A Purple Gate

At about 11 am, Adam went towards Calvin. He was in the middle of the field.

Calvin had been working in the wheat field ever since Adam fell asleep.

"Can I help with something?" Adam asked him.

"How old are you boy?"

"12 years old sir. As I have told you before."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"Well, 12-year-olds don't work here. Go do something else. You're our guest. You don't need to earn your keep."

Adam blushed and walked away.

Calvin looked at him while thinking

'What a nice kid. It really is a shame what happened to him."

....

Adam had been living with Calvin, Elizabeth, Layla and Salma for about two days now.

He started getting up early to make breakfast for everyone, as was his habit. He took the role of bringing water from the well every time some was needed.

The rest of the day was free time so he spent his time with Layla and Salma.

Adam would talk to them about the Dungeons, the treasures in there and the Gods.

Layla would talk about the book she was reading or one she had read before that.

And Salma would worry about her parents.

Whenever she started worrying about them, Layla and Adam came up with something to do to help her forget.

They usually played games together.

They once tried to race each other, but Adam's high Agility Stat made the contest unfair.

There was one game they could play, other than the games that relied solely on luck.

Red Hands.

They did their best not to hit hard though. Especially Adam.

He would mostly let them try to hit his hands.

Layla was the worst at it.

In three days, she only won about 5 matches against her sister, and one against Adam.

Salma did much better.

Out of all the matches she played with Adam, she won a bit more than a quarter of them.

Adam and Salma compared stats and that only made it even more peculiar.

The game heavily depended on Sense and Agility.

And yet she did so well with an Agility stat of 3 and a Sense stat of 10.

Compared to his 38 Sense and 27 Agility, it should have been a series of easy wins for him.

And every time he lost, two screens appeared in front of him.

[A Certain Evil chuckles at your lack of talent.]

[The Fox That Blesses Men is impressed by Incarnation Salma's talent.]

It left him perplexed, but he didn't think much about it.

....

On the third day, Adam, Layla and Salma decided to play Hide & Seek. It was very early in the morning.

They were about 2 kilometers away from the house.

Naturally, Layla and Selma were the ones to hide.

Adam closed his eyes and started counting.

Layla and Salma went off and did their best to run as far as possible before the end of the countdown.

Salma was giggling loudly while Layla had a big smile.

As Adam counted, he felt weird about the few days he spent with the girls and their grandparents. He felt like a fragment of his life that was gone from his life had come back.

Although it felt good to have them in his life, it didn't replace the fragment he had lost.

It couldn't replace it. Nothing could.

Still, he felt happy that they were there for him.

Adam smiled as he continued to count down.

When the sisters were about 50 meters away from Adam, Salma suddenly stopped.

At the same time, Adam's senses went haywire. He opened his eyes and his smile faded immediately.

He looked in the way his senses were guiding him towards, it was in Layla's direction.

Adam and Salma both shouted at the same time.

"LAYLA! STOP!"

Just as she slowed down to turn back and look at them, she was swallowed by a purple light.

Layla was nowhere to be seen.

Salma fell to the ground on her bottom.

All that was left was a Dungeon Gate that emitted a purple light.

Adam couldn't help but think.

'Again? Am going to have to go in there again? Of course,I have to. Layla is in there. I'm going in.'

But his legs didn't move.

His feet were planted into the ground as if roots were holding them in place. His hands were shaking.

He hadn't completely dealt with the trauma he had suffered from after the first Dungeon, and now he had to go into another one.

His body didn't want him to.

Not only was it another Dungeon, the light it was emitting was not blue like the previous one.

It was purple.

Adam had no idea what that meant, but he did not feel good about it.

As he was fighting his fear inwardly, Salma had gotten up.

"Layla...Layla! LAYLA" She ran towards the Gate.

"WAIT!" Adam shouted, but she continued and entered the Dungeon.

She still had hope about her parents' return, but risking the loss of one more person was too much for her heart to handle.

Adam, seeing such a courageous act from a young girl, felt an immense anger at his own weakness.

[ A Certain Evil is very slightly interested in your choice.]

[ The Everlasting Winter is looking at you.]

[ The Fox That Blesses Men is looking at you.]

'Shut up.' Adam thought, as he took his military knife out of its sheath and stabbed his immobile thigh.

He took that sharp pain and used it as motivation to propel himself towards the Dungeon Gate as fast as he could.

He let go of the knife that he now deemed useless.

Adam entered the Dungeon.

Once he entered, the first scene he was greeted with was a crying Salma with a very red cheek.

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? WHY DID YOU COME HERE?" Layla was shouting at her sister. She probably had slapped Salma once she saw her.

"I...I...I COULDN'T LEAVE YOU." Salma said, crying.

