Chapter 43: Chapter 39: Planning

"Peter? Are you okay? You suddenly look pale."

The teleporter had deposited us back in the surface plaza, behind the staircase, but that was really not at the forefront of my mind right now. A System message had just spoken to me personally. It had even alluded to my coming from another world. As much as I'd like to tell myself I imagined it, my status now had a new quest section. 974 days. My tenth birthday. I had until my tenth birthday to beat this dungeon on my own.

"Oi! Peter!"

I'd just done the top two floors more or less solo, but the bottom would have orcs or some other monster of their level walking around in groups. Then there would be a boss that was even tougher. The message had no indication of what would happen if I failed, or for that matter what would happen if I succeeded. I had over two years. That should be plenty, right, given that I'd just done two floors on my first day?

"HEY!"

Except, it wasn't really my first day, was it? My first day in the dungeon, sure, but not the first day since I started training. Looked at in another way, I could say that it had taken me nearly eight years to clear the first two floors, and now I had only two more for the remaining eight.

Since it's in my status, does that mean I can pull up more details in the same way as I can traits and skills and stuff?

Quest: Conquer the Dawnhold Dungeon Solo
Completion requirements: Enter the Dawnhold dungeon alone. Reach and defeat the tenth floor boss without any external aid.
Time remaining: 974 days
Reward for completion: One rank three magical item
Penalty for failure: Loss of trait [Abnormal Soul]

Loss of [Abnormal Soul]? That would... How was that even possible? I'd be just like everyone else, living happily in a brainwashed bubble. No random monster attacks to worry about, no longer being abnormal, just an ordinary happy child. Would that be so bad? Some small part of me was shouting, screaming about how much that happiness would cost, what I would need to sacrifice. Another part of me wanted to just let it happen. A third part of me had got distracted and was wondering why my body was tingling. It felt like Richard's [Heal]...

I blinked and noticed Freya's face right in front of my own. "Umm, are you okay? Why are you shaking me?"

"Am I okay? That's what we've been trying to ask you! What the hell just happened? You went white as a sheet and completely froze up!"

I looked around and saw the whole party staring. Jared was using [Heal] on me. Another delver party resting against one of the statues were looking over at us, equally concerned. "Uh... remember how you wanted me to tell you if anything unexpected happened? Something just happened that I very definitely was not expecting."

Xander peered. "Oh? Do you think you could go into a little more detail?"

"When we stepped into the teleporter, I heard the System alert for a new message."

"Yes, so far so normal."

"When I checked my message, it just said 'Make your choice'."

Everyone stared. Jared was the first to respond. "Are you saying that the System..."

"Talked to me? Very creepily? Yes, I am. And then it gave me a quest. Are quests even a thing? I've never heard them mentioned before."

"Gave you a quest? No, I have never heard of the System giving quests."

"Well, it's right there in my status now. I have a new quest section underneath my titles. Complete with a time limit, reward and penalty. It wants me to..."

"Okay, that's enough," said Xander, cutting me off. "This isn't the place for this conversation. We're going to see the guild master."

...Fine. I've no idea what he can do about it, but maybe he's at least heard of System quests before. Or maybe he can lend me some overpowered magic items so I can charge in and clear the whole thing easily. Would that still count as doing it solo? Despite the efforts of Freya and Jared to bring me back to reality, I drifted away again thinking through the implications of what had just happened, and it wasn't until a loud bang caught my attention that I realised we were back in the guild master's office. I hadn't even noticed that we'd entered the guild.

The guild master's desk had a crack in it, partially hidden under the guild master's face. On closer inspection, I noticed it was actually cracked in several places already, but now it had a new one, presumably the source of the bang. Judging from the relative sizes, this latest face smash had been one of the bigger ones.

"Would you please stop doing impossible things?" he muttered, without even looking up. "Quests are when a craftsman or someone wants a particular reagent and asks the guild to find it. They aren't a System thing. And the System doesn't talk to people."

I looked at my status, which begged to differ.

