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We retraced our steps throughout the entire house. But when we still found nothing, we headed outside to see Iena and her group sitting there chatting. "Anything?"

"Mmm…. Come take a look." Iena replied. I nodded, and the group and I followed Iena to an area with tall grass and a fence that barely stuck out above it. "The fence seems to be the same as the wheatfield. It was the only spot that we could find that did not bring us back to the house. It's strange, every time we reached a certain point, we did not reappear at the start of this area but right in the yard at the house. And…. The spots around the fence will also cause us to reappear at the house. Only this section of fence is the entrance to the next area, it seems."

"That's good to know. I found another clue, this time one left behind by my father." I took out the shiny rock causing everyone there to begin giggling. I humphed and ignored them as I put it away without saying what was on it. "Anyway! Let's go. We don't want to waste any more time here."

We gathered together once more and once again held hands as we passed through the barrier, and once again, we all felt sick to our stomachs. But when I lifted my head after almost losing my lunch, I froze. In front of me was not what I was expecting at all. Tall skyscrapers covered in nature that seemed to have reclaimed the land. Cars that should not exist in this world sat motionless in the streets. The entire place looked like some kind of post apocalyptic movie.

"This place looks like a city in one of the novels I read!" Amanda yelled out, causing me to hold my head. I wonder what she would think if I said that this place looked very much like the place I lived in, in my past life.

But seeing a city like this that did not belong to this world in the slightest with the technology that should never have appeared in anything but fantasy tales made me think even more that these dungeons had some connection to Earth or at least a world similar to Earth.

I looked around to see that there were two blocks in total here. Which meant we would be stuck here for a while with how tall these buildings were. "Iena, you take the bloc-street on the right, and I will take the left."

"Yes, Master." Iena replied before motioning for her team to follow her.

I made my way to the left block, where we stood on the street that nature was in full control over. "We shall start in this building. One floor at a time. But we will move in a group. No one is to be alone at any given time."

"Sounds good to me. To be honest, This place gives me the creeps." Sei said as she looked at the tall buildings in front of her. I could see why it might freak her out since it did look spooky, but to me, I have seen many pictures of such places, so it didn't really affect me much.

We walked up the cracked cement steps and made our way into the first building. I once again made sure the door was broken before entering. And just to be safe, I even added a small barrier around the door frame to make sure nothing sealed us in.

The building we entered seemed to be an office building of some kind. The main entrance had vines and even some saplings growing out of the floor. There was a long reception desk on the back wall, which was where I walked over to first while the others inspected the other parts of the room.

When I arrived at the front desk, I saw many papers strewn about. There were computers and many other modern things from when I lived on Earth. I was not going to let these things just sit there and go to waste, so I quickly began to stick them into my inventory. If I could replicate some of this stuff, then I would be able to enhance the technology level of this world by leaps and bounds and maybe even make it better than what Earth originally had.

One thing that stuck out to me was the writing on the papers was something I could read, it was all written in english. Not the language of this world by any means. I stood there staring at the papers that were nothing more than information that one would give to people who came to ask questions. This place was probably some kind of newspaper company. At least, that was what I was getting from the stuff on the desk. It could also be a magazine company.

I shuffled around the desk to see if I could find anything interesting. One thing that did catch my eye while I was moving all the papers was a slim black rectangular device, a cell phone. I was unsure if it would turn on or not, but I still pressed the button on the side and attempted to turn it on. The screen flickered slightly before showing a company name that I was familiar with, which made my eyes widen in surprise. i𝗻𝚗re𝗮𝐝. 𝙘𝑜m

My heart started racing just thinking of the fact that this world, or at least these dungeons, may be connected to the world I once lived in. As I watched the screen change, I couldn't help but frown when I saw that the phone had no lock set up on it. "Is this person dumb? What if someone stole their phone!?"

As I grumbled, I began swiping the screens and checking the apps on the phone. The battery was basically fully charged, and if I was careful with the output, I could even charge it or find a device of some kind in this dungeon that would allow me to charge it normally. But it would need to be some kind of solar powered charger.

"If I could somehow find a few more of these and try to replicate them…." My mind was spinning on what cell phones would do to this world.

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.

I continued to search the desk and found another cell phone tucked away to the side. This one was locked and had very little battery life. But it would come in handy for taking apart and seeing how it ticks. I searched the entire desk and found nothing more of interest. I was kinda hoping for a newspaper of some kind but found none. I could only hope to find one up on the top floors. But I did figure out that I was wrong about the building. The company was some kind of technology company, and the things I was reading before were probably some kind of press statement that would be told to reporters who came in. Of course, this was all just my assumptions.

But if this was a tech company, then there might be something on the upper floors of great interest. I mean, any technology that might be replicable through means of magic would be an amazing leap in technology. Like, let's say we could use runic inscription to recreate a computer board and use lightning magic and let's say water magic combined as a processor that could process the information. It would revolutionize this world.

Whether that would be good or not is another question. But I do know that some new advancements would help out the kingdom in a big way. But to keep any of this technology from being used by other kingdoms, some things would need to be done to secure them from falling into the wrong hands.

But I know this is also something that would be hard to do unless I had a runic imprint on the item that would explode if a person not registered to it tried to open the tech they stole to try to see how it worked. I guess this could be plausible, but a new kind of transmission device with a link to the items would need to be made to allow new people to be registered to that device type so they could do repairs if needed. It did not seem very intuitive, but it would secure the technology. New methods to secure the new technology could come at a later time.

