Chapter 17
Tunneling through the earth with the dungeon was a surprisingly fast method of travel. Not as rapid as going over land, perhaps, but nearly so. They were forced to leave the dungeon occasionally to water the horses, and Antoine would use the opportunity to both hunt and confirm that they were still heading in the right direction.
Although the rain had stopped, the sky remained overcast and gloomy. The ambiance inside the dungeon was dark, but dry and comfortable. Tom lined one wall with the luminescent moss that the dungeon spawned for lighting, and Antoine made torches from local materials and a flask of oil he had in his pack for the purpose.
One benefit of burrowing was the ability to travel in a straight line. While the terrain of Welsius was not especially harsh, the forests, hills, rivers and lakes meant that few roads went in a straight line for very far, leading to a nation covered in meandering, crisscrossing paths. By creating their own path, the party was cutting short the extraneous distance they would have otherwise been forced to add to their journey to reach their destination.
They did pass by the occasional village or town. They stopped twice to buy supplies, food and more oil for torches, leaving the monsters behind in the dungeon. The first time, Tom felt strangely suspicious and agitated in town, jumping at shadows and clutching his dungeon core for comfort. After some experimentation by way of wandering around the town, he discovered that his discomfort was directly proportional to his proximity to the town’s Core. The second town they stopped at, Tom stayed in the dungeon, unwilling to repeat the exposure.
Tom was not anti-social; he recognized the symptoms as being related to his bond with the Dungeon Core. After some reflection, he came to the conclusion that it was due to the Core he had bonded having its territory overlap with the Village Cores. He was confident that he could get around the feeling simply by leaving the Core behind, and was planning to perform such an experiment on the third town they stopped in.
Instead, they tunneled into another dungeon.
Tom had sensed the core nearby, deeper underground, but although he knew they were near another dungeon he was still surprised when the tunnel ahead of them collapsed outward. Through sensation that he’d always had while inside a dungeon he claimed, like wearing a very, very large set of clothes which he could sense, he suddenly felt as though someone had grabbed the neck of his shirt and ripped a hole in it.
Not for one second did he believe that the tunnel they had burrowed into was of the natural, non-dungeon kind. The monsters that came spilling out of the entrance helped with that determination. Thirteen giant spiders chittered and clacked through the hole, their eyes glowing red in the near-darkness.
Jessica was the first to react, screeching in arachnophobia and spraying them with her magic. She caught four of them in one wave of her magic, flash-frying them to the point where their insides burst from being superheated. Her horse reared, and she barely kept her seat. While she was getting the animal under control, the korgoath dashed forward, biting into the enemy dungeon spawn with tooth and claw.
One of the younger korgoath brushed against Tom’s horse, and the animal, already wary of the subterranean predator, spooked and reared. Tom was less sure of his seat than Jessica was, and he was thrown from the saddle. He landed poorly, the wind knocked out of him. He struggled to get up, catching flashes of the melee. Sevin had dismounted and stood over him protectively, stabbing one of the arachnids that was making for Tom with his spear. Another flash of magic lit up the hall; Jessica had soothed her panicking horse, only for the magic to again send it into hysterics. She fried only one of the spiders with her second attack.
Antoine dismounted calmly, watching as the melee unfolded. He was ready to intervene, but saw no need. Sevin Dashed forward and skewered another one of the spiders, and that was the last kill scored by the humans of the group. The Korgoath were vicious to the spiders, tearing them apart. Tom’s monsters carried the day, with Lo killing three of the spiders by himself. One of the younger korgoath was wounded, suffering a bite on its left flank, but otherwise the battle ended without casualties on their side. The wounded korgoath whimpered and lay on its side, allowing its brother to lick the wound with its long, slimy tongue.
Once more, the battle was over with seconds, and Tom had done nothing except get thrown from his horse. He surveyed the corpses that his monsters had rent apart. He hadn’t even ordered them to attack, they had responded while he was still dealing with the surprise of the situation.
“Did you have any warning that we were about to collide with the other dungeon?” Antoine inquired.
