"So how do you deal with Grimm while hunting?" I asked the chief of the hunting group that Raven mentioned in our morning talk. Him and his brother escorting me to the nearest village from the tribe's current position.
The hunting group leader was named Bruno, and his brother was Copper. They are both a mountain of pure muscle that would give bodybuilders a run for their money, but despite that, the way in which they move through the forest is...scary.
I saw one of them step on a twig and the twig didnt beak...no wonder they are the ones leading the hunting party.
Since Raven mentioned their capabilities to be somewhat above the other tribe members, I wanted to get to know them a little, build a connection.
"Simple, dont let your thought wander, keep focusing on hunting the prey and kill it. Since it's a kill out of necessity for food, there aren't many negative emotions to experience, not any emotion in general to be honest. Go, hunt, go back." Ah, so Grimm won't sense them and thus not attack them unless the hunters do something stupid.
Makes sense.
"Keep your mind clear and don't let your thoughts wander away from the current objective, simple but easier said than done." I nodded. "Ah, we arrived." In the distance, I could make out the outline of small houses and a small tower, probably to keep watch for Grimm or intruders.
"What are your orders?" Copper asked with his hand resting on the handle of the mace dangling from his hip.
"For now follow me and let us try not to cause trouble." He and Bruno nodded.
Once we were close enough a man dressed like an anime protagonist with a sword on his back approached us.
I could only assume that he is a huntsman paid to keep this village safe.
"What business do you have here?" He asked while eyeing us suspiciously, stopping at a distance where he could react to any hostile movement from us.
"I have a transportation semblance, but it's Dogshit because it allows me to use it only on doors with locks" I spoke and took out my dungeon key from one of the pockets of my pants. "Look for yourself." Approaching the nearest door of a random house, I put the key into the lock and twisted it.
The key shattered into small pieces and crumbled away just like spiderman did when hugging iron man in MCU infinity war. The door clicked open and instead of the interior of a house, we all saw the inside of sewers.
"It's my treasury, nobody expects a treasury in a random abandoned sewer under Vale ." I lied as naturally as I breathe and stepped inside, making the door close behind me and leaving my two subordinates to deal with the huntsman.
The room I found myself in was made entirely out of stone blocks, had 3 doors, and a stairway that I assumed would lead me out of here.
[You entered the Pixel Dungeon!]
The mobile game? Damn, I remember when there were a thousand versions of it, now it's only "Pixel Dungeon", "Sprouted Pixel Dungeon" and "Shattered Pixel Dungeon"
The last one is the best version, the second one being right after since it's easier and has bigger levels, not to mention items are easier to collect. Sprouted Pixel Dungeon is the Easy mode of the game, essentially.
[The dungeon lies right beneath the city, it's upper levels actually constitute the city sewer system.]
[As dark energy has crept from bellow the usually harmless sewer creatures have become more and more dangerous. The city sends guards down here to try and maintain safety for those above, but they are slowly failing]
[This place is dangerous, but at least the evil magic at work here is weak.]
I assume that "here" refers to the sewers and not the dungeon as a whole.
Alright, my first instinct? Try and see if I can climb the stairs leading up.
[One does not simply leave pixel dungeon]
My face kissed the invisible wall on the first step and my body bounced back, causing me to fall on my ass.
"ouch"
Damn, worth a try tho. I remember a version of the game where you could go into the city and trade for items, which is something I would obviously do after farming enough gold from the mobs and chests in the dungeon.
Alright, let's go dungeon diving I guess.
I opened one of the 3 doors and saw a long and damp corridor. Stepping in I activated [Shadow cloak] and felt the chi inside the shadows envelop me in what I can only describe as a tight hug.
But unlike the [Chi strike] and [Lightning bolt] I didnt feel the energy coming from within me, but instead, I felt the energy outside of me being grabbed and moved toward me.
Interesting.
After looking at my status and seeing that each second of [Shadow cloak] consumes 5MP, I stopped using it and decided to activate it only when I need to sneak on someone or escape a tight situation.
