The Illicitous Dungeon

Chapter 15: (Side B) Audience

The summoned students and teacher had about ten minutes to calm their chaotic emotions, or at least get them under control.

Everyone managed to calm down somewhat during that time, but they were still greatly afraid and nervous, barely keeping their legs steady as they left the summoning room under escort of the royal guards.

Princess Zoerina led them through halls with architectural arches, columns and banners of a gold dragon on a red background. Everything was maintained by meticulous care to ensure that not even dust remained.

Carpet runners in the hallway were as if they were new, despite the knights walking over them in their iron boots, and marble sculptures didn't have the faintest trace of dirt on them.

Glowing orbs of light floated below the ceiling at regular intervals, filling the corridors off a warm, soft glow. They were clearly magical, a sharp reminder that this was definitely another world.

The students witnessed some maids in the corridors who would immediately move to the side and stand with their head lowered until the princess had passed and left. What was most puzzling to the onlookers however was their attire.

'Are they wearing, eastern maid uniforms?' Several of the students who were knowledgeable on eastern anime and other cultural aspects suspiciously questioned the choice of clothing.

Eventually, they entered a magnificent throne room as regal as it could be. Giant stone pillars held up a ceiling with relief carvings of dragons far above them. Many floating orbs of light of various colors floated high above them while gradually drifting around, casting warm twisting lights and shadows across the ceiling which made the carvings seem to come alive.

The entire floor was covered in large square tiles which the gloss on produced a dim reflection of the hall. Two lines of more crimson and gold knights lined the room, each standing so still they seemed like statues.

At the end of the throne room, a double staircase curved up on the sides to a wide area with a giant ten meter tall throne made from some unrecognizable reddish metal, giant twenty meter tall windows stood around the area, letting in natural light to the grand hall which seemed to come from the throne.

There were also several smaller thrones on the sides, likely for the queen and any concubines present.

Just the majesty of it all left everyone at a loss of words, overcome by a sense of inferiority to the man who sat on the throne. He appeared in to be in his 50s with streaks of grey through his hair and beard. He was covered in muscles which threatened to crush anyone who opposed him. He carried a giant fantasy battle axe with an axe head nearly as big as a person.

Beside him, there were numerous nobles and several people who appeared to be royal mages based on their attire.

"All in the presence of his majesty, Wallanther XII, kneel!" An attendant stood before the marble balustrade on the platform and commanded in a loud voice.

All the knights dropped to one knee in salute while Princess Zoerina bowed her head while standing straight. The students and teacher naturally didn't bow, although some found themselves wanting to for some reason.

The king ignored what would normally be called a treasonous act of disrespect and got up from his throne to walk down the stairs toward the group.

"Your majesty!" Several of the nobles raised their voice in protest, but were silenced by a wave of the king's hand.

"These people are heroes unreasonably summoned by us, it is the least we can do," He said in a gentle but firm voice, speaking like a kind uncle.

"Heroes, you must still be nervous and frightened. We can only apologize for this, amongst other things which are unfair toward you," The king's voice resounded throughout the hall as he talked.

The king did not bow or show weakness in any way, but his words were kindhearted, which managed to lift the weight some of the students and especially Ms. Greenwood were feeling.

The first to respond was Jake, the sophomore quarterback.

"Your majesty. Can you please explain what is going on, and why we needed to be pulled from our classroom?"

"Hoho, you don't need to be too nervous. You are heroes, and such receive special treatment. The reason we had you summoned, was to save our kingdom. To explain, you will first need to understand our world. Royal Mage Carrion, come explain to the new heroes about our world."

The royal mage in question, an elderly man who seemed to be healthier than half the students, quickly shuffled down the steps and deeply bowed to the king before explaining the world to the summoned heroes.

"Young heroes, to begin with, this world is not in fact our original world. This world is known as the Infinite World, which contains innumerable worlds brought together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but the landscape is so different is may as well be a new world we are moved to."

"The worlds and people themselves don't receive any warning before they are absorbed into the Infinite World, but do receive a beginner protection period of 5 years in which the people within the world create kingdoms to vie for dominance."

"Every city is granted a dungeon, and they also randomly spawn within each world which can be captured and used to create new cities. These play a key role which I will come back to."

"At this stage, many kingdoms rise and fall, which only increases in scope once the beginner protection period is over. Then, all the worlds and kingdoms within vie for dominance. Each world has their own race, and while some overlap, there are innumerable different types. The Infinite World also encourages unity among races and combating others for their resources, technology and magic knowledge."

