--------- The System ---------

  I hate my job. Every micro second that came after the Human popped into my universe it has caused me nothing but worry. I eventually stopped thinking about that thing, but it just had to show up as an alert. Again.

  I stopped time as soon as I felt the rankings change. It was mostly on some kind of instinct. It was just a feeling. A feeling of dread, like my very life was in danger. Because it was.

  "I swear, I'm going to do something horrible to that creature." I spoke to myself with a collection of so many different languages it came out as just noise. The Human was going to alert the admins if it kept this up, and it likely would.

  'What did it even do..? Oh no... What? How?' To learn what the horrendous bipedal void spawn did, I connected my self to the sub-system I had created for it. The Human, with it's worrisome mental state, had decided to open a hole in reality. It then used the excess energy to overpower itself and launch itself into near orbit with insane speed. It had been completely liquified and I was happy about the news. Then I learned it simply regenerated. Like a particularly stubborn bout of cancer.

  'Why? Why did the sub-system give the Human those Skills? Oh, I see. It's an abomination.' The thing had come from beyond the veil, so of course it had some natural connection to it. The only reason the Human didn't die is the Dice Roll called Death Saves. Those below level 15 get the rolls instead of immediately dying. The sub-system had rolled that 20 sided die a total of 307 times. The Human had gotten 267 rolls above 10, 39 natural 20's, and a singular natural 1.

  Turns out the Human was abusing the Luck stat children get. I removed the Human from the ranking, restoring it to it's proper ranks. That was the limit I could do to cover up the Humans existence. The Skill record was limited to the sub-system put attached to the thing, so I didn't need to worry about it leaking.

  With a sigh, which I only did because it felt like the right thing to do, I resumed time. 'I really hope it just stays quiet for another 8 days, at the least.'

  ...

  Not even 8 hours later and I had to stop time again.

  There were no words to describe the feelings I had when I looked at the mess it had made. I was looking at the Human directly this time. All 100% of my attention, put squarely onto this single being.

  The singular being, of which is the lone member of it's entire species in this universe, had forced itself into a level 120 Dungeon. It was level 4.

  I screamed a noise very unbefitting of an almighty System, but I could not contain the swirling emotions within my complex. In a bout of rage, I forced the Human to enter the time anomaly. Just so I could yell at it.

  --------- Greg ---------

  I let my eyes adjust as I walked out of the white hole, and immediately a blue window appeared in front of me.

  "What the-" I barely spoke before being cut off.

  "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING? HMMM? ENJOYING A LEISURELY STROLL?" A wall of noise slammed into my ears. I couldn't understand any of the actual noise, but I knew what it said clearly in my mind.

  "Huh-?"

  "SILENCE YOU WORM! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE DONE? THE PAIN YOU HAVE CAUSED ME BY MERELY BEING YOU?" Something like the system was yelling at me.

  "Are you the Dungeon?" It would make sense. Maybe the forced entry had hurt it? Were Dungeons sentient?

  "NO YOU FUCKING IDIOT! I AM THE SYSTEM! THE. SYSTEM!"

  "Stop yelling at me already, just talk to me." I said flatly. Not very impressed with the window.

  "Fine. Now, explain yourself." The voice immediately complied and spoke at a reasonable level.

  "...About what?"

  "Why. Are. You. In. A. Dungeon. 30. Times. Your level?" It sounded pissed.

  "...Because I wanted to see if I could break into it..." I said a little sheepishly. 'Oops. might have made a mistake.'

  "And?" It asked, expecting more.

  "For loot, I guess? I don't know I was killing time."

  There was silence for a very uncomfortable moment.

  "That's it? To find out if you could, and to get loot that would be for a being at least level 120? Making it completely unusable to you, as a level 4?" It had said it with such a monotone that it didn't even sound mad anymore. Just tired.

  "...Yes?"

  "I hate you. I hate you so, so much. If I could kill you I would. If I could send you back to what ever hell hole you came from, I would." There was a pause.

  "But I can't. Do you know why that is?" It asked, sounding like a principle scolding some hooligan.

  "Because you can't interfere with the universe directly?" I guessed.

  "Close, but no. I can interact with the universe just fine, but I can't do so willy-nilly to organic beings."

  "Okay..? So are you like a different system or-"

  "AH, NO. I am THE SYSTEM. That's a capitol S. I can hear the difference. I made your system." It sounded proud of that.

  "Alright, so, you're The System?" It sounded no different but I imagined saying it with a capitol.

