Stray Soul

After the adventurers were done resting, they started checking out the layout of the floor, and Heinrich started mapping it out.

And, though they entered a few rooms and cleared the undead in them, they didn’t linger around for too long and after less than an hour, we were in front of one of the stairs.

And while the adventurers easily went inside, I had to squeeze my way through as the door was too small for me.

But I managed to squeeze thorough and started following after the adventurers as they went a floor up and we entered floor 1.

*SCREE—*

*Bang~*

A giant rat appeared after Xavier opened the door. But he just gave it a kick, and the rat flew towards a nearby wall and quickly crashed and died.

After a moment, waiting to see if any other monsters were going to come, we proceeded into the floor, assuming nothing was being drawn to us from the noise and... immediately got swarmed by ants.

They weren’t strong at all, but the suddenness of their waves caused problems for the adventurers.

And, no, I did not help the adventurers.

I would kill the occasional ant or other monster that came close to me, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to kill them as there was really no need for me to do so.

Congratulations! You have levelled up and become level 31!

Lifting my claw up and shaking the ant guts off, I followed the adventurers into a room and after we closed the door, I opened my system and put 7 of my 12 points into wisdom, bringing it to 60, and put the rest 5 into intelligence, bringing it to 80.

Then Heinrich did what he always did when we came into a room and looted it of anything that may be important.

And I inched my way towards the undead on the ground while they were not paying attention, and pulled its soul into me, and placed it next to the other 4 I had.

I honestly wasn’t sure if these souls were the souls of people or monsters, as there wasn’t any rule that said that the dungeon had to only recycle the souls of people, but I was going to still keep them inside of me and bring them outside.

Just in case.

Then we entered a few more rooms, I got a few more souls, they discussed if they should go into one of the cafeterias, decided not to and then we moved to the stairways, ready to get to floor 2, but the adventurers decided to sleep as... well, they had spent around 4-5 hours in the dungeon by now, and we had entered the dungeon quite late thanks to me, so it was definitely night now.

And as they set up watches for the night, I told them I’d be back after a few hours and went back to floor 1.

Why? Well, I had seen the start of a few tunnels while we were exploring, and I wanted to know if there was another entrance in this floor or not.

And more exp would be appreciated too!

Not that H ranks gave me a lot anymore, as, due to some system fuckery, it decided that whenever I killed an H rank that was not 20 levels below me, it would give me half the exp I was meant to get!

Stupid system... honestly, I’d go on and on and on about how bad the system is and insult it at every other word. But I just can’t be bothered to anymore.

System bad, I am right, and everybody knows it. End of story.

Entering a tunnel without much of a fanfare, I used the tried-and-true method of following the right wall and set off into the depths!

And I was met with centipede ambushes after a few moments inside!

Not that they bothered me though, as they were just weaker than my body, and the exp they brought was still welcome, no matter however small it was.

***

I continued going through sprawling caves, and after defeating a few more waves, and ambushes I was able to reach level 32, and reach nearly the half-way mark to level 33.

Then, I spent 10 of my 12 stat points on intelligence and put the remaining 2 to wisdom, bringing my intelligence to 90 and my wisdom to 62.

But that was not the only interesting thing that happened in my travels through the tunnels as I found a batch greenish ore in a part of the tunnels.

Now, I wasn’t sure if it was copper or not because... fantasy world.

For all I know its just some funky rock, but I was definitely going to bring some goblins to come take a look at this or bring a few pieces down to the village myself.

Though mining this vein might be hard for the village right now as I just cannot see goblins managing to stay this deep into the dungeon without getting hurt quite a bit.

No matter how weak the monsters here are, not getting injured while mining here or defending the miners is just improbable.

Marking the vein in my mind, I continued walking forwards, still following the wall to my right, and after... some time, not sure how long it actually was, I entered a long tunnel that was mostly empty, and the end of the tunnel was blocked by a thick layer of foliage, which took some time to cut through, but I managed to do it.

And as the last of the plants covering the tunnels end were removed, I stepped out forwards and got out of the dungeon.

“...So, there’s another entrance here...” I muttered, looking at the forest and seeing the sky turning slightly blue as the sun was starting to rise from the other side of the mountain... fuck its morning already.

Following the way I came from, I quickly rushed back to the stairway where the adventurers started resting. Ignoring the monsters in the tunnels and being careful in the 2nd floor proper, I was able to get back to where the adventurers were after a few hours and when I returned, they were long gone.

“...Haahhh... fuck me.”

“...It’s... not opening.” Xavier zaid after zpending a minute or so trying to open a door to the ztairway.

“Want me to try it?” Lazarus came forwards and tried to open the door himself but gave up a few moments later.

“Yup, its stuck... so, do we destroy the door now?” He asked.

“Umm... why?” Caroline then asked him.

“I mean... it’d be fun? This dungeon has been pretty boring so far, so we may as well make some fun for ourselves.” He zaid.

...

Everyone was zilent for a moment after hearing his ztupid argument.

“...Let’s just check the other doors first.” Elise zaid and started walking towards where the other doors were located in the previous floors, but after zearching the edges of the floor, we were only able to find one another stairway that led up.

