Lock stood there for a while, only stepping back once the blood escaping from the corpses neck started threatening to soil his feet.

He'd gained a new Class. Executioner. Right after he'd gained the decapitation skill from decapitating Light. Looking into it he noted that the other requirement for the Class had been a weapons skill dependant on the style of execution. In this case, sword mastery, something he'd long since attained when having worked towards the Vanguard Class.

What really struck him however was that due to the low level of his new Class, it had risen quite fast with only one kill. All the way to level four. Bringing with it four attribute points that he immediately put into Endurance.

A new path suddenly alighted in front of him. A path that he felt foolish for not having seen earlier.

A Class did not require much experience to go from level one, to level ten. The attribute points that one gained on the journey however, were worth just as much as if one had taken another Class from level ten, to twenty.

Now there was a perfectly valid reason why people did not go out to attain as many Classes as possible, but it was a skill based conundrum really. Not an attribute based one.

A body could only withstand so many skill trees being offered to one, and therefore all gains from new skill trees were shut down after about four to five Classes. People usually avoided getting too many Classes because of this reason, the experience that they gained from killing getting spread out too much between different Classes, some of them not even granting any skills. It was more combat effective to have one Class at level 30, than it was to have four Classes at level 10. The skills that one gained after all, became all the more powerful the higher level a Class was.

Well, and the other reason that people didn't have that many Classes was because they weren't capable of attaining them. Lock had been, semi-distracted by the joy of having become immortal, been throwing himself at skill acquisitions since he'd been old enough to walk. People who had attained two Classes by the time they reached fifteen were considered geniuses, Light had been hailed a prodigy for reaching proficiency in one.

In comparison, Lock had unlocked three completely independent from each other Classes by the time he was fourteen.

Thinking of the attribute points he could gain by putting in a bit more effort, he decided that it was nigh time he expanded his list of three, now four, Classes.

A plan to shelve for later though, he was sure there was a reason people weren't stacking Trash Classes on Trash Classes on Trash Classes just to overwhelm others with their stats.

Now, he was in a dungeon, and had other priorities.

“Are you alright?” He heard Mia ask.

“Yes, yes, I just had a thought however. We have a dimensional knob now, maybe we should try using it to escape the dungeon?” Lock proposed.

“If it was that simple, then I don't think the Castouts would have needed to open a Gate.” Mia said in a doubtful voice.

Lock conceded her point, but... the stupidity of man was never to be underestimated.

“Try anyway, just in case.”

Mia nodded, took a running start, and climbed up the wall. Crouching on the ceiling, she inserted the door knob, put a tiny bit of mana into it, creating a door, and opened it.

It was open just long enough for Lock to see a swirl of colours and a gaping maw stretch out to take a bite out of the Ninja, before Mia quickly closed the door, pulled out the knob, and fell off the ceiling in the process.

Lock stepped forward and caught her in his arms, taking the dimensional knob that she was still clutching in her hand from her and stashing it away on his own person. He gently helped the blushing girl that he'd caught in the bridesmaid position onto her feet. “Thanks for trying.” He said sincerely.

“I guess since the dungeon is only actually connected to our dimension via its entrance, trying to use an artefact on anything but the entrance will bring us face to face with whatever horrors lurk in the place between places.” He mused out loud.

“Couldn't we just use the knob on the actual entrance then?” Mia asked.

“Well we could, and we probably should if we want to leave before the official opening time in about four hours, but its going to be guarded. We are in the right here, we did save the dungeon and kill the evil-doers after all, but I still don't think that the guards at the entrance will be very amused. I think we should set our story straight first before attempting to leave.” Lock said.

He frowned suddenly and raised a hand to halt any attempts from the twins to say something.

“Do you hear that?” He whispered just loudly enough to be understood.

The twins synchronically tilted their heads at him before seemingly concentrating on the sensation of sound.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

It sounded like... footsteps. Coming from the tunnel that they'd just come through. The footsteps of something heavy, and something that was, thump, coming closer.

Lock sighed, pulled out the dimensional knob, and threw it at Mia. “Retreat to the entrance, if we need to escape, use the knob.” He said before throwing away the broadsword that he'd been holding on to unconsciously all this time and drawing his own sword, the one he actually knew how to use.

The door leading into the room suddenly bulged inwards, as if something heavy was pushing against it, before it completely cracked and fell to the ground, broken.

A gigantic earth golem ducked underneath the door arch, standing up to its full height of about eleven feet once it had made it through.

