-17- Beast cave 2
Its jaws bite the empty air.
After retreating, she struck its forelegs and the monster gave out a cry of pain.
In contrast to its threatening roars, one of its legs is dangling. The foreleg bent in a ridiculous direction is fractured.
Shuffling her feet, she slowly closes the distance to approach it.
It’s a dog-type beast with a limited movement but it still leaps with its remaining good legs. With a weak momentum, she perfectly predicted its movement and knocked it towards the wall. And before it gets up, she quickly pierce it with a sharp thrust in its exposed soft abdomen.
Twisting the handle, she expanded its wounds and sealed its movement. The writhing and struggling beast gradually lost its strength and didn’t move.
After the monster’s figure disappears, she bends her waist and picks up the mana stone it left behind. Her physique is flexible.
The face that looked back was almost expressionless.
「Good job.」
「Are we going back soon?」
「Yeah. I was able to collect PP to exchange for a clock, I hope this is enough for our first exploration.」
「Is that so. Since we grasped each of our own abilities and also checked out the dungeon, we will go deeper tomorrow, right?」
I took out a really cheap clock from the backpack and checked the time. Three hours had already elapsed since we entered this dungeon.
Just to be sure, I gather detailed information of the surroundings with detection. Then I walk in front to lead, while she follows behind as a lookout.
The lantern produces a greenish-blue and gray light. The color of the light it emits changes according to the inserted mana stone. While illuminating the path with light, we walk towards the entrance of the dungeon.
「I think we should go on a different route, but are you alright, Hiiragi-san?」
「I’m completely fine. We were taking breaks frequently so I’m not very tired.」
「Okay. Then, shall we go earn some points by killing some monsters along the way?」
Currently walking in the dungeon, I confirmed just a bit what kind of place is this using MS detection.
This cave has a lot of junctions from the start and branches even more as we advanced and sometimes the paths meet, become a dead end, or continue deeper.
The pa.s.sage is about two meters wide at first. It won’t be noticed from an outsider’s perspective, but it’s widening little by little and is three meters now.
The ground is sloping gently towards the underground that it is unnoticeable.
The end hasn’t still been reached and the possibility of traversing it in one day is very unlikely. I found each of the parties of Maizuru, Kazue-chan, and Tsuzuki with detection. But I haven’t found Wazuka’s party which should be the first to go. If it’s capturing the real dungeon, the need to camp will also turn up.
Detection is very convenient. But concentrating is necessary to sense a wider range, so using it in a middle of a fight can’t be done. But even unconsciously, the sixth sense perceives the nearby mana like seeing it when eyes are opened or hearing the sound with ears.
The sixth sense which played an active part in the tutorial improved considerably, the range I can sense unconsciously increased. Moreover, I can now also identify the difference in mana quality just a bit.
The skill called detection in dungeon exploration is good even if it’s unfair, it’s possible to move forward efficiently without pointless detours. We reached a place that was deeper than the three groups that actually came in earlier.
Even this cheat-like skill isn’t perfect. Things far away are vague and not clear, and content of objects wrapped with mana can’t be sensed. The thought process won’t catch up with too much volume of information and it might be impossible to process it. It’s very unlikely that I can use it during a fight.
So far, we confirmed only three types of monsters in this dungeon. These were beast that looked like rats, bats, and dogs.
Rat-type monsters are just the size of a thumb near the entrance, but increases in size as we go deeper. In the place we reached after walking for three hours, their length is equal to that of a shoe. I’ve watched news about large-sized rats in Africa and England, but will I go near that?
I used detection and probed into the depths of the dungeon, but it seems much bigger than it appears to be. In the end, I really don’t have an idea how big it is. Maybe its average sized like those that appear in RPGs, but I can’t deny that it can be also far bigger than that.
It’s rare for a bat monster to be flying alone as it seems to move usually with several of them in camps. They were also gradually getting bigger but reached their limit quickly. Its size has roughly stayed at approximately thirty centimeters in total length.
The bats that appeared in the tutorial are larger than those that can be seen in here. Also, maybe because it’s still the early depths of the dungeon, there are no monsters that can use magic.
The height of the ceiling is also still low and not an unreachable distance so we are able to deal with it properly. Since it’s within the range established by detection, heights that were unreachable didn’t matter.
Eventually, I think that bats that use magic will appear, and they are opponents I don’t want to fight as much as possible deep in the dungeon.
The beasts, that looked more like wolves or coyotes than dogs, were bigger than the two other types from the start. They have the same appearance as the monster I first fought in the tutorial.
