Over the next three hours, Asaru's body changes. She grows bigger but stays slim. Her boobs actually grow a bit, making her clothes tight and body hugging. It's quite a sexy view.
Anastasia hits me in the arm. What? Can I ogle a bit?
“So? Which one volunteers?” I ask.
“Axi?” Anastasia volunteers Axi.
“Ugh. Why me? I don’t want to be pregnant. I need to fight, you know?”
Anastasia sighs. “Fine, fine. This useless human will provide a womb.”
“You aren’t useless.” Both me and Anastasia say this at the same time.
Anastasia sighs. “Thank you, but I somehow feel like it. Even though I tiered up, it feels like you are leaving me behind. I’m already a damsel in distress.”
Axi has been resurrected two times already. Asaru is going to be a very powerful goblin. She downgrades from an orc. Me and Anastasia didn’t experience that, but I have a five-merged mana type. No wonder Anastasia becomes the weakest around.
Can I turn her into a monster? I don’t know. I would need to experiment, preferably on someone else. Aka, repeatedly kill humans and then try to turn them into monsters by forcefully conjoining their souls with the monster’s body. I feel I would get a very high bounty if this became common knowledge among humans.
My thoughts go back to my situation in the dungeon. How do I escape? What would I do as my opponent?
Given our poor food situation, why not destroy all the real fruit trees in the village and seal the dungeon? They could starve us to death. I’m guessing that without interference, more things would become real, so maybe it’s not feasible. I can just eat real goblins. Wait!
The entrance! What if someone were to seal it? The dungeon doesn’t want us to create another entrance, but if the only one were to be sealed, a new exit in a random place could be easy to pierce through. After all, humans won’t have time to build fortifications or maybe even notice it.
Would they do something like that? Unlikely. Mass destruction? Maybe poison? What should I do if they find a mage capable of conjuring poisonous or flammable gas? It’s possible the dungeon would intervene, but I can’t count on it.
[Samantha’s POV]
“Samantha!” Nancy runs into the room, shouting.
“What? Why are you shouting?”
“We need to leave.” She whispers fast and forcefully.
“What? What’s going on?” I was just eating some nice food and planning what kind of dresses I would buy with my new wealth.
“It’s Smag. The whole town is talking about him and Anastasia. Rumors have it that they got trapped in the dungeon.”
“How?” I just ask. That wasn’t the plan.
“That’s not important! They saw their clothes. Guards are going to search for how they entered the town. You know what they will find.”
My heart clenches. It’s not good. But leave the town? “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know!”
I bite my lip. It’s true that we are in danger, but I’m not sure how we can escape it.
“We need to leave. Should we abandon the cart?” She asks.
“We can move quicker on a horse. Maybe we can ride it."
She gives me a look. “Have you ever rode a horse? Don’t answer. I have known you my entire life.”
I grimace. “Anyway, leaving now will draw suspicion on us. We can’t panic.”
“Staying will draw the executioner’s axe!”
I sigh. “Fine! So we leave. Where to? Just ahead without destination?”
“Come on! Don’t tell me you don’t want to leave!” She is angry.
I hesitate. “It’s not a bad deal we have with Smag.”
“Yeah, but he isn’t here. Who knows when he will leave the dungeon, if ever?"
I capitulate. She is right. “I will collect the money and stuff, and we can leave in twenty minutes.”
She nods. “We can tell we are scared of goblins or something,” she says, then hesitates. “What about the money? We no longer have anyone to guard us.”
She is right. Someone may decide to rob us. “Should we hire an adventurer? We have money.” I say that, but quickly realize it's a stupid idea. We need to be guarded for some time. Days, if not weeks. It will be very hard to mask our rapidly growing bellies. “Sorry. Stupid idea.”
“I know.” She sighs. “There are goblins, but..." She doesn't end it. I sigh as well. Without Smag, they are just going to keep raping us. This isn’t an option.
“What about the village?” I ask. This is the only relatively safe place I know about where we are known, and they won’t kill us for caring goblins.
She grimaces. “Returning after everything is humiliating.”
I perk up. “But we have money! We could maybe buy weapons and food. They will welcome us with open arms.”
“But…”
“I know, but Adam is reasonable. And he probably won’t dare to do anything to us. We can just tell him Smag told us to go there for some time. He won’t go against Smag.”
She nods. “We need to hurry.”
“I know. Good thing we already sold most of the stuff.”
[Jacob’s POV, Governor of Roheb]
I sit at the table with my small council. A small mimic of councils of nobles, though mine is way too incompetent. It’s not that bad; ultimately, I want to have peace and quiet in my retirement, not ambitious upstarts looking to depose me. Only captain of guards is a relatively young man and still full of ambition, but he is unlikely to do anything drastic. Other than that, there is the local head priest, the local Guildmaster and Nicolas, an old adventurer and dropout of a magic academy. I’m keeping him as a magical advisor for that.