Looks like my plan to slaughter each overgrown sewer creature while being invisible ain't gonna work. It would work if I had more MP but for now its just 200, not even a full minute of usage.
Slowly moving forward, I carefully looked around and kept both my human and fox ears strained for any kind of sounds. Being sneak attacked and killed by a rat is rather embarrassing, so I would prefer to avoid that.
At some point, the corridor suddenly had a sharp turn to the left, but in the corner on the right there was a door, so I entered it.
A room with a 2 meters deep pit filled with water...and piranhas...and a chest.
Normaly I would walk out, but a chest standing on a pedestal in the middle of the death pond is not something I can leave without making an attempt to loot it.
"It's big brain time." I said as an idea came to my head.
I activated [Lightning bolt] but instead of shooting the lightning out, I kept it in my hand, making arcs of electricity dance around my palm.
[You gain 10 XP for learning the spell {Sparks} without the system's help.]
Huh...neat.
Getting near the water, I crouched and dipped my electricity-covered hand inside it. Pushing more power into the lightning I watched as the water lit up and all the piranhas were electrocuted.
A series of notifications telling me that I gained 1XP for killing a fish bombarded my view.
They all quickly vanished after they appeared, but that doesn't change the fact that it made me blind to anything in front of me for a second. WHICH IS NOT GOOD! This is a seriously bad design, I need to bring it up to the game once it decides to talk to me again.
"For now let's loot the chest." entering the now-warm water and approaching the chest on the pedestal I opened it and saw a bunch of gold coins and a ring.
I dumped all of the gold into my inventory but grabbed the ring and used [Observe] on it.
[Ring of Accuracy]- This ring allows the wearer to aim better.
Alright, it's a magic ring.
"By how much tho?" No percentage was shown, so I will need to find out how much it helps with aiming by myself. Later tho, for now, I have a dungeon to loot.
Putting the ring into my inventory, I exited the room and once again started to walk through the long, damp corridor. 3 steps later my ears picked up a strange scratching sound coming toward me, one that I quickly Identified as a rat once the rodent walked closer to me.
But since I could see it, it could also see me.
It screeched and dashed toward me, and let me tell you...it was horrifying! A big doberman-sized rat with yellow teeth and red eyes dashing toward you is definitely something I didnt ever want to see. But this is my life now, and I will probably see worse things in the future, so I can't chicken out here.
I stood my ground, got into position, and waited for it to come to me.
Once it got close, the ugly motherfucker jumped at me with its mouth open and ready to bite my face off, but unfortunately for him, I expected this and threw a [Chi strike] infused left hook at him.
[5XP for killing a dungeon rat]
I felt the flesh squish and the bone break under the force of the blow before the orange chi that exploded from my fist changed its body into a piece of red modern art on the wall. It felt disgusting, but in a weird morbid way...it was kinda cool.
...
Oh God...am I slowly becoming a psycho?!
No, of course not, right? I didnt feel pleasure when I killed that bandit who challenged me.
Maybe this is different because the victim is a violent unintelligent monster that wanted to kill me? I hope I am right.
"Im overthinking this, am I?" I sighed and massaged my head. I just punched a monster so hard that it turned into mush! Of course I would find this cool! Wouldnt any other guy in this situation feel the same? "Keep going through the dungeon Kurayami, you're just hyped at your new level of badassery, that's all. No need to immediately jump to the worst conclusion."
With my thoughts being calmer, I resumed my dungeon diving experience.
By the way that Bruno and Copper were staring at me, I could easily guess that they are wondering why exited the sewer covered in black slimy goo. The only reason why they dont assume im covered in shit is because I dont smell like shit.
Which is kinda weird since I did walk through a dirty sewer for a long amount of time, but I'll just assume that a feature of [Gamers body]
"Grimm slime, physical attacks didnt work so I kept electrocuting him but he decided to explode when he died." Technically, that was kinda the truth. the fifth level of the sewers was a boss battle where a giant black slime was waiting for me.
