*DING*

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  We do not intend to blackmail you, Lucas King. You are free to refuse at any time. But, once you make a decision, things can’t be reverted to their previous state anymore.

  So.

  Do you have what it takes to protect Earth from invaders that threaten its peace?

  Think about it deeply. We have time.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “Holy fuck, things went from zero to one hundred really quick.”

  I rubbed my face with both hands and continued staring at the piled-up messages.

  “Assuming this is not some stupid-ass prank or extremely elaborate marketing practice—what I doubt considering you know quite a lot about me, including my real name—are you saying that monsters really exist and want to scorch every single piece of ground until nothing but dust remains? And this game stops them? Shit. Was Berg a real person?”

  *DING*

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  No. The game is just a simulation. One of the many tools we use to scout potential recruits to help keep this realm safe. It’s just a means to discover notable talents. Berg was just a cluster of data, as you would say.

  But, something affected that cluster of data and resulted in what you’ve called a “glitch”.

  We’ve already had our eyes on you but that unexpected reaction from a piece of code which requires the player's input to act has only solidified our belief in your exceptional talents.

  Therefore.

  I ask you again.

  Do you really have what it takes to abandon your current life and serve for the good of the universe?

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  I took a deep breath and glanced at the glass of wine standing by the edge of my desk. I couldn’t have gotten this drunk from just one refill to imagine all of this. There was still a chance that this was a dream. The issue was, I had almost never remembered those. Not even specks of them. It felt too vivid and real.

  With a light push against my desk, I spun around in my chair and stood up, throwing my headphones onto the seating. Everything in my room was exactly like I remembered it. No weird, trippy shit happening anywhere in sight. Just the comfortably small space of my apartment, filled with pragmatic furniture and necessities.

  I walked to the balcony and went through the glass door after opening it. Inhaling some fresh air—as fresh as it could get in the middle of a metropolis—I roamed my gaze over the stone-and-steel buildings and skyscrapers.

  It was six in the evening. People were returning from their day jobs and the streets were filled with pedestrians and cars. Sounds and noises you’d expect from a busy city echoed in the distance.

  “Would all of this be gone if those defenders lost? It’s hard to believe—”

  *DING*

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Yes.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “Ah, fuck!”

  I jerked and took a few steps back when a familiar sound of the game’s notification played in my ears and the onyx window materialized in front of my eyes. Tripping over the doorstep, I fell on my ass inside the apartment.

  “What the fuck?!”

  I stared in disbelief at the hovering rectangle, staying still in the same spot in the air where it had appeared. The single word was big enough for me to read without an issue even from my current position.

  “Option A, I’m dead-ass drunk. Option B, I went insane. Option C, the virus? Nah, no chance. Option D, this is… real?”

  *DING*

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Always has been.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  I jumped a little when the spooky shape blinked from its previous place to right in front of my eyes. There was no way my microphone had picked up any of my words either from the balcony or the floor. As insane as it seemed, I decided to go with Option D for now.

  “Alright, Mr. or Mrs. All-Hearing.” I fixed my posture and sat semi-comfortably on the wooden panels. “I’ll play along. So, you want me to help fight monsters—in dungeons, I assume, considering the game—to keep Earth safe. Will I be kidnapped to another world? Dimension? Realm? Reality? What about my relatives? Will they forget I existed?”

  *DING*

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  You will remain on Earth as one of its original residents. But, your freedom will be restricted since you will begin to perceive things normal people aren’t supposed to.

  Nothing will change in the lives of your associates. They will be able to visit you just as they had in the past. Naturally, they will remain oblivious to all “paranormal” things happening around you.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “Okay. And please, stop with these dings. It’s creeping me out hearing that notification in my ears without headphones.” I sighed and refocused on the onyx shape. “I’m sure you have been expecting this question. What’s in this for me? Life at risk, restricted freedom, and I bet some other inconveniences. I’m not a bad guy but neither am I a selfless hero. There surely is some incentive, right?”

  Thankfully, no sound played in my mind and the window shifted this time instead of reappearing.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Of course. As every employee, you are bound to receive payment, benefits, and privileges coming with your position. I’m not authorized to reveal a lot of details regarding these, but I know you well enough to be certain that you would enjoy the rewards.

  Have you ever wondered how a random millionaire no one knew about suddenly emerged seemingly from under the ground?

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  My brow rose curiously. I had a mystical, all-aware being communicating with me through a floating rectangle so the idea of people amassing huge wealth from slaughtering monsters trying to invade Earth didn’t look that unbelievable at the moment.

  I pondered over this whole thing once more, taking some time to rearrange my thoughts and consider pros and cons of this job. If I was able to do half as well as I had done in the game, I could possibly be set for life, without risking it that much.

