Erin quickly discovered that his new map didn’t autopopulate the way maps in video games did. Instead, he had to manually enter the information periodically based on what he could see and remember. While this didn’t render the map useless, it did make it inaccurate. Somewhere in the first hour of walking, he had received a helpful skill.

Naturally, Erin chose not to place any of his stockpiled skill points into the skill, which meant it did little to help the accuracy of his map. Still, he trudged onward toward his marker in the fog of war. The marker turned out to be in the wrong location, which meant that by the time he found the dungeon entrance, it was twilight.

Erin collapsed in relief when he finally found the entrance, sore muscles complaining at his poor treatment of them. The entrance was strange; a door covered in gothic carvings of gargoyles, placed in the middle of an empty field. Erin wasn’t even sure what was keeping it upright. He found that he didn’t care though; simply grateful to be able to sit down, and lean against it.

Taking the cactus fruits from his storage, Erin replaced them with newly created water; blessing the water with his divinity. Curing his aches with the holy water, combined with eating three of the fruits, brought back enough awareness to examine the area around himself. Since he had decided to approach the situation like an empire building game, Erin knew that he needed somewhere to act as a base. That somewhere needed a dungeon to provide materials. It also needed to be close enough to another town to allow trade, while being far enough to avoid border disputes. Based on these criteria, Erin thought this location would serve perfectly. The fact that the area was a flat plain, which seemed like it would make for easier construction, was just a bonus. His ruminations were cut short when exhaustion got the better of Erin. With a sigh, his mind went black.

Erin was woken the next morning by strong winds that coated his mouth in dust. Coughing, and spitting into the dirt, Erin rolled over; using the dungeon entrance as partial cover against the billow of dust. Groaning as he cleared the last of the grit from his lungs, Erin pulled his shirt up to shield his mouth, and nose.

“I guess I should get started on the dungeon then.” He muttered. Snatching up his cactus fruits, he stuffed as many as he could into his pockets. The rest he ate on the spot; harvesting the seeds as best he could.

When he was done, Erin pondered aloud to himself. “I need to eat more than fruit though. Hmmm, maybe I can eat the monster meat?”

Erin nodded to himself. He hadn’t seen any livestock in the world, but he had seen meat for sale. It would also explain why Jode had stored the monster corpses while they cleared the dungeon. Motivation stoked by the thought of meat, Erin shoved himself upright. Standing in front of the doorway, Erin hesitated. Uncertain about what he was supposed to do, he placed his hand on the door.

“Er, open sesame?” He asked. Nothing happened.

“Hmmm, how do I get in? Jode didn’t say or do anything in particular.” Confused, Erin began trying different locations on the door. Finally, his hand at the exact center of the door, he felt it sink in slightly, as if the stone was made of a sponge-like material. The door made a loud click, and slowly swung open, disappearing inwards. The open door revealed the same black void he had seen with the previous dungeon. Swallowing back an unexpected spike of raw terror, Erin forced himself to take a step forward. This placed him nearly against the void. The proximity heightened the fear. Erin growled in frustration, but his feet refused to move. He stood there for several long seconds until a creaking sound forced him to snap out of his reverie. The door was closing, and he had no idea what would happen if it closed on him while he was standing partially in the doorway. Screaming in terror, Erin threw himself into the void.

The dirt on the other side was soft, which was lucky for Erin because it cushioned the blow as he was launched from the entrance; landing gracelessly on his chest with a loud thump. Shoving himself to his feet, Erin noted the rough landing had cost him a point of HP. Cursing himself, Erin examined his surroundings.

The walls were made of red rock lined with veins of a glowing, light green crystal. The green light cast a strange pallor over his surroundings that made him think of eldritch fire; like what you might see a necromancer on the cover of a fantasy novel casting. The strangeness of it made him slightly queasy, his eyes struggling to adjust to the bizarre quality of the light.

“I really hope this isn’t an undead themed dungeon, or I’m finding somewhere else to build my… whatever I end up making.” Erin muttered.

Shrugging, Erin began walking. The crystalline veins had the advantage of highlighting the room’s exit, giving Erin a clear path forward. As he passed the threshold of the room, Erin began desperately casting his senses out into the murky green gloom of the tunnel. Erin jumped when he felt movement by his arm. Glancing down in mild panic, he realized he had felt his own hand shaking. Erin grabbed it with his other hand; forcing it to stay still.

