I kept circling the dungeon’s perimeter and eventually arrived at the half of the crater with the spires that looked like black fire stopped in time. Interestingly enough, Appraisal identified it as Sapphire spires, just like the blue structures on the other side.

I tapped one with my pan just to see if it was safe to touch. When it clanked like it would against something made out of glass, I gingerly tried touching it with my own hand. It felt… warm.

“Chat… is this actual frozen fire…?” I asked, baffled. “Or like… sapphired fire? Damn… That’s gonna be the boss here, isn’t it? The gorgon. Ugh… I still don’t have anything against it…”

That was actually the main reason why I was so reluctant to rush straight into the hole despite easily being able to deal with the crabs so far. I was hoping I would find something around these parts that could help against a Gorgon’s gaze. It was a bit of a stretch, but the water park had given me several items useful for dealing with its own challenges, like the goggles and the swimsuit, so I thought that this dungeon might do the same.

To my delight, I did find another chest tucked away just out of sight between the frozen flames. Once I spotted it, it stood out like a sore thumb with its bright cyan coloring among the black flames.

There was a lava lake relatively close and I didn’t want to lose another chest though, so instead of sniping it with my gun, I simply smacked it over the lid with my pan.

The clank echoed around me as chat flooded with the same onomatopoeia and other jokes. Of course, Jeoff was still whining how there were no mimics.

“Mimic. Neutralized,” I said in a low serious tone and then scoffed at the chest derisively.

Before I could go and open it though, something moved in the corner of my eye and I immediately whirled around and fell back, ready to face the threat.

To my surprise, it wasn’t another crystal crab. Although it appeared similarly to them, this time, it was the black frozen flames that spat out the monster. And unlike them, it was pitch black and wriggling around like a living mass of darkness.

“What the fu–!” I shouted moments before I aimed my gun at the abomination and shot it dead.

The black mass of… stuff burst into pieces as the water bullet exploded and splattered all over its surroundings. A moment later, the pieces turned into smoke and vanished.

I stood there for a moment, gaping at where the thing used to be before I finally relaxed.

“O-kaaay, chat. I guess the black flames were the mimic! Dammit, I should have known!”

Or rather, I shouldn’t have assumed that only the ground would be able to magically spit out monsters. I still barely knew anything about this type of dungeon, after all.

Shaking my head, I approached the chest again, this time wary of more sudden ambushes.

None appeared and I was free to plop the thing open and use Appraisal on the item inside.

Sapphire buckler

A buckler made out of infused Sapphire.

It was a small blue shield. About the size of a pot lid.

“...Huh.”

I grabbed it, immediately had a dumb idea, and put it on top of my pan. It was a bit too big for it but could still work.

“Neat! I have a lid for my pan now!”

Chat immediately began yelling at me and I couldn’t help but snicker.

“Just kidding. Let’s see…”

I grabbed the thing in my left hand and looked it over. It could come in handy for parrying smaller attacks, but would probably be useless for anything bigger, like the shark’s lasers.

Although… it was pretty reflective. Not very useful as a hand mirror for personal use since it wasn’t flat, but…

“Well, look at that, chat. Maybe I can use this against the Gorgons. Hmm, but it’s already made out of Sapphire, would that even stop their gaze?” I frowned as I considered this.

Obviously, I had no actual proof there would be Gorgons afoot and neither did I have proof that they would function the way I expected them to. So whether this shield actually did anything… would be hard to tell until I actually met one and tested the shield on it.

I huffed to myself.

It was a D-rank dungeon, so there shouldn’t be any unfair insta-kill mechanics, right? Right?!

“Well, whatever. Having a shield is better than not having one, right, chat? Even though my clothes are probably already pretty durable… Wait, actually, you’re right Mafu! I could totally Fuse the shield into the clothes, huh? What would that even do? Make me all shiny? Hmm, how durable is this shield anyway?”

Appraisal didn’t get much out of it, unfortunately. Just the material it was made out of. I had no idea what it could or couldn’t do.

