Dungeon Sniper

"But why? Why do you have to go through the Gate?"

That night, a little celebration was in order. Queeqa prepared for us the most excellent dinner, and the reinstated Captain Baha opened his best bottle of whiskey for everyone except for me to toast and drink cheerily. It was in the middle of this reverie that Hermana asked me the question, her face almost pleading.

I blinked, unable to answer right away. I looked at Elysia for help, but Elysia was enjoying herself, perhaps too much, with the fine whiskey. Did my Ellie have a drinking problem? Probably. But her loose, intoxicated smile was too good to miss, so I did not have any problem with that. I did wish she was sober at the moment, though, because Hermana's question was poignant and provoking.

Why did I have to keep going through the Level? To be honest, I had not put the thought on it ever since I learned of the Gates and the next Levels beyond.

I just felt as if I had to, but I was sure that was not an answer Hermana was looking for.

Hermana took my silence as a sign of hesitation, so she pressed on in her tipsy excitement.

"Captain and I talked, and from today on, we are no longer salvagers. Instead, we're going to study the Black Whales, prove to people that we've been wrong about them, stop the cruel hunting, help them reproduce, you know, a work worthwhile for a change."

I turned and saw Captain Baha, laughing and talking fervently about that one time he had helped a Black Whale mama to deliver a baby. The audience, Queeqa and Elysia, looked grossed out but engaged enough for Baha to go on about his favorite subject in the world.

"The captain's finally found his calling. Queeqa promised he'll stay with us for a year or so until he earns the rightful money to open up a restaurant. I'll be more than happy to write on the Black Whales. Everyone knows that the literature on them is scarce as it is."

"Hermana, I—"

"But most importantly, your ability to talk with the whales! I'm not saying that you'll be a great addition to the team. I'm saying that... we need you."

To me, 'we' sounded like 'I,' but Hermana was already blushing enough to give that away.

"... I like you, Hermana. I like all of you, this team, the crew," I said.

Hermana blinked first but put on a wry smile.

"What's left of it, anyway. The traitors... I still hate them, but I'll miss them from time to time. Not that you'd understand, having put through them for only a short time."

"Yeah, well, they didn't exactly leave me the greatest impression towards the end."

Hermana put on a polite smile, her cheek still rosy and blushing, waiting for my next words.

"... I can't give you a specific reason for me to go on except that I just feel the need to. I would love to stay and help you guys out, but even then I won't be able to stick around forever."

"... I understand."

"You do? Really?"

"Sometimes, there are things that just feel right for you to do it, you know? Things that don't need to be explained."

"Thanks for understanding, Hermana."

"But that doesn't mean having a reason for something doesn't help. It does. It anchors you, gives you something to focus, motivates you."

"You're right."

"You don't have to explain to me why you want to go forward, but there will come a time when you need to explain to yourself. I just want you to be prepared until then so that you won't be stopped by whatever hardship is thrown at you."

"... And I keep wondering, why do all the ladies I've come across in this world have to be so smart?"

Smart, strong, and pretty. I chided myself again for wanting to kiss Hermana with her face up so close, and I knew Hermana was thinking the same thing.

"Smart, you say? Would someone so smart fall for a guy who already has a girlfriend? An Elf girlfriend at that."

Hermana nodded at Elysia, looking prettier than ever with her relaxed smile and roseate visage.

I turned back to Hermana and put on an apologetic smile.

"I'm flattered, really."

"Yeah, I need to go out more," shrugged Hermana with a playful wink.

.

.

.

"We could really use your skills, boy. Make a difference, help our friends."

Captain Baha seemed shocked, and sad, when I told him that Elysia and I wanted to go through the Gate the next morning at the breakfast table.

"Why the hurry? The sea is huge, and you've only sailed one-tenth of it. There are more for you to see," coaxed the old captain.

"We're not really here to sight-see," I exchanged glances with Elysia, seated next to me and wincing a smile due to a mild hangover.

"Why are you here then?" asked Baha, genuinely curious.

Unlike last night, I had an answer. An incomplete, but a viable one.

"I have a job to do."

"What kind of a job? Better than being a vice-captain to the one and only Black Whale investigation team?"

"You were going to make me a vice-captain?"

"What's not to make you one? You have a unique skill, and the ship's shorthanded as it is to afford a full-time janitor anyway."

"... Thanks for the offer, but we have to go."

