Chapter 71 – Descending into the dungeon.

Town of Albrook it was called, it was a mostly unexplored settlement away from large cities on Dragnis island. The people that lived here were a peaceful bunch that liked to live their lives slowly. Most of them were farmers, hunters, and fishermen that earned their living through their craft. It didn’t seem like the monotone life that they spent here would be changing anytime soon.

This changed on one faithful day, the ground shook on a certain stormy night. Everyone woke up thinking that some kind of monster had finally attacked. People had heard the rumors of dragons living on this island in the innermost parts. Maybe one of them had decided to pay them a visit?

The truth was slightly different, it did involve monsters but the citizens weren’t in any danger. After the storm cleared up and the sun shone on the mountains they could finally see it. A large volcano had sprung out from the ground, smoke was coming out of it, clearly active and dangerous.

Only a small number of guards and hunters lived here. A scouting party was quickly formed and in a few days, they brought the news of the new discovery. The new volcano had an entrance, it wasn’t a natural cave, no it was quite different.

It had an uncharacteristic gate design with embedded patterns. It looked man-made but the people living there clearly knew such a thing was impossible. There was nothing there just a day ago, this was clearly an entrance to a dungeon.

The people in this country or even the whole world weren’t sure about how dungeons came to be. There were various types of them around, some even had their own ecosystems. Others looked like ancient ruins with catacombs spreading below the earth. This one was similar to the latter but also different in many ways.

With this news, their life got turned upside down. Their peaceful little town would soon be overrun with adventurers. The old farmers despaired but some of the more crafty ones knew that this was their chance. The person who took the initiative now could become rich. The adventurers brought a lot of problems with them but they also brought lots of gold coins.

Half a year later the people that took it upon themselves to invest were now taking in the profits. The inns and pubs were filled to the brim with new people, new shops were popping up to accommodate the new demand. The new unrated dungeon brought all of this in and this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone knew that only after the dungeon was giving a rating its true potential would be discovered. Things like this took some time as even powerful adventurers weren’t willing to venture into it blindly. It was believed that this dungeon was an extension of the main Dragnis dungeon that was a supervolcano in the middle of this island.

The biggest concern with it was the connection. It could be connected anywhere, to another smaller dungeon far away from here or even directly into the dragon’s lair. This was highly unlikely but it was possible to meet monsters above tier 3 in random places if this dungeon connected to the main one.

Mapping out a dungeon could take even years depending on how large it was. Some of the beginner-friendly levels were already mapped out by the more experienced adventurers. The adventurer guild even made money by selling some of the maps. Not all decided on a purchase like that which could prove fatal in the long run.

A certain person in an uncoordinated armor was walking towards this Albrook Dungeon. He was holding onto a map and slowly reading it while finishing up an apple that he bought on his way here.

‘It looks like this dungeon is a Labyrinth type, those are tricky ones’

This was Roland wearing his brigandine armor along with his helmet to cover his face. He had his arming sword strapped to his side and a shield that he bought strapped to his back. He looked like a regular warrior, with his height over 185 cm he could easily pass for one.

He had made a decision of training up his close-quarters fighting skills. The sword related skills that he had were the most advanced from the combat ones he had. A decision was made by him to focus on it. The shield would also be used for protection and not only that as he had tweaked it a bit with his runecrafting skill.

Roland didn’t abandon his spell casting just yet. He had two smaller wands strapped to his side as another means of attack. He wanted to increase his all-around fighting capability. He could go about it in a couple of ways.

First, he could focus on crafting better runic equipment. With various defensive and buffing runes, he would be well protected. His biggest weakness at the moment was a close-range exchange. It was very easy for him to even kill tier 2 monsters with his common grade spells.
That is if they allowed themselves to be hit.

He had won most of his old fights by ranged surprise attacks. There weren’t really any moments where he had to face a monster on his level in a true one on one battle. Either he hid and used his spells from a safe distance or he had other people distracting the monsters for him to land a critical blow from afar.

‘I need to develop some kind of fighting style…’

While walking towards the dungeon he looked up while thinking. His close-range tactic came down to evading any attacks and then using a fire arrow spell with his wands. There was no fancy footwork involved, any blocking or parrying. It was just pure magical power that was possible through his runic weapons and his high mana pool.

‘If I meet a monster that either dodges or resists one of these spells from close range, I might die.’

As he was thinking about some fighting combinations he finally reached his destination. The volcano was giving off puffs of black smoke here and there. The temperature increased slightly the closer he got to this volcano but it was bearable. He had also attached a special chilling rune to his own armor. If things got too hot, he could lessen the burden on his body by activating it. This rune worked similar to a buffing rune and lowered his mana pool by a set number while being active.

Roland moved forward, other adventurers were also here. Some were waiting for their teammates outside the entrance, some were going in, others were moving out. He could even see scratches and wounds on some of the rough-looking men. They were clearly in a fight not so long ago and now he would soon be in one as well.

This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, he had already been in a dungeon before. There was a slight difference, not from the adventurer’s side though.

‘Quite innovative…’

What he saw was a large wagon on the side. The peculiar thing about this wagon was that it looked more like a food stand. This cart was fully made out of wood and it had a tarp hoisted out from the side. There was also a window to which you could move over and peek in.

“Get your healing potions and mana potions here, we also have pure water for your parched throat!”

There was a young girl with a twin bun hairstyle shouting out. She looked rather young, about the age of twelve or close to it. She was clearly there to bring attention to this cart, in it was an older man selling some wares. Some of the injured adventurers were even buying up those healing potions. Roland wasn’t interested but he took some time to examine the prices that were out on a large wooden board on the side.

The author’s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

‘Those prices are at least 25% above the regular market value…’

It looked like this store was ripping people off but it did offer a new type of service. If you took into account that it was right outside the dungeon area the 25% rise in price could be stomached.

‘I hope they know what they are doing though…’