NOVEL NEXT Chapter 15: Unexpected Discord
The next couple of floors went by without incident. It was mostly just Eyfura giving advice and Tess clumsily trying to disarm traps. She failed as often as she succeeded, especially towards the beginning, but even when she did fail there was still a little bit of time to get out of the way of whatever the trap did.
Not that that stopped her from getting whacked a few times when she misjudged where the trap was coming from, missed a trap completely and tripped it on accident, or simply reacted too slowly to dodge in time. Fortunately, her parasites were able to heal the damage from these missteps relatively quickly, so the damage wasn’t an issue.
Kobolds showed up on the third floor, and they were, mercifully, much less nasty than the goblins. They were short reptilian humanoids, and though their clothing was as tattered as the goblins’ clothing, it was generally much cleaner, as was their scaly skin. They were a bit tougher than goblins as well, but they still fell
Finally, the floor before the boss, Tess’s instructors told her it was time to do the Challenge. They had chosen to hold off until now to give Tess more time to get used to disarming traps, but they wanted her to get the reward before she fought the boss.
The Challenge was pretty much exactly how she had expected it to be; a long hallway filled with traps that she had to slowly work through. It was slow and tedious work, but eventually they were able to make it to the end with no more than a few bruises on Tess’s end.
She didn’t waste any time claiming her reward, giving it a quick look-over and letting the others know what it was before moving on.
| Blood Magic: Rarity: Mythical Type: Active (Magic) Description: Dispel an active bleed effect that you inflicted to create a temporary buffer of Mana equal to the remaining damage the effect would deal. This Mana is reduced by an amount per second equal to the damage per second the original bleed effect dealt. You may only have one temporary buffer at a time, and using the Skill again replaces the temporary buffer with a new one. Blood is power. |
All that was left was the boss. Unlike the other beginner dungeons, however, this boss was at the end of a dungeon floor, not on its own separate floor. That didn’t really change how they were going to approach it, not when the dungeon was this easy, but Tess was assured that in the future, bosses were much more likely to be at the end of floors like this.
The boss itself was located in a large, open room, with a throne of sorts at the far end. It was crudely constructed, and a tall, skinny goblin was sitting on top of it. When the goblin saw the intruders, it screeched something, and a wave of minions jumped down from above, landing in front of the party.
When Tess looked up, she saw rafters of a sort, and upon them were many goblins and kobolds, looking down at the fight below.
“Just take out the chieftain.” Eyfura said, stifling a yawn. “No sense in fighting through all these mooks when we don’t have to.”
Tess nodded, and ran towards the chieftain. Upon seeing her advance, the chieftain yowled and screeched, pointing at her, but none of the other goblins or kobolds seemed to take any notice. A couple jumped down but looked around in a confused fashion before rushing to fight Eyfura and Alice.
The chieftain stood up, snarled, and drew his rusty sword when Tess drew near. In response she slowed down, extending her claws as far as they could go. When she did, she was easily able to see why they were called “saber” claws; they were huge, both in length and girth, each foot-and-a-half-long claw as thick around as the finger it sprouted from. Fortunately, they didn’t seem any heavier than her hand normally was, something she assumed was the Attribute making it easier to use the claws. They were a bit clunky to work with, tending to hit each other from even small movements of her fingers, so she just kept all her fingers close together and moved them all at once.
“Nice!” Eyfura yelled from behind her, “Show him who’s boss!”
She lunged at the chieftain, slashing downwards with a clawed hand. In response, the chieftain raised his sword to block stopping the strike. There was a clang as metal met keratin, and Tess was surprised to find that not only did her claws hold up to the sword, there wasn’t even a mark on them. On the other hand, the already battered sword had several large gashes where the claws had sliced through it.
Her claws were stuck in the sword now, but she had another hand, which she speared out at the goblin. He raised his arm to block, and there was a sickening squelch as her claws cleanly punctured through the arm and into the chest it was blocking.
|
You have impaled Goblin Chieftain for 66 damage! You have planted a parasite on Goblin Chieftain! It will deal 12 damage and heal you 12 HP every second until removed. You have inflicted Heavy Bleeding on Goblin Chieftain! It will bleed for 69 damage every second for 120 seconds. |
She pulled her claw out of the chieftain, and a veritable fountain of blood erupted from his chest. A second later, the chieftain just sort of… melted into rainbow haze, a core appearing where he was standing.
| You have killed Goblin Chieftain! You have gained 100 EXP! Monster Breeder has gained 50 EXP! You have leveled up! Monster Breeder has leveled up! |
There was an eruption of laughter from Eyfura, and Tess turned around to find her heartily clapping Alice on the back. “The Emperor Lion was so the right call!” She wheezed, “That was awesome!”
