Chapter 4: Dungeon Discovery
No matter how terrible it was, the sun eventually went away.
On the other hand, I didn't manage to get a wink of sleep the entire time. The sun just continued to overbearingly pressure me the entire time.
Once I was sure that it was gone, I opened up the entrance to my dugout.
I poked my head out and looked left, right, and up, making sure there weren't any traces of the sun.
With a sigh of relief, I pulled myself out.
(So much for my bath. I immediately got covered in dirt and blood again)
I looked down at my hands. Just last night they looked so soft and smooth, but now they were ragged and bloody. If I didn't find a way to properly protect myself during the day, my maxed initial appearance settings were going to go down the drain.
(Gah, another thing to hate the sun for!)
Before I realized it, pain was shooting up from my hands, and I unclenched them.
The need to make progress had gotten much stronger, so I hurried to the river bank.
There, I found the things I left behind yesterday...most of it.
The rabbit pelt was gone.
It seemed like some animal took it since everything else was still there. While it was annoying, for me it was actually the least important bit.
Without further ado, I quickly rinsed myself in the river, then put in some work to modify the goblin loincloths.
Using my claws, I made some quick snips here and there and tied other parts together. What resulted was a leather bikini. The absolute most I could do with my skills and available materials.
It was pretty embarrassing to wear, but it was better than being naked. Barely.
Unfortunately the top did nothing to support me, and only acted as covering. If I was more skilled, I probably could've gotten a bit of support out of it, but the thought only lowered my mood even further.
There wasn't anything more I could do, so I picked up my weapons. Even just holding my weapons hurt my hands, but I grit my teeth and bore with it. While they weren't much, they did increase my survival chances. Bearing with the pain, I crossed the river, and continued towards the mountain I could occasionally see.
It didn't take long before I found a pair of goblins. One armed with a stone axe, the other a spear.
They were lazily walking together. It looked like they were sleepy, as one of them yawned.
My stomach started to complain to me that it was empty. I didn't have any reason to refuse it.
With that, I threw one of my spears at the pair and went into a mad dash, a spear in one hand, axe in the other.
The thrown spear didn't quite hit it's mark, but it did graze the spear wielding goblin, making it flinch long enough for me to close the gap and stab it through the eye with my second spear.
I let go of it and turned to the second goblin, who was still in the middle of recovering from it's surprise.
Without waiting for it, I closed the extra step in between us and swung down my axe, leaving a large gash through it's right shoulder.
It stumbled a step back as it lost it's balance, but I closed the difference in an instant, and without any hesitation, I bit into it's neck, loudly slurping it's blood. Once it was drained, I pounced on the first goblin and emptied it as well.
Only when there wasn't a drop left for me to drink did I come up for air again, and with the cool air entering my lungs, did my mind clear enough for me to think again.
Once again I had lost myself to my blood lust. It was definitely going to be difficult to handle, but absolutely necessary to be able fit into any society I find...unless if it's a vampire society.
As I reached out to pick up my weapons, I noticed that there wasn't any pain from my hands anymore.
I looked down, and realized that they had healed up completely. There wasn't any trace of the tears from the digging. I touched the skin on my palms and fingers and marvelled how they was just as perfect as when I first arrived in this world.
The only conclusion I could come up with was that drinking blood also healed me.
The fact wasn't too much of surprise, but how quickly I healed due to it was.
I also touched the burn marks on my arm, and while they were still there, it didn't hurt as much as before. A few more goblins and even that would disappear without a trace.
In terms of consolation, this was a pretty decent one, I thought. It made me wonder just how much I could heal this way, but I wasn't eager to do any experimenting.
With a bit of a skip in my step, I picked up a pair of spears and an axe, and continued on my way.
As I walked, I confirmed my status again.
I had gained another level, and learned the [Axe Technique] skill. All my stats had risen a little thanks to the level as well.
Some more good things to happen to me since coming here.
But that aside, I had noticed that the slope I was climbing had been growing a bit steeper. I hoped that it meant that I'd find a cave soon, as no shelter would be as good as that for me. If not, then I'd have to dig myself a hole again, though this time I knew to prepare it earlier.
A few more hours of climbing, and I had reached a dead end.
Rather, the ground grew more rocky and the slop had suddenly increased to the point where it wouldn't be called hiking, but rather something closer to rock climbing.
For a second, I considered climbing the steep slope to get a view of my surroundings when I noticed an odd feature on the mountainside. There was a break in a particularly rocky part of the cliff.
With my curiosity piqued, I tried having a look at the only distinct feature I could see.
The break revealed itself to be a small cave, just big enough for two people to comfortably walk side by side through.
I sniffed the air and listened carefully, but couldn't detect anything in particular. It seemed like the cave was vacant. If that was the case, it would make a perfect base for me.
A bit eager, I stepped inside, lightly tracing the walls with a finger. The stone was smooth and dry, though highly irregular. The cave itself wound back and forth lazily, but despite not being able to see outside anymore, I could still see just barely. There was a faint light from further in that provided just enough light for me to not walk into one of the walls.
Suddenly, the cave opened up into a large room.
It was an almost perfect dome about as big as half of a basketball court. The floor was even and flat, and the walls were smoothly carved from the rock face. The room was empty, save for a stone structure sitting off to one side.
It was an elegantly carved stone fountain. The circular rim had a nice, wavy pattern on the outside, and the flat lip was both high and wide enough to comfortably sit on. The water was clear, and it looked like it was properly drained through small holes at the water's edge on the rim. In the middle, there was a large, cylindrical pedestal. Water was shooting out of a ring of holes from the pedestal's sides, projecting outwards only a little and making a crisscrossing curtain of water that splashed down.
The waist high pedestal itself was large enough for an an adult to stand on comfortably, but was empty for some reason.
I leaned my weapons against a wall and brushed my hand against the fountain's edge. Quite a bit of dust had accumulated on it, suggesting that it hadn't been used in a long time.
It felt like a good place for me to make my base. It was a nice sized room that came with it's own water source. I didn't need it to drink, but it would be great to be able to not worry about water for cleaning and washing. Prey seemed to be plentiful outside, and best of all, the short but twisting corridor that lead to this room blocked the damnable sun. If I could make a sturdy door, then I didn't even have to worry about animals or monsters wandering in and attacking me.
That said, I wanted furniture. Or at least the equipment to make some furniture, like a bed, or a bed, but especially a bed.
