Chapter 59: Enter the Dungeon – Part 1

Chapter 59: Enter the Dungeon – Part 1

After finishing our morning tea, we fly over to the dungeoneering guild. It's much larger, but also less busy than Rabanara's. Due to Goloria being the birthplace of the golden elves, and being much older than the Shore of Leaves, it has a far longer recorded history of dungeons, so it has more books available to read. But there are also less adventurers here, and it's not a significant source of income for the population, so most of the time, there are very few people who come here.

I approach the attendant and ask for any books regarding the new "Legado" dungeon.

The pretty, mature elven woman frowns and narrows her eyes slightly. "There are plenty of books being written about it, but no consensus has been reached yet, so you'll have to guess the veracity of any information you find at your own risk," she says.

"That's... fine," I say and nod.

Rain pitter-pattering on the windows; comfy, cushioned seats; warmth radiating from a fireplace; and the smell of old books waiting to be read. All that is missing is some coffee and chocolate. Fortunately, there's a specific section where you're allowed to eat while reading and they check all of your books before you go in or out.

We pick out a few promising titles and start reading them while drinking some mild tea and savoring Alissa's Ranja cookies.

Legado is not a normal tomb or dungeon, it's a goddamn gauntlet.

It starts off fine. The first level is a possible recreation of Elaria: dark green grasslands with a hint of a silver shine to them.

The monsters in there are the same as Elaria's: fast, prowling types that lurk in the tall grass; high-endurance types that chase you until your horse tires out; and vulture types, who fly high up in the sky and strike when you show weakness. But they don't bear any resemblance to the current monsters who live there, so while they seem to have basically the same attack patterns, they look completely different.

Then comes the second level, the High Forest. It looks similar, but the way the "tree-knitting" is done is curious: the "patterns" used are much "wilder" and the flora is actually dangerous.

The monsters are also different. The Uspidor is more similar to the Symbol of Envy, a mass of tentacles and eyes, but now it spews acid and corrodes everything it touches instead of petrifying it. They are calling it the Symbol of Decay.

The Watchman Ton is now much more deadly as a ghost that appears when people sleep and stabs their souls. A Spirit mage is recommended to keep it away or heal the soul damage. Such damage is dangerous because it can cause a variety of random effects, from loss of magic to loss of bodily functions to insanity.

Even the Gatuns appear to be much more savage and ferocious than they were before, now behaving like they're completely wild and undomesticated.

"So, I think we can assume that this tomb is ancient," Lina says.

"How so?" I ask.

"Gatuns were made into mounts a few hundred years after the empire conquered the High Forest. Before that, they used Nature mages to make temporary bridges between the branches of their trees since they refused to create roads that could help invaders. After being conquered and forced to make roads, they started using Gatuns to climb up and down their trees."

"What if this is a red-herring? By that I mean, a distracting detail that's meant to throw us off?"

She frowns. "Let's not start speculating just yet, especially if it's going to influence us into forming contradicting theories."

"Look at you, using all those big words," Hana says with a smirk and then assumes a formal posture as her voice becomes more grave. "Indeed, I agree with your suggestion. Let us restrict ourselves to factual evidence and focus only on presuming the meanings of the facts at hand."

"What? What's funny?" Lina asks, a little annoyed.

Hana chuckles and waves her hand dismissively. "It's just funny to use big words, not that it's bad to use them."

Lina doesn't seem very convinced, but lets it go after only frowning harder.

Continuing on, Corpse Stealers now have a symbiotic relationship with other monsters and live inside their bodies. Also, they can now only inhabit the corpses of humanoids, but they can use some of the skills that the humanoids had while they were alive.

A horde of humanoid zombies with some of their abilities intact is quite frightening, but they don't seem to be very effective inside the dungeon since not many people seem to be dying in there.

Miasmatic Gambos are smaller and less effective. They seem to focus on burrowing underground and stealing anything that's not bolted down, making for very annoying enemies if you don't have a Tracker to give you advanced warning that you're about to stumble upon a nest of them.

Feral Goblins are also different. Instead of climbing the trees with curved claws like the Gatuns, they now burrow underground to sleep and can achieve incredible sprinting speeds by running on all four limbs.