They have quick movements, sharp fangs, and raise a loud roar. Some people will feel threatened and scared. But maybe because I and Hiiragi-san already got used to it through the tutorial, I don’t feel threatened at all.
I put out the weapon forward since it won’t be easy to separate away if they bite. It’s easy to deal with if you already know that they have that kind of behavior. To begin with, being taken by surprise is almost impossible since MS can sense mana and their quick movement can be dealt with.
We walk through the dungeon without any particular troubles. Although we’re not being careless, we also do not strain our minds too much.
Hiiragi-san received a strong impact from the benefits of detection. She has reached until the second door of the tutorial. For me, it might be the result of acquiring detection, but on the other hand, Hiiragi-san was able to reach it because of her high base specs.
Even though the sizes of the monsters vary, all of them have mana. When detected, I will know their position and mana volume at close range. It’s also possible to read the magic invocation and its trajectory.
Hiiragi-san seems to be feeling a bit bitter for not having that skill when she was in the tutorial.
The monster’s mana and also their body are small, they do not attack but hide and run away. Therefore, the monsters that were detected behind the rocks and hidden in the ceiling were killed.
I don’t understand them quite well with detection, but it’s my role to deal with them. Although they will never drop a mana stone, I know I can get PP. I decided to aggressively hunt them down no matter how much I get dirtied.
It’s only a guess, but a mana stone should be something like a crystallized form of condensed mana inside a monster. The mana without a form in a condensed state can physically exist as a mana stone.
That’s the explanation I came to when the mana stone placed in the lantern disappeared. This is also the reason why monsters with little mana don’t drop mana stones.
「… That’s what I think, but how about you, Hiiragi-san?」
「I think that’s an interesting reasoning. I became able to sense mana because of detection, but what is mana?」
「Maybe an energy? The monsters that appeared after the first door in the tutorial used magic by releasing their mana from inside their body to the outside.」
「What kind of similar things are possible based on that?」
「I wonder. The demon and Opelgua have enormous mana and created mysterious phenomenon, but I’m not sure if mana is involved in there.」
「Are you not also clear with the detection skill?」
「Yeah. Their existence is too different that I don’t understand at all. I only know that that I’m not sure.」
An isolated monster. From the point of view of a demon and dragonian, I don’t know why we are treated like trash.
Demon, Streiya. Game. Corporate group, Ashia. Old friend. Monster, Albacent. Contractor. Another world, Zakurekirifel. Dungeon. Dragonian, Opelgua.
These are the things I just don’t understand. Being dragged into something unthinkable, people dying, and diving into the dungeon to kill monsters.
Aren’t these only the things I don’t like?
With the third mana stone, a dawn-colored light spills out from the lantern and illuminates the cave. I found out, through the dim light, that the other party’s cheeks look red.
Were her crackers and water stolen or is she thirsty? Watching her drink some water, my throat made a sound.
Let’s finish this short break and continue.
It’s on a level that I’m not worried about experiencing it, but since the invisible fatigue acc.u.mulates in the body, a tired person will not recover easily to his original strength. I wonder who started it, such topic was raised in the discussion this morning. So we decided to take short rests every hour.
We should start walking because we had enough rest. I can’t bear seeing her in this place for too long.
We won’t encounter a monster just by walking a little. I can’t confirm at this moment that monsters pop out in the same way as the tutorial.
I’ve been identifying the monster’s territory gradually by using detection.
It seems that it’s a kind of constructed ecosystem, monsters are establishing their territory and trying not to commit too much on the same type of area. This tendency is strong for the dog-types as a lot of their areas overlap with that of rat-types. Despite being small, bat-types form a camp.
I can’t see it right now, but monsters also hunt down other monsters according to my sixth sense. Dog-types hunt rat-types, bat-types attack dog-types and rat-types, and rat-types scavenge for profit while others fight.
After a monster is defeated, another monster extends their territory. The balance that sways as it approaches the equilibrium moves. The ripples caused by us will also settle back as time pa.s.s by.
If we choose the same road, there will be almost no encounter with monsters on our way back.
One strange thing is that the corpses don’t disappear immediately when a monster kills another monster, it seems to be a sufficient time for it to eat.
And while it is busy killing, although small, I can sense its mana increasing. I feel a bit uneasy about growing monsters. I wonder if someday an unmanageable monster will be born.
I detected a bat clinging to the wall and smashed it. I know it won’t drop a mana stone.
Hiiragi-san walks without even showing that she cared. It was a simple work.