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.

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

Thanks' For the Powerstones

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Chapter 6: Second Floor

I spent the next while exploring alternate paths through the dungeon. The paths were pretty complicated, so my mental map had quickly become a jumbled mess. I could roughly remember the main paths, but since it seemed like the routes often intersected and split apart, it was tough trying to figure out where and how they crossed.

All along the way, I killed and ate and looted the monsters, as well as picked up the contents of any treasure chests I found. The monsters had gotten pretty easy to fight. My level was definitely higher than theirs, and their movements were pretty simple, making their actions easy to predict and counter. All the loot that I felt were worth taking were put into my backpack.

Just having a proper bag was making all the difference. It was easy to put things in quickly and safely, yet even when the stuff moved around inside, the bag itself was snug and secure, making it easy to fight without having to remove it. It wasn't perfect, and I kept a mental note of all the places where it needed improvements, like how I should've added little pouches on the waist-band to make it easy to put away little items like the coloured gems.

My biggest complaint was how the leather rubbed against my skin. If I didn't keep healing by drinking blood regularly, the skin directly touching the leather would've gotten raw after an hour of wear.

Since the danger to me was starting to get pretty low, I spent a lot of time trying to resist my urge to feed, but the progress hadn't been going so well. I tried to make my goal to wait ten seconds before eating after a kill, but waiting even a single second was beyond my self control until I had eaten to the point where I had started to feel bloated. By that point though, the urge had weakened enough that it felt like there wasn't much point in practising, but I did it anyways. I held a fresh corpse in my hands and breathed in the scent while resisting the urge to bite down.

I hoped it was helping, because every time I started to feel hungry again I wasn't able to stop myself from biting down immediately.

My exploration speed was going up as I got used to fighting and looting. By the time I returned to my home to empty my bag and clean up twice, my level had reached ten. [Fleet of Foot], [Create Acid], [Acid Resistance], and [Natural Weapons] had all reached rank 3, and I could fell the tangible benefits of them all. My movement was clearly faster, my acids were now strong enough to eat into the monster's flesh in seconds, and my claws developed an extendable aura that could cut through anything I fed them like warm butter.

In addition to that, I had learned the [Throwing Technique] skill after repeatedly throwing my weapons at monsters. The skill simply improved the strength and accuracy of my throws.

If I wasn't strong enough to beat the boss, I had no idea how you were supposed to figure that out without sacrificing entire groups of people to find out.

Every time I went back, I spent a little while working on my equipment. Little changes to my backpack, or replacing my chest wrap as I came up with new ideas. I added additional pouches on the bag to make it easier to use, but the biggest change for me was when I tried lining the entire inner surface where the leather touched my skin with rabbit fur. It was a lot of work to sew it so it didn't move around, but once I did that, the softness of the fur got rid of almost all the chafing all at once.

It was so effective that I considered trying it to redeem my failed coat, but I realized that the problems with it was far more than just the lining.

On the other hand, I tried making a chest wrap entirely out of a rabbit pelt, and it worked out great. So great that I ended up making a few spare and even some panties the same way. Those itched a little, but the results were better than wearing the pants without anything in between.

As I was working on the pelts, I noticed that the rabbit leather was much thinner and softer than the wolf leather. I wondered if panties would work better if I reversed the facing of the material instead. It was something for me to consider in the future when I remembered about it.

Once my gear was ready, I sped through the dungeon, using the shortest path I knew. I only brought my bag and a few of each goblin weapons. I didn't want to bring anything that would slow me down, but I figured the bag would be necessary if the boss loot ended up being big enough get in the way of fighting if I carried it by hand.

I ran past the monsters until I found the clearing right before the boss gate. I had found two more clearings like this in other places, and the only explanation I could come up with were that they were rest places. That said, I didn't need much space or time to prepare for a boss room. I still hadn't felt sleepy once since coming to this world, and my physical exhaustion would be blown away whenever I drank some blood.

That said, once I reached the clearing, I backtracked a bit and intercepted the last group of monsters I blew past. They were chasing me, but didn't get far due to the difference in [Agility]. Three brown wolves. I took them all down with a single spear and drank their blood to top myself off and helped myself to their drops.

