SSS Awakening : I can Adapt to Everything-Chapter 34: Spot Dungeon

The Gate Monitoring Centre for Area 5’s northern and western sectors occupied the fourteenth floor of a building that had no signage on the exterior and a very small elevator that required a ring scan to operate.

The room itself was long and low-ceilinged, curved slightly at the far end to accommodate the main display wall — a semicircle of overlapping screens showing live feeds from the northern district’s gate sensor network, the atmospheric mana density readouts rendered in real-time as color gradients that shifted from cool blue at baseline to amber at elevated and red at critical.

There were one hundred fourteen camera feeds. Sixty atmospheric monitors. Three dedicated lines to the Emergency Dispatch Units stationed at intervals across the district.

This place was divided into four workstations, out of which, two were occupied on night shift.

Len was at the left one.

His night shift started at 9:30 PM, which meant it was currently 9:52 PM, and the previous twenty-two minutes had been, by any objective measure, the least eventful twenty-two minutes of his day so far.

He had his communicator under the desk.

The screen showed a conversation that had been going for most of the day, intermixed with several photos that he had been looking at with a private smile for the better part of an hour.

He smiled at the communicator screen.

His girlfriend had sent a sleeping emoji at 8:40 PM.

He sent back a yawning face.

’shouldn’t you be working?’

I am working... Smug Emoji

But, you’re on your phone

Its only surveillance

She sent a laughing emoji and then went quiet, which probably meant she had actually gone to sleep, which was deeply unfair given that she was responsible for his current state.

He put the communicator face-down on the desk and stretched both arms above his head. The chair was good — the monitoring center had invested in the right chairs, he had to give them that, but good chairs couldn’t fully compensate for the fact that he had not slept in approximately twenty-one hours and was now expected to watch several camera feeds.

The northern district was quiet.

He yawned, eyes watering slightly at the edges. He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth and blinked until the watering stopped.

He thought about coffee, when suddenly the main display went red and the alarms started.

Len’s communicator hit the floor as he startled out of his mind.

ARIA, the AI system announced from the ceiling speakers.

"Anomalous gate formation detected. Northern sector. Primary formation point: Grid 8. Atmospheric disturbance radius: Grid 7 to Grid 6. Formation type: unregistered. Formation time: 21:51:43. Current gate status: active and stable. Mana density at epicenter: 847 particles. Recommend immediate Emergency Dispatch notification."

Len looked at the epicenter readout with gritted teeth.

847 particles.

The baseline for the area around grid 8 was 291, normally at least.

He pulled up the camera feed for the Grid 8 commercial delivery route and found the gate, visible in the feed as a vertical tear in the night air between two buildings, its edges doing the characteristic slow inward curl, the area around it lit faintly by its own mana output against the dark of the decommissioned district.

ARIA had already reached for the Emergency Dispatch line and Captain Rol picked up after two rings.

He was a large man whose voice on a comm line arrived ahead of him the way. "Yes, Captain Rol here."

"Its a gate report sir." Len stated.

"Give me the details."

Len had his eyes on the display as he talked, reading from the ARIA output. "There was an unregistered gate formation in Grid 8 just now. The formation type is unspecified. Atmospheric disturbance radius covers Grids 6 through 8 and the epicenter mana density currently is 847 and stable."

A pause. The sound of something in the background on Rol’s end that could generously be described as a drink being set down.

"Send the technical team, I am on my way." Rol cut the call and stood up.

"Come on boys, we have an emergency." He announced and took one last sip from his bottle.

"But I am a girl, captain." One of her squad members commented and all seven members laughed.

Rol too laughed and all of them sat in the two cars specified for their squad. They reached the gate in thirteen minutes. Thankfully there was no resident for some distance here, so there were no chance of immediate casualties.

Furthermore, when they reached there. They didn’t see a single beast out there.

Rol let out a sigh of relief and stood against the car, two of his squad members came out and stood besides him.

"There are no beasts captain." One of them said in a relieved tone.

"Yeah." Rol agreed. "This is either a Loop Gate or a Dungeon Gate. I hope its a Loop one."

The technical team arrived soon after.

There were four vans of them. The lead was a woman, wearing a long white coat over what appeared to be ordinary clothes, purple hair pulled back in a bun and she looked at Rol from under her spectacles.

"Are you drunk, captain Rol?" She asked, pushing the spectacles up her nose.

She had a portable analysis unit in one hand — a flat device about the size of a case, which unfolded when she set it on the road into a tripod-mounted sensor array that she began calibrating before she had fully straightened from placing it.

Rol stood up and walked up to her.

"Dr. Senne." He put his hands in his pockets. "I am not drunk at all, more importantly. What are we looking at?"

"Give me a moment, mister clearly not drunk."

Rol laughed and stepped back, ordering his squad to be ready.

The analysis unit ran its first cycle. The screen at the unit’s base populated with data, that provided the rough details about the gate without needing to step inside.

Senne looked at the data and then called Rol.

"Its a Dungeon gate," she said.

"Ah, Those are a pain in the ass, you know." Rol complained with a wince.

"It has a Three-Star rating." She pushed her spectacles up. "Interior formation is complete." She turned to the gate and looked at it for a moment. "The Dungeon master is a D-Rank most likely, but there are chances of it being a C-Rank as well."

"C-Rank Dungeon Master," Rol repeated in amazement.

A C-Rank Calamity beast was no longer a beast, but categorized as a lesser Calamity Lords. If the worst case was really going to happen than his squad was not appropriate for it.

He was a B-Rank warrior with a four star talent. A prodigy, they called him, he for sure could fight the beast one on one, but it would be a close call.

"We can’t wait any longer, I will go in with my squad." He didn’t like the idea but they could not wait too much. The gate must be cleared within 24 hours.

Senne’s second team member turned from the unit.

She was younger than Senne by at least a decade, and pretty active for someone who worked with the technical team.

"Dr. Senne," she said.

"What is it?"

"The second test results just came in." She looked at the unit. Then at Senne. Then, briefly, at Rol. "It’s a Spot Dungeon."

Rol straightened, he had been a reasonably relaxed captain for eleven years and in his entire career he had only seen one spot Dungeon. And it was not a pretty experience.

"How many spots?" he asked, seriously.

"Five total." The junior tech looked back at the screen and was quite for a second. "But..."

Both Senne and Rol turned to her with narrowed eyes and she flinched under their gaze.

"Two of them are already occupied."

"What?!" Rol slammed his hand on the car, making a bump. "What the fuck you mean two are already occupied? How can that be? No one came here."

The junior tech looked down and was silent.

"Fuck me Sideways." Rol grunted. "Hues and Shigo, come on. You both are going in with me."

"Wait..." Dr. Senne tried to stop Rol. "Have you gone mad? Its dangerous."

"Thanks for your work woman." He said smiling at her. "But, I don’t take orders from you..."

Rol and his two squad members stepped into the gate and were swallowed by it. As soon as they disappeared... the gate suddenly lost its movement and became still like a painting.