Chapter 1: The Beginning

"Today, I was jolted awake by the alarm clock and changed into my uniform with sleepy eyes. As I went down from my room.

'Good morning, Kota, hurry or you'll be late for school.'

'...Good morning, I know.'

I stuffed my usual breakfast of fried eggs and miso soup into my stomach and left home.

'I'm heading out!'

There might be a difference in whether I put soy sauce or sauce on the eggs, but well, it's pretty much the same every day.

By the way, I'm a soy sauce guy, and if I accidentally put sauce on my eggs, my mood plummets from the morning. I think it's bad that the containers for soy sauce and sauce look the same at home!

Today, I tried eating with salt and pepper, it's a bit bland, but not bad. Some days are like this, after all.

Today, I'll finally graduate from middle school!!

I've passed the high school entrance exam, so now I just need to graduate middle school, and then I can enter the dungeon! My heart leaps at this thought.

It's said that dungeons first appeared exactly five years ago, on January 1st at midnight. On that day, monsters suddenly overflowed in different parts of the world.

Every year since then, at this same time, dungeons have been appearing in various locations around the world.

Initially, the world fell into panic. It was inevitable - unidentified creatures were emerging from mysterious entrances.

If these creatures were friendly, it would be one thing, but they were all hostile and belligerent monsters. That day, over 1,000 people died worldwide, with injuries exceeding ten thousand. It's said that the first ten dungeons caused this damage.

Each country immediately decided to exterminate these creatures as harmful beasts.

Of course, every country was also taking samples for research institutions.

What was truly horrifying was the secondary damage. Apocalyptic prophets revealed their true nature with the emergence of dungeons. Those who thought they were going to die anyway started running wild, doing whatever they wanted.

It was similar to bank robbers and thieves appearing in areas devastated by earthquakes and tsunamis. This actually happened in Japan, and on a global scale, victims are said to number between 100 and 200 million across the world. Even now that things have calmed down, these scars have not healed.

The UN decided to call these creatures 'Monsters' and the holes or entrances 'Dungeons'.