Chapter 7: Chapter 2.2

From what I remembered from the show Almiraj were somewhat weak level 1 monsters and my eyes gave me a huge advantage over the beast even if it was a little faster than me, pulling out the hard sheat of my sword I waited for the little beast to attack again before dodging aside and delivering a strong blow against its side sending it thumbling away.

The little guy recovered fast grabbing it’s ax it used it’s powerful legs to jump at me preparing for an overhead swing, lifting my weapon I tried to block the blow with a single hand but it had far more strength than I thought possible blowing right through my block and making me desperately jump back to avoid getting hacked in half, my heart beating hard against my chest at the excitement I started to smile, it seems the beast was a middle floor monster after all.

Reading myself for a fight I narrowed my eyes at the rabbit, I swore it was sneering at me for getting pushed back while pulling a second stone ax from the ground to hold in his left hand “Why you little… you know what, why the hell am I even fighting you right now?”

Staring at its smug little eyes I quickly composed an illusion and then took a few steps back to watch its effects, with an angry squeak the rabbit attacked the ground where I had been standing then took a large leap away before releasing a gasp of pain and dropping his right ax.

Looking around himself in confusion the almiraj moved it’s intact arm before grabbing its weapon back and screeching in anger, its red eyes shining with rage at me before it launched the ax, it was far enough away that I managed to sidestep without problem, my second ilusion was better composed, in it I charged the rabbit and completely ignored any attack before grabbing it by the face and smashing it into the ground, I used the pain from getting smashed by the centipede as a base for the monster and it was much, MUCH more effective than just hitting it with a stick leaving it keening on the ground.

I had to confess watching a monster angrily swinging at empty air before falling to the ground by itself was amusing but the lament of pain made me feel bad for the little thing.

The monster took long enough to recover that I looked around and, seeing no other adventurer, decided to start testing things out with my illusions, I didn’t pull out the mangekyou so I wouldn’t risk my eyesight but there were plenty of things to test with illusions before I could really use them in a fight.

Good thing too since it turns out using illusions was hard, much harder than it seemed in naruto.

Creating an illusion didn’t happen instantly like when I had watched anime, no I had to be able to picture in my mind what I wanted to project as perfectly as I could and anything I wasn’t able to imagine was missing from the ilusion making it easier to break out of.

Projecting a single static picture for a few seconds was easy and barely took any effort or mind. I could make the almiraj see me standing around him without moving for hours but a more intelligent opponent would easily see through the illusion and ignore it.

Another thing to note was that the more senses I tried to fool the harder it became, creating visual illusions was made extremely easy by my sharingan since I was able to perfectly remember anything I had seen but the second I tried to project something I hadn’t seen or worse, affect scent, hearing and tact, it became a thousand times harder and more expensive.

Creating the best and longest illusion I could I made the little rabbit start running in circles after a screaming copy of me, hitting the copy would feel like hitting a wall and it smelled mostly like me, then I stopped to consider, yeah I could make a stupid monster confused and helpless but another adventurer would never fall for it.

Despite my best efforts I had failed to consider a lot of things, the effect of wind on the clothes, some of the shades, the way my clothes looked from the back which I hadn’t seen with the sharingan, the footprints I left in my path, how I’d sweat after running so much… there were thousands of little mistakes which could give the game away against a more cunning being.

Thankfully it seemed I could train my illusions, the more I tried to project something the faster and better I could do it, not because of the simple repetition but because I could remember it better, correct things that were missing as if I were creating a picture inside my mind and every time I remembered it I could put on a little more detail, make it a little closer to reality.

It seems like big and fantastical illusions could work very well on monsters but I’d have to rely more on subterfuge against human opponents.

Taking out my sword I walked towards the tired rabbit who had finally given up on following my illusion I sent it a vision of the dungeon without me in it so, although the beast turned around when it heard me approach and started sniffing at the air in confusion it remained in place as I grabbed my sword with both hands and split its head in half with an overhead swing.

