Unlike the tutorial dungeon, I can promise that we will not spend 9 chapters in this one.

I can also promise that there will be no ants.

That already makes it 10,000 times better, right? Well, that’s what I thought going in too…

----

Barely 5 minutes into the dungeon, we ran into a 4-way intersection.

After a bit of deliberation, we decided to stick right. I took the lead and led us down the right branch because I could see best down there. Shouldn’t the torchlight kill my [Dark Vision]? Eh, whatever. Video game eyes. Who cares? I focused back on what we were going to be walking into.

We continued cautiously downward on the winding tunnel and didn’t come across anything for about a minute. Then the tunnel suddenly opened up into a room.

I took a second to examine it. There were random holes in the floor and also spikes hanging from the ceiling. Those are some decent sized stalagmites. Or are they stalactites? I always forget which is which. Then my gaze was stolen by the form skittering across the room.

I screamed out of reflex and pointed at it. “KILL IT WITH FIRE!” To her credit, Sam tried. She [Quick Casted] a [Fire Bolt] in the general direction that I had pointed, but it turns out that trying to hit a target that you can’t see is quite the difficult prospect.

The flame hit harmlessly off to the side of it, and it charged us.

“Titus, what is it?” Jake readied his sword and prepared for anything.

I gave no answer except for my screaming. Which was obviously very manly.

Meanwhile, the terror scritched closer and closer. The party readied up for a fight. “Titus, how close is it?” Jake asked. When he didn’t get a response, he pushed a bit past me and readied his sword.

Finally, the horror reached vision range of his torch. Jake looked back and forth between it and me. “Seriously? It’s just a spider.”

I finally found my voice and stopped screaming... Mostly. “Just a spider!? It’s bigger than my fist! And it has red eyes!”

Further discussion was cut off by the spider suddenly leaping at me from about 10 feet away. That prompted yet another very manly scream. Fortunately, Jake intercepted it and brought his sword down on the leaping arachnid. The usual blurring of damage happened everywhere his vertical strike landed, and then I was hit by the spider’s corpse. The corpse fell to the ground and then turned into smoke.

I froze up. Jake walked up to me. “Titus, are you okay?” He waved his hand in front of my face. “Placeholder to Titus. Do you read me?”

I grabbed Jake’s shoulders with a deadly serious look in my eye. “Have Tim [Fire Ball] the entire room. It’s the only way to be sure.”

Jake sighed, put his sword away, and removed my hands from his shoulders. “We aren’t [Fire Balling] the room willy-nilly just because you’re afraid of spiders. They probably even have less HP than the wolves that we fought outside.”

Garrett chuckled nervously. “You sure we can’t just have him throw one out? You know, soften them up?” Lindsey nodded along with what Garrett was saying.

Jake groaned as he looked between them. “Not you too! We’ve fought scarier things than spiders. And Titus looks scarier than they do!” He realized what he said. He turned to me and uttered a half-hearted. “No offense.” I was still in too much shock for the insult to register.

He paused for a second and then addressed the party. “Basically, what I’m saying is that we can’t have anyone freezing up because they’re afraid of spiders, so I’m sorry, but you’re going to need to get over it. What if the dungeon boss is a giant spider? I can’t have anyone being useless in a boss fight, or we’ll die.” His tone softened a bit. “That being said, we’re all here for you guys. We’ll help you face your fear and get over it. The next spiders we see, it will be up to you 3 to take them on, okay? We’ll be right behind you and ready to help. But don’t worry, you guys can do this. We believe in you!”

Lindsey, Garrett, and I looked back and forth between each other and then nodded along slowly.

Jake smiled widely, “Good! Lead the way in Titus! Let us know if you see any more spiders.”

I took a deep breath and walked past Jake. I started muttering to myself. “It’s okay, Titus. You can do this. They’re just monsters. You’ve fought a ton of monsters.” I walked forward a bit, keeping my eyes peeled for any movement. The pressure was intense. It was like it weighed down physically on my head.

“Uh, Titus?” Jake’s whisper interrupted my advance.

I almost jumped, but managed to just turn around and look at him. “Give me a break [Hero]! I’m freaking out here and don’t need you scaring me too!”

He didn’t say anything but just pointed at the top of his head. I looked at him quizzically. That was when the spider that had decided to chill on one of my horns finally decided to attack. Its fangs sunk into my forehead. I screamed and flailed my arms as I entered full panic mode. The good news was that managed to dislodge the spider. The bad news was that I ran full-tilt into a room that we hadn’t explored yet.

In some ways, we were fortunate that I panicked like that. It turns out, the holes in the ground and the stalactites were not just for show. Many of the stalactites fell as I ran underneath them, and they just barely missed me. The holes in the ground also happened to house stalagmites that thrust upwards as I passed them. All in all, the only thing that saved me from dying as a [Demon Lord] shishkebab was the fact that I kept seeing more spiders, which caused my running to be completely erratic.

----

Jake was feeling a little proud of himself. He had successfully convinced his party members to face their fears, and he was sure that they would be able to work them out with a little exposure therapy. I would like to have started a bit slower than “giant demonic spiders,” but we really don’t have enough time.

Then the spider fell from the ceiling and landed on Titus’ head. Jake had tried to keep him calm, but as soon as the spider bit him, everything went south fast. Titus's flailing hit the spider off, and Jake dispatched it with a quick swing, but it was too late. Titus had already taken off into the room. “Move up after him!” Jake shouted to the party. They all took off right as Titus reached the first stalactites and stalagmites. Titus barely avoided the spikes coming at him from above and below. “Watch out for those traps!”

