Chapter 11 — Part 1: Camila filled in

  Aria glanced at me.

  I nodded slightly.

  I reached into my bag and pulled out a portable drive.

  Camila’s eyes narrowed slightly the second she saw it.

  “ We had theories we wanted to share at the cafe, but we didn’t want to just talk about it without any evidence. This drive has recorded footage that we took from the last dungeon raid and we feel as though some of this footage can be used as evidence.”

  I stepped inside the room and placed the drive on her desk.

  “You can publish any of the footage you think is usable on this drive if you believe our theory ” I said.

  Camila raised an eyebrow.

  “There are conditions.”

  “What kind of conditions?”

  I pointed toward the camera sitting on the tripod in the corner of the room.

  “anything involving me, blur my face. Distort my . Do not use my name. Aria has agreed that you can use her as a named source but I want to stay anonymous. ”

  Camila studied me for a moment.

  “Alright.”

  She slid into the chair behind the desk and plugged the drive into the computer.

  The monitors flickered as the files loaded.

  Several folders appeared.

  Dungeon Footage.

  Ritual Chamber.

  Boss Room.

  Environmental Survey.

  Camila clicked the first one.

  The video began playing.

  The footage showed the interior of the kobold dungeon — the tunnel system, the stone walls, the branching paths.

  At first it just looked like a cave.

  Camila leaned back slightly.

  “This looks normal so far.”

  “Keep watching,” Aria said.

  The footage moved deeper.

  The tunnels began to change.

  The walls smoothed.

  The angles sharpened.

  The path curved with strange consistency.

  Aria: “Notice anything weird?”

  Camila leaned forward slightly.

  “Pause.”

  She scrubbed the footage back a few seconds.

  The camera angle froze on a section of the tunnel wall.

  She zoomed in.

  “…That’s not erosion,” she said quietly.

  “No,” Aria replied.

  Camila zoomed in further.

  The stone surface showed faint geometric scoring — almost invisible unless you looked closely.

  Like something had shaped the rock deliberately.

  She leaned back in the chair again.

  “Okay.”

  Now she looked serious.

  “What am I looking at?”

  Aria stepped forward.

  “Architecture.”

  Camila blinked.

  “Excuse me?”

  Aria opened her sketchbook and placed it on the desk.

  Several pages flipped open.

  Cross-sections.

  Tunnel diagrams.

  Geometric overlays.

  Measurements written in the margins.

  “I mapped the cave layout while we were inside,” Aria explained.

  Camila leaned forward again.

  Her eyes moved between the sketches and the paused video.

  “You’re saying this cave system was designed?”

  “I’m saying it’s too symmetrical not to be.”

  Aria flipped to another page.

  This one showed a full top-down layout of the dungeon tunnels.

  Perfect branching angles.

  Balanced pathways.

  Consistent spacing.

  “Natural caves don’t form like this,” Aria said.

  Camila stared at the page.

  “…You’re sure?”

  “Very.”

  Aria tapped the sketch lightly.

  “Look at the junctions. Thirty-degree splits. Repeated pattern spacing. Even the chamber sizes scale proportionally as you move deeper.”

  Camila slowly looked back at the screen.

  “And the kobolds?”

  I spoke.

  “Kobolds are smart.”

  She glanced at me.

  “But not that smart,” I finished.

  Aria turned another page.

  This one showed the ritual chamber.

  The circle.

  The crystal crown.

  The pedestals.

  Aria had drawn it with incredible detail — every carved line, every placement of stone.

  Camila’s eyes widened slightly.

  “Is this real?”

  “Every inch,” Aria said.

  Camila switched the video to the ritual chamber recording.

  The footage showed the exact same structure.

  Perfect symmetry.

  Identical layout.

  Every pedestal is positioned with precise spacing.

  She played it twice.

  Then paused again.

  “…This is a ritual site.”

  Aria nodded.

  “Yes.”

  Camila slowly leaned back in the chair.

  Her brain was clearly racing now.

  “So let me get this straight,” she said.

  “These creatures live inside a dungeon.”

  “Yes.”

  “But the dungeon itself…”

  Her eyes moved between the sketches and the footage.

  “…looks like someone built it.”

  Neither of us answered immediately.

  Because that was the point.

  Camila stared at the screen for another few seconds.

  Then she said something very quietly.

  “We’ve treated Gates like the weather.”

  Aria tilted her head.

  Camila continued.

  “They appear. Hunters go inside. Monsters come out. People die sometimes.”

  She gestured at the screen.

  “But many people stopped wondering where they come from. It’s been so many years that now a days we just accept it as a ‘natural phenomenon’ ”

  Her voice dropped slightly.

