Chapter 05 – First Floor (2/2)

At rank one it was only able to produce a few drops of a weak acid per second, but at rank two it got upgraded to being able to make a baseball-sized blob of acid of moderate strength at a time. I could even manipulate the effects to a certain degree, so if I maxed out the strength and viscosity, I effectively got an acid strong enough to be extremely painful if I hit a weak point, while thick enough for me to throw before it dripped through my fingers. [Acid Resistance] also prevented me from taking damage from my own attack, and when I drank a monster's blood I recovered all my spent MP, making it a quite useful distraction.

I couldn't wait until my acids got strong enough to do serious damage on their own.

From the goblins, I got the new skills [Axe Technique] as well as [Sword Technique]. Those two, along with [Spear Technique] all went up to rank two as well. While rank one only had a small about of benefits, rank two's were pretty noticeable. Despite never having fought anything in my previous life, I could see a tangible amount of skill and ability that went into each of my strikes. It was as if I was an experienced veteran or something.

[Blood Sucking] was such a powerful skill. By the way, it also rose to rank two, though most likely because I used it so much. Nothing else could've given me even a single point towards it after all.

As a side note, [Breeder] had also risen in rank, though I didn't want it to. I wanted that skill to go away, even if it had no effect on my body.

In addition to all the monsters I had killed, eaten, and looted, there were two more things of note. The first was that there were traps.

Most likely because it was the first floor, the traps were generally weak, though they did have the potential to be deadly, as they were often near where I found monsters.

The most common trap I found was a simple foot trap. It was similar to a bear trap, but made with flexible branches and ivy. They simply immobilized me when I accidentally stepped on one, but the sound of them snapping shut often drew attention to nearby monsters, and I had to deal with both at the same time.

It is against my beliefs to mention how my of them I found by stepping on one.

The next common were just a wide pool of thick mud on the ground. Sometimes they were hidden with fallen grass, but they were always pretty obvious. I examined the first one I found a bit closely, but it looked like if you stepped in it, the heavy mud would impede your ability to pull your feet out, making it extremely difficult to move around. It was pretty nasty when it came to traps to deal with while fighting. But maybe because of that, they were the single easiest to avoid, even if they were big.

Lastly, the hardest to find was also the most troublesome. They were basically a miniature pit. They weren't very deep, and only big enough for a single foot to step through. Even if they were deeper, you would only get a single leg stuck due to their small size. But even then, they were only about as deep as a single step on a staircase. What made them nasty was that because the grass still grew from inside, all you could see was a slightly darker spot where the artificial sunlight didn't reach as far down. And hidden inside was a single thin spike that would stab into your foot.

The few times I got caught in one were extremely painful, and fighting with an injured foot was tough. It really made me wish I had construction boots or something. I doubted that those spikes could go through those thick soles.

Fortunately, since I was a vampire, once I got past any ensuing fight, all I had to do was have a meal and my foot was healed. I pitied any normal person who would've had to walk around with a hole in their foot until it healed normally.

Onto the next bit, I also found treasure chests here and there.

The first one I found was suspicious as all hell, and gave me flashbacks to the mimics that would kill me in a certain dark fantasy action game. But no matter how much I examined it, there didn't seem to be any problems, so I warily opened it using the end of a spear.

The wooden chest opened without any fanfare, and when I looked inside, there was a pair of leather pants inside!

I was so happy I actually cried. My first real piece of clothes!

I removed the bikini bottom and put the pants on. They were a bit tight, but fit as if they were made for me. It was especially strange feeling it so snug against my crotch, but the pants wouldn't fit any other way.

It didn't come with a belt, but I figured if I didn't find one soon, I could always just make one from all the leather I had acquired.

There were other chests I found along the way, but they either had metal coins in them or small glass bottles with various liquids inside. Most were a clear blue, but some were different. My experience with the goblin drop was fresh in my mind, so while I took them all, I didn't check their contents.