Throwing my cracked spear away, I took hold of a new one in my right hand and a sword in my left, then held my pelt of spare weapons untied so it would be easy to grab more if the boss fight ended up going worse than I hoped.

I faced the wooden gate. It was simple, yet robust. Just a pair of wooden posts combined with two side swinging doors with black cast iron frame and hinges. The heavy doors swung in silently when I pushed them. The lack of sound despite their size inversely raised the tension.

Behind the gate, the ground sunk down in the shape of stairs, and softly bent to the left. I took each dirt step deliberately and carefully. A trap after the boss door was crazy, but just because it wouldn't be done in a game was no reason why it wouldn't be done here as well.

But as luck would have it, there was no indication that there was such a cheap trap, and when I made a full 90 degree turn and out of sight of the gate, the ground opened up in front of me.

The floor was grass again, but the area was a large circular depression cut out from the plains. The walls were almost 10 meters high and made from packed dirt. There was another large wooden door on the far side, this time over two meters tall.

In between me and the door was a large brown wolf. This one had white stripes and was twice the size of the previous brown wolves, of which there was a pair of flanking the bigger wolf.

They were laying down as if asleep, but as my foot entered the ring, all three woke up and looked right at me as if they were some sort of machine that suddenly got power.

But unlike a machine, they started to growl and pace around, the smaller brown wolves trying to flank me as the bigger one approached from the front.

It was obvious that if things stayed 3v1 for long, I'd be at a serious disadvantage, so it was the first problem I needed to fix.

With that in mind, when I judged the spacing was good, I threw my bundled weapons at the middle wolf then sprinted towards the one on my right while the line of sight to the big wolf was obscured.

The wolf I charged at froze for a split second before charging at me, it's maw gaping wide as it snarled. For me who had seen the exact same thing dozens of times, it was a simple and easy attack to deal with. With a single thrust, my spearhead entered the wolf's eye before being pulled out immediately. I was careful not to let the stone blade hit the back of the wolf's skull as the bone was hard enough to shatter the brittle spearhead in an instant.

The wolf collapsed mid step, and it's body dragged along the ground gouging up the soft grass before coming to a full stop.

I didn't need to check to confirm that it was dead. Experience had taught me that was enough for these wolves.

The remaining two wolves realized what happened in the second they were surprised by my actions, and changed directions to charge at me directly, abandoning their previous strategy after it had so spectacularly failed.

Just like before, I counter-charged the bigger wolf. But this time, due to the positioning, the smaller wolf was behind and to the side of the boss.

A few steps in, I pulled back my arm and prepared another thrust. The large wolf saw this and instantly jumped to the side to avoid my attack.

Except that I had considered that would happen. Despite being creatures that simply spawn in the dungeon and fight intruders no matter how reckless it is, they did have basic learning capabilities and used their brains a little. I didn't know how much creativity they were capable of, but they were at least as intelligent as a real wild animal despite the fact that I'd never witnessed them retreat, no matter how bad things looked for them. It was as if they were compelled to fight any and all challengers.

That said, even if they would act taking your previous actions into consideration, their ability to adapt was poor from what I saw. They always picked from obvious counters, and just like that, the boss wolf dodged to the side when it looked like I'd try to thrust my spear straight at it.

Instead, I changed my grip on the spear and threw it at the smaller wolf like a javelin. Thanks to the [Throwing Technique] skill's adjustment, the spear flew straight and true. The wolf tried to move out of the way in the last second, but was unable to avoid the spear from impaling it's side.

Without slowing down, I closed the remaining gap and slashed upwards with the sword in my left hand. The serrated stone blade easily ripped through the monster's neck, but was unable to go through it's spine in a single swing. Not like it was needed, with both it's windpipe and major blood vessels in it's neck severed.

The sword on the other hand was in bad shape, and I didn't need to look at the spear I threw to also know that there wasn't much life left in it either.

But I was still in a fight. Stopping my feet wasn't an option, so without confirming anything, I rolled to my left before spinning around.

"Grraah"

I was right. The boss wolf snapped at where I was just standing. If I hesitated even a little, it would've gotten a piece of my side, if not worse.

