Chapter 59. Strangers house

POV: Merry

I sat in silence waiting for anyone to respond.

The occasional growl or painful hiss told me the passing of time.

"If nobody is home I'm going to enter! "

I yelled in the hope that someone would hear me as I tried to open the door.

To my surprise, the door was unlocked and I could see the interior of the house.

It was a short hallway with some chests on each side, but those chests were different than what I made, it was two blocks wider.

I opened one of them and saw that the storage had double the space as well, with some interesting items in it.

There were some cobblestones, dirt, wood sticks, wheat, wooden bowls, and a lot of stone swords. They looked interesting but pretty weird, I took one out and held it in my hand and I could feel the sharpness of the stone blade.

This also made me realize that those weird spikes on the walls must be stone swords.

I didn't take anything from the chests with the exception of a sword. I don't want to be defenseless anymore, especially when this world showed me that it has some violent tendencies.

I don't know who the owner of this house is after all, but if they have so many swords, it must be a reason.

I walked alone in the hallway until the end, then it split into two, on the left side was what I could only describe as a living room, with poorly imitated furniture blocks.

Towards the right, there was a large room with wooden floor and on the walls were some cobblestone-looking blocks that had some holes in them.

And when I looked closer at one, a grey window appeared telling me that this was a furnace. And luckily for me, it had some bread already in it.

I took it out and ate it right then and there until there was nothing left.

"Oh wow, I was much hungrier than I expected. Do they also have some water?"

I went through chests until I found a bowl of milk of all things, and it was a delicious one.

Now with a belly full and a safe place to stay the night, the fatigue made its presence known, my muscles were sore, my heart calmed its beat and my eyes were getting heavier.

"Today was too much of a crazy day. I got transported into a new world without a warning, at night monsters appeared everywhere and I fought a giant spider."

And I won.

While the experience was scary for me, the adrenaline rush when I pierced his head with a broken handle made me want to do it again.

"Oh God, I think I'm an adrenaline junkie."

I sighed at that realization and explored the small house in hopes of finding a place to sleep.

Fortunately, I didn't have to search for too long, I only needed to go upstairs into the attic where there was a lone white bed.

I didn't even bother to wait for the owner of this house and went to sleep.

Deep down, I'm afraid that this is only a dream.

But if it is, I don't want to wake up.

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I woke up looking at an unfamiliar ceiling, in a panic I quickly got up only to hit my head on the low ceiling.

"Auci, oh yeah, I'm in another world now. There's no need to panic."

I was kind of excited that it wasn't all just a dream, so with a little stretching in the little space I had, I followed with going outside.

The sun was on top of the sky, warming my skin and calming my mind. I didn't hear any monsters banging on the wall which was a great sign, I was afraid that I was in an apocalyptic world.

I appreciate the the scenery around the house, I saw a river coming out of the ground and stopping into a random dirt block without overflowing from its bounds.

The water came out of nowhere and disappeared without any logic. And on top of all that, it was running water!

This world is fascinating, to say the least.

Besides the small river was some patch of yellow grass, when I got closer I could see that this was wheat, and ready to be harvested.

There was also the fenced area, where I found some weird-looking chickens that didn't care about my presence there.

The next one was a lone sheep, which creeped me out a little, I know sheep and goats have weird-shaped pupils, but it's a different sight when the sheep itself is all squares. So I didn't get too close to that.

The last one was a family of four cows, three big ones and a small one. It was actually a cute sight to see, and they were getting closer to me.

I reached my hand to pet one of them, and it was the same texture as a real cow, I felt my body and soul calm as my hand felt the heiry texture, until I felt something unpleasant.

The freaking cows were eating my blonde hair!

I just left them alone and washed my hair of any cow saliva.

After I was done I looked around to see if I missed anything, and it was a good thing that I did that since I found a hole in the ground in the middle of the yard.

Upon examining closer I saw a ladder that went down for a good while. With my sword ready to be taken out any minute I went underground.

The light started to fade and the temperature began to rise, not a lot but enough to be noticeable.

Once I arrived down, artificial light guided me to what I could only admire in awe.

The house above was an impressive sight to see, but I could tell it lacked a certain elegance like the person who built it had a specific palette to work with and it did its best.

But this took my breath away, it was like I entered a dungeon that was under construction, pillers made with black and grey stone supported by dark wood made it look creepy but charming. And the lamps that hung on some chains truly made a good atmosphere.

The room was big and it split into four other hallways, but only three were made with the last one still under construction.

One of the tunnels led to three rooms, two empty and one that tried to imitate to outside world with a pixelated drawing. It was a different vibe from the entrance of the dungeon but what caught my eye were the many double cheats that seemed to be separated based on a theme.

