Chapter – 5

Aman stared.

Then stared some more.

Unfortunately, the System didn’t seem particularly concerned about his rapidly deteriorating mental state and continued taunting him with the same floating message.

Would you like to enter the First Floor of [Unnamed] Dungeon — [Viridian Forest]?

Aman let out a long sigh. The kind one made when finally accepting their inevitable and terrible fate, like a death row inmate coming to terms with their sentence.

Then he accepted the prompt.

The floating words vanished instantly.

And the very next moment, Aman felt something he had previously only read about in books and heard adventurers ramble about in taverns.

The Authority of a Dungeon.

It was subtle at first, like stepping into warm water. A soft blanket of mana gently wrapped itself around his body as the surrounding forest suddenly… changed.

No.

Not the forest. The feeling.

It was as though the world itself had suddenly turned its attention toward him. Watching. Observing. Judging.

Aman’s skin crawled.

Because beneath that ambient mana and silent pressure, he could feel it.

A consciousness. Something vast, aware and currently watching him fumble around in front of its entrance.

Aman let out a humorless laugh.

Of course. He had been right all along. This really was a newly born dungeon.

And the [Unnamed] Dungeon of the Emerald Forest now knew of his existence.

Perhaps it was waiting for him to enter its depths, plunder its treasures and eventually die horribly so it could recycle his corpse into mana to fuel its endless expansion.

Not that he could back out now. He had already accepted the invitation.

More importantly—

He had given his word.

And unfortunately for him, Aman possessed enough integrity to let that override basic survival instincts.

So with no better options available, Aman did the only thing he could.

He gathered mana in his body and cautiously stepped through the entrance into Viridian Forest.

All the while, said dungeon was watching him from above with a bowl of imaginary popcorn in its hands.

The first few minutes inside the dungeon were miserable. Aman’s head constantly swivelled from side to side at even the slightest sound, his mana waiting at his command.

A rustling bush. A snapping twig. Wind blowing through leaves. Aman saw a monster in all of them.

The constant vigilance started taking its toll.

A dull headache throbbed behind his temples from keeping mana constantly circulating through his body, while his dry eyes stung from refusing to blink for more than half a second at a time.

At one point, he even wished the monster would just come and attack him so he could finally have some peace.

Eventually, Aman stopped walking altogether.

The mana around his hands dispersed as he closed his eyes and slowly counted to ten while regulating his breathing.

Almost immediately, his master’s voice echoed inside his head.

Be ready for anything. But also be prepared to face it when the time comes.

Right now, Aman wasn’t prepared for anything. He was just a bundle of nerves barely holding himself together.

At this rate, he was more likely to accidentally blow himself up with a misfired spell than successfully defend himself against an actual threat.

So instead of panicking further, Aman forced himself to do what he had supposedly been trained to do all these years.

Think.

He tried recalling everything he knew about dungeons. The dry academic facts from books. The exaggerated stories told by drunken adventurers. The endless lectures his master forced him to memorize.

Dungeons were not inherently malicious.

Well… Most of them weren’t.

It was simply in their nature to expand. And for expansion, they needed fuel.

Which was exactly why they lured adventurers inside with treasures, resources, rare monsters and opportunities. Because if enough people entered the dungeon, eventually some of them would die.

Efficient ecosystem, really.

Morbid. But efficient.

Which meant one very important thing for Aman’s current situation.

The dungeon probably wasn’t going to instantly murder him the moment he entered. That was just terrible business practice.

No, the truly horrifying traps and monsters were usually reserved for deeper floors. For the people who actually posed a threat.

Meaning that for now…

Aman was relatively safe.

Relatively.

He still kept a careful watch on his surroundings, but at least he stopped nearly attacking every moving leaf.

At least—

Until something squeaked near his foot and nearly caused his soul to leave his body.

Aman reacted entirely on instinct.

Before he even properly registered what he was looking at, mana surged through his arm and a bolt of lightning exploded from his hand.

Crack.

The spell shot past the creature entirely, scorching nearby grass and blasting apart a patch of dirt several meters away.

Silence followed.

Aman stared.

The creature stared back.

Only now did Aman finally begin noticing the details of the creature that had presumably attempted to kill him.

It was…A worm.

A very small worm.

Roughly a foot in length, with a soft brown body, large glossy eyes and a sharp little horn protruding from its forehead.

Honestly, it looked almost cute.

Well, it depended heavily on whether the individual possessed a crippling fear of insects.

Looking at the strange creature, several dots suddenly started connecting in Aman’s mind.

An entirely new species of magical creatures. Completely different from ordinary magical beasts. Only found within a single region of the Emerald Forest. Which just so happened to be a dungeon.

Yeah, looks like Professor Oak’s newly discovered Pokémon were actually creatures of the dungeon.

Did he know that?

More importantly, did it even matter right now?

