Dinner and a show. Hazel was seriously being treated right.

As she walked along and munched on the ration Mia had given her—which was filled with supernaturally preserved chicken, rice, and dried fruits and nuts—she watched the pink-haired succubus ravage her way through the dungeon cave tunnel. Even Hazel hadn’t had too many difficulties fighting the monsters, which ranged from level one to three, so Mia—whose level was unknown, but who was clearly much stronger—had no difficulty at all.

With her long, smooth black staff, she pummeled her opposition into submission, and clearly delighted in doing so. She was visibly venting her annoyance. Hazel hoped that was mostly from being lost underground and not Hazel herself. It probably was the former, since Mia had been a lot more enthusiastic in her violence before even meeting Hazel. In fact, the succubus seemed to be holding back for the sake of her image. Her gleaming eyes gave away the revelry in smashing her opponents into experience, though. Definitely venting her frustrations.

Not just Mia smacking her way through enemies, Hazel was given a show in another way, too. Mia’s outfit was distinctly not suited for combat. Twirling around, swinging her staff in wide arcs, and performing feats of acrobatics, Mia’s skirt flipped above her waist an unfortunate—or amazingly fortunate—amount of times. Mia pretended it wasn’t happening. Hazel pretended she wasn’t looking.

And she really was trying not to. Mia had said to keep the lechery to a minimum, and Hazel was doing her best; she didn’t want to make Mia uncomfortable. But that said, Mia’s acrobatic movements combined with her plush figure and outfit which didn’t try in the slightest to hold her firm meant there was a lot of jiggling going on. And Hazel was only human. Well, for a sense of the phrase. In spirit if not flesh, these days.

To her satisfaction, her mana did increase as she chewed her way through the surprisingly good-tasting meal. Not by much. Mia had said sleep was the best way to regenerate that resource. She would have to be careful with how she used [Skill Edit] and [Shapeshift]. As she leveled and her mana pool increased, she could be a little more liberal in her usage, but in the early levels, mana was clearly meant to be something doled out carefully.

Once she was done eating, Mia continued setting a quick pace; they didn’t amble leisurely along and chat. Hazel still had a million more questions, but while Mia had been accommodating in the first few minutes, it was clear she meant it when she said she wanted to get back to the surface. So Hazel didn’t get the opportunity to ask many questions while Mia was carving her way through the dungeon.

Hazel managed to sneak in a few fights of her own, at least. The monsters were numerous, swarming to them because of the noise Mia was making, and while Mia handled the bulk, Hazel made some experience gains herself by picking off stragglers. She was creeping up on her third level.

Eventually, Mia stopped for her own food and rest break. She settled onto a rock and pulled out a ration similar to the one Hazel had eaten. Hazel settled next to her, a few feet away to give the girl space, and Mia didn’t seem to mind.

“How long you been down here?” Hazel asked.

“Too long,” Mia muttered in between bites. She ate quickly, shoveling food into her mouth, and Hazel could tell she didn’t have long to sneak a few answers out of the woman. “Way, way too long.”

“Few weeks?”

“Well, not that bad. About ten days. Eight of them spent in this ridiculous labyrinth.”

“Don’t you have a map module?” Hazel asked. “Wouldn’t that make it easy to find your way back?”

Mia wrinkled her nose, then reluctantly answered, “I don’t. Only got my inventory not that long ago, too. I’m not as high level as you think. These are just trash mobs, so they’re easy to kill.” She considered a few more moments, then said, “I’m level eight.”

“And that’s low?”

“Of course that’s low.” After a moment, she dipped her head in acknowledgment to the unstated fact—it wasn’t like Hazel could know that.

“You seem pretty competent. I’m surprised. You just started?”

“This is my third delve. A smattering of regular adventures too. Been at it for a few months, so yes. Just started, all things considered.” She frowned down at her food. “Succubi usually don’t go down combat paths,” she said dryly. “My current skills aren’t well suited for it, though I’m starting to get better ones. It’s all a recent development. Didn’t get my class that long ago to begin with.”

Hazel could sense there was a lot more to that story, but she chose not to pursue it. They still didn’t really know each other. Hazel doubted Mia would answer if she asked. “I’m coming up on level three. I don’t know how all this works. Can I ask a few questions?”

Mia grunted in affirmation.

“For the skill creation process,” Hazel said. “Does it always start with the same four bases?”

“What?”

“Offense, defense, movement, utility?”

Mia set her food onto her lap. “What are you talking about?”

“Skill creation.”

“Creation?”

“That’s not how it works for you?”

