Ai, what exactly is going on here? I thought my passive lie detection only gets triggered when, you know, someone lies to me. So, what is this? Why is this Dungeon triggering it?
<I do not know>
<However, I would advise exercising the utmost cautious>
Yeah, I was planning on it.
"Hm...is it just me, or is there something kinda...off, about this Dungeon?" Frowned Ariella warily.
She can sense it too? Her Perception stat is pretty high, that must be why.
"No, it’s not just you. It’s hard to explain, but it’s kinda similar to the feeling I get when I sense that someone’s lying to me, you know?" I responded, keeping it a bit vague.
"Yeah, that’s what that is! What a weird feeling, I’ve never sensed anything like this," Chimed in Hal, looking kinda intrigued.
Hm, everyone else looks confused, guess you need a certain amount of Perception to pick up on it. I wouldn’t have noticed it either, if it wasn’t for my passive lie detection.
"What are you guys talking about? I just feel really hot."
"Yeah, same here, my lips are already starting to peel and crack, it’s so dry."
"I’m sweating like crazy, this is going to be rough."
"Hm...what do you think we should do? This feeling is kinda disconcerting," Remarked Ariella with a grimace, as she glanced at me.
"I agree. I say we head in, but take it slow. If it looks like things are going to get too dangerous, we can always turn back," I pointed out, after taking a moment to mull it over.
"Yeah...I suppose so. Okay, then, let’s go. Alright, everyone, listen up! We’ll be moving at a slower pace than planned, stay on high alert and conserve your energy.
Trey, be ready to refill our water bottles whenever we start to run low, we’re going to need to drink a lot of water to avoid getting dehydrated in here.
Also, there might be something off about this Dungeon, so if things take an unexpected turn, be ready to run," Stated Ariella, as she looked around at the others.
Wow, she’s a natural, first time I’m seeing her leadership in action.
"Quite the contrast from our first raid, huh?" The Lancer muttered to me with a wry smile.
"Yeah, I’ll say," I nodded in agreement.
We then pressed on, venturing further into the Dungeon. This one has forty-four floors, none of us have been in one with more than twenty-five floors before this, so conserving energy is going to be crucial.
Also, they’re probably going to figure out that I lied about Devour restoring my stamina, this heat is going to sap my energy like crazy.
Not to mention this sand...we’ll need to put more effort into walking through it than we’d have to if we were standing on solid ground, and it’s going to be hard to run around freely in this terrain.
"Hold on! I think I sense some Monsters, fifty meters ahead! There’s seven of them!" Called out the Detector, about ten minutes after we began venturing in.
"Got it! They should come into sight soon, so keep your eyes peeled!" Instructed Ariella, as we continued making our way forward.
Sure enough, it didn’t take long for the Monsters to appear. They were Hellhounds, dog-like Mid Level Monsters with jet-black fur and gleaming red eyes. And they had the ability to breathe fire.
"[Barrier Wall]!" Chanted the Protector, a wide, rectangular, transparent wall forming in front of us as the pack of Hellhounds snapped open their jaws and unleashed blazing waves of flames towards us in unison.
The flames came to an abrupt halt as they collided against the barrier, spreading out ahead of us before the Monsters came charging forward as the flames began to peter out.
Ariella and I shot forward as the barrier faded, the Lancer following our lead as the Hellhounds began to close in on us.
One of them zeroed in on me and leapt forward with a vicious snarl, streaks of slobber spraying out of its mouth as it snapped its jaws at my shoulder.
I swiftly drove my left fist up, slamming it against the bottom of the Monster’s lower jaw and snapping its mouth shut, before I whipped my right arm across and slit its throat, my gaze shifting across to my left as another one sprang in towards me from that direction...
"<Devour>."
I tore its head off before it could react, the jaws of Devour engulfing its head and chomping through its neck. Its body hit the ground with a soft thud, blood gushing out and seeping into the sand.
A loud crunch rang out from a few meters away, as Ariella broke a Hellhound’s neck with a swift, powerful jab to the left side of its head.
Several broken fangs spilled out of its mouth as it stumbled across to its right and collapsed onto the ground, spasming a couple of times before going limb and slumping against the sand.
Looks like that was the last one.
There are two more Hellhound corpses in Ariella’s vicinity, so she killed three. I took care of two, seems the Lancer killed one, and it looks like Trey handled the last one.
"Excuse me, Mr Hal and Miss Ferna, would you say this was a normal encounter for the first floor of a Mid Level Dungeon?" Ariella called out to the two Hunters.
"Yeah, I’d say so!" Nodded Hal in response.
"Yes, there was nothing out of the ordinary," Added Ferna in agreement.
Maybe so, but that feeling hasn’t disappeared, my passive lie detection has been blaring this whole time, it’s a tiny bit distracting. I can ignore it for the most part, and it isn’t affecting my combat, but it is kinda annoying.
"Okay, then, let’s extract the Cores and keep heading forward! If anyone needs a break, don’t hesitate to speak up!" Stated Ariella, as I knelt down beside one of the Hellhounds I’d killed and pried its Core out.
I then proceeded to use Devour and Drain on it, before moving on to the other I killed. Devour only takes a few seconds to fully consume bodies of this size, same goes for Drain with Mana.
So even as I stopped to use them on the other Hellhounds once the others were done extracting the Cores, I wasn’t particularly slowing the party down.
Plus, after doing this across three raids already, most of them are used to it.
Out of the eight other students in this raid, Ariella’s the only one who I haven’t been on a raid with before, I’ve been teamed up with each of the rest of them at least once.
Now, then, let’s take a look at my gains. Hey, not bad.
Not a whole lot gained on MP, but I netted a decent amount of points to distribute across my physical stats, and this was just from seven of the Monsters. And we’ve still got more than forty floors to go.
It’s too bad Mana fades so fast upon death, I still need to increase my MP a whole lot if I’m to be able to use my Skills more freely...