I move it so that it surrounded the ghoul and set it on fire. The ghoul screamed as it was being burned, with its screams the other monsters all started running at me again so I shot a couple of fire balls towards the incoming group.

    Since the ghoul was kept in place as it was covered in flames the only ones left in the incoming group were the Zombie, Skeleton, and the Wraith. The Skeleton and Zombie were both hit by the incoming fireballs and were taken down as a result, with 2 of the 4 attackers dead the Skeleton Knight Shouted in an unknown language and started cursing.

    [You have come in contact with a new language, beginning auto-translation... Done]

    "You useless fucks! Even after I buffed you and gave you the opportunity to serve me you still can''t even deal with a simple human apprentice magician. Trash!"

    As I heard his shouting I couldn''t help but be surprised at how he was dealing out harsh words. After the initial shock I couldn''t help but chuckle, this guy sounds like the guild masters who would curse at me on Earth while sitting behind their classmates. With how his useless cursing was taking his attention the ghoul finally dies and I get a notification from the system but I decide to check it later since now was not the time.

    After seeing that his subordinates couldn''t even do anything to a human mage the anger inside him boiled as he shouted in rage, "You useless trash! I deal with this myself." With that shout, there was a flash of light and every monster was slowly being absorbed into the floor.

    "What the fuck." I say under my breath after watching the sight in front of me. I couldn''t believe the event that I was seeing right now. The monsters were being absorbed back into the Dungeon.

    ''Even their presence had disappeared- No, they dispersed like they died.''

    As anger had taken over his rationale whatever plans that the Skeleton Knight had vanished as decided to take matters into his own hands and make a move himself. He began rushing at me on his Skeleton Horse.

    "You won''t even see anything coming."

    As soon as the Skeleton Horse had taken a step a flash of light once again appeared at he was instantly in front of me with a lance aimed at my throat. I barely had any time to react and definitely not enough time to dodge so I stopped time in a panic.

    ''Time Stop''

    With time coming to a stop everything in the surroundings sat in place frozen. I could feel my heart pounding with adrenaline as I stared at the lance that had almost pierced my throat. The lance was dirty and somewhat rusted but it was still incredibly sharp.

    Since time was currently stopped I walked up to the Skeleton Knight and his horse and spammed them with heal. It may not directly kill them but it should be able to hurt them a lot. While time was stopped I couldn''t get any system notifications so I continued spamming heal and stabbing the Skeleton Knight and his horse until I felt satisfied.

    With time resuming the skeleton knights horse falls and I get a system notification from it but unlike I had expected I didn''t get a second system notification for the incoming experience.

    ''How is he not dead, I used heal at least 100 times on him.''

    The Skeleton Knight fell onto the floor as his horse had died and had begun disintegrating. The Skeleton Knight was motionless as he hit the floor and didn''t make another sound afterward.

    ''Wierd, he''s not dead. Is he trying to catch me off guard when I approach him?''

    Since the Skeleton Knight had fallen without making another sound I tried to use appraisal on him to see what was keeping him alive.

    ''Appraisal''

    Even though I had used appraisal nothing showed up no matter how many times that I had used it so I decided to finish him off from a distance as I felt anxious. I used wind magic to start severing his head from his body. Since the wind magic that I can make right now isn''t that powerful I had to continue hitting the same spot with wind slashes as it slowly cut through the tough white bone.

    [You have killed a level 41 "Skeleton Knight"... Received 12000 Experience]

    [You have reached level 15]

 28 Leaving The Dungeon

    After finally getting the system notification from killing him I sighed in relief and sat down to take a breather. While resting I looked at the system notifications from earlier.

    [You have killed a level 33 "Skeleton Horse"... Received 4000 Experience]

    [You have found an Upgrade Ticket]

    [Fire Magic has reached level 4]

    [Wind Magic has reached level 3]

    Happy about the spoils of the boss fight I get up but as I was getting ready to leave the Boss Room a glint of light had caught my eye. I thought that nothing dropped from the Boss but upon taking a closer look, there was a dirty pendant on the floor. Picking it up I appraise it.

    ''Appraisal''

    Item: Unknown Pendant

    Item Description: An Item found during an excavation of an ancient site. It was said to be a pendant from the Goddess of Darkness that had the ability to block any kind of appraisal magic.

    Upon equipping: +5 Stealth, Blocks Appraisal

    Since I only had things to gain from equipping the pendent I put it on and make mental note to clean it later.

    With the Boss Room being cleared the entire Dungeon was empty so I walked back to the surface rather quickly since there were no monsters in the way. On my way out of the Dungeon, I nod my head at the guards that had been sitting there all day and start walking back to the capital of light. With this Dungeon completed and the spoils from the Dungeon, I decided that I would work towards increasing my rank as an adventurer now. Being an F-Ranked adventurer isn''t really anything to brag about but I feel that I could advance quickly if I put in the effort. With the increase of ranking as an adventurer, the guild would in turn let you receive higher-ranked quests. Although I haven''t really been doing quests I feel that they can be a good source of income rather than just hunting down monsters.

    Since I refused to take anything other than the skeleton''s ashes from the Dungeon as well this Dungeon just wasn''t as profitable. Even though I may not be looking to be a rich tycoon but making a living while being able to buy anything that I wanted sounds like it would be a dream come true.

    As I continue to walk along the empty road I feel the magic tool that Finn gave me began to vibrate. After taking it out of my pocket I heard Finn''s voice coming from it.

    "Where are you right now?" He shouted with concern as he talked from the magic tool.

    ''''I just finished that Undead Dungeon you were talking about, after trying for a few days I finally finished it. Is something wrong?" I answer while questioning him since from what I had heard from his tone, he sounded like he was worried about me as if something bad had happened.

    "Have you heard of the unique monster rumors going around lately?"

    "Yeah, what about it?"

    "Is this confirmed information? Where did you get the information if he kills everyone?" It just didn''t make sense to me. If he killed everyone, how does Finn know of his existence?

    "We had a survivor. The oracle from the Church of Light had a vision that someone from their church would be attacked by an unknown person today. We waited in the surroundings to ambush him but he had a skill that let him vanish into thin air. The member of the Church of Light had all of their skills taken by that unknown monster tamer." While explaining how they knew of the Skill stealer Finn sounded worried about me since I had unique skills,

    As if the system had heard of Finn''s information I got a new notification from the system.

    [The Quest Ticket has been activated. A Quest had been made!]

    [Quest: Greed that Taints the Soul]

    [Quest info: Arvarice had brought the Hunter his one wish, power. But every power comes at a cost, he steals skills from others. He aims to take over the city for the Demon Army while stealing every skill in sight, stop him before he can steal all of the capital''s skills.]

    [Quest Rewards: 1 Random Cheat Skill Ticket, +1 Level]

    Surprised at the sudden activation of the Quest Ticket I stare at the rewards while deciding that this was a chance at another free cheat skill. All I have to do is kill this guy who has been hunting down the other residents.

    "I''m on my way back to the capital. I''m hanging up." After seeing the rewards for completing the quest I put the magic tool in my inventory and rush back to the capital.

    "Ain''t no one stealing this quest from me." With that, I ran as fast as I could back to the capital of light.

    On my way to the capital I thought over what kind of skills he could have. If he went after someone from the Church of Light, he may have been after their healing skills, or maybe their cure skills. He hunted adventurers and others who went into the forest so he''s probably stronger than the adventurers. Including that skill that let him disappear, either some kind of teleportation or he can turn invisible. I''m going to have to keep Presence Detection on for now until this situation is over.

    On my way to the city, I see a person standing in the middle of the road. He was blocking the road but I moved to go around him to avoid wasting any time.

    As I pass by the person I couldn''t help but take a second look at him, but when I turned around there was nothing there.

 29 Tamed Monster

    With nothing being there I immediately connect this to the skill stealer so I check to see if I can sense his presence.

    ''His skill is either teleportation or some kind of invisibility.'' I quickly decide to prepare for a fight as I check teh surroundings for any kind of human presence. I can feel a faint presence but it was running away so I run in the direction that it was running to.

    I continued to follow him but he was faster than me so I eventually lost him into the forest. I was trying my best to keep up with him but in the end, I had still lost him.

    "Damn, I lost him." I hit a nearby tree in anger. The tree shook from the impact of the hit and an odd-looking bird fell on the floor.

    While looking at the bird I notice that the bird has a weird look in its eyes as it rushes off into the sky in a hurry. The bird looked suspicious as it was flying so I shot a fireball at it and got a system notification from it.

    [Killed Tamed Monster... Received no experience.]

    ''So it was one of his tamed monsters. Who knows how long this guy has been watching the area.'' With the skill stealer running for some reason I check the surroundings once more while Presence Detection was still active just in case he was hiding somewhere invisible.

    [The Skill "Presence Detection" has reached level 2.]

    Even with the range of detection increased with the level up of Presence Detection I still couldn''t find any signs of the skill stealer so I gave up and headed back to the Capital of Light.

    Upon reaching the capital I see Finn at the entrance gate walking back and forth like he was waiting for something. Upon seeing me approach he brightened up and said, "Let''s head back to the guild, we have some information."

    "Alright, after you." I say as I follow closely behind him.

    On the way to the guild, there were no people on the streets. The streets were completely barren like it was a ghost town. Even though it was usually busy at around 6 pm with what was happening I guess the Lord had told everyone to stay inside? While thinking that we had continued on the road until we reached the guild.

    After entering the guild Finn led me to a back room where I can see a small number of people gathered discussing something. As Finn and I enter the room the Guild Master sighs and says, "Now that we are all here let''s start the meeting."

    "Any volunteers?" The guild master asked while looking over the group.

    None of the people gathered here wanted to risk the chance of losing their skills. With none of them volunteering the guild master ended the meeting and those that didn''t want to stay had left. Since no one else wanted to go I thought of how the skill stealer ran from me even though he could have just stolen my skills.

    ''Is it the pendant?'' While thinking of possible reasons as to why he ran from me I remember that the guild master said that he had an appraisal ability as well.

    ''So he has to see other people''s status to be able to steal other skills. Then this necklace is the one counter to him. He ran because he couldn''t confirm my skills.''

    "I could fight him. I think he can''t steal my skills." With everyone else having left the room but Finn, the guild master, and I, I had decided to tell them my suspicions.

    "You ran into him? You didn''t get any skills stolen?" The guild master asks curiously.

    "I ran into him on the way here from the Undead Dungeon. I ran into a random person on the road but when I turned back to look at him there was nothing there. I followed after his presence but I lost him somewhere in the forest." I explained the time that I had run into him. Since I had my suspicions I thought why not try to get that Random Cheat Skill Ticket. It was basically a free delivery since I had the only thing that counters him.

    "So he was on the road waiting for someone to pass by, but when he found that it was you he ran. That pendant blocks appraisal yes?" The guild master asks as he points towards the pendant that is around my neck.