The creature, or Pokémon if he was using Professor Oak’s terminology, clearly did not appreciate nearly being electrocuted to death.

The worm raised the front half of its body and let out a series of squeaks, its tiny face somehow expressive enough for Aman to immediately tell it was furious.

Aman remembered Professor Oak talking about their enhanced intelligence and awkwardly attempted diplomacy.

“I am really sorry about that,” Aman quickly explained while raising his hands defensively. “I didn’t mean to attack you. You just appeared so suddenly that I panicked and accidentally fired the spell.”

Unfortunately for Aman, he was not Professor Oak, nor did he possess whatever magical charisma allowed the old man to casually befriend strange monsters.

The Pokémon very clearly rejected his apology.

Immediately afterward, it spat a purple projectile from the horn on its head.

Aman barely dodged sideways in time.

The projectile splattered against the nearby grass, and the vegetation instantly started turning an extremely unhealthy shade of purple.

Aman slowly looked back at the angry worm.

“So we’re doing this then.”

The Pokémon loudly squeaked again and fired another [Poison Sting].

Aman narrowly ducked beneath it. The second projectile missed his face by an amount he personally considered extremely rude.

He immediately retaliated.

Mana surged through his body as he activated [Lightning Manipulation], twisting the gathered mana into shape before releasing it forward.

A bolt of lightning shot toward the Pokémon.

This time, however, the creature reacted. A stream of sticky silk suddenly burst from its mouth and intercepted the spell midair. The web exploded apart instantly, but it still successfully weakened and diverted the attack.

Aman blinked.

The worm had just blocked lightning.

What the hell kind of bug was this?

Thankfully, Aman possessed two hands, while the Pokémon only had one mouth.

Before the Pokémon could spit another web, Aman launched a second lightning bolt. This one struck true.

the Pokémon squeaked loudly as electricity surged across its small body. Still, it remained standing.

Aman stared at it in disbelief before immediately firing a third bolt, followed by a fourth for good measure.

By the end of it, the Pokémon was smoking slightly and twitching on the ground. Aman cautiously waited several more seconds before finally lowering his hands.

Well, at least now he knew what kind of creatures inhabited the first floor of this dungeon.

Though after remembering Professor Oak casually mentioning more than twenty different species of Pokémon, Aman quickly corrected himself.

Maybe not.

If even this tiny bug could force him into an actual fight, he definitely needed to stop underestimating them just because they looked harmless and adorable.

With that deeply concerning realization in mind, Aman continued deeper into Viridian Forest.

The moment he disappeared from sight, however, something strange happened.

The Pokémon’s body slowly floated into the air before beginning to dissolve into mana. Flesh unraveled first, followed by shell and bone until only a glowing core remained suspended above the ground.

Then reality itself seemed to reverse, like someone had pressed rewind on a video player.

Mana surged back toward the core as an entirely new body rapidly reconstructed itself around it. Flesh, shell, eyes and horn all reformed in minutes until it was completely restored, good as new.

The Pokémon blinked its large eyes open and slowly looked around in confusion before noticing Hikaru floating nearby.

Its simple soul had already forgotten the epic battle that resulted in its very violent death. Instead, it simply gave its creator a happy squeak before crawling off into the forest like absolutely nothing had happened.

Now then, for those wondering what exactly just happened, Hikaru would gladly explain.

While sitting in his cave and waiting for humans to finally arrive, Hikaru had spent a lot of time experimenting and thinking. A dangerous combination, honestly.

He already knew that when a mortal body suffered enough damage, the soul naturally detached itself from the body and returned to the cycle. Which was just the world’s fancy way of saying they died.

He knew the process very intimately at this point, mostly because he had accidentally and intentionally caused it to happen a number of times.

But his Pokémon were different.

Their bodies were created by him. Their cores were designed by him. Even their souls were artificial constructs personally made from his aether. Most importantly, while they remained inside his Authority, all of those things stayed under his absolute control.

He had already used this principle to rebuild Trapinch into an entirely new body while preserving his soul and identity, so eventually Hikaru asked himself a very important question.

Why exactly couldn’t he do that for all his Pokémon? The answer was, he absolutely could.

And so, Hikaru had essentially invented immortality for his Pokémon.

Well, dungeon immortality.

As long as their core, and by extension the soul, remained intact inside his authority, he could simply reconstruct their bodies as many times as he wanted.

Take that, reality. Hikaru — 1. Reality — 0.

More importantly, he no longer had to lie awake imagining his poor adorable babies getting brutally slaughtered by future adventurers.

---

Aman was stuck.

Not literally, thankfully. He was simply, completely and utterly lost.

From the very beginning, Aman had been operating under a false assumption. He thought the challenge of the dungeon was its creatures.

Honestly, after his fifth Pokémon encounter, that assumption had only felt more justified. The latest one had been a small blue bird with red markings on its chest that moved like the wind itself and sliced open his hand with its wings.

