Adventurers explored the dungeon—that was their job. I’d lost sight of that recently, but that was my job, too. Nowhere in all the Great Land was that more patently obvious than in the Kingdom of Remlia, home to the enormous, preeminent Tower of Legions. Adventurers delved into its depths, then harvested and sold its resources for money and sustenance. Those coins then circulated through the markets, supporting the growth of those whose paths it crossed as well as the country itself. Put simply, that was the sworn duty of adventurers in this country.
Until I came around. Armed with the knowledge and artificial intelligence I’d brought with me from the modern-day world, I had enough to support myself without necessarily stepping foot in the dungeon. The past weeks, I’d been absorbed in my own personal obsessions, working on projects that were not related to the Tower of Legions. Fortunately for me, these endeavors had made me a considerable amount of money. That’s what made it even worse.
Obviously, an adventurer’s job wasn’t only to carry out dungeon expeditions. Some lent a hand to the local merchants, others worked as bodyguards, and there were always resources to be harvested and monsters to be vanquished aboveground as well. However, in the end, Remlian adventurers had to keep delving in that dungeon, garnering envy that lured the next one, then the next after that, and on and on. Each one of us was a foundational stone in the lighthouse that drew them all to the cavernous shores. That was our responsibility.
All this to say, I was turning out to be a terrible role model. A few other people had made their fortune through connections in the merchant world, sure, but inevitable circumstances had forced the vast majority of them into early retirement. There had never been an initiate like me.
If I were to be honest though, I’d lost sight of why I’d needed to explore the dungeon to begin with. I knew I had come to the Other Dimension for money. The Firm had reached out to me suddenly with an offer I couldn’t refuse and sent me here on a mission to retrieve some unknown resource located on the fifty-sixth level of the dungeon. To me, who’d barely been making it by from day to day, the Firm had promised an outrageous sum for the work. Looking back on it, though, I couldn’t imagine what would’ve motivated me to take the bait.
At this point, I’d made some relatively trustworthy contacts and had the means to hire elite adventurers to travel to the designated floor for me. However, I would have to personally reach that floor before the resources I needed to harvest would be revealed and before a security lock installed on the AI bots would deactivate.
All of which to say, I needed to delve in that dungeon myself if I ever wanted to complete the job I’d come to do. I’d be fine with that if I were the only one at risk. My life didn’t amount to much, but I’d bet my all on it. However, there was no way I would ever let another one of my friends die. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle a next time. Whatever strings held this sad excuse of a human together would snap.
To tell you the truth, the dungeon scared the shit out of me. I never could’ve imagined it’d kill me this much to lose someone. To think someone like me, who didn’t have a friend or companion to speak of back in the other world, would have to face the agony of parting with one in this dimension—classic irony.
Despite all that, once again, at this moment, my friends and I had traveled to the fourteenth floor of the Tower of Legions. What with the father of adventurers lighting a fire under my ass, my own AI bots jeering at me, and my counselor slapping me into shape, I fell into a light neurosis in which I could almost hear random strangers whom I passed on the streets screaming at me to Get yer ass in the dungeon! So I gave in and reluctantly dragged my feet the whole way there.
Thanks to the accurate intel we’d gathered on the foes that lurked inside, the reliable map we had to guide us, and my skilled party members, who could easily match even the most adept adventurers on equal ground, we made it to the fourteenth floor so quickly it was almost anticlimactic.
Every fifth floor in the Tower of Legions had a portal. You simply touched it to register your progress, and it would immediately whisk you back to the first floor, where the Adventurers Guild was located. Once you’d saved your progress, you could restart your adventure from that portal however many times you pleased.
The only issue was, every floor before a portal level had a gatekeeper blocking the path forward. Naturally, the fourteenth floor was no exception. Incomparably powerful, these diverse, multifarious guards existed on a separate plane, defying all human comprehension with their infinitely variable skills, defenses, and strengths. They were an incarnation of all ancient wisdom, begotten from miracle or madness. The sole thing each and every one of them had in common: an insatiable hostility toward adventurers.
“Right, so.” What do we do now? I wondered but swallowed the urge to voice my uncertainty.
My party and I had run into a wall just before encountering the gatekeeper guarding the fourteenth floor. We’d already encountered this same problem once, turning tail at the doors that now loomed in front of us before even catching a glimpse of our opponent. A dispatched Guild employee stood between these two crimson doors in the dimly lit corridor. This day, that person just so happened to be my counselor, Evetta. A pair of horns adorned her head of long, beautiful silver hair. Though she was slender and now sported a receptionist’s suit, the retired adventurer had once struck terror into the hearts of all who crossed paths with the infamous Evetta the Pulverizer.
“Souya, nothing will ever change if you don’t approach anyone,” she chided me.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The guild would only allow us to try our luck against the sentinel, the Rabidly Revelrous Rabbit, in groups of two parties or more. Currently, twelve other parties awaited their turns like us, joking and negotiating with the others in the corridor, trying to find a team they meshed well with. Evetta was right: We’d never work out a partnership unless I was proactive. Given my experience helping the Zavah Night Owl Trade Group, I honestly thought I had a leg up on the others. But oh, how wrong I was. How very, very wrong.
When it came to recruiting members to an existing party, you had to consider all sorts of things, like a person’s skills, mutual interests, and whether they were cut out for your group. When it came to working with another party, though, companionship trumped all else. You needed magnetism and affability. You didn’t have the luxury of time to get to know each other. Mere moments after the first meeting, you’d be knee-deep in the horrors of combat. Only your feelings could guide you in this decision. Looks, reputation, and last but not least, race carried the heaviest influence in that department.
So if I had to explain where that put me—
“Excuse me, would you like to team up with us?”
“………” The first group I approached, its members all beastfolk, flat out ignored my best sales-pitch smile.
“Excuse me, how would you—?”
“Gross!” A party of female adventurers immediately shut me down.
“Sorry to bother you, but would you like to team up with us?” I asked a gentle-looking young heim.