Despite their concerns, the trip to the Verdant Belt was a peaceful one. There were frequent monster attacks, but those didn’t really count in Velik’s mind. Monsters were everywhere, after all. If they’d had to clash with Slokaran soldiers, that would have been something, but thankfully, no humans revealed themselves over the next week and a half.

They took all due precautions, which Torwin credited their success with. They traveled at night, first and foremost, because most people couldn’t see well in the dark at all. That suited Velik just fine, and if Torwin wasn’t quite as fast once the sun went down, they still managed a good two hundred miles most nights. The old man pushed himself hard, and their progress was slowed more by needing to circle wide around villages and towns than it was by his lack of ability to match Velik’s pace.

They also avoided roads and were careful on the few occasions they did have to cross them, but that rarely happened. The interior of the country was heavily developed, according to the maps Velik had seen, but out on the edge, all they had to worry about was border patrols and squadrons doing military exercises when they got within fifty miles of a training base one day.

Finally, though, they scaled the cliff side leading up to the highlands on the eastern edge of Slokara and entered the Verdant Belt. It owed its prosperity to the three rivers cutting across the six hundred mile stretch of land and the rich, abundant soil that had filtered down from the mountains. The interior of the crescent shaped stretch of land was heavily farmed, and, despite being only a small fraction of the country, served as the breadbasket to all of Slokara.

The mountain side of the Verdant Belt, on the other hand, was as wild and untamed as the deep wood beyond the frontier back home. Level 30 or 40 monsters wandered out regularly, necessitating a strong military presence to keep the farmers safe. The tangled forest itself was only about fifty miles deep, a bare sliver at the outer edge of the Verdant Belt, purposely cultivated as a barrier between civilized lands and the mountains beyond them.

Velik couldn’t say whether the strategy worked or if it would have been better to clear the land for additional farming, but the Slokarans had kept the setup unchanged for generations now. Presumably, they knew what they were doing. Either way, it worked out in Velik’s favor. He stood at the top of the cliff they’d scaled to get up to the Verdant Belt, a good hundred miles away from the closest road leading up to the top, and peered down at his mana compass.

“Looks like it points to the forest,” he told Torwin.

“Makes sense. If it was in the farm land, it’d be noticed right away. The only real question is whether the dungeon is in the forest itself or past it up in the mountains.”

“That’s something I don’t understand,” Velik said with a frown. “We’re following the compass to a dungeon that the locals supposedly haven’t found. Ignoring that if it’s a dungeon, then the seed has… I don’t know…. Already sprouted, I guess? But this place is heavily guarded. Monsters are a known threat. They should be on the lookout for dungeons, right?”

“Assuming the people in charge of doing that are still people,” Torwin said. “If we do find a dungeon here on the Belt itself, that’d be a pretty damning indicator that the local baron’s got an agent of corruption in him. Or, it’s possible that the dungeon is in the mountains past the farmland, deep enough that no one’s willing to go in there after it. You saw what kind of monsters are up in those peaks. Can you blame them for not wanting to root out a possible dungeon?”

“I thought you guys knew where the dungeon was already.”

“General direction and distance, though Aria did confirm the seed was under tree cover. Those trees go miles up into the mountains though, so that doesn’t exactly narrow it down. All I’m sure of is that it’s not in the open farmland.”

In the end, there was really just one way to answer the question: they went to go find the dungeon. That involved skirting the edge of the Verdant Belt and a brief trip through the forest, where they fended off a horde of monstrous bats, and a trek back up into the mountains. The compass guided them steadily southeast, and they relied on the strip of tangled forest to keep them safe from prying eyes as the sun rose overhead.

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Eventually, they came to a narrow, winding trail with a watchtower perched at the top. It was the first sign of civilization Velik had seen since they broke free of the forest, and he was cautious about getting too close. If it was occupied, though, then they’d already seen him and Torwin.

He stared at it, looking for signs of movement, but there was nothing. Maybe it was abandoned, he thought. Torwin also watched it, a frown on his face. Abruptly, he pulled the mana compass out and peered down at it.

