Chapter 4

The dungeon felt like a swamp for me, the air was incredibly moist as if this whole place was on the verge of experiencing a thunderous tempest with enough rain to flood a few cities, but surprisingly enough, nobody seemed affected or to even notice it.

In fact, I felt it was weird for a place to have such moisture in the air while being so dry on the rocky surface.

Walking for a few minutes, I finally faced my first enemy.

He was small with a slightly humanoid body covered in fur and the head of a dog, not any specific breed of dog I know, it was more like a mixture of the most standard dogs you could possibly think of as long as they had anger issues...

"Gwagga!" The creature cried and lunged at me with the small club it held in its hand.

The attack was surprisingly fast for such a short creature, in but a moment it had crossed five meters without me knowing and was already at arm's reach while swinging its weapon.

No! It's too fast!

In my panic, the instincts cultivated in my body kicked in and I subconsciously moved my short sword to deflect the attack.

The Kobolds this body had faced before were at least three or four times weaker than this one. They couldn't move so fast, nor strike with such power that simply defending made one's arm numb.

The monster with its eyes devoid of any feeling or human emotions opened its mouth and tried to bite my hand but I managed to pull back in time. I swung my sword and went for an uppercut. The sword went down in an arc leaving behind the illusion of a trail of light because of the light coming from the ceiling.

The Kobold lowered his head just in time, narrowly avoiding the swinging sword.

I got distracted by the creature's movements and couldn't react in time as it swung its club at my feet.

"Aaaaagh!" A loud cry escaped my mouth as my leg went numb and I dropped to my knee.

Fear gripped my heart as I had a premonition, for a moment I thought I could see my death.

I had barely entered the dungeon and was already being thrown around like a toy.

I can't understand...

Zelena told me how in the past warriors of the human race used to storm the dungeon without the aid of the gods and somehow suppress it. Sure, the spirits had a part in this matter, but they weren't many, to begin with, because one needed affinity with the spirits in order to summon one.

That's right, summon. Spirits existed in many and not just this world, through ritual magic, something that is mostly lost at this point in time, an individual with exceptional affinity to spiritual energy could overcome the barrier between worlds to call upon the help of a spirit. Or so they believed it to be like that, either way, only a handful of individuals were blessed enough to be even able to make a covenant with a spirit, so most of the army was composed of normal men.

I felt pathetic. The moment I hit the ground the Kobold will have enough time to strike me down and it's just my first encounter in the dungeon. How could I accept that when my human ancestors went down here to hunt those beasts every day without help?

Clenching my teeth, I forced my body to ignore my instincts and raised the hand holding the sword in a swipe movement from left to right.

The blade coming downwards moved at an angle that the underdeveloped eyes of the Kobold couldn't see, a blindspot. Before he could notice it, a sharp red line had already appeared alongside the contour of his mouth and head.

Just as I hit the ground, the creature fell on its back with blood splurting from its head.

I almost forgot about the pain after defeating the monster by accident.

Turns out that the Kobold had a blind spot in the area below their neck area. If I didn't strike while falling down, I would never be able to exploit that weakness... Maybe those pallums and dwarves have an advantage in the upper levels...

Taking a deep sigh, I sat with my back leaning on the Dungeon walls and took deep breaths as I waited for the pain in my leg to subside.

Maybe it was the adrenaline disappearing or something else, but my body started shaking a little bit after I rested a bit.

If I had to describe my first battle in the Dungeon, I'd say it was terrifying. The monster was far stronger compared to whatever my memories told me. This was already surprising enough, but when I think back on the situation, I can't help but notice that it also had a weapon with it. This type of monster shouldn't have it so...

A thought struck my mind as I turned to look at the creature and sure enough, there was blood around its claws and... is that someone's skin under its fingernails?

My eyes became red at the realization of something I had neglected. The Dungeon wasn't a game, people died here all year round, and that Kobold definitely had something to do with the death of an adventurer. Unfortunately, there's no way to know who it killed as there wasn't any clue of that person's identity on it.

Steeling my nerves, I stand up after five minutes of rest and walked towards it.

Like I said before, my weapon is a short sword. It was one of the standard pieces of equipment issued by the Guild that an adventurer could use for free upon registering. Of course, it was a one-time thing, if it was broken or lost, I'd have to buy a new one using my own money.

It was an efficient weapon without any type of decoration, the blacksmith was clearly making it the most cost-effective equipment possible. The silvery-white blade was a double-edged one, the cross guard was the type that curved upwards and it had the standard round-shaped pommel with a black leather grip. It was a 50 cm long blade with a pointy end, quite short, and could barely be qualified as a proper sword given its size.

There were no carvings on the sword's handle, but I wasn't bothered by the aesthetics of my equipment. So long as they worked as intended, it would be fine.

Gripping it tightly, I pierced the beast in the area right above its belly and a few centimeters below the center of the chest. A push and a flick like a lever were enough to make the stone-like shard on its chest pierce the skin and make itself visible.

The magic stone was the hard currency in this world. It had magical properties and could be used for many things. But in essence, it was actually just solidified magic fuel.

No one knew any other source for this kind of thing besides the monsters, all of them had it, and the moment you took them out...

The Kobold started withering like a flower without water, all of its vitality disappearing the moment the stone shard was taken out.

It was honestly disgusting and made one wonder... well, it made me wonder if the energy inside the stone was actually just vital energy, like the energy of life itself.

The shard the size of a fingernail you could find on the upper floors could be exchanged for 20 to 30 Valis each according to Zelena. If I wanted to make a good amount of money, like 3 thousand or so, I would need to kill at least 150 of them in a single day.

You might think it's a lot of kills, but given how many adventurers there are on the upper floors, I'd say at least hundreds of thousands of them die every week.

Such staggering numbers...

I sighed in admiration and put those thoughts in the back of my head. If I wanted to become someone, I had to become strong enough to kill those beasts without much worry!