Jack's POV

  "Do you want those buffs?" Jensen asked me with a smile.

  He had read my face like an open book, and in a matter of seconds, he had not only come up with a plan. But also executed it.

  I couldn't give my true intentions out by lashing out at him. So I just kept a calm face and said, "Yes, please."

  I needed those buffs now more than before. Because if Jensen decides to let me die in the boss room by taking an additional few seconds to one shot the boss. I needed all the strength I could muster to escape that fate.

  In that moment, as Jensen cast his buffs with a flick of his wrist. I knew in my heart that my mom was right when she had warned me about travelers like him and everyone else in general.

  She had said, 'Dungeon is not a place to make friends.'

  And, I shouldn't have taken her words lightly.

  Damn, all her wisdom was all but wasted on me, I thought.

  Jensen walked past me and stood facing the wall at about ten feet distance. I turned and stood by him, with a dagger in my hand. Being uninducted. The damage I cause to boss would not be registered by the System as a hit by an adventurer. So I was planning on using the dagger on the thirteenth floor boss if things got out of hands.

  I will at least take an eye, before it takes my head, I promised myself.

  Jensen, who was to my right. Burned up his glove with bright orange flame, and my heart raced up. I, who had never faced a goblin before today. Was now going to face a floor boss.

  In that moment, I focused on the fact that I had yet to tell my dad about this self restriction trick Jensen was using. I knew it could help dad earn more credits and experience. But on a second thought, as the flame in Jensen's hand grew.

  I decided not to tell my dad anything, even if I survive. Knowing him, he was bound to tell things to mom. Despite the distance, whenever those two would meet. It's like the talks won't end. It's also the only time I see my dad smiling and clean shaven. So if mom and Kara end up finding out about this method, and enter the dungeon with a handicap. It will only make their chances of survival even worse.

  As the flame in Jensen's hand grew even bigger than before. Fear gripped my heart. A part of me wanted to meet my father and talk to him. I'm sure he had questions, and no doubt, mom and Kara had them too after receiving the amount I sent them. Some part of me knew that they would show up at home when the lower floors open up in a couple of hours.

  I couldn't wait to meet them.

  If I survived today. I wanted us all to have a meal. A proper meal downstairs in the inn and laugh like we used to. That's what I wanted as I faced my eventual death at the hands of a floor boss.

  "You ready, boy?" asked Jensen, while I stood on his left.

  He was breathing heavy, something he hadn't done the entire day.

  "Don't you want to recharge your mana?" I asked, while looking at his face.

  He grinned at me like a madman, and then at the wall. He was too confident in his ability to consider the fact that it was my life he was risking.

  "Here goes nothing…" He exclaimed while raising his hand to bring down the giant fire ball which could engulf a four feet goblin and leave nothing but ashes behind.

  I closed my ears this time around while he launched that fireball, and just like a couple of hours ago. His fireball smashed through the wall, creating an opening with a loud boom.

  "Get in, and agro it," said Jensen, charging up another fireball even before the smoke could settle.

  Following his orders. I raced into that opening with everything I had in me while smoke blinded my vision. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I was ready to slash and tear at the floor boss. But the moment my steps landed on cold black stone on the other side, carved with intricate patterns.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  I stopped.

  There was no boss here.

  There was nothing but loft columns all around supporting the ceiling, which was broken in places. The columns and ceiling were made of the same black material as the floor. But while the columns were pitch black. The ceiling was painted in blue and white dots. I had seen a similar image in the library.

  Was this the night sky? I asked myself.

  But I couldn't be sure, as huge chunks of the ceiling had broken off and had fallen on the floor. And through those openings in the ceiling. A constant stream of bright white light was making its way down.

  "What the hell is this?" I asked, and put my hand right into the beam of light which was in front of me. It was warm, and for the first time, I could see just how pale my skin was. It was almost grey, unlike the skin of Kara and the others.

  "Jack…" came Jensen's voice from behind my back.

  "I'm here," I called out.

  "Jump aside," said Jensen, with a hint of panic in his tone. "Now!"

