Emily brushed the leaves aside and revealed the entrance, a dark opening in the earth frad by old carved rock. The cubs whined and circled, then the female one looked up at Eren with bright eyes.
"I’m almost level 50 after today’s hunting. Almost." She said it eagerly, pawing at the dirt like she couldn’t contain herself.
Eren stepped closer, trying to keep his grin under control. "Don’t be so happy yet. We have to go back to the village to see what your next class will be." He glanced at Emily.
She cooled down a little.
"Just don’t rush and try learning how I attack." Emily tightened her grip on her bowstring before passing it to him for practice. "Dungeons don’t care about your stats or confidence. You need to learn how to use your body."
"I know..."
Eren took one step toward the entrance and the air shifted like the world was watching him. A cold pressure brushed his skin and the cubs froze for a second, like their instincts had finally caught up.
Then the system hit them with a ssage unlike yesterday’s, and it ca while they were still standing outside the dungeon.
[Warning: Dungeon Access requires Floor 1 entry]
Eren blinked, then let out a short laugh that sounded more annoyed than amused. "So you’re telling we have to do the whole floor all over again. All those screaming, disgusting bats..." He muttered it while staring into the darkness, shaking his head slowly. Emily’s lips twitched like she was trying not to smile.
"No shortcuts then." She patted his arm once and kept walking. "It’ll benefit you to practice archery. Flying targets are actually hard to find around here."
The cubs looked to the entrance then back to Eren, tails still wagging like the floor situation didn’t concern them at all. Eren exhaled and tightened his grip on the knife in his right hand.
"Fine." He said, rolling his shoulders back. "I feel like I can use my skills better today. Maybe we can do it faster."
Emily was so close to level 50. And he was almost 22. The cubs were 24 and 23 as the girl was above her brother.
"By the way. Do you want nas?" Eren used Beast Tongue with a low growling voice.
Every ti he talked in Beastin, his whole deanor shifted, turned to more deeper and steadier version like sothing ancient and monstrous was speaking through him.
He didn’t know what effect that voice had on Emily. But when he turned, she was already close, pressing a quick kiss to his lips at the dungeon entrance before pulling back with bright, glowing eyes.
Emily liked showing affection through touch. She was a big fan of skinship.
Female cub ca closer with amusent on her face. She couldn’t understand elf dwarf kisses or what it ant yet.
[Our nas should be given by our families. Or Evon gives them to us when we grow. I’m almost level 25. Maybe I’ll have a na then. Grrrr.] The female cub leapt onto a sleeping bat near the dungeon entrance, raised her left paw and struck in one quick motion.
She must have used a skill, because she claid the dungeon’s first kill just like that.
Her brother snarled and pounced on a bat that ca at him from the side, tearing it apart with his teeth. He had the claw skill too, but force of habit made him reach for his jaws first.
Emily drew her long sword and lunged forward.
And just like that, Eren found himself alone for the first ti in a dungeon. Yesterday, because it had been their first ti inside, Emily hadn’t left his side. Today, both Emily and the cubs trusted him enough to split off on their own.
"Hey, save so for !" Eren called, stepping forward and raising the bow.
His passive skill activated and a small red dot appeared at the tip, steady and sharp. The actual problem was aiming. The arrow flew and caught the wing of a one-ter bat that had been sitting motionless on the wall. The injured beast began to thrash, then suddenly its eyes turned a reddish pink and it went completely still for two full seconds.
"It actually worked. Haha!!" Emily spun around, ran up the wall, and cut a path between the bat Eren had hit and several others higher up that were waiting to strike.
Within a few minutes, the entire first chamber was cleared.
Knowing what to expect made all four of them move with more confidence than the day before. But whether by bad luck or sothing else, no reward chest appeared.
"Do you think we might’ve lost our chance at a chest from the whole first floor?" Eren hadn’t given up hope of finding a mana regeneration item.
"I don’t think so." Emily wiped the dust off her sword on her sleeve. "Maybe not the sa quality as the first clear, but I think we’ll get sothing at the end of the floor." She spoke with the quiet certainty of soone who’d heard enough from her mother to trust the pattern.
Even she doubted they could clear the whole dungeon quickly, though. It was deeper than either of them had expected.
Three hours later, Eren was the first to level up. The notification rang in his ears while he was focused on a bat hiding in the ceiling, and the feminine system voice shattered his concentration completely. The arrow missed.
"I don’t know whether to celebrate or swear about losing another arrow. I’ve only got three left." He watched Emily flip between walls with her sword raised in a ridiculously graceful pose and let out a long sigh.
He hadn’t planned on being forced into archery by a fantasy world skill tree.
He added his free stat point to Mana and took a quick look at his stats.
Level: 22 Mana: 150 / 240
/ -
Usable Evon Stat Points: 0
-Strength: 33 ( 1)
-Perception: 33
-Endurance: 33
-Intelligence: 33 ( 3)
-Agility: 33 ( 11)
-Mana: 23 ( 1)
-Charisma: 33 ( 40, 99, X2 - Locked)
-Luck: 33
Fire Resistance 1%
/ -
Even without the two rings and gloves, his base stats matched or exceeded Emily’s.
In fact, his stats had climbed high enough that he’d stopped feeling the difference. Back when they were all sitting around 10-15, every point had ant sothing. Now the numbers kept climbing but the sensation wasn’t keeping up. He’d started to wonder if there was sothing wrong with his skill set, or sothing wrong with his body.
