I didn't realize it when I put my shoes on before but these socks are incredibly long. I stretched it up just to see how far it went. Once I was past my shorts I stopped. Yeah… I pushed them back down and lacklusterly folded them. I kicked my dirty shoes on and we went to the guild.
The guild lights outside were turned on. They had a yellow glow in contrast with all the orange lights. Stella held the cake and I opened the door for us. The guild was packed full of adventurers coming back from quests at the end of the day. The staff seemed to be in the process of switching out.
The TV was temporarily playing the news. Another person had gone missing. This time a boy around mine and Stella's age. People wore confused and agitated looks starting at the screen as it finished listing contract information.
It sucks we have to get weird outfits to try and stop that.
We looked through the low ranked quest when I saw a familiar one. In the same place where we slayed those goblins, a quest was placed to clear the dungeon.
"Well I guess it's low enough for us to go back?"
"That's fitting!" I grabbed the quest and stood straight. The new staff member at the desk checked our level and rank before letting us leave with a stamped sheet. He didn't even glance at the cake. When we got our status checked we had gained a few magic points.
My physical efficiency grew and my magic strength naturally grew. I put a single magic point into magical strength and two into physical strength. I looked at all my skills and read them back to myself. Fire manipulation, fire resistance, gravity manipulation, gravity resistance, pure magic manipulation, stamina boost, strength boost, karma reveal, Paukena's gift, and of course universal being(locked).
"Stella, I got a gift from Paukena."
"Are you talking about the Paukena spell?"
"Is that what it's called for you?"
"Yeah…"
"It just says Paukena's gift."
"Well read it if it has a description." I imagined opening the gift, tensing unconsciously.
"I love the respect for my pumpkins so here is a gift please open it. That's all it says."
"Don't open it here. Let's do it in the dungeon."
We called another car to take us to the dungeon, the sun setting over the mountains in front of us. The man let us out of the car and even helped us get the cake out. At least one of the two remaining unknown runes kept it from being messed up in the box.
The little hole in the ground led to the dungeon. The impatience killing me throughout the ride I opened the gift. Confetti shot out from my hands and a small glowing pumpkin appeared. It looked to laugh with joy but was completely silent.
"Um…"
"Uh…" Stella looked at me, raising a single eyebrow. "You did pick the pumpkin right?"
"Um…"
I check my status in my head again. This time in place of Paukena's gift it said Paukena's charm. When I read its description it was the same as one of the options from the pumpkin. Instead of just me getting an extra magic point, every human around the pumpkin would.
The pumpkin had a striped black and white stand sprouting from its stem. I brought my dagger up to it.
"Heo, wait! Don't kill it, it isn't that big of a problem!" I ignored her and clipped the stand to the dagger. It locked in place magically and shrank in size to a charm.
"Neat! It's a little stronger than the extra level one."
"Oh. Nice.."
We looked down into the dark dungeon. We didn't have anything but our phones to light the hole so I turned my horns to flames and put a little extra magic into brightening them.
"Well, hop down Heo, I have the cake so I don't wanna fall and spill it."
I hopped down and hit the ground safely. This would have hurt at that fall if I didn't land properly. I looked up at Stella, I caught her breaking some of her fall. The cake didn't shift at all within the box as she fell.
"Well we definitely have this if it's only those goblins for this floor."
"It shouldn't get too much worse but we can't let our guards down." I pulled out one of the two dinky daggers I had gotten from the goblins.
The cave radiated a dusty and dirt smell and the floor around the hole was wet with mud. The walls of the cave were practically not even a cave and just dirt held together by the magical existence of the dungeon.
"The goblins probably live farther down and not at the entrance because of the last time we were here." We turned a corner and rows of glossy eyes stared at us. "Nevermind they're still here."
They instantly jumped at us. I kicked the first one down and like the others before they had potions and daggers meaning we could easily deal with them. I kept in front of Stella and showered the goblins with as many slashes as I could before the first dagger broke.
The damage the daggers did to the goblins was enough that I didn't use any magic. Enhancements were a decently easy ability to do, but hard to increase without just increasing the input. You really just needed to push your magic into an action or a part of your body. It's similar to how magic points work but temporary. I had illegally practiced enhancements before, so when I went to gain the ability it was easier. I pushed more magic into my speed when a goblin was on Stella, which I hadn't practiced before, but it worked.
After three minutes they were all dealt with and a fog of magic dust layered the floor as the goblins slowly vanished. The blueish glow gleamed off of the glass of the potions. I picked up as many as I could and filled my bag with them. I also threw in the shattered dagger pieces. That damn squandering Angel gonna regret taking my apple stones. I bet I'll find more here.
I picked up the last couple of shards and looked at Stella who was greedfully filling her bag with potions and took a sip of one between filling her bag.
I stood up and stretched. Focusing on the status spell I had gotten up to level twenty nine. I'll gain more levels here. I don't want to not allocate this before its too late. I increased my strength and magic strength to thirty one and then with the rest got my speed to twenty two. When I finished I informed Stella to do the same before we continued.
