Max took a look at the maps that he had, and back at the dead end. He was certain that this path was supposed to lead towards the gardens. And yet, all he saw were stone walls and torches. Maybe there was a hidden door?

He picked up the torches one by one, but no hidden door revealed itself. That was extremely frustrating. He had spent all day navigating the dungeon just to get here, and all he was left with was a dead end. He hit his hand on the stone wall, and his ears perked up. That wasn't the sound of a solid wall.

He hit the wall again, and strained his ears. No, he was certain, this wall was thin, almost as if it had been made to hide the path ahead. He was about to hit the wall a third time, when Eyes opened, and squinted angrily at him.

Oh shit. This was just like Nioh, with it's umm, whatever they were called. Wall mimics… Nuri-kabe? Nurikabe. That was it. They were a type of yokai in Japanese folklore that enjoyed misguiding travellers. In the game, they weren't visible typically unless you attacked them. Alternatively, you could try and perform a gesture in order to make them amiable to you, which would make them calm down and disappear.

Max doubted that he'd be getting much further unless he attacked this thing. From his memories of the game, Nurikabe were slow, and had very telegraphed attacks. But this wasn't a video game, and for all he knew, it could be extremely fast.

The best strategy was to move in, attack, and back off before it attacked with its arms, which it either had and hadn't revealed to him, or didn't have, or if it didn't attack with its arms, it could just slam down onto him, dealing massive damage, and might even just kill him on the spot.

That was a run on thought. Either way, he needed to decide if he was going to attack this thing. The first thing that he did was calculate the distance between the floor and the ceiling. Probably about eight feet tall. That meant that if he was going to attack this thing, that he'd have to strike at it and run back eight feet in case it slammed into the ground.

Not the kind of scenario he had wanted. But what else was he going to do? He had already drank all of his water, and it would take hours to navigate his way back to the fountain. He needed food, and the only way forward was through this creature, get to the gardens, and eat and drink from a water source that kept the plants alive.

No, he had to try and take this thing down. But first, he figured it wouldn't hurt to try and appeal to the Nurikabe through gestures, like he had in Nioh.

In the game, you had two attempts to appease the wall creature. You could make an aggressive move, a neutral one, or a positive gesture. If you failed twice, the wall monster would instantly attack.

And so, Max looked at the beast. It was still glaring at him for punching it a couple of times, clearly already angered a little bit. In his mind, the best thing to do to a wronged beast would be to apologize to it. He had no idea if it would work, since this beast was in a world other than Earth, but Yokai typically adhered to Japanese traditions of honor, right?

Max got onto his hands and knees, and prostrated before the wall mimic.

"Oh great Nurikabe, please accept the humble apologies from this waylaid adventurer. I cannot express enough how sorry I am for not realizing that you existed simply to cause confusion and to misguide me. Thank you for revealing yourself, and I hope you will find it within yourself to forgive me of my transgressions."

The Nurikabe blinked its eyes, and squinted at Max for a couple of moments, before it grew angry. Clearly that hadn't been what it had wanted to hear. Max had mere milliseconds to dodge as the Nurikabe revealed it's true form, and lashed out at him.

It had no legs, as it was rooted to the ground where it had chosen to live. It had long arms that were about six feet long each, and had four glowing red eyes, clearly angered by him. So it ended up being a fight regardless, a pity.

Still, Max was interested in how the fight would go. In the game, Nurikabe were veritable tanks, barely taking any damage from attacks, and it typically took a lot of work to take them down. But on the other hand, his rapier had recently been able to wound a Gargoyle, with great efficacy. He knew that Gargoyles were made of stone, so perhaps his rapier was good against rock based monsters?

It was a small hypothesis in his head, but he rolled with it. He didn't remember what metal was good against stone constructs and what not, but knew that his rapier didn't seem to be made of normal steel, as it had a light green sheen to it.

Max was shaken out of his reverie when another attack caught him in the side. Shit! He had totally spaced out there for a moment. He couldn't do that ever again.

His left side hurt from the heavy hit, but he shrugged it off. He'd have to deal with that later. He jabbed at the wall monster, but another attack from it's arms caused him to back off before he could hit it. This thing was giving him no chance to fight it!

He watched the thing, and took a single step forward, baiting the creature to lash out with its arms once more. When the beast did so, he took the moment that the arm got close to him to stab at it. He barely chipped the arm, but knew that he had at least had an easy time breaking off a piece of the rock. That confirmed his theory of his weapon, at least.

