“““Happy Birthday!”””

The atmosphere was perfect.

A clear blue sky without any clouds while my hair was fluttering lightly from a cool breeze. Saori, Tasianna, and Ellaine were sitting before me, smiling brightly as they finished their congratulations, only now beginning to sing the “Happy Birthday” song translated into Common. To the right sat Grimnir, helmetless, looking relaxed as he drank some of Saori’s wine, while on my left were the garms, all four napping peacefully.

The cake was perfect.

It was a simple one us girls made using my transportable oven, only covered with pink fragassa frosting and decorated with a large white “1” made from whipped cream. For the majority of Artorians, the normal day-to-day people I see on the streets, this sugary goodness would probably be impossible to get since yeast by itself was still a luxury and sugar was heavily monopolized by the nobility, despite sugar beets being farmed in this kingdom.

Yeah, everything is great. Feels so normal.

…

Well, almost.

“Thank you very much…Oh jeez, the wind is blowing in the blood smell again, urgh.” It was normal until you realized I was celebrating my first year of being in Peolynca in a murderous dungeon, willing to send goons of monsters to kill people for their mana.

But it didn’t bother me too much.

Saori shrugged, agreeing with me as I giggled at the absurdness of the situation. “Well, you reap what you sow. You knew your birthday was coming up and you still chose to help Mister Drunk over there.” She pointed at Grimnir.

Yes, it was my birthday. I finally became one year old, and the way I learned this, despite being in a dungeon and unable to count the passing days, is 'cause of my profile. It recorded how many months has passed since I was born and, two “nights” ago, it informed me my birthday had arrived.

Now, the four of us had decided to delay the celebration — our little party here — until there was a more opportune moment, like after defeating floor 14’s boss. After all, with how frustrating floor ten was, we just wanted to get through this whole place as soon as possible. Floors one to nine were tranquil, since you could see the dungeon was trying to recreate a natural ecosystem.

However, floor ten to 14 really showed the dungeon’s real intentions. There weren’t any traps; nevertheless, all the monster ambushes and the treacherous cliffside, which you could fall down from and probably disappear forever in, made this whole place annoying. I bet, if a normal adventurer party had gone through that place, then they’d have found it even worse.

‘Dungeon Masters, being the assigned master of a dungeon, have the ability to transport themselves to the core without any issues. In addition, monsters created from the dungeon are forced to listen to them while they are inside the dungeon’s premises. For this reason, dungeon masters were able and encouraged to increase defenses to prevent invaders from arriving at the core,’ was something the dungeon book explained.

If the first nine floors were intended to be the money-making floors, then it would make sense why the later floors were just hard. The Adventurer’s Guilds forbad adventurers from stealing a conquered dungeon’s core while the Origin Gods made destroying ones containing mana a sin. However, I could understand why the owner — the duke — still wanted to protect their gold mine, their cash cow, their golden goose.

Then again, despite the danger, our party wanted this sort of training. That is why we stayed in Cedaraille in the first place, so yeah, Saori was right. We reaped what we sowed.

“Now, come on, come on, birthday lass, open up your treasure chest. That’s the only reason I’m even waiting around,” Grimnir slammed his tankard of wine on the table, grumbling once again as if he couldn’t live without complaining. He then picked up a large wooden chest from underneath the table and threw it on the table, almost hitting the uncut cake.

“Hey, my cake! Watch it!” I yelled. My heart nearly skipped a beat.

“Could you please drink your wine quietly?” Saori grumbled to herself.

“Mister Grimnir, we worked hard on this cake. I would like to ask you not to ruin My Lady’s celebration,” Tasianna protested.

“Yes, please,” Ellaine agreed, looking a bit nervous to talk back to the grumpy dwarf.

Chest. That’s right, treasure chests. The dungeon’s way to entice adventurers into facing dangers for the pursuit of rewards, despite not knowing what would be inside of them. They were like surprise easter eggs, just a bit more dangerous to get, and in this case, we found the chest after we defeated the felgheist nightlord.

This was the third one we found. Our first only gave us a simple dagger while the second one I accidentally destroyed when I freaked out from the toad that illusionist created to scare me, so I really hope this one will be good. I mean, this was the chest given to us after we defeated a boss type monster. On our way to floor 14, our party has been incredibly unlucky with finding treasure chests, to the point even Grimnir remarked how unusual it was.

I don’t want to say my luck was bad, ‘cause it couldn’t be. Absolutely not. However, considering we wandered on floor ten for two days without finding a single chest was just baffling to me. Adventurers wouldn’t be adventurers without a chest or super loot here and there to keep them motivated.