They noticed Adam at the same time.

"Great. You came to the rescue too." Layla said with an annoyed expression.

Adam took a deep breath. He was glad nothing had happened yet.

They all looked at the screen that appeared in front of them.

[ Welcome to "The Spider Queen's Lair" [E]

You are at the entrance of "The Spider Queen's Lair". The Dungeon's rank is E. The cave is infested with various species of Spiders. You will find monsters such as Mutated Spiders [F], Paralysing Spiders [F+], Venomous Spiders[F+] and Mutated Black Widows [E-]. Spiders are weak to fire. The most effective attacks are those aimed at the head or abdomen using blunt weapons.

Participants: 3 Humans

Clear Requirement: Destroy the Spider Colony or Kill the Spider Queen.

Minimal individual reward: 1000 Gold coins +4000 Experience Points + Weapon forged using the spiders' corpses.

]

They read it all at the same time.

"Well, that's not good." Adam muttered.

"Why do you say that?" Salma asked after she wiped her tears.

"The rank is E. That's one higher than the Dungeon I had gone into. The Hidden Location I found was E rank, but this is not going to be as easy as that time..." Adam said, reminiscing about his quick assassin-type attacks.

"Plus it's... Ummm. An active clear requirement? We won't get out of here if all we do is sit around and do nothing, right?" Layla added.

A series of screens appeared in front of them after they talked.

[ The Dungeon is E-rank. This is the first Dungeon two out of the three participants have entered. ]

[20 Stat Points will be given to the participants who entered a Dungeon for the first time as compensation.]

[ Weapons will be given to the participants who entered a Dungeon for the first time as compensation.]

[ Two weapons have been chosen by the System.]

[ A small number of Experience Points will be given to the participants who entered a Dungeon for the first time as compensation.]

[ Items will be given to the participants who entered a Dungeon for the first time as compensation.]

[ The 2 participants, Salma and Layla, will each receive:

1* Iron Mace [F]

1*Iron Dagger [F]

150 Experience Points

3* Light Healing Potion [F]

3* Torch [F]

]

Adam looked at the screen. He couldn't help but shout in excitement.

"YESSS!!!!!"

The sisters looked at him like he had lost it. To them, there was nothing to be happy about.

But to him, the compensation was a blessing from the gods.

Any compensation would have been welcomed with open arms really.

" Alright, listen you two. If you say the word storage, you will be able to access the weapons you just got."

They both muttered "Storage" and a digital screen appeared in front of each one of them.

"You can take out your potions by raising your hand and thinking about the potion."

They did as he said, a potion appeared in Layla's hand and another potion appeared in Salma's hand.

"Alright now push them into your Storage screen, that's how you put them back. You put your weapons back that way too. But you can't summon your weapon."

"Wowowowow! Adam! Don't talk so fast or I'll forget it all." Salma complained with dizzy eyes.

He had forgotten that she was only 7 years old.

But nevertheless, he felt excited.

Excited that this time would be different than the one before.

"It says that I leveled up..." Layla said.

"Ah! Me too!"Salma noticed after hearing her sister.

They were at the entrance of a cave. Above their head, the roof was full of holes, sunlight could come in. On their sides, were the high walls of the cave. They were about 4 meters high. Behind them was another wall. There was only one way they could take, and that was in front of them.

Adam sat on the ground, his back against the wall.

"What the hell are you doing?" Layla asked, annoyed by his cool demeanor.

Salma sat next to Adam.

"Why are you sitting too?" She was more and more annoyed by the two.

"I trust Adam." Salma said confidently.

Those words shook Adam's heart. But they only made him more sure about what he had to do.

"Layla, Salma. We have two choices here." He raised his right hand. "One, you assign those 20 given points and the additional 6 points you gained due to leveling up twice, to whatever you feel would be more useful. Then we enter the depths of the cave and try our luck with all those monsters. Using this method, we will either go back outside of the Dungeon quickly, or we won't go back at all. It is also possible that not all of us will be able to go back outside."

They both listened carefully.

Layla turned her head to look at the way they were supposed to take. She could only see darkness with small spots of light.

"What's our second option?" Layla asked.

Adam raised his other hand. "Two, we stay here near the entrance, where there's lots of light. I believe monsters will very rarely come here. We stay here, take our time and train to increase our strength."

[A Certain Evil is looking at you.]

'Yes, yes, this was your idea first.' Adam was reminded of the time he spent inside the Goblin Chief's Domain swinging his greatsword for hours and hours.

"There are two ways to get stronger. Well, three actually. First, gain skills. Second, level up by gaining Experience Points. Three, train your body."

"So what? You want us to stay here to do push-ups?" Layla didn't like the idea very much.