The wolf growled lowly as it once again slowly circled around me, this time just simply trying to find an opening rather than having any sort of strategy.

Me on the other hand, after losing both weapons to the second wolf, was unarmed.

...

(As if)

While short in range, my claws were far stronger than the cheap goblin weapons I've been using this fight. Not only that, but my fangs were able to crush bone as if they were everyday biscuits. Not like they tasted any good like wholesome biscuits.

(Actually, I want some crackers with liverwurst)

The fact that all my favourite foods were basically inedible to the current me made my heart cry. Recreating any of them in this world was entirely pointless.

The wolf on the other hand had lost it's patience and lept at me.

I cleanly dodged to my right. Such a slow and predictable move had no chance at touching me. When it's attack failed, it tried again immediately, but I dodged to my left.

But after repeating it a third time, I lost my balance and fell onto my butt.

Seeing it's chance, the large wolf pounced at me, eager to tear my throat out.

But rather than crying out in despair, I cracked a smile.

My left hand reached behind me and grabbed the first sturdy thing it touched and I swung it clear at the wolf's face.

I had lured the monster to my weapon cache, and now a goblin sword was striking right at it's face.

But to my surprise, the wolf saw my attack bit down on the sword, shattering it. With my new weapon gone, it tried to bite me again.

While I didn't expect that, the time it took to reopen it's mouth was enough for me to follow up and stabbed my fingers, or to be exact the claws on my right hand into the wolf's shoulder, cutting right through the bone and sinew.

The force pushed the wolf back, but I didn't let the space between us extend. Instead, I pulled on it's wound and bared my own fangs, burying them in it's neck.

The monster struggled as I fed, enjoying the richest meal I had in my new life. The struggles turned into spasms, which eventually turned into twitches, and finally disappeared entirely.

All too soon, my meal had ended. Despite it's larger size, the boss wolf wasn't enough to fill me. As my [Blood Sucking] skill went up, so did my speed at sucking blood as did my capacity to drink. Drinking quickly was always great if my prey was still alive when I started, but I kept half regretting not savouring the taste more. Then again, it wasn't like I had the self control to not slurp up my meal as fast as I could.

The larger capacity I had gotten was a double edged sword as well. On one hand, it allowed me to drink much more and acquire skills much faster, as I didn't have to stop eating just because I was full as often. On the other hand, it made it harder to control my eating, since it took longer for me to get full. I really hoped that I wouldn't start getting fat because of my appetite.

(How many calories is blood anyways?)

Shaking the stupid thought out of my head, I remembered that there were two more wolf corpses. Without sparing a thought, I lept to the closest and hungrily ate my heart out, then again on the last wolf.

But I found that the other two wolves weren't as satisfying anymore. The boss wolf tasted much better, and while it wasn't like the smaller wolves suddenly started to taste worse, but they just weren't as palatable.

(Is it like eating cheap mac and cheese all your life then suddenly getting a taste of high class food?)

But then again, I had high class food once as part of a celebration, and it sucked.

I gathered my weapons again and took out another spear, my old trusty spear.

As I did that, all three monster corpses disappeared and left their drops. The smaller wolves both left fangs. I was tempted to just leave them, since I had a pretty big pile of them just sitting around back home. The boss on the other hand gave me something new. At least a little new. That was it's pelt.

It was the wolf's entire pelt fully processed and ready to be used. The fur was surprisingly soft considering it came from a wolf, but the leather underneath was very tough. Markedly tougher than the hides from the other wolves.

But these properties made it hard for me to use. The fur was nice, but the leather was too stiff to use as clothes. I could remove the fur and use the leather as some sort of armour, but that also felt like a waste, and that presumed that I could actually make equipment from it that both worked decently and wasn't a pain to use or wear.

The only thing I could think of using it that fully took advantage of it's properties was a rug. It would be soft on my feet and wonderful to lie on, but tough enough that it could survive a long time being walked on.

It felt like a pathetic way to use such a nice pelt, but it did take advantage of all it's properties.

But such things were for later.

Once I packed everything into my bag, I turned to the door at the far end of the boss arena.

