As the sun set. A large moon took its place in the sky. Moving rather quickly, the two were able to make it to the settlement in record time. By this time the wall had been fixed, moving to the entrance the two were met by two elves. Even in the darkness from the wall itself, the two stood motionless, showing no signs of having moved for a considerable amount of time. With a glance, the two had simply scanned where the noise had come from before turning around and stopped paying any attention to Jessica.
Ignoring them in equal treatment, she entered without a word. The lights could be shining in from the windows. Moonlight was shining from the opposite end, giving off a strange splendor that made the whole thing look like a painting. When they finally reached the isolated house, Jessica stopped just shy of reaching the few steps to reach the porch that barely lifted the base off the ground. With the moonlight shining behind casting a long shadow she now stood in. There was an unspeakable loneliness about this picture.
Shoving the useless thoughts out of her head, she entered the house. Sitting at the table with a book in hand, by this time the arm that was missing when she left had returned. With this, everything remained the way it had been since the beginning. Desolate house isolated by the rest of the village with two occupants. One old and other young. A daughter and her father that sat at the same table. The old man was an elf that always had a book in hand.
The daughter that would come home after playing outside, usually in the surrounding forest, as she was the originality of the isolation. Regardless of the treatment, or the cause of the isolation, the old man would still smile every time he saw or even just heard her enter the house. There was no negative emotion in these eyes, even when they were the windows to the soul, it was clear. The treatment received meant nothing, so long as she was willing to open the door and enter. With the gentlest smile, a voice left the smiling mouth that was gentle to the ear, “Welcome home.”
Sitting down, with cup in hand. Just feeling it was enough to know, without knowing how. Jessica could only guess, at most, five minutes had passed since it had been poured. By that point, there was no burning when she grabbed it. Sipping the warm liquid completely removed any travel weariness she had. So too were the depressing pictures of the house standing alone with no connection in sight.
“I don’t plan to stay long…” Pausing for a moment, she could feel it was long enough for the old man to look up at her. “I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?”
Looking up at the ceiling, it was something he did fairly often when he was thinking. There wasn’t a long pause before a gentle voice was heard once more, “That sounds good. It has been a long time since we have gone anywhere together. Do you have any place in mind?”
“With winter around the corner, it is likely that if we were to travel too far, it will be problematic. In less than a week, the transition period will begin. Which means we at most have two weeks to reach the destination before the roads start to become too difficult to travel by foot. Therefore, I was thinking of moving east instead of west.”
Only needing to ponder for less than a minute, “Caplita? For you, it is an ample enough dungeon, though it will be a bit rough. Are you sure you want to choose a higher end dungeon?”
Requirements for a breakthrough were strict while at the same time loose. Once a person makes it all the way to the deepest chamber. Inside they will find a special creature that is designated as a leader of all the creatures in the dungeon. All this meant was that the creature found in the last room was stronger. Only by being alone could one have the chance at getting the core of the creature.
The more difficult the dungeon, the higher the chance was that you would see the core. This was a double-edged sword. Bite off more than you could chew would result in death. The hardest part of a breakthrough was the core. First one needed to defeat the boss, doing so didn’t guarantee the drop. While at lower grades, this was less true. Going to Caplita would ensure she would get the core in one or two attempts. Secondly, was if one was ready for a breakthrough.
Cores were the catalyst to a breakthrough, this didn’t mean one could achieve said breakthrough without any effort. After filling one's heart with mana, attaining said core, while finally resonance. This required you to fill the core with your mana. Doing so would drain your mana and force you to need to recuperate. While there was a mana threshold in peak condition, if someone didn’t reach it, they would find out all their hard work was for nothing as the core disappeared before the boss respawns.
That was the most annoying issue. Because it required to fill the core with your mana to reach resonance, one needed a full heart. Once filled, they would need to race against time to regain their mana in order to proceed. Once the process of a breakthrough began, you were safe. Only it also meant that if you didn’t begin the process and only paused slightly, once the core starts to disappear, all that hard work is gone. This also means if you're not at peak, you won’t be able to regain your mana. There was only a short delay before the core disappears and a respawn occurs.
“It was you who taught me that it doesn’t matter if something is hard or easy. Anything you do should be done with your upmost. In the end, while it will be harder, this also means the amount of times I have to attempt it will be lowered. If not, won’t I be forced to fight ten times while hoping to get lucky? While the pressure is higher with one or two attempts. Regardless of which one I do, with any mistake I will be in danger of losing my life.”
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With a smile, she couldn’t help adding the last nail in the coffin, “Isn’t it also true that the pressure will help me grow? Who was it that told me to not rely on luck, as it will surely be useful. However, expecting to get lucky makes you lower your guard. Therefore, being prone to mistakes.”
