Chapter 5: 5 – Thrown to the Wolves

Stretching my arms above my head and letting out a yawn, I woke up from my rest while enjoying my fur bedroll. 

(Good evening, Navi.)

(Good evening Lia! The sun is still up for a while outside, but what are we going to do tonight? Narf!)

It took a lot to resist the urge to answer with 'try to take over the world.' it did bring up a good question though.

I had a decent size pile of tattered pelts now, and I really wanted to try to make a bag for diving further in the dungeon. 

Before that though, I wanted to continue stretching out my pocket space more. Looking at my MP amount made me pause.

(Why did my MP raise by 15 points overnight?) I ask my mind roommate.

(Easy! You depleted it a couple times yesterday! The more you flex your mana muscles, the more your core will grow. Your regeneration rate will also increase.)

(Makes sense.) I nod unconsciously. (Guess I'll keep playing around with it today.)

(You definitely should! Especially since you can increase it a whole whole whole lot faster than the other races!

(While the humans mostly forgot how easy it is to do and have to wait for their mana to naturally regen, you can drink blood to make it a lot faster!)

(That certainly helps. But how did the humans forget? Isn't it pretty simple and straightforward?)

(Greed!) Navi said. (Like how I talked about their silly magic schools yesterday, the higher-up churchies keep it as a 'secret training technique.' Even though it's as simple as Saitama's secret training!)

(The fuck?) I can't help but to be confused at the stupidity.

Navi explains, (Yup! The other races secluded themselves, and there were no more external wars. Over the last couple centuries the Empire worked hard to bury most magic training knowledge so that only the people they wanted were any good at it.

(Most of the humans think that feeling dizzy or tired from using too much magic is a terrifying thing and that they could die from 'magical overuse syndrome,' or other made up malarkey.)

No wonder this world is stagnating. If over centuries, the upper echelon have hoarded even shit like that and made propaganda the accepted norm, there really isn't much chance for change without outside interference. Anyone who 'discovers' something like that is probably silenced.

Keeping people ignorant has always been a way to control the masses. On Earth at least. Though humans don't sound too different here. Even if there were revolts, it would just be like a child fighting an adult. Well, nothing I can do until I get stronger anyways.

Taking my dagger and a pelt, I spent the next couple of hours making the best and most sturdy bag ever seen!

Not.

(Hahahaha! What the hell is that, Lia!)

I could only stare in frustration at the massive failure that was my attempt at a bag.

The thing looked like a ratty, uneven, Frankenstein's Monster of fur and leather. I felt like I made a mistake on many levels while making this. 

First, the pelts I was trying to use weren't that sturdy. They were already tattered, with the leather being thin and holes already in them.

I'd tried to shave some of the hair off with my dagger, but I just tore many of them worse than what they already were. 

Using thin strips that I cut off one pelt, I tried to stitch multiple together. It didn't really work out. Sometimes the thin strips just tore, other times they tore the pelts I was stitching. Overall, it just sucked.

After spending more time than I care to admit due to sheer stubbornness, I ended up here with my crap of a useless bag. 

I immediately tried practicing some fire magic by creating a flame and burning my shameful bag so I wouldn't have to keep looking at it.

Around this time, my stomach started to growl. I also realized that after two days here, I haven't had to use the restroom once. Vampires FTW.

Because the dungeon doesn't have sunlight, I decided to leave my robe behind with my furs. If I ever had to go out in the sun, that robe was my only lifeline and risking it getting torn due to a mistake would just be stupid.

Without knowing what to expect on the second floor and wanting my MP to be close to full before trying, I went back to the first level again. I've really become comfortable here and I'm able to jog the entire way. Even the Boss Bunny doesn't provide much of a challenge, once I got the timing down.

After enjoying my evening meal, I waited for the boss to dissolve so I could grab my pelt. However, as it melted into the floor it didn't leave a pelt. In its place was an off-white dagger.

Picking it up and taking a look at it, it wasn't too bad. It seemed to be made from the rabbit's horn, with the base carved into a pommel and the blade portion flattened out into a relatively sharp dagger. I'd still pick my steel dagger over it, but as a backup weapon or an off-hand weapon, it would be a good addition. 

Stepping through the iron door to the safe room, I felt like it was about time to check out the second level.

Opening the door again, I stepped into a forest at dusk. Or was it dawn? Either way, the light doesn't seem to change on dungeon floors. So it's a twilight forest. 

