DanMachi 5

[Cat Person]

+1 AGI, +1 PER +1 DEX per Global Level.

- Gain Night Vision while in a dark.

- Improves reaction time.

- Always fall on your feet.

To be totally honest it wasn't a bad race and those ears and sensitive tail looked really cute on her. Still, by morning, she switched back to her human race.

"You should use that race in the dungeon, it will give you more mobility and better reaction time." I suggested and to which she agreed. When changing races, you gained instinctual knowledge on how to use their abilities and extra appendages. The race alone made her almost double her dexterity, agility, and perception, overshadowing me in both agility and perception.

Yesterday, at the pub, she acquired some black hair, from one of our waitresses and used it to gain the race, she wanted to surprise me, and oh boy was it a surprise, but now she felt bad for not keeping the hair to allow me to gain the same class and boost my own stats.

We have already tried copying each other's races, as I wanted to give Olive mana as soon as she gained her system, but it didn't allow her to transform my hair or any other bodily fluid into a race card. So we both knew this was a wasted opportunity but I want angry or disappointed.

"Not a problem." I pat her head. "I can get the race later. There are a lot of cat people running around town, so it won't be a problem." I say with a smile.

"Uhum" she nods, acting all sad.

"Okay let's get something to eat and head to the dungeon. I'd like to get to around floor 20 today."

Heading downstairs we meet the hungover goddess, with her head planted on the table in the dining room.

"Good morning Hestia." I greet her, to which she replies with a faint whisper.

"Not so loud."

"Can't you, you know, filter out the alcohol from your body using your divine energy?" I ask the obvious and she just looks at me shocked. Barely a second later she shines in a bright yellow light and she's back in her top form.

"Why didn't I think about that!?" she says.

The bodies the gods are using were created with divine energy. They don't need substances or even air to live. Truthfully, they aren't really alive, they are just there, while their soul is connected to heaven. Most gods like to indulge themselves in mortal ways and drink and eat like any other mortal. They do however have an issue with reproduction, as the female gods, except for those with adequate divinities, cannot bear children, and that's why most, if not all of them create familias.

Olive went to the kitchen to start preparing breakfast, and I joined her and helped out. Today's breakfast was toasted bread, eggs, and strips of bacon.

"Hestia?" I ask while we're eating. "From where could we get two Grimoires?"

"Hmm... ib bondk kow" She swallows what she had in her mouth and repeats it. "I don't know. Maybe I can ask Hephaistos. Why?"

"Please do, we need some spells to start increasing our Magic stats. As it stands now, we will end up with 0 if we continue like this, or we need someone to teach us about magic."

"Okay, I'll ask her today and at the same time I can boast about having you two in my familia." She says with a wide smile.

"Thank you. We'll be waiting for the good news."

The leftover bacon was then packed up and put into a few sandwiches we will be eating while inside the dungeon. After breakfast, I gave Hestia some money and told her to get us some groceries when she was on her way back from work and reminded her about asking Hephaistos. She agreed, happy to be useful.

"I'll update your statuses when you get back!" she shouted and waved at us, as today, we were the first ones out of the house.

At 7:40 we arrived at the entrance of the dungeon, were written up, and started our descent following the spiraling staircases into the abyss. The wide corridors of the first flour were quickly left behind as we moved fast to our previous location, the third floor of the dungeon. Not engaging in any combat we just ran through the whole thing and arrived at the staircase leading to the fourth floor.

[Quest: [Dungeon diving 4] Completed 4 WP(x8) Received]

Nodding at the notification we press forward, running around dodging all the goblins, kobolds, and lizards until we finally find the staircase leading us to the fifth floor.

[Quest: [Dungeon diving 5] Completed 5 WP(x8) Received]

Now, this is where things start to change, the walls are now colored light green. From the knowledge I extracted from other adventurers, I know monsters spawn faster and are stronger. The monsters that could be found on this floor are Frog Shooters, War Shadows, and Killer Ants.

The first monster we encountered on this floor was a solo Frog Shooter, and I offered myself to test out its capabilities. The frog was the size of a larger dog, with a single eye, and it used its barbed tongue to attack. Dodging the tongue was not really an issue nor was killing it. Removing its tongue with a precise attack made it unable to defend itself making it a really easy enemy. The next one of these we met I left Olivia to attack and kill it. With her movement stats almost double of mine, she easily dispatched the ugly frog.

The next type of monster we fought was a war shadow. It really was just a humanoid one-eyed monster made out of condensed shadow mana and it was one of the easier enemies we encountered on this floor. It used its sharp claws to attack and those attacks were heavily telegraphed, making us easily dodge them. We even needed to fight multiple of them at the same time. But I, nor Olive had any troubles with them.

