Chapter 5: Chapter 04 – Dungeon Discovery

No matter how terrible it was, the sun eventually went away.

On the other hand, I didn't manage to get a wink of sleep the entire time. The sun just continued to overbearingly pressure me the entire time.

Once I was sure that it was gone, I opened up the entrance to my dugout.

I poked my head out and looked left, right, and up, making sure there weren't any traces of the sun.

With a sigh of relief, I pulled myself out.

(So much for my bath. I immediately got covered in dirt and blood again)

I looked down at my hands. Just last night they looked so soft and smooth, but now they were ragged and bloody. If I didn't find a way to properly protect myself during the day, my maxed initial appearance settings were going to go down the drain.

(Gah, another thing to hate the sun for!)

Before I realized it, pain was shooting up from my hands, and I unclenched them.

The need to make progress had gotten much stronger, so I hurried to the river bank.

There, I found the things I left behind yesterday...most of it.

The rabbit pelt was gone.

It seemed like some animal took it since everything else was still there. While it was annoying, for me it was actually the least important bit.

Without further ado, I quickly rinsed myself in the river, then put in some work to modify the goblin loincloths.

Using my claws, I made some quick snips here and there and tied other parts together. What resulted was a leather bikini. The absolute most I could do with my skills and available materials.

It was pretty embarrassing to wear, but it was better than being naked. Barely.

Unfortunately the top did nothing to support me, and only acted as covering. If I was more skilled, I probably could've gotten a bit of support out of it, but the thought only lowered my mood even further.

There wasn't anything more I could do, so I picked up my weapons. Even just holding my weapons hurt my hands, but I grit my teeth and bore with it. While they weren't much, they did increase my survival chances. Bearing with the pain, I crossed the river, and continued towards the mountain I could occasionally see.

It didn't take long before I found a pair of goblins. One armed with a stone axe, the other a spear.

They were lazily walking together. It looked like they were sleepy, as one of them yawned.

My stomach started to complain to me that it was empty. I didn't have any reason to refuse it.

With that, I threw one of my spears at the pair and went into a mad dash, a spear in one hand, axe in the other.

The thrown spear didn't quite hit it's mark, but it did graze the spear wielding goblin, making it flinch long enough for me to close the gap and stab it through the eye with my second spear.

I let go of it and turned to the second goblin, who was still in the middle of recovering from it's surprise.

Without waiting for it, I closed the extra step in between us and swung down my axe, leaving a large gash through it's right shoulder.

It stumbled a step back as it lost it's balance, but I closed the difference in an instant, and without any hesitation, I bit into it's neck, loudly slurping it's blood. Once it was drained, I pounced on the first goblin and emptied it as well.

Only when there wasn't a drop left for me to drink did I come up for air again, and with the cool air entering my lungs, did my mind clear enough for me to think again.

Once again I had lost myself to my blood lust. It was definitely going to be difficult to handle, but absolutely necessary to be able fit into any society I find...unless if it's a vampire society.

As I reached out to pick up my weapons, I noticed that there wasn't any pain from my hands anymore.

I looked down, and realized that they had healed up completely. There wasn't any trace of the tears from the digging. I touched the skin on my palms and fingers and marvelled how they was just as perfect as when I first arrived in this world.

The only conclusion I could come up with was that drinking blood also healed me.

The fact wasn't too much of surprise, but how quickly I healed due to it was.

I also touched the burn marks on my arm, and while they were still there, it didn't hurt as much as before. A few more goblins and even that would disappear without a trace.

In terms of consolation, this was a pretty decent one, I thought. It made me wonder just how much I could heal this way, but I wasn't eager to do any experimenting.

With a bit of a skip in my step, I picked up a pair of spears and an axe, and continued on my way.

 

As I walked, I confirmed my status again.

I had gained another level, and learned the [Axe Technique] skill. All my stats had risen a little thanks to the level as well.

Some more good things to happen to me since coming here.

But that aside, I had noticed that the slope I was climbing had been growing a bit steeper. I hoped that it meant that I'd find a cave soon, as no shelter would be as good as that for me. If not, then I'd have to dig myself a hole again, though this time I knew to prepare it earlier.

 

A few more hours of climbing, and I had reached a dead end.

Rather, the ground grew more rocky and the slop had suddenly increased to the point where it wouldn't be called hiking, but rather something closer to rock climbing.

For a second, I considered climbing the steep slope to get a view of my surroundings when I noticed an odd feature on the mountainside. There was a break in a particularly rocky part of the cliff.

With my curiosity piqued, I tried having a look at the only distinct feature I could see.

The break revealed itself to be a small cave, just big enough for two people to comfortably walk side by side through.

I sniffed the air and listened carefully, but couldn't detect anything in particular. It seemed like the cave was vacant. If that was the case, it would make a perfect base for me.

A bit eager, I stepped inside, lightly tracing the walls with a finger. The stone was smooth and dry, though highly irregular. The cave itself wound back and forth lazily, but despite not being able to see outside anymore, I could still see just barely. There was a faint light from further in that provided just enough light for me to not walk into one of the walls.