  “…Or who made them.”

  The room fell silent.

  Camila slowly looked back at us.

  “You realize what you’re suggesting.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And you’re still willing to show me this?”

  I nodded.

  “Yes.”

  Camila looked back at the footage.

  Then at Aria’s sketches.

  Then back at the footage again.

  After a long moment she said

  “…Okay.”

  She straightened in the chair.

  Camila opened a new document on her computer.

  “Looks like it’s time we write an article.”

  She pointed at the sketches.

  “Side-by-side analysis.”

  Then she pointed at the camera in the corner.

  “And we record a podcast. To visually go with it to show the design”

  Her eyes moved to Aria.

  “You explain the structural breakdown.”

  Then she looked at me.

  “And our anonymous dungeon raider provides testimony.”

  Camila spent some time going through the footage and making me anonymous.

  “Before we start,” Aria said, holding up a finger as Camila adjusted the camera, “I just want to let you know I’m shouting out my art page and socials when I introduce myself.”

  Camila blinked.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  “I have no problem with that, you guys are from the sounds of it spoon feeding me a story.”

  The setup itself didn’t take long.

  Camila adjusted the lighting slightly, tested the microphone levels, and ran a quick audio check through the computer. Aria sat at the desk with her sketchbook open while Camila framed the shot.

  I stayed out of view.

  The voice modulator program was already running on the system.

  If I spoke, it would filter the audio before it reached the recording.

  “Alright,” Camila said, settling into position behind the desk.

  She glanced at both of us.

  “Ready?”

  Aria gave a small nod.

  I gave a thumbs up.

  Camila hit record.

  “Welcome back,” Camila began, her tone shifting instantly into professional mode. “Today’s episode is a little different from my usual reporting.”

  She paused briefly.

  “We’re going to talk about something hunters rarely question.”

  Her eyes moved briefly toward Aria.

  “What exactly are Gates?”

  She explained the context of the podcast.

  A recent dungeon investigation.

  Unusual structural observations.

  And a hunter who wanted to remain anonymous who had agreed to share firsthand experience.

  “I want to introduce my ‘co-star’ for today's podcast.”

  Aria straightened in her chair.

  “I’m Aria,” she said calmly. “I’m an illustrator and artist. I run a public art page Art_By_Aria where I use my awakened abilities to bring my art to life and make videos showcasing it. My online presence has been pretty small up until today,I was in college finishing up my art degree. But now that I graduated I plan to work on growing my fanbase. ”

  Aria flipped her sketchbook open.

  “Today I am here to help explain this podcast visually, and I was also there first hand recording the footage that will be shown throughout this podcast.” she continued.

  She took out a pencil from her book and began drawing in the air.

  The camera shifted slightly as Camila angled it toward the page.

  Aria’s pencil moved quickly; she started off by drawing a white board and the color naturally filled in.

  As she continued lines formed branching … tunnels, Angles, Intersections.

  “Natural caves form irregularly,” Aria explained. “Water erosion, pressure shifts, mineral distribution… all of those create chaotic structures.”

  She drew two examples side by side.

  One messy.

  One structured.

  “But the tunnels me and my partner documented inside a D- ranked kobold dungeon didn’t look like that.”

  Her pencil moved again.

  This time the drawing formed clean branching paths.

  Perfect angles.

  Balanced spacing.

  “Look here,” she said, circling a junction point.

  “Thirty-degree splits. Repeated consistently throughout the dungeon.”

  She flipped the page.

  Another drawing appeared.

  A top-down layout of the dungeon network.

  Even without measurements, the symmetry was obvious.

  “Natural caves don’t repeat geometric patterns like this.”

  Camila zoomed the camera closer to the drawing.

  Aria continued, shifting deeper into explanation mode.

  She moved between sketches rapidly.

  Tunnel scaling.

  Chamber spacing.

  Pedestal alignment.

  At one point she stood up slightly, drawing faster as she talked, her explanations becoming more animated as the diagrams spread across multiple pages all coming to life and appearing on the board.

  It almost felt like watching a teacher mid-lecture.

  The drawings made the point clearer than words ever could.

  Camila occasionally switched the feed to the dungeon footage.

  The ritual chamber appeared on screen.

  The crystal crown pedestal.

  The stone circle.

  Perfectly spaced pillars.

  Aria pointed between the screen and her sketch.

  “This isn't a coincidence.”

  Then the footage shifted again.

  The boss room.

  Smooth carved stone.

  Clean structural layout.

  Even the ceiling height matched proportional chamber scaling.

  Camila let the footage run for a moment.

  Then she looked toward the corner of the room.

  “Alright,” she said.

