So is this your first time in a dungeon?"
While I idly listened to Claret's almost evangelical tellings of her old master's tales, one of the members of the adventurer party I was waiting with spoke up. The man was wearing a hard-looking leather chest plate, bracers, and greaves, all painted bright red. He wore a hard leather cap with some crudely drawn decorations as well as large, wide, and flat wooden plates in place of the round shoulder guards I expected. There was a pole axe leaning against the closest tree beside him.
While not completely matching, the other members of his party wore similar gear painted in the same bright red.
There was a man with a sturdy looking shield that resembled a Roman scutum leaning against a tree beside him, along with a mace hanging off of his hip. The third man had a quiver filled with arrows on his belt and a bow laying in front of him. Beside him was someone who lacked the shoulder plates and greaves the others had, and instead had a wooden staff with some sort of jewel embedded in the head.
"For this dungeon."
"You've been to other dungeons and you didn't know about queuing for the boss room?"
"There weren't many other people in the dungeon I went to."
Trying not to sound too suspicious about not knowing something that was probably general information while simultaneously avoiding talking too much about my past, I answered him as simply as I could.
"What sort of dungeon is that? I've never heard of a dungeon that's not popular!"
(Crap.)
"Ah, well, it's really out of the way. Not near any big cities."
"What's that? Some sort of undiscovered dungeon or something?"
(Damnit.)
"Does such a thing even exist?"
Thinking fast, I tried to divert the conversation.
"Ah, well, maybe there's no dungeons that nobody's discovered, but there are some that outside of civilized lands."
"Oh right, like there's probably some in the demon lands that nobody on this side's ever seen."
"Demon lands?"
I latched on to the strange term the adventurer with the bow let out, half out of desperation, half out of curiosity.
<They're the lands...>
"Those are the lands controlled by the demons and stuff. Not really the kinda place you wanna go."
Claret glared at the the one that unknowingly interrupted her. She was probably more angry that the fact that she lost her chance to show off to me than actually being interrupted though.
Well, I wanted to ask why it was bad to go to the demon lands, but I held my tongue to avoid suspicion. That, and to give something for Claret to answer later on. It would probably make her pretty happy.
"I think you're the first person I've met that didn't know that. You must've really come from the boonies if you didn't know about those demons' lands"
"Ahaha, yea, I guess you can say that."
It wasn't really wrong. It took me years before I met any people, and the closest settlement I found was quite the distance through a monster infested forest.
"If you want, how about you join our party? We can teach you all sort of things."
The man with the poleaxe got up and came over, offering a hand.
"No, I'm fine. I've got people I'm with already."
I shook my head and hoped that it would be enough to deter these guys. I was already with Alicia and Claret, and was looking forward to discovering what Alicia could do, but both of them wouldn't ever get a chance to shine if there were people hanging on to us the entire time we were inside the dungeon.
"You're by yourself right now, aren't you? How about we go together for now then? Safety in numbers and all. Hell, if they're as cute as you sound, maybe we can all form a big party together when we meet up? Where are you planning on joining up with them anyways?"
(As cute as I sound? What the hell? Now I really don't want to be with this guy.)
"Deeper inside the dungeon."
"Deep? How deep?"
"Very deep."
"What, so like the fifth floor?"
"No, a lot deeper than that."
"So then the tenth? The twentieth?"
"Nope."
"It can't be the thirtieth. That's the last floor!"
"We're planning on staying inside for a while, so that's the aim."
Well, it was whatever the deepest floor would be. It was a bit strange that this dungeon was only thirty floors deep when I got past eighty floors of my home dungeon with no indication of it ending soon, but maybe it just varied a lot?
"That's...umm, anyways, so you're going to camp out in the safe zones then? It's not like we haven't done that before either. If we spend a bit of time gathering food, it won't be hard to stay for as long as you've planned."
"Hey, what're you going off making plans on your own! This was going to be a day trip!"
At the yell of his party member, the axe man quickly jumped back to his group and whispered his argument.
"C'mon! What's wrong with spending some extra time in the dungeon? If this girl's half as cute under that hood as she sounds, it'll be a waste to let her go so easily! And just look! She's covered up, but it's obvious that her curves are even better than Matilda's!"
Though he was whispering, his words didn't escape my ears.
<Master, can I this impale this rude bastard?>
Apparently it didn't escape Claret's ears either.
<Don't. I want to avoid unnecessary trouble.>
<Then how about I erase all of them?>
The dark spirit hanging off of my shoulder had a dark smile that belied the gentle looking face she naturally had. As to emphasize how she was feeling, her hands formed into tight fists and shook a little.
<Don't. I don't want to have such a thing on my conscious.>
<Master! You're always too kind to bad people like this! But since it's what you want...>
Fortunately, or perhaps as expected, she backed off in an instant.
While I was finished talking to Claret, the other party continued arguing. I turned my head in exasperation, and just as I was hoping for a way out, one presented itself. The light emitted from the boss doors had faded before I noticed, and it seemed like the others hadn't either.
"Hey, are you guys going to..."
But it seemed like the argument had gotten a bit heated, and they didn't notice my words.
(Well, if you're not going to, then I will. And if I'm lucky, the boss room'll reset before they even notice I'm gone.)