Seeing the funny smile on the old man’s face, she couldn’t help but start to doubt herself before she realized her mistake, “Wait, no, that was Uncle Beast that told me that.”
“He is right, I also approve of this decision. Though once you enter the dungeon I have some things I want to take care of. So once we get to Caplita, I will head off on my own. I will be staying in Aruna for a period of time, so when you’re done you should come over.”
As the two finalized the details, they separated as the two went to bed. Their plan was to leave in the morning. What neither of the two brought up was the main reason Caplita was the best place to go for a breakthrough. While it was high end, it wasn’t the highest level difficult. While these dungeons that were at the peak of their grade would guarantee a core, the difficulty wasn’t just the boss itself. They needed to reach the last room before they could see that core.
Ultimately, the decision was made off of Jessica’s personality. She had a lot of difficulties dealing with creatures that were relatively sentient. While all life felt in one way or another. Humanoid creatures generally depicted a resemblance to oneself. Caplita was the closest dungeon in the higher end of middle level dungeons. While still being specific in the creatures found in the dungeon. This dungeon was filled with magic wolves.
With a slight minority of normal wolves, the magic wolves were generally weaker physically. As a species of wolf, they had the ability to move fast and while their fur added some defense. Physically they didn’t have the same strength as a normal wolf, with their lack of intelligence they were far easier to deal with for a person that fought like Jessica.
Once the sun rose, the two moved out. They left early, as the distance between the two was a little over a week's journey. While leaving, they found the temperature was starting to drop. As it was currently fall, the weather had been fairly cloudy, filled with rain. The sun was currently up and the two were enjoying the day. Half a day's worth of a journey, they stopped.
“What is it?” Jessica couldn’t help but ask, as the old man had stopped and was staring in a certain direction.
“I don’t know, let’s go take a look.” He didn’t really sound that interested, yet regardless, he still moved is feet in the direction he had been staring.
Once they arrived at the location, he simply looked around without much of an expression. Looking around, Jessica couldn’t help but understand that even through the old man was an outlier amongst elves, he wasn’t terribly different. For what lay in front of them was a scene of destruction. The signs showed a singular path of destruction.
While it looked to have been a conflict between two parties, the conflict ending was purely one-sided. Craters of impacts could be seen showing high level spells. The impact showed that the attacker unleashed a barrage of attacks that completely overwhelmed the defenders, as there were no signs of retaliation. Part of which likely had to do with the destroyed remains of a carriage. The carriage itself was still on fire.
Jessica had an uncomfortable feeling when she looked at it. She couldn’t really explain why, it looked familiar, but she had seen far too many carriages and while many had markings there were also a lot that were without any. It was unknown if this one had a marking, as most of the carriage had already been burnt black beyond any ability to make out what the carriage even originally looked like.
There didn’t appear to be any bodies, so it seemed the defenders didn’t retaliate and just ran for it. As for how, she couldn’t determine that as there wasn’t any signs of it. Without bodies, it was impossible to know the full story.
“I guess no bodies is better than finding some.” That was the limit of the care shown by the old man.
It felt slightly cold, however she felt similar. If they found bodies, it might have delayed their journey, as the old man would have likely insisted on burying the dead. So in the end it was better this way. Moving away, there was a crackle as the two were moving off the road. With the release and crash of something, she turned around to see that one part of the carriage had broken up, this allowed her to see underneath what was originally blocked. As the carriage had tipped to the side, underneath was part of the door with a cracked bottom, making it possible to see the part of the door that would have been found on the inside of the door. Most of it was burnt black, but from the remains she was able to make up a tail and a black object underneath where the rest of the animal should have been.
Unable to make head's or tail of it, she was about to turn around when she felt Leo come out. She had placed the memory stone inside the arm guard holding of the wrist guard. He was very close to fixing the mana storage rune, so he had been quiet for a while as he concentrated on it. She could tell he was looking at the markings, still, even with a second look, she couldn’t remember if she had seen it before. The fact he was looking at it meant they both had likely seen it before. Unfortunately, her impression of it wasn’t strong enough and had been forgotten.
“What?” She couldn’t help but inquire him about it, as he had stopped concentrating on the rune to come out and look at the markings.
However, all she got in return was a less than impressive reply, “Nothing, it isn’t important.”
As he left as quickly as he came she could do nothing but sigh, since she had forgotten it and he wasn’t sharing it was probably not important. Once they made it past the halfway point, they were able to hitch rides. It took a total of three, but they were able to make it to Caplita with three days to spare. By this point they had changed into the winter clothes as the weather was so cold one could see their own breath.
Entering the city, there was a clear divide between the normal people and graded beings. Even while being a Grade F being, she still had a layer of clothes over her normal winter clothes. The old man on the other hand didn’t bother to pretend he was a normal person, as he was wearing a single robe of little thickness with a hood covering most of his features. They journeyed around a bit before heading to an inn.