    "Yeah, when worn this pendant blocks any kind of appraisal." I say while holding the pendant.

    "Alright, us 3 will head out to his last known location." The guild master answers as he goes behind the desk and grabs a sword from underneath.

    "Eh, you believe me?" I questioned how he easily believed me. There was no proof of my claims that he can''t steal my skills. Not only that but the appraisal blocking could be fake as well.

    "Yeah, I have the appraisal skill as well so I checked your claim as soon as you made it. Let''s head out. Since it''s going to be only us we gotta be careful, let''s make a plan on the way there." The guild master says as he leads both Finn and I out of the Guild.

 29 A Tamed Monster

    With nothing being there I immediately connect this to the skill stealer so I check to see if I can sense his presence.

    ''His skill is either teleportation or some kind of invisibility.'' I quickly decide to prepare for a fight as I check teh surroundings for any kind of human presence. I can feel a faint presence but it was running away so I run in the direction that it was running to.

    I continued to follow him but he was faster than me so I eventually lost him into the forest. I was trying my best to keep up with him but in the end, I had still lost him.

    "Damn, I lost him." I hit a nearby tree in anger. The tree shook from the impact of the hit and an odd-looking bird fell on the floor.

    While looking at the bird I notice that the bird has a weird look in its eyes as it rushes off into the sky in a hurry. The bird looked suspicious as it was flying so I shot a fireball at it and got a system notification from it.

    [Killed Tamed Monster... Received no experience.]

    ''So it was one of his tamed monsters. Who knows how long this guy has been watching the area.'' With the skill stealer running for some reason I check the surroundings once more while Presence Detection was still active just in case he was hiding somewhere invisible.

    [The Skill "Presence Detection" has reached level 2.]

    Even with the range of detection increased with the level up of Presence Detection I still couldn''t find any signs of the skill stealer so I gave up and headed back to the Capital of Light.

    Upon reaching the capital I see Finn at the entrance gate walking back and forth like he was waiting for something. Upon seeing me approach he brightened up and said, "Let''s head back to the guild, we have some information."

    "Alright, after you." I say as I follow closely behind him.

    On the way to the guild, there were no people on the streets. The streets were completely barren like it was a ghost town. Even though it was usually busy at around 6 pm with what was happening I guess the Lord had told everyone to stay inside? While thinking that we had continued on the road until we reached the guild.

    After entering the guild Finn led me to a back room where I can see a small number of people gathered discussing something. As Finn and I enter the room the Guild Master sighs and says, "Now that we are all here let''s start the meeting."

    "Any volunteers?" The guild master asked while looking over the group.

    None of the people gathered here wanted to risk the chance of losing their skills. With none of them volunteering the guild master ended the meeting and those that didn''t want to stay had left. Since no one else wanted to go I thought of how the skill stealer ran from me even though he could have just stolen my skills.

    ''Is it the pendant?'' While thinking of possible reasons as to why he ran from me I remember that the guild master said that he had an appraisal ability as well.

    ''So he has to see other people''s status to be able to steal other skills. Then this necklace is the one counter to him. He ran because he couldn''t confirm my skills.''

    "I could fight him. I think he can''t steal my skills." With everyone else having left the room but Finn, the guild master, and I, I had decided to tell them my suspicions.

    "You ran into him? You didn''t get any skills stolen?" The guild master asks curiously.

    "I ran into him on the way here from the Undead Dungeon. I ran into a random person on the road but when I turned back to look at him there was nothing there. I followed after his presence but I lost him somewhere in the forest." I explained the time that I had run into him. Since I had my suspicions I thought why not try to get that Random Cheat Skill Ticket. It was basically a free delivery since I had the only thing that counters him.

    "So he was on the road waiting for someone to pass by, but when he found that it was you he ran. That pendant blocks appraisal yes?" The guild master asks as he points towards the pendant that is around my neck.

    "Yeah, when worn this pendant blocks any kind of appraisal." I say while holding the pendant.

    "Alright, us 3 will head out to his last known location." The guild master answers as he goes behind the desk and grabs a sword from underneath.

    "Eh, you believe me?" I questioned how he easily believed me. There was no proof of my claims that he can''t steal my skills. Not only that but the appraisal blocking could be fake as well.

    "Yeah, I have the appraisal skill as well so I checked your claim as soon as you made it. Let''s head out. Since it''s going to be only us we gotta be careful, let''s make a plan on the way there." The guild master says as he leads both Finn and I out of the Guild.

 30 Following the Guild Master

    While following the guild master out of the city Bell and Finn were both anxious about the upcoming fight. They had to fight someone who can not only steal skills but someone who has already used that power on multiple other people.

    Even though they were both prepared to have their skills stolen they were worried that if the Plunderer stole the guild masters skill, he would be able to turn the fight. The two of them seemed to have the same worries as they looked at each other.

    As if the guild master had understood their worries he sighed and spoke to them as he continued to run through the forest. The surroundings were quiet so all that could be heard was the guild master talking.

    "You don''t have to worry about him stealing my skills. I have a way to block appraisals as well. We''ve found that he can only steal skills if he had first appraised the target. Avoid getting appraised and he can''t steal any skills from you."

    "If you knew that much why didn''t you say it at the guild." Hearing the guild master explain Finn couldn''t help himself and asked why he hadn''t mentioned it at the guild.

    "It''s because of this one." He said while pointing at Bell. Almost immediately Finn nodded as if he agreed with the guild master''s decision.

    "We can use this opportunity to give him some experience, as well as give him a chance to go wild without strangers watching. It''s best to keep the fact that he''s the hero a secret." The guild master said as he started slowing down.

    With the guild master giving Bell the opportunity to get some experience with an enemy that is stronger, as well as enabling him to not have to hold back. Bell felt that he had been seen through from the very beginning. He couldn''t help but ask, "How long have you known?"

    "I''ve known for longer than you can think. The reason that I hadn''t told the adventurers or make it public was that people around here are known to never keep a secret. Not everyone is like that but a lot of them are the type that will sell your information to an information broker for a profit. If that happened then we would have to deal with people who are following that information trail looking to take control of you. Many kings wouldn''t hesitate to be able to own the "Hero" of humanity. And if they couldn''t take control of you, they would silence you." The guild master explained as he came to a full stop.

    The surroundings were still quiet but there was an eerie vibe in the air. All three of them had come to a stop due to the drastic change in their surroundings. Even though they were still in the forest the aura coming from whatever was in front of them had caused them to stay in place. It wasn''t as oppressive as they had initially thought, and after a couple of seconds, they all continued to advance forward through the forest.

    "We''re here. Once we reach the skill taker''s hideout we''ll check the situation, if he''s alone with only his tamed monsters then Bell can go in and get some experience. If he has any company then we''ll deal with him with the three of us."

    "Yes sir." Both Finn and Bell had answered as they steeled their hearts and readied their weapons. Even though they were nervous they both recognized that this was something that they would have to do.

    Upon approaching the domain of the skill stealer none of them could feel his presence. No matter how much they had searched through their presence detection skills they had felt nothing. He''s confirmed to not have a presence detection kind of skill so he may have a stealth skill.

    "There doesn''t look to be anyone here, let''s search the cave. He may have left something that we can use to track him with." Guild Master Zach had decided that since they couldn''t sense anything then they would check the cave that he had been hiding out in.

    The inside of the cave there was evidence that someone was living there but in the end, the skill stealer was nowhere to be found. They continued to look through the cave until Finn had found something suspicious.

    "Guys, I think that I found something. There''s an orb right here, it''s glowing black." Finn had found a glowing black orb so he told Bell and the Guild Master. Although the orb could be harmless, at the same time it could be dangerous as well so he decided to have the guild master check it out.

    "I know that orb, it''s an artifact that the Demon''s found a while back. It can grant a single wish, but upon granting it that person would become corrupt giving in to the simplest desires that they had. Bell, wrap it up, we''ll take it back to the guild to get it examined." With the guild master knowing what the orb was he decided to take it back and hide it from the Demons.

    As Bell had walked over to the glowing black orb a voice yelled at them from the entrance to the cave.

    "What are you doing! Don''t touch that!" The voice screamed in anger as if the orb was his lifeline.

    Even with the voice coming in to stop Bell from grabbing the glowing black orb it was too late. As Bell got into the proximity of the orb it was immediately drawn to him and absorbed into his body.

 31 Fighting the Skill Stealer

    "You bastards, how dare you touch that orb! I''ll kill you!" The voice screamed as they got closer. With anger overcoming the unknown person they immediately ran at Bell and attacked him. The person was worried about the orb as if their life depended on it.

    Seeing the unknown figure letting his emotions take control over his actions the guild master sighed in relief and sat back.

    "Bell, he''s alone. You can fight him. We''ll step in if it gets out of hand." The guild master said as he had Finn step back as well. Since the skill stealer had been here alone they were just gonna sit back and watch the show while giving Bell a chance at earning some experience fighting an actual person. The two of them had no idea that he had already fought and killed people before so they were thinking that this would be his first time.

    With Bell and the skill stealer fighting the cave was too small of a space so they brought it outside. With both of them outside the cave, the skill stealer noticed something was wrong as he continued to try appraising Bell but no matter how many times he activated the skill it wouldn''t work.

    "You can''t see my skills, right? If you can''t see them that means that you can''t steal my skills then, right?" Seeing that the skill stealer had become uneasy form being unable to use appraisal on his target Bell decided to try and goad him into attacking again.

    "It won''t matter if I can''t steal your skills. I''ve stolen countless skills before you, and I will steal countless skills after you as well. Where did you put the Orb, I can''t let anyone else touch that." While trying to not let the anxiousness get to him the skill stealer had decided to calm down, the orb was most likely in some kind of spacial bag or something. Even though he had been told to never let anyone else touch it he had been careless and thought that hiding it would be a better solution.

    "I don''t know? You''ll have to beat me if you want it back." Bell had responded, in truth, he didn''t know where the orb had gone. He had checked the system right after the orb got absorbing into his body but there was no indication that the system even recognized it. Even with the unexpected circumstance happening that didn''t stop him from doing what he had come here to do. And that was to complete the quest that offered a Random Cheat Skill Ticket. The new addition to his cheat collection would help him in the future, just like his current cheats. Infinite mana was one hell of a cheat that let him cast magic and heal as much as he had wanted. Just thinking about the other cheats that he could get made him grin.

    The two of them continued to trade blows as they fought with their weapons. The skill stealer would stack strength-related skills together to increase the strength in his blows while stacking speed-related skills to run around and dodge any incoming hits. Even though he had been faster than his opponent and even though he had been dodging any of the incoming his he still couldn''t hit his opponent.

    While Bell may not have been as fast as the skill stealer since he couldn''t stack skills to increase his stats he could still use magic to reinforce his body and make it so that he could take minimal damage from the incoming hits. This kind of tactic only worked if your mana was stronger than the opponents but luckily the Skill Stealer had low mana and didn''t use it to reinforce his body opting for using them towards skills instead.