“None at all,” Tom answered. “I mean, I told you earlier that I sensed a Core, but it’s out in that direction.” Tom indicated where the faint sensation was coming from. “But I had no idea that there was a chamber in front of us.”
“That wasn’t recrimination. You’re still discovering your class, there are going to be a few hiccups,” Antoine reassured him. “Perhaps we should have returned to the surface the moment you detected the other dungeon. But nobody was harmed except for one of your pets, so I’d consider this a win.”
Lo let out a low growl at being called a pet. Antoine gave the beast a sharp look, and the growl abruptly cut off. Lo looked away from the frightful one, going to check on his injured packmate and pretending that the brief standoff had never occurred.
“What do we do now?” Tom asked. He tugged at the walls of the dungeon and found they wouldn’t move. “I think the other dungeon has claimed this part of the passage. I can’t move the walls anymore. I think we’ll have to backtrack to get back to the surface.”
“Or we could Claim this dungeon too,” Antoine pointed out. “Those bugs were level nine. Sevin, Jessica, what levels are you now?”
Rather than answer him with a number, Sevin ordered his status to display.
Name
Sevin Wells
Health
270/270
Age
16
Stamina
231/240
Race
Human
Strength
26
Class
Warrior
Dexterity
16
Level
8
Constitution
27
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Subclass
Pikeman
Endurance
24
“I’m level six,” Jessica added. “Do you want to see my status too?”
“Unless you’re feeling shy about it,” Antoine said.
“Display status,” she said, and the summary of her abilities appeared before her.
Name
Jessica Small
Health
140/140
Age
17
Mana
52/258
Race
Human (Outworlder)
Stamina
130/130
Class
Heroine
Strength
11
Level
6
Dexterity
13
Subclass
Sorceress
Constitution
14
Endurance
13
“You’re both making rapid progress,” Antoine praised. “Remain here and hold the breech. I’m going to scout the dungeon to see if we have a chance of conquering it. Tom, go back down the hallway until you find a place where you can make a new tunnel to the surface, then collapse the rest of the tunnel we left behind. Reduce your Core’s territory, but do it slowly so that it’s always generating mana.”
“Right,” Tom said. He winced as he got back in the saddle and went to follow the Swordmaster’s instructions. He’d lost perhaps ten health from his tumble, but the injury wasn’t enough to impede him. He rode far enough back that the new dungeon no longer impacted his ability to Customize the tunnel, then followed Antoine’s instructions. The new entrance was perhaps two hundred meters from the breech into the dungeon he had inadvertently invaded.
Once his task was done, he returned to the others to wait for Antoine. Sevin was standing in the hole, a torch in one hand and his spear in the other, while Jessica sat on the ground nearby, watching the Dungeon reclaim the spider corpses.
“I hate spiders,” Jessica said, shuttering. “I’d rather fight a hundred more gnolls than ten more spiders.”
“I’m sorry,” Tom said, although he wasn’t entirely certain what he was sorry for. “Perhaps Antoine will decide this dungeon is too much for us and we’ll retreat.”
“He won’t,” Jessica predicted. “I know his type. As long as he doesn’t find signs of some high level monster lurking in the dungeon, he’ll want us to challenge it. Even if he does find evidence of a level fifty Skull-Devourer or something, he’ll probably just kill it himself and have us deal with the small fry.”
“I wish I was stronger,” Tom confessed. “You and Sevin have been killing everything, and I’ve just been getting in the way.”
Jessica looked at him, surprised. “Tom, the only reason we’ve been doing so well is because of your monsters. Lo and the other two Korgoath, they’re part of your strength, the same way that my magic and Sevin’s spear is part of ours. If you look at things in those terms, you’re the strongest member of this party except for Antoine. And the thing is, you’ve been actively holding back by not summoning as many monsters as you can. The truth is, your class is kind of scary. If you were evil, you could be a big problem for this world. It sucks that you got conscripted into the knighthood or whatever, but I do kind of see why the king doesn’t want you wandering around on your own.”
