I

Eva was proud of her increase in power. Some of the others nearby were able to reach level 9, but the average of the village was around level 3 or 4. A small part of her envied the others. They needed a lot less experience to level than she did—a quarter as much for a lot of them. It was no wonder that even after bringing in the most experience, she still fell behind in level numbers.

“Eva?” asked a man nearby.

“Yes?”

“Nice fighting out there today. How did you light the slimes on fire?”

“I have no idea. Maybe it was the sword I got yesterday?”

“I envy you for getting the system gear,” he said, scratching his head.

Eva didn't know how to respond to that.

“I'm Li Po, by the way. It's nice to meet you. After seeing what you can do, I want to get stronger too!”

“There's a dungeon a couple miles from here that I scouted yesterday. If you're gung-ho about training, that's where I'd go if I were you.”

“That’s what I heard. I’m one of the people that are supposed to go with you so you can show us around. Let’s go as soon as the cleanup is done?”

“Sure. See you in a bit. The slimes aren't going to clean themselves up.”

The man nodded his head and started working. Eva went a different way and began to stack charred corpses with the rest of the defenders. The burnt slime smelled like a cross between diesel fumes and burnt flesh. Calling it unpleasant was an understatement. It took a while to get the slime remains out of the way enough to allow people to enter and exit the village.

When she was done, Eva found Hideki talking to Li and three others she hadn’t met yet by the gate. She waved to get their attention.

“Oh, Eva! These four gentlemen are Doug, Gregory, Li, and Sumit,” Hideki said when he saw her. “They’re the ones who we’re supposed to show the dungeon to.”

“Nice to meet all of you,” she said. “Are you ready?”

They nodded and affirmed. Hideki led the way with Eva taking up the rear.

II

“So what can I expect in the dungeon?” Doug asked as they hiked.

“Rabbits,” Hideki answered.

“Rabbits?” Li questioned.

“Yeah, rabbits,” Eva added. “They’re not that bad. Level 3. The boss is another story, though. I wouldn’t go after her until you’re working well as a team. She’s got a nasty Skill that stuns you and she’s quick.”

“She glares at you and you’re frozen for around ten seconds,” Hideki agreed. “And she’s level 8 as well, so quite a bit stronger.”

“We’ll go in with you so you can get an idea of how it works and then we’re going to do the next difficulty up,” she said.

“There are difficulties?” Gregory asked.

“Yeah. It starts with Basic▲ and then Novice✦ unlocks once you clear the Basic▲ version. I think.”

“You think?”

“We completed it and Novice✦ unlocked. I don’t know if just clearing out everything but the boss would do it, but I doubt it. I’m not sure if rushing the boss works, but my feeling is that killing the boss is the key to it.”

“Sure, I can see that.”

When they arrived at the entrance to the dungeon, Eva showed them how to enter. Once inside, she watched them fight through a couple rooms of the rabbits before bowing out with Hideki to check out the new difficulty.

III

“Are you sure you want to go up to the next level?” he asked before they went back in.

“Absolutely. Look at you, already level 7. You know how hard it is for me to level. The Basic▲ difficulty enemies don't give me much of a challenge and there's practically no experience in it either. Sure, I have a gear and Stats advantage, but would you know that if you just looked at me? Maybe the gear, but you'd think you were stronger than me if you didn't know, right?”

“Hmm.”

“It's not like I can hide myself away like I used to before this crazy shit happened. I don't like being looked down on.”

“I didn't take you for a shut-in.”

“I wasn't completely, but I didn't go out much and barely interacted with people unless I had to, so you're not far off.”

“I understand,” he nodded. “I had a friend who cut himself off from the world for a while. He got fired from his job and snapped.”

“That's no fun. For me it was a bad relationship. He tried to ‘put me in my place’ and I couldn't take it anymore; but he was a big part of my friend group, so I got shut out by them and just stopped caring after a while, I guess.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It's been years since then. I have a sword and I know how to use it. I'd like to see that asshole try that shit now—if he's even alive.” Eva grinned.

“That's the spirit!”

“Thanks,” she conceded. “If you’re ready, let’s go in.”

“Alright. To Novice✦, then.”

“See you on the other side.”

Once she took the step into the cave, there were the same options as last time. She selected Novice✦ and appeared in the warrens next to Hideki. Eva took the notebook from her bag, and marked the room and its hallways. Her mark was a box with an 'E' in the center as a marker for the entrance. Off of it were two lines. The first option they had was straight ahead, while the other option was to take a right. She gave a look in Hideki's direction. He just shrugged and chose to go right. Eva followed him down the hallway.

So far, the inside of the dungeon looked very much the same as it had the first time they went through. The only difference she could tell came from the levels of the rabbits they encountered in the first room. They were level 8. There were minor differences in description too, but she couldn't care less. They were worth several times the experience of the ones from the Basic▲ dungeon.

Hideki indicated that he would take the one closest to them. He Threw his spear at the rabbit. It looked like a good throw and it almost hit the rabbit. However, the monster noticed it at the last moment and bounded out of the way before bouncing towards him. Eva's quarry decided that fighting them would be a good idea and took off in their direction. She took out her sword and Charged✦ her opponent.

