The Thirteenth Floor of Fenrir’s Dungeon

After Elois removes the barrier, the team begins to head down the dark tunnel while attentively watching for traps. But even after traveling through the catacombs tunnels for ten whole minutes, they don’t find a single trap.

“Is the dungeon just going easy on us or something?” Victor Umbra mutters, the Dark Elf scout being the one in charge of searching for traps. “What dungeon floor doesn’t have traps?”

The others’ frowns grow wider at this as they continue down with the Orc twins – Gorek and Cruz Hartfell – standing at their front and their rear.

Nearly an hour passes with only half a dozen different monsters, most of which being the same serpents as the first one that they had run into. And by this point, all six of the party members have relaxed a little. Enough to talk more casually.

“Why do you think the dungeon moved its next floor to the void?” the party’s Human healer – Zander Falk – asks while healing a small wound that the group’s mage had gotten from one of the serpents. “Because it sort of felt a little random, just being in the middle of a five-floor branch.”

The others all nod their heads as they continue through the hall.

“You’re right there,” Artorius says with a glance at the mage. “It had to have some sort of reason, considering how intelligent this dungeon is compared to the norm.”

Both of the Orc twins grunt at that, not saying anything. Meanwhile Elois just hums in response.

“It’s possible the dungeon ran into something that stopped it from expanding on Midgard,” Victor throws out as an answer, but right as he’s about to expand on that, he stretches his arm out and narrows his eyes while shouting, “Stop!”

Everyone immediately stops moving.

The Dark Elf bends down to the ground slowly before trying to grab a handful of the dirt that the tunnel is made out of, only for his hand to fail to penetrate the dirt, making a confused expression appear on his face. But he puts that to the back of his mind and instead reaches for a knife with a grimace.

Under the eyes of the six party members, he tosses his knife at a point a few meters in front of him, a little off the tunnel’s center, and the moment it hits the ground, a large black bubble suddenly engulfs half of the tunnel at that spot in a one and a half meter diameter sphere, eating up a large portion of the tunnel floor in the process. The party members feel a shiver run down their spine as they stare at the hole in the tunnel floor, only for their stupor to be broken when the floor automatically begins to repair itself.

“So there are traps after all,” Victor mutters, to which all of the others silently nod their heads while sending appreciative glances towards him for noticing the trap despite thinking that there weren’t any.

A few more seconds pass before he kneels down again and touches the ground.

“Something wrong?” Artorius asks with a frown, ready to begin moving again.

Victor tries to poke at the dirt as he answers, “This dirt isn’t normal.”

The party leader frowns at that and draws his sword before slashing it at the ground, just for it to absorb most of the attack, only letting the blade pierce an inch into the soil. This surprises all of the party members for a second, following which they all begin testing the dirt as well.

“Some sort of void dirt?” Artorius mutters after a few seconds before glancing at Victor, who is the smartest member of their party in regards to book smarts.

Victor doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, making the others believe that he’s busy thinking, only to shake his head and stand up as he says, “I don’t know anything about resources in the void. It’s possible, but I’m not sure.” He then turns to look at the party leader and adds, “Unfortunately for us, information about the void isn’t very easy to find.”

Artorius frowns at that before scratching his chin.

Each member of the party look at the dirt beneath their feet for a few seconds, only to end up looking up again as another void serpent speeds down the tunnel towards them.

“Get ready,” Artorius says while raising his sword.

Fenrir

“Huh,” Dawn mutters while staring at the intruders, “the intruders seem to know more about the void than I’d expected.”

I look at her for a second before focusing on them again as she continues speaking, “Most intruders wouldn’t even know that the void exists. Only the higher ups of some of the more powerful nations should know.”

Interesting.

“Does that mean that these people are more important than they seem?” I ask her out of curiosity without taking my focus off of them.

“They’d have to be to know what they do,” she says before floating up off of my core and adding, “although they also don’t seem to know enough to actually be royals. So they might just be some court officials, or just higher nobles.”

Very interesting. But at the same time not, considering how many royals and nobles I already have crawling around in my dungeon on a regular basis.

Just that these are the first ones with any clue as to what the void is.

I do wonder what the people above will do now that my element is known though. Because that might be interesting to see.

Also, their reaction to the void worm’s dirt is quite interesting, and it makes me wonder what they’d do if they knew just what it was.

After the intruders finish off the void serpent, they continue walking through the catacombs for a bit, occasionally running into more void serpents and the occasional void eel – I didn’t put any sernines on this floor to make things a bit easier on them – until they eventually make it to the entrance to the mini boss room. And the second then enter the ring-shaped tunnel, it closes off the entrance behind them with a slab that falls down from the ceiling.

“Looks like it’s time to see what my new mini boss can do,” I mutter out loud with a hint of excitement.