Right, I suppose I should go and craft that Carnabbit fur mantle for that old barber. I spoke to myself, glancing over the Quest paper.

The pay wasn’t exactly big. Apparently, ten pieces of Carnabbit fur sells for two bronze coins at best. The Halluspider strings sells for much more, one bronze coin for two, but when I added all up, it didn’t amount to too much. The main payment for the end result was what made it worthwhile in addition to it netting me some Quest points from the Guild. It would’ve been a hassle if I had to farm for materials, but fortunately for me, I had some stacked in a safe place. All I had to do is go collect them and craft the mantle.

Before I left the Guild, Rozalina remembered to pay me a reward for slaying the rare monsters inside the Secret Area found in the dungeon. I wasn’t exactly the one who found the secret passage leading to it, but according to the Guild’s rules, the person, or party, who kills the rare monster is awarded with the bonus reward. Extra money was still money, so who was I to dispute or complain about how the Guild operated.

I didn’t bother buying any food to take with me before going into the dungeon. With the monster rabbits dropping the meat and the Campfire skill I had, I knew I wouldn’t starve. I got myself a decent size leather skin bottle to bring some water with me, of course. I didn’t expect to find some drinking water before reaching the Guardian Tree.

Ah damn, I didn’t ask Rozalina if they have maps of the dungeon floors to buy somewhere. Only when I was a stone’s throw away from the dungeon, I realized I will have to find my way to the Guardian Tree’s Secret Area. Emmy’s group escorted me out of the dungeon and they seemed to know which way to go when we were walking back. I was following them and didn’t bother trying to remember the way we took. Ah well, I’ll just have to find it myself, or if I meet someone, I’ll ask which direction the entrance to the lower floor is.

- “You’re getting stronger, babe. Two experience points gained.” – Lavita told me after my first monster rabbit kill.

“Thanks, babe. I missed you too.” I spoke back as if I was speaking to a real person. Luckily, there was no one around to hear me this time.

- “Aah… I’ve been so waiting for this… Maximum experience points reached. It’s time to have some fun, hottie. Would you like to Level Up?” – I didn’t expect to hear the offer to level up, however.

“Sorry, babe, but I’ll have to decline.” I chose the ‘No’ option, bracing myself for what was coming next.

- “No… and after I got all undressed for you. I was so looking forward to feeling your strong hands on my breasts… uuhm… and your hard cock inside my pussy… boohoo…” – Lavita moaned unhappily, clearly doing to herself that which I wanted to do to her so bad. “Well… aah… mhaa… give me… y… yesss… a moment to… to… aaah… ah… ah… I… I… almooost… ooh… ah… hah… aaaah!” –

- ‘Gulp…’ – I swallowed hard, feeling like I was about to cry.

- “Oops, I did it again… Sorry, but you’re making me so hot every single time and I just can’t hold myself back. But don’t worry, babe, your stats had been increased at random. Till next time.” – Lavita giggled before quieting down.

Sigh… I don’t know what’s worse, listening to the lifeless mechanical voice, or having Lavita torture me with her fantasy orgasms. I took out the bottle with water to have a drink. Right, let’s kill a few more monster rabbits.

I needed to let out some steam. Of course, Lavita’s announcements of me gaining experience points didn’t actually help me forget her lewd moans just a moment ago. I had to stop killing monsters, so I could calm down instead.

Damn it, I want Lavita to be real. It wasn’t difficult for me to imagine how Lavita actually looked. I could see her face and her body curves very vividly thanks to her images being plastered all over my apartment I used to live. But unfortunately, that was a fantasy I knew wouldn’t come true. Sigh… Anyway, let’s just find the path leading to the second floor. Humph… That’s right, I wonder how much and what stats were increased this time?

As soon as I asked that question, I froze in the spot.

“You dumbass… Baah… Show Status.” I cringed, the transparent window opening in front of my eyes.

***

Rockin Starling. Class: Shielder.

Character Stats:

Stamina – 24

Strength – 26

Agility – 19

Spell Power – 4

Magic Energy – 8

Growth – 2

***

I checked my status and noticed two out of six stats have changed. My Stamina and my Strength stats were increased by one point each.

I see. So, that’s how it works. I stared at the numbers for a moment.

