I separated myself from the merchant caravan and the town in general and sat down against a tree on the outskirts. My arm was itchy and I had to resist the urge to scratch at it. It seemed like it was already starting to grow back as I saw the skin at the end of the stubble started to bulge. With that out of the way, I felt a bunch of stress melt away as I relaxed and felt the mid-afternoon breeze roll past me.

What do I do now? Wait for my arm to regrow or continue exploring the dungeon? If not for the fact that I needed the necklace to heal my arm, I could have searched for someone to recruit as a knight for the order, since an item from the goddess would be the best way to keep someone loyal. I was pretty sure that the reason why this was is related to why the jewelry merchant couldn’t wear this necklace nor could I wear the ring.

Items with divine power were limited in who could wear them. Namely, only people who worshipped that divine or in my case, the first divine item I used. Which also explained why knight orders only bought divine items from the divine they follow. They couldn’t mix and match around different divine items with various effects. Which also explained why this shield wouldn’t be popular with adventurer’s as it locks them into only these two effects while other divines might have effects more useful to them.

More endurance and healing sounded great in theory but most adventurers would want more attack power to go deeper into the dungeon or something to help them do techniques like wheat grinding. Endurance would be helpful in that case but there were probably a half dozen or more divines with an endurance effect and an offensive effect. For me, my divine was already decided while I was drunk and it was quite useful for my circumstances.

After an hour, my stub hadn’t changed much, still itchy but no major changes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t rest and watch it visibly regrow or just instantly resprout magically. It was still magically coming back but at a pace too normal for my taste. Since that was the case, I decided to go back to Tom’s bar and see if it was open. If so, I’d grab the ale and either stay in my room or perhaps bring it with me as I look for a new place to stay.

The bar was a lot fuller than it usually was at this time of day. It was far past the lunchtime rush. Tom was at the counter still serving people drinks. There were several people there that I didn’t recognize, people who came for the merchants and those who came with. I took an empty seat towards the end and waited until Tom could take a breather and leaned against the bar near me.

“Since the merchants are in town you have to pay to keep the room. No more freebies. I cleaned it up and put the keg in my cellar in case you didn’t come back and I had to rent it out to someone else. Saw something strange outside the window as well, sorry about that but nothing I can do to stop that sort of tomfoolery,” said Tom.

“Do you know of anyone renting out a small house or shack? I’ve got some cash now and would like to have my own place and I’ll pay off a part of the tab as well. As for the window business, I’ll take care of that myself,” I said. If anyone was renting or willing to rent, Tom would know.

However, it’d be rude to not pay at least for the night I had stayed without paying any part of my tab first if I had the money for that. While my decision to get my own place was in part due to my ale being drunk without my permission, I had hoped Tom wouldn’t take that personally. It was the same as saying that his rooms weren’t safe to use.

“I know of at least three people renting and one or two selling, but I would advise against it. The prices are killer right now. Everyone’s desperate for a place to stay with the merchants in town. Just buy another night here and I’ll keep the keg in storage where no one except you can get to it,” said Tom.

Tom was the most trustworthy person in town so leaving the keg in his care when I wasn’t drinking it was for the best. I was tempted to ask him for a mug of it then and there when there was a commotion at the entrance. A group of men were dragging along a bunch of barrels, kegs, and bottles into the bar with a cheer from everyone inside. They were the new goods for Tom’s bar, a large amount of the usual stuff to keep stocked and some exotic stuff for celebrations. And new stock was always a cause for celebration.

One of the merchants went up to the bar and collected payment from Tom while the men brought the stuff behind the bar, stacked up on the side for Tom to organize and drag down to the cellar later. This merchant was the jewelry merchant from before and he moved towards me after the payment.

“Perfect timing my trade friend. I took over delivery and payment duties for a few places in exchange for a bottle of fine wine. This stuff is top quality. The grapes used to make it were mashed by the feet of virgins then fermented for ten years. I even got to watch the whole process and action. Before you even ask, yes the females washed their feet before doing this,” said the merchant while pulling a bottle out of his sleeve like magic.

