I carefully undid the bandage glove that I had on my hand. A warning Window informing me that my weapon had been unequipped blocked my view. I swiped it away with an exasperated sigh.

Once the bandages were off, I studied my hand and up the arm. Nothing looked outwardly different, but the alarming sense of nothing lingered on the arm. I lightly poked it with my other hand and was still somehow surprised that I felt nothing, which made me feel kind of stupid.

I already knew what it would say, but I still asked Paradigm to scan my arm. The message in the Window still sent a shiver down my spine as well.

Using the same bandage, I wrapped the arm in a makeshift sling. It was a little bit difficult to tie it up using one hand, but I made it work.

I made my way to my feet very carefully and slowly. Every muscle and every bone in my body ached. It was so brutal that I nearly toppled over on my face. I braced myself against the wall and waited for the wave of pain to dissipate. Another Window warned me of my critically low Health and Stamina.

Gee, I wouldn't have known otherwise. Thanks.

Once the pain became more tolerable, I realised that there was a Window waiting to be opened in front of me. I received the Window, and a surprising message was shown.

Before I could fully comprehend what the message meant, I seemed to have set off a chain reaction of messages as more Windows opened up automatically in front of me.

YOU HAVE RECEIVED 300EXP!]

My jaw dropped. The numbers I just read clouded my mind as the enormity of it all threw my mind for a loop. There was another Window explaining how I was now LVL 10, but my eyes had already glossed over and I didn't take in any of the changes in my stats at that point.

I grabbed the Sword of the Chief and scanned it just to double-check the item. I skimmed through the item description until I got to the part describing Rally Order. My eyes widened. It said, "goblins of lower level than you attack the enemy you have damaged with the sword." So even though I didn't realise it, Rally Order must have activated when I slashed at the Goblin Alpha and all the Chiefs and Basic goblins stormed it. I just can't believe that the Rally Order worked like that. It didn't seem fair. It didn't seem real!

LVL 10 is around the level someone my age should be. Never in my life did I think that I would ever get to the point where I felt normal. I remembered those early days when I looked at the Paradigm Help Entry about average levels and stat values.

Using what I remembered from that Help Entry as a guide, I used up all of my available Stat Points and now my stats were at:

In the end, I decided to use up the remaining two Stat Points into Vitality. I thought that was the smartest move since I only have one arm now, and I believed that I would probably get hurt more in the future and higher Vitality meant better healing. I was lucky that I didn't die this time because of Rally Order, but now that I can't use my dominant arm anymore, I don't think I'll be able to activate Rally Order anymore.

Once I finalised the placement of the Stat Points, a Window popped up in front of me.

A doorway opened up at the far end of the boss room and I swallowed hard. My throat had suddenly got dry. After I finished off all the water in the canteen and returned it to the Inventory, I cautiously made my way to the doorway.

As far as I understood the quest notification, it didn't say anything about clearing the Hidden Tomb. The fact that the tomb was located somewhere other than the Boss Room also seemed to me that there wouldn't be any enemies spawning there. Although, at this point, what else have I got to lose?

I suddenly remembered the faces of the children at the orphanage. I remembered Obaa-san and how much she's relied on me the last year or so with the hunting. I was so stupid. I was so reckless. They were all waiting for me to get back to the orphanage. I nearly died! Why did it take me this long to realise that fact? Was it because every time I levelled up my health and stamina were topped up?

I stopped in my tracks right by the doorway. Like all the doorways before, this led to a cavernous hallway. Each side wall was adorned with a line of torches that lit up automatically as I drew near. Do I go ahead into possibly more danger? Do I head home? After everything that has happened, I realised that I hadn't been rewarded the quest clear rewards yet. Do I just give up on the rewards? That would mean this whole thing has been a waste of time. If I walked away now, I would have nearly died for nothing.

For a long while, the conflicted mess of my thoughts prevented me from deciding. I looked into the hallway and past the lit-up section of it into the darkness and a longing sensation from what felt like the centre of my heart started to grow. I had to keep going. I had to now, after everything. I had to see this whole thing through.

I sighed. I hope I didn't have to walk for a long time again.

Everything seemed normal. Or as normal this dungeon had been up to now. The torches acted the same, only lighting a small area of the hallway before the next couple of torches continued to light my way.

There was no way to tell the time in the dungeon so I don't know how long I walked, but after a little while, I noticed something happening in the hallway.

It started to change.

I stopped in my tracks and approached one of the walls to take a closer look. I realised that gone were the craggy and natural-looking rock walls of a cavern, and in its place was a smooth, brick pattern like those I imagined a castle would have.

However, the pattern seemed like it was chiselled out of the natural rock face of the cavern itself, instead of individual bricks placed and mortared. I touched the surface of the wall softly and all I felt was how smooth it was. I don't know how I missed it, but this brick pattern was now all over everything. Even the ceiling of the hallway.

How long would it take for someone to do this? Was it even possible to do this? Surely it was, right? Paradigm would need a real-life example to create something like this, right?

Quests usually come with some sort of fictional storyline that gives a User some context to what they see when they go into a Dungeon, and true to its subversive, odd nature, this quest had nothing of the sort. Only the title of the quest gave a clue as to what the storyline of the quest had been; even then, it was extremely vague.

The Hidden Tomb. Why was the tomb hidden? Hidden from who? Whom? Hidden by whom? There were so many questions. Now that I was thinking about it, why did the Window only come up once I placed all my available Stat Points into my Attributes? This whole quest seemed to only be about getting me stronger. Stronger for what?