After storing what I could, I looked up to find the girls had all moved to the hall next to the room I was in and were inspecting the elevator. "How does it open?" i𝒏𝒏𝐫𝑒𝐚d. c𝐨𝗺

"I am not sure, but this is definitely a door," Sally replied to Sei's question.

"Should we open it?" Adel asked.

"We probably shouldn't. We should wait for Faith in case there is something behind the door that is too strong for us to handle alone." Sophie seemed to be thinking that some kind of huge monster was hidden behind the elevator door. I do hate to say this, but she will be very disappointed to find out that there is only a small room made of metal behind those doors. Or just the shaft, depending if the elevator is on this floor or not.

"Did you find anything?" I asked as I walked up.

The girls turned to me and shook their heads. "We only found a bunch of things with strange symbols on them, nothing else," Adel answered. I guess they wouldn't be able to read english since they never came across it before.

"I didn't find anything of use either." I decided not to say anything about the computers and phones at this time. I would wait until we got out of this dungeon. If they found it themselves that is different, I would just store it away to be looked at later.

"Faith, should we open this?" Sei asked.

"Yeah, it seems to be a sliding door. So Sei and Sally get on each side and pull towards you at the seam." I instructed. I already knew how to force an elevator door open. So there was no issue with the two whose strength was above normal humans to force the doors open with ease.

When the doors creaked open, everyone else besides me leaned forward to see what was inside. I could see the excitement and curiosity in their eyes. I wanted to tell them not to keep their hopes up, but I couldn't bring myself to disappoint them, and what I saw seconds later was a bunch of pursed lips and eyes filled with a bit of disappointment. But still, it was better for them to find out themselves that not everything was going to be amazing.

"It's just a small sealed room, so boring!" Adel yelled out.

"It should be more than that," I said as I tested the elevator to see how secure it was with my hand by pressing down on it with a bit of my strength. When I found it to be sturdy, I walked inside and floated up to the ceiling, and pushed on the light to open the hatch. "There is a door here."

"Hey, how did you know that was there!?" Sei yelled out in surprise.

"Dragon instinct," I replied while sticking my tongue out at her. Of course, this was a big fat lie but well, whatever.

I poked my head up to see nothing but darkness. Not that I planned to climb up through the elevator, but it was still neat to see the elevator shaft as I had only seen one on tv in my past life. I would not risk everyone trying to climb up the shaft, so we would be taking the stairs.

One thing I did take note of was the numbers on the elevator panel. There were sixty floors and three subfloors. This meant we had a lot of ground to cover just in this one building alone. I do hope we will find something worth wild here. While I wanted to find a clue that maybe my father had left behind, I also wanted to find a newspaper or something that told me the current date and time this city was once a living place, if it ever was.

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.

We headed upstairs, where we were met with a small reception area by the elevators that had some vending machines and a few places to sit. When the girls saw the vending machines, they looked as if they were looking at some kind of alien artifact. "What is it!? What are the things inside?"

Surprisingly the vending machines had packaged food in them. But this was also good. I was hoping that maybe just maybe, I could get a sell by date. I walked over to the machine and put my fist through the glass, causing the others to stare at me in surprise. "Faith!?" Adel was the first to cry out.

"Just checking something," I said as I grabbed what looked to be a package of cookies. I looked at the back, and even though the print was slightly faded, I was still able to make out a date: Dec. 6, 2022.

Staring at the date, I couldn't help but wonder why what seemed like a city block appeared in a dungeon with so many things from Earth. "Faith? Is something wrong? You have been acting strange."

"Ah… Ummm… Well…." I looked at the girls in front of me, who were all my closest friends, and sighed. "While Adel already probably has some ideas, the rest of you do not know, but before I tell you, what is about to be said needs to be kept to the utmost secrecy. Even the King has forced me to keep my lips sealed, but I can not keep it from the people who are always at my side. And you all have signed a blood seal contract that will keep you from speaking about it anyway. So I will just explain myself." 𝓲𝑛𝗻𝗿𝘦𝒶𝐝.＆nbsp;ᴄo𝗺

It seemed that Adel understood what I was getting at. "Faith, these are from the world you lived in, in your past life?"

"Huh? Past life!?" Sophie cried out in confusion.

"To answer your question, Adel. Yes. This machine here is called a vending machine. The items inside are foodstuff, but they are not edible now, or at least I wouldn't eat them. Sei, you can try eating them to see if you get sick." I said in a teasing manner.

"Hey! Don't use me as a test dummy!" Sei yelled out.

I chuckled and held out the package in my hand. "Surprisingly enough, this package comes from the year I died. It is a package of food called cookies. This building is some kind of office building, and the things on the street down there are called cars, which are basically horseless carriages. Everything you see here is something from my past life, and it has been bothering me….. Why is this all here?

"Why did these things appear in a world where they should not belong? What exactly are the dungeons, and why was I born with a system? And now, suddenly, anyone can get one as long as they dive into the dungeon.

"Where I come from, we have a thing called video games. They are a form of entertainment that allows a person to kind of become another person in a story where they are in control of the character's actions to a certain extent which has these kinds of systems in the game. The world I come from is not a world of magic but a world of science, like the novels that are in the library. The so called fantasy world you create is a true reality.