Alice smiled. “What level are you now?” She asked.
“Twenty-one.” Tess responded.
Eyfura raised an eyebrow. “Awfully high for the beginner dungeons.” She commented.
“She gets the maximum EXP possible whenever she gets a kill.” Alice explained. “Part of the whole blessing thing.”
Eyfura nodded. “Nice. What say you we get your reward?”
“Sure.” Tess said.
The process took little time at this point. Just enough for her to walk in, get her Skill, read it and relay the info to her companions, then leave.
| Envenom (Mythical): Rarity: Mythical Type: Active (Unarmed) Description: Spend 50 Stamina to strengthen your next unarmed attack, causing it to deal 100% more damage and inflict poison at the rate of 100%. This poison lasts for five minutes and deals 30% of the main attack’s damage every five seconds. Additionally, adds a 1% chance for your regular unarmed strikes to inflict Poison at the rate of 100%. This poison lasts for 2.5 minutes and deals 15% of the damage of the main attack every five seconds. You may choose to turn off the poison chance for your regular attacks. For when you want to deliver a long, painful death. |
“Alright, not bad, not bad.” Eyfura said, “Time to do it again. This time, I want your claws all the way out the whole time except in the rest areas. I want you getting used to how they handle.”
The rest of the day and the beginning of the next passed without any major incident; she wasn’t able to finish grinding the dungeon in that time because they weren’t speeding through it like the others, they were taking time and having Tess disarm every trap they came across. Still, she got another four shots at the Rewards Crystal, giving her resistance to bleed, sleep, and charm, as well as another unarmed status inflictor.
| Slowing Strike (Mythical): Rarity: Mythical Type: Active (Unarmed) Description: Spend 75 Stamina to strengthen your next unarmed attack, causing it to deal 100% more damage and inflict slow at the rate of 100%. This slow lasts for 10 seconds and slows the target by 25%. Additionally, adds a 1% chance for your regular unarmed strikes to inflict slow at the rate of 100%. This slow lasts for 5 seconds and slows the target by 12.5%. You may choose to turn off the slow chance for your regular attacks. Not so fast! |
Ellie had been really clingy that night, too. She had apparently not liked being split up from Tess, claiming that being apart from her took a lot of the fun away. Still, she had acknowledged that it would let them get stronger much more efficiently.
So, the time came that Ellie and Tess were slated to meet Eyfura’s granddaughter. Tess, Ellie, and The Rumors were all in another of the guild’s private rooms while Eyfura had gone to fetch the girl, who was apparently named Ilmir.
The door opened without a knock, and Eyfura walked in. “Hey guys, this is Ilmir!” She said, ushering in a wolfkin girl.
She looked like she was in her early 20s, with bright blue eyes, short black hair, and a tail and wolf ears of the same color. She was rather heavily muscled and was wearing what looked to be workout clothes.
“Hi everyone!” She said cheerily, “I’m Ilmir, and I’m gonna be working with you for a while!”
Her tail started to wag. “I heard Ellie and Tess were super strong, can I get a mock battle with them?”
The Rumors shared a complicated look that Tess couldn’t quite figure out the reason for. “That…may not be the best idea.” Jin said slowly. “What level are you?”
“39!”
“Right. Um, Ellie’s in the low teens, and Tess in the low twenties. I don’t think it’s going to be a fair fight.” Jin said.
“Uncle Evan said it didn’t matter with these two, though?” Ilmir replied, cocking her head.
“Well, that’s not wrong, but I don’t think it’s a great idea, especially in such a public place.” Jin began.
“Look, Tess’s abilities are strictly confidential, so a public spar isn’t a great idea, and you have to give them a little more time to grow. They’ve only been really at this for a couple of days.” Eyfura interrupted, “You’ll have plenty of time to gauge their strength while you’re diving dungeons with them.”
“Fine.” Ilmir pouted. “Are we going to a dungeon today, then?”
“Yeah, we’re going to do a group outing before we split up.” Ker said, “Tess is in the middle of Rogue’s Den, and Ellie hasn’t started it, so we thought we’d run through it once to get you all used to each other. You’ve done it already, but there’s probably nothing they could handle you haven’t already done.”