  Shit, he was charging up another fireball, I recalled.

  I jumped towards my left with the buff giving me an additional boost of a couple of feet. I barely had time to blink when a fireball twice the size of the one that Jensen had launched at the wall sped past me in a blur.

  I watched it go and become a part of the darkness at a far distance. I got on my feet, barely escaping it. And just when I thought that the fireball must have fizzled out. It crashed with a boom so loud that the whole place shook, knocking me back to my butt.

  I curled up in a fetal position and covered myself as best as I could while the boom reverberated in the room, and brought down some more chunks of the black stone from the ceiling. The dust and smoke rose all around me, and the rumbling continued for a solid ten seconds before everything went back to being normal. Except for the dust.

  "What the actual f…?" Jensen's voice echoed in that large chamber, and I opened my eyes to find him standing right where I had stood a few seconds ago.

  "My thoughts exactly," I got on my feet, dusting myself, and was ready to hit him for launching something so dangerous while I was standing so close. There was barely any distance between me and the wall I had rushed through and stopped.

  But before I could give Jensen a piece of my mind. I stopped. It wasn't that he was charging another spell that had scared me. It was the way he was looking around. It wasn't that he was speechless or spellbound.

  He was afraid.

  The Jensen, who was so confident that he was about to one shot a boss of thirteenth floor, was scared of this room.

  "You know where we are?" I looked around. The chamber was so big that I felt no bigger than an insect.

  Is this how those bugs feel when they see me pull those weeds from the soil? I asked myself.

  "We need to get out of here," said Jensen, and even before I could argue about it.

  He had not only turned on his heel, but had used his speed for the first time, and bolted right out of there. I wasn't far behind him. The buff had given a sort of spring to my step. But seeing him hurry like that. Had made my stomach clench.

  Just what sort of monster was there inside that room? I asked myself as I saw Jensen's cape flutter in the air behind him.

  "Hurry," he said, opening the door inside the trap room, and waiting for me to get inside first.

  I jumped through the opening in the wall, entered the trap room where we had fought the goblins, but the door that he had opened. It no longer led us back to the town hall inside the safe zone. I halted right in the middle of the room.

  "Jack…" He yelled at me.

  But then he read the look on my face and looked at the door, and went still as well. Because the door now led to a tunnel. Neither of us had a clue which floor the tunnel would lead us to. And just when I thought that staying in that dark room wasn't such a bad idea. The whole room shook with a thump.

  "Come on, come on, we gotta go," said Jensen, and hurried me on in a heartbeat.

  I should have followed his advice, and I should have run straight past him into that tunnel. But when the floor boomed again. I turned and looked back at the hole in the wall through which we had escaped.

  An eye was staring back at us. An eye that filled that whole six feet tall hole in the wall. It blinked once, and then it was gone. I turned and looked at Jensen. Thinking that we were safe. That such a big monster couldn’t enter in here. I huffed out and smiled at him. And that's when what I can only imagine was an axe cleaved right through the ceiling, shattering it. It missed me by a hair's breadth, and before my numb body could dare move.

  Jensen yanked me, and we both jumped right through the door just as a large pair of hooves stomped right where I was standing.

  Unlike me, Jensen had his senses and brain working despite seeing such a monster. He wasn't paralyzed by fear or something much more primal than that. Once he got us both in the tunnel. He left me on the dungeon floor and pulled the door closed.

  I had seen bulls in books and drawings from my great grandfather's time. Copies of it were available on the second floor of the tower hall's library. But in none of those things I had read. Was there a bull of that size.

  Jensen looked at me panting, and I looked back at him.

  "What the hell just happened?" I mumbled at him with my eyes widened.

  "That was a Minotaur," said Jensen. "And we had entered his temple." He paused. "I have a better question though," he said, while placing his hands on his knees, catching his breath while looking at me.

  "What?" I asked, while still on the floor.

  "Where the hell are we?" he asked.

  "Right, where you thieves are supposed to be," came a voice from the other end of the tunnel.

  *****