Fate Weaver’s Legacy

#091 – You’re projecting, I’m just here to beat the dungeon

When I opened the door, I was faced with… a bar?

It was a large open room filled with small circular tables with chairs next to them – all made out of the same black stone as everything else in this city – a counter, and what looked like a giant noticeboard in the corner.

repeaeaeat: adventurer’s guild!
GeorgeDoshington: u can finally get drunk

I blinked and scrutinized the room a bit more.

There were no shelves for bottles or barrels of liquor anywhere and rather than bar counters, they looked more like the counters you would see at some administration offices with enough space for people to line up to them.

And the noticeboard could be the place where they put up quests for the adventurers to pick up.

“...Adventurer’s guild. Yeah, I can see that,” I agreed. “Does that mean that I’m gonna be fighting the guildmaster or something?”

GeorgeDoshington: or a receptionist whos secretly op
sKaiEbikoOfficial: it could be some other official building

I hummed.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, Ebi. It just had this feeling, you know…? I guess we’ll find out.”

Also, when I thought about it, other than the archer, all of the monsters in this dungeon so far were just regular people who didn’t feel like combatants. Some random grandma, a school kid, a stall owner…

Now, if I faced the guildmaster or just some adventurer – or rather, the dungeon’s interpretation of them – it would be someone explicitly used to fighting.

Well, I already expected the difficulty to keep ramping up. No surprises there.

I steeled myself and then walked inside the building. I took slow and steady steps while keeping my head on the swivel, trying to predict where my opponent would come out of this time. The stairs leading up behind the counters were my guess.

The door slammed behind me, making me fall into my fighting stance, my key sword and gun self at the ready. 

Sure enough, a figure rushed down the stairs and stopped at the bottom before locking its non-existent eyes with me.

It was once again a dark-skinned person with horns just like the grandma and the kid. This one, however, was seemingly a male adult dressed in red metallic armor.

I tensed and already began brainstorming with chat on how to take him down before even knowing what he could do.

But then, to my surprise, instead of shooting me, charging at me, or throwing a freaking cart at me, the faceless man across the room simply reached out for the red sword at his hip, drew it, and then pointed it at me.

And then I froze as a sudden wave of malice drowned out the air.

I could have sworn that the man in front of me was sneering at me and cussing me out even though he had no mouth and couldn’t speak. I probably stood there for a whole minute, listening to the wordless monologue spoken straight into my mind through pure feelings. Almost like telepathy.

I couldn’t make out any real words out of it, but I could tell that he was furious at me. Furious at humans in general. For invading the city. For betraying his queen. For pushing his people out in the first place.

…What?

Then the mental pressure suddenly vanished and I recovered from my daze to see him already with his knees bent, his sword arm drawn back, and emitting the familiar black sparks of lightning.

I snapped myself back into fight mode just quickly enough to try and dash off to the side to dodge the sweeping swing of his sword that left crackles of black sparks behind.

Unfortunately, he was too fast for me to dodge and I had to scramble to block his swing with my own sword, holding it vertically in front of myself.

Our weapons clashed.

I wasn’t strong enough.

The key sword flew out of my hands and his weapon, although a bit slower, still hit me straight into my chest and my world exploded in pain.

I blacked out for a brief moment as the black electricity surged through me and I crashed into a wall behind me.

That was not how swords should work, flashed through my mind before I shoved the thought away and thanked the stars for my defense-oriented build for not getting sliced in half.

When I looked up I saw the man charging at me once more, his blade coated in black lighting.

I hit him with Rend as I scrambled to my feet.

He stumbled and slowed down just enough for me to finish getting up and raise my gun at him.@@novelbin@@

I pressed the trigger and showered him in crystal shards.

But just like the boss from the crater, he simply waved his sword in front of himself and somehow disintegrated all the projectiles with the black lightning.

I fired a water bullet next.

He turned his movement into a stab of his sword and shot a bolt of black lightning at the bullet, causing it to violently burst mid-air and splash me with water.

Gah. Good thing I hadn’t used death water. That would have really hurt.

