Finished taking a breather, he began to observe the way forward. He would need to jump nearly two tres to land on a stone block affixed to the wall... then keep moving rapidly to avoid the traps and dangerous drops.
Ryuji thought he could fly at the start, the wings of his demon form able to perform small bursts of flight... However, there are arrow traps and spikes affixed to the ceiling to kill anyone who tries.
"This is so troubleso, maybe I should have taken the other passage..."
With a leap, Ryuji kicked off the platform and into the air, his legs stretched before landing on a stone block sticking out; then he jumped to another, his body moving around the spike traps in a dance before he jumped into the air and landed in front of a golden chest.
"Oi! What the hell is a chest doing here!"
He felt anger as if the chest was taunting him. He began to hate this dungeon and its damn traps, and now...
Ryuji opened the chest before a flash of light erupted, and a figure appeared... it was a grey-skinned goblin with a white loincloth but with a giant hamr.
It was a trap!
"Woah!"
He jumped, dodging the hamr strike, and kicked the goblin across the face. It stumbled backwards before Ryuji picked it up and threw it into the void.
Normally, he loved to fight, but when their only place of battle was a stone less than a tre wide and long. He wasn't interested in those kinds of odds. Ryuji watched the monster drop from the pillar and waited for a sound to show he hit solid ground.
...
...
Bang!
A faint sound echoed after nearly a minute of falling; that ant this drop wasn't a joke or sothing he wanted to risk his life on testing!
"That was... weird, but what's this?"
He could feel the gemstone in his pocket before smiling and putting it inside.
"Ah, right, it is a dungeon... the chest vanishes and the gemstone appears. However... it feels strange to just accept these crazy events."
"Now I have to leave?"
Ryuji was about to jump back to the previous platform when the wall behind the chest that vanished started to tremble and then collapsed, revealing a doorway.
"What the hell? Did the dungeon create an alternative path for ?"
He looked inside, and there was a long, narrow pathway. It slt damp and mouldy. However, there was enough room to walk through, and Ryuji couldn't detect anything dangerous with his increased sense of danger and magic-seeing eyes.
He let out a grunt.
"Let's go...," he whispered.
At the end of the narrow, mouldy and damp corridor was another door; it seed to lead back to that hallway from earlier. However, this ti, there were no goblins and only an eerie silence and the distant calls of animals.
"I am not going down any more trap laden passages. I'll kill the goblins, take the gem, then get out of here," he muttered, his feet stomping as he walked back into the main chamber.
"Alright, ti to kill so goblins!"
Ryuji charged into the next passage, which was a strange, dark and eerie hallway. However, this ti, it wasn't like he thought the first passage wasn't a puzzle or trap maze; instead, it seed he needed to kill a strong monster, from the small drawings on the wall showed an image of multiple monsters or humans it felt hard to tell fighting a large figure.
"I see, so the dungeon requires I kill the guardian in each area, to allow to progress forward. How annoying did the creator play old fashioned RPGs or sothing? Well Then I guess I'll have to fight the monster at the end of the corridor..."
"Hmm... I wonder if it's a troll, I could just imagine the troll sitting in a corner reading a book, complaining about the hero coming to ruin his day!"
"But then again... it could be a giant spider, a centaur or a Minotaur."
"What other mythical creatures could there be?"
Ryuji began to regurgitate the information he learned from the fantasy books in Alex's room.
He seed to feel a little more irritated than usual, and the largest reason was that he no longer felt comfortable being alone. Ryuji had beco so used to travelling with Yumiko, Erika or other people that, once alone, he felt different.
'I am no longer the sa Ryuji from before...'
Ryuji couldn't help but grin. 'Though this dungeon might have sothing useful or fun to do, so it's not all bad!'
It was only a short distance until he ca to the end of the hallway, with a door that looked just like the entrance, a heavy stone door with the sa runes and indentations.
Then below it was...
A big goblin, sothing that made Ryuji frown. He thought there might be sothing special, but it was just a blue-skinned goblin that was close to his height.
