4. To Altrelt Dungeon
|4* To Altrelt Dungeon*|
|Kanari's POV|
°.°.°.°.°
Before the sun had fully set, I had set up my tent and fixed up the monster/beast repellent. It was a wonder how the people here hadn't made a proper way to ward off monsters and beasts with a barrier of sorts. And if they °did° have a proper warding mechanism against monsters and beasts, Marche wouldn't have had brought them in our camp, overpowering the repellent with the multitude of bait.
'Hope that Ester and Eideeth wouldn't get depressed with my disappearance.' I thought that to myself, feeling very narcissistic. I mean, there's a chance that Ester °would° be depressed, with the two of us being part of each other's life ever since I was born. But Eideeth was a different matter entirely. I mean, I could have been just her girl toy! And is it bad to show attraction to the person who had fucked you for hours straight? Kinda? But I still like her! Okay!
But we're getting off topic. With my camp all good and prepped up, time to cook up dinner! Sadly, my meat reserves were nearly depleted, and I will °not° eat the rations unless I absolutely have too. Dried jerky is so "bleh". Much worse than bacon! Want to convince me otherwise? Fight Me!
So, I decided that I'll hunt before it completely gets dark around my camp. Finding something to cook wouldn't be too hard. This place has an abundance of critters. Unlike Earth, organic life here can be produced purely out of mana! Though animals are more abundant than beasts and monsters. So there hadn't been a record of a species of, may it be normal animals, or beasts and monsters, going extinct! So even if beasts and monsters keep on eating the animals, they could be just easily be replaced.
Also, it was also theorized that the world had a set amount for each species, and that's why animals like rabbits haven't overrun the place.
Anyways, back to the matter at hand, I didn't bring anything with me, on my person anyways, and went out of the repellant's range. And instantly, I found a group of fluffs scurrying around.
'[Analysis].' I thought to myself, and just like I had predicted, the [Status] of the rabbit had appeared in front of me. There wasn't anything special about it, other than its [Magic Points] being abysmally low, [Spells] being empty, and it's [Skills] having what a nornal rabbit should have, like [Leap], [Hop], [Agility Raise], [Danger Sense] and what not. But, since I'm already checking it's [Skills], I decided to use [Skill Steal] on its [Agility Raise] and [Danger Sense].
Nothing seemed to happen to the rabbit physically, but I had successfully stolen its two skills as I rechecked its [Status]. And since it didn't have and [Spells], I can't try stealing it, to check if [Skill Steal] only works on, well, skills. Haven't still checked its full description though, but I'll do it later on.
For now, a simple [Sharpen] on a palm-sized rock, [Accuracy Raise], [Dexterity Raise] and [Strength Raise], skills which I have learned while in the castle, were all I needed.
With [Accuracy Raise], as its name implies, I didn't have to focus too much in aiming, especially when the raise in my dexterity made it more easier for me to hit the rabbit more accurately. And, without further ado, I threw the rock, and to my absolute shovk and worry, the rock had hit the rabbit, but unexpectedly, I didn't even see the rock when the rabbit's head exploded from the impact, -overkill I tell you!- and the rock had caused a mini-crater! Like, holy shit! That poor bunny!
Obviously, I had forgotten about my weird stats, and raising any of them would be redundant at this point. However, if my [Strength Stat] was that messed up, and I have raised that, more damage should have had been done, I'll check it later.
Coming close to the rabbit's headless corpse, I felt very sorry for accidentally brutalizing the poor bunny. Still, its body should be enough for dinner. Putting its carcass into my inventory, I quickly made my way back to my camp, wanting to avoid any beasts and monsters that would have heard the small explosion from my attack.
°.°.°.°.°
[Skill Steal]
^
[This allows you to be able to steal [Skills] that you have some proper knowledge of from any creature with no consequences.]
[Skill Steal] was the first new skill I had checked, and like every description the system gave, it wasn't enough and lacked some aspects. A bit unreliable, but it is what it is. Though, it still does help, and now that there was no mention of it saying that [Spells] can also be stolen, it seems that [Spells] can't be stolen be this skill, though I would still like to try it out.
[Analysis]
^
[It allows you to take a look of another person's/a creature's [Status] without their permission.]
'Ugh.' I mentally groaned at the skill's description, but it at least wasn't even hard to understand what it was meant to do, and it actually pairs well with [Skill Steal]. However, I would need to experiment with them. When I had stolen the skills from the rabbit earlier, I hadn't checked their description, and [Skill Steal] needed to have some "proper" knowledge of the skill first to be a success. I only knew their names and had been able to guess what they could do.
[Resurrection]
^
[When you die, you get resurrected from the dead.
Drawbacks for 1 month:
EXP gain down by 70%.
All Stats will be reduced by 30%.
Fatigue gained will be 5% faster.
Warning: Being [Resurrected] again in under 1 month will give more drawbacks.]
