“That’s none of my business. Find yourself a rodent that you can screw around with, or there’s a cave over there that you can feel at home in.”

"You do know that most of the Humans aren't hormone-driven screw-machines?"

"I don't know what 'hormones' are, but you're right. I do believe the average Human stud can last up to five minutes without screwing. Or without thinking about it!”

The elf girl was probably right about thats, if Humans hadn’t been able to think of anything other than screwing for at least five minutes, they wouldn’t had invented things like clothing, alcohol, and furnishings. But it is also possible that the second was invented to take the first off the women and make them more comfortable in the third. And anyway, in addition to screwing, you could think of cars (which made it easier to remove clothing), travel (as above), and a million other things that influenced the ability to do the dirty.

“Cave? You mean, like, a dungeon is in the neighborhood or a cave like a hole on a hillside?” Prof changed the subject very skilfully. Of course not to prove his masculinity by clearing out a possible dungeon and getting money (from which he could buy things that could dazzle the chick. Absolutely not for some horizontal acrobatics).

“Yes, you would call it a dungeon. The Clan uses it as a training ground, we usually send five trainees in, accompanied by a more experienced hunter. If I remember correctly, the final Boss is a Level 7 bear. I don’t know if you will manage it alone, but if you try it, collect as much of the mushrooms in the third room as you can. Allegedly, alchemists give good money for it. Then there is a better quality spice growing in the fourth room, which chefs usually look for.”

“Hmmm… We'll see. Maybe I will give it a try”

"Do as you wish, it's your life," Shinead shrugged and began to climb the last rocks. The view from the hilltop was nothing significant, the hill barely rising out of the canopy. Prof was grateful even for that little view, at least it gave a little more detail to his map. How hard it could have been to map an entire planet without satellites, GPS and other stuff! It’s a miracle that our ancestors didn’t leave it all to hell and stayed in their own village - which, by the way, the vast majority still does today.

Progress the next day was a little easier, as they left the untouched forest soon after setting out and turned to a poor-quality cart trail. Prof could not enjoy the “road” for long, after the noon rest they left it and continued the tour on a game trail. It was already late afternoon when Shinead suddenly stopped in front of a few trees. Prof didn’t see anything out of ordinary in them, they looked like the other trees in the forest.

"This is where the Clan's territory begins, I hope I can make it in two days. Until then, you can either camp here or see the cave. If you choose the latter, this path will lead you to it: as soon as you arrive at the hazelnut grove, there will be a hill on the left, with the entrance on the North side. If you're not here when I get back, I'll find you there. If I’m not back in a week, it means I won't be back at all. Then go back to the cart trail, head East to Wanderberg, and head West to the Yellows capital.”

The elf girl disappeared into the trees without any further goodbyes, leaving the stunned Prof behind. Prof thought that he had never been dumped like this before, but then rationalized that the girl still owed him, and floated the possibility of return. She just couldn’t leave him permanently in the middle of the woods! Prof shrugged, and decided to take a look at the dungeon and at worst, get some valuables, and return to Wanderberg.

Since he still had a few more hours until sunset, he set off at a comfortable pace towards the hazelnut grove. After running for the past few days, the little forest walk was especially good for Prof’s peace of mind, although the wild forest wasn’t exactly a suburban park, it was calming to walk among the rustling trees with birds chirping along. Here and there small clearings opened from the trail, in other places he had to cross small brooks meandering between rocks, or crawl under a huge, fallen tree.

Prof finally reached the hazelnut grove far before sunset, and after some deliberation, he also looked at the entrance to the dungeon. He had no desire to start smashing unknown monsters while he was tired in beginning dusk, but it didn't hurt to know what to expect the next day. The entrance opened from a clearing where various bones and incomplete skeletons were placed at strategic points - and, in truth, everywhere else.

Among the trampled, yellowing grass, however, there was a prepared camp site too with a fire pit, prepared firewood, and dredged together decorative bones. Prof calculated that the training group mentioned by Shinead would fit comfortably at the camp site. The entrance to the dungeon itself was not particularly impressive: a roughly circular hole in a rock wall.

Prof even climbed to the top of the hill to get details for his map - hills rose out of the contiguous forest in some places, but no settlements or anything significant was visible. Since the local Elves were so kind and prepared the campground, Prof saw no reason not to use it for the next few days, and water was provided by a small spring seen in the hazelnut grove.

The next day, after breakfast, Prof set out to clear the dungeon. Although they had not met anyone since leaving Smallgrovewell, he did not want to risk someone accidentally democratizing his belongings, so he was forced to take everything with him – he planned to leave his bags right after the entrance to the dungeon as before. Prof was a little excited as Shinead didn't say anything about what to expect in the dungeon, and back in the village he knew pretty much everything.

