Halina woke a few minutes later, staring up into her mother’s eyes. She instinctively tried to lift herself up, but Aschild gently held her in place.

“Easy now, Lina,” she said, gently stroking Halina’s face. “You’re gonna feel very weak for a few minutes. That poison did a real number on you. If it had taken even another few seconds for your father to get you to drink it, you’d be taking a trip on Helvegr right now.”

“Glad you’re still with us, kiddo,” Swein said and her eyes swiveled to him. “Didn’t know if I’d made it in time.”

Halina croaked out an unintelligible response. Her mother held a crystal flask to her mouth, letting her drink a few sips of water. Idly, Halina noted a few runes inscribed on the outside of the crystal.

“It was my mistake,” Halina whispered from her mother’s lap. “I crit on the last blow and let myself get distracted by it. I should have known better than to let my guard down before the thing was dead.”

“Maybe this dungeon is too high level for you after all,” Aschild said, worry in her eyes. “We can do quicker runs through lower level dungeons and raise you up instead.”

“No,” Swein interjected immediately. “If we can’t manage to get her to the top of E-Tier by the time everything kicks off she’ll be at a massive disadvantage. One low-level D-Tier could cut her apart like a scythe through wheat.”

“He’s right, mother,” Halina said, causing Aschild’s mouth to snap shut. A complicated expression passed over the older woman’s face, but she listened when her daughter continued speaking. “If I can’t handle this, I stand no chance in the Wild Hunt. That scorpion could have dismantled me at its leisure if it hadn’t been so focused on killing me as quickly as possible.”

They fell quiet for a minute after that, until Halina felt well enough to get back on her feet. She stumbled slightly, but brushed off her mother’s reaching hands. She pulled her sword and shield out of her inventory and started marching towards the closest towering tooth.

After a moment her parents fell in beside her once more.

“How many levels did you get from the solo kill?” Swein asked her.

“Six,” Halina answered.

“Good. Make use of them on the next group. Here they come.”

Now familiar screams echoed from the forest of stone teeth, sending chills down her spine.

The next few hours were all hell.

Halina leaned back against a tooth, trying not to show the strain she felt. Her mother was hovering nearby, frequently shooting her nervous looks. It was aggravating.

She had blown through fully half of their healing potion supply already. All of her equipment now bore numerous battle scars. Low Tier gear wasn’t meant for a dungeon of this level.

She’d had two more extremely close calls with death. Despite her high endurance, Halina was exhausted.

She was also extremely satisfied.

——

Name: Halina Berg

Race: Human

Age: 19

Level: 19(▲5)

Experience: 268(▲3,377)

Class: Shield

Profession: Adventurer

Stats: 0

STR

20(▲5)

END

20(▲5)

AGI

6(▲1)

DEX

6(▲1)

VIT

20(▲5)

CON

20(▲5)

INT

5(▲1)

WIL

5(▲1)

CHA

2(▲1)

LUK

61

——

she thought with an inward grin.

“Don’t get cocky,” her father’s voice interrupted her contentment like he was reading her mind. “We’re getting close to the first hive. The scorpions won’t be the only things guarding it.”

In their downtime while they had been waiting for Halina to recover from her rapid healing, her parents had explained a bit more about Stonetooth Dungeon. The largest towers were hives that belonged to the scorpions that called this floor home. The teeth all around them were basically stony cocoons for their eggs, which was why her father had warned her not to break them.

“Okay, five minutes are up,” Swein called after another minute. “Let’s move. Remember, eyes up.”

They picked their way through the teeth again, moving closer and closer to the giant stone tooth. The screeching of the scorpions was closer when it started this time. They crawled over the teeth towards them.

Halina thought, bringing up her shield.

“What the hell is that?!” she exclaimed aloud as she recoiled from the strange sight before her.

The ground seemed to ripple behind the scorpions in small bumps. It disturbingly reminded her of distant nightmare of creatures burrowing under her skin. When they got closer the bumps burst, revealing small insect-like… dogs.

Their slavering mouths housed two rows of razor sharp teeth, their tongues hanging out as they drooled. Beady little eyes stared at her with hunger. Their bodies were armored in rock, with only their bellies revealing the soft skin underneath.

“The rockhounds aren’t venomous like their masters,” Swein called, already smashing one of the leading scorpions flat. “But those double rows of teeth cause way more damage. Same as usual, cry and scream if you’re dying.”

Halina gritted her teeth and slammed her sword into her shield. A resonance she had never experienced called out to her from her shield. Her voice joined the clamor of metal on metal in a roar. She felt a cooldown start in her head, and the monsters rushing her down all flinched.

The closest of them was in range for her to capitalize. Halina darted forward, stabbing into the scorpion’s eyes. Despite their armor, certain spots were vulnerable on any creature.

Sensory organs tended to be a common one.

The scorpion reeling back with a piercing scream and its rockhounds fell upon her. Her shield swept out, bowling them away. Strange grunting barks issued from their mouths as they vented their frustration. They were significantly slower than the scorpions, but their numbers were quickly becoming a problem for her.

