Chương 131: (128) 2.81. The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

Seeing as their quickest way back to the Earthers' fragment was either through a hard-to-maneuver swamp or the death fragment, Vin decided to use this opportunity to run some more tests on dungeons. Once he'd led the party back into the infernals' fragment, Vin went straight for the insect infested dungeon. This time around things were very different.

After Madam Trebella's ritual, whatever strange, godly powers governed the System seemed to have decided Alka was now bound tightly enough to the golem to officially be a true part of Edregon, as she was able to enter the dungeon without issue. While Alka got to work clearing out some of the initial insects, Vin took his new spell for a spin. As he'd suspected, the boundary between Edregon and the dungeon proper was easily found with a quick cast of Sense Dimensions.

Where the fabric of reality on Edregon felt thick and stable, the dungeon was somehow more fluid and breathable. Sense Dimensions felt like it gave him a sixth sense more than any of his other sensing spells, and Vin struggled to make heads or tails of these weird feelings. Thankfully, Alka gave them the all clear soon after, and he was able to put the contrasting sensations aside for the moment.

With Alka's nigh indestructible body and Shia's area-of-effect spells, they were able to blitz their way through the insects incredibly quickly. It wasn't long before they finally stumbled upon that same mysterious corridor Vin had nearly stepped into the last time he was here. Strangely enough, thanks to Vin's Mental Map, he was acutely aware of the fact that the corridor was not in the same place he'd found it previously. In fact, it was a little bit closer to the cave entrance this time around.

Making a note to figure out what the hell that was supposed to mean, Vin put the thought aside, leading his friends into the corridor. Curiously, it seemed that none of them were able to see the corridor at all until he'd placed a hand on it, at which time they'd all stared at the sudden stone hallway in shock.

At the very least none of them had any issues entering the strange, extradimensional space running underneath Edregon, and Vin even received some additional levels in Dungeoneering for bringing them all with him, raising the skill not only to level 6, but to level 7 as well. Vin made yet another mental note to experiment and see if he could confirm that bringing groups of people into dungeons power leveled the Dungeoneering skill before deciding he was now making too many mental notes to keep track of.

Whipping out his journal, he started a new page devoted solely to figuring out what the heck dungeons actually were and the questions he had.

"I feel small enough in the regular world," Scule muttered from his shoulder, looking around uncomfortably at the massive, empty rooms they were walking through.

"Can't say I'm a big fan of this place."

"Sorry, we won't be here for long," Vin said, trying to reassure him as he put away his journal. Vin had been prepared to launch into an explanation about his meeting Lumel down here in the event that they encountered the pulmon, but they didn't end up running into her on their way to the Earthers' fragment. He was tempted to poke his head into the ocean fragment room and check in on her, but decided to hold back. He didn't exactly want to spring all his friends on her without asking her first if he could help it.

"Remember the plan," he said, leaning against the unnatural corridor in the dead center of the giant room linked to the Earthers' fragment.

"This tunnel should lead us out of the dungeon linked to the forest near the Earthers' camp. I've never been in a forest-type dungeon before, but according to my skill, it's only filled with beast-type monsters, which I doubt are going to be much of an issue for us."

"You can say that again," Alka snorted, brandishing her warpick as Scule and Reginald dropped off him and prepared for combat.

"I would love to see a monster try and gnaw through this new body."

"Once we're out, Shia and I will head to Sakis," Vin continued.

"You guys head to camp and see if Alice is willing to help us, and then come meet up with us. Once we're all together, we'll pick Alice's brain and come up with a plan to take down the divine warrior."

"Sounds good, captain!" Scule said, giving Vin a mock salute.

"I forgot to ask, but are we awarded hazard pay?" Vin ignored both Scule's question and the familiar smack of tail-on-head as he ventured into the corridor, keeping his eyes peeled for whatever lay on the other side. Coming out the other end of the corridor, Vin was surprised to find them stepping into what seemed like a totally ordinary forest.

The only thing that seemed strange about it was the fact that there was a stone corridor emerging from the side of one of the larger trees, stretching off impossibly into the distance.

"This feels like a regular forest," Shia said, keeping her staff at the ready despite her remark.

"Are you sure it's a dungeon?"

"It's definitely a dungeon," Vin nodded, taking in their surroundings carefully.

"I guess not all dungeon types are underground. I don't know why I didn't get a notification for discovering it just yet, but maybe I have to travel through the intended boundary for that to happen."

"Well, regardless-" A powerful roar interrupted them, and Vin spun around to find a large bear with too many arms and the snout of a wolf rampaging toward them. Even if he hadn't witnessed one of these from afar already, Vin would have recognized it as a monster just from the strange conglomeration of animal parts.

"It's a big bad bear!" Vin laughed, shocked to see one of them again after all this time.

"Alka, remember these things? A few of them chased us when we were mapping out the fragment all those weeks back."

"Oh yeaaah, I remember them!" Alka said, stepping forward and peering at the bear. At that point the monster had finally reached them, drool dripping from its muzzle as it lunged at Alka, fully intending to rip out her throat. Raising her warpick, Alka slammed the pick end down, piercing straight through the monster's head and killing it instantly. The monster's momentum crashed into her body, pushing her back a few feet until it came to a stop.

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"Ah, good times," she chuckled, ripping out her warpick with a sickening crunch and pointing off in the distance.

"Hey, I think it had friends!" Following her finger, Vin spotted at least a half dozen of the bear monsters rushing toward them, the combined force of their weight causing the very forest floor to tremble as they ran. As he reached up to grab his quarterstaff, Shia stepped forward, flashing him a grin.

