Before I start exploring, I want to check one more thing: the corpse. Specifically, I want to see if I can interact in any way with it. I extend my mana towards it, but there is no reaction. I try to physically touch the body, but I just phase through it. And that’s the end of testing that. I guess the only way for me to interact with others is solely through mana, like how Chaos managed to grab me from the air with a mana-covered hand. It’s probably safe to assume anything purely physical won’t be able to harm me, but anything with mana can at least affect me, and vice versa. I take one last look at the corpse and offer my condolences to the man. I wasn’t religious before my reincarnation, but now I know that gods exist. But of the gods I have met, I don’t feel a strong desire to offer my belief and worship, and I don’t think she would want it anyway. When I turn away to start exploring, I notice a ripped necklace lying on the ground at the man’s feet. Attached to it looks like a sort of symbol, possibly holy. It depicts a ring with three stars equidistant from each other, one blue, one green, and one white. I don’t know the meaning behind the symbol, but as I don’t plan to leave this dungeon for the foreseeable future, I’ll forget about it until it pops up again.
…
After some time, I was able to fully explore the dungeon level I’ve found myself on. At the same time, I continued to use both of my skills to keep leveling them up and increase my mana capacity. For ‘Glow’, I only used it at the normal brightness of a wisp, just in case there is a monster out there that eats wisps or if there are any people outside my vision range. In fact, I saw a group of dungeon delvers, but that can be saved for later. To begin with, the dungeon layout. At one end of the level, there’s a set of stairs that lead upwards, but I didn’t want to leave this floor yet, so I don’t know if it's just another dungeon floor above this one or the surface. From there, the dungeon has a repeating S-like pattern, kind of looking like a person’s small intestines. At regular intervals, there’s a larger cavernous room between forty- to fifty-feet wide from the center and thirty feet high, compared to the twenty- to thirty-feet wide tunnels connecting them. Within all of these tunnels and rooms are a variety of monsters and traps. One of the benefits of constantly using ‘Mana Manipulation’ was being able to sense the outline of tripwire strings, pressure plates, and openings for traps. Some of the more notable traps include dart traps, spike traps, and pitfall traps. I think I could actually use those traps to my benefit if I manage to catch someone off guard and blind them near a trap. For the monsters, there’s a decent variety found within. The monsters ranged from assorted types of golems, demonic creatures like imps, classic goblins, undead zombies and skeletons, and large reptilian and arachnid type monsters. The monster's strength and numbers seem to increase the further they get from the ascending staircase until the last cavern reveals another staircase, this one descending down to unknown depths.
That generally sums up the layout of the dungeon and what can be found within. I think I have a solid foundation to work with to start increasing my levels. That brings me to the next matter, humans. I know for sure that I can get experience if I manage to get a person killed through indirect means. I don’t know if the same applies to monsters killing other monsters. I would need to find a monster to test that on, but a monster is much less likely to fall into a trap than a person. Additionally, throughout my entire time exploring this level, I didn’t encounter a single monster fighting one another. In fact, groups of monsters were more common to see than not, most of which that weren’t were located at the end of the level where the stronger monsters resided. The dungeon feels less like an ecosystem, more like it’s a managed environment designed specifically to combat humanity. With that kind of set-up, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out there’s someone or something specifically managing the dungeon, or the dungeon itself is sentient. My bet is on a dungeon master existing somewhere; sentient dungeons were a much less commonly used plot point in fantasy. All of this just leaves me with one quarry to hunt, dungeon delvers.
The ones that I saw were actually split into two groups, one near the beginning and the other near the end. The further group consisted of four people: two frontline fighters, a mage, and a rogue-type that focused on navigation and disabling traps. I got to see them engage in combat, and they acted like a well-oiled machine, taking down even the harder monsters with ease. The frontliners would keep attention on them, covering each other at the same time. The mage would use cool, flashy magic to take down swaths of monsters with each spell. The rogue would then make sure nothing was able to get into the blind spots of the other three, systematically whittling down the monster's numbers until their eventual victory. I don’t think I would even be able to catch a member of their party off guard, and if I did, I don’t think they would allow each other’s slip-ups to result in a fatality. Plus, the presence of a mage might mean that even a stray shot could wipe me from existence. Therefore, they would not be my targets as they should have already left this level with the pace they were going. The other party, on the other hand, is a much easier target.
Their party consisted of only three people, much younger than the other delvers ahead of them. They consisted of a frontliner swordsman, a rogue type, and a healer. The presence of a healer amongst them was a surprise, but I guess they would only be able to subsist with that few people with a source of healing. Even with that, they should probably have a couple more people with them, but their negligence will be to my benefit, so I guess it’s fine. Their inexperience in action clearly showed past their choice in party composition. The rogue took a long time to disable even the simpler traps, and with the more complex traps, he had about a fifty percent chance of accidentally triggering the trap. Either out of luck or good reflexes, he would usually escape with his life, though not without an injury. The healer would then chastise him and then heal him to fix his injuries. Frankly, without their healer, they probably would have died dozens of times over on just this floor alone. The frontliner took too many risks in combat, and the rogue wasn’t able to supplement his weak spots enough to avoid mistakes that led to injuries. Again, their only saving grace was their healer. By the time they got to a quarter of the way through the level, they set up camp in a cleared corridor to rest for a bit. I’ve followed them for long enough. I think it’s time I finally made my move against this group; they will not live past this day.