"But the dungeon seems to be mixing the two worlds' ideas of fantasy. First, we had a dungeon full of goblins. They are a fantasy kind of monster from the world I used to live in. Then there is this dungeon that has what this world would see as a fantasy. But at the same time, it is all things from my old world.

"This is why I have been taking objects from the dungeon and storing them in my space. Any clues I can find that will help me figure out why things are the way they are will allow me to understand just what is going on. Although having some of the things here to use as a means to advance our own civilization is also not a bad idea." I explained as I stored away a vending machine.

"So the reason you knew about the hatch in the metal box was…." Sei began putting two and two together.

"Because that is an elevator, and that was an emergency hatch in case it gets stuck," I explained.

"Now I get it…. So they can not work as they are? Is that why we took the stairs?" Grace asked.

"They run on electricity, something similar to lightning magic. But it is generated in a different manner that does not require magic." They then began bombarding me with question after question. I was starting to become overwhelmed with their curiosity. The only one staying out of it was Adel, who was watching things with a warm smile on her face. I guess she liked the idea that everyone was so open to my explanation. In a way, so was I. No one was looking at me in a strange way which made me feel that no matter what I said or did, they would never see me in a different light as long as I did not go too far.

After about thirty minutes, they calmed down. Sei came over to me and put her arm around my shoulder, and asked: "So do you plan to make anything with the stuff you are taking?"

"I can only hope to recreate things with our current power sources and abilities. If we can advance technology to a higher level, our kingdom will never have to worry about being taken over, and we can have many, many years of peace." I answered with a smile.

"You know Faith, I know you love this kingdom, but I think you should think about yourself for once. Do not give up all this technology, as you called it, to the kingdom. Save it and secretly work on it until it is ready and then claim all the benefits for yourself. You keep saying you do not want to be a ruler, then act like it by keeping the things you wish to create for your own well being. This way you can at least be the richest person in the world."

I stared at Adel in amazement. I never thought she would want me to keep my ideas to myself. I figured she would be all for sharing it with the kingdom to develop, but here she was saying that I should keep it for myself. I smiled and shook my head. "I will only be giving some things that will not upset the balance too much. But only after I come up with proper safety measures to keep the technology I hand over from being stolen by others."

"If that is what you want to do…." Adel pursed her lips, but what can I say? If it will benefit the people in some way in a good way and allow them to live easier lives, then why not, right? It's not like I will be taking something like a bomb or laser of some kind and using the idea to make some weapon of mass destruction and distributing it to the public to use as they wish.

"Anyway, let's keep looking. We've got a lot of ground to cover." With this, we began searching the whole floor. One room at a time. Every computer or cell phone I came across, I would store in my space. I also had to stop and explain what everything was.

It was not until we reached the fifth floor that I came across a newspaper, and well, what I saw was not exactly what I was expecting. The front page had in large lettering the Atlantean race had returned to Earth.

Seeing the words Earth was all I needed to know to officially say that the dungeons and Earth were connected. But what really caught my attention was the lines on the faces of the so called Atlanteans. They were very much similar to that man Azengrade.

"Faith, you find something?" Sophie asked as she walked over to me and hugged my arm. "Mmm…" I nodded and lifted my head to look at the others. "Everyone, come here. I want you to hear and see this."

When everyone gathered around, I held up the newspaper in my hand. "Do you see the woman here?" I asked as I pointed to the woman in the photo.

"She is…. Wait, she has the same kind of lines as that man!" Sei yelled out.

"Yes. According to this newspaper, whether it is true or not. She is what is called an Atlantean. A race that was only a myth to the folklores of Earth. They were supposed to be a highly advanced civilization that was long lost. No one knew where they went or how they disappeared. But the place known as Atlantis was something that many lores of old on Earth had spoken about.

"I am not sure if these people were lying or not, but according to these newspapers, they were these so called Atlanteans who had left Earth to travel the stars only to return thousands of years later.

"But this also could be a hoax created by the dungeons as well. I think these dungeons may have been created by these so called Atlanteans, a race from space. But none of it adds up…. This newspaper is dated a few months before I died." I said point at the date, which read: March 16, 2022. And now that I was thinking about it, Jen also lived almost another ten years past 2022. So all my assumptions are thrown out the window.

"Then what is going on?" Grace asked. She looked very confused.

"I don't know….. On Earth, there was a theory of a thing called parallel worlds, or it could also be called a multiverse. Let's say you had one world and then copied it over and over, only changing one thing per time it was copied, giving a slight variation compared to the last, whether it was a point in history or even a single organism that died out before they had a chance to do anything. Or maybe even the chemical composition of the planet itself, creating a world not based on science but based on magic instead.

"This is all just an assumption, but if this was the case. Would Earth still be called Earth? What if it was called Mestea, for example?" I could see the heads swaying back and forth of the others as they tried to understand what I was saying, but if a race of earthlings had mixed science and magic together to create a new, highly advanced civilization, and were these so called Atlanteans that the newspaper was talking about they could probably cross over to different multiverses. Or there could have been some kind of freak accident.

In a way, it kind of made sense since Azengrade was able to control part of the dungeon. But whether my thinking was correct or not was another story. Even I am surprised that I was able to come up with such a hypothesis so quickly with limited information. I guess maybe high intelligence is also a good thing.

