A few weeks after the formation of the various hero associations and guilds, Chris was frosting a new batch of cupcakes. The frosting had been made with a new ingredient, wind spirit tears. Don't ask Chris how he obtained those, just go with it.
He had just finished the first four cupcakes when the door to his stolen bakery burst open with a loud bang. A young man, tall and athletic looking, flopped down onto the now clean floor. He was panting, gasping for air as he stared up at a man that was completely devoted to carefully frosting the edges of his newest creations.
"Good sir, is this the Temple of Divinity?"
"Hmm?" Chris had barely heard the man, in fact he barely noticed him at all.
"The system said that if I was in trouble, I should go to the Temple of Divinity to seek the mighty counsel of a god."
"Oh, that's nice," Chris replied without looking up.
The young man stared at Chris in confusion. Had the system been wrong? It had been correct on everything so far, so what gives?
The young man pushed himself to his feet, groaning in pain while he did. He had several cuts along with plenty of blue-purple bruises. He looked like he had been in a few dungeons recently.
"I don't mean to interrupt you, but are you the god of this temple?"
Chris stood back, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. His white apron was stained in a rainbow of colors, evidence of his intense alchemical research.
"Oh, hey! Wow, you look like a mess." Chris was now fully aware of the man standing before him. The short, messy black hair with intense blue eyes drew Chris's attention.
"Hmm…"
"Hey, what are you doing?" The young man threw his hands up, stepping back quickly as Chris came around from behind the counter.
Chris walked up to the young man and peered deeply into his eyes. For a few seconds, the young man felt like this stranger was peering into the depths of his very soul.
"Huh. That's pretty odd. I'm forgetting something. What was it?"
Chris scratched his chin while finally looking away from the young man. The young man sighed in relief, the system was telling him absolutely nothing about this stranger other than the title of this location.
The young man quickly brought his system back up, it looked like a typical video game interface. It displayed his name, John Leveling, along with his current level (level 1) next to his health, mana, and stamina bars. There were tabs that he could select to show him his attributes (strength, dexterity, stamina, constitution, wisdom, and intelligence), special abilities, and inventory.
Right now, while looking at the strange man, John Leveling could see that a name tag floated above his head, it simply said, "God of the Temple". Next to his name was a series of question marks (???) where a monster's power level normally would be. All of this was very strange to John. Was this strange man some kind of dungeon boss that had set up shop in the middle of a human city?
"My name is John Leveling, I'm an E-rank hunter. I was abandoned by my friends and left to die in a random dungeon full of random monsters. On the verge of death a mysterious system—"
"Oh! That's right! The slimes!" Chris exclaimed while slapping his forehead, he had been so focused with his experiments that he had completely forgotten to look into why slimes had burst through his bakery doors a few weeks ago.
"Sorry Tom, but I have to go look into something pretty important. You wait here, have a cupcake, I'll be back shortly."
Chris took his apron off and tossed it onto the back of a dining room chair before quickly walking to the door. He felt a bit foolish for letting something like that slip his mind.
"Uh, hey wait! My name is John, not Tom, I'll go with you!"
"Hmm?" Chris turned around and saw that John was practically shaking with excitement. He found that pretty strange, were humans into slimes?
"If you really like slimes that much, then yeah sure I guess you can tag along."
John punched the air before walking past Chris to exit the building first. This was his moment, John could feel it in his bones. He was the protagonist, this was his story. He was going to grind so many experience points that he would level up and become the next SS ranked hunter—
"Hey, wait! Good sir, where are you going? Don't go into that, it's too dangerous—"
John watched in horror as the stranger, wearing a frown, examined a glowing orange portal that had suddenly materialized in the middle of the street. John knew that the portal led to a dungeon, orange portals held monsters stronger than blue portals.
The stranger, not heeding John's warning, had shrugged before stepping into the portal, vanishing completely.
John took a deep breath to calm his nerves. He was only level 1 but he knew that in order to get stronger, he would need to fight monsters to level up. It was his duty as a hunter to protect citizens from danger. He still wasn't sure who or what the strange man from the bakery was but he was certain that this person was going to be in danger. It was up to John to save the God of the Temple.
***
"Warning, you have entered a special dungeon. Defeat the dungeon boss to earn a reward and to exit the dungeon. Good luck!"
The automatic, robotic voice of the loud system greeted John as he found himself standing in a large stone chamber. Torches lined the walls, flickering with an orange yellow glow. They provided just enough illumination to walk safely without bumping into things.
John quickly set off, gripping his two short swords (Margaret and Mary) tightly as he went. His ears twitched at every little sound, his eyes darted to and fro nervously. They could come from any corner, any pool of shadow. He had to be on high alert in this dungeon.
After walking for what felt like twenty minutes, he came upon the ruins of a battlefield. Giant spiders were strewn about the place, smoldering as if someone had hit them with a giant fireball.
"What the hell?" John quickly looked at the monsters with his system interface. The name tags that floated above them read, "Elder Spiders-A Rank".
No way, how had an army of A rank monsters been wiped out like this? John wondered if the stranger he was here to rescue had been the cause of their demise.
"System, can you tell me anything about the 'God of the Temple'?"
"No." The system was fast to answer with a firm tone. That made John suspicious.
"Why not? He could be in danger down here."
"No he isn't."
"How do you know that?"
"Trust me kid—I mean, player please proceed to clear the dungeon."
