“And I thought I was the fucked-up one here!”

  It took us quite a while to stop laughing. At this point, I didn’t know why, but just listening to her laugh in my head and feeling my connection to her in my soul made me feel like I could do anything. Sitting there on the nasty floor of the dungeon’s safe room, I thoroughly enjoyed the feeling with my eyes closed and head thrown back.

  Once I was satisfied, I slowly stood up and decided to try out my new skills: the body and blade enhancements. As I activated them, both my body and my unsheathed blade were covered by a thin, see-through film of bright light-blue mana that clung to both me and the blade like a second skin. The mana danced on my blade and skin like moonlight on a still lake. As I was studying the enhancement, Alrune’s melodious voice sounded in my head.

  “You should first move around this room for a bit. And please, don’t use the sword enhancements outside the dungeon or when you are not soloing—at least until you get used to my mana!”

  “Why?”

  My question was rewarded by a cute little chuckle as Alrune continued.

  “Check for yourself. Swing towards the wall—just a quick, light swing. Make sure not to hit anything; just air!”

  Curious about the effect, I did exactly as she asked. I stepped as far from the wall as I could and made a light, quick, one-handed diagonal swing. I didn't use any power; I just swung quickly.

  But the aftermath of that swing shocked me to the bone. All dungeons have meter-thick solid walls, beyond which are force fields marking the borders of the dungeon’s dimension. The light swing I just did erased a meter-thick wall along its trajectory, exposing the indestructible force field. It did so effortlessly. Enjoying my reaction, Alrune spoke inside my mind.

  “You see? And this was just a mana spill from the blade as you moved; the blade itself would be much stronger. Normally, people have to learn how to juice up their skills. You will have to learn how to make them survivable for the general public before you attempt to use them in public. My mana is extremely potent. I am……”

  She didn’t manage to complete the sentence since, around then, I woke from my shock.

  “Awesome!”

  “Wait! You don’t mind that? I was worried you would find it annoying!” Her surprise and relief could be felt in every word.

  “Why would I? It’s easier to learn to use less than to find more when you are already using everything! This is fine. And besides, I am not planning on joining parties for dungeon running or anything, so I have plenty of time to get used to it!”

  Following my response, Alrune became silent, and I started to move around the room, getting used to my new body enhancement. It took about twenty minutes for me to move without smashing into walls. Considering it a win, I decided to move further and do some actual fighting. Those hundred completions I need for a quest item won’t do themselves.

  After I pressed my ID to the polished stone next to the barrier, the obstruction disappeared, and I was finally able to start my first dungeon clear properly. As I stepped out of the room, I found myself at the end of a spacious corridor, about three meters wide and just as tall. Right in front of me, about a hundred meters away, was a massive wooden door covered by a green barrier, with three shining jewels floating on each side. I could see three entrances to smaller side corridors on each side of this main hallway. The walls had two rows of stone beds with mummified deceased bodies laying inside. The smell of death and decay was much stronger here than in the safe room, with the added scent of embalming fluid in the mix.

  As I stood just outside the safe room, I could see no movement. The whole place looked like an underground cemetery—a smelly and disgusting one, but just a cemetery. But I knew that would change the moment I took a few steps forward. Each and every one of the hundred or so deceased on the walls was going to wake up and try to have me for breakfast. Looking around at all the dead—about to be undead—I started to feel nervous. Not even the fact that I knew they couldn't harm me calmed me down. This was about to be my first real combat experience. Needing to calm my nerves, I took a deep breath and whispered:

  “You with me?”

  Alrune, without delay or hesitation, responded: “Always!”

  This brought a smile to my face. My sword hand instantly steadied, and the nervousness disappeared. I stepped forward, away from the safety of the room, embracing what was about to happen. Just a few steps later, the ‘dead’ started waking up. Beginning with the ones closest to the safe room, they rose in quartets, a rhythmic cycle of undeath that triggered every minute—or the moment I turned the previous batch into dust.

  There was a set of stone beds every three meters of this dungeon, with the exception of the entrances to the side corridors. This meant thirty groups of four zombies released over thirty minutes—or as fast as you could kill them. For usual beginners, it was a damage check and an endurance run. For me? Swing practice.

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  As the first group landed on the floor and stepped toward me, I swung my blade.

  Zoompf!

  That one swing erased the four zombies along with the majority of the wall behind them. My smile grew wider, predatory. Using Alrune’s mana to kill monsters felt good—maybe a little too good. I impatiently waited for the next group of zombies to descend from their beds, and the moment they did...

  Zoompf!

  And then I waited again and…

  Zoompf!

  Zoompf!

  Zoompf!

  …

  Zoompf!

  With the thirtieth group gone, I looked around to see the mess I had made. The whole corridor was in shambles; the outer force fields were showing everywhere for about three-quarters of the way. After that, the gashes became shallow enough not to reach that far.

