Chương 1: The Poorest Dungeon Ever

Owen had a serious problem: his energy reserves were practically gone. [Soul Energy: 537] That was his entire net worth. He had no idea how much energy a freshly born, fully functional dungeon was supposed to have at its disposal. But this number was clearly, painfully wrong. Way too low. He pulled up the terrain menu, fully intending to lay down a standard, run-of-the-mill dungeon floor, only to discover, to his deep embarrassment, that his points didn't even come close to covering it.

"You've got to be kidding me." Owen's wail echoed through the Core Chamber.

"My bank account at the end of the month was bigger than this." In the end, all Owen could afford was a narrow, comically short canyon: a single straight strip of terrain. Why a canyon? Open-air. That saved him a nice chunk of energy. Owen gave himself a mental pat on the back for the frugal choice. Thankfully, dressing up such a tiny patch of land with environmental detail didn't cost much extra. Rock walls grew out of nothing.

The earth churned up a layer of pale grey stone, and a few handfuls of yellow sand were scattered across it for flavor. Wind rushed through the canyon, howling, dry, carrying grit. A desolate little valley. The starting chamber was a sealed stone chamber. He hadn't designed it; it had simply been there from the beginning. A single exit opened out into the canyon, the walls scarred by the weight of ages, and the floor bore a faded but regular circular pattern.

To his surprise, Owen discovered the chamber was a safe zone: he couldn't place anything inside it. But he didn't have time to dwell on that. Just shaping the canyon and its basic structure had eaten through nearly half his energy. [Build Cost: 246. Upkeep Cost: 2] Next came the guards. There were no base templates to draw from, but the moment Owen started imagining one, the interface obligingly began to construct it. On reflex, he pictured a dragon.

The next instant, his core body burned so hot it felt like it was about to split in half. The cost would have wiped out his starting funds ten times over. Owen yanked the thought back as fast as he could. What he eventually settled on was a slow, shambling creature with withered skin stretched tight over bone, clutching a broken sword or a rusted dagger. It moved sluggishly.

He briefly considered making it a bit faster, but the price tag started climbing so aggressively that he hurriedly reverted to the original design. The finished product was a perfectly ordinary Tier-One Monster. Cheap, too: just 3 Soul Energy to spawn one, with upkeep at a tenth of that. Gritting his teeth, Owen splurged and created twenty of them in one go. Drawing on his memory of all those games he'd played after work, he positioned them in corners, behind cover, set up ambushes.

And finally, to keep adventurers from walking straight through to the bronze gate at the far end of the canyon, he went big. A figure two and a half meters tall, clad in battered armor, gripping a broken longsword. Visually, it was not much different from the Desiccated Corpses; he wasn't in any mood for fine artistic work right now. [Gatekeeper Cassandre] [Build Cost: 198] [Soul Energy: 33] [Daily Upkeep Cost: 10] Wonderful. The system had even rounded the numbers up for him.

Which meant if no one showed up within three days, he was finished. Owen's consciousness drifted through the entire dungeon on a slow circuit, then settled gently back into the Core Chamber. Then he waited. Quietly. This was a second life he'd stumbled into in the first place. If it ended here, he could only chalk it up to bad luck. But if he managed to grow, well, he wouldn't mind leaving something behind in this world. ◆ ◆ ◆ Two days passed.

Just as Owen was starting to think this might actually be the end, the management interface suddenly flashed a new notification. [External Activity Detected] [Entrance Activated] Someone had come. ◆ ◆ ◆ The Adventurers' Guild classified it as a Newborn Dungeon. Half a day's walk from Blackstone Town, deep in the forest, a doorway of light had appeared on the side of a small hill. A group of hunters working the woods had been the first to notice it.

The gate radiated a faint, hazy glow, and reaching toward it brought a soft tug of suction against the skin. None of them had dared go in. The only thing they did was head straight back and report it to the Guild. The Guild, in turn, issued the contract to any available party. ◆ ◆ ◆ Rayne Hallock leaned against a tree, eyes on the doorway of light in front of him. Completely unremarkable.

Most of the hillside was bare grey rock, and the gate was set into a relatively smooth section of stone, about two men tall, one man wide, glowing softly white. If you weren't looking carefully, you might have written it off as a trick of the light.

"This is the place?" Tyren ambled up beside him, tilting his head.

