After moving deeper into the second floor for approximately five minutes, I felt the familiar tingle of my heightened Sense stat. Something was waiting for me just around the next bend in the glowing corridor. I slowed my pace, keeping my iron shield raised and my steel sword ready for a quick draw. As I turned the corner, I came face-to-face with the floor’s primary resident.

  ***

  Race: Giant Centipede

  Sex: None

  Status: Normal

  Level 2

  ***

  It was an insectoid nightmare—a creature that looked like the common centipedes found on garden leaves before they transformed into cocoons and then butterflies. The only problem was the scale. This thing was gargantuan. Even while crawling flat on the stone floor, it stood thirty centimeters high, and its undulating, segmented body stretched nearly a full meter in length. Its dozens of hooked legs clicked rhythmically against the stone, creating a dry, skittering sound that echoed unpleasantly in the narrow hallway.

  It was not a lovely view. Most people would have recoiled in disgust, but I viewed it through a more pragmatic lens: it was a source of experience and coin. I closed the distance, and the centipede reacted instantly, its many legs speeding up its momentum as it skittered toward me. When it reached the limits of its range, it suddenly reared up, lifting the front half of its body off the ground to pounce at my chest.

  Fortunately, I had already braced myself. The creature’s weight slammed into my iron shield with a heavy thud. I leaned into the impact, putting my shoulder behind the shield and giving it an extra shove to force the monster back. The centipede couldn't maintain its pressure against my Strength; it lost its footing and tumbled backward onto the floor.

  I didn't give it a chance to recover. I struck toward its head immediately. Seeing the gleaming steel blade coming for its vitals, the creature tried to instinctively protect itself, pulling its front legs over its head as a makeshift shield. Its legs were covered in thick, chitinous shells, and I felt a significant amount of resistance when my sword made contact. However, the steel was superior to the chitin. With a sharp crack, I severed several of its hooked limbs.

  The centipede managed to save its head, but it was now severely maimed. It writhed on the floor, leaking a thick, disgusting green ichor from its severed joints. It still tried to lash out with its remaining mandibles, but without its full mobility, it posed no real threat. I wasn't a sadist, so I didn't let it suffer; I delivered a final, clean thrust into its brain.

  As the monster’s body began to dissolve into the familiar dungeon vapor, three objects clattered to the ground. I picked them up: three copper Obscura coins.

  Interesting, I thought. One slime gave one coin. One centipede gives three. If I slay twenty of these, I’ll earn sixty copper coins. It was an improvement, but it still wasn't enough to make a real dent in my daily expenses. I didn't plan on spending the whole day grinding for copper; my goal was to find the boss room and move to a higher floor as quickly as possible.

  I continued to move forward, searching for the exit to the third floor. Since I didn't have a map for the second level, I had to wander aimlessly for several hours. The layout was a complex web of intersections and corridors, many of which led to frustrating dead ends. During my exploration, I encountered and killed approximately fifteen more giant centipedes, earning an additional forty-five copper coins in the process.

  Normally, I would have worried about getting lost in such a sprawling labyrinth, but the ‘Dungeon Walk’ skill acted as my ultimate safety net. I knew I could return to the entrance at a moment’s notice if I felt the need to retreat. I saw several other groups of raiders on this floor—roughly the same number as on the first level, perhaps slightly fewer. Their equipment was still mostly iron and copper, but I noticed they were much more organized, moving in tight formations and communicating through hand signals rather than just rushing in blindly.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Eventually, I arrived at a long, straight corridor that looked different from the others. At the far end stood a pair of massive doors, and the gaps around the edges were pulsing with a steady, white light. Two men in leather armor were standing five paces in front of the doors, waiting.

  I assumed it was a queue, so I took my place behind them. The two men felt my presence and turned to look at me, their eyes lingering on my steel sword. Once they realized I wasn't moving to cut in line, they lost interest and turned back to the doors. We stood in silence for a few minutes until the glow around the doorframe began to dim.

  “It is our turn,” one of the men said to his companion.

  “Yes. Let’s go,” the other agreed.

  They pushed the heavy doors open together and entered the chamber. As soon as the doors swung shut behind them, the white glow flared back to life, pulsing with a low, rhythmic hum.

  So, the light indicates that there are people currently inside the boss room, I realized.

  I wanted to test the mechanics of the dungeon, so I walked up to the doors and pushed with all my might. They didn't even budge; it was as if they were part of the solid rock wall while the encounter was active. I backed off to my previous position and waited. I expected the fight to take a few minutes, given that there were two of them, but the wait was much longer than I anticipated. It was nearly twenty minutes before the glow finally faded completely.

  When the light went out, I approached the doors and pushed them open. Inside, the room was a large, half-spherical chamber, identical in size and shape to the one on the first floor. As I walked toward the center, the heavy doors slammed shut with a boom that echoed through the stone vault. A silhouette began to materialize in the center of the room, coalescing from the dark vapor of the dungeon.

  I had expected a giant centipede based on the floor’s regular monsters, and I was right. A massive insectoid form began to take shape. It followed the same 1.5x size ratio as the previous boss, standing nearly forty-five centimeters high and stretching over a meter and a half in length. Its shell was a darker, more metallic gray than the ones I had fought in the corridors.

  I readied my shield and sword. I considered attacking it while it was still manifesting, but I quickly realized that was a futile idea. The materialization was too fast to close the distance safely, and the form was intangible until it was fully formed. To test this, I tossed a small stone at the emerging silhouette; the pebble passed right through the vapor as if nothing was there.

  Once the boss fully materialized, its dark mandibles clicked together in a threatening display. It focused its eyes on me and rushed forward with a speed that far surpassed the regular centipedes. When it reared up to strike, it stood significantly taller than me, its dozens of legs waving in the dim light.

  I decided to play defensively at first, wanting to see if this boss had any unique skills beyond its size. I blocked its first few lunges with my shield, pushing back with enough force to gauge its weight and resistance. Occasionally, I delivered a calculated counter-strike when it was airborne, testing the strength of its armor.

  After a few minutes, the conclusion was clear: this was just a bigger, slightly more durable version of the regular centipedes. It had no special poison or ranged attacks. The only real difference was the thickness of its chitinous shell. When I struck a regular centipede, it would lose several legs at once. Against this boss, my sword only severed one or two limbs per swing, even with increased force.

  Once my analysis was complete, I stopped playing around. I pressured the creature with a series of rapid slashes, cutting through its defenses and eventually driving my steel blade into its soft underbelly. It thrashed for a few seconds before dissolving into the mist.

  As the boss vanished, it dropped a substantial pile of coins: thirty copper Obscura. It followed the same logic as the first floor—the boss dropped ten times the amount of a standard monster. I had now cleared two floors on my very first day in the dungeon.

  I walked through the newly appeared door on the opposite side of the chamber and stepped onto the third floor. I briefly considered exploring, but the fatigue was starting to set in. I turned back toward the door I had just entered, and a translucent interface appeared before my eyes.

  ***

  Targashar Dungeon

  Exit

  Floor 1

  Floor 2

  ***

  The "Dungeon Walk" skill was truly convenient. I selected the ‘Exit’ option. My vision blurred for a split second, and I found myself standing outside in the crisp evening air, the massive rock entrance of the dungeon looming behind me. I took a deep breath, satisfied with the day's work, and began the walk back to the inn.

  [Edited]