Kodama's First Death

After Gregory and Henry left, it was once more time to get to work upgrading the dungeon. It was a shame that Violet couldn't convince them to check out some of the other rooms, but she hoped that they'd, at least, think about it for the future. One slime was really not enough for Henry to continue training with in the long term. It would be far better for him in either the floodplains meadow or the hay meadow room since there were more slimes available.

Sure, the slimes could hide and make things more difficult to predict, but it wasn't like slimes stood much of a chance against people anyway. They could knock people over if they weren't paying attention, but it was highly unlikely that anyone would end up dying from that. People didn't have actual health bars that would end up killing them slowly just from being hit by a slime repeatedly, as far as Violet knew. She was pretty sure it was more a matter of lethality.

Regardless, Violet would need to spend her mana while she had the chance. Sure, most of the time only one party showed up at a time with several hours in between each group. However, who knew how long that would last? It was better to get into the habit of using up the new dungeon points and mana right away.

As there wasn't much left to spend mana on in the already-built rooms, Violet headed to the bottom right roundabout of the dungeon and built a 5 meters hallway before finishing it off with a 16 meters x 16 meters square room. All this costed 37MP, so she only had 13MP left to play around with. It really wasn't enough to do much more, but Violet still made the best of it as she spent another 4MP on creating a round 2 meters x 2 meters hole that was 10 meters deep.

Violet was hoping to create a wishing well in the center of the room. However, it would take a bit more time before she could afford most of the research and building costs. Still, once it was done, Violet figured it would be a good way to ask for tribute as well as a good start to a room meant for rest.

Maybe that seemed too kind considering Violet needed to keep her dungeon core safe. However, she didn't really care. It was also important to encourage more adventurers to visit her dungeon. Creating a room meant for rest somewhere that was around halfway through the floor was a good way to encourage repeat visits. So, she was likely going to create a room on every floor while also having a new place to request tribute in exchange for her kindness. Hopefully, this would also mean that she'd get more dungeon points to invest in upgrading the dungeon in the future.

While Violet was upgrading her dungeon, there was a party preparing to enter. The adventurer's guild from the nearby small city, Elesfield, had finally gotten a party put together to explore the new dungeon. Leading this party was Tobias Humbleweed, a half-giant who was tall, broad-shouldered, and fairly muscular. He was also quite popular with the ladies as his well-groomed red hair, vibrant green eyes, and charming smile were considered quite attractive.

Tobias didn't wear much in the way of armor, nor did he carry much gear. He was a melee fighting class with the ability to harden his skin into a metallic gray sheen that allowed him to easily defend himself as well as to increase the damage his punches could deal out. However, unlike those who were of the shifter race, Tobias had no hang-ups about carrying extra gear with him.

As a B-rank adventurer, rather little tended to threaten his life, but he still knew he was always better safe than sorry. Besides, most of his other party members were significantly weaker than him. So, the extra health, mana, and stamina potions were bound to come in handy.

"I think everyone else is about ready to head in. Do you still need more time, big brother?"

Mirabella Humbleweed was every bit a beauty as her brother was charming. However, she was actually the weakest member of their party at a mere D-rank and she only had a navigator class as well. However, her rare class was rather useful to the adventurer's guild and it tended to help fund their party's adventures, so no one complained about her holding them back.

"Yeah, we can head in now."

The party of four entered the dungeon and were plunged into darkness.

"This isn't good, maybe we should leave? I hear dozens of adventurers die every year from walking into dungeons unprepared. That number increases exponentially when the dungeon doesn't have a light source to help you detect enemies."

Matthias, the only human in the group, had a habit of being pessimistic, and now was no different. Somehow, though, his disposition seemed rather fitting considering he was a dark elementalist with long black hair, brown eyes so dark they almost looked black, and all-black attire. Even his staff screamed death as it was adorned with a tiny skull atop.

"We'll be fine! We are massively overpowered for a dungeon that is supposed to be nothing but slimes. We've had two different groups report back to the guild confirming this now."

Thodin Bharrum's gruff voice echoed through the dungeon as he spoke. His height contrasted quite a bit with the others in their party as he looked every bit the dwarf he was. His long, bushy beard, messy brown hair, and brown eyes rounded out the look quite well.

Matthias just continued to grumble as they continued along. He might have been a C-rank adventurer, but he sure as heck didn't act like one. If it weren't for the fact that he was a useful and capable ally, it was unlikely that his teammates would have even kept him around this long. His pessimistic attitude wasn't exactly good for morale.

Mirabella had a large, empty map open and was using one of her skills to map the dungeon as they went. The skill was quite useful as she would not only be able to memorize a dungeon map after one trip through, but she could also magically create copies onto any surface. Of course, mapping paper was the most sensible since it was easier to carry around than almost anything else.

When the group came across the first dungeon entrance and stepped through its threshold, they were surprised to go from pitch darkness to a room that was bright and sunny.

"See, nothing to worry about! It almost seems like a waste to have brought out the magic lantern now!"

Thodin laughed heartily and Matthias ignored him as he scanned the room warily. He never could quite relax in dungeons and he wouldn't have bothered with a life of adventuring if he didn't need to support his younger siblings. His father was on his deathbed, slowly dying and his mother's health was far too poor to do more than the minimum to care for his four younger siblings.

Matthias had been born to one of the poorest merchant families around. His father had been able to just barely afford to get Matthias trained as an adventurer after being appraised, but that had been in the better days of their family business. Now, the wagon his father had used to travel around buying and selling goods had been sold and his family had no other source of income to depend on besides his. While he wasn't optimistic about his chances of being able to live long enough to see his youngest sibling grow up, he had to try.

"Are there any [Traps] in here sister? All I'm seeing is a single slime."

Mirabella shook her head in response to Tobias's question.

"No, it seems this room only has two [Monsters] tied to it. Something called a kodama and this basic slime. Have you ever heard of a kodama before?"

Before Tobias could even answer, Matthias cut in with

"If we can't even see the monster, then it's too dangerous to be here. It could have some sort of camouflage skill and this slime could be meant to lull us into a sense of safety."

Tobias looked unsure as he scanned the room. He really couldn't see anything, but it still seemed unlikely that the monster would be that dangerous. This was still the first floor, after all, so only beginner [Monsters] could live on it. Even if it was a contracted monster that had wandered from the second floor, it would still be rather weak. Of course, his sister had specified the monster belonged to this room, so that meant even that wasn't likely to be a concern.

Just then, Thodin's laughter bellowed out as he picked something small and white up off of the ground. The strange creature wriggled about as he bellowed out

"You mean this monster? While it looks a bit creepy, I wouldn't say it looks particularly dangerous. It might even be one of those non-combat types."

Tobias nodded as he said

"Yes, well, let's take care of it just in case. Better safe than sorry."