Suddenly, the cave opened up into a large room.

It was an almost perfect dome about as big as half of a basketball court. The floor was even and flat, and the walls were smoothly carved from the rock face. The room was empty, save for a stone structure sitting off to one side.

It was an elegantly carved stone fountain. The circular rim had a nice, wavy pattern on the outside, and the flat lip was both high and wide enough to comfortably sit on. The water was clear, and it looked like it was properly drained through small holes at the water's edge on the rim. In the middle, there was a large, cylindrical pedestal. Water was shooting out of a ring of holes from the pedestal's sides, projecting outwards only a little and making a crisscrossing curtain of water that splashed down.

The waist high pedestal itself was large enough for an an adult to stand on comfortably, but was empty for some reason.

I leaned my weapons against a wall and brushed my hand against the fountain's edge. Quite a bit of dust had accumulated on it, suggesting that it hadn't been used in a long time.

It felt like a good place for me to make my base. It was a nice sized room that came with it's own water source. I didn't need it to drink, but it would be great to be able to not worry about water for cleaning and washing. Prey seemed to be plentiful outside, and best of all, the short but twisting corridor that lead to this room blocked the damnable sun. If I could make a sturdy door, then I didn't even have to worry about animals or monsters wandering in and attacking me.

That said, I wanted furniture. Or at least the equipment to make some furniture, like a bed, or a bed, but especially a bed.

I hadn't slept at all in the last two days.

(Huh?)

I chalked it up to the stress earlier, but now that I was more relaxed, I noticed that I wasn't feeling sleepy at all. I've been going on for more than 24 hours already, yet there wasn't a hint of being sleepy.

Did my body now work on a completely different circadian rhythm? Or was it simply just better able to deal with sleep deprivation that much better?

It was apparent that I had a ton to figure out about my new body.

I splashed the water from the fountain onto the rim and started to scrub all the dust off of it. Then I moved on and washed the pillar itself before cleaning myself.

When I climbed back onto the fountain ledge, I saw that the water had gotten cloudy. I hoped that I didn't mess the fountain up, and that it would be able to refresh the water on it's own.

Now that it was clean, I climbed on top of the pedestal, put my hands on my hips, thrust out my chest, and yelled in the best, deep and booming voice I could let out.

"Bow down pathetic mortals! For now, I.Am.Your.GOD!"

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...

Despite my best efforts, the voice that bounced around the hard walls was still light and girly.

But even still, I didn't regret it in the slightest. A pedestal like that existed for someone to use to look down on others, even if I was the only person in the room.

Satisfied with my foolishness, I lay down on the fountain lip to rest a bit, but a surprising sight greeted me instead.

The ceiling was covered in little glowing dots, like it was trying to be a recreation of the stars outside.

I had forgotten, but it was strange that I could see in this room so clearly. Without that glowing ceiling, the cave should've been pitch dark after the first few bends, but instead was probably brighter than the outside.

This clinched it. This was going to be my new home for the foreseeable future. It would've been a shame for something this nice to be left abandoned.

 

After a short break, I noticed that there was another entrance on the other side of the fountain. Thinking about it, it was pretty obvious, but I had gotten completely distracted by the strange sight of a fountain inside of a cave.

Piqued, I tried exploring this path.

Just like the other path, the cave winded back and forth gently for a short while before light from the other side started to reach me. But unlike the first time, the light on this side was much brighter, making it difficult for me to see. I put a hand on one wall as I followed the path, blinded by the strong light.

Suddenly I stepped on what felt like grass. The cave floor was hard stone all the way through, so there was no way for grass to be growing anywhere.

The rock wall ended, but I took a few more steps, feeling out the grass.

My eyes finally adjusted to the brightness and I froze at the sight before me.

What greeted me was the sight of an open field. A giant plains that continued for as far as I could see, the ground covered in tall grass.

Somehow, I entered a mountain, and after walking less than 100 meters, I ended up outside again.

There was no way I had somehow gotten to the other side of the mountain so quickly, nor could it have been some sort of clearing hidden inside of the mountain or something.

I felt like I was having heart palpitations. My hands were shaking and I was hyperventilating.

This scene was absurd, and went straight beyond simply not adhering to my own brand of common sense.

This was wrong. So extremely wrong that I couldn't wrap my head around it.

I rotated my head skyward to give myself some breathing space, but instead something bright entered my eyes, forcing me to squint, right before my eyes almost shot out of their sockets.

Everything was pushed aside for a single emotion: terror.

Turning around, my feet took me back the way I came, faster than I could think. I didn't have time for that, nor the leeway.

I slammed into the cave wall, but it hardly did anything to slow me down, as I just dragged myself back to my feet and continued running, bouncing off the walls in the narrow hall like a pinball.

Soon, I ended up back in the fountain room.

Without a single thought, I dove into the fountain and hid my body behind the pedestal under the curtain of water.

