Chapter 40 – Back In The Dungeon.

Rusty began his ascent towards the distant lights. His body was not meant for climbing, but with the help of his weight control skill, he was able to manage. The winds that had previously plagued their ascent had dwindled, allowing him to move forward. He could sense that some spiders still lurked around, but his metallic form was far less appealing to them than flesh.

Rusty pressed onward, methodically placing each step and testing each grip to ensure stability. His weight control skill helped, but he had to be cautious – one misstep could send him plummeting back down into the chasm. The ascent was slow, but luckily the illuminated cave wasn’t far off, and right before his weight control skill was to reach its limit, he managed to grab onto the ledge.

He hauled himself up, using the last moments of his weight control skill to hoist his armored body onto the ledge. With a final push, Rusty pulled himself up, his metallic body clanging against the rocky surface. The faint light he had seen from below now glowed before him, casting eerie shadows on the cavern walls. It was something he remembered, a torch found inside of the dungeon he came from. The ledge led into a cavern and cleary, he had returned to the dungeon he came from.

“…t….u….r….e..”

“It’s that voice again, it must be the Dungeon Heart.”

The voice had returned during his climb here but it was a lot more silent than before. He couldn’t even tell what it was trying to say to him and he was also not compelled to listen to it, something that he had expected to be the case. His mind was elsewhere, the dungeon didn’t really matter as the issue with Gleam persisted.

“Gleam, where are you…”

Rusty looked at his status screen, but nothing had changed with the grayed-out status. He wanted to call the Demon Lord or the Hero for advice, but he had used up all of his MP. Crushing a mana stone was an option, but perhaps finding out where he was exactly was more important. He knew that his guides had no tracking skills, and neither did he. Even if they could confirm Gleam’s survival, it wouldn’t help. It was best to assume that she was out there somewhere and go looking.

“I don’t see any spiders here, nor are there any on the walls, the one I fought might have been the last one…”

Rusty took a moment to survey his surroundings, trying to get a sense of direction. The illuminated cave was similar to the dungeon he hailed from but slightly different. He didn’t remember there being any bioluminescent fungi on the walls. There was no point in climbing into the chasm and going up, as there were no reachable ledges. It seemed that the best he could do was to follow this tunnel and see if he could reach the top another way. There was a big possibility that he had ended up in one of the lower levels of his dungeon. He knew that these floors always led to a set of stairs through which he would probably reach the chasm from a different side.
“There is no time to lose, I need to find her!”

It was a strange feeling and he wasn’t quite sure why he was acting this way. He had not spent much time with the small ant, but he had grown attached to it for some reason. Each time he imagined his friend being hurt or killed, a strange feeling of discomfort took over. He didn’t like it, and he would not let anyone hurt his new friend – this much he knew. Soon he started moving, his hands holding a shield and an arming sword, better suited than a longsword for this corridor.

“I’m really back in the dungeon.”

It didn’t take him long to encounter his first monster who was like a mirror image of himself. It was another living armor type made out of bronze. He could not see any corroded parts on its armor though, which confirmed that he was at a lower level than before he fell into the chasm.

“It’s only an F-rank?”

To make things more peculiar, the monster seemed to be of lower ranking than him. They both looked almost identical, though his twilight bronze gave him a somewhat deeper luster than regular bronze. This did seem like the immediate evolution from the corroded bronze armor and probably meant that his twilight variant gave him some kind of edge. However, while he was contemplating what to do, his metallic friend also spotted him.

“Hello? Have you perhaps seen a small white ant? Her body is covered in silver and she is quite peppy…”

Rusty stopped himself from talking as he remembered that these dungeon monsters never really had a mind of their own. They were more like puppets controlled by the Dungeon Heart, a fact he had learned from Aburdon. The true problem was the voice that was slowly vanishing from inside his mind. If what the Demon Lord said was true, then perhaps this monster here was not his friend anymore.

Just as he expected the bronze armor monster didn’t respond to his inquiry, instead, it raised its shield and brandished its sword, preparing to engage in combat. It had the same equipment as him and approached him as a sort of skewed mirror. However, he was not afraid as his rank was higher and he also had one further advantage, his intelligence.

Without hesitation, the monster charged forward with its arming sword raised – a pattern he knew well because he had used it before. The monster executed attacks that he already knew: power slash, power thrust, and a shield bash. All of them came his way, and he either sidestepped or defended himself with the help of his own shield.

His opponent was like an older version of himself, lacking any semblance of battle experience. The bronze armor was not adapting to his way of fighting, and soon, all of its mana points had been drained. This was what he had been waiting for, and soon, his own shield bashed the other armor, making it hit the nearby wall. His opponent had the same strengths but also the same weaknesses. Its body was hollow on the inside, and just like the adventurers did to him, he did the same to his opponent, which found itself tipped over on the ground.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I should probably change my weapon.”

Before leaving the underground tunnels filled with insects. He had recreated all the weapons that were produced inside of the Soul Forge. His arming sword was good against opponents made of flesh, but living armors like Rusty were quite resistant against slashing damage. To defeat his opponent he took out a mace and even though he lacked proficiencies for it, this blunt weapon was much better to defeat his foe.

The monster attempted to stand but found its helmet being dented under the bronze mace. His strikes were precise, but the monster didn’t seem to have a core yet. However, this was still a weak point; when the helmet was struck, its vision was also affected. Continuous strikes rained down on the monster’s body, causing it to take a lot of damage. Even without a core, if its HP pool was depleted, the monster would die like any other being. Soon, the defeated bronze armor collapsed into a heap of metal pieces, showing him what would happen if he ever died.