I

Inside the dungeon, it was a lot different than the dungeon with the rabbits. The first thing that hit her was the smell of rotten eggs. Instead of a warren, the inside was much more like a workshop. The room she found herself in to start was a square room of around fifty feet a side, filled with workbenches and tools meant for someone half her size. The floor was wood, and the walls were painted in a cream color. From the ceiling hung five large lights in a cross pattern. Coming out from the room were three hallways separated from the main room by open doorways.

Eva chose one at random. The hallway’s inside was like being inside an old house. It had a wooden floor with a narrow runner down the middle. The walls were wooden panels about halfway up and then painted in muted cream above. At the end of the hallway was a solid wooden door.

Eva cracked open the door to see what types of enemies she’d had to fight this time around. Inside the next room, she saw three small, flying creatures. These red creatures had small, leathery tails. Observe★ called them imps, and they were all level 2. If it followed the same distribution of levels as the rabbit dungeon had, this dungeon would offer a little less experience per monster overall, but that was not her concern. Clearing it quickly was paramount. It would be important to be at least in Novice✦ before the landwalkers cleared the zombie threat. Journeyman★ would be preferable.

As the imps fluttered about, Eva made her decision to take the first room slowly to figure out how the imps worked so that she could have an easier time of it in the later difficulties. She figured that it was better to learn now while she could afford a mistake than to make one later and be down a potion before the boss.

She inched into the room, minding the distance between herself and the nearest imp. When the gap was around ten feet, the imp noticed her and swooped in for an attack. She Dodged★ that attempt with no issues. Several attacks later, the imp fired a weak Fireball in her direction. Eva moved out of the way and kept watching to see what would happen. It turned out that ‘nothing’ was the answer. Nothing different than she’d already seen, at least. With their attack pattern discovered, she ended them with her shortsword—one blow to each of them.

The experience was downright dreadful. With the difference in tier, she only got half of the two experience for each imp. One. Per. Kill. Maddening! Still, she wasn’t there for the experience. If she wanted that, she’d kill rabbits all day instead. No, she was there for revenge. It was time to speedrun the rest of the dungeon.

Ten minutes of running and killing later, Eva found herself in front of the boss room. Though the dungeon hadn’t been cleared fully, that was unimportant. What mattered was that she could kill the boss quickly and move on to Novice✦.

The boss room was similar to the other rooms, only a bit bigger. The workbenches scattered around presented a challenging arena to fight in. At Basic▲ it wouldn’t be much of a problem, but at higher difficulties, it might be a problem if she needed to evade whatever the boss was doing. The boss itself looked like a devil of some kind. It had the goat horns and cloven feet look that some forms of devil had in mythology. Observe★ confirmed her suspicions that it was indeed a level 7 devil.

Eva Charged★ the devil and sliced clean through it using a light Infused★ strike. She was unsure what resistances it would have, but a good bet was on some variety of fire and dark for strengths and water and light for weaknesses. She wouldn’t be able to tell without running the dungeon at the same difficulty multiple times, but at least she could avoid the most likely strengths so she would do at least standard damage, if not better.

II

Eva popped out of the dungeon and immediately entered Novice✦. The imps inside had risen by 5 levels, but they were still easy to deal with. One light Infused★ attack each was enough to take care of them. Though she cleared each room in about the same amount of time as she had in the Basic▲ version, there were more rooms to clear in the Novice✦ version before she found the boss room. That meant more time to complete the dungeon run even though the difficulty was essentially unchanged. It was this delay that meant she would not enter Journeyman★ before the fight with the monsters was finished. She got the message about getting 219 experience for participating.

Eva sighed and allocated her experience before entering the boss room. The extra from the daily monster fight had been enough to push her over the edge to level 14, securing the first level bonus to her elemental Skills. It wasn’t a huge increase, but it made her two elemental Skills just that little bit better.

The boss for the Novice✦ dungeon was rather easy, like it had been for Basic. Even with the obstructions preventing her from having a clean shot at the devil, she was able to end it with a couple light Infused★ strikes. That it was level 12—in her tier—made all the difference as compared to it being tier 1. Though Eva was unsure what the difference was exactly, there was some kind of damage factor between them.

Eva picked up the loot from the boss—a Novice Shard✦—and exited the dungeon afraid of seeing teams of landwalkers using the dungeon that might notice her. However, her luck remained strong and she was able to enter the Journeyman★ dungeon with no difficulties.

