And.. it was a good thing I called.
“Yes, he’s hit a bit of a snag. He says everything he eats ends up poisoning him, and he’s died a few times already. Ignorant kid didn’t even bother to get a basic survival skill.”
“Yeah, I tried to warn him about that a while ago. So, he’s still only training his battle talents?”
“Seems that way. It will take him a bit longer to get there, but he’s managed to join up with a caravan. He says that way, he gets fed, and they get protected. But since they stop for a couple days at every village to trade, he’ll be a bit late.”
“That’s alright. I wanted to see if we could find a dungeon before we met up with him anyways.”
“Ehh? Is that safe?” Rusty was concerned, since it wasn’t clear whether or not Denise and I could respawn.
“We’ve gotten quite a bit stronger now. And I’ll be picking up more stuff once we get to Coatin. We should be fine.” Though, since we had been fighting cautiously, we were likely a bit behind the levels of other people that made it this far. Still, with the two of us together, our effective level increased considerably.
“Alright… but be careful.”
Chapter 11
Having been thinking about dungeons, I had to ask myself. In The Dive, when you clear a dungeon, does it stay cleared? Or is there a monster respawn system? Or… maybe as long as enough of a given species aren’t killed within a certain timespan, they can repopulate an area? From what I’ve seen, this game is realistic enough that hunting monsters to extinction could very well be possible..
“What’s wrong?” Denise looked back at me as she held the reins for Midnight.
“Huh?”
“You suddenly looked like you were deep in thought.”
“Oh, I kinda was. Maybe it would be something you could answer for me?”
She smiled at that, “You know if I can give you an answer, I’d like to.”
“Okay… well, in some realms that the foreigners visit, monsters are capable of reincarnating. That means that, for instance, if someone cleared a dungeon, they could go back the next day and it would be back to normal.”
“Huh.. that sounds quite spectacular.”
“Ah, so nothing like that happens here?”
“Well, some of the stronger monsters can reincarnate, because their spirits aren’t directly bound to their bodies. But for the most part, you just have different factions moving in to take over the empty area.”
“I see…” So there is a respawn system, of a sort.
“Of course, it takes a lot longer than a day for any of that to happen. First, the new faction would have to learn about the vacancy. Then, they’d gather supplies and people to fill it. Sometimes, it can take up to a week before slain enemies are replaced.”
I smirked to her. “You sure did a lot of research when you wanted to be an adventurer.”
She blushed lightly and looked back to the front. “Well… these things are important to know… for instance, if you take too long clearing an area, it’s possible to run into the entire replacement force at once on your way out.”
“That… would be bad.” I thought of the possibility of running into an entire dungeon’s worth of enemies in one room, and shuddered. “Okay, that settles it. Before we go into a dungeon, I’m getting a teleport spell or scroll or something, so that we have some way to get out if the worst happens. Agreed?”
She nodded quickly. “Good idea. But just how do you expect to find a dungeon in the first place? The only one I’ve noticed so far was the one in the elf forest, and that was by pure chance.”
I grinned to her. “I plan on cheating.”
I heard a sigh coming from in front of me. “Of course you are. Divination? No idea how your magic works, but if it’s a spell that gets information you might be able to do it?”
“Either that, or we just buy a map of the area, and head to the most unexplored regions to randomly search.”
“Divination it is.”
“Aww, where’s your sense of adventure!”
“In the opposite direction of lizardmen fortresses where they could ambush us in the thousands.” She nodded vehemently, and I laughed.
“Okay, well, given the terrain, there are only a few possibilities for the type of dungeon we could encounter. How much do you know about the area around Coatin?”
“Not much, I always figured my adventure would lead me to Eastal.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Dunno, just felt like a good starting point.” She shrugged.
“Alright, that settles it! After we meet up with Kevin, you and I are heading to Eastal!”
“...Seriously? We’re going halfway to the Shattered Realm, and then turning around to head in the opposite direction? Do you have any idea how long that would take?”
I thought about it for a few minutes. She had a point. “A couple hours?”
She knew I was just joking, so let out another sigh. “Tell you what, we can head to Eastal after we do what we can in this direction. Deal?”
I grinned and poked her side, getting a giggle out of her. “And here I thought I was leading the adventure.”
“You are, when I agree with your choices.” She smirked back to me, then stuck out her tongue. “So, did you see them?”
