We all stood back as Felton re-opened the entrance to the dungeon. Ash coated the inside of the tunnel, the result of the fire I had poured into the porthole, disposing of all the corpses clogging the entrance.

  “Hold on,” I said, chanting the invocation for [Control Wind].

  My spell reached into the tunnel, pulling out the air and, with it, the ash. I funneled it up and away, idly wondering what spell I would need to control the ash directly as I dispersed it out in the forest. It might not be great for whatever trees got coated, but it would wash away in the next rain, and it was better than me and my companions getting lung disease from inhaling aerosolized goblin remains.

  We had already killed a lot of goblins over the last few days. It added up to many, many more monsters than I had killed in the past; those that had earned me my second and third levels. Had the value of these kills been linear, I would be a ridiculously high level now, but clearly there was something else at play. Between the four of us, or from my existing levels, or due to my increased stats and the relative difficulty, all the monster-murder had only resulted in two new levels.

  Six stat points total was still nothing to sneer at, and it was likely that Felton and Felris had earned even more. I was curious about it, and curious about Byron’s experience with these hidden levels from his history as an adventurer, so I decided to comment on it.

  “Huh,” I said as casually as I could. “Looks like I received a gift from the Guardians.”

  “Really?” Felton asked, his gaze unfocusing as he looked at his own stats. “Oh, I did too. Oh, wow. That’s… a large gift.”

  “Me too!” Felris added, beaming as she looked at her stats. She let out a dark chuckle. “Oh, my lightning is going to be even more powerful now.”

  I glanced over at Byron, who nodded. “The Guardians often reward us for the destruction of monsters. Perhaps this gift is meant to help us in the dungeon ahead.”

  That was an interesting way to look at it, but it made sense. Without knowing about the hidden level system, the increases would be ascribed to the mysterious ways of higher powers, and it would come across as if people were being rewarded for disposing of monsters by the gods. The only reason I thought about it differently was because I grew up on a steady diet of games where killing things earned experience, which specifically went towards powering up. I didn’t even truly know whether that was what was happening here; I just knew that there were no Guardians to give gifts, and it was a mechanic of the System itself.

  “Did… the Guardians reward the champions for killing demons, too?” I asked hesitantly. I had tried to avoid talking about the mechanics of leveling up in this life lest I get labeled a heretic, but this seemed like a good time to prod.

  I tried asking the administrator, once, but he just laughed and told me to figure it out on my own.

  “Hmm,” Byron said, stroking his short goatee. “As far as I am aware, no. It was the champions’ duty to defeat the demons and the demon king, so it wasn’t rewarded. It was an expectation as a result of their blessings.”

  That led me to ask a question I had really been curious about, which would finally give me a clearer picture about the demons, as well. “Do the Guardians ever reward people for killing… other people? Bad people, brigands and murderers, not just anyone.”

  Byron shook his head. “Never. While it is sometimes necessary to kill other humans, in war or otherwise, it is never something that is rewarded. The Guardians value all life.”

  A knot that had been clenched inside me for a long time finally unraveled. I had been incredibly nervous to learn the answer to that, because a System that did reward killing other people would have been a disaster, as far as I was concerned.

  Sure, the people killed would return to the Engine of Reincarnation and be reborn, but I still didn’t like the idea of other Metasurvivors benefiting from mass slaughter, nor did I want to be tempted in that direction myself for a quick and easy power-up.

  The fact that demons also didn’t incite level ups was interesting, though. Did that mean they had souls, too? They were obviously sapient, and the administrator even gave a demon king its own blessing when the war was imminent, so they probably did.

  It was too premature to extrapolate fully, but it seemed like the System didn’t directly reward the killing of other souls. It didn’t even seem to reward the killing of animals, for that matter; only the monsters, which were made of magic itself, contributed to this boon. I wasn’t sure if that meant animals had nascent souls or if the actual mechanism involved the magic itself, as both seemed possible. Perhaps I could learn more once I was better established in this life, and if not, there would be other lives to dig into the mysteries further.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Well, we’re stronger than ever and we’ve got a clear path forward,” I said, motioning to the dungeon. “Shall we?”

  * * *

  Fighting in dungeon tunnels was more restrictive than fighting outdoors, but that went both ways. While we had less room to engage the goblins rushing us from down the tunnel, they also were unable to flank and surround us.

  This dungeon was entirely untamed, unlike Obdorn’s. There were no sconces for torches, no doors to control routes, no cleared enclosed rooms for rest. I cast a fairly advanced [Create Light] to fully illuminate the tunnels as we passed through, without blinding us in the process. Felton applied his mastery of stone magic in order to create barricades and to enclose tunnels, to control the dungeon’s flow.

  We quickly fell into a routine. I had again buffed everyone at the start of the dungeon, and with our increased speed and strength, Felton and I held the front. Felris sniped with her bow from the rear. Byron was at her side to protect her if something did get past us, or on the off chance that somehow goblins got behind us, particularly once the tunnels started branching. When there was a large number of goblins, Felris would switch to chanting [Create Lightning], blowing away the entire group.

