Chapter 11: Let’s go dungeon-ing

After the exercises and dinner, as I was lying in bed, thinking about all that happened today, I looked at the screen – I was yearning for a new footnote – they had become a sort of silver lining in my otherwise dry, stressful, and lonely days. I didn’t bother going through the whole status, though if I had, I would have realized that level up to 2 gave me 2 APs (attribute points) that I could assign as I wished. Maybe my ask for being smarter had been ignored in favor of skills.

“Sometimes the most miraculous discoveries are waiting for a bold and determined step forth. Maybe the dungeons are not as dangerous as they are made out to be.”

The new footnote seemed to be guiding me towards the dungeon. If I think about all the games I had played or the books I had read, level 2 is lowest of the low and if I over think my strength, I could potentially die the next moment. Maybe this is like the risk I took when I ate the berry without knowing if it was poisonous or not. Maybe I need a drastic measure for the upcoming event. With some doubts bouncing around in my head about the prudence of this step, I fell asleep thinking about dungeon and all that I knew about them.

The 4th day morning was sunny again and the urgency building up reached a new height. I had 4 more days to reach a milestone – both with my level and my skills. I had grilled wolf meat last night, to avoid the disgusting concoction of rabbit meat soup that I had made and ate it with some apples on the side. With a bit of salt, the taste of meat was succulent, and the sweetness of the apples cut right through the grease of the meat. Which cut of meat was it? I have no idea LOL. I had provisions, maybe not plenty but enough to last me a few days and with new discoveries in the novice area, I might be able to supplement them quite a bit before the event starts.

I decided to go for a run again this morning – maybe exercising in the mornings and evenings is not enough. I am still physically weak, and my stamina needs a major build up – it cannot be achieved without hard work and perseverance. After the run (some run, some jog), I went for another round on foot and look through the shops for any new items. I wasn’t disappointed and found 1 waterproof notebook, 1 pen, 1 frying pan and a large box of biscuits (panda chocolate flavored which i discovered only after opening the sachet) – full 10 sachet packet.

With a new bounce in my steps, I headed back planning a breakfast of coffee, pandas, and a pastry from yesterday. Eggs can wait and they won’t spoil in the inventory anyway. Food, no good food can do so much for your morale, almost like retail therapy. This batch of finds also made me realize that the novice village could only provide me with essentials and small items, Katana being the only exception, which was also my biggest reliance as of now.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

After a scrumptious breakfast, I headed towards the unprotected area and instead of climbing the hill, I started walking towards hill number 3. Ideally, I would have liked to explore the hill no 2 but I decided to believe in the horoscope like footnote and let it guide my next steps for now.

On the way I found a few new food sources like common puffball and hedgehog mushrooms, a lime tree and a couple of blueberry shrubs, which I harvested and stored the fruits, tree, and shrubs in my inventory with my skill collect. As I started walking up the dungeon hill, I came across some white rocks that looked a lot like limestone, which were also stored. I wanted to get to the dungeon quickly and didn’t want to spend much time figuring out the details just yet. As per the map the entrance of the dungeon seemed to be in a cave like structure, with the entrance wide enough to fit 3 people at a time. The rock formation in which this cave was embedded seemed a natural formation. It was not protected or hindered by anything as of now and everything seemed calm and silent. Not encountering any animals on the way had put me on my guard and the blades in my hand were ready for some blood shed to release some of this tension that was building up.

I entered the cave, noticed the musty smell unique to caves and felt that the darkness deeper inside the cave was overwhelming. This is a problem. I have no torch or flashlight and I didn’t fancy entering deeper parts of the cave into the darkness, where I might end up being completely defenseless. Thinking about a solution and looking through my inventory, I had the rabbit fur scraps but I didn’t think they would make a durable torch, the only thing I could think about burning was the worn-out shirt or pant. With no other alternative at hand, using one of the sturdier branches in my inventory I wrapped it up with the shirt and decided to use that as a short-term torch and explore the cave.

Reaching the darker areas of the cave, I lit the torch and moved forward. There were voices like someone scraping their weapon against a rock and noises of small critters, which were amplified by the echoing effect within the cave, making them far more sinister than they must have been. Further inside the cave a pathway opened, and it seemed to be laid out with stone blocks allowing no more than two persons to walk side by side. This narrow pathway was like an alley except much more uniform like a cobbled street. Looking at the walls and the ceilings combined with the pathway, it looked as if someone had carved out the mountain itself to create this space. It looked unnatural and spine chilling at first glance. As I walked further down this path, the area started lighting up and I noticed torches burning at sporadic intervals further ahead. I wanted to extinguish my homemade torch so that I could use it later but rubbing it against the wall didn’t work, I had no choice but to abandon it at the side. Journey back is going to be difficult unless I steal some of the torches from the dungeon.

Once the path lit up brightly, I tried storing one of the torches in my inventory and it worked. Yes! I decided to take away all these torches and if possible, the pathway stones as well on my way back. Someone’s trash is other person’s treasure after all.