Point out any mistakes please.
____
Arriving at Babel we walked in to see quite a few adventurers heading down into the dungeon, and with this I've come to the realization that the dungeon is a lot bigger than I ever actually imagined it being.
There are a lot of adventurers but in the anime and manga bell barely ever encounters other parties in the dungeon. So I've come to this conclusion, Unless you are specifically looking to find people, you really won't encounter many people.
While being here I've also gained another experience in my life. Watching people trip while walking down stairs. Ah, it is a truly beautiful sight to behold.
Not me though… of course not me.
Anyways, after walking down all those stairs we've reached the dungeon and it's beginning corridors.
Even though I talked a big game, now being directly faced with the dungeon I can say I'm feeling quite nervous. Even though it's pretty unfounded, I have a level 4 Amazonian right here with me.
"A little nervous?" Tiona asked
"Yeah, a little bit. But I want to get the nervousness out the way now for when I actually do start going in for real." I answered easily. It's not like I was that embarrassed about it or anything it's to be expected after all.
"True, don't worry too much though, I'm right here with you!" She replied with a smile, pumping her biceps.
Nodding in response I walked ahead of her into the dungeons corridors and already the vibe was so different from anywhere else I've ever been.
It felt like I was being watched by… something but also nothing at the same time. There was definitely nothing around, I even let out waves of mana to try and sense any movement, but the only thing was just Tiona right behind me.
"You feel it right? The weird sensation of being watched but there's clearly nothing there." Tiona said, her voice pulling my attention away from the feeling.
"You probably already know this but, the dungeon is alive, something many people don't know though is that what's dangerous in the dungeon isn't really the monsters themselves, but the dungeon itself." She continued
Wanting to know more I asked "How so? I knew it was alive but how is it more dangerous than the monsters in spawns? Isn't that why it's a threat in the first place."
"The dungeon doesn't only just spawn monsters, it can change and shift paths in whatever ways it wants. It can lead you into a dead end and spawn a monster party on top of you, create weak pathways causing collapses that could lead you down to deeper floors by force and many other things. And to do this it's always watching each and every one of us." Tiona answered her eyes flashing with grave emotion.
Ah so that's what she's talking about, but I thought it didn't really do that unless you did something to really piss it off.
"Seriously? Wouldn't the death rate of adventurers be way higher if that's the case?" I asked to try and clarify.
"Well of course, it can't just do that Willy nilly, or at least I don't think it can. From what I've experienced it can only have one try per day, if what it attempted doesn't work then it can't try again until another time" she answered
Now I really want to know what she did to piss the dungeon off enough for it to try and kill her specifically.
"It doesn't seem to hold grudges though, or it at least forgets quickly. It only does that type of stuff if you do something to piss it off and the list I've compiled so far is this. Break too many walls, kill too many monsters, and staying too long in a safe area on a monster floor."
Not a very long list, not going to complain though.
"You can avoid the first one by just not aiming at walls or just being careful. The second can be avoided by just not taking up all the magic stones that drop. And lastly, the third can be avoided by just not falling asleep I guess." She continued though she averted her eyes on the last part.
"You seriously fell asleep in the dungeon?" I asked perplexed.
"It was relaxing okay!? There was a hot spring and everything, after fighting so long I was tired and I fell asleep in the hot spring for a few hours. The moment I got out I was instantly ambushed by a monster party! I barely got out!" Tiona answered embarrassed.
Giggling a bit I relaxed, finally getting used to the feeling of being watched, I push it to the back of my mind and ignore it.
"Let's get a move on then." I said starting to walk once more.
We are currently on the 1st floor of the dungeon and from what I remember only goblins and kobolds spawn here.
As we walked I stop when I started to here a strange sound, Kind of similar to squelching.
Looking around I immediately see several kobolds being squeezed out of the walls of the dungeon. A red liquidy substance oozing as they fell from the walls surface.
"…Ew." I couldn't help but make of face of disgust, why did the dungeon make it look like that?
Anyways, I finally have monsters to kill.
From my sides I pulled my hands forward and let my power flow. Instantly my crimson wires glided from my fingers and began to flow around me.
..hmm?
For some reason they seem… extremely wary. Is it because if Tiona or me?