"Naturally, all of this occurred many generations ago for our Maple Dragon Kingdom which we survived, as can be seen by our current free existence. We even fought against and made treaties with many neighboring worlds, and although small scale battles still occur, it is nothing we cannot shoulder."

"However, there was one neighbouring kingdom which has been increasingly provocative over the past 20 years. The Neth'rite Demon Kingdom."

"The current Demon King, Asmond Ath'rallas, has a strong hatred against humans and wants to wipe us out. We have already lost many border regions to demon forces. They are cunning and show no mercy in enslaving humans."

"We are both Level 3 Kingdoms, but their combat forces exceed ours by simply too much. We fear that in a direct confrontation, humans are destined to lose."

Zac and several of the other boys stood forth at this moment to support Jake, while several of the girls raised voices in protest.

Jake kept a cool head and stated, "I think I understand the predicament, but that doesn't explain why you would summon us. We are only students, and most definitely don't have the ability to fight off an entire country."

Wallanther XII shook his head with a smile explained in place of the royal mage, "Carrion said how this world promotes fighting. There is a system which overlooks everything. Everyone has a status window which you can personally view by saying 'status' in your mind and dispel it by willing it. Why don't you do that first before we continue on."

All the students and also the teacher followed the advice of the king and stared wide eyed as a window of their status page appeared in front of them. Only they could see it though, so the throne room had a humorous group of people turning their heads in surprise as they waved their hands in the air in front of them blindly

"Now that is cleared up," Royal Mage Carrion cleared his throat and brought back the attention of the summoned heroes, "Allow me to continue onto the next topic."

"Every living person in this world has a status window, which shows your level, stats, job class and skills. There are also infinite kinds of monsters and other races, but mainly monsters, to fight. The more monsters you fight and kill, the higher your level, stats and skills. That is to say, the more you fight, the stronger you become."

"This world however discourages fighting against your own race, so a human will not get any experience from killing another human, but will from killing a demon, elf, gnome and so on. Each race has their own experience requirements on levelling up, which corresponds to their nature."

"Elves, with their naturally long lives, take a large amount of experience to level up despite their low fertility. Beastmen, although similar to humans, take a moderate amount of experience to level up due to natural advantages of bloodline traits, but stlll less than demons. Humans on the other hand, have no bloodline traits, except for the royal family, and have a high fertility. We have the lowest experience requirements to level up."

"However, there are two restraints on levelling up. These are known as Class Step and Max Level."

Class Step was a scaling method of levels. Every 20 levels, one would enter the next 'Step'.

<Lv. 1> to <Lv. 19> First Step.

<Lv. 20> to <Lv. 39> Second Step.

<Lv. 40> to <Lv. 59> Third Step.

<Lv. 60> to <Lv. 79> Fourth Step.

<Lv. 80> to <Lv. 99> Fifth Step/Titled Step.

<Lv. 100> to <Lv. ??> ??.

By advancing to the next step, one's class would evolve and they would receive a substantial boost in strength. Increasing their level also gave far greater benefits, and they would learn even more powerful skills from their class, so the general rule was that nobody of a lower Step would be able to defeat them.

It wasn't easy increasing to the next Step though. The individual had to have enough potential built up in their body to unlock even one higher tier class, let alone several to pick from. Without having an upgraded class to choose from, or waiting until one earned a better class to upgrade to, they would never level up no matter how many monsters they killed.

Max Level was another concept which was known to all rankers. Not only did one need to build up potential in ones body to enter the next Step, otherwise known as Class Up, they had to have enough room for potential in their body.

A body can only hold so much potential, and once it is used up there is no room for any more. Once somebody had reached the maximum threshold of potential their body could handle, they would not be able to gain any more experience. This could be at <Lv. 27>, <Lv. 46>, or even <Lv. 13>.

This is what is known as Max Level.

It is possible for someone to break through their Max Level limit through life and death battle with an opponent far stronger than them. This would unlock more space for potential in their body, which was an action called Limit Break, but far more people died than won these battles, considering the opponent had to at least be of a higher Step than the challenger.

One of the key methods people had for levelling up was dungeons. Every major city had a dungeon, whether inside of it or nearby. These were controlled by the nobles who acted as Dungeon Masters, their noble rank in direct relation with the dungeon's level.

Wild dungeons also spawned in caves and other area over every world, and somebody capturing a dungeon core would entitle them to a noble ranking within the country, or they could sell the core for an extremely lucrative sum of gold.

