Novels2Search

Chapter 020

"Everyone!" I call out, then point at Adam. "Round of drinks on him!"

"No! No!" Adam exclaims. "Not paying for drinks for everyone!"

That earns laughter from pretty much everyone in the Caniton's Dungeon Guild at the moment. Over the last few weeks, those present have come to learn how stingy Adam is when it comes to spending money and it doesn't surprise them at all that he hasn't paid for a single drink tonight.

Not even his own.

Officially, the Dungeon Guild is currently closed, though people can still enter the Dungeon if they wish. There are definitely some people inside, though most are likely only running Zone 1 or up to Zone 2. Not many Parties went up to Zone 3 even before the Dungeon got an upgrade and added in four more floors to it and an entirely new Zone.

However, the Guild being closed except for those coming and going from the Dungeon doesn't mean it's anywhere close to empty. The dining portion of it is packed with people. Adventurers, nobles, merchants, and just family members of those are here right now, the guests sitting at tables, standing, or walking about. Asher, Fang, and Claw are all here as well.

There's even a group of musicians playing up on the loft balcony in here.

Adam, Caleb, and I have been in Caniton for a month now and I'm leaving the town tomorrow. This is a farewell party for me, which isn't something that's normally done for foreigners – especially humans.

I'm no ordinary human, however.

I'm a Summoned whose presence upgraded the Dungeon and gave it another Zone as well as some additional rooms on an existing one. My looting of the tower's books in that second run has performed a long-term temporary solving of a paper scarcity. On a few occasions while resting between Dungeon runs, I've also helped hunt some beasts outside of the town.

Many of the adventurers here came to know me as a friend of some sort, and there were even requests to join my Party for my runs after that second one.

Then there's the nickname of Dragon-Tamer that went around because of Adam basically doing whatever I ask. Though really, it's because I apparently didn't close the window all the way after tossing the marble and people heard the sex and know that Adam's submissive to me in bed.

Answering questions about the marble and its effect was difficult but I managed to avoid revealing too much.

"Hey, Jamie!" Chance puts an arm across my shoulder and holds up his stein of beer. "Do a marble!"

He's definitely drunk right now, as are most of the people here. That drunkenness is not what led to this request, though. Quite a few of the locals have wanted me to use the marbles after finding out just how wild some of their effects can be.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," I chuckle.

"Marble!" He holds up his stein. "Marble! Marble!"

Definitely drunk. Chance chanting this causes others to start. Even Adam joins in and he's not comfortable with them after the one that turned all tails within a one-mile radius into a cat's tail for twenty-four hours.

Though I think Adam's also a bit drunk at the moment… which is a first. Draconic beings, even demihuman dragons, apparently have a pretty insane tolerance to alcohol. Kind of makes me wonder what he's been served.

"Alright, alright!" I laugh, and the chanting dies down. "Don't blame me for what happens, though!"

I pull the [Pouch of Infinite Tricks] out of my cuff, then remove a marble from it and send the pouch back into my cuff. After confirming that everyone here wants to see me use the marble, I pulse Mana into it.

[Marble of Soaking] Quality: 9 Upon activation, this marble will burst into a torrent of water with a one hundred-foot soaking range.

I'm not entirely sure how the walls and windows will affect the range. It could mean that water simply appears in that range, or it could mean that water is simply blasted out to that range. Fortunately, the building should be sturdy enough to withstand that. None of the effects so far have actually been dangerous.

"Everyone, get ready!" I exclaim as the timer ticks down, and I toss the marble up at just the right moment.

Right as the marble hits the peak of its height, it turns into water that blasts out in all directions, thoroughly soaking anyone and everyone in the room. Not just us, but every object as well. Caleb's face says he wasn't expecting that at all while Adam looks contemplative. There's a layer of water on the floor now and someone opens the doors of the Guild to let it flow out a little faster.

"Anyone smell a wet cat?" Adam asks.

"Hey!" Caleb exclaims as quite a few people laugh. "This place smells more like wet dog than wet cat!"

They still bicker a little bit, but at least they also get along a little. At the very least, they don't have their little mini-fight over who gets to snuggle me at night anymore. Sort of. We're working on baby steps.

