After updating the coin stack, I now had 35 Bronze Coins and some change. Still a long way to go. Anyway, looking at the leather vest armor, it was one large, connected piece that only had one hole. Well one hole until I strapped it up.

To put it on I slid my head through that center hole and let the front and back lay against my chest and back respectively. At the sides of the armor were buckles that would tie the back and front together.

It took a little finagling...but I eventually got it together. It was snug but not too tight. After throwing out a couple light punches to test my movement, everything felt fine.

The bracers went one a lot easier. They just slipped on and covered my entire forearm. Just like with my clothes from the shop, they fit perfectly. I’m convinced there’s some Tutorial magic at play here. Moving on, neither the vest nor bracers had any interesting designs or embroidery or anything. Just very simple gear it seems.

Anyway.

My Rucksack that I really haven’t been using since I got it, held 3 Health Potions, my food pill bottle and passes was now strapped to my back and with my spear in hand in was time to go.

I didn’t spot Richard on the way to the gate, so I’ll have to pass on the information the blacksmith gave me when I got back. Anyway, I made it outside and some the folks on guard duty even gave me a nod as I left into the forest. I hope they’ll be alright while I’m gone. Huh…I guess I’m starting to like them.

Anyway, I immediately upped my awareness to the maximum as I walked in search of a dungeon. I had some basic ideas of what I might find or what to look for but in reality, it could be anything. Thinking about it now, it could even extremely far away, who knows If I’ll even find one in the first place.

So, with thoughts like that on my mind, while my eyes darted about the forest looking for movement or any strange structures, I slowly made my way deeper in. I was moving at a much slower pace than I was used to because I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything. It would suck to later find out I walked right past a dungeon.

With that being said, I wasn’t just walking in a straight line either, I was taking my sweet time to look and wander all around me in search of a dungeon.

This type of search went on for a while. Maybe an hour or so? I don’t know, but what I do know is that I think I finally found something.

A little in front of me there was a rather extra-large tree. Well, all the trees in the forest were extra tall and wide, but this one was even bigger. That alone wasn’t enough for me to pay more attention to it though.

What made me pay closer detail was the fact that about 5 feet in any direction around tree, there was nothing. No plants, no bushes, nothing at all. Only the bare forest ground. That was weird.

The weirdness increased when I finally noticed there was slight smoke or maybe fog appearing on the other side of the tree.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Walking around the large tree, I finally saw a large gaping hole into the tree that seemed to sink deep into the ground. It was pitch black and I couldn’t see even a speak of light no matter how intensely I focused on the hole. The fog I saw earlier slowly seeping at the edge of the hole where the tree and hole met the forest ground.

If this wasn’t a dungeon entrance, I don’t know what was. Despite me thinking that, I was still hesitant to jump into the hole. For all I know this could be a random evil Goblin death trap.

I took a couple seconds to calm down before I reached my hand towards the hole.

Oh.

Would you look at that.

Welcome to the Green Den

(F) Class Dungeon

Five 1st Cycle Body Tempering Cultivators Recommended

Enter? Yes/No

The Green Den huh…I wonder if that means it has Goblins in it? Like a den of Goblins. Maybe like a nest of some sort? Who knows. Anyway, I look at the message for a bit longer before shrugging and confirming the yes option.

Almost instantly my vision flashed with darkness and before I knew it, I was standing in a new place.

It appeared to be like some type of underground dimly lit cave. Although the lighting wasn’t very good, I could see decent enough, and after taking a look around I was in a small cave with nothing but roots sticking out of the walls and ceiling and a few small glowing mushrooms. In front of me was a narrow path that seemed to make a sharp turn the right so I couldn’t quite see what laid at the end of it.

Hm, I’m not really sure if those mushrooms were valuable or not, but I didn’t want to touch them since I wasn’t sure if it was even safe to do that in the first place. Moving on, I finally took a step towards the path in front of me when a new message popped up.

The Green Den

Objective: Kill

Only Death or Completion allows one to Leave

So, either I die in here, or I clear the Dungeon if I wanted to leave. Seems pretty straightforward but I wish It gave that warning before I entered the Dungeon. I’ll have to add this to the list of things to tell Richard. Moving on, the message disappeared on its own, but as I slowly advanced, I couldn’t help but think on the objective live. The fact it’s there means there could be Dungeons that had different objectives, right? Something to think about for the future I guess.

I eventually made it to the path and began walking down it, I made the sharp right and a couple feet from there I could see that the path opened up to a cave similar to the one I found myself in initially, only this time it was much larger. And filled with a lot more than roots and mushrooms.

While still staying in the pathway, I could look ahead to see maybe around 50 Goblins walking around the cave. None of them approached the pathway or even looked in this direction, but for some reason I knew the second I stepped out of the pathway they would be upon me immediately. I couldn’t spot any Goblins walking around with staffs or wearing any robes of any sort. They all wear carrying their little knives.

I could’ve killed 50 Goblins in the forest pretty easily, but this was different. There weren’t any trees or random logs, or bushes or any obstruction at all for me to use to my advantage, there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and I’m not sure where this feeling is coming from…perhaps my instincts? But I kind of knew that even though they are avoiding this pathway for now, once I leave that feature would be gone, and if I tried to run back here, they would just follow me.

I wasn’t nervous though; I knew I could deal with them. I would just have to be careful when retreating and attacking. I’m sure I could eat a couple stab wounds and my vest could deal with it their strength, but getting stabbed too many times would still be too much for me, it wasn’t like my skin suddenly became steel.

Anyway, time to fight.