The path to follow this time was wider than before. It also curved around trees, and went on both sides of others. This gave quite a bit of cover on the path as I walked along.

I decided to try my new horn dagger. I didn't have a sheath for it, so I carried it and had my steel dagger on my hip. After walking a bit, I came across the first dungeon monster on the second floor.

"Fucking goblins."

While scowling at the little green shit wandering aimlessly on the path in front of me, I used the tree cover to sneak close to it. Just like the bastards above ground, I got behind and slit this one's throat before it knew what was there.

Swallowing a few mouthfuls of blood and dropping the body, it dissolves leaving only the small core.

I’ve noticed that my skill, EXP Absorption (Vampire,) does give me a little bit of EXP. Who would’ve thought? What I also noticed is that it stops after a short time. Since on these runs there’re so many monsters, I decide to drink sparingly from each just to get the little extra EXP. It isn’t even that much. Like eating a single piece of popcorn for my starving experience bar. Just like the cores, I’m hoping a little bit over a long time can eventually help. I also don’t want to drink too much at once. I refuse to do a gallon challenge before fighting. 

Continuing on, I killed a couple more of the naked goblins, then I came across something different. 

It was still a goblin, but this one had a spear and loincloth. It also seemed more aware. Even though I was still a decent ways away, it was watching the path and forest around it.

Wanting to try something I had seen in movies, I pointed a finger at a tree on the other side of the goblin and fired a small quarter sized rock at it. My aim wasn't great, but it still made the goblin turn towards the noise and investigate, which gave me the chance to quietly approach and kill it. 

I got a goblin's loincloth for my trouble. 

Focusing on the cloth before picking it up, I decided to also train my arcane magic! Yes, casting cleaning magic on it is completely justifiable as practice. Even though it's dungeon made and probably never actually been worn. 

Because of the much smaller size of what I was cleaning, it didn't drain my MP much. Now comfortable that I wasn't going to catch some weird, imaginary goblin disease from it, I tied it on my belt and killed a couple more spear goblins along the path.

(Is there a reason why the path hasn't split, Navi?)

(Dungeon floors can have a super lot of different setups! Sometimes like mazes, sometimes a single really long path. They can even have platforms, buildings, open layout, coliseums, gauntlets—)

(Okay, okay, I get it. Dungeons will just do whatever the fuck they want.)

(Righteo!)

Well, I am happier with a layout like this floor than I am with the grassland maze. Even if this path is longer, it fits my favorite fighting style better. It gives me a chance to get better at Sense Presence, Heightened Senses, Daggers, Stealth, and Assassination. 

The next monster I came upon was something I haven't seen before.

Razor Wolf - level 6

In front of me growling was what looked like a mutated wolf. It was the size of a normal wolf, but it's claws were massive and curved. Its snout was also longer than a normal wolf's and opened wider to account for its longer teeth. Unlike simple pointed teeth, these reminded me more of a shark's with sharp serrated edges.

This is going to suck.

When I thought that, the wolf ran at me and lunged, aiming for my neck.

Reacting by trying to dodge and cover myself with my arm, it's jaws clamped down on my forearm as it pushed me to the ground.

"Ahhh!" Shouting out in pain, I started stabbing wildly. Face, eyes, neck, anywhere I could reach. I just kept stabbing as it thrashed its head, yanking my arm around and snarling. 

This went on for not more than a few seconds before it stopped moving and released me, but it felt like a hell of a lot longer.

"Fuck! Shit! Dammit!" I could only yell as my arm looked like it went through a blender. Biting down aggressively on its neck in some sort of futile revenge, I started desperately drinking it's blood.

I couldn't even taste it as I just focused on gulping down blood. After a couple swallows, my mind finally registered that Navi had been trying to get my attention.

(Lia! Lia! Listen!)

(What?!) I shouted at her in my mind while latching onto the wolf, my arm still a painful fleshy mess.

(Try healing your arm!) she said. (Focus on it and imagine the flesh knitting back together, blood vessels reconnecting, and the cuts in the bone filling up.)

I did what she said without a second thought, pushing as much mana as I could into my arm. In short order, I felt the pain in my arm fade, leaving behind bloody but smooth skin. Taking a few more mouthfuls of blood, I finally released the dagger pupper. Sitting down, I try to calm my racing heart.

That fucking sucked! What the fuck is up with this difficulty jump! 

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Once I calmed down enough after fuming over the state I was left in, I came back to my senses. Difficulty wise, it wasn't actually much of a jump. I was just a terrible match for it.