“The gods determine our skills,” Mia said. “Based on the path we’ve walked. Our actions, feats, and some say desires.” Her face darkened. “Though I know for a fact that last one isn’t true.”

Hazel paused. Mia did the same, then blushed and cleared her throat. She probably hadn’t meant to let that last part slip, or at least so dramatically.

“But you make yours, somehow?” Mia asked. “You have control of it?”

“Yeah. Sort of.” It was a bit disappointing that Mia couldn’t answer questions about the process. Then again, the fact Hazel had more control over her skills than the typical person was objectively a good thing, so she had no right to complain.

“How’s that work?” Mia’s food went temporarily forgotten, which was good news. It meant Hazel could drag out this conversation and learn more about the world.

“It starts with picking a base. The four I mentioned, though I don’t know if it’s the same each time.”

“Right.”

“Then I pick a first specialty, and it creates a skill based on the combination. You’ve seen that slime shot I do?”

Mia nodded.

“That was ‘offense’ and ‘stun’. I think the choices are random, but I’ve only done it once. From there, I can accept the skill as it is, or choose to specialize it again with another set of random options. I picked ‘Make Vulnerable’ to finalize it.”

“Wow,” Mia said. “That sounds incredible.” The succubus really did seem interested—fascination was plain on her face. “What I wouldn’t give for that sort of fine-tuning.”

“I don’t know if it’s fine tuning. Still lots of randomness.”

“Compared to being thrown a skill decided by the gods, it’s fine tuning.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Can I watch?”

“What?”

“Next time you do it. You said you’re coming up on three. Let me watch.” She paused, then seemed to realize she’d forgotten something. “Uh, please, I mean. I’m curious. I want to see.”

“How would that work?”

“You can display system screens.” Mia held out a finger, then tapped the air. A familiar blue box appeared, displaying three things: Mia’s full name, Asmodia Lilith, her level, eight, and her class, succubus. She’d shared a portion of her character sheet.

More importantly, it meant Hazel could display her ‘Skill Workshop’ screen as she went through the process.

“Sure,” Hazel said. “Maybe you can help? I’ve been wondering how I should handle it. What skills to go for. And how to handle stats, too.” Having a local of this world give her advice would do wonders for confirming she was making the right choices.

Mia pursed her lips. “Well, that could be a very long discussion. There’s endless nuance to choosing your path.”

“I figured.”

“And, you know, you have an odd amount of foresight for a monster. Much less a slime.”

“Thank you?”

Mia shook her head, then picked up her food again. She returned to eating. “What does [Alterant] mean?”

Hazel twitched. She’d forgotten Mia had taken a look at her class. She’d forced Hazel to share her character sheet. She was a bit upset at being strong-armed into that, but her logical side told her that it had been more than a reasonable reaction, faced with a talking monster. Plus, there hadn’t been much to hide.

“Not sure. I guess I have a class based on altering stuff. Like [Shapeshift].”

Mia made a noise. She had her mouth full. She swallowed, then said, “Interested in where that’s gonna go. Never heard of [Alterant] before. Probably why you make skills, too. All part of the theme.”

“Yeah. That would make sense. But I also got a racial-based skill through the workshop? Slime shot. So it’s not entirely based on class?”

“Race skills are normal.”

“So you have demon ones?”

“Yes. And there’s racial passives too.”

“Oh?”

“For a demon, it’s that we get bonus experience when adhering to sinful behavior.” She snorted. “For most succubi, that would mean lust. But for me, it’s been mostly wrath.” She patted the staff propped to her side almost sardonically.

Hazel took a second to digest that. They were encouraged to be sinful? Whatever that meant. Mia seemed pretty normal, even more bashful than some girls she knew despite being a succubus, though she definitely had a temper. But not to any outrageous degree. Still, that sort of ‘racial passive’ had to have implications for what demons as a whole were like, right? Or maybe Hazel was assuming too much.

“What about skills? Racial ones, I mean. What do you have?”

“Skills are private,” Mia said simply.

“You asked to watch me make mine.”

“And you could have said no.”

Hazel frowned, but she supposed that was fair. She’d said yes so quickly because she wanted advice about the process. It had hardly been a selfless decision to feed Mia’s curiosity.

Mia shoveled down the last of her meal, and the emptied ration disappeared from her hands—deposited into her inventory. That would take some time to get used to. She stood, scooping up her staff. “Let’s get back to it. I’ll help you with skills and stats once you actually reach level three. No point in just chatting about it.” She looked up at the cave tunnel ceiling and glared. “And I really, really want to see the sun again.”