Terrarian in the Dungeon

Once Rose finally got back with my folder, I saw her eyebrow twitching so I knew I was in some kind of trouble.

"Jake Bariss, did you specifically request me to be your Guild Advisor?" She all but demanded and I quickly shook my head as honestly, I expected to get Eina.

"Nope, not at all. I simply requested my advisor to be professional and know the dungeon very well." I responded waving my hands to the side to further show my innocence making Rose frown before she snapped my file closed with a loud snapping noise.

'"Fine follow me into the side room, we have much to discuss." She muttered and I saw the red-haired beauty all but stomping off towards the side room Eina brought me into to do my adventurer paperwork.

'Why did I get the one with emotional baggage...' I mentally bemoaned wondering if I got stuck with her because I didn't try to get absorbed into Danmachi's already plentiful drama by joining the Hestia Familia or whatever.

Once I entered the side room, I saw Rose Fannett pull out another file from within my own file and put it on my side of the table. "These are my qualifications, while you read over mine, I will read over your personal details and then we can compare information before I get into giving you a quick informational dive on the first three floors of the dungeon."

Then her face scrunched up and I barely heard the werewolf mutter as she picked up my file to read its information. "Ouranos only knows if the info the guild has is of any damned value anymore."

Silently ignoring how her information was probably completely worthless with how the new monster variants were coming out of the woodwork and leading monsters in groups I read how Rose Fannet was a whopping 28-year-old Christmas cake and had tutored a great many numbers of adventures with several of them becoming level three's and fours with her highlight being Ais Wallenstein, the Loki Familia's crown jewel.

"Why does your file say in three different places you still haven't married?" I asked kind of weirded out as just after age was inputted it said 'unmarried' and then towards the middle of the page it described her personality and once again said the dreaded 'unmarried' line and finally at the end of her accomplishments it once again said how she was still 'unmarried'.

Rose froze and blushed at my question and honestly, it matched her hair and distracted me allowing the werewolf to yoink her file out of my hands and hurriedly scan and lose her blush and going pale at the... Embarrassing remarks.

"Misha Flott... I am going to throttle you, you damned brat!" She growled and I saw her tap into her race's inherent beastification ability as her eye's lightly slitted before she took a deep breath.

"Excuse me for the outburst... My colleague who may very well not survive the coming week, has decided to fill out my reference file with impertinent information as a prank." She said before taking a deep breath and mentally resetting. "Now let us begin to discuss the dungeon and what knowledge is assuredly still relevant such as the floor layouts as Ouranos has assured the guild privately that despite the monsters changing and becoming more plentiful and dangerous. The whole reason he allowed such a thing was to prevent the dungeon itself from changing and growing larger." Rose explained.

Then I was given a series of pocket-sized foldable maps that depicted the first three floors of the dungeon which was the area known to host the weakest of monsters with there only being Goblins, Kobold's, Lizard's, and the rare Cave Bat's. Of course, she also briefly touched on the Jack Bird monster but very sternly told me to ignore the damned thing because it was a trap.

Especially now with the monsters becoming stronger and more plentiful. The Jack Bird was a rooster sized and shaped monster with tropical-colored plumage that wouldn't even attack adventures and would merely lead them on a merry chase through the dungeon as it's drop item was worth at least a million valis due to it being a potent alchemy reagent.

The problem was how the Jack Bird would lead people into deadly monster parties, which would typically end up with the chasing adventure or party being wiped out.

"Of course, with the dungeon changes I highly suggest you get team members to work within the dungeon, as many people have died in the last twelve hours as they didn't pay any attention to the guild employees warning them at the entrance of the dungeon," Rose said after finishing her guide through the first levels of the dungeon and I nodded in understanding.

"I won't go into the dungeon alone I promise, I have interest in dying just yet." Hearing my words Rose merely rolled her eyes.

"Adventures go on an adventure and thus they die young." Rose retorted and I couldn't deny that she was absolutely right as otherwise how else would adventures accomplish feats worthy of leveling up if they didn't throw on their yolo hats and jump off their position of power and into a dangerous or otherwise legendary life-defining moment in their story.

"Now it was a pleasure working with you Jake, but I have to get back to work and I imagine you will be throwing yourself into the meat grinder... Just take it slow." Rose said kind of crossly at my occupational choice, but I still heard her softly spoken words at the end just before she closed the door to the side room with a sharp snap.

For a moment I just brushed my hands over my face as I took in the maps that Rose left for me and then realizing if I wanted to meet Seshat's expectations I couldn't just sit here overly analyzing the absolutely nonexistent at this point info on the new monster variant's so deciding to get going, I likewise got up from my couch and headed towards the dungeon in search of life-defining moments.

-

When I came to the dungeon for life-defining moments, I didn't want that life-defining moment to be meeting my first human corpse in real life. Which I did.

