John went on to another floor, which is 7th. He looked around immediately, scanning the surroundings and he found himself similar to floor 9. It was like a cave, dark, expansive, and smelling strongly of damp earth, unrefined iron ore, and sulfur.
The ambient temperature was significantly higher here, a stifling heat radiating off subterranean vents and distant smithy fires. Through the AN/PVS-31A night vision goggles, the white-phosphor display revealed massive, hand-carved stone pillars reinforcing a sprawling network of underground mine shafts and wooden scaffolding.
Thick, heavy clanking echoed through the cavern, accompanied by the rhythmic thud of pickaxes smashing against stone and the guttural, booming shouts of harsh command.
John crouched low behind a pile of raw iron ore, bringing up his FN SCAR-H to a high-ready stance. His maxed-out Combat Perception immediately filtered the ambient noise, isolating individual footsteps, heavy breathing, and the distinct metallic scrape of iron armor.
He brought up his system interface with a silent thought to run a local tactical sweep.
[Local Area Scan: Floor 7 - The Iron Crucible Mines]
Fifty yards down the primary rail track, a patrol rounded the corner of a stone support pillar.
Unlike the mindless beasts of the earlier floors, these were disciplined, heavily built Orc Veterans standing over seven feet tall. They were clad in thick, crude plates of dark iron armor, wielding massive warhammers and heavy, serrated iron cleavers. Leading them was a towering Orc Taskmaster equipped with a spiked tower shield and a heavy, iron-tipped whip.
[Target Identification: Iron-Claw Orc Vanguard (Level 42 - 45)]
[Quantity: 6 Patrol Signatures Detected]
"How come there is a mine in a dungeon?" he thought to himself and then realized something. "Does that mean that there is a real exit here?"
He contemplated even deeper. Maybe dungeons are just places in this world where access can be through a teleporter or a gate. If these orcs were actively mining iron ore, forging armor, and running a supply line, they weren’t just spawned illusions living in a self-contained pocket dimension. They were a living, breathing civilization exploiting real subterranean geology. And a real, physical mine meant one thing: heavy logistics.
They had to ship that refined iron somewhere. They needed trade routes, surface entrances, and supply shafts to move raw tonnage out of these depths.
"Which means this place isn’t just an abstract stack of magical floors," John realized. "The teleporters are just shortcut gates between massive, interconnected underground sectors of the actual world. There has to be a physical exit somewhere in these tunnels leading straight to the surface."
The thought sent a sharp surge of cold adrenaline through his chest. If he could find the mine’s primary transport shaft or cargo lift, he wouldn’t just be blindly clearing floor after floor—he could bypass the dungeon’s system mechanics entirely and ride a rail track straight back into the real world.
His gaze snapped back to the six-man orc patrol marching down the rail line.
If anyone knew where the main surface transport tunnels were located, it was the taskmasters running the floor’s logistics.
"Guess I’m taking a prisoner," John muttered softly into his mic, adjusting his grip on the SCAR-H’s angled foregrip.
He silently thumbed his fire selector switch to semi-automatic. He didn’t want a full-auto spray turning the Orc Taskmaster into pulp before he could interrogate him—or at least extract information from whatever maps or ledgers the beast carried.
Using the darkness to shadow his movements, John slipped behind a heavy wooden support beam ten meters from the patrol’s path, breathing slowly, waiting for the vanguard to step right into his kill zone.
The taskmaster brought the heavy iron butt of his whip down onto the gravel, barking a guttural command that halted the five Orc Veterans behind him. The patrol paused right beneath a flickering torch bracket, their thick, dark iron plates squeaking as they scanned the gloom.
John didn’t give them time to register the shadow shifting behind the support beam.
THWIP-THWIP!
Using the suppressed FN SCAR-H, John put two 7.62x51mm AP rounds clean through the skulls of the two rear guards. The tungsten penetrators punched through their iron helmets like cheap tin, dropping both seven-foot warriors silently into the dirt before their bodies even hit the ground.
