Arcane Sight, level 3

Description: Enhance your vision. Efficiency increases by level.

Cost: 1 mana point per 10 seconds

Imaya watched the infuriatingly short description, trudging along the tunnel behind Simon. When she judged that enough time had passed since the last use, she turned her Arcane Sight on. Her mana immediately dropped by 1, but in turn darkness receded from before her. Greenish-white lines trailed along the uneven sides of the tunnel, a glittering spiderweb that was almost invisible to her eyes. No cause for concern, though; these power-lines weren’t as congregated as they had been inside the spider-golem. Imaya looked past Simon’s shoulder, down the dark tunnel ahead of them, but she couldn’t see any hidden traps there either. Before her 10 seconds was up, she turned her Arcane Sight off.

A cheesy tactic, but it was the best they could afford at the moment. With Imaya’s current mana regeneration at about 2 MP per minute, it took her just under an hour to regenerate her entire mana pool—meanwhile, she could deplete it completely within 20 minutes of continuous Arcane Sight. When she reached level 5 she would put the new attribute point to Spirit, which would bump her mana regen up to about 2.2 MP/m. She still hadn’t given up on building her character to be a Dex/Magic/Spirit hybrid archer, but she had to accept that right now, placing points on either Dexterity or Magic was near useless. She hadn’t been able to measure how much her Weapon Skills had improved with that 1 point she currently had on Dexterity, but a slightly better aim mattered less to her than the extra minutes on her Arcane Sight. Being able to see better improved her aim too, after all.

After some twisted logic, even her Weapon Skills were affected by how well she could see her target. It didn’t make any logical sense; if her body moved on its own during the Skill, why would it matter what she saw? But that was the way things worked here, so Imaya had to accept it. Perhaps one day, after they reached the city, she would be able to have a new pair of glasses made for her. Even a medieval, sword-and-sorcery themed world had to have a solution for short-sighted people, right? It sucked that her glasses had been taken when she was transported to this world, but hopefully she’d only have to endure this a little bit longer. What kind of isekai protagonist would she be, if she kept having mundane problems like impaired vision?

Imaya turned on her Arcane Sight once more, counting the seconds. The tunnel ahead of them got slightly wider and—

“Simon, wait!” Imaya hurriedly said, her fingers trembling a bit as she pulled out an arrow out of her quiver. The entire party stopped cold as Imaya drew her bow, aiming at the watermelon-sized hairless spider that hung from the ceiling a few steps ahead. Precision Shot! Imaya felt the system move her body, adjusting her aim before loosing the projectile. The arrow hit the headless spider, which let out a muffled squeak as it dropped to the ground. Simon jumped back with an alarmed shout, stepping on Imaya’s foot.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry! Sorry—die!”

The last part was addressed to the twitching monster as Simon chucked a fireball at it.

“My arrow!” Imaya cried, but it was too late. The flames engulfed the monster, burning the arrow embedded in its back. The spider died with a final screech, white XP streaks erupting from its body and flying into everyone. Since her collar was already turned on, Imaya saw the experience bar at the bottom of her screen move up a smidge.

“Sorry,” Simon said again, his eyes fixated on the charred monster. “But hey, you still have lots of arrows left. And the monster is dead.”

“It would have died anyway,” Imaya complained, shaking her sore foot.

She needed to reuse as many arrows as she could; having lost her extra quiver while running from the giants, she had only 14 arrows remaining. It wasn’t nearly as much ammunition as she would have liked. What kind of archer would she be, if she ran out of arrows before the end of this dungeon? Sure, she had a dagger too … but using it meant getting uncomfortably close to whatever was attempting to kill her.

“What was that thing?” Pell asked, peeking at the spider over Imaya’s head. Although slightly charred, the lumpy body with the circular mouth and pointy teeth was unmistakable.

“It’s like those giants outside, minus the human body,” Imaya said. “Probably a baby-version of these spider creatures. It jumps on you from above, eats your head, then grows up to be a giant.”

Pell looked as if he was about to throw up.

“Everyone, pay extra attention to the ceiling,” Simon said, prodding the dead spider tentatively with his sword. “We cannot be far from the main cavern. Hopefully we won’t find too many of these things.”

“Maybe we should turn back now,” Tamara said. “If those giants had once been human, it means a lot of people have died here already.”