    After 10 minutes of fighting, neither of them had gotten an advantage and neither of them was running out of steam. Looking at the fight from the outside it seemed as if they could fight for eternity. The surroundings were completely quiet and the only thing you could hear throughout the entire area was the two of them clashing with each blow.

    The only reason that Bell had towards not using his time stop cheat was that he wanted to be able to experience the feeling of being suppressed and being able to fight that kind of opponent with no worry for his life. The guild master Zach and Finn were both here and were ready to intervene if the fight started going in the wrong direction. With earning experience for the future Bell had also begun honing his sword mastery while aiming for a way to defend himself.

    Throughout the fight, multiple system notifications had appeared in front of him but Bell had continued to keep his attention on the fight as he felt an unknown feeling rise up in him. The feeling kept rising until it felt like to was going to burst.

    When he couldn''t hold the feeling in anymore, Time had stopped. The surroundings were frozen as every person was frozen in place. The Guild Master Zach who was leaning back on the cave wall watching the fight with great interest, Finn who was looking at the guild master worried, and the skill stealer who was currently frozen in mid-air. While frozen in mid-air the skill stealer had an angry expression on his face as if he felt that the situation was hopeless, he couldn''t protect what he needed to once again.

    While frozen in time a voice had echoed throughout the surroundings.

    "Ahhh, I''ve had my fill of fun. Time to end this." Upon Bell hearing this he couldn''t help but feel like he had heard this voice before, it felt like it was so familiar but it also felt foreign at the same time.

    As Bell swung his sword towards the skill stealer that was frozen mid-air he aimed at his throat. As the sword was about to connect he had a sudden thought of who''s voice that was.

    ''It was my voice''

    And with that thought time had resumed once more with the skill stealers'' head flying off into the distance and a couple of system notifications occupying his vision.

 32 Using the Random Cheat Skill Ticke

    With the skill stealer having died the system gave me a couple of new notifications so I decided to look at all of the notifications that I had been getting throughout the fight.

    ''Sword Mastery leveled twice reaching level 6, Body enhancement leveled once reaching level 4''

    While looking through the system notifications I notice an alert that caused me to be alarmed. The notification surprised me since it only came after I had stopped time.

    [Warning!!! An unknown object has been absorbed in the host''s body and is affecting the hosts'' personality taking emergency action....]

    I didn''t receive another notification about the unknown object so I guess that even the system is having trouble with the unknown object. It may affect me in the future but for now, I don''t feel any different in particular.

    [Quest "Greed that Taints the Soul" has been completed]

    [Rewards received: +1 Level, Random Cheat Skill Ticket x1]

    [You have reached level 16]

    I hadn''t really used any magic throughout the fight so none of the elemental magic that I have increased in level. Right now I plan to focus on increasing the skill level of sword mastery since I''m going to end up fighting the enemy up close and using magic in short-range could lead to me doing damage to the both of us.

    ''System, use the Random Cheat Skill Ticket''

    [Using Random Cheat Skill Ticket... Done]

    [You have gained the cheat skill "Skill Steal"]

    ''And I''m immediately struck with the same ability as the skill stealer huh.'' While the system had given me the ability to steal skills from others I had no intention to use it as freely as this guy did, he had let his greed for power take over his reason and he started hunting people down. Hopefully, the skills go back to their rightful owners.

    Since everything was dealt with and I even got a new cheat out of it I was in a happy mood as the three of us clear up the body. We couldn''t find his head so the guild master took his body for evidence. As we were wrapping up the cleaning the guild master and Finn started talking about rank ups.

    "With this, I can confirm that you are strong enough to be able to rank up from F to E-Rank. I''ll tell the staff once we head back." The Guild Master said while thinking about the situation.

    "So this was a test sir?" With how Finn sounded surprised about the guild master''s decision it seems like this was entirely

    "Yes, I wanted to see how capable Bell was so I didn''t tell the other adventurers how to defeat the skill stealer. I honestly think that he could be a D-Rank adventurer right now but if he jumps ranks I would have to send in a report, and that would bring in unwanted attention." The guild master explained his reasoning. It seems that he thinks that I could be a D-Ranked adventurer right now.

    With my rank up guaranteed by the guild master himself, we finished up cleaning the surroundings and got ready to head back. As we were heading back another unknown voice came from a tree nearby.

    "You kill a dog and you don''t want to speak to its owner? Quite rude of you no?" The unknown person said in a calm voice. The way that he said it was as if he was just looking for a way to trouble us and not really looking for revenge against whoever killed his "dog".

    With the introduction of a new party that claims that we killed his dog the three of us turn to look at the source of the voice.

    "Demon." Seeing the source of the voice the guild master called the Demon what it was. A Demon was behind this who charade and was probably controlling the skill stealer from behind. This Demon was most likely what the skill stealer had been worried about when I had touched the Orb.

    "You two humans could fuck off, I only want to kill the silver-haired monster." The Demon said while looking at me with hate in his eyes.

    ''You would think I killed his brother with the amount of hatred in his eyes. I''ve never met this Demon in my life.''

    "You think that I would comply with that request?" Surprisingly the Guild Master had gotten angry with how the Demon had talked to him. So angry in fact that the Guild Master had made a move himself.

    With the Demon acting haughty towards us humans and basically treating the others like they weren''t worth their time he had failed to see the incoming attack from the guild master.

    "I''ve struck fear in Demons far stronger than you and you want to act like you''re superior to me. Try again in your next life." The only thing that I had noticed was that the guild master had moved from his spot at an incredible speed and then I heard him talk. I didn''t even notice that the Demon''s head was already in his hands with a haughty expression with anger still in his eyes. he hadn''t even had time to comprehend the situation before his head was off his body.

    The Demon''s body fell onto the floor headless with blood spurting out everywhere. The guild master threw his head back onto the body while lighting the body on fire, after letting the body burn he had burned all of the blood so no one could trace the Demon.

    The way back to the capital of light had been quiet and once we entered the guild we had reported that the skill stealer had been slain. The guild master also had the staff increase my rank so I had to turn in my guild card to get a new card. The new guild card was plated with bronze on the edges and had a large E ranking on the card with all of my information as well.

    "Now that you''re an E-rank you can enter the dungeon ''Goblin''s Rage'' it''s a Dungeon filled with goblins. Let''s head there together some time." While talking to Finn the guild master had gone back to his office so Finn was telling me about the Dungeon that I had gained access to. He had told me about the way to the Dungeon, as well as what kind of monsters were inside.

    "Sure, we can head over there tomorrow if you aren''t busy. After what had happened today I''m kind of tired so I''m going to go to sleep."

    "No problem, I''ll come to get you tomorrow at 8 am."

    With the promise for raiding a new Dungeon, tomorrow Finn and I had split ways and I went back to the inn to get some sleep.

 32 Ranking up to E-Rank

    With the skill stealer having died the system gave me a couple of new notifications so I decided to look at all of the notifications that I had been getting throughout the fight.

    ''Sword Mastery leveled twice reaching level 6, Body enhancement leveled once reaching level 4''

    While looking through the system notifications I notice an alert that caused me to be alarmed. The notification surprised me since it only came after I had stopped time.

    [Warning!!! An unknown object has been absorbed in the host''s body and is affecting the hosts'' personality taking emergency action....]

    I didn''t receive another notification about the unknown object so I guess that even the system is having trouble with the unknown object. It may affect me in the future but for now, I don''t feel any different in particular.

    [Quest "Greed that Taints the Soul" has been completed]

    [Rewards received: +1 Level, Random Cheat Skill Ticket x1]

    [You have reached level 16]

    I hadn''t really used any magic throughout the fight so none of the elemental magic that I have increased in level. Right now I plan to focus on increasing the skill level of sword mastery since I''m going to end up fighting the enemy up close and using magic in short-range could lead to me doing damage to the both of us.

    ''System, use the Random Cheat Skill Ticket''

    [Using Random Cheat Skill Ticket... Done]

    [You have gained the cheat skill "Skill Steal"]

    ''And I''m immediately struck with the same ability as the skill stealer huh.'' While the system had given me the ability to steal skills from others I had no intention to use it as freely as this guy did, he had let his greed for power take over his reason and he started hunting people down. Hopefully, the skills go back to their rightful owners.

    Since everything was dealt with and I even got a new cheat out of it I was in a happy mood as the three of us clear up the body. We couldn''t find his head so the guild master took his body for evidence. As we were wrapping up the cleaning the guild master and Finn started talking about rank ups.

    "With this, I can confirm that you are strong enough to be able to rank up from F to E-Rank. I''ll tell the staff once we head back." The Guild Master said while thinking about the situation.

    "So this was a test sir?" With how Finn sounded surprised about the guild master''s decision it seems like this was entirely

    "Yes, I wanted to see how capable Bell was so I didn''t tell the other adventurers how to defeat the skill stealer. I honestly think that he could be a D-Rank adventurer right now but if he jumps ranks I would have to send in a report, and that would bring in unwanted attention." The guild master explained his reasoning. It seems that he thinks that I could be a D-Ranked adventurer right now.

    With my rank up guaranteed by the guild master himself, we finished up cleaning the surroundings and got ready to head back. As we were heading back another unknown voice came from a tree nearby.

    "You kill a dog and you don''t want to speak to its owner? Quite rude of you no?" The unknown person said in a calm voice. The way that he said it was as if he was just looking for a way to trouble us and not really looking for revenge against whoever killed his "dog".

    With the introduction of a new party that claims that we killed his dog the three of us turn to look at the source of the voice.

    "Demon." Seeing the source of the voice the guild master called the Demon what it was. A Demon was behind this who charade and was probably controlling the skill stealer from behind. This Demon was most likely what the skill stealer had been worried about when I had touched the Orb.

    "You two humans could fuck off, I only want to kill the silver-haired monster." The Demon said while looking at me with hate in his eyes.

    ''You would think I killed his brother with the amount of hatred in his eyes. I''ve never met this Demon in my life.''

    "You think that I would comply with that request?" Surprisingly the Guild Master had gotten angry with how the Demon had talked to him. So angry in fact that the Guild Master had made a move himself.

    With the Demon acting haughty towards us humans and basically treating the others like they weren''t worth their time he had failed to see the incoming attack from the guild master.

    "I''ve struck fear in Demons far stronger than you and you want to act like you''re superior to me. Try again in your next life." The only thing that I had noticed was that the guild master had moved from his spot at an incredible speed and then I heard him talk. I didn''t even notice that the Demon''s head was already in his hands with a haughty expression with anger still in his eyes. he hadn''t even had time to comprehend the situation before his head was off his body.

    The Demon''s body fell onto the floor headless with blood spurting out everywhere. The guild master threw his head back onto the body while lighting the body on fire, after letting the body burn he had burned all of the blood so no one could trace the Demon.

