Chapter 5

After defeating the fake bunny, I realized that I’d overestimated the creature’s danger.

The lagus I’d encountered in the simulation had been a lot faster and had struck without warning when I’d gotten close without realizing the danger.

This lagus hadn’t waited for me to get close before attacking, giving me plenty of time to react. It was slow enough that a trained delver probably wouldn’t have been caught by surprise, and I was certain that a team would have had little trouble defeating it. It made me feel a little bit better about the danger this dungeon posed.

The system was obviously updating its understanding of my capabilities in real time since the next lagus I encountered was tagged green, marking it as a mild threat even though it was larger than the first one.

I’d known that the system paid attention to such things, which was why I’d expected the mob to be more of a challenge than it was, given its yellow threat rating.

I spent the next few hours clearing three more rooms, killing any mobs present, and collecting everything of value I could find. I didn’t bother looting the bodies right away, opting to send them into storage for now to save a bit of time.

It would be easier to just loot everything at once.

Harvesting the random herbs and other resources provided by the dungeon took far longer than defeating the mobs, but I knew the materials collected would be worth the effort.

Each room was basically a repeat of the previous rooms, but with a greater number of mixed mobs instead of a single type and a more meandering path. The resources available were also a mix of the ones I’d found in the first three rooms. They were mostly herbs, but there were also a few vegetables, fruits, and nuts as well.

I occasionally sent entire patches of herbs into my demesne to serve as the foundation for my future garden. For now, I placed that section of my demesne into stasis to prevent the plants inside from dying.

I hoped that my new Herbalism skill would aid me in making the garden flourish once I focused on tending it, but that probably wouldn’t happen for a while. I’d probably need to do a little more research before taking the chance.

Eventually, my stomach alerted me that I’d neglected it for too long. Since I was quite deep into the floor, I used the dimensional anchor to teleport back to the safe zone so I could prepare some food. I’d need to make my way through all of the rooms again to get back to where I’d left off, but that could wait until tomorrow.

I’d managed to reach level three before returning, which wasn’t too bad. I wanted to defeat the boss and make it to the second floor before leaving the dungeon. Given my progress so far, I expected to reach that goal in a day or two at most.

Realizing that I had several unlooted bodies in storage, I summoned a few lagus bodies to loot in hopes that I’d get a good portion of meat.

Squirrel meat was okay, but I’d developed a taste for lagus after one had almost killed me in the simulation. Maybe it was petty of me, but I found myself looking forward to making a meal out of the aggressive creatures.

Sadly, only one of the three bodies produced meat, but that was all I needed.

I looked around for somewhere to prepare the ingredients, but realized that I had nowhere to work. Frustrated, I shifted into my sanctuary, planning to use Divide Space to create a makeshift table.

It took a bit of effort to get the space to manifest a floating wall, but with a clear enough mental image of what I wanted, I managed.

I only realized afterward that it would have been much easier to just extend a partial, horizontal wall from an existing wall instead of trying to create a floating tabletop in the middle of the space.

Shaking my head at the oversight, I chalked it up to a learning experience and moved on. My mind had clearly lost some of its sharpness when I ascended. I could only hope that it wouldn’t take long to regain what I’d lost.

Using one of the daggers provided by the dungeon, I roughly chopped the lagus meat into chunks before skewering them on thick fenage stems that I’d let soak in water for several minutes.

I’d removed the sage-like leaves from the herb first, storing the dark leaves for later. Using the stem as a skewer was a trick I’d learned during my time delving in the simulation, since fenage was a fairly common dungeon herb that made a wonderful seasoning for most meats.

I didn’t have any salt, which was unfortunate, but a light squeeze of this realm’s version of a lemon made a decent substitute. I would have preferred to use the zest, but that would have taken a lot longer to manage, and my stomach was already protesting.

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Though I didn’t have a fire skill, I did have the next best thing. With a careful casting of Lightning Bolt, I managed to start a small fire inside the ring of stone I’d set up several meters inside the perimeter of the safe zone.

Since I wasn’t sure how well a fire would work within my demesne, I was doing my cooking in the safe zone where I wouldn’t have to worry about ventilation or smoke.

I could have built the fire purely by hand since I’d actually trained in mundane survival techniques prior to my ascension, but I was feeling far too impatient to bother with a slower method.

I skewered a few of the somewhat unfamiliar vegetables that I’d harvested with Herbalism’s help, and put them on to cook alongside the meat. They’d probably be bland, but I’d survive.