Ryan, the merchant I met when I first arrived here, approaches with his grandson, Reynold, to talk a little while Caleb and Adam bicker a little over smells.

"I heard you provided some of the meat for this party," Ryan glances at some of the dishes on the table. "As soaked as they've become."

The meat dishes of the party features meat from a rare boar, a rare bird, and a rare fish, caught in sufficient quantities to feed everyone. There's plenty extra to replace what's been ruined by the flood, not that it's going to stop the drunks here from eating.

"You're wondering if it's from the same boars as those tusks?" I let out a small, nervous chuckle. "Yeah. It was just supposed to be a party to thank the Guild for the time here and their support in letting Adam stay. They turned it into a farewell party after finding out I was leaving. Heh."

"Parties focused on you make you uncomfortable?" Ryan asks.

"More that I've never really had any for me before," I answer. "So it's more like they make me feel a little awkward."

"You've never hard a party?" Reynold asks. "What about for your entering-of-development party? Or your coming-to-adulthood party? Or your first hunt?"

"We don't have that last one where I'm from," I tell him. "Though it's normal to celebrate birthdays where I'm from. My parents were… neglectful, to say the least. My birthdays were always spent taking care of my younger siblings. One of the older ones offered to arrange something for me the last few years, but those plans ended up getting nixed due to varying circumstances."

"That's sad," Reynold's ears and tail droop, then he peeks over at Adam. "Do you think he, um… never mind."

"Go ahead and ask him," Ryan nudges the kid towards Adam. "The worst that can happen is he says 'no'."

Many people here still have reservations about Adam, though they've accepted his presence and the presence of his grandfather as well.

Reynold gives his grandfather a nervous nod, then approaches Adam, who's stepped away to arm-wrestle an adventurer and I think they're betting drinks on it. That's motivation for him to win.

"Good luck on your journey," Ryan tells me.

"Thanks," I say, then he walks over to join his grandson.

"Jamie!" Henry slams a hand down on my shoulder, gripping it tightly. "Did I hear right that you're planning on traveling through the wilderness to Amadikols by yourself?"

"Based on the reports of the forest between here and there," I say. "The monsters are all within my range of ability to handle. It shouldn't be too difficult a trip for me. Honestly, I'll probably have to deal with boredom more than anything."

"No," Henry says as the duke approaches us. "I mean, you're going by yourself and not with Adam and Caleb?"

He's not given any indication before that he wanted them out of this town and Charles hasn't, either. That makes me curious about what's going on.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"Do you need them gone?" I ask. "Caleb's been talking about heading back home the last few days. Asher was also talking about heading back over to the clans to settle down again and I know Adam's planning on going with him."

I'm going to miss fighting alongside them and the sex at night, but we aren't in a relationship and we've all got our own things to do.

Caleb's a mercenary for the Titan's Grasp and has been neglecting his duties as a member. He wants to earn money more than he wants to adventure and I know he received a letter from his boss a couple of days ago. It seemed important as I've overheard snippets of muttering that made it sound like he's got a job that needs done.

Adam's entire reason for going on this adventure and getting stronger was to meet Avuldrax and deliver the marble to him at his grandfather's request. Now that he's found out that the marble was his grandfather and the man is very much alive, Adam has no reason to continue journeying now. He's been talking a lot the last few days about he can't wait to eat some of the beasts back in the territory of the clans again.

Most of it has been focused on getting eat them again. In full honesty, some of the stuff he's described sounds rather delicious.

It's been fun adventuring with them, but I'm not going to ask them to sacrifice their own lives and jobs just to come with me as I figure myself out.

"I see," Henry says. "And no, we weren't wanting them gone. We were just surprised since the three of you got so close."

I look over at Adam, who's now spinning around while holding Reynold's hands in order to swing the kid. The boy's giggling like crazy, then lets out an excited yell when Adam lets go, resulting the kid flying into a group of adventurers. He lets out an, "Awesome!" as he pumps his fists into the air while the drunk adventurers laughs.

Then there's Caleb, who's now on top of a table with three other guys, all of them shirtless, all of them drunk, and all of them dancing. It's not an inappropriate dance and kind of reminds me of line dancing back on Earth. Their song sounds like it's about fish but I can't be too certain.