“They might not have been Players,” Simon pointed out.

“Let’s just move on,” Pell said. “The sooner we get through this cave, the better. Turning back now wouldn’t solve our problems.”

Tamara scrutinized Pell’s face for a moment, then nodded. “If you say so.”

Imaya kept silent during their conversation, knowing that her opinion represented the minority. She doubted it would be easy to just turn back and leave, now that they entered the Dungeon. But even if this place was a trap arranged by the Inspector, it wouldn’t be a death trap. It was more like a test, Imaya believed, an adventure from which they would come back stronger. Yes, their near-death experience on the bridge had been scary, but luckily Tamara and Teva’ryn had been there to save the day. And if Imaya had realized sooner that the archway would come to life, they might have figured out a less dangerous way to deal with the spider-golem.

She wouldn’t be fooled again. The group marched on, and Imaya kept scanning their surroundings periodically. Simon in front of her helped when her sight was switched off, lighting his palm on fire to peek at suspicious spots. It was a tricky business; sometimes the ceiling was so low that they had to duck their head to get through, other times it was so high up that their collar’s projection couldn’t illuminate it properly.

They found only one other spider along the way, and it was kinda easy to spot. Simon threw a fireball at the critter, taking it out without trouble. At that point, Imaya had to admit that this wasn’t how she imagined her first dungeon-delving experience to go. They had been walking an awful lot, the tunnel just going on and on and on, with barely any enemies in sight. At the moment their biggest threat was running out of water and dying of thirst—

—until they found themselves on the bank of an underground river.

“Woah,” Imaya said, spending some more mana on her Arcane Sight to take in the enormous cavern that their tunnel opened onto. Flat stones were jutting out of the water, providing a safe if somewhat slippery way across. And on the other side of the rushing water—

“An underground ghost town!” Imaya whispered excitedly. The others probably couldn’t see more than the outline of the closest houses, but the entire cavern was filled with them no matter where she looked. The rough stone buildings were stacked upon each other, partly integrated into the walls of the cavern with narrow steps and pathways snaking everywhere in-between. Barely any of the houses had windows, and the doorways were small, as if they had been built for children. Yet people had undeniably lived in these featureless buildings once, as evidenced by the wreckage everywhere. These were homes that their occupants had left in a hurry, leaving unhinged wooden doors and discarded stone weapons behind.

“Creepy as hell,” Simon said, lifting the ball of flame in his hand higher.

Cautiously, they crossed the river one by one. The plan was to explore the area first, rest by the river second. They needed to refill their water flasks badly, but safety came first—now for real. The team’s record of being prudent and circumspect was kind of tarnished by this point, but that didn’t stop them from trying!

Most of the streets looked too narrow for them to follow, but what seemed to be the main avenue was wide enough for three people to walk side by side. Smashed pottery and broken furniture littered the smooth surface of the road. Imaya peeked into one or two of the houses through their tiny doors, finding them in no better condition. Their current state aside, the rooms could have passed for an average – if somewhat poor – human home. The only strange thing that stuck out to her was the lack of lamps or torches within the homes. Come to think of it, she didn’t see any signs of street lights either.

“They all seem to have disappeared,” Pell whispered as they walked down the avenue. “No bodies or skeletons anywhere.”

“There’s no smell of decay,” Tamara agreed. “Just mold and rotting wood.”

“Let’s just hope that this road leads somewhere,” Simon said. “Preferably to another tunnel leading out of this place.”

“It wouldn’t be that easy,” Imaya said. “First we—”

She fell silent when she saw movement from the corner of her eyes. Tall stack of buildings on the left, balcony on the fourth floor. The others froze in place too, and in the utter silence they all could now hear tiny legs pattering on the stone above.

Imaya drew her bow, aiming at the critter on the balcony. It was partially hidden by the stone railing and the angle was not ideal, but she had to chance it. Precision Shot! The arrow flew at the spider, but it clipped the edge of the balcony and landed only a glancing blow on the critter. Imaya quickly reached for another arrow, but jumped in fright when the critter let out a long chittering cry. The sound bounced off the surrounding buildings, echoing all over the carved-stone settlement—which, to everyone’s horror, became filled with other chittering noises as several more spider-critters picked up the cry.

Quest received: Repel the swarm