Chương 14: DungeonTM

The dungeon was a dungeon. That was the first thing. It was a fucking dungeon. It was every dungeon. Stone walls slick with moisture, a low ceiling that wasn't quite low enough to be a problem but was low enough to suggest a person had been killed by it once, torches on the walls with the same green-blue fire as the outdoor braziers, except now the green-blue was the only light source and it made everything look like a shitty ghost story. The walls had carvings on them.

The carvings were in a language Ben did not know, which was an interesting feeling because he had a literature degree, which was supposed to include a working familiarity with most major language families, but the system had decided to render the dungeon inscriptions in some bullshit elvish-adjacent rune set that was definitely not real and definitely had been generated by an LLM that had ingested all of Tolkien and half of Brandon Sanderson and had spat out the average. He hated it on sight. He hated the moisture.

He hated the air. He hated that the air had texture, the kind of cold-stone air that smelled like a basement that had had a cocaine operation project canceled in it. Maddy was ten feet ahead of him. She had the spear in one hand and the Monster Tube in the other. Her pink screen was still floating beside her head. He could see it. Soft pink glow, cursive, sparkling occasionally. The pink contrasted with the green-blue torches in a way that hurt his eyes.

"Maddy."

"What?"

"Your screen is fucking the vibe."

"What..."

"The dungeon is doing a whole green-and-blue thing and your pink screen is screwing the color palette." She looked at her screen.

"... what do you want me to do about it?"

"Tell it to be a different color."

"Hey," she said to her screen, "be a different color." [I am unable to perform that action, Maddy! Sparkle]"It says no."

"It was a joke dude."

"No." They kept walking. The hallway opened up after about thirty feet into a larger chamber, also stone, also green-blue lit, also with carvings on the walls. There was a small pile of bones in the corner. There was a stone slab in the middle of the room. And there, in the far corner, hunched over something Ben could not see, was a goblin. A goblin. A FUCKING GOBLIN. It was about three feet tall. It had grey-green skin.

It had a long nose and big ears and yellow teeth and small black eyes and it was wearing a loincloth that was not even a real piece of fabric, it was a piece of cloth that the system had decided counted as clothing, and it was hunched over something it was eating, which Ben did not want to identify. It turned its head. It looked at him. Its eyes went wide. It screamed.

The scream was the scream of every goblin in every fantasy property ever written, a high reedy EEEEEEH sound that Ben felt in the back of his teeth, and three more goblins ran out from a side hall he had not noticed, and now there were four goblins in the room and they had crude weapons in their hands: a stick, a knife, a thing that was sort of a club, and one that was just a fucking… sharpened rock, and Maddy looked at the goblins, and looked at her screen, and looked at Ben.

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"... okay so."

"Yeah."

"This is like…the part where you learn whether the LitRPG is family friendly or fucking Berserk level of seinen." He stared at her.

"... what?"

"You know."

"I do NOT know."

"Like."

"Maddy."

"Like, the rape thing." He stared at her.

"Are you measuring how likely the goblins are to try and rape us?"

"Yes."

"What the fucking shit."

"It's a real concern. Goblins in LitRPG have like a fifty-fifty chance of being either dumb little nuisance enemies that you slap for XP, or fucking…sexual violence creatures with —""Maddy."

"I'm just saying it's a flag."

"You're a whole fucking flag."

"That doesn't make sense."

"I don't have time to make sense, the goblins are RIGHT THERE." The goblins charged. The goblins charged in similar fashion to how every group of small enemies in every video game ever made had charged, the front one slightly faster than the rest, no coordination, the assumption that numbers would do the work that strategy could not. Maddy lifted the spear.

"Thunderbolt." The crack of light split the air. The lead goblin became carbon. The carbon hit the back wall and slid down it. The other three goblins stopped running. The goblins exchanged a small look. A panel slid in for Ben. [Maddy used Thunderbolt!] [Damage dealt: 1, 247.] [Goblin HP: 130/130 → -1, 117/130.] [Goblin: Annihilated.] [Mana cost: -4] He looked at her panel and he watched her own mana number tick from 28 to 24.

"You did twelve hundred damage to a goblin with a hundred and thirty HP."

"Yeah."

"That's overkill."

"Yeah."

"That's like nine times overkill. Which is surprisingly more considerate than the tree event."

"Yeah."

"You've got like…six more Thunderbolts. But you also used it like fifteen minutes ago. Which mean you recharge…fast. Kinda."

"Yeah."

"... we should be fine." The other three goblins screamed and charged again. Maddy zapped one. Then another. The third made it about ten feet from her before she zapped it too. The goblins exploded into carbon in sequence, each with the same dry CRACK sound, each annihilated by a thunderbolt that would have been more appropriate for a small siege. Her panel updated. [Mana: 12/28.]"Twelve left," she said.

"That's not a lot left."

"That's three more."

"Great math dude. Ever consider being a math major."

"No. What if there's a bigger goblin."

"There's obviously gonna be a bigger goblin," he said, head shaking left to right.

"That's the boss."

"Right." She looked at the Monster Tube in her other hand. She uncorked it. She drank. She made the face Ben had seen her make in his peripheral in the inn last night when she'd taken her first sip of medieval ale, the face of a girl whose body remembered the taste from a previous life and was responding accordingly. The pale green liquid in the test tube went down. The tube, when she lowered it, was full again. The liquid hissed gently with its small bubbles. The cork went back in. Her panel chimed. [Mana: 28/28.] [Buff Applied: Energized.] [Duration: 10 min.] [Effect: +50% damage output.] [Sparkle]"... are you fucking kidding me," Ben said.

"What?"

"You can refill your mana and get a buff."

"Apparently."

"Just by drinking."

"Apparently."

"That's fucking broken."

"Kinda."

"This is a broken system."

"Yeah." He stared at the test tube.

"Hey," he said.

"What."

"You should drink more."

"…Yeah?"

"Like a lot more."

"Good idea."

"Like just drink it constantly."

"Yeah." She uncorked the tube again. She drank again. The tube refilled. [Buff Stacked: Energized x2.] [Duration extended.] [Effect: +100% damage output.]"OH MY GOD," Ben said.

"OH MY GOD," Maddy said.

"It stacks?"

"It FUCKING STACKS."

"This is—this is—""I'm doing it again."

"DO IT AGAIN." She did it again. [Buff Stacked: Energized x3.] [Duration extended.] [Effect: +150% damage output.] [Maddy! You are getting a bit reckless! Please drink responsibly!] She paused.

"... is the system telling me to drink responsibly."

"The system is telling you to drink responsibly."

"The system that gave me a self-refilling energy drink potion is telling me to drink responsibly."

"Yes."

"FUCK YOU CLANKER." [Please drink responsibly!] She uncorked the tube on principle and downed the whole thing. [Buff Stacked: Energized x4.] [Duration extended.] [Effect: +200% damage output.] [Maddy! Excessive Energized stacking may have unforeseen consequences!]"What does unforeseen consequences mean?"

"It means the system doesn't know cause it's fucking dumb."

"So it means the system didn't think this through." She corked the tube. She held the tube up. She wiggled it.

"... this might be the only weapon I need."