I didn't know how long it had been, but I found myself in a large, cleared area. It was circular and the place didn't open up into anywhere, but had plenty of space. The middle was barren without any grass, like it was made with a specific purpose in mind. A campfire came to mind, but it felt a bit weird to think that such a consideration would've been made on purpose.

There were many other side clearings along the way as well, but none were as big as this one. A glance made me think that it was about as big as the fountain room I started off in, but it wasn't like I had a measuring tape to confirm it.

The main reason why I even considered spending any time here though, was that just past this 'room' was a chest-high wooden door, and behind it was a staircase cut into the dirt. I couldn't see where the staircase led to since it slowly curved to the left, but a few dozen meters away, I could see a space that was cut away from the plains. It looked like a large, circular area of the plains were simply cut out and stopped existing. It was deep enough that I couldn't see the bottom from where I was standing, but it was most likely the goal of this dungeon floor.

If that was the case, then it was obvious that there was a boss in wait over there.

Once that realization came to mind, I started to debate the merits of facing off against the boss on the spot.

The first consideration was my stuff. I had basically everything I owned on me, though it was also all stuff I had gotten since I first found this dungeon. I obviously couldn't fight while carrying it, not something as strong as a boss. My choices were leave it here so it didn't hinder my boss fight, or take it with me and drop it at the beginning of the fight, and hope it didn't get in the way.

I was pretty worried that anything I left without supervision might disappear, and it would suck if I beat the boss only to find out that my stuff was gone. Dungeons in fantasy stories often had cleanup systems in place, and I didn't know what sort this one had, presuming it had one.

That meant that I pretty much had to take my stuff with me to the fight, in case it's taken away or eaten by something behind my back.

The second consideration was my equipment. In terms of weapons, I had plenty, though most of it was of low quality. Thanks to all the animal hides I had gotten, it became easy to carry spare weapons. I had started to carry several spares tied together by a pelt. Pulling one out in the middle of a fight was dangerous, but it worked great for when I was forced to fight without replenishing my weapons several encounters in a row.

But aside from my claws and fangs, my weapons were the worst. They were good enough for the random mobs that wandered the floor, but I was hesitant to imagine that they were enough against a boss. Since they were simply goblin loot, they rarely lasted more than two or three attacks, so it was easy to imagine even if I was able to continue to retrieve all my weapons as they broke, I might still be forced to fight with nothing but my [Natural Weapons] in the end. It wasn't a pleasant thought against something that could possibly be faster and bigger than me.

When it came to defence, I was stuck with nothing but my leather pants, and I wasn't sure if it would count as actual armour. Since I didn't have any real clothes aside from it, I was also hesitant to actually test it's capabilities. Generally speaking, it was probably better to presume that I had no defensive equipment.

Finally was my own strength. Unfortunately I had no way to really know on this front. What was the typical strength increase for bosses in this world? What was the typical amount of leeway needed for the fight to be considered 'safe'? My level had risen to 5 during my fighting on this floor, and was getting close to 6. Was that good, or was it bad? I had no idea. I was basically curb stomping all the monsters at this point, but if I was supposed to be doing that at the beginning, and then get strong enough to basically walk through everything before facing the boss as a real challenge, then I was still far from strong enough.

I really wished I had access to a wiki or a forum.

<Hey, I'm a level 5 vampire with virtually no equipment. Is that strong enough to take on a first floor dungeon boss?>

The thought made me realize just how much I used to rely on such a thing when the stakes had gotten pretty high. I often paused games I played to look up boss fights if I thought that I'd lose more progress than I wanted to risk if I died against it. Well, it was pretty rare for me to actually lose against a boss when I thought that the stakes were that high though.

But this was real life, not some game. If I lost against the boss, then that was it. No continues, no nothing. I'd be sent back to that white place, and I'd lose everything.