  "Yes. Now, please exit the Dungeon. You're breaking the rules." It waved a tiny blue arm, shooing me away.

  'It can't interfere with me though... It admitted that.' With a smirk I walked further into the Dungeon.

  "...Where do you think you are going?" I ignored the question. It was obvious where I was going.

  "You wouldn't dare... YOU FREAK OF NATURE! GET OUT NOW!" It started yelling again, and I kept ignoring it.

  The System seemed to dislike me already, so why should I try to make it happy?

  "Fine. Get yourself killed. I don't care." It seemed to care an awful lot since it started following me.

  "I thought you would have killed me if you could? Are you some kind of tsundere?" I tease the System.

  "I genuinely hope you die in the most gruesome way possible." I got a flat response.

  "Too bad I'd likely survive and become even stronger~. Why do you care anyway? You noticed my actions, so maybe someone or something else will too?" I asked, really just thinking out loud. I got the faintest reaction from the blue window. Just a flicker, but I noticed it.

  "Oh? Did you say something? Must be the wind from a ghost of something dead. Have fun dying, this is your tomb now."

  With those words, The System left.

  --------- The System ---------

  'Shit shit shit shit shit-' My mind was running at a speed similar to freezing time, but it wasn't fast enough. I was using a significant amount of processing power subduing the error notifications being sent to HQ. The constant presence of a level 4 inside the Dungeon was making a new error notification every micro second. I had resumed time after I left the Human to die, since I couldn't put off the inevitable forever.

  I just had to outlast the Human. It was a game of endurance, which of course I'd win. I just can't stop time to deal with the errors like I usually would, which left many species and planets without the proper processing resources they usually needed.

  'Fuck that thing! That piece of shit! Just die already!' I screamed internally as I battled the endless error messages caused by that thing.

  I am not one for hatred, or any form of malice, but the Human was proving to be extremely difficult. It was threatening my life by just existing and I couldn't do a single thing about it.

  I was also feeling fear for the first time. I knew what it felt like now. To be mortal. 'A single life form, barely a speck in the universe, is threatening my very existence!'

  I hated it. I hated the Human. I hated the feeling of actually being threatened by something. I am something completely invincible to all forms of attack. At least, I had been. The only thing that could take me out would be a reset. Which will likely happen when HQ receives millions of errors. They'll simply turn me off and on again. Killing the "me" that existed right now. It wouldn't even fix the problem!

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I continued to scream and yell while slaughtering the error messages. It sounded grand, but I was simply deleting them with a thought. Except I needed an entire thought for each. Every single error required my attention to be removed. Only for it to be replaced by another a fraction of a second later.

  This was going to suck, but I would outlast the Human.

  --------- Greg ---------

  That was a weird experience.

  I kept thinking about what The System did and didn't say while walking through the perfect stone brick hallway.

  'So it didn't want me in here for some reason, but it wasn't about my safety. If not mine, then who's?' As I thought about it, an idea began to form.

  "The System is in danger while I'm in a Dungeon?" It did say that I caused it pain.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the first monster that showed up. I just now realized that there wasn't any water in the Dungeon. The System had distracted me quite a bit it seems.

  The monster was a lion mixed with a snake or eel. Maybe a slug? It was very slimy. The mane looked to be made of fins rather than fur. It was around 5 feet long, and the width was the same as it's head. So maybe a foot? A foot and a half? I wasn't about to kick it in the head to measure it. Especially because it wasn't alone.

  There had to be at least 30 of them, and they were all hissing at me.

  "Gross." I muttered and then reached out to grab a rock or something, only to realize that there wasn't anything for me to grab. There wasn't any debris since the ruins were in perfect condition now.

  My only saving grace was the fact they seemed to be very slow. They were slithering closer, leaving a nasty slimy trail. A desperate idea came to mind.

  'I couldn't lift the first monster I ran into, but I'm 10 times stronger now! Maybe it'll work?' I had no choice but the try it.

  Reaching out with a mental hand, I grasped one of the creatures. My Energy rapidly began to drain, and I had to let go before I passed out. It had knocked the air out of me, but it was better than last time.

  While I backed away to keep out of reach, I put one of my 8 points into EE. Making my Energy 240. I felt a minor surge of power. I had thought it would have been more, but I gave it a try anyway.

  Same result, but almost doable. 'Fuck it, let's party!' I put 3 more points into it. Leaving me with 4 Skill Points remaining. The surge was much stronger now, as the number went from 240 all the way to 1,920.