I don't know how long it had been after I realised the brick pattern but I finally reached the end of the hallway and entered yet another cavernous space like the previous wave rooms. The only difference this time was that instead of the usual craggy rock, the brick pattern continued to surround the area. Instead of the usual torches that had lined all the hallway walls, now there were ornate feature torches that were placed equally spaced all around the circumference of the room.

I walked further into the room and the walkway behind me was replaced with a wall like the previous wave rooms. The ornate torch that lit up automatically included.

From inside the walls themselves, I watched some sort of liquid fire travel down the shallow grooves that I finally realised were on the ground. I followed the shallow grooves and noticed that they made their way to the middle of the room, where a single stone tomb sat surrounded by the pattern in the stone.

The soft light that came from the liquid fire added a warm tone to the light levels in the room and I watched the liquid fire light up a circular pattern on the ground.

From where I stood, I could see a majority of the pattern and I froze right where I stood when I realised that the pattern that the liquid fire was lighting up was a five-point star in a circle, with two curved points protruding off the circle that looked like horns.

I'm not religious, but I believed that some things should never be tested, and according to the beliefs of the Religion of the Creator, the five-point star in a horned circle was the Mark of the Demon. A sign of evil. As I was thinking about what I read about the sigil, a cold shiver ran up my back.

An invasive Window popped up right in front of me and made me jump a little. It said:

I was gifted by another shiver. It was a celebratory tone, but the context of the situation made the whole message creepy. I didn't appreciate the fact that the text was also a little glitched.

For a moment I hesitated, but there was something deep within me compel me to approach the tomb, and it managed to sufficiently override my original trepidation. I made my way toward the tomb and made sure that my feet were nowhere near the liquid fire and the grooves.

Once I got closer, I saw a small crack approximately lined the middle of the stone cover of the tomb. That same compelling feeling made me tentatively push against the cover in an attempt to open it.

It was heavy, and at first, nothing budged, but I shifted my weight and got slightly lower to leverage more force and it started to scrape away. It was slow work at first, but that small crack had permeated through the whole stone cover so once the lid of the tomb reached a certain distance, almost half of the cover dropped heavily onto the floor and the weight I was pushing against disappeared. Dust from the floor got kicked up.

The whole room started to rumble ominously, and I grabbed onto the tomb to keep my balance. As suddenly as it appeared, the room stopped rumbling, and when I shifted my stance, I realised that in the shaking I had accidentally placed my feet over a lit groove, only to not feel any heat from the liquid fire. Strange.

I had to make sure that the room wouldn't start shaking again, and after a moment of still silence, I returned my focus to the tomb. The dust had settled, and I saw a soft, gold light coming out from the tomb. I leaned forward carefully to look inside and my breath got caught in my throat

On the hard stone bottom of the tomb, there laid a set of bones that looked humanoid. The skeleton seemed to be placed peacefully with its arms placed across its chest like the original body had been put to rest, but held tightly in one skeletonised hand, was a slightly-mummified left arm. The gold glow of a legendary item came from this left arm.

In shock, I fell backwards on my backside. Once again, my body was dangerously close to the liquid fire, yet nothing caught on fire and I felt no heat, but that didn't catch my attention at this point. A Window had popped up above the tomb.

I was completely shocked. I think I remember a phrase that Saizo always used when he was telling me the stories of his adventures. "Absolutely gobsmacked." If I understood what the phrase meant properly, that was what I was like at that moment. If I understood the item effect correctly, it would add five points to my STRENGTH, AGILITY and VITALITY attributes. I've already raised my attributes to the level of the average person my age, so with the item and the twenty Stat Point reward of finishing this quest, I would turn from being the weakest User to an extremely strong one especially compared to my peers!

It was obvious that this "Left Arm of whatever" was the legendary item that was part of the completion rewards of the Solo Dungeon, but why hadn't the other rewards been given to me at the same time? Is that why it was glitched?

As I was thinking about the strange situation, I realised that I had been reaching out towards the Left Arm and pulled my hand back. It wasn't easy to do. The compelling feeling had grown much stronger than before. It was like I was destined to touch the mummified arm. It was so strong that I felt like I was going to die if I don't touch it. Was this the "longing call" effect that the description wrote about?

The thought of touching what looked like a dead person's arm disgusted me, but the feeling that was welling up inside me was too strong to fight for long and I watched in horror as it seemed like my arm was moving of its own accord as it grabbed hold of the Left Arm.

Once it was holding the arm, I snapped out of the out-of-body experience and I attempted to pull back my arm in disgusted recoil, but I couldn't move. My whole body was frozen in place like an invisible force was holding me in that specific position. Hunched over an open tomb and clutching a mummified arm from a set of bones.

A cold fear started to creep up all over my body that was amplified when I saw mysterious dark tendrils start to appear from the mummified arm. They moved with a definite purpose as they start to cover the entirety of the Left Arm and started to crawl up my own.

I tried to scream but I couldn't open my mouth or force any air out. I realised that I had held my breath this whole time and the invisible force that held me still prevented me from even breathing. As my lungs started to beg for oxygen, I watched fearfully as the dark tendrils started to climb my arm and spread throughout my body. It was scarily cool as it touched the skin of my neck and face and I realised that the darkness wasn't just the abstract concept of darkness, but was something with a physical presence.