Chapter 16: The lions Guild

The Cave attempted to envelope Muns world In darkness, but to no avail, for Mun had the ability Dark Vison. Muns world was instead enveloped with black and white shadows, blobs, that surround him. Telling the difference between monsters would be nearly impossible if not For Muns ability to see the names over head monsters and inanimate objects. The ability had already improved after his arrival into he dungeon.

“Level 6 metal huh?” Mun inspected the blotch of white he held in his hand, it was metal ore, with a quick opening of his gullet, he consumed the entire ore with  a single bite. Mun had taken advantage of his bodies ability to require very little sleep, as a monster. Mun estimated that he slept between 3 to 4 hours, that extra time is perfect to hunt even more than the ordinary adventurer.

Though sleeping in a Dungeon is very dangerous, you never know where and when a monster may strike, they always hide behind corners and above walls.  But Mun knew some secrets of dungeons in his time spent in them, Safe havens, yes, every floor has a safe haven, Marked by bright green stones, or at least they were green in the dungeon that he had been born in. In this new dungeon, they were Purple.

When he first encountered them, Mun couldn’t see things like he does now, but now he has the ability, status.

Mysterious ore level: (Na)

Mysterious ore is commonly found in dungeons, Nobody knows why they exist, not even the gods.  The ore is known to ward off Monsters, though Monsters are known to ignore the ore if enraged. Rarirty: Common

True enough, Mun felt himself become slightly nauseous, but the feeling soon passed, it was only for brief moment that he felt it. He pondered who had put them there, and why it didn’t completely affect him. Perhaps it was because he was self aware, something that the other monsters didn’t seem to display

Mun entered the Ores chamber, it was shaped like a boss room, except it was lit by a bright purple ore, lighting the normally dark dungeon, for a moment Mun’s vison shine white, blinding him, before his dark vison automatically turned off.  Unlike the normal glowing stones that only glowed white, the stones in safe rooms glow a purple, or green, it seems.

Mun entered calmly, sure that he would be safe here, only to jump when he lays his eyes on an enormous snake. Larger than any ordinary man. His eyes tracked the elongated creature from tail to the head, the head? He thought, there was no snake head, it was a woman’s head, the upper half was that of women.

“A Freaking lamia.” Mun thought. The lamia had wrapped itself in a circle, trying to cover itself with its own tail, but her pale spine was clearly seen, her dark brown hair, nearly as long as her entire torso, lay on the grown like a soft fabric trying to blanket the floor.

Name: Luca Species: Lamia Level: 20  

To top it off she was named monster.

“Huh?” The soft voice of women echoed through the room. Kind, Mun thought, the voice was soft and warm, he couldn’t believe he was saying that about a woman, a monster woman. The large snake woman turns her body, revealing her naked body, her long brown hair covering her shoulders and breasts, her eyes an emerald green. She was beautiful, as a lamia ordinarily is. Despite Muns hatred for women, he was never one to not admire their beauty. But he was always the most weary of Beautiful women. He lowered his body, preparing to attack.

“No!! its can’t be that time yet!!” The snake women yelled, the lamia, ran towards the only exit in the room, towards Mun. Mun prepared for an attack, but instead felt his body slammed by a thick muscle, the snake’s tail. The Lamia ran, In terror, not looking back once as she ran into the darkness.

“What just happened?” Mun put those thoughts in the back of his mind, He was too tired to continue pondering

Mun found a comfortable corner to sleep, closed his eyes and waited for sleep to overcome him.

………

“How much is this worth?” Mun said, placing a large wooden basket in his hands on the counter table

“Did you even sleep, young man?”

“Enough to keep me going.” The guild master revealed a small grin, happy to see the strange man before her. She was becoming worried that the man wasn’t the person she was looking for. She takes the large crate, one Mun bought to contain all his monster parts, into the back room to measure all its worth.

The basket was filled with bones, teeth and some monsters skins, though that is not what startled her.

“Dark metal?” at the bottom of the basket lay four neatly rectangular shaped metallic bars. They had a strange purple aura to them, it was Dark metal, or Metal infused with magic. Humans and other species have been trying to discover how magic is infused into the metal, but no known way is currently known, the only way to collect is to kill monsters or in some cases, mine it from areas of high magic concentration .

The guild master Takes the small bars and places them on a machine next to her, the Meas machine, a machine capable of measuring the levels and stats of living and non living things alike. Only the big guilds have such machines in their halls. 

