GreenerThanGreen

I was actually planning for Jessica to die sometime in the dungeon from a trap or something, then resurrect and become a lot more cautious, but never found a not forced way to do it. Now that she is out, the chance may never come.

I look around and behind me is a 2 meters tall, half-circle wall with depictions of goblins and below a stone floor with a teleportation circle drawn. There was no building or cave or anything else to indicate this was a dungeon entrance, but as I established earlier, what do I know about real dungeons? We leave the circle and the stone floor for dirt ground below us. I again look around and find we are in a clearing between a bunch of trees, maybe even a forest. I walk around and sit beside the wall and look at the dark, starry sky. 

“Would you look at that, it has 3 moons!” I knew I was in a different world with the dungeon, the system, skills and all, but somehow seeing 3 moons in the night sky just hits the subject differently. I think it is time to make some plans for the future and implement some rules for my survival here. Let’s start by checking my status and skills. “Status.”

“Not much has changed, but I suppose after some time I stopped working on my skills and left the fighting to the summons. Skill List.”

“Hey, at some point the shop leveled up. Now that I am outside the dungeon I will have to think what to show others and what to keep hidden. For starters, I should probably not summon humans until I understand how summoners in this world work. But for now, let’s visit the shop and see if there is something new.” I open the Duel Monster Shop interface and my sight goes to a flashing icon. I select it and start reading the shop notifications. 

Those are a lot of notifications. I close them and then look at the 1 beside the shopping cart, just like with my first Deck. I open it up and look at the Card List for the Starter Box and ¾ down the list I explode with anger. 

‘Shit fucking, fuck fucker! I had to eat fucking bugs and there was a Starter Box!? It is because I am not a Japanese Isekai protagonist, isn’t it!? Isn’t it!? If I was, I would not have had to clear my first floor with spell cards! There are fucking 1 star creatures with 400 ATK in there! And a Mooyan Curry, a fucking curry I could eat once a day instead of rationing energy bars and eating fucking bugs! Hah, ha, phuuu.” I take a few deep breaths at the end of my anger outburst and calm myself. I finish looking at the list and then receive the free Starter Box. Like with the other Decks, a box appears in the air and waits there for me to put my hand under it. The contents of the box aren’t different from the Yugi and Kaiba Decks, except for the cards. I empty the box and put the play mat with the one from the Kaiba deck and the box goes in my backpack. No reason to litter. 

Going back into the shop, I purchase a second box of sleeves for 500 Tokens and another Holster, for a second deck I can show in public. My Tokens shrink to 10390, but then I feed the goblin lord’s core to the shop and they become 10550. 

“First, I will have to stop using Change of Heart, and definitely never using it on humans and sentient creatures. That is too morally wrong. I will also have to keep Resurrection of the Dead a secret. Fuck, I should have resurrected a mage or a shaman and have them teach me to cast spells and the magic language. Next I should decide if I want people to know I am Dimension Traveler or not. But that could be hard to hide, as the first appraisal skill used on me will probably show it. And I don’t know if I can survive without it equipped. And let's be honest, I don't believe you could change your Occupation every day as you like. Hmm, if I lose 100 DEF an hour and then 100 HP after it reaches 0, then that is 6 hours, then 13 hours for my HP to reach 0. Dian Keto heals for 1 000, so that is 10 hours, 600 from Remedy and 200 from Curry. If I buy another Yugi Deck and apply 1 Dian Keto every 10 hours and a Remedy, I could remove the Occupation and then survive several days like that, then select it again. But that is too much work and too risky, just to fake not being a Dimension Traveler. I don't even know when I can change the Occupation after changing it once.  And those are calculations based on assumptions. Next, should I hide I can summon spells and objects? It shows as a Rare Skill, but how does this system work? Running is also a Rare Skill.” 

For now I have Stern Old Magician detect all enemies in the forest and after not seeing any nearby I open my Binder and find all Winged, Warrior and normal Beast creatures, followed by Rock and finally all Non-human looking creatures. I do the same with the new cards and the ones already in my deck. And since I am extremely cautious at the moment, I removed any Zombie and Fiend and any card with the mention of evil, devil or other negative concepts. I am sure some have nothing to do with actual demonic or evil concepts and it is just a name for how dangerous they are, but until I have to actually summon a Fiend, I don't want to risk acquiring some strange skill like Evil Summoner or Necromancer or something.

