《Skelly Boy》Chapter 9 : E+ Tier Dungeon
Advertisement
This is an E+ Tier Dungeon. Do you wish to continue?
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Both Greg and Matt look at each other as they realize the System spoke to them both. With a shrug, Matt steps forward, but Greg has an idea.
“What are you—”
But Greg doesn’t hear him. The skeleton warrior makes a b-line toward the orc corpse which has been desecrated by the emergence of two skeleton warriors. He rummages through the remains until he pulls out a surprisingly intact Orc skull. Matt watches as Greg stares at his grizzly finding a little too intently before the skeleton rotates the oversized brain casing in his undead fingers a few times before coming to some kind of conclusion.
With a smile, Greg puts on the orc skull and proceeds to knock on the side of the bone-white mantle.
“Helmet."
And then proceeds to do more rummaging.
*****
Ten minutes later, Greg manages to scavenge an Orc Bone Helmet, Scout Slingshot, and the Orc’s leather armor. Matt has gone from mortified to amused as the skeleton walks up to the dungeon entrance with an oversized satchel, a basic shield strapped to his back, and of course, the face of an angry orc warrior.
“You done?”
Greg smiles at Matt, which is a few points creepier than usual, considering it’s between two massive tusks-
“Waste not—”
“Want not.” Mat finishes.
Greg nods and walks into the dungeon entrance.
*****
A dungeon is a hole in reality. A sentient entity that uses the material around it to build and form complex organisms to aid in its growth. As the dungeon grows, so does the complexity of the creatures that reside in it. At first, they are merely mutated and warped versions of local fauna and flora, but eventually they can resemble monstered spewed from the bowels of hell itself. Though most dungeons are destroyed long before they reach that point.
Most
But for now, Greg and Matt don’t have to worry about that as they travel deep into the long dirt tunnels that make up the dungeon’s interior. Matt is flanked by his two skeleton warriors, their minds solely dedicated to keeping their masters alive, while Greg takes point, small rocks in one hand, sling in the other. This skeleton warrior has spent several minutes trying to throw a rock in a straight line unsuccessfully.
Advertisement
“Why can’t I throw this!?”
“You are.”
“I mean straight!”
Matt shrugs. “You don’t have a skill.”
“I need a skill to use a sling!?”
Matt shakes his head, trying not to laugh, “No, you need a skill to use a sling properly.”
Greg grunts in frustration, “Can’t I just practice?”
“Yes.”
“So, how long will that take?”
“I don’t know, never tried to use a sling… besides, why don’t you know about the System?”
Greg looks at Matt with a tinge of confusion before context clues put it together. “You mean levels and shit?”
“Yeah, levels and shit.”
Greg shrugs his shoulders and puts away the sling and rock for his short sword, “Humans from Earth don’t have magic powers. And if they hear voices in their head, they’re taken to a mental asylum before they shoot up a school.”
Matt looks at Greg carefully while considering his next words even more carefully. As far as Matt knows, he too is a human from Earth, but now Matt is confronted with a new idea. He remembers when Greg threatened to kill him when Matt refused to send him back… to Earth. A lightbulb goes off in Matt’s brain; a boy who grew up in a medieval world where magic is natural and traversing dungeons for loot and to curb the monster population is second nature is now faced with the concept of the multiverse even though he can’t fathom those exact words.
“So you’re from a world without magic?”
“Yeah.”
“And I brought you here somehow?”
Greg turns to look Matt in the eyes with all the menace you can muster with glowing eyes illuminating the inside of an orc skull. “It’s best not to remind me of that.”
Matt raises his hands up in his defense. “I said somehow! That means I didn’t do it on purpose!”
Greg considers Matt’s words and weighs them against his bouts of reasonable anger, and suddenly gets deflated. “Your right.”
Advertisement
“What?”
“I can’t hold this”—Greg waves his hands over himself—“against you…”
“Well…” Matt tries to think of words that fit the situation. “I can’t blame you… I would be pissed too.”