"Alright, I'm ready. You?" Stella asked.
"Yeah I'm good…"
"What?"
"Wheres the cake?" Stella raised an eyebrow at me and pointed to the floor beneath me. "Oh…"
The cake was still fine within the case and looked warm, the cool air having no effect on it.
Not too much farther down the cave was a steeper slope than the one we'd been slowly declining. We headed down it. About thirty feet down it evened out again this time the ground felt more solid and patches of stone were visible. Yet this place still screamed as weak as a dungeon could possibly get.
Getting to a lower floor and especially when the dungeon changes, you're closer to a keeper. The being that spawns the dungeon. For some reason, Fayha has the highest amount of dungeon forming. The only things I remember from history class were the awakening and this country. That is not even just West Fayha either, on the other side of the globe in Fayha, there were still high amounts of dungeon.
For the awakening two gods with the power of controlling actual black holes and creating them showed up and turned seventy percent of the planet to dragons. The feat of black holes is already crazy but it isn't magical in any way. The man known as the Hero of Chaos terrorised almost every part of the earth for no reason at all, before getting to the once was south america and taking a permanent nap in ice. Then Fayha was built around him and the ruler switched every eighty ish years.
Like fifteen years ago the new Queen took the place of the last King. It isn't known to the world how they change so I don't know, but neither does this country know either. The old King was primarily known as the Crude King for his lack of care for the country and his selfish actions. When the Crude King was around the country was ruled by a great number of adventurers.
For some reason the number of dungeons skyrocketed with the crude King and the cities were always in danger. Since the Queen has taken control of the country the numbers have reduced slightly but still far more than any other country.
Fayha had nearly as much territory as Mila but had the bottom half of the world and wasn't currently in a fight with Hiddid, the upper right side of russia. Though they don't own the once was australia, thats where the Kalmic Kingdom lies and its the only other religion besides the belief in the black hole gods. There was also Noxstave, which sat in between the fighting Hiddid and Mila, with Kalmic right below them.
We got to a split in the path of the dungeon. I would definitely not call the war with Hiddid a war. More like the most failed jumping of the King of ego swords. I pointed right and we headed that way. To be fair he did take majority of Noxstave before Mila got involved and did it all by himself.
With the scary strength of some people it's hard to try and be strong in this world along with laws preventing kids from practicing and training before adventuring. That's why I decided to go at it with a partner. I gave Stella a small smile before returning to the walk.
A small very fast goblin ran right in front of us, surprising himself as he almost slammed into us. He slid and spun behind us then launched himself at me. I pulled one of the many daggers I had now out and cut it down. The blade shattered and I only left a scratch on it. Its dagger glinted off the fire of my horns and shot out again.
I enhanced my speed and dodged the attack of the goblin again. This time he was going faster than I could react. Using more magic than I wanted I increased my stamina too so I wouldn't tire out. I had gotten faster from the magic points but didn't get faster than this goblin.
It slid on the ground, its dagger pointing dangerously at Stella this time. He swung the blade behind its back, it kicked its leg back and shot out even faster. I pulled Stella to me with all my strength. Barely dodging it ourselves. Stella didn't show a sign of worry. Right as I pulled her a shield of flames sprouted behind her and the goblin both shattered its dagger and crashed into it.
My hands shot out to the slippery goblin before it was no longer stunned and pinned it to the ground. My enhancement along with my weight crushed the monster into a cloud of magic. When these guys get stronger they won't explode into magic instead I'd be getting incredibly dirty from this.
I shook it off and stood up. It had one extra potion on it adding a total of fifteen potions to our names. We continued down the incredibly dark hallway. The end had another two way split in the cave one going similarly back the other direction and the other just going farther in.
"So if we didn't go right we wouldn't have fought that monster?"
"Yeah, bad guess on my side. I should have been paying more attention."
"What were you giving more attention to? Daydreaming?" I just nodded.
When I turned away from Stella I saw a glint of light behind us. My hand shot right behind Stella's head. Clocking the goblins onto the ground before it could pierce her head.
"Thanks!"
I grabbed another dagger and lit it on fire. The flame howled out raggedly and screamed. I pushed the weight down around me and launched at the similarly attacking goblin. Its small body was pulled down and easily allowed my dagger to pass through it.
"Hah. Those goblins can't hold the weight at all. Though I can barely pierce them." I looked at the now shattered dagger and dropped some pieces into my bag.
"We don't get paid much if we don't clear this."
"Yeah, let's just get through this."
I drank a potion and picked up the goblins dagger. Before we walked again I went into my status. I had gained sixteen magic points. My strength and speed grew naturally, because of how weak I am when fighting these new goblins I poured all sixteen into my strength. I now had put around forty magic points into strength. I could feel my stamina was growing this entire time also. Stella allocated her points also as her eyes glowed the status skill in the dark cave.
"Those goblins were faster than the others and definitely stronger. Either they are all like that now or those two were special."
"Heo, they both went down the tunnel and the last one looped back. Maybe they are scouts?"
"I guess, that just means there will be stronger ones farther down."