It was in the Journeyman★ dungeon that her troubles started. As soon as she arrived in the first room, she noticed something was off. There were no imps! Eva moved from room to room and soon caught up to the problem. Five of the guards from inside the wall were running the dungeon and were clearing the rooms. If she cleared the dungeon boss on her own, they would know something was up when they got to the boss room. If she killed them, people outside would wonder what happened and there might be a welcoming party waiting for her when she left.

It was a sticky situation! Eva let the two scenarios worm though her mind and eventually decided that killing them would give her the most time before the landwalkers took notice of their absence. With the five landwalkers being around her level, they’d be a bit more difficult to kill than their less leveled and equipped counterparts. She knew that with surprise on her side, she hopefully would be able to take out a couple before they noticed they were under attack.

When the guards reached the next room with imps—three this time—Eva Charged★ the nearest one as soon as the fighting began. A dark Infused★ Pierce✦ through the back of its head made it drop like a puppet whose strings were cut. Experience was awarded immediately. She Charged★ the next closest landwalker. It turned to look at her just as her dark Infused★ slice separated its head from its shoulders.

Even with the din of the fighting, one of the landwalkers noticed and called out to the other two. Of the three, one had to stay fighting the two imps still living. The other two turned to face Eva. She Charged★ the closest one and held a Fireball▲ in front of her shield. Though the landwalker tried to Dodge, her extra stats allowed her to connect. The combined damage from ramming the invader and the Fireball▲ was enough to end its life in one attack.

The landwalker fighting the imps took one down as Eva turned to face the other landwalker, who was Charging towards her. It held its shield out in front to absorb damage and knock her down when it hit. However, it was slow enough that she could casually Dodge★ and slice through the alien’s neck with a dark Infused★ strike. She only had one more to kill before she could work on mopping up the rest of the dungeon and move on the Adept✶.

While the final landwalker and imp were battling, Eva took the opportunity to toss a Fireball▲ in their direction. It hit the landwalked square in the back. There was no reaction to be had except for its body crumpling to the floor while partially on fire. The imp only survived a few seconds longer than its opponent had. With the room clear, she moved on to speedrunning the rest of the dungeon.

Eva took the time at the end of the dungeon to feel out the devil as a boss now that it was getting higher in level. It had a Charge that used its horns to great effect, though that was hampered by the boss room’s obstacles. It Threw traps—or whatever the creations on the workbenches were supposed to be—and Summoned extra imps to fight alongside it or to build more traps for it to Throw. It was a strange but straightforward boss with nothing that would really hinder her when it was much stronger.

With the boss dead, Eva let herself recover her mana and stamina for a couple of minutes. There was a good chance that she would get discovered by the teams of landwalkers coming in and out of the dungeon when she popped out. She wanted to have enough in the tank to deal with a big team coming after her into the dungeon. The five she fought were pretty easy to handle with Fireball▲ being much stronger now. Going into Adept✶ would put the landwalkers that could follow her at least in the mid-teens for level, maybe as high as around twenty.

Eva took a deep breath and exited the dungeon before immediately re-entering the dungeon at the Adept✶ difficulty. As quickly as she could, she cleared the first room of imps and waited a very long ten minutes to make sure she wouldn’t be taken by surprise. When there was no challenge, she felt a deep sense of relief and began the task of clearing the dungeon. At this higher level, it was well worth the extra time to fully clear the rooms for experience. By the time she got to the boss room for the penultimate boss fight of the dungeon, she’d racked up enough experience to raise each of her Stats a couple of times.

The devil was a bit of a challenge now than it was a tier above her. Not enough of one to really pose a problem, but the fight did take around five minutes where previous ones were under a minute. This also meant using a couple Stamina Potions✦ to keep going. When the fight was over, Eva took the time to prepare herself in case the landwalkers were waiting for her. They hadn’t been there after Journeyman★, but there was no reason they couldn’t have figured out her intentions when she went into Adept✶.

Moments after popping out of the dungeon, she saw several spells headed her way. Like she had feared, the landwalkers were prepared for her leaving the dungeon. As quickly as she could, she re-entered and chose Master✷. Like before, she quickly moved to the first room and cleared it so she would have more room to maneuver if anyone followed her into the dungeon.

The Master✷ version of the dungeon was different from the previous versions. Like the rabbit dungeon, this one’s theme really solidified at the top difficulty. The imps now had clothing and worked at the workbenches before she had entered the room. They used their creations as weapons and traps. With the color scheme of their clothing being orange, and the type looking like little jackets and pointed caps, everything looked like a twisted version of a north pole workshop. It really was very strange.