I hadn't slept at all in the last two days.
(Huh?)
I chalked it up to the stress earlier, but now that I was more relaxed, I noticed that I wasn't feeling sleepy at all. I've been going on for more than 24 hours already, yet there wasn't a hint of being sleepy.
Did my body now work on a completely different circadian rhythm? Or was it simply just better able to deal with sleep deprivation that much better?
It was apparent that I had a ton to figure out about my new body.
I splashed the water from the fountain onto the rim and started to scrub all the dust off of it. Then I moved on and washed the pillar itself before cleaning myself.
When I climbed back onto the fountain ledge, I saw that the water had gotten cloudy. I hoped that I didn't mess the fountain up, and that it would be able to refresh the water on it's own.
Now that it was clean, I climbed on top of the pedestal, put my hands on my hips, thrust out my chest, and yelled in the best, deep and booming voice I could let out.
"Bow down pathetic mortals! For now, I.Am.Your.GOD!"
...
Despite my best efforts, the voice that bounced around the hard walls was still light and girly.
But even still, I didn't regret it in the slightest. A pedestal like that existed for someone to use to look down on others, even if I was the only person in the room.
Satisfied with my foolishness, I lay down on the fountain lip to rest a bit, but a surprising sight greeted me instead.
The ceiling was covered in little glowing dots, like it was trying to be a recreation of the stars outside.
I had forgotten, but it was strange that I could see in this room so clearly. Without that glowing ceiling, the cave should've been pitch dark after the first few bends, but instead was probably brighter than the outside.
This clinched it. This was going to be my new home for the foreseeable future. It would've been a shame for something this nice to be left abandoned.
After a short break, I noticed that there was another entrance on the other side of the fountain. Thinking about it, it was pretty obvious, but I had gotten completely distracted by the strange sight of a fountain inside of a cave.
Piqued, I tried exploring this path.
Just like the other path, the cave winded back and forth gently for a short while before light from the other side started to reach me. But unlike the first time, the light on this side was much brighter, making it difficult for me to see. I put a hand on one wall as I followed the path, blinded by the strong light.
Suddenly I stepped on what felt like grass. The cave floor was hard stone all the way through, so there was no way for grass to be growing anywhere.
The rock wall ended, but I took a few more steps, feeling out the grass.
My eyes finally adjusted to the brightness and I froze at the sight before me.
What greeted me was the sight of an open field. A giant plains that continued for as far as I could see, the ground covered in tall grass.
Somehow, I entered a mountain, and after walking less than 100 meters, I ended up outside again.
There was no way I had somehow gotten to the other side of the mountain so quickly, nor could it have been some sort of clearing hidden inside of the mountain or something.
I felt like I was having heart palpitations. My hands were shaking and I was hyperventilating.
This scene was absurd, and went straight beyond simply not adhering to my own brand of common sense.
This was wrong. So extremely wrong that I couldn't wrap my head around it.
I rotated my head skyward to give myself some breathing space, but instead something bright entered my eyes, forcing me to squint, right before my eyes almost shot out of their sockets.
Everything was pushed aside for a single emotion: terror.
Turning around, my feet took me back the way I came, faster than I could think. I didn't have time for that, nor the leeway.
I slammed into the cave wall, but it hardly did anything to slow me down, as I just dragged myself back to my feet and continued running, bouncing off the walls in the narrow hall like a pinball.
Soon, I ended up back in the fountain room.
Without a single thought, I dove into the fountain and hid my body behind the pedestal under the curtain of water.
I held my head in my shaking hands, tears running down my face as I desperately drew breath.
...
(How did I even get back?)
Once I had calmed down enough for my brain to reboot, the most obvious question struck me.
I had been standing under the sun for a good ten seconds before I freaked out and ran for the shade. If my previous experience proved, it took only a fraction of a second for my my skin to start incinerating like a paper airplane being shot down by a sci-fi plasma cannon.
I looked down at my hands and there weren't any burn marks on them. I stretched around and inspected my body the best I could without a mirror and couldn't find a single mar on my skin outside of the partially healed burns from the previous day.
Somehow, I had come out of that ordeal completely unharmed.
The very thought and inconsistency with my sole previous experience was so mind boggling that I thought my brain was starting to overheat as I tried to process it and simply dunk my head into the water in a desperate attempt to distract myself.
...
Once my lungs started to burn from the lack of oxygen, I surfaced and leaned against the fountain's pillar, too mentally tired to properly support my body as I tried to wrap my head around the situation.
Sunlight was deadly against vampires like me, just like in the stories. The effect was instantaneous, as I had experienced. But the sun in those plains had no effect on my body.
Either there was some sort of hidden factor that, combined with the sun, caused me to spontaneously combust, or that sun wasn't real.
It was then that I came to realize a suspicious point, and got up.
I'd been unnerved enough that I was shaking as I got out of the fountain, but if I'd regret it if I didn't check out the truth.
With unsteady steps, I made my way to the first entrance and slowly made my way outside with my body pressing against the wall. After a few gentle turns, I reached the end of the tunnel.
One glance was all it took for me to confirm it: it was still night. I could see the stars and three coloured objects in the sky, which were most likely moons, not suns. I reached out and let the light touch my skin directly to further confirm that I wasn't hallucinating or something.
Now that I had confirmed this, I went back into the cave, past the fountain, and reached the other side.
I was this time greeted by a vast, open plains. And on this side, it was day. It wasn't possible for me to have lost track of time to the degree that midnight had turned to midday in the less than hundred meters I had travelled just now.
With a shaking hand, I reached out to test the light on this side of the cave.
The tip of my claw grew light from the sun, but aside from that, nothing had happened.
But that wasn't enough proof. It was possible my claws were simply impervious to such an issue, so after I steadied my breath, I reached out a bit further, and let the light touch the tip of my finger. Then the first knuckle, and the second, then the palm of my hand.
I kept moving out further and further, before my entire body was bathing in the light of the sun, except that was impossible from my own experience.
If I was standing under sunlight without turning into ash, then the only possible answer was that I wasn't actually standing under the sun in the first place. The fact that just on the other side of the cave it was still night was proof of that. I hadn't somehow teleported to the other side of the world or something, but I was in a place that simply seemed like it was outside during the day, rather than actually be that.
