Path of the Pioneers

For four days we traveled through the wilderness, the forest quickly turning into grasslands, with waves of green that nearly reached up to my knees. On the fourth day, just before the sun began to crest down underneath the woods behind us, we reached our destination.

The dungeon was a few miles outside of a small, coastal town. From its entrance, we could see tall windmills dotting the outer edge of the town. As Adeline had predicted, no guard post was present. The overseer of this town, the Count, paid this dungeon no mind.

The dungeon itself was a massive, ruined tower. Only a fraction of its spire remained, leaving it as a five-or-so meter high circle of mossy brickwork. The door was an open arch, with some sort of pale green, rippling stuff inside it.

Adeline smiled, leaning against the wall of the tower. She gestured towards the arch, “This is the entrance, alright. See the color? It shows the difficulty of the dungeon. It goes from blue, to green, to yellow, to red. With all the colors in between. You can kind of gauge how hard it’s going to be with that.”

She yawned, stretching, before stepping away from the tower to face the dungeon entrance. “Well, there’s purple, too. But that’s only when the dungeon’s just about to blow.” With that, Adeline walked through, disappearing into the entrance.

A bit startled by her haste, it took me a moment to follow suit. Walking through the entrance was an odd sensation. It had a physical feel to it, like submerging yourself in water. I felt myself being pulled away as I stepped through. It wasn’t painful, just slightly rough. As if I were being jostled around by a strong breeze.

After coming out through the other end, I glanced around. “..Adeline?”

[You have entered ‘The Dreadspire - Floor I (D)’]

[Surprise challenge active: ‘Randomized Entry’]

[Clear conditions: Defeat the boss of Floor I]

“..Are you serious..?” I sighed, hands on my head. My first time entering a dungeon, and something like this happens? “Perhaps my lucky streak has come to an end..”

Right. If what it said was true, Adeline and I arrived at different points. Dungeons are supposed to be filled with monsters, which meant I would need to fight my way through them to find her. First, I would need to get a bearing on my surroundings.

The walls were made of the same stone bricks as the tower itself, albeit far less mossy. The floor was made of some kind of dark wood. Every five meters or so, there were orbs slightly jutting out of the ceiling. They gently pulsated with light, keeping the place slightly illuminated.

The passageway was wide enough for a few people to occupy it, and the ceiling was about three meters high. I put my hand on my mouth as I thought things through. The passageway in front of me seemed to go on for quite some time, so maybe behind-

Suddenly, I heard thumping. Loud, stomping sounds on the wood, quickly getting louder. Something was rushing towards me.

Startled, I turned to face behind me, where the noise was coming from. I gritted my teeth as I used [Barrier]. It wasn’t made of threads anymore, a revelation that shouldn’t have been surprising. Instead, it was now pure mana shaped into a solid wall before me.

Some kind of blur, far bigger than me, charged straight into the barrier. It shattered like glass almost immediately, and I was sent sprawling onto the ground. Gasping for air after having the wind knocked out of my lungs, I looked up, my vision slightly blurred after hitting my head against the wood.

“S-shit..” The creature that struck me resembled a goblin, but much larger. A little taller than a normal man, even. It wore a tattered fabric loincloth, and its chest was covered in fur. The monster had a musculature that could only be described as “intense.”

It had a club in its hand, an unwieldy, wooden lump that looked like the perfect implement for caving in my skull. A use it was more than happy to accept. Now that I was on the ground, it walked towards me slowly, as if it knew that I was an easy target to finish off.

I raised my hand weakly. I needed to retaliate, but would [Energy Missile] be enough as it was? It was a gamble, but I couldn’t rely on the base performance. I needed to outdo myself.

Mana streamed from my heart into my hand, my fingertips tingling slightly as the energy gathered there. My spell needed more speed, far more speed. If this monster avoided it, I would die here.

I released the energy from my palm all at once. Some of it was used solely to propel it faster, disjoining itself from the missile. A sharp beam of mana fired out of my hand, flying at the monster and drilling clear through its throat before it could even react to the spell.

It clutched at its wound, gurgling and gasping. Its club dropped to the ground, and it quickly followed suit, thrashing against the wooden floor as it began to die.

With the chaos of the situation catching up to me, I let out a panicked sigh. Grabbing at the stonework wall, I stood myself back up, legs still shaking after being knocked to the ground so violently.

I turned to face my handiwork: the monster laying in a pool of its own blood, one hand reaching out for something while the other still desperately clung to its throat. Why did it look so human? I stared at it in horror. As it dropped its head and loosened its grip on its neck, I almost felt sick.

I bit the inside of my mouth. Did it matter if it looked human? Even if the men I pelted with rocks survived the trauma to their heads, I had killed at least one man already. Those flames couldn’t have spared him.

Holding onto the wall, I kept walking down the hall of the dungeon, in the opposite direction of the monster.

My master hated those people, the Crown and their agents, and I don’t think that she was wrong in thinking that. But the common soldiers who didn’t know any better? Those men surely thought they were chasing down a heinous criminal. And who could argue with them? Adeline forcefully amputated a man. Whether he deserved it or not, and how easy it may have been for him to have it restored were two separate matters.

Then again, she only wounded a noble, one who seemed distasteful from the brief description I was given. Those men were trying to kill her.. If I hadn’t helped..

Right. There was no use in worrying about it. I had no choice the matter. Besides, I had to find Adeline. If I lost focus on that, I would die here.

“Just keep going, that’s all that matters.”