I saw the mangled corpse so torn apart by a small squad of four kobolds with one of the off-colored variants leading the pack of five wolfish kobolds into tearing apart the corpse that I couldn't even tell its gender or race as all of its clothes were ripped apart and along with the body itself being covered in blood and dirt from the dungeon.

Wordlessly I summoned my Wulfrim controller into my hand and with a loud series of beeping noises the wulfrim drone appeared beside me as I took out my topaz staff and advanced on the kobolds.

I wasn't going out of my way killing these monsters and the enhanced monster for some kind of revenge for whoever they mauled, I didn't do it for honor or anything like that. I wanted to kill that tiny flicker of fear within me that was terrified that the world had deviated from the Danmachi I considered canon and I should just go hide somewhere away from Orario and its insanity.

Normally kobolds were bipedal dog-like monsters with brown fur that came up to my lower chest with how I was like six foot even. But the mutated version had like an off blue fur and was more muscular in build, plus it was significantly taller with how its head reached my shoulders instead of their shorter normal cousins.

Hearing the loud beeping noises coming from my drone, the Kobolds all but tore themselves from the corpse they were desecrating and began sprinting at me with the blue-tinged one being so half again as fast of its brethren allow it to easily outstrip the others and once it approached within five meters of me and looked about ready to pounce on me.

The mutated Kobold then had its face melted into mush as the Wulfrim drone and I both each sent two bolts of magic into the Kobold's face and even as the monster dropped to the ground screaming in horrible agony I saw that it was still alive despite other kobolds only taking two such topaz staff magical bolts to the face to die, to say nothing of my Wulfrim drone that had its laser weapon that although it didn't do as much damage across a larger area like the magical bolt did. It's heat and its laser properties allowed its attack to penetrate deeper into its target than my Topaz staff's magical bolt.

"Fuck these enhanced monsters..." I cursed as I took out my Copper Broadsword and my Copper Shortsword in my offhand after I launched the rest of my magic at the other kobolds running at me.

It didn't take a genius to figure out why so many adventures died in just a day if a monster you had been killing for years suddenly became five times more durable not to mention faster and stronger. Not to mention if they got several mutated or even one of the aberrant monsters dropped on them in a monster party...

Thankfully just like Sir Fluffykins the First, my wulfrim drone was very accomplished at targeting monsters that were getting too close or looked to be about to overwhelming me as I did my best to chop apart the Kobolds with my Copper swords.

But finally, after I killed the trash kobolds, I saw the mutated kobold still struggling on the ground despite its face being literally melted off. "Should you have died of shock or something at this point?" I groused before I looked to my drone. "Try to collect the monster stones within the monsters like this," I said and then showed the drone how I used a thick carving knife to open up the monster's upper stomach and push my hand up past its ribs so I could easily pull out the fingernail-sized monster stone at the heart of the monster.

According to Rose, the fastest way to get a monster stone out of a goblin or kobold was to forgo breaking or pushing through their ribs and instead just reach up from under their ribs and just pull it out that way as it was far easier on whatever knife you used to butcher the monsters not to mention much less effort.

But my drone had a small pool of infinite mana and once I showed it exactly where the monster stone was again on another monster I saw it use its laser at a lower setting to literally surgically remove the kobold ribs and then use its little claw machine like grabbers to pull aside any muscles and take out the monster stones faster than I could do the whole process of kneeling down, cut open monster, reach into monster, pull out monster stone, and then stand back up to move over to another monster I killed.

"Great! Screw supports and midgets that will fuck me over in the dungeon, summoner life!" I cheered seeing the drone happily go about the grisly task of using its laser to surgically open up the kobolds chest cavity's so it could rip out its monster stones.

"Now it's just you," I said walking over to the mutated kobold that had exhausted itself in its agony-filled struggle.

But before I could shove my sword into its head or throat to kill it, I saw its ears flicker as my boots scrapped across the floor just next to it and then in a flash, it rolled towards me, and I cursed as I felt it's unbreakable iron grip around my ankles as it wrenched me down to the floor as it pulled my feet out from beneath me.

"Fuck!" I yelled feeling the monster climb atop me in the brief instant I froze as the air got knocked out of me at landing on my back but even as I rammed the thick knife, I used to butcher the monsters into the armpit of the kobold. I still was slashed across my head, with only my helmet possibly saving my life before the third laser from my Wulfrim Drone finally penetrated the mutated Kobolds skull and fried its brain making it stiffen and collapse atop me.

I hurriedly pushed aside the mutated kobold as I quickly crawled away from its still corpse but in my panic, all I could feel was the throbbing headache from my head still ringing from the blow of the Kobold that shattered the tiny magical 'armor' protection and rang my noggin like a damned bell.

"This fucking sucks..." I cursed nursing my head as I realized just how damned stupid, I was going up to the mutated monster without double tapping it from a distance even as I was well aware of its enhanced durability.