Captain Baha sighed wistfully but did not press on the specificity of the job. The job of finding bugs and fixing them as I went on to explore this world called Dungeon, commissioned by none other than the world's creator. As magical and fantastic as the Dungeon was, it would be difficult to explain to them the existence of Ms. GOD and the world where I had come from. Again, not as impossible as explaining to my neighbors at Brooklyn where I had been all this time if I ever got back, but difficult nonetheless.

I saw Hermana nodding at me reassuringly. She and I both knew that the 'job' was a little too weak to be my 'reason' to keep going.

But for now, it would have to do.

Following the somber breakfast, we all stood on the deck, right above the point where we had located the Gate next to the sunken Doby Mick I the other day. We had tried to lift it up to the surface with the cranes on Doby Mick II, but with the limited manpower on the ship, Captain Baha decided against it and let the Forevershut Gate stay true to its misnomer and stay shut. The bragging right of discovering the Gate was still that of Captain Baha and his crew. At least, that was the justification for the no-lift.

As a result, Elysia and I had to go underwater and swim to the Gate in order to access it. No problem there, as the Black Whales were more than willing to take us through the repellent currents. I had the golden key, D-Bug, still with me, held casually in my one hand like a starfish-shaped cushion.

"Well then, goodbye, folks," I said awkwardly.

"Thanks for all the help, and good luck out there, both of you," said Captain Baha solemnly.

"Are you sure you do not want me to pack you emergency snacks?" asked Queeqa worriedly.

"Anything other than our clothes melt along the way. It would be a waste of your quality food, Q, but I really appreciate the offer."

"I will have my place open and ready for you to enjoy, Beta."

"I am very much looking forward to it," I smiled at the tough but kind-hearted Orc-Human halfling.

Hermana seemed calm, calmer than last night when she had already taken in the news of my departure.

"Safe trips, I guess," said Hermana casually, as if I would be gone be back after a few days of break.

"I'm going to miss you. All of you. And the sea."

I looked around the three sailors, then the ship to which I had grown accustomed in the past few weeks, and finally onto the vast open sea that was full of surprises and stories.

But I would no longer be a part of them, now that I was leaving it probably for good.

"Ready?" I held Elysia's hand and asked gently.

"Yes," Elysia answered sweetly as she grasped my hand back.

"... I've been meaning to say to you, and seeing that we won't be able to talk down there under the sea, it's less dramatic that I hoped—"

"They're staring, Beta. Make it quick," Elysia nodded back to the three spectators, eyeing us curiously and wondering why we had not jumped off yet.

"Right. I've been meaning to say, thank you for staying by my side. Especially with how aimless and unplanned my journeys are."

"There's no need to thank me. I told you I'm here by choice. To stay with you."

"... Do you mind if I kissed you in front of everyone else."

"Actually, I do."

"Such a shy girl, you."

"Oh? I guess you want me to kiss you in front of everyone else like Hermana did? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"... I was afraid you'd bring that up sooner or later."

"And I was afraid you'd never apologize."

"Can we do this later? They're staring."

Yes. Baha and the others were definitely staring now.

"Apologize. Now."

"I'm sorry... But what am I apologizing for again?"

The last words would piss off any girl, I knew. But I felt wronged. I did not ask Hermana to give me a victory kiss, and whether I liked it or not was irrelevant.

I braced for another of Elysia's cold gaze, but instead, she jumped off the ledge with her hand still in mine and ended up dragging me to the water by surprise.

We splashed and poked our heads out of the water. Elysia, her hair all wet and s.e.xy, was grinning back at me.

"Now no one's staring."

Elysia then kissed me hard, her hands wrapped around my neck passionately, lovingly.

Salty lips and soft tongue later, we separated with heaty breaths.

"Apology accepted," said Elysia with a sigh.

"... Apology for what?" I asked back, dazed and dreamy.

"For making me jealous. For making me like you more."

I did not know about jealousy, but I could definitely relate to liking the other more.

The Black Whales quickly came to our sides as I called for them. I grabbed their fins expertly while Elysia, a first-time whale rider, seemed nervous about touching them with her hands. Once she held on to the fins, the Black Whales gently guided us downward, swimming between the currents deftly and finally leading us to the mossy, abandoned Gate on the seafloor.

Only if I could breathe underwater, I would have taken some time to inspect the Gate more closely. With less than a minute to spare, I placed the starfish D-Bug on the surface of the Gate, waiting for something, anything to happen.

How soon was too soon to start panicking? Because nothing happened the first few seconds that I had put the D-Bug onto the Gate.

Nothing was easy for me. I remembered that just then.

