Chapter 7: Down the Rabbit Hole

Goblins.

With shanks.

Everywhere.

It’s like you’re breaking into a prison where everyone is green and a midget.

Down the dungeon we went.

At first, we only encountered weak goblins.

A hack left or a hack right sent them on their way. Easy Peasy.

I remember back when I first shanked a goblin. Repeatedly.

Then I got that shiny gem. That I never used, because it was stolen from me. Imgoingtofuckingkillwhoevercapturedme.

But now, I’m holding a sword and chopping them up instead.

I believe there was a saying along the lines of ‘When life gives you swords, kill things.’

「You can say, ‘I don’t want your swords’ and demand to see life’s manager…」

That too.

If only more stuff was free. Whenever I get some good luck, it’s like I immediately get struck down by bad luck.

When humans get swords, everyone knows that they want that conscription notice to go along with it.

I’ll have to fix that with a bribe or something.

I can’t be stuck in the military in the prime of my new life. I ain’t about that life.

What would I need in order to bribe people?

「Money? Rare stuff? 」

Well… that’s a challenge.

Would it be easier to get money and rare stuff, or to fight on the front lines?

「Is fighting in the war even as bad as Karl says? He is, primarily a noncombatant after all.」

Let’s find out…

“Hey Karl, do demons drop gems?”

“No, they don’t. The inchoate ones spawned by the corruption don’t either.”

“Oh, wow. Garbage.”

“Yeah, joining the war is basically begging to be killed.”

We made another turn and descended a flight of stairs.

“More goblins on this floor?”

“Elite ones and archers primarily.”

Just as he said that, an arrow flew out of a hole in the wall and lodged itself into my stomach.

“What the fuck?”

I ripped the arrow out and threw it aside while Karl activated a simple regeneration spell.

“Watch out for those holes, they generally trigger if foreign bodies walk in front of them.”

I waved my hand in front of the hole, and sure enough, I was ripping out an arrow from my arm a second later.

Damaged tendons and muscles fixed themselves and connected. Blood vessels regrew before skin covered the wound.

All better again.

That’s cancer.

I swear I’m going to get cancer from this one day.

「Without a doubt.」

I examined the hole in the wall.

It seems like the hole is in a block. Maybe the mechanism is built into the block, which is placed during construction?

I took my rapier and began chipping away at the mortar around the block.

Can I take this out?

Waving my rapier in front of the hole did not trigger the arrowshooter.

Karl saw what I was doing so he quickly ducked under the firing trajectory and got to the other side.

From there, he started chipping.

In no time at all, our adamantine swords chipped through the puny mortar and we pulled the block out.

I picked up the block and smashed it repeatedly against the floor until it broke.

The inside of the block was filled with metal plates lined up like a heat sink.

Fancy patterns were engraved on each of the metal plates in some sort of black material.

Apparently, the dungeon didn’t like what we did, because a horde of goblins charged out.

“Holyyyy shit!” Karl cursed.

“Hold the melee ones off!” I said as I picked up the bits of the contraption.

The contraption quickly crumbled into dust. The dust also crumbled into dust until there was nothing left.

Karl suddenly stopped moving for half a second as a light glow enveloped him.

〖Force Bolt〗

A transparent projectile flew forward and smashed a goblin’s head open.

The wave of goblins paused for a second as the corpse with half a head fell over.

I was suddenly upon them with my rapier flashing out.

The goblins tried to flee, but they were unbelievably slow. I’m so strong and awesome.

An arrow suddenly appeared in my back.

Who the fuck?

To my astonishment, the arrow contraption had regenerated in the wall.

Huh, so the dungeon can regenerate if it is damaged?

“Why didn’t it regenerate earlier when we were chipping it out?” I asked as I pulled the arrow out of my back.

“I don’t know,” Karl replied unsurely. “Maybe it was stupid and didn’t notice.”

“Maybe?”

How did I not notice these holes in my first excursion?

「We were spawned in the dungeon, I’d assume you weren’t considered a foreign body. It was also likely a different dungeon.」

Good point.

