The Level-Up Junkie Takes On an Unpopular Dungeon

"…So this is Shinjuku Dungeon."

March 18.

The day after my eighteenth birthday, I had come to the Shinjuku Dungeon — the one that had opened up inside Shinjuku Station.

Through the Dungeon Gate, the first things you see are the black obelisk and the magic circle. I confirmed, as briefed, that this was a "ruins-type" dungeon, and gave a satisfied little nod.

A Dungeon.

This — this is a Dungeon…!

Ever since the Dungeons appeared, I had been waiting for this day with the longing the old proverb captures — a single day stretching into a thousand autumns.

"It's been so long…!"

So long. I mean it.

High school had been an unbroken stretch of part-time work. On top of that, I was perfectly aware I'd need to be in shape when the day came, so I drilled myself relentlessly. Daily running for cardio; daily wooden-sword swings in our cramped backyard. I worked so many shifts I almost had to repeat a grade. I was the only kid in my class neither going to university nor taking a job, and I weathered the looks my classmates shot me for it. But I made it through, and I graduated…!!

The day after the ceremony I signed up for the two-week training course required to qualify as an Explorer; on my birthday itself I sat the licensing exam — and passed splendidly.

From today, my level-up life begins.

The intel-gathering was thorough. The route plan for efficient grinding was perfect.

"Gear bought with part-time-job money is also fully prepped…!!"

I gave myself a quick once-over.

For today I had bought a monster-hide breastplate and a steel longsword. My boots are reinforced safety boots; on my back, a high-volume mountaineering rucksack. Helmet on, with a built-in camera.

For a beginner Explorer, I'd call this a more than respectable kit.

The reason for the camera-helmet, by the way: it's required.

Inside Dungeons, human bodies and man-made objects don't last. After a fixed window of time, the Dungeon "absorbs" them and they vanish.

Meaning: you cannot install surveillance cameras inside a Dungeon. If a homicide happens inside, the body and the evidence both disappear.

That environment is, in practical terms, an extraterritorial lawless zone.

What happens in such an environment is obvious.

Which is why the government — well, technically, the World Explorers' Organization (WEO) — proposed a mandate: every Explorer's Dungeon activity must be filmed.

Footage from your camera is uploaded in real time to the site the Explorer Association maintains, DungeonTube. If anything goes wrong — incident, accident — that video data becomes critical evidence.

Functionally, it's the same idea as a dashcam, and the very fact of its existence acts as a deterrent against Explorer-on-Explorer trouble.

It's also used to triangulate Explorer positions if anyone gets lost or wounded inside and calls for rescue.

You can choose, for any given video, whether to make it public or private.

From an Explorer's standpoint, going public has a downside — your hand is shown not just to the Association but to the wider audience. But "for a certain reason" a lot of Explorers stream their explorations on DungeonTube anyway.

On top of that, since DungeonTube footage is, statistically, fairly heavy on bloody scenes, the site is age-gated 18+. Which is why some Explorers also re-cut all-ages versions and upload them on other platforms.

I'll explain the upside later.

I'm in the private-only camp, so it doesn't really matter for me.

"All right — let's go…!"

Either way. I marched proudly down into the first floor of Shinjuku Dungeon.

The first floor of Shinjuku Dungeon is built like a stone-walled ruin: at regular intervals, square niches are set into the walls, and inside each niche burns a Dungeon-spawned candle that — somehow — never gutters out from the passage of time.

It's only candlelight, so the air is dim, but with so many of them set evenly along the walls, you can see fine.

My footsteps echoed kotsu-kotsu off the ruin walls.

Maybe because we were technically underground, the air was chilly on the skin.

The corridor felt less "ruin" and more "catacomb", and as I pushed deeper in, the crowd of Explorers I'd passed near the entrance thinned out and disappeared.

"Just like the rumours. Empty."

This is the reason I came to Shinjuku Dungeon.

Plain talking: Shinjuku Dungeon is an unpopular Dungeon.

In every Dungeon that has appeared anywhere in the world, the first floor always spawns Slimes plus exactly one other species of monster.

You could fairly say the Dungeon's popularity is determined by what that other species is.

Dungeons that spawn inorganic-type or insect-type monsters are relatively popular. Animal-type Dungeons, a step below that.

By contrast, Dungeons that spawn humanoid-type monsters are unpopular.

Reason: for fresh Explorers, fighting humanoid monsters is a steep psychological hurdle.

Think about it.

In an extensively division-of-labour society, people who are conditioned to kill living creatures are rare. Insects, fish, fine — but the moment you get to small mammals, most people honestly can't pull the trigger.

And forget small mammals: when the target is humanoid, instinctive revulsion goes off the charts.

There are people who can't stomach killing insects from a basic-physical-reflex angle, sure — but at least the guilt and aversion-component of killing itself is light. With animal-type or humanoid-type, the killing itself is the hard part.

