It is a new day. Sophia and I are heading to the dungeon under the Adventurer's Guild. She said it would be best if I gained more fighting experience and system experience.
"Now the interesting thing about dungeons are the layouts. Each dungeon has a thing it's known for, like the Lewis dungeon I mentioned before shaping its corridors and rooms like Lewis structures, or other ones that use illusionary walls. These gimmicks follow certain rules, like for one the physical dungeon layout shifts every four weeks, but the room style and monsters will stay the same. All boss monster will remain the same too. There are irregularities from time to time, and those have to be sealed with, like the Mimieffigy, but they are exceptionally rare."
The guard outside the dungeon entrance doesn't spare us a glance as we head inside. Sophia was right, as before when I came in it was a single hallway with a few forks, but now it is an immediate three way path. All three paths are identical in how they look, but I can hear the scampering of rats to the right and the squeaks of bats to the path forward. Sophia seems to sense the same as she heads to the silent path left. Soon after a foul stench permeates the air.
The stone brick tunnels gradually turn metal and grimy. The tunnels soon begin to resemble a sewer look. "We're essentially going to start off with some power leveling. The monsters down this path are slightly above your skill level, but I'll restrain them slightly. Well, probably not this one." At her words, a blob of jelly dropped from the ceiling. It was covered in small yellow crystals and emitted an odor that smelled like rotten eggs and matches. Even with it overpowering my sense of smell, I use Inspect on it.
[ Sulfur Slime - A variant of the slime, instead of the conventional slime universal consumption abilities this monster can only eat biological waste and sulfur based chemicals. For this trade off, they produce primarily sulfur dioxide gas and several flammable gases. Even with medium flame resistance, they cannot ignite these gases. By themselves they pose little threat. ]
"These things can only try and jump at you with no source of flame. They can't be hurt with physical attacks. So go ahead. See if you can figure this out." Sophia sits down on a chair that appeared out of nowhere and sips something out of a mug. It smells like chocolate.
The sulfur slime bounces at me, and harmlessly hits me in the arm. Surprisingly, there's no acid damage or anything. It just feels like getting punched by a child. I attempt kicking it, but it just bounces against the wall. Then stabbing, but the knife just when through the blob harmlessly. Rock Hand left a pancake slime that bounced back up. All through this Sophia just slurps from her mug. "Solid attacks won't work." She quips and sips. "…I'll help you a little. When you squished it, that little marble in there got pushed to the side. The thing can move that marble, or core, quite fast when something quickly moves through it. So, squishing and stabbing are ineffective, and a speed which wouldn't trigger it would be too slow for it to hurt. So, you need to extract it and crush it, unless you want to start a slime farm which requires intact cores, but give no experience. Beware just reaching in though, it may feel harmless, but those things are filled with sulfuric acid inside." She opens a portal and refills her mug with a brown liquid.
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Hmm, so I just need to grab that core and pull it out. But how? It's not like I can just reach in and grab it.
"I've noticed that you don't really like using magic. You prefer weapons and your fists." Sophia talks out loud, but she's obviously giving me another hint. Alright, what magic can I use? Rock Hand. Oh.
Encasing my hands in a random assortment of minerals, I slowly reach into the slime, trying to avoid disturbance. The rock immediately starts to break apart and I hastily reach for the core, which shifts out of the way. I pull my hand out and encase it again. I take a deep breath and try again. This time I grasp the core firmly and squeeze. With a small clink, it breaks apart and the jelly falls apart.
[ You have killed a level 7 "Sulfur Slime" x 1. 50 experience points gained. ]
"You'll need to work on you magic with Thomas. We won't have time to pick out the core in battle, and unless you can crush the entire thing flat at once across a very large area, you'll need ranged magic." Sophia stands up and brushes her lap. I follow her and we continue forward.
Things are uneventful. She has me kill three more slimes, which gets me almost to level 11, but we leave before that can happen. For some reason, Sophia stopped walking and turned around without a word. She teleported me home, and she left.
I'm left at my apartment in my costume confused.
[ Through repeated actions skill: Radiation Resistance(Minimum, Passive) has ranked up to Radiation Resistance(Minor, Passive) ]
I reach for my phone to call Sophia, but her number won't connect. And I don't have Thomas's number either.
"Aria, can you call your parents for me?" I call into my mask.
"They told me not to disturb them unless it was important. Is this important?" She questions. "My Radiation Resistance ranked up." I say. "I'll connect the call now." She hastily says.
Soon I hear Thomas's voice through my mask. "Alice? Aria said this was important." "Yeah, my Radiation Resistance went up. I need an explanation." I hear him sigh on the other end. "Alright. Fine. So, when Faulken's Institute was destroyed a lot of radioactive material was blown up. We almost had another Chernobyl on our hands, but the cleanup crew and officials were more…experienced in these matters. Though the area is clean now with minimal issues there, it seems that someone stole some scrap left over. They probably got the same notification you did and tried to dispose of the material in a place that automatically cleans itself periodically. The dungeon. But, this is all speculation. Though given my information skills, I would say accurate."
After he finished his rant, I sat in thought. "Will I be okay?" I don't want to die of radiation poisoning. "Most likely. The outfit you're wearing has some radiation protection, but it's not built exactly for that. The fact that you got a skill rank up means you will survive, but you should come to the trench to come get cleaned. I'll send some robots to clean your apartment." He hung up, and a portal opened beneath my feet. I guess I'll get cleaned if I want to live.