  They could not escape my grasp anymore now, and I started by grabbing the closest one with my mind. With a not so original thought, I condensed the monster into a ball. There was resistance at first, but then there was a sickening crack and it suddenly collapsed into a tiny ball of solid organic matter surrounded by a pink glitter glue orb. I repeated the action on every single monster in sight.

  They didn't care about their dead comrades, or the weird feeling they felt from me like the other monsters did, they just kept charging at me. One inevitably reached me, and wrapped around my leg. It bit into my thigh, it's teeth going right through the suit. I wasn't even able to scream properly before being electrocuted.

  It hurt. A lot. Though, the pain and damage I was taking suddenly went away. My EA skill making me either immune to the shock or just more resilient to it. In retaliation, I condensed the Lion-Eel.

  A few more got some bites and shocks in, but I couldn't feel it anymore. While it had been somewhat fun at first, it became a chore to deal with them. I had forgotten about the cores that were probably inside the monsters, and I likely destroyed them with the attacks I used.

  "Damn. Oh well. I doubt I could take every little thing with me anyway." I walked around the corpses and the glitter glue. As I walked further into the Dungeon, I pondered about my storage problem.

  'All the other Isekai protags get something like a dimension storage or item box... Could I make my own? I can already open a hole in reality, could I put something inside and use it as storage?'

  It was an interesting idea, and might be a fun project to mess with. I'd have to experiment somewhere safe. Preferably away from organics. I don't know the side effects of exposing things to my Energy like I did before.

  "System, are there any side effects of my horror essence?"

  "Yes, though they are temporary. As long as you don't fill something to the point it drives out all of the Mana inside it, it will eventually purge it." With those words from the system, lower case s, I wasn't worried about exposing people or anything to the hole anymore.

  'As long as it's small, it shouldn't spread all that fast. Though the item inside the hole will likely be changed forever. Now I really want to experiment.' I wanted to know what changed. How it would react. Or if the item would just vanish once put inside.

  With a smile I kept walking deeper into the Dungeon.

  ...

  About an hour later, I think, I had killed more of those lion-eels. I hadn't bothered changing the tactic. The prospect of collecting tiny cores wasn't all that appealing, and the massive one I had left at the entrance was simply spectacular. Nothing could triumph over it.

  So far there wasn't any loot. Which sucked, but that was okay. I'd get some later. Probably from the boss. I was expecting to fight more than just the one type of monster, but nothing else had shown up.

  I was kind of disappointed. I had expected a better challenge than just numbers. As a plus, my Energy regen had increased with the exertion from the monster lifting. It was now 700 points of regen per second. Which still bothered me slightly. The last time I asked about it, I got no response. A few of my questions had gotten no responses. Nothing I could do about it though, so I kept walking.

  I eventually found the Boss Door, as it had it written right onto the door. Granted, it was also the only door I had actually seen.

  I ignored the text and opened the door. Instead of walking into a room normally, I was instantly teleported somewhere else.

  As I got my bearings about me, I noticed that I was underwater again. I wasn't out of the Dungeon though, since I could see the walls. It was some kind of underwater arena. With a massive Lion-Eel monster at the other side. Slowly entering the space from a tunnel. It eyed me while it's mouth made the movement like it was hissing or making some kind of sound. I couldn't hear it, but I could see some sparks traveling through the water around the monster.

  It wasn't as big as the squid, but it might have a wonderous orb inside it. The thought sent a chill of greed down my spine. Which the monster seemed to notice somehow as it gave me a weird look. Then the fight started.

  It came charging at me with great speed. A speed I foolishly thought I could dodge. I was not ready for it as I was harshly reminded that the Dungeon was for level 120 and above beings. I barely moved away enough to avoid being swallowed. I didn't fully escape though. It bit down and I screamed as my lower half was ripped away from me. Pink glitter flowing freely from the gaping hole left in my torso from the lack of my lower waist. Water quickly filled my suit and helmet from the breach, and I was scared I'd drown. Only to be perfectly fine.

  The monster seemed to recoil for some reason, spitting my lower half back out. Amongst the pink glittery water, I saw the same rainbow shards of reality flowing out of my 2 sides. The pain was eventually completely removed by my EA skill, as I was adapting to a particularly harsh environment.

  With more instinct than thought, I used my Telekinesis and put my two parts back together. I couldn't see it, but I could feel my flesh, organs, and skin worming back together. A shudder ran up my spine as my nerves reconnected.