“Governor, we really need to do something. The whole town keeps talking about the situation.” The captain of the guards, Dominic, starts.
“Tell me about it.”
“We don’t know that much; unfortunately, most of it came from the adventurer team who met the witch and allegedly the former warlock, now a hobgoblin mage. They lost two members before escaping the dungeon.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Only two? Had they left them alone?” I ask.
“They were staying near the exit of the dungeon, apparently knowing that the witch would need to leave at some point.”
I frown. "Rather a silly strategy. I expected that the witch would be caught in the dungeon.”
The Guildmaster interjects. “Their mage was quite talented. Beside wind and sand, he had opportunity mana.”
“Opportunity?” I ask Nicolas.
“It’s one of two-merged mana types. Physical order and symbolic air.” He stops for a moment and searches for the right words. Magical academia is quite secretive and doesn’t like alumni starting their own schools, not to mention drop-outs like Nicolas. All academia I know of requires a merchant-enforced Contract that you won’t teach anything without the explicit permission of the academy. The problem is that alumni need to find work after that, so they are allowed to reveal general information required for their work that’s not teaching. He can tell me about opportunity mana since it’s relevant, but he can’t, for example, tell me about all sixty two-merged mana types.
“For example, finding a 7th-tier monster could be an opportunity to get rich quickly.” Nicolas explains.
Dominic scoffs. “Rather a death sentence.”
“Exactly! Opportunity is not luck. It’s more like it makes it more probable to have encounters you think could be an opportunity for you. Like weak destiny manipulation. It’s just a two-merged mana type, so it’s not that strong.” He shrugs.
“The team should have met the warlock two times, only to engage at the third opportunity, if I can call it that." The Guildmaster says.
“It’s not that relevant to the problem anyway. We don’t need information about a dead adventurer. No offense to adventurers, of course.” The head priest says this, looking at the Guildmaster.
Right to the point. We all want to remove the disturbance. “What did they say?” I ask Dominic.
“Not much. After attacking, their mage created a sand storm. They say the female hobgoblin was as strong as a weaker 3rd tier monster and they barely kept her off. Suddenly, both their mage and archer died, and when they looked at them, there was nobody there.”
"Long-range attack? Could vitality mana do that?” I ask.
Nicolas shrugs. “I’m not sure. It's a five-merged mana type. Due to the fact that it's the vital mana to most life, it’s one of the most common, if not the most common, five-merged type, meaning I know some things but not much.”
So no info. If the warlock was that powerful, he would just move through the town like a reaper. It’s possible he doesn’t want attention, but why retreat to the dungeon and not break the containment room?
“He must have limits, just like anyone. It’s also possible it’s not his work. The witch stayed in the dungeon for days, undetected. It’s possible they have someone with mana type enabling concealment.” The Guildmaster says.
“Or she hid in the secret tunnels.” The head priest says: “Just give up and publish the recent map. We can then just sweep the dungeon.”
“That’s unlikely.”
I roll my eyes. Money. The Guildmaster has some income from selling maps. After all, the dungeon keeps changing, and so does its layout.
“Any mana type like that?” I ask Nicolas.
“Camouflage mana. Symbolic water and air.”
Two-merged mana types can be seen by most mages around here. “How hard is it to notice camouflage mana?”
“Should be harder than most two-merge mana types. I’m not sure. Around fifty in Mana Sense? It’s also depending on perks.”
That’s not that high.
“Sir, how about we hire some 3rd tier adventurers? Maybe you could help us as well.”
I smile. My fat stomach certainly disagrees. I even lost some stat points after retiring. You can get stat points from training, so you can also lose them from idling about. It’s not that bad; my actual skills are probably way worse. If I were to cycle one of my fighting skills, I doubt the new cap would be even around three-quarters of my current skill level. Simply put, I’m rusty. Not much stronger than most platinum ranks around.
“I’m afraid the old me won’t be much of a help. I suppose I can hire adventurers, but it will take them at least two weeks to get here, realistically around a month. There are not many opportunities for 3rd tier adventurers around here. Also, aren’t there any competent teams in the town?” I ask the Guildmaster.
“There’s actually a new team that came around a week ago. Mist of Fire. I heard all members have access to two-merged mana types; their mage to a few types.”
“Then we don’t need 3rd tier adventures!” I happily declare.
The Guildmaster smiles sheepishly. “I think they are waiting for you to increase the reward.”
I groan. Adventurers. “Head priest, how about a blessing? Giving one as a reward for slaying a former warlock should be given.”
The Head Priest grimaces. “I suppose I can give one.”
Good. Blessing allows you to store Experience Points and assign them manually. You can also trade Experience Points, which is how nobles raise their classes. For better blessings with bonuses, you need to contribute to a church, but common blessings like those can be bought from temples. It’s one of their main sources of income. Unfortunately, each priest can only give a limited amount of blessings, limited by his tier and skill level. After that, priests need to wait until their blessed die, or they have to tier up. This makes blessings a hot commodity.
