Garami's PoV:
*Yawn*, modern camping gear is better than you'd believe.
It's been a day since I got stuck in this Dungeon, but I have survived. Glad that this "safe room" place is a no-access zone for the Dungeon's monsters and traps. According to Bloom, at least. That's why I couldn't relax right away, but the exhaustion must have gotten to me because I was sleeping before I knew it.
Anyway, things are looking good. My affinity for this Dungeon is top-tier. I'm scared of my good luck now. I won't be facing some nasty shit after this, will I?
Despite the bad feeling in my gut, I still prepared a simple breakfast. Thank god I forgot to deposit all the food items before leaving for the Shadow Pits. If not, things would have been ugly. I don't wanna eat monster meat ever again...
Of course, I used the [Cleanse Poison] skill on all the food and cooking tools just to be safe, even if this "safe room" is supposed to be danger-proof. You can never be too careful while in a Dungeon after all.
Not to mention that I still have lots of anti-poison items in my Storage as well. I originally bought them in case the other three wanted a rematch against the poison mushroom area, but I never expected to use them during a solo run through a mystery Dungeon.
Speaking of mysteries, I wonder what the reason is that I am down here in the first place. Bloom thinks that there may have been some World System errors due to that bastard snake Glavras' actions, but I don't know...
Speaking of Dungeons and their rules, I wonder what kinda boss that is lurking on the...whatever-floor-it-is-on. Bloom mentioned that these Dungeons get deeper the older they are, so if this is a relatively new and unexplored place, it should hopefully not be that much of a challenge...
Anyway, I've confirmed what items I still have, so now onto checking my status page.
Name: Garami | [Dungeon Raider] Race: Stygian Executioner Gender: Female Level: 18/50 Traits: 4 Karma Value: -200
Skill List:
Skill List: Ability Skills:
[Extra Health Lv.6] [Massive Mana Lv.13] UP2 [Minimized Mana Consumption Lv.12] UP2 [Mana Auto-Recovery Lv.50 (Max)] UP4 [Increased Stamina Lv.9] UP1 [Greater Strength Lv.8] UP1 [Tougher Vitality Lv.6] [Resistance Lv.5] NEW [Speed Lv.45] UP6 [Dexterity Lv.50 (Max)]
Attack Skills:
[Hardlight Claw Lv.6] UP5 [Darkness Bullet Lv.32] UP5 [Darkness Daggers Lv.22] UP3 [Poison Ball Lv.11] UP1 [Demon Claw Lv.12] UP3 [Web Bomb Lv.24] UP4
Magic Skills:
[Heretic Magic Lv.6] [Healing Magic Lv.6] [Necromantic Rites Lv.8] UP4 [Create Undead: Skeleton Lv.4] UP2 [Magic Eye of Blindness Lv.13] UP1 [Magic Eye of Weakness Lv.12] UP1 [Magic Eye of Fragility Lv.6] UP1 [Magic Eye of Deterioration Lv.12] [Summon Phantom: Rat King Lv.6]
Crafting Skills:
[Weaving Lv.29] UP6 [Tailoring Lv.22] UP7 [Dyeing Lv.13] UP5 [Repair: Cloth Lv.2] NEW [Alchemy Lv.11] NEW [Synthesis Circle Lv.10] NEW [Conversion Circle Lv.1] NEW [Trap Creation Lv.5] UP4
Active Skills:
[Liquid Control Lv.11] UP4 [Aura of Darkness Lv.32] UP3 [Optical Cover Lv.27] UP3 [Cleanse Poison Lv.6] UP5 [Sticky Limbs Lv.22] UP2 [Cutting Thread Lv.27] UP4 [Web Wings Lv.9] [Dreadful Menace Lv.10] UP2 [Spatial Storage Lv.23] UP2
Passive Skills:
[Dagger Proficiency Lv.16] UP3 [Scythe Proficiency Lv.20] UP4 [Rope Proficiency Lv.11] UP3 [Lurk Lv.50 (Max)] [Aiming Lv.35] UP4 [Evasion Lv.18] UP3 [Jump Lv.11] UP3 [Parkour Lv.47] UP4 [Ambush Lv.29] UP2 [Sadistic Constitution Lv.16] UP1 [Throwing Lv.37] UP3 [Camouflage Lv.37] UP4 [Demonic Disguise Lv.9] UP1 [Climbing Lv.28] UP2 [Riding Lv.12] UP1 [Slumber Lv.7] UP3 [Dreamlike Form Lv.21] UP5 [Necromantic Harvest Lv.5] UP4 [Necromantic Knowledge Lv.5] UP4 [Fear Reinforcement Lv.13] UP4 [Destruction Reinforcement Lv.8] UP1 [Concentration Lv.46] UP6 [Prediction Lv.33] UP5 [Parallel Thinking Lv.39] UP4 [Vital Point Knowledge Lv.23] UP2 [Language Adaptation]