  Now, I could be completely mistaken and thrown straight away into a task of repelling an assault of souls-like difficulty, but something told me that these people—if they were people—wouldn’t monitor their potential recruits so scrupulously just to welcome them with certain death. That would be both bad game design and terrible Human Resources practice.

  Well, I could very well be lured in by the devil himself to sell away my soul for the promise of riches and power. That was an option too. No one said he couldn’t be creatively elaborate with his attempts.

  All in all, I couldn’t deny that the prospect of fighting against fantasy creatures in fantasy worlds—or fantasy dungeons, I assumed—didn’t tickle my interest in those things. I had always been into this stuff.

  “Fine.” I stood up and brushed off my butt. “One, last question. My parents. If they can’t see all the paranormal stuff happening around, can it still…”

  A window appeared in front of me again before I finished, most likely noticing that I was dragging it out a bit.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Do you remember the supposed gas leak two blocks away from your apartment?

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “Where do I sign up?”

  The text disappeared and was replaced by two big buttons, one with the tick of approval and the other with the circle of rejection. Now, after all those previous windows lacking any reactive elements, it seemed almost scary.

  “Here goes nothing, I guess.”

  I tapped the tick mark.

  “Be gentle with me.”

  And the whole world shook.

  Chapter 2

  Reality Sets In

  I groaned, holding my head in my hands. The piercing headache gradually faded as I rubbed my temples. After a few short moments, I noticed the sensation of something hard pressing into my back and slowly opened my eyes.

  The ceiling of my apartment spanned in front of me. Glancing to the side, I spotted my desk, and then my chair, which had been pushed way aside. Noticing the half-empty bottle of red wine still sitting on the desk, and the menu screen of the game I had been playing on the monitor, I sighed heavily.

  “Shit. What the hell was in that wine? I’ve never gotten so wasted as to hallucinate or pass out.”

  Supporting myself on the nearby desk since my entire body felt more than just a little stiff, I stood up from the ground. The first thing I did after closing the game was to take a peek at the time. It seemed like I had been out for about forty minutes or so.

  A light breeze hit me from the side. The balcony door was open. This threw me off a bit. If I had opened it in that weird-ass dream, why was it open right now? This didn’t check out.

  Had I additionally sleepwalked and reenacted the movements from my drunken hallucinations? That could possibly explain the location of the chair and the glass door being open.

  “There’s first for everything, eh?” I chuckled, glancing at the suspicious wine. I swore to never buy that brand again.

  I walked to the balcony to close the door as it had gotten quite chilly in the less than an hour it had been since I’d apparently opened it. Before doing so, though, I stepped outside for a moment to take a look. A weird, unexplained urge pushed me forward to do so.

  Nothing seemed to have changed. I guess part of me didn’t want the hallucinations to be just a dream and I subconsciously searched for any signs to prove the extraordinary situation I might have gotten myself into was more than a weird dream.

  Yeah, right. As if something like that was even possible. Life was not a game. Monsters didn’t exist. Except for people, of course. They could be very real monsters if they wante—

  Putting my elbows on the railing, I froze. What I saw brought my train of thoughts to a sudden halt. The moment my face had moved a few inches past the edge of the balcony, the air in front of my eyes… blurred and shimmered.

  I frowned. “Am I still drunk, or is my eyesight finally going to shit? It’s been a miracle I had perfect sight up until now, with how much time I spend in front of—”

  And again, I froze, mid-sentence this time. When I had reached out with my hand, the weird effect intensified, spreading out around the spot I was moving my fingers towards.

  It turned blurrier, obstructing my view of the city’s lights like those barely opaque, not-quite-transparent, plastic curtains. Even more, some weird… symbols began to appear before me, looking like runes or sigils. Each gave off an emerald glow.

  More of this effect and the creepy letters showed up when I waved my hand around, always surfacing wherever I moved my fingers. A little anxious, I started bringing my hand closer to the unusual surface to see if—

  *DING DONG*

  “Fuck!” I cursed, jumping back.

  Hastily turning around, my gaze locked onto the door on the far side of my apartment. I wasn’t expecting any guests, nor had I ordered anything online in the past few weeks. And it wasn’t like I got many unannounced visitors.

  Nevertheless, I left the weird barrier alone—for now—and strode to the apartment door. Too bad there was no peephole for me to take a peek outside with. For some reason, all the buildings in the developer’s section avoided them like the plague.

  Unlocking the door, I opened it up. My eyes went wide in a flash.

  “What the fuck?!”

  As stupid as it sounds, a literal cavern spread before me, extending so far that I couldn’t get a clear view of the other side. A dark, stone tunnel ran forward, disappearing into the darkness after around forty meters or so. Creepy stalactites and stalagmites decorated the uneven, natural-looking path.

  Slowly, I closed the door, holding onto the knob. After a few seconds, I opened it again. The scenery remained unchanged.