Just in front of it, a treasure chest was standing where there was empty space before. The chest was much nicer than any of the chests I've seen so far. It was made of lacquered wood and the metal keeping it together looked like was made from polished steel.

As much as I wanted to rush over open it, I couldn't ward off the worry that it might be a trap.

Maintaining as much distance as possible, I poked the lid with my spear. When nothing happened, I tried applying pressure and cracked the seam open. Since nothing still happened, I opened it all the way then jumped back just in case.

But nothing happened.

I was relieved that nobody had seen it. I was the only one there after all. Nobody else could see what I did.

I stepped over and had a look at the contents.

What greeted me was a pair of black leather boots. They were sturdy, with thick soles and a medium high ankle. The style kinda looked like something I saw soldiers wear in those old world war one pictures.

I cleaned my feet the best I could and quickly put them on. The inside were soft and warm, and the laces tied up cleanly. The fit, just like for my pants, were perfect. There was definitely some sort of adjustment made so that any equipment I find fit perfectly.

With those thoughts in the back of my mind, I stood up and tried taking a few steps.

My gait was unsteady. It had been a while since I last wore shoes of any kind, and despite how well they fit, not being able to feel the texture of the dirt under my feet was a bit unnerving. But it was much better to go around in boots than bare foot, so I had no choice but to get used to it.

The ankles were a bit stiff, making sideways motions difficult, but front and back, as well as rotations weren't a problem.

Happy with my new loot, I headed off to see what was beyond the big doors.

When I pushed on the large double doors, just like last time, the fact that it didn't make a sound was a bit unnerving.

Beyond the door was a set of stone stairs carved out of the stone tunnel itself. It ran down in a loose spiral to the left. I took each step slowly to make sure that I didn't miss any traps or ambushes.

In the end I didn't find anything of the sort, and instead after descending what felt like two or three floors, I reached a wide cavern. It was perfectly circular with a domed ceiling. To one side was a familiar sight, quietly spraying water like nobody's business.

It was a carbon copy of the fountain room at the beginning of the dungeon.

The familiar sight had released all the tension in my body, and without a second thought I stripped down and jumped into the fountain to wash up. I wasn't too dirty, but the feeling of dried blood on my body was a bit annoying.

If there was a fountain here, then that suggested that there was a fountain behind every boss room. Be that as it may, that didn't mean that I could wash up at any time as I wanted, as there wasn't any certainty that I wouldn't get lost or stuck somewhere. I needed to take advantage of the fountains every chance I got.

After a bit of relaxing in the cold water, I put my gear on again and moved out through the other tunnel.

What greeted me was...more tunnels.

Once I got past the initial winding tunnel that had the same shape as the one at the beginning fountain, the passage opened up drastically, but only to reveal more tunnels.

This one looked like it was carved out of a different type of rock. The fountain room was a nice medium grey, but this was more of a dull red/brown. And the walls weren't nearly as smooth either, like it was carved out roughly.

On a certain level, it felt like the dungeon had finally started.

A few turns later, I encountered the first monster of the second floor.

I felt like leaving the dungeon immediately.

What lay ahead basically looked like a giant earthworm. It was a good four meters and wiggled in that creepy squish and push style. It's head reared up and looked at me with whatever it had that was considered to be it's senses.

But what happened next sent goosebumps across my whole body.

The end of it's head opened up, revealing three circular rows of teeth.

(Nope nope NOPE!)

I just turned around and hightailed out of there, back to the fountain room, stripped down and dove in. The very sight of that monster made me feel dirty and I obsessively scrubbed my body.

I could hardly believe that such a monster existed. It didn't look strong, but it's appearance just sent shivers down my spine.

There was a good possibility that the entire floor was filled with similar monsters. At the very least, the floor was some sort of cave, so all the monsters were probably of cave or underground types.

Defeating them probably wouldn't be much of a problem, but when all my weapons broke, I'd have to fight those things with my claws. I didn't want to touch such monsters though. That worm looked pretty slimy, and I wouldn't be able to clean myself off until I returned to the fountain.

But an even worse image cropped up when I imagined my hands covered in goo after killing one of those worms with my bare hands.

(Did these guys have blood in their bodies?)