Wait, then that means there might be plants down here, right?

「Possibly.」

0/10 would not eat again.

We continued our journey forward. However, the holes in the walls were easily recognizable, so we had no further issues.

Additionally, they never seemed to swarm us again.

It was always just one or two at a time.

Soon enough, we made it to the staircase.

One tiny problem, though.

An armored goblin was standing between us and the stairs.

And yes, it was massive.

Standing at a majestic eight feet tall, it stared us down and growled.

Its golden hair rustled slightly as it threatened us with its massive halberd.

It’s important to note that its hair isn’t just yellow or blonde, but fully on golden, as in Gold™ golden.

“Ooooh, a floor boss,” Karl commented as he launched off a spell.

〖Force Bolt〗

A transparent bolt shot through the air with a ripple following behind it.

On hit, it broke apart and emitted an oscillating buzz.

“Shit, it splashed.”

Wat

Instantly, the armored goblin began its charge.

I quickly moved to intercept it before it could reach Karl.

With a single stroke, I severed its achilles tendon.

Don’t ignore me.

I slowly circled it as it hobbled around in an attempt to protect its back from me.

〖Force Bolt〗

Another transparent bolt shot out.

Once again, it disintegrated and released an oscillating buzz.

“Fuck his grandmother, his armor is anti-magic.”

I see why anti-magic cloaks are important now. It has all become clear to me. I have discovered the profound truths of anti-magics.

The floor boss blew on a little golden whistle and a group of goblins formed around him in a flash of white light.

「We should get that whistle.」

It does look pretty shiny…

「It is most shiny indeed.」

The group of goblins quickly formed into a wall.

Each goblin had a spear and a shield.

This is rather troublesome…

「Most troublesome INDEEEEEEEEED.」

You can stop that now.

「Sorry.」

The floor boss blew the whistle again and more goblins assembled into the wall formation.

Ummm, what?

The floor boss blew the whistle a third and final time, assembling a total of 21 goblins in front of it.

Then, the floor boss pulled out a red bottle and quaffed it.

The wound on its leg quickly healed.

Haaa…

And then the line of goblins advanced.

Not in a charge, but rather in a slow and deliberate movement.

Like they were waiting for something.

Well, now’s a good time as ever to use that one spell.

Execute the Chicken Golem Summoning Procedure!

Mana immediately flowed out of the center of my mind and formed into a 4th-dimensional shape with complex circuitry connecting different portions of a central glome.

A bit of white substance flowed out with the mana as well.

(AN: glome = 4th-dimensional sphere)

The glob of processed mana severed ties to my mind-core and rapidly converted itself into a chicken.

Or rather, to be precise, the lumpy parts around the glome formed the chicken and the glome plus white substance formed the core.

The end result?

An almost normal chicken. Fluffy and everything.

「New input detected. A second mind has been attached.」

Are you screwing with me?

I could suddenly feel a second entity.

Vision from an angle close to the ground. The feeling of fluff hanging off you. A weird body type. So this is what it’s like to be a chicken!

How do you operate this?

(AN Disclaimer: I was never a chicken so I don’t know what it’s truly like. If anyone has been a chicken, I would like to interview you to improve the accuracy of this story.)

「Rest in pieces, mana pool. Remaining mana at ~15%.」

The goblins looked at the chicken and then at each other.

Some of them scratched their heads.

Karl seemed pretty confused as well.

I didn’t mind them, though. I grabbed Liquefied Mana Solution and started chugging that shit down.

Take a sip, make a chicken.

Repeat.

Turns out, the chickens and I shared a Mana Pool, so long as we maintained physical contact.

Practically, this meant that I could make chickens with chickens I was touching.

Within seconds, the chicken count had grown exponentially.

Very soon, I was uncorking more and more mana solutions to keep up with production.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.

I had only carried in ten vials of the ‘good stuff,’ so my chicken count topped off at around two hundred.

Out of mana. We’ve been foiled!

The goblins took a step back in fear.

This is going to be a problem, though.