The dungeons would summon monsters every day with mana, which people would then kill for monster materials and experience, while the dungeon itself would get 10 percent of the total experience for anything or anyone killed inside of it.

Dungeons, rankers and countries held a symbiotic relationship in this way.

~~~~~

"As such, summoned heroes have many benefits compared to the rest of us. Crossing the world barrier imbues you with power the rest of us can only dream of."

"While you don't get to choose your beginning class, they are generally far better than what the rest of us get. You have higher starting stats, greater stat increases upon levelling up. You will face less bottlenecks when needing to Class Up, have an immeasurable Max Level, and also require 20 percent less experience than the rest of us to level up."

Wallanther XII rapped the handle of his giant axe on the polished floor tiles, signalling the royal mage to be quiet as he surmised, "This is what makes you heroes, and also why we spent nearly a third of our entire kingdom's wealth in order to purchase a reagent powerful enough to perform the highest level summoning ritual to reach across the world border."

"Your majesty!" Ms. Greenwood finally worked up the courage to protest. "We are civilians, and these are just students! How can you demand them to fight for you, to kill, and be killed."

"We can only offer our condolences for your situation, but our will is firm," Wallanther XII stated in a voice which left no room for refuting. "This was a path of no return the moment we summoned you."

"W-what do you mean? Naturally, I sympathise with your cause, but my students cannot fight your war for you. Please send us back home."

"That is not possible."

"What?" This time, the question came from Alex, the loner in the class who had remained silent until now.

He had read many fantasy books about being summoned to another world. Some had a means to send the person home, while others didn't. Alex, for all his previous world fantasising about being summoned to another world, was terrified about fighting in a war and wanted to go home. The king's words, however, gave him a sinking feeling in his gut.

"We cannot send you back."

"Why not?" Ms Greenwood asked in shock with her eyes wide open.

The king's steadfast gaze expressed the meaning of his words, but the royal mage Carrion explained, "We do not know how. The summoning ritual is a unidirectional call to another world. There are no records of there being an equivalent banishing ritual. Perhaps it exists somewhere, but I have never even heard mention of such a thing.

"So we can never go back?" Jake spoke up is disbelief, but quickly closed his mouth was a worried glare from Ms. Greenwood.

"Correct," The king fixed his gaze on Jake, who had the appearance of a model hero. "However, we have naturally prepared rewards for all the heroes currently present."

"First command, by royal decree. The heroes will be gifted marriage contracts for marrying into a noble house, the noble rank of which will depending on their achievements. We assure you that due to the system, skills, and magic, we have no doubt your partners will satisfy your preferences of beauty and more."

"Second command, by royal decree. All marriages will have a trial period of six months before marriage. To ensure that no hero is unsatisfied, an initial period of becoming accustomed to one another, which can be used to separate relations should the match be inadequate. The loss of chastity will signify an early termination of the trial period."

"Third command, by royal decree. Any hero who does not wish to have a marriage, will be granted a noble title and novice dungeon core, along with full royal backing and funding in developing a new city. This may not be forfeited, but may be held back from should the hero have other desires, awaiting indefinitely until the time in which the hero wishes to accept the title.

"Fourth, by royal decree, for the hero with the most outstanding results, I offer the hand of Our own daughter, Zoerina Wallander, in the holy ceremony of marriage. There will be no trial period, as We are sure that nobody would not desire Our daughter."

Wallander XII's body exploded out in an imposing manner which pressed on everybody's body and caused them to fall to their knees, or onto the ground ungracefully.

The daughter in questioned to be married off, Princess Zoerina, stood there with a gentle smile, but her piercing glare showed how she was sizing everybody up, judging any whom she would favor over others. While her hand was to be given out to the most notable hero, she could still aid whomever she favored in order to come out on top.

This was a small loophole everyone in the throne room other than the summoned heroes were aware of, and also the king's way of showing preferential treatment toward his daughter who was a once in a century genius.

As the pressure relieved, many of the boys began taking secret looks toward Princess Zoerina, their thoughts and desires hidden deep within their hearts.

"This" Ms. Greenwood, who had never been married and was currently single despite being in her 30s and was running out of future prospects, should have liked this promise more than anyone.

However, she discarded all that under her responsibility for her students.

"My students are not war potential."

"They are war potential. One which you have no choice in."

"We can still"

"If you all go out into the world as you are, most of you will die. We have prepared to train you under the full resources of the Maple Dragon Kingdom to nurture you, and We then expect more than half of you to survive."

Ms. Greenwood wanted to refute him, but she knew he was right. They truly were trapped, and had been from the moment they were summoned.