John shook his head, he had never heard the system speak like that before. Something weird was going on, he was willing to bet money that the stranger needed help.
He quickly took off, determined to locate the God of the Temple before it was too late…
***
"Bunnies?" Chris scratched his head.
He was surrounded by an army of fluffy bunnies with soft white fur. Their eyes were red as they watched him closely.
"Isn't this supposed to be some kind of magical dungeon? Who put a bunch of bunnies in here?"
Chris examined the room he was in. It was pretty much the same as the other rooms he had walked through. So far, he had a misunderstanding with a large union of spiders (that led to him throwing a giant fireball at them) and an unfortunate incident involving a group of trolls. They were unhappy that the spiders had died despite Chris's attempts to diplomatically resolve the misunderstanding. In the end, the trolls wanted to fight so Chris indulged them. He had never used a troll club before but it was kinda satisfying slaying them with their own giant pieces of wood.
Bunnies were a nice surprise though, better than some kind of monster with tentacles that liked women.
"Sir, I found you! Don't worry, I'm here to rescue… you?"
Chris turned and found John Leveling standing on the other side of the room. The vast sea of fluffy, adorable bunnies separated them.
"Rescue me from what?" Chris was puzzled. He was beginning to think that the system that had somehow implanted itself in John's head, had broken the poor man's mind.
Chris, for his part, had finally realized why slimes were now on earth. Apparently, all twelve universes had collided with each other, bleeding into each other's realities. Chris was severely disappointed in Selena for not stopping this. He also secretly hoped that his parents wouldn't notice, they would never let him live this down.
"From these beasts! This is an A-rank dungeon, we have to be careful of the monsters in here."
"What does 'A-rank' mean?" Chris continued to look puzzled, he was certain of it, this young man had lost his marbles.
"It means—"
A sudden roar ripped through the room, blowing Chris's brown hair back with its incredible force.
John gasped loudly as a large, ferocious looking bunny monster entered the room. Its huge paws thundered with every step it took, antlers protruded from its giant head, and razor sharp teeth glinted from the front of its mouth. Its murderous blood red eyes were now fixed on Chris who was standing in the middle of the room with a blank expression on his face.
"Stand back good sir, I'll hunt this beast!"
Despite the overwhelming sense of fear, John activated his newly acquired "speed boost" ability.
"The user's speed has now been increased by 50% for the next two minutes," the system told him.
The gold name above the giant rabbit monster read, "Jackalope-Dungeon Boss".
His feet cracked the stone floor as John flew forward with the speed of a bullet. He sliced quickly at the belly of the rabbit monster but it was no use, his blades were not strong enough to make it through the thick fur.
The jackalope roared again before swiping at John with a massive paw. John quickly jumped out of the way, narrowly avoiding the attack. He only had 200 HP so he had to be careful of taking any hits from this A-rank monster.
"Need some help?" Chris asked from behind John.
John jumped into the air in fright, he hadn't seen or heard this man sneak up behind him.
"No, it's okay. I've got this. I need the XP to level up."
"Do you need a healer? For you know, your condition?" Chris asked kindly, pointing to his head to demonstrate to John what he was talking about.
"Uh… no, I don't need a healer, just stay back where it's safe."
"Okay." Chris sat down and began to pet the bunnies while watching John dash back into action. The bunnies purred softly in his lap, he wondered if he should tell John that the achilles tendon was the monster's weak points. Naw, he would figure it out, besides John had said to stay out of it.
For the next ten minutes John engaged the dungeon boss, hacking and slashing at nearly every inch of the giant monster, trying desperately to find a weak point. He was out of healing potions, he had already taken three. The monster had gotten lucky, it had hit him twice with its large paws and once with its deer like antlers. John was also running low on stamina, he had to figure something out fast or he, along with the stranger, would die in this decrepit dungeon.
In a final act of sheer desperation, John slid under the beast and struck with his short swords. His blades bit deeply into the back of the rabbits ankles, cutting them wide open.
The monster howled in fury and pain as its health bar quickly drained. Feeling a renewed sense of vigor at his blind dumb luck, John quickly sliced through the ankles on the other two legs.
The beast gave one final roar before collapsing onto the stone floor with a thunderous boom. A wave of dust flew outwards, momentarily blinding John.
"You have leveled up. You have leveled up. You have leveled up. You have unlocked a new ability, shadow summoning."
Sweet! John punched the air in excitement as he quickly pulled up the information on his new ability. According to the system, he could now capture the soul of any monster he defeated and then summon that monster's soul to fight for him. It was like necromancy on steroids!
"Good job, John! I knew you would eventually figure out its weakness."
Chris walked up to John while holding a fluffy white bunny with one arm. He placed a comforting hand on John's shoulder and flashed him a warm, encouraging smile.
"Hang on, did you know about the monster's weak points?"
"Yep, sure did."
"And you didn't say anything?"
"Nope, I did as you asked and stayed out of it."
John was in disbelief, how did this stranger know about the monster's weak points and why hadn't he shared this information? What if John had died during this battle?
"You were never in danger were you?"
"Not in the slightest. Well, that's not entirely true. I am currently in danger."
"What danger is that?" John's eyes narrowed as his muscles tensed, was there another monster to defeat? Was this a double boss dungeon? They were rare but it did happen.
"I'm strongly considering taking all of these bunnies back to my bakery. I'm not sure I have space for them all though."