Leaving the small shop behind, the two moved through a series of roads. As the journey continued, it became clear that something was different. The road was the same, only the atmosphere had changed. With little other choice, he had to asked what they were planning to do, “Where are we going?”
Giving no indication of anything having changed, Jessica continued to move without any hesitation. Hearing his voice, she did slow done for a moment. Answering him, she went back to the original pace, “Dungeon, it is important not to become rusty. One of my greatest strengths is the ability to move my body. Though at the moment I can’t go in. Once my arm is healed I will be entering.”
Dungeons, it was a familiar word but a very distant one. From games to books. There were all types of media about it back in his old world. As one could imagine, once he entered a fantasy like world and became a fantasy like existence himself. He had expressed his desire to enter a dungeon as soon as he learned about them. Only, after the first time, he never once brought it up again. She had vastly too much experience with fighting. It was clear that her ability to move was very high.
As someone on the outside, he could see many things. Exhausted and on the brink of falling face-first into the ground. Not once had she stopped observing her surroundings. He couldn’t watch the entire thing play out, as his consciousness was also slowly fading. It was still possible for him to visibly see her panic as he shouted at her to dive. She not only reacted in record time, she took his words rather seriously. Expecting a professional ball player to eat dirt, he saw her nearly get on her knees as the momentum continued to push her forward. This was no dive he had ever seen.
Closer to a movie stunt, he saw her dip and meet the ground in some record time. To keep from causing issues, she reacted repetitively off instinct. It helped immensely as he could feel her emotions. The entire run, she had been panicking, and her heart was beating abnormally fast. At a point he was seriously worried as it was abnormally so. When she started to move, her heart actually slowed down, as running in the dark surrounded by traps was uncomfortable for anyone. When she started to take action with a tangible enemy in front of her, she calmed down a degree and her actions became smooth without excess movement.
Leaning forward, she even tilted to avoid her injured arm. Her drooping eyes opened without any difficulties as her eyes clearly reflected the situation in front of her. She didn’t look at the ground. Jessica kept her eyes forward as she attempted to make out the enemy or possible second attacks. Once she reached a ever nearing horizontal line she had her arm that was forever in front of her belly button out in front of her. She was concentrating so hard that her position tilted back and her arm, if not tied to her side, would have come forward with the other.
His mana was being used to suppress the traps, nearing his end as nearly all of it was gone. As he started to take control of the surrounding mana he was able to have a better feel for the things going on around her. Inexplicably he happened to see that her hand on the ground wasn’t using her palms. Instead, she was pushing off the ground with her knuckles. Her knuckles met the ground as her hand was gripping empty air, it was the rough size of the broken daggers she still had in her bag. She kept the daggers to the point she received a replacement.
Giving them to the store owner as scrap metal. He had thrown them into the trash, probably not knowing that the metal on it, even when nothing but an inch remained, was far superior, probably still retaining enough integrity to destroy some of the main aisle weapons. She, even without a viable weapon, subconsciousness gripped empty air on reflex. This also caused her already weak push to not accomplish its goal completely. Mid-stance, she should have realized the issue as the last scraps of mana pushed her forward enough to not slid face-first into the ground.
Even at the end, she squished her hand a few times before realizing her hand was empty. The naturalness of moving on empty along with subconscious behavior told him she was someone that wasn’t unfamiliar with struggling, likely with a weapon in hand. This was all just conjecture. What supported this theory into reality was Jessica’s actions when she met Fred Smiths. Even visibly shocked by his appearance, the fact he was someone she couldn’t touch in terms of strength. Once it became known he had seen what she did in Fort George, it became obvious why he didn’t once approach her and kept a minimal five-foot gap.
He didn’t have the full story as she was observing every one of his actions looking for an opening or simply trying to find useful information. All he knew was that she killed some people with what he could only guess was a type of illegal or forbidden technique. She did it to help someone else. She often talked about helping people as part of her job, but she wasn’t proud of what she did. Combined with, her actions and her immediate behavior when she met the fox in the forest and when she met Fred for the first time were very different. She was wary and highly guarded against people, when an animal that can possibly possess the power to harness mana wasn’t something she seemed abhorrently opposed to.
He wanted to ask why she was making that face. It was likely even she didn’t know she was making a subconsciously hidden disgusted face. It was clear her thoughts on dungeons were abhorrent. Since she didn’t want to talk about the issues at hand, he could only ask in a roundabout manner, “What are dungeons like? You never really answered when I asked before.”
Jessica paused slightly as she was exiting a store. Turning, she looked at a wooded area. Jessica didn’t immediately answer and instead moved towards the strange area in the city. If the entire city was like a common thought of metropolis on a smaller level. Broken into a series of different districts, this appeared to be a problem with the design committee. He had seen it before in his old world. Their city had a park at the center of the city that was very amazing. Around the park was expensive housing and pricey shops. Everything about it just spoke extravagant. Still, the two didn’t clash and were very nice to even just look at.
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This wooded area was slightly depressing to look at. It wasn’t gated and easily accessible and well maintained. Many of those words could still be used, but the atmosphere was abnormal. Rough language and laughter. Many people with weapons, which was normal, were walking around. Only, instead of just carrying weapons, it was clear these people had bloodlust. Not directed at anyone, it was clear they had just recently spilled blood. Stragglers could be seen, just most moved in groups. As she went to enter, she was approached by a guard. Even the surrounding shops were not extravagant or made for sightseeing.
