Chapter 30

 

“The Dungeon of The Whispering Witch,” I read out loud. My head tingled. It was almost as if the word ‘Witch’ invoked some form of memory within me.

 

It was the same feeling that one has when they forget a word or someone’s name in the middle of a conversation. Then, when reflecting on it, they know everything about it, except the actual word.

 

‘Whatever, it did not matter right now.’

 

The room was pitch dark. Darthmage’s light orbs were nowhere to be found.

 

“Darthmage, Elly, anyone?”

 

There was no response. Not that I expected any.

 

I lit up my torch.

 

There was nothing out of the ordinary in the dungeon room. It was a perfectly symmetrical square.

 

‘No enemy mobs in sight,’

 

This was probably the last chance I would have to select my skills in peace. ‘Can I even acquire EXP if I do not distribute my skill points upon leveling up?’

 

My system tab opened.

 

[Congratulation on advancing to level 4]

 

The notification was more than a day old.

 

Among the options given to me by the system, one of them was spending a class level in obtaining the monk class. That was not a hard choice to make.

 

My Stats were horrendous, as such, I spent my only ability score on Dexterity.

 

[Berry - Level 4] [Active Classes: [Monk - 1 ][Stargazer - 1] ]

[Strength: 7]

[Dexterity: 8 + 1 = 9]

[Constitution: 16.]

[Intelligence: 3]

[Wisdom: 1]

[Charisma: 11.]

 

My wilding class became inactive. It seems the system was hard-wired to keep users stuck with two classes.

 

‘Dammit, I wish I could transfer my class levels from wildling to monk.’

 

Well, starting a new class from level 1 did not seem so bad. The Monk class immediately unlocked three new Feats for me:

 

[Improved Unarmed Strike: +4 Damage to all forms of Unarmed Attacks.]

[Combat Reflexes: ???]

[Paralyzing Blow: When landing a critical unarmed attack on an opponent; the force of the devastating strike is strong enough to temporally stun your opponent.]

 

‘Excellent,’

 

Once my skills were set, I entered into the next room of the dungeon.

 

Vines of all types and forms seemed rooted in every wall. Immediately, at the end of the hallway, a Stone Golem awoke.

 

I was unsure of how strong the opponent would be, so I moved with caution. I took the [Flow Stance.]

 

Like an automation detecting an intruder, the golem moved towards me, but I could not sense any murderous intent. It was clearly not sentient.

 

With a powerful kick, I made the golem explode into a cluster of rocks.

 

[+80 EXP]

 

“Hmmph! Really, is that all!?”

 

That was almost nothing in EXP. I moved to the next room, and this time, there were three golems. One of them threw a boulder at me, but I dodged and proceeded to turn the automations into dust.

 

At this rate. With enemies this pathetic. Maybe Darthmage was already close to beating the dungeon. Or so I thought.

 

Suddenly, a scream echoed into the room. Agonizing moans followed.

 

I barged into the next room, only to find Elly, half-naked, hanging upside down by her ankles, as she was getting viciously whipped by vines. Her garments were slowly being removed by the vines as they whipped her back and ass over and over again.

 

The perpetrator was a monster that looked like a tree. The only telltale that this was a monster and not a tree were the hallowed eyes and mouth carved into the middle of the trunk. Without a doubt, this monster was another automation.

 

The moment I had barged in with my torchlight, the creature had turned most of its attention to me. Except that he kept whipping Elly in the background.

 

“Let her go!” I yelled.

 

His response was to smile before attacking me with vines. I was forced to use Qi to jump out of their range.

 

I tried landing a kick on the creature. But I almost injured my foot. The trunk was bloody sturdier than the Golems made of stone. I could see as the monster laughed, despite having no voice.

 

Then, I had a glorious ideas. ‘Let’s see if you find this funny.’

 

By the time Darthmage made his way into the room. Elly already had dressed fully back up.

 

She acted as if nothing bad had happened. But she was clearly still wounded. Darthmage gave her a potion and then turned his attention to me.

 

“Berry, are you alright?” Darthmage asked.

