“Not fucking worth it!”
Chris growled as he swung his mace into the side of a Giant Rat, throwing the creature against the wall as it let out a pained squeak, two more quickly replacing it.
“So not worth it!” He shouted as he sent a blade of air flying towards a group of the vermin that were charging him, slicing several of them apart, only for even more to show up, “Is there a fucking end to this bullshit?!”
He continued to fight for what felt like hours, his Emperor Slime gear getting covered in blood and grime as he fended off the waves of monsters. Finally, he crushed the last rat beneath his mace, his head pounding as he was almost out of Mana, his body aching from the exertion. A quick glance at his Status screen told him that he hadn’t even levelled up from that prolonged fight, making him swear loudly.
“I swear, if I ever find the bastard that made this place, I am going to shove my foot so far up their ass!” he grumbled, trying to wipe some of the dirt and blood off himself, “And I just had a bath before coming down here!”
Letting out a tired sigh, he looked around again, making sure there were no more rats, before pulling a cloth from his bag, wiping off his gloves as best he could. He then stuffed the dirty rag back into his bag, pulling out a Slime Pouch of water and a handful of cooked mushrooms, devouring the latter before washing them down with a healthy gulp of cool water.
“Ah, that hits the spot, now, I guess I should gather the loot from these bastards, shouldn’t I?” he hummed, looking out over the piles of corpses, an equal number of small wooden chests laying scattered about as well, “Maybe I’ll get lucky and get something good.”
------
“Only one decent thing out of all of that?” Chris sighed as he checked his bag, having basically just thrown everything he’d found in the chests into his Carry-All-Bag, reaching inside and pulling out the short knife, “At least this Rat Tooth Dagger is Rank D, so it should be able to cut up some of the Slime gear. I wonder if I’ll be able to salvage any decent materials from them?”
Chris hummed as he stood back up from where he’d been sitting on the floor, a good distance away from the area where he’d fought the rats. He now found himself in what could only be described as an underground warren, twisting tunnels leading all over the place, and no light to speak of. He’d been forced to use one of his Sparkstone Arrows as a makeshift torch, though the light only seemed to attract the attention of the Giant Rats even more. Looking around, he started heading down the tunnel he was in.
“I have no idea where I even am,” he muttered, “I really hope I don’t get lost; it’s not like a Zombie Butler is going to come take me to the Floor Boss again.”
“It enters our domain,” the squeaky voice said suddenly, making Chris spin around as he saw a pair of eyes reflecting the light of his makeshift torch in the shadows, “It brings the pain of the uplands to our eyes. This is unacceptable!”
“What?” Chris blinked, holding the burning arrow out towards the speaker, “Who are you?”
“Geeeh!” the creature spat, skittering back as Chris caught a glimpse of a rat-like face, “It aims to blind us with the pain of the uplands! My children, kill it!”
“Oh shit,” Chris muttered as the Giant Rats started to emerge from the shadows, “Not again.”
“We will feast upon you flesh!” the strange creature from before giggled manically, “We shall crack open your bones and sup upon your marrow! Now, die!”
“No thanks,” Chris huffed as he tossed the arrow towards the strange figure, the rats scattering as the light landed directly in front of it, making it hiss in pain.
“Kill it!” the creature shrieked, Chris now able to identify it as a Ratfolk, another type of monster commonly found in the Dungeons, though this one seemed…slightly unhinged.
It was waving something that looked like a short pole around, pointing it at him, Chris figuring it might be like the Scepter of Undead Control in his bag, throwing out a blade of air as it lifted the object above its head. The blade slashed straight through the monster’s wrist, making it scream in agony as it leapt back, clutching the wound, the hand and pole completely forgotten.
“It has attacked us! In our own kingdom! You shall rue the day you injured the Rat King, upland filth!”
“No thanks,” Chris sighed, stepping towards the so-called Rat King, “I figure you’re probably the Floor Boss, right? That means I can get out of here if I kill you.”
“Kill me?” the creature blinked up at him, a look of fear in its milky eyes as he continued to approach, the other rats staying out of the light even as their king tried to scramble away, “Blasphemy! Treason! Kill it!”
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“You’re not getting away that easy!” Chris shouted as the Ratfolk tried to retreat into the darkness again, raising his hand, a cone of air punching into the Rat King’s back, making it scream as blood sprayed from its mouth.
Chris blinked as he watched the creature crumple to the floor, a hole punched straight through its chest where its heart was. Looking around, he quickly realized that the rest of the rats had already fled, making him rub the back of his head with his free hand nervously.
“Well, that was anti-climactic,” he muttered, “Now, how do I get out of here?”
He spotted the pole the Rat King had dropped earlier, leaning down to pick it up, his eyes going wide as he realized what it really was.
