4.6

If only the circumstances allowed me to, I would love to twiddle around with the Item Box some more to thoroughly test its capabilities, but my common sense was telling me that a Labyrinth, a foreign, uncharted ground was not a place for such frivolous behaviors. If I'm not careful, a monster might attack me the moment I let my guard down.

I let go of the Item Box, allowing it to slide back into the dimensional portal it popped out from, and then proceeded to checking out the rest of the Skills. I can leave the Party related one be for now, since I don't have an actual Party yet.

「Dungeon Walker!」

The best way I could probably describe this Skill was a navigation device which worked entirely in my head. Just like a professional GPS, it was asking me where I wanted to go, so I thought about the Labyrinth's entrance, the very first room I ended up in when I came through that black wall-portal. When I pictured that place in my mind, Dungeon Walker pointed me towards the right wall of the cave I was currently in. When I approached it somewhat reluctantly, it turned black, and the same pale blue pattern like before appeared on it. Could this be a shortcut to the starting area? Let's see for ourselves, shall we?

I walked through the wall, and sure enough, I ended up going back to where I started, a dimly lit cavern with a wall-portal serving as the doorway inside the Labyrinth. As soon as I exited this newly formed doorway, it closed behind me and returned to being just an ordinary wall. I see, so that's how it works.

So to cut the long story short, Dungeon Walker will show me the shortest possible route to any place I have previously visited as long as I remember it and can picture it clearly in my head. I could be pretty useful on the surface as well, but I think that this Skill's usage is restricted only to the inside of the Labyrinth and other kind of Dungeons, hence the name Dungeon Walker. Category-wise, I wonder if it is closer to walking magic or perhaps map magic? Are such magics even exist in here? I don't know, so I just make those names up on the spot for my own convenience. And while we're still on the subject of walking around and wall-portals, I walked through the same one earlier, when I entered the forest outside of the Labyrinth after that one Party. What was up with that, exactly?

「Dungeon Walker.」

I chanted the name of the Skill again after visualizing a portal at the edge of the forest in my head. The wall in front of me has indeed turned black and the symbol has appeared on it, but I wasn't able to go through it no matter how hard I tried. So it can point me to a place outside of the Labyrinth, but it won't allow me to use the passage to go there? Looks like I'd have to get a separate Skill if I wanted to use that kind of magic in the world outside of the dungeons. Kind of a bummer, but at least now I know that I won't have to worry about mapping the entire area and getting lost in here.

「Dungeon Walker.」

I recast my Skill to go back to where I have come from and approach the newly formed black portal in the wall… but I couldn't go through it at all. Another failure? But why? I thought I did everything exactly as I should! A shortage of some kind? No, that can't be it, because the black portal appeared. Could it be that the places that I can go to are limited to the Labyrinth entrance or places with doorways? If that's the case, then I guess I have no choice but to walk back on my own without any assist.

On my way back through the corridors, I noticed that something was wandering behind me. It was a small monster that looked like a hybrid of a human with a plant. I was rather small and quite thin. I wonder if my current power will be enough to defeat it? I brandished Durandal from my waist, gripped it tightly with both my hands and rushed towards the monster.

「OVERWHELMING!!!」

I placed my whole battle spirit in that shout and swung my weapon down, slashing the monster downward from its left shoulder. It fell to the ground immediately and didn't stand back up.

Alright! Still managed to dispose of him with a single blow!

I must've looked pretty cool right now, right? I bet that if somebody saw my greatness just now, they'd want me to join their Party right then and there. If Overwhelming is so OP, then I might as well make it my personal secret ultimate technique. Heh, I can probably kill the strongest of monsters with such a move. As long as I have Durandal and the Hero's Job, I feel like I might be invincible! And who knows? Maybe once I'll find a way to actually level that Job up, maybe I'll get my hands on even more powerful abilities… yeah right. That attack just now was not due to a Skill. It was a simple blow from Durandal. Overwhelming didn't activate at all. I shouted the Skill's name, but nothing happened and nothing's changed when I did so.

What the hell is wrong with this damn Skill? Is it useless? Bugged? Broken? No, I refuse to accept that that's it!

I used Identify on myself and checked that one bar under my HP which, as I assumed earlier showed the energy required to cast Spells and Skills, essentially my MP bar. Only ¼ of it remained. The rest was drained. 1/4th, huh? That's very low. That must also be the reason why Overwhelming failed to activate properly. I simply didn't have enough points left to use it. My first guess was that I still couldn't use the Skill, but I got it together with the Hero Job, so it should technically be possible for me to use that Skill even when the level of its corresponding Job was still just 1. *Sigh* this is my second failure at using a Skill in a span of like what, 15 minutes? Therefore not having enough energy was the only plausible explanation as to why I was unable to use it.

But then, what is at fault here? My excessive usage of Dungeon Walker? Yeah, that has to be it. I must've simply used it too many times which drained all of my energy down to such a pathetic level. But I was convinced that it was going to be more of a Passive Skill, the one which provides the user with benefits at all times without any actual cost of its usage! Was I wrong to think that? Does Dungeon Walker has to be activated at the cost of expending energy points, just like any other Active Skill? That must really be how it is. I mean, if you think about it carefully, there is no such thing as Passive Skills with active effects that can be turned on and off. Passive Skills are Passive Skills precisely because once acquired, they stay active all the time. But Active Skills, on the other hand, could have the additional, passive effects to them. So yeah, I think that settles it. Dungeon Walker is actually an Active Skill with a passive effect, and that's the end of that story.

Anyway, the monster I have just defeated disappeared in a cloud of green smoke. After he was gone, the only thing remaining after him were the small branches, like the ones you often see on the trees in the spring. Identify told me that it was a Needlewood Branch, a drop item from the enemy I just killed, the Needlewood. Come to think of it, the Explorer Who talked to that Party I tailed did mention something about the first floor of the Labyrinth being taken by Needlewoods, and the second one was the domain of… Green Caterpillars, if I remember correctly. I tried putting the dropped branches into the Item Box, but for some reason they got rejected. Hey now, so you're telling me that putting a giant-ass Scimitar in there is okay but a few twigs are a no-go? *Groan* Okay, fine, if you're going to be so anal about it, then I'll just place the damn thing in my backpack. There, happy now? Great. Now that that's done, let's move to the next prey who's clearly aching to be slaughtered.

Along the way, I checked Durandal's Skills and saw that it also has a Skill called Absorption, meaning that with each enemy killed I should recover either a portion of my health or the energy necessary to cast other Skills. I have no way of knowing if I did recover some health because that Needlewood earlier didn't even graze me, but it look like I did recover some energy. Maybe I should go and kill some more enemies just to confirm it? Yeah, that is what we're going to do.

The next Needlewood rushed me from afar and twisted its wooden body in an attempt to slam into me and slash me with its branches, but my own attack was still faster. Just like the one before him, he ended up being one-shotted, this time by a slash which followed from the right shoulder to its left side. It disappeared, dropped the items, I collected them and moved forward, prepared for quite a lot of grinding to be done.