The resulting image in my head make me pull my knees in and shiver. I really didn't want to know what those worms tasted like, but if I couldn't control myself after killing one...nope. Definitely nope.

If I didn't want to go through such an experience, the only way to make sure was to avoid killing any of them.

The thought of going an entire floor without any XP or new skills was a bit depressing, but it was better than the alternative. I just had to make up for it on the next floor.

With my mind made up, I force myself out of the fountain and get fully equipped once I dried my body the best I could. Once done, I reached the beginning of the cave floor then took off at a quick jog. I wanted to sprint, but I doubted I could last long doing so, and even the shortest route to the boss room would probably take a while if the first floor was any indication.

I saw the creepy worm again and it reared it's head at me when it sensed my presence. Without giving it any chance, I ran past it, giving it as wide of a berth as I could, then kept going.

One after the next, I continued to do the same thing. There were giant ants and millipedes as well, all gross once made so big and I felt like my goosebumps had turned into a full allergic outbreak or something.

Running constantly and taking one sharp turn after the next soon became a heavy burden on my body, but I didn't dare to slow down while any monster was in eyesight. I took short breaks in side rooms, but didn't stay for long. I didn't know if monsters could enter these rooms, but if a few did, they'd block the entrance and I'd have no way out without killing them, defeating the entire purpose of running away from them in the first place.

Not only did I avoid the monsters, but I avoided treasure chests as well. I didn't have the time to check for traps on them nor did I have the leeway to carry a bunch of extra loot just because I got greedy. I did consider dumping the pelt I got from the previous boss, but decided not to, since it wasn't too heavy to be a big deal while it stayed in my backpack.

I found a circular room with the same size and shape as the safe zone by the boss door on the first floor. There, I lay down to rest, reasonably confident that I didn't have to worry about any monsters trying to get in. It never happened in the first floor, and I needed a break.

I also needed a meal. My stomach was getting angry at me after running for so long without a meal, but I refused it with all my might. It was one thing if I had brought something, but since I didn't, I couldn't fill myself. There was no way I was going to touch any of those gross oversized creatures. The very thought of drinking their fluids made me cringe.

Once I was fully rested, I took off again, blindly searching for the boss door.

Without any way to track the time though, I had no idea how long I wandered for. There was no sun or moons, and I never got sleepy, so there was no system in place for me to guess how long I'd been running around at, especially since I'd been leveling up so much on the first floor that any baseline based on my my experiences while I was outside wasn't helpful.

As I my breathing had gotten coarse with exhaustion, I finally found the gates to the boss, and right beside it was another safe room. I gladly entered the room and lay down to rest for the second time since starting my run on this floor.

My stomach's protests had gotten louder again, now that the burning feeling in my over stressed legs had started to fade, but I refused it like Stalin refusing to feed the Ukrainians.

I massaged my calves and thighs though the thick material of my leather pants. Fortunately it seemed like vampires didn't sweat, so I didn't have to worry about feeling sticky and gross, but despite not having fought once on this floor, I still felt dusty and dirty.

Well, I was sitting on this dirty floor and leaning on this dusty wall, so it was bound to happen.

I was looking forward to washing up in the fountain after beating the boss.

But I wasn't looking forward to facing the boss at all. Regardless of the difficulty, it was likely to be a stronger version of one of the monsters I had already seen on this floor. I really hoped it wouldn't, and maybe I'd fight a big mole or something, but such thoughts were nothing but escaping from reality.

(Moles are cute though. At least the cartoon ones I used to see online)

When I felt like I had fully recovered, aside from my stomach, I headed to the boss door. Despite resting, my body felt a little weak from the hunger, but I ignored it.

The doors gave way silently to the pressure I gave off.

With my hands, not my eyes.

This time there wasn't any stairs leading down, and instead the boss room was directly in front of me. It seemed like that change was because this floor was underground and the other was above ground.

Technically they were both underground, but the first floor had the appearance of being above ground.

What stood in front of me was a giant ant with a bloated rear end, flanked by four of the more normal giant ants.

"It's an ant with a huge ass"

I weakly chuckled at my bad joke as I tried to escape reality once more.

Unlike last time, I hadn't had time to get plenty of experience fighting the normal version of the boss monster, so I wasn't sure how to win this fight.

