Chương 54: Climbing Back Out Of The Dungeon

I looked at the vine trellis that was the passage back up to the 2 nd layer.

"Plants," I muttered. I had some experience with plants from my time with Squire Jessica, and they were a massive headache. I preferred to avoid them if possible. It was just that finding this passage had taken far too long. Even with my Depth Sense, it was much easier to feel out the following passage down rather than the passage up. And they could be next to each other, or far apart. They couldn't be in the same chamber; that was it. I had spent six days trying to find this exit.

The deeper one went, the harder it was to see the passage back up, and one often had to climb back up. At least it wasn't just a hole I couldn't get out of. The lower layers were completely unfair. The real challenge would be the Champion monster waiting above me. I would be directly entering a fight without scouting out the situation first. I could look for another passage back up the layers, but that would delay the problem.

It was also about how many adventurers died; they became overconfident and ventured too deep. The last two months of fighting have made me much stronger. I felt like my skills were much higher than before. Knowing the location of all my equipment, I ensured everything was secure. My ascent started at a fast pace. The Champion monster at the top would act quickly. You couldn't just stay in the passage. It would attack you there.

Hanging from some vines was not where I wanted to be when I fought a Champion monster of the 2 nd layer. I quickly climbed over the top, scanning the chamber. My Danger Sense didn't trigger, and I noted a team of three adventurers fighting some giant vine growth. While it might seem like luck, running into another team in a passage chamber wasn't surprising. While the dungeon was supposedly infinite and ever-changing, they were good choke points.

Also, the dungeon preferred connecting existing places between layers rather than creating a new one. It was a small, subtle thing, but it just meant that encounters in rooms like this with passages were more likely. I didn't have to fight the Champion monster, which was nice. I moved to the opposite side of the room and waited as they slowly hacked away at the entangled roots, sap spilling out onto the floor and their weapons. That was going to be a nightmare to clean off.

Even after killing a plant monster, you wanted to kill them a second time because sticky sap was a hundred times worse than blood or entrails. They finally won and looked in my direction.

"Peace for peace, fist for fist," I called out the standard friendly greeting between adventurers in the dungeon.

"Peace for peace, fist for fist," one of them called back, and the tension left the air. I walked over.

"You came from the 3 rd layer?" a young man asked me.

"Yes. You heading down?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"I came from the passage with gravel. Is the passage back up close by?" I asked.

"No. We have been adventuring for over a week on this layer," he replied. That was unfortunate and fortunate at the same time. The location of the dungeon shifted so that it could get confusing. Typically, you come back up in the general area where you had taken a passage down from the surface. Even if you went to the lower layers, the dungeon sent people back up to around where they had entered from. The exception is if you encountered another passage to the surface and team.

If I took their passage, then my exit point could shift rapidly. The dungeon offered a path to the surface, although it was difficult. You needed to find people who were close by. In almost every instance, it was faster to go to the surface and travel that way. That also explained why I was meeting only humans, as the dungeon grouped people from the same area. Inside the dungeon, the edges were vague, but encounters were more common with those from your city than with others. This text was taken from Royal Road.

Help the author by reading the original version there. The dungeon kept people from mixing too much, though not from separating them. After all, it was supposedly endless. Even with all the people wandering about the 1 st layer, teams or individuals rarely ran into each other.

"Which way did you come?" I asked. The man pointed in a specific direction.

"That tunnel." I wouldn't be taking that one out of the chamber.

"Thanks. May you find what you desire in the dungeon and return alive," I gave the standard farewell.

"You as well, fellow adventurer, safe travels," he said. There was no need to exchange names or anything else as polite adventurers. That was the expected outcome of most encounters. You only got involved in the fight if it was a last resort, keeping your presence and involvement minimal. They exchanged greetings, shared travel stories, and then said farewell. Anything else would invite suspicion. In the dungeon, the adventurers made their own laws, not law enforcement.

While there were some bad people, the risk of running into a high-level person traveling through the layers was not zero. Squire Jessica let me know that some high-level people even pretended to be weak, just to draw out bad people like that and kill them. No one needed additional darkness, the monsters alone were enough. That's also why it was the norm to say hello and leave when you saw someone. They would have questioned it if I had wanted to chat.