But the more I thought about it, the more things kind of clicked together like a jigsaw puzzle. Once the pieces began falling into place, the image would become clearer and clearer. If my train of thought is correct, then the world of Mestea, the planet I am living on, might just be Earth in a new form.

"Wait, stop, my head hurts!" Sei yelled out. Sally was right next to her holding her head as well.

"I think I kind of get it, but at the same time, I do not. So what you are saying is that the world we live in is linked to your old world in some shape or form?" Grace asked.

"Mmm… I think that the multiverse theory that my world's scientists had come up with is actually correct. It's just that not everything is an exact copy. Things change. Like this world's day cycle and year cycle are longer than that of my past life. It has two suns whereas mine only had one. If this is correct and the Atlanteans were able to form some kind of tunnel to this world from their own…. " 𝓲𝐧𝙣𝓇ℯ𝓪𝐝 c𝚘𝒎

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.

"If that is the case and they are all as powerful as Azengrade, wouldn't that mean we are all in serious trouble?" Adel asked.

"To be honest, yes, if that is the case. But we do not have enough to go on. He could be a special case. Someone who fell through a hole and arrived here by accident. For all we know, something could have gone wrong on their planet, and the stories and cities of that world turned into separate dungeons that are now appearing in our world. But this also still leaves a lot of questions and no answers. So we can only speculate for the time being." I answered. "For now, let's just try to find any signs that my father has been to this part of the dungeon."

With this, we continued our search floor after floor and then onto the next building. Because we were searching through everything with a fine tooth comb, we spent four days just searching. And in the end, we found nothing. "Was your father not here?"

"Might be possible…." It might be possible that the dungeon rotated at some point, causing us to end up somewhere else, but I would not know for sure unless I searched the other side.

"Let's go meet up with Iena and the others. We will switch sides and research each other's areas.." I was feeling a bit discouraged. After all, I was hoping to find another easy clue, but it seemed I was not going to be able to do things so easily.

When we made our way over to the other block, I saw that Iena and her team were standing there staring at something. "Iena, what's wrong?"

"Master, look at that. What do you think that means?" I turned and looked at what Iena was talking about, and what I saw made my cheeks turn red. 𝚒𝐧𝙣𝘳𝒆𝐚𝘥.＆nbsp;com

"That damn old man!" I yelled out. I have no idea what is wrong with his head, but that old bastard actually wrote something so embarrassing on the wall!? And in such big letters. "I am starting not to care about him anymore…."

"Hehe…" I heard Adel giggle from behind me. I turned and gave her an evil eye. "Everyone does it!"

The stupid old man actually wrote: "Faith, I am pretty sure you are in the dungeon looking for me, so I am fine but remember, if you see something scary, don't wet your pants like you did that one time when you were little!"

I could feel my whole face heating up. Everyone was smiling at me knowingly. I glared at them as I said: "If you do not want me to use dragon speak to make you all tell me your most embarrassing moments, then I suggest you leave me alone!"

"Hahahahaa!" Steven suddenly burst out laughing. Causing me to grit my teeth. "Steven! Tell me what your most embarrassing moment is!"

Steven's eyes dulled as he began to speak: "When I was eight, my brother tricked me into running around the town naked, and from that moment on, I was called Little Weewee by all the neighbors."

""Pfft!"" Sophie and Grace both burst out laughing. The two quietest people on the team were now in tears laughing. But I mean, it was funny. I watched as Steven's eyes came back to life as he looked around. He was very confused as to why everyone was staring at him and laughing. "What!?"

"Don't worry…. Pff… Little Weewee. We will not judg… Pff… Judge you… hahahahahahahahahahahaha! I can't, Little Weewee! Hahahaha." I couldn't help but laugh, I mean. To think he would have such a nickname.

"Wha? How did you know my childhood nickname!? Wait!? Faith, you really made me talk!?" Steven's face was bright red. He dropped down and hugged his knees as he buried his face in them.

Amanda walked over to him and patted his shoulder. "Next time, hold it in better when you want to laugh at Faith. She is not our boss for no reason, you know."

"Ahhh! I will one day get revenge!" Steven suddenly stood up and yelled. "Laugh! So what! It was when I was a kid!"

As we all laughed and joked, I was actually quite happy. Luckily my father was able to leave a message behind that I would see. I had worried that I might have lost the trail that would allow me to find him. But he seems to be moving right along with ease.

In the end, I still went through Iena's block and secured anything that was useful for future endeavors. Iena had already found the way to the next area, which was in a parking garage on the top floor at the rear door of a box truck.

When we passed through it, we landed in what now looked like a futuristic version of the same city blocks as before. "This is…." If anything, this was a major find. "Same as before, spread out and search for any clues."

We quickly split up. When I stepped foot onto the street, the first thing I did was walk over to one of the cars that were lying half on the street and the other half on the curb. "A flying car…." I looked it over a few times before storing it away. I did not have time to fully inspect it, but I did check the engine. It was not a normal car engine. I was hoping that these cars were a combination of magic and technology. If it was, it would be a huge find and would help me greatly in my production of new things.

When we entered the first building, we all froze in our tracks and quickly went on the defensive. A human stood in front of us and suddenly bowed. "Welcome to Medfonics. May I ask what you are here for today?"

"You are not human?" I asked. The girls were all looking at me in surprise. But this was a given as I had spoken in english.