Then one of the stalactites that had fallen disappeared. Jake stared at where it had been but was broken out of his reverie by a shout from Garrett. “Look out!” Thanks to the timely warning, he managed to dodge the falling trap.

“[Mage Bolt]!” Tim shouted. Garrett and Jake both leaped out of the way as his bolt impacted the stalactite. “[Mage Bolt]!” He shot again. After the second hit, the fallen stalactite disappeared into dust. “They aren’t traps! They are monsters!”

Jake’s eyes widened as he spotted a stalactite that had fallen towards Titus. “[Identify].” Sure enough, it was a monster. Level 2, stalagfight? What is that name? Also, shouldn’t that be stalacfight? He cast the spell again at one of the monsters that had jutted upwards towards Garrett. Level 2.. Stalacfight. Yep. They got ‘em backward. And named them horribly. His critique finished, he realized he only had a brief window before the monster would reset back into its hole. He made a horizontal cut at it.

It bounced off with a clang. “Son of a… They’re strong against physical attacks! Sam and Tim, light ‘em up! Andrew, overwatch. Everyone else, spiders!” Half of the instructions were verbal and the party filled in the rest. Everyone got to work.

Tim cast a [Fire Ball] up at the ceiling that took out several of the stalagfights while Sam [Quick Casted] her [Fire Bolts] and started picking off single targets. Andrew stayed with them, kept an eye on party HP and also kept a lookout for enemies above and below.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party moved forward to chase after their [Half-Demon], who was still running around in terror. Emilia managed to snipe a few of the spiders while they were running, but Jake was worried that it wasn’t enough.

Finally, Titus stopped running. Because he had somehow managed to get himself completely surrounded by spiders. He froze in place as the spiders started skittering closer and closer to him.

Okay, there are dozens of them, and they’re probably poisonous. Titus won’t last long. Also, they’re at an awkward angle to swing my sword. What do I do? Jake thought fast. Got it! Leaving the hesitant Garrett and Lindsey behind, he started running through the swarm while stepping on every spider he could. The ones he stepped on collapsed to the ground under his weight and then disappeared into dust behind him. Who knew the Mario plan would work?

Jake reached the hole in the middle of the swarm where Titus was and saw that he was still frozen in shock. No helping it, I guess. Jake slapped Titus across the face. Titus’ face shifted from confusion to anger, and then back. Jake just ignored it and said, “You’ll either help fight, or we both die.” He turned his back to Titus and readied his sword for the onslaught that was coming their way.

He gave a smile small when Titus put his fists up and stood back to back with him.

Then the spiders attacked. They kept leaping, and Titus and Jake kept killing them midair with their attacks. It’s like Fruit Ninja. If the fruit flew at your face... And had fangs.

All told, Jake’s quick swings and Titus’ [Fire Strikes] handled them easily.

Then disaster struck. One of the spiders leaped directly from the side, and both Titus and Jake tried to kill it simultaneously. Titus’ punch landed first, but Jake was too late to stop his swing. He cut into Titus’ arm.

Titus yelled out in pain and fell to the ground holding the injured limb. Jake didn’t have time to react before the oversized spiders knocked Titus over and started dogpiling on him. Titus lost nearly a third of his HP from Jake’s attack, and it started plummeting from the multitude of bites. Titus flailed ineffectually at the spiders; he was obviously panicking again.

Jake panicked too for a moment; he knew he couldn’t save Titus. Then Jake realized he didn’t have to. He focused for half a second on his party. Lindsey, Garrett, and Megan were stomping on spiders at the edge of the swarm and killing any that lunged at them with a swing of their weapons. He let them be.

He sent his intent towards Emilia, and she switched from thinning out the swarm to shooting the spiders that had jumped on Titus. Jake kept trying to take out any of the new ones, but it wasn’t going to be enough. He focused on Tim and Sam and realized they were almost pinned down by the spike enemies. Jake belatedly realized that was why they hadn’t had to deal with any of them.

He sent his intent to Tim to come and [Fireball] the swarm. The only thing he got back was mana. Jake swore, or as much as he could, as he realized that they had let Tim use too much, and his bar was sitting near empty. He changed tactics and sent it to Sam. She responded immediately.

Dodging and weaving between the enemies that came after her from above and below, she sprinted in Jake’s direction. No sooner did she get in range than she sent [Fire Bolt] after [Fire Bolt] into the swarm that was piling up on Titus. She started making good progress, and soon Titus was almost clear.

Meanwhile, Jake was starting to lose his battle now that he had to defend from every direction. There were not very many spiders that made it through his attacks, but the bites that landed had a poison effect that was causing his health to trickle down steadily.

One spider latched on his back, and he simply spun and let Emilia’s arrow take care of it. “Come on, Titus,” Jake said. “You need to get up. Now.” The last word came out as a grunt as Jake took another 2 bites. “NOW, TITUS. OR WE’RE BOTH GOING TO DIE!” Jake shouted.

----

I had been drowning in a sea of panic since the first spider bite. My worst fear that I could think of had been covering me and was larger than life. Jake’s shouting managed to snap me out of it. Not because of hope. Not because of fear for my life. But because of anger. I was angry for always being put into impossible situations. I was angry about being torn away from home. I was angry at myself for being useless and causing my current predicament.