That sombre thought made me realize it just wasn't worth the risk. It wasn't like I was in a hurry. Enjoying my life was my top priority, and fighting these mobs was getting pretty fun. If the treasure chests respawned, then I could wait until I got some more equipment. I could also make some basic stuff with all the leather I had acquired as well. It would be nice to be wearing a full set of clothes when the boss fight happened. I couldn't do much about the quality of my weapons, but I could at least learn to use my claws better first.

I took a second look at the gates that barred me from the boss fight, and turned away.

Since I was only going back, it didn't take nearly as long as it did to get to the boss room. A few time I took a wrong turn, but for the most part my memory didn't fail me.

I didn't have to fight any monsters until about a third of the way back. It seemed like it took a bit of time for them to respawn.

The ones I did fight didn't pose too much of a problem. Any damage I did take was quickly healed with a simple blood snack. I also got a bit more loot thanks to that. I checked a few spots where I found treasure chests, but they had despawned and the rooms were still empty.

Maybe chests appeared randomly? I needed to do more exploration in the future.

When I got back home, I dropped everything near the back entrance and stripped down before jumping into the fountain to wash myself.

No matter how strong my blood thirst was, I was still able to resist licking off any blood that had splattered onto my body or spilt onto the ground. I didn't know if it was my personal revulsion that made it possible, or that my blood thirst mostly just aimed me towards drinking directly from a body.

It was nice to get clean, though I was starting to wish I had access to soap. I think it was made from lye and oils? Lye came from wood ash, so I could just burn down a tree to get that, but the oils were a problem. Animal fats worked, but the monsters I fought didn't drop any and looked pretty lean. Or rather, they were pretty scraggly. Maybe I could find something better on a lower floor, but taking weeks or even months of exploring to find a good source of oil wasn't very appealing.

I might be able to get enough by just scraping little bits here and there instead. But to do that, I also needed a container. A jar of some sort at the very least. I might be able to make one if I could find clay. Maybe I could find some if I dug into the dirt in the dungeon?

All sorts of ideas started to form as I bathed. Things I wanted, things I needed, stuff I wanted to do. Ideas kept popping into my mind one after another. Most of it ended up becoming quality of life items like proper clothes, cleaning equipment, furniture, etc.

As I relaxed in the water, I noticed that it wasn't as cloudy as it was when I last left the room. The bottom of the fountain didn't have any residue either, so it was pretty clear that the fountain did renew it's water. I was glad it meant that dirtying the water wouldn't come to bite me in the ass in the future.

Once I felt satisfied, I wiped myself down the best I could with my hands and wrung out my hair as I got out of the fountain. Towels and a hair dryer were pretty high on my list of wants as well. My hair especially was difficult to deal with, being so long. I had never had such long hair before so I kept forgetting about it, but when I did remember, I constantly worried about it getting caught in practically everything.

I thought that women looked better with long hair, but actually having long hair was such a hassle. I was tempted to cut it with my claws, but I was also pretty hesitant about it. I could cut it on my own, but there was no way it would look good, and if I met people with hair that looked like was cut by a lawn mower would leave a much worse impression than simply excessively long hair. In the end, the fact that I could just deal with it when it became intolerable stayed my hand.

When I got as dry as I could manage, I went back to the dungeon and harvested some of the tall grass that made the outer boundary. The grass was pretty strong, but was a cinch to cut with my claws. I cut them to a reasonable length, then took another batch and used them to tie the first set together as if it was string. What resulted in was a crude straw broom head. I had spears I could use as a shaft, but I figured that the broom head was too low quality to work out that well.

Now that my tool was ready, moved all my stuff and put them on the fountain lip then splashed a bunch of water around the ground, then used my impromptu broom to sweep the ground of dirt and dust. Any time I did anything in this room my feet quickly got covered in dirt, and I was sick of it. Taking time to wash my entire body, only for my feet to get dirty the instant I took a step out annoyed me. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had shoes, but I didn't.

I really wished I had a deck brush or something, as the grass broom did a rather poor job of pushing around the water and dirt, but it did get the job done eventually, even if it left broken pieces of grass all around. The dirty water was pushed out of the room and into the dungeon floor to be soaked up by the soft ground over there.

