Chapter 16: Dungeon Part 2

Sprinting towards Shadow, Alice arrived at the entrance he was referring to. A wooden door with strange carvings that decorated it beautifully, hidden between a grouping of trees. It looked like it opened into the biggest tree at the center. "What an odd place for a door to be. I wonder what could even be inside a tree. " Alice said to Shadow feeling puzzled.

"No other way to find out than to open it. Just be careful, there is the presence of a Magical Beast, although, it isn't much stronger than I am." Shadow said giving Alice a warning. Even a low-level Magic Beast can have an attack power many times their level.

Putting her hand on the doorknob and slowly pushing the door open, both Alice and Shadow were surprised to see a gigantic room hidden within the tree.

The whole room, much to their confusion, was made of smooth creamy marble that was illuminated by a crystal chandelier making the room seem to glow lightly. Peeking further into the massive room without entering, Alice could barely make out a wolf cub at the end of the room. "That must be the magic beast you felt. Why is it even in this weird, empty room all alone?" Alice questioned almost expecting Shadow to have some idea as to why the wolf was sleeping in the room.

"I have no idea, but I am pretty confident that I can defeat it. Who knows? Maybe there will be a good drop for you." Shadow said taking a few steps into the marble room. Letting out a loud growl, Shadow managed to wake the cub from his slumber.

Seeing Shadow, the wolf cub jumped up and lowered his head growling, showing he had no plans of backing down from the challenge. 'Looks like this will be rather fun to watch.' Alice thought while sitting down, leaning against the door, having faith in Shadow's words. "Let me know if you need my help, we still need you on the other floors, so don't getting hurt too bad. " Alice said still slightly worried not wanting to see her precious friend hurt.

Shadow took the initiative to start the battle and ran full speed at the wolf cub. Pouncing and clashing with the wolf, both were sent tumbling backwards. Alice watched on, seeing a near cartoon like scuffle as the two magic beasts rolled around, biting and clawing at each other.

Moments later the scuffle died down until Shadow was standing over the wolf, victoriously, letting out a roar so loud it hurt Alice's ears. It echoed off the marble walls making the volume feel amplified. "I get you're happy and good job, but I almost went deaf with that." Alice said proud but slightly annoyed having a ring in her ears. "Sorry, but I managed to level up! Being level 8, I am only two levels away from my first skill. " Shadow was feeling very proud of himself.

"In any case, it looks like you grew a little, keep that up and I won't be able to hold you anymore. " Alice said. "We also need to get back to the group and take a quick nap before we go to the second floor and start battling again."

Walking up to the camp, everyone was asleep except Nikita. "Hey girl. You're still up? There are no more monsters left on this level." Said Alice just now noticing how pretty Nikita actually was. She was a Cat Girl with black hair, tied up in a ponytail that. She had cute little ears that poked out of her hair, yellow eyes that had the same kind of pupil as Shadow, making her look beautiful yet fierce, and a bust that made Alice slightly jealous.

"Yeah, I waited up for you. I don't sleep too much inside dungeons. The mana in the air makes my body tingle too much to get solid sleep. You can go on and sleep if you would like to." she replied with an honest smile.

"I will take you up on that offer. Also, there is a lake further to the east if you would like to take a bath. Goodnight." Alice said entering her tent and going to sleep.

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A few hours later everyone was awoken to Seth shouting for them to wake up. "Sorry to wake everyone up, but we should not sleep for too long. We still have four more floors to complete. We can take a longer rest after we clear the next floor." he said as everyone repacked all their camping gear.

"Thanks for the info on the bath. That water felt amazing! " Nikita said happy to be clean. They arrived on the second floor only to be met with the same environment as on floor one except for it being very bright and sunny, not to mention quite a bit warmer.

"Nyaaaaa!! It's so hot I'm going to die!" Nikita complained, waving her hand by her face. She received nods of agreement from Nira and Alice. "Remember to stay alert Nikita. It may be hot on this floor, but you can still really die if you get careless." Seth said with just as much authority as everything else he says.

Walking further into the dungeon, more Kobalds could be seen wandering around in the distance. They were slightly hunched over and their fur was a lot less thick. Two red stripes starting at their nose and going over their heads and down their back could be seen. "Looks like these guys have a high resistance to fire based attacks." said Derrick. He pointed out that the color of their stripes indicates what element they are most resistant to.

"Let's get this over with." Seth said using his 'shout' skill drawing the attention of 5 of the kobalds. Successfully taking aggro and tanking the 5 of them, Derrick sat back since he was useless on this floor leaving all the damage to Nikita and Alice.

Getting behind the group of kobalds, Nikita managed to land a critical strike on one while only inflicting minor damage a second to another. Alice on the other hand used her Rift warp to get behind the biggest of the 5 only to have her attack parried as the kobald punches her hard in the stomach, sending her flying back into range of the other mob of kobalds. Giving another shout, Seth gets the aggro of the first mob back in control, not noticing that Alice was sent flying.

Being surrounded by kobalds as she stands up, she wipes some blood from the corner of her mouth losing about 45 HP from that one attack. 'Shit what am I going to do now?' Alice thought as she parried attack after attack slowly losing more HP.

As her situation looked like it was about to take a deadly end, Alice starts feeling her HP raise slightly faster than the damage she was taking.

"YOU HAVE TO HOLD ON AS LONG AS YOU CAN! WE CAN'T COME TO YOU YET; I WILL DO WHAT I CAN TO HEAL YOU, BUT DON'T DIE!!" Nira yelled, panicking, having to heal both Seth and Alice while still trying to defeat the last 3 kobalds of the first mob.

Thankful for her passive HP regen and the heal she received from Nira, Alice struggled to hold off all the attacks as cuts could be seen opening up on her arms and she was suddenly back to not being able to parry all the attacks being launched her way.

Somehow managing to kill one of the kobalds through all her parries and dodging, she lightens her load slightly turning her focus on the next monster wishing she had enough time to take out her scythe.

Trying to save his master and friend, Shadow leaps into action, landing on the shoulders of the kobald that was attacking Alice from behind. When he began clawing at the monster's eyes, Shadow managed to blind the kobald and leaped onto another set of shoulders doing everything in his power to save Alice from certain death.