"Huh." This was a new one, the Drawbacks I mean. None of the skills I had didn't have any drawbacks, or a warning. But honestly, it's totally overpowered, so a limit is definitely expected. Which the new skills I had received should have, but I ain't gonna look a gift horse in its mouth.
[Copycat]
^
[It let's you copy a person or creature's physical appearance, or even just partially.
Skills, Spells, and Titles can also be copied with a good amount of knowledge of it.]
I would seriously want to talk to the person who had made this system. It was just so... lazy-like and a bit weird. The second part should, which is the more important one, should be the first in the description.
"Welp. That's that." I said aloud as I stirred my Rabbit Stew, whilst feeling giddy, disappointed, and hungry. Giddy with these overpowered skills, disappointed with the lackluster descriptions, and, well, hungry.
Anyways, time to eat.
¡~°.°.°.°~¡
|Timeskip|
!~°.°.°.°~!
It took about two days for me to finally reach Altrelt Dungeon, one of the still unconquered Dungeon's in the world. Then, because of that, Altrelt Dungeon is one of the famous dungeons the world has, and is a hot spot for Adventurers and the like. And, being a hot spot for many people, a town was built around it.
Inns, markets, bars and such encircles the dungeon. And that was why it took me one more day to enter the dungeon itself, because I had booked one night in the best in there was, the first thing I had done the moment I entered the town after giving the guards my fake identification papers. Then I walked around the market selling whatever monster and beast related items in my [Inventory] that I didn't need and buying materials, food, ingredients and such for the whole morning, ate lavishly at a restaurant for lunch, then I spent the afternoon conversing with adventurers, learning from their experiences -if they were nice enough to spend their time teaching a noobie, which was surprisingly, a lot of them were patient to teach me. Probably my charm, but I would off-handedly mention that I was male, which worked most of the time.-, before eating at the inn I had booked a room for the night and sleeping in a very comfy bed.
And now here I am, standing in front of the majestic dungeon gates, open wide for all to see the darkness it held inside, which was deep into a dug up part of a big hill, merchants and stalls lining up on the sides.
I was very excited, and even the stares I was getting didn't piss me off as it did much. Whether people were staring at me warily, with suspicion, and disbelief, I ignored them. Especially the disgusting ones I kept receiving from the men, where they raked their eyes at every inch of my body. Even when I had wrapped a bandage around my breasts to seem flat-chested, wore male equipment and clothes, covered half my face, I still looked quite feminine, and my charm related skills didn't help as I they were one of those passive [Skills] that can't be turned off.
As much as I want to flaunt my beauty -if I wasn't suddenly feeling self-conscious and insecure-, the stares from men just send unpleasant shivers down my spine. But for now, I was ignoring the annoying leers I was receiving, opting to marvel at the majestic gate of the dungeon.
After a while, not wanting to stand in the middle of the road and annoy others, I began to make my way towards the Identification Stands, politely declining the merchants calls directed at me to buy their wares and potions with a smile and a small shake of the head.
Once near the gates, I noticed how I wasn't able to see even a meter into the dungeon, something having to do with illusion magic makithe outsiders only see darkness inside it from what I heard from one of the adventurers I had conversed with yesterday.
Undeterred with the sight of the "infinite darkness" -which could actually cause someone to go insane if they look at it for too long-, I went to one of the free ID stands. Luckily, to accommodate for the amount of adventurers and the such entering Altrelt Dungeon, a lot of ID stands were put up so that there wouldn't be a line and a need to wait for too long.
And, as a form of support, a pretty face manned each and every ID stands, and the one I went to had a woman that resembled a stern CEO!
'She can step on me and make me call her "Mistress~" whenever she wants~!' I thought to myself, fantasizing for a moment before putting on a wide smile, which the black-haired, red-eyed, glasses-wearing woman just stared at with an icy, emotionless gaze that just sent pleasent shivers down my spine.
"I'd like to enter the dungeon." With the most cutesy voice I could muster, I spoke to her, wishing I hadn't put a bandage to hide my boobs, so that I could squeeze them with my forearms, making my modest breasts show some cleavage while looking cute at the same time.
"Are you to enter all by yourself?" The woman asked, voice being cold enough to make my masochistic side force me to nearly cum on the spot! And I wasn't exaggerating, just a kinky pervert with an imaginative mind.
Though I was quite surprised she didn't say anything about how young I looked. I always did get mistaken to be around 13, a minor, to be precise, or a loli, for a handful of people, with a surprisingly curvaceous body.
"Mm-hmm." I hummed as a response, swaying myself back-and-forth on the spot while thinking about things. Like how this woman wouldn't probably surprised with a lot of things, such as my child-like body, if she had experienced a lot of bizarre things.
"Hmm. Are you confident in entering Altrelt Dungeon, facing against its monsters, all by your lonesome?" She questioned with narrowed eyes, and I wouldn't have minded stepping into the stand, then groveling onto the floor to lick her toes through her pantyhose -which I hope she had on-.
"Very." Was my curt and simple reply.