“level 1, level 2.” One by one she counted the levels of each metal brick. All of them were low levels, but even a low leveled dark metal is valuable. Especially the iron variety. 

She takes all the numbers into account, grabs two gold coins from the locked vault and headed to the front desk.

“All in all I can give you 2 gold coins, this includes the payment for the loan you asked for yesterday, as well as the price for admission into the Lions guild.”

Two gold coins!! Mun screamed internally, just yesterday After collecting bones and teeth for so long, he was so disappointed to only be given silver coin for all that he collected, now that he had collected more, he still couldn’t hold his surprise at the enormous increase in revenue.

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“you had quite a bit of dark metal collected. That stuff always sells high if you know who’s buying.”

“I see” True be told some of the dark metal had been lying inside his own body, and a lot more is in it right now. HE wanted to wait for it to grow a couple more levels before selling it.

“If you Find Etine metal. I’ll give you a bigger pay”

“Etine?”

“It is the rarest natural metal, that is to say it only ever seems to be in very dangerous places.” She began to describe the metal and why it was worth so much. She didn’t do out of kindness, she suspected that the man before her might be able to safely get some from the dungeon.

“He, definitely has a lions heart”, she thought to herself

“Anyways, since you need a membership card, I’m going to need you to head towards that door over there.” The Guild master Pointed to a large red door, Mun could see a couple of people waiting outside it.

“Just wait your turn and the process should be over soon.”

“Ah, yes that, I need to pay for my stay at the in first, I’ll return as soon as I’ve paid for another night.” The guild master nodded and left to her quarters.

……….

The woman at the end was surprised to get a seven day advance pay. She hadn’t expected to get paid much by the man in to begin with. Mun quickly said hello to Aura and the wolf, before heading back to the Guild hall. Aura was excited to see him again, only to be brought back down by his departure. The wolf conforted her by letting the child play with his tail.

Mun returned to the Guild, by some fortunate coincidence, the line was gone, Mun’s turn was next.

A man waited for him behind the Red door, he was equipped with a large sword, leather armor and boots. 

The man eyed Mun up and down, examining Mun with his eyes.

“Wait here” The mans voice was gravely and deep. Not a voice Mun often hears. The man puts his sword away in a rack, where many other similar swords laid.

Mun patiently waits in the room, he decides to look around the room. Swords, some staffs, a variety of equipment you may find on an adventurer.  The room was the size of a small school gym, some hay mats were scattered around. One word came into Muns mind, “training room.” To him the Room seemed to be built to train People.

“There you are.” The voice was accompanied by a familiar face, The guild master.

“Hello madam.” Mun gave a light head bow, not a custom of his country of origin, but rather a quirk he picked up from his very short time as a house cleaner. Some of his most peaceful days in his previous life were during that time, he didn’t have to deal with others.

“No worries, I asked my husband to personally take your test.” Mun pointed towards the door, asking of the man before was her husband, she nodded.

“haha, that’s why no one attacks this place.” She laughed, praising her husband and the guild hall in the same breath.

“Lets begin, follow me.” The woman leads Mun towards a strange looking machine. “By the way, by name is Kaya, Kaya Morda.” She looked at Mun, expecting a name in return.

“My name is Mun, Mun Zirdah.” Her ears perk up, wondering if they heard right.

“odd, Sounds Draconian.”

“Is that so,” Mun responded to her thought, unaware of the languages of the world. Names don’t seem to be translated to him. When he hears a forging language it doesn’t, he only hears half of it before his mind changes it to English.

“Yeah, I swear I remember hearing an old friend say those words often.”  Mun himself didn’t know what his name meant, it was just given to him by Loom.

“Mun.” She turns around to face him. “What kind of monster are you?”  Mun takes a step back, he didn’t expect to be asked that question.

“What?” is all he could say in response.

“I’ve seen a lot of things in my time alive, I’ve never seen a curse that turns someone into wood and still live. If its not a curse, a monster is the next best guess.” She continued explaining her question.  Saying that people who are afflicted by certain strong curses have a darker aura about them, with the exception of natural curses.

“Now, don’t worry, you are very lucky to have come to this guild first.” Mun patiently listened.

“Our guild is one of least discriminatory towards Intelligent monsters, or shifters, as some call them, a derogatory term really. Another safe guild to go to the is Guild of the Dragon, our sister guild.”

Once she finished explaining the situation, Mun finally tells her.

“I am a mimic.” Her eyes open wide, she didn’t expect a Mimic.

