The party name was called Twin Blades… even though one of the twins didn’t use a sword and I was a part of it for now. In any case, we picked the quest to mine some iron ores in the area between the sixth and the ninth floors. I didn’t know that such a thing was possible… I knew that we could get ores and other materials from monsters' bodies, but I didn’t know that we could mine the walls in the dungeons.
“I became an adventurer recently, so I don’t know how that is possible. Can you explain it to me?”
“... We can explain it to you, but you will have to show your skill with the bow first. Hit those trees over there.”
The girl said that while pointing to some trees twenty meters away. I didn’t know their names since they didn’t ask mine either. They were being cautious despite the invitation because it wasn’t rare for ‘accidents’ to happen inside dungeons. They also invited me because they felt safer with a kid.
“All right.”
Showing off wasn’t my style, but I needed to make sure that they would know what I could do in order to make things as efficient as possible… at least to some extent. I nocked one arrow and then put another two between my fingers. I quickly released the first and then shot the next two in the next two seconds… the arrows flew in a straight line and hit three different trees at the same height and right in the middle of them. That should be enough to make them understand that I can react fast enough to cover for them.
They furrowed their eyebrows together while looking at my skill… they were truly twins. Their mannerisms were the same despite being boy and girl. In any case, that made me wonder why they were living alone as adventurers, usually, kids of their age work together in a larger group.
“Sometimes, dungeons are formed on mineral reserves and they expand those reserves and make them appear in the corridors inside the dungeon. Dungeons also repair themselves when you destroy some parts, did you know about that?”
“Yes.”
The girl nodded in satisfaction, I couldn’t be that clueless. The dungeons repaired themselves when fights or other actions caused damage to the surroundings. They used mana to make sure that the layout would benefit the monsters. Otherwise, adventurers could bury half of a corridor, and make sure the monsters won’t move. Or they can just destroy the spawning points and head straight to the boss.
“Once the dungeon takes over a certain area, they assimilate all of the surroundings. Mining spots become a source of ores that never ends, but it takes a bit of time to regenerate the ores.”
“I see…”
“Not many choose this kind of job because it is a bit tiresome and splitting into a group of six, the gains would be minimal, but it would be fine for three.”
The boy said while he was carrying a pickaxe on his shoulder. That made sense… all the parties that I have seen until now were full parties of six. Some people might start solo even without combat classes, but soon they would join parties since it would increase their gains and decrease their working time.
Still, those in that town were working more since the strongest parties had left south, so they were planning to make a quick buck until enough adventurers came to make things easier again, or to make them save money for whatever reason.
“What will be the battle plan?”
“The idiot will hold the torch and you will decrease the number of enemies until the fifth floor and I will deal with the final one.”
The girl said while bumping her fists… she did seem a bit more buffed than the boy, so she was probably the main attacker. Since she used her fists and feet to attack, she had more maneuverability in most scenarios compared to someone who could only do thrust attacks.
Still, their choice of weapons was a bit odd… rapiers are usually something nobles would use, and fighting with punches and kicks wouldn’t be smart without the Monk class. I couldn’t check their parameters, so I didn’t know if they had combat classes, but it sure seemed likely… that would make things troublesome for me. If they have those and aren’t hiding them, then they would be more troublesome than helpful to me.
“After the sixth floor, the real idiot will calm down a bit and hold the torch while we take down the remaining enemies until we find the mining spots.”
“Who is the real idiot?”
“You are!”
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It felt like two boys fighting… by the look of things, the girl was the oldest, but that didn’t mean a lot thanks to her harsh personality and because of that, the boy was also short-fused. It seemed that my first experience with a party would be pretty difficult, but it couldn't be helped. A smaller party was a better option for me.
‘Well, they are kids, so it can’t be helped. I was even worse than them at their age…’
In any case, they calmed down when they reached the dungeon since some people were already there and they didn’t want to be looked down on by anyone. Now that I thought about it, I didn't remember seeing any other kids in the guild… those who were there were at least fifteen years old.
I thought that a bunch of kids would want to try to become adventurers despite not having combat classes… I saw some of them working in some shops. They could gain experience like that too. So, maybe they were waiting for that. I was an exception since I got my first class at five and had four years to gain experience and increase my parameters.