This wasn't a learning moment to me. No this was my Terrarian helmet saving my head from being caved in as should I have. Had not for that tiny little force field and I was instead wearing some normal hide or leather helmet, that kobold would have bashed in or even slashed open the helmet itself with its inhuman strength.

"I have to be more careful," I muttered even as I took a tiny sip of the health potion Seshat gave me to alleviate myself of the headache I had.

"Boop!" The Wulfrim Drone went, softly announcing its presence to me as it handed over the small collection of monster stones to me and as I looked down at the five monster stones in my hand I saw the mutated Kobold's monster stone was instead of the typical purple stones were of a lighter shade and close to blue than anything and then as I held onto my mind was filled with a couple more crafting recipes and I realized these mutated monster stones could be used to craft Mana Crystals.

As I stood up and took in my Wulfrim Controller I realized a very important fact that would define me as an adventurer here in Danmachi. "Fuck fighting monster stronger than I am in close combat!" I said and I felt my mind click into place seemingly as I realized that with all the guns/bows/yo-yos/magic/ and most importantly the various summons. I had no damned reason to get into close combat with monsters that were far stronger than me physically.

Hell, I was stupid to do it, to begin with.

"Let's go," I said taking out my Topaz staff in my off-hand and had my bow in my main hand as I walked with renewed purpose deeper into the dungeon towards the second floor as I had all the means with my summon to survive small groups so long as I kited the monsters and picked them off from a distance.

-

Not even an hour later my new strategy was proven to work for the best, as the Wulfrim drone could fly over the lunging swipes of the monsters and lay upon a suppressive spray of lasers while I just jogged backwards with my topaz staff just shooting magical bolts first at the mutated monsters I ran into before taking out my bow to pick off the normal monsters when they got closer and I ran out of mana.

Then having learned from my prior mistake I would stand a full like five meters away and just shoot the mutated monsters in the head and upper chest after they collapsed with my wooden arrows to make sure they were dead, and even then, I didn't get close to the corpses just in case the dungeon itself was controlling the creatures and were having them play dead.

The only time I touched the results of the battles at all, was the few monsters drops my drone gave me as well as all the monster's monster stones.

Then as I came out of an intersection, I saw a small party of three adventures, all elves with all three of them, being women who tightened their grip on their weapons at me coming around the corner.

"Excuse me ladies I will head that way," I said pointing in the direction that led to a larger open dead-end room that would typically have small parties of Kobolds or Goblins that would take over it and just hang out for adventures to stumble onto them.

But the lead elf who looked to be a dark elf or maybe a half-elf with amazon heritage with how she showed off her ample cleavage shook her head. "No human, we are going to clear out the monster party. So, take the other path." She said and I saw her, and her party tighten their grasps on their bows and noticed how they each had three arrows nocked at once, and frankly, I didn't want all three of them shooting all nine of their combined arrows into me, so I held up my hand.

"Wait! I just want the mutated and aberrant monster stones, if you are willing to let those go, we can work together, and I am a magic user of some skill with a magical familiar." I said with my drone coming down from the ceiling it was hiding within the uneven sections making the elves flinch at the obviously alien mechanical construct flying over their heads. And obviously being in a good position to kill one of them should the encounter had gone hostile.

The elf looked to her compatriots and seeing them both shrug she sighed nodding in acceptance. "Fine just walk beside us so there's no funny business and when we get into the Party Room, you will walk to the side so no one is behind the other, so no one is worried about the other stabbing the other in the back." She explained and not seeing a problem with her little stipulation to working with an unknown I acceded, and we walked down the hallway towards the open room.

"So, what kind of magic user are you?" The elf next to me asked and now with the leading darker-skinned elf not commanding my attention, I saw she was a cuter thing, being like just over five feet tall and rather petite and was obviously going the fashion souls path of an adventure as she was wearing a skirt and a tight-fitting blouse here in the dungeon. With the only armor she was wearing was some bracers to protect her wrists probably from her very bow, a choker, and some kneepads.

"The kind that kills monsters... Actually, I am more of an alchemist for the most part. I make magical items like this you see." I said pointing at my 'familiar' who loudly booped in response making the elf giggle.

"So, what's your name? Mine is Jake Barris." I offered quietly while the other two elves were discussing the number and status of their arrows they had left, as the entryway to the Party Room approached.

"Oh, my name is Mia Song." She whispered as we approached and as I looked into the Party Room I almost just whirled around as I saw the damned room was certainly a party...

Wordlessly I threw my hand in front of Mia and the other elves making them growl but I didn't let them say anything as I pulled them back from the entrance and seeing my stony expression, they didn't burst into screams about their elvish disdain at being touched without permission.

"There are two camps in there. A Goblin and Kobold camp with each one has at least three mutated and the Goblin camp has an Aberrant leading their camp... Should we leave?" I asked and the elves realized really quick how dangerous this was. As each mutated was dangerous enough of its own with how much hardier than their natural brethren not to mention the aberrant that could give a higher level one issues.

 

 

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