“Hah,” he said, showing the compass to Velik. “Look where it’s pointing.”

“The watchtower,” Velik said. “Is it the dungeon? It’s not very big.”

A normal dungeon would be the size of a whole village at minimum. One that had been active for years would be ten or twenty times bigger. There was no way that watchtower was the whole thing. Either they were wrong about it, or the dungeon spread out below ground into the mountain.

“One way to find out,” Torwin said.

Velik pulled his spear off his arm. It uncoiled with a snap and was fully formed, its tip a wide, triangular leaf-shaped blade in less time than it took to blink. Weeks of travel and fighting had taught them their roles, and his was in the front. Velik tore through whatever was in front of him while Torwin took care of the flyers and flankers. It was the rare fight that something got past Velik to threaten the back line.

They took off at a light run, Torwin’s bow held steady with an arrow on the string. Velik reached the watchtower five seconds ahead of Torwin and paused at the gate. No movement in any of the windows. Either they’re hiding or this place is deserted. I don’t hear or smell anybody either.

“Empty,” he whispered when Torwin caught up, tapping his nose. “Empty, or hiding.”

Torwin showed him the compass, which flickered back and forth wildly now. The needle was swinging so hard it almost spun, a good indicator that they were right on top of the dungeon. There was no doubt it was what they were looking for.

“Break the doors down or climb to the top and hope the trap door is unlocked?” Velik asked.

“Top,” Torwin said. He gestured to the door and added, “Look.”

Velik peered at the wood. That’s weird. It doesn’t have a grain? And… there’s no space between the door and the frame? Is it wedged in? No, it’s fake. This is a solid wall, just a piece of dungeon architecture.

“How’d you know?” Velik asked. He hadn’t seen Torwin give the door more than a passing glance.

“Experience. Not the first time I’ve seen a dungeon like this. I was betting this door wasn’t real before we even got up here.”

“That means the dungeon is intentionally funneling us up a hundred feet. We should expect traps or monsters.”

It wouldn’t be the first time they’d had to fight something off while climbing. Neither were overly worried about it, but there was one concern. Torwin voiced what they were both thinking. “How strong is the dungeon, and is it going to be throwing a champion at us while we’re on our way up?”

“What does the compass say about the mana density or whatever?”

Torwin shrugged. “It’s not that good of a compass. I don’t think the mana is that strong, though. We… should be fine.”

That wasn’t exactly reassuring, but neither of them had lived a risk-free life. Every fight had a chance to turn against them, however miniscule. There were no guarantees, even with a massive difference in levels and stats. Admittedly, those were important factors, but they weren’t everything.

“I’ll go first. You cover me,” Velik said. His spear coiled back around his arm, and, flexing his legs, Velik leaped twenty feet straight up.

The dungeon stone of the watchtower was far smoother than the rough texture he was used to, but there were small lips, bare fractions of an inch, where the mortar sat between each brick. It wasn’t much of a grip, but Velik could literally crush stone in his hand. Even dungeon stone wasn’t strong enough to stop him from making his own handholds.

He grabbed hold, then lunged up another eight feet to grab the lip of an arrow slit. Something dark and scaly flitted out of the darkness, smacking against his hand and scraping his skin with what felt like teeth. Velik’s other hand shot up, and his grasping fingers snatched some sort of lizard with a thin frill around its neck. It writhed in his grip, scrabbling with tiny claws to get free.

Not a threat. Velik crushed the tiny monster, then nodded to himself when the notification informed him it was only level 16. He pulled himself up again, grabbing onto the top of the arrow slit with his hands and getting a foot in place on the lip.

That was when a long, spotted black tongue whipped out of what Velik knew was an empty space and wrapped itself around his leg three times. The next thing he knew, he was somehow inside the watchtower even though the arrow slit was too thin for even a child to squeeze through.

And something that resembled a frog the size of a house squatted in front of him, its tongue slurping back up into its mouth with the end still clinging to Velik’s leg.