Miracle of all miracles, no monsters spawned while I lay there uselessly in the middle of a dangerous dungeon.

Many people in chat theorized that it was because the dragon had triggered all the available spawns in the dungeon and then subsequently wiped all of them out with that crystal shower, so now, everything was ‘on cooldown’, so to speak.

When I finally managed to sit up with a groan, I looked around with my real eyes instead of staring at John’s screen and confirmed that I was still safe. Then I looked at the big crystal chest with a golden skull sitting exactly where the dragon had been.

I took a deep breath and let out a sigh.

“Loot time, chat… Oh, right. The achievements. What were they called again…?”

Wow, rude - Deal over 25% of a dungeon boss monster’s health before it even starts attacking. [COMPLETE]

Fire off a duck’s back - Survive being hit by an adult dragon’s breath. Appropriate dungeon monsters count. [COMPLETE]

It’s just a rock - Survive complete petrification. Somehow. [COMPLETE]

“Oh, what?! Wait, the last one was a tier three achievement! That’s so many points! I have… twenty in total now!”

My mood suddenly flipped and I beamed… before I grimaced again.

“...Will I always get a ton of points after nearly dying?” I murmured. “The system is seriously trying to kill me, isn’t it…?”

I shook away that thought.

“Well, whatever! I lived, I learned from my screw up, and I got a ton of points! It’s perfect!”

I slowly forced myself to stand, although my legs were still a bit unsteady, and then told my forks that they were allowed to relay stuff to me again. I immediately got flooded by all the know-it-alls and their play-by-play analysis of my fight and all the minute mistakes I’d made.

And now I felt depressed again.

Wow, my mood was swinging all over the place. Okay, whatever. They did have a point that I shouldn’t have turned my back on the dragon. And sure, since the common monsters weren’t actually that dangerous, I should have just ignored them and focused the boss. And yes Jim42069, I could have just unloaded my gun into the dragon in the first place since that was what I’d done in the end anyway.

Okay forks, calm down. I didn’t need everything. God.

“Well… Let’s see what we got then,” I murmured and hobbled my way to the chest as I hummed and nodded to people suggesting various ways to spend my points as usual. I actually had enough to get Rend, Mind shield, and Dual Wield. With plenty of points to spare. I honestly considered getting those right away, but I didn’t have enough skill slots for Rend anyway, unless I wanted to swap out Flameguard and risk not having an out in a tricky situation again.

Although, I could always just… leave and come back tomorrow. I was planning on leaving anyway and I was still critically low on Ether, so it was probably gonna be for the best.

With that in mind, I came face to face with the chest, narrowed my eyes, and stood there, with arms ready by my sides.

I also called John just to get a good shot of this and after a few more seconds of the silent staredown, I quickly did several things in quick succession.

Purchase the skill [Rend] for 9 skill points?

Y/N

‘Rend’ skill unlocked!

Replace [Flameguard] with [Rend]?

Note: [Flameguard] will not be re-equipable for 24 hours.

Y/N

Then I quickly searched for the new mental switch in my mind, selected the chest as my target, and pushed.

Rend!

I felt the energy gathering directly in my mind, spinning into itself like a little ball, and then shooting out of my mind toward the chest as an invisible projectile.

It hit the chest and rippled through it – invisibly – the same way a dropped stone would ripple through a lake’s surface, the chest shook the tiniest amount, and then went still again.

All the while, I had the weirdest feeling that I had ‘missed.’ Not that I’d missed the target, but that the target itself turned out to be empty space with nothing in it.

Which… my best guess was that it meant there was no mind for Rend to… well, rend.

That didn’t stop me from turning toward John, giving him a strained smile – That blast cost quite a bit of Intra – and say, “Easy peasy, chat. I fried its brain. No mimic problems here.”

Jeofffff: you didn’t even do anything?!??!

I blinked and then remembered that John couldn’t see the system messages.

“Ah.” I recalled John. “I just got Rend and shot it at the mimic. You know, this thing.” I summoned the little system window and pointed at it.

Rend:

Use a moderate amount of Intra to momentarily shock the target's mind.