A space that simulated an environment, that defied the physical limitations of location. A place perhaps bigger on the inside than the outside. In all sorts of games and stories, there was one that fit that description: the dungeon.
Especially in recent books, dungeons were a magical space that simulated various environments including outdoor ones. They endlessly spawned monsters and were either impervious to or automatically repaired any damage to the environment within. They also often automatically removed anything that wasn't alive if they weren't carried by something that was after a certain amount of time. On top of that, treasures of all sorts existed to be harvested from within. Their purposes varied from being something intentionally created by an intelligent force to draw people inside to spontaneously coming to existence as a physical phenomena that existed in the world.
There were a lot of rules I needed to figure out, but it was probably safe to assume that the fountain room was most likely a part of this dungeon. If this wasn't the only one in the world, then it was pretty likely that fountains existed at the beginning of every dungeon.
That being said, it was weird for there to be such a thing. A room that indicated the beginning of the dungeon wasn't too strange, but a fountain specifically was weird. Why water? Anything could've been used to greet people, and anyone who purposely came to a dungeon would've brought their own water source. It wasn't like the nearest river was that far in the first place.
I couldn't figure out the reason, so instead I came back from my tangent.
Frankly speaking, I was still shaking. The incident the previous day had obviously traumatized me, and just standing in this artificial sunlight really put me on edge.
But on the other hand, I had found a dungeon. Dungeons were pretty much always treasure troves in fantasy stories. Even if there weren't any literal treasure, there were monsters, which meant I had an endless supply of blood to feed off of. For me, that meant food, XP, and free skills. For a vampire, I imagined that these were more important than any kind of treasure that could be found in any chest.
Since I declared that fountain as my new home, this dungeon was my backyard. It was only natural that I'd conquer such a thing!
(But maybe tomorrow)
I was a vampire, so I operated better at night. If it was daytime inside the dungeon, then I'd simply wait until it was night here before I started any hunting.
With that thought, I turned around and walked back to my home and lay down on the fountain lip.
The stone was a bit cold for sleeping on, especially with how skimpy my outfit was, but it wasn't unbearably so.
So with that, I went to sleep for the first time since arriving in this world.
Chapter 5: First Floor
(I can't sleep...)
It seemed like I've been rolling around and changing positions for a few hours now, but I just wasn't tired at all. No matter how much I closed my eyes, my mind wouldn't drift off to the lands of dreams.
I ended up getting up from all the boredom and gave in.
If I couldn't sleep, then I'd just face the music and go do something.
But if I went outside, if it wasn't day already, then it would be day soon, so the only direction I could go was deeper into the dungeon.
With my mind set, I picked up my looted weapons and my feet brought me back to those plains, despite how harsh the bright sun was on my eyes.
Looking at at the plains, it was obvious that it would be a pain to hunt there. The tall grass did an excellent job at hiding any monsters, and the vast featurelessness of it all made it easy to get lost. At least the entrance itself became a landmark, but that depended on how far everything went.
But standing around wouldn't do me any good, and with an unsteady step, I started my exploration of the dungeon.
It didn't take long for me to notice that the plains weren't entirely featureless. While most of it was composed of chest-high grass, even from the entrance, there was plenty of short, ankle-high grass as well, and that short grass made a path. It felt like things were designed so I was supposed to stay on the path while exploring.
Well, being ambushed in the taller grass and being forced to fight something that could easily hide in it was scary, so I naturally avoided trying that route.
But as expected of a dungeon, there were even corridors and everything set up. The paths were generally pretty straight and ended with junctions or sharp turns. I did my best to remember the route I was taking, even occasionally looking back to confirm my orientation relative to the large stone that marked the entrance.
I was glad I had honed my internal map-making skills as a kid, as this all reminded me of all those maze-like dungeons that often showed up in the older retro games.
After a handful of turns, something appeared on the path. It was a white rabbit.
Except it wasn't like one from Earth. This one was big, and when it noticed me, it bared it's teeth, some of which were easily as long as my hand. It was the same animal that I found the day before that the first goblin had, but this one was a live.
Without warning, the big rabbit charged straight at me!
I figured that it would run away instead like a normal rabbit, so it's actions took me by surprise, delaying my reaction.
As it tried to snap at me, I leaped to the side, letting it glide past me mid-leap. The rabbit landed just past where I was, wherein I turned and swung down my axe, cleanly bisecting the small monster...or rather, more like crushed it. The axe wasn't as sharp as I thought, so the big rabbit's guts were splattered on the ground, giving me a huge whiff of it's blood.
The next thing I knew, I was holding the rabbit corpse in my hands and was licking off the traces of blood from my lips.
I wasn't that satisfied though. There wasn't much blood in a creature this small. It was even less than that of a goblin, which was further reduced by the amount lost when I crushed it's guts with the blunt axe.
Rather, I ended up sucking it's blood without thinking at all. The more I drink, the more it was like my body was going on autopilot to get any blood I smelt into my body. This was extremely dangerous. Not only could I end up trying to drink in the middle of a fight at this rate, but someday, I might try to drink the blood of something I shouldn't, like a person who only cut their finger.
I would never be able to live around other people if I didn't get control over my urges.
That said, I dropped the rabbit corpse and checked my weapons. It seemed like I dropped them all while I was engrossed in feeding. The spears looked fine at a glance, but the axe head had cracked. It might still be usable, but only barely. I still had two good weapons, and even my claws if those broke, so it wasn't much of a loss.
*poof!*
There was a sudden flicker of light and puff of smoke behind me, causing me to stagger back and lose my balance as I fell onto my butt, acutely aware and annoyed by how my chest continued to bounce up and down for several seconds after I had stopped moving. The rabbit corpse has disappeared, and in it's place was a soft looking pelt.
I got up and inspected the white fur. The size and shape looked like it was the hide of the rabbit I had just felled, but it was entirely undamaged, without a single trace of the crushing I had given the monster. The underside was soft and dry, a nice light brown coloration of treated leather. Even when I sniffed it, there wasn't a trace of fat or blood on it. Somehow the monster had turned into a perfectly processed pelt.
All I could think of was that it was how dungeon monsters worked. When one was defeated, it would turn into an item drop after a few seconds. But the fact that I managed to drink it's blood earlier, and didn't feel any hungrier after the monster disappeared, it looked like if you can extract stuff off of the bodies before the despawn you can keep them.