Putting all that together: Dungeons that spawn inorganic or insect monsters are mobbed by everyone, and on the first floor it's a workout just to find a monster.

By contrast, in unpopular Dungeons spawning animal- or humanoid-type, even on the first floor, finding a monster is no trouble.

Despite Shinjuku Dungeon's prime location — right inside Shinjuku Station, dead easy to access — its unpopularity is exactly because of this.

Because what spawns here is the Goblin.

The thing is, low popularity means a higher monster-encounter rate. Which means it's perfect for grinding. So here I am.

Granted, once you can dive deeper, encounter rates equalise across all Dungeons — but for the beginner stretch, I'm sticking with Shinjuku.

—And.

"First Goblin sighted…!!"

Walking and musing, I caught movement up the dim corridor, about twenty metres ahead.

I narrowed my eyes. The figure was the height of a young primary-schooler, but it wasn't a person.

Wide, sideways-flaring ears; a hooked nose with a jagged mess of teeth; a hideous face brimming with naked killing intent. The body was nearly nude, just a strip of animal hide tied around the waist; the skin colour, somewhere between muddy green and brown. In its right hand, a crude wooden cudgel.

"…!!"

I drew the longsword from the sheath at my hip.

— Goblin.

In games and in most fantasy fiction, the Goblin is the iconic trash mob. But in real Dungeons, that's not how it goes.

Goblins are formidable.

It's true that the Goblins on the first floor have no special skills, and physically — while they're quick on their feet — their muscle isn't all that. By the numbers, an average adult, even at zero levels, with a weapon in hand, can take one without much trouble.

But Goblins come at you to kill. For real.

Minor wounds and damage don't make them flinch. Block the cudgel and they'll claw for your eyes; give them the slightest opening and they'll go for the carotid with their teeth.

That stunted body packs more than enough fighting capacity to murder a human.

In fact, since Dungeons opened to Explorers, the body count from Goblin encounters has been — let's say — far from negligible.

And the bigger problem is —

"GUGYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

"…!!"

The Goblin spotted me.

A war cry seething with explicit intent to kill. The next second — at a speed wildly out of proportion with that scrawny frame, more like a wild monkey — the Goblin closed the distance.

My sword was up, but I could feel cold sweat slicking my palms.

— The will, or lack of will, to kill the enemy, no question, no mercy.

— No hesitation, no quarter, when killing.

The instincts a modern person, living their daily life in safety, has shed wholesale. The gap there is what easily overrides a small physical edge — and hands the Goblin its win. It's how Goblins have killed as many people as they have.

— Ten metres.

— Five.

The distance evaporated; running was no longer an option. And in my heart, doubt — no, anxiety.

Even with that horrifying bloodlust steering it, the Goblin's appearance is, more than a monkey or a chimp or a gorilla, human-like.

Could I really kill something like that?

Whether I could keep going as an Explorer beyond today — this was the first watershed.

— Can I do it? Me?

In training, I had killed a Slime once. Slimes barely look alive, though. Goblins are something else. And Goblins are stronger.

I am no psychopath. I do not get a thrill from killing. I am an extremely unremarkable, anywhere-you-look ordinary person, who simply wants — even at the risk of his life — to grind levels in the actual world.

And someone like me — well, no, there was no time left to think.

"GAAAAAAAAAAH!!"

Two metres apart now. Roaring with that horrible face, the Goblin raised the cudgel high and leapt.

I hauled the longsword up with both shaking hands —

"— FNNNNNNNNGHHH!!!"

— and put my whole body into bringing the longsword down on the Goblin's skull.

"GOGYAH!?"

"Gnnnh, gnnnh, GNNNNNNGH!!"

Down, and down, and down.

"EXP-! EXP-! EXP-haaaaaaa!!"

Like I was beating my way past the revulsion and the guilt and the hesitation, I just hammered. No thought, only motion.

Pure trance.

"Hah, hah, hah…!!"

I genuinely don't know how many times I brought the sword down. When I came to, the Goblin lay on the stone, splattering dark blood, body twitching ku-tk, ku-tk, in a state I'd rather not describe in detail.

Definitely dead.

The corpse — blood and all — broke up into particles of light and dissolved. Left behind, a single thumb-sized crystal.

A magic stone.

The item every monster drops without fail when killed.

I scooped it up, dropped it into my rucksack, exhaled, and let myself smile.

"Well, that wasn't much. All those scary stories online, and I worked up a sweat for nothing."

Honestly, common sense says the rush of getting EXP in real life beats any squeamishness about killing a Goblin, no contest.

It's not like the Goblin even left a "couldn't-show-you-this-on-TV" corpse to deal with — it dissolves away like it's a video game. So really, no big deal.

If anything, knowing each dead Goblin brings me one step closer to a guaranteed level-up actually feels refreshing.

"EXP♪ EXP-haaa♪"

Skipping along now, I pressed deeper into the Dungeon, hunting more EXP.