  “See, I am learning,” I spoke, pointing to one of the latest gashes. “I already managed to make it so that I am not exposing the force fields!”

  Alrune’s giggle sounded in my head, followed by her voice. “Yep, nice progress! A meter-thick stone wall is enough to stop a mana spill from your swings!“

  “Why did that sound like a much bigger achievement in my head than when you said it?”

  “Maybe because it is not?” Alrune’s voice was playful and teasing.

  “Vixen!”

  We managed to keep a straight face for about a second before we both started laughing once again. About a minute later, when we had both calmed down, Alrune’s serious voice sounded in my head.

  “Real talk? It’s astounding progress; you are grasping my mana extremely fast. Your first swing was packing enough firepower to cut through six meters worth of stone, and you managed to reduce it down to less than a meter. Congratulations!”

  “Thank you! It means a lot coming from you. Now let’s go and collect all that crap those assholes dropped.”

  Every monster in a dungeon disappears once defeated, leaving a small bubble that levitates about a meter above the surface. The bubble contains the loot the monster dropped. There was no way to get weapons or armor in the dungeons; normally, you would just find materials and monster cores, in very rare cases you could get a skill scrolls or consumables from the boss. Every monster always drops one monster core; the size and strength of the core depend on the monster, but every single one has one.

  These are used to power various tools or magic formations in the outside world and are a source of steady income for dungeon delvers. They don’t pay a lot, but they pay, and they are relatively easy to come by. On the other end of the spectrum are materials; each monster has a chance to leave a part of its body. Additionally, an end boss has a chance to leave behind any material—even stuff like meteoric silver or something even rarer and about two percent chance to drop a skill scroll or a random consumable like potion.

  Material and body parts tend to be a reason to celebrate, since they are quite widely used in various disciplines from alchemy to tailoring.

  Sadly, I received just a hundred and twenty minor monster cores. Small smooth rocks giving of a dim colorful light. None of the little shits decided to drop anything else. After I properly looted my spoils, I randomly picked one of the side entrances and headed toward the end of a small passage.

  At the end, I found myself in a small circular room with a standing stone casket in the middle. There was a green jewel shining and floating just above it. The moment I stepped inside the room, something kicked the lid off the stone casket. But before the lid could even land, I slashed the casket in half without hesitation—killing the first out of six lieutenants that needed to be removed in order to open the last room.

  After I collected the loot, I proceeded to do the same with the five other lieutenants, removing the barrier and opening my way to the boss of this dungeon.

  Soon after, I arrived in front of the massive wooden door that had lost its protective barrier. The six shattered jewels were scattered on the ground.

  Without hesitation, I kicked the door open, revealing a spacious battleground where I was about to face the boss of this dungeon. The room was circular, with a dome-shaped ceiling. The center of the room had a highly adorned stone casket on a podium. It looked much fancier than the ones belonging to the lieutenants and could not even be compared to the exposed stone beds the normal mobs jumped out of. The atmosphere in the room felt ominous; it felt like a predator was about to pounce on its prey. Even the light in here was dimmer.

  Noticing the dimness, I realized something and turned back toward the rest of the dungeon and then back toward the boss arena, confirming that there was not even a single light source or a window in the entire dungeon. Despite that, it had nice natural lighting.

  Thinking about it, there were no light sources in dungeons ever mentioned in the novel, nor the need for one or anything about darkness. Weird, I never realized that until now.

  Ultimately, I ended up just shrugging. The lack of a light source in the dungeon was not a pressing issue; it was weird, but nothing to stress about. One could always chalk it up to magic or dungeon dimension bullshit, and that’s that.

  As I stepped forward with my sword ready in hand, my eyes glued to the casket, I waited for the first sign of movement. I was not sure if the boss was actually ‘alive’ prior to opening the casket. It was never explained how the dungeon magic even worked; if the dead bodies are just bodies that the dungeon breathes ‘unlife’ into the moment they start moving, or if they are undead waiting to notice that I passed a certain threshold.

  Whichever it was, I was not planning on fighting two half-bosses just because the dungeon animated the corpse after I slashed it in half out of impatience, or some bullshit like that. There was no reason for me to complicate things. There was nothing the boss I was about to fight could do that would actually harm me.

  When I reached about halfway between the casket and the entrance, the boss kicked the casket open and charged me. The boss charging me was a rabid ghoul.

  A speed-oriented monster, normally on all fours, two meters tall, claws and teeth dripping green goo. Dangerous in theory—but for me, just a slightly faster zombie

  I readied a swing with my blade and let it run up to me. When it was about two meters away, it jumped, extending both sets of claws toward me in the air. My reaction was instant; this was exactly what I wanted. I remembered from the novel that it started with this stupid attack every fight, and the moment it did, I sliced it in half.