Like a drowning man clinging to driftwood, I clung to my anger, as poisonous as it was, and I fought to my feet. Yelling in rage, I swung at everything in front of me as if each individual spider was responsible for my misfortune. I treated Jake as an enemy and avoided his attacks to ensure he didn’t accidentally slash me again. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, the enemies were cleared out.

My anger was not satiated, however. As Jake and I turned to each other, my flaming fist was headed to his face before I noticed it. I managed to stop it just before it made contact. I took a deep breath and then slowly lowered my hand in front of my face. It was trembling. I couldn’t tell you if it was anger or trauma.

I was surprised when Jake wrapped me in a bear hug. “It’s okay, Titus. You’re going to be okay, alright?”

After a pause, I returned the hug. I wanted to laugh out of relief. I wanted to cry out of fear and frustration. Instead, I just hugged him back, my emotions numb and overloaded. After a few seconds, we realized the rest of the party was staring at us. We broke off the hug, and Jake turned to the party and cleared his throat. “Well, it’s a bummer that all the monsters in dungeons disappear, or we would have had a lot of looting to do here. Since we can skip that, let’s pack it up and head out. We can try again tomorrow.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and took a deep breath. “No. I can keep going. Just.. give me some time to get my HP back. It will take...” I checked my status and blanched. Between my panic and my rage, I had forgotten to check it the entire time I was fighting. I was down to 11 HP and 23 SP. “About 2 hours since I’m down to 11 HP. Sorry, everyone.”

Jake looked at me. “Titus, are you sure?” I simply nodded. “Well, alright. You heard the [Half-Demon]. 2-hour break. I could use it too. I’m down to about a quarter HP. And no, Andrew, I’m good. Save your mana so that your regen timer doesn’t go up.” He thought for a second. “And we should probably take our break outside this room. We don’t want any enemies to respawn and ambush us or anything.”

I don’t think enemies will respawn while we’re in here, but this dungeon may behave differently than the tutorial. Probably a good idea. I kept my opinion to myself as we grouped and began to head back the way we came.

“Wait. What’s that?” Megan asked while pointing off into the distance.

Using my [Dark Vision], I took a look in that direction and saw a large wooden chest that was raised up on a dais. I groaned. “It’s a chest. But guys, I really don't want to deal with a mimic right now. Can we just pass it up?”

“You’re being a bit paranoid Titus, it has to be the reward for clearing this room!” Jake answered optimistically.

“[Hero], the last time you called me paranoid, I was eaten by a mimic. You guys can go ahead and check it, but I’m standing on the other side of the party from it and running if it eats you.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll even take precautions.” The party walked in the direction of the chest. As soon as they could see it clearly, Jake intoned the spell. “[Identify].” He paused for a second. “See! Says it’s a chest. Perfectly safe.”

“If you’re so sure, why don’t you be the one to open it!” I taunted.

He just shrugged. “Sure, why not?” He strolled up onto the dais and walked up to the chest. As promised, I stood with as many party members between me and the chest as possible. Jake reached down to open it since he must’ve forgotten he just had to touch the top to loot it. But the chest lid opened by itself. A gigantic tongue shot out, wrapped around Jake, and dragged him inside it. The lid closed back down as it started biting and digesting the helpless [Hero].

The party was stunned for a half-second and then burst into action. Garrett and Lindsey each sprinted to a side of the chest and started hacking at it. Megan went around to the back and [Backstabbed] it. Emilia, Tim, and Sam unloaded on the front of the chest. Andrew was trying to cast [Heal], but I heard him muttering frantically about not having line of sight.

Then suddenly, Emilia fell to her knees and whispered. “He… He’s gone.” Megan and Lindsey kept up the assault since they realized that they would likely be next, and Garrett flew into a literal [Rage] as he started hacking at the chest. Everyone else was stunned. Jake, the [Hero] was gone. He was dead. He was…

“Sure, why not?” Jake said as he strolled up to the dais and walked up to the chest.

I shook my head. Wait. What’s going on? I glanced around the party. Did… No one else see that? Am I going crazy? I watched as Jake followed the exact movement pattern I had just seen. My feet were moving before I realized it, and I shoved past my fellow party members.

The lid opened, and the mimic’s tongue lashed out as I barely managed to tackle Jake and knock us both off the dais out of harm’s way. I helped Jake up off the floor, and we took off at a run before we realized it wasn’t necessary.

Mimics are many things. Gluttonous. Terrifying. Ridibund. Fortunately for everyone in the world of Placeholder, fast is the farthest thing from that list.

The mimic grew four amorphous legs and hobbled after us. It was almost pitiful to watch.

Meanwhile, the party breathed a collective sigh of relief as we realized we could just kite it around and kill it with arrows and [Mage Bolts]. So that’s what we did. Well, what the ranged members of the party did. I took a seat and rested to start watching my HP go back up since I wasn’t going to be much use here. Jake joined me a bit later, and we sat in silence.

He was the first one to break it. “So, how did you know?”

“Huh?” I was off to a great start with this conversation.

He clarified. “How’d you know it was a mimic? It looked just like a chest, [Identify] said it was a chest. Heck, [Identify].” He pointed the spell at the mimic. “It still says it’s a chest even though it’s obviously a monster and a high enough level that it’s tankier than a dark bear.”

“Maybe mimics have an ability that can spoof [Identify]?” I mused and then saw that he was waiting for the answer to the first question. Meanwhile, I was grasping at straws to try to come up with an explanation that wouldn’t make him and the rest of the party question my sanity. Or worse, my class.

