People grow.

In various different ways.

Perhaps by reading a book, or looking back on your past, or having an honest conversation with a friend for the first time, or having a dream you truly desire.

Or –

By envying someone else’s good fortune, or witnessing someone else’s misfortune, or realizing the degree of your lust for someone or something.

Any inspiration that comes from experience contributes to your growth.

The me of today is no exception.

Well, mental growth is probably just a small part of that, though.

“One shortbow, a pair of metal gaiters, three low-level potions, a dozen regular torches.. What’s this, a portrait? Family, maybe? Anyway, let’s throw it away..”

Adding them all up, it’s over 800,000 stones.

Sifting through the backpacks of the yellow-hair’s party, I smile.

After all, this is how it’s always been for me.

Going through some shit doesn’t mean growth will inevitably follow.

But..

“With this, there’ll be three more pieces of armour.”

But growth will never come without going through some shit first.

Damn, now I’m starting to see what I should do next.

I’m walking through a cave.

With Ainar in tow.

“Bjorn, where are we going now?”

“South, to where the gnomes are.”

After a total eight-hour break, four hours rest for each of us, Ainar has also cheered up a little bit.

But she’s still far from her usual liveliness.

“Bjorn, we can go faster. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I.. I want to become stronger. Even just one day, even just one hour earlier.”

“Right.”

It looks like I don’t have to worry about Ainar anymore.

As long as you have a clear goal, dark emotions will only be your nourishment, not poison.

Hm, is the reverse also true?

“I think the same.”

Halting in place, I look back on the steps I’ve taken so far.

The coming-of-age ceremony, entering the labyrinth, becoming night friends with Hans, Erwen, the Goblin Forest, 4:2 battle with the crossbow party, etc.

Thinking about it now, I didn’t make any big mistakes.

I found and chose the best option in every given situation.

But..

In other words, it means I’ve only ever focused on escaping the trial at hand each time.

“Why did you stop all of a sudden?”

“No, let’s keep going.”

I do have excuses.

There was no tutorial or system log.

As soon as I opened my eyes, somebody got his head cut off before my eyes, and from then on, a procession of events that were too far removed from normal reality continued to unfold.

Therefore, I had no choice but to act as passively as possible, putting my safety first.

But is that all?

“Bjorn..? You don’t look so good.”

“Never mind.”

Have I always chosen the best option?

Bullshit.

In the end, all I did was react.

How capable I am, to have taken the best course of action every time – after something had already happened!

If I really want to survive, I need to be more proactive in the future.

So I can make some different choices.

Didn’t my uncle, a diehard gambling addict, also say so?

Instead of playing on a board made by others, throw the dice on a board you’ve made yourself.

Okay, time for a change of plans.

“Ainar, do you really want to become strong?”

When I suddenly stop again and ask, Ainar expresses her bewilderment.

“.. What do you mean?”

“It’s asking for commitment. There definitely is a way to become stronger. But it comes with risks. What will you do?”

High risk, high return.

How will she respond to this proposal?

After watching me for a moment, Ainar gulps, her eyes brightening.

“Of course, I’ll do it. If we don’t become strong, we’ll all die anyway!”

Yes, that’s true.

That’s how the game had been set.

Ainar, who’d expressed her consent, shouts again.

“I am now a warrior!”

Weren’t you one already?

Pfft.

Looking at that barbarian-like attitude that seems so inefficient, but sometimes becomes more efficient than anything else, I understand her a little bit better.

“So, how do I get stronger?”

The easy way is also the slow way.

There are so many things in this world that can only be called natural disasters.

No matter which path you take, you might fall into the abyss anytime, without warning.

And for me who’s prone to living an interesting life, it could be much more frequent.

So..

“We’ll enter a rift.”

Offence is the best defence. Whoever strikes first has the advantage.

This time, I’m going to take the initiative and plunge into danger headfirst.

As someone famous had said –

The pain that doesn’t kill me, will make me stronger.

“Oh! I see!”

Ainar heard my plan and exclaimed.

And then asked carefully.

“.. But what’s a rift?”

How could she be this ignorant despite being a native?

Couldn’t she crack open some books once in a while?