After Saori cut a slice of cake for everybody in attendance, including the garms, I clapped my hands together and began praying. Saori tilted her head in confusion while Tasianna and Ellaine followed suit, praying to Plesia, Zephira, and Aurena respectively. Grimnir was the only one who was rubbing his hands, looking impatiently at me to open the chest.

I bet Tasianna and Ellaine were thinking I would pray to Aurena, but, unfortunately for them, they couldn’t be further from the mark. I wouldn’t pray to the Origin Gods for everything like a Peolyncian. No, I prayed to somebody far more powerful than them!

Oh, Gacha Lords and RNGesus, please, hear my prayer! Give me something good, please! Please! I bet Aurena will complain about this later on.

Without any further hesitation, I tore off the lock holding the chest closed and pried it open with my claws. As everybody looked inside, Grimnir nodded with approval at our findings, telling me to take items out since smaller gear could be hidden among the larger ones. After I did, I let Grimnir appraise them.

“Hmm, three large pieces of treant bark. Tougher than the barkwraith we met, so I guess this belongs to a C rank. Can be used to make some good armor or a bow, but I recommend using it as an ingredient for alchemy or runecraft. Some eoriant bars. Nice to have, saves you some money for future blacksmith requests,” Grimnir then set the material loot aside, his beard went up in a smile as he gazed at a shield and a necklace. “Perfect timing. A shield resistant to fire and magma, even has a rune here to create an aura shield to protect you from unbearable heat. Good scales, from flame-spitting slazzanbals. Hmm, this amulet, on the other hand, needs an [Identify] to reveal it’s true ability.”

“Got it.”

Mana Eyes.

Grove Treant’s Magic Bark

A large chunk of bark from a [Grove Defender Treant]’s trunk, which has retained the quality mana of the giant woodland monster. Dismantled from a C rank monster, this bark is extremely durable, not only providing high defence, but also it increases its holder’s Health regeneration proportional to the owner’s Mana

Slazzanbal-scaled Shield of Heat Resistance

A shield created from steel fortified with slazzanbal scales and bones, increasing its fire resistance.

Skill: [Fire Resistance Lv. 8] [Lava Resistance Lv. 1] [Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 2] [Shield Mastery Lv. 3] [Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 3]

Rune: [Defensive Rune: Heat Barrier]

Necklace of Vampiric Undying

A necklace made from a felgheist’s bones and claws, with an alchemical stone created using a C rank felgheist’s heart as a base placed in the middle. An owner can be registered by feeding this necklace some of the owner’s blood, storing it inside the alchemical stone until it is used. Prevents the owner’s Health from being lowered below 1 when worn, healing them proportional to the amount of blood stored inside the alchemical stone. Will break once used

Ooooh my.

“That is not bad,” Ellaine exclaimed once the four of us finished appraising them, explaining it to Grimnir afterwards. “If we were to sell this to any noble, we could negotiate for a considerable price.”

“You could?” I tilted my head. “Couldn’t people just recreate this through alchemy? The description even stated a felgheist’s heart is needed for the alchemical stone, and we just harvested a C rank one from that felgheist nightlord.”

“It isn’t that easy, sadly,” Grimnir chimed in. “Sure, it is theoretically possible for us to make one of these necklaces… but we aren’t vampires.”

Saori raised a brow as she heard this, asking, “What do vampires have to do with this?”

“No idea,” Grimnir shrugged. “All I know is that if the item has a ‘vampiric’ or ‘sanguine’ modifier, then only a vampire can create it. There are enchantments called ‘Life Steal,’ even a rune called ‘Passive Rune: Life Steal,’ based on the Dark spell [Enfeebling Winds]; however, even I have to admit that we runesmiths can’t best a vampire in their own forte. Ha, and good luck getting the Vampire Goddess’ spawns to help you out. Imagine a high elf’s pompousness, magnified by the fact they know they’re better than the high elves. You got yourselves the vampires.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

So this thing is pretty rare.

“What about the dungeon? Considering it just dropped for us, shouldn’t the hunter’s guild get Quests for adventurers to continuously grind floor 14 for this drop?” I wondered.

“I actually never heard this existed until now, neither from my father or mother,” Ellaine answered. “Maybe Lord Duke Greenveil knows all the different drops from the dungeon, but considering how treacherous it’s been these past floors, I do not believe most adventurers would risk their lives for an uncertain treasure chest drop. After all, did the book not state that rewards were random?”

