If I had a voice I'm pretty sure I'd be screaming right now. I mean, after seeing the 10th floor boss annihilated in a few seconds and having the very thing that did that chasing after me. I had to drop all of the armor I've gathered so I could run faster and the only things I had left were my swords and daggers. After clearing the entire first floor they found me somehow, probably by using a spell to detect the presence of monsters. Once they found me I had no choice but to either fight or run away. My first decision was to fight so I attacked and lost my right arm. If it wasn't for me activating Surge at the last second to dodge a large mace, my chest would've been crushed right there. When I realized I highly overestimated myself, I ducked behind a corner and ran for the second floor.
If I wasn't screaming after I losing my right arm, then I would've definitely let out a scream when I saw that damn elf woman turn into a fucking dragon and burn up the tenth floor boss in an instant. The bosses in this dungeon weren't for show you know, each one was made with the idea that it would be facing multiple parties. I suppose that I didn't just overestimate myself, but I underestimated them just as much. I forgot that sometimes there are adventurers who can be arrogant because they have the power to back it up.
If I didn't scream after seeing the tenth floor boss burnt up in seconds. Then I would certainly be screaming now, because for the first time in my life, I'm falling an uncertain distance into complete and total darkness. In the Warwic dungeon, or home as it is known to me, there is a boss set every ten floors. Each boss is placed into a room big enough to fit multiple parties of adventurers. After each of these rooms is a bridge leading to the next section of ten floors. Each section is set to be significantly harder than the last, so much so that even those two incredibly strong adventurers would've had trouble getting through floors eleven to twenty by themselves. My goal was to run across that bridge as fast as my skeletal feet could take me. Maybe if I had dropped a sword or two, maybe if I unequipped my armor while I was running, maybe if I didn't think the boss could handle those two, I would've been able to make it to the other side.
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A pair of adventurers could be seen standing on very large bridge that mysteriously had a huge portion of the middle melted out.
"Oh dear, do you think that was a bit much?" Elen said, wearing a look of guilt. If the bridge linking sections of the dungeon was destroyed beyond repair, then no one would be able to travel past the tenth floor. Then the dungeon, not the mention the city that lives off of it, would be useless.
The Paladin next to her, Krusk, tried to think of a way to comfort her, though he would be seen just as guilty as her for the destruction of the bridge. He said the first thing that came to his mind.
"Of course not Elen, that skeleton thought it could take us on. This is simply the price one has to pay for underestimating us."
At this she gave him a fake smile then turned to face the now mostly melted bridge.
"I know that but, how is anyone going to cross the bridge now that a giant section of it is melted."
Krusk didn't know what to say to this, he knew there was a spell that could mend broken walls and bridges to a certain extent, though he'd never seen it used on something of this scale. But he managed to think of something to say, even if he didn't believe it himself.
"Don't worry, it'll repair itself in no time at all."
She spun around to look at him, everyone knew that things in a dungeon repaired themselves over time. During the first few hundred years of discovering dungeons, people started to study them and the first thing people noticed was how everything created by the dungeon repaired itself. The second thing people noticed was how any monster taken out of the dungeon would then lose this ability, which explained why no monster ever left the dungeon. Eventually this became common knowledge to everyone, but no one has ever witnessed a dungeon repair damage that was this large. Regardless, this was the only hope the two could cling to, otherwise they would probably be hunted down for causing the economical destruction of an entire city.
"You really think so?" She said, staring at him with teary eyes.
"Yes! Without a doubt! I mean, everything repairs itself in a dungeon so why wouldn't the bridge do the same?" He responded in the only way he knew he could. Even if he wasn't sure that the bridge would actually repair itself, he thought it was a reasonable assumption.
"I suppose your right, we still have some time before lunch so let's get going." She said as she wiped the tears from her face and grabbed Krusk's arm.
As they were walking away Krusk couldn't help but feel like he'd forgotten something. He'd been through the first ten floors of the dungeon much more than most adventurers, so much that he knew exactly how many of what monsters were on certain floors.