Which was quite weird, to be honest. Why did Appraisal sometimes tell me so much and sometimes barely anything? It felt so arbitrary.

I shrugged and pushed all the distracting thoughts aside again.

Since I wanted to preserve Ether and since the enemies here seemed fairly manageable, I put away my gun for the moment and wore the shield instead. Worst case scenario, I could use the pan’s innate skill or even summon my key sword in a pinch.

I looked down at my attire and my arms and couldn’t help but smirk and summon John to look at me before striking a pose.

“I am the elegant pan warrior! Fear me!” I announced, lifting the pan into the air as my battle dress billowed in the non-existent wind.

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I stayed like that for a moment before I recalled John and cleared my throat.

“Anyway. Let’s keep going.”

I kept circling the perimeter of the crater and had to fight off a few more crabs and another one of those black skittering things – which the pan’s fire easily took out. By the time I was approaching the blue sapphire spires again, I had three different people in chat claiming that they had made some fanart of ‘the elegant pan warrior’.

I let out a disappointed noise.

“Man, I wish I could look at those… Why don’t links work for me anyway? Not like I disabled links in the chat,” I grumbled. “Ugh, yeah, I guess the system doesn’t want me accessing the internet directly…”

The carefree chatting continued as I made it all the way to where I’d begun without discovering any other chests or points of interest. It was a bit disappointing, but in the end, I decided that if I wanted anything more from this dungeon, I had no choice but to head further in.

“Okay, chat… I guess it’s time to go toward the hole,” I announced, nervously looking at said hole.

It was surrounded by many more of the frozen flames and sapphire spires as well as several lava lakes. I could already feel it was going to be a pain to navigate though.

Regardless, I still had plenty of Ether to work with and haven’t even gotten hit by any of the monsters, much less injured. No reason not to keep going.

I began walking toward the giant hole in the middle of the crater, still keeping an eye out for any chests.

A few more crabs sprung up from the ground on my way there and I easily dealt with them, but at some point, when I got a bit closer, something else decided to jump out at me.

Instead of a crab, the crystalline ground produced a giant lizard-like thing, still made out of the same cyan crystal, which immediately lunged for me.

I reacted by swiping at it with my pan and attempting to block its claws with my shield. Unfortunately, my pan swing completely missed as the lizard curled out of the way and pummeled my shield with its claw, knocking me on my butt.

I gasped and lit the pan on fire, preparing to roast the monster just as it closed in on me and bit down on my left arm holding the shield.

“Shi–”

I poured a ton more Ether into the pan and the lizard burst into flames the moment I smacked it over the head.

Naturally, since his jaw was around my forearm, it also meant that I was set ablaze. Even with the blessing, I expected to feel the same pain I’d felt when I’d suicide bombed the second floor boss of the water park dungeon, but…

I blinked when I realized that it merely felt kinda warm.

Or rather…

It hadn’t registered before but the lizard’s bite didn’t hurt much either.

A few seconds later, the burnt crystal lizard turned into smoke and the fire around me gradually dissipated. I continued to lay on the ground, staring at my forearm that didn’t even have a single scratch on it.

…The lizard had bitten into my forearm through the sleeve. The sleeve that was reinforced through fusing all sorts of magical clothing.

“...Chat, why didn’t you remind me that I’m a freaking tank? I was worrying over nothing!”

To be fair, the archer in the city dungeon had pierced through my old clothing, but I was much more durable now. Not to mention, many people had theorized in chat that she could have had some kind of armor-piercing effect on her arrows.

Well, it was still better to dodge as much as I could since I couldn’t be sure whether something could get through my clothing or not. But I probably didn’t need to worry as much with this in mind.

Just as a test, I looked around for another one of those suspicious bumps and once I found one, I confidently marched forward and stepped on it on purpose.

As expected, the moment my foot hit it, a creature began to emerge from it – another lizard – and as soon as it finished forming, it snapped its jaws at me. I blocked using my clothed arm. As in, I shoved my upper arm into its open maw and grit my teeth as it clamped down.

