The First Step Beyond the Dungeon

I dragged Amin in as well. True to a man who had been waving a gun around, he fought back, and for that he took a thorough beating from my fists. I caught a few hits myself, but on my end it was like being struck through a reinforced helmet wrapped over my whole body—nothing but the shock of impact. Trade blows, and the advantage was mine.

I loaded the man I had pounded into the trunk, zip-tied Hassan, and shoved him down onto the floor of the back seat. Then I drove. Back to the cliff where I had fallen.

I had found one drawback to dimensional travel. The coordinates locked to the point of the first crossing. The cliff I had fallen from and the laboratory in the world of Gaia had synced, so if I wanted to return to the lab, I had to go back to that cliff. Inconvenient as hell. I could set the coordinates again, of course, but when I could not confirm that the far side was safe, the best move was to return the way I had come. Until I had a safe coordinate confirmed, there was nothing else for it.

I drove out to the cliff where I had fallen, stopped the car on the barren desert, and hauled both of them out. Pistol in hand—the one I had found at Amin's place—I herded the two men, hands bound behind their backs, toward the edge.

"On your knees."

Standing at the brink, they gave every sign of not hearing me. I shifted my grip on the pistol and brought the club in my right hand down across their shoulders instead. The blows landed hard.

"Ghk—!"

"Agh—!"

Pain folded both of them to their knees on its own, and they hit the ground in a heap.

"So, Amin. You're going to tell me you only did what this bastard said."

"Y-yeah! I don't know nothing. Hassan say he got a sweet job, so I just—"

"Know nothing, and you're useless."

I drove my foot into his back.

"Uh—aaagh!!!"

Amin's body went straight off the cliff. The sight of it set Hassan shaking.

"S-s-spare me! I really—I never mean it! Please!"

"You want to live, you talk. Everything you know."

"A-a-a message come. Sudden."

"What message."

"Telegram. It come there. They say, kill Mister Kang, they give money."

"You crazy bastard. How the hell do they even know you well enough to reach you?"

"I-I don't know! Me too, really don't know. Message come sudden, I was shocked. But... they send some money. Like a deposit."

"How much."

"H-h-hundred thousand pound."

A hundred thousand? In Korean money, that was a little shy of three million won. Nobody threw that kind of cash around as a joke.

"And then?"

"Th-then another message come. Ten times that money. Kill Mister Kang, take photo, they give ten times, so I..."

He could not quite bring himself to finish with the part where he had actually gone through with the killing.

"Who knows your Telegram ID?"

"Nobody. I almost never use, except when I work."

Almost never, except for work?

Someone who knew I was coming here. Someone who knew Hassan and I would be moving together. Someone who knew Hassan's Telegram ID. Not many people sat inside the overlap of all three. Even so, a question remained. The first face to surface was the superior who had sent me to this place. Manager Park. Why that bastard? What grudge could run deep enough that he would spend money to have me killed? The doubt was there, but I still did not have enough to go on.

"How did you get the money?"

"C-c-coin."

Of course. Not a single thing left that would leave a trail. Report it to the police, and if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Interpol pushed a thorough international investigation, maybe the tail could still be caught. I wanted to take him with my own hands first. And I meant to punish him myself. It did not look as if the other side had left behind anything that could point back to them.

Hassan kept babbling.

"I-it's true! S-spare me. I tell everything I know. Please."

"Relax. I'm not going to kill you."

"R-right. Mister Kang is good man. Good..."

I kicked him just the same. Eyes wide, his body dropped off the cliff. Once I had confirmed that he had vanished below the edge, I looked around. No one seemed to be watching. I stepped out into empty air.

My body hung in the air and sank slowly downward.

The mage's laboratory. Beneath the cliff. Moments before I kicked them off.

I had left a dimensional gate open. The men who thought they had fallen from the cliff flailed for a long time after landing somewhere they did not know. The impact of the drop must have been bad. I hauled out rope again, bound both of them, and threw them into the storeroom.

The first problem was settled. The second looked as if it would take longer. I could not drive all the way out to the cliff every time I needed to come here. It did not have to be Korea right away. At the very least, I needed a place I could link to somewhere inside Cairo, and for that I had to go outside. Preparations complete, I decided to head out of the dungeon.

What steadied me more than anything was not the magic items, and not real combat experience. It was the pistol in my hand. For a modern man, nothing beat this. It was an old revolver, but the simple mechanism made the performance certain. I had brought a little over forty rounds from Amin's place, and the rounds were .357 Magnum. Crazy bastard. He had fully meant to kill someone. Lucky I had not dropped dead on the spot from a hit like that. By chance the bullet had passed clean through, and the necklace had stopped the bleeding and patched me fast enough that I lived.

I set cans along one side of the dungeon and practiced. Twenty rounds—half of what I had—went into zeroing the piece. Inside about ten meters, I could hit a target that held still. Good enough.

The necklace spoke.

Listening to the necklace's awe only fed my confidence. Setting incantations aside, there was no comparing a spell that needed a trigger-word spoken aloud to a bullet that crossed three hundred and eighty meters a second the instant you pulled the trigger.

What using magic had taught me was simple. On defense, magic stood far ahead of modern technology, but on offense it could not compete. Every technique I had practiced still lived inside the limits of human perception. They flashed past, yes—but that only meant that in the span of the flash, you could still see something go by. Climb into high magic and there were surely greater things. At the low end, though, around what they called level four at least, it was no match for a modern weapon. Of that I was certain.