    The way back to the capital of light had been quiet and once we entered the guild we had reported that the skill stealer had been slain. The guild master also had the staff increase my rank so I had to turn in my guild card to get a new card. The new guild card was plated with bronze on the edges and had a large E ranking on the card with all of my information as well.

    "Now that you''re an E-rank you can enter the dungeon ''Goblin''s Rage'' it''s a Dungeon filled with goblins. Let''s head there together some time." While talking to Finn the guild master had gone back to his office so Finn was telling me about the Dungeon that I had gained access to. He had told me about the way to the Dungeon, as well as what kind of monsters were inside.

    "Sure, we can head over there tomorrow if you aren''t busy. After what had happened today I''m kind of tired so I''m going to go to sleep."

    "No problem, I''ll come to get you tomorrow at 8 am."

    With the promise for raiding a new Dungeon, tomorrow Finn and I had split ways and I went back to the inn to get some sleep.

 33 Goblins Rage 1

    Once I woke up the next morning Finn and I had breakfast together before we headed to the goblin Dungeon that he was talking about. While we were eating I decided to appraise skill steal to find some more information about it.

    ''Appraisal''

    Skill Name: Skill Steal

    Skill Description: Can steal one skill from a selected target, the user can choose which skill with an appraisal type skill. Without an appraisal type skill, a skill will be stolen randomly.

    As I finish reading the description Finn and I head out of the Inn and walk on the main street for the city. Even though the two of us weren''t up that early there were barely any people on the streets once again. There may be some lingering fear in the people of the city.

    "Seems like people are still paranoid about the unique monster." I say while looking at the people on the streets. There are a couple of caravans of merchants but there aren''t really any adventurers or normal people. It was like the adventurers were still taking an off day.

    "It''s understandable, it got a couple of people before we were aware of it, I wouldn''t blame them if it took a couple of days to get back to normal. Once the guild announces that it has been subjugated then things would start to go back to normal for the adventurers at least." Finn said while leading me through the streets. We were talking for so long that I didn''t even notice that we weren''t heading out of the city.

    "I understand. Where are we headed though, by the way, I thought we were going to the Dungeon?" After I had noticed that we were heading in the opposite direction of the city exit gate. I thought that it was a little weird that we weren''t going to the gate but I trust Finn, so I believe that he''ll take us there. Maybe he has something important to do and has somewhere to stop first?

    "We need to get permission from the guild for you to enter the Dungeon. Even though it is an intermediate dungeon it is a privately owned Dungeon, it''s owned by the Guild Master himself. We just gotta apply, it''ll be quick."

    As we head towards the adventurer''s guild Finn and I continue to talk about the Dungeon until we entered the guild. Finn and I walk up to one of the guild receptionists to apply for the Dungeon.

    "What can I do for you today." The male receptionist says towards us. I never really noticed this receptionist, I guess there are days off in this world as well.

    "I need to get Bell permission to go into the Intermediate Dungeon ''Goblin''s Rage''. We want to request access for him and enter as soon as possible." Finn and the receptionist were going back and forth answering questions. Finn sounded like he knew this receptionist a little since he sounded so friendly but he didn''t mention a name.

    "Follow me, you probably won''t have to fight again." Finn says as he smiles and leads me through the door. When we were leaving to enter the door the receptionist wished me luck so I smiled back and gave my thanks.

    "As I thought, it was you." As soon as Finn and I entered the room the person Mr. Shin talked as if he already knew us. I guess he knows Finn since he looks to be an adventurer as well.

    "Hello Mr. Shin, I''m Bell. I wish to get permission to be able to enter the intermediate dungeon." After greeting him I tell him my purpose of being here. I wanted to enter the intermediate dungeon since higher leveled monsters would yield more experience and I can level faster while training my skills.

    "No problem, the guild master told me that you are already qualified, we can still fight if you want but the guild master said to do it this way so that others won''t get suspicious. It''ll take a couple of minutes for it to go through but in the meantime let''s talk." He says pointing towards a bench nearby.

    "Sure, let''s skip the fight." Since the guild master had offered me a fast pass why wouldn''t I want to take it? Although if I were to fight Shin here I may win but I would have to rely on all of my skills to be able to barely win with heal.

    "Why are you guys going into the dungeon so fast for? From what I heard you were an apprentice mage, and you''ve been through 2 dungeons for now." Shin was curious about an apprentice mage going to a dungeon that was intended for a mage or higher. Even though he had heard that I use the sword as well that still didn''t stop him from asking.

    "He learns incredibly fast, the lower levels of every dungeon he has been to has been easy for him, not only that but he levels incredibly fast as well so I thought it would be a good time to show him a higher leveled dungeon. I felt that he could hold his own in an intermediate dungeon so why not give him some experience?" So Finn had been looking around for Dungeons for me huh, I gotta repay him somehow.

    "I understand. I wish you guys good luck" With the amount of time having passed Shin allowed us to leave as he reported to the receptionist that I passed.

    "Thanks, I''ll take you out to drinks later this week if that''s alright with you." Finn says as he looks at me and we head back to the receptionist from earlier.

    We get the receptionist to update my guild card which is the permission to go into the intermediate dungeon. With permission to enter the intermediate dungeon Fin and I leave the guild and he leads me through the streets of the city once more.

    "Let''s head out then. I placed a teleportation array so we can go there immediately. It''s located in my house though so we have to walk there." With Finn leading the way to his house we go through streets that I''ve never been on. I didn''t even know that these streets existed since I never explored the city much.

    As we entered Finn''s house he leads me into an extra room in the house. Looking in the room the array is a circle looking enchantment. The unknown words glow purple and brighten and dim at random intervals.

    "Step inside the circle and close your eyes, you''ll get dizzy looking at the transfer." Finn says as he leads us into the circle and activates the array as we all were inside.

    As the array activates my body starts to feel as if it wasn''t real. I try to feel my arm but my hand goes through it as though my body wasn''t part of this plane of existence. The surroundings went white so I closed my eyes. I felt like I was flying through space while teleporting so I started to breathe heavily.

    After a while, the feeling goes away and I open my eyes. Looking around I see that we''re inside an unknown dungeon. The surroundings look like the inside of a system of caves. The walls are rock but there are lights throughout the dungeon.

    "Welcome to the First Floor of the Dungeon Goblin''s Rage." I turn to look at Finn who was smiling at me holding back from laughing at my reaction to the teleport.

 34 Goblins Rage 2

    "Welcome to the First Floor of the Dungeon Goblin''s Rage." Finn says smiling as he waves his arms in the air showing off how different the dungeon looks.

    The dungeon before just seemed like a cave that was man-made but this dungeon has crystals at the top that give off light. I don''t think this could be remade without technology from a sci-fi movie. The entire first floor is wide and I don''t see any people off in the distance as if we''re alone. It looks like the adventurers are still taking an off day so we''ll be having the Dungeon all to ourselves today,

    "This is what this dungeon looks like, all dungeons are made from the energy emitting from the dungeon core and they are made to look different. The energy is different from mana and isn''t seen anywhere else in the world other than dungeons. This dungeon, in particular, focuses on goblins, goblins used to have a high population count outside of the dungeons but they were hunted down and slain by one man and his endless rage. The goblins in this dungeon were taken in by the dungeon core and were hidden until that person eventually died. Today the goblins are purposely kept in low numbers outside so they don''t cause too many problems. The goblins in this dungeon are all stronger than the ones outside so be careful." With Finn explaining the dungeon''s history I couldn''t help but remember a certain person that sounded oddly similar. Even though that person had hunted goblins I don''t remember him dying at all so I''ll just consider it a coincidence.

    "Alright, the first floor has some goblins but none of them should be a problem for us since in the first floor goblins don''t have any variants or different classes. Only basic goblins spawn on the first floor. Do you want to try handling it yourself on the first floor? You can learn a lot from how goblins react."

    "Sure, as long as I can handle it I don''t mind. If I need help I''ll ask." I say taking the front and heading towards some goblins that were standing there idle. I followed their presence to reach where they were currently sitting idle, they were sitting there in a daze just waiting for something to happen. They didn''t react to my presence at all so I guess on this floor they don''t have any sense type skills.

    The goblins are short, green, and overall they look creepy. From behind, I can see that they have devilish smiles and look to be intelligent. As I approach the small group of goblins I get ready and reinforce my body with mana. They are all pretty weak so I finish them and receive a notification from the system for each of their deaths. They didn''t give a lot of experience individually but altogether it reached 4000 for 6 of them. I was surprised at a new notification from the system though.

    [Goblin''s Rage 6/100]

    ''What?'' Seeing the confused look on my face Finn starts laughing.

    As we go through the dungeon we run into little groups of goblins every now and then and I got some new notifications throughout the first floor. Throughout the floor, the goblins were getting stronger but it wasn''t that noticeable since they all died in one hit anyway. There were some Hobo-Goblins which are goblins that went through evolution but they weren''t that difficult either and were very easy to deal with. After running through the first half of the first floor I had ran into a couple of groups of goblins. I even leveled up since there were a lot of goblins

    [Goblin''s Rage 86/100]

    [You have reached level 17]

    The counter just keeps on going up with my kills but I hope that when the counter hits 100 the so-called "Mini-Boss" will show up and try to get revenge. I hope he''ll be stronger than the other goblins on this floor and put up more of a fight since so far this Dungeon was a walk in the park for now. Although I wasn''t bored since I was earning a lot of experience I couldn''t help but want the miniboss to be something that could satisfy me.

    "This floor seems to not be too difficult for you so how about we go ahead and go down to the second floor." Seeing how easy I''ve been taking the dungeon and how easy this floor is for me Finn decided to take it up a notch.

    "Sure." Since the first floor was as easy as the goblins found in the forest I agreed to head further into the dungeon. After finding the entrance to the second floor I notice that it is just stairs leading down into a dark hallway.

    On the second floor, the goblins were strong enough to take two hits but they still weren''t putting up much of a fight. At least that was what I thought until I got a notification telling me about the goblin''s rage

    [Goblin''s Rage 100/100]

    [You have killed 100 Goblins. Their rage and deep hatred for you has spawned the Goblin Horde. Please prepare as the horde will make it''s way to your current location in 10 minutes.]

    "The goblin''s rage has activated." With the notification from the system, I decided to tell Finn about the incoming miniboss.

    "Do you know what is coming? There are multiple versions that come depending on how much hatred racked up." Since Finn knew that I had a way to tell that the miniboss was coming he thought that I may be able to tell which one will be spawning as well.

    "The miniboss that''s coming is called the goblin horde."

    "Fuck. The Goblin Horde is the worst one out of all of them. If we''re lucky we can get only 200 goblins but if we''re unlucky than we could end up with 1000 of them. We gotta use fire magic to keep them at bay." Finn couldn''t believe our bad luck. The miniboss that we got was the worst one of the bunch and if we''re unlucky there could be 1000 of them.

