Chapter 22

Adventurer Ellen

The spear creaked loudly as the jaws ground the teeth into the seasoned wood haft. Ellen struggled, regretting her decision to skip on armor for now as she felt the claws dig into her stomach, trying to find purchase to tear into her. The pain was intense, and she could see death coming for her within an instant.

Then the weight on her chest was gone, her spear wrenched from her grasp. Ellen gasped for air, panting heavily as she heard the sickening thud of the horrifying giant stoat slam into the wall nearby.

Ellen mentally brushed the notifications away and groaned softly, but she didn’t even have time to complain before Vincent was there. The large man was already yanking her shirt up to expose her belly, and she felt the soothing cool flow of magic stitching the claw marks in her belly closed.

“I’ll be the first to admit that normally I’d be screaming about incompetent newbies,” Miriam said from behind Ellen. “But this is actually strange. It just ignored us and went straight for the new kid. Does she smell like rabbit or something?”

Edmund was visible, rubbing his stubble and staring at the dead stoat. “The spiders did the same thing. Is this dungeon targeting the lower level people on purpose? We’ve never had that happen, but maybe older dungeons don’t do it.”

Ellen blushed as Vincent lifted her shirt higher, but the stoic man didn’t remark on what he saw there. He simply tucked it back down and looked upward, giving a quick nod to the others. Ellen reached down and slid fingers into the blood-soaked holes in her shirt, feeling where her stomach had been opened up. The faint ridges of fresh skin were there, still scabbing over and not fully healed. Even healing magic couldn’t heal everything immediately at her Level… it took energy from the target as well as the caster, so healing her all the way could just knock her out.

Miriam stepped into her sight and offered Ellen a hand up. She accepted graciously, hauling herself to her feet and swaying unsteadily as her vision swam. The mage kept hold of her until her balance steadied.

“Careful. Even after healing you can be a little dizzy.” The mage frowned. “Was that the first time you’ve been hurt that badly?”

Ellen nodded to her, then looked around for her spear. “I guess I’m getting a lot of experience, but this is really getting concerning.”

Edmund swept up her spear with his foot, catching it in midair and handing it to her.

“It could be coincidence,” Edmund mused. “After all, we don’t know a lot about new dungeons. I’ve heard a little about them but Miriam and Vincent are the real experts. Maybe they just locked onto her for some reason we don’t know?”

“Then we’d better find out.” Miriam glanced aside at Ellen. “I’ve never heard of dungeon monsters targeting anyone specifically…”

Vincent normally kept quiet, but he cleared his throat now. “There was the one dungeon that tried to attack women first.”

Miriam made an annoyed noise. “That’s true. I think that one had it on the entry message, though. Ellen, do you have any strange Status Effects on you that might clue us in?”

Ellen looked up from her examination of her spear. The teeth marks didn’t look nearly as bad as she’d thought… stoat teeth were sharp but narrow, and not designed to crack through wood. She looked at each of the three in turn, chewing her bottom lip.

They were helping her out and hadn’t needed to drag her low-leveled self along with them to the dungeon. They deserved to know the issue.

“No Status Effect, but I have been seeing a weird message tagged onto the end of some of my notifications.” Ellen fidgeted, paying a lot more attention to her spear tip than she really needed to. “Um, first, is it normal to get bonus experience from a dungeon aura?”

She knew very well that it was. That was one of the many reasons dungeons were in such high demand.

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Miriam sighed, “Of course it is, so that isn’t the… what did you mean by first?”

Nothing got past the sharp-witted mage, did it?

Leaning on her spear, Ellen felt her cheeks heat up. “Well, right after every dungeon aura bonus, I’ve been getting another bonus for something called a ‘Bloodline Rival Trait’ as well. So my experience is really going up fast, but I’m pretty sure the creatures are aiming at me specifically. Maybe it’s because I discovered the dungeon?”

“You saying the dungeon just wants left alone and it’s targeting you because you gave it company?” Edmund chuckled. His smile faded as he saw the expression on Ellen’s face. “Wait, are you serious? Bloodline Rival… never heard of anything like that.”

The blonde mage sighed aloud. “It does sound like it’s out for Ellen specifically. What a strange Trait to have… but even older dungeons have some strange behaviors sometimes. Every dungeon is unique, so perhaps this one selects rivals each time someone delves into it, and Ellen here ended up the unlucky pick.”

Ellen backed up, slouching so as to draw less attention while the trio discussed the situation.

“Maybe we could use this,” Edmund considered. “We shouldn’t try a full delve—we don’t need to, anyway. We just need to go far enough to give a decent idea of what the dungeon is, and that it’s a valid dungeon. We’ve done the last part already, we already have loot.”

Miriam raised an eyebrow. “You mean use her as bait?”

“I was trying not to put it that way but… yes.” Edmund pointed to Ellen. “We can layer some magical protections on her, wait for the monsters to rush, and since they’ll be focused entirely on her we can pincer them and take them down easy. Even if they get past us she should be okay long enough to let us finish off whatever it is that got through.”

Vincent shook his head, finally speaking up. “I don’t think I can recommend that. It’s too dangerous for her even with my Mystic Shield.”

Ellen so rarely heard Vincent talk that she was too startled to speak for a second, but she raised her hand for everyone’s attention before they started arguing again.

“I’ll do it.” All three looked at her. “I’m not crazy, don’t worry. I just think if I’m going to be participating and living around here, I need to take some risks to level up faster. Every time I help kill something I’m getting triple experience instead of double. Why not use that? If I never get into danger then that bonus goes to waste.”

Despite being the one to suggest it, Edmund frowned at her words. “If you’re sure. I don’t want you to get badly hurt doing this, and it’s dangerous to make assumptions. Dungeons just aren’t well-documented enough to know everything that’s going on with them.”

“Don’t misunderstand, I don’t want to die or get hurt,” Ellen assured quickly. “But I’m not really scared of it either. I can do it. Just um… don’t be surprised if I scream and panic and cry when I get hurt, okay? Those claws hurt. Still stings a little even after Vincent did such a good job taking care of them.”

Vincent grunted, but Ellen got the distinct impression he was pleased with her praise.

“If you’re sure,” Edmund murmured, drawing it out. He rubbed his chin again, then shook his head. “Well, it’s such a new dungeon there are probably only a few chambers left. If it’s like most early dungeons, it will loop around. They’ll get more and more complex and harder to navigate over time.”