Chapter 15 What You Did
A miserable looking Sam finally exited the dungeon. It had taken her another two hours to find the last fire toad she had to kill. She could have found it faster, but she didn’t want to risk using a snack as bait again.
When the guards saw her, they rushed towards her.
“Are you okay, do you need a healer?”
“A healer, why? No, I’m fine.” At that moment Sam thought about how she would look to the guards. Her uniform and armor had burn marks on it, was teared at several places, and she had toad guts and other things she didn’t even want to think about smeared all over her.
“Well you look like crap, but if you’re really okay, then you can go back on your own. We can’t really leave our post here anyway.”
Feeling even more miserable for dismissing the guards’ concern, Sam exited the building and went towards the training complex.
On the way she opened up the notifications that had hit her when she exited the dungeon.
Log updated: Dungeon summary.
Killed 10 lvl 1 monsters.
Killed 5 level 2 monsters.
Status updated: 2 Levels gained.
Status updated 2 Statpoints gained
Skill updated: Knife has gained 2 levels.
Skill updated: Slash has gained 3 level.
Skill updated: Stab has gained 2 level.
Skill updated: Short Swords has gained 3 level.
Skill updated: Shields has gained 4 level.
Log updated: General Skill Acrobatics learned.
Skill updated: Acrobatics has gained 2 level.
Immediately she put the two points in intelligence, as she had found out that running out of mana was no joke.
When she arrived at the training complex, she knew she had to report in with trainer Quincy immediately. Thus she went on towards the training field, even though she would have loved to get a shower and clean herself.
On the field, the others were still working on the exercises that would help them attain their new class. The moment they saw her though, everyone stopped.
“Wow Sam, are you okay?” Tia asked immediately. Apparently she looked bad enough that even the timid girl spoke up.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Only exhausted and apparently a bit filthy.”
“A bit you say? You look worse than the butchers’ apprentice did when he slaughtered his first pig!” Zach didn’t take very long to have his surprise about her appearance wear off.
Luckily, if that was your definition of luck, the trainer interrupted the conversation immediately, sending the others back to their exercises. Then he turned his attention to Sam.
“Now then, time for your debrief. I guess the dungeon wasn’t as easy as you had imagined? Tell me how it went.”
Sam did so, explaining the easy time she had on the first floor, and the problems she had on the second.
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“Tell me, what did you do wrong in your fights on the second floor.”
“Well, I shouldn’t have used the trick with the snack. I should have expected more than one to show up. I also shouldn’t have let my guard down in the first place while taking a break.”
“Yes, yes, those are stupid things to do, I want to know what you did wrong during your fights.”
“Uhhm, I should have expected my sword to have trouble cutting the belly of the toads, after my experience with the first one? Maybe I should have even tried it on the corpse of the first toad?”
“That wouldn’t have helped you any. When they die, their magical defenses are gone. It takes a crafter to reinvigorate the parts with mana to get them back to their original strength. What else?”
“I don’t know, sir. I had never fought them before, so I didn’t know what they could do. I’ll go study with Kyla at the library on the dungeon today.”
“You’ll do no such thing. In fact, I forbid you from searching out information on the dungeon’s creatures. Fighting against unknown enemies will improve your fighting skills and improvisation a lot more than when you know what they can do. You will still go to Kyla to study, but it will be on practical topics. You still don’t know enough about the most basic things in the world, so your first goal should be to remedy that. Tomorrow, you will go back to the dungeon once more, and try to improve yourself. Afterwards you will get back here and we will discuss what you did right and wrong. That will give you the best chance to catch up with the others in stats and experience.”
A downtrodden Sam accepted the trainer’s orders, but the man wasn’t done yet.
“As for today, the first thing you should’ve done, was cut off those tongues. You knew you could do so after the first one, so why let them keep those things as weapons? The second thing is losing your weapon. You should never risk losing it if you can help it. If you stab an opponent that deep, you will certainly lose it if either it moves, or if there are other opponents around. Better inflict shallow wounds to exhaust the enemy, or even better hit their weak spots. You could’ve gone for the eyes instead.”
Now that she thought about it, those options would have been better. She had a lot of trouble dodging the tongues, and it would have been a lot easier for her if the toads couldn’t use them.
“Good, I see that you understand. Now you get the pleasure of cleaning yourself up, go to the quartermaster to get your gear repaired. I’m sure he will love you for destroying it this fast.”
When Sam was finally done with the quartermaster, she had missed lunch. Luckily she had been prepared to be in the dungeon a lot longer than she had. Thus she still had her packed lunch, which she took with her to the library.
As soon as she entered the library she heard Kyla arguing with somebody else. She couldn’t really hear what they were talking about, but it didn’t sound like it was a nice conversation.
Just before she go there, she passed a man leaving in a hurry. A moment later she saw an angry Kyla standing in front of her desk.
“Didn’t I make myself clear!” she snarled, before she saw who it was. “I’m sorry, I thought you were that idiot again. Thanks for bringing lunch.”
“Uhm, it’s actually my lunch, but I’m happy to share it with you. I could use some conversation anyway.”
“Oh dear, I’m sorry, I’m happy to join you though, I don’t think that there is anything left at the mess hall. That idiot made me late again.”
“I’m sorry to pry, but what was that about?”
“No need to worry, that man just won’t take no for an answer. Every time he is in town, he comes here to either ask for forbidden knowledge, or to ask me out. That last part probably to use that as a way to get those darn books.”
“Well good on you for standing up for yourself. If you ever need help with him, let me know.”
“That man is a high level officer of the legion, I don’t think you could help me much, not against his stats and standing. But thanks anyway. Let’s talk about something else, I guess you came here to gain some knowledge?”
“Yeah, I’ll tell you during lunch.
A few minutes later the two were in a small break room off to the side.
“Now what is the reason that you’re here this early?” Kyla asked Sam.
“Mostly getting my ass kicked in the dungeon. Else I would be there right now trying to gain a few more levels. As for here specifically, it’s because I still don’t know enough about this world. According to my trainer I need to gain more knowledge about just about everything.”
“He could be right about that. You haven’t been here long enough to know a lot about anything. What shall we talk about first?”
“How about this war that the legion is fighting? I heard from the sergeant in Lucky Meadow that the legion has defended the north against some kind of necromancer? But that’s about all I know.”
“Okay, that’s both a big and a small explanation. For now I’ll keep it short, but you should read the histories of both the Teglasia, and the Legions of Veritas if you want the whole picture.”
Sam waited a moment for Kyla to continue.
“Okay, in short, we fight against the necromancer, because he wants to conquer the whole continent. He is a mage who has gone for a class he shouldn’t have, and he somehow got corrupted enough to start devastating the land. He can summon countless undead creatures, and some of the stronger ones can also summon more undead. This made a snowball effect when he started, and soon he had taken the entire northern province. The legions were the army of the empire, and even though we lost many, we managed to establish a defensive line to keep the undead in the northern province. This took all our attention, and thanks to several corrupt officials and some bad luck, the empire collapsed. The legions did manage to keep together enough to hold the line, and we have done so ever since.”
“Okay, and what kind of undead do we normally see on the front?”
“That depends, like I said, some of the undead summons also summon more undead, so it depends on the mindset of those what kind of undead we fight against. Most of the time they look like dead people, but we’ve also seen animals and sometimes even monstrosities that shouldn’t be able to function at all. Then there are the skeletons and even incorporeal undead. Those last are the most dangerous for new soldiers as they can only be hurt by magical skills.”
“Great it’s zombie apocalypse followed by scary skeletons and ghosts. Got it.”