Name: Peter
Species: Human
Class: Body Mage (Level 2/22)
Class History: [Commoner] [Apprentice Mage]
Soul Points: 0
Health: 22/22
Stamina: 36/36
Mana: 52.80/52.80
Strength: 13
Dexterity: 15
Endurance: 14
Intelligence: 17
Wisdom: 16
Charisma: 16
Rank 1 Spells: [Minor Strength 10] [Far Step 11] [Minor Speed 10] [Minor Dexterity 11] [Minor Endurance 10] [Minor Intelligence 9] [Minor Wisdom 8] [Minor Charisma 8] [Far Reach 11] [Minor Slow 10]
Rank 2 Spells: [Strength 3] [Dexterity 2]
Rank 1 Skills: [Inspection 10] [Mana Sense 11] [Meditation 11] [Enlarged Mana Pool 10] [Mana Control 10] [Privacy 6] [Weapon Proficiency: Staff 10] [Basic Carpentry 7] [Basic Smithing 6] [Enlarged Stamina Pool 6]
Rank 2 Skills: [Appraisal 7] [Enhanced Mana Recovery 5] [Greater Mana Finesse 3]
Traits: [Abnormal Soul] [Early Bloomer] [Researcher] [Xenophilia]
Titles: [Jack of All Trades] [Victorious Underdog] [Skilled] [Survivor]
Quests: [Conquer the Dawnhold Dungeon Solo]

It occurred to me that I'd never seen the guild master outside of his office, and the office itself was very tidy, with neat piles of paperwork. There wasn't anyone else in here helping him. Despite his attitude, was he actually quite diligent? Was it possible to have a tsundere attitude towards your job?

"Fine, I'll check with headquarters again, but I know full well they're going to say they've never heard of such a thing, just like with everything else that involves that kid. For now, stick with the original plan. The quest says he has to do one completion solo, but it doesn't say anything about disallowing practice sessions with a party. Given the time limit, it's obviously not as if he's supposed to conquer it in his very next run."

"For now, that's okay," replied Xander slowly, trying to think things through, "but today was going to be the only day I had Peter act on his own. From now on I intended to teach party interaction and teamwork, ready for him to join another party more appropriate to his level. For this he'll need to focus on personal ability and the skills needed to clear floors on his own, such as trap detection and disarming. Not having the aid of a scout class is going to make this a nightmare; even I wouldn't want to try to get through the last couple of floors without one. Given the wording of the quest, I doubt a party going in ahead of him and clearing the route to each boss is going to work."

Noah chimed in with his opinion. "Is it not too early to be deciding how to clear the quest? Peter has mentioned rewards and penalties, but hasn't yet told us what they are. If the penalty is light, we should simply ignore this quest."

Was the penalty light? Was it a 'penalty' at all? I wasn't sure whether 'Peter' would be happier or not without the trait, but I was sure that without it 'Peter' would not be 'me'. It was what defined me. "Reward for success is a rank three magical item, whatever one of those is. Penalty for failure is the loss of my unique trait."

Everyone stared. Freya practically flipped. "But your unique trait is what allows you to use conflicting affinities! Okay, that's settled. We're helping him complete this quest."

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Jared nodded. "A rank three magical item isn't a bad reward given that this dungeon will only produce rank two items naturally, but on its own it wouldn't be worth it. The penalty is nasty though."

"Since Silvanus ain't here, I'll have a guess at what his opinion would be. He'd leave the choice up to Peter, but he would point out that your unique trait is what's getting you into these situations in the first place. If you give it up, you'd probably get a peaceful life. If you keep it, you can expect this sort of thing to keep happening until you get yourself killed."

"I... I don't want to give it up. Even if I would live a happier, peaceful life without it, it wouldn't really be 'me' living it. Just someone else who thought they were me."

"Not sure if that's unfathomably deep or complete bunkum, but whatever. You heard the lad. We'll continue the week of training as planned, and come up with some plan for the future in the meantime. Now get out so I can go bug headquarters yet again."

