POV Eliza

The group in front of me entered the dungeon without lights and disappeared from my perception. There seemed to be some magic separating the dungeon from the outside world. I hesitated for a moment and entered the dungeon behind the other group. I felt a slight tingling sensation as I stepped through the archway. In front of me I could see an unlit cave passage. In the distance I saw the illuminated cave exit. Behind the cave entrance lay a large, hilly plain. On this floor, tall grass grew everywhere and there were occasional small groups of trees. The group that entered the dungeon before me was nowhere to be seen. The only monsters on this level were slimes. Because of the grass, you could only see them when they were moving or you were standing directly in front of them. So I relied on my other senses. I sensed the slimes with both Sense Mana and Sense Presence. I was surprised to find that I hardly had any encounters with other adventurers. Apparently the slimes were very unpopular because of their immunity to physical attacks. They could only be defeated with magical attacks, but there were limitations here too. Water magic didn't work on them either. But they only caused minimal damage by jumping at you. They were also very slow, so it was easy to avoid them. The absence of adventurers, however, meant that I had most of the floor to myself. I tested the only attack spell I had on the slimes. This was the elemental arrow. It did fixed damage and was only dependent on the rank of the skill, not the skill level. It was also cheap in cost. The slimes could already be defeated with two arrows on a basic rank.

It took me two hours to deplete my MP down to a small reserve. With my current minimal mana regeneration, it would take all day to regenerate my mana, so I stopped fighting and left the dungeon for the day. On the way back I didn't meet any adventurers. They were all still inside as it was just after noon. I entered the city and went to the guild. Maybe there was a quest I could still complete. Better do something before I just sit around. I chose a quest where I helped a tailor clean up her warehouse. It was physically demanding, but thanks to Mama, I was interested in tailoring anyway. It occurred to me that I hadn't thought about her and the community for a few days. I hope, everything goes well.

In the evening I met the others. They told me that they had made good progress on floor 2. If they continue like this for another day, they could level up again. I congratulated them and we ended the evening in peace. The next morning we meet again at breakfast and briefly plan when we could form a group. I would like to earn some money first so that I can finally buy new equipment. I still didn't have any armor or a spear. I didn't get very far with that. The others understood this and wanted to continue going into the dungeon alone. They just didn't know that I also went into the dungeon in the meantime.

I gave them another ten minute lead and then followed them. This time I wanted to look for the exit to the next level. In the middle of the path to the dungeon, I heard horses approaching from behind and stepped aside. The idiots, I mean heroes, rode past me. The blonde prick rode in front. What was his name again? Cornelius was his name in this world, if I remembered correctly. Back then in our old world things were similar. I was already wondering at the time whether Monica had liked the snob. But it was always clear to me that she had no chance with him. In any case, she was upset with him for a long time afterwards.

After the dust cloud settled, I moved on. In the dungeon this time I came out in a different place on the first floor. This time I examined places that seemed promising to me like other cave entrances. After a long search I find another cave entrance that was guarded by two slimes. Behind it I found a chest. Now, for the first time, my skills in picking locks and disarming traps came into usage. I examined the chest and found no trap. I bravely opened the chest and found some money, two potions and a medium quality leather vest inside. Unfortunately it wasn't my size, but I could definitely sell it well. I packed everything in my shoulder bag. Unfortunately I couldn't identify the potions and had to take them to a specialist.

I then went back to looking for the exit to level 2. I found this in the form of a portal nearby. After using up my remaining mana, I made my way back to the city. It was midday again, but this time I didn't look for any more quests. Instead I sold the leather vest. With the money I was able to buy light cloth armor as well as leather gloves and new boots. I spent two more days on floor 1 among the slimes. Thanks to my new cloth armor, I no longer suffered any damage from the slimes. Unfortunately, I couldn't make money for selling the slimes fluids I defeated, otherwise it might have been noticed that I was going into the dungeon. Instead, I did other quests in the afternoon to continue earning money. Since I was now at rank E, there were slightly more lucrative quests. I had expanded my equipment to include a simple spear and a few throwing knives.

Floor 2 looked exactly the same as floor 1, except that there were fist-sized beetles everywhere. The advantage was that I felt them much earlier than the slimes due to my sense presense skill, even if they were even harder to see through the grass. So I went back to relying on Sense Presence instead of my eyes. I resolved to explore as much as possible and leave the dead bugs lying around. I wasn't particularly strong anyway and wouldn't have been able to take many beetles with me. I also had to continue to keep my dungeon visit secret.

When I saw them, the beetles ran straight towards me and ran into my boots. They had a lot of power and made me sway. I used my spear and tried to impale them. I worked quite well, but I quickly realized that I had difficulties as soon as more than 3 beetles came at me at the same time. I then backed away and tried to separate me from them. Unfortunately that didn't work because they followed me. Only complete escape helped in this case. Once I was alone and out of reach, I considered my options. I went through my spells and found two that could be useful besides the attack spells. The first thing I did at the next encounter was test the gust of wind. With that I knocked the beetle over with a short breeze. Since it lay on its backs for a short time, I was able to simply stab it. The other spell was a water magic spell. It created a small area of ​​water under the beetle. I was hoping they'd slip on that. Unfortunately it didn't have much of an effect on the beetles as they didn't fall over with their six legs. Therefore it was unusable for me.

Over time I learned to deal with the beetles. I found that they have a set distance at which they attack. Luckily, my detection range thanks to Sense Presense was now greater than that of the beetles, so I was able to attract them individually. The ongoing training of my sense skills has now benefited me. However, I wasn't able to defeat as many bugs as I wanted because I often encountered other adventurers who competed with me for the monsters. I also avoided them as soon as I noticed them. Nevertheless, I made good progress because I was able to defeat significantly more bugs than slimes in the same time. I was now able to increase my level to 15, which, in addition to my extra bonuses, was also due to the fact that I was exploring solo.

In the evening over dinner we talked about our experiences again.

“We got through floor 2 and found the portal on floor 3. Great, huh?” <Ken>

"Congratulations. We should celebrate that.” <Eliza>

"Thanks. Tomorrow we want to move on to floor 3. How did it go for you?” Lynn

“I have my equipment together, as you can see. I will go to the dungeon tomorrow.” <Eliza>

“Just be careful, you hear me?” <Lynn>

"I am careful. with my new armor, the slimes and the bugs certainly can't harm me, you said that yourself. I’ll be fine.” <Eliza>

“Scout is a combo class, right? Then you can do magic?” <Ken>

"Yes. In addition to wind magic, I also know some water magic so I can have the little healing spell.” <Eliza>

"Cool. I would like to be able to do that too.” <Ken>

“Then you should have been more careful back then. You just learned some very basic earth magic. Fire comes in very handy here.” <Lynn>

“The theory was sooo boring. But we got along well.” <Ken>

"Still. We mustn’t become careless.” <Lynn>

“Not me.” <Ken>

"Sigh." <Lynn>

“Right, be careful. I’ll join you in a few days once I’ve gotten used to the dungeon.” <Eliza>

“We are waiting for you. And now it’s time to celebrate!” <Ken>

We talked until late into the night. After all, people only lived once, most of them.