After bumbling around for a moment the troop ended up at the entrance of a large cave. The cave went deep inside a cliffside that blocked the forest off from a large mountain range that stretched many miles across the land.
"Wow!" Stercus yelled as he peered deep into the cave.
"Wow!"
"Wow!" An echo blasted through the cave.
"This cave must be full of mimics," Scitus said, pulling some bottles out of her pouch.
"It's just an echo Scitus," Pan said. "Relax."
Scitus just pulled out more bottles. "Even worse."
"MMMMMMFFFFFTH!" Krys was still tied up.
"I guess this is a good place to untie her," Pan said.
"Probably not," Veritas said. "I heard dogs were supposed to stay leashed in this area."
"I'm pretty sure Krys is not a dog," Stercus said, confused. "Isn't she a human?"
"Oh sorry. It's just that she sounded so much like a bitch earlier!"
"MMMMMMMPPPFTH! NNMMMMMMMMMPTH!" Krys flailed about like a fish out of water upon hearing that, as if she would be challenging Veritas to a fight or cussing him out if she could still speak.
"Be quiet," Veritas said as he placed his hand in front of her face. A small white light glowed from his hand and she instantly stopped flopping around and fell asleep.
"What spell is that?" Pan asked Veritas, seemingly interested in it for all of the wrong reasons.
"Why are you so interested?" Veritas instantly notices something up with the situation.
"You know, it would be much easier to pick up girls if they were asleep." No one was surprised by this statement, well maybe except for Diamond.
"I'm pretty sure that would be rape," Diamond said, stating the obvious.
"I prefer the phrase 'forceful sex'," Pan said.
"Isn't that illegal though? Wouldn't you be arrested?"
"Not if you have enough money on hand."
"Um... what?"
Pan just continued to talk to Veritas about the spell while Diamond made a mental note to look at the law enforcement in his country.
Meanwhile, his familiars decided to play a game of rock paper scissors to pass the time. The winner was supposed to snuggle up to Diamond and by extension actually get some relevancy. They continued to play until Green Diamond got scissors while the others got paper, securing a victory. The slime quite liked this and it went to snuggle up next to Diamond, but he didn't notice while thinking about how Pan isn't in prison.
"Wow," Stercus said and he ran deeper into the cave, separating from the group as no one noticed. "This place goes really deep!"
"It's like we're in a long rock snake," Scitus said, following behind as the party forgets to watch the children.
Along the top of the cave were what appeared to be purple things in the shape of teardrops hanging and shaking off the ceiling. Around the bottom were large orange rocks that seemed out of place in this cave. On the sides dripped a lot of water which made the rocks look like sponges dipped in a river. And walking through it all was just two kids not realizing how dangerous the place was.
"I wonder how good this place is for grinding," Stercus said as he continued along.
"Doesn't seem too good for that," Scitus said. "I mean, there isn't even anything to kill?"
"But Krys said it was dangerous, so I thought it'd be teeming with stuff to kill."
"Well Krys is quite small-minded, so she could definitely have been mistaken."
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
"True, but on the bright side these orange rocks are quite cool."
Stercus picked up one of the rocks in front of her. It was quite big, around half as big as he was. Despite how heavy it was he eventually completely lifted it off the ground and carried it back towards the entrance. Before he could get any further the rock he carried started to break apart and separate as if it were a hedgehog coming out of its ball. Instead of a small mammal, it instead became a little humanoid statue. Well, not so much a statue and more so a bunch of misshapen rocks placed into a human-esque formation.
As the rock creature unfurled within Stercus's hands all of the other orange rocks unfurled into similar rock creatures. All the purple figures on the ceiling unfurled the wings around them to reveal themselves as giant bats, ones that looked like Golbat from pokemon but somehow uglier. The water that seeped in from the sides clumped together and became large balls of slime that hopped around. Together there were a hundred or so enemies to fight, and Stercus's eyes lit up like lightbulbs.
"Finally," He said, readying his sword. "I can grind!"
Stercus pulled out his sword and proceeded to slash at the bats above him. Most of them were too far out of reach to hurt but he managed to cut the wings off a few of them. He then aimed for the rock creatures but while he was more accurate his sword didn't make any dent in them. At least he was able to cut up the slimes quite easily.
Unfortunately, the opponents didn't have the same difficulty. Over and over Stercus got hit with weird poisonous globs from the bat, rocks thrown at him from the rock people, and a bunch of slimes that decided to jump on him for some reason. Lucky for him he had fireballs to throw and let's say it worked much better. Despite how weak the poisonous globs made him he was able to shoot down most of the ugly bats with some sharp aiming with the fireballs.
After stabbing all of the slimes stuck on him all that was left for Stercus to deal with were some rock creatures. He tried to stab one. His sword just bounced off. He tried to shoot it with a fireball. It failed to do anything. He grabbed one of Scitus's bottles and threw it at the rock creature. There was a cool fireworks show of white light but it didn't do anything.
The creature threw a rock at Stercus's face. It was super effective.
"Ow..," Stercus said with a few tears. "Is there anything in the bottles that destroys rocks?"
"I have one full of water," Scitus said as she pulled out a normal plastic water bottle. "Try this."
"Thanks." Grabbing the water bottle, Stercus threw the bottle straight at the creature. Unlike the other attacks, the water actually made the creature stagger a bit as if some damage was done.
"You got any more bottles like that?" Stercus saw how effective the attack worked and wanted more.
"Well, I have this one with a powerful water spell in it." Scitus pulled out one of her usual MagiBoh bottles, this one having a swirling whirlpool inside.
Stercus simply grabbed it and threw it straight in the middle of the rock creatures. As it shattered a large whirlpool came about and washed away most of the rock creatures.
Enemy killed! EXP +250
Enemy killed! EXP +250
Enemy killed! EXP +250
Enemy killed! EXP +250
Enemy killed! EXP +250
Enemy killed! EXP +250
"Yes!" Stercus jumped at the amount of experience gained. While it looked like a lot, he actually gained way more than that. I just can't show you because I'm sure no one wants to read half a chapter of Enemy killed! text.
Level up!
Level up!
Level up!
"Woohoo!"
Stercus jumped up and cheered at the levels he gained, now being so close to the level he could use the favored Fire Machine Gun. He just needed to get 16,376 more experience points to get to level 15. Looking at that number I have no idea how anyone achieves godhood in this world, but I guess we might find out later in the story.
"I gained a bit of experience too," Scitus noticed, also receiving a level up. "Better redirect all of those new stat points to Strength."
As the two stood there and looked at their stats a single white snake slithered up to them. Well, technically it's a snake but it's not long and its head isn't defined so it looks more like a slithering white teardrop with a face. And that face wasn't threatening, in fact, one could even find this snake quite cute.
"Look assistant," Scitus said as she noticed the weird snake. "It's an adult worm!"
"Aw," Stercus said as he noticed its cuteness. "What's something so cute doing in a place full of so many dangerous monsters?"
If you haven't guessed this thing might also be dangerous I question your intelligence.
Before I could question the intelligence of these two the snake opened its mouth, allowing what appeared to be two giant versions of the same snake to come out of it and hiss at the kids in front of them.
Yeah, I think they're screwed.
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General Info Stats Spells
Name: Stercus Pauls STR 39 Ignis Gloriae Age: 13yrs 25days SPE 37 (+20) Fireball Fire Sniper Rifle HP: 38/38 INT 34 Level: 14 DUR 35 (+20) Exp: 8/16384 LCK 32 Spells Known: 1 MGE 40 Armor: Malice's Heart (+20 DUR, +20 SPD) CHR 13