Cleaning my blade I pocketed its crystal and sighed, my head was already aching from using too much mind and I’d have to support Mord’s party in another two hours so I just went back to the town.

“Hey newbie! good work yesterday” Bors waved at me as I was entering the town, by his side was a redhead amazoness in real life bikini armor.

Thank you ROB for giving me the sharingan so I may never forget this view.

I mean, the adventurer woman I had already seen in Rivira were hot but they were mostly wearing full armor so I hadn’t been able to truly enjoy the view, the woman had the body of a fitness model and an extremely cute face, she had a six pack together with visible muscles in her arms and legs but was still completely feminine, without the bulk of a bodybuilder.

Yep that confirms it, the gods were perverts and falna actively made people hotter, damn I used to live in a tropical country so I wasn’t exactly a stranger to women wearing very little clothes but I had never seen anyone with a better body even on TV.

Bors seemed to almost be trying to escape from the amazon as he quickly finished his talk and hurried over to me, he kept glancing over his shoulder until the woman left the town completely and only then relaxed throwing himself on my shoulders and almost causing me to fall.

“Phew! How I hate first class adventurers” he said with a tired voice “Always wanting discounts and I can’t even pressure them”

I facepalmed at his sheer shamelessness before curiosity got the best of me and I started to talk “So, who was she?”

Bors raised an eyebrow at me “Ah look at you, barely an adventurer and already trying to pick up women, I’m so proud!” he mocked “Farna’s too much for you though, she’s the vice captain of the Ganesha familia, they’re bringing up a strong beast and wanted to know the Goliath situation” he finally allowed me to push his large body away and righted himself before smiling widely “I managed to get them to kill the damn thing and even pay for support from our strongest adventurers”

“Hmm, You think I can hitch a hide to the surface?”

“Probably, hell Ganesha is the god of the masses so they may even do it for free if you don’t piss them off” He slapped my back twice and smirked “anyways congratulations newbie, you didn’t die good job, Mord said you did alright”

“You’re just happy cuz you got your 30%” I accused and had to dodge another painful slap to the back as Bors smirked.

“Heh, I can’t really deny that’s part of it” The large man said while we walked back towards the center of the little town “So… wanna watch the goliath fight? Since you saved me from that harpy I can find someone to protect you for only 5 thousand”

“Fuck off” I gave him the middle finger but he just messed up my hair and walked away, probably to try and scam someone else.

You are reading story Dungeon Delving is Damn HARD (danmachi / kinda SI) at novel35.com

A nap later and my mind was mostly recovered, my muscles were back to giving me trouble though so I waited for Mord’s party at the town’s entrance while stretching and moving my limbs to try and get rid of their rigidness.

I waved Guile over when I caught sight of him carrying a large backpack and soon all three of them were waiting for me to put everything on my back and start walking again, I was thinking about ways to maximize my ilusion’s effects when I noticed we weren’t on the same patch “hey aren’t we going the wrong way?”

“Nope, we’re going to the 19th floor the proper way this time, the shortcut we took yesterday was great to reach Bors farm but if we aren’t after that it has too much risk of getting us caught in a monster party” explained Scott by my side, the skinny man seemed to be the tactician of the party.

“Catch” said Mord without warning and I almost missed the small, square leather bag he threw my way, opening it I saw two small red vials and four green ones nested safely between some kind of foam “the green ones are weak antidotes, yesterday we avoided them but the 19th floor is full of poisonous things so it’s better that everyone has at least four of those things before going down”

“Thanks”

“Oh you’re giving those back when we return, don't worry about that newbie” he said and we finally reached the entrance to the next floor, a huge cave leading down illuminated by a mixture of crystals and moss.

Midway down we faced a bugbear and, later, a mad beetle, the beetle was the first single monster to give the party some trouble, mainly because the tunnel wasn’t large and the creature had an extremely hard carapace, I kept my distance since I could barely see the movement of its arms even with my eyes, Scott finally had to take one of the spears and pierce its magic crystal when Mord got a deep slash to his tight, at least the thing dropped an antenna as a consolation prize.