  “Our anonymous hunter.”

  My voice fed through the system.

  “I’m not an architecture expert,” I said

  “I did a different kind of research,” I continued.

  “Kobolds.”

  Camila nodded slightly, encouraging the explanation.

  “Kobolds are intelligent. They use tools. They build primitive structures. Some tribes even have basic ritual traditions.”

  The footage on the screen showed kobold tunnels again.

  “But nothing I found suggested they could design something like this.”

  I paused.

  “Kobolds are clever.”

  “But they’re not capable of building a dungeon.”

  Silence lingered for a moment.

  Camila looked back toward the camera.

  “So if kobolds didn’t build it,” she said slowly, “then who did?”

  Neither Aria nor I answered.

  Because that was the question.

  And the entire point of the investigation.

  The recording finished about an hour later.

  Camila leaned back in her chair and exhaled.

  “Well,” she said, rubbing her eyes slightly.

  “That might be the most thought provoking thing I’ve ever published.”

  Aria stretched her arms overhead.

  “My hand is tired.”

  “You drew like fifteen pages.”

  “Seventeen. :P ”

  Camila began reviewing the footage on the monitor.

  Audio levels.

  Video clarity.

  The voice modulation had worked perfectly.

  My presence in the room was completely invisible.

  She wanted to go through the video and edit before finalizing it but knew that would take a while.

  “…Well,” she said.

  “ I should finish editing and uploading this by tonight.”

  Aria closed her sketchbook.

  “So,” she said casually.

  “Do investigative journalists usually feed their sources?”

  Camila blinked.

  “…Are you asking for dinner?”

  “I’m starving. Using my powers for so long has me hungry”

  Camila stared at her for a second.

  Then I laughed.

  “Fine.”

  She stood up.

  “Give me 30 minutes.”

  The kitchen in Camila’s apartment was small but efficient.

  While Aria sat at the counter making a quick post letting her followers know she is gonna be on the newly famous Camila’s podcast.’

  “I sat on the couch reading manga.”

  A skillet warmed.

  Ground beef sizzled.

  The smell of seasoning filled the room.

  “You cook a lot?” Aria asked.

  “Sometimes,” Camila replied.

  “Journalism doesn’t pay enough to eat out every night.”

  She added peppers and onions to the pan.

  Every now and then I would look over to see the progress, watching.

  Camila worked with surprising speed.

  Within fifteen minutes tortillas were warming in a separate pan while bowls of toppings appeared across the counter.

  Lettuce.

  Cheese.

  Tomatoes.

  Sour cream.

  Salsa.

  She slid three plates onto the table.

  “Alright,” she said.

  “Taco night.”

  Aria immediately grabbed one.

  “Oh this smells amazing.”

  The three of us ate at the small table in Camila’s living room.

  Conversation drifted easily between topics.

  Aria talked about her art page.

  Camila talked about journalism.

  I mostly listened.

  At one point Aria raised her glass slightly.

  “To controversial journalism.”

  Camila clinked her glass.

  “To asking questions.”

  I raised mine as well.

  “To tacos.”

  They both laughed.

  We spent a couple hours drinking wine and playing some boardgames Camila had lying around. We played dos for at least an hour. We agreed not to use our abilities for an unfair advantage.

  Later that night we stood outside the apartment building again.

  Aria walked toward her car.

  I stopped.

  “Hey on the way back let’s use autopilot.”

  She looked at me.

  “I can drive.”

  “You’ve had a couple drinks.”

  “That’s nothing.”

  “You drive like a maniac sober.”

  She crossed her arms.

  “That was one time.”

  “That was every time.”

  She stared at me.

  Then sighed dramatically.

  “Fine.”

  She tapped her wristband.

  The car’s interface lit up as the navigation system activated.

  Destination input.

  Route confirmed.

  Autopilot engaged.

  The car pulled smoothly away from the curb as we got in.

  For once, the ride was quiet.

  And significantly less terrifying.

  The car slowed as we reached my street.

  The autopilot eased to the curb with quiet precision before the engine powered down.

  Aria leaned back in the seat and stretched.

  “Well,” she said.

  “That was productive.”

  I opened the door and stepped out.

  The night air felt cool after the warmth of Camila’s apartment.

  Aria leaned slightly out of the window.

  “You think the podcast is going to blow up?”

  I shrugged.

  “Hard to say.”

  People don’t always react the way you expect.

  Sometimes the biggest stories took time before anyone noticed them.

  Sometimes they exploded overnight.

  Either way, it wasn’t really something I could control.

  “Text me when you get home,” I said.

  “Relax,” she replied.

  “The car literally drives itself.”