In the end my new deck consisted of Ancient Tree of Enlightenment, Juggler, Lunar Goddess Elzaim, Monsturtle, Mountain Warrior, The Wicked Worm Beast, War Earth, Minotaurus, Kentaurus, Holy Doll, Sky Hunter, Pale Beast, Destroyer Golem, 2 Wild Raptors, Fortress-Protecting Winged Dragon, 2 Louise, Cannhorn, Killer Panda, Cyclops, Master & Expert, 3 Mirage, 2 Giant Soldier of Stone, Silver Fang, The North Wind and Sun, Magman, Two-Mouth Darkruler, Sleepy, Basic Insect, Change Slime, Key Mace, 2 Man-Eater Bugs and Feather Blade. 38 creature cards with no Spell or Trap cards. This is going to be my deck until I gather more information about magic, customs, taboos and summoners. For now I chose the more neutral Earth attribute cards with a sprinkle of wind, water and light. I tried to exclude all Dark, until I know if there was some taboo about them being evil or something. I had half a mind to not include Lunar Goddess, suspecting I had to use the Epic Minor God Summoning, but she was also a pretty weak Fairy and with no one else knowing she was a Goddess, I could just pretend I am using Fairy Summoning, if such a skill exists and I acquire it when I summon a Fairy. Some other cards like Sleepy, Change Slime and Darkruler were chosen because of their flavor text. If some of it is true, they could turn into very useful creatures to summon. I apply sleeves to all of them, put them in the second Holster and then take Mooyan Curry, Thunder Bolt, Fusion, Darkness and Fire Ball and put sleeves on them. I then reorganized Deck 1 to fit them. Mysterious Puppeteer was in the Graveyard, Feather Blade and Holy Doll are in a new deck, which left me with 2 cards I had to remove to fit them. I chose Lord of Dragons and one of the copies of Pincer Attack. 

And now, since I have time to kill until midnight, I unroll 2 play mats in front of me and place the 2 decks on the Deck Zones on them. My experiment is successful and both decks light up and activate, but now comes the crucial part, can I place cards on both play mats and summon more than 5 creatures and Spell/Trap cards? I already have 4 on my first play mat, so I pick Sky Hunter, 3 Mirage and Cannhorn and place them on the second mat. And there is immediately a problem. It is not the problem I was expecting and apparently I can indeed summon on 2 play mats from 2 different decks, because the 3 Mirage emerge from the cards and activate their mirrors, creating body doubles of themselves without a problem, but for some reason Sky Hunter and Cannhorn do not. Activate, not creating body doubles. That would be just silly.

I compare the cards and the only think that could be the reason for the failure I can think of is the Wind attribute. I have been able to summon Light and Earth creatures before and all 5 cards are Winged Beast, so I can’t think of anything else as the reason. 

“Affinities Menu, Elements Menu, Attributes Menu… Attributes Status.”

“Okay, that could turn into a problem in the future. I am going to assume Wind 1 can summon 1 star creatures and Light 12 can summon up to 12 star creatures. I will have to find a way to strengthen my Affinities in the future or I might not be able to use Wind, Water and Fire creatures of high level.” My stomach rumbles and interrupts my musings, so I take out Remedy, Last Will and Mooyan Curry and place them on the mat. All 3 items emerge and I stash the herb and the paper and get ready to eat my fill of the curry. I also prepare Dian Keto in case the otherworldly curry has an ingredient I am allergic to. 

Taking a deep, long sniff of the enticing aroma of spices I take a spoon full of curry and place it in my mouth. The flavors explode in my mouth and I moan in pleasure at having delicious food after days just surviving. Then a burning sensation hits my mouth reminding me that this is typically a very hot, spicy dish that isn’t considered good by some people if it doesn’t burn their mouth and all their taste buds. There are tears forming in my eyes and I start to sweat. I desperately want to summon Dian Keto to heal me from the spicy pain, but endure and continue shoveling curry in my mouth, eating almost without chewing, just so my tongue will have less contact with the painful substance. It still tastes amazing and the aroma fills my mouth and from there my nose, but all of it is followed by more pain. 

When I finish the last bite, I gargle my mouth with water in vain attempt to quell the fires in it, but I know that the spices that cause it are hydrophobic and the water just washes over them and doesn’t take them with it when it goes to the stomach. I lay on the ground and close my eyes, trying to ignore the pain in my mouth and after laying for a while I do feel a little better. My mouth staying open in order to inhale cold night air to soothe the heat also helps, but I still summon Dian Keto and have her heal me completely. 

I check my HP, and as I suspected the current values rose by 1 000, while the max value stayed the same. Next, just to tell when midnight arrives, I summon Emissaries, put the gray card back in the deck and then the Holster, and under their protection start gathering fallen branches from the probably forest around me, because I am stating to get a little cold and could use a fire. 

When I have enough gathered, I make a fire pit close to the wall and ask Old Magician to start the fire. “Actually, didn’t the description of the coat mention something about keeping constant temperature of the body?” I change my mountaineering jacket with the enchanted coat and almost immediately feel the difference. My arms and upper body start to warm up and become cozy. Still the fire isn’t wasted as my legs are still a little chilly. I cover my lower body with the jacket, put my backpack under my head and stare at the starry night sky. I will have to remember some of the stars if I want to find this place again in the future. So while looking at the stars I start using my imagination to connect stars into images and forms I could remember easily. I sketch a few I find, in my notepad and soon Emissaries disappear from around me. It is midnight, so I re-summon the Emissaries, write in my journal what happened in the day, add some more wood to the fire, pick the cards from the play mats, put them in the decks and then in their Holsters. Good night world, I will explore you tomorrow.

Chapter 9: First dungeon conquest

GreenerThanGreen

The Skill List has less skills showing, not because she lost some, but because nothing has changed with the skills and I didn't want to make the table unnecessarily bigger. As always you are welcome to comment, rate, review and stuff. If you find errors, plot holes or anything that doesn't make sense, tell me in the comments.