Lucian, despite himself, was having fun. He was exploring with his friends, making money, leveling up, and getting strong.

  It was satisfying to be a part of the Landsknecht. It reminded him of his life before the academy; when he was running around with a gang. The fun parts, like hanging around with your friends, chilling in a base, laughing and joking with each other. He also had to admit jumping people was surprisingly entertaining.

  Those were the only similarities. Central was so dangerous it made the academy look like a cakewalk. A simulation of society. What a joke.

  The academy wasn’t anything like Central. Here, in a twisted way, the guilds and himself were equal. The academy forbade soulbound weapons. When the only combatants were soulbound, it meant functional immortality. In order to raise strong guild members, they were forbidden from killing each other.

  Outside of the academy, there were no restrictions. The guilds were judge, jury, and executioner. If you didn’t belong to the guilds, you were dead. Either because the only way to make money was through illegal gang activity, or because you were an unaffiliated soulbound. The guilds wouldn’t tolerate any power that was out of their hands. And if you were part of those ‘foreign powers’? Then you were subject to whatever laws they wished to impose.

  That was just one of the reasons why the academy was so different. For another, the academy didn’t have any non-soulbound people, save for the workers that provided for the soulbound in the academy area. The chefs at the noodle restaurant they frequented, for example, were non-soulbound.

  Here, he could almost forget that the vast majority of humanity was non-soulbound. At some point, the guilds convinced humanity that being soulbound meant being part of the guilds, and that the soulbound were meant to be rulers of humanity.

  Guild propaganda made the soulbound superheroes, and made soulbound unaffiliated with guilds villains. Guild control made life without the guilds impossible. It meant survival without the guilds meant thievery, robbery, and murder.

  So if you refused to be part of a guild, and you were a soulbound, you became a gang leader. A warlord, invincible to the average person.

  He and his sister worked under someone like that for years, until they became soulbounds of their own. Their boss, having figured it out instantly, wanted to kill them. They were threats to him.

  Lucian’s sister, at the age of twelve, a new soulbound, freshly level one, drew out a piece of her soul, formed it into a blade, and stabbed it into his neck. Then they ran for their lives.

  Then they kept running, running for years, until they got into the academy. Where their lives finally turned for the better.

  Lucian missed his sister. She always knew what to do. Where to sleep for the night. Where to find food. Which pockets they could rob easily, and which they couldn’t. Who to befriend. Who to kill.

  He hated it. He hated the countless betrayals, lies, and backstabbing he had to do to survive. He hated how his sister protected him in the face of it all. Even more so, he hated that she wasn’t with him now.

  He trusted her. Still did, more than anything. He knew Selenne had a reason to run away, to abandon them, to leave Lucian and the friends they made behind.

  Selenne’s protecting me, once again. So I have to grow strong enough, so when she comes back, I can return the favor. I’ll make it so we don’t have to betray anyone again.

  He had to practice. So for now, he would protect the Landsknecht instead.

  The dungeon was a frozen lake that spanned nearly nine kilometers. Countless entrances dotted the surface, and if you weren’t careful, you could fall into one. The academy guilds combined controlled a third of the entrances, many of which were the ones closest to the main academy campus. It meant that if you weren’t guild affiliated, you had to walk all the way around.

  It didn’t take long for the Landsknecht to find the planned path. They hopped into the hole, sliding along the icy surface like a massive ice slide. It was the most fun part of the dungeon, by far. Not because the ice slide was great, but because the rest of the dungeon sucked.

  They were now three hours into the operation, and they were in a deep crevice of ice, fighting off waves of frost walkers.

  Frost walkers were gangly, tall humanoids that shuffled about, their limbs strangely white and alien. They had claws all over them, sharp and hooked shaped protrusions that acted almost like fingers, using those to both attack and to cling to the ice. They moved slowly, but their flesh was difficult to pierce. They were easy to kill with a couple strikes, at the end of the day, but make no mistake; their razor sharp hooks could deal devastating damage.

  And of course, they moved in packs.

  Viviana watched as Lucian cut through a frost walker. He was taking a proactive role, drawing much of the monster’s attention to him. The way he moved– like a big, tanky target, made Bena and Thomas’s job of darting in and out much easier.

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  Viviana fought on the other side of them, matching their rate of damage.

  Yet for every one that she and the Landsknecht cut down, two more took their place. There were far too many monsters, and Viviana knew they could fight a couple, but this amount would tire them out and kill them.

  Viviana cut through two frost walkers with clean, singular strikes, augmented by the speed of her [flash step]. Without the skill, she wouldn’t deal enough damage to cut cleanly through them, but the speed she moved at when using the skill was enough.

  [You have slain a level 1 frost walker.]

  [+0 exp]

  [You have slain a level 1 frost walker.]

  [+0 exp]

  This is the worst part. Each monster is too weak for the system to grant experience.