The Nurikabe didn't like that he had baited an attack, and drew itself to its full height, before slamming into the ground. Luckily, Max had barely registered what it was doing before it had done so, and had dodged in the nick of time. He took this moment to lash out at the top of the beast as it rose again from the ground, and his attack struck true.

His rapier cut through the stone like butter, and he had a feeling that the wall mimic would have roared at him had it a mouth. Alas, no sounds came from it, but it's attacks got even more ferocious, and it swung out at him with both arms at once.

He saw an opening in the creature's attacks, and rolled underneath the arms as they came for him, before striking at one of the creature's four eyes. His rapier bit deep into the Nurikabe, and its other eyes winced in pain. Max pressed his advantage and struck out at one of the other eyes, but failed to hit it as the Nurikabe leaned back, out of reach.

Max took this moment of reprieve to jump back, and just in time, as arms slammed right into the spot that he had just been.

Eventually, one of them would tire. And logically speaking, Max was in a far worse position, considering that he had exhausted his arms earlier that day. His only saving grace was that nothing had attacked him since the Gargoyle, which meant that all of his wounds until now were gone. Max didn't know how long a Nurikabe could keep attacking, but he knew that he couldn't last for much longer, especially not in his food deprived state.

The wall mimic was giving him no quarter, and slammed into the ground once more. This time, Max used all of his daring to jump onto the back of the monster, and he was effectively behind it as it rose up from the ground.

In Nioh, if you managed to go behind a Nurikabe, you could see a magic tag that held the beast together. In this world, there was no magical tag, but that didn't mean that the beast could turn around so easily.

Max stabbed the creature in the back once, and ripped his rapier out of it once more, leaving a hoel right through the beast. It tried to turn, but it was awkward and slow moving. The young man stabbed again, this time close enough to the first hole that it crumpled a larger portion of the stone wall. The beast's arms tried to find him, but as anybody knows, trying to grab something on your back was hard.

Max shoved his arm through the Nurikabe, through the large hole that he had just opened up, and with this newfound leverage and hold on the beast, he struck one last time through the beast with his rapier, with all the force he could muster.

The wall trembled, and crumpled into smaller rocks. Max fell to his knees, and caught his breath. That had been rough. Now for the hardest challenge of the day, seeing if this Elephant would allow him to eat something.

He stood up and made his way further down the tunnel. He rounded a corner, and came face to face with the garden.

Although, to call it a garden would be like calling a lake a puddle. The room was spacious, the ceiling reaching high, probably about 30 feet up. There were trees and shrubs, and large bushels of fruits all about. A large pool of water lay in the middle of the cavern, feeding the surrounding plant life.

Strange and exotic plants that Max had never seen before grew from the walls, and he could see giant mushrooms with heads the size of bicycle tires looming.

From the walls hung large glowing gemstones. They came out from the walls and illuminated the space with hues of green, red, and blue. They lit up the area so well that Max didn't even need a torch as he entered the garden, and he put out the fire that he had been wielding up until this point. If he needed to light another torch as he left, then he would at that point.

He couldn't see the Elephant roaming, but it very well could be somewhere in this underground jungle. That suited him just fine, he would have some time to eat some of the fruits that were here before it revealed itself. Hopefully he'd have enough time to pack some food for the journey back to his camp before he had to leave, as he definitely didn't want to tussle with the Elephant today, that was, if it was aggressive towards him.

He didn't really know what Elephants liked to eat, but he faintly recalled that they competed with Rhinos for food resources in the deserts and plains, so he didn't exactly want to risk it thinking that he was stealing its food. Although, with how much there was here, he was sure that he could take enough to last him a week and it wouldn't be a huge loss.

He set about looking for fruits that he knew about. There were strawberries, tomatoes, and pears. He knew about those ones, and so he made sure to put those in his bag of holding. He climbed up a tree and plucked a few apples that he saw, and found a few peaches as well.

He had been here for nearly an hour, collecting various foodstuffs, and he hadn't seen hide nor tail of the Elephant. Maybe it was out for a romp in the dungeon? It could also be sleeping somewhere, and if that was the case, then Max was lucky.

He took a ten minute break to eat some food, and then went back to gathering food. He needed to pack enough to last him a while, as he wanted to make this round trip as little as possible. He also drank from the water pool, and even tried to see if the water here had healing properties as well.

