Novel Drunk Dungeon

Chapter 18: Gut Feeling

Spoiler

In the second room of the dungeon, I didn’t even bother to hold up my shield. I lifted up my dagger and held it out in front of me while positioning my left leg back a bit so my body was facing the insect from the side. This was a method of making me a smaller target or something like that so it’d be forced to go towards my dagger. Or so I was told by Matt a few days ago.

He was very interested in learning how to properly fight as he felt that the dungeon could be cleared easier through a combination of good weapons and even better skills at using them. Which made sense since I had some pretty good items but ended up near death simply because I didn’t know how to use them properly. I should have spent more time on the relatively safer first six rooms learning how to use my weapons properly granted the enemies aren’t too hard.

Thankfully, these insects, unlike the bird, would fly straight towards me, and didn’t have any sort of special ability like that bat creature. As soon as it closed in, I swung the dagger at it and it tried to dodge, but it got nicked by the tip of the blade, or perhaps it was something like the fire sword where it doesn’t have to directly touch the enemy to harm it. Whatever it was, the bug fell onto the ground and instead of stomping on it, I looked towards the entrance to the next room and found it open.

The next few rooms went the same way, other than a mistake in the fourth one where I missed completely. However, it had no chance to attack me and I killed it on my second swing. There wasn’t much of a difference between standing normally and standing with my side facing forward. I kept at it anyway as I never knew if I’d miss again and it’d get the chance to strike.

After beating the sixth room, I moved onto the seventh without much thought. This trip into the dungeon was mainly to spite the knight order and there wasn’t any particular goal. Since I managed to find a dungeon I could handle fairly well, I decided to go as far as possible, or at least until a point where I wasn’t comfortable with going further. Reaching the break room would be nice as I had finished off the keg of ale a while ago and it’d be nice to have a good draught.

Room seven was the same as it always was, a sudden jump in room size and two monsters. They decided to fly at me one on one, with one of them waiting in place with the other charging. This made it easier to fight, but it meant the second one would probably be harder to fight as it would watch and learn from my fight with the first. As expected, I dispatched the first one and then looked towards the other.

It acted exactly like the first, going straight towards me. I tried slicing it with my dagger while lifting up my shield, expecting something to happen that would make my strategy fail. Instead, it dropped to the ground dead just like that. To my shock, there was no change in their method even though it failed. Even more, its dead body collapsed upon itself and turned into an ore. That was just stupid.

If this behavior continued onto later floors, it’d be the equivalent of wheat grinding there as they’d come one by one, doing the same thing and dying. Which wasn’t anything to complain about. For some reason, the fact that nothing new happened almost disappointed me. Which was baffling that I would prefer something to happen that could potentially harm me. Then again, if I got harmed, I could easily borrow the divine item from Jerry and heal myself.

Borrowing the divine item so soon after giving it to Jerry would just be unfair to him. My new goal was to avoid being injured to the point where I would need the necklace to recover. At the same time, I wouldn’t give up on taking risks when necessary. So rather than a goal I’d actively seek, it was more of a matter of luck and being cautious.

Room eight and nine went the same way, other than there being no loot dropped. Much to my delight or disappointment, the tenth room went the same way. Three bugs that didn’t learn and came at me one by one and died just the same. Surely at some point, things would change.

The twelfth room finally presented a change in the bug's behavior with four of them in the room at once. Two of the bugs latched onto each other, the head of one of them latching onto the tail of the other. Then one of the other two bugs came at me. Distracted by the unusual combined bug thingy, I almost missed the bug coming at me. Nonetheless, I killed it and the next insect as well, leaving me in the room with just the two insects that had combined.

Despite their odd behavior, they still came at me as usual. When they closed in on me, I decided to just treat it as if it was only one of them and swung my dagger, only to miss completely as it stopped two arms lengths from me. Before I had the time to lift my shield or try getting closer to swing again and hit, it swung its tail towards me, followed by the other insect whose tail pierced into my chest.

This was bad news. No pain, just pressure and a feeling of panic set into me. In an instant, I reacted by cutting off the tail of the insect stabbing into me. It instantly died and stopped moving its wings, dragging the other insect down to the ground where I stomped on it. All of the monsters were dead but I had some sort of stinger stuck in my body. Who knew what it would do if it stayed inside me.

My hand gripped it and tugged, sending intense pain throughout my body while it refused to budge. It was in there good. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t leave it inside me. The healing can’t help with something like this. Perhaps it’d prevent me from dying to any poison or stop the wound from getting infected. As for pushing it out of me, or keeping it from harming me further if I so much as move funny, my shield could do nothing.

There was no other option but to cut it out. I reached for the dagger and pulled it close to my chest. Then I remembered how much damage it did from just tiny scratches and nicks on enemies. My fire sword was no good either as it constantly spewed black smoke whenever I pulled it out. Better than flames but who knew what that smoke would do to my wound. The spear would have to do.

I held the tip of the spear close to my chest and my hands started shaking. Throughout my life I had been cut and hurt hundreds of times, even losing an arm, yet I couldn’t bring myself to cut into my own body like that. There was just something unnerving about it. Fears that I would slip and hurt myself more than necessary and there was this increased sensitivity when I knew what would happen. My chest hurt just thinking about the spear’s edge. Which could also be attributed to the stinger lodged in there, but still.

Ten minutes passed of me sitting down trying to hype myself up. My body was covered in sweat and both my arms were shaking violently. This was all from stress as much as it seemed like it was poison from the stinger. Heck, if the stinger was poisoned things would be easier as it would become a life and death situation where I couldn’t come up with excuses as to why I shouldn’t do it. The last time I was like this was years and years ago, but still in the dungeon.

Since I couldn’t do it, I stopped trying and decided to move on. I continued onto room thirteen because I was confident that I could match the bug now that I knew its gimmick. The necklace from Jerry wouldn’t help with this stinger at all, so there wasn’t much of a reason to return to the surface. Going to the surface was still the better option as someone could help me with the stinger, but I wasn’t thinking straight.

The next room was a rest area. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On one hand, it was nice to find it as I could eat and get a drink. On the other, I was looking forward to facing the insect’s strategy again and countering it somehow and had mentally set the rest area as the time to leave the dungeon if I reached it.

In the middle of the room was a familiar bottle, wine, the very wine that the jewelry merchant had shared with him, but in a larger bottle. The bottle that the merchant had was only big enough for three to four mugfuls. This bottle was enough for seven to eight, double the size. I recognized what it was by its label but was confused about its size in comparison to the original. This was the first time I was having a drink that I first drank just recently so perhaps the sizes were always off from what I actually drunk and just didn’t notice. It seemed like only the taste and alcohol content was replicated while the container was simply similar.

Now that I thought about it, how could the dungeon find this information and replicate it so accurately? It was scary to think about how far the dungeon’s reach was beyond these rooms and entrances. Or was it pulling this information from my memories and desires somehow? Both options were terrifying.

With a stinger in my chest down here and nine knights on the surface intent on screwing me, I needed a drink desperately and happily popped the cork and started chugging down the wine. Barely any of the taste stayed in my mouth at that rate but the heat and kick were ever present. It warmed my insides and I couldn’t help but shake my head a few times in reaction to the aftertaste.

A few moments passed with me sitting there as the alcohol set in and gave me a pleasant buzz. All my worries washed away. Other than the stinger in my stomach, all was well in the world in this small bubble called room thirteen. If this was even in my world still and not a separate one.

Eventually, I grabbed my spear and brought it up to the stinger. I still didn’t want to do it but it was easier to bring it closer and my hands didn’t shake. Soon enough a small cut was made just below the stinger that drew blood. Every last hair on my body stood on end when I did that. Progress was made and it encouraged me to go on. With another mouthful of wine, I cut into my own body at the base of the stinger and cried out in pain.

As a grown man I was expected to hold it in or just grunt. No one was around so I just let it all out, swearing like a sailor while crying like a baby. I had to cut deep as it was half a finger’s length in and even when I got the blade underneath it, it refused to come out, getting caught on the sides. Left with no other choice, I made more cuts at different ends around the stinger and had to cut it out with a chunk of my flesh attached to it.

Finally out of my body, I got a good look at this damnable thing and saw needles sticking out of the sides of it that curved upward. It was barbed like a fishing hook. The damn thing was designed to be hard to pull out even if the insect was dead and separated from it. Blood started to pour out of the hole in my chest and made me start to feel weak.

I tore some more cloth from my pants and dumped some of the wine onto it to make up for the fact it wasn’t too clean then pressed it against the wound. The alcohol burned and the wound throbbed. It felt even worse than the time my arm was chopped off. Tears streamed down my face freely and snot dripped from my nose. Such an injury would heal with the shield’s assistance but it was an experience I would never want to repeat.

About twenty more minutes passed until I finally let off with the pressure and found the cloth stuck to me. Which was probably a good thing for now as I had to get up and move, so having something to cover the wound was nice, especially if it reopened from the movement. And as soon as I tried getting up, my legs gave out. The pain was instant and vicious, stopping me from doing anything.

It took a few more mouthfuls of wine and ten minutes of coaxing myself until I managed to get up. Then another ten minutes after I leaned over to pick up the cork for the wine bottle and the bowl of miscellaneous food. Then I finally started heading back towards the entrance. All I wanted to do was make it to the surface and go to sleep. There was no way I was going to fight further with this wound.

The only thing I had to be thankful for was the fact that the stinger didn’t hit any organs or major veins and arteries. Just muscle and fat were affected by it and the procedure to remove it. As I moved through the dungeon, every step stretched my skin and flesh around the wound, irritating it. Before long, I was limping, favoring the right side of my body as that didn’t hurt the wound as much.

A little over an hour had passed since I entered the dungeon, but thankfully that wasn’t long enough to make any new monsters to pop up. However, with the mechanics behind fishing, I knew that I couldn’t linger and had to keep going through each of the twelve rooms without resting. It was easy to start resting with a wound like this and hard to stop. Fifteen minutes could pass in what felt like seconds if I so much as sat down or leaned against the wall for too long.

It was so much of a relief as I exited the dungeon and started heading towards town. None of the others were there and that was just fine to me. I didn’t feel like talking with anyone. Sleep was the main thing on my mind. It was hard to keep going and keep my eyes open as limped towards Tom’s bar. Not even ten steps later, I was forced to stop and shake off some of my fatigue.

A plume of smoke rose from behind the treeline, towards the outskirts of town, very close to here. It gave me a bad feeling as so much smoke could only mean one thing, a fire. Redirecting towards where the smoke was coming from, I walked through the treeline slowly with a sinking feeling in my gut even worse than the hole there.

On the other side of the treeline was a massive bonfire where a building once stood. Near the flames were a few people. Jerry and Matt sat on the ground a ways away from the fire. They just stared into the flames with blank looks on their face. Chris and Stephen were likely still in the dungeon and didn’t know.

Barn, headquarters, or whatever it used to be was now a glorified campfire. They burned it down. The place where I had lived for a week and the others had called home for far longer. The knights of Mans Tontrau warned us that they would do this if we entered the dungeon and we had brushed their words off as nonsense, or empty words. This was them backing their words and making their statement literal.

My wound seemed minor in comparison to this and I couldn’t even bring myself to go up to them, to try and comfort or reassure them. In a way, this had been my fault as my divine and the forming of this order lead to this situation. If I hadn’t formed it as a way to test Jerry, this would have never happened. Or at least, they would have focused solely on me and I might’ve been able to handle it better.

There was nothing more I could do. Of all my equipment, I could only make the flames worse with the fire sword and there weren’t enough people to carrying buckets from the river to put it out. If it was closer to town, the risk of the flames spreading would bring the entire town to our aid. However, with it being on the outskirts, it was just more convenient to let it burn. Even if it was put out, it had burned for so long already that nothing could be salvaged from it.

I limped away, back towards Tom’s bar which was thankfully unscathed. None of the knights were at the bar so I limped up the stairs and went to my room. Then immediately shut the curtains, hoping that would make it harder to tell I was there or that it would offer some form of protection. If not for the wound, I might have gone out of the way to try and blockade the window.

The rest of the day was spent by nibbling away at the food bowl and sipping a bit of wine until sleep took me far away from reality. Not far enough as the day’s events ran through my mind as soon as my eyes closed.

 

Chapter 19: Leaving Town

Spoiler

For the first time in what seemed like forever, I woke up with a raging headache and hangover. The shield offered no relief from this pain, probably because it was focused on the wound on my stomach. I should have asked Jerry for the necklace before I came here and passed out. To relieve the pain, I found the bottle of wine on the side of my bed and gave it a quick swig. Nothing like the burn of good alcohol to help with a hangover and it actually made me feel better.