No, from their eyes they are strictly looking at me…. No, they're looking at my wires. Can they sense what the power of destruction is?
…thoughts for another time.
Since they won't move first I guess I will.
Dashing forward I swing my arm in an arc my wires following my movements. My wires flashed forward and instantly diagonally splitting two of the kobolds in half. It was as smooth as a hot knife through cold butter.
"Ooh nice!" I called out in excitement.
These were a good choice after all!
Pulling my hand back the wires flew back to me swiftly, instantly I threw my other hand forward but instead in an arc I did a forward piercing motion. My wires converged into one forming what could be called a javelin, it shot forward like a bullet from a barrel.
The Kobolds having watched two of their own get instantly torn apart after only just being born they were all sent into a fight or flight response. Out of the seven remaining, one chose to run, two chose to fight, and four stood stock still, frozen in their indecision.
The javelin however didn't wait for their contemplation, it pierced through the air and ripped through two of the frozen ones and barely missed the one who had turned to run.
I pulled back my hand once more, my wire following along and separating from its javelin form.
"One's running… can't really let one get away on my first time" I spread my fingers apart commanding my wires to form a spherical shield around me to defend against the two that just reached me, focusing I called out a spell.
"Zoltraak" A red magic circle instantly appeared and from it a large red beam blasted forth faster than a bullet. The running kobold barely took another step before its entire upper body was erased from the world.
Enclosing my hand that was spread apart into a fist, the wires following my motion given command twisted from around me and wrapped around the two kobolds that had attempted to attack me. Though their attacks only ended with them loosing their claws.
My wires encompassed them and enclosed around them, shredding them apart until they were both nothing but bloody stains on the dungeon floor. They squealed and whimpered for only a moment.
"Now only two remaining."
Having watched everything unfold the remaining two swiftly turned and began to run.
Jeez, were these guys really that scared of
lil ol' me?
Lifting my my hands I let my wires retract into my body retaining the remaining power of destruction. Pointing my hand in the running kobolds direction I shifted my fingers into a finger gun.
"Bang" I called out, a crimson sphere of power of destruction shot forward, it instantly took off the right leg of one of the kobolds. The kobold dropped to the floor like a wet rag, it screeched in pain grabbing onto the leg it no longer had.
"Bang" another red sphere shot forward blowing a hole through the chest of the other running Kobold, its body continued to run as if it hadn't realized there was a gaping hole in it. It dropped just like the other kobold shortly after.
"Bang" the final sphere was shot and the head of the now whimpering Kobold was erased.
"Whew" I vocalized "first hunt success!"
____
Tiona POV
This really wasn't what I was expecting. I thought I would be watching a newbie panic and struggle in the face of a monster directly in her face. Especially since she was definitely nervous earlier, I may not be the best at reading people but there's no way she was faking it. What reason would she even have to fake it?
I thought I'd have to step in and save her after she panicked and didn't defend properly or something. But no, my expectations were completely blown away. She instantly killed not one but two Kobolds without them being able to even do anything about it.
And not only that she caused them to run. Away!?!?
There's a reason that monsters are called monsters. It's because they attack everything indiscriminately, they don't care how strong you are, how weak you are, whether you're in a group and they're by themselves. They'll attack viscously with no regard for their own lives.
Monsters very, very, very rarely run. Especially not such high floor monsters who have very little intelligence. The deeper you go in the dungeon the more intelligent the monsters get, and even down there they rarely run when faced with more powerful foes.
How in the world did she manage to get 1st floor monsters to run away in terror!? Four even completely froze in fear!
I knew her magic was strong, way beyond something a level 1 could ever do. I can accept that, some people are just born special, its not like she's the only one in the Loki familia either.
But what's with her mental state?!? How can she go from being nervous to just enter the dungeon to being able to kill 9 Kobolds in cold blood! Wasn't she just a country girl in some random village just a few days ago?
To kill in such brutal ways…
Somethings not right with her, I don't know what it is but something's off here.
____
We continued onwards exploring the 1st floor encountering Kobolds and goblins here and there. I dealt with them just as swiftly as the others, they provided no substance and no excitement so I simply overwhelmed them with my wires.