She tried to block the rabbit’s attack to then counter it, but realized that she didn't have a working shield anymore after losing it in the mad dash back to the village when the slimes were burning. That poor decision led to her having a gash on her forearm—the rabbit's claws had struck lower than her armor reached. Despite the pain, she was able to finish the beast with a slice through its neck. The Training she'd been forced through paid dividends again.

Hideki struggled with his opponent, but overcame it after another minute of fighting. He was a lot more cautious than she was, so he was able to make it through with relatively little damage considering that he only had monster skins for armor.

The second room only had two exits in total—the one they'd come from and another straight ahead. Eva marked it on her map, and they continued. As the rooms went on, Hideki got better with his combat style. The spear throwing worked once in a while, and he was able to get Dodge up to Novice✦ level after a couple of hours of fighting. Throwing balls of Light worked even better as they were faster and more accurate than the spear after all the practice he’d had that morning.

Eva unlocked a Skill called Mapmaking▲ an hour into the dungeon. It gave her the ability to know where she’d been at any point in the last hour, the exact amount of time depended on the level of the Skill. It also helped improve the quality of any maps she made by a small percentage.

There was another difference between this version of the dungeon and the Basic▲ one that she'd not thought about: the dungeon was bigger. Even though they'd killed more monsters in two hours than they had the first time, the dungeon was still far from explored. On the plus side, that meant more monsters to fight, more experience to harvest, and more loot.

The loot was about the same as it had been on the lower difficulty. There were some exceptions. In addition to the Basic Augmentation Shards▲ they'd seen, there was the Novice✦ version as well. They were less common, however. Despite having ten of the Basic▲ shards, they'd only found two Novice✦ shards, both of which were different types than she’d seen before. They were the Novice Deletion Shards✦—which removed a random effect from an item—and the Novice Chance Shards✦—which took a novice item and randomly assigned one or two effects to it instead of whatever it used to have.

Eva used the Basic▲ shards to upgrade her basic gear with some kind of effect. The effects weren't all that amazing, really. The hauberk got a 10% reduction to fire damage, and the helmet got a 5% reduction to piercing damage. If she’d had more shards, she would’ve made better gear than that. Elemental damage seemed to be rare, and there hadn't been much in the way of ranged combat other than the landwalkers.

Hideki did the same with his Basic▲ gear. The results he got were even worse than hers. He supposed that was because his gear—aside from the sword—was pretty much trash. Eva had no idea if that was true, but she gave his speculation the benefit of the doubt because he had some grounding in these sorts of systems.

After a short break, they carried on. It took another couple of hours to find the boss room. In that time, Hideki borrowed the notebook to learn Mapmaking before returning it to her. Eva prepared herself mentally for the boss. She expected a similar attack pattern from it, so she made a mental note to not be caught off guard by the monster’s stun attack. Hideki opened the door and they entered.

Against them was very much the same boss they'd faced the first time—only it was level 13 this time instead of level 8. It was as if every monster had just gained 5 levels compared to where it was in the Basic▲ version. Like the first time, the boss tried to stun them with a look. This time, they were prepared to avoid it. The den mother flew into a rage when she realized her opponents were wise to her tricks.

Eva Infused★ her blade with air and Charged✦. Hideki Threw his spear at the monster, forcing it to abort its own Charge towards them. Eva hacked at it, but the beast dodged. She was then forced to Dodge✦ the counterattack. The influx of free Stats from the Skill gave her the edge she needed to land a blow and sever one of the paws from the den mother. The monster screamed in pain and rage. Her eyes went red, and she swiped at Eva. The attack was much quicker than Eva had expected, and she was pushed back several feet and onto her back. Her armor had taken the blow well, but her insides felt that one.

Hideki was ready behind her and attacked the boss with his sword. His attempts were fairly effective since the boss was focussed on Eva rather than him. She'd been the one to harm her severely, after all. Eva, meanwhile, spent her time on the ground doing her best to Dodge✦ the incoming blows. She was mostly successful, and learned something very important about the buffs from Dodge✦: they stacked! Even if it only lasted half a second, she could feel the overlap now and then when the monster attempted to hit her in quick succession using some kind of Skill.

The boss had stopped focussing on her and instead had started to go for Hideki. That had given her the opening she'd needed. Finally, Eva was able to stand up and land a strong hit with her sword, Piercing✦ into the chest of the boss. She must have hit something vital, because the boss slumped to the ground dead when she pulled the shortsword out.

She sat down—the fight wore her out and it had been a lot tougher than she had expected. There were lessons to learn from this, not that she'd think too hard about it. Hideki would tell her later how they could improve. That's what he was good at.

The boss dropped a Basic Shard▲ and another Novice Deletion Shard✦. They'd not gotten as lucky as the first time when it came to drops, only getting shards. Still, the experience was valuable to both their Skills and their strength. Hideki was able to raise his level once more, but Eva was not. She still was able to add a few more Stats, but it wasn't enough for the System to decide she was visibly stronger.