“That’s fine.” Eyfura said. “She’s here to polish her skills and get another perspective on how she operates, not add to the mess by getting more new stuff.” She gave Ilmir a look that indicated there was no room for argument. “We can let them into it alone, Tess can clear the dungeon in her sleep, and it’ll be a good way to make them work together.”
There was a short break while Ellie and Ilmir got themselves geared up, and then they began their walk to the dungeon.
“Soooo, how are we going to do things?” Ilmir asked. “I lean towards a physically aggressive role like grandma, what about you two?”
“I can do whatever.” Ellie said. “I’ve got a pretty good spread of Skills and stuff.”
“Um…I guess I’m physically aggressive.” Tess said. “At least, for now. I’ve been getting mostly offense-oriented Skills, I don’t know if that’ll change in the future.”
| Right now, we just want to make sure you can handle yourself in a fight. In the future we’re going to round you out, once giving you more unarmed Skills starts giving diminishing returns. Eventually you should be passable in any role, even if you’ll specialize in unarmed combat. |
“Yeah, for now.” Tess confirmed. “Later it’ll be different.”
“Cool, cool.” Ilmir replied, “I’ll take point, Ellie can be a caster, and Tess can make sure no one gets past me.”
“No.” Eyfura said, looking back. “Switch you and Tess. You’re way too strong for this place. They’re not getting past you, and Tess isn’t an effective blocker anyway since she’s nigh-incapable of drawing aggro. You need practice guarding a rear line away, so it works out.”
“That sounds good to me.” Ellie said. “I don’t know how effective my magic will be again these enemies, since I haven’t used it too much, but it was one-shotting monsters in Cub’s Den, so it should be fine, right?”
“Yeah.” Tess confirmed. “The individual monsters here are weaker but there are more of them. You should be able to handle it without issue.”
They made small talk the rest of the walk, and soon found themselves within the dungeon. The veterans gave Ellie a quick rundown of what the dungeon was like, and then sent them in. The run itself was actually not that different from when Tess went in with Eyfura and Alice, save for the fact that the others helped take out the monsters. Tess would be able to take out one or two of the monsters in a group before the rest made it past her, Ellie would take out usually around three in that time, and Ilmir would mop up whatever was left.
Tess and Ilmir would take care of any traps ahead, and in general it was far quicker than when her partners were just tanking and purposefully not killing monsters to feed Tess experience. They ignored the Challenge this time around so they could let Ellie do it once she learned more about traps, so they soon made it to the boss.
The boss went much the same way it had before. Tess had Ellie give it a hit so that Ellie also got experience, and then ran up and killed it. And…that was it. The dungeon just wasn’t hard enough to give them any more than that taste of how things might work in the future.
They held off on seriously discussing anything until they got back to the guild, where they could find a soundproofed room to give feedback without worrying about people overhearing.
“You know, I think I’ve been in the back halls here more in the past week than I have in the past five years. It feels…weird, like I’m some important freelancer now.” Alice said, plopping down onto one of the couches.
Eyfura laughed. “You kind of are. Mark my words, these kids are going to be the future, and being their teacher makes you important. You’ll get used to coming back here, it’s not a big deal.”
“Says you, Grandma. The king of Ima dropping by for lunch isn’t a big deal to you.” Ilmir ribbed.
“It’s not!” She protested, “He’s an old friend, I knew him before he was king! It’s not a big deal to have lunch with friends from time to time! Most people would call meeting with Evan a big deal but you don’t freak out about it!”
Jin cleared his throat. “Let’s not get distracted. For what it’s worth, I think things went pretty well. It’s hard to get a good perspective when they’re so much stronger than the dungeon they’re raiding, but that’s just the way things are in the low levels.”
“Tess, what level did you say you were?” Ilmir asked.
“Twenty-one.” Tess responded.
Ilmir frowned. “And you were having that much trouble? I’m pretty sure you should have been able to take down way more than you did, and you missed kills once or twice. That’s…kinda sad.”
“That’s uncalled for!” Ellie protested. “She’s been at this for a few days, chill!”
“Look, all I’m saying is strong people like us don’t need to be held back by someone like her. You’re half her level and were doing twice the work. It’s just common sense.” Ilmir said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t get why you’re trying to defend that. You’ve only been at it for a few days and you didn’t have any issues. If someone’s struggling now, that generally means it’s only going to get worse in the future. I’d advise reconsidering partying with her, one with just the two of us would be way better.”
“Um…sorry, I–” Tess began.