With Squire Jessica and the new group of adventurers, she was giving a helping hand while showing me the struggles regular adventurers faced. Although it wasn't polite to use them to teach, they also got some advice. Also, that Clean spell. That was very high on my list of spells to learn. I set off right away, glad I didn't have to fight that Champion monster. They could have fun getting its core out of all that sap. The 2 nd layer felt like a breeze after fighting on the 3 rd layer.

I was still cautious about traps and analyzing monsters before fights, but I had a much larger margin of error to work with. I pushed myself by trying to keep my armor clean, so I didn't have to spend so much time caring for it. Once I was out of the dungeon, I would take it to a secondhand shop. It was incredibly smelly and almost a weapon on its own. It had sustained some serious harm down here from normal wear and tear and fighting.

The Adventurer's Guild would likely manage it because of its streamlined services. Adventurers earned well, but good equipment was also costly. Trying to find the passage up to the 1 st layer was a hassle. While I had Depth Sense, it was best for finding the passage down, not up. When I finally found the passage, I let out a sigh of relief. It was a waterfall with a spiral staircase leading up to the next layer. It was very scenic, but the stairs were wet. Footing would be an issue, even with my combat boots.

At least I didn't have to climb, so I could keep my sword and shield in hand. The Champion at the top was some flying eel that emitted a weak, shocking aura. It was pretty slow, and I had time to get out my bow and shoot it down as water poured down from the ceiling, flowing into channels that eventually flowed to the passage, one of the nicest chambers in terms of aesthetics. I began harvesting the monster core. I doubted I'd choose a passage that didn't go to Monolith.

I was familiar with the different human nations and big cities. That was why there was an Adventurer's Guild. People could appear in other locations from the dungeon, which helped address such issues. Adventurers took it as a sign to look at the new city before going back into the dungeon. Only if they had family did they try to get back to their original city. The transportation business was doing well because adventurers returning had the money to pay for transportation to another city.

Compared to the lower layers, the monsters on the 1 st layer seemed much easier now. I would have to ask my mother about how she found the difficulty scaling of the dungeon. My mother probably just ran through the upper layers when trying to get back to the surface. While it was tempting to do something similar, I was nowhere near strong enough to survive a trap. Even the monsters could get tricky if I weren't careful. I kept trying to sense the passage to the upper layer as I randomly picked tunnels.

While my mother had given me a device to keep track of the time in the dungeon, she hadn't given me an exit device. I hadn't asked her why, but it was clearly to improve my Depth Sense. Skills stayed with a person, though tools could be lost or destroyed. I experienced a slight push rather than a pull after eliminating the skeletons in the chamber. By concentrating on my breath, I sensed something in a specific tunnel. As I made my way down the tunnel, I felt a push and found a passage back up to the surface.

A spiral staircase with the name of the city etched onto the bottom step. I wouldn't worry about how to get back to the city I had started from, since it was the passage to Monolith. I began climbing up the spiral staircase. The Mana in the air faded away. It was oppressive, but not excessively. Similar to a fog, it became harder the further away things were. The dungeon was clearly designed to prevent people from observing it from a great distance, as it moved things around and created monsters.

Some thought the dungeon was mysterious. I thought it just might be shy. It was super powerful, but it did so many odd things. I had a lot of time to think while I rested in the dungeon, and that was what I felt most curious about. What was the purpose of the dungeon? Why did it do the things it did? I was figuring out the origin of the College of Advancement, just from my questions. Folks sought answers, and they tried many methods. While there was a lot of fighting, there was also a lot of rest time.

I needed to let my reserves recover. While I didn't mind pushing myself in a fight, I wasn't suicidal. As I climbed up the stairs, I couldn't wait to pay for a relaxing day at a spa and some sweets. I had two days before the three months were up. I was hoping my mother wouldn't bother me early. She might have scolded me for leaving early, but I had had enough of the dungeon for now. It was an enjoyable experience, but there was something nice about civilization.