James slept like a log. The hotel room was luxurious. However, a knock disturbed him in the morning.

  “Mr. James, Mr. Silas and Mr. Gwen called you for a briefing.” A slim female attendant with long black hair smiled when James groggily opened the door.

  “Where?” James yawned. He then went back in and carried his weapons to the meeting room. James had developed PTSD due to his dungeon experience. Right now, he didn't feel safe without carrying a weapon.

  The receptionist then led him to the meeting room. Anderson and the rest had worn their military uniforms, no longer wearing the armor they got from dungeons. Only James came with his usual set of leather armor.

  “I should have brought a suit…” James muttered.

  “That is not required. We will provide you with one if you need it.” Gwen replied formally, but his smile betrayed the tense atmosphere.

  “First of all, congratulations. You have completed your mission. One out of three nuclear reactors has been reclaimed.” Silas led the meeting. Applause from Kouki and the others soon followed. Expensive wines were poured into glasses and served to all attendees.

  “Well. Now comes the boring part. I have to write a report to the government. May I know what happened?”

  “Dunno. Kouki did almost everything. I only finished the boss on the fourth floor.” James shrugged. He hated meetings. This one was no exception.

  “Of course. You are a reinforcement, after all. I see, so Kouki managed to clear three floors on his own. Did he need reinforcement at all?”

  “I did. I am glad that James came to our aid. Without him, I would likely have lost my life. I had battled nonstop for almost three days on the fourth floor. Many had perished and we were cornered by numerous hordes of skeletons that came incessantly.”

  James let him do all the talking. To be honest, he didn’t think Kouki needed that much help. He was almost at the finish line. The last floor had no boss after all. Sure, he looked haggard there, but a hematonic potion should have let him fight for another day. Despite his skill, Kouki lacked guts.

  “Well, we are glad that our decision proved to be the correct one. We also heard of our massive blunder. About dungeon weapons,” Gwen said.

  “Yes. I brought my sword, but many of my teammates were only given basic weapons from the System. Moreover, survivors don’t get a second weapon. Most of them died in the dungeon. We managed to bring four of our dead comrades with us, but we couldn’t return to the previous floor to grab the others,” Kouki nodded.

  “We have achieved victory, but at tremendous loss. I shall put that into our report. Well, I am glad that Mr. James was worth every penny we paid him.”

  “How was Mr. Andrew’s dungeon?” Kouki asked.

  “The truth is… Mr. Andrew has returned from the dungeon. He should arrive here at any minute now,” Gwen sighed. James widened his eyes.

  “He cleared a medium-ranked dungeon?” James muttered. James was getting arrogant. He thought he was strong, but even now, he couldn’t picture himself clearing a medium-ranked dungeon. The novice-ranked dungeon had proved to be more than he could chew despite his inflated levels and stats.

  “Um… No… Andrew didn’t clear his dungeon,” Gwen sighed. “He returned with his comrade. The said comrade is now in a therapy session and will not be interviewed. But Andrew himself will come here to give his briefing. He said he had something important to say.”

  A man, who looked so haggard, opened the door to the meeting room. Gwen bowed to him. It took James a while to realize that this man was Andrew, the leader of this Guild… James looked at him, exasperated. This man was also his former boss. The one that resigned by himself and left him in the previous company

  “Greetings… James? Was that you? You’ve changed a lot…” James used his Mask of Identity, so his true face was shown. However, the scrawny body he had before was replaced by the hulking body of an orc, along with his new limbs and golem arm—Andrew was correct. James had changed a lot.

  In contrast, Andrew hadn’t changed much. He had merely grown a little older since the last time James had seen him.

  “Andrew. Long time no see.” James nodded. He didn’t really want to talk to him, so he merely nodded.

  “Mr. Andrew, you said that you wanted to say something.”

  “Yes. I have failed. The dungeon was conquered. I need some kind of artifact… or key. The system said I need to prove my worth,” Andrew said sullenly.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Merit and dungeon core, huh?” James quickly connected the dots. A part of him felt disgusted at how the system imposed the trial. On one hand, James acknowledged its fairness. It knew Andrew didn’t bring the required key, so it threw Andrew back here. However, on the other hand, the system didn’t tell him that he needed to conquer another dungeon first.

  Andrew looked at him agape. He knew Kouki had managed to clear their dungeon. But he didn’t know that they had gained something out of it. When Gwen presented him with the dungeon core, he asked the system,

  “Is this what I need to unlock that door on the third floor?”

  James was not the one asking, so he couldn’t see the system notification. However, Andrew’s expression said it all.

  “Fuck you! Do you know how many died? They all died for nothing!” Andrew was about to throw the cube in rage but stopped as reason returned to his mind. James knew his anger was not directed at him or the Guild, but at the system. He had behaved the same way when the system intentionally hid information from him. James was solo, so he didn’t know how much it must have hurt Andrew to have lost his comrades like that, but the anger was the same.