“Oh that’s bad.” She muttered.

“Why?”

“Well our machine needs a bit of blood for us to make your Membership card, We can scan your level, but we can’t make a membership card that can be easily changed like the normal guild cards, and I’d rather not cut your heart to do.” As she explained, She picked up a metal plate out of one of her pockets, it had her name, level, and some of her skills, showing it to Mun as an example.

“For now I guess, I’ll give you one of the older type of guild cards. Though I’m going to have to do some more work for it.” She sighed.

“lets check your level first.” Mun is brought into the back. He is instructed to step on a machine about the size of a person and wide enough for small bed to fit.

“Level 16 huh. Hmmm, interesting.”

“What.” She doesn’t say anything for a short minute

“You pass the qualifications to enter this guild.” Kaya smiles, as she gestures Mun of the machine.

“Next, I’m going to need you to do some tests.”

Before mun knew it, he was asked to do odd tasks like punching some of the punching bags, lifting weights or using some skills. All the while he had to were a chip in the back of his neck, it received all the information of what he was doing and placed it into a machine, where Kaya was pressing buttons to make the plate.  It took an hour to completely, The husband came to check on his wife wondering what was taking so long, the wife only said “No blood” and the husband understood and moved to the front of the guild hall once more.

“Finally done.” Kaya sighed after an hour of long work, she remembered the days, when she had to do this for all new recruits, at the time membership was more expensive. She is glad to not be at the time anymore.

“sorry about that.” Mun apologized knowing the trouble he caused the woman.

“Don’t worry, I’m use to it”

“Can you tell me more about the guilds” Mun asked, Kay simply put both palms to her face, She regretted mentioning the guilds.

“You don’t need to know much, But I’ll give you a quick summary.

There are 10 major guilds, Order of the Bear, Order of the Badger, Order of the Ox, Order of the Fox, Order of the Owl, Order of the Raven, Order of dove, Order of the Angel, Order of the dragon, and Order of the Lion. Right now you are in the order of the Lion.

You are mostly safe when going to any of the guilds, but no matter what, you have to stay away from Order of Dove. They hate monsters and have been known to kill Shifters.”

“Order of the Dove?” Mun asked, curious of the organization. She shakes her head, moving her lips to one side in annoyance.

“Most of them are Fanatics for whatever god they worship, some of them are okay, Mostly those who worship the Goddess of love, but most of them are in the order of the angel. But anyways there bad news, they cause trouble for all of us not just monsters.”

She had a look on her face as if she remembered something unpleasant.

“May ask you one last thing.” Mun had been meaning to ask after Kaya mentioned it.

“what qualifications do I meet”

“You need have a lions heart to join this guild, or at least an abnormal amount of spirit ”

“a lions heart?” Mun asked, tilting his head in curiosity. How could he not be curious, Lion heart is what is plastered on his stats screen, He didn’t know what it meant.

“Would you like know?” Kaya smiled, eager to tell Mun.

Muns eyes widened, he couldn’t believe what Kaya tells him, it was to unbelievable.

This is certainly a world of magic, he thought.

Mun thanked Kaya for all her help, being only half genuine,  with a bow.

“Ah and before you go, I think I should warn you. Make sure to not enter the dungeon in 2 days and stay clear of it for the whole week after.” Mun nodded, knowing he couldn’t take that advice.

Kaya watched as Mun left the Guild hall. Looking at his back.

“Is something odd with him dear?” Kayas husband asked, as she headed towards the recruiting room.

“I think He might give us a chance.”

“Do you mean?”

“If that noble tries to do something, yes.”

“If he doesn’t?”

“I’ll ask Mun in private, for help”

“Do you trust him?”

She thought it odd. His name seemed to be draconian, yet bowing was something that demons do. Then there is the fact that he is a monster.

“I trust him to be who he is.”

“ A lion heart”

The husband smiles, trusting his wife, his wife always had a strange way of knowing people.

“you should forward his info to Order of the dragon. They’ll probably like him.” Her husband said before entering the recruitment room.

………….

“Hey, do you want to play” A little boy asked Aura. The boy had sticks in his hands, playing swordsman, but he didn’t have anyone to play with. Aura thought that it should be okay if they stayed in the building. She nodded, taking the stick the boy extended.

The wolf, eyed the boy closely, but decided that it would be alright as long as they play in the building, though he decided to go towards the front of the in to guard the entrance for any unfamiliar people.