Valens had watched with interest as the solo chakra user made her way through his dungeon. Frankly, he was quite impressed with her bravery, or foolishness as the case might be. Either way, it took guts to run headfirst into a highly dangerous area, with absolutely no backup, and she had done rather well for herself. Making her way through his tier 1 section had never really been in question, the rogue was tier two herself. However, managing to beat Aspen all on her own was rather impressive, and it brought up something Magnus before.

At early tiers the various classes were arranged a bit like the game rock paper scissors he had learned from a few dead adventurers: warriors beat rogues, mages beat warriors, and rogues beat mages. Aspen was basically a quintessential mage at this point, granted she was smaller and more mobile than a normal mage, but she was still rather weak when it came to being ambushed. Rogues specialized in such ambushes and burst attacks as the adventurer had just demonstrated. She wasn’t that good of a fighter, to be honest, the other chakra user who had come through the dungeon had been much stronger, but she had still managed to exploit her advantages enough to win.

At least mostly win, the adventure was still splayed out on his dungeon floor with a massive chunk missing from her torso. He had been impressed by adventurers before but this was the first time an adventurer who had impressed him was so close to death. On one hand, he was interested to see what memories he could gain from such an individual but at the same time, he felt almost sad? It was an emotion he was unfamiliar with but he had enough memories to recognize what he was feeling. He didn’t really care about the rogue herself, it was more he was disappointed. Disappointed that he would never see what she might be capable of, what heights she might reach. He wasn’t sure what to do with this, he had never had an opportunity like this before, fortunately, he didn't have to make this choice on his own.

Magnus, could you have a look at this adventurer for a second?

The drake looked up from his small black book and gazed over at the core. The one in the boss room right? She fought well, she’s not looking so good though.

Something feels wrong about her death. She fought and won, but she’s still going to die. It just doesn’t seem right. She fought so hard but it didn't matter in the end.

Magnus delicately laid his book on the floor of the core room. Do you want me to heal her? I could, quite easily too.

I’m not sure, she is an invader here. If she dies, it's entirely justified. I’m not even sure I want her to live, I could learn a lot from someone so determined.

I sometimes forget how young you are Valens. Magnus smiled his toothy smile looking gently down at his young core protege. It's alright to admire the resolve of invaders, to be impressed at their triumphs and struggles. It's only natural to form some sort of attachment to some of them as you spend so much of your time watching them as they explore your dungeon. The drake’s expression hardened. What is not okay is to be lenient, to show favoritism, or give aid to invaders. They are here for one reason and one reason only, to exploit the opportunities your dungeon offers. If any of them ever make it past me and to your core you will be completely at their mercy. Your very survival rests on ensuring that your core, your heart cannot be reached easily, and so it's counterproductive to give out help to the adventurers. The purpose of your dungeon is to help you grow and thrive, not to help outsiders gain levels or treasure.

I understand Magnus, and I’m not about to start bending over backward to help adventurers survive. It just seemed a little unfair, that's all. The core felt his indecision fade after Magnus’ speech. The situation was quite straightforward now that he thought about it, no matter how brave or skilled she was, the adventurer was in the end an invader. She had come to his dungeon to take whatever she could, and Valens would not help her or any other invader.

It's not as unfair as you might think, take another look at the human.

Valens checked on his boss's room and was confused. The weakly breathing human was still collapsed in a steadily growing pool of her own blood, nothing had changed. Wait a second. Why hasn’t she bled out yet?

Magnus chuckled in appreciation. I’m glad you noticed. You see, chakra users are a rather resilient group. This adventurer is still gravely injured, but she is tier two.

So she has a chance of surviving then?

Yes Valens, a chance not a large one, but a chance nonetheless.

That’s fine then. It made the core feel better for some reason, having a fighting chance seemed a lot better than being guaranteed to bleed out. Even if the human would probably still die, it didn’t matter much to him anymore. The faint feeling of disappointment that had clung to him faded, and Valens watched expectantly to see the human’s fate. Whether she lived or died it was up to her now.

Celia coughed wetly and groaned. Pain, pain everywhere, but especially in her side. Her foggy brain tried to figure out what was going on, she felt like she was twelve years old again with broken ribs from a careless push by an adventurer. Gingerly she touched her side and felt the slightly sticky feel of newly dried blood. Now she knew where she was, frankly, Celia was surprised she was waking up at all. Her injuries had looked severe and without treatment may be fatal. The young rogue shrugged to herself still too injured to move, she just choked it up to crazy chakra healing.

