Dungeon Game Chapter 16

-16- Beast Cave 1

Dungeon.

For its original meaning, it’s a word that stands for a constructed bas.e.m.e.nt or prison under a castle. Today, it’s a term used for a labyrinth that becomes an adventure stage or playing area in a game.

Hostile monsters appear in dungeons in role-playing games, the player defeats those to get something like money, items, experience points needed to level up, and skill proficiency. It is unclear who placed them in the dungeon, but the type with treasures and dangerous traps installed are becoming standard and common.

The white particles faded and a scenery of the familiar dungeon spreads ahead. The distorted circle on top of the room resembles a carving of a figure s.h.i.+ning with glittering white lights. Rugged bare rocks, pebbles scattered on the ground, a dark cave where light doesn’t reach.

Magically carried away by the mysterious ambiance of the scene, I felt excited about experiencing the fantasy world.

Unlike the dungeon that was a straight path in the tutorial, this stage became the real thing where the paths diverged multiple times from the beginning. Which is the correct path? Where is it leading to? How far should I go forward? There are a lot of things I should think about.

「Mukou-kun.」

The darkness shook accompanied by swirling particles. I turned around and nodded to Hiiragi-san who called out with an uneasy voice.

We have decided in advance to use magic skill detection. Deliberately operating the sixth sense, we concentrated to probe into the distance. Our spread out senses detected mana and information is picked up one after another.

The senses that reached out further felt the reaction of countless existing mana. The air and the walls of the cave have different mana quality, I vaguely grasped the structure of the dungeon from that difference. But the accuracy of the information falls in proportion to the distance, so the deeper we go, the parts we can’t distinguish decreases.

Aside from the dungeon’s structure, from the monster’s location, I sense the approximate volume of mana they have and the qualitative difference that should be their attribute. According to Sagara’s information, I don’t think the monsters near the entrance will become a threat. The mana they have is very small, it seems to be increasing gradually towards the interior.

「Fuu. Although it’s rough, I understood the structure of this dungeon. It seems to be much wider than the range that I can sense.」

「Really? How about the monsters?」

「There’s a lot. It’s quite less in this vicinity. Like behind the shadow of that rock, clinging on the ceiling, I sense something is there.

「Is that so? I didn’t know maybe because it’s too small for my detection. I’m unable to tell it apart from the mana that fills the dungeon.」

「It’s because they’re quite small compared to the monsters that appeared in the tutorial. For now, shall we confirm the appearance of the monster?」

Hiiragi-san nodded and together we walk closer to the wall. The destination is a location of a stone that is almost the size of a shoe. It’s small, but there’s something with mana hidden behind the stone. I cautiously moved away the stone with the cypress pole I held in my hand.

Was it really a monster hidden underneath the stone? Its total length is no bigger than the size of a thumb, It moves fast and escapes to a different stone.

That rat’s appearance was too unusual. The monsters that appeared in the tutorial carry malice in their eyes, savage and tenacious. Compared to that, that thing was a coward just like a small animal.

My and Hiiragi-san’s body unconsciously relaxed. Our faces that were stiff slackened a little.

「I wonder if that’s a monster. We look somewhat foolish being on guard.」

「Why is the mana in their body too small compared with those in the tutorial?」

「I wonder. If it’s Opelgua, he probably knows the reason, but I don’t know if he will tell us. Anyway, let’s check if we can even get PP from defeating it.」

「Right. Maybe small animals are different from real monsters because there’s also a possibility that PP can’t be acquired.」

We nod our head and continue pursuing the hiding small animal. In the end, I beat it to death with the cypress pole.

My PP increased by merely 5 points as a result. According to Sagara’s information, PP acquired from defeating monster are fairly divided equally among the party, it was worth 10 points from the total of the two people. Unfortunately, the rat disappeared without leaving a mana stone.

Perhaps the monsters that leave behind mana stone might need to have more than the regular amount of mana. Or maybe, the drop rate is set and it is low.

I don’t know what it really is. So I killed one more monster in the room in order to confirm. But still, I didn’t get any mana stone.

To advance deeper in the cave, I opened the bag that I carried on my back and took out a square-shaped lantern.

These backpack and lantern are only the magic tools I got from As.h.i.+a’s store. Since they are an old type of magic tools, they are damaged, lost their original function and malfunctions.

The backpack is the familiar magic tool bag in games. A convenient tool bag that can carry a large amount of luggage appears commonly as an initial equipment in a game, but its clearly a cheat item based on its ability. But unfortunately, this is broken. As a result of the magic formula for s.p.a.ce control causing malfunctions, the original large storage volume became small. Since the magic formula for gravity control is broken, the weight did not decrease. The magic formula for time control is wrong so the flow of time inside is faster and the products spoil about 2 to 5 times the rate.

The lantern is a magic tool that provides light by using a small amount of mana in the atmosphere. But the essential magic formula for mana collection is broken. Moreover, it consumes excess mana in inefficiently because of the disorder of the output section. It’s a useless junk if the built-in mana converter prepared for an emergency isn’t used.

I chose these two among the various bunch of sc.r.a.p items.

The luggage didn’t feel light inside the broken bag and weathers quickly, these are clearly defects.

Still, since the thing isn’t bulky, it might be a big advantage for being not obstructive during a combat. I didn’t forget about the trouble of preventing the torch from getting wet by monsters that shoot water.

Not only that, the amount isn’t that much because the current number of people in the party are just two. Primarily, the food ration we decided to carry can be preserved for a long time from the start. Although the capacity became smaller, it’s enough because there are some left in my private room.

The original function of the lantern has been lost, but it’s possible to use mana stone as a subst.i.tute for fuel. It seems that the light can be turned on by using my own mana, but I can’t do it right now.

According to Opelgua, maintaining the light for a few hours even with sc.r.a.p mana stones is not a problem. If I collect sc.r.a.ps of mana stones, I can exchange them for sc.r.a.p items carrying magical power. However, since only a few are usable, making it a fuel might be a valid use of low-value mana stones.

A transparent crystal is fitted in a cloudy silver box and, on the top, there’s a part for the hand to hold it. The inside of the lantern is a hollow cavity. I turn it over and look down at its bottom. I turned and removed the protruding part at the bottom, and put in a mana stone in the empty s.p.a.ce. It produced a faint light when I fitted it back just like before.

I held the cypress pole in my dominant hand and a lantern on the other. Hiiragi-san carried the naginata. We illuminated the darkness of the dungeon that goes on forever with the pale purple light of the lantern.