Dungeons Online

Tom passed through the first fifty levels of the dungeon with a breeze. The monsters of those levels were simply too weak for him to bother with. 

In fact, Tom didn't even pay them any attention. With his everblaze constantly on, surrounding him with flames, all the monsters that dared to attack him were basically killing themselves. 

'This is getting repetitive,' Tom thought, kicking the boss of the fiftieth floor with ease. If anyone were to look at the fight, they would surely gasp for air with surprise. 

After all, it wasn't a common sight for a young man not even in his twenties to send a four-meter tall mountain of meat and muscles flying with a single kick!

This single kick alone was just enough to crush the innards of the minotaur, rendering him unable to move. It was still breathing, although it was clear that just doing that was causing it an enormous pain. 

'Thinking about this, I never considered those monsters living creatures,' Tom thought, mercifully sinking the blade of his spear in the minotaur's chest. 

In contrast to the stronger monsters on the lower floors, the minotaur only had one heart, positioned just like it would be in a human of his size. There was no trick to killing him. He didn't possess any strange abilities that would force Tom to be wary. 

The entirety of the hardship of the fiftieth floor laid in besting the overwhelming power that the minotaur had... Power, that was nothing much when compared to Tom's current state. Especially with the active part of his casino passive, turning him basically into the God of the place. 

'Well, I can only hope it will work,' Tom thought, approaching the stone-bearing wall of the boss-room. With a single strand of energy pushed into a said wall, all the stones trickled down the floor. 

Back when he first made this journey, he would snatch all the stones he could from the dungeon. After all, back then, they offered him a chance to grow.

The situation changed when he and Claudia made their descent after reaching the lowest floor of the dungeon. At that point, it was simply not worth the time to waste on picking the stones, given how they would have no effect on their strength whatsoever. 

But this time, when Tom made his way through the middle floors of the dungeon for the third time, he didn't dare to miss a single stone. 

And each one he would pick would end up in an already massive bag that he continued to drag along. 

'Good thing I asked for that chain,' Tom thought once he scooped his haul. Without it, his own everblaze skill would long turn his bag into a pile of ashes, leaving all the stones to be reabsorbed by the dungeon. 

With the new batch of stones added to his bag, Tom continued his journey. Moving forward, he breathed a sigh of relief. From the floor fifty-one, he hoped to find some challenging monsters, ones that could provide him with some entertainment instead of just dying to his flames. 

"Are you for real?" Tom muttered, only a few minutes later. For the nth time in this single dungeon crossing alone, he encountered overgrown spiders. 

They were one of the most annoying monsters to deal with, mostly because one could never see what pattern of attacks they would use... Before well, they would attack. 

From spitting spiders, through jumping spiders all the way to even the flying ones, Tom had to be ready to counteract every possibility...

Or just move past them. 

'This is going to be a long day,' he thought, pulling out his greatest spear. 

'Now that I think about it, I think I will need to find a way to upgrade it somehow,' he thought, offhandedly cutting the legs of the nearest spider and leaving it wriggling on the floor. 

'So it's jumpers this time,' Tom thought, watching with disgust how a swarm of monsters continued to charge ahead, each of them too stupid to realize that they were no match for him. 

'And there goes my answer to whether they are living beings or not,' Tom thought, cutting through the swarm with ease. For how disgusting and agile they were, he didn't even need to put his back behind the slashes of his spear. 'It's like bullying children,' Tom thought, sighing deeply. 

And so, his path to the depths of the dungeon continued. 

****

"Boss, they cut us all out," one of the uncles reported to Marvin. From the look on the man's face, it was clear that the situation was just as dire as his words described. 

"That was to be expected. We attempted to play cocky with them," Marvin replied while shaking his head. "Given how prideful they are, it was only a matter of time before they tried to exert some sort of pressure on us," he added, standing up from his favorite chair. 

Over the past two days, things took a turn for the worse. Marvin's attempt to chase the envoys of the Online Hub resulted in a sudden dip in their attitude towards the family. 

'Still, I didn't expect for it to happen so quickly...' he thought, tapping his fingers against the wood of his desk. 

"Could you call Cleo for me? Oh, and a strong coffee if you could," Marvin threw to his uncle, gazing at the news feed displayed on his personal computer. 

"We can't allow for such autonomous groups to exist! They circumvent the  anti-arms conventions by using the tools that didn't make it to the list, turning them into a threat to the public security!" 

The words of the local Online Hub manager were spoken by one of the high-ranking politicians of the city. Even without a proper investigation into the matter, Marvin could tell that the man was in cahoots with the global powerhouse. 

"For every day that they continue to exist outside of the established law, outside of the norms, and outside of the big cities, we are proving that the reforms of our system were all worth nothing!" 

Marvin didn't even bother to turn the sound of the live stream. If he could feel his soul boil with rage just from the subtitles, he didn't want to risk flying into a fury from hearing the man actually speak those words. 

"Should I do something with him?" Cleo asked as she entered the room. Given the angle that she had on the monitor, she only needed a single look to figure out what was happening. 

"Nah, it won't be of any use," Marvin replied, pushing the lever and leaning back in his chair. "If we do anything to him or even try to approach him, it would be like giving a free pass to the online hub to the same with our people," he said, pushing the window of the live stream away. 

"Are we going to just sit and wait?" Cleo asked, sitting directly on the table. 

"So you heard," Marvin commented, squinting his eyes. "And, obviously, no. If we just take those attacks and do nothing, they will take it for granted. And we can't allow that," the young man summed up. 

"How about we pay them back in the same way?" Cleo asked, taking out her tablet and furiously tapping her fingers on its screen for a few moments before passing the device to her brother. "If we cut those industries out, we could cause a widespread panic on the stock market. What's more, if we blame it on that guy's actions..." she said, only to cut her sentence short. "No, it won't work. The online hub doesn't really care for the local stability, nor do we have any way to blame it on them," she added, tightening her hands into fists. 

"Wait for a second," Marvin said, scrolling through the list of businesses that were either directly owned or heavily involved with their family. "I think there is something that we can do," he said as a wide smile appeared on his face.

"Now you are scaring me, man," Cleo scoffed before smiling herself brightly. "What do you have in mind?" 

"Right now, they are bitching about our military might and equipment," Marvin said, finally finding what he wanted on the tablet before passing it back to the girl. "I would say, how about we humor them and give up the catalyst?" 

"Wait, are you for real?" Cleo shouted, opening her eyes wide. "That thing could go for billions on the market! If you reveal that we actually have it..." her words ended up stuck in her throat. 

"That's right," Marvin smiled. "All the forces that are on par, if not greater than the online hub, will come flocking to get their hands on it," he said, only to raise three of his fingers. "We will close down the three companies that I marked, blaming it on the town's interference with our business. Then, we will make a gesture of good faith, giving out the catalyst, in secret, to the online hub to amend our relationship."

"You mean, we will spread the rumors that Online Hub wanted it, so they pressed their politicians to suffocate us," Cleo grinned, sparks of devilish energy appearing in her eyes. "And once the vultures will come flocking, not only will the town turn into chaos, not only will everyone blame it on the hub, but we will also get to be the white knight on a white horse that will come to the people's defense!" she muttered, dissolving Marvin's plan.

"I wonder how they are going to deal with it," Marvin added, forcing his agitation to calm down. "After all, even we would be powerless against some of the factions that would kill entire nations just to get their hands on this useless piece of junk!"