“Wow, amazing! We’re inside a building, but it’s like we’re still outside! For a dungeon, it’s not very dark either!”
Sumire was scampering here and there, turning her head every which way to take in the sights. Any onlooker could tell she was a complete novice, but this was still a safe place for her to express her excitement. There were no monsters on the 1st Level, after all; it was a safe and lively area absent of any dangers. There were rows of stalls selling equipment and items to explorers, with merchants hawking their wares to attract potential customers.
“Hey, cute little miss! Why don’t you check out my store?”
“Heeey, young miss, over there! You’re a novice, aren’t you? Then you need to stock up on your magic items!”
“For a limited time only, we’re offering our stock for twenty percent off! Oh, and since you met my eyes, young lady, I’ll offer you and only you a further ten percent discount!”
“U-Um...”
Sumire looked like she didn’t know how to respond. This was a common reaction among explorers having their first exposure to Babel’s 1st Level. Before any hawker could grab her, I took Sumire by the hand and led her deeper into the dungeon. The farther we went, the fewer stalls there were. Eventually, we saw a large stone structure before us.
“Hey, Eugene! What’s with this giant stone tablet?” Sumire asked.
“Oh, that’s a list of the Record Holders,” I explained.
Sumire looked up in awe. Mimicking her, I directed my attention to the plaque as well:
First Place: Christo Gama (Record: 500)
Second Place: Uther Mercurius Pendragon (Record: 451)
Third Place: Bruno Rosenhain (Record: 437)
Fourth Place: Leonhardt Rothschild (Record: 402)
Fifth Place: Orlando Bacque (Record: 391)
Sixth Place: Charlotte Murray (Record: 349)
Seventh Place: Clark Romak (Record: 326)
Eighth Place: Chester Macduff (Record: 303)
Ninth Place: Rosalie J. Walker (Record: 300)
Tenth Place: Medea Parker (Record: 289)
And so on and so forth. The tablet logged the names of legendary explorers. The larger names were the leaders of the exploration parties, and the names of their party members were engraved in smaller text. Incidentally, the explorer in first place had been a solo challenger. He must have been a real beast. Every explorer dreamed of seeing their name on this list. But the journey to get on the plaque was a perilous and difficult one indeed.
The second name from the top was a familiar one, as it belonged to the headmaster of the academy. He really was an amazing person. No one in the past hundred years had broken the records set by those from first to ninth place. In fact, no one in the past five hundred years had broken Christo’s record.
I remember when I aspired to see my name up there. The greatest glory one could achieve on the Southern Continent was to break one of those records in the Last Dungeon. When I’d first fled the empire’s military academy, I’d thought it would be a way to prove myself to my old classmates. But the wall those legends represented was far more difficult to scale than I’d ever imagined. I was still a low-ranking explorer who’d only reached the 9th Level.
“Eugene, you’re not aiming to become a Record Holder?” Sumire asked.
I thought about it for a moment before giving a vague reply. “Don’t worry too much about what I’m doing.”
After cutting the conversation off there, I took Sumire to the center of the 1st Level. There, we saw about ten Dungeon Elevators towering over us. Each one had a line in front of its doors.
As I’d expected, Sumire reacted with shock. “Huh?! The dungeon has elevators in it? But it’s a dungeon!”
“It’s convenient, right?” I said.
“Well, yeah, but...is this allowed?”
“You can’t really use them to cheat, since they’ll only take you to a floor you’ve already reached with your own ability. Without these, there would be no way for anyone to travel all the way to the 100th or 200th Levels.”
“O-Oh, that makes sense.”
“So, which floor do you want to go to? The 5th Level? That’s where we found you, after all.” Accordingly, the Dungeon Elevator should be able to take us back there.
“U-Um, there? I want to go, but there’s also a part of me that doesn’t want to.” Sumire crossed her arms, muttering under her breath and furrowing her brow. I was in no rush, so I gave her all the time she needed to decide. “Hmm. In a situation like this, we should start from the 2nd Level, right? But maybe it’s better to start from the higher levels and get a feel for what’s awaiting us inside. I wonder what the right choice is?”
Her expression kept changing as she talked to herself. This was her first exploration. It was important for a novice to spend time and think about how they wanted to approach the dungeon. Jumping in without a plan was far more dangerous. Thus, I decided to wait until Sumire came to a conclusion on her own. That was when...
“Hey! Hurry up!”
Suddenly, someone yelled at us from behind. Turning, we saw a score of explorers standing there. They’re wearing blue clothes with yellow crests in the shape of a shield. That means they’re explorers from the Blue Sea Union.
“How dare mere students impede our way? Cede your place in line if you don’t know where you’re going!”
“E-Eugene!” Terrified, Sumire hid behind me.
Man, these guys sure are rude. There were ten Dungeon Elevators to choose from, so they didn’t have to use the one we were in line for. In fact, some explorers who’d arrived before us were still loitering about as they decided which floor they would start from. Why had these ones gone out of their way to bother us? Probably because we’re a pair of young explorers, so they figured they could intimidate us into giving them our place in line. What a nasty way of doing things. Choosing which level to start from was one of the most important decisions an explorer had to make. Spending time on that wasn’t a bad thing. In other words... They’re newbies. It’s a waste of time to argue with them.
It would have been ridiculous to take them and their bad attitude seriously, so I waved them forward. “Go ahead.”
“Humph!” The man at the front of the group—presumably the leader—stalked past us. His companions followed with their heads held high, as if it had been a given that we’d let them use the elevator first.
“Is that really enough equipment for exploration?” one asked.
“And it’s just the two of you? The ignorance of novice explorers is truly frightening,” another commented.
“Today, we’ll get past the 10th Level!” the leader announced.
“Yessir!” his group roared in unison.
What the hell? You guys are so gung-ho about going in, and you still haven’t cleared the 10th Level?
“Jerks,” Sumire muttered.
“Forget about them. Let’s go. If you’re unsure of where to start from, let’s take the stairs to the 2nd Level and make our way up slow and steady,” I suggested.
“Okay!”
And so we headed for the stairs that would take us to the 2nd Level.