There was a hollow thump right next to her head and she would have jumped if she was physically capable of that at this point. Slowly and painfully Celia turned her head around and saw a bag lying right next to her head. That must be her loot from defeating the boss, it would be interesting to see what she got after she recovered enough to move that is.

It took her another three hours to recover enough to move again, an incredibly boring three hours. It gave her plenty of time to consider all of the reasons coming alone into a dungeon was a bad idea, it would have been a lot easier to kill that stupid fairy if someone else had been distracting it. Not that many teams would take a rogue, they had something of a reputation and the ones that would take her into their party anyway were not the type of people she would trust to have her back in a dungeon.

Clutching her side painfully Celia grabbed the distressingly light bag of loot in one hand and slowly limped her way out of the boss room. It was probably one of the safest places in the dungeon right now, but it was making her nervous. What if the boss came back while she was injured? She would stand no chance without surprise on her side, it was much better just to recover in the stairwell, even if she was running the risk of some random monster wandering upon her. The rogue shook her head sharply, it had never happened before or to anyone else, best not to jinx it.

Carefully leaning back against the wall Celia groaned as she sank back to the floor. Her matted and blood hair fell into her face again much to her annoyance, she was going to have to cut it again, there was no way she was getting all of that blood out of it. She liked her hair, for the most part, it was straight and a dark black, but it was constantly getting in the way. Before she got her class she would keep it trimmed close to her skull, but after she had gotten her class her hair seemed to refuse to stay short anymore. It would only take a few days for it to be down past her shoulders again, at least it usually stopped there instead of something even more ridiculous like down to the middle of her back or even longer.

Deciding now was probably not the best time for an impromptu haircut, Celia put her knives back into their sheaths, and pulled at the opening of her loot bag. The little child in her had been expecting a massive chest encrusted with gold and gems, but this was fine too. The bag seemed sturdy and something she could actually take with her and use, unlike a massive chest.

Feeling around inside the bag she was disappointed to feel only one coin, but after bringing it out she almost had a heart attack. It was a gold coin like the color of the sun, Celia had to stop herself from jumping up and down in joy. This one coin would solve her money problems, for a while at least, she would have enough to pay for food and an inn for months. Glancing at the massive wound on her side, she added another set of armor to that list as well. Gold coins were worth a hundred silver coins, after all, she could afford to invest in keeping herself safe.

Pulling out the other item in the bag, Celia was slightly confused. It was a scroll, she wasn’t sure why this was in her loot, she didn’t even know how to read, mostly at least. She could recognize a few letters and her name but not much else besides that. Rolling open the scroll, Celia couldn’t help but scratch her head, at least there were no words but there were a bunch of funny diagrams. The scroll showed a person sneaking up on a monster, moving in a bizarre way to keep out of their line of sight. It also showed the same person moving certain amounts of energy to certain parts of their body. Wait a minute.

Taking a second look at the diagrams to be sure, Celia nodded to herself, she recognized these pictures, a little at least. It was the same as the flow of chakra through her body, and if she was reading this right, it was a guide on how to move her chakra in a certain way to sneak up on enemies, it was a technique. This time she really did squeal in glee, then quickly looked around making sure there were no witnesses to her embarrassment.

Carefully propping the scroll open in front of her, the young rogue carefully tried to guide her chakra in the pattern shown in the diagram. She held it for a little while but her concentration failed her, and she winced as her power rampaged through her muscles again. The damage wasn’t as severe as normal, she wasn’t moving at all but it still hurt. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea to practice while she was heavily injured. Celia idly wondered if there was a technique for speeding up her already formidable regeneration, that would be very helpful in situations like this. Celia carefully rolled up the scroll and leaned back against the wall behind her closing her eyes, she would just have to wait until she was finished healing, however long that took.

Are you sure you didn’t mess with her reward? A technique from a tier two boss is a little too good don’t you think.

Come on Magnus you know I can’t control what the loot is, besides we just decided not to help out the adventurers.

Well alright then, let's see. Do you think she’ll be able to get the hang of that technique? It can be rather difficult sometimes.

I’m not sure. I don’t really have that much experience with rogues in general. We’ll just have to wait and see.