    "It''s fine then, I have fire magic. I can make a fire tornado for now." With the horde of goblins coming in I decided that making a fire tornado could help get a large amount of them out of the way.

    "Ready. Fire" Finn says as he helps me determine the best place to aim the fire tornado at.

    As the fire magic activates and flames spin into a tornado and fly over to the goblin horde where it landed on a group of the goblins those goblins instantly died and all other goblins are drawn into the fire tornado dying as they burn into ashes. I was looking all over for any surviving goblins but the system confirmed that all of the goblins were dragged into the tornado so I don''t have to worry about goblins hiding nearby.

    [You have slain the goblin horde!]

    [You have reached level 18]

    [Congratulations due to your achievement you have gained the title "Goblin Slayer"]

    [The title "Goblin Slayer" gives you the buff of double damage against all goblins as well as an x1.5 multiplier towards all experience gained from goblins.]

 35 Goblins Rage 3

    After all the notifications I take a look and my stats went up by a lot. I can''t wait to see what new skills I get for reaching the Second Rank. As I''m looking at my status Finn is still staring at the fire tornado that is slowly going out and a new notification appears in front of me.

    [The Goblin Lord has noticed your existence.]

    [The Goblin Lord is intrigued at your existence.]

    [The Goblin Lord de-activates "Goblin''s Rage" while laughing at your puny existence]

    ''This bastard is taunting me. Where did a fucking goblin learn to act like that huh.'' Being slightly annoyed at the notifications that showed up I decided that this golbin lord will regret deactivating the Goblin''s Rage so easily.

    While the notifications have my attention, Finn stopped staring at the remnants of the goblin horde. The random pieces of goblin arms or legs were scattered all around the first floor of the dungeon while slowly being absorbed back into the dungeon. They hadn''t dropped anything so Finn and I continued through the dungeon.

    "I think we can go faster than our current speed, these goblins aren''t much." With how easy the first floor was I wasn''t expecting much from this dungeon. Even the goblins rage was deactivated so Finn and I should be able to reach the boss room even faster. Based on what Finn told me this dungeon has 10 floors with each floor becoming smaller as we go up until the boss room.

    By the time we had reached the fourth floor, there wasn''t much of a difference in the goblins other than a couple of evolved goblins that had some intelligence trying to have us run into traps they previously set. All throughout the fourth floor, there were terribly made traps. It looks so bad I thought that someone showed these goblins an episode of Scooby-Doo and they tried to copy the traps. As the traps were deactivated Finn lead me through the deactivation as I had to do them myself.

    "These traps are easy even for beginners. We''re lucky that these traps are your first experience with them. Follow these steps and you should be able to disarm them." Finn says as he leads me through the disarming. Throughout the dismantling, I started to get the hang of it.

    "This trap is an easy one, just cut through this spring here and the trap won''t even set off." Finn says as he has me cut the spring. As I''m disarming the traps I get a notification from the system.

    [You have learned the skill "Disarm Trap"]

    With the notification from the system disarming traps were becoming easier as I started to notice things myself. Some of the traps were easier to just set off instead of disarming them so I would set them off from a distance with a rock.

    After disarming all of the traps on the floor the disarm trap skill leveled up and I felt more confident with disarming traps.

    "We''re halfway through the dungeon now, let''s take a break before we continue on throughout the dungeon." Finn says as he grabs some snacks and water from a storage bag.

    As we eat the snacks and stay hydrated with water Finn and I talk as we sit down against the Dungeon wall while trying to get a quick rest in. While going over what I have gotten throughout the Dungeon so far. After going through a couple of floors I reached level 19 and all of my stats reached 29. I could feel my body getting stronger as I leveled up and the amount of strength I could use was increased as well.

    "So why did want to go to this dungeon together?" With a moment to ourselves, I decided to ask Finn why he wanted to enter this dungeon together. Since he didn''t want to accompany me to the undead Dungeon I thought that he wanted to check in on me every now and then but with him suddenly wanting to go together there may be something that is going to happen in the future. Something dangerous enough that he wanted to me get stronger by accompanying me to an Intermediate Dungeon.

    "It''s mainly to set your foundation as an adventurer. You''re talented but you only focus on fighting. I mean we saw what happens when you need to fight but when it came to traps you had no knowledge whatsoever. As an adventurer no matter how strong you are there are times when you have your guard down so I''m trying to teach you the basics to at least ensure your survival in this world." Finn says while staring at the ground. It seems like he was looking towards the future by wanting me to learn more of the basics.

    With intermediate dungeons and above having traps in them I did need to know more about how to disarm the traps since I didn''t even know that dungeons had traps in them. I''m grateful that he took the time out of his schedule to teach me how intermediate dungeons can be dangerous. If he hadn''t I may have gone into an intermediate dungeon without the knowledge and if I had run into any traps activating them without suspecting anything that would lead to me getting hurt.

    "Thanks, I appreciate it." Since Finn had taken time out of his life to teach me a lesson on dungeons I decided to listen and learn wholeheartedly soaking up all the knowledge that he gives.

    As we sat there and continued talking we got done resting so we walked down the fifth floor''s steps leading towards the sixth floor of the Dungeon.

 36 Goblins Rage 4

    The second we get onto the Sixth Floor a chill runs down my spine and I look over to Finn and even he seemed to feel pressured and have noticed that existence as well. Looking at where the feeling is coming from there is a shadow of a huge goblin, probably not the goblin lord but it seems to be close in strength from what I''ve been told. Even though there was an oppressive feeling I wasn''t feeling fear looking at the general.

    ''Appraisal''

    Name: ****

    Race: Goblin General(Variant)

    Titles: Variant, Likes Traps, Transcendent, Arrogant, Goblin Lord''s Right Hand Man

    Class: Goblin General Variant

    Level: 40

    Strength: 42

    Agility: 43

    Endurance: 51

    Intelligence: 20

    Wisdom: 15

    Skills: Loyalty (Lv.Max), Scratch (Lv.Max), Goblin''s Roar (Lv.2), Strong Arm (Lv.1), Swordsmanship (Lv.Max), Soul Manipulation (???), Monsters Instincts (Lv.Max), Dungeon Adaptability (Lv.Max)

    ''What the hell, a skill that can''t even be ranked. Is that even possible?'' Having surprise and shock written on my face as I look over the Goblin General''s skills. It seems that I''ve met something incredibly rare. I haven''t seen a skill that cannot be ranked yet.

    ''System how does the skill have question marks instead of any ranking or level.''

    [Skills that aren''t from this world haven''t been ranked. They aren''t limited by this world''s laws either and don''t have a limited growth rate. At the same time, the system can''t determine the skill level. Of course, that means that someone taught this Goblin General that skill so you have to be careful of the repercussions.]

    ''Alright then, It may not be a skill that this world can rank but that won''t stop me.''

    ''Skill Steal "Soul Manipulation"''

    [Activating skill... Stealing skill from target... Done]

    [Congratulations the skill "Soul Manipulation (???) has been acquired]

    As the skill disappears from the Goblin General''s status and appears in mine I can feel an entire new sense. I can feel the entirety of my soul and even look into it as well. Looking into my soul I can see orbs of light gathered around an even bigger light that is shining blue. My soul, in general, is like a never-ending ocean that swallows up everything. Upon receiving the skill a flow of knowledge appeared in my head and I know that each smaller orb is a skill and the thing their surrounding is my life force. The Goblin General seems frustrated and angry that it can''t activate it''s skill and rushes at us with bloodlust.

    I tried to steal another skill from the goblin general but it seems that I can only steal one skill at a time from each enemy. Even though skill steal was limited to one skill I''m glad that I used it on the unranked skill first. If I had used it on another skill instead I would have definitely regretted not testing it out beforehand.

    "Let''s deal with the goblin general before heading back though. I want to see how strong a variant general is." With how the goblin general had lost its unranked skill, the one that had given off that unimaginable pressure. I don''t feel that this goblin was that oppressive anymore. Even though

    "Alright, but you''re buying dinner." Finn says as he helps me push back the incoming goblin general.

    "Are you sure that we need someone to come and kill the Goblin Lord? Why don''t we just kill it ourselves." I ask as the beginner sword is lifted into the air and slashed down causing even the air to make way for it. The damage done to the general was that it barely cut through his skin on his shoulder. Jumping back I decide to use the Soul Manipulation skill to see what a skill not from this world is like.

    "Soul Manipulation"

    As my soul brightens and enlargens my eyes start to glow white and I can see everyone''s souls in the surrounding area as well. Finn''s soul is like a calm and soothing lake. The Goblin General''s soul is huge and violent like the ocean during a storm. It seems that he had a skill like that for a reason. Although I don''t know if it will still work or not I still need to watch out for him since he was still a variant. With the skill, I felt that I could control all souls around me so I decided to try and crush the Goblin General''s soul. As the Goblin General''s face contorts in pain form the anger he had before he holds his chest tight and falls to his knees. The light in my eyes dies out and the Goblin General''s soul is damaged in return as his will to fight completely vanishes and is replaced by a fear he has only felt twice before. Once when he was forced into loyalty by the Goblin Lord and another for the Demon who taught him how to manipulate his soul. He was able to make use of the skill after learning through hard work and dedication but now that was all for naught. With the goblin general laying there as if he were dead I grab my sword and aim to stab him through the head while he was down.

    ''It seems that the thing that gave us all a sense of fear was indeed the soul manipulation skill. Just from using it the first time on someone who wasn''t suspecting anything was very deadly.'' Although the goblin general looked to be dead I hadn''t gotten the notification from the system telling me the acquired experience so I approach the general with caution.

 37 Goblins Rage 5

    With the system not giving me the notification telling me of the acquired experience so I approach the general with caution. Even though I was certain that nothing could survive being stabbed through the head I still hadn''t got any experience. While looking over the body I notice that it is completely dead. I can''t even feel its soul.

    ''Wait, what if my soul manipulation destroyed its soul. So it wasn''t stunned, it was just a hollow shell of a goblin general. If the experience is absorbed from the monster''s soul then that would explain why I didn''t receive any experience as well.''

    After examining it for a little Finn and I finally gave up as the monster was slowly being absorbed back into the dungeon. With the boss of this floor being dead we decided to head on down to the Seventh Floor.

    "Be careful, from now on every floor will have to fight a ''Mini-Boss'' with each being stronger than the last." Finn says while we head down the staircase and into the Seventh Floor where another Goblin with at least the same amount of strength is waiting.

    This Goblin doesn''t feel as oppressive as the other one but I shouldn''t underestimate it just because of instincts. These Goblins should all have unique skills since they''re strong so this is a gold mine for the current me who is in need of more skills.