“No safety net this time. Stay calm, stay focused. Panic gets you killed.” Erin chastised himself. When it succeeded in making him feel slightly better, he began repeating it like a mantra. The tunnel passed by in a blur, and before he knew it, Erin found himself in a small cave. Lurking in the cave entrance as best he could, Erin did his best to identify the monster residents of the room.

What he saw fell into two categories. Small scuttling humanoid creatures that were essentially goblins, and fat birds that stuck to the higher reaches of the dungeon; perching on eaves in the rock that almost seemed to be carved specifically as their resting place. As Erin watched, one of the birds flew too low. A goblin lifted a small tube to its mouth, and produced a large cracking noise. Erin didn’t see the projectile, but did see the bloody crunch as the bird was felled. The goblin made a loud hooting noise, and the other goblins gathered around to feast on the downed creature.

“Ok, so the monsters aren’t necessarily on the same side. God I wish I had an identification function so I had some idea whether I can handle… what is that, twelve goblins? Plus the birds. Is this really a beginner dungeon?”

Smacking his head soundlessly, Erin opened his stat screen, and began channeling divinity at it with his intended effect. Erin began to panic as his divinity ran down into the single digits, but just as he reached two divinity, he felt the new feature click into place.

Excited, Erin tried analyzing one of the goblins.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Name: Unknown

Stats: Unknown

SP Drop: Unknown

Skills: Unknown

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Erin sighed. He had spent all of his divinity on this project, and now had nothing to show for it. Probing the newly created window in frustration, he managed to make another line of text appear at the cost of a point of divinity.

Erin nodded. He had one point of divinity left. Begrudgingly, he used it to analyze the goblin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Name: Air Tribe Goblin

Stats:

HP- 15

MP- 20

STR- 2

END- 7

AGI- 5

INT- 2

TGH- 4

REC- 5

SP Drop: 1

Skills:

Air Shot- 10

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Erin had purposefully abbreviated the stat names when he created the page in order to keep things simple. Before he could fully process the information on the page, Erin heard a trilling shout. The goblin he had analyzed apparently felt his spell because it was pointing at him. Erin felt a wave of energy pass through him. Not a magic spell, but his own mixed emotions at his first solo battle since entering this world. Feeling the now-familiar panic rising inside him, Erin tried to quell it. Through subconscious processes even Erin couldn’t identify, this gave rise to a new emotion. Wrath.

Consumed by his fury, Erin thrust his hand forward with a wordless scream. Earth magic channeled into the stones at the goblin’s feet; causing them to fire through the air one by one. Every stone that landed a hit pulped whatever body-part was impacted; leaving a bloody mass, and in some cases a goblin shrieking in pain as it clutched at a now-missing limb.

The battle wasn’t entirely one-sided though. Erin felt as the goblin’s strange air-projectiles smacked into him. A detached part of Erin’s mind that sat outside the rage noticed that they stung badly. If not for HP instantly healing them, he knew that he would likely be covered in nasty red bruises. Still, the bulk of his mind remained consumed by the all-encompassing wrath that he was inflicting on the goblins. Within ten seconds of the battle’s start, Erin dispatched the last of the uninjured goblins with a stone that burst its head like a bloody balloon. Erin collapsed to his knees, quivering with the sudden release of tension.

“What am I… Why was I…” Erin punched the ground, and forcefully shoved himself to his feet. Returning his attention to the cave, Erin heard loud whimpering noises coming from several locations. Walking slowly to the center of the cave, Erin ended the survivors with headshots. When he reached the central point, Erin vomited into the pool of blood that was slowly collecting in a depression near where he stood. Though he knew they were monsters, the utter slaughter of a dozen humanoids still affected him in a way he hadn’t expected.

Erin dropped to the floor, his butt making a gruesome splat as he looked out vacantly over the corpses he had created. A flutter made him look up, and he found that the large birds were going about their business as if nothing had happened. Remembering that he had wanted meat when he first entered the dungeon, Erin’s empty eyes stared at the birds as they went about their lives; considering the best way to harvest them while preserving the meat. A few seconds later, Erin flopped onto his back; ignoring the blood that seeped into his clothes. Erin simply watched the birds flutter from perch to perch. He thought it would be peaceful if not for the warm squelch he felt every time he shifted. After a full minute had passed, Erin turned his gaze, and found he had lain his head down inches from a severed arm.

Erin sighed, and stood, giving one last forlorn glance at the birds. “I’m not hungry.” He muttered, and began walking; entering the tunnel that led to the next cave.