It did. The book did state that treasure chest rewards were one of the few functions the dungeon master could not control, which the author presumes the Divine System had made in place to prevent overabundance of certain items. They could create a treasure chest manually or let the dungeon determine where to spawn it,but the former option would cost more mana to use.

I thought that a dungeon master could just control what resources they wanted the dungeon to produce, like making grinding a certain boss drop easier, but I guess that was a pipedream. Nothing is easy and the Divine System tries to keep some semblance of balance, I presume.

With that answered, I asked Grimnir how runes worked, since this was our party’s first piece of equipment with a rune. Essentially, pouring mana into the rune like a magic circle was all that was needed. If the gear could conduct mana easily, then pouring mana into it anywhere was all that you needed to do, otherwise, a simple touch on the rune was needed. The shield was made out of steel, so it was fortunate that the rune was placed behind it, making it easy to touch.

“Let me show you.” Grimnir stood up and picked up his blasthammer, showing us a single rune underneath one of its heads. He touched it, causing it to glow before creating a defensive barrier around him. “This is [Defensive Rune: Pavise], the physical counterpart of [Defensive Rune: Auracoil], which protects you from magic. To keep it up, you need to keep pouring mana into it.”

“Isn’t it similar to magic? How are dwarves able to use it?” My question was just harmless curiosity, but it seems like Grimnir didn’t like that my common sense was lower than he thought.

“Lass, this isn’t like your fancy spell casting. It’s an adaptation we tazongs made to overcome the fact we can’t become mages. Although we can’t expel mana away from our body, we can circulate it around us or through a conduit, like an eoriant weapon, making it possible for us to use skills like [Mana Strike]. We can also charge mana batteries with the same concept. And with this concept, we made runes, which are essentially mana batteries that cast ‘spell-like’ effects.”

After he finished his explanation, Grimnir told us we could keep the rewards of the chest. When I insisted he should take something, he shook his head and told us his only goal was the magma rock we promised to help him get. I guess Saori influenced me a bit since I happily accepted them and gave the two pieces of equipment to Ellaine.

“Oh, there is no ne-”

“Don’t be modest, Ellaine. Take them. We’ll be rushing into a place with magma and fire soon, so this should help you out.”

Despite having leveled up a lot, I was still worried about Ellaine’s survivability by quite a bit, even more than Tasianna since, unlike our fairy maid, Ellaine didn’t have any way to combat the fire type monsters we were about to fight. I wasn’t willing to lose a friend and, to make sure that didn’t happen, this shield and necklace will come in handy.

Ellaine reluctantly took them after I explained it to her, knowing full well that I only meant well. Grimnir was about to leave to scout what was on floor 15, as we planned to depart after sleeping, but we stopped him since we wanted to give out the preparations we did in the one week of training. Training wasn’t the only thing we did.

“Red capes?” Grimnir asked as Saori gave him a red cloak.

“Fire element mana threads weaved together into a cloak. They aren’t powerful, but I made sure they are resistant to some heat and fire to make our trip easier.” Saori knew the area would be burning hot, and she wanted to make our travel time less harsh to prevent fatigue. Her way to do it was to bring her tailor abilities to show.

“Lady Hestia will be able to provide most of the healing, but please bring these with you for emergencies. Safety first, yes?” Tasianna then handed Grimnir her new [Health Potion (Major)] made from Belzac herbs, undiluted since we wanted to focus on healing potency. Mana Potions, on the other hand, we still had to buy from a potion shop since Cernust only taught her how to make health potions.

“So you lasses have a bar-”

“I’m not a bard. I’m an idol.” My head jerked to Grimnir, instantly correcting him.

“…An idol, then you have a mana thread weaver, an alchemist…and you are, Ellaine?” Grimnir looked over to our newest member.

Looking flustered at being put on the spot, Ellaine shuttered a bit, “Uhm, w-well, I am still a novice, but I am learning how to become an artificer, otherwise, I handle the finances for Aurora.”

“Artificer, you say? Hmm, dainty hands for one, but I guess you are a noblewoman. Hmph. Thank you, I’ll gladly take on your gratitude.” Grimnir strapped his red cloak on his shoulder, fitting him perfectly as it was custom made. He placed multiple Health potions on his belt before giving us three bright red colored potions. “[Inferno Resistance Potion (Moderate)]. A taz like me doesn’t need one and I didn’t think that you were a fire dragonewt, so you would have needed one too. Now, seeing you in that giant dragon form, I gotta say I don’t think I needed to be worried. I’ll be scouting a bit, maybe the rock is right in front of the entrance. You lasses enjoy your time together, alright?”