Well, that got my attention. “How many?”
“Looks like five or six, but there could be more.”
“Lizardmen?” I activated my scan spell, and sure enough ahead of us I saw two figures hiding in the sand. “Guess they’re missing their scout.”
“Well, projectile bears aren’t such a brilliant plan against multiple enemies, so how do you want to do this?”
“How many can you take out with your bow before they get close?”
“Without getting off Midnight? Two or three if I am lucky.”
“Well… then this is going to get real interesting.” I smiled, making a plan in my head.
“You have a look. Is that a good look? I don’t like that look.”
“I’ll get the two in front with a surprise attack. I don’t have a shot at the others yet, but I’ll work on them once I can.”
She let out a sigh at my extremely vague plan. “On three?”
“Alright.” I brought my hand up to chest height, palm facing upwards. “This is going to be fun.. Armies of empires past, ghosts of fallen kings..” Denise’s eyes went wide as she identified the spell I was casting, shaking her head back and forth frantically. “Imbue these beings with your power. Fusion summon wolf and ape.”
About fifteen meters ahead of us, between the two lurking lizardmen, the three circles of the fusion spell lit up, rising and falling until the familiar werewolf was standing between them. “Forgotten gods, nameless tales, show me the wisdom of another. Merge!”
My body shot off Midnight, and flew at the wolf. My mana was almost depleted by the double spell, and I had a feeling my only shot at having control of this creature is direct control.
“Three…” I let out the hoarse voice as I stretched my claws, my lips pulled back in a grin when I looked at the shocked Lizardman in front of me. With a speed I had never imagined possessing, I lept forward, extending my clawed hand and raking at his neck, tearing it open.
You have dealt a fatal critical hit to the Lizardman Warrior
Not one to waste an opportunity, I grabbed the body of my prey before it even hit the ground, and turned around, throwing it at its companion. Needless to say, the other lizardman was stunned, knocked back by the blow. And a moment later, I was on top of him, ripping out his throat as I had the other one.
You have dealt a fatal critical hit to the Lizardman Warrior
Summoning Magic has increased to 10
Turning around, I saw that Denise had slightly miscounted the amount of enemies present. There were at least a dozen lizardmen charging at her from all directions. They must have thought that she was the easier target. Smart… but oh so du
mb. She was steadily picking them off one by one, but at this rate several would make it to her. Well, we couldn’t have that.
“Summon… Midnight.” I tapped into my remaining mana, and summoned Midnight, and a certain surprised human archer that was riding him, to my side. This gave them more distance from the lizardmen forces, who now saw that their target was on the other side of a ferocious monster.
“One more.. Warriors of the thunderstorm…” Denise was frantically shooting at the charging lizardmen, as I focused my more bestial mind on the complex task of casting a spell. “Bestow upon me your spear. Warriors of the thunderstorm… bestow upon me your spear! Merge, become shock bolt! Fusion summon, become shock bolt!”
The two summoning spells immediately cancelled themselves, letting me drop to my knees in my human form. But at the same time, four bolts of lightning shot out of my body, directly striking at four of the remaining lizardmen. The two spells used as a base this time had high mana costs, so the resulting blasts were much larger than a standard shock bolt would have been, and the four struck lizardmen immediately stopped moving, falling to the ground.
I had defeated six, Denise had defeated six, and now six more are left. “Okay guys… we just wiped out two thirds of your ambush in seconds. You really want to continue this?”
They were close enough that Denise might be able to take out three of them before they got to us, but I wasn’t entirely confident in my ability to take out the other three. Then, maybe I didn’t have to. Well, looks like you’re about to find out! Here they come!
“Denise, they’re all yours.”
“Thanks a lot. Big help!” She was firing shots at them one at a time, and I put my hands forward.
“I intend to be.” Okay, small spell, won’t use much mana. Let’s do this. “Brothers living in the sky, show me your indomitable power. Gust!” The four remaining lizardmen that were nearly upon me were suddenly blown back, and Denise continued her rapid assault of arrows, until only one was left.
“Okay, this one’s yours.”
“Aww, come on! I already gave you the perfect chance to finish it off and take the credit!” I whined to her, the last lizardman laying back on the ground trembling as we bickered.
“Nope. I took out eleven, you only took out six. I’m willing to count some credit for that gust, but you gotta even up the score.”