Uhm.. come to think of it, she still couldn’t read the letters properly.

“Rift.. In short, it’s a labyrinth within the labyrinth.”

I skipped over the finer details.

She wouldn’t understand anyway even if I explained.

“A labyrinth within the labyrinth?”

“Right.”

Should I say that [Dungeon & Stone] is like few games these days?

If I had to explain to another modern person, I would’ve used the phrase ‘instant dungeon[1]‘.

“On each floor, a portal can sometimes open at a random location. When you enter it, you see a new space, which is not on the second or third floors.”

“Ah! Are you talking about the Frostlord’s Palace?”

Apparently, she’d heard about it, at least.

The Frostlord’s Palace is a space accessible from the rift on the eighth floor.

Now that I remembered, how much effort did I spend trying to get the Frostlord’s essence..

“But is it possible with just the two of us? I heard that even the chieftain almost died when he ventured there in his youth.”

“Right. We’re on the first floor.”

A total of four types of rifts can be opened from the first floor.

The difficulty is far, far easier compared to the rifts on the other floors.

By the standard of us two, I’d have to give them a challenge rating of maybe seven stars?

Of course, that was seven stars out of five.

“But how can we get into a place that appears randomly?”

“Don’t worry. There’s a way.”

I was an old pro of nine years at the game, solidly into the ranks of the ‘deceased’.

I’d found hundreds of hidden pieces in this brutal game.

“Bjorn, I will only trust you!”

Instead of heading further south, we turned east.

Originally, I’d wanted to hunt gnomes, kobolds, and stone golems on the second floor of the southern route, at the ‘Blackrock Mountain’.

A stone golem’s ‘suppression’ is painful, but as long as you prepare for it in advance, they don’t have any other strategy.

However, who knew how long it’d take to reach the eighth floor if I kept playing it safe, and if I even would?

“You two barbarians. Are you looking for a night friend? With three of us, we can get more sleep –”

“Screw off.”

“No, I was just asking –”

“I’m going to crack your skull open in three seconds.”

As we crossed the first floor, some other people tried sticking to us besides the monsters, but they were all filtered out by Ainar.

.. But did she really need to be that harsh?

“I hate humans more than idiots.”

It seemed that Ainar had evolved beyond the level of mere distrust for humans and into a state of hatred.

Puff! Puff! Crunch!

We finally reached our destination after traveling for nearly twenty hours, smashing down the monsters that blocked our way.

The time was around 4 am.

I could once again feel how large the first floor was.

The fact that it took more than a day to get from the west end to the centre was enough to prove it, disregarding how treacherous and maze-like the paths were in the first floor that was designed like an anthill.

“Bjorn, isn’t this the entrance to the first floor?”

Strictly speaking, the word “entrance” was ambiguous.

Most entrance points tended to favour one side, either north or south.

First of all, there was no light here, right?

Crrrackle!

Holding a burning torch, one of the regular ones I’d looted from the yellow-hair’s party, we entered the dark zone.

How long was it after that?

「You hunted a gnome. EXP +1」

「You hunted a blade wolf. EXP +1」

After completing our eighth battle, Ainar exclaimed in wonder as if it were a miracle.

“All four types of monsters appear here! I never knew there was such a place at the centre of the first floor.”

This was common knowledge for most adventurers, but this was not a place they usually visited.

By analogy, was it perhaps comparable to a convergence point where warm and cold oceanic currents met?

In the zone where we now stood, blade wolves from the east, ghouls from the west, gnomes from the south and goblins from the north all appeared.

But..

“It’s strangely empty.”

This area was not popular with the adventurers.

For a simple reason.

Even if all four types of monsters appeared, that only increased the challenge and the risk.

It wasn’t like the monsters were any less in number.

‘In addition, the most fatal disadvantage is the bad price-to-performance ratio, because you have to spend money on torches.’

In fact, no one came here except for those who crossed it to save on travel time.

But old experts like me, liked this kind of place.

Wasn’t it suspicious?

It was a natural fit for hiding stuff from the game producer’s point of view.

“But, why are we here?”

“Wait a bit. It’ll come out soon.”

After an hour of wandering around in the dark, changing directions again and again.

Eventually I got to where I wanted to be.