I had a feeling that no exchange had actually happened and it was more along the lines of embezzlement, but who was I to refuse a good drink. The way it was made was of no concern to me, age and flavor held more sway. However, the method this wine was created with did provoke some imagery that might improve the taste, or cause disgust. Which is probably why he mentioned the feet were clean.

This was a part of the deal so I happily held out a mug as he poured it to the brim then started drinking from the bottle itself. For a second I had thought him to be generous then I realized I had only one mug while he had the rest of the bottle. That didn’t stop me from enjoying the drink. For a wine, it was very dry. As in it felt like my mouth was drier than before it was wetted by the wine. It only made me drink more, hoping to quench this dryness only for the dry feeling to get worse.

Dry wines caused that sort of vicious cycle. An alcohol that either made you drink more with reckless abandonment or slow down and enjoy the flavor and get used to the feeling it left in your mouth. The smell was great as well, an overwhelming stench of fruit that burned my nostrils if I breathed in too much of it.

“How is it?” asked the merchant as he rested his face on the bar while looking at me from the side. It seemed to be strong stuff to affect him this much so soon.

“It’s delicious. Wine normally isn’t my kind of thing but if I could get wine like this often, I wouldn’t mind making it my thing,” I said.

“Wouldn’t that be great? Not even a noble or someone from a knight order could drink this kind of wine every day. They don’t sell much of it. Quality over quantity. They even limit how much you can buy, raising its value quite a bit. I would’ve traded a full case of this wine for this ring you got me. I must thank you for this. What is your name? I’d like to remember it by the next time I come around. Ah, how rude of me asking your name without saying my own. It’s Svarath,” said the jewelry merchant who was apparently named Svarath.

“I’ll make sure to remember you name Svarath,” I started to say before I realized that the merchant had already fallen asleep. Such a weak drinker he was. Or maybe I was just a very good drinker thanks to my shield. I had never drunk this kind of wine before so I had no comparison of how it’d be without my shield and I wasn’t going to set it down. I still needed it to assist in my arm regrowing.

Tom came over and wiped the table while taking away the bottle of wine that the merchant had been drinking from. He put a stopper on it and slid it onto the pile of drinks that were set down by the workers who had long since left onto their next job. I wondered if he planned on giving the wine back to him when he woke up or keeping it for himself.

“So, old friend will you tell us about your arm or that sword now? You were in a rush to hide in your room then run around town earlier but things seem a bit calmer now. Ready to open up?” asked Tom.

I was. Now that my arm was regrowing, I could retell the story in good humor. With a few knocks on the bar, most of the people turned to look at me and I raised my stub. That caught their attention as I told them how I had lost the arm to the dungeon. The crowd followed my every word up until the point where the flaming sword chopped off my arm.

At which they booed and stomped on the ground in anger. When I told them how I had defeated the sword in the end and that I took it for myself on my waist at that moment, the crowd cheered. It was as if they were the ones who had lost the arm, not me. Finally, I ended the story by saying that my arm was now regrowing without telling them why. Which made them complain and call me a braggart.

In a few days, they wouldn’t be able to call me a braggart. I let them believe I was lying, not giving them all the details so I could later surprise them with my regrown arm. To wrap things up, I pulled out my sword as flames spread across the blade before sheathing it again. That was enough to stir up the crowd and make them believe in my story a bit, if not all.

Pretty much all of them bought a round of drinks after my story, much to Tom’s delight. And with that, I decided my time at the bar was up. I downed the rest of the wine and headed out. Telling that story made me restless and worked up. With the alcohol in my system, I felt a bit impulsive. If I did not need to sleep or eat, nor could I go to sleep, then there was only thing I could do. I went to the dungeon and decided that I would do some more fighting, even with my arm still healing.

The area was not empty as it usually was. There was a group of various people carrying weapons and wearing armor. Guards of the merchant caravan and adventurers who had tagged along, taking advantage of the local dungeon entrance for some extra income. Among them was Jerry, Chris, Matt, and one other person sitting together. They noticed me and Jerry walked up to me.