'Hmm, wasn't there supposed to be a skeleton there? No, I must've confused that with a different floor.'
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Even with all the knowledge I was somehow created with, I still didn't know what would happen to someone if they fell off the bridge. I'm sure plenty of people have fallen off the bridges before, but it's not like I was there to see it happen or anything. So I fell and continued to fall for quite sometime, so much that I would've forgotten I was falling if I didn't hit something. What I hit wasn't the hard ground I expected to hit either, it was something soft and squishy that I bounced off of, then I hit that hard ground I'd been expecting.
If I wasn't wearing my armor I'm sure my body would've probably exploded on impact, but I was held together. Still, it wasn't like the fall didn't crush every single bone in my body. This is one of the reasons I'm thankful for Second Wind, I activated it as soon as I felt the impact against the hard ground. Just like that I was restored to ten percent of my health. I was still able to move but with all the cracks I had in my bones a strong gust of wind was enough to blow me apart at this point.
Getting up, I was able to see what I landed on first. What greeted me was a, well, slime, not just any slime though, this slime could easily fit at least a hundred or so of me in it, and still have room for a full sized dragon. It was the classic green colored slime, except for the fact that it was much larger than any slime should be. For a moment I just stood there staring at it. I think it did the same but since it doesn't have eyes I couldn't tell. I waved at it, it sat there, I poked it to see if it would respond, it didn't. I looked around to see if I could figure out where I was. My best guess is that I was on some high level floor, but since I've never ventured beyond the first floor I had no idea which floor I was on.
The only thing I could figure out about this floor is that it was massive. This floor was nothing like the first ten, where the first ten floors were like a series of tunnels, this was it's own underground world. Grassless wasteland could be seen as far as my sight would allow, looking to the ceiling I could see what looked like stars. Ruins of what looked like very old buildings could be seen in the distance. Whatever this floor was, it was somewhere that people once lived.
While I was caught up in looking at the scenery, the giant slime I met started to move. I followed it since I didn't have anything else on my schedule anymore seeing as how I had no clue as to where I was. For a while the slime simply moved along the ground, it didn't really seem to have a destination in mind, until we reached it. A large life force entered my vision in the direction we were headed, a much larger life force than that of those adventurers. As I followed the slime, I saw what this life force belonged to. It was a bear, from this distance it looked like any regular bear drinking from a stream, except for that massive amount of life force I could see in it. The slime spread its body along the surface of the ground and split up into a dozen or so parts. These parts formed into long snake-like slimes and slithered toward the bear.
What I found amazing was that the main body that held the core of the slime stayed behind, while the rest of its body went towards the bear. As I watched the parts of the slime slowly head toward the bear I remembered something I knew about this dungeon. After the 60th floor, the floor monsters drastically change in order to protect the dungeon heart. The best way to get stronger in this world was to level up and the only way to do that was by killing monsters. Below the 60th floor all monsters are ordered to kill each other on sight in order to gain experience to get stronger.
'If I am below floor sixty then why didn't it just kill me on sight? Maybe because I wasn't worth enough experience?'
As I was thinking about this the slime made its move. The snake-like parts of the slime all leaped in unison and pierced the bear, burrowing into it. This bear thrashed around kicking up rocks and splashing in the water but it wasn't long before one of the slimes pierced through its head from the inside. After the bear stopped moving the slimes dragged the bear back to the main body. Only when it was nearing us did I notice how large the bear really was. It was easily twice the size of an adult dragon.
I stood there amazed that something that strong, with a life force that big, was so easily killed by a simple slime. While I stared at it, the slime cut the bear in half and started eating it. It just sat there, slowly dissolving half the bear it killed. When I looked back over to the bear I noticed something had fallen out of it. A very large sphere, much like the one that gave me free will, except this one was much, much larger. I looked at it, then the slime, then it again, and slowly reached my hand out to grab it. As I touched it I looked at the slime, it gave no response so I picked it up, it was then I heard Mother's voice.
Item Acquired: Mana Core (Massive)