I looked through each and everyone, and I struck gold, literally and figuratively. There were chests with food, wheat, and flowers, some others were filled with different stones and ores.

I saw stacks of iron ore, gold, and even diamonds!

"Is this a safe in construction? Or maybe it's truly a dungeon and this is the big storage before it gets distributed in other rooms."

As much as It was temting I didn't take any precious ores, but I did take a full iron armor, which surprisingly adjusted to my body.

With only this, I got back to the main room and explored some other paths.

The next one was a staircase that went down very deep underground, but everything was well-lit and beautifully decorated, especially the lava that was falling beyond the iron bars.

"How did they even build this? Why was it even built like this, it seems so unsafe."

I arrived at the last part and saw a huge room made with a grey blocks supported by wooden beams, on one wall there were a lot of furnaces, some of them running while others were not.

I opened one up and saw that it smelled of some iron ore in an iron ingot.

How convenient.

I looked at the chest beside it, and it was full of cobblestone and other ingots.

"If this is how people in this world live, I don't think I'm that special. I think I'm less special than I thought I was. I'm sure we use the same crafting system since I recognize some of the items."

I'm I truly here just because of a freak accident?

I decided to not think too much about it and looked at the smaller tunnels leading to this room.

"I think this is a mining operation. Maybe I'm not in a dungeon after all."

But the owner of this place left not too long ago since some of the ores are still smelting.

I've seen enough of this place, let's go and see the last room and I'll wait for the owner on the surface pretending that I don't know about the secret bunker.

I climbed the stairs which were less enjoyable than going down on them, but my legs only hurt slightly from the small workout.

The last room was one of the weirdest ones, it was a tall white room like it was an asylum, and on the wall was a huge frame made with dark blocks.

In the frame, there was a wall of red blocks that seemed to reach toward the white walls.

"This is an interesting choice of design. But let's see what's in there."

I stepped passed the dark frame and was hit with a wave of heat. It was so bad that I actually had to throw my iron helmet down so I could breathe more properly.

I quickly got out of the red room and was back into the white one.

"What was that? How can the temperature change so drastically? And why would you want something like this in your basement?"

My heart was calming down from the sudden shock, and I started to theorize about what it could be.

"Usually in novels, a gate like this would mean either a dungeon or another dimension. But both of them are the same thing in a way, so I'll stick with a dungeon."

Maybe the owner found an abandoned dungeon and decided to make his base around it.

That sounds like a profitable move.

I took the helmet back and decided that I had enough exploring for today. The owner is most likely in a dungeon dive right now and it's going to be back soon.

With that, I went back to the surface with sore legs from climbing so many stairs in one day and went inside the house.

"Well, what's the plan until the owner is back? I don't think there's internet in this world, and if it has I don't have access to it."

I contemplated what to do while sitting in the uncomfortable chair until an idea struck me.

"I have skills! I can level up some of them while I'm waiting, I'm sure the owner won't mind too much if I borrow a few resources. I'll try to get mine as much as possible."

With that plan made I started to look at my skill tab, and saw that only the crafting skill was the one that I could improve, the others I didn't even know how to start.

With an iron axe in my hand, I went out to chop some trees, and it was a big difference. The blocks got chopped so fast that I can safely say that I can't get back to chopping trees with a wooden paddle.

Wood in my inventory I went back to the house and started crafting.

I've crafted, and I crafted with wood and stone for three whole days and this was my result.

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                               SKILLS

_Crafting lvl 3

   1.350 /10.000

_Enchanting lvl 1

    0/100

_Brewing lvl 1

     0/1.000

_Trading lvl 2

    0/1.000

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I managed to level up my Crafting skills twice!

It was an interesting experience, I found out how to craft tools, fences, and even a furnace. But I also observed that the most efficient way to gain experience was through crafting tools, so now I had a chest full of junk that I made.

But even with all of those my speed slowed down to a crawl.

"I think I need to craft with iron or copper next. But I don't want to steal from the owner, even if I didn't see any signs in three whole days."

At least there was enough food to not starve to death, though it got a bit bland after a while from lack of veraietes.

"I think I have to go mining myself then. I already have a few stone pickaxes, and the mine is already made, I only need to find the ores."

It can't be that hard right?

With that in mind, I took some food, my tools, and iron armor. And went back underground.

I arrived at the big creepy room and absentmindedly went towards the stairs only to be stopped by a voice.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

I turned towards the voice and saw a man in fancy golden armor looking surprised at my presence.

Unfortunately, he then took out a sword. And with only one glance at it, I could tell that my stone sword was not well matched against his iron one.

"Trader, is everything alrighty?"

A feminine voice came from behind him.