Chickens don’t really have specialized attack thingies.

They can use magic, but they have shitty mana pools.

The only good aspect is that they’re pretty fast.

Wait.

This could work.

In one uniform movement, we swarmed over them.

I was able to temporarily wrestle away the weapons of the goblins and blind them with a chicken-screen allowing me to quickly kill off a few of the small fries.

The floor boss immediately moved forward to cut me off.

In its haste, however, it accidentally knocked over a few of its own with its massive halberd.

With a howl of rage, it swung its polearm, aiming to bisect me vertically.

Before the attack even reached its apogee, automatic dodging kicked in to move me out of the flight path.

Automatic dodging was a protocol designed to be used to dodge bullets based off of trigger finger pressure analysis and flight path prediction. How the hell would it even have a hard time against something as immeasurably slow as a melee attack?

「That attack wasn’t slow. The swing was completed in 0.15 seconds.」

Perhaps it’s wrong to call it immeasurably slow. The very fact that I needed automatic dodging shows that it isn’t slow at all.

You should just make it easier by letting me cut your head off.

The halberd crashed into the ground, sending fragments of floor everywhere.

Immediately, automatic targeting had already identified the best targets located on the floor boss.

The overlay lit the goblin boss up like a rainbow as an overlay showed the value of each part of its body.

A value generated with the importance of the part multiplied with an ease of reach multiplier that factored in the different weapon systems available to the soldier.

Ancient relics of the Drone Battles from World War 3.

You don’t need to dodge an entire magazine of bullets to win a fight.

You just need to dodge one more than your opponent.

In a graceful lunge, I stabbed the rapier through the floor boss’s chain mail into a vital artery about a foot below its heart.

I’ve killed enough goblins to know their general anatomy.

As it tried to lift its halberd from where it was stuck into the ground, I stabbed it again, this time into a gap in its neck plates.

This foolish goblin never had a chance at winning.

The sound of Force Bolts discharging resumed as Karl seemingly recovered from his shock.

Each discharge was followed by the sound of a slap against flesh and a lifeless body hitting the ground.

Goblins began going down all around us.

The floor boss didn’t just die, though.

This takes too long. I need an assault rifle or something.

Chopping things into pieces isn’t efficient at all.

Another barrage of force bolts crashed into the goblins. I noticed one with half a head stumbling around in the corner of my vision.

See? Karl has the right idea.

I toggled the overlay for the automatic targeting map.

Red areas mean 'hit,' blue areas mean 'hit less.'

I immediately began poking the red parts.

Poking… poke… Pokémon…

Damn, so this is what people did for entertainment a hundred years ago? Wow, I thought the Wild West was bad. With people going around shooting each other for no reason…

So after that, they went around and stabbed each other as a part of a game?

That’s so fucked up. Society has progressed so much since those dark ages.

「Uhh...」

Have you something to add to my analysis? I’d love to hear it.

「Don't worry about it.」

Well then, I won’t.

「Hey, uh, the floor boss is dead.」

Looking down, I realized that I was stabbing a slowly disintegrating corpse.

Huh.

That’s pretty addictive. No wonder the uneducated heathens of the twenty-first century played Pokémon. I bet they loved running around in a flat world stabbing each other. Pokémon: Global Offensive.

「Indubitably.」

I’m sensing some sarcasm here.

「Don‘t worry about it.」

In that case, I shall not.

Chickens quickly ran around and instinctively ate the gems they found. When they absorbed it, I could feel the slight glow in my mind-core as well.

Does that mean we all share a single soul?

That’s pretty awesome. I think I’m beginning to like this world.

I tried to pick up the golden whistle, but it turned to light and vanished as soon as I touched it.

In that one battle, I had lost around half my army.

I didn’t even manage to secure the shiny object. What a loss this was.

Luckily, I still have a hundred chickens.

「One hundred times zero is still zero, though.」

C’mon, they killed the goblins and floor boss…

「One flamethrower and you now have one hundred rotisserie chickens.」

Who the hell would have a flamethrower?

