Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

Exploring

In the morning I headed down to the nineteenth floor to get my exploration and hunt on. I walked out the stone stairway and raised an eyebrow at what I saw. There was several dozen adventurers right at the entrance talking about how they were going to tackle the floor. Clearly I had underestimated just how ravenous the adventurers were for the recognition that came from discovering a new thing in the dungeon. Still once it was clear that I was alone the groups chose to ignore me as they thought that a single person wouldn't make any difference with how many people were already here.-

'Oh how wrong they are.' i thought with a chuckle as I chose a direction and started heading that way.

With the amount of adventurers on the floor I didn't find any monsters for a good fifteen or twenty minutes of travel which was a little annoying. When I did find a monster it was a Bugbear accompanied by two Mad beetles. I wasn't even remotely concerned about this set up though as I vastly surpassed these these in terms of stats. The Mad beetles rushed me utilizing their great speed while the bugbear lumbered behind them much slower due to it being specialized in brute force rather than speed.-

I casually pulled my weapon out of it's holster and waited for the beetles to get near me before moving. I stepped dashed to the side of the closer of the two beetles and swiped out with the blunt end of my weapon at the middle of it's body using full strength. "CRACK!" The carapace of the monster exploded under the force while the creature itself was launched to the side with half a foot in the grave.-

I immediately leaned back as the sharp claw of the second beetle passed through the space my torso was just occupying. Moving my weapon to my left hip I twisted my body in a full body motion to backhand strike the beetle which unlike the last beetle instakilled it as I clearly damaged the magic stone in it as the creatures burst into smoke that I absorbed. That just left the much slower Bugbear that was shaking the ground slightly with it's heavy footsteps. I crouched before jumping up as the beast plowed through under my feet missing me with it's charge.-

When I landed the beast was slowing down to turn around so the moment my feet touched the ground I twisted my stance to shift my momentum and dashed towards the still adjusting creature while switching my weapon to it's axe headed side. By the time the Bugbear fully turned around my weapon was already falling like a meteor towards it's forehead. It's red eyes barely had time to recognize how fucked it was before my weapon made contact with it's thick skull before promptly going through it and nailing the whole head to the hard dungeon floor.-

"Good work team, really nailed it that time I think." I said with a chuckle as I ripped my now bloody weapon out of the skull of the definitely dead creature.

I casually tossed my weapon into the air before catching it as I walked towards the first beetles that was hissing and throwing a fit as it tried and failed to get up. Not that it could be blamed for it's failure when half it's body was broken and not working. 

"Tough luck bug, better luck next time." I said before cleaving it's head off.

I refined the carapaces of the beetle and fangs, hide and claws of the Bugbear before harvesting the magic stones from the remaining bodies. I then packed away my drops and moved on following the wall of the floor. It amazed me how few adventurers did something similar despite knowing that monsters were spawned from the dungeons walls. I mean sure they could be spawned from the ground and ceiling as well but the dungeon for some reason or other didn't like doing so. This wasn't some special observation either but a well documented and acknowledged thing that most adventurers totally ignore.-

The only real exception is the exploration familia that focus on mapping out each floor of the dungeon and as a result follow the walls to get the current layout since the dungeon was a sneaky cunt and shifted resources and secret rooms in it on a very regular basis. Speaking of secret rooms I myself discovered one as I walked with my left hand against the stone of the dungeon wall. This time it wasn't as unnatural as the odd wall on the eighteenth floor that I had found previously but rather I felt the solid wall go hollow behind a certain area.-

I used my weapon to break through the wall and carefully check inside for any monsters but found none. Satisfied with that I busted open the opening until I could walk in and what I found made me grin widely. It was a large shiny crystalline metal structure in a small chamber that I could barely fit in that I identified immediately as adamantite. I wasn't all that surprised to find it as there were many reports over time about secret treasure rooms like this being found after a scuffle broke the wall concealing them.-

WHY they were there to begin with was anyone's guess as it seemed odd that the same dungeon that was absolutely trying to kill us adventurers would reward us so heavily for damaging it. You might think it was a trap but no more often than not nothing actually happened if you took the treasure besides you getting a little richer. Anyways I walked up to the me size crystal of dark silver metal and rested my hand on it's surface.-

"Hell's forge!" I spoke the incantation of my innate technique to give it that extra oomph as I began purifying and condensing this metal down.

While I would love nothing more than to take the whole ass crystal as it was my bag was not that big. That was also a VERY good way to make people with more greed than sense decide that they wanted to see what the afterlife was like. Thanks to my skill I may not be able to kill "innocent" souls without feeling like shit but there was nothing stopping me from breaking both legs and arms and leaving these people to the monsters. Dark I know but I don't like leaving potential future enemies alive to come bite me in the ass later.

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