It seemed like dungeon monsters were strangely realistic in weird places, while not in others. Especially the way they disappear and drop items made me hesitate to consider them living creatures. They really felt more like a group of bits that jumped out of the computer that generated it.
As I was about to move on, I saw a small grey gem on the ground. It looked it it was buried under the pelt. It was small enough that I could fit a dozen in my closed fist without any problems. I wasn't sure what it was, but it was soft like a gummie candy.
Some fantasy books had the staple of monsters having some sort of magic stone in their bodies that could be used to make all sorts of things. At the worst, I could use it as a decoration, so I placed it into the middle of the rabbit pelt to carry. I still had that sheet of paper from the beginning tightly held in my hand as well. Carrying it like that was a bit of a pain, so I added it to the gem before wrapping the pelt around the two securely then tied it around my neck like a short scarf before I continued on my way.
It didn't take long before I had my next encounter.
This time I was faced with a transparent blue hemisphere the size of a large beach ball that jiggled as it moved towards me. The outside looked like was protected with a thing but sturdy membrane and the inside was entirely filled with some sort of jelly-like fluid aside from a single core the size of a baseball that looked a lot like a cell's nucleus. The nucleus lazily swam around as the main body slowly shuffled my way.
The monster in front of me was a slime. There was no way to call it anything else. The staple monster of most fantasy genres, especially eastern ones.
Once the slime was a bit outside of arm's reach, a part of it extended and formed into a tentacle. Some R-18 thoughts flashed through my mind and made me freeze, but I shook those thoughts away. Such a thing didn't make any sense if you thought about it for even a second.
A soft, squishy sensation wrapped around my arm, bringing my thoughts back to my current situation. The slime pulled on my arm, but I moved a foot and braced myself, resisting it. But against, my expectation, when it pulled again, the blue blob flung itself towards me.
Wary of it trying to eat my face or something, I quickly move to the side, causing the gelatin snack to bounce twice on the ground before stopping. It tugged on my arm again and jumped, but once again I avoided it.
This wasn't going anywhere, but I wasn't stupid enough to allow it a third try. There was a chance it was smarter than it appeared. Before it could jump again, I spun one of my spears and cut through the tentacle. The transparent jelly spewed out from the severed ends before the slime sealed the end and withdrew it's appendage. The remaining bit partially deflated as the fluids spilled out, leaving me with a weird hollow tube wrapped around my arm, but otherwise unmoving.
Not wanting the slime to have time to try something else, I quickly thrust my spear into it, aiming for the nucleus. It may have been moving around, but it was slow and predictable. On my own, the strike might not have been perfect, but my [Spear Technique] skill probably corrected my aim a little and the little orb was perfectly split in half.
The main body slumped down and deflated down to the size of a soccer ball, darkening in colour before it stopped moving.
Cautiously, I stepped up to it and poked the mass. The body jiggled like a gelatin dessert, but didn't show any signs of life.
(Is it possible for me to eat?)
Now that it was dealt with, this was my first question. The best part of killing a monster here was drinking it's blood to both sate my hunger and gain new skills. This slime probably had skills as well, and while one probably wouldn't be enough for me to learn anything, it was filled with some sort of life giving fluid. And as an added bonus, the scent alone was nice, like the faint sweetness of a flower or a freshly baked dessert from a small distance.
With a little bit of trepidation, I picked the slime up, dug my fangs through it's membrane, and sucked on the fluids.
The consistency really was like a jelly, though it flowed much better than any gelatin snack I've ever had. And rather than a fruit flavour, it tasted like a weakened version of a vanilla flavoured short cake. It was just good enough that it was better than nothing, but hardly satisfying at all.
Since I probably wouldn't ever be able to enjoy any kind of cake for the rest of this life, it did make me hope that there would be a monster that tasted similar, but was much more strongly flavoured.
If I could get find a monster who's blood was especially rich, and have it with the life fluids of a monster that tasted similar but much stronger than a slime's, it would make for a full-course vampire meal.
When I started to imagine such a thing, and a grin crept up onto my face as I vacantly looked at the sky. I didn't know where to find such a thing, but it became a dream of mine. Maybe in the future I'd find a wider variety of blood and blood-like fluids I could drink and enjoy.
There were a lot of things for me to look forward to.
For now, I wiped the drool off of my chin and moved to find more prey, and hopefully the way deeper into the dungeon.
But after a couple of steps, I became aware of the feeling of wetness on my neck and chest.
I used the rabbit pelt to wipe myself, but even my bikini top was wet. I could only ignore it and hope it got dry quickly.
The slime corpse had disappeared in light and smoke as well, leaving a small clay jar the size of my fist and a tiny blue gem. The jar was filled with a jelly of some sort, but when I tried eating some of it, there wasn't any flavour to be had at all. It was probably something a bit different from the jelly body of the slime, maybe an extract.
The slime tentacle that had wrapped around my left wrist was still around, so I peeled it off and tossed it aside. There was a bit of discoloration on my skin where it was in contact. It might've been trying to dissolve my arm while it held on, but it was probably too weak to do so without pulling me inside of it's body.
Everything was wrapped up in my rabbit pelt and tied to my neck. The weight was starting to pull at my throat and was a bit uncomfortable, but I had to bear with it if I didn't want to just throw away all my loot.
It didn't take long before my third encounter.
This time I was face-to-face with a wolf in the colours of wet dirt.
The sharp increase in difficulty rooted me until it growled and charged at me.
My instincts kicked in and I dove to the side, avoiding those intimidating teeth. As I clamoured back onto my feet and turned around, the beast had already started it's next charge. My mind blanked out as my chest filled with fear and trepidation. I couldn't decide on how to fight this wolf, and hence my hand froze as I pointed one of my spears at it, without even bracing it properly.
But luck was on my side. The wolf was in mid-jump, and while poorly aimed, the head of my spear struck into the beast's shoulder, the force of it's momentum sliding the spear out of my hand, but rather than be thrown out of the way uselessly, the butt end impacted on the ground and braced the shaft against the wolf's movement, driving the head through it's hide, gouging out a sizable tear in it's flesh.
The wolf tumbled as the excessive force broke the spear in half.
For me, though, the smell of it's blood drifted over and filled my senses. Hunger and desire blew away the fear I was just now harbouring. Only a single thought occupied my mind.
(I wonder what it tastes like?)