  Repeating that motion again, I turned the lock on and off this time, making one more attempt. But the dark passage still stared back at me with complete indifference.

  I leaned forward, glancing around outside my door. The cavern—or whatever it was—appeared to be a dead end at my apartment. There was a rocky wall to the right, and another rocky wall on the left. The ceiling was about three meters above me. There was no sign of the staircase, or the doors to the other tenants’ apartments, that I expected to see.

  My foot bumped into something as I attempted to take a careful step forward. Lying there on the ground, was a cardboard box as wide as the doorframe and tall enough to reach my knees. A big green text spanned over its top part, spelling Dungeon Express, with two smaller lines in the left corner—From: Dungeon Cleaners Inc., and To: Lucas King.

  “Alright. So, this isn’t some drunken hallucination.” I sighed, swiping a hand down my face.

  The darkness ahead creeped me out more than a little, so I quickly shoved the package into my apartment and closed the door. I better not have lured some Goblin, or worse, with all the light I had let out from my room.

  Moving the box close to my bed, I sat down on the mattress and cut through the tape with a simple knife. The first thing I saw in the opened box was a letter sealed with wax. Impressed in the red wax was a mark that closely resembled the game’s desktop icon.

  Breaking the seal, I opened it up to pull out the neatly folded piece of paper.

  ~ * * * ~

  Hello, Lucas.

  This is J. I was the one talking to you through our recruitment system. I apologize, but I can’t use it to communicate with you anymore.

  Fear not, though, I’m not leaving you completely clueless after bringing you into our company. The box contains a few beginner’s manuals and guides you should at least flip through. Besides those, we got you a beginner’s kit too. Its contents are listed in one of the notebooks.

  Due to certain policies and rules which I can’t disclose, we are not allowed to communicate with our employees directly. Don’t think about it too much. I know it sounds very counterintuitive to cut contact with a newbie right after recruiting them, but you have to believe me that it has been proven statistically that those guided by hand performed significantly worse than those who figured it out on their own. And that performance often led to death.

  Additionally, we have sent you a new smartphone and smartwatch, courtesy of our best dwarven artisans. They are not only crafted from rare materials, which makes them extremely durable, but they allow you to connect to the Interdimensional Dungeon Break Prevention Association System. Your PC has gotten access to it too.

  What’s that, you ask? Well, oversimplifying things, you are now like a character in an RPG game. The system allows you to quantify your strength and abilities, showing them in numbers and text.

  I must disappoint you, though. It’s not one of those OP systems from various fictional books. Your performance and growth depend fully on you, your potential, talent, and effort. It only lets you take a peek at yourself and other things to help you better understand it, depending on the path you choose, and to put the earned spiritual energy to good use. Saves you a lot of time spent on countless meditation and self-cultivation techniques.

  Plus, you can access many special places and services like Dungeon Wiki, Dungeon Shop, Dungeon Market, Dungeon Forum, etc. The first one should be of particular interest to you, knowing how you like to be as prepared as possible.

  I will leave the fun of discovering the rules of this ‘game’ to you. Your Tutorial has already started, but you have more than enough time to finish it. Don’t neglect the Dungeon for too long, though.

  After you reach high enough clearance and position in the company—you are an Intern right now—we might get to talk a bit more. I would love to chat with you through our internal app one day.

  Good luck. I have high hopes for you.

  P.S. You might want to check your Status first and choose a Class as soon as possible. I think I already know what you will pick considering your talents ;)

  ~ * * * ~

  I finished reading the letter and assimilating all the hardly-believable information. But, it seemed that it was truly my new reality. At least it felt real, so far. If it was just another part of the weird dream, I could at least follow through with it until I woke up. If it wasn’t, I decided to tread carefully, regardless.

  Digging out the contents of the box revealed a few things.

  First off, I found the guides and manuals this ‘J’ had mentioned. There were four of them—a green one, which talked about the System; a blue one, which discussed Dungeons; a red one, which had details about monsters; and a brown one, which went into some detail about environments. There was a note included with the manuals that explained that everything in them could also be found on the Dungeon Wiki.

  Secondly, the phone and the watch. The former looked like a simple smartphone, but felt quite durable. Booting it up, I saw that all the contacts and information from my old device had been fully transferred to it already.

  Neat.

  I’d never had a smartwatch before, so I was excited to try it on. I would have to tinker with it later, to customize things.

  Thirdly, starting equipment, I guessed. I found a set of durable-looking steel daggers, a protective leather vest and pants, a leather backpack, a quite sizable waterskin, and a few other useful things, like flashlights or lanterns. Everything looked fairly modern, though it still had a touch of that fantasy, magitech design.

  And lastly, provisions. Some of the rations gave a totally fantasy-like vibe, while the other half came in the form of plastic bags and cans. I was pretty sure they were trying to appeal to the people from Earth with those more fantasy-like supplies.