 

“YES,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

 

“You- You know that thing is dead, right?” He asked.

 

“YES, but doesn’t it look beautiful?” I asked. Darthmage did not respond. Instead, he returned his attention to Elly, who did her best to hide the fact that she had been tortured just a few minutes ago.

 

‘Whatever,’

 

It took a more cultured person to appreciate the beauty in the sight that I was beholding.

 

I gave the charred remains of the trunk one last look before departing with the party to the next room. Sadly, I likely would never get to see this view again. But it was magnificent. The hallow smile of the trunk was no more. Instead, it was replaced by a deformed opening made by a creature unable to scream as it burned alive.

 

“Not so smug now, are you?” I asked. The charred tree did not respond.

 

[+500 EXP +10%] Were attributed to my action.

 

When we entered the next room, we were met by a huge, but beautiful, red door.

 

“This door must lead to the Dungeon’s Boss,” Darthmage said.

 

“What makes you think that? I asked.

 

“Just a hunch,” He said.

 

In other words. He played too many video games.

 

“Alright, then let’s do this,” I said.

 

“Wait,” Elly said.

 

“Hmm?” I said.

 

“We shouldn’t go in there without buffs first,” she said.

 

“Ehhhh,” Darthmage said.

 

So it seems like I was not the only one who found the buffs to be redundant. However, for Elly to talk about buffs…. Just how much system knowledge does the average adventurer know?

 

Elly gave Darthmage a soft blow on the ribs. Which made him recoil in pain.

 

“Hey! Why you did that!” He yelled. As he cried in agony.

 

Come on bro, it was only a soft hit.

 

“What if you get injured?! And the buff is the difference between life and death!” Elly said.

 

“When have you heard of a hero dying in a dungeon?” Darthmage asked.

 

“That is because you only hear about those who live,” Elly responded.

 

“Sorry to break your love-quarrel but… We need to clear the dungeon,” I said.

 

The buffs did not take long to cast.

 

[Enchantment of Valor: +20% Immunity to Fear]

[Charm against Evil: +10% Immunity to Evil Creatures]

[Enchantment of Luck: +2 Luck]

[Enchantment of Armor: +5% Armor]

 

Darthmage received an enchantment to both of his swords.

 

“There you go,” Elly said.

 

“Excellent, now to the dungeon core we go!” Darthmage said. Then… he began to struggle to open the door.

 

I stared at him. My eyes pierced him all the way down to his soul.

 

“Is not what you think!” He said. Darthmage began to turn red the more he struggled to pull the door open.

 

“Get out of the way,” I said. Then I tried to open the door myself. I pulled and pulled. But the door did not move a single inch.

 

“See!” Darthmage said.

 

“Shut up!” I yelled.

 

There had to be another way to open the door. We looked around the room for anything unusual and we found it.

 

There were five tiles in the floor that were not tiles but dark gray pressure plates. They were clearly a mechanism of sorts. Each of the plates had an element engraved in it, with the exception of one of them - this one was just blank.

 

I stepped on the pressure plate, and the tile went down just a slight bit.

 

Darthmage looked at the tiles with uttermost amazement.

 

“There has to be something we can place on them to open the door!” He yelled.

 

“Just a hunch?” I asked.

 

“Just a hunch!” He yelled. “Look!”

 

Darthmage pointed at some stone peddles that were piled in the corner of the dungeon room.

 

“They must be what we need!” He continued.

 

Upon inspection. The stones had rune symbols in them. Some represented an element just like the pressure plates, but others had spell symbols in them. This was clearly a dungeon puzzle.

 

It could very well be that the door would only open if the puzzle was solved.

 

“This is a puzzle!” Darthmage yelled.

 

“Hey, you stole my line,” I said. “I am going to solve it first.”

 

“No. I will, just watch!” Darthmage said.

 

“Bet!” I responded.

 

We began daring the other back and forth.

 

Elly stared at the two of us as if we were children.

 

We eventually agreed to take turns solving the puzzle. I went first.

