Isekai Dungeon Architect

The recall light faded.

I blinked against the sunlight filtering through the Association's atrium windows. My body still carried the dungeon's damp chill, but the noise of rookies tumbling back into reality drowned it out.

Some of the rookies cheered for making it past the final trial, others slumped with exhibition, and a few wept because they knew they weren't going to pass this test.

Leaving Cass, I looked through the familiar chamber, seeing every face I had seen before going inside the dungeon once again.

After the whole dungeon experience, I felt completely different from when I was entering the dungeon.

Now, I knew what kind of class I possessed; now I knew I had a system that could literally talk to me when I had no one around. I was a different person from what I was before entering the dungeon: I knew more about myself now, which, in some ways, felt like a curse.

'Aria.'

My eyes found Riddle instantly.

She was waiting, leaning against a column, arms folded. Her gaze cut straight to me.

No words left her mouth, even though she saw me. There didn't need to be.

Our bond had already grown past that; a simple nod and the eye contact was enough to double as telepathy.

'Trouble?'

Her eyes narrowed faintly, the barest twitch of a brow preset.

I tilted my chin, lips curving.

'Nothing anyone saw.'

Her shoulders eased a little, but the shake of her head told me she didn't buy it. I had caused trouble, yes. But no one would know it was me who blew up one of the important parts of the dungeon.

'Hopefully they don't have security cameras installed.'

I looked away first, pretending not to notice Reddy's subtle anger.

Soon, the silver-haired officer from earlier strode forward, boots striking against marble like a scene from some Hollywood crime drama.

The rookies hushed as if the sound alone carried authority.

"Candidates. Results are final." His robust voice was thundering.

The hall turned to stone instantly.

"If you failed in any of the three trials, you have failed overall. Criteria remain confidential, as is Association policy."

His eyes swept past the bunch, meeting mine, meeting the others. He felt disappointment each time he looked into the unprepared eyes of the other rookies, only showing a glimpse of indistinguishable interest when they found mine.

Still, he did not stare, nor did he show any actual interest in any of us.

The officer, cold as an iceberg, began to read names.

'Damn, that's a lot.'

One by one, the failures were called. Some accepted it with pale faces, others argued, but all were escorted out gently.

The air grew thinner with every shaking step the rookies took, until only a few of us remained standing.

"Aria Solona."

I stepped forward, hands in my pockets like I'd just been waiting for my number to be called at a market stall.

I didn't fail, I was just the first few to be called out for the final procedure.

'I'm not a celebrity yet, guys. Don't look at me like that.'

Envious eyes followed me, but I didn't give them the satisfaction of a reaction.

"Follow," the cold officer instructed.

And I did. Without any protest or jokes, I nodded at the cold, hot stuff and walked out with a different officer.

Cassiel's name had been called earlier, but he was led in a different direction. No soft-eyed mage here to buffer the silence.

It was just me and my escort, tired from our individual struggles.

-Creeek!

The chamber they brought me to was nothing like the exam halls. It was quiet, polished, lit by controlled mana-lamps that hummed faintly in the walls.

A private place, I guess, perhaps a place for verdicts that mattered.

At the mahogany desk in the middle of the large room sat a man.

His uniform was of the Association, but it fit him like armor rather than fabric. His hair was brown, his gaze a pale silver, sharp as steel. There was something very different about this person that I was quite familiar with.

Unlike regular people of the common world, he felt like a CEO who had experienced everything there was to experience about mortal life, ascending to a stage where common things that people call luxury did not matter to him.

He looked at the parchment sitting before him with an unreal interest, then at me with the same calm eyes.

"Aria Solona."

His tone wasn't cold. It was… measured. There was the kind of pressure in that voice that you'd expect from a final boss of a game.

He had that OP Aura to him, something I still had a long way ahead to obtain.

"Your written test," he said after a brief pause, "scored higher than any candidate recorded in this branch in the last century."

I arched my brow. "I take it that's a good thing?"

For the first time since I came to this world, I felt like I was answering to one of the higher-ups of my company who actually knew a thing or two and had obtained that position through his own efforts.

I didn't quite like this feeling.

"Hmmm."

The corner of his mouth almost— almost— twitched.

He looked down at the parchment again, trying to hide whatever emotion he had felt in that instance. "'If an energy conduit collapses mid-dungeon run, you don't pray to the gods or swing harder at the walls.

You stabilize the eroding energy like you'd stop a bleeding artery— contain first, then repair. Otherwise, the whole body dies.'"

His eyes flicked up. "That's not a theory. That's battlefield pragmatism."

He was reading my answers to me, ones I had improvised with my previous world knowledge and from whatever little knowledge I had about the things in this world.

The black guide was a big help in these answers. Thankfully, I wasn't completely clueless about how they proceeded within the dungeons.

I smirked bitterly, folding my arms. "Maybe I just have a talent for creative metaphors."

He didn't bite; experience showing up at its finest.

Instead, he read another line. "'The purpose of formation isn't to hold the enemy, it's to distribute panic. A good formation doesn't prevent collapse; it ensures collapse happens slow enough for someone to fix it."

A faint gleam touched his gaze. "That was not a rookie's answer."

'Yes, because I've read the Art of War, but you wouldn't know what it is now, would you?'

For a moment, the air between us thickened.

He was weighing me. Prodding at me like a puzzle piece that didn't quite fit the board.

After a moment of silence that felt like the longest few seconds I had lived in this world, his eyes blinked, and he tapped on the parchment before him.

"Tell me," he spoke in his echoing voice, "where does someone like you learn that?"

I wanted to answer honestly and tell him I was from a different world, but I just shrugged lightly on instinct, my eyes not leaving his. "By surviving for long enough in a world full of death flags."

His silence stretched further.

He wanted answers, and I was not giving them to him. Well, I cannot! The transmigrators don't tell others about the other world so soon, now do they?!

"Hmmm…"

Soon, for the first time, as if to have found some answer to his questions, he leaned back in his chair, studying me not like a candidate… but like an equal.

-Knock! Knock!

A knock sounded; my savior had probably arrived.

"You may enter."

The door opened only after the person before me gave permission, and Riddle slipped inside, her presence grounding the air instantly.

Her eyes flicked from me to him, understanding the situation better than I could have even after being in the room for an hour— and widened, just slightly.

"You didn't introduce yourself," she complained, not to me but to the one behind the desk, voice flat but edged.

The man turned his gaze back to me, then inclined his head, as if conceding the point.

"My apologies." His tone softened, just a fraction. "This is Exile Quinn Kaiser. The Branch Manager of the Westford Adventurers' Association. A Front-liner, a Level Thirty swordmaster… as well as a retired Rank Three adventurer, if that matters."

The titles dropped like stones in water, rippling through the chamber.

"As well as my mentor." Riddle chimed in, looking at the old man as if she were looking at her own grandfather.

I blinked once, looking at her, then twice, slowly, looking at him. Then let a pitiful grin curl up my lips.

"Well," leaning casually against the desk, my heart finally calmed down, "guess I passed the right tests, then."

The faintest smile ghosted his mouth, and for the first time since stepping into the Association, I felt like I wasn't the one doing the evaluating.

It was this important person here before me… the one I might have to face before taking Reddy as my own.