By every calculation, he should’ve been able to bounce off walls and punch through stone right now.
Charisma and Mana weren’t the issue. Every elf in the village treated him warmly. The ones he passed on the street, especially the younger and middle-aged won, went out of their way to be friendly. Mana held steady as long as he kept using skills. The pool he’d burned through a few hours ago was already more than half refilled.
But everything else felt off. Outside of the nights and carrying heavy things around the village, he felt maybe two or three tis stronger than a normal person. Not six tis. Not the way the numbers suggested.
[Fall back!] The female cub laughed as she jumped in front of Eren, then launched herself upward, slashing two bats with her claws before continuing after the elite she’d actually been hunting. After Emily, she was the most relentless thing in their group.
Even the male cub moved more normally beside his sister’s endless energy.
"Maybe females of every species are just more intense. I heard female lions are stronger and more active than males. Apparently they even beat up their mates." Eren muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
The male cub, who’d frozen mid-step at that comnt, edged a little closer. "Our mother dominated all of our fathers on her own and gave them orders. I just rembered that." His eyes drifted to his sister as he went back to hunting. Whatever happened in the future, he quietly decided he’d never start a family with her.
His sister was the most energetic of all the female cubs that had been separated from the pack. She was also the one who resembled their mother most.
Eren had no idea he’d just ended a potential relationship before it started. He kept practicing with the bow.
Most of the experience he was earning ca from the bats that attacked him directly, which he finished with his short knife. He was better than yesterday, but the improvent was modest.
So he settled into a rhythm. Normal targets got the bow. He’d shoot, then run after the arrow to collect it, and if anything lunged at him, he’d try Lovely Eyes and its aura-based Charm effect. When it worked, he’d drive the knife through the bat’s skull and collect the experience cleanly.
He gave the Elite Bats a wide berth. His raw power probably wasn’t that far behind theirs. But elites moved with a speed and precision that felt dangerous in a different way, and he wasn’t ready for that gap yet.
A few minutes after Eren leveled up, they stepped into Chamber 7 and the female cub burst out laughing as she leveled up too. She’d been chasing a single elite bat for the last five minutes and had finally taken it down alone.
But even with the level gained, nothing visibly changed.
According to the cubs, every 25 levels their kind needed to sleep through a growth event. When they woke, their bodies would be larger and they’d have new skills or class developnts waiting.
Eren found it a little unfair how the system handled beasts versus people. For species like elves or humans, leveling up outside of a settlent with a totem was nearly impossible. Getting a skill at all without the right conditions was out of reach.
"Congratulations. Did Evon give you a na yet?"
The female cub, now covered head to tail in dust and gri, growled up at Eren. "Not yet. But if Evon doesn’t give one soon, I’ll pick my own." She shook the dust out of her fur like the answer was obvious. "My mother did the sa thing." She laughed again, then sprinted off to show off to her brother.
But the biggest leveling surprise ca with Emily.
When they entered Chamber 8, Eren was still fumbling with the bow when Emily stepped directly in front of the boss, her sword already drawn.
"If I take this one down alone, I’ll definitely level up." Her voice carried no doubt whatsoever.
Before Eren could remind her she was pregnant, Emily threw herself at the boss, a Bat Commander with a two-ter body and a four-ter wingspan. She activated Wind Slash, her only active skill, and carved a wide arc through the air above it.
In an instant, the left wing was half gone. Dark, vein-thick skin and mbrane fell away in a sheet, blood already dripping from the cut before the creature fully registered what had happened.
Then the boss opened its mouth and scread.
Not like yesterday’s boss. This one shrieked with sothing that hit the walls and ca back as pressure. The whole chamber vibrated with a piercing, disorienting frequency that seed to crawl inside the skull.
Eren and both cubs lost their footing and dropped to their knees at the sa ti. It happened so fast that it was his first real lesson in how brutally effective a control-type ability could be when used right.
A few seconds later Emily landed, sprang back into the air and drove her sword into the boss’s open mouth. The sound stopped. The vibration stopped with it.
"Today’s boss feels stronger than yesterday’s. Strange..." She glanced back at Eren, then shrugged and started checking her sword for damage.
Eren contributed one lucky arrow from a distance, enough to count as an assist. The cubs ransacked a few bat nests around the edges of the room looking for loot. But when the boss finally went down five minutes later, Emily had earned the kill on her own.
She didn’t announce her level up loudly, but the mana and aura radiating off her was nearly visible, full, almost overflowing. She was smiling before she’d even landed.
Then she ran straight at Eren and jumped.
She didn’t even wait for him to open his arms. "I’ve been waiting eight years for this. Hug !"
Eren caught her anyway, arms wrapping around her as she pressed into him with everything she had. He knew what level 50 ant to her.
Seventeen years old and alone, protecting a village that barely understood what she was sacrificing. Took help from her stepfather when she had no other option but she was alone most of the ti.
She’d set level 50 as her target when she was still a child.
He pulled her close and kissed her cheeks and her forehead until the shaking in her shoulders settled down.
"Let’s celebrate tonight!" She pulled back just enough to look at his face when she said it.
"Yesss!!" She was already halfway to the dungeon exit before the word finished leaving her mouth.
Eren was already ntally drafting plans that involved get wasted with wine when the small detail he’d been forgetting ca back to him.
He pointed a firm finger in her direction. "You’re drinking fruit juice, missy!!!"
They all headed to the reward chest with wide grins.
User Comments
0 comments from readers