Dungeon Master
"
"Master Akari, why does that annoying thing keep talking to you?" My fellow cute companion questions.
"I'm surprised you can even hear it. Ah well, it wants me to accept the reward for completing a quest." I say explaining the panel right in front of me.
"What quest?"
The quest I told Akari to finish forever ago.
"The Goblin Village quest. Remember how I had to go in there to take the goblin village out? Well, part of why I did it was for the quest." I explain to her
"Oh wow! So does that mean you get something cool!? Wait, why haven't you already gotten your reward? What's taking you so long?"
"Well… I've just been distracted…"
It's partially true I have been distracted and it's not like he would have even used the reward from that quest effectively anyway.
"Distracted by what? Just hurry up and make that stupid thing shut up" Kira says as she childishly tries but fails to interact with my stats panel.
She is able to perceive my stats page as I see it, without the need for appraisal. This is only possible for those with hero skills, as their souls share enough similarities for some crossover to occur.
Yet Kira doesn't have one. It is possible that she possesses something else that draws them together.
"Well, I just think it's good to think about stuff like this," I say gesturing to the quest icon.
"You've been thinking about it this whole time? That's kinda strange…"
She's right.
" I don't even look at it before clicking on it before I accept it. Since I've already known what it was for a while now.
I seem to surprise Kira with that one. Since she flinches from my fast movement. I guess it must be strange for her to see me move so fast. As of late that would've been quite difficult to assume I could have such fast speed.
"Well, I guess that settles that," I say as I stand up and pretend to be dusting my hands off.
"Oh well then. Well, what did you get? Something cool?!" She says with a brightened-up face.
My guess is that she is happy the stupid thing will finally shut up.
"Do you want me to show you?" I say reaching my hand out to her.
"Yes please!"
I reach out to Kira and pick her up, supporting her with one arm. Then I begin activating the new spell I had just been rewarded.
As I do this I do notice Kiras' odd expression. Her cheeks show a highlight of pink and her exception seems somewhat strained. Embarsentment? As a Skill Soul, I am prone to overlooking emotion most of the time.
However, having someone express such a strong emotion so close to me definitely reminds me that they do indeed exist. What an odd thing.
Without warning, we are surrounded by a bright light. The light starts at our feet and rushes up towards our heads very quickly. This experience is strange and it gives us the feeling of being in space.
However, this unusual feeling doesn't last long. As soon as I have time to think about how strange it all is, the light disappears.
Now there is nothing but darkness. It worked. I'm even standing on the ground. Not bad for my first time teleporting. The worry of teleporting in the air or in a wall was worrying for sure.
"Master Akari, where are we? What happened?" I hear Kiras' voice tremble.
"The dungeon."
There's a dungeon not too far from the academy. One that didn't take me much time to notice. Yet for the longest time, a month I was unable to explore it. Akari's abusive relationship with his body prevented me from doing so.
However, I Persistence, the strongest of the Skill Souls, have overcome this feat and I was finally able to leave that cramped room and the academy for that matter. Truly I couldn't care about anything involving that play place. Yet I keep up the appearance of Akari and sadly he would stay at that annoying place.
"Hey Kira get on my shoulder I don't think we're alone."
Or well I know that we're not alone. Almost immediately I subconsciously activated appraisal. What I saw or think I saw definitely surprised me.
"But Akari…" Kira doest finish her sentence.
I feel as the weight in my arm disappears and I feel something go up my arm and rest on my shoulder. I can't see it but I hope that's Kira.
It seems we have teleported inside the dungeon. I'm not sure where we are but I can tell we're a bit far from the surface. Down here it's pitch black. Though thankfully for me I have the skill night vision and thankfully it's finally starting to activate.
Now I get to worry about the thing right in front of me. In front of my eyes is a long metal object. Its edges sharp but dulled and chipped over time making what might have been a great blade nothing more than an over-exaggerated butter knife.
I'm able to pick up a similar unimpressive weapon and slide it against their strike, deflecting it only slightly changing the enemy's momentum. All I have to do is take a small step to the right of it to move out of its way. Its momentum carries it a distance until it eventually strikes an enemy that used to be just behind me.
Next are a few enemies that have been chanting nonsense for a while now. They cast simultaneously making casting gust, dust, and a flame spell. These spells cast at the same time interacting with each other as they come at me creating a gust of wind filled with fiery, abrasive particles.
I myself create a gust of wind casting a thick amount of water with it sending it speeding at the opponent's spell. Once they clashed I noticed the larger and heavier earth made it through and was heading toward me how it's not hard to create a wall of earth and again send at them.
This time my spell completely succeeds and pushes right through the remaining debris rushing right to the enemy spell casters that were again chanting nonsense. Though their chanting would not mean too much as before they finish my spell reaches them crushing them all to the wall of the cave.
To my side one charges so I finish it off with my sword before it reaches me. Then another, a flash of sparks as our swords collide and I quick it away hard. Then a spell starts being cast while more come at me.