"It doesn't look like the usual ones with proper entrances… you don't think it's going to be a tough one, do you?"

"Shut that jinxing mouth of yours." Serin raised her wooden staff and rapped him on the back of the head.

"I was just —""Stop. Every time you say 'I was just,' something terrible happens to us." Tyren muttered something under his breath, then went quiet. Rayne didn't bother getting involved in the bickering. After months working together, he was used to it. His attention stayed on the gate. A portal-type dungeon. Rare. From the look of it, though, definitely a Newborn Dungeon. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Generally speaking, the more ornate and ancient a dungeon looked, the nastier it tended to be. But with portal-type entrances, you could never be sure what kind of world waited on the other side. He remembered one time he'd stepped through a portal and ended up in a frozen wasteland. He had absolutely no desire to dwell on what had happened after that. Their current party consisted of him, a Peak Black Iron, and four others, all High White Porcelain. Handling a Newborn Dungeon shouldn't be difficult.

"Head in, take a look around, draw up a map. Log the types and counts of monsters you encounter. If it's easy enough, feel free to clear it on your way out." That's how the clerk had described it at the counter, in the breeziest tone imaginable. Rayne knew better than to relax. He closed a hand around the pendant at his chest and drew a slow breath.

"Alright, you four, come over here." He turned to face them, his tone conversational. Tyren. Serin. Barton. Asar. Four White Porcelains who'd been with him for a stretch now. Their rapport had grown solid. Rayne had already decided this would be his last job with the party. Once they were done, he'd move on.

"I've gone over everything that needs saying plenty of times already, so I won't repeat myself. Watch yourselves in there." He paused, his eyes settling on Tyren.

"Tyren."

"What? I haven't even done anything yet."

"Exactly. That's why I'm keeping an eye on you up front." Rayne clapped him on the shoulder.

"Don't push too far ahead. You're a ranger, not an assassin. Stop trying to play with that dagger of yours every chance you get."

"I'm a fully versatile ranger, thank you very much." Serin rolled her eyes and gave him another thump on the head.

"Screw around again, and next time you can go find some other cleric back in town to patch you up."

"Fine, fine." Serin huffed, then laughed in spite of herself. Barton silently adjusted his grip on his shield. Asar ruffled Tyren's hair and stepped over to stand at Rayne's side. Rayne pulled his gaze back. He walked up to the gate and pressed his hand against it. The suction spread from his palm up his arm, then through his whole body. His vision was swallowed by white light. ◆ ◆ ◆ When the glare faded, he was standing in a stone chamber. Four stone walls. No windows.

Orange torchlight flickered from sconces along the walls, the flames swaying gently in the breeze drifting in from outside. A faded ring of patterns marked the floor, and unintelligible carvings ran along the walls, the lines old and worn, edges nearly indistinct. He walked a slow circuit around the chamber. Nothing out of the ordinary. A standard safe zone. He turned and pressed his hand to the gate on the wall, confirming he could exit back through it, before stepping outside to call the others in.

"Huh. Looks the same as everywhere else." Tyren looked around, already reaching out to touch the wall.

"Don't go pawing at things. Did you forget again?" Tyren snatched his hand back, but his eyes kept roving.

"These chicken scratches look older than my grandmother." The chamber had only one exit: a sloping passage leading upward. The wind was coming from that direction, dry and threaded with fine grit.

"Barton, you take point. I'll stay back for now." ◆ ◆ ◆ Less than fifty paces up the passage, the space opened out. They were standing at the bottom of a canyon. Towering rock walls rose to either side, the top wide open to a sky of pale grey light that spilled down and made the entire canyon seem to shimmer. The wind ran back and forth between the walls, howling, while sand skittered along the ground in low, restless drifts.

A single path ran straight ahead, lined with the remains of broken structures: half-collapsed walls and toppled stone pillars carving the canyon into sections where they couldn't see clearly from one end to the other.

"Only one road, huh." Tyren frowned.

"This dungeon's kind of a dump." Rayne didn't answer. He was sizing up the thing that had just come into view ahead. A humanoid creature stood squarely in the middle of the path, impossible to miss. Dry, pale flesh clung to its bones like glue, wrinkled and shriveled. It gripped a rusted, broken sword. Strips of rotted cloth hung from its frame as it shambled aimlessly back and forth.

