The moment he stepped inside the dungeon, he felt a breath of fresh air that he couldn’t quite feel outside. It was like stepping into a forest, except he was standing inside an overly bright cave.
The cave was illuminated by the crystals Light had mentioned. Blue and red... and black? There were a couple of black crystals embedded in the ceiling, and Arthur couldn’t tell whether he was imagining it, but something seemed to be moving inside them.
Uhh... Am I the only one who can see that, or is this not that unusual? Arthur wondered. Unless this is the protection Light and the other guy were here for?
Oh well. He didn’t concern himself with it too much. Instead, he glanced around and noticed groups of miners working together to mine something. None of them seemed particularly strong, and this bit of cooperation probably helped all of them get their work done and go home faster.
"Hey, you. Want to join us?"
He turned toward the voice and spotted a burly, bald man in a group of five mining some red ore. Arthur shook his head.
"Sorry, I’m planning to warm up my muscles by myself. I might join you later."
"Suit yourself, then, weirdo."
"...?"
What a rude egghead.
Despite that, Arthur didn’t concern himself with the other miners and found a spot where no one else was mining. He placed his giant sack on the ground and brought down his pickaxe. To his genuine surprise, the ores were actually really hard. But as if the pickaxes were made out of something special, it only took three strikes to split the ore in half.
After that, chopping everything up became much simpler. He breezed through ore after ore, filling his sack over and over again. Every time he filled it up, he brought it back to Light, who stored it somewhere.
He didn’t know where exactly, since the ores just kind of vanished into thin air. Regardless, this was pretty damn good exercise. Most of the muscles in his body were being activated, and his stats were steadily rising too.
But sometime later, Arthur began to slow down. It wasn’t because he was getting tired. Rather, he had noticed the expression on Light’s face.
He was... concerned. Maybe even a little scared.
Light seemed to roam around in circles while repeatedly trying to call someone on his phone, but no one responded.
His friend was acting similarly. Except instead of staying in place, he had gone deeper into the dungeon, eventually fading out of sight entirely.
Arthur was starting to get the feeling that something was happening behind the scenes.
He filled his sack again and then went over to Light. As before, Light calmly took the ores and told him to get back to work. This time, however, Arthur felt like he needed to address the elephant in the room.
"Are we stuck here?"
"...Huh? S-Stuck? How could we be stuck? Hahaha. No, the exit simply changed positions. That tends to happen every now and again, especially in low-level dungeons. You see, some rascals might go inside and clear the dungeon, thus resetting it."
"Uh-huh."
Yeah, Arthur didn’t believe him one bit.
"Now get back to work, alright? The sooner you’re finished, the faster we can leave."
To Arthur’s surprise, Light suddenly vanished, reappearing on the ceiling of the cavern as he carefully inspected it.
The realization dawned on Arthur that the reason this guy called himself Light might be because he actually had some sort of power related to light itself. That, or he simply had an insane movement speed that went far beyond Arthur’s perception.
Whatever it was, Arthur decided to take matters into his own hands.
Hey, Victoria? If you can hear me, can you check where I am right now?
[...]
[Where even are you...?] She sounded confused. [I can’t pinpoint your location. It says that you’re in space, but also somewhere in this world.]
Ah, I’m in a dungeon. Though the exit of the dungeon seems to have closed, so I don’t really know what to do now, he replied.
[A closed dungeon? That’s... You need to go to the boss room and kill the bosses.]
Bosses?
[Sadly, yes. Whenever a dungeon closes, it’s because another boss monster somehow entered the dungeon. I’m going to try my best to reopen the portal, so be careful. Don’t randomly die or anything.]
With that, he felt the connection grow even fainter.
But hey, what were the odds that the first dungeon he had ever entered in his life would do something like this? Seriously, what were the odds?
"Tsk..."
Arthur took a deep breath, and just as he was about to call out to Light, who was leisurely crawling along the ceiling, he saw a pitch-black critter fall from above, its sharp wings pointed forward as it hurtled toward him.
He reacted without thinking and moved out of the way, barely avoiding the weird critter as it slammed into the ground where he had been standing, its body carving a deep crater into the stone.
Arthur stared at it with a confused look.
It was small, and it looked somewhat insect-like.
Pitch-black wings protruded from its back, while several twisted limbs dug into the ground as it slowly pulled itself free. One of its eyes was blue, while the other was red.
And as the cherry on top, both of its eyes were staring directly at Arthur.
But hey, he wasn’t a Mary Sue. He wasn’t going to let that insect attack him again.
He gave the insect a slight smile, then mustered all the strength in his body and brought the pickaxe down, piercing straight through the creature and creating an even bigger crater in the ground.
BOOOOOOOM!
"Ah?"
[You have slain: Killing Beetle (Lv.6)]
[You have gained: +60 Experience!]
Arthur stared at the crater, then at the pickaxe, and finally at his own hands.
He might’ve done a shitload of training, but...
I’m actually that strong!?