Chapter 17: Chapter 16: dungeon

An unpleasant morning.

I got up, mildly uncomfortable, and my hand still had not recovered. Healing them naturally is very hard in these environments due to the constant threat of nature.

My mana is as good as ever and my cloth is hardly even dirty. The enhancement that the dwarf made is seemingly very effective.

My only weapon right now is my spells and nothing else. A loss of a limb is nothing compared to a loss of a head.

It appears that Wrath already got up and chose to hunt some animals to eat. The choices are very limited, but this is No man's land. It's bound to be that way.

The camp Wrath made was simple. It just consists of a tent and a campfire, so nothing fancy.

The nearest human settlement is about 400 km away from here, so going back and forth would be problematic. Besides, the next town is probably 900 km away, so going back would be a waste of time.

This world is massive. Even larger than my original world. Human territories are scarce compared to the size of the planet, yet it still has the largest population.

This is due to several reasons. One of which is the constant war. Maybe due to a fight for resources or a fight of selfish intent, war is still happening. 

These events created some changes towards the world. Unwelcome changes, that are. Devils started appearing and world-ending threats started emerging. The reason is still unknown, but my best guess was the world was adapting. 

Of course, since the world is adapting, its people should too. They are getting stronger day by day, surpassing their ancestors.

“Yo Lapiz! Already up, huh?” Wrath shouted behind me, carrying a large boar behind him.

I just nodded back. The boar was unnaturally huge compared to a normal one. Naturally, a normal size would be around my height yet what Wrath found was humongous.

“Why… So big?” I asked.

“Oh, this?” He chuckled. “It's because this big guy is absorbing mana. It somehow evolved to be that way, and they're called mana beasts.”

First time I heard of it. Weird.

“How… Strong are they?”

“Hmm, it varies depending on how much mana they absorbed,” he stated. “This guy is around your level, quite frankly. They also replenish mana and taste good!”

I nodded.

We spent the morning eating the giant beast while saving up for some later. 

At noon, we fought some skeleton knights on our way to the next town. It will probably take us 2-3 weeks if we keep this pace up.

No man's land is likely around the same size as a kingdom. We are on the edge of it, so monsters would likely get stronger and stronger the more we got closer to its heart.

Second day.

The monsters weren't much trouble. My hands are still injured, but all I did was cast spells from afar. Wrath did teach me some offensive spells like hasta Aeris, so there were no problems.

Day three.

A day full of action. The monsters did a stampede, which is just them running in groups. We spent the day avoiding it via a different route.

Day four.

A relatively peaceful day. 

Day 5.

Day 6…

…

Day 8.

Something unexpected happened. All the monsters were gone and nowhere to be found. We are also at the heart of No man's land.

“Something's… Weird.”

“I agree,” he said with a slightly serious face.

I can't describe what I'm feeling, but if I have to, then it would probably be… Confusion?

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“There is something wrong with this place. There should be a couple of monsters in here,” he vaguely stated. “Maybe something scared them off?”

Most likely. If what Wrath said was true, the monsters shouldn't move away from their natural habitat. Unless… they were forced to.

“Wind: Voir!”

Wrath activated his spell scouting our facility.

I began to search for monsters around the area via a search spell. They usually don't have any counter against it, so it's a great way to locate them. Even then, there are still none of them in the vicinity.

“A dungeon?” He exclaimed with surprise.

“What's… A dungeon?” I asked.

“The existence of dungeons should be common-sense right?” He asked with doubt. “I guess I'll explain it then. Dungeons are places that restrict calamity devils from going outside the world. As a result, you rarely see any of them.”

“When… Did they show up?”

“The dungeons? Well, they have shown up after the great awakening period. It's one of the ways to stop the army of devils from advancing,” he stated. “Nowadays, people would just go there and take some stuff on the first and second floors.”

That's… Interesting. Something doesn't match up. Why haven't I heard of such a thing? 

“Still, this dungeon is unusual. It's stronger than normal ones. The aura is frightening, to say the least.”

Our position is pretty far away from it. Attacking would be risky and would give little to no rewards. Still, I never got to a dungeon before. That leads to one option only.

“Attack… It.”

“Nope,” Wrath said immediately. “That dungeon is very mysterious. It's like attacking without any weapons. Besides, our main objective is to get to my home and focus on you first. Clearing dungeons would take days, perhaps even weeks, to finish even one floor.”

“So… time-consuming?”

“Yes, very. We don't even know what's beast it's holding. Those devils that are locked in there are always weakened yet are not to be underestimated. Your hands are also not fully healed yet.”

I looked at my hands with thoughts of just using my death magic to heal them. I was about to cast it, but Wrath just stared at me.

It's an understatement to say it only stopped me for a moment.

“Avoiding it would be the most beneficial for us. Let's just continue our journey.”

With that, we decided to ignore the dungeon and continue our way. 

On the 9th day, I finally saw the dungeon. It's pretty much just a big hole in the earth. The pressure it gives was strong, but not enough to bring me down.

“Just as I thought yesterday. This is very odd,” Wrath said while narrowing his eyes.

“Why?” I asked.

“The devil shouldn't be emitting this much pressure. The dungeon should be enough to restrict it. This is getting more and more dangerous,” he analyzed. “I changed my mind. Lapiz, I'll clear this one up. You wait here above for about a week.”

“That's… Pretty long,” I don't know if I'll survive that much time without doing anything.

“Look, Lapiz, this isn't your regular dungeon. This one is unstable. That usually means 2 things. Either it's an ancient dungeon which gradually weakened, or it's holding a monster that cannot be held. In this situation, it's the latter.”

"I… Think I can clear the first floor."

"Yeah, maybe. Still, we need to be careful at all times!"

"Trust… me."

We stared at each other for a few seconds before he sighed and backed down.

"Fine. If you can't even clear the first floor in under 48 hours then you will immediately go to the surface and wait for me alright?"

I nodded before preparing my things. Little did I know, this was the most dangerous and regrettable decision I have made in my entire life.

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