Chapter 69: Chapter 64 – Garlic isn’t a Weakness

I splashed hot water on my face before getting out of the bath and dried myself with my evaporation spell.

Moving over to my clothes, I dunked the entire set into the fountain before scrubbing them with some soap, one piece at a time. In the need to distract myself from the previous conversation, I concentrated on cleaning my things up.

Thinking about it at this point wasn't productive. I simply didn't have the means to figure out how to move towards any of the possible goals for us at this point, and likely wouldn't get a chance until we moved on from this dungeon. It wasn't worth the time and stress to fret over it when nothing could be done about it.

Only when we've made some solid progress on it would thinking further on the topic would be fruitful. Until then, it would be no better than spinning our wheels in place.

Probably.

At the very least, I want to avoid making progress on the pregnancy front.

Once everything was washed, I dried them using magic before putting it all on again.

*sigh*

<Master, no matter how much you want to become Alicia's mother, we still need to find out how babies are even born first!>

<Uah?! Wh, what do you mean, no matter how much?!>

<I know everything about you after all Master! The way you keep looking sad and touching your belly, you really want to bear a child like the other races can, right?>

(She says she knows everything about me, but sometimes it feels more like she knows almost nothing about me.)

Even still, to think that I was holding my belly that much.

<Do you know how it happens Alicia?>

<Huh?! Umm, well, my previous mommy's belly grew big before my little brothers and sister were born...>

<But how did your brothers and sister get inside of your mommy's belly?>

<Umm...I don't know. I think my previous daddy did something to help, but when I asked them before, they wouldn't tell me.>

<I see. Maybe it's some sort of secret passed along the other races? How do you think we can find out Master?>

<Huh?! Ah, umm...I dunno. If its such a big secret, maybe it'll be hard to just ask?>

<I guess that's true. But we spent so much time trying to figure it out before, it might take a long time before we can put Alicia into your belly in the same way.>

<Mmmmm...>

(Was this maybe a way out for me? It did seem incredibly flimsy though.)

<Anyways, there's no way for us to make any progress on it while we're here, so let's change gears, shall we?>

<Of course Master.>

<Okay.>

<Now then, how about we organize the items we have? Now that I think about it, I just threw everything that fits into my bag, and some of the stuff I don't even know what they are.>

<I'll do the identifying!>

<Then I'll be depending on you for that. Claret, can you help me organize the things I take out?>

<Of course!>

With the two's help secured, I hurried to dry my clothes so I could get dressed, then started to take out items from my bag. Alicia used [Scan] to tell me what each item was and what it did, while Claret took the things I handed her and placed them on the ground, grouped them up.

 

<So that's a black maned bear pelt. The fur is not only soft and warm, but strong against cuts, and the thick hide resists cutting, tearing, and even pads against impact.>

<Huh, so it's pretty useful as armour even if just worn as is then. We just used it as a blanket back home.>

<Oh, so that thing was one of these? It really felt nice.>

<I'll put it together with the rest of the leather then Master.>

<Sounds good.>

<This one is an orichalcum ingot. Orichalcum is a strong metal with exceptional conductivity with mana.>

<That explains things...>

If my memory served right, then this was dropped from the iridescent golem from the 87th floor of our home dungeon. There was one memorable thing about that monster, aside from how pretty the surface of its shiny body was.

<What do you mean?>

<Oh, just that the monster that I got it from seemed to neutralize any magic I used against it.>

Nothing worked, not unless if I pulled all the stops and unleashed something especially big, but if I did that then I couldn't hope to retain enough MP to finish the floor. At least unlike the other two types of golems of the floor I've encountered, this one wasn't that strong against physical attacks. Though it was still beyond steel.

If it was made from the same material as this ingot, then I understood firsthand just how amazing of a metal it was. It made me wonder on the other hand, what else it was capable of. What sort of weapon could it be used to make, what other sort of thing could it be used for.

<I see. That would be annoying to fight.>

<Yea, but it wasn't as bad as the black golem.>

<You mean the one you got the adamantium ingot from?>

<Yea. That one was the worst. At least it was a lot slower than the other two golems.>

While the light silver golem that dropped the mithril ingot was fast for its size, since it didn't have any extraordinary properties, it was comparatively easy to beat. Comparatively, not easy.

As I didn't have problems keeping up with its speed, for me the mithril golem was the easiest to deal with, whereas the orichalcum forced me to fight exclusively in physical combat, severely limiting my capabilities and forcing me to fight in ways I normally didn't. The adamantium golem was the worst for me overall as I hadn't discovered a way to fight it aside from pure brute force, where it was strongest.