We ended up back in the bar. Between nine copper coins from chests and the sales of nearly fifty cores, I had a few large coppers jingling around. That was more money than I'd ever held before and would certainly have bought me a meal, but given the current uncertainty, I figured it would be best to keep hold of it. I was surprised I got to keep all the money, little as it was, but apparently Xander's party were being paid directly by the guild for this job. Far more than I was earning myself too...

I quietly munched on some sort of vegetable cookie mum had made while Jared set up the Inequality board. Freya had insisted on playing too. Strategy games against mage types were bad enough when I had the familiarity advantage, and I was only against one of them. Now I'd only freshly learnt the rules and was facing two at once. This was probably going to be an even worse beat-down than the one I received from Xander yesterday. I wonder how many times I'll be able to cast [Minor Intelligence], and if it'll be enough to help at all...

It wasn't. Saying that, I didn't get completely and utterly demolished like I'd expected either. Freya and Jared spent too much effort on watching each other, letting me sneak in a few good moves. Not enough to win a single round, which went two to Freya and one to Jared, but enough that I didn't need to feel embarrassed.

Intelligence increased by 1
Skill [Minor Intelligence] advanced to level 10

I now had a mana regeneration of over forty an hour, and with [Meditation] I wasn't far off one a minute. It would be enough to keep up one of my rank two buff spells active indefinitely once it reached level nine or ten. It was a pity I couldn't use [Meditation] inside the dungeon, but with a few more points of intelligence and skill levels, I'd certainly be able to keep my buffs up a useful fraction of the time.

Xander had only been paying a small amount of attention to the game, dividing his time between his food and staring off into the distance, pondering about something. He was eating some sort of foul smelling meat dish covered in an ominous looking yellow sauce that I did not envy in the slightest. There was a vague familiarity about the smell that I couldn't quite place.

"You already have [Mana Control] and will no doubt rank it up before long, but you still need some way to deal with traps on the lower floors. There are poison dart traps from floor six, but the real problem begins on floor nine, where both the triggers and launch sites will be invisible to sight and mana perception skills. Traditionally a scouting class would use [Trap Perception], but you would need to complete [Body Mage] and [Apprentice Fighter] in order to take the class and buy the skill, then you'd need to level it to a reasonable point on top of that. Probably seven or eight to reliably pick up traps on the bottom floor. That's not an amount of progress that a regular person would make in two years."

"Pretty sure he wasn't a regular person to begin with, boss."

I pouted at Freya. Meanie.

"That may be the case, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't explore alternative options. If you can't avoid triggering the traps, then you need to avoid or negate the darts somehow. The darts go though leather armour like a hot knife through butter, but plate armour would offer almost complete protection. It would also massively hamper your mobility without a proficiency skill, which would require a second rank combat class. That's no better than the scout route. I think the best option would be [Spatial Mage], which has a rank two spell specifically tailored to dealing with small projectile weapons. Normally the reaction time you'd need to deal with the fast flying darts would be prohibitive, but by this point you should be able to keep [Dexterity] up more or less indefinitely. It also has a storage spell, which would permit bringing in far more equipment than you could carry in a backpack. For example, a sizeable stack of antidotes. [Temporal Mage] has a similar defensive spell, but it would be less effective in a melee and you'd also miss out on [Item Box]"

That seemed like good advice, but I I still had a long way to go before I could change class. Up until now I had been leaning towards [Apprentice Fighter], but [Spatial Mage] had already been high up on my list.

"That seems sensible, but it's too soon to make decisions about my next class given that I'm eighteen levels away from being able to change. I'll see how quickly I max out [Body Mage]. And on a completely different note, whatever are you eating? It stinks."

Xander looked down in surprise. "Does it?"

Robin and Noah both nodded, but Freya shook her head. "I don't smell anything."

"You've spent too long covered in orc blood. You don't notice it anymore. Sometimes I wish I shared you humans' dull sense of smell."

Orc blood? So that was why the smell was familiar. It drew me back to that day in the forest, and the stench. I shuddered slightly. Wait, that sauce was orc blood? Woah... "You're eating orc blood?"

