"Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other." — Arthur Schopenhauer.
Many might differ, but in my opinion, fascination towards something gives meaning to life.
It may be an object, a concept, a goal, or a person.
You gets fascinated by those or them, and then you start learning about those or them.
And, this progressive process of learning either turns into hunger of learning more, or the boredom of no longer fascination.
As my thoughts delved into 'its' beauty which I always had admired, the cart came to a halt.
I got out of the cart and was met with a vast expanse of long standing giant trees, their branches spreading out like the wings of a phoenix, prohibiting any sunlight reaching the ground.
"4 durans.", the old man driving the cart said in a coarse voice.
"Here.", handing out the cart fare I stood in front of the giant forest, while the old man left without saying a word.
I put the sheath containing a worn out sword around my waist, and started moving into the forest.
It has been around 15 years since I reincarnated in this fantasy world.
And, almost 3 years since I became an adventurer.
After walking down a bit, the intended destination came into my sight, as I approached a couple of guards standing beside the entrance.
The entrance to a dungeon.
I took out my adventurer card to show to one of them.
NAME : Leomord
RANK : E
;it read.
"Where is your party, boy?", one of the guards asked me, looking around.
"I don't have a party.", I said, as I had many-a-times before.
Challenging a dunegon is supposed to be a team effort, which is a wide know concept.
Because, in that closed space, no matter how strong you are, you need someone to watch your back, or else you would be eaten alive by the monsters inhabiting in it.
But, I had been working alone since the day I joined, so it's not a new thing for me.
The guard frowned.
He wasn't young. Scars lined his jaw and disappeared beneath the collar of his armor.
The kind of man who had seen enough corpses dragged out of dungeon gates to recognize patterns.
"I have seen many of the likes of you trying to be a hero, just to be killed mercilessly at young age. Well, you can enter alone if you have a deathwish.", he said.
There was no law to prohibit single entries to challenge a dungeon, so its not like he could stop me.
However, he warned me.
And warnings, in this world, were rarely given twice.
"I appreciate the concern," I said, fastening my adventurer card back to my belt, and entered the dungeon.
Because, I am not gonna die, at least not here.
***
Now that I was inside the dungeon, it became a bit clear to me as to why most of the low ranked adventurers avoided this particular dungeon.
Dungeons are basically layered by floors, with an increasing difficulty the deeper you go.
And the moment I entered into the first floor, the surrounding around me changed.
Greenery everywhere, flowers, trees full of leaves covered everything in field of sight.
First of all, dungeons are closed spaces with no leeway for the sunlight to enter, so there are basically zero chances of any trees growing in here.
Which means the first floor itself is an illusion type floor.
Usually these type of illusions is caused by the final boss of the said floor, and they are quite handful to deal with.
It might have caused me problems if I were a normal E ranker though, cause delusions and hallucinations are common side effects of this illusion type magic.
They tend to mess with your brain using some invisible waves.
I call these brain waves.
There is a surefire way to block it, which I have developed over the years I have studied magic.
With some experiments with these type of magic from magic scrolls, I was able to find out that this elemental magic or these brain waves, are received by the auditory sysetm mainly.
Which means as long as you keep your ears shut, they wouldn't be as effective.
Well, the extent of its effect depends upon the level of illusion type magic used, and I have confirmed that this method is useful till level 3 illusion magic.
As I was on the first floor, its potency would be low to take any effect, definitely lower than level 3.
Keeping my ears shut, I moved forward in that vast expanse of a garden.
There shouldn't be any problem, as usually no monsters appear in such type of spells. You just find the core of this spell, and destroy it to nullify, and move on to the next floors.
The grass bent beneath my boots.
The scent of flowers remained.
The sky above was impossibly blue.
Yet—
The soundscape had dulled. Birds no longer sang clearly. The wind had lost its layered depth.
Good.
Partial disruption confirmed.
"You found me finally, huh?"
A voice echoed throughout.
Yet, there was no one in sight.
Is it a part of the illusion spell?