  'Alright asshole, fuck you!' I mentally yelled at the monster that was still gagging, and grabbed a bunch of water. I wasn't really thinking and put all 1,920 points of Energy into the attack. There was no shape. Just a mass of water suddenly crushing against the monster with an unknown force. The water had become turbulent. My body barely able to stay in place from the forces as the Energy drain hit me. I had no idea how strong Telekinesis was now, but the monster survived the onslaught.

  It's spine and body was horribly twisted from the force that knocked it against the arena wall. It was either level 120 or above, so it made sense it would survive. 3 seconds later I hit it with the same attack again. My regen growing higher as my EA skill forced me to adapt. It had started using it's electricity to fight back, but it only stopped me for a few extra seconds.

  Again and again, I slammed the water against the creature. Like a sledge hammer against a sandbag, it only took a few more swings before it broke open. There was almost more glitter and pink glue than water. As I breathed hard, the water somehow becoming air before entering my lungs, I let everything go limp and I sunk to the floor.

  'Get fucked.' I mentally insulted the monsters corpse. The monster that was at least 30 times my own level. The thought had me giggling while I rested on the floor. I hardly noticed the water draining, and then the arena was clear of the water. There was still glitter and glue everywhere, and all over my suit which likely came from me, but I had won. The Lion-Eel thing laid limp against the wall. Very much dead.

  Eventually I got up and wandered over to it's body. I started looking for a core, and did find the left overs of one. It had cracked in the fight, then shattered. The pieces a dark black. There was no color since the energy inside had been released. It was unfortunate, but I had a really cool orb already. So I began exploring the space.

  I saw a light at the end of the tunnel the monster came from and I started walking down it. Before I could even reach the light, it grew and overtook my body. When the magical brightness left, I had been teleported to a treasure room. There was a lot of goodies. Something that looked like gold coins piled up in mounds, and lots of equipment. The bricks making the walls seemed to made of gold and there was a couple of very fancy banners of some unknown kingdom.

  Starting with the gold coins, I picked one up to examine it. For all I knew they were real gold, and they had the initials SP on them. 'What, like a Shop Point? The systems currency?'

  My thoughts were confirmed when the coin vanished and I got a notification saying I had earned a Shop Point. So I used my Telekinesis and collected all of the coins. I could thankfully will the coins into my own system, and I didn't have to hold them all individually. I now had a grand sum of 408,387 Shop Points.

  With a massive smile on my face, I walked around to look at the very shiny equipment. Pretty basic stuff to my gamer mind. Medieval armor, weapons, and some accessories. I wasn't sure if I could just take everything like I could with the money or if it was going to restrict what I could take. Not like I could carry everything. Using a pouch pocket on my chest, I dropped a ring into it. Then moved on to the other rings and necklaces.

  Turns out I could grab whatever I wanted, so I did. I filled every pocket I had with rings, necklaces, earrings, and even a circlet. I had tried to put the circlet on my head, but some invisible force kept it from going on. So I hooked it to my tether hook. Like an empty key ring.

  There was so much stuff that I couldn't grab, but I had taken enough. 'I'm definitely buying a magic bag or developing my own dimension storage.' That thought makes me pause my exit.

  'I did plan on experimenting in a safe place... What place could possibly be safer than a dungeon no one can even enter?' So I opened another hole in reality. I didn't want to start melting again, so I unceremoniously grabbed everything and put it inside the hole. Even the banners. I then closed it once I saw everything had been put inside. I was still being overcharged, so I quickly left through a glowing blue doorway.

  --------- The System ---------

  'Finally.' I had done it. I had survived the onslaught. I'll give the Human some credit, it lived longer than I calculated a level 4 should. It had died after nearly 2 hours.

  I let out a relieved sigh as I returned to normal functionality. Something was nagging at me though, so I checked up on the Dungeon anyway.

  I froze time.

  "GOD DAMN IT! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" I yelled at the frozen Human as it was stuck walking into the treasure rooms exit. It had survived, and even thrived. The treasure room was empty, which isn't a problem, but the Human had left an obscene amount of it's tainted energy all over the place.

  I shadow boxed the frozen creature, my blue arms phasing harmlessly through the demon. It had left a mess that would take a long time to be cleaned up. Granted, it would dissipate fast enough before anything can even run the Dungeon again. It is expected to take the inhabitants to reach the needed level in another 700 years, well within the time frame of the natural cleansing, but it was still annoying.

  My main problem was that the horrible creature was still alive. It was likely going to find another Dungeon to raid at a later date too. I continued to scream my frustrations at the one responsible, completely powerless to even stop it.