What's bullshit is that he only dropped 300 gold coins instead of an item, but whatever, I collected a lot of loot anyway from the previous floors.
"You didnt bring anything?" Copper asked making me confused for a second before I remember the lie that I told them. To them, I went into my treasury through my teleportation semblance, so they obviously expected me to bring something with me. "Inventory." I whispered.
The brothers stared at me dumbly as I reached into empty space and made it distort with a rippling effect by putting my arm into it. I partly took out a sword, just enough to let them see a handle and part of the blade.
"Hammerspace." I told them and refused to elaborate further.
Super speed, lightning manipulation, teleportation through doors, and a hammerspace.
To be fair, they only think I have super speed because I slapped Raven faster than they could see, but that only works when I fight Raven.
Let's not forget the killing intent too.
At this point im honestly curious how the tribe will try to explain my not-so-normal set of abilities.
And im also wondering how hard will this bite me in the ass...Casually showing your supernatural abilities is bound to bring unwanted attention to yourself, but doing this is also a way for me to keep the tribe in check until I level up more.
If they know I have multiple semblance-like powers they will be more hesitant to try and challenge me, constantly worrying about any ability that I might not shown yet.
Is it a smart tactic?
I dont fucking know. Im a 20-year-old in a body of a 17-year-old kitsune who died by trying to fight a robber for a flip phone, needless to say, wise choices aint my strongest suit.
"Lets go back, I'll give you guys something as thanks for escorting me here once we reach the camp." They both nodded and we all started to walk back into the woods.
Before we left the village I saw the huntsman from before eyeing us from a distance. I waved at him but got no wave in return, he just stared at me... rude.
--Raven POV--
'At least you were useful for something else other than a good fuck, Tai.' I thought and once again went into the basic stance that Tai forced me to learn.
"Everyone needs to know how to throw a decent punch! What will happen when you lose your weapon?" He used to say.
Lose my weapon? Not likely, but not impossible, so I accepted his teachings and learned the bare minimum of hand-to-hand combat from him.
My Aura, energy...I focused, moving more Aura to a certain part of your body to strengthen the shield around you is common practice, some attacks are stronger than others and normal Aura shield just won't cut it.
I had no problems with moving my Aura, I had no problem with circulating it inside my arm like the brat told me, and I believe im doing a decent job at synchronizing punch with the movement of Aura... so why is this not working?
All it does is just reinforce the Aura around my fist, It didnt explode out into a blast as it did for Kurayami.
Was he making a fool of me? Is this just a joke and a blast of Aura is not possible to achieve?? I'll Bed him only for the purpose of cutting his dick off when he will least suspects it if that's true.
Nobody makes fun of Raven Branwen without feeling the consequences.
The last person who made fun of me ended up needing surgery to survive. Nobody knew it was me who did it, and I made sure that the guy wouldn't talk about it either.
It's funny how much security one can pass by simply changing into a bird. The only problems I encounter while doing so are the people that want to catch me and release me outside.
"What am I doing wrong?" I muttered tk myself.
Mentally going through the explanation that the kid told me I sighed in frustration and started to believe that this Is a joke that he decided to do.
It doesn't work, It just doesn't! The shield of my Aura absorbs all the energy!
...
The shield absorbs all energy...
So maybe I should remove the shield?
Forcing the Aura shield around my arm to retract, I once again go into a basic boxing stance and gathered the energy into my arm, but made sure that no energy was outside of my arm.
I threw a straight punch and felt the energy inside my arm travel rapidly toward my hand.
Dark red energy flew out of my fist, creating a small gust of wind.
Unfortunately, im apparently not as good with the synchronization thing as I thought I was. My arm was in agony, each muscle in it hurting like it was slowly burning from the inside.
But it doesn't matter, it's just pain.
What does matter, however, is the fact that I managed to do it! The brat told the truth, he didn't pranked me! Using Aura in an offensive way is possible!
Huh. Looks like she doesn't need to cut off his ballsack with a rusty knife afterall.