------
“An Explorer’s Map, huh?” Chris grinned as he looked down at the scroll in his hands, watching as the tunnel drew itself onto the paper in real time in the flickering light of his makeshift torch, “Pretty useful, though it doesn’t exactly help me find the exit, at least I won’t get lost with this.”
Chris continued down the tunnel, looking up as he spotted a faint glow at the end. Intrigued, he picked up the pace, hurrying towards the source of the light. It took him a few minutes, but he stepped into a large cavern dug out from the earth, a familiar looking door and chest opposite him, a pair of torches burning on either side of the door.
“So, I guess this is meant to be the Boss room, right?” he asked no one in particular, heading towards the chest, frowning as he noticed it was already open, “Did that Rat King guy manage to open this? Is that where he got the map from?”
Looking side, Chris frowned as he saw the shattered remains of what looked like a crystal ball inside, picking them up and inspecting them.
“Dammit,” he sighed, “This was a Glow Orb. That would have been useful in these tunnels. Actually, pretty much all of the Boss Chest rewards would have been useful in the floor you find them on. I wonder if that’s a thing?”
Shrugging, Chris simply scooped up as many of the pieces of the Glow Orb as he could, dropping them into his bag and heading towards the door.
“Well, next floor it is then.”
------
Chris coughed as he surfaced, the water around him stained red with blood.
He quickly pulled himself up onto the platform, looking out over the pool he’d entered from as he watched the corpse of the Floor Boss rise slowly to the surface, the giant fish looking like something out of a horror movie, with lobster claws growing out of it where the side fins would be, and ape-like legs at the back. Chris wasn’t even sure how he’d managed to beat it; his head having gone fuzzy from having to hold his breath for so long.
“At least I figured out how those crystals worked,” he sighed, “Though only giving you the ability to breath underwater for a minute? I almost drowned so many times!”
Shaking his head, Chris just pulled himself back to his feet, staggering tiredly over to the golden chest, opening it to see a pair of rings, sighing as he realized what they were.
“A Ring of Water Breathing and a Ring of Cold Resistance,” he muttered as he slipped them onto his fingers, “Okay, the whole getting items that would have been useful on their floor thing is definitely true.”
He glanced at the door, yawning as he did so, deciding that it would be best to rest before continuing to the sixth floor, especially as he didn’t even know how many floors this Dungeon had. He quickly pulled the stacks of clothes he had gathered on the first floor out of his bag, forming them into a makeshift mattress, before flopping down and going to sleep.
------
“Okay,” Chris gasped as he walked alongside the lava flow, “First a water floor, now a lava floor? What the fuck is with this place?”
Chris groaned as the rocks suddenly shifted around him, rising from the floor as they formed into vaguely humanoid shapes. He drew his mace, taking a deep breath of the dry and hot air, willing his magic around himself as he shot forwards. The two Rock Elementals were too slow to stop him, the man skidding to a stop just behind them, before he leapt high into the air, landing on top of one’s shoulders, bringing his mace down hard on its head. The geode cracked open, the elemental collapsing back into a pile of rocks, Chris having just enough time to jump off before the other one swung at him. Chris dodged it as the creature continued to swing wildly at him, leaving craters in the floor as he danced around it, his head starting to ache.
“Okay, time to end this,” he muttered, sliding between the monster’s legs and jumping up onto its back, bringing his mace down on its head as well, cracking it open and causing the elemental to collapse, “And that’s done. Once you know how to deal with them, these guys are actually pretty easy to handle.”
Chris continued down the tunnel, his body sweating as he was forced to walk closer and closer to the lava as the path thinned. Eventually, when he was basically shimmying along a small ledge, he finally reached what he figured what the Boss room, a massive form crouched down in the center.
“Oh!” he gasped as he looked at the massive Clay Golem, “I know this one! You have to erase one of the letters written on its forehead to make ‘Truth’ into ‘Death’. Though was it the first or the last letter?”
As if to try answering his question, the Clay Golem suddenly started to move, its joints grinding as it stood.
“Well, guess I’ll have to guess!” Chris shouted as the massive Floor Boss turned its head to look at him, the strange writing clear on its forehead, “I’ll take letter number one for the win, please!”
Chris gathered the magical energy in his palm, concentrating as the huge construct started walking towards him, each foot fall shaking the ground. He kept compressing more and more air into the ball, willing it to spin faster and faster as he waited until the last possible moment, the Clay Golem almost on top of him. The spell shot out as he thrust his arm forwards, the ball of air striking the first letter, before it exploded, actually managing to make the Golem stumble back.
“Well, shit,” Chris said as he looked up at the golem, a large chunk of its head now missing as it simply stood there, Chris realizing that he had somehow managed to erase the first letter, “Guess that means I win, right?”
The Golem remained silent, Chris shrugging as he skirted around the edge of the room, just in case it was faking, before opening the chest and grabbing the two items inside.
“Ring of Heat Resistance, obviously,” Chris hummed as he slid the ring onto his finger, “And…boots?”
