Talk - " "
Think - [ ]
System - ()
Author thought - [[ ]]
Action - * *
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[Mommy, you have to be careful with fire magic! Ms. Finnea said to always be careful when using magic at close range. Wasn't that her first lesson to you?] Emi reacted just in time, forming a golden shield right in front of her mother. The barrier absorbed the brunt of the explosion, saving Mika from her own reckless mistake.
Mika's artifact, the Orchidra, could mimic anything she touched, whether a weapon or a piece of armor. The moment her hands made contact, the Orchidra imprinted its form, granting Mika the ability to reshape it into that object whenever she wished. Since Mika touched a lot of items, with shields being some that she touched, Emi transformed herself into a large golden shield to block the blast, protecting Mika.
The red skeleton, however, wasn't as lucky as its entire head was gone. Everything below the shoulders remained, with the body sprawled on the ground. Mika stood still, staring at the body as the traces of black goo that were everywhere slowly faded away, leaving nothing but empty holes where it had once seeped. The golden shield, aka Emi, slowly faded into Mika's soul as Emi felt the skeleton was fully dead.
"Good job, Mommy. It should be dead now. I don't feel any of its aura anymore... but I do sense something else inside," Emi said, this time fully materializing beside Mika. She gave her mom a gentle pat on the shoulder, then glanced around the dimly lit room, her expression turning bored. But the wisps of a strange aura lingering around, faint but persistent, coming from the skeleton, changed that boredom.
Mika, meanwhile, wasn't paying much attention. She had dropped to the ground with a tired sigh, finally getting a chance to breathe. That cursed skeleton had nearly given her a heart attack. But thanks to Emi, she could relax… a little, at least, and check over her gear for damage, and to make sure she didn't lose anything. Because she was sure that her damn teacher was gonna get mad if there's a single misplaced item.
As Mika fumbled through her gear, Emi slowly approached the remains of the red skeleton, her expression had a face full of curiosity. That strange aura kept leaking from beneath the tattered, burnt robes.
Kneeling beside it, she poked the robes for a little bit, to see if anything would happen, and of course, nothing happened. So Emi thought for a second and immediately decided to flip the body over onto its back.
Well, I tried to flip it over. The moment her fingers brushed against the tattered robe the skeleton wore, the entire thing vanished in a puff. Now, the boss's room was completely empty, other than the one lit torch hanging on the wall.
"Um... Emi, what do.." Mika of course, was kinda paying attention to Emi, and was surprised that the body disappeared out of nowhere. But just as she started to speak, her words were abruptly cut off by a loud noise behind her.
BANG! The heavy wooden doors behind her burst open, the sudden noise startling Mika and forcing a yelp from her lips. She spun around to see her teacher, Erlan, standing in the doorway, his face pale with fear. Before she could say a word, Erlan spoke urgently, his voice trembling.
"We must hurry back to the church! This shouldn't be happening now! Why is this happening now!?" The first part was directed at Mika, but she barely caught the rest as Erlan muttered to himself in a whisper.
"Um, what's going on? Mr… Teacher Erlan, sir?" Mika asked nervously, a bit scared to know the answer. Because one, Erlan is kinda freaking the fuck out, which is scaring her, and two,... well Erlan is freaking the fuck out!
"Arghh, just follow me. We have to leave, NOW!"
Erlan grabbed Mika's hand and took off in a full sprint, practically dragging her. His pace was unreal, far too fast for her to keep up; her feet barely touched the ground as he tore through the dungeon corridors.
Emi, who saw her mother disappear into the darkness because of that mean man, merely puffed up her cheeks and instantly teleported back into her mother's soul, completely forgetting about the skeleton disappearing.
It had taken Mika nearly two hours to reach the boss's room from the dungeon entrance, which was way longer than the average time it took to complete a dungeon that had only a single floor, which only had normal skeletons as mobs, one of the weakest dungeon mobs. Yet, Erlan covered the distance in mere seconds, with the curves and turns of the floor not stopping him at all.
Mika was pretty sure she had whiplash now. Her arm ached from Erlan's grip, and her hair was now all messed up; the maid who did her hair would probably be mad, but she couldn't even bring herself to complain.
Because the moment they burst out of the dungeon and into the open night air… the change in the sky caused her voice to die in her throat.
— Alex POV
(
Quest: E-Rank Dungeon Diver (3/∞)(Completed)
Description: Destroy or subjugate the E-Rank dungeon
Reward: + 1 Dungeon Token + 200 SP
)
[[A/N: This is how the quests are gonna look like now. Repeatable ones will give the same rewards each time, maybe an extra reward once in a while, not too sure.]]
[YES! Another dungeon quest completed, come on, give me something good, RNG Jesus!]
Feeling good about the extra SP I earned, I glanced at the other notification that popped up when I stored the corrupted demon skeleton into my inventory. Naturally, I chose the [control] option without hesitation.
Now, with another demonic dungeon core under my belt in 24 hours, I turned my attention to the new reward waiting for me.
(
Common Dungeon Token used - Glass Canyon Template gain
)
[Ooo… Glass Canyon? Mmmg, I wonder how that'll work?] I grinned to myself. Four floors now, hell yeah. Naturally, I used the new template immediately, though I didn't stop to examine it just yet.
Why? Because the ENTIRE night sky was now fucking bathed in a deep crimson tint. Even the two moons had turned blood red.
I might've been a little too distracted to notice at first, as I was checking my rewards, and it was also probably because we were flying through the sky on Erlan's pet.
Which, by the way, was a massive, royal blue griffin. And very fast. Like, blurring past miles of land in seconds… fast. But it wasn't just pure physical speed, the griffin was boosting itself with wind magic and... something else that left trails of pink sparkles, pretty cool sight.
Not gonna lie, I was loving it.
Flying at this speed also filled out huge chunks of my [Map], revealing all kinds of interesting places I definitely want to check out later. More dungeons, weird glowing lakes, caves and some other shit. My to-do list was growing by the second.
But even all that wasn't the craziest part. Because when I looked out toward where my dungeon was. Deep in the absolute bumfuck middle of nowhere in the Whispering Forest, was a massive, thick red beam of light shooting straight into the sky.
It was so bright and tall that it cut through the clouds, piercing the sky like a signal flare from hell.
And of course, the very first thought that popped into my head after seeing all of this? This was some straight-up Doom or Bloodborne level shit. I had no idea what the hell was going on, but whatever it was... it wasn't normal.
As we flew closer to the massive cathedral where Mika had been staying, I noticed something else that made me kinda nervous, like the butterflies in your stomach kinda feeling.
Thick, black streams, like smoke or tar, were spiraling upward from the whispering forest, curving around the red beam of light like it was drawing them in. But they didn't stop there.
They spread. Forking off in all directions, those black trails stretched across the sky like veins, slowly branching out, and constantly creating more streams.
—
Thanks for reading
Comment on any mistakes or changes I should make.
Btw, you may be wondering why this is happening out of nowhere, but every time I create a new chapter, I roll a world event wheel that has all sorts of random events that I made. 95% of the wheel does nothing, but I somehow manage to roll a 1% event. So we're getting a demon invasion.
Yay!!!!! Isn't that so exciting!!!!!
Also, I'm going to go through my chapters and fix all sorts of shit. So probably no new chapter for this FF for about 2 weeks. Sorry!
And do please comment on ANY mistakes or changes I should make in the past chapters. pls!