Every other time I had tried this advice to drink when hungover to feel better, it had always made me feel worse. Never stopped me from trying and finally, it did some good. There was also some food leftover in the bowl that I ate to help myself wake up and fill my stomach. With that all done, it was time to start the day and I lifted myself up only to feel my entire body recoil.

Rather than pain, it was more like being sore and having a cramp in the same spot. It took me a few minutes just to let the pain pass and then I finally got up and walked towards the door, bringing the wine with me. I would need it to get through this day, a lot of it.

Once I managed to drag myself downstairs, Tom came up to me and wrapped my arm around his neck, half carrying half dragging me to the counter, which was once again trashed. A large helping of food was placed in front of my face. I had already eaten but the smell of hot food got to me and I started eating. After all, I didn’t have to eat it all and any leftovers would be put into the pot for dinner.

Where was the pot anyway? It was usually right behind the counter for Tom’s convenience when he tossed any leftovers in it. I looked around a bit and found it lying on its side in the back corner with two holes in it, likely caused by a sword or ax stabbing into it. Those bastards messed with Tom again.

“Let me see your wound. I know you’re hurt. You limped in here last night and had a hard time coming down the stairs this morning. Whether or not you can heal an arm doesn’t make the wound any less serious in my eyes,” said Tom while wiping the counter slowly. The entire counter was filthy and the rag wasn’t helping too much.

I wanted to say that it was nothing or that it was fine but decided to just lift up my shirt and show the wound. It was fairly serious without the necklace and Tom was seriously worried. The piece of cloth that I placed against it was still stuck there and drenched with red, either from blood or the wine, or a combination of the two. Then again, blood turns brownish after aging a bit, so this was probably from the wine. To test it I wiped my finger on it, sniffed it, and then licked it to be sure and it indeed did taste like wine, but a bit saltier than usual.

Tom was confused about what I did and then looked at the wound closely and even had me peel back the rags to reveal the hole beneath. He let out a sigh of relief after taking a look at the wound. It was deep but not that serious and already starting to heal and close up. The most annoying part is that it was very wide as I had to cut so much around to get the damn stinger out.

“I thought that this new knight order had put a blade into you, but this is more of a maim or injury from the dungeon, am I right?” asked Tom. So the reason why he was so set on seeing the wound is because he thought it was very deep or hit a vital and was caused by the knights.

“Yes, I got hit by an attack that got stuck in me like an arrow that I had to cut out as it couldn’t be pulled out. I’ll be all right in a few days. I’m just limping because it strains the area around the wound less,” I said to Tom honestly to get him to stop worrying about it.

“Jerry came over earlier this morning and said to meet up at Matt’s family house when you get up. I saw what happened to the barn and I wish I could have helped. Seemed urgent so you should get over there soon, but don’t strain yourself. Jeff was also looking for you and is apparently leaving town. Which is a pity as it was a boon to the town not having to buy new tools every time something broke and not having to travel all the way to the city with his blacksmith shop here,” said Tom.

The thing with Jerry was probably about the barn or headquarters burning down and what to do next. So, I pushed that back in my priorities and focused on Jeff leaving town. It was a move to avoid the knight order and save himself from continued harassment. A move I might just have to do myself. I decided it would be best to visit Jeff first then go over to Matt’s family to see the others, but first I had one last thing to say to Tom.

“Would you blame me if I left town as well? The knight order is here because of me and yet I want to run away and leave you and everyone else in town to deal with this mess. And it won’t end just like that if I go,” I explained the full truth of the situation to Tom to see his reaction.

“I would prefer if you paid your debts before leaving town. However, I wouldn’t blame you one bit. After all, what could you even do if you stayed? Don’t blame yourself for anything that happens. Also, keep that dagger of yours hidden, some people might take offense to it,” said Tom. Since I had pulled up my shirt, he had seen the dark dagger I usually kept hidden. However, it was fine since it was Tom.

In response to his statement about the debts, I pulled out all the silver coins I had on me and the ore I fetched from the dungeon and placed it in front of Tom. As I didn’t fully know the value of the ore, I wasn’t sure if it paid the whole debt, but it was all that had. By paying off the debt at this moment, or a good part of it, it was the same as saying I would be leaving town. I’d like to think that the decision wasn’t set in stone as I hadn’t consulted the others yet, but I knew what they would say.

As Tom said, what could we do by staying. Staying or leaving changed nothing. The knights would trash the town while injuring or killing anyone who resisted and we couldn’t stop them. They went as far as arson when we defied their words. If we left town, there might not be any town by the time we come back. Just like how there was no home when we got back from the dungeon.

I walked out of the bar and headed towards Jeff’s blacksmith shop. Hopefully, he hadn’t left yet so I could talk with him about his decision. Maybe his reason for leaving could reassure me in some way that it was the right thing to do. When I reached the shop, I found it completely barren. The doors and windows were all wide open while the shelves and walls were cleaned out. It was jarring to see it so empty and cold. How had he cleaned it out so quickly?

A hand landed on my shoulder while I was staring at the shop. Jeff’s hand, blackened by coal and coated in layers of callous, was pulling me away from the shop and to a carriage. This carriage was completely loaded with everything from the blacksmith shop. He really was leaving and was ready to go anytime. The only reason he hadn’t was that he wanted to talk with me first.

“I’m leaving. I’m a smith, not a fighter. The town is in your hands now,” said Jeff, intending to push all the responsibility of stopping the knights to me. Yet, I couldn’t do it either and he should know that.

“I might be leaving as well, Jeff. While I’m a fighter, this isn’t a fight that I can win nor one I truly want to start,” I said to him. He seemed taken aback by this and looked at the ground for a few moments.

“A temporary retreat to prepare for a proper fight in the future. I have every confidence that this town will be saved one day by your hands,” said Jeff as he climbed into the carriage and got the horses going.

His carriage rode off away from town, towards the South. He had far more confidence in me than I had. Of course, if I had the strength to face these knights I would, but that would take years of hard work to achieve. They had nine well armed and trained members with who knew how many enchanted and divine items on their person. To fight them, we’d need at least nine of our own, possibly more since their god probably granted them offensive options on their divine items. Double or triple their numbers and just as well armed or more armed should work.

Perhaps in the city, we could find the necessary numbers and build towards the equipment necessary to fend these knights off. Like Jeff said, this was a temporary retreat, not a full surrender. Then again, it’d be nice if these knights had already moved on by the time we mustered enough forces to fight them. Moved on without destroying the town or hurting anyone of course.

The family home that Matt moved into after he got kicked out of the headquarters wasn’t too far off. It was towards the outskirts of the town and was surrounded by steadily growing fields of crop. The residents here were farmers and if not for becoming an adventurer, Matt may have become a farmer himself. At this point, it seemed like he’d have to go back to being a farmer if he decided not to leave town.

Just outside of the front door of the house was a puddle of blood. The knights couldn’t have killed them. There was no way they could justify cutting down some innocent farmers. Was this why Jerry wanted me to come here, to see what had happened? Or was I overthinking things and no one actually died?

I pushed through the door and found Jerry, Chris, Matt, a whole group of people I didn’t recognize, and Stephen in a pool of his own blood all huddled together in the middle of the room. Stephen was missing a limb, his left leg and was currently wearing the necklace I had given Jerry.

“Thank goodness you’re here. Quick give Stephen the shield so his leg can regrow,” said Jerry.

While I disliked Stephen, I didn’t wish for death or disability upon him and obediently passed over the shield. Immediately, I felt an ache in my stomach and sat down while lifting up my shirt in a way that showed the hole but didn’t reveal the dagger. Blood started flowing from the wound again, so I pulled out the wine and tore off a rag, once again pressing against the wound with a wine-soaked rag to try and stem the bleeding while keeping things clean.

The others panicked seeing me in this situation and Jerry even tried passing the shield back to me. I refused it as Stephen honestly needed it more than me at the moment. With that out of the way, ten people at once tried explaining the situation to me and it was a pain to understand it all. Basically, after Stephen found out about the barn burning down he came after the knights and tried attacking them. In response, they chopped off his leg and taunted him about how he would bleed out and no one could help him.

Thankfully, Jerry had heard the commotion because he followed Stephen when he stormed off, hoping to stop him from doing anything stupid. He failed to do so but managed to keep Stephen from dying to his wounds. Then he dragged Stephen back towards the burning headquarters where Matt offered to bring him back here to get him treated. Meanwhile, Chris finally made it out of the dungeon and helped out.

Once Stephen was safely here, Jerry went to Tom’s bar to see if I had come back and found out that I had made it back and passed out. Rather than waking me, he decided it was best to just leave a message for the morning and was just happy I didn’t die in the dungeon. He probably would’ve reacted badly if he knew that I saw him at the burning headquarters and purposely avoided them. On the other hand, if I saw them dragging a bloodied Stephen, I would have stepped in to help no matter how tired or injured I was.

Stephen was one of the knights in our makeshift order, one of my allies or subordinates or what not. It was my duty to make sure that he was okay and accomplished that job for now by giving up the shield. He owed me for that and would surely pay it back since he was now forced to be a follower of Sanae Patil to heal his leg.

“We need to leave town,” said Chris, being the first one to bring up the inevitable.

“How can we leave with both the captain and Stephen injured?” asked Matt.

“Chris is right. We need to leave before anyone else ends up like Stephen. Then there’s also that,” said Jerry.

“That? What is that?” I asked Jerry, confused about what he was talking about. Was there another reason to leave that popped up since we last talked?

“It’ll bring us nothing but trouble. We should just get rid of it. Maybe even give it over to them in exchange for them leaving us alone,” said Matt. Was it something related to the knight order, something valuable, or something else?

Jerry pulled out something from his pocket, it was a bracelet with a divine sheen to it and a symbol upon it. The symbol was Mans Tontrau’s symbol. It was something that those knights would stop at nothing to get if they knew about it. Perhaps they already knew about it before we even got it and this was the entire reason that they came here. That or Stephen managed to swipe it during the fight when he got his leg chopped off somehow.

“Shut up Matt. We can trade this away for another divine artifact of Sanae Patil or a decent sum of cash. In fact, it might even buy us multiple divine artifacts. It’ll find its way into their hands, but if we sell it we can at least have something in return and sleep easy knowing they’d get fleeced out of a small fortune to get it. If we just pass it over to them, we won’t get anything from it,” said Chris. This made a lot of sense. There’d be plenty of merchants in the city and a ton of various divine items to sift through. There would be one or two Sanae Patil ones for sure.

“Alright fine, but can I hold onto it? I want to make sure it’s safe by my own hands since I was the one to find it. It’s my first major loot from the dungeon,” said Matt, revealing where it came from.

“No, the captain or vice-captain need to keep a hold of it. We wouldn’t want someone accidentally putting it on, do we?” asked Chris while glaring at Matt.

Chris was implying that Matt wanted to defect to Mans Tontrau. It was suspicious how eager he was to just pass on the bracelet or to hold onto it.

“I’ll hold onto it for now. Chris is partially right as I’m a believer of Sanae Patil I cannot wear the bracelet. It’s best for me or the captain to hold onto it. However, once we trade it in for the right kind of divine item, Matt will be the one to get it after we use it to help speed up Stephen’s healing. He earned it,” said Jerry, mediating the situation surprisingly well.

Matt seemed a bit dissatisfied with the results but had no choice but to accept it. And it seemed like we had all decided to leave. After all, we’d have to go to the city to trade in the divine item. We’ve established that we wanted to trade it in and skirted around the entire conversation about whether or not to go.

“We can’t wait the full week or so for Stephen’s leg to heal so we have to go fairly soon. Preferably this afternoon to minimize the chances of us bumping into the knights. The only reason we aren’t leaving now is because of the captain’s bleeding and the fact that none of us have eaten a proper meal nor slept properly. Let’s all eat and take a short nap to get our strength back,” said Jerry. I was the only one who had gotten a good night’s sleep and food I suppose. Then again, I needed plenty of booze to do that.

While the others started to eat or take naps, I sat there keeping pressure on the wound while Matt’s family went around helping everyone out. They replaced my rags with something cleaner with a poultice to help with the healing process and offered me some food that I refused. Since the new bandage went around my entire chest, I didn’t have to keep pressure anymore and was able to rest. It took some effort to make sure they wouldn't see the dagger when they helped put it on. Before long, I started to rest my eyes and passed out for a time.

 

Chapter 20: Departure

Spoiler

I woke up after being gently shaken by one of Matt’s family members. They were really nice people who treated us like family in this harsh time. If only we could stay here and protect people like this and the rest of the town from the knights. The only one with the guts or temper to do anything was Stephen and he got his leg chopped off for it.

Which begged the question of why they would only cut off his leg? Wasn’t this the knight order that had destroyed the past knight order of Sanae Patil? At least, that’s what they claimed to have done. Surely if there was a full-scale knight order, they would’ve had far more divine items than us and demonstrated the full prowess of the divine items, regrowing extreme wounds in a short period of time.

