Chương 88: 87 - Troll Cave

Alexandra really wanted enchantments to be interesting. She sat at her desk, fiddling with the disk the teacher had given her, trying to understand how she could make it float. She was just out of her third class on the subject and didn't feel like she was making progress. With a thread of her mana, she seized control of the ambient mana flow inside the wooden disk, and it lifted off her hand. She clicked her tongue. Making an object fly with magic would have been a monumental achievement just a month ago, but now…

She dropped her spell. This wasn't an enchantment.

"How the hell do I make this fucking disk want to fly?" she whispered. Her general Mana Manipulation was improving rapidly. She was now capable of casting simple spells and could even come up with a few very basic ones on her own. Making the disk hover in the air was one of those. Unfortunately, spells and enchantments were two different things, and she hadn't cracked the latter. In particular, the negotiation with ambient mana completely eluded her. She tried again, reaching with a thread inside the disk.

This time, she didn't try to interact with the ambient mana, she just watched. It was flowing along the wood. No, it was wood. The more Alexandra studied ambient mana, the less the difference between it and the material it flowed through was clear. It wasn't something Professor Bird said, but an instinct she'd developed on her own. Ambient mana was wood. When it flowed inside wood, anyway. If she followed this logic, her mana was her. She thought it made sense. Her mana was her. A part of her, at least.

In the same way her heart, her arms, and her legs were all her. She frowned. How this instinct would transition into an enchantment still eluded her. She put the disk on her desk, exhaled, and stood up. Then she remembered to put Clarity of Mind back in its drawer, lest someone see it. Alexandra left her room, and as she walked down the corridor toward the armory, she read her journal.

Spear Mastery 1 -> 2 Sword Mastery 1 -> 3 Axe Mastery 1 -> 2 Life Curse 11 -> 12 Reading 4 -> 5 Basic Hygiene 1 -> 2 Mana Manipulation 6 -> 7 Daily quests summary: Five Quests Completed -> +50 exp, +2 PER, +1 STR, +1 CON, +1 DEX, Skill Quest Unlocked: Axe Mastery Daily Quest Streak: 30 -> 35 It had been five days since she reached level four, and she hadn't stopped progressing. It was getting slower. Without the pressure of the malediction weighing upon her, she was able to relax a little.

But even a slower pace for her would be considered fast for everyone else. Completing her weapon mastery skill quests hadn't been too complicated, now all she needed was to continue accumulating them and level them up to ten. Today's daily could only be completed at night, which was why she allowed herself some self-study time before getting to it. Quest Journal Daily Reset: 06: 00 | Streak: 35 Days | 2% All Stats, 2% Skill experience Next Milestone: 50 Days Daily Quests: Enter the Troll Cave (0/1).

When she first read the quest, Alexandra was thoroughly confused. She knew what a troll was: a large humanoid creature with regenerative powers. But enter a troll cave, and not just any troll cave; The Troll Cave? She'd had to ask Willow for clarification, and the answer still made her uneasy as she walked into the armory. The blue-robed Keeper in charge of the place greeted her. She was starting to become a regular.

"What will it be this time?" the man asked, wiping a blade with a cloth.

"I need a spear." He walked to the spear rack and sifted through the weapons.

"Kashin isn't going easy on you, eh?"

"It's not Kashin this time. I'm going to the Troll Cave." The man looked back.

"The Troll Cave. You realize the monsters there are all Bronze rank, right?" She nodded.

"I know." He picked a spear for her.

"The spear's a good choice. You'd have a hard time reaching the troll's face with a sword. Not enough reach." A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. She grabbed the spear and walked to the stairs going down from the Iron Library to Kator. Dark clouds hung overhead, casting more shadows than there should be at this time of the afternoon. The night was hours away, but Alexandra left early. It was a quest she was talking about, being late wasn't an option.

Furthermore, the cave was thirty kilometers away. This sort of distance didn't mean the same as it used to, but she'd still need at least two hours to make her way there if she didn't get lost. Alexandra reached the city and went west. She ran through empty fields along the paved road that linked Kator with the interior. She wasn't sure what kind of crop they grew in this region, and she didn't really care.

Here and there, she crossed paths with farmers, traversed one of the numerous villages dotting the countryside of Kator, or a section of wood that hadn't been cut down. The area was relatively flat, with a few low-rise hills. The cultivated lands extended much further from the city than they did around Esmera. It took her an hour to reach the edge of the forest. The road cut through the trees without stopping. She followed it for thirty minutes more before stopping at a cairn.

Five large stones placed on top of one another on the roadside marked the point where she had to steer away from the road and into the forest. Thankfully, there was a dirt path carved by years of passage from all the Bronzes looking to hone their skills in the cave. She didn't meet anyone on the way, and she hadn't expected to. She was early. If other people wanted to explore the cave, they'd follow after her. The path ended in a wide, trampled clearing that smelled of old ash.