I did have an ingot from each of the golems though, but I wasn't sure how I could use such things to help me. Maybe I'd find out if I asked around, but at the same time, considering how difficult the golems were, exposing that I have such things might attract unwanted attention.

It was an annoying predicament to be in, but at the same time, it was merely annoying. If things didn't go well, I could just farm up a ton of XP and skills and brute force the floor someday. Now that Alicia's safety wasn't an issue, continuing my conquest of our home dungeon could continue once we returned.

<Is something wrong Scarlet?>

<Ah, no, I was just thinking.>

Well, it was an issue for another time.

<Oh, that one's called herbal potion. It heals plus minus 10 HP.>

<Plus minus?>

<It's what it says.>

It was called a potion, but it could equally do harm as heal? It was something I got from the goblins, I think. There were a ton of random things I got without really thinking much of it. If I didn't have this magic bag of mine, I would've never even bothered picking up things like this dubious looking vial of dirty green water.

Looking at it closer, it looked more like a bacterial colony put into a blender than any sort of healing potion.

<This is probably best slated for the trash.>

<Yes Master.>

Together with other things that had no apparent use on top of being common items, the vials of herbal potions were taken out one after another and put into a pile. While I called it a pile, it wasn't really that much of a mound, as it was mostly made up of things from the early floors, at which most of the monsters didn't really offer much to make it worth hunting once I've explored the deeper floors.

In addition, while I did make it a habit to start picking everything up once I got my magic bag, I didn't get it until I've already made it quite far in the dungeon, and on top of having little reason to specifically go back to lower levels to farm weak monsters unless if some of them had drops that would've been useful for making Alicia's life better.

(Now that I think about it, my life really revolved around Alicia since I took her in huh?)

Ever since we met, I had abandoned making progress in the dungeon. It, along with getting stronger, was basically everything I did ever since my reincarnation, yet I threw it all away for the sake of Alicia.

Now that I had come to realize such a point, I wasn't sure what to think about it. On one hand, my entire life had completely changed from selfishly living for myself to devoting everything to caring for a single child. Most likely such a change would've been considered a good thing by popular opinion, I presumed. On the other hand, I had been forced to abandon my way of life for someone I didn't even know at the time.

Well, it wasn't like I regretted it, and I had no qualms about continuing to devote myself for Alicia's sake.

(Is this what it's like to become a parent?)

Such a strange, stray thought entered my head, but I couldn't discount it entirely. It was said that people changed when they become parents. It was possible that I had made a similar change, even though Alicia wasn't my child.

(She's definitely not my child, but my little sister.)

For some reason I felt like I needed to emphasize that point.

 

In the end, quite a lot of items ended up being assembled and organized. I was even forced to make containers from the dirt outside of the fountain room so that the items could be safely stacked. About three quarters of the room's space was taken up by such containers full of various items. From claws to hides to vials and jars containing liquids of all colours and even weapons and armour I chose not to use, there were all sorts of things taking up space in the fountain room, leaving very little left to move around in.

Shaking my magic bag upside down then pushing my arm inside it to the elbow, I confirmed that I had taken everything out.

Looking at it now, it was amazing just how much stuff fit into my bag. It was already like a small warehouse, and it wasn't even full yet. Some of the items were even still warm or cold, depending on which it was before I put it in.

Every time I experience the fact that anything I put inside stays completely unchanged when I take it out was quite something. I still hadn't gotten used to it, though I have depended on it a fair number of times. For example, there were still a sizable amount of foodstuff piled up that I had forgotten about. Some of it was even quite old, yet there was no indication of even the beginning of any of it deteriorating.

It did make me wonder...

<Claret, you said you can carry things using [Dimensional Magic] right?>

<That's right Master.>

<Does it work like my magic bag? Does time stop for things you put inside?>

<The more advanced version does, which I can do. Is there something you want me to carry for you?>

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<Ah, no, I was just wondering. It sounds even more convenient than my already amazing bag.>

<It's extremely convenient! I was so glad you made me learn it and raise its rank so high!>

I didn't even need to think about it to consider that its a must to learn if you had the time to, and since Claret and her old master spent centuries together, it was a given that they'd both have it.

There was no doubt I needed to work harder to learn the skill for myself.

While practising trying to grab and move around space using my aura, I went around to put everything back into my bag. Putting it in was much easier, as most of it was in properly made containers this time.

