NOVEL NEXT Book 1: Chapter 6: (1)
That Time Where I Met an Elf Wizard
My smart phone’s vibration feature had started to let me know that it was time to be getting up. Nevertheless, it was still dark outside, around 3 in the morning probably. I managed to untangle my arm from the Ria sleeping next to me. Even after shifting and moving her around, she was still completely sound asleep. When I thought about getting up off the bed, I suddenly heard a faint sleepy voice.
「Where are you going, Master? 」
The sudden voice caused me to jump.
「Oh, Shizuku? 」
I’m sleeping together with Ria in this bed, but ever since Shizuku decided to live with us, she(?) also started sleeping in the same bed with us. Well, after we start sleeping, she just copies the sheets and futon cover, so that her existence won’t be discovered.
「I just thought about heading into the dungeon for a bit, is all. 」
I wanted to grind to get some early level ups so bad that I couldn’t stand it.
「Please be careful out there, Master. 」
「Well for the time being, the iron gate is closed so it’s probably fine. Safer than the other thing at least. 」
「Other thing? 」
「Until I get back, it’s fine for you to turn into me and sleep in the bed. 」
「Understood! I will make sure that Ria does not get frightened when she wakes. 」
「Exactly. 」
Shizuku immediately transformed into me.
「I’ll be back in a bit okay. 」
「Good luck, Master.」
I went over to the front door and grabbed my headlamp off the shelf, equipped it, grabbed my ice axe, and opened the door.
「…What’s this? 」
The secret passage between the dungeon and my room had become filled with nothing but slimes. I immediately closed the front door. Come to think of it, I did leave a blue slime in some Tupperware and left it as is. I wonder if it broke through the container and multiplied. Or maybe some other tinier slimes all broke in and made their way here somehow. Well, either way, I should start by eliminating all of these blue slimes.
I opened the front door and started swinging my ice axe. One after another, the blue slimes jiggled and separated. The blue slimes were really slow creatures. I had already eliminated 14 of them, but I couldn’t lose my focus here. One time I was bit by a small slime and it really hurt bad, so if I get bit by one of these bigger ones, I might get heavily injured and lose a lot of blood.
「Hah….hah…Alright, I wonder if I was able to get all of them. I also think I might have leveled up. Huh? No, wait…ugghh. 」
After pondering about it, I killed all these slimes, but now there won’t be any more to gain experience points from. After going through all the effort of getting this ready too. But whatever, it’s fine. For now, I’ll just check my status.
[Name] Suzuki Tooru
[Race] Human
[Age] 21
[Job] None
[Level] 3 / ∞
[Stamina] 22 / 22
[Magic] 33 / 33
[Attack] 116
[Defense] 44
[Strength] 12
[Intelligence
] 21[Agility] 14
[Skill] Unlimited Growth
Alright, looking good. My progress is coming along nicely now. Let’s keep grinding and level up some more! But, no matter how much I looked, there were no more slimes around.
「None here. I guess I must have really killed all of them…」
I guess the only thing to do now is to open up the steel gate and let new monsters come inside. The gate was thick and massive, made of steel, and it only had a hole to look through. The entrance was designed so that when you pressed the button on the stone wall, the gate would start to rise up slowly, and then, when you pressed it again, the door would start to lower. Ria found this button, and we have been keeping the door closed so that the number of monsters that come in doesn’t get too high. They were easier to defeat like that too.
We could preserve peace inside this room of the dungeon as long as the door was closed, and it seemed like adventurers would sometimes set up camp in here. In the deeper parts of the dungeon, past the door, there were traps and large quantities of slimes. You could overstay your visit and run out of food and water easily, there were also countless dangers there. Ria had entered the room and barely was able to close the door, where she was then overpowered by the paralyzing poison. So, for now, it’s a closed room situation where there was nothing but tiny slimes to attack.
「So I guess that the slimes that were helping contribute to my level grinding are all gone now. But if I were to open up this iron gate… 」
What should I do? Should I open it? The feeling of wanting to level up won out over the feeling of danger.
「That’s it! Because this gate rises slowly upwards when it opens after I push the stone button, I can look underneath the gate, and if I see any really strong looking monsters, I can go and immediately push the button again to lower it. 」
At least by doing this, I could guarantee a certain margin of safety. And with that, I pushed the stone button. I got ready to peek under the gate and take a quick look around to see whether there were monsters there. The gate’s contraption made some noises and started to rise.
「Huh? What’s this? 」
I quickly pressed the button again. On the other side of the gate, was just another stone wall. There was literally nothing on the other side. The gate closed.
「W-What the hell is this? Ria said that she came from the other side of this gate, I don’t think she’d tell a lie like that though to me. Something isn’t right. 」
Actually, now that I think of it, I thought of something that was similar to this situation. When Ria tried to exit out my window, she could only see the stone walls and wasn’t able to go out into Japan. Don’t tell me, could this be similar to that? I wonder if it would be too dangerous to check it out one more time.
I was kind of conflicted, but in the end, I decided to try it out once more. The rising and lowering of the gate was pretty slow, so last time I only opened it so that it was a little above knee level. If the gap is only knee level, then even if there were strong-looking monsters, they might have some troubles coming inside. I pushed the button once more and the gate started to rise slowly. I quickly examine the stone wall on the other side of the gate. If it was an illusion, I would probably be able to pass through it, but it was an ordinary stone wall.
「Shit. I knew it, it’s the same thing that happened with Ria. I really thought that it looked like it would just be some dumb trick. 」
I tried attacking the wall with my ice axe. And when I did that, I heard a distant sound like something was running over to my direction.
「This is bad! It’s a monster! 」
I thought that a monster was coming and started to panic, so I pushed the stone button to close the gate. And then, the thing that I thought was a monster started to call out to me in the same weird telepathy language that Ria had used.
「Get out of the way! 」
I thought it sounded like a human, and suddenly a white leg came out towards me and sent me flying with a kick. When I tried to see what was happening, a black pointy hat, a black cloak, and a wooden staff being carried by a girl came sliding in through the gap of the gate. By looking at her she seemed to be a wizard. And it feels like she might have kicked me in the face.
The wizard girl was on one knee and glaring towards the direction of the gate. It looked like she was injured. And gravely at that. The color on her face was bad, and she had something red dripping down the edge of her mouth. Don’t tell me that was her blood?!
「Hurry and close the gate! A giant centipede is coming! 」
A giant centipede?! That’s when I realized it, no doubt about it. The next thing coming in was definitely a monster! I quickly stood up and ran over to push the button. The gate started to lower. I wasn’t sure if I’d make it on time. The gate was lowering so slowly. I was nearly at the end of my rope and got irritated at how slowly it was moving. The gap was nearly at ankle height by now. Just when I thought that we might be okay, that’s when the monster finally showed its face.