Before her lay the Troll Cave, though calling it a cave felt like an understatement. It was a scar on the hillside. The rock surrounding it was blackened, creating a smooth, glassy obsidian facade. Set deep within the stone were two colossal doors made of some tarnished dark metal. She stared at them for a few seconds. Clustered around the imposing structure was a small basecamp. Thick leather tents, dark with weatherproofing, were staked in a rough semicircle facing the doors.

They were close enough to watch them, far enough not to be the first thing through when they opened. The ground between the tents was beaten flat and grey, ash mixed into the soil from fires that had been lit and relit many times over. Someone had stacked firewood under an oilskin tent. A weapon rack stood near the largest tent, holding two spare spears and a short axe, all of them nicked. The whole camp had the feel of a place that had been packed up and reassembled several times in the same spot.

Alexandra noted five individuals, all dressed in orange robes, milling about. They were young. Younger than her. But not as young as her Iron classmates. Their eyes tracked her arrival with interest.

"Hey," one of them called. A boy. Less than twenty.

"This dungeon is for Bronze ranks. You shouldn't enter. Especially not alone." She looked at him and nodded.

"I know. Don't worry about me."

"We're not taking you along," a girl from the team said.

"Just so you know." Alexandra shrugged.

"I wasn't expecting you to." She stepped closer.

"When will the gates open?"

"Nightfall," the boy said, leaning on a rock.

"In two hours, maybe." She leaned her spear against a rock and sat. The group watched her for a moment, then returned to whatever they'd been doing. Two of them sparred near the treeline, short, controlled exchanges with real weapons. One sat cross-legged on a log, eyes closed. The fourth was looking at the tip of his spear, inspecting it. Sometimes, he passed his thumb on the edge, checking its sharpness. The boy who'd spoken to her first stood up and came to her. He sat nearby. Not too close.

He had a broad, open face and a sword on his hip that looked well-used.

"First time?" he asked.

"Yes."

"We've done it four times. Been camping here since. That's the best way to level your skills, and you get some interesting drops." He shook his wrist—a metallic bracelet caught the firelight—and smiled. Then, he nodded toward the doors.

"You're Iron rank."

"I'm aware of what rank I am." He didn't seem offended.

"It's not a taunt. I'm just trying to understand why you're here."

"I can handle my own."

"Are you sure?" She didn't answer. The Troll Cave was a dungeon that restricted entrance to Bronze ranks and lower. An Iron rank could enter, but few did, as the monsters inside were Bronze. But she'd killed Bronzes before. One of the sparring pair landed a clean hit on the other's shoulder. The girl who'd spoken earlier.

"That's Yenne," the boy said, nodding toward her.

"She's our leader, more or less. I'm Perrin." She looked at him.

"Alexandra." Yenne walked over and stood with her arms folded.

"You been in any dungeons?" she asked.

"No."

"The trolls in there don't go down easy. The regeneration is fast. You have to overwhelm them before they can recover, or you end up trading hits indefinitely." She crouched and picked up a stick, drew a rough map in the dirt.

"It's a maze down there. Always shifting. But the first chamber always opens on three tunnels. We're going left."

"I'm not asking to join you."

"I know. I'm telling you anyway." Yenne met her eyes. Alexandra looked at the map in the dirt.

"I appreciate the information," she said.

"What's the clear condition?" Yenne studied her for another moment, then stood.

"You have to kill the boss, of course. A peak Bronze troll chieftain." She paused.

"Honestly, I've never seen a Bronze solo a dungeon, let alone an Iron. You really shouldn't go in. There's no getting out until you clear it, you know?" Alexandra nodded. She knew. Of course, she didn't like it. She'd rather not be in this situation. She'd prefer not to risk her life. But she didn't choose her quest. Still, she was confident enough that she could deal with the chieftain, with Giant Slayer and all her skills supporting her. It couldn't be harder than what she went through in Esmera.

The sky darkened in degrees. The ash smell intensified as the temperature dropped. Perrin rejoined his group. They ate from packs and passed a water skin. Nobody else came. At full dark, the doors moved. No visible mechanism. Only the sound of metal grinding against stone, and the doors separated inward. The darkness beyond them was absolute. The group gathered their weapons. Yenne checked each of them in turn, a hand on a shoulder, a glance at a weapon, a word or two. Then she looked at Alexandra one last time.

"We're going," she said.

"Good luck, whatever you choose to do."

"I'll wait." Perrin lingered at the threshold.

"Please don't follow us in." She nodded. Not that she could. Each party got their own instance. They went in. Alexandra waited until they disappeared into the darkness. She stood at the mouth of the cave, spear in hand, and listened to their footsteps fade. Then nothing. The silence afterward was thorough. Then she walked through the doors, and the cave's darkness wrapped around her, pulling her into the underground world.