We slowly began to go deeper as the 1st floor had become a complete bore fest. Monsters spawned very slowly on it so we'd only encounter a group every 15 minutes or so. It's hard to tell time down here.
We quickly flew past the 2nd and 3rd floors as it was much the same as the 1st floor. Reaching the 4th floor we were instantly met with a group of around 15 kobolds, not quite a monster party, but they don't usually make groups this big, quite the anomaly.
Doing something similar to what I did on the other floors, I flung both my hands forward, my wires extended and formed a massive net like structure then came together cutting the 15 kobolds into bite sized pieces.
"I knew wires were the best choice." I said with a huff nodding at my genius.
*Crack
The wall of the dungeon cracked apart revealing a large red egg like thing on its surface.
*Crack*Squelch
The egg cracked apart, releasing a not so new monster.
"A Kobold?" Tiona said in confusion, rightfully so.
Although it looked a lot like one it had several key differences. Firstly it was far larger and much more muscular similar in size to a Minotaur, if only a bit shorter and less dense. Its fur no longer grey and shaggy, it now featured black bushy fur that traveled along its entire body. It sported a mane like coat around its neck enhancing its size and intimidation.
"Did the dungeon just make a new monster type?" I asked in surprise, was my Kobold annihilation that bad? I didn't even take that many magic stones, we don't have a bag so I only put however much that could fit into my pockets.
I watch as it reached down and grabbed a hold of it leg as it confused why it's there. Its eyes shifted to me almost instantly and anger seemed to flare in its features. All its hairs stood on end and its ears tilted back.
'Hmm..? there's no way right?'
It began to growl and shifted into a four limbed pouncing stance similar to that of a dogs.
Bring my hands forward my wires began to converge together into a spear.
"Wait!" Tiona called out stopping my preparations "let me test it out, if it's a new species the guild needs to know about it asap, if you just one shot it without finding out its capabilities then it could lead to adventurer deaths later on." She reasoned.
'But my excelia…/ᐠ ◞ ᆺ ◟マ' nodding at her
reasoning I stopped by wires from congregating but kept them ready.
Tiona hadn't brought her Urga so she was going into this barehanded, of course she wasn't expecting to need it in the upper floors, I highly doubted she'd need it even against this new species.
She walked towards the, what I'm going to call an Alpha Kobold, with complete confidence. Her stance was relaxed but clearly ready for the pounce, one foot constantly in position to push off into any direction she may please.
Her arms spread apart as if inviting it forward, provoking it. The alpha kobold fell for it almost instantly, pouncing towards her in reckless abandon. it opened its jaw wide going for a direct bit to Tiona's throat.
In that same moment, Tiona shifted her position, dodging the bite and with both arms grabbed the neck of the kobold and slammed it to the ground.
"Agility around level 1 rank c or b leaning more on b" she muttered
The alpha stood once more, its growling reemerging. Choosing to pounced again it this time swiped one of its large claws at her realizing that biting likely wouldn't work.
But just like the bite this was just as easy for her to deal with. She easily caught its wrist Not breaking any sort of sweat. Holding its wrist she lifted it above her head and slammed it down on its back.
"Strength seems to be around the same, endurance seems a little lower though, probably D." She muttered again.
It groaned and growled, standing back up again for the third time.
"Alright, that's basically all I needed" she said turning away from the alpha kobold "You can finish it."
Yippe!
Raising my hand the wires converged, transforming into a beautiful crimson spear, my own variation of Gae Bolg.
Stepping into a spear throwing stance, I threw the spear with all my might and boosted it forward with a bit of magic as well. The spear shot through the air like a missile clearing the 15 meter distance and blasting a hole straight through the alpha kobold.
"I wonder why the dungeon made it.." Tiona said out loud clearly trying to find reason in the dungeons machinations "Arg! I can't be bothered to think about this! We'll just explain to the others and they can think about it." She shouted ruffling her hair.
She was never really displayed as the smart type in the series so it makes sense she wouldn't want to bother with thinking about something this complicated. But how did she calculate the stats on the kobold?
"Hey, how did you do the calculating for the stats of the Kobold?" I asked.
