The Emerald Caves (Dungeon Lvl. 0-18) seemed to be quiet and deserted. A short girl armed to the teeth was sneaking through the tunnels, listening for every sound.

The snakefly colony was Alice's first goal and she reached it fast. The revealed scene looked pristine. No monsters, no creepy eggs on stalagmites. No nothing naturally included magic stones. Or her 'destroy the closest nest' quest rewards.

Cleared. Alice nodded to herself, returned back to the very first fork in the tunnels and went deeper. Every time the girl found new branches, she would leave a mark on a wall and commit it to memory. More than once she stumbled upon a dead end and had to retrace her steps. Otherwise, the expedition was peaceful.

Swish!

A stray ant was beheaded in one slash. Alice waved her curved sword aka the glaive's blade, clearing it from yellow blood, and sheathed it. Occasional low-level ant or centipede didn't count. The girl dedicated some minutes to refine her moves on them, yes, and gathered between a thousand and two exp points, but wasted no time on cultivation attempts.

Emerald Caves, for now, was a one-floor dungeon, if Alice knew anything about dungeons and she'd read a lot of almost scientific literature of the most influential authors on this topic, along with researches on dragon girls and studies on gods who had nothing to do but to personally attend to every Japanese teen run over by a truck.

In other words, Alice noticed there were no significant changes to the ground level. Then she reached it.

Numerous formations were fading away into the darkness.

It was an enormous cave. Light of green crystal veins on the ceiling was barely reaching down, like moonlight on Earth, making the cave the playfield of eternal night. The playfield of monsters.

Okay. Now we are talking, staring somewhere far from inside her tunnel, Alice encouraged herself. Her nostrils fluttered, catching a strand of magic. It grows stronger. I am on the right track.

Great courage it took her to walk outside and crouch behind a big rock. This was another obvious change: rugged terrain. The gigantic cave hardly lacked crevices, stalagmites, protruding rocks, and other natural obstacles.

Alice sit tight and waited for her eyes to adapt to darkness, not willing to take out a lamp, from time to time she looked at the passage to safety with longing. The problem was, the girl with her mental map was pretty sure she'd investigated most of the tunnels. Moreover, why snakeflies didn't have evolved species? Because mana concentration wasn't enough.

Clockwise or not? While contemplating the direction, Alice suddenly heard a distinct noise and clenched the sword's handle. It was coming her way. Lone source, four legs, observation and hunt mastery skills kicked in. Grand new monster. Perfect.

The girl transformed into a statue, completely still, even her heart rate slowed down.

Alice and her enemy met directly in close quarters after the latter went around her rock. It had indeed four legs, and also black fur, big fangs, and a scorpion tail.

[Chimeric Wolf Lvl. 7]

The sword swooshed in a quick-draw, the technique devoid of skill yet executed by Alice absurdly fast. A long wound opened wide on the beast's hide and right leg, a low growl escaped its throat. Success didn't bring the girl joy.

It dodged!

Feeling chill, she changed her stance and grip in a brief moment. Faster! Unhesitatingly, she burned blood essence. The wolf opened its maw for a roar or a howl when a spear-like sword thrust dived between its jaws.

Next second, Alice forcefully turned the blade inside, killing the abomination for good. Her left hand was tightly grabbing a dark tail, a sting twitching just a few centimeters from her chest in the last attempt on her life.

[+1400 EXP, +280 BP]

Wolves go in packs. Alice never hunted them on Earth, but she knew a few things. She couldn't allow the wolf to call its kin and so had resorted to taking the risk.

The battle ended in one savage exchange, straight and simple.

Now Alice sighed in familiar fatigue and congratulated herself on buying the armor, which psychologically allowed her to take such risks in the first place. She then stared at the corpse and blood, dark red blood flowing out of it. Even if the dungeon makes wolves roam solo, mana emission will attract predators. This is an open space, not tunnels. What should I do?

Epiphany descended soon. The answer was present in her skill list after all.

Butchering, I cannot believe this, but level up. Hunt mastery, level up. Level up.

Those reached levels 2 and 4 respectively and left Alice's stock of skill points in shambles. She closed her eyes for a moment, sensing new knowledge tickling her synapses, weighted the sword thoughtfully and then bent down to the wolf corpse.

A giant body twisted underground quietly, its long forked tongue was probing the airflow now and then. A weak magic leak had attracted this particular monster.

Hiss!

The monster found a dead wolf and licked it daringly.

A small fry.

Free meal.

A giant maw opened and gulped the dissolving corpse wholly.

From afar, Alice watched a snow-like white creature with a shudder.

[White Snake Lvl. 13]

What a monster! Deprived of the choice to go back home as the snake was now blocking the tunnel, the girl scooped away. Level 10 must be a grow threshold! Hope a low-tier magic stone is neglectable to this thing!

Fear drove her, but Alice never lost a shred of reason. She held onto the cave's wall, moving clockwise from Node #8. When a level 4 ant appeared before the girl, she slew it with particular ferocity and only then calmed down a bit.

I must be far enough from this bastard. The dungeon erases smells, no way it follows me, the girl reassured herself with a touch to the safe beacon through the bag and frowned. Smells are one thing... with perfect hearing, I must notice thousand of sounds from all over this place... and there was just some clatter that disappeared fast.

The dungeon was erasing sounds, too, Alice realized suddenly. The tunnels had tricked her judgment, but this big cave made it pretty obvious. But why, she wondered. Smells had biological nature that could be circulated just like monsters' dead bodies, sure, but sounds?

The air here contains mana, who knows what it implies, even without a clear answer, the girl cheered up. Magic sound jammer was absolutely a good thing.

So when Alice heard another loner monster running around, she followed it.

Clap, clap.

A worker ant jogged between stalagmites and boulders, unaware of a hunter tracking down its every step.

It seemed running with no particular goal in mind and stopped before a wide cleft for no reason. Soon though a pair of regular ants appeared from behind a large rock and all three gathered together, moving their antennas.

That was when the hunter decided to strike.

A white long arrow struck the worker ant, splashed over the carapace from top to bottom, tied its legs together and to the ground. The ant screeched, the other just spurred into finding the threat when it fell down upon them like a shadow.

Jaws closed up on a regular ant's neck and nearly ripped its head off in a flash; another, shorter web arrow bounded a leg of the last unharmed ant at the same time.

The hybrid of a wolf and a spider grinned victoriously when a real arrow hit its back. The monster howled, another arrow drew a spurt of blood out of it, and then another went through the neck as the monster was turning around, all happened in one second.

Alice jumped down from a flat rock and slowly closed in. The wolf watched her coldly, staggering above its only direct kill. There was no much pain or anything in the monster's eyes, not really, the girl sighed inwardly. The chimera had a mostly wolfish body and spider-like rear it used to shoot cobweb.

Chimeric Wolves... a suitable name. A wolf plus some extra.

Judging by struggles of two ants nearby, this web was really sturdy. What little Alice new about spider silk, it might be nigh-indestructible because of scale. Which was the reason why she had trailed after this wolf in the first place.

A worker ant was a pleasant surprise. Truly, Alice would have been content with anything capable of drawing the wolf's combat style for an observation.

What she saw confirmed: chimeric wolves were much better monsters than ants. Or centipedes. At the very least, they were faster. Less tenacious, but faster. Bad news for Alice whose best physical attribute was Agility.

Now then... merciless, the girl finished off all monsters with three sword swings. Time to...

> Level up!
> Hunter lvl. 6 -> lvl. 7
> +5 Skill Points
> Attributes being adjusted…