Vol 2 Chapter 4 – Dungeon Treasure Chests and the Power Struggle【Vol 2 – Banished and Betrayed — Even in the Real World 】

The world changed the day that a meteorite fell.

Across the globe, pockets of warped space — called “Dungeons” — tore open, and the monsters, treasures, and bizarre rules spilling out of them left people utterly baffled. But after a few months of chaos, governments and corporations started moving — not to stop it, but to profit from it.

The thing that drew the most attention was the treasure chests.

These chests appeared at random when you killed a Dungeon monster, and what they might contain was worth staggering amounts. Three tiers existed — gold, silver, and bronze — each with its own odds:

Gold Chest: 100% — always contains an item

Silver Chest: 10% — one-in-ten shot

Bronze Chest: 0.1% — almost always empty

And when a chest did have something inside, it was one of three things: equipment, a tamed monster, or treasure. Further research eventually confirmed that the equipment itself came in three distinct subtypes.

You never knew what you’d get until you opened it — and on top of that, a hard rule was in place: equipment and monsters could only be used if the chest was opened inside a Dungeon.

What’s more, weapons and monsters were bound to whoever opened the chest. No transfers, no exceptions. In that respect, it was exactly like a game’s item system.

Equipment (weapon, armor, or boots — one of the three; owner-use only)

Tamed Monster (owner-use only)

Treasure (non-combat; exchangeable for approximately ¥20,000,000 in currency — though market rates fluctuate constantly)

A Hunter could bring up to five tamed monsters at a time. Anyone with tamed monsters also gained access to a storage system called “slots.” Monsters kept in a slot couldn’t participate in combat. Tamed monsters also couldn’t be taken outside a Dungeon.

Equipment came with its own restriction, too — one piece per body part, per person. Three slots total, meaning a maximum of three equipped pieces at once.

Treasure, on the other hand, was the one item anyone could cash in, regardless of who found it. It circulated freely and quickly became a symbol of wealth.

And it was over these chests that a full-blown power struggle ignited.

Major corporations — conglomerates especially — began hiring armies of people called “Hunters” specifically to farm treasure chests.

Hunters received corporate funding to gear up, dove into deeper Dungeons to pull rarer chests, sold those chests back to their employers, and got outfitted with even better equipment in return — which let them dive deeper, pull better chests, and start the cycle over. It became a self-sustaining machine.

Before long, people started raising alarms.

“At this rate, the conglomerates are going to monopolize all combat strength.”

“All this does is widen the gap between the rich and the powerful.”

“Doesn’t the government need to step in?”

Experts argued about it on TV every single day. Some sneered and said things like, “This is just the new capitalism,” or “The inequality we used to see in games just went and became real.”

But regulation never came. Worse, certain government officials quietly fell into bed with corporate interests, and behind closed doors, the system was being designed to favor the companies. A handful of lawmakers pushed back — and accomplished nothing.

The result: the top-ranked Hunters were monopolized by major conglomerates and their subsidiaries.

Becoming a Hunter, though, wasn’t hard. Anyone sixteen or older could register with a simple application and get assigned an ID linked to the national ID system. Clans — groups of Hunters — could be formed or joined freely, and school-based and community-based clans started popping up everywhere.

It was in that environment that I — Yuuki Ren — ended up registering as a Hunter in my third year of high school, nudged into it by someone I knew. Word got around that I had a solid grip on Dungeon basics, and my classmates started leaning on me for it. I drew on what I knew from my gaming days to advise friends getting into clan activities — but I myself was the same as ever, buried in part-time shifts. I never set foot in an actual fight.

Still, they kept saying it: “Be our leader.”

The clan name I used to carry — Eclipse.

Under that name, I took up the reins once more.