"Human? No, I am not. I am X7 serial code 238745. I am nothing more than a humble android." X7 replied. An android…. I walked up to X7 and looked him over, and even poked his face. Everything about him felt real. As I did this, the girls all watched me with great diligence, as if they were waiting for it to attack me at any moment. I could have told them that it was fine, but this was a good chance to let them learn to always be on guard.

"How long have you been in operation?" I asked. Since it was able to tell that we were people, then it may have some valuable information.

"According to my creation date, fifteen million years have passed," X7 replied. But I guess my question was too broad.

"Let me ask you this. When was the last time you saw a human besides us?" If I narrow it down this much, I should be able to get a better date on when this place was once a thriving place.

"Three days ago," X7 replied, causing me to raise an eyebrow.

"Was it a man" I bit my lip, hoping it was my father. If it was, I could see my father trying to communicate with this thing and even asking it to leave a message.

"It was indeed a man. But my language processing unit was unable to understand his language. I did record what was said before the man walked away as protocol stats in my programming." X7 replied.

"Play it for me, please…. That man should have been my father…." I was glad X7 had such a function. 𝘪n𝐧𝓻eа𝒅. 𝘤o𝘮

"Replaying now: 'Hey, what is this? Are you an enemy?' My father's voice came out of X7's mouth. 'Not an enemy, huh? What the hell are you? I can not sense any life coming from you. Anyway…. Since you are not an enemy, I will just leave you here. If my daughter comes by, relay a message to her. Keep going, and meet me at the end of the dungeon. We will reunite there. And…. I will leave another message for you at the desk of this building. I know you are probably going crazy and cursing me for being stupid for continuing my dive. But I feel something is strange about this place.

'It all feels off to me as there is some kind of connection to another world or something along those lines. Dungeons may not be what we think they are. But don't worry, I'm fine. Hell, I even leveled up a bit. So the floors you visit should be quite safe. Who would have known the first floor had some texts on how to defeat these white monster things? I even searched the whole damn place for more…. Anyway, I am just rambling now. Faith, always remember to stay strong and believe in your old man. I promise I will not die on you. Anyway, I am off. See you at the dungeon's end. I wonder if you will ever hear this. Can this thing even understand me?'

"End of recording. The man walked to the desk and left a note. But I could not understand what it said, so I left it there." X7 explained.

"Thank you, X7." I looked at the android that seemed to have lost its purpose and decided on something. "X7, I will be storing you away for the time being. Once I leave the dungeon, I will let you back out. Do you have the ability to self learn new languages?" I asked.

"This is part of my programming, yes," X7 replied.

"Then that makes things easier. I will help you learn this world's language when we get back to my home. There is nothing left here for you to do. If anything, you would probably be attacked by the next people that come through here. But before I store you, can you tell me when the last time you saw someone other than the man you just spoke about?"

"To answer your question 7 million years ago," X7 replied. This meant whatever made the city as it is now was probably done at that time. Which is why….

"X7, can you tell me what caused this building and its surroundings to end up like this?" If I could get a better clue, it would really help me out.

"I will replay what happened that day…." X7's eyes began to glow as a small screen appeared in front of us. It showed the building and what was happening outside the window and into the street. Many humans and flying cars were passing by. That was when suddenly something looked strange. The people began to digitize. I mean, this is the only way I could describe it. The humans were turning into strange greenish squares that floated up into the air. The flying cars began to crash into buildings, and then after about a minute, it was silent. The sky above had been gray the entire time as it is now.

"Fast forward at the fastest speed." I wanted to see if anything else happened but did not have time to watch it every second. Soon the screen was moving at a fast pace. The view changed from what looked like an employee lounge to the front door once more. The scene outside turned from a thriving city to a place overrun by nature. But the sky always stayed gray, never any blue to be seen. Millions of years passed in minutes until the view of my father appeared: "Stop! Playback at normal speed."

My father stared at X7 while rubbing his chin and even poked it in the face like I did. Only after a few minutes of inspection did he begin to talk to it and leave a message. He then left the main hall probably to search the building. But he looked in good shape with no wounds or anything. Still the handsome father I remember him as. My eyes began to water up knowing that he was fine and in good health.

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.

"Thank you, X7." I gave my thanks. He had helped some of my worries.

"It is my pleasure to be of assistance. But if I may ask. When you said you would take me from this place, were you telling the truth?" X7 seemed to be more sentient than I had thought. Maybe the many years of loneliness had gotten to him, so he had learned to gain a bit of self awareness.

"Yes, I would not lie. I see no point in you continuing to stay here. I will only store your way in my inventory for a short time, and when I return home, you will be given your own room and can do as you please. If you want a job, I can even find you a job." I replied. I had no idea how its programming worked, but if it was asking me something not in its normal programming, then this was good.

"Then I will take you up on the offer as no humans resided in this place," X7 replied.

I smiled and held out my hand to him: " Then take my hand. I will store you in my inventory now."

X7 reached out and grabbed my hand, and then disappeared. I turned and looked at everyone who was staring at me in shock. "Faith, did you just teleport him someplace?! And what was that strange language you were speaking!?" Adel suddenly bombarded me with questions.