 

I grabbed the runes and matched them with the ones on their respective pressure plates. The first four runes were all elemental in nature. Fire, Water, Wind, Earth. On the fifth pressure plate, I just placed a random spell rune that looked like it could potentially be the result of combining the four previous runes.

 

The door trembled. But it did not open up.

 

“Ha! As if such an elaborated puzzle could be solved with such a simple answer,” Darthmage said. “Allow me to try,”

 

He proceeded to dump all the remaining runes into the fifth tile. The door trembled - and nothing more.

 

“What, you thought the answer was some pseudo alchemy?” I asked.

 

Darthmage’s cheeks grew embarrassed.

 

We went and forth. Trying every single combination. For hours. Poor Elly had to re-cast the buffs every time she thought we were close to opening the dungeon door.

 

“Dammit! There has to be a trick!” Darthmage yelled. He broke character for a bit and sounded frustrated for real.

 

“I think I got an idea,” Elly said.

 

“Wait Elly. We are almost done solving this,” Darthmage said. He seemed extremely obsessed with solving the puzzle.

 

I looked at Elly. Not because I thought she could solve the puzzle, but because looking at the runes was giving me such a headache.

 

“And that is?” I asked.

 

“I think the Dungeon Master is playing a trick on us. The trick is not in the puzzle. The trick IS the puzzle,” Elly said.

 

Darthmage stared at Elly. Then stared back at me.

 

He immediately used [Appraisal] on the door and the runes.

 

None of the runes or pressure plates had any magical properties to them. In other words, they were bare stone.

 

The door, however, seemed to have a magical effect cast onto it.

 

Elly knocked on the door and it opened. She was very happy about this.

 

Darthmage and I, not so much.

 

“Be on the watch,” Darthmage said. “A Mantis is no ordinary opponent.”

 

“Wait. What? What makes you think The Mantis is here?” I asked.

 

“Just a hunch,” Darthmage said.

 

His words bothered me. They bothered me greatly. I would never let him harm Mantis. It took a considerable effort to conceal my thoughts.

 

Behind the door stood the Core Room. It was empty. The Dungeon Master, had fled, or she was never here to begin with.

 

Inside the room, the core floated like a white crystal sphere.

 

Darthmage smashed the core, and as it shattered, thousands of copper coins began shooting out of it, along with various forms of loot. It was almost as if Darthmage had broken a piñata.

 

Behind us, we could hear the dungeon crumble. But it was not a cause for concern.

 

Darthmage immediately grabbed some of the coins. But Elly gave him an angry look.

 

“Hey, before anyone grabs anything. We should divide the loot fairly,” Elly said.

 

I agreed.

 

“Ahem. Yes. That is clearly what I had in mind,” Darthmage said. “Berry. You pick first. What do you want,”

 

“Eh?”

 

I inspected the loot. It was about fifty silver coins worth of copper coins. A spear, a sword, and a spherical stone.

 

“We will split the money 50/50 no matter what item you pick. However, you only get to pick one item. Choose wisely,” Darthmage said.

 

“Wait. Before I choose. Use Appraisal on the items. It is only fair that I know what I am choosing from,” I said.

 

“You got a point,” Darthmage said.

 

He read out loud what he saw.

 

[Common Item: Dwarf-Crafted Spear]

[Uncommon Item: Reinforced Sword]

[Rare Item: Mysterious Stone]

 

“I have no use for the Spear or the Sword. But the Stone… I take the stone,” I said.

 

“You sure? Well. I guess that since it is a rare item, it must have some form of crafting potential.”

 

“I wonder if it will do good damage if I use it as a projectile,” I said.

 

I grabbed the stone and a notification appeared:

 

[You have obtained a Mysterious Stone. Description: ??????]

 

“Huh!? Berry? What do you mean?! Crafting Items are not a weapon,” Darthmage said. His voice sounded as if he had just heard some form of heresy. “Craft something with it, sell it, but do not throw it around!”

 

I threw the stone against the wall to test its durability. The wall cracked, but the stone did not.

 

“See! It works as a weapon!” I said.

 

Darthmage’s eyes looked as if he was dead inside.