Perception Skills:
[Gamemaster Lv.31] UP3 [Detect Poison Lv.12] UP11 [Detect Monster Lv.36] UP4 [Detect Trap Lv.9] UP8 [Vision Reinforcement Lv.35] UP3 [Auditory Reinforcement Lv.34] UP3 [Olfactory Reinforcement Lv.30] UP3 [Tactile Reinforcement Lv.32] UP4 [Taste Reinforcement Lv.26] UP4 [Tracking Lv.24] UP1 [Danger Sense Lv.26] UP7 [Sense of Direction Lv.50 (Max)] [Identification Lv.50 (Max)] UP3 [Evil Eye of Dark Sight Lv.9] UP5
Leadership Skills:
[Leadership Lv.12] UP7 [Charisma Lv.8] UP5 [Party Lv.12] UP4
Resistance Skills:
[Darkness Resistance Lv.13] UP1 [Light Resistance Lv.3] UP2 [Poison Resistance Lv.13] UP12 [Blindness Resistance Lv.8] UP1
Elements:
[Darkness Element Lv.9] UP4 [Lesser Light Element Lv.9] UP6 [Lesser Poison Element Lv.10] UP9
Monster Skills:
[Demon's Strong Muscle Lv.13] UP2 [Demon's Spiritual Arts Lv.13] UP4 [Demon's Nimble Legs Lv.16] UP2 [Glow Web Lv.26] UP4 [Spider's Bite Lv.14] [Spider's Poison Lv.17] UP4 [Demon Spider's Thread Lv.10] UP2
Extra Skills:
[Demon Lord Lv.1] [Darkness Dragon - Zahhak Lv.1] NEW
Title List:
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Title List: Achievement Titles:
[Reincarnator] [Titan Killer] [Fearbringer] [Darkness Technique User] [Merciless] [Daredevil] [Destroyer] [Mystic Arts Master] [Rescuer] [Mysterious Killer] [Dungeon Raider] [Light Technique User] [Poison Technique User]
Hunting Titles:
[Dread Spirit Genocider] [Monster Slaughterer] [Insect Slayer] [Beast Slaughterer] [Arachnid Slayer] NEW [Snail Slayer] NEW [Slime Slayer] NEW
Status Titles:
[Migrant] [True Chaos] [Slayer of the Ultimate]
Wow...I've broken the 100-limit for skills. I also have lots of AP now...but I don't feel like using them. I mean, I got more than 100 skills now. 100. That's a three-digit sum. Getting new skills right now will just make it more difficult to use them all...
Take for example the Magic skills that are not necromancy-related or Magic Eyes. [Heretic Magic] is untouched, mostly because I don't have a clue about how to use it. It only comes with mental attacks! Er, magic! [Healing Magic] is something I wanna learn, but casting magic requires you to chant a spell when you don't possess a "magic catalyst", and those lines are too embarrassing to say out loud.
Magic catalysts supposedly replace the chanting with a "gauge" or something. I think the concept is that the catalyst takes care of the chanting and that gauge represents how long it takes for it to finish the spell. But a half-assed catalyst would be slower than chanting yourself, which has led to me not using the magic skills so much as of yet...
Then there's the "Rat King" magic. I tested it out after I obtained the Spectermancer class, but the summoned rat...isn't that good. It's supposed to be a strong skill, but according to one of the books on necromancy and phantom summoning, if the phantom you try to call on isn't "compatible" with you, it can't show its true strength. It's not a talk about its abilities or attributes, but rather the summoner's affinity for the creature.
And honestly..., those rats back in the underground mansion on the Water-Knot's 6th floor were more rats than I needed to see for my entire life. Can't I swap this thing for something more...me? But I digress. Let's go back on track.
Even if I don't have the will to obtain new skills, I'm not so sure about evolving the ones I already have. Some skills can be merged when you evolve them, but you're required to also have the other skills at max levels. Merged skills top the solo-evolved ones, so I plan to wait for multiple of them to reach Lv.50, then evolve a batch of them.
Besides, new skills mean new abilities that I need to get used to, and that could potentially be fatal during this trip through the Dungeon. Not to mention that I keep on getting new skills from Trials or Titles or whatever.