  “Still.”

  She rolled her eyes but smiled.

  “Fine.”

  The car hummed softly as the autopilot reactivated.

  “Goodnight, Draco.”

  “Night.”

  The car pulled away smoothly down the street.

  I watched the tail lights disappear around the corner before heading inside.

  The apartment was quiet.

  I kicked off my shoes and headed straight for the shower.

  The hot water helped clear my head a little.

  The night replayed itself in pieces while the steam filled the room.

  Camila’s office.

  Aria’s drawings coming to life on the whiteboard.

  The footage of the ritual chamber.

  The question Camila had asked at the end of the recording.

  If kobolds didn’t build it… then who did?

  The world had accepted Gates for so long that people stopped asking questions.

  Now that someone finally had, the reaction was going to be unpredictable.

  I finished showering and stepped out, drying my hair with a towel before heading into the bedroom.

  The exhaustion hit the moment I sat down.

  Using Hunter’s Overdrive earlier that day still left a faint heaviness in my muscles.

  I collapsed onto the bed.

  My phone buzzed once on the nightstand.

  Aria:

  Home.

  I typed back.

  Me:

  Good.

  The phone screen dimmed.

  The room grew quiet again.

  Within minutes my eyes began to close.

  And sleep came fast.

  When I opened them again—

  I wasn’t in my room anymore.

  Stars stretched endlessly in every direction.

  A familiar void of cosmic space surrounded me.

  The Milky Way spiraled slowly in the distance like a river of light.

  And standing ahead of me—

  was Aetherion Prime.

  He looked exactly the same as before.

  arms folded behind his back as he regarded me with quiet interest.

  “You have been progressing smoothly.”

  His voice carried easily across the endless void.

  I rubbed the back of my neck slightly.

  “Good to know.”

  Prime studied me for a moment.

  “Considering that you have been practically entering dungeons alone… your results have been acceptable.”

  Acceptable.

  That sounded like the most backhanded compliment imaginable.

  “But,” he continued, “moving forward you should not be so reckless.”

  His gaze sharpened slightly.

  “Your current strategy carries an unnecessary level of risk.”

  I sighed.

  “Yeah.”

  I already knew that.

  The fight with the kobold queen earlier had made it pretty clear.

  Even with Overdrive.

  Even with the new skill evolution.

  I still couldn’t handle everything alone forever.

  Prime’s expression softened slightly.

  “Fortunately,” he said, “you appear to have already reached the same conclusion.”

  I blinked.

  “You’ve been watching.”

  “Of course. I told you we are always watching.”

  That answer somehow felt both obvious and unsettling.

  Prime gestured lightly with one hand.

  “You intend to recruit an ally.”

  “Eventually,” I said.

  His gaze shifted slightly.

  “You should speak with the waiter at the Moonleaf Café.”

  I frowned.

  “The waiter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jae Min.”

  That caught me off guard.

  “Why him?”

  Prime tilted his head slightly.

  “I could explain.”

  He paused briefly.

  “But it would be better if you simply spoke with him yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “Because our time here is limited. Just know he is someone you can trust”

  The stars around us shimmered faintly.

  Like the dream itself was beginning to thin.

  Prime continued.

  “More importantly…”

  He raised one hand slightly.

  “Now that you have reached C- rank, I believe you are ready for the next system upgrade.”

  A faint golden light flickered in the space between us.

  “The Party System.”

  The words hung in the air.

  “Party members will not possess the Ascension Seed,” Prime explained, “nor will they inherit the full scope of your abilities.”

  “But…”

  The golden light expanded slightly.

  “Their abilities will adapt within the framework of your system.”

  “They will grow faster.”

  “They will evolve.”

  “And while in close proximity—”

  Symbols formed briefly in the air.

  “Your party will gain several advantages.”

  Images appeared one by one.

  Shared status awareness.

  Health and mana indicators appearing beside faint silhouettes.

  Healthy.

  Injured.

  Critical.

  Location awareness.

  Points of light connected by thin threads.

  System messaging.

  Words appearing in empty space between the points.

  Close proximity telepathy.

  Voices moving silently between connected nodes.

  No accidental friendly fire.

  Energy attacks passing safely between allies.

  Accelerated growth while grouped.

  Experience flowing faster between connected figures.

  The symbols slowly faded.

  “Your allies will not become copies of you,” Prime said calmly.

  “But their abilities will adapt… and grow stronger… as they fight beside you.”

  The light between us vanished.

  Prime looked at me one last time.

  “You should speak with Jae Min.”

  The stars began to dissolve.

  “And do try not to get yourself killed before then.”

  The dream shattered.

  And I woke up.