As much as I wanted to know why, it wasn’t important at this moment and it was better that Stephen had survived rather than them making sure the job was done. I dragged myself off the ground and per the directions of Matt’s family, went outside to find a wagon with a donkey pulling it. It was a far cry from Jeff’s horse-drawn carriage but it was best we could scrape together with such short notice.

Most of the space in the wagon was taken up by Stephen and the luggage, from food supplies to whatever weapons and personal belongings we had left. Jerry and Chris sat in the front area, with Chris steering the donkey and Jerry continuing to rest. Meanwhile, Matt and I had to walk. There simply wasn’t enough space for us to get on the wagon comfortably and there was only one donkey pulling it so the weight was already beyond the donkey’s comfort. I didn’t mind too much as the wagon went down the road at a leisurely pace, but Matt was annoyed and kept complaining every ten minutes.

We headed North, towards the closest city. Its name was Somum Nov and was almost as big as the capital due to its location and the trade routes going through it. The trip would take us about two days if we kept going at a good pace. Hours and hours of constant grueling walking for me and Matt. Which was a bit of an exaggeration as we’d be swapping out with Jerry and Chris eventually.

The roads were hard and flat, the dirt below was beaten down by generations of feet and carriages passing over it, with the occasional rainfall to flatten and smooth things out. It felt good against my bare feet but would feel like sandpaper grinding against me after a few hours. A trip to the city wasn’t complete without a new layer of callus and blisters on the feet.

After the wagon hit the rare bump in the road and nearly threw Jerry off, he decided it was time to get up and walk with us, leaving an empty spot on the wagon. Matt surprisingly didn’t take it and motioned towards me while pointing at my wound. Despite all his complaining, he’d rather continue walking than have me while I’m wounded. That action alone improved my opinion of him as I hopped onto the wagon next to Chris.

“Want me to take the reins, Chris? I’m not tired and you can take this chance to nod off for a bit,” I said.

“No need, I actually enjoy stuff like this. I could ride a wild horse unsaddled if I so wished,” said Chris while tugging on the reins to get the donkey moving again. Matt and Jerry trudged along, just a hair slower than the wagon.

“That’s quite the skill. Why did you become an adventurer instead of a stable hand or breeder?” I asked.

“That’s quite simple, money. My older brother inherited the family farm which had plenty of horses and I was left with only a bit of money I stupidly wasted. To get my own plot of land and some good breeds I need cash, lots of it,” said Chris.

“I imagine you’re not too interested in the transition from adventurer to knight order, are you? Just a means to an end,” I said.

“Isn’t that the same for everyone here, even you? Tell you what, I’ll let you know something special,” said Chris while looking back. Behind us was Matt and Jerry chatting and they had fallen back a bit, out of earshot. Meanwhile, Stephen was passed out in the back, making not a bit of noise.

“Jerry was actually one of the people who stole your ale, not Stephen,” said Chris, ratting out his friend in what might have been grand reveal.

“I know. He told me and has made up for it. I suspected as much from the beginning and still formed this knight order with him,” I said.

“Oh, I see. Well, if we’re being honest here I’ll come out as the perpetrator. I was the one who convinced everyone else to steal that ale from you, so if you hold it against anyone, hold it against me,” said Chris. This statement confused me. Not in the way of not understanding why he did it, but more why he told me and whether I should be happy he came out or pissed that he did that.

“That makes no difference to me as I’ve already forgiven all of you. In fact, I’ve actually got a new brew from the dungeon I plan on sharing when we stop for the night,” I said.

“That’ll be nice. I suggest giving Stephen a bigger portion of the brew to help with his pain. Nothing better than getting hammered to forget about injuries, even if it might interfere with the healing a bit,” said Chris. The healing process might have been disturbed if he had been healing naturally, but with the divine items, it would be fine for him. Only I had to watch how much I drank tonight without the shield as a crutch.

After a few hours, Chris stepped down from the wagon and Matt took his place while I held onto the reins. Even later on, I stepped down and Jerry hopped back in and took the reins. Apparently, Matt had no idea how to use them so Jerry helped teach him. No idea why he didn’t ask me while I was there but it couldn’t be helped since he was probably too tired. The only reason why I knew was because of my upbringing back in my old town.

When night finally came, we brought the wagon off the path a bit into a little clearing in the forest and make camp. Camp wasn’t anything special, just some blankets thrown on the ground and a fire to heat up the food. My sword made it easy to light the kindling and we had a raging fire in no time at all. The wagon itself was hidden behind a few trees to make us less of a target for bandits and the donkey was tied to the other side of a tree with some grain to eat.

Our food was some hard loaves of bread and a light vegetable stew. We only had what little food Matt’s family could spare so there was no meat. It was still plenty filling and everyone’s mood perked up when I brought out the wine. With the merry celebrations, we had that night, everything felt more normal and let optimism back into my life. This situation with the knights could be overcome with all of us in good time at the city.

As Chris suggested, I made sure that Stephen had the lion’s share of the drink and he could barely talk by the time he passed out. Jerry and Matt had plenty to drink and passed out cold. I couldn’t drink too much lest I risked a hangover and hampered my healing so I only had one mug, same as Chris. Then I tried to get some sleep. Chris said something about taking the first watch.

In the middle of the night, I woke up from some noise. I opened my eyes a bit and saw Chris walking over to Jerry, guess he was waking him up so he’d take the next watch. Which made sense as he slept a decent portion of the ride to this point. My eyes closed and I tried going back to sleep but my mind remained alert from Chris or maybe Jerry now shuffling about.

Then there was another noise that made me sit up. Stephen was moaning and trying to say something. For some reason, the shield was lying on the ground an arm’s length away from him. He must have dropped it in his sleep and the pain from not having it woke him up. As I got closer to him and pushed the shield back into his hands, he finally made out a word, not a word, a name.

“Chris,” he said weakly while shivering.

Chris? What about Chris? Strangely enough, Chris wasn’t at the camp nor was Jerry awake. Looking around, I still didn’t see him at all. Was he keeping watch in a tree or something? Since he was missing, I decided to go over to Jerry and wake him up. Maybe he had let Jerry know that he was off doing something and Jerry went back to sleep instead of taking over the watch.

“Where’s Chris?” I asked Jerry while shaking him awake. He stared at me in pure confusion as if I had said the strangest thing in the world. It was just as strange to me as I still wasn’t fully awake myself.

A sudden noise made me turn around. The sound of hoofbeats over where the wagon and donkey were tied up. I stopped shaking Jerry and walked over to find the wagon untouched but the donkey gone. Jerry had gotten up and followed me, touching the rope on the tree where the donkey had been kept. It hadn’t been a complicated knot but was cut. Whoever had taken the donkey left in a hurry.

“Where’s the bracelet of Mans Tontrau? Did I pass it over to you at some point?” asked Jerry while patting at his pockets. For the love of the goddess, I hoped he was messing with me or just too drunk to remember. After he had checked every nook and cranny on his person, I realized the worst had happened.

“When did you last check if you had it?” I asked, starting to worry that he had dropped it on the side of the road on the way here.

“Before I went to sleep I felt it in my pocket. I had to move it slightly to sleep more comfortably,” said Jerry. Which rather than relieving me, made things so much worse.

If he had it when he went to sleep then that means that Chris had swiped it while he was sleeping. The bastard waited for us to fall asleep and tried robbing us. He even tried to take the divine items of Sanae Patil from Stephen while he was sleeping. Which is why he made me give him so much wine, so he wouldn’t make a noise while he took them. Thankfully, that part of the plan failed and he left behind the shield in his rush to run. Stephen was warning me that Chris was the thief not that he was missing.

“I think Chris just robbed it and fled on the donkey,” I said to Jerry without explaining my train of thought.

“Don’t be ridiculous. He would never do something like that,” he said while laughing. That laughter turned to crying as he leaned against a tree and sat down. Jerry knew that I was right but didn’t want to believe it, not with all the other shit that had happened to us lately.

The laughter and crying woke up Matt who came over and started asking questions about what was going on, where the donkey was, and where Chris was. Neither Jerry nor I felt like explaining so we told him to go back to sleep and then tried to do so ourselves without much luck. I slept next to Stephen, making sure Chris couldn’t come back and try robbing him again easily.

In the morning, we all woke up in a terrible mood. Stephen was hungover and still reeling from the traumatic experience of one of his friends trying to rob items that were literally his lifeline from him. Jerry was still in denial over the whole thing, mumbling to himself with bloodshot eyes. While I was just a bit tired from life. Our knight order was one man down in a way that was worse than him just dying or leaving.

How were we supposed to react if we even met that traitor again? Would we cut him down in anger, let him say his side of the story, or forgive him? Just the thought of meeting him again got my blood boiling. For me, I would slay him on the spot. I wasn’t so sure the others would do the same, besides Stephen. Unless the lost leg made him a bit more cautious about attacking people in revenge.

Now we lacked a divine item that was supposed to be used to trade for our kind of divine item or a tidy sum of money. Not only that, we couldn’t use the wagon anymore unless we dragged it along ourselves with the donkey gone. At this point, we didn’t have much of a reason to go to the city besides escaping the knight order, all the excuses were gone. We were fleeing, afraid for our lives, nothing else.

A good part of the morning was spent explaining what happened to Matt and just staring at each other, waiting for someone to take control. That was my job as the knight captain. I wanted to continue heading towards the city and abandon the wagon. However, that would force us to leave Stephen behind as well or carry him the whole way. There was no way I could bring up something like that.

Matt ended up being the one to take control with me being silent and Jerry escaping reality. He went over and tossed four blankets and some food supplies from the wagon at Jerry and me, then picked up Stephen. The decision was made, we would carry the bare minimum of supplies and continue our trip while bringing Stephen along as far as we could. It seemed like Jerry and Matt would have to take turns carrying him. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to as my wounds would reopen.

I did end up having to carry him after Matt and Jerry tired of it halfway through the day. However, with the necklace and shield pressed against my back, I didn’t feel too much pain nor did my wound reopen. Apparently, the effect could be shared through touch somehow. It was probably only because I had worn the divine items before and was a fellow believer. Nonetheless, this provided yet another advantage to knight orders who could cause artificial convergences since they could keep close and share their effects. Even now I imagine full plate men holding hands while skipping through the dungeon merrily.

That image earned a rare laugh from myself. Since the divine items were healing me as I went along, I kept carrying Stephen the rest of the day, refusing to let the others take over when they recovered. Instead, they carried all the baggage. It felt almost unfair to them as they did most of the hard work while I got a free ride compliments of the divine items. Yet, shouldn’t Jerry have felt the effects of the shield and necklace as well?

“Hey Jerry, did you notice anything special when you were carrying Stephen, like feeling their buffs affect you?” I asked Jerry. He was quick to pass Stephen off to me so I doubted he had.

“No. Not that I would know how it felt as I wasn’t injured. Maybe it closed up some of my callus and made my blisters go away, but nothing beyond that,” said Jerry while Matt cut in and mentioned that he felt nothing at all, which was to be expected.

So either he didn’t notice the buff since he had been using the necklace and didn’t know what the endurance from the shield was like, or it wasn’t affecting him for some reason. The healing aspect certainly helped him at least. Perhaps I was just overthinking things, but I felt like I should test out some theories about the divine items later on.

Unfortunately, by the end of the day, we were forced to camp on the side of the road again. With the wagon gone and being forced to lug Stephen around on our backs, there was no way we could’ve covered enough distance. We all hoped to see the city over the next hill so we could find an inn and sleep in real beds. However, we only found more and more wilderness every time we went over the crest of a hill. It wasn’t until the time we turned in did we see the first signs of the city with some plumes of smoke coming from households cooking dinner and a speck on the horizon. There were maybe two or three more hours of walking to reach there and the city only let people come in during the day so pushing on was pointless.

We laid everything out and made camp again, eating another sparse meal from our remaining supplies. My sword once again set a small fire up and gave us some comfort for the long night ahead. I doubted that any of us could fall asleep with what happened the previous night. No one drank and one by one we fell asleep. The fatigue was too much for us to resist. I was the last to fall asleep and I didn’t even try to sleep until I confirmed that Matt was fully asleep.

He was the only one in the group who hadn’t held a divine item of Sanae Patil. Chris hadn’t either and he betrayed us. Matt was someone we would have to keep an eye on or force to hold one of the items before we could fully trust him. I held back on such an extreme method as the three of them weren’t sure if they wanted to join the knight order but kept with us. If we had forced them earlier, chances were that they would’ve left. Stephen was the only one forced to take on the items and that was due to his circumstances rather than us pushing it onto him.