The crevice where the entrance was turned sharply after a few steps and ended abruptly in a thick wooden door. Prof was puzzled at this first, then remembered that he had to enter through a physical door to reach his previous dungeon too. In none of the places was it probable for the locals to have installed the doors, so he considered it probable that they belonged to the dungeon, perhaps as a security function, as if someone had put up sign: “Watch out, dude, dungeon!”

After putting his belongings on the other side of the door, he set out to explore the dungeon with an axe in one hand and a torch in the other - and decided to get a headlamp, or something like that, as soon as possible so that both hands were free. Prof barely took a few steps in the initial tunnel when the floor collapsed under his feet.

Thanks to his Olympic level Agility and Dexterity, Prof was able to jump at the last minute and land on the other side of the revealed pit. He didn't expect traps. He also took a quick look at his character parchment, but the number 29% next to his [Traps] Skill didn’t fill him with much confidence. For now, and for the next few levels, he could only hope that his reflexes were fast enough to avoid the effects of the traps, or at worst survive the trap. Or find someone with a fairly high level of Skill later.

Barely ten meters later, he reached the first room - without setting another trap off. The room, or rather a chamber, was maybe five meters in diameter and more or less circular, with some drying out ferns on the ground. The latter was written off by Prof as dungeon-logic, after all life expectancy of plants in a closed cave converged strongly towards zero. With the exception of the ferns, the room looked empty, but as soon as Prof took a step inward, half a dozen rabbit-like little creatures sprung from among the ferns or from behind rocks and charged.

Rabbit-like, except for bone spikes growing out of their foreheads. Prof was sure he had never heard of such a creature, yet he still knew they were called Stick-in-rabbits, and a good enough alchemist could extract a potent aphrodisiac from the bone spike. Where he knew that from, he had no idea, probably one of his Skills was in play – [Monsterology] perhaps?

He threw his torch at one for a beginning (of course he missed, he had only 64% in [Throwing]), and then he started dismembering the innocent little bunnies with his two axes. Because they were lightning fast and, as the example of the village rats had shown, a normal hit was enough for rodents of this size, he didn’t even attempt to go for critical hits. Fortunately, after the first surprise attack, which would have caused painful problems for a less agile person, the rabbits did not cause any serious problems afterwards.

Prof's armor was good enough to ward off damage from the few successful hits. The rabbits were nimble, but one hit was almost always enough to kill them, so Prof finished the last one after only a few minutes. After a thinking a bit, he only cut off the bone spikes, leaving the meat and fur, largely because he wasn’t sure if the rabbits were edible or when he would get to a place where he do something with the furs. Eventually he went back to the entrance and took his empty sack – it took up little space empty, and there were probably no heavy things to haul around in the dungeon. Finally he didn't feel like crawling through the dungeon again just to pick up the loot. Since there was nothing interesting left in the room, he went down the only possible corridor.

The next room was slightly larger than the first, and this time the ground was covered with a significant amount of fern and moss, mushrooms settled here and there on the walls, and in the center of the room a huge, dog-sized rat rested on a block of rock. Prof did not hesitate, leaving the torch at the entrance and immediately launched an attack: he took a few long steps to the rat and slammed down with both axes.

That was the plan.

In reality there was another pit between the ferns, and though Prof managed to not fall into it or break his leg, he rolled through the vegetation with a desperate jump, and even lost his left-handed axe. As he got up, he began to feel dizzy as if had a long night drinking massively. The giant rat, of course, disappeared from the rock. Prof tried to concentrate and slowly turned around, looking for the rat. He almost vomited from that move.

The search ended with the rat biting into his right leg from behind. Prof spun around and struck back, holding back the vomit. Unfortunately, the rat was located half a meter away from where Prof thought it were. Prof chased him with while swaying wildly, but the pest escaped the hits again and again. In the end, Prof could no longer hold back, and without caring about the nimble little bastard, he vacated his breakfast from his stomach.

The rat, of course, wasn’t a gentleman, and in place of holding his hair back it began to munch on Prof's legs. Prof through about what a ridiculous death awaited him: while he puked out his soul, a dog-sized rat devoured him from his ankle. At least he survived the rabbits, they would have laughed at him for centuries in the Office of the Afterlife. Eventually, he managed to gather himself together so much that he was able to launch another attack on the rat who was having a breakfast of his leg.

He himself was surprised when he hit. Not only a hit, but with one blow he cut off the rat's right front leg! The now three-legged rat did not wait for invitation, it wanted to fall on him again, and Prof preferred to stay on his knees. He used his left vambrace instead of dodging, and the rat dutifully bit down on it. Prof grinned as he smashed his nemesis into pulp, and after standing up, he even kicked the remains thoroughly. After another period on his knees, he searched for his other axe and randomly staggered out of one of the tunnels opening from the room. It was out of the question to spend another second in the Hall of Poisonous Moss.