“I guess you can’t see it from the outside?” I hummed and rubbed my forehead – ugh, my head really hurt now, I shouldn’t have done that. “Anyway. I totally sniped that jerk… and now I’m low on Intra too, ugh… Whatever, let’s get the loot already!”

Jeofffff: I hope theres a bonus for killing the enrage version

I walked right up to the chest and unceremoniously opened it. I only spent a few seconds marveling how I was tall enough to do that without too many issues now.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Inside the chest were three objects. A shiny blue – sapphire? – medieval-looking horned helmet, a crystal flask filled with dark green liquid, and… some kind of big crystalline gun with a wide dragon head-shaped muzzle.

Too bad I didn’t have Appraisal.

“Another gun, chat!” I cheered and immediately grabbed the thing. I looked it all over, trying to figure out what it was. My instincts and chat were already telling me exactly what it was, though.

“It’s a flamethrower, isn’t it…? Or maybe a… crystalthrower? Would fit the theme of the boss… Hmm, but it doesn’t have the little torch thing that’s usually in front of the muzzle…” I narrowed my eyes, aimed it away from me, put my finger on the trigger…

GonguuH: hold on, weren’t you low on ether?

I flinched away and let go of the trigger.

“Uh, yeah. Right. This thing will definitely use Ether. Yeah. Okay. Let’s try it later then.”

I stashed it into my backpack and turned to the other two things. I grabbed the helmet and immediately put it on my head. Just like every other wearable loot from the dungeons, it fit me perfectly and I could feel the subtle flow of Ether inside it. The field of view was abysmal though.

Then, when I sent out John to take a look at myself – huh, the system screen was visible through the helmet – I couldn’t help but snort.

Who was this cutely dressed girl sitting on top of a giant chest wearing a demon lord-esque helmet?

The worst part was that as much as it contrasted with the dress, the color fit perfectly with the rest of my outfit. I looked like the demon king’s daughter who badgered her dad to make her the same helmet he wore in her size so she could imitate him.

I straightened up, crossed my arms, tilted my head back , and sent John lower to look up straight into my eyes through the helmet.

Then I let out the best villain laugh I could muster.

“So, you’ve finally come, feeble heroes!” I bellowed – as much as I could with how tired I was. “How bold of you! You think you can defeat me?! Aoto Nana, the demon queen of the blue nation?! Fools! You have no chance of standing up to me!” I pointed at the camera dramatically.

I stayed in that position for a few seconds before I giggled, took off the helmet, and grinned at the camera.

“Well, it’s not very practical though. I can’t see anything with it on. I could maybe merge it with the dress though. I’ll have to see what it even does when I appraise it.”

Into the backpack it went and I looked at the last item in the chest.

“Hmm, it’s a potion… and it’s green just like the other potion. And like life ooze… So it’s probably more life ooze, right? It would make sense if this is an Ether dungeon. What’s up with the fancy container though?”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t confirm anything right now, so I just shrugged and stuffed it into the backpack as well.

There were some people in chat who wanted me to chug it to recover my Ether and I briefly considered doing just that, but I decided against it. I already nearly died once in this dungeon, I wasn’t going to take unnecessary risks right now. Not like I was in a rush to conquer this dungeon right away anyway.

With that, I got out of the chest – which poofed into nothing a moment later – grabbed the key sword that had been laying next to the chest, and then went to retrieve my other stuff. All while still on guard for any more monsters trying to jump me.

I really didn’t want to deal with another snake right now.

Luckily, nothing appeared as I safely gathered up my pan, my gun, and my crappy mace, and then I walked straight out of this crystal crater the way I’d come in.

I didn’t fully relax until I crossed the threshold and the relieving feeling made me relax automatically.

I breathed out a sigh of relief and forced myself to clamber my way to my temporary shelter I’d built nearby.

“Okay, we made it out, chat… Next time, I’m just letting my enemies finish their intro sequence before blasting them. Unless I get a lot stronger and can one shot them.”

I spent the rest of the day just lying around and recovering while talking to chat.

I also still had eleven skill points left after buying Rend and there were a couple of things I wanted to get.