"Hmm?" She vocalized "Calculate? I didn't really do anything specific. I kind of just guessed based on my own knowledge and experience. I could be way off on them, I just wanted to give the guild my own estimates."
Ah, that makes a lot more sense.
"Ooh, alright." I replied quickly
"Do you want to keep exploring or are we heading back for now?" She asked, her eyes shifting to the fading corpse of the Alpha Kobold.
Do I want to keep going? Not really, there's not much point to. I'd probably have to go to the at least the 10th to 12th floors before any of the monsters are able to resist my attacks even at their lowest output.
I think this is enough for today, I'll head down deeper another time.
"We can head back to the surface, I'm around half empty on magic right now and starting to feel hungry so let's head back. We only planned to go around this deep anyway." I answered.
Tiona instantly let out a sigh of relief "Alright! Let's get back up."
____
We reached the surface with no hiccups on the way, on the way I decided to carry some more magic stones my using my power to create a basket like construct. The dungeon already decided to spawn a mutant on top of us anyway so might as well collect what we're due. On the note of magic stones, we had collected the Alpha Kobolds magic stone and it was quite large, about double the size of a regular kobolds magic stone.
We first headed to the guild to both sell the magic stones and inform the guild of the alpha.
Though it's taking a lot longer than before. When we first came this morning it was still around 8am, most adventurers were just hopping into the dungeon now it was around 2pm. Yeah we really lost track of time down there.
Waiting in line for a while, we've finally reached the desk.
"Misha we've got big news!" Tiona said loudly.
"Oh, and what could that be?" She asked, though her tone was professional her face screamed nothing but contempt.
"A new monster species on the higher floors." I replied now let's witness this peak performance of someone who doesn't like doing work.
At my words her face shifted from contempt to relief. Her shoulders sagged and relaxed, clearly it wasn't going to be something she had to directly deal with.
"If its that then I won't have to do too much paper work. Do you girls have any details we can work with?"
"Yep!" Tiona answered "So basically it looks like a bigger Kobold with black fur and a lion like mane. It's size and overall build is a little bit smaller than that of a Minotaur."
Writing it down Misha stopped to ask "This sounds more like a mutated strengthened species rather than an entirely new one."
Shaking her head Tiona replied "No, it's definitely a new species type. We both watched it get spawned from the dungeon wall, we didn't just encounter it randomly."
I nodded in agreement.
"Do you have any details on how strong it is? And what floor did it specifically spawn on?" Misha asked, her hopes crushed in it just being a mutated Kobold.
"It spawned on the 4th floor and by my estimates is level 1 and it's stats are around C rank with its agility being slightly higher. It's endurance on the other hand seems to be around D rank. Its claws and teeth are extremely sharp probably around the same as a iron sword or something similar." Tiona recounted her examinations of it.
"C rank stats on the 4th floor…" Misha scrunched her face and closed her eyes. Her pen clattered to the table and she reached over to her fellow receptionist.
"Eina please save me!" Misha shouted grabbing the other receptionists hand.
Yea, this is what I wanted! Hehe!
Struggling with Misha putting her body wait on one side of her body Eina said "Can't you see I'm taking care of someone right now, let go!"
"You think I can't tell that you and him are listening in too!? You stopped writing a while ago and I could see your ears twitching in the corner of my eye. And don't let me get started here just straight up looking over here!" Misha quickly said.
The adventurer at Eina's section instantly averted his eyes, the ceiling seeming quite interesting all of a sudden.
Finally managing to push Misha off of her Eina said "Just finish the description quickly and you can just push up to Sir Rehmer, he's the one that deals with this type of stuff anyway."
"Oh! I almost forgot! I don't have to deal with this. Hehe" Misha's emotions shifted once more, she swiftly finished the description and strength of the new monster. "Is there anything else?"
"Just one last detail, it likes to pounce a lot, both times it tried to attack were fast pounces so it seems to like to simply finished off its targets in one or two strikes." Tiona answered.
Nodding and writing it down Misha asked once more "Anything else?"
Trying to see if she could remember anything else Tiona came up with nothing and replied with a "Nope, that should be everything"
"Alright, thanks for informing the guild of this new monster. Can we ask if we may come find you if we need any more confirming details?" She asked
"Sure" I replied
"If you need us, you know where we are." Tiona said with pride, of course they did, we were of the Loki familia after all.