I stand my ground as the number of them becomes clear to me. At first, I deal with them one-on-one, destroying them quickly with one swing of my blade. I find I needed to pick up a new blade from the floor every now and then.
However every now and then a skeleton manages to get a scratch on me, and again and again the small cuts add up. Even the reckless spells are sometimes hitting me.
Eventually, I use earth magic, raising me higher. A few spells still come at me from this slight height advantage but I use my skill mana consume or negate them from casting my own stronger spells.
The other monsters below me have begun to climb up the stone foundation of mine so before that can become a problem I activate some spells. First I try to shape the spells into more rigid objects but I'm unable to so instead I change plans.
Using the earth surrounding I first move the ground under the spell casters lifting it up hard enough to crush them to the ceiling. This creates an enclosed space. With this inescapable room, I create a death trap for everything inside.
I strike my raised pillar with my sword. I hold onto the sword and start to transfer my mana onto the sword. This barely working sword starts to crack and shake but I continue. It's not until I see it glow with a combination of saturated colors that I let go of it.
With that done I use both earth, to push me off the pillar and air to help me move even faster mid-air and once I'm about to hit the wall that circled that small room I open up some of it allowing me out.
Looking back I see the skeletons reaching the top of the pillar in the middle with the violently unstable sword. I cast one final spell in the room.
The air spell rushes in at such a speed it makes me fly back even more than I had imagined. Quickly I close the hole I just left out of. With little time left, I create a makeshift barrier around me of various materials still flying through the air as far as I can away from the epicenter.
And then a massive 'KABOOM!' followed by the entire stone walls tearing and flying apart. Multiple of those fragments hit the barrier around me. It holds, however. I feel the entire cave shake as well but after some time it would seem that it too would hold…
After deactivating all the protection spells it doesn't take long for Kira to start arguing.
"Master! Why did you do that! Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?! You could have easily asked me to help!" She says all this while healing the few cuts I got.
Technically she is not incorrect. I indubitably decided to test more than fight at peak efficiency and a part of this test happened to involve some danger. Well, that wouldn't really matter to her. Gratefully for her, I have already thought of the best Akari response.
"I thought it was fun," I say as I sit on a rock letting her heal me
Kira pauses for a moment and responds with a quiet "Maybe a little"
She is overextending herself.
Trying to fit a role that isn't hers.
I can almost imagine another world where maybe Akari and she went in without care while Mara complained afterward about their safety. It almost makes me feel bad-
I stand up quickly.
"Well let's try to figure out a way out of this place," I say this yet I see as my vision becomes blurry and I lose my balance.
I am caught by Kira who was just sitting right there. I've seemed to have overextended myself.
"Geez this is what I'm talking about!" Kira exclaimed.
After that Kira in her 'human' form treats me up a bit more until we head off. Both of us make sure to collect the gems that were dropped from the skeletons. Their shape and color more unique from that of a slime or goblin. More pointy and hollow.
I wonder what Kiras' gem would look like. Would she even drop one?
This time Kira leads the way as I follow her. It's not hard for me to tell her where to go but she insists on leading, causing us approximately 10 minutes of lost time.
While we climb some stairs up we talk.
"So that's where we are, makes sense seeing how much you seemed to like it, Master."
"Well, I guess I couldn't resist."
"But I'm still curious why can't we just teleport back out?"
If you're not knowledgeable about this type of stuff like Kira, that question would seem reasonable however if you know anything about magic or skills you know teleporting is not that easy. Just ask Ren.
In that regard, I am pondering whether or not I should inform Ren of this. It is highly unlikely that I would be able to do so, even if I tried to teleport to another world.
"Right now we're lucky I even teleported us into the dungeon you know. There was a chance we might have teleported into the academy's lunch room."
"Oh, I see… I doubt our chances are much better now with how you are."
"Bingo!" I use finger guns.
It only takes us a few floors filled with monsters to scoot by for us to keep climbing up and reach the entrance of the dungeon. Making it take approximately 30 minutes.
"Now we need to think of some way to get back inside the academy, but for right now I'm going to enjoy this fresh air," I say breathing in dramatically.
I watch Kira rub a faded cut on herself.
"Well, we could always try to sneak back in... Though that might be a bit hard at this time."
"You know better than I do that monsters only come out of hiding at night, for whatever reason. Guards are no doubt keeping an eye out at this time."
"The mana is much richer at night. There is still mana at day, it's just that it feels off. It repeals us. But you don't have to worry about that with me Master! I have overcome the need that normal monsters do." She says posing an interesting pose.
After she notices the weird look I'm giving her she stops whatever that was.
"Welp I guess we'll just have to sit here and wait for an idea to hit us on the head," I say sitting down.
"Umm Master?" Kira asked.
Well, that was faster than I presumed it would take.
"Yes Kira did you-"
"Master watch out!" Kira shouts as she sprints over to me.
I look up and frown. This is not what I meant when I asked for an idea.