No dice on that, the wound on his left side remained damaged and bruised. He would have to return to the fountain for healing. That suited him fine, he didn't exactly want to stick around longer than he had to.

With one last check to make sure that he had gathered enough food, he took off back through the tunnels that he had came from. He had just made his way through into a room that he had passed through on his way down when a shape fell from the ceiling and tried to grab ahold of him.

It succeeded, and Max was instantly entangled by a monster that had tentacles for arms.

"What the fuck?" The young man cried out as his head and arms were suddenly enveloped in darkness, dropping his weapon in the process. Luckily, the thing barely had a hold on him, and he was easily able to throw the beast off.

Once he could see again, Max saw the beast that had attacked him floating up towards the ceiling again.

Darklurker. A creature that hung on the ceilings of caves, and disguised themselves as stalactites. They would wait for unaware pedestrians to pass underneath, and drop on them and slowly eat them alive.

It was a good thing that he had gotten lucky with the beast not having a proper hold on him. If he had failed to throw it off of him, he'd probably have been dead within the minute.

But the beast was coming back for more. It dropped down on him, and once more grabbed ahold of him, this time just on his arms. He wrenched them free of the beast and picked up his fallen rapier.

When the beast came a third time, he was ready for it. The beast came back down for a third try, and this time he sidestepped it, and gave it a jab with his rapier.

He had dealt the beast a decent blow, and clearly it hadn't been expecting such an attack. It floated back up to the ceiling, and this time didn't come back down.

But Max wasn't having any of that scaredy-cat bullshit. He took one look up at the ceiling and made a decision. The walls of the tunnel were about five feet apart, and the ceiling was about ten to fifteen feet high. He had seen people run at and then jump off of walls for greater height in parkour videos back on earth, and felt as though he might be able to do the same, considering his background as someone who didn't skip leg day.

He struck a running pose for a moment, before rushing the wall near him, and jumped at it. He had gained decent height with that one jump. With another- His sneakers hit the wall and provided enough traction to gain even greater height than he had thought originally possible.

He wasn't able to hit the darklurker, however, since that was his first time attempting such a maneuver. He was able to recreate the event though, and on the second wall jump, he struck the beast that was trying to keep away from him on the ceiling.

The beast must have been a baby darklurker, considering its size, but that also made fighting it easier. Upon taking this second hit from Max, the squid like monster let out a cry of pain, before falling to the ground.

After ensuring that the beast was dead, and also making sure that there were no more darklurkers around, he cleaned off his rapier, before moving to return to his camp once more. When he finally got there, he took stock of what he had.

He had gathered an assortment of fruits from the garden. Strawberries, grapes, a few apples, some tomatoes, a bunch of pears, and raspberries. He had also managed to find two watermelons, which surprised him, as well as a pineapple.

If he was careful with his meals, he knew that he could make the food last a week. That being said, Max also knew enough about food and healthiness to know that he needed proteins and meat in his diet too. Especially if he was going to be attempting to strengthen his body to fight stronger monsters.

So it fell to him to go hunting. Some things, like the darklurker earlier, wouldn't have much in the way of meat that he could eat. Others, like the skeletons and Nurikabe, didn't have anything that he could eat, so he'd have to invest a decent amount of time into hunting.

Max ate a couple of strawberries, while laying out the rest of his spoils from the day. A couple of tapestries that showed more of the dungeon. He took a couple of minutes to look them over, and blanched. If he was right- holy shit was this dungeon big. He was in one of the offshoots of the dungeon on the right hand side, in an area closest to the top of the dungeon.

And the area that he had on his first map, of which he had barely checked out already, was only a tenth of the size of the whole dungeon. It just kept going down, and Max was certain that the further down one went, the more dangerous it was going to get. And it was already plenty dangerous enough to him, and he was in the area closest to the surface. It kind of reminded Max of the map of Momentos from Persona 5.

At the bottom of the dungeon, sat the boss monster, in all its horrible glory. Max's face went white, just looking at the size of it depicted on the map compared to how big he knew it must be. This thing would be the size of, well maybe the Empire State Building. Godzilla size. What an absolute unit. Whatever this thing was, Max definitely didn't want to tussle with it, at least not at his current level. Maybe once he was, say, level 70?

Max didn't know if he was going to stay alive for that long. And honestly, as interesting as levelling up was, he sure as hell didn't want to stay in this dungeon longer than necessary. At least not as long as he was by himself. If he wanted to be dungeon diving, he needed a party. And adventuring group ready to take on the dungeon with him. He wasn't absolutely positive that there actually was intelligent life on the surface, but he figured that anything was better than fighting his way down into what surely would be his death by himself.

