I Woke Up as the Villainess's Friend. I Don’t Want to Be the Next Dark Queen

The next morning, Ronan, Mary, and I head back to the Blue Mountains dungeon. My fireball works like a charm against the ambushing golems at the entrance. It's an evolved spell that deals double the base damage of fire dart.

In previous days, those golems only took 5 damage from a fire-channeled arrow unless I landed a crit. 6 once I bumped my intelligence up to 8.

With fire magic alone, the damage should be lower than with channeling, since my spirit affinity is high and my fire affinity is only medium. At minor level, fireball deals 2 damage with intelligence between 1 and 6. It's not 1, since the base damage is doubled according to the textbook table. With intelligence 8, which is what I have, it does 4 damage. That stays the same until intelligence 13, where it jumps to 6. Or, if I upgrade the spell to master level, I'd be dealing 6 damage even with just intelligence 8.

Medium magical affinity for the element, evolved spell that doubles base damage:

Right.

The queen mother's legendary sword gives me +1 magical damage for each type of damage used in an attack. This is a fireball—just fire damage—so I add 1 to those 4.

I already saw a few days ago that 5 damage isn't enough to kill them. I needed either a crit or for the channeled fire arrow to explode. Same deal here: if I don't crit or the fireball doesn't explode, it takes two hits to take down a golem. Three if it puts up a shield.

The problem here is that when I was channeling, I could fire many arrows with those two mana points. Here, it's two mana points per fireball.

This makes me see how powerful my spirit magic is, since it allows me a higher number of attacks for the same cost.

With 11 mana points, that gives me five fireballs. One of them triggers an explosion and it's glorious. The fireball, about the same size as the golem, hits it dead-on and bursts, splashing fire across the surrounding area. A couple of golems hiding up on the ceiling take damage too. They start putting up shields, which will make them harder to kill, but I'm already picturing myself in the middle of a battlefield, with two armies clashing around me, launching a fireball that'll be even bigger once I level up the spell and flooding a wide section of the enemy lines with magical fire. Sure, the explosion radius isn't that big yet, but I know it'll grow.

"Bianca?" Mary asks, somewhere between puzzled and worried at seeing my delighted smile.

Oops, I need to be more careful. I don't want to look like a psychopath who enjoys burning poor golems. We've already got Alistair for the pyromaniac role.

"Sorry, Mary, I just really like this spell. It has a lot of potential."

"Did you run out of mana?" Ronan asks.

"Yeah, you guys can keep going."

I stay at the dungeon entrance, meditating to recover some mana while the two of them clear out both this hallway and the bat chamber.

Otherwise, the dungeon's second floor—the forest and trolls—goes as usual.

We head outside, stop to eat, and they let me meditate. They give me time to fully recover my mana, then we head back inside.

I think Ronan would've liked to sit down and practice the mana density mastery the totem told me about, but he prefers to stay and chat with Mary to keep her company.

Actually, I suppose if he were sure that sitting quietly, closing his eyes, and imagining how mana permeates flesh and bone really works, he would've told Mary about it and they'd both be trying it together.

The nice thing about a minor level spell is that it's not too complicated to level up, especially if you use it in real combat. I'm on my fourth fireball of this second dungeon dive when I notice something's changed. The fifth ball is a bit bigger. Too bad it doesn't explode.

When I pull back from combat after running out of mana and retreat to the tunnel entrance to meditate, I get the expected notification:

Low level Fireball: Base damage doubled. Increases explosion chance on impact and fire sphere size. Explosion doubles fire damage and applies area effect. Cost: 2 MP.

According to this, if it had exploded, it would've killed the nearby golems instead of just leaving them wounded.

We finish the dungeon's first two floors and leave with our flasks of troll blood. Once outside, I say goodbye to my friends.

"Are you sure you don't need us to watch over you while you meditate?" Mary asks.

"Don't worry, he'll warn me if there's danger." I point toward the pup, who now reaches just above my knee.

I think he's grown a few centimeters.

"Are you sure?"

She looks worried.

"Mary, there are only forest animals around, and the village patrols keep them under control. I doubt there are any predators nearby. Besides, if there were, the pup would snap me out of meditation, and that's that. I can handle a few animals on my own."

"That's another thing. Are you really sure you want to test your fire channeling on the specters? What if something happens to you?"

"Mary," Ronan intervenes as he gently places a hand on her shoulder, "relax, it's fine. I wouldn't leave her alone if I didn't think she'd be alright."

"Does she have some kind of safeguard? Like when she was saved from the assassin's attack." She shudders at the memory.

"Exactly," I answer.

"Okay, then we'll leave you. But please, as soon as you get back to the academy, come see me. I'll be in the library. I won't be able to relax until you do."

"You can count on it," I assure her with a smile.

"We're going to collect the mission reward. We'll tell the professor's assistant at the counter to credit you the points too," Ronan comments, and they say goodbye.

Perfect.

Time to meditate.

Because the necklace's cooldown time isn't over yet, but I do have the shadow wolf who's proven he has no problem dealing with spirits. Oh, and today's two licks from the seed, which I've saved for this.

"You'll keep watch, right?" I tell him while giving him some pets.

His dark fur is so soft... Oh, I swear, I die of love every time I pet my adorable little pup. No wonder Mary takes advantage too whenever he climbs onto her lap.

Once my mana pool is maxed out, I naturally come out of meditation. The pup barks when he sees me, and I pet him to thank him.

I could've meditated inside so the dungeon creatures wouldn't respawn, but I'm not about to say no to some extra experience. I gained about 1400 XP in the last two rounds which is less than the other day with Mary. I guess it's because I didn't finish off all the golems in the tunnel and was saving mana.

I haven't bought more arrows, but I still have a few left. I could use stone control to stake the golems on the ceiling, but I'd need several spells to cover the whole tunnel where they're hiding. So I won't complicate things: one fire channeling spell and let the fun begin.

Yes, fun.

You know that moment in video games when you've reached a good level and taking out enemies is easy? When you finally get to enjoy the payoff of all your leveling? Yeah, something like that—but even better.

One channeling is enough to finish them all off. It lasts five minutes. My arrows deal a lot of damage, and on top of that, the explosion applies an area effect. It's no longer just extra damage to the golem the arrow hits when it explodes after impact and embedding. It's not as brutal or long-range as a fireball, but it's definitely effective. Besides the ice shards that the explosion tears off the golem, small magical flames scatter too, and if there's a golem nearby, the flames catch it.

Oh, and a wonderful notification appears:

Congratulations, your bow mastery level has increased from minor to low. You gain +1 to Agility.

It took a while. Longer than I expected. Fireball was definitely faster. Maybe it's because I haven't been fighting with just arrows, but with channeled arrows?

No idea.

In any case, I'm at 9 mana points and ready for the bat cavern.

My biggest problem here is going to be the sonic attack, which does affect me.

I open the system interface to check my range with stone control.

50 meters.

I've got an idea, a way to make them waste that attack without sending in the shadow wolf.