    ''Appraisal''

    Name: ****

    Race: Goblin

    Titles: Talented Magician, Necromancer, Blasphemous, Cursed Weapon Wielder

    Class: Goblin Necromancer

    Level: 40

    Strength: 45

    Agility: 78

    Endurance: 52

    Intelligence: 90

    Wisdom: 91

    Charisma: 3

    Perception: 19

    Regeneration: 7

    Luck: 22

    Magic Types: Necromancy, Fire

    Skills: Loyalty (Lv.1), Mana Manipulation (Lv.7), Scythe Mastery (Lv.Max), Goblin''s Roar (Lv.1), Raise Undead (???), Control Undead (???), Bone Reinforcement Magic (Lv.3), Fire Magic (Lv.5) Explosion (Lv.1), Scratch (Lv.Max)

    ''Uh, I don''t think having skills like that will lead me down a good path so I''ll skip them.''

    [Correct decision. The skills related to necromancy all affect the user''s personality and soul leading the user to become Crazy and Murderous.]

    Although the Goblin Necromancer has some really evil skills and the Scythe that he has is filled with malice towards us. That scythe gives me a nasty feeling.

    ''Appraisal''

    Item: Cursed Grim Scythe

    Description: A Scythe that was Cursed by the Goddess of Life. Anyone who equips this Scythe will be unable to sleep and plagued with horrible nightmares.

    ''Well damn, it''s cursed with something terrible. I''m starting to feel bad for him now.''

    ''Skill Steal "Mana Manipulation".''

    [Activating skill... Stealing skill from target... Done]

    [Congratulations the skill "Mana Manipulation (Lv.7)" has been acquired]

    [Congratulations the skill "Mana Manipulation (Lv.5)" has leveled up to "Mana Manipulation (Lv.7)"]

    ''He shouldn''t be able to use any magic skills now since he can''t manipulate the mana needed for the skill.''

    "Immediately start attacking him before he can summon more of the undead and make this situation worse." Finn says trying to fight off the incoming group of undead but also trying to make this into a lesson.

    They don''t have souls so I won''t even be able to use Soul Manipulation against them. Man, I just got that skill and still wanted to test that out.

    "The best way to deal with the undead is to destroy them entirely or use magic to crush them. Use the explosion magic fro earlier but tone down down the mana you put in it this time." Finn says while moving to cover me so I can use the same fire magic from earlier.

    With fire magic, I could create a fire tornado but with the ceiling so low I think that would cause damage to both sides. With the possibility of causing damage to both sides, I decided to try something else other than the fire tornado. This time I try to create arrows with fire magic as I condense the magic in the shape of arrows. With 100 fire arrows behind me, I unleash them upon the incoming undead horde.

    With the fire magic condensed into arrows unleashed onto the horde, it didn''t take long for the horde to start thinning at a rapid pace. The fire arrows were raining down on the horde as each arrow would take out an enemy instantly killing them. This one was more controlled than the last one so the aftershock shouldn''t be as bad. With the horde thinning so fast the flux of incoming notifications for the gained experience covered the system''s screen.

    [You have killed ...]

    [You have killed ...]

    [You have killed ...]

    [You have killed ...]

    [You have killed ...]

    [You have killed ...]

    [You have killed ...]

    [You have killed ...]

    [Congratulations you have killed the "Goblin Necromancer"]

    [You have found an Upgrade Ticket]

    While cleaning out all of the notifications from the system telling me about the amount of experience I gained I was surprised that I didn''t see one for leveling up. With the amount of experience, I gained being close to 45 thousand I couldn''t help but be surprised that I hadn''t reached level 20. I did find an upgrade ticket off of the necromancer though so I was happy about that. This upgrade ticket brought the total amount of upgrade tickets that I had to 2.

    "You ended up killing the Goblin Necromancer in that volley of arrows as well. The next floor should be around the same strength but have a different area of focus. So stay vigilant and don''t relax your guard." With Finn being numb to my fire magic prowess he accepted that the miniboss that would have taken him 20 minutes to clear was cleared by a newbie within minutes.

    ''I don''t really blame him, this would have been way harder if the necromancer could manipulate mana to summon more undead. Luckily he didn''t have any other skills that took my attention so I decided to steal his mana manipulation instead.''

 38 Goblins Rage 6

    "The floors have all been stronger than the last in some type of way so we need to be cautious and wary of whatever boss is next. I''ve sent a message to the guild master and if we don''t send another message within 3 hours they are to presume we are dead and then the guild master will come himself with the best that they can send at the time." It seems that Finn contacted the guild master but since I wanted to continue he compromised. Luckily he agreed to stay since I want to get unique skills for free here. It was smart thinking setting up a time to respond as well. If we don''t respond back within a certain amount of time they would assume the worst and send their strongest.

    As we enter into the Eighth Floor this Goblin doesn''t have any aura at all and I don''t even see anything here. Looking around I couldn''t sense the goblin at all even with sense presence so I look towards Finn with a questioning gaze.

    "Are we alone?" I had wanted to get Finn''s opinion since there may be a chance that this goblin was already dead. Maybe the goblin was hiding in fear?

    We enter the small room and there still isn''t any reaction to my Presence Detection. Is there an enemy with the Stealth skill higher than my current Presence Detection?

    "This enemy shouldn''t be as strong but its stealth is probably level 7 or higher. Stay close to me and pay attention to anything suspicious in the surroundings. It may be hiding somewhere and we can''t detect it."

    Looking around the room once more I notice an odd-looking shadow by a rock. Since it was so out of place I decided to appraise it expecting to only see dirt or something.

    ''Appraisal''

    Name: ****

    Race: Goblin

    Titles: Talented Assassin, Coward, Unique Monster, User of Shadow Magic, Idiot

    Class: Goblin Assassin

    Level: 30

    Strength: 35

    Agility: 71

    Endurance: 32

    Intelligence: 28

    Wisdom: 30

    Skills: Loyalty (Lv.3), Goblin''s Roar (Lv.1), Shadow Manipulation (Lv.5), Intermediate Dagger Mastery (Lv.1), Backstab (Lv.4), Stealth (Lv.7), Cutthroat (Lv3), Lockpicking (Lv.2), Hide in Shadow (???), Shadow Reinforcement Magic (Lv.3), Shadow Step (Lv.2), Evade (Lv.7). Scratch (Lv.2)

    ''So shadow magic is a thing. I remember reading something about that in a manga. The manipulation skill doesn''t really look that enticing to me so I guess I''ll just take the unranked skill or something since I should be able to get the manipulation skill after trying some more.''

    ''Skill Steal "Hide in Shadow".''

    [Activating skill... Stealing skill from target... Done]

    [Congratulations the skill "Hide in Shadow (???)" has been acquired]

    [Congratulations you have gained the title, "User of Shadow Magic"]

    As I point out the Goblin I can tell it was shocked at first because it''s stealth was undone but then immediately tries to go back into stealth and retreat from the fight. It seems like titles don''t lie, this guy is a huge coward and his highest leveled skill is something that helps in running away. At first sight of being caught, he immediately ran back into hiding. He may think that he ran back into hiding but we still had the goblin in vision as we slowly approach.

    "Finn, I''ll give you directions so you help me deal with him. Watch out though he has the unique magic called shadow magic. His skills are all focused on running at taking advantage of the element of surprise." I say to Finn so we can get this floor done with. If the Goblin isn''t even strong then what''s the point of him being higher ranked than the other two.

    "Don''t underestimate the Goblin, it''s on one of the lower floors so it has to be stronger. It may be stronger by relying on something though so be careful of traps laying around." Finn says while looking around for any traps that may have been laid out in advance.

    As we approach the Goblin that thinks it''s stealth is still working he put himself behind a rock near the corner of the room. This guy literally just trapped himself, how is a Goblin this stupid supposed to be stronger than the ones who actually put up a fight upon the higher floors. The Goblin is trying to use the shadows to his advantage and made sure to get rid of his. Seeing our shadows approach the Goblin tries to hold in a laugh as he gets ready to pounce on the unexpecting trespassers.

    "Soul Manipulation"

    Using soul manipulation on the unsuspecting Goblin who thought we didn''t see him proved to be a success as he is stuck in place and all his skills in which he used has come undone. Seeing a shadow pop up behind the rock and then the Goblin right after it Finn strikes the Goblin that can''t move due to being stunned from the shock of having his soul crushed. This Goblin''s soul is larger than the Goblin who had the original soul manipulation skill so I guess he was stronger in some way. The Goblin tries to fight back against the soul attack but is rendered helpless after Finn plunged how sword into its heart. With the death of the goblin, I get two notifications from the system.

    [You have killed a "Goblin Assassin"... Received 2000 Experience]

    [You have only received half of the experience due to not dealing the killing blow]

    As I''m paying attention to the notifications from the system and being disappointed with only getting half the experience I hear a shout from Finn.

    "Watch out, there''s another Goblin Assassin!" Finn yells as he tries to rush over to help me get out of the way.

 39 Goblins Rage 7

    Hearing Finn''s shout I turn my head and look behind me where immediately after a shadow engulfs me and I notice a flash of light aiming at my throat almost reaching it. It was so fast that I could barely even make out that it was a blade in the first place.

    "Time Stop"

    In a panic, I immediately activated the skill Time Stop and the world around me went silent as everything froze in place. The flash of light that was inching over faster than I''ve ever seen before stopped right before my throat. The Goblin assassin was floating midair with a smirk on its face as it thought it had successfully taken down one of its prey. I can see why that Assassin was stronger than the Necromancer, there wasn''t only one Goblin Assassin, it was just that the other one was being used as bait by the stronger one.

    If he had gone for Finn instead of me in this situation I don''t think I would be able to react in time to save them without having to stop time as well. Even with time stopped the blade at my throat feels cold against my skin. If I was a moment later in reacting I would have had my throat cut and blood would have been flying out of the wound.

    Luckily I still have healing magic so I healed what little cut there currently was and looked at the Goblin Assassin.

    ''This bastard is even smiling with glee thinking that he already had one down. Your mistake was that you shouldn''t have targeted me first.''

    As I walk behind the goblin frozen in the air I aim my sword at his heart from his back. With all of my preparations complete I let time resume and thrust forward with all of my strength.

    Time resumes and the Golbin Assassin''s face doesn''t change from the evil smirk as his dagger finishes crossing the inch of space that would have been my end. While the goblin was rejoicing in what he thought was a success he tried to go back into stealth only to notice that there was a sword piercing through his chest.

    "Ghhah"

    With the sound of the goblin chocking on the blood that he coughed up Finn looks at me with a happy look on his face. He hadn''t been expecting a second goblin that used its other kin to act as bait so he had been worried.

    Seeing his expression I decided to quickly end this as I cut the smirking Goblin Assassin in all directions while he was falling onto the floor. With the goblin noticing what was happening his expression changed rapidly from shock to fury seeing that I used his trap against him. With the goblin falling onto the floor with me on his back I move to cut off his limbs. The Goblin Assassin''s arms fall to the floor along with its legs as gravity pulls us both down and causes him to land on top of his limbs. Blood splatters even more than it did while in the air when he lands on the floor and the force of falling causes the blood to splatter around the dungeon''s floor.

