Chapter 169 - Stage 2

Not long after, the summon which originated the 8th stage of the 1st dungeon finished setting up all the furniture he had bought for Yuki's new home. While he did go overboard in Yuki's eyes, to him, it was the bare minimum he could've done to please his king. The problem was that Yuki didn't plan on spending much time in his house. In the mornings, he would be at work. As for the night, he would be in the dungeons as he accumulated enough strength to escape the kingdom and get revenge on the ones who had placed him in that situation in the first place. In the end, the furniture would just go to waste as no one would use it.

"Well, sacrifices need to be made anyway. But I should start preparing to go to the dungeon today. It looks like the sun has begun to set. Once it's dark outside, I'll call on Zero so he can get me out of this place so I can continue to stage 2," said Yuki as he waited for his summon to make sure that everything was in order before sending him back to "King's Crown".

[Open inventory]

After Yuki made sure that there was nothing left for his summon to do, he pulled out "King's Crown" from his inventory and told his summon to go back to it as they would meet again once Yuki was able to live without having to hide from people who sought to capture him. While there were 4 kings which Yuki had summoned using the crown, he only relied on one of them to help him with small activities which he couldn't or wouldn't do on his own. 

By then, it was time to leave the kingdom. As such, he would need to call on Zero. 

"Hey Zero. You know what to do right?" said Yuki telepathically. 

"Yes I do," Zero replied as he teleported Yuki back to the dungeon gate which he had exited due to him needing to be present in the kingdom during the mornings so as to not raise suspicion of the activities he partook in during the night. 

An easy solution would've been for Yuki to call on the new Meurig to completely erase everything in Yuki's path; however, that wouldn't solve all his problems. Due to Meurig's command being that he should just clear the first dungeon, he was able to accumilate strength that surpassed both Yuki and his captures. The only problem was that he had hit a dead end to leveling up. Since he was tasked with clearing only the first dungeon, at first, it helped him gain a lot of levels but now, clearing the entire dungeon didn't even give him a fraction of the total he needed to get to the next stage. Nevertheless however, he continued to clear the dungeon continuously as that was his job. Of course, the dungeon had begun to attract quite a lot of attention and received the name "The Broken Dungeon" as no one seemed to be able to enter it. This didn't make sense since something like that would only occur once a participant is already in the dungeon. Seeing as no one had left the dungeon in about a year, it was impossible for there to be a human inside since they would've died of starvation long ago. Of course, once the new Meurig cleared the dungeon, he would need to leave and reenter it so he could restart his quest. This meant that he would have to sense the people outside with his presence to see if there was anyone looking before leaving for a split second and going back inside. 

Once Yuki was teleported outside the dungeon gates, he walked through it without the slightest bit of fear or nervousness. More than anything, Yuki just wanted to spend as much time as possible in the dungeon and also be able to make it back to the kingdom in time. While he was a bit tired and wanted to go to sleep, what Yuki wanted even more was to have endless fights with the dungeon;s various monsters. While he enjoyed battle, Yuki sought to also have all the monsters he fought in his arsenal of summons. Along with that, Yuki wanted to collect as many items as possible, especially the treasured blades. 

"Thinking about it now, I haven't gotten a chance to use the blade I got from the 2nd dungeon yet even though it's been over a year since I received it. Well, I can use it here at least," Yuki said to himself as he walked through the empty stage 1 as he tried to make it back to the gateway tunnel which led to stage 2 of the dungeon.

"Hey, Zero. Before I go, I have a question. Since I left the dungeon but didn't fully complete it, what would happen if someone tried to enter it?" Yuki asked out of curiosity while having a sort of accurate guess of his own. 

"Well, since you already saved and left, anyone else who tried to enter would be able to do so. Of course, if you were to come back while that person was still in the dungeon, you would be forced to wait until said person left the dungeon," Zero explained just as Yuki had theorized. 

"I guess that's fair. What about if I was saved in one dungeon and wanted to go to another dungeon to complete it? Of course, it would have to be the same type of dungeon," Yuki asked. 

"If you were to do that, you would have to restart at the new dungeon and your progress from the first dungeon would get erased. Just in case you're wondering. If you were to have started at the 1st dungeon and stopped at a random stage such as stage 6 then went to the 2nd dungeon and stopped at stage 3, you would be able to continue your quest in the 1st dungeon. As long as they aren't the same type of dungeon, no progress will be lost. Of course, even if progress is lost, all exp gained up until the save point will be permanently kept," Zero explained to Yuki. 

[If you would like to move to the 2nd stage of the dungeon, please step forward]

[Stage 2 difficulty: level 11-12]

Once seeing the large text, Yuki passed through the white light which led to the next stage of the dungeon. That said, Yuki was a bit disappointed to be greeted with a swarm of goblins once again. He had hoped that there would at least be something different but to his disappointment, there looked to be the same type of goblins. However, that was only what it looked like from a far. Once Yuki took a closer look at his new opponents, he realized what made them different from the ones in the stage before them. 

[Thief Goblin: Josef]

[Thief Goblin: Elihu]

[Thief Goblin: Tyr]

[Thief Goblin: Comgal]

Each goblin had a different name but the actual thing which distinguished them from the goblins Yuki fought before them was that they were carrying daggers. While it wouldn't make a large difference due to how much more powerful Yuki was than them, it was still a sign of improvement. It was like watching a whole species evolve as they tried to survive and defeat their enemy. Their enemy being the player, in this case, Yuki. While this could've been a sign that the goblins would also change in the upcoming stages, Yuki didn't care all that much due to the overwhelming power cap between them and Yuki. 

[Open inventory]

Yuki pulled out "Niflheim's holy treasure" from his inventory as he had used "Fallen angel of hell" in the previous stage and wanted to get accustomed to using all of his treasured blades. That said, he planned on also using the bident which he had earned on the last stage of the 2nd dungeon when he entered the next stage in the dungeon he was in currently. 

"Let's see..." Yuki said as he concentrated on making his stamina flow from his body to his blade. While he thought that it would be harder for him to do so since he hadn't performed that technique in a while, however, he was surprised to find out that it was easy. It was like a natural instinct for him by this point. All Yuki had to do was imagine water flowing out of his hands then flowing into his blade as it tightly gripped on to his blade, in turn giving it form. Within an instant "Niflheim's holy treasure" brought out its spiked ice shards which extended out of the blade in all directions. 

"It's been a while since I've done this. I should be able to have some fun now," Yuki said as he grinned forward at the army of goblins which each carried daggers. Even having weapons at their disposal, defeating Yuki was a task which was basically impossible. However, even if they had knowledge of this, they wouldn't be able to do anything about it since they would be forced to attack him by the system.