"I was speaking a language from Earth, called english. It was one of the most common tongues spoken on the planet. And no, I did not teleport him anywhere. I just put him in my space as he was not real. But what is called an android or robot? A life form created with technology." I tried to explain, but it was hard when the concept of a robot was not really a thing here.

"Your old world was crazy…." Sally said while holding her head. I guess this was all too much for her.

"This kind of technology was not something the world I came from could produce yet. This whole area is in a future time frame from when I lived there. Or it could come from a different parallel universe. Remember how the Atlanteans had appeared in the same time frame as when I was alive before on the previous floor? But that was not my world. So this world and that were different, and this one and the world with the Atlanteans might be different as well." I explained lightly.

"So, in other words, your old world was crazy!" Sally repeated herself, causing us to chuckle.

"Let's just leave it at that. Anyway, let's begin our search. I want to see what the note says that my father left behind." I walked over to the desk to see many new things that I did not recognize, but they looked like they might be useful, so I stored them into my space. It took a minute, but I did find the note that my father had left for me.

'Faith if you are reading this. Then that means one of two things. You found out about me from the weird non-life form, or you just walked past it and found the note anyway. Either way, we will meet at the end of the dungeon. Stay safe.'

I smiled and kept the note. He seemed determined to investigate this dungeon thoroughly but what I did not understand was if he was clearing all the floors of monsters, then how was he defeating them? Was he hiding some kind of secret? Or was the spell he got from the information he found so powerful that it was able to disregard the level difference? Well, I guess as long as he is okay.

We searched every floor. But I really couldn't find anything like a newspaper to give me any kinds of dates or times, so I could only hope that the devices I had been picking up would have something for me to look at.

But when we reached the tenth basement floor, I finally found something very interesting. "It's huge!"

It was indeed huge. To me, it looked like a spaceship, but I could be wrong. But I knew one thing and that was I wanted to investigate it and see how it ticked. "Gather everything in this room. I will store it away. If we can replicate this ship at some point, the security of the kingdom will be safe for many many years." 𝒊n𝙣𝓻𝚎𝒶𝚍. 𝑐𝗼𝓶

The ship in question was at least one thousand feet in length and at least four hundred feet tall. It was a huge machine that had a width of at least another five hundred feet. If such a thing was replicated with magic and had magic based weapons and defenses, it would be basically unstoppable. If my dreams were true and war was eventually coming with people like Azengrade, then I wanted to make sure that I could easily defend my homeland. And technology like this was going to be needed, because I was only one person. Even if I summoned every high ranking demon, there was no telling if we would still win, so the more things we had to fight with, the better.

It took many hours, but we finally collected everything and stored it away. What was left was nothing but a barren room and a bunch of cables leading to some kind of power source. And this power source was next on my list of things to find. "Everyone, let's search for the power source in this place. But do not go near it until I have used Appraisal on it."

"You plan to take the power source as well?" Sophie asked.

"Mmm… I mean, why not, right? A power source that may not use mana, or if it does use mana, it is a power source that is magic and technology combined. And one that seems infinite to be powering the place for so long." I never expected that I would be diving into a dungeon and walking out with advanced technology. It was better for me to take it now than having someone else get their hands on it. Like, let's say Azengrade.

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.

We searched the whole room from top to bottom but still found no way to access the power source that was powering this basement floor. The other floors did not have power at all, and this one floor alone was enough to take up the two city blocks. I was not sure about the other buildings, but I did not see any stairs leading down to this basement level from another building.

"I think I found something!" Sei yelled out from across the room. Everyone was split up on each side of the room, so it took us all a few minutes just to get to her.

Sei was standing on top of a section of the floor, stamping her foot. She then pointed at the ground and said: "This section sounds different from the others."

I looked down at where she was talking about and scanned the floor. A few inches away from where she was standing, I could see a thin hairline crack in the floor. "So easily missed….." I said while pursing my lips. "Alright, let's try to get it open."

We searched the entire area and found no means of opening it. As we searched, I started to feel that maybe sending everything into my space was not such a good idea. There was probably some equipment of some kind that had a button that would open this hatch.

"Hmmm…" I transformed my hand just enough to create my claws on my hand the same size as my finger and stabbed at the spot that should be the hatch to the power source, only to have my hand deflected at the last second. "Ouch!" I cried out. My poor fingers! It was no different than stubbing one's toe!

"Faith, are you okay!?" Sophie cried out as I shook my hand. It really stung!

"Yeah, but it seems there is some kind of barrier on this thing," I replied. "I guess not everything will be easy. Everyone back up."

On my command, everyone quickly backed up as I took my dragon form. I raised my claw and smashed down at the small hatch with everything I had!

*Bang!*

A loud bang echoed through the room, causing the other girls to cover their ears while I clutched the floor with my claws and ripped up a huge chunk of the floor. What was revealed was a large area under the floor that had a huge machine of some kind with a blue, glowing orb set in the middle. This orb had blue arcs of lightning coming off of it. I could feel that this was indeed a massive ball of mana. "Jackpot!"

I transformed back into my human form and floated down into the room with the power source, and used appraisal.

[Mana Capacitor]

[A power core to generate the same amount of power as a small sun.]

Reading the information, I couldn't help but be stunned. So much power could easily power an entire solar system. I couldn't help but shake in excitement, knowing that I was going to be getting my hands on such a thing. For something like this, I would need to take the entire room, cables and all, to be sure nothing was out of place. I did not dare to just take the machine itself in case there was some kind of special setup with the room that kept it all contained. I used detection magic to check how deep the entire place went before placing my hand on the wall, and in an instant, the entire place was nothing more than a large dirt hole in the ground that was so deep that it looked like a black abyss from where I was floating.