Getting your character stats increased without leveling up would be a cheat in any video game. There were some exceptions, of course. In a game, a very difficult quest could offer a reward to increase a stat of your choosing, or a player might find some rare item that, upon using, would increase a certain stat as well. But having one’s stats increase constantly without needing to level up would make players overpowered in no time. I wasn’t playing a video game here. I was the character myself and, as preposterous as it might’ve been, I was now accepting this Level Up thing as being the real deal.

- “Well done, cutie pie. Four experience points gained.” – Lavita’s sweet voice announced.

I was on the second floor of the dungeon now, looking for the path to go down to the third floor. I was getting bored simply walking, so I’d touch a spiderweb now and then to have a spooky spider come down just to hear Lavita talk to me after I killed it. I have found the entrance to the second floor thanks to some other adventurers I encountered on the first floor. I didn’t talk to them or anything, but I followed them from a distance because it seemed like they knew where they were going. However, as soon as I came down to the second floor, I couldn’t see the group anywhere anymore. They must’ve run for it to lose me as soon as they came out of the tunnel. I didn’t have any bad intentions, but me stalking them might’ve been taken the wrong way.

If I remember correctly, it took us quite some time to reach the first floor entrance after coming out of the third floor. And they knew where they were going. Damn… I scratched my head, not knowing which way to go. Sigh… I guess all I can do is keep going.

I simply walked forward, hoping that I will find the entrance to the third floor eventually when I heard a scream up ahead.

Huh? Did someone shout? I stopped to listen, and when another scream echoed in a distance, I ran towards the direction it came from.

A view opened in a distance where people where fighting. I could see one person lying on the ground, with three more nearby. One of the three was stuck to a spiderweb while the other two tried to fight off the spooky spiders coming their way.

How da hell did they manage to alert so many spiders? I made a sour facial expression, counting four Halluspiders around them.

“Rina, behind you!” A male adventurer shouted.

“Wha…” The woman turned around only to see a spider about to jump on her face.

“Shield.” I was fast enough to smack the spooky spider with my attack ability.

- “You looked so cool there, babe. Four experience points gained.” – Lavita told me after the spider puffed into a glowing dust.

“Huh?” The woman turned to face me, horror still painting her face.

“Die, you monster!” The male adventurer who alerted the woman swung at the spider monster in front of him, slashing it in half with his sword.

“Nooo!” Another guy, who was glued to the ‘super glue’ spiderweb, yelled when a spooky spider was about to reach him.

“Tch… seriously.” I untied my Lizardman Champion’s Shield, sliding it into my left hand. “Hah.”

Only when I killed the Halluspider near the glued guy, the rest of them noticed me too.

- “My, my. Another four experience points gained. You deserve a kiss, handsome.” – A sound of a woman sending me a kiss followed.

“Wha… who…” The stuck male adventurer glared at me, full of surprise.

“Stop glaring.” I grunted, feeling creeped out by his stare.

“Ah, haah. Damn it!” The first adventurer was trying to deal with the last Halluspider.

“Get away from it, Borris!” The woman shouted, raising her staff. “Frostbolt.”

Just when Borris sidestepped to make distance between himself and the spider, the woman cast a spell. A blueish ball shot out of the tip of her staff, smashing itself at the Halluspider. The creature didn’t die, but was frozen solid.

“Now! Kill it!” She shouted.

“Haaah!” The adventurer swung his sword, smashing the frozen arachnid monster to pieces. A glowing dust appeared in its place right after.

“Are you guys…” I was about to ask if everyone was ok when I heard a crackling noise behind me. Huh? Hmph, I must’ve alerted one when I rushed to help these guys. Ah, well…

“Be careful!” The woman shouted, but I already knew about it.

- ‘Smack.’ – The spooky spider had no chance.

- “You’re so awesome, babe. Four experience points gained.” – Lavita’s announcement followed.

“Are you guys… ok?” I turned to face the group again, but was met with the weirdest stares on their faces. I turned around again to check if there were any more spooky spiders anywhere. There weren’t any. “Are there… anymore spiders around?”

“Oh, aah… no. I don’t think so. Sorry…” The man who was called Borris finally spoke.

“Ok, good. Is that guy dead?” I asked, putting my Lizardman Champion’s Shield away.

