Fate Weaver’s Legacy

#097 – Technically, it’s the same spot, according to the map

Chomp.

“Mmmm! Chat, this is absolutely delicious!” I exclaimed while probably making an expression like someone from a cooking anime.

Honestly, there was something incredibly peaceful about sleeping under a tree you had grown yourself.

Well, I hadn’t really done all that much other than forget about the fruit core, but still.

These fruits were such a breath of fresh air after days of nothing but pizza and octopus meat. The cheese I’d gotten from the city dungeon only did so much to spice things up.

Better yet, according to Appraisal, these fruits were infused with Ether.

Which, duh. That was the whole reason why the tree had grown so damn quickly, wasn’t it? Because I’d dropped the fruit core right by the goo lake filled with Ether.

Still, the night had been very peaceful, and after a quick breakfast of delicious Ether-filled fruit and some stretches, I was ready to clear the rest of the dungeon.

I wanted to do this quickly, since I only had until the morning of the day after tomorrow till the item retrieval quest’s timer ran out.

So, if I cleared this dungeon and made it back today, I would have the entire day tomorrow and then the next morning to clear the city dungeon…

Huh.

Now that I properly thought about it, I was actually really tight on time, since there was no guarantee I would clear the dungeon in just one day…

Well, that was fine. Even if I failed it, it was just a few skill points anyway.

“Alright! Time to speedrun this place, chat!” I exclaimed as I threw the fruit core away – right at the spot where I wanted another tree – and then boldly walked toward the dungeon’s entrance again.

GeorgeDoshington: gogogogogogogogoogoogogog
bloopbooper: blooooop! (ง•̀o•́)ง   ( ´ཀ` ^᪲)
RetconRanger: Good luck!
KaiEbikoOfficial: take care of yourself!
uptonMIKE: just don’t set fire to everything again
Eclipsoon: don’t forget the map

“No worries, chat! I got this!”

The feeling of entering the dungeon barely fazed me and I wasted no time in bringing out the map I’d gotten from the octoboss – as chat had called it – and scrutinizing it to see which window I should climb into.

Because, as expected, this part of the dungeon had changed too.

The map was quite confusing to look at since trying to chart a non-euclidean maze on a two-dimensional piece of paper didn’t quite work, but luckily, all I had to do was follow the right arrows to navigate this place.

Luckily for me, I also ran into a chest on my way to the boss room. I didn’t hesitate to open it and immediately appraise the two items inside.

Sparkling Bubble wand
A bubble wand capable of creating brightly shining bubbles with the use of Ether.

Eclipse Sunglasses
A pair of sunglasses that let their wearer adjust the brightness of their vision and to see further when using Intra.

I hummed.

“Interesting, interesting…”

Neither of the items was very exciting, but I hadn’t really been expecting all that much from a floor one of a D-rank dungeon.

“Well, not that useful, unfortunately…” I said as I began putting them into my backpack.

Eclipsoon: wait that’s super good for the lockers

I stopped and blinked, before pulling the items out again and looking at them.

“Huh. You’re right, actually! Adjusting brightness… That should mean I could see in the dark as well, right? And even if not, the shining bubbles will definitely be useful there! Good catch, Eclipse!”

I stopped again and then snorted.

“Of course, you would notice the usefulness of Eclipse Sunglasses, heh.”

With my plan of action for the second floor decided, I continued on.

With the map in hand and chat helping me decipher it, it didn’t take long for me to reach the boss room of floor one.

“Alright, chat. If the octopus was the same, the coins are probably gonna be the same too. Let’s just rush them,” I declared.

Truth be told, I was kinda queasy about this. After all, these coin bosses had been my very first real fight I’d been in.

And no, the zombies didn’t count… and I hadn’t exactly fought the giant robot. I’d run away from it.

Point was, remembering running away from the coins made me very nervous, even though I should be much better equipped to beat them this time.

I shook these thoughts away and stepped inside the boss room.

It didn’t take long for the giant silver and gold coins to roll around the desk to present themselves to me.

I didn’t let them get the first move though and rushed straight at the silver coin first.

Just as it began to spin to let out a hail of bullets, my key sword infused with black flames sliced it in half like it was made of butter.

The gold coin probably didn’t like that, judging by how it finished its hopping, made tire screeching sounds – somehow – and hurled itself at me.

I very easily used my momentum from my earlier slash to side-step the charge, and then turned that motion into another black fire-powered slash, just as the gold coin passed me.

I sliced through it with ease.