“Fine, fine.. Headhunter.” I spoke the single word, clenching my fist, and suddenly the Lizardman was dragged down to his neck in the sand. Though really, it’s sand. Not that much of a problem. “Earth Spear.”
The condensed spears of sand that pierced him from multiple directions… now those were a problem. Denise nodded as the lizardman spat out blood, obviously killed by the spell. “There, that’s better.” She smiled down to me now that the scene was over. “You worried me when you went into the wolfman, you know? You got more.. savage. Wanted to make sure you were back to normal.”
“Ah.. thanks. Yeah, I think possessing something that strong did make me lose it a bit at first. Also! Where did you learn to count! That was way more than just five or six!”
She grinned, and we went back to bickering again. “Well, excuse me! Some of them were hiding better than others! Not like you noticed any of them before I said something.”
I gripped my chest, like I was stabbed through the heart. “That hurts, Denise. You know I was just paying more attention to you.” I teased her, and we both laughed as we collected what we could salvage from the battle. Though, we didn’t see any point in confiscating their equipment, since we have an unlimited source of funds and it’d just weigh us down. We did take back our arrows though, and took their coins, so that at least it looked like we were proper adventurers. All in all, they had a total of 563 gild between them. Since I was the source for our funding now, Denise was more than happy to shove the coins into my bag.
Only then, when we were riding away, did I remember one of the messages that appeared during the combat. “Huh.. So, it looks like my summoning magic will improve if I fight while merged with a summon.”
“Yeah?” It was kind of funny, if that battle hadn’t gone well, we might not have made it out in one piece, yet we went right back to talking like normal.
“Yeah. I got a message saying it improved after I took out one of the lizardmen.”
“Neat, might need to do that again when it’s safe. Though.. not the wolfman, okay? He still freaks me out.”
“Alright. Well, how about I test some other combinations? My summoning magic is good enough that I’m confident I won’t lose control so easily now, as long as I don’t summon anything at that level of strength.” I recalled how I was able to take out the lizardmen with one blow, when otherwise it took us several hits to bring one down.
“Alright. Wanna do it while we ride, or wait until we make camp?”
“Camp. Definitely camp. I need to rest after using so much energy in that fight.”
“Uh huh, good excuse. You just wanted to show off, didn’t you?”
I grinned to her. “Maybe. But I do need to work on spells that can hit multiple targets. We won’t be any good in a dungeon if we both rely on picking targets off one at a time at range.”
She frowned, nodding. “Yeah, you’re right. Well, maybe I should learn how to use a sword while you learn your new magic in the city? We can take a couple days to work up our skills to acceptable levels, and then see how we do.”
I nodded, smiling. “Alright. But I feel that this is wholly unfair since you get stronger when I do, but not the other way around. As long as you casually practice your sword, you will get better while I have to put myself through hellish training.” I laughed a bit at that.
“Yeah, yeah. But I’ve still got to seriously practice too, you know? I could have all the skills in the world, but if I’m lacking the experience to use them… well it won’t end well.”
“True. So, you’ll visit the Fighters’ Hall, and I’ll visit whatever magical library the city has.”
She thought about it, and shook her head. “Coatin is a trade city. I don’t think it’ll actually have a big library or a fighters’ hall. You’ll have to visit the shops to get the books and items you want, and I’ll have to look around for a skilled swordsman to teach me.”
“Yeah.. if only Dariel was a swordswoman, then she could be your teacher. But her specialty seemed to be magic. And we don’t want to wait for Kevin to train you. Heck.. even if we did, I doubt he has the experience necessary. People like him just tend to wave their sword around and hope for the best.”
“You.. why do people from your world not take it seriously, fighting here? Is it just because you don’t truly die?”
I thought about that for a minute. Although I had told her a lot about how the foreigners work, it’s hard for me to just say ‘because your world is a game’... because I honestly wasn’t so sure it was anymore. “I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. That’s likely to be part of it, but for the most part I think it’s just because in our realm, there aren’t any chances to get such experience fighting.”
“Ah.. you come from a very peaceful place, then.”
“Yeah… for some, anyways. There are still wars, but they are only fought by certain parties, so the people that come here generally don’t have any fighting experience. Since I’m a mage, even though we’ve been in so many battles, that fight before was my first time in close combat.”
The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith Page 19