'Sure it's taller and more buff than those grey guys, but it's still boring...'
However, what was even more boring was the way this guy tried to attack. The goblin was slow, and his punches lacked force; the only thing he was missing was a cigar between his lips as he let out a grunt and threw a lazy punch that made Ryuji want to laugh.
With a slight grin, he swung the handle of his axe into the goblin's jaw, smashing through the teeth and forcing the monster to the ground, coughing up blood before Ryuji crushed the goblin's head under his foot.
"Ah... such a disappointnt... It didn't even give a marking!"
Ryuji picked up the dead goblin and ripped out the gem studded into its chest before pushing the door open and walking through, now finding himself on a bridge.
"Two of five..."
The other three tunnels offered little to inspire his heart, the third tunnel a gauntlet in which he was constantly shot at with arrows and crossbows while running across a stone path that would fall if he lingered in the spot too long.
Ryuji felt the third was the most fun passage, where he fought goblins and skeletons in waves, which ant all the markings reached the rare level! So he felt glad about that, though nothing else seed beneficial as his levelling slowed down, likely because the monsters beca far too easy.
[Gained: Grey Goblin Marking (Rare)]
[Gained: Skeleton Archer Marking (Legendary)]
[Gained: Skeleton Knight Marking (Rare)]
Now, with all five gemstones, he sat on the long stone bridge, dangling his legs off the edge while eating a warm sausage sandwich. Thanks to his storage, it remained hot and didn't beco soggy.
Ryuji began to understand the reason people ford parties, though he enjoyed fighting alone and getting right into the heart of combat. When alone or faced with these monts where the conversation would help dull the eerie silence and lonely feelings. Ryuji couldn't help but want a group of comrades.
'Is this a side effect of bonding with others? Was mother this lonely when I wasn't around, is that why she made the classes so cheap for the other housewives?'
He licked his lips, finishing the last bite of his al, feeling a warm sensation in his stomach and the feeling of strength filling his body.
"Now then, let's keep going..."
***
When he returned to the door with runic letters and the five gem slots, he wondered what else this place could offer to him before he started to affix the gems, hoping and praying there wasn't so mystical order because he had no clue and didn't want to spend hours in this place.
However, this ti, it seed Ryuji was lucky as he placed them inside the glowing sockets, feeling an almost magnetic sensation and crackle of lightning when he lifted them close!
The gemstones glowed brightly, and the door began to open with a slow groan as the rocks and old tal parts began to move.
'It didn't explode... so I guess this is the right sequence, thank god!'
The door revealed a large hall with an empty pedestal in the centre. The roof above had beautiful paintings, and murals depicting battles between man and monster covered the walls.
It felt like a historical scene, from the entrance where man fought simple monsters to the end near the pedestal where a golden being ca... Ryuji felt like it resembled an Apostle... but that Apostle attacked the humans, in the last part of the mural, the humans perished...
'To overco all monsters and threats, then destroyed by the ssenger of whom you served? What a cruel fate...'
Ryuji didn't know what to make of it. It was simply a hypothesis based on the scenes and what he had experienced.
Even though he realised from eting Alan, learning about the curse of his bloodline and the one who was likely behind it, being a goddess of light. He still wished to believe so gods weren't twisted and evil, like mirrors of humans.
'However, we were created in their image. If we are dark, treacherous and evil, then even the most holy god has those traits... I suppose.'
Ryuji approached the pedestal, finally reaching the end of the hallway before the entire room began to shake. His sense of a boss fight all but blared as he watched the various archways for the appearance of such a threat.
With his back turned to the pedestal, a trendous storm of bones seed to be dragged from the walls, breaking the stone and the very pillars that held the room together. It created a towering giant of bone from countless humans ford in the air. It created a ghastly form and filled with a gloomy aura.
"Grrr!"
The sound of rattling bones rubbing against themselves almost sounded like a human groan while ard with a huge spear of pristine white bone. The monster hovered with rotting wings as if to mock or mimic the Apostle who took their lives.
'It's behind ...'
"E....nd.... our....eternal suffering.... betrayer...."
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