With the pistol's power putting confidence in me, I began preparing in earnest to explore outside. It was a hassle, but I passed back to Earth through the cliff and drove into Cairo once more. I abandoned the car on the outskirts and slipped downtown, keeping clear of watching eyes, then made for a rental agency. With money I had already set aside, I rented a vehicle. Expensive, but I needed something tough. Fortunately, they had the right machine.

A Hummer. Built by the U.S. military for war, with a portion sold onto the civilian market—in practice, a tactical vehicle little short of an armored car. And this one had plainly leaked from military service into civilian hands. There were no comforts worth mentioning. This was not the time to care about that. The fuel economy was abysmal, but a fuel tank rode on the back, and if I needed more I had ways enough to prepare it. I signed a long-term rental first.

I took the Hummer I had contracted and stopped at a supermarket, buying camping gear and drinking water in bulk. Whatever would not fit in the vehicle went into the hundredfold pouch. I bought a knife and an axe as well, then made several runs to a gas station and filled extra fuel cans to the brim. By the time everything was ready, a day had passed.

Preparations finished, I returned to the cliff and went back into the dungeon. Using the dimensional coordinate fixed on the cliff as my reference, I searched for a point inside the dungeon I could reach. Barely—the very lip of the cliff could link to the provisions storeroom on the dungeon's uppermost floor. I opened the dimensional gate again at the point I had found. Fortunately, a car could pass through it.

With transportation secured, I finished what remained and climbed to the dungeon entrance.

"About time I stepped outside."

"You're in a good mood."

A provisional contract of one year. Through that span, the necklace would surely work to lure me into a formal one. I told myself I would not fold easily—and knew, at the same time, that the thrill I had tasted while taking those two was already enough to pull me halfway over. Beating the thugs down. Sprinting the rooftops as I pleased. Catching the pair and kicking them off the cliff. Endorphins and dopamine had flooded my whole body at their peak, and I had drunk the pleasure to the last. That electric rush. So this was why try-it-then-buy was a frightening thing.

I hid what I felt and drove the car out of the dungeon. I could look the outside world over and decide afterward. It would not be too late. The men I had captured rode in the trunk as well. Leave them, and dehydration might kill them, and it was still a waste to let them die.

Preparations complete, I took the two prisoners and, for the first time, went out into another world. The world of Gaia.

A raucous diesel roar rolled through the quiet forest. I halted for a moment and asked where we were. The necklace gave me the coordinates on its own. Built to reckon position against this other world, it carried a function for reading where we stood, and with that, the map, and the compass I had brought, I set a bearing.

Driving a car through a forest thick with undergrowth was no simple thing. But two hundred and twenty-five horsepower and more than four tons of mass had been made from the start to overcome constraints exactly like these. The engine bellowed, and the first goal was clear: fix a coordinate somewhere reasonably close to downtown Cairo. I meant to claim a suitable spot and set up a hideout—somewhere I would not have to come all the way out to the cliff. Bearing set, I drove on.

The Hummer shoved the low brush aside and pressed forward, the chassis bucking hard beneath me. Ah. If there was a problem, it was that my ass hurt like hell. I should have bought a cushion. I drove on, nursing a small regret.

The necklace let out a sound of admiration.

"They have anything like this over here?"

Figures. It could look inefficient. Flight magic would carry you straight through the air. No reason to shove through brush like this, and certainly not this loudly. The racket did have the effect of driving off the small beasts and insects nearby. Even a fairly large wild boar lost its nerve before the Hummer's bulk and backed away.

Even that far, I was thinking I had done well to get the Hummer. The contrary thought arrived late—that something higher up the chain might hear the noise and come looking—and by the time I had it, I was already surrounded.

"Pain-in-the-ass little bastards!"

Good ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thing, at least, that these were the ones I had run into. The creatures they called goblins. About the height of a child of twelve or fourteen, bellies swollen tight, green skin and yellow eyes that put a chill through anyone who looked at them. They hunted in packs of dozens, and with daggers, arrows, and poisoned darts a pack hunt made them no easy opponent. This time, though, the matchup favored me. Not one weapon they carried could punch through a military Hummer's thick plate or its bulletproof glass.

Their poisoned darts and arrows struck steel and glass and sprang away in a stutter of metallic pings. Shrieking, they swarmed the vehicle and threw themselves into a frenzy.

"Miserable little shits."

I had nothing suitable for targets that small. I should have bought a shotgun. A miscalculation—facing things ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like these with a pistol was inefficient, because they were not easy to hit. I had been wrong to assume humans would be my only enemies. I could use the magic items, of course, but they were no great threat, and I had no wish to spend items on them. Items were not infinite. Better to be sparing where I could. And fortunately, they had no means of doing anything to me either.

So I pushed on, soaking their pursuit with the vehicle's bulk. I would look for a better method once I got back. Now and then one leapt at the windshield, clung there, and drove a hand axe into the glass. Reinforced glass built to shrug off rifle fire did not take so much as a scratch. I answered with the brake, and then the accelerator.

The tires screamed. The one hanging on was thrown to the ground by the stop, and the acceleration that followed brought four tons of steel down on the creature as it rolled and tried to rise. I ran straight over it.

"Kyek!!"

A wet crunch, and in the instant I passed over the thing mashed to pulp, a quiet pleasure climbed up through me. Like racing through a game that had turned real. Had I changed? Didn't matter either way. Fuck it—this was the medieval edition of GTA, and it was a hell of a ride.

I shook their pursuit at last and came out onto a road laid in dirt and gravel. It was no smooth stretch of asphalt, but a road cutting through the forest had never looked so welcome. I stamped the accelerator. The engine roared, and the thick rubber tires spat gravel as they ran.

"Yahoo!!!"

I drank the thrill down and burst on through the forest.