"We might have become friends," I say. "But that's about the extent of things for us. Temporary adventuring partners. Honestly, I'll be glad to be free of the bickering between them, it's been getting on my nerves. I don't want to deal with conflict, I just want to have fun."

"A fair assessment," Charles says. "I wish you luck on your journey, Jamie."

"Thanks," I say. "I hope your life continues to be long and happy."

Charles nods.

"A word of advice," Henry finally releases my shoulder from his grip. "Bring your combat Skills up to Level 10. At least, if you're planning on adventuring alone – or going into a powerful, long Dungeon with many Zones."

"Why?" I ask.

"It's how you upgrade a Class," Henry answers. "Bring a relevant Skill up to Level 10. There's no minimum Class Level for this and the upgrade happens automatically. The bonus is applied immediately as well. So if you're Level 5 [Swordsman] and bring [Sword Mastery] up to Level 10, you become a Level 5 [Grand Swordsman] and your Attributes will increase to match."

"Oh," I say. "That's pretty nifty. I'd been meaning to ask about how to further Classes, since I knew there were different Class Tiers. So it's not that you gain a new Class but that you upgrade an existing one into a new Class?"

"Correct," Henry confirms. "You'll probably take some time before managing it, Jamie, but doing so will help you out greatly. There's a decent chance that if you keep adventuring, you'll reach Total Class Level 100. The Trial you receive is based on all of your Classes, meaning that it becomes more difficult if you do advance them."

"But you get stronger and can handle other things more easily," I say, and he nods. "Well, I'll keep that in mind, Henry. I probably won't ever do the Rank Advancement Trial if I do hit Total Class Level 100, since there's very little outside of Dungeons that would ever need it. But I do appreciate the information."

"You're welcome," he says. "Now, I'm going to get back to the party. Tiffany wanted to challenge me to a drinking contest and I'm not going to lose!"

Henry and Charles walk off to go find Tiffany, and I just chuckle a little, then return to mingling with the people here. As the party starts to wind down, I head back to the inn. Caleb's chatting with a few people while Adam's continuing his arm-wrestling contests with some of the adventurers and I see no reason to interrupt them. Either I'll fall asleep alone and wake up with them snuggling me or they'll be here before I fall asleep and we enjoy each other's bodies one last time before parting ways.

The moment I enter my room at the inn, I can tell that something is off. I turn on the lights and look around, quickly spotting an object resting on the desk. When I unroll the parchment, I find a decent-sized map of the area.

It's not just a map of the area around Caniton but one of the area from Caniton to Amadikols and their regions. It shows the town and the city, the rivers, streams, waterfalls, ponds, and lakes, the forests and woods, the mountains and cliffs. This is far more detailed than any other map I've seen.

"An old castle?" My attention is drawn to a castle that's a little northwest of Amadikols, resting on the mountains. "Why's it circled?"

The castle is marked as the Old Valdaliis Castle, suggesting it's actually ruins. If I'm correctly remembering the history I was given, Valdaliis was a kingdom that fell about five hundred years ago. They were located in that general area as well. No one was able to tell me why they fell, but I guess some of their ruins remain.

Whoever put this map here circled the castle with red ink. That suggests three possibilities for what's going on. First is that someone just thinks it's a place I should explore but doesn't want to tell me why. Second is that someone wants me to go there for a trap. Third is that the mysterious god is at it again and there's something he wants me to check out.

If it were him, though, I'm sure there would be an actual sign to make it more clear that it was him. Which leaves the other two possibilities. There may be monsters that can challenge me there or a treasure that's been missed by looters but which is worth a lot. In either of those cases, it's probably just rumors someone heard.

Though there would be no reason to hide their identity from me in that case. That lends credence to the theory that someone's set up a trap there. If nothing was wrong with that place, they would have no reason to hide themselves from me.

I send the map into my cuff, then strip down to just my cuff and put everything into it. Now nude, I enter the bathing room and scrub clean, admiring my body a little as I do so. [Unlimited Potential] definitely has the ability to adapt more than my abilities and Status.

Despite being slender when I arrived here in Tielmar and only having around a month and a half of training, my body's toned up nicely. I'm still slender, but have some decent muscle definition with my abs visible now. There's not a doubt in my mind that [Unlimited Potential] adapted my body for physical combat that has a reliance on quick movements rather than brute force.