The wolf got back up, but the damage to it's shoulder prevented it from using one of it's forelegs. Now that it was hurt, it wasn't able to do the big leaping attacks like before, and could only try to snap at me with it's jaws as it awkwardly tried to move into range.
For me, the fight had already become a simple matter.
I simply stepped into it's side, then drove my claws into it's flank as it tried to turn to face me. The light started to fade from it's eyes as it twitched.
Impatient, I pulled it closer and drove my fangs into the fur of it's neck and bit down. I was rewarded with it's warm life as it filled me. It's earthy taste reminded me of a barbecued cut of cheap meat lathered with a no-name brand sauce. Pretty low class, but tasty despite the price.
It wasn't the most delicious thing in the world, but to me, the dopamine spike I got was like happiness itself.
But like all good things, it didn't last forever, and eventually the wolf ran dry.
Or rather, I did it again. It didn't happen with the slime since it's fluid was much different from blood, but the second I smelt blood again, everything else stopped mattering. Or maybe it would happens with the slimes as well, now that I recognized it as not only edible but tasty, even if it was thin.
Once I finished my small meal and waited for a short while, the wolf corpse disappeared like my other kills, and was replaced with some loot. This time it was two pairs of fangs as well as a small brown gem. The fangs were clearly from the wolve's upper and lower jaws, as they were of different size and shape.
I touched my own fangs and was left with a smile, confident that mine were much sharper than these.
With so many meals almost back to back, I was starting to get a bit full.
I didn't know how vast the floor was, but I didn't want to go back so quickly. My curiosity drove me to keep exploring, even if I'd start wasting my kills soon. Well, I doubted this dungeon was actually made for vampires like me, with having to deal with the harshness of the sun from the first floor, so I was really just taking even more advantage of the dungeon spawns than normal people would.
Speaking of which, I didn't know when it was, but I had stopped shaking. The artificial sun was still painfully bright, but I didn't feel some sort of innate fear to it anymore.
(But the real sun outside...)
...
I squatted down and hugged my knees. That thing was still scary. Even just thinking about it.
I wanted to overcome my fear of it, but frankly speaking, there really wasn't much advantage of doing so unless if I found a way to walk outside under the sunlight. I was able to operate fine here, day or night, and everything I needed was here as well. There wasn't really much of a reason for me go outside and risk being vaporized by losing track of the time.
It was probably a good idea to eventually go and explore the outside as well, but for now, this dungeon was more than big enough for me.
With those thoughts firmly secured in my chest, I pumped my fist and jumped up to my feet, as I was reminded of something that was firmly attached, but not secured, to my chest.
It turned out that the first floor of this dungeon only had four types of monsters. The big rabbit, the slime, wolf, and, it turned out, goblins.
The goblins were pretty much the same as the ones outside, and ended up becoming an easy source of fresh weapons for me.
While early on, the monsters always came only one at a time, after a few hours of exploring, their numbers increased, from two, to three, and finally to four. It also turned out that each monster had more than one drop, though they always dropped the same gems in addition to whatever else that I got from them.
The rabbits gave me either their hides or a chunk of their meat. I took the hides but left the meat. I couldn't eat them anyways.
The slimes dropped a jar of gelatin or a bright green leaf that smelt like mint. When I tried to chew on the leaf, the mint taste was so repulsive that I almost choked and was left gasping for my breath for the next few minutes as the smell invaded my lungs. It was a shame too, since I liked mint in my previous life. I thought I could make toothpaste with it. Maybe it was just too strong? I kept a few but threw most of them away.
The wolves left their fangs and their hides behind. Their hides were fully processed with the fur removed. They were large and tough, and I was looking forward to making clothes using them, although I knew basically nothing about leatherworking and only had the more bare bones experience in how to sew. I kept both drops and even used two of the hides as makeshift bags, replacing my first rabbit pelt. One was strapped onto my back and the other I carried by hand.
The goblins either dropped a sealed glass bottle with a cloudy green liquid inside or a bag of nuts. I tried tasting the liquid in the bottle, but it was extremely bitter and smelt of moss. Both drops were failures to me, so all I got from them were their weapons. Also their gems. They had brown gems like the wolves. They were pretty and it was easy to carry even a large number of them as long as I wrapped them up in a hide properly. Also, there was a new type of goblin in the dungeon I hadn't met before.
They were virtually the same as the other two, but carried a sword, rather than a spear or axe. To be exact, it was one of those Aztec wooden swords with stones embedded in them along one edge like teeth. They cut amazingly well, but also were by far the most fragile of the three weapons. The teeth broke on almost anything hard, and because the stick had a slit for the stone teeth to be embedded in, they were bad at blocking and parrying as well, as they easily broke in the attempt. Unlike a real sword, it was a pure offensive weapon even beyond the axe, which I learned to block attacks reasonably well, though the spear was the best at it by far.
When it came to feeding, I did get some more skills. I wasn't sure what the rabbits gave me, but perhaps [Natural Weapons]? It leveled up while I was drinking from a wolf, so I was sure that they gave it at least. I also got [Fleet of Foot] off of the wolves as well, and even managed to get it to rank two. The latter was a generic passive that raised my [Agility], most likely as a percentage. Thanks to that, my movements had sped up quite a bit, and dodging and manoeuvring had gotten much easier. That alone had also made [Agility] my highest stat by far. I hoped to get similar skills for my other stats. Especially for [Intelligence]. I really wanted to learn magic so high [Intelligence] was important.
The slimes gave me [Alter Form], but it was a racial so I couldn't use it. It seemed that was the skill that allowed them to create tentacles. If I could use that, I could have some great late night fun when I got a girlfriend. Wait, I was a woman too.
(What's the common stance on same-sex relationships in this world anyways?)
[Alter Form] reached rank two as well, even though I couldn't use it.
In addition, I got the [Create Acid] and [Acid Resistance] skills from them and got them to rank two. [Acid Resistance] did as the tin said, but [Create Acid] was quite interesting.
At rank one it was only able to produce a few drops of a weak acid per second, but at rank two it got upgraded to being able to make a baseball-sized blob of acid of moderate strength at a time. I could even manipulate the effects to a certain degree, so if I maxed out the strength and viscosity, I effectively got an acid strong enough to be extremely painful if I hit a weak point, while thick enough for me to throw before it dripped through my fingers. [Acid Resistance] also prevented me from taking damage from my own attack, and when I drank a monster's blood I recovered all my spent MP, making it a quite useful distraction.