He used my momentary distraction to close the distance once more and I had to scramble to Quick Fetch my key sword and parry his slash again. This time, I actually managed to keep it in my hands, despite the sparks of lightning jumping from his sword to me.

Both of us bounced back from the clash, but he was already preparing for another strike, this time, an overhead slash.

Unfortunately, with how my sword arm had been deflected, I wouldn’t have enough time to raise it to block again.

So instead, I channeled Ether into it, activating its crystal burst mode, and slammed it on the ground between us, causing a hedgehog of crystals to spring up from the ground, interrupting my assailants attack and pushing him back.

Unfortunately, that move also kinda pinned me to the wall I’d been knocked to at the very start.

Fortunately, I could still move one of my arms, so I raised it, materialized my gun self, and shot the ground between me and my opponent twice. It knocked him even further away, but my true intentions were to get out of this pickle, exactly the same way I’d gotten out from the crater boss – Aquaport.

I grabbed the water, surrounded myself, and then created a roughly me-shaped blob to the side and–

And I couldn’t Aquaport. There was something missing. Something–

Tempor.

Fuck, I’d used up all of my Tempor in the last fight! I barely had enough to use Quick Fetch!

I briefly panicked, thinking I was boned, and proceeded to shoot the crystal itself with a combination shot of water and fire.

That, of course, resulted in a steam explosion in my face, which wasn’t pleasant in the slightest. But at the very least, it seemed to have broken the crystal, allowing me to slip away to the side just before I heard a swish of metal behind me.

When I blinked away the scalding gas from my eyes, I realized that the steam had effectively created a smoke screen – a steam screen? – and the man was still floundering inside it.

Could he not see through it…? Or was it because I was so much shorter than him…?

…Well, he didn’t have eyes, so maybe whatever sense he was using was messed up by steam?

Whatever the reason, I could use this.

As the steam began to condense into water again, I shot another water and fire combo shot straight at him this time, creating another explosion of steam. This time, I was ready for it though and briefly closed my eyes to shield them from the initial burst.

And then I moved.

Half-crouched so that I would be even harder to see in all the steam, I ran forward, preparing my resummoned key sword again. I channeled some Ether into it, activating the black flame effect and then slashed at my opponent’s lower half.

It ripped through him as if he was made of smoke.

…Wait. What the fuck?

He had literally dissipated into some smoke-like substance when I hit him.

I quickly backed away, wary of some unknown ability. I had no idea whether that had been some kind of shadow clone or whether that smoke would reform into the guy again, but I still quickly checked my surroundings while keeping an eye on the blob of smoke.

A few seconds of stillness and most of the steam condensed into a huge water puddle on the ground, just as the blob of smoke backed away and then reformed into the armor-wearing swordsman.

Right.

So some kind of smoke form? Was he a vampire or something?

Ugh, how was I supposed to beat him if he could go intangible though? Wait, hold on, what would have happened if I used Rend on the smoke blob? Would it jolt him back into humanoid form? Hmm…

Regardless of that theory, the two of us found ourselves face to face once more, just like at the beginning.

The only difference was the residual steam, puddle of water, and my depleted Ether and Intra.

But that was fine. At least I learned what he could do. Black lightning, some mental aura thing, and the smoke form.

Chat and I had theorized that, since these dungeon monsters seemed to be based on real people, then they likely all had exactly three skills, unless some of them had passed the limit break. So far, that held true. Ignoring the cooking demon, who didn’t use any skills, and the mage kid who only used fireballs, the archer had three skills, the merchant had three skills, and this guy also seemed to have three skills.

…Anyway.

After a few moments of staring at me, my opponent dashed forward again, channeling lightning into his sword once more.

Now I had his number though.

I steeled myself, gripped my sword, channeled Ether into it, and just before the guy reached me, I blasted him with Rend.

He stumbled.

I slashed at him, leaving a trail of black fire.

But somehow, he managed to recover just in time to block my sword with his own. To my surprise though, the moment my sword hit his, it snapped in half where I hit it even if it killed all of my swing’s momentum.

I let go of my sword, pulled out my gun self, and then fired a combo shot of water and crystal shards.

It flew through him as he turned into smoke once more.