"Just one?" Tyren had already pulled his bowstring taut.

"Wait." Asar wasn't looking at the corpse. His eyes were on the ruins flanking the path: a half-toppled wall on the left, a leaning stone pillar braced against the rock face on the right. Their line of sight was cut off. Asar glanced toward Rayne. Rayne only shook his head and said nothing.

"Tyren, try to draw it over."

"On it." Tyren released the string. The arrow tore through the air, neatly missing the corpse's chest and burying itself in its shoulder instead. A beat of silence. Tyren's face flushed crimson, but he didn't open his mouth. He just nocked another arrow and drew again. Before his second shot could fly, the corpse had already shifted into a stumbling gait, heading straight for them. Faster than expected, a little quicker than a person walking, though still no real threat. Barton stepped forward to meet it.

He didn't attack first. He just braced his shield and waited for the corpse to strike. The broken sword came down. The blow wasn't especially hard. Barton was about to counter when he heard Rayne shout from behind him.

"Not yet! Hold!" Sure enough. The next attacks came one after another. The corpse wrenched its withered body in wide, sweeping arcs, each swing of the broken sword faster than the last. Barton clenched his teeth. Cold sweat slid down his temple. He took every blow on the shield, steady and unshaken. When the corpse finally stalled, slumping to its knees, Barton drove his sword down and took its head off in a single stroke.

"Okay, that was downright dirty," Tyren bellowed from behind.

"Anyone caught off guard by that would've been in a world of hurt."

"You. Hush." Serin trotted up.

"Barton, are you alright?" Barton shook his head.

"I'm fine. Probably would've taken a couple of hits if Greyhound hadn't given us the heads-up, though." She let out a quiet breath of relief. Everyone's attention shifted to the body on the ground. ◆ ◆ ◆ The corpse was already crumbling. Left behind was a small heap of bone dust with the broken sword still lodged in it. And one small, irregular gem, glowing faintly with a hazy blue light.

"It actually dropped a magic crystal!" Serin gasped, immediately crouching down to pick it up.

"A creature this weak dropped a magic crystal?" Asar reached out and took it, holding it up to the light to study it carefully. A second of silence.

"…And it's blue." No one spoke. Barton leaned in too, took one look, and frowned.

"The quality's clean," Asar said.

"Looks like it could be used as-is."

"…That's not right, is it?" Serin looked at Rayne. Rayne didn't answer right away. He took the crystal, weighed it in his palm. Clean, sure enough.

"…Put it away for now." Rayne handed the crystal back to Serin.

"We'll talk about it after we're out."

"Oh man, are we about to be rich?" Tyren couldn't hold it in any longer, and made to charge straight in, only to be yanked back by the scruff of his collar by Rayne.

"Don't let greed blind you. You just saw what happened. That corpse was weak, but those wild swings would've put someone in the ground if they'd been caught flat-footed." Beside him, Serin was already raising her oak staff again, primed to swing. Tyren waved his hands frantically.

"I know, I know! Come on, I didn't actually —" The staff was already coming down. His howling echoed through the canyon.

"We don't know how many more there are ahead." Rayne's eyes swept the path forward as he thought it through.

"We'll push in slowly. I think you can all handle this." The party exchanged glances. Barton moved back to the front, shield lowered into guard. Tyren dropped back to the left flank, bow half-drawn. Serin held the center of the formation, while Asar fell into place on the right, his gaze never leaving the corners and shadows where something might be hiding. The party began its careful, deliberate advance into the canyon. ◆ ◆ ◆ Back in the Core Chamber, watching all of it unfold, Owen let out a delighted laugh.

"Well, this is interesting. Didn't expect the first group to be so cautious." Pity, really. He'd been hoping at least one of them would have shrieked. Owen's gaze, or rather, his attention, swept across the management interface. The Desiccated Corpse, once it died, hadn't returned any energy at all. Which meant dungeon monsters were consumables. Once they died, they were gone. But during that brief skirmish, the tension, fear, excitement, and greed from the adventurers had generated some fresh Soul Energy.

Not much. But some. For now, that was enough. Owen wasn't too worried about it. Only one thing still worried him. He really hoped Trial Return actually worked. He might no longer have a human body, but he had never once intended to actually take someone's life.

"Go on, then. My first adventurers." He spoke softly.

"I hope you make it out alive."