I couldn't wait until my acids got strong enough to do serious damage on their own.
From the goblins, I got the new skills [Axe Technique] as well as [Sword Technique]. Those two, along with [Spear Technique] all went up to rank two as well. While rank one only had a small about of benefits, rank two's were pretty noticeable. Despite never having fought anything in my previous life, I could see a tangible amount of skill and ability that went into each of my strikes. It was as if I was an experienced veteran or something.
[Blood Sucking] was such a powerful skill. By the way, it also rose to rank two, though most likely because I used it so much. Nothing else could've given me even a single point towards it after all.
As a side note, [Breeder] had also risen in rank, though I didn't want it to. I wanted that skill to go away, even if it had no effect on my body.
In addition to all the monsters I had killed, eaten, and looted, there were two more things of note. The first was that there were traps.
Most likely because it was the first floor, the traps were generally weak, though they did have the potential to be deadly, as they were often near where I found monsters.
The most common trap I found was a simple foot trap. It was similar to a bear trap, but made with flexible branches and ivy. They simply immobilized me when I accidentally stepped on one, but the sound of them snapping shut often drew attention to nearby monsters, and I had to deal with both at the same time.
It is against my beliefs to mention how my of them I found by stepping on one.
The next common were just a wide pool of thick mud on the ground. Sometimes they were hidden with fallen grass, but they were always pretty obvious. I examined the first one I found a bit closely, but it looked like if you stepped in it, the heavy mud would impede your ability to pull your feet out, making it extremely difficult to move around. It was pretty nasty when it came to traps to deal with while fighting. But maybe because of that, they were the single easiest to avoid, even if they were big.
Lastly, the hardest to find was also the most troublesome. They were basically a miniature pit. They weren't very deep, and only big enough for a single foot to step through. Even if they were deeper, you would only get a single leg stuck due to their small size. But even then, they were only about as deep as a single step on a staircase. What made them nasty was that because the grass still grew from inside, all you could see was a slightly darker spot where the artificial sunlight didn't reach as far down. And hidden inside was a single thin spike that would stab into your foot.
The few times I got caught in one were extremely painful, and fighting with an injured foot was tough. It really made me wish I had construction boots or something. I doubted that those spikes could go through those thick soles.
Fortunately, since I was a vampire, once I got past any ensuing fight, all I had to do was have a meal and my foot was healed. I pitied any normal person who would've had to walk around with a hole in their foot until it healed normally.
Onto the next bit, I also found treasure chests here and there.
The first one I found was suspicious as all hell, and gave me flashbacks to the mimics that would kill me in a certain dark fantasy action game. But no matter how much I examined it, there didn't seem to be any problems, so I warily opened it using the end of a spear.
The wooden chest opened without any fanfare, and when I looked inside, there was a pair of leather pants inside!
I was so happy I actually cried. My first real piece of clothes!
I removed the bikini bottom and put the pants on. They were a bit tight, but fit as if they were made for me. It was especially strange feeling it so snug against my crotch, but the pants wouldn't fit any other way.
It didn't come with a belt, but I figured if I didn't find one soon, I could always just make one from all the leather I had acquired.
There were other chests I found along the way, but they either had metal coins in them or small glass bottles with various liquids inside. Most were a clear blue, but some were different. My experience with the goblin drop was fresh in my mind, so while I took them all, I didn't check their contents.
I didn't know how long it had been, but I found myself in a large, cleared area. It was circular and the place didn't open up into anywhere, but had plenty of space. The middle was barren without any grass, like it was made with a specific purpose in mind. A campfire came to mind, but it felt a bit weird to think that such a consideration would've been made on purpose.
There were many other side clearings along the way as well, but none were as big as this one. A glance made me think that it was about as big as the fountain room I started off in, but it wasn't like I had a measuring tape to confirm it.
The main reason why I even considered spending any time here though, was that just past this 'room' was a chest-high wooden door, and behind it was a staircase cut into the dirt. I couldn't see where the staircase led to since it slowly curved to the left, but a few dozen meters away, I could see a space that was cut away from the plains. It looked like a large, circular area of the plains were simply cut out and stopped existing. It was deep enough that I couldn't see the bottom from where I was standing, but it was most likely the goal of this dungeon floor.
If that was the case, then it was obvious that there was a boss in wait over there.
Once that realization came to mind, I started to debate the merits of facing off against the boss on the spot.
The first consideration was my stuff. I had basically everything I owned on me, though it was also all stuff I had gotten since I first found this dungeon. I obviously couldn't fight while carrying it, not something as strong as a boss. My choices were leave it here so it didn't hinder my boss fight, or take it with me and drop it at the beginning of the fight, and hope it didn't get in the way.
I was pretty worried that anything I left without supervision might disappear, and it would suck if I beat the boss only to find out that my stuff was gone. Dungeons in fantasy stories often had cleanup systems in place, and I didn't know what sort this one had, presuming it had one.
That meant that I pretty much had to take my stuff with me to the fight, in case it's taken away or eaten by something behind my back.
The second consideration was my equipment. In terms of weapons, I had plenty, though most of it was of low quality. Thanks to all the animal hides I had gotten, it became easy to carry spare weapons. I had started to carry several spares tied together by a pelt. Pulling one out in the middle of a fight was dangerous, but it worked great for when I was forced to fight without replenishing my weapons several encounters in a row.
But aside from my claws and fangs, my weapons were the worst. They were good enough for the random mobs that wandered the floor, but I was hesitant to imagine that they were enough against a boss. Since they were simply goblin loot, they rarely lasted more than two or three attacks, so it was easy to imagine even if I was able to continue to retrieve all my weapons as they broke, I might still be forced to fight with nothing but my [Natural Weapons] in the end. It wasn't a pleasant thought against something that could possibly be faster and bigger than me.
When it came to defence, I was stuck with nothing but my leather pants, and I wasn't sure if it would count as actual armour. Since I didn't have any real clothes aside from it, I was also hesitant to actually test it's capabilities. Generally speaking, it was probably better to presume that I had no defensive equipment.
Finally was my own strength. Unfortunately I had no way to really know on this front. What was the typical strength increase for bosses in this world? What was the typical amount of leeway needed for the fight to be considered 'safe'? My level had risen to 5 during my fighting on this floor, and was getting close to 6. Was that good, or was it bad? I had no idea. I was basically curb stomping all the monsters at this point, but if I was supposed to be doing that at the beginning, and then get strong enough to basically walk through everything before facing the boss as a real challenge, then I was still far from strong enough.