“Feeling a bit better now? I see a bit of space helped you come to terms with losing your arm and you decided to keep going. That’s great news. Come over here and meet our newest member, Stephan. He joined us just yesterday and haven’t had the chance to introduce you,” said Jerry. I decided not to humor him nor his friends, choosing to walk by them into the dungeon instead.

It sickened me that he tried to act like everything was normal after what they did to me. Who cares about a new member? I planned on giving him a piece of my mind after my arm healed fully. Until then, him and his friends earned the silent treatment from me. If they would just admit what they did and made it up to me, I might even be willing to forgive them. I wouldn’t work with them anymore, but I wouldn’t treat them like I hated them.

This wasn’t the time to think about them as it was dungeon exploration time. In this first room, I found myself in an orange-ish brown area. And it was extremely hot to the point I was being drenched in sweat just standing there. At the center of the room was a monster that resembled a dog. Like the room, it was an orange-brown color and seemed to radiate heat. From its mouth came smoke as if the dog’s insides were on fire.

While the last dungeon was ice oriented and was to my advantage, it seemed like this dungeon played to my disadvantage. I drew my sword and it made the heat around me even worse and I felt tempted to drop the blade. The dog monster rushed at me on all fours. Not making the mistake of assuming the flames on the sword would do anything, I made a proper slash at the monster.

It cut into the head of the dog creature hard, so hard that it was wrested from my grip and slid across the ground with the dog. The loss of balance caused me to collapse onto the scaldingly hot floor. At the very least, it seemed like my slash had killed the dog since it cut halfway through its head. Nonetheless, this was a less than optimal outcome to a fight.

I dragged myself to my sword and quickly sheathed it as it burst into flames again at my touch. This was not a dungeon I could complete with one arm no matter how I thought about it. Heck, I wouldn’t touch this dungeon even with both my arms intact. Using my spear would probably net similar results to the spear. Good enough to kill one with a bit of backlash but unable to handle two and the one might still injure me if I’m not careful.

With all of that weighing on my mind, I left the dungeon. I found myself back in the outside world, covered in sweat and breathing heavily. The cooler outside air felt great on my body and if not for the fact that there were people in the area, I might’ve collapsed then and there. Jerry and his three followers weren’t there anymore, heading back to retire for the day or back in the dungeon.

A few of the adventurer’s seemed to be whispering about something while pointing at me and laughing. They were making fun of me for the state I came out of the dungeon with since I had obviously been only on the first floor with how little time had passed. To them, I was a weakling who fled and sweated from cowardice, not someone who was forced to flee after facing a mighty opponent in a tough environment.

Should I care about how they saw me? Obviously, I shouldn’t have but did. To prove them wrong, I decided to re-enter the dungeon immediately. No resting or seconds thoughts about the dungeon until my arm healed. This was my chance to prove myself, not just to these adventurers, but to myself. So I dived back in for another go at the dungeon.

This time the dungeon was a generic greyish silver color. And the monster was hanging from the ceiling. It looked like a water droplet about to fall from the top. I couldn’t tell what the hell it was, but it was definitely moving a bit and I could see veins on its skin or whatever it was on the outside. Everything about it was weird and creepy.

Seemed like a good time to use my spear but if I used that, it’d be hard to tie it back to my back and it was weaker than my sword. Maybe the flames from my sword would provoke it since it was a living thing. That was my plan when I pulled out the sword and the flames brightened the area up quite a bit. I just noticed it was actually kinda dark and the color of the walls just made it seem bright.

In response to the flame, the mass hanging from the ceiling started to move and unfold like an onion, revealing the beast inside. What I had thought to be skin was actually wings and the creature revealed itself to be an enormous bat. Akin to a rat with wings, it was a mass of fur with leathery wings and nasty looking teeth.

I really didn’t want to fight something like this. Giant rats and humanoid ones were bad enough, now one that could fly. It hung from the ceiling upside down and let out an eerie shriek that was extremely high pitched and hurt my ears. Falling to my knees, I kept my hand covering one of my ears and tried to do the same with my stub but failed. I could barely hear myself think against this enemy, much less concentrate on fighting it.

Which just pissed me off. Who cares if it could fly? In such a small space it could do barely anything. I’d cut it down just like I had cut down and bashed the brains out of the previous rats.