The moment I stepped foot in the Dungeon, my nose was assaulted by a wave of an intense stench somewhere between sulfur and a rotting corpse. Even though I was no longer breathing, since I had disabled [Imitate Life] to conserve [MP], just being in the cave was enough for whatever particles were in the air to make their way to my nose and assault my olfactory nerves. It was bad enough that I decided it was worth it to take the minor hit to my [MP] supply to retrieve a mask from my inventory to cover my mouth and nose.

  After somewhat alleviating my senses, I took some time to explore my surroundings. There were veins of luminous stone running through the wall and the ceiling, illuminating the stalactites and stalagmites that grew in clusters near the edges of the cavern I was in. Some of the stone spike clusters formed around pools of yellow liquid, from which the smell of sulfur emanated.

  Without mana, I had to rely on my natural senses, which were still very good, but the image I got of my surroundings was nowhere near as precise as the one I got from [Mana Sense]. They were enough, at least, to give me a good idea of what was down each of the four passages leading out of this room. From one, I could hear running water, and the sound of something splashing in it, from another, I could hear the shuffling of feet, and from the last two, all I heard was a faint dripping like that of the stalactites around me.

  I decided to first head toward the sound of the shuffling feet, since I wanted to see what the mobs in the Dungeon were like. I didn’t want to go beyond the limits of what I could do with aura before finding Casimir, but whatever creature awaited me sounded like it was small, and alone, so it wouldn’t pose much of a threat.

  The tunnel with the footsteps was located to my left, and lay between two sulfuric pools, with another vein of the glowing rock running along its ceiling. The tunnel sloped gently downward, and curved to the right gradually until I could no longer see the cavern I had started in, and the shuffling grew louder and louder until I came to another, much smaller room.

  On the other side of the room, there was an imp; at least, that’s what I assumed it to be. It was about the size of a goblin, only as high as my waist, but it was much, much fatter, and its face was more bat-like than the relatively humanoid goblins, with wide, open nostrils and large ears on the top of its head, rather than the side. Its skin was a pink so pale it was almost white, but its eyes were pure red. As soon as I entered the room, it let out a screech right on the edge of my hearing range, and charged at me.

  I internally cursed as I realized that I had forgotten to get a weapon out and had to spend another few points of my unrestorable mana reserves to summon a sword into my hand. The sword had no enchantments on it, but it was a very good blade, made of an adamantium-mithril alloy. I put my aura into the blade and swung at the leaping imp, aiming to cleave it in two, but instead of my blade passing through it like I intended, it got stuck partway in its rotund midsection. That wasn’t the most surprising thing about the exchange though. What caught my attention was that the way the imp had stopped my sword was not by having a thick hide, but rather by using its own aura to shield itself.

  I had never heard of a monster able to use aura before. There were some that could use mana, like the puppies from the Halls of Abomination, but generally, they relied only on their natural defenses and attributes. Yet somehow, this little imp had managed to not only use aura, but to successfully apply it to stop my attack. It was not a full-power attack, and it did not escape unscathed, now being almost certainly mortally wounded, but still, I had swung with enough force to break through a level 40 aura user’s defenses, and it had managed to survive it.

  Now, its thick black blood was pooling up below it as it tried to crawl toward me from where it fell. I stepped toward it with my sword raised and it opened its mouth trying to let out a scream, but the only thing that emerged was more blood. I stabbed downward through its neck, and while it tried to defend with its aura again, weakened as it was, it didn’t do much.

You have slain Imp lvl 48

Demons slain: 1/10000

  As I looked down at the little demon, I realized with a start that I would need to rely on the blood from these things to survive in this Dungeon. I wouldn’t be able to freely drink from the supply in my inventory like I normally did. However, the more I stared at the black ichor pooling up on the stone by my feet, the less appetizing it seemed. It looked like tar and smelled just as bad, and on top of all that, it was now all over the floor.

  I gingerly picked up the corpse and pulled my mask down, mentally preparing for what I was about to do. Drinking off the ground was not an option, so I would need to feed directly from the source, which was nearly as bad. Who knew where this thing had been rolling around. What if it slept in a mound of its own shit? Wouldn’t it then be better to lick it up off the ground in that case?

  No, that was a dangerous line of thought. Obviously this thing didn’t do that. There was a fair amount of dust on its body, but there was no smell of feces. Unless demon feces smelled like sulfur and sweat…

  I forced those thoughts out of my head and steeled myself before open my mouth and clamping my fangs down on its rapidly cooling neck. I managed to keep my tongue from making contact with its neck, but that didn’t help avoid the flavor of the blood itself.

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  If elf blood could be compared to all the greatest foods I had ever tried back on earth, then the opposite could be said of demon’s blood. It was thick and viscous like honey, but it had the flavor of a sock from a gangrenous soldier after a month in the trenches. It was exactly how I imagined drinking molten rubber would feel, just without the heat. If someone had offered me liquefied stink bugs as an alternative to demon’s blood, I would have taken it without a second thought.