Unfortunately, Aman had been completely wrong.

The Pokémon were simply distractions. Dangerous distractions, certainly, but distractions nonetheless.

The real challenge of Viridian Forest was the terrain itself.

Most dungeons were straightforward. Follow the path laid out before you, fight progressively stronger monsters, and eventually reach the boss of the floor.

Simple.

This dungeon, however, apparently despised simplicity.

Aman would have loved to follow a single path if such a thing actually existed. Unfortunately, there usually wasn’t one. Instead there were two paths. Sometimes three. Occasionally even more.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Some led to dead ends while others curved around and dumped him right back into places he could have sworn he had already passed.

He only realized he had been walking in circles when he encountered the same moss-covered rock for the third time.

That was when everything finally clicked into place.

Viridian Forest was simply the name of the dungeon floor.

In reality, it was a maze.

A gigantic, deliberately constructed maze disguised as a natural forest.

If Aman ever met the dungeon core responsible for this place, he would first congratulate it on the sheer brilliance of the idea. It was simple, elegant and extremely effective. He would know, considering he had already fallen for it completely.

Immediately afterward, however, Aman would also very much like to punch it in the face, repeatedly.

Because only a deeply deranged mind could create something this obnoxiously effective.

The paths themselves were confusing enough already, but the dungeon had apparently gone out of its way to remove every reasonable method of navigation.

The dense canopy blocked most of the sky, leaving only scattered rays of sunlight filtering through the leaves, which meant celestial navigation was useless.

The ambient mana inside the dungeon was equally terrible. It swirled everywhere in chaotic currents, meaning it was easier to just ignore it than use it as any kind of reference point.

And destroying the obstacles directly didn’t work either.

Aman had already tried. The trees regenerated faster than he could meaningfully damage them.

At this point, his dream of having a civilized conversation with the dungeon core had been temporarily shelved, because if he couldn’t even navigate the first floor, there was absolutely no chance he would ever reach the core itself.

In the end, Aman had no choice but to rely on the oldest and crudest navigation method available.

Marking his path.

Using a long branch snapped off one of the trees, Aman dragged a line across the ground as he walked, carefully marking every route he had already explored.

Primitive? Absolutely.

Effective? Hopefully.

---

Aman let out a long breath of relief as he collapsed onto the surprisingly soft grass.

He was exhausted, both mentally and physically. At this point, even his soul probably needed a nap.

Not only did he have to constantly watch out for random Pokémon encounters, he also had to actually fight the damn things while simultaneously trying to keep track of where he was going inside this cursed forest maze.

Which, as it turned out, was significantly harder than it sounded.

Aman was a mage. More specifically, he was the type of mage who spent most of his life reading arcane tomes inside the comfortable safety of a library while occasionally getting yelled at by his master.

He was not an adventurer.

His body simply wasn’t built for this much walking, stress and repeated near-death experiences.

At this point, even his potion reserves were starting to look depressing. The comfortable stockpile of fifteen health and mana potions his master had originally handed him had now dwindled down to dangerous single digits.

Frankly, the only thing that had saved him from an untimely death was his current location.

A safe zone.

Not that he had recognized it at first. He had simply noticed an unusual amount of sunlight pouring through the dense canopy overhead and wandered into the clearing out of curiosity.

Honestly, he had been expecting a trap. Or worse, some Sub-boss encounter. Considering the dungeon’s personality so far, Aman didn’t think his paranoia had been particularly unreasonable.

So when a strange green Pokémon suddenly entered the clearing, Aman had immediately tensed, lightning mana crackling around his fingertips.

Instead of attacking, however, the creature simply gave him a cheerful smile and a small nod before happily returning to basking beneath the sunlight.

Aman still hadn’t lowered his guard. Acknowledging a temporary truce, he instead chose the spot furthest away from the Pokémon before sitting down and finally pulling out his canteen and travel rations for a desperately needed late lunch.

That immediately caught the creature’s attention.

The Pokémon quickly waddled toward him on its tiny legs.

Aman instantly tensed again and started preparing another spell. Thankfully, that turned out to be unnecessary. The Pokémon looked more curious than murderous.

It let out a soft sound resembling leaves fluttering in the wind while staring intently at the things in his hands.

That was when Aman finally realized what this place actually was.

In his defense, safe zones were usually located between floors, not randomly shoved in the middle of one. They existed so adventurers could rest without worrying about traps, monsters or the other countless ways dungeons tried to kill people.

Even if monsters entered the area, they generally wouldn’t attack unless provoked.

Which meant the dungeon had intentionally created this place.

Honestly, that somehow made the entire thing feel even stranger.

Looks like the dungeon was self-aware enough to realize what an absolute monstrosity it had created and decided to show its delvers a tiny bit of mercy.

Good for it.

More importantly, good for Aman, because this meant he could finally rest without fearing immediate death.