"With this matter settled, let's get moving," Tom said, moving his eyes away from the sobbing girl. It wasn't his father that lost his limb, so if Cleo was okay with just turning Kira into their slave, Tom saw no point in arguing over that. "First," he said, turning his eyes towards the defeated girl, "which direction can your reinforcements come from?" 

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"Reinforcements?" Kira asked, looking at Tom as if he had lost his mind. "You killed every last of combat-able personnel of the online hub. We even went as far as to hire illegal mercenaries to bolster our defenses!" she said, uttering the words through her tightened teeth. 

"That wasn't the content of my question," Tom replied, sending the woman an angry look.

"There is a passage towards the main hub at the third level, in that direction," Kira replied, no longer willing to add her own two bits to the answers. She then raised her hand and pointed to Tom's right, exactly the opposite end of where he ducked it out with Peter. 

"Cleo!" Tom shouted to get the attention of his friend. 

"Yes?" the girl quickly jumped back, instantly getting into the disciplined mood. 

They were one big family, but a family of military origins. When the push came to shove, there was no room for leisurely giving the tasks out. In a situation like the one they were in, only the military methods would work. 

"Take the two teams with arms to protect the passage. This trash will guide you," Tom ordered before moving his head towards the entrance he made himself. "I guess it's time to start guiding the people out," he added before moving towards the hidden hole. 

With all the enemies confirmed dead or unable to fire a shot, there was no longer any time to waste. Bit by bit, Tom's family started to get out of the cramped tunnel, amassing a small distance from the gate that was supposed to lead them to the other, better world. 

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"Everyone!" Tom shouted once everyone gathered in a single place. Looking over the surprisingly massive crowd of nearly two hundred people, he couldn't help but feel emotional. "I'm not going to waste time on encouraging speeches. What I want right now is for everyone to grab hands with two others!" he ordered. 

Even though most of the family could follow a military drill, it didn't mean every last person in the crowd was capable of doing so. 

Some of Tom's uncles and cousins married civilians who also decided to bring parts of their families over. In the end, only one hundred and twenty-two people could trace their origins back to the original seven brothers-in-arms that established the family in the first place. And that number already included the few toddlers that were born into mixed marriages. 

That's why, only by getting everyone to hold their hands with two other people could Tom ensure that they would enter the dungeon as a single, concise group!

Yet, even this simple order, due to the addition of more than fifty civilians, took more time than Tom hoped it would. 

"This is going to drive me crazy in the long run," he muttered, watching how several women failed to grab the hands of other women with who they had some kind of fight. 

"That's just how civilians are," Cleo replied, shaking her head. "Rather than cursing at them, you should thank Marvin instead," she said, pointing her hand towards the source of the biggest commotion. 

And just like she suggested, Cleo's brother was already there, trying to solve the issue. 

In the end, organizing everyone took twice the amount of time necessary to get them all out of the tunnel. In total, from the moment Tom entered the insides of the dome to the point where he could finally give the order to enter the dungeon, two entire hours passed.

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"Don't get mad," Marvin commented, uniting with Tom at the very front of the entire crowd. "You lived outside the family for so long; you never had the chance to get used to this reality," he said with a tired voice. 

"Is it a bad thing?" Tom asked, raising his eyebrow only to end up shaking his head a moment later. "Well, we will talk about this once we safely travel to the other side. For now, let's go!" he said, taking the first step towards the floating black mass of the dungeon gate. 

'Now that I think about it, I wonder if all the gates are like that,' Tom thought, comparing the black ball of the void with the nicely-framed in stone structure gate that he saw in the other world. 

But his thoughts were cut short when he finally made his first step on a provisory ramp leading to the emptiness of the gate. 

Stepping through the black veil, Tom once again experienced the same feeling as when he did it the last time. 

It felt as if for an endless yet also unbelievably short moment, he was stuck in an interdimensional space, one where rules of magic and physics alike no longer made any sense. 

Thankfully, before Tom could lose his mind in this sanity-depraving place, his feet struck against the solid floor of the dungeon, proving that he managed to successfully cross the border between the real world and whatever, in reality, this dungeon actually was.

'Fuck, I can't just stand in place!' Tom composed himself, instantly pushing forward. And just like that, people started to appear all over the entrance to the dungeon, only a single step ahead from the gate leading back to earth. 

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"Move ahead!" Tom shouted, urging Marvin, Cleo, and three more people that already managed to enter. 

With some kind of sentient power making sure that everyone wouldn't fall on top of each other, there was a real risk of someone appearing in this dungeon... Only to return to earth at the very same moment due to appearing directly in the gate leading back!

"So this is the place..." Marvin muttered, amazed by the sight of the cold dungeon. As if some kind of weird wind blew, he caught his arms in a futile attempt to stop his own heat from escaping. 

"Get used to the cold," Tom said with a small smirk. "When I first went through, we ended up crossing it with barely any clothes at all," he said in only a slightly flexing tone. 

"Wait, what?" Cleo asked, surprised by the unexpected information. "What for? Just to flex it in our faces now?" she asked as she curled in herself, not used to the cold air of the dungeon either. 

"Nah," Tom shook his head as a small smile appeared on his lips. "We were careless at the beginning, and a slime ended up dissolving our clothes. We only managed to save as little as our underwear," he added before his smirk disappeared from his face as he looked towards the entrance. 

Because right now, the people stopped appearing. In the dungeon, they were left with only Tom, Marvin, Cleo, Kira, and a random adolescent boy of roughly thirteen years of age. 

"Where is everyone else?" the boy asked, clearly looking forward to reuniting with his parents as soon as they would cross through the barrier. 

'Fuck,' Tom thought, tightening his fists. 'Thank god we prepared for this possibility... but still, fuck!' he thought, closing his eyes for a moment only to open them up and approach the boy. 

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"For now, we are going to wait an hour. If no one else appears in that time, it will mean they are moving through a different route," he said, trying to cheer the boy up without actively lying to him. 

"But you said that they will appear right away!" the boy protested, clearly not happy with the current development of the situation. 

"I said that there is a chance that we will all move as one group," Tom replied before shaking his head. Yet, rather than lashing out at the boy for taking his time, Tom put a smile on his face before rustling the boy's hair. "You don't need to worry. There is someone really strong in every group," he said, hoping that this would at least calm the boy up. 

"But... But... If there is someone strong in every group, then who is strong in our?" the boy asked, his eyes lighting up with excitement. 

'Right,' Tom thought, a small smile creeping upon his lips. 'It's normal for boys this age to be fascinated with this kind of stuff,' he thought as his smile became even brighter. 

"In our group, I'm the strongest, so you don't need to worry about anything!" Tom said, once again rustling the boy's hair before turning his head towards the rest of the group. 

"You guys need to decide who will get most of the stones in this run," Tom said. "For now, it doesn't matter. The early stones are basically worthless. But once you get the first skill..." he spoke, clearly troubled by the matter. 

'Just how the hell am I supposed to tell them that I might need help with the boss of the dungeon?' Tom thought, troubled by the matter. 

"Don't worry," Marvin said, shaking his head. "Whoever will get the better skill once we reach the tenth level will be the one to get the rest of them," he said as he rolled his eyes. "In the end, it's not like the dungeon will disappear once we pass through it, won't it?" he added. 

"Yeah," Tom replied, slowly calming down.. Even if the migration was his own plan, he still couldn't help but get worried about all the other groups that would enter this place for the very first time and with little to no supplies. "For now, then, let's wait to see if someone else will appear!"

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