Chapter Nineteen: Weakness

The second my foot passes through the doorway, I find myself standing before a large steel gate surrounded by a huge stone wall.

The experience of walking through the door is incredibly disorienting, and the abrupt change in scenery makes me gasp as I do a little spin to reorient myself. Pawl seems unperturbed by the instantaneous teleportation, so I take his calm demeanor as a good sign and use the chance to check out the surroundings.

Other than the giant gate in front of me and the wall that spans as far as I can see to my left and right- there really isn’t much else to look at. In the other direction of the wall is just mounds of rock and deep craters as far as the eye can see. The entire place reminds me of the Moon except for the Gate to Heaven sitting a couple meters away from me.

I can’t really force myself to be too interested in the bland surroundings due to how Floor One ended, so I instead just turn my attention to the new screen in my face.

[Welcome to Floor Two: The Silent Castle]

< You have received a new quest. >

[Quests]

<Floor Objective>

Gain entry to the Castle

<Reward>

-Skill Evolution of Choice

<Side Objective>

Raise four skills to level 10

<Reward>

-Passive Skill of Choice

I read through the new quest with mild interest. The reward sounds pretty nice and gives me a few new ideas, but I can’t really make myself excited since I can also see that the entrance to Floor Three isn’t a reward listed. This means that there is some other hidden quest or second part of the floor objective that I don’t know about yet which makes me nervous.

I have a few other notifications as well regarding my rewards from completing Floor One, but I don’t bother to open them just yet. Instead, I set Pawl on the ground, and we both approach the large gate.

As I get within touching distance, I spy tiny lines racing across whatever heavy metal the gate consists of. They look like super complex versions of what I saw the goblin enchanters creating, so I reach forward to run my fingers along the delicate inscriptions.

Before I can even make contact, a blue shimmer appears and zaps me. I recoil my hand and inspect the damage, but there isn’t much more than a faint red burn.

“Am I supposed to figure out how to open it myself? Seems a bit cruel if you ask me but I guess that makes sense for DIC difficulty.”

I attempt to reach for different parts of the gate, slowly making my way down the wide surface as I continuously zap myself over and over again. Part of me thinks I might not be thinking straight, but I ignore the brief thought and continue to get my nervous system shocked like I’m a dog who doesn’t understand what the word ‘No’ means.

“Step away from the gate,” A gruff voice booms from somewhere above me.

Moreso startled from the abrupt command than actually compliant, I stumble away from the gate and crane my neck to see where the voice came from. Unfortunately, either the angle of the wall is too sharp, or the wall itself is just too tall, as I cannot spot anyone peering over the edge.

I wait a couple beats before attempting to approach the giant doorway again, but before I can get close, a low groan sounds out, and I begin to hear metal screech as the gate slowly rises.

As if signaled by the gate opening, I hear a roar in the distance behind me.

“What the hell are you doing? Get inside right now!”

The voice has a slight panic in its tone, so I quickly run alongside Pawl and duck underneath the huge slab of steel to emerge on the other side of the wall. Almost immediately, a loud thump sounds out behind me as the gate is closed hurriedly and a plume of dust causes my eyes to sting. I can’t see very well because of the dusty assault, so I wipe at my eyes with the back of my fist.

Suddenly, I hear a cacophony of scraping on the other side of the gate.

The metal is very thick, maybe a couple of meters in width, yet I can still hear the soft squeals of whatever is on the other side as the gate’s defensive inscriptions fire up.

“Are you stupid? Why were you just standing around out there? Do you want to be monster food?”

The dust settles and I can finally see a man standing in front of me.

< Stalwart Defender – Level ??? >

The icon hovers above an angry man looking to be in his early thirties and covered in thick plate armor. I just sit and stare with my mouth agape while I read his level description.

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Is this another human or is it a mob?

“What are you mute or something? I said to tell me what the hell you were doing out there?”

The man approaches me with a hand firmly placed on a fancy looking sword strapped to his waist. I suddenly remember the fact I am almost naked and covered with all kinds of filth, so I lick my lips and do my best to stand up straight and look innocent while words begin to fall out of my pie hole.