    Watching the Golbin Assassin''s expression change from the smirk he had earlier to shock and then fury, followed by the look of absolute despair that gave me shivers throughout my entire body. The only way I could describe it would be as the best feeling in the world. Just knowing how he set up an elaborate trap and set his teammate up as bait only to work against him and be one of the leading factors to such an end gives me an indescribable feeling.

    ''What''s so special about this one.'' I think while staring the Goblin down while Finn and Shin have a relieved look on their faces.

    ''Appraisal''

    Name: ****

    Race: Goblin

    Titles: Talented Assassin, Cunning, Unique Monster, User of Shadow Magic, Calculating, Hard Worker

    Class: Goblin Assassin

    Level: 30

    Strength: 62

    Agility: 80

    Endurance: 45

    Intelligence: 34

    Wisdom: 41

    Skills: Loyalty (Lv.3), Goblin''s Roar (Lv.2), Mana Manipulation (Lv.5), Intermediate Dagger Mastery (Lv.3), Backstab (Lv.4), Stealth (Lv.6), Cutthroat (Lv5), Critical Strike (Lv.Max), Lockpicking (Lv.4), Shadow Step (Lv.2), Scratch (Lv.1), Dark Prison (Lv.2), Dark Escape (Lv.1), Desperate Strike (Lv.1), Poison Resistance (Weak)

    ''There aren''t any skills not from this world so I guess I''ll take something interesting.''

    ''Skill Steal "Poison Resistance (Weak)"''

    [Activating skill... Stealing skill from target... Done]

    [Skill "Poison Resistance (Weak)" has been added to your status]

    [You have killed a "Golbin Assassin"... Received 13000 Experience]

    ''It was too bad that there were a couple of skills that I liked on this guy, critical strike in fact was one of them but resistance against any kind of poison will help a lot in the future rather than random critical strikes.''

    With the skill being stolen I had finished off the goblin assassin to make sure that I get the final kill and the full amount of experience.

    ''It seems that I''m still corrupted by whatever that orb was. I need to hurry and find a way to fix it quickly.''

    "Bell are you alright? The assassin boss normally only has one higher goblin with a bunch of normal goblins but I guess we ran into something unique." With the sudden appearance of the second goblin assassin, Finn had become worried that the dungeon may have been changing.

    "It''s fine, let''s continue." While looking through my notifications I saw something that I hadn''t noticed before. A unique notification from the lord of this dungeon.

    [The Goblin Lord has invited you into his Lair.]

    "Let''s head to the next floor before they can set up a trap for us." With the floor being cleared Finn and I decided to head down to the Ninth Floor of the Dungeon.

    "Before we head on to the Ninth Floor let''s rest and we talk more about some strategy. The next monster is always the same one so I''ll have to tell you about it and how to counter its skills as well as how it fights." After taking a seat on a rock nearby Finn decided that he would tell me about the next floor and the strategy to beat it beforehand.

    "What kind of monster is on the Ninth Floor?" I ask curiously since we never had to have a strategy meeting before. Is this monster so dangerous? Are its skills so dangerous that we have to be warned beforehand so we don''t fall into them unexpectedly?

 40 Goblins Rage 8

    "The monster on the Ninth Floor is always a Goblin King, it''s skills stay the same no matter what. One of the skills it has is Advanced Sword Mastery, with this skill alone it can be said to rival even the dungeon boss itself, although that may not be the case anymore. If my theory is right then the Dungeon Boss mutated in some kind of way and now has intelligence on the same level as the High Goblin which was infamous for being more intelligent than a level 150 mage, normally the Dungeon Boss only has the intelligence level of a growing teenager at most but this time it has shown way too much intelligence, it even deactivated the Dungeon skill because it looked down on us. This is what the should look like." Finn explains while drawing a figure in the dirt. As he continues talking the drawing becomes more apparent until he eventually finishes and the figure is displayed.

    The figure in the sand looks just like all the other Goblins but the only factor that differentiates them is the crown on the top of his head.

    Looking at the drawing I get confused and ask, "What''s so special about him if he barely looks different than the regular Goblins?"

    "Don''t ever judge something based on what it looks like. It may look like a regular Goblin but it will tear you to shreds. Its strength is as strong as a B Rank adventurer and the Goblin King is known to use underhanded tactics when fighting and even enslaving female adventurers while using the males as fodder. Always make sure to finish it or else it will continue to control the adventurers that it has previously defeated." With me undermining the Goblin King Finn scolded me and made sure to tell me to finish it off. I guess I got too used to the fact that these goblins were easy with cheats.

    "Okay, so what are the skills we have to be wary of?" At this point in the Dungeon raid, I was starting to feel fatigued and I felt like I needed a nap. If I laid in a bed right now I would probably be knocked out cold.

    "The skills you have to look out for are its Sword Mastery which I explained earlier, its skill King''s Intimidation which invokes intimidation into everything within a 10-meter radius, and it''s rumored to have the ability to read thoughts. It may not exactly be mind-reading but adventurers have reported that it acts to counter before they even move."

    "If we''re done here let''s go down to the Ninth Floor then." Right now the stairs were right in front of us so I started moving towards the stairs.

    "Alright, we''ll go down. I sent another message to the guild master so the time limit is extended."

    As we reach the Ninth Floor and look towards the loud snoring a Huge Goblin with a crown fixed on its head is laying down on the dungeon floor and using a Goblin''s corpse as if it was a pillow. The loud snoring which wasn''t audible until we reached the floor is heavily suspicious so Finn and I decide to not approach it as it may be faking it. Seeing the opportunity I decided to appraise it and look at its status and skills.

    ''Appraisal''

    Name: ****

    Race: Goblin

    Titles: Goblin King, Evolved Monster, King Class Monster, Enslaved, Forced Loyalty, Mutated Monster

    Class: Goblin King

    Level: 45

    Strength: 100

    Agility: 71

    Endurance: 80

    Intelligence: 81

    Wisdom: 51

    Skills: King''s Intimidation (Lv.2), Mana Manipulation (Lv.6), Advanced Sword Mastery (Lv.2), Presence Detection (Lv.6), Earth Magic (Lv.6), Rock Absorption (Lv.1), Enhanced Body (Medium), Human Speech (Lv.2), Scratch (Lv.1), Fake Sleep (Lv.3), Poison Resistance (Weak), Mind Reading (???) (???)

    Looking at his skills I''m shocked, he can actually read minds as Finn said was possible earlier. It isn''t some cheap version either, it doesn''t seem like it has a limitation. Finally, a skill that is related to the mind and can be used in almost any situation has been revealed. I''m thinking this may be the skill.

    ''What is Rock Absorption? He can absorb rocks? Why would that even be used?''

    "You humans are no fun. Not a single one of you wanted to approach me." While looking at the goblin king''s skills he had gotten impatient and decided that we weren''t going to fall for his fake sleeping.

    ''Well yeah, you even have a skill for it so why would I?''

    ''Skill Steal "Mind Reading"''

    [Activating skill... Stealing skill from target... Done]

    [Skill "Mind Reading" has been added to your status]

    With the mind-reading skill taken from him, Finn and I fight this floor''s boss together.

    With Finn and I attacking him at the same time the goblin king hadn''t had the time to notice that his skill was gone yet.

    After a couple of attempts, all that Finn and I could manage was a couple of cuts on his right arm, one on his left leg, and a piece of his stomach was missing.

    Even though it wasn''t a lot we had both made sure to follow the strategy and aim for the same places. As a result, the goblin king''s right arm was useless as all of the hits there had almost taken it off. It''s left leg was in a similar situation as its attacks were very limited at the moment.

    "You humans really are interesting with your plans and using the knowledge you have of the anatomy of the body against your opponents. This would have worked if it wasn''t me." With the Goblin King in a sticky situation, he still had the time to laugh and treat it as if it were nothing. I wanna see what he would do to turn this situation around.

 41 Goblins Rage 9

    With the Goblin King''s words, a large amount of mana burst forth throughout the surroundings and the dungeon floor started to grow.

    "Rock Wall"

    As the Goblin King''s magic activates the ground around him rises up above his height and envelopes him blocking us from finishing him off. The rocks themselves are too hard for us to break. I sent a clone to try and the attack bounced off as if it was nothing. As the rock wall settles in place we hear another activation of magic from the Goblin King that is encased in a rock wall.

    "Rock Absorption"

    As the magic activates the rock wall slowly shrinks and enters the now visible Goblin King''s body. All the wounds that he had received throughout the fight had healed in front of our eyes. Finn and I were both stunned from the shock. All the damage dealt throughout the battle had been healed and even his arm was completely replaced.

    The Goblin King laughed as he was healed by absorbing the rocks that he had created.

    "That is so broken, how is that even allowed?"

    At the sight of the completely broken way of cheesing a free heal, I couldn''t help but feel cheated. Even though I actually had cheats myself this felt like some kind of bug that shouldn''t be in the game. This kind of free healing was unfair.

    With the Goblin King completely healed the fight was basically back at stage 1. Finn and I weren''t completely out of stamina but getting the Goblin King that close did indeed take a lot of effort.

    "You got anything else that can fight against him or are we going to have to run?" Seeing that situation starting to turn for the worse Finn decides that since I had been doing impossible things that he would ask me for another one.

    Thinking over what I could use there are a couple of things that I could think of to kill the goblin king. I could use fire magic and burn him to ashes before he regenerates, I could stop time and kill him, or I can overload my sword with magic and throw it at him as it explodes.

    "We can try something else before deciding if we wanted to leave. I want to see what the Goblin Lord looks like." With the invitation from the goblin lord, I felt like there was something that it may want to say. With how it even went out of its way to send me that notification.

    "Alright, we can continue on but we aren''t fighting the Goblin Lord. We''re leaving after confirming that it exists." With how hard the goblin king was fighting and how its skills were hard to fight against Finn had wanted to not take the risk of continuing to fight the unknown enemy.

    Upon hearing our conversation the goblin king was enraged and yelled, "You want to ignore my existence huh? You won''t be leaving here alive."

    Upon yelling at Finn and I for not giving him any attention teh Goblin King decided that he would go all out and he had declared that we wouldn''t leave the floor alive.

    The Goblin King began creating and bringing all the rocks towards him and activated the absorb rock skill. While the rocks were being absorbed he stopped them halfway to make a rock-like armor.

    Seeing what kind of plan the Goblin King had I decided to use the cheats and end this fight as fast as possible.

    ''Time Stop''

    The Dungeon came to a stop as all of teh rocks that the Goblin King had created were being drawn to his body had stopped and been instead floating there mid-air. Some rocks had already been in place and partially absorbed before I had reacted in time so some parts of his body were already covered in rocks. Even though some had been covered he had left his head clear to not block his ability to talk as he tried to taunt us.

