21

How convenient. I thought to myself. I pulled up the description of the dungeon. 

Beast, and monster live within. Twisted pathways, and danger at every turn. May the weight of your weakness crush you young awakened. 

This is a red dungeon. Red dungeons are crafted by the gods themselves. Rewards are higher, but so are the dangers. This dungeon has fifteen levels. There is a significant leap of difficulty between levels. This dungeon will not dissipate until it is completely conquered. Should you exit the dungeon the timer will reset, and enemies will be respawned. Should this dungeon break chaos will be unleashed onto the world.

99 days 23 hours 59 minutes.

Three months? That was a massive countdown. I wondered if the other dungeons were similar. The question that plagued my mind the most was why would it appear here? Why would a dungeon appear here of all places? 

Dungeons appear in places where the awakened humans frequent. 

The system answered the question willingly. Places humans frequent? Stores fit the bill. Even with the world falling apart people would still go to grocery stores. Then a dark thought flitted through my mind. 

Stores weren't the only place that humans would frequent. There were many incredible places that humans would go on a regular basis. So many tourist destinations that were in dangerous, and hard to reach places. Take Mount Saint Helens for example. So many high altitude roads, and dangerous curves that were virtually unpassable in the winter months, but tourist hubs in the summer. 

If a grocery store met the criteria then those places would as well. I turned my attention to the men who had rushed to see what had caused the earthquake. Boss boy's face went pale at the sight of the massive dungeon doors. The doorway extended through the roof of the building. Easily a hundred feet tall, and it appeared solid at a glance.

Yet it passed through the roof harmlessly. 

"It has a ninety-nine day count down," I startled them by speaking aloud. 

They hadn't noticed me when they walked in because I was standing just a few feet from the base of the door. Their attention turned to me. All of them were awakened like me so they could feel the power coming off the doors. It didn't seem to affect me as much as it did them though. While I was mostly unaffected they were all pale, and nervous. 

"We should get moving," I walked towards the men. 

Not forgetting to grab my carts of food as I did. 

"Your father is going to want to know about this as quickly as possible," I said as I passed boss boy, "We can't go back without filling the truck first. We need those supplies more then anything."

I was using the boss boy's words against him. Normally I would feel guilty about forgetting someone's name, but boss boy didn't deserve my consideration or attention. I went back to work as if nothing had happened. I wanted to enter that dungeon. I really did. 

I was heavily attracted to it, but the description had thrown me a bit. It wasn't a great dungeon for me to go in alone. I needed an easier dungeon to deal with. Those dungeons were just dangerous training grounds the way I saw it. If we weren't willing to go in, and conquer them then they would force us to face their contents whether we wanted to or not. 

I frowned to myself as they jittered around the store nervously. We managed to fill the bed of the truck with food from the store, but the side racks were largely there for show at the moment. The way boss boy was talking he wanted it full all the way up to the top. The side racks were reinforced with netting so nothing could fall out. There was also a section of netting in the truck that would go over the top. 

We all piled our way into vehicles. I was too slow this time around though. I ended up in the passenger seat of the truck with boss boy. It was my fault for double checking for anything useful left in the store. I was the only one who had the balls to go back in the store so asking one of the others was out of the question. 

I didn't want to be anywhere near this cocky little boy as the others pulled out onto the road ahead of us he reached over, and gripped my knee. He had to reach quite a ways to grip my knee so it was semi awkward. I slapped his hand off my knee. 

"I don't like being touched," I stated bluntly. 

Moving my legs closer to the door to the point that one knee was touching the door. 

"You know you're going to give me what I want, right?" his tone was smoot like honey, but I knew it was poisoned honey, "One word from me, and those two boys of yours will be thrown out. You don't want your kids to be torn apart by monsters do you?"

He'd assumed I was the boys mother. It was an incorrect assumption, but he wasn't wrong about me not wanting the boys to get thrown out. 

"And what exactly are you planning on asking me to do?" I knew the answer, and dreaded it, but I wanted to hear it from his own mouth. 

He reached over, and gripped my upper thigh. Closer to my hips. 

"It's obviously not something you haven't done before," he was again assuming I was the boys birth mother, "You can give me what I want, and you'll get a little something out of it yourself. Win win right?" 

"You seem to think I'll obey you without question to protect the boys," I gripped his hand tightly. 

Enjoying the feel of his knuckles grinding together before throwing his hand off of me. 

"You forget I have another option," I smiled, my tone was sickly sweet, "I get you alone, and kill you. Then go back, and blame it on a monster."