"No, just orc meat. The sauce is some sort of curry."

I had no idea how to respond to that, so I kept my mouth shut. He was scoffing down something that smelt like that with every sign of enjoyment. Now that I was paying attention, I noticed that Noah and Robin had edged away from his end of the table the moment he had ordered. Was orc meat some kind of delicacy? Then again, on Earth it was often joked that 'delicacy' was shorthand for 'something utterly disgusting that we feed to foreigners so we can watch them squirm while paying high prices for the privilege'. Maybe no-one had let Xander in on the joke? Or he had some sort of iron stomach skill?

Either way, the party was done for the day, and everyone drifted off to do their own thing before hitting the dungeon again tomorrow. I returned to my dorm, washed myself up and lay in bed thinking. Today's trip had been a lesson in paranoia; how to delve in safety, or as close to it as possible. It was obvious why anyone completing a rank three class was so rare; levelling required challenge. The delvers guild tried to turn it into a dry and mechanical job, eliminating as much of the danger, and hence challenge, as was possible. That would be great for minimising the death rate, but it's not the sort of attitude that would let me complete this quest.

Spending a week with an expert team picking up as much experience as I can is a good plan, but after that? Joining a team appropriate to my level and playing it safe? Farming floors day in and out, minimising the danger? No, if I wanted to meet this challenge, I needed to do better. I didn't want to put anyone else in harm's way; I would dive into the dungeon solo and push myself each day. But there was still an 'if' in that statement. 'If' I wanted to meet the challenge. On the other hand, if I didn't want to meet the challenge, why enter the dungeon at all? I'd no longer be putting those around me at risk of random monster attacks, so I should pick up enchanting and go live a peaceful life. Whichever path I chose, playing safe in the dungeon was not the solution. I suppose this was the 'choice' the System mentioned.

I was afraid. That was the crux of it. From the day I was born, I worried about anyone finding out about my previous life. Later on it was my soul affinity, then who was responsible for the brainwashing. All of my old fears had been misplaced. My parents had respected my desire to keep quiet about my previous life, and didn't love me any less for it. Lord Reid was a nice guy and only wanted to help me out. I wasn't even convinced the System or goddess or whoever was really willing to put anyone else in harm's way, or they could have just dropped an orc right into my house. Perhaps they were a bit looser with my personal safety, but even then I think they wanted me to succeed. The two-year time limit sounded tight, but if they wanted me to fail, why not make it next week? Or tomorrow? Or just strip my trait directly and forget the whole quest business? From the way the guild master was talking, this sounded like they'd added a whole new System extension just for me. That had to be more effort than just killing me.

"Fine. I'm trusting you. I don't even know who I'm speaking to, but I'll play your game. I'll beat your quest and remain 'me'. And then please tell me what it is that you really want, because I don't believe you want me dead or want me to level up for the fun of it."

ding

What? Did the System just respond? I almost didn't want to look, afraid of what the answer would be. Which was rather hypocritical, given that I'd just decided not to be. Mustering up the courage to check, it wasn't a direct response to my decision, but a massive wall of notifications.

Trait [Early Bloomer] evolved to [Determined Progressor]
Skill [Minor Strength] advanced to level 11
Skill [Minor Speed] advanced to level 11
Skill [Minor Dexterity] advanced to level 12
Skill [Minor Endurance] advanced to level 11
Skill [Minor Wisdom] advanced to level 9
Skill [Minor Charisma] advanced to level 9
Skill [Meditation] advanced to level 12
Skill [Enlarged Mana Pool] advanced to level 11
Skill [Basic Carpentry] advanced to level 8
Skill [Basic Smithing] advanced to level 7
Skill [Enlarged Stamina Pool] advanced to level 7
Skill [Appraisal] advanced to level 8
Skill [Enhanced Mana Recovery] advanced to level 6
Class [Body Mage] advanced to level 3
For your efforts to uncover the secrets of dungeons, [Researcher] awards 2 soul points.

That was... a lot.