It felt like someone gently grabbed me.

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud before I raised my pan again and pummeled the lizard to death.

“I like this, chat! Making super armor was the best decision I’ve ever made. Now I just need a super weapon and I’m set!”

After all, everyone knew that for a hardcore run, the best offense was a good defense. It was nice to see my decisions paying off.

The lizard vanished and I confidently continued toward the hole, smashing any lizards that emerged and weaving through the sapphire structures with ease.

I still hadn’t completely dropped my guard though. No matter how easy things seemed, it could quickly turn around in an instant, like it often did in the water park dungeon.

My caution was justified when I walked past another one of the smaller blue sapphire spires and its surface rippled and something began growing out of it.

I tensed up and swiftly fell into my battle stance as the thing spat out yet another type of monster. A gleaming sapphire-blue snake whose eyes were glowing just like all the crabs and the lizards. And just like those, I avoided looking directly into them and instead lit my pan on fire and swung the pan in its direction.

To my surprise, the snake slithered out of the impromptu fireball’s way and then opened its mouth to hiss loudly as I prepared to launch more fire at it.

Then there was a gust of wind, the snake jerked its head forward, and suddenly small blue shards of sapphire began appearing on the ground, aiming in my direction, as if there was an invisible projectile creating them in its wake.

I tensed up but parsed it as a ranged attack too late and suddenly felt something hit me. It felt like it rippled through my entire body and I couldn’t help but flinch and gasp at the horrible sensation.

It was over in a moment and I found myself covered in pieces of sapphire pointing behind me like I was a long-haired cat in the wind. I felt some minor pain all over where the shards were and my muscles felt rigid.

Then the snake was leaping at me and I automatically let loose the fireball I had been charging with my pan. It hit the snake this time and shattered it to pieces. The pieces then vanished into smoke.

I tried moving again but my movements felt awkward and a bit pained, like my muscles and joints had crappy glue in them now.

“...Ugh… Well, it’s not instant kill at least, but…”

It felt so damn uncomfortable. Had my clothes even done anything? Had that attack bypassed my resistances? Or would I be dead if it weren’t for the armor?

Just to take a better look, I summoned John and had him look at me.

I looked like a freaking shiny blue hedgehog with all these sapphire spikes growing out of me. Chat was already joking and laughing about it.

“Chat, this is not funny!”

…It was kind of funny, but still super uncomfortable.

I tried to wrench my arm this and that way just to get it moving, and at some point, I heard a soft glassy screech. At the same time, some of the sapphire shards on my arm broke off and fell to the ground and I felt some range of movement return to the arm.

“Gah… Okay. I see. I got it. It’s a slowing debuff. But I can break through it with force!” I concluded, feeling relieved.

From then on, it took me a few minutes as I systematically broke through the sapphire shards with all of my limbs, my torso, and my neck, and then I was finally back to normal, no worse for wear.

And just because I was a little gremlin and because chat suggested it, I picked up some of the sapphire shards that were on me and appraised them.

Sapphire shard

A residue from a Sapphire Gorgon.

“...Uh huh. And is it useful for anything? Well, whatever. I have plenty of space in my pack.” I smirked and began tossing the shards into my backpack as a form of revenge.

Once done, I stretched once more just to get the awful phantom feeling of being sapphire’d out of my muscles and looked toward the hole again.

“Well… The good news is that it’s just an annoying debuff and not instantly deadly. The bad news is that I feel like that was a low level version and the boss might have the real deal.”

Could I break through something stronger than that? I still had a child’s body, so I wasn’t exactly the strongest even if I was much stronger than I would be on Earth… But worst case scenario, if things got dire, I could probably switch to Flameguard and burn the sapphire off.

JamieWasTaken3: just dodge next time duh

I rolled my eyes.

“Well, you’re not wrong, Jamie. Now that I know what the attack looks like, I can probably dodge it.” I mentally checked my Ether reserves and found them to still be fine.

I nodded to myself.

“Alright, let’s keep going then!”