He can be blunt, but he really is a good person.

Putting his helmet back on, the taz moved down the stairs to floor 15. The moment he left, Ellaine began to speak, “You know, this might have been my first time seeing you in your natural dragon form, Hestia.”

I turned my head toward her; my attention was caught. Looking at her expression, I knew I shouldn’t say anything and instead let her speak her mind first.

She continued, “Mister Grimnir was correct, worrying about you in that form would be foolish. A waste of time. I felt… tiny when I saw you there, destroying the horde of felgheists as if they were nothing to you. You just stood majestically there and nothing could approach you without being burned to ashed. Everybody… allow me to ask, am I deadweight?”

“…Why do you ask that?” I asked, careful with my words.

“I mean, looking at how fast I leveled up. Doesn’t it mean anybody could train up to become C ranked warriors from becoming your retainer, Hestia? I am stronger than my brother now, far stronger, but I don’t feel like it was due to my own efforts. I wonder, if you had taken my brother on as a retainer instead of me, wouldn’t he have progressed more than I did? Grown far more powerful? It really is strange, you know. We were taught becoming as able as a C rank adventurer would be hard at the academy, and that we needed to dedicate our time well. But look at me, an average talent almost made it to level 50… because of you.”

Silence. Tasianna, Saori, and I already expected this would come based on how much Ellaine wanted to prove herself to us, but we didn’t expect it to happen here in the dungeon. I mean, how am I supposed to respond to this?

“I apologize, Hestia. I really shouldn’t have mentioned this when we’re celebrating your birthday. It was rude and inappropriate. I earnestly wish you the best for your next year on Peolynca, and that-”

“I’m glad we became friends, Ellaine.”

“Huh?” Ellaine’s eyes widened, mouth agape at my sudden statement.

“You know, despite having lived a second life, I can barely remember anything concerning my birthdays on Earth. I can envision the events that happened, but the faces of my parents, relatives, and friends are just gone. They don’t exist in my memories anymore, or maybe they’ll come back one day if what Aurena told me was true, uh, Goddess Aurena.” No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember anybody’s names. It was sad.

“However, today, with all three of you, the garms, and surprisingly also with Grimnir. I had my ‘first’ birthday memory today. Sure, my physical body might not break that easily, but before I came to Carine Village, you have no idea how much of a wreck I was. I considered just leaving everybody, to keep Saori and Tasianna safe by not being around. With power comes responsibilities, Ellaine, and you can’t tell me your father or Marquess Sirius hasn’t considered the sheer risk my presence brings. Not just as a princess, but also as a dragon.”

Just think about it. If [Battle Frenzy] activated and I went crazy, I could have hurt a lot of people. I couldn’t be more thankful to Master Kush for protecting Saori and Tasianna when Shiterno caused my rampage. Sure, Shiterno tried to make me stronger, but, by causing me to nearly hurt my friends, he indirectly caused the one thing I wanted to avoid at all cost. A trauma I never wanted to think about again. That’s why I couldn’t forgive him.

Just imagine your comic book or movie superheroes. If you think about it, super powered beings like them are just a bad day away from going crazy and joining those they fought in the first place. I promised to defend and make my friends happy, and promises are something I do not break. Ever. Even my soul knows how important they are.

“I asked you if you were prepared when I explained how dangerous our lives are and you still agreed, Ellaine. I know you are second guessing yourself here, but think about it, you’ve only been with us for three weeks at best,” I argued. “Let me make it understandable. Look at Tasianna, it took her one month to cooperate with Saori semi-reliably, but even then, how long did you need to become battle proficient, Tasianna?”

“Until the bandit battle, where I understood how to stand on my own feet instead of being a supportive fighter. Even then, I needed my current catalyst to become useful enough to be a reliable fighter. I still remember being stuck in my fairy form, too nervous to fight,” Tasianna admitted without any shame, knowing she struggled a lot when taking human lives.

Then I pointed to Saori. “Hers was terrible, too. She was born a warg cub, and the first kobold I had her kill to level up made her puke. Actually, you couldn’t even kill your first one, I had to do it.”

“Yes, yes, I was a total failure. But it is not like you were the perfect teacher back then either, Hestia,” Saori gave me a “bruh” look as she shook her head. “Ellaine, in my first month, I was practically useless without Hestia since I was a mere cub. I couldn’t fight and I was too scared to do anything despite desperately wanting to repay Hestia for her kindness. I even nearly died once due to being kidnapped by an enemy. It took me two months to figure out my current fighting style, and even then, I felt so inferior to Hestia that I had her duel me with rules favored towards me. Even then, I couldn’t win against her, despite having Tasianna’s help. You cannot become a capable fighter in less than a month.”