  “So, it was correct?” Kouki asked.

  “Yes… I need four different types of these and twenty merits,” Andrew almost spat out his contempt.

  “Twenty! Does that mean we need to conquer twenty different dungeons?” Sanders asked.

  “No. It doesn’t have to be from the same person…” Andrew answered.

  “Well, if it doesn’t have to come from the same person… we almost got it, right?” Sanders looked over to the rest of the team.

  “We also already got half of the dungeon cores. Um… Mr. James had a sphere one,” Anderson said.

  “You guys have already conquered two dungeons? Well. I guess I’m the only one who failed his mission, huh?” Andrew lay defeated.

  “Well, one nuclear complex has been secured. With this, our funding won’t be cut off. We just need to conquer another dungeon while preparing ourselves. Moreover, you returned safe and with information. We gained something in the end,” Gwen said.

  “So, where to next?” James asked.

  “Eh? We are diving again so soon?” Kaina whined.

  “Well, you guys just conquered two dungeons in a row, recuperation is also important. I also managed to receive some good news from our nuclear physicists. There had been some very minor deterioration, but overall, the worst should not happen,” Gwen smiled. Everyone tilted their head except Anderson and Andrew. Gwen then continued,

  “Ahem. I shall explain further. At first, we feared monsters could attack the nuclear reactors, causing a meltdown. However, after inspections just yesterday, the reactor was still functional. There were no traces of monster incursion whatsoever.”

  “Was time stopped?” Andrew asked.

  “Um… that’s the bad news. While we can assume the reactor remained stable… unfortunately, time does not stop. I have read the log from the computers inside the reactors. The timestamp was still there… but there was an anomaly…”

  “Anomaly?”

  “The date does not match…”

  “Time was slower inside the dungeon,” James nodded. He thought it was weird. Two or three months had passed outside the dungeon, even though he felt he only spent a week or two inside. There were no clocks or electronics available, but judging from his sleep cycle, James was sure he didn’t spend that much time inside the dungeon.

  “...That answers a lot of questions… Thank you for your insight, Mr. James. I am glad to hire you,” Gwen nodded. “I need to collate most of this information. The UN was worried whether the nuclear power plant that was captured by dungeons could cause meltdowns. I need further research, but from the freed dungeon, we can safely conclude it will not be the case.”

  “Hm… there is still danger, right?” Anderson frowned.

  “Yes. The grid where the power of the nuclear reactor goes through. It had been abandoned for about four months, but it showed little degradation. That means it was not affected by storms or rain,” Gwen nodded.

  “Hm… but little is different from none,” Anderson frowned. Gwen had copies of the document, and he browsed it.

  “The physicists shall do their duty while we do ours. The threat was not over yet, but we should be glad that we were given more time,” Andrew nodded. However, despite his polite speech, his hands were clenched. He sighed as the face of his dead teammates haunted him.

  James knew they were not out of the woods yet and wondered whether these tuxedo guys were trying to butter up their reports. Nevertheless, there was nothing he could do but raid more dungeons.

  “Alright. If you don’t have anything to discuss, can I go back to my hotel?” James asked Gwen.

  “Of course. We thank you for your service,” Gwen bowed.

  James didn’t return to the hotel. He came outside while wearing his adventurer armor. People looked at him as if he was crazy. James knew he had to get a suit.

  “I've got tons of money now. I can buy whatever I want,” James muttered as he went to a tailor. Fortunately, due to the system, he could understand what the native who spoke German said.

  After buying the hotdogs a food vendor offered him, he went to a tailor.

  “Greetings, may I help you?” one of the assistants asked politely. Looking at James's irregular body made him reel for a bit. But since James had a normal human face, he calmed down.

  “I want a suit.”

  “I am afraid it has to be handmade. We don't have one for a unique body such as yours,” the assistant answered. Of course, there was no suit for his bulky orc body. James sat down on the chair and took off his armor.

  The assistant took off, fetching the owner who happened to be the tailor. Unlike the assistant, the tailor was more calm.

  “Are you one of those dungeon explorers? I think I saw you on YouTube!” he said.

  “That's correct, I just cleared one today.”

  “I see. I knew some survivors. I saw some photos,” the tailor smirked as he took out his measuring tape.

  “Seen someone like me yet?” James said.

  “Well, there are those who have skills to modify their body with machines and other creatures. You can find it on YouTube,” the tailor said. James turned to him in shock. Apparently, his ability was not as unique as he had thought.

  “I see. I guess I have to buy phones and laptops too. They were destroyed when I raided a dungeon yesterday,” James said.

  “I see. Well, there are many cheap ones. Would you like to know where to buy secondhand goods?”

  “Just give me the best one. Money is not an issue,” James said. For the first time in his life, he could smile while flashing his debit cards. Knowing they had a rich client, the tailor and assistants came over to serve him.