I really wished I had access to a wiki or a forum.
<Hey, I'm a level 5 vampire with virtually no equipment. Is that strong enough to take on a first floor dungeon boss?>
The thought made me realize just how much I used to rely on such a thing when the stakes had gotten pretty high. I often paused games I played to look up boss fights if I thought that I'd lose more progress than I wanted to risk if I died against it. Well, it was pretty rare for me to actually lose against a boss when I thought that the stakes were that high though.
But this was real life, not some game. If I lost against the boss, then that was it. No continues, no nothing. I'd be sent back to that white place, and I'd lose everything.
That sombre thought made me realize it just wasn't worth the risk. It wasn't like I was in a hurry. Enjoying my life was my top priority, and fighting these mobs was getting pretty fun. If the treasure chests respawned, then I could wait until I got some more equipment. I could also make some basic stuff with all the leather I had acquired as well. It would be nice to be wearing a full set of clothes when the boss fight happened. I couldn't do much about the quality of my weapons, but I could at least learn to use my claws better first.
I took a second look at the gates that barred me from the boss fight, and turned away.
Since I was only going back, it didn't take nearly as long as it did to get to the boss room. A few time I took a wrong turn, but for the most part my memory didn't fail me.
I didn't have to fight any monsters until about a third of the way back. It seemed like it took a bit of time for them to respawn.
The ones I did fight didn't pose too much of a problem. Any damage I did take was quickly healed with a simple blood snack. I also got a bit more loot thanks to that. I checked a few spots where I found treasure chests, but they had despawned and the rooms were still empty.
Maybe chests appeared randomly? I needed to do more exploration in the future.
When I got back home, I dropped everything near the back entrance and stripped down before jumping into the fountain to wash myself.
No matter how strong my blood thirst was, I was still able to resist licking off any blood that had splattered onto my body or spilt onto the ground. I didn't know if it was my personal revulsion that made it possible, or that my blood thirst mostly just aimed me towards drinking directly from a body.
It was nice to get clean, though I was starting to wish I had access to soap. I think it was made from lye and oils? Lye came from wood ash, so I could just burn down a tree to get that, but the oils were a problem. Animal fats worked, but the monsters I fought didn't drop any and looked pretty lean. Or rather, they were pretty scraggly. Maybe I could find something better on a lower floor, but taking weeks or even months of exploring to find a good source of oil wasn't very appealing.
I might be able to get enough by just scraping little bits here and there instead. But to do that, I also needed a container. A jar of some sort at the very least. I might be able to make one if I could find clay. Maybe I could find some if I dug into the dirt in the dungeon?
All sorts of ideas started to form as I bathed. Things I wanted, things I needed, stuff I wanted to do. Ideas kept popping into my mind one after another. Most of it ended up becoming quality of life items like proper clothes, cleaning equipment, furniture, etc.
As I relaxed in the water, I noticed that it wasn't as cloudy as it was when I last left the room. The bottom of the fountain didn't have any residue either, so it was pretty clear that the fountain did renew it's water. I was glad it meant that dirtying the water wouldn't come to bite me in the ass in the future.
Once I felt satisfied, I wiped myself down the best I could with my hands and wrung out my hair as I got out of the fountain. Towels and a hair dryer were pretty high on my list of wants as well. My hair especially was difficult to deal with, being so long. I had never had such long hair before so I kept forgetting about it, but when I did remember, I constantly worried about it getting caught in practically everything.
I thought that women looked better with long hair, but actually having long hair was such a hassle. I was tempted to cut it with my claws, but I was also pretty hesitant about it. I could cut it on my own, but there was no way it would look good, and if I met people with hair that looked like was cut by a lawn mower would leave a much worse impression than simply excessively long hair. In the end, the fact that I could just deal with it when it became intolerable stayed my hand.
When I got as dry as I could manage, I went back to the dungeon and harvested some of the tall grass that made the outer boundary. The grass was pretty strong, but was a cinch to cut with my claws. I cut them to a reasonable length, then took another batch and used them to tie the first set together as if it was string. What resulted in was a crude straw broom head. I had spears I could use as a shaft, but I figured that the broom head was too low quality to work out that well.
Now that my tool was ready, moved all my stuff and put them on the fountain lip then splashed a bunch of water around the ground, then used my impromptu broom to sweep the ground of dirt and dust. Any time I did anything in this room my feet quickly got covered in dirt, and I was sick of it. Taking time to wash my entire body, only for my feet to get dirty the instant I took a step out annoyed me. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had shoes, but I didn't.
I really wished I had a deck brush or something, as the grass broom did a rather poor job of pushing around the water and dirt, but it did get the job done eventually, even if it left broken pieces of grass all around. The dirty water was pushed out of the room and into the dungeon floor to be soaked up by the soft ground over there.
But the floor was still pretty wet and wasn't clean enough for me, so I grabbed one of my rabbit pelts from one of my bags and used it like a rag to wipe up the excess water and remaining dirt, as well as my broom's leavings. I left the dirty pelt outside in the dungeon when I was done with it. I had plenty and it was easy to get more, so one wouldn't go missing for me.
Now that my home had reached the bare minimum of cleanliness, I put my clothes back on, untied my bags and spread out my loot. The first thing I did was take all weapons and lined them out across a section of wall. I had managed to bring back three spears, four axes, and four swords, all of goblin make. Or rather, since they appeared in the dungeon, perhaps they spawned with the goblins?
Next, I spread out the rabbit pelts across the floor. I had twelve, and all together they made a nice, soft carpet, though since they weren't connected, they easily separated and made gaps as I moved on top of them. Sewing them together was a priority once I finished organizing my things.
After that, I lay the wolf hides in a pile. There were nine of them. I had more than enough to make a full set of clothes, though it presumed that I didn't end up wasting most of them. I had never made my own clothes before, so there was going to be a lot of trial and error involved. At least it was easy for me to get more if I kept failing, so there wasn't much pressure involved.
I took one hide and spread it across the floor. On top, I placed all the rest of my loot. There were the slime jars, mint leaves, wolf fangs and little bottles I found in the various treasure chests. I had eighteen jars of jelly, five minty leaves, twelve sets of fangs and five bottles of variously coloured mystery liquids. I took one of the larger wolf fangs, then put the whole set along with the hide to the side by a wall. There wasn't really much for me to do with any of that for now.