[Target Eliminated: Iron-Claw Orc Vanguard (Level 42)]
[Target Eliminated: Iron-Claw Orc Vanguard (Level 43)]
Before the remaining three orcs could turn, John lunged out from behind the beam, closing the ten-meter gap with explosive, maxed-out speed.
He drove the muzzle of his SCAR-H directly under the chin of the third vanguard and squeezed the trigger.
THWIP!
The third orc collapsed instantly.
The fourth guard swung a massive iron warhammer in a wide, desperate arc. John’s Combat Perception tracked the incoming blow in near-slomo—he ducked beneath the whistling head of the hammer, stepped inside the monster’s guard, and unholstered his FN FNX-45 Tactical with his right hand.
BOOM! BOOM!
Two heavy .45 ACP (+P) rounds shattered the orc’s knee joint, dropping the giant to his knees before John drove a third round through its eye socket.
In less than three seconds, four heavily armored veterans were dead.
The Orc Taskmaster let out a furious roar, raising its spiked tower shield and bringing its iron-tipped whip cracking down toward John’s head.
John didn’t flinch. He grabbed the heavy leather lash mid-air with his gloved left hand, utilizing his maxed-out Physical Conditioning to yank the fourteen-hundred-pound brute off balance. As the Taskmaster stumbled forward, John slammed the heavy suppressor of his SCAR-H straight into the creature’s snout, shattering its tusk and driving it back against the mine rail.
Before the Taskmaster could recover, John pressed the hot barrel of his hand-cannon firmly against the center of the beast’s forehead.
He’ll try to communicate, maybe monsters in this world can speak human language.
"Where is this place? Where’s the exit?"
It tried replying back but he couldn’t understand the language. In short, he’s useless.
John didn’t waste another breath.
BOOM!
The FNX-45 barked once, sending a high-pressure .45 ACP (+P) round straight through the Taskmaster’s skull. The massive brute went limp instantly, collapsing over the iron mine rails with a hollow, metallic thud.
[Target Eliminated: Iron-Claw Orc Taskmaster (Level 45)]
[Calculating Experience...]
"So much for a civil conversation," John muttered, kicking the beast’s corpse onto its side.
He crouched down, his gloved hands rapidly searching the Taskmaster’s thick, iron-reinforced leather rig. He bypassed the rusted daggers and crude bone trinkets, looking for anything that pointed to the layout of the mine.
His fingers caught on a heavy, iron-bound leather pouch hanging off the back of the Taskmaster’s belt. John sliced the strap with his combat knife and dumped the contents onto the flat stone floor.
Out tumbled a set of heavy brass keys, a crude charcoal-drawn map etched into tanned hide, and a thick brass compass with markings that hummed with a faint, magical static.
John picked up the map, spreading it out beneath his AN/PVS-31A night vision goggles. The white-phosphor optics enhanced the rough charcoal lines in sharp detail.
The blueprint detailed the entirety of Floor 7—The Iron Crucible Mines. Dozens of minor tunnels converged toward a massive central cavern labeled with a crude symbol of a gear and an upward-pointing arrow. Running straight through the center was a thick, double-lined track system marked with heavy iron cart icons, leading directly to a vertical shaft labeled with ancient runic script that his system HUD immediately translated.
[Structure Identified on Map: Primary Freight Shaft & Mechanical Cargo Lift]
[Function: Heavy Industrial Transport to Surface Logistics Network]
[Distance: 800 Meters Ahead (Central Processing Hub)]
A ruthless, victorious smirk carved across John’s face behind his tactical mask.
"Bingo," John growled softly, shoving the hide map and brass keys into his cargo pocket. "They don’t just walk the iron out—they haul it straight up to the surface on a heavy freight elevator."
He reholstered his FNX-45, reloaded a fresh 20-round magazine of 7.62x51mm AP into his SCAR-H, and racked the bolt.
The teleporter altar on this floor was somewhere deep in the boss chamber, but John didn’t care about the system’s floor-by-floor rules anymore. If this freight shaft led straight to the surface, he was taking the express elevator out of this hellhole—and blowing through every orc standing between him and the haul line.