The best course of action here is to ignore the voice as much as possible, which is exactly what I did.
Just as I took the next step, I felt someone's presence behind me, unsheathing the sword, I took a defensive stance.
Yet what I noticed was—nothing short of unexpected.
A woman sat on the grass a few steps behind me, where I was certain there had been nothing before. She wore a simple white robe that moved gently with the wind, though I could not feel that wind on my skin anymore. Her hair was long and purple, falling over her shoulders in straight strands, and her eyes were a clear blue that reflected the false sky above us. On her neck, just below her collarbone, there was a strange mark, faint but distinct, shaped like a curved symbol I did not recognize.
I had passed that exact spot seconds ago.
She had not been there.
I kept my sword raised, but I did not attack.
There was no killing intent coming from her. No mana fluctuation. No disturbance in the illusion around her. If she were part of the spell, there should have been some inconsistency in the projection, but everything around her remained stable.
Which meant one of two things.
Either she was the source of the illusion, or she was something beyond it.
She looked at me with an expression that was difficult to read. It was not anger, nor hostility. It seemed closer to surprise. As if she had not expected me to notice her.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she slowly stood up.
"You made a mistake coming here," she said.
Her voice was calm, almost gentle.
Before I could respond, the garden vanished.
There was no cracking, no breaking. It simply disappeared, like a curtain pulled away from a stage. The bright sky dissolved into stone. The grass became cold dungeon floor. The scent of flowers faded, replaced by damp air and the smell of old stone.
The walls around me lit up one by one as torches ignited in their holders. Their flames burned steady, casting long shadows along the chamber.
But ahead of me, beyond the reach of the light, there was only darkness.
It was not ordinary darkness.
It felt dense.
Occupied.
I tightened my grip on my sword.
Then I heard it.
A low growling sound came from within the black space ahead. It was not loud, but it carried weight. It vibrated slightly through the floor beneath my boots.
Something stepped forward.
At first, I saw only a shape. Then the torchlight reached it.
Its face was wrong.
The lips were positioned where the eyes should have been, and the eyes were placed where the mouth belonged. It looked as though someone had taken a human face and rearranged it without understanding its purpose. The creature's hair hung long and tangled around its shoulders. Its neck was stretched far beyond normal length, thin and swaying unnaturally as it moved.
Its arms and legs were twisted, but functional. Each step it took was slow and uneven, yet deliberate.
I had never seen a creature like this before.
I did not allow disgust to affect my judgment. Appearance is often a weapon in illusion-based environments. Horror can slow reaction time. Fear can create hesitation.
I focused on structure instead.
Its elongated neck was a weakness. Long extensions trade stability for reach. Its limbs were thin. That suggested speed, not durability. Its movement was irregular, but not random. It was watching my stance.
The woman in white did not move. She did not react. She simply watched.
That confirmed something important.
The creature was not targeting her.
Which meant she was either allied with it or beyond its authority.
The monster suddenly lunged forward.
Its neck extended further, snapping toward me with surprising speed.
Instead of stepping back, I stepped slightly to the side. I angled my body so that its reach passed just inches from my shoulder. As it overextended, I swung my blade toward the base of its neck, aiming for the joint where flexibility meets strain.
The blade cut through flesh.
Dark blood spilled onto the stone floor.
The creature shrieked, a distorted sound that did not match the shape of its face.
It recoiled, but it did not fall.
It adjusted.
Its neck twisted at a different angle now, correcting its previous weakness.
Adaptive.
That meant prolonged combat would increase risk.
I needed to end it quickly.
The creature lunged again, this time lower. I dropped my center of gravity and moved inside its reach. As its head passed above me, I thrust my sword upward with both hands, targeting the underside of its skull where bone would be thinner.
The blade pierced through.
Its body convulsed violently. The long neck snapped sideways with a sharp crack.
Then it collapsed.
I stepped back immediately, watching for regeneration or secondary movement.
None came.
The torches flickered.
The silence that followed felt heavy.
Then a sound echoed, breaking that very silence.
"Candidate confirmed."
*************************