  In spite of Viviana’s complaints, more enemies descended from the crevices in the icy caves, casting strange shadows on the glowing walls. A part of Viviana wondered where the light was coming from, but that part of her was quickly overshadowed by the need to survive the situation.

  Bena was now using her scout skill every couple seconds, informing them of where the largest congregation of frost walkers was coming from. Her communications became more and more worrying as she changed from saying “three enemies!” to “like, ten of them!” to “too many to count!”

  “Where to, Bena?!” Viviana yelled. Each of them was currently stabbing a different enemy while Bena stayed in her skill a little longer. It made her vulnerable, but she was their lifeline. They had to protect her.

  Bena pointed down an icy corridor. A dozen monsters were in the way. Lucian shouted. “I’ll cut through!”

  Viviana shook her head. He’d have to use [strike] to kill each of them in one blow, and that would use too much mana and take too long. If he used regular swordplay, it would be far too slow.

  Viviana placed a lightning sigil on her left thigh. The first part of her skill. Then she detonated it, flying through the narrow corridor, cleaving frost walkers into bits. The second part of [flash step]. While she moved she placed another lightning sigil, repeating over and over. She got it down to a science. It took three seconds to place a sigil, and half a second to move through the air. It meant she was moving with a skill enhancement every two and a half seconds.

  It was as taxing on her mana as it was on her enemies. It was also just enough to carve a path forward. Viviana nearly collapsed from the mana strain, but Lucian tucked himself under one of her arms, hauling her forward. Bena and Thomas ran alongside him, down the path that Viviana had cleared.

  Thomas reached into the bag of holding. There were some frostburst organs from the precious few spiders they hunted before reaching the dungeon. He quickly grabbed an organ, put mana into it, and tossed it behind them. A small explosion rang out, pushing back a good chunk of the frost walkers.

  Bena was running ahead of them now, moving down corridors at her top speed. Which wasn’t fast given her size, but Lucian and Viviana were tired. It was fast enough for them.

  Left and right, upwards and down. They were getting deeper and deeper into the dungeon. Now no one knew where they were except Bena. Mizuki’s route only pointed in one, specific direction. It was not made for detours like this; simply because the dungeon hasn’t been fully mapped out yet.

  They kept running and running. Bena made turns that seemed random, but Viviana knew that she was calculating the best routes to avoid the hoard.

  They ran until Bena called them to stop, and finally they were free from the danger. It took a whole hour. The good news was that they lost the frost walkers. The bad news was that they were truly lost. Although Bena had a rough idea of where they were, this part of the dungeon wasn’t on Mizuki’s route. They were exploring the unknown.

  “Bena, where are we?” Lucian asked.

  Bena frowned. “No idea! I’ve been using my skill quite frequently, so I’m out of mana!”

  Viviana nodded. They would have to wait, then. Bena could only keep up her scout skill because she was using it rapidly and for short bursts to guide their immediate decisions. If she truly wanted to figure out where they were, she’d have to turn it on for a bit, expand her range, and scope out all the areas.

  Then they took stock. Viviana pulled out some healing grass she bought earlier, wrapping it around her own and her team’s injuries. Lucian and Thomas thanked her profusely. Bena was surprisingly uninjured.

  They took it slow, hoping to recover some mana for the next stretch in their journey. But time was ticking. They had a deadline to meet.

  As they rested Bena mentioned something interesting– as the dungeon got deeper, the walls of ice glowed brighter. With no other ideas besides ‘get deeper’, now that Bena was out of commission, they decided to wing it.

  A couple minutes later they continued their trek, trying to determine if one tunnel was brighter than the other. About an hour later the walls were almost hard to look at.

  Then they got to a large opening– a room. All of them knew what a large room meant in a dungeon. By now their mana had largely recovered. It was time to fight.

  The room was orders of magnitude bigger compared to the tunnels they were just in. High, vaulted ceilings of frozen water, stalactites and stalagmites that seemed almost regal in design. They were closer to carved columns than natural formations.

  The most striking detail was sitting in the middle of the room. A blue egg, about four meters tall.

  The egg began to crack. A black beak protruded from the shell. Then an eye gazed through the crack. A massive, blue eye the size of a dinner plate, carrying almost humanlike features.

  “A bird?” Lucian said.

  Viviana and the rest of the group got into formation, swords poised and drawn. Bena groaned. “Is this some sort of mini boss?!”

  The bird spread its wings, smashing through the rest of the shell that held it. One, two, three, four wings reached into the air. Ethereal feathers scattered about as it took off. Then, to the Landsknecht’s horror, the feathers solidified into icy daggers pointed directly at them.

  “This might be the final boss, actually…” Thomas said, panic seeping into his quiet voice.

  “We need to run. We have no way of killing a flying monster,” Viviana said. “Assuming it's about to shoot the feathers at us, I will take the first onslaught. You three will run for the exit.”’

  Lucian looked back at the way they came from. The tunnel was blocked.