I finally came up with a somewhat truthful excuse. “I guess.. It’s just what I’ve come to expect.” Jake’s brows furrowed. “You know.. I finally get isekaid, but it turns out I have a useless class. I finally work past that a bit with your help, and I get eaten by a mimic. Or I struggle to make it to level 5 and finally find a way, but I have to fight an ant queen to get there. Or I finally get strong enough to beat the boss, but then I find out that I still couldn’t beat you or even Garrett in a fight most likely. Or I finally make it out of the tutorial, and the [Demon Lord] sends waves to attack the village the very first night I’m there. This world always seems to find ways to kick me back down right after I achieve something. So… I guess, after beating my fear of spiders, I just expected it.” I shrugged, and Jake didn’t say anything else.

We spent the rest of the time waiting for the party in silence. It took quite a while. Based on how many arrows and [Mage Bolts] were sent its way, I guessed it had at least 3 times the HP a dark bear did. I’m really glad we didn’t try to fight that in melee. I shuddered at the thought.

When the mimic finally turned to smoke after a lot of hard work from our backline, Jake stood up. He wobbled for a bit as he did and nearly ate it. He frowned and then checked his status. He whistled. “Level 9 off that? What level was that mimic?” Amid cheers from the rest of the party for hitting level 8, Jake offered me a hand up. “We should get outta here and take a break for real. It’s a shame that there wasn’t any loot in here, but a level’s pretty good.” He looked at me as I frowned, and he scratched his head chagrined. “Right. No party XP.”

Yet another way to kick me while I’m down. Fudge you, Placeholder. Before I got my pity party of one up and running though, something caught my eye on the dais. “Hang on a sec,” I called to the party and ran up there. Sure enough, underneath the spot where the mimic had been resting, there was a compartment that housed another, smaller chest. I put my hand on it and said, “Loot,” but of course, nothing happened. I called down to the party instead. “Would one of you fine party members with an inventory get up here and get the loot?”

Garrett was the closest, so he hopped up with me. “What loot?” He looked around the dais but didn’t see anything.

I was about to ask if he was blind when I remembered the similar situation with the illusory wall. Instead, I just stuck my hand down onto the chest and said, “Right here.” Garrett’s eyes lit up as he realized the illusion, and he reached down and put his hand on the chest.

Garrett found two mana potions, a stamina potion, and a bow. Tim and Andrew were given a mana potion each, Jake was given the stamina potion, and Emilia was given the bow. We assumed that a “basic bow of the forest” was better than a “starter bow,” but I was surprised to hear that they weren’t sure.

“Don’t items have stats or anything?” I asked.

Emilia pulled out her new bow that was made of green wood and sighed. “No, the only information that items give us is their name and a short description. But if this is a loot drop, it has to be better. Right?” She looked to Jake for confirmation, and he gave her a quick nod.

Since the only method we had for determining if it was actually better was to have her shoot a fellow party member, we decided to just make the assumption for now.

With that all settled, we shuffled back the way we came and prepared to rest up. Andrew held a torch toward the back of the party, and I decided to watch the cave room. Jake sat down next to me, and I remembered another question I wanted to ask him. “Hey [Hero], what did you mean by regen timers going up?”

He looked surprised. “Have you not figured out how resting works?”

“You rest and get resources back. What else is there to it?” I cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Huh. I thought for sure you woulda figured that out by now. And if you didn’t, why did you say 2 hours earlier? A 15-minute break is enough to restore SP, and a 1-hour break is enough for HP and MP.”

I nodded. “Ah. Well, the perk was [Health Regen, Slow], so I guess it makes sense that it’s…Slow.”

He shook his head. “Dang, that’ll be annoying with the doubling.”

“Doubling?”

“Yeah, every time you restore an entire bar worth of a resource, it comes back twice as slow. So for SP, the first time is 15. The next time is 30. Then the third bar worth will take an hour. It works the same for HP and MP. 1 hour, then 2, then 4.”

I saw a problem with that immediately. “Then why aren’t you stuck resting for days to get a single SP back by now?”

“It gets reset every time you sleep for the night. Or maybe just sleeping for about 8 hours or something? The [Message] that had the details wasn’t as clear on that part, but we’ve basically had it reset every night without issue.”

“Definitely good to know.” Not that it seems to affect me. “Thanks.”

Jake looked at me, quizzically. “I’m actually surprised you didn’t notice all of this by now. Weren’t you fighting basically all the time in the tutorial?”

”I could only get my SP back in the tutorial, and I didn’t have a way to keep track of time. But I think my SP regen stayed the same no matter how many times I recovered it.”

“Weeeiird. But that’s kinda cool. And also explains why you weren’t worried about spamming your skill.”

I sighed. “I spam my skill because I don’t do damage without it.”

“You sure? You said you have [Martial Arts] at level 4, right? So you should be able to deal about 4 damage a hit.”

“Don’t enemies have more HP than that?”

“The big ones obviously do, but I think the wolves have right around that amount. And I bet since these spiders are the trash mobs of the area that they only have 1 or 2 HP since they have frickin poison.”

“Huh. Good to know.”

There was a lull, and then Jake broke it again. “By the way, that skill seems to really eat through your SP. How much does it cost to use?”

“I think 5 SP?”

“You think? Why not test it out and be sure?”

I shrugged and then punched the air. “[Fire Strike].” I checked my SP, and I was down only 4. “Huh. I must’ve been mistaken, only 4 SP.”