Still...hmm...I guess a new Magic Eye wouldn't hurt. They are just too damn useful! And I already have Weakness that inflicts a status ailment that reduces attack power and Fragility that weakens their defenses, so why not one to weaken their speed?
And maybe I should also take [Mana Auto-Recovery] and evolve it? It recovers 0.1% per skill level over 10 seconds when I'm not using MP (or when I'm not so exhausted that my body can't support the skill's recovery effect), which means 5% recovered now that it's level 50. But if I evolved the skill, the recovery amount would go up to 0.2% per skill level, but the drawback is that its level would go back to 1, which means a 4.8% drop...
Yeah, I'll take a new Magic Eye, but I'll wait with evolving Auto-Recovery. The reduction in self-recovery abilities is too much for my current predicament.
SYSTEM MESSAGE:
You have used 3 AP to acquire the skill: [Magic Eye of Slowness].
There. Now, time to get out of this trap hell.
---
Celestial World, Nibiru
"She's on the move again. The Dungeon-crushing Champion." - Order
"She's not crushing anything! Not for today, at least!" - Chaos
"He admitted it." - Alvatria
"Whazzat?" - Chaos
"She has gotten past the traps now." - Order
"I feel like you're dodging the question, but WHAAAAT?! All those deviously camouflaged traps!?" - Chaos
"Shadow-type concealments are just prey for her Evil Eye skill. You should have variated the attributes used for the obscuring of the traps." - Order
"Not that Chaos has the brains for such an idea." - Alvatria
"Alvatria, I heard that. And whatever! The real Dungeon starts on the third floor! Monsters, muscles, and poison! It is a hellhole of dimensions!!" - Chaos
"So you say, but the Champion is using that floor to train her Skeletons." - Order
"HUH!? ...SHE IS! WHYYYYY!?" - Chaos
"It seems that all the monsters hunted on the 1st floor earned the Champion enough Necromancy Counters to create more undead. And with support from her various Magic Eyes, she can command the armed Skeletons to defeat the monsters on the third floor, thereby efficiently training her necromancy skills and Magic Eyes at the same time. Oh, and she is creating simple traps from her spider webs. Quite efficient indeed." - Order
"I didn't ask for a damn explanation!" - Chaos
"How sweet. My girl is making fun of a god's creation." - Alvatria
"Show her some unreasonable divine punishment once in a while! Isn't that supposed to be your thing!?" - Chaos
"Isn't that why she is in that poison-filled hole in the ground?" - Alvatria
"Ugh...she's right..." - Chaos
"This girl is going to be a handful no matter which side people are on..." - Order
---
Garami's PoV
"Master, we have reached enough Necromancy Counters with the last kill!" - Bloom
"Finally," I replied as I cleaned up the last mess the Skeletons have created. [Necromantic Rites] is too useful for getting rid of corpses~.
After checking that there were no more of those poison spitters (which were completely useless against my armor-using Skeletons), I decided what to use for their E-rank blueprints.
There are no animal options, probably because I went with the regular Skeleton instead of a lesser-type animal skelly when I chose the F-rank blueprint, but whatever. Humanoids are better, as you can "dope" their attack power using weapons.
My options are "Skeleton Swordsman", and..."Gloom Skeleton"? "Toxic Skeleton"? Oh, because I have those attributes. Darkness is part of the Gloom attribute category, while Poison is part of Toxic. Maybe I don't have enough "samples" for a "Fluid" or "Glow" Skeleton? Poison and Light are respectively from both those categories...
In any case, the Gloom-type sounds like the most interesting one. Toxic may be cool too, but it would be too difficult to use it when fighting with other people. Besides, the Gloom version may have measurements against light, maybe even sunlight!
After I finished explaining my choice to myself, I selected the Gloom Skeleton blueprints and wasted no time in summoning one. It costs 60 [10 * 3 (racial rank) * 2 (size cost)] Necromancy Counters for one unit, but the result is...not bad. It is a pitch-black skeleton, armed with the typical low-cost sword and shield I have registered for the skeletons. It has decent stats, and its skills are...
Holy f*ck. It has [Aura of Darkness]. I didn't know these guys could get MY skills! I thought they were stuck with pre-determined ones related to their race...
This is good~. If things continue in this direction, won't I end up being able to summon an army of Skellies that can shoot that cheat-level dragon from yesterday's mimic boss? This is super nice~.
I gave the black Skelly another 2 friends and had them act as my vanguard as we continued through the 3rd floor. Their strength is...stupidly well-matched for this place. The monsters' poisons don't hurt the Skellies, while the undead trio's close-combat style with a sword and a shield works wonders! Aren't they using that aura better than I do?