 

Chapter 21: Somum Nov

Spoiler

Asking Matt to hold one of the items was the same as saying that we don't trust him and suspect he'll do the same thing as Chris did. It could easily splinter the group again and we were already hurting from Chris's sudden departure. I decided to push those thoughts to the back of my mind for later when I was alone with Jerry and even Stephen now since he has held the divine items as well. So, I went to sleep as well, confident that Matt was sound asleep and hoping I could just make it through the night without any more bad things happening. Staying awake all night just to make sure we were safe from Matt trying anything or Chris coming back was tempting.

In the morning, nothing had changed. All of our belongings and gear, as sparse as they were now, were in order and Stephen still held the necklace and shield. We had nothing to eat for breakfast so we cleaned up the campsite, packed our things, and set off towards the city. The only thing I had to fill my stomach and stave off my hunger was a bit of wine that I shared with the others. Of course, I offered to carry Stephen before anyone else. Neither of them were going to take away my chance to leech off the shield's endurance effect.

Within an hour of walking, the dirt path below us was replaced by stone, cracked and a bit uneven in some spots, but would hold up better during the rain season. The favored road for anyone using a wagon or carriage of some sort. As we got closer to the city, the road became wider and more well maintained. The stones became larger in size and less spaced out and at some point, the cracks and gaps between them were filled in and smoothed over. On the side of the roads were some campsites with various people from well-armed adventurers and merchants to skinny and malnourished peasants, sleeping in tents, blankets, and on the ground. They could not afford to rent anywhere in the city yet had business there so they were forced to find someplace to sleep for the night.

I hoped that we had enough money to rent an inn here if only for a few days. Sleeping outside in a city would not only be humiliating but also dangerous with Matt becoming the least of my worries when it came to people stealing from us. Further down the street, close to the entrance of the city, some makeshift buildings and tents sprouted up. They were mostly shops selling stuff just outside the city. It was far less lucrative to sell here and the items being sold were shoddy, but it wasn't as expensive as renting or buying a spot inside the city and plenty of people still passed by. To make up for the low sales, whenever someone walked by them they would shout and wave around items they thought the person would buy. We walked by half a dozen shopkeeps waving around hooks and prosthetic legs with Stephen on my back. It wasn't until one of them pulled out a pair of crutches that I stopped everyone and took a closer look.

Crutches wouldn't allow Stephen to walk long distances or keep up with us, but it would grant him some mobility for basic everyday things. Stephen expressed his interest as well and it was no wonder with the awkwardness of Jerry having to walk him away from the camp for a few minutes this morning. Jerry walked over and talked prices and finally settled on a good price halfway between being a good deal and a total ripoff. That would be the case if it was a new set of crutches while these were probably well worn, possibly broken, and probably stolen. None of that mattered as it didn't break immediately and Stephen liked them when I let him down to try them out.

That was some of our expenses gone. However, it didn't matter as everything was more expensive in the city so we'd be broke by the end of the day anyway. Unless we were careful about our expenses. Which were somehow all cash, not ores. Jerry had been trading a decent amount of the ores we stored away for coin with Jeff, probably not at the best rate. Nonetheless, a few silver coins were easier to carry than a hunk of metal ore. I was pretty sure we had some metal ore left at the headquarters that hadn't been traded before it was burned down. It made me wonder if the knights had taken it before burning things down or if we could find it buried under the rubble in that chest later on.

As we reached the wooden gates that marked the beginning of the actual city, we got into a queue of people leading up to a group of heavily armed guards inspecting everything and everyone before they were let in. On top of the wooden walls, there were even archers ready to start firing upon the crowd at a single sign of something off. They were necessary measures for a city so close to the border.

Every person took about five minutes for them to be interrogated on their reason for coming to the city and for their belongings to be searched. Which didn't seem long until it started to add up with all of the people ahead of us. Even when it was our turn, with four of us it would take twenty minutes total for us to go through. The queue ahead of us had a little over twenty people so it took almost two hours until we reached the gate. While we patiently waited in the queue, several groups of adventurers, merchants, and even knights passed through without interacting with the guards or waiting. They were people who either had trustworthy identities or had used the gate so many times that the guards just let them pass through unabated.

We had Jerry go first because he was carrying all of our cash and the guards would be more likely to try and confiscate coin from a lone traveler than a group. All four of us stood close together so they would know we were together and I made sure that Stephen kept the divine items on him visible. Hopefully, the fact that we had divine items on us would grant us some form of special privilege similar to a knight order. The guards did react to this by staring at him, but not for long. The fact the divine items were on someone missing a leg probably lessened their impact. Or perhaps they didn't care since we didn't look like knights, lacking heavy armor and carrying rough weapons. I had a pretty decent looking sword even when sheathed but I was wearing bloody rags pretty much while the others wore better clothes but had worn down and cracked weapons.

"What is your purpose coming to the city of Somum Nov and where are you from?" asked the guard in a monotone voice. He probably said the same words hundreds of times per day and lacked any sort of enthusiasm whatsoever.

"The four of us are from the town of Coip two days South of here. We're here to act as adventurers because we cannot do so there anymore. I'd like to report that a knight order under the name Mans Tontrau is terrorizing the town, committing arson and vandalism," said Jerry, explaining the situation and even throwing in the part about the knights.

That was a good idea. Why hadn't I thought of it? Just have the local authorities go and take care of things. We'd be able to return back to town, whose name was Coip apparently, in no time at all it seemed. We wouldn't even have to fight the knight order. While by their own code, it was alright to do anything other than kill other than in war and self-defense, there are laws to the land and arson is surely breaking a few of those laws.

"Not my job, talk to the garrison by the castle to report matters like that. Between you and me, they probably won't do anything unless someone was killed since we're so close to the border. Armies making movements around the border bring up questions and questions bring conflict. At least your reasoning for coming here matches your appearance so we can search you, charge you the entrance tax, and be done here," said the guard, crushing my hope.

Everything he said annoyed me from the fact that he couldn't do anything about our report, to the fact that the people we could report to would ignore us, to being taxed just for entering the city. Then again, I wasn't used to being taxed directly, my whole life I grew up in a small village and then a town. Even then, the town didn't have a lord and there was only the royal duty and a portion of the crop going towards the city. Which came back to bite us in the ass because if we had a lord there would also be soldiers around that could've stopped the knights.

We ended up being patted down and talked to individually by the guard one by one. The guards paused when they found Jerry's wallet but made no motion towards embezzling our funds thankfully. There were only two minor incidents at the gate before we were pushed through. First, was Stephen almost falling over and crying out in shock as the guards grabbed his crutches and looked at them closely. Second, was when one of the guards made me draw my sword and it exploded in flames. I would have avoided this attention if I could, but the guard had been searching around my shirt and I didn't want the dagger to be found nor the wine for that matter and decided to show off a bit.

The dagger was dark elemented and the skull on it would make it very suspicious. If it had been found, there was a chance I could be painted as an assassin. Meanwhile, the wine could be confiscated under the guise of smuggling or they could insist on grabbing a few drinks from it. Neither were things I could allow as I valued my life and the wine was almost empty already.

Once we were in the city, we found ourselves in a small clearing before crowded streets and a sea of people. It seemed impossible at first glance to figure out where places were and how to push through the crowd to get to them. We collected ourselves together and talked about what to do next.

"We're in the city, what now?" I asked, starting the conversation.

"I'd like to go find this garrison and report the knight order in our town. Maybe they'll send a smaller group of soldiers if they hear that it's only nine knights causing the commotion. Anything is better than nothing in our current situation," said Jerry.

"Well, my leg still hasn't regrown so I'd like someplace where I could sit down and be still for a bit rather than being dragged around constantly. So I'd like us to find an inn before we do anything else and check prices so we can figure out how long we can stay," said Stephen.

"I'm hungry and tired so I'd like to find an inn as well. At some point, I'd like to find a weapons merchant or a blacksmith as my hatchet still needs to be replaced," said Matt. Right, Jerry and I were going to get a hatchet for Matt but Jeff's place was trashed when we got there and it slipped our minds completely.

"My thoughts on what's the most important is to find the dungeon so we can get a source of income here before we go broke," I said my piece. Not that I wasn't hungry, tired, or wanting to report the knight order to the authorities. It was simply the highest priority to me to make sure that we didn't go broke here.

"Well we either split up and try to do all of this at once or we go one by one to each of the places in order of importance," said Jerry.

"Where would we meet up if we split up?" said Matt. And I had the perfect answer to that.

"Let's all meet at the dungeon. I can go with Jerry to inform the garrison and then go to the dungeon while finding something to eat on the way. Matt and Stephen will find an inn and hold a room, then Matt can go on his own to pick up a weapon and come to the dungeon, letting Jerry and me know where we'll be staying," I outlined out for everyone. It was the perfect plan if I did say so myself.

"Alright, but if we do that I'll need some money to buy the hatchet and hold the room if not outright rent it. Not sure if inns in the city would accept holding onto the room until you guys came back in to pay the full amount," said Matt while holding his hand out to Jerry.

Jerry looked at me for a second to gauge my reaction. He was wondering if he really should give the money to Matt. After all, he could easily accept the money and then run off. A part of me wanted to believe that wouldn't happen and we could trust him. Besides, this was the result of my own plan so I finally nodded and Jerry passed over enough coins to buy a weapon, food, and a room plus extra to account for price differences. Then Matt left with Stephen awkwardly following behind using his crutches. Hopefully, this would work out.

Our destination was a bit more clear than Matt and Stephen's. The garrison was next to the castle and that was easily visible from anywhere in the city. It had proper stone walls surrounding it and it sat upon a hill overlooking the city. There was a building halfway down that hill which had guards coming in and out of almost constantly, which we assumed to be the place we were looking for. We set off into the crowd straight towards it. We ended up pushing into the crowd and being pushed in the direction most of the crowd was going towards, like a stream of bodies flowing downhill. It was a fight just to keep together, not even to mention making sure we were going in the right direction.

Many times we found ourselves managing to be freed from the crowd just to find out that we were facing the wrong way and hadn't made much progress towards our destination. As we got closer to the castle, the crowds started to clear up and it became easier to navigate the streets much to our relief. Eventually, the only people walking around us were guards, women, and children. The women and children were treated with respect or affection by the guards as they were most likely the family members of one them. An entire block or district of the city was dedicated towards the guards and their families close to the castle.

Once we got past that part of the city, we were able to climb up to the garrison. The guards around this area were vigilant towards us as not many people came this way and when they did it usually meant trouble. At least, they didn't bar our way or make us go back. Without any trouble, we reached the entrance of the building but were stopped at the door by one of the guards.
'
"What brings you to the garrison adventurers?" asked the guard while standing in the doorway of the building, keeping us from going in.

"We're here to make a report about an incident," said Jerry.

"Which part of the city and what's going on?" asked the guard. A few other nearby guards gathered around us to pay attention to what was going on. Likely they were getting ready to rush over to the place we mentioned on a moment's notice if it was in the city.

"It's not actually in the city, but a nearby town," said Jerry and as soon as he said that, all the guards that had been gathering around cleared up. Now that it wasn't an incident related to the city, they weren't so eager to help resolve it.

"And why can't the garrison of your town handle it?" asked the guard. If only we had a garrison.

"There is no garrison as we have no lord and a militia wouldn't be enough to solve things. We need soldiers to help with this, as many as can be spared for such an incident," said Jerry.

"If there is no lord, how can it be called a town? Is it not just a village? What could possibly be happening that requires us guards to go over and fix things?" asked the guard. I was wondering the same thing with the town and village thing.

"There is a temple to the gods, a much larger population than a village, and there was a blacksmith shop but it just closed due to this incident. As for what's going on, there is a group of nine heavily armed knights terrorizing the town under the name of Mans Tontrau, damaging property and committing arson," said Jerry.

"That sounds terrible. We should be able to spare some troops in your village's time of need. However, we'll need your name and a statement before we can move out. Where is the village and its name?" said the guard. I was happy that he was so willing to help. A stark difference to the guard at the gate.

"Its name is Coip and it's two days to the South, by the border. And it's a town officially not a village," said Jerry, annoyed by the guard's refusal to call it a town.

"By the border? Well, that complicates things. We can't really send troops, not enough to actually fight the knights if need be. We'd only be able to send a few and as messengers to tell the knight order to stop and move on. And even then, the knights could just come back after our messengers left. So, it's the same as doing nothing at all. Any other time we could help, but tensions are high and it seems like war could break out anytime and we'd like to avoid being the cause," said the knight.

Our trip to the garrison had been in vain. The guard at the entrance had warned us and we thought it might go differently from what he said, but that didn't happen. Even worse was the fact that war could break out. If that happened, this city would be in danger while Coip would be wiped off the map.

"No thanks, we'll try to figure something else out. Would you point us towards the nearest dungeon? We'll be staying in the city for a while and need a way to pay our expenses," I asked while dismissing the option of sending messengers.