Seeing it was her, he smiled awkwardly but didn’t move out of the way. Seeing his appearance, it was clear this person was of slightly higher standing, so the rest of the guards were moving to check others entering. They would simply hold out their palm and when a speck of mana moved through the hand it could be felt. They weren’t checking anything other than if they had any mana. Only Jessica did the same, however the man in front of her didn’t seem to relax at all.
Looking at her arm that showed a bit of gauze under the clothes, while giving off a strong smell of medical herb, it was clear she wasn’t just slightly injured. He had an ugly smile on his face as he was trying his best not to cry. Patting his shoulder, he looked up as she smiled softly, “Don’t worry, I am going to take a look and won’t enter.”
Seeing her soft smile, the young man smiled back with a bit of a better expression before his smile harden slightly as he turned away from everyone else and whispered, “You have to promise me. If you won't, I will follow you the entire way and if you get near the dungeon I will have to use force to stop you from going in. Please understand, I am not trying to make things difficult for you… I… I just don’t want to die.”
It was a strange thing to see, even the people coming and going had looked over but didn’t say anything. The city was small and there wasn’t anything special for the majority of the people. The only thing special for the public here was the dungeon. Therefore, any connection with the city guard for the visiting populace was nothing impressive. Much like the weapons she had in her bag, the weapons and armor used by the city guards was impressive, but because of the peace not many knew this. Even less knew why the city officials were not the top dogs here.
With a promise, the guard even got her to tie pinkies. He was truly helpless, as if anything happened to her, he would be lucky to make it out of the city alive. As a dwarf that came from the east, he was someone who knew what an opportunity it was to come to this city. With that opportunity came troublesome people, one of them was this human girl. Only he couldn’t know the whole story. His grandfather only told him that he couldn’t offend the real leader of the city. And if he met her, this human girl, do not ask any questions and treat her better than you do the real leader of the city.
Luckily for him, his interactions with her were always pleasant. Therefore, he decided not to be overly clingy and hoped for the best. He didn’t dare try to act overly friendly. After this episode, the boy had been watching her back rather extensively. “I told you my uncle was a big shot here.”
He grunted an acknowledgement. To which all he got was a confused face before he just nodded at her with his mind still wondering. That was until they made it into the square, after walking for a good ten minutes they were met with an open plain. The road had long since deteriorated. He was suspicious at first, now he was able to easily realize why. Ignoring the people, at the center was a dirt road that was big enough for multiple carriages to move next to each other. There were people moving on the road and at the end was a rock cave.
Very primitive in nature, the rock cave was simply a formation of rocks that held an entrance. Without needing to go up close, he could already see a number of things. Maybe, because of this, there were some things he couldn’t see before they got closer. On the rocks were a number of faces and marks that felt similar to the ones seen on the wall of the laboratory entrance, they were just very primitive and overly simple. These marks went around the stones that made the entrance. This entrance itself was clouded in a darkness that continued to shift suspiciously. It was uncanny and at the same time memorizing.
The longer he stared, the more he could feel the mysteriousness of it. As time went on, the surrounding sounds disappeared, he felt visibly sickened. He could hear it, faint at first, soon the sounds continued to grow until they roared in his ears as they started to ring. Scream after scream, shouts from one end to the other. He could hear the countless agonizing screaming from man and beast as there seemed to be an endless bloodlust leaking from the marks and the door itself. Even with just the few stairs that could be seen it appeared like blood was going to start leaking up the stairs and grab hold of him before dragging him in.
Soon he saw someone come out and that weakened the hold it had on him. It only when he saw Jessica standing in front of him, did he finally pull himself back as he felt her probing the seal on her arm. “It was my mistake, I should have warned you before.”
The two moved away from the entrance before they were back to the path that lead to the open square. To the sides were people shouting and talking. Not naturally loud, with the share amount of people there, whispered echoed on top of each other to make it a buzzing sound. It was a pleasant sound that helped clear out the faint ringing in his head. Moving away, he followed Jessica out of the small forest.
After waving at the guard, did she ask him what he thought. His mind was a bit chaotic, even still he couldn’t help but say, “It is a mana factory.”
Not getting far he could feel her confusion, trying to find the best words, “A factory is a place something in produced, generally through manufacturing.”
Seeing her look at him with a dubious expression, he was about to ask if he was wrong, “Yeah, that is what the current leading theory is. It is really sickening, but dungeons are places with great fortunes for those that can stomach the reality. Only the best way to advance is through those dungeons. As you can tell from the entrance, they’re not good places.”
“Most of the mana produced comes from people. Every time a person or creature inside uses mana it is absorbed by the dungeon. When a person dies, they’re turned into mana if left there. Which happens a lot as this dungeon is a realm dungeon. Each person that enters without creating a party will be transferred to their own realm.”
With conflicting emotions she continued, “A dungeon itself produces mana, this is how the creatures and items one can find inside, are created. When people enter, it is a fight that uses mana. Only people and the creatures instead don’t use mana completely efficiently. This means that all the mana absorbed becomes a surplus. And the boss at the end can drop a crystal that is used to breakthrough, worse most dungeon bosses only spawn under certain conditions.”
As if already guessing the outcome, “Which means to progress as a graded being you need to enter a dungeon, probably alone, to get the crystal and breakthrough?”
She only nodded as she continued to move back to the inn they were staying at.