"I'll take care of them." After waiting a few seconds for the bears to close the distance between them, Shia gestured with her staff, revealing a new spell.

"Root Spikes!" Vin watched as mana flowed from the Druid into the ground in front of the out of control monsters. Instantly, six giant roots erupted from the ground directly between them and the monsters. The roots grew so fast the monsters didn't even have a chance to slow down, and Vin winced as all six of the bears ran headfirst into the spikes that didn't exist moments before, impaling themselves on the hardened roots.

"Damn, it's good to fight in a regular old forest," Shia grinned, ignoring the bloody gurgles as the beasts quickly bled to death, unable to free themselves from the giant spikes.

"Jesus, I forgot how terrifying Druids were in a forest," Vin muttered, feeling almost sorry for the poor bears. He glanced at his latest notification. New spell witnessed! Tier 2 Nature Spell (Root Spikes). 2, 000 exp gained.

"What even is that, some combination of Rapid Growth and Entangle?"

"Just an evolution of Grass Spikes actually," Shia corrected." Grass spikes is handy, but it's kinda worthless against anything big. Remember when we fought those exploding foxes on our way to the citadel?"

"Oh yeah," Vin said, laughing at the memory.

"I remember you getting covered in monster guts twice in one day!" Shia frowned as he brought that up again, and Vin's laughter died as he realized antagonizing the Druid that had just killed six large monsters with a single spell may not be the best idea. Clearing his throat, he nodded toward the forest.

"Well, you guys remember the plan. Hopefully we'll see you before too long!"

"Don't worry, we'll be quick!" Alka promised. Pointing them in the direction of camp, Vin took Shia and headed in the opposite direction toward Sakis. Curiously, now that he was actually inside the dungeon, his Mental Map was showing him that there was something strange going on. He had a very solid understanding of how fast he generally traveled, and he could easily tell that he was covering less ground than he should have as they made their way through the dungeon, killing monsters all the while.

"Hold on a sec Shia," he said, firing off a Stone Shot and killing a wolf that looked pretty normal, other than the teeth that were so large they jutted out of its mouth in every direction." Sense Dimensions." Sure enough, the moment he cast the spell his eyes widened as he realized what was going on. The best way he could describe it was as if space had been stretched all around them, causing the forest to take up more space than it rightfully should.

"Woah, that's all sorts of trippy," he muttered, focusing on the spell and trying to familiarize himself with the sensation of stretched space. He had a feeling growing more familiar with this weird example would only help him with his future dimensional spells.

"Dimensional magic?" Shia asked, not even looking as she activated Blossom and allowed the cat to tear into another one of the monster wolves that was quickly regretting its decision to attack them.

"I thought this place tasted a lot like Scule's bag."

"I'm hoping to be able to learn some new dimensional magic soon enough," Vin grinned, doing his best to memorize the odd feeling before he ended his spell.

"Sure would be nice if we didn't have to worry about Scule running off with all our valuables all the time."

"Hah. As if Reginald would let him," Shia said, rolling her eyes. It didn't take long for the two of them to fight their way to the edge of the forest. Sure enough, just as Vin had guessed, he was rewarded with a familiar notification as soon as they left the dungeon proper. New dungeon discovered! 5, 000 exp gained. Guess that makes my plan to just pop my head into all the different dungeons from the back end just for the discovery experience a bit harder to pull off.

Shia jumped on Blossom and rode alongside him as he took off toward Sakis. It wasn't long however before Vin spotted a familiar sight in the distance, and a strange sense of nostalgia washed over him.

"Hold on Shia, there's something I want to take care of real quick…" Realizing what he was planning, Shia grinned, motioning for Blossom to stop and letting Vin have this one. Vin walked forward, and it wasn't long before the distant monster picked up on his mana, turning to face him. Vin stared down the three-stinger scorpion a few hundred feet away, cracking his neck as it began approaching him at a moderate but steady pace. Let's see now…

Taking a deep breath, Vin took careful aim, before calmly firing off his first spell." Stone Shot." The jagged chunk of granite shot from his outstretched hand like a missile, slamming into the leftmost of the monster's three stingers and tearing straight through it. Even as it lost one of its main weapons, the monster didn't make so much as a single sound, merely continuing to march toward him like an unstoppable force of death. Nodding out of respect for the hunter, Vin cast again." Stone Shot."

A second chunk of rock blasted forth, this one slamming into the stinger on the right and tearing that one free as well. The scorpion was down to its final and largest stinger located in the center of its body, but that didn't stop the monster in the slightest as it continued toward him. Vin waited until it was nearly upon him before doing two things in quick succession. The moment the scorpion got within striking range it lashed out, stabbing its final stinger directly at Vin's chest.

Faster than any regular human could ever hope to react, Vin snatched the head of the stinger out of the air mid-strike as his arm flashed with blue light. His new hand was completely unfazed by the barbed stinger, and he stopped it just as it was about to connect with his chest. Before the monster could rush forward and attack him with its pincers, Vin held up his right hand, firing one last spell at point-blank range." Stone Shot."

A third chunk of rock blasted directly into the monster's head, cracking through the scorpion's carapace and killing it instantly. Letting out a heavy sigh, Vin took one last look at the very first thing that had nearly killed him on this crazy world all those weeks ago. With a single thought, his new hand glowed an electric blue as it was saturated with mana, and he crushed the deadly stinger within his grip, causing green blood and bits of carapace to erupt everywhere.

Unable to wipe the grin off his face, Vin turned toward Shia, nodding at the elf in thanks for letting him have this one.

"Come on Shia! Let's go learn some magic!"