Tom considered her words for a moment. “I know you’re right,” he allowed, “but it still feels like I’m not doing anything except hiding in the back while you and Sevin are risking your lives.”
“Tom, what happens to your monsters if you die?” Jessica asked.
Tom frowned in surprise. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted.
“Let me tell you what I think will happen,” she said. “I think that whatever power you’re exercising over them that keeps them from attacking the rest of us vanishes. I think that without your magical control, they’d go back to being savage beasts that attack the nearest thing they see. And if that happens during battle, then the odds of Sevin and I surviving would suddenly drop like a stone. Well, unless Antoine protects us, of course. But if you’re dead, I think that means that Antoine would be conspicuously absent from the fight. If you weren’t standing right here, would the Korgoath still be docile, or would they attack us?”
The humans turned to the monsters, considering her question. The younger Korgoaths were still tending to the wound of the one that was injured. Lo returned their gaze with his one large eye.
“I have no loyalty to any but the master,” he admitted. “All other humans are prey. But I would be wary of attacking ones such as you, sorceress. Or the frightful one.” Lo paused, then shot a scornful glance at Sevin. “Him I would rend apart for his marrow, if I found him wandering my territory alone.”
“There, see?” Jessica said. “You’re protecting the rest of us just by being present, so it makes perfect sense that we protect you in exchange. So stop worrying about fighting like some sort of meathead and start thinking of ways to use what abilities you do have to the fullest.”
Tom considered her words, and he couldn’t find a fault in them. “I guess I’m just still adjusting to my new class. I thought I would spend my life either creating cloth to sell, or selling it for my family. Instead I’m conquering dungeons and controlling monsters. I know the system isn’t prone to making mistakes, but a part of me feels like it chose the wrong class for me.”
“Yeah, you’ve picked the wrong person to complain to about life taking you in unexpected directions,” Jessica said, laughing. “Before you Summoned me, I was dying in a hospital in a world without magic. Now, suddenly, I’m a Sorceress looking to join the Royal Knights after being Isekai’d to a world where those things exist.”
“Yeah, sorry, I wasn’t considering how you’d feel about this situation,” he admitted. “Are you, I mean, are you upset by your situation?”
“No. Actually I think it’s great,” she said. “I used to read stories like this in my world. Fictional stories about people being sucked into a world of magic. I mean, I didn’t think that those things actually happened, let alone that they would happen to me. But when I was younger I’d dream that I’d travel to a world where my disease was as easy to treat as a hangnail, and discover that I was some secret princess or something. This isn’t what I was expecting to happen when I closed my eyes the last time on Earth, but I’ll definitely take it. So you shouldn’t feel guilty about summoning me at all, Tom. So far I’m pretty happy in your world.”
“Okay. I was worried about that,” he admitted.
“You should know, though, that not everyone in my world would be so excited to be summoned,” she warned him. “I mean, if you’re thinking about using that ability again, I’d give it some careful thought. Even if they accepted it like I did, they might not be friendly to you. Criminals and bad people exist in my world, and from what I’ve seen so far I think that Outworlders have powers that the natives of this world typically don’t have. I mean, I’ve only seen my own example and Antoine’s, but it seems to me that we’re ridiculously overpowered.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Tom said. “I wasn’t expecting to summon a human when I used the ability the first time. I mean, I think you’re great, and I’m glad you’re okay with the situation, but Antoine says I’m sort of responsible for you and I don’t think I could handle that responsibility for more than one person.”
“Tom, I’m responsible for myself,” Jessica said flatly. “I mean, I’m glad your folks gave me some starting funds and all, but I’ll make my own way in this world if I have to. The truth is that if you tried commanding me around like you do those monsters I’d definitely rebel and leave you behind. It just so happens that the opportunity I’m pursuing takes us in the same direction for now, Tom. You’re a nice kid, but I’m not swearing undying loyalty to you anytime soon or anything.”
“You’re right,” Tom agreed. “You don’t owe me anything.”