A few days later, I received our destination from Asytelar. The dungeon she sent me to was much farther compared to the one we went to a week ago. I couldn’t use teleportation, having never visited the place, so Maya transformed into her dragon form and flew us there.
“So this is what it feels like flying a dragon… It’s so scary.” Solicea looked down on the landscape below us. Forests, rivers, villages, all look tiny from this high up.
“It isn’t as comfortable as a carriage, but it’s much faster,” Emori murmured, holding on to Maya’s back. I looked behind, to find our prince, the one that I thought would be the bravest, closing his eyes and shivering.
“I don’t want to die I don’t want to die,” he murmured ominous words. Shouldn’t he be more worried about the monsters we would be facing? Besides, we were high enough that if he fell, Maya would be able to catch him.
“Don’t worry, Your Highness. From this height, your death will be painless.”
“EEP!”
“Maya, don’t tease him.” I scolded. I wonder if it was because of their long age, but dragons didn’t seem to be scared of death.
Maya reacted by flapping her wings harder, increasing her speed.
“Slow down! Slow down please!”
She ignored the prince’s screams as she zoomed through the sky.
* ••
We arrived in front of the dungeon before noon. The prince, despite how high and mighty he usually acted, held onto my arm like he was holding a walking stick, all while panting heavily.
“I… am I alive?”
“You very much are.”
Have you never flown on a dragon before?
The amount of time Maya carried me on her adventures made flying no longer something scary to me.
“Please… I don’t want to do that again…”
“Don’t worry, we’re teleporting back. We should go in.”
We formed up our formation. Maya would lead the charge, with Emori, Solicea, and Prilus following her. I would act as the rear guard.
All of us wore the Ring of Experience. Me and Maya wore the parent, the ring that would “donate” the magical energy, while the rest wore the children. Our goal for today was to raise Solicea and Emori’s levels as much as possible. Prilus had raised his own level a bit ever since we first met, so he didn’t need it as much as the other two.
The dungeon we visited was filled to the brim with monsters. It must have been a while since someone last cleared it.
Using a fire wand, Maya lit up the dungeon for us. I had given her my fire wand on purpose, and told her to just stand there lighting things up, leaving all the killing to Emori and Solicea. Prilus acted as a backup. Me and Maya would only help when a monster came too uncomfortably close.
Emori had pretty decent light-element magic skills, able to strike the monsters with precision. Her casting was a bit slow, but it would grow faster as she trained more. Solicea, meanwhile,
“HIYAAAH! I missed!”
“You're disappointing, Solicea.” Maya shook her head.
“Don't say that!” Solicea complained.
While I agree that Maya could put it more nicely, Solicea was terrible. She wielded a water spear. With such a spear, she should have a large range and water spells at her disposal, but she kept missing the targets.
Had she not wear the Ring of Experience, she wouldn't get a single drop of magic energy from the monsters.
Maya let out a tired sigh. She approached me and handed over the wand. The second the wand switched hands, the entire dungeon went dark. I activated Fire, putting it on the wand’s tip, bringing light back into the area.
Maya then made her way to Solicea and asked for her spear. Solicea looked a bit confused, but she handed the weapon over anyway.
While keeping her distance, she calmly stabbed and sliced right through a group of monsters. She moved forward a step at a time, keeping her distance while not being actively on defense. The monsters tried pounding on her, but her strong blows killed them in one strike. After killing a couple more, she stepped back next to Solicea.
“That's awesome, Maya. I could never be like you.”
… All she did was stab the monsters, though.
Despite that, I now noticed what was wrong with Solicea.
“Just do what I did.”
“Urr… like this?”
Solicea tried stabbing the monsters, but like before, she missed.
Maya shook her head. “No, not like that.”
“You're not helping,” Prilus complained.
“Why don't you try explaining, then?”
Prilus turned to Solicea. “Stay calm and focus. No need to be scared.”
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“Scared, I'm not-”
“You were shivering.” Prilus pointed out. “Your shaking hands weakened your strikes. Your movements are slow, and that gives the monsters time to dodge.”
“I agree with Emori’s brother. Just stay calm. You have the basics in you.”
I could tell based on the way she gripped the spear that this wasn't the first time she held the weapon. I wouldn't be surprised if all her practice before this was against practice dummies, though.
“Emori's brother?” Prilus glared at me, a vein popped on his head. I honestly couldn't tell what was wrong with this guy.
“Okay. I'll try.”
Solicea stepped forward. This time, she struck with a bit more confidence. She didn't turn into a second Maya, but she was improving a bit. She looked like someone that had never touched a competitive game in several months. The basics were there, she understood what to do, but she still needed a bit of practice to regain her skill.
“Take deep breaths, Solicea. Breathe in, breathe out.”
She did as Prilus instructed.
“So the prince has some use…” Maya murmured. Her words visibly annoyed Prilus.
“Oh, behind you, Prilus.” I pointed out.
Prilus took the sword on her hip and slashed the incoming wolf into two.
“I don't need your help, but thanks…”
Such a tsundere…
“No, you will definitely die if he hadn't told you,” Maya retorted.
“I can tell when a monster is coming. I don't need warnings.”
“Liar.”
“You…”
“Pl- Please don't fight…”
While Maya and Prilus glared at each other with Emori in the middle, I couldn't help but notice Prilus’ sword. The silver blade had a familiar light blue handle, with engravings on its side.
I had seen it before, back in Mimosa Online.
Sacred Sword of Syla.
Some weapons, spells, or items were classified as sacred. Some of these things had a difficult requirement for it to be activated.