Once the filled containers were put away, I continued to the scattered items of too small quantities to bother making a container for. There were quite a lot of items like this, as most things that came from bosses and treasure chests ended up like this. In particular, there was a lot of armour and weapons that I chose not to use.

So much of the armour were heavy and restrictive, or seemed difficult to wear while I had my robes on, so they went without being used even once. The weapons looked more decent at first glance, but it didn't take long before I realized that it was extraordinarily rare to find one that I could use easily that was stronger than my claws. Even then, my claws tended to become stronger once I gained a few more levels or another rank in [Natural Weapons].

Most likely, if I wanted to use proper weapons or armour, I'd have to have them specifically made.

(No, maybe I won't ever find weapons worth using aside from when I want to hide the fact that my main form of physical attacking was my claws.)

As I was putting away the last few of the miscellaneous items, a white glow came from the fountain. Or rather, when I looked, it didn't come directly from the fountain, but from a pillar of light that was right beside the fountain.

After a moment, the pillar faded and revealed a figure in pearl white armour. From head to toe the figure was encased in the white metal that practically glowed. Most likely it was all mithril, but if it was, it seemed like complete overkill for this part of the dungeon.

(Perhaps the person was in the middle of clearing the dungeon and had only gotten as far as this floor so far?)

The armoured figure glanced over my way. I continued to put my items away, but the person continued to stare. As I tried to avoid looking back, my eyes ran across the still full bathtub.

(Ah, I'm glad I put my clothes on before anyone showed up.)

I got complacent, as I didn't see anyone for the last few floors.

The first six or so floors were very popular, but by the time I got to the tenth floor there weren't that many people around. By the fifteenth, it was extremely rare to see anyone, and we were on the twenty second, where I haven't seen anyone for the last four floors.

(But the fact that this person was here meant that they were probably pretty strong.)

I glanced at the person once more.

<Sarah O'Connelly, human, level 142...>

It looked like Alicia understood my intent.

<What is this?!>

<What, what's wrong?>

<This person's skills are all strange! Look!>

A window opened up in the corner of my vision containing the person's stats. While I didn't really have a grasp of what was normal or abnormal, there was one thing that was clearly abnormal by any standard. The skill list was massive. Unreasonably so at that. In fact, it was several times longer than my own, and I thought I had a lot of skills for a person of this world.

But what stood out beyond even that was the fact that most of the skills were only rank one. It was as if this person dedicated their entire life to just gather a wide variety of skills. But even if that was true, there should've been more skills that were at least rank two or three. It was hard to imagine that every skill aside from a select few were all rank one, especially as all the skills above rank one were all centred around combat.

And even if such a thing could've happened naturally, it didn't make sense that all the defensive skills as well as support skills were still only rank one. Even more so when the person even had every magic and crafting related skills.

[Mana Manipulation] was at rank one even though that person had every magic element skill? It was hard to believe.

On top of all that, the person hadn't moved from the spot after appearing, only staring at me the entire time.

Doing my best not to be unnerved by their behaviour, I quickly put all my items away, including the sheet with my status written on it.

It was unfortunate, but also expected, that Alicia wasn't able to use [Scan] on it. The worst bit was that it gave us a bit of a headache when the skill failed, but it quickly faded and we were left with an information window filled with gibberish.

Most likely it was because it came from outside of the system, so the system couldn't handle its data properly or something.

"Oh, so that's how you did it."

(Huh?)

Out of nowhere, the armoured person spoke up.

<Oh, it really was a woman.>

<That's a woman's name.>

<Yea, but you don't always know for sure about things.>

It was reassuring to know that a person called Sarah really was a woman. Even if her voice was pretty deep, it didn't sound like it belonged to a man. If she really did turn out to be a man, I'd think my body would sprout the biggest goosebumps in my two lives.

Finished with putting my items away, I shouldered the plush bunny shaped magic bag, leaving the unwanted trash aside.

"Are you done already? Not going to take the rest with you?"

"I don't need them. You can have it if you want."

The armoured woman slowly took steps towards me. Her left hand was thumbing her weapon at her waist as she stared at me, not letting her eyes leave me.

(Is it in her nature to be that cautious, or is it normal to be in a dungeon?)

In turn, I slowly took a step back, making sure not to look away from her. Claret was floating off to the side behind the strange woman, filled to the brim with vigilance.

"Oh how generous of you, to give so much to a complete stranger."