That all being said, there was nothing on the tapestries that mentioned the Ants. There was an area that Max recognized as the demon portion of the dungeon, and that even extended beyond the surface. Max wondered if these ants had somehow accidentally burrowed down deep enough to encounter the dungeon, which would explain why they weren't part of the original maps.

If that was the case, maybe they would understand the dangers of the dungeon, and might even be willing to help him take it on. Worst case scenario, they'd attack him, and he could fight off a few ants, even giant ants, before he had to run back into the dungeon. Best case scenario, they allowed him through their hive back up the surface, and he'd figure out a way to return with a group set on defeating the dungeon.

He looked at the rest of his spoils. Leather studded armor from the Gargoyle room, a long rope, and some more oils. He could use the oils for starting a fire, or so maintain his weapon's integrity. That was important, and Max actually stopped looking over his gear to clean off his rapier of blood and other grime that had accumulated on it over the course of the day. He wasn't about to have a weapon that rusted on him, especially not one that could pierce through rock.

Once he was done, he looked over the rest of his stuff. A couple of gemstones, which he might be able to trade for some money once he got above ground. He had no idea if the people above spoke english, which was unlikely, but hey, one can hope right?

He also had the remaining half of the leonir pelt, as well as it's mane left. Maybe he could make the leonir mane into some sort of hood or cowl to scare away other monsters? That would be cool.

He still had the potion of questionable quality and effects, so he would deal with that later. His camelbak was empty- speaking of which, he needed to heal himself! He went over to the water fountain and splashed some water on his chest. The left side had been starting to bruise quite a bit, but the water seemed to sooth it, at least some of it.

Maybe healing wasn't an exact science, and it could only heal what was immediately there? That would explain why his open wounds could seal shut, and also why some of the bruising stayed there. After all, bruising was caused by blood vessels breaking under the skin. Maybe since his skin was getting in the way, the water couldn't heal the blood vessels underneath. That was useful to know.

But the wound no longer hurt as he stretched and bent over, feeling good as new. His body would take over the rest of the healing process, but it definitely was good to know that if it came down to it, he should take more cutting and stab wounds than heavy bludgeoning types of hits.

He also still had that magic tome, and he was certain that if he wasn't going to use it, then he could probably sell it above ground. At the very least, maybe he could give it to a magic user as incentive to join an adventuring party with him. It was worth a shot.

Speaking of, he wasn't sure just how valuable this tome was going to be. He opened it up and flipped through the pages. It was clearly organised by how powerful the spells were, which was good with him. He flipped to the last section, which held the most powerful spells. Let's see… 4th level spells. That was pretty good! If spell tiers worked the same way in this world as they did in D&D and Pathfinder, then he had just stumbled upon something that was worth, um…

He did the mental calculations in his head as he searched through the book. This thing had 5 cantrips, ten first level spells, ten second level spells, seven third level spells, and four fourth level spells. This thing was worth at least four thousand gold pieces. Although, that was presuming that the economy in this world was the same as in D&D, so he couldn't be certain without checking similar spell books and asking shopkeepers what they were worth.

But this thing could definitely help him out in the way of expenses if he ever needed to sell it. Worst case, he needed to sell it at a ridiculously low price so that he could survive. Best case scenario, he got an addition to his party and/or got some decent money for it.

But this was all assuming that he could make his way out of the dungeon. And in order to do that, he needed to go to the Ants.

He'd work on that tomorrow. The area that he was in was smack dab in the middle of the first section of the dungeon, so he'd have to work for hours to get to the Ant territory, and that wasn't even taking into account any fights that he'd encounter on the way there.

It was going to take a lot of work, but Max was certain of his course of action now. Tomorrow he'd start on his journey to get the hell out of this dungeon, especially now that he knew how big it was and how dangerous the lower levels were going to be. Or at least, how dangerous he estimated them to be. Since he still only had, like 7 levels, that put him at a level 1 or 2 adventurer in D&D. He couldn't afford to take on the lower levels of the dungeon unless he was stronger. And that included gaining allies.

With all of these thoughts, Max settled down to sleep once again, and heard the telltale voice in his head.

[Warrior level 8!]

[Skill - Basic Precision Obtained!]

[Skill - Diplomatic Approach Obtained!]

[Survivor level 4!]

Interesting. And then Max fell asleep.