"Sure, there are three dungeon entrances but two of them are private and can't be used without paying a fee. The public one is over by the market, in the middle of the city. Look for a place with lots of flags. You can't miss it though getting lost on the way a few times is a given," said the guard while seeing us off.

 

Chapter 22: Another Entrance, Same Dungeon

Spoiler

The fact that there were private dungeons that we couldn't access confused me. However, it wasn't important as there was a dungeon we could go into. It made sense in a way that some large group of adventurers or knights that were rich could buy all the property around a dungeon and monopolize it if there were other entrances close by. I couldn't imagine the local government standing idle if all the entrances were occupied by various factions and kept others out.

We dived back into the maze of people in this chaotic city and after being sidetracked a few times we ended up somewhere around the center of the city. There, we found a food market selling exotic ingredients along with some food stands selling hot food probably made from the ingredients being sold everywhere there. There were stews filled with a variety of ingredients and also meat being grilled up.

I ended up grabbing a couple bowls of the stew for myself and Jerry since it was fairly cheap but the grilled meat was very pricey. The price of a few strips of meat was the same as an entire chicken back in the town of Coip. Thankfully, the stew was filling and had plenty of fruits, grain, and veggies in it. Some of the chunks of vegetables and fruit were bad and I ended up spitting out some pieces onto the ground. After all, the reason why it was so cheap was because it was made from ingredients that didn't sell and were either about to go bad or already bad. I was already starting to miss Tom's bar.

As we wandered the markets, we started to find flags being hung over some of the stands and rather than food, they were selling weapons and metal ores. The weapons, whether an ax or a spear, were made completely out of metal, no wooden handle. That was a waste of metal but might be useful in a dungeon run as a metal handle could be used to block attacks without too much damage and the weapon would be less likely to break from a big impact.

Still, it was a bit unnerving to see them being sold in pretty much every stand with a flag over it, especially with their price tag. They were even cheaper than a farming utensil at Jeff's place, not even talking about his weapons. Something was off with this situation. Either metal was so plentiful that weapons were mass produced and drove prices down or there was something fundamentally wrong with the weapons. The ores as well were sold in piles of three through five for a silver each, while iron back in town was worth somewhere between one and two silvers each.

"Do you know what's up with these weapons and ores?" I asked Jerry, hoping he knew more about the topic than me.

"No, but I'd like to avoid having to use these weapons if they're this cheap and plentiful. Seems like they would break in half at the first sign of trouble. Then again, if they're legit it would make our stay in the city a lot easier. At these prices, I'm tempted to buy one just to try it out in the dungeon," said Jerry.

I agreed with his sentiment and stopped by one of the shops selling stuff for cheap and picked up a metal staff almost as tall as me. It was surprisingly light yet it wasn't hollow. I tapped against my fingernail and didn't hear any noise beyond the usual metallic tap. Jerry paid the man sitting at the stand a single silver and picked up a small ax. That silver accounted for both of our weapons amazingly enough. There was a bit of laughter from our surroundings during the sale.

That laughter alone confirmed our suspicions about these weapons. I looked around and saw some adventurers walking down the street and none of them had these sorts of weapons, having the usual wooden handles on spears and axes, or if they were metal, it was a lighter grey color and shiny, likely being of steel or silver make. Very luxurious and expensive weapons that were never up for sale in Jeff's shop. Steel weapons were more durable and stronger than iron but apparently require more cleaning to prevent rust. Meanwhile, a silver coating over a weapon, iron or steel will keep the weapon from rusting and rumors say that it makes it more effective against some monsters.

If not for the fact I had two enchanted weapons, I might have been jealous, or not. I still wanted a steel or silver spear and maybe a club or ax. My enchanted weapons seemed to be quite situational in their use so some high-quality weapons other than them would be nice. This staff wasn't too bad either with how light it was, even if it was low quality or faulty in some way. Adventuring as a profession would be a lot easier if all weapons were as light as this yet were still able to dish out some damage. As long as it didn't break in the process, light weapons like this should be able to hurt or kill monsters as long as I swing them hard enough.

Further into this area filled with flags, more and more shops cropped up along with the occasional blacksmith making weapons in front of everyone. The constant yelling of the shopkeepers mixed in with the noise of the crowd and blacksmiths hammering was deafening. Eventually, we found a building taking a central position in all the noise covered in flags. Upon closer inspection, the flags had symbols on them and probably represented divines so the flags belonged to knight orders. Not only knights entered this building, but ordinary adventurers like us also came and went as well. There was a constant stream of people going in and out, more than the building could feasibly fit. Which meant the dungeon was likely inside. Before we could enter, we had to look around to see if we could find Matt.

By the side of the entrance, I found Matt surrounded by a group of adventurers talking to him. He looked a bit uncomfortable from the attention so Jerry and I rushed over. The reason why he was surrounded was due to the shield in his hands that the adventurers were trying to buy off him. It was my shield that I had left with Stephen so he could use it to heal. Why did he bring it here instead of leaving it with Stephen at the place we'd be staying at for the night? As soon as I came close, Matt rushed over to me and pushed the shield into my hands and I slipped it onto my left arm where I usually kept it.

"Doesn't Stephen need this?" I asked.

"Stephen said that it's more important for you to use it if you're going into the dungeon and that he'd just have to endure a bit of pain from its absence. He said to just give it back to him later tonight," said Matt.

"Hey what's going on? I, Bismuth, was negotiating over the sale of that item to me. It's rude to take things that are about to belong to me," said one of the men that had been harassing Matt. He seemed to be the leader of the others as they stood behind him and kept silent as he talked.

"It's not for sale and the item is mine, not Matt's so you couldn't have negotiated a sale with him anyway. That looked more like coercion than a negotiation," I said.

"Whatever you say. The great Bismuth has lost interest in buying it at your loss. It's got a shit enchantment on it so not like it could turn much of a profit," said Bismuth while walking away. That pissed me off more than it would have if he had continued to insist on buying the shield. He could have just apologized for his mistake instead of making a show of it, narcissistic bastard.

"How does he know the enchantment on the shield?" asked Jerry. I hadn't even noticed until Jerry had mentioned it, but he somehow knew what enchantment was on the shield. That or he was just calling it a shit enchantment because he couldn't have it.

"That's my fault. They approached me while I was waiting for you guys and started asking about the shield while being really friendly. It wasn't until they insisted on buying it and I refused did they start ganging up on me like that," said Matt. He really should be more careful about random groups of people walking up to him out of nowhere, no matter how friendly.

"Whatever, the situation is done and over. Hopefully, we'll never bump into them again and this will amount to nothing. I'd rather not have an adventuring group with a grudge against us floating around," I said while thinking of the possibility of facing a situation similar to back in Coip with a knight order or adventurers.

"Oh right, I managed to get a hatchet for a ridiculously cheap price. Left me and Stephen with plenty of cash for the room. Unfortunately, those were super expensive, especially ones with multiple beds. The best we could do was grab a cramped room with one large bed for a single night. It's either that or sleeping outside the city. I see that you guys managed to get some weapons at a good price as well," he said while gesturing towards my staff and Jerry's spare ax.

"We're pretty sure there's something wrong with these weapons and that's why they're cheap so we're going to test them out then fall back to our usual weapons if they're shit. Where's your old hatchet? Even with it's crack, it'll be handy if your current one breaks in one hit," said Jerry.

"Uhh, I may have sold my old hatchet to help pay for the room rent," said Matt while looking at his new hatchet nervously.

"You still have your spear so you'll have to make do for now. I already gave you a quarter of our budget so we're looking at four nights or less at an inn, with that difference between three and four nights probably going to be made from having to buy you a new, proper hatchet if that one doesn't work out for you," said Jerry while holding up four fingers and curling one to make his point extra clear.

"I'm sorry, vice captain. I wasn't thinking things through. I'll do my best to earn enough money to stay longer and possibly even upgrade to a better room or have multiple rented at once," said Matt, which also happened to be my plan. I didn't want to sleep on a bed with three other guys and I was already planning on sleeping on the floor.

With that out of the way, Jerry explained our end of things to Matt with the garrison and how they wouldn't be helping us and why. Meanwhile, we took our place in the back of the line leading into the building holding the dungeon. The line moved fairly fast with only five to ten-second pauses before the line moved up. Within five minutes we were already at the front of the line and entered the building. There wasn't much in the way of decor or anything inside other than a hill and a hole on the side of the hill bearing the entrance to the dungeon. Right as we entered the building, a man exited the dungeon covered in blood. He left the building before I could decipher if it was his or from the monsters.

There were two guards lining on both sides of the entrance wielding spears that they lowered and crossed over, blocking the entrance while a third guard walked up to us with his hands outstretched. Another fee was asked of us as if paying the enter the city wasn't bad enough. No wonder there were private dungeon entrances, knight orders and adventurers wanted to avoid paying a fee every time they had to go into the dungeon. What made things worse is that it was an entire silver coin per person. And based on the prices I saw on the ores outside, that meant we'd likely have to wheat grind or fish for hours and hours to make the dungeon trip worthwhile.

We paid the fees for all three of us even though it was probably a bad idea to come here and entered the dungeon one by one. Hopefully, the fact that there were so many adventurers and knight orders running about meant that entering the dungeon was worthwhile even with the fee.

In the first room of the dungeon, I felt a sense of familiarity. After a few days of traveling, this was the first time I felt welcomed and at home. As welcoming and homely as black walls and a walking skeleton could be. Despite how dark the walls were, the room was well lit and I hoped it would stay that way. As for the monster, it kept its distance from me, hugging the back perimeter of the room. This was odd as usually, monsters would either move to attack me or stay still until I made some sort of move. As I walked closer to it with the staff in hand, moved from one side to the other, trying to find a way to get around me. Perhaps it wanted to ambush me but the room was too small for it to get around me.

As soon as I got close enough, I lunged with the staff in hand to bash the skeleton over its head, or skull. It hit spot on with a resounding crack. Not from the skeleton's skull but from my staff as it got deformed where it hit the monster along with snaking cracks spreading around the area. Just as I thought, this weapon was shoddy and of no real use in combat and dropped it. Since I had my doubts on whether my spear would work with the monster being all bones and no nice soft flesh to poke, I unsheathed my sword and slashed downward with a wisp of flames leaving a streak in the air. Not only did my sword split its skull open, but it also caught the entire monster on fire and it collapsed into a pile of broken bones and ashes. This piled swirled and recombined itself into a blackish ore.

When I sheathed my sword, I noticed that my hands were blackened as if I hadn't washed them in weeks or handled coal. The same color as the staff I had been using and this ore that dropped. It all fell into place now. This ore, whatever it was, was incredibly common because it dropped so often and as a result, it was super cheap and used to make really shoddy weapons. It was also a really dirty metal for some reason. Curious about what it really looked like, I picked up the ore and wiped it on my shirt until its sheen shone through. It was actually quite beautiful and was as shiny as silver but with a darker grey color. It wasn't a metal I knew the name of, but without the black dust all over it, it looked valuable while it was actually close to worthless with its overabundance.

After throwing the ore into my shirt and picking up and tying the staff beside my spear on my back, I went to the next room. There I found another cowardly skeleton looking to ambush me. As I reached to unsheathe my sword, I noticed something strange with my shield. Normally, it would occasionally light up with a sharp glint to reveal its status to the world as a divine item, but now it was flashing on and off constantly. Coupled with the flashes was the skeletons reaction. Every time the shield flashed, its head jerked back a bit and it tried backing off more. Could it be that the skeleton wasn't acting this way to try and ambush me but because it was scared of my shield?

Remembering how the shield affected the dark elemented snake, I decided to test out the same thing with this skeleton by trapping it in one part of the room then touching it with the shield. There was a possibility that I didn't even need to fight in this dungeon, just shield bash everything to death. While I thought bash, it was really more of a careful press. All it took was moving my shield back and forth to keep the skeleton from slipping away to the sides while confirming it really was afraid of my shield. In that dominant position, I shoved the shield into its face and it lifted up its hands to grab onto the sides of the shield. Its finger bones gave off smoke as it did this, but it prevented me from pushing the shield any farther until I put more strength into it.

Creaks rang out in the room as the skeleton's arms were pushed back and the shield pressed against its ribs, letting out a large plume of blackish smoke. Seconds later, the skeleton fell apart, becoming scattered pieces of bones while its ribs and forearms collapsed into smoke and dust onto the ground. My shield turned the dead and could even purge them while my fire sword could split their skulls and burn away their bodies. This was the perfect dungeon for my current equipment if there ever was one, that is if things didn't get harder and the environment didn't change in a way that inconvenienced me.