Elysia tapped my shoulder, and I turned to see her pointing upward. She was right. It would be better for us to take a breather and actually plan on how to open the Gate—

When the D-Bug finally started to glow in gold. It had looked rather dull ever since it was taken out of the seawater, but it looked as if it had just awoken from its hibernation away from home.

Now that it was back at its natural habitat, it also started to move. It wriggled out of my grasp and ran across the Gate, finding the right spot for the 'keyhole' that was hidden beneath the mossy surface. Then the starfish shrunk even smaller, now to the size of a wallet, compact and palmable.

Once it fit perfectly inside the hole, it remained stationary, and I knew it was waiting for me to turn it around.

I swam toward it gingerly, with Elysia's hand back into mine.

A jolt of hesitation spread through my body then. I looked around and saw the amicable, adorable faces of the Black Whales. I recalled the sad smiles on Baha, Queeqa, and Hermana. I remembered how starry the nights on the sea were, and how mesmerizing the beautiful dawns looked over the horizon, over the clouds, over the sparkling water—

Nope. Too late. The Gate had opened, and the color I glimpsed before we were s.u.c.k.e.d into the other side was burning orange like a setting sun, a lingering, bloody dusk...

Gone was the whole sensation of being underwater and the constant scent of salt in the air.

Dry, dusty, and sizzling hot.

I opened my eyes and found that the world was in flames. Or rather, in flaming red sands.

Another desert? No. Not really. It felt like a desert, but the atmosphere felt more imposing and windy. There were rocks everywhere, and hills sprouted all around that the view of the sky was limited. Only then I realized that Elysia and I were standing on the lower pit of a valley, on a creek that had run dry.

And it felt hotter than the desert wasteland of Level Two. The sun seemed normal all right, so I suspected that the source of the heat was coming from somewhere else. For instance, the heat seemed to be coming off from the ground itself, as if a volcanic lava was flowing right beneath us...

"Someone's coming."

I started and turned to Elysia, frowning staring at the far end of the creek.

I did not need to activate Falcon Eye to see that someone was indeed heading this way. I could tell which race he was too. His skin was green, but with a fainter hue than the ones I had seen.

It took me another minute to see why his skin color looked different. First, he was an old Orc, the oldest one I had ever seen. But as I had described before, the Orcs did not really get old physically other than gaining some wrinkles here and there. If anything, they got stronger with age, with experience and prudence granted only through living long years. And I could see that this approaching Orc was no different. There was power emanating from every aspect of his presence. His gait, his posture, the muscles and the broad shoulders...

What changed his skin color was none other than the visible scar of burning over his entire body. The skin looked marred and smooth from the severe burning he probably had had to endure. Half of his hair was gone too, not that the unbalanced Mohican hairstyle did not suit the old, hunky Orc.

I braced once more as I realized how big he was. Baraka was a big Orc himself, but this guy had another head on the Orc scout and almost twice the broader shoulders.

The Orc finally stopped at about thirty feet in front of us. He squinted his eyes as he took out a monstrosity of a greatsword from his back. The only other greatsword I had seen in this world was Moniqa the Orc Champion at Colosseum Ultimatum. That greatsword seemed deadly too, but it still had some resemblance of a brutish aestheticism on it.

The greatsword held by the gigantic Orc in front of us seemed more like an oversized mace than anything else. The blade was thick and had a saw-like edge, but it was the sheer size of it that would suffocate any onlooker.

Coincidentally, the mace-greatsword also had a lion-themed decoration on the pommel and hilt. More specifically, three lion faces were crying in anguish with its bodies twisted and intertwined along the carvings on the ornaments.

It had an overall tone of gruesomeness, if not terror.

The only solace was that the Orc did not seem like a mad killer. He seemed capable of becoming one, but there was a hint of wisdom in his old eyes. Or maybe I was wrong and I was being too hopeful for my own good.

The Orc blinked and c.o.c.ked his head.

"The Gate? Alas, but it was supposed to be closed for good."

The deep voice echoed around the valley ominously, followed by a threatening growl, truly leonine, that made the hair on my arms stand reflexively.

"Alpha! You burden me yet again with another of your recklessness!" bellowed the giant Orc toward the empty sky.

Elysia and I stood still, unable to move after the last thunderous roar that seemingly—definitely—just shook the entire world.

Finally, the Orc placed his deep, clouded eyes back on us and pointed the colossal greatsword in our direction.

"You have come to the wrong place to die, children."

... I believed him.