Chapter 11 – Stalled Progression and Fluff (1/2)

A large obsidian object slammed down onto the ground where I was just at with enough force to crater the hard stone floors and send shock waves through the ground.

A single hit could probably turn me into paste, but I wasn't concerned. What concerned me was that as I slashed at the massive collection of shiny spheres that vaguely resembled a person's body, my claws only made superficial scratches.

I hadn't encountered something this hard before, and frankly, it was frustrating.

This was my fourth attempt at this monster. It was the first one of the 87th floor, and while I had defeated it three times now, the fights had taken much too long and costed me too much MP to continue trying to conquer the floor.

After each attempt, I went back to lower floors and farmed up more skills, raised my level, and came up with new strategies.

I had tried clawing, burning, freezing, impaling with both weapons and magic, bending it's joints with brute force, and countless other things I came up with, but none of them worked well enough to be considered satisfying.

This black golem simply took too long to beat. As far as I found, all the monsters on this floor were golems as well, and each as strong as this one, though the black one took the cake for sheer durability, the others weren't pushovers either.

Aside from this black one, there was a sparkling silver golem that was relatively fast and light, but also resisted my attacks to a surprising degree as well as an iridescent golem which negated all magical attacks. My claws could do significant damage, I had to brace my body properly or I'd only leave scratches.

All three were insanely tough to fight, and took way too long to take down. At the rate I was going at, I'd starve before getting halfway to the boss.

I had the option of carrying a ton of blood with me to sustain me but it was unreliable. Not only did blood gathered like that wasn't very tasty, but it was an extremely high risk strategy that presumed that I wouldn't take a longer than expected time both to reach the boss and to beat it.

Since I hadn't bothered to scout the floor, I didn't know the route yet.

I could just avoid the monsters and figure out the layout, but it went against my principals. It was a last resort, and one which I had been able to avoid ever since discovering that I could teleport between fountains.

This floor was only tedious, not something where desperation would set in so easily.

But I was getting tired of being stuck here.

The floors had been taking a markedly longer amount of time to conquer since the 70th floor or so, and having my progress grind to a complete halt was annoying.

A few more scratches into the black golem's body and I backed off, then launched a stream of blue flames at the monster. It ignored my magic and charged at me, but I simply kept my distance and kept up the flames until the torso of the collection of spheres turned a bright yellow.

With hardly any gap, I switched from shooting fire to sending out a large stream of water and ice at the monster. The mixture instantly evaporated as it came into contact with the monster's body, but the cold stream quickly dulled the metal's glow.

Over the loud torrent of water flow and explosive evaporation, I could the pinging of cracks forming in the golem's body.

With my spell finished, I dashed in close to the staggering golem. The spots where I left claw marks had cracked from the expansion and compression caused by the fire and water magic combo. Tiny gaps formed in it's armour, which I took advantage of.

I dug the tips of my claws into the cracks and used all my strength to pry at them.

Pinging sounds reverberated from the golem as the cracks lengthened.

The golem tried to swing it's arm to dislodge me, but I simply flipped and rotated, keeping one set of claws lodged in the slowly opening gap in it's armour before settling in a new position and continue prying at it.

Repeating this three more times, the crack finally made it's way across the whole of the golem's torso, separating one of it's arms from the rest of it's body and leaving a gaping hole for me to exploit.

The hole was more than big enough for me to dive inside and bite down on the glowing blue sphere that was it's core, and drain it of all it's motive energy.

In a scant few seconds, the golem shuddered before collapsing onto the ground.

I pulled myself out from inside it's body.

”Damn”

Once again the fight took way too long. Just scratching the body deep enough so that it would crack properly when I heat then cooled it's body took up several minutes. And even after that, the MP expenditure to continuously heat it before freeze cracking the metallic shell was too high. My MP hadn't even been restored beyond 75% after sucking out it's essence.

There was no way that this strategy was sustainable. At the very least, I'd need to take breaks after every two or three fights, and everything broke down the second more than one golem showed up at once.

That latter bit was the main reason why I hadn't gone any further than the first encounter in this floor.

I was starting to reconsider the decision to ditch normal weapons and rely entirely on my claws and magic for my offence.

(But even if I didn't, it's hard to imagine any weapon surviving contact against such tough shells)

Out of ideas, I returned to my home to relax.

I used water magic to transfer water from the fountain into a simple bathtub made from stone shaped with earth magic, then fire magic to heat it up. Stripping down, I lay to relax in the hot water.

In a place where any luxury beyond good food and hard combat had to be made from my own hands, soaking in a bath had become one of my few alternative joys outside of what what the dungeon provided. That alone made it especially precious to me.

After coming up with the idea, I couldn't go back to simply bathing in the fountain's water directly anymore.