Someone wielding daggers with no protection will surely not fare well against a wolf. The horned rabbit was one thing, as it just jousted and ran by, but wolves will bite and claw at their prey. If I had any other weapon that could keep even a bit of distance between us, that wouldn't have been near as bad.

But to use daggers, I need to be right up in its grill. And that inevitably puts me in range of its teeth and claws. 

There's a reason a spear is the most used weapon back on Earth before modern weaponry. Even an untrained soldier can keep distance from an enemy and stab. The phalanx wasn't created for funsies.

I can only sigh in resignation. Like a kid wanting to play in the NFL, but realizing his dream was never meant to be, my dreams of being a rogue were shattered. It would’ve been fun, but there just isn’t any feasible way. Oh well. Maybe some floors will let me sneak more than others.

As I sat there thinking about how the fuck I was going to continue on this floor as is, I watched the nope wolf dissolve, leaving behind a wolf pelt and monster core.

Picking it up, the leather was thicker than the rabbit pelt. The fur was also thick and coarse. Not my choice of fluffy. I thought about trying to make armor with it, but I doubted it was hard enough to stop those fucking teeth. I just sat there thinking about what to do and my mind circled back to the healing magic I just used.

(Navi, how was I able to heal my arm? Most stereotypical fantasy ways would be light magic, but I sure as fuck didn't use that. Next would be water magic, but it didn't really feel like that was wholly what I used.)

(Close! Light Magic here on Erald doesn't do things like heal wounds. How would that even work? What it can do is get rid of a lot of different sicknesses. The people here don't understand sickness from germs and bacteria. Light Magic can just get rid of these things with radiation, but people see that as 'healing' infections and diseases.

(What you used was compound magic! To rebuild the tissue, you mixed water magic with just a touch of earth and arcane. So cool! Clap, clap, clap!)

That actually makes a lot of sense. Magic in this world, as fanciful as it is, seems to follow some logical patterns. Thinking about it more, the whole 'light magic regrowing limbs' thing makes no real sense. But I was still a little peeved. 

(And why, pray tell, didn't you mention this when I burnt my hand with light magic?)

(Don't be a big baby! That was just a burn. Did wou want me to kwiss it to mwake it fweel bwetter?)

Fucking parasite. Every time I start to like her, she pulls this crap.

After just staring at the wolf pelt for a few minutes, I finally got an idea. People don't really fight wolves on Earth without a gun, but wolves, even these fucking devils, are still just big dogs. Somewhere in my memory is the image of police training their K-9 units, and wearing their big thick marshmallow suits. 

A whole suit like that would be useless and I would just feel like I was in A Christmas Story, but if I wrap the pelt around my arm a couple of times, I can make something that the wolf could bite that was thick enough not to reach my arm.

Confident that I at least had a direction to go, I laid out the pelt and cut a strip from it as wide as my forearm and wrist. 

Using the remaining part of it, I used my steel dagger to shave off the majority of the hair. Being that the leather was thicker and the pelt wasn't already tattered like the jackalope, it went much better this time.

Cutting this portion into long strips, I felt like I had a DIY way to move forward. 

Wrapping the pelt around my arm a few times, I took the strips and wrapped them around my makeshift armor before tying them off. This was more difficult to do with one hand and so I had to use my mouth to help tie them off. 

Feeling more secure, if a bit silly looking, I walked along the path ready for more. Maybe if I get a few more pelts I can actually make the bag I wanted.

The next couple wolf encounters went a lot like I had hoped. They would lunge, bite onto my covered forearm, and I would stab until they died. Yup. Just using myself as bait. 

The blood from these wolves also refilled my MP more than goblins. Thanks to this, I was still steadily stretching my storage when I could. One of the wolves also dropped a pair of teeth. They really did look like a longer shark tooth. The root of them is also thick like a shark tooth. Damn dagger fangs is what they were. Thinking about those having stabbed into my arm made me shudder. They could definitely make decent spearheads though.

At one point, I got a crappy stone spear from a goblin. It broke instantly when I used it against a wolf. After collecting some more teeth, furs, and loincloths, I ended up at the wooden door for the boss.

This floor was definitely longer than the first. It took more than three hours for this one run, but at least it was only a single path. Plus, I feel like I got a great haul with everything. It looks like the level of the same monster can vary slightly in the dungeon. That first wolf was the highest level and the largest, while all of the others were 1-2 levels lower.

