Level Three

When I last saw the orb at the end of level two, it was yesterday and I'd almost blacked out from the pain of the injury the lycan matron had inflicted on me. However, now that I don't have a mangled arm setting my pain receptors on fire, the sight of the floating, gently glowing orb finally fills me with the sense that I've truly completed level two.

The giant orb is floating in the centre of a clearing, and there are a few students resting here, taking advantage of the fact that monsters can't enter this area. The number of people is far less than at the end of level one, and I suspect we'll see a sharp decrease again when we reach the end of level three.

If we reach level three, I have to remind myself. This world is dangerous, and dungeon diving doubly so. It would be a mistake to take it too lightly.

My party puts their hands on the orb as one, and two images pop into my mind. Another forest, similar to this one, and the stone hallways of Ward Academy. Of course, I focus on the image of the forest.

My vision goes dark, and the world spins—I spin. I feel like I'm being thrown about in a whirlpool, and just suddenly as I am assaulted by that feeling, it disappears. The blackness fades from my vision, and the first thing I notice is the sharp increase in cold.

The cloaks that the students of Ward Academy wear are by no means lacking in any way, but even then I can feel the insidious chill penetrate through them. I look around and see that though the forest looks very similar to the one we just came from, there are signs of frost building on the leaves.

I must have played through this level once, but that was a long time ago, and all of this dungeon diving is early-game stuff. It's unreasonable for anyone to expect me to remember what each dungeon floor entailed.

The Great Dungeon still features heavily later on, but it's entered from different places then, and that means the levels are different too.

"It looks like it's your time to shine, Thomas!" Perri says excitedly.

"Pardon?" I say. I think I barely used the word pardon once in my old world, but it just seems so natural to use it now in Thomas Filmore's body.

"It's cold here, right? So this level must hold many cold-themed enemies!" Perri reasons, "In which case your unique fire skills must have an advantage here!" She turns her nose up proudly at her thought process, and of course, Leila wastes no time in bringing her down.

"Thomas' black fire destroyed a flame gorilla in seconds," she points out, "Do you really think that even if the enemies here are weaker to fire, that advantage will change much?"

Perri scowls in silence for a few seconds before something seems to occur to her, "If the enemies here are significantly stronger, then it might."

Leila opens her mouth, and then silently closes it. I'm surprised, for the first time Perri has countered Leila with a solid point. In truth, I don't think that will be the case, there would need to be an incredible jump in strength for enemies to even stand a chance against the Abyssflame, but that's not something Leila can be certain about. I'm sure she has an inkling based on just how quickly the flame gorilla was defeated, but only an inkling at best.

Perri grins smugly, "Now, shall we push on?"

"Let's," I say. We pick a random direction and press into the forest. As we walk, the air continues to get colder and colder. It's hard to tell these things without any proper instruments, but I'm sure the temperature is dropping.

The first monsters to assault us are ones we've seen before. A few giant spiders or rats will ambush us, or a pack of lycans. They're all easily dealt with, and they give the same minuscule amounts of experience points as before.

The trees around us begin to get more and more sparse, and snow begins to fall around us. Soon enough, the very ground we're walking on has a thin layer of powdery snow gathered upon it. We shiver under our cloaks, and I ask Leila, "Do you know how to use Warmth?"

"That's a support skill, not a healing one," Leila answers, her teeth chattering. It seems she's too cold to mock us like usual.

As we continue moving forward, the snow beneath our feet grows thicker and thicker, but it isn't packed into a slippery hard surface. It's powdery and soft, like all of it is freshly fallen.

The same snow that I'm considering suddenly shifts in front of us. It gathers in a flurry of tiny crystals, forming into a sort of inverted tornado-like shape, and then shoots towards us at great speed. We dodge out of the way and Wyll casts at the inverted snow tornado, "Waterlog!"

His spell catches the enemy perfectly, but when the snow shifts again, it doesn't look slowed at all. I'm not surprised, to be honest, Waterlog is a water skill, it's bound to have a reduced effect on ice and snow monsters.

Perri is the next one to try her hand. As the inverted snow tornado twists on the spot to point at Wyll, rearing back to shoot itself at him, Perri jumps in swinging her axe in a wide arc, cutting the whole thing in half.

The space where the enemy was cut in half closes almost instantly, more snow binding the two halves back together without issue. Perri scowls as she watches this, and I can tell my companions don't know what to do next.

Fortunately, I recognise this monster. It's called a haunted snow, and though its ability to form into any shape (provided the shape is simple enough) is formidable, it does have one glaring weakness.

"There's a core!" I shout over the wind to tell my party, "Somewhere inside that thing is a core shaped like a heart made of ice. Destroy that, and the haunted snow returns to being just ordinary snow!"

"In that case—!" Perri hoists her axe and launches herself at the haunted snow again. She delivers upon it a series of slashes, opening up many gaps, and within one of them peeks out the shiny blue core. It's just as I described, a heart made of ice. It doesn't pump any blood, and yet I can see veins upon it.

The haunted snow writhes, expanding suddenly into countless spikes, and one of them clips Perri in the shoulder, landing a small but visible cut there. She retreats with a wince, but she's already achieved what she set out to do.

I charge forward, and with my newly-acquired speed I stab into one of the gaps within the haunted snow's body before it can react, my blade punching clean through its core.

The haunted snow jerks to a sudden halt before collapsing all at once, now haunted no more. I shiver as some of the snow falls on me. As the ice heart skewered on my blade disappears, a gem of a lighter blue than the core plops onto the powdery white ground.

-

100 EXP

-

Rather a high amount of experience points for a simple mob enemy… this must be the first time Thomas Filmore has faced this type of creature. I suspect most enemies from now on will share that fact.

I see my party gather around me, and Leila puts her hand on Perri's injured shoulder, saying, "Heal."

Her hand shines with a white light, and when she pulls it away, only blood from before the wound was closed remains.

It wasn't a particularly large wound, but seeing it dealt with so efficiently is still impressive. Leila doesn't even look winded.

Perri doesn't thank her, and Leila pounces on the opportunity, "Not even a word of thanks? What happened to all those manners that nobles hold so sacred?"

Perri grits her teeth, "I didn't hear any thanks whenever we defeated an enemy."

Leila shrugs, "I never claimed to care about upholding the values of nobility. Are you saying you're the same?"

Perri makes a small, growling noise in her throat. Then she forces out, "…Thanks."

Leila grins condescendingly, "That's better." She turns to me next, "Lucky you researched that thing—haunted snow, you called it? Have you done the same for all the monsters here? Is it because Rex arrived here ahead of you? The thought of him must drive you mad."

Not really. If I was the real Thomas Filmore then her words might have struck a nerve, but I have no such hatred or jealousy towards Rex. I admire him, but not to the point of obsession. The reason I knew what haunted snow was was simply because it was a common enemy in cold areas in Rising Hero.

Leila really is sharp but it's too bad for her that I'm just an anomalous existence that she could never have thought of.

"Dealing with those will be troublesome," I say, ignoring her, "But we don't have any specialized abilities to face them right now, so we'll just have to do what we did here."

Perri gives me a reassuring smile, "Don't worry, Thomas. Now that I know what to expect, they won't be able to get me like that again."

Maybe if there's only one, she might be right. But what happens when several attack us at the same time?

For a moment I consider returning to Ward Academy for the day. We've made it to level three like I hoped, and I can think of a few items that I can buy to make hunting haunted snow easier.

But then Rex's face lights up in mind, along with Sten Hayes'. I can't afford to take things slow, I have to get as strong as I can before my duel with Rex, or else I'm guaranteed to lose.

"Let's move on," I say.