Chapter 56: The Third Floor Part 1
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As I descended the stairs, I noticed it gradually changed from one set of stone, reassembling  a cave, to blocks made out of stone carefully placed and planned. Eventually I saw the end of the stairs, and before of going head first to have something hitting me as I poke my head through the stairs like the previous floor, I casted a few instances of [Fireballs] and flooded the floor with fire, only then I poked my head through the doorway, but to my surprise, it was empty.

The room contained two other doors on the wall directly in front of the stairs, above each of them were the words "Goblin" and "Kobold" respectively. Between the doors there were more words written with a glowing blue crystal.

"The door you choose to enter will be your allies until the end of the floor. Choose you to betray them and kill everyone or help them conquer their enemies will change your reward." I read out loud. "Ps, don't tell new divers about this floor and let them discover and have fun on their own. Ps 2, the dungeon monsters will remember your choice, meaning you can't choose more than once. Choose wisely"

"Huh, interesting. I wonder who wrote this on the wall" I said, and immediately remembered the last dungeon I entered. "... It probably was the person who controls the dungeon"

I looked over at the two doors and the words above them. The goblin door would obviously lead me to the green creatures known as goblins, and the kobold door probably would lead me to the lizard creatures I just fought. If I didn't played along, I probably wouldn't be able to pass through this floor, so I chose the kobold door as they at least had a fighting chance against me, as the goblins were just too dumb to do something different.

With that in mind, I passed through the kobold door and to a corridor going to the right. After walking for a couple dozen meters, I saw light coming from the end of the corridor as opposed to the almost total darkness it was on the first two floors. Almost total darkness that I disregarded as nothing more than having a pair of sunglasses on.

At the end of the corridor there was a green field with a forest nearby, the sound of birds chipping echoed in the distance and in front of me there was a stone pillar with words written on it.

"You are a traveler from a distant land when you stumble onto two tribes almost at war with one another. What will you do?" I read the text out loud. "What is this? A dnd adventure? And… Did I leave the dungeon? No, or else this text wouldn't make any sense… Maybe this is something dungeons can do? Replicate the outside I mean" I wondered.

Looking around I saw a small village made out of stone blocks a few dozen meters away. Without much going on, I decided to walk towards it.

As I approached the village walls, I noticed a few of the lizards from the previous floor poking their heads above the walls and looking at me. I was obviously spotted and they were wary of me, but they sent a small group to meet with me as I got closer.

"Hello… traveler(?)" A kobold with fancy clothes said uncertainty, with a voice that didn't match his face or body at all. It sounded like the leading actor in a romantic movie.

"Eerhm, hi. I'm just passing by. Do you know where the stairway to the next floor is, by any chance?" I said to him  which surprised him as his eyes widened a bit.

"Oh, yes. We have a legend about a stairway to another dimension called "fourth floor", but I can't help you. You see, ever since we were cave delvers trying to find shelter from the outside we had an enemy, the goblins. They would find our caves and proceed to create havoc on it" he explained.

"I don't see how it's connected to the stairway, but okay. Why didn't you try to stop it?" I asked.

"Oh we tried. We would invade their caves, but that just led them to invade our caves and so on and so on" he said.

"I see" I said.

"The legend about the stairway says about a traveler arriving one day to settle the dispute, and once it has been settled, it will show itself" the kobold leader said.

"Oh, I see where this is going. You want me to kill the goblins for you, don't you?" I asked him.

"We would appreciate it if you would be so kind and destroy our enemies" he said to me. "Here, let me guide you to our village. I would lead you to our guest room, but unfortunately it is too small for someone of your…everything(?)" He said while moving his hand at me.

"That's not a problem" I said as I shifted into my beastmen body. It still hurt every time, but I was getting used to this pain in particular.

"By the dungeon, what an impressive demonstration of your fantastical abilities, Mr traveler" he exclaimed.

"Thank you… what's your name, again?" I said, trying to hide my shame of being naked in public, even though the only other person using clothes was the kobold leader.

"Oh, I don't have a name, but don't worry about confusing me with the others, they don't understand this language we are using" he explained while gesturing for me to follow him.

"If they don't understand, how can you?" I said while following him inside the village.

The village itself was what I would expect from a medieval village without magic from Earth. The houses were made out of wood with some stone blocks acting as the floor and support structures. There were no light poles to produce light during the night and the smell was… actually it smelled like flowers, and that was the only weird thing from the place.

"As the leader of this village, I was bestowed with a lot of knowledge to keep my people safe and prospering" the leader answered as he guided me through the village.

"By the way, is that the real sky?" I asked as I watched the clouds and the sun in the distance, they felt so real I was starting to doubt I was still in the dungeon.

"Why of course, why wouldn't it be? It is as real as everything you see here" the leader said.

"So, as real as myself?" I asked again.

The leader seemed a little nervous to my question, but before I could say anything, we arrived at a house that was almost triple the size of the other houses. It was made out of wood and stone, just like the others, but this one had glass windows where the others just had holes.

“You can rest in this house, I’m sure you’ll find it quite comfortable. If you excuse-me, I’ll prepare our warriors for tomorrow” The leader said and quickly left.

“Wait, what do you mean tomo-...and he left” I said and sighed.

I had only asked if they wanted me to take care of the goblins, but I guess now I’ll go to war with this village against the goblins? At least they didn't seem to try to kill me at first sight like the other two floors. I wonder if this is like an RPG and I’m just following the main story line.

But still, I couldn’t stay here until tomorrow, that is too much time I would lose. As I began walking towards where the kobold leader left another kobold came in my direction while holding a small piece of paper. He arrived and gave me the paper and left before I could ask him anything. Without much else to do I looked at the paper and what was written on it.

“You are here after the one who entered before you, aren’t you?” I read out loud, intrigued as the writing was too perfect, just like the drawings in the dungeon walls. “Fear not, as the third floor is one of my special floors where time is dilated, that means time moves faster for you than the… I don’t exactly know what that thing is, really. Enjoy the third floor as even if you stay inside for days, only an hour will have passed in the normal flow of time. Have fun”

“Yep…This is a letter from the one in charge of this dungeon… I guess I’ll sleep, then? If time moves faster here, then I guess I could use the rest as it’s been a while since I slept” I said as I walked back and entered the house I was given by the kobold leader.

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