The last type of monsters we meet on this floor were the Killer Ants. The name comes from the one and only reason that many newbies die to them. When you see one of them, you can be sure there are at least ten others around the corner, and after spotting you, they immediately call for a backup using their pheromones. These monsters have a hard carapace and are colored red, making them easily spot-able against the green dungeon walls. Their biggest weakness, were their joints, removing their legs, even with their huge mandibles, made the fight pretty easy.

Clearing a few groups of the ants I can already feel the improvements from the accumulated falna. My measly strength stat has already doubled and is enabling me to swing my sword a lot harder. The other improvements, while there, are not easily noticeable, because all of them had over 10 attribute points in them. Still, no experience for me, although Olive has managed to level up again hitting a ceiling for this floor at level 26. So after we found the next staircase we went straight down.

[Quest: [Dungeon diving 6] Completed 6 WP(x8) Received]

The composition of this layer was the same as the last one, even the same types of creatures spawned here. Ignoring everything that didn't directly cross our path, we moved to find the next stair downwards and after a ten-minute search, we found them.

[Quest: [Dungeon diving 7] Completed 7 WP(x8) Received]

On the seventh floor in addition to the last floor spawns, new types of monsters spawned. The Purple Moth, Blue Papilio, and the Needle Rabbit. On this floor, because of all the flying enemies, we experimented with the bow and arrows, granting us both a ton of levels in the [Bow Mastery] skill. Unfortunately, we quickly ran out of arrows, as they tended to break quite easily.

The Purple Moth while not extremely dangerous, dispersed a powder that can poison most adventurers. It was a good alchemy ingredient used in the creation of most antidotes. So their drops are pretty valuable. As its name states it's a purple-colored monster in the shape of a moth. It was easily disposable by a swift strike to its head or by just removing its wings. Although in the end, we both had to use one antidote to fight off the effects of its poison powder attack.

Similar to the last monster, the Blue Papilio, was a flying type butterfly creature that had four see-through wings. It was a pretty rate monster with no fight potential, but in exchange for that, it creates a powder that healed its allies. It tended to do flyby's when noticing a large group of dungeon monsters attacking a group of adventurers.

Their drops were highly sought after as they are used by alchemists to create health potions. Thankfully, we only met a single one of these guys, while we were fighting against a smaller group of enemies. So no real damage was done.

The last new type of enemy creature found on this floor was the Needle Rabbit. As its name suggested, it was a rabbit-like creature with tusks and with a long needle-like horn. Which they used in combination with their fast movements to stab adventurers. With our reflexes and dodging skills, these enemies were easy kills.

[Quest: [Dungeon diving 8] Completed 8 WP(x8) Received]

[Quest: [Dungeon diving 9] Completed 9 WP(x8) Received]

[Quest: [Dungeon diving 10] Completed 10 WP(x8) Received]

For the following two floors, the same monsters repeated and on some, a few from earlier floors spawned. None of them posed too much of a challenge, till we arrived to the tenth floor.

Where Orcs, Imp, and Bad Bat were added to the mix. On this floor, literal mist covered each and every cranny of every room and hallway. On the tenth floor, the visibility was still good, but from my pillaged knowledge, I knew that the next two floors had worse visibility and even thicker mist. At this point, we had already spent five hours in the dungeon, so we moved back and camped on the stairs between the ninth and tenth floors and ate our lunch.

"So how do you like this world?" I ask Olive while we're having a break.

"Hmm... I don't know. It's really different from Earth. Not just the monsters and everything, but the people tend to act differently. Like the social norms and all are different."

"Yep, good you noticed. Here, strength means everything. It's the ugly side of worlds like this one, the strong prevail over the weak, and they can do anything they want, just because no one can go against them. We can't really change the social norms with the time we have here, but we can fight the corruption after we get strong enough." I say while patting the head of the, now, snuggling up to me, girlfriend.

"Uhum..." she says while basking in the bliss of my head pats. At this point, I wonder why I didn't yet gain a head pat skill, but it's probably the same reason I didn't get any sexual skills too. "What are we going to do with Hestia when we leave?" she asks

"I've got no idea what to do with her. Now that I know her history, I feel like an ass for choosing her. And it's not like we can stay here forever." I say and sigh. "We'll have to expand the familia and make it strong enough that we won't be missed too much."

"She's going to be really sad when we leave."

"Yea, but realistically, I don't think we could take her with us. When serious, she is one of the strongest gods in this realm."

"Really?" she looks at me with amazement in her eyes.

"Yea, not a lot of people know, but she is one of the oldest gods of her pantheon." I say with a nod.

"Amazing, I'll have to ask her about it." She says. "Let's continue." I nod and we move back to the tenth floor. Massacring our way towards the lower floors.