"Don't be difficult Layla." Salma told her. "I think training together would be safer and more fun than fighting spiders. Plus, we have to get stronger. If we let Adam go and fight alone, he might not come back in one piece. We have to help."

Layla turned to look at Adam.

"How long do you think we have to train here? "

"The longer the better really. But it is true that after a certain point, it'll be harder to get stronger as we won't have any heavier equipment. Also, we're not just training, we're fighting afterward so we need to be in top form..." He rubbed his chin, thinking about how to remedy to this.

"If I can go in and hunt some spiders, we could stay for a while." Adam added.

"Hunt? As in, hunt them like rabbits? Are we going to eat spiders? Do we have to?" Layla looked startled.

"Yep. There are torches in the store which I had completely forgotten about. Those torches will be useful to cook the meat. I had my sleeping skill so my recovery was pretty fast. Without that skill but with food I guess..." He raised his fingers as if he was calculating something.

"I think two to three days of training should be good." He finally said.

"Whaaat? Three days? You want us to stay here for three days?" Salma's face expressed the horror she was feeling.

"Honestly, three days would be the max. The moment our stats stop increasing, then that's it. We would be maxed out for then. We'll stay until not one of us can get any stronger. After that, we'll have to pray that it's enough."

[ The Fox That Blessed Man says that he was waiting for a training arc!]

[ The Everlasting Winter says that this is fun!]

[ A Certain Evil says that this is all thanks to him.]

"Who are they?" Salma asked.

"Gods, Deities, angels, all that. They're watching us. They send messages like this from time to time. They can be very helpful, although rarely." Adam answered.

"Oh okay. Why is the fox talking to me?" Salma was puzzled by this.

"Ummm, am not sure. They can send private messages too. Anyways that's not important for now."

Each one of the sisters was looking at the screen that appeared in front of her.

Layla's screen read [The Everlasting Winter is looking at you.]

While Salma's screen read [The Fox That Blessed Men is looking at you.]

Adam clapped his hands together.

"Can you hear me? I said it's not important. Anyways, for now, take out the Iron Mace you received."

They took them out of their storage.

Layla could hold onto it for a couple of seconds, while Salma immediately let go of her Iron Mace that hit the ground right after.

"Yes! This is perfect. Also please do not use the 26 points you got until I come back. They can be used to increase whatever stat you want, so let's think about it together later. Putting it into strength wouldn't be good as we can easily train our strength."

"Alright, alright we get it. Wait, where are you going? And how do we train?" Layla asked with a hint of fright in her voice. She didn't know how strong Adam was, but judging by how confident he sounded, she thought she could relax with him around. But if he goes away then where does that leave her and Salma?

"Am just going to go scout for a bit. I'll be back in an hour max. I'll see if there are monsters close from here and if this is a one-way cave or if there are multiple passages. For the training, Ummm Layla. Pick up the Iron Mace for as long as you can and count for how long you can maintain a fighting stance while lifting it. Try to hold it a bit longer every time. As for Salma...Um picking up the Iron Mace might be too heavy to begin with. But don't worry, that means you'll get stronger faster! Umm, OH! Here use this!" Adam took out his greatsword.

"What? What am I going to do with this? Even the Iron Mace was too heavy for me to hold." Salma complained.

"I know, I know." Adam laid his greatsword on the ground. " Alright, come stand here."

She stood in front of the greatsword's hilt.

"Okay, I want you to try to lift and push the sword until it's perpendicular to the ground. Think you can do it?" Adam asked.

"I'll try."

Salma grabbed the hilt of the sword with both hands and desperately lifted one side of the greatsword. Of course, the tip of the sword was on the ground.

She managed to lift it until the sword made a 45-degree angle with the ground before her hands gave out. The greatsword fell to the floor.

"Oh my god..." She was struggling to catch her breath. "This is too heavy."

"Try doing the same thing with your mace."

She did it easily.

'Obviously. The weight repartition is not the same.' Adam thought.

"Alright, continue doing it with the greatsword. Oh. Both of you please tell your System to show how much each stat has increased compared to last time you checked it. That way we can track progress."

While all this was going on, Layla had been struggling to keep her Iron Mace in her hands.

[ You have gained 1 Agility Point.]

While she was sweating from holding the heavy Iron Mace, while her hands hurt like never before, the sound of that notification was very sweet to her ears.

She kept training.

Salma tried lifting the greatsword once more. She held it once more at a 45 degrees angle, but this time, she held it at that angle for a second longer than before.

[You have gained 1 Strength Point.]

With his Old Assassin's Dagger in his right hand and a torch he bought from the store for 5Gold Coins in his left hand, Adam left the two sisters and made his way towards the inside of the cave.