I was there, lying on my bed, completely wet with sweat. My hands were trembling, my vision partially clouded. I was in the most agonizing pain I had ever felt. This pain wasn't leaving. I noticed, barely, as fragmented memories—like when you're blacked out drunk—how Lupita and XD were trying to keep me alive. I didn't understand why this was happening. To be fair, it was pretty awesome to have survived to this point without a scratch on my face, so if I died, I knew I did my best and had no regrets. I got totally unconscious, trying to remember what happened. A lightbulb went on in my mind: I had gotten a minimal scratch on my ankle. And pretty much got intoxicated, infected with some bacteria, and poisoned. So yes, I was totally screwed.
When I was coming to, I remembered seeing how the status window went from red—saying I was going to die—to the usual blue, stating I had gained Poison Resistance Level 1. Maybe this is complete bullshit, but I wouldn't mind having some poison resistance because you never know when a blade could be venomous. It was the most painful thing I had ever done. Way worse than when I died in my homeworld. I used to think getting special abilities like this one was going to be more like a walk in the park, but as always, life is hard, painful, and very dangerous. I kept talking to myself to not lose my mind to the pain.
The next day, the red screen turned yellow as the pain was going away. Lupita and XD looked very pleased with my recovery. And as I wasn't ready to go back to the dungeon, I started talking with them, including Wildstray, so I could get more info about the world above this dungeon. XD told me that her info might be outdated as she had been in this dungeon for at least a couple thousand years, which I think is incredible. But it was inaccurate as she told me that time in the dungeon might be different from outside. As every dungeon has different rules in timespace. That's what makes them valuable, as they drop objects to lure other creatures in so they can kill them and eat their experience.
While I was having this pleasant conversation, above us—201 floors above us—the Kingdom of Ruby was going to launch an offensive to the deepest floors of the dungeon. They had been gathering resources for years and training a dream team of adventurers. As the Kingdom was going through harsh times due to the war against other races. The party of adventurers—the heroes—were a team of five. Cesar was the leader of the party of heroes. He was the Swordmaster. Eleonor was the offensive mage, with a level of attack magic so high that almost no human could use more than one of her original spells without getting completely drained of mana. Daniel was the tank. His role was easy: take the damage to his shield and be the distraction. But not everyone has the balls to do it and not get killed while doing it. Not even his party knew, but he had a different path in life from their mates. The healer and the support mage were brothers. And to be fair, they are a couple of assholes. They let the tank carry all the team's weight because they charge for every action they make—a gold coin. The Empress was clear: Whoever beat the dungeon and was recognized as the dungeon master would be the next emperor. All the Empresses before her had the same duty: guard the throne until someone capable enough was able to be recognized by the dungeon. A lot of adventurers tried very hard. From every corner of this new world, every human that had capabilities and the courage enough to be an adventurer tried in the dungeon. The nobles usually made it on the knights and, with the state's help, went down into the dungeon, keeping a lot of the discoveries to themselves. The Adventurer Guild, on the other hand, was full of commoners, ex-bandits, and crazy people, to be fair. They even got guild branches in some of the safe floors of the dungeon.
This story was thirty years before I beat the dungeon. Coming back to nowadays. I've been a week getting the pain off, but I got a couple of abilities. Now I have the skill of Venom Resistance, Toxic Resistance, Infection Resistance, and Pain Resistance for enduring so much pain. All of these resistances were Level 1, but this let me endure it for a while if I got any of these effects on my body and go back home where I would not die but endure a lot of pain. I got ready with Wildstray, my sword, and went straight back to the dungeon.
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The next five floors, from floor five to level ten, were all full of toxic swamps, mud, toxic plants, and frogs. Very big and toxic frogs. The level of this dungeon spiked after floor five. I don't know whose maniac idea this was, but if I didn't have the resistance, I would have died so many times it wouldn't even be funny. It was horrible. Every hour in the dungeon, I was running back for my life with who knows how many different poisons all over my body, coming back to a shed that I made just next to the door to endure so much pain that it feels illegal to describe. My body couldn't keep up. Lupita asked if it was worth it, and I replied, "I don't know." Day after day, I got experience with every poison, every venom, everything I got. I leveled up my resistances to ten. It was very painful but really worth it. Now I could go with ten different poisons. Even a snake's bite wouldn't do anything to me. My Pain Resistance wasn't that crazy, but if someone got me a good punch in the face, it would feel the same as in the arm in intensity of pain. Enough for now.
When I was clearing floor number ten, I got a glimpse of a chest. In that chest was something that would bring me all the motivation I needed to do the dungeon a lot faster. I had been at least five years since I came to this dungeon at this point. I had been doing this dungeon for a lot of time, and now I think that more or less I get how it works, but I noticed that I hadn't changed a bit—not even a single gray hair. I talked about it, and they told me that maybe it's an effect of the dungeon or the reincarnation in this world. It's kinda crazy to think about this, but well, at least I know I can do the dungeon. And in that chest was only one helmet. But it wasn't any helmet. It was the helmet H1029 standard to the division of Blitz Divers, of the Imperial Blitz Marines. This helmet wasn't any helmet. It brought back all those days, playing with my friends online, screaming to the top of my lungs "FOR THE FREEDOM, FOR THE EMPIRE, FOR HUMANITY!" It wasn't just a game. It was a complex online war for the survival of Earth and humanity. The Imperial Blitz Marines were like the regular army, and the Blitz Divers were something else. The players. Teams of a maximum of five for squads. The mission: Free all planets of non-human cyborgs, bugs, and zombies. I fought so many wars in that game, in so many hellholes. I wouldn't even dare to put this helmet on without its proper armor and cape. I went to defeat the boss of level ten as I wanted to show this to XD and Lupita. This was actually concerning because if we are in a world different in essence from the empire, we would be in a huge problem.
The boss of level 10 was finally something interesting. A spider with a snake head. Really cool, but I had been beating these two different species in the same way all through the floors until here. It started easy—I just needed to use a big, simple fire spell and maintain it. But this thing was no pushover. The spider-snake lunged at me with blinding speed, its eight legs skittering across the toxic mud while its serpentine head hissed and spat venom that sizzled on the ground. I dodged, barely, feeling the burn of a near-miss on my boot, but my resistances kicked in and dulled the edge. I channeled the fire spell harder, flames erupting from my hands like a blowtorch, scorching its chitinous body. It shrieked—a mix of arachnid chittering and reptilian rattle—and coiled its tail like a whip, slamming into my side. Pain flared, but thanks to my leveled-up tolerance, it felt more like a heavy shove than a bone-breaker. I rolled away, keeping the fire steady, watching its scales blacken and crack. The creature reared up, trying to web me with sticky threads laced with poison, but I blasted through them mid-air. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of dodging fangs and claws, it collapsed in a smoldering heap, ready to eat—jajaja. It dropped some items that I couldn't distinguish, and I took them back home to examine them.