Understanding passes between the two of them in a moment of mutual respect before they shrug their shoulders and continue down the dirt tunnel.
After a while, Matt finds it odd that they’ve encountered no resistance after what should feel like a mile or two of walking. In his mind, even a low-level dungeon should be crowded with danger as the dungeon core sends wave after wave of enemies like an immune system response to invading parasites. But the orcs did spend time down here, he reasons, and they may have cleared up a lot of enemies as they explored downward.
Good thing orcs are too stupid to grab the dungeon core, Matt thinks. But something still feels off.
Something is indeed off, but it’s beyond the necromancer’s current skills to tell. However, they do come across a pile of disturbed dirt with broken eggshells, a sight that instantly draws the curiosity of Greg, who crouches over them.
“What's are these?”
Matt looks over the skelly’s shoulder and sees the rainbow-colored eggshells that appear to have a coating of white slime. His mind thumbs over his internal monster gallery but seems to draw a blank. The shell remains are small but have a thick interior, and the rainbow coloring and exotic patterns don’t remind him of anything he knows that lays eggs. Still, something told him not to touch the slime as a precaution, and a part of him listened to that voice.
“Don’t know, but I wouldn’t touch it.”
Greg leans in for a closer examination. “You think the orcs ate these?”
“Orcs eat anything.”
With a shrug, Greg concludes his investigation and wonders if more strange fantasy shit will happen soon as they wander deeper inside the dungeon. So far, Greg hasn’t been too impressed with the fantasy part of this fantasy world. Everything seems so bog-standard, as if he’s playing an early JRPG from the Super Nintendo era. Granted, that is his favorite era of RPGs with games like Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest 5, but those games are masterpieces, while this cave in the middle of nowhere feels like a low-quality rip-off from RPG Maker 2000.
At least that’s what Greg is thinking. Outwardly, he marches forward with a smile and a hum, taking in the atmosphere and feigning alertness. Only when the path diverges does he stop.
“Right, left, or center, huh?” Greg points out, though something about the multiple-choice unnerves him.
Matt walks up and stops short of the entrance. He presses his ear against the dirt walls and listens. Then he grabs a rock from Greg’s sling bag and tosses one in each opening. Nothing appears to happen, so Matt steps back and points to the right and center entrances. With a mental push, Matt sends his skeleton warriors into each entrance. And then waits.
For a few minutes, nothing happens until—
Skeleton Warrior has received Severe Blunt Force Trauma
Skeleton Warrior has been destroyed.
Matt grimaces as the center entrance starts to collapse.
“Is that normal?”
Matt shrugs. “Could have triggered a trap that collapsed the roof.”
Matt points to where the skeleton that went right is still walking, “We’re going that way.”
“Why not go left?
Matt does an exaggerated bow meant to usher Greg to the left entrance. “After you.”
Greg looks at the grinning necromancer and then toward the left side, which looks more ominous now next to the literal mound of dirt where there was a path before…
“Fuck you.”
And the necromancer laughs.
Advertisement
- In Serial122 Chapters
The Other World Dining Hall (WN)
There is a certain restaurant in the first basement level of a multi-tenant building in one corner of a shopping street near the office district. The historical 70-year-old restaurant, marked by a sign with a picture of a cat, is called “Western Cuisine Nekoya.” This restaurant looks completely normal through the week, but on Saturdays, it opens in secret exclusively to some very unique guests. During these hours, doors in various areas of a parallel world open to allow customers of many different races and cultures into the restaurant. This “Restaurant to Another World” and its food hold an exotic charm to these highly diverse customers. This is a story of the heartwarming, once-in-a-lifetime encounters between our reality and another world, between the restaurant’s customers and its owner, and the food shared among them all.