Giant Centipedes now have a horn that they try to pierce their foes with instead of just outright trying to eat their prey with their strong, crushing jaws.

There are a few other rare monsters on both of these levels, but we don't know how reliable any of this information is.

After the second level, the gauntlet (presumably) starts. First, there's a (seemingly) random number of arena battles with monsters.

Then we'll be taken to a labyrinthine wooden town where we'll have to find a palace to proceed to the next level. In the labyrinth, there are clues that guide us to the palace, but the information we have access to right now is contradictory so we don't know what to believe.

Nobody has been able to find that next level yet, so both of the Lords are likely still there in the palace.

The authors note how similar the town is to Goloria, then they make speculations on which past lord it was that made this tomb. It's likely that they were from the period of turmoil after the death of the last elven king.

Before that, the elven kings called themselves God-Rulers, so their tombs were always the gaudiest of the gaudiest displays imaginable and they all have one thing in common: a huge statue of themselves at the entrance, clearly exposing who those tombs belong to.

A little before lunchtime, Hana and Ciel look groggily at their books as they compile information with increasing illegibility.

"Wow, I didn't expect you to not find this interesting," Alissa says to Ciel.

The chocolate priestess jumps in her skin and snorts, then coughs as her cheeks redden. "I want to explore dungeons, not just read about them," Ciel says and smiles wryly.

"Fair enough."

I notice that Hana gets a few surprised stares from the few adventurers who come and go. I guess that since she gained her title after coming here, she might be a little famous now.

Then we leave the guild to go have some lunch, for which we settle on an average restaurant. While I know that elven veggies are tastier than the others, I'm sure that having godsdamned tomatoes to make sauces helps a lot in making everything tastier.

We make a quick stop at an imperial smith and buy some simple polearms for Aoi to try using. Not right now, though, but we do buy a wide variety of cheap weapons so that she can choose one to focus on later.

"I'm partial to the glaive," Ciel says with a wide smile.

"Meh," Aoi responds and Ciel's expression cracks.

With all our business in Goloria now done, we leave the labyrinthine and beautiful white town behind and make our way north-west, towards the border between the eastern and western High Forest.

The light rain soon stops and we leave the rain clouds behind as shy rays of sunlight pierce down through the thick canopy of the trees. The comfy smell of wet earth fills our noses and aids me in my meditation as we start using Kyro's practice technique again.

I notice a few small birds with suspiciously intelligent gazes scanning the forest and we do our best to avoid them. Soon after, we start seeing adventuring groups coming and going from that dungeon.

That's something that I didn't miss: encountering other armed and dangerous people in the middle of nowhere.

The groups are few, but a handful of them are also using flying vehicles like we are, which makes avoiding them a little harder if I get distracted and don't warn our driver in time. Because of that fact, we decide to take a small detour so that we don't accidentally stumble upon anyone.

The sun sets and the light of the glowing plants becomes purple again.

We enter another one of the ginormous trees. This one has an egg-like shape and we set up our tent near the top, among the leaves.

Lina and Roxanne look a little worried as they try to read our map.

"You know, the lack of points of reference makes navigating the High Forest a nightmare. I can only guess that we are about two thirds of the way there," Lina says.

"I kept a very stable speed, so we should be able to calculate our travel distance with some degree of confidence," Ciel says.

Roxanne smiles wryly and says, "Well, you kept a stable power output, not speed. Our actual speed can vary due to several different factors during our trip, and those factors could all add up to cause our final position to be very off the mark."

"I still have a Holly following the trail of adventurers," I say and make a line on the map between Goloria and Legado's supposed location, then tap a specific point a short distance beyond the midpoint. "After we took our detour, our distance from her hasn't increased, so I think our calculations are correct. Even if they aren't, we just have to stay close to the line of adventurers to find the dungeon."

"How do the elves orient themselves around here?" Alissa asks.

Lina responds, "The trees are landmarks for them and it's especially easy to orient themselves with help from the trees if they have a Nature mage that can commune with nature. Unfortunately, the information about the landmarks is reserved and is only made available to soldiers. Everyone else is supposed to always stay on the roads."

"Can you help us out, Gify?" I ask.

"Gih," she chirps and shrugs her shoulders.

A city Nature Spirit is different from a forest Nature Spirit, just like we humanoids are, but there's still goodwill between them.