  After the first one, I advised she tone down the power to a level more reasonable for shooting lightning past her brother and fiancé in such a narrow tunnel.

  Between marking our path with a piece of charcoal and magically closing off branching tunnels to explore later, it was fairly straightforward work. Sometimes, we wound up looping back around to a wall Felton had created earlier, and once we knew what tunnels were enclosed loops like that, we closed them in from both ends after emptying them of goblins. Likewise, we enclosed dead-end tunnels once cleared. Bit by bit, the dungeon’s footprint shrank in this manner, taking us deeper and deeper.

  Our slow, cautious pace meant it would take more than a single day to explore the full dungeon. When we estimated it to be a bit past half-day, we backed out, closing off the dungeon entrance again for the evening so we could all get a full night of sleep, replenish our energy, and recover mana. The dungeon was restorative for mana in its own right, but the exhaustion that came with so much use was best solved by good food and good sleep.

  On the second day, we found our first goblin birthing pit.

  The burbling mud had a sour, eye-watering smell. I gagged as I got near it, covering my nose and mouth with my sleeve.

  “Oh, that is disgusting,” I muttered.

  Birthing pits were how goblins propagated. Inside a dungeon, they were basically self-sustaining, fed by the local mana. Once the puddle of gunk accumulated enough mana, it formed a goblin within, and once it was fully grown, it emerged, ready to be a menace, just like its brethren which came before it.

  The pits themselves would also spread. Like sourdough, part of the pit could be relocated as a starter, and then fed with mana until it grew large enough to start spitting out goblins. In the dungeon, that was a somewhat natural process. Out in the world, goblins would feed their external pit with the bodies of animals and humans, as well as their own dead, growing through an accelerated form of mana decomposition.

  This mechanism was not entirely without value to us. Goblins themselves were worthless, but this mud had some minor use cases. If processed, it could be used in some industries, notably construction and pottery, for magical ends. Goblins were such a disgusting menace that the pits were often simply destroyed, rather than going through all the work of processing for a relatively low-value product.

  I had researched this in advance of conquering this dungeon, and fortunately, one method of destroying a pit was also a step that could be used in processing: fully drying out the mud, dehydrating and desiccating it so that it couldn’t churn. This stopped the goblin birthing process and allowed the mud to be processed into a powder which could ultimately be incorporated into clay.

  Left alone, a dry pit ran the risk of getting wet enough again to kick-start its recovery, but it couldn’t get rained on within the dungeon, and unless this pit was spring-fed, it would likely stay dry unless goblins intentionally rehydrated it. I had no intention of letting any existing goblins survive, so for now, I could cook it with [Create Fire] and come back to it later.

  “This is going to stink,” I warned my companions, who took a few steps back. I shook my head. “Yeah, you’re going to want to go a lot farther back.”

  By the time I was done pouring fire into the pit, we were all choking on the noxious fumes and dry-heaving, but the muck had turned into hard brick that could be retrieved later. Much later, when the smell had passed.

  I wanted to ask Felton to close in the area with stone, but we were all coughing and gagging too much to cast, so we fled. Some battles just weren’t worth fighting.

  * * *

  Day by day, tunnel by tunnel, we chipped away at the dungeon. It wasn’t all work; in between dives, we sparred, played games, hunted to extend our provisions, and just enjoyed each others’ company.

  Even without rushing, our slow but steady progress soon saw us to the deepest parts of the dungeon, where it seemed like the mana density was at its highest. There, we found one last massive goblin birthing pit.

  At this point, we had a better system for this: while Felton and Felris cooked the mud—as they both had [Create Fire] from the academy—I used [Control Wind] to exhaust the fumes back up the tunnels and, ideally, out of the dungeon entirely. It was a bit slower, but it saved us from needing to retreat and from losing our breakfasts.

  Once the biggest and final pit was dried, we took a look around.

  “Do you think the dungeon core is… in the pit?” I asked, finally.

  The mana concentration—as well as closing off every other path—had led us here, where we had expected to find our final goal. All we had found was a whole lot of mud.

  “I don’t think so,” Felton said. “Wouldn’t it be a lot bigger, if it was?”

  I had no idea what would happen to a birthing pit that consumed an entire dungeon core, but I could imagine it would be pretty bad.

  “Plus, I think I can still feel a mana flow,” Felris added.

  Concentrating on the magic, I focused my attention, and tried to get a sense from where it was coming from. The whole dungeon was suffused, but up ahead, behind the pit, there seemed to be something more.

  The Obdorn siblings must have felt similarly, because soon we were all standing up against the rock wall of the cavern.

  “Hmm,” Felton said, tapping the rock and frowning. “I’m not sure this wall is natural.”

  “Should we open it?” Felris asked.

  I shrugged. “I think we have to. But prepare yourselves. Byron, you too. We have no idea what might be on the other side.”

  We all got into position as Felton began to cast [Control Stone]. As his spell reached its apex, the stone wall split open, forming an entrance and revealing the closed off part of the dungeon—and any dangers hidden within.