DAY 119
MIDMORNING
All this quantum business seems pretty quan-dumb to me.
OUTSIDE A KINGDOM DUNGEON
THANKS TO A SPONTANEOUS TEENAGE GIRL sashimi breakout, I was on the run from an enraged pack of teenage girls—that was, a Kingdom dungeon tour. Now was my chance to make some cash and do a little training!
“Dungeon numero uno, coming right up. The Guild says it’s a mid-size dungeon, but you coulda fooled me. It looks like a small dungeon to me. It’s hurt a lotta soldiers and adventurers relative to its size, I s’pose. Also has a lot of monsters. We just discovered it recently, though, which means it either just spawned or we discovered it late. Doesn’t matter—point is, it’s too much for the Guild to handle alone, so I should wipe it out. Yeah, ’cause I need money to pay rent? I’m facing a personal financial crisis here, people! Cha-ching?”
Nod nod. Rattle rattle. Mm-hmm. Bounce bounce.
Class Rep only doled out 50k ele per day to each of us from our class allowance funds. I could always borrow money or ask the frontier folk to put my expenses on my tab…if I wanted her to confiscate the rest of my wealth. Say bye-bye, Mr. Moneybags. Hello, life of poverty. At least my classmates shared my suffering. All eyes lit up at the prospect of earning scraps of change. Girls had to shop—even dungeon emperors! And this was Sleeping Beauty’s introduction to the frontier anyway. We needed to stock up on savings, or she’d dig me into a debt hole so deep I’d never climb out.
“I doubt this dungeon’s gonna make us much money, though…”
Nuh-uh.
The Kingdom’s dungeon problem was exacerbated by the throne sending its armies to the frontier. Then, with the massive aristocratic shuffling of titles and lands in the kingdom-frontier war, even fewer soldiers could be spared to clear dungeons. So much for my leisurely meander home! Off to work I went. But then again, side trips were the spice of life. It’s all about the journey, not the destination, y’know? Especially when I didn’t have the cash to pay rent at my destination. And if Class Rep found that out… Gulp.
“Okay, but these monsters seriously suck.”
Nod nod.
I popped in at a few little hamlets along the way, to swap news and trade goods, y’know? Eventually, we passed the last of the villages and wandered waaaaay out into the sticks. And there we saw the dungeon entrance, a yawning mouth in a massive boulder looming over an otherwise flat prairie. No wonder soldiers hadn’t cleared it yet. This was truly the middle of bumf*ck nowhere. And yeah, turned out it was a mid-size dungeon after all. Coolio.
“But in my defense, it looked shallow.”
…Mm-hmm?
Tough dungeons contained all the hardest monsters and sickest treasures. Most of ’em were on the frontier, so when I did find one elsewhere, I couldn’t afford to pass it up.
“Ready, Sleeping Beauty? No sleeping on the job.”
Mm-hmm!
The 1st floor was a maze with tight, cramped corridors. Sleeping Beauty and I took the lead to do some EXP farming—me ’cause I was still on the mend, her ’cause she needed to level grind. Until we reached the lower floors, the other dungeon emperors were to follow behind and step in only as needed.
“Hey, did you know the word ‘babble’ has nothing to do with the Tower of Babel? It’s derived from Early Middle English babeln and later reappeared in Late Middle English as bibble-babble. Is that cool or what?”
Bibble bobble?
These upper floors were a piece of cake for Sleeping Beauty and her mithril-turbocharged equipment. Still, I was relieved to see Dancer Girl keeping a close eye on her—not that I was in any position to worry about other people. Until I was a high enough level not to hold the others back, I had to optimize, optimize, optimize. Balance my loadout. Max my mins.
“Guys? You could join in the conversation, y’know. Otherwise, it’s just me talking to myself ad nauseam. The monsters are starting to look at me with pity. Guys? Guys???”
I put the Universe Staff through its paces, but I didn’t go ham on it. I was straight-up chill. Relaxin’. This was just practice. I worked to master each quantum of movement, each miniscule flick of a muscle—and if this practice happened to take the form of a high-speed massacre, well, I wasn’t complaining. I made ghoulash of the level 1 ghouls without ever using Entanglement. I never broke down. I never lost control. My staff hit home every time with compact, controlled micromovements. I contorted like a calisthenics instructor. I dropped undead like a dancer.
“Here I am bibble-babbling to myself like a fool who doesn’t know the rule that it’s just not cool to natter on like a tool—oh, just downed a ghoul…”
The ghouls were little more than a warm-up, but I didn’t mind—the only way to get better was to take my time, focus, and practice, practice, practice. I was breaking in my new body in conjunction with my equipment. I was developing a proper mental perception of my physical capabilities. I was gathering data and running calculations. My goal? Cut down on the self-destruction until it was just barely survivable—if still ouchy.
“Ghouls, too weak. Let’s go down.”
We hacked and slashed our way to the stairs and raised a rain of ghouly gore. We sliced spooks as we slid down the steps and bashed bogeys out of our way as we barreled on by. I could use about 50% of my power, sans Entanglement, no problem. The 17th floor of a dungeon vs a level 28 fighter at 50% strength and a crowbarlike implement crossed with the Universe Staff—who would win? (Spoiler alert: I did.) My equipment aside, I was growing more powerful. Like, fundamentally. My bizarre reflex speed only helped; it was like a cheat skill in its own right!
And that was precisely when I realized why the Guild had had so much trouble with this deceptively docile dungeon.
“Okay. This is a major pain in the ass.”
Nod nod! Rattle rattle! Mm-hmm! Jiggle jiggle!
Ants. Big-ass, nondescript ants with rock-hard exoskeletons. Huge swarms of big-ass ants. The floor was buried in the teeming mass of swarming ants. If not for those sturdy exoskeletons, the ants on the bottom of the pile would’ve been crushed under their nestmates’ many legs. I didn’t blame the Guild or the soldiers one bit for turning tail and running. The sheer number of ants was daunting enough. But on top of that, one misstep and the unlucky adventurer would be swallowed up in the ant ocean.
“Ah ha. This is why all the adventuring parties stopped on the 36th floor.”
So, I waded into the fray, bashing bug bodies and antagonizing annoying ants with every swing of my crowbarlike implement. Sleeping Beauty sliced and diced with the halberd she insisted on calling a holy staff, thus clearing up the mystery of how she’d made it so far down that ultimate dungeon to save Dancer Girl—she took the brute force approach!
The halberd whizzed like a whirlwind. Sparks flew from its steely sides like silver stars. These exoskeletons would’ve turned sharp swords in other, lesser hands, but Sleeping Beauty carved up dozens of insects in a single swing. She decimated this anthill in a way that would’ve made a termite proud. The “Armor Ants, Lv: 36” never knew what hit them. None could get close enough to touch her—which was too bad for them, as touching her was one of the better things in life…
Corpse piles mounded higher as she mowed down the flock. One couldn’t expect dungeon emperors to play by the same rules as us mere mortals, but all the same…was she really only level 10?
“And how many freaking ants are there? Are we even making a dent in them?”