    With this kind of armor blocking our way this fight would have been a lot tougher.

    As time was stopped I decided to walk over to the Goblin King and immediately chop his head off as I had time resume upon cutting into his throat.

    The Goblin King was surprised to see me and wanted to speak but his head was already coming off of his body by the time he moved his mouth to speak. The head that was cut off had a despaired look on its face as its eyes were hollow.

    [Congratulations you have reached level 20]

    [You have reached the level limit]

    [To increase your level limit please select a higher class.]

    After reaching the limit of the first rank the system gave me the option to choose my class right now. But as I need to register it with the guild I''d rather wait until I can choose one at the guild for now.

    When the Goblin King had died a new door had appeared in the room. Looking towards Finn he nods telling me that this was supposed to happen.

    "Bell, let''s head down to the Boss room. We should be ready to retreat at a moments notice. If it''s too much for us we retreat." WIth Finn agreeing with my selfishness of wanting to go down and meet the Dungeon Boss I couldn''t help but feel bad about not telling him why.

    "Let''s head down, it looks like we''ve been invited."

    As Finn and I go through the door we come face to face with the boss monster of the Dungeon.

 42 Goblins Rage 10

    As we come face to face with the Goblin Lord I hear Finn say something under his breath.

    "That''s impossible." Finn says while staring at the Goblin Lord. He looked aghast as he stared at the monster that was supposed to be the Goblin Lord.

    Seeing Finn''s shock I look over the Goblin Lord as closely as I can. To my shock, he looks human-like. The only thing that would separate people calling him a human was that he was green and he had the same tips on his ears as goblins do. I almost thought that someone had been playing a joke on me but then he spoke.

    "What, why are you looking at me like that? Is that how humans act towards someone who invited you in?"

    "You aren''t supposed to look like that. What are you?" Upon hearing the monster talk Finn couldn''t help but have a surprised expression. Something must be wrong with the Dungeon.

    "Is something wrong?" Seeing Finn ask the monster cautiously I couldn''t help but ask if something was wrong. Even though I know that something has been fishy about this dungeon since I''ve been getting the messages from the system. It looks like even the Dungeon''s Boss had mutated.

    "Yeah, the Boss if supposed to be a Goblin Lord. And whatever that monster is, it isn''t a Goblin Lord."

    The Dungeon''s Boss just sat there in silence as Finn and I conversed. It continued to look at Finn and I as if he were studying us. It looked like he was taking a closer look at two unique specimens.

    At the time I wasn''t so sure but after a little while, the Dungeon Boss spoke, "Two transmigrators huh. And one of them is a unique skill holder. Both of you have my pity having to be carrying out the will of whatever god wannabe''s that summoned you."

    "What do you want?" With the Dungeon''s Boss willing to talk I was going to take this opportunity to ask some questions

    "It hasn''t been long since I''ve been reborn but there is already a large amount of unwanted attention from the greedy humans. That attention could lead to some problems so unfortunately, I will have to ask you to leave. You humans aren''t needed here and I won''t be staying here either. The demons have offered me a position in their army and I don''t wish to have to deal with you as of now. I''m still gaining bits and pieces of myself so I''d rather both parties just ignore each other''s existence. I promise that I won''t touch any of the locals as well." The Goblin Lord nods as if he expects us to agree with him. His argument was indeed valid but with the feeling that I''m getting from him I couldn''t shake off an odd feeling I''m getting.

    We could probably fight him but Finn or I or maybe even the both of us would perish in the process. That was the kind of feeling I was getting from seeing the Dungeon Boss. It''s aura radiated a controlled killing intent as if it was a warning that he would be completely fine dealing with us here.

    "And we''re supposed to let you go after you saying that you''ll enter the Demon''s army? Wouldn''t that just be letting a strong enemy go when they are currently weakened?" It seems that Finn had noticed that he was currently weakened from just being born. At the current moment, he wasn''t at full strength.

    With the weird feeling that I was getting from how the Dungeon Boss was talking I decided to take a peek at his status. To my surprise, I couldn''t believe the information that was displayed from the appraisal skill.

    ''Appraisal''

    Name: Shiv

    Race: Goblin [Parasite]

    Titles: World Traveler, Evolved Monster, Mutated Monster, Unique Monster, Cursed Immortal, Seeking Death

    Class: Goblin Prince [Parasite]

    Level: ???

    Strength: ???

    Agility: ???

    Endurance: ???

    Intelligence: ???

    Wisdom: ???

    Skills: Self Calamity (Lv.Max), Appraisal, Mana Manipulation (Lv.Max), Qi Manipulation (Lv.Max), Intermediate Sword Mastery (Lv.Max), Presence Detection (Lv.Max), Earth Magic (Lv.Max), Extreme Poison Resistance, LifeStyle Magic (Lv.Max), Body Reinforcement Magic (Lv.Max), Trap Detection (Lv.Max), Stealth (Lv.Max), Survival Instincts (Lv.Max), Disarm Trap (Lv.Max), Dungeon Adaptapion (Lv.Max) ...

    Unique Skills: World Traveling (Lv.19284), Immortal Soul (Lv.Max), Parasite (Lv.Max)

    "Stop speaking nonsense human, you humans have never been as strong as us monsters who have reached our peak evolutions. I may not be at the peak of all monsters but I am at the Final evolution for a Goblin Lord, and through the Demons, I can go even further. What is the use of fighting if both parties sustain permanent damage and are willing to avoid the fight? To have revenge for the fallen humans? I''ll have you know that since I''ve been born I haven''t even seen any humans face to face, they all die on the Seventh or Eighth Floor. You have already gotten your revenge and more out of them than what should have been possible. So leave and come back to the Dungeon after I''ve left and it''ll be returned to normal." The Goblin Lord explains while holding his arms out showing he doesn''t wish to fight.

    Upon listening to the Goblin Prince and seeing his status I just can''t find out why he doesn''t want to fight, with his strength he could easily kill us and get away faster than he could be tracked. Seeing how reluctant he was I couldn''t help but ask, "Why do you want to avoid killing us?"

    The Goblin Prince looked at me briefly before replying, "It seems that you may not be aware of what kind of aura''s are on your body. From him, I can feel a medium level god, which is doable and I could get out with light losses. But from you, I can''t even feel which God has left their aura on you. With the amount that I can sense right now, I can tell that I wouldn''t even live to tell who killed me. I''d rather not make an enemy of someone who could trap my soul and give me torture for an eternity."

 43 Goblins Rage 11

    "I don''t really want to end up in a never-ending loop of torture to my soul. I would rather die." The entire time that the Goblin Prince was talking I was getting a weird feeling from him. It was a familiar feeling that this guy wanted to die.

    "If that''s your worry, how about I help you out?"

    With my proposal of a deal, the Goblin Prince looks towards me with a suspicious glare.

    "And how can you help me?"

    With the Goblin Prince looking at me I decided to trust in Finn. "I can get rid of that immortal soul skill for you."

    "... how can you prove that you have the power to do so? I''ve had people far stronger than you try and none could kill me."

    "By stealing it. I have the ability to steal skills from someone. It''s a one-time use skill that will disappear once it''s used. I will take your burden." Even if I was trusting Finn with some information I still couldn''t help but hold back some information. The guilt is eating away at me. Here I am lying to someone who had given me guidance in a new world, lying to someone had risked their life for me. Even so, I had lied once more. The fear of being ostracized just like before was too much. That fear overwhelmed all other emotions I am currently feeling.

    ''I''ll tell him someday. I promise.''

    "Even if you could do that, I don''t see why you would take over my burden. What do you stand to gain from doing so?"

    "I can get rid of an immortal enemy, stop the demons from gaining a dangerous ally, and I gain an undying soul."

    After thinking for a bit the Goblin Prince decided that it was worth a try at the very least. "Hmmm... If you can truly get rid of the skill I will help you out as well. I don''t like receiving free things."

    If I wasn''t able to steal the skill then I can only prepare some other countermeasures to this undying enemy. I haven''t stolen a unique skill before so I''m not sure that it is possible.

    "Sounds good, I''ll start then." The surroundings went quiet as the tension in the air had suppressed everyone in the room. All 3 of us were hoping that it would work.

    ''Skill Steal "Immortal Soul"''

    [Activating skill... Stealing skill from target...]

    With the notification from the system not finishing and the stealing process of the skill taking longer than usual, I started to feel the tension build-up. The skill stealing process was taking longer than usual and it brought me an eerie feeling. If this didn''t work, how could I deal with him?

    While sitting there worrying about the stealing process taking longer than normal the Goblin Prince was standing in place with a weird look on his face. From the outside, it looked like he was feeling incredibly uncomfortable like something was feeling around his very soul. After the Goblin Prince''s expression went back to normal the system came back with a notification.

    "It succeeded." The amount of pressure that the delay brought was immense but I was able to sigh in relief at the end of it all. Thank god that the skill was able to be stolen. Looks like even unique skills aren''t limited either. Although it looks like the Goblin Prince was resisting the skill steal so it took longer. I''ll have to remember that it''s possible to resist the skill steal or even deny it entirely in the future. I''m a little depressed about the world traveling skill but now that I know its a thing I could aim for it in the future.

    The Goblin Prince was ecstatic with the skill that had been haunting him being gone. He was so happy that he had begun laughing and smiling all to himself. Eventually, he looks towards me with a relieved smile.

    "I have to thank you, I''ve been finally ridden of my immortal soul. I won''t forget this favor for as long as I live." The Goblin Prince was really appreciative of me stealing his skill and relieving him from what he had considered a "curse".

    "No problem, as long as you can keep up your part of the deal and don''t help the Demons then we''re all good."

    "I can''t leave it at just that, you did me a great service. This isn''t much but it is the most that I can do for now."

    With that, the Goblin Prince moved his hand closer to my chest. I didn''t feel any bad intent so I didn''t stop him as his hand approached my chest. Just as it was about to make contact it phased through my body, at the same time I started receiving notifications from the system.

    [An unknown force has entered your body...]

    [An unknown force is cleansing your soul...]

    With the notifications from the system, I got an idea about what he had offered. He was going to cleanse the inside of my soul for me. I couldn''t be happier since that unknown orb had entered me and corrupted my soul. I kept having leaks every now and then but I finally found someone who could help me.

    "There''s an unknown object trying to corrupt your body, I''ll bring it out for you to see."

    As he brought the orb out of my body his hand was holding the orb for me to see.

    "Thank you, I''ve been troubled by that orb recently. I couldn''t find anything about the orb but with you being able to take it out of my body I won''t be affected by it anymore."

    "This is the least I can do, you saved me from having to live an eternity. I wish I could help you even more but I''m currently at my limit." The Goblin Prince was currently sweating and it looked like his body was fatigued. His eyes had bags and it looks like he could fall asleep at any moment.