It took more effort to pin them down with my shield than it took to cut them down with my sword. Room three was ended with one slash and one less skeleton in the dungeon. And like the first room, a blackish ore dropped that I cleaned up somewhat by wiping on my shirt then throwing it in with the other one. To break even, I needed at least three more like that, preferably more since merchants sold at higher prices than they bought things for. Even then, it seemed like most knights set up a shop under their name to sell through directly rather than selling wholesale to some random merchant in the city.

 

Chapter 23: Second Convergence

Spoiler

As per the usual, I cleared the rest of the rooms up until seven without anything else happening. An increased number of enemies did nothing as they were too scared of my shield to do anything. The tenth room had the curious change of one of the skeletons wielding a sword, but otherwise the same. The only real downside this sword brought with it is that it disappeared on the skeleton’s death.

It was made of proper iron and could be resold or smelted down to make something new with ease. Instead, the dungeon greedily ate it up as soon as it touched the ground. Trying to catch it mid-air would only cause it to crumble away into dust. I tried to get my hands on one of these swords in vain all the way up to room fifteen, where one of the skeletons fought back.

Like the time back in the dungeon with the floating ice shards, there were ten enemies scattered throughout a large room with plenty of space for the skeletons to run around in. Rather than being able to corner them in one area of the room and take them out one by one, they could skirt around walls and run around me as I tried to herd them into one spot.

As soon as I got tired of chasing them and took a break by one of the walls, one of the skeletons with a sword jumped around the corner and sneak attacked me from behind. I heard it coming from behind me as the skeletons made a lot of noise when they moved as their bones bumped and clacked together but I didn't have enough time to dodge. All I was able to do was move my shield behind me at an awkward angle. The impact dislodged my shoulder and the pain was excruciating. As for the skeleton, its sword burned on contact with my shield as if it was a part of the skeleton and then its entire arm fell off as it ran off elsewhere.

In our trading of blows, we ended up with similar injuries. However, I was worse off as I had to deal with nine more skeletons than finish off the one that had just attacked me with at least four more of them bearing weapons. To deal with my dislocated arm, I slid my shield onto my right arm and moved towards the edge of the room to prevent any more sneak attacks and so I would be ready to fight back if they tried attacking me directly. Then I grabbed my arm, gritted my teeth, and pushed hard, trying to push it back into place.

Thirty steps from where I sat down, most of the skeletons gathered and stared at me. They were gauging their odds of being able to take me down in my weakened state. After four or five tries, I managed to force my arm back into position. I still couldn't use my arm as it hung loosely at my side, hurting every time I did so much as move a finger. In my attempts to push it back into place, I must have torn the muscles or what not. That was fine as it would heal with time and it was better than letting it heal before I could push it back into place or I might have had to cut into my arm to set it properly.

With my arm back in place, I stood back up, ready to face the skeletons who quickly scrambled away from me. Not only was this annoying, but it was potentially deadly to me as if they managed to delay for long enough, more skeletons would start to spawn until there would be too many to handle. They would literally swarm me with no regard for their lives, or lack thereof.

In such a situation, there was nothing I could but try to hit them at a distance. As I lacked any sort of weapon that could attack from a range like a bow, I would have to throw some of my weapons. Out of all my weapons, the only ones that could really do anything is my shield and the dagger. The staff and spear wouldn't do anything other than maybe tripping up their legs. My fire sword would become a normal sword when out of my hands and it was possibly very fragile on its backside so throwing it wasn't an option.

The dagger could instantly kill enemies with even the tiniest cut so I chose to use it. That and I had wanted to avoid throwing my shield and possibly losing the effect of the skeletons being scared of me. Which was also a solid option, setting aside the shield and cutting down the skeletons with the fire sword once they stop being terrified of me. It was also a fairly dangerous option as they could easily gang up on me.

I got close to cornering one of the skeletons holding a sword and threw the dagger at them. It then hit the wall next to the skeleton and fell uselessly to the ground. Throwing a small sword accurately was harder than he thought. Not that he was trying to hit it in the vitals or anything, just hit it in general but his throw went wide, going too far to the right. The dagger was undamaged from hitting the pitch black wall so he scooped it up and tried throwing it again on another skeleton nearby.

This time it hit the skeleton in the hip, with the handle instead of the actual blade. So the skeleton was still not defeated but the handle hitting its hip destroyed its balance and caused it to fall to the ground. Before it managed to get back on its feet, I pressed the shield down on it and finished it off, leaving eight more skeletons in good condition and one disarmed one.

On his third try, he finally managed to throw the dagger and watched as the blade collided with another skeleton's head then bounce off. The impact knocked the skeleton onto the ground, but it started to get up. Which meant that the skeleton was somehow immune to the effects of the dagger. Possibly the fact that it was undead and dark elemented had something to do with it. Or maybe the fact that it didn't have any flesh to cut into and the bones were like armor rather than a part of the body. Then again, the shield's power even worked on the sword.

I made sure to finish off the enemy since it had fallen to the ground. However, I didn't feel like throwing the dagger around anymore since it couldn't instakill enemies. At this point, even throwing the ores in my shirt would do as the skeletons seemed awfully prone to falling down after being struck by thrown objects. Why throw a weapon when I had hunks of metal ore?

There were some doubts in my mind about the effectiveness of this plan since the metal ores were very light and fragile. Those doubts amounted to nothing as I threw one into a skeleton's rib cage and knocked it off its feet. With this new throwing technique, I managed to kill off every last one of the skeletons one by one. Once they were all dead or more dead, two more ores appeared where I had killed some of the skeletons.

Once I put them in my shirt, I immediately became uncomfortable. This was the first time I had so many things in my shirt at once. The ores and wine constantly moved around and poked my stomach as they shifted around. It made moving around nearly impossible with heavy discomfort. In the past, I remembered thinking that I should get some pockets or new clothes and I was regretting the fact I hadn't so much at that moment.

Taking a risk, I pulled out all the ores except one and set them on the ground. There was a good chance that the dungeon would reabsorb them, but that couldn't be helped. If that was the case, then I would just wheat grind by the entrance to make up for the lost ores on my way back. Wait no, that would be fishing even if I did it on the first room right before the exit since I've gotten way farther than two rooms deeper.

On the way back, if they were still here, then I'd bring them along with me even if I had to carry them all in my arms. I'd even ditch the staff and tie some of them around my waist with the spear if I had to. The only thing I wouldn't do is throw out the wine to hold them. Even if the ores weren't so worthless and were of equal value or greater value to the wine, the wine would take priority. I pulled out the wine and took a good long sip of it before putting it back into my shirt.

Not counting the dungeon convergence, this was my first time reaching the sixteenth room. Last time it was empty since my fellow adventurer or knight had already cleared it and moved on without waiting for me to come along. It was more or less the same as room fifteen except with more enemies. Even with twenty skeletons running about they still fled from me. At some point, I expected them to overcome their fear through sheer numbers.

Even though I was fully aware that at some point this would change, I couldn’t help myself from going on. It was the same every other time I realized that there might be danger up ahead that could kill me. There were possible rewards for going further from new items to alcohol and food. It felt similar to gambling the way the dungeon was set up and it was addicting to just go as far as I could go in a situation like this where it was currently easy and not very dangerous due to the shield’s intervention.

One by one, I took them all out using the remaining ore I kept on hand. When I finished, three more ores sprouted from the ground and I simply piled them up by the portal leading back towards the surface and moved onto the seventeenth floor. There, I found myself in the rest area. I wasn’t sure if I should have been relieved or disappointed. A dangerous part of me wished there were thirty skeletons to fight.

As for the food and drinks, they were unusually large portions. The food was sitting in a bucket and was enough to feed me for a full day or two while there was a small barrel for the drink. A barrel not a keg, as in this booze was almost as big as me. Thankfully, it was a smaller barrel, somewhere between the size of a wine barrel used for fermenting and holding water on ships and kegs used to carry alcohol in a way where it could be opened and poured by one man alone. If I wanted to pour this barrel into a mug for a drink, it’d spill everywhere. I had half a mind to dump the food onto the floor and use the barrel for drinking. The only reason I didn’t is because I was also hungry and still had the wine to sate my thirst for alcohol.

Unlike the ores, this big barrel wasn’t something I could leave behind and risk losing. I popped its top for a second to smell what was inside and it was beer, a full barrel of beer was enough for days of celebration and merriment. To go on, I decided that I would move the barrel through the portal, then clear out the enemies while leaving it by the entrance. Truthfully, I could have done the same with the ores, but I was worried about being ambushed as soon as I went through like what happened last time I got this far in the dungeon.

As soon I walked through the entrance to the eighteenth room, I realized that I could have just gone back to the surface at this point. I had gotten enough ores to make up for the entrance fee and the bonus of a full barrel of beer to keep me company for the next few days. However, the skeletons were still scared of me even with forty of them so it made sense to at least clear out the room first. A few extra ores wouldn’t hurt or at least be bearable as they chafed me a bit on the way out.

After killing the last skeleton, the sword that it had been carrying didn’t disappear upon its death nor did it collapse into dust. I picked it up and turned it over a few times in disbelief, feeling its weight and checking its condition. A genuine iron sword in fairly good condition, no rust and a few chinks here and there, was in my hands. It didn’t have any sort of element attached to it nor was the skeleton I killed anything special. So loot wasn’t constrained to just ores when it came to normal monsters, but other things as well.

The sword was tied to my back with the spear and staff, then I pushed the barrel of beer onto its side and rolled it towards the entrance to the next room. Who needed these worthless ores when I could get the swords the skeletons were carrying? As appealing as the idea of leaving then and there with all my gains, the sword had hyped me about even better rewards further inside.

In the next room, I found a man wearing a metal chest plate and gauntlet with a spear in his hands, but the rest of his body was only covered in normal clothes. His outfit was very mismatched and I couldn’t really criticize him for that as I was wearing essentially rags while carrying around a bunch of weapons and a barrel of beer. Over to my left, there was an active entrance leading to somewhere else, a convergence.

He had noticed my entrance leading to this room and decided to wait for me, not even killing the skeletons in the area, who kept their distance from the two of us. Well, not killing all of them, he had obviously killed a decent amount as there only seemed to be around twenty of them left. Unless the others were hidden deeper in the room. With the convergence, the room had doubled in size compared to the previous room and was a complete maze. Upon noticing my shield, the skeletons stepped even further away or outright ran deeper into the room away from us.

The man started talking but I couldn’t understand anything he said, but he didn’t seem hostile and was relaxed in my presence. Hopefully, that meant that he wanted to work together or he wanted to negotiate terms for one of us leaving. Both options were better than fighting. Once he noticed that I wasn’t responding to him, he started talking a different. I could tell it was a different language as the first time he spoke it was very guttural and deep, speaking from the throat and now he was talking with his nose, nasally and still fairly deep but not in such a strong way. Languages were hard to describe and all that didn’t matter as on the man’s third try, he started talking in my mother tongue.

“Can you understand me now?” asked the man.

“Yes, I can. I’m guessing you’re from somewhere far away from me,” I said. Based on the fact that he knew three or more languages, including mine, he must travel around a lot.

“My name is Vincent and I serve the divine, Itatem Duiturn, he who lords over healing and strength, bringing those that follow him power rivaling immortality,” said the man named Vincent, revealing far more than I would during his introduction.

“Is it alright to reveal all that,” I asked him.

“Seeing how the undead also react to you, do you not carry a divine item with healing attached? That makes our divines related, allied, or rivals. A combination of those most likely. Let’s assume that we’re allied and treat each other well as this dungeon is far too suited for our powers to pass up. Together we shall form a shield wall against these fell beings. Well, at least you will as only my gauntlet here contains healing powers,” said Vincent, revealing why the skeletons were so afraid of me and figuring out what one of the two powers of my divine were.

“It’s true that my goddess, Sanae Patil, uses healing and endurance on top of that. I’m not too well versed with matters regarding divines but I’ll take up your offer of working together for now,” I said.

“Say no more, let us bond through war. We shall slaughter these hapless skeletons and split whatever harvests they wrought for us. By ourselves, they run too fast for us to catch up, forcing us to trip them up by spear or throwing before we can vanquish them. Together, we shall push them towards each other, circling like a pack of wolves and picking them off like the sheep they are,” said Vincent. His plans were reasonable if not stated a bit oddly. I passed it off as it simply not being his first language rather than him being strange.

His plan worked quite well as the tight corners of the maze while allowing the skeletons to easily ambush us if they so wished, also allowed us to scare the skeletons in the direction of the other. Of course, they would then react to the other and try to run another way, but by then they would be surrounded by the two of us and killed. The way Vincent killed them was quite brutal as he would grab them by the neckbone, lift them up, and choke them as the gauntlet burned them to death. It seemed to be a bit unnecessary and excessive but he seemed to enjoy doing it and it worked so who was I to criticize.