Then Xavier came forwards and tried to open the door again.

“...Nope, this one’s stuck too.”

“See! I was right! We should just destroy it and continue forwards!” Lazarus zaid.

“We can’t, not only because it would alert the monsters in the floor, but also because these doors were probably not closed by the dungeon, and instead by the people who were here before hand.

“We zhould either leave the upper floor be, or zearch for a key to open the doors.” I told him.

“A key? Can we even find a key that hasn’t already been destroyed in this place? And, even if we did, would it work on these doors? I still think we should just break the doors.” Lazarus zaid.

“...I have no idea why you are zo focused on breaking the doors and going to the next floor but, we just cannot risk there being traps on the other zide—” While I was ztill talking, the zound of zomething crashing through zomething echoed in the distance, and we all turned towards it but... no monster rushed at us.

“What was that?” I asked to no one in particular, and after a few moments, we ztarted going towards the zource of the zound in formation and after we reached the zource of the zound we zaw a... thick layer of foliage trying to zqueeze its way through the other door to the third floor...

“...I told you that we should’ve destroyed the door.” Lazarus then zaid in a totally not gloating tone.

And after he talked, the mass of foliage ztopped moving and a zingular eye appeared at the back of the deity and looked at us.

“Oh... you’re here. Thought I’d lost you for a moment there.” It zaid and squezzed itself out of the door and gazed at us for a few moments.

“So... you’ve been to the 3rd floor already or...” It asked us.

“No, we were just about to go up...” I then told it, and we advanced forwards with Xavier in the front, and the deity tailing us.

Going up the ztairways, we were met with another locked door, but one that we were able to open this time without completely destroying it.

And entering the 3rd floor proper, we found just a collection of empty rooms and a few broken crates, with zeemingly no monsters around whatsoever.

The only interesting thing around was the closed off room at the north side of the floor that had a closed gate connecting it to the rest of the floor.

A closed gate which looked like the gate at the entrance of the dungeon.

Zeeing the clear zimilarities, I immediately started making a rough copy of the gate on my diary, as the others went around to explore the room.

As Heinrich sat down in front of the gate and started studying its construction and the inscriptions on it almost religiously, the other adventurers separated into 2 groups with Caroline and Lazarus standing back with Heinrich, and Xavier, Xylene, and Elise continuing on the exploration of the floor.

I, too, left Heinrich and his group and started exploring the mostly empty floor, and started going through the crates I found around.

*Crack~*

A cracking sound came from beneath my feet after I started getting away from another empty crate, having finished checking it.

Lifting my feet up, I saw a small... opaque glass diamond?

Wait no, this is not glass, is it?

Grabbing the glass crystal with my claws, I tried to understand what it was for a moment, and, due to no reason in particular, I started prodding it with my mana too and it absorbed it!

“Ah... a mana stone? Here?” I muttered to myself, surprised that a mana stone was here as I didn’t expect there to be one laying around the floor randomly... and the mana stone would be really useful! Only if I hadn’t crashed it with my feet...

Looking around more carefully, I managed to find a few other mana stones that were pretty broken, and completely out of juice.

But I took them anyways as... well, they were still mana stones. It didn’t really matter if they were broken or not as they could still be useful.

After going through a few more rooms, I got bored, and returned back to where the adventurers were and saw that Heinrich had stopped copying down whatever he was seeing from the gate and had started trying to cast spells at the gate.

He’d first write down a spell he crafted on his notebook, using the symbols on the gate, and then he’d put down the notebook and try to cast whatever spell he was trying to cast.

“...Are you trying to open the gate?” I asked him from behind the other adventurers and saw him mess up a spell the moment I talked.

Nothing bad happened to him, but the magic circle he was drawing on the air just broke and its mana dispersed.

“...Yes. I am trying to open the gate, but I fear that I may be unable to do zo as I’ve never zeen this magical language before—or anything like it really.

“It is as if it has evolved separately from the other, more common, languages. And it being a specialized language, focused on barriers and locks doesn’t help either.

“Zo, it may take me a few hours before I am able to open the door, or I may never be able to do zo like I zaid.” He said and started writing down a new spell on his notebook.

“Hmm... is making your own spell from a language you’ve never seen before the only way to open this gate? I feel like there should be an easier way to do this...”

“Indeed, finding the gate’s key, or zimply overwhelming it with mana, zurgically or forcefully, would be easier. Alas, we do not have the key, and I doubt that it’d be anywhere in the dungeon and overwhelming it with mana is... well, impossible for us as we’d need around a hundred thousand, or a million mana to do zo.

“Zpecialised languages are a... real pain, aren’t they?” He said smiling.

And I looked at him and his notebook for a few moments.

“...You know, I’d thought you’d come here more prepared, as I’d never thought that grave robbers like you—”

*Crack~*

After I said the word “Grave Robber”, the pen in Heinrich’s hand cracked—it wasn’t fully broken, probably due to its expensive nature and perhaps some enchantments on it, but I could clearly tell that whatever I said pissed him off... quite a bit.

Then a tense silence overtook the room. That is until Lazarus broke.

“Pfft~” He... found me accidentally insulting his friend funny?

I mean... okay, I guess?