I picked up a bar of crude soap I had made and lathered up my hair before using water magic to rinse it. Next, I lathered up a puffy ball of spider silk and scrubbed my body.

Once again, I lay my body back into the steaming water and let the strength go from my body.

One of the best things about making my own bath tub was that I could decide all of the dimensions without regard to any restrictions, so I made sure that it was long enough that I could lie down in it without touching any of the sides. relying solely on buoyancy, only my face and breasts touched the air, and the rest of my body was just barely submerged under the surface.

Aside from the slight coolness, being able to forget the weight that normally pulled my body down a bit was also a private pleasure of mine. Due to the perspective I couldn't tell if I was bigger than normal or not, but the weight had become something I always had to consider as I moved. Having it gone while I relaxed only solidified my bath's importance in my mind.

While letting my body drift in the hot water, my mind was stuck on the problem I had been on for the last little while: how to progress through the 87th floor.

I opened up my status to see if I could come up with any clues.

------------------------------------Name:Species: VampireSex: FemaleState: NormalLevel: 255XP: 89,187,800/100,013,800

HP: 1,892,501/1,892,501MP: 5,463,060/5,463,060STR: 89790CON: 84323AGI: 138287DEX: 116796INT: 162259ANI: 133705

Skills:     Default Skills:          [Local Language]     Racial Skills:          [Blood Sucking 7 (Vampire)]          [Natural Weapons 9 (Vampire)]     Primary Skills:          [Superior Vitality 8]          [Boundless Spirit 10]          [Unyielding Arm 6]          [Relentless Body 5]          [Winged Feet 9]          [Feather Touch 7]          [Brilliant Mind 10]          [Adamant Psyche 10]          [Unarmed Technique 7]          [Knife Mastery 3]          [Sword Mastery 2]          [Spear Technique 8]          [Club Technique 7]          [Axe Technique 8]          [Stave Technique 7]          [Whip Technique 6]          [Bow Technique 7]          [Throwing Technique 7]          [Shield Technique 6]          [Light Armour Technique 5]          [Medium Armour Technique 4]          [Heavy Armour Technique 4]          [Arcane Magic 10]          [Blaze Magic 8]          [Terranian Magic 8]          [Aqua Magic 8]          [Tempest Magic 8]          [Lunar Magic 4]          [Solar Magic 1]          [Arcane Resistance 9]          [Fire Resistance 9]          [Earth Resistance 9]          [Water Resistance 9]          [Wind Resistance 9]          [Dark Resistance 9]          [Mana Manipulation 6]          [Mana Perception 6]          [Spirit Perception 10]          [Spirit Form 10]          [Materialize 9]          [Sneaking 9]          [Suppress Presence 9]          [Suppress Aura 9]          [Cooking 7]          [Smithing 7]          [Carpentry 7]          [Leatherworking 7]          [Tailoring 7]          [Enchanting 7]          [Alchemy 7]          [Leadership 7]          [Float 10]          [Swim 8]          [Cleaning 8]          [Sense Presence 9]          [Rapid Regeneration 6]          [Rapid Refresh 7]          [Create Acid 8]          [Create Poison 7]          [Acid Resistance 8]          [Poison Resistance 7]          [Paralysis Resistance 6]          [Confusion Resistance 8]          [Sleep Resistance 5]------------------------------------

Aside from skills that I can't use, or had no use for me, this was what I had at my disposal.

Even taking my non-combat skills into consideration, no new strategies came to mind.

I simply didn't have what was needed to get the job done.

I'd already scoured all the floors for skills and raised them quite high, some of them had even evolved into advanced skills increasing my capabilities even further. But even with that, I wasn't strong enough to take on those golems as is.

No weapons or tools I could make stood a chance against them, nor any technique, physical or magical, I could use that would be efficient and effective enough to actually use to conquer the entire floor.

Simply put, I was at a standstill, and it was frustrating me.

I closed the window and just went back to relaxing.

Being reborn wasn't exactly something I chose to do, but since I had done so, I strove to enjoy it the best I could. But right then, I wasn't enjoying it. Being stuck on a difficult problem could be fun, but being stuck on it for so long was becoming difficult.

I needed something different to do for a while.

Now that I thought about it, I hadn't left the dungeon once since I first entered it. While I enjoyed my time inside the dungeon, it was a shame that I hadn't met anyone since arriving in this world. At the least, I could put in some effort for that.

I didn't have to actually go far away to find a settlement. Just a look around here and there as a change in pace. Even if I didn't find anyone, the change in scenery would be a huge improvement on my mental health.

With my mind made up, I got out of the bath, dumped the used water into the dungeon outside of the fountain room, and prepared to go out.