For example, there's a spell that could only be utilized by the first born of a noble family. In Prilus’ case, only a select few could wield the Sacred Sword unique power.
One of those powers involves detection of enemies. The details of the power itself and the requirements were unclear, but I wouldn't be surprised if Prilus wasn't lying.
If I wasn't mistaken, the original founder of Syla was the one that made that sword. He made a few more things, some kept in the royal bloodline, others given to his retainers. The in-game lore stated that they would be used in case a massive threat appeared.
Was it used in the war against the demon king? I don't think it was…
Then again, information regarding such things were often unclear.
My line of thoughts were broken by two certain people yelling at each other. I clapped my hand, bringing their attention to me.
“Don't fight. We still have some monsters to deal with.” I gazed toward the other end of the room, where more monsters prepared to pound on us.
“Leave it to me!” Solicea said, sounding somewhat confident. Her hands were still shaking a bit, but she plunged straight at the monsters.
“Fine, I’ll prove it.”
I wasn’t sure if they were still arguing about the sword, but whatever it was, it sparked a flame in Prilus’ eyes. Prilus went after Solicea. While Solicea still missed a lot, her attacks often hitting empty air, she had improved compared to before. Prilus, meanwhile, was slicing through the monsters like cutting through clay.
More and more monsters fell on their hands. After a while, we managed to clear the first floor of the dungeon.
“Let’s continue.”
The deeper we go, the stronger monsters get. It was video game logic, but I remind myself that the game Mimosa was based on this world, and not the other way around. There were also some irregularities when compared to other games. For one, dungeons didn’t have treasure chests. Sometimes you would run into what looked to be remains of ancient furniture, but you wouldn't be able to tell what they were from the damage. Two, dungeons often came in the form of ancient buildings built by a past civilization. As such, there was more than one way someone might go down to the other floors.
Three, the boss, the strongest monster in the dungeon, didn’t always reside in the deepest floor. It forced us to remain on alert. Fourth, in correlation to the third point, the boss and other monsters didn’t stay in one room. We might clear a room going down, only to find a monster there when we returned. In general, this made dungeons in this world much scarier compared to dungeons in other games. You could easily be backstabed by monsters.
“What is that…”
We ended up facing the boss on the third floor. I didn’t know how deep this dungeon went, but I have a feeling we shouldn’t be facing a white eagle with three heads and four claws so early.
The eagle screeched and ran toward us, its stretched wing crashing into the walls, creating scratches on the surface. The room we were in was too small for it to fully utilize its wings, but that didn't mean it posed less of a danger.
Maya rushed forward, leaped into the sky, and punched the eagle’s neck, knocking it back.
“It's hard…” she muttered, retreating after her punch. I wielded my fire wand, painting a red ring over the bird's head. I painted the symbol for ‘Fire Ball’ above it, sending balls of flames straight toward its head. It used its wings to cover itself, staggering back and keeping distance.
Its wings turned black as fire consumed them, spreading wildly. I flapped its wings, trying to get the fire out.
“Emori, Solicea!” I called.
“Yes!”
“We're on it!”
Solicea rushed forward with Maya, using her spear to stab into the enemy. She did what she could, continuously stabbing at the eagle. The eagle’s large size made it easier for her to land her hits. As the eagle tried to defend, Emori stood further behind. Circles with symbols for light spells appeared from her right eye, and spears of light flew through the air. The spears struck its wings, piercing through. The eagle tried flapping it to get the spears off, but it didn’t work.
Brandishing his sword, Prilus rushed toward the eagle. Maya noticed him coming and dodged out of the way. The writing on the sword’s side lit up, and it slashed right through the eagle’s middle.
The eagle separated into two then disappeared into thin air. A magic stone left in its wake.
“That’s impressive.” I clapped my hands. Those three, despite their levels, weren’t as bad as I expected. Maybe we have some hope after all.
Prilus noticed the magic stone lying on the ground and approached. “Isn’t this the same symbol as the one on the tiger’s stone?”
“It's the demons. The demons tempered with this monster as well.”
I had a bad feeling that we would only run into more tempered monsters from here on out. The fight ended relatively quickly, because unlike before, the room size greatly limited what the eagle could do. I also used a fire spell, an element regularly used for offense. All in all, it wasn’t a difficult fight, but I should be expecting harder battles going forward.
We continued onward, going deeper and deeper into the dungeon. Dungeons in this world could house more than two bosses, but the eagle was all this dungeon had on offer. We mamaged to reach the lowest floor. For some reason, all the lowest floors od dungeons in this world was marked with a flower symbol. It had ten-petals. Maybe it holds some kind of meaning in the past, the meaning lost to us. After some more training, we collected our loot and headed back home.
* ••
Once we arrived back in school, we went to the principal’s office and borrowed a magic level testing device. Levels couldn’t go down, but I and Maya decided to check anyway. Our levels hadn’t changed in the two weeks since we entered the school. Next was Solicea.
“Incredible,” she whispered. She had raised from fifteen all the way to twenty-seven in the span of just two weeks. Emori had risen from thirty to thirty-five, while the prince went up two levels to thirty-seven.
“Congratulations. I look forward to your feats.” The principal smiled. We thanked him and left the office.
“Should we go out and level again tomorrow?” Emori asked.
“I and Maya couldn’t, we have club meets.”
“I have official business.”
“Ah, I see…” Emori looked down, dejected.
“Don’t worry, I’ll accompany you,” I said.
“Okay!” she lit up. We parted ways for the night, heading to our own rooms.