"Well, we're both exploring this dungeon. It's better for things unneeded by one to be used by another, right?"

"My, what a wonderful mentality!"

I couldn't see her smile under the full faced helmet, but from the look of her eyes through the vision slits, it didn't look like a good smile.

She took another step towards me, and I took another back. The armoured woman had reached the pile of offered items, but she didn't even glance at them. Not the loam wolf fangs, the herbal potions, the copper scorpion stinger. Instead, her eyes never left me as I was forced to stop taking anymore steps backwards, as there was only centimetres between myself and the wall behind me.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see both exits on either side to the left and right. The one on the left, the way back to the twenty first floor, was partially blocked by the junk pile. Claret moved up behind the armoured woman, readying herself to act in an instant.

"I must thank you for your generosity."

"No no, generosity is its own reward."

"No, I insist."

The woman closed in on me. She was standing a half step away from me.

This close, I could see all the details of her armour. The plates were simple and unadorned, but the finish was impeccable. There was chain mail visible in the small gaps between some of the plates, and some sort of black material that looked nicer than even Earth's silk. Not like I've ever touched such a thing.

Everything looked like it was fitted perfectly for the woman. Even the helmet conformed to the shape of her head beyond what I would've expected possible by the hands of a blacksmith, though that might've been simply my prejudice.

As she leaned in on me, the armoured woman was so close that I could feel her breath through the small breathing holes on her face plate blowing against my cheeks. My mind noted that there was a heavy stench of garlic.

"You've given me quite a lot of trouble you know?"

"I don't?"

Alarm bells started ringing harder than ever in my head. The sudden change in attitude made it really hard to doubt the hostility she held for me, even though I had no idea who she was.

"I don't care. You have. Despite their promises, your signal almost never showed up, and when they did, it barely lasted long enough for me to figure anything out. I'm glad though, you finally slipped up, and I was able to find you. Even though the signal cut out just as I reached this floor, there's no way that it could be anyone but you."

"Are you sure? I don't know what you're even talking about?"

From the corner of my eye, Claret floated within arm's reach of the armoured woman. There was a swirl of emotions racing across her face. Her hands raised ready to act were visibly trembling.

"Maybe you don't, but that doesn't matter, because it has to be you. You're that reincarnated vampire, I know it."

My eyes shot wide open at her words, and as they did, a flash of light glared at me from below.

Without any hesitation, I shot my right hand and punched down at where I estimated the pummel of the woman's weapon was. My fist impacted on solid metal as it drove her sword back into its sheath and unbalanced the armoured woman while spinning her hips around as a bonus. Just in case, I lightly struck her chest plate with the palm of my hand, knocking her up into the air and sending her back, halfway through the fountain room.

"Master! You! You'll die for that!"

But suddenly my attention was forced onto Claret instead. Pure fury reflected from her eyes as she bared her perfectly white teeth. Foam formed at the corners of her mouth as her breathing grew ragged in an instant. If I didn't know better, I could've sworn that she had suddenly grown rabid. She threw her arms down and back before slowly bringing them forward again.

All the shadows of the room grew in size as they lifted off their home surfaces and raced towards the armoured woman as she rolled across the ground from her sudden flight.

<Stop! We're getting out of here Claret!>

"No! She has to die! She absolutely has to die! I can't let her live!"

<That's an order Claret! Stop!>

"I can't! She can't be allowed to live! She needs to die now!"

My mind raced as the shadow tentacles raced towards the fallen body. There didn't seem to be any dents in her armour from the impact, but Claret was strong enough that she might be able to crush her anyways. Even if she couldn't it wouldn't be hard for her to attack in the armours gaps like the vision slits or breath holes. She wouldn't last more than a few seconds.

<I said stop!>

Desperate, I tried something drastic.

As Claret's attack was made from manifesting shadows, then their weakness was likely light. Though normal light would simply be absorbed without much effect, a powerful enough light might work. I only had one way to create such a powerful light, and the backlash would be harsh, I didn't want to be complicit for murder. Even if the other party started it, the sheer difference in strength made killing her feel more than excessive. At least until I knew more about what was going on.

Raising my left hand, I channelled many through it and fired off a powerful flash of light, strong enough that the light reflecting off of the room's surfaces was enough to even blind me. Gritting through the burning pain in my hand, even though I couldn't see, I could feel that Claret's mana had diffused into the air.

Taking that opportunity, I raced forward, hooking her body with my arm and carried the dark spirit out into the dungeon before she could try anything.

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