I held my head in my shaking hands, tears running down my face as I desperately drew breath.

...

(How did I even get back?)

Once I had calmed down enough for my brain to reboot, the most obvious question struck me.

I had been standing under the sun for a good ten seconds before I freaked out and ran for the shade. If my previous experience proved, it took only a fraction of a second for my my skin to start incinerating like a paper airplane being shot down by a sci-fi plasma cannon.

I looked down at my hands and there weren't any burn marks on them. I stretched around and inspected my body the best I could without a mirror and couldn't find a single mar on my skin outside of the partially healed burns from the previous day.

Somehow, I had come out of that ordeal completely unharmed.

The very thought and inconsistency with my sole previous experience was so mind boggling that I thought my brain was starting to overheat as I tried to process it and simply dunk my head into the water in a desperate attempt to distract myself.

...

Once my lungs started to burn from the lack of oxygen, I surfaced and leaned against the fountain's pillar, too mentally tired to properly support my body as I tried to wrap my head around the situation.

Sunlight was deadly against vampires like me, just like in the stories. The effect was instantaneous, as I had experienced. But the sun in those plains had no effect on my body.

Either there was some sort of hidden factor that, combined with the sun, caused me to spontaneously combust, or that sun wasn't real.

It was then that I came to realize a suspicious point, and got up.

I'd been unnerved enough that I was shaking as I got out of the fountain, but if I'd regret it if I didn't check out the truth.

With unsteady steps, I made my way to the first entrance and slowly made my way outside with my body pressing against the wall. After a few gentle turns, I reached the end of the tunnel.

One glance was all it took for me to confirm it: it was still night. I could see the stars and three coloured objects in the sky, which were most likely moons, not suns. I reached out and let the light touch my skin directly to further confirm that I wasn't hallucinating or something.

Now that I had confirmed this, I went back into the cave, past the fountain, and reached the other side.

I was this time greeted by a vast, open plains. And on this side, it was day. It wasn't possible for me to have lost track of time to the degree that midnight had turned to midday in the less than hundred meters I had travelled just now.

With a shaking hand, I reached out to test the light on this side of the cave.

The tip of my claw grew light from the sun, but aside from that, nothing had happened.

But that wasn't enough proof. It was possible my claws were simply impervious to such an issue, so after I steadied my breath, I reached out a bit further, and let the light touch the tip of my finger. Then the first knuckle, and the second, then the palm of my hand.

I kept moving out further and further, before my entire body was bathing in the light of the sun, except that was impossible from my own experience.

If I was standing under sunlight without turning into ash, then the only possible answer was that I wasn't actually standing under the sun in the first place. The fact that just on the other side of the cave it was still night was proof of that. I hadn't somehow teleported to the other side of the world or something, but I was in a place that simply seemed like it was outside during the day, rather than actually be that.

A space that simulated an environment, that defied the physical limitations of location. A place perhaps bigger on the inside than the outside. In all sorts of games and stories, there was one that fit that description: the dungeon.

Especially in recent books, dungeons were a magical space that simulated various environments including outdoor ones. They endlessly spawned monsters and were either impervious to or automatically repaired any damage to the environment within. They also often automatically removed anything that wasn't alive if they weren't carried by something that was after a certain amount of time. On top of that, treasures of all sorts existed to be harvested from within. Their purposes varied from being something intentionally created by an intelligent force to draw people inside to spontaneously coming to existence as a physical phenomena that existed in the world.

There were a lot of rules I needed to figure out, but it was probably safe to assume that the fountain room was most likely a part of this dungeon. If this wasn't the only one in the world, then it was pretty likely that fountains existed at the beginning of every dungeon.

That being said, it was weird for there to be such a thing. A room that indicated the beginning of the dungeon wasn't too strange, but a fountain specifically was weird. Why water? Anything could've been used to greet people, and anyone who purposely came to a dungeon would've brought their own water source. It wasn't like the nearest river was that far in the first place.

I couldn't figure out the reason, so instead I came back from my tangent.

Frankly speaking, I was still shaking. The incident the previous day had obviously traumatized me, and just standing in this artificial sunlight really put me on edge.

But on the other hand, I had found a dungeon. Dungeons were pretty much always treasure troves in fantasy stories. Even if there weren't any literal treasure, there were monsters, which meant I had an endless supply of blood to feed off of. For me, that meant food, XP, and free skills. For a vampire, I imagined that these were more important than any kind of treasure that could be found in any chest.

Since I declared that fountain as my new home, this dungeon was my backyard. It was only natural that I'd conquer such a thing!

(But maybe tomorrow)

I was a vampire, so I operated better at night. If it was daytime inside the dungeon, then I'd simply wait until it was night here before I started any hunting.

With that thought, I turned around and walked back to my home and lay down on the fountain lip.

The stone was a bit cold for sleeping on, especially with how skimpy my outfit was, but it wasn't unbearably so.

So with that, I went to sleep for the first time since arriving in this world.

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