I wanted to get the Mind Shield upgrade for Rend eventually, just to have some kind of insurance that my brain wouldn’t randomly get scrambled. That would cost me five points. And then I also wanted the rest of the upgrades for Soulbound item – Soul Pocket and Dual Wield. Those cost two and three points respectively.

Mind Shield - Use Intra to protect your own mind from basic mental attacks.

Soul Pocket - Grants access to a small pocket dimension where you can store your soulbound item. Touching it is required for putting it in or bringing it out. A small amount of your Tempor reserves are locked for this sub-skill.

Dual Wield - You can now have up to two soulbound items.

In theory, I could get all three of them right now and would be left with one point. The only other things that I realistically wanted were Action hero cameraman to make John even more awesome, Soul strike to upgrade Soulbound item, and maybe some of the Appraisal upgrades.

Huh, actually… Assess only cost one skill point and sounded like it could be very helpful.

Assess - You can now use appraisal on living beings.

If it gave me any useful info at all, I could use Appraisal on every enemy I encountered and then immediately have my forks consult with chat on the best way to use that info.

Hmm…

Yeah, why not? It would cost me all of my remaining skill points, but I could get all four of these things right now. I didn’t need to upgrade John right this moment and Soul Strike would have just been a neat bonus anyway.

“Alright then! Let’s splurge, chat!”

Purchase the [Mind Shield] skill upgrade [Rend] for 5 skill points?

Y/N

‘Mind Shield’ skill upgrade unlocked!

Purchase the [Soul Pocket] skill upgrade [Soulbind Item] for 2 skill points?

Y/N

‘Soul Pocket’ skill upgrade unlocked!

Purchase the [Dual Wield] skill upgrade [Soulbind Item] for 3 skill points?

Y/N

‘Dual Wield’ skill upgrade unlocked!

Purchase the [Assess] skill upgrade [Appraisal] for 1 skill point?

Y/N

‘Assess’ skill upgrade unlocked!

“Wooo! So much stuff!” I cheered and chat cheered with me. Well, most of the chat cheered with me. Some grumbled about me not buying what they wanted me to buy.

“Anywho. I can soulbind another item now, chat. And yeah, for those wondering, I got the Soul Pocket because bringing out a weapon on a dime sounds super useful. Especially since all my fights end up being so hectic. Now, the only question is what should I soulbind?”

I tried not to think about how it might feel to soulbind another thing. I would deal with that feeling later… And I would probably talk about it with Jane as well.

“Option one is a melee weapon… but I don’t really have anything good right now. The mace is too crappy and I don’t want to use ultimate fusion on the pan since I wanna get the egg out of it eventually.” I huffed. “Stupid city dungeon eating my naginata… I mean, I guess I could soulbind the key sword but ehhh… Option two is soulbinding my gun. And I guess if I do that, I can also add my brand new flamethrower into it for an ultra mega fire and water plasma gun.”

I grinned, trying to imagine how chaotic that would be. I couldn’t help but like the gun option. Chat seemed to be in agreement.

“Yeah, I think I’ll for the gun right now. It’s not like I can’t get a third soulbind slot. Look, here. It’s super expensive, but Soulstrike has this upgrade…”

Soul Strike:

[MERGED] with Soulbound Item. Use a moderate amount of Ether and Intra to strike at the target's soul directly using your own.

Upgrade: Triumvirate (9SP)

Triumvirate - You can now have up to three soulbound items.

I winced.

“Oof. Yikes, that’s even more expensive than I remembered. Ten points for Soul Strike and then nine more for Triumvirate? Jeez…”

In other words, if I soulbound the gun, it would probably be quite a while before I could soulbind anything else.

But, well, that didn’t matter too much. I was used to cycling through all sorts of melee weapons anyway. And I only needed one gun, realistically. Having more melee weapons was useful for throwing them or blocking with them, but having more guns would just get annoying. Better to have it all in one.

So with that in mind, I talked to chat for a little while longer to see if anyone got any good arguments against doing this, and when nothing relevant came up, I used Soulbind item on my water gun.