“Let me handle this, dear.” Eyfura said, placing a hand on Tess’s shoulder. Tess turned her head to find Eyfura wearing a warm smile that was incongruous with how hard her voice had become.
Ilmir froze, a panicked look on her face. “Look, Grandma, it’s just common knowledge. She’s just going to hold Ellie back if things keep going like this. I get that they’re close, but it’s best to rip off the bandage now.” She hurriedly replied.
“Have you listened to a single thing we told you?” Eyfura asked, her expression not budging an inch, “I believe we let you know in no uncertain terms that Tess is going to be a late bloomer. Furthermore, trying to break up her party in front of her face is completely unacceptable. I understand that you’re disappointed that she’s not currently as strong as you expected, but that’s no reason to get nasty.”
| Preach. I can’t wait for the day when you get to show her up, because that is going to be a sweet, sweet feeling. |
Eyfura turned back to Tess. “Sorry about this, it’s clear I need to have a talk with my granddaughter.” She said, then turned back to Ilmir, walked over, grabbed the girl’s hand, and towed her forcefully out of the room.
Ellie blinked. “What was that all about?” She asked.
Ker sighed. “Beastkin thing, I’m afraid. They tend to view strength as the most attractive attribute a person could have, so I imagine her situation would be like expecting to party with a couple of supermodels and finding that one of them was only average-looking. Add that to general beastkin hotheadedness and her relatively young age and you get…that.”
Ellie gave Tess a hug. “Don’t let it bother you. You’re already waaay better than you were a couple of days ago. If you keep it up, then you’ll be nearly as strong as me in no time.”
“Yeah, you’re not going to be a liability.” Jin confirmed. “But we don’t need to dwell on that now. Once Eyfura gets back Ker and I will take Ilmir and Ellie out, and Eyfura, Alice, and Tess will get back to what they were doing before.”
Ellie frowned, releasing her hug. “I’m not so sure I want to go with her after what she just said.”
“I know, I know. Just give her a chance for now, I’m sure she’ll mellow out a bit, especially if Eyfura is giving her a scolding. Her tagging along is a condition to Eyfura tutoring Tess, so I hope you can bear with it, at least for a little. If she ends up not working well with the two of you, then you won’t need to party with her after your training finishes.”
“Fine.” Ellie grumbled. “But if she starts insulting Tess again, I’m going to lose my mind.”
Tess blushed. “Um, thanks, but I think that’s something I should handle. It’s between me and her, you don’t need to ruin a potential friendship over me.”
“If she can’t see past a superficial thing like this when she knows full well it’s temporary, then she’s not worth that friendship anyway. I don’t want to be around someone who’s just going to nag me about stupid things all the time. Even if you were holding me back, I wouldn’t want to leave a party with you. Why bother doing work like this if I’m not doing it with people I like?”
Alice cracked a smile. “Wealth and fame?”
Ellie waved a hand. “Overrated. I’d rather be poor and enjoy my day to day work than rich and hate it. But I don’t really want to talk about this right now.” She turned her attention back to Tess, “Did you get anything good from the cores in this dungeon?”
“Oh, right. I didn’t check because we didn’t foresee there being anything of value to me in them, and we didn’t want to get out of the flow of things just to see. Might as well do that now.” She pulled the dungeon’s cores out of her bag. There were five varieties in total, including the boss core, so she just absorbed one of each, the five cores she was holding all burst into that mist and flying into her.
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You have absorbed a Goblin Chanter Core! New cores absorbed! Scanning for abilities… Goblin Verse: Kobold Verse: Inspiring Word: Displaying core information: Goblin Chanter Core: Goblin Chieftain Core: Goblin Foot Soldier Core: Kobold Chanter Core: Kobold Foot Soldier Core: New Attributes discovered! Humanoid: Increased Intelligence (Minor): Light Armor User (Clumsy): Light Armor User (Novice): Pack Leader (Minor): Scaly Hide (Minor): Sword User (Clumsy): Sword User (Novice): New Skills discovered! Kobold Chant: Rallying Cry: New concept discovered! |
As she had expected, there wasn’t anything really worth her time at the moment. She just took Rallying Cry and left the rest alone. The bit about monster intelligence was interesting, but she wasn’t planning on using Create Monster any time soon, so it wasn’t something she was really worried about.
“Yeah, nothing much.” Tess confirmed, “Um…now what?”
“Now we wait.” Jin said, settling down in one of the chairs, “I don’t know how long Eyfura’s lecture is going to take, but if the stories about her are true, then it could be a bit.”