For the most part, I didn't need much. My usual outfit, robes, hat, boots, gloves, rabbit plush backpack, as well as my underclothes, my underwear, tank top, a new, flexible pair of pants I started wearing over my old leather ones. The material impeded my movements much less than my old leather pants, making it my new favourite.

It was a little dirty, so I needed to wash it before heading out, but before that I made a dozen clay jars using magic and stored them in my bag before heading to the 78th floor. There were trolls on that floor, and an excellent source of fresh blood.

A nice surprise I discovered was that things I put into my bag retained their freshness, as if time had stopped. Rather, that's probably exactly what had happened.

What that meant for me was that any blood I jarred and put in my bag wouldn't coagulate and grow lumpy before I could drink it. While I could drink coagulated blood, it wasn't pleasant, and even the taste went down quite a bit. It was like drinking old, lumpy milk.

I filled and capped the jars, put them into my bag, then went back to wash my clothes.

While I waited for them to dry, I played around with my plush backpack. Without any entertainment aside from hunting, this had become my go to way to kill time. Even I thought that this childish act was pretty pathetic, but of the toys I had made, only the stitched leather ball filled with feathers actually held my attention for more than a couple of minutes.

But I wasn't exactly a big lover of ball games, so that didn't last long and I always ended up going back to mindlessly manipulating the doll's arms and legs for some reason. It might've been because it was the closest thing to something at actually existed on Earth I had.

I really craved the internet at times like this, or at least TV. But obviously I hadn't seen even a hint of either, or even any kind of electronics in the months since I had come here.

With my clothes more or less dry, I put them on and draped my hair down the left of my chest so I could raise the hood. My long hair had now grown close to my knees. Despite the hassle, I was a little proud of how long it was.

Now ready, I headed out of the dungeon for the first time in who knows how long.

On the first floor, I cautiously walked through the winding hall to the cave entrance, where I was greeted with blinding light.

Instinctively, I stepped back and out of sight of the light.

My heart was pounding in my chest and I was hyperventilating before I knew it.

The trauma from so long ago still had a strong grip on me it seemed.

Being scared of natural sunlight wasn't bad, but crippling fear was a serious problem. At least I didn't react as badly as when I first walked into the artificial sunlight of the first floor.

”Hooray for progress...”

Despite how quiet it was around me, I could hardly hear my own voice squeaking out.

With tiny shuffling footsteps, I approached the outside once again like a shut-in with crippling anxiety problems.

The light of the sun bounced off the walls, forcing my dilated pupils to contract as far as they could go. Even then the light of the sun was harsh to me as the cave opening approached and the outside world revealed itself to me.

Nervously shaking, I stretched out a gloved hand to the glaring beam of sunlight that intruded the first little bit of my sanctuary. Just before my gloved fingers touched direct sunlight, memories of the intense pain from the sun on my first day, as well as all the times I had gotten roasted by light magic flashed through my mind.

Despite the shaking, I managed to push through the fear and sank my hand into the blazing light.

My fingers lit up, yet there wasn't any pain.

I had finally confirmed it, that clothes can protect me from my archenemy.

With the slight confidence boost, I stretched my arm, bathing more and more of it in sunlight, yet no pain came. Eventually, my whole arm, both legs, and part of my torso was fully lit up, yet I hadn't come to any harm.

Swallowing hard, I raised and secured my collar and lowered my hood as far as it would go before taking the final steps outside.

In an instant, I felt more vulnerable than I had ever known. All around me was that baneful sunlight, and one wrong move would wreck me in unbearable pain. One particularly bad move and I could die before having a chance to cover back up or escape.

But as horrible as the thoughts that flooded my mind were, I had also been filled with the euphoria that I had a weapon that worked against my most powerful enemy. As long as nothing went wrong, I could walk around in broad daylight and not be harmed in the slightest.

My hood obscured my line of sight pretty bad, but I had [Sense Presence] to make up for it.

I took a few steps around, but soon went back to the cover of the cave. As good as it was to be able to overcome my greatest enemy, getting careless could end me in an instant. It was best to take cover during the day and only travel during the night.

In the shadow of the cave, I sat down and waited for the sun to set while I played with my rabbit plush again. It was preferable to set out as soon as I could to get as much exploring done as possible.

As I lightly played to kill time, I noticed something odd I haven't seen before.

Outside the cave, little balls of coloured light were wandering around. They were small and indistinct, but clearly moved as if they had a will of their own, chasing after each other, floating in rough formations, bumping into each other then doing a little rising twirl in the air.

I had no idea what they were, but they completely got a hold of my attention.

A few of them drifted to the side as I crawled to keep them in sight, and stopped above a strange coloured tendril that extended from the ground. It was wafting around like steam, but quickly dissipated into nothing.