The entrance to the large tree labyrinth looked like a jungle for giants, roots taller than me spread through the wooden floor and maxive trees climbed towards the ceiling with limbs spread over our heads in twisting paths so large they could easily support a battle boar on top of them and everything illuminated by the strange moss leaving almost no shadows anywhere.

Our first encounter was a group of lizardman, six of them without weapons charged at us jumping over a root but, without defenses or weapons they were easily picked off, three falling to guile’s daggers before even reaching us and the rest getting cut down or clubbed to death by Mord and Guile.

I can’t say I’ll ever get used to the sight of smashed brains all over the floor when harvesting the lizardman but I did manage not to throw up and, I guess it did incentivise me to work faster so they would dissolve into dust.

The man sized fire birds were harder to take down but we only found one that Guile had to lure down while Scott and Mord climbed trees to ambush it.

Together the party had to take some large detours to avoid any bright colored or too large flower unwilling to risk getting poisoned but we were all forced to drink antidotes after dozens of small, bipedal mushrooms burst out of the ground all around us, thankfully the little nuisances were very weak level 1 monsters and even I managed to kill them with ease but we all grew more and more sluggish with every one killed, our blows losing strength until, by the end of the fight I couldn’t hold my own weapon and was barely keeping myself up with Scott and Guile only a little better.

Thankfully no other monster attacked at the same time and we all recovered after taking the antidote and waiting 10 minutes, wrapping some clothes over my face I put on some gloves and harvested their crystals while trying to hold my breath and it either worked or they were no longer releasing poison because I didn’t have to use another dose.

A few hours later I noticed I had started to see faint shadows over the movements of the lizardman and centipedes, by far the most common monsters we fought.

“Hey Mord, can I try to fight one of the lizards next time?” I suddenly asked as I was harvesting another bugbear, this one pretty badly hurt since Mord and Guile had gone to town on it after it had thrown Scott at a tree and made him pass out.

“You sure? they’re far weaker than minotaurs but they’re still considered a level 2 monster you know”

“Yeah but that's because of the weapons isn’t it? they don’t seem as fast as the other level 2 I have seen” I told him unable to mask the eagerness in my voice “If one shows up without weapons again can I fight him?”

“You know what, sure, try and not lose a limb or something and you should have made enough to buy a better healing potion” he said as I tied up another full pouch to my bag and got up from the bugbear’s dust “Scott can you spot the little madman?”

“Sure, I’m fast enough to keep him from dying immediately”

Seeing all three of them agree I smiled “Thanks, I have been watching them and think I can handle one if I don’t have to worry about other things”

Then we heard the screaming, we looked at each other for a second before everyone turned to Mord, a second scream of pain started and didn’t stop as some unlucky adventurer started to suffer, Mord swallowed before meeting each of our eyes and sighing.

“Alright we’re gonna check it out but safely! If it’s a monster party or an irregular we’re not gonna be able to help you understand?” When I nodded he motioned for Scott to scout ahead while we followed as fast as we could without making much noise with me copying their movements, walking besides Guile we traded amused glances as we both were able to hear Mord’s soft grumbling voice “Godsdamnit my soft heart, you don’t run towards the screaming Mord, never run towards the screaming…”

Nearly a minute latter the screaming stopped and I heard a loud roar of rage take its place almost causing me to stumble, the closer we came to our target the more we started to hear of the struggle as something large smashed against the trees, then Scott dropped from a tree near Mord and we all stopped.

“get the fucking spears out, we’re fighting it” he told everyone and hurried towards me as I took of my bag and took out his bow before stringing it.

“what is it?” Mord asked as he dropped any extra weight he held and readied himself.

“A Vouivre”

Another loud roar with a distinctly feminine tone rattled the trees around us and sent a shiver down my spine.