After a couple of minutes, we entered the dungeon and then we began to advance… the eyeball bats attacked us on the same spots as usual, and I did as I was told and finished off the first monster and left the other one to the girl.
She kicked the ground and charged with quite the speed before jumping and then punching the monster three meters in the air. The creature didn’t even have time to attack…
‘She definitely unlocked the Strength, Attack Speed, and Movement Speed parameters… the boy should be the same, but they aren’t smart enough to hide that. They are being reckless, if anyone sees them fighting, they should be able to tell that...’
Very few non-combat classes granted the parameters of attack speed and movement speed. The free dungeons that granted the classes that granted those were quite hard… they were too young to have gone to those places.
‘Run away noble kids too? Nah, what were the odds? Fallen nobles? Bastard kids? Monsters in disguise? Those three seem more plausible.’
Once the eyes of the eyeball bats melted thanks to their deaths, two mana cores were revealed… it seemed that they had been lucky in their first fight. The kids got those and stored them in their backpacks to share later. At the same time, I paid a bit of attention to their gear… it seemed a bit run down, but it was still in perfect condition. They weren’t enchanted or runic, so they could fight here thanks to their own strength.
There was a chance that I could be mistaken since I don’t have Identification, but I don’t have to worry about it for now. I made a mental note to buy that skill book the next thing.
In any case, the first floor had been a cinch since I only had to do half of the job. I would gain only one-third of the earnings, though. Regardless, the next floors were somewhat easy too since nothing changed from the first floor. Still, we had to take a few breaks since the girl was using her stamina too fast. She didn't know how to pace herself.
“Did you bring some food?”
“I am fine.”
The girl was eating some jerky. We stopped for ten minutes every hour and she always would snack at those. I probably shouldn't fast for too long since I am growing, but I could endure this. One day was fine, but I feared that any more than that might cause my vampiric hunger to awaken. So, the last time, I cooked some of the horned wolf's meat.
“Those won't last forever and we don't know when we will leave the dungeon. Eat them sparingly.”
“Shut up, I bought them, so they are mine, so I eat them the way I want.”
A vein began to throb in the forehead of the boy. As expected, I couldn't work with those guys for long… even inside the dungeon they bickered like that. I liked to go solo because I could follow my own set of rules, but they didn't even have a set of rules for their party.
After ten minutes of rest, we headed to the sixth floor of the dungeon. I assumed that we walked for around five hours, but our stamina was more or less fine. If things get dicey, I can always fire more arrows. The ones that I had I could clean pretty fast during the breaks.
“They will come in groups of four now. Can you focus on the ones that are the most distant?”
I nodded and then the boy passed the torch to the girl. I could shoot down two of them and they would focus on the others with their melee attacks.
“We have the sixth floor mapped, but nothing aside from that.”
The girl took the map from her pocket and pointed to two mining points. I took a good look at it since I didn't have time to update mine. We were focusing on speed, after all. In any case, their map didn't seem rough like mine.
“We have ten kilograms worth of ores and I am sure we can get two of them in those spots, the rest we will have to look for.”
The girl closed her map… the next levels were too big for us to look around randomly. We found some adventurers along the way and we will probably find others, so they could ask them, but would they give us such information for free?
“Do you guys want to clear the quest as soon as possible or do you want to follow the original plan?”
Completing the quest was fine and all, but the experience of the fight was even more important for those who wanted to become stronger. That was why I asked them about that… they looked at each other and wondered what they should do
“If you have some sort of plan, we are all ears,”
The boy said that and he looked interested, the girl seemed a bit more dubious than anything. My plan was simple… tell them to focus on defending while I attack the monsters freely. That could be dangerous, but with their weapons and parameters, they should be able to do so. To be honest, I wasn't trying my hardest… as long as I stayed a bit back from them, I would be able to hit the monsters before they could do much.
“We will gain less experience that way…”
The girl said while her eyebrows knitted… that was the main issue, but if she did that, she wouldn't have to spend as much stamina.
“Still, if it works, then we will be able to reach the lower levels faster… we can agree if we split the money forty, forty, twenty.”
The girl nodded… they looked like they wanted to increase their rank and get to their next class faster than anything else. I also was like that, but for now, I wanted to obtain as much experience as possible and do the job faster since my arrows wouldn't last for long. I still have the ones with arrowheads, but these were for emergencies.