Chapter 108 - Tom's Idea

"That was strange," Tom said, warily looking at the lifeless body of the boss from afar. After climbing ninety floors of the dungeon, he knew better than to approach a monster that appeared to be dead. 

"I'm not sure if you noticed," Claudia pointed her hand at the wall where the stones should be, "but there are no stones on this floor,' she said.

"Only two gates, huh?" Tom muttered. He scanned the entire floor with his eyes, but no matter how hard he tried, there was absolutely nothing of interest in there. 

"Should we just go through?" Claudia suggested while still casting wary looks at the lifeless boss of the floor. 

"I don't think we have anything else to do," Tom said, twisting his lips in an ugly grimace. "But it also means we didn't reach the bottom floor, doesn't it?" he said, slowly circling around the curvature of the room. Even though they could access the next gate and reach the following floor by going in a straight line, Tom wasn't going to risk it to save a few seconds of his time. 

"Well, there is nothing we can do about it," Claudia shrugged her arms.. "I guess we will be able to claim the prize of learning that fact, won't we?" she said, clearly trying to improve the mood. 

"I don't want to kill your happiness, but we are not going to report it," Tom said, recalling half of the magic spears that he previously sprayed all over the room. As the magic used to create them returned to his body, Tom felt as if all the exhaustion from the recent fight left his body. 

"Huh?" Claudia shook in surprise. "Why?" she asked, leaning her head over her shoulder while invoking a puzzled expression on her face. "Do you even realize how much money we could get out of this?" she asked, visibly doubting Tom's sanity.

"There is no record of our avatars reaching the last floor," Tom said, moving towards the gate. "While I'm sure that every avatar is tracked to some degree, I have no idea how extensive this surveillance is," Tom admitted to the lapses in his knowledge, proving that he wasn't arrogant enough to claim that he knew everything. "As such, it is only rational to assume the worst-case scenario. Because if the Online Hub can tell everything that happens with the avatars in the dungeon..." the young man cut his words short, letting Claudia figure out how the events would play out on her own. 

"Dang, you might be right with that," the girl said, biting her lips. "I guess all we can do is to push forward, then?" Claudia asked, already following after Tom. 

"We could always turn back," Tom said, standing right at the edge of the influence of the gate. Just a single step more, and he would step through the border between two floors. "But aren't you a little curious what lays further down?" he asked before lowering his eyes. 'Or what does the other side means?' Tom asked himself, recalling the strange words the girl from before told him. 

Tom still had more questions about the dungeon that he found answers to. His recent hope of learning something after defeating the boss turned void when that powerful girl somehow stopped moving. With that, he could force her to fulfill her own end of the bargain. 

"Well, there is no time to waste," Tom said, patting his hand against the backpack he was carrying. Ever since they entered the dungeon, it continuously turned lighter and lighter as the single set of rations had to fulfill the intake needs of two people. "At the current rate, we are two meals away from running out of food," he said, making the judgment based on both the weight of the backpack and the vague memory of how much they ate so far. 

"If we were to rush, I think we should be able to return in four to five hours," Claudia said, rubbing her chin. "I think we can still afford to take a little peek," she added with a smile before grabbing Tom's hand. "So, how will it be? Do we go?" she asked, gracing her partner with a lovely smile. 

"You already know how I will reply," Tom grinned lightly, tightening his grasp over the girl's hand. And then, without any further ado, he took a step forward. 

'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,' he thought as their bodies warped in the interspace before reappearing in yet another floor. 

But just as before, it was empty. 

With the wall decorated with the same grade of stones as before, both Tom and Claudia expected the boss of the floor to come out any moment... But no matter how long they waited, no enemy made its appearance. 

"Is this floor just like the last few ones?" Tom suggested, trying to figure out the strange situation they were in. While the entirety of this dungeon was one unknown variable, there were some rules that Tom learned about it ever since his time playing as an avatar. 

But as they reached the highest floors of the dungeon, those rules he thought to be absolute quickly proved to be nothing more but a false assumption. 

"Well, there is no point in waiting anymore," Tom said, lowering the tip of his spear. "Let's get the stones and move on," he added as he approached the wall. 

Just like before, a single strain of his mana infused into the wall was just enough to force all of those stones out of the wall. As if some kind of magical magnetism were at play there, it seemed that even the slightest amount of mana could do the trick. 

"This is strange," Claudia said as she picked up the first of the stones. "Now that we are on the ninety-first floor, shouldn't we see stones of a higher grade?"  she asked, turning her face towards Tom.

"Why ask me?" the young man shrugged his arms in reply. "It's not like I have an answer to every mystery this place has to offer," he said, shaking his head. 

"Still, I believe you have some ideas as to how to explain our situation," Claudia insisted. She had known Tom for only a short while, but their relationship was pretty intense. While it started as simple cooperation between the two players of the Dungeons Online, now they were something far greater.

Not because they fucked each other. In the current times, this kind of commitment could hardly be called a commitment in the first place. In some jokes, people liked to claim that giving a girl a bouquet of flowers was more binding than flushing her ass with one's sperm, proving how the world has fallen into decadence in this regard. 

What bound Tom to Claudia and the girl back to her partner wasn't their sexual relationship but the fires of battle that forged their relationship to be stronger. 

And at the same time, it allowed the two of them to learn the true face of the other without wasting several years to discover it in a more natural way.

"If I were, to be honest, I do have one idea that could explain where we are right now," Tom said, averting his eyes to hide his reluctance to talk about this topic.

"I know that you are worried that I will take that assumption too seriously," Claudia said with a lovely smile as she continued to push the stones towards Tom's feet. 

For how many times did they do it already, Tom and Claudia could talk freely while feeding their power with even more mana. Even though it started as a complicated procedure requiring a lot of focus from both sides, right now, it was nothing but a chore that Tom could complete even while half-asleep. 

"If my assumptions are correct, we are not on the ninety-first floor right now," Tom said. Then, he absorbed one of the grade six stones of the floor before pushing the energy to the tip of his spear and moving it towards the girl. "Rather than that, I believe we are on the eighty-ninth floor," he added before pointing his hand at the stones. "That would explain the grade of the stones and the lack of the boss," Tom said in order to justify his belief.

"Doesn't that assumption begs quite a massive question?" Claudia asked, caressing the tip of Tom's spear with her fingers as she sucked in the energy amassed in there. 

"I think I know what you mean," Tom said as he once again recalled the words that this strange girl from before told him. "If we are really going down the dungeon right now..." Tom cut his words, unwilling to speak about such possibility out loud. 

"Then once we move up from the first floor, will the world still be the same one that we entered the dungeon from?" Claudia voiced the question out, not holding any of the reservations that stopped Tom from doing so.