8 826 - In Serial9 Chapters
Tom Is Chill
An eye for an eye may make the whole world go blind but at least that f***er can't see either. The early bird gets the worm but I go to the grocery store so screw you. Technically humans don't need to breathe. If no one had any more children everyone would be dead in the next one hundred fifty years probably. Does this count as a synopsis? No? Okay. Tom murders a bunch of dudes. *Tom Dies*. Tom is reborn. Tom doesn't want to be reborn but no one really cares. Tom is born in a new world. He didn't really have to be though. Cause his old world had magic and all. I don't want to give anything away. I swear this fiction is more serious than I am I just find it hard to write a synopsis. Maybe I should write something like this. "Follow Earnheart Super Maximus on his gender-bender super adventures that are exciting and often humorous as he gathers a bunch of chicks for literally no reason." I mean that's what everyone else does and it seems to work.
8 91 - In Serial25 Chapters
Genesis
Taryn is a mutant in a world where mutants are considered no more than monsters in human skin. The descendants of the gods rule as mortal Kings and the entire world waits for their fates to be decided in the prophesied battle between the Last Lothor King and the mutants’ Dark Prince. But Taryn believes this is all fantasy, born from legends and myth. There are no gods; only mutants who don’t know how to use their abilities, and middlings who are too afraid to even think that they should learn. Taryn is determined to change that.Her plan is a simple one: win the King to her cause and the faiths of the masses will compel them to follow. It should have been an easy enough task; the King doesn’t seem to believe in the prophecies any more than she does. But soon the ambitions of a criminal empire, the plots of warmongering officials and the looming threat of a violent faith movement begin to erode their fragile relationship and derail her plans.Can the two of them reconcile in time to prevent a civil war or will their inability to work together bring about the very thing they’ve fought so hard to avoid?
8 292 - In Serial9 Chapters
Yggdrasil Story - Double language version (Thai - Eng) ไทย-อังกฤษ For learners of Thai language
Six-years-war has ended, by the strength of only one man. Everyone calls him "Swordmaster". Unfortunately, this is not the story of such time of glory, bloodshed and.....Ruby, interrupting: Sola, why don't you just tell them that this is the story of a man in a harem full of beautiful flower girls.Almond: Could you not disturb her? This is the most important part of our story, and it could decide the future of us all.Ruby: And I want to ask you why the novel cover doesn't have me on it? Since I'm the main heroine and all.Sola: I am so fed up with pen tool.. uh... better not talk about it. So, we used a photo of flowers instead, and I think you are not the main heroine.Almond: It's a budget cost too. Those artists charge us over US$200. We are broke. Plain and simple.Ruby: That's really expensive, huh.Sola: Could you girls stop talking? So, I can continue with the synopsis....Ruby: I don't understand why this is so important.Sola: Ruby, listen. If we don't have a good synopsis, people will not buy our book, and then.....Iris: Then what? I want to know it too.Sola: Then there will be no book 2.Iris: No book 2, so what? Why should I care?Sola: Our universe will collapse, and we will disappear forever..Iris: What did you say?Almond: Well, too late now. You talked too much. We have run out of writing space...Ruby: What!!!!!NO!!! I don't want to DIE!!!!You do something sis!!! I should have done that human thing with our lord when I still had a chance. Noooooooo......Iris: Buy it now. People!! Yes, I mean, you!! YES! YOU!!! BUUUUUUUUUYYYYYYYYYY....Iris is shouting as loud as if this is the last moment of her life, but no one listens.
8 163 - In Serial12 Chapters
Spirit Mage
A teenager dies due to an accident after leaving his school for summer break. Then certain God has given him a second chance to once again live as a human in another world where magic and sword is a normal thing. Follow his journey as he traveling the world and solve the mysteries in that world.
8 207 - In Serial6 Chapters
I'm not a Phenex,not anymore
highschool dxd x male reader. you're a pure blood devil (or maybe not? ;) ),you're a part of Phenex's family and a big brother to Ravel and a little brother to Riser. You hate your family because they treated you like shit and abused you since you were little. Yubelluna,Riser's queen,is the only who cares about you and you also see her as a mother figure. But one day your father and brother took it too far and you decide to find another place to live in(I don't own Highschool dxd or its characters,obviously)
8 192