We cleared out the nineteenth floor with our teamwork and gathered up the ores that had dropped, four of them total. Three of them were the ores I had been gathering, the light blackish metal that shined like silver when cleaned but was shoddy for weaponsmithing. I assumed the fourth was the usual ore from the dungeon Vincent had come from and it was yellowish in color, like gold, but it smelled like rotting eggs. It reminded me of the stuff in the dungeon with swords and I wanted nothing to do with it, but Vincent insisted on passing it to me while taking the three ores from my dungeon.

 

After this point the wordcount drops from an average of 3,000 or more, to 2,000. This was an effort to make the writing more manageable and prevent burnout since I was staying up until like 5am to finish chapters.

 

Chapter 24: Range and Earring

Spoiler

According to Vincent, leaving the ores by the entrance was perfectly fine as drops were reabsorbed into the dungeon much slower than corpses. However, things like my beer barrel or the weapons on my back from my spear to the sword I had just picked up would start breaking down as soon as I left the room or left unattended for an hour. That made me worry less about the ores and focus more on going further into the dungeon.

While it was going to be even more dangerous due to the convergence upping the difficulty and amount of enemies, I now had an ally to work with. He wasn’t someone I could completely trust but it was hard not to like him. His enthusiasm for killing monsters and working together rubbed off on me a bit. It felt like how I imagined a knight order should be when together rather than the constant distrust and worrying in my current knight order. Alas, Vincent already worked for another knight order that, while it may be allied with mine, was too far to work together consistently.

Vincent helped me carry the barrel through to room twenty. If not for the convergence, I would have expected to face around sixty enemies unless it jumped up in numbers and size suddenly like room fifteen did. With the convergence, I wouldn’t have been surprised to face over a hundred of these skeletons. Not for the life of me did I expect to face two of them. However, that’s what appeared, two skeletons who were strange compared to the previous skeletons. It reminded me of when some of the skeletons started having swords.

The one in the front wore full plate armor that only revealed the fact that a skeleton was wearing it through the gaps in the armor. In its hand was a machete, a long one-sided blade meant for chopping. Not only was it heavily armored and well armed, but it was also two heads taller than me while all of the previous skeletons were a head shorter than me. To make matters worse, it wasn’t intimidated by the healing effect on our divine items. It started to walk towards us as soon as we came into the room and we were forced to set the barrel off to the side and get ready to fight.

As soon as I lifted up my shield and went to draw my sword in case that wasn’t enough to beat it, something hit the shield. A rock had stuck my shield, hard enough for it to jerk back, slam into my forehead and had me seeing black for a second. Behind the skeleton wearing armor and holding a sword was a second, less conspicuous skeleton that was just as dangerous as the first. While it may not have armor nor was it any bigger than a normal skeleton, it held a sling in one hand and a rock in the other. Not only that, but the ground in this room was unusually loose and rocky, giving it plenty of ammo for the sling.

“Take out the slinger, I’ll handle the big guy,” shouted Vincent as he ran over to meet the machete-wielding skeleton with his spear. His spear was made of metal, high-quality stuff that didn’t break from hard impacts.

While he was clashing with the so-called big guy, the slinger slipped the rock into its sling and started spinning it in the air while taking aim at Vincent. I ran in front of its projected path and held my shield up with both my arms. It hit my shield with a loud thunk and nearly broke my arms. The impact was absorbed by my body and the rock fell powerlessly to the ground. So strong even though they were just rocks. I felt as if my role had swapped with all those skeletons I had beaten to the ground by lobbing ores at them. Suddenly, they didn’t seem so pathetic for falling from getting hit by rocks.

Behind me, Vincent was struggling to fight the armored skeleton and I needed to help him. Before that, I had to take out this ranged skeleton before it seriously hurt one of us. I wiped some sweat off my forehead only to find that it was blood not sweat. Too late, I was already hurt. While it was digging around at the ground to pick up another rock, I started charging towards it.

Until I started running at it, it had been taking its sweet time choosing a rock but then it managed to find one, slip it in, and start spinning the sling in what seemed like an instant. I was forced to stop running and put up my shield in preparation for a rock being thrown at me. My head was lowered behind the shield to prevent it from being able to hit me in the head. It finally impacted with a loud crack and I fell to my knees.

What had happened? That was the only thing going through my mind as I looked down to see my knee all bloodied and bits of a shattered rock scattered the area directly in front of me. Everything from my arms, to my stomach, and even my head was protected but my lower half was completely exposed. My shield was simply too small to defend from all directions. No pain was felt in my knee, just an aching sensation as the area throbbed in protest of what had just happened. There was no way I could stand back up after this and I was helplessly stuck on the ground as it prepared another attack.

On my knees, I had a lot less surface area for the skeleton to attack and it was easier to guard with my shield. A few rocks hit the shield hard or skimmed my skin around the edges of the shield. At this point, the only good I was doing was keeping the slinger from attacking Vincent. I couldn’t even check up on Vincent as the last time I tried looking behind me, one of the rocks skimmed my cheek, cutting it open. From the sounds of metal clashing, I knew that their battle was still ongoing and Vincent was still alive.

Expecting Vincent to win and break this stalemate for me wasn’t something I could count on. No doubt the armored skeleton was just as tricky to deal with as this slinging skeleton and he needed my help as much as I needed his. Since my legs were tied up from my bloodied knee, I had to resort to another method. As soon as the skeleton threw a rock my way, I pulled out the last ore I kept in my shirt and chucked it. Either it would dodge or get hit.

Or not, as I threw the ore too hard and it flew over the skeleton’s head. A chance presented itself as the skeleton got distracted by the ore and followed it with its skull. I pulled the shield off my arm and tucked it into my armpit before slinging it as hard as I could towards the skeleton and this time my aim was true, striking the skeleton in its back. It got knocked over and the shield landed on top of it, constantly burning it until it died.

However, without the shield’s healing assistance my body felt very weak and the pain from my knee hit me hard. All of the wine and food I had consumed earlier alongside some stomach acid came out of my mouth; I vomited all over the floor and felt horribly sick. Now I knew what Stephen had felt like when Chris suddenly tried to steal the shield from him. A sudden pain I had felt before but ignored since it wasn’t much exploded as soon as the thing making it nothing much left my hands.

At some point, the sounds of clashing metal behind me ended and Vincent pushed something into my hands, the shield. Both of the skeletons were now killed, one by me and the other by Vincent. The fact that I was unable to help Vincent in his fight made me feel even worse. If not for the fact that he looked completely unharmed, I would’ve dropped the shield just so I’d feel the pain again. The pain was what I deserved at this time for my failure.

“That was a crazy fight. Enemies like these normally don’t come out until the thirtieth or even fortieth room. Evolved versions of the normal enemies. Let’s distribute the rewards and agree on the fact that we should probably turn back now rather than go further and risk dying,” said Vincent while holding his hand out to me.

I took his hand and got back up. With the shield back in my hands, I was already starting to feel better, if not sore all over and shaky. As for the rewards to distribute, there were two pedestals that had appeared in the middle of the room at some point. Both of them had some sort of jewel on them, one red and the other brown. They appeared to be enchanted items despite the fact that we hadn’t faced enchanted enemies.

“They’re earrings enchanted by elements. One with the power of earth and the other with fire. Neither have much of an effect for us. They’re more meant for magic users as it increases their affinity and how many spells they can cast. Still, they’re of considerable value and a good prize for this dungeon run. You go ahead and pick which one you like and I’ll take the other one,” said Vincent.

Magic users were very rare. They could channel elements to do things like shoot fireballs and create water from nothing. Granting them an item like this would curry many a favor or sell for a price that would keep me comfortable for the rest of my life, which would be one year if I just relaxed and stayed comfortable. The value of these earrings to me was highly dependent on the elements of the magic users in my country or neighboring countries. Which I had no idea about so I just chose the red one because fire looks cool and I’ve got a fire sword to match it.

Vincent took the brown, earth earring and happily helped me as I started dragging the barrel back towards the surface. Along the way, I picked up some of the ores I had left behind and then said my goodbyes to Vincent on the nineteenth floor. He had to go back to the place where he had come from to reunite with his allies. How nice it would have been to just go with him or convince him to come with me. Surely at some point, I would have an ally like Vincent in the knight order.

The way back to the surface was wrought with hazards. Most of them due to all the ores falling out of my shirt and off the barrel. All the while, my knee was still in pain and wobbled every time I moved the barrel due to the strain. As much as I wanted to take a nice, long rest, I didn’t want to fight a bunch of skeletons on the way back. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t had the opportunity with the rest area on the way.

Once I finally made it to the first room right before the surface, I set the barrel down and tried straightening out my clothes and cleaning myself up. It was much harder than normal since I didn’t have anything to wash with unless I took a beer bath and I was covered in blood, my own blood this time. Hopefully, I could just take the next day off to recover and my gains this day were enough to maybe rent a few more nights at the inn we were staying at. With that in mind, I picked the barrel back up and awkwardly wobbled towards the surface while fully expecting to be looked at like I was some weirdo.

 

Chapter 25: The Inn Room

Spoiler

Back on the surface, I found myself carrying a barrel of beer and a pile of ores, some in my shirt, others stacked on the barrel. The people lining up to get inside only took a passing glance at me before focusing on going into the dungeon themselves. Apparently, people leaving the dungeon with their arms full wasn’t anything new not even with this barrel in my arms. As for the guards, they just laughed a bit at me struggling to carry everything out of the building without dropping anything. Right as I got outside, someone blocked my way.

“I’ll give you a silver for all those ores,” said the man. He was some sort of merchant or perhaps a representative for one of these streetside stands everywhere.

“Thanks for the offer, I actually have seven of them,” I said while pulling out three more that were in my shirt, I left the bad smelling one there until I figured out its value.

“Seven? I thought you had eight with the bulges in your shirt. No matter, I’ll still offer one silver for all of them,” said the man. Surprisingly he had already accounted for the other ones and the silver was for all of them, not just the four sitting on the barrel.

“I see shops around here selling three for a silver. Surely you can pay two silvers for seven ores,” I said in response. If he was offering one, then there was leeway for more as per the usual with merchants and the rules of haggling.

“And other shops selling five for one. Trust me, one silver is a good deal as most shops will only offer one silver for ten ores which you don’t even have,” said the man and he was right. There wasn’t much room for profit if he pays two silver unless there’s someplace where they could be sold at a higher price than all these stands.

“Fine, I’ll take your deal if you can explain the situation behind all these shops, this ore, and these crappy weapons,” I said. Heck, I’d even pass these ores over for free in exchange for info like that which would be invaluable to our present situation in this city.

“A newcomer to this city? Well, the thing is that this ore is overly abundant here but rare everywhere else. A lot of places like using it as a cheap alternative to silver or zinc for coating their weapons and preventing rust. However, there isn’t much profit in it as its still somewhat cheap in other places, so only individual merchants buy them every so often and they’re less predictable than caravans so stands need to kept open for them almost constantly. When merchants come through, they buy in bulk and buy up pretty much everything in sight, sometimes barely caring about price. Adventurers and knights open their own shops to maximize profit and make it so that it’s actually worth going in the dungeon with the fee,” explained the man.

“And the weapons made completely of this metal?” I asked.

“This metal has a lower melting point than iron so it’s used as cheap practice by the local blacksmiths. Meanwhile, the merchants that pass through don’t really care about the state of the metal and will buy the weapons to melt down later. If you want any more info, you’ll have to pay me,” said the man while taking the ores off my hands and leaving after passing me a silver.

I wasn’t sure who came out of this deal better, but I had made back my fee for going into the dungeon, making the three other things pure profit. Four if I counted the food in the bucket but that had no value beyond me saving on food costs. The barrel of beer could be sold if I was in a desperate money situation while the sword and earring could easily sell for a decent sum. An even better use for it than selling it was drinking it of course.

There was one major issue with moving the barrel to the inn where I could possibly start drinking it. And that was the fact that I had no clue where the inn was and had to wait for Matt to guide me. A ways away from the building I managed to find Jerry chatting with one of the many shops by the roadside about something. I walked up beside him, hoping he’d either know where the inn was or at least a rough idea of when Matt would be back.

He finished talking with the shopkeep and noticed me, “Good timing captain. That dungeon had tons of this ore. They don’t sell for much but I made my money back from the entrance fee. Sold twelve ores for a silver coin but it can’t be helped with how easily these ores drop.”

Twelve for a single silver? Jerry had gotten ripped off horribly. I guess that man I was talking to before was telling the truth and I did get a good price for my ores. That made me feel better about the whole situation. Even the fact that Jerry had been ripped off as he’d still need two or more ores for it to warrant two silvers. I just had to sell this sword somewhere and I’d have enough money to stay an extra night at the inn maybe.