“Come on, we’re here.”

An opening about 30m in radius.

In the middle of that open space, uncommon on this first floor which was structured like a maze-filled anthill, stood a monument.

“.. What is that?”

“A monument. To honour the first discoverer of this labyrinth.”

I cautiously approached, and read the inscription at the bottom.

[In commemoration of that great first step taken by the last of the great sages, Diplan Groundel Gabrilius].

The content of the text was the same as it’d been in the game.

In other words, it was highly likely that this place was the same as the ‘hidden piece’ I’d found in the game.

“Ainar, what happens next is a secret. Do you understand?”

“I get it.”

“It needs to be an oath, not just words. If this news spreads, we may both be in danger.”

“.. I will swear on my honour as a warrior.”

“Thank you.”

I slowly loosened the pouch on my waist.

Goblin, gnome, ghoul, and blade wolf.

Mana stones of the four types of monsters that appeared on the first floor, as well as the mana stone of a deathfiend, a level eight monster.

I started placing them all in front of the great sage’s monument.

“It’ll start soon.”

All the preparations for forcibly opening the rift were in place.

The instance dungeons[2] of [Dungeon and Stone] –

Or rather, the rifts, have cooldowns.

Take the first floor as an example. It takes at least three cycles, three months in city time, for a ‘rift’ to reopen.

Of course, it’s rare for a rift to reopen immediately after three months, and most times a rift opens randomly every five to six cycles.

The maximum, maybe eight cycles? Something like that.

“..”

Keep in mind, this is all a result of my own investigation.

When I’d been working hard to get the Frostlord’s essence, I’d needed to know more about ‘rifts’.

It isn’t efficient to just wander around waiting for the rift to open, after all.

“Is there something wrong?”

“No.”

Shaking off my old memories, I place the deathfiend’s mana stone in my hand in front of the monument.

If the ‘rift’ had opened within the last three cycles, that is, if it’s still in cooldown, there will be no response..

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrumble!

Before long, the mana stones I’d put down disappear in a flash of light, and the monument starts shaking.

It’s really happening.

Boom!

The vibrations intensify, and a black portal opens in front of us.

“Let’s go in.”

“Uh, um. I get it!”

I hurriedly throw myself into it, with Ainar close behind.

Hey, the team might get filled up in the next ten seconds.

「The character has entered a rift on the first floor.」

I look around and check our surroundings while Ainar collects herself from where she’d hit the ground, ass-first.

A red sky that seems to herald the end of the world.

A murder of crows flying overhead, and a black fortress looming forebodingly in the distance.

Needless to say, this is one of the four rift types on the first floor, the ‘Blood Citadel’.

Since the eighth-grade mana stone I’d offered as a sacrifice belonged to deathfiend, it’s only natural.

Whoosh!

After we wait for a while, another portal opens in the air and spits a person out.

This is the decisive reason why I’d planned to delay coming here until later, even though I knew not only how to definitively open the ‘rift’, but also the optimal strategy to conquer it.

Because I’m more afraid of adventurers than monsters.

“Heh heh heh! I finally managed to get in!”

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a five-man team with guaranteed confidentiality?

If you enter this way, you must clear the rift with some random adventurers who enter on a first-come, first-served basis.

In gaming terms, auto-matching.

Feeling a bit nervous, I check out our first team member.

“Ooh! It’s reassuring to have two barbarians! Lucky! My name is Hikurod Murad! As you can see, I’m a dwarf, hahahaha!!”

A chatterbox dwarf.

No matter how skilled he might be, it doesn’t look bad.

With a little luck, maybe the rest would also be like this..

Pfft.

Or am I getting too big for my britches again?

Fuck, just come, whoever you are.

I’m not going to hold on to any hopes or expectations.

「A new colleague has joined your journey. 」

Two more team members are added soon after.

Editor’s Notes:

[1] ???? ?? (instant dungeon). This is different from ???? ?? (instance dungeon). The former is shared across all users whereas the latter spawns different instances of a dungeon for different sets of users. Shared vs sharded universe, writ small. The labyrinth here is the former, rifts apparently the latter.

[2] ?? (indun) is a short form for instance dungeons.