The first monster group we met was a group of Orcs. Five to be exact, two of which carried clubs. This fight was a bit different from the others, a clear indication that monsters were getting stronger and smarter as we descended into the dungeon. The huge pig-headed masses of muscles didn't use any fighting tactics but they did attack in a coordinated fashion. Multiple attacks could come at the same time without interrupting each other.

"Let's separate them, you pull the ones without weapons." I bark out a command and move in to attack the nearest enemy with the weapon, believing Olive can handle the other three.

We successfully separated the group into two, with the weapon-wielding ones focusing solely on me, while the others focused on Olive. From the corner of my eye I watch as she dances between them and slowly dismembering then dispatches them. Truly a wonderful sight. I refocus on my enemies, only to take a step back to dodge a swing from the nearest orc. After the club has passed, I step into his range holding my sword in a reverse grip with both of my hands. I pull it upward and cut a deep wound into the orc's arm, almost fully separating it from its elbow. The club flies out of his hand, keeping the momentum of its swing, hitting the other orc straight into its chest. The first orc lets out a scream of pain and grabs onto his arm, not wasting my chance I rotate my blade and make a quick swing at the orc's neck, his voice vanishes mid-scream, only some gurgling noises to be left.

Not long after a loud 'Thud' could be heard as the first one hits the ground. Meanwhile, the second one didn't just dilly-dally, it picked up itself from the floor and as stealthily as a three-meter mass of muscles can closed up on me from the side. From the corner of my eye, I notice a quickly approaching club and bend backward, ducking under its trajectory by barely a few centimeters. I quickly straighten myself, noticing I have lost my weapon mid-dodge, I reach for my daggers and quickly pull them out of their sheaths. I run towards the monster standing before me and jump over its next swing, rotating myself in the air a landing on its shoulders with my knees bent. I could smell the putrid breath of the monster, its warm breath felts itchy against my skin. I bring down my daggers from the side and sank both of them into his neck, separating his spine and instantly killing it in the process.

Taking a deep breath, I get startled by the sound of clapping. I turn around to see Olive, with dismembered monsters littering the ground around her. With a small smile, I make an over-exaggerated bow, that results in a cute giggle from her.

"Had any trouble with them?" I ask as I look around to find my sword.

"Nah, they weren't really a threat, although, if the two other ones joined the fight I don't know if I could have taken them." She says sincerely.

"We need to be careful on these floors. The groups are bigger and the monsters are stronger." She nods agreeing with me then she adds.

"We should separate them into groups the same way we fought this time."

"Sure."

"Oh, by the way, I gained [Acrobatics] just now. I can now understand why you wanted me to get it." She says with a wolfish grin.

"Finally! For Hestia's sake, it took you long enough!" the way I say it makes both of us laugh out loud.

"We can experiment with it later." She says and sends me a wink.

Our talk gets interrupted by the Zubats of this world, a bunch of Bad Bats, alerted by our earlier fight. Needless to say, these creatures attacked from the air with sound waves, which had an especially bad effect on Olivia in her current cat form.

When the bats judged us disrupted enough, they quickly descended from the air baring their fangs. Only to be met head-on with our swords. These fights were easy, but at the same time annoying as hell. We only needed to sidestep their flight pats and bring our swords into it. The ringing in our ears only stopped after a few minutes. So, even with how easy the fight was, if possible, we will be avoiding a fight with these creatures.

The last new monster on this floor was the well-known monster type, an Imp. A small daemon-like creature with red skin, and long arms that ended with claws and prolonged feet. It tended to attack in groups of about twenty and use weaker fire magic. They could be killed with one hit, but dodging 20 fireballs and getting close to them was a challenge.

After spending about an hour in low visibility, we finally found the staircase leading towards the eleventh floor. Considering from here we will be fighting level 2 monsters I checked out our falna status and was surprised.

[Falna Status] (Andrew)

Level: 1

Strength: 61 (I) > 985 (S)

Endurance: 25 (I) > 764 (B)

Dexterity: 80 (I) > 906 (S)

Agility: 112 (H)> 844 (A)

Magic: 0 (I) > 0 (I)

D.A.: None

Magic: None

Skills: None

[Falna Status] (Olivia)

Level: 1

Strength: 82 (I) > 787 (B)

Endurance: 67 (I) > 884 (A)

Dexterity: 55 (I) > 896 (A)

Agility: 45 (I) > 758 (B)

Magic: 0 (I) > 0 (I)

D.A.: None

Magic: None

Skills: None

Our stats skyrocketed after fighting stronger and stronger enemies. Pushing us up to almost level two. Only our magical stats lagged behind, which we really had to combat in some shape or form. With all that, out of the way. We descend to our first many, level two floors.