Raising a tentative brow, she went to look at my forged identification letter, which had a basic overview of my stats, [Tier], level, achievements, some titles, and criminal records, which I have none.
I also forgot to mention that [Analysis] could give a brief description of a person, if they were "good" or "bad", which helped me a lot as I had used [Copycat] on the people's skills and spells I considered "good", while I used [Skill Steal] on the people I considered bad, which were mostly people who I arrogantly felt that they deserved to have their [Skills] stolen. I mean, I have no right in doing so, but I never said I was someone who would be a total Hero paired with a White Knight Syndrome, or a Savior/Hero complex. I am pretty bad myself.
Anyways, as I had gotten into an internal rant, the woman seemed to have finished inspecting my identification paper.
"Well, with your current stats, level and tier, I would recommend you to stray deeper from the twenty-second floor." Giving me back my identification paper, I smiled as I put it into my [Inventory], feeling a bit disheartened that I didn't receive any complement from the taller women, which was something I easily got.
"Thank you." I managed to say as softly as I could, making sure that there was no disappointment in my voice.
As I was about to pass the magical barrier, used to keep anyone from entering just is, I was suddenly stopped by a hand holding onto my forearm. I was about to jerk my arm away, but I stopped myself from doing so once I saw who was holding me.
The tall, gorgeous, ravenette held onto my arm with firm, cold gaze, sending pleasurable jolts into my system. And, without letting go, and even went as far as to holding my hand, as I have let her.
"Since you are going by yourself, you'll need this." Turning my palm upside, she placed what seemed to be a crystal onto my palm, before using both her hands to make me close my fingers around it. Her hands on mine were definitely a welcome feeling.
"This is a [Dungeon Escape] gem, specifically made for escaping a dungeon, as it's name implies." She supplied with the same tone she had been using since earlier, clear and cold.
Looking at the small, diamond shaped, flat, purple crystal with a symbol of Alterlt, an upside-down tornado, I recieved a sudden realization. From the adventurers I had talked with, some had mentioned that it was mandatory for any who enters any Dungeon to have a [Dungeon Escape] item -scroll, crystal, tome, etc.-, which were easy enough to get, as every ID personnel would give them away for free, as they were easily mass produced and cheap.
However, they of course had a difference in quality. A [Dungeon Escape] scroll was the most common and cheap one they give away, but it would take the user a minute to escape, which would be fatal, while the crystal one, like the one I have, would instantly send the person to the entrance of the dungeon, and it did cost a lot.
"Th-this!?" I exclaimed, eyes widening at the item in my palm. It was definitely a surprise, but I did feel a slight pang of fear with holding onto it. Putting my gaze onto the woman, I was more surprised to see a grin playing on her sharp, dashing face.
"Even if you are confident with your prowess, you are still a rookie. This item will send you out the Dungeon the moment it senses that you'll face something you couldn't handle, counting even Dungeon Bosses, in an instant." The woman, whose name I still didn't know, gave me a look that was something I was very much acquainted with. She, who earlier looked like a calm, cool beauty, was now leering at my body.
And now °this°, was something I appreciated. Perverted looks from beautiful women. I know, I'm very biased, but at least I don't completely hate every men out there. It was empowering, and definitely a turn on, the looks, I mean.
Trying my best to "hide" my blush, I proceeded to question the woman.
"I-I already have the scroll version though! Giving me this-" I cried out, only to be cut off by the woman.
"Take it. You'll eventually buy one anyways, so giving it to you now isn't much of a problem. A loan of sorts, only there wouldn't be any interest with it. Pay me whenever you can."
Grabbing something from her breast pocket, she put it into my free hand, but not pulling away and eyes staring deep into mine. "This is my business card. I'm just temporarily filling in for on of the staff members here, you'll find me at the |Harambie Main Guild|."
Then, before I could do anything else, she had put a hand onto my back and made me face the dungeon.
"Now, go on. I have other people to deal with." Pointing at the incoming party of adventures - I guess-, the woman, whose name I still don't know -but I'll most likely know later when I check her business card-, she then shooed me away.
Being a bit dazed, I just nodded and left.
'Did... Was?... I can't tell this was the equivalent of getting someone's phone number, or this was a form of scam.' I thought that to myself as I felt very, very confused at to what had just occurred.
Looking at the piece of paper on my palm, I felt a smile grace my lips.
[Willow Wints – Deputy Guildmaster
|Harambie Main Guild|
**** ******* *****]
The business card didn't have much, only the name, current position in her work, the location, and lots of decorations. Since this world was stuck in a Medieval and the "Modern" era slowly dominating the times -there were places in the world where they were technologically advanced-, I should have expected this much. Also, though Willow -wow. Willow. I have to admit, that's a sexy name.- wasn't a peasant, surnames were now common, as I've read from a history book. Just wanted to mention it.
Anyways! Shaking my head to shake away my current, and incoming negative, thoughts -I'm sure I would take more than a week inside the dungeon, which means I wouldn't be able to interact with Willow.-, I entered the dungeon!