Chapter 72: Into The Dungeon I
The passage through felt like stepping through a held breath.
One second he was outside, the gate roaring at his back — and then there was pressure, a pull, the sensation of being moved through something without moving at all. Then it released him.
Light hit his eyes first.
David blinked. Once. Twice.
’...Huh.’
He turned slowly, taking it in. Grassland. Wide and flat and stretching in every direction, the blades a deep, muted green that caught the ambient glow in a way that made them look almost painted. The sky — if it could be called that — sat low and strange above him. No sun. No clouds. Just a sourceless light that washed everything in tones of faded amber and red, like the last ten minutes of an evening that had forgotten to end.
It was almost peaceful.
’This is a dungeon.’
He stood there for a moment.
’I thought there’d be — I don’t know. Skulls. Lava. Something with teeth on the ceiling.’ He looked around at the wide, quiet grassland going nowhere in every direction. ’This looks like the countryside.’
The horizon just — continued. No movement. No sound beyond the grass shifting in a wind that didn’t seem to come from anywhere.
He exhaled and let the tourist moment pass.
’Alright. Don’t get comfortable.’
"System," he said quietly. "Utilize armor."
The fragment materialized without ceremony — a breastplate, modest and battered-looking, settling against his chest with a weight he hadn’t expected. Shoulder guards followed. Forearm guards after that. He looked down and did a quick inventory.
Chest. Shoulders. Forearms.
His sides were open. His lower back was open. Everything below the waist was entirely unprotected.
He grunted.
’Now I understand why it’s F-rank.’
He could work with it. He didn’t have a choice.
"Dragon Claw."
The weapon materialized out of the air like it had always existed and was only now bothering to show up — solid, weighted, real. He caught the hilt as it dropped into his palm, fingers closing around it naturally, and held it low at his side.
[DUNGEON ENTERED.]
[OBJECTIVE: Slay the Dungeon Boss.]
’Good to know.’ He started walking. ’Where is it?’
---
He walked for what felt like several minutes. Eyes moving left, right, horizon, grass, back again. The dungeon offered him nothing. Just the amber light sitting unchanged above him and the quiet sound of his own footsteps pressing into soft earth.
The calm was starting to bother him more than noise would have. Dungeons weren’t supposed to feel like a Sunday walk. He was beginning to wonder if the monsters were shy —
A rustle.
He stopped.
Low. To his left. A section of grass taller than the rest, maybe fifteen meters out, shifting against the stillness.
His grip tightened on the Dragon Claw. He turned toward it, weapon rising, body settling into the stance Mrs. Walbury had drilled into him until it lived in his muscles without asking.
The rustling paused.
Then the grass parted.
The head came up slowly — like whatever it belonged to wasn’t in any particular hurry. Broad, flat skull. A horn curving up from the snout, thick at the base and ridged along the edge. Iron-colored plates ran across its face and down the sides of its neck, layered and dull, like someone had armored a warthog and left it down here to grow mean.
[Magic beast detected!]
[Beasts: Iron-Head Hog]
[Rank: F-Rank]
It looked at him.
He looked at it.
’Okay,’ David thought. ’So there are monsters. Hmm, but armored? That could be tricky.’
He moved first.
Not away—toward. The Dragon Claw came up as he closed the distance, gambling on the brief hesitation before the beast fully committed to its attack.
It made it faster than he expected.
The warthog dropped its head, iron plates catching the amber light, and let out a sound that wasn’t quite a screech and wasn’t quite a grunt — something between the two that David felt in his back teeth. Then it went completely still.
One hoof scraped the ground. Once. Twice.
’Oh, that’s not good.’
It charged.
He threw himself sideways, rolling hard across the grass, and the beast blew past him like a truck — all weight and momentum and zero interest in stopping.
The ground shook beneath it. He came up on one knee and watched it overshoot by twenty meters before the hooves bit in and it ground to a halt.
It turned. Slower now. Reassessing.
David rose to his feet, breathing controlled, eyes tracking.
He watched the warthog lower its head again, hooves beginning to scrape. ’Hmm...Again?’
He waited.
’So...I just have to use it.’
It came.
This time David didn’t roll — he moved laterally, deliberately late, waiting until the beast was fully committed before he stepped aside.
As it thundered past, he drove the Dragon Claw into the gap between the iron plates at its neck. Not deep. An inch, maybe two.
The blade caught the edge of something and the hog screamed — raw and ugly — and kept going, momentum tearing it off the blade before he could push further.
It stumbled. Caught itself. Kept moving.
David watched the blood well up from the wound, dark and slow against the iron plating.
’Didn’t get deep enough.’
"Come back," he said.
The blade snapped back to his hand.
He exhaled.
’Round two.’
The hog was hurt and it knew it. Pink blood ran freely from its neck, matting the iron plates, dripping steadily into the grass.
It turned to face him and the movement was slower now, labored — but the eyes hadn’t changed. Still mean. Still locked on him.
The hog didn’t charge immediately.
It circled him instead, slow and deliberate, snorting through flared nostrils.
Blood dripped steadily from the wound in its neck, splashing into the grass with every heavy step. Its small eyes never left him, watching, judging.
David adjusted his footing, Dragon Claw held low.
’Steady...steadyy...’
For a few seconds neither of them moved.
Then the beast’s patience snapped.
It exploded forward without warning, dashing with speed and overwhelming momentum.
David was already gone.
He went straight — directly at it — then broke at the last second and let it blow past, immediately spinning and sprinting for its rear.
By the time it started to turn, he was already behind it.
The Dragon Claw found the back of the hind leg — the soft space behind the joint where no plate covered — and he dragged it through in one clean pull.
The hog collapsed onto its hindquarters with a sound like a tree coming down.
It screeched. Tried to rise. Couldn’t.
David vaulted onto its back, grabbed the edge of an iron plate for purchase, and drove the blade down — into the neck, into the gap between the shoulder plates, into every opening the thrashing body gave him.
The hog wailed and heaved beneath him, iron plates clattering, but the hind legs were gone and there was nothing to throw him.
He stabbed. Again. Again.
Pink blood sprayed across his forearm, his jaw, the edge of his breastplate. He barely registered it.
The hog’s cries grew shorter, further apart — the thrashing giving way to shuddering, the shuddering giving way to stillness.
He kept going.
He wasn’t sure exactly when it stopped moving. He was already mid-swing when he realized the sound had stopped — no more screaming, no more scraping of plate against earth. Just the quiet of the grassland and the wet sound of the blade coming down one last time.
He stopped.
Chest heaving. Blood cooling on his face.
Silence stretched across the grassland.
The wind whispered through the sea of green, carrying away the echoes of the beast’s dying cries. David didn’t move. His eyes stayed fixed on the hog, waiting for another twitch, another desperate attempt to rise.
It never came.
Only then did he finally let out a long, shaky breath.
The Dragon Claw lowered slightly in his hand, and only then did a blue light shimmered into existence before him.
[CONGRATULATIONS.]
[You have Slain your first creature!]
[Iron-Head Hog: Slain.]
[+50 System Points awarded.]
He read it twice.
’Fifty points.’
He looked down at the hog. At the mess. At the Dragon Claw still in his hand, dark to the hilt.
Then he straightened up slowly and wiped his face with the back of his wrist.
It did essentially nothing.
’Well...that was...something. ’ he thought.