“And since we’re admitting all our faults, then you can’t forget about me, Ellaine. The dragon you saw today is a far cry from the palm-sized lizard that was born a year ago. Just saying, I nearly died twice in the first week of my new existence. I had a ton of near-death experiences where if my luck hadn’t prevailed, we four would probably have never met. Aurora exists simply because luck helped me out a bit, I won’t even deny it. The gods’ blessings would have been useless if I were turned into a grilled lizard on day one,” I recalled. “As morbid as it sounds, it’s the truth. Oh, and let’s not forget about the fact that I was so lonely that I was somehow able to get [Parallel Minds]. I didn’t buy it. Neither can you three. In a way, I was pretty fucked up in the head back then and I’m still normalizing the voices in my head.”

‘You barely talk with us nowadays outside of magic practice, original mind!’

‘Ahhh, can it, manager mind. It’s not like you guys dislike it a bit. If I feel happy, you guys feel happy. That’s always been the case. And, let’s be honest, there are ten minds talking inside my head and trying to tune you guys out is quite hard.’

Shaking my head to ignore my parallel minds for a moment, I returned to what I wanted to tell Ellaine. “What I wanted to say is that all three of us had been deadweights at the start. Just because I have Goddess Aurena’s and Kargryxmor’s blessings doesn’t mean I’m a talented person or something, because I’m not. If I were, then my idol career would have been far better than what I could remember. I’m good at playing instruments and singing. That’s all. Those two are my real talents. The strength you see today came from training, strengthening my base and never accepting the current me.”

I inhaled for a second before finishing my speech, “That’s why, yes, Ellaine, you are deadweight, but so was I. So was Saori. So was Tasianna. But what makes us strong is that we didn’t give up, that we kept our motivation up and continued training. You are still in the phase where you need to get stronger, train more, find out what your style of fighting will be. By joining us at such a low level, you’ll be able to benefit a lot from the skill point system. I respect you very much for going against your mother’s wish to come with us, so don’t give me that attitude of trying to give up, okay?! You’re a member of Aurora now and we three will help you become good enough to prove yourself to whomever you want. Whether it’s your father, your mother, your brother, or those nobles at the academy.”

I held my hand in front of me, prompting Saori to place her palm on mine. Tasianna caught up to what we were doing and placed hers on ours, leaving Ellaine to be the only one left. “Come on, Aurora is made out of four members. We can’t cheer without you.”

“Uhm,” Ellaine hesitated for a second, prompting me to grab her arm and place it on ours. Ellaine inhaled to calm herself down, nodding when she was ready.

I nodded back. “It’ll be hard, but we will all make it back to the surface, alright? An aurora should be shining brightly in the sky, not inside a dungeon! Let’s do this, AURORA!”

“““AURORA!”””

Honestly, for a birthday party, that was too much serious talk. Seriously.

“Great motivational speech, Hestia,” Saori praised me before the party continued.

Time flew by afterwards, to the point we had dinner without Grimnir. Even after finishing dinner, Grimnir did not come back.

“Grimnir seems to have lost some Health but it’s not to the point of being in danger. Still, where is he?” I worried after looking at my party bracelet.

We waited for a bit more but, when he still hadn’t come back, Aurora decided to move out. Waiting any longer would not have been good.

“Uno, Song, Sarasa, Quatre! Help us find Grimnir!” Saori ordered her garms, all four carrying each of us on their backs.

With a loud howl, we descended down into the heat.

****************************************************

“We serve the flame! We serve the FIRE!!!”

“““Fire consumes fire! Fire consumes fire! Fire consumes fire!”””

The sound of humans and beastmen, frolicking in the heat of a magma chamber deep inside a dungeon. Their howls of fervor were made towards the flame, honoring the pantheon of fire.

“Kruuuuu…”

“Grigrighri!”

“Skriiieieeeeekk!!!”

Floor 20 was empty. The boss of the Emerald-Flare Dungeon was gone.

Footsteps. The earth quaked before the feet of three giants.

A four-legged, shark-like creature with skin made from molten rock, exuding magma with its every step, growling as it delved into the molten sea. A bipedal scaled monster with a serpentine body wandered around the floors of this hellish place, slicing anything it sees with blades of fire.

And in the depth of this hellfire, lurked a giant mother. Having broken through her prison, her tiny fire-breathing children dashed forwards, wary of their giant mother’s sickle legs stomping on the ground.

It was a dungeon break.