“Isn’t there an orc in the dungeon?” Dominic asks. “Shouldn’t it attract 3rd tier adventurers?”
“Only the boss is 3rd tier monster. Our dungeon is, in all aspects, a 2nd tier dungeon.” Guildmaster waves his hand dismissively.
“Anyway, we need to do a sweep. And figure out how they got inside the town.”
“It’s my fault. I will make sure such a situation won’t repeat.” Dominic bows lightly to me.
I sigh. Ambitious young people. “I’m more interested in how he got in. At least enough to figure out which kind of mana has been used. Camouflage? Something related to the mind? Information is important. Speaking of information,” I look at the Guildmaster.
“I can’t just publish the map.”
“I will compensate you. Half of your monthly profits. Thirty silver.”
“That’s the smaller half. Besides, half is too little. Dungeons don’t shift that often. At least a gold coin.”
I scoff. “That’s unreasonable. Remember that to sweep the dungeon, we will need to suppress it. It should shift after that. Forty silver. The current situation requires that we all contribute.”
“The guild contributes skilled fighters. That’s our role.”
We haggle for a bit, amusing the head priest a bit. Ultimately, we settle on fifty silver after I refuse to give more and press his sense of duty more.
“Time to find them. Make sure you will check all hidden tunnels and double-check any irregularities.”
[Smag’s POV]
Asaru evolution takes three hours. Similarly to all other evolutions I have seen, her soul seems to be gushing vitality into her body, providing fuel for the process. Asaru grow to two meters. She will have problems standing upright in the hidden tunnels. Regular corridors are not that much bigger, so not paying attention is probably going to result in a bruise for her.
She opens her eyes and looks at her body. Then she nods. “How are you going to give me a new body?”
“Your mind is stored in your soul. From what I understand, it’s an organ that makes you think and control mana. I need to remove it from your current body and place it in a new body, preferably a child inside a woman. This means you will be defenseless for two weeks inside the womb and greatly weakened until you grow up again. I think we should resolve our current situation first.”
She frowns. “How are you going to remove that soul? Are you planning to cut it out of my body?”
She obviously doesn’t fully trust me. Telling her she needs to die is not a good idea. “More or less.” I shrug, evading the topic. “We need to deal with humans first.”
I hear voices.
“Have you heard that?” I whisper. Girls nod, and Asaru hobs become attentive as well.
“Here.” Someone says, though the sound is muffled. Then I hear a clear hit. Another. Someone is trying to break the hidden entrance. I run forward and check with my Mana Sense. I find several sources of vitality mana in my range.
“Humans! What now?” I ask, whispering.
“Don’t worry.” Asaru whispers back. She waves her hand, and suddenly the dungeon wall widens a few meters.
“Will that stop them?”
"The fake wall is a bit weaker, but they shouldn’t notice.” Asaru whispers back. “After evolving, I have way more mana; I can keep it for hours.”
Humans continue to mine. After a few minutes, there’s a discussion.
“It’s not here.”
“What? Maybe dungeon shifted.”
“Dig a bit deeper.”
“I say it’s a waste of time.”
There are a few voices.
“Bring a priest. Just to be sure.”
I tense. Priests, I found, have quite troublesome powers. A minute later, I hear a shout.
“Consecrate Ground!”
Pain.
I grit my teeth and make sure I won’t shout. Asaru has done something, and the grunts of hobgoblins are muffled, but I’m closer to the humans.
I take a look with my magical senses, and it looks like my soul rebelled. My vitality is getting damaged, but the source is the soul. It seems to be some strange kind of soul attack. I check my status, and I’m getting 5 HP damage for a second. Like in a game, which this system isn’t. I run back to the other side of the hidden tunnel. My HP only gives me around 40 seconds, and some of us are bound to have less. We need to leave.
To my surprise, the effect stops just a meter before the end of the tunnel. We all place our backs to the wall and wait for the skill to finish without saying anything. I send vitality to all the girls, but not other hobs. I need to conserve my mana.
“Anything there?”
“I'm not sure. I didn’t get any notification of a kill, at least. I don't have the perk that lets you know if the skill is hurting someone.”
“Can’t you, I don’t know, use it again?”
“Divine skills are powerful, but it’s not like I can just use them all the time.” The voices go quieter.
I tentatively step forward. I would rather throw someone else, but I can’t risk them finding us. There’s no killing field. Good.
I move to the other side and observe with Mana Sense.
“They are leaving.” I whisper.
“What now?” Axi asks.
Sitting and hiding until the storm passes is tempting. How do humans know about the tunnels? I assumed they didn’t, but it seems it was a mistake. Will they assume the dungeon has shifted? That’s depending on how detailed their map is. I want to believe that it’s not very detailed, but that’s just literally wishful thinking. I can’t assume what’s convenient to me. I need to assume their map is complete. In this case, one tunnel that somehow disappeared is going to be very suspicious.
“We can’t stay here.” I announce.