No complaints from me about that – I don't mind being a twink or a twunk or on the border of the two. I look damn fine regardless.

After I finish scrubbing away today's sweat and rinse off, I soak in the bath for a little while, enjoying the feeling of the heat seeping into my muscles. I must have been more exhausted than I thought I was, too, because I definitely doze off.

Adam and Caleb joining me in the bath is what wakes me. Neither of them are as drunk as they were earlier. In fact, they both look fairly sober.

"What time is it?" I ask as I try to squish the sleep from my eyes since rubbing it wouldn't be a good idea due to my hands being wet.

"A little after two," Adam answers. "Why'd you take a nap in the bath?"

"Didn't mean to," I say. "Two hours? You two look sober now."

"Grandpa has medicine that sobers you right up," Adam explains. "He was even generous enough to offer it to Caleb."

"Ah," I stretch a little. "I think I'm going to head to bed now, I'm definitely exhausted. Was hoping for one last bit of action with you two, but guess it's too late for that, huh?"

"Last bit?" Caleb asks. "Only if I don't come with you, right?"

"To Amadikols?" I ask, and he nods. "Didn't you have business in your own town? I know you got a letter from… what was his name? Wyatt?"

"Wesley," Caleb answers. "And yeah. I let him know that the guy I was hanging out with here was heading off to Amadikols, so I was going to be coming back home soon. Since I mentioned Amadikols, he offered me a job out that way. Seems one of our groups vanished in that area and he wanted to know if I'd investigate, especially now that I was a bit stronger. The other group was all around 15-20 Strength or Magic while I'm nearly triple that now thanks to running the Dungeon so intensely."

We have all gained a fair few Levels from running the Dungeon here. Even the archers were impressed by how much stronger they grew. I'm certain that any one of us could solo-run the entire Dungeon now. Some voice deep inside of me was telling me that [Unlimited Potential] may have actually influenced my Party members a little as well in order to ensure better runs for me.

If that's the case, then it's truly an absurd Skill.

"So mind if I tag along a little bit more?" Caleb asks. "Since I'm heading out that way for a job as well?"

"Sure," I shrug. "Two will have a safer trip than one, after all."

"Can I come as well?" Adam asks.

His tone suggests this is something he's thought about a little rather than something he's asking in response to Caleb sticking with me for longer.

"Weren't you going back to the clans with your grandpa?" I ask. "You've been talking about it a lot."

"Well… yeah," Adam says. "I want to go back to the clans. Nobody stares at me there or judges me based on the tendencies of dragons. Plus, the beasts there are far more delicious. And I can talk about eating wolf meat without getting uncomfortable stares. There are lots of sexy guys to hang out with. I can also just sit back and relax and not fight again."

Adam's made it clear that he'd actually prefer to just laze about, something that no doubt comes from his draconic side. That is probably a bigger argument than all of the others for why he wants to return to the territory of the clans.

"But?" I ask.

"But the sex with you is great."

I laugh as his honest admission of the reason he wants to tag along.

"Sure," I say. "You can come with me to Amadikols. Do know that Katie, Elise, and Chance aren't. They're staying here."

The three of them are planning on relaxing with the money they've earned over the last month and occasionally run the Dungeon here or hunt some monsters in the nearby area. This is their home and while they enjoying hunting monsters and running the Dungeon, they aren't the traveling sort of adventurers.

"That's fine," Adam says.

"Alright," I say. "I was going to ignore it, but since you two are coming with me I might as well mention it."

Adam and Caleb give me a curious look. I tell them about the map and my theory regarding it.

"You're right," Caleb says. "That's definitely a trap. And considering that it was believed Adam and I weren't going with you, it's probably meant to ensnare you and you alone. But with our senses, we'd have an easier time picking up on things. I say we investigate. Who knows – maybe I'll even find a clue there about what happened to the missing mercs."

"A trap meant for someone with over 50 Strength probably won't have clues for missing people with 20 Strength," Adam says. "But it does make me wonder. I don't mind investigating a little just to see. If we determine it's dangerous, we can back out before it ensnares us."

"Alright," I stand and step out of the bath. "You two enjoy your soak. I really am exhausted, so I'm going to head to bed now."