____
Exchanging the magic stones we ended up with a whopping 11,000 valis. Not that much in comparison to how much higher level adventurers can make but more than the average level 1 adventurer makes in a day.
Walking back to the familia house I started to wonder when I should head back to the village to visit my parents. I did promise them that I'd visit in two weeks. I actually miss them quite a bit too…
I guess I'll give it two more days, I'll go visit, stay with for a a night or two then come back to Orario.
In my contemplations we've reached the twilight manor. Striding inside we were met with a mostly empty living room only a few people lingered around but the usual person remained.
"You're finally back! How was your first dungeon dive Camellia?" Loki asked jumping up from her slouched position.
"I was nervous at first but I got used to it pretty quickly" I answered truthfully.
"Yeah.. a little too quickly" I heard Tiona mutter.
?
"Regale me with your adventurous tale, madam Camellia. I wish to know of your various exploits." Loki said outlandishly
…okay?
I quickly went over what happened in the dungeon. We were met with 9 Kobolds that I quickly dispatched by first cutting two down with my wires, turning my wires into a javelin type object and piercing two more, using Zoltraak to shoot one that was running, shredding two that had attacked me by enclosing my wires around them, and then taking out the last two who tried to run by using ranged balls of destruction.
After that we explored some more and I simply used my wires to overwhelm and cut kobolds and goblins alike into pieces. Up until the 4th floor where we encountered a new kobold species that Tiona first tested the strength of, then I killed it by turning my wires into a spear and piercing through the kobold.
"Oh how excellent, it appears you had quite the riveting initial dungeon dive. Does thou wishest to obtain an update to thy's falna?" Loki asked in the same olden tone.
"…yes?" I answered perplexed at why she was even doing it.
"Well come along then, thou doesn't want to reveal thy's body in such a place correct?" She said walking towards the stairs, while she walked I could see the sides of her mouth begin to twitch as if she was holding back a laugh.
Ah, so she's just messing with me. Makes sense.
Following her, we found ourselves in the same room she had given me my falna in.
"Thou knoweth of the drill."
"I knoweth of the drill indeed." I said playing along.
Taking off my top I lay on the couch and waited.
Like before she grabbed the needle and paper and walked back over to me.
Pricking her finger, a drop of blood landed upon my falna and a white glow shined from it. It instantly started to feel the increase, my physical capabilities didn't seem to increase much of course I wasn't expecting them to as I didn't really do anything physically taxing.
But my mana has increased by around 1/5th or 1/6th.
"Quite the increase you got here" Loki said passing the paper to me.
***
{STATUS}
Name: Camellia Cindel
Level: 1
Strength: I28
Endurance: I34
Dexterity: I98
Agility: I83
Magic: H189
[Development ability]: None
[Magic]: N/A
Skills:
Mage of Origin: A mental and magic support type skill. It Grants the user perfect memory of any magic they've ever seen and allows for replication and creation of new types of magic. It protects the mind of the user from memory manipulation and anything that may cause the user to be forcefully rendered unconscious. As the Mage of Origin the user is immune to Ignis fatuus and has increased magical growth.
-Perfect recall
-Analytical sight
-Mental protection
-Congenital type Magic creation and bestowal
-Chant empowerment
-Magic enhancement
Destruction Incarnate: A Magic type skill. It allows the user to use all magic that is destruction based but also making it so that is the only magic the user can obtain and use. As the user grows stronger they gain access to different types of destruction based magic.
-The Power of Destruction
-Locked
-Locked
-Locked
-Locked
-Locked
-Locked
-Locked
***
______
.
.
.
.
.
.
Hallo everynyan, how are you, fine thank you.
Anyways what'd you guys think of this one? I actually locked in and wrote this entire thing in only 1 day. This time I also read through to see any mistakes so there should be less than my usual. Maybe, probably…
I corrected like 15 mistakes which is around the average amount I do based on my own guesses. (strictly talking about wrong word/spelling mistakes, I know I make far more grammatical errors with commas and such things but eh.)
Anyways point anything you see out and I'll correct it.
Bye bye and have a good day or night.