Should I try to train a little more when it comes to close combat? Mira did drag me to the training grounds whenever she had the chance, but still...
Meh. I got no need for that. Besides, the aura works well enough to enhance my Thaumaturgy Scythe's blade of darkness. Not to mention when I spend those gems to enhance its attack power. Speaking of which, I got quite a number of those gems now...
"*Clack-clack*" - Skeleton A
Hmm? What's gopher #2 going on about?
"Master, stay focused! This must be a boss' room!" - Bloom
Gopher #1 quickly answered my question before I had the chance to ask out loud. And this...is one huge door. Fancier that the one leading to the mimic's room on the floor above. I got a bad feeling about this.
After dismissing the noisy skeletons, I carefully opened the door to take a peek at the (potential) big bad behind it.
......Just my luck. That's a hydra monster, no doubt about it. Reptilian, lots of long necks, and poison-colored skin. Not to mention it's big enough to rival a triceratops, and that's not taking into account its many long necks.
Hold on. Maybe I'm in not as bad shape as I think. Let's think about it. Intelligence is what's estranging me from any other living creatures here...
"What? For some reason, I feel like I was unintentionally insulted now!" - Bloom
Whoops. Make that the "only non-fairy creature with intelligence". And that gives me an idea. Several of them.
---
Celestial World, Nibiru
"GYAAAA!! SHE'S ALMOST CLEARED THE WHOLE DUNGEON!!" - Chaos
"The new Skeletons did everything for their master. She has reached the boss room already." - Order
"That's the stupid part about only relying on traps for a Dungeon. Give it some more muscles. Monster muscles." - Alvatria
"No..., you see..., adding all the stealth properties and poison kinda sucked up the resources I could administrate to the monster population..." - Chaos
"That explains it." - Alvatria
"Yet another reason why the rule that every Master-managed Dungeons requires a monster line unrelated to the many attributes the Dungeon have is required." - Order
"Grr, go and get her, Venom Hydra! You can do it, Venom Hydra! I believe in you, Venom Hydraaaaaa!!" - Chaos
"It is a classic option for a Dungeon boss. This Poison breed's attribute-related advantages match extremely well with its race's high self-regeneration abilities." - Order
"Well, duh. That's the whole reason why it's the most commonly known hydra." - Chaos
"And now my Champion is facing...hmm?" - Alvatria
"Isn't she running straight for the hydra?" - Order
"Ga-hahaha! She's gotten cocky after clearing the Dungeon so fast! All according to the plan!" - Chaos
"No, you were betting everything and your mom that the poison would be enough." - Order
"I-I-I did not! Just look how my Venom Hydra..., HEY! Don't let her dodge!" - Chaos
"She is fast, that demon girl. She easily evades the hydra's bite attacks." - Order
"The eternal downside with having a bigger body. You get slower. Having stats is good, but if your body ain't good at using those stats, even one with lower values can outperform a higher leveled opponent." - Alvatria
"I know that! Don't start explaining stuff as if I didn't know it already!" - Chaos
"You didn't?" - Alvatria
"WHY YOU-!" - Chaos
"Oh my." - Order
"Something's up-HEY!" - Chaos
"A-hahaha. She tied the hydra's necks into a knot~." - Alvatria
"How did that happen!?" - Chaos
"That girl was doing some impressive acrobatic maneuvers while you two were talking among yourselves. Using webs, threads, and even light claws to climb everywhere, even in mid-air." - Order
"People are actually doing that kinda stuff!? I thought that only happened in comics!" - Chaos
"She even released Darkness attacks to earn the hydra's ire so it would stubbornly chase her without stopping to take notice it was tying a knot around its neck." - Order
"You mean 'tying a knot using its necks'." - Alvatria
"Whatever! It's just a matter of time before it can untie-" - Chaos
"Ah, there goes the Zahhak." - Alvatria
"Damn that Extra Skill! She weakened my hydra!" - Chaos
"And now she is taking out some fruit from her-" - Order
*BOOM!*
"Forget what I said. It was explosives, not fruits." - Order
"No, I think that was both." - Alvatria
"I-i-it's still fine. My Venom Hydra's not that wimpy to be defeated with just-" - Chaos
"Hey, her scythe is glowing." - Alvatria
"Isn't that...a Thaumaturgy Weapon's 'Final Attack'?" - Order
"I-i-i-it's gonna be alright! There's no way she has enough gems to overcharge that weapon enough to defeat my hydra! Even if she sacrifices her whole weapon! I am sure of-!" - Chaos