She cast her gaze about the battlefield for a solution, but the answer hit her almost instantly. Another rockhound darted towards her, and she waited until the last second to bring her shield in for the block. Taking the full momentum of the creature caused a dull ringing to echo from her shield. She activated [Rebound] and slammed her sword into her shield once more.

The shrieking of metal on metal was joined by the screeches of the insects surrounding her, each of them flinching back. She dived back and to the side, bringing her rear up against one of the many stone teeth surrounding her.

The fight turned into a battle of attrition after that, but it took all Halina’s concentration not to walk away riddled with holes.

“Not a bad strategy for your class type,” Aschild told her a few minutes later. Much of the previous worry had left her gaze, replaced now by a deadly serious concern. “Overwhelming numbers is the second greatest danger of the battlefield. The greatest is inattentiveness.

Not once did you check the top of the tooth behind you for enemies trying to flank you. I personally killed two rockhounds who melded into the stone to try and pounce on you from above. Your father killed a few more.”

Halina winced at the reprimand, her first instinct to make excuses. She clamped down on that feeling, turning her anger inwards at herself. Her mother was right, assuming that the wall behind her was completely safe was stupid.

“That being said—” her solid hazel eyes flashed with pride “—You managed to avoid any debilitating wounds for the first time this run. You didn’t take a single strike from the largest threat, the scorpion's stingers. You did well, and we’re proud of you.”

Expecting a verbal lashing, the sudden praise caught Halina off guard. She felt her eyes flood with tears, causing her to drop her chin and furiously rub at them. A moment later, her father’s hand gripped her chin. He lightly lifted her gaze to meet his own. She saw her pain and grief mirrored there, blended with a melange of anger, regret, and determination.

“Lina…” he began, but hesitated. Something blinked behind his artificial eye. “Distribute your points, the next group is coming.”

Halina felt disappointment wash over her for a moment. Then she mentally regrouped and quickly topped off her main stats. Her father hauled her to her feet.

This group was smaller than the last, but her parents weren’t letting her relax in the slightest. They peeled off smaller amounts of the enemies this time, leaving her facing a group similar in size to the last.

She wasn’t as lucky this time.

If she hadn’t been repeating the words of advice her mother had given her, she’d have died.

Backing up to another tooth, she stared down the onslaught of the platoon of insects and their servants. Keeping her movements small and compact allowed for greater use of her burgeoning defenses. When the scorpions would dart in now, her grasp of their timings allowed her to strike back at the stingers themselves.

A particularly well-placed strike ruptured a venom sack, causing the creature to thrash and spray its allies with the caustic substance. While the scorpions themselves were immune, their rockhounds were not so fortunate. Their cough-like barks became higher pitched in their panic as their tough, rock-like skin began sloughing off.

Her elation at using her enemies against each other was almost her downfall. A hound who’d snuck onto the tooth behind her with its strange tunneling ability burst from above her. Halina lurched forward, narrowly avoiding the double row of fangs sinking fatally into her neck. Instead, her shoulder cried out its pain into her head.

As the beast worried at her neck from behind, Halina barely managed to keep her wits about her. She flashed with light, activating both [Sentinel] and [Shield Wall]. Her tower shield practically blurred in front of her, blocking and deflecting the stingers that tried to capitalize on her moment of weakness. She flipped her sword around in her hand, stabbing and twisting the blade into the monster treating her like a chew toy.

She felt it when she impaled the hound, though not through the feedback in her blow. Instead, she felt it through her shoulder as its jaws tightened further. Without her topped out endurance and constitution, she wouldn’t still be standing. Let alone able to stab the beast biting that same arm.

With a wrenching effort she pulled the blade free, ripping out its guts and painting her back in its blood and excrement. Still, the jaws locked into her didn’t let go. Even as the beast died, they remained. The weight of the rockhound stilled on her back.

Desperation drove her movements as her skills neared the end of their duration. Without even reversing her grip on her sword, she brought the hilt into contact with her shield. This time she combined [Rebound] with [Furious Roar], and the resultant cacophony nearly deafened even her.

The effect on the rockhounds was even more terrible. As the near visible shock wave reached her foes, their heads literally exploded. This apparently unnerved even the scorpions, and combined with the metallic roar assaulting them caused them to turn and attempt to flee.

Her parents were there to stop them.

Halina collapsed back against the tooth behind her, but the radiating pain from the shift this caused to the corpse hanging from her back brought her back to an upright position. A few short moments later, the last of the insects around them was dead.

“We need to pop this sucker off you before we give you a potion, kiddo,” Swein told her, pulling a large wide-bladed knife from his belt. He slid the edge in and Halina hissed as it sliced her as well. “Sorry, not enough room to avoid it. Brace yourself, this next part is gonna hurt even worse.”

His words were proved true immediately as he twisted the blade sideways, wrenching the wound wide open. With the crackling pop of breaking bones, the rockhound's jaw was broken free from her. Aschild was there not a moment later, forcing a potion between her daughter’s lips.

The pain faded quickly as the potent healing sealed her wounds shut. Still, Halina lay there for a moment, panting as she recovered her breath.

“Five minutes,” her father said. “Then we crack this tooth and fight the big boys.”