"Well, we don't really need it right now, so let's leave that for later," Alissa says and we nod.

Since today is an even day, it's time for our strength training. We'd fallen into a routine, but now Hana is making us change things up, so Lina and I (and Roxanne, to an extent) have to work harder than normal.

Then it's bath time! And today is Alissa's turn.

I grab her tail and give it a small tug each time as I slam my hips against her ass. The brief jolts of pain that run along her spine mix with the pleasure of my magic dick and amplify each other.

Her fox ears droop as she melts in the bath and her worries are scrubbed away through her womb by my ribbed cock.

Roxanne is making quite a lot of progress with her [Water Spirit]. A few more days and she should be ready to use it in combat.

We sit down to rest and take a quick second bath.

Ciel sits down on the bed with a serious face.

"What's on your mind?" Lina asks.

"Well... it's just that our destiny is a little bigger than what I'd anticipated," she answers with a wry smile.

"Well, a God brought him from another world, so it had to be worth it," Alissa says with a shrug.

"We'd talked about the God of Destruction coming back one day. I was ready for it," Hana says.

Aoi reduces to small-Aoi and energetically scurries towards Ciel's lap. "You are still afraid to die?" She asks.

Ciel smiles warmly at her and pats her blue and scaly head. "Yes, I am."

"Someone has to be. Otherwise, one day, we're all going to get into a stupid situation because we were too fearless," I say.

"Isn't that kind of your job?" Roxanne asks me.

I nod. "Yes, but I wanted Ciel to help me as a second-in-command." Ciel swallows heavily at my words and looks down. "You don't want that?"

She looks at me and her courage slowly comes back as she says, "I... do... I think. I'd like that job, I'm just not sure if I'm good enough for it."

"You are good enough. You just need some more experience," Alissa says and pats her back.

Ciel turns to her and frowns. "How do you know?"

"You've got a good head on your shoulders," I say.

"What he said, but also, you have a good heart," Alissa says.

"That's... enough?" Ciel asks, skeptical.

"Leading is about making the best choices and having the heart to handle the consequences," Hana says.

Ciel raises an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be the second-in-command? You've likely been prepared to 'be a leader' ever since you wanted to have a harem of your own, right?"

"Yeah, but then I'd also have a trusting advisor because I lack the brains to lead," Hana answers and shrugs.

"So, why don't you fit?"

"I do," she says with confidence and nods. "But overall, you're a better choice. Brains is still the most important and hardest quality to improve, after all."

Lina chimes in, "So for us, who are getting ourselves into the mean little world of nobility, you're the most cost-effective choice."

Ciel turns to Roxanne, who winces and looks away with shifty eyes. "Why don't you fit?"

Roxanne laughs nervously. "I thought it was obvious? I'm irresponsible."

"And a bit crazy," Lina shyly adds.

"Aren't we all?" Hana asks and Alissa nods with a chuckle.

Aoi lifts a claw and asks, "Can you teach me how to lead? I want to lead our children."

Hana crosses her arms in deep thought.

"You'd first need more life experience," Alissa says and smiles at our small Azurite dragon. "Just pay attention to us and ask 'why' we do anything the way we do."

"Kweh." Aoi nods.

I sit down beside Ciel and embrace her in a warm hug. "Anyway. Ciel, you lack confidence in yourself, but even I was an 'advisor' to Lily. She's the one who took charge for most things, but she listened to me, so when she went too far, I pulled her back.

"When I was sent here, I felt very lost and scared, but while fearing for my own life, I learned how to take charge of things the hard way. If I met someone else back then besides Alissa, then maybe I'd have become a subordinate, but I changed.

"So don't worry. You'll slowly change and grow into a fine leader one day."

She holds her arms, still feeling insecure. "We don't have much time to wait for me to grow."

I shake my head. "Don't say that. We'll power through anything and come out of it stronger than before. Through adversity, unity."

I pull her face closer and kiss her cheek. She shakes her head with a smile and sighs. "Fine... I'll trust your judgment."

"That's our girl," Alissa says and pats her head.

Ciel pouts and sighs again.

After some cuddling and playing in our snuggle puddle, we turn off the [Spirit Light]s and go to sleep.

Announcement

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