  I immediately flung the body against the wall and started coughing and spitting. I was half-tempted to siphon water out of the air to wash out my mouth, but kept enough of a rational mind to stop myself. I wouldn’t be able to even consider using any more magic until I found Casimir. Hopefully, if I killed him quickly enough, I would be able to summon enough blood to last the rest of my stay here. Or even better, if I could enthrall him, I would have a near endless supply of fresh blood…

  The texture of the putrid liquid made the flavor stick to my mouth, but eventually, I was able to get at least most of the taste out. It was not perfect, but as long as I didn’t focus too much on it, it no longer bothered me.

  Before my experiment with the blood, I had half planned on wandering around until I found Casimir, but that experiment had bumped finding the giant up to the very top of my priority list. If I avoided fighting, I would be able to last about four days before needing more blood. I would need to find and defeat him before then if I wanted to save my tastebuds and sanity.

  I continued to the other side of the room from where I had entered and started exploring the tunnels. The tunnel led further down before opening up into yet another large cavern, though this one was not as empty as the one I had started in. There were five imps inside, two wandering around near the center, and three others relaxing in the mineral pools along the edges. There were four more tunnels leading out in different directions.

  I stayed in my own tunnel, listening carefully and plotting my next move. Down three of the tunnels, I only heard more footsteps, but the fourth sounded as empty as the one behind me, and fortunately, that fourth one was quite close to mine. If I timed it properly, I would be able to sneak over to it without drawing the imps’ attention.

  As I kept an eye on the fat sacks of liquid horror, another though crossed my mind. These monsters in the cave were demons. I was a Demon King. I had a skill called [Demonic Aura]. It was possible that that skill would have some sort of special interaction with these creatures. If not, it would hopefully at least make them flee, like it had for the goblins. These monsters were much stronger than goblins, but I was much stronger than them, so hopefully, even if nothing strange happened, they would still avoid me. And besides, it was only five imps. In the worst case scenario, I would just kill them all.

  I activated the skill and stepped out into the cavern. The reaction was immediate. The imps in the center took one look at me, and immediately screeched and fled, and frantic splashing indicated that the bathing ones were doing the same. A few moments later, I was alone in the cavern.

  I laughed aloud at my luck and walked toward the tunnel I had scouted before with my hearing. I left my aura skill enabled, since it didn’t cost me anything, and hopefully, it would make anything weaker than me flee like the imps had. There were bound to be stronger demons around somewhere, or else the Dungeon wouldn’t have been sealed, but I was hopeful that with the name of my skill, I might be able to last the entirety of the Dungeon without being bothered when I didn’t want to be.

  [Demonic Aura] extended far enough that while I traveled through the cave, I didn’t see any more demons. I could hear them shouting and running away ahead of me, but whenever I got to wherever they had been, they were nowhere to be seen. From the sounds I heard, I had frightened more than just imps, and it was bothering me that I didn’t know what they were yet, but information gathering could come later. I needed to find and subdue Casimir in order to solve my blood problem before I could focus on actually clearing the Dungeon.

  I estimate it was about three hours before I even found a hint of his presence. One of the empty rooms I came across showed clear signs of battle. There was black blood spattered all over the place, and corpses lay in various states of liquefication all about. One was half embedded in a shattered wall, with only its head and the ends of its limbs recognizable as having once been alive.

  It was clearly not an imp, unless there was a subspecies of imp that grew ten feet tall. Its head alone was nearly the size of the imps’ torsoes, and its hands were large enough and looked powerful enough to crush me with a single one of them.

  The bodies were not fresh, but they didn’t seem that old either. I didn’t know the rate of decay of demon corpses, but if they were anything like ordinary corpses, then they couldn’t have been more than twelve hours old.

  There were two tunnels leading out of the room aside from the one that I had come in from, and one of them had a trail of enormous bloody boot prints going down it. I followed the bloody trail, though much more carefully than I had been traveling, making sure to keep my senses peeled for any signs of life.

  I arrived at my target much sooner than I expected. He hadn’t gone far after the battle, it seemed. The first part of him that I noticed was his [Sphere of Influence]. I was walking down the tunnel when I suddenly found myself enveloped by a thin layer of his aura. Knowing that he had already detected me. I strode confidently forward through the tunnel until I arrived at yet another large cavern lined with mineral pools.

  Casimir sat in the center, cross-legged with his eyes closed with a large bag on the ground nearby. There was no doubt that he knew where I was, but just from observing him, it was difficult to tell that fact. Not even his heart rate reacted to my presence, instead beating away calmly and steadily, as if he were asleep.

  Could he actually be asleep? I wondered as I slowly approached him.

  Killing a sleeping foe didn’t feel right to me, even if he was Ophelia’s right hand man. I knew he was dangerous– a fact that [Divine Eye of Pride] confirmed by showing no weaknesses– but I wanted to make absolutely certain that he knew I was here before summoning my railgun to kill him. I opened my mouth to call out to him, but he beat me to it, opening his own mouth to let his deep voice rumble through the room.

  “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather we not fight.”

  “What?” I said.

  “I have no quarrel with you, and you would not have entered here if you were not confident you could win. I would like to see my family again, so I would prefer not to fight.”

  “...What?”