Chapter 63: Dungeon entry.

Karl continued turning the Insane-grade Dungeon Token between his fingers while the others finished eating.

The faint glow running across its surface was enough to keep his attention on it.

After fifteen days of repeating the same dungeons and making almost no progress with his Personal Death Domain, an untouched wild dungeon sounded to much welcoming.

Karl looked toward Leon and Mira.

"Why don’t we go now?"

Leon raised his eyes from his food, clearly not expecting Karl to suggest using the token immediately.

Mira, on the other hand, agreed almost at once.

She looked toward Leon.

"You better come too, you’ve slept for half the day already."

Leon gave her an annoyed look.

"Yeah..."

Victor glanced between the three of them.

"Hmm? You guys really want to go now?"

He thought about it briefly before shrugging.

"Well, I guess there isn’t really a problem."

His attention moved toward Karl.

"You already have everything you might need stored away, don’t you?"

Karl nodded between his storage equipment, System inventory and everything they had prepared during the last fifteen days, there was little reason to spend several more hours gathering supplies.

They had been entering dungeons constantly anyway.

Weapons, recovery items, food and most other necessities were already stored away.

Victor lazily waved one hand.

"Then I guess go whenever you want."

He looked across the remaining food on the table.

"Just finish eating first, I still have to wash all these dishes."

Victor clicked his tongue.

"I still don’t know why Old Master had to lay off all the workers."

Leon immediately smiled.

"It was the best decision he made."

Victor looked toward him with a questioning gaze.

"Otherwise I never would’ve discovered you were such a good chef."

Victor simply shrugged, apparently having no problem accepting the compliment.

Not long afterward, the table had been cleared and the three of them made their way outside.

---

The night above Ardent City was clear.

Moonlight covered the Reed estate as Karl, Leon and Mira stood in the middle of the courtyard, while Victor remained near the villa entrance behind them.

Noctis, Astra and Mikros had been left inside.

Victor looked over the trio.

"Well, be careful."

Then his attention shifted specifically toward Karl.

"And hopefully you’re lucky enough to get a good dungeon."

Karl nodded and Leon nodded whilsit nearby shadow shifted and Mira’s head suddenly emerged from it before she gave Victor a small nod as well.

Karl reached into his storage and took out the Dungeon Token.

Under the moonlight, the small object looked almost ordinary apart from the faint glow moving through its surface.

[Insane-Grade Dungeon Token]

Karl looked at it once before tightening his hand.

Crack.

The token shattered and the broken fragments immediately dissolved into countless streams of light.

The glowing particles rose from Karl’s palm and gathered several metres ahead of them.

Then they started rotating one after another until a rapidly spinning circular structure began forming in the middle of the courtyard.

Karl watched it stabilize before opening the team interface.

They had fought together enough that creating the team again barely took any time.

[Team Created.]

[Karl Reed — Leader]

[Leon Wood — Member]

[Mira Vayne — Member]

[3/3 Members Confirmed.]

Once all three were registered, Karl returned his attention to the Dungeon Token.

The spinning light was already changing.

Its bright surface gradually darkened as the chaotic streams compressed inward.

Within several seconds, the scattered light had transformed into a large greyish circular portal standing several metres across.

The surface shifted faintly like dense mist trapped inside a thin boundary.

Karl looked toward Leon and Mira once and then stepped toward the portal first.

The moment his body touched the grey surface, the space around him distorted and his figure disappeared.

Mira followed immediately, slipping from the nearby shadow and passing straight through the portal.

Leon entered after her and amoment later, the courtyard was empty.

The portal remained open for only another few seconds before its edges began contracting.

The grey surface rapidly shrank inward until the remaining light collapsed into a single point and disappeared completely.

Victor remained near the entrance for a little while longer.

Then he yawned, with nothing else left to do outside, he turned around and casually walked back into the villa.

There were still dishes waiting for him.

---

Karl felt the familiar distortion of spatial transportation.

Then the feeling vanished and solid ground returned beneath his feet.

Karl had barely opened his eyes when a notification rang inside his mind.

[Dungeon Entry Confirmed.]

[Welcome to the Reaper’s Sanctuary.]

Karl finally looked around and saw Leon and Mira appeared beside him almost at the same time as the remaining spatial distortion faded away.

For a few moments, none of them said anything.

The dungeon looked nothing like Karl had expected from something called the the Reaper’s Sanctuary.

They were standing near the edge of an enormous mountain cliff, with the ground dropping sharply hundreds of metres below them.

Mountains stretched across the distance in every direction, their peaks illuminated beneath a clear night sky and a bright moon hung high above them.

Leon looked around before clicking his tongue.

"Damn."

Karl glanced toward him.

"You really are lucky."

Leon gestured toward the massive landscape around them.

"Reaper’s Sanctuary? This already sounds like your kind of dungeon."

A grin appeared on his face.

"Looks like the Necromancer finally got his home field."

Karl was about to answer when another notification appeared.

[Dungeon Completion Objective Generated.]

[Obtain the Reaper’s Order from within the Reaper’s Sanctuary.]

Leon and Mira both paused as the same objective appeared before them.

Leon read it once before frowning.

"Reaper’s Order?"

He looked around again.

"What does that even mean?"

Karl had no idea either, the objective gave them no direction, location or explanation of what the Reaper’s Order actually was.

It simply told them to obtain it somewhere inside the Sanctuary, mira had already started examining their surroundings.

Her gaze slowly moved across the mountains and valleys below before stopping somewhere far beyond the cliff.

"I’m hoping it means what I think it means."

Karl and Leon followed her gaze, at first Karl only saw the dark valley between two enormous mountain ranges.

Then he noticed the lights.

Several kilometres away, nestled deep between the surrounding mountains, an small quaint city rested within the valley.

High walls surrounded most of it while tall structures rose from within, their outlines clearly visible beneath the moonlight.

Scattered lights covered different sections of the city, with several larger buildings near its center shining much more brightly than everything around them.

Leon stared toward the distant city.

"So that’s the Sanctuary?"

Karl looked at the city for another moment before glancing back at the objective still floating in front of him.

[Obtain the Reaper’s Order from within the Reaper’s Sanctuary.]

There was nothing else around them that looked remotely important enough to match that description.

Karl nodded.

"Seems like it."

His gaze returned to the enormous city beneath the moon.

"That’s probably where we need to go."