I flew back up top and landed in the previous room with a big smile on my face. "We really struck gold this time. Come on, we got more buildings to explore and things to take!"

The girls all looked at me with stunned expressions before bursting out in laughter. "Faith, you sound like a bandit."

"I can only be a bandit in dungeons, so let me enjoy myself!" I said with a bright smile.

We went building to building, and I scooped up whatever technology I saw. If Azengrade decided to come here, I did not want him to be able to take anything. Or anyone for that matter. When we met up with Iena, I once more ran through every building at top speed and grabbed everything from her side as well. Even the cars in the street were not safe from my plundering.

As for the entrance to the next area, it was quite difficult to find as we had to climb to the top of the tallest building and up a pole at the tip top to find the entrance. This time I tethered everyone together with magic and jumped through the entrance pulling everyone along. Luckily it worked, and no one was separated. This was my biggest fear.

But now, what stood before us was no longer cities of any kind but a barren desert that had three suns shining down on us. The temperature was so high that even I was starting to sweat. "Cooling…."

"Faith, you are a goddess!" Steven cried out as he felt the cool air wash over him.

"And you are Little Weewee," I replied with a smile, causing Steven's cheeks to blush and the others to laugh.

"Let me send my detection magic out. I want to see if there is anything out there." I sent my detection magic in all directions. I penetrated the sand dunes to see if anything was underneath them, and to my surprise, there was a very familiar site under the city. "The same city but…. This one is covered in sand…. And the sky is blue with three suns….." 𝘪𝐧𝓷𝘳e𝑎d. 𝒸𝒐𝑚

It makes me wonder just what happened. This was probably another variation of the previous world, but some disaster happened on this version, or at least I think…

"Stay back. I am going to move all this sand," I yelled out as I stood a hundred feet or so away from the entrance of the city blocks. If I could gain two of these free of charge, then I was not going to let it go. I also wanted to take all the technology here as well. I closed my eyes and stretched out my hands before opening them again. The ground shook as the sand in front of us, over a thousand feet in all directions, was lifted into the sky. It was then wrapped in a barrier and moved to the side. I had also created a barrier around the city blocks to keep the surrounding sand from falling into it again.

"Faith, are you sure you should have done that?" Adel asked. I know what she was worried about. "It's fine. The last message told me to meet him at the bottom of the dungeon. And he is not dumb enough to try to leave a message here of all places. To him, this was probably just a desert area that might have had some monsters in it. Even if he detected the city, he would not be able to move all this sand at once."

"I see… You know your father well." Adel said with a smile.

"Of course! He is a man worthy of being looked up to. And he is my father, after all." I couldn't help but smile, thinking back to all the father daughter moments we had while I was growing up. He is a silly man and a great father.

The only thing different about this place was that the X7 of this floor was not functioning when I found him. But I still stored this X7 away in case he ever needed spare parts. We cleaned out all the buildings, and I also got my hands on a second mana capacitor. Surprisingly it was still very much functional.

We checked around quite a bit but found nothing out of the ordinary. I figured maybe, X7 could tap into his other world counterpart to shed some insight on what happened to this world. In the end, we found the portal to the left of the city in the middle of the desert. When we passed through the barrier, we came out to what seemed to be a thriving kingdom.

"Oh? Residents?" I looked around from the mountain top we were on and found that the place was very much alive. From my point of view, there were many towns and villages and even a city off in the distance.

"What should we do here?" Iena asked. I was also unsure as this floor was unlike the other dead floors.

"I am not sure. We can only try to find the barrier wall. However, this place looks more like a medieval Earth era than a place with magic. Speaking of which, everyone, check your ability to move your mana." I had a strange feeling that something was different about this floor of the dungeon.

"I can, but it's very minimal." Grace was not the only one, everyone else was too. And as for me…. "I am still the same… I wonder if it has to do with my system…"

"Isn't that a little unfair!" Sei whined as she created a dinky fireball.

"My magic is fine as well…." Iena said as she created a large fireball with ease.

"Is it because you are connected to me? Hmmm…." I decided to try tethering everyone to my mana pool, and surprisingly this did work quite well… "I see… So this is due to how much mana a person has. Since Iena feeds off my mana, she would naturally have her normal powers, but you all do not, which restricts your power. So being connected to my mana fixes this issue. It's like finding an exploit in the dungeon system. Alright, we will be moving as one anyway, so this works out well."

We climbed down the mountain and found a dirt road that looked to be well traveled. I had no idea if we were heading east, west, north, or south, but we were definitely turned right onto the road. We were not in too much of a hurry since this place was much different than the other floors.

When we arrived at the first town, we noticed the tall log style wall surrounding it. Outside were guards with spears and metal armor standing there as they inspected the carts and the people entering. And this was when the first problem arose.

"Ahh, demon!" Someone yelled out in my current worlds language while looking straight at me. I frowned as I looked at the person who screamed but they seemed to be truly terrified. Not more than a few seconds later, the entire line of people began to react and scream out in horror. Adel and Sophie came over and held my hands. They knew the things I had been through since young, so I guess they were worried about me.