The fang I cut down using my claws into roughly the shape of a curved needle. It was hard, delicate work. While my claw cut through the fang reasonably well, it was small, so I kept dropping it or poking my fingers.
The end result, I could barely call it usable. It still had the same basic curvature to avoid making it too weak, but was as thin as I could make it. I had added a hole to pass thread through, but now I was lacking in that very thread to use.
Well, it wasn't like I hadn't planned for that. I had a whole pile of wolf leather. I had already decided how to get my thread.
I took one of the hides and spread it across an empty section of the floor, then while pinning it in place the best I could, I dragged one claw along the edge, following the curvature of the hide as close as I could. I repeated this over and over until a third of the hide was cut down into strips. If I needed more, I could just work on it again later on.
Next up, I took three hides and lined them side by side, overlapping so that there weren't any gaps to make one large, wide sheet. I grabbed my wolf fang needle and a strip of leather, passed the leather through the hole and started to sew leather together...or tried to. The very act of trying to get the needle through the hide was a lot harder than I imagined, and the needle slipped through my fingers twice before I just gave up in frustration.
I knew leather clothes were held together either with glue or stitches. I didn't have any glue nor any idea how to make it, so I went with stitches, but there was no way it could be this hard, or else it wouldn't be used everywhere. At least I thought so.
After thinking about it for a minute, I tried something different. If my needle couldn't easily pass through the leather on it's own, then I just needed to give it an easy path to follow. I used a claw to poke holes through the leather, making a simple crisscross pattern. Then I tied the end of the leather cord and passed the needle through the slits. This time not requiring any pressure at all. The cord wasn't long enough, so I tied the end off then continued with the next strip.
The process ended up not taking long at all, and all three hides became one large piece in no time. I removed any extraneous pieces of leather and squared off the outer edge before I admired my work. It was extremely rough and amateurish, but I was happy with my progress.
Next, I lay on the giant sheet and after finding myself a good position, I pulled the ends over my body and wrapped myself up. From there, I poked a hole in the leather roughly where my shoulders were. I unwrapped myself and found the two slits my claws made, then opened holes centred around them big enough for my arms to easily fit through.
Once done, I got up, picked the leather sheet up and put my arms through the holes before wrapping the whole thing around me again. I felt like an oversized burrito, but this was a necessary step. As straight as I could, I cut the leather at the height of my neck and removed the excess. Now I could see, but the sheet was digging into my shoulders. I removed the sheet and cut up the scrap, and sewed them to the top of the material before trying it out again. The new pieces became the upper shoulders, but I had to fix and redo them twice before it became remotely comfortable.
I cut away the excess on the front as well so that I didn't have a massive amount of spare leather flapping around. Originally, I planned it to simply meet at the middle, but then I realized I had no idea how to make or get a zipper, so I ended up letting the front flap reach the other arm in preparation to be held in place with buttons or something.
Next, I cut up more leather to be a bit longer than my arms and sew them into a pair of tubes, which I attached to the arm holes.
Finally, I adjusted the front and added a row of loops and wolf fangs in place of buttons to hold everything together.
Now that I was done, I tried my new coat out!
Giddy with excitement, I plunged my arms through the sleeves and buttoned the front together.
Overall, it was heavy and stiff, though not as bad as it could be. The leather itself was soft and flexible. It would probably soften up even more as I wore it.
I grabbed one of my spears and went out to the dungeon to try my new coat out.
...
I came back, but was no longer wearing my new coat.
Fundamentally it worked and did a great job of covering my body...but the weight and stiffness worked against me much more than I expected.
It wasn't like I couldn't fight with it on. I was already strong enough that the coat didn't hamper my movements to the degree that it could cause problems there, but despite that, it caused problems somewhere else entirely, which entirely prevented it's use.
The coat would move as one object along my skin whenever I moved around. My shoulders and back felt raw after only fighting a few monsters, but that wasn't nearly as bad as the soreness of my chest. If I didn't eat to heal up and remove my coat, I would've still been bleeding from the way my coat rubbed against my chest. The skin only broke a little, but the memory of the pain involuntarily surfaced when I looked at the coat.
I threw it against a wall and slumped beside the fountain as tears leaked, both from the memory of the pain and all the time I had wasted.
The coat might still be usable if I could layer the inside with something much softer, but until I found such a thing, it was a piece of trash, only good as a reminder of my failure.
After a few minutes of self pity, I took a strip of leather and cut it up and laced some leather cordage through the front to secure it. I put it around my body and fastened the new strip. In only a couple of minutes, I had made a chest wrap.
I tried some simple exercises in my room, and it proved to be quite effective. It was tight feeling, but that was exactly what I needed. My breasts had no space to move, and I was covered properly. At least better than that bikini.
The realization that this was all I needed made me go back into the corner and cry about the waste of time I had created.
Once I recovered, I went to do some more work before I headed back to my backyard, I mean the dungeon.
I took a few more wolf pelts and worked them to create a large backpack. It was modelled after those big hiking backpacks I saw people wear sometimes, and had a couple of big pouches to hold small items like the gems and small bottles. It also had a large waist-band to increase it's security and an additional band just below my breasts to hold the shoulder straps together while I fought.
<You have gained the [Leatherworking I] skill!>
An announcement resounded in my head. The fact that it did happen made me feel a bit better regarding all the work that went into my failed coat.
To celebrate the occasion, and also because I forgot, I made myself a simple belt and looped it onto my pants. I wished I had a belt buckle, but since I didn't, I was forced to simply go with a simple knot. It wasn't too secure, but it felt better to have it than not. As an added bonus, I could hang stuff off of it if I ever felt the need.
As a final project, I cut a rectangular length of leather and used it to securely wrap my character sheet, then made a cord to tie it off tightly. Now I was reasonably sure that it would be safe as long as it didn't get wet.
I grabbed all the scrap leather and threw them into the dungeon to be consumed. I confirmed that everything else I threw out that way before had already gone, so I was sure my guess was right, that anything left alone in the dungeon would disappear after a while.
With everything done, I grabbed my weapons and went back to do some level grinding in the dungeon.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS
ArchMage
ArchMage
Thanks' For the Powerstones
:)
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
0 Power
stone 
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