「I don’t know… a Fire Arts user or a Dragon or literally anything?」

That’s unimportant. I have an army now.

We are an army.

「Hey Steele, good news! Enough mana was recycled from the chicken corpses to rebuild 25% of them.」

My army is getting bigger! That's good news.

What about my mana supply? Having a hundred chicken puppets means I get a hundred times faster regeneration, right?

「Current mana regeneration is unchanged.」

Bullshit.

“What are these things?” Karl asked, picking up one of my chickens.

“A chicken,” I replied matter-of-factly.

“What’s a chicken?”

“It’s just a little animal I summoned with my Bloodborne spell.”

“Wow,” he gasped.

“Impressed?” I asked smugly.

“I never realized anyone could have such…”

My smile grew wider.

“A useless Bloodborne spell.”

I froze.

「Thhhhbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt.」

My smile slowly disappeared.

He’s actually pretty right.

Chickenlord! Stop playing tricks! Why are these chickens so fucking useless!

「Actually, according to the guide in /summon_data, the chickens are equipped with OU-0 grade mana storage and assembly units. It clearly says that they’re capable of using and storing small amounts of mana and are best used for incognito scouting.」

Well, good fucking grief. That means that I can only summon scouts? What an expensive smokescreen that was.

「Also, you can disassemble the scouts for around a third to a half of production costs. I suggest you disassemble some scouts for OU-1 grade footsoldiers.」

Wait, why didn’t you tell me this was possible earlier?

「I just finished reorganizing and untangling /summon_data after moving to flash storage.」

Uhhg, that means that I’ll have to disassemble like twenty-ish scouts per footsoldier.

It’s alright, an OU-1 is comparable to my original body in strength and magic control. Wait, what does OU-1 even stand for?

「Organizational Unit - 1」

Huh.

I gathered my chickens and in seconds, a batch of thirty turned to light and was reabsorbed by the collective.

Once more, a body was formed around a glome to create a footsoldier.

The light quickly solidified into a humanoid with two wings sprouting out of its back.

A moment later, I gained inputs from the angel-like being.

“What is that?” Karl asked.

“A foot soldier summon.”

“Wow, that’s a pretty rare ability. Only one out of a thousand people have a summon ability,” Karl commented.

“Fewer of which aren’t useless,” he added.

There are other abilities?

“Really? What other abilities are there?”

“Mainly within the private armies of major politicians, they have stuff like Limit Breaker, or Mana Shield or stuff like that. Within a single political faction, the ability will generally be the same, though,” Karl explained.

Ha, I can summon chickens. Angel Chickens.

Wait.

Does this mean that angels…

Evolved from chickens?

「What did you expect? 」

I don’t know what I expected, to be honest.

The angel was dressed in a white robe and had a simple arming sword.

「Can it fly? 」

I tried, immediately making it ascend.

Using the wings, I could keep it airborne for about two or three seconds.

Oh, no sustained flight? Pity.

In a similar manner, I created four more of these footsoldiers.

Excellent. That raises our party population to six OU-1 cannon fodders and six chickens.

Deep dives will probably be relatively easy now with my small army of grunts.

Well, they’re technically me. That means I don’t need to pay them… since paying them would just be paying me!

Onwards!

Within seconds, we arrived on the next floor.

A goblin between the size of the last floor boss and a normal goblin appeared in front of us.

“It’s a hobgoblin!” Karl exclaimed, “They qualify as OU-1 and drop better gem things!”

Seeing us, it immediately turned tail and fled.

We immediately pursued it and killed it in an act of butchery.

Naturally, we gave it to Karl who had just finished absorbing a gem.

We continued down the hallway until it entered another spacious room.

At the end of the room, there was a chest.

I used an angel to walk over and open it. Who knows if it’s a trap or some shit like that.

Within it, lay an amulet with a blue crystal in its center.

Without hesitating, the angel put it on.

Nothing happened.

Ohhhh, fancy. Fuck this.

At the other side of the room, there was a door.

An angel tried to open the door, but it was locked.