“I managed to make a silver off the ores I got along with this barrel of beer from the rest area and a sword dropped from a normal enemy. The enemies were weak to divine items with healing, walking skeletons,” I said, describing the rough situation.

“So something like the ice shard dungeon? I can’t understand how you can risk your life like that, even with a dungeon well suited for your strengths, you go so far that it’s borderline suicidal,” said Jerry, my knowledge of that time had been shared to him during our meeting with Sanae Patil. He was right that I was reckless but it certainly brought results.

“Yeah, just like that. There was even a convergence but this time the other person waited for me and was friendly. I’ll tell you the rest over a mug of this beer back at the inn. Do you know where it is or do we have to wait on Matt?” I asked.

“I do know. Matt got a bad monster type to fight against and after leaving, the guards told him he had to go back to the end of the queue and pay another silver to go back in. He couldn’t afford it so he waited for me to come out and told me the rough location before going on ahead to check up on Stephen while I stayed to sell the ores,” said Jerry as he started to help me carry the barrel and guided me towards the inn.

Conveniently enough, it wasn’t that far away from the dungeon. At least, it wasn’t far from the market with all the flags and ores so it’d be easy to find my way back to the dungeon. It was in a residential area on the side of the markets and we didn’t need to go through the inn’s main building to reach our room. Unlike Tom’s bar, the inn was only one floor that stretched deep into a cramped alleyway that only fit maybe two or three people walking side by side. Along the alley was a series of doors leading into rooms for the inn we were using and what I assumed was another inn on the other side.

It was a tight fit with the barrel in our arms and there were a few people entering and leaving rooms, swearing at us as we went by since we were taking up a bunch of space. Insulting us just because they had less space to walk by us seemed a bit excessive especially with how tight the streets were. Surely they were used to it by now. Perhaps that was why they swore at us; they were too used to walking through tight walkways so when a walkway normally a bit more open was tight as well it’d annoy them on top of the annoyance of having to walk through places like that every day.

The room Matt had rented was around two-thirds of the way into the alley. I set the barrel off to the side then tried opening the room, only to find it lodged shut. Jerry knocked on the door and shouted that it was him. After a few moments and the sound of metal rubbing against each other, the door was opened, revealing an extremely tight and thin room. There was literally only a bed and a small amount of empty space at the base of the bed. We moved the barrel inside and set it to the side of the door and then Jerry took off his shoes and set them on the ground.

If I wanted to sleep on the ground in here, I would have to either sleep in a seated position or have everyone’s shoes as a pillow as my legs rested on the barrel. The room was very dim with only a small candle. As for the bed, it was covered in various stains including a white stain that I hoped was from the candle dripping down. There were no windows and the room felt almost airtight with a thick door with two locks on it to prevent theft. It was suffocating, cramped, dirty, expensive, and dark. This was not an ideal place to stay and I would jump on an opportunity to rent somewhere else if only we could afford it.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and chatted with the others for a bit about the dungeon before I went out to get some mugs for the beer. We didn’t need to find anywhere to eat because of the bucket of food I brought back and shared with the others. In the end, we ended up eating all the food and poured the barrel into the bucket, making it easier to pour into the mugs and spilling less. We still spilled some beer on the bed but it wasn’t going to stain it anymore and it improved the smell in the room.

After few mugs of beer, the room and this situation didn’t feel so bad. We would just have to be lucky with our dungeons so we don’t have to leave and then grind up a bunch of ores. Stephen and Matt mentioned at some point while eating that they had seen adventurers and knights carrying around massive bags of ores and that was something we could do as well. With how frequent the ores dropped, I wouldn’t be surprised if we could gather forty in one run then sell them all for four to five silvers.

If I was going to do that, it’d be in my best interest to buy a better set of clothes, preferably one with pockets to carry even more. I ended up passing the sword that dropped from the dungeon to Matt rather than selling it since he needed a weapon and his hatchet would break in one use. As for the earring, I soaked the sharp part of in the beer for a few seconds then pierced my earlobe. My shaggy hair would hide it from plain sight and I might as well wear it until I found someone to sell or trade it to.

The others saw this and drunkenly laughed at this antic, thinking it was some knick knack I picked up in the market that I believed was actually valuable. If that was what they wanted to believe, I wasn’t going to stop them. Even with Matt proving himself to be somewhat trustworthy and the others being fellow believers of Sanae Patil, the fewer people who knew the better. A best-case scenario is that it would help me despite the fact that it’s only supposed to be useful for magic users, like amplifying my fire sword or something like that. I should have checked back when I was still in the dungeon but was reluctant to put the earring in until I had a few drinks in me.

 

Chapter 26: Stringbag

Spoiler

In the morning, I woke up with a hangover and found myself sitting on the floor and hugging the barrel of beer. Before I had gone to sleep, I had passed the shield back to Stephen and was regretting that decision massively. As I shook myself awake and took a small sip of wine, the shield was pushed into my hands. Stephen was already wide awake thanks to the shield and necklace preventing his hangover while the others were still passed out and sleeping in odd positions all over the bed.

With the shield in hand, I was already feeling better and decided to go off on a dungeon run before anyone got up. I still had the silver from selling the ores yesterday for entering the dungeon. The problem is that I didn’t have any other money on hand currently. Jerry still had all the remaining cash and had a tight hold over it so we’d be able to keep the room for a few more days. If I wanted to get new clothes or a bad to carry stuff with, I’d need to sell off the other ore that I had held onto that Vincent had pushed onto me. Even if it wasn’t worth much, it was making my clothes and body smell awful so getting rid of it was a priority.

As I exited the room, Stephen closed things up and locked them behind me. Although it was terrible to think as much, it was awfully convenient that Stephen was injured and could watch over the room and keep our stuff safe while we were out and about. That door bold could only be used with someone in the room and I didn’t trust the door’s regular lock fully. Back in my old hometown, there was a blacksmith who knew a bit of locksmithing and apparently picking locks like those were fairly easy for those that knew how.

It was already in the afternoon and the alley where the room lied was even more empty than before. The few people that were here leaned against the walls, drinking or eating while watching the crowd go by on the street. Did they have nothing better to do or were they criminals, looking for a target to rob? Not like I could judge them with my looks. I looked homeless compared to most people around here. Then again, plenty of merchants and adventurers slept outside the gate with clothes and armor that looked quite pricey so the standard was high for the homeless.

Before heading towards the dungeons, I headed towards the more general market area, the place with all the food. While most of the place was dominated by stands selling cheap food and various ingredients, there were merchants selling jewelry, the odd knick-knack, tools, and even a few places selling the same ore as before except at two pieces for a silver, the most expensive I had seen it yet. I decided to walk up to them, despite their high prices, not as a customer but more of someone asking for directions. Surely a shop selling ores and weapons would know a blacksmith or an area where I could exchange this ore, if they wouldn’t buy it themselves.

“Hey there, have you seen this sort of ore before?” I asked while pulling it out.

“That’s no metal ore if I’ve ever seen one. Seems to be some strange material, but it smells and looks like a rock that you just pissed on for a few days,” said the merchant quite bluntly.

“Do you know anywhere I could sell this and would you buy it? I assure you it's no piss rock. I picked it up from the dungeon in the later floors,” I said.

“Smells like a scam to me. Buzz off and bother someone else unless you’re buying. If you insist on trying to sell that shit, then keep going to the left until it opens up to the smith quarter. The people there have good eyes and will beat the piss out of you if you try to pull a fast one,” said the merchant. He was rude and wanted me to go away, but gave me some valuable information so I thanked him anyway.

To the right was the dungeon and the inn I was staying in so I headed in the opposite direction towards this supposed smith quarter. With a name like that, I imagined blacksmiths lining every corner of the street like the ore stands around the dungeon. Instead, I found a relatively quiet area with only a few people. There were some buildings here and there with smokestacks and the sounds of metal clashing. Blacksmiths obviously held some position and wealth in this town, affording their own buildings, often with more than one floor in their own little area that didn’t border any residential areas nor did it have much foot traffic.

The roads were so clear that carriages could come through. One of the carriages passing by was completely filled with various weapons and ores. It stopped next to me and the merchant motioned towards me so I walked up to it. He motioned for me to get even closer so I climbed into the coachmen’s seat on the carriage.

“Could you pass me that staff for a second?” asked the merchant, referring to the crappy staff I bought yesterday. It was still strapped to my back with my spear and was covered in cracks so I was considering just throwing it out.

His hands ran along the cracks on the spear and then tapped it on the edge of the carriage. Checking to see if something was hollow was the norm for pretty much anything. Not just to prevent being ripped off, but to also look for hidden compartments containing valuables. After checking out a few other things, he smiled and seemed satisfied with it.

“What caused this crack?” asked the merchant and I was more than happy to tell him. Since he was taking such an interest in it, that meant he might be interested in buying it.

“I was curious as to why so many weapons were made of this material and if it was effective despite being so light. In the dungeon, I hit a skeleton monster in its head and this is the result. If you think this crack is bad, you should have seen the skeleton,” I said while embellishing the story a bit.

“A skull bashing staff. Now that’s quite the story. A story like that alone is worth a drink in any bar. I’ll take it,” said the merchant while tossing it in the back and passing me a silver for it. That was double the value I paid for since we got two weapons for one silver yesterday.

I took the silver and hopped off the carriage, waving at him as he continued down the street. What a nice guy he was. After he was out of sight, I realized I should have shown him the ore to see if he would buy it. No matter, I could always try selling it to a blacksmith. And with that thought in mind, I entered one of the buildings at random and found myself in more of a shop than a smithy. There were weapons lining the walls and armors held up on wooden poles so they’d be at the same height as they’d be if I was wearing them.

From the sounds of hammering, the actual smithy was in the back along with the smith himself. In his stead, there was a young man of twelve or thirteen in the shop. He was most likely an apprentice and the person who I would have to talk with rather than the smith. His eyes were glued to the back area, likely having an angle to watch the blacksmith work from his position. He didn’t notice me until I closed the door behind me.

“Hello mister, what can I help you with?” asked the boy while coming out from behind the counter and walking up to me. It had been a long time since I had been treated with respect by a stranger.

“I’ve got this ore I got from the dungeon and I was wondering if I could get it identified and sold possibly,” I said while pulling out the ore. He took one whiff of it and suddenly took a few steps back, keeping his distance from me.

“I’ve never seen something like that so I’d have to get master to look at it. Just know that he has a short temper with things like this,” he said, thinking this was some sort of scam or joke like the shop owner who pointed me this way. I nodded my head in understanding and the boy went to the back.

The sounds of metal clashing stopped a few moments later and a buff man covered completely in soot walked out. His face was contorted into a grimace either from being disturbed in his work or from how dirty he currently was. I passed the ore into his hands and his nose wrinkled up in disgust. A few moments later, he set it on a nearby shelf and waved for the boy to come back.

“Boy, work the counter. I’m covered in dust. He’s got a chunk of sulfur. Give him two coins or an item worth three. If he wants more, give it back to him and kick him out,” he said before walking back to the smithy and resuming his work. Not much of a businessman with that take it or leave deal. I’d prefer to trade for an item for the full three coins worth if I could.

“Do you have a set of clothes or a bag I could use to carry a large number of ores in? I would rather take those than coin if I could,” I said to the boy as he stepped back to the counter.

“We don’t have clothes, only armor. You’d need to talk to a tailor for that. As for bags for transporting ores, we have those but I’m not sure if we sell them. I’ll go ask,” said the boy as he went into the back. Another minute passed before he came back and during that time the hammering never stopped.

In his hands was a leather sack as big as me. Its outside was brown while the insides were pitch black from use. Around the opening of the bag was some slits with rope around it. I could use that to not only close up the bag but also to sling it over my shoulder for easier carrying. It was perfect for my needs.

“It’s not exactly worth three silver but close enough. Good luck with your ventures and hope to do business with you again,” said the boy.

Next time I need a smith for something, I would probably check out the other places first to get a good comparison on prices and what not. The only reason I didn’t do so this time is because I just wanted to get rid of the stinking thing. So far in the city, I hadn’t been ripped off too badly and felt confident I had gotten a good deal despite my lack of comparisons or knowledge on the sulfur. I had traded away something I didn’t need for something I did. Is that not the basis for all trade?

Backtracking to the dungeon, I looked around to see if any other adventurers or knights had bags or other things like that. There were very few which surprised me. How did they make a profit off the dungeon without carrying back large amounts of the ore? Carrying enough for the trip to be worthwhile wasn’t feasible without a good bag.

The queue was basically the same as it was yesterday and I managed to get into the dungeon after paying the toll of silver. There was no going back now. That was my only silver on hand and if I had to leave, I’d have to get more money from Jerry. My worst fear is that I would face up against an enemy that was hard or annoying to deal with. That fear was realized.

 

is the story finsh?