"Stand down, demon!" One of the guards yelled out, causing me to frown once more. 𝙞𝘯𝘯𝙧𝒆𝘢𝐝. C𝑜ｍ

"Who are you calling a demon!?" Adel yelled out. "Can you not see all the humans in our group too!? If she was a demon, would we be next to her!?"

"Humph! For all I know, you are all demons! You will all come with us!" The guard yelled. I sighed and pulled Adel back.

"Since we are unwelcomed, we will leave," I said with a smile and bowed my head.

"Faith! Why are you…." I stopped Adel once more and shook my head.

"They might not be used to demi humans or why might not exist in this world. So they are only scared of what they do not understand." I replied. I did not want to cause a scene when we did not need to. If they let us leave on our own, that would be the best outcome. The worst case outcome is that we would be put in jail, which was also fine. Either way, it was not like they could keep us here if we truly wished to leave.

"Halt! Who said you could leave!?" The guard yelled out. I knew he wouldn't let us leave, but it was still worth a try.

"So you are forcing us all to stay?" I asked as I turned around and looked at the guard. An idea started to form in my mind. "As long as we can stay together in the same cell, we will go with you."

"You! Do you think you have the right to make demands!?" The guard yelled out.

To his question, I only smiled and nodded: "You say I am a demon, but you act all high and mighty. What is stopping me from destroying this town? Don't think just because I am not causing trouble that you can walk all over me because if you do…."

Since they wish to call me a demon, I will just make it so I can be seen as a demon. My hand grew to twice the size of my body, causing everyone to scream out in fright while the guards who came over, faces' paled and began to shake in fear. "So, do we get to stay together in the same cell?"

The guard quickly nodded. I think he was very much confused as to why I was willing to go with him without making a fuss. "Fo-Follow me…"

I nodded and turned to everyone else, and motioned for them to follow. We followed the guard through the gates to a guard house that was stationed just inside. He then brought us to a back room that had metal bars but was actually well furnished. My guess is this was more of a noble holding cell than a criminal one. "Please stay here for the time being. I will need to contact my superiors."

"Thank you." I gave my thanks before entering the spacious cell with everyone else. Of course, they were all staring at me in confusion.

"Faith…" Adel was the first to speak up. She seemed to always be the group's representative.

"You are all wondering why I did what I did, right?" I asked, and everyone nodded in response. Except for Iena, she seemed to understand my plan.

"It's simple, really. Think about it. If I were to show that I am indeed a demon yet am willing to follow the rules, they would show less hostility towards us out of fear, but on top of that, they will contact the higher ups. They will then treat us as guests because any smart nobleman will try to gain our favor in order to use our power to benefit them. But…. for us, this makes things easier to handle. We need to find the entrance to the next floor, right? We need freedom of movement within the kingdom which means we will need to work our way to the top using the small noble who rules this town and then gain the attention of a higher noble. Adel, you should know this more than anyone." I explained.

"I see…. So we are basically using anyone and everyone of power until we reach the top." Adel fully understood.

"Yep! And it won't take long to do. We just need to find out what rank the person is in the next town, and if they are too low or the same rank as the one ruling this town, we can ask about the town after that. Maids and servants will be very much open to telling you such things with a bit of coin. This is a place without magic, from the looks of things, so it will be easy to do. No magic means no magic contracts on servants. We can easily loosen their lips." It was the same in the novels I read and even in history. A servant was not always loyal to their master, and this caused the death of many masters and nobles in ancient times and in stories.

"I see. I see. Faith, you are brilliant!" Adel smiled as she hugged me.

"Anyway, do not take offense to anything that is said. And most importantly, display your power only when they think they have the status to suppress you. A noble values their life more than anything after all." It may be different for those in my team since most of them come from noble houses, but most nobles would always value their lives over others. Even going so far as to sacrifice their own family members to keep their lives.

"Anyway, let's enjoy this small break and rest," I said as I walked over to a corner of the room and sat down on the plush carpet. I then leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. Not even a few seconds later, I had two soft bodies leaning against me. One fluffy, one princess.

Three hours later I awoke when I heard a shout: "Lord Julius is here!"

"These are the demons? Hmmm…." A rich, plump man walked in with gold practically covering his entire body. I always hated that about the rich nobles. They really did things in such a gaudy way.

"Yes, My Lord! I saw it with my own eyes. The girl's arm transformed into a monster's claw." The guard replied.

"Oh?" The noble looked over at me with a strange gaze as he ordered: "Show me!"

"Huh? Is that how you ask someone to do something!? Do not think I am in this cell because you can keep me here. I came here voluntarily. Even if you sent your entire kingdom's army after me, you would not be able to hurt me. So show some respect when asking me to do something. Say, please show me." I was not going to listen to any demands. I was only here to use them, not to become their pet. 𝒊n𝓃𝗿e𝚊𝒅. Co𝚖

"You! You dare defy this lord!?" The noble yelled out. "Drag her out here!"

"My Lord, please calm down! She is not someone we can really handle!" The guard was smart, it seems. He had seen me transform, after all.

"I dare go against my command!? Someone, drag him away!" The noble yelled out, causing me to frown.

*Bang!*

The cell door hit the ground with a flick of my finger. "I already said I was not in here because I was captured but that I was in here willingly. Lord, whatever your name is. You can either work with me or against me, pick."