Without hesitating, I had the angel take a step back before rushing forward and kicking the door in.

Turns out the angels are surprisingly strong, seeing how the door splintered as it flew off its hinges.

The two hobgoblins were caught completely off guard as we stormed the room.

By the time they had reached their weapons, they had already been executed.

“So much for a normal room,” Karl sighed.

Right in the corner where we killed the hobgoblins, there was a massive fountain.

The runes on the fountain read, “The Fountain of Harmony.”

I looked at Karl, but he shrugged back.

Harmony? That sounds like a good thing?

「You should drink this.」

We should definitely not drink from a sketchy fountain in the middle of a random place.

An angel scooped up some of the water in its palms.

I see no way this could possibly go wrong.

「According to the ‘Weakling’s handbook,’ there is a 30% chance something good will happen if you drink from a fountain in a dungeon.」

What happens in the remaining 70%?

「Don’t worry about it.」

The angel took a sip of the liquid. It was comparable to drinking burning gasoline. It burned on the way down, additionally causing a searing sensation to spread throughout its body.

Inconsequential my ass.

Seconds later, the burning subsided as it vanished into a point in the middle of its head.

「Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! 」

Before I had a chance to control the angel again, Aipers had already taken the initiative and plunged its head into the water.

A sensation similar to drinking extra spicy tabasco sauce appeared.

We’re making excellent choices today.

About fifteen or twenty seconds later, the burning peaked and the angel came up for a breath.

Seconds later, it plunged its head back in, but the burning sensation stopped.

Is the burning supposed to be good or bad?

「Burning means your affinity for elemental essence increased.」

Yay, I just got stronger!

「By fractions of a percent, I believe.」

Boo.

「Why do you care? You can’t even use the Arts yet and pain doesn’t bother you.」

I hope it’s not poison.

Another angel went to drink, but the icy cold water was only lukewarm as it drank.

I tried it as well, only to get the same results.

Great! Now we’ll all die if it’s poisoned!

“What’s it like?” Karl asked.

“A mild burning, but it tapers off quickly,” I replied.

Karl reached in and got a handful of the water before drinking it as well.

As soon as he took the first sip, his eyes went wide.

Immediately, he began to scream every while flailing his arms and running around.

I’m pretty sure even someone on ground level could hear him scream way down here.

His screams quickly lost enthusiasm over a period of a few seconds.

“Oh, it doesn’t hurt very much anymore,” he realized. “I’m okay!”

The door ahead was suddenly kicked toward us as we were stormed by a mob of what appeared to be every hobgoblin on the floor.

I could almost hear them scream, ‘Freeze! Put your hands in the air!’ or something to that effect.

Karl instantly began firing force bolts, a few stray shots causing the fountain to be smashed in the process.

The water in the fountain rapidly drained out into somewhere as the fountain crumbled into dust.

The dust the fountain left quickly crumbled into smaller dust until the dust vanished as well, leaving only a grey gem.

What did I just witness?

“What the fuck was that?”

I turned to Karl for answers.

“This is my first time in a dungeon too…” was his helpful reply.

Wonderful.

The mob behind practically shoved themselves onto our swords.

If this was any easier, farming would be a thing.

Eventually, the panic at the front spread to their backlines, causing the attack to quickly be routed.

Unfortunately for them, it was a narrow hallway without too many places to run.

Using our superior speed, we quickly caught up to them and slaughtered them.

It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

“You wanna go back or is this too weird for you?” I asked.

“Let’s keep going. Maybe we’ve just been unlucky and everything is coincidentally weird.”

“Well then, if you think so…”

A chicken walked up to the grey gem and ate it.

Half a second later, the chicken violently exploded, leaving the unscathed gem on the ground.

“I’m not getting near that thing…” Karl commented dryly.

I picked up the gem and pocketed it.

“I’m going to have to research this…”

After about ten minutes of searching through vacant rooms, we found the entrance to the next floor.

As we entered the next room, we came face to face with a midget with a tall, red and pointy hat.

Why the fuck is there a garden gnome here?