“Ah, Samuel!” The woman rushed to check on the guy lying on the ground.

“Right, my name is Borris. Thank you… for your help…” The guy with the sword spoke to me.

“Rockin. Name’s Rockin. Glad I could make it in time.” I introduced myself.

“Ahem… a little help here.” The man who was glued to the spiderweb grunted with a frown.

Hmph, aren’t you happy about being saved? I wasn’t about to help him get unstuck.

“Let me help you, Alvair.” Borris extended his hand to pull his friend out. “How is Samuel, Rina?”

“He’s out cold. The Halluspider poison got him.” Rina told him. “We’ll have to wait until he wakes up.”

“Ok…” Borris rubbed the back of his head before turning to me. “By the way, ahm… Rockin… where’s the rest of your party?”

“My party? Oh, I’m by myself.” I said, realizing what he was asking.

“By yourself?” He stared at me.

“Yeah…” His stare made me feel uncomfortable.

“Right, right, sorry about that. You must be much higher level to explore the second floor of the dungeon by yourself.” Borris commented.

“Well…” I didn’t want to tell them my level, really. “By the way, how did you manage to alert so many spooky spiders?”

“Ah, that’s a…” Borris became embarrassed for some reason.

“We’ve been followed.” Alvair said.

“Followed?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Someone was following us halfway through the first floor. I told them there was nothing to worry about, but no, our scaredy-cat leader here had us make a run for it, causing us to aggro all these Halluspiders.” Alvair seemed to be enjoying bashing Borris with his words.

So, does that mean this is the same group I was following? I should probably apologize, but this guy is a real dick. I squinted my eyes, throwing a stare at the guy.

“Good thing one of you screamed loud enough for me to hear. Otherwise, I would’ve not made it in time.” I threw one hand to the side, pretending I wasn’t sarcastic at all.

“Hah…” Rina tried to hold in her laugh.

“Tch…” Alvair’s reaction said it all. He was the one screaming like a baby here.

“Thank you for your help again, Rockin. We don’t have much to offer, but you can take the Halluspider strings that dropped as our thanks.” Borris offered.

“Nah, no need.” I could get as many strings as I needed myself if I wanted to. “But maybe you could help me with something else?”

“If we can…” Borris’s face showed he wasn’t sure he could.

“Do you know which way is the entrance to the third floor?” I asked.

“To the third floor?” He didn’t expect to hear that question.

“I believe it is still quite a distance away. But if you walk in that direction, you should come across a path. Well, not exactly a path, but thanks to adventurers walking forth and back, a footpath had been made of sorts.” Rina answered it, pointing to a certain direction.

“Ok, thank you.” That was a good enough hint for me. “Well, take care.”

I left the group where they were and made my way through the dungeon floor, following the direction Rina told me. After some time, I came across a footpath she mentioned. Just like she said, it wasn’t a real footpath, but thanks to groups of people walking in the same direction, the grass wasn’t growing as much as anywhere else in the forest. The path was cut off multiple times by the spiderwebs that were built by the spooky spiders but I managed to get back on track and found the entrance to the third floor eventually.

Right. The entrance to that Secret Area wasn’t that far from here and it was at the edge of the floor. So, if I stick to the wall… I should find it eventually. I lingered around after coming down to the third floor. I followed my own advice and stuck to the wall as I walked. It took some time, but I managed to find the entrance to the place I used to call home for the past year or longer. Holy damn, I never thought I’ll be happy to be here again.

The truth was, I was as hungry as a starving dog. I didn’t bother taking any food with me when I left, thinking I’ll just eat when I get here after I kill a monster rabbit or two. Unfortunately, it took me much longer than I thought it would to reach my destination, and I ran out of water too. It got dark before I found the entrance to the Secret Area too, but I wasn’t about to camp in the forest filled with walking rotten tree monsters.

Fuck, this adventuring stuff is harder than I thought. I’ll need to take it more seriously. Being able to get some food whenever I wanted while I was living in a closed off Secret Area made me not worry about it. Of course, I couldn’t stack on food, because the monster rabbit meat would disappear after a while if I don’t eat it, but it didn’t matter much anyway at the time. Unfortunately, now I had to think twice before leaving somewhere without any food. Ok, time to get myself some meat.

 

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