“Or maybe you got a level in it since the last time you checked?”

“Wouldn’t I have noticed another level in it?”

Jake laughed. “Yeah, no. Not unless you’ve been checking your skills regularly. Just like leveling up your class, the system doesn’t tell you when you’ve leveled up a skill either.”

This world really is unfinished. I grumbled and opened my status. Sure enough, I had [Elemental Strike] up to level 2. There was something about the skill that seemed to be niggling at the edge of my awareness, but I ignored it.

“Yup. Level 2. Must have decreased my SP costs. Good catch [Hero].” I said, and we drifted off into silence again. Since we had nothing better to do, I figured I could ask him about his class. “What about your skills? How much SP do they use?”

“Well, [Sunder] uses 50 SP or more, but that’s definitely worth it.”

I nodded. “And what level is that at?”

“It doesn’t have a level, it just says ‘HERO’ in all caps.”

“Huh. So it’s OP, but it can’t get stronger. I guess that makes sense.” I remembered his other skill. “Didn’t you also have [Power Strike] or something?”

Jake grinned sheepishly. “I.. uh.. Haven’t been using that one. It deals okay damage, but I would rather [Sunder] big targets and not waste my SP on the small fry. So I don’t have much use for it.”

After we lapsed into silence yet again, Jake excused himself to go talk with Garrett.

Fortunately, that finally gave me time to think about how on earth I had a vision of the future. I turned that idea over and over in my head, but the only thing that came to me was the [Memory Protection] perk that I had bought. But no matter how I thought of that, I couldn’t think of a single way that [Memory Protection] could equal clairvoyance. I thought that maybe it was some other perk that was a part of my class, but I had no way to tell. Eventually, I gave up thinking about it and just waited for my HP to come back.

When that grueling 2 hours was up, I lead the way back to the four-way intersection. “So, do we keep traveling down the right wall until we get to the end of the caves?”

“Sure, why not. Unless anyone has a better idea?” Jake asked the party. When no one answered, he simply said, “Lead on.”

I took us down the path that was straight from our initial entrance. We didn’t travel very far before we came to another room. I called the party to stop as I took a bit of a closer look at it. This one was smaller, more “large backyard” sized than “football stadium” sized like the previous one. It was also absolutely crawling with spiders.

The spiders just sat there. Content that they were waiting to ambush us and weren’t going to leave the room, I went back and reported my findings.

“So, do we just have Tim [Fire Ball] it and then move on?” I asked.

Jake frowned. “We can maybe spare one that isn’t [Overchannelled], but the mana cost is a bit heavy to have him just [Fire Ball] every room that we come across. And since he already ran out of mana once today, a full recovery for him will take 2 hours next time.”

“Oh,” I said. “How much mana does it cost for a single [Fire Ball]?” I directed the question half at Jake and half at Tim.

Jake looked to Tim to answer that, but he seemed to be ignoring me. “Uhh, I think about 50 mana?”

I did a quick check of my own status to look at my MP. As usual, I was sitting at a full 90 MP out of 90. Even if he has double my mana, that’s only 3 [Fire Balls] before he’s out. Dang. “So, are we going to just have to grind each room down?”

Jake frowned. “I guess. I’m just worried that we aren’t going to make it to the boss at this rate. The spider’s bite doesn’t hurt much, but I think I lost most of my HP to the DOT[1].”

Huh. I didn’t notice a DOT. Then again, I wasn’t exactly paying attention to my HP. Wait a second… “Hey [Hero], did you see my HP ticking down to a DOT?”

He looked thoughtful. “Now that you mention it. No, I didn’t.”

That gave me an idea. “I’ll be right back, wait here.”

I didn’t give him time to protest, and I jogged into the room cautiously. I tried to keep my eyes peeled above and below me. Last fight started with a spider dropping on my head, so maybe there will- My thoughts were interrupted by one that dropped from the ceiling. “Gotcha!”

I snagged the arachnid from out of the air and held it in my hand. Then I finally remembered that they still creeped me the heck out. I held it away from my face and tried not to panic as I nearly sprinted back to the party.

Jake was the first to see me, and as soon as he saw what I was holding, he just sighed. “Titus, why are you holding a spider?”

I raised the arachnid above my head. “For science!” At the dubious look he gave me, I decided to clarify. “We should figure out how the DOT works. Also, I think I may have resistance to it, so I wanted to check in a controlled environment.” I looked between each of the party members. “Now, we just need a test subject.” Garrett and Lindsey recoiled away from me, Andrew and Tim scowled at me, I lost track of Megan as she must have entered [Sneak] when I wasn’t looking, and Sam just gave me a blank look.

Jake just gave yet another exasperated sigh. “No, Titus, we aren’t testing out how poison works while we’re in the middle of a dungeon run.”

“Why not?” Emilia asked.

It was hard to tell who was more shocked by my unexpected ally, Jake, or me. Jake spoke up first, “Because we need to keep our HP topped off as much as possible, or we won’t get through this dungeon.”

“Then, I should be the test subject. I have to have yet to be hit by an attack, and I don’t see why this dungeon would change that.” Emilia walked over to me and held out her arm.

Jake walked over and put her arm down. “No, we aren’t doing this.”

She hit him with a death glare that I haven’t seen for a while. I actually shrank back a bit from it, but Jake wasn’t phased. “Jake, you are the leader of this party, and I will respect your decisions, but I refuse to be like the boot-licking sycophants that my father surrounded himself with. I think you are making a mistake here, and I refuse to let you make it without hearing the opposing argument.”