Taking advantage of the situation, I got up and went over to the boss doors.
Putting my hand on the door, it easily and silently hinged in as I pushed, and I was inside at once.
Like usual, there was a boss waiting for me.
The boss room was quite simple, just a circle of trees with vines and thinner trees intertwining each other filling the gaps. There was three goblins waiting in the middle. Two unarmoured ones each with stone axes, and a slightly bigger one wearing what looked like a half-rotten pelt as armour, and wielding a spear in both hands.
Just as the slightly bigger fodder started to point and yell at me, I fired off a trio of ice arrows at them at high velocity. By the time the sonic booms produced by the pieces of high speed ice reached my ears, they had already shattered against the far wall. The sheer force of the impact as the super sonic projectiles made their heads explode in a gory mess.
Ignoring the bodies, I hopped over to the far side and waited for the boss chest to appear. Once the goblin corpses finally disappeared, the chest appeared as if it grew out of the ground. Kicking it open, a bottle filled with some sort of blue liquid was sitting inside patiently as I considered leaving it and moving on.
It would've been nice if it was a pair of boots or some sort of other clothes, but that was probably asking too much for the first floor boss.
But I picked it up and threw it into my bag anyways. It might come in handy someday, though I doubted it.
The goblin drops...I ignored entirely. I didn't want to concern myself with goblins more than I had to.
With that, I took the passage down to the next floor.
<Wow. I was surprised how fast that happened.>
Just as I entered the next fountain room, Alicia spoke up sounding a little off.
<They were a pain, so I'm actually glad they ignored us long enough for us to move on.>
<No, I meant those goblins.>
<Oh, well I don't think it's worth wasting time on such weak enemies.>
<I guess. But the way you took them out so quickly made me jump.>
<Sorry. I didn't really think about how you're not used to seeing fights yet.>
<It's fine. I need to get used to it anyways.>
<Still, the way I did it was pretty bloody. I should've went a better way.>
<No! Do it how you think it's best! I need to get used to seeing fights, and it's not good for you to lose your edge just because of me!>
<Well, it's not like I'll have much trouble. Those guys said that this dungeon is only thirty floors deep, but I got to the 87th floor in our home dungeon, so I doubt I'll be pushing my limits anytime soon.>
<The 87th floor?>
<Is something wrong Claret?>
Her words sounded more thoughtful than usual, with a tinge of melancholy and what sounded a bit like nostalgia.
<No, umm, if I may. Was there a town or maybe the remains of one at the entrance of the dungeon you're talking about?>
<No, nothing like that. It was just a small clearing surrounded by a forest.>
<I see. I'm surprised to hear about another dungeon that deep.>
<Is it that unusual?>
Alicia took the words out of my mouth. Metaphorically, since we were talking through our minds.
<Yes, it's very rare for dungeons to have that many floors. I only know of one that has more than fifty floors, but if you remember, the settlement was built up around its entrance. If Master hadn't noticed anything like that in the one you were at, then it must be a different dungeon.>
<I see. Well, maybe you can show us that dungeon in the future? It sounds a bit interesting.>
It seemed like this was an important place to Claret, and probably the previous Scarlet. I was curious about it, but just as importantly, it would be good to let Claret visit it someday.
<Of course! I can show it to you whenever you want! It's your dungeon after all!>
<My...I already have a dungeon. I don't need a second. And that's the previous Scarlet's dungeon right? If there's a village around it, it must already belong to someone else now, right?>
Or rather, the other Scarlet had her own dungeon then? That village must've been where she lived as well, at least for a little while. It wasn't too surprising that another vampire would try to make a dungeon their home. It was incredibly convenient in quite a lot of ways, so most would try to live close to one at the least.
<Then I can beat out whoever dared to do such a thing and it'll belong to you again!>
<No beating people to take ownership of something that the other Scarlet lost, alright?>
<I understand Master.>
(This girl, really.)
With that, I moved on. There was some traces of people having used this fountain room as a camp site, but I ignored them and moved on.
The second floor turned out to be...another forest. The trees were of a different breed, but I could only tell by the shape of the leaves.
In terms of monsters, there were more goblins and loam wolves, but they showed up in greater numbers than the previous floor. There weren't any rush rabbits though.
Just like the first floor, I found a place with no people and took to the skies and rushed through past all the monsters and other adventurers to the boss room. Fortunately, unlike the first floor, the boss door wasn't glowing, so we didn't have to wait to fight the boss this time.
Pushing the door open, we were greeted another circular room and a group of five monsters. It was two loam wolves and three bigger wolves, the same kind I saw on the first floor of my home dungeon. Rather than taking them out immediately, I had an idea.
<Claret, could you back off for a minute?>
<Okay...>
Either she didn't want to, or was incapable of hiding her disappointment to my order, but the dark spirit got off of my back and floated by the wall out of the way. It was probably better that someday I get her used to not being in physical contact with me all the time. I needed to remember to make time for that.
<Hey Alicia, how about you try taking these guys on instead of me?>
<Huh?! Me?!>
<Oh, that sounds like a great idea!>
<In theory, you should be able to use my skills. How about it?>
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