Ants, like all insects, had an exoskeleton, meaning that they were basically naturally armoured. This most likely didn't mean much to my claws, but I flat out refused to expose myself in such a way where I'd be deliberately covering myself with bug goo.

The only alternative was to find ways to beat those monsters with my weapons before they all broke. As long as the next floor wasn't disgusting like this one, fighting bare handed wasn't a big deal. Rather, even fighting bare handed was technically impossible since I always had my claws.

Looking at the monsters in front of me, there was a high likelihood of my weapons breaking against their exoskeletons. At best, they'd break through and mutually destruct, but that didn't seem very reliable. The weak points of an exoskeleton were it's joints, obviously, as well as the eyes.

Those were the way to go.

I took a spear in hand and my spare weapons together in my left hand, wrapped in a wolf pelt in such a way to make them easy to pull out, though I risked them falling out if I wasn't careful.

With nothing more I could add to such a vague strategy, I charged straight away at the closest ant.

Once I got a few steps past the doorway, the fat ant, one I presumed was the queen, moved it's antennae and the other four charged in response. The ants weren't nearly as fast as the wolves, but their gaits were more stable and had less openings. Not only that, but there were more of them.

When I got close to the closest bug on the right, I sidestepped on the outside and thrust my spear straight behind it's head. The stone spearhead tore into joint between it's head and thorax, but the strike wasn't deep enough, so while the big insect staggered, it didn't stop moving, and tried to aim at me while I turned away to reposition.

But ahead of me was the ant closest to the one I struck. It had moved from the wounded monster's right to it's left, as if it anticipated that I'd go that way.

It opened it's mandibles threateningly, but I didn't worry about that, and instead thrust my spear out at it's compound eyes.

The spear impacted a lens, but the shaft shattered under the repeated pressure, leaving only the spearhead left slightly embedded. While the bug was stunned from my attack, I swiftly threw a kick out at the remains of the spear partially embedded in the ant's eye before using it as a springboard to create some distance.

The stone shard was thrust into it's head from the impact, strength clearly was leaving it's body as I backpedalled.

To my left, both unharmed monster bug were in the middle of circling me, while the first ant bared it's mandibles threateningly while approaching from the front.

The smell of the blue fluids that were seeping out of their bodies made my stomach yell out louder in my ears than ever. Before I knew it, I was licking my lips. It wasn't the usual red blood, but it was similar enough to evoke the same response from my body. But I was in a life or death struggle. The fact that I was now being attacked from two fronts was painful, as my eyes kept glancing at both the wounded and dead arthropods rather than trying to keep track of all the living enemies.

I shook my head to clear it even a little.

My spear wasn't working very well. It didn't have the power to penetrate the eye or joints very well. The other weapons were more risky due to their shorter range, but had the power to make up for it.

I quickly removed a goblin sword from my weapon bundle and faced off against the ants as they continued to close in. I went into a run again, and again towards the first ant I attacked. But this time it was ready for me and reared it's body, threatening me not only with it's jaws but it's front most legs as well.

Since it had stopped moving due to it's new pose, I easily sidestepped it and got to it's blind spot. No matter how wide an ant's vision was, there was no way it could see anywhere where it's eyes didn't cover.

With a quick series of steps, I jumped and ran onto the monster's abdomen and placed my sword in beside it's neck and pulled the serrated blade back against the joint.

Already weakened, the stone sword teeth made quick progress on the monster's flesh. But being as fragile as it was, the shaft snapped mid strike.

In a panic, I kicked off of the ant and created some distance, but to my relief, the monster simply shuddered for a second before collapsing. It looked like I had severed something vital.

There were two normal ants left plus the queen. The queen hadn't moved once since the beginning.

(Is it one of those 'I've fallen and I can't get up' scenarios?)

I smirked at the thing that looked so fat it needed a powered electric cart to move around.

As if it understood that I was thinking poorly of it and wanted to prove me wrong, the big ant really did rise up and lift it's bloated rear. My eyes turned into globes at the sight. I couldn't imagine how such thin legs could support a body like that, but the monster had already proved me wrong, and had started to approach me.