Jake folded his arms. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”

I was about to start explaining myself when Emilia spoke first. “First off, we currently only have two people that seem to be fit to fight in our quote-unquote frontline. Lindsey and Garrett don’t seem to be utilizable at the moment due to their fear of spiders. That leaves only you and Titus.”

“Okay, but I don’t see what that has to do-“

She cut him off. “I’m getting there. Titus is currently underperforming.”

I shot her an offended look. “Hey!”

Her death glare turned back on in my direction, and I shut up. She looked back at Jake and continued. “He panicked the last fight because he’s also afraid of spiders, but he’s come up with a hypothesis that maybe he doesn’t need to worry as much about the spiders as he thought.” She turned to address me again. “Titus, do you think that knowing about the poison would give you the confidence you need to stop underperforming?”

“I.. think so? I guess it depends on what we find out,” I replied.

She nodded. “Good enough for me. And the reason why that is good enough for me is that the asset he is requisitioning for his R&D is some of my 135 HP. An asset that has sat unused this entire time, I might add.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call HP an asset,” Jake replied.

“Of course, it is,” she snapped. “HP, MP, SP. Our weapons, our skills, and even our party members. They are the assets, and adventuring is our business. So, we have to utilize our assets to their utmost to make it through this dungeon and defeat this boss.”

“Which is why we shouldn’t waste HP on something stupid like this.”

Emilia sighed. “You’re still not getting it, are you?” She looked around at the party. “Everyone who can kill those rock enemies, raise your hand!” A confused Tim and Sam raised their hands. She glared at me. “And why aren’t you raising your hand, Titus?”

I was confused. “If the rest of the melees can’t kill them, how would I?”

“You have a fire attack, right? Did you even test that on one of them?”

I grinned sheepishly. “Uh… No. I didn’t.”

She nodded as if she had made a decision. “Then please do so at your earliest convenience. If that attack only costs SP, which we regain at 4 times the speed of MP, then you could be our best return on investment when it comes to fighting them.” She looked thoughtful. “In fact, I think inside this cave, you may be our best return on investment, period.”

“And what does that have to do with the spiders?”

Emilia took on a lecturing tone. “Since you seem to do fine against them, and there is a chance that you didn’t need to waste SP to kill them, it only makes sense to get you back to fighting them as soon as we can. So if I need to sacrifice a bit of my HP to make that happen, then I consider it a low-risk investment.”

“But, we can have someone else do it,” Jake protested. “I could, or Garrett could-“

“Do you really think you could convince Garrett to let a spider bite him? Also, you already had to rest once, and you are one of two who is fighting on the front line. Any additional damage could cause extra delays.”

Jake finally gave up and threw his hands up. “Okay, but just stay safe, alright?”

“I’ll stick next to Andrew since he’s our emergency fund for HP, okay?” She glared over at Andrew. “Our emergency fund that didn’t do his job in the last fight.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” the [Cleric] growled back.

“You didn’t heal Jake at all even when he was well below half HP!”

“I was staying next to Tim. I told you when I joined you all, Tim is my top priority!”

“And Jake is mine!” the [Ranger] snapped back. She then realized what she said and turned a bit red. “I mean,” she started stammering a bit. “He’s the [Hero], so he’s needed to defeat the [Demon Lord], right? He’s also the only one with a skill that is designed to take out larger targets, so that makes him our most important asset!”

“Uhh, thanks? I think.” Jake replied. “Could you not call me an asset, though? That feels a bit weird. Also, I mostly followed what you said, but could you tone down the business language a bit, maybe?”

Emilia muttered. “Now, you know how I feel when you discuss DOTs and [Demon Lords].” She put her arm up towards the spider I was still holding. “Anyway, let’s just get this over with.”

I nodded. “Alright, first test. One dose of evil spider bite. Open your status-” I growled and closed mine that opened yet again. I really need to stop saying that word. “Open your stat page and watch your HP.” She nodded, so I held it up to her arm, and it obliged by biting her. I made sure to pull it away after it finished its attack.

“134. 133. 132. 131. 130. 129. It did a total of 6 damage to me.”

“Okay, so 1 damage for bite, 5 damage for poison. Done. Your turn Titus.” Jake said.

I held up a hand. “Hold up, the DOT stacks, right? So let’s just do one more test. We’ll have it bite her twice, and it should do a total of 12 damage if you’re right. That’s still just one [Heal].” He grumbled but didn’t say anything as Emilia held up her arm to be bit again. “Okay, two doses of evil spider bite, here we go.”

The first bite landed. “128. 127. 126.” The second bite landed. “124. 122. 120.” Emilia's eyes widened a bit. “118. 116. 114. 112. 110. 19 total damage.”

“19? You’re sure?” I asked dubiously.

“Yes, starting HP was 129, I ended at 110.”

I looked at Jake. “Well, however the poison is working; it isn’t as straightforward as we thought.”

“Okay, poison is acting weird and stacks quicker than we thought. Hurry up and test your poison resist so we can move on.” Jake was getting impatient.

“1 more test. I want to wait until the first dose is about to wear off.”

Jake looked at Emilia, but Emilia just shrugged and said, “Okay, but last one.”

“Ready?”

