Prologue
TWENTY YEARS AGO, underground labyrinths called dungeons spawned all around the world.
In those dungeons existed monsters: creatures beyond the scope of human imagination. Modern weaponry couldn’t hold a candle to their strength and power. With them came magic stones—a usable energy source far better than fossil fuels—and countless more otherworldly things that didn’t operate under the known rules of physics. Most remarkable and wondrous of them all was the concept of the level system.
Levels.
Stats.
Skills.
Those once existed only in the world of video games and anime, but now, they were real. Subduing monsters granted experience points that increased levels. Increased levels led to boosted stats: fulfilling certain requirements allowed a person to gain supernatural powers called skills. This led to the advent of adventurers, people who used their powers to overcome monsters while gathering magic stones and other dungeon resources to sell.
The power of adventurers was tremendous. One adventurer could rival the military strength of an entire nation. That was why adventurers gained such high social status. A globally-ranked adventurer had more wealth, prestige, and privileges than any politician or celebrity could ever obtain. Many people dreamed of becoming adventurers of that caliber.
Unfortunately, not everyone’s dreams could come true.
Two huge obstacles stood in the way. First, the level system didn’t work equally for everyone. Only a fraction of people could obtain stats. As for the second condition… Well, because of the way dungeons worked, adventurers who arrived late to the party were at a severe disadvantage. Yet even with those obstacles, people still tried to become adventurers. They spent their days dungeon diving in hopes of getting rich quick.
But I, Amane Rin, wanted to become an adventurer for a completely different reason.
You see, years ago, when my sister and I were out together, we were involved in an incident where monsters that should only be inside a dungeon escaped onto the surface. A monster larger than the both of us approached, and I truly thought we were going to die. But at that exact moment, an adventurer slew the monster and saved our lives.
I could never get the image of his back—and his overwhelming strength—out of my mind. From that moment on, I wanted to become just like him.
Time passed, and the memory grew fuzzy. I didn’t know who the man was. However, that warmth I felt in my chest remained clear as day. I wanted to become as strong as he was so I could protect the people I loved.
I graduated high school, passed my adventurer qualifications, and successfully got my stats, but that didn’t satisfy me. To become an acting adventurer, I needed to meet another condition: getting a skill. After all, an adventurer’s innate talent was determined by the skills they gained upon obtaining their stats.
For example, a sword skill would make someone a knight; a magical skill would make someone a sorcerer. Now, if someone didn’t gain a skill upon obtaining their stats, there were other ways to get skills. That being said, a skill that emerged right away showed the level system acknowledged the person’s talent. Most people who received a skill early outperformed people who gained the same skill later. If someone didn’t gain a skill alongside their stats, their adventurer career was basically doomed.
I gained two skills.
The first was Enhanced Strength. Anyone with this skill possessed only the bare minimum talent for physical movement. It pretty much meant that the adventurer was average in their ability to fight: nothing to write home about. That wasn’t great, but my second skill was the real deal. Somehow, I got a skill that no one else had. My unique skill: Dungeon Teleportation. Like the name said, it gave me the rule-defying ability to freely move my location within a dungeon.
Damn, did people envy me for it—but only at first. With Dungeon Teleportation LV 1, I could only move a maximum of five meters at a rate of ten seconds per meter. On top of that, I could only teleport myself. Raising my skill level barely moved the needle. Soon, other adventurers started to think of it as a useless skill, and they stopped inviting me to join their parties.
Unfortunately, when it came to dungeon diving, forming parties was vital. Forget success as a great adventurer: basic dungeon diving was hard as hell alone. I didn’t give up, though. My goal to become strong, like the adventurer who saved me that day, never wavered. Besides, a gut feeling told me that my Dungeon Teleportation skill wasn’t the useless ability people assumed. I wanted to prove them wrong, so I kept training and dungeon diving.
One year after my very first dungeon, the day finally came—Dungeon Teleportation awakened.