Opening the door, I was greeted with the site of four goblins. The largest group I'd fought so far. Three were the standard spear goblins, wearing loincloths and pointing their stone tips towards me. 

The fourth, standing behind the others, was different. It was level 7. Not a big jump or anything, but it had actual equipment. 

On its top was a leather chest piece. Leather vambraces on its forearms and a crude wooden plank shield in its left hand, with a rusty iron short sword in its right. 

Taking out both daggers, I tried to think through how this would go.

With shouts of 'Gih!' the three spear wielding goblins all ran at me with no real teamwork.

Dodging one spear, parrying another, I swiped out and slashed the third goblin across the bicep. 

Immediately after, I was forced to keep dodging spears. I made good use of my agility and Increased Reflexes 1. 

This went on for a couple more times before two goblins got in each other's way and gave me a chance to stab into the eye socket of one. That's one down.

The other two goblins continued their attack. On the next spear thrust, I was able to trap the shaft between my arm and body. 

Reaching out, I cut across its neck. It wasn't an instant kill, but the goblin dropped the spear to grab at its neck. It'd be dead soon enough.

At that time, a sharp pain flared up in my left side. The final spear wielding motherfucker stabbed me under my ribs.

"Ahh!" Shouting in pain and annoyance, I quickly turned and stabbed its neck. I dropped my off-hand dagger and yanked the spear out with a spray of my blood. 

Clutching at my side, I didn't have any time to rest or focus on healing magic. Immediately, I had to jump back to avoid a sword swipe from the boss goblin.

Pointing my left palm at the boss, I shot a fireball the size of a softball at it. Throughout the day practicing, my magic had become stronger, but it still wasn't very deadly. Even with this fireball, it had a decent impact and broke a piece off of the goblin's crap shield. Even while lightly charring the rest, it wouldn't have been deadly even with a direct hit.

Dropping the remains of the shield, the fucker snarled. Then it ran at me with only its sword.

Injured as I was, I was still better than a crappy fucking goblin. Pivoting to avoid its downward swing, I reached and grabbed its wrist with my left hand and stabbed it multiple times with my dagger until it went limp.

Finally, the last fucker was dead. I focused my magic on my side, healing the stab wound.

Level up

None of the goblins had dissolved yet. I guess there's some function of dungeons that keeps them around until it somehow knows I'm done with them. Not any weirder than the rest of the dungeon's nonsense.

Before looking at my stats, I used the cleaning magic on myself. Feeling fresh again and drinking from all of the goblins, I even stretched my storage a bit more.

By this point, it's just become a habit to keep stretching it whenever I can. The prospect of having a fantasy style inventory was just too enticing.

Along with cores for all of the monsters, the spear goblins dropped two more goblin cloths and a shit spear. The boss dropped his sword. 

It wasn't a great sword by any stretch of the imagination, but looked like it actually had some semblance of an edge to it without being too chipped.

Putting everything on my nice pile of furs and cloth, I sat down to check out my stats.

=====

Name: Dalia Midnight
Race: Vampire (Progenitor)

Level: 8
EXP: 13,383/17,500

HP: 190/190
MP: 17/225

Stats:
STR: 15
STM: 13
AGI: 22
DEX: 12
INT: 17
WIS: 17
CHR: 20

Stat points: 2

Skills:
Appraisal 2, Heightened Senses 3, Sense Presence 2, Mana Control 2, Fire Magic 2, Water Magic 1, Earth Magic 2, Air Magic 1, Light Magic 1, Dark Magic 1, Time-Space Magic 2, Arcane Magic 2, Daggers 2, Increase Reflexes 2, Stealth 2, Assassination 2

Unique Skills:
Nightstalker (Vampire), EXP Absorption (Vampire), Language Mastery

Titles:
Last of their Kind
Blessed by the God of Order
Blessed by the Goddess of Chaos

=====

I used my stat points to bring STM to 15. 

My MP was low after stretching the space. Overall, I used my magic more and more over the course of the day. My proficiency in most of the types had increased along with most of my combat skills. 

Looking at my tattered pseudo-vambrace, I decided on my next goal. To get some semblance of armor.

As much as I want to be the sneaky rogue, battles like this have shown me I won't always have the option. There'd be no sneaking up on a boss when they're just waiting. 

Grabbing my pile of furs, goblin cloth, spear and short sword, I stepped through the iron door to the safe room and then to the stair room. 

It's time to make some gear.

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