Chapter 9: Etherum City
The young man was sitting there as usual, trying to eat his meal.
Just then, a beam of light appeared before him, and information about the second dungeon unfolded before his eyes.
[Welcome to the Cosmic Terror, First Beta, Second Dungeon!
Title of the Dungeon: Etherum City
Task: Survive in the city without causing any problems against their laws for 5 days.
The dungeon will open in 1 hour.]
The young man read the text carefully; as the light slowly faded, he stood up and began to get ready.
He put on a pair of comfortable tracksuit bottoms and, just in case, added a few bottles of water and a few packets of chocolate to his inventory.
He was ready.
He couldn’t wait to see what sort of place Aether was.
Unlike the previous dungeon, this time he was heading to a city. His excitement was at an all-time high.
In this way, an hour would pass in no time.
An hour later, a light display had formed in Dean’s room. Several star-shaped figures appeared within the display and instantly enveloped Dean.
Within seconds, Dean was able to open his eyes again and found himself faced with a completely different sight.
Heaven.
Aether.
The sky was dazzling. Everywhere there were creatures with horns and wings on their backs, which could be described as humanoid.
Dean... was not a religious man.
Yet it must be evident from Aether itself that many religions were true, mustn’t it?
The young man could see the angels flitting about him, and he could also make out many different creatures he did not recognise.
This was indeed a city.
Low-rise buildings, market squares, clothes shops and more.
Dean felt as though he were back on Earth.
As if he were inside a replica of it.
The young man had started walking around non-stop.
He had a broad smile on his face. His eyes were practically sparkling as he looked around in awe.
He didn’t want to place complete trust in the information on the forum. After all, he didn’t know who he could and couldn’t trust.
It had been clearly stated on the forum that Aether also had dangerous areas.
Many things had happened, from angels seeking to draw closer to the gods by sacrificing humans, to ghosts in heaven attempting to possess people and return to the world.
Dean might have been walking around in plain sight, but it must be said that he was being very careful.
There wasn’t much of a serious quest in this dungeon.
He simply had to live in the city for five days without causing any trouble.
He was certain there was no one else in the city with him.
After all, the dungeon quest should have specified this. Since it hadn’t, that was the situation.
Dean had managed to reach a rather luxurious part of the city in a short space of time. I mean... this place really was luxurious.
The buildings had grown taller, and the building materials had changed.
Buildings that had previously been made of ordinary stone were now beginning to change, taking on a painted and refined appearance.
The city’s pavement had changed from the stone surface of five minutes earlier, and white marble now stretched out beneath his feet.
It really wasn’t difficult to realise that this was a dividing line between the rich and the poor.
Dean was taken aback.
He hadn’t expected this dividing line to be so distinct.
Nevertheless, the moment when he would understand this line more clearly was just around the corner.
There were many people around him. Even those sitting in the cafés, shops and even on the benches in this affluent neighbourhood had begun to watch him.
There was a look of curiosity in each of their eyes.
It was as if Dean didn’t know something, as if he were breaking a rule.
Just twenty seconds after entering this area, he had been stopped by two burly men.
These were two men clad in silver armour, wielding golden spears, with two large wings on their backs.
It was clear they were guardians.
Dean felt as though he were looking at those fantastical warriors found in novels set in the Middle Ages.
"You cannot pass here, human," said one of the men. He spoke quite politely, yet his tone was serious and firm.
"May I ask, why?" Dean had inquired, filled with curiosity. He’d wanted to test his luck, even just a little.
"This place is for people who can afford it; everything is expensive. We are sorry for being rude. Nobles and merchants, we might say, can go in," the man he was speaking to had replied.
"So... you need to have money to enter here? Is that it?" Dean had asked.
"Indeed. Now, leave," said the other man.
Dean could clearly see that they weren’t being rude.
It could be said that they were simply doing their duty and trying, as politely as possible, to escort Dean away from the ’restricted’ area.
"I do have money, though," said Dean politely.
"Earth money doesn’t count, human," replied the man who had spoken to Dean first.
Dean smiled.
At that moment, two one-million banknotes appeared in his hand.
Dean still didn’t know.
That was partly his own stupidity.
Every banknote that emerged from his system was imbued with ENORMOUS energy.
The energies were divided into many sections, just as had been mentioned earlier.
Nevertheless, there were two things that no one, except the creators, the high holy beings and the high demons, could access.
These were the energies of Life and Death.
Life represented the sacred, that is, the Aether.
Death represented the fallen, that is, the Nether.
The coins Dean had brought out, however, contained vast quantities of these two energies.
That was precisely why every person he gave money to had behaved towards him as if he were a slave.
After all, the fact that Dean possessed banknotes carrying such a colossal amount of Life and Death energy indicated that his connections reached VERY high up.
Given that possessing these energies is extremely difficult in the first place, the sight of two banknotes bearing the inscription ’1,000,000’ appearing in public was, in short, an incredible spectacle.
Whether a person could command these two forms of energy and hold onto this money was another matter entirely.
To put it simply, Dean was already more than enough to gain entry to this area.
His connections, which didn’t even actually exist, were of a calibre that could get him almost anywhere.
Comments