Snack break

Today we had the choice. Either we could risk going into the dungeon to get us some food or we could also travel to a nearby village to get it from there. Even though we found out how the dungeons trap mechanics worked, we couldn't assume to stumble upon a monster at every one of those trap corridors. Or what if we came across one we couldn't defeat so easily?

For that particular reason, we came up with a new plan: Check out the three nearest corridors and if none of those brought any result we still had time left to head to a village and cancel our journey for the day.

We ate what could be called the rest of the rest of our food for breakfast and then immediately entered the dungeon again. It still took us a while to find the first trap door, but no time at all compared to yesterday's journey.

This particular door happened to be a fair bit smaller than the other ones we found on our way back yesterday evening. And we soon found out why. After just a short walk we came to a dead end. No monster, no treasure, no anything. Only a dead end.

However two of us didn't give up so easily. Julian and Lander pushed all the walls to open another trap door. But their effort was in vain. No matter how hard they tried, the dead end still was a dead end.

Nevertheless, we headed back to where we came from to look for another corridor. As soon as we left this one, Julian pushed against the adjacent wall and it also happened to be a trap door, a larger one at that. It already looked more promising than the last one.

Apparently those traps doors were all over the place, we just had to go into the dungeon for a while to reach a certain threshold where they started to show up.

The new corridor also appeared to be quite a bit longer. By now we would have had already reached the dead end in the last one. Hopefully we would come across a great tasting monster, my hunger started to get the best of me by now.

If it got any worse, I might be the one charging recklessly at any moving object before us. I even began to wonder how Althaia might taste like. My mind had clearly wandered off far from its regular path. A dangerous one at that.

But my thoughts soon came to a halt as the corridor finally became wider and an open area stood in front of us.

And what we saw, wasn't anything we ever expected to see in a dungeon. Instead of a regular room, it was like a small biotope.

A stream of water ran out of the wall like a waterfall and grass grew all around the floor. The air also happened to be a lot cleaner than in the rest of the dungeon. On the sides trees stood tall which had fruits growing on them. I had never seen those before, so I didn't know if they were edible or not. Well, we would soon find out anyway, as Iris already had taken a bite out of one of them.

"What are you doing?" I asked flabbergasted and also grabbed myself one of the fruits to further inspect it.

"No fear, those are perfectly fine. I borrowed your book yesterday and buried myself in it for around half the night. These areas are known as rest areas, where no hostile monsters appear. Also the water is drinkable and most of the stuff here should be eatable without a problem. According to the book nobody knows why these exist, but they are a joy in every adventurer's heart. We can relax here for a bit and munch on the fruits. With that we should get back into our best forms in no time."

I vaguely remembered reading something similar to that, but Iris had obviously paid more attention to detail than me. I took a bite of the fruit already laying in my hand and it could only be described with one word: delicious.

Soon the rest also got themselves a bunch of fruits and happily started eating them. As I also got myself more, I sat down at the water and took a sip from it. I wondered how water this clear is just flowing from the dungeon. After all, usually some weird fluid dripped from the dungeon walls but that was nowhere to be seen here.

This place didn't give of the vibe of a dungeon at all and for some reason it managed to give me the chills. Why would a dungeon have something like a rest area? It was almost like the dungeon itself wanted us to stay in it for longer.

"Better abuse it while we can", I thought to myself as I laid down on the soft grass and forgot my worries. It was actually quite comfortable, I could possibly stay here for a while.

But I was soon dragged up by a certain girl. Iris.

For her, we had relaxed enough and it was time to continue with our journey again. The others were also quickly motivated by her to move on and so we left the resting area.

Man, she really was desperate for any fight she could stumble upon back then. The only thing I could think about was praying to come across another one of these.

Although I also wasn't the type to slack off, Iris still happened to be another calibre compared to me. Her drive pushed us all forward. Maybe I wouldn't have grown as much without her by my side. Having someone to compete with motivated me a lot in recent times even though I suffered a bit from the feeling of falling behind.

In the meantime we came back to the entrance of the corridor. It took as a bit to find the next one, but this one was even weirder than the one to the resting area. Instead of simply turning around an axis, half the wall slid to the side to reveal a grand entrance…