But the floor was still pretty wet and wasn't clean enough for me, so I grabbed one of my rabbit pelts from one of my bags and used it like a rag to wipe up the excess water and remaining dirt, as well as my broom's leavings. I left the dirty pelt outside in the dungeon when I was done with it. I had plenty and it was easy to get more, so one wouldn't go missing for me.

Now that my home had reached the bare minimum of cleanliness, I put my clothes back on, untied my bags and spread out my loot. The first thing I did was take all weapons and lined them out across a section of wall. I had managed to bring back three spears, four axes, and four swords, all of goblin make. Or rather, since they appeared in the dungeon, perhaps they spawned with the goblins?

Next, I spread out the rabbit pelts across the floor. I had twelve, and all together they made a nice, soft carpet, though since they weren't connected, they easily separated and made gaps as I moved on top of them. Sewing them together was a priority once I finished organizing my things.

After that, I lay the wolf hides in a pile. There were nine of them. I had more than enough to make a full set of clothes, though it presumed that I didn't end up wasting most of them. I had never made my own clothes before, so there was going to be a lot of trial and error involved. At least it was easy for me to get more if I kept failing, so there wasn't much pressure involved.

I took one hide and spread it across the floor. On top, I placed all the rest of my loot. There were the slime jars, mint leaves, wolf fangs and little bottles I found in the various treasure chests. I had eighteen jars of jelly, five minty leaves, twelve sets of fangs and five bottles of variously coloured mystery liquids. I took one of the larger wolf fangs, then put the whole set along with the hide to the side by a wall. There wasn't really much for me to do with any of that for now.

The fang I cut down using my claws into roughly the shape of a curved needle. It was hard, delicate work. While my claw cut through the fang reasonably well, it was small, so I kept dropping it or poking my fingers.

The end result, I could barely call it usable. It still had the same basic curvature to avoid making it too weak, but was as thin as I could make it. I had added a hole to pass thread through, but now I was lacking in that very thread to use.

Well, it wasn't like I hadn't planned for that. I had a whole pile of wolf leather. I had already decided how to get my thread.

I took one of the hides and spread it across an empty section of the floor, then while pinning it in place the best I could, I dragged one claw along the edge, following the curvature of the hide as close as I could. I repeated this over and over until a third of the hide was cut down into strips. If I needed more, I could just work on it again later on.

Next up, I took three hides and lined them side by side, overlapping so that there weren't any gaps to make one large, wide sheet. I grabbed my wolf fang needle and a strip of leather, passed the leather through the hole and started to sew leather together...or tried to. The very act of trying to get the needle through the hide was a lot harder than I imagined, and the needle slipped through my fingers twice before I just gave up in frustration.

I knew leather clothes were held together either with glue or stitches. I didn't have any glue nor any idea how to make it, so I went with stitches, but there was no way it could be this hard, or else it wouldn't be used everywhere. At least I thought so.

After thinking about it for a minute, I tried something different. If my needle couldn't easily pass through the leather on it's own, then I just needed to give it an easy path to follow. I used a claw to poke holes through the leather, making a simple crisscross pattern. Then I tied the end of the leather cord and passed the needle through the slits. This time not requiring any pressure at all. The cord wasn't long enough, so I tied the end off then continued with the next strip.

The process ended up not taking long at all, and all three hides became one large piece in no time. I removed any extraneous pieces of leather and squared off the outer edge before I admired my work. It was extremely rough and amateurish, but I was happy with my progress.

Next, I lay on the giant sheet and after finding myself a good position, I pulled the ends over my body and wrapped myself up. From there, I poked a hole in the leather roughly where my shoulders were. I unwrapped myself and found the two slits my claws made, then opened holes centred around them big enough for my arms to easily fit through.