Was this the boss? Lock asked himself as he cautiously started taking a few steps backwards.

Why had it grown so much? His eyes flicked over its form, catching sight of a stone blade jutting out of the boss. It suddenly disappeared within it, a small ripple spreading outwards as if it had sunk into a pool of water. Ah well, that explained it. The boss was capable of assimilating the other earth golems present in the dungeon.

Lock took another step backwards, it would not do to fight the boss in a situation where they needed it alive to escape execution. Although to be perfectly frank, he doubted that they would even be able to defeat it. He didn't even come up to where its navel would have been were it a normal human.

“Hey, we're not the ones who attacked you,” he jutted a thumb at the headless corpse, “it was that guy. We already killed the rest. There's no conflict between us right?” Lock asked. A last attempt at defusing the situation before his party would have to run out the dungeon like bats out of hell, potentially startling the guards at the dungeon entrance into attacking them.

The boss, surprisingly enough, halted. It turned its head towards the corpse, seeming to scrutinize it, before turning back to Lock. It nodded.

“You can... understand me?” Lock hesitatingly asked.

Another nod.

Odd. Lock wondered what prompted an earth golem to learn the human language. Or had it been made that way? Dungeons took an instance of monsters, or other intelligent species, compacted them in a fitting space, and then isolated them from reality with only one entrance, which would then appear in Lock's current world.

The dungeon monsters originated from all sorts of universes, it wouldn't be too odd for some to come from a place also inhabited by humans who had independently developed the same language of Lock's world. Wait no, that was dumb. What were the chances? One in a trillion?

“You don't actually speak my language do you.” Lock concluded. “You're simply using some sort of telepathic receiver to understand the intentions behind my words, not the words themselves.”

The golem nodded.

“Can you speak?” Lock asked. A shake of the head was his answer.

An idea suddenly popped up in Lock's mind. “Do you have some sort of alternative way of getting out of the dungeon. One that doesn't lead through the entrance?”

The golem nodded.

“Would you be willing to take us through it?” He queried further, boggling at his own luck.

Another nod.

“Why though?” He muttered. They had saved its life, but dungeon monsters were supposed to be aggressive. A scorpion did not hold back from stinging a frog, even if the frog was currently carrying it over a river. It was simply its nature.

The golem had apparently heard his question, and slowly raised one of its large arms to point at Light's corpse.

Interesting, so it was indeed gratefulness. Or something. The question however was why the earth golem had been programmed with the capacity to feel that particular emotion in the first place.

Lock sighed. He was curious. But the answer didn't really matter. What mattered was getting out of here as fast as possible before the boss changed its mind.

“Mia, Tia!Get over here!” He shouted. The hesitant scuttling of two Ninjas slowly coming down the stairs at his command sounded like music to his ears.

Not turning away from the boss, he spoke to them. “Our friend here has offered to get us out of the dungeon. I honestly don't feel like going through an investigation, so I'm taking him up on his offer.”

He had expected protests, questioning of his sanity, but all he received was agreeable silence.

Lock turned around, confused, to look at the twins. What greeted him were two bleary eyed girls who looked like they would drop from exhaustion any moment now. He furrowed his brow. The potions shouldn't have run out yet. Then a smile made its way onto his face. He had almost forgotten to keep watch on the twins incase they exhibited a skill that they hadn't told him about. The skill probably being a requirement on how to get the Ninja Class, something that people who had it, liked to keep secret. It wasn't very wide-spread after all.

But if the twins became exhausted before the effect of the potions were actually supposed to end, he could make a pretty good guess at what skill it was that they'd been hiding from him.

Not poison resistance, his potions were beneficial. More likely, something in the realms of, foreign influence softener. Probably.

Well, he who lives in a glass house should not throw stones. Lock was feeling mightily tired himself, which was probably the reason for all these tangents.. He turned back to the boss, asking himself if he really wanted to trust his passage through the place between places to a monster that should by all means be an enemy. His mind was telling him to be cautious, but his gut told him that it was fine.

Instinct it was. He went over to where he'd dropped his helmet, putting it back on, before stepping up to the twins and gripping both of them by their shoulders in a rather hard hug. Tia barely had the strength to resist, while Mia didn't even bother.

“Take us out of here then, preferably somewhere out of the city, and if that isn't possible, somewhere where our exit will remain unseen.” Lock said.

The boss melted into an earthy puddle, which spread out beneath their feet. The puddle twisted in on itself, turning into a tunnel downwards that seemed to have no end.

They fell. Lock was the only one to scream.