Emilia nodded, and I had it bite her again. “109. 108. 107. 106. 105.” I had the spider bite her right after she said 105. “103. 101. 99. 97. 95. 93. 17 total damage. So, the amount of damage depends on the amount of poison left from the first bite?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “But what’s the exact formula?”

I was trying to figure out the math when Tim spoke up. “It’s additive in both damage and duration.” At the party’s blank looks, he continued and looked like he was focusing on trying to not overcomplicate things. “The effect duration was the same both times. So that means each spider bite gives 5 seconds to the total duration. However, the damage amount is also added on making it 2 damage per second. That means that if you were bit by two spiders at the same time that you would take 22 damage. 2 from the bites themselves and then 2 damage per second over 10 seconds. The minimum would be from 2 bites without stacking, which would be 12.”

I thought his explanation through. “Wow. That’s kinda an awful way to implement that mechanic, but I think that matches up with what we’ve seen. Good catch, Tim.” Doesn’t that mean poison could be incredibly OP? I shook off that thought. I looked at the spider and grimaced. “Okay. My turn.”

I flipped open my status page and lowered the arachnid to my arm. “Okay, 179… 179. I only took damage from the bite.”

“Wait, really?” Jake asked, but I had already lowered the arachnid down for another nibble.

“178… 178. 177… 177. 176. Oh! 175! That was poison! Aaaaaand it’s gone. 175.” I looked at the party. “Conclusion? I have insane amounts of poison resist. Probably. Unless these guys only have weak poison or something.” I nodded at Emilia. “Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied.

“Now, one last test.” I tossed the arachnid up in the air and then punched it without using my skill. It still died just the same. I couldn’t help the grin that spread as an idea came to me. “Okay, gang. I got the next room by myself. Be ready to lend a hand if I need ya, but I probably won’t.”

I sprinted into the room again, even as Jake called out, “Wait, Titus! No!”

I dodged the spiders that immediately dropped at me from the ceiling and took two out with regular hits. From there, I ran further into the room, and I was soon surrounded. I grinned. Everything was going as planned.

A spike jutted up from the floor, but I shuffled backward and gave it a flaming kick. That took it down, and I dodged the next spike that fell from the ceiling, even as spiders were jumping at me from the side.

1 punch each took care of the spiders, and another flaming kick took care of the stalagfight. Meanwhile, the party had started coming into the room.

I turned towards them. “I don’t remember asking for help [Hero]!” I elbowed a spider that had jumped at me from behind.

“Are you crazy, Titus!?” Jake yelled back.

“Do I look like I need help, [Hero]?” I called back even as I ducked under three leaping spiders. I spun with the motion and thrust a [Fire Strike] empowered knee into a stalacfight that had jutted upward at me. An arrow shot my way, and I dodged out of its way and into a falling stalactite. “In fact, stop helping! I can’t keep track of you all and fight!”

Surprisingly, Jake relented. “Okay, but as soon as you lose a quarter HP, you’re falling back and letting the party help!” They stayed back and started killing off the portion of enemies that were not focused on me.

Meanwhile, I fell into a rhythm. Dodging spikes from above and below me, punching spiders that jumped at me, and using my legs to either step on spiders as I repositioned or to deliver sweeping [Fire Strikes] to the rockier enemies. It wasn’t perfect, and I took a few bites during that time, but those attacks hardly slowed me down.

Eventually, the spiders stopped trying to attack me and started retreating up to the ceiling of the cave. I shouted after them. “Come back, you cowards and fight me!” I then felt a pressure on my shoulder, and I nearly crushed it. I was barely able to stop when I noticed it was a hand, not a spider, and that it belonged to Jake.

“Titus, calm down, bud. The rest of the party can get the ones on the ceiling, okay?”

I felt an intense urge to just bash the stupid [Hero’s] face in. Instead, I took a couple deep breaths and managed to come under control. “Of course.”

Jake chuckled. “Well, sorry for doubting you. I thought you were being reckless, but I guess you’re used to this kind of fight, eh?”

“Apology accepted,” was all I replied.

As we waited for Tim and Sam to [Mage Bolt] the remaining spiders to death, I belatedly realized that I had gotten most of my SP back. I mentioned it to Jake.

Jake commented. “You really weren’t kidding about your regen not slowing down, were you?”

“Nope, and 270 SP, that means I get..” I did some math in my head. “18 SP a minute, or about an SP every 4 seconds. All-day, even after resting multiple times.”

“Wow, if you could use weapons, your class would be busted.”

I nodded my head at that but didn’t say anything. If I can just get a few more perk points, this class actually will be really strong. Let’s hope that I don’t stick around long enough for that to matter.

Shortly after our conversation, the room was clear of spiders, and we were ready to move on.

Since I took barely any damage in the last fight, the party decided that I could basically be left to my own devices. That meant that I was free to fight without party interference, and actually feel useful for once.

The rest of the cave was a bit of a slog. We didn’t find very much variety in the rooms. It was either giant rooms that resembled the first one we found or smaller ones like the second. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your view, there were no mimics in the larger rooms.

We had just cleared another large room out, and I was preparing to head onward yet again when Garrett and Jake stopped me. Garrett spoke up first. “Hey, Titus. I think we may need to call it quits here.”

“Huh?” I looked at him quizzically.

“We still have to get back out of here, remember? And I don’t know that I like our odds with how high our rest timers are getting either. Also, if it gets to be nighttime, who will protect the village?”

“Yeah, and if the enemies are respawning behind us, then we’ll have our work cut out for us just getting back for today,” Jake said. “We should head back.”