Once done, I got up, picked the leather sheet up and put my arms through the holes before wrapping the whole thing around me again. I felt like an oversized burrito, but this was a necessary step. As straight as I could, I cut the leather at the height of my neck and removed the excess. Now I could see, but the sheet was digging into my shoulders. I removed the sheet and cut up the scrap, and sewed them to the top of the material before trying it out again. The new pieces became the upper shoulders, but I had to fix and redo them twice before it became remotely comfortable.

I cut away the excess on the front as well so that I didn't have a massive amount of spare leather flapping around. Originally, I planned it to simply meet at the middle, but then I realized I had no idea how to make or get a zipper, so I ended up letting the front flap reach the other arm in preparation to be held in place with buttons or something.

Next, I cut up more leather to be a bit longer than my arms and sew them into a pair of tubes, which I attached to the arm holes.

Finally, I adjusted the front and added a row of loops and wolf fangs in place of buttons to hold everything together.

Now that I was done, I tried my new coat out!

Giddy with excitement, I plunged my arms through the sleeves and buttoned the front together.

Overall, it was heavy and stiff, though not as bad as it could be. The leather itself was soft and flexible. It would probably soften up even more as I wore it.

I grabbed one of my spears and went out to the dungeon to try my new coat out.

...

I came back, but was no longer wearing my new coat.

Fundamentally it worked and did a great job of covering my body...but the weight and stiffness worked against me much more than I expected.

It wasn't like I couldn't fight with it on. I was already strong enough that the coat didn't hamper my movements to the degree that it could cause problems there, but despite that, it caused problems somewhere else entirely, which entirely prevented it's use.

The coat would move as one object along my skin whenever I moved around. My shoulders and back felt raw after only fighting a few monsters, but that wasn't nearly as bad as the soreness of my chest. If I didn't eat to heal up and remove my coat, I would've still been bleeding from the way my coat rubbed against my chest. The skin only broke a little, but the memory of the pain involuntarily surfaced when I looked at the coat.

I threw it against a wall and slumped beside the fountain as tears leaked, both from the memory of the pain and all the time I had wasted.

The coat might still be usable if I could layer the inside with something much softer, but until I found such a thing, it was a piece of trash, only good as a reminder of my failure.

After a few minutes of self pity, I took a strip of leather and cut it up and laced some leather cordage through the front to secure it. I put it around my body and fastened the new strip. In only a couple of minutes, I had made a chest wrap.

I tried some simple exercises in my room, and it proved to be quite effective. It was tight feeling, but that was exactly what I needed. My breasts had no space to move, and I was covered properly. At least better than that bikini.

The realization that this was all I needed made me go back into the corner and cry about the waste of time I had created.

Once I recovered, I went to do some more work before I headed back to my backyard, I mean the dungeon.

I took a few more wolf pelts and worked them to create a large backpack. It was modelled after those big hiking backpacks I saw people wear sometimes, and had a couple of big pouches to hold small items like the gems and small bottles. It also had a large waist-band to increase it's security and an additional band just below my breasts to hold the shoulder straps together while I fought.

<You have gained the [Leatherworking I] skill!>

An announcement resounded in my head. The fact that it did happen made me feel a bit better regarding all the work that went into my failed coat.

To celebrate the occasion, and also because I forgot, I made myself a simple belt and looped it onto my pants. I wished I had a belt buckle, but since I didn't, I was forced to simply go with a simple knot. It wasn't too secure, but it felt better to have it than not. As an added bonus, I could hang stuff off of it if I ever felt the need.

As a final project, I cut a rectangular length of leather and used it to securely wrap my character sheet, then made a cord to tie it off tightly. Now I was reasonably sure that it would be safe as long as it didn't get wet.

I grabbed all the scrap leather and threw them into the dungeon to be consumed. I confirmed that everything else I threw out that way before had already gone, so I was sure my guess was right, that anything left alone in the dungeon would disappear after a while.

With everything done, I grabbed my weapons and went back to do some level grinding in the dungeon.