I grit my teeth, jumped a step back – just in case that smoke form was harm to the touch – and began charging a plasma ball at my gun

A few seconds later when I thought the plasma ball was large enough, I hit the smoke cloud with Rend again, and it suddenly rippled before converging into the shape of the guy again.

Just like I’d hoped.

As he stumbled back into his corporeal form, I fired the plasma in its liquid form, covering him in his entirety.

He began thrashing as he burned and I backed off a bit more just to prevent the plasma from splashing at me.

Then he turned into smoke again.

I used Rend again and he turned back and continued thrashing.

Then I froze at the sudden flood of malice that swept over me.

I failed to move out of the way as the guy tossed his broken sword at me and hit me straight in the chest.

“Ugh! Ow! Ow! Shit!”

The blunt impact barely hurt, but the plasma leftovers on it actually kinda burned.

I backed off from it and then glanced back at where the guy was.

I only caught the glimpse of the residual orange smoke and a chest sitting in a puddle of plasma, which was sizzling and turning the surrounding water puddle into steam again.

I stopped, relaxed, straightened up, took a deep breath, and then slumped with a sigh.

repeaeaeat: these fights are always so quick damn
RetconRanger: Another inaccessible chest?
KaiEbikoOfficial: are you okay nana?
KaiEbikoOfficial: you got hit pretty hard there

“Yeah yeah, I’m good, Ebi.” I shook my head. “How long was that fight anyway? Five minutes?” I glanced at the chest and pursed my lips. “I hope I can still get it…”

repeaeaeat: more like two
bloopbooper: boop! (　-_･) ︻デ═一 ▸

I snorted and shook my head at Booper’s antics and George’s words.

“Gee. Thanks, George. It’s an honor.”

I sighed and plopped down on the ground, already sending my forks off to discuss what went wrong, what went right, and what I could do better next time against this guy.

Next time, because I didn’t think I would be beating this dungeon on this run. Considering that this guy was the first real fighter I’d fought – except the archer – and the fights were only getting harder, I fully expected to fight the demon queen later on. Or at least some of her strongest soldiers and generals.

SunOfABeach: what was the start about?
SunOfABeach: you just froze

I blinked.

“Oh, yeah. That. Uh… He had some kind of mental attack too. It was pretty weird,” I explained as I reached into my backpack and brought out the crystal flask to recover my Ether.

“It like… sent feelings at me. I think he was accusing me of betraying his queen and invading the city. No clue what that was about.”

repeaeaeat: huh weird
KaiEbikoOfficial: thats kinda creepy
GeorgeDoshington: r we the baddies?

“We know we are the baddies, George. Remember the secret area…? Yeah…”

Suddenly, I felt my mood sour again at the thought, but I quickly shook it away and steered the conversation elsewhere.

After a bit of rest, I approached the chest still surrounded by plasma.

“Hmm…”

I eyed it for a moment, shrugged, and then proceeded to grab as much of the surrounding water as I could with my hydrokinesis. I used the water to gently push the plasma off the chest.

It actually diminished the plasma – which probably wasn’t plasma at all since it didn’t behave like plasma, as some nerfied chatters had informed me a while back – as it moved it, and after a bit of fiddling with it, the chest was now safely accessible.

“Anyway, loot time!” I cheered and popped the chest open.

A sword in a scabbard greeted me. It looked very similar to the one the guy had used.

I reached inside, pulled it slightly out of it and yep, the same red metal as the guy’s armor and his sword. Cool.

“Well, I guess I got another weapon now!” I cheered.

Well, I wasn’t sure if it had any special properties – since I didn’t have Appraisal equipped – and considering that guy’s sword broke pretty easily, I wasn’t gonna get my hopes up too much.

Still though. I knew what it was like to lose access to good weapons now, so a spare sword couldn’t hurt.

I put it back into its sheath and put the whole thing into my backpack before watching the chest disappear.

A few more minutes of rest later and I was ready for the next fight.

Ether fully recovered thanks to the flask, Intra levels decent, Tempor… no idea, but probably higher than what I’d had for this fight.

I could keep going.

Worst case scenario, I still had my trump card in my gun’s death water shots.

“Let’s keep going, chat! Sixth floor, here I come!”