I thought about protesting, but realized they were right. I should’ve known that you can’t just clear an entire dungeon in a day. Dang it. I guess it’s another night “keeping watch” for me. “Okay,” I said. “Sounds good.” I caught a look of surprise on Jake’s face. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.” He said. “I just didn’t expect you to go with that so easily. I half-expected you to go off on your own. And that we would have to dig you out of trouble again.”

I took offense at that. “Hey! It’s not like I get in trouble all the time! There was just the time in the tutorial, and then the wolves when I got out of it..” I trailed off as I thought. “And then the wolves again... And then again during the wave... And then the spiders just a bit ago...” I frowned. “Okay. I guess you’re right. You have had to bail me out of a lot of trouble. Sorry [Hero].”

“Apology accepted.” Jake nodded. He waved a hand back the way we had come. “Alright, let’s get goin.”

Fortunately, the first several rooms that we had most recently cleared were still empty, so we were able to just pass through them without any issue. It wasn’t until we had backtracked about halfway that we finally had to go back to clearing out enemies. Fortunately, the rooms we did have to clear were practically routine by then.

Even so, by the time we were out of the cave, the sun had already set. We decided to pick up the pace going back through the woods since we didn’t want to fight a bunch of black wolves at night. Jake set the pace at a run, and the party took off through the woods. We made it back to the village uneventfully.

It was getting to be time for bed, but the party decided to stop by the obelisk to do some upgrading first. All told, there weren’t that many changes. The only people who got new skills or spells were Tim, Sam, and Andrew.

Tim picked up [Ignis], which was a skill that would increase the power of his fire spells. The retroactive experience also ended up bumping it up to level 4.

Sam picked up [Air Bolt] to continue on her quest to become the master of all 4 elements. She then spent her skill points on [Dual Cast], which was a skill that would let her cast two spells at once on a moderately long cooldown.

Andrew picked up the [Strengthen] spell. He had initially passed it up in favor of waiting to see if he could get a better healing spell (a feat which he achieved by getting [Cure]), but he thought he may as well get the buff[2] spell now. That left him with a hard choice for his skill points. He could choose between [Animae], which we assumed was the name of the healing school of magic, or he could get [Cast from SP]. After debating it with the party, he went with the latter since Andrew would be able to save his MP, and that meant the party would be able to adventure longer.

After the party finished up, it was starting to get late.

“Well, we need to set a watch again-” Jake started.

I interrupted. “I’ll be fine taking the watch through the entire night again.”

Jake cocked an eyebrow. “You sure? That’s quite a while without sleep.”

I nodded. “Yup. It’ll be fine. I don’t need as much sleep as everyone else. In fact, I can probably go a few days without, especially since my rest timers don’t need to reset.”

“Well.. Okay. Sure. I’ll take the first watch with you then.”

The party played rock, paper, scissors to determine the order for the rest of the night watch. It was Jake, then Andrew, and then Lindsey. Unsurprisingly, no waves came and attacked the village since I stayed outside of it, so the night passed without an issue.

Soon enough, dawn came around, and the party ate breakfast and readied up. We set off just like before, except Tim had an idea. “Why don’t we run to the cave? We didn’t attract as many monsters when we ran last night. Also, assuming someone,” he gave me a look when he said that “attracts monsters in greater numbers than we are accustom- err- used to, it would be best to get to the caves sooner and not rest outside.”

No one was opposed to the idea, so we decided to make our trip at a run. It cost us more SP, but we were about halfway to the cave when we finally heard the first howls. There were about 20 wolves and no alphas, so we cleaned up the fight quickly and kept moving. I also found out that I had been wasting my SP [Fire Striking] them since I could still one-shot them without it.

Tim’s idea turned out to have merit as we reached the cave without another fight.

Just like before, we entered the cave. When we got to the 4-way intersection, I had an idea. “Hey guys, why don’t we try out the left branch? Unless that would be too confusing to figure out where we have and haven’t been?”

Jake shrugged. “Eh, should be fine. I can see all the areas we explored with my map perk, so if we have to go back to the straight branch later, it should be fine.”

I was slightly jealous. 2 perk points, and he basically never has to deal with navigational issues again? I wish I didn’t have to spend all my points just to get normal stuff like skills. I tried to keep my internal whining to a minimum since I had been starting to see the benefits of my class. At least, from a combat perspective. I still would have traded my class for any other one in a heartbeat.

Either way, the exploration went about the same as it did the day before. I would charge in to get the attention of the bulk of the enemies, and then the party would hang back a bit and take on any that they could without getting in my way.

We had only cleared out three rooms when the tunnel started sloping upwards, and we saw light filtering in.

“Oh, hey. Light!” Jake put his torch away and went to the front of the party.

I walked along behind him. I have a weird sense of déjà vu… Wait! “[Hero]! Stop!”

Unfortunately, he had already walked out of the tunnel. I just sighed and walked after him.

System: You have entered a dungeon boss room! You will be unable to leave by any means until the dungeon boss is defeated.

We all watched together in silence as a health bar titled “Elemental Wolf Matriarch” grew to full.

[1] DOT – Damage over time. This refers to an effect that does damage to a character continuously (or at set intervals) for some time after the effect starts. They usually last for a set time, or until they are cured. Poison is the most common one in games.

[2] Buff/debuff – To buff someone is to make someone stronger, and to debuff is to weaken them. A spell like this that makes a character stronger for a limited time is called a buff spell