What I should have probably expected, but didn’t, was the golden pulse the coin had given off right before I’d slashed it, and the subsequent spikes bursting out of the ground and stabbing into me.

They didn’t really do anything besides pushing me out of the way though. I was too durable.

I stumbled after being shoved away by the spikes for a moment, before righting myself, and staring as the two coins turned into silver and gold mist respectively.

“Hmm… So, they are still gonna merge?” I mused out loud.

They did. The two mists floated toward each other, smooshed themselves into a coin shape, and gradually solidified into the combined form of the coin.

The coin fell on the floor and began bouncing–

I slashed it again and it was no more durable than the individual coins.

The two halves of the coin fell on the ground and then turned into regular orange smoke before dissipating and leaving a boss chest behind.

I stared at it.

This had been… so easy. What the hell?

Like sure, I was much stronger than before but…

Right. This was a D-rank dungeon and those were the first floor bosses of it. Of course, it was going to be easy for someone with experience and decent weapons and skills under her belt.

“...Well, that’s that, chat!”

GeorgeDoshington: that was so antclimatic wtf
bloopbooper: boop… (⌐■◡■)
RetconRanger: You’ve gotten a lot stronger!

I shrugged.

“I am totally fine with easy fights, chat. I think I’ve had enough life or death battles already.”

Just as I said that, a system window appeared in front of me.

‘Sequence breaker’ achievement unlocked!
+3 Skill points

I blinked and automatically opened the achievement’s description.

Sequence breaker - Beat a higher level floor of a dungeon before beating a lower level one. [COMPLETE]

“Oooh, right! I forgot about this one!” I smirked. “Free points, chat! Maybe I should start spending them, huh? Already got fourteen saved up.”

Part of me still wanted to get Soul Strike, but I knew that doing so was potentially dangerous, and would definitely piss off Ebiko again.

“Well, that’s for later! Loot time now!”

I opened the boss chest the coin had left behind and took in the contents.

There was a pile of coins that I quickly shoved into my dimensional wallet before taking a look at the other two items.

One was an ingot of what looked to be silver, and the other item was a featureless golden ring.

I shot Appraisal at the ingot.

Ancient Silver ingot
An ingot made out of concentrated ancient metal called silver.

I narrowed my eyes and murmured, “Ancient metal called silver…?”

Kind of a weird wording. Was this ancient silver different from regular silver? Or was regular silver just something that was rare and ancient in this world?

Naturally, chat began to speculate about all sorts of things and I left them to it as I Appraised the ring.

Timestream ring
A ring that allows its wearer to regenerate Tempor slightly faster.

I perked up.

“Oooh! This sounds useful!” I cheered. “Okay, it only says slightly faster, but still! Maybe it could be enough to offset the tentacle skill’s Tempor drain…? Hmm…”

I didn’t hesitate and immediately pulled my bubble glove away and put the ring on my left ring finger – the right one still had the skill snatching one – before pulling the glove back on.

I didn’t feel any change.

Well, not surprising, considering I couldn’t even feel Tempor at all.

Damn, I really needed to learn how to feel it, huh?

Later.

I shrugged as the chest vanished and started toward the door leading to the second floor of the dungeon.

Eclipsoon: no second bracelet?
GeorgeDoshington: nice now u can fight vampires

I shrugged.

“I assume I didn’t get another bracelet because I still have this one…?” I raised my hand and showed the bracelet still on my wrist. “Hmm, but I did get another map… If I get the old one back, will I have two maps?”

What would I do with the other one? Maybe I could fuse them to create some kind of supermap? Hmm…

Shelving these thoughts for later, I opened the door behind the desk in the boss room,, revealing the familiar maze of sky-high lockers and a tiled floor of the second floor.

I immediately brought back my map and got to work, following the arrows, while chat began to discuss how I should insta-kill the boss this time. In my other hand, I held the ultradry towel to swing at the sentient puddles whenever they appeared.

Funnily enough, I could actually tell which ones were real puddles and which ones were the dungeon monsters. All I had to do was try to nudge every puddle with my hydrokinesis from afar.

If it moved? Normal puddle.

If it resisted? Time to slap it with the towel.

I continued on and soon made it to the first little display screen on the side of one of the lockers.

I grimaced and sighed in anticipation of what was about to happen, as I craned my head upwards.

Then I stopped and blinked.

This place did actually have a ceiling even above the lockers, but it was obviously insanely high up. The thing was… the lockers didn’t seem to reach all the way to the ceiling, meaning that there was  empty space between them and the ceiling.