It from in front and it's two remaining subordinates from behind. I was perfectly sandwiched in between.

From a positional standpoint things weren't looking good for me, but in reality the queen was so slow I could entirely ignore it. It was as if it was moving entirely on sheer will power, which if it wasn't a monster I would applaud and maybe even cheer it for.

So in other words, rather than a three on one, it was more like a two on one with my blood thirst being an annoying spectator jeering and trying to provoke the actors, or rather just me.

I took out an axe and circled around the ant corpse that was lying in between me and the remaining two threats.

With my legs pumping at full strength, I approached the monster on my right, the closer of the two. As I closed in on it, the arthropod raised a foreleg and tried to stab me with it.

But such a slow and predictable move had no chance at working on me. I stepped to the side and ducked under. The leg simply impaled the stone floor where I was just at a split second before, whereas I was now underneath the monster at kissing distance.

Not like I'd do something like that to such a creepy creature.

Instead, I spun and used my whole body to swing my axe up, driving it through the ant's neck. The joint split apart spraying bug goo all over the place to my displeasure.

Not entirely dismembered, the head flopped down, held by a small piece of flesh with pieces of my stone axe head embedded in it.

Without any time to lose, I used the dead ant as cover to retrieve another sword to deal with the last remaining ant.

Legs stabbed all around me as the monster desperately tried to get to me, who was still trying to extract myself from under the dead monster's corpse.

The difficulty in trying to evade in that situation taught me how poorly planned my last move was, but with a big shove, I lifted the stiff body off of me and escaped with only some minor scratches.

The corpse flopped back down with a big *fwump*. The last ant monster was partially entangled after the sudden movement, and I didn't let that go for.

Squeezing in between the ant corpse legs, I climb it's body with a bound and jump onto the last surviving ant. I grab the base of one of it's legs for stability, then swing my sword as hard as I could across it's neck joint, severing it in one go.

"Wah!"

Suddenly losing it's control nerves, the now dead ant flopped down, it's weight overcoming any tension left in it's legs. With me still on it, I fell as well and bounced off of it's carapace and rolled on the ground, getting covered in more ant juice sprayed out from it's open wound.

With all the enemies down, my tension had started to fall, and the sound of my hunger had suddenly started to scream out loud, desperately trying to urge me to feed. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't avert my eyes from the fresh ant corpses.

*skitter*

But as deafening as my stomach was, it didn't cover the fact that the sound of ants moving around hadn't stopped.

I looked behind me only to see one more ant monster still alive and moving towards me.

It was such a minor threat that I had forgotten that the ant queen existed. It was hard to see it actually hurting me, but it was still an enemy. That alone made it possible for me to push my hunger back and concentrate on finishing the fight.

But the queen was slow, extremely slow.

I took out another axe and with a jog, I circled around it and got behind the monster. It tried to turn around to face me, but when the other ants weren't fast enough to avoid exposing their rear to me, there was no way the sluggish queen could.

Without any reverence to royalty, I jumped onto the monster's bloated abdomen and climbed on top. But instead of continuing to the thorax to cut the head off as I intended, I noticed that the top of the abdomen pulsed with a regular rhythm like a heartbeat.

Intrigued, I lower a hand and touched the surface. Even to my hand it felt just like a heartbeat, although the shape was completely different.

A small corner of my mind registered that there was drool dripping from my chin.

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Chapter 5: First Floor

CREATORS' THOUGHTS
ArchMage

Chapter 6: Second Floor

A Mate For The Last Lycan

The Rising Phoenix

Rebirth: Leading Families to Survive in the Apocalypse

The Alpha's Bride

Reborn ghost seeing lady is pampered by her ex husband

Ghost Exorciser: Is Loved By All

Batch unlock chapters

Chapter 5: First Floor

CREATORS' THOUGHTS ArchMage

Chapter 6: Second Floor

A Mate For The Last Lycan

The Rising Phoenix

Rebirth: Leading Families to Survive in the Apocalypse

The Alpha's Bride

Reborn ghost seeing lady is pampered by her ex husband

Ghost Exorciser: Is Loved By All

Batch unlock chapters

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CREATORS' THOUGHTS
ArchMage