“...You guys think there’s any secrets up there?” I mumbled, just as my forks finally delivered all the messages theorizing about exactly that, since I was actively thinking about it now. “Secret chest? Hmm…”

Unlike last time, I could actually get up there. At least in theory. The ninja sandals would let me climb and I still had some stashed fruits and the flask to recharge my Ether if need be.

Would that be a waste though? What if there wasn’t anything up there? I was already tight on time…

But if there was something. Like another secret chest… The last one I’d gotten had given me the backpack, which was one of the most useful items I’d ever gotten from a dungeon. If I were to get something like that again…

The map didn’t say anything though. No arrows indicating anything was up there.

Hmm…

GeorgeDoshington: do it u pussi

I rolled my eyes.

“Okay, chat. Let’s go on a tiny detour. Up and away!”

Since I thought it would have the highest chance of actually having something, I picked the locker that had the display screen on it, raised my leg, made sure it firmly stuck to the locker, and then raised the other one.

Standing sideways on a wall was still pretty weird, since I wasn’t actually changing gravity or anything. And trying to walk up was like scaling a very steep hill, so it was pretty physically demanding. Good thing this body of mine was absurdly strong for its size though.

“...Well, let’s go!”

I began with slow steps, just to make sure I wouldn’t fall, but once I got used to the rhythm, I sped up, and eventually, I was running up the locker.

Not very fast however, since I had to be careful that I always had at least one foot planted against the locker to not fall.

Several minutes passed and the top didn’t seem to be getting any closer though. At one point, chat pointed out that the dungeon could be messing with space so that I was running in space, so I chanced a glance behind me…

“Whoaaa?!”

I was definitely making progress, but seeing myself that high up momentarily broke my concentration.

Luckily, I caught myself with Featherfall and quickly replanted my feet on the locker, before crouching on it.

I heaved out a relieved sigh.

“We’re not going in circles, chat… Ugh, why am I still afraid of heights? I can float, dammit!”

Stupid irrational phobias. How was I supposed to be an epic isekai protagonist like this?

I shook these thoughts away, stood up, and kept going.

But even though I was definitely making it further from the ground, it didn’t feel like the top was getting any closer. Just how high up was it? 

Regardless, I kept going. I was committed now.

GeorgeDoshington: inb4 thers nothin lol
RetconRanger: Reminds me of these glitch showcase videos where they spend hours trying to go off-bounds.

“I really hope there’s something,” I grumbled. “Heh, you think I’m going to glitch my way to another dungeon across the world or something?”

That would have been… interesting, to say the least. I kinda wanted it to happen now, even though it would probably make me fail the quest.

…And it could also land me in a dungeon way too difficult for me.

Okay, maybe not so cool then.

I kept going as chat began theorizing what was up there, if anything. Just straight up a secret chest? A secret area? A teleport to another place? A secret boss?

I was a bit concerned about the possibility of the last one, to be honest. If the paladin guy from the city dungeon was anything to go by, secret bosses – that’s what we were categorizing him as – were much tougher than normal ones.

It took half an hour before I ran out of steam and had to rest – which was very awkward when I was still defying gravity – and restore my Ether with some fruits.

“Chat, I’m starting to feel like this isn’t worth it… But freak it, I’m committed!”

I ignored the comments about ‘sunk cost fallacy’ and whatnot and kept going once I felt somewhat refreshed – as refreshed as one could be when crouching on the side of a locker higher than a skyscraper at least – I kept going.

Almost two full hours and three total rests after I’d first began climbing, I finally began to see the top.

“We’re almost there, chat. C’mon! Final stretch!”

Despite my excitement though, I still decided to listen to chat and rest and top off my Ether reserves one last time, just in case there was a fight waiting for me at the top.

Once I felt ready, I walked the rest of the way.

“Finally! Let’s see now…”

I crouched at the edge of the locker, and then peeked ‘down’ behind the corner.

I almost balked at what I saw.

Despite the fact that it seemed like the ceiling was way above the locker from the ground, it was actually only just about high enough for me to fit even with me still being quite short. The place was also very dark – wasn’t the light coming from the ceiling? Where the heck was it coming from if this was so dark? – and filled with cobwebs.

“Ugh, there’s gonna be spiders, aren't there? I hate bugs… I don’t care that spiders aren’t insects! They are the same, dammit!”

Despite my grievances, I still climbed over the edge of the locker to finally stand on solid ground without having to defy gravity.

“Well, on the bright side, now I can see that there’s definitely something here. Let’s explore, chat…”

Even if I hated bugs, there was no way I was gonna just go back down without at least looking around after two full hours of climbing up.